“I’d like that,” he said, and his eagle eye at once noticed the joint. “Some of our own pig, eh? And it looks good, too. And well cooked. I hope Bessie is doing all right.”
“It’s rather soon to judge,” said Piers, beginning to carve.
He felt nervous with Renny’s eye on him, for he had never carved before.
“Put up the guard, you idiot,” exclaimed his elder, “or you’ll cut your knuckle off!” He stretched his long legs under the table and looked disparagingly at its appointments.
“Poor old Miss Laceys,” he said. “They haven’t too much luxury about them, have they?”
“We think the house is perfectly adorable,” said Pheasant quickly. “Oh, Piers, how could you?” For Piers, in his nervousness, had cut off the first slice of pork so energetically that it landed on the snowy tablecloth.
“What a duffer you are!” said Renny, rising. “Change places with me and I’ll show you how it should be done.”
Piers meekly took his accustomed place at the side of the table and Renny, after a short dissertation on the intricacies of carving, served all with dispatch. Mooey and Nooky stared at him wonderingly.
He in his turn stared at Bessie as she removed the plates and brought in the sweet.
“It’s a pity,” he said, “that you hadn’t had Rags give that girl a few lessons before you set up housekeeping with her. She’ll break all these pretty dishes and then the fat will be in the fire.”
“I’ll train her,” said Pheasant, “when I have more time.”
“Well, remember that it takes time to get things into the order they are in at Jalna. I wish I could tell you that your room is waiting for you if you can’t stick this out, but, as a matter of fact, Wake has already taken possession and I left him tearing the paper off the walls.”
Piers and Pheasant looked at each other. What cheek! they thought.
After dinner he went over the place with them, romped a while with the boys and kissed the infant Philip again and again. Piers had to restrain Biddy from following him. She writhed in her master’s arms, licked his chin affectionately, but was all for Renny and the road.
He went toward the fox farm. For a reason he could not, and did not try to, define, he felt exhilarated, pleased with himself. He cracked his leg with a stick he had picked up, and when, after a few hundred yards, Biddy overtook him he threw it far down the road for her. So they progressed, throwing and retrieving, to the ugly house with the white stones on either side of the walk that led to the door.
It was the first summer-like day and Pauline had put on a thin white dress. She was sitting in an old swing that hung from the branch of an elm. He came up behind her and, taking the rope in his hand, turned the swing so that she faced him. She knew who it was before she looked up. He was startled when he saw that she had been crying, and wished he had not come. But she said at once:
“I’m so glad you’ve come! Mother and I are terribly worried. Our landlord has closed down the mortgage.” She spoke with the French accent of her father as she did when moved.
Renny was aghast. “Foreclosed, you mean?”
“But yes—foreclosed! We shall lose everything.”
“Why are you only telling me this now?”
“We have just heard it ourselves. He was here this morning. Mummy was so rude to him. She told him she didn’t care. But we are ruined. Where shall we go?” She raised her beautiful eyes to his with gathering confidence in his invincibility.
“I’ll see him. Something must be done. Where is your Mummy?”
For answer Clara Lebraux herself appeared. She came toward them with a queer fixed smile on her face and a cigarette between her fingers.
“It’s all up!” she exclaimed. “I suppose Pauline has told you.”
“I haven’t had a hand in this yet.”
“No use. The old man wants the place for himself. He is going to pull this house down and build himself a new one. Oh, my dear fellow, I’ve seen this coming for a year! It’s not a great surprise to me.”
“Why haven’t you told me?”
“What could you do? You’ve worried over us enough as it is. Oh, we shall find something to do!” She stuck the cigarette between her lips with a jaunty air.
Pauline said—“One thing I will not do. I will not go to live with Uncle Bob.”
Renny said bitterly—“If only things were as they used to be with me! But they’re worse, Clara, than ever I’ve let you know.”
She gave a sympathetic grunt. Then she said:
“Things are looking up with the Vaughans. I hear that they sold three new lots of their subdivision yesterday.”
His face darkened. “I knew that people were looking at them, but I’d no idea that they’d come to the point.”
“I am glad for their sakes,” she returned.
“Well, nothing troubles me so much as this affair of yours. Would you mind letting me have a look at the papers? Have you them here?”
She assented and they went into the house.
Pauline sat in the swing looking after them for a moment’s immobility. Then she let her hands drop from the ropes of the swing and laid them in her lap. They were golden against the white of her dress, so was her neck, dappled by the sunlight falling between the leaves of the elm. She felt profoundly her impotence against the forces of life. She felt a child’s bewilderment on finding those on whom she depended unable to turn the tide that threatened. All about her the summer day glowed in honeyed brightness but she felt only fear. Her spirit reached out toward Wakefield but it could not find him. He was elusive as a summer cloud. She loved him but she could not bring his face before her eyes save as a laughing glance, an aloof profile. She saw his ring on her hand and closed her eyes. She laid her cheek against the rough hemp which Renny’s hand had grasped.
XXV
STEMMING THE TIDE
RENNY spent a sleepless night. He had never before faced such a situation as now confronted him. He had always been able, in whatever financial circumstances he found himself, to make some move toward release. But he was now baffled, faced by a blank wall. Clara and Pauline Lebraux were to be turned out of their house. They would be literally penniless and he could find no way of helping them. He could face his own troubles, but the predicament of these two who leaned on him, who had in a manner been left under his protection by his dead friend, discovered him helpless.
He had interviewed the landlord, an old enemy of his, found him obdurate, even taking a sly pleasure in his power. He had insinuated by look, as he dared not by word, that Renny’s interest in the affairs of Mrs. Lebraux were the subject of lively speculation.
There was young Finch and what he had left of Gran’s fortune. But no, it would not do to borrow that, for the boy must be assured of his future, and it was a matter of pride to refuse contact with that money. Still, it was not for himself. Finch could lend it direct to Clara. Surely he would be moved by her desperate situation, and Pauline’s. They were going to be turned out—actually turned out. Clara had said that they would have to get positions. But what sort of indoor work were they fitted for? She had confided to him, with a wry smile, that the landlord, a widower, had proposed marriage to her.
There was Alayne. There was the legacy from her aunt. But there was no use in letting the mind dwell on that. She was close as bark to a tree. “I must provide for my child’s future,” she would say It was an insult to him. He was quite able to provide for Adeline himself. Adeline was a chip of the old block. Nothing of her mother or her mother’s people in her.
With these thoughts still in his mind he went down to breakfast. Wakefield had already gone to his work. Nicholas, Ernest, and Finch had not yet appeared. Adeline had had her breakfast and was playing out of doors, so Alayne and he were alone together. There were fresh roses on the table.
“Why do you so often wear blue?” he asked irritably. “It’s such a cold colour.”
She looked at him out of eyes the very shade of her dress.
�
�Cold? Why, I thought you liked it on me.”
“Oh, it’s becoming enough, but it’s cold. Look at those roses. They’re not in blue.”
She laughed. She liked having him to herself.
“You don’t expect me to look like a rose, do you?”
He did not answer but grimly tapped the top of an egg.
“What is the matter?” she asked teasingly, for she did not take his mood with seriousness.
He tried to smile. “Nothing. I didn’t sleep.”
“Poor darling! Was anything—anything special—worrying you? Oh, I know what it was! Those lots of Maurice’s!”
He nodded and, at the same time, gave her a searching look. Perhaps, if she knew he lay awake at night.
But she only said—“I’d give up worrying over them, if I were you. It can do no good.”
He said, in retaliation—“God knows where we shall all end.”
“Are things any worse with us?”
“No. I suppose not.”
“I think they are much better with Piers and his family gone. And Bessie and Alma, too.”
He sighed. Then he asked—“What are your letters?”
“One is from my aunt, who is very well. The other is from Sarah. She asks me to spend a few days with her. She has no friends in town. She gets very lonely.”
“Hm… She should make friends.”
“She can’t. It isn’t in her. But, for some reason, she likes me. And I am attracted by her.”
“Hm.” He leant his head on his hand, while the thought of Sarah filtered like a moonbeam into his mind. Like a golden moonbeam she came into its darkness. Her entry there was followed by other thoughts in brilliant confusion.
He was thus motionless so long that Alayne had a sudden feeling of apprehension. This particular moodiness was unlike him. She got up and went to him and laid her arm around his shoulder.
“Renny, what is the matter?”
He raised his eyes and she saw that there were tears in them. She had never seen him cry She was frightened. She caught his face between her hands.
“Tell me what is wrong!”
He looked at her through his tears. “Nothing.”
“Then why are there tears in your eyes?” Her own eyes were filling in response. Surely she loved him so that, if his heart ceased to beat, hers too would stop.
He pushed back the fresh blueness of her sleeve and began to kiss her white arm, mumbling his lips against it, making as though to bite. She gave a sigh of relief. There could not be anything terribly wrong. She drew her finger along the outline of his hair where it made a widow’s peak on his forehead. She persisted:
“Why are those tears in your eyes?”
“I’m crying—” he cast about in his mind for something to say Well—why not the truth?—“I’m crying because I’m so happy.”
“Renny, you are ridiculous! One cannot believe a word you say.” But she hugged his head to her. “Don’t you believe I’m happy?”
“I’d be glad to, heaven knows! But why so suddenly, so strangely?” He raised his eyes and she looked into their brown depths, trying to fathom them.
Adeline pranced into the room waving the fine, dark-petalled tulip whose bud Alayne had been watching for days. “Look! Look!” she cried.
Renny went into town that morning. It had been arranged that he should see Sarah and tell her that Alayne would go to her for a short visit.
He found her in the garden behind her house, a stretch of green turf enclosed by shrubs in bloom and a border of white and mauve flowers. She was throwing a ball for her pug, which trotted after it with a perfunctory air of amusing her. Her skirt touched the closely mown grass.
He stood watching her a moment before he spoke, admiring the picture she made, amused by, and very tolerant of, her ineffectual handling of the ball. Soon she saw him and came toward him without haste and took his hand in her strong velvety grasp. The pug dropped the ball and sniffed his legs, appearing to sniff out rather than in.
“Alayne will be glad to come,” he told her. “She sticks at home too much. The change will do her good.”
“I get so lonely,” she murmured, “and the few I care for never come to see me unless I beg them to.”
“You should come to us. You’re always very welcome.” He smiled as he added—“Finch especially would welcome you.”
“There you are wrong! No one cares so little for me as Finch. And we used to be friends.” She led the way to garden chairs on a brick terrace. The pug picked up the ball and followed her with an air of disdain.
Renny took the cigarette she offered. “We all love you,” he said. “But you mustn’t mind Finch’s way of showing his love. He’s depressed, poor devil. We all are, in fact, since Eden’s death. And now Auntie’s gone and the poor old uncles are more down in the mouth than I’ve ever known them.”
“It’s all very sad,” she answered. “I don’t think that, as a family, we’re made for happiness. We don’t conform to the pattern, and people hate us for that.”
He looked at her a little doubtfully, for he did not, in his mind, include her in the family. She was a connection but not one of the family. Still she had Gran’s hot blood in her veins. She was no mere outsider. And if she married Finch, she would be one of them. He felt sure that she wanted to marry Finch. He said:
“Well, I think most of us are fairly conventional—all perhaps but you and Finch—and poor Eden, of course. You and Finch are artists and you should be together more.”
“He hates me, I tell you!”
“And you love him?” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
She bowed her head and the pug in her lap peered inquisitively into her face.
“Finch doesn’t hate you but he’s very nervy just now He’s avoiding everyone. Sometimes when I come into a room I catch a glimpse of him gliding out. He has always been a queer fellow. The right sort of woman could do what she liked with him. Make a man of him. He’s a genius, but he’s not a man.”
“What can I do?”
“Have him here.”
“When he comes, he draws into himself. We are farther apart than ever.”
“He is afraid of being alone with you. You should ask someone else as well. Why not have him here with Alayne? She’d like to see you two marry. She told me so. She thinks it would be the happiest thing for you both.”
A pale light, as though from within, lighted Sarah’s face. “Oh, if Alayne would help me, I’d do anything on earth for her. I’ve never had initiative. I wait in corners, reaching toward what I want, but I won’t venture out. I’m helpless. My aunt broke my will, as she put it, when I was a child.”
“No, no, my girl!” thought Renny, “you’ve a will like iron.” He said:
“Alayne and I will do all we can to help. It is more perhaps than you think.”
“I wish there were something I could do for you. I know it’s a difficult time.”
He looked at her a little distantly. “There is nothing.”
They fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. The pug smacked his lips repeatedly, tasting something imaginary, and, at last, swallowed it.
Renny asked then—“How are your investments? Everything all right?”
It was a moment before she could recall her mind from her thoughts. Then she answered:
“No. Some stocks have gone down terribly. The real estate is all right.”
His eyes glowed. “It’s the only thing… I’ve just been wondering how you would like to take a mortgage on Jalna. It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it? We’ve never borrowed a penny on it but I’m driven now. And I’d rather it was you—in fact, you are the only person on earth I can bear the thought of holding a mortgage on it. You’re one of us—or will be soon. It would be a family affair.”
His weather-beaten face looked eagerly into hers. He was so afraid she would refuse that he talked excitedly, giving her no opening to reply. He poured out his love for Jalna, extolled its unique beauties, urged its sound
ness as an investment. She sat listening, looking at him out of her narrow eyes, breathing quickly through her narrow nostrils, her small, secretive mouth compressed. The sunlight played on the intricate black braids of her hair, it discovered no flaw on her white skin.
When, at last, he was silent, waiting almost miserably for her reply, she answered:
“I shall be glad to do as you say.” She was willing as a child to be guided by him. He could have embraced her.
But he insisted that he should pay a high interest on the mortgage. It was agreed that nothing should be said to the family of the transaction until it was necessary to tell them.
They lunched in the exhilarating intimacy of conspirators. She confessed to him that she had never loved Arthur Leigh, and he confided to her that Alayne often misunderstood him and that occasionally they quarrelled.
XXVI
LOVE’S AWAKENING
WHEN it was suggested to Finch that he should go with Alayne to visit Sarah, his impulse was to refuse. But Alayne urged him and he gave way partly to please her, partly because Jalna was becoming unbearable to him. He missed Augusta, in whom he woke the only motherliness she ever felt, and the burden of his uncle’s depression pressed down on him. He despised himself for being irritated by the sight of Wakefield’s happy sunburnt face, his ready laughter when there was so little to laugh at. He felt ashamed of the brutal way in which he sometimes spoke to the boy, but the words would blaze forth before he could help himself, and he was the more ashamed because of the magnanimous spirit in which Wakefield accepted his roughness.
The other members of the family were relieved by his absence. They were tired of seeing him always going out of a room as they entered it.
Renny drove Alayne and Finch to Sarah’s house, wearing the mysterious smile that was puzzling them in these days. When he met Sarah the smile was replaced by a look of concentrated innocence that sat strangely on his hard, highly coloured features.
Sarah’s attitude toward Finch was aloof. Her hands, when they touched his, cool and renunciatory. Still, his spirit responded to the quickening influence of her nearness. He could not be in the house with her and not feel the old enchantment circling them about. Even though Sarah spoke little to him he knew that she was always watching him.
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 70
