Читать книгу Whiteoaks - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 6

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There was a special dish for supper that night. Finch was aware of that, before ever he sniffed it, from the ingenuous air of festivity brightening the faces of those about the board. Doubtless Aunt Augusta had ordered it because she knew that Renny would be famished after his long day and strenuous exertion in the horse show. Finch was supposed to have a hot dinner at school, but he preferred to husband his allowance by buying a light lunch, and so having a respectable sum left for cigarettes, chocolates, and other luxuries. Consequently he had always an enormous appetite by night, for he did not get home in time for tea. The amount of food that disappeared into his bony person without putting any flesh upon it was a source of wonderment and even anxiety to his aunt.

The special dish was a cheese soufflé. Mrs. Wragge was particularly good at a cheese soufflé. Finch's eyes were riveted on it from the moment when he slid into his chair, between his brother Piers and little Wakefield. There was not very much of it left, and it had been out of the oven long enough to have lost its first palate-pleasing fluffiness, but he longed passionately to be allowed to scrape the last cheesy crust from the bottom of the silver dish.

Renny, after helping him to a thick slab of cold beef, fixed him with his penetrating gaze and, indicating the soufflé by a nod, asked: "Want the dish to scrape?"

Finch, reddening, muttered an assent.

Renny, however, looked across the table at Lady Buckley. "Some more of the soufflé, Aunt Augusta?"

"No, thank you, my dear. I really should not have eaten as much as I have. Cheese at night is not very digestible, though cooked in this way it is not so harmful, and I thought that you, after your——"

The master of Jalna listened deferentially, his eyes on her face, then he turned to his uncle Nicholas. "Another helping, Uncle Nick?"

Nicholas wiped his drooping grey moustache with an immense table napkin and rumbled: "Not another bite of anything. But I should like one more cup of tea, Augusta, if you've any left."

"Uncle Ernest, more of this cheese stuff?"

Ernest waved the offer aside with a delicate white hand. "My dear boy, no! I should not have touched it at all. I wish we might not have these hot dishes for supper. I am tempted, and then I suffer."

"Piers?"

Piers had already had two helpings, but, with a teasing look out of the corner of his eye at Finch's long face, he said: "I shouldn't mind another spoonful."

"Me, too!" exclaimed Wakefield. "I'd like some more."

"I forbid it," said Augusta, pouring her third cup of tea. "You are too young a boy to eat a cheese dish at night."

"And you," put in her brother Nicholas, "are too old a woman to swill down a potful of tea at this hour."

The air of dignified offence, always worn by Lady Buckley, deepened. Her voice, too, became throaty. "I wish, Nicholas, that you would try not to be coarse. I know it is difficult, but you should consider what a bad example it is for the boys."

Her brother Ernest, desirous of preventing a squabble, remarked: "You have such excellent nerves, Augusta, that I am sure you can drink unlimited tea. I only wish that my digestion—my nerves——"

Augusta interrupted him angrily: "Whoever heard of tea hurting anyone? It's coffee that is dangerous. The Whiteoaks, and the Courts, too, were all indefatigable drinkers of tea."

"And rum," added Nicholas. "What do you say, Renny, to having a bottle of something really decent to celebrate the prowess of our nags?"

"Good head!" agreed Renny, spreading a layer of mustard over his cold beef.

Piers in the meantime had helped himself to more of the soufflé, and then pushed the dish to Finch, who, gripping it in one bony hand, began savagely to scrape it clean with a massive silver spoon.

Wakefield regarded this performance with the patronizing wonder of one who had shared the dish in its first hot puffiness. "There's a little stuck on there, just by the handle," he said, helpfully pointing to the morsel.

Finch desisted from his scraping long enough to hit him a smart blow on the knuckles with the spoon.

Wake loudly cried, "Ouch!" and was ordered from the table by Lady Buckley.

Renny shot a look of annoyance down the table. "Please don't send the kid away, Aunt. He couldn't help squeaking when he was hit. If anyone is sent away it will be Finch."

"Wakefield was not hurt," said Augusta, with dignity. "He screams if Finch looks in his direction."

"Then let Finch look in another direction." And Renny returned to the consumption of his beef with an air of making up for lost time, as well as putting an end to the matter.

Nicholas leaned toward him. "What do you say, Renny, to a bottle?" he rumbled.

Ernest checked him, tapping his arm with a nervous white hand. "Remember, Nick, that Renny is in the high jumping to-morrow. He needs a cool head."

Renny began to laugh uproariously. "By Judas, that's good! Aunt Augusta, do you hear that? Uncle Ernie is afraid that a glass of spirits will make my head hot, and look at the colour it is already!" He rose energetically from the table.

"Can't Rags get it?" asked Nicholas.

"Of course. And swipe a bottle for himself. . . . The key of the wine cellar, please, Aunt." He went around to Augusta and looked down on her Queen Alexandra fringe and long, rather mottled nose. She took a bunch of keys from a chatelaine she wore at her waist.

Wakefield bounced on his chair. "Let me go, please do, Renny! I love the cellar and I hardly ever get there. May I go to the cellar for a treat, Renny?"

Renny, key in hand, turned to Nicholas. "What do you suggest, Uncle Nick?"

Nicholas rumbled: "A couple of quarts of Chianti."

"Oh, come now, I'm in earnest."

"What have you got?"

"Besides the keg of ale and the native wine, there's nothing but a few bottles of Burke's Jamaica and some sloe gin—and Scotch, of course."

Nicholas smiled sardonically. "And you call that a wine cellar!"

"Well," replied his nephew, testily, "it's always been called the wine cellar. We can't stop calling it that, even if there is nothing much in it. Aunt?"

"I thought," said Ernest, "that we had half a bottle of French vermouth."

"That's up in my room," replied Nicholas, curtly. "A little rum and water, with a touch of lemon juice, will suit me, Renny."

"Aunt?"

"A glass of native port, my dear. And I really think Finch should have one, too, studying as he does."

Poor Finch did not wait for the ironic laughter which followed this appeal in his behalf to slump still lower in his chair, to crimson in deprecatory embarrassment. Yet, even as he did so, he felt a warm rush of love toward Augusta. She was not against him, anyhow.

Renny moved in the direction of the hall, and, in passing Wakefield's chair, he caught the expectant little boy by the arm and took him along, as though he had been a parcel.

They descended the stairs to the basement, where their nostrils were assailed by the mysterious smells that Wake loved. Here was the great kitchen with its manifold odours, the coal cellar, the fruit cellar, the wine cellar, the storeroom, and the three tiny bedrooms for servants, of which only one was now occupied. Here the Wragges lived their strange subterranean life of bickerings, of mutual suspicion, of occasional amorousness, such as Wake had once surprised them in.

As soon as their steps were heard by Rags he appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, the stub of a cigarette glowing against his pallid little face.

"Yes, Mr. W'iteoak?" he inquired. "Were you wanting me, sir?"

"Fetch a candle, Rags. I'm after a bottle."

The light of sympathy now brightened the cockney's face. "Right you are, sir," he said, and, dropping the cigarette stub to the brick floor, he turned back to the kitchen, reappearing in a moment with a candle in a battered brass candlestick. They had a glimpse of Mrs. Wragge, rising from the table at which she had been eating, and assuming an attitude of deference, her face as much like the rising sun as her lord's resembled the waning moon.

With Rags leading the way, the three passed in Indian file along a narrow passage that ended in a heavy padlocked door. Here Renny inserted the key, and the door, dragging stubbornly, was pushed open. Mingled with the penetrating chill were the odours of ale and spirits. The candlelight discovered what was apparently a well-stocked though untidily arranged cellar, but in truth the bottles and containers were mostly empties, which, in accordance with the negligence characteristic of the family, had never been returned.

Renny's red-brown eyes roved speculatively over the shelves. A cobweb, hanging from a rafter, had been swept off by his head, and was now draped over one ear. He whistled through his teeth with the sweet concentration of an ostler grooming a horse.

Wakefield, meanwhile, had espied an old wicker fishing basket pushed under the lowest of a tier of shelves. He dragged it forth and saw in the candlelight three dark squatty bottles, cobwebbed, leaning toward each other as though in elfin conspiracy. A liquid clucking sound came from them as they were disturbed, and, as he cautiously drew one out, a lambent bronze light played beneath its dusty surface.

"Oh, I say, Renny," he exclaimed, in awed tones, "here is something stimulative!"

Renny had made his selection, but he now set the bottles on a shelf and, snatching Wakefield's treasure from him, restored it to its fellows and pushed the basket hastily out of sight.

"If you had dropped that, you young devil's spawn," he observed, "I should have put an end to you on the spot." And he added, grinning at his henchman: "A man must have a secret in his life, eh, Rags?"

A secret in his life! The little boy was filled with ecstasy at the thought. What magic potion had his splendid brother hidden in this subterranean place? What stealthy visits did he perhaps make here, what charms, what wizardry? Oh, if Renny would only make a partner of him in his secret doings!

He was told to hold the candle while Rags locked the door. He saw Renny's eyes fixed shrewdly on the servant's greyish-white hands. He saw the eyes narrow; then Renny transferred one of the two bottles he carried to his armpit and, with the hand thus freed, gave a sharp tug to the padlock. It slipped off into his palm. "Try again, Rags," he said, and his carven face with the long Court nose looked uncannily like his grandmother's.

Rags remarked, this time successfully securing the door: "I never did know 'ow to manage them blinkin' padlocks, sir." He was unabashed.

"Not with me looking on, Rags. There, take the candle from the youngster. He's got it tilted sidewise."

"Yes, sir. But just before I do, let me remove that cobweb from your 'ead, sir."

Renny bent his head and Rags unctuously lifted off the cobweb.

They formed an odd procession, with something of the quality of a strange religious rite. Rags, in advance, might have been some elfish acolyte, the full light from the candle showing sharply the bony structure of his face, the shallow nose, the jutting chin, the impudent line of the jaw; Wakefield, in his wistful absorption, a young altar boy; Renny, carrying a bottle in either hand, the officiating priest. The narrow brick passage along which they passed had a chill that might well have been associated with the crypt of some ruined cathedral, and from the kitchen, where Mrs. Wragge was, as usual, burning something on the range, drifted a thin blue veil of smoke, like incense.

At the foot of the stairway Rags stood aside, holding the candle aloft to light the others as they mounted upward. "A pleasant evening to you, sir," he said, "and good luck to the Jalna 'orses. We'll be drinkin' yer 'ealth down 'ere—in tea, sir."

"Keep it weak, Rags. Better for your nerves," adjured his master, callously, as he pushed the door at the top of the stairs shut with his heavy boot.

In the dining-room Nicholas sat waiting, his large shapely hand, adorned by a heavy seal ring, stroking his drooping moustache, an expression of humorous satisfaction in his eyes. Ernest's expression was already one of regret, for he knew that he would drink and he knew only too well that his digestion would suffer for it. Still, a kind of tonic gaiety was in the air. He could not help smiling rather whimsically at the faces about him, and at the foreshadowing of his own lapse!

Augusta sat admirably upright, her cameo brooch and long gold chain rising and falling on her breast, which was neither large nor small, but corseted in perfect accordance with the model of her young-womanhood. She drew back her head and regarded her nephew expectantly. He dusted the bottle of port and set it down before her.

"There, Aunt. The corkscrew, Wake. . . . Uncle Nick—Burke's Jamaica. . . . That rascal, Rags, was for leaving the cellar door unlocked, so he could sneak in and swipe something for himself. But I caught him, thank goodness."

"He's an incorrigible rascal," said Nicholas.

"He deserves to be flayed alive," agreed Ernest, pleasantly.

"I'd have done the same myself," laughed Piers.

Pheasant had come downstairs and had drawn up a chair beside his. She was eating a bowl of bread and milk, and the sight of her brown cropped head and childish nape bent over it brought an amused yet tender smile to Piers's lips. He stroked her neck with his strong sunburnt hand, and said: "How you can like that pap beats me."

"I was brought up on it. Besides, it's frightfully good for Mooey."

"Put a little rum in it," advised Nicholas. "You need something to warm you up after that long cold drive. Incidentally it would be good for young Maurice, too. Help to make a Whiteoak and a gentleman of him."

"He's both, already," said Pheasant, sturdily, "and I'll not encourage my offspring in a taste for spirits even at second hand."

Augusta looked upon the redness of the wine in her glass and remarked: "Our old nurse used to put a little wine in the bottom of our shoes when we went out in the wet to prevent our taking a chill. We did not know what it was to wear rubbers, and we never had colds."

"You forget, Augusta," interposed her brother Ernest. "I had severe colds."

Nicholas said: "That was because you were always kept in when it was wet."

"I can remember," went on Ernest, "looking down from the nursery window when I had one of my colds and watching you two—and, of course, Philip—romping on the lawn with the little pet lamb we had. By and by Papa would come along. He would pick up little Phil and ride him on his shoulder. I can see him. He looked so magnificent to me. I can remember how the wood pigeons were always calling then. . . . I used to shout to him and throw kisses down from my window."

He had had only one glass of rum and water, but it took only that to imbue his gentle spirit with sentimental melancholy.

"Yes, I remember," said his brother. "Poor little beggar that you were, you would have a red flannel bandage about your throat, and, likely as not, your ears stuffed with cotton wool, smelling of camphor."

"Good Lord!" said Renny. "If only the wood pigeons were thick as that now! What shooting! Eh, Floss? Eh, Merlin?"

His tone, the word "shooting," which they perfectly understood, aroused the two clumber spaniels sleeping on either side of his chair. They sprang up with joyous barks.

Above the barking of the dogs Finch raised his voice: "I think I might have something. A fellow going on nineteen can stand a drink or two, I guess."

Renny gently cuffed his dogs. "Down, Merlin. Down, Floss, old pet. What's that, Finch?"

There was silence now and Finch's voice boomed loudly but with an ominous break in it. "I say I'm eighteen and I don't see why I can't have a drink."

Piers said: "Give him a sip of your wine, quickly, Aunt Augusta—he's going to cry."

Finch with difficulty controlled his temper, gazing down at the remnant of apple tart that had been saved for him from the family dinner.

"Give the boy a glass of rum," said Nicholas. "Do him good."

Renny put out a long arm and pushed the decanter, which he had filled with port, across to Finch. "Help yourself, Finch," he said, with a suddenly protective air.

Finch selected a glass and took up the decanter. He was afraid that his hand was going to shake. He set his teeth. He would not let it shake. . . . Not with the eyes of all the family on him. All the family hoping he would do some fool nervous thing. . . . Piers's white teeth showing already between his lips, all too ready for a jeering laugh. . . . He would not let it shake. Oh, God, he was saying to himself, keep my hand from shaking! He knew that he no longer believed in or feared God, yet the less he believed in and feared Him, the more often he flung out these silent invocations for His support.

His hand was steady enough until the glass was almost filled; then it began to shake. He barely escaped slopping the wine on to the table. By the time he had set the decanter down he was trembling from head to foot. He quickly tweaked his cuff over his thin wrist and threw a furtive glance at the faces of those about him.

Everyone at the table had begun to talk at once. Not noisily or confusedly, but pleasantly in accord. Smiles flickered over their faces as visible signs of the geniality emanating from within. Aunt Augusta began to tell of the old days at Jalna, when Papa and Mama had entertained in lavish fashion, had even entertained a Governor-General and his lady. Then, of course, she drifted to social life in England in the eighties and nineties, when, she now liked to imagine, she had held an important social position. Nicholas, too, talked of London, but of a different London, where he and his wife, Millicent, had enjoyed themselves in the racing set till his funds gave out, and she left him, and he was obliged to return to the shelter of Jalna.

After two glasses, the mind of Ernest was centred on one thing only—what he should wear to the horse show the next day. He had a new fall overcoat of expensive English melton, made by the best tailor in town, such an extravagance as he had not indulged in for years. It had been bought with an eye on the horse show, yet the weather was so cold and wet that Ernest, with his dread of afflicting his delicate chest, was in a quandary. The tailor had told him that he had never seen a man of his age with such a slender, upright figure. Not much like poor old Nick, Ernest thought, who had grown so heavy and who generally had to lean on a stick because of his gouty knee. . . . Yet what about the delicate chest? A severe cold at that time of year might lead to anything. "Now, Renny," he was saying, "what about the atmosphere in the Coliseum? Was there a noticeable chill there to-day?"

"Chill!" ejaculated Renny, interrupted in a rhapsody on the powers of the high jumper he was to ride the next day. "Why, there was no chill at all! It was like a conservatory. A flapper might have gone there in a chiffon shift, and felt none the worse for it."

He hugged Wake against his side, and gave him a sip from his glass. The little boy, anxious to be in the very heart of the party, had asked: "Renny, may I sit on your knee?"

And his elder had demanded: "How old are you?"

"Eleven, Renny. Not so awfully old."

"Too old to be nursed. I mustn't coddle you. But you may sit on the arm of my chair."

Piers exclaimed, as Renny hugged the child: "Well, if that isn't coddling!"

"Nothing of the sort," retorted Renny. "It's cuddling. There's all the difference in the world, isn't there, Wake? Ask any girl."

Piers no longer sat. He stood by the side of the table smiling at everyone. He looked remarkably well standing thus, with his stocky figure, his blue eyes softly shining. He talked of the land and the crops, and of a Jersey heifer he was going to trade for an exquisite bull calf.

Pheasant thought: "How darling he looks standing there! His eyes are as bright as Mooey's. Dear me, that huge bottle is almost empty! Strange that I should have come from a father who is far too fond of his glass to a husband who is inclined that way, too, when I am naturally prohibitionist in my sentiments! I'm never going to encourage my little baby in taking spirits when he gets big."

Aunt Augusta whispered to Finch: "You must go to your studies, my dear. You should learn a great deal to-night, after those two nice glasses of wine."

"Huh-huh," muttered Finch, rising from the table obediently. He took up his books from a side table where he had laid them, sighing at the thought of leaving this genial, relaxed atmosphere for the grind of mathematics. As he turned away, the lottery ticket fell from between the leaves of his Euclid to the floor.

Wakefield sprang from the arm of Renny's chair and picked it up. Finch was already in the hall. "He's dropped something," and the little boy peered at it inquisitively. "It's a ticket—look, number thirty-one! Hello, Finch, you dropped something, my boy!"

Finch turned back angrily. Patronizing little beast, with his cheeky "My boy!"

"Let's see," said Piers, taking the ticket from Wakefield and examining it. "Well, I'll be shot if it isn't a lottery ticket! What are you going in for, young Finch? You're a deep one. Out to make a fortune, eh, unknown to your family? You're still a schoolboy, you know"—this taunt because of his failure to matriculate—"and you're not supposed to gamble."

"What's this?" demanded Renny, suspiciously. "Fetch it here."

Piers returned the ticket to its owner. "Take it to your big brother," he advised, "and then run upstairs for his shaving strop."

Finch, glaring, thrust the ticket in his pocket and lunged toward the hall.

"Come back here!" ordered Renny. "Now," he continued, as the boy reappeared, "just say what that lottery ticket is for."

"Good Lord!" bawled the goaded Finch. "Can't I buy a lottery ticket if I want to? You'd think I was an infant in arms!"

"You may buy a dozen if you wish, but I don't like the way you are acting about this one. What is it for?"

"It's for a canary, that's what it's for!" His voice was hoarse with anger. "If I can't buy a lottery ticket for a goddam canary it's a funny thing!"

The outburst of merriment that leaped from the lungs of his brothers and uncles could have been equalled in volume and vitality by few families. After the roar had subsided, Renny gave another of his metallic shouts. "A canary!" he repeated. "Next thing he'll be wanting a goldfish and a rubber plant!" But, though he laughed, in his heart he was deeply ashamed for Finch. He was fond of the boy. It was humiliating that he should be such a sissy—wanting to own a canary, of all things!

A vigorous thumping came from the bedroom across the hall.

"There, now," cried Ernest, irritated concern clouding his features, "what did I tell you! You've wakened her. I knew you would. It's very bad for her to be disturbed like this at her age."

Augusta said, without flurry: "Wakefield, go to my mother's room. Open the door quietly and say: 'There is nothing wrong, Grandmama. Please compose yourself.'"

The picture thus conjured of this scene between his small brother and his ancient grandmother caused Piers to emit a snort of laughter. His aunt and uncle Ernest looked at him with disapproval.

Ernest remarked: "It is just as well, Piers, to teach the boy to be polite."

Wakefield crossed the hall, solemn with the weight of his own importance. He opened the door of his grandmother's room and, gliding in, looked almost fearfully about that dim chamber, revealed, rather than lighted, by a night-light placed on a low table near the head of the bed. Before he spoke, he closed the door behind him to shut out the robust mingling of voices from across the hall. He wanted to frighten himself a little—just a little—with the strangeness of being alone with Grandmother in this ghostly light, with the rain dripping from the eaves outside her windows, and a single red eye glowing on the hearth, as though some crouching evil spirit were watching him. He stood very still, listening to her rather wheezy breathing, just able to make out the darkness of her face upon the pillows and the restless movement of one hand upon the crimson quilt.

The flowers and fruit painted on the old leather bedstead which she had brought with her from the East glowed duskily, less bright than the plumage of the parrot perching there. A sigh from the bed quivered on the heavy air like the perfume from some forgotten potpourri of petals gathered long ago. The bygone memories of the bed were drawn upward in the sigh. In it Augusta, Nicholas, Ernest, dead Philip, father of all the turbulent young Whiteoaks, had been conceived, in it all four had been given birth. There Philip, their father, had died. What tremors, what pains, what ecstasies, what perversities and dreams the bed had known! Here Grandmother now spent the greater part of her time.

Her hand rose and hung above the quilt. A tiny red beam shone from the ruby ring she always wore. She was feeling for her stick. Before she was able to grasp it and rap again, Wakefield trotted to her side. He said, like a little parrot: "There is nothing wrong, Grandmama. Please compose yourself."

He enjoyed the dignified words Aunt Augusta had put into his mouth. He should have liked to say them over again. Indeed he did repeat: "Please compose yourself."

She peered up at him from under her shaggy red brows. Her nightcap had got askew and one eye was completely hidden by it, but the other fixed him with peculiar intensity.

"Hey?" she demanded. "What's that?"

"Compose yourself," he reiterated, earnestly, and patted the quilt.

"I'll compose this family," she said, savagely, "with my stick! Where's my stick?"

He put it into her hand and then backed away a little.

She thought a moment, trying to recall what she had wanted, then a burst of half-smothered laughter from the dining-room reminded her.

"What's that noise mean? What are they shouting about?"

"About a canary, Gran. Finch has a lottery ticket for one." He came close to her now, looking eagerly into her face to watch the effect of his words.

The effect was terrible. Her features were contorted by rage. She glared up at him, speechless, for a moment, then articulated thickly, "A canary—a bird—another bird in the house! I won't have it! It'll put Boney in a rage. He won't bear it—he'll tear it to pieces!"

Boney, disturbed by the sound of his name, took his head from under his wing and thrust it forward, peering down at his mistress from his perch on the painted headboard.

"Haramzada!" he cursed wildly in Hindu. "Haramzada! Iflatoon! Paji! Paji!" He rose on his toes and flapped his wings, creating a little gust of warm air that fanned Wakefield's face.

Old Mrs. Whiteoak had heaved herself up in the bed. She had protruded from under the quilt her large feet in purple bed-socks, and followed them by long, yellowish legs.

"My dressing-gown," she gasped. "On the chair there. Hand it to me. I'll show them whether I'll have a chit-chat flibbertigibbet canary in the house."

Wakefield knew that he should have run to the dining-room and called one of his elders. It was an unprecedented thing that Grandmother was doing, getting up without Aunt Augusta or one of the uncles to help her. But his desire for novelty, for excitement, was greater than his prudence. He brought the heavy purple dressing-gown, and helped her to put it on. He put her stick into her eager, shapely old hand.

But to get her on to her feet! That was a different matter. Drag as he would at her arm, he could not budge her. "Ha!" she would grunt with each heroic effort, her face getting more and more the colour of her dressing-gown.

At last she laid down the stick. "No use," she muttered. "No use. . . . Here, take both my hands, and pull me up." She held her two hands up to him, an eager, expectant look in the one eye which her nightcap did not conceal. It was evident that she was quite hopeful that the little boy could perform the task. But, when he took her hands and strove with all his might, the result was that his feet slipped on the rug and his small body collapsed into her arms. She broke into sudden laughter and clutched him to her, and he, half laughing at the predicament, half crying at his own impotence, began to play with the strings of her nightcap.

"Paji! Paji! Kuza Pusth!" cried Boney, beating the air with his bright wings.

Mrs. Whiteoak pushed Wakefield from her.

"What were we doing?" she asked blankly.

"I was trying to get you up, Granny."

"What for?" Her eye gleamed suspiciously.

"Why, the canary, Gran. Finch's canary, don't you remember?"

On the instant her old face was alight with rage.

"Remember! Of course I remember. A canary in the house! I won't have it. I'll stir things up. I'll make a scene. I must get out to the dining-room."

"Shall I fetch Renny?"

"No. No. No, no, no. He'd put me back in bed. Cover me up, the rascal. I know him. I must get to the dining-room and give 'em all a fright. And I must do it quickly or one of them will be in here. Ernest will come whining, or Nick mumbling, or Augusta rearing up her head. No, no."

"What about creeping, Gran?"

His grandmother threw him an infuriated look. "Creep, eh? One of my family creep! A Court creep! A Court, let me tell you, never creeps or crawls, even before his Maker! He walks upright, even if he has to lean on someone else to do it. Let cowards creep—let snails creep—let snakes creep——" She looked about her rather wildly. "What was I saying?"

"You were saying all the things you'd let creep, Granny. You'd just got to snakes."

"But what was I going to make a scene about?"

"About the canary, Gran."

"Ah, yes. We must attend to that. Try pushing me from behind, Wakefield. Mount the bed."

Nothing loath to try his force from another angle, the little boy scrambled on to the bed, and, kneeling behind her, pushed mightily against her shoulders.

Grunting, straining, her eye prominent with the exertion, she rose. Rose so thoroughly, in fact, that she all but toppled forward on her face. But she balanced herself. Like some unseaworthy old vessel, battered by a storm, she still could ride the waves on occasion with a staunch front.

Leaning heavily on Wakefield's shoulder, she appeared in the doorway of the dining-room, and cast an authoritative look over her descendants gathered there. Shock and concern displaced hilarity on their strongly marked countenances. Piers, who was nearest her, jumped to his feet and came to her side. Ernest brought a chair, and together they placed her in it.

"Mama, Mama," chided Ernest, adjusting her cap, so that her other too bright eye was discovered, "this is very bad for you."

Augusta said, sternly: "Wakefield, you are a very naughty boy. You deserve a whipping."

"Let the child be," rapped out her mother. "He minds his business, and he does what he is told, which is more than you do."

Lady Buckley fingered her cameo brooch and looked offendedly down her nose.

Reassured that nothing was wrong with her, Nicholas beamed across the table at his ancient parent. Her unflinching spirit, her temper, delighted him. "Game old girl," he murmured to himself. "She's marvellous, and no mistake."

"Are you hungry, Gran?" asked Renny. "Is that what brought you out?"

"No, no, no," ejaculated Ernest. "She's not hungry! She had a large bowl of cornflakes and puffed rice before she went to bed."

His mother turned her hawklike face on him. "Cornflakes," she muttered. "Cornflakes—silly leaves . . . puffed rice—silly seeds . . . leaves and seeds—fit food for a silly canary." She dropped her chin on her breast, turning a word over in her mind. "Canary." Her brain fumbled over it like a blind old tigress trying to discover the nature of a strange morsel. "Canary." Of what did it remind her? Her deep dark eyes roved over the faces of the clan till they fell on young Finch in the doorway. He was gazing at her in sheepish fascination. The instant she saw him she remembered why she had risen so vehemently from her bed. A canary! Finch's canary in that house! A little, chirping, squeaking, hopping bird at Jalna! She wouldn't have it!

Her face became dark with anger. She found it difficult to speak.

Renny said: "Give her something to eat. She's getting in a fine old rage."

Wakefield tendered a plate of biscuits and cheese in her direction. With a savage look she poked it away with her stick.

"Finch," she articulated. "I want Finch."

The boy hesitated.

"Come close where she won't have to shout at you," said Nicholas.

Finch slouched into the room, grinning deprecatingly.

"Now," she said, peering at him from under her shaggy rust-coloured brows with sudden, lucid firmness, "what's this I hear about a canary?"

Finch, staring into her eyes with a bewitched feeling, could only stammer: "Oh, look here now, Gran—look here—there's no darned canary at all——"

"There is a canary," she shouted, thumping her stick on the floor. "A nasty, flibbertigibbet canary that you've smuggled into the house. Fetch it here and I'll wring its neck for it!"

"Oh, I say, Gran, it's only a lottery ticket. There's not one chance in a hundred that I'll win. I don't want the thing anyway."

"Ha!" she retorted, furiously. "You'd lie, would you? Come here!"

He approached guardedly, but she was swifter than he gave her credit for. With the sweeping gesture of one indulging in some sport, she caught him a blow on the knuckles, so sharp that it skinned three of them and doubled him up with the sting of it.

"Such a disgraceful temper!" cried her daughter.

"Steady on, Mama," growled Nicholas.

Ernest rose from his chair, trembling. "Mama, this is very bad for you. You might have a stroke."

"Stroke, is it?" she shouted. "I gave the brat a stroke—a stroke he'll remember. I drew the blood, I did! Put out your hand, boy, till I see it." She was purple with excitement.

Renny set down his glass of rum and water. He came and leaned over her. "Don't you want to be kissed, Gran?" he inquired on a coaxing note.

She raised her eyes and, from under the rim of her cap, peered into his face. Its lean redness, thus suddenly brought close to hers, shutting out her view of the others; his strongly carved nose, resembling her own; his lips, drawn back from his strong teeth in a smile, hard, yet still somehow tolerant and tender, caught her attention, submerged her in an enchantment she could not resist. Renny, bone of her bone, a Court of Courts, one of the old stock—nothing puling about him.

"Kiss me," she ejaculated. "Kiss me quick!"

Finch, under screen of the embrace, slipped from the room. Going up the thickly carpeted stairs, he could hear the loud exchange of kisses.

Panting a good deal, the old lady looked around the room triumphantly after Renny had released her—she seemed to have gathered strength from his pressing vitality—and, giving a valiant tug to her cap which again disposed it over one eye, she demanded: "My teeth! I want my teeth. I'm hungry. Somebody get my teeth."

"Will one of you please get the teeth for her?" murmured Augusta, resignedly.

Wakefield blithely danced back to the bedroom, reappearing instantly with the two sets of teeth in a tumbler of water. Mrs. Whiteoak leaned toward him as he approached, and stretched out her hands. She could scarcely endure the waiting for them. The little boy joggled the tumbler before her.

"For pity's sake be careful, child," exclaimed Augusta.

"He should never have been allowed to fetch them," observed Ernest, and, despising himself for doing it, he poured a little more rum into his glass.

It had been a good evening, Renny thought. What a supper the old lady had made! And how the old boys had enjoyed their spot of rum! He had never known Uncle Nicholas more entertaining than when the women were gone and the four men were alone, the glasses refilled, and the crimson curtains drawn close. A good day. His horses had done well. He had done well. He was conscious of a pleasant ache of honourable fatigue in legs and arms. Not perhaps so much an ache as a wholesome consciousness of every muscle. How the mare had pulled, had striven!

The eldest of the young Whiteoaks, his lean body curved in an armchair, his bony weather-beaten face drooping above the dark wood of the table which reflected the lights of the prismed chandelier, would have made a satisfying model for an artist who desired to paint a picture entitled "The Huntsman at Night." He would have found, in the disposal of his limbs, in the lines of his head, a perfect example of the relaxation of a man whose joy was in vehement primitive pursuits.

Rags was clearing the table. As he lifted the spirits bottle, of which a small part remained, the master of Jalna, nodding toward it, observed curtly: "Yours, Rags."