Читать книгу Variable Winds at Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 5

I

The Coming of the Lover

ALAYNE TURNED FROM the mirror to Renny. “Do I look all right?” she asked, with an odd little smile, as though she deprecated her interest in her appearance at this moment. And she added, “Not that he’ll have any eyes for me.

Renny moved back a step to have a better look at her. It had been a distress to him when her beautiful hair, very fair, which she had worn long, had, in the space of a few years, turned silvery white. He had always admired her hair. He had liked the way it flew up, following her hairbrush, not wavy but so full of life. For a time he had avoided looking at the white hair, as though it were some kind of disfigurement that had descended upon her. People had remarked how distinguished she looked with that silvery French roll up the back of her head, but he still had looked the other way. Then one day, less than a year ago, she had suddenly appeared before him with her hair cut short and curled all over her head. He had given her an outraged look — how had she dared have her hair cut without consulting him? Then he had looked again, had been impressed by the charm of her new aspect, the jaunty look which never in her young days had she worn. He liked it, and, with his eyebrows still expressing outrage, he had given her a grin of approval.

Now he said, “He’ll have eyes for you all right. A man usually takes a good look at his future mother-in-law.”

She gave a shrug of impatience. “Don’t say that, please. This affair may well fade into nothing before he’s been here a week.”

“Not if I know Adeline.”

“Renny, how can you know her, any more than she can know herself? She likes to think she is the reincarnation of your grandmother — a woman of one great love — but remember how young she is. Twenty!”

“Would she know better if she were twenty-five?”

“Certainly.”

“Did you?”

Alayne flushed. “You need not have reminded me of that,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Only to remind you that the great age of twenty-five is not always infallible.”

She put a hand on either side of his head, drew it down, and kissed him. She said, “When I met you I could not help myself.” She turned then and began briskly to tidy the things on her dressing-table.

He looked at his watch. “The train is due,” he said, then added, with a touch of chagrin, “Funny Adeline didn’t want me to go with her to meet him.”

“I think it was only natural. Those first moments together w ill be something just for them. Perhaps a little embarrassing, and an outsider would have made it worse.”

“Me an outsider!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

“You’re outside their love.”

“I wish to God,” he said, “that Adeline had fancied someone I know. One thing is certain: she can’t go back to Ireland with him. He’ll have to settle down here.”

“That’s what he wants, he says.”

Staring out of the window, Renny said, with his back to her:

“Alayne, for some reason I suspect this Fitzturgis. I can’t bring myself to like the thought of him.”

She made a little ironic sound against her lipstick. “You’d feel just the same about any man Adeline was engaged to.”

“No. I deny that. I shouldn’t feel like this if it were Maurice.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Maurice is her cousin — one of the family. I do believe that if you had your way all the cousins would marry each other. How would it end? With inbreeding. You don’t do that with livestock, do you?”

He argued, for the sake of arguing, “There’s something in knowing the background of one’s son-in-law.”

“Well, Adeline has told us quite a lot about him. His mother is a garrulous widow — his sister rather odd — his land unproductive.”

“Are you trying to reassure me?” Renny exclaimed.

“It’s just my pessimistic way.”

“You don’t relish this any more than I do!”

She was silent a moment and then answered, “I think Adeline is terribly vulnerable.”

He did not like this conception of their daughter.

“She is made of good stuff,” he said.

“Of course she is, but she’s very inexperienced; and this Fitzturgis — well, you know what he’s been through.”

“Married and divorced, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Renny gave a sudden bark of laughter. He said, “Think how inexperienced I was! And you’d been married and divorced.”

He had known before he said this that it would annoy her but had not been able to stop himself.

“It’s in such bad taste,” she said. “That’s what I mind.”

“I never was in good taste, was I?” he grieved.

In a tone of the most extreme politeness she said, “I think we had better go downstairs. It will be easier to meet them there, don’t you agree?”

“I agree to anything,” he returned.

She looked at him coolly. She thought: “You are in one of your unashamed bad-boy moods, but you will find no response in me.” She asked, “Is Uncle Nicholas resting?”

“In bed. He wants Fitzturgis brought up to his room before he settles down for the night.”

“Dear me — I hope it won’t be too much for him.”

“Too much! Not a bit of it.” It was a part of his protectiveness towards his old uncle that he would not acknowledge the deterioration of his heart. He followed Alayne down the stairs to the drawing-room, where tea was laid. The windows were open and the summer breeze was warm.

Renny cast an appraising glance about the room.

“Everything looks shining,” he said, and put his nose into a bowl of roses.

Their son Archer came into the room. He was a tall boy of nearly sixteen, with a high forehead and clear light eyes. He hid his feeling of superiority toward almost everyone else beneath a retiring manner. He never smiled.

Now, looking over the tea-table, he remarked in his clear incisive voice, “I suppose we’re to starve while Adeline collects the Irishman.”

“Surely, Archer,” said his mother, “you wouldn’t have us begin without our guest.” She looked at him dubiously. She had fervently hoped that Archer would be like her father. Now ironically she found him rather too much like her father — an exaggeration of his less attractive qualities, with the gentleness, the politeness, left out, and in their place some disconcerting qualities of the Whiteoaks.

Archer said, “Probably by the time we’ve seen this Fitzturgis we’ll not want our tea.” Archer was a confirmed tea drinker, caring little for coffee, disliking milk, abhorring lemonade, ginger ale, Coca-Cola, and all soft drinks. Surreptitiously he had sampled the contents of every decanter on the sideboard and passed a cool judgment thereon, in favour of port wine.

In a moment of nervous horseplay Renny reached for his son, intending to ruffle his hair, but Archer eluded him, placing the tea-table between them.

Wragge, the houseman, appeared in the doorway. After thirty years in Canada his cockney accent still was crisp and confident. When he arrived, having been Renny Whiteoak’s batman in the First World War, he had looked old for his age. Now he looked young for it.

He said, particularly addressing Renny, which he invariably did as if no others were present, “I thought you’d like to know, sir, that the train ’as been ’eard to whistle.”

“Good,” said Renny, looking as though it were the reverse of good. “They’ll soon be here.”

A step was heard in the hall, and Wragge moved aside, with the air of making way for a personage, to allow Renny’s sister, Meg Vaughan, to enter. She was two years older than he, a stout widow of sixty-six, and in great contrast to him, for while her face was smooth and the curve of her lips retained the sweetness of her girlhood, his thin weather-beaten face was strongly lined, marked by endurance and fortitude, and his thick red hair that grew to a point on his forehead showed scarcely a grey hair, while hers was of a fine iron-grey and naturally curly. Her movements were slow, while his had an incisive swiftness. It was the same with their speech.

Now she said, “I simply could not resist dropping in to see the Irish fiancé. How excited Adeline must be! I’m sympathetic to her, you know, but …” She waited till Wragge was out of hearing, then added, “If only it might have been Maurice.”

“That’s just the way I feel,” said Renny, putting her into a comfortable chair.

She smiled at Alayne and put out a hand to Archer as though she would draw him toward her, but with a frosty glance he avoided it.

Meg said, noting Alayne’s expression, “I know I shouldn’t have said that in front of the boy. But you’ll forget what Aunty Meg said, won’t you, dear?”

“That is ‘lex non scripta,’” he returned, dropping into Latin in an irritating way he had. But it did not irritate his aunt and she exclaimed admiringly, “How clever Archer is! He picks up dead languages the way the other boys pick up slang.”

“You can say that again, Aunty,” said Archer.

“Archer!” reproved his mother. His father once more stretched out a hand to rumple him and again Archer eluded it.

Desultory talk prolonged rather than shortened the period of waiting. Renny Whiteoak consulted his watch every three minutes. Archer surreptitiously felt the temperature of the teapot. Meg sighed and remembered her personal worries. Alayne was the first to hear the approaching car.

It appeared now on the smoothly raked gravel sweep, and all four in the room peered from the shelter of the window curtains to have their first glimpse of the visitor.

“Oh, he’s good-looking,” exclaimed Meg in relief, for she attached much importance to looks, “but less tall than I had expected.”

Archer remarked, “A little short in the leg for the breadth of the shoulder.”

“A well-built fellow,” said Renny, his appraising glance moving swiftly from Fitzturgis to the glowing face of Adeline. She had waited two years for the coming of this man. That she should be happy in the reunion was what mattered above all else.

Happiness shone from the burnished copper of her hair to her light step as she led the way into the house. The spaniel, the bulldog, and the little Cairn terrier greeted the pair noisily in the porch. Fitzturgis bent to pat them and called each by name, for Adeline had so often talked of them and written of them. But, for all her glow of happiness, she was nervously excited too. Her pallor showed it and the swift glance almost of entreaty which she gave the group that now had come into the hall.

“Welcome to Jalna,” said Renny, shaking the young Irishman’s hand.

Meg, Alayne, and Archer in turn greeted him: Meg with warmth; Alayne with calm relief, for she liked his looks better than she had expected; Archer with suspicion.

“Did you have a good crossing?” enquired Meg.

“Almost too good,” answered Fitzturgis. “The Atlantic was much smoother than your lake.”

“And the railway journey — was it comfortable?”

“Fairly. But very long. And very hot.”

Alayne put in, “You must be quite ready for tea.” She moved to the tea-table, Archer close after her. He felt the teapot. He said, in a stage whisper, “He’d probably prefer whisky.”

Fitzturgis answered, “Thank you, but I like tea.”

Renny said, “I’ll go up with you to your room first.”

“Thanks. I should like to wash my hands.”

The two men, with a purposeful air, left the room.

“May I have my tea now?” asked Archer.

His mother, in desperation, poured it.

“Well,” Adeline demanded eagerly, “what do you think of him?”

“He’s most attractive,” said Meg. “Such a sweet smile. And something a little sad in him too.”

“I’m sure I shall like him,” Alayne agreed.

Adeline drew a deep sigh of happiness and relief. “I can scarcely believe it’s all over,” she said. “The waiting, I mean.”

“There are worse things than waiting,” said Archer, putting a third lump of sugar in his tea.

“Really, you are a pest, Archer,” Adeline said hotly. “What can you know about waiting?”

“I know about cold tea,” he returned.

Adeline asked of her aunt, “Why didn’t Patience come?”

Patience was Meg’s daughter, an only child, four years older than Adeline. But with her lived also the daughter of her dead brother Eden. To this younger girl, Roma, Meg was as a mother. She now answered for both girls:

“Patience thought it would be confusing for the young man to meet so many of us at once. Roma went off somewhere with her boyfriend.” A shadow crossed Meg’s face as she spoke, though she tried to look cheerful.

Adeline said, “It would not have been confusing to have Patience here. I do want her and Mait to meet.”

“He’d likely prefer Roma,” observed Archer.

“Archer, how can you say such things?” exclaimed Meg, hurt.

“Under a frivolous exterior I conceal a great deal of sagacity,” he returned.

“One thing you can’t hide is your conceit,” said Adeline.

He helped himself to a cress sandwich. “I don’t try,” he answered. “I have so much to be conceited about.”

Upstairs Maitland Fitzturgis had washed his hands and run a comb through his curly mouse-coloured hair. As he and Renny were passing the closed door of a bedroom Renny said, “In there is my Uncle Nicholas. You’ll meet him later. Goes to bed early. He’s very old.”

“He’s still living, is he?” Fitzturgis said as though surprised.

Renny stopped stock still to exclaim, “Do you mean to say that Adeline doesn’t mention him in her letters?”

“Now I come to think of it, she has.”

“I hope he takes to you,” Renny said doubtfully. “We set a good deal of store by his opinion here.”

“I shall look forward to meeting him.”

Hungry though she was, Adeline was too much excited to enjoy her tea. What for two years she had been straining toward had actually come to pass. There was her lover at Jalna, sitting among her own people — her mother pouring a second cup of tea for him — her father offering him a cigarette — her Auntie Meg giving him that sweet maternal smile. It seemed almost too good for belief. She was glad that there were not many of the clan present at this first meeting, and yet she was impatient for him to meet them all, to be approved by all and to voice his admiration of them to her. When Meg had gone and they stood alone together in the porch there came her first opportunity to ask:

“Do you like them — him — my father I mean mostly?”

“Very much,” Fitzturgis answered warmly. “I like them all.”

“Don’t you —” She found it difficult to find the words she wanted. “Don’t you think he’s — rather remarkable-looking?”

“Quite. But it’s your mother’s looks I admire. She must have been a lovely girl.”

“She was. She had beautiful fair hair. She’s an American — or was, before she was married to Daddy’s brother Eden and divorced — before she and Daddy married.”

He answered, almost absent-mindedly, “I know. Maurice, I think, told me when we first met…. A nice house, this. I like your trees. How old is the house?”

“It will be a hundred years old before long.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s not very old, I know, in your country. But here it is quite an age. We’re giving a party for the house on its centenary. Isn’t it wonderful to think that you and I will be here for it — together!”

His answer was to put an arm about her and touch her hair with his lips. “I can’t believe in it,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Soon you will,” she said happily. “At this moment nothing seems too good to be true. Everything seems possible…. Oh, Maitland, I don’t know how I lived through these two years.” She looked into his face, on a level with her own, trying to see him as others not emotionally bound to him would see him. She could not, but saw him only through the enamoured eyes of her first love.

His mind returned to what had been told him of her mother’s marriage to Eden Whiteoak. “Have you ever seen him?” he asked. “Your mother’s first husband?”

“I don’t remember him. He died when I was very small. He had a daughter, you know — by another marriage. That’s Roma. She lives with Auntie Meg.”

“You’ve something against her, haven’t you?” he asked abruptly.

“Goodness, no.” Then she added, just as abruptly, “Yes, I have. And you may as well know it. Now, at the beginning, before you meet them all.” She took his hand and led him down the steps of the porch, across the lawn and along the path toward the stables. “I’ll tell you as we go to see the horses,” she said, “and then — no more about it.”

He sniffed the sweet-smelling air. “What a lovely spot!” he exclaimed.

Gratified, even more than if he had praised her, Adeline said, “Isn’t it! We’re thankful that Jalna isn’t near the development schemes. And with five hundred acres we’re pretty safe.”

“What about Roma?” he asked, as though the subject fascinated him.

“Well, you’ve just heard about her, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been hearing about her for two years.”

She opened her eyes at him. “Really? Not from me, surely.”

“Yes. You often mentioned her in your letters. You probably have no idea how often.”

“I’m surprised because I didn’t know I was a bit interested in Roma. And I wasn’t — not till she did this thing to Patience.”

“Patience?”

Adeline spoke with some heat now. “Don’t pretend, Mait, that you don’t know who Patience is.”

“Ah, yes — she’s your Aunt Meg’s daughter. I remember. There are a good many of you, you know.”

They were almost at the stables. Adeline said hurriedly: “Patience is a darling. We all love her. She’s not pretty. She’s rather too big and a little clumsy-looking but perfectly lovely with animals. She has a regular job on the farm, helping Uncle Piers. He says she’s better with an ailing young one than any man.”

“She sounds a good sort,” said Fitzturgis tranquilly.

“Oh, she is! She’s wonderful.” Adeline halted and looked him in the eyes, her own shadowed by puzzlement at what she disclosed. “Then Roma did this thing to her.”

“What?” He was almost smiling at her, she looked so young, so beautiful, so almost distraught.

“Roma took the boy Patience was in love with.”

Fitzturgis’s raised brows, the curve of his full lips, seemed to say, “Is that all?”

Adeline exclaimed, “Well, it was enough, wasn’t it?”

“Were Patience and the man engaged?”

“Not quite but almost. She adored him. Anyone could see that. And then Roma just reached out and took him. His name is Green.”

“Hm … what sort of fellow is he?”

Adeline’s lip curled in scorn. “You can imagine, can’t you? One who’d let himself be taken in by Roma. Weak as water — but Patience loved him. She was ready to devote her whole life to him.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Anyone could see it. Not that she went about ogling him or casting sheep’s eyes at him. She just gave one the feeling that she loved him with all her might…. Now I’ve told you let’s not talk about it any more.”

“Good,” he returned tranquilly. His eyes swept over the fine buildings of the stables. “Your horses are well housed,” he said.

Adeline’s eyes shone in pride. “They have everything,” she declared. “We may go without. Not they.” Half shyly, yet with an impulse not to be resisted, she caught his hand in hers. “Do you think you will like living here, Mait?” she asked.

“It would be a strange person who wouldn’t,” he returned, his fingers tightening on hers. “Why, it’s hard to believe that there’s a town within a hundred miles. It’s hard to believe that yesterday I was in New York.”

“And I’ve never asked you how your family are — your mother and sister!”

“Mother is well. Sylvia is much better.”

“And they’re going to live in New York?”

“Yes.”

One of the doors of the stables opened and a man of about forty-five came out. He hesitated on seeing them, then strode on to meet them, walking with firmness and confidence considering that he had lost a leg in the war. Indeed his whole aspect was one of firmness and confidence, owing something possibly to the fullness of his clear blue eyes, the healthy pink and white of his smooth cheeks and the stubborn curve of his lips. “Oh,” Adeline cried eagerly, “here comes Uncle Piers. You will like him.” Fitzturgis inspected him with interest as he approached, trying to discover some resemblance to this man’s son who lived not far from Fitzturgis in Ireland, but he could discover none. Maurice Whiteoak was as different from his father as he well could be.

“Uncle Piers” — Adeline’s voice trembled a little from excitement — “this is Maitland. There’s no need, is there, for me to tell you his surname?”

“How do you do, Mr. Fitzturgis” Piers said a little stiffly, shaking hands with him.

After a few moments of talk Piers turned back into the stables with them. In here it was cooler than out in the sun-warmed air. Two stable-men were bedding down the horses for the night. There was the scent of clean straw and the pleasant smell of well-groomed horseflesh. A benign and contented atmosphere permeated the stables. For the farm horses the day’s work was over. For those darlings, the saddle horses, had come the pleasant reward of exercise or the agreeable return to loosebox after freedom in the paddock. Adeline was eager to show Fitzturgis her own mare, Bridget, with her first colt, Bridie’s Boy. They were in a loose-box together; the son, inheritor of his mother’s beauty, stood proudly beside her. Both bent their heads to nuzzle Adeline when she entered the box. The sight of her, with the mare and her colt, made Piers smile at Fitzturgis. “A pretty trio,” he said.

“A very promising trio,” Fitzturgis admiringly agreed.

“Come in,” cried Adeline. “She’s as kind as can be and so proud of her son.”

When Piers Whiteoak stopped his car on his own driveway some time later he saw his wife planting seedlings in the flower border. She sat back on her heels and raised her dark eyes expectantly to his face. “Well,” she asked, “did you meet him?”

“Yes, but only for a short while in the stables. Adeline had brought him to see the horses.”

“Why, Piers,” she exclaimed, disappointed, “I thought you would have gone to the house for tea and had a good look at him.”

“Good Lord, how long do you think it takes me to size a man up?”

“Did you like him?”

“He seems a nice fellow.”

“Good-looking?”

“Quite. Likes horses but doesn’t know much about them.”

Pheasant thrust her trowel into the earth, folded her arms and demanded, “Does he strike you as good enough for Adeline?”

“I’ll tell you that when I’m acquainted with him.”

“Of course. I suppose it was a silly question…. Piers, did he mention Maurice?”

“Yes, though I gather they don’t see much of each other.”

“I thought Maurice might have come over with him. He promised, you know.”

“He’ll come later.”

A silence fell between them, as so often happened when they spoke of their eldest son. Piers and this son had never got on well together. Not that there had been open conflict between them. Rather it had been that when they were in the house together there was unease in the atmosphere. In her secret mind Pheasant had accused Piers of being unfair to Maurice. She had never quite forgiven Piers for sending the boy to Ireland at the whim of an old cousin, Dermot Court, even though that visit had made Maurice Dermot’s heir. Maurice’s future had been settled for him. He was a well-off, idle young man. Piers envied him his affluence and deplored his idleness. Almost two years had passed since they had seen their eldest-born.

Pheasant patted the earth about the last of the annual stocks. “I’m late getting them planted,” she said. “But then I’m always late getting things done.”

“You undertake too much,” he said, almost roughly, and, putting his hands beneath her arms, lifted her to her feet. He bent his face to hers and kissed her. He said, “If Adeline and her Irishman get along as well as we do there’s no need to worry.” He kissed her again, this time with an amorousness produced by congenial work in the outdoors and the springing, effulgent warmth of the summer. She relaxed against his shoulder, forgetting everything but her love for him.

But their loverlike attitudes were an embarrassment to their youngest son Philip, who, returning from a day’s fishing, cleared his throat loudly to announce his arrival.

“Hullo, Mum and Dad,” he called out. “Are you too busy to see what I’ve caught?”

His parents separated and strolled toward him. He displayed a catch of gleaming brook trout.

“Oh, lovely,” exclaimed Pheasant, then added, “Poor pretty things.”

“Listen to her,” laughed Philip, “pitying fish!”

“Why not? Think how happy they were swimming about in their cool stream.”

“Not half so happy as I was to catch them.”

Philip was seventeen and had become in the past year, as Alayne said, quite outrageously beautiful. He always had been a handsome boy, but of late the clear fairness of his skin, the sheen of his hair, his heavy-lidded azure eyes, the perfection of his features, all had been intensified. As he had grown in stature, so he had grown in beauty. Piers, looking at him now, thought he was, as Pheasant declared, the image of what he had been as a boy, but the truth was that young Philip much more resembled his great-grandfather, Captain Philip Whiteoak. The young Whiteoak males, sons of Renny, Piers, and Finch, appeared to assert, almost arrogantly or at least proudly, the Northern origin of their race: the long narrow-hipped body, the long flat cheek, the fair skin.

“I stopped in at Jalna,” Philip said, “and left a couple of trout for Uncle Renny’s breakfast.”

“Good,” said Piers, but he spoke without heart. Philip’s devotion to Renny was rather irritating to Piers. The boy would take trouble for Renny that at home would be unthinkable.

Pheasant looked at her son charitably, as she did at all males. She asked, “Did you see Adeline’s Irishman?”

“No, but we’re all invited there this evening to inspect him.”

“Good God!” exclaimed a voice just emerging from the house. “A gathering of the clan to greet the betrothed of the fair daughter of the house! What does he bring as an offering? Six head of lean cattle from the Kerry hills or a litter of starving pigs?”

The owner of the voice, a particularly pleasant one, now appeared. He was the second son, three years older than Philip. He had been christened Finch; but as that name belonged to another of the family, he had been, for some inexplicable reason, called Nooky, which childish name was later shortened to Nook. He was an art student and already several of his pictures had been shown in small exhibitions.

This was Piers’s favourite son. He condoned in Nook what would have seemed intolerable in Maurice. In truth he was proud of Nook’s artistic bent. He liked his pictures. Piers could bear a good deal from his sons (or thought he could) provided they did not write poetry. He had allowed Nook to turn the old carriage house into a studio. He looked tolerantly on the paint-stained smock in which Nook now appeared. But he was no longer to be called by any childish nickname. It would have been impossible for a painter of ambition to live down such a name, he said, and the family agreed. He must have a name of some dignity as signature to his pictures. What of his real name “Finch”? That was already borne by the uncle for whom he was named. Finch Whiteoak was a concert pianist. His name was well known on this continent and abroad. It would be confusing to have two Finch Whiteoaks in the world of art. It would create, in the first instance, a spurious interest in the younger, and later might well be an impediment to him. But what was Nook to call himself? He had been given only the one Christian name. One Christian name! As he remarked this, on a note of reproach to his parents, he had a sudden idea. “I have it!” he exclaimed. “I shall call myself Christian.” And then added, “With your permission, of course.” For though Nook always took his own way he took it so politely that Piers and Pheasant were under the impression that, of all their children, he was the most dutiful and considerate of them. Whereas young Philip had an air of demanding what he wanted, which frequently set Piers against it.

So when Nook had suggested calling himself Christian Piers had only remarked, “An odd sort of name for a Whiteoak.”

“Surely no odder than Finch,” said his son.

“I guess I made a mistake in naming you after my brother Finch,” said Piers, “but at the time it seemed a good idea. For one thing he’d lately had a fortune left him.”

“That was a pretty good reason, but what was the other?”

“Well, he was and is a decent sort of fellow.”

Nook agreed. “I like that reason best. I’ve always admired Uncle Finch, but I don’t believe he’d thank me for setting out to distinguish myself under his name.”

“Anyhow,” said Pheasant, “he’ll scarcely make you his heir when he has a son of his own.”

“Just the same,” said Piers, “he might do more for Nook, if Nook didn’t take another name.”

“On the other hand,” put in the boy, “he might be induced to pay me for changing it.”

Pheasant said, “You wouldn’t be disgracing the name if you painted good pictures.”

Piers looked judicial and added, “No one in the public eye wants another of the same name in it.”

“You speak,” said Pheasant, “as though people in the public eye were motes.”

Nook asked, “Has anyone any objection to Christian as a name?”

“It’s too much like Pilgrim’s Progress,” said Piers.

“Then there are the kings of Denmark,” said his wife, preferring kings to pilgrims. “I think I can get used to it in time.”

“Do you object, Dad?” Nook would not go openly against the grain of the family. “Do you think Uncle Renny will object?”

Piers at once became brusque. “It’s not for him to say.”

“But it would do no harm to ask him,” said Pheasant.

“I’m quite willing. I mean I have nothing against Christian. That ought to be enough for Nook.”

“And we can still call you Nooky in private, can’t we?” Pheasant put her arm about the youth and pressed him to her.

That had been months ago. Now the name Christian had become firmly attached to Nook outside the family and was ceasing to be a joke inside it. Christian himself did not mind being laughed at. What he could not bear were anger and unkind words. He was quick to retaliate in them but as quick to be sorry and to say so.

The artist’s smock in which he now appeared somehow accentuated his extreme erectness and thinness. His dark eyes were bright in his fair face.

Pheasant said, “We must be very nice to this Maitland Fitzturgis. His visit here means a great deal to Adeline.”

“Visit!” repeated Philip. “I thought he’d come to stay.”

“Do you mean as Adeline’s husband?” asked Pheasant.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“People don’t get married in that offhand way.”

“You and Dad eloped, didn’t you?”

Piers gave a shout of laughter. He said, “We’d given lots of thought to it. It wasn’t offhand.”

Philip said, “Adeline and he have been corresponding for two years. Why didn’t he come sooner?”

“He had to settle his affairs. Find a purchaser for his property.”

“I hope he’s well off. Somehow I feel he isn’t.”

Christian asked, “Did he speak of Maurice coming any time soon?”

“Yes,” answered Piers. “He hopes to come this summer.”

In this family there were the three sons and, as though an afterthought, at the end of the war, a little daughter, Mary. She ran to join the others now with the careless grace of the five-year-old. But there were marks of tears on her cheeks. She had been in one of her own secret places shedding a few private tears.

Her mother and brothers ignored these, but Piers asked, “What has my little girl been crying about?”

She thought a moment and then murmured, “Because Nooky has two names.”

“Always Nooky to you,” he said.

“What a silly kid,” observed Philip. “I’m glad we have only one girl.”

Mary looked up pathetically into the faces of those about her, as though searching for a friendly one. Piers picked her up and she pressed her pink face to his cheek.

“Whom do you love best?” he asked.

Suddenly smiling, she answered emphatically, “Uncle Renny.”

“Well, I like that — after all I do for you!”

He set her on her feet, took her hand, and led her into the house. Skipping happily beside him, Mary chanted, “I love Uncle Renny best — best — best!”

Piers called over his shoulder, “Pheasant — it’s time for this child’s tea and bed.”

Nook returned to his studio, his refuge, the place where he was happiest. He stood before the unfinished picture on the easel — the study of a cloud above a summer field — and regarded it absently. He did not see it clearly because Adeline’s vivid face came between him and the canvas. He had a feeling of something like anger toward her for bringing the Irishman on the scene, in the very summer when Maurice was expected home on a visit. Maurice had always shown a fondness for Adeline, had once confided to Nook that he loved her. It did seem a shame that Fitzturgis should, after two years of what Nook thought of as shilly-shallying, come to claim Adeline. And of what use would he be at Jalna?

“That’s what I’d like to know,” he said aloud, as he scraped his palette.

A voice behind him asked, “What would you like to know?”

He wheeled and faced his cousin Patience, who had dropped in, as she so often did, on her way home, after her work at Jalna.

“This Maitland Fitzturgis. Of what good will he be at Jalna?”

“Quite a lot, I imagine — to Adeline.”

“He can’t just come here and sponge on Uncle Renny. There are enough already trying to wrench a living out of Jalna.”

Patience laughed good-humouredly. “Oh, Christian, what a horrid description of us! For I suppose it includes me.”

“And myself.”

“In what fashion do you wrench your living?”

“Well, I paint its fields and clouds.”

“Have you sold a picture yet?”

“I haven’t tried. It’s too soon.”

She came and stood in front of the canvas. “This is lovely. It makes you feel peaceful and as if things don’t matter.”

He gave her a swift appraising glance. He said, “You have a peaceful look, Patience. Some day, when I’m better at it, I’m going to paint you. You’ll make a good subject in those blue overalls, with your short dark hair, grey eyes and your complete lack of …” He hesitated, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

“Go on,” she urged. “It’s fun to be noticed.”

“Very well then — I’ll say what the newspapers call ‘sleek sophistication.’”

Patience made a sound of derision. “I never can hope to have that,” she said.

“Do you like it?”

“I envy it, Nooky.”

“I think it’s disgusting.”

“You say that, but you probably admire it when you see it.”

“I admired Roma before she achieved it. I didn’t admire her much, but I quite liked her looks.”

“You did three pictures of her last year.”

“Look about and see if you can discover them.”

Patience looked vaguely about her. “I don’t see them.”

“No one ever will. They’re obliterated.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said. “Roma is admired by almost everyone.”

With a frankness which brought colour to her cheeks he said, “I suppose you’re thinking of Norman Green.”

For a moment she could not speak, then she said in a consciously matter-of-fact voice, “Well, I must be going. I suppose you’ll be at the party this evening.”

“I suppose so.”

“Goodbye, Christian.”

“Goodbye, Patience. Love to Auntie Meg.”

“And Roma?”

“Of course.”

She looked back at the studio, wondering what life had been like when it was a carriage house in the old days. Rather nice, she thought, to have lived in those days and not bothered about makeup and nylons and sophistication. Not that she bothered much, but there they were, rankling at the back of her mind, especially in these last unhappy months.

The road past the church was quiet. It was quiet when she turned into her own home, through the brown wicket-gate set in the hedge. The hollyhocks against the wall of the house were just coming into bloom, shyly unfolding their pink rosettes, low down on the stalk in the shelter of the rough leaves and keeping the round green buds of the later bloom tightly curled at the top. Patience paused to look at the hollyhocks, feeling an odd affinity with them. Two robins were on the little lawn — father and son. Son was as large as father but speckle-breasted, large of beak, hungry of eye. Every movement of father was avidly watched by son, hopping close behind. Father picked up an almost invisible something and with an incredibly swift movement thrust it into son’s mouth. He then flew off, with son in wide-winged pursuit. Patience said aloud, “He’ll not keep that up much longer. He’s tired of being a parent.”

The front door opened and Meg appeared.

“Oh, here you are, dear!” she exclaimed in her warm, welcoming voice. “Did you say something?”

“Just to myself, Mummy.” The two exchanged kisses. “I was watching two robins.”

“What a wonderful time they have, after all the rain! Did you have a good day, Patience?”

Meg looked into her child’s face with solicitude. She had not very much liked young Green, but she suffered in seeing Patience deprived of him. She was conscious that Patience had been ready to devote the rest of her life to making Green happy; and if she thought the object of her devotion not worthy of Patience, she never said so. In fact Meg displayed greater tact than ever before in her life. She lived in the house with the two girls, her daughter and her niece, through a crisis that might have left them either not on speaking terms or in open antagonism. But toward both girls Meg retained her attitude of loving calm. Patience was the child of her body, her own child. But to Roma she gave a tender love. Roma was the daughter of her dead brother Eden. Eden had been a poet. He had been what Meg called “wild,” but she had loved him dearly, had nursed him through his last illness. Meg thought of herself as a poor widow bearing the responsibility of those two young lives.

Mother and daughter had just entered the house, hand in hand, when a sports car appeared on the tree-shaded road, then stopped outside the gate.

Meg said, “It’s Roma — and him.”

Patience turned toward the stairs. “I must clean myself up. What time are we expected at Jalna?”

“Oh, soon after supper. Do put on something pretty, Patience. I must tell Roma. Norman’s not getting out of the car.”

As though she had not heard, Patience went slowly up the stairs.

“Tired, dear?” her mother called after her.

“Not a bit. Just bored by having to dress up.”

Patience turned into her own room just as Roma reached the top of the stairs. Roma sang out “Hullo” in a cheerful voice but did not glance into her cousin’s room as she passed. Patience could hear her opening and shutting drawers, running water in the bathroom, then hurrying down the stairs. Not till she heard Roma’s steps running toward the gate did she move from her motionless attitude of attention. It was as though Roma’s smallest act were important to her. She was conscious of this and gave a little grimace of pain, remembering how unimportant Roma used to be to her. Now she moved slowly to the wide open door of Roma’s room and saw the usual disorder — shoes and stockings strewn on the floor; the bed littered with underclothes, hairbrush and writing pad; the dressing table strewn with so many odds and ends that Patience wondered how she ever found anything. Yet find what she wanted she did and came out of that room shining with a sleekness Patience never achieved. Her lips curling in disgust, Patience returned to her own room where she kept her possessions in almost military order. She looked dispassionately at her reflection in the glass and thought, “No wonder Norman likes her best.”

Meg was in the hall as Roma came running down the stairs. She just touched Meg’s cheek with hers and said, “Oh, Aunty Meg, I forgot to say I’ll not be at home for supper. Norman and I are going to see a friend of his in Mistwell.”

Meg put out a hand toward Roma, as though to draw the girl to her, but she was gone, running along the path, between the borders of annual stock, to join Norman in the car. Meg, from the doorway, called:

“We’re invited to Jalna this evening to meet Adeline’s friend from Ireland. I think you should be there, Roma.”

Roma consulted with Norman. She called back, “All right, Aunty Meg. I’ll come. Bye-bye.”

The car moved swiftly down the road, Norman’s lacquered head bending to Roma. Meg gave a deep sigh and slowly climbed the stairs. But she arrived soon enough to discover Patience peering out of the window after the car. There were both girls, their minds fixed on the one young man, and he, to Meg’s way of thinking, quite undesirable. It seemed hard to Meg that this rift should have come to separate the three in her house. She had, in her placid way, yearned over, planned for, the two girls.

Often she had sought to trace a resemblance to Eden in Roma’s childish face but could find none. Neither could she find a likeness in nature, for Eden had been demonstrative in his affection; and if Roma felt affection for her or for Patience, certainly she did not show it.

Meg wanted to love and be loved. Now she went to Patience, put an arm about her. Here were caresses for the asking. Patience hugged her mother almost fiercely and promised to put on her prettiest dress for the evening.

“This is quite an event,” Meg said. “Something we’ve all been looking forward to ever since Adeline’s visit to Ireland. Maitland Fitzturgis must be a captivating young man to have fascinated Adeline at their meeting and held her fancy ever since. Now she will marry him. The first marriage among you young cousins, and naturally you will be maid of honour, with Roma as bridesmaid and little Mary as flower girl. What a pretty affair it will be! You know, we haven’t had any pretty weddings in our church. Mine was a small affair with just the family. Renny and Finch married their wives in England. Piers eloped. As for Eden — well, the less said about his connections with women, the better. But he was a poet, and — whatever Piers may say — you can’t expect poets to behave like ordinary men.”