The warmth in Renny’s eyes turned to amusement as he exclaimed:
“You look like the devil in that pinafore, Clara.”
“I know,” she agreed, “but it becomes the shop, and no one will notice me.”
“I like it,” said Wakefield, “and I think it’s becoming too.”
“In short,” added Clara Lebraux, “it was Wakefield’s idea.”
“Just like Wake’s taste! You look much better in a man’s overall, cleaning out your stable.”
She shrugged. “And feel much better, too. But stables don’t pay, and poultry doesn’t pay, and fox farming doesn’t pay. I’m willing to make myself into a figure of fun, if only I can make this tea shop pay.”
He looked instantly serious. “It must pay,” he said.
“It hasn’t yet.”
“You’ve only been open a month. The season has not begun.”
“I’ve sent at least a dozen of my clients on to you,” said Wakefield.
“And several of them arrived. They asked me questions about you and said it was a pity to see such an intellectual young man at your job.”
“I think it pays to bring intellect to any job,” returned Wakefield. “Even this tea shop, if run —”
Clara interrupted — “My goodness, I have no intellect to bring to it!”
Renny asked, “Have you had any customers this morning?”
“Not yet. But it’s Saturday and a fine day. I should have plenty.”
The cat now leaped in furry rage to the top of a table, overturning the flowers and spitting down at the dogs which surrounded her. Renny snatched up the vase, Wakefield put the spaniels outside the door, and the cat was hustled to the kitchen. Clara Lebraux laughed good-humouredly.
“Come now,” she said. “You must sit down and have coffee. There is some freshly made.”
“And I can vouch that it’s good,” said Wakefield. “I come in for a cup every morning, don’t I, Mother-in-law?”
Renny said nothing but sat with crossed legs, fingering his puppy’s ears. Clara went to the kitchen from where came the appetizing smell of fresh coffee.
Renny remarked:
“I must buy a box of Pauline’s sweets.”
“Do,” said Wakefield. “She hasn’t had much sale for them yet. It’s discouraging. I give a box of them to every one of the family on their birthdays but they always look rather knowing, as though they thought I only put money into my own pocket when I buy Pauline’s sweets. The almond creams are good.”
“Yes, I’ll try the almond creams.”
The owner of the tea shop now returned with coffee and biscuits on a tray. There were three cups and she sat herself down by her guests.
The coffee was steaming hot and there was cream for it. The two older ones sipped theirs almost in silence while Wakefield talked animatedly of his work and his approaching marriage. Occasionally the eyes of Renny and Clara met, rested a moment, as though each drew a certain peace from the other’s presence, then turned again to the youth, the man’s with tolerant affection, the woman’s with slight irritation.
The attention of all three was drawn to the door as Pauline Lebraux appeared at it.
“Don’t let the dogs in,” shouted Renny, as though to a child.
Wakefield went eagerly to the door to meet her. She stood smiling at them all, slender and dark, a complete contrast to her mother. She carried a package which Clara at once espied.
“More sweets, darling!” she exclaimed. “Why, I haven’t sold the last lot yet.”
Pauline looked worried. “Oh, haven’t you, Mummie? But you told me it was going very well.”
Renny broke in — “It is going well. It’s very lucky that you have brought this fresh lot, for it happens that I am going to see a man who is likely to buy a horse from me. He has five kids and I must take them some sweets. Five girls” — his voice grew in heartiness — “they’d like a box apiece. It will help to put the deal through.”
Pauline looked at him dubiously. “Are you sure?” she asked.
Wakefield put in — “It’s absolutely true what he says. He was wondering, just before we came in, what he could take those girls.”
Pauline’s forehead was smoothed. “I’m so glad then that I made fresh sweets.”
“No, no,” interrupted Renny, “I’ll take the old lot. They’re only kids. They’ll never know the difference.”
Clara Lebraux rose and selected five boxes of sweets from the glass case. “They are quite fresh,” she said, and handed them to Renny. She arranged the ones Pauline had just brought in the case. “Will you have some coffee, dear?” she asked.
“Thanks, Mummie.” She sat down at the table, and Clara rapped on it for the maid.
Renny got up. “I must be getting on,” he said. He remembered the repairs which Clara was asking for and thought that if he left now, on this note of generosity, she might feel reluctant to demand them.
“Whom shall I pay for the sweets?” he asked.
“Mummie, of course,” answered Pauline in an aloof tone. She could not quite bring herself to believe in the five sweet-craving girls and, as for a long time, she felt no ease in his presence.
He drew out his worn wallet and handed Clara three dollars. She waved them mockingly:
“Look! Pauline makes more than I do!”
But if Renny thought he would escape her demands he was mistaken. She led him out through the kitchen to view a sagging corner of the back porch. At the same moment the front door opened and a well-dressed couple entered the tea shop. Wakefield at once began talking in a high-pitched tone to Pauline.
“Darling,” he said, “ isn’t this the most marvellous find? To think that we have discovered a place where they make such coffee, such tea, and such scones! And I must buy you another box of those chocolates!”
Pauline bent her head, her cheeks reddening. Wake was pressing her foot under the table.
Outside Renny exclaimed — “He’s a regular playboy, as Gran used to say.”
“God! I hope that he and Pauline will be happy together!”
“Of course they will!” He said this more fervently as he was not at all sure of it. “Now what about the porch?”
It was a flimsy wooden addition and it threatened to fall at one corner. He eyed it speculatively.
“All it needs is propping up,” he said, with the hearty ring in his voice that his tenants knew so well.
“Don’t you think there should be a new porch?”
“I do,” he said. Then he added, gravely — “But, Clara, if you knew how scarce money is with me, you would not ask even that. The interest on the mortgage fell due last month and I had the devil’s own time scraping it together. I’m down to rock bottom and there are repairs to the stables and farm buildings that are absolutely necessary.”
“I know, I know,” she agreed. “It’s awful. But, if you will just have the porch propped it is all I shall ask. It’s positively dangerous as it is.”
“I’ll attend to it,” he said. “I’ll do it myself. No need to have workmen about. I can do it. It simply needs propping.”
He espied a thick block of wood lying among wooden boxes in a corner of the yard. “We must have this rubbish cleared away and make a nice little garden here.” He dragged out the block of wood and carried it to the porch. “Now I’ll raise the porch and you roll the block under the corner.” He pulled off his coat.
“You can’t do it alone! You’ll hurt yourself! Let me fetch Wake.”
“No, no, he might strain his heart! Do what I tell you, woman.”
The elemental tone of command which he introduced into his voice amused her but it had its effect. She removed her gay flowered apron, laid it beside his coat, and grasped the cobwebbed block in both hands. But she kept muttering to herself — “He can’t do it! He can’t — he’s no right to try.”
Bending his lean back, he gathered all his force and, in one muscle-straining heave, raised the corner of the porch, supporting
it on his shoulder. “Now,” he said, between his teeth, “shoot in the block, damn you!”
She thrust it under the porch which he cautiously lowered. He was panting as he straightened himself. A vertical vein in the middle of his forehead stood out like a whipcord. He grinned triumphantly at her but grasped one shoulder in his hand.
“What did I tell you?” he exclaimed. “It’s as steady as a rock. All you need do now is to plant some nice vine or a rambler rose to climb over the corner.”
“You’ve hurt yourself,” she said sternly. “What is it?”
He made a rather shame-faced grimace. “It’s nothing. Just a bit of a wrench. I’ll rub it with liniment.”
She put her short strong hand on his shoulder. She said — “Damn the porch! I wish I hadn’t spoken of it.”
Closing his eyes he stood motionless, as though from her touch he drew ease. Before his closed eyes rose a moonlit autumn wood, the figures of a man and woman in each other’s arms. The magnetic attraction that had drawn them together was of the same quality. They were equal under its force, as two trees receive equally the magnetic current from the earth.
She removed her hand; he opened his eyes and saw the sadness in hers.
“It’s a shame,” she said, “the way Pauline and I have hung on to you — ever since my husband died. And before that — all through his sickness.”
“You know,” he returned, “what Pauline has been to me — like my own child. You know what you have been.”
“Well, you have liked us, that’s one thing,” she returned, in her abrupt, rather sulky voice, and picked up her flowered smock as the bell of the shop sounded. “There — I must go in. They’ll need me.” Her eyes caught the five boxes which he had laid carefully by his coat. She asked — “What are you going to do with those? That story about the five girls was just bluff, wasn’t it?”
He answered gravely — “No, they are absolutely real. I must have sweets for them.”
She knew he lied, and loved him the better for it. She held his coat for him but he objected.
“No, no, I’m blazing hot. Throw it over my shoulders.”
She exclaimed fiercely — “You can’t put it on! You know you can’t.”
He gave her a mocking grimace, touched her lightly on the cheek with his fingers, and, taking the coat from her, turned away. The bell of the tea shop again sounded.
As he walked sharply along the road, with his spaniels padding at his heels and the Cairn puppy weaving a mad pattern among the ten legs that moved so enticingly in unison, his mind was busy with the varied problems of his life. He had a good many of them, he thought, a lot of responsibility, but he would not have minded them so much if money had been less scarce. As it was, the last payment of interest on the mortgage had left him feeling financially flattened, most dreadfully hard up, for the time being. Still — it was paid, and he had six months’ freedom from worry on that score. A sense of pride deepened his inhalations of the spring air as he reflected that, through that mortgage, distasteful as it was to him and bitter to his family, he had been able to prevent the building of a row of bungalows on property adjoining his own. He had added that property, a lovely bit, to his estate. Only that morning he had walked over it just for the pleasure of seeing it free and undefiled, its trees spreading their new foliage in confidence. He had held his dogs back that they might not worry the rabbits he saw scampering there. Short shrift they would have had from the builders!
He thought of Clara and Pauline Lebraux and their venture of the tea shop. He hated that sort of thing for them, but fox farming had not paid and they must do something. Perhaps, if Wake did very well with the garage and petrol station, the tea shop might be discarded after a time. Lord, but it was disappointing to see clever young Wake turn to such a dirty job instead of to one of the professions or, better still, to farming and horse breeding! But Wake could not get on with Piers, the second brother, and there was no use in trying to make them. After the first few months on the farm when Wake had been willing to break his back and to obey Piers in everything, there had been rows. Besides that, Wake was not strong enough for the job. This new work just suited him. And he’d got religious! It was embarrassing the way he was always trying to convert one.
He thought of Meg, his sister, and what a stiff time she and her husband had been up against. They had taken in paying guests this spring and did not seem to mind it. Though it went against his grain to think of a Whiteoak doing such a thing and he believed it was enough to make his grandmother turn over in her grave.
He thought of his wife and his little daughter, but they had barely entered into his mind, taken privileged possession of it, when the hoot of a motor horn made him look to his dogs. His brother Piers was in the car. He stopped it and said:
“Hello! Want a lift?”
Piers’s wire-haired terrier Biddy was on the seat with him. Beside herself with excitement at seeing the spaniels, who were old friends, and the Cairn, of whom she roundly disapproved, she leant over the seat and literally screamed as Renny and his dogs established themselves in the back of the car. Merlin raised his muzzle and gave a troubled bark.
Piers asked, over his shoulder — “Where do you want to go?”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. Then to the farm. I must see what the men are doing in the back fields. I’ve just sold those Jersey calves to Crockford.”
“Good. Did he pay you?”
Piers grunted and took some notes from his pocket. He handed them over his shoulder to his brother. Renny pocketed them with satisfaction. Then, remembering that he owed Piers for hay and oats, he assumed a jocular air and began to tease Biddy, throwing her almost into hysteria. The car started with a jerk.
Though there was a considerable stretch of years between the brothers it appeared less than it was, for Piers, sitting solidly at the wheel, had a look of self-confident maturity, while Renny’s vivid glance, his quick, wary movements, combined with his leanness, made him appear much younger than his years. Yet, in spite of Piers’s sanguine masculinity, an observer would have felt that Renny, with his bony features, his sculptured head, and arrogant mouth, was the more formidable of the two.
It was but a short distance to Piers’s house, set in an old-fashioned garden just coming into flower. The rough-cast walls had taken on a warm tone in the sunlight and all the windows were open. At one of them, holding her year-old baby, stood Piers’s wife, Pheasant. She took the child’s tiny hand in hers and waved it at the two men. She put on a small voice and called:
“Hello, Daddy. Hello, Uncle Renny!”
Piers gave Renny a sidelong glance of pride. “Not a bad-looking pair, eh,” he muttered.
“Fine — both of them,” said Renny. He called out — “Hello, young Philip. I’ve a present for your mother. Come and see!”
“A present!” cried Pheasant. “There’s nothing so rare in these days. I’m mad to see it.”
“Don’t be excited,” said Renny, as she ran along the flagged walk and opened the gate. “It’s only sweets from The Daffodil.”
But Pheasant had expected nothing more important. She took the box in one hand while with the other she clutched her child to her.
“Oh, thanks! How perfectly lovely! Pauline is a marvel at making sweets.”
Piers asked — “How are they getting on with the tea shop?”
The line between Renny’s brows deepened. “Well, the season has just opened. It’s hard to say what it will be. Two people came while Wake and I were there.”
There was something self-conscious in the way he mentioned the fact that Wakefield had been with him when he visited The Daffodil. His thick bronze lashes flickered over his eyes. Pheasant thought — “If I were Alayne, I’d see through all this. But she doesn’t — she doesn’t! She’s never really understood him though she loves him terribly. I’m glad Piers isn’t so attractive to women. And, even at that, he is handsomer.” Her eyes flew to Piers’s face.
�
�Coming in?” she asked.
“No. I’ve work to do. Where is Mooey?”
“He has a headache, Piers. I think he concentrates too much at school. He’s so eager to learn!”
“Good Lord! Concentrates! An eight-year-old, at a little private day school!” His face darkened. “These Saturday headaches — they make me tired. What they mean is simply that he funks coming over to Jalna to ride. He funks it, just because he’s had a fall or two. And here I am with a fine pair of ponies to show which must have a child rider.”
Renny said — “Promise him a present if they win at the Show.”
“I’ll promise him a damned good hiding if he doesn’t toe the scratch. Where is he?”
“I sent him out for a walk. I thought it would do him good.”
Piers made a sound of disgust. “Upon my word, the only Whiteoak among my three is this one. No mistake about him.” He tickled the baby whose resemblance to himself was remarkable. “And, in our family, I am the only one who takes after our father, and he was the spit of his dad. It’s the authentic face for four generations straight.”
Renny looked critically from father to son, then, cocking an eyebrow, he said:
“One like Piers is enough, eh, Pheasant?”
“Well, I do think,” she returned, with her air of a sedate child, “that Piers might be more lenient with Mooey and Nook. It’s not their fault if they don’t take after him. Knowing what I do of horse breeding, I should say it is his own.”
Renny grinned derisively at Piers. “A dud sire and no mistake.”
Piers looked as nearly sheepish as was possible to him. He said gruffly — “Well, I can’t waste any more time,” and started the engine. The baby, at the same moment, tugged at the necklet of red beads that Pheasant was wearing and broke it. The beads flew in all directions.
“Oh, oh, my precious necklet!” cried Pheasant. She set her baby down and began a search for the beads. Suddenly Nook’s voice called from an upper window — “Mummie, he’s eating one!”
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 78
