The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (161 page)

At last she reached a place where private grounds came down to the beach. She turned back, but now she walked with both feet in the water, holding her skirt above her knees. The moon and the cloud had parted company, the moon already beginning to bend toward the horizon; the cloud, estranged from it, elongating the bird’s neck, opening its beak as though in a despairing cry. Gazing upward, Chris forgot to be careful of the waves and found herself holding up a drenched skirt.

She gave an exclamation of dismay. Now the dress would have to be laundered. But what of that! The feel of the water against her thighs had been worth it. A desire to swim in the lake took possession of her.

She ran across the sand and, hiding among the bushes, quickly pulled off her clothes. She felt reckless and very young. She ran back across the sand and out into the waves. They were too powerful to swim against. They were rowdy playfellows, rolling over her, dashing up behind her, striving to pull her from her feet. She played and struggled with them, thinking that this was as good fun as riding Launceton. Here were a dozen wild horses careering about her, never to be broken in. She gave herself up to her joy in them.

She waded out to her armpits, facing the long, cool green sweep of the waves. She jumped up, as each one swept over her, keeping her head above them, throwing out her arms across their foam-flecked arch. Then, on the largest that had yet risen against her, she turned and threw herself, and was carried on its crest to the shore. This was the wildest play of all. She lay on the beach panting, getting back her breath. She wanted to do it all over again.

She ran, exulting in the waves, liberated from the chains of living. Again and again she ran out into the lake and rode landward on a wave. “Once more,” she thought, “a little farther still.” But the sand beneath her declined and she lost her footing. She cried out in terror.

A voice shouted: “It’s all right. I’m here!”

She saw Renny running toward her. His face, in the moonlight, looked white as his shirt. He was at her side and had her in his arms.

“It’s all right,” he repeated.

She relaxed against his shoulder.

“I wasn’t really in trouble,” she said.

“What?” he shouted.

“I wasn’t drowning,” she shouted in return.

A wave broke against them, submerging them. She looked up into his face, laughing. “It’s fun.”

His lips moved but she did not hear his answer. His wet shirt clung to him like seaweed.

“This becomes you,” she said loudly.

“What?”

She put both arms about his neck and said into his ear — “You look like a triton or faun or something.”

Again he said something she could not hear.

Again a green wall submerged them. He drew her toward the shore. Waist-high she moved away from him. There was a lull in the agitation of the waves that, in contrast to the former sonorous roar, was almost silence. Rising so, out of the troubled lake, she was a figure of enchantment, gleaming marble-white in the moonshine.

“Why did you come?” she asked.

“I followed you.”

“But you went the other way.”

“All ways are mine in this place.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“I wanted you to explain.”

“About going to meet Vaughan?”

“Yes.”

“It was nothing. A trick of his child’s. I haven’t the slightest interest in him, or he in me.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes.”

She shivered. “I’m going in.”

His arms tightened about her. He asked:

“What do you want me to do?”

“Leave me.”

He bent his head to look into her eyes. He drew a finger along the curve of her lips, over the curve of her chin, to her throat.

“Is there nothing more you want than that?” he asked.

She answered almost angrily, catching his hand in hers and withdrawing it from her lips:

“You’re making me love you!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to!”

“Very well.” He released her with a renunciatory gesture. She remained standing where she was, then asked:

“If I had not screamed, what would you have done?”

“Stayed where I was till I saw you safe on shore.”

“I think that’s rather nice of you.”

“I’ll go off then. You can follow when you’re ready. I want to see you safely home.”

She turned passionately to him:

“Renny! Kiss me!”

His face lighted. He held out his hands to her. She came close to him. The waves were subsiding about them. A pocket of warm air, mysteriously released, enveloped them. She raised her face to his in delicious anticipation. His arms drew her close. He had kissed her before lightly — not like this! Other men had kissed her — not like this! ...

He went ahead of her up the sand. He stretched his length beside a sand hummock, pillowing his head on his arm, his back toward her. He waited.

After a time she came to him and knelt behind him. She bent over him and put her lips to his cheek. She said:

“You look as though you’d been drowned — cast up by the waves.”

He turned over on his back and smiled up at her. He put both arms about her.

It was past midnight when they left the beach. Long ago the moon had sunk. The few stars gave little light but the sky was of a luminous dark blue. The path, and then the road, lay clear before them. The night was warm. Tomorrow would be hot.

“I wish I hadn’t to go back,” she said.

“I wonder what your brother would say if you didn’t.” There was a pause. Then she said in a low voice:

“Jim’s not my brother.”

“What is he to you, then?”

“He’s my husband and — I don’t love him!”

In his astonishment he stopped stock-still.

“Jim your husband! But why have you kept it secret?”

“Because it paid us to. He has a friend in England. She’s done a lot for him. She paid his way out here and gives him a small allowance, but she gives it on condition that he doesn’t marry. If she heard he was married, the allowance would stop.”

“But you can’t keep this deception up for ever.”

“He’s always expecting her to die. She’s not young and she’s delicate. He’s sure she’ll leave him her money.”

“What a position!”

“Yes — but you can get used to anything.”

“Did you know about this when you married him?”

“No. He told me we must keep our marriage secret for a few months because his family would disapprove. In reality his family wouldn’t care a damn. They’re a heartless lot. It’s only this Mrs. Gardiner who cares…. I don’t love Jim, but I’m sorry for him. I guess, in his own queer way, he needs me. I’m someone to quarrel with…. I’ve never loved anyone but you…. I think Tod knows everything — all about Jim and me. He looks at us so queerly sometimes, as though his soul were all clear and pure and he knew ours were murky.” She spoke with passion, then moved quickly along the road.

“This staggers me,” said Renny.

“Does it make you like me less?”

“Nothing can do that. If I live to be as old as my grandmother I shall never forget this night…. I think you’re adorable, Kit.”

She stretched out her hand and caught his. So linked, they continued their walk. They passed the gates of Jalna. The dark bulk of the house could be glimpsed beyond the trees. The house had a secret air, yet not withdrawn. It was as though it waited, not for the first time in its history, to receive a night-wandering Whiteoak under its roof.

W
ANING
S
UMMER

T
HIS YEAR SUMMER
moved in majesty. Sunrises were radiant, noontides dazzling, sunsets spectacular. Rain, when it did come, fell in a grand downpour. The crops thrived, ripened, were reaped, as orderly as pictures in a book. Colts, calves, and piglets flourished like weeds. There was no devastating heat, no killing drought. In the orchards the trees bent beneath their weight of fruit. The cherries especially, Richmond and Montmorency, were prolific. So much so that, with an abundance in other districts, prices fell. It was scarcely worth the time to pick the cherries. The trees were red with them. Maggie the cook bottled them, made jam of them, even cherry brandy. Still there was great waste of the fruit. The only one who worried over this was Piers. It hurt him to see the ground red with the glossy spheres. He filled baskets and took them to all his friends. He told the village boys to come and help themselves, but they climbed the trees and broke branches and he had the blame.

Wragge had never lived so well in his life. In truth, as he told the cook, he had not known such food existed as he got at Jalna. When he looked at her round red face, her round red arms and clean capable hands, he could have shed tears of joy at the thought of her potentialities in the way of cherry pie, whipped cream, salad dressing, sage stuffing and chocolate soufflé. But she had a violent temper. Already she had threatened to give notice. What if he should lose her! He made up his mind to marry her. Of course she had not all the qualities he desired in a wife. But what woman had? Certainly, in the lottery of marriage, she would be far from a blank. Out of his second month’s wages he bought her a bangle bracelet.

His chagrin was deep when she rejected him. What did she want! An Adonis? A millionaire? The shock of it, combined with too much cherry brandy, went to his liver. He had a violent bilious attack. Then he had fresh evidence of Maggie’s worth. She fed him delicate broth and orange custard.

Perhaps it was seeing him prostrate, looking more dead than alive, that went to her heart. At any rate when he was about again, though still subdued, she astonished him by remarking almost casually:

“Well, I don’t mind if I do.”

He turned his head from blowing on the silver teapot he was polishing.

“Do wot?”

“’Ave yer.”

“’
Ave
me! Ow?”

“In ’oly wedlock.”

“Maggie!” He set down the teapot and took her rapturously in his arms. “You’ve made me the ’appiest man on earth!”

Dinner was late that day.

On the whole, the family were pleased with the proposed marriage. Lady Buckley, however, disliked Wragge. The sight of him in a livery much too large for him which had belonged to a quite exemplary butler of former days, greatly irritated her. His impudent face combined with his obsequious manner was, in her opinion, a disgrace to Jalna.

Wragge did not trouble about Lady Buckley, as she was returning to England in the early autumn, but he did set about winning the approval of Meg. He discovered that she liked to pose as having little or no appetite at table but enjoyed a tray carried to her room. Maids had chafed at doing this. Wragge behaved as though it were an honour. He would arrange chicken sandwiches, ripe raspberries lying on their own green leaves, a few pansies in a tiny vase, with an instinct for the appetizing.

He made himself useful in a hundred ways. To be called from the job he was doing, to another, did not fluster him. He had learned to hate monotony in the War. He soon discovered that in this house many things went on beneath the surface. Every item of smallest interest sent him hurrying down the basement steps to repeat the same to his betrothed. She, from being phlegmatic when she was not in a temper, became as avid for gossip as he. Their life was so full of interest that there was not time for more.

It was arranged that their marriage should take place after Lady Buckley’s departure. Renny was to give the bride away.

In these months Ernest varied between pleasure in his acquaintance with Mrs. Stroud, irritation at the responsibility of pushing it to the point where Eden should be undone and still keeping it within the bounds of safety. He was of an indolent temperament and it irked him to rival a being so full of youthful energy as Eden. Also there was something underhand in the situation which he shrank from. Eden trusted him. What if that trust should turn to anger and even hatred! On the other hand, he was doing his best to save the boy from an entanglement injurious to him.

There was no doubt of Mrs. Stroud’s pleasure in his company. His visits became more and more protracted. Her door opened to him almost before he knocked. He took her flowers, fruit and books. She was elated by her success. In erotic dreams she played off one lover against the other. In waking moments she told herself that neither was really in love with her. Her husband’s greatest compliment to her had been to say that her head was screwed on right. These words came to her mind now and she doubted the truth of them.

As the summer wore on and the paths became more overgrown, the air more vibrant with the song of locusts, the moon in its fullness a deeper orange and seemingly closer to the earth, Ernest found that he was no longer able to put Mrs. Stroud out of his mind when he returned to Jalna. Her image, intensified, remained with him wherever he went. Above all, he found himself resenting more and more Eden’s friendship with her. He resented his family’s amused approval of his amorous excursions. More than once he positively trembled with anger at some complacent remark of his brother’s about “the would-be adventuress.” Ernest had to go outside the room and lean against the wall to calm himself.

His old mother was far too clever, his brother knew him far too well, not to see evidence of the change in him.

“I told you,” Nicholas said to her, “that Ernest would get soft on that woman.”

“D’ye suppose they’re living in sin?” grinned Adeline.

“My dear Mother, you’re a better judge of that than I am.”

“Well, if ’tis so, it’s made him more interesting than ever I’ve known him. But then, it often does!”

Eden, the central figure, was slow to realize the import of these developments. He looked on the sudden intimacy between his uncle and Mrs. Stroud as an effort on Ernest’s part to find out, for the family, what sort of woman she was.

Since his outbreak of anger after the tea party was past he held little rancour against his family. He was still a boy and, when they one and all were particularly pleasant to him, he felt relief in his mind and renewed confidence in his ability to conduct this affair in his own way. In fact, he had a new zest for it. The eyes of his elders were on him. They had sent out their emissary. The emissary could not help but feel the charm of the enchantress. Mrs. Stroud repeated to him the gist of all her conversations with Ernest. When Eden made fun of some remark of Ernest’s, she exclaimed: