Maurice Vaughan was sitting alone in his dining room. When he and Piers had returned from Stead, he had brought the young fellow into the house for a drink and some cold viands which he had got himself from the pantry. If he had had his way, Piers would still be there, smoking, drinking, and talking with ever less clarity about fertilizers and spraying and the breeding of horses. But Piers had refused to stay for long. He had to rise early, and for some reason he could not get Pheasant out of his head. His thoughts kept flying back to her, to her little white face, her brown cropped hair. Her thin eager hands seemed to tug at his sleeve, drawing him home. He had been abstracted all the evening.
However, Maurice had scarcely noticed this. All he craved was company, the warmth of a human presence to pierce the chill loneliness of the house. When Piers was gone, he sat on and on, slowly, heavily drinking without enjoyment, slowly, heavily thinking in the same numbing circle which his mind, like the glassy-eyed steed of a roundabout, had traversed for twenty years.
He thought of Meg, tender and sedate, a noble young girl, as she was when they had become engaged. He thought of his old parents, their fond joy in him, their ambition, with which he was in accord, that he should become one of the most brilliant and influential men in the country. He pictured his marriage with Meggie, their life together, their family of lovely girls and boys. There were six of these children of his fancy. He had named them all—the boys with family names, the girls with romantic names from the poets he had once admired. From the eldest to the youngest, he knew every line of the six young faces and had a right to know them, for he had shaped them out of the shadows to satisfy the hunger of his heart. For them he had a love he had never given to Pheasant.
He thought of that affair with her mother, of their meetings in the twilight, of her clutching his knees and begging him to marry her when she found she was with child, of his tearing himself away. Then the basket with the baby, the note,—here a feeling approaching nausea made him shift in his chair,—the family consternation, the family conclaves, Meg's throwing him over, his parents' death, financial distresses, the end of ambition. And so on through the whole gloomy business of his life, in which the brightest spot was the war, where he had been able for a time to forget the past and ignore the future.
As he completed the circle, the room reeled a little with him; his chin sank on his breast, and the electric light brought out the increasing whiteness of the patches on his temples. He did not sleep, but consciousness was suspended. The sound of someone softly entering the room did not rouse him. With his heavy underlip dropped, his eyes staring into space, he sat motionless as a sullen rock buried in the heaviness of the sea.
Pheasant felt a pang of pity as she saw him sitting alone in the cold, unshaded, electric light. "He looks frightfully blue," she thought, "and he's getting round-shouldered." Then her mind flew back to her own tragic situation, and she went to him and touched him on the arm.
"Maurice."
He started, and then, seeing who it was, he said in a surly tone: "Well, what do you want?"
"Oh, Maurice," she breathed, "be kind to me! Don't let Piers into the house. I'm afraid he'll kill me."
He stared stupidly at her, and then growled: "Well, it's what you deserve, isn't it?"
"Yes, yes, I deserve it! But how did you know? Have you seen any one?"
He considered a moment, staring at the decanter on the table.
"Yes, Piers was here."
"Piers here? Oh, he was searching for me!" She wrung her hands frantically. "Oh, Maurice, please, please don't let him in again! I've been wandering about in the dark for hours, and at last I thought I'd come to you, for after all I am your child. You've a right to protect me, no matter what I've done."
He roused himself to say, "What have you done?"
"Didn't Piers tell you anything?"
"No."
"But he was searching for me?"
"No, he wasn't."
"Then how did you know something was wrong?"
"I didn't."
"But you said I deserve to be killed."
"Well, don't you?" he demanded, with drunken raillery.
"Maurice, you're drunk. Oh, whatever shall I do?" She threw herself on his knees, clasping his neck. "Try to understand! Say that you'll not let Piers kill me." She broke into pitiful wails. "Oh, Maurice, I've had to run away from Piers, and I love him so!"
"He was here a bit ago," said Vaughan, staring around as though he expected to find him in a corner. Then, noticing her head against his shoulder, he laid his hand on it in a rough caress, as a man might stroke a dog. "Don't cry, youngster. I'll take care of you. Glad to have you back. Damned lonely."
She caught his hand and pressed a dozen wild kisses on it.
"Oh, Maurice, how good you are! How good to me! And how good Piers was to me—and I didn't deserve it. Hanging is too good for me!" And she added, melodramatically: "'Twere better I had never been born!"
She rose then and wiped her eyes. She was a pitiful little figure. Her clothes were torn from running distractedly through a blackberry plantation. Her hands and even her pale face were bleeding from scratches. She had lost a shoe, and the stockinged foot was wet with mud.
"Yes, 'twere," he repeated, agreeably.
With a certain pathetic dignity, she turned toward the door.
"Will it be all the same to you, Maurice, if I go to my room?"
"Same to me—wherever you go—absolutely."
How different this hall, she thought, as she dragged herself up the bare stairs, from the luxurious hall at Jalna, with its thickly carpeted stairs, its dark red rugs, its stained-glass window. The great moose head which had been her especial terror in childhood now glared down its long hard nose at her, with nostrils distended, as though it longed to toss her on its cruel horns.
She felt dazed. She scarcely suffered, except for the aching in her legs, as she threw herself across her old bed. With half-shut eyes she lay staring at the two pictures on the wall opposite, "Wide Awake" and "Fast Asleep," which had once hung in Maurice's nursery. Darling little baby pictures; how she had always loved them— She wished she had the strength of mind to kill herself. Tear the sheets into strips and wind them tighter and tighter around her throat, or, better still, hang herself from one of the rafters in that back room in the attic. She saw herself dangling there, purple-faced—saw horrified Maurice discovering her—saw herself buried at the cross-road with a stake in her inside. She did not know whether that was still done, but it was possible that the custom would be revived for her—
She fell into a kind of nightmare doze, in which the bed rocked beneath her like a cradle. It rocked faster and faster, rolling her from side to side. She was not a real, a wholesome infant, but a grotesque changeling, leering up at the distraught mother who now peered in at her, shrieking, tearing her hair. Again the scream rent the silence, and Pheasant, with sweat starting on her face, sprang up in bed.
She was alone. The electric light shone brightly. Again came the loud peal—not a scream, but the ringing of the door-bell.
She leaped to the floor. The lock of the door had been broken many years. She began to drag at the washstand to barricade it.
Downstairs the sound had also penetrated Vaughan's stupor. He lurched to the door, which Pheasant had locked behind her, and threw it open. Renny and Piers Whiteoak stood there, their faces like two pale discs against the blackness. Renny at once stepped inside, but Piers remained in the porch.
"Is Pheasant here?" asked Renny.
"Yes." He eyed them with solemnity.
Renny turned to his brother. "Come in, Piers."
Vaughan led the way toward the dining room, but Piers stopped at the foot of the stairs.
"Is she upstairs?" he asked in a thick voice, placing one hand on the newel post as though to steady himself. Vaughan, somewhat sobered by the strangeness of the brothers' aspect, remembered something.
"Yes, but you're not going up to her. You'll let her alone."
"He won't hurt her," said Renny.
"He's not to go up. I promised her."
He took the youth's arm, but Piers wrenched himself away.
"I order you!" shouted Vaughan. "Whose house is this? Whose daughter is she? She's left you. Very well—let her stay. I want her."
"She is my wife. I'm going to her."
"What the hell's the matter, anyway? I don't know what it's all about. She comes here—done up—frightened out of her wits—I remember now. Then you come like a pair of murderers."
"I must see her."
"You shall not see her." Again he clutched Piers's arm. The two struggled beneath the sinister head of the great moose, under the massive antlers of which their manhood seemed weak and futile.
In a moment Piers had freed himself and was springing up the stairs.
"Come into the dining room, Maurice," said Renny, "and I'll tell you what is wrong. Did she tell you nothing?"
Maurice followed him, growling: "A strange way to act in a man's house at this hour."
"Did she tell you nothing?" asked Renny, when they were in the dining room.
"I don't remember what she said." He picked up the decanter. "Have a drink."
"No, nor you either." He took the decanter from his friend and put it in the sideboard, decisively locking the door. Vaughan regarded the action with dismal whimsicality.
"What a to-do," he said, "because the kids have had a row!"
Renny turned on him savagely. "Good God, Maurice, you don't call this a row, do you?"
"Well, what's the trouble, anyway?"
"The trouble is this: that brat of yours has wrecked poor young Piers's life."
"The hell she has! Who is the man?"
"His own brother—Eden."
Vaughan groaned. "Where is he?"
"He made off in the car."
"Why didn't she go with him? Why did she come to me?"
"How can I tell? He probably didn't ask her. Oh, the whole rotten business harks back to me! It's my fault. I'd no right to let Eden loaf about all winter, writing poetry. It's made a scoundrel of him!"
A wry smile flitted across Vaughan's face at the unconscious humor of the remark.
"I shouldn't blame myself too much if I were you. If writing poetry has made Eden into a scoundrel, he was probably well on the way beforehand. Possibly that's why he turned to it."
There was a deep understanding between these two. They had confided in each other as they had in no one else. Renny, stirred by the disclosures of the night, burst out: "Maurice, in thought I am no better than Eden! I love his wife. She's never out of my mind."
Vaughan looked into the tormented eyes of his friend with commiseration.
"Do you, Renny? I had never thought of such a thing. She doesn't seem to me your sort of girl at all."
"That is the trouble. She isn't. If she were, it would be easier to put the thought of her aside. She's intellectual, she's—"
"I should say she is cold."
"You're wrong. It is I, all my life, who have had a sort of cold sensuality—no tenderness went with my love for a woman. I don't think I had any compassion. No, I'm sure I hadn't." He knit his brows as though recalling past affairs. "But I'm full of compassion for Alayne."
"Does she love you?"
"Yes."
"What about Eden?"
"She had a romantic devotion to him, but it's over."
"Does she know about this?" Maurice lifted his head in the direction of the room above.
"Yes. I only had a glimpse of her in the hall—the house was in an uproar. She had a strange, exalted look as though nothing mattered now."
"I see. What is Piers going to do?"
"Piers is a splendid fellow—tough as an oak. He said to me, 'She's mine; nothing can change that. I'm going to fetch her home.' But I should pity Eden if he got his hands on him."
"They are coming down. Heavens, they were quiet enough! Must I speak to them?"
"No, let the poor young beggars alone."
The two came slowly down the stairs. Like people leaving the scene of a catastrophe, they carried in their eyes the terror of what they had beheld. Their faces were rigid. Piers's mouth was drawn to one side in an expression of disgust. It was like a mask of tragedy. They stood in the wide doorway of the dining room as in a picture framed. Maurice and Renny smiled at them awkwardly, trying to put a decent face on the affair. "Going, eh?" Maurice said. "Have something first, Piers." He made a movement toward the sideboard.
"Thanks," returned Piers in a lifeless voice. He entered the dining room.
"Where's that key, Renny?"
Renny produced the key; a tantalus was brought forth, and a drink poured for Piers. Maurice, with Renny's eye on him, did not take one himself.
Piers gulped down the spirits, the glass rattling grotesquely against his teeth. Under the ashen tan of his face, color crept back. No one spoke, but the three men stared with gloomy intensity at Pheasant, still framed in the doorway. The magnetic currents between the members of the group seemed palpably to vibrate across the atmosphere of the room. Then Pheasant, putting up her hands, as though to push their peering faces back from her, exclaimed: "Don't stand staring at me like that! One would think you'd never seen me before."
"You look awfully done," said Maurice. "I think you ought to have a mouthful of something to brace you. A little Scotch and water, eh?"
"I might if I were asked," she returned, with a pathetic attempt at bravado. She took the glass in a steady little hand, and drank.
"I shall come along later," said Renny to Piers. "I'm going to stop a while with Maurice." But he continued to stare at Pheasant.
"I know I'm a scarlet woman, but I think you're very cruel. Your eyes are like a brand, Renny Whiteoak."
"Pheasant, I was not even thinking of you. My—my mind was quite somewhere else."
Piers turned on Maurice in a sudden rage. "It's all your fault!" he broke out, vehemently. "You never gave the poor child a chance. She was as ignorant as any little immigrant when I married her."
"She doesn't seem to have learned any good from you," retorted Vaughan.
"She has learned all of decency that she knows. Was she ever sent to school?"
"She had two governesses."
"Yes. They both left inside of six months, because they couldn't live in the house with you."
"Oh, I suppose it is my fault that she inherits her mother's instinct," returned Maurice, bitterly. "And Renny has just been telling me that it is his fault that Eden is a scoundrel. We've taken on a lot of responsibility."
"You are talking like fools," said Renny.
"Please do not quarrel about me," put in Pheasant. "I think I'm going to faint or something."
"Better take her out in the air," said Renny. "The liquor was too strong for her."
"Come along," said Piers, and took her arm.
The touch of his hand had an instant effect on Pheasant. A deep blush suffused her face and neck; she swayed toward him, raising her eyes to his with a look of tragic humility.
Outside, the coolness of the dawn refreshed her. He released her arm, and preceded her through the grove and down into the ravine. They walked in silence, she seeming no more than his shadow, following him through every divergence of the path, hesitating when he hesitated. Centuries before, two such figures might have been seen traversing this same ravine, a young Indian and his squaw, moving as his silent shadow in the first light of morning, primitive figures so much akin to the forest life about them that the awakening birds did not cease twittering as they passed. On the bridge above the stream he stopped. Below lay the pool where they had first seen their love reflected as an opening flower. They looked down into it now, no longer able to share the feelings its mirrored loveliness excited in them. A primrose light suffused the sky and in a deeper tone lay cupped in the pool, around the brink of which things tender and green strove with gentle urgency to catch the sun's first rays.
An English pheasant, one of some imported by Renny, moved sedately among the young rushes, its plumage shining like a coat of mail. Careless, irresponsible bird, Piers thought, and for one wild instant he wished that she were one with the bird—that no man might recognize a woman in her but himself; that he might keep her hidden and love her secretly, untortured by the fear and loathing he now felt.
Pheasant saw, drowned in that pool, all the careless irresponsibility of the past, the weakness, the indolence, that had made her a victim of Eden's dalliance. If Piers loathed her, how much more she loathed the image of Eden's face which faintly smiled at her from the changeful mirror of the pool! Just to live, to make up to Piers by her devotion for what he had suffered—to win from his eyes love again instead of that look of fear which he had turned on her when he entered the bedroom! She had expected rage—fury. And he had looked at her in an agony of fear. But he had taken her back! They were going home to Jalna. She longed for the thick walls of the house as a broken-winged bird for its nest.
"Come," he said, as though awakening from a dream, and moved on up the path that led from the ravine to the lawn.
The turkeys were crossing the lawn, led by the cock, whose blazing wattles swung arrogantly in the first sun-rays. His wives, with burnished breasts and beaming eyes, followed close behind, craning their necks, alternately lifting and dragging their slender feet, echoing his bold gobble with plaintive pipings. The hens paused to look with curiosity at the boy and girl who emerged from the ravine, but the cock, absorbed by his own ego, circled before them, swelling himself rigidly, dropping his wings, urging into his wattles a still more burning red.
Down the wet roof Finch's pigeons were strutting, sliding, rooketty-cooing, peering over the eaves at the two who slowly mounted the steps.
Inside, the house lay in silence except for the heavy snoring of Grandmother in her bedroom off the lower hall. It was as if some strange beast had a lair beneath the stairs, and was growling a challenge to the sun.
They passed the closed doors of the hall above and went into their own room. Pheasant dropped into a chair by the window, but Piers, with a businesslike air, began collecting various articles—his brushes, his shaving things, the clothes which he wore about the farm. She watched his movements with the unquestioning submissiveness of a child. One thought sustained her: "How glad I am that I am here with Piers, and not flying with Eden as he wanted me to!"
When he had got together what he wanted, he took the key from the door and inserted it on the outside. He said, without looking at her:—
"Here you stay, till I can stand the sight of your face again."
He went out, locking the door behind him. He climbed the long stairs to the attic, and throwing his things on the bed in Finch's room, began to change his clothes for the day's work. In the passage he had met Alayne, looking like a ghost. They had passed without speaking.