The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (426 page)

Miss Archer could not understand Alayne’s attitude toward little Adeline. To her it seemed lacking in tenderness and natural solicitude. Once she said to her:

“Aren’t you afraid, Alayne dear, that she will grow quite away from you? Don’t you think we should manage for her to visit us soon?”

Alayne had disconcertingly exclaimed:

“Adeline here! You little know what you are suggesting. She would drive you mad in this little house. As for her growing away from me — she’s never been near me, since her first year. I can do nothing with her.” As her lips formed the last words the figure of Miss Archer faded from her sight and in its place she saw Renny’s tall, spare form, his lips bent in an expression of embarrassment. She had so often flung these words at him.

The room seemed suddenly suffocating. She rose and went to the window a crack of which was open and beneath which a steam radiator sizzled forth its heat. She added:

“You must think me an unnatural mother. But — I’m simply not able to have her with me now. Later on it will be different.” She drew herself up, facing the cool inlet of fresh air. Her body looked strange and misshapen. Miss Archer gasped as the revelation struck her like a blow.

“Alayne! You — why, you — oh, my dear!” Her face became crimson. Life was suddenly horrible, indecent to her.

“Yes,” answered Alayne coldly, “I’m going to have a baby. It can’t be helped. There’s no use in making a fuss over it.” She had never spoken so to her aunt before. Miss Archer was hurt and showed it.

Alayne went and put her arms about her.

“Don’t mind me, Aunt Harriet. I’m not myself these days. I’ve been so worried that I haven’t known what to do.”

Miss Archer clasped her close. “My poor child! It’s all too terrible. To think that — when you knew he was unfaithful!” She could not keep a note of accusation out of her voice.

“But I
didn’t
know! Not when this happened! You don’t imagine I ever lived with him after I found them out, do you?”

“Did you know that you were — like this — when you left Jalna?”

“No. I went to a doctor here.”

“But you should have confided in me! Not borne all this alone! Oh, my poor little girl — what you have been through!” Miss Archer began to cry but kept on talking. “When I think of all that your parents hoped and planned for you! They both thought you would do something very much worthwhile…. If only you had never met Eden! Then you would never have met this man. I just can’t say his unspeakable name! I hope I am a Christian but it seems to me that nothing is too bad to punish him. He deserves to
suffer
.”

“He’s no worse than lots of others, I suppose,” said Alayne sullenly. She was heavy and tired and felt that she could bear no more talk.

Miss Archer, on the contrary, could not stop talking. Her mind was fastened on Renny, rather than on Alayne’s state which she could not yet bring herself to face, and on his head she poured out her bitterness of spirit. Alayne was glad when she heard the postman. She hoped there would be a long letter from some old friend of Aunt Harriet’s to take her mind off their difficulties. For once she did not look for the Canadian stamp. Yet there it was, on an envelope addressed by Pheasant.

Contrary to her use she did not take the letter to her room but opened it at once and began to read it aloud:

D
EAR
A
LAYNE
—
I’ve been intending to write to you for weeks but there always seems so much to do at this time of year, getting ready for winter and having colds and helping with the Harvest Festival. And then there is always the Horse Show. We did pretty well at the Show. That new mare of Renny’s is certainly a bad actor. She walked on her hind legs through all the events and won nothing. But he has great faith in her. Piers tries to talk reason into him but you know what he is like when he gets infatuated. We got a first in the Corinthian Class — two firsts and a third in Middleweight Hunters. The polo ponies did very well and we made several good sales after the Show. I was especially bucked by Mooey’s performance, as Piers has rather a low opinion of his powers. Of course Patience is a born rider and was a favourite with the crowd. But you just wait till your little Adeline gallops on the scene! She’ll carry all before her. Even now she will get on any sort of pony and stick there too. She’s a picture of health and loveliness. I only wish that Nook had her digestion. But he’s a darling, really, and often asks when Auntie Alayne is coming back. Philip is growing to be a grand lad and a chip from the old Whiteoak block.

To go back to the Horse Show. Do you remember the carriage that the grandparents had built in England in the old days? It stood in the carriage house, rusty and covered with cobwebs. Piers cleaned and polished and enamelled it till it simply glittered and I, wearing a bustle and a sailor hat over one eye, perched on the driver’s seat, while the bays glittering and rattling their harness high-stepped round the ring. Renny agreed that I handled them well and I certainly got masses of applause. That young bay mare is a great disappointment. She has been …

Alayne stopped reading, coughed, searched for a handkerchief.

“You are not catching a cold, I hope, dear,” said Miss Archer.

“No. Just a tickling. Let’s see, oh yes —”

“The mare. What a lot Mrs. Piers knows about horses.”

“I’d finished with that. Here we are:

The Harvest Festival was a great success. I did the font in masses of purple grapes and their leaves. It looked lovely but Meg thought that grapes were not suitable, being suggestive of Bacchanalian revels rather than innocent babes. She and Miss Pink did the chancel in dahlias and gladioli. Piers did marvellous things with pumpkins and ears of corn and Renny came in with some gorgeous branches of scarlet maple leaves. They were the last touch in beauty.

“I should think,” interrupted Miss Archer, “that he would have the decency to keep out of the church.”

“Why?” asked Alayne brusquely.

“Well — I shouldn’t think you’d ask that.”

“I suppose he never misses a Sunday — reading the Lessons.”

“Doesn’t it seem horribly hypocritical to you?”

“No. I think that the Whiteoaks look on that little church as their own — whether they are being good or bad.”

“You speak of them as though they were children.”

“They are, in a way. That is — they are natural.”

“But no family has a right to look on any particular church as its own.

Religion is universal.”

“I haven’t any.”

“Well, of course, I mean in theory.”

“The Whiteoaks don’t theorize. That church is as much a part of their life as Jalna.” She returned to the letter, feeling herself surrounded for the moment by the old life, scarcely conscious of her aunt’s presence. She read in silence.

“Aren’t you going to finish the letter to me? I am always so interested in that family.”

“Oh, there’s not much more. She speaks of how they miss Wakefield and of Finch’s illness. The poor boy doesn’t seem to be improving very fast.” She spoke in an unnatural voice. A strange brightness had come into her eyes.

Miss Archer looked at her steadily.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Alayne, her voice trembling. “He is coming to New York! Renny!”

“I’ve been expecting it: Alayne, you must stand firm.”

“Oh, not to see me! To the Horse Show — in Madison Square Garden. You know! He’s coming to ride that awful horse Pheasant speaks of!”

“Yes, dear,” said Miss Archer soothingly. “I wish that good luck may attend him, I’m sure.”

“Aunt Harriet, I must see him! Not to talk to him! I don’t want him to know I am there. But I must see him ride. There is something in me that simply demands this final glimpse. I can’t tell what it is but it’s there. I’ve got to see him! You’d like to come too, wouldn’t you, Aunt Harriet? It is the sort of thing you have never been to. It would be an experience for you — even if you didn’t particularly enjoy it.”

Miss Archer was quite eager to go. She delighted in new experiences and anything was better than sitting at home mourning the loss of her income. She trembled to think what would have become of her if Alayne had not been at hand with her support. And Alayne must be humoured. If she wanted to see this dreadful husband of hers do high jumps on an impossible horse, why — she must see him! If only Alayne were not going to have his child! That was the complication that rose dark and almost overpowering. When Harriet Archer thought of that she was frightened by the hate that flamed in her. Once, in the privacy of her own bathroom she heard herself exclaim — “Serve him right if he fell and cracked his ugly red head!”

She heard herself say this in a harsh voice quite unlike her own. She looked in the looking glass and saw her face puffy with hate, her mouth in a new shape. She stared at her reflection fascinated. For the first time she was conscious of a second self, whose existence she had never even suspected, a vindictive self who could wish suffering to another.

But she was not ashamed. She wished him ill, only because he had caused suffering, and would be the cause of how much more, to the one she loved best in all the world. She let herself go and repeated:

“It would serve him right if he cracked his skull at this very Show!”

She was struck with horror by the thought of what such a sight might mean to Alayne, in her present state. It might be the end of her and of her unborn child! Indeed it was not safe for her to risk witnessing an accident of any sort. She must give up the thought of attending the Show.

But Alayne was stubborn. Her heart was set on going.

“But in your delicate condition it is dangerous. Just think if there was an accident — not to Mr. Whiteoak, of course, but to some rider — what a shock for you!”

“Aunt Harriet, if I can survive what I have been through, nothing can hurt me. The change will do me good.”

In truth the thought of it seemed to do her good. Either that or because in the natural course of her pregnancy she developed balance and endurance. Her appetite was good, her skin clear, she felt a desire for movement. This was well because the strictest economy was now necessary. They parted with the one maid and did the work of the house themselves. Alayne found that she enjoyed this. The house was small, in perfect order, there were all the conveniences of electric appliances, perfect plumbing and hearing. She and Miss Archer did things in their own way, to their great satisfaction, without waste and without irritation. Again and again Alayne recounted the maddening perversities of the Wragges: how on a mild autumn morning an enormous fire would blaze on the hearth, and how on a cold wet one only a handful of coals would struggle against the chill: how when the uncles had tea by themselves an enormous potful of the best tea — enough for six — was carried up to them: how there was never anything made of leftovers, which were fed to the dogs: how Rags spent hours in cleaning silver but never swept underneath the furniture: how they both were enough to drive anyone, descended from New England housewives, stark, staring mad. Miss Archer never tired of hearing of their evil deeds. They exhilarated her almost to the point of forgetting her own adversities.

She and Alayne rivalled each other in making dainty dishes. Almost every day they telephoned to the drug store for a pint of delicious ice cream. Alayne felt that she could never have too much of it.

They decided to spend the night of the show in New York at the apartment of a friend of long standing — Rosamond Trent. Alayne made up her mind, with the suddenness to which Miss Archer was becoming accustomed nowadays, to take an early train to New York and buy herself a new hat and coat on the afternoon before the Show. She was tired of looking dowdy, she said.

Rosamond Trent was delighted to have Alayne with her again — they had once shared an apartment — but she was dismayed by the change in her, which she absorbed in one swift glance. She turned to Miss Archer and said:

“After our shopping I must carry Alayne off to my pet beauty parlours. I have never seen her hair look so dull. Her skin is lovely still but there are those shadows under her eyes — and, I hate to say it, lines about her mouth! But Madame Sonia will do wonders for her.”

When she had Alayne alone she clasped her to her well-corseted bosom. “Oh, my poor darling! How appalling it all is! And how my heart aches for you!”

Alayne rather enjoyed being fussed over, wept over. She had become a stranger to that sort of thing in her life at Jalna. The air was crisp, the sun gleamed brilliantly between the quick moving purple clouds as they set out on their shopping and beautifying expedition.

Rosamond Trent’s ideas were large — especially where the money of other people was concerned. Nothing would do but that Alayne should buy a smart, military-looking, fur-trimmed coat and a little French hat to go with it. The shape of the coat was concealing and both were black, a colour which had always suited her.

As Alayne lay supine in a cubicle in the midst of the whirring, buzzing activity of the beauty parlour and gave herself up to the manipulation of practised hands, she wondered what desire had driven her to spend her money and her time in this fashion and on such an occasion. She could not tell. It was as though her nature had cried out for some respite from gloom and a denying of beauty. She had been heavy, she had been slack, she had been dragged down by the weight of her own thoughts for so long! Now, on this wild, boisterous afternoon, in the urge and press of the life about her she would behave as though all were well, as though she were enfolded in happiness and well-being instead of — she moved her head uneasily beneath the patting fingers of the masseuse and a quivering sigh escaped her.

She had forgotten that her hair could look like this, all sleek waves and glistening little curls. The beauty treatment had refreshed her and the slight makeup, so skillfully applied, had made her eyes look bright, made her look ten years younger.

Oceans of tissue paper billowed about the little room in Rosamond Trent’s apartment. Rosamond and Miss Archer stood at delighted gaze as Alayne appeared dressed for the show. She looked lovely, they declared, and the silent thought of both was that her position was tragic and they wondered what she was going to do with her life.