The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (160 page)

She mounted the lowest rung of the gate and hung over it, watching. Chris Cummings was mounted on Launceton, followed by Renny on the chestnut mare. They were moving in a long swinging gallop at the far end of the paddock. They rose, one after the other, as though lifted by some serene, detached power, and took two gates in succession. They came thudding along the track toward her. She raised herself upright on the gate, holding her breast open to absorb the rushing vitality of their passing. She felt the wind from their swift bodies. She smelled the clean horses and their polished leather. She stared into the faces of the riders, thinking how set and courageous they looked. Chris encouraged Launceton and he galloped ahead, easily out-distancing the chestnut.

“Isn’t he a clinker?” asked Piers who had come up behind her.

“Yes. But the chestnut’s carrying a far heavier weight.”

“She’s not in the same class with him. He’s going to win the Grand National. You’ll see.”

They stood waiting till the schooling was over. Renny called Piers and sent him to his office for something. Chris strolled over to Pheasant. This was just what she wanted. Everything was being made easy for her. She felt the elation of controlling other people’s destinies.

Chris was mopping her forehead with a handkerchief. She still felt the exuberance of the gallop. She threw her arm about Pheasant’s shoulders, exclaiming:

“Isn’t he wonderful! I could face the devil after a gallop on him!”

“You do not need to face the devil,” returned Pheasant gravely. “It’s only Maurice you’ve got to face.”

Chris looked blank. “Maurice? Oh yes, your father! What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing. He only wants to see you about a very important matter.”

“Does he want me to break in a colt for him?”

“Goodness, no. This is just something between yourselves. He’s got to have your help to do it and you’ve got to have his help to do it.”

“It sounds thrilling. When do we begin?”

“Tonight. By the rose trellis, in our garden, at moonrise. He’ll be waiting for you there. He’s sorry that he can’t ask you into the house but Mrs. Clinch doesn’t like visitors, and anyhow it’s much nicer out there. I wonder if you’d mind wearing that pink dress. Mrs. Clinch doesn’t approve of breeches on a girl.”

“Gosh, she sounds a Tartar!”

“Will you come?” repeated Pheasant. “It’s terribly important to all of us. But please don’t mention my name. Just say you were walking that way and thought you’d come in. He’ll know what you mean.”

A groom was leading out another horse. Renny shouted to Chris.

The horse was standing on his hind legs, pawing the air.

“Coming!” shouted Chris.

“Will you be there tonight?” gasped Pheasant.

“Yes, I’ll be there.” She ran across the paddock.

Pheasant lingered to watch her mount the balky colt.

But she had now won him over. He cantered down the paddock in well-mannered fashion enjoying the newly acquired discipline. Pheasant thought — “There she rides, little knowing what’s going to happen tonight.”

She had hallucinated herself by her own imaginings and was now convinced that nothing could prevent Chris and Maurice from falling in love “by the rose trellis in the moonlight.” She felt a power within herself and, as she walked back across the fields, she took long strides and held her head high. Of her own will she was changing their lives. The day would come when Mrs. Clinch would no longer be able to say of Maurice “poor young man!” Instead, people would be saying — “How happy Maurice Vaughan looks since his marriage and how that daughter of his has improved! She’s not like the same child. It is said that she takes entire charge of her little brother.”

She went into the garden that, next to Maurice, had once been the pride of her grandmother’s life but was now uncared for. The grass had grown long, weeds choked the paths, the picket fence was sagging. But great clumps of peonies, whose roots had not been separated in the last ten years, were heavy with blooms. Sweet-scented phlox attracted the hummingbirds. At the end of the garden there was a locust tree in flower, its blossoms festooned along the boughs in perfumed chains. This tree sang with the hum of bees, and its flowers constantly trembled from their plundering.

Close beside the locust tree was the rose trellis, over which a hardy climbing rose sprawled, unpruned. Already this year’s shoots, finding no tendril hold on the overcrowded trellis, were pushing their way through the grass or thrusting outward towards an imaginary support. The roses grew in clusters, were pink, and had an old-fashioned sentimental perfume.

Pheasant hastened to this spot as to a banquet prepared, standing first at one end of the trellis and then at the other to savour the different aspects of the background for the moonlight meeting.

>She knew the time of moonrise from Mrs. Clinch’s almanac. Shortly before that hour she retired to her room. It was a little earlier than usual but no one noticed that. She knelt by the window where she could, by stretching her neck, get a fairly good view of the garden. Maurice passed beneath and, looking up, asked:

“Is that girl really coming here tonight?”

“Oh yes. I saw her this morning and she said she could scarcely wait till the time.”

“What do you suppose she wants of me?”

“She didn’t say. She said she wanted me to keep out of the affair and not have my name mentioned by either party.”

“Hm. She sounds a bit unhinged.”

He moved on.

The moon rose, deep gold beyond the fir trees, just past its first quarter. It was gaining the power to throw strong shadows, and Maurice, as he stood waiting, noticed the meticulous shadow of a rose cluster on the stone flagging beside the trellis. He had lighted a cigarette and was drawing its last inhalation as Chris Cummings appeared at the end of the path and came toward him, slim and purposeful in her pink dress.

“Good evening, Mrs. Cummings,” he said rather stiffly.

“Good evening.”

They looked at each other warily, neither one wishing to open the conversation.

He held out his cigarette case. “Have a cigarette?”

“Thanks.” She took one and he lighted it for her. In the flare of the match her face looked charming. He said:

“Well, I’m here, you see.”

“Yes, and I’ve come, as you may have noticed.”

They smoked in expectant silence.

Then — “It’s a nice old garden,” she said.

“It was nice in my mother’s time. But it’s been neglected. I shall have it put in order one of these days.”

After another pause she said — “Well, I suppose we may as well begin.”

“Yes, it’s about time.”

“Supposing you go first.”

Maurice gave a short laugh. “I don’t feel equal to it. It’s up to you.”

“You do want something of me, don’t you?”

“I thought it was you who wanted to see me.”

She said, with some embarrassment — “I’ll take on any thing you have in mind provided —” She hesitated.

“Provided what?”

“Well, — I don’t do anything for nothing.”

He looked at her suspiciously.

“Just what sort of fellow do you think I am, Mrs. Cummings?”

“At the moment I think you’re rather a queer egg.”

“You’re evidently used to a more impulsive type.”

“I’m used to a man who knows his own mind. What do you think I came here for?”

“That’s what I’m waiting to find out. Why won’t you tell me?”

She made an exasperated sound. “We seem to be all muddled up. I thought you wanted to see me. That’s why I’ve come.”

“I thought —” He stopped abruptly and looked over his shoulder. Renny Whiteoak was coming toward them across the grass.

“Hello, Maurice!” he exclaimed, then drew up in astonishment. “Sorry, I didn’t expect to find anyone with you. I’ll come again.”

“No, don’t go.”

Chris added — “Please, don’t go.”

He laughed. “Well, if I were in your shoes I shouldn’t want a third party about. You’ve no idea how romantic you look.”

His laugh was not genial. He felt himself deceived to find these two with whom he was in constant association, and neither of whom ever mentioned the other’s name to him, engrossed in what was evidently an arranged meeting, and who so plainly showed their embarrassment at being discovered.

The three stood motionless a space, the moonlight choosing one feature of each to play upon, to exaggerate into undue prominence. It chose Maurice Vaughan’s eyes, making them appear very large and melancholy and, by contrast, his face pallid. In Chris Cummings it was the mouth, the curl of the lips emphasized into conscious provocativeness. The arch of Renny Whiteoak’s nose, the sweep of the nostril, were exaggerated to a predatory sneer. They regarded each other in silence, each momentarily disliking the others, repelled by the distorted aspect of the familiar faces. Then Renny wheeled and moved swiftly away, drawing after him his elongated shadow across the grass, like a mummer’s trailing cloak.

“What a ridiculous scene!” exclaimed Chris, at last breaking the silence.

“Why was he angry?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“I can.”

“You seem to have rather a fantastic mind. Your message to me, for instance. You beg me to come here and when I arrive you ask me what I want.”

“I didn’t send for you, Mrs. Cummings.”

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“Pheasant told me...”

“Pheasant told
me.”

“What?”

“That you most particularly wanted to consult me about something.”

“She told me you particularly wanted to see
me.
I thought it was something about a horse.”

“She’s a mischievous little fool. I must apologize for her. I’m very sorry.”

“It’s all right. Just like a kid.”

“I don’t see anything funny in it.”

“She probably does. She certainly had us. Well, I’ll be off. Goodbye, Mr. Vaughan. Don’t be cross to her.”

“She deserves a whipping.”

“I forgive her, so I think you might. It was worse for me.”

“No, no.”

“What will Renny Whiteoak think of me?”

“I’ll explain.”

They separated, she turning at a tangent from the direction Renny had taken, Maurice going toward the house. He stopped beneath Pheasant’s window.

“Are you awake?” he called.

There was no answer.

“I’ll have something to say to you tomorrow.”

Trembling behind the window curtains she was conscious of the anger in his voice.

B
Y THE
L
AKE

W
HEN
C
HRIS
C
UMMINGS
set out to return by a different path she had but one desire, to escape a meeting with Renny on the way home. Better explain the ridiculous affair by daylight. There was a strain of malice in her that made the prospect of his passing a night of chagrin, possibly of sharp jealousy, not unpleasing to her. He had caused her hours of troubled sleeplessness. Now let him suffer.

She would go through the main gate, she thought, and skirting Vaughanlands on the side farthest from Jalna, return home by way of the back road. It was a lovely evening. She would enjoy the solitary walk. Tomorrow she and Renny would laugh together over the child’s prank. She hoped Maurice would not be furious with her.

But, when she reached the road, a wayward impulse made her hesitate. The road lay white between the dark pines and spruces, inviting in its emptiness. The air was heavy with the scent of newly mown hay. Puffs of warm air rose from secret places as though the earth, turning in its first sleep, had exhaled its warm and scented breath. There had been a strong wind the day before and a distant murmur told that the lake was still disturbed.

She had had no more than glimpses of it in passing. Now she had a sudden wish to be alone by it. In England she had lived near the sea. She had a craving for an expanse of moving water. When she had seen the lake it had stretched glassy and impersonal, blinding blue beneath a fierce sun or a dim pewter under a clouded sky. Tonight it was alive and moving sonorously on its shores. She wanted to be beside it and give herself up to thought. She was not often enough alone. There was something in her nature that needed solitude. She walked quickly down the road. She knew that the lake lay two miles away.

What if Renny were walking beside her? What if there were nothing to hinder their friendship, their love?

She had the road to herself. It had branched off and ended abruptly in a small field. She passed through a sagging wooden gate and entered on a sandy path that barely kept its contour among the crowding bushes. Suddenly she was past these. The path had ended. She was on the beach alone. She had a sense of achievement as she saw the unmarked stretch of it. Her feet sank in its warmed depth. The lake was agitated rather than tumultuous, spending itself in broken waves on the submissive sand. The moonlight was less bright than it had been. A cloud shaped like a waterfowl had the sky to itself, as she the beach. Behind it the moon was hidden, though its light illumined the sky, silvered the waves that lay beyond the cloud, and gave a gleaming breast to the fantastic shape of the bird.

She felt herself as adventuring far beyond the two miles she had traversed. Jalna, with all its activities, human and equine, lay far behind. Renny took his place with them, irrevocably bound up with them.

The house where she lived seemed far away; Mrs. Stroud no more than a stranger; Jim — she turned her head as though in pain at the thought of him — seemed far away. Even Tod, sleeping in his cot, was no longer her child but a being who had clung to her and now suddenly had relaxed his grasp and let her go. She stretched out her arms like the wings of a bird and drew in deep breaths of the cool night air. The scent of the clover and the hay was gone. The air had the smell of the lake, of the sparse vegetation that grew along the edge of the shore.

She took off her shoes and stockings and carried them that they might not be injured by the sand. Her toes curled with the delicious sense of freedom as she walked along the lake’s verge. She walked on and on, her thoughts becoming tranquil, then scarcely thoughts at all. She felt like a child again. She walked with one foot on the sand and the other in the water, enjoying both at once.