Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“what if he demands the payment of it all?” asked Ernest.
“He can’t prove that Renny took it all!” cried Meg. “The first bill might have got into Renny’s pocket by accident. We need not tell about the second. I don’t mean we’d keep it. We’d give it to the Red Cross.”
“I took the money,” said Renny.
“Do you remember taking it?” asked Piers sharply.
“I remember nothing.”
“You had better stay here while Finch and I go to your room.” Piers spoke to him as to one who was unable to take part in the search — a sick man, a criminal — it did not matter which.
“Very well.”
“Come along, Finch.”
Finch followed him miserably. Up in Renny’s room he said, in a shaking voice, “This is awful, Piers. I can’t believe in it. To think of Renny —”
“Have you noticed anything strange in his behaviour?”
“Don’t ask me. If I begin to think about it I’ll be sure I have.”
“My God, what a family!”
Finch muttered, “I know he’s been worried about money.”
Piers sighed. “That’s nothing new.”
Doggedly he began to turn out the drawers. “Get busy,” he ordered, “and search the cupboard.”
But the most thorough search revealed nothing. They even looked under the mattress and shook the rug. When they returned to the library they heard Meg and Pheasant discussing in desultory fashion the bottling of peaches. Renny and the two old men sat silent. Ernest kept pulling at the lobe of his ear.
“Nothing up there,” said Piers.
“You had better go and see Clapperton if you are going,” observed Renny in an expressionless voice.
“I suppose it would be a pretty hard pull to pay back the thousand dollars?”
“Oh, he can’t — he can’t!” cried Meg.
Piers turned to her. “Will you do it for him, then?”
Her face fell. “Oh, I didn’t mean that!”
“You can well afford to.”
“How do you know what I can afford?” she returned hotly.
Piers turned to Finch with a peculiarly sweet smile.
“Finch,” he said, “if Meg were to repay you the fifteen thousand dollars you lent her for the mortgage on Vaughanlands, would you pay this thousand for Renny?”
“
Would
I? There’s nothing I’d like better.”
“Then it’s all settled. Meg will pay you and you’ll pay Clapperton.”
“Will you, Meggie?” Finch asked eagerly.
“Oh, Finch,” she exclaimed, her eyes full of tears, “never did I think that you would bring up that debt against me — now that Maurice is gone and I am a widow, left to fight her battles alone.”
“Listen to her,” said Piers.
“If there is anyone I despise,” said Meg, “it is the person who brings up old, unhappy far-off things.”
Renny said, “I will pay Clapperton myself. I’ll sell some of the horses, if necessary.”
“But I don’t see why he should be paid,” declared Meg. “You didn’t know you were taking the money. You are not responsible. I think you should see a doctor — a psychoanalyst — and have a certificate from him that you are not responsible.”
Renny gave a harsh laugh. “Thanks. I had rather pay the money to Clapperton.”
Piers rose. “The first thing to do is to see him. I’ll go straight over. Coming, Finch?”
“I’d rather not.”
Ernest said, “Be polite to him. It will pay in the end.”
“This is what comes,” added Nicholas, “of selling Vaughanlands to a man we knew nothing about.”
Mr. Clapperton was not in his house but Piers found him superintending building operations in his village. He greeted Piers coldly.
“Well,” said Piers, “I’ve come to ask you what you are going to do.”
“I am waiting to see what your brother will do. I suppose he has told you that he took a thousand dollars off my desk.”
“If he took it, he was not conscious of what he was doing. You know he had a bad injury to his head in France.”
“That doesn’t bring the money back.”
“No. But it might be well for you to remember that while you were piling up the dollars at home my brother and I have been doing our duty overseas and suffering for it.”
“There was nothing I could have done over there. I have bought my share of war bonds. I’ve given generously to the Red Cross.”
“But not at the risk of your life.”
“what do you expect me to do?” demanded Mr. Clapperton angrily. “Tell your brother to keep the money, with my blessing?”
“It would be the decent thing to do. You came here, a stranger, in his absence. You have depreciated the value of his property by your building. I believe it is worry over this village of yours that has brought on the amnesia.”
Mr. Clapperton gave a groan of complete exasperation. He said, “I am not putting this case in the hands of the police. Your brother can pay me back or not — as he pleases. But if he doesn’t, it’s just plain dishonesty. I wonder what the countryside will think of that — if it leaks out.”
“In short, you mean that you will see that it
does
leak out.”
“Take that as you will.”
Piers’ eyes were prominent and very blue, as he returned:
“You’ll get your money, sir. And I’m willing to bet you an equal amount that your village will never be built.”
“I don’t want any bets with you.” Eugene Clapperton stalked away. At that moment he hated all the Whiteoaks and almost wished he had never acquired the property adjoining Jalna.
Two days later he received by post a cheque from Renny Whiteoak for nine hundred and eighty dollars. On the intervening day Renny had discovered another twenty-dollar bank note, lying among his neckties in the small left-hand drawer of his chest of drawers. This drawer had already been carefully searched by Piers and Finch.
A CHANGED LIFE
I
N THE THREE
weeks that followed, a change came over the household at Jalna. A change came in the very air they breathed. At various times it had been deeply disturbed but this was a new quality. It was a quality of uncertainty. The head of the house was unsure of himself. He distrusted himself. He dreaded with primitive fear what he might do next. Each morning it came to him with a startled shock that his memory, his mind, was damaged. And this shock so clouded his mind that not all the long day was it clear again. Sometimes there arose in him a ferocious wish to tear himself free from this desolation. He would force himself to animated talk and laughter but this lively mood was so contradicted by the misery in his eyes, the drawn look about his mouth, that it was more depressing to the family than his dark mood.
During those three weeks, eight more of the twenty-dollar notes were recovered by him. He found them in the strangest places. It was uncanny the diversity of places in which he found them, and every time he found one there followed a day of gloom at Jalna. If only, Alayne and Finch often said to each other, the uncles need not have known! But they knew all and were affected by all. Every time he discovered one of the notes he hastened to inform them and to speculate wildly as to what madness would overtake him next. Constantly he begged the others to watch him, to keep him in sight, to give him no opportunity for these lapses. Yet, after a day of being constantly observed, he would probably find one of the notes next morning in some horribly whimsical place.
Though he had repaid the full amount of the theft to Eugene Clapperton, he did not look on these recovered notes as rightfully his. He would hand them over to Alayne’s keeping with an air of longing to be rid of them that cut her to the heart. He spent much of his time searching for the place where the money was hidden. Over and over again he would search through cupboards and drawers where already he had searched many times. He never gave up hope, or perhaps was driven on by the weary mechanical urge of his tormented mind. He kept the house in disorder by his searching, for what he took out of drawers he returned but carelessly. One day he would take all the books from the bookshelves where Alayne, who had bought many books since her marriage, had them arranged to her taste. He would be convinced that he had hidden the notes among, or in, the books. He would open them, ruffle their leaves and at last replace them in disorder. Perhaps only three days later he would again go through them, again leave them in confusion. On one occasion he turned his grandmother’s room literally inside out, it suddenly being his conviction that he had hidden the money there. Doggedly but with heavy heart, Alayne put it to rights again. Yet she would not let herself despair. She had so longed for his return from the war that she could not believe that now her peace of mind, her happiness in him, was to be shattered. Lying awake at night she would go over and over in her mind the happenings of the past weeks. She did not yet allow herself to think of the disappearance of the money as a calamity, but each week it more nearly approached that dimension.
He got the idea that he rose in his sleep, went to the hiding place of the bank notes, abstracted one and then secreted it where he would find it on the morrow. Ernest had at one time been a sleepwalker, now Renny felt that he himself was leading a double life of night and day. On a sultry evening in late August he came to Alayne’s room and, after a speculative look at the bed, said:
“I want you to let me sleep here for a time.”
She had been brushing her long hair. Now she turned and faced him, brush in hand. “But why?” she asked anxiously, fearing always some new symptom of strangeness.
“I am sure that it is at night I do these things. I want you to watch me.”
She went to him and took him by the arms. “Darling,” she said, “I do wish you’d get it out of your head that you are a sleepwalker. That is an entirely different thing from memory lapses.”
“Everything is wrong with my brain,” he said tersely, his sombre eyes fixed on hers.
“I won’t hear you say it!” she cried.
“But I know it — and so do you.”
“Oh, if only you would see a doctor!”
“Time enough for that.” He turned away his head.
He tightened his arms about her. “May I sleep here?” he asked.
“I’ll love to have you. We shall sleep better together.”
“The bed is not very wide.”
“It is wide enough.”
That night, with her arms about him, he had the most peaceful night he had known in weeks. But Alayne slept little. In spite of herself, the thought that he would rise in the darkness and go to the hidden hoard, played cruelly on her nerves. Every time he moved a quiver ran through them, her heart quickened its beat. In the morning she looked pale and wan. But she could bear it! She could bear anything to help him.
In the afternoon Piers had a telephone call from her, asking him to come to her at once.
He found her waiting in the drawing-room where the shutters were drawn against the heat of the sun. Outside a hot wind was blowing. Piers’ ruddy face was anxious.
“what’s up?” he demanded.
She pressed her knuckles against her eyes, her mouth quivered.
“Alayne — tell me!” He touched her on the shoulder. “You must make Renny see a doctor,” she got out, in a voice strangled by sobs.
“what has he done?”
She uncovered her distraught face, controlling herself.
“Last night he slept in my room. He wanted me to be near — in case he walked in his sleep. I could swear he never left the bed. All the morning I knew just where he was. After lunch he went with Adeline to watch Wright schooling the new colt. Just before I phoned you I went to get myself a clean handkerchief and there — there among them — was one of those horrible bank notes!”
Piers stared in dismay. “Right in your drawer, eh? So — he’s begun to give them away.”
“when he put it there I can’t imagine. But I am driven to think he did it in the night.”
“Perhaps he put it there yesterday.”
“No. I know positively that it was not in the drawer when I went to bed.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know what to do. That’s why I sent for you.”
Piers was pleased that she had confided in him rather than in Finch. “I shouldn’t tell him,” he said. “It might be the last straw.”
“Perhaps it would make him agree to consult a specialist.”
“I don’t think so. Anyhow, what could a specialist do for him? This thing is in himself. Its cure is in himself.”
“But we can’t go on like this, Piers. It is ruining all our lives. Oh, I shall be thankful when those girls go away to school! They don’t understand the change in him. They don’t understand the ceaseless searchings. He tells them he is searching for an important letter he has mislaid but they are puzzled. I think Adeline is unhappy. I’ve never known her so quiet.”
“what I’m hoping,” said Piers, “is that when all the bills have turned up, he’ll be better.”
“The things he does are heartbreaking. I found a memorandum yesterday on his desk, giving the dates when he had found each of the bills and just where. He thinks of little else. He’s afraid of what he will do next. Oh, Piers, I’d a thousand times rather he had left a leg over there, as you have, than have suffered such an injury as this.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“I don’t see what reason you have for thinking so.”
“Well, he’s physically very fit. He’s at home, where he wants to be. It’s nature’s wish to heal us.” There was a silence, then he added, “Alayne, there’s something I think I ought to tell you. People are beginning to talk. Clapperton and that secretary of his have not kept this affair to themselves — as decent men would have done.”
“Oh, how cruel! We must never let him know.”
“He does know. Rags has dropped a hint. Noah Binns made some sly remark. Yesterday Renny said to me, ‘You’ve got to read the lessons in church next Sunday. I can’t stand up there in front of people reading the Scriptures and everyone thinking I’m a thief — or completely nutty.’ I tried to reason him out of it but he wouldn’t listen. You know what he is when he gets an idea in that red head of his.”
“Oh, his poor head!” moaned Alayne.
“who can wonder if he thinks everyone is looking at him in suspicion? God, I don’t know what I’d do if I were in his place!”
“You’d get medical advice,” said Alayne, “and he must.” She did not hear the step in the hall.