Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny (117 page)

For an instant the scene came back to her now. Her heart halted in its beat as she painfully bent her metal gaze on all its details. But she put it from her as she had for years forced herself to do. She would not waste her strength in mourning. She drew a deep breath and went to the window and opened it. “Must have more air in here,” she said aloud. The night air entered neither warm nor cool, touching her flesh with a strange intimate caress.

Her new teeth hurt her gums. Not once since she had got them had her family seen her toothless. But now she was alone. She took them out and put them in a glass of water that awaited them. Her reflection in the glass drew her attention. That strong, sunk-lipped reflection bore a vivid likeness to her old father. “Old Renny Court,” she murmured with a whimsical grimace.

Oh, the exquisite relief of having the plates out! It gave her a rested feeling. She no longer wanted to go to bed. She had a mind to call one of her sons to come and sit with her. Still, they had had a hard day, poor fellows. Nicholas would be glum if he were routed out. Ernest would be too talkative and Philip would probably fall asleep under her nose. On the whole she had better put up with her own company.

She went to her parrot which, with head tucked under wing, perched on the foot of her bed. She put out her shapely wrinkled hand and stroked his hunched green back. A quiver of recognition passed through him, but he did not unsheathe his head. He made a guttural protesting sound low in his throat.

“Poor old bird,” she said. “Poor old Boney! He needs his rest too.”

Reluctantly she unpinned her brooch and stuck it in the red satin beaded cushion on her dressing table. Her fingers began to fumble with the long, closely packed row of buttons down her front. Still the thought of going to bed was repugnant to her.

An old lilac tree grew outside her window. It pressed too close, cutting off the air, and she often threatened to have it removed, but she could not find it in her heart to give the order. She had watched it grow from a tiny slip, when it was only a wand-like thing, had often given it a drink from her ewer. Now its heavy white plumes claimed the air before it entered her room. Between its leaves she could see the glimmer of the waning moon as it drooped into the ravine.

Suddenly she had a desire to go out into the night alone. It had been a very long time since she had done this. Always there had been Nicholas or Ernest or Philip to give her his arm. Surely she must be getting very old when her family guarded her so. She did not want to be guarded. She wanted to come and go as she willed, under sun or stars. She raised her long, strong arms and stretched. She felt tired, worried, yet somehow exhilarated by the happenings of the day. She could not settle down into her bed. She must have air.

She must be very cautious in unlocking the heavy front door. How beautifully, how smoothly it opened! No tawdry building in Jalna such as was done nowadays! But she must be careful not to let it clang. She crossed the gravel sweep and stepped on to the cool freshness of the lawn. She could see the glimmering of the moon low down behind the trees. A silver birch stood out in front of the evergreens as though advancing to meet her. All its little leaves had caught the moonlight. Far below she could hear the rustling of the stream.

She had on thin shoes and she could feel a delicious response to the life of the deep earth in the soles of her feet. They seemed to be full of eager nerves pressing toward the earth. She savoured each step. Her quick eye saw the shapes of rabbits moving about in the shadows.

She went to the silver birch and laid her hands on its silky bole. Her palms were conscious of the life of the tree pulsing beneath them. She thought of the layer upon layer of thin bark binding the birch. She remembered how her Philip, on their fifth wedding anniversary, had cut in this very tree two hearts pierced by an arrow from the bow of rather a gross-looking cupid. Her fingers sought the scar of this wound and tenderly pressed it. A constriction came in her throat. After all these years she could still feel sentimental about it!

Near by she saw the bulk of an old latticework shelter for a well that was seldom used now. But it was good cold water. She knew that. She would have a drink of it, out here in the night alone. She would feel the cold iron of the pump handle in her palm.

The shelter stood at the edge of a small shrubbery where the white buds of syringa were beginning to show. Inside it there was a damp smell and she saw the silver wheel of a cobweb. On the mossy wooden stand a glass jar held water for priming the pump. She grasped it in both hands and poured it into the opening at the top. She began to move the handle up and down. It made a harsh grating noise, but in a moment the bright water gushed from the spout. Before she had time to step back her feet were splashed.

She filled the rusty tin mug and drank deeply. The icy water invigorated her.

“Ha, that’s good!” she said, setting down the mug, and she drew her hand across her chin, on which the short strong hairs were wet. Near the pump, almost hidden by a clump of ribbon grass, she spied a bee’s nest as large as a man’s hat, glimmering palely, a smooth sphere, a sleeping world of fierce activity. “If Eden got into that …” she murmured. “Must tell the gardener …” Yet the thought of having all the little bees smoked out troubled her. “Their world,” she thought “as much to them as Jalna to us…. Storing up honey for their old age … their winter…. Let Eden take his chance…. I won’t tell of them.”

She looked up at the dark bulk of the house and saw Meg leaning on her window sill, white and fair in the moonlight. Stubborn little baggage…. Meg had been watching her and now drew back into the shadow.

Adeline crossed the lawn and stepped beneath the window.

“Come along down,” she said, “and we’ll have a stroll together.”

“No, Granny. I couldn’t.”

“I’ll tell you some things about young men I’ve known, if you’ll just come down.”

“I don’t want to know anything more.”

“Pouf! You don’t know anything.”

“I don’t want to know anything.”

“You can’t spend the rest of your days in that room.”

“I’ll spend the rest of my nights here!”

Her grandmother gave a snort of laughter.

“I pity you then!”

Still half laughing and grumbling to herself she turned away, went round the house, and passed through the little wicket gate to the top of the steep bank of the ravine, from where she could look down on the river. Now it shimmered in the moonlight, now hid itself among rushes and circled a great boulder that had fallen from above, now moved impatiently, as though in haste to be done with all its winding, now gave itself up to the indolent pleasure if its reedy bed.

She wished she might go down to the water’s edge, but she dared not risk the climb in return. It would be humiliating to have to spend the night down there. She grasped a low projecting bough and leant on it, gazing down at the stream. In her mind she followed it through valleys and fields, back to its source among the hills. Then, as a river, she traced the course of her own life. Eastward — eastward and southward, back to her marriage in India. Westward and northward, back to its source in the misty hills of County Meath. She was a tiny child, lifted to her father’s shoulder to look out on the great world.

S
LIGHTED
L
OVE AND
L
IGHT O'
L
OVE

T
HREE NIGHTS LATER
another midnight prowler was reviewing his past. This was young Maurice, who, unable to sleep, or even to endure solitary inaction, had taken his horse from the stable and galloped along the silent road, trying to quiet his brain, to exhaust his restless body. But swift as he galloped, his thoughts were equally swift. Neck and neck with him raced the dark steed of his shame, his disappointment. The past he reviewed was held in one short year, from the time Elvira and he had first met in the woods.

What had driven him from the house was the sound of his child’s crying. He had seen the light in his mother’s room and known she was up tending it. He hated the sight of the child, the sound of its voice, the very thought of its fragile body interposed between him and Meg. The thought that he had got that body from his own was horrible to him. He resented the protective love which he saw in his parents’ eyes when they spoke of it.

The moon was high in the deep blueness of the summer sky when he passed Jalna. His mare was so accustomed to turning in at that gate that he had had to draw a restraining rein. Now the house loomed dark and forbidding to him. Should he ever enter it again? With a feeling of desperation he wheeled the mare, jumped down, and opened the gate. He led her across the lawn and under the window of Meg’s room.

“Meg!” he cried softly. “Meg!”

There was no answer, and he picked up a handful of gravel and threw it against the pane.

“Meg! Meg!” he called desperately.

He heard a stir inside the room. She appeared, framed like a picture in the moonlight. He had always thought Meg pretty, but now she looked beautiful. It was horrible to think of losing her. She, looking down on Maurice’s upturned face, as he stood with the bridle over his arm, felt the romantic tragedy of her situation as she had not before. She was faint from lack of food. A sudden exhilaration swept over her. She would not have had things different from what they were. From the safe refuge of her room, she could look down on Maurice’s remorse, unmoved.

“Oh, Meggie!” he said. “If you only knew how I hate myself! — If you’ll give me another chance — I’ll do just what you want for the rest of my days! Oh, Meg, you’re too sweet to be cruel! — You must forgive me!”

She looked down at him without speaking.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “Are you made of ice? Can’t you speak to me?”

She sat silent, in that same strange exhilaration.

“If only you knew,” he went on, “how I have suffered! It’s a wonder I’m alive. When I think how I’ve made Mother and Dad suffer and what I’ve done to you — life looks as black as the grave to me. But if only you’ll take me back, I’ll be a different sort of fellow! Oh, Meg, take me back! Say you’ll forgive me!”

She listened to all he had to say, listened till he stood gazing up at her, silent, afraid of her. Then she spoke in an even voice, though with a hint in it of the elocution lessons she had learned at school.

“It is all over. I cannot marry you, Maurice. I shall never marry anyone.”

He could not and would not believe her. He gathered all his strength for a last struggle. He came close under the window and began again at the beginning with — “Oh, if only you knew how I hate myself and how I love you!” Incoherently he tried to explain all, and got completely tangled up in his explanations and threw himself on the ground and groaned. The mare stood quietly beside him, cropping the grass.

Renny had been wakened by the sound of Maurice’s voice and could not help hearing what he said. He was sorry for Meg, but, as Maurice poured out his heart without drawing so much as a word from her, Renny became impatient and Maurice’s groans brought him to his feet.

He stood a moment irresolute. Should he go to Meg’s door and beg her to be more forgiving? No, that would rouse the family. The miracle was that they had not already been roused. But, of course, the uncles and aunt slept on the other side of the house. His father could only with difficulty be roused when once he had given his mind to sleep, and it was doubtful whether his stepmother would interfere in what she would certainly hope might be a reconciliation.

Barefooted, Renny ran down the stairs and joined his friend beneath Meg’s window. Her profile was raised toward the moon and, if she were aware of his coming, she made no sign.

“You can’t go on like this,” he said, in a low tense voice. “Hiding in your room — letting your heart be broken — You must pull yourself together, Meggie! Maurice will help you! I’ll help you! I’ll stand by you both and we’ll see this thing through. Why, Meggie dear, think of all your pretty clothes and the presents beginning to come in! You can’t go on like this!”

He knew how to touch her. Tears began to run down her cheeks. But she would not give in. With a dramatic gesture she closed her window and drew the shade.

Each of the family in turn came to reason with her. She had begun to eat the tempting meals that were sent to her, and this gave them hope. Mary brought Eden, dressed in his page’s suit, and the sight made her burst into tears, but nothing moved her from her decision. She would not see Maurice again.

Her interview with her grandmother was the most stormy. Adeline completely lost her temper and, for the first time but not the last, used her stick and gave her granddaughter a sharp rap with it. Meg’s scream brought Philip to the scene, and he and his mother had a fierce altercation. He would not have his little girl, he said, forced into any distasteful marriage. And it was small wonder if Meggie couldn’t stomach a bridegroom who had just made a mother of one of the village girls.

These happenings had a strong effect on Renny. His mind became occupied with thoughts of sex as it had not been before. Brought up in the knowledge of horse breeding and the getting of stock, and among men who were roughly outspoken, his adolescence had not been troubled by subtle or morbid imaginings. Sex was natural, it was right. There was in it the nature of a teasing, sometimes calculating, game. He and Maurice had talked little of it. Renny had felt a shyness with Maurice on the subject because Maurice was engaged to his sister.

But now all was changed. The engagement was off. Maurice and he were seldom long together before Renny would bring up the subject of Maurice’s affair with Elvira. Maurice, bitterly introspective, poured out the details of their meetings. He took some comfort in remembering Elvira’s clinging tenderness towards him. But he had nothing to tell of Elvira’s aunt beyond the fact that he had visited her cottage a few times to see Elvira and that he had not liked her. She had made him feel uncomfortable. There was something strange and foreign about her. Sometimes he had wondered if she were not Elvira’s mother.