Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
The hard work made him sweat. Drops fell from his forehead on to the straw. He could feel sweat running down his back and his chest.
He did not mind the work. He wondered if perhaps, after all, tranquillity came only with labour. He looked with satisfaction at the barrow mounded with dung which he had shovelled from the stalls. He trundled it along the uneven floor and dumped it on to the great heap in the stable-yard.
He groomed the hard flanks of the farm horses and, the dust making him cough, he thought of the pot of tea he had set brewing in the kitchen before he came out.
When all else was done he fed the poultry and flung open the door of the poultry-house. He stood leaning against the door watching the squawking, pecking crew while the red sun beamed on the upkicked straw and the dangling comb of the cock.
Morning after morning he stood so, for a little, resting before he returned to the house to bathe and breakfast. He was happier, now that he was helping Maurice. Renny had been surprised and relieved by his eager acceptance of the suggested farm work. Maurice was innately indolent and, once that he was no longer driven by necessity, he drifted more completely into his plans for subdividing his land.
He had actually sold two lots. One was being held, but on the other a flimsy erection was already being put up by a retired grocer. Maurice took a sincere interest in its progress and spent a part of each day agreeably in aiding and advising the builder, and occasionally showing prospective purchasers over the property.
The weather was heavy. Eden felt the strain of going into town to give his Thursday readings. His dinner afterward with Sarah and the remote calm of her presence was a deep relief to him. They would sit without talking because his voice was husky after the strain. On the ninth Thursday he had difficulty in restraining a cough which threatened to spoil the effect of his reading. He went to Sarah profoundly depressed. They scarcely spoke during dinner, but, afterward in the drawing-room, she talked quickly and lightly without waiting for an answer. Watching her, he noticed that a change had come over her face in the past few months. Her eyes had
a burning look, and a faint colour warmed the marble of her cheeks. But any changes in her were of only momentary interest to him.
“I am wondering,” he interrupted her at last, “whether I can keep up until next Thursday. I feel frightfully tired.”
“Don’t you think,” she suggested, “that it is the farm work? You are not used to anything of that sort. For my part I think it is cruel of them to ask you. But then—relations are cruel.”
“I don’t think it is cruel,” he returned. “I look so fit… They don’t realise… Besides, I like the work.”
“What don’t they realise?” She looked a little startled.
“Well, that I’m not so fit as I look. I’ve a temperature all the time.”
“But that is terrible! You must see a doctor.”
“I’ve been under our old doctor’s care ever since I came home. He helped me into the world.”
“And will help you out!” she cried scornfully
“He is satisfied with me, he says.”
“I don’t believe this part of the country—it’s low and damp—is healthful for you. Will you see a good doctor—to please Finch and me? We’re both so fond of you!”
“I cannot afford it,” he muttered.
“Let me pay! You must.”
He got up impatiently and began to walk about the room.
“I shall be all right—once these Thursdays are over. The next one—the last, thank God!—is my own poetry. I must do that well.” He stopped in front of her. “Do you know, Sarah, I still have a hundred and seventy dollars of the money I got from those women! I have only spent thirty dollars in nine weeks!”
“I used to spend less than that,” she returned.
“Yes—I suppose you did. But I guess you spend a good deal more than that now.” He looked at her appraisingly, again noticing the recent change in her.
“You look different, Sarah,” he said. “I wonder what is going on in that sleek black head of yours.”
“Why should I not look different?” she asked. “I’m a different woman. When I look back on my old life I can’t believe in it. I tell myself that that was I, but I don’t really believe in it.”
“You’re so much happier now?”
“I don’t know what it is to be happy,” she answered with meaning.
“But you will yet. I am sure you will.”
“I wish I were sure of it.”
A veiled smile passed across Eden’s face. “Sure of
him,
you mean!” he said teasingly.
“He hates me,” she said.
“No, no, Sarah. He is afraid of you. That’s all.”
She asked ingenuously as a child—“How can I stop that?”
He sat down beside her. “By pretending that you are afraid of him.”
“It would be no pretence! I’m terrified of him.” She gave a little nervous laugh, then pushed a box of cigarettes toward him. “Here are some of your favourite Russians,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’ve given up smoking,” he said. “It makes me cough.”
“Hard luck! I shan’t take one either.”
“Please do. I’ll like to watch you smoke. We’ll talk about young Finch.”
They talked, and Eden wondered if perhaps, after all, a marriage with Sarah might bring Finch happiness. But he
could not bring himself to believe that. She would entrap him, and Finch should be free. Still, he was sorry for her, even while he distrusted her. She fascinated him.
In the days that followed Eden amused himself, kept his mind off his own troubles by thinking of Sarah and Finch. He had an odd feeling that it was for him to bring them together or keep them apart. He felt that he had a certain power over Finch, who was at this time away on the tour that had been arranged for him.
But, by the end of the week, his thoughts were occupied only with his own condition. His cough had become so much worse that Meg was concerned and dosed him with rum and honey, flaxseed tea, and patent cough medicines. He was drenched with sweat after his early morning work in the stable, but his pride kept him from complaining to Maurice. He would drag himself back to his bed and throw himself on it where still was the shape of his body in moisture from his sweat of the night. Much of the day he spent bent over his desk. His feverish brain found its solace in a new dramatic poem. “Thank God!” he said aloud, as he drove Maurice’s car through the bitter cold streets, whirling dust half choking him, “this will soon be over!” It was his tenth Thursday.
Renny was in his office the next morning, as was his custom after breakfast. He was reading his mail, which consisted mostly of bills and circulars. The morning paper lay open on the desk, its back page uppermost, showing a large advertisement of Christmas goods by a department store. He laid down his last letter and his eyes fell on the advertisement. Was it possible that Christmas was so near? He smiled as he thought that little Adeline would be old enough to enjoy it this year.
He rubbed his eyes, which were smarting from the smoke of the small stove, which always refused to draw when the wind was off the lake. Yet he must have the fire for there was a raw, penetrating chill in the air. Outside lay several inches of wet snow. He had been walking in that and, as it had melted from his boots, it had formed a small puddle on the floor beneath them.
A quick rap sounded on the door and, when he said “Come in,” it opened halfway and Eden was revealed standing back from it.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Yes,” Renny answered, startled at seeing him there.
Eden entered and closed the door behind him. He looked dishevelled, desperate, and wild.
Renny sprang up and went to him.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
Eden tried to answer but he could make no sound at first. Then his voice came loud and harsh.
“I’m ill… I’ve been to see a doctor… My God, Renny, I’m going to die!”
Renny looked at him horrified, yet unbelieving.
“What are you saying?” he said roughly. “I don’t think you know. You’ve been drinking!”
Eden gave a despairing laugh. “No such luck! It’s true, I tell you… I saw a specialist yesterday. He was a cold-blooded fellow. Well—I asked him for the truth! I’ve been suspecting it but, by God, I didn’t want to hear it!”
“What did he say?”
“I’ve about three months. He couldn’t do anything for me. No one can!” His face cleared for a moment and he added: “No wonder you look staggered. I was staggered myself.”
Renny took him by the arm. “Sit down and tell me about it.” He put Eden into his chair.
Eden wrung his hands together under the desk. He raised his stricken eyes to Renny’s face. He spoke in jerky sentences in a broken voice.
“I’ve been feeling rotten for a month… But this week has been the limit… I made up my mind to see a specialist… Sarah told me she didn’t think old Harding much good… Anyhow he hadn’t seen me lately. I’ve been getting worse, I tell you—for some time.”
“Yes.” Renny spoke quietly. “Go on.”
“Well—I went into town early… It was bad going through the wet snow… I was exhausted when I got to the doctor’s… He examined me. Told me—that… I was dazed when I left his office…” His wide-open eyes looked intensely blue. Renny thought, as though it were a discovery—“How blue his eyes are…” He asked gently:
“Where did you go then?”
“Then? Why I drove the car into a side street and I stopped there. I must have sat a long time… I don’t remember… I don’t remember… I don’t remember…” He kept repeating the words while he stared straight ahead, as though at something horrible.
Renny opened a cupboard and took out a flask of brandy. He poured some into a glass and gave it to Eden. He seemed clearer in his head after that. He said, in a voice that was almost natural:
“Well, it was a great shock, you know. It took me a bit to get over it. And it was a vile day—blackness and slush—like the end of the world.”
“Did you go to Sarah’s?”
“No. I couldn’t face that! But I gave my reading! All the nice ladies were there, armed with my poems. I read—and I
read horribly, but somehow I got through… They said they’d loved the readings and they kept inviting me to their houses and I accepted every invitation. It was amusing—knowing that I was going home to die…”
“If you’re willing to accept that man’s word for it, I’m not. I’ll take you to the best doctors in the country.”
Eden shook his head. “No use, old fellow. He’s right. I’m done for. I’ve no lungs left to cure.”
The lines in Renny’s face were as though they had been cut there with a knife. “Have you told Meg or Maurice about this?” he asked.
“No. I’ve left that for you to do. I said I was tired when I got back and went to bed. I was actually too tired to put the car in. I left that for Maurice. He was rather crusty about it… I don’t believe I slept two hours. But I did the work this morning. We’ve let the boy go. He wasn’t any good, and there’s not much to do now.”
“Why the hell,” exclaimed Renny, “did Maurice leave it to you? Couldn’t he see that you weren’t able?”
“Oh, he’d never notice!”
Renny saw that Eden had lost flesh since he had last seen him. He saw that there was dust and chaff on his clothes, that his hands were dirty.
“I suppose,” he said, “that this work hasn’t been good for you.”
“The worst thing possible. Early morning exertion. The dust… But the climate’s been bad too. The doctor said I should have been up North.”
“You could have gone—if we’d known!”
“Yes—I suppose I could.”
A silence fell between them. Through it came the pleasant sounds of the stable… The sound of a pump, a
man’s deep voice singing, the contented neigh of a horse.
Another sound was added to these—steady footsteps coming toward the office. Eden started up. He knew the step.
Renny moved to the door to lock it, then stopped. An idea had come into his mind. Perhaps a reconciliation might be possible between these two—in such a case. He fixed his eyes on the door, and on Piers’s face, when he opened it and came in.
That face was a study. For a moment its habitual bold, firm expression was broken into a look of positive dismay. Then it hardened into grey iciness and he turned to go away. But Renny stopped him.
“Look here, Piers,” he said. “Shut that door. I want you two—”
Piers saw his purpose. “Let me out!” he said fiercely. “Do you think I’ll do that? Do you take me for a fool.”
Renny reached out and shut the door. Eden had risen and was standing with his hands on the desk.
Piers looked at him again and was struck by his strange appearance. His eyes turned questioningly to Renny.
“He’s a sick man,” said Renny. “A specialist told him yesterday that—he’s not going to get better.”
Piers frowned. His mouth was drawn to one side in an expression of disgust.
“You fellows,” Renny went on, “had the same mother…”
“I’m sorry for that,” muttered Piers.
“If you can’t be decent to him—after what I’ve told you—get out and leave us alone!”
“I’m going!” He swung round and put his hand on the doorknob. He hesitated, then looked over his shoulder, as though unwillingly, at Eden.
Eden said—“I don’t give a damn for your forgiveness.”
“I’ve said to myself,” said Piers, “that if ever I met you face to face I’d bash yours in. But you take care never to come about unless you’re down and out. It seems to me that I’ve been hearing for years that you are dangerously ill.”
“It has taken rather a long while,” returned Eden bitterly.
“If you had lived a decent life you wouldn’t have come to this!”
Renny exclaimed—“Get out of here!”
Piers turned on him—“Oh, I know what you’d like! You’d like me to say, ‘Dear brother, I want to be friends! If I can do anything for you, just let me know.’ But I’m not that sort. Neither would you be if you were in my place. By God, I’d like to know what you’d have done if you had been in my place! Put a bullet through him, I’ll bet!”
Eden said—“You fellows embarrass me. I feel as though I were overhearing a private conversation.” He gave a rasping laugh. “Don’t you think you’d better postpone this postmortem for a little?” The brandy had given him heart. He threw them one of his old mocking looks… Well—he had lain with both their women…