Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“I will look after it.” He took it gently from her. “I’ll burn it back in the woods where he used to shoot.”
“Thank you, my dear.” She took the sleeve of the coat and held it to her lips. Her hands shook as she proceeded with the brushing of the garments.
When all were hung up on the line, swaying and swept by the clean wind, Adeline felt very tired. She would go to her room and rest, she said. She looked the other way when Philip picked up the coat and walked off with it hanging limply from his hand. She found Eliza and told her to keep an eye on the clothes that they were not touched.
Philip walked slowly along the bridle path, then turned from it to the little winding path that led through the wood and on to the waste land where Renny had left the worn out horse. His spaniel, Keno, trotted soberly after him.
He felt the land that he owned beneath his feet. He saw the same sky arching above. And here was his father’s coat in his hand and he himself walking in strength and security. What was death? Was it his father’s hand reaching out through the sleeve of the coat to grasp his and draw him into that blackness where he would be effaced? Or was it his father living on in him, striding as he strode, over the land they loved? He remembered his mother’s shaking hands and her dry eyes that burned with compassion. I am made in a softer mould, he thought, and his own eyes filled with tears.
He gathered twigs and broke the dead branch of a pine into short pieces. He folded the coat and laid it on top of these, then struck a match and set fire to them.
The hesitant little flames were slow to attack the cloth. They snapped and crackled among the twigs, then hid themselves in the shadow of the coat. But presently through its folds tendrils of smoke came creeping and then the flames were coaxed into life. It was in a blaze, all but one sleeve which flung itself out as though there were an arm about it that sought to be free.
As Philip stood staring at the small burning mound he heard a slow dragging step behind him. He turned sharply and saw the old mare, her bony knees bent, her inflated belly sagging, stumbling past. Again he saw the human eyes that suffering had given her, but she did not see him nor did she see the blazing of the fire. Her eyes were fixed on something beyond and she stumbled heavily toward it, her rasping breath coming with difficulty. She uttered a whinny in which there was a note of gladness.
Philip had thought she was underground weeks ago. A tremor passed through him as though he had seen an apparition. Could it really be she, he wondered. This mare’s mane and tail were brushed and her harsh hide curried to a semblance of decency.
He was about to step from behind the bushes which concealed him when he heard the sharp report of a gun. He hastened after the mare, saw her stagger, drop to her knees, and fall in a strange angular heap. He saw Renny running towards him, his gun in his hand. His face was white.
“Father! I might have killed you!”
“You might,” returned Philip quietly. “Will you please explain what this means? And why are you shooting this poor old mare which should have been dead long ago?” The spaniel ran to the mare, sniffed it, and made a sound between a howl and a bark.
Renny’s features broke into a line of dejection. “I thought I could save her,” he said mournfully. “I’ve fed her and watered her and curried her — and she could eat. But, try as she would, she could not get well. She was dying. So — I had to do it at last.” He swallowed with difficulty. “I’m sorry. I should have had her shot when you told me, at the first.”
“Look at her!” exclaimed Philip sternly. “You ought to be ashamed to have let her live so long!”
“I thought she would get better. She was always so glad to see me. Why — she came to meet me just now — when I was going to do that to her!” His face was contorted as though he were about to cry.
Philip looked at his son, at the dead mare, at his father’s coat lying in shining layer upon layer as though it were made of cloth of gold. He sighed.
“This is a strange way,” he observed, “to spend a fine morning.” He patted Renny on the shoulder. “Come, come,” he said soothingly. “I can’t have you going on like this. Just be glad that you didn’t put a bullet into your dad!”
But Renny did not soon gain self-control. Philip suspected that his nerves were overwrought. He led him away from the sight of the dead mare and they stood leaning over a gate together, looking on a field of ripe grain. Renny lighted a cigarette and Philip, with a sigh of relief, filled his pipe. Keno entered the field and began to run here and there, snuffing the ground. Only the movement of the grain showed where he was.
Renny laid his arms along the top bar of the gate. He felt the smooth wood in his hands and saw that his father’s hands too were touching it. Between them they possessed the gate and the yellow field and the land, and life itself. He moved his hand toward Philip and gave him a furtive caress.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “I should have done what you told me to. But she was so hungry — I hadn’t the heart to kill her.” And he added, wonderingly — “But she couldn’t get well — eat as she would.”
“I have been going over my dad’s belongings,” said Philip, “and I had to burn one of his coats — the last one he wore. Your Granny felt badly about it. It’s surprising how things hurt.”
Renny watched the ripple of grain that marked Keno’s movements in silence for a space. Then he said: —
“What I want more than anything is to ride Gallant at the Show.”
“It would mean missing some time at college.”
Renny clasped his head in his hands, and muttered — “Think how I left it! If only I could get a first at the Show — I’d go back with a better face.”
Philip looked at the stripling’s wiry form hanging over the gate. He thought of the dead mare and of his own dead father’s coat. He did not know why thinking of these things should weaken the firmness he felt he should show towards Renny, but weaken him it did. He said doubtfully: —
“I don’t know if it will be good for you. I’m afraid your grandmother and your mother and uncles won’t think so.”
“There’s nothing Gran likes so much as to see us get a first at the Show. As for the others — they’ve too much to say about me. I’m always being discussed. When I come into a room where they are collected I can tell by their faces they’ve been talking me over. Sometimes they don’t even stop when I go in. And, of course, Gran is into it, too,” he added bitterly.
“Well, well,” said Philip, “it shows how important your behaviour is to them. But do you really believe you could win on Gallant?”
Renny turned his intense gaze on him.
“I’m sure I could! There’s nothing on earth I want so much!”
“Have your own way, then,” said Philip half testily. “But see that you keep your mind on the colt. Keep that yellow-haired woman out of it.”
“I’ll never give her a thought,” said Renny.
A H
ORSE TO
R
IDE
A
DELINE MADE UP HER
mind that Malahide Court should accompany her on her call at Vaughanlands. At first she had thought to go by herself to see her old friend, congratulate him on his recovery, which was more rapid than they could have hoped for. But she was really afraid to leave Malahide at Jalna without her protecting presence. She did not know what Renny or Meg might do. Philip and Mary, she was afraid, would be only too pleased to see things made uncomfortable for him. Even Nicholas had of late assumed a surly attitude toward her kinsman. She was certain that Ernest had disclosed the fact that she had been giving Malahide money. Well, they were all tarred of the same brush, wanted everything for themselves, but she was equal to them.
She looked about her critically as the carriage rolled along the Vaughans’ drive. It was a poor place, she thought, compared to Jalna, lacking Jalna’s dignity and fine arrogant chimneys, but it was a pleasant place, and the sight of Robert Vaughan, wrapped in a travelling rug, on his chair on the verandah, warmed her heart.
As soon as Malahide had assisted her from the carriage she began to mount the steps impatiently while she held out in her right hand a basket in which she had brought him a jar of port wine jelly, some Malaga grapes, and a pound cake.
“Now,” she said, a little breathlessly, “just see what I’ve brought you! Nothing that will do you harm. Everything that will do you good. No — don’t try to get up! It’s enough for me to grasp your hand and find you a live man instead of a dead. You did give us a scare. And here’s my cousin Malahide come to inquire after ye.”
Robert Vaughan shook hands with them both rather tremulously. He gave them a bright fixed smile, trying hard to feel strong. Mrs. Vaughan came out of the house and saw that Mrs. Whiteoak was established in the most comfortable chair with a cushion at her back.
“Ha, that’s good!” said Adeline. “And it’s splendid to see you making such a good recovery, Robert Vaughan. It’s small wonder you were ill after all you were through. If I hadn’t been made of extraordinary tough stuff I’d have been on my own back. It’s a terrible thing to see your only granddaughter disappointed in love and a little baby left on your neighbour’s doorstep where one should not have been due for ten months, at the least.”
Mrs. Vaughan looked uneasily at her husband, but the case, thus strongly stated, seemed to have done him no harm. He sat staring into old Adeline’s face with an eager look, as though he were drawing new vitality from her abundance. Mrs. Vaughan said: —
“We are thankful that Robert has got along so well. And you have all been so kind in sending him things. Shall I take the basket from you, dear?”
But Adeline interposed — “No, let the man hold it on his knee. It will cheer him up to look at those nice titbits waiting to be eaten. Eat a few of the grapes now, Robert. They’ll do you good.”
Obediently he took a grape in his pale fingers while she looked on benignly. She said: —
“You must be well in time for the Horse Show. You must not miss that, you know.”
His face lighted. “No, I must not miss the Horse Show. Of course, I have never been so keen as you are, but I generally have a good horse to show. This year I have a very promising mare which I thought would do well in the high jumping. But” — a slow colour crept into his face — “I’m afraid I shan’t be able to show her now. Maurice was to have ridden her and — he’s still away, you know.”
“You should have sent for him! You should have brought him to your bedside and said — ‘Now, young man, see what you’ve done to me!’ That’s what I’d have done!”
Robert Vaughan gave a wan smile. His wife exclaimed: —
“Oh, but that would have been cruel! It would have broken Maurice’s heart.”
“And serve him right! But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m going to say is — why not let my cousin here ride your horse? He’d do it gladly. And rides like a centenarian — or whatever they call those beasts. Don’t you, Malahide?”
Malahide had been sitting limply, with legs outstretched, in a low wicker chair. A kitten had appeared and walked the length of his wand-like body from ankle to neck. It stood now on his chest, rubbing first one cheek, then the other, against his chin. Malahide seemed hypnotized by its attentions.
“Do you hear what I’m saying, Mally?” demanded Adeline.
He opened a slit of one languid eye. “I’d be delighted, I’m sure,” he said. “I can ride any sort of nag.”
Robert Vaughan looked ruffled, and Adeline hastened to explain: —
“Malahide thinks that all horses that are not Irish are nags.”
“This horse had an Irish sire. She’s from your own stables, Mrs. Whiteoak.”
“Of course, I know her well. I will take Malahide to see her before we go, if you’d like him to ride for you.”
Robert Vaughan could not believe in Malahide’s horsemanship, but the thought of having someone to talk to about his mare, of watching its schooling for the Show, revived his spirits. His interest in horses had been cultivated chiefly by his proximity to the horse-loving tribe at Jalna. Perhaps because of that his chief pleasure in showing his beasts lay in outstripping the Whiteoaks. He had heard rumours of Renny’s colt.
After further conversation, in which Malahide only faintly joined, Adeline said to Mrs. Vaughan: —
“Let us leave the men to talk things over. I’d like a word alone with you, my dear.”
As she passed Robert Vaughan’s chair she gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “It will put new life in you to see Malahide mounted. He’s bound to win for you.”
Robert Vaughan looked up at her admiringly.
“It shows how much you have my recovery at heart,” he said, “when you are willing to help me win from Jalna.”
“Your mare,” she returned, brusquely, “was bred in our stables and will be ridden by my kinsman. It would be all to our credit.”
Inside the sitting room she said to Mrs. Vaughan: —
“Now, then, let me have a look at the child.”
Mrs. Vaughan had been expecting this and she shrank from it, but she could not refuse.
“I will bring her down here,” she said, “so you need not climb the stairs.”
“I’m better able to climb them than you are,” said Adeline, “I’ll go up.”
They found the infant asleep in a bassinet in Mrs. Vaughan’s dressing room. In one hand it grasped the rubber tube of a feeding bottle, the nipple of which was still wet. Downy dark hair clung in moist rungs on its head, which, like the bud of a flower, pushed, tender and relentless, from its sheath. As they looked down on it, its lips widened in a secret smile that flickered a moment across its face and was gone.
“It hears the angels,” whispered Mrs. Vaughan.
“More likely it’s just wet itself,” said Adeline.
As though in reproach the baby opened its eyes. They looked up, in deep, dark brightness. Mrs. Vaughan took it up and laid it against her broad breast. She crooned to it.
“You love it, eh?” said her visitor.
“Ah, I can’t help loving it!”
“H’m, well, you’ve a stronger stomach than I have! Now I think I’ll take Malahide to see the horse.”
Mrs. Vaughan was deeply hurt. She did not offer to accompany them to the stable. Her excuse was that she must not leave her husband.