First she thought she would not answer the door. She would not risk being alone in the house with him because all of a sudden she doubted if she would be able to hide her love from him. But would he go away if she did not answer the door? He might quite possibly come into the house and wait in the living room for their return.
His knock sounded abruptly on the door.
She started and a nervous shudder ran through her. “Oh, why am I afraid?” she gasped, and saw her reflection in the glass, pale as though stricken. He was just below, at the very door, and she was alone in the house, and she was shaken by love for him.
Then suddenly her heart leaped toward him. There was this chance to have him to herself. This hour to look back on forever. She was not afraid. She would answer the door and they would sit talking together quite alone and she would be given the power to hide what was in her heart.
She fastened the neck of her dress, clasped on a string of coral beads given to her by her father, swept the brush hastily across her hair, and went down the stairs.
“Hello, Paula!” he exclaimed. This was his pet name for her. “How nice and cool you look! It’s getting awfully sultry. I believe we’re going to have a storm.”
As he talked they were going into the living room. He dropped into his accustomed chair and fixed his eyes on her admiringly. She had seated herself on an ottoman.
“We’re growing up,” he said. “Let’s see—how old are you?”
“Eighteen,” she answered softly, and added—“Some girls are married at that age.”
“Pheasant was only seventeen! But you’re not that kind. You’ll develop much more slowly. You’ll be like a young girl at twenty-eight. The chap who gets you will be lucky.”
She looked gravely at him. “Do you think so? I am not so sure.”
“That’s just what I would expect you to say, Paula… But you must have a good opinion of yourself. I don’t believe you know how pretty you are and a great deal more than pretty… Wake thinks so,” he added, with a smile.
She did not smile in return, but said, glancing out of the window—“I hope Mummy will not be caught in a storm. She’s in town today. She will be coming on the next bus.”
“It would be hot in town today. I had business in Mistwell. I had lunch with a friend and we went for a swim in the lake.”
“That must have been lovely. I have been working with the foxes.”
“All of them well?”
“Oh yes, quite well.”
“Good. You have a nice lot this year.”
A silence came between them. She had a feeling of languor, of disappointment. She had thought that she knew him so well but suddenly she found that she knew nothing of him. All the things she had ever heard of him seemed nothing to go on. She glanced at him furtively, as he sat sunk in his chair, master of himself, sensuous, at ease. He had closed his eyes and was listening to the swish of a newly risen wind and a distant tremor of thunder.
The distant thunder seemed to make their isolation complete. She looked at him out of troubled eyes, and shivered. Though the sun was shining brightly there was a menace in the air. The shadow of a branch was thrown against the wall, every leaf minutely cut, as in a silhouette.
The thunder drew nearer and the sky took on a yellowish tone. She drew a quick deep breath. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
“A little,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“But this is new, isn’t it? You used not to be afraid of a storm.”
“It isn’t just the storm”—she spoke with difficulty. “I’m just afraid.”
“Are you worried about your mother?”
“No. She will go in some place. She is not at all nervous.”
He looked at her, a little puzzled. Yet a subtle understanding was coming to him. He could not believe it—it was impossible—yet he had a feeling of apprehension.
Presently a deep peal of thunder broke on their ears. A flash of lightning fell from the yellowish sky.
“Will your horse be all right?” she asked.
He jumped up. “By George! It’s a good thing you reminded me. I had better go and put her in.”
A second, louder clap followed, and a more vivid flash of lightning. A loud murmur, as of distant rain, came to them and the grass and shrubs began to wave and bend. A few wild drops splashed against the sill.
“Oh, put the window down!” she cried. “I’m afraid!”
He put the window down and went to the door. Then suddenly he turned back and touched her on the shoulder.
“I’ll look after the horse,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t leave me!” she cried loudly. “I’m afraid—I’m afraid”—and she flung herself into his arms.
“Why—why—poor little Paula.” He held her to him, his arms protective and strong about her. He laid his face against her hair.
She clung to him, shaken by sobs.
“Paula—darling little one—tell me what is wrong!”
“Oh, I love you—I love you—I can’t help it—but I love you so terribly!”
The thunder now came roll upon roll. The rain dashed fiercely against the pane, making a wall around them. The outside world was lost beyond the blurred, streaming pane. There was a roar like the sea and the house shook on its foundation.
He looked at the lightning trembling along the sill, then down at the girl trembling in his arms. He was aghast. He did not know what to do. A great tenderness for her welled up in his heart, but no passion.
“Darling little Paula—you’re unnerved because of the storm. You don’t really love me.”
She raised her face, her eyes tormented, and said something to him. But he could not make out a word of what she said because of the roaring of the wind. He bent his face close to hers and looked into her eyes.
She took her hands from her breast where they’d been clasped tightly together and put her arms about his neck. Still he could not hear what she said but he could see her lips frame the words—“Kiss me.”
Her face was blurred before him by the quick moving of the blood through his veins. They were alone—shut in together there—she loved him and wanted him to make love to her. A kiss of passion formed itself on his lips. His hands tightened on her.
She held up her mouth to him like a quivering, storm-beaten flower.
“My God, Paula! You don’t know what you are doing!”
He drew himself away from her. He drew to the other side of the room and stood trembling almost as much as she.
She threw herself into the chair where he had been sitting. It was still warm from his body and she huddled her own body into its curve and crouched there, sobbing. Outside the brief storm was lessening. Loud peals of thunder reverberated down the lake but the lightning had ceased and the rain had subsided to a gentle shower.
He threw open the window and an immense, comforting coolness came in at it. He stood there, afraid to look over his shoulder at her. The sound of her sobs cut him to the heart. Little Pauline, to love him like that… His own eyes filled with tears.
She lay exhausted in the chair but her sobs ceased… After a little she said, in a broken voice:
“I am very wicked, I know… But I can’t help myself… It’s horrible for a young girl to love a married man… But— oh, Renny, you have never seemed like a married man!”
He came then, and stood in front of her. He looked down at her with updrawn, troubled brows. “Haven’t I? Why, it seems to me that I am very much married.” He tried to force some lightness into his tone. He longed to take her into his arms and comfort her, but he dared not. He continued:
“Look here, Pauline, this sort of thing happens far oftener than you think… Young girls like you… well, their emotions are easily stirred…”
“Oh, it hasn’t been easy!” she exclaimed piteously. “It’s been cruelly hard! I’ve fought against it—in every way I knew how.”
“I know y
ou have,” he said gently, and now he seated himself on the ottoman and took her hand. “That isn’t what I meant. What I meant was that a young girl—isolated as you have been—is led into feelings for a man she meets constantly—”
“No, no,” she interrupted passionately. “It isn’t that! It never was that! I have loved you—like this—ever since my father died…”
He said eagerly—“Of course. I always tried to take his place. I always—”
“No, no, it’s not like that! I loved him one way and you another. A quite, quite different way. But when he died, he—oh, how can I say it so you will understand!—he gave you to me. You became mine. I loved you… The way a woman loves…”
She spoke strongly now, and turned her tear-stained face to his. She said—“I never meant to let you know… I never should… only, being alone… and the storm… It’s getting nice and cool, isn’t it?”
She was making an immense effort to be brave. He was filled with pity for her and she was a child to him. He took out a crumpled handkerchief and dried her eyes. But he knew that he must not be too tender with her, for fear that she might again lose control of herself.
She looked into his hard features, thus broken into lines of gentleness, and her mouth quivered.
He said, with a certain metallic quality in his voice:
“You know, Paula… I think I ought to tell you that— even if you were older—or I younger—you are not the sort of girl I should love in that way… I love you and always have and always shall—like a darling little sister—but— well, certain women have certain qualities and—I’m no good at explaining this sort of thing—men have certain feelings that only some women draw out. Men will love you—my young Wake loves you now—but I—well—if I were going to love one of the two women in this house—in a passionate way—it would not be you…”
How cruel he was! She stared at him out of tragic eyes. “I see,” she said with difficulty, and she took his hand which held the handkerchief and pushed it gently from her.
“It’s hell to me to hurt you,” he said, “but I thought it would help you if I told you that. If you knew how I hate to see you suffer, and if you knew how truly I believe that you will soon be able to put all this behind you…”
A last flash of lightning illuminated the dim room, showing each the face of the other in an intense and sickly light. The noise of a door being sharply shut came from the back of the house, then steps sounded in the kitchen. Pauline sat upright and looked at Renny wildly.
“You look quite all right,” he said soothingly. “I shall tell her that I came in and found you a bit upset because of the storm… being alone in it…”
He rose and went into the dining room. He turned on the light there, then went to the door that led into the kitchen. Clara Lebraux had just taken off a streaming coat and hung it across a chair. Her footprints showed wet on the floor. She looked at him without surprise but made a grimace of disgust.
“I’m soaked through,” she said,” and I have on my best coat and hat and shoes.” She took off her hat and laid it, a sodden lump of straw, on the table. “Look at that!”
He looked from the coat to the hat and from the hat to her. Her hair clung in wet locks against her round boyish head. Even her face was wet and some colouring from the trimming of her hat had made streaks across her forehead. He said:
“Too bad! I don’t suppose they’ll ever come right again.” He picked up the hat and twirled it around on his finger. “I never saw it before,” he said disparagingly, “and I don’t believe I should have liked it at its best. Anyhow you look better bareheaded. Better go bareheaded after this, eh?”
“That bus,” she observed, “was absolutely jammed. I stood most of the way from town. When I got out I stepped right into the storm.”
He made a sympathetic sound but his look was abstracted.
“Where is Pauline?” she asked suddenly.
“In the other room.” He spoke in a low but casual tone. “She was rather upset—being alone in the storm, I suppose.”
“Well, I never! Is she all right now?”
“Yes. But rather sorry for herself. I shouldn’t take any notice, if I were you.”
“I have some new things for her. That will cheer her up. I’ve never seen such bargains!” She looked at him enthusiastically out of pale-lashed eyes. “You might furnish your home from attic to cellar and dress your family from the skin out for next to nothing—if only you had it!”
She picked up a small suitcase and set it firmly on the table. “I must get the things out of this before the wet soaks through.”
He lifted the case and set it down again. “Did you carry this all the way from the bus?”
She nodded, and a damp, tow lock fell across her forehead.
“Why the devil,” he exclaimed angrily, “don’t you tell me when you are going to do things like that?”
“It was nothing. I am as strong as a horse. You know that.”
She began to lay out the things she had bought. Pauline, pale but with a touching air of dignity, came to the door. Clara said, without looking at her:
“Come and see what I have bought you. No—not here. We’ll carry them to the dining room. You’ll be surprised.”
Pauline looked at Clara with a sudden remorseless scrutiny. She saw her streaked, tow hair, her hot, tired face wet with rain, and the forehead stained by the colouring of her hat, her red, roughened hands, her cheap shoes, oozing wet. So this was the sort of woman Renny—if he had been going to love either of them—would have preferred to her!
She remembered the frequent quarrels between her father and mother, how she had always passionately, in her own mind, taken her father’s side, even when she had been too young to understand what the quarrel was about. A wild anger against Clara rose in her, filled her heart to bursting. She hated her in that moment. She said distantly:
“What is that on your forehead? It’s all stained.”
“My forehead? Oh—” she peered at her reflection in the small glass that hung above the sink… “That’s the life-blood of my poor hat. Just see what a wreck it is!” She began to scrub her face with a clean roller towel that hung on the back of the door. Pauline looked at the hat with distaste.
“Is it clean now?” Clara turned and faced them.
“Quite clean,” replied Renny. There was a warm, almost protective note in his voice, as though he had been aware of the coldness in Pauline’s.
He and Clara carried her purchases into the dining room and laid them on the table there. Out of doors there was a gleam of watery light from the sinking sun. The windows of the room had remained open during the storm and the curtains hung limp and wet. The roan stood grazing in the long grass; dark patches stained her sides. She raised her head and looked through the window out of melancholy eyes. She uttered a small complaining whinny.
Renny looked at his watch.
“I must be off!” he exclaimed.
Clara said—“Just look at this sweet frock! And I only paid three dollars and ninety-five cents for it!” She carried it, hanging from her hand, toward Pauline. “Let me see if it’s the right length, darling.”
Pauline backed away. She could not let her mother touch her. She felt disloyal. She hated herself. She would not raise her eyes to Renny’s.
“Don’t trouble her,” he said. “She’s unnerved. You shouldn’t go off and leave her alone in a storm.”
“Good heavens! I could not know it was coming!”
“You should have known. Mothers ought to know those things. Oughtn’t they, Paula?
Pauline, without answering, fled from the room and up the stairs.
Clara made a gesture of despair. “Whatever has come over the girl?”
He gave a short laugh. “Perhaps she’s in love.”
“But who with? Young Wakefield?”
“Well—he is—with her.”
“Has she said anything to make you think so?”
“No.”
&n
bsp; “It would be a pity. There’d be no hope.”
“Not for a good many years.” Again he looked at his watch. “Now I must be off!” He put his leg over the sill and, in a moment, was on the roan’s back.
“That saddle must be drenched!” she exclaimed.
“True for you, woman!” he replied, grinning, and she watched him go splashing through the puddles.
XI
ART AND PROGRESS
EDEN was afraid of the Women’s Club before which he was to give talks about modern poetry. He told himself, and it was nearly true, that he disliked women. He had loved Alayne and he looked back on the days of his love for her as the happiest time of his life. Minny Ware had had a sensuous attraction for him but he had never liked her. He loved his sister and his aunt—and had loved his grandmother— because they were inextricably woven into the fabric of his life. Also, he told himself, there were no other women like them. His passing affairs with women in foreign cities had left no mark on him beyond the memory of a parting with dislike. He understood them too well, he thought. He felt a strain of femininity in himself, a careless treachery, a power of appeal, and he hated these qualities. Of one thing he was sure. He was not grasping. A very little money would suffice for him.
Renny had given him money for a new suit to wear at the readings, and Eden had chosen the material with care, had it made by a good tailor, for, if there was anything he hated, it was to appear as an unkempt poet. Renny also had provided him with money to buy copies of the poems of the various authors from whose works he was going to read. Meg had been shocked at the pile of books he had thrown down on the table in the sitting room.
“But, Eden,” she had exclaimed, “couldn’t you have got them from the lending library?”
“No,” he had answered irritably. “I shall be scribbling in these.”
“But I could take out the scribbling with a good eraser when you had done with them.”
He had opened one of the books without answering.
“You had quite a lot of poetry books at Jalna, before you went away,” she insisted.
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 55
