A BOY IN THE HOUSE
Books by Mazo de la Roche
THE BUILDING OF JALNA
MARY WAKEFIELD
YOUNG RENNY
WHITEOAK HERITAGE
JALNA
WHITEOAKS
FINCH’S FORTUNE
THE MASTER OF JALNA
WHITEOAK HARVEST
WAKEFIELD’S COURSE
RETURN TO JALNA
RENNY’S DAUGHTER
POSSESSION
DELIGHT
LARK ASCENDING
GROWTH OF A MAN
THE TWO SAPLINGS
EXPLORERS OF THE DAWN
BESIDE A NORMAN TOWER
THE VERY HOUSE
PORTRAIT OF A DOG
THE SACRED BULLOCK, AND OTHER STORIES
OF ANIMALS
WHITEOAKS: A PLAY
A BOY IN THE
HOUSE
BY
MAZO DE LA ROCHE
This book is copyright in all countries which are signatories to the Berne Convention
TO
NORAH
WITH LOVE
CHAPTER I
LINDLEY had decided that this was the very sort of place he had been looking for. Here was a seclusion he had not thought to find possible within his means, not in these days of senseless noise and ant-hill confusion. Even if he had rented a cottage in a tiny village, what might not his neighbours have been? Did a village exist without its burden of motor traffic? But here would be peace. Here was true remoteness, and that only a stone’s throw from a highway. Here he would write the book he had been longing for ten years to write.
A small legacy had made it possible for him to be independent for a year, or even more, if he were careful. Through a chance acquaintance he had heard of the two sisters who owned the house. He had come to see it and he had taken part of it on a year’s lease. When he had been told that only a part was to be let, he had all but refused even to inspect it, but, once having seen it, he had made his decision and was now entrenched, with a supply of paper, in a silence that might be matched, he thought, only in a desert.
He recalled what the chance acquaintance had told him of the sisters. ‘Rather eccentric,’ he had said, ‘and as Victorian as crinolines. I remember their old father. He certainly was a Tartar. Kept his wife and daughters subdued, if ever a man did. Once they lived in fine style but he lost most of his money in bad investments. I guess it made him bitter. Anyhow these two women have had a hard time. They’ve sold most of their good old furniture. I’ve bought some of it myself. They live absolutely secluded. You couldn’t find a quieter place.’
Now he was settled, with his few belongings, in his part of the house. He had his own front door, leading into a narrow hall, out of which mounted the white spindled stairway to the rooms above. To the right of the front door was a large, sparsely furnished room. A handsome walnut table dominated it. Here he would write. He wondered how he would feel about that tall pier-glass with its heavily gilded ornate frame. He would see his own reflection in it, every time he raised his eyes from the paper. Of course he could place his back to the mirror, but in that case he would cut himself off from the view through the open window that gave on to long grass moving gently in the breeze and old lilac trees heavily in bloom. Lindley almost trembled in anticipation of the moment when he would sit down to write in this room. But, on this second day of living here, he was still too restless to begin work. It crossed his mind that perhaps he would be better off writing in one of the upstairs rooms. He went up the stairs, covered by worn brown carpet, and examined the three bedrooms. He would sleep in the largest, the one with the mahogany four-poster and the marble-topped dressing-table and wash-stand with the huge ewer and basin and intimidating slop-bowl. The floor was bare and the clean pine boards unpainted. The walls were of pale-grey plaster, a lovely room for sleeping and dreaming.
Of the other two, one was small and unattractive, the other looked out on an enormous cedar tree, still wet from last night’s rain. The sweet scent of it came through the open window. He remembered his stuffy room in the lodging-house in the city, the monotony of his work in an accountant’s office, and his heart sang for joy. He realized now why he could not yet settle himself down to work. He was simply too happy. In another day or two he would become tranquil. Then he would choose a room for his work, sharpen his pencils, take out the fair paper and lose himself as he longed to do.
Slowly, in a kind of haze, he descended the stairs. At the foot he stood still, staring at the door on his right which connected his part of the house with that part occupied by the sisters. It had been locked, they said, ever since their father had died and they had decided that the house was too large for their needs. Mrs. Morton, the younger sister, had added, with her genial smile, that they somehow felt safer with that door locked. From what? he wondered. Perhaps from the ghost of that disagreeable old man who had dominated their lives? Standing there, with bent head, he tried to recall what else his acquaintance had told him of their lives? Oh, yes, Miss Lydia Dove had been a beauty who had considered no man she had ever met worthy to become her husband. Elsie had, at twenty-six, married the son of a neighbour who had left her widowed and without means only a year later. She had returned to this house and her father’s tyranny.
On the other side of the door there was dead silence. What did the two women do to pass the time, Lindley wondered. He rather wished the door were not there. It was a reminder of the existence of other people in the house, and the very silence on the other side of it had strange significance. He was but newly transplanted, he thought, from the noise of the city, and it would take him a day or two to get used to this seclusion.
Suddenly, from the other side of the door, a sound came, the sonorous tones of a clock striking the hour of six. Lindley smiled. It was just the right sort of sound—unhurried, tranquil. Yet it told of the passing of another day.
His front door stood open. He saw that the shadows of the trees were lengthening on the now motionless grass. A small bird began its evening song. He thought he would take a stroll through the grounds before he prepared his supper.
Outdoors it was warmer than inside. He took off his jacket and hung it over his arm. He went along the drive, which was almost overgrown by tall grass and buttercups, toward the gate. The front of the property was occupied by an ugly redbrick house and its well-kept lawn. It had been built by a retired grocer who had bought the land old Mr. Dove had been forced to sell when his investments failed. Passing motorists never suspected that another house lay behind. In truth almost everybody had forgotten it, excepting the grocer who lay in wait to buy it, when poverty should force its sale. Mrs. Morton herself did all the shopping. With her shopping-bag on her arm she slipped through the narrow gate, walked the two miles into the village and returned, looking hot and tired, the bag bulging with provisions for the week.
Now Lindley saw her coming along the drive and wondered whether or not he should turn to meet her. He did not want to create an atmosphere of such intimacy with these two women that they would expect a friendly chat at every encounter. On the other hand he did not want to appear unfriendly, and his writer’s curiosity made him wonder about them. What were they really like? Were they resigned to their isolation or embittered by it? Well, the least he could do was to offer to carry the heavy bag for her, which must have doubled its weight with the miles. She did not see him coming till he was quite near. Then the look of pleased surprise, the return of his smile with one which charmingly