He drew out her chair, pushed it under her with more force than politeness, then took his place at the head of the table. Wragge regarded them out of his shrewd grey face with pessimistic understanding. Alayne resented his watchful attitude, resented still more his leaning over Renny and whispering something in a tone of commiseration. She caught the words “grand old trees” and “knew as ‘ow upset you’d be, sir.”
Renny was serving the stewed chicken and dumplings with speed and discrimination. Breast and a wing for each of the women, breast alone for Ernest, breast and the little oyster-shaped pieces from the back for Wakefield, the upper part of a leg to Nicholas, who preferred dark meat, a drumstick to his small nephew, Maurice, and what was left to Piers and himself, well flanked by dumplings. Every eye was on him. If he had faltered in his serving of the dinner, his hard-won prestige would have suffered, the solidarity of table tradition been shattered.
On one side of the table Augusta sat between her two brothers. On the other Piers, his wife, Pheasant, and Wakefield. Between Piers and Renny, six-years-old Maurice industriously scooped up his gravy with a spoon.
Piers gave Renny curious side glances out of his full blue eyes. He wondered where his feelings of outrage for the trees would carry him; how far he would go if his efforts to bring the authorities to his way of thinking were futile. He himself was sorry about the trees, about the picturesque curve in the road, but—one must move with the times, and the times moved with motor cars. He asked casually:
“What shall you do if—well, if they won’t listen to reason?”
Renny thrust a piece of hot dumpling into his mouth and stared at Piers. Alayne took the opportunity to speak. She said in a tone of restrained calm, which was obviously intended to be an example to her husband:
“What could he do, Piers, but submit as any gentleman must?”
Piers grunted, without taking his eyes from Renny’s face.
Wragge gave a sneering grin which he hid behind his sallow fingers and a cough.
Renny bolted the dumpling.
“Do”—he repeated—“do—why, I will take my gun down to the road and put a shot into the first man who lays an axe to one of my trees!”
Such an abrupt silence—made more intense by the suspension of even mastication—followed this outburst, that little Maurice laid down his spoon and looked from face to face, astonished.
Then Nicholas broke into subterranean laughter, followed by a high-pitched giggle from Pheasant. Ernest turned deep pink.
“That’s the way to talk,” he said.
“Yes,” agreed Piers, “if he wants to get into trouble.”
“Trouble nothing,” retorted Nicholas. “We’ll show them from the start that we’ll not be browbeaten. My God, when I think of our trees…”
Augusta added:
“And the road that was once absolutely ours…”
“And it,” said Ernest, “disfigured by bungalows.”
“And now the kink taken out of it,” put in Wakefield.
Augusta drew a deep sigh. “Things are changing both here and in England.” She looked about the table as she said this as though expecting astonishment at her announcement.
“And for the worse, too,” came from young Pheasant.
“They can change as fast as they like,” said Renny, “if they’ll just let me alone.”
Rags spoke in a sentimental tone from the doorway.
“Ah, I expect I’d see great chynges in old London if I was to go back naow!”
Lady Buckley looked through him. Alayne looked down her nose. But Renny ejaculated warmly:
“I’ll bet you would, Rags! We must go over some time before long.” He had finished his chicken and now set his plate, swimming with gravy and scraps, on the floor in front of Piers’s terrier.
Piers, who had not seen her since her bath, when she had left his hands white as the snow, gazed down at her with a scowl.
“Where has she been?” he demanded.
“Taking a walk with me.”
“You might have kept her out of burrows. I’m taking her into town this afternoon to show her to a man who is interested in her next litter.” He bent down to take the plate from her. “She’s not allowed to eat table scraps.”
Renny, who always gave his dogs titbits from his plate, also bent and caught Piers’s wrist and held it. “Let her alone,” he said. “She looks half starved.”
“That’s what I say!” cried Pheasant. “She never has enough to eat.”
“What do you know about it?” growled Piers, still trying to remove the plate while Renny still held his wrist.
“I know what it is to have young,” she declared.
There was a laugh at Piers’s expense. He sat up, red-faced. The tablecloth had been pulled askew between the brothers, and Mooey’s mug of milk was overturned. The terrier, who had been fearful of losing her dinner, had in great haste licked the plate lean and now turned her attention to the milk that dribbled like manna from above.
“Look what you’ve done, you young idiot!” said Piers to his son.
“You did it yourself,” returned Renny, straightening the cloth.
Alayne looked apologetically at Augusta, who suddenly exclaimed:
“Enough! Enough! You are making the child unruly.”
“What I want to know,” interrupted Ernest, “is how soon we can go to the office of this official. I must conserve my energy.”
“Directly the meal is over,” said Renny, attacking the black currant roly-poly that Wragge had placed in front of him.
Ernest eyed it longingly.
“Uncle Ernie?”
“Perhaps I had better not.”
“Do you good.”
“A small helping then.”
Circular pieces of the suet pudding oozing purplish black jam hastened after each other down the board.
“Mooey, you tripe, we’ve come to you! Much or little?”
“Much!” shouted Mooey, joggling in his chair.
“Strange how unruly he grows,” said Augusta.
Piers put his hand on the child’s head and pressed it down. He said:
“It would be better to find out if the Minister is in town before you go. You should make an appointment.”
Nicholas answered—“No, no. He might try to get out of seeing us. We’ll risk not finding him at home. Better strike while the iron is hot.”
Piers shrugged. “You’ll find it a stifling drive at this hour.”
“We shall take the new car,” said Renny.
It was still called the new car though it had been bought three years before. Piers gave an astonished look at Renny, who had always refused to use it.
“Why, look here,” he said, “I’m taking it myself this afternoon. I’m sorry”—but, after all, it was his car.
“You may take the old one,” said his senior pleasantly.
“Certainly,” agreed Nicholas. “We must not go in looking shabby. It is just possible that the man may not have heard of us. We must appear as people of substance.”
“Not heard of us!” exclaimed his sister.
“Well”—Nicholas’s voice was sombre—“you never know who these fellows are.”
Ernest interjected—“Yes, we must appear as people of substance. I shall wear my silk hat, I think.”
“For God’s sake…” mumbled Piers.
The telephone rang loudly in the sitting room. It had been installed at the time of Ernest’s illness. Its most frequent use since had been for conversations between Renny and his horsy friends. He sprang up now to go to it, leaving his pudding. One of his Clumber spaniels came sedately from under his chair and laid its muzzle on the seat as though to guard it for him.
He left the door open behind him and all that he said was audible in the dining room.
“Hello! Yes—it’s Whiteoak speaking… Certainly I wanted to see the mare. You were to let me know… I got no message… No—not a word… And Collins bought her? It’s a damned shame!�
� Why didn’t you call again?… My wife! She gave me no message… yes, I suppose—thinking about a new dress… yes, women all alike… yes, I’ll give her your reproaches… yes, I’ll tell her you said she was a naughty girl—ha! ha! Oh no, she’d not be annoyed…”
He came back to the table grinning, but the grin faded when he saw his wife’s expression.
“No wonder,” exclaimed Pheasant, “that Alayne looks mortified. Playful messages from that old Crowdy! I wonder at his cheek.”
Renny gave a deprecating glance at Alayne from under the thick black lashes that lent his looks an added charm for women. “Crowdy is a decent head and Alayne has no reason for feeling hurt,” he said. “It is I who ought to feel hurt at not getting his message. It was very important that I should see that mare.”
Alayne made no answer. She was in a mood of helpless childlike anger against him. Hot tears were behind her eyes and a cold smile on her lips. But why was she angry? She scarcely knew. Perhaps it was just because she loved him so fiercely, and fierce love was against her nature and hurt her. Perhaps it was partly because all he did was so important to her that she saw his faults under her magnifying absorption in him. It was possible that she had a perverse pleasure in being hurt by him. But her unhappiness of the moment was real. She excused herself from the table, after a stiff apology for her forgetfulness, and went upstairs to relieve the nursemaid who was looking after her child.
As she entered the shabby attic room which they had turned into a day nursery she noticed how hot it was up there under the sloping roof, and the thought crossed her mind, as it had often before, that if the family were not so large she might have arranged a beautiful modern nursery next her own room. She despised Alma Patch, the young girl who came in by the day to help with the children. She disliked her ill-kept hair and nails, her wet underlip, her timid whispering voice, and she allowed her to have as little to do with her child as possible. It was nervous, highly strung. She had its crib in her bedroom and devoted the greater part of the day to its care.
Pheasant’s younger son, named Finch, but called Nooky, was still sitting in his high chair emptying the last drops from his mug of milk. He was two years old, a delicate, shy child, with sleek fair hair and hazel eyes. He was very fond of Alayne, and she often wished that her own child would show so much affection for her.
That child came toward her now with the triumphant walk she had just acquired, her dense, dark-red hair on end, her small being overflowing with vitality. She was not a pretty child, for she had too large a nose for her infant face, and the expression of her mouth showed little of the appealing softness of eighteen months. She looked at Alayne out of Renny’s eyes, and in some strange way that intense gaze was a barrier between them. For in the babe it was feminine and antagonistic.
She lifted up the child and kissed it. It grasped her neck fiercely, pressed its knees spasmodically against her stomach and rubbed its satin cheek against hers.
“Gently, Baby,” she begged. “You must not be so rough!”
“Me, too! Me, too!” cried the little boy.
She bent over and kissed the top of the silky head. Before she could prevent it the baby had grasped a handful of his hair and pulled it vigorously. He broke into loud wails, his mug was knocked to the floor and broken.
Alayne set down the baby, forcing back a desire to shake her, and exclaimed:
“Adeline, you must be more gentle! See how you have hurt dear little Nooky!”
Alma Patch, picking up bits of broken china, said:
“She’s after him all the time, ma’am. She takes his own playthings off him and, if he don’t give them up quick enough to please her, she pulls his hair. It’s really awful to see her sometimes.”
Little Adeline was angry at being put down. With head and heels on the floor, she arched her plump diaphragm and rent the air with her shrieks. Alayne picked her up and carried her swiftly down the stairs and into her own bedroom. Again she sat her down, regarding her with an expression more suspicious than maternal. Would she hurl herself on the floor again? And, if she did, would it be better to go out of the room and leave her to her rage, or stay and try to control her?
Adeline did not throw herself down, however. She stood, with chest expanded, screaming, and hitting savagely at her mother when she laid a restraining hand on her. Alayne was almost frightened at the anger which her own child had the power of rousing in her. She abhorred the cruel desire to hurt which she felt battling within her. Yet to see her child suffer would have been terrible to her.
Adeline held her breath for a more sustained effort and in the interval Alayne heard Nooky still wailing above. Children—how she once had idealised them!
She heard Renny’s step in the passage. Adeline heard it too, and the scream she had been preparing issued from her scarlet lips in a gurgle of laughter. She ran to the door and rattled the knob. Alayne, fearful that the opening door might strike her, swept her up and was rewarded by kicks and writhings.
They faced Renny as he came in, mother and daughter, with no trait, mental or physical, in common, antagonistic, yet loving each other and him.
He took the child from Alayne’s arms, tossed her up and kissed her. There had been no tears in her eyes. Now they shone like stars. Her exertions had flooded the cream of her cheeks with a delicious pink. Renny regarded her with pride.
“Wouldn’t Gran have gloried in her?” he demanded.
Alayne nodded. She was too disturbed by the fracas for speech.
“She’s a wonder,” he continued, “a wonder, and a peach of peaches. I wish Gran could see her! She’d appreciate her. She’s in a class by herself—the prize filly,—aren’t you, my pet?”
The object of his ecstasies well knew that she was being praised. She preened herself, drew in the corners of her mouth, and looked at him out of the sides of her dark eyes.
Then he drew her close and, planting his mouth on hers, devoured her with kisses… Alayne stood looking at them, remembering how she had wished for a child, had felt that, with her child in his arms, the bond between him and Wakefield, which seemed to her neurotic, would be naturally loosened. This had not been the case. Renny’s heart had only expanded to make room for the new love. And his demonstrations of love for the small Adeline were too extravagant, too reminiscent of his grandmother, to please her. How could she properly train her child with Renny’s laughter, Renny’s scowl, or his boisterous praise, always intervening at the wrong time? Even now Adeline showed plainly that her mother’s opinion was of little value to her as compared with her father’s.
She laid herself out to please him, changing her expression from that of a small fury to one befitting a seraph, at his approach. She would show off her tricks before him like an actress. She delighted in pulling the ears and tails of the dogs but, at the sound of his step, she would stroke and blandish them. All the family (except Wakefield, who was jealous of her) spoiled her. “How she favours dear Mamma!” “She is a perfect Court!” “Do not cross her! Her high spirit should not be broken!” Or “She’s the spit of dear old Gran.” These were the exclamations Alayne was constantly hearing. She was beginning to despair of ever training her as she should be trained.
“She has been behaving very badly,” she said. “Pulling Nooky’s hair for nothing at all.”
He kissed her again. “She loves the feel of hair in her hands. She doesn’t realise that it hurts. Pull your Daddy’s then! He has a tough scalp.”
The baby filled her hands with his strong red hair and pulled until she drew herself upright in his arms.
Suddenly he set her on her feet. “I must be off,” he said.
After a moment of astonishment she broke into screams and beat her little hands in anger on the door he had shut behind him.
III
THE FELLING
THE INTERVIEW between the elder Whiteoaks, Renny, and the Minister of Highways had been partially successful. The road in front of Jalna was to be widened entirely on the opposite si
de. The trees that shielded the old house from the gaze of the public were to be spared. But the beauty of the road would soon be a thing of the past, living only in the memory of those who, like the Whiteoaks, had grown up beside it.
The noble oaks, serene in their strength, proud, sound as saplings, had completed the green galaxy of their summer foliage before the first blow from the axe bruised their bark. They formed an arch above the white road, stretching out their leaves like hands, to touch those opposite. The strong sun threw the mantle of their shadows on the worn paths beneath. Squirrels, chipmunks, blackbirds, and orioles flashed in and out of their sheltering boughs. Bright drops of resin oozed from them in their exuberance.
The day on which the first one was felled was a day of mourning at Jalna. The uncles were sunk in melancholy, but Augusta, leaning on Pheasant’s arm, walked down the road as far as the bend to look at their unbroken ranks for the last time. It was a lovely day and the path was smooth with pine needles. Pheasant’s short brown hair blew in the breeze. She pressed Augusta’s arm against her side in a comforting way, as they passed under the trees. They might have been entering a chamber of death.
“To think,” Augusta exclaimed, “that there are people so insensate as to cut these down!”
“It is a blessing,” said Pheasant, “that Gran did not live to see this.”
“She would never have allowed it!” declared Augusta. “And I will do these people the credit of thinking that they would never have suggested it in her lifetime. They look on my brothers as younger and less firmly attached to tradition.”
“Yes, of course. We’re none of us nearly so old as Gran.”
Augusta looked down into the small oval face with its pencilled brows.
“You are very young,” she said. “I hope that you are happy with Piers.”
“Oh yes! And with dear little Mooey and Nooky. I really think I am a happier woman than Alayne. We’ve both been through a good deal.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 293