The fine big chestnut colt looked out at them with mild interest. He mouthed his thick velvety lips as though he had an agreeable taste in his mouth.
Renny said, “He looks more like a big overgrown baby than a racehorse.”
“True,” agreed Mr. Crowdy solemnly. “True. That’s how he looks.”
“How can Mr. Turner ask so much for him,” demanded Adeline, “when he’s had so few important wins?”
“In both instances he beat the favourite,” said Crowdy. “One on a hard dry track, the other on a muddy one.”
“We’ll live to see him sire some winners,” said Chase.
Soon they saw the colt in action, ridden by a groom. There was a further consultation. Adeline was on tiptoe with excitement. With all the magnetic power in her, she drew Renny on to buy the colt. “Uncle Nick would want you to,” she whispered. “I know he would.” With the eyes she had inherited from her great-grandmother she implored him.
He would think it over, he told them, make up his mind by tomorrow. His mind, however, was made up for him by the entrance of an American who had come to see the colt. The price seemed not to shock the American. He nonchalantly considered it, then said, “I’ve a good mind to buy this fellow. He looks as though he’d plenty of stamina. His record’s fine for so young a horse.” He made these remarks to Renny, not knowing that he too was a prospective buyer.
Messrs. Crowdy and Chase, overhearing this, gave Renny such looks of passionate pleading that what resistance he still fostered melted under their fire. Added to this he felt springing up between him and the colt that promise of trust and good-fellowship which is sometimes born between horse and man at first sight. He gave the owner a nod. The deal was settled.
Back at Jalna Adeline ran toward the house from the stables. The exultation of her spirit uplifted her. She could not walk but must come as near to flying as possible. A strong wind was blowing her hair back from her face. “East Wind!” she exclaimed. “A lucky omen!” She ran to where she saw Fitzturgis strolling along the drive and called out, “Such news! We’ve bought a racehorse.”
“Well, there’s nothing very new about that, is there?” he asked without enthusiasm.
“New?”she cried. “New?Why, it’s terrifically new. We haven’t owned a racehorse for years and years. Ours are show horses — hunters — steeplechasers. But this colt is a wonder, darling. Everybody says so. His name is East Wind and there’s an east wind blowing!”
Fitzturgis took her hand in a peremptory gesture.
“The only wind that interests me,” he said, “is the wind that will blow us to the altar.”
“Oh, Mait, what a lovely thing to say!” She laid her bright head on his shoulder, but only for a moment. Then she raised it and looked searchingly into his eyes. “But surely,” she said, “you are excited by our owning a racehorse.”
“I shall try to be. Tell me more about him.”
Adeline poured out the tale of the colt’s wins, his exceeding promise, ending by saying, “Wasn’t it lucky that we had this money from Uncle Nicholas? Otherwise we never could have bought him.”
“Did he cost a lot?”
So proud of the purchase was Adeline, so magical did it appear to her that the Jalna stables were to possess this equine wonder, that, without a second thought, she broke her promise to Renny. And, after all, she and Maitland were soon to be one. She said:
“Guess.”
“A thousand dollars.”
“Oh, Mait, what do you think we were buying? A workhorse? More!”
“Two thousand.”
“Multiply that by six!” She looked triumphant.
He was aghast. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “That’s about half your uncle’s legacy.”
“And why not?” she said defiantly. “It couldn’t be put to better use. But you mustn’t tell anybody. I remember now that I promised not to tell.”
But Fitzturgis did tell. At the first opportunity he followed Alayne into the library and closed the door after him. She gave him a welcoming and enquiring look.
“Have you heard?” he asked.
“I have heard nothing new,” she smiled, thinking how much she liked his looks.
“I suppose I should not tell this,” he said, “but I feel bound to — in the hope that you may be able to do something about it. But — perhaps you won’t mind.”
She said nothing, just waited.
“Adeline has been telling me,” he said, “that her father has agreed to pay twelve thousand dollars for that colt they went to see. Of course, it’s none of my business.”
“I didn’t know. I never hear of these things till they are accomplished.” Now her lips were set in anger. “Oh, how could he? It’s nothing short of insane.”
“I’ve seen too many fortunes lost on the racetrack,” he said. “I hate to think of your having such a loss.”
“I don’t suppose it will affect me one way or the other,” she said. “If the money didn’t go into a racehorse it would be spent on the stables.” She added, with a kind of breathless sharpness in her voice, “My husband lives for his horses.”
Fitzturgis made a sympathetic sound. He dared not trust himself to speak, for at that moment he lumped Renny and his daughter together as stubborn devotees of a senseless pursuit.
Alayne gave a little laugh. “I comfort myself with one thought,” she said. “I had rather he were absorbed in horseflesh than in big business. I should find that unbearable.”
“At least he’d have something to show for it,” Fitzturgis said curtly.
“Not the perfect health he enjoys.”
“I do admire his physique,” said Fitzturgis with sincerity. “He’s as thin and muscular as a man of twenty-five.”
“He has scarcely a grey hair,” she exclaimed, “and look at me!”
“Your hair is beautiful,” he said tenderly. “At the moment of our meeting I noticed it and I thought — how beautiful!”
She looked up into his eyes from where she sat at her writing table. For some reason her heart quickened its beat. She felt happy in his presence.
When he had gone and she heard Renny’s step in the hall she went out and faced him.
He gave her a keen look, for there was something in her bearing that put him on his guard.
“So,” she said, “you have bought a racehorse.”
“why, yes … who told you?”
“Maitland. He had it from Adeline.” There was nothing in Alayne’s face to encourage him. Still he broke out:
“Alayne, you ought to see him. Of course, you will see him very soon. The most promising colt you ever laid eyes on. I’m sure you’ll never regret that I bought him.”
She said stiffly, “I hope you won’t regret the fantastic price you’re paying for him.”
“I suppose Mait told you that, too?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see how the hell he found out…. Oh yes — Adeline!” His lips showed his chagrin. “I told her to tell no one.”
“I suppose she was too delighted to keep it to herself. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t do anything to stop you.”
“To stop me,” he echoed.
“Yes. Any sane person would surely try to stop you…. Poor Uncle Nicholas — I wonder what he would feel if he could know how his money is being thrown away!”
“It is not being thrown away,” he said defiantly. “It’s being invested — to what I believe is the best advantage.” Alayne shrugged her shoulders in despair. The spaniel came to the door and looked in at them, then turned and went out again. It was as though the sight of them together was too much for him.
Renny caressed the carved cluster of grapes that decorated the newel post, then said deliberately, “I should know better than to expect sympathy from you in any venture of mine.”
“If only they were of a different sort,” she exclaimed.
“You knew what I was when you married me.”
“Surely,” she said, speaking calmly, det
ermined not to quarrel, “surely we may expect to develop through life.”
“God only knows,” he said, “what you expected me to develop into, but I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me as I am.”
The spaniel was waiting outside for him. Together they went toward the stables.
Renny saw Adeline leaning on the gate of a field behind the paddock watching a dozen of the show horses at pasture. He took her not gently by the nape and said:
“You’re a fine one, aren’t you, to keep a secret?”
She screwed round her head to look at him.
“Me? what have I done?”
“You told that precious Irishman of yours what I’m paying for the colt and he went straight to your mother with the news.”
Adeline was for a moment struck dumb. Then she got out, “No — surely not! Oh, Daddy!”
“In future,” he said, “I shall know better than to confide in you.”
She could not speak. Two large tears rolled down her cheeks. He released her neck and crammed both hands in his pockets. He began to whistle “A hundred pipers and a.’”
The horses in the field had collected in a group to observe them. They stood motionless, like horses of bronze. Then, with one accord, as though in an outburst of high spirits or even of some lofty emotion, they uttered a series of high-pitched neighs that were almost musical, that approached the singing of some primitive chorus. Then, moved by the same glorious emotion, they broke into a gallop and swept to the far end of the large field. There again they neighed; then swept round and galloped back, with the onslaught of an attacking army. Once more in their starting point they halted, in various striking attitudes, the east wind blowing their manes and tails.
Whatever feelings had evoked this outburst now had passed. The horses separated and began mildly to crop the grass. Father and daughter stood in silence watching them. His hand lay on the gate, and Adeline, in childlike contrition, sought to put hers beneath it. In spite of the graceful femininity of her hand and the well-knit masculinity of his there was a noticeable resemblance between them — the oval of the nails, the broad palm and slender fingers. He refused, however, to give sanctuary to her hand. He turned away.
Adeline left him and almost ran, her tears half blinding her, to where she saw Fitzturgis leaving the stables in company with Wright, the head groom.
“Did you want me, miss?” asked Wright, who had known her all her life and was familiar with her signs of distress or temper, and thought her perfect in all.
“No, no, Wright — go to your tea. Thanks.”
“Very well, miss…. You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?”
“Well, Wright,” she exclaimed hotly, “if you can teach Mr. Fitzturgis how to keep his word — I shall be very glad.”
Much embarrassed, Wright mumbled, “Hm-mph — I guess you’re the one to teach him that, miss.” He turned and hurried to his flat above the garage.
Fitzturgis gave Adeline a look of astonishment, of outrage. “Will you please explain what you mean,” he demanded, “by that remark?”
“You know very well.” Her eyes blazed into his.
“I do not.”
“You told Mummy what Daddy paid for the colt and — you’d promised faithfully.”
“I did not promise.”
“You did — else I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You ordered me not to tell. I never promised. I thought that your mother ought to know.”
“why the hell should she know?”
“I thought she might have some influence to prevent him.”
“She has none. Anyway, you broke your word!”
“It was you who broke yours.”
“Me!”She looked bewildered, furious.
“Yes, you. You promised your father not to tell.”
“But that was different.”
“why?”
She knit her brows. “Well, men are supposed to be strong and silent. Women aren’t.”
“Are you in the habit,” he asked coldly, “of airing your private affairs in front of stablemen?”
“Wright’s different. He’s more like a friend.”
“Would you have said what you did in front of a friend?”
“Yes.” She spoke defiantly.
“Well — I think it’s in very bad taste.”
“Honour comes before taste.”
“Do you ever use your mind?” he asked.
“I don’t need to. Instinct tells me what is right.”
“You’re impossible!” he exclaimed angrily.
“And you’re incredible!” They flung off in opposite directions.
He met Roma coming slowly along the drive in Meg’s car. She called out, “I’m going to the lake for a swim. Would you and Adeline care to come?”
“I’d like very much to go. I can’t answer for Adeline. She’s — not here.”
Roma looked at him steadily. “Dare you come without her?”
“I don’t think she’d mind. As a matter of fact we’ve been having words.”
“Lovely,” said Roma, and he ran upstairs to change into his bathing suit.
XVI
This Way and That
FINCH’S PRIDE AND pleasure in his new house might have been to his heart’s content but for two reasons, embodied in two people — one of whom he tried to love and could not quite succeed; the other whom he tried to stop loving and was equally unsuccessful. It was natural and right, he knew, for him to love his only child — his son. Nevertheless he could not force any real warmth of paternal affection into his feelings toward Dennis. No one had criticized this lack in him, if indeed it had been observed. But he tried to explain it to himself, for he was, since he had moved into this house, sometimes almost painfully aware that he was not the sort of father a boy could confide in or warmly love. And Dennis had no mother…. The mother. Ah, perhaps that was the reason! There was something in Dennis that brought back the memory of Sarah — the clinging cold passion of her love that had been like seaweed dragging down the swimmer to his death.
Dennis was so admiring of Finch, so possessive in identifying himself with Finch and the new house — he was so small, so helpless, that a father might well have felt the warmth of protective love for him, but Finch did not. Sarah’s greenish eyes had shone on Finch from beneath bands of hair black as jet. Dennis’s looked up from under a fringe of pale gold, yet they were Sarah’s eyes. There was something ruthless in the clinging of the child’s small, firmly knit hands, as there had been in his mother’s. His hands were so like Sarah’s. And lately he talked of taking lessons on the violin, which Sarah had played with considerable talent. The thought of a schoolboy’s scraping away on a fiddle in this house was intolerable to Finch. Later on, yes, if the desire persisted — not now.
Finch had delayed in buying furniture for Dennis’s room. The holidays were drawing to an end. Soon Dennis would be going back to school. Better wait till the Christmas holidays and have the room complete as a surprise then. But one morning Finch discovered Dennis asleep on the floor of the verandah with a ragged old sofa cushion under his head.
He woke when Finch opened the door and explained, “I thought, as this is my home, I’d better sleep here, even if I have no bed.”
Finch felt a pang of shame and that day went to town and bought furniture suitable for a boy’s room. He enjoyed buying it and did not spare expense. Today it was set in place and Finch pictured the delight in the little boy’s face when he beheld it.
While he stood there wondering what sort of pictures to hang on the walls he heard a step and Maurice stood in the doorway looking in at him.
“Sure, it’s a sweet little place you have here,” he observed in the Irish accents it sometimes pleased him to affect. “I didn’t know this little room was here at all.”
“It wasn’t furnished. I’ve just had it done for Dennis. It’s right that he should live with me, you know.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Maurice, “I was hoping it w
as for me.”
“For you?” Finch took in Maurice’s youthfully battered look, the melancholy bend to his lips. “what’s the matter, Maurice?”
“I don’t get on well with my father. He doesn’t like my ways and I don’t like the contemptuous tone he takes toward me. He thinks I’m a bad example to his well-behaved younger sons. I must get out of the house — for a time, at any rate. It’s too uncomfortable, and it’s making Mummy miserable.”
“why not go to Jalna for a bit?”
Maurice said, with bitter emphasis, “I’d stay where I am rather than be under the same roof with Fitzturgis.”
Finch looked at him, puzzled as to what he should do. He did not want to disappoint Dennis, but — here his inclination tempted him — Maurice was his favourite among all the young people — Maurice was congenial to him — they had become close friends during Finch’s visit to Ireland — he had stayed in Maurice’s house. How could he refuse him hospitality now? He said, “Certainly you must come here. But it’s a pity that you and Piers aren’t congenial.”
“He has been down on me as long as I can remember. Well, I can’t blame him, but — I just can’t endure it. Thanks for taking me in, Uncle Finch…. By the way, have you a drop of whisky you could spare? I’ve a terrible thirst.”
Finch brought out a bottle of rye and Maurice poured himself a drink. He settled himself in a deep chair with it, his hand curved fondly about the glass, a look of content on his lips.
“I’ve never thought to hate anyone,” he said, “but I believe I do hate Fitzturgis.”
“Oh no you don’t. You’d not want to see him suffer.”
“I should indeed. I hope that Adeline will make life hell for him.” He zestfully added, after he had taken some of the whisky, “She is likely to do that — more power to her.”
“when is the wedding to be?” asked Finch. “Surely they will hurry it on, before the Wragges leave.”
“Yes, they will. Lord, I believe I shall go away. It would be too depressing to see that ceremony. Still — I’d not want them to think I couldn’t bear it. A drink, Uncle Finch?”
“I believe I shall.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 497