Whiteoak Harvest. Mazo de la Roche
to you a very desirable one!”
“I don’t think that this will come as a very great surprise to Pauline. I think she must have seen it coming. No one who loves me could have failed to see that I was passing through a great crisis in my life.”
Piers returned — “No one who knows you could fail to see that you’re a confirmed play-actor and have been all your life. I make my guess that this monastery stuff will last just about a month — just long enough for you to break your engagement to a girl who is a damned sight too good for you!”
Wakefield gave a crucified smile. “I must learn,” he said, in a steady voice, “to bear such remarks as that — even to welcome them. I must be ready to pass through fire to attain —”
“Shut up!” shouted Piers. “I won’t listen to such tripe! What I’d like to do to you is —”
Renny interrupted — “That’s not the way to take him, Piers. We must try to show him calmly that he’s not fitted for a monastic life, that no Whiteoak is. Just think, Wake,” he turned his penetrating gaze on his youngest brother, “you will be cut off forever from all the things our family have delighted in! From a free outdoor life, from liberty of speech —”
“Ho!” exclaimed Wakefield, “I like that!”
“I repeat liberty of speech. As a family we say what we think even though we get hell for saying it.”
“I call the oath of silence liberty as compared to that!”
“My God!” ejaculated Piers, and overturned his glass of water.
“Naughty, naughty,” cried Adeline.
Pheasant began to mop up the water with her table napkin. Renny proceeded — “You’re young. You’re very young even for your years —”
“He’s a whining puppy,” interjected Piers.
Renny turned on him fiercely. “Will you let me go on! Now, Wake, what do you think your uncles will feel about this? Your father, your grandmother, if they were living? They would feel that you are contemplating an impossible thing. Because they all would know that a Whiteoak cannot live without women.” The disastrous import of his last words as relating to the crisis in his own life struck him into silence the moment they had passed his lips. Wakefield, Piers, Pheasant, and the children faded from his sight. He was left alone with Alayne, the bitter accusation in her eyes, the sneer on her lips piercing him. He stared at her fascinated, the muscles in his cheeks and about his mouth alternatively flexing and relaxing, his forehead corrugated in consternation.
She held him with her gaze, caring for once nothing for what the others thought. The tension was only cut by the entry of Rags who placed a deep rhubarb tart in front of Renny and a bowl of whipped cream.
“Rhubarb tastes so nice this time of year,” observed Pheasant, while she pressed Piers’s foot under the table.
“Yes,” he added, “and the cream whips so well.”
“Me!” cried Adeline. “I want tart! I want tarts with cream! Lots of cream!”
Her father turned on her sharply and gave her a rap on the hand with the spoon with which he was about to serve the tart. “Mind your manners,” he said sternly, “and behave yourself!”
She drew back her hand and hid it under the edge of the table. She thrust out her lower jaw and glared at him half abashed, half defiant.
He served the tart, raising his eyes to the pulse throbbing in Alayne’s throat and asked — “You, Alayne?”
“No, thank you.”
There was silence for a space whilst Mrs. Wragge’s flaky pastry was consumed and the warm sunlight coming between the heavy yellow curtains brought out not only the richness of the mahogany and silver but the shabbiness of the rug, the wallpaper and Rags’s coat. The mind of each one at the table drew back on itself, ignoring for the moment the pressure of the egos surrounding it. Alayne felt a kind of exhausted triumph after her silent encounter with Renny. She had reduced him as she had not seen him reduced before, and she had a mordant comfort in the thought that he could know shame. The only one who seemed near to her at this moment was little Nook who sat on her left. She took his hand in hers and helped him with the eating of his tart.
Pheasant had seen the look exchanged between Alayne and Renny and her mind was in a whirl of curiosity. Her sympathy lay with Alayne but, for some reason, she had hated to see that expression on the hard weather-bitten features of the master of Jalna.
Piers was experiencing a feeling of irritation at himself in that he was unable to enjoy the good food according to his wont. He could not remember a time when a family disturbance had dulled his taste, that is when he was not the centre of it himself. But it was certain that neither duckling nor peas nor rhubarb had their accustomed flavour. Then observing the damp spot by his plate he realized that it was being given only water to drink that had taken the zest from his palate. He pushed out his lips and toyed with the pastry on his plate. Renny shot him a sideways look.
“What’s the matter with it?” he demanded.
“Oh, I expect it’s all right.”
“Why don’t you eat it then?”
“I don’t seem to want it.”
“I shall be sorry,” said Wakefield, “if the spiritual crisis I am passing through takes away anyone’s appetite, most of all yours, Piers. Home wouldn’t seem like home if you —” He smiled ironically.
Piers’s blue eyes turned on him truculently. “My loss of appetite has nothing whatever to do with you or your plans,” he said hotly.
“The truth is,” said Pheasant, “that Piers is simply sulky because he has had no spirituous liquors to quaff at this repast.”
“We are economizing,” returned Renny curtly. “But, if you find it impossible to eat without drink, if you find that you must overturn your glass of water and sit sulking throughout the meal, I can have Rags fetch something. What would you like?”
Piers returned stolidly — “Nothing will help me now but a whiskey and soda.”
“Whiskey and soda, Rags.”
Rags opened a door of the sideboard and peered into it defensively. He produced a decanter half-full of Scotch and a syphon of soda water.
Renny asked — “Wine, Pheasant? Alayne?” He kept his eyes on his plate.
Both declined. Alayne said — “Wragge is taking coffee to the drawing room. Shall we go on, Pheasant?”
They rose and collected the children. As they passed out, Renny, at the door, gave Alayne a fleeting look. Her face revealed nothing but a weary endurance of the situation. He returned to the table and poured himself a drink.
Wakefield sat between his brothers lighting a cigarette. He got to his feet then and said:
“I think I’ll follow the girls. There’s no object in my staying here. My mind is irrevocably made up.”
“Remember,” said Renny, “that you have promised me to say nothing of this to Pauline till I have talked to your priest.”
“I’m not likely to forget it. And I’m anxious for you to see Father Connelly and discover for yourself how little encouragement I have had from him.”
“Sit down,” urged Renny almost tenderly, “and let us talk it over quietly together, now that the women are gone. Have a drink with Piers and me.”
“No, thank you, Renny. I’m not taking anything of that sort. I forgot myself when I lighted this cigarette.” He stubbed it out on the plate before him and left the room.