“I had thought of that,” said Renny, “and I have an idea. You remember Fiddler’s Hut?”
Was she likely to forget it? “Yes, I remember.”
“Very well. Early this spring I had it cleaned up, painted, made quite decent for a Scotch couple who were to work for Piers. Something went wrong. They did not turn up. Now, I’m wondering whether it might not be made quite a decent place for Eden. We have quantities of furniture at Jalna that could be spared. If some pieces were taken to the cottage and some rugs, it wouldn’t look so bad. It might be made quite nice. And if only you would see Eden and use your influence—”
“My influence!”
“Yes. You have a great deal of influence over him still. You might persuade him to have a trained nurse. God, if you only knew how troubled I am about him!”
Suddenly he seemed, not domineering, but naive to her; pathetic in his confidence in her. She did not look into his eyes, which for her were dark and dangerous, but at the troubled pucker on his forehead, above which the rust-coloured hair grew in a point.
She pictured the mismanagement of a sickroom at Jalna. She thought of Fiddler’s Hut, embowered in trees and rank growths. And Eden terribly ill. All her New England love of order, of seemliness, cried out against the disorder, the muddleheadedness of the Whiteoaks. She was trembling with agitation, even while she heard herself agreeing in a level voice to accompany him to the hotel.
In less than an hour she found herself, with a sense of unreality, by Eden’s bed, pale, with set lips.
He lay, his fair hair wildly tossed, his white throat and breast uncovered. She thought of dying poets, of Keats, of Shelley sinking in the waves. Young as they had been, both older than he. And his poetry was beautiful, too. She still loved his poetry. She knew it by heart. What might he not write if he could only be made well again! Was it her duty to Art? To the love she still felt for his poetry, his beauty? Ah, he had been her lover once, lying with that same head on her breast! Dear heaven, how sweet their love had been, and— how fleeting!
Their love had been a red rose, clasped, inhaled, thrown down to die. But the faint perfume of it lingering made her soul stir in pain.
Eden caught her hand and held it. He said, huskily: “I knew you’d come! You couldn’t refuse me that—now… Alayne, don’t leave me. Stay with me—save me! You’ve no idea how I need you. I refused to have a nurse because I knew it was only you who could help me. It’s your strength—your support… I can’t get well without it.”
He broke into a passion of tears, and, with his eyes still wet, fell into a paroxysm of coughing.
She looked down on him, her face contorted like a child’s, in the effort to keep from crying. She heard herself promise in a broken voice to accompany him back to Jalna.
XIV
THE ARM OF JALNA
THE TRAIN seemed to be flying with passionate purpose through the night. The engine shot forth smoke and sparks, its bright eye glared, its whistle rent the air. Its long hinder-part, trailing after it, the intricate, metallic parts of which revolved with terrific energy, seemed no less than the body of some fabulous serpent which, having swallowed certain humans, hastened to disgorge them in a favoured spot. In the steel cavern of its vast interior their tender bodies lay secure and unharmed. It seemed to Finch, imaging it thus, that its journey was made for the sole purpose of returning five souls to the walls of Jalna, from which they had wandered.
Eden had borne the journey well. Renny had taken a compartment for his comfort, and had shared it with him that he might be on hand to wait on him. Ernest, Finch, and Alayne had had berths at the other end of the coach. The four—for Eden had not been visible to the other occupants of the coach—were the subjects of much conjecture. The men— tall, thin, absorbed in themselves and their female companion—made their numerous passages from end to end of the coach in complete obliviousness of the other travellers. Thus the Whiteoaks revealed their power of carrying their own atmosphere with them. With calculated reserve they raised a wall about themselves, excluding the rest of the world. In the smoking compartment not one of them exchanged more than a glance, which itself lacked any appearance of friendliness, with any other passenger.
They were met on their arrival by two motor cars. One was of English make, a very old car but still good, owned by Maurice Vaughan, Renny’s brother-in-law, and driven by him. Eden was installed in it, and with him went Ernest and Renny Watching their departure, Alayne wondered why Renny had not chosen to ride with her. She was relieved that the propinquity of a long drive had not to be endured, but she felt a quick disappointment, even resentment, that he had shunned her. His mixture of coldness and fire, of calculation and restrained impulse, had always disturbed her. To be near him was to experience alternate moods of exhilaration and depression. She was glad that she was not to be in the house with him. Fiddler’s Hut was near enough.
As she settled herself in the familiar shabby car of the Whiteoaks beside Finch, beheld the remembered form of Wright, the stableman, driving, and dressed to the height of his power for the occasion, she wondered what had been the force which had impelled her to this strange return. Had it indeed been the shadow of her dead love for Eden—springing desire to cherish his life for the sake of his poetry? Or was it that, knowing Renny willed it so, she had no self-denying power to resist? Or was it simply and terribly that the old house—Jalna itself—had caught her in the coil of its spell, had stretched forth its arm to draw her back into its bosom?
Finch and she said little. An understanding that made words no obligation had been born between them. He too had his moving thoughts. He was passing through the town where his school was. What a great city it had seemed to him until he had seen New York! Now it looked as though it had had a blow on the head that had flattened it. Its streets looked incredibly narrow. The crowd, which had seemed to him once to surge, now merely loitered. They had different faces, too, less set, more good-humoured. And how jolly the policemen looked in their helmets!
When they had left the town and were flying along the country road, past fields of springing corn and gardens bright with tulips and heavy with the scent of lilacs, Finch’s face was so happy that Alayne said, with a half-rueful smile: “Glad to be home after all, aren’t you?”
He assented with a nod. He longed to tell her that part of his gladness was due to her presence, the miracle of her riding beside him in the spring, but could not. He tried to make her understand by a look, and turned toward her with his wide, not unattractive smile.
She smiled in return and touched his hand, and he thought she understood, but she was only thinking: “What will become of him now? Is this a good or a bad step for him?”
They came to the low white cottages of Evandale, the blacksmith’s, Mrs. Brawn’s tiny shop, the English church on its high, wooded knoll, the vine-covered rectory. The wind blew, high and fresh, scattering the last of the orchard blossoms. They entered the driveway of Jalna just as the occupants of the other car were alighting. Renny had Eden by the arm.
They were crowded together in the porch. The lawn seemed less spacious than Alayne had remembered it. The great evergreen trees, with their heavy, draped boughs, seemed to have drawn nearer, to be whispering together in groups, observing the return.
Rags flung wide the front door, disclosing, as in a tableau, the grandmother, supported by Nicholas and Augusta. Her face was set in a grin of joyous anticipation. She wore her purple velvet tea gown, her largest cap, with the purple ribbons. Her shapely old hand, resting on the ebony stick, bore many rich-tinted rings. Behind her, down the hall, the sunlight, coming through the stained-glass window, cast strangely shaped bright-coloured patches. Still grasping her stick, she took a step forward and extended her arms.
The arrival had been well timed for her. After a sound night’s sleep, she had just arisen refreshed, her initial vitality not yet lowered by the agitations of the day.
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “Ha! Children… All my children… Ki
ss me quick!”
They pressed about her, almost hiding her—Ernest, Renny, Finch, Eden. Loud smacks were exchanged.
“Dear me, Nicholas,” said Ernest, with some anxiety, as his mother embraced Eden, “do you think she should do that? The contagion, I mean.”
“She’ll scarcely catch anything at her age,” rejoined Nicholas, composedly. “God, how changed the boy is!”
“Yes… What a time I’ve had, Nick! If only you knew what I’ve been through! The responsibility and all! How has Mama been?”
“Marvellous. Renny’s letter has given her a new lease of life. I wonder what prompted him to write to her instead of to Augusta.”
Ernest stared, incredulously. “You don’t mean that he wrote to Mama about Alayne’s coming and getting the cottage ready for them?”
“He did. Right over Augusta’s head. The old girl is nettled, I can tell you. And serve her right. She’s too hoity-toity about here by far.”
“H’m! He should not have done that. It wasn’t fair to Augusta. And Mama is so helpless. What could she do?”
Nicholas gave one of his subterranean chuckles. “Do? Do? She has driven us nearly crazy. If she had had her way most of the furniture would have been carried from the house to furnish Fiddler’s Hut. Things haven’t been dull here! Look at her now.”
Old Mrs. Whiteoak was again seated in her own chair. To protect her from draught a black and gold Indian screen had been placed at her back. On top of the screen Boney, in brilliant spring plumage, was perched, his beady eyes fixed on her cap, the gay ribbons of which intrigued him. On ottomans on either side of her she had commanded Eden and Alayne to sit. She took a hand of each. It was almost a sacramental act.
Her mind had never grasped the fact that Eden and Alayne were estranged, separated. She saw them now only as an inseparable pair who had disappeared for a long time and were now returned miraculously to her. Her activities of the past days had brightened her eyes and reset her strongly marked features in the mould of authority.
“Ha!” she ejaculated. “And so you’re here! At last, eh? My young couple. Bonny as ever. Lord, what a time I’ve had getting ready for you! What a to-do! Eh, Augusta? A to-do, eh? Alayne, my dear, you remember my daughter, Lady Bunkley? She’s failing. I notice it. This climate don’t agree with her. It takes an old warhorse like me to stand it. I’ve lived through India and I’ve lived through Canada. Roasting and freezing. All one to me.”
Augusta looked down her nose. She was greatly chagrined by the old lady’s remarks. She said: “It is no great wonder if I am unwell. It has been a trying time.” She directed her offended gaze toward Renny.
He did not see it. His eyes were fixed on his grandmother. He was absorbing her aspect, delighting in her. Some perversity of his nature had impelled him to write to her, asking her to oversee the furnishing of the Hut for Eden and Alayne—she was the one above all who would see to it that the Hut was made comfortable. This he wrote, knowing that she was capable only of making things difficult for his aunt. His feeling toward Augusta was not altogether dutiful, though, on occasion, he would be demonstratively affectionate. She too often interfered with the boys. She too often sounded the note of England’s superiority, of the crudity of the Colonies. He admired her, but he resented her. He admired his grandmother and resented not her most flagrant absurdities. Now her air of hilarity, of the exaltation of a superior being, moved him to tenderness toward her. He forgot for the moment his anxiety over Eden. He forgot his smouldering passion for Alayne. He was satisfied to see her sitting at his grandmother’s right hand, for a while, at least, a member of this tribe. He felt the tug of those unseen cords between himself and every being in the room.
Eden’s exhaustion after the journey was, for the moment, forgotten in the excitement of the homecoming. He felt the cynical bliss of the prodigal. He was at his own hearth again, he was loved, but he knew he was unchanged. He smiled mockingly at Alayne across the purple velvet expanse of Grandmother’s lap, across the glitter of her rings as they pressed into the flesh of the two captured hands. He felt an exquisite relief in the knowledge that Alayne would be with him at Jalna, to care for him as she had done once before when he was ill. He could not have borne anyone else about him. If he were to die, it would not be quite so horrible with her beside him… But he could not help that mocking smile.
“I am trapped,” Alayne thought. “Why am I here? What does it all mean? Is there some plan, some reason in it all? Or are we just mad puppets set jigging by the sinister hand of a magician? Is the hand this old woman’s? Not hard to think of her as Fate…”
“Shaitan! Shaitan ka batka!” screamed Boney suddenly perceiving her as a stranger.
“Tell the bird to hold his tongue!” cried Grandmother. “I want to talk.”
“Hold your tongue, Bonaparte!” growled Nicholas.
Alayne thought: “Is Eden going to die? And if he does— what? Why am I here? If I can nurse him back to health, can I ever care for him again? Ah, no, no—I could not! What are Renny’s thoughts? Why was I such a fool as to think that his presence no longer swept over me like a wave of the sea. Oh, why did I come?” Her brow contracted in pain. Old Mrs. Whiteoak’s rings were hurting her hand.
“Shaitan! Shaitan ka batka!” raged Boney.
“Nick!”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Ernest!”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Tell the bird to hush. I’m asking Alayne a question.”
They composed the parrot with a bit of biscuit.
“Are you glad to be home again, child?”
“Y-yes, Oh, yes.”
“And where have you been all this time?”
“In New York.”
“It’s a poor place from what I hear. Did you weary of it? Had Eden a good position?”
All the eyes in the room were on her. She hedged. “I went away once for a change. To visit cousins in Milwaukee.”
The strong rust-coloured eyebrows shot upward. “Milwaukee! China, eh? That’s a long way.”
Nicholas came to the rescue. “Milwaukee’s not in China, Mama. It’s somewhere in the States.”
“Nonsense! It’s in China. Walkee-walkee—talkee-talkee! Don’t you think I know pigeon English?” She grinned triumphantly squeezing Alayne’s hand.
“Walkee-walkee—talkee-talkee!” chanted Wakefield.
“Nicholas!”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Hush the boy I must not be interrupted.”
Nicholas put out a long arm and drew Wake to his side. “Listen,” he said, with a finger up; “an improving conversation.”
Grandmother said, with her dark bright eyes on the two beside her: “What’s the matter? Why haven’t you got a child?”
“This is too much,” said Augusta.
Her mother retorted: “It’s not enough… Pheasant’s had one. Meggie’s had one. May manage another… I don’t like this business of not having children. My mother had eleven. I should have done as well. I started off smartly. But, look you, when we came here the doctor was so hard to get at, Philip was afraid for me. Ah, there was a man, my Philip! The back on him! You don’t see such straight backs nowadays. No children… H’m, In my day, a wife would give her husband a round dozen—”
“Shaitan!” cried Boney, his biscuit gone and his eye on the stranger.
“—and, if there was one of them he wasn’t quite sure about, he took it like a man—ha!”
“ Shaitan kabatka!”
“He knew even the most reliable mare… skittish now and then.”
“Ka batka!”
“Hey, Renny?”
“Yes, old dear. Great days those!”
Eden withdrew his hand from his grandmother’s. There was a look of exhaustion on his face. He got to his feet; his lips were parted, his forehead drawn in a frown. “Awfully tired,” he muttered. “I think I’ll lie down for a bit.” He looked vaguely about.
“Poor lad,” said the old lady. “Put him on th
e sofa in the library.”
Eden walked slowly from the room. Ernest followed him, solicitous, a little important. He covered him with a rug on the sofa.
Grandmother’s eyes followed the pair with satisfaction. She then turned to Alayne. “Don’t worry, my dear, we’ll soon have him well again. Then let’s hope you’ll—”
“Mama,” interrupted Nicholas, “tell Alayne about the Hut. What a time you’ve had, and all that.”
This was enough to distract her attention from the necessity of multiplying. She now bent her faculties to a description of the downy nest she had prepared.
Nicholas said in an undertone to Renny: “It was appalling. The Hut could not possibly have held the furniture she insisted on sending to it. There was only one thing to do, and that was to carry the things out at one door and bring them back through another. Augusta, poor old girl, was at her wits’ end.”
The master of Jalna showed his teeth in appreciation. Then, his face clouding, he asked: “What do you think of Eden? Pretty sick boy, eh?”
“How bad is he? 1 couldn’t gather much from your letter.”
“I don’t quite know. I must have Dr. Drummond see him. The New York doctor says his condition is serous. Not hopeless.”
“American doctors!” observed Nicholas with a shrug. “Fresh air. Milk. We’ll soon fill him out… Gad, what a trump that girl is! Gone off in looks, though.”
“Nonsense,” denied Ernest, who had come up from behind. “She’s lovelier than ever.”
Renny offered no opinion. His eyes were on her face. He read there spiritual acceptance of her changed condition. A calm embrace of even Boney A trump? No. A proud spirit subdued by passion. He moved circuitously to her side among the pieces of heavy inlaid mahogany. He sat down on the ottoman that had been occupied by Eden.
08 Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 19
