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BOOK II: CHAPTER X
Two brown blurs emerging from the farther end of the wood-
vista gradually defined themselves as her step-son and an
attendant game-keeper. They grew slowly upon the bluish
background, with occasional delays and re-effacements, and
she sat still, waiting till they should reach the gate at
the end of the drive, where the keeper would turn off to his
cottage and Owen continue on to the house.
She watched his approach with a smile. From the first days
of her marriage she had been drawn to the boy, but it was
not until after Effie's birth that she had really begun to
know him. The eager observation of her own child had shown
her how much she had still to learn about the slight fair
boy whom the holidays periodically restored to Givre. Owen,
even then, both physically and morally, furnished her with
the oddest of commentaries on his father's mien and mind.
He would never, the family sighingly recognized, be nearly
as handsome as Mr. Leath; but his rather charmingly
unbalanced face, with its brooding forehead and petulant
boyish smile, suggested to Anna what his father's
countenance might have been could one have pictured its neat
features disordered by a rattling breeze. She even pushed
the analogy farther, and descried in her step-son's mind a
quaintly-twisted reflection of her husband's. With his
bursts of door-slamming activity, his fits of bookish
indolence, his crude revolutionary dogmatizing and his
flashes of precocious irony, the boy was not unlike a
boisterous embodiment of his father's theories. It was as
though Fraser Leath's ideas, accustomed to hang like
marionettes on their pegs, should suddenly come down and
walk. There were moments, indeed, when Owen's humours must
have suggested to his progenitor the gambols of an infant
Frankenstein; but to Anna they were the voice of her secret
rebellions, and her tenderness to her step-son was partly
based on her severity toward herself. As he had the courage
she had lacked, so she meant him to have the chances she had
missed; and every effort she made for him helped to keep her
own hopes alive.
Her interest in Owen led her to think more often of his
mother, and sometimes she would slip away and stand alone
before her predecessor's portrait. Since her arrival at
Givre the picture--a "full-length" by a once fashionable
artist--had undergone the successive displacements of an
exiled consort removed farther and farther from the throne;
and Anna could not help noting that these stages coincided
with the gradual decline of the artist's fame. She had a
fancy that if his credit had been in the ascendant the first
Mrs. Leath might have continued to throne over the drawing-
room mantel- piece, even to the exclusion of her successor's
effigy. Instead of this, her peregrinations had finally
landed her in the shrouded solitude of the billiard-room, an
apartment which no one ever entered, but where it was
understood that "the light was better," or might have been
if the shutters had not been always closed.
Here the poor lady, elegantly dressed, and seated in the
middle of a large lonely canvas, in the blank contemplation
of a gilt console, had always seemed to Anna to be waiting
for visitors who never came.
"Of course they never came, you poor thing! I wonder how
long it took you to find out that they never would?" Anna
had more than once apostrophized her, with a derision
addressed rather to herself than to the dead; but it was
only after Effie's birth that it occurred to her to study
more closely the face in the picture, and speculate on the
kind of visitors that Owen's mother might have hoped for.
"She certainly doesn't look as if they would have been the
same kind as mine: 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. She died of
it long before they buried her: I'm certain of that. Those
are stone-dead eyes in the picture...The loneliness must
have been awful, if even Owen couldn't keep her from dying
of it. And to feel it so she must have HAD feelings--
real live ones, the kind that twitch and tug. And all she
had to look at all her life was a gilt console--yes, that's
it, a gilt console screwed to the wall! That's exactly and
absolutely what he is!"
She did not mean, if she could help it, that either Effie or
Owen should know that loneliness, or let her know it again.
They were three, now, to keep each other warm, and she
embraced both children in the same passion of motherhood, as
though one were not enough to shield her from her
predecessor's fate.
Sometimes she fancied that Owen Leath's response was warmer
than that of 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 spoke to her. This
sense of his understanding was the deepest element in their
feeling for each other. There were so many things between
them that were never spoken of, or even indirectly alluded
to, yet that, even in their occasional discussions and
differences, formed the unadduced arguments making for final
agreement...
Musing on this, she continued to watch his approach; and her
heart began to 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 he turned 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 doubt he meant to go back with the gamekeeper,
perhaps to the kennels, to see a retriever who had hurt his
leg. Suddenly she was seized by the whim to overtake him.
She threw down the parasol, thrust her letter into her
bodice, and catching up her skirts began to run.
She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness
of gait, but she could not recall having run a yard since
she had romped with Owen in his school-days; nor did she
know what impulse moved her now. She only knew that run she
must, that no other motion, short of flight, would have been
buoyant enough for her humour. She seemed to be keeping
pace with some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily
expression to the lyric rush of her thoughts. The earth
always felt elastic under her, and she had a conscious joy
in treading it; but never had it been as soft and springy 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, of skimming miraculously over short bright waves.
The air, too, seemed to break in waves against her, sweeping
by on its current all the slanted lights and moist sharp
perfumes of the failing day. She panted to herself: "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 was striding back in her direction.
Then she stopped and waited, flushed and laughing, her hands
clasped against the letter in her breast.
"No, I'm not mad," she called out; "but there's something in
the air today--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 in his.
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 handsome eyes.
"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 to do? To race with you as I do Effie? But I
shouldn't have a show!" he protested, 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 Garry and 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 if you'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 a sanguinary mood."
They walked on with the same light gait, so nearly of a
height that keeping step came as naturally to them as
breathing. Anna stole another look at the young face on a
level with her own.
"You DID say there was something you wanted to tell me,"
her step-son began after a pause.
"Well, there is." She slackened her pace involuntarily, and
they came to a 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. She held her head high.
"Yes: he's coming. I've just heard. He arrives to-morrow.
But that's not----" 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 in his smile.
"About----? No, no: I meant that I wanted to speak today
because it's our last day alone together."
"Oh, I see." He had slipped his hands into the pockets of
his tweed shooting jacket and lounged along at her side, his
eyes bent on the moist ruts of the drive, as though the
matter had lost all interest for him.
"Owen----"
He stopped again and faced her. "Look here, my dear, it's
no sort of use."
"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 is particularly. I want to say...Owen, you've been
admirable all through."
He broke into a laugh in which the odd elder-brotherly note
was once more perceptible.
"Admirable," she emphasized. "And so has SHE."
"Oh, and so have you to HER!" His voice broke down to
boyishness. "I've never lost sight of that for a minute.
It's been altogether easier for her, 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 as she?"
"Oh, you know, I've not done it for you," he tossed back at
her, without the least note of hostility in the affected
lightness of his tone.
"Haven't you, though, perhaps--the least bit? Because, after
all, you knew I understood?"
"You've been awfully kind about pretending to."
She laughed. "You don't believe me? You must remember I had
your grandmother to consider."
"Yes: and my father--and Effie, I suppose--and the outraged
shades of Givre!" He paused, as if to lay more stress on the
boyish sneer: "Do you likewise include the late Monsieur de
Chantelle?"
His step-mother did not appear to resent the thrust. She
went on, in the same tone of affectionate persuasion: "Yes:
I must have seemed to you too subject to Givre. Perhaps I
have been. But you know that was not my real object in
asking you to wait, to say nothing to your grandmother
before 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 to her----"
"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 they exchanged a laughing look.
"Only you must promise not to rush things. You must give me
time to prepare Adelaide too," Mrs. Leath went on.
"Prepare her too?" He drew away for a better look at her.
"Prepare her for what?"
"Why, to prepare your grandmother! For your marriage. Yes,
that's what I mean. I'm going to see you through, you know
----"
His feint of indifference broke down and he caught her hand.
"Oh, you dear 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 I seem to see that other things matter
more--and that not missing things matters most. Perhaps
I've changed--or YOUR not changing has convinced me.
I'm certain now that you won't budge. And that was really
all I ever cared about."
"Oh, as to not budging--I told you so months ago: you might
have been sure 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 you haven't really BEEN at Givre lately--not
for months! Don't you suppose I'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 in it--except of course my grandmother, who is its
soul!"
They had reached the gateway of the court and stood looking
with a common accord at the long soft-hued facade on which
the autumn light was dying. "It looks so made to be happy
in----" she murmured.
"Yes--today, today!" He pressed her arm a little. "Oh, you
darling--to have given it that look for me!" He paused, and
then went on in a lower voice: "Don't you feel we owe it to
the poor old place to do what we can to give it that look?
You, too, I mean? Come, let's make it grin from wing to
wing! I've such a mad desire to say outrageous things to it
--haven't you? After all, in old times there must have been
living people 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 the mute appeal of something doomed.
"It IS beautiful," she said.
"A beautiful memory! Quite perfect to take out and turn over
when I'm grinding at the law in New York, and you're----" He
broke off and looked at her with a questioning smile.
"Come! Tell me. You and I don't have to say things to talk
to each other. When you turn suddenly absentminded and
mysterious I always feel like saying: 'Come back. All is
discovered'."
She returned his smile. "You know as much as I know. I
promise you that."
He wavered, as if for the first time uncertain how far he
might go. "I don'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 both elbows and spun her halfway round, so
that the late sun shed a betraying gleam on her face.
"They're such awfully conversational eyes! Don't you suppose
they told me long ago why it's just today you've made up
your mind that people have got to live their own lives--even
at Givre?"
Content of BOOK II: CHAPTER X [Edith Wharton's novel: The Reef]
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