V
THE EVENING
The two figures crossed the ravine, the man and the young girl, breaking the crust of the snow, sinking to their calves in the soft snow beneath. They went through the ravine, stopping on the bridge that spanned only snow, the stream’s way traced by bending bushes and the dry stalks of cattails. Renny said:
“I remember when I first carried you down here as a baby and you were so excited to see the running water that you almost jumped out of my arms.”
“what fun! I wish I could remember it. Isn’t it strange how this little stream and the bridge across it are so much a part of our lives?”
“I’m glad you feel that way about it.”
“Oh, yes. I can’t imagine the time when you and I will not stand on this bridge together.”
“Yet some day that time will come.” He gave a little laugh, at the same time holding her hand tightly in his, as though to deny the possibility of such a parting.
“Never!” she said emphatically. “I’ll not let it.”
She raised her face to his, the flesh both rosy and cold. He smiled down at her. “You have great faith in yourself.”
“Daddy, don’t you believe that, if you wish things strongly enough, you can make them happen?”
“We’ll try it,” he said. “We’ll make a pact. We’ll wish that spring will come and the stream will run again and that Mr. Clapperton will fall in it with all his winter clothes on.”
“I was being serious,” she said.
“So am I.”
“All right then. Let’s hope he drowns.”
They laughed together at the thought of Eugene Clapperton floundering in the stream which, at its highest, was never more than two feet deep. They saw coming toward them through the ravine the figure of a man, tall, a little bent, with a gentle, hang-dog expression and an ingratiating smile.
“who is the fellow?” asked Renny.
“He’s Mr. Clapperton’s new man — Tom Raikes. He’s a nice man.”
He came closer now and they saw that he carried a gun. He carried it with an air that seemed to say nothing on earth would induce him to fire it.
Renny said, — “You know I don’t allow any shooting about here.”
Raikes answered, in a soft Irish voice, — “I do know that, sir. I was only after the rabbits on Mr. Clapperton’s place. I had no luck at all.”
“what are you doing here?” Renny asked abruptly.
“Just taking a stroll. I hope you don’t mind.” He looked at Adeline and smiled shyly. “Miss Whiteoak and I had a little talk one day, and she kindly gave me some advice about pigs.”
“Pigs!” Renny stared in astonishment.
“I know quite a lot about them,” said Adeline stoutly.
“Yes, indeed,” continued Raikes. “Mr. Clapperton, he thought that perhaps I didn’t understand rearing the young ones in this country, but surely it would be the same here as in Ireland.”
“How long have you been out?”
“Six years.”
“Farming?”
“Well, no, sir. Not till I came to Mr. Clapperton’s. I’ve worked at a good many jobs. But I farmed for years in Ireland.”
“what’s the matter with the pigs?”
“It’s the young ones, sir. They all died.”
Renny clicked his tongue. “Too bad. Perhaps you’ll have better luck next time. And, if you want advice, go to my brother. He’s lucky with pigs.” He was turning away when the man spoke again.
“Mr. Clapperton,” he said, “has bought the land on the other side of Jalna.”
Renny wheeled. “The Blacks’s little farm?”
“That’s it. About sixteen acres. He’s going to build something there. I don’t know what.”
“I hope it is not going to be more bungalows,” said Adeline.
“I think not, miss. I think it’s just as a speculation.”
Renny’s brows drew together in a frown. He was silent a moment, then he asked, — “where do you live?”
“In Mr. Clapperton’s house, sir. I’m unmarried. Good evening.” With a bow he moved away through the ravine, the gun drooping in his hand.
“Isn’t he polite! And they say he’s a good worker,” Adeline exclaimed as they mounted the steep path toward the house.
“Yes. I wish I might have got hold of him first. Good men are scarce.”
“Perhaps he’ll get tired working for Mr. Clapperton. I can’t imagine any man wanting to stay with him. Their D.P. cook is going to leave because she found a white mouse in her bedroom. Althea simply can’t keep her pets under control, and Mrs. Clapperton is always on her side.”
In the house Renny found Alayne in her bedroom. She was sitting by her dressing table tidying the contents of a small drawer. The light from under a pale green lampshade fell over her, the cool profile, the silvery hair. She had the beauty of a cameo, he thought. She was past fifty but he could not get used to that silver head. He wanted it still to be gold. She turned and smiled at him, yet asked a little anxiously:
“How did the interview go? I hope you were able to keep your temper.”
He grinned. “No. I just told him that, for very little, I’d shake him by the weasand.”
“Renny!” she cried aghast. “How could you use such language to him! why, you’ve probably made an enemy of him for life and everything has been comparatively peaceful between you since his marriage.”
Renny smiled tranquilly. “He doesn’t know where his weasand is, I’m sure of that.”
“Nevertheless,” Alayne spoke with what Renny called her schoolmistress air, “he will not relish the thought of being taken by it.”
“His latest is the purchase of the Blacks’ place.”
“Oh, well … that can’t interfere with us — no matter if he does build bungalows on it. There are the fields and woods between.”
“Everything matters that spoils the surrounding country. It’s the same everywhere. Corporations and speculators hate beauty. What they really enjoy is to cut down magnificent old trees to widen roads so that there can be more motor traffic — I’d blast every car from the face of the earth if I had my way.”
She was astonished. “Yet you are very pleased with your new car.”
“I know. But, if they were all blasted off the earth, I’d not need one.”
She laid down the bright-coloured scarf that she was folding. It was always a pleasure, he thought, to watch Alayne handle things — surely few women had such pretty wrists.
“I dropped in at Bell’s on the way home,” he said, “and Adeline followed me there. Bell admires her greatly, you can see that. Poor devil — I believe he’s in love with her.”
Alayne said coolly, — “He’s a very foolish man if he imagines that Adeline is interested in him. She’s not interested in any man but you.”
Renny tried not to look too pleased. “Do you think so? Well, she is fond of me. She’s a good child. You must acknowledge, Alayne, that she gives no trouble at all, considering that she’s the very spit of Gran. Why, when Gran was her age she had half a dozen fellows after her. Her mother was almost distraught. Gran told me so.”
“Your grandmother did not adore her father, as Adeline does you. I have a feeling that, when she does fall in love, it won’t be an adolescent affair. I only hope it won’t be the wrong sort of man.” She had finished tidying the drawer and now decisively shut it while adding, — “But I expect he will.”
Renny laughed. “You are pessimistic, aren’t you?”
“Well, things usually turn out that way with girls.”
“You mean they turned out that way with you?”
A small secret smile was her only response.
He said, — “I’ll wager your parents would have looked on me as the wrong sort of man.”
“Auntie didn’t.”
“No — bless her heart!” Tender recollection softened his features, but they hardened as he added, — “In spite of all she’d heard against me.�
��
How could he refer to that terrible time when she had left him, as she thought, forever, to live with that elderly aunt in her house outside New York? She turned to face him, her eyes bright with anger.
“Renny, how can you?”
“Well, it’s all in the past.”
“Then don’t let us have painful resurrections.”
“what I said was that your aunt liked me, in spite of all she’d heard against me.”
Alayne gave an ironic smile. “All you had to do was to expend a little of your fatal charm on her.”
“Charm is the last quality I thought I had.”
“Oh, you’ve masses of it where women are concerned.” She paced up and down the room trying to calm herself.
“There’s one thing certain. Since that time you have nothing to accuse me of.”
“Do you expect me to compliment you on not having affairs with women?”
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, irascibly. “How did we get to this point?”
“We got to it through no will of mine.”
He took her hand. “Alayne,” he said, trying to make her look at him, but she drew sharply away.
“You’re determined to be angry,” he accused her.
“Please leave me for a while.”
“Very well.” He spoke with baffled resignation. “Though I don’t know what this is about.” He went to the door and stood there with his hand on the knob, hesitating, thinking that, if he left her now, their next meeting would be embarrassing. She pretended that his physical presence was no longer in the room. She took the pins from her hair and let its silken silver mass fall about her shoulders.
“Do you still want me to go?” he asked.
“Yes.” She began to unbutton her blouse to get herself ready for the evening meal.
He left, closing the door quietly behind him, and crossed the passage into his own room now palely lit by moonlight. He stood by the window looking out at the shapes, so familiar to him, even in the mysterious distortion of this light. “Fifteen years ago,” he thought, “and still she can get so upset over it.” He began to whistle, — “A hundred pipers and a’.” He had left the door of his room open behind him and the clear clean insistence of his whistling came to Alayne’s ears. This tune was singularly irritating to her. It seemed to meet itself at the finish and begin all over again, in endless possibilities of repetition. Subconsciously it was comforting to him. He drew a good breath and the whistle came more loudly. It was as though the hundred pipers, with swinging kilts, advanced through the ravine.
Rags, now sixty-five, and more bent than any man has a right to be at that age, began a muffled beating on the gong in the hall below. Renny went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He heard Ernest coming very slowly up the stairs. With hands half dried he went to meet him, putting an arm about his waist and almost carrying him.
“Thank you, dear boy,” said Ernest panting. “I find the stairs trying.”
“Tell you what, Uncle Ernest, I’m going to have a lavatory put in downstairs, next spring, for you and Uncle Nick.”
“Ah, that will be nice! I cannot think of anything I should like better.”
At the top Renny said, — “I shall wait here and take you down again.”
“Thank you, dear boy.”
They were about to descend when Alayne appeared from her room. Ernest made her a little admiring bow. “How nice you look, Alayne!”
She smiled at him, avoiding Renny’s eyes that were bent on her. She went down the stairs ahead of them, hearing their slow progress behind. Ever since she had come to this house, she thought, she had seen very old people moving through that hall. First Renny’s grandmother who had lived to be a hundred, and now her two sons who seemed likely to achieve an equal age. And always there had been Renny at their side, accommodating his vigorous step to the creeping step of extreme old age, behaving as though all this burden were a pleasure to him; and yet how little it took to chafe him in other ways. His attitude toward all these ancients was admirable, she granted that, but for herself she sometimes felt suffocated. Even more of a strain, she thought, were those who were too young — Adeline, Dennis, and, when they were home from school, Roma and Archer. Piers’ little girl came every second day and was a spoilt child. Too many of those at Jalna, Alayne thought, were either too old or too young. She herself would not see her fiftieth birthday again — almost half her life had been spent at Jalna. For an instant the two moving slowly behind her faded from her consciousness and, in their place, she saw herself as she had first come under this roof — dead Eden’s bride — they two running lightly down the stairs together, hand in hand. For an instant she saw the light gleaming on Eden’s hair, heard his voice so clearly she wondered Renny did not raise his head to listen. But looking up from below, she saw his head bent as he guided his uncle’s steps. “Steady, now — steady,” he was saying. How happy she had been in those far-off days, and of how short duration had been that happiness. How far too soon her passion for Renny had, like a brilliant-hued, formidable plant, thrust aside the fragile flower of her love for Eden! And how still he was the lodestar and centre of her thoughts! How still the sight of his sculptured head, the line of his neck and shoulders as he descended the stair, moved her! He was saying, — “I weigh within five pounds of what I weighed the day I was married” — and Uncle Ernest was replying, — “Ah, you and I are not the sort to lose our figures. Now I weigh …”
Uncle Nicholas was heaving himself out of his chair with creakings and gruntings. She could not bring herself to go to his help. But he arrived safely at the door of the drawing-room without aid and gave her his warm, masculine smile. “He must have been a charmer when he was in his prime,” she thought, and went to him and linked her arm in his, but not with ostentatious helpfulness. He took hers, almost with the air of assisting her, and managed to straighten his back. “Been sitting too long,” he grunted.
Renny met them. “I was just coming to give you an arm, Uncle Nick,” he said, and his eves moved warily to Alayne’s face. It was set forward, ignoring him.
“We don’t need your help, do we, Alayne?” said Nicholas. He sniffed the appetizing smell in the dining room. “My, how nice!” he exclaimed. He moved zestfully toward his chair.
Adeline had placed the chipmunk carved by Bell in the centre of the table beside the silver dish of apples and grapes. The little creature, poised in an attitude between fright and daring, seemed about to drop the acorn he held to his breast and dart across the table.
“Very pretty, very pretty indeed,” said Ernest, leaning forward to look and dribbling riced potato from his trembling fork.
“A clever fellow, that young Bell,” agreed Nicholas.
Renny said, — “Bell likes Clapperton just about as well as we do. He’s a shy fellow, you know, and whenever Clapperton meets him on the road he stops him and pours out a lot of unwanted advice. Some day Bell will be roused to the point of telling him to mind his own business. I wish I might be there.”
The small chapped hand of Dennis was creeping across the tablecloth toward the chipmunk.
“Clapperton,” declared Nicholas sententiously, “is a horrid old humbug. He fancies himself as a lover of the countryside and doesn’t know one sort of tree from another.”
“He fancies himself as a lover of art,” sneered Ernest, “and you should see his pictures.”
“He’s gone into breeding pigs,” said Adeline, “and an entire litter has died. Raikes told me so. Raikes says he’s always interfering with the feeding.”
Alayne said, — “Mrs. Clapperton tells me that this new man is the best they’ve ever had. He has given them a feeling of security. I’m so glad, for they’ve had very bad luck.”
“Their D.P. is quite good,” put in Adeline, “though she hasn’t half a dozen words of English. She says ‘please’ and ‘can’t do,’ and ‘want to go home.’”
“Poor thing,” said Alayne.
The small hand reached t
he chipmunk. Dennis drew it to him in an ecstasy of pleasure and snuggled it beneath his chin.
“Now, sir,” said Ernest, with his clear blue eyes fixed on Dennis.
Dennis wriggled in the joy of possessing the chipmunk. He defied Adeline, clutching it tightly.
“Drop it,” she said, and uncurled his fingers. She set the chipmunk back in its place.
“Very annoying habit children have,” observed Nicholas, picking up the little animal, “of always wanting to handle things.”
“They should be taught better when they’re very small,” said Ernest.
“I have never known a child,” Alayne spoke in a detached tone, “so given to handling as Dennis.”
The little boy bent his head, turning his gaze inward, considering himself.
“I had a letter today,” said Renny, “from Finch.”
Dennis was alert to the name of his father.
“He’ll be coming home soon. Says he needs a rest. I expect that concert work takes a lot out of him. But then he’s the sort of chap that any sort of work takes a lot out of. He is not like the rest of us.”
“Favours his poor mother,” said Nicholas, mumbling on a bit of gristle.
“Do I favour my poor mother?” asked Dennis.
“You do and you don’t,” answered Ernest.
“If I gave you that answer would you call it straightforward?” asked Dennis.
Renny chuckled. “He’s got you cornered, Uncle Ernest.”
Unperturbed Ernest replied, — “The obligation to be straightforward ends at seventy, Dennis.”
“It will be nice to see Finch,” said Alayne.
“why do people always come home when they’re tired?” asked Dennis.
Ernest eyed him repressively. “You finish your pudding, my boy, and stop asking questions.”
“How can I learn if I don’t ask questions?”
The eyes of the two great-uncles were on him. He subsided but his hand stole toward the chipmunk.
“It’s a curious thing,” said Renny, “how all my younger brothers but Piers had a bent for the artistic. There was Eden — a poet.”
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 48
