THE DEPARTURE
TO ERNEST it seemed positively portentous that Sasha should die just before his departure for England. It was as though she had comprehended what the state of his mind must be at the thought of parting from her. She was fourteen years old, and though she seemed to be in perfect health she required certain luxuries, certain attentions, to keep her so. On whom could Ernest have depended to care for her? Alayne had promised, but her attitude towards all animals was detached. Pheasant might have done very well, but there was Mooey, always at hand to lift her up by the wrong part or to roll on her as she slept before the fire. That left a choice among Wakefield, the Wragges, and Bessie the kitchenmaid. Ernest shivered before the choice and almost felt that he should not go.
As he fondled her with concern he noticed the look of understanding in her translucent amber eyes. She was standing on him, rhythmically kneading his stomach with her forepaws, as she so often did. He fancied, half-whimsically, that she was aware of his weak digestion and that she held the belief that gentle massage, such as she gave him, would benefit him. The benign expression she wore, when she kneaded him thus, encouraged the belief. Now to the expression of benignity was added the look of understanding.
The very next morning he had found her dead on his eiderdown. Curled up, as though sleeping, with a look of blissful peace—but dead. It was as though she had not been able to bear the anxiety in his eyes and had willed her spirit to depart in the night, setting him free from the claims of love.
He had lain back again, pulled the covers over his head, and felt much shaken. He remembered the morning she had had her last kitten on this very bed. Just given one yell, as of triumph (for she was then old), and had it, about six o’clock in the morning. He remembered when she had been given to him by one of the Lacey girls fourteen years before, a tiny golden ball of sportiveness. He had been rather bored then at the thought of owning a kitten, had not much wanted her... a dog had killed her last kitten, and now she was gone...
Everyone was sympathetic. They had dug a grave for her in the prettiest corner of the garden, just where the old stone urn marked the spot. Wakefield had filled the grave with marsh marigolds and had curled her beautiful tail about her like a plume.
Ernest thought that Nicholas was very callous in the leaving of Nip. Nip, to be sure, was not so fine fibred as Sasha, but still he merited something more than the brief injunction thrown off by Nicholas at the supper table, on the night before departure—“For heaven’s sake, look after Nip!” That had been all. But it was Nick’s way.
The two months just passed had flown for them all. The spring had been backward, then forward. Their spirits had been up, then down. It was such an upheaval. At first the mere stupendousness of it had been exhilarating. But later, the thought of how they would be scattered was like a hovering cloud. Augusta was in England; Eden was in France or England—no one knew which; and soon Nicholas, Ernest, and Finch would be on the ocean. They felt afresh the blank left by the death of Adeline.
When old steamer trunks were carried down from the attic, rubbed up and new labels written for them, all felt definitely that the moment was at hand. New luggage was bought by Finch.
He had paid much more for it than he thought was necessary, but Arthur Leigh had been with him when he bought it and had insisted on the best. Finch was afraid of what Renny might say about such expenditure, but he had said nothing. Since the day Finch had announced his intention of going no more to the University, Renny, after his first outburst, had been cold towards him. Piers, on the other hand, had been warmer than ever before. But neither one would give him any advice about his money. If he approached Renny with—“I say, George Fennel thinks I ought to invest something in New York stocks and not be satisfied with such a low rate of interest,” Renny would shrug and say—“It’s none of my business. Do as you like with it.” And he would turn away.
If he sounded Piers on the same subject, Piers would laugh and say—“You’re going to have the time of your young life, aren’t you?” And, if Finch persisted, he might add—“Well, George ought to know something about it; he’s in the business. I should think it would be rather fun to speculate a bit.”
Finch felt like a half-fledged bird suddenly pushed from the nest. After being constantly supervised in his spending, ordered here and there, sometimes tyrannised over, this sudden thrusting on him of responsibility bewildered him, skimmed the cream of his pleasure in his inheritance.
It was as though they had formed a conspiracy against him. His uncles never referred to the money in his presence.
It was as though they said—“By hook or crook he got what we should have had. Now let us see what he will do with it.”
He had been almost frightened when the bank book had been put into his hand, when he had interviewed the bank manager and been shown the list of Gran’s solid and conservative investments. But George had scoffed at them. George had said that, aided by one versed in the fluctuations of the market, Finch might with “speculation” double his fortune.
His head was in a whirl. It felt hot most of the time. He found that he could not quiet his nerves by playing the piano. The virtue seemed to have gone out of it. His spirit, like a captive bird that had been wont to sing in captivity, now found itself baffled in its freedom, beating itself against the walls of change.
Alayne realised something of his bewilderment, his loneliness. They had several long talks. She felt anxiety at the thought of his giving up old Adeline’s safe investments for more spectacular ones, on the advice of George Fennel. Yet, like Finch, her imagination was captured by the thought that he might greatly increase his capital by careful speculation. George had offered some tempting suggestions, and she had heard from American friends who had made large sums of late. She wrote to the head of the New York publishing house for which she had been a reader, and asked his advice. His reply was an effort to stress cautiousness, but he could not conceal jubilation over the result of his own recent investments. In the same week came a letter from Miss Trent, with whom she had shared an apartment in New York, telling joyously of her own good luck. Renny and Piers, the two uncles, Maurice Vaughan, were children, she thought, in matters of business. To be sure, the first two exhibited a certain shrewdness in their own province, but she had seen and heard so much of mismanagement at Jalna. There was no use in consulting them. And added to their incompetence was their disinclination even to speak of Finch’s inheritance. If in some unexpected way the subject of the grandmother’s money came up, a feeling of tension was at once apparent. They shied at the mention of it, as skittish horses will shy at their own gatepost.
Alayne took her own small capital, left her by her father, out of the Government stocks where it had been invested, and bought Universal Autos with it.
When the stock began to rise steadily she could not resist telling Finch what she had done, and, after that, it was impossible for her to restrain him. But she made him tell Renny of the project. “Invest it as you like,” Renny said curtly. “I don’t know anything about stocks. I’ve never had anything to invest.” Finch knew that it was not jealousy that made him curt, but anger that he should have, at the instant of attaining his majority, refused to return to the University. This prompt refusal had symbolised to Renny the rejection by Finch of all further authority, of supervision by him as the head of the clan.
How bitter Meg Vaughan would be, Alayne thought, if Finch were to lose even a small amount of money by following her example. Meg had always regarded her as an interloper, and to have some tangible injury to lay at her door would give her real satisfaction. Finch must go, therefore, and talk the matter over with the Vaughans. He was not loth to do this, even though he was afraid they would discourage the investment. He was in a condition of sensitiveness which made him desirous of discussing his affairs with anyone who was willing to do so. Himself and the hundred thousand dollars that were his seemed to him of vast importance, looming above all other subjects. Within an hour after it was decided that he should go to Vaughanlands he was on his way.
There was no doubt about the arrival of spring, but as yet no manifestation of it was visible in the landscape beyond an indefinite swelling of tiny leaf-buds which gave the trees the appearance of being seen behind a veil. Or, like love unrecognised, it had come, causing the heart to turn, but as yet making little difference in the outward life.
It was midday, and the cup-like formation in which the house stood had caught and held the sun. The windows were open to it, and certain pillows, curtains, and draperies piled on the sills gave evidence that spring-cleaning was in progress.
He found his sister covering a cushion with new cretonne in a design of tulips and delphiniums. Her white hands moved softly above it like two plump pigeons in a gay bit of garden. She wore a pink-and-white chintz cap in Quakerish shape, which, she fancied, gave her the appearance of being hard at work. Vaughan, who made no pretence of working, lay stretched on a sofa reading a book on fox-breeding. Since Lebraux had died, and there was a good chance that Mrs. Lebraux would give it up, he had entertained thoughts of buying her stock himself.
“Well, Finch dear,” exclaimed Meg, “so you thought you would come to see me! It’s about time. When I think how little I see of my brothers it makes me quite sad.” She held up her smooth face expectantly.
As Finch bent to kiss her his unruly forelock fell across her eyes. He kissed her repeatedly, smelling the warm sweetness of her flesh and the peculiar stinging odour of the new cretonne.
“How untidy you look!” she said, surveying him.
“I always do, don’t I? Hello, Maurice! You seem pressed for time.”
Vaughan answered good-naturedly—“I’m digging into the question of fox-breeding a bit. I hear that Mrs. Lebraux is going to sell her stock.”
“I haven’t heard that. I think she really has nothing else to do for a living. Between the rent and the doctor’s bills I guess she’s had a pretty hard time.”
“I feel frightfully sorry for her,” said Meg. “She’s a thoroughly nice woman. So sensible, and not spoiled a bit by having married a Frenchman. And settling down here with her child as though she’d always been—” She bit her thread with a certain sharp tooth she used for this purpose. She had been quick to perceive that neither Pheasant nor Alayne liked Mrs. Lebraux, and her own feeling toward her had warmed accordingly
Her husband and her brother watched her with wonder and approval. Meggie was perfect, mysterious, richly feminine, kind.
“That’s a funny little girl of Mrs. Lebraux’s,” remarked Finch. “All legs and hair.”
“But how she can dance!” Meg’s mood held warmth for daughter as for mother. “You and she were like two fairies dancing together!”
“Thanks so much, Meggie. It’s pleasant to hear that I look like a fairy.”
“Well, you do, dancing.” She plumped the cushion with soft thumps, held it up for admiration, then sank back to rest. “Now tell me just what is going on at home? Getting ready for the trip, I suppose. To think that I have never been across to the Old Country, and now you—at your age! Able to travel as luxuriously as you like. And Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest at their age! And all their expenses paid. And here are Maurice and I with the mortgage falling due!”
“Oh, well,” growled Vaughan, “it can be renewed.”
It was not an auspicious moment, Finch thought, for asking advice about his own investments. He pulled at his lip doubtfully, then made up his mind not to broach the subject.
After a silence Meg said wistfully:
“I suppose you would not care to take over the mortgage yourself?”
Finch stared, startled. “Me? I’ve never thought about it.”
“Of course not.” She looked into his eyes, smiling at his boyishness. “But mortgages are a good investment, aren’t they, Maurice?”
“I wish I owned a few,” answered Maurice.
“What interest do you pay?” asked Finch.
“Seven per cent.”
“Great Scott! I get only four per cent on some of mine!”
“How much happier I should feel,” cried Meg, “if you held the mortgage in place of the old wretch who does!”
“There would be no need for sentiment to enter into it, on Finch’s side,” put in Vaughan quickly. “This is a valuable property. And bound to be more valuable. Look at the old Paige place that the Golf Club bought. They gave a fancy price for that. One of these days we shall be able to subdivide this and sell it in town lots.”
“Good heavens, you wouldn’t do that! Renny would never speak to you again.”
“Well, I might never do it. But Patience might when she grows up.”
Finch asked, nervously—“What is the mortgage?”
“Fifteen thousand. At seven per cent—one thousand and fifty a year—paid half-yearly.”
Meg sighed—“And the old wretch is so detestable always!”
“Why?” asked Finch.
“Oh—1 don’t know—”
Maurice interrupted her. “Meggie’s too critical. He has rough manners; that’s all that’s really wrong. He’s not such a bad old fellow.” Maurice dropped the book from the hand which had been crippled in the war and it fell to the floor. Meg frowned as he bent to pick it up.
Finch felt a glow of affection toward them as a couple, quite apart from his brotherly love for Meg. “I’ll do it,” he exclaimed. “I’ll take the mortgage over. But, look here, I’ll not accept seven per cent. It’s exorbitant. I’ll not take more than five.”
“You darling!” cried Meg. She made as if to rise and go to him, but, even in a moment of emotion such as this, the effort was too great. Instead she said again—“You darling!” And held out her arms to him.
Finch crossed to her rather shamefacedly. He did not want to be thanked. But it was wonderful, this doing things tor people and benefiting himself at the same time.
Again Meg embraced him, pressed her plump lips on his. “I don’t believe we’ll tell the others a thing about it,” she said. “I do like privacy about my own affairs, don’t you?”
“Rather,” said Finch.
They made all the arrangements, and, when they were complete, Finch sought advice on the subject of the New York stock. Meg and Maurice threw themselves into the discussion of it with enthusiasm. He would be a fool, they said, not to take advantage of such an opportunity. Why should Americans have all the money in the world? And if they had got it, why should they be allowed to keep it? Finch could not do better than to bring some of it here where it was so badly needed. He might become a rich man. And there was surely little danger when heads of publishing houses, who were right on the spot, considered it a good thing.
“If Alayne,” said Meg, “is going into it, you’re safe. I never knew a more calculating person. To me she’s the very embodiment of shrewdness.”
“She wasn’t very shrewd when she married Eden,” observed Maurice.
“Maurice, how can you say such a thing! If ever she showed shrewdness it was then! Who was she? Nobody! He took her out of an office and brought her to Jalna—to a life of ease. He made a Whiteoak of her!”
“He nearly broke her heart,” said Finch.
“Hearts like hers aren’t so easily broken! They’re too calculating. For my part, I think she had her eye on Renny from the first. Poor lamb, he hadn’t a chance against her!”
The two men sighed simultaneously in the effort of picturing the red fox, Renny, as a helpless lamb.
Patience, now within a few months of three, came running into the room. She was vivacious as Mooey was grave. Her light brown hair lay sleek on her head, her frock was bright blue.
“Baby, darling,” said Meg, as Finch picked up the child, “you must put your arms right round Uncle Finch’s neck and give him a perfectly ‘normous hug! He’s just done something so nice for Mummy.”
Patience pressed Finch’s head against her stomach. “Oh, my Finchy!” she cooed.
“Who’s got a pretty new dress?” asked Finch, to cover his embarrassment.
Talking to Piers that afternoon, Finch could not forbear dropping a hint about the taking over of the mortgage on Vaughanlands. Piers was curious, and, after binding him to secrecy, Finch told all. Piers thought it a very good thing for both parties. “But mind you make them toe the mark with the payments,” he advised. “Maurice is more than a little slack in money matters. He owed me for two years for a Jersey bull he bought, and I only got the money lately by keeping right after him.”
Finch felt a little depressed at the prospect of keeping right after Maurice. The responsibility of wealth was beginning to weigh on him. He said:
“You’ve never told me what you would like in the way of a present. It would please me awfully to give you something. I hate not dividing things up a bit.”
“Oh, I’ll think it over,” and Piers turned away.
Finch strode after him. “You’re not going to get out of it like this. Just tell me something you’d really like.”
“I’ve got everything I need.”
“But there must be something.” He went on complainmgly—“I don’t know what’s the matter with you chaps! You’d think the money was tainted or something—you’re so shy of it!”
Piers stopped, and turned to Finch. “Well, if you want to make me a present that won’t break you, buy me a new motor car. The old one is literally falling to pieces, and, as long as the engine has a kick in it, Renny won’t buy a new one.”
“Good!” cried Finch. “I’m awfully glad you thought of that. And Pheasant will enjoy it too. Shall we go in tomorrow and choose one?”
Piers made short work of choosing a car. He knew exactly what he wanted, down to the smallest detail. How amazing, Finch thought, to know all that when you had had no earthly prospect of getting a new car.
They had taken the train to town and come home in the car. It would be hard to say which of them enjoyed the drive most—Finch, sitting with folded arms, feeling, he could not have told why, rather like a self-made man, rich enough at last to indulge in the pleasure of philanthropy; or Piers, with a small, set grin on his face, entranced by speed.
They talked little on the way, but, by the time they reached Jalna, Finch had promised to reshingle the barn for Piers, and to build him an up-to-date piggery. It was understood that Piers was to repay the cost of this when he was able.
Everyone came out of the house to admire the new car. Pheasant and Mooey danced round it. He must be lifted into it and must sit with his little hands on the wheel. Pheasant put her arm about Alayne. “You must share it too. The old car is a disgrace” Nicholas and Ernest were delighted at the thought of driving in such style to the train on their departure. There was nothing cheap about the car. It was a beauty, they agreed. But Wakefield was dubious.
“I don’t believe,” he said, “that my grandmother would approve. She never liked the old car. She thought buying it was a great waste of money.”
Piers answered—“She’s not here to worry over changes, and, as for you, you shan’t ride in it, just for being cheeky.”
“Still, I don’t think Gran would like her money to be spent on motor cars.”
“Would you like your seat warmed?”
“No.” He edged away.
“Well, shut up, then!”
As they reached the garage they saw Renny standing in the door of the stable. When he saw the new car he turned sharply away and disappeared.
At dinner, in the face of his forbidding expression, no one referred to the purchase. Only Wakefield, in every pause, made some pensive remark relating to the likes and dislikes of his grandmother.
The day of leaving drew inexorably near. Then it dallied in a spell of heavy rainfall, seeming unreal and far off. Then it rushed upon them, giving them scarcely time for their last preparations.
Nicholas and Ernest had taken tea with each of their old friends in turn. Ernest’s cheeks were flushed by excitement. Years seemed to fall from him with every day. The death of Sasha, which in moments of quiet saddened him deeply, made him feel in the moment of departure singularly free from responsibility. Nicholas, on the contrary, was intensely irritable. Gout danced about his knee, always threatening him, always making him feel that, at the last moment, he might have to postpone the trip. He found it hard to tear himself from the four walls of his room where he could do just as he liked and need pretend to be in no better humour than he was. And, though he would not acknowledge it, he was worried by the pleading look in Nip’s eyes. Toward the last Finch could do little but play the piano. From morning to night he played. And, when the family would no longer endure it, he went to the Vaughans’or the Rectory and played there.
He was up before the sun on the last day. A gale from the west had blown all night, making him wakeful. He rose and leaned out of the window, letting the coolness of the wind refresh him. Daybreak, like a silver sail, was raised in the east, behind the darkness of the wood. To him it seemed the swelling sail of his adventure into a different world.
But he wished his old world had been less lovely on this last morning. He wished that the birdsong that seemed to be shaken from the boughs by the wind had been less heart-rendingly sweet; that the silver sail of daybreak had not turned to gold, and then to rose, before his eyes. He would have liked to take away with him a homely, comforting remembrance of the place, not the etherealised aching beauty of this May morning. The green of the new leaves was too translucently green, the shadows in the ravine slept in too rich a bloom, the mating birds called from tree to tree with too tranced a longing.
He dressed, in a kind of dream, and went out, taking old Benny, the sheepdog, with him. One by one he visited his old haunts. The rustic bridge across the stream, the apple tree in the old orchard, in whose crotch he had spent many hours reading. He went to the inmost part of the wood and lay down on the ground beneath the white-stemmed birches, pressing his face there, drinking in the smell of the soil. He crushed the young grass in his fingers and smelled it. He cut his initials and the date on a smooth white bole. He wondered what he would experience before he saw this place again. The old dog trotted seriously about, investigating, sniffing for a while, then settled down in a sunny space to doze.
The three who were going away took dinner at the Vaughans. Meggie could not bear to part with them till tea time. When they returned to Jalna the new car was before the door, the hand-luggage already placed in it. Everything was in a rush now. They were annoyed with themselves and Meggie for detaining them so late. Pheasant had on her tweed suit and little brown hat. Mooey, though he was not going, was dressed in his best. Between slices of bread and honey Piers looked at his watch. Alayne was tying up a package of books she had bought for them to read on the voyage. Meg had packed a hamper with plum cake, currant jelly, the last of the russet apples, “because Finch loved them so,” and a jar of cough mixture made of rum and honey, which she thought infallible. From first to last the protection of this hamper fell to Finch and was a constant source of worry to him until, on shipboard, he scraped out and ate the last spoonful of the cough mixture, just to get rid of it. How could he throw away anything Meg had given him!
Renny had not come in to tea. Finch asked, rather anxiously, where he was. Ernest explained—“He said goodbye to Nicholas and me before we went to Meggie’s. He said he might not be in to tea.”
“But he did not tell me goodbye,” stammered Finch. “Surely he would not let me go away without seeing me?”
“Surely not!” Ernest looked much concerned. “But there is no time for hunting him up. We must leave as soon as we have had our tea.”
“I don’t want any tea!” He set down his cup and rushed out of the house. He had a sense of panic.
Running towards the stables, he saw Wright in the act of backing the old car into the garage. He hesitated, and Wright called out:
“If you’re looking for Mr. Whiteoak, sir, he’s over at Mrs. Lebraux’s.”
Finch halted. “Wright, what’s the best time you can make to drive me there and back?”
“I can get you there in five minutes, sir.”
Finch clambered into the car. He must see Renny! The others would just have to wait for him if he were late. There was plenty of time for catching the train... Wright was showing what the old car could do. “You wouldn’t think she had it in her, would you, sir?” he grinned. A box that had been bumping about on the back seat fell to the floor. The door of the car jarred open and the box rolled into the road.
“Let it go!” cried Finch.
Wright drove on. “That was a mixture I’d just got from the vet,” he said ruefully.
The place Antoine Lebraux had rented for his venture into fox-breeding comprised about twenty acres, a wooden house painted a dingy white, a small stable, a poultry-house, and the fragile outbuildings Lebraux had added. Finch had known it as the house of a retired tradesman who had built it ten years before, had spent his days in keeping the premises in unnatural order, and had been swift to complain of any intrusion on the part of the boys or dogs from Jalna. Several times Renny had had to pay him for fowls, the deaths of which were laid at their door.
Finch had always hated the ugly neatness of the place, hated the rows of white painted stones that lay on either side of the walk. As he ran between them to the door his swift glance took in the air of neglect that had replaced the smug tidiness.
He pressed the electric bell twice without answer. Then he saw, stuck above it askew, a card with the words “Out of order.” He knocked loudly. The minutes flew while he waited for some response, then a step sounded in the passage and a bolt was drawn. Good Lord, was Renny locked in there? The door opened and Pauline Lebraux stood on the threshold. She looked half frightened at seeing him. She wore a black serge dress of scanty cut, and this, with her long black legs and dense dark hair standing out about her face, made her look strangely fragile and pathetic. On her arm she carried, like an infant, a sickly fox cub wrapped in flannel. Its bright eyes peered out at Finch with an expression abnormally intelligent. Her appearance was so singular to Finch that he forgot for a moment what his errand was.
“I’m going away,” he said.
He thought a shadow darkened her face, but she only smiled a little and said—“Won’t you come in?”
“Thanks, but I mustn’t. I’m in a rush to catch the train. I came to see if Renny is here.”
“Yes. He’s with Mother. Helping her with the foxes. Are you going far?”
“To England.”
“For a long time?”
“All the summer. Perhaps longer.”
He thought it cruel of her mother to have put her into mourning. He heard himself saying—“I hardly knew you in that dress. You had on white the night you were at our place.”
“This is one of my school-dresses. I went to a convent in Quebec.”
He thought she looked exquisitely remote, half wild, with the fox cub in her arms. He had a sudden desire to touch her, somehow to bring her near him.
He said, almost in a whisper—“Will you kiss me goodbye?” She was only a child, but he reddened in an odd excitement of the nerves.
She shook her head. “No. But you may kiss my hand.”
She was being affected, he thought, then remembered her French upbringing. He took the hand she offered, thin and white, with the immature wrist showing below the black sleeve, and raised it to his lips.
They repeated “Goodbye,” shyly. He hastened to the back of the house and looked about, in the hope of seeing Renny.
He saw the foxes in their enclosures, their fur darkly bright in the lowering sunrays. He heard voices in the little stable. How could he go there and call Renny’s name, as though he were a child? He had a feeling of hot anger against Renny. He had a mind to return to Jalna without seeing him. But he had been seen from within. Renny appeared in the doorway, then came slowly toward him.
“Looking for me?” he asked.
“Did you suppose I’d go away without saying goodbye?” blazed Finch.
“How was I to know what you’d do? You do what you like.”
Finch was aghast. Was this the way they were going to part? If it was, it would spoil his trip. If he missed his train, if he missed the boat, he would stay here till he’d wrung something better than this taciturn coldness from Renny.
“What have I done? Why are you treating me like this?”
“Watch out! Mrs. Lebraux is in there, she’ll hear you.”
“I’m missing my train, do you know that? Yet you won’t say a friendly word to me! God, we might never meet again!”
“I hate saying goodbye.”
“But you said goodbye to Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernie. Why not me?”
“That’s just it. I didn’t so much mind saying goodbye to them.”
Finch’s eyes searched the lean red face before him. If that were the truth—and Renny was not a liar—and he was frightfully queer about some things.—Oh, perhaps it was not so bad after all—perhaps Renny didn’t hate him—why, Renny had always kissed him when they parted, like a father! He looked into Renny’s eyes, his face suddenly contorted in an effort to keep from crying. He put out his hand.
Renny took it and drew Finch toward him. He bent and kissed him in the old way. Finch sniffed the familiar smell of stable on him. A load rolled from his heart.
Mrs. Lebraux came out of the stable. She was bareheaded and wore a man’s linen dust-coat. She was rather attractive out of doors, Finch thought, with her short hair in its strange stripes of tow colour and brown, blown back from her face, her blue-eyed boyish stare and her reckless-looking mouth. She showed him her hands.
“I can’t shake hands with you, you see. I’ve been working with the foxes, and now I’m learning how to look after horses.”
Finch murmured a few hurried words of greeting and farewell, threw a warm glance to Renny, and hastened back to the car. But he was still within earshot when she said in her deep, rather musical voice, with its Maritime Province accent:
“It was amusing to see you kiss that tall youth. I hadn’t imagined—”
That was all he heard. But what hadn’t she imagined, he wondered. And what had been Renny’s reply? He would give a good deal to know. And why had Renny gone to the fox farm that afternoon? Had he spoken the truth when he said that he had been loath to say goodbye? Or had he just been nursing his resentment against Finch? Still, this was not the first time he had taken himself off at a critical moment. Finch drew a deep sigh as they bumped along the road.
At Jalna he found the others in varying degrees of perturbation at his delay. Ernest was almost in despair, not able to keep still for a moment. Nicholas, solidly settled in the car, was uttering wrathful ejaculations. Pheasant was distraught. Piers said that it was almost more than he could do to keep his hands off him. Wakefield had brought out a pair of binoculars the better to watch for him, though the road was quite hidden from the drive by trees. It was one of the moments when Alayne felt that the Whiteoaks were almost beyond bearing. With a controlled expression she stood holding Mooey in her arms. Mooey was dubiously sucking his thumb, only taking it from his mouth at intervals to say—“I’m not f’ightened.”
They caught the train, and that was all. The porter had barely disposed of their luggage, Piers had barely shaken hands all round, Pheasant kissed all round and exclaimed, “Oh, how I wish I were going too!” when she and Piers had to get off. They stood on the platform together as the train drew out, their young faces upturned, she blowing a kiss to the three at the window; he bare-headed, a smile, in which there was a shadow of boyish envy of the adventurers, softening his face.