Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“Just the same,” persisted the boy, “I don’t like to see Piers so high and mighty about managing his farm profitably when he and his wife and two kids get their living at Jalna for absolutely nothing.”
“You don’t understand,” returned his elder, rather stiffly. “Piers helps me in a lot of ways.” How could Wakefield understand his clannish desire to have his family under the same roof with him, his pride in keeping the old house full!
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.” Wakefield’s tone was grandfatherly. “And thanks very much for the evening things. You can always get credit at Fowler’s, can’t you?”
Fowler’s! The most expensive tailoring place in town. This lad hated himself!
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“And you’ll remember about my subscription to the dinner and present?”
“Hm-hm.”
They had crossed a field, passed through a gate, and emerged into the public road. It was deserted, and not far off they could see the white picket fence that enclosed the fox farm.
Clara Lebraux had had a hard fight to keep it afloat in the two and a half years since her husband’s death. But somehow—and with help from Renny Whiteoak that both kept secret—she had escaped failure. She had done well with the poultry that got her up so early every morning.
She and her daughter Pauline were standing together at a window in the kitchen as the brothers appeared at the gate. Pauline said hurriedly:
“Oh, don’t let us be caught in the kitchen! They’ll think we live in it. Last time Renny came we were washing dishes.”
Clara Lebraux laughed curtly. “It’s a late hour for me to begin prinking for him. He has seen me looking my worst for over three years now.” There was a curious note of satisfaction in her voice as she said this. She added— “And married men aren’t supposed to look at anyone but their wives.”
“I wonder why they don’t ring the bell.”
“They’ve gone round to look at the foxes.”
“Mummie, shall I run upstairs and change my dress? This is so abominably short.”
“Yes, do… I like you to look nice.”
Pauline hesitated at the door. “It’s hard to think of him as married, isn’t it? We see so little of her.”
“Oh, he’s very much married!” Clara Lebraux spoke abruptly. She went quickly to the oven, drew out a pan of scones she was baking, looked at them suspiciously and thrust them back, banging the oven door.
Pauline disappeared up the stairs as the bell sounded. Clara wiped her hands on a scorched oven-cloth and went to the door. She glanced in the mirror in the hall in passing, saw that her hair that had been tow-coloured and was now turning dark in streaks, was dishevelled, and that there was flour on her cheek, but she marched straight to the door and opened it.
She and Renny greeted each other familiarly, but Wakefield stood somewhat aloof. He was conscious of his new height and his imminent manhood.
“Where is Pauline?” asked Renny, when they were in the living room that had an air of comfort in spite of its extreme shabbiness.
“Upstairs. She’ll be down directly.”
“How is the injured fox?”
“Quite recovered. But we had a time with him. The others had torn a foot almost off. They are devils when they’re roused. But Pauline never loses patience with them. I do. Sometimes I’d like to turn all the foxes in together. Then throw the poultry to them. Have a general massacre.”
Wakefield’s eyes brightened. “If ever that climax arrives, please let me know. I’d love to see it.”
She asked with sudden gravity—“Have you—but, of course, you have—heard of the proposed massacre of the trees?”
Renny, turning his head sharply toward her, demanded— “Whose trees?”
“Everyone’s. The road is to be widened. The curve just beyond Jalna straightened out. I thought, of course, you’d have heard, as your property is the most affected.”
He stared at her, stupefied. He could not take it in. Wakefield looked uncomfortable. He had heard something of this before. Piers also. But they had kept it to themselves. Renny would make a row and the old people would be upset.
She repeated—“They’re widening the road, you see. Those huge old oaks are in the way. They want to make it a better road for motorists. The curve is supposed to be dangerous. It’s the Government, so I suppose we must put up with it. Pauline is mourning over our nice cedar hedge. We shall lose that.”
He understood now.
“How long have you known this?” he asked.
“Just since yesterday.”
He turned to Wakefield:
“And you?”
The boy answered in a muffled voice:
“For two days.”
“And Piers knew of it?”
Wakefield nodded.
Renny gave a bitter laugh. “By God, I like this! It’s splendid! The road is going to be widened—the front of my property disfigured—and everyone knows of it but me!”
Wakefield said—“We knew you’d find out soon enough.”
“Well, I have… I won’t allow it. There has been no meeting of the ratepayers.”
“Yes. There was. When you were in Montreal.”
Renny grinned savagely. “Oh, they waited till I was out of the way—the curs! Well—it can’t be done! I won’t allow
it. Why, those trees have stood there—” He stopped, swallowed, and got to his feet as he saw Pauline coming down the stairs.
Her eyes were fixed on his as she came into the room.
He said—“They’ve just told me about the trees, Pauline.”
“Oh, I knew you’d be sorry! Can’t you please do something about it?”
“Do something! Well, I should like to see them touch my trees!”
Wakefield spoke, in a high judicial tone:
“After all, we must always consider the good of the many. There is no doubt that the road is narrow for motors.”
“Let them keep off it, then.”
“And the curve is dangerous. Perhaps you’ve forgotten, Renny, how you knocked over Noah Binns just there with your own car.”
“He wasn’t hurt.”
“He might have been killed.”
“So much the better.”
“Oh, well, there’s no convincing you.”
“Look here,” interrupted Renny savagely, “do you want the trees cut down?”
“No—but if the majority of taxpayers do, we’re helpless, aren’t we?”
Clara Lebraux added—“I suppose what has really happened is that the Minister of Highways, or some such person, has been influenced by someone with a pull.”
Renny broke in—“He’ll have me to reckon with. Why, those trees were old when Gran first came here. She and Grandfather always protected them. There are few enough beauty spots left in this country. No stranger ever comes to Jalna without admiring those trees.”
“I know,” agreed Wakefield, “but we have hundreds like them—almost as fine.”
“Yes! You’d better put in that ‘almost.’ We’ve nothing else to equal them.”
“They’re paying compensation.”
“As though I’d accept their filthy money!”
Clara Lebraux and Wakefield exchanged a look.
Pauline went to Renny and touched his sleeve with her hand. “I knew you’d feel as I do about it,” she said.
He pressed her hand against his arm. “We’ll throw their compensation in their teeth,” he said. His face cleared as he looked down into her eyes. He could never quite make out their colour, but he knew they were deep and beautiful and that the lids had a foreign look.
She wanted to be near him. But yet she could not bear the nearness. It was as though she, being cold, could not bear the heat of the fire. She had loved her father with all the force of her sensitive child nature. Her father had loved Renny Whiteoak. She told herself that her feeling for Renny was a sacred heritage from her father. She moved away and went to Wakefield’s side.
The fire of his presence was a softly burning fire. She could comfort her spirit there. Yet there was something in him too that frightened her. There was something watchful about him. He watched but he did not let himself be seen…
As the brothers returned along the path they had come, Renny talked of the trees, of the beauty of the road as it stood, of the outrage of suggesting that the boundary of Jalna should be moved back from the road so much as a foot. He talked of the winding roads of old England. He would not enter the house without first going to the edge of the meadow beyond the lawn to see that the ancient oaks were
still intact. He took off his hat as though to salute them. He stood beneath the summer spread of their green leaves, the serene strength of their branches, with head thrown back, his fiery brown eyes penetrating their sunlit heights with an expression of passionate protectiveness.
F
AMILY
T
REE
T
HE FIRST REAL HEAT OF SUMMER
had come that day, and it was delicious. The new leaves, bright and smooth as though waxed, sunned themselves in it. Each spear of grass stood up, full of life, as though declaring—“I am the lawn.” The flower blossoms that hitherto had opened with discretion, now cast caution aside and threw wide their petals like welcoming arms. The earth that till now had only been warmed on its surface, absorbed the fire of the sun deeper and deeper into its fibre. Jock, the bobtailed sheepdog, left the porch where he had been sunning himself, and stretched his shaggy body in the shade of a balsam.
But it was the old house itself that most greedily drank in the heat. Its walls, which had cracked in frost, shivered in bitter winds, now turned a mellow rosy red in the bright radiance. Pigeons strutted and slid up and down its warmed roof. Its windows—those windows through which old Adeline, for seventy-five years the centre of its activities, had so often stared—beamed tranquilly. A blue smoke-wreath from the kitchen chimney settled above it like a rakish halo.
Ernest Whiteoak sat in an armchair with cushions piled behind him, on the gravelled sweep in front of the house, where his long, thin body received the full force of the sun. He had been seriously ill of influenza two months before and he still clung to the pleasant ways of convalescence.
It was so nice to stand in the doorway, watch Wragge, the Cockney manservant, who had been Renny’s batman in the War, carry out the weighty chair, one of the womenfolk follow with the cushions, his brother Nicholas seek out the most sheltered spot, then himself follow, leaning on the ebony stick that had been his mother’s.
He had been sitting there an hour and twenty minutes. In another twenty minutes it would be one o’clock—time for dinner. His appetite was good, his digestion better than for some time. He looked forward to the hot meal and the long nap afterward on his own soft bed. He was already drowsy because of the heat, and the sun gleaming on the bright hair of Renny’s wife sitting close beside him actually made him wink. She was trimming his nails for him, an office she had undertaken when his hands had been shaky after the fever. He was quite able to do it himself now, but one day when Nicholas had suggested it he had become very peevish and exclaimed— “I suppose you don’t mind if I cut off the ends of my fingers!”
Alayne was thorough in all she did. Each nail was trimmed to correspond with the curve at its base. They were well-shaped nails. She had brought out her own polisher and was now rubbing them briskly. Ernest’s eyes were on his fingers in bland concentrated interest. He was barely conscious of the brightness of Alayne’s hair in the sun and the pretty curve of her wrist.
Nicholas slouching in a deep wicker chair watched the two of them, a mocking light in his eyes beneath the heavily
marked brows. Spoiled old boy Ernest was. And this illness had made his comfort all too precious to him. If Mamma were living she would take the kink out of him. In fancy Nicholas could hear her say—“Don’t act like a ninny, boy!” She would still call him boy though he would be seventy-eight this summer. Well… it was splendid to see him about again, after the scare he’d given them, with his cough and his fever and all his aches and pains. He looked good for a score or more of years yet.
Alayne, he thought, looked considerably older since her baby was born. She was something more than a charming girl now. She was a woman of experience, the character of her face making one wonder what lay behind. Well, she loved Renny, that was evident, and it must be no joke for a woman of Alayne’s sort—for there would be always something straitlaced about her—to love a man like Renny. She had had a deal of tough experience since she had first come to Jalna as Eden’s wife.
“There,” said Alayne, returning Ernest his hand, “you’re all fixed up for another few days.”
“Next time he’ll be able to do it for himself,” observed Nicholas.
“I am mending slowly,” Ernest returned mildly.
“You’re getting a look of positive brute strength,” said his brother.
“Did you have your eggnog?” asked Alayne.
“Yes, thank you.”
Nicholas scoffed—“And now going in to devour a hot dinner!”
Alayne gave him a look of affectionate reproval. “He must be built up,” she said, “and nourishing food is better than medicine.”
A contralto voice asked from the porch:
“Is Renny hereabout? Someone wants to speak to him over the telephone.”
All three looked around. They saw Lady Buckley, sister of Nicholas and Ernest, tall and distinguished-looking, still holding herself upright, though she had passed her eighty-first birthday, her Queen Alexandra fringe still of a strange magenta black. In spite of the warmth of the day she wore a dress of woollen material, a very dark brown with wide velvet hem, a shade not at all kind to her speckled sallow skin. She still held her head high, her chin drawn in, the full eyes wide open with an air of startled offence, but her cheeks had grown hollow, thus giving greater prominence to the mouth with its curve of tolerance. She had had an anxious time over her brother Ernest and it had told on her. She had come from England to be with him in March, enduring a stormy voyage and an exhausting journey by rail. She felt happy at sight of the little group in the sun, with Ernest, flushed a delicate pink, as its centre.
“I have not seen him since breakfast,” answered Alayne. “I’ll go to the telephone, Aunt Augusta.” She went swiftly into the house and Lady Buckley joined her brothers.
“Whatever,” she demanded of them, in her deep voice, “should we do without Alayne? I quite
lean
on her.”