Renny looked at it approvingly. “How nice!” he said. “I’ll stay and feed it to her.” As he carried it up the stairs he remembered the night that he and Rags had prepared a tray for Alayne, and how she had refused to touch a morsel.
He had better luck this time. She ate hungrily, taking the food from his fingers like a young child, holding his other hand in hers. She did not speak but lay with closed eyes, only opening them once to give him a deep look mingled of possession and surrender. As she lay with closed eyes he studied her face, which at that moment would have possibly been less attractive to ordinary observers than at any time in all the years of their intimacy, but, for him, she was so set apart by the interweaving of their lives in those years that he saw in her what others could not see — the very lineaments of her face were inviolable to change.
She took the sedative sent by the doctor and fell asleep before Renny left her. He found Adeline seated at a corner of the dining table, eating corn bread with maple syrup and drinking milk.
Miss Archer looked apologetic.
“She said she was very hungry. I do hope I have not given her the wrong thing.”
“Don’t worry. She has the digestion of a horse.”
“How is Alayne?”
“As weak as a newborn foal.”
Did he always, Miss Archer wondered, speak of people in terms of the stable? She gave him coffee and again distractedly wondered whether she should ask him how long he would stay. He settled it for her by saying:
“We have two suitcases in the porch. My plans were so unsettled that I thought I had better bring my own along as well as Adeline’s. Now, of course, I’ll stay to look after Alayne, if you’ll have me.”
Miss Archer was both frightened and relieved at the thought of having him in the house. She said:
“I am so glad that you can stay. But it is unfortunate that I have no maid. We found it necessary to do without her. I hope you will excuse somewhat haphazard household arrangements.”
“I think your arrangements are charming,” he returned, speaking rather like his uncle Ernest.
She was gratified. She said, hesitatingly:
“I suppose Alayne will be returning with you.”
“Oh yes.”
Then she said boldly — “There is no time to spare. I suppose you know that.”
“Yes.”
Miss Archer wanted to ask him whether or not Alayne had told him of the loss of their money but she could not make up her mind to do so. He had shown no surprise when she told him that they now had no maid. In Alayne’s weak state she dared not bring up the subject to her. She must just wait and let him open it himself if so he chose.
He did choose when they two sat together in the evening. Alayne and Adeline were asleep. He had waited on Alayne with a deftness that had surprised Miss Archer, till she remembered of hearing how he had cared for Wakefield during his years of delicacy. She herself had put Adeline to bed. Tired though she was, she had delighted in the splashing of her angelic-looking person in the bath, her still more angelic saying of prayers. She could not understand how Alayne had found it impossible to manage her. The child was docility itself. She beamed up at Miss Archer, waiting to hear her will, running to do as she was bid almost before she was asked. In truth, Adeline was on her best behaviour, which was a mingling of blandishment and a serene enjoyment of a new situation.
With the room cosy in softly shaded electric light, with a dish of salted almonds between them and Renny smoking a cigarette, he almost casually referred to the loss of Alayne’s money.
“The poor girl,” he said, “feels very badly because she did not do things with it that I wanted her to do. She was determined to save it for the child when it would have been infinitely better to have helped me out of a hole I was in. But, you see, she has never trusted me where money was concerned.”
He turned his bright gaze on Miss Archer, who found his frankness terribly embarrassing. She did not know what to say. He, however, went on:
“It’s no use crying over spilt milk. The money’s gone — at any rate it won’t yield anything to speak of for years — and that’s that. But I’m not worrying. I have the interest on my mortgage paid up. I’ve had a fairly good year in my stables. My brother has had a good year on the farm.”
She could not help herself. She said — “I saw you ride in New York. It was thrilling. I had never been to a Horse Show before.”
He stared astonished.
“Did you really? Where was Alayne?”
“She was there too. Nothing would do but she must see you ride. I have never seen her so excited.”
She thought she had never seen anyone so gratified as he now appeared. He beamed at her with the look of Adeline. “How perfectly amazing! And to think I didn’t know she was there! To think she wouldn’t tell me … make a sign! Really — in her quiet way — Alayne is a little devil, isn’t she, Miss Archer?”
Miss Archer hadn’t thought of Alayne in that way. She sat meditating, trying to absorb such an aspect of her. “I think,” she said, “she is indeed supersensitive.”
“I say she’s devilish,” he returned tranquilly. “But then, every woman worth her salt is that at times, don’t you think so?”
Miss Archer laughed, somehow not ill-pleased by the implication that she herself might on occasion be devilish.
The days that followed were strange to her, probably the strangest she had ever known. The rough wild weather continued. Those four were snow-bound in the house together except when, once a day, Renny took his daughter for a walk, bringing her back covered with the snow she had rolled in, her eyes starry, her lips like cherries. They managed with the work much more easily than Miss Archer could have thought possible. Alayne required little waiting on. She was content to rest on the peace of her reconciliation with Renny, to acquire strength for the journey home. Her mind was so absorbed by her own thoughts that the fact of her aunt’s impoverishment passed completely out of it. In her weakness she thought of Miss Archer living on in this house, relieved of the strain of her presence.
But, though Harriet Archer kept a cheerful front during the day, at night she lay awake shrinking in terror from the chasm that opened before her. She tossed on her bed wondering what was to become of her. She shed tears of bitterness to think that Alayne could so easily forget her trouble in her own renewed happiness. Each day she looked more wan, more fragile, than the day before. On the fourth day Renny said to her, after a long, reflective look:
“Something is worrying you, Miss Archer. I’m sure of it. I’m sure that it is something more than being merely overtired. Why, your eyes look as though you had been crying! Can’t you tell me what is the matter?”
Oh, there was his devastating frankness again! There was nothing he would not put into words! No wonder that the years at Jalna had changed Alayne…. But, in spite of her shrinking, her reserve, Miss Archer broke down completely.
They were doing the lunch dishes together by the sink. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his hands gripped a dish-mop. He had used soap enough for the washing of an elephant, Miss Archer thought. But he was a good dishwasher. When the china was rinsed it shone. She held the snowy towel to her eyes and wept into it.
“It isn’t as though,” she sobbed, “I had been extravagant. I have always been very careful.” She controlled herself by a great effort and uncovered her quivering face. “I’d rather not talk about it. I don’t wish to trouble you. You have enough worries…. You must not worry about me.”
“But I do,” he answered gravely. “How can I help when I see you looking so?”
“Have I been such a melancholy sight? I ought to be ashamed!”
“You have been very cheerful, but it’s easy to see that you are terribly anxious. I do wish you’d tell me what is on your mind. I might be able to help you. From what you said just now I guess that your trouble is financial. I know a good deal about getting out of tight corners.”
“Has Alayne told you nothing
of my position?” she asked pitifully.
“Nothing.”
“Well — it is just this — I am ruined. The stocks my money is invested in have collapsed…. The income from them has disappeared…. I am practically penniless.”
All her proud reticence was gone. She poured out the story of her reverses, her apprehensions, her sleepless nights. It was a relief to unburden herself. She grew comparatively calm as she was relieved of the unhappy tale.
They finished their work methodically, then went into the living room. Adeline was having her afternoon rest, so they were alone. Renny took a turn up and down the little room then faced her, looking down at her domineeringly, as though he would intimidate any opposition.
“I’ve thought it out,” he said. “It’s settled! You must come to Jalna to live.”
“To Jalna! To live!” The earth seemed to rock beneath Miss Archer. She leant against the back of a chair to steady herself.
“Yes. My aunt’s room is waiting for you. We’ll love to have you. I’ve always missed her. You will take her place. It’s perfectly simple.”
“But — you don’t realize what you are proposing to do. You are proposing to take a stranger into your home.”
“You are not a stranger. You are Alayne’s aunt. You are one of the family. Adeline adores you. You and I get on famously. I need an aunt most terribly. You need a home. It’s perfectly plain. Please don’t waste your strength in opposing me.”
She did not. She went to him and laid her head on his shoulder and wept in relief and gratitude. He put both arms about her and held her close. “Aunt Harriet,” he comforted. “Dear little Auntie!”
It was the first time that Miss Archer had cried on a man’s shoulder since the day when she had given up her wild young lover at her father’s bidding. The young man had justified her father’s prediction that he was headed for a bad end but Miss Archer had never quite forgotten him. She gave him a thought now, as she clung to Renny. But it was only a passing thought. He had become a shadow. Renny was a staunch reality.
For some reason she shrank from telling Alayne of his generosity. She asked him to do it. Alayne, when she heard, was ashamed that she had, in her reconciliation with Renny, forgotten her aunt’s predicament. She felt overwhelmed by such a magnanimous solution of the problem, but somehow the thought of Aunt Harriet at Jalna did not please her. She could not picture her there. There was also a subtle shrinking from the bringing together under one roof of the two antagonistic spheres of her life. There would always be a note of discord in the harmony she now yearned toward.
The effect on Miss Archer of this assurance of her future was magical. She had a naturally happy nature. She had always had a desire for more excitement, more experience, than had come her way. In her sister’s lifetime she had sought always to please her, and her sister had been timid and retiring. Now she saw opening before her a new and thrilling life, among people of strong personality, in a house whose very name had acquired a strange glamour for her. Where she had lain awake at night in terror, she now could not sleep for sheer excitement. She was tired too. It was not restful to have a man and a child in that house, where there had never been man or child, even though the child was as good as gold and the man turned himself into combined nurse and housemaid. He and she did the work together in a sort of devil-may-care agreement that she found immensely stimulating. He talked to her of his stables, of the characteristics of his various horses. He filled the little stucco house with his noise and laughter. He placed the kitchen chairs as hedges and oxers and initiated her into the mysteries of high jumping.
She drank in all he had to tell her, preparing herself for the life in his house. At the same time there rose in her a critical attitude toward Alayne. Why had Alayne dwelt only on the dark side of his nature? After all, he had done no more than many a man. Why had Alayne never invited her to visit her at Jalna? This had always been a faint hurt. Now it rankled in Miss Archer’s breast.
As she looked at Renny’s thin, muscular form, his red head, and felt her affection for him deepen day by day, she would say to herself in dismay — “And to think that I said aloud, in my own bathroom, that it would serve him right if he cracked his skull!”
She would come behind him where he sat and stroke his hair like a loving aunt. She would exclaim, when he emerged from the cellar after putting coal on the furnace:
“Oh, you naughty boy! Look at your hands! Go straight and wash them!”
It was the first time he had ever been petted and he savoured it to the full. He would stretch out his hand to catch her skirt as she passed where he sat. He would lay his head against her and cajole her into an affectionate passage. He was an enigma, a marvel and a delight to her. When he fell halfway down the stairs with a tray from Alayne’s room and Miss Archer ran terrified to see whether he had broken any bones, he only looked up defensively from where he sat on the floor and exclaimed:
“I haven’t cracked a dish!”
Had he expected that she would think of her china at such a time as this? It did not speak very well for Alayne….
Frequently he went into New York and, on one of these occasions, returned with a dachshund puppy under his arm. He set the curious-looking, long-bodied creature on the floor and explained:
“A man in New York has owed me seventy-five dollars for three years. I’d given up all hope of getting it out of him but this morning he gave me this puppy out of a champion-bred litter. It’s looking rather seedy because it’s just been wormed. But it is a good one and he swears that it will be worth ninety dollars when it is grown. I hope you don’t mind my bringing it here. It’s a quiet little thing and it can sleep on the foot of my bed.”
Harriet Archer’s brain reeled. Her world was rocking beneath her but she thought — “Let it rock! This is life! It is real. It is earnest.” She said:
“Of course, I shan’t mind!” She wished he could have known what a heroine she was being, she so longed, in a measure, to repay him. “Do you think it would like a saucer of milk?”
To him it was the most natural thing in the world that she should take the puppy to her heart. He liked to see her sitting with it in her lap. But to Alayne, when she was first able to come downstairs, it was a sight so amazing as to be comic. Miss Archer resented Alayne’s air of levity. She took her relationship to the dachshund and its master seriously, almost aggressively.
Now that Alayne was strong enough they discussed the details of their plans for the future. It had already been arranged that friends of Miss Archer’s, a college professor and his wife, were to take her house furnished. It was at rather a low rent but it would pay the rates, keep up the repairs and leave something over for her personal needs.
Though there was so much to be done in preparation she found time to amuse Adeline. She made a scrapbook for her. She made paper dolls for her. She made ginger cookies for her and cut them into the shapes of little animals. Renny thought she was the busiest woman he had ever seen. She never sat down with her hands idle. Before a week had passed she had knitted a beautiful green jumper for Adeline and was at work on a cap and scarf. He thought she was a wonder and told her so.
Alayne’s health steadily improved. She recuperated more quickly than the doctor had hoped. At the end of a fortnight she, Renny, Adeline, Miss Archer, and the dachshund pup, with all Miss Archer’s personal belongings, set out for Jalna.
XXVI
HOW THEY TOOK THE NEWS
NICHOLAS WHITEOAK READ and read again Renny’s brief letter. Then he pushed his spectacles from the arch of his big nose to the crest of his grey hair and said to his brother:
“Here’s a pretty to-do!”
Ernest never liked to hear his brother use their old mother’s pet phrases, so to punish him he ignored the remark, though he was burning to know what had caused it. He went on with his embroidery.
Two could play at the game of being stubborn, thought Nicholas. He gripped the letter in his hand, rose rather totteringly because
of his bulk and his gout, and began heavily to pace the room. He muttered at intervals:
“Well — well, this beats all!”
Ernest endured this as long as he could, then he spat out:
“Don’t act like a fool, Nick! What beats all?”
Nicholas halted beside him and threw down the letter on his embroidery frame.
“Read this! Read it aloud. I can’t properly take it in.”
Ernest read:
DEAR UNCLE NICK —
I expect you think I have been rather a long time in writing home but you will not wonder when you hear what I have been up against. Alayne has been very ill. When I arrived I found her in a dead faint on the floor. She is going to have a child next month. She is better now and we are coming home Wednesday, on the train arriving at 9.30 a.m. Aunt Harriet is coming with us. I have invited her to make her home at Jalna as she has lost practically everything. She is a very delightful woman and I am sure she will be a nice companion for you and Uncle Ernest. I am very fond of her already. Adeline is in grand fettle. I have acquired a very good dachshund pup in payment for a long-standing debt. Please have Aunt Augusta’s room got ready for Aunt Harriet. Tell Finch to get out in the air if he can.
LOVE TO ALL, RENNY.
The brothers stared at each other in mutual astonishment. Yet they were not displeased. They had been finding the winter very long. They were candidly bored by each other. The thought of Alayne’s return with Renny, even though in a delicate state, was pleasant. The thought of an addition to the family brought its own pride. The acquisition for their circle of a cultivated woman, such as they knew Alayne’s aunt to be, was nothing short of exhilarating. The one thing of which they disapproved was the dachshund.
They wasted no time informing Piers and Meg of the news. That very afternoon there was a gathering of the family to discuss it. Finch alone was not present. He resented the shattering of his privacy by what he thought of as an avalanche of people. Day by day, in the indolent company of his uncles, in the quiet depths of the snowy weather, he had felt himself growing stronger. He could see a change in the looks of his hands and the reflection of his face in the mirror. He began to enjoy reading and, if it had not been for his fear of meeting Sarah, he would have ventured a walk in the brilliant weather. Now everything would be changed. He would have to face the eyes of a stranger.
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 106