“It would be a strange person who wouldn’t,” he returned, his fingers tightening on hers. “Why, it’s hard to believe that there’s a town within a hundred miles. It’s hard to believe that yesterday I was in New York.”
“And I’ve never asked you how your family are — your mother and sister!”
“Mother is well. Sylvia is much better.”
“And they’re going to live in New York?”
“Yes.”
One of the doors of the stables opened and a man of about forty-five came out. He hesitated on seeing them, then strode on to meet them, walking with firmness and confidence considering that he had lost a leg in the war. Indeed his whole aspect was one of firmness and confidence, owing something possibly to the fullness of his clear blue eyes, the healthy pink and white of his smooth cheeks and the stubborn curve of his lips. “Oh,” Adeline cried eagerly, “here comes Uncle Piers. You will like him.” Fitzturgis inspected him with interest as he approached, trying to discover some resemblance to this man’s son who lived not far from Fitzturgis in Ireland, but he could discover none. Maurice Whiteoak was as different from his father as he well could be.
“Uncle Piers” — Adeline’s voice trembled a little from excitement — “this is Maitland. There’s no need, is there, for me to tell you his surname?”
“How do you do, Mr. Fitzturgis” Piers said a little stiffly, shaking hands with him.
After a few moments of talk Piers turned back into the stables with them. In here it was cooler than out in the sun-warmed air. Two stable-men were bedding down the horses for the night. There was the scent of clean straw and the pleasant smell of well-groomed horseflesh. A benign and contented atmosphere permeated the stables. For the farm horses the day’s work was over. For those darlings, the saddle horses, had come the pleasant reward of exercise or the agreeable return to loosebox after freedom in the paddock. Adeline was eager to show Fitzturgis her own mare, Bridget, with her first colt, Bridie’s Boy. They were in a loose-box together; the son, inheritor of his mother’s beauty, stood proudly beside her. Both bent their heads to nuzzle Adeline when she entered the box. The sight of her, with the mare and her colt, made Piers smile at Fitzturgis. “A pretty trio,” he said.
“A very promising trio,” Fitzturgis admiringly agreed.
“Come in,” cried Adeline. “She’s as kind as can be and so proud of her son.”
When Piers Whiteoak stopped his car on his own driveway some time later he saw his wife planting seedlings in the flower border. She sat back on her heels and raised her dark eyes expectantly to his face. “Well,” she asked, “did you meet him?”
“Yes, but only for a short while in the stables. Adeline had brought him to see the horses.”
“Why, Piers,” she exclaimed, disappointed, “I thought you would have gone to the house for tea and had a good look at him.”
“Good Lord, how long do you think it takes me to size a man up?”
“Did you like him?”
“He seems a nice fellow.”
“Good-looking?”
“Quite. Likes horses but doesn’t know much about them.”
Pheasant thrust her trowel into the earth, folded her arms and demanded, “Does he strike you as good enough for Adeline?”
“I’ll tell you that when I’m acquainted with him.”
“Of course. I suppose it was a silly question…. Piers, did he mention Maurice?”
“Yes, though I gather they don’t see much of each other.”
“I thought Maurice might have come over with him. He promised, you know.”
“He’ll come later.”
A silence fell between them, as so often happened when they spoke of their eldest son. Piers and this son had never got on well together. Not that there had been open conflict between them. Rather it had been that when they were in the house together there was unease in the atmosphere. In her secret mind Pheasant had accused Piers of being unfair to Maurice. She had never quite forgiven Piers for sending the boy to Ireland at the whim of an old cousin, Dermot Court, even though that visit had made Maurice Dermot’s heir. Maurice’s future had been settled for him. He was a well-off, idle young man. Piers envied him his affluence and deplored his idleness. Almost two years had passed since they had seen their eldest-born.
Pheasant patted the earth about the last of the annual stocks. “I’m late getting them planted,” she said. “But then I’m always late getting things done.”
“You undertake too much,” he said, almost roughly, and, putting his hands beneath her arms, lifted her to her feet. He bent his face to hers and kissed her. He said, “If Adeline and her Irishman get along as well as we do there’s no need to worry.” He kissed her again, this time with an amorousness produced by congenial work in the outdoors and the springing, effulgent warmth of the summer. She relaxed against his shoulder, forgetting everything but her love for him.
But their loverlike attitudes were an embarrassment to their youngest son Philip, who, returning from a day’s fishing, cleared his throat loudly to announce his arrival.
“Hullo, Mum and Dad,” he called out. “Are you too busy to see what I’ve caught?”
His parents separated and strolled toward him. He displayed a catch of gleaming brook trout.
“Oh, lovely,” exclaimed Pheasant, then added, “Poor pretty things.”
“Listen to her,” laughed Philip, “pitying fish!”
“Why not? Think how happy they were swimming about in their cool stream.”
“Not half so happy as I was to catch them.”
Philip was seventeen and had become in the past year, as Alayne said, quite outrageously beautiful. He always had been a handsome boy, but of late the clear fairness of his skin, the sheen of his hair, his heavy-lidded azure eyes, the perfection of his features, all had been intensified. As he had grown in stature, so he had grown in beauty. Piers, looking at him now, thought he was, as Pheasant declared, the image of what he had been as a boy, but the truth was that young Philip much more resembled his great-grandfather, Captain Philip Whiteoak. The young Whiteoak males, sons of Renny, Piers, and Finch, appeared to assert, almost arrogantly or at least proudly, the Northern origin of their race: the long narrow-hipped body, the long flat cheek, the fair skin.
“I stopped in at Jalna,” Philip said, “and left a couple of trout for Uncle Renny’s breakfast.”
“Good,” said Piers, but he spoke without heart. Philip’s devotion to Renny was rather irritating to Piers. The boy would take trouble for Renny that at home would be unthinkable.
Pheasant looked at her son charitably, as she did at all males. She asked, “Did you see Adeline’s Irishman?”
“No, but we’re all invited there this evening to inspect him.”
“Good God!” exclaimed a voice just emerging from the house. “A gathering of the clan to greet the betrothed of the fair daughter of the house! What does he bring as an offering? Six head of lean cattle from the Kerry hills or a litter of starving pigs?”
The owner of the voice, a particularly pleasant one, now appeared. He was the second son, three years older than Philip. He had been christened Finch; but as that name belonged to another of the family, he had been, for some inexplicable reason, called Nooky, which childish name was later shortened to Nook. He was an art student and already several of his pictures had been shown in small exhibitions.
This was Piers’s favourite son. He condoned in Nook what would have seemed intolerable in Maurice. In truth he was proud of Nook’s artistic