The Wide House Page 6

  Wait, said his mind, suddenly coming to a halt in its rushings-about. Janie had money. Fifteen thousand pounds of money, sterling. He had not thought of that, and for an instant he felt some justified self-complacency. Then his lips pursed in a soundless whistle. Roughly, Janie’s fortune amounted to more than seventy-five thousand dollars! He would have little trouble in borrowing ten thousand from her, and paying off that blood-sucker of a Joshua Allstairs. Once paid off, in a round sum, Joshua would have considerably more respect for the suitor of his daughter.

  Stuart became excited. His cold flesh warmed. He suddenly saw all the possibilities of seventy-five thousand dollars.

  In his jubilation and excitement, Stuart brushed aside the warning thought that perhaps Janie might not be willing to lend him the money, if it led eventually to his marriage to the beautiful Marvina. He could manage Janie. He would have her fortune secure before he became formally betrothed to Marvina Allstairs. All he had to do now was to win the green-eyed bitch, cajole and flatter her, and lead her to believe God knows what. He thought of Janie callously. Had she not come to trick him into marriage with her? He owed her nothing. If he tricked her in return, then the better man had won. Besides, she would find her fortune more than doubled, and that was much too good for the besom.

  Stuart was exhilarated. His depression had fled. He was thrilling, warm, vital, strong again. He looked through the window impatiently, could not wait for it to be done.

  To the east, now, the sky was changing. It had become the purest, softest dim blue, changing to indigo overhead. Along the line of the dark earth ran a line of bright clear fire, motionless but faintly quickening moment by moment. In the very middle of the pellucid blue hung a huge and brilliant spark of light, the lucid star of the morning, restlessly radiant and burning whitely. And above that star lay the crescent moon, palely silver and vivid, its horns upturned, its luster dimmed by the glowing star. How still was the sleeping earth, how black and chaotic in its formlessness, and how very silent! It was as if it still had borne no life, and knew no quickening as yet. The silence had a quality deeper than the stillness of night or sleep. There was a prescience in it, an imponderable waiting, no longer insensate, but prepared for living, for the word which would give it form, and being.

  The wordless majesty of the sky caught Stuart’s careless attention, and the soul of the Celt was strangely moved and awed. It was humbled, made immeasurably sad. All at once it seemed to Stuart that nothing was of significance, and especially not himself. He had not prayed since he was a child; now, there was a fumbling in him, as if heavy coarse hands trembled to lift in prayer. Faint words from his childhood came to him: “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, what is man—?”

  Stuart’s sadness rose to the acute arc of sorrow, and then his healthy resistance came to his aid, and he shrugged a little. He heard a stirring sound. Angus and Laurie had awakened, and the two children were staring with rapt pale faces at the eastern sky. Stuart looked at them uneasily, and furtively. He saw Laurie’s pure little profile, the mouth open, the blue eyes distended, in the wan light of the brightening morning. He saw Angus’ stained and sorrowful face, so young, yet so timidly tragic. The two children held each other’s hands tightly. Over Laurie’s shoulders streamed her golden hair, dishevelled and tumbled. She was only a child, but she had the look of a woman.

  Janie was yawning and muttering, as she began to awaken. Bertie was already awake, rubbing his eyes vigorously. But Angus and Laurie were aware of nothing but the morning, leaning towards the window with the sad eagerness of exiles who see the shadowy outline of the shores of home.

  Then Stuart started involuntarily. For Laurie had begun to sing, so very softly, but with pure clarity. She had the sweetest and most innocent of voices, but oddly strong and true for so young a child. She sang as if to herself, a strange song in Gaelic, as if repeating to her inner spirit the words some other had taught her. Stuart had forgotten almost all the Gaelic he had ever known, but he caught a few words. It was a hymn to the morning star.

  The sweet and beautiful young voice filled the coach like a gentle harp. Even Janie, surly from sleep, listened, but with suppressed impatience. Stuart was not aware of her. He saw only the singing child, who sang as if alone, and meditating. Angus was listening, his eyes fixed on the star, and the fading moon.

  Angus was seeing a strange sight with his inner eye. He saw black and chaotic hills, broken in the first light of the morning. He saw those lonely and desolate hills smoking with white veils and clouds of snow. He saw that sky, and the star, and the moon, above them, silent and awesome. And he saw the singer, not Laurie, but a strong and slender, lad, singing to the morning star, his face uplifted, his black eyes wild and ecstatic, filled with the humility and rapture of boundless adoration. Suddenly Angus began to weep silently, his tears running over his cheeks. He felt no rapture; he felt only bereaved and exiled, and full of pain. He was only a child, and he had no words for his suffering. He only knew that his heart swelled with agony.

  Now Laurie had reached the end of her song, and was very still, leaning against Angus’s shoulder. Janie yawned prodigiously, and said, with ill-temper: “Stop your yowling, so early in the morning, lassie. You fair wake the dead.”

  Stuart leaned towards Laurie. He had the strongest urge to touch the child. But something held him back. He said, very gently: “What is that pretty song, my darling?”

  Laurie turned her head slowly to him. The brighter light of the rising day fell across her lovely little face. Her blue eyes were bemused, as if seeing something beyond her mother’s cousin, and though she smiled vaguely, Stuart knew that she did not truly see him.

  “It was a song Dada taught us,” she said. “It was Dada’s song. He made it for Angus. He made a song for me, too.”

  “Yes?” said Stuart, even more gently. “What was the song he made for you?”

  Laurie hesitated. The lightest of blushes touched her cheeks. She dropped her eyes. “It was called ‘Love that is Greater than Life.’”

  Stuart raised his eyebrows. He felt a return of his old wry humor. “That’s a strange song for a little girl,” he said, with gentle raillery. “You don’t know what it means, do you?”

  But it was Janie’s strident voice that answered him: “Robin fair coddled the brats! Such nonsense. He was no father to his family, that I can tell you. And now, Laurie, you’ll comb your hair and sit up like a lady, and Angus, you’ll stop mooning through the window and weeping like a baby. Where is your hanky?”

  Stuart had noticed Robbie little during the journey from New York, but now his eyes involuntarily met the young boy’s. Robbie was smiling his dark and twisted smile, sardonic and faintly ribald. It was a gnome’s face that stared at Stuart, old and satirically amused, and impersonally cruel, as if he found Stuart very interesting and very naive, and just a trifle stupid.

  Bertie was yawning widely, his ruddy curls tangled, his handsome and pleasant face smiling as always. He looked at his brothers and his sister, and for one intangible instant there was a quick and facile darkening of his expression, as if with compassion. It was incredible. Stuart could hardly believe it. He felt disoriented, as if he had wandered into a strange country peopled with the strangest creatures.

  The day wore on, and the exhaustion of the travellers increased as they approached Grandeville. The sky to the northeast was steadily darkening. The travellers became more silent as the hours passed, as if they were beyond speech. Even the voluble and vivacious Janie had sunken into heavy speechlessness.

  Stuart lurked in his corner of the coach, scowling and thinking. He was not given to long meditations. But now his mind was curiously engrossed with the effort to disentangle himself from the wavering disorientation of his impressions. And, peculiarly, he was not thinking so much of the lovely little Laurie, or of Janie, or of Angus and Bertie, but of Robbie. He could not forget the singular expression of the lad when he h
ad looked at him that morning, nor the humiliating sensations in himself.

  Angrily engrossed with his compulsion to think about Robbie, he recalled that he had spoken very seldom to the lad during the journey. Robbie was so silent, so well-satisfied with himself, so thoughtful and withdrawn, that one was apt to overlook him. His small and meager stature, his colorlessness and reserve, contributed to that overlooking. He never asserted himself. He sat in the coach for long days, and never appeared to be one with the other travellers. Never had he complained or acted in a childlike manner, cajoling for sweets or favors like Bertie, or sunken desolately in himself like Angus, or moving in timid bewilderment, like Laurie.

  Rapidly losing his equilibrium and common-sense, Stuart could not look away from that slight and quiet figure in its corner of the coach. Stuart recalled Janie’s remark that Robbie was “the black one.” Yes, thought Stuart, a black one indeed. Everything about him was black, from his smooth sleek skull to his tilted black eyes with their startling expression of cold and impersonal ferocity, from his pale dark skin to his pale fixed mouth, which was hard and quiet and strongly delicate. He had delicate small hands, pale and firm, also. He did not look like a child. He was too compact and aware, and too still. Stuart looked at his hands again. They held the thick book without awkwardness. “The black one.” He doubtless possessed a black heart, also, thought Stuart, vengefully.

  What did the little wretch see in that absurd book? It was all pretense of course. He wished to impress others with his taste for great learning.

  It was only at sunset that Stuart could finally bring himself to speak to the object of his compulsion and detestation.

  “Come, now,” he said with a smile, and in a rallying tone, “what is so interesting in that big book? Too big for so little a lad.”

  Robbie lifted his black eyes slowly, and fixed them disinterestedly upon Stuart. He did not speak for a moment or two, in which Stuart felt his gorge rising and his cheek coloring. Then Robbie said, in his firm quiet voice: “It’s very interesting, Cousin Stuart. I think I told you once. It’s about the murder trials at Old Bailey.”

  “Murder trials!” repeated Stuart, raising his eyebrows in an attempt at amused and indulgent archness. “And how would they be interesting a lad like you, hardly out of his napkins?”

  He thought to embarrass Robbie, to reduce him to helpless childhood. But Robbie only regarded him with that inscrutable thoughtfulness so infuriating to the young man. The slightest of smiles touched his fixed lips. He shrugged almost imperceptibly, as if he found Stuart tedious and childish.

  “They do interest me,” he replied, with quiet reserve. “I’m going to be a barrister, some day. I like to read about murder trials. The judges and the barristers are so stupid. They never see anything.” The dimmest of warmths now pervaded him, and the cold fierceness of his black eyes kindled. “Why, anyone could see that Jervis murdered his wife!” He tapped the book with a little hard finger. “Yet they acquitted him for ‘lack of evidence’! Even a fool could see how Jervis diddled the jury!”

  Stuart was dumb. He leaned back in his corner, his mouth opening slackly. Robbie calmly returned to his book. Janie was chuckling hoarsely, and with pride at the precosity of her abominable offspring. She did not like Robbie in the least, but she had a rough admiration for him and his efficient ways which relieved her of many responsibilities.

  “A sharp one, that!” she said.

  But Stuart was again confused with his disorientation and sudden wild hatred for Robbie. He brooded over it for half an hour longer.

  Bertie, the good-natured and sweet-tempered, was becoming bored. He teased his mother for a moment, but when she gave him a sharp slap, and shouted an oath at him, he desisted, and yawned. Then his bright blue eye lighted on Robbie like a gay and winging fly. He reached out and snatched the ridiculous tome from his brother’s lap and threw it on the dusty floor of the coach. Robbie started up with a muted but enraged cry, and fell upon his brother. Janie shouted, and struck at them indiscriminately as they rolled against protesting feet, and raised a cloud of dust, and punched each other furiously. Stuart helped Janie to disentangle the welter of young arms and legs and wrinkled jackets. “Now then, now then!” he cried, dragging Robbie from Bertie, who had begun to get the worst of it. He flung Robbie violently back upon his seat, while Janie, conservatively belaboring Bertie, pushed him back beside her, and smacked his clothing free of soil.

  Robbie sat on his seat, and panted, straightening his clothes with silent fury. He glared at his brother with inhuman rage. He passed his hands over his shining black hair, smoothing it back into place. He was trembling.

  Bertie, properly subdued by Janie, but still laughing uncontrollably, glanced at Robbie. They stared at each other for a moment or two. Then, to Stuart’s amazement, Robbie began to smile. He brushed off the last chaff from his trousers, fastidiously. His smile widened. His cold black eyes were actually dancing. “I’ll give you something to remember, one of these days,” he said, and his voice was the voice of a child.

  But he did not resume reading. He and Bertie began to chaff and threaten each other in the meaningless and ferocious accents of childhood.

  CHAPTER 8

  Janie was no complainer, no matter what her thoughts. Now that she had something to gain she was all affability and good nature. She minimized discomforts, joked about them raucously, and accepted everything.

  From the first she hated America, not passionately or vengefully, but in a matter-of-fact fashion, and without personal bias. Nevertheless, she soon accustomed herself to the country, and looked about for advantages for herself.

  She had been agreeably surprised at Stuart’s house, where she was now lodged with her children. “It ought to be something,” Stuart said grudgingly, in answer to her admiring ejaculations. “I borrowed ten thousand dollars from old Allstairs to build it.” Janie, who felt surprised contempt that anyone would borrow money to build a house, made no comment on this. She could very well understand borrowing money to buy land, or to create a business, but the borrowing of money to buy “gee-gaws” was practically blasphemous. There was something feckless in a man who loved beautiful things, and would put himself in jeopardy to purchase them. Because of her secret contempt for Stuart, she felt herself gaining mastery over him, and confidence in herself. She had had many bad hours on that journey from New York. Now her apprehension was almost gone. She was again Stuart’s gay senior, indulging him, laughing at him affectionately, and exchanging ribald stories with him.

  It was indeed a strangely lovely house, built of clear white stone, and facing the river. It was also extremely large, which amazed Janie, and of beautiful proportions, possessing sixteen rooms, each one more alluring and restful than the one before. There were three lofty stories; the windows were all high and narrow, with grilled work protecting them. It had the look of a Grecian temple, for eight white pillars soared upwards the entire height of the house, supporting a graceful balcony at the top. The stone had been brought to Grandeville on a barge, by way of the canal, and Stuart never tired of telling the story of its arduous journey. So exquisitely were the blocks fitted that it took a close glance to see the lines of their joining, and so gleaming and bright was their texture that they appeared to be formed of the purest white marble. One entered the central hall and saw the floating and curving grace of a winding staircase, which reached the third gallery. From the ceiling hung a huge chandelier, crystal and gilt, and glowing with lustre. At night it blazed with candles, whether or not guests were expected. Janie found this extravagant, but Stuart said, irately: “I built this house for my own enjoyment, and not to flabbergast strangers.”

  The floor of the huge hall was amazing, being constructed of an apparently seamless piece of brilliantly polished black granite, which, like the exterior of the house, had the look of marble. Many of Stuart’s acquaintances were appalled at the startling effect of this house, which was deliberately black and white, and were revolted at so str
ange an idea. It was fantastic. No one but an Irishman, they said, would conceive of anything so odd. The woodwork was pure and gleaming white, the fireplaces polished black stone, immense yet curiously delicate in their structure and carving. The lofty ceilings were of white molded plaster, dimly touched with pale gilt. The great parlor, cold yet exquisite, had a parquetry floor, partially covered by an Aubusson rug of the most soft and faded tints of blue and rose and faint crimson. The furniture, exquisite also, was of austerely perfect lines, the graceful sofas and chairs being covered with silken damask and dimmed tapestries and velvets in shades to match the rug. On every carved table stood crvstal lamps and strange brilliant boxes, and on the white walls were excellent paintings of flowers and country scenes. “No portraits of illustrious ancestors,” said Stuart, grinning, “though it’s thinking I am of buying some in London to impress the local gentry.”

  The great dining hall was panelled in pale wood, and was all crimson and subdued blue in its furnishings. The furniture, in the best Chippendale tradition, was flawless. There was a library too, the walls lined with impressive books, which Stuart candidly confessed were quite beyond him, as he was “no scholar.” Their quiet backs, crimson and blue, also, repeated the colors of the rug and the velvet draperies. Here, too, was a fireplace, always burning, even in summer. “Damned cold climate,” said Stuart, “and miserably damp.”

  There were eight huge bedrooms, most of them facing the river, four, with their dressing rooms, on the second floor, and the last four on the third. Two of the larger rooms possessed small sitting-rooms, also. All were fitted with fireplaces, but because of the short summers and the long inclement winters of this northern land, Franklin stoves stood on the hearths. Here, too, the furniture was in perfect taste, with huge canopied beds, soft rugs, and the best of wood and hangings, all brought, with the other furnishings, from England and the Continent.