The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (280 page)

During the rest of Renny’s stay she was sweetly, solidly acquiescent toward him. He left thinking how perfect she was. In Maurice’s stable, looking over a new mare from the West, he told Maurice that Meggie was perfect, and Maurice agreed.

When the two women were alone, Minny Ware exclaimed: “Let me brew a fresh pot of tea. They spoiled your little lunch.”

“Do,” said Meggie. “We’ll have it together.”

They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. Then Minny’s eyes filled with tears. She snatched up the infant and kissed it extravagantly.

W
OODLAND
M
EETINGS

E
DEN
was pathetic. He was like a capricious child, weak and tyrannical. He could not in those first weeks bear Alayne out of his sight. There was so much to be done for him that only she could do to his satisfaction. The young Scotch girl came every day to help; their meals were carried to them in covered dishes by Rags, from the house. But Alayne must move his hammock from place to place, following the sun; she must make his eggnogs, his sherry jelly, read to him, sit with him at night by the hour when he could not sleep, encourage and restrain him. Like a child, he was sweetly humble on occasion. He would catch her skirt, hold it, and say, brokenly: “I don’t deserve it. You should have left me to die”; or, “If I get better, Alayne, I wonder if you could love me.”

She was endlessly patient with him, but her love was dead, as his was, in truth, for her. A tranquillity, born of the knowledge that all was over between them, gave them assurance. The mind of each was free to explore its own depths, to see its own reflection in the lucent pool of summer. Eden, with his invincible desire for beauty, read poems in the opening scroll of violets, tiny orchids, hooked fern fronds that
covered the woodland. He read them in the interlacing pattern of leaves, branches, the shadows of flying birds.

In all these Alayne read passion. She thought only of Renny

She had seen little of him, and then only in the presence of Eden or others of the family She had several times taken tea with old Mrs. Whiteoak and Augusta. On all occasions the talk was of Eden’s health. He was improving. Almost from the first Alayne had been convinced that his illness was not to be fatal. He was responding to rest and good food. She could imagine his life in New York. But how weak he was! Once, adventuring across the orchard path to the edge of the paddock to watch a group of romping, long-legged foals, he had met Piers. Piers, sturdy and sunburnt in the sunlight. There had passed no word, but a look from Piers, and a forward movement that had shocked the sap from Eden’s legs.

He had tottered back through the orchard, and flung himself on his bed. After a while he had muttered: “I met brother Piers. God, what a look! There was murder in it. To think I’d let him see I was afraid of him!” He did not venture that way again.

Alayne brooded on this meeting for a little, and she felt angry at Piers. But her thoughts, like strong, cruel birds, flew back to Renny. Yet her care was for Eden. She wished there were more sunshine for him. June was windless, and sometimes they felt suffocated under the lush greenness that enclosed them. Fiddler’s Hut was half hidden by a twisted creeper that shadowed the small-paned windows. It seemed impossible to keep Eden in the sunlight for more than half an hour without the necessity of moving him. Even the path that wound from the door across the little clearing was bordered by such a growth of fern and bracken that an adventurer
along it was certain of wet knees. Here summer not only was born and flourished, but seethed with life. Each morning was fresh and lucent, as though the first morning on earth. The jewelled leaves of the wild grape and bracken scarcely dried before another dew.

Weeks ago she had asked Renny if something might not be done to let in air and sunshine. Nothing had yet been done. Enough that he had brought Eden back to Jalna. It would require effort to rouse him to further action. The family now took it for granted that Eden would recover.

She had left him in a comfortable chair, a glass of milk at his elbow, a book in his hand. A splash of sunlight, of a richness suggesting autumn rather than June, gave the effect of his being a figure in a tableau, as she looked back. This effect was heightened by the pensive immobility of his attitude, and by the, one might almost think, conscious pose of his hands and beautifully modelled head. She had come near to touching his hair in a passing caress, as she had left. She was glad now that she had not. She went down the moist path, past the spring, overgrown with wild honeysuckle, and followed it swiftly, as it rose into the wood.

She must have exercise. Her muscles were aching for movement. In walking she discovered that these weeks had brought fresh physical strength to her. She distended her breast and drew deep breaths. This was her first walk since she had come to Jalna.

A bridle path, smooth with pine needles, lay through the wood. On each side of it, raising waxen bells to the light, clustered frail lilies of the valley. A clump of poplar saplings, looking pale and lost against the thick trunks of the pines, were covered by silvery unfolding leaves, as though a flock of wan butterflies had settled there. High in the pines she
heard the plaintive notes of a mourning dove. Here and there rose the towering pallid bole of a silver birch, shining as though from an inner light.

The notes of the mourning dove were drowned by the rapid thudding of a horse’s hoofs. Alayne drew out of sight behind a massive, moss-grown trunk. She peered out to see who the rider might be. It was Pheasant, riding bare-headed astride a slender Western pony. They passed in a flash— padding hoofs, flying mane, great shining eyes, and, above, little white face and tumbled dark hair. Alayne called her name, but the girl did not hear, and in a moment was gone beyond a curve.

It was Alayne’s first glimpse of Pheasant since her return. She felt a quick out-going of warmth toward her. Poor wild, sweet Pheasant, married so young to Piers! If she had not known her, she would have taken that flying figure on horseback for a boy.

The bridle path emerged from the pine wood. Irrelevantly appeared a field planted with potatoes. The potato plants, lusty and strong, in flower, compact in the midst of the woodland, were not unlovely. Neither was the bent old man, Piers’s labourer, unlovely in his blue shirt, in his attitude of patient hoeing.

She followed the path, now in the full blaze of sunshine. The woods about were no longer pine, but oaks and birch and maple. In every hollow were gay gatherings of wood lilies, white and purplish pink, and through all the trees sounded the ring of bird song. An oriole flashed. She caught the blue of a jay’s swift wing and thought she saw, but was not sure, a scarlet tanager. Then again came the hoofbeats. Pheasant was returning. Alayne trembled, looking down on the path, where in the dust lay the little hoofprints.

Pheasant was beside her. She had leaped from her horse. His breathing sounded, quick and passionate. His velvet nose was introduced between the faces of the two girls.

“Pheasant!”

“Alayne!”

Their eyes embraced, their hands touched; they wavered, laughing, then kissed. The horse, puzzled, flung back his head, shaking his bridle.

“Let’s sit down in the wood,” cried Pheasant. “How splendid our meeting like this! Away from all the family, you know. Those people. Well, we’re different, after all, you and I. We can’t talk just the same, be ourselves, when they’re all about us.” And she added, quaintly: “I think you’re noble, Alayne! But how can I tell you what I think? I’ll never forget how beautiful you were to me. And now you’ve come back to nurse Eden!”

They sat down among the trees. The grass was long and so tender that it seemed to have grown in a day. The horse began to crop, petulantly jerking up, with a sidewise movement of the head, great succulent mouthfuls. Pheasant sat with her back against a young oak.

On her white forehead, above the pale oval of her face, a lock of dark hair lay like a half-opened fan. Alayne thought that she had never seen such beautiful brown eyes. Her mouth was small and she opened it little when she spoke, but when she laughed, which was seldom, she opened it wide, showing her white teeth.

“Isn’t life a funny tangle?” she said. “It would take a lot of untangling to straighten us, wouldn’t it, Alayne?”

“Does it bear talking about? Hadn’t we better just talk of you and me?”

“I suppose so. But perhaps God is trying to untangle it all, or perhaps it is just that we are becoming more mellow
with age. Do you think, perhaps, that we are becoming more mellow with age, Alayne?”

Alayne had forgotten how quaint, how pathetically sagacious she was.

“Perhaps we are becoming more mellow,” she agreed, soberly. “Let us hope so… I cannot see us as free agents— just marionettes in a strange dance.” Her mouth tightened in a bitter line.

The sunshine flickered over Pheasant. She was visualizing that macabre dance. “I can picture it,” she said. “Renny leads. Then the uncles, the aunt. All of us dancing after— holding hands—bowing—looking over our shoulders. Wake last, with little horns, and a pipe, playing the tune.” Her eyes glowed into Alayne’s. “I’ve such an imagination, Alayne. I can make pictures by the hour. It’s a great help to have an imagination. Piers has very little, and he says he wishes I hadn’t so much. He thinks I’d be a better wife and mother if I hadn’t so much. What do you think?”

“I think,” said Alayne, “that you’re an adorable child. They tell me that you’re a mother, but I can’t believe it.”

“Wait till you see Mooey! He’s simply wonderful. Not so fat as Meg’s baby, but such a look in his eyes! It quite frightens me… Still, I don’t believe there’s any truth in the saying that the good die young. I shouldn’t look on old Mrs. Whiteoak—Gran—as specially good, should you? Not that I should insinuate that she’s ever been immoral— Heaven forbid that I should cast a stone at anyone—but I think she’s been cynical, rather than pious, all her long life, don’t you?”

“I do. And I should not worry about Mooey dying young if I were you… Tell me, Pheasant, who is this Miss Ware? Meg brought her along once when she came with some
shortcake for Eden. She seems a strange sort of girl. English, isn’t she?”

“Yes. She’s a sort of companion to Meg, and she’s nice to me. She’s mad about men. I actually have to keep my eye on her when Piers is about.”… She plucked nervously at the grass, and added: “Meg wants to marry her to Renny.”

What were the birds in the treetops doing? What strange happening had taken place among the inhabitants of the burrows underground? Through all the woodland was an inexplicable stir. Alayne felt it run along the ground, up the tree trunks, along the branches into the leaves, which strangely began to flutter. Had a shadow fallen across the sky? What had the child been saying?

Meg, with her stupid stubbornness of purpose, had set out to marry Renny to this woman whom she had chosen— for what purpose? She saw Renny, with his air of mettle. She saw Minny Ware, her narrow, strangely coloured eyes laughing above her high cheekbones, her wide red mouth smiling, her thick white neck. She heard that full, rich voice, that effortless, ringing laugh.

She forced herself to speak steadily. “And Renny, does he take kindly to the idea?”

Pheasant frowned. “How can one tell about Renny? He thinks: This is a fine filly.’ Well, he’s a judge of good horse-flesh! Last night all of us went over to Jalna. Minny played and sang. Renny seemed to hang about the piano a good deal. Everybody fell in love with her singing. The uncles couldn’t keep their eyes off her, and, if you’ll believe me, Gran actually pinched her on the thigh! She was a success. But Renny’ll never marry her. He won’t marry anyone. He’s too aloof.”

At these last words, Alayne felt a sharp pang, and withal a sickly sense of comfort, as of the sun shining dimly through mist.

As though aware of the presence of concentrated emotion, the horse ceased cropping, raised his head, and looked startled. Pheasant went to him and took the bridle in her hand. “He’s getting a bit restless,” she said. “And I must go. I promised not to be long away.”

They walked along the path together, Pheasant leading the horse. In the potato field the old man was leaning on his hoe, gazing pensively down on the strong plants as though in deep thought.

“What are you dreaming about, Binns?” called out Pheasant.

“Bugs is here,” he answered, and fell again into thought. The horse’s hoofs sounded indolently on the firm, moist path. Overhead a network of bird song was being woven, in intricate, ever-changing pattern.

“How idle the old man is!” said Alayne.

“There is a psychological reason for that.” Pheasant assumed her sagacious look. “It’s because the fields are scattered, far apart, among the woods. It makes a man lazy to see the woods all about him. Noah Binns isn’t earning his salt today.” Looking back over her shoulder, she called: “Wake up, Noah!”

“Bugs is here,” answered the old man, not raising his head.

When they entered the pine wood they met Minny Ware, pushing a perambulator in which sat Meg’s infant, Patience. Minny wore a very short dress of vivid green, and a wide, drooping hat, fit for a garden party.

“Oh, hallo,” she exclaimed, with her London accent. “The fashionable world goes a-walking, eh?” She turned, tilting
the perambulator on its back wheels and surveying Alayne from under the brim of her hat.

“How do you like the weather?” she asked. “Glorious, eh? I’ve never seen so much sunshine in all my life.”

“At Fiddler’s Hut the foliage is too dense. We don’t get nearly enough sunshine.” Alayne’s voice was cold and distant. She could scarcely conceal her antagonism for this full-blooded girl. She felt that beside her she looked colourless, listless.

“How is your husband?” asked Minny Ware. “Better, I hope. It must be rotten to have anything wrong with one’s lungs. I believe mine are made of indiarubber.” The full, effortless laugh gushed forth. She looked ready to burst into song. “Thank you,” returned Alayne rigidly. “He is getting better.”

Minny Ware went on blithely: “Mr. Whiteoak was suggesting to me that I go over one day and sing to him. He thought it might cheer him up. Do you think he’d like it?”