Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny (92 page)

And she’d chosen that stolid, matter-of-fact fellow, Busby — turned him, Philip Whiteoak, down! She’d never given him a chance. He liked to take his time about things. Things as important as marriage. Why, he’d known Margaret for twenty years before he proposed to her. To be sure they had been only a few months old when they first met, but it went to show that he didn’t like being hurried … And the damnable plot against him! His
mother persuading him to go on a visit with her, so that he would be out of the way. He’d wager that she and Clive’s aunt had chuckled over how well they had managed the affair — the scheme — the confounded plot!

The blood mounted to his head. He pressed a thumb and middle finger against his throbbing temples. A chipmunk ran through the tree against which he leaned, and was transfixed into stark immobility within a yard of his hand. Every single reddish hair stood up. Its bright eyes stared in astonishment. It clasped its body in its little fore-legs, as though to keep from flying to pieces. Philip made reassuring noises between his teeth. Moments passed, then the chipmunk with a flurry of its tail leaped into another tree and was gone.

“I’ll go and find the girl,” Philip thought, “and see what she has to say for herself.” He moved steadily on through the orchard, in the direction of the woods. If Mary had taken the children on a picnic that was where they would be.

Mary, just emerging from the pine wood with Meg and Renny, saw him leave the orchard and cut across a stubble field in their direction.

“Children,” she said, “there is your father. Shouldn’t you like to run and meet him while I carry the hamper home through the orchard?”

They did not hear the end of the sentence. Renny pushed the handle of the hamper into her hand, overtook Meg and flew across the stubble. They shouted out their welcome.

Mary almost ran toward the orchard and, once in its shelter, turned to see what direction Philip and the children had taken. She saw them still standing close together, their faces turned up to his. She waited, gripping the handle of the hamper, moving her toes inside her thin shoes, conscious of the soft sandy loam of the orchard path. She saw the little group separate then and the children run toward the house. Philip stood motionless, watching, till they reached the lawn. Then he strode straight toward the orchard.

But she would not meet him there. She could not endure to meet him without the protection of the children. Not once, if she
could help it, would she meet him alone, before she left Jalna. Yet she would prepare herself for such an encounter, be ready to accept his eyes with coolness. She would accept his congratulations, or whatever he had to say to her, with composure — but not now. Now the thought of meeting him alone was intolerable.

Yet he was crossing the field at such a slant that he was bound to meet her just as she came out of the orchard. If she remained among the trees, all he had to do was to follow the path, for it was clear that his intention was to meet her now and alone. That was why he had sent the children on to the house. For a moment she stood rooted in perplexity. Had she not better nerve herself to the meeting, have it over with? She had a glimpse of him entering the orchard, the last of the sunlight brightening his hair to gold.

That glimpse of him was enough. This was a spot where she could not meet him. It was too beautiful in the sunset, with the trees bending their load of burnished apples, and an oriole singing his farewell song from the very branch where hung his empty nest. Mary ran swiftly away from the path and among the trees till, at the far side of the orchard she came to the shed where barrels and crates were stored to be convenient for the packing. She entered it and stood in a dim corner draped with cobwebs. A broken toy of Renny’s lay on the floor. She felt safe from Philip here. She pressed her hand on her side to quiet the beating of her heart.

The oriole indolently let fall his notes as though he felt the silence of autumn creeping close to him. The chipmunk ran chattering across the roof of the shed, then peered in at Mary through a crack. She heard Philip’s step turning in that direction. The chipmunk had given her hiding place away. Now, as he scrabbled about, he sent a sifting of dust down through the crack. Mary waited for the step to pass. It did not and Philip now stood in the doorway.

At first he could not see her, then her form separated itself from the gloom. He saw her white hands and face.

“Why did you hide from me?” he asked.

“Hide? I — just came in here.”

“You hid from me and I will tell you why. You were ashamed because you’d treated me so badly.”

Mary’s eyes dilated. She was frightened by the very solidity of his accusing presence. After a silence, in which she collected her strength for defence, she said:

“I don’t think I have treated you badly — unless you mean —”

“Well — what?”

“Not giving you proper notice?”

“You know that is not what I mean?’

“Then you mean about my engagement?”

“Yes.”

“It amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? It amounts to my leaving the children without a —”

He interrupted, “Why will you go on talking to me as an employer?”

She answered, with a new note in her voice, “I don’t know how you want me to talk to you, Mr. Whiteoak. I never have known.”

“
Mr. Whiteoak
!” He shot out his name with scorn.

“Surely you don’t expect me call you by your Christian name!”

“I expected you,” he returned fiercely, “to treat me as a friend. I behaved in a friendly way to you, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Do you call it treating me like a friend to let me go off with my mother, all unsuspecting that you were carrying on a courtship with Clive Busby and were, in fact, engaged to him — you were engaged to him before I left, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You kept it all secret. Then, at the moment I return, my mother tells me what everyone but myself has known all the while. Why did you hide it from me?”

Mary came from behind the barrels that smelt sweetly of new wood. There was a look of challenge in her eyes.

“I didn’t think it mattered to you,” she said.

“Not matter to me! Not after the way we waltzed together! Do you forget that, Mary?”

It was the first time he had called her Mary. It was the first time he had spoken of the dance which she looked back on as the most precious moment of her life. She put both hands on the barrel behind her and leaned against it as though for support.

“I shall never forget it.” He could barely hear her words.

“And yet,” he went on, the flush deepening on his face, “you’ve engaged yourself to another man. I don’t understand you.”

“And I don’t understand you.” Her voice had come back to her. It was almost harsh. “You never noticed me on the night of the dance — not till everyone but Lily was gone. Then you remembered that I had been there. You looked about and saw me and thought, ‘Poor thing, I really should give her the pleasure of a dance with me!’ We waltzed and our steps suited. We danced too well. Your mother didn’t like it. I think she was right. A man who cares nothing for a girl shouldn’t dance with her like that.”

“But I did care!” he cried.

“For that one waltz,” she answered, almost as though she forced coldness on herself, “you cared. But since then you’ve hardly given me a thought.”

“I have given you a thousand thoughts. But I’m not one of those men who can’t let a woman they’re attracted to, alone. I looked on you as rather remote — detached.”

In a shaken voice she asked, “After the waltz? I thought I let myself go shamelessly.”

“Mary — did you love me that night?”

“No, for I didn’t think. I hadn’t a thought in my head.”

“You were just carried away by the pleasure of it. So was I. Let’s look at it like that. Let’s think calmly of our relations. They were friendly from the start, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“There was even something special in them.”

“Yes.”

“Then Clive appeared on the scene.” Philip came closer to her and gently took one of her wrists in his hand. “Tell me, did Clive come between us from the start? Was it love — almost at first
sight? It must have been, because he hasn’t been here very long.”

She drew her hand away and the wrist he had held tingled as though a briar had bound it.

“How can I tell?” she asked, and then she broke out, “Clive couldn’t come between us because — you weren’t there!”

“I wasn’t there — in your affections, you mean.”

“Yes … Clive loved me. He wanted to marry me.”

“And you love him?”

“Yes.”

“And you never felt anything approaching love — for me?”

“How can you be so cruel, Mr. Whiteoak! You have no right —”

“It’s you who are cruel, Mary.” He spoke with a childlike appeal, deliberately putting it in his voice and his eyes, she thought, and steadied herself to answer:

“If you loved me you kept your love well hidden. There have been weeks when you have scarcely looked in my direction.”

“I was happy just to feel that you were under the same roof. I thought you …”

“Tell the truth,” she interrupted wildly. “You did not give me a second thought. You were satisfied with your fishing — the life you lead — and no wonder. I don’t think I’ve ever known a man more happily placed. You’ve everything.”

“I have an indolent nature. I’m willing to let things take their course.”

“Then, let them take their course. You know what it is.”

“Good Lord God!” he shouted, “am I to lose you without raising my hand to prevent it?”

“It’s too late.”

He could see the beat of her heart, in her throat.

“That means,” he said, more quietly, “that you did — perhaps still do — love me.”

She looked into his eyes, without speaking.

“Can you love two men, Mary?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“It’s impossible! Or it’s not the same sort of love. I think you
feel affection, kindness toward Clive. I think you love me … But you don’t feel kindness toward me, Mary.”

“What kind of love do you feel for me,” she cried, “when a few scornful remarks from your mother were enough to make you shun me for weeks?”

“I think you shunned me too. I think we both were a little shy. We’d felt an emotion we weren’t prepared for.”

“Perhaps.” She hesitated and then brought out what had so rankled in her mind. “I’ve wondered what emotion you felt when you drove Miss Craig home, with her head on your shoulder.”

He was so disconcerted that he was for a moment comical, then he made a grimace.

“Discomfort,” he said. “Acute discomfort. Nothing more. I swear I said nothing that should have made her feel sentimental and by the time we were round the bend in the road she was sitting up properly. Muriel has never had any real attraction for me, but, all the while you’ve been at Jalna, Mary, my love for you has been taking a greater hold on me. You have heard of entertaining an angel unawares. I’ve done that with my love for you.”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t say such things.” She shook her head from side to side as though looking at some object that moved her to pity. And she repeated, “It’s too late.”

“Now I’m conscious,” he continued, as though she had not spoken, “all through me, of how much I love you.”

She stepped swiftly past him into the orchard. Then, facing him, said:

“I can’t treat Clive like this. I can’t listen to such words from another man. Do you think I have no loyalty in me?”

“Then, you’re going to marry him?”

“Yes.”

He followed her and put his arm about her.

“I won’t let you.”

“Nothing can stop me. I’ve promised.”

“You don’t love him.”

“I love him dearly.”

“Not as you do me.” Both his arms were about her and he held her close to him. The enchantment she had felt in his touch, on the night of the dance, now flowed through her, intensified to the point of ecstasy. The oriole, his plumage gilded by the sun’s last rays, may have felt so, as he poured out his song.

Philip bent his face to hers whispering, “My dearest, sweetest, Mary … My darling one … I won’t let you go … You can’t make me … Kiss me, Mary.”

She returned his kisses.

“There’ll be a moon tonight, Mary,” he said. “We’ll go out in the moonlight together.”

“No.” She put her hands on his chest and would have pushed him from her but he would not let her go.

For an enchanted moment they were as still as though turned to stone. Then Philip was roused by clumping steps on the orchard path. He released her and they saw a farm labourer, Noah Binns, drawing near, his dinner pail swinging in his hand, his pleased grin showing black and broken teeth, though he was still young.

Noah Binns’ little pig’s eyes were fixed on them in curiosity but, to show that his mind was occupied by other affairs, he remarked:

“Bugs is breedin’”

“Bugs! What bugs?” asked Philip.

“Tater bugs. Where there was one, there’s ten.”

He clumped on.

Mary and Philip stood looking after him. Their moment was broken. They didn’t know what to say. Then Mary gave a little laugh. “What a strange creature! Every time I meet him he says something about bugs or worms or rot or decay.” She laughed nervously.

“He enjoys thinking of life like that … He saw us, Mary.”

“Does that mean he’ll tell?”

“Of course. But it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters terribly to me, as I’m going to be married so soon. People will talk. But I needn’t mind. I’m going far away.”

“Mary, are you being deliberately cruel?”

“I’m trying to put this afternoon behind me.”

“You can’t! No more than I can. It would be there between you and Clive, if you were to marry him … But you can’t marry him … It wouldn’t be fair to him, Mary, loving me as you do.”

She had turned her face away from him but now she looked into his eyes. “What has just passed,” she said, “was only a little moment in our lives.”

“It has made everything different,” he said, “I knew I loved you but — now I know you love me.”

“You loved me!” she cried. “Then why in God’s name didn’t you say so?”