In a tone of the most extreme politeness she said, “I think we had better go downstairs. It will be easier to meet them there, don’t you agree?”
“I agree to anything,” he returned.
She looked at him coolly. She thought: “You are in one of your unashamed bad-boy moods, but you will find no response in me.” She asked, “Is Uncle Nicholas resting?”
“In bed. He wants Fitzturgis brought up to his room before he settles down for the night.”
“Dear me — I hope it won’t be too much for him.”
“Too much! Not a bit of it.” It was a part of his protectiveness towards his old uncle that he would not acknowledge the deterioration of his heart. He followed Alayne down the stairs to the drawing-room, where tea was laid. The windows were open and the summer breeze was warm.
Renny cast an appraising glance about the room.
“Everything looks shining,” he said, and put his nose into a bowl of roses.
Their son Archer came into the room. He was a tall boy of nearly sixteen, with a high forehead and clear light eyes. He hid his feeling of superiority toward almost everyone else beneath a retiring manner. He never smiled.
Now, looking over the tea-table, he remarked in his clear incisive voice, “I suppose we’re to starve while Adeline collects the Irishman.”
“Surely, Archer,” said his mother, “you wouldn’t have us begin without our guest.” She looked at him dubiously. She had fervently hoped that Archer would be like her father. Now ironically she found him rather too much like her father — an exaggeration of his less attractive qualities, with the gentleness, the politeness, left out, and in their place some disconcerting qualities of the Whiteoaks.
Archer said, “Probably by the time we’ve seen this Fitzturgis we’ll not want our tea.” Archer was a confirmed tea drinker, caring little for coffee, disliking milk, abhorring lemonade, ginger ale, Coca-Cola, and all soft drinks. Surreptitiously he had sampled the contents of every decanter on the sideboard and passed a cool judgment thereon, in favour of port wine.
In a moment of nervous horseplay Renny reached for his son, intending to ruffle his hair, but Archer eluded him, placing the tea-table between them.
Wragge, the houseman, appeared in the doorway. After thirty years in Canada his cockney accent still was crisp and confident. When he arrived, having been Renny Whiteoak’s batman in the First World War, he had looked old for his age. Now he looked young for it.
He said, particularly addressing Renny, which he invariably did as if no others were present, “I thought you’d like to know, sir, that the train ’as been ’eard to whistle.”
“Good,” said Renny, looking as though it were the reverse of good. “They’ll soon be here.”
A step was heard in the hall, and Wragge moved aside, with the air of making way for a personage, to allow Renny’s sister, Meg Vaughan, to enter. She was two years older than he, a stout widow of sixty-six, and in great contrast to him, for while her face was smooth and the curve of her lips retained the sweetness of her girlhood, his thin weather-beaten face was strongly lined, marked by endurance and fortitude, and his thick red hair that grew to a point on his forehead showed scarcely a grey hair, while hers was of a fine iron-grey and naturally curly. Her movements were slow, while his had an incisive swiftness. It was the same with their speech.
Now she said, “I simply could not resist dropping in to see the Irish fiancé. How excited Adeline must be! I’m sympathetic to her, you know, but …” She waited till Wragge was out of hearing, then added, “If only it might have been Maurice.”
“That’s just the way I feel,” said Renny, putting her into a comfortable chair.
She smiled at Alayne and put out a hand to Archer as though she would draw him toward her, but with a frosty glance he avoided it.
Meg said, noting Alayne’s expression, “I know I shouldn’t have said that in front of the boy. But you’ll forget what Aunty Meg said, won’t you, dear?”
“That is ‘lex non scripta,’” he returned, dropping into Latin in an irritating way he had. But it did not irritate his aunt and she exclaimed admiringly, “How clever Archer is! He picks up dead languages the way the other boys pick up slang.”
“You can say that again, Aunty,” said Archer.
“Archer!” reproved his mother. His father once more stretched out a hand to rumple him and again Archer eluded it.
Desultory talk prolonged rather than shortened the period of waiting. Renny Whiteoak consulted his watch every three minutes. Archer surreptitiously felt the temperature of the teapot. Meg sighed and remembered her personal worries. Alayne was the first to hear the approaching car.
It appeared now on the smoothly raked gravel sweep, and all four in the room peered from the shelter of the window curtains to have their first glimpse of the visitor.
“Oh, he’s good-looking,” exclaimed Meg in relief, for she attached much importance to looks, “but less tall than I had expected.”
Archer remarked, “A little short in the leg for the breadth of the shoulder.”
“A well-built fellow,” said Renny, his appraising glance moving swiftly from Fitzturgis to the glowing face of Adeline. She had waited two years for the coming of this man. That she should be happy in the reunion was what mattered above all else.
Happiness shone from the burnished copper of her hair to her light step as she led the way into the house. The spaniel, the bulldog, and the little Cairn terrier greeted the pair noisily in the porch. Fitzturgis bent to pat them and called each by name, for Adeline had so often talked of them and written of them. But, for all her glow of happiness, she was nervously excited too. Her pallor showed it and the swift glance almost of entreaty which she gave the group that now had come into the hall.
“Welcome to Jalna,” said Renny, shaking the young Irishman’s hand.
Meg, Alayne, and Archer in turn greeted him: Meg with warmth; Alayne with calm relief, for she liked his looks better than she had expected; Archer with suspicion.
“Did you have a good crossing?” enquired Meg.
“Almost too good,” answered Fitzturgis. “The Atlantic was much smoother than your lake.”
“And the railway journey — was it comfortable?”
“Fairly. But very long. And very hot.”
Alayne put in, “You must be quite ready for tea.” She moved to the tea-table, Archer close after her. He felt the teapot. He said, in a stage whisper, “He’d probably prefer whisky.”
Fitzturgis answered, “Thank you, but I like tea.”
Renny said, “I’ll go up with you to your room first.”
“Thanks. I should like to wash my hands.”
The two men, with a purposeful air, left the room.
“May I have my tea now?” asked Archer.
His mother, in desperation, poured it.
“Well,” Adeline demanded eagerly, “what do you think of him?”
“He’s most attractive,” said Meg. “Such a sweet smile. And something a little sad in him too.”
“I’m sure I shall like him,” Alayne agreed.
Adeline drew a deep sigh of happiness and relief. “I can scarcely believe it’s all over,” she said. “The waiting, I mean.”
“There are worse things than waiting,” said Archer, putting a third lump of sugar in his tea.
“Really,