They would go off with their spoil, and at recess they and their friends would devour it in haste, or a feast would be arranged after school, when they could eat at leisure. They contrived, however, to put by a respectable sum for the radio, and toward a camping trip in the summer. Finch would have liked to buy presents for the family from the wealth that poured in so fast, but where would they think he had got the money? But he could not resist a necktie for Renny’s birthday, which fell in March. He spent a long time in the haberdasher’s choosing it—two shades of blue in a gorgeous stripe. Renny’s eyebrows flew up in surprise when it was presented. He was touched. But when he appeared at Sunday tea wearing it, the vivid blue blazing against the highly coloured flesh of his face, his red hair, a storm of protest arose from the family. Renny’s beauty—which, they declared, required dark colours to set it off—was ruined by the tie. Now it would have become Piers, with his blue eyes and fair skin. And the next time Finch saw the tie Piers was wearing it.
He had better luck with the box of watercolours he bought for Wakefield. To avoid suspicion, for it was a very good box of colours, he said that it was a present from Leigh. Wake, who was condemned to his bed that week, was delighted. He painted pictures day in and day out. Renny, finding his bed littered with them, thought, with a moment’s heaviness: “By God, this poor youngster’s going to be a genius, too!”
Engagements for the orchestra came thick and fast. The young musicians played with such untiring gaiety; they were so obliging. Finch conscientiously slaved at his books, and, between practising and studying and loss of sleep, grew so thin that even Piers was moved to concern.
“Try to eat more.” he advised. “You’re growing, and you need plenty of good grub.”
“Eat!” cried Finch, his nerves on edge. “I’m always eating. If I’m thin, it’s my own business. Please leave me alone.”
“But,” persisted Piers, feeling Finch’s arm, “you’re getting thinner. You’re soft, too. Now, just feel my muscle.”
“I don’t want to feel your muscle. If you’d used your muscle less on me, it mightn’t be so hard and I mightn’t be so thin.”
One day in March, George announced an engagement in a restaurant in which they had played several times. The members of some athletic club were having a dance. The two boys had just spent two weekends with Mrs. St. John and the orchestra had worked very hard learning new dance music. They had played at four dances, so Finch had twenty dollars to add to the hoard hidden on the top shelf of his clothes cupboard in an old fishing basket. When he stayed at home he studied late into every night, apprehensive of again failing in his examinations.
On the night of the dance he was very tired. There had been trouble over spending the night in town, and only a passionate appeal to Aunt Augusta to intervene for him had made it possible. The rector, too, was beginning to think that his sister should be able to get on without George, and even Mrs. St. John herself had become a little less yearning toward her two young visitors. Finch felt that he could stand the strain no longer, that for a while the orchestra should take no new engagements or that someone else must be found to play the piano. Yet he loved it. It was life—making music, watching the dancing, the lovemaking, being in the streets late at night, the freshly earned money in his pocket.
Mrs. St. John had been slow to leave them that night. Her health was better, and there was no need for such early retiring. It pleased her to sit in the library with the two fresh-skinned youths, watching them at their study, the light touching their thick hair—George’s brown, tousled; Finch’s fair, limp, with the lock on the forehead oddly appealing to her. She liked to watch their hands—George’s small, white, strong, and precise in their movements; Finch’s long, bony, yet beautifully shaped, nervous, uncertain.
They had to assume a trancelike absorption before she would leave them, and when she did leave, and the strain was over, they fell into a fit of smothered laughter that, for Finch, threatened to become hysterical.
“Shut up,” ordered George, recovering himself, “or she’ll hear you and come back,”
Finch buried his face in the crook of his arm and gave forth strange squeaks. George glowered at him.
“I never saw a chap like you. You never know when to stop anything.” He looked at his watch. “Good heavens, we’ll never dare risk taking a tram. I’ll have to phone for a taxi.” He opened the door of the library and listened. “I hear her running water upstairs. 1 guess she’s safe, now.”
He took the receiver from its hook and gave a number. He stared across the table at Finch, who stared back with wet eyes, his lips stretched in a hysterical grin. He looked so silly that George snorted into the telephone. He sputtered idiotically as he ordered the taxi. Finch was squeaking again. “Of course,” said George, slamming up the receiver, “if you can’t control yourself…” He tried his best to look like his father.
George went into the hall and crept up the stairway to the door of his aunt’s room.
Returning, he said: “It’s all right. She’s getting ready for bed… I’ve told the driver to wait around the corner. Now step on the gas, Finch, for goodness’ sake!”
Rushing through the cold spring night, they were filled with the glow of adventure, thinking of the dangerous life they led. George’s banjo lay across his knees. Finch held a portfolio of music. As George paid the driver, Finch stared up at a great ruby-red electric sign, advertising chocolates, hot against the heavy grey sky. “Shouldn’t be surprised if we had snow,” he said. “It’s cold enough for it.”
But inside it was hot. The room was full of young men and girls—the men, hockey players, lithe and strong, the girls, bare-shouldered, silken-legged, with laughing red-lipped faces. Some of them knew Finch by sight as a member of the orchestra, and waved to him as he sat sounding a note while the musicians tuned up. There was something about him that they liked. “I say, Doris, there’s the boy with the blond hair! I think he’s a lamb. Shouldn’t mind dancing with him.”
The flute, the two mandolins, the banjo, the piano, gave voice. They sang of the joy of the dance, of strong limbs, of supple backs, of touching electric fingertips. All the brightly coloured crowd galloped like huntsmen, led by the five hounds, in pursuit of that adroit fox, Joy.
When the time came for supper, the members of the orchestra rose and stretched their legs. They had been playing for three hours. A waiter brought them refreshments. Finch, trying not to seem ravenous, was irritated when a tall black-haired girl came up to him. “My, you boys can play.” she said. “I’d sooner dance to your music than any of the big orchestras.”
“Oh, go on!”
“Honestly I would.”
He took another sandwich. His gaze did not rise above her shimmering shins.
“You’re a funny boy Gosh, your eyelashes are almost a mile long!”
He blushed, and raised his eyes as high as the marble whiteness of her chest.
“I wish we could have a dance together, Mister—what’s your name?”
“Finch.”
“Oh, and the Christian name?”
“Bill.”
“Bill Finch, eh? 1 wish you’d come and see me some night, will you, Bill?”
“Rather.”
“No. 5, May berry Street. Remember that? Tomorrow night? Ask for Miss Lucas.”
“No, I couldn’t tomorrow.”
“The next, then?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “The next.” He wished she would leave him with the sandwiches.
A stout fellow came up and took her arm. “Here, Betty” he said, “none of that.” He led her off, but her bold greenish eyes laughed over her white shoulder at Finch.
He boasted to Meech, the flautist, of the advances she had made, while they hurriedly consumed cake and coffee. “That’s a good sort to steer clear of,” Meech counselled. “There’s a lot of bold-looking hussies here, and no mistake.”
The dance went on, the dancers displaying even more freedom of movement and brightness o
f eyes than before supper. They had been drinking a little, but they were not noisy. At two o’clock Burns, the mandolin player, who worked in an abattoir, passed a flask among the players. They were very tired. A little later they emptied it.
“One dance more!” the dancers begged at three o’clock. “One dance more!” They clapped their hands vigorously. Finch felt ready to drop from the stool. A tendon in his right hand ached horribly. The dancers seemed to him like vampires, sucking his blood, never tiring of the taste of it.
The tall girl disentangled herself from the blur of the crowd and rushed to the piano. She threw her arms about Finch’s neck and hugged him. “Another, another,” she whispered, “and don’t forget your promise!” He loathed the hot, steamy smell of her. He gasped for breath, his hands lying, played out, on the keyboard. He tried to draw his head away.
“Don’t be so formal, dearie,” she said, releasing him, and again the thickset man came and dragged her away.
A waiter appeared with a glass jug and glasses. “Have some ginger ale?” he asked, smiling.
Finch took a glass. Something stronger than ginger ale, he discovered. A pleasant glow passed into him with the first half of the glass. After the second half he felt stronger, firmer. He looked over his shoulder at the others. George Fennel’s eyes were shining under his tumbled hair. Meech, the flautist, showed a pink flush on his high, pale forehead. Lilly and Burns were laughing together. Burns said, in a heavy bass voice: “Lilly, here, can’t see the strings. He’s pipped, aren’t you, Lilly?”
But now they discovered that they could go on. A little gush of energy swept them into “My Heart Stood Still.” The dancers moved in silence, holding each other tightly. The sliding of their feet sounding like the dry rush of autumn leaves. The cruel white lights showed them as people growing old. A blight seemed to have fallen on them. And yet they could not stop dancing.
Now it was the orchestra that dragged them on. They seemed no more than manikins operated by wires. Jerkily they went through dance after dance, and with hot, moist hands clapped for more. The orchestra broke into song, with the exception of Meech, the flautist. “And then my heart stood still.” they sang, for their repertory was limited, and they had to repeat their pieces time and again.
At last the dancing feet stood still. It was past four o’clock when the members of the orchestra descended the narrow stairs and went out into the darkness of the morning.
Snow had fallen deeply. The city street looked as pure as a street in heaven. Marble whiteness everywhere, arched by a dark blue sky out of which hung a great golden moon.
The sweet coldness of the still air was like a joyful caress. They lifted their faces to it, opened their mouths and drank it in. They sought to absorb it into every region of their beings. The soft pure snow beneath their feet was beautiful. They ran in it, ruffling it up. Lilly took off his hat that his head might cool, but Burns snatched it and jammed it on his head again. “No, no, you’ll take cold, my little Lilly. My pretty little Lilly.” he admonished, rather thickly
Lilly, his hat over his eyes, trudged along silently, much annoyed.
“I know,” went on Burns, “of a place where we could get a good hot supper. I’m starving.”
“So am I!” cried George. “Head on, O Burns! You of the significant name! Let’s make a night of it.”
“I ought to get home.” objected Meech, “to my wife and little one.”
Burns exclaimed: “Wife and little one be—”
“Look out what you say!” interrupted the flautist, standing up to him.
“Keep your shirt on,” retorted Burns. “I didn’t mean no harm. I only meant I know a place where we can get a good hot supper, and seeing as how we got extra pay tonight I’m willing to stand treat for the crowd. How about it now, eh?”
There was almost instant agreement, and as they tramped along Burns remarked: “My stomach begins to think my throat is cut.”
His companions grunted. They thought it was far from taste in him, a butcher, to talk of cut throats.
It was a little ill-lighted dingy restaurant to which Burns led them, but the bacon and eggs were good, and after a whispered consultation the waiter brought them a jug of beer. The five were ravenous. They scarcely noticed the other people in the room until their plates were swept clean and cigarettes were lighted. George then leaned toward his friends, whispering: “For heaven’s sake keep your instruments out of sight. They’ll be after us to play if they spot them.”
There were about two dozen people seated at the tables. It was clear that they were regarding the youths with speculation in their eyes. It was too late to hide the mandolins and banjo.
One of the men came over to them. He said, with an ingratiating grin: “Say, couldn’t you fellows give us a tune or two? Some of the girlies are feeling lively and they’d give a good deal to shake a leg.”
“What do you take us for?” growled Lilly. “We’ve been playing all night. Besides, there’s no piano.”
“Yes, there is. Over behind the screen there. Just give us one little tune. The girlies’ll be awfully disappointed if you don’t.” He wheezed unpleasantly behind Finch’s ear.
The “girlies” themselves came, and added their importunities. Something from a bottle was poured into the empty beer glasses. Finch heard a strange buzzing in his head. The air in the room moved as though it were no longer air, but whispering waves. The electric lights were blurred into a milky haze. He was being led to the piano. He felt intolerably sad.
About him the others were tuning up. He heard George swearing at a broken string. He put his hands on the keyboard and blinked at it. It was a white marble terrace with little black figures of nuns in procession across it. He sat staring at them, stupefied, they were so perfect, so black, so sad. Burns said, hoarsely: “My Heart Stood Still.”
“Awright,” agreed Finch.
It was not he who was playing. It was only his hands, mechanisms which depended on him not at all. Over and over they played what they were told to play, firm, strong, banging out the accented notes. He could see George’s face, set like a white mask, and his small white hands plucking vigorously at the strings. The flute soared and waited in a kind of dying scream; the mandolins chirped away as though they knew no tiring. Burns’s red butcher’s fists had always made Finch rather sick as they hovered over the strings. The mandolin seemed like some puny little animal he was about to slaughter.
They were in the street again. They were all yelling together. They had no reason to raise their voices. Only some primitive instinct told them it was the time for yelling. They straggled along the snowy street, sometimes in file, sometimes strung across the roadway. The strange snow light—the moon had become too pale to be accounted anything more than a wan presence in the paling sky—lent an unearthly quality to their figures. Their cries seemed the cries of spirits rather than of men.
They did not know where they were going. Up one street and down another, and, coming upon the first street again, they traversed it for the second time without recognizing it. Each variation and eccentric curve was marked on the purity of the snow. Sometimes they were separated into two parties, two going in one direction and three in another. Then the faraway shouting of one group would startle into a panic the other, and they would run, calling each other by name, until they met again on some corner, and the little band would be reunited.
Once the flautist was lost by the other four. It was some little time before they noticed that one of their number was absent, though they realized that all was not well with them. From their hoarse, deep-toned shouts one high-pitched tenor cry was missing. But at last their loss was borne in upon them. They stood stock-still, staring blankly at each other. Who was gone?
Then, all at once, they knew it was Meech.
“Meech! Meech!” they shouted, and they began to run in a body, calling his name and reeling as they ran.
There was no answer, so they called him by his Christian name.
“Sinden! Sinden! Hi, Sinden Meech!”
At last they found him. He had wandered into a wide, well-lit street of the prosperous. His arms were clasped about the standard of an electric light. His head was thrown back and he gazed rapturously upward.
“This is a clock tower,” he declared. “I’m trying to find out what time it is. One—two—-three—four—five”—and he counted loudly up to twenty-nine. “Twenty-nine o’clock,” he announced. “That’s as rotten an hour as 1 ever heard struck,”
“Go to hell,” said Burns. “That ain’t no clock.”
“Yes, it is, too! And I’m going to stop here until it strikes again. Next time it’ll strike—one—two-—three—”
The rest of the quintet joined in the counting with explosive shouts.
They were interrupted by a scream from Lilly, doubled up in the middle of the road. They ceased to count and encircled him, all but Sinden Meech, who still clasped the standard.
“What’s the matter, Lilly?”
“I’ve got a pain. Say, you fellers, who d’ye do for a pain?”
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 100