Jalna (1927)/Chapter 21
Six weeks had passed and Eden was still unable to leave his room. As well as a broken leg, he had got a badly wrenched back. However, after the first suffering was over, he had not had such a bad time. It was almost with regret that he heard the hearty red-faced doctor say that morning that he would soon be as fit as ever. It had been rather jolly lying there, being taken care of, listening to the complaints of others about the severity of the weather, the depth of the snowdrifts, and the impossibility of getting anywhere with the car. The inactivity of body had seemed to generate a corresponding activity of mind. Never had he composed with less effort. Poetry flowed through him in an exuberant crystal stream. Alayne had sat by his couch and written the first poems out for him in her beautifully legible hand, but now he was able to sit up with a pad on his knee and scrawl them in his own way—decorating the margins with fanciful sketches in illustration.
Alayne had been a dear through it all. She had nursed him herself, fetching and carrying from the basement kitchen to their room without complaint, though he knew he had been hard to wait on in those first weeks. She looked abominably tired. Those brick basement stairs were no joke. Her face seemed to have grown broader, flatter, with a kind of Teutonic patience in it that made him remember her mother had been of Dutch extraction, several generations ago; it was there—the look of solidity and patience. A benevolent, tolerant face it might become in later life, but plainer, certainly. She must have been disappointed, too, at his inability to take the position got for him by Mr. Evans at the New Year. Though she had not said much about it, he knew that she was eager to leave Jalna and have a house of their own. He had refused to let her put her money into the buying of one, but he had agreed that, he paying the rent from his salary, she might buy the furniture. She had talked a good deal about just how she would furnish it. When his leg was paining and he could not sleep, it was one of her favorite ways of soothing him, to stroke his head and furnish each of the rooms in turn. She had chosen the furniture for his workroom with great care, and also that for his bedroom and hers. He had been slightly aggrieved that she spoke of separate rooms, though upon reflection he had decided that it would be rather pleasant to be able to scatter his belongings all over his room without the feeling that he was seriously disturbing her. She was too serious: that was a fact. She had a way of making him feel like a naughty boy. That had been charming at first, but often now it irritated him.
There was something strange about her of late. Remote, inward-gazing. He hoped and prayed she wasn't going to be mopey. A mopey wife would be disastrous to him, weigh on his spirits most dreadfully. She had slept on the couch in their room during the first weeks after the accident, when he had needed a good deal of waiting on at night. Later, she had taken all her things and moved to a big low-ceiled room in the attic. She spent hours of her time there now. Of course, all he had to do was to ring the little silver bell at his side, and she came flying down the stairs to him, but he could not help wondering what she did up there all alone. Not that he wanted her with him continually, but he could not forgive her for seeking solitude. He was really very happy. He was well except for a not unpleasant feeling of lassitude. He had also a feeling of exquisite irresponsibility and irrelevance. This interval in his life he accepted as a gift from the gods. It was a time of inner development, of freedom of spirit, of ease from the shackles of life.
He had scarcely felt the chafing of those shackles yet, and he did not want to feel them. He should have been a lone unicorn, stamping in inconsequent gaiety over sultry Southern plains, leaving bonds to tamer spirits.
He was just thinking this, and smiling at the thought when Pheasant came into the room. She was carrying a plate of little red apples, and she wore the vivid smock bought for her by Alayne.
"Meggie sent you those," she said, setting the plate beside him. "As a matter of fact, I think you eat too much. You're not as slim as you were."
"Well, it's a wonder I'm not thin," he returned with some heat. "God knows I've suffered!" He bit into an apple, and continued: "You've never had any real sympathy for me, Pheasant."
She looked at him, astonished.
"Why, I thought I'd been lovely to you! I've sat with you, and listened to your old poetry, and told you what a wonder you are. What more do you want?"
He reclined, drumming his fingers on the afghan that lay over him, a faint smile shadowing, rather than lighting, his face.
She examined his features and then said darkly: "You're too clever, that's what's the matter with you."
"My dear little Pheasant, don't call me by such a horrid word. I'm not clever. I'm only natural. You're natural. That is why we get on so famously."
"We don't get on," she returned, indignantly. "Uncle Ernest was saying only the other day what a pity it is you and I quarrel so much."
"He's an old ninny."
"You ought to be ashamed to say that. He has done everything in his power to make up to you for hurting you. He has read to you by the hour. I don't think he'll ever get over the shock of seeing you hurtle downstairs with his pillow on top of you."
"I agree with you. It was the most exhilarating thing that has happened to him for years. He looks ten years younger. To have knocked an athletic young fellow downstairs and broken his leg! Just when he began to feel the feebleness of old age creeping on! Why, he's like a young cockerel that's saluted the dawn with its first crow."
"I think you're sardonic."
"And I think you're delicious. I especially admire your wisdom, and that little tuft of hair that stands up on your crown. But I do wish you'd put it down. It excites me."
She passed her hand over it.
"Do you know," he said, "that you pass your hand over your head exactly as I do. We have several identical gestures. I believe our gesture toward life is the same."
"I think your greatest gift," she said, stiffly, "is flattery. You know just how to make a woman pleased with herself."
She was such a ridiculous little child, playing at being grown up, that he could scarcely keep from laughing at her. Neither could he keep the tormenting image of her from his mind when she was away from him. He lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes.
Outside, the snow-covered lawns and fields, unmarked by the track of a human being, stretched in burnished, rosy whiteness toward the sunset. The pines and hemlocks, clothed in the sombre grandeur of their winter foliage, threw shadows of an intense, translucent blueness. And in the hard bright intensity of that northern ether, every smallest twig was bitten against its background as though with acid. An atmosphere hateful to those who see it in alien loneliness, but of the essence and goodness of life to the native born.
When Eden opened his eyes and turned toward her, she was looking out on this scene. He thought there was a frightened look in her eyes. A faint sound of music came from Uncle Nick's room. He was playing his piano as he often did at this hour.
"Pheasant."
"Yes?"
"You look odd. Rather frightened."
"I'm not a bit frightened."
"Not of me, of course. But of yourself?"
"Yes, I am rather frightened of myself, and I don't even know why. I believe it's that wild-looking sky. In a minute it will be dark and so cold. You'll need a fire here."
"I am on fire, Pheasant."
He found her hand and held it. He asked: "Do you think Alayne loves me any more?"
"No, I don't think she does. And you don't deserve it—her love, I mean."
"I don't believe I ever had it. It was my poetry she loved, not me. Do you think she loves—Renny?"
She stared at him, startled. "I'd never thought of that. Perhaps she does."
"A nice mix-up."
"Well, I should not blame Alayne. Here she is pitch-forked into this weird family, with a husband who is absolutely devoted to himself, and a most remarkable-looking and affectionate brother-in-law."
"'Remarkable-looking and affectionate'! Heavens, what a description!"
"I think it's a very good description."
"Well, I suppose Renny is remarkable—but 'affectionate'! That scarcely describes making love to another man's wife. I don't believe Alayne would fall for him unless he did make love to her. But 'affectionate'—I can't get over that."
"How would you describe your holding my hand? That's affectionate, isn't it?"
He took her other hand and laid both hands on his breast. "I shan't mind about anything," he said, "if you will only care for me." He drew her closer, his face stained by the afterglow that transformed the matter-of-fact room into a strange and passionate retreat.
Pheasant began to cry.
"Don't," she implored. "Don't do that! It's what I've been afraid of."
"You care for me," he whispered. "Oh, my darling little Pheasant! Say that you do—just once. Kiss me, then—you know you want to. It's what you've been dreading, but—desiring, too, my dearest. There's nothing to be afraid of in life; nothing to be ashamed of. Just be your precious self."
She flung herself against him, sobbing.
She did not know whether or not she loved him, but she knew that that room had a sultry fascination for her, that the couch where Eden lay was the centre of all her waking thoughts, that his eyes, blazing in the afterglow, compelled her to do as he willed. She hated Piers for being absorbed in his cattle, seeing nothing of her temptation, not saving her from herself, as he should have done. He knew that she was not like other young girls of his class. She had bad, loose blood. He should have watched her, been hard with her, as Maurice had been. His idea was to make a "pal" of his wife. But she was not that sort of wife. He should have known, oh, he should have known, saved her from herself—from Eden!
As she wept against Eden's shoulder, her tears became no longer the warm tears of surrender, but the tears of black anger against Piers, who had not saved her.