06 The Whiteoak Brothers

by Mazo de La Roche

Piers said — “And all the while he was lining his own pockets.”

  The villain of the piece stood sipping his cognac. An odd half-smile lighted his face. He said — “I know it’s pleasant to have someone to blame for your mistakes. But I must remind you — every single one of you was ready and eager to keep his part in it a secret.”

  “I admit that,” said Nicholas. “Nevertheless I think you had acquired a plausible way from this Kronk fellow and you exercised it on us.”

  Ernest said — “I cannot help thinking that there has been a very deliberate manipulation on Eden’s part.”

  Piers added, his tone in almost brutal contrast — “Eden deserves to be kicked and I’d like to do it.”

  Eden turned to smile at him. “My poor little man,” he said. “And only a short while ago you were so pleased to be in my company.”

  “I’d be pleased to see you outside and give you what I said.”

  “Boys, boys,” put in Meg. “Everyone is so tired. It’s been such an evening. And Christmas coming on!”

  “Nobody need expect a Christmas present from me,” said Piers.

  “Let’s see,” mused Eden, “what did you give us last year?”

  “Oh, I know I didn’t give much. I hadn’t the money to spend — but this year I had.”

  “Poor Pheasant,” said Eden. “She won’t get her present.”

  Meg drew back, startled. “Pheasant!”

  “Why, Meg, didn’t you know he’s sweet on Pheasant Vaughan?”

  Now every eye was on Piers.

  “I’m nothing of the sort,” he denied. “I hardly ever see the girl.”

  Meg said — “I’m very sure she is the last person Piers would take up with, knowing what he must know.”

  Piers gave his sister a bold rustic stare. “What about her?” he asked.

  Her face flamed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard!”

  “I haven’t heard anything against Pheasant.”

  “Can’t you understand that who she is, is against her?”

  “No.” He looked still bolder.

  Ernest put in mildly — “We must remember that we have a visitor.”

  “Rather late for remembering that, eh, Dilly?” laughed Renny.

  Dilly exclaimed passionately — “I wish that girl had ridden for you at the Show instead of me.”

  “You did very well,” he returned, with more kindness in his eyes than he usually gave her.

  “A Third! She’d have got a First, I’m convinced.”

  Meg said darkly — “The Horse Show is neither here nor there.”

  The fire crackled loudly for a moment, then abruptly died. The dogs, sleeping on the mat, gave it a suspicious look, then moved farther off, the spaniel Floss laying her head on the sheepdog’s furry side; he, with a grunt of satisfaction, again subsiding. The ormolu clock on the mantelshelf struck eleven.

  Ernest yawned and his eyes watered. He said — “Let us hope that Piers will cultivate wisdom. It is something we all need to cultivate — no matter what our years. We can always learn. For my part I am going to bed. What a different evening from what we expected.”

  “Good night, everybody,” said Nicholas. “I’m going too.”

  Piers crossed to the table where stood the brandy.

  Renny gave a sharp shake of the head and framed the word “No” with his lips.

  Piers exploded. “Why mayn’t I? I need it if anyone does.”

  “Go to your bed.”

  “I’ve lost everything. And look at the way I worked!”

  “I know.”

  “Everyone is howling about his own loss. Not a word about mine.”

  “No cheek, Piers. And no drink.”

  Nicholas said — “I did no howling, my boy. What I say is — we’ve all had confounded bad luck. Let’s to bed and forget it.” He put his arm about his sister. “Come along, Gussie. Be thankful Edwin isn’t alive to see you making ducks and drakes of his fortune.”

  Augusta did not like this and showed it.

  He added, to mollify her — “You’re a brave woman. No woman could have made less fuss over a heavy loss. What did you say the amount was?”

  “I did not say.”

  She suffered herself to be drawn to her feet and the two moved to the door with an air of almost jocularity on the part of Nicholas and sad dignity on Augusta’s. She said a goodnight to each in turn, her voice taking on a deeper note when she uttered Eden’s name.

  “Good night, Aunty,” he said. “Better luck next time.”

  Ernest said, pouring himself another drink — “I consider that remark in very bad taste.”

  “Sorry,” said Eden.

  Augusta said from the doorway — “There will not be another time.” She and Nicholas disappeared.

  Meg, with an audible yawn, also rose. She said — “I shall not sleep a wink tonight. Oh, how lucky you are, Renny! How I envy you! When I think of my tiny bit of money that I had hoarded through the years....”

  “Hoarded is good,” observed Piers, watching Ernest sip his cognac.

  She was not taking that sort of remark in silence. She said — “I notice a tendency to insolence in you, Piers. You must curb it.”

  “Huh,” he grunted.

  “There is nothing nicer in a young boy,” she went on, “than good manners toward his sister.” She gave him a reproving kind of kiss, winked hard, then brought herself to kiss Eden, then came to Renny. To him she whispered — “You must be severe with Piers — about that girl.”

  “Eden was only teasing him.” He kissed her cheek. “Sleep well, Meggie. Don’t worry.”

  She gave a groan, then asked — “Coming, Dilly?”

  “I think I shall find a book to read and relax by the fire. I’m a nighthawk, you know.”

  “I’ll build it up,” said Renny. He knelt by it, blowing its embers into little green tongues of flame with the bellows upon which Augusta had, in her youth, painted a spray of maiden-hair fern and three trilliums.

  When he rose and looked about him he found the room empty but for Dilly. He stood, bellows in hand, regarding her warily. The bellows might have been a weapon and he at bay. The room looked as though some physical encounter might have taken place in it. No chair was in its proper position, every cushion was shapeless, empty glasses stood about, one of them snapped off at the stem by Ernest’s tense fingers and concealed by him behind a begonia in a pot. Renny’s eyes came to rest on it and Dilly exclaimed:

  “Poor dear, he was so wrought up. First by the bad news — then by breaking the glass.”

  “No wonder,” said Renny. “It’s one of our best. Old Irish glass.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Doubtless you have plenty more.”

  If that was her mood he wasn’t afraid of her. He came and sat down on the sofa beside her. He said — “I can’t tell you how much I admire the way you’re taking this, Dilly. You’ve been a trump.”

  She fixed her eyes on his breast. She said low — “What is the loss of a thousand dollars — compared to what I feel here?” She struck her own breast.

  “Now, Dilly,” he said, almost as though he were reasoning with one of his young brothers, “you can’t make me believe that you’re suffering from frustrated love. I know the signs too well.”

  “That,” she said, “is one of the vainest remarks I’ve ever heard.”

  Imperturbably he lighted a cigarette. “I haven’t lived thirty-seven years for nothing.”

  “I wish I knew,” she sneered, “how many hearts you’ve broken in that time.”

  “One thing is certain,” he said. “Yours is not among them.”

  “I suppose you’re accustomed to seeing women in storms of tears.”

  “I have seen you cry and you were very touching.”

  “I haven’t a tear in me tonight. If you were to beat me back and blue, I wouldn’t cry.”

  “You are a very primitive girl, Dilly.”

  “Me?” She was astonished.

  �
�Yes. When you are angry at me you strike me. When your mood changes you talk of my beating you.”

  She said desperately — “Whatever way I approach you, it’s sure to be wrong.”

  “I think you were splendid tonight. When every single thought of the others was concentrated on their own loss, you made light of yours.”

  She cried — “What I said was that it is nothing compared —”

  “I know, I know,” he interrupted. “What I say is that you shall not suffer any loss through Eden’s bright ideas. I’ll see to that.”

  “I don’t want anything,” she said doggedly, “but that you should care for me.”

  “I admire you enormously.”

  “Admiration — pooh!”

  “I’m very fond of you.”

  “Fond of me — bah!”

  The fire brightened, striking answering brightness from the amber of the cognac, the crystal glasses, the eyes of the two on the sofa. Dilly turned her supple neck to look him in the face. She said, as though musing:

  “That hair ... those eyes ... and a heart like ice.”

  “Dilly,” he said, “you make me laugh.” And he did laugh, so infectiously that she laughed too.

  Then she caught herself up in anger, frowning, and he noticed that her eyebrows were a little too heavy. She repeated — “A heart like ice,” then added, to make it worse — “like an ice-cold stone.”

  His spaniel Floss had come to him and he fondled her ears. Dilly thought she saw annoyance in the bend of his lips and she was impelled to anger him still further.

  “Your position is rather unique,” she said. “Do you realize that?”

  He raised his head to return her look.

  “Unique?”

  “Decidedly. How many young men are there who are in the patriarchal position you are? You own the estate. Everyone here is more or less dependent on you.”

  “My grandmother and my uncles aren’t.”

  “They prefer to be. Everybody kowtows to you.”

  “Kowtows! Good Lord. I wish Gran could hear you say that.”

  “When she discovered that she’d lost some money she turned at once to you and you said everything would be as it had always been. You are the patriarch and it’s very bad for you. If you don’t watch out you’ll never marry and you’ll become eccentric.”

  He regarded her with some curiosity. He said — “This is something new, Dilly, this role of a preacher.”

  She answered, in an offhand way — “It simply means that I am concerned about you.”

  “That’s very sweet of you but I like you best as you were.”

  “Nothing I could do would make you like me.”

  He said, with decision — “I have told you how much I admire the way you’ve taken this loss.”

  She exclaimed — “You’ve despised me ever since I rode so badly at the Show.”

  “Now,” he said deliberately, “you are taking a hectoring tone. I wonder why.” He had ceased to fondle Floss’s ears and, demanding his attention, she had raised herself, with paws on his chest, and bumped his face with her muzzle. He kissed her between the eyes.

  Dilly said bitterly — “You think more of that spaniel than you do of me.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Who could doubt that? She and Merlin have been my companions for years...” He did not finish. Merlin, on hearing his name, rose from his place by the fire and came to Renny.

  Dilly sprang up. She exclaimed — “You and your dogs! You’d drive me mad. I’m glad I am going home.”

  “I’m sorry you leave us with such feelings,” he said tranquilly.

  “I love every member of this family,” she said with violence, “but you.”

  “Even Eden?”

  “Even Eden.”

  A voice asked from the doorway — “Did I hear my name?”

  “Yes,” returned Renny. “Dilly has just said that she loves you.”

  “And I love her for that,” said Eden, coming into the room.

  Renny gave them a benign look. “Bless you, my children,” he said.

  Dilly sprang up and went to the fireplace, and Merlin at once took her place on the sofa. She picked up the hearth-brush, made by disabled soldiers, and began to sweep the hearth. She did it vigorously, with the concentration of an immaculate housewife, as though unconscious of the presence of the two men. Yet in her every fibre she was conscious of them.

  Renny, dispassionately observing her figure from the rear, wondered how he ever could have expected her to have a good seat on a horse. Eden’s quick glance moved from one to the other and he felt he had perhaps better leave them alone. Renny settled it by saying — “So you’re still about.”

  Eden leant over him. “I’ve been telephoning the Kronks’ apartment.”

  “Good idea. Any news?”

  “Mrs. Kronk was there alone. She has no idea where he is. She feels her position very badly.”

  “I’ll wager she’s as guilty as he.”

  “No, no. She knew the mine was there. She’d been up north to see it.

  But there was no capital to develop it with. That she didn’t know.”

  “What about the pictures?”

  “Oh, they were faked — pictures of another mine. She didn’t know that, of course. She was crying.”

  “Poor little soul,” said Renny sarcastically. Then he added in a different tone — “I’m coming up to your room before I go to bed.”

  Eden thought — “Oh, Lord, will this night never end!” But he nodded his acquiescence, with his faint half-smile, and, for some reason he could not have explained, tiptoed out of the room.

  Still Dilly persisted in her tidying of the hearth. She took the poker and poked and scratched at the fire.

  “It’s all right,” said Renny. “A very nice performance. But please stop.”

  Without looking round she asked — “Why?”

  “Because it’s getting on my nerves.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you had any.”

  “You are aware of nothing,” he said, “but your own headstrong emotions.”

  She wheeled and faced him, holding the poker upright like a lance.

  “What a picture!” he laughed.

  “I can tell you,” she said, “I feel dangerous.”

  He could not resist saying — “Yet you would like me to believe you’d be an amiable companion.”

  “I should not be a tame one, at any rate.”

  “I like a placid woman.”

  “Oh, I know,” she sneered. “A woman like a cow. Chewing the cud of her adoration of you all day long.”

  He gave her an hilarious grin. “Dilly! Don’t tell me you’re becoming literary.”

  She looked pleased with herself. “That was pretty good, wasn’t it?” Then added, in a tragic tone — “Of course, you don’t credit me with brains.”

  “I haven’t weighed you in that balance but I have never liked you as well as I like you tonight.”

  “Patronizing brute! Your vocabulary isn’t great but it has more power of infuriating a woman than any I have ever heard.”

  He said tranquilly — “I think you enjoy getting in a temper.”

  She returned hotly — “You’ve never seen me in one before tonight.”

  “I’ve never seen you enjoy yourself so much.”

  She brandished the poker. She said — “I enjoy a bit of sparring.”

  “I can see that.”

  Her arm fell to her side. She spoke in a low, almost trembling voice. She said — “You see only the surface — never the aching heart beneath.”

  Gently he pushed Merlin from the sofa to make room for her. “Come and sit down,” he said, “and tell me about this aching heart of yours. You broke off your engagement, I think. You must have gone through a good deal.”

  “Are you feeling real sympathy for me? I doubt it.” She turned her back on him and began once more to poke at the fire, which responded in little angry leaps.

  Irritated beyond
endurance, he said — “Put down that poker.”

  She gave no heed but continued, with renewed energy it seemed, to poke the fire.

  He shouted — “Put down that poker, Dilly!”

  He sprang up, went to her, and took the implement of torture from her and led her to the sofa. He no sooner had done this than he regretted it, for she at once put both arms about his neck and found a place for her head on his shoulder. She said — “My engagement was rather a tame affair.”

  Mechanically he patted her shoulder. He said — “Really?”

  “Compared to this.”

  There was a silence in which he remembered a brief affair he had had with a girl from British Guiana during a visit to the Horse Show in New York the year before. She had the same fuzzy hair as Dilly. He knit his brow, trying to remember her name.

  Dilly asked — “Do you want me to tell you what is in my heart?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Naturally?”

  “Well, I’m naturally sympathetic.”

  She tightened her hold on him. “My past and my future are so intermingled,” she said. “At this moment I am trying to wrench myself free of both. To be only conscious of the present.”

  Merlin, displaced from the comfort of the sofa, now tried to scramble onto Renny’s lap. At the same instant a loud thumping sounded from the grandmother’s room.

  Renny exclaimed — “There’s Gran calling!”

  “Damn your grandmother,” said Dilly. “I have never been in such a house. There’s no possibility of privacy — even at midnight.”

  Renny was already on his way to old Adeline’s room. In it the light burned low. Colours were not distinguishable but were overlaid by a rich plum-coloured dimness, as though the past of the one who lay there were made palpable, as though the passions, desires, givings, and takings of a century had cast a mysterious bloom upon the room.

  Renny had closed the door behind him. He could just make out his grandmother’s pale shape, raised in the bed. “What is it?” he asked. “Anything wrong, Gran?”

  “Bonaparte,” she said, calling the parrot by his full name, “where is he?”

  “In the drawing-room, Gran. I’ll bring him to you.”

  “How did I come to forget him?”

  “Well, perhaps you were a little upset.”

  “Was it the brandy?”

  “I dare say.”