The Wide House Page 15

  Yes, Stuart had done himself well. She glowed at the thought of him, and smiled slyly. A braw laddie, and one of her own kidney. They would do well together. Her wizened heart stirred with something quite like warm affection and pleasure.

  Suddenly, she thought of poor wild Robin with his strange and moving voice, his lighted face and quick wild gestures. Her mouth curled with cruel contempt, her eyes narrowed, and glinted. The feckless fool! The damned, ridiculous lark! She laughed shortly, and it was an ugly sound. She had gotten nothing from Robin but four inconvenient and unwanted children. In her youth, she reflected, a girl visualized a man in her bed. When she was older, she visualized money in the bank. But that was when she had acquired wisdom.

  The door of the wardrobe was half open. Janie contemplated the endless neat rows of her frocks, her gleaming velvets, her purple pelisses, her sable and ermine capes, her silken cloaks. On the shelf above were the boxes that contained her wondrous bonnets, each more ravishing than the last, and her muffs. Why, in this raw frontier town, she would soon be the full gay leader. She would teach these boors and barbarians the amenities of polite and elegant society, the civil niceties of good breeding. She saw herself languishing on Stuart’s arm, as they entered a shadowy drawing-room, all the drab ladies envying her magnificent toilette, all the gentlemen bewitched.

  So absorbed was she in deciding the gown she must wear upon her first appearance in Grandeville society, that she did not hear Stuart’s knock. It was not until she heard his hearty voice in greeting that she looked up, with a start.

  Stuart stood in the doorway, a wide grin on his face. He was very uneasy, and covered it with affected gaiety. He came to her across the sunlit floor, and bent and kissed her cheek, affectionately. “Well, well! How pleasant to see you up and hearty again, my love!” he exclaimed.

  He glanced about the shining room complacently, his gaze sharpening to discover if anything had been marred during Janie’s illness, and if the maids had left a speck of dust on any darkly gleaming surface. Ah, was that the mark of a glass on the bedside cabinet? He went over to it, bent and scrutinized the mark, put his head first this way then that, frowned, rubbed the mark tentatively with his finger. His brow cleared. It was only the grain of the wood. Relieved, he straightened up, smiled at the little rosy fire, and returned to Janie with more sincere heartiness than before.

  She had watched him with her slanted eyes, a nasty little smile on her mouth. Nevertheless, she melted when she saw his beaming ruddiness and handsomeness. He put his hand on the back of her chair, and his grin became somewhat absent and thoughtful.

  He had something on his mind. He must use a measure of duplicity. Sometimes he thought himself a very clever fellow indeed, shrewd and knowing, and he anxiously wished everyone to believe that of him. However, deep in his heart he loathed knowing and clever people, and was afraid of them. But he envied their serenity and peace of mind. Peace of mind, he had decided ruefully, was given only to idiots and the wicked, those too benighted to have a conscience, and those who had been conveniently born without one.

  Janie’s gaze was very sharp, and he felt uncomfortable under its tentative reflection. He patted her cheek, sat near her. He took her thin freckled hand. “You are feeling quite well now, eh, my pet?”

  “Perfectly,” she replied, in her loud hoarse voice. She coquetted at him. “How good and thoughtful you’ve been to me, darling Stuart. I’m fair humbled.”

  “Well, now,” he said, expansively, leaning back in his chair and crossing his long fine legs, “it was nothing at all. I wanted you to be comfortable, in your illness. The children have been well cared for. I’ve seen to that. And so we can think of other things now, can’t we?”

  And then he was silent, studying her closely. Could he pass her off as an exalted relative? Certainly, her toilettes and her jewels and her scents, (and her money) were impressive enough. If he could just persuade her to watch her blasphemous tongue, and not to laugh so loud and so coarsely! He cleared his throat, and smiled uncomfortably.

  “The Mayor’s wife, Mrs. Cummings, sends you her deepest regards, Janie. She wishes to know when you will be well enough to attend a party given in your honor. Cummings and I are good friends, you know.”

  Janie, pleased, bridled. She was agreeably surprised, also. “The Mayor, Stuart? How very gratifying! Please inform his lady that I shall be well enough to accept her gracious invitation next week, at any time.” She paused. “Is she a very handsome lady, Stuart? And young? And elegant?”

  Stuart thought of Alicia Cummings, short, stout, gray, with round pink cheeks, twinkling blue eyes, the sweetest smile, and no style at all. “She is a lady,” he said, emphatically, and with warmth, as if defending her from the Janies. “Everyone loves her. No, she is not young. But she is very good. Charitable works, without tiresome piety. It is a pleasure to be in her company, for she is always civil and kind, and genuinely concerned. And very witty and learned.”

  “No doubt it is easy to be kind to personable young men, and very concerned,” suggested Janie, slyly, licking her lips. All at once, she made Mrs. Cummings appear to be a lascivious old beldame, full of obscene and crafty desires for young men, and possessed of all foulness. Stuart felt suddenly sick and enraged. He turned his inner eye away from Mrs. Cummings, as though she had been offended by his very look.

  But he controlled himself. He only turned a little livid about his full and irritable mouth. He said, in a voice somewhat muffled: “Mrs. Cummings is very kind to everyone. She is the confidante of every young girl in her circle, and the friend of anyone who needs friendship in affliction. I have heard no word against her.”

  He wanted to get up and leave the room. He could not endure Janie’s silently laughing face, the flash of her sharp predatory teeth between her painted lips. All at once she appeared hideous and hateful to him, and loathsome.

  She said, in a horribly soft tone: “I am sure that Mrs. Cummings is a delightful lady, and I shall be overwhelmed to accept her invitation. Please extend my regards to her, and thank her for her kindness.”

  “I shall, ma’am,” said Stuart, in an unnatural voice.

  “How would you like to drive with me to the shops, my love?” he asked. “It is a fine day, and the air will do you good. Wear furs, though. We have very cold weather here until well into May. The warm sun is deceptive.”

  “I should like a drive, indeed,” assented Janie, with genuine pleasure. “How thoughtful of you, dear Stuart.”

  He rose, coloring uneasily. He said: “I’ve been in to see Bertie and Robbie. Bertie is very restless, but Robbie still reads his damned book of murders. The rascal is actually making notes! He draws diagrams. A changeling, that’s what he is.”

  “A shrewd lad,” commented Janie. “We’ll make a braw lawyer out of that one.”

  Stuart hesitated. He looked at her with simple earnestness. “I’ve been talking to Angus, too. Nearly fourteen, he says. A big lad. Do you know what he told me the other night? He said that his Grand-da had promised to let him be a doctor. He was to have gone to Edinburgh, to study with Dr. Macintosh, the surgeon. I’ve almost promised to see to it that he shall study with a fine doctor in America.”

  Janie’s face narrowed with dark evil. “A doctor?” she said.

  “He has it in him, Janie. He’s the heart of a doctor. Self-sacrificing and devoted. I know it. I always recognize true goodness. There’s some’ at of the martyr about him.”

  “Pious!” exclaimed Janie, as if that were the most degraded epithet in her vocabulary, and the most shameful. “It’s to the kirk he’ll be going every day, if you don’t watch him, and not minding his lessons.”

  “He could do worse!” cried Stuart, forgetting his purpose in coming to this room. “I’ll be taking him to Father Houlihan for consolation and advice!”

  Janie sat bolt upright in her chair, and her eyes were malignant in their green flashings. “You’ll not make a snivelling damn Papist of my son!” she exclaimed. “You�
��ll not have him worshipping idols and bowing to Holy Marys like a heathen, and go about burning people!”

  “Oh, God damn it!” shouted Stuart, quite crimson. “You talk like a fool! Grundy wouldn’t harm the lad! He’ll not be converting him! Grundy’s got wit and intelligence, you besom! Have you no kind thought or word for anyone?”

  Janie was not shaken. She was always invigorated and exhilarated in the presence of screaming voices, oaths and violence.

  “You’ll not take him to a priest!” she shrieked. “I shall give him my express command!”

  Stuart’s clenched fist opened and itched. He wanted to slap her viciously in the face. He ached to do it. Involuntarily, the muscles of his arm contracted, and the limb lifted.

  Janie had another idea. She saw Stuart’s involuntary gesture, and she was as excited by it as any wild tigress. “Consolation!” she screamed. “What consolation, you fool? Why does my son need consolation?” She could not resist goading him into a physical outbreak against her.

  “Because he’s got a hellion for a mother!” shouted Stuart, even louder than before. “Because you’ve made his life a curse, harrying him and cuffing him, and frightening the life out of him with your bad nature!”

  Then, all at once, they were both grimly silent. They panted audibly in the quiet sunlit air of the warm room. They stared at each other unblinkingly. Janie was thinking that she had been a fool, that she had antagonized Stuart, when it had been her express determination to “soften all over him,” and predispose him to marriage. And Stuart was thinking that he had quite kicked over his private applecart, and that nothing could now placate Janie. They both hated themselves, and cursed themselves inwardly.

  Stuart was the first to recover. He made himself smile. His face was still crimson, and it was damp. He felt the moisture pricking all along the forehead line of his thick black hair.

  He said, lamely, his voice somewhat hoarse: “There, now, we are fighting and yammering as we did when we were children together, aren’t we, Janie? It makes me homesick for the old days.”

  Janie, enormously relieved, laughed raucously. “‘The old days!’” she repeated. “Ah, it fair makes me want to cry, Stuart.” And because she was so excited, so stimulated, she burst into genuine tears.

  Stuart, though he hated her, was not insensible to the tears of a woman. There was a core of weak softness in him. Besides, his own relief was so profound that he trembled. He went to her at once, and put his arm about her shoulders, and kissed her red curls. “Ah, come, come, my darling! You are breaking my heart. Won’t you forgive me, Janie? I shall be inconsolable if you don’t.”

  Janie could almost always detect duplicity. She saw that Stuart was sincere, and her spirits rose. She cried and clung to him, and protested that she was a bad thing and merited no kindness from him, and that he had been so thoughtful of her, and so kind, and that he must straightway put her out of his house and send her home.

  “No, no,” said Stuart, pitying her, and seeing her as she desired him to see her: a homeless widow with four helpless children, thrown upon a heartless world. “It was I who was wrong. This is my house, and you are my darling guest, and my dear love of a Janie. Forgive me, my pet.”

  They wallowed in their emotionalism. Stuart’s, at least, was sincere. Janie grinned craftily to herself, her face buried against his shoulder.

  Later, they sat close together, their hands entwined. Janie was all ardor and stimulation. Stuart felt vaguely sick and weak. But he was very kind to his cousin. He could now approach her on the subject of her exalted background. He was tactful, in his new duplicity.

  “This is a vulgar new society, my love,” he began. “The people here know nothing of elegant manners, or true aristocracy. You will laugh at their pretensions, as I do. They are raw and ignorant. Also, they have the most extraordinary ideas as to what constitutes a lady of the aristocracy. So, they are excessively genteel. They believe that a true lady or gentleman is very mincing and delicate in speech, and full of sublime hauteur and daintiness, and would swoon at the slightest hearty word. Never having observed at close range any real gentlefolk, they have been compelled to use their imagination. As they are low-bred, they imagine, with malice, how they would treat their inferiors should they have been born to nobility. Some of them are even thinking of pink coats and hounds, but there is an uneasy prejudice in America against British customs, even though the people are of British stock almost entirely. They think longingly, however, of the British ways of life, and envy them and ape them furtively, in their way.”

  “How excessively diverting!” exclaimed Janie, genuinely interested, and full of scornful laughter for these plebeians.

  “It is pathetic, somewhat,” remonstrated Stuart. “These low-born, ill-bred poor creatures have nothing but their affectations and their hidden desires to console them for the barrenness of their money-grubbing lives. To each man his peculiar consolation. We must not forget, too, that these pretenders are powerful in America. They are so powerful all over that they can retain slavery in the Southern States, and gouge the workers in their industrial factories, in the North. They browbeat, quell and oppress, in the true way of all low-bred men. It is very sad, though. Someone ought to teach them true gentleness of manners, and the simple kindness of those who are authentically well-born. Someone ought to convince them that gentlefolk are not concerned with money or money-getting. It would be a revelation to Americans.”

  Janie smiled irresistibly. What a darling simpleton was this Stuart, with his serious face and sad words! But she fell in with his mood.

  “I see,” she said, gravely, her quick mind already ahead of his.

  He sighed with relief. “Well, then, should you, Janie, upon presentation to them, be your simple, natural, well-born self, without affectations and graces, they would immediately condemn you as being no aristocrat. They would look askance at you. Should you speak in your usual robust way, they would be horrified. Should you pretend to no exalted antecedents, and refrain from bragging and exaggerating, they would consider you inferior. You are a lady. But you must fill the frame of their imagination to convince them that you are. You must fall in with their idea of gentlefolk.”

  Janie, the natural actress, was delighted. “I shall simper, blush and cut attitudes, in the most amazing way!” she exclaimed. “I shall be so delicate that I shall swoon at a light word, and have the vapors if a man blows his nose in my presence! I shall invent the most illustrious ancestors, with portraits and ghost-haunted castles, and moats and drawbridges. Let me see: Lady Constance Vere de Vere was my maternal great-grandmother! She was so dainty that she fainted at a loud voice!”

  “Splendid,” said Stuart, though with inner doubt. He gnawed his lip. He had not admitted to any Lady Vere de Vere. He must tell Janie about Sir Angus Fraser. Smiling in a somewhat sickly fashion, he confessed to Janie his previous inventions.

  She laughed uproariously, and slapped his knee so vigorously that he winced. He was ashamed, both of himself and of her. But he was relieved that Janie had understood him so completely, and that she was entering into the play.

  “I only want them to appreciate you, and not misjudge or deprecate you, my dear,” he said, very lamely. “I want them to do you justice.”

  Janie winked. “Have no doubts, darling Stuart. They shall adore me.”

  “No naughty jokes, no tapping gentlemen on the arm with your fan, no tripping and showing your ankles, no swearing, no robust remarks,” pleaded Stuart.

  “None!” cried Janie, throwing herself back in her chair in the most elegant of postures, and half closing her eyes, and fanning herself with her kerchief. “I shall be the delicate genteel widow, of the purest blue blood, with a voice like an angel, and with fluttering lashes. You shall see! You shall be proud of me!”

  Stuart had his serious doubts. But he sighed with relief, and got to his feet. Janie looked at him, then had another thought.

  “This Mr. Allstairs you mentioned, lovey. Is he one of
the local aristocrats, also? And his amazing daughter, Marvina?”

  Stuart, calling on his easy duplicity again, made himself look her boldly in the eye, and smiled broadly. “Yes, my love. He is the richest man in Grandeville, one of the rich men of the State. A dreadful creature. You will meet him. Miss Marvina? Well, I confess I was at one time attracted by her pretty face. But, heavens! she is dull, dull! Like a varnished wax doll. Do be kind to her, dear Janie. The poor girl hasn’t the wit of a newborn calf. Do not make fun of her.”

  “You haven’t made any commitments with regard to the treasure, Miss Marvina, Stuart? Commitments that might be misconstrued by the ogre of a father?”

  “None at all! None at all! As I said, I was attracted, as were a dozen other men in Grandeville. But life with an empty doll, I decided, would be a horrible affair.”

  His spirits soared again. He had come off very well! Janie was practically convinced. Her sharp green eyes were almost soft.

  “But you did say, my pet, that you intended to ask for her hand,” she pointed out to him, doubtfully.

  He laughed. He colored. He patted her shoulder. “Shall we say I’ve changed my mind?” he asked, with false archness.

  Janie was intoxicated. She had always believed that Stuart was a simple soul, without successful dissimulation, and that he could certainly never deceive anyone as clever as Janie Cauder. Why, he was a child, a lovable simpleton, a zany.

  She looked at him coyly, and waited. He knew what she wanted. His body grew tight with repulsion.

  But he made himself bend deliberately and kiss her on the lips with ardor.

  He had accomplished his first step. The other would come later in the day. It was worth it. But when he left the room, he could not believe it, in his sickened heart.

  When she was alone, Janie hied herself to the chest of drawers, unlocked the lower drawer, and, from under billows of lace and fine linen underwear, produced a bottle of whiskey, half emptied. She held it high in her hand, so that the golden sunlight glinted through its mellow contents. “Ah, ah!” she said, richly, smacking her lips, and chuckling with pleasure. She tilted the bottle to her lips and drank deep and long. “Ah,” she said again, on a prolonged respiration or satisfaction. She replaced the cork, hid the bottle again, with slow and loving movements. “A wee drap is guid for the soul o’ a mon,” her father had often remarked, relating how his father would drink a full glass of whiskey three times a day with his porridge or haggis or bailed mutton. The old man had lived to the fine age of one hundred and ten, and never a morning passed but that, in shawl and kilts, he had climbed the snowy hills to look at his sheep, and to stamp about, vigorous and ruddy, in all the glory of his six feet three inches of magnificent health.