She looked up with continued composure. “It doesn’t upset me to speak of Eden. He is nothing to me now. I don’t believe I should feel greatly disturbed if I met him face to face. Now do sit down, Finch, and try to imagine that this food is not so sketchy. If only I had known you were coming…”
How hungry the boy was! She talked incessantly to cover the fact, to give him a chance to eat without interruption. He swept the plates clean, and drank cup after cup of coffee. Over coffee and cigarettes he gave her news of each separate member of the family. Finally he told her in detail of the last performance of the orchestra, of the wild night in the streets afterward. He began to laugh. Finch’s laughter was infectious. Alayne laughed too, and as he imitated the maudlin outpourings of the different players they could no longer restrain themselves, and laughed till they were exhausted. Alayne had not given way to such primitive emotions since leaving Jalna, had had no impulse to do so.
Rosamond Trent, returning, discovered them thus abandoned to hilarity. She was astonished to find this lank youth sprawling in the Chinese-red leather armchair, a fair lock dangling over his forehead, making himself tremendously at home. She was still more astonished to find Alayne deeply flushed, weak with laughter.
Finch got to his feet, embarrassed by the arrival of the sophisticated-looking middle-aged woman whose small bright green hat looked as though it had been moulded to her head.
“Rosamond,” said Alayne, “my brother-in-law, Finch Whiteoak.”
Miss Trent looked at him keenly, smiled humorously, and shook his hand heartily.
“I’m glad you came,” she declared. “I don’t often find Alayne in such spirits.”
She took to Finch at once. When she heard that he was looking for a position, she was instantly ready to take him under her wing, to place him where he would have an excellent chance of advancement. She was in the advertising business.
“The very thing for him!” she exclaimed to Alayne, energetically snapping her cigarette-lighter. “I’ll see about it first thing in the morning.”
But Alayne could not picture Finch in an advertising office. She had already made up her mind to see Mr. Cory about him. It required courage to oppose Rosamond when she had set her mind on taking someone under her wing, but Finch helped her by boldly saying that he felt a greater urge in himself toward publishing than toward advertising.
Before he left, Finch helped to carry out the supper things, and in the kitchen Alayne gave him some money—it was to be only a loan—and learned from him that he had been forced to pawn his topcoat and his watch.
In a few days Finch was installed in a minor clerk’s position in the publishing house, and Rosamond Trent had had to satisfy her instinct for managing by finding him a more comfortable lodging.
It was only a week later that Alayne had a letter from Lady Buckley, written in a long, graceful hand, with frequent underlinings.
JALNA,April 18, 1927.
MY DEAR ALAYNE—
I was so pleased to receive your last, and to hear that you are in good health and as good spirits as possible, under the circumstances.
We are in fair health, excepting my brother Ernest, who has been suffering from a cold. My brother Nicholas is troubled by gout, as usual with him in the spring. I reiterate the word diet to him, but it has little effect. My mother is excessively well, considering her great age. Has come through the winter with no more serious ailments than occasional attacks of wind on the stomach. Renny is in good health, as always, but is limping about on a stick as the result of a severe kick on the knee from a vicious horse. Luckily the veterinary was in the stable at the time and administered first aid.
It is really at Renny’s instigation that I am writing to you about our trouble. He is greatly upset in his mind, as indeed we all are, excepting perhaps Mama, who seems singularly callous about it all. I am sure that by now you are quite wrought up by curiosity, so I shall relieve it by coming to the point at once. Finch has disappeared.
Knowing what a closely knit, affectionate family we are, you can imagine our state of mind.
He has been gone four weeks and we are now thoroughly alarmed. Wakefield quite threw us into a state at the dinner table yesterday by suggesting that perhaps Finch has been murdered. What a dreadful word that is! I doubt if I have ever written any so low word in my correspondence hitherto.
Renny has had a private detective on the search for Finch, and has traced him to New York. He now declares that, unless he is found inside of the week, he will publicly advertise for him. This would be very humiliating for us, as we have given out that he is away on a visit for his health. As a matter of fact, it was none too good. I think the poor boy worried a great deal over being denied access to a pianoforte, and I firmly believe this was at the root of the disaster.
You are so sympathetic, dear Alayne. You understand, as no outsider could, our extreme devotion as a family, in spite of little surface flurries. I trust you will be able to send us some word of Finch. Remembering how fond he was of you, we think it quite probable that he has sought you out. Pray heaven we shall not have to go through the agony of publicly advertising for him. Renny has already gone to the length of writing a
complete description of him, and it sounded so unattractive when read aloud.
Hoping to hear good news from you.
In urgent haste.
Ever affectionately,
AUGUSTA BUCKLEY.
P.S.—Wakefield sends his love. His heart has been very troublesome. The Canadian winter inevitably pulls him down, as it does me.—A.B.
Alayne wrote by return post:
DEAR LADY BUCKLEY—
It is as you have guessed. Finch has been to see me. He is quite well, and has a position in which he has a good chance of advancement. If I were you (and by you, I mean the entire family) I should not interfere with him, or try to get in touch with him. For the present, at any rate. Finch has been through an unhappy time, and I think he should be left quite to himself for the present.
I will see him regularly, and send you a report of him frequently, but you may tell Renny that I absolutely refuse to send his address.
I am glad you got through the winter as well as you did, and I am sorry to hear of the various disabilities, especially that Wake’s heart has been troubling him. Please tell him that I often, often think of him, and wish I could see him.
I really do not think you need to worry about Finch.
Yours lovingly,
ALAYNE
X
ERNEST’S ADVENTURE
RAGS carried in the mail and laid it before Renny, who was sitting on one side of the fireplace, his injured leg propped on an ottoman, the top of which was worked in a design in green and silver beads, portraying an angel carrying a sheaf of lilies. On the opposite side of the fireplace sat Nicholas, his gouty leg supported by an ottoman of exactly similar pattern, a glass of whisky and soda at his elbow. He was chuckling deeply over a month-old copy of Punch. At a small table sat Ernest, stringing afresh a necklet of enormous amber beads for his mother. His long face drooped above the task in hand with an expression of serene absorption. Old Mrs. Whiteoak, leaning forward in her chair, watched every movement of his fingers, gratifying from the glow of the amber in the firelight her love of colour, as a heavy old bee might extract sweetness from a flower. Her breath came and went more noisily over her thrust-out underlip than was usual, partly because of her attitude, and partly because of the effort of concentration. This gusty breathing and the occasional chuckle from Nicholas were the only sounds as Renny read his letters, and they served but to emphasize the seclusion of the room, the sense of an excluding wall against the rest of the world which a group of Whiteoaks always achieved.
None of his elders inquired for letters of Renny. Not one of the three received more than one or two in the whole year, and then it was, as likely as not, an advertisement.
Wakefield came into the room. “Aunt Augusta wants to know,” he said in his clear treble
, “if there are any letters for her.”
“Two from England,” Renny gave them to him.
“How nice for her!” said Wakefield, looking over his shoulder. “Why, there’s another, Renny, with an American stamp. It’s addressed to Lady Buckley, isn’t it?”
“Take her what I gave you,” said his brother, curtly, and Wakefield trotted off to tell Augusta that Renny was holding back some of her mail.
When time enough had passed for her to read the two letters from England, she appeared in the doorway.
“Are you sure you have not overlooked one of my letters, Renny?” she asked. “I was expecting another.”
He patted the seat of the sofa beside him. “Come and read it here,” he said.
Lady Buckley looked annoyed, but she came and placed herself beside him, very upright, with eyebrows almost touching her Queen Alexandra fringe.
“I’ll open it for you,” he said, and with a large paper knife, the handle of which was formed of the foot of a fawn, he carefully slit the envelope, taking time with the business, as though he liked to touch this particular letter. She divined whom the letter was from.
She perched her eyeglasses on her nose and took the letter with an impassive face, but she had barely read a line when she exclaimed on a deep note: “Thank heaven, he is safe!”
Renny hitched his body nearer to her and peered at the letter. “Well, I’ll be shot!” he muttered.
“Read,” she commanded, in a whisper, and they perused the letter together.
When they reached the line, “You may tell Renny that I absolutely refuse to send his address,” she pointed to it with a dramatic forefinger, and Renny’s teeth showed in a smile that was an odd mingling of chagrin and gratification.
Wakefield, behind the sofa, intruded his head between theirs and asked: “Is it about Finch? Has anything happened to Finch?”
Hearing the name, Ernest looked up quickly from his beads. “Is anything wrong?” he asked. “Any bad news of the boy?”
“He is found,” announced Augusta. “He is in New York. He is well.”
“The young devil” observed Nicholas, laying down his Punch. “He ought to be brought home and given a sound hiding!”
For once the gentle Ernest agreed. “He ought indeed. I’ve worried myself ill over that boy.”
“Who is the letter from?” asked Nicholas.
“Alayne. Keep still and I will read it to you.” Impressively she read the letter aloud.
“I’m the only one she sent a message to,” cried Wakefield, “excepting Renny, and his isn’t a nice one. She says she won’t tell him where Finch is, doesn’t she?”
“Hush,” said Augusta. “We don’t wish to hear any of your chatter at a moment like this.”
“Alayne,” asserted Nicholas, “put ideas in that boy’s head from the very first. It was she, you’ll remember, Renny, who persuaded you to give him music lessons.”
“You play the piano yourself.” retorted his sister, tartly.
Nicholas puffed at his pipe imperturbably. “I do. But I don’t lose my head over music. I could never become hagridden by art. Finch was not sane about it, and it did him no end of harm.”
Renny said: “To think of his having the guts to go to New York alone! He must have saved all the money he made from that fool orchestra.”
“The question is,” said his aunt, “what is to be done? It is shocking to think of Finch exposed to the temptations of that terrible city.”
“He must be brought back at once!” exclaimed Ernest, dropping a bead in his agitation.
So long as he had been faithful to his task, handling the honey-coloured spheres with delicacy and precision, old Mrs. Whiteoak had chosen to pay no heed to the conversation, but now she raised her massive head in its beribboned cap and threw a piercing glance into the faces about her.
“What’s the to-do?” she demanded.
They looked at each other. Had they better tell her?
The look did not escape her. She rapped with her stick on the floor. “Ha! What’s this? What’s the to-do? I will not be kept out of things.”
“Easy on, Mama,” said Nicholas, soothingly. “It’s nothing but young Finch. We’ve found out where he is.”
A feeling of breathlessness came over the room, as always happened when a piece of news had just been broken to her. How would she take it? Would there be a scene? Every eye was fixed on that hard-bitten, smouldering old face.
“Finch, eh? You’ve found out where Finch is!”
“He’s in New York,” went on Nicholas. “We have had a letter from Alayne. She’s seen him.”
“Ha! What’s he doing there?”
“He seems to have some sort of job. I fancy Alayne got it for him.”
“Oh, did she? I had always thought she was well connected.” She dropped her chin to her breast. Was she thinking deeply, or was she fallen into one of her dozes? Boney hopped from his perch and began to peck at the ribbons on her cap. He pulled at the ribbons till the cap was a trifle askew.
Suddenly she raised her head and said, emphatically: “I want him. I want to see Finch. Take the bird away. He’s disarranging my cap.”
Ernest gingerly replaced Boney on his perch, but not until he had received a wicked peck on the wrist.
“Haramzada!” screamed Boney flapping his wings. “Iflatoon! Chore! Chore!”
Renny observed: “I think it would be a damned good idea to leave him there for a while. He’ll soon get sick of it. Teach him a lesson.”
Grandmother arched her neck and turned her beaklike nose toward him. “You do, eh? You would, eh? And you his guardian! Always ready to cross my will! Unnatural grandson! Unnatural brother!” Purplish red suffused her face.
“Nonsense,” said Renny “I’m nothing of the sort.”
“You are! You are! You like nothing so well as to cross people. You’d like to be a tyrant like my father. Old Renny Court. Red Renny, they used to call him in Ireland. He cowed all his eleven children but me. Me he couldn’t cow.” She shook her head triumphantly, then was transported by rage. “To think that I should bring another like him into the world!”
“Thanks for nothing!” retorted the master of Jalna. “You didn’t bring me into the world.”
“Didn’t bring you into the world!” she cried. “You dare contradict me? If I didn’t bring you into the world, I should like to know who did!”
“You forget,” he returned, “that you are my father’s mother, not mine.”
“Well, I should like to know who you’d have been without your father! An English gentleman, and your mother only a poor flibbertigibbet governess.”
His face was nearly as red as hers. “Now you’re confusing me with his second family. My mother was Dr. Ramsay’s daughter. Surely you don’t forget how you hated her.”
“Haramzada!” added Boney, rocking on his perch. “Iflatoon! Iflatoon!”
Nicholas broke in, rumblingly: “Stop baiting her, Renny! I won’t have it. Look at the colour of her face, and remember that she’s over a hundred.”
His mother turned on him. “Look at the colour of your own face! You’re only envious that you haven’t our hot blood. What we want is to have our quarrel out in peace.”
“It’s very bad for you, Mama,” said Ernest.
“Go on with your bead-stringing, ninny!” ordered his mother.
Augusta cried: “Can we never discuss anything without dissension?”
“Would you serve beef without mustard?” replied the old lady.
“I wonder,” observed Wakefield, “if Finch will get into the crime wave they’re having in that country. Rags was telling me about it.”
“The child has touched the keynote of the matter,” said Augusta. “Finch will be sure to come under some bad influence if he is left in New York. How could Alayne watch over him? What can she know of the temptations that befall a young man?”
“Man!” rumbled Nicholas. “Callow boy!”
“He must be fetch
ed,” said Grandmother, “and that at once. Ernest shall go for him.”
If Ernest had been told that he was to join an Arctic exploring party, he could not have looked more surprised. “But, Mama,” he said, “why me?”
“Because,” she responded, vigorously, “Nick cannot travel on account of his knee. Renny cannot travel on account of his leg. Piers is too busy, and, besides, he has never been there. Eden—what’s become of Eden?”
“He’s away, Mama.”
“Hmph. I don’t like this going away. I want the young folk about me. You had better fetch him, too. You’re the one to go.”
“I quite agree with Mama,” said Augusta.
Mother and daughter looked at each other, amazed to find themselves in accord.
Old Mrs. Whiteoak moved and settled her teeth into a more efficient position in her mouth with a crunching noise.
“Mama, must you do that?” asked Ernest.
She disregarded the question, but, with a grim grin at her daughter, remarked: “Well spoken, Lady Bunkley.”
After the first consternation had worn off, Ernest was thrilled through all his being by the adventure of going to New York. He had always intended to visit it again. Europe seemed out of the question. But he had procrastinated, because of lack of money and indolence, till the intention had become more and more shadowy, and would have melted into the shadow of other unfulfilled intentions had not the family forced him to action.
Two days later he was eating his dinner in the train. He felt extraordinarily pleased with himself as he bent his head above the menu under the deferential black gaze of the waiter, and felt beneath him the deep, purposeful throbbing of the wheels. He even enjoyed the unaccustomed ice water.
As he sipped his coffee at the end of the meal, he did not worry in the least about his digestion. He felt firm and strong. He gazed out of the window at the wooded ravines, at the dark blue hills and ridges slipping by. His eyes delighted in the vineyards, in the peach orchards, where thousands of little peach trees, white with bloom, marched above the rich red loam, dyed redder by the setting sun. The ground beneath the cherry trees was white with their lost petals. All the farmlands beamed and shone with promise.
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 103