THE POETIC NUISANCE

WE are, says an ancient philosopher, merely the cells in the brain of the world. When her sleep is broken by nightmare, we perish in war; when she falls in love with some gypsy of the zodiac, nations vie with each other in loving-kindness; when she thinks of her God, a redeemer, slain with bitterness, arises with words of redemption.

Yet note how, for example, the quality of wars has changed. There were wars over the possession of beauty incarnate in a single woman; there were wars to deliver a holy city; there were wars to achieve the Sangraal. These were the half-sweet, halftroubled dreams of the young world. To-day her nightmares are of oil wells, concessions, stocks and bonds - all the interests, in short, of a middle-aged being. Our world is middle-aged. Her thoughts are practical. She yearns for comfort as once she yearned for constellations so remote that they were merely daydreams in her consciousness. We are the thoughts of an established lady of independent, but not large, income; we are the record of her fifties. Her childhood is chronicled in anthropology, her adolescence in the mysteries of the vanished races. And her youth brought forth the poets.

Her thoughts raced in those days. Clean out of the bounds of reason they leaped, striding out in rhythm to chase the ineffable beyond the family hearth of our solar system and to lose themselves in the uttermost reaches of space. The poets, who were the thoughts of her adolescence, raised their chorus as lustily as frogs peeping in an April tarn. But poetry, romance, imagining, are qualities of youth which never yet have been known to survive the climate of maturity. The world's romantic days are over. There are realities to be dealt with, bank accounts to be

balanced. Her only child is lunatic. Brother poets, in the mind of this cosmic Hetty Green we are unwelcome memories.

This is the explanation of much that has seemed strange. The world in her middle age dislikes to be reminded of her youth. Was she disappointed in love? Did her father die leaving much less than was expected, so that she had to devote herself to making both ends of her orbit meet? Or has she merely succumbed to astral conventionality and decided that she has a place to maintain in Zodiacy? Certainly, whatever may be the cause, the effect is apparent. Since poets, these rebel cells in an otherwise efficient brain, insist on haunting her with their twaddle, down they must go, out of her consciousness, down to her subconsciousness, to the dark cerebral labyrinths of poets' clubs and Greenwich Village, where, utterly ignored if not forgotten by the healthy thoughts of finance to which are dedicated the upper spaces of the brain, they mill round and round in their own company. Or they may be sublimated and thus fitted for her consciousness. Their dreams may be turned into something practical; they may conform to a scheme (paying, of course) of uplift, service-all the greeting-card sentiment which, in the middle-aged mind of the world, passes for noble thinking.

Brother poets, we are silly to continue our futile strife. Were our world to visit a psychoanalyst, we should all be hauled out of her subconscious memory and set to work. Let us await a season when we shall again be welcome, when the world, grown old, drowses at twilight in the universal autumn beside the embers of the sun. She will welcome us then. We shall ring in her mind the bells of remembered happiness. We shall be the voices of her dotage.

A MILD 'steady wind was blowing which had appropriated to itself every pungent autumn scent in its journeying across wood and orchard. It blew in at the window and gently stirred the hair on Finch's forehead, and brought to his cheeks a childish pink. He did not hurry to get up, but stretched at ease awhile, for it was a Saturday morning. His mind was occupied in making a momentous decision. Should he put on some old clothes and steal out of the house, with only something snatched from the kitchen for breakfast, thus avoiding a meeting with Eden's wife, for he was shy of her, or should he dress with extra care and make a really good impression on her by appearing both well turned out and at ease?

Those who were early risers would have had their breakfast by now and be about the business of the day, but Eden never showed up till nine, and Finch supposed that a New York girl would naturally keep late hours. He wanted very much to make a good impression on Alayne.

He got up at last, and, after carefully washing his face and hands and scrubbing his neck at the washstand, he took from its hanger his new dark blue flannel suit. When it was on, and his best blue-and-white striped shirt, he was faced by the problem of a tie. He had a really handsome one of blue and gray which Meggie had given him on his last birthday, but he was nervous about wearing it. Meg would be sure to get on her hind feet if she caught him sporting it on a mere Saturday. Even wearing the suit was risky. He longingly fingered the tie. The thought of going to Piers's room and borrowing one of his entered his

1A synopsis of the preceding chapters will be found in the Contributors' Column. - THE EDITORS

mind, but he put it aside. Now that Piers was married young Pheasant was always about.

Hang it all! The tie was his, and he would wear it if he wanted to.

He tied it carefully. He cleaned his nails and polished them on a worn-out buffer Meggie had thrown away. Meticulously he parted and brushed his rather lank fair hair, plastering it down with a little pomade which he dug out of an old jar Eden had cast aside.

A final survey of himself in the glass brought a grin, half pleased, half sheepish, to his face. He sneaked past the closed door of his sister's room and slowly descended the stairs.

It was as he had hoped. Eden and Alayne were the only occupants of the dining room. They sat close together at one side of the table. His place was on Alayne's left. With a muttered 'Good morning,' he dragged forth his chair and subsided into it, crimson with shyness.

After one annoyed glance at the intruder, Eden vouchsafed him no attention whatever, speaking to Alayne in so low a tone that Finch, with ears strained to catch these gentle morning murmurings of young husband to young wife, could make out no word. He devoted himself to his porridge, humbly taking what pleasure he could draw from the proximity to Alayne. A fresh sweetness seemed to emanate from her. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the movements of her hands. He tried very hard not to make a noise over his porridge and milk, but every mouthful descended his throat with a gurgling sound. His very ears burned with embarrassment.

Alayne thought she had never before seen anyone eat such an immense plate of

cereal. She hated cereals. She had said to Eden almost pettishly:

'I do not want any cereal, thank you, Eden.' And he had almost forced her to take it.

'Porridge is good for you,' he had said, heavily sugaring his own.

He did not seem to notice that this breakfast was not at all the sort to which she was used. There was no fruit. Her soul cried out for coffee, and there was the same great pot of tea, this time set before her to pour. Frizzled fat bacon, so much buttered toast, and bitter orange marmalade did not tempt her. Eden partook of everything with hilarity, crunching the toast crusts in his strong white teeth, trying brazenly to put his arm about her waist before the inquisitive eyes of the boy. Something fastidious in her was not pleased with him this morning. Suddenly she found herself wondering whether, if she had met him first in his own home, she would so quickly have fallen in love. But one look into his mocking yet tender eyes, one glance at his sensitive full-lipped mouth, reassured her. She would — oh yes, she would!

She addressed a sentence now and again to Finch, but it seemed hopeless to draw him into the conversation. He so plainly suffered when she attempted it that she gave up trying.

As they got up from the table Eden, who was already cherishing a cigarette between his lips, turned, as if struck with an idea, to his brother.

'Look here, Finch. I wish you'd show Alayne the pine grove. It's wonderful on a morning like this. - It's deep and dark as a well in there, Alayne, and all around it grow brambles with the biggest, juiciest berries. Finch will get you some, and he'll likely be able to show you a partridge and her young. I've got something in my head that I want to get out, and I must have solitude. You'll take care of her, won't you, Finch?'

In spite of the lightness of his tone, Alayne discovered the fire of creative desire in it. Her eyes eagerly explored his face. Their eyes met in happy understanding.

'Do go off by yourself and write,' she agreed. 'I shall be quite content to wander about by myself if Finch has other plans.'

She almost hoped he had. The thought of

a tête-à-tête with this embarrassed hobbledehoy was not alluring. He drooped over his chair, his bony hands resting on the back, and stared at the disarranged table.

'Well,' said Eden, sharply, 'what are your plans, brother Finch?'

Finch grinned sheepishly. 'I'd like to take her. Yes, thank you,' he replied, gripping the back of the chair till his knuckles turned white.

'Good boy,' said Eden. He ran upstairs to get a sweater coat for Alayne, and she and Finch waited his return in absolute silence. Her mind was absorbed by the thought that Eden was going to write. He had said one day that he had an idea for a novel. Little tremors of excitement ran through her as she pictured him beginning it that very morning.

Rags was starting to clear the table. His cynical light eyes took in every detail of Finch's attire. They said to the boy, as plainly as words:

'Ho, ho, my young feller! You've decked yerself all up for the occasion, 'ave n't yer? You think you've made an impression on the lidy, don't yer? But if you could only see yerself! And just you wait till the family catches you in your Sunday clothes. There won't be nothink doing, ow naow!'

Eden followed them to the porch. They met Meg in the hall and the two women kissed, but it was dim there, and Finch, clearing his throat, laid one hand on the birthday necktie and concealed it.

It was a day of days. As golden, as mature, as voluptuous as a Roman matron fresh from the bath, the October morning swept with indolent dignity across the land.

Alayne said something like this to the boy as they followed a path over the meadows, and, though he made no reply, he smiled in a way that lighted up his plain face with such sudden sweetness that Alayne's heart warmed to him. She talked without waiting for him to reply, till by degrees his shyness melted and she found herself listening to him. He was telling her that this path that led through the birch wood was an old Indian trail and that it led to the river six miles away when the traders and Indians had long ago been wont to meet to barter skins of fox and mink for ammunition and blankets. He

was telling her of the old fiddler, Fiddling Jock, who had had his hut in this wood before the Whiteoaks had bought Jalna.

'My granddad let him stay on. He used to play his fiddle at weddings and parties of all sorts. But one night some people gave him such a lot to drink before he started for his hut that he got dazed, and it was a bitterly cold night, and he could not find his way home through the snow. When he got as far as Granddad's barnyard he gave up and he crawled into a strawstack and was frozen to death. Gran found him two days after when she was out for a walk. He was absolutely rigid, his frozen eyes staring out of his frozen face. Gran was a young woman then, but she's never forgotten it. I've often heard her tell of finding him. She had Uncle Nick with her. He was only a little chap, but he's never forgotten the way the old fellow had his fiddle gripped, just as though he'd been playing when he died.'

Alayne looked curiously at the boy. His eyes had an hallucinated expression. He was evidently seeing in all its strangeness the scene he had just described.

They had now entered the pine grove. A shadow had fallen over the brightness of the morning like the wing of a great bird. In here there was a cathedral hush broken only by the distant calling of crows. They sat down on a fallen tree, on the trunk of which grew patches of moss of a peculiarly vivid green, a miniature forest in itself.

'I don't believe I'd mind,' said Finch, ‘going about with a fiddle and playing tunes at the weddings of country people. It seems to me I'd like it.' Then he added with a shade of bitterness in his tone, 'I guess I've just the right amount of brains for that.'

"I do not see why you should speak of yourself in that way,' exclaimed Alayne. 'You have a very interesting face.' She made the statement with conviction, though she had just discovered the fact.

Finch made a sardonic grimace that was oddly reminiscent of Uncle Nicholas. 'I dare say it's interesting, and I should n't be surprised if old Fiddler Jock's was interesting, especially when it was frozen stiff.'

She felt almost repelled by the boy's expression, but her interest in him was steadily growing.

'Perhaps you are musical. Have you ever had lessons?' she asked.

'No! They'd think it a waste of money. And I have n't the time for practising. It takes all my time to keep from the foot of the form.'

He seemed determined to present himself in an unprepossessing light to her. And this after all the anxious care over his toilet! Perhaps the truth was that, having seen a gleam of sympathy in her eyes, he was hungry for more of it. But it was difficult to account for the reactions of Finch Whiteoak.

Alayne saw in him a boy treated with clumsy stupidity by his family. She saw herself fiercely taking up cudgels for him. She was determined that he should have music lessons if her influence could bring them about. She drew him on to talk, and he lay on the ground, sifting the pine needles through his fingers and giving his confidence more freely than he had ever given it before. But even while he talked with boyish eagerness his mind more than once escaped its leash and ran panting after strange visions. Himself, alone with her in this dark mysterious place, embracing her with ecstasy. After one of these excursions of the mind he would draw himself up sharply and try to look into her eyes with the same expression of friendly candor which she gave him.

As they were returning to the house, and Alayne's thoughts were flying back to Eden, they came upon a group in the orchard consisting of Piers and several farm laborers who, under his supervision, were preparing a number of barrels of apples for shipment. Piers, with a piece of chalk in his sunburnt hand, was going about marking the barrels with the number of their grade. He pretended not to notice the approach of his brother and Alayne, but when he could no longer ignore them he muttered a sulky 'Good morning' and turned to one of the laborers with some directions about carting the apples to the station.

Finch led Alayne from barrel to barrel, with a self-consciously possessive air, knowing that the farm hands were regarding them with furtive curiosity. He explained the system of grading to her, bringing for comparison apples from the different

barrels. He asked her to test the flavor of the most perfect specimen he could find, glossy, red, and flawless as a drop of dew. 'Mind that you replace that apple, Finch,' said Piers curtly in passing. 'You should know better than to disturb apples after they are packed. They'll be absolutely rattling about by the time they reach Montreal.' He took a hammer from one of the men and began with deafening blows to 'head in' a barrel.

Finch noticed Alayne's discomposure, and his own color rose angrily as he did as he was bid. When they had left the orchard Alayne asked: 'Do you think Piers dislikes me?'

'No. It's just his way. He's got a beastly way with him. I don't suppose he dislikes me, but sometimes-' He could not finish what he had been going to say. One could n't tell Alayne the things Piers did.

Alayne continued reflectively: 'And his wife I just noticed her a moment ago disappearing into the shrubbery when she saw us approach. I am afraid she does not approve of me either.'

'Look here,' cried Finch. 'Pheasant's shy. She does n't know what to say to you.' But in his heart he believed that both Piers and Pheasant were jealous of Alayne.

He parted with her at the front door and went himself to the side entrance, for he was afraid of meeting his sister.

starting to write again. It is the first, you know, since we have been married and I was beginning to be afraid that instead of being an inspiration —'

'Well, listen to this and tell me whether I'm the better or worse for being married.'

He read the poem and it gained not a little from his mellow voice and expressive, mobile face. Alayne was somewhat disconcerted to find that she had no longer the power to regard his writing judicially. She now saw it colored by the atmosphere of Jalna, tempered by the contacts of their life together. She asked him to read it again, and this time she closed her eyes that she might not see him, but every line of his face and form was before her still, as though her gaze were fixed on him.

'It is splendid,' she said, and she took it from him and read it to herself. She was convinced that it was splendid, but her conviction did not have the same austere clarity that it had carried when she was in New York and he an unknown young poet in Canada.

From the summerhouse after that issued a stream of graceful, carelessly buoyant lyrics like young birds. Indeed Piers with brutal jocularity remarked to Renny that Eden was like a cock sparrow hatching out an egg a day in his lousy nest under the vines.

It became the custom for Eden, Alayne, Ernest, and Nicholas to gather in the latter's room every afternoon to hear what Eden had composed that morning. The four became delightfully intimate in this way, and they frequently (Nicholas making his leg an excuse for this) had Rags bring their tea there.

It was pleasant to pour the tea in Nicholas's room for the three men, from an old blue Coalport teapot that wore a heathenish woolly cozy; and after tea Nicholas would limp to the piano and play from Mendelssohn, Mozart, or Liszt. Alayne never forgot those afternoons, the late sunshine touching with a mellow glow the massive head and bent shoulders of Nicholas at the piano, Ernest shadowy in a dim corner with Sasha, Eden beside her, strong in his shapely youth. She grew to know these two elderly men as she knew no other member of Eden's family except poor young Finch.