Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
Again Piers made as though to go, but he hesitated once more and said to Eden, without looking at him:
“I’ll send one of my men over to help Maurice. Don’t worry about the work.” It cost him an effort to say this.
“Oh, I’m not worrying about the work—now,” answered Eden. He watched Piers go out. He held himself together until the door had shut on the stalwart figure, then he dropped with an air of unutterable fatigue into Renny’s chair and buried his face in his arms.
“I feel,” he said, “as though I never want to move again.”
The old people definitely felt that winter had come that day—a mean, shuffling, down-at-heel approach, with nothing grand about it, but nevertheless as certain as death. After dinner the three gathered about the fire in the drawing-room, which huddled sputtering under the smoke that the east wind was driving down the chimney. Now and then it thrust out an angry tongue of flame, but more often sent a puff of smoke into the room.
Ernest sat, with hands outstretched, getting more than his share of what heat the fire gave out, his expression verging toward peevishness. He wore a woollen dressing gown over his suit, and he had lighted a cigar, an unusual indiscretion for him.
Nicholas had been having a spell of gout, and from his afflicted leg, that was propped on one of the beaded ottomans, there rose a strong smell of liniment. His pipe hung slackly from the corner of his mouth, and he kept noisily rubbing his large shapely hands together. His Yorkshire terrier, Nip, lay curled up tightly on the ottoman beside his leg and, either from nerves or cold, kept up a continuous shivering.
Augusta sat upright in front of the cabinet of Indian curios, a small purple shawl around her shoulders, her knitting, a grey sock for her gardener in England, twitching under her quick needles. Being accustomed to English houses she did not find the room nearly so uncomfortable as her brothers did. She looked over her spectacles at the terrier with a disapproving expression.
“Nip takes up too much of the ottoman,” she observed. “He has your leg pushed almost off. It is a good thing you never had a child, Nicholas. You would have ruined it.”
“He likes the smell of the liniment,” returned Nicholas.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Ernest declared. “Animals invariably hate such smells. And I must say I sympathise with them. That liniment of yours is particularly objectionable. It’s making me feel quite squeamish.”
“Blame your cigar, not my liniment. Gad, it smells like what Mrs. Wragge calls, a ‘heap of refuge’ burning.”
Ernest stared at him indignantly through the smoke.
“It’s an excellent cigar,” he said.
“I agree,” put in Augusta. “It has a very pleasant aroma… As for the dog’s snuggling up to Nicholas, he probably feels the cold. It’s a wretched day.”
“And there is a wretched fire in the furnace,” said Nicholas. “I felt the radiator when I came into the room and it’s scarcely warm.”
“We seldom have a really good fire now,” agreed Ernest, his mind taken off his cigar. “I spoke to Wragge about it yesterday and he said—’We must mike the coals last as long as we can, sir.’ I thought it was distinctly cheeky on his part.”
“Sometimes I think that Renny is getting a little more than close-fisted,” said Nicholas.
Augusta took off her spectacles and looked solemnly at her brothers. “There is no doubt about it,” she said. “He is. More than a little.”
“Well, of course—of course—” said Ernest nervously, “he has a good many—quite a good many demands on him.”
“I sympathise,” Augusta went on, “with frugality in times like these, but it should be used consistently. Renny will still cut slices off the hot joint for his spaniels but he will not mend the roof, which leaks in half a dozen places. It hurts me to see the place going to rack.”
“And
ruin,” added Nicholas.
“Speaking of joints,” said Ernest. “That last was as tough as leather.”
“Nothing better than a boiling piece,” boomed Augusta.
Nicholas scowled, sucking at his pipe. Then he said:
“Every mattress in the house needs doing over.”
“Very true,” agreed Ernest. “And every carpet needs cleaning. Just look at this one!”
All three peered at the carpet.
“The pattern is scarcely visible,” said Augusta.
“What we need,” said Ernest, “is one of those electric suction cleaners. Alayne tells me that her aunt has one. It’s quite wonderful, she says.”
“A good broom and some elbow grease is all it needs,” rumbled Nicholas.
The door opened and Renny came in.
“Well,” he said, “and what are you looking for?”
“We were just remarking,” said Augusta, “how well the carpet wears.”
“We were wondering,” added Ernest, “if perhaps it should be sent to the cleaners.”
“Your fire seems to be smoking,” observed Renny. He advanced into the room, picked up the poker, and beat a large piece of coal into fragments. Dusky flames shot through the crevices. He said:
“It’s a devil of a day. I’ve just been over at the Vaughans’.”
“We heard you were there,” said Augusta. “We waited dinner some little time for you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.” He added, apologetically—“I didn’t know that I was going to be there for dinner but they would have me stay.”
“How are they all?” asked Ernest.
‘Oh—Patience had a stomach-ache last night but it’s better today.”
Augusta said—“Children are given too much variety nowadays. They’re spoiled and they’re none the happier for it. Pheasant was saying to me this morning that her children are bored by this weather and that it bores her too. Fancy being bored by the weather! I remember being bored only once in my life and that was when I was five years old. My mamma had taken the three of us for a picnic on the lakeshore and she’d forgotten to take my sewing along. I watched my brothers gambol about but I was bored because I had no sewing with me.” She put on her glasses and resumed her knitting with an offended expression.
Renny sat down beside her on the sofa.
He touched her knitting. “Socks, as usual,” he said. For some moments he watched the needles as though they fascinated him. The fire had begun to crackle and burn brightly. Nicholas said:
“It’s burning quite well now. Perhaps the east wind has fallen.”
“I find east wind very trying,” observed Ernest. “I wonder how it affects Eden. How is he, Renny?”
Renny still stared at the knitting needles. “Eden? Oh— well, he’s not very well, to tell the truth.”
“No wonder,” said Nicholas. “It’s a miserable day.”
“It would have been well for both Eden and me,” said Ernest, “if we could have gone south this winter.”
Renny drew a deep breath. He pressed his fingers between his brows and closed his eyes. The elderly people felt something odd about him and were silent. The flames made small flapping noises.
“I don’t know,” said Renny, “how I’m going to tell you something I heard this morning. But I feel that I must.”
His uncles looked at him with shrinking in their eyes. They felt that they had endured enough worry and unpleasantness that year. But Augusta once more removed her spectacles and turned her full gaze upon him.
“Yes,” she said, her deep voice sympathetic, “you had better tell us. It’s easier to face things together.”
Renny tried to smile at her but his smile contracted into a miserable look of pain. “It’s Eden,” he said, in a husky voice. “I’m afraid he’s not going to get better.”
Nicholas had not taken in the words.
“What’s that?” he demanded sharply. And, as Renny did not answer him, he turned to Ernest. “What’s he say? I don’t see why he should mumble like that.”
Ernest looked at him pathetically. “It’s Eden. Renny says he’s not going to get better. Why, I don’t see how that can be! I understood all along that he was getting better. Dr. Harding told me so himself.”
“Harding’s an old fool!” exclaimed Renny.
Augusta laid aside the sock she was knitting and folded her hands together in her lap.
“I hope you have considered well before you have spoken, Renny,” she said. “Because this is a terrible blow you have given us.”
“Why—why—I can’t believe it,” stammered Nicholas. “Why, I saw him just three weeks ago and he’d a splendid colour. His eyes were as clear and bright as a child’s.”
“He saw a doctor in town yesterday,” said Renny. “He came to my office this morning and told me about it. He was badly upset. I took him back to Meg’s. And I called up the doctor. There isn’t an atom of hope. The doctor said it was a
miracle that he’d kept up so long. He’s made of good stuff, that boy, I can tell you!”
“This is too much! It’s too much!” Tears ran down Ernest’s cheeks.
“That young life,” mumbled Nicholas, as though to himself, “that young life…”
“I must go to him at once,” said Augusta.
“Why, it seems only yesterday that he was a little boy,” said Nicholas. “Pretty as a picture. And now, to think of this happening to him…” He covered his mouth with his hand to hide its trembling. Pictures of Eden’s mother, of Eden as a child, came before his eyes, and were blotted out by the picture of Eden dying.
To Ernest the shock of finding all he had held so important—his illness, his recovery, his comfort, the intimate doings of the family—overshadowed into nothingness by the terror of the approaching event was almost more than he could bear. He looked pitifully into the faces about him for comfort, but found in Nicholas’s face only a bleak dismay, in Augusta’s a sorrowful dignity, and in Renny’s a bitter resignation.
“It is a blessing,” said Augusta, “that I did not go home this winter. Now I can be of some use to the boy. And to Meggie. How did she take the news?”
Renny drew down his brows. “She took it very hard. After I had told her, she ran straight upstairs to his room and knelt down by the bed—I’d got him into bed—and they cried together. He tried to comfort her. Eden’s made of good stuff.”
“How old is he?” asked Nicholas.
“Thirty-one.”
“My God! And I’m eighty!”
“That is quite beside the point,” said Augusta.
“Auntie’s right,” said Renny. “What we’ve got to do is to face this thing together. There is no use in harrowing ourselves any more than we can help. I suppose that each one of us could find something… I’d give a good deal, for instance, if I hadn’t pushed him into working for Maurice. It’s done him harm.”
“It’s shocking,” said Augusta, “to think of a Whiteoak doing the work of a stableboy. I wonder at Maurice.”
The sound of little Adeline’s screaming came from above. Renny got up. “I think I’ll go up and tell Alayne,” he said.
Augusta took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze.
“Break it to her gently,” she said. “It will hurt her more than you think, for she worries greatly over the child and that keeps her in a strung-up state.”
“I know it does. And it’s very foolish of her.”
Nicholas was moving restlessly in his chair.
“Give me an arm, Renny,” he growled. “I’m a stiff old fellow today.”
It was with difficulty that Renny heaved him out of the chair. When he was on his feet he stood rigid for a space, as though he had lost the use of his legs, staring from under his beetling brows like an old lion at bay.
“Where are you going?” Renny asked him.
“Nowhere. Nowhere,” he answered testily. “But I can’t sit in one spot forever!” He began to walk unevenly up and down the room. When he came opposite the bow window he stopped and stared out at the draggled, unimpressive day “Thirty-one,” he muttered. “Well, I declare, it’s enough to break a man up to live to see this! It’s just enough to break a man to pieces.”
“I wish you would help me up too, Renny,” said Ernest, who had, in addition to his grief, a sense of deep personal injury. “I feel very weak. I think I must go and lie down.”
“Wait a moment,” said Renny. “I’m going to fetch you a drink.” He went into the dining room and returned with brandy and soda.
As usual the spirits went to Ernest’s head. He turned quite dizzy as he ascended the stairs, clutching the banister on one side while Renny supported him on the other. Again and again he tripped on the dangling cord of his dressing gown until Renny gathered it up and carried it.
“You’d better lie down at once,” he said, “and I’ll cover you up.”
But Ernest detached himself and, going to the radiator, put his hand on it. He said complainingly:
“It’s almost cold. There has been little or no fire all day.”
Renny’s face shadowed. He said—“You’ll be warm enough when you’re under the eiderdown.” Rather brusquely he led him to the bed and covered him up.
When he had closed the door behind him he stood motionless outside it listening. He wondered whether Alayne were in her room or above in the nursery. As he hesitated he saw Pheasant cross the passage and enter her room. For a moment her figure was darkly silhouetted against a window. She had raised her hands to touch her hair and he perceived that she was with child. A swift emotion made his heart swell—pride that another Whiteoak was on the way and, mingled with the pride, a kind of anger at the intruding of this new life when Eden’s was passing away.
Pheasant disappeared into the room. He went toward the door and asked:
“Where is Alayne?”
She came and looked out at him, her eyes dark and wistful in her pale face.
“She’s upstairs giving Adeline her tea. You’d better not go up. Alayne has trouble enough in getting her to eat properly.”
He stood for a moment rebuffed. Then he said—“I must see her.”
“Well, then, I’ll go up and stay with Adeline.”
She looked tired, he thought. Almost ill.
“What nonsense,” he said, and sprang up the stairs.
The door of the nursery was shut but his step had been heard, and Mooey flung it open, delighted with this unexpected diversion. He was eating an apple and, with a mouthful distending his cheek, he exclaimed:
“Hullo, Uncle Renny!”
His small brother, slavish imitator in all he did, came running too.
“Hullo, Uncle Wenny!” he cried.
Adeline alone remained at the children’s table. She had been perversely refusing to eat and Alayne had been painstakingly explaining to her that, when she had finished her milk, she would see the pretty picture on the bottom of her mug. Bits of bread were scattered on the floor about her and, when she had the chance, she thrust other bits into the proffered milk.