He looked up innocently into his sister’s face.
Finch thought: “Tomorrow is the algebra exam, and I shall fail—I shall fail... If only my head did not get confused! If only I were more like Renny! Nothing in the world will ever tempt me to stand up behind the lectern and read the Lessons. What a beastly mess I’d make of it—”
He became conscious of the words his brother was reading.
“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”
Finch twisted unhappily in his seat. Why these eternal threats? Life seemed compact of commands and threats—and the magic of the words in which these old, old threats were clothed. The dark, heavy foreboding. Magic—that was it: their magic held and terrified him... If he could but escape from the cruel magic of words. If he could only have sat by Alayne, that he might have touched her dress as they knelt!
He closed his eyes, and clenched his bony hands tightly on his thighs.
Alayne thought: “How strange his brogues look under his surplice! I noticed this morning how worn and how polished they are—good-looking brogues... How can I think of brogues when my mind is in torment? Am I growing to love him? What shall I do in that case? Eden and I would have to leave Jalna. No, I do not love him. I will not let myself. He fascinates me—that is all. I do not even like him. Rather, I dislike him. Standing there before that brass thing, in his brogues—his red hair—the Court nose—that foxlike look—he is repellent to me.”
She too closed her eyes, and pressed her fingers against them.
“Here endeth the First Lesson.”
Then, with Miss Pink and the organ tremulously leading the way and the choir fatuously fancying themselves masters of the situation, the Te Deum burst forth from every Whiteoak chest save Grandmother’s, and she was gustily blowing in a doze. From the deep baritone of Nicholas to the silver pipe of Wake, they informed the heavens and the earth that they praised the Lord and called Him Holy.
That night, after the nine o’clock supper of cold beef and bread and tea, with oatmeal scones and milk for Grandmother and Ernest (who, alas, had partaken of plum tart at dinner as he feared), Meg said to Alayne: “Is it true, Alayne, that Unitarians do not believe in the divinity of Christ?”
“What’s that?” interrupted Grandmother. “What’s that?”
“The divinity of Christ, Gran. Mrs. Fennel was telling me yesterday that Unitarians do not believe in the divinity of Christ.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Whiteoak. “Rubbish. I won’t have it. More milk, Meggie.”
“I suppose you do not believe in the Virgin Birth, either,” continued Meg, pouring out the milk. “In that case, you will not find the Church of England congenial.”
“I like the service of your church very much,” said Alayne, guardedly. There had been something that savoured of an attack in this sudden question.
“Of course she does,” said Mrs. Whiteoak, heartily. “She’s a good girl. Believes what she ought to believe. And no nonsense. She’s not a heathen. She’s not a Jew. Not believe in the Virgin Birth? Never heard of such a thing in decent society. It’s not respectable.”
“Why talk of religion?” said Nicholas. “Tell us a story, Mamma. One of your stories, you know.”
His mother cocked an eyebrow at him. Then, looking down her nose, she tried to remember a risquè story. She had had quite a store of these, but one by one they were slipping her memory.
“The one about the curate on his holiday,” suggested Nicholas, like a dutiful son.
“Nick!” remonstrated Ernest.
“Yes, yes,” said the old lady. “This curate had worked for years and years without a holiday. And—and—oh, dear, what comes next?”
“Another curate,” prompted Nicholas, “who was also overworked.”
“I think the boys should go to bed,” said Meg, nervously.
“She’ll never remember it,” replied Renny, with calm.
“Oh, Wakefield is playing with the Indian curios!” cried Meg. “Do stop him, Renny!”
Renny took the child forcibly from the cabinet, gave him a gentle cuff, and turned him toward the door. “Now, to bed,” he ordered.
“Let him say good night, first!” shouted Grandmother. “Poor little darling, he wants to kiss his Gran good night.”
Boney, disturbed from slumber, rocked on his perch and screamed in far-away nasal tones:
“Ka butcha! Ka butcha! Haramzada!”
Wakefield made the rounds, distributing kisses and hugs with a nice gauging of the character of the recipient. They ranged in all varieties, from a bearlike hug and smack to Gran, to a courteous caress to Alayne, a perfunctory offering of his olive cheek to his brothers, except Finch, to whom he administered a punch in the stomach which was returned by a sly but wicked dig in the short rib.
The Whiteoaks had a vocation for kissing. Alayne thought of that as she watched the youngest Whiteoak saluting the family. They kissed upon the slightest provocation. Indeed, the grandmother would frequently, on awakening from a doze, cry out pathetically:
“Kiss me, somebody, quick!”
Ah, perhaps Renny had regarded the kissing of her in the orchard as a light thing!
A sudden impulse drew her to him where he stood before the cabinet of curios, a little ivory ape in his hand.
“I want to speak to you about Finch,” she said, steadily.
The light was dim in that corner. Renny scanned her face furtively.
“Yes?”
“I like him very much. He is an unusual boy. And he is at a difficult age. There is something I should like you to do for him.”
He regarded her suspiciously. What was the girl up to?
“Yes?” His tone was mildly questioning.
“I want you to give him music lessons. Music would be splendid for him. He is a very interesting boy, and he needs some outlet besides geometry and things like that. I am sure you will not be sorry if you do it. Finch is worth taking a great deal of trouble for.”
He looked genuinely surprised.
“Really? I always thought him rather a dull young whelp. And no good at athletics, either. That would be some excuse for being at the bottom of his form most of the time. None of us think of him as ‘interesting.’”
“That is just the trouble. Every one of you thinks the same about Finch, and in consequence he feels himself inferior—the ugly duckling. You are like a flock of sheep, all jumping the one way.”
Her enthusiasm for Finch made her forget her usual dignified reticence, and with it her embarrassment. She looked at him squarely and accusingly.
“And you look on me as the bellwether, eh? If you turn my woolly wooden head in another direction, the others will follow. I am to believe that Finch will turn out to be the swan then?”
“I should not be surprised.”
“And you think his soul needs scales and finger exercises?”
“Please do not make fun of me.”
“I shall have the family in my wool, you know. They’ll hate the strumming.”
“They will get used to it. Finch is important, though none of you may think so.”
“What makes you sure he has musical talent?”
“I am not sure. But I know he appreciates music, and I think he is worth the experiment. Did you ever watch his face when your uncle Nicholas is playing?”
“No.”
“Well, he is playing now. From here you can see Finch quite clearly. Isn’t his expression beautiful, revealing?”
Renny stared across the room at his young brother.
“He looks rather idiotic to me,” he said, “with his jaw dropped and his head stuck forward.”
“Oh, you are hopeless!” she said, angrily.
“No, I’m not. He’s going to have his music and I am going to endure the curses of the family. But for my life and sou
l I can’t see anything of promise in him at this moment. Now Uncle Nick, with the lamplight falling on that grey lion’s head of his, looks rather splendid.”
“But Finch—don’t you see the look in his eyes? If only you could understand him—be a friend to him—” Her eyes were pleading.
“What a troubled little thing you are! I believe you do a lot of worrying. Perhaps you are even worrying about me?” He turned his intense gaze into her eyes.
Deep chords from the piano, Grandmother and Boney making love to each other in Hindu. The yellow lamplight, which left the corners of the room in mysterious shadow, isolated them, giving the low tones of their voices a significance that their words did not express.
A passionate unrest seized upon her. The walls of the room seemed to be pressing in on her; the group of people yonder, stolid, inflexible, full-blooded, arrogant, seemed to be crushing her individuality. She wanted to snatch the ivory ape from Renny’s hands and hurl it into their midst, frightening them, making the parrot scream and squawk.
Yet she had just been granted a favour that lay near her heart: music for poor young Finch.
The contradictions of her temperament puzzled and amused the eldest Whiteoak. He discovered that he liked to startle her. Her unworldliness, as he knew the world, her reticence, her honesty, her academic ardours, her priggishness, the palpable passion that lay beneath all these, made her an object of calculated sexual interest to him. At the same time he felt an almost tender solicitude for her. He did not want to see her hurt, and he wondered how long it would be before Eden would most certainly hurt her.
“I have forgotten yesterday, as I promised. Have you forgiven?”
“Yes,” she returned, and her heart began to beat heavily.
“But giving Finch those music lessons will never make up for cutting down the tree, I’m afraid. You’ve made me very tender-hearted.”
“Are you sorry for that?”
“Yes. I have especial need of hardness just now.”
The parrot screamed: “Chore! Chore! Haramzada! Chore!”
“What are you two talking about?” shouted Grandmother.
“Eastern lore,” replied her grandson.
“Did you say the War? I like to hear about the War as well as anyone. Do you know the Buffs, Alayne? That was Renny’s regiment. Did your country go to war, Alayne?”
“Yes, Mrs. Whiteoak.”
“Yes, Gran, please!”
“Yes, Gran.”
“Ah, I hadn’t heard of it. Renny was in the Buffs. One of the most famous regiments in England. Ever hear of the Buffs, Alayne?”
“Not till I came to Jalna, Gran.”
“What’s that? What’s that? Not heard of the Buffs? The girl must be mad! I won’t have it!” Her face grew purple with rage. “Tell her about the Buffs, somebody. I forget the beginning of it. Tell her instantly!”
“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 togeth
er 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.
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