Wragge looked with surprise at the figure on the couch. “I ’ad a glimpse of ’im, sir, ’olding to ’is fice. I think it was a toothache ’e ’ad.”
Renny grinned, looking that moment extraordinarily like his grandmother. He said — “Well, I generally keep the spirits under lock and key. I shall have to be more careful in future, if the kids are going to take to drink.”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” Wragge agreed imperturbably.
Nicholas was filling his pipe, with the comfort of a man who had been through a church service. He remarked:
“The boy isn’t fit to come to table. He’d better go up to his bed.”
“Yes,” agreed Renny. “Go up to bed, Finch.”
“Good Lord,” laughed Eden, “he’s fallen asleep again.”
“I’ll wake him up,” said Piers.
Renny said — “He can stay where he is,” and covered him up with the afghan. His hair, wild as a brush heap, and his flushed miserable face were all that was left visible of him.
Eden picked up a crumpled half-package of cigarettes that had fallen from Finch’s pocket. “There isn’t a crime,” he said, “that this little boy doesn’t experiment with. I believe these are mine.” He helped himself to a cigarette and was about to drop the remainder into his pocket when Piers snatched them from him. Then Piers, remembering Indigo Lake, returned it with a smile.
The processions moved into the drawing-room and Dilly came dancing down the stairs. She had on one of the new-fashioned dresses with the terrible short skirt. Ernest regarded her prettily-shaped legs with interest, but he remarked — “I always consider sherry as indigestible stuff.”
“Nothing better for you before Sunday dinner,” said Nicholas. “Come along, Dilly, have a glass of sherry.” And he put an arm about the young woman.
For a brief moment she believed it to be Renny’s arm, for he was close on her other side, and she made her eyes large at him. His look of abstraction, however, undeceived her and she turned to Nicholas and clasped his shoulder.
“Ha,” grunted the grandmother, ensconced with her sherry. “This is good. I do like to go to morning service and come home to a glass of sherry.” She took a sip and beamed about her. “My fur coat was no great weight at all.... D’you think they like the red cushions?”
“They love them,” said Nicholas.
Ernest added — “It seemed to me that the Rector spoke very nicely of you, Mamma.” As his niece came into the room, he asked — “Can you tell me, Meggie, what we are having for dinner?”
“A roast of veal, Uncle Ernest, stuffed. French fried potatoes. Fritters. Lemon pie, with meringue. Nuts and raisins.”
Ernest set down his glass with a groan. “From my point of view,” he said, “it couldn’t be worse.”
“Shall I order something different for you?”“
Yes, have an egg poached for him,” said Nicholas, with seeming good-humour.
Ernest returned tartly — “No, no, I prefer to eat what the others do.
In fact a little veal will do me no harm. I shall eschew the nuts and raisins.”
His mother nodded approval. She said — “I always eschew my food well. It helps digestion.”
“I said eschew, Mamma.”
“So did I.” With audible gusto she munched a little biscuit which Meg now brought her. She then turned to Dilly and Eden. “What were you young rascals up to in church?” she demanded benignly.
Piers came and stood in front of her. He said — “They’re both poets, Gran. Listen to this.” He produced the leaf from the hymn-book and read:
The congregation sag and snooze,
There are red cushions on the pews,
The reader reads so badly.
The congregation sags and snoozes,
There are red cushions on the pewses —
I’m dying to kiss you madly!
“Did they make it up?” asked the grandmother.
“Oh, yes, dear Mrs. Whiteoak,” moaned Dilly, “and we’re so ashamed.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of. Quite a good poem. Now go ahead and do it.”
“Kiss, do you mean?” asked Dilly, as though horrified.
“Certainly. Go ahead.”
With a little scream Dilly held out her flowerlike cheek to Eden, who gave it a peck.
“That’s not what I call kissing madly,” said his grandmother. “Now that eldest grandson of mine — he could show you. Ha, ha — what about it, Renny?”
Dilly answered for him — “Oh, his mind is more on chastisement.”
“Chastity,” repeated the grandmother. “Ah, it’s a great thing. A very great thing, as my father used to say — if you don’t overdo it.”
Augusta here rose in great dignity. She said — “This is a strange Sunday. A most unedifying Sunday.”
Meg nodded sadly — “Yes, indeed, Aunt Augusta. Carousing at home. Writing ribald rhymes in church. And the strange thing is that the Lesson Renny read was full of warnings — sunspots and the like.”
Renny said, from where he stood in the doorway:
“‘And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars.’
There was nothing about sunspots.”
“But surely you agree,” cried Meg, “that they all are warnings. These spots appear in the heavens — then disaster follows on the earth.”
Wakefield here put in — “Nothing could be fairer than that.”
“I like that rhyme,” said the grandmother, “the one about the cushions I gave. I shall paste it in my scrapbook. Fetch me the book, Ernest.”
“Bless your heart, old dear,” said her son Nicholas. “No one has seen that scrapbook for thirty years.”
“Have I pasted naught in it for all those years?”
“Nothing that I know of.”
“Dear me,” she sighed, “how time flies. What was the last thing I pasted in the book?”
Renny answered — “It was a newspaper cutting about the first time I rode at the Horse Show. I was seven.”
Dilly hissed at him — “What a frightful egotist you are!”
Piers presented his grandmother with the leaf from the hymn-book on which the jingle was written. However, as she was holding it between finger and thumb Boney flew down from his perch, secured it, and tore it to ribbons. At the same moment Wragge loudly sounded the gong for Sunday dinner, which effectively put all else out of the old lady’s head.
Finch dimly heard the gong, was faintly conscious of the talk and clink of cutlery in the dining room. He was more and more conscious of the feeling of nausea which was creeping over him. The odour of the roast veal came through the cracks of the folding doors, the odour of rich gravy.... The first wave of nausea passed, but later on, when the second wave attacked him, he sprang from the couch and ran down the hall to the little room where the dogs slept and where there were taps and a basin. Groaning, he bent over the basin.
When dinner was over Meg found him still in this room sitting on a stool near the window. She came in and laid her hand on his neck. She asked:
“Are you feeling better?” He nodded, unable to speak.
“And you’ll not do a wicked thing like that again, will you?”
Vigorously he shook his head.
She went on “Everybody was so upset. For my part I could scarcely eat my dinner.”
He shuddered. “Would you mind not talking about eating, Meg?”
She stroked his head, then drew back from him.
“Your hair,” she brought out, in disgust. “Whatever have you got on it?”
“I dunno. Why?”
“It’s sticky. It must be washed. I shall wash it now.”
He drew back in horror. “Oh, no, Meggie! No! You can’t! I won’t! Not my hair — please!” His voice broke in a squeak of misery.
Meanwhile Meg had removed her blouse and put on a large enveloping apron which she kept in this room. She had taken from the cupboard a cake of Windsor soap and a clean crash towel. Finch viewed the
se implements of torture with crapulent misery. Always he had hated hair-washing but never so bitterly as now.
Meg now turned on the hot water in the basin. She demanded —– “How often do you wash your hair?”
He was so miserable that she had to repeat the question before he took it in. Then he muttered:
“My hair gets washed when I have a bath.”
“That’s no way to do. No wonder it is in such a condition.” She was olterably brisk, dabbing her hand in the basin to test the temperature of the water.
He rose from his stool and made a zigzag movement toward the door. He said — “I’m not well enough. I can’t, I tell you!”
“There is nothing you need to do,” Meg said, almost soothingly, “except to bend over the basin.”
“No,” he yelled. “I can’t bend over the basin! I’ll be sick again.”
“Nonsense. It will make you feel better to have your head washed.”
Now her tone was commanding. She collared him, divested him of his jacket, pressed her hand on the back of his neck.
He bent over the basin. She made a lather on his head. She rubbed it in. He let himself go then, uttering noisy protests.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me! Ow — my ear!”
“Which ear?”
“That one. I think someone hit me on it.”
“Nonsense. Nobody hurt your ear. Bend lower.”
There was no doubt about it. The hot water, the massage, the cold-water rinse that followed, made him feel better. By the time he had the second rinsing he was almost himself again. But he would not let Meg know this. A listener up the hall might have thought he was on the rack.
Such a listener was Aunt Augusta. Her mother and brothers had retired for their after-dinner rest. She was enjoying the quiet of the drawing-room when this turmoil disturbed her. She now swept to the scene.
“Stop!” she commanded loudly. “I will not allow this poor boy to be beaten again.”
Meg was now enveloping Finch’s head in the towel. “Don’t worry, Aunt Augusta,” she laughed. “Finch has just had his hair washed. People are coming to tea and I simply could not let him be seen looking the way he did. And he has such pretty hair when it is properly washed. Look.” Proudly she lifted the towel from his head.
The two women now surveyed him with pleasure. His cheeks were pink and his fine straight hair released from the towel was taking on golden-brown tints. He smiled sheepishly at them, not knowing whether or not to be pleased with himself.
Meg put him by the heat of the glowing stove in the hall with a towel round his shoulders. With the dogs for company he meditated on the strangeness of life.
When tea time came he was there, in the drawing-room, in his best suit, handing out cups of tea, carefully offering cake to the company. To one of these Meg might have been heard to remark:
“He is at the awkward age, you know, but he has an affectionate disposition and in some ways he is quite clever.”
The conversation then moved to a more interesting subject. Teenagers had not yet been invented, nor were the peculiarities of very young people considered to be of importance.
XXIII
THE WINTER MOVES ON
Christmas came and went in a mood that varied little from other Christmases at Jalna. Several members of the family felt that they had less than usual to spend on presents, which was natural as their money losses had been considerable. Eden early announced that he would give nothing and expected nothing. However, at almost the last moment, he had some verses accepted by one of the best American magazines and was so happy about it that he went to town and bought a necktie for each of his uncles and brothers, and lace-edged handkerchiefs for his aunt, his sister, and Dilly. For his grandmother he bought a bottle of smelling salts which she sniffed with such zest that she first sneezed, then coughed and all but choked and had to be revived with brandy. This was the one untimely incident in an otherwise auspicious day.
Nicholas had made up his mind that his presents that year were to be better than usual. He would show that a bit of unlucky speculation did not affect his giving. As for Dilly, she was recklessly generous and said it was the best Christmas she ever had enjoyed. But to Piers it brought pleasure of a new sort. This was the heady pleasure of thinking of someone besides himself — to the complete exclusion of himself.
Thanks to Eden, a miracle had happened in the return of his lost investment. He was no longer hoping to double or treble his money. It seemed a magnificent thing just to have it once again in his possession. He made up his mind to buy Pheasant the most exciting Christmas present she ever had had. He spent a good deal of his time in pondering over what this was to be. Something to wear, that was certain. But what? He brought the conversation round to brooches (in these days they managed to meet quite often) but Pheasant let it be known that she already had a brooch and she considered one brooch quite enough for any girl. Of course he might buy her a ring, but there was a finality about a ring from which he shied away. A ring should be given only to seal an engagement. He brought the conversation round to earrings but Pheasant affirmed that earrings hurt and that she had no desire for them. What she did like was rings and never had possessed one. These conversations were carried on quite impersonally on her side, with no expectation of a present. Piers experienced the keenest enjoyment in them, in watching the expressions of her changeful little face, the drawing down in puzzlement of her pencilled brows, the judicial compressing of her sensitive lips.
One point which must be considered was whether Maurice Vaughan, her father, would allow her to accept a present of jewellery. Piers felt that it would be best, on the whole, for the present to be kept secret for the time being, and worn only when they were together.
The next thing he thought of was a bracelet, but when he asked her whether she liked bracelets she showed no interest in them whatever. They were sitting on the snowy bank beside the frozen pond and the one thing which seemed to interest Pheasant at the moment was a broken bootlace. She had tied it in a knot and the knot pressed on her instep.
“It hurts awfully,” she said. “I think I’ll go home.”
He examined the knot. “You’ve made a bad job of tying it,” he said.
“I can tie one that won’t hurt you. Take off the boot and I’ll fix it for you.”
Pheasant well knew that Mrs. Clinch would not approve of her removing her boot in front of Piers Whiteoak. Mrs. Clinch had devastating things to say about the goings on of young women since the War. She had read that there were girls in London who now carried their own latchkeys and let themselves in at all hours. She fastened on this as one of the greatest evils, which was rather strange, as at Vaughanlands the front door was never locked. Neither Mrs. Clinch nor Pheasant had the slightest desire to go out or in at all hours. As for the danger from burglars, it was not even considered.
The thought of a girl’s having a latchkey all her own was somehow fascinating to Pheasant. She pictured herself as coming home at midnight from some scene of revelry, inserting the latchkey in the large old lock, of which the actual key lay in a drawer of the hat rack, and entering the house on tiptoe, creeping past the room where Maurice slept and flinging off her velvet cloak in her own room, flinging it off with a weary gesture, sated with late hours and pleasure. Strangely enough the thought came to her now as she took off her boot and gave it to Piers. She asked:
“What do you think of latchkeys? For young women, I mean.”
He turned his wide blue gaze on her. “Latchkeys? What for?”
“Why, to get in and out with.” And she added, in a hushed tone — “Late at night.”
“Where?” he asked, beginning to pluck at the knot with his fingernails.
“In London.”
“Oh, there. You should hear the things Dilly tells. She often goes.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh, rather wild things.”
“Does she tell them in front of your grandmother and your aunt and you
r sister?”
“Not she.”
“Do you approve?”
“Never thought about it.” Now he had untied and retied the knot.
“Put out your foot,” he ordered in a suddenly peremptory tone. Now he was kneeling in the snow. He held the boot invitingly before her.
“I can put it on.” She was suddenly shy.
“All right.” He dropped the boot, jumped up, and stood on his skates, staring at a little red squirrel that was reaching in a stump for a nut it had hidden there. “You ought to be hibernating,” he said, and made a snowball and threw at it.
Now Pheasant was sorry and somehow ashamed. She wished she had let him put the boot on her. She wrestled with the bootlace but could not lace it up.
“Ready?” he asked briskly.
“I can’t manage it.”
“That’s what you get for being so proper.”
“Oh, Piers. You are mean.”
He wheeled, knelt down in front of her. Her small foot planted on the snow looked somehow pathetic. Skilfully he laced up the boot.
“Bend your foot and see if the knot hurts,” he said.
It no longer hurt. It was quite comfortable.
As she looked down at him kneeling there, a feeling of tenderness toward him almost overcame her. She felt sorry for them both. She said — “What a pity we are not birds, so we could fly.”
“Yes,” he agreed, unexpectedly, for she had thought he would laugh at her. “It would be fun if we could fly together.”
She plucked at a leaf of brown bracken that stuck up through the snow. It was when she bent her head that he noticed how round and slender and captivating was her neck.
“Do you like necklaces?” he asked, almost breathless in the excitement of this new idea.
“Do you intend to go into the jewellery business?” she asked. “Your mind seems sort of set on it.”
“I’ve never known a girl like you,” he answered in an annoyed tone. “No matter what I suggest, you don’t like it.”
“I suppose,” she said, feeling hurt, “you’ve had lots of girl friends.”
He got to his feet and brushed the snow from his knees. “A considerable few,” he answered.
06 The Whiteoak Brothers Page 25