08 Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  Meg came in with a step which she tried to make noiseless, but she was getting heavy, and the things on the bedside table jiggled. She bent over the sausage-like form on the bed and stroked the damp hair.

  “Comfy now?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She asked Renny: “How is he, really?”

  “Half-lit and as hot as blazes.”

  “Poor fellow!” She sat down on the side of the bed and tried to see his face. “Finch, dear, how could you do such a dreadful thing? Frightening me almost to death! As though I minded you having the money! What upset me was Gran’s giving her ruby ring, that I always understood I was to get, to Pheasant. You must understand that. Do you?”

  He pushed his head against her palm as a dog urgent for caresses. He felt broken. He tried to drag his mind from the well of muddle-headedness, exhaustion, and submission, into which it had sunk, and reply to her, but he could not. He could only feel for her fingers with his hot lips and kiss them.

  “He feels so hot!”

  “That’s the way he ought to feel. Come along and let him sleep.”

  She led Renny into the sitting room, bright with glazed chintz. Eden was seated before a tray on which were a dish of poached eggs on toast, a pot of tea, and a jar of quince jelly. The shadow was lifted from her face. The agitation caused by Finch was eased. He was safe in bed, and here was a delicious breakfast tray.

  She exclaimed: “This is Minny’s doing! She has had breakfast brought up for the three of us. She knew we must be faint for food. What a girl!”

  “She carried it in herself,” said Eden, “but she wouldn’t stay. By George, she can swim! And to look at her just now you’d never think she’d been through anything. I admire her awfully.” He helped himself to an egg.

  “She’s a darling,” said his sister. “I shall feel very blue when she goes.”

  “Is she going?” Eden looked almost dismayed.

  “Of course. A girl like that couldn’t stay here forever. She’s getting unsettled. But I don’t know what she’ll find to do—”

  Renny put an egg on Meg’s plate and two on his own. He said easily: “She’ll find something to do! That sort always fall on their feet.”

  “What sort?” cried Meg, offended.

  “Adventurous. Grabbing at life with both hands.”

  “I’m awfully keen about her,” said Eden.

  “You’d make up to anything in petticoats,” said Renny. “Petticoats! Listen to the man!”

  “She could do with one. She’s too…”

  “Too what, dear?” asked Meg.

  “H’m. Provocative. A little hampering might be good for her.”

  Meg pondered on this remark, not knowing whether or not to be displeased. She changed the subject. “How lovely to be breakfasting together!”

  “I thought you liked eating alone,” observed Renny, taking a third egg. “Have another, Eden?”

  Eden shook his head. “I wonder,” he said, “what the upshot of this is going to be! Brother Finch and the money.

  I wish the old lady might have left me a thousand.”

  “Poor darling!” sighed Meg. “I wonder what you’re going to do now that you’re better.”

  “Fall on my feet, I suppose, like Minny. I suspect I’m that sort, too—grabbing life with both hands.”

  Meg said, spreading quince jelly on toast: “Finch has been getting out of control for a long time. I’ve seen it, though I haven’t said anything.”

  “I commend your reticence,” said Renny, looking down his nose.

  Meg looked pensive. “Finch is really a nice boy—underneath. He’s ever so generous. Don’t you think he might do something for Eden?”

  “He doesn’t come into the money until he’s of age. Almost two years. By that time Eden will probably be famous.”

  “Oh—his poems! But they pay so badly for them, don’t they? Can’t Alayne do something for you, Eden?”

  “Good God,” exclaimed Renny, irritably, “she’s done almost enough for him, I think! Giving up her work and coming here to nurse him!”

  “But why not? He’s her husband. I think she’d a perfect right to nurse him.”

  “And yet,” retorted Renny, “you were angry with her for coming!” And he added bitterly: “But she could never do anything right in your eyes!”

  Eden’s eyes, full of mocking laughter, looked from one face to the other.

  “Quarrel over me, do!” he said. “It makes me feel so important. And I haven’t felt very important of late. I’m quite well again, I’ve no job, and my wife doesn’t care a damn tor me. In fact”—his eyes narrowed with malice—“it’s my opinion that she only came back to Jalna to nurse me so that she could be near Renny!”

  Renny sprang up, with lean red face redder with anger. The table was jarred, a miniature squall slopped the tea from the cups.

  “I don’t expect anything better of you, Meggie,” he said. “But I thought that you, Eden, might have a little gratitude—a little decency!” He strode to the door. “I must go. If you want me to drive you home, come along/’

  This day seemed set apart for one emotion on top of another. He could not endure the indoors. Meg followed him to the porch. Before the bed of purple petunias, whose sweetness had risen to Finch’s window, knelt Minny Ware, her face close to the flowers, absorbing their perfume drawn out by the sun. She liked the untidy, luxuriant, sticky things. They hadn’t troubled themselves about delicacy, precision of form, like some flowers, but had given themselves up to sucking in all the sweetness possible and wastefully exuding it. Though she was conscious of the two in the porch, she made no sign, keeping her head bent over the flowers.

  Meg clasped Renny’s arm in both her hands. “There’s someone,” she said, indicating Minny with a glance, “who is deeply disappointed for your sake.”

  “I like her nerve! I don’t want her sympathy… Meggie!” He turned his dark eyes reproachfully on her. “Why will you try to shove that girl down my throat when you know that I love Alayne—and Alayne only—and always shall?”

  Meg said, with a melancholy vibration in her voice: “No good will come out of this! Why should she have come back? She is full of deceit. It’s just as Eden says—she made his illness an excuse to be near you! I’m glad he’s not grateful to her! I’m not grateful to her. I despise her, and hate her.”

  His carved profile showed no sign of emotion. He let his arm remain in his sister’s clasp and his eyes rested composedly on the bright head of Minny Ware, but Meg was aware of an inexplicable magnetic current from him which, if she had been more sensitive, she might have interpreted as a volcanic disturbance in the restrained tenacity of his passion.

  Eden appeared in the hall, slid past them, and went to where Minny crouched above the purple mass of petunias. She was not aware which of the brothers had approached, and scarcely knew whether to be pleased or disappointed when it was Eden’s voice that said: “I’m afraid you feel very tired. Heroic exertion, that—saving the lives of two able-bodied men.”

  She tilted her head so that he looked down into her eyes, and saw the sunlight on the satin prominence of her cheekbones. She denied heroism emphatically. “I only helped you a bit with Finch. He would struggle. But—I am tired—I don’t sleep well—I’m restless.”

  He said: “If you should be taking another early stroll tomorrow, we might meet again by the lake. We could talk.”

  “I’d like that… Mrs. Vaughan’s a darling, but—I’m getting bored. Oh, I’m a beast! I’m always like that.”

  He laughed. “So am I. We’ll meet and compare our beastliness. It’s going to be fine tomorrow.”

  In the car the brothers rode in silence, broken at last by Eden’s saying rather fretfully: “Sorry, old chap.”

  The Whiteoak car was an inauspicious place for an apology to a driver whose ears were not only assailed by its rattle, but who was trying to fathom the meaning of a new jerking movement in its anatomy.

  “What’d you say?�
�� he demanded, turning his head with a gesture so like old Adeline’s that Eden’s apology was marred by mirth. He repeated: “I say I’m sorry for what I said—about Alayne, and all that.”

  Renny had caught nothing but the name of Alayne. He stopped the car with a jerk and gave Eden a look of mingled encouragement and suspicion.

  “Yes?”

  “If I have to repeat it again,” said Eden, sulkily “I’ll take it back. I was trying to apologize for what I said about Alayne.” He continued with a frown: “The fact is, I’m absolutely fed up with being grateful. I’ve spent the summer oozing gratitude to Alayne. It’s got on my nerves. I suppose that’s why I said what I did. I’d no right to say it, but—it’s true, and you shouldn’t mind that. She’d go through hell— and being under the same roof with me is a fair imitation of hell for her—for the sake of setting eyes on your red head once in a while. She can’t help it… I can’t help it… we’re caught in a net… She’s not suited to any Whiteoak that ever lived. But neither of you can ever be happy as things are. I want you to believe I’m sorry—horribly sorry.”

  Renny said: “I hope this affair hasn’t given you any cold. If you feel a chill we must have the doctor to you. You mustn’t be running risks.”

  He started the car and concentrated once more on that dubious, jerky movement in its interior. What could it be? He was afraid the time was at hand when he would have to buy a new car.

  Eden slouched in his corner. What a baffling devil! If only one could take him apart as one could the car, and find out what was inside! A queer, fiery, cantankerous interior, he’d be bound!

  XXIII

  RENNY AND ALAYNE

  RENNY WHITEOAK wandered about that afternoon with a grievous sense of being cut off from the activities of the life he loved by the flaring up of a passion he had thought to have under control, the futility of which was so definite that to brood on it was to hunger for painted fruit in a picture. He had thought to keep his desire for Alayne under control, as he controlled a vicious horse by a curb bit, and he was humiliated to find that Eden’s reckless words at the breakfast table had broken the bit and set his passion galloping. That, and the sting of Meg’s determination to marry him to Minny Ware, her fond hope of transforming him into a placid husband and father. Now he was conscious of only one thing—that, close at hand, beyond the orchards heavy with fruit and thick autumnal sunshine, was Eden’s wife whom he loved, who, as Eden had said, would live in hell for the sake of sometimes setting eyes on his red head. Had the summer been hell to her, he wondered. But he was only faintly curious. Her mind was to him, as woman’s mind, a book in a foreign tongue, the pages of which might flutter with subtle charm before him, but which he knew himself to be incapable of reading.Hesitatingly he might recognize a word, a phrase, which resembled the language spoken by himself; indolently he might form its syllables with his lips, trying to become familiar with its tones, but the language must ever remain for him a tenuous whisper between girl and girl.

  Vehemently he was occupied by the clamour in his own being. At times he surrendered himself to it, plunging all his senses into its depths, so that he was unconscious of where he was, what he saw or heard, moving like a storm cloud through his stables, fields, and woods. Piers avoided him, while sympathizing with the evil mood, brought on, as he thought, by disappointment over the will. The stablemen pronounced him vicious. As he was passing a field of potatoes he came upon the bent figure of Binns brooding. The old man straightened himself with difficulty, and cast a disgruntled look across the brown loam at the master of Jalna.

  “Hi!”he called.

  Renny wheeled and stared at him blankly.

  “No gettin’ away from blight,” called Binns. “Taters got it. Tomaters got it. Corn’s got it. It’s a terr’ble year for blight.” He began to dig lustily, fearing he would again be told to cease work, for he was a day labourer. But when the tall figure had moved on without answer he leaned on his spade and followed him with vindictive little eyes. “Blight’s got him, darn him,” he muttered. “It’s got the whole fam’ly. They be crazy, I tell you,” he said to the potatoes, “rampagin’ over the country, playin’ the organ in pitch dark. They’ve women on the brain—that’s what… I tell John Chalk to keep his girl in at night. He just laughs. Serve him right if she’s ketched. High or low, it’s all one to that kind. Rips!” His eyes looked sagaciously into the eyes of the potatoes.

  Renny loitered by the paddock, where a two-year-old was being put at a gate by Wright. He felt more peaceful as he followed the lift of the splendid, lustrous body the straight hocks, the strong neck. When the practice was over, bridle and bit were removed; the two-year-old came to the paling and nuzzled him. He plucked a handful of short clover and fed it to her, watching the beam in her liquid eyes become ecstatic, watching the firm muscles above the eyes swell and contract into hollows as she munched. He took her head between his hands and kissed her nose. “Sweet girl,” he murmured. “Pet Jenny!”

  But he could not rest. He left her, though she whinnied to him. Restlessly he turned his steps in the direction of the bridle path, following it into the green well of the pine wood. The damp summer had produced a rich crop of mushrooms here. They followed the path, ivory-white, brown, and rustred, fantastically shaped, pushing through the grass or half-hidden beneath prickly brambles laden with berries. By a curve where the sun had access a tall clump of pennyroyal scented the air with its acrid sweetness. A tiny green snake hesitated for a moment, with quivering tongue, before it slid under the grass. On the path were hoofprints of Wake’s pony. He had passed that way, and was returning, Renny judged by the small thunder of an approaching canter. He pressed his way through the brambles under the pines and watched boy and pony go by, Wakefield sitting erect, with folded arms, a look of exaltation on his face. Renny made a grimace of dis-gust with himself for hiding from the little boy, yet speech with even Wake was abhorrent to him. He stood motionless as one of the mastlike trunks, his eyes fixed on the sombre wasted red of pine needles thick on the ground. He recalled certain amorous adventures of his past. How lightly forgotten! But now there was neither fulfilment nor forgetting.

  Eden was well now, but unfit for responsibility. He must be sent to some warm climate for the winter. And Alayne would return to New York. Unless—but what was the alter-native? His mind moved in the old relentless circle. There was no way out. If only she was gone today! If only he could force himself to go away until this fever subsided and he could endure her nearness with the same stoicism as before. He made up his mind to go away—to breathe a different air.

  He re-entered the bridle path, and in a sunny space, where the berries were large and ripe, he found Minny Ware filling a small basket. He felt a quick annoyance with her for being in his path and, after a nod, passed on. Then he remembered that he had not thanked her for what she had done that morning. He reversed his steps hastily and came to her side.

  “I want to thank you—I can’t thank you enough for your courage this morning. God knows what might have happened if you had not been on the shore!”

  The sound of his own words raised suspicion his mind. “How did you corne to be there,” he asked abruptly, “at that hour?”

  “Oh, it was just a coincidence. I like the early morning.” But he saw warm colour creep up her cheeks. Why had she been there? Odd that neither he nor Meg had seen anything strange in the presence of Eden and her on the shore at sunrise.

  She knew that he was suspecting her, but she went on picking berries. She selected the largest ones and dropped them almost caressingly into her basket. He noticed that her fingertips were stained and also her lip, giving her a look of childlike innocence. The trivial act of her laying the plucked berries so gently in the basket, the stain on her fingers and her lip, seemed suddenly of enormous importance to him, as though she were performing some rite. The harassment of his thoughts ceased, his mind became concentrated on the ritualistic act.

  She said, dreamily: “Do you care
for these? Shall I pick you some?” Her eyes slid toward him speculatively.

  “No,” he answered, “but I’d like to stay and watch you pick them, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why should you want to watch me do such a simple thing?” Her eyes searched his face. She had a great longing for love.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, perplexed. And, seeing that she looked rebuffed, he took her hand in his and kissed her bare arm on the white crook of her elbow.

  He was not conscious of the approach of a third person, but he felt her arm quiver and he heard the quick intake of her breath. She was startled, but not by the caress. She said, “Oh!” in a defensive tone, and, turning his head, he saw across the bushes the pale set face of Alayne.

  She had come upon what looked to her like a radiant understanding between the two. She saw Minny’s exuberance responding to a calculated caress for which Renny had led her to this secluded spot.

  She drew back and stammered something incoherent. Minny not much put out, regained her composure and smiled, not ill-pleased to be discovered by Alayne in such a situation. Renny retained his grasp on her wrist.

  In the silence that followed Minny’s exclamation, a delicate trilling sound became audible, as though some bizarre but diminutive instrument were being played beneath a leaf of bracken. The performer seemed to be so unconscious of the existence of the giant beings towering above him that his very egotism reduced them to something less than his own size; his shrill piping rose higher and higher, triumphant over mere bulk, was taken up by other players just as insis-tent, just as impressive in their purpose, till the sound of their trilling became universal. The locusts were singing of the death of Summer.

  An inertia had crept over the three, who had, without their own volition, become listeners rather than performers in the woodland drama. Minny held a warm, too soft berry in her hand; Renny looked entreatingly yet dreamily at Alayne, who stood, as though she had lost the power of motion, regarding the linked hands of the other two.