Piers fixed his prominent eyes on Alayne.
“No wonder she cries,” he said. “This news is enough to make a man cry.”
“It’s killing me,” reiterated Ernest, pressing his hand to his side.
Nicholas swept out his arm. “All this is on your head, Renny!” His gesture included the house, with its air of receding from them, his distraught brother, the weeping women, and the mouthing mare.
As Nicholas spoke the thunder pealed like a bell in simultaneous consent with a dazzling flash that struck the oak tree near them, ripping off a strip of its bark from top to root. The sun disappeared and the rain began to fall in torrents.
Ernest cried—“There’s a sign! There’s a sign! The oak tree blasted. I see the end of this!”
“Take him into the house,” Renny said to Piers. “Give him a spot of brandy.” He spoke coolly but his lips were pale. He cast a bitter look after his wife and his sister, who had now reached the shelter of the porch.
Nicholas was trying to heave himself out of the garden seat. The rain beat on his grey head. Renny took him by the arm, but he planted his spread hand on his chest and thrust him away, growling:
“Don’t touch me! I don’t want your help.”
Wakefield went to him and helped him up.
Renny caught the reins of the mare and sprang into the saddle. She stood a moment rigid, fierce, beautiful in her naked symmetry, divided between love and hate of him, then, tossing her head as the hailstones struck her, fumed galloping toward the stables.
Nicholas hobbled houseward, weighing heavily on Wakefield. He muttered to himself—“It’s come to this, eh? Well, well, well. A pretty pass. I wish I’d never lived to see this day…”
XXVIII
SULTRY WEATHER
THE STORM did not cool the air or disperse the thunderclouds. They lingered, shouldering each other on the horizon, their edges burnished by the blazing sun, now and then a troubled mutter echoing through their sultry depths. Every grass blade held its jewel, and the timid movement of the birds among the leaves scattered bright drops. The scene was highly coloured and still, but without tranquillity.
Was it cooler indoors or out? Alayne wondered. Should she go up to her room where she would be undisturbed, or seek peace out of doors where these walls would not press in on her? If only some other people had once lived in the house it would not be so permeated by the essence of the Whiteoaks. They had built it, lived in it, quarrelled and loved in it, died in it. Even Eden, who had not died in it, had left his restless spirit there. Strangely the thought of him gave her pain at this moment. She had never sorrowed for him. In her secret heart she had resented Renny’s grief for him as a shadow on their love. But now she found her heart yearning over Eden. As though to protect herself against today’s unhappiness, she reached back toward something in her past that might justly claim her tears. She saw herself and Eden, a happy girl and boy new-married, just come to Jalna.
How gay he had been! How full of hope! She could see him springing up the stairs, light and strong, or sitting at his desk, his face upraised to hers, while she scarcely heard what he said for watching the play of his lips, the light in his eyes. She was glad she could remember him like that, glad that she had never seen him after he was ill.
She stood in the doorway and started as Piers came up behind her. She moved aside to let him pass, avoiding his eyes, but he stopped. He gave her a curious look.
“Well, I’m off,” he said.
“I hope the hail has not injured your grain,” she remarked, for the sake of saying something.
“I don’t think so. It didn’t last long. But the storm is not over yet.”
“You think those clouds will come back? Which way is the wind?”
He stepped on to the drive. He wet his forefinger in his mouth and held it up. “Southeast,” he said. “They’ll come back.”
His usually fresh-coloured face looked pale and heavy. She was sorry for him.
“I regret this for your sake,” she said, “more than for the others.”
His mouth went down at the corners.
“It’s rough on us all. For my part, I feel as though the earth weren’t solid under me any more. It’s given me a nasty jolt. I didn’t believe it was in Renny to mortgage”—his tongue stumbled on the word—“to do such a thing.”
“I know how you must feel,” she said quickly. “But Renny—he is not always easy to understand, is he?”
“Do you seriously try?”
The question surprised her. She stammered.
“Yes—I think I try very hard.” And she added bitterly — “I know that you think I have no influence over him.”
“Well, I cannot help thinking that you might have more. He strikes me as a man who would naturally be greatly influenced by a woman he loved—and who understood him. Pheasant influences me a lot, though you wouldn’t suspect it. I should think that Renny would have been afraid to—do what he’s done without giving you a hint of it. It’s your show, and your kid’s show, as well as his. He should have been made to feel that.”
“I know,” she answered miserably.
He continued—“I don’t know Mrs. Lebraux very well, but I do know that she understands him. If I were in your place—”
Alayne, looking at him, tried to picture him in her place.
“If I were in your place I’d tell him that if he brings her on to our land, I’d leave him and take my child too. He’ll think all the more of you if you’re firm. I’ve heard Meg say how much good a sound hiding did him when he was a boy. He loved the one who walloped him. If he thinks you’ll stand anything—well, there’s no knowing what he’ll do.”
Advice on her marriage relations from Piers! She was both embarrassed and touched. Yet his advice was not ingenuous.
Wakefield came out of the house. He cast a look of apprehension at the sky. Piers said sternly:
“You’ve been wasting a lot of time. Get a move on now You must drive the milk truck to the station tonight.”
Wake puckered his forehead but moved resignedly toward the stables.
Alayne called after him—“Is Uncle Ernest feeling better?”
He answered over his shoulder—“Yes, thank you, Alayne. He is lying down. Uncle Nick and Meggie are with him.”
Piers followed his brother without another glance at Alayne. She slowly descended the shallow steps to the gravel drive and, crossing the wet lawn, passed through a wicket-gate and went into the ravine. She stopped on the little rustic bridge that spanned the stream, reduced now to a trickle. She was startled to find Renny leaning against the railing, his unlighted pipe in his hand and a look of complete self-absorption shadowing his face. She turned away, thinking he might not see her, but he had heard her step and threw her a negative glance as though her coming had scarcely roused him.
If each had come here for privacy or coolness they were disappointed in both. The luxuriant growth of honeysuckle, rushes, and long moist grass, the branches meeting overhead, kept out any breeze, and he and she stood face to face.
In emotional coherence pictures of the events of the last months rose before her, culminating in the picture of him standing on the bridge, as it were at bay. She saw the defensive light gathering in his eyes. He waited for her to speak.
She said—“It is very close here.” She put her hands on the railing of the bridge and looked down into the stream.
“We have chosen a bad spot,” he said. “There is no coolness here.”
“Except between us.”
“There is no coolness,” he exclaimed, “in my feeling toward you! I’m hurt—yes, I’m terribly hurt that you’d say what you did!”
“About Mrs. Lebraux, you mean.”
“Yes. I’ve given you no reason for that.”
She flashed at him—“No reason! Think before you say that, Renny! Think of the hours you have spent in that house—when I was lonely!”
“You might have heard every word that was spoken! You mig
ht have been there with us—if you had not been so high and mighty. But no—you look down on her. She is not your intellectual equal, you think.”
“Have I ever shown that attitude toward Pheasant or Meg?”
“They are in a different relationship. Clara Lebraux is my friend. Consequently you dislike her.”
“I dislike her for herself. The thought of her as a near neighbour—brought here in such a theatrical way by you— is distasteful to me.”
He said, broodingly—“You were never even kind to Pauline. You would not read French with her when she was getting no proper education. You’ve been hard.”
“You accuse me of hardness—when it is you who are hard! Do you realise what a blow you have given your family today? Did you see Piers’s face? I have been talking with him and—”
He interrupted—“Talking me over!”
“And why not? There’s only one thing in Piers’s mind— your borrowing money on Jalna.”
“You didn’t speak of Clara Lebraux?”
Denial was impossible to her. She did not reply.
“Everyone is against me!” he exclaimed. “And what is it all about? I have raised money on my property. Borrowed it from a friend—a cousin who is in love with my brother. I had to have it. I could not let things go on as they were. I’ve only done the decent thing.”
Alayne’s mind hovered about the thought of Clara. She said, in a cold voice:
“Mrs. Lebraux has a brother, hasn’t she?”
“If once you met him, you’d expect nothing of him.”
“And she and her daughter are as capable of looking after themselves as other women. Why should they lean on you?”
“They have no training of any kind. They couldn’t find anything suitable for them to do.”
“So we must be saddled with them!”
“You need never speak to them.”
“As though I could ignore them, when they’ll be at our very door!”
“You ignored Eden when he was dying at Vaughanlands!”
Good God, what was this he was throwing up at her? She steadied herself by the railing.
“Eden!” she said harshly. “What did you expect me to do about Eden?”
He answered with obvious effort—“I thought you might have gone to see him. You scarcely asked after him.”
“But what would it have looked like—for me to go to him—he my divorced husband—and your brother?”
“Eden never hurt us. He made the way clear for us.”
“He was unfaithful to me.”
Renny made an impatient movement.
“He knew that you didn’t love him any more.”
“But I could not go to see him! I could not!” Desperately she turned and looked into his eyes. “Less than an hour ago I was thinking of Eden—feeling so terribly sorry about him.”
“That was because you were angry at me.”
“Be careful what you say to me, Renny! You have the power to cut me to the heart!”
“But not to make you happy!”
“You know very well how to make me happy! But you don’t try… You know better still how to make me unhappy. And—and—” Her voice broke.
“Go on! Go on!”
“You seldom miss an opportunity.”
“Alayne!”
“It’s true.”
“You make me out a brute!”
“I say that you don’t care how you hurt me. You even blame me for Eden’s—”
He broke in—“Good God! I only meant that Eden had not hurt you by it. He must have seen that you didn’t love him any more.”
“He didn’t see. I kept it hidden. He could not have known.”
“You’re very clever but you couldn’t deceive Eden.”
She cried furiously— “Will you leave him out of this? You are like all your family. You never let the dead rest. You think yourselves so strong. But you are neurotic, I tell you. You see everything distorted.” She pointed to the pool beneath the bridge. “Like our faces down there… You never see things clearly.”
He looked down into the water.
“Do you?”
“I see that you’re infatuated with that woman.”
“I repeat that you might have heard every word we have exchanged and not been made jealous.”
“Words are not all. Even Piers has remarked how well she understands you.”
“I should think you would have too much pride to discuss our affairs with Piers.”
“How can I have pride and live here?”
He had been nervously twitching at a bit of broken bark on the rustic railing. Now in his anger and hurt he tore it off in a long strip, leaving the smooth wood exposed. It dropped from his hand and fell into the stream. He turned and walked quickly away, leaving her alone on the bridge.
XXIX
BROKEN CHORDS
RENNY found Clara Lebraux standing on a chair while she took down the curtains from the window of the dining room. Standing so, with arms upraised and head thrown back, she gave the impression of a free and careless energy, but when she looked down at him over her shoulder, her face showed tired lines and it was troubled.
“I knocked,” he said, “but no one came. I’d seen you at the window so I knew what you were doing. But—what a job in a heat like this!”
“I must get things ready,” she answered. “Here, take this from me.” She slanted the curtain rod toward him.
He took it, and the brass rings slithered against his hand. He asked:
“Couldn’t the curtains be moved as they are?”
“They must be washed.” She proceeded to take down the other pair and, in stepping backward, would have fallen from the chair had he not caught her.
He set her on the floor. She was a solid weight.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “it’s a good thing you weren’t alone! You might have hurt yourself.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she answered. “I did that very thing when I was taking down the curtains in the parlour and I only rasped my ankle.” She tilted her foot, which was covered only by a canvas sandal, and showed a raw spot on the ankle bone, from which a trickle of blood stained the brown skin.
“I am getting a very stupid person,” she said. “I turn dizzy for no reason at all.”
“It’s the weather.” And he added compassionately—“And the worry.”
“Oh, I’m as strong as a horse!”
“You have good blood apparently. But that spot should be touched with iodine.”
She shrugged, and began to gather up the curtains. She said, in a casual tone:
“Wake has been here. He says your family is upset by the news of our moving to Jalna.”
“Did he come here to tell you that?”
“No, no, I got it out of him. I knew you were telling them today. I really think we ought not to go. I shouldn’t feel comfortable.”
He expelled his breath sharply and sat down on the edge of the table and faced her.
“For heaven’s sake!” he exclaimed, “don’t ask me to talk any more of this affair. I thought it was all settled. My uncles and Piers are angry because I have raised money on the place. They were hilarious when they heard that I had bought the subdivision. It was the mortgage that upset them. But Sarah would never do anything against me. Finch would never let her. You’ll see that they will marry. And, as soon as the times improve, I shall pay off my debt. In the meantime you might as well be living on that bit of land as not. I’ve bought your house and I must have somewhere to put it. Sometime I’ll renovate it and perhaps Wake and Pauline will live there.”
His look was both sanguine and masterful.
She asked—“How does your wife feel about it?”
“She is like the rest of us—rather unnerved by the heat.”
“Well, she need scarcely know that we are there. With the ravine between—we shall not see much of each other.” But she frowned doubtfully as she folded the curtains.
As he watched her he
recalled scenes in which they had taken part together. Times when he and she had held Lebraux in his bed by main force during his last delirious illness. Times when he had helped her with the farm work or done things about the house for her. He had told Alayne the truth. Not a word had been exchanged between them which she might not have heard without cause for jealousy. Unless she might have been jealous of their tranquil understanding… And Piers had tried to make trouble between him and Alayne—as though there were not trouble enough without his putting a finger in the pie!
Pauline came in, followed by Wakefield. She looked pale from the heat and she carried some drooping flowers in her hand. She said:
“I went to the station with Wakefield—on the truck. There was quite a breeze. He brought me back in it. It’s at the gate.”
“You seem to have got over your fear of storms,” returned Clara. “Do you remember the day I came home and found you here with Renny—quite upset by the thunder?”
Pauline flushed. “I was very silly,” she said in a low voice.
“Tell me about it!” cried Wakefield. “As my grandmother used to say—’I like to know what is going on about me.”
Renny interrupted—“Did you leave the engine running?”
“Lord, yes!” He dashed out of the house.
Renny touched Pauline on the shoulder. “You must not let your mother back out of this move,” he said. “We must get you away from here.”
She drew back a little and Clara said:
“No need to worry over that! I shall be glad to part company from my old landlord.”
Wakefield returned. He said—“When I was a lad I used to amuse myself by wondering whether I should be a bishop or a judge or a Prime Minister. But I turned out to be a truck driver and I’m absolutely happy! Tomorrow we begin to raze the foundations of Maurice’s bungalows. I’ve always loved the word raze. It is so smooth and yet so deadly. Don’t you love it, my mother-in-law?”
“I have no imagination,” returned Clara stolidly.
“I’m afraid Pauline hasn’t much, either. But I have enough for the three of us.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 321
