Alayne thought—“One moment more and I shall scream. Renny told me that the last coal was paid for. Oh, what a liar he is! Oh, how can I endure this life!”
Pheasant came running down the attic stairs.
“Whatever do you suppose has happened? The roof of the nursery has been leaking and just now a quantity of plaster fell from the ceiling on to poor little Nooky’s cot! If he had been in it he would certainly have been killed! Oh, dear, it seems sometimes as though the whole family was bent on killing my poor little children—between neglect and cruelty!” She sat down midway on the stairs and buried her face in her hands.
“It’s not my fault!” said Alayne. “It’s not my fault if the roof falls in and the shutters clang and the wallpaper sags and there’s no coal in the cellar! If you must complain— complain to Renny! I’ve really as much as I can cope with.” She hurriedly descended the stairs to the hall below. Augusta and Pheasant were left staring at each other.
Alayne had scarcely reached the bottom of the stairs before she was ashamed of herself. She had never so lost her temper before in front of the others. She regretted that Aunt Augusta should carry away such an impression of her, and she half-turned back to apologise but could not quite make up her mind to it. She stood looking doubtfully at the door of the drawing-room deeply scored by the scratching of dogs seeking admittance there. Jock was sleeping now by the stove, his muddy feet turned toward the warmth. Piers’s wire-haired terrier, who had had her leg injured and wore a bandage smelling of carbolic, sat shivering on a chair by the hat stand.
Alayne drew a deep breath and went into the library to the telephone. She arranged for coal to be sent collect.
From there she went to the drawing-room, where she found Finch doubled over a book. His presence was comforting to her. She sat down near him and asked:
“What are you reading?”
He looked up, a strange smile flitting across his face. “Eden’s poems,” he answered.
She drew back rebuffed. It was morbid of Finch, she thought, to sit crouched there reading those poems of his dead brother, to smile in that hallucinated way as though he would draw the image of Eden between them, but she said gently:
“I think they are good but they have not the freshness and rapture of his earlier ones.”
“You could scarcely expect that. He was changing. The poems are full of inequalities. But there’s no indifference in them. His mind was on fire… Look here—I wonder if you’d care to see what the critics are saying about him. I’ve subscribed to a press-cutting agency.” He laid down the book and took an envelope filled with cuttings from his pocket.
He began reading them to her in a loud, rather tremulous voice, stressing, even rereading, the passages of warmest praise, one long hand holding the open book against his side, as though from its pages he drew some sustaining virtue. His presence overshadowed for her the words he read. What was to become of this lonely boy whose face showed the suffering and the strain he had been through!
She heard the side door open and close with a bang. She heard quick sharp steps, and the thought flew into her mind, scattering all else before it—“Here is my darling—the one I am longing for—the one who means more to me than all else in the world!…”
He came, dripping with rain, into the hall, followed by a bull terrier he had just acquired. Jock sat up and saw the newcomer. He could bear much. He was no fighter, but he could not bear the sight of the bull terrier. With a low growl he advanced toward him. In a moment the two were rolling over together, and young Biddy, unmindful of her injury, leaped in to aid Jock. Nip, hearing the hubbub, from where he slept on Nicholas’s bed, came bounding down the stairs and stood on the last step uttering ear-splitting yelps. Mrs. Wragge, just coming up from the basement, screamed.
The bull terrier had Jock’s foreleg gripped in his teeth. Renny was astride of them but he could not loose the bulldog’s hold. “Water,” he said to Finch, who, with the abandon of a hobbledehoy, flung down the basement stairs and reappeared with a bucket, slopping the water at every step. Mrs. Wragge had run to the dining room for a pepper-castor. “No, no,” Renny warned her away.
At last the dogs were separated; the bulldog led to the basement by Rags, Jock’s paw bandaged in Renny’s handkerchief, Biddy’s bandage replaced, and Renny, Alayne, and Mrs. Wragge looked at each other across a pool of water on the rug. Nip still barked from the stairway.
“My word,” said Mrs. Wragge, “them dogfights do give me a turn! As many as I’Ve seen I can’t seem to get used to ’em.” She pressed a fat hand to her bosom.
Renny glanced at Alayne’s face and away again.
“You’d better,” he said to the cook, “have Bessie come and mop this up at once.”
“Yes, sir, though where to find her I don’t know, for she’s always hiding in corners. What I was going to say is that the kitchen range is smoking like all possessed an’ will do until the chimbley’s cleaned. Me eyes is smoked almost out of me ’ead along of it an’ the blood’s still running out of the joint an’ it a quarter to one by the kitchen clock though goodness knows it may be wrong for it’s been gaining on me this twelvemonth an’ I’ve asked times an’ times to ’ave it seen to. I Ope you don’t mind my speakin’ so, out of my own basement, sir.”
He grinned at her genially. “I’ll have the chimney cleaned tomorrow. Did the fishmonger bring the salmon? And did the cases of stout come?”
When Mrs. Wragge had gone, Alayne said, in a tone too low for Finch, who had re-entered the drawing-room, to hear:
“Do you know that there is always twice as much fish ordered as is needed? And must you have a case of stout? The bills for provisions in this house are appalling.”
He gave her an admiring look, as though he thought— “You are a shrewd little thing!”
He said—“I am used to seeing plenty of food on the table. I dislike cheese-paring. As for the stout—that is for Uncle Ernest. He needs it—poor old chap!”
“I’ve ordered coal,” she said, in a self-conscious voice. “It is to come collect. I’ll pay for it.”
He arched his brows. “My rich little wife!” he exclaimed. He put his arms about her and laid his head on her shoulder.
She clasped his hard body and thought—“He has no conscience. He is without conscience and he is as aloof as a tree, though he lays his head on my shoulder.” Now that she held him in her arms she was not thinking—“My darling—my own darling!”
He was aware that she was not approving of him. He straightened himself and, to change the subject, asked, with a jerk of his head toward the drawing-room:
“How is that boy getting on? His nerves, I mean.”
She drew a loosened strand of her hair into place and answered, half-petulantly:
“Oh—Finch! I don’t know. He never plays the piano. He is in there now… reading Eden’s poems.”
“Is he really! He was very fond of Eden. We all were, weren’t we? We, all of us, miss him…” He looked at her challengingly
She thought—“He is angry with me because I am not mourning for Eden. Was there ever such a position!”
He went to the door of the drawing-room and looked in. Finch was sunk in a deep chair, his hands clasped on his chest, his legs stretched at full length.
“Hullo, Finch,” said Renny, “is your cold better?”
“Yes, thanks,” he answered, without looking up.
Renny frowned at him speculatively, then said:
“There’s just time before dinner for you to play a piece. Play me something nice, will you? I’m a bit tired and I’d like some good music.”
“I can’t play,” growled Finch.
“Come now—just a short piece—a fugue or a gavotte— or something of the sort.”
Finch looked at him, suddenly suspicious. Was he being baited? “You know I’m off colour,” he growled. “Why I—I’m hardly able to play a scale. I daren’t try.”
Renny came into the room and turned over some musi
c on the piano. “This looks easy,” he said. “Try this.”
Finch began to laugh. He laughed suddenly, naturally.
Renny grinned. “Come now. Try this over. To please me.”
Alayne, in the doorway, was making signs to him to desist.
Rags intervened by a prolonged sounding of the gong. The noise swelled to a deafening clamour, diminished, swelled again and, at last, as the family were collected, died away, and Rags, with a grand air, appeared at Renny’s elbow. Renny looked up at him and asked an inaudible question to which Rags replied by a humorous pantomime affirmative.
Ernest had seated himself with a sigh. Nicholas had not appeared.
“Where is Uncle Nick?” asked Renny.
“He can’t get out of his bed,” answered Ernest. “His gout is very bad. He’s having a tray. No wonder he feels the weather. It is terrible. Terrible.” The rain drove against the pane. “I’m afraid I shouldn’t take roast pork, Renny,” he said, “but it looks very nice. And apple sauce, too. I’m very fond of that.”
“It will do you good,” encouraged Renny, and cut him a juicy slice.
But when it was set in front of him, Ernest did not begin to eat. He stared, seeing nothing, and then he yawned without restraint. “Oh, ho, ho, ho,” he yawned.
Mooey, with poised fork, was entertained.
“Oh, ho, ho, ho,” he imitated, in his pretty treble.
“Don’t imitate me, boy,” said Ernest sternly.
Pheasant commanded her son to attend to his dinner.
“But,” she observed, “there’s an old saying that yawning is contagious and I really believe it is, for I feel like yawning myself this very minute.”
Piers pinched her thigh and she laughed instead.
Laughter was pleasant in Renny’s ears these days. He gave a bark of laughter himself, though he did not know what the joke was about.
Pheasant, seeing his good-humour, said:
“Have you heard about the plaster? A huge piece of it has fallen off the nursery ceiling right into poor little Nooky’s cot.”
The master of Jalna was noisily crunching a bit of crisp rind.
“Was Nooky in the cot?” he asked.
“Good heavens, no!”
“Why worry then?”
“But he might have been killed!”
Piers asked sharply of Renny—“Aren’t you going to send for the plasterer? The entire ceiling should be done.”
Renny dropped a piece of meat to one of his spaniels and watched the dog devour it without replying.
“Very well,” said Piers, “I’ll telephone for the mason this afternoon.”
“If you do you’ll pay him for the job yourself.”
Piers’s eyes grew prominent. The air became electric.
Boney, on his perch in the library, seemed aware of this. He flapped his wings and uttered incoherent screams that resolved themselves into “Shaitan-ka-batka!”
“The ceiling in my room,” said Finch, “has been leaking as long as I can remember, and it has not fallen yet.”
Augusta said—“I entirely approve of your decision, Piers. It cuts me to the heart to see my father’s house going to wrack and ruin. The shutters in my room are ready to fall from their hinges.”
“I’ll have them mended too,” said Piers.
“You’ll pay for them too, then,” said Renny. He continued to eat his dinner imperturbably.
Alayne felt a queer rocking motion inside her that was half sympathy for him and half anger against him.
The parrot, once roused, continued to scream.
Rags appeared with a glass of stout on a small tray and set it before Ernest.
“Well, well, that looks nice! Just what I needed, for I have no appetite at all!” He drank a little of it, beamed at Renny, and began to take an interest in his dinner.
Renny threw Alayne an intimate, laughing look that was almost a wink. It said—“I know how to cheer up the old boy.”
Pheasant said, wistfully—“I don’t see where in the world Piers is going to get the money to pay for all those repairs.”
Renny returned—“He should have married a rich wife, like I did!”
There was appreciative laughter, shot through by Finch’s hysterical giggle. Alayne turned scarlet.
Ernest, seeing this, observed—“Dear Alayne, she has been a blessing to us all.”
“Please spare me, Uncle Ernest,” she said sedately. How could Renny, in front of the family, refer to her pitiful possessions! Especially after the affair of the coal, that very morning. She remembered his proud refusal to benefit by Finch’s legacy. What had come over him since then?
Throughout the meal Wakefield had paid little heed to what was being said. There was a secret, smiling look in his eyes. When they were leaving the dining room, side by side, Finch said to him:
“Well, and what are you looking so smug about?”
“I suppose I feel smug.”
“You may—but it looks damned silly, I can tell you!” “No sillier than your sulks.”
Alayne overheard them. Was there ever such a disagreeable family, she thought? She spent a part of the afternoon reading aloud to Nicholas.
Renny was out that evening, ostensibly to see a prospective buyer in town, but she suspected that he was playing poker with his horsy friends, Crowdy and Chase. She had discovered that they sometimes went to his office in the stables to play where they felt themselves more welcome than in the house, and she had, with a sense of shame, heard Augusta censure him for having Wright join in the game.
She was asleep when he returned but the sound of his light step woke her. She called softly:
“Renny, can you tell who it is that is coughing? It’s keeping me awake.”
He came to her door and stood listening. The loud insistent cough came from Piers’s and Pheasant’s room.
“It’s Pheasant,” he said. “I suppose she’s getting this beastly cold, now. God, how I hate the sound of a cough!”
“She takes no care of herself,” said Alayne. “She kept me awake for quite an hour and when I did fall asleep from sheer exhaustion you have waked me again!”
“Too bad! I wonder if she has taken anything for it.”
“No. She thinks it isn’t safe when she is nursing the baby.”
“Was Adeline good tonight?”
“Angelic… What about your business? Was it good?” She succeeded in purifying her tone from suspicion.
“Very. The man—he’s from Buffalo—is coming out tomorrow. I think Boniface is as good as sold.”
Adeline stirred and snuffled.
“Sh,” warned Alayne and he bent over her and kissed
her.
Adeline laughed.
Renny went round to her cot and put his hand on her soothingly. She caught it in her strong little fingers.
“If she misbehaves tonight I can’t bear it,” whined Alayne. She heard the whine in her own voice and was ashamed.
He whispered into the child’s ear—“Be quiet and Daddy will give you a ride on his big gee-gee tomorrow.”
“Now!” she exclaimed.
“No. Tomorrow. If you go to sleep.”
She was quiet. He tiptoed to his own room. “My two darling girls,” he thought, and he felt pensive, almost weak, in his tenderness for them.
Wakefield flung his arm across his eyes against the light. His lips pouted in a smile, as though he had been in a happy dream.
A violent spell of coughing came from Pheasant’s room. After that it was repeated every little while. As Renny lay uneasily listening, he thought at first only of Alayne’s distress. She would have another bad night, poor old girl. But, when a sustained cough came from Finch’s room above, a sudden feeling of panic gripped his heart. What if the girl and the youth were both affected as Eden had been? Finch had helped to nurse Eden. The doctor had warned them to be careful of infection. But—had they been careful? He knew that he himself had not. Finch was delicate—born of a consumptive mother
—probably—good God, inevitably susceptible! He should never have been allowed to go near Eden. And there was Pheasant, just at the time of child-bearing— well, if she had it, she would last three months! What had he been thinking of? He was a fool—a brute! And there was Eden—poor boy—he’d told Eden to help Maurice with the work—the worst thing he could have done—he’d helped to kill Eden… He clenched his hands, set his teeth to hold back a groan.
The coughing from the two rooms continued as a terrible duet in the blackness. Renny saw himself burying, first Pheasant, then Finch. Gran would have three young people about her. Wakefield murmured in his sleep… Little Wake— perhaps he’d be the next!
Renny found himself in the middle of the room quivering like a terrified horse. He stood so a moment, then felt his way to the door and groped along the passage, a pale pencil of light under the door at the end guiding him.
He tapped, but Pheasant was coughing and did not hear him. He pushed open the door and went in.
Pheasant was sitting up in bed and a night light threw her enlarged shadow grotesquely on the opposite wall. She looked up at him with the wistfulness of a child.
“I can’t stop it,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He came close and looked down at her. He saw that Piers was fast asleep.
He said—“You don’t think there is anything wrong with you, do you, Pheasant?”
She repeated, startled—“Wrong with me? What do you mean?”
“Like Eden had… Your lungs.”
“My goodness, no! It’s just a common cold. I’ve had dozens like it.”
“And what about Finch? Do you think he—” he looked at her tragically—“I’m afraid he’s going the way Eden went.”
“Finch smokes too many cigarettes. It irritates his throat. But he’s perfectly all right. He was worried about himself— a little, and he went to a doctor in town. He’s perfectly sound. So now you know.” She began to cough. “Oh, if only I had a hot drink!”
Relief surged through Renny, followed by anger at Piers.
He went round to his side of the bed and, pulling down the bedclothes just far enough, gave him a rousing slap.
“There,” he said, “take that! You good-for-nothing lout—sleeping here like a swine while your wife coughs her head off!”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 316
