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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Pauline had retreated to the top of the path but had not yet returned to the house when she heard Renny’s voice raised in what, in the extreme stillness of that place, amounted almost to an outcry. She stood transfixed in an ecstasy of jealousy. She was not the only person who had overheard his excited words. He stood in the singular position at that moment of a man who holds in his arms a woman who loves him, while two other women who love him, stand as listeners unseen and unable to see the principal actors in the drama.

  Having seen Renny go toward the ravine, Alayne had a sudden desire to follow him there. She had last seen the stream frozen and the bridge arched in snow. She would stand on it with him and listen to the talking of the stream. A passionate tenderness toward life stirred her emotionally. She felt the largeness and strength of the springtime renewal. A heaviness, as though her own body partook in it, caused her to move slowly. She made no sound as she opened the wicket gate and stood at the top of the descent into the ravine.

  When she heard his outburst of “Clara, I need you! I want you near me! I can’t let you go away!” — she did not stop in her slow descent but moved forward, as though by a power other than her own. The path seemed to flow under her feet and yet she was able to move steadily. It was her brain that felt as though it were falling, in a dizzy flight down into the darkness. All the while she had a hard pride in the thought that she could walk so steadily after hearing words like these. She planted one foot after the other among the curled green heads of the bracken fronds. She carried her electric torch in her hand, unlighted, but, when she reached the bridge, she turned on its beam and pointed it, as though it were a weapon, at the two who had drawn apart in consternation.

  She flashed the light across Renny’s rigid features then turned it full into Clara’s face that showed, not so much shame and mortification, as sullen resentment. Her light-lashed eyes blinked, but she stared at Alayne’s black figure and said curtly:

  “This is just a goodbye you’ve interrupted, Mrs. Whiteoak. There’s nothing to be melodramatic about.”

  Alayne answered in a voice she scarcely recognized as her own — “Let it be a goodbye! Let it be a goodbye!”

  “Renny will explain.”

  “I ask for no explanation,” answered Alayne bitterly, as though she threw their secret unopened in their teeth.

  Clara turned from the bridge and began quickly to mount the path toward the wood where Pauline listened. She felt no surprise when she found her still there. She gave her shadowy figure one glance, then passed doggedly on. Pauline remained where she was.

  The dusk in the ravine deepened to darkness across which the first firefly outlined the pattern his followers would elaborate in their season. A tree toad set up its liquid warble. The torch fell from Alayne’s hand and went out. She clasped the railing of the bridge and bent over it, as though she were going to be sick. She felt in her face the chilled breath of the stream.

  Renny came and put his hand on her back, but she pressed her breast against the railing, writhing away from his touch.

  “How long has that woman been your mistress?” she asked.

  “Alayne — don’t!”

  “I asked you how long.”

  He returned fiercely — “She is not my mistress.”

  With the insistence and hollowness of a bell she repeated her question. The firefly sketched his design more intricately on the darkness.

  Renny said — “Now, Alayne, pull yourself together. Don’t be hysterical. This isn’t the first time that a man who loves his wife —”

  “Don’t use that word to me,” she interrupted harshly. “Love! Yes — I suppose you do love me — as a man loves his fireside chair — his old coat — all I want to know is — how long?”

  “Come up to the house. There’s a horrible chill rising from the water.”

  “Chill —” she repeated scornfully, “I feel no chill, I feel a fever of heat!”

  He took her forcibly in his hands. He said quietly:

  “You must come to the house.”

  She straightened her body and allowed herself to be led, as though blind, along the path. He picked up the torch and dropped it into his pocket.

  He led her into the dining room and turned on the lights. He closed the doors and said, in a tone almost matter-of-fact — “Now, I’m going to give you something to drink.”

  He was shocked by her grey-white pallor, her expression of outrage and hate.

  “Yes,” she said harshly. “I need to be drugged, doped. Give me something that will make me forget all this — if you can!”

  He poured a little brandy into a glass and offered it to her. She struck it violently away with her hand and the glass lay shattered on the floor.

  She looked at him as though she saw him for the first time, and every hard-bitten line of his face was hateful to her. He scowled ruefully at the spilt brandy, and said:

  “I wish you wouldn’t carry on like this.”

  “I dare say you do,” she returned bitterly. “It’s very troublesome of me. I’m not at all the sort of wife you should have.” She looked steadily at him for a space, then she began to cry loudly and brokenly. He remembered with swift relief that the servants were out for the evening. They were alone except for the sleeping child. His highly coloured face was now almost as white as Alayne’s. He stood transfixed till the noise of her crying subsided, then he repeated:

  “Clara is not my mistress.”

  “Oh, why do you lie to me?” she exclaimed brokenly.

  He was silent a moment, then said, in a low voice:

  “I don’t deny that she and I were once intimate.”

  “When?”

  “Last fall. But I do deny that there has been anything between us since.”

  She said, in a shaking voice — “Perhaps you can explain that passionate outburst of yours on the bridge.”

  “I value her friendship.”

  “Her friendship! That woman’s friendship! I tell you she is sex personified.”

  “And I tell you that she is a colder woman sexually than you.”

  The implication of these words transfixed her for a moment, then she said violently:

  “I don’t want to hear anything about her! I refuse to hear her name spoken!”

  “You never will hear it spoken by me.”

  She spread her left hand in front of him.

  “Look at that hand! It has worn the wedding ring of two Whiteoaks and both of you have been as false, as faithless — as I suppose all your precious ancestors were before you.”

  Renny looked up at the portrait of his grandfather in Hussar’s uniform. “He and Gran quarrelled a good deal but he was faithful to her. At any rate, she thought so.”

  He had spoken in pride of his grandfather’s fidelity. Of what was he made? She looked at him standing there, with his narrow red head, his arched beak of a nose, his horseman’s back and shoulders, and she hated him, every bit of him, from the point of red hair on his forehead, to his worn brown shoes.

  She said, with an icy close-lipped sneer — “What a pity you did not model yourself on him rather than on old Renny Court who from what I hear was the rake of the countryside!”

  He was stung and burst out — “Is love a matter of conscience?”

  “Not with you!” Her mouth looked positively ugly with its sneer, he thought. “Nor with Eden. Neither of you had any conscience.”

  From white a deeper red than usual flamed into his face. He said, in a hard voice:

  “You had better leave Eden out of this. He is dead and — if he was unfaithful to you — he knew damned well that you didn’t love him any more — that you’d turned to me.”

  “How could he know that?”

  “How could he help? Uncle Nicholas told me since that everyone in the house knew it. They were just waiting to see what would happen.”

  “So — you talk me over with your family!”

  He disdained to reply to this but went on — “And let me tell y
ou, Alayne, that you were far more provocative in your behaviour toward me at that time than Clara Lebraux has ever been!”

  It was as though he had struck her. But she controlled herself and said bitterly — “But you were able to resist me!”

  He answered with dignity — “You were married to my brother!”

  “You make my head reel!” she cried. “The fact that I was married to your brother had a restraining influence — but the fact that I am married to you has none.”

  “I have used more self-restraint than you know,” he returned sternly. “Besides, things were different with me then. I was a happy man. I had not the same need. Last fall I was — well, you know how things were with us.”

  “I know that last summer you mortgaged this place and took money needed for other things to move that hideous house on to your land for Clara Lebraux to live in! Now I know why!”

  “Alayne!” he cried. “I had no such thought when I brought Clara and Pauline to live on the estate. They were in terrible difficulties. I had been Lebraux’s best friend.”

  “Well,” she answered, with a gesture of finality, “I don’t want to hear any more about it. I can’t bear any more.”

  He began to pick the broken pieces of glass from the floor, bending awkwardly because of the sling he wore. She looked at his dense red hair and thought — “I shall go white before he does.” She looked at the lines that indented his forehead and felt a bitter satisfaction.

  He took out his handkerchief and mopped up the little puddle of brandy. Then he stood up and pressed the wet handkerchief to his forehead. He stood almost impassively while she left the room. But when he heard her crying in her room he bounded up the stairs and throwing open the door appeared before her, his face contorted like a child’s.

  “Don’t!” he exclaimed brokenly and would have taken her in his arms.

  She put out her hands to keep him off.

  “Darling — you know I have never loved anyone but you!”

  “Will you go away!” she answered. “I couldn’t bear to have you touch me.” She went and threw herself on the bed. She felt like one shipwrecked, as though her legs were weighted by seaweed that dragged her down.

  Little Adeline stirred in her cot and made a sighing sound. Renny went to her and she stared out of her bright eyes, remote and impersonal, like a little animal in its burrow. Her hair stood like tawny fur.

  Alayne sat up on the side of her bed.

  “Ask your child — our child — to forgive you,” she said. “That is our child. I bore it and I wish I’d died then.”

  He put his face down to Adeline’s but she was only half awake. She stared with her bright impersonal look as though she did not see him. He drew the covers close under her chin and went out.

  IV

  THE LONG NIGHT

  NOT A SNATCH of sleep came to help her through the long hours. Mounting, mounting, up to midnight, declining, sinking, to the dawn, the hours carried their load of misery to her. In her fancy she saw them deposit their separate loads in the passage, between her door and Renny’s, till a great black mound was formed, barring them away from each other forever.

  During the first hours she could think of nothing but the fact that Clara Lebraux had lain in his arms, as she herself had lain. Over and over again she pictured licentious details of their meetings. Had he lied when he said that they had not been together since the autumn? It did not matter — it did not matter — they had been together! She heard their very whispers in the woods, whispers that came to her like shouts. Clara’s face was riveted against the darkness, mouthing her passion.

  Alayne hated herself for these thoughts. With all the strength in her she stripped them from her mind and left it naked, cold. She thought coldly of her position in this house. Ten years ago she had come to Jalna as Eden’s wife, a sedate, carefully guarded young woman, conventional, inexperienced, feeling herself unconventional, experienced beside these Whiteoaks, with their hidebound traditions of family, of churchgoing, of male superiority, even while they were dominated by the old grandmother. She had, coming from a great Metropolis, felt tolerant of them in their unworldliness and, in this backwater, under their Victorian guidance, what emotions, fears, hates, and anguishes — she had plumbed! Two marriages to Whiteoaks, and both of them unfaithful to her!

  Then Renny’s words came like a whip. “If Eden was unfaithful to you, he knew damned well that you didn’t love him any more — that you had turned to me!” Had Eden known that? No, he could not have known! He could not! She had kept her secret. Eden’s love for her had been a shallow volatile stream, only too eager to turn aside to a fresh outlet. And those other cruel words that Renny had said — “Let me tell you that you were far more provocative toward me at that time than Clara Lebraux has ever been!” What had she done, said? She could not remember. But she remembered the fever of her love for him that gave her no peace. If Eden’s love for her had been a shallow stream, hers for him had been no more. To Renny she had thrown open the passionate recesses of her spiritual being. She had created for him a new Alayne, a woman reckless, desirous, abandoned to his love. “You are a more passionate woman sexually than Clara Lebraux.” She rolled her head on the pillows and tears poured down her cheeks.

  Oh, the birth of this new hate for him! It was far more agonizing than childbirth. It tore at her every organ. It nauseated her very soul. A dreadful metallic taste came into her mouth. Her hair was dripping with sweat. She felt as though she would go mad.

  She rose and went to the window. It was a black night and had turned extraordinarily cold for the time of year. There was no breeze, no sound, no feeling of life, no promise. The air touched her face like a cold hand. There were no stars, no moon, the sun might well forget to return to such a world.

  Out of the darkness Adeline spoke — “Mummie!”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I want a drink.”

  “Very well. I’ll get you one.”

  “No. I want Daddy to get it.”

  “He is in his own room.”

  “Call him.”

  Alayne went to the side of the cot and spoke sternly.

  “Baby, you are not to ask for Daddy. You will take the drink from me or do without. Will you take it from me?”

  “Yes.” The little voice was self-possessed. Adeline sat up and drank deeply. She emptied the glass and asked for more, her eyes looking challengingly into Alayne’s.

  “You cannot have any more water.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have had enough.”

  “Why?”

  “If you drink too much you will wet the bed?”

  “Why?”

  Alayne put her hand on Adeline’s chest and pressed her down on to her back. With a touch she could rouse all the antagonism in Adeline’s fiery nature. Now she made her body rigid and, putting her hands above her head, clenched them into fists. She began violently to kick the bedclothes from her.

  Like a sulphurous hot spring the hate that Alayne felt for Renny boiled up to engulf his child. She had to turn away and look out of the window. Adeline began to scream, giving herself up to the abandon of a tantrum as though it were noonday instead of midnight. Alayne let her scream.

  Renny appeared in the doorway. He asked:

  “Are you having trouble with her? Shall I take her?”

  “I suppose you had better. I can do nothing with her.” She spoke without looking round.

  He came into the room on tiptoe in his thick-soled shoes. Why is he walking like that?” thought Alayne. “One would think there was somebody dead.”

  Adeline clutched him round the neck. She showed every tooth in her head in a joyful smile. When she was on his arm with her little pale blue silk quilt about her, she rolled her eyes triumphantly toward her mother.

  “I’ll keep her the rest of the night.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Would you tell me what she was crying for? Was she hungry perhaps?”

  “
She was crying for more water. She has had enough.”

  She could scarcely endure it till the two of them were out of the room. At once she locked the door and began to undress. She felt chilled through and drew the bedclothes over her head.

  In the black seclusion beneath them she saw a series of pictures of Renny. She saw him with uprolled sleeves felling a tree on that day when she first discovered her love for him. She saw him, with her happy self by his side, galloping along the lakeshore in the autumn wind. She saw him, in the glare of electric lights, leaping barriers at the Horse Show amid a storm of applause. She saw him as he knelt by her bed on the day their child was born, his eyes wet with tears of tenderness for her.

  Oh, how she had loved him! How she had loved him! Her love for him had made her into a different woman — yet not different enough to accept him as he was! Always she had wanted to change him — to force him into congeniality with herself, even while it was the bitter sweetness of their antagonism that enhanced their passion.

  Hours passed while she went over and over the scale of their relations, always ending in the shock of the discovery. At last her brain refused to work coherently. Like a worn-out mechanism it moved erratically, feebly. Still she could not sleep.

  Toward dawn an irritating tickling set up in her throat. At regular intervals she gave a dry hacking cough which she tried in vain to smother. When she found she could not smother it she gave in to it letting it tear at her throat without hindrance.

  The handle of the door was turned, then Renny’s voice said — “Alayne, I have brought some of my licorice tablets. Open the door.”

  “No,” she answered, in a muffled tone. “I don’t want anything!” And she allowed the cough to tear at her throat. She knew that, since Eden’s death, the sound of coughing was horrible to him.

  “I’ll put them on the floor here,” he said. She heard the sound of the little box being placed on the floor. A faint light showed Adeline’s empty cot.