08 Whiteoaks of Jalna Read online

  “How is the leg, Wright?”

  “Fine, sir. Couldn’t be mendin’ better.”

  They bent over a bandaged hind leg.

  “It was wonderful, sir, you getting him the way you did. He’s going to make his mark, I’m sure of it. And, for my part, I don’t believe he’s spoiled for flat racing, say what they will.”

  Renny and the stableman stared with concentration at the bandage. The water in the bucket was lowered three parts of the way down. Coaxing whinnies, the indolent jangle of buckles, the petulant stamp of a hoof, were the only sounds.

  “How did he get hurt?” asked Leigh, in an attempt to draw nearer to the master of Jalna through the horses which were so plainly his absorbing interest.

  “Kicked himself.” He was pressing a practised thumb along the dappled grey flank.

  “Really! How did he happen to do that?”

  “Shied.” He straightened himself and turned to Wright. “How is Darkie’s indigestion?”

  “Better, sir, but he’ll have those attacks just as long as he bolts his oats the way he does. He’s more like a ravening wolf than a horse with his feed.”

  A shadow fell across Renny’s face. “Has he had his oats?” “Yes, sir. I divided them into two lots, like you said to. After he’d had the first lot, I made him wait ten minutes. I’ve just give him the last half now”

  Renny strode with irritable swiftness to a stall farther down the passage, where a tall black horse was feeding with ferocious eagerness. He ceased champing his oats for a second to look back at his master entering the stall, then, with his mouth full, the oats dribbling from his lips, he plunged his face once more into his feed-box.

  Renny caught his head and jerked it up. “Cut out that guzzling!” he ordered. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  The horse tried to shake him off, straining desperately toward his oats, his great eyes rolling in anger at the interruption. After a few moments he was allowed to fill his mouth once more, and again restrained. The rest of the meal was a struggle. He bit at Renny. Renny cuffed him. He snorted his outraged greed. Renny became suddenly hilarious and broke into noisy laughter.

  “I should think that such irritation would be worse for the beast’s digestion than bolting.” observed Leigh.

  “Should you?” grinned Finch, highly pleased with his brother.

  The horse now was showing his big teeth, as though he too felt a kind of grim amusement.

  Finch whispered to Leigh: “Now would be a good time to speak to him about the play. At least,” he added, rather pessimistically, “as good as any.”

  Leigh looked toward the red-haired Renny with some apprehension. “I suppose so,” he said. Then he had an idea— impulsive, extravagant, but one to break the ice between himself and Finch’s brother.

  He said: “I wonder, Mr. Whiteoak, if you could tell me where I might buy a good saddle horse. I have been wanting one for some time” —he was in truth afraid of horses—“but I haven’t found—haven’t been quite able—” His sentence broke down weakly.

  There was no need for him to finish it. The arrogant face before him softened into an expression of almost tender solicitude. Renny said: “It’s a good thing young Finch brought you out. It’s a serious matter, buying a horse if you are inexperienced. Especially a saddle horse. I was talking the other day to a young fellow who had paid a fancy price for one and it had turned out not only nasty-tempered but a wind-sucker. A handsome beast, too. But he’d got badly stung. I have—” He hesitated, examining a bleeding knuckle which Darkie had jammed against the manger.

  “Yes, yes,” said Arthur, eagerly, though he felt a certain resentment at the ease with which the barrier between had been swept away when the possibility of a deal in horseflesh had appeared.

  Renny took the knuckle from his lips. “I have a lovely three-year-old here—by Sirocco, out of Twilight Star—the image of his sire. You’ve seen Sirocco, of course?”

  Arthur shook his head.

  Renny regarded him pityingly. “You haven’t? Well, I’ll take you around to see him. Every stallion, you must know—that is, every really great stallion—reproduces himself absolutely only once. And Sirocco has only done it once. But perhaps”—he had been about to lead the way down the passage, but he wheeled, as though by an arresting thought—“perhaps you don’t care much about breeding points, and just want a—”

  “Not at all,” interrupted Arthur. “It must be a real beauty, everything you say—”

  “Horse like that can’t be bought cheaply, you know.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter.” Then he reddened a little, thinking he might appear pretentious, too affluent, and added: “The fact is, I’ve been saving up for a saddle horse for a very long time.”

  The eldest Whiteoak had already heard, though without great interest at the time, that Leigh had inherited a large fortune, and that he would shortly be of age. He said, cheerfully, “Well, in that case”—and led the way to the stallion’s loose box.

  Finch followed, wondering what all this would lead to, worrying over the thought of Arthur in Renny’s grip for the sake of him. They proceeded from the loose box to the stall where the three-year-old was, and Leigh learned more about saddle horses in half an hour than in all his preceding life. He thanked God that the day was wild, for otherwise he knew he would have been forced into a trial ride on the scornful-looking beast that cast suspicious glances at him down its nose.

  The sound of small feet running came to them, and Wakefield dashed along the passage, a coat thrown over his head, beneath which his face looked out, bright-eyed and scarlet-cheeked.

  “I simply flew over.” he panted, “to tell you to come to tea. It’s five o’clock and there was a perfectly ’normous cake and it’s nearly gone and there’s a fresh pot of tea made for you, Renny. And for Mr. Leigh, o’ course.”

  The snow had come at last. He was feathered all over with it.

  “You should not have come out in this gale,” said Renny. “Was there no one else to send?”

  “I wanted to come! Which nag is that? Is he a good jumper? I must run around and see my pony. Shouldn’t you like to see my birthday pony, Mr. Leigh?”

  Renny caught him by the arm. “No. Don’t go around there. Wallflower is in the next stall and she’s feeling very nervous today. Go to the house, Finch, and tell Aunt that Mr. Leigh will follow you in a little while. Tell her to keep the tea hot for him. Send Rags over with a pot for me, and some bread and butter. I’ll take it here.” He picked up Wakefield as though he had been a parcel, and deposited him on Finch’s back. “Give this youngster a ride. He’s got nothing but slippers on. You deserve a good cuffing, Wake. And see that you keep that coat over your head.” He raised his voice and shouted: “Open the door for this thoroughbred, Wright!”

  Wakefield clutched Finch about the neck, delighted with this sudden return to the days of pickaback. Finch, however, looked rather glum when the stableman laughed as he passed them. He thought he detected a jeering note in his laughter. Wake was much heavier than he would have believed possible. But when the door had slammed behind them and the wind had caught him in the back he felt that they would be swept along without an effort on his part.

  The snow came with a flourish across the ravine. The white flakes rushed endlessly one on another. Already the ground was white. The lights of the house looked far away Finch lurched, bent forward, as though the next moment he would go on his nose.

  “I don’t suppose,” said Wakefield, “you could caper a bit.” “What the hell—” bawled Finch. “Caper! What do you think I am—a draught horse? Caper! Caper!”

  But his sense of fun was roused. He began to caper indeed, skipping, whirling awkwardly on the gale, feeling suddenly wildly happy. Wake no longer seemed a drag on him. They were one—a hairy, gambolling centaur, frisking in the January dusk, stung by the snowflakes into animal hilarity.

  From side to side they swayed and rocked. Far away they heard the breakers crashing on t
he beach.

  “Centaur,” gasped Finch. “Prancing centaur.”

  Wakefield, believing that he was uttering the cry peculiar to centaurs, gave a shrill treble neigh that quavered and died among the snowflakes. He too was happy. The coat had fallen from his head, which he held high, fancying it to be adorned with a great fanlike beard and a fierce crest of hair. Again he neighed and again, and in answer to his neigh came the bellow of the waves.

  So, noisy, riotous, snowy, they staggered into the side door. Finch, depositing Wakefield on the floor, leaned against the wall, his hand to his side.

  “Winded?” asked Wakefield, looking kindly up at him.

  “You bet.”

  “Do you know, I think a beef, iron, and wine mixture would be good for you. You’ve grown too fast and you can’t stand much, and you look right now as if you were going to fall in a heap.”

  The virtue was indeed gone out of Finch, the madness, the gaiety, but he did not want medical advice from this patronizing youngster. With a grunt he turned away and slouched to the dining room.

  In the stable Renny had remarked, a shadow on his face: “A delicate boy, that.”

  “Yes, so I gathered,” returned Leigh. “Perhaps he’ll out-grow it. They often do, don’t they? I wasn’t a very strong kid myself.”

  Renny looked him over. “Hmph,” he observed, without any note of encouragement; then added, more cheerfully: “I’d like to take you to my office and show you the horse’s pedigree.” He led the way to a small room partitioned off from a corner of the stable. He switched on a dangling electric bulb, and, after placing a kitchen chair for Leigh, seated himself before a yellow oak desk and began to look over a file of papers.

  As he sat engrossed, beneath the hard white light, Leigh studied him with an excess of interest. He tried to put himself in Finch’s place, to imagine how it would feel to be obliged to ask this stern-looking fellow for permission to do this and that, to face him after failure in an exam. He was so sensitive himself, he had been so surrounded by understanding and sympathy, that he could not imagine it… He wished very much that he were not going to buy the horse. It would be necessary to board it out; it would be necessary to ride it, and he did not care for riding. Renny Whiteoak’s performance at the horse show had left him quite unmoved. He was infinitely more impressed by the sight of him sitting in his chair under the electric bulb, searching with complete concentration through his records… He had been driven to buying the horse in order to create a meeting-place where he and Finch’s brother could talk about Finch.

  But how was he to begin?

  His reflections were broken by a piercing cry somewhere outside, followed by a cascade of blood-freezing screeches. He turned white with terror.

  Renny Whiteoak remarked laconically: “Pig. Killing it.” Leigh felt relieved, but still shocked. “Oh,” he said, and, looking out at the darkness, he observed: “It seems an odd time for killing a pig.”

  “Yes, doesn’t it?” He raised his eyes from the papers and, seeing Leigh’s face, said: “It will be over in a minute.”

  It was. Silence fell. Leigh shivered, for the room seemed to him very cold with a damp chill that he supposed penetrated from the stable.

  “Ah, here we are! Now, just draw your chair up to the desk.”

  Leigh obediently drew toward the desk, and the two bent over the pedigrees. He followed rather vaguely the intricacies of blood relationships, and was surprised at the knowl-edge one man might have of the qualities of various equine families.

  They were still absorbed when a tap came at the door and Wragge entered with Renny’s tea. Leigh began to feel desperate. His chances for pleading Finch’s cause to the head of the clan seemed to be lessening. With a sudden nervous decision he closed the bargain. The payment was arranged.

  Renny observed, while washing his hands in a basin on a small washstand in a corner: “It’s too bad to have kept you from your tea so long. I wish I had had Rags fetch enough over here for two. He might just as well. However, he’ll take you over to the house. It’s getting dark.”

  Leigh shivered. He was nervous, he was cold, and the thought of eating in a stable disgusted him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It doesn’t matter at all.” He shivered again, as he noticed how Renny rubbed yellow soap on his hands regardless of the raw knuckle.

  Rags set the tray on the desk. He arranged the things on it with the air of a liveried butler putting the last touches on a table laid for a banquet. He lifted the cover from a silver dish and disclosed three thick slices of buttered toast.

  “Bit of a juggler I am, sir,” he said, “getting the tr’y acrost in a blizzard like this and never sloppin’ so much as a drop.”

  “Good for you,” observed his master, sitting down before the tray and pouring himself a cup of tea. “But this is no blizzard. It’s nothing but a fresh wind. It’s good for you.” He took a large bite of toast with relish.

  Now, thought Leigh, is the time to tackle him. He said: “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, Mr. Whiteoak—by ourselves. I can find my way to the house without any trouble, really. I—I simply want to ask you something—explain something—that is—” He felt like a stammering schoolboy.

  Renny looked surprised, but he said: “Yes? II there’s anything I can do— Very well, Rags, you needn’t wait for Mr. Leigh.”

  “It’s about Finch,” began Leigh, slowly, feeling his way, like a man in the darkness of a strange wood. “I’m very fond of him.”

  “Yes,” returned Renny, the alert interest in his eyes changing to polite attention, “Finch has often spoken of you.” Again his expression changed, this time to a stare at the inquisitive little cockney, who blinked back at him for a moment and then slid out of the room with a kind of impudent servility.

  As the door closed behind him, words came more easily to Leigh. “I think, sir, that Finch”-—he had the good sense to use moderation in his statement—“is really a very clever boy. I think he will be a great credit to you—to Jalna.” His subtle mind had discovered that, more than his horses, the eldest Whiteoak loved his house. A sudden breaking up of his features into tenderness and pleasure at some praise of Leigh’s for the lofty rooms, the old English furniture, had disclosed this. He went on: “I am sure he will, if he is allowed a little margin—a chance, you know, to develop in his own way. There are some fellows who can’t stand the grind of study unless they have some kind of outlet—”

  “Oh, he’s been telling you about the music lessons, eh? Well, I thought it best to stop them for a while. He was always strumming, and he failed—”

  “It was not necessarily the music that caused him to fail. Any number of fellows fail the first time who don’t know one note from another. If he’d had more music in his life, he might not have failed. It’s quite possible.”

  Renny, pouring himself more tea, burst into laughter.

  Leigh hurried on: “But music has nothing to do with this. This is about acting.”

  “Acting!”

  “Yes. Finch has great talent for acting. I’m not sure that it is not greater than his talent for music.”

  Renny threw himself back in his chair. Good God, was there no limit to the extraordinary talents of this hobbledehoy? “Where’s he been acting? Why haven’t I been told about it?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been to blame about that. I felt that the expression of—of some art is so necessary to Finch that I persuaded him—made him promise not to let anyone put a stop to it.”

  The fiery brown eyes were on him. “His promises to me are worth nothing, then!”

  “But they are! I give you my word that he has not been neglecting his work. He’ll have no trouble passing next time. He didn’t make a bad showing, you know. I believe it was more nerves than anything that made him fail.”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “Come in,” said Renny, and Wright entered. He said: “The vet’s here, sir.”

  “Good,” exclaimed R
enny, rising. With a movement of suppressed irritation he turned to Leigh:

  “What do you want me to do?”

  He was faintly suspicious of Leigh. He felt that Leigh had cornered him. He supposed that Finch had got Leigh working on his behalf. He had a way of enlisting the sympathies of susceptible people—intellectual people. There had been Alayne. How she had pleaded for music lessons for him! The thought of her softened him. He added: “I don’t expect Finch to plug away and never have any fun. I don’t object to anything so long as it’s not going to interfere with his studies.”

  A clumber spaniel that had come in with Wright raised himself on his hind legs beside the desk and began to lick the buttery crumbs of toast from the plate.

  A feeling of weakness stole over Leigh. His efforts seemed suddenly futile. The life of this place was too strong for him, the personalities of the Whiteoaks too vigorous. He could never penetrate the solid wall they presented to the world. Even Kenny’s words scarcely encouraged him.

  He watched the spaniel licking the plate in a trance-like silence for a moment, then he said, with an effort: “If you would only let Finch feel that. If he could know that you don’t despise him for needing something—some form of expression other than the routine of the school curriculum— of school games—”

  Wright’s round blue eyes were riveted on his face. The eyes of all the horses in the glossy prints and lithographs that covered the wall were riveted on him, their nostrils distended in contempt.

  Renny took the spaniel by the collar and put him gently to the floor. Outside in the stable a man’s voice was raised, shouting orders. There was a clatter of hoofs.

  Leigh said, hurriedly: “Mr, Whiteoak, will you promise me something? Let Finch spend the next fortnight with me. I’ll help him all I can with his work, and I honestly think I can help a good deal. Then I want you to come, if you will, to our place for dinner one night of the play and see for yourself how splendid Finch is. My mother and sister would like to meet you. You know you’re a hero to Finch, and consequently to us, too. He’s told us about what you did in the War—the D.S.O., you know.”