It was after midnight when Raikes and Barker returned over the snowy ruts in the road toward Vaughanlands. They talked loudly, sometimes in argument, sometimes in boasting of the clever things they had said and done in the barroom of the club they belonged to. They had made themselves rather a nuisance there that night and their argument was about whether or not they should have heeded the bartender’s urging of them to depart. Up and down over the snowy ruts of the road they bounced, recking nothing of the springs of the car. Sometimes Raikes waved one hand in the air to emphasize his boasting. Sometimes he waved both hands. And still the faithful car rocked on. It seemed a miracle that they reached the garage in safety, where it stood secluded, its roof grotesquely deep in snow. It seemed a miracle that Raikes was able to guide the car through the doorway, but he did.
Suddenly he became very polite to Barker and assisted him to alight. Solicitously he guided him in the direction of his home and bade him a loving goodnight. He locked the garage and went rather unsteadily into the house. Still wearing his coat and hat he lighted the stove and put on the kettle to make himself a pot of tea. While the kettle was boiling he went softly through the pantry into the dining room. He stood listening. There was a muffled middle-of-the-night stillness in the house. Upstairs in the big mahogany bed the Clappertons slept. On the top floor Althea and the Great Dane, and near her in a little room with a sloping roof, Tania.
Raikes opened the sideboard and took out a bottle of brandy. Eugene Clapperton disapproved of alcohol but he kept one bottle of brandy in the house for emergency. Now Raikes filled a flask he carried in his pocket from the bottle and returned to the kitchen. He made the tea, fetched milk from the pantry, and poured himself a cup. Half-sitting, half-leaning against the sink, he drank two cupfuls. He had pushed his hat to the back of his head and the unshaded light fell on his long face which wore an expression of gentle melancholy. Above his head the kitchen clock, with roses on its massive face, ticked loudly. Its hands pointed to two o’clock.
He took the teapot into the dining room and replenished the brandy bottle with tea. His hands shook and he winced as some of the hot liquid was spilled over his thumb. Now the sideboard was closed and he gave the room an admiring glance before he left. He wished he owned a grand house like this, with furniture as fine. He felt sorry for himself — a lonely man, with no one to love him — a lonely Irishman, in a strange land. He thought of Mrs. Clapperton and the odd way she had looked at him that night, and not only on that night. Well — in him she could see a real man, not a pimp like old Clapperton.
VII
THE CONCERT PIANIST
There was no greater pleasure than walking, Finch Whiteoak thought. At this moment it was a more profound pleasure than playing the piano. Seated before the instrument, even at his best, there was the mind alert, ready to pounce on the fingers if they faltered, ever so slightly. There was the mind, conscious of his audience, quivering with anger if everything was not right in the concert hall. Even when he played in solitude, there was the mind, exalted, fiery, casting its shadows on the keyboard. But — in walking through these wintry woods — the mind was gone. It was scarcely there to direct the legs. There was the blood coursing hotly through the body, the eyeballs cool and relaxed, the nostrils widening to draw in the icy air. He had tramped for five miles along the country road. Now returning through the woods of Jalna, the pines, the oaks, the slim naked birches, stood waiting for him as friends. Willingly would he spend the rest of his life among them. He had had enough of people. Their inquisitive eves, their mouths saying the same things over and over.
Scarcely aware of what direction he took he passed the house, turned down into the ravine, and up the opposite steep, a little breathless, for here it was heavy going, toward the Fox Farm. In the still of the sunless day, with the sky drooping heavy with more snow, snow that would bring deeper, thicker silence to the wood, the house looked like one in a German fairy tale. The door might have opened and a strange dwarf looked out, or a little old woman with a shawl over her head. Surely the smoke that rose from the chimney was remarkable. It rose slowly, downy and white, and spread itself like a toadstool above the house. This was the first time Finch had been home since the coming of young Bell. It seemed strange to find him here. Yet quite ordinary everyday occurrences often seemed strange to Finch. The power, or weakness, of wonder had been given him at birth. How strange, he was forever thinking to himself. Some combination of sounds on the piano which he had heard a thousand times would suddenly strike him, as though it were the first, and he would pause, in that delicious wonder. Now this smoke that curled so closely at the chimney’s mouth, then spread itself like a greyish-white toadstool, held him. His face wore what Renny called his idiotic expression.
Watching him through the window was Humphrey Bell. He kept himself concealed and watched. He felt a quickening of the pulse at the sight of that long sensitive face which had been imprinted on his memory since their meeting. Often he had wondered if the face were as interesting as he had thought and now he said to himself almost joyfully — it is!
Finch moved slowly toward the door and by the time he had reached it Bell stood there to welcome him. They exchanged greetings and Finch stared about the room with an air of approval.
“So,” he said, “you’ve dug yourself in, and mighty snug you are.”
The stove was glowing almost red hot.
Bell said, — “I’m sorry if it’s too warm but the truth is I was so long nearly frozen in prison camps that it seems as though I can’t be too warm now. Won’t you take off your windbreaker?”
Finch took it off and Bell placed two chairs side by side facing the window.
“Do you mind?” he asked shyly. “I always set the chairs this way when your brother comes.”
“That is fine,” said Finch. “Which brother?”
“Renny. The other one has never been.”
“Piers is wrapped up in his work and his family. How do you like Renny?”
“He’s just like you said. To see him cantering on horseback — well, it’s just poetry.”
“And you like living here?”
“You couldn’t have done a better thing for me than to send me here. I’ve dug myself in as completely as a rabbit in his burrow.”
The simile was almost too good. Finch chuckled. Then he said, — “The family tell me you have dinner with them occasionally. I’m glad of that.”
“They’ve been mighty kind to me. Not only Colonel Whiteoak — but Mrs. Whiteoak and the two old uncles. I’d rather go there than to any other house I’ve ever been.”
“What about Adeline?”
Finch had seated himself but Bell stood leaning against the window frame, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the pallid scene outside. “Oh, she,” he answered. “She’s so serene and untouched by life that I daren’t think of her.”
“She’s really just a big child. She’ll be an interesting woman some day.”
“She has the most lovely bones,” said Bell dreamily. “Her good looks aren’t just pretty flesh and fine eyes and chestnut hair.”
“She’s like my grandmother. I can tell you, Bell, she had an arresting face when she was a hundred. Age could not change her bones. Lord, I remember her old hands and how wrinkled and yet how shapely they were! She wore a lot of rings.”
“I wish I’d seen her. I have seen her portrait.”
“I only knew her when she was very old.” After a moment he added impulsively, — “She left me all her money.”
“You were her favourite?”
“Gosh, no. I never quite knew why she did it. I wished she hadn’t.”