04 Young Renny Read online

"Oh, I'll help you, as far as that goes! When I can I see Elvira?"

  "I will arrange that. God, what a load you've taken off my mind!"

  He stretched out his hand and clasped Renny's.

  A chill rose from the river and a tenuous wreath of mist indicated its meanderings. The crinkled surface of the water took on an olive tinge, while the tops of the willows were still gilded by the sun. A kingfisher swooped and rose with a small fish in its beak.

  Then, from beyond a willowed curve of the river, two swans appeared, sailing in midstream, with closely folded wings and arched necks. They were a pair that Renny's father had brought from England. The experiment had been tried several times, but these were the first that had thriven and made the river their own. Now, in an attitude of innocent scorn, they sailed past the two youths, their snowy whiteness reflected in the darkening water, a long silver ripple springing from either side of their calm breasts.

  ELVIRA

  THAT EVENING RENNY could not get the thought of Elvira out of his head. After he had taken Vera Lacey home and had left her puzzled by his abstractedness, he followed the road to the village and turned into the poor street where the girl and her aunt lived. He knew that the aunt was a dressmaker who had appeared, from nowhere it seemed, about five years ago. Elvira had been a thin-legged little girl then, with hair that stuck out in a dark halo about her pale face. She had liked horses, he knew, for he remembered her hanging about the gates of the paddocks at Jalna, watching the activities there. He faintly remembered showing off in front of her on the back of a wayward colt because he liked the way Elvira stood, with her head thrown back and her hands clasped against her breast, as though her excitement were more than she could bear. He did not think he had had more than a glimpse of her in the past two years. It was strange, he reflected, that Maurice should have had this intercourse with her - Maurice, who had never looked at any girl but Meggie; Maurice, who had always been detached.

  He looked speculatively at the one lighted window of the cottage. He could see into a kitchen where the two women were sitting by the table drinking tea. The oil lamp set between them revealed their features with dramatic intensity, hardening what was already hard, as the line of the older woman's lips, making still brighter her coarse, yellow hair and restless eyes. At the same time it added a bloom to the smoothness of the younger's cheeks, a more vivid redness to her lips. She sat with elbows on table, staring across the saucer of tea she was cooling at her aunt, who peered into her cup, evidently reading a fortune from the tea leaves. A dressmaker's dummy, wearing a red blouse, stood in a corner.

  Renny gazed fascinated. He had never before witnessed a scene like this: the poverty of the little room, its warm seclusion, - for a stove was glowing hotly, - the two engrossed in feminine intimacy. He had expected a look of gloom about the place, depression, apprehension in the women's faces. He had expected to see a heavy elderly woman in the aunt - not this haggard one with gypsy eyes and a small, red-lipped mouth. The two had the same sharp, delicately cut features, but Elvira's hair was brown. She rose and went to the stove, and Renny saw the fullness of her young body. It was true what Maurice had said, she was going to have a child.

  He had a sudden feeling of shame at having spied upon her. He turned away and would have left as silently as he had come, but a cock in the outhouse heard his movements and gave a loud crow; the hens were disturbed and filled the air with alarmed cacklings. The older woman was on her feet in a swift, catlike movement. Before Renny could retreat she had glided through the door and had seen his figure against the hedge. He came toward her then, stepping into the shaft of lamplight. He spoke nervously.

  "I hope I haven't frightened you."

  "Oh, no," she answered coolly. "That is - I was a bit scared when I thought someone was after my hens - but, as soon as I saw you just standing there -" She gave a little laugh. "You're young Mr. Whiteoak, aren't you?"

  "Yes," he agreed, trying to see her face, trying to make her out.

  "I don't suppose you know who I am," she went on, with a peculiar, teasing note in her voice. "Folks who live in big houses with a lot of land about them never even hear the names of poor people."

  "I know the names of everyone in the village," he returned. "How could I help? I've lived here all my life."

  A frank warm tone came into her voice when she next spoke. "You're a great friend of young Mr. Vaughan's, aren't you?"

  He answered abruptly- "He and I have been talking over this affair today. This is why I have come to see you."

  A flicker passed over her face. She looked disappointed, he thought.

  He asked tentatively - "Will you tell me when I can meet Elvira to give her the money?"

  She answered rather sharply: "Elvira isn't meeting folks now. You had better bring it here to me."

  "All right."

  "Come tomorrow night. About this time? You and I could have a little talk. I'll make you a nice cup of tea and read your fortune from the leaves. I'm good at that. I was just reading Elvira's when you came."

  "Oh." He wondered why Elvira had shown no interest in what had brought her aunt hurrying to the door. "What is Elvira's fortune?"

  "She's going to have a daughter. A beautiful daughter who is to move in high society. But I'd like to tell your fortune. You've a face for a fortune out of the ordinary. I'll bet I could tell you things that would surprise you."

  "Could you?"

  "I can tell you one thing without ever looking in a teacup. You're going to be fascinating to women. You can have love for the asking. I guess you've had some already, eh?"

  He gave her a dark, wary glance.

  "Me! Why, I'm not twenty yet."

  "Years don't matter. You came of age in love many a month ago."

  Without answering he moved a little nearer to her and looked into her eyes. They were narrow, startling eyes that looked like jewels in this light.

  "Strange where you got them," he said. "They're not quite human."

  "What?"

  "Your eyes."

  "I'll tell you all about myself tomorrow night. I'm young, you know. I'm only ten years older than Elvira. We'll be alone. I'll read your fortune and tell you how I got my eyes." She gave a daring laugh and suddenly put her hand on his head. "My goodness, but you are fascinating!"

  At this instant the lamp in the kitchen was lowered. Now it sent out only a pale bluish gleam. The cock, still restless, uttered a plaintive, protesting crow. He fell from his perch and could be heard scrambling back to it with troubled flapping of wings, and complaining from his hens.

  There was something almost Biblical in the interruption - the dimmed light, the crowing cock. Renny cast an apprehensive glance at the woman, and, muttering that he would bring the money the next night, he leaped across the bit of garden where the spears of young green onions were pushing up and went out through the hedge.

  On the walk home beside the dark stream that alternately revealed and hid itself like a woman longing for love, his mind was full of thoughts of Elvira and her aunt.

  But the next night he did not go into the cottage. He knocked at the door, and when the girl opened it he thrust the envelope Maurice had given him into her hand, with a swift glance into her startled face, and disappeared.

  SIR EDWIN AND LADY BUCKLEY AND MALAHIDE COURT

  A RENEWED FURBISHING of the house took place on the eve of the coming of the relations from England. Eliza, in starched print dress and flawless white apron, went about with brush and duster seeking imaginary dust in the corners of the drawing room. Philip's entrance into the house filled her with conflicting emotions - horror of the mud he would almost certainly bring with him, pleasure at the sight of his stalwart figure and good-humoured face. Eliza was a fussy, irritable, energetic woman, yet, with all her being, she admired these opposite qualities of the master of the house. Indeed she gloried in his untidiness and would stalk down the stairs to the basement kitchen with the ashes he had knocked from his pipe to the floor, or the burrs he
had pulled from his dog's tail and hidden under his chair, proudly displayed on her dustpan for the shocking of the cook and the kitchenmaid.

  Beatrice, the kitchenmaid, usually called "Beet" by Renny, most appropriately because of her purplish complexion, was now polishing the walnut newel post which was carved in a design of grapes and their leaves and never passed without a caress from Adeline Whiteoak.

  Adeline was immensely interested in the preparations, for she was full of pent up vitality which her aging body could not relieve. She had that year begun to carry a stick for the first time, and its aggressive thud could be heard through the house at all hours when she was neither eating, playing backgammon, nor taking a nap.

  She pooh-poohed all the fuss that was being made, yet she wanted the house to look its best, not so much for her daughter and her son-inlaw as for Malahide Court, whom she had never seen. He was a cousin, several times removed, of a branch of her family which she had always hated because of a feud long before her day. She had a prideful desire to impress him with the elegance of her surroundings, for she knew that her family had looked on her as buried in this colony. She was also greatly curious about the man himself. All the Courts were interesting. Devils they might be, but never dull or without distinction.

  She stroked the polished grapes of the newel post and looked up at her husband's sword, hung in its scabbard on the wall.

  "Ha," she said, panting a little, for she had just ascended the basement stairs after an inspection of the preparations down there. "You've a good polish on the old newel, Beattie, a very good polish. Nothing like elbow grease. Beats all the stuff advertised in the papers."

  "Yes'm," returned Beattie, polishing harder than ever.

  Old Adeline stood staring at the newel post, fresh and upright as the day it was planted there at the foot of the stairs. She could see her husband, straight and strong, descending them.

  But it was another Philip who came into the hall, put his arm round her, and said - "How's the old girl? Pretty fit, eh?" he kissed her cheek, on which a few strong hairs grew.

  She returned the kiss with a loud smack. "Yes, yes, nothing to complain of. Appetite good. But fussed up a little with all this to-do over the Buckleys and that Court fellow. Why must Molly always want things so spotless?"

  "Now, Mamma, you enjoy seeing the old place look trig just as much as

  She faced him with her underlip protruding. "Of course I do! But I can't agree that the Buckleys are important. What is he? A third baronet! How did his grandfather get the title? For discovering something about mosquitoes in Brazil. Mosquitoes! Bugs! I call it a lousy title, I do!" She grinned at him triumphantly, feeling that she had obliterated Sir Edwin's claims to nobility. She had liked him well enough when he had married Augusta. A nice little man with ash-blond side whiskers and an upper lip that nibbled like a rabbit's at his words. He had taken her daughter out of her way and he had always been deferential to her, laughed moderately at her ribald jokes, even when they were directed at himself. But he showed himself snappy when she jeered at Augusta. He and Augusta had taken their unexpected inheritance of the title and a manor house in Devon modestly, but Adeline could not forgive her daughter for becoming her social superior. She resented the title, never acknowledging that she remembered it, invariably speaking of Augusta as "my daughter, Lady Bilgeley, Lady Bunkum," or some such name.

  Her interest in Malahide Court became even more fervent as the hour for the arrival drew near. She racked her brain to recall the history of his branch of the family, alternately stressing its disgracefulness and the impregnable grandeur of the main stock. Long before the guests were due to arrive she was dressed for their reception in a mulberry-coloured cashmere, trimmed with innumerable puffings and bands of velvet. She wore an enormous brooch, and rubies and diamonds glittered on her handsome old hands. Her cap was a creation of lace and mulberrycoloured ribbons. She presented an impressive picture of a bygone day - formidable, rich-hued, full of a vitality that had something fine in its unquestioning assurance.

  The pair of bays flashed along the drive, their hoofs scattering the patterned gravel. Now, through a space in the freshly unfolded leaves, a muscular shoulder was visible for a brief moment or a flank groomed to satin brightness. Hodge, the ruddy coachman, brought up the pair before the door with a flourish. It was high noon. A cool fresh wind blew the branches about, so that the intense shadows on the lawn changed their shape without ceasing.

  Nicholas, Ernest, and Philip stood together on the steps of the porch. Hodge jumped down from his seat and went to the horses' heads. Nicholas opened the carriage door. Augusta, holding up her skirt, descended the steps and was thrice clasped in brotherly arms. Sir Edwin followed and genially shook hands. Then Cousin Malahide gathered up an incredibly long, thin body from a corner of the carriage, and advanced with a sombre smile to meet his hosts. Nicholas's strong eyebrows rose toward his crest of greying hair. He tugged at his moustache. Ernest answered the smile with a wry movement of his sensitive lips. Philip grasped the hand extended languidly to him.

  "Welcome to Jalna," he said.

  "I am sorry to hear," added Ernest, also shaking hands, "that you have had a rough voyage."

  "A filthy voyage," replied Malahide Court. His voice was unexpectedly full and deep. His disparaging gaze took in the house, the flower beds with their geraniums just set out, the faces of the three brothers.

  "How charming!" he said, addressing Sir Edwin.

  "Yes, yes," Sir Edwin said nervously. "I've always loved this place. Shall we go in, Philip? Augusta and I are anxious to see her mother."

  "And Mamma will be eager to see us," answered Augusta, in her contralto tones.

  They mounted the steps, Philip and Sir Edwin coming last.

  "Well," asked Sir Edwin, "what do you think of him?"

  Philip answered deliberately - "I can't make him out. I'm wondering what we should do with such an exotic at Jalna."

  Sir Edwin looked worried. "Well, well, do you really think him so odd? But he has a very good mind. He knows a great deal about ancient Greek sculpture. He and I have had some interesting talks."

  "How did you happen to bring him with you?"

  "Really, I don't quite know. He was paying us a visit and the time went on and - he just came with us."

  "You mean you couldn't shake him?"

  "Just that!"

  "But why should he have wanted to come here?"

  "I can't quite make out. I think that things were rather uncomfortable for him in Ireland. An allowance he had from his mother is temporarily cut off, so he cannot live in Paris, where he usually goes when out of Ireland."

  "Well, well, we must make the best of him," said Philip, philosophically. "Perhaps he will amuse Mamma."

  Mamma was receiving him as they entered, a puzzled grin fixed on her face as she peered searchingly into his.

  He was all in black. If her ebony stick with its ivory handle had suddenly betaken itself from her hand and bowed over her rings, it might have made some such figure as Malahide Court. His face had the sallowness of old ivory. His eyes were heavy-lidded and glistening, his chin pointed. His nose, strongly arched, jutted from his narrow face, with a flourish of long, widely flanged nostrils.

  "Now, and this is a surprise," said Adeline. "I'm glad to see you and I'll be glad to hear news of the family at first hand." She looked him over and added - "Are you in mourning?"

  "Yes." He laid a hand, from which he had removed the black glove, on his cravat, and passed it down over his waistcoat. "For my lost youth." The hand might have been used as a model for the hands in portraits by the old masters.

  Adeline chose to consider this a joke. She gave a sudden bark of laughter. The noise roused her parrot, Boney, half asleep on his perch behind a fire screen. He rose on his toes, peered over the screen, and broke into a torrent of Hindoo curses.

  "Shaitan! Shaitan ka bata! Shaitan ka butcka.! Piakur! Piakur.!Jab kutri'

  He followed this tirade with lou
d cackling laughter.

  "That's my parrot," said Adeline, proudly. "I taught him myself. I'll wager you didn't understand a word he said."

  Malahide Court not only understood, but threw back at the bird other Hindoo curses that made Adeline stare admiringly.

  The parrot was in a paroxysm of rage. Screaming furiously, he flapped his wings and would have flown into the newcomer's face but that he was restrained by the slender chain on his leg.

  Lady Buckley thought the scene was disgraceful and told her favourite brother, Ernest, so. They stood together, arm in arm, happy in their reunion. At that moment Meg appeared in the doorway, eager to greet the arrivals.

  Ernest asked of his sister - "How do you think Mamma looks? You have not seen her for two years."

  "Splendid," returned Augusta. "I only hope I shall be as exuberant at her age."

  "Then you must soon begin," returned Ernest, "for you certainly are not now and I don't know that I should like it. It would not at all suit your style." He looked at her admiringly.

  In truth Augusta had never been so attractive in her life as she now was. Middle age became her. Her Queen Alexandra fringe, of a rich, possibly questionable brown, accentuated the tranquil dignity of her features. She wore too many chains, bracelets, and brooches, but always appeared aloof from fashion rather than overdressed.

  Meg could scarcely restrain her mirth at the sight of Malahide Court, bending with arched back over her hand. This fascinating Irish cousin who, in moments of dreaming, she had pictured as capable of making Maurice a little jealous!

  "Meggie's not used to hand kissing," said her grandmother. "She's a simple country girl."

  "Then this will seem more natural."And he kissed Meg's round cheek.

  Meg drew back, repelled by the touch of his face against hers, and to cover this Augusta exclaimed: -

  "We must see the others! Mary and her children. And where is Renny?"

  "He's never about when he's wanted," said Philip. "I don't know what he does with himself. Ah, here come Mary and the babe!"