They righted themselves, released each other, Piers went upstairs to wash and Pheasant went to the kitchen to prepare the supper. Finch followed her, while Maurice kept the two small boys in the sitting room. Finch said:
“Doesn’t he look fine? Even though he’s a good deal thinner, he still looks pretty solid and handsome. I never expected to see him so solid and handsome. Did you?”
“No, I didn’t. And I never expected to feel like this.” Again she fell to weeping.
Finch put his arms about her and patted her on the back. “It’s natural, I guess. I feel like crying myself.”
In a few moments she was calm and set about making an omelette. Finch beat the eggs. He beat them so hard that flecks of egg fluff flew in all directions but Pheasant did not notice. Now her whole being was concentrated on the omelette. If it did not rise properly, or if it rose and fell, she could not bear it. She could not bear it. She would cry again! She heard him moving about in the room upstairs. Is he really there? Oh, it can’t be true! He can’t be home again! And all the while she concentrated on the omelette.
Piers sluiced the soapy water over hands and face. The soap was fine and scented. The towel was fine and damask. There were pink bath salts in a jar. There was the shining white enamel bath. The luxury of it was unbelievable. His mind flew back to the crowded room in the prison camp, the harshness, the only half-washed-away grime, the complete lack of privacy, the smells. He held the clean towel to his nostrils and drew a deep breath. Those at home would never understand. No words could make them understand.
He limped back to the bedroom. He looked down at the inviting whiteness of the bed, the bed coverings turned back in a neat triangle, ready for the night. From it rose the scent of lavender. The window of the room stood open. The cool night air, freighted with the smell of lilac, came in. It had been a mild winter but it had been cruelly persistent. All through March and April the weather had been that of a mild winter. No blade of grass had pushed its way through the ice that still sheathed the land. The ice had no longer glittered in the sun but had been grey under a cloudy sky. But, when May came, there had been scarcely any time for spring. Scarcely had the newly opened leaves of the lilac showed their shape when the flower buds threw open the tiny petals and formed themselves into white plumes that clustered, one above another, in great clumps. This lilac tree had grown from a cutting taken from the old white lilac that grew outside the window of the grandmother’s room at Jalna.
As Piers had buried his face in the damask towel, so now he put out his hand, drew in a plume of the lilac and hid his face in it. He closed his eyes. He would have liked to obliterate in the lilac’s fragrant freshness all he had seen and endured since he had left home. He would have liked to become again the same man he had then been. But he could not be the same. He felt that he could have remained with his face buried in the white blossoms till they faded and died. A twitter of nesting birds came from the eave.
“Daddy! Daddy!” called out Philip from below.
Daddy! To be called by that name! It went to his heart. The little voice made him feel soft-hearted. He limped quickly to the stairs, then descended them with care. Philip, waiting below, kept his eyes averted from his father’s leg as he had been told. He had had other warnings about Piers’ return. Try as she would, Pheasant had not been able to refrain from sometimes saying in exasperation, “I don’t know what Daddy will say to your behaviour!” Many a time Maurice had ejaculated, “If Daddy doesn’t skin you alive, when he comes home, I shall be surprised.” Even his great-uncles had declared that his father would warm his seat for him when he came home. So Philip had looked forward to his sire’s return with mingled delight and foreboding. To Piers, descending the stair, he looked the very best sort of little boy, with his straight back, his waving fair hair and fine blue eyes. Piers smiled at him, took his hand and led him into the dining room.
The omelette was on the table. It had risen to an amazing height and of an unbelievable lightness. It stood poised there, as though intimating that it could endure such height and such lightness for two minutes and no more. Piers stared at it and at the parsley wreathing it.
“what’s that green stuff?” he demanded.
“Parsley, Daddy,” laughed Philip. “Don’t you know parsley when you see it?”
Piers picked up a spray, sniffed it and thrust it into his mouth.
“Do you like it?” asked Nooky.
“I may get used to such things by and by.”
The omelette was swiftly disposed of. Maurice and Nooky carried out the plates and returned with a plump, cold roast chicken on a platter. Piers stared unbelievingly.
“what’s that?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Oh, Daddy, it’s a chicken!”
“And that funny mixture in the bowl?”
“Salad!”
“Hot-house tomatoes, if you please,” added Pheasant.
“Gosh, do you live this way all the time?”
“Heavens, no! Fetch the wine, Mooey, dear.”
Maurice brought the bottle of Chianti. Even the children had half a glassful each. Piers’ health was drunk and it was only by superhuman effort that Pheasant kept herself from crying again. After the chicken came a trifle, well soaked in sherry and, after the table was cleared, coffee.
Piers asked innumerable questions about the family, about the farmhands, the orchards, the stock, the show horses. His curiosity was boundless but he disappointed the two small boys by having little to say about himself and his experiences. Soon they were sent to bed and presently Finch left. A soft spring rain was falling. The scent of lilacs was heavy.
Maurice went outside and stood in the porch. He inhaled the damp air. His mind detached itself from this scene of his father’s homecoming and returned to the mossy dampness of the air of Glengorman. What had that stay in Ireland done to him? How was it that old Dermot Court seemed more near to him than his own father? Three years would pass before he might journey back and see that loved spot. His mother must go with him. She gave the reality of childhood to every scene. But she would not stay there with him. His life had been torn in half while it was yet tender. He heard Piers’ low laugh. He felt shy of re-entering the room. He went softly up the stairs.
It was past midnight before Piers and Pheasant followed him. They crept up the stairs softly, like lovers, holding hands. She went to the bathroom and prepared a hot bath for him. He lay soaking in it, half-dazed in an ecstasy of relaxation. On the old mahogany towel-horse that was always so ready to topple over, hung brand-new silk pyjamas, striped blue and white. Certainly Pheasant had made the money fly. And in the pocket of the jacket a linen handkerchief with scent on it!
He thought of how he had lain for a day and a night in a ditch with his foot blown off by a piece of shrapnel. He turned his mind fiercely away from all that had followed. Now one leg of the pyjamas dangled loose.
When Pheasant came back after closing the children’s windows against the rain which now slanted on a fresh wind, she found Piers in bed, lying on his back, his hair brushed smooth and wearing the sweet expression of a good boy after his bath. He smiled up at her.
“Come here,” he said.
She came and knelt down by the bed. He took her hands in his and his eyes lost themselves in the twilight depths of hers. “Little Pheasant,” he kept murmuring, stroking her hands.
She could not speak.
His expression changed. His lips stiffened into a look of pain. He placed her right hand on the stump of his right leg.
“Is it going to make you feel different toward me?” he whispered.
“Oh, Piers, how can you?” Her voice was hoarse from emotion. “How can you have such a horrible thought? The only difference it can make is that I’ll love you more!” She bent and pressed her trembling lips against the maimed limb. “My precious love!”
He said sternly, “I don’t mean because of any hero stuff. I mean because of my value — as a man.”
“That’
s what I mean too!” she cried, eagerly. “I mean as a man. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. You’re home again — safe! You’re yourself! Oh, if you knew the things I’ve imagined! I’ve imagined you as a shrunken shadow of yourself. And here you are — solid and healthy and beautiful as ever! what does a leg matter? Nothing!”
He lay watching her preparations for the night — the careful hanging up of her new dress, the brushing of her dark hair, the slipping of her white arms into the sleeves of her nightgown, her brief prayers which were just a wordless upsurge of thanksgiving, her turning out of the light which somehow brought the sound of the rain into the room. But the sound of the rain was benignant. Its voice was the voice of renewal. Lilacs were not enough, all the richer pageantry of nature was to follow. The movement of Pheasant in his arms, the movement of the branches outside his window, swept Piers’ mind clean. The night was long and toward its close he sank down, deeper and deeper, stilled by the benign sound of the rain, covered by the wings of sleep.
IX
DAYS OF SPRING
HE SAT THE next morning in an old grey flannel suit, on the little flagged terrace, basking in the warm May sunshine. Bacon and eggs, toast, marmalade and three cups of tea were inside him. His pipe was in his mouth, the smoke from it resting in blue oases on the quiet air. Only one thing was lacking to him — his wire-haired terrier, Biddy. She had been killed by a car the summer before. When Piers had looked forward to his homecoming, he had always pictured himself as encircled by a rapturous Biddy who had never forgotten him. He had been told of her death in a letter but this morning he missed her afresh. In his long years of imprisonment he had felt the lack of a dog’s companionship as one of the hardest to bear. Now, in the May sunshine, he puffed pensively at his pipe.
Steps came from the house and Pheasant appeared, followed by her three sons. She stood smiling down at Piers.
“Your birthday,” she said, “is a week off. But we are going to give you your present now because — it simply will not be quiet for another minute. Bring her out, boys!”
The two younger darted into the house and reappeared carrying a hamper in which something small and white was bestirring itself.
“Open and see, Daddy!” cried Philip.
Piers lifted the lid of the hamper which was now on his knees. A four-months’-old wire-haired puppy was inside, clean and white as a new toy, black-nosed, pink-tongued, ready, in its infant vitality, to bound out of the hamper.
“what do you think of her?” cried Nooky. “Mother and Maurice clubbed together and bought her. And Philip and I clubbed together and bought her collar.”
“We knew you’d miss Biddy so,” said Pheasant.
“She spent the night at Auntie Meg’s,” put in Maurice. “I’ve just been over to fetch her. I’m afraid she was pretty naughty. She made three puddles on the floor and kept them awake half the night whimpering.”
Piers said nothing. The puppy was in his arms, wildly licking his face, nibbling his nose, trying its best to turn itself inside out in its joy.
“Do you like her?” asked Philip.
“Like her!” exclaimed Piers. “Like her! why, if you had scoured the country over, you couldn’t possibly have found anything else I’d like half so well.”
“what shall we name her? It’s a she, you know.”
“She’s well bred,” said Maurice. “You must see her pedigree.”
“We’ll find a name for her,” answered Piers. He snuggled the puppy in his arms. He would not be parted from her for a moment. Her pliant, ecstatic little body was the final drop in his brimming cup of content. When, an hour later, they went in a body to Jalna, the puppy went too.
Finch and Alayne met them on the drive. They were waiting there to stop them from all going in together to see the uncles. It might be too exciting for them. Piers climbed out of the car, took Alayne by the hand, then kissed her cheek. She looked thinner, older, he thought. But he was glad to see her. God, how glad he was to see every single one of the family! As they stood talking on the drive, his eyes kept wandering from the faces of those clustered about him to stare at the old house, standing there serene, just as though nothing especial had been happening in the past four years. Then suddenly he saw Ernest’s face at a window of the drawing-room. Ernest threw open the window and called in a hoarse voice quite unlike his own:
“Piers! Piers — here we are! Come in at once!”
“Oh, go to them, darling!” said Pheasant.
Finch warned, “Don’t tell them any horrors or get them too excited.”
Piers stared. “Are they so delicate as all that?”
He limped hurriedly to the house. Yes, he thought as he stood before them, they did look fragile, very changed indeed. It took him a moment or so to feel at home with them. Poor old fellows — they’d obviously suffered a lot.
“Well, well, well,” said Nicholas, “so here you are! It’s a great day, Piers. It’s a great day for us.”
“Sometimes we wondered if ever we’d see you again,” said Ernest, his blue eyes wet with tears.
Nicholas added, with a deep sigh, “If only Renny were back again! And Wakefield! We still have them to worry about.”
“Don’t you worry about Renny,” said Piers. “Colonels generally come back.”
“Many are killed or wounded,” said Ernest.
“Yes, but they have a better chance. He’ll come back. Don’t worry.”
Ernest smiled. “You are right. We must just rejoice in the fact that you are safe.”
Nicholas looked Piers over. “You look fine. If three years in a German prison camp would make me look like that, egad, I’d try it!”
“And lose a leg?” laughed Piers.
Nicholas scowled at his gouty knee. “I’d give this one up and be glad of it.”
Ernest still held Piers’ firm hand in his. “Dear boy, you walk better than I had hoped for.”
“I’ll walk better when I get a better leg. Still, this one has served me pretty well.”
“Sit down between us,” said Nicholas, “and tell us about your life over there.”
Piers’ eyes drank in the familiarity of the room. The feel of the chair he drew up was as familiar as the feel of the hand that drew it. The suit worn by Nicholas was familiar. Surely that suit was ten years old!
“They’ve given me a puppy to take Biddy’s place,” exclaimed Piers. “Did you know? She’s a little beauty. I’ll bring her in and show you.”
“Yes, but not now,” said Nicholas. “Tell us about your life over there. The real truth, you know, not just what they’d let you tell in letters.”
Ernest looked nervous. “Yes, yes. I hope it wasn’t too bad.”
Piers smiled from one face to the other. “We had a good deal of fun,” he said. “Not always, of course. But funny things happened.”
He did not tell of the heart-breaking boredom, the lack of the most simple comforts of life, the crowding, the dirt. He told of the concerts they had put on, the jokes they had played on each other, the ribald stories. For all that they had been men of the world, Nicholas and Ernest never had heard stories quite so ribald as the ones Piers told them. They laughed till their sides ached. Finch heard the laughter and joined them. His loud laugh that always, when he had laughed with too much abandon took on an hysterical note, was added to theirs.
When he and Piers went outdoors again, Piers’ mouth was down at the corners. “Poor old uncles,” he said, “they’ll not last much longer. No one told me they were like this.”
“It’s been gradual,” Finch returned sadly. “I’d never noticed it quite as much as this morning when they were laughing so hard.”
Piers had to go down to the basement to see the Wragges, the wife even fatter and the husband even thinner than when he had last seen them. While he was there a shout came from Philip, “Auntie Meg and Patience are here, Daddy! Come — quick!”
Meg folded the brother with whom she had had many a quarrel but still loved deeply,
to her ample bosom. Patience kissed him shyly.
“How well you look!” said Meg. “Rested and well! But of course you’ve led a quiet, regular life. Patience and I have been through a terrible time. We’ve been thrown from post to pillar. I hardly know what a good night’s sleep is. You will find us sadly changed — living in a tiny house and doing our own work, except for a woman who comes in twice a week.”
“You look like a million dollars.”
She tried to smile wanly.
“I’m glad to hear it. But really, Piers, when I found I must sell Vaughanlands, I made up my mind to go through it with an iron resolve. I made up my mind to trouble no one with my worries.”
“Pheasant tells me you got a mighty good price for it.”
“How can she know its value!” Meg was indignant. “I sold it at a sacrifice. But don’t let’s talk of sordid things. Let us sit down and talk about you.”
They sat down in the old lawn chairs, worn by the wind and weather to a greyish brown. Pheasant and Alayne had gone into the house. Now Patience, given a look by Meg, went with Piers’ sons toward the stables. Meg sat between her brothers.
“I don’t call selling a property for a good price, sordid,” observed Piers.
“All money dealings seem sordid to me,” said Meg. “They have a way of bringing out the meaner side of human nature. Not that I ever have allowed material things to influence me.”
Finch looked at her admiringly as she uttered these words but Piers’ eyes were fixed on a rotund little cloud just above the tree tops. He had a sore feeling inside him and he could not have explained just why it was. Then he recalled the faces of the two old uncles, their looks so aged since he had seen them last.
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 12
