Читать книгу Whiteoak Harvest - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 11

V THE LONG DAY

He had remembered that it was Sunday when he was shaving, and he had suspended the action of the blade while he considered whether or not the day would be better for his situation than a weekday. He decided that on the whole it would make things more difficult, both for himself and Alayne. He would, in the ordinary course of living, spend more time in the house. He could not so easily absent himself from meals. On the other hand Piers and Pheasant always came to Sunday dinner and, of course, there was church.

He had a sudden desire to take little Adeline to church. She was surely old enough. He remembered sitting through a sermon on his grandmother’s knee, when he was even smaller. He thought it would take his mind off the misery of last night, if he could see her in the family pew. It would be amusing, considering her likeness to dear old Gran. It would take Adeline out of Alayne’s way. The nursemaid always had Sunday off. Alayne would certainly not feel like being troubled by a stirring child, after the night she had spent.

Would she appear at breakfast, he wondered. He shaved himself with difficulty because of his injured shoulder. Adeline and the puppy were tumbling together on the bed. Suddenly she sat up and stared.

“Why did you make that funny face?”

“My shoulder hurt me.”

‘‘Why?”

“I’ve broken a bone.”

“Let me kiss it.”

He came to the bed, one half his face covered with lather, and bent over her. She planted her mouth on his arm. “Is it better now?”

“Much better.”

He returned to his shaving. “A good thing I am almost ambidextrous,” he thought.

The puppy yelped and he turned sharply to see Adeline kissing it extravagantly. He asked:

“What were you doing to him?”

“Kissing his sore bone.”

“Humph. Well, I must take you to Mummie to be dressed.” He washed his hands and took the child to Alayne’s door.

“You call her,” he said.

She called — “Mummie, Adeline wants to be dressed!”

He went back to his room and heard Alayne’s door open and close. She would have stayed in her bed but there was the child to be cared for.

Adeline strutted about the room on her bare, beautifully shaped feet. Alayne was dressed. She wore a blue dress that accentuated the violet shadows under her eyes. She sprinkled a little cologne on her fingers and held them to her temples.

“Me. Me, too!” cried Adeline, holding up her flower-pink face.

Alayne, with a sad smile, put a few drops tenderly on the russet locks.

In glee Adeline showed every tooth.

“More! More!”

“No. You have had enough. You must be dressed.”

But it was like handling a young wild thing. She turned this way and that, wriggling, shrieking with laughter. The putting on of every little garment was an ordeal. The room swam about Alayne.

When Adeline was dressed she went to where the bottle of cologne stood and emptied it down the front of her fresh yellow frock. She strutted up and down, looking at Alayne over her shoulder.

“I laugh at you,” she said.

Then Alayne saw what she had done. With an icy look that cowed the child, she took her by the hand and led her downstairs. Renny and Wakefield were in the dining room waiting for her. Wakefield looked heavy-eyed and morose as if he too had not slept. He seemed to flourish his depression, as though in defiance of the bright sunshine that poured between the yellow velour curtains.

Renny achieved a conciliatory grin and said, addressing the air midway between Alayne and Adeline — “What a nice smell! Sunday morning scent, eh?”

Alayne was beginning to eat the half grapefruit which was served to her alone. She said:

“She has emptied my bottle of cologne on herself.”

Adeline made her mouth into a rosebud and rolled her eyes at her father. She bent her head so that Rags might tie the bib on her white nape. His pale glance travelled from one face to the other and, as was his habit when he felt stress in family relations, he was assiduous in his solicitude for Renny, drawing the principal dishes a little nearer to his side and whispering a message he had had from Wright, the head stableman.

It seemed possible to talk a little when he was in the room but, when he had gone, the two men and the woman could find no word to say and the child greedily applied herself to her porridge.

Delightful spring sounds came in at the open window, the bleating of young lambs, the rival notes of two songbirds, the soft rush of a caressing wind. Renny cast a swift look at Alayne and noticed the smooth brightness of her hair, the fastidious order of her person. He was filled with admiration that she could look so after such a night. Yet, at the same time, he had a feeling of baffled anger that she could be meticulous under stress of such emotion. Still, he had dressed with more care than usual and, if she had come dishevelled to the table, he would have deprecated it. “What can I do to make her forgive me?” he thought. He felt powerless before the walls of her desolation. A hard bright rage crept over him. He turned and stared into Wakefield’s face, then broke out:

“What the hell is the matter with you that you haven’t a word for yourself?”

The sombre lines of Wakefield’s face broke into astonishment and hurt as though he had been struck, then he gathered himself together and answered:

“I did not know I was expected to make conversation.”

“Well — you are not expected to look as though you were at a funeral.”

“Neither of you looks very cheerful.” He scanned their faces shrewdly and divined the cause of Renny’s irritation. He turned to him almost pleadingly. “If you knew the sort of night I had you would not expect me to be cheerful. I am at my wits’ end to know what to do.”

“Why — what is wrong, Wake?” Renny’s tone changed to one of anxiety.

Wakefield crumbled a bit of toast on his plate and answered, almost in a whisper — “I have decided that I should not marry. I want to go into a monastery.”

Renny looked at him dumbfounded; Alayne with a bitter smile. She said:

“I think you are very sensible. It is better to shut yourself away from life—not give yourself to anybody.”

Renny exclaimed harshly — “How can you say that? What about Pauline? It would break her heart. As for me — why, Wake, you don’t know what you are talking about! It’s a ghastly life — unthinkable for a Whiteoak.”

“I’ve been thinking of nothing else for a month.”

“But — only yesterday — you were perfectly natural — you and Pauline — at The Daffodil.”

Alayne’s eyes, icy, accusing, pierced him. So — he was there, with Clara, yesterday morning! She said, “I suppose it was there that you hurt your shoulder.”

He coloured but with a sudden defiant grin answered — “Yes. I was raising the porch of the tea shop.”

Wakefield ignored the interruption. He said — “The time to speak had not come. Now it has come.”

Renny sprang from his chair and began to walk up and down the room.

“You can’t do it!” he cried. “You can’t! It’s appalling. I forbid it! You’re not of age. I’ll see these damned priests.”

Wakefield answered calmly. “I wish you would. You’d find that I had no encouragement from them.”

Renny thrust out his lips in scorn.

“Ha! They’d never let you know! They’re too sly for you. Well, I’ll put a stop to it! God, if Gran were here, she’d raise the roof with her shame for you!”

Wakefield returned — “You forget that one of the reasons why Grandfather left Quebec was that Gran showed Catholic sympathies.”

“Rot! She was young. She was in a strange country. She got bravely over it. And so must you. Lord — when I think that you’d turn religious — when other young fellows are turning pagan!” He took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead, sat down resolutely at the table and drank his tea in a few gulps. Then he said:

“We’ll not talk about it now. We’ll have it out later, Wake, when we’re quite cool and composed.”

“I am cool and composed now,” returned Wakefield with gravity. “I have had it out with my soul. That is the important part. And Pauline will understand. I think she will be very happy for my sake.”

The mention of Wakefield’s soul took the pith out of Renny. He leant back in his chair helpless, staring disconsolately at his untouched breakfast. Alayne looked at him with cruel amusement. She could not help herself. He had made her suffer. Now let him suffer — in his love for Wake, in his pride, in his tenderness for those Lebraux women!

Adeline finished her breakfast. She was sweet and good, taking no notice of her elders. A heavy scent of cologne came from her. She liked it and drew up the front of her dress to sniff.

Renny turned to Wakefield. “I suppose you have been to early Mass,” he said.

“Yes — I am going now to see Pauline.”

Renny turned to him almost tragically. “Wakefield, I want you to promise me one thing. I want you to promise me that you will not speak of this to Pauline till I have seen your priest. You must promise me that.”

Wakefield answered irritably — “Oh, I suppose I can promise you that! Though it makes it difficult for me. And I can promise you something else and that is that nothing anyone can say will prevent me doing what I have made up my mind to do.”

“But you promise — mind, you promise!”

Wakefield gave a muffled assent then rolled his table napkin meticulously and put it into his napkin ring drawn by a small silver goat. He had always loved the little goat, now he gave it an unconscious caress.

Adeline looked at it enviously. She said — “I wish I had a little goat like that.”

Wakefield gave her his charming smile. “You shall have it, Adeline! I am going away soon and must give away all my belongings. You shall have the little goat.”

She laughed delightedly. “Go today, please!”

“I wish I could.”

At these words, at the thought that Wakefield wished he might leave his home today, Renny’s mouth went down at the corners as though in physical pain. He gave a short nervous laugh, then said to Alayne:

“I don’t suppose you’ll be coming to church this morning?”

She shook her head, looking down at her clasped hands.

“I have a mind,” he went on, “to take Adeline with me. It is time she began to go to church and she will be off your hands for the morning. She can sit with Pheasant.”

“Very well, though I think she is much too young.”

She could not deny her relief at the thought of being free of the child’s activities for an hour or two.

But she kept Adeline with her until it was time to go. For the first time that spring they heard the church bell across the fields. She put a fresh dress on Adeline, her little fawn-coloured coat and new straw hat and led her to the front porch. She sat her on the seat there and said — “Wait here till Daddy comes.” She bent and kissed her, but coldly. She wondered suddenly how Renny would manage his surplice with his arm in a sling.

He thought he would like to take the path across the fields with the child. He could not drive the car and he wanted no one with him. He remembered the family party that used to set out on a Sunday morning — the old phaeton, driven by Hodge now dead, Grandmother, the uncles and young Wakefield established in it, the car following with himself, one or two of the whelps and perhaps Aunt Augusta and, of course, Pheasant…. Finch walking across the fields as he was now — what a tribe! But that was the way to live — one’s flesh and blood under one’s own strong roof!

Adeline was serenely happy. In her almost four years she had never felt quite so good and so happy as this. She tried to express this in her very walk, in the way she clutched her father’s fingers. Every time he looked down at her or pointed things out to her she smiled up at him in utter goodness. She would not ask to pick the tiny wild orchids that showed in the grass. Alayne had not known that she was to walk and had put on her thin patent leather shoes. The path became wet and Renny was forced to heave her up on his one efficient arm. It was more effort than he could have imagined and he was glad when they reached the road to the church. The last bell was ringing.

He felt proud of his daughter as he led her along the aisle. He saw people looking at her, surprised and pleased. Meg stared out from the Vaughan pew, round-eyed with amazement. Renny put Adeline in the Whiteoak pew beside Piers, Pheasant, and their boys. Piers gave Renny an amused look. Pheasant and the boys were in a flutter. It took them a moment to decide on the best place for Adeline to sit. Miss Pink began to play the organ.

A live bee was clinging to the rector’s surplice as he was about to put it on. He carried it, resting with spread wings on the snowy surplice, to an open window and flicked it with his finger out into the sunshine. He found Renny with compressed lips, struggling to get into his surplice. Ever since the building of the church a Whiteoak had acted as lay reader.

“Why, my dear fellow, what has happened? Your arm — nothing serious, I hope.” But though his tone expressed solicitude he felt no real concern. He could scarcely have recalled the various occasions when his lay readers had appeared before him, in slings, in bandages, or limping. They spent their days among horses. They were headlong. They were always getting hurt. And they were a tough-fibred lot. He had seen old Mrs. Whiteoak, rather than miss the christening of one of her grandchildren (Piers, he thought it was), carried to the family pew by a sweating coachman and groom, when a fall from a horse had done something to her kneecap. She had never ridden again. She must have been nearly eighty-three.

“Collarbone,” returned Renny laconically, “broken.”

“Tch — is it very painful?”

“Only when I aggravate it.”

Mr. Fennell noticed then that his usually high-coloured face was pale, that his eyes had not their customary brightness. “I’m afraid you had a bad night with it.”

“Rather. It’s time we went in.”

One arm only projected from his surplice. His other side looked oddly bulky. Against the dark wood of the chancel his sculptured head stood out incisively. In the hymn, “The strife is o’er,” his voice dominated the rather feeble choir of four men and seven women who, always defeated in their contests with the vigorous Whiteoak voices, felt themselves defeated before they had opened their mouths.

In the general confession Renny looked from the shelter of his hand at Adeline. She was being good. He felt his heart strengthen in pride. She was a fine child and the spit of old Gran. He had begot her. Alayne had borne her. Together they had produced that rosy flower of a child. Then the thought of all that had transpired the night before came to taunt his spirit. It was characteristic of him that he scarcely gave a thought to Clara. His mind was concentrated on Alayne’s alienation from him. His mind dwelt on it darkly. There was projected into it a scene of passion in which he would forcibly overcome her antagonism, but he thrust this from him. His lips mechanically repeated the words of the confession. “We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep…. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done….” Alayne’s face was blurred. In its place came a picture of Wakefield in a monk’s robe, with shaven crown. Wake, whose engagement to Pauline had seemed so promising of happiness — Wake, his boy! He remembered his delicacy — the nights he had sat up with him, the fear that he would not rear him. The fear that he would be a poet like Eden. Then his pride in the boy’s growing strength, in his eagerness to work, to make a place for himself. It had been a sting to his pride to see Wake’s name over a filling station but — now how desirable that seemed when Wake wanted to give up his name and become Brother Something or Other! Well — he would see the priest and do everything in his power to prevent it! He felt a sudden hot anger at the boy. The young shuffler — to jilt Pauline for a whim! He had always been full of whims — a spoilt boy. What was it Gran had said? “The ingratitude of the spoilt child is sharper than the stallion’s tooth.” He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he remained kneeling after the others had risen, his face shaded by his hand. He realized what had happened and stood up imperturbably. His vigorous voice was heard — “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.” Adeline dropped her penny and it rolled beneath the seat.

When the time of the First Lesson came, Renny mounted the steps behind the brass eagle. Meg watched him with sisterly pride. She thought — “How nice and white his surplice looks! Of course, they were all laundered at Eastertide. It makes such a difference. And the Easter flowers are lovely. I do like things bright and cheerful about a church because it’s naturally rather a depressing place. What was he reading?”

“Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment and walk by the way…. Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.”

She thought — “I always did like this Lesson, though how people went through the things they did then, I can’t imagine … strange how Alayne let him come to church alone, when it is a wife’s duty to encourage her husband in any religion he may have…. To think that Maurice would come with those old tight trousers on! His legs look ridiculous.”

Maurice thought — “He looks seedy this morning. I suppose it’s his arm. But he wouldn’t stay away — no, not if he’d cracked both collarbones! Churchgoing is more and more of a bore to me. I wish Meggie cared no more for church than Alayne does. I’d be satisfied to stay at home with the Sunday papers. Darling little Patience — drinking in every word! Wonder what she makes of it.”

“They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses, fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.”

Maurice thought — “Why is Meggie staring at my trousers? Oh yes, they’re the tight ones! But I must have another turn out of them.” He tried to make his legs look smaller.

Patience thought — “I like to watch Uncle Renny’s face when he’s talking. He does nice things with it that make me want to hug him. I don’t care a bit what he’s reading. I just like watching his face. I wonder what it feels like to have a broken collarbone. Very disagreeable, I expect. I hope I don’t fall off my pony and get anything broken. What lots and lots of flowers there are! What funny ears that old gentleman in front has! I think they might have put Adeline in the pew with me. Why is Mummie looking at Daddy’s trousers?” She too peered at them.

The voice, in a level tone, proceeded — “Then were the horse hoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones.”

Piers thought — “I don’t see how that could be. I’ve seen a good many horses plunge about in my time but I’ve never known them break their hoofs doing it. I wish Pheasant would stop fussing over the children. It only makes them fidget more. I guess the best thing to do is to put Adeline at the end of the pew. Lord, I hope she goes to sleep during the sermon!” He moved Adeline to the place next the aisle. She was delighted and gave him a look of beaming gratitude before she began to loll over the end of the pew and try to see what was going on along the aisle.

“Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.”

Pheasant thought — “Those were the days! If a woman didn’t like the way a man behaved she hit him on the head with a hammer. They talk a lot about the new freedom of women, but I don’t see it…. Renny is almost handsome this morning. It suits him to look pale and tired. He has such good bones in his face. Adeline is surprised to see him up there in a surplice but she’s awfully good. I rather wish I had a little girl. Perhaps the next…. No, no, I don’t want to go through that again! Please, God, don’t let there be a next! Not that I don’t love all my little children — but I did mind having them — especially young Philip who was so robust…. Mooey has a funny expression. I wonder what he’s thinking.”

Mooey was thinking — “That was a hard tumble the grey pony gave me yesterday. I feel more and more sore, the longer I sit. I’m afraid of the grey pony and he knows it; Daddy says that’s why he acts so skittish with me. Next time I ride him, I’ll set my teeth and show him I’m not afraid. But it would only be pretending. He’d know. I wish I didn’t have to ride at the Show….” The voice of his uncle was borne into his consciousness.

“At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead.”

Mooey thought — “Funny how just bowing down killed him dead. If he’d had the fall I did he’d have had something to die for…. I do like Uncle Renny. Those were delicious candies he gave me…. I wonder if his shoulder hurts as badly as my sore spot.”

Adeline, lolling on the end of the pew thought — “What a big big house! God’s house. This is His party. We must be good. I am good. I am as good as — oh, I see Daddy’s legs under his white dress! Daddy, Daddy, Mummie, Mummie, I can say prayers as well as anybody — Gentle Jesus — I know more words every day. I look like dear old Gran. Soon I’ll be four. I know all the words Daddy reads. Uncle Piers holds me too tight.”

Daddy was reading — “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.” He paused, then — “Here endeth the First Lesson.”

Adeline yawned, showing without reserve the charming interior of her mouth. She too had had a poor night. Piers took her on his knee and she rested her head against his shoulder.

She was good all through the service, even when he left her and joined Maurice in taking up the offertory. But she was a little troubled till Mooey whispered to her — “Have your penny ready.” She held it tightly while she watched the progress of her uncles up and down the aisles. At last Piers held the alms dish in front of her. She was amazed by all the silver and copper she saw on it. She placed her penny in the middle and would have taken a piece of silver in return had not Piers passed on with the dish.

He and Maurice stood shoulder to shoulder at the chancel steps while Mr. Fennell advanced to meet them and Miss Pink sounded triumphant notes on the organ. As churchwarden, Renny cast a speculative glance at the offertory.

The service seemed long that morning. The air coming in at the windows was so inviting, so filled with the promise of fine days to come that Whiteoak flesh and blood longed passionately to be out in it. Those living ones gathered about the green plot for an exchange of greetings as they always did while the rest of the congregation was departing. The Easter flowers on the graves were still comparatively fresh. It was Meg who had laid them there and, while no grave was flowerless, the offerings were ranged in importance from the wreaths on her grandparents’, parents’, and Eden’s graves to the few daffodils that marked the graves of her stepmother and infant half-brothers and -sisters.

Renny was the last to join the group. She turned to him with an affectionate — “Well, dear, I’m glad to see that you are able to be out this morning. But you look quite pale for you. How sweet Adeline was!”

“Next Sunday,” said Piers, “you may have her in your pew.”

“Oh, Piers,” exclaimed Pheasant, “she was no trouble at all! We liked having her, didn’t we, Nook?”

Nook smiled doubtfully. He was rather afraid of Adeline. The children began to run about the low iron fence that enclosed the plot, enjoying the new springiness of the grass, the escape from restraint.

Renny looked from Meg’s face to Maurice’s, from him to Piers and then to Pheasant. There was a frown on his brow that drew them visibly closer together. They looked enquiringly at him. He said:

“Well, I’ve a pretty piece of news for you. I haven’t heard anything in many a long day that has made me as sick as this.”

Maurice took off his hat and passed his hand over his greying hair. Meg’s mouth became an “O” of apprehension, Piers stared and blew out his cheeks and Pheasant exclaimed:

“I’m not surprised! I have felt something hanging over us. I walked under a ladder at the stables yesterday. The last three times I’ve been to the pictures I’ve had seat number thirteen. Last night I dreamed of wild animals and at breakfast Piers upset the salt.”

Meg said disapprovingly — “I think those are queer sayings for a Christian just come out of church.”

Renny glared at them. “Have you finished? Now, what I want to tell you is this — Wakefield says he is going into a monastery — going to be a monk — going to throw Pauline over and be a monk! What do you think of that?”

The news was so different from anything she had expected that Meg scarcely knew how to take it. If it had been fresh money losses she would have groaned. If it had been bad news of absent loved ones she would have wept. But for this she was quite unprepared. She closed her eyes and said — “I think I’m going to faint.”

Maurice, with conjugal skepticism, said — “I don’t think you are — just keep calm.”

But Renny clasped her in his sound arm and said excitedly:

“Run to the pump quick, Piers, and fetch water; she is fainting! She’ll be unconscious in a moment.”

Piers ran, leaping across the graves toward the old pump in the rear of the church. The children, not knowing what was wrong, ran joyously after him. Pheasant began to fan Meg with her prayer book. They supported her on the iron railing till Piers returned with the water in a tin mug. She kept her eyes closed till he approached her, then, fearing he might dash it in her face, she opened them and sat upright.

“Just give me a drink of the water,” she said. “It will revive me.”

The children gathered about, staring into her face.

“I knew she’d take it hard,” observed Renny.

Piers said — “There’s no use in our getting upset, we’ll simply not allow it. He’s not of age. He can’t do it.”

“Do you think he is in earnest?” asked Maurice.

“Absolutely. He’s been wrestling with the idea for a month, he says. Had it out with his soul, he says.”

They turned the words over in their minds. Meg took a draught of water from the rusted mug. Piers gave it to Mooey to return to the pump and the other children trailed after him.

“This comes,” said Piers, “of allowing his engagement to Pauline. I always thought it was a mistake. I never thought that he really knew his mind. Now this is just something new that attracts him. But he must be stopped before it’s too late.”

Meg exclaimed — “I will go to him — on my bended knees! I will tell him what it will mean to the family if he deserts us. Oh, to think of it! To think he’d not confide in me! I’ve been a mother to him. I wore myself out nursing him — a puny little baby, with such eyes and such a mass of dark hair! Do you suppose they’ll shave his head? I couldn’t bear that! I’ll go to him at once!”

Maurice put it — “You can’t, Meggie. Remember the P.G.s’ Sunday dinner. You like to oversee that.”

Meg rose. “Yes. I must be home for that. But, this afternoon — we will come to tea. My child shall implore him not to do anything so dreadful.” She looked almost serene as she saw this scene in mind’s eye, saw the deferential faces of her men folk.

Piers said — “Among us we’ll put a stop to it. He’s a queer kid. And look at Finch. He’s certainly got a queer streak in him.”

They remembered Finch’s queer streak. They remembered Eden. Meg looked down almost accusingly at her stepmother’s grave. She pointed a suede-gloved finger at it.

“There,” she said, “is the source.”

Piers looked uncomfortable. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Some of the Courts had queer streaks.”

“But not this sort!” cried Meg. “Did you ever hear of a Court entering a monastery? Did you ever hear of a Court doing the sort of thing Finch has done? No, Piers, you cannot deny that your mother was different. You might well kneel here by the graves of our loved ones and thank God that you are a Whiteoak — even while you respect her memory.”

Piers looked mollified. He did indeed thank God for it.

The four children trooped back. Adeline crept beneath the iron railing from which chains and spiked iron balls depended, as though to restrain the dead within their cramped divisions, and seated herself astride her grandmother’s grave. She jogged up and down, as if on horseback, clucking her tongue and slapping the grave in encouragement.

“Young ruffian!”

“Oh, Adeline!”

“Look at her!”

“Take her from the grave!”

“Oh, naughty — naughty!”

“Ha, ha, ha!”

The laughter from Renny. Piers said sternly:

“I don’t see how you can laugh at her. It’s beastly disrespectful toward Gran.”

“Gran would laugh too, if she were here. She’d say — ‘A pickaback, eh? I like the youngsters about me.’”

“Renny,” said Meg, “I command you to take your child away from there. If you are willing to let her behave so, Piers and I, at least, don’t want to see such an example set our children.”

“I should think not,” agreed Piers.

“Adeline,” said Renny, “come to Daddy.”

Adeline jumped from her imaginary mount, her round, bare thighs flashing. She now stood astride a small mound marked by a headstone bearing the words — ‘Gwynneth, Died April 13th, 1898, aged five months.’ Piers exclaimed angrily:

“Now she is on my little sister’s grave! I won’t have it!” He grasped Adeline by the arm and lifted her roughly over the railing. She smiled up at him daringly.

“You talk,” said Renny, with equal heat, “as though Gwynneth were your sister only. What do you mean by it?”

“Well, she was only your half-sister.”

Renny was cut. “Do I cast it into your teeth that you are only my half-brother? I care as much for Gwynneth’s memory as you do. As a matter of fact, you never even saw her.”

“Yes,” agreed Meg, with one of her inexplicable veerings in fraternal discussion. “Gwynneth might never have a flower laid on her grave if she had to depend on you, Piers. It is I, her half-sister, who bring them.” And she looked down complacently at three narcissi and a spray of pussy willow.

Piers did not know what to say. He stared sulkily at his boots.

Maurice examined his wristwatch.

“Our P.G.s will be starving, Meg.”

She gave an exclamation of consternation.

The very mention of the paying guests was distasteful to Renny. He said sarcastically:

“I suppose you dish up for them and Maurice ambles round with the trays.”

“You seem to think it is all right,” declared Meg, “for Mrs. Lebraux to run a tea shop.”

“Yes,” said Piers, “he goes to the length of breaking his bones to help her in the work.”

“Oh, to think of it! And you allow Wakefield to keep a filling station!”

Renny retorted in exasperation — “Don’t worry! Mrs. Lebraux is going to live with her brother and Wake is entering a monastery.”

Before Meg could answer this she was led away by Maurice who took the welfare of his guests deeply to heart. Patience ran after them. Renny and his child crowded into the car with Piers, Pheasant, and their boys.

A tremor might well be supposed to have quivered through the dense earth that lay on old Adeline’s coffin as the group departed, and her spirit have exclaimed — “What’s the to-do? I will not be kept out of things!”

Alayne was waiting for them in the sitting room. She had often felt it rather an ordeal that these relatives should always take Sunday dinner at Jalna. Today she welcomed them.

She had a flat, strange, unreal feeling. The thought of making conversation took from her what strength she had. She would let the others do the talking. The Whiteoaks had one never-failing subject of absorbing interest — horses and the breeding and training of horses. For all his keenness in farming, Piers could not make it pay. He and Renny were breeding more horses, polo ponies and children’s saddle ponies. Curiously little Maurice had not inherited his parents’ love of horses. He loved the sounds and scents of the fields and woods, but he desired no stirrups between him and the earth. An erratic swift-moving creature beneath him filled him with nervous apprehension. Even Pheasant did not realize the depth of this emotion though she shielded him from rough experiences as much as was in her power. Mooey lived a double life, feigning a keenness unnatural to him in the activities of the stables, disappearing when he had the chance into the great depths of the woods or hiding in his attic room to pore over the old books which the Miss Laceys had left stored there.

Alayne liked Mooey and she felt a compassionate understanding of him, but it was little Nook who was her favourite. He was the sort of child she would have liked for her own. He was sensitive, shy, aloof, slow to give his affection but staunch in the giving of it. Between him and Alayne there was a curious understanding. He ran to her now and clasped one of her hands in both of his. She sat down and took him on her lap. She and Pheasant were in the sitting room while their two husbands, Adeline between them, had gone to the stables before dinner. Mooey hesitated in the hall, uncertain whether or not he should follow his father.

Pheasant glanced shrewdly at Alayne. She saw the heaviness of her eyes, the lines about her mouth. Something was wrong, she thought, something beyond an ordinary quarrel. Alayne looked ill. Her skin had a sallow tinge. “Men can make you suffer,” she said out loud before she could stop herself, and then added, breathlessly — “Oh, Alayne, I should not have said that!”

Alayne sifted Nook’s fine hair between her fingers. “It doesn’t matter. I expect I do look awful. I couldn’t sleep last night.”

Pheasant burst out — “As long as you love each other, I don’t believe in lying awake suffering in your mind! I say it’s better to make friends at any cost — dignity or high ideals or — anything! And I know you have lots of both.”

Alayne’s lips twisted in a little smile. She answered composedly, not being able to enter into intimate depths of marital discussion.

“We are naturally worried about Wakefield.”

Pheasant was unconvinced. She could not believe that Wake’s decision to enter a monastery could make Alayne look like that. She said:

“Nothing that young man could do would surprise me. I pity him when Renny and Piers get after him. But I didn’t expect you to mind so much.”

Alayne answered irritably — “I don’t mind. It is the sort of thing one must settle in oneself. But it is upsetting to Renny and very hard on Pauline.”

“Not half so hard, I think, as marriage with him would be! But Mrs. Lebraux will be terribly disappointed. It must be hard, when you think you have your daughter settled in life, to find that it’s all off. Not having a daughter, I shall never have to go through that.”

The mention of Clara Lebraux’s name quivered through Alayne’s nerves like the striking of a gong. She got up abruptly and carried Nook to the open window. “Let us see,” she said, “if we can find any buds on the lilac.”

Alayne retreating as usual! thought Pheasant. And she began resignedly to talk about the children: baby Philip’s new tooth and how good Adeline had been in church. Alayne remained at the window till she saw Renny and Piers coming toward the house.

She remembered how the first time she had seen Renny it had been from a window, drooping in his saddle with that accustomed air, unconscious of being watched. At that first moment the shape of him had been imprinted in the most sensitive recess of her mind and never again could be effaced. Now he was walking toward her after ten years and how little changed outwardly! Yet she felt as though she saw him for the first time, unaccountable, mysterious, threatening. Yet there was nothing to fear. She had experienced the worst — he could not hurt her now. A feeling of repulsion toward him, amounting to nausea, rose in her. She turned from the window.

He did not enter the room with Piers but said from the doorway:

“Could you come here a moment, Alayne? There is something you must attend to.”

She set Nook on his feet and went into the hall. Renny stood in the doorway of his grandmother’s room. He said in a low voice — “Come in here — I have something I want to say to you.”

“No,” she said, out of the constriction in her chest.

He took her by the arm and drew her into the room. She did not resist because of Piers and Pheasant across the hall. He closed the door behind him.

Although the window was open the air of the room was close, impregnated by the odours of the Eastern rugs and fabrics, the formidable dresses, dolmans, and mantles that still hung in the wardrobe. It seemed to Alayne that she must stifle if she remained there for more than a moment. She faced him, her antagonism quivering like a flame in her eyes. She put her hands behind her on the handle of the door.

He said, with a perceptible tremor in his voice — “Alayne, I brought you into this room purposely, into this room that belonged to a woman who understood more about life than anyone I’ve ever known. She knew men and she knew women, and she knew human weakness —”

“What is all that to me?” she exclaimed passionately. What help is that to me today?”

“But only listen —”

“I will not listen —” She turned the handle of the door vehemently in her hands.

His face softened to tenderness, his eyes were suffused by tears. “You know I love no one but you — that I never have and never shall love any woman but you!”

She pointed to the bed with its rich-coloured covering. “You might have told that to her — she might have believed you. Perhaps she condoned such things in her husband. But you can’t make a Whiteoak out of me — you can’t make a Court out of me — not after ten years! I’m the child of my parents. Do you suppose that if my mother had found that my father had been meeting another woman in the wood — been intimate with her there — oh, I have no right even to mention their names in such a connection! It’s horrible! I wish I had not even mentioned my father’s name with such thoughts in my mind. But I have mentioned it and I tell you, Renny Whiteoak, she would never have forgiven him! She would never have allowed him to touch her again! And I am her daughter.”

“Does that mean” — an odd embarrassed expression flitted across his face — “does that mean that you will never sleep with me again?”

“It does.” She opened the door and stood in it. She saw him place his hands on the footboard of the bed and stand staring at it as though he actually saw his grandmother lying there. His lips moved but she did not hear what he said. She turned with a quick strong step into the hall just as Rags sounded the gong for the Sunday dinner.

Rags stood by the gong with bent head. He looked up at her slyly from under his light brows. She had an uncanny feeling that he knew all that went on in the house, understood all, with no more than a word caught here and there to inform him. He was like some strange god, she thought, standing there by the gong, beating their entrances and exits in the futile drama of their lives. In the sitting room they stood waiting for Renny, Piers talking with an added heartiness because he was conscious of some crisis other than that brought about by Wakefield.

Adeline was in a gale of spirits. She tossed back her head and laughed up in their faces, showing her teeth which were extraordinarily white even for a child. She would not let Nook be and he made no effort to hide his fear of her. Piers’s chagrin at his son’s timidity deepened the colour in his fresh-skinned face. Mooey felt embarrassed for Nook’s sake, but he also felt a certain satisfaction in the thought that he was not the only one who did not come up to Piers’s standard of what a boy should be.

As Renny entered, Piers said to him — “I guess this one will have to go into a monastery too. I think it’s the only place he’ll be fitted for. Adeline can frighten him with a look.”

Renny stared at the children, not seeming to see them. He said — “Did I hear the gong?”

“Yes,” answered Pheasant. “And I don’t think it’s fair to say such things about poor little Nook, because Adeline certainly has an intimidating way with her, don’t you think so, Alayne?”

“She intimidates me,” answered Alayne. She took Nook by the hand and moved toward the dining room.

“She grows more like Gran every day,” said Piers approvingly. Adeline hung on his coat, dancing beside him.

Following them, Pheasant asked of Renny — “When do you expect the uncles? They’re coming to visit, aren’t they?”

“I’m expecting to hear any day that they are on their way. This will be a pretty mess for them to return to.” He looked so sombre, indeed so black, that Pheasant felt a sudden pity for Wakefield. She said:

“Perhaps everything will be happily straightened out before they come.”

He drew a profound sigh. “Indeed I hope so.” His eyes rested on Alayne standing facing him across the table.

Wakefield was late, not so much because he shrank from the concerted attack of the family as with a sense of the dramatic significance of his entrance. He was disappointed to find that Meg and Maurice were not present. With a little smile at Pheasant and a non-committal nod to Piers he dropped into his chair.

Contrary to his usual air of protest against Wakefield’s tardiness, Rags placed his plate as though making him a formal presentation of it, but it was near Renny that he hovered with an air of solicitude.

It was customary on Sunday to have red wine or ale on the table, but to Piers’s disappointment there was neither today. He showed his discontent by pushing the glass of water away from him and throwing a glance of sulky enquiry at Rags. Rags received it with almost smirking pleasure because he felt in his master’s perverse refusal to have anything stronger than water on the table a gesture expressing depression of a peculiarly searching nature.

There was roast duckling and Renny presented a drumstick to each of the children. It was almost unendurable to Alayne to sit during the exhibition of eager gnawing that followed. Adeline was conscious of this and threw her mother daring looks out of eyes humid with greed.

When this course was removed and large glistening table napkins were being used to wipe small sticky hands and mouths, and Renny had loudly cautioned Rags not to let the dogs have the duck bones, the gathering heaviness of the atmosphere was broken by Piers saying to Wakefield:

“Are you in earnest about this affair or are you just showing off?”

A quiver passed over Wakefield’s face. He gathered some crumbs of bread by his plate into a little mound. Then he turned to Renny and said:

“Do you think it is fair that I should be asked such a question?”

“I don’t doubt your sincerity.”

“Thank you. Then if you don’t doubt my sincerity, and if I tell all of you that I have fought this out in the very sweat of my spirit and that I’ve come to a fixed decision, I don’t see what more there is to be said about it.”

“But, Wakefield,” cried Pheasant, “you don’t realize what you are doing! You’re just throwing away all the lovely things in life for a dreary existence in some dreadful cell!”

Wakefield smiled at her almost compassionately. “That speech shows how little you know of life in monasteries. I expect to work as hard as I ever have only in a different way. And don’t imagine, Pheasant, that I haven’t considered the lovely things of life that I must give up. I have considered every single one of them and I don’t mind telling you that it was a bitter thing giving them up, but it would have been still more bitter to have given up the lovely things of the spirit.”

“But can’t you have both?”

He answered gravely — “Not in the way necessary to me.”

Piers said — “What about Pauline? You don’t mind depriving her of all she has looked forward to? Not that I consider a life yoked up to you a very desirable one!”

“I don’t think that this will come as a very great surprise to Pauline. I think she must have seen it coming. No one who loves me could have failed to see that I was passing through a great crisis in my life.”

Piers returned — “No one who knows you could fail to see that you’re a confirmed play-actor and have been all your life. I make my guess that this monastery stuff will last just about a month — just long enough for you to break your engagement to a girl who is a damned sight too good for you!”

Wakefield gave a crucified smile. “I must learn,” he said, in a steady voice, “to bear such remarks as that — even to welcome them. I must be ready to pass through fire to attain —”

“Shut up!” shouted Piers. “I won’t listen to such tripe! What I’d like to do to you is —”

Renny interrupted — “That’s not the way to take him, Piers. We must try to show him calmly that he’s not fitted for a monastic life, that no Whiteoak is. Just think, Wake,” he turned his penetrating gaze on his youngest brother, “you will be cut off forever from all the things our family have delighted in! From a free outdoor life, from liberty of speech —”

“Ho!” exclaimed Wakefield, “I like that!”

“I repeat liberty of speech. As a family we say what we think even though we get hell for saying it.”

“I call the oath of silence liberty as compared to that!”

“My God!” ejaculated Piers, and overturned his glass of water.

“Naughty, naughty,” cried Adeline.

Pheasant began to mop up the water with her table napkin. Renny proceeded — “You’re young. You’re very young even for your years —”

“He’s a whining puppy,” interjected Piers.

Renny turned on him fiercely. “Will you let me go on! Now, Wake, what do you think your uncles will feel about this? Your father, your grandmother, if they were living? They would feel that you are contemplating an impossible thing. Because they all would know that a Whiteoak cannot live without women.” The disastrous import of his last words as relating to the crisis in his own life struck him into silence the moment they had passed his lips. Wakefield, Piers, Pheasant, and the children faded from his sight. He was left alone with Alayne, the bitter accusation in her eyes, the sneer on her lips piercing him. He stared at her fascinated, the muscles in his cheeks and about his mouth alternatively flexing and relaxing, his forehead corrugated in consternation.

She held him with her gaze, caring for once nothing for what the others thought. The tension was only cut by the entry of Rags who placed a deep rhubarb tart in front of Renny and a bowl of whipped cream.

“Rhubarb tastes so nice this time of year,” observed Pheasant, while she pressed Piers’s foot under the table.

“Yes,” he added, “and the cream whips so well.”

“Me!” cried Adeline. “I want tart! I want tarts with cream! Lots of cream!”

Her father turned on her sharply and gave her a rap on the hand with the spoon with which he was about to serve the tart. “Mind your manners,” he said sternly, “and behave yourself!”

She drew back her hand and hid it under the edge of the table. She thrust out her lower jaw and glared at him half abashed, half defiant.

He served the tart, raising his eyes to the pulse throbbing in Alayne’s throat and asked — “You, Alayne?”

“No, thank you.”

There was silence for a space whilst Mrs. Wragge’s flaky pastry was consumed and the warm sunlight coming between the heavy yellow curtains brought out not only the richness of the mahogany and silver but the shabbiness of the rug, the wallpaper and Rags’s coat. The mind of each one at the table drew back on itself, ignoring for the moment the pressure of the egos surrounding it. Alayne felt a kind of exhausted triumph after her silent encounter with Renny. She had reduced him as she had not seen him reduced before, and she had a mordant comfort in the thought that he could know shame. The only one who seemed near to her at this moment was little Nook who sat on her left. She took his hand in hers and helped him with the eating of his tart.

Pheasant had seen the look exchanged between Alayne and Renny and her mind was in a whirl of curiosity. Her sympathy lay with Alayne but, for some reason, she had hated to see that expression on the hard weather-bitten features of the master of Jalna.

Piers was experiencing a feeling of irritation at himself in that he was unable to enjoy the good food according to his wont. He could not remember a time when a family disturbance had dulled his taste, that is when he was not the centre of it himself. But it was certain that neither duckling nor peas nor rhubarb had their accustomed flavour. Then observing the damp spot by his plate he realized that it was being given only water to drink that had taken the zest from his palate. He pushed out his lips and toyed with the pastry on his plate. Renny shot him a sideways look.

“What’s the matter with it?” he demanded.

“Oh, I expect it’s all right.”

“Why don’t you eat it then?”

“I don’t seem to want it.”

“I shall be sorry,” said Wakefield, “if the spiritual crisis I am passing through takes away anyone’s appetite, most of all yours, Piers. Home wouldn’t seem like home if you —” He smiled ironically.

Piers’s blue eyes turned on him truculently. “My loss of appetite has nothing whatever to do with you or your plans,” he said hotly.

“The truth is,” said Pheasant, “that Piers is simply sulky because he has had no spirituous liquors to quaff at this repast.”

“We are economizing,” returned Renny curtly. “But, if you find it impossible to eat without drink, if you find that you must overturn your glass of water and sit sulking throughout the meal, I can have Rags fetch something. What would you like?”

Piers returned stolidly — “Nothing will help me now but a whiskey and soda.”

“Whiskey and soda, Rags.”

Rags opened a door of the sideboard and peered into it defensively. He produced a decanter half-full of Scotch and a syphon of soda water.

Renny asked — “Wine, Pheasant? Alayne?” He kept his eyes on his plate.

Both declined. Alayne said — “Wragge is taking coffee to the drawing room. Shall we go on, Pheasant?”

They rose and collected the children. As they passed out, Renny, at the door, gave Alayne a fleeting look. Her face revealed nothing but a weary endurance of the situation. He returned to the table and poured himself a drink.

Wakefield sat between his brothers lighting a cigarette. He got to his feet then and said:

“I think I’ll follow the girls. There’s no object in my staying here. My mind is irrevocably made up.”

“Remember,” said Renny, “that you have promised me to say nothing of this to Pauline till I have talked to your priest.”

“I’m not likely to forget it. And I’m anxious for you to see Father Connelly and discover for yourself how little encouragement I have had from him.”

“Sit down,” urged Renny almost tenderly, “and let us talk it over quietly together, now that the women are gone. Have a drink with Piers and me.”

“No, thank you, Renny. I’m not taking anything of that sort. I forgot myself when I lighted this cigarette.” He stubbed it out on the plate before him and left the room.