XXI
SKATING
Piers, when Eden had left him, remained, still as a statue, staring out through the open door after that swiftly moving figure. A few snowflakes drifted in and instantly dissolved. A red squirrel scrambled down the roof, peered in at the door, then fled in panic. Then came the sound of hoofbeats.
Piers was conscious of the tears on his cheeks. He wiped them with the back of his hand, threw down the hammer, and bounded up the steps. He saw the mare, Cora, with Renny mounted, cantering toward the stables. He shouted his brother’s name. Renny drew rein and waited for him, scanning his rosy face and wet blue eyes with an amused scrutiny.
“I bet you’ll never guess what’s happened,” Piers said, breathless.
“What?”
“Eden has given me back my money.”
“Good for him.”
“You could have knocked me down with a feather.”
“And only last night you wanted to knock him down!”
“Upon my word, Renny, I could hardly believe my eyes. Look.” He produced the cheque. “He said I’d better cash it right off, to be sure of the money. Can I take the car and go to the bank?”
“What about the apples?”
“I’ll finish them when I come back and take them to the station.”
“Very well.”
Cora was pawing up clots of snow, rolling her luminous eyes in impatience.
Piers, still in a daze, asked — “Do you think Eden’s paying anyone else back?”
“Dilly.”
Piers looked shocked. “Dilly! Why the dickens should she be paid back? She’s knowing enough. She has plenty of money.”
“She’s a visitor.”
“Phew. I didn’t know Eden had it in him to pony up like this. I respect him for it.”
“Good.” Renny patted Cora’s neck. She felt the welcome pressure of his knees in the way that meant “Go.” Her whole muscular yet delicately adjusted being was freed, and she cantered along the path in feminine gaiety, arching her neck, dancing a little sidewise at the shadow of a pigeon on the snow, her long, fine tail streaming.
The branch bank upon which the cheque was drawn in the village of Stead less than ten miles away. Piers ran to the shed beside the stable where the car was kept, fearful that Eden by hook or by crook might have withdrawn the money before his arrival. At Jalna the status of the motor-car was an inferior one. By most of the family, any sort of treatment was considered good enough for it. Piers was the only one who was anxious about its well-being, who would wash it or try to keep its engine in order. For the others, if the car would go, well enough; if it would not go, execrations were its lot.
This morning, after considerable grunting and groaning, it decided to go. As it jolted along the quiet country road Piers sang for joy: “Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and smile, smile, smile!”
The hand of progress had not yet laid its devastating touch on this road that ran by the lake. The oaks and pines, in their primeval grandeur, beneath which moccasined Indians had passed to meet the first traders, stood in ignorance of the advancing axe, the coming bungalow, the filth of factory.
All Piers’s dreams of affluence were now concentrated on getting his money back. Just to have it safe within the leather wallet which was the one thing he possessed that had been his father’s. There were two women ahead of him at the teller’s wicket in the bank and he waited his turn in an onrush of anxiety. He slid Eden’s cheque through the wicket.
The teller, with a nonchalant eye, looked it over, just as though cheques of equal importance were his daily fare. The teller turned over the cheque, examined the endorsement by Piers, then, with a smile, handed over the money and asked how things were going at Jalna. He had been at the Horse Show and seen Piers riding his favourite polo pony. Piers, with an air equalling that of the teller in nonchalance, said he had reason to hope that the game of polo would regain its popularity — the finest game in the world!
Out in the street once more he was in no hurry to go home. He would like to celebrate his good fortune in some way but what was there to do?
A milkman’s horse, not yet roughshod for the icy roads, had fallen, Piers helped to put it once more on its legs. He peered in through the frosty window of the bakery. The things inside looked good and he was suddenly hungry. He saw shiny Chelsea buns at fifteen cents the dozen. They were huge and with rich, syrupy centres. He strolled into the shop and bought a dozen. He wondered what the woman behind the counter would do if he casually laid that massive roll of banknotes on the counter. Probably faint. Anyhow she’d think he was showing off and he didn’t like that. Almost surreptitiously he extracted a bill from the envelope given him by the teller and pushed it across the counter to her. She drew back as though she had been stung.
“Why, that’s a twenty-dollar one,” she said.
He went fiery red. Much embarrassed he retrieved it and, turning his back to her, searched for something smaller.
“What you bought came to fifteen cents,” she said — as though he didn’t know!
“Haven’t you any silver? She enquired, with a freezing note in her voice, as though he had insulted her.
“No silver,” he muttered, and found he had nothing smaller than a ten-dollar bill. He produced it and the woman looked at him as though she thought he’d been robbing the bank.
“I’m sorry,” she said, still freezing, “but I haven’t change for that.”
Another customer entered and came up to the counter.
Piers muttered — “I guess I’ll not take them then.” He turned to leave the bakery and saw that the new customer was Pheasant Vaughan.
Their eyes met. They smiled in surprise and pleasure.
Pheasant then turned primly toward the woman.
“Have you Scotch shortbread?” she asked. “Like you make for Christmas.”
“It will be made in a few days, if you’ll come in then.” The woman smiled at Pheasant and now ignored Piers. “Is there anything else?” she asked.
“No, thanks.... Well, yes. I’ll have a dozen of the ladyfingers.” She took out her little purse, perfectly composed.
Piers had an idea. “Could you lend me fifteen cents?” he asked in a low voice. “I’ve nothing less than a ten-dollar bill.” He tried to make this sound normal.
She looked her astonishment, almost disbelief, but she took fifteen cents from her purse and laid it on the counter near him.
He pushed the silver across to the woman and picked up the bag of Celsea buns. He and Pheasant turned away together, as though they had come in together.
“What did you buy?” she asked with childish curiosity.
He opened the top of the bag to show her. “Oo —” she said. “I love them.”
He said — “I guess they don’t make ice cream this time of year. I’d like some.”
He asked the woman, who answered, with a note of reproof, that it was not the season for ice cream, but she could make them a cup of coffee. Motorists sometimes came in for coffee in this cold weather. There were four little tables standing at the back of the shop.
“All right,” Piers said loftily to the woman. “Make us some, please.”
It wasn’t till he had Pheasant seated at a table that he leant over her and whispered — “I’ll go to the bank and get some small bills. Back in a jiffy.” Off he strode.
Pheasant discovered a tiny looking glass on the wall and tiptoed to it to see how she looked. She put her hat straight and tweaked a bit of hair from under it at each ear. The woman was in the room behind, making the coffee. Soon Piers could be seen running past the window, then entering composedly by the door. Pheasant was waiting with dignity at the table.
He dropped into the chair opposite her. He said:
“I don’t often meet you. What I mean is you don’t go about much, do you?”
She answered sedately — “I’ve no need to go about a lot.”
“How’s that?” he asked, looking suddenly an
d deeply into the golden-brown of her eyes.
“Well, I’ve everything I need at home.”
“You mean you don’t want to go out?”
“When I want to go, I go,” she said severely.
“That’s funny,” he said, and they lapsed into a rather depressed silence.
The smell of coffee came to them. Then the woman appeared with a small tray, the coffee pot, cream jug, and two cups. “Anything to eat?” she asked.
Pheasant looked at the bags containing the Chelsea buns and the ladyfingers. She said — “We have plenty to eat, thank you.”
Piers gave her a quelling look. With a jerk of the head toward the glass case he said — “Bring us some of those splits, with the whipped cream inside.”
The woman now seemed to admire him. She gave him a look that suggested it and then brought a blue plate with six round white buns on it, whipped cream thickly filling their two halves.
“Shall I pour?” Pheasant asked.
He nodded and gave all his attention to her pretty manipulating of the cups.
“Would you like forks?” the woman asked.
“It would be better,” said Piers.
They ate, and sipped their coffee in silence for a little. In spite of all his care over the whipped cream Piers got a little moustache of it. He turned his face mischievously to Pheasant.
“Look,” he said.
She looked, and the sight was enough to send her off into soundless laughter. Feeling doggish, he joined in laughing at himself. The woman looked back from the front of the shop and smiled.
Pheasant could not eat more than two buns, so Piers devoured the other four.
“Funny,” he said, “we don’t often do this.”
“We couldn’t,” she said decisively.
“Why not, I’d like to know?”
“We shouldn’t be let.”
“Well — for heaven’s sake! I’d like to know who’d stop me.”
“Maybe not you, but I shouldn’t.”
“Are they very strict with you? I mean Maurice and Mrs. Clinch.”
Looking rather remote, she answered — “I do what I like. Generally, I mean.”
“Then why do you say what you said?”
“Well, people might talk.”
“Do you mean say we’re engaged or something like that?”
Her only answer was an embarrassed little laugh.
He went on — “I suppose the day will come when we’re both engaged.”
“I suppose.”
“To somebody else, of course.”
“Of course. Somebody else.”
Piers noticed an ashtray on the table and took a cigarette from a packet in his pocket and lighted it. He glanced at the woman to see if she objected but she only smiled. Another customer had entered.
Piers said — “Dilly Warkworth smokes. In public, too.”
“For goodness’ sake. She didn’t win a First at the Show, did she?”
“She says herself that she was no good. You’d have done better, Pheasant.”
In silence she watched his quiet inhaling of the cigarette. Absent-mindedly he blew a perfect smoke ring.
“Oo,” she breathed, “I wish I could.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Not here.”
“Some other place?”
“Yes.” Their eyes met, were held, in tremulous fascination on her part, in powerful conscious masculinity on his. Both felt they had advanced in intimacy.
He drew the heavy bank envelope from his pocket and held it for her to peep inside. She drew back astonished. “Where ever did you get it?”
He answered easily — “Been dabbling a bit in mining stock. Gold.”
Pheasant was impressed even more than he had expected.
“Gold,” she exclaimed. “However did you know how to do it?”
“It’s easy enough,” he said, “if you know the ropes.” He returned the envelope to his pocket.
Pheasant’s expression was one of profound respect.
“Just imagine!” she said. “But sometimes people lose their money. Mrs. Clinch was reading in the newspaper about a man who —”
Piers interrupted with some severity — “The thing is to know when to sell out.”
In the street outside the shop he asked — “How are you going to get home?”
“Mrs. Clinch and I came by train. She’s at a friend’s house. I’m to meet her there.”
“I wish you’d drive back with me.”
He was not sorry when she declined because she had so much to do. This had been a pleasant half-hour but it was enough. Yet, when she said she was going to have her skates sharpened, he was at once interested again. “You skate?” he asked. “Where?”
“Oh, the creek has made the loveliest pond in one of our fields. I’m the only one who goes. It’s as smooth as glass.”
He saw himself skating with her. He said, almost brusquely — “Mind if I come too?”
“If you like,” she returned with dignity. “It’s free. I skate every afternoon.”
The very next day Piers arrived at the pond soon after Pheasant had put on her skates. He did not at once join her but stood concealed among some snow-laden bushes, watching her glide round and round the pond with more enjoyment than skill. Her pleasure in the rhythmic movement was obvious, from the red tassel on her cap to the bright blades of her newly sharpened skates. She had colour in her cheeks, which was new to Piers. He felt a quickening desire to skate with her.
She did not see him till he flew past her, then turned with a flourish to face her, skating backward. He threw her a bold, beguiling look, as though to lead her to unheard-of dangers and delights. He held out his two bare hands and she put her red-mittened hands in them. She ceased to take strokes but just put her two feet together and was drawn on by him. They moved away from the pond and up the narrow creek, which was wonderfully smooth beneath the film of snow that covered it.
She said — “How beautifully you skate! I didn’t know anyone could skate so well.”
“It’s nothing. You should see the rink at the university and what some of the fellows can do.”
“But it wouldn’t be such fun as this.”
A happy gleam came from the blueness of his eyes.
“You bet it wouldn’t,” he said.
A twig, frozen in the ice, tripped him. He all but fell. He clutched her to him. He said — “It’s getting a bit rough here. We’d better go back to the pond.” Whatever he suggested was right, she thought. Their swaying movements, hand in hand, round the pond, dwarfed any excitements she had hitherto known. Piers was saying to himself — “Why — she’s beautiful! Funny I never noticed it before.” He said aloud — “I like your red cap and mitts. They’re nice and bright.”
“They were brought out of my Christmas money.”
“But it’s not Christmas yet!” he exclaimed, almost in consternation.
“I know. But I’m always given money for Christmas — some while ahead. I buy what I like with it.”
“But when the day comes. What then?”
“It’s pretty much like a Sunday. Quiet, you know. But turkey, of course. Once I had a tree — all by myself. I shall never forget that. It was planted afterward and it’s still growing.”
A warm pity for her surged through all his being. He thought of the great Christmas tree at Jalna, with presents for everyone. He wished he might invite her to join them. When they sat down to rest on the bank he said — “Christmas is a great day with us. Mysterious, you know. Everybody going about trying to hide something. Presents for everybody from everybody.”
“It must be wonderful.”
“Yes,” he agreed judicially. “Though it’s rather expensive.” He gave a sudden explosion of laughter. “Not that cost signifies anything to me.”
The silence of the countryside was heavy about them. Snow weighted the sky. Piers said — “I’ll bring a shovel and clear the ice tomorrow. Will you be here — same time
?”
She nodded happily.
Looking at her skates, he asked — “Do you remember the day we kissed — by the bridge?”
“In a kind of way.”
“In a kind of way. That’s funny. How d’you mean kind of way?”
“It seems like a dream.”
His eyes moved up as far as her mittens. “Like to try it again?” he asked.
“I think it would be better not.”
“Why — I’d like to know?”
“Mrs. Clinch says habits grow on you.”
He gave a snort and demanded — “What if it did?”
Pheasant took off her mittens and rubbed her palms together.
“Hands cold?” he asked.
“No. Too warm.”
He picked up a mitten and drew it over his fingers. “Look,” he said. “How small for me! I have the largest hands in the family.”
She gave them a look askance, but said — “They’re nice, though. Manly, I mean.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he muttered, trying to hide his pleasure.
Now he lolled back on the snowy bank as though it were a quilt and gazed quietly up at the sky. He said:
“Now to go back to kissing.”
She gave him her askance look. “How can we go back to something we hadn’t begun?”
“Well, I suppose not,” he said, rebuffed, then added — “Anyhow I’m not much of a one to kiss. Not like the rest of my family.”
Full of curiosity she asked — “Are they? When?”
“Oh, any old time. They’re great kissers.”
She turned her eyes, dark and wistful, to his. She said — “Your brother Renny is the only person I can remember being kissed by.”
“Well — I like that! So I’m nobody.”
“You’re different. I used to sit on his knee sometimes when he’d come to see Maurice, when I was young, and he’d give me a kiss.... Let’s skate again.”
They were scarcely on the ice when two other skaters appeared — Young Finch and his friend George Fennel. Piers was annoyed by this but Pheasant greeted them gladly. Soon all four were skimming about together, in a fashion so carefree, untrained, and crude that it would have been shocking to the grim experts of today.
06 The Whiteoak Brothers Page 22