Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny (134 page)

“Give me a lesson now.”

She surrendered herself to him, his hand under her chest. He felt the throbbing of her heart. “Like this,” he said, “and so — don’t be afraid — let yourself go — you’re too tense.” The living water curled about them. He felt the firm ripples of sand beneath his feet. The sun blazed. “If we were here,” he thought, “at night …” His hands tightened on her. He restrained her movements and, with a slanting look at the shore, where the others were playing with the children, he bent and pressed his lips to hers. She put her wet arms about his neck and held him.

When they returned the preparations for the meal were already on the way. A fine white cloth had been stretched on the sand, across which the trees now cast an agreeable shadow. Philip had laid two fires inside two circles of flat stones piled on top of one another. And on one of these the teakettle already sang. He told Renny to bring more driftwood, at the same time giving him a suspicious look. What had the boy been up to out there? He had seen him bending above Vera in an attitude too motionless for a lesson in swimming. Eden came running with his arms full of dry twigs and, when Renny added smooth driftwood to the flames, they raged vehemently about the kettle and under the large frying pan which Meg now placed on the second fire.

“What are you going to cook in that, Meggie?” asked Renny.

“Ham and eggs. My face is almost blistered. You do it for me?”

“A boy cook ham and eggs!” cried Vera. “He’ll be sure to ruin them.”

“Not he! He’ll fry them better than I could.”

Vera lingered fascinated by his side while he laid slices of ham in the pan, but seeing Philip’s contemplative eyes on her, she turned away and began to talk eagerly to Nicholas.

One by one the golden yokes were discovered in the transparent whites. Renny squatted by the fire, his face intent, his cheeks burning red from the heat. His wet bathing suit clung to his curved lean body.

The waiting for the meal was becoming intolerable to Adeline. Leaning on her stick, she plodded up and down through the sand, now peering into the bucket where the wine lay cooling, now surveying the cloth on which Mary was arranging plates of bread and butter, thick ginger cookies, the coconut cake in a shroud of white shreds, and a bowl of halved peaches. Beside this stood a large glass jug containing thick cream. At the other end of the cloth she had placed a dish of potato salad on crisp lettuce leaves and a golden wedge of Cheddar cheese.

Adeline’s mouth watered. She set her teeth together and trudged back to the fire.

“Keep dipping the fat over the tops of the eggs,” she instructed Renny. “Mind what you’re doing — you’ll have the pan upset!”

He had turned his head aside to avoid a puff of smoke in his eyes. He had just picked up the last egg.

“Careful!” warned Meg. “That egg is to be boiled for Peep. He wouldn’t eat his dinner because of the new tooth that he is cutting. Mother thought he should have an egg for his tea.”

“Look out!” cried Adeline, “you’re spilling the fat!” She poked him in the ribs with her stick while the fat, taking fire, flamed menacingly. Renny dropped the egg from his hand. It broke on the stones and slid, sleek as a lizard, into a crevice.

“Good heavens!” cried Meg. “See what you’ve done! Whatever will Mother say!”

“I’ll have to tell her,” said Renny. “These are done.” He handed the pan to Meg and went to Mary, who was tying the baby’s bib. If she had been angry about his treatment of Eden, what would she be now?

“Look here, Mother,” he said. “I’ve broken Peep’s egg. What shall we do about it?”

“Egg — gegg — gegg —” crowed Peep.

“Oh, how could you be so stupid?”

“Gran poked me with her stick and the smoke went in my eyes at the same moment. I’m awfully sorry.” He looked miserably down on the baby.

“Well,” said Mary, “he’ll just have to have bread and milk, poor lamb!”

But someone had left Peep’s bottle of milk in the sun. It was quite sour. It was too much for Mary. She raged to Philip.

“I’ve never seen such behaviour with food in my life,” she exclaimed. “Your mother simply ravens about the frying pan and makes Renny lose his head so that the baby’s egg is broken. Now Meg has left the jar with his milk in the sun. She’s so careless. What am I to do? I shall simply have to take him and go home.”

Philip knocked out his pipe on the sand. He said, calmly — “There’s a farm near by. Let Renny go and get some milk there for the kid.”

“Mik — mik — mik —” cried Peep, holding out his hands for the milk jar.

“I’ll go with Renny for the milk,” said Vera. “He might spill it. I shan’t mind at all.”

“Nonsense!” said Adeline, who had just come up. “Thin some of the cream with warm water. I’ve given that to my children hundreds of times.”

“No,” refused Mary. “He must have the milk.”

Renny and Vera set out. Again their chance to be alone! They hurried along the smooth path in their bare feet. While they waited at the door of the farmhouse they looked at each other and smiled. They could not draw away from that gaze, nor yet could they look steadily. Their glances wavered, dipped, and rose again like gulls on the wing. She longed to touch his glistening brown shoulder. They laughed and made foolish remarks about the chickens that gathered round them. They carried the little pail of milk between them along the path.

In a quiet spot they set down the pail, and now they were in each other’s arms.

“Vera,” he breathed, “I do like you!”

“Oh, Renny, we should not be doing this!”

“I thought you were hard, but you’re a sweet thing.”

“You’re adorable!”

“How much do you like me?”

“More than you me.”

“You couldn’t. I like you this much.” He told her by kisses.

She whispered — “I’m mad for you, Renny!”

“God — if we didn’t have to go back!”

“We must. They’re waiting.” She drew away from him and hurried along the path.

Once in sight they were greeted by orders to hasten. Ham and eggs had been kept hot for them. The party was now gathered about the cloth. The teasing smell of coffee that bubbled on the fire filled the air. Appetites were enormous except in the two late comers, and they were scarcely noticed once Mary had got Peep’s milk from them. He sat serene on her knee, pausing between mouthfuls of bread and milk to gaze in wonder at the expanse of white cloth, at the array of strange food. Once his grandmother popped a bit of ham into his mouth and he beamed at her the long while it lasted him. Nicholas kept the wine circulating, and Malahide, who had seemed enervated and depressed all the afternoon, became animated. “Perfect weather, a lovely scene, good wine, and charming people — what more could one demand?” he exclaimed. Meg murmured, under her breath — “Your removal.”

With the coffee they disposed themselves more indolently. Renny carried a large cup of it to Hodge, who was eating his meal near the tethered horses. He sat down beside Hodge and offered him a cigarette. They began to talk of Gallant. The fact that other horses from the Jalna stables were entered in the Show had sunk to unimportance. All hopes were centred on the colt. When Renny and Hodge talked of him they forgot everything else and brooded only on the beauty of lovely horseflesh.

Mary went and stood by herself on the shore watching the dark rose bars of the afterglow. It was growing cool and she held her slender body in her arms while an aching sadness made her eyes fill with tears. She was happy and, because of her happiness and the lovely colour of the sky, she wanted to weep. The voices of the others came to her, sweet and sad, like evening bells.

A small cold hand reached up to touch hers. Her fingers closed over it with tender pressure.

Eden asked — “Why did you come here, Mummie?”

“To watch the colours in the sky.”

“And on the lake, too. There are colours deep down in the lake.”

“Yes. Do you like them?”

“Do you?”

“Yes. But they make me long for something. You can’t understand that.”

“I do. They make me sad too.”

Philip came across the sand that now lay in shadow. “Time to go! The horses are ready. The girls have the baskets packed and Peep is asleep on Mamma’s lap.”

Eden put up his arms and tugged at his father’s coat. “Oh, I’m so tired! Do you think you could carry me a little way?”

Philip swung him to his shoulder, Mary put her hand in Philip’s arm, but she was reluctant to return, even though she too was tired.

B
ONEY

H
E HAD HAD A LONELY DAY.
The dullness of the morning had been unbearable. The sun was so hot that Adeline had kept the curtains of her bedroom drawn, and when he had complained to her, demanded her attention by a harsh coughing sound ceaselessly repeated, she had laid a square of dark cloth over his cage, cutting him off from all sight of her, from all movement of air. In her excitement over the picnic she had forgotten to remove the cloth and he had languished the rest of the day in a silent house, his only pastime the tearing of cloth to shreds and the spitting out of his seed shells on to the floor.

Adeline was contrite when she saw him humped there in his cage, an expression of abysmal gloom on his beak. She uncovered him and spoke to him in comforting Hindoo all the while she changed the black cashmere dress she had worn to the picnic for her second-best black silk. What a relief it was to take off her bonnet and put on a fresh lace cap! She fastened the collar of her bodice with a diamond brooch set in twists of dull gold.

She took Boney from his cage and attached to his leg the slender chain of his perch. She took the perch in her hand and, carrying it in front of her, appeared, as though in procession, at the door of the drawing room, where the rest of the family were gathered.

“Poor old Boney!” she said. “What a day he’s had! I left him with his cage covered, a thing I never remember doing before. Now he’s coming into the heart of the company.” She planted his perch in the middle of the room and sat herself in the chair Malahide placed for her.

Philip said — “Hadn’t we better have something to eat? It seems a long while since the picnic tea.”

His mother looked at him sharply. “What’s the matter with supper? We’re accustomed to supper, aren’t we?”

“But, Mamma,” objected Mary, “when do we eat such a tea as that? For my part I could not touch another mouthful, but of course we can easily have supper for any who want it.”

“Nothing but a whiskey and soda and some biscuits for me,” said Nicholas. “What about you, Malahide?”

Malahide’s preoccupation of the afternoon had returned. He was sunk in a deep chair in a dark corner of the room. He held his chin in his hand and his heavy eyes regarded the family with languid indifference behind which a spark of anger burned. He had disliked the day he had spent almost as much as Boney had disliked his, and he was too tired, for once, to conceal his feelings. He answered, in a low voice: —

“I’ll have a whiskey, but no biscuits, thank you.”

Adeline said — “What, losing your appetite, Mally? Now I want a pot of tea and some buttered toast and anchovy paste. You children will sup with your Granny, won’t you?”

Meg and Renny agreed that they would. Philip went for the whiskey and soda, and in a short time Eliza appeared with a silver pot of tea, a pile of toast, so well buttered that golden globules oozed from slice to slice, collecting in a pool on the plate beneath. Adeline’s eyes gleamed as she dipped into the anchovy paste.

“I like things off a tray,” said Meg. “I enjoy them more than my regular meals.”

“It’s a bad habit,” said Renny, thickly spreading a slice for himself.

“Nothing that you enjoy is a bad habit,” observed their grandmother. “It’s the food you eat without enjoyment that plays hob with your stomach.” With satisfaction she placed her lips to her brimming cup of tea.

The hiss of the syphon sounded and Nicholas filled his pipe. A steady glow from the ceiling lamp cast a charmed light about the circle, with the exception of the corner where Malahide drooped. He tossed off his whiskey with a desperate air.

If Boney had expected some rare titbit in compensation for the dullness of his day he was disappointed. No one paid any attention to him. He walked the length of his perch, claw over claw, regarding the company with angry glances. He opened his beak wide and brought it together with a snap. He dropped his wings and, thrusting forward, exclaimed: —

“To hell with Cousin Malahide!”

Ripples of pleasure stirred his plumage as he uttered this sentence, for it was the first time he had said it except in solitude.

“What’s that? What does he say?” demanded Nicholas.

Boney turned to him with an undulation of his supple neck. He repeated ferociously: —

“To hell with Cousin Malahide! To hell with Malahide! Hell — hell — hell — with Malahide!”

Was there something in the inflection, in the metallic enunciation of these words, that made all eyes turn to Renny? Malahide set down his glass and went green rather than white.

Renny burst into loud laughter. He doubled himself over his folded arms. It was more than Nicholas and Philip could bear. They joined their mirth to his. Their laughter was more than Mary and Meg could withstand. All their dislike of Malahide was loosed in shrill feminine merriment.

Boney rocked in his perch, ribald, relentless, screaming to make himself heard above the confusion he had created. He leered from one face to the other and repeated: —

“Hell — hell — hell with Cousin Malahide —
Paji
—
Haramzada
—
Iflatoon
—
Kuza Pusth
—
Sug prast
— hell — hell — hell — with Malahide!”

Malahide Court rose slowly to his feet and took a long, menacing step in the direction of the parrot. He said, with his lip lifted in a snarl: —

“To hell with you, I say! And to hell with the one who taught you these insulting words! You swear at me? Listen then:
Soor
—
Soor
—
Kunjus
—
Kutni! Churail! Afimche!
”

Bent on his perch, with cocked head, drinking in every oath that Malahide had uttered, as though listening to the ravings of another parrot, Boney could now restrain himself no longer. More furiously than before he screamed: