Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course

by Mazo de La Roche

  “He’s getting to look a little beauty, no doubt about that,” acceded Piers. “He’s grown a lot since he came. But I’m willing to bet that it will be cold weather before he comes of his own accord to you and lets you pet him.”

  “What will you bet?”

  “A fiver.”

  “Done.”

  Renny won the bet by a wide margin. He was riding his Javourite roan one morning at a canter along the path through the wood, when suddenly he came upon Barney, his head in a burrow. When he withdrew his head he seemed too astonished for movement. He stood sniffing the roan’s legs, then raised himself to sniff Renny’s boots. When horse and rider moved on he trotted close behind. From that time he followed the roan whenever and wherever he could. Inside of a month he had come to Renny of his own accord and laid his head on his knee.

  Renny’s pleasure in this achievement was so great that he boasted of it even to Alayne, who did not care for dogs, and for this dog less than others, since it had come from the fox farm. But she tried to soften her face, which felt rigid, into a sympathetic smile.

  One day in late August, when a thunderstorm was pending, Renny and Piers, accompanied by Wright, went in the car to a sale twenty miles away. Pheasant was in bed that day, feeling ill. She had told Alayne that morning that she believed she was going to have a child.

  Alayne wandered about the downstairs trying to settle herself at something, but the air was full of electricity; there was a sulphurous light in the sky which seemed uncomfortably near the treetops, and she felt disturbed, even shaken, by Pheasant’s news.

  A second child for her and Piers! Perhaps another son! And there were no signs that she herself might become a mother. She had not yet been married a year and a half, but she had a morbid premonition that she was to be childless. That she was to see Meggie and Pheasant rejoicing in their motherhood, see Renny carrying their children in his arms, and feel herself married without the fulfilment of marriage. She leaned against the window of the sitting-room, looking out on the side lawn where, in the sultry shade, Mooey lay stretched on his back idly, lifting first one leg and then the other. Alma sat beside him, her face a blank from contentment and heat. Alayne wondered what went on in that head under the sandy hair. She watched the girl’s large pink hands pluck blades of grass and tickle her own lips with them.

  As she was wondering this, Alma’s eyes became round and prominent with terror. She opened her mouth wide and gave a piercing scream. The shock to Alayne was all the greater for never having heard the girl utter a sound above a whisper up to this moment. Mooey sat up and looked at Alma.

  “Do it again!” he said.

  As though at his bidding, Alma repeated her scream, and now Alayne saw what she was screaming about. Barney was flying round and round the lawn in a kind of aimless fury, his jaws snapping rhythmically, and foam whitening his lips. He passed beneath her window then, and she saw his eyes fixed in an hallucinated glare. From a window above came Pheasant’s shrieks, then her agonised call to Alma to run with Mooey to the house.

  “This way!” cried Alayne. “This way! Bring him to me!”

  Alma snatched up the child and passed him through the window to Alayne just as the dog again flitted by like a creature from a nightmare. Somehow she managed to drag the girl in also.

  She ran to the hall and met Wragge there. His pale face lad become ashen.

  “Did you know that that dog of Mr. W’iteoak’s ‘as gone mad, ma’am? Isn’t it terrible?” He ran to the front door, shut and locked it.

  Alayne could hear a commotion of voices in the basement. She could hear Pheasant frantically questioning child and nurse upstairs. One of the farm-labourers, named Quinn, appeared at the back of the hall. He said:

  “Don’t you think we’d better shoot the dog, ma’am? He’s gone clean mad!”

  “Yes, yes—we must have him destroyed! It’s too terrible. Oh, I wish Mr. Whiteoak were here!”

  “The cook said that if you would let me have Mr. Whiteoak’s gun—I could use that.”

  “His gun...” She looked at him blankly.

  “The cook says it’s in his room.”

  “I’ll fetch it, ma’am,” put in Wragge.

  “No, Wragge. I will get it.”

  She ran up the stairs, feeling electrified to strength and competence. Pheasant followed her to the door of Renny’s room. “It’s in a leather case,” she said, “in the cupboard.”

  Alayne found the case, rapidly unbuckled the straps and took out the polished gun. Her hands were steady as she carried it down to Quinn and put it in his hands. She suddenly remembered Wakefield, and asked where he was.

  “Oh, ma’am,” cried Wragge. “’E’s over there with ’is pony, and the dog has run to the stables!”

  Quinn hurried off with the gun.

  Pheasant called from upstairs—“Alayne! Come—quick! You can see him from my bedroom window!”

  Alayne flew up to her, but when she reached the window, though the stables were visible, nothing living was to be seen but Quinn running toward them with the gun in his hands.

  “Had you seen the dog today before this happened?” she asked.

  Pheasant pressed her fingers to her temples. “Yes; I saw him following Quinn. Quinn was taking the roan and one of the farm-horses to be shod. Barney was following the roan. I thought it was funny, because I’d never seen him go out on the road before... There! Quinn has gone into the stable! Oh, isn’t it horrible? Shall I close the window so we shan’t hear the gun go off?”

  Mooey shouted—“I want to hear the gun go off! Bang! Bang! I’m not f’ightened!”

  “I don’t think you had better shut it. It is stifling. The hottest day I have seen this summer.”

  They stood staring in the direction of the stables, of which only a part could be seen through a break in the row of firs that had been planted with the object of hiding them, as though they expected to see something frightful enacted there. Presently they heard shouts, and their fascinated eyes saw figures running past the open space. Then, between the firs, the terrier appeared and ran on to the lawn in a strange lolloping gait and evidently at the point of dropping. There was a tear on his haunch from which the blood dripped to the grass. He raised his head and looked up at the windows where they stood.

  Quinn and two other men ran into view carrying hayforks. One of them, a youth from a Glasgow factory, kept well behind the other two, his round face stupid with fear. Pheasant and Alayne did not realise what the men were going to do until they ran up to Barney and began to jab :heir forks into him. He fell, bleeding in a dozen places.

  Then the Glasgow youth pressed forward and thrust his fork so deep into the body that he had to put his foot on it in order to pull out the prongs.

  Alayne had Pheasant, fainting, on her hands.

  Young Maurice asked—“Why did they do that? But Barney was naughty, wasn’t he? Why does Mummy want to sleep?”

  Alayne had got Pheasant back to her bed and had restored the child to his nurse. Wakefield had rushed into the room. His eyes were glittering with excitement.

  “Did you see?” he cried. “Wasn’t it terrible? I was standing quite close, behind the bushes. I saw everything, you know. Quinn didn’t understand Renny’s gun. He couldn’t make it go off. They chased Barney round and round the stable, and Quinn managed to wound him, but he got away and ran toward the house. I believe he thought he’d find Renny here. Won’t Renny be surprised when he comes home? I hope I can be the one to tell him!”

  The car, in which rode Renny, Piers, and Wright, did not turn into the drive until late afternoon. They drove straight to the stable, and there were half a dozen men about eager to tell the news.

  “You God-damned fools!” exclaimed Piers. “The dog no more had rabies than you have! He was hysterical. Nothing more.”

  Wright said—“If I had been here he’d never have been killed. We’ve had them like that before this and they got over it; didn’t they, sir?” He turned to Renny.
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  Renny was staring at Quinn, who had told excitedly of his prowess but who was now looking slightly abashed. The Glasgow youth stood close by, eager for praise, if there were any, but disclaiming all responsibility in the act.

  “Do you mean to tell me,” said Renny, “that four of you chased that puppy through the stables with pitchforks, then rounded him up on the lawn and butchered him?”

  “The gun wouldn’t go off,” muttered Quinn.

  “What gun was it?”

  “Yours, sir. Mrs. Whiteoak went and got it for me.”

  “Why didn’t you shut him in the loose box?”

  “Gosh, I wouldn’t have touched him on a bet, sir. He looked something fierce.”

  “Where is he?”

  They had buried him.

  “Dig him up! I want to see him.”

  They led the way to the spot and the Glasgow youth, eager to put himself right, snatched up a spade and thrust it violently into the ground.

  Renny took it from him. “Here!” he said, “do you want to crack his skull! I’d sooner see yours cracked.”

  He began cautiously to uncover the body When it lay exposed he bent over it. He turned it on its other side, frowning at the wounds. He ran his hand along the spine in a quick caress, then straightened himself.

  “You made a pretty mess of the job,” he said. He added, to Wright—“Have the head taken off, Wright. I shall send it to be examined. He should never have been taken on the road in a heat like this.”

  He returned to the house. In the hall he met Alayne.

  “Well,” he said with a grin, “so you managed to murder my dog among you, while I was away!”

  XXI

  WHOSE FAULT?

  THEY HAD not spoken since... News travelled fast at Jalna, and she had already heard, when she met him in the hall, an exaggerated account of all that had happened since his return. The Glasgow youth had run to the house to tell his friend Bessie. Bessie had run on tiptoe up two flights of stairs to gasp it out to Alma as she was giving Mooey his bath. Alma had repeated it with whispered embellishment to Pheasant when she carried some toast and tea to her. Pheasant had told Alayne... When Alayne and Renny met in the hall, she had already heard how he had gone into a terrible rage, threatened the men who had despatched Barney, insisted on himself unearthing the body, had caressed it, wept over it. The sight of him standing there with the light from the stained glass window turning his clothes into motley, falling on his red hair in a purple stain, was shocking to her. The frozen grin on his face was repellent. When he said what he said, she drew back, with a feeling of repulsion. She made no answer but stood rigid, her back to the wall, her palms pressed against it while he passed.

  He went into the sitting-room, shutting the door behind him. A moment later she heard him draw the folding doors between there and the dining room with a bang. She was filled with bitterness and disillusion. And yet, she felt, she had always known he was like this. Had not her love for him been a fever that had turned the very blood in her veins to something alien, turned her flesh to the flesh of desire, made her pulses dance to the tune his maleness played.

  As she climbed the stairs with heavy limbs she said to herself—“I never liked him. That is the trouble. I was mad for him. But I never have liked him.”

  In her room she sat by the window looking down on the parched garden. The flowers hung their limp heads. Their foliage separated, showing the dry earth beneath. Her own head ached so that she could scarcely hold it up. She pressed her fingers to the space between her eyebrows where there was a knot of pain. She felt as though she were going to be ill.

  The face of Eden rose before her, smiling, with half-shut eyes. She remembered how he had come to her like a young god to deliver her from the humdrum of her life, to fill her heart that had been emptied of all love except love for the dead. How soon the presence of Renny had blotted out all that! Eden must have become aware in all his sensitive nerves of the change in her. He was not to be blamed, then, for turning to someone else. She saw Eden in a new light.

  The face of old Adeline rose before her feverish eyes. She saw her standing in the hall, under the stained glass window, as she had seen her on the first day she had set foot in Jalna. Bright patches of colour were spilled over her, a purple stain across her forehead, and she was grinning at all the family standing about. But there was only savagery in the grin. She was going to say something terrible... Alayne thought, pressing her fingers to her forehead—“Is there no ease of spirit in this house? What am I to do? If I go on feeling as I do, what is to become of me? If I go on making him hate me, how can I live here? Even now I am having strange thoughts... confusing him and his grandmother in my mind...”

  She sat with drooping head, going over incident after incident in her life with Renny, trying to discover if she had been at fault in the marked change in their relations. She could not see where she had failed him. She had managed to live peaceably in the house with Piers, who hated her, but she could not live peaceably with Renny, who—but did he love her? Or had he felt for her only a desire for her body, while she stretched out her hands for the satisfaction of her soul? She could not blame herself. Something stubborn in her refused to accept the blame. Again the jealousy of Clara Lebraux surged through her like a racking pain. She felt it in her back, in her throat, in the nerves of her stomach. That woman—with her streaked hair, her pale eyelashes, her bony hands—what fascination was there in her that drew him to the fox farm when he might have been with his wife? The thought came to her with a shock that, because Barney had come from the fox farm, he was doubly dear to Renny—that he even suspected her of agreeing only too willingly to his destruction because of that.

  When she went down to supper she found that places were laid for only herself and Piers. She was not surprised that Pheasant was unable to come to the table, but where was Wakefield—where, that other? Piers, looking at his plate, muttered that Pheasant was still feeling rocky and that young Wake had had a turn with his heart—too much excitement—and was sleeping. He did not speak of Renny, but soon she saw Wragge pass through the hall carrying a tray. He went into the sitting-room and shut the door cautiously behind him. She saw Piers frowning, the corner of his mouth drawn to one side. Wragge, when he returned to the dining room, wore an expression of profound secrecy, as though torture would not induce him to reveal what was taking place on the other side of the folding doors. Alayne remembered how Meggie had had most of her food carried to her on trays by Wragge. Was Renny going to follow Meg’s example? She had a hysterical desire to laugh. She could not choke down the cold roast beef, but nibbled a little cress and thin bread. Piers stolidly consumed beef and peaches and cream. Now and then he cast a frowning look at the door of the sitting-room.

  She made no attempt to talk to Piers. She did not know what his attitude toward her in the affair was, but she supposed he blamed her. If he brought up the subject of the dog’s death she did not think she could endure to remain at the table. However, he did not; but, when he had half-finished his meal, he began to talk about the sale which he had attended. In a muffled voice he gave her a description of the animals on which he and Renny had bid. He carefully described a Clydesdale stallion he had bought and a nice cobby mare, for general use, purchased by Renny. The stallion had cost a pretty penny, but he hoped to get it out of him again. She answered in monosyllables, but she was grateful to him, for she saw that he was trying to make things easier lor her. When he had finished the glass of ale he always had for supper, he held his cigarette case out to her and, for the first time during the meal their eyes net. She saw that the look in his was kind, and her own filled with tears. He began gruffly and hurriedly to talk of the crowd at the sale, the intense heat, and to describe the mannerisms of the auctioneer. He knew she did not smoke, but he had offered her a cigarette as though he wanted to do something for her. She accepted and puffed at it awkwardly. It was the first time they had ever sat for a while together talking.

  No
w five days had gone by and she and Renny had not spoken. She lived in a kind of haze. Sometimes, when she was dressing in the morning, her mind became confused. She would hesitate, look blankly about the room, and begin to take her clothes off again, thinking it was night instead of morning. Then, seeing the sunlight, she would remember and shamefacedly continue her dressing. She had always been proud of the clarity of her mind, of the fact that she could keep her wits about her. She had often been intolerant of Eden’s bemused ways. There had been a break in the weather, and now the nights were wet, but with each morning came bright sunshine that was continually being darkened by moving clouds. A forlorn look had descended upon the flower beds.

  She had never before been in a house with anyone with whom she was not on speaking terms. She was not able to remember a shadow in the cheery attitude of her parents for each other. Renny addressed all his conversation to Piers, seeming to include Pheasant in his resentment. He was even less indulgent to Wakefield and insisted that he go to his lessons, though it was plainly to be seen that he was not well. Pheasant seemed absorbed in her own musings. She, too, was ailing and several times had to leave the breakfast table. On three days of the five Renny did not return to dinner. In the relief of his absence Pheasant and Wakefield chattered continually, while Wragge regarded them with disapproval. Though Alayne discovered that Renny had, in these absences, dined with the Vaughans, she still believed that he spent much of his time with Clara Lebraux.

  On the fourth day Wragge brought the post to Renny at the breakfast table. He tore open a letter and, having read it, handed it to Piers.

  “You see,” he said, “it’s just as I said. It was scarcely worth the trouble of sending it, but I wanted to prove that it was nothing but callous cruelty.”

  Piers read the note and gave a sympathetic grunt.

  “Show it to Alayne,” said Renny, looking at his plate.

  Piers slid the paper along the table to her. She picked it up and read. It was the report from the Government Analyst, stating that the head of the dog had been examined and that no evidence of rabies had been present. She read it dully, feeling nothing more than a quickening of her sense of injury.