Читать книгу Whiteoak Heritage - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 6

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Pheasant was thinking, to the rhythm of swinging legs that dangled from the broad damp bough of an old apple-tree: “This is a wonderful year for me. In a month I shall be thirteen—in my teens—and in an hour I shall see Maurice. I don’t know which amazes me most.”

Her expression, always rather startled, became amazed, by her own will. She sent up her eyebrows, parted her lips and breathed pantingly. As though amazement was transmitted through her into the old tree, a tremor ran through it and its scant pinkish-white blossoms filled the air with a startled scent. Her thin legs, in the brown lisle thread stockings, swung in a kind of syncopated rhythm, as though beyond her control. She thought: “In a few minutes I shall go in and brush my hair and clean my nails and put lots of scent on my handkerchief.”

The apple-tree stood by itself in a small irregular field by the side of the creek. She always thought of it as her own tree, for none but she paid any attention to it. The apples it produced were small and warped and rough-skinned, but to her taste had the sweetest flavour of all. If she shut her eyes and tasted carefully it was almost like a pear but far better. The trouble was that the old pony, which pastured in this field, was just as fond of the apples as she was. He would stand beneath it, waiting for them to fall, or stretch his rough-maned neck to tear them from the bough.

He ambled toward the tree now and rolled his full, blue-black eyes at Pheasant with the look of a conspirator, as though they both were thieves. Yet the apples were still no more than ideas in the heads of the buds.

“Hello, you old rogue,” said Pheasant. “You don’t know who’s coming home to-day!”

The pony blew out his lips and the faintest whicker stirred his insides. Little drops of moisture hung on the hair about his mouth. She put down a foot and scratched his back with it.

“It’s Maurice who’s coming,” she said. “I suppose you know more about him than I do. I wish you could speak, Sandy. You could tell me a lot.”

The pony was twenty-eight years old and had belonged to Maurice when he was a small boy. Pheasant in her turn had ridden him about the fields but he was fat and lazy and would not move out of a protesting jog-trot. Now Pheasant pictured him young and feeling his oats, with little Maurice on his back, galloping along the country road where there were no motor-cars, Maurice laughing and happy.

Sandy moved from under her foot and began to crop the scant young grass. He gave a look askance at her when she caught him by the forelock and told him: “Your master’s coming home! Do you hear? Your master and my father.”

There was a strange lightness inside her, half fear and half joy. She had lived so solitary that the thought of sharing the house with a large, almost strange man changed the very aspect of the spring day for her. Colours were deeper, more intense, there was mystery in the murmuring of the creek. Father—father—father—it kept saying. Yet she had never called him anything but Maurice. Mrs. Clinch, the housekeeper, was getting old. She was hard of hearing and suffered from lumbago. She had lived in the Vaughan’s house for forty years and seemed as permanent as the very walls to the little girl. Mrs. Clinch looked on Pheasant as a disgrace to the name of Vaughan and, while to the outer world she carried herself proudly, she never came suddenly on the child without a shock to her innermost self, and the thought: “This is the skeleton in our cupboard and it’s my duty to care for it....” If only she might have had a properly born, greatly welcomed child to look after!

She was kind to Pheasant, without tenderness. Her idea of a child’s goodness was that it should be keeping still. Pheasant’s idea of getting on with Mrs. Clinch was to stop doing whatever she happened to be doing when Mrs. Clinch appeared, and stand quite still. The housekeeper would scrutinise her, appear satisfied and return to her little sitting-room off the kitchen. She had a rocking-chair there that gave a sharp crack each time it swung backward. When Pheasant heard this noise she knew she would be unobserved for the next hour.

Till she was eight Pheasant had spent much of her time in keeping away from Mrs. Clinch and in watching Maurice, unseen. She would follow him through the fields, hiding behind blackberry bushes or among the tall corn, sometimes in the house, always in the room he had just left. Everything he did fascinated her. She would stand with her eye to the crack of the bathroom door watching him shave, watching the deft lathering of his face, the controlled sweep of the razor, the smooth-skinned face that emerged. She would spy on him as he cleaned his gun, read his paper, or mixed himself a drink, always trying to imagine what it would be like if he was fond of her and wanted her near him. Pheasant knew that in some mysterious way she had spoiled Maurice’s life. She was sorry for him and wished she could think of something to do to make up for this.

Now this morning she stood in the dining-room taking in the unaccustomed brightness of the room. During Maurice’s absence the blinds had always been drawn except when Mrs. Clinch had opened up the room for airing and cleaning. The sideboard had been bare, the table covered by a sheet. It had been a game of Pheasant’s to dare herself to lift the corner of the sheet and look beneath it. Once, rigid with fear, she did. There were some cushions beneath. That was what had made it look as though a body lay there. But she had run from the room terrified. What might not lie beneath the cushions? This morning bright sunlight flowed into the room, caught and held by the polished silver on the sideboard, making a shining shield of the walnut top of the table. Silver and wood were evidence of the state of Mrs. Clinch’s hands. She now came into the room just in time to see Pheasant run her palm over the table-top.

“Don’t touch!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, as though speaking to a child of three.

Pheasant drew back and stood still, her arms at her sides. She saw that the housekeeper was shiny and neat as the room, her grey hair flattened, a stiff white apron over her grey dress. Her hands, clasped in front of her, were her only spot of colour. They were a greyish pink from the silver-cleaning powder.

“It all looks lovely,” said Pheasant, speaking loudly because Mrs. Clinch was deaf.

“It ought to,” returned Mrs. Clinch. “I’ve been rubbing and polishing for three days. You’ll have your lunch in here with him.”

“Me?” Pheasant turned pale with excitement. “I couldn’t eat. I’d be too frightened.”

“Nonsense. There’ll be no more meals with me. Your place is here from now on. You had better dress yourself now. There’s no time to spare.”

“Shall I put on my white dress?”

“Goodness, no. The plaid one. Then come to me and I’ll give your hair a good brushing.”

Pheasant flew upstairs. There was a fluttering in all her pulses. She felt that she surely must weigh less than usual. She felt as though she were blown up the stairs and into her room.

She put on the plaid dress and tried to find a pair of stockings without a hole in them, but could not. She ended by putting on one each of two different pairs. The shades were not an exact match but she thought the difference would not be noticed. She looked at herself in the glass and saw a face, two eyes that sparkled back at her and a mass of brown hair. There seemed to be more plaid stuff than features to her. But she was not dissatisfied with her appearance. She snatched up her hairbrush and ran down to the kitchen.

There were agreeable smells about. Coffee was bubbling in the pot. Mrs. Clinch ignored Pheasant and the hairbrush. She seemed to take a pleasure in walking about, doing things, with the child dumbly following her. Then suddenly she turned abruptly and said:

“Well, then, let’s have it.”

She swept the brush ruthlessly over smooth locks and tangled locks alike. Pheasant set her teeth and her eyes watered as a twig from the apple-tree was detached from a tangle.

“No wonder the birds are building nests in your hair,” Mrs. Clinch said.

She had barely given a dozen strokes when the sound of a motor was heard and voices at the front of the house. Mrs. Clinch exclaimed:

“There he is now! Poor young gentleman!” Mrs. Clinch usually ended any remark she made about Maurice with the words “poor young gentleman,” and for some reason they always made Pheasant ashamed. Now she stood hesitating, not quite knowing what to do. The housekeeper hurried to the door.

Pheasant went slowly into the hall.

The front door had been opened wide. The fresh spring air, as though it had been shut out too long from that gloomy house, rushed in, freighted with the scents of warm earth, opening buds, and damp leaf-mould. It was as though the side of the house had been taken out and all secrets, all unhappiness blown away.

Maurice, stalwart in his uniform, came in. He was followed by a small wiry man laden with luggage. Maurice shook hands with the housekeeper. He paid the taxi-driver. The door closed and Pheasant felt suddenly too shy to face Maurice. But he saw her and came down the hall.

“Hello,” he said. “How you’ve grown!” He took her hand in his left hand. She saw that he wore a leather bandage about his right wrist and that the hand looked helpless.

“A piece of shell crippled my hand,” he said.

Pheasant felt weak with the love that surged over her. She longed to kiss the poor hand. She longed to draw his head down to hers and hold it close. But he moved away and began to explain to the housekeeper about John Wragge. These two went to the kitchen and Maurice up the stairs. The meeting had taken no more than a few moments and was over. Pheasant stood irresolute.

She longed to follow Maurice to his room, but she dared not. She clasped her hands about the newel-post and swung her body from side to side. Swinging so, she sometimes saw up the stairs and sometimes into the dining-room. A strange new life had come into the house. She sniffed. It even smelt different. Then she saw the luggage mounded in the hall. It smelt of leather and strange adventure. In the dining-room Mrs. Clinch was placing a platter of cold meat on the table and a glass jar of red pickled cabbage. A good smell came from some hot escalloped dish. Everything was so clean, shining, and attentive for the new life to begin. What would it be like to have a man in the house?

She heard his step above, then he came slowly toward the stairs. She loosed herself from the newel-post and fled to the passage that opened into the kitchen. At that moment the kitchen door opened and Mrs. Clinch stared at her as though surprised.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Nothing. Why?”

“Your place is in the dining-room now.”

The housekeeper’s tone was so final that Pheasant seemed to hear the slamming of a door. But she did not know what her place in the new life was to be.

“Lunch is ready.” Mrs. Clinch said this to Maurice, who was now at the bottom of the stairs.

He glanced uncertainly at Pheasant.

“I’ve set a place for her,” said the housekeeper. “Was that right?”

“Of course.”

“I’m feeding that man you brought, in the kitchen.”

“Good.”

Mrs. Clinch gave Pheasant a slight push in the direction of the dining-room. Maurice drew out a chair for her. He was embarrassed. He did not know how to talk to children.

“What will you have?” he asked, when they were at table. “Ham? Tongue? I don’t know what the other stuff is. Should you like a mixture?”

“The other meat is brawn,” answered Pheasant faintly. “I’ll have just ham, please.”

They ate in silence.

Pheasant was fascinated by Maurice’s crippled hand. She saw that he had difficulty in using his knife and fork. Her own hand felt weak, in sympathy. She longed to cut his food for him.

Her fork fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. A hot tide rose to her cheeks and she bent double, trying to retrieve it. Maurice remarked curtly:

“Well—I can do better than that.”

She felt disgraced.

Maurice was oppressed by recollections of his parents who had lived in this house. They had died years before the War but his absence from home had brought them near, on his return. They were much nearer to him than Pheasant was.

He wondered what Renny Whiteoak was feeling, whose father and stepmother both had died while he was in France. Then the remembrance of Meg’s shocked look when she saw him at the station stabbed him with a chagrin so keen that he uttered an incoherent exclamation and pushed his chair back from the table. This home-coming was horrible. This house was deadly.

He rose and went to the sideboard. He was relieved to find that the whisky decanter had been filled. He found a glass and half-filled it. Pheasant watched his every movement. He went to the door of the pantry, opened it a few inches, and called loudly:

“Mrs. Clinch!”

She came running, as though he had shouted “Fire!”

“Is there any soda water?” he asked.

She looked blank. “I never thought of soda water,” she answered. “I’m terrible sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He returned to the table and filled his glass with water.

The spirits cheered him and he tried to think of something to say to his child.... Lord, he should have brought her a present. Children expected presents. “You’ve grown like anything,” he offered.

She sat straighter. “Yes. I’m tall for my age.”

He looked her over critically. “But you’ll not be a tall woman.”

He realised by her expression that he had said the wrong thing and he added:

“I don’t like tall women.”

Mrs. Clinch brought the pudding.

When they were alone again Pheasant asked, in the voice that still did not sound like her own—“Are you glad the War is over?” She was pleased with this question, which sounded really grown-up.

He considered it with his brows knit.

“No,” he answered at last. “I don’t think I am.”

Pheasant kept her eyes on her plate. Then he was not glad to see her! He would rather be thousands of miles from home, fighting in a war, than be with her. Tears crept slowly, painfully into her eyes. A deep flush covered her small pointed face.

“The war wasn’t so bad,” he said. “But when I’ve settled down I daresay I shall be glad. How are you getting on with your lessons?”

Pheasant had lessons from Miss Pink, who was the organist of the church.

“Do you mean the school lessons or the music lessons?” she asked, after a silence in which Maurice almost forgot he had asked the question.

“Both.”

“I’m pretty good at literature and history. I’m not much good at music.” She could control her tears no longer. They ran swiftly down her cheeks and dropped on to the rather soggy spice pudding.

Maurice stared at her embarrassed and annoyed. Did the child think he was a brute?

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You may stop the music lessons if you wish.”

She took a large spoonful of the pudding and, in the effort of swallowing it, found self-control. Maurice left his unfinished and lighted a cigarette. He wondered if there were any way out of having the child with him at meals. Pheasant made a resolute effort to carry on the conversation.

“Finch Whiteoak likes music,” she said. “He sits by the organ in the church while Miss Pink plays. She says she can hardly play for looking at him. He throws his whole soul into his eyes, she says.”

“Hmph.... He was at the station to meet Renny.... Do you see much of the Whiteoaks?”

“Not very much. Wakefield is the sweetest little fellow. Once he ran away and came here, all by himself. When he can’t have what he wants he just lies down on the floor and rolls over and over till he gets it.”

“Do you ever see Miss Whiteoak—Meg?”

“No. I never see her. But once I met one of the uncles—the one called Nicholas—and he was very nice. Two days afterward a parcel came addressed to me and, when I opened it, there was a beautiful doll!”

“That was kind.”

“Shall I fetch it and show you?”

“If you like.”

She pushed back her chair and left the room. Upstairs she stood breathing quickly, trying to keep back the tears. She was not sure why she wanted to cry. She drew out the bottom drawer where she kept the doll, for she no longer played with it. It lay with closed eyes like someone dead, she thought. She felt suddenly very sorry for it. She took it up and buried her face against it. She no longer tried to control herself.

She did not go back to the dining-room and after a little she saw Maurice walking slowly along the path that led to the wood.

A dimness came over the sun and a few drops of rain fell. There was deep silence except for the chirping of a small bird. Then the rain came swiftly, lightly, as though not to injure the delicate blossoms of May. Pheasant wondered if Maurice would get wet. But he seemed unreal suddenly. Had he really come home? Was the meeting with him, which she had strained toward so long, already over? A cackling laugh came from the kitchen. Wragge had found his way into Mrs. Clinch’s good graces!