Piers regarded his thin frame with contemptuous amusement. He offered pungent criticisms of Finch’s prominent shoulder blades, ribs, and various other portions of his anatomy. At last the boy, trembling with anger and humiliation, got into his nightshirt, turned out the light, and scrambled over Piers to his place next the wall. He curled himself up with a sigh of relief. It had been a nervous business scrambling over Piers. He had half expected to be grabbed by the ankle and put to some new torture. But he had gained his corner in safety. The day with its miseries was over. He stretched out his long limbs.
They lay still, side by side, in the peaceful dark. At length Piers spoke in a low, accusing tone.
“You didn’t say your prayers. What do you mean by getting into bed without saying your prayers?”
Finch was staggered. This was something new. Piers, of all people, after him about prayers! There was something ominous about it.
“I forgot,” he returned, heavily.
“Well, you’ve no right to forget. It’s an important thing at your time of life to pray long and earnestly. If you prayed more and sulked less, you’d be healthier and happier.”
“Rot. What are you givin’ us?”
“I’m in dead earnest. Out you get and say your prayers.”
“You don’t pray yourself,” complained Finch, bitterly. “You haven’t said prayers for years.”
“That’s nothing to you. I’ve a special compact with the Devil, and he looks after his own. But you, my little lamb, must be separated from the goats.”
“Oh, let me alone,” growled Finch. “I’m sleepy. Let me alone.”
“Get up and say your prayers.”
“Oh, Piers, don’t be a—”
“Be careful what you call me. Get out.”
“Shan’t.” He clutched the blankets desperately, for he feared what was coming.
“You won’t get up, eh? You won’t say your prayers, eh? I’ve got to force you, eh?”
With each question Piers’s strong fingers sought a tenderer spot in Finch’s anatomy.
“Oh—oh—oh! Piers! Please let me up! Ow-eee-ee!” With a last terrible squeak Finch was out on the floor. He stood rubbing his side cautiously. Then he almost blubbered: “What the hell do you want me to do, anyway?”
“I want you to say your prayers properly. I’m not going to have you start being lax at your age. Down on your knees.”
Finch dropped to his knees on the cold floor. Kneeling by the bedside in the pale moonlight, he was a pathetic young figure. But the sight held no pathos for Piers.
“Now, then,” he said. “Fire away.” Finch pressed his face against his clenched hands.
“Why don’t you begin?” asked Piers, rising on his elbow and speaking testily.
“I—I have begun,” came in a muffled voice.
“I can’t hear you. How do you expect the Almighty, to hear you if I can’t? Speak up.”
“I c-can’t. I won’t!”
“You shall. Or you’ll be sorry.”
In the stress of the moment, all Finch’s prayers left him, as earlier all his Euclid had done. In the dim chaos of his soul only two words of supplication remained. “Oh, God,” he muttered, hoarsely, and because he could think of nothing else, and must pray or be abused by that devil Piers, he repeated the words again and again in a hollow, shaking voice.
Piers lay listening blandly. He thought Finch the most ridiculous duffer he had ever known. He was a mystery Piers would never fathom. Suddenly he thought: “I’m fed up with this,” and said: “Enough, enough. It’s not much of a prayer you’ve made, but still you’ve a nice intimate way with the Almighty. You’d make a good Methodist of the Holy Roller variety.” He added, not unkindly, “Hop into bed now.”
But Finch would not hop. He clutched the counterpane and went on sobbing, “Oh, God!” The room was full of the presence of the Deity to him, now wearing the face of the terrible, austere Old Testament God, now, miraculously, the handsome, sneering face of Piers. Only a rap on the head brought him to his senses. He somehow got his long body. back into bed, shivering all over.
Eden threw the door open. “One might as well,” he complained in a high voice, “live next door to a circus. You’re the most disgusting young—” and he delivered himself of some atrocious language. He interrupted himself to ask, cocking his head, “Is he crying? What’s he crying for?”
“Just low-spirited, I expect,” replied Piers, in a sleepy voice.
“What are you crying for, Finch?”
“Let me alone, can’t you?” screamed Finch, in a sudden fury. “You let me alone!”
“I think he’s snivelling over his report. Renny was up in the air about it,” said Piers.
“Oh, is that it? Well, study will do more than snivelling to help that.” And Eden disappeared as he had come.
The two brothers lay in the moonlight. Finch was quiet save for an occasional gulp. Piers’s feelings toward him were magnanimous now. He was such a helpless young fool. Piers thought it rather hard that he had been born between Eden and Finch. Wedged in between a poet and a fool. What a sandwich! Of a certainty, he was the meaty part.
His thoughts turned to Pheasant. She was of never-failing interest to him: her pretty gestures, her reckless way of throwing her heart open to him, her sudden withdrawals, the remoteness of her profile. He could see her face in the moonlight as though she were in the room with him. Soon she would be, instead of snuffling young Finch! He loved her with every inch of his body. He alone of all the people in Jalna knew what real love was. Strange that, being absorbed by love as he was, he should have time to play with young Finch and make him miserable. No denying that there lurked a mischievous devil in him. Then, too, he had suffered so much anxiety lately that to have everything settled, to be certain of haying his own way, made him feel like a young horse suddenly turned out into the spring pastures, ready to run and kick and bite his best friend from sheer high spirits.
Poor old Finch! Piers gave the bedclothes a jerk over Finch’s protruding shoulder and put an arm around him.
VI
PHEASANT AND MAURICE
TWO WEEKS later Pheasant awakened one morning at sunrise. She could not sleep, because it was her wedding day. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window to see whether the heavens were to smile on her.
The sky was radiant as a golden sea, and just above the sun a cloud shaped like a great red whale floated as in a dream. Below her window, shutting in the lawn, the cherry orchard had burst into a sudden perfection of bloom. The young trees stood in snowy rows like expectant young girls awaiting their first communion. A cowbell was jangling down in the ravine.
Pheasant leaned across the sill, her cropped brown hair all on end, her nightdress falling from one slim shoulder. She was happy because of the gay serenity of the morning, because the cherry trees had come into bloom for her wedding day; yet she was depressed, because it was her wedding day and she had nothing new to wear. Besides, she would have to go to live at Jalna, where nobody wanted her except Piers.
She was to meet him at two o’clock. He had borrowed a car, and they were to drive to Stead to be married. This was outside Mr. Fennel’s parish. Then they were to go to the city for the night, but they must be back at Jalna the next day because Piers was anxious about the spring sowing. What sort of reception would the family at Jalna give them? They had been kind always, but would they be kind to her as Piers’s wife? Still, Piers would take care of her. She would face the world with him at her side.
She drummed her white fingers on the sill, watching the sun twinkle on her engagement ring, which thus far she had only dared to wear at night. She thought of that blissful moment when each had stared into the other’s face, watching love flower there like the cherry tree bursting into bloom. She would love him always, let him cuddle his head against her shoulder at night, and go into the fields with him in the morning. She was glad he had chosen the land as his job, instead of one of the professions. She was too ignora
nt to be the wife of a learned young man. To Piers she could unfold her childish speculations about life without embarrassment.
For the hundredth time she examined the few clothes she had laid in an immense shabby portmanteau for her wedding journey—her patent-leather shoes and her one pair of silk stockings, a pink organdie dress, really too small for her, four handkerchiefs—well, she had plenty of them, at least, and one never knew when one might shed tears—a nightdress, and an India shawl that had been her grandmother’s. She did not suppose she would need the shawl; she had never worn it except when playing at being grown up, but it helped to make a more impressive trousseau, and it might be necessary to have a wrap at dinner in the hotel, or if they went to the opera. She felt somewhat cheered as she replaced them and fastened the spongy leather straps. After all, they might have been fewer and worse.
She got out her darning things and mended—or rather puckered together—a large hole in the heel of a brown stocking she was to wear on the journey. She mended the torn buttonholes of her brown coat, sprinkled a prodigious amount of cheap perfume over the little brown dress that lay in a drawer ready to put on, and found herself chilled, for she had not yet dressed.
She hastily put on her clothes, washed her face, and combed her hair, staring at herself in the glass. She thought dismally: “Certainly I am no beauty. Nannie has trimmed my hair badly. I’m far too thin, and I haven’t at all that sleek look becoming in a bride. No one could imagine a wreath of orange blossoms on my head. A punchinello’s cap would be more appropriate. Ah, well, there have been worse-looking girls led to the altar, I dare say.”
Maurice Vaughan was already at the table, eating sausages and fried potatoes. He did not say good morning, but he put some of the food on a plate and pushed it toward her. Presently he said:
“Jim Martin is coming with a man from Brancepeth today. Have Nannie put the dinner off till one. We’ll be busy.”
Pheasant was aghast. She was to meet Piers at two. How could she get away in time? And if she did not turn up for dinner Maurice might make inquiries, get suspicious. Her hands shook as she poured her tea. She could not properly see the breakfast things.
Maurice stared at her coldly. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked. “What’s the matter with you this morning?”
“I was busy thinking. Yes, you want dinner at two; I heard.”
“I said one o’clock. I’d better give the order myself, if you haven’t the wit.”
Pheasant was regaining her self-possession.
“How easily you get out of temper,” she said, coolly. “Of course I’ll remember. I hope Mr. Martin will be soberer than he was the last time he was here. He put a pickle in his tea instead of sugar, and slept all evening, I remember, in his chair.”
“I don’t.”
“I dare say you don’t. You were pretty far gone yourself.”
Vaughan burst out laughing. The audacities of this only half-acknowledged young daughter of his amused him. Yet, perversely, when she was meek and eager to please, he was often unkind to her, seeming to take pleasure in observing how she had inherited a capacity for suffering equal to his own.
Maurice Vaughan was the grandson and only male descendant of the Colonel Vaughan whose letters had persuaded Philip Whiteoak to remove westward from Quebec. He was an only child, who had come to his parents late in life. He had been too gently reared, and had grown into a heavily built, indolent, arrogant youth, feeling himself intellectually above all his associates, even Renny Whiteoak, whom he loved. At twenty he nourished the illusion that he would become a great man in the affairs of his country with no effort on his part. At twenty-one he became engaged to Meg Whiteoak, charmed by that ineffably sweet smile of hers and her drowsy quiescence toward himself. The parents of the two were almost beside themselves with pleasure. They scarcely dared to breathe lest a breath too hot or too cold should damp the ardour of the young pair and the so desirable match be not consummated.
Meggie would not be hurried. A year’s engagement was proper, and a year’s engagement she would have. Maurice, idle and elegant, attracted the attention of a pretty, sharp-featured village girl, Elvira Grey. She took to picking bramble-berries in the woods where Maurice slouched about with his gun—the same woods where Piers and Pheasant now met. Maurice, while he waited impatiently for Meg, was comforted by the love of Elvira.
A month before the marriage was to take place, a tiny bundle containing a baby was laid one summer night on the Vaughans’ doorstep. Old Mr. Vaughan, awakened by its faint cry, went downstairs in his slippers, opened the front door, and found the bundle, on which a note was pinned, which read: “Maurice Vaughan is the father of this baby. Please be kind to it. It hasn’t harmed no one.”
Mr. Vaughan fell in a faint on the steps and was found, lying beside the baby, by a farm labourer who read the note and quickly spread the news. The child was carried into the house and the news of its arrival to Jalna.
As proper in the heroine of such a tragedy, Meg locked herself in her room and refused to see anyone. She refused to eat. Maurice, after a heart-rending morning with his parents, during which he acknowledged everything, went and hid himself in the woods. It was found that Elvira, an orphan, had disappeared.
Meg’s father, accompanied by his brothers, Nicholas and Ernest, went to thrash out the matter with Mr. Vaughan. They were quite twenty years younger than he, and they all raged around the poor distracted man at once, in true Whiteoak fashion. Still, in spite of their outraged feelings, they agreed that the engagement was not to be broken, that the marriage must take place at the appointed time. A home could be found for the baby. They drove back to Jalna, after having had some stiff drinks, feeling that, thank God, everything had been patched up, and it would be a lesson to the young fool, though rather rough on Meggie.
Meggie could not be persuaded to leave her room. Trays of food placed outside her door were left untouched. One night, after four days of misery, young Maurice rode over to Jalna on his beautiful chestnut mare. He threw a handful of gravel against Meggie’s window and called her name. She made no answer. He repeated it with tragic insistence. Finally Meg appeared in the bright moonlight, framed as a picture by the vine-clad window. She sat with her elbow on the sill and her chin on her palm, listening, while he, standing with the mare’s bridle over his arm, poured out his contrition. She listened impassively, with her face raised moonward, till he had done, and then said: “It is all over. I cannot marry you, Maurice. I shall never marry anyone.”
Maurice could not and would not believe her. He was unprepared for such relentless stubbornness beneath such a sweet exterior. He explained and implored for two hours. He threw himself on the ground and wept, while the mare cropped the grass beside him.
Renny, whose room was next Meg’s, could bear it no longer. He flew downstairs to Maurice’s side and joined his supplications to his friend’s in rougher language. Nothing could move Meggie. She listened to the impassioned appeals of the two youths with tears raining down her pale cheeks; then, with a final gesture of farewell, she closed the window.
Meggie was interviewed by each of her elders in turn. Her father, her uncles, her young stepmother—who had hoped so soon to be rid of her—all exercised their powers of reasoning with her. Grandmother also tried her hand, but the sight of Meggie, suave yet immovable as Gibraltar, was too much for the old lady. She hit her on the head, which caused Philip Whiteoak to intervene, and say that he would not have his little girl forced into any distasteful marriage, and that it was small wonder if Meggie couldn’t stomach a bridegroom who had just made a mother of a chapped country wench.
Meggie emerged from her retirement, pale but tranquil. Her life suffered little outward derangement from this betrayal of her affections. However, she cared less for going out with other young people, and spent many hours in her bedroom. It was at this time that she acquired the habit of eating almost nothing at the table, getting ample nourishment from agreeable little lunches carried to her room
. She became more and more devoted to her brothers, pouring out on them a devotion with which she sought to drown the image of her lover.
Maurice never again came nearer to Jalna than its stables. The friendship between him and Renny still endured. Together they went through the hardships of the War years later. When Pheasant was three years old, Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan died within the year, and she was left to the care of an unloving young father whom she could already call “Maurice.” Misfortune followed close upon bereavement. Mining stocks in which nearly all of the Vaughans’ money was invested became worthless and Maurice’s income declined from ten thousand a year to less than two. He made something from breeding horses, but as Pheasant grew up she never knew what it was to have two coins to rub together or attractive garments with which to clothe her young body. The thousand acres bought from the government by the first Vaughan had dwindled to three hundred. Of these only fifty lay under cultivation; the rest were in pasture and massive oak woods. The ravine that traversed Jalna narrowly spread into a valley through Vaughanlands, ending in a shallow basin, in the middle of which stood the house, with hanging shutters, sagging porch, and moss-grown roof.
The one servant now kept was an old Scotswoman, Nannie, who spoke but rarely and then in a voice scarcely above a whisper. Beside Jalna, teeming with loud-voiced, intimate, inquisitive people, Vaughanlands seemed but an echoing shell, the three who dwelt there holding aloof in annihilating self-absorption.
Dinner at one, instead of half-past twelve as usual, threw Pheasant’s plans into confusion. She felt suddenly weak, defenceless, insecure. She felt afraid of herself. Afraid that she would suddenly cry out to Maurice: “I’m going to run away to be married at half-past one! Dinner must be at the regular time.”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 64
