He did not enter the room with Piers but said from the doorway:
“Could you come here a moment, Alayne? There is something you must attend to.”
She set Nook on his feet and went into the hall. Renny stood in the doorway of his grandmother’s room. He said in a low voice — “Come in here — I have something I want to say to you.”
“No,” she said, out of the constriction in her chest.
He took her by the arm and drew her into the room. She did not resist because of Piers and Pheasant across the hall. He closed the door behind him.
Although the window was open the air of the room was close, impregnated by the odours of the Eastern rugs and fabrics, the formidable dresses, dolmans, and mantles that still hung in the wardrobe. It seemed to Alayne that she must stifle if she remained there for more than a moment. She faced him, her antagonism quivering like a flame in her eyes. She put her hands behind her on the handle of the door.
He said, with a perceptible tremor in his voice — “Alayne, I brought you into this room purposely, into this room that belonged to a woman who understood more about life than anyone I’ve ever known. She knew men and she knew women, and she knew human weakness —”
“What is all that to me?” she exclaimed passionately. What help is that to me today?”
“But only listen —”
“I will not listen —” She turned the handle of the door vehemently in her hands.
His face softened to tenderness, his eyes were suffused by tears. “You know I love no one but you — that I never have and never shall love any woman but you!”
She pointed to the bed with its rich-coloured covering. “You might have told that to her — she might have believed you. Perhaps she condoned such things in her husband. But you can’t make a Whiteoak out of me — you can’t make a Court out of me — not after ten years! I’m the child of my parents. Do you suppose that if my mother had found that my father had been meeting another woman in the wood — been intimate with her there — oh, I have no right even to mention their names in such a connection! It’s horrible! I wish I had not even mentioned my father’s name with such thoughts in my mind. But I have mentioned it and I tell you, Renny Whiteoak, she would never have forgiven him! She would never have allowed him to touch her again! And I am her daughter.”
“Does that mean” — an odd embarrassed expression flitted across his face — “does that mean that you will never sleep with me again?”
“It does.” She opened the door and stood in it. She saw him place his hands on the footboard of the bed and stand staring at it as though he actually saw his grandmother lying there. His lips moved but she did not hear what he said. She turned with a quick strong step into the hall just as Rags sounded the gong for the Sunday dinner.
Rags stood by the gong with bent head. He looked up at her slyly from under his light brows. She had an uncanny feeling that he knew all that went on in the house, understood all, with no more than a word caught here and there to inform him. He was like some strange god, she thought, standing there by the gong, beating their entrances and exits in the futile drama of their lives. In the sitting room they stood waiting for Renny, Piers talking with an added heartiness because he was conscious of some crisis other than that brought about by Wakefield.
Adeline was in a gale of spirits. She tossed back her head and laughed up in their faces, showing her teeth which were extraordinarily white even for a child. She would not let Nook be and he made no effort to hide his fear of her. Piers’s chagrin at his son’s timidity deepened the colour in his fresh-skinned face. Mooey felt embarrassed for Nook’s sake, but he also felt a certain satisfaction in the thought that he was not the only one who did not come up to Piers’s standard of what a boy should be.
As Renny entered, Piers said to him — “I guess this one will have to go into a monastery too. I think it’s the only place he’ll be fitted for. Adeline can frighten him with a look.”
Renny stared at the children, not seeming to see them. He said — “Did I hear the gong?”
“Yes,” answered Pheasant. “And I don’t think it’s fair to say such things about poor little Nook, because Adeline certainly has an intimidating way with her, don’t you think so, Alayne?”
“She intimidates me,” answered Alayne. She took Nook by the hand and moved toward the dining room.
“She grows more like Gran every day,” said Piers approvingly. Adeline hung on his coat, dancing beside him.
Following them, Pheasant asked of Renny — “When do you expect the uncles? They’re coming to visit, aren’t they?”
“I’m expecting to hear any day that they are on their way. This will be a pretty mess for them to return to.” He looked so sombre, indeed so black, that Pheasant felt a sudden pity for Wakefield. She said:
“Perhaps everything will be happily straightened out before they come.”
He drew a profound sigh. “Indeed I hope so.” His eyes rested on Alayne standing facing him across the table.
Wakefield was late, not so much because he shrank from the concerted attack of the family as with a sense of the dramatic significance of his entrance. He was disappointed to find that Meg and Maurice were not present. With a little smile at Pheasant and a non-committal nod to Piers he dropped into his chair.
Contrary to his usual air of protest against Wakefield’s tardiness, Rags placed his plate as though making him a formal presentation of it, but it was near Renny that he hovered with an air of solicitude.
It was customary on Sunday to have red wine or ale on the table, but to Piers’s disappointment there was neither today. He showed his discontent by pushing the glass of water away from him and throwing a glance of sulky enquiry at Rags. Rags received it with almost smirking pleasure because he felt in his master’s perverse refusal to have anything stronger than water on the table a gesture expressing depression of a peculiarly searching nature.
There was roast duckling and Renny presented a drumstick to each of the children. It was almost unendurable to Alayne to sit during the exhibition of eager gnawing that followed. Adeline was conscious of this and threw her mother daring looks out of eyes humid with greed.
When this course was removed and large glistening table napkins were being used to wipe small sticky hands and mouths, and Renny had loudly cautioned Rags not to let the dogs have the duck bones, the gathering heaviness of the atmosphere was broken by Piers saying to Wakefield:
“Are you in earnest about this affair or are you just showing off?”
A quiver passed over Wakefield’s face. He gathered some crumbs of bread by his plate into a little mound. Then he turned to Renny and said:
“Do you think it is fair that I should be asked such a question?”
“I don’t doubt your sincerity.”
“Thank you. Then if you don’t doubt my sincerity, and if I tell all of you that I have fought this out in the very sweat of my spirit and that I’ve come to a fixed decision, I don’t see what more there is to be said about it.”
“But, Wakefield,” cried Pheasant, “you don’t realize what you are doing! You’re just throwing away all the lovely things in life for a dreary existence in some dreadful cell!”
Wakefield smiled at her almost compassionately. “That speech shows how little you know of life in monasteries. I expect to work as hard as I ever have only in a different way. And don’t imagine, Pheasant, that I haven’t considered the lovely things of life that I must give up. I have considered every single one of them and I don’t mind telling you that it was a bitter thing giving them up, but it would have been still more bitter to have given up the lovely things of the spirit.”
“But can’t you have both?”