“Will you do that again?” he asked.
“Yes!” shouted Piers.
Eden, strolling from the cherry orchard, a book in his hand, stood galvanized by the sight. His face had been dreamy but now a look of amused astonishment lighted it.
“Are you going to behave yourself?” demanded Renny.
“Yes.” Piers was breathing hard. He straightened himself, his eyes clouded by tears.
“Gather your things and put them away.”
Piers picked up a sweater, a pair of pyjamas, a toothbrush. He gave a surly look at Eden.
But now Eden was sorry for him. He found his soap and proffered it. But Piers ignored it.
“Let him do it himself,” said Renny.
Piers pushed the bent bicycle before him into a shed.
Eden put the soap to his nose and sniffed it.
“It must have felt lovely,” he said.
“What? To get a licking like that?”
“No. To give it. If you have the guts.”
An hour later Ernest met Piers in the upstairs passage.
“Why, I thought you were off for the weekend!” he said, simulating surprise.
“Renny wouldn’t let me go. You were there when he said,” mumbled Piers. “I don’t suppose it meant anything to you.”
“It did indeed, but I couldn’t believe he was in earnest.”
“You bet he was.”
“My dear boy, I am sorry!”
“So am I. It’s pretty hard luck. I’m darned if I’ll stand it. He thinks he owns the earth.”
“I’m afraid things aren’t going to be so pleasant for you boys. I’m afraid your Uncle Nicholas and Meggie and I have spoilt you.”
Piers looked lovingly at him. “Well, he’s not going to, you can see that.” Piers almost blubbered.
Ernest’s hand went to his pocket. “Take this, old fellow. Go to a film or something.” He put a silver half dollar into Piers’s hand.
Alone, Ernest felt both pleased and amused at himself. “I’ve given two presents this morning,” he thought. “Two kind deeds. I’m like an absurd old Boy Scout.”
V
FRUSTRATED PLANS
RENNY FOUND MEG poking about in the flower border to find out if a certain dark-blue delphinium, given her by Miss Pink, were flourishing. He stood watching her leisurely movements, unseen by her. As she squatted on her haunches, her light-brown hair slightly ruffled, her skin fair in the sunlight, she looked as though she had spent all her days in just such tranquil pursuits. Yet her life had been far from tranquil. Their mother had died when she was a child. She had never got on with their stepmother. She had been unfortunate in her one love affair. She had been hedged in by old people, keeping peace among them, adoring her father. Two deaths and a birth had shaken her world while Renny was in France. Tenderness for her welled up in him as he watched her hands move gently among the leaves.
“Hullo, Meggie,” he said.
She looked up at him. Her face clouded.
“Oh, Renny, I did think you were hard on Piers. Not letting him go with Tom Fennel. He must be terribly disappointed.”
“He’s a young ruffian.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“For a few minutes.”
She stood up, brushing the earth from her skirt.
“I’m glad you’re going to take him in hand. The truth is, I can’t do anything with him.”
He put an arm around her. “Don’t worry. He’ll soon find out he can’t be high cockalorum here.”
“If I try to control him, Gran interferes. She says he is like Grandfather….”
“I’ll take it out of him.”
“And Eden, he does just as he likes. Uncle Ernest and Aunt Augusta say he’s artistic. They encourage him.”
“Good God — artistic!”
“I don’t know what to think about that Mrs. Stroud. He spends a good deal of time in her house.”
“Hmph.”
“Finch is a dear little boy but he’s a great trial in some ways. If you tell him anything it goes straight in one ear and out the other. He can’t or won’t remember anything. Yesterday he put on his new shoes and ran through the gravel pit. He almost ruined them. Uncle Nick just laughed.”
“Hmph.”
“It’s so lovely having you home again. I have had no one of my own age about for so long.”
“Meg, there is something I want to talk to you about.”
She looked at him with a little apprehension. She was afraid he might be going to object to the way the place was run. She loathed the words economize and change.
“Yes?”
“It’s about Maurice.”
A flicker of amusement passed over her face. After the four years of his absence it was not disagreeable to know that he was once again in his house beyond the ravine, still hopelessly devoted to her. It would not be the first time that Renny had pleaded for him. She looked like a teasing girl now.
“Don’t imagine that I want to hear about him. You saw what my feelings were at the railway station.”
“You were wrought up. Now listen, Maurice loves you and you think you ought to let bygones be bygones and marry him. He’s served his country for four years. I think he deserves some reward.”
“I’d be a like a medal to pin to his breast. He could throw back his shoulders and say — ‘Well, boys, here is my medal.’”
“Don’t be a fool, Meg.”
Renny put both arms around her.
“Think of how nice it would be to have a wedding in the house. There hasn’t been one for twenty years.”
“Don’t remind me of that wedding. If you imagine that reminding me of it will make me want another, you’re mistaken.”
“Well, after all, Dad was very much in love. They were happy and the marriage gave you these young brothers you’re so fond of.”
She laid her hand on her smooth forehead. “Oh, how unhappy I was! To have him marry our governess! Do you remember, Gran was visiting her relations in Ireland and she came all the way home to stop the marriage but she couldn’t. When the hour came my hair was still in the plait I wore it in at night. I went to the church that way. It was tied with a faded blue ribbon. In the vestry Daddy was so annoyed he pulled off the ribbon and threw it under a seat. He shook out my hair so hard it hurt. I was weeping when I went into the church.”
He grinned. “Yes, I remember. But that was nothing to do with what I’m telling you. I’m telling you that you should marry and have children of your own.”
“I have my hands full. I don’t want any more children.”
“But Meggie, even if you don’t want more children, you should marry. This is the mating season. Listen to those birds.”
A jolly jargon of untutored sweetness rose to them from the ravine. Baritone and tenor, soprano and alto, stretched their breasts to make their own part the solo. The very branches shook with the passion of their singing.
“Let them sing,” said Meg. “I’m not made that way.”
He opened the little wicket gate and led her down the mossy path. At their coming the voices of the bids were stilled but the cool impersonal song of the stream could now be heard. It showed itself between branches of trees and bushes in their spring flowering.
With a somewhat dramatic gesture Meg threw out her hand toward it.
“I’m more like that,” she said. “I don’t need a mate.”
“Don’t fool yourself!” he exclaimed. “Just follow that stream down to the lake, in flood time. You’ll see a mating that would put the stable to shame!”
“If you’re so keen about marriage,” she said, “you’d better get married yourself.”
It was the last thing on earth she wanted him to do. She was surprised at his answer.
“I’d like to, if I hadn’t all these boys to educate and could find the right woman.”
“And bring another woman into the house,” she cried. “That would be the last straw!”
“You’d
not have to live in the house with her. You’d be happily married at Vaughanlands.”
“So you want to get rid of me!”
“Meg, I only want you to be happy.”
“If you think it will make me happy to live under the same roof with that child of his!”
“I’ve thought that all out.”
“And what arrangement have you made?”
“You needn’t look so supercilious. I have arranged, if you will marry Maurice, to adopt Pheasant myself.”
“Well, I call that charming. I’m to go there. She’s to come to Jalna. She’s to take my place as the daughter of the house. Oh, Renny, I never thought you could conceive anything so horrible. I’d rather die than do it.”
“Very well. Very well. For heaven’s sake let’s forget it. If you want to spend the rest of your days as you do —”
“I think I lead “Useful. Yes.”
“I don’t lack affection. The boys —”
“Maurice loves you with a man’s love.”
“He is nothing to me.”
Renny fixed his eyes on her. “Nothing?”
She coloured but she repeated with more vehemence: “Nothing.”
“All right. I don’t believe you but this is the last time I shall ever speak of it.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
She turned and began to ascend the path. He saw that she had really grown much stouter during his absence. She found the steep path heavy going. And she only thirty-four! “I wish you could see a back view of yourself!” he called out derisively after her.
She stopped stock-still but did not look round.
They remained so, speechless and immovable till he flung down the path, crossed the stream, climbed the still steeper path beyond and passed through a small wood of oak trees into a field. The field had been sown with fall wheat. Its bold promise was tempered by the yellow of the mustard flowers. Across it he could see the small figure of Pheasant.
She saw him and came, skirting the field, her brown hair flying about her shoulders. It being Saturday she wore an old dress too short in skirt and sleeve. She looked up into his face eagerly. He cursed himself for having asked her how she would like to be his little girl and come to Jalna to live. He forced a cheerful grin to his lips.
“Hullo!” she called out.
“Hullo! Having a nice walk?
She looked at him gravely.
“No. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m afraid I’ve kept you a long while. I didn’t know that I mentioned any special time.”
“You didn’t. You only said that by the end of the week something might happen that might settle whether I could…. It’s Saturday today.”
“Yes. And it has happened.”
She gave him a penetrating glance. “Did it — happen wrongly?”
“Pheasant — I don’t believe you really would want to leave your home — Maurice — and come to Jalna.”
“Then … you think I told lies when I said I would.”
“No. But — ours is such a big family. All those boys —”
“But … when you talked about my going … you said what fun.”
“I know. But there’s Maurice. After all, he’s your father.”
“He’d be glad to part with me.”
“Oh no. He’s not like that.”
She looked down, her lashes quivering. Her child’s face marked by deep thought.
“You’ve been alone too much,” he exclaimed.
He put his arm about her and pressed her to his side. But she drew away. She looked into his eyes, as though in wonder. She said:
“I never know what grown-ups mean. It’s not what they say.”
He answered her almost sternly — “I mean what I say. But I got this affair the wrong way about. I should have made sure that what I wanted would be possible before I spoke of it to you.”
She drew her smooth forehead into puzzled lines. “But what is it all about? What was this thing you couldn’t make happen? Does Maurice know?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why he couldn’t eat his breakfast. Mrs. Clinch says he’s sickening for something.”
“This is going to be worse for him than you, Pheasant.”
“But what is this thing? May it happen sometime?”
“Perhaps. I hope so. Look here … I’m going to tell you. You’re not like other kids. Let’s sit down.”
They dropped on to the young grass that was more cool and moist than the sandy soil beneath. They were in a fence corner where wild convolvulus had shown since sunrise how fast it could climb. Its first frail blossom already hung its head in the heat. Pheasant touched it with her cheek. Then she turned her dark eyes to Renny with a strange mingling of trust and suspicion in them.
“You know,” he said, “that Maurice and my sister Meg were once engaged to be married.”
“Yes. And I know what unengaged them.” An almost cynical smile curved her lips. “She was a silly.”
“Yes. She was and is.” He lighted a cigarette and drew a puff or two in silence. She had made it easier for him to tell her.
“I had the idea,” he went on, “that as Maurice has been so long away Meg might change her mind and marry him now if —” He hesitated.
“If I went to Jalna to live?”
“Exactly. I’d lose a big sister and gain a little one.”
“No, no,” her face was contorted. “It’s not like that! It’s just that she won’t come here if I’m here and she won’t let me in there. I understand and I don’t care. I — I don’t care.” Her face was ugly in her supreme effort at self-control. “I don’t want to be anybody’s child. I — I’m twelve. I’ll soon be a woman.”
He took her hand and it lay like a cold little fish in his tense clasp. “I deserve to be kicked,” he said.
They sat motionless for a space while her self-control tautened. Then she drew her hand decisively from his. “Goodbye,” she said, “I’m going.”
“Have you got the little knife I brought you?” he asked.
“Yes. It really wasn’t for me, was it? I’ll give it back, if you like.”
“Good Lord, no! I don’t want it back. But I thought kids always lost things.”
She smiled at him tremulously, then turned quickly away. She slid through an opening in the wire fence that seemed impossibly narrow. He saw that it sagged a little and was evidently shaped by her continual using.
She ran straight to the house and closed the front door behind her. She had been holding a single sob tightly in her throat as she ran. Now safe inside the door she let it go with a harsh sound that hurt. Her heart stopped its beat in a moment of fear. What if Maurice were in the sitting room and had heard it? But there was dead silence in the house. After the furbishing for his return Mrs. Clinch had allowed it to revert to its usual fustiness. The air was heavy with the smell of old upholstery and damp wallpaper and a something that was suggestive of Mrs. Clinch herself.
Suddenly the door behind Pheasant opened and Maurice was almost on her. He started, then saw her face. “Is anything the matter?” he asked.
She shook her head. She wanted to fly up the stairs, but she stayed where she was, looking up into his face.
“Can’t this door be left open?” he asked.
“Mrs. Clinch doesn’t like it open.”
“Mrs. Clinch doesn’t like it “Mrs. Clinch be damned.”
“It fades things and gives her neuralgia. She’s awful when she has it. It goes from her bad tooth right into her ear.”
“Damn her ear! I must get someone else to keep house.”
“You can’t. She wouldn’t go.”
“She’ll have to, if —” He stopped short.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“What?” he stared at her astonished.
“Renny Whiteoak told me.”
They stood in a strange unaccustomed intimacy. The door at the end of the passage opened and Mrs. Clinch appeared.
She saw the two standing guiltily and the door open. Her whole face tightened, as though she had pulled a drawstring. Then she laid a work-worn hand on the side of her face and after another askance look at the door went heavily up the stairs.
Maurice hastily closed it. The sound of Mrs. Clinch’s bedroom door shutting came from above.
“It was strange,” said Maurice, “for Renny Whiteoak to speak of such a thing to a child. How did he come to do it?”
“He had promised me — something, if it happened.”
Maurice looked at her sombrely.
“And then he told you it wasn’t going to?”
“Yes.”
“Well — you shouldn’t have been mixed up in it.” He turned from her and went into the sitting room.
Pheasant flew up the stairs. From Mrs. Clinch’s room came the smell of Minard’s Liniment.
Safe inside her own room she drew a deep breath of its seclusion. There was a greenish light in the room from the thickness of a cedar tree. She saw her full-length reflection in an old pier glass, like the ghost of a little girl come to meet her. But this glass was never secure in its frame and, at the tremor of her step, it tilted forward and the reflection was lost.
Pheasant put her hand in her pocket and felt the little knife Renny had given her. She took it out and it lay on the palm of her hand.
“I always think,” she said loud, “that there’s something sad about this little knife.”
It was as though she sought to explain away the tears that ran down her cheeks.
VI
EDEN AND MRS. STROUD
STILL WITH THE copy of Dante in one hand and Piers’s cake of Windsor soap in the other, Eden walked thoughtfully along the path that led to the road where Mrs. Stroud lived. He was turning over in his mind the changes made by the return of his elder brother. He was reaching the conclusion that he preferred Jalna as it was in the days of the War. Renny’s letters from the front had often been amusing. It was right that one of the family should be serving with the Buffs. If the War had gone on for another year Eden himself would have joined up. His father had consistently indulged him because he was like the wife he so tenderly loved. His mother had been the one to spoil all her children. When at fourteen he had been bereft of them both, his grandmother, his aunt, uncles, and Meg had been in agreement to humour the willful golden-haired boy. Now, with this hard-handed veteran of the War set up as master of the house, and apparently determined to force his will, things were going to be very different.
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 7
