07 Jalna Read online

  “Better than being married to me? Look here, Pheasant, you’re just trying to hurt me.”

  “No, really. It’s so beautiful, meeting like this. All day I’m in a kind of dream, waiting for it; then after it comes the night, and you’re in the very heart of me all night—”

  “What if I were beside you?”

  “It couldn’t be so lovely. It couldn’t. Then in the morning, the moment I waken, I am counting the hours till we meet again. Maurice might not exist. I scarcely see or hear him.”

  “Dreams don’t satisfy me, Pheasant. This way of living is torture to me. Every day as the spring goes on it’s a greater torture. I want you—not dreams of you.”

  “Don’t you love our meeting like this?”

  “Don’t be silly! You know what I mean.” He moved away from her on the stile and lighted a cigarette. “Now,” he went on, in a hard, businesslike tone, “let us take it for granted that we’re going to be married. We are, aren’t we? Are we going to be married, eh?”

  “Yes... You might offer me a cigarette.”

  He gave her one and lighted it for her.

  “Very well. Can you tell me any reason for hanging back? I’m twenty, you’re seventeen. Marriageable ages, eh?”

  “Too young, they say.”

  “Rot. They would like us to wait till we’re too decrepit to creep to this stile. I’m valuable to Renny. He’s paying me decent wages. I know Renny. He’s good-natured at bottom, for all his temper. He’d never dream of putting me out. There’s lots of room at Jalna. One more would never be noticed.”

  “Meg doesn’t like me. I’m rather afraid of her.”

  “Afraid of Meggie! Oh, you little coward! She’s gentle as a lamb. And Gran always liked you. I’ll tell you what, Pheasant, we’ll stand in with Gran. She has a lot of influence with the family. If we make ourselves pleasant to her, there’s no knowing what she may do for us. She’s often said that I am more like my grandfather than any of the others, and she thinks he was the finest man that ever lived.”

  “What about Renny? She’s always talking about his being a perfect Court. Anyhow, I expect her will was made before we were born.”

  “Yes, but she’s always changing it or pretending that she does. Only last week she had her lawyer out for hours, and the whole family was upset. Wake peeked in at the keyhole and he said all she did was feed the old fellow peppermints. Still, you can never tell.” He shook his head sagaciously and then heaved a gusty sigh. “One thing is absolutely certain: I can’t go on like this. I’ve either got to get married or go away. It’s affecting my nerves. I scarcely knew what I was eating at dinner today, and such a hullabaloo there was over this book of Eden’s. Good Lord! Poetry! Think of it! And at tea time Finch had come home with a bad report from one of his masters and there was another row. It raged for an hour.”

  But Pheasant had heard nothing but the calculated cruelty of the words “go away.” She turned toward him a frightened, wide-eyed face.

  “Go away! How can you say such a thing? You know I’d die in this place without you.”

  “How pale you’ve got,” he observed, peering into her face. “Why are you turning pale? Surely it wouldn’t matter to you if I went away. You could go right on dreaming about me, you know.”

  Pheasant burst into tears and began to scramble down from the stile. “If you think I’ll stop here to be tortured!” she cried, and began to run from him.

  “Yet you expect me to stay and be tortured!” he shouted.

  She ran into the dusk across the wet meadow, and he sat obstinately staring after her, wondering if her will would hold out till she reached the other side. Already her steps seemed to be slackening. Still her figure became less clear. What if she should run on and on till she reached home, leaving him alone on the stile with all his love turbulent within him? The mere thought of that was enough to make him jump down and begin to run after her, but even as he did so he saw her coming slowly back, and he clambered again to his seat just in time to save his dignity. He was thankful for that.

  She stopped within ten paces of him.

  “Very well,” she said, in a husky voice, “I’ll do it.”’

  He was acutely aware of her nearness in every sensitive nerve, but he puffed stolidly at his cigarette a moment before he asked gruffly: “When?”

  “Whenever you say.” Her head drooped and she gave a childish sob.

  “Come here, you little baggage,” he ordered peremptorily. But when he had her on the stile again a most delicious tenderness took possession of him and withal a thrilling sense of power. He uttered endearments and commands with his face against her hair.

  All the way home he was full of lightness and strength, though he had worked hard that day. Halfway down the steep into the ravine a branch of an oak projected across the path above him. He leaped up and caught it with his hands and so hung aloof from the earth that seemed too prosaic for his light feet. He swung himself gently a moment, looking up at the stars that winked at him through the young leaves. A rabbit ran along the path beneath, quite unaware of him. His mind was no longer disturbed by anxiety, but free and exultant. He felt himself one with the wild things of the wood. It was spring, and he had chosen his mate.

  When he crossed the lawn he saw that the drawing-room was lighted. Playing cards as usual, he supposed. He went to one of the French windows and looked in. By the fire he could see a table drawn up, at which sat his grandmother and his uncle Ernest, playing at draughts. She was wrapped in a bright green-and-red plaid shawl, and wearing a much berib-boned cap. Evidently she was beating him, for her teeth were showing in a broad grin and a burst of loud laughter made the bridge players at the other table turn in their chairs with looks of annoyance. The long aquiline face of Uncle Ernest drooped wistfully above the board. On the blackened walnut mantelpiece Sasha lay curled beside a china shepherdess, her gaze fixed on her master with a kind of ecstatic contempt.

  At the bridge table sat Renny, Meg, Nicholas, and Mr. Fennel, the rector. The faces of all were illumined by firelight, their expressions intensified: Nicholas, sardonic, watchful; Renny, frowning, puzzled; Meg, sweet, complacent; Mr. Fennel, pulling his beard and glowering. Poor creatures all, thought Piers, as he let himself in at the side door and softly ascended the stair, playing their little games, their paltry pastimes, whilst he played the great game of life.

  A light showed underneath Eden’s door. More poetry, more paltry pastime! Had Eden ever loved? If he had, he’d kept it well to himself. Probably he only loved his Muse. His Muse—ha, ha! He heard Eden groan. So it hurt, did it, loving the pretty Muse? Poetry had its pain, then. He gave a passing thump to the door.

  “Want any help in there?”

  “You go to hell,” rejoined the young poet, “unless you happen to have a rag about you. I’ve upset the ink.”

  Piers poked his head in at the door. “My shirt isn’t much better than a rag,” he said. “I can let you have that”

  Eden was mopping the stained baize top of the desk with blotting paper. On a sheet of a writing pad was neatly written what looked like the beginning of a poem.

  “I suppose you get fun out of it,” remarked Piers.

  “More than you get from chasing a girl about the wood at night.”

  “Look here, you’d better be careful!” Piers raised his voice threateningly, but Eden smiled and sat down at his desk once more.

  It was uncanny, Piers thought, as he went on to his room. How ever had Eden guessed? Was it because he was a poet? He had always felt, though he had given the matter but little thought, that a poet would be an uncommonly unpleasant person to have in the house, and now, by God, they had a full-fledged one at Jalna. He didn’t like it at all. The first bloom of his happy mood was gone as he opened the door into his bedroom.

  He shared it with sixteen-year-old Finch. Finch was now humped over his Euclid, an expression of extreme melancholy lengthening his already long sallow face. He had been the centre of a whirlpool of discu
ssion and criticism all tea time, and the effect was to make his brain, never quite under his control, completely unmanageable. He had gone over the same problem six or seven times and now it meant nothing to him, no more than a senseless nursery rhyme. He had stolen one of Piers’s cigarettes to see if it would help him out. He had made the most of it, inhaling slowly, savouring each puff, retaining the stub between his bony fingers till they and even his lips were burned, but it had done no good. When he heard Piers at the door he had dropped the stub, a mere crumb, to the floor and set his foot on it.

  Now he glanced sullenly at Piers out of the corners of his long light eyes.

  Piers sniffed. “H-m. Smoking, eh? One of my fags, too, I bet. I’ll just thank you to leave them alone, young man. Do you think I can supply you with smokes? Besides, you’re not allowed.”

  Finch returned to his Euclid with increased melancholy. If he could not master it when he was alone, certainly he should never learn it with Piers in the room. That robust, domineering presence would crush the last spark of intelligence from his brain. He had always been afraid of Piers. All his life he had been kept in a state of subjection by him. He resented it, but he saw no way out of it. Piers was strong, handsome, a favourite. He was none of these things. And yet he loved all his family, in a secret, sullen way, even Piers who was so tough with him. Now, if Piers had been like some brothers one might ask him to give one a helping hand with the Euclid; Piers had been good at the rotten stuff. But it would never do to ask Piers for help. He was too impatient, too intolerant of a fellow who got mixed up for nothing.

  “I’d thank you,” continued Piers, “to let my fags, likewise my handkerchiefs, socks, and ties alone. If you want to pinch other people’s property, pinch Eden’s. He’s a poet and probably doesn’t know what he has.” He grinned at his reflection in the glass as he took off his collar and tie.

  Finch made no answer. Desperately he sought to clamp his attention to the problem before him. Angles and triangles tangled themselves into strange patterns. He drew a grotesque face on the margin of the book. Then horribly the face he had created began to leer at him. With a shaking hand he tried to rub it out, but he could not. It was not his to erase. It possessed the page. It possessed the book. It was Euclid personified, sneering at him!

  Piers had divested himself of all his clothes and had thrown open the window. A chill night wind rushed in. Finch shivered as it embraced him. He wondered how Piers stood it on his bare skin. It fluttered the pages of a French exercise all about the room. There was no use in trying; he could not do the problem.

  Piers, in his pyjamas now, jumped into bed. He lay staring at Finch with bright blue eyes, whistling softly. Finch began to gather up his books.

  “All finished?” asked Piers, politely. “You got through in a hurry, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not through,” bawled Finch. “Do you imagine I can work with a cold blast like that on my back and you staring at me in front? It just means I’ll have to get up early and finish before breakfast.”

  Piers became sarcastic. “You’re very temperamental, aren’t you? You’ll be writing poetry next. I dare say you’ve tried it already. Do you know, I think it would be a good thing for you to go down to New York in the Easter holidays and see if you can find a publisher.”

  “Shut up,” growled Finch, “and let me alone.”

  Piers was very happy. He was too happy for sleep. It would ease his high spirits to bait young Finch. He lay watching him speculatively while he undressed his long, lanky body. Finch might develop into a distinguished-looking man. There was something arresting even now in his face; but he had a hungry, haunted look, and he was uncomfortably aware of his long wrists and legs. He always sat in some ungainly posture and, when spoken to suddenly, would glare up, half defensively, half timidly, as though expecting a blow. Truth to tell, he had had a good many, some quite undeserved.

  Piers regarded his thin frame with contemptuous amusement. He offered pungent criticisms of Finch’s prominent shoulder blades, ribs, and various other portions of his anatomy. At last the boy, trembling with anger and humiliation, got into his nightshirt, turned out the light, and scrambled over Piers to his place next the wall. He curled himself up with a sigh of relief. It had been a nervous business scrambling over Piers. He had half expected to be grabbed by the ankle and put to some new torture. But he had gained his corner in safety. The day with its miseries was over. He stretched out his long limbs.

  They lay still, side by side, in the peaceful dark. At length Piers spoke in a low, accusing tone.

  “You didn’t say your prayers. What do you mean by getting into bed without saying your prayers?”

  Finch was staggered. This was something new. Piers, of all people, after him about prayers! There was something ominous about it.

  “I forgot,” he returned, heavily.

  “Well, you’ve no right to forget. It’s an important thing at your time of life to pray long and earnestly. If you prayed more and sulked less, you’d be healthier and happier.”

  “Rot. What are you givin’ us?”

  “I’m in dead earnest. Out you get and say your prayers.”

  “You don’t pray yourself,” complained Finch, bitterly. “You haven’t said prayers for years.”

  “That’s nothing to you. I’ve a special compact with the Devil, and he looks after his own. But you, my little lamb, must be separated from the goats.”

  “Oh, let me alone,” growled Finch. “I’m sleepy. Let me alone.”

  “Get up and say your prayers.”

  “Oh, Piers, don’t be a—”

  “Be careful what you call me. Get out.”

  “Shan’t.” He clutched the blankets desperately, for he feared what was coming.

  “You won’t get up, eh? You won’t say your prayers, eh? I’ve got to force you, eh?”

  With each question Piers’s strong fingers sought a tenderer spot in Finch’s anatomy.

  “Oh—oh—oh! Piers! Please let me up! Ow-eee-ee!” With a last terrible squeak Finch was out on the floor. He stood rubbing his side cautiously. Then he almost blubbered: “What the hell do you want me to do, anyway?”

  “I want you to say your prayers properly. I’m not going to have you start being lax at your age. Down on your knees.”

  Finch dropped to his knees on the cold floor. Kneeling by the bedside in the pale moonlight, he was a pathetic young figure. But the sight held no pathos for Piers.

  “Now, then,” he said. “Fire away.” Finch pressed his face against his clenched hands.

  “Why don’t you begin?” asked Piers, rising on his elbow and speaking testily.

  “I—I have begun,” came in a muffled voice.

  “I can’t hear you. How do you expect the Almighty, to hear you if I can’t? Speak up.”

  “I c-can’t. I won’t!”

  “You shall. Or you’ll be sorry.”

  In the stress of the moment, all Finch’s prayers left him, as earlier all his Euclid had done. In the dim chaos of his soul only two words of supplication remained. “Oh, God,” he muttered, hoarsely, and because he could think of nothing else, and must pray or be abused by that devil Piers, he repeated the words again and again in a hollow, shaking voice.

  Piers lay listening blandly. He thought Finch the most ridiculous duffer he had ever known. He was a mystery Piers would never fathom. Suddenly he thought: “I’m fed up with this,” and said: “Enough, enough. It’s not much of a prayer you’ve made, but still you’ve a nice intimate way with the Almighty. You’d make a good Methodist of the Holy Roller variety.” He added, not unkindly, “Hop into bed now.”

  But Finch would not hop. He clutched the counterpane and went on sobbing, “Oh, God!” The room was full of the presence of the Deity to him, now wearing the face of the terrible, austere Old Testament God, now, miraculously, the handsome, sneering face of Piers. Only a rap on the head brought him to his senses. He somehow got his long body. back into bed, shivering all over.
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br />   Eden threw the door open. “One might as well,” he complained in a high voice, “live next door to a circus. You’re the most disgusting young—” and he delivered himself of some atrocious language. He interrupted himself to ask, cocking his head, “Is he crying? What’s he crying for?”

  “Just low-spirited, I expect,” replied Piers, in a sleepy voice.

  “What are you crying for, Finch?”

  “Let me alone, can’t you?” screamed Finch, in a sudden fury. “You let me alone!”

  “I think he’s snivelling over his report. Renny was up in the air about it,” said Piers.

  “Oh, is that it? Well, study will do more than snivelling to help that.” And Eden disappeared as he had come.

  The two brothers lay in the moonlight. Finch was quiet save for an occasional gulp. Piers’s feelings toward him were magnanimous now. He was such a helpless young fool. Piers thought it rather hard that he had been born between Eden and Finch. Wedged in between a poet and a fool. What a sandwich! Of a certainty, he was the meaty part.

  His thoughts turned to Pheasant. She was of never-failing interest to him: her pretty gestures, her reckless way of throwing her heart open to him, her sudden withdrawals, the remoteness of her profile. He could see her face in the moonlight as though she were in the room with him. Soon she would be, instead of snuffling young Finch! He loved her with every inch of his body. He alone of all the people in Jalna knew what real love was. Strange that, being absorbed by love as he was, he should have time to play with young Finch and make him miserable. No denying that there lurked a mischievous devil in him. Then, too, he had suffered so much anxiety lately that to have everything settled, to be certain of haying his own way, made him feel like a young horse suddenly turned out into the spring pastures, ready to run and kick and bite his best friend from sheer high spirits.

  Poor old Finch! Piers gave the bedclothes a jerk over Finch’s protruding shoulder and put an arm around him.