The Whiteoak Brothers. Mazo de la Roche
into the water. Had she seen him, he wondered. Whether or not she had, she plainly saw him now, for she raised her eyes to look straight into his and beckoned.
That was all he needed, that and a warning finger she held up, to bring him to her side in a dozen stealthy strides. He crouched beside her, feeling a sudden inexplicable excitement.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Look — a water snake.”
It moved lazily, beautifully, near them, in dappled sunlit folds. Piers wondered at her not screaming, as most girls would. But she turned now to him, her lips parted, a rim of white teeth revealed, in a smile that seemed to him an invitation to a moment’s comradeship. But she was only a kid. If she had been older she probably would have screamed, as a girl naturally would.
“Isn’t it happy?” she whispered.
Well — that was a silly thing to say about a snake. As though it could be happy!
“Like to see me kill it?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I — love it.”
He broke into laughter. He had a musical laugh, and, as though she could not help herself, she laughed too. The snake, its secretive golden eyes wary of them, moved without haste into the shadowed recesses of the reeds. It had dominated the pool, now it was gone, and the little white faces of the thronging bloodroot stared out from the bank.
A tremulous silence enveloped the boy and girl. The moist sweet scent of the ravine, the chatter of the stream, closed in about them. They gazed into the pool where the snake had been, and saw there the reflection of their own faces. Her dark hair and eyes turned amber in its shallow. The pink of Piers’s cheek, the blueness of his eyes, the fairness of his hair were merged into the semblance of a golden youth about to discover the meaning of spring. They gazed in silence for a space. Then his arm found her waist — his hand her side where the heart fluttered like a hovering swallow. They turned their heads and looked into each other’s eyes.
Piers had never before felt tenderness toward any human being. He had felt it toward young lambs. But now tenderness toward Pheasant welled up through all his sturdy body. Tenderness and an urge to protect her, and an urge to love her. But he only said laconically — “You’re funny.”
“So are you,” she breathed. “Not a bit like I thought you were.”
“I guess we’re both funny. Will you kiss me?”
She nodded without speaking. But the kiss was not a success. Their faces merely bumped gently together. But in some inexplicable way it drew them very close. They felt less shy, more familiar, and strangely happy.
“How old are you?” he demanded.
“Seventeen — in a few weeks.”
“I’m eighteen. Soon be nineteen.”
They could find nothing more to say. They squatted side by side in silence, as though the sum of their years had left them speechless in wonder. Only the stream spoke. A small bird flew by carrying a piece of white string in its beak, its wing beats ardent in its urge for nest-building.
At last Piers said — “Well, I must be getting along.”
She did not say “Stay.”
“Shall you be coming this way tomorrow about this time?” he asked.
She nodded, pulling up a blade of grass and examining it. “I’ll be here,” he said. He left her, running across the bridge and up the steep toward the lawn, as though to show his power.
“Poetry and making money,” said Eden, “go extremely well together. I wonder that poets in the past have never tried it.”
His Uncle Ernest was the only member of the family to whom he openly spoke of himself as a poet. Of course they all knew he wrote poetry and, according to their various temperaments, looked on it as a pleasant pastime, a weakness inherited from his mother, or a waste of the valuable hours which he should be devoting to the study of law. All but Ernest. He appreciated the promise shown by the young poet and, when Eden came to his room and read him his latest verses, he was gratified. Their literary gifts were a link between them. He himself had been engaged, for some years, in the preparation of a book on Shakespeare though he had never yet produced a manuscript to show his family, and Nicholas openly doubted the possibility of his ever producing one.
Uncle and nephew had had many an agreeable talk in the comfortable privacy of Ernest’s room where the walls were decorated by watercolour drawings of English scenery he had done in his earlier days. In fact there was at least one of these in every room in the house. But never before had they enjoyed a talk of this nature. In the past their talk of money had concerned the lack of it, on Eden’s part, and how quickly it went, on Ernest’s. But, since the speculation in the Indigo Lake Mine, the subject of money had taken on a new and delightful aspect. Today they were hilarious.
From the very week of Ernest’s investment the price of the Indigo Lake stocks had been rising. Not in a spectacular fashion but steadily, firmly, in a way to give the investor confidence. Mr. Kronk kept Eden informed on the matter each day. Another bright-coloured brochure arrived confirming these reports. Almost every day after his lectures he went to Mr. Kronk’s apartment and, if he were not there, Mrs. Kronk was and always with good news for him. She would give him not tea but a cocktail. Never before had he enjoyed himself in this way. A commission of twenty-five percent on the investments of his uncles and Piers was paid to him by Mr. Kronk — paid with a smile, just as though he’d earned it. Nicholas, picturing a winter on the Riviera, doubled the amount he had invested. After a month of watching the rise of Indigo Lake, Ernest had more than trebled his. Now he saw a gain so splendid that his fingers fairly itched to write still larger cheques.
He was an agile man, an affectionate one. In the hilarity of the moment he threw an arm about Eden, clasped him in a dancing position, and they waltzed the length of the room. Sasha, his cat, rose from her sleep on the bed to watch them, arching her back, making her legs long and her face a mask of disdain.
“I couldn’t have believed it,” Ernest exclaimed, panting a little at the end of the waltz. “I had become very nervous about speculation since my last misfortunes. But this — my dear boy, it’s wonderful. To think that a chance meeting on the train …”
“And if you could meet him! He doesn’t look capable of big business enterprises. Just a confiding little man, with a coy manner. But there’s nothing he doesn’t know about mining. Knows all that north country like the palm of his hand. Apparently taken a real shine to me.”
Ernest squared his shoulders. “I shall invest more. Do you think we ought to bring your Uncle Nicholas into this? It does seem a shame that he should not share in it.”
Eden considered. He felt himself to be getting into a corner. He said, “I think we’d better not. You know he doesn’t like speculation.”
Eden now rather wished that there had been no secrecy in the affair. But how was he to know that it would be such a stupendous success?
Nicholas, though waltzing was beyond him, was enormously pleased. He beat the arm of his chair with his clenched fist and exclaimed, “By God, this is the best thing that’s happened to me in many a day!” He did not suggest letting his brother in on the affair but rather took a rise out of how surprised old Ernie would be when he discovered what an astute speculator he was.
Piers, on his part, had never shown such eagerness to help with the work of farm, stables, or orchard. No work was too hard or too tedious. Good farm labourers were scarce and he hired himself to Renny with a zeal for work that amazed his elder. At the same time he showed rather a disconcerting greed as to wages. Whatever he earned he handed over to Eden to invest for him, with a childlike trust. Eden had opened a savings account in a city bank and in it he almost religiously deposited all that he earned in commission. Half a dozen times a