Читать книгу Whiteoak Heritage - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 8

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As Pheasant had in earlier days followed Maurice about, she now shunned him. The sound of his step sent her flying, with beating heart. She ate her tea alone and was in bed when he had his dinner. She had left for Miss Pink’s when he appeared the next morning. Eating his bacon and eggs he thought that after all the kid was not going to be greatly in evidence. If she had had any look of his family he should not so much have minded her presence, but she bore no resemblance to anyone except the girl who had, for a brief season, made him forget his loyalty to Meg. Yet there was something in the child that was like no one. That look of a young wild creature that watches you with no understanding, yet seems to see right through you. She made him uncomfortable, and that was the truth.

It was late afternoon of the next day before they met again.

She had had her tea and was writing in an exercise-book on the dining-room table when he came into the room. The light was fading and she was bent over the book, her thick, brown hair falling over each cheek, so that her face appeared very pale and narrow, as though between bars. On the wall opposite her was a patch of dusky-red sunshine. A plate of bread and butter, a pot of strawberry jam and a jug of milk stood on the table. A half-eaten cookie lay beside her, and just as he came in she reached for it, her eyes still on her book, and took a bite.

His step startled her and she stared at him, the bit of cookie distending her cheek. She was so unused to sudden sounds in that quiet house that it took little to startle her.

“What are you jumping for?” asked Maurice irritably. “I’m not a burglar.”

“No, I know you’re not,” she stammered. “I just ... I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I can’t send word that I’m coming every time I enter a room, you know.”

“Yes—no—of course you can’t.”

She had spoken indistinctly through the bite of cookie. Now she swallowed it and looked at him as though asking whether she should stay or go. He dropped into an armchair and took a note-book out of his pocket. He fluttered the leaves, in search of some entry. Neither heard the new step in the hall. A moment later the door opened and Renny Whiteoak stood before them.

“Hello,” he said. “I didn’t ring because I saw you through the window. All settled down, eh? Hello, Pheasant!”

She rose and went to him, shyly holding out her hand. Maurice’s face lightened at sight of his friend. “It’s about time you showed up,” he said.

Renny shook hands with the little girl. “If you had been through what I have——” he said.

“I suppose they’ve fairly eaten you up.”

“I’ve been like a scrap of bread on a duck-pond. Among them—from Gran down to the baby—I haven’t had a moment to myself. I’ve talked myself hoarse. I’ve stripped to display the marks of battle. That was for the old lady. She wasn’t a bit shocked. She just ran her fingers along the scars and said—‘Ha! We were always good fighters!’ I was out in the stables by seven this morning. I’ve been all over the farm.”

“It sounds just like my home-coming.... Sit down and have a drink.”

Maurice went to the sideboard and filled two glasses. “Happy days!” he said.

“Happy days!”

They sat down.

“Pheasant,” said Renny, “come and sit on my knee, if you’re not too grown-up.”

“I shall never feel too grown-up for that,” she answered seriously.

“That’s the right spirit.”

She came to him and seated herself sedately on his knee. They looked into each other’s eyes. He had taken a chair by the patch of sunlight on the wall. His head and shoulders were illuminated as though by a spotlight. Pheasant thought: He looks like a really red Red Indian, in this light.

“I wish I had a little girl,” said Renny. “All those boys of mine ...”

Maurice thought: If that isn’t like old Renny—calling them his boys, already! He’d be paternal toward his grandmother if she’d let him.

“You’re too young to be my father,” said Pheasant.

“I’m just two years younger than Maurice.”

“You seem a lot younger.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. I think it’s because ... I don’t know——”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.... Whisper it.”

She bent her face to his ear, smiling.

“Don’t mind me,” said Maurice. But he felt a moment’s perverse jealousy. How easily Renny had got round the kid!

Pheasant whispered—“Because I think you feel about things more like I do.”

Renny threw an arm about her and pressed her against his shoulder. He whispered in return: “I’ll bet I do. I think Mrs. Clinch is a killjoy. I think Maurice is a duffer. I think I’m a fine fellow and you’re the most clever and interesting child I know.”

Pheasant gave a gay little laugh. They laughed into each other’s eyes. It was funny, she thought, that Maurice gave her the feeling of being almost grown-up, while Renny made her feel very young and rather reckless.

Maurice puffed at his pipe and regarded the two somewhat sombrely. He wanted his friend to himself, yet did not quite know how to get rid of the child.

“Have you finished your tea?” he asked.

“Oh yes.”

“What about those lessons?”

“They are done.”

She felt the wish in his tone and slid from Renny’s knee.

Renny asked—“Did that father of yours bring you a present?”

She shook her head.

“Not even a German helmet or something made out of an empty shell?”

“No—I don’t think so.”

“Do you know, I should never have dared show my face at Jalna without a present for every single one of them, from my grandmother down to the baby!”

“Did they like their presents?”

“Yes. And I’ve brought a present for you.”

“Don’t tease her,” said Maurice.

“I’m not. Look here!” He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a small silver fruit knife in a chamois case and gave it to her.

“Open it.”

“On, how pretty! Did you bring it all the way from France for me?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never had anything so lovely.” She put both arms about him and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you—thank you.... Look, Maurice!”

When she had gone with her books, Maurice said:

“You are a good fellow!”

“Well,” said Renny, “the knife was a little extra present for Meg, but I thought she could very well do without it.”

“It’s a good thing she doesn’t know.... I saw her face when I suddenly appeared at the station.”

“Well, it was a bit of a shock to her. But she was strung up at the time. I shan’t be surprised if she forgives and forgets—after the years you’ve been away.”

“I shall.”

Renny gave his friend a look of intense irritation. “Then for God’s sake,” he ejaculated, “forget her! There are other women in the world.”

“Not for me. Other women simply don’t count.... She might be reconciled to me if it weren’t for Pheasant.”

“Send her away to school.”

“I can’t afford it. Besides, there are the holidays. No—there’s nothing to be done about it. I must just settle down and make the best of things.” He rose heavily and poured out a fresh drink for each of them. After a pause he asked:

“How have they been managing things at Jalna?”

“Pretty badly from what I can make out. My uncles have always been extravagant. My grandmother has her nose into everything and she has the ideas of fifty years ago. Meg and Eden have been looking after the farmlands. Good Lord, they have the apple-houses stored with hundreds of bushels of rotting apples—holding them back for high prices! They have sold good horses for too little money. They sold my father’s grand old stallion last winter. Each one has a different tale to tell about that.... Well, you can’t be aggressive the moment things come into your own control but there must be a change. I shall buy a new stallion and one or two promising colts and see what I can make from show horses and hunters. Piers is going to be a help to me. I can see that.”

“There was a fellow,” said Maurice, “who came to see me this morning. He might be of some use to you. He wants work, and he seems to know a lot about horses and farming. He says that his sister is just as capable as he is.”

“Where do they live?”

“In that white house behind the church. It stood vacant for years, you remember. Then a Mrs. Stroud bought it. She divided it, so she could let half of it.”

“Oh yes, Meg told me that in a letter.”

“Well, this fellow—Dayborn his name is—lives in the other half. He has a widowed sister and her child with him. They’re English. They’re quite young. He looks about twenty-six. I gather that they’re hard-up and that Mrs. Stroud is very good to them.”

“Is she another widow?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see them. Could we go there now?”

“If you think it’s safe for us. Two widows! God knows what may happen to us.”

“I’ll look after you,” said Maurice.

He would have preferred to stay where they were and talk over their whisky and soda, but he knew what Renny was. If he got an idea in his head.... They emptied their glasses and set out across the fields, Maurice accommodating his slower step to Renny’s urgent stride.

Renny had many qualities in common with his Irish grandmother and one of them was to let no scheme of his languish for lack of swift attention. Now, in his mind, he saw this young Dayborn as the very man he needed to help him in the work of putting his estate in order. And there was the sister! A girl like that might be a lot of help in schooling ladies’ mounts. He felt full of good-will toward them. This meeting was to be propitious.

They walked along a path that ran by the side of a field where the delicate spears of Fall wheat were an emerald green and the earth took on a warm mulberry tint from the glow in the west. The path mounted gradually to a distant rise of ground, and reaching this they looked back on the house, which stood half-hidden. Maurice’s grandfather had built it ninety years before. He had planted sturdy young conifers about it, as though it were not snug enough in its hollow. They, in the long decades, had grown towering peaks, had clasped bough to bough, twined root about root, till there was a prickly wall that not only kept out the cold winter winds but arbitrarily advanced the evening, long before the sun had set.

“You should get some good exercise,” said Renny, “thinning out those evergreens.”

“Yes,” agreed Maurice but without enthusiasm, “they’re far too dense.”

“Now look at Jalna,” wheeling to face his own domain. “There’s light there. We get all the sun, while we’ve lots of trees.”

The house was indeed at this moment almost flamboyantly gay in its setting. The double row of tall balsams and hemlocks that bordered the drive stopped short at the gravel sweep. The lawn was open to sun and a group of silver birches showed trunks as white as the petals of narcissus, while their pointed leaves fluttered in palest green. The vast Virginia creeper that enriched the walls had placed its glittering young leaves with such precision against the old bricks that it seemed a calculated adornment. Certainly the fresh paint of the shutters and porch was in honour of Renny’s return, and the shine of every window-pane from polishing. Behind the house the cherry orchard spread the white veil of its blossoms and, in the ravine that divided the two estates, there were the red stems of willows, the purple and gold of flags that bloomed by the stream, and the stream’s own May-time blossom of foam. The energetic tapping of a woodpecker was the only sound.

“It seems strange,” said Renny, “to own the place. When I left home my father was as sound as a nut. I thought he would live to be as old as my grandmother. I was satisfied to be his eldest son and to be a part of the place.”

“I always admired your father,” said Maurice. “He had a fine physique and that beaming look you seldom see in faces nowadays.”

“Well,” Renny spoke almost brusquely, “he’s gone and I’ve got to get used to it.... Come along, Maurice. Let’s see this fellow. What’s his name?”

“Jim Dayborn. I forget his sister’s name. It was a little short name. Oh yes—Chris, he called her.”

“I’m glad that house is occupied. I remember how desolate it looked standing there.”

“Mrs. Stroud has made the place look very nice, my housekeeper tells me. She had a sort of party there for the Women’s Institute.”

They walked on in silence.

Coming out on the quiet country road they crossed it, and Maurice was about to suggest that they should take a shortcut through the churchyard when he remembered the new graves there and turned abruptly toward a narrow path that crossed a field. Renny hesitated a moment, his eyes fixed on the church surrounded by white gravestones, now flushed pink in the sunset. Then he followed Maurice. In a short while they stood in front of the now inhabited white house. It had once been the home of Miss Pink, the organist, but when her parents died she could no longer afford to live there and its rental had been her chief income. She had suffered privations during its vacancy and the fact that it was now sold was as a new lease of life to her.

The two men stood looking at it, remarking, with the interest of those whose roots have long been in the one spot, the alterations that had turned it into a two-family house. Also it had had a fresh coat of paint, two green front doors against the fresh whiteness of the walls.

“I’ll make a guess,” said Renny, “that Mrs. Stroud lives in the right-hand side.”

“That’s easy. You can see the man moving about the room in the other half.”

“No. I guessed from the curtains. A woman with a baby wouldn’t have had time for all those frills.”

They strode through the gate and rang the bell. The door was opened almost at once by a very thin young man wearing loose grey flannel trousers and a rough grey pullover. His colouring was nondescript but his movements were so graceful and the bones of his face so fine that he gave an impression of elegance. His expression was gloomy. This changed to a look of expectancy when he saw Maurice Vaughan.

Maurice introduced him to Renny.

Jim Dayborn invited them indoors with no apparent embarrassment for the sparsely furnished, untidy room, the scant meal which looked as though it might have been thrown on to the bare table, and the baby’s diapers drying before the stove. Renny’s first thought on seeing these was—“Why the devil didn’t she dry them out in the sunshine?” He said, when they were seated:

“I hear that you understand horses and that you’re looking for a job.”

“Yes,” said Dayborn, “I’m terribly anxious for work. You see, I have my sister and her baby to support. Not that she wants to be dependent. She’s ready to do anything. She’s absolutely at home with horses.”

“Who could look after her baby?”

“Oh, he’s no trouble. Put him down anywhere and he’ll amuse himself.”

“In a stable?”

“If necessary,” answered Dayborn laconically.

“Where did you get your experience?” asked Renny.

“We were brought up in a rectory in Suffolk. Our neighbours kept large stables and we spent half our time in them. We met an American who raised show horses and we came out to work with him. Well, that didn’t last and——”

“Why didn’t it last?”

“The owner was paying attention to my sister. But she didn’t like him. She liked a chap named Cummings. She married him and then Cummings died and my sister could not stick the place without him. The baby was just a few months old. We knew a horse-breeder in Montreal and got a job with him. My sister can break in any sort of colt. She’s wonderful. But the man lost a lot of money and sold his horses. We’ve had bad luck since then. If you are wanting two people who aren’t afraid of work, and who understand horses, I hope you’ll give us a chance.”

“I’d like to meet your sister,” said Renny.

“Good.” Dayborn left the room with a hang-dog grace that repelled Renny, even while he was attracted by his candour. There’s something queer about him, he thought.

Maurice’s eyes swept the disorderly room. He gave Renny a significant look. “If this is an example of her work ...” he said under his breath.

“Sh ... they’re coming.”

But the young woman who returned with Dayborn was the opposite of slovenly. Her khaki breeches and shirt, open at the neck, were well-cut and clean. Her pale fair hair hung straight and sleek about her small head. She was tall, like her brother, but their only resemblance was their extreme thinness. Compared to them, the baby of fifteen months she carried in her arms was almost aggressively plump and rosy. He wore white flannel pyjamas, and his golden hair stood moist and curly from his bath.

Dayborn introduced the two men to his sister. As Renny looked into her long amber-coloured eyes, he noticed also the fine line of her nostrils and the firm clasp of her thin calloused hand. When she smiled she showed good teeth with a small corner broken off one of the front ones.

“What a fine child!” exclaimed Renny. “What is his name?”

“Tod.”

“Hello, Tod!”

The baby leant forward and grasped Renny’s nose. He pressed his tiny nails into the flesh and crowed in pleasure.

“No, no, Tod!” said his mother, unclasping the little fingers.

“Come along, then,” said Renny. He took the baby into his arms, where he jumped and chuckled as though that, of all places, was where he most wanted to be.

Renny gave a pleased grin. “He’s taken to me at once,” he said. “I wish my baby brother were half so friendly.”

“Tod is like that with everyone. He has knocked about so much.”

Renny gave her a swift but penetrating glance. “I’m afraid you’ve had rather a rough time.”

She laughed shortly and a faint colour came into her thin cheeks. “It has been pretty bad—but I shouldn’t complain to one who has just come back from the War.”

“But that’s different. You’re a woman and a very feminine one, in spite of your clothes. I’m wondering if the people about here approve of you. They’re very old-fashioned.”

“Mrs. Stroud, our neighbour, seems not to mind. And of course she’s the most important to us—owning the house.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

Dayborn, who with Maurice had been standing by the window, exclaimed—“There she is! I believe she’s coming in.”

“She has seen the visitors,” said Chris Cummings. “She’s eaten up by curiosity. No one enters this door but she knows it.”

“I’ll not hear a word against her,” declared Dayborn. “Think of the eggs and fruit she’s given us!”

“Yes. She is kind. But behind her good-nature I’ll bet there’s a hell of a temper.”

The girl was unconventional—swearing like that! Renny wondered how she would get on in this Victorian backwater. It was all very well for his grandmother to rip out an oath on occasion, but she held a position unique in the community.

She continued—“I’m afraid of people with tempers, aren’t you?”

He said—“If I were my life wouldn’t be worth living.”

“Do you mean that your family have tempers?”

“Yes.”

She eyed him critically. “I’ll bet you have one too.”

He laughed. “Oh, I’m a terror in a rage.”

“I’d like to see you.”

“Perhaps you will—if you’re going to school horses for me.”

Mrs. Stroud was in the room, her short, straight figure advancing almost relentlessly. Dayborn was moving solicitously beside her as though he would leave no stone unturned to retain her good-will. His introduction was characteristic.

“This is Mr. Whiteoak, who is going to give us a job. For heaven’s sake put down the kid! This is our benefactress, Mrs. Stroud.”

“I don’t know why you call me your benefactress. Is it because you have taken a house I badly wanted to let?” Her voice was deep and musical. She had fine grey eyes with black lashes and heavy brows. Her thick brown hair was elaborately done. Surely she must spend hours each day over it. One feature was noticeable which scarcely counted in other women. That was her ears. The hair swept clear away from them, revealing how flat they lay against her head, their waxen pallor, and the fact that they had no inward-curling rim. She was dressed in a black skirt, a black-and-white striped silk blouse with an immaculate lace jabot, fastened by a brooch formed of the name Aimee in wrought gold. She pressed Renny’s fingers in a firm clasp. She was thirty-eight.

“You know the houses well, I guess,” she said.

“I knew them when they were one.”

“Don’t you think I was clever to divide it?”

“It is better, I suppose, than having it stand idle. I like things in their original state.”

There was a domineering note in his voice that brought an antagonistic tone into her own. “Well, everyone else thinks the change is for the better. And it’s given me charming neighbours.” She smiled tenderly at the baby.

Renny had set him down and he was staggering about among the legs of the grown-ups as though they were forest trees. He struck at them with a willow wand he carried, as though he would chop them down. He was angelic with his silvery curls and satin skin but he made small, animal noises. Mrs. Stroud knelt in front of him, holding her face, with eyes closed, toward his. He looked at it critically, wondering whether or not to hit it.

Renny turned to Dayborn. “I must talk to you and your sister alone. Will you come to my place to-morrow morning? I’ll show you the stables and horses. We’ll talk over my plans for breeding. I’m cabling for an Irish hunter I saw when I was visiting relations on the way home.”

“We shall be there soon after breakfast. I do hope you’ll take us on.” Dayborn’s thin face showed a painful eagerness.

“I’d like to see both of you ride before I promise anything.”

“You’ll find that we can ride all right.”

Maurice’s deep voice broke in—“Mrs. Stroud wants us to see her house, Renny.”

“Yes,” she put in; “it’s such an event, having strangers here.”

If she had thought to propitiate Renny by this remark she was mistaken. The word stranger stabbed him like an insult. He turned it over in his mouth as though testing its ill-flavour. Then he repeated it aloud, adding—“Maurice and I were born here and our fathers before us.”

“Yes, yes,” she agreed quickly. “But I’ve so dug myself in here that I feel like the old-timer. It’s so lovely having a possessive feeling toward a place after knocking about for years. Do forgive me!”

Renny did not want his chagrin put into words, but he lifted his lip in a smile which he fancied was amicable and said:

“I’d like to see your house. To judge by the outside you have made a good job of it.”

“Tod must come too,” cried Mrs. Stroud, but the child’s mother picked him up.

“It’s his bedtime,” she said.

“Well, I shall be back to tuck him up,” said Mrs. Stroud. “Are you coming, Jim?”

“I think I’ll stay and wash up.”

“I’ll see you both to-morrow morning,” said Renny.

Mrs. Stroud and Maurice had gone on. Renny and Chris Cummings exchanged a look. On his part it was a look of warm interest, calculating appraisement of her possible gifts as a breaker-in of colts. On hers, an effort to appear tough-fibred and capable, softened by the feminine thought that here was a man one could lean on.

Renny followed Mrs. Stroud and Maurice. He heard Maurice saying:

“I used to come here as a child and old Mr. Pink used to make baskets out of peach stones for me. He played the organ too.”

“And so does his daughter. She’s such a sweet woman, but so timid. She teaches your little girl, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“How delighted the child must be to have you home! What a reunion!”

“Yes. It is nice!”

Good God, thought Renny, the woman knows everything about everyone!

All three went into the house.

From the small square hall opened the living-room. It was furnished in a definite colour scheme of blue and brown. It looked pleasantly homelike, a woman’s room, after the disorder of the house next door. It glittered with order and cleanliness. The only disorder was the deep settee strewn with blue and brown damask cushions. On these young Eden Whiteoak was lounging. He sat up, his hair dishevelled, unable to conceal his astonishment.

“Hullo!” he said, staring at his elder brother.

“Hullo.” Renny in his turn was astonished. Eden looked suddenly grown-up. But what was he doing in this room? Smoking too. The cigarette was between his fingers. His lips were fixed in a defensive and nervous smile. He got up and turned to Mrs. Stroud.

“I’ve brought back the book,” he said. “I came right in. I thought you’d be back.”

“Oh—did you like it?” asked Mrs. Stroud, her eyes resting for an instant on the only book that was not in the book-shelves.

“Very much.” Eden picked up the book. Its title was clear—a popular work on the building of small houses. He flushed and laid it down. “This isn’t it,” he said. He looked about vaguely. “I don’t know where I’ve put it!”

Mrs. Stroud looked into Renny’s eyes. “Perhaps you didn’t know that Eden and I are friends. We got friendly over books.”

There was an ironic gleam in Renny’s eyes. Their glances crossed like fencing foils.

“It is so nice to find a young man who appreciates poetry,” she said. “We’ve been reading Rupert Brooke’s poems, and Flecker’s. Don’t you love them?”

“I don’t love any poetry,” he returned. “But”—his glance added—“I understand women like you.”

Maurice said—“I think you’ve done a very good job in making this place over.”

The incident of the book was buried. Mrs. Stroud led them from room to room. Eden came last, his eyes on his elder brother’s back.

When he and Mrs. Stroud were alone he ran his hands through his hair and gave her a distraught look.

“I’m afraid I’m going to be a bad liar,” he said.

“Why on earth shouldn’t you be sitting on my settee? Why were you embarrassed?”

“Why were you?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Well—it was just because I could see that you and he were.” They sat down side by side on the settee. “Tell me about him. He isn’t a bit like I thought he’d be.”

Eden caught her hand and laid it against his cheek. “Save me from all soldiers!” he exclaimed.

“Darling,” said Mrs. Stroud, “the only one you need saving from is yourself.”