CHAPTER XI.SHEwaited until supper was over, and then she asked Jethro for half an hour alone in the little room looking due north, where he kept his papers, his boots, his agricultural catalogues, stray packets of seeds, and so on.The door shut on them. It was nearly dark—the sun setting luridly and throwing a coppery light across the wall. The oak bureau filled one corner of the tiny room; turned full to the gaping hearth was a high-backed oak chair, with the initials “J. J. 1625” cut into its back. An oak chest beneath the window, carved also, and bearing the initials “J. J. 1604,” with a coat of arms, showed that the Jaynes had in the past been even more important people than they were now. A shadow passed the window. Edred, a dog at his heels, the usual fat cigar in his mouth, shouted through, saying that he’d stroll up to Turle and tell Nancy that he couldn’t go to Malling on Thursday. He gave Pamela a significant look and moved off. The copper light burned on the wall again. There was a strong scent of jasmine; the wan white blossoms looked in at the open window. Pamela sat in the chair by the grate, her head against the carved wood.“I wanted to speak to you about my—about Edred,” she said.“I’m going to speak to him myself,” Jethro returned promptly. “He oughtn’t to be loafing about here like this. The place is big enough for all of us, but it’s bad for a man to be out of collar so long.”“He’s very anxious to get something to do. He is full of ideas. He is very clever.”Jethro did not answer. He was sitting on the end of the chest, his back to the window, one foot in a heavy shoe idly dangling. His clean-cut, rugged face was in shadow; her guilty conscience made her fancy that his mouth was relentless.“He doesn’t want to go to sea again,” she straggled on. “His nerves have been tried—you can understand that?”“Whatdoeshe want?”She heard the wicket-gate creak. Through the summer haze and the misty, heavy-leaved trees she saw him pass along the road; white dog at his heels, burning tobacco between his lips.“He wants two hundred pounds. He would go away from Folly Corner; never come back, never trouble you for a penny more, for a meal, even.”Jethro’s light eyes opened. They looked to her like filings of steel in the uncertain light. His voice came through the twilight suspiciously.“Why does he talk like that? He is your brother, isn’t he? I want my wife’s brother to have the run of my house whenever he’s in the neighborhood.”“He is afraid that he has trespassed on your hospitality too long.” How parrot-like her voice was, how stilted her words! She burst out feverishly:“Give him the two hundred pounds—if you love me. Let him go at once. If he delays he may lose his chance. I don’t understand business, but he will explain it to you; it is something that will not wait.”“He could come back for the wedding.”“We shouldn’t want him; we could manage without him, I mean. He would not be able to get away; business—a new business would be too engrossing.”“Two hundred pounds is a good lump.”“But to set him up in life—to get rid of him.”“You don’t want to get rid of your own flesh and blood, surely! There’s no hurry. Wait until after the wedding. It’s in August—just six weeks.”He got up, bent over the high chair in his clumsy, hearty fashion, and kissed her mouth. That kiss decided her, made her inflexible. She gulped down a little scornful laugh in her throat: a man who kissed in that way deserved to be jilted.“Go back to the chest,” she cried petulantly. “This isn’t the proper time for nonsense; we are talking business. You will give him the money at once, won’t you?”“I must think it over. Two hundred pounds!”“It is nothing to you—everything to us.”“To him.”“To him—that is what I meant. Open the bureau; get your check-book. It will only take a moment.”“There is no hurry. I never rush things. I’ll talk the affair over with Edred to-morrow—no, onWednesday, before I drive in to market. To-morrow I must see old Crisp, of the Flagon House, about that rye of his.”He pulled a wan, white jasmine bloom to pieces slowly, put his head half out of the window into the damp, scented air, and said casually that a couple of bats had flown out of the ivy.Her palms tingled with rage and despair. This matter of two hundred pounds was nothing to him. The clock in the dining-parlor struck nine very softly; on the hedge across the road a nightingale was performing a sad recitative. She jumped to her feet in a passion.“If you don’t promise to give him the two hundred pounds to-morrow morning, I’ll go away—I won’t marry you,” she cried.Jethro only laughed. He felt so secure. The wedding was to be in six weeks; workmen were coming out from Liddleshorn to-morrow to fit up the bathroom and paint the place. Nearly every day a young woman came with things from the draper’s at Liddleshorn. It was all settled. But she looked pretty in a passion. He rose heavily from the chest again.“If you touch me I shall strike you.”“What’s the matter, dear? You’ve been cycling too much. I told Edred that thirty-five miles would be more than you could manage, and it’s nearly forty to Beer Hill and back.”“It wasn’t a bit too long a ride. The others did it; even Nancy, who is supposed to be so delicate. I cannot endure to think you so mean, so lethargic—overa little thing. You must give him the money to-morrow, or I swear——”“Pam.”“Don’t call me that. Will you——”“He shall have a check to-morrow morning, as you wish it so much.”He opened the bureau.“I’ve got it in notes somewhere. I meant to bank on Wednesday. Two hundred pounds!” Hereditary closeness got the better of him again. “It is a good lump. But what is mine is yours—or will be in six weeks. If it makes you happy.”“It makes him secure. What are you doing?”Jethro was pressing his broad thumbs carefully into the sides of a pigeonhole.“There is a secret drawer here. I wouldn’t show it to everyone—but you are flesh of my flesh.”“Not yet.”“In six weeks.”“Show me the secret drawer.”“Wait a bit; it wants humoring. This is a home-made bureau. My great-grandfather was a clever old chap, wasn’t he? I’ve heard my father say that when he died the drawer was overhauled for money, but all they found was three farthings of the year 1732. Here they are.”The long shallow drawer was open. Bank notes were lying flat and crisp in it; in one corner were the farthings, spotted with verdigris.A shadow passed across the window again. Edred put his handsome, insouciant face through the tangle of white blossom and green:“Aren’t you two coming out?” he cried chaffingly. “The moon’s up, and I never heard the nightingale in better form. I’ll run over to Turle in the morning.”Pamela flitted across the dusky room.“We are coming—in a moment,” she said in a loud voice, looking at him significantly; then looking back in the gloom at Jethro—burly and well-favored—by the open bureau, with its shallow secret drawer and pigeon-holes full of bills.She watched Edred go down to the gate and lean over; the twin poplars shooting up like two giant brooms above his head, the white dog like a wraith in the green light. She shut the window and stepped back into the silent little room, which, although it was June, felt cold. Jethro had the notes in his hand. She put out hers with a sudden impulse.“Give them to me to give to him—as a surprise,” she besought faintly.She looked at the bank notes—white, crisp, heavily lettered with black.“Come,” she said, with a forced air of archness and spontaneity, her hand still out, and Jethro’s diamonds burning with a pale fire on her finger. Her gesture was a trifle ghastly in its struggle after playfulness. Her lips were rolled back, showing the set teeth.It was such a sudden, breathless impulse. She looked from one to the other—the man at the bureau, who was so close that she could feel his breath—sweet as a cow’s—on her hair; the man at the gate, jailed by poplars.Why shouldn’t she yield to this new impulse? Why shouldn’t she go away from them both and begin a new, an absolutely feminine and nunlike life? These men drove poor women mad. She knew what a future would be with Edred—delirium, misery, wealth, disaster, disgrace. She knew what a future would be with Jethro—fat ease, heart-hunger. But a future apart she did not know. She would run away from them both—with two hundred pounds in her pocket. Two hundred pounds in notes!Jethro looked at her strangely.“I’ll give it him myself—to-morrow morning,” he said soberly, putting the notes into the drawer and letting it spring back into its hiding-place.She sat down in the oak chair, letting body and brain collapse. She didn’t bother to think—to regret, to rage, to feel. Things were decided for her.“You’ll give it to him to-morrow morning, then. How serious you are! Why do you look at me so oddly? Of course, I did not want the notes. You never see a joke.”“I’ll go out and have a talk with Edred now about this business. I shall be too busy in the morning. You go to bed.” He tried to see her face through the teasing dusk which had drawn between them; his voice was tender. “You’ve been doing too much lately. Good-night, dear. Have a long night’s rest.”“Good-night.”As she undressed, slipping herpetticoats from her waist to her feet, she saw through the half-drawn dimity curtains the two men and the dog strolling about in the uncertain moonlight. Jethro looked magnificently broad and kingly. When she stretched herself in the bed, almost sinking in the feathers, she told herself that this might be her last night at Folly Corner. Before she went to sleep she recalled Jethro’s girth and bearing, together with his balance at the bank, and hesitated.
SHEwaited until supper was over, and then she asked Jethro for half an hour alone in the little room looking due north, where he kept his papers, his boots, his agricultural catalogues, stray packets of seeds, and so on.
The door shut on them. It was nearly dark—the sun setting luridly and throwing a coppery light across the wall. The oak bureau filled one corner of the tiny room; turned full to the gaping hearth was a high-backed oak chair, with the initials “J. J. 1625” cut into its back. An oak chest beneath the window, carved also, and bearing the initials “J. J. 1604,” with a coat of arms, showed that the Jaynes had in the past been even more important people than they were now. A shadow passed the window. Edred, a dog at his heels, the usual fat cigar in his mouth, shouted through, saying that he’d stroll up to Turle and tell Nancy that he couldn’t go to Malling on Thursday. He gave Pamela a significant look and moved off. The copper light burned on the wall again. There was a strong scent of jasmine; the wan white blossoms looked in at the open window. Pamela sat in the chair by the grate, her head against the carved wood.
“I wanted to speak to you about my—about Edred,” she said.
“I’m going to speak to him myself,” Jethro returned promptly. “He oughtn’t to be loafing about here like this. The place is big enough for all of us, but it’s bad for a man to be out of collar so long.”
“He’s very anxious to get something to do. He is full of ideas. He is very clever.”
Jethro did not answer. He was sitting on the end of the chest, his back to the window, one foot in a heavy shoe idly dangling. His clean-cut, rugged face was in shadow; her guilty conscience made her fancy that his mouth was relentless.
“He doesn’t want to go to sea again,” she straggled on. “His nerves have been tried—you can understand that?”
“Whatdoeshe want?”
She heard the wicket-gate creak. Through the summer haze and the misty, heavy-leaved trees she saw him pass along the road; white dog at his heels, burning tobacco between his lips.
“He wants two hundred pounds. He would go away from Folly Corner; never come back, never trouble you for a penny more, for a meal, even.”
Jethro’s light eyes opened. They looked to her like filings of steel in the uncertain light. His voice came through the twilight suspiciously.
“Why does he talk like that? He is your brother, isn’t he? I want my wife’s brother to have the run of my house whenever he’s in the neighborhood.”
“He is afraid that he has trespassed on your hospitality too long.” How parrot-like her voice was, how stilted her words! She burst out feverishly:
“Give him the two hundred pounds—if you love me. Let him go at once. If he delays he may lose his chance. I don’t understand business, but he will explain it to you; it is something that will not wait.”
“He could come back for the wedding.”
“We shouldn’t want him; we could manage without him, I mean. He would not be able to get away; business—a new business would be too engrossing.”
“Two hundred pounds is a good lump.”
“But to set him up in life—to get rid of him.”
“You don’t want to get rid of your own flesh and blood, surely! There’s no hurry. Wait until after the wedding. It’s in August—just six weeks.”
He got up, bent over the high chair in his clumsy, hearty fashion, and kissed her mouth. That kiss decided her, made her inflexible. She gulped down a little scornful laugh in her throat: a man who kissed in that way deserved to be jilted.
“Go back to the chest,” she cried petulantly. “This isn’t the proper time for nonsense; we are talking business. You will give him the money at once, won’t you?”
“I must think it over. Two hundred pounds!”
“It is nothing to you—everything to us.”
“To him.”
“To him—that is what I meant. Open the bureau; get your check-book. It will only take a moment.”
“There is no hurry. I never rush things. I’ll talk the affair over with Edred to-morrow—no, onWednesday, before I drive in to market. To-morrow I must see old Crisp, of the Flagon House, about that rye of his.”
He pulled a wan, white jasmine bloom to pieces slowly, put his head half out of the window into the damp, scented air, and said casually that a couple of bats had flown out of the ivy.
Her palms tingled with rage and despair. This matter of two hundred pounds was nothing to him. The clock in the dining-parlor struck nine very softly; on the hedge across the road a nightingale was performing a sad recitative. She jumped to her feet in a passion.
“If you don’t promise to give him the two hundred pounds to-morrow morning, I’ll go away—I won’t marry you,” she cried.
Jethro only laughed. He felt so secure. The wedding was to be in six weeks; workmen were coming out from Liddleshorn to-morrow to fit up the bathroom and paint the place. Nearly every day a young woman came with things from the draper’s at Liddleshorn. It was all settled. But she looked pretty in a passion. He rose heavily from the chest again.
“If you touch me I shall strike you.”
“What’s the matter, dear? You’ve been cycling too much. I told Edred that thirty-five miles would be more than you could manage, and it’s nearly forty to Beer Hill and back.”
“It wasn’t a bit too long a ride. The others did it; even Nancy, who is supposed to be so delicate. I cannot endure to think you so mean, so lethargic—overa little thing. You must give him the money to-morrow, or I swear——”
“Pam.”
“Don’t call me that. Will you——”
“He shall have a check to-morrow morning, as you wish it so much.”
He opened the bureau.
“I’ve got it in notes somewhere. I meant to bank on Wednesday. Two hundred pounds!” Hereditary closeness got the better of him again. “It is a good lump. But what is mine is yours—or will be in six weeks. If it makes you happy.”
“It makes him secure. What are you doing?”
Jethro was pressing his broad thumbs carefully into the sides of a pigeonhole.
“There is a secret drawer here. I wouldn’t show it to everyone—but you are flesh of my flesh.”
“Not yet.”
“In six weeks.”
“Show me the secret drawer.”
“Wait a bit; it wants humoring. This is a home-made bureau. My great-grandfather was a clever old chap, wasn’t he? I’ve heard my father say that when he died the drawer was overhauled for money, but all they found was three farthings of the year 1732. Here they are.”
The long shallow drawer was open. Bank notes were lying flat and crisp in it; in one corner were the farthings, spotted with verdigris.
A shadow passed across the window again. Edred put his handsome, insouciant face through the tangle of white blossom and green:
“Aren’t you two coming out?” he cried chaffingly. “The moon’s up, and I never heard the nightingale in better form. I’ll run over to Turle in the morning.”
Pamela flitted across the dusky room.
“We are coming—in a moment,” she said in a loud voice, looking at him significantly; then looking back in the gloom at Jethro—burly and well-favored—by the open bureau, with its shallow secret drawer and pigeon-holes full of bills.
She watched Edred go down to the gate and lean over; the twin poplars shooting up like two giant brooms above his head, the white dog like a wraith in the green light. She shut the window and stepped back into the silent little room, which, although it was June, felt cold. Jethro had the notes in his hand. She put out hers with a sudden impulse.
“Give them to me to give to him—as a surprise,” she besought faintly.
She looked at the bank notes—white, crisp, heavily lettered with black.
“Come,” she said, with a forced air of archness and spontaneity, her hand still out, and Jethro’s diamonds burning with a pale fire on her finger. Her gesture was a trifle ghastly in its struggle after playfulness. Her lips were rolled back, showing the set teeth.
It was such a sudden, breathless impulse. She looked from one to the other—the man at the bureau, who was so close that she could feel his breath—sweet as a cow’s—on her hair; the man at the gate, jailed by poplars.
Why shouldn’t she yield to this new impulse? Why shouldn’t she go away from them both and begin a new, an absolutely feminine and nunlike life? These men drove poor women mad. She knew what a future would be with Edred—delirium, misery, wealth, disaster, disgrace. She knew what a future would be with Jethro—fat ease, heart-hunger. But a future apart she did not know. She would run away from them both—with two hundred pounds in her pocket. Two hundred pounds in notes!
Jethro looked at her strangely.
“I’ll give it him myself—to-morrow morning,” he said soberly, putting the notes into the drawer and letting it spring back into its hiding-place.
She sat down in the oak chair, letting body and brain collapse. She didn’t bother to think—to regret, to rage, to feel. Things were decided for her.
“You’ll give it to him to-morrow morning, then. How serious you are! Why do you look at me so oddly? Of course, I did not want the notes. You never see a joke.”
“I’ll go out and have a talk with Edred now about this business. I shall be too busy in the morning. You go to bed.” He tried to see her face through the teasing dusk which had drawn between them; his voice was tender. “You’ve been doing too much lately. Good-night, dear. Have a long night’s rest.”
“Good-night.”
As she undressed, slipping herpetticoats from her waist to her feet, she saw through the half-drawn dimity curtains the two men and the dog strolling about in the uncertain moonlight. Jethro looked magnificently broad and kingly. When she stretched herself in the bed, almost sinking in the feathers, she told herself that this might be her last night at Folly Corner. Before she went to sleep she recalled Jethro’s girth and bearing, together with his balance at the bank, and hesitated.