Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny

by de la Roche, Mazo

  The shelter stood at the edge of a small shrubbery where the white buds of syringa were beginning to show. Inside it there was a damp smell and she saw the silver wheel of a cobweb. On the mossy wooden stand a glass jar held water for priming the pump. She grasped it in both hands and poured it into the opening at the top. She began to move the handle up and down. It made a harsh grating noise, but in a moment the bright water gushed from the spout. Before she had time to step back her feet were splashed.

  She filled the rusty tin mug and drank deeply. The icy water invigorated her.

  “Ha, that’s good!” she said, setting down the mug, and she drew her hand across her chin, on which the short strong hairs were wet. Near the pump, almost hidden by a clump of ribbon grass, she spied a bee’s nest as large as a man’s hat, glimmering palely, a smooth sphere, a sleeping world of fierce activity. “If Eden got into that …” she murmured. “Must tell the gardener …” Yet the thought of having all the little bees smoked out troubled her. “Their world,” she thought “as much to them as Jalna to us…. Storing up honey for their old age … their winter…. Let Eden take his chance…. I won’t tell of them.”

  She looked up at the dark bulk of the house and saw Meg leaning on her window sill, white and fair in the moonlight. Stubborn little baggage…. Meg had been watching her and now drew back into the shadow.

  Adeline crossed the lawn and stepped beneath the window.

  “Come along down,” she said, “and we’ll have a stroll together.”

  “No, Granny. I couldn’t.”

  “I’ll tell you some things about young men I’ve known, if you’ll just come down.”

  “I don’t want to know anything more.”

  “Pouf! You don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t want to know anything.”

  “You can’t spend the rest of your days in that room.”

  “I’ll spend the rest of my nights here!”

  Her grandmother gave a snort of laughter.

  “I pity you then!”

  Still half laughing and grumbling to herself she turned away, went round the house, and passed through the little wicket gate to the top of the steep bank of the ravine, from where she could look down on the river. Now it shimmered in the moonlight, now hid itself among rushes and circled a great boulder that had fallen from above, now moved impatiently, as though in haste to be done with all its winding, now gave itself up to the indolent pleasure if its reedy bed.

  She wished she might go down to the water’s edge, but she dared not risk the climb in return. It would be humiliating to have to spend the night down there. She grasped a low projecting bough and leant on it, gazing down at the stream. In her mind she followed it through valleys and fields, back to its source among the hills. Then, as a river, she traced the course of her own life. Eastward — eastward and southward, back to her marriage in India. Westward and northward, back to its source in the misty hills of County Meath. She was a tiny child, lifted to her father’s shoulder to look out on the great world.

  XI

  SLIGHTED LOVE AND LIGHT O' LOVE

  THREE NIGHTS LATER another midnight prowler was reviewing his past. This was young Maurice, who, unable to sleep, or even to endure solitary inaction, had taken his horse from the stable and galloped along the silent road, trying to quiet his brain, to exhaust his restless body. But swift as he galloped, his thoughts were equally swift. Neck and neck with him raced the dark steed of his shame, his disappointment. The past he reviewed was held in one short year, from the time Elvira and he had first met in the woods.

  What had driven him from the house was the sound of his child’s crying. He had seen the light in his mother’s room and known she was up tending it. He hated the sight of the child, the sound of its voice, the very thought of its fragile body interposed between him and Meg. The thought that he had got that body from his own was horrible to him. He resented the protective love which he saw in his parents’ eyes when they spoke of it.

  The moon was high in the deep blueness of the summer sky when he passed Jalna. His mare was so accustomed to turning in at that gate that he had had to draw a restraining rein. Now the house loomed dark and forbidding to him. Should he ever enter it again? With a feeling of desperation he wheeled the mare, jumped down, and opened the gate. He led her across the lawn and under the window of Meg’s room.

  “Meg!” he cried softly. “Meg!”

  There was no answer, and he picked up a handful of gravel and threw it against the pane.

  “Meg! Meg!” he called desperately.

  He heard a stir inside the room. She appeared, framed like a picture in the moonlight. He had always thought Meg pretty, but now she looked beautiful. It was horrible to think of losing her. She, looking down on Maurice’s upturned face, as he stood with the bridle over his arm, felt the romantic tragedy of her situation as she had not before. She was faint from lack of food. A sudden exhilaration swept over her. She would not have had things different from what they were. From the safe refuge of her room, she could look down on Maurice’s remorse, unmoved.

  “Oh, Meggie!” he said. “If you only knew how I hate myself! — If you’ll give me another chance — I’ll do just what you want for the rest of my days! Oh, Meg, you’re too sweet to be cruel! — You must forgive me!”

  She looked down at him without speaking.

  “My God!” he exclaimed. “Are you made of ice? Can’t you speak to me?”

  She sat silent, in that same strange exhilaration.

  “If only you knew,” he went on, “how I have suffered! It’s a wonder I’m alive. When I think how I’ve made Mother and Dad suffer and what I’ve done to you — life looks as black as the grave to me. But if only you’ll take me back, I’ll be a different sort of fellow! Oh, Meg, take me back! Say you’ll forgive me!”

  She listened to all he had to say, listened till he stood gazing up at her, silent, afraid of her. Then she spoke in an even voice, though with a hint in it of the elocution lessons she had learned at school.

  “It is all over. I cannot marry you, Maurice. I shall never marry anyone.”

  He could not and would not believe her. He gathered all his strength for a last struggle. He came close under the window and began again at the beginning with — “Oh, if only you knew how I hate myself and how I love you!” Incoherently he tried to explain all, and got completely tangled up in his explanations and threw himself on the ground and groaned. The mare stood quietly beside him, cropping the grass.

  Renny had been wakened by the sound of Maurice’s voice and could not help hearing what he said. He was sorry for Meg, but, as Maurice poured out his heart without drawing so much as a word from her, Renny became impatient and Maurice’s groans brought him to his feet.

  He stood a moment irresolute. Should he go to Meg’s door and beg her to be more forgiving? No, that would rouse the family. The miracle was that they had not already been roused. But, of course, the uncles and aunt slept on the other side of the house. His father could only with difficulty be roused when once he had given his mind to sleep, and it was doubtful whether his stepmother would interfere in what she would certainly hope might be a reconciliation.

  Barefooted, Renny ran down the stairs and joined his friend beneath Meg’s window. Her profile was raised toward the moon and, if she were aware of his coming, she made no sign.

  “You can’t go on like this,” he said, in a low tense voice. “Hiding in your room — letting your heart be broken — You must pull yourself together, Meggie! Maurice will help you! I’ll help you! I’ll stand by you both and we’ll see this thing through. Why, Meggie dear, think of all your pretty clothes and the presents beginning to come in! You can’t go on like this!”

  He knew how to touch her. Tears began to run down her cheeks. But she would not give in. With a dramatic gesture she closed her window and drew the shade.

  Each of the family in turn came to reason with her. She had begun to eat the tempting meals that were sent t
o her, and this gave them hope. Mary brought Eden, dressed in his page’s suit, and the sight made her burst into tears, but nothing moved her from her decision. She would not see Maurice again.

  Her interview with her grandmother was the most stormy. Adeline completely lost her temper and, for the first time but not the last, used her stick and gave her granddaughter a sharp rap with it. Meg’s scream brought Philip to the scene, and he and his mother had a fierce altercation. He would not have his little girl, he said, forced into any distasteful marriage. And it was small wonder if Meggie couldn’t stomach a bridegroom who had just made a mother of one of the village girls.

  These happenings had a strong effect on Renny. His mind became occupied with thoughts of sex as it had not been before. Brought up in the knowledge of horse breeding and the getting of stock, and among men who were roughly outspoken, his adolescence had not been troubled by subtle or morbid imaginings. Sex was natural, it was right. There was in it the nature of a teasing, sometimes calculating, game. He and Maurice had talked little of it. Renny had felt a shyness with Maurice on the subject because Maurice was engaged to his sister.

  But now all was changed. The engagement was off. Maurice and he were seldom long together before Renny would bring up the subject of Maurice’s affair with Elvira. Maurice, bitterly introspective, poured out the details of their meetings. He took some comfort in remembering Elvira’s clinging tenderness towards him. But he had nothing to tell of Elvira’s aunt beyond the fact that he had visited her cottage a few times to see Elvira and that he had not liked her. She had made him feel uncomfortable. There was something strange and foreign about her. Sometimes he had wondered if she were not Elvira’s mother.

  “That’s impossible,” Renny had put in. “She’s not more than ten years older than the girl.”

  “Wait till you see her in daylight,” said Maurice.

  “What did you think of her looks? Not so pretty as Elvira, eh?”

  “She’s not pretty at all! But she has attractive eyes — there’s something about them that holds you. She may have been pretty once.”

  “Do you know where they have gone?” Renny asked in a low voice.

  “Yes. To a village about twenty miles north of Brancepeth. Just a hamlet, I think. They have relatives there.”

  Casually Renny found out all he could from Maurice of the place where they had gone. More particularly he made inquiries from a village girl who had been a friend of Elvira’s. He was honest with himself. He did not say to himself — “I have a fancy for knowing where those women are. Some day I might be going that way.” Definitely he thought — “I must know where they are and I shall not rest till I have seen them again.”

  But the difficulty was to find an excuse for absence from home. He would not say that he was going to visit a friend. In truth he had no friends near with whom he was intimate enough to visit. The companionship of Maurice had always been enough for him in the holidays, and he would not lie to Philip.

  He remembered that a colt had lately been sold to a man who lived not far from the hamlet where the women had gone. He would offer to deliver the colt himself.

  His father looked at him dubiously.

  “But the colt is only half broken,” he objected, “and, between you and me, he’s a cantankerous brute and I doubt if he’ll ever be anything else.”

  “Is that why you offered to deliver him?”

  “Yes. And that’s why I sold him cheap. The man’s got a bargain if only he can stick on him!”

  “Well — I can.”

  Philip knit his fair brows. “I don’t like it. It would be a pretty retribution for me if my eldest son had his neck broken in the shuffle.”

  Renny laughed nervously. “Will you let me do it?”

  There was something in his laugh that made Philip look at him shrewdly.

  “What are you up to?” he asked.

  “Nothing dangerous,” returned Renny.

  “H’m — well, if you break your neck, don’t come to me for sympathy,” He turned away.

  Renny started out early next day. It was going to be hot. Already the heat haze quivered above the treetops. The shadows beneath them had a luminous quality. Little red cones, nibbled from the evergreens by squirrels, lay scattered on the drive. The bed of geraniums beside the croquet lawn blazed brilliant.

  He could see the fruit glistening on the mulberry tree near the gate. He turned the colt at a walk from the drive and crossed the lawn. It moved easily beneath him with a restrained energy. It turned its large liquid eyes suspiciously towards the painted post of the croquet set.

  Renny drew rein beside the tree and picked a handful of the berries. He sat eating them and wondering what the journey would mean for him. Scotchmere, the chief of the stablemen, a thin weather-beaten man with sandy hair, appeared at the gate to open it for him.

  “You’ve a nice day’s work ahead of you, sir,” he said, grimly, as Renny passed through.

  “Rot!” said Renny cheerfully. “I like him and he likes me.”

  “Well, good luck to you! And, if he cuts up too bad, give him

  the whip.”

  “Not if I can help it!” He clapped his hand softly on the colt’s flank and it broke into a smooth canter on the white dusty road.

  Scotchmere looked after him. “By gum,” he said aloud, “he’s the ridin’est critter I ever set eyes on!” This was his favourite description of the eldest son of the house.

  Anyone who saw him cantering down the road would have thought the description a good one. His body moved so rhythmically with the canter of the colt that it might well have been imagined that the same bloodstream vitalized both or that the youth’s pelvic bones sprang from the spine of the colt.

  They covered a mile or more of the quiet road without incident. A light playful breeze sprang from the lake. Renny was delighted with his mount.

  “You’re a darling!” he exclaimed, patting the muscular shoulder. “We’ll be good friends all the way, eh?”

  For a little longer all went well, then a crumpled piece of paper stirred in the ditch beside them. The colt stopped, then leaped forward as though electrified and shied almost into the ditch. Renny spoke soothingly.

  “All right … all right, old boy … all right.”

  But the colt refused to be soothed. All through the great barrel of its body Renny felt the quivers of irritation, of smouldering rage. The rhythm of its hoofs on the road became broken. Its hard naked ears were pricked, one forward, one back.

  They passed a farm wagon without mishap, the steady farm team plodding on through the yellow dust. A group of school children scampered shouting out of the way.

  Then a motor car approached from a turn of the road. They were still rare in the country and it was the first Renny had met when on horseback.

  “Oh, curse it!” he muttered. “Hold on, boy — hold on — you’re all right! Hell!”

  The last exclamation was drawn from him by a hoot of the motor horn. The colt raised itself like a circus horse and stood poised on its hind legs as the car approached. Renny could see the faces of the two occupants turn pale and his own features relaxed into a grin.

  The colt reared, as though made of grey stone, its hoofs, looking enormous, menacing the two in the car. It waved its iron hoofs like two missiles it was about to hurl in on them. The driver tried to turn aside, but the ditch and a heap of broken stones lay there. Renny tried to force the colt to its haunches, but it was careless of the pain of the bit. The faces of the motorists were contorted by fear as the car rattled past, the man ducking his head to escape the hoof that curved nearest. The stench of gasoline was ejected from behind the motor. The yellow teeth of the colt and the white teeth of the boy jeered.

  The smell of gasoline was loathsome to the colt. All its being from nostrils to rump was insulted. It gathered itself together for a bound of escape, then was conscious of the wrench its jaw had received and, instead of bounding forward, it backed, with arching flanks, against the
frail fence that separated the road from the steep bank overhanging the shore of the lake. The fence gave way, breaking like twigs, and Renny expected to find himself on the shore below with the weight of the colt on top of him. He struck his spurs into its flanks and flogged it with the crop. Violently the colt rushed from the bank, which was already crumbling.

  They were on the road again and the colt was galloping as though to rid itself of the fears and hates that pursued it. Renny let it have its head and laughed in relief at his escape. They turned into a rough road diverging from the lake and rode for a long while under the heat of the mounting sun. They came to a steep hill and the colt, whose glossy sides were darkened by great patches of sweat, slackened its pace to a walk. But still it kept a wary outlook for offence. A barking dog set it once more rearing.

  Among the shouldering hills, as though it had sought seclusion there, they came to a village with a small hotel where Renny remembered having gone with Philip at the time of the village fall fair. He had the colt put into a stall and himself rubbed it down. He ordered the hostler to give it a drink and a light feed. The colt looked almost subdued. Its eyes were pensively half closed. Renny’s hair was dark with sweat. His clothes clung to him. After he had washed he devoured two chops, a mound of potatoes and peas, and a slice of apple pie and cream. The first early harvest apples were just in. Cooked, they had a golden transparency, the cream was yellow and thick. He ordered a glass of beer and lighted a cigarette.

  He had never felt more self-reliant, more master of himself than now. The tempestuous journey of the morning made Jalna seem far away. He looked in retrospect at the events that had been taking place there. Meg’s blighted love seemed suddenly affected. He felt a faint contempt for Maurice’s despair. He would handle the affairs of his own life differently. He began to wonder just why he was seeking out the two women. He wished he knew the older one’s name. It irritated him to have nothing to call her in his mind. It was she whom he wanted to see. A desire to be with her again, to talk to her, had been gathering within him like a storm. He felt that he would be desperate if he could not see her. Just what he wanted of her he would not let himself think. His mind shied from the thought as the colt from what was new and strange. In his thoughts of her he saw himself reflected in a distortion, as his image might be reflected in a dark woodland stream.