The three about the table showed little physical resemblance to each other, but there was a resemblance that was visible to the most casual observer. It was the likeness of people who have lived identical lives since birth. The thought of being separated, one from the other, would have been terrible to them even while they were filled with curiosity for the outer world. The journey from Wales to the fox farm had been their one adventure.
Though the table was round, the dignity of a place at its head was given by the presence of the teapot in front of Althea, the eldest, a silvery-fair girl in her middle twenties. At first sight she looked very thin till it was seen that her bones were unusually small. She wore an attractive dress of a light green colour which was in contrast to the careless, almost shabby attire of her sisters, both of whom were eating much more heartily than she.
Gemmel, the one next to her in age, had a pale, pointed face, wide at the temples, with large greenish-blue eyes and lively dark hair. The dominant expression of her face was an almost ruthless interest in those about her. The circle of her activity was small, for she had been unable to walk since early childhood because of a fall. Her hands were supple and very strong. By means of them, half-sitting, half-kneeling, she propelled herself about the house.
Garda, the youngest, was a sturdy girl of twenty, with rosy cheeks and childlike eyes, but she had a temper. She was by far the strongest of the three and took it as a matter of course that she should do the rough work. Between times of working she was indolent, loved her bed, and had to be routed out in the morning. In the early hours Althea wandered through woods and fields, secure in the thought that she ran little risk at that time of meeting her neighbours, for she was restrained by an unconquerable shyness.
Now Garda exclaimed, “It does seem unfair, Althea, that you should be the only one of us who can wear Molly’s clothes. Look at that lovely dress you have on and no one to see you!”
“If you weren’t so greedy,” returned Althea, “you mightn’t be so fat.”
“I’m not fat! It’s you and Molly who are so tall and thin.” She buttered another piece of bread.
“I’d gladly give you the dress if you could get into it.”
“I know you would but it’s hopeless. Nothing that Molly casts off will fit me. I might as well eat and be merry.”
Gemmel broke in impatiently. “Do let’s stop talking about clothes and talk about the Whiteoaks. To think that you’ve had three encounters with them today, Garda! Now begin at the beginning and tell all over again.”
“Goodness, I shall be tired of the very name of Whiteoak!”
“Rubbish! Now which was it you met first?”
Garda, with an air of resignation that did not conceal her gusto for the recital, began, “It was Mrs. Piers Whiteoak. I was coming from the village with my arms full of packages when she overtook me in her car. She was on her way from the railway station. She’d been seeing about a large shipment of apples. She had her eldest son with her. He’s home from Ireland, you know.”
“We ought to,” laughed Althea. “We’ve heard of him a dozen times in the past month.”
“Oh, I wish I might see him!” Gemmel drew a long sigh. “He must be sweet. How old do you say he is?”
“Seventeen. But he seems older. He has what I call polished manners.”
“And they gave you a lift?”
“Yes. Oh, she’s so happy to have him home again! And she’s heard that next spring there will be an interchange of prisoners and her husband may be returned. Her eyes shone when she told me that. I asked Maurice where he was going to school and he said they were looking about for a tutor to prepare him for the university. He is to be in Canada till he is twenty-one and then he is going back to Ireland.”
“He has lots of money,” said Gemmel. “Owns a mansion and large estate.”
“Don’t interrupt. When he goes back his mother is to go with him for a long visit. She’s dying to see his place. You can see that she adores him.”
“what a pity he’s so young!” exclaimed Gemmel. “You might marry him, Garda.”
“I’m not so old as all that.”
“Seventeen and twenty! Let’s see! when he goes back to Ireland he’ll be twenty-one and you twenty-four. No, it wouldn’t be impossible. Especially as he is old for his years and you young for yours.”
“So you want to be rid of me!”
“No, but it would be fun.”
“Well,” Garda went on, “she let me out of the car at our gate and I was just turning in through it when who should appear but Finch, with two dogs at his heels. He arrived only yesterday.”
“To think,” cried Gemmel, “that I wasn’t looking out of the window!”
“Never mind. He’s coming to see us.”
Althea flushed. “I’ll not see him.”
“You’re the one he wants to see. He asked after you at once.”
“Not after me?” Gemmel’s eyes were tragic.
“Yes. After you too. But he likes Althea best. It’s easy to see that. Well, we talked for a bit and he told me quite simply that he’s divorced.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Gemmel. “Would you marry a divorced man, Althea?”
“I would marry no one.”
“But you do admire him?”
“Yes.”
“He has such an interesting face,” said Garda. “He looks as though he’d experienced every emotion.”
“I should like to give him a new one,” said Gemmel boldly.
“It’s shocking to hear you, Gemmel,” Althea protested. “You sound positively brazen.”
Garda spoke soothingly. “She doesn’t mean it.”
Gemmel hunched her flexible shoulders and gave her reckless laugh. “Offer me the chance,” she said. She took a cigarette from her pocket, where she carried them loose, and lighted it. There was something impudent about her that caused her sisters to look at her half-disapprovingly, half-admiringly.
“I pity him,” said Althea, “for I think I’ve never seen a more selfish face than his wife’s.”
“She’s not his wife now.”
“People don’t forget cruel experiences, Garda.”
“But it makes them appreciate kindness all the more.”
“what else did he say?” asked Gemmel.
“He said he was very tired and so glad to be at Jalna again. He’s going to help with the work. They are filling the silos tomorrow. They have tables set out in the old carriage house. Quite a feast, he said. I can’t see him working. He’s every inch an artist.”
“Now then, tell us of the third encounter,” demanded Gemmel.
“Oh, how persistent you are!” exclaimed Althea.
“You enjoy gossip just as much as I do.”
“I know I do but I’m ashamed of myself for it.”
Garda continued, “The third encounter was with Mrs. Vaughan. I do like her. She’s so unaffected and so friendly. Finch had just left me when she came down the road. She was on her way to see her uncles and she was taking a jar of apple jelly to them. She seemed to think it would ease the blow she had in store for them. I’ve already told you what it is.”
“Yes, yes, but tell us again.”
“It is simply that she has sold Vaughanlands. The entire property. And to a Mr. Clapperton — a widower.”
“How marvellous!” cried Gemmel.
Althea gave a small derisive smile. “That she has sold Vaughanlands or that she’s sold it to a widower?”
“Both. A new neighbour to watch.”
“She has known for some time that she must sell it,” went on Garda. “She simply cannot run that big place alone. It’s going to ruin. But at the last she settled everything quickly. The papers are signed, the first payment made. She moves out at the end of the month.”
“where to, I wonder?”
“She would have liked to go to Jalna till the end of the war but she practically said that her sister-in-law, Mrs. Renny, is very difficult to get on with. Mrs. Pier
s tried to live there with her two little boys in the early part of the war but she had to give up and go back to her own house. So Mrs. Vaughan has bought a house on the road where the church is. It will be a sad change for her, she says.”
“Tell us about the widower,” said Gemmel.
“He’s a retired business man who has always wanted to live in the country — work in a garden, read books — that sort of man. Very nice, she says. Would it be proper for us to call on him, Althea?”
“Heavens, no!” She rose and began to collect the plates.
Gemmel watched her admiringly. “You are exactly like the drawings in fashion advertisements,” she said. “Impossibly slim and tall, with an impossibly lovely face. It’s a pity you’re so — whatever you are that makes you hate people.”
“I don’t hate people. I only ask to be let alone.” She carried the dishes to the kitchen. As though in defiance she began to sing.
“How that song takes me back to Wales!” exclaimed Gemmel. “Oh, we were happy there, weren’t we — when Father and Christopher were alive?”
“Be careful,” said Garda, “or you’ll make me cry.”
“You’re pretty too. You can do anything you want to do. I am the only one who has need to cry.”
Garda patted her on the back. “You are the happiest person I know, Gemmel. I often wonder why. And when it comes to faces, you have the most interesting one of the three of us. You could do anything — if you weren’t handicapped.”
Gemmel looked straight ahead of her, inhaling the smoke from her cigarette.
“I do very well,” she said.
IV
BREAKING THE NEWS
MEG HAD PRESENTED the pot of jelly to her uncles, been complimented on its colour and clearness. Now she sat down by the open fire and prepared to tell her news. But first she remarked:
“It seems so strange not to see three or four dogs stretched on the hearth as there used to be.”
“Yes,” Ernest agreed, “it does. But since old Merlin died, Alayne has been able to keep them, more or less, under control. The bulldog has taken up with Wright and spends most of his time in the stables. The sheepdog has a fancy for the kitchen. It’s a good thing too because the amount of mud he carries in on his long coat is extraordinary. He was actually ruining the rugs. I think Alayne is quite right to encourage them to keep out.”
“I miss them,” growled Nicholas.
“So do I, Uncle Nick. And so I’m sure will Renny when he comes home, if he ever does come home, poor darling. I sometimes doubt it.”
Nicholas shifted in his chair. “He’ll come home, all right,” he muttered.
Meg drew a deep breath and plunged into her disclosures.
“He will find other changes too. For one thing, he will not find me at Vaughanlands.”
Her uncles stared at her speechless.
“I have sold it,” she said, dramatically. “Lock, stock, and barrel. To a Mr. Clapperton.”
The two men repeated in one voice, “Sold it!”
“Yes. Sold it. Now don’t say I have done this without consulting you, because I have been talking of selling ever since poor Maurice died. You all have known that it’s impossible for me to run the place alone. Every year it’s got harder. Every year I’ve had a greater loss. Three days ago an agent brought this Mr. Clapperton to see me. He is a widower, a retired business man. His wife hated the country but he loves it. He longs to settle down and live a quiet country life, breed prize stock. That sort of man, you know. He just wants something he’s never had. He has plenty of money. He’ll pay cash. Now shouldn’t I be foolish to stay on in that big house? Some day Patience will marry. I shall be left alone.” A pathetic quaver came into her voice.
“But where will you go?” asked Ernest.
“It seems providential.” She smiled, though tears were in her eyes. “The old Pink house is for sale. The house where that awful Mrs. Stroud lived, after the last war. They’re asking a ridiculous price for it but nothing is cheap nowadays. It’s a good time to sell.”
“what are you getting for Vaughanlands?” asked Nicholas.
She hesitated. She hated to tell. Not that her family would resent her getting a good price. They would rejoice. But — she hated to tell. However, she said quietly:
“Fifty-five thousand dollars.”
“whew!” exclaimed Nicholas. “Quite an advance since pioneer days when the first Vaughan bought it.”
“Think of all that has been spent on the estate! Think of the amount of land!”
“I know. I know. Well, I shall try to be glad for your sake, Meggie. But it will seem queer to have a stranger at Vaughanlands.”
“But he is so nice, Uncle Nick. All he wants is peace and quiet and books and a garden and prize stock. It’s quite touching to hear him talk.”
“How old is he?” asked Ernest.
“Between fifty and sixty. Very well dressed. Very carefully dressed. Quite immaculately turned out.”
“Humph,” growled Nicholas.
“Meggie,” said Ernest, “I am hurt that you should have done this without consulting us.”
“Uncle Ernest, I dared not wait to consult you. Mr. Clapperton had another place in mind. He was wavering between the two. I might have lost him.”
“Well, I hope he’ll be a nice neighbour.”
“He will. Never doubt that. I should say that he’s the very personification of a nice neighbour.”
At this moment Alayne came into the room. She had been aware that Meg was with her uncles and had given them time for conversation before entering. Now she was told of the sale of Vaughanlands and the proposed purchase of the small house. She congratulated Meg. She thought she had done well for herself and for Patience. They talked more congenially than was their custom.
“It will be a great relief to you,” Alayne said. “I know what a burden these large places can be.” She gave a sigh and clasped her hands tensely in her lap.
The three Whiteoaks bent looks on her that made her feel an outsider in spite of her twenty years’ residence among them.
“Do you consider Jalna a burden?” Ernest asked, in a hurt tone.
“We have been at our wits’ end to keep things going since the war, haven’t we?”
“We have. But when the war is over there will be plenty of help. Renny and Piers will be home.”
“If ever they come home, poor darlings,” said Meg.
“How can you say such a thing!” exclaimed Alayne. “It is only the thought of their coming that makes it possible for me to keep things running.”
“They’ll come. They’ll come,” said Nicholas. “And it can’t be too soon for me.”
“Or for me,” declared Meg. “I don’t want them for what they can do, but just for themselves. Now that I have lost Maurice I yearn more and more for them.”
Ernest laid his hand on hers. “Poor girl, you have had a hard time. Now do tell us more about this Mr. Clapperton. I do so hope he will be a congenial neighbour.”
The talk circled round and round Mr. Clapperton and Meg’s plans for the future. She had barely gone when Rags entered, with an air of importance.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but I ’ave to tell you that the oil ’eater ’as gone off. I can’t do nothing with it. Shall I telephone for the repair man to come out?”
“Oh, Rags,” Alayne spoke despairingly, “can’t Wright do anything to make it go?”
“Naow, ma’am. Wright’s ’elpless as I am. I expect there’s a fuse blown out.”
“That oil heater,” said Nicholas, “is a pest. I sometimes wish you never had had it installed, Alayne.”
“You must acknowledge,” she returned, “that the house has had a more even temperature than ever before. You have said repeatedly how comfortable it has made every room.”
“I know. I know.” Nicholas spoke testily. He did not like to be reminded, as Alayne so often reminded him, of what he had said on another occasion. “But it’s always getting
out of order. Do you remember the three days of last winter when it was zero weather and we had no heating?”
“That I do, sir,” said Rags. “And a quite bad cold Mr. Ernest caught.”
“what I most object to,” observed Ernest, “is that it keeps the drawing-room and library so warm that we no longer feel the need for the grate fires. They were undoubtedly cheerful.”
“We still often have one in the evening.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same as when one comes downstairs in the morning and sees a blaze crackling on the hearth.”
Rags spoke with that unctuous quality which Alayne detested, in his voice. “It was indeed cheerful, sir. And I never grumbled at carrying the coals or wood, did I?”
“Indeed you didn’t.”
Alayne rose abruptly. “I must go to the children,” she said. “They will come to the table without washing unless I oversee them.”
“Speaking of the children, ma’am,” said Rags, “I have a note ’ere from Master Archer’s teacher. I met her on the road and she ’anded it to me.”
“why didn’t you give it to me before?” asked Alayne.
“W’y, ma’am, I should think you’d know. Everything was knocked right out of me ’ead by the behaviour of that there oil ’eater.”
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 5
