Whiteoaks of Jalna/Chapter 16
Eden was pathetic. He was like a capricious child, weak and tyrannical. He could not in those first weeks bear Alayne out of his sight. There was so much to be done for him that only she could do to his satisfaction. The young Scotch girl came every day to help; their meals were carried to them in covered dishes by Rags, from the house. But Alayne must move his hammock from place to place, following the sun; she must make his eggnogs, his sherry jelly, read to him, sit with him at night by the hour when he could not sleep, encourage and restrain him. Like a child, he was sweetly humble on occasion. He would catch her skirt, hold it, and say, brokenly: "I don't deserve it. You should have left me to die"; or, "If I get better, Alayne, I wonder if you could love me."
She was endlessly patient with him, but her love was dead, as his was, in truth, for her. A tranquillity, born of the knowledge that all was over between them, gave them assurance. The mind of each was free to explore its own depths, to see its own reflection in the lucent pool of summer. Eden, with his invincible desire for beauty, read poems in the opening scroll of violets, tiny orchids, hooked fern fronds that covered the woodland. He read them in the interlacing pattern of leaves, branches, the shadows of flying birds.
In all these Alayne read passion. She thought only of Renny.
She had seen little of him, and then only in the presence of Eden or others of the family. She had several times taken tea with old Mrs. Whiteoak and Augusta. On all occasions the talk was of Eden's health. He was improving. Almost from the first Alayne had been convinced that his illness was not to be fatal. He was responding to rest and good food. She could imagine his life in New York. But how weak he was! Once, adventuring across the orchard path to the edge of the paddock to watch a group of romping, long-legged foals, he had met Piers. Piers, sturdy and sunburnt in the sunlight. There had passed no word, but a look from Piers, and a forward movement that had shocked the sap from Eden's legs.
He had tottered back through the orchard, and flung himself on his bed. After a while he had muttered: "I met brother Piers. God, what a look! There was murder in it. To think I'd let him see I was afraid of him!" He did not venture that way again.
Alayne brooded on this meeting for a little, and she felt angry at Piers. But her thoughts, like strong, cruel birds, flew back to Renny. Yet her care was for Eden. She wished there were more sunshine for him. June was windless, and sometimes they felt suffocated under the lush greenness that enclosed them. Fiddler's Hut was half hidden by a twisted creeper that shadowed the small-paned windows. It seemed impossible to keep Eden in the sunlight for more than half an hour without the necessity of moving him. Even the path that wound from the door across the little clearing was bordered by such a growth of fern and bracken that an adventurer along it was certain of wet knees. Here summer not only was born and flourished, but seethed with life. Each morning was fresh and lucent, as though the first morning on earth. The jewelled leaves of the wild grape and bracken scarcely dried before another dew.
Weeks ago she had asked Renny if something might not be done to let in air and sunshine. Nothing had yet been done. Enough that he had brought Eden back to Jalna. It would require effort to rouse him to further action. The family now took it for granted that Eden would recover.
She had left him in a comfortable chair, a glass of milk at his elbow, a book in his hand. A splash of sunlight, of a richness suggesting autumn rather than June, gave the effect of his being a figure in a tableau, as she looked back. This effect was heightened by the pensive immobility of his attitude, and by the, one might almost think, conscious pose of his hands and beautifully modelled head. She had come near to touching his hair in a passing caress, as she had left. She was glad now that she had not. She went down the moist path, past the spring, overgrown with wild honeysuckle, and followed it swiftly, as it rose into the wood.
She must have exercise. Her muscles were aching for movement. In walking she discovered that these weeks had brought fresh physical strength to her. She distended her breast and drew deep breaths. This was her first walk since she had come to Jalna.
A bridle path, smooth with pine needles, lay through the wood. On each side of it, raising waxen bells to the light, clustered frail lilies of the valley. A clump of poplar saplings, looking pale and lost against the thick trunks of the pines, were covered by silvery unfolding leaves, as though a flock of wan butterflies had settled there. High in the pines she heard the plaintive notes of a mourning dove. Here and there rose the towering pallid bole of a silver birch, shining as though from an inner light.
The notes of the mourning dove were drowned by the rapid thudding of a horse's hoofs. Alayne drew out of sight behind a massive, moss-grown trunk. She peered out to see who the rider might be. It was Pheasant, riding bare-headed astride a slender Western pony. They passed in a flash—padding hoofs, flying mane, great shining eyes, and, above, little white face and tumbled dark hair. Alayne called her name, but the girl did not hear, and in a moment was gone beyond a curve.
It was Alayne's first glimpse of Pheasant since her return. She felt a quick out-going of warmth toward her. Poor wild, sweet Pheasant, married so young to Piers! If she had not known her, she would have taken that flying figure on horseback for a boy.
The bridle path emerged from the pine wood. Irrelevantly appeared a field planted with potatoes. The potato plants, lusty and strong, in flower, compact in the midst of the woodland, were not unlovely. Neither was the bent old man, Piers's labourer, unlovely in his blue shirt, in his attitude of patient hoeing.
She followed the path, now in the full blaze of sunshine. The woods about were no longer pine, but oaks and birch and maple. In every hollow were gay gatherings of wood lilies, white and purplish pink, and through all the trees sounded the ring of bird song. An oriole flashed. She caught the blue of a jay's swift wing and thought she saw, but was not sure, a scarlet tanager. Then again came the hoof beats. Pheasant was returning. Alayne trembled, looking down on the path, where in the dust lay the little hoofprints.
Pheasant was beside her. She had leaped from her horse. His breathing sounded, quick and passionate. His velvet nose was introduced between the faces of the two girls.
"Pheasant!"
"Alayne!"
Their eyes embraced, their hands touched; they wavered, laughing, then kissed. The horse, puzzled, flung back his head, shaking his bridle.
"Let's sit down in the wood," cried Pheasant. "How splendid our meeting like this! Away from all the family, you know. Those people. Well, we're different, after all, you and I. We can't talk just the same, be ourselves, when they're all about us." And she added, quaintly: "I think you're noble, Alayne! But how can I tell you what I think? I'll never forget how beautiful you were to me. And now you've come back to nurse Eden!"
They sat down among the trees. The grass was long and so tender that it seemed to have grown in a day. The horse began to crop, petulantly jerking up, with a sidewise movement of the head, great succulent mouthfuls. Pheasant sat with her back against a young oak.
On her white forehead, above the pale oval of her face, a lock of dark hair lay like a half-opened fan. Alayne thought that she had never seen such beautiful brown eyes. Her mouth was small and she opened it little when she spoke, but when she laughed, which was seldom, she opened it wide, showing her white teeth.
"Isn't life a funny tangle?" she said. "It would take a lot of untangling to straighten us, wouldn't it, Alayne?"
"Does it bear talking about? Hadn't we better just talk of you and me?"
"I suppose so. But perhaps God is trying to untangle it all, or perhaps it is just that we are becoming more mellow with age. Do you think, perhaps, that we are becoming more mellow with age, Alayne?"
Alayne had forgotten how quaint, how pathetically sagacious she was.
"Perhaps we are becoming more mellow," she agreed, soberly. "Let us hope so. . . . I cannot see us as free agents—just marionettes in a strange dance." Her mouth tightened in a bitter line.
The sunshine flickered over Pheasant. She was visualizing that macabre dance. "I can picture it," she said. "Renny leads. Then the uncles, the aunt. All of us dancing after—holding hands—bowing—looking over our shoulders. Wake last, with little horns, and a pipe, playing the tune." Her eyes glowed into Alayne's. "I've such an imagination, Alayne. I can make pictures by the hour. It's a great help to have an imagination. Piers has very little, and he says he wishes I hadn't so much. He thinks I'd be a better wife and mother if I hadn't so much. What do you think?"
"I think," said Alayne, "that you're an adorable child. They tell me that you're a mother, but I can't believe it."
"Wait till you see Mooey! He's simply wonderful. Not so fat as Meg's baby, but such a look in his eyes! It quite frightens me. . . . Still, I don't believe there's any truth in the saying that the good die young. I shouldn't look on old Mrs. Whiteoak—Gran—as specially good, should you? Not that I should insinuate that she's ever been immoral—Heaven forbid that I should cast a stone at anyone—but I think she's been cynical, rather than pious, all her long life, don't you?"
"I do. And I should not worry about Mooey dying young if I were you. . . . Tell me, Pheasant, who is this Miss Ware? Meg brought her along once when she came with some shortcake for Eden. She seems a strange sort of girl. English, isn't she?"
"Yes. She's a sort of companion to Meg, and she's nice to me. She's mad about men. I actually have to keep my eye on her when Piers is about." . . . She plucked nervously at the grass, and added: "Meg wants to marry her to Renny."
What were the birds in the treetops doing? What strange happening had taken place among the inhabitants of the burrows underground? Through all the woodland was an inexplicable stir. Alayne felt it run along the ground, up the tree trunks, along the branches into the leaves, which strangely began to flutter. Had a shadow fallen across the sky? What had the child been saying?
Meg, with her stupid stubbornness of purpose, had set out to marry Renny to this woman whom she had chosen—for what purpose? She saw Renny, with his air of mettle. She saw Minny Ware, her narrow, strangely coloured eyes laughing above her high cheek-bones, her wide red mouth smiling, her thick white neck. She heard that full, rich voice, that effortless, ringing laugh.
She forced herself to speak steadily. "And Renny, does he take kindly to the idea?"
Pheasant frowned. "How can one tell about Renny? He thinks: 'This is a fine filly.' Well, he's a judge of good horseflesh! Last night all of us went over to Jalna. Minny played and sang. Renny seemed to hang about the piano a good deal. Everybody fell in love with her singing. The uncles couldn't keep their eyes off her, and, if you'll believe me, Gran actually pinched her on the thigh! She was a success. But Renny'll never marry her. He won't marry anyone. He's too aloof."
At these last words, Alayne felt a sharp pang, and withal a sickly sense of comfort, as of the sun shining dimly through mist.
As though aware of the presence of concentrated emotion, the horse ceased cropping, raised his head, and looked startled. Pheasant went to him and took the bridle in her hand. "He's getting a bit restless," she said. "And I must go. I promised not to be long away."
They walked along the path together, Pheasant leading the horse. In the potato field the old man was leaning on his hoe, gazing pensively down on the strong plants as though in deep thought.
"What are you dreaming about, Binns?" called out Pheasant.
"Bugs is here," he answered, and fell again into thought.
The horse's hoofs sounded indolently on the firm, moist path. Overhead a network of bird song was being woven, in intricate, ever-changing pattern.
"How idle the old man is!" said Alayne.
"There is a psychological reason for that." Pheasant assumed her sagacious look. "It's because the fields are scattered, far apart, among the woods. It makes a man lazy to see the woods all about him. Noah Binns isn't earning his salt to-day." Looking back over her shoulder, she called: "Wake up, Noah!"
"Bugs is here," answered the old man, not raising his head.
When they entered the pine wood they met Minny Ware, pushing a perambulator in which sat Meg's infant, Patience. Minny wore a very short dress of vivid green, and a wide, drooping hat, fit for a garden party.
"Oh, hallo," she exclaimed, with her London accent. "The fashionable world goes a-walking, eh?" She turned, tilting the perambulator on its back wheels and surveying Alayne from under the brim of her hat.
"How do you like the weather?" she asked. "Glorious, eh? I've never seen so much sunshine in all my life."
"At Fiddler's Hut the foliage is too dense. We don't get nearly enough sunshine." Alayne's voice was cold and distant. She could scarcely conceal her antagonism for this full-blooded girl. She felt that beside her she looked colourless, listless.
"How is your husband?" asked Minny Ware. "Better, I hope. It must be rotten to have anything wrong with one's lungs. I believe mine are made of indiarubber." The full, effortless laugh gushed forth. She looked ready to burst into song. "Thank you," returned Alayne rigidly. "He is getting better."
Minny Ware went on blithely: "Mr. Whiteoak was suggesting to me that I go over one day and sing to him. He thought it might cheer him up. Do you think he'd like it?"
"I dare say he would." But there was no note of encouragement in her voice.
"I should go mad without music myself," said Minny. "I suppose you get wonderful music in New York."
"Very good." Alayne's lips scarcely moved. She looked straight ahead of her.
"I'll be going there myself one day. I'll have to get you to put me on to the ropes."
Alayne did not answer.
Patience was making bubbly noises and holding up her hands toward the horse.
Pheasant laughed. "She's a perfect Whiteoak! Look at her, she's asking to get into the saddle."
With a swift movement of her white bare arm, Minny lifted the child and swung it to the horse's back, and supported it there. "How's that, Ducky?" she gurgled. "Nice old gee-gee!" She clapped the horse on the flank.
"For God's sake, be careful, Minny!" cried Pheasant. "He's nervous." She patted him soothingly.
"Is he?" laughed Minny. "He seems a docile little beast. Doesn't she look a lamb on horseback?"
Patience indeed looked charming, the downy brown hair on her little head blown, her eyes bright with excitement. She clutched the rein in her tiny hands and cooed in ecstasy.
"She's a perfect Whiteoak," averred Pheasant again, with solemnity.
Alayne did not think she cared for babies, especially Meg's baby. Perhaps it was that she did not understand them, had had nothing to do with them in her life. For something to say she admired the grace of the horse.
"He's from the West," said Pheasant. "He's been badly used. We found welts all over him, when we had him clipped. He's been branded twice. I think that must hurt, though they say not." She glanced at her wrist watch. "I think you'd better put Patience in her pram. I must be getting home."
Minny Ware took the baby in her arms. She pressed her full red mouth to its soft cheek. "Music and babies," she murmured, through the kiss. "They're the soul and body of life, aren't they? I couldn't get on without them. In England I always had a baby about, looking after it for one of my father's sick parishioners."
Alayne saw Minny as a symbolic figure—a song on her moist red lips, a baby against her swelling breast. Songs and babies—an endless procession from her vigorous body. With a fresh pang, she saw her as Renny's wife, singing to him, bearing his children. Minny was revealed to be a fit mate for one of the Whiteoaks. One whose formidable physical strength and spiritual acquiescence could be welded into their circle. She saw herself as a disparate being; an alloy that never could be merged; a bird brooding on a strange nest, crying to a mate to whom her voice would ever be alien.
She slipped her finger into the child's tender palm. The little hand closed about her finger and drew it toward the inquisitive mouth.
Pheasant sprang to the saddle with casual accustomedness. Her loose white shirt showed a tear, revealing a thin young shoulder. She chirruped. In an instant the horse, which had been walking indolently, with drooping head, became an object of force, of speed. Its thudding hoofs sent up a spray of pine needles. The dark curve of its flank swam beneath the rider. Horse and rider disappeared behind a bend in the path.
The two young women walked on together. When they reached the point where Alayne must turn into the narrow footpath leading to Fiddler's Hut, Minny Ware said: "Shall I come one day, then, and sing?"
"Yes, do," answered Alayne. After all, Eden might like her singing. He hadn't much to amuse him, shut in among the trees. He must get tired of reading and being read to.
She found him sitting on the ground beneath a cedar-tree that rose, a pointed spire, behind him. She asked, anxiously: "Do you think you should sit on the ground? I'm afraid it's quite damp."
He pushed back his hair petulantly. "I was so beastly hot. There seemed to be more air down here."
"Sometimes I wonder," she said, looking at him with a pucker on her forehead, "if you should have come here at all. It might have been better if you had gone to the mountains or one of your Northern lakes. Even now, if you would like to go, I would go with you."
"No." He turned his head away sulkily. "I'm here, and here I'll stay. If I get better, well and good. If I don't—it doesn't much matter." He stretched out his hand, plucked a wood lily, and tore off its petals one by one.
"That's nonsense," said Alayne, sharply. "It matters a great deal. Have I come all this way for something that does not matter?"
"It does not matter to you."
"Yes, it does."
"You don't love me."
She did not answer.
"Do you love me?" he insisted, childishly.
"No."
"Then in what way do I matter to you? For God's sake, don't say my writing matters to you!"
"But it does! And you do—for yourself. Can't you understand how my feeling for you may have changed into something quite different from love—yet something that makes me want to care for you, make you well again?"
She went to him, and stood looking down on him with compassion. She must take his mind from the subject of his illness.
"I met that Minny Ware just now. She offers to come over some day and sing to you. Will you like that?"
"No," he said. "I shan't like it. I don't want her coming here. She's stupid. She's silly. I can imagine the noise she would make—stupid and silly."
On an impulse she could not restrain, Alayne said: "Meg is scheming to marry her to Renny."
His face was almost comic in its surprise. "Marry her to Renny! But why? Why should she want to marry that girl to Renny?"
His eyes, with their veiled gaze, looked into Alayne's, but she saw that his swift mind was hot on the trail of Meg's devious motives. "That girl," he repeated. "That girl. Renny. I can't see it. But wait!" The light of malicious understanding crept into his eyes. "She's afraid—that's what it is—afraid! She'd marry him to an imbecile rather than have that happen."
"Have what happen? How mysterious you are!" But her heart was beginning to beat uncomfortably.
He narrowed his eyes to two slits and peered up at her. Sunlight and leaf shadows, playing across his face, gave it a sardonic grimace. "My poor girl, don't you see? Deceased husband's brother! Meggie thinks there is a fair chance of my dying, and she's afraid you'll marry Renny. She's going to fix him up with a nice plump songstress instead. I see it all. I'll engage she'll do it. Poor Reynard. That sly red-headed fox will be helpless. She'll bait the trap with such a sleek plump pullet. And she'll lead him to it and let him sniff—God, he hasn't a chance!"
She stood looking down at him, under the flickering leaf shadows. Her face looked greenish-white. Her heart sank under a weight of apprehension. She felt that they were helpless, moved inexorably by soulless forces. They were being woven into the pattern of Jalna. They could no more extricate themselves than the strands caught in the loom. Vibrating on the heat, she felt the deep-toned hum of the loom through all her being.
He was regarding her with heartless interest. "You mind?" he queried, mischievously. "You mind as much as that?"
"As much as what?" she asked angrily, hate for him rising in her.
"Your face! Oh, your face!" He changed the expression of his own visage into one of dolour. "It's like this!"
Tears of anger, of shame, stung her eyelids.
"And now you're going to cry! Is it for me? Or Renny? Or yourself? Tell me that, Alayne!"
She could not bear it. She turned and went swiftly toward the cottage. He remained a little, savouring the moment. He said to himself: "I am alive—I am alive! The worms are not gnawing me—yet!" He turned his hand about, examining the wrist that had been so round, so firm. "No mould—yet!" He felt his pulse. "Still kicking!"
He got up—it seemed to him that he felt stronger—and followed Alayne into the cottage.
The little Scotch maid was laying the table. Rags would be here any minute with their dinner. Through a crack of the door of Alayne's room he could see her standing before the little looking-glass, her hands raised to her hair. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and the graceful sweep of their lines brought to him a moment of remembered emotion. Not so long ago those arms had held him. Not so long ago delicate and extravagant caresses had passed between them. And how soon over! The remembrance of them as meaningless as a shadow from which the substance has fled.
But the shadow disturbed him. He wandered about the room, humming a tune.
Alayne came from her room. He looked at her with curiosity. His erotic proclivities, his sensitiveness, had given him the power of putting himself in the place of one of the opposite sex, of gauging with uncanny precision emotions alien to himself. So now, beneath her studied calm, he was conscious of the turbulence of the thoughts created by his words.
She knew something of this sexual clairvoyance, but had not fathomed its dark depths. If she had realized the full knowledge he had of her at that moment, it would have been impossible for her to remain under the same roof with him.
She had changed to a thinner dress of a pale green that seemed to have caught its colour from the atmosphere, for, though it was noonday, the room lay in a green twilight because of the rich foliage that was reared between its windows and the sun.
"How nice and cool you look!" he said, his eyes resting on her.
She did not answer, but went to the window and looked out between the leaves of the trumpet vine. She thought of Renny, and his promise to cut away some of these creeping things. Why did he not come? Was it callous absorption in his own doings that made him neglect his brother, or did he wish to avoid her? She told herself that she was angry at him. Vehemently she asked herself why it was that her love for him should so often be driven to put on the hair shirt of irritation.
It was July when at last he came. A dim day after a week of intense heat. When they looked out in the morning, their little woodland world had been shrouded in an unearthly fog. Thin films of vapour covered the abnormally large leaves, gathering at the tips and forming clear drops. The seething summer life of the wood was silent, apparently in a deep languor after the restless activity of the past week. There was no bird song; only from the little spring, hidden under its bower of honeysuckle, came a faint murmuring, like the very breath of the sleeping grass. As the morning drew on, the fog lifted slightly and the sun was distinguishable, but almost as wan, as somnolent, as the old moon. Each day the path that led from the door became narrower, more closed in by the urgent growth of flowers and weeds. Few used it. The visits from those at the house had become rarer, either because of the heat and lassitude of the month of July or because they were absorbed by some new interweaving of the threads of the pattern that was being woven at Jalna. Eden and Alayne were left very much to themselves, spending drowsy days, cut off by his illness and her shrinking from meetings with the family.
She felt apathetic now. They might go on like this for ever, passing their days in that green shade, their nights in fantastic dreams. She was startled, almost afraid, when, on this morning, she saw Renny's figure detach itself from the mist which lay thick under the orchard trees, and which had made his body appear to be but another trunk, and emerge into the path. She saw that he wore a loose white shirt and riding breeches, but he carried in one hand some implement and in the other a long trailing piece of vetch, covered with little purple flowers.
He moved with such energy along the path, seemed so unoppressed by the humid air and the fog, that she fancied it moved aside for him, was lightened and dispersed at his approach.
Eden had actually been trying to write. He raised his eyes from the pad that lay on his knee and, like Alayne, looked almost startled toward the door, as Renny stood there.
An expression of embarrassment made the elder brother's features appear less carved than usual. He knew that he had been remiss, even heartless, but he had, since their return, a feeling of shy avoidance toward them. Although Alayne had come only to nurse Eden, to win him back to health, and then again part from him, she seemed now to belong to him. She must not be sought out, brooded on, hungered for, with a pain as for something one could never possess. Renny had retired, with an almost animal fatalism, to wait for events to turn out as they would. He was watchful. His instincts were invincible. He was conscious of the presence of those two in the very air he breathed, in the earth beneath his feet. Yet the summer might have passed without his going to them, had not Augusta that morning drawn his attention to the unusual growth of the vine that covered the porch, to the great size of the geranium leaves in the beds, to the difficulty of keeping down weeds in the garden, and to the need for cutting the lawn. All these evidences of rank growth drove him to inspect the still ranker growth at Fiddler's Hut. Those two might almost be enclosed now by such a hedge as enclosed the Sleeping Palace.
As he passed through the orchard he had noticed a clump of purple vetch, wound and curled about itself into a great mound, beautiful, showing through the mist. He had detached a long strand of this and brought it to Alayne. It hung dangling from his hand, almost touching the doorsill. His spaniels appeared on either side of him.
Eden was pathetically glad to see him. His face broke into a boyish smile, and he exclaimed: "You, at last, Renny! I thought you'd forgotten me! How long do you think it is since you were here?"
"Weeks, I know. I'm ashamed. But I've been"
"For God's sake, don't say you've been busy! What must it be like to be busy! I've forgotten!"
"Did you ever know?" Renny came in and stood beside him. The dogs entered also, with great dignity, their plumed legs and bellies dripping from the wet grass. "Shall I turn them out?" he asked Alayne. "I'm afraid they're making tracks on the floor."
"No, no!" objected Eden. "I like them. How fine they look! And you, too. Doesn't he, Alayne?" The dogs went to him and sniffed his thin hands.
"He looks as he always does," she answered, coldly. Now that he stood before her, whom her whole being had ached to see, she felt antagonism for his vigour, his detachment. How little he cared for Eden, for her, for anyone but himself!
His brown eyes were on her face. He moved toward her, half shyly, and offered the vetch.
"I picked this," he said, "in the orchard. Funny stuff. A weed—but pretty. I thought you might like it."
"We have so few growing things about us," said Eden.
Alayne took the vetch. Their hands touched. Deliberately she had manœuvred so that they must touch. She must feel the torment of that contact. . . . The vine clung to her hands as she put it into a vase. When she drew them away it still clung, was dragged from the vase, its tendrils seeming to feel for her fingers.
She sat down by the window. Renny took a chair beside Eden. He looked him over critically. "You're getting stronger," he observed. "Drummond"—the family doctor—"says you're improving steadily. He thinks you'll be almost recovered by fall."
"Silly old blighter!" exclaimed Eden. "He hasn't seen me for weeks!"
"There is nothing to do but continue the treatment. You're getting the best of care."
"Everyone avoids me," continued Eden. "One would think I had the plague! The only one who comes is Wakefield, and I must send him away. If it weren't for Rags, I should not know what is going on in the house."
"What has he been telling you?" asked Renny, quickly.
"Nothing in particular, excepting that Piers and his wife are home again. I suppose Meggie couldn't put up with them any longer."
Both Renny and Alayne wondered how he could bring himself to repeat that bit of news. There was surely no shame in him. She looked out of the window, and Renny down at his boots. After a silence he said: "Meggie comes to see you."
"Not often. There's some excuse for her. It's a long walk, and she's getting fat. Once she brought that Ware girl. I suppose you know her?" He regarded Renny with a mocking and lightly contemptuous smile.
"Yes. I gave her a lesson or two in riding."
"Ah. . . . How does she sit a horse?"
"Like a sack of meal."
Eden broke into laughter. "I wish Meggie could hear you!"
"Why?"
"Can't you guess?"
Alayne could not bear it. He must be stopped. "Eden," she interrupted, in a harsh, dry voice, "it is time for your eggnog. I must make it." She rose and, in passing him, gave him a look of impassioned appeal. Her lips moved, forming the word, "Don't."
When the brothers were left alone, Renny demanded: "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing! Only that she seems to be a pet of Meggie's. But honestly, it's a deadly thing to be cooped up with one person all the time. That one face. That one voice. Those eyes. Even though you care a great deal for the person—feel all kinds of gratitude, as I do. Picture yourself here, between these four walls, day and night, with only Alayne!" With bright malice his eyes sought Renny's. They seemed to say: "You may be well—sound as one of your own horses—but look how I can torment you! What would you give to have what I have—and which is nothing to me?"
Renny said, imperturbably: "Well, you're improving, at any rate. That's the main thing."
If he were touched on the quick, he hid the pain well—red-headed devil!
Alayne brought the eggnog. Eden stirred it, gazing contemplatively into the yellow liquid. The two watched him, weak, unscrupulous, holding them, as it were, in the net of his mockery. There was a vibration in the air about them as if all three were antagonists, each of the other.
Renny began to talk, in a desultory fashion. News of his stables, news of the family. The uncles and Aunt Augusta stuck to the house pretty much because of the heat. Gran was well. Word had just come that Finch had passed his examinations. He was a happy boy. They'd make something of him yet!
At last he rose. "Now what about this greenery? I've shears and a saw here, and if you'll show me what you want cut down"
"You go with him, Alayne," said Eden. "It's so beastly foggy out. I'll stop here and see if I can do anything with this."
Renny glanced at the pad on Eden's knee. What was written looked like poetry. Good Lord, was he at it again! Renny had hoped that his illness might have cured him of this other disability. But no, while Eden lived he would make verse, and trouble.
Outside, the fog still enveloped the woodland, delicate and somnolent. The pale moonlike sun scarcely illumined it. The drip of moisture from leaves mingled with the muted murmur of the spring.
"It's rather a strange morning," said Alayne, "to have chosen for cutting things. It will be hard to know what the effect will be." She thought: "We are alone, shut in by the fog. We might be the only two on earth."
"Yes," he agreed, in an equally matter-of-fact tone. "It's a queer morning. The branches seem to spring out from nowhere. However, that won't prevent their being lopped off." He thought: "Her face is like a white flower. I wonder what she would say if I were to kiss her. The little hollow of her throat would be the place."
She looked about her vaguely. What was it she wanted him to do? The path, yes. "This path," she said, "should be widened. We get so wet."
He followed it with his eyes. Safer than looking at her. "I'd need a scythe for that. I'll send one of the men around this afternoon and he'll cut down all that growth. Now I'll thin out these long branches."
Before long, boughs, heavy with their summer growth, lay all about. And all about green mounds of low growing things: dogwood, with its waxen berries; elderberry, its fruit just going red; sumach, the still green plumes of which were miniature trees in themselves; aconite, still in flower; and long graceful trailers of the wild grape. And wherever he had stridden, in his heavy boots, tender growths lay crushed. His dogs ran here and there, chasing into cover the squirrels and rabbits she had tried to tame. Symbolic of him, she thought, in one of those waves of antagonism which would ride close upon the waves of her love.
"No more," she exclaimed, at last. "I'm afraid to think how it will all look when the sun comes out."
"Much better," he assured her. He stopped and lighted a cigarette. His expression became one of gravity. "I must tell you the real reason why the uncles and aunt have not been to see you. You're sure Rags has said nothing to Eden?"
"Nothing." She was startled. She feared some strange development of the situation.
He went on. "We've been worried"—he knitted his brow and inhaled the smoke deeply—"about my grandmother."
His grandmother! Always that imposing, sinister, deplorable old figurehead of the Jalna battleship!
"Yes? Is she not so well?"
He returned, irritably: "She's quite well. Perfectly well. But—she's given us all a bad fright, and now she's behaving in—well, a very worrying fashion. I thought Eden had better not be told."
Alayne stared, mystified beyond words.
"Pretended she was dying. Staged a regular deathbed scene. Good-byes and all. It was awful. You couldn't believe how well she did it."
Alayne could believe anything of old Adeline.
"Tell me about it."
"Don't repeat any of this to Eden."
"Certainly I will not."
"It gave us a terrible fright. I had come in rather late. About one o'clock, I think. I had just put on the light in my bedroom. Wakefield was awake. He said he couldn't sleep because moonlight was coming into the room and the cupboard door stood ajar. It worried him. He wanted me to look into the cupboard, to make sure there was nothing there. I did, to please him. Just as I stuck my head into it a loud rapping came from below. Gran beating on the floor with her stick. The kid squeaked, he was so nervous. I left him and ran down to her room. Aunt Augusta called out: 'Are you going to Mama, Renny? I don't see how she can be hungry, at this hour!' Well, in her room there was the night-light, of course. I could see her sitting up in bed, clutching her throat. She said: 'Renny, I'm dying. Fetch the others.' You can imagine my feelings."
"Yes. It was terrifying."
"Rather. I asked her where she felt the worst, and she only gave a sort of gurgle. Then she got out: 'My children—I want to tell them good-bye. Every one. Bring them.' I got some brandy from the dining-room and managed to give her a swallow of that. I propped her up on the pillows. The parrot kept biting at me, as if he didn't want anyone near her. Then I went to the telephone, and Drummond promised to be over immediately. Then I ran upstairs. Got them all up. Finch from the attic. Little Wake. God, they were a white-looking lot!"
"And she was only pretending?"
"She had us all going. We crowded about the bed. She put her arms around each one in turn. I thought: 'That's a pretty strong hug.' And she'd something to say to each. A kind of message. Tears were running down Uncle Ernest's face. Wake was sobbing. She had us all going." The red of his face deepened, as he recalled the scene.
"And then?"
"Then the doctor came. Pulled down her eyelid. Felt her pulse. He said: 'You're not dying.' And she said: 'I feel better now. I'd like something to eat.' The next morning she told us that she'd been lying awake and she'd got an idea she'd like to know just how badly we'd feel if we thought she was dying."
Alayne said, through tight lips: "I hope she was satisfied."
"She must have been. We were a sorry sight. . . . And if you'd seen us trailing back to bed! Hair on end. Nightclothes. We were figures of fun, I can tell you!"
"It was abominably cruel of her."
"Perhaps. But a good one on us. And, I guess, a great satisfaction to her."
"You were sufficiently harrowed!"
"If only you could have seen us!"
She smiled in rather bitter amusement. "I think I begin to understand you."
"Me?"
"You—as a family."
"We're easy to understand—when you know us."
"But we are friends—aren't we?"
"Are we? I don't believe I can manage that."
"Don't you think of me, then, in a friendly way?"
"Me? Friendly? Good God, Alayne! And you call Gran tormenting!"
"Well—about her. You spoke of some odd behaviour." She was a fool to get on dangerous ground with him. Better talk about old Adeline.
He went on, frowning: "The trouble is this. Ever since that night she's always wanting to see her lawyer. Has him out every few days. It must be a plague for him. And it makes things tense at Jalna. I don't worry about her will. But I know the uncles are worrying. And one can't help wondering. I suppose you know that she's going to leave everything she has in a lump sum to one of us. I suppose everyone is really wondering just how sorrowful he looked that night. Rather wishes he had the chance to do it over again. You remember I told you that Uncle Ernest cried. I believe Uncle Nick thinks that Uncle Ernest feels rather cocky about that. Wishes he could have dug up a tear or two." He gave one of his sudden staccato laughs.
"If it comes to that," she said, ironically, "Wakefield cried too."
"And Mooey! Did I tell you he was down, too? The old dear missed him. She looked around and said: 'Somebody's not here! It's the baby. My great-grandson. Fetch the baby down!' Pheasant flew upstairs and brought Mooey. If you'll believe me, the little devil simply howled. And now Piers and Pheasant are hopeful about him!" This time his laughter reached Eden's ears.
He appeared in the doorway of the cottage. The fog was really dispersing. He stood, after all this lopping of branches, in a bath of vague sunlight.
"What's the joke? You might tell it to me."
Alayne called back: "It isn't really a joke. Just something Renny finds amusing. How did you get on?"
"I've done it!"
"Done what?" asked Renny.
Alayne answered: "Finished what he was writing. Didn't you notice that he was writing?"
"Oh, yes. A poem. I suppose that's a good sign." He forced his features into a grin of approbation.
"Splendid." As they drew near to the young poet she said: "I'm so glad, Eden. Is it good?"
"I'll read it. No, I'll wait till Renny's gone. I say, what a shambles you've made of the place!"
Renny looked disappointed. "When it's been raked over it will look better. Shall I trim this Virginia creeper now?"
"No. I like a little privacy."
"But you've said a hundred times" cried Alayne.
"My good girl, never remind a person of temperament what he's said a hundred times."
"But it's dreadful to have that vine clinging round you!"
"No, it isn't. It makes me feel like a sturdy oak."
Renny examined the vine critically. "I think he's right. It would be a pity to touch it. It's always looked just like that."
"But," Alayne protested, "everything in the cottage is damp!"
The brothers agreed that the vine had nothing to do with the dampness.
A figure was approaching along the path. It was Minny Ware, in a vivid blue dress. She carried a bowl of jelly mounded with whipped cream.
"I've had such a time to find my way," she said. "It's the first time I've been in this direction by myself. I hadn't realized how large the estate is. Mrs. Vaughan sent this."
"Not so large as it once was," observed Renny, gloomily.
Alayne took the jelly and wondered what she would do with Miss Ware. Eden seemed rather pleased with her.
"Come in," he said, "and let's look at you. We'll pretend you're a bit of blue sky."
They went into the cottage. Minny Ware seated herself in a wicker chair by the open door. Eden's remark had made her radiant. Renny sat on a bench, holding the collars of his dogs. Alayne disappeared into the kitchen, carrying the bowl of jelly. She did not want to be in the room with the girl.
Minny Ware, elated at being left alone with the two men, exclaimed: "Isn't this atmosphere the most depressing!"
"You don't look depressed," said Eden, his eyes absorbing the freshness of her cheeks and lips, the gaiety of her gown.
"It's weather to make a man virtuous," said Renny.
This remark evoked a gush of laughter from Minny, effortless as an oriole's song.
Eden continued to be pleased with her. He said: "I wonder if you are too depressed to sing to me. You promised to, you know."
Minny Ware thought she couldn't, was sure she would disgrace herself by trying to sing on such a morning as this, but after some persuading she threw back her head, clasped her hands before her, in the attitude of a good child, and sang three little English songs. Alayne remained in the kitchen. Covertly she watched the three through a crack in the door. She saw Renny's intent gaze on the throbbing white throat, the full bosom. She saw Eden's appraising eyes also fixed on the girl, who appeared to have forgotten their presence. The first song was of a country lover and his lass, with a touch of Devon dialect in the refrain. The second song told of little birds in springtime innocently building their nest. The third—yes, the third was a lullaby. This she softly crooned, her ripe lips parted in a smile. She remembered the presence of the brothers and, as she finished, her eyes sought theirs. She seemed timidly to ask for approbation.
The last long-drawn sweet note had been too much for one of the spaniels. He raised his muzzle and gave vent to a deep howl.
"Did he hate it so?" asked Minny Ware, looking askance at the dog.
"Down, Merlin," said Renny. "He's like his master. He's not musical."
Her face fell. "I thought the other night you enjoyed it."
"I enjoyed this, too. But you sang more passionate things the other night. I suppose something else in me was appealed to then."
"Oh, I love passionate music!" She spoke with abandon. "I only sang these simple little things to please your brother, as he's not well."
"Thank you," said Eden with gravity. "That was nice of you."
"Oh, now you're laughing at me!" she cried, and filled the room with her laughter.
Alayne came in and sat down on a stiff-backed grandfather's chair. She felt icy before this exuberance. Only with the two spaniels, held by their collars, did she feel any sense of companionship in the room.
When Eden and she were alone, she said: "If your sister thinks she will bring that to pass, she is mistaken. He hates her. I could see it in his eyes."
"How clever you are!" he cried. "You can read him like a book, can't you?" His glance was full of merriment.