08 Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  The notes of the mourning dove were drowned by the rapid thudding of a horse’s hoofs. Alayne drew out of sight behind a massive, moss-grown trunk. She peered out to see who the rider might be. It was Pheasant, riding bare-headed astride a slender Western pony. They passed in a flash— padding hoofs, flying mane, great shining eyes, and, above, little white face and tumbled dark hair. Alayne called her name, but the girl did not hear, and in a moment was gone beyond a curve.

  It was Alayne’s first glimpse of Pheasant since her return. She felt a quick out-going of warmth toward her. Poor wild, sweet Pheasant, married so young to Piers! If she had not known her, she would have taken that flying figure on horseback for a boy.

  The bridle path emerged from the pine wood. Irrelevantly appeared a field planted with potatoes. The potato plants, lusty and strong, in flower, compact in the midst of the woodland, were not unlovely. Neither was the bent old man, Piers’s labourer, unlovely in his blue shirt, in his attitude of patient hoeing.

  She followed the path, now in the full blaze of sunshine. The woods about were no longer pine, but oaks and birch and maple. In every hollow were gay gatherings of wood lilies, white and purplish pink, and through all the trees sounded the ring of bird song. An oriole flashed. She caught the blue of a jay’s swift wing and thought she saw, but was not sure, a scarlet tanager. Then again came the hoofbeats. Pheasant was returning. Alayne trembled, looking down on the path, where in the dust lay the little hoofprints.

  Pheasant was beside her. She had leaped from her horse. His breathing sounded, quick and passionate. His velvet nose was introduced between the faces of the two girls.

  “Pheasant!”

  “Alayne!”

  Their eyes embraced, their hands touched; they wavered, laughing, then kissed. The horse, puzzled, flung back his head, shaking his bridle.

  “Let’s sit down in the wood,” cried Pheasant. “How splendid our meeting like this! Away from all the family, you know. Those people. Well, we’re different, after all, you and I. We can’t talk just the same, be ourselves, when they’re all about us.” And she added, quaintly: “I think you’re noble, Alayne! But how can I tell you what I think? I’ll never forget how beautiful you were to me. And now you’ve come back to nurse Eden!”

  They sat down among the trees. The grass was long and so tender that it seemed to have grown in a day. The horse began to crop, petulantly jerking up, with a sidewise movement of the head, great succulent mouthfuls. Pheasant sat with her back against a young oak.

  On her white forehead, above the pale oval of her face, a lock of dark hair lay like a half-opened fan. Alayne thought that she had never seen such beautiful brown eyes. Her mouth was small and she opened it little when she spoke, but when she laughed, which was seldom, she opened it wide, showing her white teeth.

  “Isn’t life a funny tangle?” she said. “It would take a lot of untangling to straighten us, wouldn’t it, Alayne?”

  “Does it bear talking about? Hadn’t we better just talk of you and me?”

  “I suppose so. But perhaps God is trying to untangle it all, or perhaps it is just that we are becoming more mellow with age. Do you think, perhaps, that we are becoming more mellow with age, Alayne?”

  Alayne had forgotten how quaint, how pathetically sagacious she was.

  “Perhaps we are becoming more mellow,” she agreed, soberly. “Let us hope so… I cannot see us as free agents— just marionettes in a strange dance.” Her mouth tightened in a bitter line.

  The sunshine flickered over Pheasant. She was visualizing that macabre dance. “I can picture it,” she said. “Renny leads. Then the uncles, the aunt. All of us dancing after— holding hands—bowing—looking over our shoulders. Wake last, with little horns, and a pipe, playing the tune.” Her eyes glowed into Alayne’s. “I’ve such an imagination, Alayne. I can make pictures by the hour. It’s a great help to have an imagination. Piers has very little, and he says he wishes I hadn’t so much. He thinks I’d be a better wife and mother if I hadn’t so much. What do you think?”

  “I think,” said Alayne, “that you’re an adorable child. They tell me that you’re a mother, but I can’t believe it.”

  “Wait till you see Mooey! He’s simply wonderful. Not so fat as Meg’s baby, but such a look in his eyes! It quite frightens me… Still, I don’t believe there’s any truth in the saying that the good die young. I shouldn’t look on old Mrs. Whiteoak—Gran—as specially good, should you? Not that I should insinuate that she’s ever been immoral— Heaven forbid that I should cast a stone at anyone—but I think she’s been cynical, rather than pious, all her long life, don’t you?”

  “I do. And I should not worry about Mooey dying young if I were you… Tell me, Pheasant, who is this Miss Ware? Meg brought her along once when she came with some shortcake for Eden. She seems a strange sort of girl. English, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. She’s a sort of companion to Meg, and she’s nice to me. She’s mad about men. I actually have to keep my eye on her when Piers is about.”… She plucked nervously at the grass, and added: “Meg wants to marry her to Renny.”

  What were the birds in the treetops doing? What strange happening had taken place among the inhabitants of the burrows underground? Through all the woodland was an inexplicable stir. Alayne felt it run along the ground, up the tree trunks, along the branches into the leaves, which strangely began to flutter. Had a shadow fallen across the sky? What had the child been saying?

  Meg, with her stupid stubbornness of purpose, had set out to marry Renny to this woman whom she had chosen— for what purpose? She saw Renny, with his air of mettle. She saw Minny Ware, her narrow, strangely coloured eyes laughing above her high cheekbones, her wide red mouth smiling, her thick white neck. She heard that full, rich voice, that effortless, ringing laugh.

  She forced herself to speak steadily. “And Renny, does he take kindly to the idea?”

  Pheasant frowned. “How can one tell about Renny? He thinks: This is a fine filly.’ Well, he’s a judge of good horse-flesh! Last night all of us went over to Jalna. Minny played and sang. Renny seemed to hang about the piano a good deal. Everybody fell in love with her singing. The uncles couldn’t keep their eyes off her, and, if you’ll believe me, Gran actually pinched her on the thigh! She was a success. But Renny’ll never marry her. He won’t marry anyone. He’s too aloof.”

  At these last words, Alayne felt a sharp pang, and withal a sickly sense of comfort, as of the sun shining dimly through mist.

  As though aware of the presence of concentrated emotion, the horse ceased cropping, raised his head, and looked startled. Pheasant went to him and took the bridle in her hand. “He’s getting a bit restless,” she said. “And I must go. I promised not to be long away.”

  They walked along the path together, Pheasant leading the horse. In the potato field the old man was leaning on his hoe, gazing pensively down on the strong plants as though in deep thought.

  “What are you dreaming about, Binns?” called out Pheasant.

  “Bugs is here,” he answered, and fell again into thought. The horse’s hoofs sounded indolently on the firm, moist path. Overhead a network of bird song was being woven, in intricate, ever-changing pattern.

  “How idle the old man is!” said Alayne.

  “There is a psychological reason for that.” Pheasant assumed her sagacious look. “It’s because the fields are scattered, far apart, among the woods. It makes a man lazy to see the woods all about him. Noah Binns isn’t earning his salt today.” Looking back over her shoulder, she called: “Wake up, Noah!”

  “Bugs is here,” answered the old man, not raising his head.

  When they entered the pine wood they met Minny Ware, pushing a perambulator in which sat Meg’s infant, Patience. Minny wore a very short dress of vivid green, and a wide, drooping hat, fit for a garden party.

  “Oh, hallo,” she exclaimed, with her London accent. “The fashionable world goes a-walking, eh?” She turned, tilting the perambulator on
its back wheels and surveying Alayne from under the brim of her hat.

  “How do you like the weather?” she asked. “Glorious, eh? I’ve never seen so much sunshine in all my life.”

  “At Fiddler’s Hut the foliage is too dense. We don’t get nearly enough sunshine.” Alayne’s voice was cold and distant. She could scarcely conceal her antagonism for this full-blooded girl. She felt that beside her she looked colourless, listless.

  “How is your husband?” asked Minny Ware. “Better, I hope. It must be rotten to have anything wrong with one’s lungs. I believe mine are made of indiarubber.” The full, effortless laugh gushed forth. She looked ready to burst into song. “Thank you,” returned Alayne rigidly. “He is getting better.”

  Minny Ware went on blithely: “Mr. Whiteoak was suggesting to me that I go over one day and sing to him. He thought it might cheer him up. Do you think he’d like it?”

  “I dare say he would.” But there was no note of encouragement in her voice.

  “I should go mad without music myself,” said Minny. “I suppose you get wonderful music in New York.”

  “Very good.” Alayne’s lips scarcely moved. She looked straight ahead of her.

  “I’ll be going there myself one day I’ll have to get you to put me on to the ropes.”

  Alayne did not answer.

  Patience was making bubbly noises and holding up her hands toward the horse.

  Pheasant laughed. “She’s a perfect Whiteoak! Look at her, she’s asking to get into the saddle.”

  With a swift movement of her white bare arm, Minny lifted the child and swung it to the horse’s back, and sup ported it there. “How’s that, Ducky?” she gurgled. “Nice old gee-gee!” She clapped the horse on the flank.

  “For God’s sake, be careful, Minny!” cried Pheasant. “He’s nervous.” She patted him soothingly.

  “Is he?” laughed Minny. “He seems a docile little beast. Doesn’t she look a lamb on horseback?”

  Patience indeed looked charming, the downy brown hair on her little head blown, her eyes bright with excitement. She clutched the rein in her tiny hands and cooed in ecstasy.

  “She’s a perfect Whiteoak,” averred Pheasant again, with solemnity.

  Alayne did not think she cared for babies, especially Meg’s baby. Perhaps it was that she did not understand them, had had nothing to do with them in her life. For something to say she admired the grace of the horse.

  “He’s from the West,” said Pheasant. “He’s been badly used. We found welts all over him, when we had him clipped. He’s been branded twice. I think that must hurt, though they say not.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I think you’d better put Patience in her pram. I must be getting home.”

  Minny Ware took the baby in her arms. She pressed her full red mouth to its soft cheek. “Music and babies,” she murmured, through the kiss. “They’re the soul and body of life, aren’t they? I couldn’t get on without them. In England I always had a baby about, looking after it for one of my father’s sick parishioners.”

  Alayne saw Minny as a symbolic figure—a song on her moist red lips, a baby against her swelling breast. Songs and babies—an endless procession from her vigorous body. With a fresh pang, she saw her as Renny’s wife, singing to him, bearing his children. Minny was revealed to be a fit mate for one of the Whiteoaks. One whose formidable physical strength and spiritual acquiescence could be welded into their circle. She saw herself as a disparate being; an alloy that never could be merged; a bird brooding on a strange nest, crying to a mate to whom her voice would ever be alien.

  She slipped her finger into the child’s tender palm. The little hand closed about her finger and drew it toward the inquisitive mouth.

  Pheasant sprang to the saddle with casual accustomedness. Her loose white shirt showed a tear, revealing a thin young shoulder. She chirrupped. In an instant the horse, which had been walking indolently, with drooping head, became an object of force, of speed. Its thudding hoofs sent up a spray of pine needles. The dark curve of its flank swam beneath the rider. Horse and rider disappeared behind a bend in the path.

  The two young women walked on together. When they reached the point where Alayne must turn into the narrow footpath leading to Fiddler’s Hut, Minny Ware said: “Shall I come one day, then, and sing?”

  “Yes, do,” answered Alayne. After all, Eden might like her singing. He hadn’t much to amuse him, shut in among the trees. He must get tired of reading and being read to.

  She found him sitting on the ground beneath a cedar tree that rose, a pointed spire, behind him. She asked, anxiously: “Do you think you should sit on the ground? I’m afraid it’s quite damp.”

  He pushed back his hair petulantly. “I was so beastly hot. There seemed to be more air down here.”

  “Sometimes I wonder,” she said, looking at him with a pucker on her forehead, “if you should have come here at all. It might have been better if you had gone to the mountains or one of your Northern lakes. Even now, if you would like to go, I would go with you.”

  “No.” He turned his head away sulkily. “I’m here, and here I’ll stay. If I get better, well and good. If I don’t—it doesn’t much matter.” He stretched out his hand, plucked a wood lily, and tore off its petals one by one.

  “That’s nonsense,” said Alayne, sharply “It matters a great deal. Have I come all this way for something that does not matter?”

  “It does not matter to you.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “You don’t love me.”

  She did not answer.

  “Do you love me?” he insisted, childishly “No.”

  “Then in what way do I matter to you? For God’s sake, don’t say my writing matters to you!”

  “But it does! And you do—for yourself. Can’t you understand how my feeling for you may have changed into something quite different from love—yet something that makes me want to care for you, make you well again?”

  She went to him, and stood looking down on him with compassion. She must take his mind from the subject of his illness.

  “I met that Minny Ware just now. She offers to come over some day and sing to you. Will you like that?”

  “No,” he said. “I shan’t like it. I don’t want her coming here. She’s stupid. She’s silly I can imagine the noise she would make—stupid and silly.”

  On an impulse she could not restrain, Alayne said: “Meg is scheming to marry her to Renny”

  His face was almost comic in its surprise. “Marry her to Renny! But why? Why should she want to marry that girl to Renny?”

  His eyes, with their veiled gaze, looked into Alayne’s, but she saw that his swift mind was hot on the trail of Meg’s devious motives. “That girl,” he repeated. “That girl. Renny. I can’t see it. But wait!” The light of malicious understanding crept into his eyes. “She’s afraid—that’s what it is—afraid! She’d marry him to an imbecile rather than have that happen.”

  “Have what happen? How mysterious you are!” But her heart was beginning to beat uncomfortably.

  He narrowed his eyes to two slits and peered up at her. Sunlight and leaf shadows, playing across his face, gave it a sardonic grimace. “My poor girl, don’t you see? Deceased husband’s brother! Meggie thinks there is a fair chance of my dying, and she’s afraid you’ll marry Renny. She’s going to fix him up with a nice plump songstress instead. I see it all. I’ll engage she’ll do it. Poor Reynard. That sly red-headed fox will be helpless. She’ll bait the trap with such a sleek plump pullet. And she’ll lead him to it and let him sniff— God, he hasn’t a chance!”

  She stood looking down at him, under the flickering leaf shadows. Her face looked greenish-white. Her heart sank under a weight of apprehension. She felt that they were helpless, moved inexorably by soulless forces. They were being woven into the pattern of Jalna. They could no more extricate themselves than the strands caught in the loom. Vibrating on the heat, she felt the deep-toned hum of the loom through all her being.
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  He was regarding her with heartless interest. “You mind?” he queried, mischievously. “You mind as much as that?”

  “As much as what?” she asked angrily, hate for him rising in her.

  “Your face! Oh, your face!” He changed the expression of his own visage into one of dolour. “It’s like this!”

  Tears of anger, of shame, stung her eyelids.

  “And now you’re going to cry! Is it for me? Or Renny? Or yourself? Tell me that, Alayne!”

  She could not bear it. She turned and went swiftly toward the cottage. He remained a little, savouring the moment. He said to himself: “I am alive! I am alive! The worms are not gnawing me—yet!” He turned his hand about, examining the wrist that had been so round, so firm. “No mould—yet!” He felt his pulse. “Still kicking!”

  He got up—it seemed to him that he felt stronger—and followed Alayne into the cottage.

  The little Scotch maid was laying the table. Rags would be here any minute with their dinner. Through a crack of the door of Alayne’s room he could see her standing before the little looking glass, her hands raised to her hair. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and the graceful sweep of their lines brought to him a moment of remembered emotion. Not so long ago those arms had held him. Not so long ago delicate and extravagant caresses had passed between them. And how soon over! The remembrance of them as meaningless as a shadow from which the substance has fled.

  But the shadow disturbed him. He wandered about the room, humming a tune.

  Alayne came from her room. He looked at her with curiosity. His erotic proclivities, his sensitiveness, had given him the power of putting himself in the place of one of the opposite sex, of gauging with uncanny precision emotions alien to himself. So now, beneath her studied calm, he was conscious of the turbulence of the thoughts created by his words.