Читать книгу Master of Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 4

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The first real heat of summer had come that day, and it was delicious. The new leaves, bright and smooth as though waxed, sunned themselves in it. Each spear of grass stood up, full of life, as though declaring—“I am the lawn.” The flower blossoms that hitherto had opened with discretion, now cast caution aside and threw wide their petals like welcoming arms. The earth that till now had only been warmed on its surface, absorbed the fire of the sun deeper and deeper into its fibre. Jock, the bob-tailed sheep dog, left the porch where he had been sunning himself, and stretched his shaggy body in the shade of a balsam.

But it was the old house itself that most greedily drank in the heat. Its walls, which had cracked in frost, shivered in bitter winds, now turned a mellow rosy red in the bright radiance. Pigeons strutted and slid up and down its warmed roof. Its windows—those windows through which old Adeline, for seventy-five years the centre of its activities, had so often stared—beamed tranquilly. A blue smoke-wreath from the kitchen chimney settled above it like a rakish halo.

Ernest Whiteoak sat in an armchair with cushions piled behind him, on the gravelled sweep in front of the house, where his long, thin body received the full force of the sun. He had been seriously ill of influenza two months before and he still clung to the pleasant ways of convalescence.

It was so nice to stand in the doorway, watch Wragge, the Cockney manservant, who had been Renny’s batman in the War, carry out the weighty chair, one of the women-folk follow with the cushions, his brother Nicholas seek out the most sheltered spot, then himself follow, leaning on the ebony stick that had been his mother’s.

He had been sitting there an hour and twenty minutes. In another twenty minutes it would be one o’clock—time for dinner. His appetite was good, his digestion better than for some time. He looked forward to the hot meal and the long nap afterward on his own soft bed. He was already drowsy because of the heat, and the sun gleaming on the bright hair of Renny’s wife sitting close beside him actually made him wink. She was trimming his nails for him, an office she had undertaken when his hands had been shaky after the fever. He was quite able to do it himself now, but one day when Nicholas had suggested it he had become very peevish and exclaimed—“I suppose you don’t mind if I cut off the ends of my fingers!”

Alayne was thorough in all she did. Each nail was trimmed to correspond with the curve at its base. They were well-shaped nails. She had brought out her own polisher and was now rubbing them briskly. Ernest’s eyes were on his fingers in bland concentrated interest. He was barely conscious of the brightness of Alayne’s hair in the sun and the pretty curve of her wrist.

Nicholas slouching in a deep wicker chair watched the two of them, a mocking light in his eyes beneath the heavily marked brows. Spoiled old boy Ernest was. And this illness had made his comfort all too precious to him. If mamma were living she would take the kink out of him. In fancy Nicholas could hear her say—“Don’t act like a ninny, boy!” She would still call him boy, though he would be seventy-eight this summer. Well ... it was splendid to see him about again, after the scare he’d given them, with his cough and his fever and all his aches and pains. He looked good for a score or more of years yet.

Alayne, he thought, looked considerably older since her baby was born. She was something more than a charming girl now. She was a woman of experience, the character of her face making one wonder what lay behind. Well, she loved Renny, that was evident, and it must be no joke for a woman of Alayne’s sort—for there would be always something strait-laced about her—to love a man like Renny. She had had a deal of tough experience since she had first come to Jalna as Eden’s wife.

“There,” said Alayne, returning Ernest his hand, “you’re all fixed up for another few days.”

“Next time he’ll be able to do it for himself,” observed Nicholas.

“I am mending slowly,” Ernest returned mildly.

“You’re getting a look of positive brute strength,” said his brother.

“Did you have your egg-nog?” asked Alayne.

“Yes, thank you.”

Nicholas scoffed—“And now going in to devour a hot dinner!”

Alayne gave him a look of affectionate reproval. “He must be built up,” she said, “and nourishing food is better than medicine.”

A contralto voice asked from the porch:

“Is Renny hereabout? Someone wants to speak to him over the telephone.”

All three looked around. They saw Lady Buckley, sister of Nicholas and Ernest, tall and distinguished-looking, still holding herself upright, though she had passed her eighty-first birthday, her Queen Alexandra fringe still of a strange magenta black. In spite of the warmth of the day she wore a dress of woollen material, a very dark brown with wide velvet hem, a shade not at all kind to her speckled sallow skin. She still held her head high, her chin drawn in, the full eyes wide open with an air of startled offence, but her cheeks had grown hollow, thus giving greater prominence to the mouth with its curve of tolerance. She had had an anxious time over her brother Ernest and it had told on her. She had come from England to be with him in March, enduring a stormy voyage and an exhausting journey by rail. She felt happy at sight of the little group in the sun, with Ernest, flushed a delicate pink, as its centre.

“I have not seen him since breakfast,” answered Alayne. “I’ll go to the telephone, Aunt Augusta.” She went swiftly into the house and Lady Buckley joined her brothers.

“Whatever,” she demanded of them, in her deep voice, “should we do without Alayne? I quite lean on her.”

“And so do I,” said Ernest. “She is so sensible and so thoughtful for one’s comfort!”

Nicholas said—“I suppose Renny is at the fox-farm.” He gave a humorous glance at his brother.

“I suppose so. That friendship persists, though Alayne shows so plainly that she dislikes Mrs. Lebraux.”

“I dislike her too,” declared Augusta. “I disliked her from the first moment I saw her. She struck me as unfeminine.”

“Perhaps that is what attracts Renny,” said Nicholas.

“Never! An excessively masculine man like Renny cares only for the truly feminine in woman. Look at Alayne. She is all feminine.”

“I spoke of attraction, not love,” returned Nicholas testily.

“He is very fond of the child—Pauline—” put in Ernest, “and she has clung to him since her father’s death.”

“Well,” growled his brother, “here comes Redhead himself. Let us ask him what is in his heart.”

Renny, followed by Wakefield and the terrier, was striding along the drive, his every movement vibrant with temper. As soon as he was within speaking distance he said loudly:

“I suppose you have all heard of it!”

The three old people looked at him startled, and, even in his anger, he noticed the family resemblance among them, a resemblance deeper than and beyond feature and colouring. They answered simultaneously:

“Heard of what?”

“Why, the trees! The fool Council, or Public Works or something, is out to butcher them! I thought everyone but me knew about it.”

Augusta looked warningly at him. This excitement was not good for Ernest. He gave no heed to the look but went on, in his rather metallic voice:

“They’re widening the road and they propose to take a few feet off Jalna—you know what that would mean—the oaks—and they’re straightening the dangerous curve—my God, I’d put a curve on their sterns if I had them here!”

Alayne emerged from the house just as he shouted these words. A shadow darkened her eyes, her lips tightened. He was in a mood she hated, one of noisy rage. That had been bad enough in his grandmother, an old woman of violent temper, but in a man, and that man her husband ... For the hundredth time since their marriage she compared him unfavourably with her father. She realised that it was stupid of her to compare them, for one had been a gentle New England professor and the other was a horse-breeder—a country gentleman—but still a breeder of horses, a companion of grooms and horsy, rough-talking men. She had loved and revered her father, who would have referred to Renny’s remark as “indelicate.” She loved Renny with all the passion that was in her but she moved toward him with disapproval hardening her face. He saw it and his eyes, which had eagerly sought hers, turned quickly away. He callously repeated what he would like to do to the Council.

“But they dare not touch our trees,” said Augusta, on a deep note.

“Why—why—” stammered Ernest, “it would be too horrible. Why—they must be mad!”

“It would be the last straw,” muttered Nicholas heavily. “I shall interview the Minister myself.”

“We’ll all go,” said Renny. “You, too, Auntie! You ought to have a say in it. We’ll all go.” He looked proudly at his elders, confident of the weight of their personalities. He was suddenly cheerful and gave a laugh. He ran his fingers through the hair on the top of his head, making it rise in a crest.

“I pity them if they interfere with us,” he said confidently.

His uncles and aunt began a vigorous discussion of the case. They recalled former instances, some of them sixty years ago, when attempts had been made to impose the will of the community on the Whiteoaks, always without success. Yet no family in the neighbourhood, probably not one in the Province, was held in such affectionate regard.

This discussion inflamed their pride so that they appeared younger. Nicholas heaved himself out of his chair and strode up and down before the house, now and again casting enquiring looks at it, as though seeking its commendation. He flung out his gouty leg with scarcely an effort.

Ernest stretched himself in his chair, displaying his full length. He folded his arms and stared truculently up at the others, with nostrils dilated. “Thank heaven,” he said, “that I am sufficiently recovered to go with you. We’ll give these coarse-grained vandals something to think about.”

More than ever Augusta looked affronted. She drew in her chin, on which a few grey hairs curled, her eyes brightening with emotion. “Mamma and Papa,” she said, “walked under those trees, a stately young couple, when I was a babe in arms. It was on that very curve that their carriage collided with old Mr. Pink’s and he had a thigh-bone fractured.”

“I should think,” said Alayne, who had come down the steps, “that that proves the curve to be dangerous.”

“Not at all,” returned Augusta. “Mr. Pink was a man of the poorest judgment. He could not dance a quadrille without collisions.”

“As an infant,” said Wakefield sententiously, “I was wheeled in my baby carriage around that curve, under those oaks. My first feeble speculations were concerned with their girth. My earliest——”

A look from Renny cut him short.

“Even Wakefield,” remarked Augusta, “is deeply affected.”

“Yes,” agreed Ernest, “and no wonder, for the day he was born and his mother lay dying, a gale tore one of the finest up by the roots and laid it across the road.”

“Well,” said Renny, “we’ll not worry any more about the trees. We will go to headquarters and put a stop to it.”

The dinner-gong sounded from within. Wakefield hastened to help Ernest to rise. Nicholas took his sister by the arm and Renny and Alayne followed last. She took a pinch of his sleeve in her fingers and delayed him in the hall. She looked up into his face half provocatively, half accusingly.

“You have not kissed me to-day.”

“I have not seen you.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Not mine. I knew that the kid had disturbed you last night, so I kept away this morning. Right after breakfast I had business at the stables.”

“That was something new, wasn’t it?”

He was quick to notice the sarcasm in her voice and to take offence where his horses were concerned. He answered hotly:

“I should like to know where we should be if it weren’t for the horses!”

“In pocket, I sometimes think,” she answered.

“Oh, well, I can’t expect any sympathy from you.” He jerked himself away and moved toward the door of the dining-room. From there came the appetising smell of chicken pot-pie, and the animated mingling of voices.

She caught his arm and held it. “Renny! You’re unjust, and you know it. I do sympathise in everything you do. But I think it hard that I should have to ask for kisses.”

He turned to her and gave her a kiss that had no more tenderness in it than a bite. She pushed him toward the dining-room with a little laugh. “Please go and have your dinner. Don’t think about me.” Her cheeks were flushed angrily.

He drew out her chair, pushed it under her with more force than politeness, then took his place at the head of the table. Wragge regarded them out of his shrewd grey face with pessimistic understanding. Alayne resented his watchful attitude, resented still more his leaning over Renny and whispering something in a tone of commiseration. She caught the words “grand old trees” and “knew as ’ow upset you’d be, sir.”

Renny was serving the stewed chicken and dumplings with speed and discrimination. Breast and a wing for each of the women, breast alone for Ernest, breast and the little oyster-shaped pieces from the back for Wakefield, the upper part of a leg to Nicholas, who preferred dark meat, a drumstick to his small nephew, Maurice, and what was left to Piers and himself, well flanked by dumplings. Every eye was on him. If he had faltered in his serving of the dinner, his hard-won prestige would have suffered, the solidarity of table tradition been shattered.

On one side of the table Augusta sat between her two brothers. On the other Piers, his wife, Pheasant, and Wakefield. Between Piers and Renny, six-years-old Maurice industriously scooped up his gravy with a spoon.

Piers gave Renny curious side glances out of his full blue eyes. He wondered where his feelings of outrage for the trees would carry him; how far he would go if his efforts to bring the authorities to his way of thinking were futile. He himself was sorry about the trees, about the picturesque curve in the road, but—one must move with the times, and the times moved with motor-cars. He asked casually:

“What shall you do if—well, if they won’t listen to reason?”

Renny thrust a piece of hot dumpling into his mouth and stared at Piers. Alayne took the opportunity to speak. She said in a tone of restrained calm, which was obviously intended to be an example to her husband:

“What could he do, Piers, but submit as any gentleman must?”

Piers grunted, without taking his eyes from Renny’s face.

Wragge gave a sneering grin which he hid behind his sallow fingers and a cough.

Renny bolted the dumpling.

“Do”—he repeated—“o—why, I will take my gun down to the road and put a shot into the first man who lays an axe to one of my trees!”

Such an abrupt silence—made more intense by the suspension of even mastication—followed this outburst, that little Maurice laid down his spoon and looked from face to face, astonished.

Then Nicholas broke into subterranean laughter, followed by a high-pitched giggle from Pheasant. Ernest turned deep pink.

“That’s the way to talk,” he said.

“Yes,” agreed Piers, “if he wants to get into trouble.”

“Trouble nothing,” retorted Nicholas. “We’ll show them from the start that we’ll not be browbeaten. My God, when I think of our trees ...”

Augusta added:

“And the road that was once absolutely ours....”

“And it,” said Ernest, “disfigured by bungalows.”

“And now the kink taken out of it,” put in Wakefield.

Augusta drew a deep sigh. “Things are changing both here and in England.” She looked about the table as she said this as though expecting astonishment at her announcement.

“And for the worse, too,” came from young Pheasant.

“They can change as fast as they like,” said Renny, “if they’ll just let me alone.”

Rags spoke in a sentimental tone from the doorway.

“Ah, I expect I’d see great chynges in old London if I was to go back naow!”

Lady Buckley looked through him. Alayne looked down her nose. But Renny ejaculated warmly:

“I’ll bet you would, Rags! We must go over some time before long.” He had finished his chicken and now set his plate, swimming with gravy and scraps, on the floor in front of Piers’s terrier.

Piers, who had not seen her since her bath, when she had left his hands white as the snow, gazed down at her with a scowl.

“Where has she been?” he demanded.

“Taking a walk with me.”

“You might have kept her out of burrows. I’m taking her into town this afternoon to show her to a man who is interested in her next litter.” He bent down to take the plate from her. “She’s not allowed to eat table scraps.”

Renny, who always gave his dogs titbits from his plate, also bent and caught Piers’s wrist and held it. “Let her alone,” he said. “She looks half starved.”

“That’s what I say!” cried Pheasant. “She never has enough to eat.”

“What do you know about it?” growled Piers, still trying to remove the plate while Renny still held his wrist.

“I know what it is to have young,” she declared.

There was a laugh at Piers’s expense. He sat up, red-faced. The table-cloth had been pulled askew between the brothers, and Mooey’s mug of milk was overturned. The terrier, who had been fearful of losing her dinner, had in great haste licked the plate clean and now turned her attention to the milk that dribbled like manna from above.

“Look what you’ve done, you young idiot!” said Piers to his son.

“You did it yourself,” returned Renny, straightening the cloth.

Alayne looked apologetically at Augusta, who suddenly exclaimed:

“Enough! Enough! You are making the child unruly.”

“What I want to know,” interrupted Ernest, “is how soon we can go to the office of this official. I must conserve my energy.”

“Directly the meal is over,” said Renny, attacking the black currant roly-poly that Wragge had placed in front of him.

Ernest eyed it longingly.

“Uncle Ernie?”

“Perhaps I had better not.”

“Do you good.”

“A small helping then.”

Circular pieces of the suet pudding oozing purplish black jam hastened after each other down the board.

“Mooey, you tripe, we’ve come to you! Much or little?”

“Much!” shouted Mooey, joggling in his chair.

“Strange how unruly he grows,” said Augusta.

Piers put his hand on the child’s head and pressed it down. He said:

“It would be better to find out if the Minister is in town before you go. You should make an appointment.”

Nicholas answered—“No, no. He might try to get out of seeing us. We’ll risk not finding him at home. Better strike while the iron is hot.”

Piers shrugged. “You’ll find it a stifling drive at this hour.”

“We shall take the new car,” said Renny.

It was still called the new car though it had been bought three years before. Piers gave an astonished look at Renny, who had always refused to use it.

“Why, look here,” he said, “I’m taking it myself this afternoon. I’m sorry.”—but, after all, it was his car.

“You may take the old one,” said his senior pleasantly.

“Certainly,” agreed Nicholas. “We must not go in looking shabby. It is just possible that the man may not have heard of us. We must appear as people of substance.”

“Not heard of us!” exclaimed his sister.

“Well”—Nicholas’s voice was sombre—“you never know who these fellows are.”

Ernest interjected—“Yes, we must appear as people of substance. I shall wear my silk hat, I think.”

“For God’s sake ...” mumbled Piers.

The telephone rang loudly in the sitting-room. It had been installed at the time of Ernest’s illness. Its most frequent use since had been for conversations between Renny and his horsy friends. He sprang up now to go to it, leaving his pudding. One of his Clumber spaniels came sedately from under his chair and laid its muzzle on the seat as though to guard it for him.

He left the door open behind him and all that he said was audible in the dining-room.

“Hello! Yes—it’s Whiteoak speaking.... Certainly I wanted to see the mare. You were to let me know.... I got no message.... No—not a word.... And Collins bought her? It’s a damned shame! ... Why didn’t you call again? ... My wife! She gave me no message ... yes, I suppose—thinking about a new dress ... yes, women all alike ... yes, I’ll give her your reproaches ... yes, I’ll tell her you said she was a naughty girl—ha! ha! Oh no, she’d not be annoyed....”

He came back to the table grinning, but the grin faded when he saw his wife’s expression.

“No wonder,” exclaimed Pheasant, “that Alayne looks mortified. Playful messages from that old Crowdy! I wonder at his cheek.”

Renny gave a deprecating glance at Alayne from under the thick black lashes that lent his looks an added charm for women. “Crowdy is a decent head and Alayne has no reason for feeling hurt,” he said. “It is I who ought to feel hurt at not getting his message. It was very important that I should see that mare.”

Alayne made no answer. She was in a mood of helpless childlike anger against him. Hot tears were behind her eyes and a cold smile on her lips. But why was she angry? She scarcely knew. Perhaps it was just because she loved him so fiercely, and fierce love was against her nature and hurt her. Perhaps it was partly because all he did was so important to her that she saw his faults under her magnifying absorption in him. It was possible that she had a perverse pleasure in being hurt by him. But her unhappiness of the moment was real. She excused herself from the table, after a stiff apology for her forgetfulness, and went upstairs to relieve the nursemaid who was looking after her child.

As she entered the shabby attic room which they had turned into a day nursery she noticed how hot it was up there under the sloping roof, and the thought crossed her mind, as it had often before, that if the family were not so large she might have arranged a beautiful modern nursery next her own room. She despised Alma Patch, the young girl who came in by the day to help with the children. She disliked her ill-kept hair and nails, her wet underlip, her timid whispering voice, and she allowed her to have as little to do with her child as possible. It was nervous, highly strung. She had its crib in her bedroom and devoted the greater part of the day to its care.

Pheasant’s younger son, named Finch, but called Nooky, was still sitting in his high chair emptying the last drops from his mug of milk. He was two years old, a delicate, shy child, with sleek fair hair and hazel eyes. He was very fond of Alayne, and she often wished that her own child would show so much affection for her.

That child came toward her now with the triumphant walk she had just acquired, her dense, dark-red hair on end, her small being overflowing with vitality. She was not a pretty child, for she had too large a nose for her infant face, and the expression of her mouth showed little of the appealing softness of eighteen months. She looked at Alayne out of Renny’s eyes, and in some strange way that intense gaze was a barrier between them. For in the babe it was feminine and antagonistic.

She lifted up the child and kissed it. It grasped her neck fiercely, pressed its knees spasmodically against her stomach and rubbed its satin cheek against hers.

“Gently, Baby,” she begged. “You must not be so rough!”

“Me, too! Me, too!” cried the little boy.

She bent over and kissed the top of the silky head. Before she could prevent it the baby had grasped a handful of his hair and pulled it vigorously. He broke into loud wails, his mug was knocked to the floor and broken.

Alayne set down the baby, forcing back a desire to shake her, and exclaimed:

“Adeline, you must be more gentle! See how you have hurt dear little Nooky!”

Alma Patch, picking up bits of broken china, said:

“She’s after him all the time, ma’am. She takes his own playthings off him and, if he don’t give them up quick enough to please her, she pulls his hair. It’s really awful to see her sometimes.”

Little Adeline was angry at being put down. With head and heels on the floor, she arched her plump diaphragm and rent the air with her shrieks. Alayne picked her up and carried her swiftly down the stairs and into her own bedroom. Again she sat her down, regarding her with an expression more suspicious than maternal. Would she hurl herself on the floor again? And, if she did, would it be better to go out of the room and leave her to her rage, or stay and try to control her?

Adeline did not throw herself down, however. She stood, with chest expanded, screaming, and hitting savagely at her mother when she laid a restraining hand on her. Alayne was almost frightened at the anger which her own child had the power of rousing in her. She abhorred the cruel desire to hurt which she felt battling within her. Yet to see her child suffer would have been terrible to her.

Adeline held her breath for a more sustained effort and in the interval Alayne heard Nooky still wailing above. Children—how she once had idealised them!

She heard Renny’s step in the passage. Adeline heard it too, and the scream she had been preparing issued from her scarlet lips in a gurgle of laughter. She ran to the door and rattled the knob. Alayne, fearful that the opening door might strike her, swept her up and was rewarded by kicks and writhings.

They faced Renny as he came in, mother and daughter, with no trait, mental or physical, in common, antagonistic, yet loving each other and him.

He took the child from Alayne’s arms, tossed her up and kissed her. There had been no tears in her eyes. Now they shone like stars. Her exertions had flooded the cream of her cheeks with a delicious pink. Renny regarded her with pride.

“Wouldn’t Gran have gloried in her?” he demanded.

Alayne nodded. She was too disturbed by the fracas for speech.

“She’s a wonder,” he continued, “a wonder, and a peach of peaches. I wish Gran could see her! She’d appreciate her. She’s in a class by herself—the prize filly,—aren’t you, my pet?”

The object of his ecstasies well knew that she was being praised. She preened herself, drew in the corners of her mouth, and looked at him out of the sides of her dark eyes.

Then he drew her close and, planting his mouth on hers, devoured her with kisses.... Alayne stood looking at them, remembering how she had wished for a child, had felt that, with her child in his arms, the bond between him and Wakefield, which seemed to her neurotic, would be naturally loosened. This had not been the case. Renny’s heart had only expanded to make room for the new love. And his demonstrations of love for the small Adeline were too extravagant, too reminiscent of his grandmother, to please her. How could she properly train her child with Renny’s laughter, Renny’s scowl, or his boisterous praise, always intervening at the wrong time? Even now Adeline showed plainly that her mother’s opinion was of little value to her as compared with her father’s.

She laid herself out to please him, changing her expression from that of a small fury to one befitting a seraph, at his approach. She would show off her tricks before him like an actress. She delighted in pulling the ears and tails of the dogs but, at the sound of his step, she would stroke and blandish them. All the family (except Wakefield, who was jealous of her) spoiled her. “How she favours dear Mamma!” “She is a perfect Court!” “Do not cross her! Her high spirit should not be broken!” Or “She’s the spit of dear old Gran.” These were the exclamations Alayne was constantly hearing. She was beginning to despair of ever training her as she should be trained.

“She has been behaving very badly,” she said. “Pulling Nooky’s hair for nothing at all.”

He kissed her again. “She loves the feel of hair in her hands. She doesn’t realise that it hurts. Pull your Daddy’s then! He has a tough scalp.”

The baby filled her hands with his strong red hair and pulled until she drew herself upright in his arms.

Suddenly he set her on her feet. “I must be off,” he said.

After a moment of astonishment she broke into screams and beat her little hands in anger on the door he had shut behind him.