Quite unconscious of her appearance she regarded him with an air of hauteur. She said:
“You may think it is amusing but I don’t. That dog has ruined my silk bedspread, and that child has made my room look no better than Bessie’s scullery.”
Pheasant said, patting her son on the back, while he stared at Alayne wet-eyed, as though she were an ogress:
“I think that cats and a canary would suit you better than dogs and a baby, Alayne.” She returned to her room still comforting her child.
“I like dogs and children as well as anybody, but I like them to behave themselves and to know their place.”
“Let’s see what the damage is,” said Renny, leading the way into her room. He glanced at the floor, the dressing table, and the bed. “That will all brush off,” he said soothingly.
“It may off the rug,” she returned, “but the bedspread is ruined!”
“Can’t you send it to the cleaners?”
“Of course I can! And have it come home all slimpsey like my dress did. The cleaners over here aren’t nearly so good as I’m used to.”
He could not take her seriously, looking as she did. His face broke into a smile as he said—“Only look at yourself in the glass and you’ll forget all your troubles.”
She looked, and was angrier than ever.
Old Benny thought—“With my master here I think I’m pretty safe in getting on the bed again.” Accordingly he hopped with airy lightness on to the silk spread, avoiding the spot he had soiled before. His legs were strung with little beads of dried mud. He began to lick the place on his stern where the heel of the slipper had hit him.
Alayne had barely turned from the survey of her face when she saw him. It was one of those things that seem too bad to be true. Snatching up the other slipper she flew at him, striking him again and again. Renny caught her wrist.
“I won’t have him beaten like that,” he said sharply.
“Keep him out of my room, then! He’s a perfect brute!”
“Come along, Ben! This is no place for us.”
“You talk like a fool!” said Alayne.
He stopped in the doorway to look back at her. “I think,” he said, “that you are the worst-tempered woman I’ve ever known.”
She watched him go and then sat down on a chair by the window, feeling suddenly weak. Her own voice echoed in her mind, repeating—“You talk like a fool!” She had actually said those words to Renny... And what was it he had said? That, too, was echoed in her mind... She was not filled with remorse for her words or cut to the heart by his. She just sat motionless, stunned by the sudden rift between them. It was as though a crack in the earth had suddenly separated them... Could that be bridged? Could she leap back, across the chasm of her words, and stand once more close beside him? “The worst-tempered woman he had ever known.” And he had seen his grandmother in her passions! Had seen her draw blood from the boys with her stick! He had felt the sting of her tongue himself. Ah, but she was his grandmother! To be his wife was different. His wife must be meek. Well—if not meek—she must still not raise her hand against his dog. She leant out into the sunny morning air. She heard the cooing of a wood-pigeon. She heard the rumble of a farm wagon. Saw the pointed leaves of the birches shaken out in gladness to the sun. She remembered her first coming to Jalna as Eden’s wife. Life here had seemed so mysteriously different from the life to which she was used. Now her maiden life seemed far away, mysterious, though it was only live years. It was like a street she had once known well. Her thoughts, her emotions, had been the buildings—airy, narrow white buildings of a proud simplicity. That street had crumbled during the first months of her life with Eden. How the contact with his changeful, sensitive mind had absorbed her! A new street had been erected for her spirit—a wide, richly coloured street, where the stars hung above the roofs and fountains danced before the doors. Then she had thought she would be an inspiration to Eden, be the means of his writing glorious poems. And how quickly those bright edifices had dissolved! Eden’s faithlessness, her meeting with Renny—her living in the very house with Renny—What was it that had crumbled the foundations? Eden and she had never had such a scene as this. She had never felt such a blaze of anger against Eden. Why was it? Was it because her love for Eden had been so much less? That with her love was mingled a maternal feeling? Was it because her love for Renny had in it so much of passion—her hope of understanding him ever baffled? The new street rising out of her life with him was threaded by intricate dark passages, separated by closed doors which, when they were forced open, were swept by frosty air and the sound of galloping hooves.
It was long before she put such fancies from her, rose, and tidied her hair and washed her face. She called Bessie to come and sweep the rug, and she tied up the silk bedspread in a parcel for the cleaners.
Renny slammed the side door behind him, Ben still at his heels. He was glad to get out of the house, but no more glad than he had been a score of times after a family row, when perhaps old Adeline had followed him to the very door, raining recriminations on him. Certainly this tantrum of Alayne’s had been rather a shock. He had thought she had one of the sweetest dispositions possible. And to have beat up old Benny like this, and then to have called him a fool! He gave a kind of hysterical grin as he thought of it. Whatever had got into the girl? Perhaps it was a child? Women got into strange states at those times, he knew. Had tantrums or wanted to eat raw carrots or common starch—anything to be unnatural. Well, he hoped to the Lord it was a child. Meggie and Pheasant had both had them in the year, and now he’d been married a year and never a whisper of one. He’d like a boy resembling himself, except for the red hair. He could do very well without that. If it were a girl he should like it to look like Alayne, only, on the whole, it would be better if it inherited Meggie’s disposition. She’d been cranky from the first that morning, he remembered. The way she’d pounced on poor old Rags about that marmalade, and the look she’d given him when he went to put down the window for her. Everything had annoyed her, even such a trifle as Wake’s waving of the bell-pull. And how peevish she had been about Mooey coming to the table! She had tried to hide that, but he could see through her. Of course, if she were going to have a baby, the sight of another kid at the table might upset her stomach; there was no knowing.
He was only a few strides from the door when he was intercepted by Wragge. In the bright sunlight his coat looked very rusty and his scalp showed through his greying hair. He looked up at Renny with a mournful expression, twitching his nose and upper lip before he spoke as was his way when his feelings were hurt.
“Well, what is it?” Renny demanded impatiently.
“I’ve come to give notice, sir. I think that me and me missus had oughter go since we’re not giving satisfaction to Mrs. W’iteoak, sir.”
Renny stared at him, thunderstruck. “Mrs. Whiteoak hasn’t said anything to me about your not giving satisfaction. What is the trouble?”
“Well, sir, you saw ’ow it was about the marmalade at breakfast. I was that unnerved that I nearly jumped out O’ me shoes when the bell rang, and I let drop the jar and smashed it. Not but w’at it was cracked already and our second best one. Then, after breakfast, she came to the kitchen and poured out the vitals of her wrath on Mrs. Wragge. There wasn’t a pot, nor a crock, nor a drawer she didn’t look into, and nothink was right. She even examined of the oven cloths and said they was tea cloths and had no business there. She was after Bessie for the way she plucked the fowls. Bessie’s young and she can tike criticism calm, but Mrs. Wragge ain’t herself this morning along o’ her innards. She ’ad a fry o’ some pork leavin’s last night before she went to bed, and at three this morning we both thought ’er hour ’ad come. So she don’t feel able to swallow Mrs. W’iteoak’s unreasonableness, sir, and my nerves won’t stand it neither, so I think we’d better be goin’.”
“The hell, you will!” said Renny. “Get along back to your work. I never heard of such nonsense. You have a very g
ood place here and, if your wife can’t stand a little scolding, she ought to be ashamed of herself. Give her a dose of salts and don’t encourage her in her tempers.” He strode on, but Rags followed. “We appreciate the plice we ’ave ’ere. I ’ave it in me to be an old family retainer, but wat’s the use, if we can never do nothink to please the mistress?”
Renny stopped. “Rags,” he said, giving him a look of almost tender familiarity, “you and I were through a good deal together. I don’t want to part with you and I don’t believe you want to leave me. You know quite well how to pacify your wife. Probably what happened this morning may never happen again. I’ve overlooked things in you and you must show your good sense by putting up with a little criticism. Remind your wife of the dozens of times I’ve praised her sauces and her tarts.”
Rags’s grey little face was quite broken up by emotion. “Do you mind the time, sir, when we’d moved our position at the Front and we arrived in a God-forsaken plice just at dark and, inside of a hour, I’d cooked you up a four-course dinner out o’ some bits o’ things I’d brung along in tins?”
“Do I! I’ll never forget that dinner!”
They stood together talking of old times. Rags returned to the kitchen and told his wife that the master was all on their side and advised them not to take the missus too serious.
“I could have borne with ’er fault-finding,” declared Mrs. Wragge, “if she ’adn’t started in about the glazing on the platters. W’y, that was all cracked afore she ever set ’er foot inside this ’ouse.”
“My! she has a funny way of talking,” observed Bessie. ‘When she began about the fowl’s plumage I nearly burst out laughing.”
“Silly!”—said Mrs. Wragge. “That’s the American for fevvers.”
Renny and the sheepdog went on toward the stable, but now he was genuinely angry at Alayne. It was all very well to be disagreeable to him—Good God, she had told him that he talked like a fool—She had beaten poor old Ben for almost nothing, and now he found that she had all but lost him the Wragges. He remembered how she had drawn away from him when he had wanted to kiss her after breakfast. He sighed in puzzlement.
Usually he visited each of his horses in turn on his arrival at the stables in the morning, but this morning he felt out of sorts. He went straight to his little office and sat down before his yellow oak desk. Things were not going well with him this year. He had lost money at the races. A horse he had backed rather heavily, feeling certain of its quality, for it had been bred in his own stables and later sold to a friend (he had watched its training from month to month), had fallen, thrown the jockey, and galloped riderless to the finish. A horse of his own, trained by himself as a steeplechaser, ridden by one of his own men, had given a far from brilliant performance. He had hoped to sell it for a large sum. That hope was gone, unless the horse retrieved its reputation in another race. He had sold two of his best horses to a prosperous broker, but for some reason the payment for them was not forthcoming. Renny did not want to sue him for the money but he needed it badly. Added to these misfortunes, a gale in the autumn before had taken the roof from one of the stables and blown down a portion of the wall. Luckily the horses had not been injured, but the carpenter and the mason were becoming anxious for their money. They must be paid somehow.
In the early spring he had had a letter from Eden asking for a loan. He was in France, where he had been working all winter, and he wanted to go to England. His health was none too good. He badly needed a change—they had had a dreadful winter of cold and rain on the Riviera. Minny was with him, of course. He couldn’t imagine what he should have done without her. Might he have a thousand dollars? And Minny had joined him in sending love.
When Renny had come to that part of the letter he had cocked an eyebrow. There was something about the whole tone of the letter that he had not quite liked. It was an almost impudent tone, as though Eden had said—“Well, I cleared out with Minny and made things easy for you and Alayne. A thousand dollars isn’t much to ask!” He had called it a loan, but Renny knew that he would never pay it back, and Eden knew that he knew. The money had been sent. One could scarcely refuse it to a brother who had almost died of lung trouble. Renny had never mentioned the affair to the family.
He picked up a paper that lay on his desk. It was an account from Piers of the hay, straw, oats, and chop with which he had supplied Renny during the winter. He had been expecting this account for some time, and he had known that Piers put off the rendering of it because of the shortage of money. The farm lands of Jalna were rented to Piers at a moderate rental. Renny bought from him the supplies he needed for the stables at the regular market price. Piers also supplied the house with fruit and vegetables at a low price, as they did not need to be packed or shipped. This arrangement had worked out excellently, each brother giving the other a little time when necessary. Their love of Jalna, their love of horses, and their pride in their family was a strong bond between them. In the last two years Piers had been ready with his rent each quarter, on the day of its falling due. Renny, on the contrary, had been obliged to ask Piers for more time on several occasions. He felt chagrin at this. He wondered if he might put off the mason, the carpenter, or some other creditor, and pay Piers at once. He ran his eye over the items of the account. Certainly the nags had got away with a lot of feed. But they were worth it! He opened a drawer and took out the accounts that had come in at the beginning of the month. He had not paid the vet anything since the New Year. His was mounting to a large figure. He must be paid something. Urgent notes were attached to the accounts of the mason and the carpenter, begging for an immediate settlement. Then there was the notice from the bank telling of a note that had fallen due. He had not been able to resist that lovely mare in Montreal, though he really had not needed her... He lighted a cigarette and stared rather blankly at the papers on the desk. A jubilant neigh came from the stallion’s loose box.
He looked out of the window as a car drew up outside, and saw Piers alight from it. Since he had got the new car Piers seemed always to have some business that took him on the road. Renny went out and joined him.
“I’m sorry,” he said rather stiffly, “but you’ll have to wait a bit for the money for that fodder account. Money is awfully tight with me just now, and the mason and carpenter are pressing. Other things too.”
Piers’s face fell. He had done the decent thing, he thought, in delaying the rendering of his account. “Could you pay me half?” he asked. “I need the money.”
“No,” returned Renny irritably; “you’ll have to wait till next month.”
They had walked past the barn to the new piggery for which Finch was paying. The work was proceeding well. It was an up-to-date, solid-looking building. Piers had it in his mind to breed pigs on a large scale.
“That thing is going to cost a lot of money,” observed Renny, eyeing it disapprovingly.
“More than young Finch expected, I’m afraid,” answered Piers, grinning.
“He shingled the barn for you, too, didn’t he?”
“Yes. It needed it badly.”
“It appears to me that, if you go on as you are doing, you’ll get more out of Gran’s money than anyone else.”
Piers’s lips hardened. If his elder were going to throw Finch’s present to him in his face, he could be disagreeable too. He said:
“When all is said and done, Finch is really doing it for you. The land is yours. The buildings are yours. I only have the use of them. You don’t care what condition the farm buildings are in so long as the stables are kept up. These improvements Finch has made are for Jalna—not for me.”
“I should never have asked for them.”
“Of course not. As I said before, you don’t care a damn about the farm buildings.”
“Well, you’ll have the use of them all your life. You’ll likely outlive me. They don’t mean anything to me.”
“They mean that you get your rent the day it is due.”
“I suppose that’
s a shot for me because I have to put you off.” Renny’s red face became redder.
Piers’s eyes were prominent as they always were when his temper rose. But he spoke quietly. “No—but I don’t like your tone about these buildings. You have known what is being done from the first and you’ve never said a word against the improvements until now.”
“It was none of my business. I don’t care what Finch does with his money.”
Piers answered hotly—“But you resent his helping me.”
“No, I don’t. But I don’t like your saying that he isn’t doing it for you but for me.”
“I didn’t say that! I said he was doing it for Jalna.”
“I’ll look after Jalna—without anyone’s help.”
“Good lord! Then you would sooner he had squandered his money? He was bound to do that if he had been let alone.”
“I don’t want any of it spent on me; that’s all. You will be saying next that he bought the car for me.”
“Well, I acknowledge that was a present to me.”
“It would have been better,” said Renny, “if he had helped Eden a bit. He’s not strong. I had to send him a thousand dollars in March.” He had not intended to tell of the loan, least of all to Piers, but he felt himself forced to tell by what he considered Piers’s surly attitude toward his delay in the payment of the account.
They were standing beside a small grassy enclosure where three sows, soon to farrow, were exposing their matronly forms to the sun. One of them trotted up briskly to the brothers and raised her small quizzical eyes to Piers’s face. She recognised him and, like all animals, liked the looks of him. He carried a smooth, wandlike stick that he had picked up where the carpenters were at work. Wood had a fascination for him, whether in its natural state or polished. He would stop where a pine was being felled, pick up a smooth rosy chip, pass his hand caressingly over it, and hold it to his nose, drawing in its sweetness as though it were a flower. In the same way Renny would sniff when he entered the saddle-room and smelled the polished leather. It was Piers who most appreciated the Chippendale furniture brought out from England by their grandfather. Renny was proud of it, attached to it because it was a part of Jalna. He would have starved sooner than sell a piece of it.
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 26
