Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny (115 page)

Now a voice came to her penetrating the bedclothes drawn over her head. It was the voice of Noah Binns and it said: —

“I’ve turrible news fur you. I guess there won’t be no wedding now.”

The words came first in a kind of sickly whisper that seemed to enter into her consciousness through her very pores. Then they were repeated louder and louder till at last they were shouted at her so that the very sheet vibrated with the thunder of them. She had a strange sensation of being under water and discovered that she was dripping with sweat. She sat up and pushed the bedclothes from her. One of her plaits had wound itself tightly about her neck. She felt as though it were deliberately trying to choke her. With a gasp she unwound it and held it in her hands, looking blankly down at the glossy curl on the end. Then she twisted the plait in her hands, wringing it and dragging at it as though she would pull it off. She threw herself back on her pillow and suddenly began to make whimpering noises. The next moment she thought she would break into loud screams and disturb the house from its sleep. But she caught the plait in her teeth and, biting on it with all her force, was able to restrain herself. At last she lay quite still.

She had a fresh and happy adolescence free from dark thoughts and morbid speculations concerning sex. Maurice had been the man she was going to marry; after the wedding he would take her to Vaughanlands to live. She had put all troubling thoughts away from her. Her mind had been filled by the preparations for the wedding. But now all the hints of lust that she had ever heard, all the phrases that puzzled her when she had read her Bible, were made clear, clarified beyond all other earthly things, made into the very sinister soul of the world. She lay motionless for a long while, deliberately recalling all she could of these things. One or two obscene words she had heard came into her mind. The gong sounded for rising and, after a little, she heard Eden’s voice laughing and chattering and the baby Peep crowing with joy. The pigeons above her eaves, which had flown away in search of breakfast, now returned and again took up the tale of
their billing and cooing. Little they know, she thought to herself, little they know!

Now the household was astir, and the familiar sounds calmed her. She began to consider how she should face her family. She knew that what had happed was a terrible and humiliating thing for a girl about to become a bride. She wondered how her father, her uncles, and her grandmother would take it. She wondered if Renny would ever speak to Maurice again.

She thought of one or two similar episodes in old-fashioned novels she had read. In one instance the heroine had shrieked and repeatedly fainted. The other had met the disaster with tragic aloofness. She felt that she must prepare herself. It was better, she thought, to have heard the news as she had so that she might prepare herself in secret.

It was odd that the sounds in the house should be so normal. She heard Aunt Augusta talking to Molly in the passage about Peep’s new tooth. She heard Renny whistling gayly in his room. Perhaps her father had told no one, but had hurried to see Mr. Vaughan and tell him what he thought of Maurice’s perfidy.

It was awful to think of Maurice as perfidious. She had always looked on him as little short of perfect. She had been so glad that he was tall and fine-looking like her father. She had thought that naturally she and Maurice would have a lot of children.

Meg tried to remember what Elvira looked like, but could only recall a pair of dark slanting eyes and hair that looked as though it seldom felt the brush. Yet this strange girl had come into her life and ruined it. Meg remembered her wedding dress, shimmering and white, inside its snowy wrappings in her cupboard. For the first time tears ran from her eyes. She buried her face in the pillow and cried convulsively.

She lay crying a long while. The house was still. Once she heard the hoofs of horses cantering in the direction of the stables. Once she heard the sharp tap of a woodpecker on the maple tree beneath her window. Both sounds seemed full of melancholy to her, like sounds heard in the depth of the night.

After a long while a tap came low down on her door.

“Who is there?” she asked.

“Eden. Mamma says would you like your breakfast in bed for a treat? She’ll bring it to you herself.”

“No. I don’t want breakfast. Go away!”

“Oh.” His tone was disappointed. He still hesitated at the door. She remembered how he had looked in his page’s suit and had to smother her sobs.

“Meggie! Were you saying anything?”

“No, darling. Meggie has a headache, tell Mamma. Tell Mamma Meggie doesn’t want any breakfast.”

“All right.” But he did not go away.

After a little his voice came again. She could hear him breathing into the keyhole.

“Meg, are you crying?”

“Goodness, no! Do go and tell Mamma!”

He trotted off.

Again she relaxed into a flood of tears. She did not try to control them, for the unhappiness of weeping was bearable. She remembered how, when she was a child, she could cry and cry. She remembered the sound of Renny’s yells of rage and despair when he was little. Would Renny offer to fight Maurice, challenge him to a duel? She pictured them facing each other with revolvers in the ravine at dawn. She heard the sad murmuring of the river.

Another step sounded outside her door. There was no tap, but it opened softly and Mary put in her head.

“Meg, dear, aren’t you quite well? Don’t you think that a cup of tea would be nice? We had the first strawberries on the table this morning. Eden said he thought you were feeling ill.” There was an excited quiver in her voice. She was keeping a hold on herself. Meg was conscious of a faint sense of satisfaction in the thought that Mary was trying to pretend that everything was as usual while she had known the worst from the very beginning.

“I don’t want anything,” she answered.

Mary came quickly to the bedside and looked down at her tear stained face.

“Why, Meggie —”

Meg sat bolt upright, her blurred eyes staring into Mary’s.

“I know all,” she said. “I heard Noah Binns tell Daddy everything.”

Consternation drew the colour from Mary’s lips. For a moment she did not know what to say, but just stood staring back at Meg, stammering — “Why — why — oh —”

Then she pulled herself together and sat down beside Meg and put both arms around her. “Poor little girl! It’s awful for you, I know. I mean, to have heard such a thing. But you mustn’t believe it! I don’t believe a single word of it. You must try to put it out of your head and go on as though nothing had happened. It’s nothing but cruel, spiteful gossip.”

Meg drew herself away. “Is Daddy downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Did he go over to the Vaughans?”

“Yes. He and your uncles went.”

“What did Maurice say?”

“They did not see him. They saw Mr. Vaughan.”

“Did they see the baby?”

Again Mary put her arms about her.

“If I were you, Meg,” she said, “I would not let myself believe this hateful gossip.”

“But — supposing it isn’t gossip? Supposing it’s true?”

“You must not think it is true. You love Maurice. Maurice loves you. I have seen his eyes follow you with a most loving look in them.”

Meg pushed her away. “Send Daddy to me, please! I want him to tell me what he thinks.”

“Can’t I say anything to help you? If only I could be your friend in this time —”

Meg turned her back and buried her face in the pillows.

She lay listening to the sound of Mary’s steps retreating down the stairway. She wished she could hear what they were saying below. Suddenly she sprang out of bed and ran across the room into the passage. She leant far over the banister and strained her ears. All the family seemed to be talking at once. She could just distinguish Aunt Augusta’s contralto voice through the sonorous tones of the men, and her grandmother’s, old and harsh, raised suddenly for a moment.

She would stay listening, she thought, till she heard her father coming into the hall, then she would run back to her bed and lie rigid on it with her eyes tightly closed. He would have to speak to her several times before she would answer.

She started as she heard Renny’s steps coming along the passage. She tried to dart into her room, but she could not escape him. She turned and faced him, pathetic in her white nightdress, her brown plaits with the curls on the ends.

“Renny,” she said, “I’ll
never, never
marry Maurice! It’s all over, I tell you! You wouldn’t have me marry him, would you?”

Renny gave her a sideways look. He would have liked to escape her. He did not answer, but gave an embarrassed smile. His face looked inscrutable to her, masculine and knowing and old. She thought — “He has known all about this sort of thing for ages, while I am only beginning to find out!”

She asked sharply — “Did you know about it before this morning?”

“A little,” he answered.

“A little! What do you mean by that?”

“Well, Maurice had spoken of Elvira to me.”

“Oh, and to think that Mother would ask me to behave as though nothing had happened! To go on with everything! To believe that it was all gossip!”

“I supposed a good deal of it is gossip.” He moved down the stairway below her so that their faces were now on a level.

She looked into his face furiously. “Is the
baby
just
gossip
?”

He drew back from her, standing flat against the wall. Philip came into the hall below. He saw them as he reached the foot of the stairs. He had a sudden recollection of them watching from above when there was a party going on. But they were no longer children. He had his hands full. Renny watched his approach with relief. Meg put her arm across her eyes and began to cry.

“What are you crying for?” asked Philip. “There’s nothing to cry about.”

“Oh, Daddy, how can you say that?” She fell sobbing into his arms. “My heart is broken!”

Philip stroked her hair. “Meggie, Meggie, don’t cry so! You’ll be ill. Come, we’ll go into your room and talk it over. Renny doesn’t believe in this story, do you, Renny?”

“That’s just what I was telling her.”

“He does! He does! He knows every word of it is true!”

Philip drew her into her own room and closed the door behind them. He sat down on the side of the bed and took Meg on his knees. Her plump young body was an armful. She looked searchingly into his face.

“Daddy, I want you to answer me just in one word. Do you or don’t you believe that Maurice is the father of this baby?”

“Meggie, what I think has happened is —”

“One word! I said one word! Oh, Daddy, don’t you lie to me too!”

Philip’s forehead was puckered in distress. He answered sombrely —

“Yes.”

Her last hope, if she had any, was shattered. She threw herself out of his arms and lay in a dishevelled heap on the bed. She began to roll convulsively from side to side. She caught the hem of the sheet in her teeth and bit at it.

“Meggie, stop it!” said Philip sternly. He gave her a sharp slap on the cheek.

She lay still, looking up at him out of eyes so swollen by weeping that they were almost closed. He could scarcely recognize his child.

He rose heavily and went to the washing stand. He dipped her sponge in the ewer and came back to her and began gently to bathe her eyes. “Poor little girl,” he comforted, “poor little daughter.”

She caught his hand and kissed it.

“Oh, Daddy,” she sobbed, “I’ll stay with you forever!”

There seemed to be no limit to her tears. As fast as he wiped them away, others streamed in their place. He asked desperately: —

“Shall I send your mother to you?”

“No — no!”

“Granny, then?”

“No!”

“Your aunt or one of the uncles?”

“I don’t want anyone!”

“Would you like to be alone for a bit?” He felt that he could not stand the strain of this much longer.

“Yes.”

“If I leave you, will you promise me not to roll about or anything?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be quite still and try not to worry?”

“Yes — I’ll lie quite still.”

He straightened her pillows and drew her nightdress neatly about her ankles. Then he covered her, touched her plaits, and said — “Nice hair.”

When he reached the door he turned back and said seriously: —

“You must not imagine that this sort of thing has never happened to an engaged girl before. It’s very rough on you, I’ll admit. But young men are often wild, you know. This will be a good lesson for Maurice. Far better have it happen before marriage than after. He’ll probably be a good husband to you all his days.” He went out and closed the door.

Downstairs he lingered in the hall for a moment, looking through the open door at the lawn, where one of Eden’s rabbits, escaped from its hutch, nibbled its sunny way. Philip sighed, thinking that there would be no fishing for him that day. He glanced at the grandfather clock and saw that it was not quite eleven. God — what a day! Already it seemed like a week.

He turned into the library where the family had gathered. Little breakfast had been eaten that morning and Eliza had just carried in a tray with a pot of tea and a plate of scones. His mother was sitting behind it, the shadow of disappointment on her face lightened a little at the sight of the food. Malahide Court lounged beside her on the couch. He wore a pensive expression. Sir Edwin sat upright near a window reading a fortnight-old copy of the
Times
, his eyeglasses pushed near the end of his nose so that he might look over them at his collected relatives-in-law when he chose. Ernest had an open copy of
Quo Vadis
on his knee, but his reading was only an effort to appear calmer than he was. He was deeply shaken by the events of the morning. He was longing for food, yet doubtful if he should eat when so agitated. Nicholas sat puffing stolidly at his pipe and motioned Philip to a chair at his side. Augusta, in a wine-coloured cashmere dress with a lace jabot, held Eden on her lap, and Molly sat close beside talking earnestly to her. The folding doors that gave into the dining room were open, and under their arch, his hands deep in his pockets, Renny moved nervously about. He gave his father an anxious look as he entered. The lace curtains at the windows moved gently in the light breeze.