The time of the Horse Show was one of the high spots of the year at Jalna. This year it was especially so because of the pleasurable excitement of speculation that ran through the house. Even Renny, who knew nothing of this, who never had heard of Indigo Lake, was conscious of this undercurrent of exhilaration and was pleased by it.
Meg remarked to him — “How gay the uncles are! I haven’t seen them so animated in a long while.”
“It’s having Aunt Augusta here,” he said.
“It’s more than that,” she insisted.
“It’s Dilly, then.”
“Nonsense. They’re not all that sort of elderly men. And Aunt Augusta too. How lively she is!”
“It must be Dilly.”
“No. Aunt Augusta said only yesterday that she rather wished she had not brought her.”
“Why?”
“Well — she laughs too much.”
He stared. “Laughs too much?”
“Yes. She’s not the sort of girl Aunty thought she was.”
“You mean suitable for me?”
“Well, possibly.”
He put his arm about her plump middle. “I shall never marry, Meg. Nor you, I guess. We have our hands full with these young brothers.”
She sighed. “Yes, indeed.”
The youngest now came running up. He had been in the apple house, as they called the squat little building which was half-underground, where a quantity of apples were stored till the prices should rise. From its open door the scent of the apples came to Renny and Meg. Wakefield carried a large Northern Spy in one hand and in the other a small Tolman Sweet and a russet.
“Look,” he said, “aren’t they nice?”
“You must not stay long in the apple house,” said his sister. “You will catch cold.”
“Look,” he repeated. “Try one.”
His elders looked, not at the apples but at him, with the solicitude of parents. The small boy was a posthumous child whose mother had died not long after his birth. But he was stronger than he appeared.
Renny took the apples from him and, one after another, held them to his nose and sniffed the fragrance.
“How distinct they are and how good,” he said. “I’m glad our orchard is still untampered with, but in twenty years, Meggie, when these damned experts at the Agricultural College have had their way, no one in the towns will be able to buy apples with the flavour of these. All varieties will look fine but they’ll all smell and taste alike.”
“Hm,” his sister agreed absently. She was still brooding on Wakefield. He now had to run to meet Piers who, standing on a light wagon laden with barrels of apples and drawn by a dapple-grey gelding which he greatly prized, was on his way to the railway station.
“Hullo,” he called out. “Anything you want me to do in the village?”
“May I go?” shouted Wake. As the wagon drew up he was already clambering into it.
“Oh, I don’t think he should,” said Meg.
“Don’t coddle him The more he is outdoors the better for him.”
“I wish he were able to go to school.”
“Why, Meg, I thought you liked teaching him”
“I do. But he’s become so difficult. He needs a man.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t the time. I wonder if the uncles would undertake it.”
“It would be no better.”
The pleasant sound of the gelding’s hoofbeats was dying away. A fresh storm of leaves was blown from the elm by the apple house and scurried down its moss-grown roof. Renny went and shut its low, broad door. When he came back, Meg said — “I wonder if he might go to the Rector for lessons. Mr. Fennel is so kind but quite firm. Firmness is what Wake needs.”
“He needs his behind warmed,” said Renny.
“He’ll talk of anything but his lessons,” complained Meg. “And he won’t sit down. He stands, leaning on my shoulder, playing with my hair or my earrings. How can I teach him when he won’t listen?”
“I’ll see Mr. Fennel about him.” Then he added, reflectively — “Piers is a fine healthy boy. No trouble with him. I wish Eden were more like him.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have Eden different. I’m sure he has a brilliant future ahead of him. Uncle Ernest is convinced he will.”
“I wish I were.”
“Think of the poems he’s had accepted by magazines — and he not yet twenty-three.”
“Poetry and law — what a combination!”
“Has he read you any of his poems lately?”
“No. But Uncle Ernest showed me one about a door in a wall. To tell the truth, I thought it rather silly and very obscure.”
“Oh, I love that one and the one about trees. Here he comes — and Finch too. They have walked from the station. How the day flies!”
“Yes, and I still have things to do.”
The two youths were carrying their books, and their hair was blown by the wind. Against it Finch held his head down but Eden was looking up into the treetops. Neither saw Meg and Renny till they were near by. She called out:
“Hello, boys! What a lovely day it’s been! Did you have a good day?”
“A hell of a day,” returned Eden. “They had the heat on and I was roasted — boiled — suffocated.”
“We had no heat at school,” said Finch, “and I was frozen.”
“What a shame!” said Meg to both of them. “Do go to Mrs. Wragge and she will give you a nice cup of tea. It cools and it warms, you know.”
“Thanks, no,” they murmured sulkily.
“What a pair!” laughed Renny. “Come over to the stables with me and I will give you some exercise.”
But they did not intend to be drawn into this. They turned with one accord and a muttered something about study to be done and went toward the house. Inside, Finch clattered straight to the basement kitchen to get something to eat. Eden went through the hall and out of the side door. He stood concealed, till he saw Meg return indoors and Renny go to the stables. Then he followed the path past the orchard, across a stubble-field, and entered the wood.
Here the wind had lost its power. Scarcely could it stir the pine needles that lay on the ground, but it whistled through the highest branches like a wind at sea. The golden evening sky bent above them and now and then a pine cone fell. Eden’s mind was weighted with the accumulation of the day — the voices of the lecturers — the faces of the other students — the smell of the overheated air — the sound of shuffling feet, coughing — the return home by train with young Finch sitting opposite and obviously taking a cold.
The air beneath the pines was delicious. He drank it to the depths of his lungs and held it. “For all my dreams of the South,” he thought, “I am a Northerner.” A flurry of snow fell from a sudden cloud and he raised his face to it. It was the first of the season and lasted only a few minutes, then there was the clear gold only again, and a flock of blue jays moving southward above the treetops.
The two first lines of a poem he had conceived in the night before came into his mind but the third line eluded him. It had been clear enough while he had been dressing that morning, but now it was mingled with the prosaic happenings of the day. He stood for a little, motionless, trying to recall it. He tried passionately to draw it back to him, as though his future happiness depended on it, and at last he did. Yet after his first relief he was disappointed in it. He had felt that it was one of the best things he had written. Now, declaiming it aloud, it sounded less impressive. Still it was good — all but one word. He tried other words as he strode along but none quite satisfied him. He found it difficult to concentrate. Then, abruptly, before his mind’s eye, he saw the little form of his bank deposit book. It obliterated all else. Worse still, he found himself willing. Willing to be dragged — not, not dragged but drugged — by the entrancing figures written therein. He experienced a feeling of shame that this should be so, then thought — “It is not the wonder of possession that holds me, but the thought of what it can do for me — free me fro
m this study of law which I hate.”
He had not realized that he had come out of the pine wood and was already on the path that led across a pasture field to the country road.
Then he remembered that not since the spring had he walked on this road. That was the day when he and Finch had discovered the felling of the two silver birches by Noah Binns. He was in the mood to look morbidly on the place where they had stood and to picture them in their autumn beauty fluttering their thousand delicate golden leaves.
Now he stood before the white picket fence staring sombrely at the dry lawn, from which even their stumps had been removed. The blinds of the house were drawn and Noah Binns was raking the dead leaves into a tremulous dry mound. When he saw Eden he clumped across the grass plot to his side, with a peculiar bending at the knees, as though he were trying to avoid a creaking board on a floor.
Eden gave a dramatic gesture toward the place where the young trees had stood.
“I’m glad you’ve taken the stumps out,” he said. “They were a sickening sight. I hope Mr. Warden is satisfied.”
Noah grinned, showing his black teeth. “He’s satisfied all right.”
“Did the grass do well? I hope not.”
“Do well? No. He would have a load of manure dug in, though I warned him what would happen. And happen it did. That manure was full of weed seeds and up they sprung and choked the grass.” Noah leant against the fence in silent laughter.
“Serve him right.”
Suddenly sober, Noah said — “There’s two ways of lookin’ at that. He wanted room for scope and them trees hindered him.”
“I say it serves him right and you may tell him I said so.”
“It ain’t possible.”
“Why, Noah, have you suddenly turned polite?”
“It ain’t possible — because he’s dead.”
Eden drew back. “Dead?” The thought of death was horrible to him.
“Yeh.” There was triumph in Noah Binns’s grin, for he had a relish for the thought of death. “The weeds killed him.”
“When?”
“We buried him today.”
“Poor man.”
Noah gripped the pointed pickets of the fence in both hands and bowed, as though to destiny. He said:
“That man wanted room for scope. Them two trees hindered him.
He took their lives and the weeds took his.”
“You mean to say he felt so badly?”
“See here, young feller, how old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“You ain’t found out yet what it is to be hindered. You don’t understand.”
“Oh, don’t I?”
“You wait till you’re that man’s age and longing for scope. Every morning he’d take one sorrowful look at them weeds, then shut hisself up for the rest of the day.”
“Did he ever say he wished he hadn’t cut down the trees?”
“Not he. He sort of blamed them for all his misery.”
“Well, Noah, let’s hope he’ll find room for scope now.”
“There’s one thing he’ll have,” said Noah, “and that’s plenty good grass in the graveyard.” He watched with contemplative gaze Eden’s figure recross the field and disappear among the pines. Then he returned to his raking of the leaves with a muttered — “Dang him.”
XV
THE FALLING STOCKS
Eden had for some time led a double life. He was the law student who could, when occasion demanded, talk quite earnestly of his studies and make pretence of being ambitious to become Mr. Justice Whiteoak. Yet he never seriously believed that life, so foreign to his nature, could really claim him. There would appear some way of escape — a door in the wall, beyond which would lie the garden of his desire. Once let his poems be collected between covers and he would open the door and be gone from the study of law for ever. But now he had entered on a third life — the life of the mining promoter. If things went on as they were with him … but when he tried to picture what was opening up before him, he could not think clearly. His imagination became a kaleidoscope of fantastic shapes and bright colours. He would lie on his back in a delicious languor, relaxed in the supreme indolence that only youth can know.
Yet there were times when he was troubled not a little by the manner in which the Indigo Lake Mine had pressed in upon his imagination. Poems were begun in fervent fancy but left unfinished because thought of rising stocks took possession of him. Worse still, the other investors under that roof were continually desirous of discussing the condition of the market with him. With an air of almost overpowering secrecy Lady Buckley would draw him into her room, in a contralto whisper, enquire if the stock were still rising.
“A little,” he would say. “You were lucky to buy when you did. Still the price is not prohibitive and, if you would care to buy —”
“No more — no more. I am quite satisfied. I just want to be sure I am safe.”
“Nothing could be safer, Aunt Augusta.”
Then she would say — “I do feel rather selfish in keeping this so secret.”
“Don’t worry. The others would probably object. I’m sure Renny would.”
“Foolish young man that he is, when he so often finds it difficult to make ends meet.”
“I shall soon be off his hands.”
“I do hope you are applying yourself strenuously to your studies.”
“Oh, I am.”
“I saw your light burning late last night when I went to investigate a rattling window.”
Eden tried to look the dedicated student.
Lady Buckley said — “But you must have plenty of rest, dear, for your health’s sake.”
“I’m strong enough, Aunty.”
Then his sister would corner him with — “Let’s calculate just how much I’ve made, Eden. Tell me just what my stocks are worth today.” Her smile would be extraordinarily sweet as she contemplated the rise in her fortunes. “There’s no reason,” she asked, “is there, why I should not make a great deal more?”
“None whatever.”
“What fun — you and I having this secret!”
“Great fun.” All these secrets were beginning to weigh on him. But what need he care when he had sloughed off the irritating skin of Law and was loitering free in Rome?
As though she read his thoughts, she asked — “How much have you made out of this?”
He gave her the amount he had received as commission on her investment.
Meg opened her very blue eyes wide. “You must take care of it, Eden. A very nice little nest egg. And so easily earned.”
He returned her look crossly, she could not think why.
Dilly seemed to have forgotten her investment. She was absorbed by two things — her preparation for the Horse Show and her pursuit of Renny. Between the two, the rest of the family saw very little of her, excepting when he was present. She was almost always in riding clothes and could talk of nothing but the behaviour of her horse. She still laughed rather more than Lady Buckley thought suitable, her complexion became more dazzling than ever, and there was an added gleam in her eyes when they rested on the master of the house. Her pursuit of him hung about her like a too heavy perfume. Even Finch noticed it and felt both fascinated and repelled. He was not aware of the pursuit, but her concentration on the Horse Show did not account for the intensifying of her personal attributes. He would stare at Dilly with his mouth open, till his aunt would catch his eye, shut her own mouth firmly, and nod to him to do the same.
For some reason Piers was rather touching to Eden, in his complete trust in Eden’s perspicacity. He handed over almost all he earned and did not even ask for a receipt. “Why, he’s a child,” thought Eden, “no more than a trusting child. That’s what’s the matter with us all, I believe. We’re too trusting. We’ve been too sheltered. We’re all of us, even the uncles, clinging to our innocence — clinging to our childish idea of a family.”
With Nicholas and Ernest he was most at ease in th
ese days, for, secure in the privacy of their rooms, he could indulge in happy forecasts of the future. He had given up all study. When he retired to his room to work it was only a pretence. He idled, he wrote a little poetry, and read much.
One evening he carried a book to Nicholas’s room and rapped.
“Come in,” Nicholas sang out.
“Here’s a book I think you’d enjoy.” Eden put South Wind into his uncle’s hand. “Are you busy? May I come in?”
“Thanks for the book. Alluring title — on a night of north wind. Upon my word, I can’t remember a windier fall. Sit down, Eden. I have been wanting to see you alone. Have a drink?”
“Thanks.” Eden bent to pat Nip, curled up on the bed, who rose, arched his back like a cat, and uttered a complaining yawn.
“Hates this weather,” said Nicholas, pouring the drinks. “Catch a spider, Nip!”
The little dog hurled himself from the bed, raced round and round the room, snuffling in the corners and barking hysterically.
“Gives him exercise,” said Nicholas. “Good for him.”
They sat down with their drinks and Nicholas then asked — “I suppose you have lots of work to do?”
“Well, not much tonight.”
His uncle looked at him keenly. “Working very hard?”
“Not particularly.” There was a defensive note in Eden’s voice. He knew well how he was wasting his time but he could, in these days of high hope, endure no probings from his elders.
“Well, well,” said Nicholas, settling himself in his chair and gathering Nip on to his knees, “I idled too when I was your age. Regretted it afterward — though not greatly. But now it’s different. A young man needs to be keen, doesn’t he? How are the stocks?”
“Fine.”
“Do you know what I’ve decided to do?”
“Sell out. I shall make a good profit and not run the risk of a drop in prices. By Jove, I don’t want to lose anything.”
“No danger, Uncle Nick. But, if you want to take your profit now, I’ll see Kronk tomorrow and he’ll fix it for you.” Nicholas smiled up at Eden. “This affair of the Indigo Lake has given us a deal of excitement,” he said. “It’s years since I done any speculating, and then not very successfully. But this — well, as I say, I think I shall take the profit and be satisfied. Now, if I were Ernest, I’d go on and on, till I should probably end by losing.”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 44
