06 The Whiteoak Brothers

by Mazo de La Roche

  “What my grandmother needs,” cried Wakefield, “is more room for scope!”

  When Finch — last of the family to appear and ravenous for food — beheld his grandmother, he stared open-mouthed. “Like a duck in a thunderstorm,” said Piers.

  “Why — why,” gasped Finch. “What’s it all about? What’s happened to Gran?”

  “It’s an enigma,” said Wakefield.

  Finch stood looking down on the bizarre figure in the hunting clothes, then he gave an hysterical giggle. He stared down at his grandmother, giggling, and, as she looked up into his face, she too began to giggle. The awkward boy, the old lady in her strange attire, made a picture irresistibly droll. Everyone began to explode in laughter. Adeline, with a shaking hand, set down her cup and saucer and gave herself up to laughter. Boney screamed with laughter.

  “Mamma’s face is crimson,” Ernest remarked, pulling himself together. “This is very bad for her.”

  “It must stop,” said Augusta, suddenly grave and rather ashamed of herself.

  “Mamma,” Nicholas said loudly, “control yourself.”

  “I can’t,” she gasped, her face now purple.

  They gathered about her solicitous — all but Finch, who held his aching side and appeared to be on the verge of hysteria.

  “Behave yourself, sir,” ordered Nicholas.

  “I can’t,” wailed Finch.

  “Renny, come and straighten up this young’un. He’s killing my mother.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Piers, and, taking Finch under the arms, ran him out of the drawing-room into the study and gently, carefully closed the door behind him.

  Augusta gave Dilly a look of deep reproach. She said — “I find nothing amusing in turning my mother into a figure of fun.”

  “You were laughing,” said Dilly boldly.

  Nicholas said — “We all were laughing and it’s time we stopped.” He bent over his mother and lifted the velvet cap from her head. The disordered hair released, she appeared once more as a very old woman. She still shook with what was now almost silent laughter. Meg came with smelling salts. Ernest drew with difficulty the heavy boots from her feet. Augusta came hastening with her dressing gown. The change was completed and now no more than a roguish smile lit her face.

  “Ha,” she said, “I haven’t enjoyed myself so — not in years! But now I want my tea and very hungry I am. Blackberry jam, please. And a muffin.

  Bless my heart, that was fun. Where’s Dilly?”

  The young woman, midway between feeling pleased with herself and being in disgrace, flew to the grandmother and embraced her. “What fun!” she cried.

  “Indeed ’twas fun. There’s nothing like a bit of dressing-up to pass the time.” And she made this remark as complacently as though she had all the time in the world to spare.

  Dilly swayed near Renny, her crinoline, though faded, still exhaling the perfume of a romantic past. She sought to transmit a shock of her desire into his body but he produced nothing for her but an ironic smile.

  As soon as Eden was able to get Renny apart from the others, he took the publishers’ letter from his pocket. “I had this today,” he said, trying to speak nonchalantly. “I thought you might like to see it.”

  He expected no sympathetic understanding and got none.

  Renny, after knitting his brows over the letter, remarked — “It’s brief enough. I can’t think they are much interested.”

  Eden said, heatedly — “You must understand, Renny, that publishers in a city like New York are busy people. They haven’t time to write a long screed to a new author. The point is that they are considering the poems. They may publish them.”

  “Hmph. I see that they think there are scarcely enough poems for a book.”

  “That’s nothing! I have others in my room.” Before he could stop himself he added — “I’m writing new ones every day!”

  “I’ll bet you are! When you ought to be studying.”

  “I don’t neglect my work.”

  “Come now!”

  “I go to lectures.”

  His brother’s eyebrows shot up. “You go to lectures — and you fill your notebooks with verse! It won’t do, Eden. Either you must put your back into your studies or give them up and help Piers with the horses and farm.”

  Eden said despairingly — “Can’t you understand what it means to me to have such encouragement.”

  “I do understand that it would be damn bad for you.”

  “Oh, Lord God,” cried Eden, and flung himself across the passage to Ernest’s room, where he and his uncle exulted together. By the time they had read the letter from Messrs. Cory and Parsons half a dozen times they were convinced that the publishers would not only produce the poems but that the book would make Eden’s name. He sat up half the night writing a new poem.

  As for Dilly, from that day she gave up her attempt to be come the mistress of Jalna. Lady Buckley and she shortly sailed for England, Augusta to return to her home in Devonshire and Dilly to the arms of her family. From there she wrote, before a month had passed, of her engagement to a cousin on her father’s side. In this letter (to Renny) she declared: “I am happier than ever before in this strange life of mine — devoted to my fiancé, but — I still think you are wildly attractive!”

  XXV

  NOTHING COULD BE FAIRER

  When the pleasure of meeting on the pond to skate was gone with the winter’s cold, Piers and Pheasant still contrived their secret meetings. He had become the very lodestar of her life, by whose light all that she thought or did illumined. Yet, strangely, the idea of marrying him had never entered her head. Marriage to her was something remote and romantic which one read of in books but did not contemplate for oneself. It was a subject, indeed, which she consciously put out of her mind because her parents had not been married, because Maurice Vaughan and Meg Whiteoak had not married, and because it was somehow her fault that they had not. It was enough for her that spring and summer lay ahead and that, in the warmth of the evenings, their meetings could be longer.

  On this early evening they had arranged to meet on the little rustic bridge that spanned the stream down in the ravine. The stream, in ardent relish of its freedom, moved swiftly between its moist banks, where, as yet, there was no growth but only drowsy promise. The air was charged with the sound of running water.

  Pheasant said — “What a delicious sound! I could listen to it all night. Yet I hate the sound of water running out of a tap, don’t you?”

  “I’ve never thought about it. But I guess the water out of a tap would be a good deal cleaner. Think of the frogs and eels and water-rats down there.”

  “Oh, I like to think of them.” Her face was almost passionately alight. “They’ve had such a long winter. They’re awake now — hopping and slithering and scuttling about — getting ready to —” She did not finish the sentence but leant over the railing, picturing those activities down below.

  He finished for her. “Getting ready to mate.”

  She raised her face to smile into his. “Oh, Piers, how exciting for them!”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “and for me too.”

  “You do like creatures, don’t you?” she exclaimed, pleased with him.

  “Oh, pretty well.... But I like you better.”

  “Naturally.” Again she leant over the rail.

  He looked at the back of her neck where a short brown lock he had found a nesting-place.

  “Why naturally?”

  “Because it seems only natural to like your best friend better than things that live in the water.”

  “What I mean is, you make so little of it.”

  Now she stood up straight and faced him, astonished. “I make little of it!” she cried. “Why, Piers, your caring for me is the greatest thing in my life.” Colour swept into her cheeks. “It’s the only thing in my life!”

  At these words an extraordinary change came over the scene. The chatter of the stream ceased and a strange breathless silen
ce enveloped them. The very colour of the trees changed, for the red sunset pushed the evening aside and burnished them to a new life, so that every needle on the pines seemed sharpened and polished. Suddenly the trunks of the bridge became painted figures on a screen. The only sound came from within, and that was the beating of their hearts. She was the first to speak. She whispered:

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why?” he wanted to know.

  “Because it wasn’t proper.”

  “Proper! Oh, Pheasant — don’t bring Mrs. Clinch into this.”

  Now he moved swiftly and took her in his arms. He said, into the soft hair that hid her ear — “I’m going to marry you, if you’ll have me.

  Will you?”

  “Yes, Piers.”

  Now the stream was in motion again, hastening, as though to make up for lost time, to tell their secret to the lake. They heard voices and the barking of dogs. They climbed the steep path to the little wood where they were safe.

  From this time they never missed a day for meeting. They were an engaged couple and Piers waited only for the propitious moment to declare the fact to the family. But it was hard to find that moment — hard to make up his mind to face the obstacles that he knew lay in his way. With the coming of spring the newly aroused force of his passion made him sometimes contemptuous of the others and he wanted to leap from his bed, arouse the household, and announce his engagement. But when morning came he wanted only to enjoy his love in peace.

  One morning Renny took him into his little office in the stables and remarked:

  “I hear that you’re meeting Pheasant Vaughan every day.”

  This was so unexpected that Piers could only mutter — “We meet pretty often.”

  “Why?” Renny shot the question at him; at the same time his mobile brows came down in a frown.

  Piers would have liked to answer — “Because I love her and am going to marry her,” but all he said was — “Well, there’s not much to do.”

  Renny said — “I suppose the time has come when you need a girl to go about with. But, Piers,” his eyes held his brother’s, “you can’t go about with Pheasant. You know why.”

  “It wasn’t her fault, was it?” Piers asked loudly.

  “No, but you’ll find out that in life the innocent often have to suffer.”

  “She won’t suffer through me!” His ready colour flamed.

  “What! Are you telling me that you have made her fond of you?”

  The words all but tumbled out of Piers — “Yes, she and I love each other. We’re going to be married.” But he did not speak. Only his angry blue eyes made response.

  “Is there anything between you two?” demanded Renny.

  Like a sulky boy Piers muttered his lie — “Nothing” — and hated himself for lying.

  Renny spoke almost soothingly now. “You understand that there can’t be, Piers — because of Meg?”

  “I expect I do — though it seems pretty hard.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “For years. Eden told me when I was only a kid.”

  “Well, it was a great pity things went wrong because the marriage would have been ideal for Meggie — and Maurice too.”

  “My God,” cried Piers. “Why couldn’t she forgive him?”

  “Meg’s not the girl to forgive that sort of thing. Then the Vaughan’s — Maurice’s parents — taking in the child made it worse. The child was the constant disgrace.”

  Hot love for Pheasant ran through Piers’s body, but he could not speak. Not yet. He could not face Renny in open rebellion. He would wait a little, save money (for Renny was paying him good wages), then, when the time was ripe, explode the bombshell. Nothing Meg might say or do could hinder him.

  Later he came to believe that he had not been afraid to tell Renny of the engagement but had deliberately planned its concealment till an appointed time. Now, in Renny’s office, he said:

  “I’m in no hurry to marry.”

  “That’s right,” said Renny. “Never fall for the first girl who attracts you. In fact you should wait your turn to marry.”

  “Good Lord!” Piers’s eyes opened wide. “I might never marry!”

  “What a catastrophe!” laughed Renny. Then he added seriously — “No, your type must not be lost from Jalna. You are the authentic Whiteoak. It’s up to you to breed, but see that you choose the right mate.”

  He felt that he knew how to handle Piers. He could see that the boy was pleased. He put his arm about Piers’s shoulders and added — “I’m not forbidding you to see Pheasant. Only you must not put ideas into her head. She’s a dear little thing and I don’t want to see her hurt. And understand — a marriage between you is impossible.”

  Piers thought — “There he goes — the autocrat — the Rajah of Jalna! Why do we knuckle under to him? He’s spoilt. He’s like Gran. Lord, I pity his wife when he brings himself to marry.”

  Yet the touch of that arm on his body, the magnetism that emanated from the eldest Whiteoak to every member of the tribe, inevitably drew him. Piers hung his head, his lips had a boyish pout, but then he raised his eyes to Renny’s and muttered assent. He even smiled in response to Renny’s pat of approval.

  After this he and Pheasant were more cautious in meeting, and this was made easier by an early spring. There were many quiet spots where young lovers could meet.

  Wakefield Whiteoak ran on and on, faster and faster. He was late for the one o’clock dinner, but he had had a good morning, his lessons at the Rectory with Mr. Fennel had gone well, from his point of view for he had escaped with no wearisome addition to his learning, which he considered already sufficient for any boy: he had had agreeable nourishment, in the form of lemon soda and sponge cakes, from the little shop of Mrs. Brawn.

  Glorious, glorious life! When he reached the field where the stream was, the breeze had become a wind that ruffled up his hair and whistled through his teeth as he ran. It was as good a playfellow as he wanted, racing him, blowing the clouds about for his pleasure, shaking out the blossoms of the wild cherry-tree like spray.

  As he ran, he flung his arms forward alternately like a swimmer; he darted off at sudden tangents, shying like a skittish horse, his face now fierce with rolling eyes, now blank as a gambolling lamb’s.

  It was an erratic progress and, as he crept through his accustomed hole in the hedge on to the lawn, he began to be afraid that he might be very late.

  He entered the house quietly and heard the clink of dishes and the sound of voices in the dining room. Dinner was in progress. No one paid any attention to Wakefield as he slipped quietly into his place, for a subject of great interest to all was being discussed.

  A collection of Eden’s poems was to be published in the fall and that by a well-known New York publisher. Dissension that was almost pleasurable, in that it was blown to exhilarating heat by a breath from the outer world, raged about the table. Meg was proud of the boy, yet fearful lest this success might take him away from home. Ernest too was proud of Eden, recalling the literary ambitions he himself had cherished. Nicholas pleased but judicial. Renny sceptical of Eden’s ability to earn a living by his pen, mourning the hard cash spent on Eden’s study for the law. Piers laughing at versifying, flaunting his own bucolic occupation. Grandmother bewildered, demanding explanation. Eden jubilant, angry, boastful, and sulky in turn.

  Now, standing alone on the drive, the warm sun on his back, the wind ruffling his hair, Eden recalled with a smile the scene that had followed. When he was with his family, how often they irritated and angered him. Yet, away from them, his appreciation of them was almost romantic. He would not have had them otherwise, from stormy-tempered old Gran down to little Wakefield. The time would come, he knew, when he would leave the family, the old house, behind him. He knew that his spirit could not be contained by Jalna. Yet he wondered, a little wryly, whether the outside word would inspire him to truer poetry than had sprung from him under this roof.... Yes, surely i
t would! His imagination pressed forward trying to foresee what lay ahead of him.... This coming summer he would go on a canoeing trip into the North. That, for a long while, he had wanted to do. In the fall he would go down to New York. Mystery beckoned there, the strangeness of an unknown country.

  He raised his arms above his head and stretched them, as though to break bonds. By that movement he roused the flock of pigeons sunning themselves on the roof. They swept upward with a whirring of wings, circled overhead, with feet tucked neatly beneath downy breasts and a show of blue and grey and buff to delight the eye, then sped, in playful panic, toward the woods.

  Eden saw that the Virginia creeper which covered the front of the house festooned itself over the porch was in tiny bud. The buds were rosy in the sunshine. Soon they would spread themselves in green leaf and, by the time they reddened in the fall, what might he not have done? His blood sang with the urge to live.

  Heavy footsteps clumped along the gravel drive. Then appeared Noah Binns, a spade over his shoulder. Eden could not stop himself. He said gaily:

  “Hullo, Noah. What do you suppose? I’m having a book published. A book of poetry!”

  Noah’s slate-coloured eyes did not light. He stopped, stared at Eden, and grunted — “Huh.”

  “Ever read poetry?” asked Eden.

  Noah shook his head. “No time fer such fiddle-faddle. I’m on my way to dig a grave.”

  “A grave,” repeated Eden, the light going out of his face.

  Noah thrust his spade into the gravel. “Aye, a grave. Two graves this week I’ve dug. It’s an unhealthy year.”