Renny was saying, in his vibrant voice that was without the music of Eden’s, “I’m sorry I could not go to your wedding. I could not get away at that time.”
“Yes,” chimed in Meg, “Renny and I wanted so very much to go, but we could not arrange it. Finch had a touch of tonsillitis just then, and Wakefield’s heart was not behaving very well, and of course there is Grandmamma.”
Mrs. Whiteoak broke in: “I wanted to go, but I’m too old to travel. I did all my travelling in my youth. I’ve been all over the world. But I sent my love. Did you get my love? I sent my love in Meggie’s letter. Did you get it, eh?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Alayne. “We were so very glad to get your message.”
“You’d better be. I don’t send my love to everyone, helter-skelter.” She nodded her cap so vigorously that three green peas bounced from her fork and rolled across the table. Wakefield was convulsed by laughter. He said, “Bang!” as each pea fell, and shot one of his own after them. Renny looked down the table sharply at him, and he subsided.
Grandmother peered at her fork, shrewdly missing the peas.
“My peas are gone,” she said. “I want more peas; more cauliflower and potatoes, too.”
She was helped to more vegetables, and at once began to mould them with her fork into a solid mass.
“Mamma,” objected Ernest mildly, “must you do that?”
Sasha, who was perched on his shoulder, observing that his attention was directed away from his poised fork, stretched out one furry paw and drew it toward her own whiskered lips. Ernest rescued the morsel of chicken just in time. “Naughty, naughty,” he said.
As though there had been no interruption, Meg continued:
“It must have been such a pretty wedding. Eden wrote us all about it.”
By this time Renny had attacked the second fowl with his carvers. Alayne had made no appreciable inroads on her dinner, but all the Whiteoaks were ready for more.
“Renny, did you get the pigs?” asked Piers, breaking in on conversation about the wedding with, Alayne thought, ostentatious brusqueness.
“Yes. You never saw a grander litter. Got the nine and the old sow for a hundred dollars. I offered ninety; Probyn wanted a hundred and ten. I met him halfway.” The master of Jalna began to talk of the price of pigs with gusto. Everyone talked of the price of pigs; and everyone agreed that Renny had paid too much.
Only the dishevelled carcass of the second fowl remained on the platter. Then it was removed, and a steaming blackberry pudding and a large plum tart made their appearance.
“You are eating almost nothing, dear Alayne,” said Meg. “I do hope you will like the pudding.”
Renny was looking at Alayne steadily from under his thick lashes, the immense pudding spoon expectantly poised.
“Thank you,” she answered. “But I really could not. I will take a little of the pie.”
“Please don’t urge her, Meggie,” said Eden. “She is used to luncheon at noon.”
“Oh, but the pudding,” sighed Meg. “It’s such a favourite of ours.”
“I like it,” said the grandmother with a savage grin; “please give me some.”
She got her pudding and Alayne her tart, but when Meg’s turn arrived, she breathed: “No, thank you, Renny. Nothing for me.” And Renny, knowing of the trays carried to her room, made no remark, but Eden explained in an undertone, “Meggie eats nothing—at least almost nothing at the table. You’ll soon get used to that.”
Meggie was pouring tea from a heavily chased silver pot. Even little Wake had some; but how Alayne longed for a cup of coffee, for the plum tart, though good, was very rich. It seemed to cry out for coffee.
Would she ever get used to them, Alayne wondered. Would they ever seem near to her—like relatives? As they rose from the table and moved in different directions, she felt a little oppressed, she did not quite know whether by the weight of the dinner or by the family, which was so unexpectedly foreign to her.
Old Mrs. Whiteoak pushed her son Ernest from her, and, extending a heavily ringed hand to Alayne, commanded:
“You give me your arm, my dear, on this side. You may as well get into the ways of the family at once.”
Alayne complied with a feeling of misgiving. She doubted whether she could efficiently take the place of Ernest. The old woman clutched her arm vigorously, dragging with what seemed unnecessary and almost intolerable weight. The two, with Nicholas towering above them, shuffled their way to Mrs. Whiteoak’s bedroom and established her there before the fire by painful degrees. Alayne, flushed with the exertion, straightened her back and stared with surprise at the unique magnificence of the painted leather bedstead, the inlaid dresser and tables, the Indian rugs, and flamboyant hangings.
Mrs. Whiteoak pulled at her skirt. “Sit down, my girl, sit down on this footstool. Ha—I’m out o’ breath. Winded—” She panted alarmingly.
“Too much dinner, Mamma,” said Nicholas, striking a match on the mantelpiece and lighting a cigarette. “If you will overeat, you will wheeze.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” retorted his mother, suddenly getting her breath. “Look at your own leg, and the way you eat and swill down spirits.”
Boney, hearing the voice of his mistress raised in anger, roused himself from his after-dinner doze on the foot of the bed, and screamed: “Shaitan! Shaitan ka bata! Shaitan ka butcha? Kunjus!”
Mrs. Whiteoak leaned over Alayne, where she now sat on the footstool, and stroked her neck and shoulders with a hand not so much caressing as appraising. She raised her heavy red eyebrows to the lace edging of her cap and commented with an arch grin:
“A bonny body. Well covered, but not too plump. Slender, but not skinny. Meg’s too plump. Pheasant’s skinny. You’re just right for a bride. Eh, my dear, but if I was a young man I’d like to sleep with you.”
Alayne, painfully scarlet, turned her face away from Mrs. Whiteoak toward the blaze of the fire. Nicholas was comfortingly expressionless.
“Another thing,” chuckled Mrs. Whiteoak, “I’m glad you’ve lots of brass. I am indeed.”
“Easy now,” cried Boney. “Easy does it!”
At that moment Grandmother fell into one of her sudden naps. Nicholas smiled down tolerantly at his sleeping parent.
“You mustn’t mind what she says. Remember, she’s ninety-nine, and she’s never had her spirit broken by life—or by the approach of death. You’re not offended, are you?”
“N-no. But she says I am—brazen. Why, it almost makes me laugh. I’ve always been considered rather retiring—even diffident.”
Nicholas made subterranean sounds of mirth that had in them a measure of relief, but he offered no explanation. Instead, he took her hand and drew her to her feet.
“Come,” he said, “and I’ll show you my room. I expect you to visit me often there, and tell me all about New York, and I’ll tell you about London in the old days. I’m a regular fossil now, but if you’ll believe me, I was a gay fellow once.”
He led the way to his room, heaving himself up the stairs by the hand railing. He installed her by the window, where she could enjoy the splendour of the autumn woods and where the light fell over her, bringing out the chestnut tints in her hair and the pearl-like pallor of her skin. It was so long since he had met a young woman of beauty and intelligence that the contact exhilarated him, made the blood quicken in his veins. Before he realized it, he was telling her incidents of his life of which he had not spoken for years. He even unearthed a photograph of his wife in a long-trained evening gown, and showed it to her. His face, massive and heavily lined, looked, as he recalled those bygone days, like a rock from which the sea has long receded, but which bears on its seamed and battered surface irrevocable evidence of the fury of past storms.
He presented her, as a wedding present, with a silver bowl in which he had been accustomed to keep his pipes, first brightening it up with a silk handkerchief.
“You are to keep roses in it now, my dear,” he said,
and quite casually he put his fingers under her chin, raised her face, and kissed her. Alayne was touched by the gift, a little puzzled by a certain smiling masterfulness in the caress.
A moment later Ernest Whiteoak appeared at the door. Alayne must now inspect his retreat. No, Nicholas was not wanted, just Alayne.
“He intends to bore you with his melancholy annotating of Shakespeare. I warn you,” exclaimed Nicholas.
“Nonsense,” said Ernest. “I just don’t want to feel utterly shelved. Don’t be a beast, Nick. Alayne is as much interested in me as she is in you; aren’t you, Alayne?”
“She’s not interested in you at all,” retorted Nicholas, but she’s enthralled by my sweet discourse; aren’t you, Alayne?”
They seemed to take pleasure in the mere pronouncing of her name; using it on every occasion.
To Ernest’s room she was led then, and because of his brother’s gibe he at first would not speak of his hobby, contenting himself with showing her his watercolours, the climbing rose whose yellow flowers still spilled their fragrance across his windowsill, and the complaisant feline tricks of Sasha. But when Alayne showed an unmistakable interest in the annotation of Shakespeare and an unexpected knowledge of the text, his enthusiasm overflowed like Niagara in springtime. Two hours flew by, in which they established the intimacy of congenial tastes. Ernest’s thin cheeks were flushed; his blue eyes had become quite large and bright. He drummed the fingers of one hand incessantly on the table.
So Meg found them when she came to carry Alayne away for an inspection of the house and garden. Eden was off somewhere with Renny, Meg explained, and Alayne had a sudden feeling of anger toward this brother who so arrogantly swept Eden from her side, and who was so casually polite to her himself.
It was warm enough to have tea on the lawn, Meg announced, and when she and Alayne returned from their tour of the mass of overgrown lilacs, syringas, and guelder-rose trees that was called “the shrubbery,” and the sleepy kitchen garden where the rows of cabbages and celery and rank bed of parsley were flanked by scarlet sage and heavy-headed dahlias, they found that Rags had arranged the tea things on the wicker table. Some of the family were already disposed about it in deck chairs or on the grass, according to their years.
Alayne’s eyes missed no detail of the scene before her: the emerald-green lawn lying in rich shadow, while the upper portions of the surrounding trees were bathed in lambent sunshine which so intensified their varying autumn hues that they had the unreal splendour of colours seen under water. Near the tea table Grandmother dozed in her purple velvet tea gown. Nicholas was stretched, half recumbent, playing idly with the ears of Nip, whose pointed muzzle was twitching expectantly toward the plates of cakes; Ernest stood courteously by his chair; on the grass sprawled bare-kneed Wake with a pair of, rabbits, and bony longlimbed Finch, whom she now saw for the first time. Eden, Piers, and Renny did not appear, but before the second pot of tea was emptied young Pheasant slipped into the scene, carrying a branch of scarlet maple leaves, which she laid across the knees of Nicholas.
A mood of gentle hilarity possessed them all. As she ate cucumber sandwiches and cheese cakes, Alayne felt more in harmony with the life that was to be hers among this family. She was relieved by the absence of the three who did not join the party. With Eden away, she could more readily submerge herself in the family, explore the backwater of their relations with each other. In the case of Piers, she felt only relief from a presence that was at least covertly hostile. As for Renny, she could not make him out. She would need time for that. Just now his dominating personality, combined with his air of abstraction, puzzled and rather irritated her.
Eden had told her that Renny did not like his poetry, that he did not like any poetry. She thought of him as counting endless processions of foals, calves, lambs, and young pigs, always with an eye on the market. She would have been surprised, could she have followed him to his bedroom that night, to find how gentle he was toward little Wake, who was tossing about, unable to sleep after the excitement of the day. Renny rubbed his legs and patted his back as a mother might have done. In fact, in his love for his little brother he combined the devotion of both father and mother. Meg was all grown-up sister.
Wake, drowsy at last, curled up against Renny’s chest and murmured: “I believe I could go to sleep more quickly if we’d pretend we were somebody else, Renny, please.”
“Do you? All right. Who shall we be? Living people or people out of the books? You say.”
Wake thought a minute, getting sleepier with each tick of Renny’s watch beneath the pillow; then he breathed: “I think we’ll be Eden and Alayne.”
Renny stifled a laugh. “All right. Which am I?”
Wake considered again, deliciously drowsy, sniffing at the nice odour of tobacco, Windsor soap, and warm flesh that emanated from Renny
“I think you’d better be Alayne,” he whispered.
Renny, too, considered this transfiguration. It seemed difficult, but he said resignedly: “Very well. Fire away”
There was silence for a space; then Wakefield whispered, twisting a button of Renny’s pyjamas: “You go first, Renny. Say something.”
Renny spoke sweetly: “Do you love me, Eden?”
Wake chuckled, then answered, seriously: “Oh, heaps. I’ll buy you anything you want. What would you like?”
“I’d like a limousine, and an electric toaster, and—a feather boa.”
“I’ll get them all first thing in the morning. Is there anything else you’d like, my girl?”
“M—yes. I’d like to go to sleep.”
“Now, see here, you can’t,” objected the pseudo-groom. “Ladies don’t pop straight off to sleep like that.”
But apparently this lady did. The only response that Wakefield could elicit was a gentle but persistent snore.
For a moment Wake was deeply hurt, but the steady rise and fall of Renny’s chest was soothing. He snuggled closer to him, and soon he too was fast asleep.
XIV
FINCH
THE COMING of Alayne had made a deep and rather overwhelming impression on young Finch. She was unlike anyone he had ever met; she filled his mind with curiosity and tremulous admiration; he could not put the thought of her aside on that first night. Her face was between him and the dry pages over which he pored. He was driven to rise once in the middle of wrestling with a problem in algebra and creep halfway down the stairs, just to watch her for a few minutes through the open door of the drawing-room, where the family sat at bridge and backgammon. Her presence in the house seemed to him a most lovely and disturbing thing, like a sudden strain of music.
He longed to touch her dress, which was of a material he could not remember having seen before, and of a colour he could not name. He longed to touch her hands, the flesh of which looked so delicate and yet so firm. As he crouched over his uncongenial tasks in the untidy bedroom, strange thoughts and visions blurred the dog’s-eared page before him. A chill breeze coming in at the window carried the sounds and scents of the late autumn countryside: the rustle of leaves that were losing their fresh resilience and becoming sapless and crisp; the scrape of two dead branches, one on the other, as though the oak tree to which they belonged strove to play a dirge for the dead summer; the fantastic tapping of a vine against the pane, dancing a skeleton dance to the eerie music of the oak; the smell of countless acres of land lying heavy and dank, stupefied by the approach of barrenness.
What did it all mean? Why had he been put into this strange confusion of faces, voices, bewildering sounds of night and day? Who was there in the world to love him and care for him as Alayne loved and cared for Eden? No one, he was sure. He belonged to the lonely, fretful sounds which came in at the window rather than to warm human arms and clinging human lips.
His mind dwelt on the thought of kissing the mouth of Eden’s wife. He was submerged in an abyss of dreaming, his head sunk on his clenched hands. A second self, white and wraithlike, glided from his breast and floated b
efore him in a pale greenish ether. He watched it with detached exultation in its freedom. It often freed itself from his body at times like these, sometimes disappearing almost instantly, at others floating near him as though beckoning him to follow. Now it moved face downward like one swimming, and another dim shape floated beside it. He pressed his knuckles into his eyes, drawing fiery colours from the lids, trying to see, yet afraid to see, the face of the other figure. But neither of the floating figures had a discernible face. One, he knew, belonged to him because it had emerged from his own body, but the other, fantastically floating, whence came it? Had it risen from the body of the girl in the drawing-room below, torn from her by the distraught questing of his own soul? What was she? What was he? Why were they here, all the warmblooded hungry people, in this house called Jalna?
What was Jalna? The house, he knew very well, had a soul. He had heard it sighing, moving about in the night. He believed that from the churchyard sometimes the spirits of his father and his father’s wives, his grandfather, and even the dead infant Whiteoaks, congregated under this roof to refresh themselves, to drink of the spirit of Jalna, that spirit which was one with the thin and fine rain that now began to fall. They pressed close to him, mocking him—the grandfather in hussar’s uniform, the infants in long pale swaddling clothes.
His temples throbbed, his cheeks burned, his hands were clammy and very cold. He rose, letting his books fall to the floor, and went to the window. He knelt there and leaned across the sill, holding his hands out into the rain, in an attitude of prayer, his thin wrists projecting from the frayed edges of his sleeves.
By degrees peace descended on him, but he did not want to look back into the room. He thought of the nights when he had shared the bed with Piers. He had always been longing for the time when he might sleep in peace, free from his brother’s tormenting. Now he felt that he would be glad of Piers’s wholesome presence to protect him from his own thoughts.
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 72
