“I’ll tell her,” said Renny.
Nicholas put the loud pedal down. Grandmother fell into one of her sudden dozes, by which she always recaptured the strength lost in a rage.
They were boring, Alayne thought. They were maddening. They oppressed her, and yet a strange burden of beauty lay on the high-walled room, emanating from the figures disposed about it: Gran and Boney; Nicholas at the piano; Meg, all feminine curves and heavy sweetness; Piers and Eden playing cribbage; Sasha, curled on the mantelpiece.
“I must not get to care for you,” Renny said, in a muffled voice. “Nor you for me. It would make an impossible situation.”
“Yes,” murmured Alayne, “it would be impossible.”
XVIII
IN THE WIND AND RAIN
“HERE’S a letter from New York to say they’ve got the proofs all right,” observed Eden. “They think the book will be ready by the first of March. Do you think that is a good time?”
“Excellent,” said Alayne. “Is the letter from Mr. Cory?”
“Yes. He sends his regards to you. Says he misses you awfully. They all do. And he’s sending you a package of new books to read.”
Alayne was delighted. “Oh, I am so glad. I am hungry for new books. When I think how I used literally to wallow in them! Now the thought of a package of new ones seems wonderful.”
“What a brute I am!” exclaimed Eden. “I never think of anything but my damned poetry. Why didn’t you tell me you had nothing to read? I’ve seen you with books, and I didn’t realize that they were probably forty years old. What have you been reading?”
“I’ve been working with Uncle Ernest a good deal. I like that; and I’ve been indulging in Ouida for the first time, fancy! And reading Rob Roy to Wake. I have not done badly.”
“You darling! Why don’t you simply jump on me when I’m stupid? Here you are, cooped up at Jalna, with no amusements, while it streams November rain, and I lose myself in my idiotic imaginings.”
“I am perfectly happy, only I don’t see a great deal of you. You were in town three days last week, for instance, and you went to that football match with Renny and Piers one day.”
“I know, I know. It was that filthy job I was looking after in town.”
“That did not come to anything, did it?”
“No. The hours were too beastly long. I’d have had no time for my real work at all. What I want is a job that will only take a part of my time. Leave me some leisure. And the pay not too bad. A chap named Evans, a friend of Renny’s, who has something to do with the Department of Forestry, is going to do something for me, I’m pretty sure. He was overseas with Renny, and he married a relative of the Prime Minister.”
“What is the job?”
Eden was very vague about the job. Alayne had discovered that he was very vague about work of any kind except his writing, upon which he could concentrate with hot intensity.
“I’m just a child,” he would exclaim, “about worldly things. There’s no use, Alayne, you’ll never be able to make me grow up. You’ll go on to the end of your days, making over your New York frocks, and getting shabbier and shabbier as to hats and shoes, and more and more resigned to—”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” she had answered with a little asperity. “I am not resigned by nature. As to being poor—according to Pheasant I am rich. At least, she says your family think I am.”
He had been staggered. He could not imagine why the family should think so, except for the reason that they thought of all American girls as rich. As for Pheasant, she was a poisonous little mischief-maker, and he would speak to Piers about her.
Alayne had found that, when Eden was irritating, he annoyed her out of all proportion to his words—made her positively want to hurt him. Now, to save her dignity, she changed the subject.
“Eden, I sometimes wish you had gone on with your profession. You would at least have been sure of it. You would have been your own master—”
“Dear,” he interrupted, “wish me an ill that I deserve, trample on me, crush me, be savage, but don’t wish I were a member of that stuffy, stultifying, atrophying profession. It was Meggie who put me into it, when I was too young and weak to resist. But when I found out the effect it was having on me, thank God I had the grit to chuck it. My darling, just imagine your little white rabbit spending his young life nosing into all sorts of mouldy lawsuits, and filthy divorce cases, and actions for damages to the great toe of a grocer by a motor driven by the President of the Society for the Suppression of Vice! Think of it!” He rumpled his fair hair and glared at her. “Honestly, I shouldn’t survive the strain a week.”
Alayne took his head to her breast and stroked it in her soft, rather sedate fashion.
“Don’t, darling. You make me feel a positive ogre. And there’s no hurry. I’ve drawn almost nothing from my account yet.”
“I should hope not!” he exclaimed savagely.
She asked after a moment: “Will the books from Mr. Cory come straight here or shall we have to go to town for them?”
“It depends upon whether they are held up in the customs. If they are, we’ll go in together for them. It will be a little change for you. God knows, you don’t get much change.”
They were in their own room. He was at his desk, and she standing beside him. He began searching through a box of stamps for a stamp that was not stuck to another one. He was mixing them up thoroughly, partially separating one from another, then in despair throwing them back into the box, in such disorder that she longed to snatch them from him and set them to rights, if possible, but she had learned that he did not like his things put in order. He had been helping Renny to exercise two new saddle horses, and he smelled of the stables. The smell of horses was always in the house; dogs were always running in and out, barking to get in, scratching at doors to get out; their muddy footprints were always in evidence in November. Alayne was getting accustomed to this, but at first it had been a source of irritation, even disgust. She would never forget the shock she had experienced when, coming into her bedroom one afternoon, she had discovered a shaggy, bob-tailed sheep dog curled up on the middle of her bed.
She rather liked dogs, but she did not understand them. At home they had never had a dog. Her mother had kept goldfish and a canary, but Alayne had thought these rather a nuisance. She felt that she would like horses better than either dogs or canaries. She wished she could ride, but nothing had been said about her learning, and she was too reserved, too much afraid of being a trouble, to suggest it. Meg had never ridden since her engagement to Maurice had been broken off, but Pheasant rode like a boy.
Eden had at last detached a stamp. He held it against his tongue and then stuck it upside down on his letter.
Watching him, Alayne had a sudden and dispassionate vision of him as an old man, firmly established at Jalna, immovable, contented, without hope or ambition, just like Nicholas and Ernest. She saw him grey-headed, at a desk, searching for a stamp, licking it, fixing it, fancying himself busy. She felt desperately afraid.
“Eden,” she said, still stroking his bright head, “have you been thinking of your novel lately? Have you perhaps made a tiny beginning?”
He turned on her, upsetting the box of stamps and giving the ink-pot such a jar that she was barely able to save it.
“You’re not going to start bothering me about that, are you?” Rich colour flooded his face. “Just when I’m fairly swamped with other things. I hope you’re not going to begin nagging at me, darling, because I can’t wangle the right sort of job on the instant. I couldn’t bear that.”
“Don’t be silly,” returned Alayne. “I have no intention of nagging. I am only wondering if you are still interested in the novel.”
“Of course I am. But, my dear lady, a man can’t begin a tremendous piece of work like that without a lot of thought. When I begin it I’ll let you know.” He took up his fountain pen and vigorously shook it. He tried to write, but it was empty.
“Isn’t
it appalling,” he remarked, “how the entire universe seems after one sometimes? Just before you came in, that shelf over there deliberately hit me on the head as I was getting a book from the bookcase. I dropped the book, and, when I picked it up, the sharp corner of the dresser bashed me on the other side of the head. Now my pen’s empty, and there is scarcely any ink!”
“Let me fill it for you,” said Alayne. “I think there is enough ink.”
She filled it, kissed the bumped head, and left him.
As she descended the stairs, she had a glimpse of Piers and Pheasant in a deep window seat on the landing. They had drawn the shabby mohair curtains before them, but she saw that they were eating a huge red apple, bite about, like children. Outside, the wind was howling and the rain was slashing down the windowpane behind them. They looked very jolly and carefree, as though life were a pleasant game. And yet, she reflected, they had their own troubles.
The front door was standing open, and Renny was in the porch, talking to a man whom Alayne knew to be a horse dealer. He was a heavy-jowled man with a deep, husky voice and little shrewd eyes. A raw blast, smelling of the drenched countryside, rushed in at the open door. The feet of the two men had left muddy tracks in the hall, and one of the clumber spaniels was critically sniffing over them. The other spaniel was humped up in the doorway, biting himself ferociously just above the tail. In the sullen twilight of the late afternoon she could not distinguish Renny’s features, but she could see his weather-beaten face close to the dealer’s, as they talked together.
After all, she thought, he was little better than a horse dealer himself. He spent more time with his horses than he did with his family. Half the time he did not turn up at meals, and when he did appear, riding through the gate on his bony grey mare, his shoulders drooping and his long back slightly bent, as likely as not some strange and horsey being rode beside him.
And the devastating fascination he had for her! Beside him, Eden upstairs at his desk seemed nothing but a petulant child. Yet Eden had bright and beautiful gifts, which Renny had neither the imagination nor the intellect to appreciate.
Rags’s face, screwed up with misery, appeared around a doorway at the back of the hall.
“My word, wot a draft!” she heard him mutter. “It’s enough to blow the tea things off the tr’y.”
“I will shut the door, Wragge,” she said, kindly, but, regarding her own offer with cold criticism as she stepped over the long plumed tail of a spaniel, she came to the conclusion that she had made it for the sole reason that she might stand in the doorway an instant with the gale blowing her, and be seen by Renny. After all, she did not quite escape the plumy tail. The high heel of her shoe pinched it sharply, and the spaniel gave an outraged yelp of pain. Renny peered into the hall with a snarl: someone had hurt one of his dogs. His rough red eyebrows came down over his beak of a nose.
“I was going to close the door,” explained Alayne, “and I stepped on Flossie’s tail.”
“Oh,” said Renny, “I thought perhaps Rags had hurt her.”
The horse dealer’s little grey eyes twinkled at her through the gloom.
She tried to close the door, but the other spaniel humped himself against it. He would not budge. Renny took him by the scruff and dragged him into the porch.
“Stubborn things, ain’t they?” remarked the horse dealer.
“Thanks, Renny,” said Alayne, and she closed the door, and found herself not alone in the hall, but out in the porch with the men.
Renny turned a questioning look on her. Now why had she done that? The wind was whipping her skirt against her legs, plastering her hair back from her forehead, spattering her face with raindrops. Why had she done such a thing?
Merlin, the spaniel, to show that there was no hard feeling, stood on his hind legs and put his paws against her skirt, licking up toward her face.
“Down, Merlin, down,” said his master, and he added, perfunctorily, “Alayne, this is Mr. Crowdy, the man who bought Firelight’s foal. Crowdy, Mrs. Eden Whiteoak.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr.. Crowdy, removing his hat. “It’s terrible weather, ain’t it? But only what we must expect at this time of year. Rain and sleet and snow from now on, eh? You’ll be wishing you was back in the States, Mrs. Whiteoak.”
“We have cold weather in New York, too,” said Alayne, wondering what the man must think of her. She felt sure that Renny saw through her, saw that he had a pernicious fascination that had drawn her, against her will, to the porch.
“Well,” observed the horse dealer, “I must be off. Mrs. Crowdy, she’ll have it in for me if I’m late to supper.” He and Renny made some arrangement to meet at Mistwell the next day, and he drove off in a noisy Ford car.
They were alone. A gust of wind shook the heavy creeper above the porch and sent a shower of drops that drenched their hair. He fumbled for a cigarette and with difficulty lighted it.
“I felt that I had to have the air,” she said. “I have been in all day.”
“I suppose it does get on your nerves.”
“You must have hated my coming out in the middle of your conversation with that man. I do not think I ever did anything quite so stupid before.”
“It didn’t matter. Crowdy was just going. But are you sure you won’t take cold? Shall I get you a sweater out of the cupboard?”
“No. I am going in.” But she stood motionless, looking at the sombre shapes of the hemlocks that were being fast engulfed by the approaching darkness. Thought was suspended, only her senses were alive, and they were the senses of elemental things—the rain, the wind, the engulfing darkness, the quiescent, imploring earth—
Was she in his arms—the rough tweed of his sleeve against her cheek—his lips pressing hers—his kisses torturing her, weakening her? No, he had not moved from where he stood. She was standing alone at the edge of the steps, the rain spattering her face as though with tears. Yet, so far as she was concerned, the embrace had been given, received. She felt the ecstasy, the relaxation of it.
He stood there immobile, silhouetted against the window of the library, which had been, at that moment, lighted behind him. Then his voice came as though from a long way off.
“What is it? You are disturbed about something.”
“No, no. I am all right.”
“Are you? I thought you had come out here to tell me something.”
“No, I had nothing to tell you. I came because—I cannot explain—but you and that man made a strange sort of picture out here, and I moved out into it unconsciously.” She realized with an aching relief that he had not guessed the trick her senses had played her. He had only seen her standing rigid at the top of the windswept steps.
A long-legged figure came bounding along the driveway, leaped on to the steps, and almost ran against her. It was Finch back from school. He was drenched. He threw a startled look at them and moved toward the door.
“Oh, Finch, you are wet,” said Alayne, touching his sleeve.
“That’s nothing,” he returned gruffly.
“You’re late,” remarked Renny.
“I couldn’t get the earlier train. A bunch of us were kept in.”
The boy hesitated, peering at them as though they were strangers whose features he wished to distinguish and remember.
“H-m,” muttered Renny. “Well, you had better change into dry things and do some practising before tea.”
His tone, abstracted and curt, was unlike his usual air of indolent authority. Finch knew that he was expected to move instantly, but he could not force his legs to carry him into the house. There was something in the porch, some presence, something between those two, that mesmerized him. His soul seemed to melt within him, to go out through his chest gropingly toward theirs. His body a helpless shell, propped there on two legs, while his soul crept out toward them, fawning about them like one of the spaniels, one of the spaniels on the scent of something strange and beautiful.
“You’re so wet, Finch,” came distantl
y in Alayne’s voice.
And then in Renny’s: “Will you do what I tell you? Get upstairs and change.”
Finch peered at them, dazed. Then, slowly, his soul skulked back into his body like a dog into its kennel. Once more his legs had life in them.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and half stumbled into the house.
Meg was coming down the stairway, and Rags had just turned on the light in the hall.
“How late you are!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what a muddy floor! Finch, is it possible you brought all that mud in? One would think you were an elephant. Will you please take it up, Wragge, at once, before it gets tramped in? How many times have I told you to wipe your boots on the mat outside, Finch?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, really, this rug is getting to be a disgrace. You’re late, dear. Are you starving?”
She was at the foot of the stairs now. She kissed him, and he rubbed his cheek, moist with rain, against hers, warm and velvety.
“M-m,” they breathed, rocking together. Flossie, the spaniel, was scratching at the already much bescratched front door.
“What does Flossie want?” asked Meg.
“I dunno.”
“Why, she wants to get out. Merlin must be out there. Was he there when you came in?”
“I didn’t see him.”
“Let Flossie out, Rags. She wants Merlin.”
“No, don’t let her out,” bawled Finch. “She’ll only bring more mud in. Put her in the kitchen.”
“Yes, I believe that would be better. Put her in the kitchen, Rags.”
Finch said: “I’ve got to do some practising.”
“No, dear,” replied his sister, firmly. “It’s tea time. You can’t practise now. It’s time for tea.”
“But, look here,” cried Finch. “I shan’t get any practising tonight, then. I’ve a lot of lessons to do.”
“You shouldn’t be so late coming home. That’s one reason I didn’t want you to have such an expensive teacher. It’s so worrying when there’s no opportunity for practising. But, of course, Alayne would have it.”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 78
