“You never will hear it spoken by me.”
She spread her left hand in front of him.
“Look at that hand! It has worn the wedding ring of two Whiteoaks and both of you have been as false, as faithless — as I suppose all your precious ancestors were before you.”
Renny looked up at the portrait of his grandfather in Hussar’s uniform. “He and Gran quarrelled a good deal but he was faithful to her. At any rate, she thought so.”
He had spoken in pride of his grandfather’s fidelity. Of what was he made? She looked at him standing there, with his narrow red head, his arched beak of a nose, his horseman’s back and shoulders, and she hated him, every bit of him, from the point of red hair on his forehead, to his worn brown shoes.
She said, with an icy close-lipped sneer — “What a pity you did not model yourself on him rather than on old Renny Court who from what I hear was the rake of the countryside!”
He was stung and burst out — “Is love a matter of conscience?”
“Not with you!” Her mouth looked positively ugly with its sneer, he thought. “Nor with Eden. Neither of you had any conscience.”
From white a deeper red than usual flamed into his face. He said, in a hard voice:
“You had better leave Eden out of this. He is dead and — if he was unfaithful to you — he knew damned well that you didn’t love him any more — that you’d turned to me.”
“How could he know that?”
“How could he help? Uncle Nicholas told me since that everyone in the house knew it. They were just waiting to see what would happen.”
“So — you talk me over with your family!”
He disdained to reply to this but went on — “And let me tell you, Alayne, that you were far more provocative in your behaviour toward me at that time than Clara Lebraux has ever been!”
It was as though he had struck her. But she controlled herself and said bitterly — “But you were able to resist me!”
He answered with dignity — “You were married to my brother!”
“You make my head reel!” she cried. “The fact that I was married to your brother had a restraining influence — but the fact that I am married to you has none.”
“I have used more self-restraint than you know,” he returned sternly. “Besides, things were different with me then. I was a happy man. I had not the same need. Last fall I was — well, you know how things were with us.”
“I know that last summer you mortgaged this place and took money needed for other things to move that hideous house on to your land for Clara Lebraux to live in! Now I know why!”
“Alayne!” he cried. “I had no such thought when I brought Clara and Pauline to live on the estate. They were in terrible difficulties. I had been Lebraux’s best friend.”
“Well,” she answered, with a gesture of finality, “I don’t want to hear any more about it. I can’t bear any more.”
He began to pick the broken pieces of glass from the floor, bending awkwardly because of the sling he wore. She looked at his dense red hair and thought — “I shall go white before he does.” She looked at the lines that indented his forehead and felt a bitter satisfaction.
He took out his handkerchief and mopped up the little puddle of brandy. Then he stood up and pressed the wet handkerchief to his forehead. He stood almost impassively while she left the room. But when he heard her crying in her room he bounded up the stairs and throwing open the door appeared before her, his face contorted like a child’s.
“Don’t!” he exclaimed brokenly and would have taken her in his arms.
She put out her hands to keep him off.
“Darling — you know I have never loved anyone but you!”
“Will you go away!” she answered. “I couldn’t bear to have you touch me.” She went and threw herself on the bed. She felt like one shipwrecked, as though her legs were weighted by seaweed that dragged her down.
Little Adeline stirred in her cot and made a sighing sound. Renny went to her and she stared out of her bright eyes, remote and impersonal, like a little animal in its burrow. Her hair stood like tawny fur.
Alayne sat up on the side of her bed.
“Ask your child — our child — to forgive you,” she said. “That is our child. I bore it and I wish I’d died then.”
He put his face down to Adeline’s but she was only half awake. She stared with her bright impersonal look as though she did not see him. He drew the covers close under her chin and went out.
NOT A SNATCH of sleep came to help her through the long hours. Mounting, mounting, up to midnight, declining, sinking, to the dawn, the hours carried their load of misery to her. In her fancy she saw them deposit their separate loads in the passage, between her door and Renny’s, till a great black mound was formed, barring them away from each other forever.
During the first hours she could think of nothing but the fact that Clara Lebraux had lain in his arms, as she herself had lain. Over and over again she pictured licentious details of their meetings. Had he lied when he said that they had not been together since the autumn? It did not matter — it did not matter — they had been together! She heard their very whispers in the woods, whispers that came to her like shouts. Clara’s face was riveted against the darkness, mouthing her passion.
Alayne hated herself for these thoughts. With all the strength in her she stripped them from her mind and left it naked, cold. She thought coldly of her position in this house. Ten years ago she had come to Jalna as Eden’s wife, a sedate, carefully guarded young woman, conventional, inexperienced, feeling herself unconventional, experienced beside these Whiteoaks, with their hidebound traditions of family, of churchgoing, of male superiority, even while they were dominated by the old grandmother. She had, coming from a great Metropolis, felt tolerant of them in their unworldliness and, in this backwater, under their Victorian guidance, what emotions, fears, hates, and anguishes — she had plumbed! Two marriages to Whiteoaks, and both of them unfaithful to her!
Then Renny’s words came like a whip. “If Eden was unfaithful to you, he knew damned well that you didn’t love him any more — that you had turned to me!” Had Eden known that? No, he could not have known! He could not! She had kept her secret. Eden’s love for her had been a shallow volatile stream, only too eager to turn aside to a fresh outlet. And those other cruel words that Renny had said — “Let me tell you that you were far more provocative toward me at that time than Clara Lebraux has ever been!” What had she done, said? She could not remember. But she remembered the fever of her love for him that gave her no peace. If Eden’s love for her had been a shallow stream, hers for him had been no more. To Renny she had thrown open the passionate recesses of her spiritual being. She had created for him a new Alayne, a woman reckless, desirous, abandoned to his love. “You are a more passionate woman sexually than Clara Lebraux.” She rolled her head on the pillows and tears poured down her cheeks.
Oh, the birth of this new hate for him! It was far more agonizing than childbirth. It tore at her every organ. It nauseated her very soul. A dreadful metallic taste came into her mouth. Her hair was dripping with sweat. She felt as though she would go mad.
She rose and went to the window. It was a black night and had turned extraordinarily cold for the time of year. There was no breeze, no sound, no feeling of life, no promise. The air touched her face like a cold hand. There were no stars, no moon, the sun might well forget to return to such a world.
Out of the darkness Adeline spoke — “Mummie!”
“Yes,