Dayborn who with Maurice had been standing by the window, exclaimed — “There she is! I believe she’s coming in.”
“She has seen the visitors,” said Chris Cummings. “She’s eaten up by curiosity. No one enters this door but she knows it.”
“I’ll not hear a word against her,” declared Dayborn. “Think of the eggs and fruit she’s given us!”
“Yes. She is kind. But behind her good nature I’ll bet there’s a hell of a temper.”
The girl was unconventional — swearing like that! Renny wondered how she would get on in this Victorian backwater. It was all very well for his grandmother to rip out an oath on occasion but she held a position unique in the community.
She continued — “I’m afraid of people with tempers, aren’t you?”
He said — “If I were my life wouldn’t be worth living.”
“Do you mean that your family have tempers?”
“Yes.”
She eyed him critically. “I’ll bet you have one too.”
He laughed. “Oh, I’m a terror in a rage.”
“I’d like to see you.”
“Perhaps you will — if you’re going to school horses for me.”
Mrs. Stroud was in the room, her short, straight figure advancing almost relentlessly. Dayborn was moving solicitously beside her, as though he would leave no stone unturned to retain her goodwill. His introduction was characteristic.
“This is Mr. Whiteoak, who is going to give us a job. For heaven’s sake put down the kid! This is our benefactress, Mrs. Stroud.”
“I don’t know why you call me your benefactress. Is it because you have taken a house I badly wanted to let?” Her voice was deep and musical. She had fine grey eyes with black lashes and heavy brows. Her thick brown hair was elaborately done. Surely she must spend hours each day over it. One feature was noticeable which scarcely counted in other women. That was her ears. The hair swept clearly away from them, revealing how flat they lay against her head, their waxen pallor, and the fact they had no inward-curling rim. She was dressed in a black skirt, a black-and-white striped silk blouse with an immaculate lace jabot, fastened by a brooch formed of the name Aimee in wrought gold. She pressed Renny’s fingers in a firm clasp. She was thirty-eight.
“You know the houses well, I guess,” she said.
“I knew them when they were one.”
“Don’t you think I was clever to divide it?”
“It is better, I suppose, than having it stand idle. I like things in their original state.”
There was a domineering note in his voice that brought an antagonistic tone into her own. “Well, everyone else thinks the change is for the better. And it’s given me charming neighbours.” She smiled tenderly at the baby.
Renny had set him down and he was staggering about among the legs of the grown-ups as though they were forest trees. He struck at them with a willow wand he carried, as though he would chop them down. He was angelic with his silvery curls and satin skin but he made small, animal noises. Mrs. Stroud knelt in front of him, holding her face, with eyes closed, toward his. He looked at it critically, wondering whether or not to hit it.
Renny turned to Dayborn. “I must talk to you and your sister alone. Will you come to my place tomorrow morning. I’ll show you the stables and horses. We’ll talk over my plans for breeding. I’m cabling for an Irish hunter I saw when I was visiting relations on the way home.”
“We shall be there soon after breakfast. I do hope you’ll take us on.” Dayborn’s thin face showed a painful eagerness.
“I’d like to see both of you ride before I promise anything.”
“You’ll find that we can ride all right.”
Maurice’s deep voice broke in — “Mrs. Stroud wants us to see her house, Renny.”
“Yes,” she put in, “it’s such an event, having strangers here.”
If she had thought to propitiate Renny by this remark she was mistaken. The word stranger stabbed him like an insult. He turned it over in his mouth as though testing its ill-flavour. Then he repeated it aloud, adding — “Maurice and I were born here and our fathers before us.”
“Yes, yes,” she agreed quickly. “But I’ve so dug myself in here that I feel like the old-timer. It’s so lovely having a possessive feeling toward a place after knocking about for years. Do forgive me!”
Renny did not want his chagrin put into words but he lifted his lip in a smile which he fancied was amicable and said:
“I’d like to see your house. To judge by the outside you must have made a good job of it.”
“Tod must come too,” cried Mrs. Stroud, but the child’s mother picked him up.
“It’s his bedtime,” she said.
“Well, I shall be back to tuck him up,” said Mrs. Stroud. “Are you coming, Jim?”
“I think I’ll stay and wash up.”
“I’ll see you both tomorrow morning,” said Renny.
Mrs. Stroud and Maurice had gone on. Renny and Chris Cummings exchanged a look. On his part it was a look of warm interest, calculating appraisement of her possible gifts as a breaker-in of colts. On hers, an effort to appear tough-fibred and capable, softened by the feminine thought that here was a man one could lean on.
Renny followed Mrs. Stroud and Maurice. He heard Maurice saying:
“I used to come here as a child and old Mr. Pink used to make baskets out of peach stones for me. He played the organ too.”
“And so does his daughter. She’s such a sweet woman but so timid. She teaches your little girl, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“How delighted the child must be to have you home! What a reunion!”
“Yes. It is nice!”
Good God, thought Renny, the woman knows everything about everyone!
All three went into the house.
From the small square hall opened the living room. It was furnished in a definite colour scheme of blue and brown. It looked pleasantly homelike, a woman’s room, after the disorder of the house next door. It glittered with order and cleanliness. The only disorder was the deep settee strewn with blue and brown damask cushions. On these young Eden Whiteoak was lounging. He sat up, his hair dishevelled, unable to conceal his astonishment.
“Hullo!” he said, staring at his older brother.
“Hullo.” Renny in his turn was astonished. Eden looked suddenly grown-up. But what was he doing in this room? Smoking too. The cigarette was between his fingers. His lips were fixed in a defensive and nervous smile. He got up and turned to Mrs. Stroud.
“I’ve brought back the book,” he said. “I came right in. I thought you’d be back.”
“Oh — did you like it?” asked Mrs. Stroud, her eyes resting for an instant on the only book that was not in the bookshelves.
“Very much.” Eden picked up the book. Its title was clear — a popular work on the building of small houses. He flushed and laid it down. “This isn’t it,” he said. He looked about vaguely. “I don’t know where I’ve put it!”
Mrs. Stroud looked into Renny’s eyes. “Perhaps you didn’t know that Eden and I are friends. We got friendly over books.”
There was an ironic gleam in Renny’s eyes. Their glances crossed