Cover
Dedication
For Edward and Anne Dimock.
Remembering the summer of 1934
and much before and after.
I
The Rehearsal
Everything about the house had been put in perfect order. Workmen had been there to mend the roof, tighten the supports of the shutters, and give the woodwork a glossy coat of new paint. They had cut back the Virginia creeper which, in its exuberant growth, would have completely covered the windows and so excluded even the peering sun from the doings of the Whiteoaks in this early summer of nineteen hundred and six.
The gravel sweep had been raked into a pattern by the gardener and Philip Whiteoak hesitated for a moment before crossing it. It seemed a pity to disarrange it, though he considered the making of the pattern rather a waste of time. Still, he could not deny that the house looked very spruce, somewhat like a man with a close haircut and shave, and a new cravat about his neck.
Philip himself looked the very reverse of spruce. A stained corduroy coat covered his broad shoulders and muddy top boots his powerful legs. He carried a fishing rod and a basket in which glistened a dozen speckled trout. One of these had life in it still and now and again drew itself into a sharp contortion above the bodies of its fellows.
As Philip lounged across the gravel and up the shining steps into the porch, he wondered lazily which of his family he would see first when he entered the house. He rather hoped it would not be his mother, with whom he had had words this morning, or his wife, who would make him feel that he should have come in by the side entrance with his mud and his fish.
As a matter of fact it was his wife whom he now saw descending the stairs in a white embroidered dress with a wide flounced skirt. He went toward her, smiling a little sheepishly, yet really unashamed.
“Hello, Molly,” he said. “You look as pretty as a picture.”
She stood, just out of his reach, critically looking at his fair, flushed face and disreputable clothes.
“Oh, Philip,” she exclaimed, “your boots are muddy! You might have gone —”
“No, I mightn’t,” he interrupted. “I wanted to bring my catch straight in to show it you. Aren’t they beauties?”
She ran down the steps that separated them.
“Pretty things!” She clasped her hands on his shoulder and peered into the basket.
“We’ll have them for breakfast. One is still living! I hate to see it gasp like that.”
“He feels the heat, just as I do. I always suffer in the first warm days.” He set down the basket and put his arms about her. “Give me a kiss, Molly!”
She drew down his head and pressed her cheek to his.
“I say, Molly, your cheek is just like a flower.”
“And yours is like a grater! You have not shaved today.”
“If you scold me I’ll grow a beard and do the heavy patriarch. It might be a good idea. I don’t get the respect I should.”
“No wonder, with your mother so arrogant!”
“Never mind, never mind! She knows she can’t bully me — and never could!” He smiled magnanimously and his eyes, of a particularly fine blue, flashed amiably.
When he was with Mary she felt that nothing else mattered. Her tall delicate figure swayed beside his. The light from the stained glass windows on either side of the front door threw amber and green splashes over her, hardening her fair hair into a metallic brightness.
“What has been going on this afternoon?” he asked.
“Nothing in particular, except that Meg is in town shopping and Peep has got his new tooth through.”
He had a grunt of satisfaction for the last statement and for the first the exclamation: —
“I’ll be glad when this trousseau is completed! Meggie can’t get enough to satisfy her.” But, though his tone was complaining, he smiled complacently.
“I suppose she thinks it’s the last she’ll get from you.” Then she added quickly — “Of course, an occasion like this comes only once in a girl’s life. She’s bound to want to make the most of it.” In truth Mary Whiteoak was so glad that her stepdaughter was to be eliminated from the family circle that she was willing to condone all Meg did. The thought of being free of that stubborn girl, always making things difficult for her, always clinging about her father’s neck, filled her with bliss.
“Who took her in?” asked Philip.
“Renny drove them to the train. Vera Lacey went with her. She should be back at any moment.”
“H’m. I hope Vera comes with her. Charming girl.”
A severe-looking parlormaid appeared from the dining room and announced that tea was ready. At the same moment a door at the end of the hall opened and old Mrs. Whiteoak entered. She had passed her eightieth birthday, but she moved strongly and her broad shoulders were just beginning to stoop. Although the May day was summerlike, she wore a heavy black cashmere dress with a much shirred and pleated bodice and a wide band of black velvet on the bottom of the long skirt. A lace cap trimmed with rosettes of mauve baby ribbon added to her already commanding height. Her eyes, which had once been large, were still of an intense and brilliant brown. Temper and race were implied in the lines of her mouth, and her strongly arched nose defied her fourscore years.
“Late for tea, as usual, Philip,” she exclaimed, in a strong voice, with more than a hint of Irish accent.
“No, I’m not late, Mamma,” he returned, “I’ve been in for some time.”
“You are late,” she persisted. “You’re not ready. Look at your boots and your coat and your hands. Look at him, Molly! He’s a sight, isn’t he?”
“I like the way he looks,” said Mary contradictorily.
“Of course you do! You’re that sort of a woman.”
Philip handed the basket of fish to the maid.
“Here, Eliza,” he said, “take these to the cook.”
“Wait a minute, till I have a look at them,” put in his mother. She bent eagerly over the basket. “Fine catch, eh? I’ll have one for my supper, with lemon and parsley. Don’t forget about the lemon and parsley, Eliza.”
“No, ma’am.” The maid was about to descend the stairs to the basement kitchen when a side door giving on to the lawn opened and Philip’s two elder brothers came in and demanded to inspect the fish. Their mother took an arm of each and looked approvingly into their faces, flushed by exercise.
“Had a good game, eh? I could see you from my window. That’s the way to keep supple —” she pronounced it soople — “a good game of lawn tennis before tea.”
“I think,” said Nicholas, brushing back his thick greying hair, “that I’m getting a bit heavy for tennis. I get very hot. And I’m fifty-three, you know. I think I ought to go in for croquet or golf.”
His mother gave him a thump on the shoulder. “Get along with you! When you’re my age, you may talk of taking care of yourself.”
“I’ll never be what you are, Mamma. You’ll live to be a hundred.”
“We’ll see, we’ll see.” And, still clinging to her elder sons, she led the way to the dining room.
A substantial tea was laid on the mahogany table. A plate of scones had been split, buttered, and spread with grape jelly. There was a silver dish of toasted crumpets, and a glistening section of honey in the comb. There were mounds of fresh white bread thickly buttered. The old lady’s eyes lighted and her strong lips parted in a smile that showed teeth that had once been fine, but