“Very well. Very well. For heaven’s sake let’s forget it. If you want to spend the rest of your days as you do —”
“I think I lead a useful life.”
“Useful. Yes.”
“I don’t lack affection. The boys —”
“Maurice loves you with a man’s love.”
“He is nothing to me.”
Renny fixed his eyes on her. “Nothing?”
She coloured but she repeated with more vehemence: “Nothing.”
“All right. I don’t believe you but this is the last time I shall ever speak of it.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
She turned and began to ascend the path. He saw that she had really grown much stouter during his absence. She found the steep path heavy going. And she only thirty-four! “I wish you could see a back view of yourself!” he called out derisively after her.
She stopped stock-still but did not look round.
They remained so, speechless and immovable till he flung down the path, crossed the stream, climbed the still steeper path beyond and passed through a small wood of oak trees into a field. The field had been sown with fall wheat. Its bold promise was tempered by the yellow of the mustard flowers. Across it he could see the small figure of Pheasant.
She saw him and came, skirting the field, her brown hair flying about her shoulders. It being Saturday she wore an old dress too short in skirt and sleeve. She looked up into his face eagerly. He cursed himself for having asked her how she would like to be his little girl and come to Jalna to live. He forced a cheerful grin to his lips.
“Hullo!” she called out.
“Hullo! Having a nice walk?
She looked at him gravely.
“No. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m afraid I’ve kept you a long while. I didn’t know that I mentioned any special time.”
“You didn’t. You only said that by the end of the week something might happen that might settle whether I could…. It’s Saturday today.”
“Yes. And it has happened.”
She gave him a penetrating glance. “Did it — happen wrongly?”
“Pheasant — I don’t believe you really would want to leave your home — Maurice — and come to Jalna.”
“Then … you think I told lies when I said I would.”
“No. But — ours is such a big family. All those boys —”
“But … when you talked about my going … you said what fun.”
“I know. But there’s Maurice. After all, he’s your father.”
“He’d be glad to part with me.”
“Oh no. He’s not like that.”
She looked down, her lashes quivering. Her child’s face marked by deep thought.
“You’ve been alone too much,” he exclaimed.
He put his arm about her and pressed her to his side. But she drew away. She looked into his eyes, as though in wonder. She said:
“I never know what grown-ups mean. It’s not what they say.”
He answered her almost sternly — “I mean what I say. But I got this affair the wrong way about. I should have made sure that what I wanted would be possible before I spoke of it to you.”
She drew her smooth forehead into puzzled lines. “But what is it all about? What was this thing you couldn’t make happen? Does Maurice know?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why he couldn’t eat his breakfast. Mrs. Clinch says he’s sickening for something.”
“This is going to be worse for him than you, Pheasant.”
“But what is this thing? May it happen sometime?”
“Perhaps. I hope so. Look here … I’m going to tell you. You’re not like other kids. Let’s sit down.”
They dropped on to the young grass that was more cool and moist than the sandy soil beneath. They were in a fence corner where wild convolvulus had shown since sunrise how fast it could climb. Its first frail blossom already hung its head in the heat. Pheasant touched it with her cheek. Then she turned her dark eyes to Renny with a strange mingling of trust and suspicion in them.
“You know,” he said, “that Maurice and my sister Meg were once engaged to be married.”
“Yes. And I know what unengaged them.” An almost cynical smile curved her lips. “She was a silly.”
“Yes. She was and is.” He lighted a cigarette and drew a puff or two in silence. She had made it easier for him to tell her.
“I had the idea,” he went on, “that as Maurice has been so long away Meg might change her mind and marry him now if —” He hesitated.
“If I went to Jalna to live?”
“Exactly. I’d lose a big sister and gain a little one.”
“No, no,” her face was contorted. “It’s not like that! It’s just that she won’t come here if I’m here and she won’t let me in there. I understand and I don’t care. I — I don’t care.” Her face was ugly in her supreme effort at self-control. “I don’t want to be anybody’s child. I — I’m twelve. I’ll soon be a woman.”
He took her hand and it lay like a cold little fish in his tense clasp. “I deserve to be kicked,” he said.
They sat motionless for a space while her self-control tautened. Then she drew her hand decisively from his. “Goodbye,” she said, “I’m going.”
“Have you got the little knife I brought you?” he asked.
“Yes. It really wasn’t for me, was it? I’ll give it back, if you like.”
“Good Lord, no! I don’t want it back. But I thought kids always lost things.”
She smiled at him tremulously, then turned quickly away. She slid through an opening in the wire fence that seemed impossibly narrow. He saw that it sagged a little and was evidently shaped by her continual using.
She ran straight to the house and closed the front door behind her. She had been holding a single sob tightly in her throat as she ran. Now safe inside the door she let it go with a harsh sound that hurt. Her heart stopped its beat in a moment of fear. What if Maurice were in the sitting room and had heard it? But there was dead silence in the house. After the furbishing for his return Mrs. Clinch had allowed it to revert to its usual fustiness. The air was heavy with the smell of old upholstery and damp wallpaper and a something that was suggestive of Mrs. Clinch herself.
Suddenly the door behind Pheasant opened and Maurice was almost on her. He started, then saw her face. “Is anything the matter?” he asked.
She shook her head. She wanted to fly up the stairs, but she stayed where she was, looking up into his face.
“Can’t this door be left open?” he asked.
“Mrs. Clinch doesn’t like it open.”
“Mrs. Clinch be damned.”
“It fades things and gives her neuralgia. She’s awful when she has it. It goes from her bad tooth right into her ear.”
“Damn her