He had scarcely felt the chafing of those shackles yet, and he did not want to feel them. He should have been a lone unicorn, stamping in inconsequent gaiety over sultry Southern plains, leaving bonds to tamer spirits.
He was just thinking this, and smiling at the thought when Pheasant came into the room. She was carrying a plate of little red apples, and she wore the vivid smock bought for her by Alayne.
“Meggie sent you those,” she said, setting the plate beside him. “As a matter of fact, I think you eat too much. You’re not as slim as you were.”
“Well, it’s a wonder I’m not thin,” he returned with some heat. “God knows I’ve suffered!” He bit into an apple, and continued: “You’ve never had any real sympathy for me, Pheasant.”
She looked at him, astonished.
“Why, I thought I’d been lovely to you! I’ve sat with you, and listened to your old poetry, and told you what a wonder you are. What more do you want?”
He reclined, drumming his fingers on the afghan that lay over him, a faint smile shadowing, rather than lighting, his face.
She examined his features and then said darkly: “You’re too clever, that’s what’s the matter with you.”
“My dear little Pheasant, don’t call me by such a horrid word. I’m not clever. I’m only natural. You’re natural. That is why we get on so famously.”
“We don’t get on,” she returned, indignantly. “Uncle Ernest was saying only the other day what a pity it is you and I quarrel so much.”
“He’s an old ninny.”
“You ought to be ashamed to say that. He has done everything in his power to make up to you for hurting you. He has read to you by the hour. I don’t think he’ll ever get over the shock of seeing you hurtle downstairs with his pillow on top of you.”
“I agree with you. It was the most exhilarating thing that has happened to him in years. He looks ten years younger. To have knocked an athletic young fellow downstairs and broken his leg! Just when he began to feel the feebleness of old age creeping on! Why, he’s like a young cockerel that’s saluted the dawn with its first crow.”
“I think you’re sardonic.”
“And I think you’re delicious. I especially admire your wisdom, and that little tuft of hair that stands up on your crown. But I do wish you’d put it down. It excites me.”
She passed her hand over it.
“Do you know,” he said, “that you pass your hand over your head exactly as I do. We have several identical gestures. I believe our gesture toward life is the same.”
“I think your greatest gift,” she said, stiffly, “is flattery. You know just how to make a woman pleased with herself.”
She was such a ridiculous little child, playing at being grown up, that he could scarcely keep from laughing at her. Neither could he keep the tormenting image of her from his mind when she was away from him. He lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes.
Outside, the snow-covered lawns and fields, unmarked by the track of a human being, stretched in burnished, rosy whiteness toward the sunset. The pines and hemlocks, clothed in the sombre grandeur of their winter foliage, threw shadows of an intense, translucent blueness. And in the hard bright intensity of that northern ether, every smallest twig was bitten against its background as though with acid. An atmosphere hateful to those who see it in alien loneliness, but of the essence and goodness of life to the native born.
When Eden opened his eyes and turned toward her, she was looking out on this scene. He thought there was a frightened look in her eyes. A faint sound of music came from Uncle Nick’s room. He was playing his piano as he often did at this hour.
“Pheasant.”
“Yes?”
“You look odd. Rather frightened.”
“I’m not a bit frightened.”
“Not of me, of course. But of yourself?”
“Yes, I am rather frightened of myself, and I don’t even know why. I believe it’s that wild-looking sky. In a minute it will be dark and so cold. You’ll need a fire here.”
“I am on fire, Pheasant.”
He found her hand and held it. He asked: “Do you think Alayne loves me any more?”
“No, I don’t think she does. And you don’t deserve it—her love, I mean.”
“I don’t believe I ever had it. It was my poetry she loved, not me. Do you think she loves—Renny?”
She stared at him, startled. “I’d never thought of that. Perhaps she does.”
“A nice mix-up.”
“Well, I should not blame Alayne. Here she is pitchforked into this weird family, with a husband who is absolutely devoted to himself, and a most remarkable-looking and affectionate brother-in-law.”
“’Remarkable-looking and affectionate’! Heavens, what a description!”
“I think it’s a very good description.”
“Well, I suppose Renny is remarkable—but ‘affectionate’! That scarcely describes making love to another man’s wife. I don’t believe Alayne would fall for him unless he did make love to her. But ‘affectionate’—I can’t get over that.”
“How would you describe your holding my hand? That’s affectionate, isn’t it?”
He took her other hand and laid both hands on his breast. “I shan’t mind about anything,” he said, “if you will only care for me.” He drew her closer, his face stained by the afterglow that transformed the matter-of-fact room into a strange and passionate retreat.
Pheasant began to cry.
“Don’t,” she implored. “Don’t do that! It’s what I’ve been afraid of.”
“You care for me,” he whispered. “Oh, my darling little Pheasant! Say that you do—just once. Kiss me, then—you know you want to. It’s what you’ve been dreading, but—desiring, too, my dearest. There’s nothing to be afraid of in life; nothing to be ashamed of. Just be your precious self.”
She flung herself against him, sobbing.
She did not know whether or not she loved him, but she knew that that room had a sultry fascination for her, that the couch where Eden lay was the centre of all her waking thoughts, that his eyes, blazing in the afterglow, compelled her to do as he willed. She hated Piers for being absorbed in his cattle, seeing nothing of her temptation, not saving her from herself, as he should have done. He knew that she was not like other young girls of his class. She had bad, loose blood. He should have watched her, been hard with her, as Maurice had been. His idea was to make a “pal” of his wife. But she was not that sort of wife. He should have known, oh, he should have known, saved her from herself—from Eden!
As she wept against Eden’s shoulder, her tears became no longer the warm tears of surrender, but the tears of black anger against Piers, who had not saved her.
XXII
WAKEFIELD’S BIRTHDAY
WAKEFIELD awoke each morning now with a feeling of gay excitement. The reason for this was that Finch had given him his Boy Scout bugle. Finch had got over being a Boy Scout very quickly. The only thing about it that had suited him was the fact of his being a bugler. However, he soon tired of that, and, coming to the conclusion that he was not the stuff of which good Boy Scouts are made, he gave it up entirely. To perform his little duties with bright alertness, to be ready, to be helpful, to do a kind act every day, seemed beyond him. So he had skulked out of the organization, and locked his bugle in the under part of the secretary in his room, where Wake might not meddle with it.
Now he had given it to Wake for his birthday. Having once decided to do this, he did not hold it till the day itself. The little boy had been in possession of it for a fortnight. And every morning he wakened with his nerves tingling with delicious excitement, for there, at the head of the bed, was the bugle, and he must not get up until he had sounded the reveille. It was thrilling to sit up in bed and send forth from swelling chest and distended cheeks those glorious brazen notes. Feeble, croaking they might sound to the listener, but to Wake they were round with a noble roundness and stirring to the soul.
Luckily, he was usually the last of the family to awake. But this morning was his birthday and he had been the very first. All, all had been roused by that sleep-shattering reveille. Renny, stretched on his back, his arms flung above his head, had been dreaming of galloping on a great wild horse along a steep precipice. Suddenly, with a neigh that shook the universe, the horse had leaped over the precipice, and plunged with him into the sunlit sea.
With a convulsive twitch of the body, Renny awoke into the sunlight of the early morning, his face so comic in its astonishment that Wakefield laughed aloud, lost his wind, and sputtered helplessly into the instrument. Then Renny laughed too, for the sight of his young brother sitting up in bed, so alert, so important, with hair on end and one dark eye cocked roguishly at him above one bulging cheek, was so ridiculous. He was ridiculous, and he was pathetic, too. “Poor little beggar,” thought Renny, “a human being like myself, who will have a man’s feelings, a man’s queer thoughts one day.”
“It’s my birthday,” quoth Wakefield, wiping his chin.
“Many happy returns,” said Renny, trying not to look as though he had a delightful present for him.
“I shall probably not live to be as old as Gran. But I may reach ninety if I have good care.”
“Oh, you’ll get good care, all right. Cuddle down here a bit. It’s early yet.”
Wake laid the bugle on the table at the head of the bed and flung himself down into the bedclothes. He burrowed against Renny, putting his arms about his neck.
“Oh! I’m so happy,” he breathed. “A picnic today if you please. The first of the season. It’s June. The first of June! My birthday! “ His eyes were two narrow slits. “Renny, have you a—you know what?”
Renny yawned prodigiously showing two rows of strong teeth. “Well, I guess I’ll get up.”
“Renny, Renny!” He bumped and struggled against his elder’s chest. “Oh, Renny, I could kill you!”
“Why?”
“‘Cos you won’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Renny held him as in a vise.
“You know what.”
“How can I know if you won’t tell me?”
“Oh, you beast, Renny! It’s you who won’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Whether you have a—you know what—for me.”
Renny closed his eyes. “You sound half-witted this morning,” he said, coldly. “It seems a pity, when you’ve reached such an age.”
Wakefield examined his brother’s hard, weather-bitten visage with its relentless-looking nose. Certainly it was a forbidding face. A face that belonged to a man who was his adored brother and who had no birthday present for him.
He, too, closed his eyes, murmuring to himself: “Oh, this is terrible!” A tear trickled down his cheek and fell on Renny’s wrist.
The elder Whiteoak gave the younger a little shake. “Cut that out,” he said. They looked into each other’s eyes.
“It nearly broke me.”
“What did, Renny?”
“Why, the present.”
“The present?”
“Rather. The birthday present.”
“Oh, Renny, for God’s sake—”
“Stop your swearing.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s,” he plunged the word into Wake’s ear, “a pony—a beautiful Welsh pony,”
After the first ecstatic questions, Wake lay silent, floating in a golden haze of happiness. He did not want to miss the savour of one lovely moment of this day of days. First a pony, then a picnic, and in between, an orgy of other presents. A birthday cake with ten tall candles. At last he whispered: “Is it a he or a she?”
“A little mare.”
A mare! He could hardly believe it. There would be colts—tiny, shaggy colts. His very own. It was almost too much. He wriggled against Renny. Adoring him.
“When will she—oh, I say, Renny, what’s her name?”
“She has no name. You may name her.”
No name. A nameless gift from the gods. Oh, responsibility overpowering, to name her!
“When will she come?”
“She is here, in the stable.”
With a squeal of joy Wake leaped up in the bed; then, espying the bugle, he had an inspiration.
“Renny, wouldn’t it be splendid, if I’d sound the reveille and then we’d both instantly get up? I’d like terribly to sound the reveille for you, Renny.”
“Fire away, then.”
Solemnly the boy placed the bugle against his lips and took a prodigious breath. Renny lay looking at him, amused and compassionate. Poor little devil—a man some day, like himself.
Loudly, triumphantly, the notes of the reveille were sounded. Simultaneously they sprang out on to the floor. June sunshine blazed into the room.
Downstairs, Wakefield said to Finch: “What do you suppose? Renny has given me a pony. We’ve just been out to the stable to see her. A little pony mare, mind you, Finch. There’ll be colts one day. And thanks again for the bugle. Renny and I both got up by it this morning. And there’s to be a picnic on the shore, and an absolutely ’normous birthday cake.”
“Humph,” grunted Finch. “I never remember such a fuss on any of my birthdays.”
“You have always had a cake, dear,” said Meggie, reproachfully. “And don’t forget that nice little engine thing, and your bicycle, and your wristwatch.”
“You don’t expect the family to rejoice because you were born, do you?” asked Piers, grinning.
“No, I don’t expect anything,” bawled Finch, “but to be badgered.”
“Poor little boy, he’s jealous.” Piers passed a sunburned hand over Finch’s head, stroking downward over his long nose, and ending with a playful jolt under the chin.
Finch’s nerves were raw that morning. He was in the midst of the end-of-the-term examinations, and his increasing preoccupation with music seemed to render him less than ever able to cope with mathematics. He knew with dreadful certainty that he was not going to pass into the next form. The fact that his music teacher was not only pleased with him but deeply interested in him, would not make up for that. Combined with a skulking sense of helpless inferiority, he felt the exalted arrogance of one whose spirit moves on occasion in the free and boundless spaces of art.
With a kind of bellow, he turned on Piers and struck him in the chest. Piers caught his wrists and held them, smiling lazily into his wild, distorted face.
“See here, Eden,” he called. “This little lamb is baaing because we celebrate Wake’s birthday with more pep than we do his. Isn’t it a crime?”
Eden lounged over, his lips drawn in a faint smile from his teeth, which held a cigarette, and joined in the baiting.
All morning Finch’s heart raged within him. At dinner Meggie and her grandmother both chose to correct him, to nag at him. He slouched, they said. He stuck his elbows out. He bolted his food so that he might be ready for the last helping of cherry tart before poor dear Gran. Furious, he muttered something to himself to the effect that she might have it for all he cared, and that if it choked her—
She heard.
“Renny! Renny!” she shouted, turning purple. “He says he hopes it chokes me—chokes me—at my age! Flog him, Renny; I won’t stand it. I’ll choke. I know I will.”
She glared wildly at the head of the house, her eyes blazing under her shaggy red brows.
“Mamma, Mamma,” said Ernest.
“It’s true,” growled Nicholas. “I heard him say it.” Renny had been talking to Alayne, trying not to notice the disturbance. Now, in sudden anger, he got up and in a stride stood over Finch.
“Apologize to Gran,” he ordered.
“Sorry,” muttered Finch, turning white.
“No mumbling! Properly.”
“I’m very sorry, Grandmother.”
The sight of his hunched shoulders and unprepossessing, sheepish face suddenly threw his elder into one of his quick passions. He gave him a sound and ringing cuf
f. Perhaps it was because Finch was not properly balanced that day. In any case it always seemed easy to send him sprawling. The next second he was in a sobbing heap on the floor, and his heavy chair had fallen with a crash.
Alayne smothered a cry, and stared at her plate. Her heart was thudding, but she thought: “I must hang on to myself. I must. He didn’t mean to do it. He will be sorry. They drove him to it.”
Renny sat down. He avoided looking at her. He was humiliated at having been drawn into violence before her. However, if she thought him a brute, so much the better.
Finch gathered up himself and his chair, and resumed his place at the table with a look of utter dejection.
“Now will you give back chat?” asked Grandmother, and she added after another mouthful of tart: “Somebody kiss me.”
She kept asking what time the picnic was to be, for she was even more excited about it than Wake. She had her bonnet and cape on long before the hour when the phaeton was to convey her to the shore. She had the picnic hampers ranged beside her chair, and passed the period of waiting by a prolonged and bitter discussion with Boney as to whether or not he should forage among the edibles.
The picnic party was separated into the same parts as the church party, with the difference that Finch rode his bicycle instead of walking, and Piers arrived late on horseback, for it was a busy season with him.
As he tethered his mare to an iron stake, which had been driven into that field before any of them could remember, he glanced toward the picnickers to see where Pheasant was. He had not had so much of her company of late as he would have liked. To the regular spring work of his men and himself had been added the setting out of a new cherry orchard and the clearing of a piece of woodland for cultivation. Piers was as strong and wholesome as a vigorous young tree. He was ambitious and he was not afraid of work, but it did seem rather hard that he had so little time to spare in these lovely days of early summer for happy and indolent hours with Pheasant. She seldom came out into the fields or orchard with him now, as she used to do. She looked pale too, and was often petulant, even depressed. He wondered if she were possibly going to have a child. He must take good care of her, give her a little change of some kind. Perhaps he could arrange a motor trip over the weekend. The poor girl was probably envious of Alayne, who had Eden always at her side.
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