“You’re pretty too. You can do anything you want to do. I am the only one who has need to cry.”
Garda patted her on the back. “You are the happiest person I know, Gemmel. I often wonder why. And when it comes to faces, you have the most interesting one of the three of us. You could do anything — if you weren’t handicapped.”
Gemmel looked straight ahead of her, inhaling the smoke from her cigarette.
“I do very well,” she said.
IV
BREAKING THE NEWS
MEG HAD PRESENTED the pot of jelly to her uncles, been complimented on its colour and clearness. Now she sat down by the open fire and prepared to tell her news. But first she remarked:
“It seems so strange not to see three or four dogs stretched on the hearth as there used to be.”
“Yes,” Ernest agreed, “it does. But since old Merlin died, Alayne has been able to keep them, more or less, under control. The bulldog has taken up with Wright and spends most of his time in the stables. The sheepdog has a fancy for the kitchen. It’s a good thing too because the amount of mud he carries in on his long coat is extraordinary. He was actually ruining the rugs. I think Alayne is quite right to encourage them to keep out.”
“I miss them,” growled Nicholas.
“So do I, Uncle Nick. And so I’m sure will Renny when he comes home, if he ever does come home, poor darling. I sometimes doubt it.”
Nicholas shifted in his chair. “He’ll come home, all right,” he muttered.
Meg drew a deep breath and plunged into her disclosures.
“He will find other changes too. For one thing, he will not find me at Vaughanlands.”
Her uncles stared at her speechless.
“I have sold it,” she said, dramatically. “Lock, stock, and barrel. To a Mr. Clapperton.”
The two men repeated in one voice, “Sold it!”
“Yes. Sold it. Now don’t say I have done this without consulting you, because I have been talking of selling ever since poor Maurice died. You all have known that it’s impossible for me to run the place alone. Every year it’s got harder. Every year I’ve had a greater loss. Three days ago an agent brought this Mr. Clapperton to see me. He is a widower, a retired business man. His wife hated the country but he loves it. He longs to settle down and live a quiet country life, breed prize stock. That sort of man, you know. He just wants something he’s never had. He has plenty of money. He’ll pay cash. Now shouldn’t I be foolish to stay on in that big house? Some day Patience will marry. I shall be left alone.” A pathetic quaver came into her voice.
“But where will you go?” asked Ernest.
“It seems providential.” She smiled, though tears were in her eyes. “The old Pink house is for sale. The house where that awful Mrs. Stroud lived, after the last war. They’re asking a ridiculous price for it but nothing is cheap nowadays. It’s a good time to sell.”
“what are you getting for Vaughanlands?” asked Nicholas.
She hesitated. She hated to tell. Not that her family would resent her getting a good price. They would rejoice. But — she hated to tell. However, she said quietly:
“Fifty-five thousand dollars.”
“whew!” exclaimed Nicholas. “Quite an advance since pioneer days when the first Vaughan bought it.”
“Think of all that has been spent on the estate! Think of the amount of land!”
“I know. I know. Well, I shall try to be glad for your sake, Meggie. But it will seem queer to have a stranger at Vaughanlands.”
“But he is so nice, Uncle Nick. All he wants is peace and quiet and books and a garden and prize stock. It’s quite touching to hear him talk.”
“How old is he?” asked Ernest.
“Between fifty and sixty. Very well dressed. Very carefully dressed. Quite immaculately turned out.”
“Humph,” growled Nicholas.
“Meggie,” said Ernest, “I am hurt that you should have done this without consulting us.”
“Uncle Ernest, I dared not wait to consult you. Mr. Clapperton had another place in mind. He was wavering between the two. I might have lost him.”
“Well, I hope he’ll be a nice neighbour.”
“He will. Never doubt that. I should say that he’s the very personification of a nice neighbour.”
At this moment Alayne came into the room. She had been aware that Meg was with her uncles and had given them time for conversation before entering. Now she was told of the sale of Vaughanlands and the proposed purchase of the small house. She congratulated Meg. She thought she had done well for herself and for Patience. They talked more congenially than was their custom.
“It will be a great relief to you,” Alayne said. “I know what a burden these large places can be.” She gave a sigh and clasped her hands tensely in her lap.
The three Whiteoaks bent looks on her that made her feel an outsider in spite of her twenty years’ residence among them.
“Do you consider Jalna a burden?” Ernest asked, in a hurt tone.
“We have been at our wits’ end to keep things going since the war, haven’t we?”
“We have. But when the war is over there will be plenty of help. Renny and Piers will be home.”
“If ever they come home, poor darlings,” said Meg.
“How can you say such a thing!” exclaimed Alayne. “It is only the thought of their coming that makes it possible for me to keep things running.”
“They’ll come. They’ll come,” said Nicholas. “And it can’t be too soon for me.”
“Or for me,” declared Meg. “I don’t want them for what they can do, but just for themselves. Now that I have lost Maurice I yearn more and more for them.”
Ernest laid his hand on hers. “Poor girl, you have had a hard time. Now do tell us more about this Mr. Clapperton. I do so hope he will be a congenial neighbour.”
The talk circled round and round Mr. Clapperton and Meg’s plans for the future. She had barely gone when Rags entered, with an air of importance.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but I ’ave to tell you that the oil ’eater ’as gone off. I can’t do nothing with it. Shall I telephone for the repair man to come out?”
“Oh, Rags,” Alayne spoke despairingly, “can’t Wright do anything to make it go?”
“Naow, ma’am. Wright’s ’elpless as I am. I expect there’s a fuse blown out.”
“That oil heater,” said Nicholas, “is a pest. I sometimes wish you never had had it installed, Alayne.”
“You must acknowledge,” she returned, “that the house has had a more even temperature than ever before. You have said repeatedly how comfortable it has made every room.”
“I know. I know.” Nicholas spoke testily. He did not like to be reminded, as Alayne so often reminded him, of what he had said on another occasion. “But it’s always getting out of order. Do you remember the three days of last winter when it was zero weather and we had no heating?”
“That I do, sir,” said Rags. “And a quite bad cold Mr. Ernest caught.”
“what I most object to,” observed Ernest, “is that it keeps the drawing-room and library so warm that we no longer feel the need for the grate fires. They were undoubtedly cheerful.”
“We still often have one in the evening.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same as when one comes downstairs in the morning and sees a blaze crackling on the hearth.”
Rags spoke with that unctuous quality which Alayne detested, in his voice. “It was indeed cheerful, sir. And I never grumbled at carrying the coals or wood, did I?”
“Indeed you didn’t.”
Alayne rose abruptly. “I must go to the children,” she said. “They will come to the table without washing unless I oversee them.”
“Speaking of the children, ma’am,” said Rags, “I have a note ’ere from Master Archer’s teacher. I met her on the road and she ’anded it to me.”
“why didn’t you give it to me before?” asked Alayne.
“W’y, ma
’am, I should think you’d know. Everything was knocked right out of me ’ead by the behaviour of that there oil ’eater.”
What an impudent way of speaking the man had, thought Alayne. She gave him an icy look as she took the note. She read:
Dear Mrs. Whiteoak,
I do so dislike to complain of dear little Archer, but he has been very late for school every morning this week and yesterday he did not appear till afternoon. This is very bad for his work which, as you know, is uneven.
He is so clever in some ways. But …
“Is anything wrong?” interrupted Nicholas.
“No — not exactly.”
“You look very disturbed,” observed Ernest, peering at her. “It’s bad to get upset over minor irritations.”
Rags was listening. To him Alayne said, “You may telephone for the repair man.” when he had left the room she exclaimed, almost tragically:
“It’s about Archer. He has been playing truant again. Really, I don’t know what to do about him.”
“Boarding school is the place for boys,” growled Nicholas. “The Spartan life there makes men of them.”
Ernest said, “You are not severe enough with Archer. You should give him a punishment he’d remember.”
Alayne loved her son with an almost painful devotion, painful because he fell so short of being what she would have him, fell so short of the large nobility of her father whom he physically resembled. She said:
“Miss Pink is not the type of teacher to hold Archer’s interest. She is far too old-fashioned.”
The door opened and the boy of eight years came into the room. He looked at his elders with an air of profound pessimism. As this was his habitual expression it roused no concern. He had a high white forehead, clear-cut features, a rather thin face but a sturdy body and legs. His eyes were intensely blue, his hair very fair, straight, and dry. He stood planted in the middle of the room, as though inviting attack.
“Now then, sir,” said Ernest, “what about these complaints of you?”
“We know what you’ve been up to,” added Nicholas. “So there is no use in hedging.”
“I don’t like going to school,” said Archer. “It makes me tired.”
His mother looked at him anxiously. “Archer, when you say school makes you tired, do you mean it makes you tired in a slangy sense or do you mean that it tires you?”
Archer looked as though he had the weight of the universe on his shoulders as he considered this. Then he replied:
“Miss Pink makes me tired and lessons tire me.”
Nicholas slapped his thigh. “Good man! You’ve explained it perfectly.”
“Don’t praise him,” said Ernest. “It’s bad for him when he’s been obstreperous.”
“A little praise hurts no one,” returned Nicholas.
“But he should not be praised for a cheeky answer.”
“I don’t think Archer intended to be that,” said Alayne.
Ernest fixed a penetrating look on Archer. “which did you intend,” he demanded, “to be cheeky or clever?”
“Both,” Archer answered promptly.
“We are getting nowhere,” said Alayne. “Archer had better come up to my room with me,” She rose and took the little boy’s hand.
“A swishing is what he needs.” Ernest clenched his delicate white hand, as though it held the implement of chastisement. “Perhaps Finch would do it for you.”
“why doesn’t Roma see that he gets to school?” asked Nicholas. “where is Roma?”
Roma was standing just outside the door with her ear to the keyhole. She drew back as Alayne and Archer came out. Alayne asked suspiciously:
“what are you doing here, Roma?”
“Waiting for Archer.”
Roma spoke in a quiet little voice, and she had a quiet little face, an air as though she consciously made herself someone to pass unnoticed. When she was just old enough to run about she had been brought to Jalna, the fruit of dead Eden’s connection with Minny Ware, an English girl. The child had been conceived in Rome whence came her name. She had known, almost from the first, that Alayne did not like her. She did not like Alayne. Roma was not shrinking or timid. If she had a self-effacing air, it was because she chose to be so. At eleven she looked more than two years younger than Adeline. To judge by her limbs she might later be tall but now was small for her age. She had an odd charm, with her glistening fair hair, her narrow strange-coloured eyes, her high cheek bones and the sensitive full-lipped mouth which she had got from her father.
“Are you sure you were not listening at the door, Roma?” asked Alayne.
“Quite sure.” Roma smiled a little.
“That question was not intended to be amusing,” Alayne said sternly.
Roma took the smile from her face.
“I want you both to come in here with me.” Alayne led the children into the sitting room.
They stood facing her where she seated herself, looking imperviously small and innocent. Roma thought, “She has heaps of lines in her forehead when she’s worried. Why should she care if Archer goes to school? He won’t do what Miss Pink says. He won’t do what she says. He won’t mind anyone but Adeline. I wonder if I dare smile again.” The smile flickered across her lips.
“Roma,” said Alayne, “you knew very well that you were doing wrong in letting Archer play truant. You are older. You should guide him to do right.”
“He won’t let me.”
“You should have told me he was not at school.”
“That would be telling tales.”
“Archer must be told of, when he does anything so wrong as this.”
“I’m hungry,” said Archer. “Could I have my tea?”
“Yes. But no cake. No jam. Just salad and bread.”
“Salad gives me indigestion.”
“Then you may have an egg.”
“Thank you, Mother.” He spoke in a sweet soothing voice. He got on to her lap and laid his cheek against hers. She said:
“Go upstairs and wash and brush your hair, Roma. I wish to talk privately to Archer. I am deeply hurt, and very displeased with both of you.”
Adeline was going up the stairs as Roma closed the door of the sitting room behind her.
“Hullo,” said Adeline. “who’s in there?”
“Aunt Alayne and Archer. He’s been late for school all week. About ten or eleven o’clock. And yesterday he didn’t come till afternoon.”
Adeline whistled, then said, “Come on up to my room.” She darted up the stairs. Roma followed.
Inside Adeline’s room she shut the door and locked it.
“Goodness!” said Roma. “Your back’s all over mud. So is your leg.”
“Jester threw me. He was in a bad mood. Gosh, it hurt! I want you to rub liniment on me. I don’t want Mummy to know. She wouldn’t let me ride him at the Show next week.”
“She won’t anyway. I heard her say so.”
Adeline was drawing off her muddy pullover. She dropped it to the floor. “We’ll see about that,” she said.
“Couldn’t Wright ride him?”
“Jester is in the ladies’ saddle horse class, you duffer.”
“Couldn’t Auntie Pheasant ride him?”
“She couldn’t possibly handle him. She hasn’t been riding. She hasn’t the time.”
Having stripped her upper part she got a bottle of liniment from the cupboard and handed it to Roma. She turned her beautiful suntanned back to her.
“Rub here,” she commanded, and indicated the area below the small of the back. She groaned as Roma rubbed but repeated, “Harder.”
The handle of the door was rattled. “Let me in,” came Archer’s voice.
“Go away!”
“No! I want to come in.”
“We’re busy.”
A kick resounded on the door.
Adeline went to it, opened it, grasped a handful of his dry tow hair and half lifted him into the room by it. Again she locked the door. Arche
r made no outcry but, when she freed him, examined her back with scientific interest.
“It doesn’t look sore,” he said.
“I wish you had it.”
“I’d rather have it than my tonsils. They have got to come out, the doctor says.”
“I saw a horse at the Queenstown fair that had had his tonsils out.”
“Did it bleed much?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But it saved his life.”
“I expect having mine out will save mine.”
“A lot of expense and trouble for a small thing,” observed Roma.
Archer made a pass at the bottle of liniment. Adeline took it from Roma. “That’s enough,” she said. “Now I must attend to my leg.” She pulled up the leg of her breeches and disclosed a knee, with a deep rasp on it.
Roma drew back but Archer leant close, his high white forehead giving him a profound look. Adeline produced a bottle of iodine. He begged:
“Please, Adeline, let me put it on! I won’t hurt you half as much as you’d hurt yourself. Please do!” He tried to take possession of the swab she had made.
She hesitated, then said firmly, “No. I’ll do it myself.” She immersed the swab in the iodine, looked at the bloody knee, looked at Roma and Archer pathetically. “Oo, how I hate to !” she said. “It will hurt like the dickens.”
“Let Archer do it,” said Roma.
“No.”
“I’ll put my arm round you,” said Archer.
This he did, leaning rather heavily on her. She set her teeth. She pressed the swab to her knee. Colour flooded her face. Again and again she sterilized the rasped place. She handed the swab to Roma, then sat down and rocked herself.
A knock came on the door. The handle turned. Alayne’s voice said,
“why have you locked the door, Adeline?”
“So Archer wouldn’t bother me.”
“Well, let me in, dear, I want to speak to you.”
Adeline pointed under the bed. Silently Archer scrambled beneath it. Adeline kicked her muddy pullover after him. She drew down the leg of her breeches and opened the door. Alayne came in, noting with distaste that peculiar air of squalor which children are able to impart to the rooms they occupy. She said:
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