“From what Augusta tells me, Dilly did well to escape.”
“I wish I could.”
Ernest laughed heartlessly. “You are well able to look after yourself, dear boy.”
Nicholas now joined them, and Ernest said to him — “We have just been speaking of Dilly.”
Nicholas, filling his pipe, growled — “Steer clear of matrimony. I tried it. Never would again.”
Ernest objected — “But Renny must marry. He must carry on the name.”
Nicholas said — “Piers is bound to. He’s the type. Let him do it.”
“Just the same,” said Renny, “this girl is a menace. I wish she’d go.”
“I shall miss her bright presence in the house.” And Ernest drew a comfortable sigh.
“From now on,” said Renny, “I intend to live more and more in the stable.”
He kept his word, and there were days when he was scarcely seen in the house. He had two rather peculiar horsy friends who visited him often but were not made welcome by Meg. They would sit in his little office in the stable, discussing the characteristics, the pedigrees of various horses by the hour. They would drink whisky and water, smoke till the air was blue, even sometimes have a game of cards, all in the peaceful knowledge that, in the stable beyond, there were no complications of human intercourse, but only the direct and godlike simplicity of beautiful and powerful beasts.
“I love the harness horse,” Mr. Chase would say. “And I saw a beauty last week. She was for sale and you ought to buy her, Mr. Whiteoak.”
“I don’t go in for breeding harness horses, as you well know. It’s a waste of time.”
“That there Cora of yours is a lovely mare,” Mr. Crowdy would add. “What a shoulder! What a firm, level back! What legs!”
“Yes,” Renny would agree. “Money can’t buy her.”
And on and on they would talk till the early dusk began to fall, when the two friends would depart in their old Ford and Renny would stand in the door of the stable, staring longingly at the lights coming out of the house. “Upon my word,” he thought, “it hardly seems like home any more.”
He went back into his office and looked at the calendar and counted the days till she would go. “By God, she’ll get me yet,” he thought, as he felt himself weakening.
The very next day she appeared at the stables wearing her riding clothes. It was the first of March and a great thaw had set in. Huge snowdrifts which had withstood the ever-increasing power of the sun now succumbed, sank, drew into themselves, and disappeared. Little rivulets chased each other all about the farmland. Sparrows fervently took baths in icy puddles. The earth presented its dark face to the sun’s inspection.
Dilly came right to the office and knocked peremptorily on the door.
He knew who it was before opening it and he looked about him, as though for a place to hide. Then she knocked again, playing a little tune on the door with her knuckles.
He opened it and greeted her with an unamiable grin. “Well,” he said, “so it’s you, Dilly.”
“I didn’t know a winter could be so long,” she said. “Couldn’t we go for a ride.”
“We could indeed, if you like riding in icy slush. The horses certainly don’t.”
She came into the office. “I heard Piers say at lunch that the roads are quite good now and I heard you say last night that the horses need exercising.” Her eyes rested on the calendar. “What a pretty calendar! Why have you made a circle with a red pencil round the twenty-first of March?”
He looked at that date as though he had not seen it before, then he answered — “It is the Equinox. Surely you know that.”
“I want to know what it means.” She stood straight, looking into his eyes.
“Why, the sun crosses the equator, doesn’t it?”
“I cross the Atlantic!” she cried. “Do you mean to say that you’re making a red-letter day of it?”
“Is that the date when you leave?” he asked innocently.
“It is. You know that very well. Really — you have the most perfectly, abnormally sadistic nature I have ever known.”
“Go on,” he said, “this is just the way to make me love you.”
“I don’t want you to love me! I want you to go on hating me.”
“Come to the stable,” he said, “and get on the scales and let me weigh you. I believe you’ve gained considerably since coming to Jalna.”
“I’d rather,” she cried, “be too plump than thin as a bone like you are.”
He answered tranquilly — “Curves in a woman can be very alluring.”
“You suggest weighing me to sneer at me.”
“No. To put you in good humour. Children always like to be weighed.”
“You think I behave childishly,” she wailed.
He moved his arm so that he could see his wristwatch. “We have time for a ride,” he said. “Supposing we go. I’ll ride Cora and you shall ride Prince Eitel. He’s a fairly new acquisition. He’s well-behaved, though a bit lively. Do you mind?”
“There’s nothing on earth I should like so well,” she cried, melting as the snowdrifts had melted. “Now we’re friends again, aren’t we? How heavenly!” And she held out her plump white hand which he at once clasped in a determined air of masculine reconciliation.
As they passed the various stalls and loose boxes their occupants, by some subtle means of communication, let it be known to the farthest corner that there was riding in the air. The winter had been so long. To be sure, a canter on well-packed snow was a pleasant thing, but the wind could be bitter cold and the deep ruts of winter roads were not liked by horse or rider. But now there was warmth in the sunshine that turned the clean straw to spears of gold. Through the open upper half of a door came a new smell. Elegantly sculptured necks were arched in anticipation. Lustrous eyes glowed and deep-throated whickers demanded — “Am I to be chosen?”
Cora and Prince Eitel were saddled and led out. Renny looked Dilly over, with an appraising eye, as she was mounted. He thought he never had seen her so attractive. She stroked Prince’s neck and called him “darling.” She seemed to feel that he was going to do something for her.
As they trotted past the house, there was Meg on the porch, wearing only a cotton dress and hugging herself with her plump arms.
“Have a nice ride,” she called.
“It’s divine to be on horseback,” Dilly called back.
“He’s a beauty — the horse you’re on!”
“He’s like a rocking chair.”
Meg shouted — “You two look lovely together!”
Pretending not to have heard, Dilly asked — “What did she say?”
“She said we looked funny together.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“That’s what she said.”
“I heard. And she said lovely.”
“Rather a silly remark. But I suppose she meant the horses.”
“You never would agree that I could look lovely.”
“You’re not my type, as I’ve told you.” He cast a critical glance at her. “Your right knee is out.”
She clamped it to Prince’s side and they disappeared from Meg’s gaze into the green tunnel of the drive where the lowest branches of the spruce and hemlock swept the ground and the topmost now welcomed the first crow.
“Listen,” exclaimed Renny, when it uttered its bold caw. “Spring is coming!”
“It must be divine here in springtime,” she said, raising her eyes to the promise of black wings now spread against a pale-blue sky.
“It is,” he agreed. “It comes suddenly and everyone is glad. Though for myself I enjoy all seasons. Just as I enjoy all moods in a woman.”
“You can be very sweet,” she said. “But, when you’re disagreeable, the effect on me is devastating. Oh, there’s some terrible lack in me! You feel it, I know. Can you tell me what it is?” She rode close beside him now through the big gate and on to the road.
“Yes,” he answered tersely. “Horse
sense.”
“You devil,” she said, pushing so close to him that Cora capered in annoyance, slipped, and went dangerously close to the ditch.
The road was a little muddy, with melting snow at the sides and a subdued gurgling in the ditches. On either side the farmlands still looked wintry. There was that air of flat desertion, as though all slept, not in peace, not in serenity, but in the season that was no season, in a longing without object.
“Which way are we going?” she asked in a small meek voice.
Always showing off, he thought, and answered — “To the lakeshore road. It will be better there.” His eyes were following with admiration the easy grace of Prince Eitel’s gait. He had been a good buy.
The pair exchanged amiable words as they ambled along the miles to the lakeshore road which the sun had almost dried and where they passed two wagons and met a single motor-car.
Prince Eitel, Renny thought, carried himself as a prince should. He moved with charm and distinction. Not that he was better than Cora. No horse could surpass her, but he was wonderfully good, and Dilly had never appeared to greater advantage. Renny was conscious of his thoughts warming dangerously toward her, and she, when she spoke, said the right thing. Her eyes, when she turned to look into his — but no — better not meet that look of challenge and promise — for if he gave in to her, though she might pretend that she did not care a rip for marriage — he saw that in the pout of her lips now — she would marry him in the end — as sure as she sat astride Prince.
He knew that road, yard by yard, not mile by mile as a motorist would know it. He knew the rise beyond a clump of cedars, where a huge old stump lay, at which Cora invariably ducked her head and shied. He knew the very bend in the road where the icy wind struck you. He knew that place where the lake was washing away the shore, nearer and nearer the road. The ditch into which a runaway horse had once thrown him and broken his leg.
They turned into a side road and passed through a gate into a field where Renny saw a farmer at work. He was arranging to buy a load of gravel from the farmer. The pit was at the far end of the field and near it was a small stream. Cora lightly jumped the stream but Prince Eitel, in a playful mood, refused. He danced and gambolled at its edge, while Dilly happily showed off her horsemanship for the benefit of the two men. Then he made up his mind that he would jump, but Dilly had allowed him to dance farther down the steam and the place where he went over was near the edge of the pit. He jumped with great power and, for an instant, made a brilliant picture against the sky, then landed with his forefeet in slushy gravel, looking straight down into the pit. Shouts of warning had been too late to prevent the near-disaster.
Terror shook Prince to his vitals. Rigid as a horse in bronze he kept his balance, like a rider in bronze Dilly gripped him with her thighs.
He uttered a snort of terror, glaring down into the pit. He then gave a trumpet-like scream, reared to his hind legs, turned short on them, and proceeded to express the violence of the fear he had experienced by a displaying of plunging, kicking, and shying. There was nothing the two men could do but watch and pray that Dilly would not be thrown.
She was not thrown, and when Prince Eitel had recovered himself she rode over to where Renny was, and exclaimed quite jauntily, though her cheeks were white — “What fun!”
Never had he admired her so much. But now admiration was fired by desire. He really wanted her, he thought, and, when they returned to Jalna, he would ask her to marry him. Yes, he would marry her and everybody would be pleased. It had taken him some time to be sure of his feelings but now he was sure. Dilly was magnificent.
And all the way home she did nothing to destroy the aura with which this incident had surrounded her. She was rather quiet, rather gentle, bending to speak soothing words to Prince and pat him.
In the stable-yard at Jalna there was a pleasant bustle. The old carriage had been brought out and was being washed and polished for the grandmother’s first spring outing. Wright was clipping the long hair from the legs of a team of farm horses. A hen was cackling so loudly as a stableboy drove her from where she had no business to be. A rooster was crowing. Piers had been exercising his favourite among the horses, an aged polo pony which followed him about like a dog and was now eating a carrot from his hand. Ben, the sheepdog, was supervising all this with an air of great sagacity.
Piers came to help Dilly dismount and she poured out the story of her narrow escape. It was surprising how this terrifying incident sounded no more than feminine exaggeration the way Dilly now related it. And she had been so cool, so collected.
“You’d never believe, Piers,” she cried, “how completely shattered Renny and I were. At first we simply rocked with hysterical laughter. Then we clung to each other, in tears. Didn’t we, Renny?”
“Of course. And we were still mounted when we did all this,” said Renny, his eyes now teasing rather than lover-like. “Take Dilly to the house, Piers, and give her a drink. She’s been through a good deal.”
“Aren’t you coming?” asked Dilly.
“Not yet. Scotchmere tells me there are two men waiting for me in my office.” He followed the old groom into the stable.
The two men were Messrs. Crowdy and Chase; the former was bubbling over with plans for winning the King’s Plate with a fine young horse he had lately purchased. Chase, in his quiet way, was as absorbed as Crowdy, yet both had seen Dilly from the little window in the office.
When their first greetings to Renny were over, Mr. Crowdy, spreading a thick palm, inscribed on it, with a stubby forefinger, a cryptic sign whose meaning was known only to himself, and said:
“A fine figure of a young lady. Very fine. A winner. In any class.”
And Chase added — “There’s no woman so satisfactory a companion as a good horse, Mr. Whiteoak. There’s something about a good horse that makes a man happy and peaceful.” By the time Renny joined the family for the evening meal the idea of making a proposal of marriage had quite left his mind. He felt free and untroubled.
Eden, throughout the long winter, wrote more poetry than ever before. He made a pretence of working at his books. He did indeed attend lectures and take notes, but in the seclusion of his own room he did little but read and write poetry. On the journeyings to and from the town he sat slumped in his seat in the train, with young Finch opposite, his eyes not seeing the wintry landscape, his imagination fiery from within. In its generous fire he scarcely was aware of what day of the week it was, except for the pleasure of the week-end when he was free.
“He gets lazier and lazier,” Renny observed to Nicholas. “I don’t know what to do with him. He’s going to fail in his exams again, as sure as fate.”
“He will be all right,” said Nicholas. “There’s good stuff in Eden. He may surprise us yet.”
“I don’t doubt that he’ll surprise us. But I do doubt that the surprise will be pleasant.”
“His poetry,” said Ernest, “is good. I stick to that. Has he told you he has had another poem accepted by Harper’s?”
“Yes.”
“Did he read it to you?”
“Yes. But he can’t live on poetry. When I talk of work he looks tragic.”
Eden was always a problem. Finch was often a problem. Doubtless Wake would be a problem. Of the four youngest Whiteoaks Piers was the only one to be depended on, a boy easily understood, thought his elders, little dreaming what was going on inside his head.
A professor with whom Eden had become friendly advised him to send a collection of his poems to a firm of New York publishers, Messrs. Cory and Parsons. The thought of doing this had not before occurred to him. He felt diffident about it, but Ernest, when he was told of the suggestion, agreed with enthusiasm. He urged the boy to bring all the verse he had written to his room and they would go over them together, selecting, choosing titles for the poems, polishing — if Eden would be willing to let Ernest offer a suggestion now and again. Eden was willing and a happy time they had together. New lyrics poured
from Eden in an ardent stream. So eager, so careless was the flow that scarcely had the idea of a new poem been generated in his imagination before it had taken form and was transferred to paper. In this period of flowering, the anxieties, the tension of the days of Indigo Lake were forgotten. Ernest knew he was doing wrong in encouraging Eden to waste so much of his time but he could not help himself. Always he had hoped to have something of his own published and had not given up hope, though he had not yet brought himself to the point of submitting a finished manuscript to a publisher.
XXIV
INDOOR SPORT
All through the winter the house with its five chimneys seemed to be sunk in meditation. From the chimneys smoke rose, like its meditations made palpable. On one side or other of the roof the snow would melt, as the warmth of the sun increased, and the pigeons would come and sit on the sunny slope of it, and pass the word in low tones that a time was coming for love and rivalry and the wonder of eggs in the nest. Sometimes a mass of snow would slide off the roof with a loud rumble like distant thunder. The grandmother would speak of the old days when passenger pigeons would fly overhead in a cloud that darkened the sun, and bluebirds in a small blue cloud, a time when the wild birds had scarcely learned to be afraid.
“Ah, those were the days,” she said to Dilly. “The birds were scarce afraid. The people had not grown soft. They’d leave their grand home and come out here to the Colony and rough it. There was no fear in the land. We had a glorious time of it — my husband and I. We built this house, you know.”
“What fun!”
“Indeed, ’twas fun.” And she added, in a tone of melancholy unusual to her — “’Twere better I had been a man!”
“Why, dear Mrs. Whiteoak?”
“Because then I should have been dead long ago.”
“But why?”
“Ah, they don’t last as we do. They’re not made for lasting.”
“I think men are magnificent,” cried Dilly. “See how they can fight in a war!”
“Ah, but they get killed or come home and die. We outlast them.”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 56
