The Polish woman was in the kitchen as he passed through. She was doing her last job of the evening, leaving things ready for breakfast. She gave him a look askance to see if he had brought in snow on his boots. He smiled ingratiatingly at her. He said:
“Divil a bit of snow have I on me. I’m a good boy, isn’t that so?”
She gave him her puzzled, yet aggressive look. “Please,” she said. “I can’t do.”
“Nobody asked you to, old dear. All you have to do is to mind your own business and lave me to mind mine.” He went along a narrow passage and into his own little room, his haven. It had nice clean curtains, a yellow pine chest of drawers with a small looking glass, a patchwork quilt on the bed, and under the bed his tin trunk, on which he still preserved the torn steamship label, for it seemed a kind of link with the old land — not that he ever wanted to go back there.
He bent to look in the mirror, took a comb from his pocket and combed his black gypsy locks. From a hook on the door he took a decent black overcoat and Homburg hat. With them on his arm he returned to the kitchen. The woman was gone to her own room. At the sink he washed his hands in the running water and even splashed it once across his mouth and chin. He dried himself on the roller towel that hung on the door. Then putting on his overcoat and carrying his hat in his hand, he tiptoed along the passage to the hall and tapped on the door of the living room.
Eugene Clapperton’s voice, reading aloud, ceased and he called out, — “Come in.”
Raikes opened the door just wide enough to enter and stepped inside. In appearance he was transformed into a man making an evening call but his manner was deferential. He said:
“Excuse me, sir, but would you be wanting me to go to the vet’s at Stead for the medicine?”
“How is the cow?” Eugene Clapperton asked irritably. “Animals seem to always be getting something wrong with them. First it was the young pigs dying and now this cow sick. I wish I hadn’t a cold. I’d like to go out and see her.”
“The stable would be a bad place for you, sir. The cow is no better. The creatures are like us. They have their ills. But the medicine I was telling you of will fix her up. I think it would be well for her to have it tonight. Had I better be taking the car to Stead, sir?”
“Yes, certainly. And let me know in the morning how she is.”
“I will indeed, sir.” As he stood smiling a gentle comforting smile at Mr. Clapperton, Gemmel, playing a game of Patience beside a rose-shaded floor lamp, contrasted the two men, to the cruel disadvantage of her husband. His grizzled head that she always thought of as a mean shape, his dry skin, his bluish lips and dark teeth, she contrasted with Raikes’ black locks, his skin tinted warmly by the good blood beneath, the rim of his gleaming white teeth, just visible. Eugene was too consciously straight like someone who was determined never to die. Raikes drooped a little glancing sideways. A man, she thought, who would go anywhere over the world and not consider either life or death.
When he had gone Eugene said, — “In the time we have lived here I have had four men. Yes, this is the fourth. It’s a terrible reflection on conditions today, that it’s next to impossible to hire a decent respectable man. This man gives me a sense of security I haven’t had since I came here. Not till now. You will remember that I advertised for a man that was sober and industrious. Those were my words.” He savoured the words as though he had invented them. “Yes, sober and industrious. And when this man appeared and I talked to him I realized that here at last was a man I could trust. He gives you that feeling too, doesn’t he, girlie?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered vaguely, then she added, — “That reminds me I must ask him to get some cough mixture for Tania. Her cold gets no better.”
“The druggist won’t be open at this hour.”
“Perhaps not but I’ll ask Tom to try.”
“Tom?”
“Yes. Tom Raikes.”
“Let him get her a dose at the vet’s. That’ll do her. Just the thing for her.”
Gem went through to the kitchen. Raikes was standing with his hand on the doorknob ready to turn it. He had his hat on, the brim casting a dark shadow over his eyes, but he took it off, with a polite little inclination of the head as she entered.
“Oh, Tom,” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Clapperton?”
“Could you get some cough mixture for Tania?”
“I’m afraid the drugstore won’t be open. But Tania wouldn’t take it anyway. I offered her a dose of mine and she wouldn’t have it. She’s like that.”
“Then we can’t do anything about it.”
“I’m afraid not. She’s a quare woman.” He smiled good-humouredly.
She noticed the length of his eyelashes and how they cast a shadow on his cheek. Yet strangely they did not take from his look of careless masculinity. He stood with his hand on the doorknob waiting to go, waiting politely for her permission to go.
“Well,” she said and hesitated.
He raised his black brows enquiringly.
For a moment she could think of nothing to say, then, — “My husband was just remarking how pleasant it is for us to have a man we can trust about the place. I hope you’re quite satisfied, Tom.”
His face lighted happily. “I’m well satisfied, ma’am. I hope to work for you and Mr. Clapperton many years.”
“I’m glad of that. Goodnight, Tom.”
“Goodnight, ma’am, and thank you.”
A rush of icy air entered the kitchen, then the door closed behind him. She heard his feet crunch in the snow, then the opening of the garage door and the engine of the car throbbing…. Since early childhood she had been a cripple, unable to walk because of a fall, until she met Eugene Clapperton, and his generosity had made possible the operation on her spine. He had made it possible for her to walk strongly and quickly, to be like other girls. He had made her his wife. No matter how long he lived she never could do enough to repay him. She went back into the living room and saw him sitting there. He looked up at her with his amorous smile.
“Come, girlie,” he said, patting his thigh, “come and sit on my knee.”
Behind her clenched teeth, under her breath, she told herself, — “Like hell, I will! I’ve done too much for you already.” But she said, in her sweet Welsh voice that honeyed all her words, — “Oh, you silly Tiddledy-winks, you’re always wanting attention.” And she went and sat on his knee.
It was after midnight when Raikes and Barker returned over the snowy ruts in the road toward Vaughanlands. They talked loudly, sometimes in argument, sometimes in boasting of the clever things they had said and done in the barroom of the club they belonged to. They had made themselves rather a nuisance there that night and their argument was about whether or not they should have heeded the bartender’s urging of them to depart. Up and down over the snowy ruts of the road they bounced, recking nothing of the springs of the car. Sometimes Raikes waved one hand in the air to emphasize his boasting. Sometimes he waved both hands. And still the faithful car rocked on. It seemed a miracle that they reached the garage in safety, where it stood secluded, its roof grotesquely deep in snow. It seemed a miracle that Raikes was able to guide the car through the doorway, but he did.
Suddenly he became very polite to Barker and assisted him to alight. Solicitously he guided him in the direction of his home and bade him a loving goodnight. He locked the garage and went rather unsteadily into the house. Still wearing his coat and hat he lighted the stove and put on the kettle to make himself a pot of tea. While the kettle was boiling he went softly through the pantry into the dining room. He stood listening. There was a muffled middle-of-the-night stillness in the house. Upstairs in the big mahogany bed the Clappertons slept. On the top floor Althea and the Great Dane, and near her in a little room with a sloping roof, Tania.
Raikes opened the sideboard and took out a bottle of brandy. Eugene Clapperton disapproved of alcohol but he kept one bottle of brandy in the house for emergency. Now Raikes filled a flask
he carried in his pocket from the bottle and returned to the kitchen. He made the tea, fetched milk from the pantry, and poured himself a cup. Half-sitting, half-leaning against the sink, he drank two cupfuls. He had pushed his hat to the back of his head and the unshaded light fell on his long face which wore an expression of gentle melancholy. Above his head the kitchen clock, with roses on its massive face, ticked loudly. Its hands pointed to two o’clock.
He took the teapot into the dining room and replenished the brandy bottle with tea. His hands shook and he winced as some of the hot liquid was spilled over his thumb. Now the sideboard was closed and he gave the room an admiring glance before he left. He wished he owned a grand house like this, with furniture as fine. He felt sorry for himself — a lonely man, with no one to love him — a lonely Irishman, in a strange land. He thought of Mrs. Clapperton and the odd way she had looked at him that night, and not only on that night. Well — in him she could see a real man, not a pimp like old Clapperton.
VII
THE CONCERT PIANIST
There was no greater pleasure than walking, Finch Whiteoak thought. At this moment it was a more profound pleasure than playing the piano. Seated before the instrument, even at his best, there was the mind alert, ready to pounce on the fingers if they faltered, ever so slightly. There was the mind, conscious of his audience, quivering with anger if everything was not right in the concert hall. Even when he played in solitude, there was the mind, exalted, fiery, casting its shadows on the keyboard. But — in walking through these wintry woods — the mind was gone. It was scarcely there to direct the legs. There was the blood coursing hotly through the body, the eyeballs cool and relaxed, the nostrils widening to draw in the icy air. He had tramped for five miles along the country road. Now returning through the woods of Jalna, the pines, the oaks, the slim naked birches, stood waiting for him as friends. Willingly would he spend the rest of his life among them. He had had enough of people. Their inquisitive eves, their mouths saying the same things over and over.
Scarcely aware of what direction he took he passed the house, turned down into the ravine, and up the opposite steep, a little breathless, for here it was heavy going, toward the Fox Farm. In the still of the sunless day, with the sky drooping heavy with more snow, snow that would bring deeper, thicker silence to the wood, the house looked like one in a German fairy tale. The door might have opened and a strange dwarf looked out, or a little old woman with a shawl over her head. Surely the smoke that rose from the chimney was remarkable. It rose slowly, downy and white, and spread itself like a toadstool above the house. This was the first time Finch had been home since the coming of young Bell. It seemed strange to find him here. Yet quite ordinary everyday occurrences often seemed strange to Finch. The power, or weakness, of wonder had been given him at birth. How strange, he was forever thinking to himself. Some combination of sounds on the piano which he had heard a thousand times would suddenly strike him, as though it were the first, and he would pause, in that delicious wonder. Now this smoke that curled so closely at the chimney’s mouth, then spread itself like a greyish-white toadstool, held him. His face wore what Renny called his idiotic expression.
Watching him through the window was Humphrey Bell. He kept himself concealed and watched. He felt a quickening of the pulse at the sight of that long sensitive face which had been imprinted on his memory since their meeting. Often he had wondered if the face were as interesting as he had thought and now he said to himself almost joyfully — it is!
Finch moved slowly toward the door and by the time he had reached it Bell stood there to welcome him. They exchanged greetings and Finch stared about the room with an air of approval.
“So,” he said, “you’ve dug yourself in, and mighty snug you are.”
The stove was glowing almost red hot.
Bell said, — “I’m sorry if it’s too warm but the truth is I was so long nearly frozen in prison camps that it seems as though I can’t be too warm now. Won’t you take off your windbreaker?”
Finch took it off and Bell placed two chairs side by side facing the window.
“Do you mind?” he asked shyly. “I always set the chairs this way when your brother comes.”
“That is fine,” said Finch. “which brother?”
“Renny. The other one has never been.”
“Piers is wrapped up in his work and his family. How do you like Renny?”
“He’s just like you said. To see him cantering on horseback — well, it’s just poetry.”
“And you like living here?”
“You couldn’t have done a better thing for me than to send me here. I’ve dug myself in as completely as a rabbit in his burrow.”
The simile was almost too good. Finch chuckled. Then he said, — “The family tell me you have dinner with them occasionally. I’m glad of that.”
“They’ve been mighty kind to me. Not only Colonel Whiteoak — but Mrs. Whiteoak and the two old uncles. I’d rather go there than to any other house I’ve ever been.”
“what about Adeline?”
Finch had seated himself but Bell stood leaning against the window frame, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the pallid scene outside. “Oh, she,” he answered. “She’s so serene and untouched by life that I daren’t think of her.”
“She’s really just a big child. She’ll be an interesting woman some day.”
“She has the most lovely bones,” said Bell dreamily. “Her good looks aren’t just pretty flesh and fine eyes and chestnut hair.”
“She’s like my grandmother. I can tell you, Bell, she had an arresting face when she was a hundred. Age could not change her bones. Lord, I remember her old hands and how wrinkled and yet how shapely they were! She wore a lot of rings.”
“I wish I’d seen her. I have seen her portrait.”
“I only knew her when she was very old.” After a moment he added impulsively, — “She left me all her money.”
“You were her favourite?”
“Gosh, no. I never quite knew why she did it. I wished she hadn’t.” He sat, lost in thought for a little, his long grey-blue eyes darkened by some painful memory. Then he asked abruptly, — “what do you do to pass the time?”
“Oh, I write some rather feeble short stories. They must be feeble, I suppose, or they’d get accepted. I don’t write the bitter disillusioned stuff that most literary guys who’ve been to the war can turn out in words of one syllable and no punctuation. I like long words and I like the niceties of punctuation, and I like to embroider and elaborate. Neither can I write about sex. I’m too restrained and vague.”
“Give yourself time,” said Finch. “You’ve only been at it six months.”
“The thing for me to do,” said Bell, “is to stick to carving silly things like those,” and his eyes moved from the scene outdoors to the small carvings on the mantelshelf.
“I don’t believe you’re happy here — in spite of what you said about being as snug as a rabbit in its burrow.”
“Oh, yes, I am,” Bell protested quickly. “I’ve never been so almost completely happy.” He began to laugh silently, rumpling his silvery tow hair till it made a halo round his head. “But — I have one headache and it’s an aggravating one, I can tell you.”
“what?”
“Mr. Clapperton.”
“Oh, him! You and my Uncle Nicholas should get together.”
“We have. Your uncle invariably says Clapperton is a horrid old fellow.”
“what has he done to annoy you?”
“Now, listen. He never meets me on the road or in the village but he stops me and begins to pour out his obnoxious advice.” Bell spoke in a high afflicted tone. “He says I’m mentally ill. That it’s proved by the way I shut myself up alone here. By the way I look and talk. He says that I must see a psychiatrist. He says that fifty percent of the people one meets are mentally ill. He says that one out of every ten should be in a mental home. By God, I’ll be in jail for doing him an injury, if he doesn’
t let me alone!”
“why don’t you avoid him?”
“I can’t. He smells me out. He’s everywhere — with his know-it-all smirk and his cheap philosophizing.”
“Have you met his wife and her sister?”
“Once he dragged me almost by force to his house to see his pictures. I suppose no worse collection of pictures exists anywhere. Yet they inspire him to live a finer life, he says. I don’t know how the two women endure him. They’re quite nice, though a little odd.”
Bell really was worked up, but in Finch’s presence he calmed himself, brought whisky, and sat down facing the window.
It was March and should have been spring but there was no sign of it in these woods. The snow was deeper than it had been all through the winter, the air thicker in portent of more snow. There was a deeper silence. No small animal ventured from its burrow to leave a footprint on the snow. Of the migratory birds crows had thrown their challenge across the sky and one morning a robin had been seen. “The first robin!” Adeline had cried. “Now I must wish on him.” And she had, combining superstition and religion, murmured, — “Please, may I go to Ireland, oh God!”
Finch said, — “Young Adeline is dying to go to Ireland.”
Bell looked surprised. “I thought she was perfectly happy here. Why should she want to go to Ireland — of all places?”
“She was there once, with her father, and she wants to go again. My nephew Maurice is going this spring. He owns a place there. If she goes someone must go with them from here. Perhaps Renny. Perhaps me.”
As he spoke Finch was looking out of the window but he was conscious of a change in Bell. He gave him a sidelong look. The tip of Bell’s thumb was caught between his teeth, his eyes were downcast. He asked:
“How long would she be away?”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 445
