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

by de la Roche, Mazo

  The brother and sister went out and stood together at the foot of the stairs, lounging against the newel post. Patches of light from the coloured-glass window above the door fell on them, the violet one throwing a strange shadow on Meg’s fair forehead and a crimson splash turning Renny’s hair to flame.

  “You look funny,” she said. “The stained glass has given you a kind of halo. But what a saint! Patron of the stables!”

  “I’d not wish for any better job, if I were a saint,” he returned. “As for you, you look as though someone had given you a bash on the head.”

  He felt happier now that he was out here with Meggie. He lighted a cigarette and offered a puff to her.

  She closed her full lips on it, murmuring — “M’m — I could soon get to like them! I wonder if I shall ever smoke.”

  “I don’t think I want you to.”

  “Do you know what Vera does?”

  He pretended a lack of interest. “No idea — something idiotic?”

  “No — not idiotic — but you’d never guess.”

  “Smoke in her bedroom?”

  Meg nodded. “Yes, she does that too. But you know how you’ve admired the colour of her lips? You said you wondered why they were so much redder than mine. Well, I can tell you. She paints them! I saw her do it. She made no bones about it.”

  “Do her aunts know?”

  “Heavens, no! But she says London girls think nothing of it. She’s frightfully advanced.”

  “She’d be in a pretty fix if someone kissed her. The paint would come off, wouldn’t it?”

  “She says it’s proof against that. She’s tried it.”

  He stared. “Since she came out here?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised. Vera’s not made for seclusion.”

  His mind flew over the likely young men of the neighbourhood, who were few.

  “Who with, I wonder?”

  She dimpled, and whispered — “Perhaps Cousin Malahide!”

  The mention of his name between them recalled all their machinations against him.

  “Look here,” said Renny, and led the way into the drawing room. He went to where Boney sat craning on his perch. The parrot was in an alert mood and liked the sound of their laughter.

  Renny sat down in front of him and said: —

  “To hell with Malahide!”

  Boney listened, interested. He sidled along the perch, giving Renny a waggish look.

  “To hell with Malahide!” repeated Renny in an imperative tone.

  “Whatever are you doing?” said Meg.

  “Shut up! Now listen, Boney! To hell with Malahide! Do you hear that? Say it!”

  “Don’t imagine you can teach him as quickly as that. Besides, he talks almost nothing but Hindoo. You’ll have to go about it slowly, in a darkened room, if you want to succeed. Oh, may I be there to hear if he springs that on Gran and her satellite!”

  “He will!” Renny took a bar of chocolate from his pocket, broke off a morsel and put it into the parrot’s claw. There was nothing Boney liked better. As his dark tongue drew it in his eyes rolled beseechingly at Renny and he said in Hindoo — “Peariee — Peariee — Peariee lal!”

  “No you don’t!” said Renny. “You must say — ‘To hell with Cousin Malahide!’ before you get any more.”

  “You are wasting your chocolate,” said Meg. “You had much better give it to me. You’ll never teach him without being discovered.”

  “Peariee — Peariee lal,” repeated Boney, in a wheedling tone.

  Renny flicked him with his finger. “To hell with Malahide!”

  With a covetous look at the chocolate Boney swooped and took it from Renny’s hand and returned with it to his perch. Adeline and Malahide entered the room followed by Nicholas.

  “Well now, well now,” said Adeline, “what’s my Boney got?”

  “We thought chocolate would be good for him, Granny,” said Meg innocently.

  Adeline was mollified. “But not too much, children, not too much.”

  “Chota Rani,” crooned Boney, his beak full of chocolate.

  Nicholas gave a suspicious look at the brother and sister from under his shaggy brows. He wondered what they had been up to. Unaccountable, idiotic young things. He would not be that age again, if he had the chance, and yet — there had been a mad sort of pleasure in life then, which there certainly was not now. But he had paid for his experience and he would not lightly give it up.

  The pair drifted out of the room and up the stairs. Meg, who had been fond of visiting the neighbouring houses, no longer cared to go out. She took little exercise and was growing plump. The skin of her face and hands had a clear pallor. She yearned toward Renny’s coming and, when he was in the house, seldom was away from his side. Sometimes she felt longings for Maurice, but she put him resolutely out of her mind.

  She had divined Vera’s secret reaching out toward Renny. Vera was always bringing their talk to him and his doings. She pretended to laugh at him as an unformed youth, and when she was with him she liked to air her knowledge of London ways, to present a hard, bright surface to him, but Meg had seen her change colour when he came into the room. She had seen her wear the same dress, over and over again, because he had said he liked her in it. And there was no use in Vera’s saying he was a boy. He was a man — with that set to his head and that look in his eye.

  But she was his sister. She was secure in her possession. She would always have him to play with, to quarrel with, to show off in front of other girls. She put her arm round him as they went up the stairs.

  “That was a close shave,” he said. “I must have Boney where we’ll not be disturbed.”

  “Do you think he can learn to say it?”

  “In no time! We must do what we can to upset Malahide’s nerve.”

  “Nothing short of a bomb would do that.”

  “I believe you’re right,” he answered gloomily. “But anyhow it gives me satisfaction to bait him.”

  Her mind was on Vera. She said, when they had sat down on the window seat of the landing: —

  “Vera is awfully anxious for you to win at the Show.”

  “She wouldn’t be a friend of ours if she weren’t.”

  “She talks of nothing else.”

  He looked gratified.

  “I don’t see how I can fail,” he said, “if Gallant doesn’t absolutely refuse to jump, as he did this morning.”

  “You should have laid your crop about him.”

  “No, that won’t do.” He rubbed a bruise on his shin and then said thoughtfully: —

  “So, she paints her lips?”

  “Yes. You ought to see her do it. She paints carefully enough to make them a pretty shape.”

  “It’s a wonder she would let you see her do it. She might know you’d tell me.”

  “She’s the soul of frankness.”

  “That’s a deception.”

  “Not if you make no pretense of hiding it.”

  “She hides it from her family.”

  Meg lifted a plump shoulder. “They don’t count. It is only you who count with Vera.”

  He turned down the corners of his mouth severely. “I should not care to kiss a girl with painted lips.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you will kiss her.”

  “I don’t suppose so.”

  “Renny — have you ever kissed anyone? I mean outside your family?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Tell me!” She clasped his arm and spoke in a wheedling tone.

  “Of course I have.”

  “Many?”

  “Several.”

  “Lately?”

  “Well — not long ago.”

  “Since you were sent home?”

  This reminder of his suspension irritated him. He withdrew his arm from hers and rose.

  He said — “I’m going to have a bath. I feel filthy.”

  “You do smell rather horsy.”

  “It’s a good thing Vera isn�
��t here.”

  “She wouldn’t mind! She’d admire you if you smelled of fire and brimstone.”

  He asked — “Does she know I am suspended?”

  “Yes. I told her you had quarrelled with the riding master and had knocked him down.”

  He laughed. “What did she say to that?”

  “She thought it was thrilling.”

  He went to his room thinking of Vera, but when the door had closed behind him his thoughts turned to Lulu, her strange eyes, her lithe body and strong arms. He stood in the middle of his room frowning, the remembrance of his night with her rising like a rock round which his thoughts circled and eddied in unsatisfied insistence.

  But from this time he was conscious of Vera in a new way. A new element entered into their relations. He was watchful of her, and she realized that she was no longer just Meg’s friend, but a girl to whose presence he was sensitive.

  Malahide spent more and more time at Vaughanlands. It was a relief to have this new door open to him. But, though he might spend the middle of the day in the company of the Vaughans (Robert Vaughan found him a delightful companion), he was always back at Jalna in time for tea, in time to take his place at the backgammon board or bridge table, to appear to toy superciliously with his food at supper and yet, in some mysterious way, to sweep his plate clean. He and Adeline held long conversations in which the others had no part. At first these had been entertaining, with their allusions to the Court family and their life in Ireland, but as time went on and the same scandals and episodes were reiterated and the same people mimicked in Malahide’s simpering tones, the irritation of the family became almost unendurable. His presence became like a hair shirt to their proud body. His attitude toward Adeline was slavish. When she made one of her shrewd and sometimes witty remarks he would shake with silent laughter. When she launched a stinging comment at one of the family he twisted his long legs together and writhed in appreciation. At whatever game he played with her she was invariably the winner, so that she was always pleased with him.

  He was so languid that it was difficult to believe the tales Scotchmere told of his prowess in jumping. An air of mystery was thrown over the schooling of Harpie, so that little was heard of her progress. Adeline and Malahide were constantly making veiled allusions to her. They had an irritating way of speaking of her as “H,” as though her very name were a mystery, and Malahide began to speak of Mr. Vaughan as “my dear friend, Robert.”

  Ten days before the Show, Renny and Scotchmere could no longer bear the strain of schooling Gallant under observation from the opposing camp, for Malahide was occasionally appearing beside the paddock with Adeline on his arm. A smooth piece of pasture beyond the orchards and woods was now chosen for the schooling and the hurdles were placed there. Renny and Scotchmere rose early and led the colt to his training unseen, leaving a dark trail across the dew-grey grass.

  Here they worked, the youth and the colt, with Scotchmere perched on a rail fence, a straw between his yellow teeth, settled pessimism on his weazened, sandy face. But as this was his habitual expression at the time of schooling, Renny was not cast down by it. The colt and Renny understood each other better every day. Not so, it appeared, Harpie and Malahide. Word leaked through from Vaughanlands that she had come to hate her rider, that she sidled away when he touched her, that, good-tempered though she was, she quivered with irritation when he settled himself in the saddle. “And no wonder,” observed Scotchmere, “for, if ever I seen a snake on horseback, it’s him. No wonder he was drove out of Ireland.”

  But no one questioned his ability to ride or the fact that, under his tuition, the mare was developing into a beautiful jumper. Disquieting rumours came every now and again.

  XXIII

  WOODLAND QUARTETTE

  IN THESE AUTUMN DAYS a softness came into the air, from the moment when the sun had swept away the sharpness of night. It was not like the bright warmth of summer, but crept out from under the trees and spread itself over the land like a palpable veil. All the striving of the season was over. All the struggle against fiery heat and withering wind and arrogant storm. There was nothing left to do but dream. The heavy clumps of goldenrod were dreaming. The mauve clouds of wild asters were dreaming beneath the weight of pollen-drenched bees. One by one the wine-coloured plumes of the sumac fell to the grass, as in a dream. The wild strawberry plants, dreaming that it was spring, sent out frail white flowers. Rabbits in the swarthy stubble moved silently, like creatures in a dream. The body of the old mare, which Scotchmere neglected to have buried, now lay, divested of flesh, a prehistoric mound of strange bones, an aerial fortification for the seething ant hills below. Ten thousand locusts sang their song of the futility of effort, but all the birds were silent.

  Even Scotchmere, usually ruthless in his energy when the training of horses was concerned, had pushed his battered hat to the back of his tow head and was prowling over the shaggy grass in a fence corner where once, thirty years ago, he had lost a fifty-cent piece. In all these years he had never given up the hope of finding it, and whenever he had a slack time he fumbled and scratched, like a terrier after a lost bone, now on this side of the fence, now on that.

  By degrees Renny and the colt too cared less and less for their strenuous activity. The colt stood in his stern perfection as though carved from grey granite. Oh his back Renny drooped, as though all his will had left him and he waited to be swayed by the breath of mere instinct.

  He was unconscious that anyone had approached him till he felt a quiver run through the flesh of the colt. Then he moved his gaze from between its alert ears and saw a slender hand, a forefinger marked by needle pricks into which the stains of farm work had penetrated, slide along Gallant’s side. It touched him on the knee.

  He looked down then into Lulu’s suntanned aquiline face.

  She returned the look boldly, armed by what they had in their past meeting. She smiled and said — “I was about this way and I thought I’d drop in to see you.”

  Seeing her face thus slanting up at him from below, he felt a sudden quiver in his flesh, comparable to what the colt had felt at her touch, but with the added agitation of their remembered embraces.

  There was more severity than sensuality, however, in his look as he replied — “You came at a bad time. I’m schooling the colt for the Show.”

  She ignored his first remark and exclaimed — “My, but he’ll be a fine jumper! I wish I might see him. Do you think you could send me a ticket?”

  “I don’t want you to be looking on,” he said sullenly. “You might put me off my form.”

  She laughed daringly. “Me put you off! Never! I’d put you on! Just when the other fellas might be winning you’d suddenly see me staring at you with all my eyes and you’d clear every barrier like a bird. Come on, say you’ll send me a ticket!”

  “All right,” he answered, still sullenly. “I’ll send you a ticket. What’s your surname? I have never heard it.”

  “Address it to Mrs. Lulu Lepard…. How do you like the name? Does it suit me?”

  “It’s the Missus I’m thinking of,” he replied “I didn’t know you’d been married.”

  “Oh, I’ve been married! More than once, too, though not at that little church on the knoll, where your folks go.”

  “Is your husband living?”

  “Don’t ask me about any man but yourself! You are the only one I care about. I thought I was dead to men — dead and buried to them — till you came along.” She began to stroke the glossy leather of his riding boot.

  He looked down at her, frowning. He put down his hand and touched the back of her tanned neck, then drew it away.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Don’t you like me any more? Look how I like you! I’d let you rip my breast open with this spur, if you wanted.” She lifted his foot and pressed the spurred heel to her breast. It tore the thin cotton of her dress and made a deep scratch on the white flesh beneath.

  “Don’t!” he cried fiercely, and drew
his foot away. Then the hardness went out of his face and it was tormented into lines of desire that took all its boyishness from it. “Lulu,” he murmured, “my girl — my Lulu — what shall we do?” His hand sought her breast and he touched the mark made by the spur.

  He saw her face darken with anger as she stared at someone approaching. It was Scotchmere, disconsolate after his fruitless search.

  “Send him away!” she whispered. “Send him off to his stable! Think of the quietness here! Send him away!”

  Scotchmere plodded on toward them, filled with resentment as he discovered her there, for, as he loved horses, so, in proportion, he hated women, with the one exception of old Mrs. Whiteoak.

  Renny’s vision blurred. Before his eyes he saw dark, unknown groves and the dim figures of Lulu and himself.

  “Ye’re gettin’ on fine with the jumpin’ aren’t ye?” sneered Scotchmere. “Has the colt gone slack, or is it you?” He came and jerked the colt’s bridle and it flung up its head and showed its teeth at him. “Come now — come now — would you bite at me? But perhaps you’re just sick and tired of standin’ slack.”

  “Do you let this stableman order you about?” asked Lulu.

  Scotchmere retorted — “We’ve got our work cut out for us, Mrs. Whoever-you-are.” But, though he would not say her name, he showed plainly that he recognized her. He began to tighten a strap of the stirrup, muttering to himself.

  Renny sat between the two, motionless, but when Scotchmere’s light eyes gave him a piercing look his lips framed the words, “Don’t go.”

  Scotchmere straightened himself and said — “Well, now, shall we get to work? If you want to see some fine high jumpin’, missus, you’ll see it here. This young gentleman is the ridin’est critter I ever set eyes on — whatever else you may find in him.”