The Reef

  X

  Two brown blurs emerging from the farther end of the wood-vistagradually defined themselves as her step-son and an attendantgame-keeper. They grew slowly upon the bluish background, withoccasional delays and re-effacements, and she sat still, waiting tillthey should reach the gate at the end of the drive, where the keeperwould turn off to his cottage and Owen continue on to the house.

  She watched his approach with a smile. From the first days of hermarriage she had been drawn to the boy, but it was not until afterEffie's birth that she had really begun to know him. The eagerobservation of her own child had shown her how much she had still tolearn about the slight fair boy whom the holidays periodically restoredto Givre. Owen, even then, both physically and morally, furnished herwith the oddest of commentaries on his father's mien and mind. He wouldnever, the family sighingly recognized, be nearly as handsome as Mr.Leath; but his rather charmingly unbalanced face, with its broodingforehead and petulant boyish smile, suggested to Anna what his father'scountenance might have been could one have pictured its neat featuresdisordered by a rattling breeze. She even pushed the analogy farther,and descried in her step-son's mind a quaintly-twisted reflection ofher husband's. With his bursts of door-slamming activity, his fits ofbookish indolence, his crude revolutionary dogmatizing and his flashesof precocious irony, the boy was not unlike a boisterous embodiment ofhis father's theories. It was as though Fraser Leath's ideas, accustomedto hang like marionettes on their pegs, should suddenly come downand walk. There were moments, indeed, when Owen's humours must havesuggested to his progenitor the gambols of an infant Frankenstein; butto Anna they were the voice of her secret rebellions, and her tendernessto her step-son was partly based on her severity toward herself. As hehad the courage she had lacked, so she meant him to have the chancesshe had missed; and every effort she made for him helped to keep her ownhopes alive.

  Her interest in Owen led her to think more often of his mother, andsometimes she would slip away and stand alone before her predecessor'sportrait. Since her arrival at Givre the picture--a "full-length" by aonce fashionable artist--had undergone the successive displacements ofan exiled consort removed farther and farther from the throne; andAnna could not help noting that these stages coincided with the gradualdecline of the artist's fame. She had a fancy that if his credit hadbeen in the ascendant the first Mrs. Leath might have continued tothrone over the drawing-room mantel-piece, even to the exclusion ofher successor's effigy. Instead of this, her peregrinations had finallylanded her in the shrouded solitude of the billiard-room, an apartmentwhich no one ever entered, but where it was understood that "the lightwas better," or might have been if the shutters had not been alwaysclosed.

  Here the poor lady, elegantly dressed, and seated in the middle of alarge lonely canvas, in the blank contemplation of a gilt console, hadalways seemed to Anna to be waiting for visitors who never came.

  "Of course they never came, you poor thing! I wonder how long ittook you to find out that they never would?" Anna had more than onceapostrophized her, with a derision addressed rather to herself than tothe dead; but it was only after Effie's birth that it occurred to her tostudy more closely the face in the picture, and speculate on the kind ofvisitors that Owen's mother might have hoped for.

  "She certainly doesn't look as if they would have been the same kind asmine: but there's no telling, from a portrait that was so obviously done'to please the family', and that leaves Owen so unaccounted for. Well,they never came, the visitors; they never came; and she died of it. Shedied of it long before they buried her: I'm certain of that. Those arestone-dead eyes in the picture...The loneliness must have been awful, ifeven Owen couldn't keep her from dying of it. And to feel it so she musthave HAD feelings--real live ones, the kind that twitch and tug. And allshe had to look at all her life was a gilt console--yes, that's it, agilt console screwed to the wall! That's exactly and absolutely what heis!"

  She did not mean, if she could help it, that either Effie or Owen shouldknow that loneliness, or let her know it again. They were three, now, tokeep each other warm, and she embraced both children in the same passionof motherhood, as though one were not enough to shield her from herpredecessor's fate.

  Sometimes she fancied that Owen Leath's response was warmer than thatof her own child. But then Effie was still hardly more than a baby,and Owen, from the first, had been almost "old enough to understand":certainly DID understand now, in a tacit way that yet perpetually spoketo her. This sense of his understanding was the deepest element in theirfeeling for each other. There were so many things between them that werenever spoken of, or even indirectly alluded to, yet that, even in theiroccasional discussions and differences, formed the unadduced argumentsmaking for final agreement...

  Musing on this, she continued to watch his approach; and her heart beganto beat a little faster at the thought of what she had to say to him.But when he reached the gate she saw him pause, and after a moment heturned aside as if to gain a cross-road through the park.

  She started up and waved her sunshade, but he did not see her. No doubthe meant to go back with the gamekeeper, perhaps to the kennels, to seea retriever who had hurt his leg. Suddenly she was seized by the whimto overtake him. She threw down the parasol, thrust her letter into herbodice, and catching up her skirts began to run.

  She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness of gait, butshe could not recall having run a yard since she had romped with Owen inhis school-days; nor did she know what impulse moved her now. She onlyknew that run she must, that no other motion, short of flight, wouldhave been buoyant enough for her humour. She seemed to be keeping pacewith some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily expression to the lyricrush of her thoughts. The earth always felt elastic under her, and shehad a conscious joy in treading it; but never had it been as soft andspringy as today. It seemed actually to rise and meet her as she went,so that she had the feeling, which sometimes came to her in dreams, ofskimming miraculously over short bright waves. The air, too, seemed tobreak in waves against her, sweeping by on its current all the slantedlights and moist sharp perfumes of the failing day. She panted toherself: "This is nonsense!" her blood hummed back: "But it's glorious!"and she sped on till she saw that Owen had caught sight of her and wasstriding back in her direction.

  Then she stopped and waited, flushed and laughing, her hands claspedagainst the letter in her breast.

  "No, I'm not mad," she called out; "but there's something in the airtoday--don't you feel it?--And I wanted to have a little talk with you,"she added as he came up to her, smiling at him and linking her arm inhis.

  He smiled back, but above the smile she saw the shade of anxiety which,for the last two months, had kept its fixed line between his handsomeeyes.

  "Owen, don't look like that! I don't want you to!" she said imperiously.

  He laughed. "You said that exactly like Effie. What do you want me todo? To race with you as I do Effie? But I shouldn't have a show!" heprotested, still with the little frown between his eyes.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "To the kennels. But there's not the least need. The vet has seen Garryand he's all right. If there's anything you wanted to tell me----"

  "Did I say there was? I just came out to meet you--I wanted to know ifyou'd had good sport."

  The shadow dropped on him again. "None at all. The fact is I didn't try.Jean and I have just been knocking about in the woods. I wasn't in asanguinary mood."

  They walked on with the same light gait, so nearly of a height thatkeeping step came as naturally to them as breathing. Anna stole anotherlook at the young face on a level with her own.

  "You DID say there was something you wanted to tell me," her step-sonbegan after a pause.

  "Well, there is." She slackened her pace involuntarily, and they came toa pause and stood facing each other under the limes.

  "Is Darrow coming?" he asked.

  She seldom blushed, but at the question a sudden heat suffused her. Sheheld her h
ead high.

  "Yes: he's coming. I've just heard. He arrives to-morrow. But that'snot----" She saw her blunder and tried to rectify it. "Or rather, yes,in a way it is my reason for wanting to speak to you----"

  "Because he's coming?"

  "Because he's not yet here."

  "It's about him, then?"

  He looked at her kindly, half-humourously, an almost fraternal wisdom inhis smile.

  "About----? No, no: I meant that I wanted to speak today because it'sour last day alone together."

  "Oh, I see." He had slipped his hands into the pockets of his tweedshooting jacket and lounged along at her side, his eyes bent on themoist ruts of the drive, as though the matter had lost all interest forhim.

  "Owen----"

  He stopped again and faced her. "Look here, my dear, it's no sort ofuse."

  "What's no use?"

  "Anything on earth you can any of you say."

  She challenged him: "Am I one of 'any of you'?"

  He did not yield. "Well, then--anything on earth that even YOU can say.""You don't in the least know what I can say--or what I mean to."

  "Don't I, generally?"

  She gave him this point, but only to make another. "Yes; but this isparticularly. I want to say...Owen, you've been admirable all through."

  He broke into a laugh in which the odd elder-brotherly note was oncemore perceptible.

  "Admirable," she emphasized. "And so has SHE."

  "Oh, and so have you to HER!" His voice broke down to boyishness. "I'venever lost sight of that for a minute. It's been altogether easier forher, though," he threw off presently.

  "On the whole, I suppose it has. Well----" she summed up with a laugh,"aren't you all the better pleased to be told you've behaved as well asshe?"

  "Oh, you know, I've not done it for you," he tossed back at her, withoutthe least note of hostility in the affected lightness of his tone.

  "Haven't you, though, perhaps--the least bit? Because, after all, youknew I understood?"

  "You've been awfully kind about pretending to."

  She laughed. "You don't believe me? You must remember I had yourgrandmother to consider."

  "Yes: and my father--and Effie, I suppose--and the outraged shades ofGivre!" He paused, as if to lay more stress on the boyish sneer: "Do youlikewise include the late Monsieur de Chantelle?"

  His step-mother did not appear to resent the thrust. She went on, in thesame tone of affectionate persuasion: "Yes: I must have seemed to youtoo subject to Givre. Perhaps I have been. But you know that was not myreal object in asking you to wait, to say nothing to your grandmotherbefore her return."

  He considered. "Your real object, of course, was to gain time."

  "Yes--but for whom? Why not for YOU?"

  "For me?" He flushed up quickly. "You don't mean----?"

  She laid her hand on his arm and looked gravely into his handsome eyes.

  "I mean that when your grandmother gets back from Ouchy I shall speak toher----" "You'll speak to her...?"

  "Yes; if only you'll promise to give me time----"

  "Time for her to send for Adelaide Painter?"

  "Oh, she'll undoubtedly send for Adelaide Painter!"

  The allusion touched a spring of mirth in both their minds, and theyexchanged a laughing look.

  "Only you must promise not to rush things. You must give me time toprepare Adelaide too," Mrs. Leath went on.

  "Prepare her too?" He drew away for a better look at her. "Prepare herfor what?"

  "Why, to prepare your grandmother! For your marriage. Yes, that's what Imean. I'm going to see you through, you know----"

  His feint of indifference broke down and he caught her hand. "Oh, youdear divine thing! I didn't dream----"

  "I know you didn't." She dropped her gaze and began to walk on slowly."I can't say you've convinced me of the wisdom of the step. Only Iseem to see that other things matter more--and that not missing thingsmatters most. Perhaps I've changed--or YOUR not changing has convincedme. I'm certain now that you won't budge. And that was really all I evercared about."

  "Oh, as to not budging--I told you so months ago: you might have beensure of that! And how can you be any surer today than yesterday?"

  "I don't know. I suppose one learns something every day----"

  "Not at Givre!" he laughed, and shot a half-ironic look at her. "But youhaven't really BEEN at Givre lately--not for months! Don't you supposeI've noticed that, my dear?"

  She echoed his laugh to merge it in an undenying sigh. "Poor Givre..."

  "Poor empty Givre! With so many rooms full and yet not a soul init--except of course my grandmother, who is its soul!"

  They had reached the gateway of the court and stood looking with acommon accord at the long soft-hued facade on which the autumn light wasdying. "It looks so made to be happy in----" she murmured.

  "Yes--today, today!" He pressed her arm a little. "Oh, you darling--tohave given it that look for me!" He paused, and then went on in a lowervoice: "Don't you feel we owe it to the poor old place to do what we canto give it that look? You, too, I mean? Come, let's make it grinfrom wing to wing! I've such a mad desire to say outrageous things toit--haven't you? After all, in old times there must have been livingpeople here!"

  Loosening her arm from his she continued to gaze up at the house-front,which seemed, in the plaintive decline of light, to send her back themute appeal of something doomed.

  "It IS beautiful," she said.

  "A beautiful memory! Quite perfect to take out and turn over when I'mgrinding at the law in New York, and you're----" He broke off and lookedat her with a questioning smile. "Come! Tell me. You and I don't haveto say things to talk to each other. When you turn suddenly absentmindedand mysterious I always feel like saying: 'Come back. All isdiscovered'."

  She returned his smile. "You know as much as I know. I promise youthat."

  He wavered, as if for the first time uncertain how far he might go. "Idon't know Darrow as much as you know him," he presently risked.

  She frowned a little. "You said just now we didn't need to say things"

  "Was I speaking? I thought it was your eyes----" He caught her by bothelbows and spun her halfway round, so that the late sun shed a betrayinggleam on her face. "They're such awfully conversational eyes! Don't yousuppose they told me long ago why it's just today you've made up yourmind that people have got to live their own lives--even at Givre?"