“Sorry,” muttered Maurice. “I didn’t see.”
“No, you didn’t see,” shouted Piers, suddenly furious, “because you are too damned drunk to see. I was thoroughly ashamed of you. So was your mother. You made an ass of yourself. If you hadn’t the guts to win Adeline why do you try to push in now, when everything is settled between her and Fitzturgis? He, at least, behaved like a gentleman.”
“You never could see anything good in me,” Maurice shouted in his turn. “You’re always ready to take any side against me. You’ve always treated me badly and now you insult me.”
“Get to your bed, you young fool!”
“Get out of my way!”
Piers caught him by the shoulders and violently shook him. Maurice grappled with him. Piers’s artificial leg gave way. He crashed to the floor. Pheasant gave a cry of terror. “Are you hurt?” she cried, trying to think which would be worse — to break his own good leg or that other.
Christian and Philip helped him to his feet. Neither leg was broken, but he was paler than they had ever seen him.
“Maurice didn’t mean to, did you, Maurice?” wailed Pheasant.
“Mauricedidn’t mean to!” growled Piers. “what are you saying? I knocked myselfoff my feet shaking himand I’ve a mind to give him a thrashing that he’ll never forget.”
Christian said in a low voice to Piers, “Maurice doesn’t know what he’s doing, Dad. I’ll help him upstairs.” In a moment the three brothers were mounting the stairs. Piers and Pheasant were alone in the hall.
“Are you hurt?” she repeated.
“No.” But he looked a little shaken.
“I guess it’s a good thing,” she said, “that Mooey’s visit is nearly over.”
Piers answered curtly, “I shall certainly be glad to see him go.”
XII
A Variety of Scenes
PATIENCE HAD LEFT her lonely seat on the door-sill of the side entrance and wandered along a sandy path that skirted the orchards and led to where the vegetables flourished. It was a season of rich growth. Among their dark leaves could be glimpsed the white of cauliflowers, the long pale shapes of vegetable marrows, the golden spheres of squash. In orderly rows the beets, the parsnips, the carrots. No one troubled to admire them, thought Patience, yet in their own fashion they were beautiful. A plum tree stood among them, though it had no right to be there. No other, not even the damson, made such good jam. It was delicious to eat, also. Patience picked one, and before she bit into it admired it as it lay on her palm. The moonlight seemed to admire it too, increasing its bloom, its lustre, till it was almost as lovely as a flower.
Beyond the vegetable garden a field had been given over to tomato plants. They had not been properly staked but had been allowed to run wild over the ground. Yet it was amazing to see how productive they were. Hundreds upon hundreds of tomatoes gleamed, red and smooth as silk, along the pungent vines.
Patience saw the form of a man bending among the vines, filling a basket with the fruit. At first she thought it might be one of the farm hands, but coming closer she saw that it was Humphrey Bell, a young man who lived alone in a house beyond the ravine. This house belonged to Renny Whiteoak. Humphrey Bell was a writer of short stories, who earned just enough to keep soul and body together. Soul was pure-minded, to judge by the look in his eyes. Body also was attractive, except for the extreme paleness of his hair and eyelashes. In the moonlight these looked almost white, but his eyes were of a charming harebell blue.
“Hullo,” called out Patience. “Getting some tomatoes?”
He straightened himself. “Yes, and I’m not the thief I look. Your uncle told me to help myself.” He displayed the basket half full of tomatoes. “I really have taken more than I need. That’s the way when one gets something for nothing.”
“I’ll help you,” said Patience. “Let’s get plums from that tree.” Without waiting for his reply she began to gather the plums. He stood admiring the grace of her arms as she reached upward, where was the finest fruit.
Then — “You’re looking unusually elegant,” he said, “for loitering in a vegetable garden.”
“We are having a family dinner party for Adeline’s fiancé and his sister.”
Humphrey said in his rather diffident way, the way of a sensitive man who is too much alone, “And you — I’d expect you to be in the middle of things — the life of the party.”
Patience laughed almost scornfully. “Me? Goodness, no. They’ll not miss me. As a matter of fact, the party is rather scattered. The young people have paired off and are strolling about in the moonlight.”
Bell considered this. Then, with a kind of diffident boldness, he said, “Then I consider myself lucky that you’ve paired off with me — in the vegetable garden.”
“It doesn’t sound very romantic,” she said.
“You make it so.” He was so shy that after he had said this he quite furiously gathered plums till the basket was almost full.
After a somewhat embarrassed silence she asked, “How are you getting on with your writing?”
“Not very well, as to acceptances. As to my own feelings, better and better.”
She turned to look enquiringly into his face. It wore a faintly mocking smile, yet, she realized, a look also of cheerful tranquillity.
“You mean,” she said, “that you yourself like what you write?”
“Yes, I do.” He spoke with the same tranquil conviction. “And even though the editors don’t agree with me I can’t help feeling that the day will come when they will.” Recklessly he bit into a plum. “Anyhow, between selling a few stories and pilfering fruit and vegetables from my rich neighbours I manage to get along very well.”
“And you don’t mind living alone?”
“If I had exactly the right person to live with me I should like that, but as I haven’t …” He gave a resigned shrug.
“I envy your not needing people. I’m terribly dependent.”
He looked surprised. “I shouldn’t have expected that. I think of you as very independent.”
“If you think of me at all,” she said, “which I very much doubt.”
“Now your cousin Roma —” he went on.
Patience interrupted, “Don’t tell me you think Roma is dependent on others — that she needs their love. She’s the most self-sufficient being I ever have known.”
“Perhaps Roma is like me — surrounded by people she imagines. They are very satisfactory companions.”
“Roma is all for hard facts.”
“Perhaps she has more imagination than you think.”
“I daresay you’re right.” They turned and walked together in the direction whence he had come. They walked between rows of beans, he carrying his basket, she giving him now and again a glance of curiosity. When they reached the grassy verge where he would turn homeward, she could not, though she tried to stop herself, resist saying, “I suppose you’ve never been in love.”
“what makes you suppose that?” He turned to look full in her face and she saw the blue brightness of his eyes beneath the pale lashes.
“Well … I guess you can invent just the right sort of person. Flesh and blood don’t matter.”
“You’re wrong. You’re quite wrong,” he said decidedly. “I was in love. Pretty desperately.” He looked so cheerful that she had no sense of having hurt him.
“Was?”she echoed.
“I recovered from it some time ago.” He spoke as though to reassure her. “Luckily I had made no advances, so the young lady never had the faintest suspicions of my love.”
Patience thought, “who on earth could it have been? Roma perhaps? I wonder if it might have been me …” She searched his face for some confirmation of this, but there was something in his pale colouring that made it inscrutable.
“You are lucky,” she said.
“Yes, I think on the whole I am.”
Not able to stop herself, she said, “It might have been Adeline.”
“Yes,�
�� he agreed, without embarrassment, “and it might have been Adeline’s mother or your aunt. But I am not going to tell you, so there’s no use in your looking at me in that charmingly enquiring way.” He began to talk of plans he had made for the future, and before long Patience returned to the house.
When she and Roma were undressing for bed Meg made cocoa and brought it to the girls.
“This will help you to sleep,” she said. “There’s nothing like a hot nourishing drink after a party. The night has turned cool.”
“Thanks,” said Roma, “but I never need anything to make me sleep. I sleep like a log.”
“Ah, I wish I did,” said Meg with a yawn. “when I think of the sleepless nights I have spent I wonder I am not as thin as a stick.”
Her daughter gave her a look of tender solicitude; her niece one of cool disbelief. All three sipped their cocoa. Pink with the comfort of it, Roma remarked:
“what a fool Maurice made of himself tonight!”
“Any psychologist would tell you,” said Meg, “that the poor boy is the victim of his upbringing.”
“I wish I’d been such a victim,” returned Roma.
“Sent away from home, when you were only a child, to live in a huge old house with a very old man!”
“Yes — and fall heir to his money. It would have just suited me.”
“I should have died of homesickness,” said Patience.
“I dare say.” Roma stepped out of her dress and stood like a child in her slip, her hair soft about her short white neck.
Later, in Meg’s bedroom, where a framed photograph of her dead husband stood on the dressing table, Patience said to her mother, “what do you suppose Humphrey Bell told me tonight?”
“Humphrey Bell — why, he wasn’t at the party.”
“I met him, in the tomato patch.”
“Patience! How could you go wandering in the tomato patch with your pretty dress on?”
“I forgot.” This had been her excuse all her life and was now accepted by Meg as inevitable.
“Well, what did he tell you?”
“He told me that he has let a part of his house. We’d been speaking of his living alone and he’d said he liked it. Then he told me that money is so tight with him that he has let the greater part of his house to the Chases. I know Mr. Chase. He’s a friend of Uncle Renny’s. He’s been married just lately to a widow, a Mrs. Lebraux. She and her first husband had once lived in that very house. They were friends of Uncle Renny’s too.”
“Dear me,” said Meg, “that is strange. I knew Mrs. Lebraux slightly. I can’t imagine what that man Chase, who was supposed to be a woman-hater, saw in her. Alayne disliked her, and, I’m afraid, had some reason for her dislike. Your Uncle Renny used to go there a great deal.”
“You mean,” said Patience, “that he went there more often than Auntie Alayne approved of?”
“I’m afraid so. But I shouldn’t be talking like this. I always have tried to see my sisters-in-law in the best light possible…. Still there’s no use in my trying to hide the fact that Alayne is a frantically jealous woman. I grant he has given her some cause for jealousy. He’s one of those men who just naturally attract other women. He can’t help it, poor dear. One thing is certain: that woman won’t be welcome as a neighbour to poor Alayne.”
“Oh.” Patience looked deeply thoughtful, then said, “But all that must have been over years and years ago.”
“Things are never over with wives,” said Meg.
At Jalna Renny, Alayne, and Archer were left in the drawing-room. She was tired and was about to kiss her son goodnight and seek the comfort of her bed, when he said, “We are to have the Chases as neighbours.”
“what Chases?” asked Renny. “I know only one Chase and he’s unmarried.”
“That horsy Chase who used to come here occasionally?” Alayne asked of Renny.
“Yes. He’s the only Chase I know. He seemed a confirmed bachelor.”
“Patience tells me,” said Archer, “that Humphrey Bell has let part of his house to a couple named Chase. She and her first husband once lived in that same house and bred foxes.”
“It’s unbelievable,” said Renny. “I can’t picture old Chase as married. Upon my word there must be some mistake. Old Chase — why, if ever a man despised women he did.” Renny tried to speak with unconcern, but Archer, who was extremely sensitive to the moods of his parents, noted his embarrassment. He gave his mother a penetrating look.
Alayne said, “I cannot imagine a less attractive pair.”
“You can’t, eh?” said Renny.
“No, I cannot.”
A chilly silence fell between them.
Then Renny remarked, “Chase is quite a good-looking fellow, and he’s clever too.”
“Really?” She could not have sounded less interested in Mr. Chase.
“He’s a very clever lawyer,” said Renny. “though his interests are now chiefly in racehorses.”
“So I have gathered from his conversation.”
While this chilly interchange was being carried on, the minds of both were fixed on the woman whom the horse fancier had lately married. “Clara,” thought Renny. “Clara married again! How many years is it since I’ve seen her? what is she like now?” his mind dwelt for a moment on that amorous episode of the past. Then, with an inward chuckle, he pictured her and Chase together.
“That dreadful time,” thought Alayne, “when because of her I almost hated him, is far in the past. I never give her a thought now and probably neither does Renny. I must not let any recollection of it trouble me. It is well that Archer is here. He protects us from ourselves and from each other. Archer is ours and we are his. Nothing can change that.”
Archer remarked, “How nice it is when all the people are gone.”
Alayne looked at the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf. “I wish,” she said, “that Sylvia would come. I can’t think what is keeping her so long at Vaughanlands.”
“Shall I go and find out?” asked Archer.
“Goodness, no.” Alayne came and put her arm about him. He did not soften under her caressing touch but turned his head to scrutinize her face.
“I shall go myself,” said Renny, “and bring her back, but not for a while. Finch is probably playing for her.”
“Mercy!” said Archer.
The Wragges, man and wife, had been asleep in bed for hours, but Alayne, for something to complain about, since her heart felt suddenly heavy, dragged forth their images, and said:
“I thought Wragge was terribly slow in waiting at table tonight. And he so tilted the soup plates that I was afraid my soup would land in my lap.”
“I didn’t notice,” said Renny.
“I don’t see how you could fail to notice,” she went on. “By the time he had served those at the farther end the soup of those first served was cold.”
“I noticed,” said Archer. “Mine was.”
“As for Cook,” Alayne continued, “she grows more and more extravagant. She spoils half her dishes by too many eggs, too much butter, too much sugar. Tonight the meringues were sickeningly sweet.”
“Were they?” said Renny cheerfully. “I didn’t notice.”
“I did,” said Archer. “Mine were.”
“The worst of her is,” Alayne continued, “that she won’t pay any attention when I try to reason with her. She simply looks the other way or changes the subject.”
“She always listens to me,” said Renny.
“She always listens to me,” said Archer.
“You both are fortunate in not being forced to discuss meals with her. She is utterly lacking in judgment. She takes pride in never following a recipe. She makes dishes ‘out of her head.’ She is both erratic and self-opinionated. Sometimes I hardly know how to endure her stubbornness.”
Renny gave Alayne the grin so like his grandmother’s.
“You won’t have to put up with her much longer,” he said. “They’re leaving.”
She stared
at him, not able to take this in. She looked unbelievingly at him. Surely he was joking — being teasing and inconsiderate, just when she needed a little sympathy.
“Yes,” he repeated. “They’re leaving. Right after the weddings. Rags told me this morning.”
“Mercy!” said Archer.
Alayne sat down.
For a moment she was too dazed to speak. Then she asked in a hoarse voice, “why did you not tell me this before?”
“I thought it would be upsetting to you, but to judge by the way you feel toward them you’ll be glad to see them go.”
“Don’t be cruel,” cried Alayne. “You know quite well that I simply can’t get on without the Wrages. They had been here for years when I first came to Jalna. I may complain of them a little — once in a great while — but to run this big old house, with its basement kitchen and all its inconveniences, with the sort of domestic help one gets nowadays — well, I don’t see how I can.”
“‘Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est,’”said Archer, and slipped out of the room.
Renny put his arms about Alayne and drew her head to his breast. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said. “The Wragges are only going home for a year. I’m sure they’ll come back. We shall get along somehow. I’ll look after Uncle Nick. If it comes to the worst Adeline can cook the meals. Fitzturgis can wash the dishes and carry the coals. You can keep us all in order. It will be quite a picnic.”
“Picnic,” wailed Alayne. “We are to have a picnic this very day! I must go to my bed and get what rest I can, even though I shall not sleep a wink.”
XIII
Nicholas Departs
THE PICNIC, whICH was looked forward to in varying degrees of pleasure or the reverse, did not take place. The thoughts of the family were shocked into a very different channel by the sudden serious illness of Nicholas. When, as usual, he had his breakfast in bed he was not feeling well. In mid-morning he suffered great pain in his leg. Fortunately the family doctor was in his office and in a short time was at the old man’s bedside. He diagnosed the case as one of coronary thrombosis. In little more than an hour two nurses were in the house. It had taken on the atmosphere of a hospital.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 493
