Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“‘My idiot guide was on his way back to Aldea Gallega… And I mounted a sorry mule, without bridle or stirrups, which I guided by a species of halter. I spurred down the hill of Elvas to the plain… but I soon found that I had no need to quicken the beast which bore me, for, though covered with sores, walleyed, and with a kind of halt in its gait, it cantered along like the wind.”
Alayne was about to empty a vase holding some faded late roses. She stopped before him, drew out one of them, and slid it down the page on to his hand.
He took it up and held it to his face.
“Still sweet,” he murmured. “A queer kind of stifling sweetness. But it’s beautiful. Why are dying roses the most beautiful? For they are—I’m sure they are.”
She did not answer, but carried the flowers to the doorstep and threw them out on the grass. When she returned he was reading sonorously:
“’We soon took a turn to the left, toward a bridge of many arches across the Guadiana… Its banks were white with linen which the washerwomen had spread out to dry in the sun, which was shining brightly; I heard their singing at a great distance, and the theme seemed to be the praises of the river where they were toiling, for as I approached I could distinguish “Guadiana, Guadiana.” which reverberated far and wide, pronounced by the clear and strong voices in chorus of many a dark-cheeked maid and matron.”
She went into his room and reappeared carrying his laundry bag. She took it to the kitchen, and he heard her talking to the Scotch maid. She returned and put a slip of paper into his hand.
“Your laundry list,” she said. “You had better look it over when it comes back. They’re very careless.”
He crushed the neatly written list in his hand.
“Why, oh, why,” he said, “can’t
my
washing be done on the bank of a river by a singing dark-cheeked maid or matron? Why was I pitchforked into this prosaic life?”
“I dare say it can,” she returned absently, “if you go far enough… I don’t know why, I am sure.”
She began to take things from the desk. From her writing folio she turned out some Canadian stamps.
“Here are stamps I shan’t need. On the blotter.”
“Oh, all right. Thanks.”
He looked at her half quizzically, half reproachfully, then impulsively got up and went to the desk. He smoothed out the laundry list, then, licking the stamps one by one, he stuck them in a fantastic border round the edge. He discovered a drawing-pin and pinned the paper to the wall.
“A memorial,” he said, tragically.
She did not hear him. She was gone into her room.
He followed her to the door and stood looking in. She had changed into a thinner dress; her cheeks were flushed.
“Do you know,” he said, “you are the most matter-of-fact being I have ever known?”
She turned toward him with raised brows. “Am I? I suppose so, compared to you.”
“No other woman living,” he returned, “could keep such orderly habits with such a disturbed mind.” And his eyes added: “For your mind is horribly disturbed, you can’t deny it!”
“I guess it was my training. If you could have known my parents and our way of living! Everything in such perfect order. Even our ideas pigeonholed.”
“It’s deeper than that. It’s in your New England blood. It’s a protective spirit guarding you, eh?”
“Possibly. Otherwise I might have gone mad among you.”
“Never! Nothing would send you off your head. In spite of your scholastic forebears, I seem to see in you the spirit of some grim-lipped sea captain. His hands on the wheel, consulting the barometer, making entries in the log, while the blooming tempest raged and the bally mast broke and the blinking timbers shivered and the perishing rudder got out of commission. I can hear him saying to the mate: ’Have you made out the laundry list?’—while the heavens split! And taking time to stick a stamp on the brow of the cabin boy so that his body might be identified when it was washed ashore.”
Alayne began to laugh.
“How ridiculous you are!” she said.
“Tell me the truth, don’t you feel that old fellow’s chill blood in your veins?”
“I feel it boiling sometimes. My great-great-grandfather was a Dutch sea captain.”
“Splendid! I knew you had something like that somewhere. Now if only he had been a Spanish sea captain, how we might have got on together!”
She made no response, but began to take things from a bureau drawer and lay them carefully in the tray of her trunk.
“I wish I could help you,” he said, almost plaintively. “Do something for you.”
“There’s nothing you can do.” She checked an impulse to say: “Except to leave me alone.”
“I wonder if you will be angry with me if I ask you something.”
She gave an unhappy little laugh. “I don’t think so. I feel too tired for temper.”
“Oh, I say!” His tone was contrite. “I’ve bothered you all the time you’ve been packing.”
“It’s not that. It always upsets me to go on journeys. What did you want to ask?”
“Turn round and face me.”
Alayne turned round. “Well?”
“Would you have come here to nurse me if Renny had not been here?”
The flush on her cheeks spread to her forehead. But she was not angry. The shock of what he had asked was too deep for that.
“Certainly, I should.”
A look, antagonistic but shrewdly understanding, passed between them.
He said: “I believe you, though I’d rather not. I’d like to think that it was your love for him that dragged you here, against your reason. I hate to think that you did such a tremendous thing for me alone. Yet, in spite of what you say, you can’t quite make me believe that you would have come back here if you had never loved Renny. The place itself must have had a fascination for you. I believe places keep some essence of the emotions that have been experienced in them, don’t you? Do you think the Hut will ever be the same again after this summer? Alayne, I honestly believe that Jalna drew you back, whether you realize it or not.”
She muttered: “How can you be sure that Renny and I care for each other? You talk as though we had had an affair!”
“When we came to Jalna after we were married, I saw that Renny had made a disturbing impression on you. Before many months had passed, I saw that you were trying desperately to beat down your love for him, and that he was trying just as hard to control his feeling for you.”
Under his scrutiny she lost her air of reticence. She pressed her hand to her throat. She had woefully failed, then, in her first effort to conceal her love for Renny. Eden had watched this smouldering passion with an appraising eye from the beginning!
She asked brokenly: “Did that make a difference to you? Knowing so long ago that I loved Renny? I thought you had only guessed it, later—believed that I had turned to him when I found you didn’t care any more—”
He answered mercilessly: “Yes, it did make a difference. I felt an outsider.”
“Then,” she gasped, “I am to blame for everything! For Pheasant—”
“No, no. It would have come, sooner or later. It’s not in me to be faithful to any woman.”
She persisted doggedly: “I am to blame for everything.”
He came into the room and touched her with an almost childlike gesture.
“Alayne, don’t look like that. You’re so—it’s stupid of you. You can’t help what you are. Any more than I can help what I am. My dear, I suspect that we are much more alike than you would let yourself believe. The great difference between us is that you analyze yourself while I analyze others. It’s better fun… Alayne, look up—”
She looked at him sombrely.
“The whole trouble has been,” he said, “that you were a thousand times too good for me!”
She turned away from him and returned blindly to the arranging of her trunk.
He said: “I told old Renny one day that you’d go through hell for a sight of his red head.”
“Oh! and what did he say?” Her voice was without expression. Eden should not bait her again.
“I forget. But of course he liked it.”
She turned and faced him. “Eden, will you please leave me to pack in peace? You know that I have promised to spend the evening with your aunt and uncles. I have no time to waste. Are you coming?”
“No, you will be happier without me. Give them my love. Will Renny be there?”
“I don’t know.” How cruel he was! Why could he not let her be? How she would rejoice to be far away from all this in another twenty-four hours!
When he had returned to the living room, he hung about miserably. He hated himself for having upset her. If he had! Perhaps it was the thought of going away that made her look like that. And he had meant to say something beautiful to her at the last! The whole situation was ludicrous. The sooner this impossible atmosphere was dispelled the better… Did he hear a sob from the other room? Lord, he hoped not! That would be horrible. He stood and listened. No, it was all right. She was only clearing her throat. He fidgeted about till she came out, ready to go. She looked pale, calm, her hair beautifully cared for, as always. She had a pathetic air of serenity, as though the final word had been said, as though she were now beyond the reach of emotion. He saw that she had indeed been crying.
The sun had sunk below the treetops and had left them almost instantly in a well of greenish shadow. There was no afterglow, scarcely any twilight. After the rich radiance of the sun came shadow and chill. It was like the passing of their love, he thought, and mocked at himself for being sentimental.
“Alayne—
”
he said.
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing—I forgot what I was going to say.” He followed her to the door. “You must have someone bring you home. It will be very dark.”
She hesitated on the flat stone before the door. She turned suddenly to him, smiling.
“Home!” she repeated. “It was rather nice of you to say that.”
He came out, took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Goodbye, Alayne!”
The crows were returning to their nests from some distant field. She heard their approach beyond the orchards, first as the humming of a vast hive of bees which, as it drew nearer, swelled into a metallic volume that drowned all other sound. The air rocked with their shouts. Separate cries of those in advance became audible, raucous commands, wild shouts, vehement assertions, shrill denials—every brazen, black-feathered throat gave forth an urgent cry. They passed above the orchard, against the yellowish sky, hundreds of them, seeking the pine wood. Some battled with the air to overtake those ahead; some swam steadily with forceful movements of the wings, while others drifted with a kind of rowdy grace.
As Alayne followed the orchard path beneath them she wondered if it were possible that in a few hours she would have left all this behind and returned to a life so alien.
There was no mistake about the welcome from those at Jalna. Piers and Pheasant were in Montreal. Renny, although the old people said they expected him, did not appear at supper. The summer had gone like a dream, Nicholas said. A strange, sad dream, Ernest added. Augusta tried to persuade
Alayne to go to England with her instead of returning to New York. Augusta dreaded travelling alone, she dreaded returning to her lonely house, and Alayne had never seen England! Why could she not come? Alayne felt a momentary impulse to accept the invitation. Why not go across the ocean and see if she could find forgetfulness there? But how could she forget with one of that family beside her, with constant references being made to the others? No, she could not do it. Better cut loose from them entirely, and forever. Finch played for her during the evening and she was filled with delight by the improvement in him, pride that it had been she who had persuaded Renny to have him taught. The air in the drawing-room, though subdued, was genial. It was full of a melancholy gentleness. Wakefield was allowed to take the jade and ivory curios from their cabinet to show them to Alayne, and afterward arrange them on the floor to his own satisfaction.
Alayne had never spent such an evening at Jalna. Something in it hurt her, made her feel more acutely the impending parting. And yet the old people were cheerful. They had been pleased by a call from Mrs. Leigh. “A pretty woman, egad!” from Nicholas. “Very modern and yet so sweet, so eager to please!” from Ernest. “She was for going to hunt you out at the Hut—you and Eden—but I told her you were out. I thought it best,” from Augusta.
Wakefield curled up beside Alayne on the sofa. He took off her rings and adorned his own small fingers with them. But when he went to replace them she shut her hand against the wedding ring.
“I am not going to wear it any more,” she said, in a low tone.
“But what shall I do with it?”
“I don’t know. Ask Aunt Augusta.”
“What shall I do with this, Aunt?” He twirled the ring on his finger.
Augusta replied, with dignity: “Put it in the cabinet with the curios.”
“The very thing!” He flew to the cabinet. “Look, everybody! I’ve put it on the neck of the tiny white elephant. It’s a jolly little collar for him.”
Alayne watched him, with a smile half humorous, half bitter. So that was the end of that! A jolly little collar for a white elephant. And the glad thrill that she had felt when it had been placed on her finger. She fidgeted on the sofa. She had waited past her time in the hope that Renny would return. Why was he avoiding her? Was he afraid? But why should he be, when it was her last night at Jalna? All day she had hugged the anticipation of the walk back to the Hut at night. For surely he would take her back through the darkness! What he might say to her on the way had been the subject of fevered speculation all day She had dressed herself, done her hair, with the thought that as he saw her that night, so would she remain in his memory. And he had taken himself away somewhere, rather than spend the evening in the room with her!
Augusta was murmuring something about a horse— Renny—he had been so sorry—his apologies.
“Yes? Oh, it is too bad, of course. Say goodbye to him for me.”
“Oh, he will see you again,” said Ernest. “He’s driving you into town himself tomorrow.”
No peace for her. The feverish speculations, the aching thoughts, would begin all over again.