Finch, by this time, almost felt that she was giving them to him. How kind Meg was! Indeed, she was perfect…
“I’ll write you a cheque for them this minute!” he exclaimed, and took out his book of blank cheques and his fountain pen that had been a present from Aunt Augusta.
“Oh, any time will do for that!” But she allowed him to go on with the writing of it, and her eyes followed the movements of his pen as though it were the wand of a magician.
It was a relief to Finch to do something that took his mind—even for a moment—from the thought of Arthur, and from the sorrowful thought that the loss of Arthur came as no deep grief.
He left Vaughanlands with the shawl in a parcel and the watch in his pocket. As he crossed the fields he felt an extraordinary happiness in possessing them. Gran had brought the shawl with her from India eighty years ago. How many times its soft, richly coloured fabric had lain about her strong graceful shoulders, had covered her breast when it was full and firm. What intimacies of her passionate heart it had shielded! And the watch… He took it from his pocket and it lay on his palm, shining in the hot sunlight. On it was engraved—“Adeline, from her Philip, 1862.” Finch remembered having been told that it was a present to celebrate the birth of his father. And his father and his grandparents were dust, and the watch was as quick as ever… How the sight of it brought back Gran! He could see her peering into the golden face, winking fast as she deciphered the time, her ornate cap rather askew, a look of lively anticipation lighting her strong features. “Dinner time! Ha, that’s good! I like my dinner. Exercise or no—I like my hot dinner.” And she would thrust her head forward to catch the first sound of the gong.
As he walked homeward he had the feeling that virtue entered into him from the possession of her belongings, resilience against the blows of life. Zest for life and fortitude seemed to emanate from these things so long associated with her.
These feelings did not prevent his shrinking painfully from the thought of Arthur’s funeral. Yet it happened that he was not able to go to it. He got a chill and was in bed when the day came. It was a week before he was about again. Now he found himself dreading the inevitable meeting with Sarah. While he lay in bed he had successfully put the thought of her out of his mind during the day, though at night her troubling presence had darkened his dreams. He had thought deliberately of Pauline Lebraux, her face, the sensitive reflector of her emotions, against the background of her tumbled dark hair, her supple body eager as a bird’s for movement. When Wakefield had come in to see him he had, as he thought, subtly brought the talk around to the fox farm, but, though Wakefield talked eagerly enough on the subject of the foxes, he drew back, lightly but warily, from more than a passing reference to Pauline. “He’s too quick for me,” thought Finch. “He knows what I’m after almost before I know myself.”
After that the thought of Pauline was always accompanied by the thought of Wakefield. The two thoughts zigzagged about each other like amorous butterflies. It was impossible for him to draw the face of the young girl out of the darkness beneath his eyelids without drawing with it the face of the still younger boy. It was peering over her shoulder. It was half-hidden under her chin. Its eyes were her eyes, and its mouth her mouth. It made Finch angry, for the boy was too young for love, and he had hoped they would be happy companions together. And was this all he was to get out of Wake’s growing up? A rival! The idea made him laugh. The idea hurt him and frightened him. Yet he did not love Pauline. But he wanted no one else to love her. He wanted her to remain for a little while as she was.
The second day he was downstairs he found the drawing-room empty, and he sat down before the piano, not intending to play, but only to feel its nearness, to let his mind rest on the mysterious harmonies hid within it. He drooped above it, his angular body expressing submission and recep-tiveness. His hands lay on the keyboard like the hands of a lover on the breast of his beloved.
He did not hear the door open but he was conscious that someone had come into the room. He turned his face, its expression preoccupied and grudging, toward the intruder. It was Sarah Leigh, dressed in mourning, her deep-set eyes shining like jewels in her white face.
“Sarah!” He got up and went quickly toward her. She seemed to recede from him as she always receded from him in dreams, as he approached. He hesitated, drew back, and she advanced, as she always advanced in dreams. He found himself looking into her eyes, holding her hand, while her voice was uttering words he could not form into sense. They came to him brokenly, like the lispings of a young child. He saw then that there were tears on her cheeks.
He led her to a sofa, and still held her hand as they were seated. Her black garments made her remote, but he felt the strange flame burning in her that once before had seared the wings of his spirit.
“Do you feel able to talk?” he asked hesitatingly.
“Not of that.”
“No, we must not talk of that.”
But of what else could they talk while Arthur’s drowned figure loomed between them?
“You talk, Finch. Tell me of yourself.”
“There’s not much to tell, Sarah. Just a lot of hard work.”
“But talk of it. Tell me of your life. It is three years since we met.”
He began to talk, telling her of his study in London and Germany. Repeating it to her it became romantic, a desirable life. He told her of his recitals and his compositions, not looking at her but holding her small, firm hand in his. She sat motionless, as though cut out of ebony, except for the nervous tapping of her narrow black suede shoe.
“You have done so much,” she said, “and I have done so little.”
“You have travelled. You’ve been—married,” he had not intended to say that, but he could not help himself. She did not wince but her fingers closed on his.
“Yes—I’ve travelled. Yes—I’ve been married.” She spoke as though she reiterated—“How little I’ve done.”
“It is three years since we have met,” he said. “Am I changed, do you think?”
She turned and looked into his face. He saw then the blue circles about her eyes and the weariness on her lips.
“Yes, you have changed. But you still have your beautiful expression. I’m glad of that. It comforts me.”
He dropped her hand and, in confusion, clasped and unclasped his fingers between his knees. For something to say, he said:
“I had no idea you were coming here today.”
“Alayne expects me. She asked me when she came to see me. She thought the change would do me good.”
At that moment Alayne came into the room. She was followed by Renny. The sight of Sarah’s black clothes and her pallor startled him, filled him with unease. To cover it he began to talk loudly, as soon as the first subdued greetings were over. The smell of carbolic soap did not quite conceal the smell of horse and leather that emanated from him. He was saying:
“What do you suppose was keeping us? Well, I’ll tell you! We were quarrelling over our youngster. It’s a never-failing bone of contention. It’s the very spit of my grandmother—what a pity that you never saw dear old Gran—and Alayne is trying with all the mettle in her to turn it into a proper young person. But it’s putting up a good fight. I admire its spunk, I can tell you!”
VI
FATHER, MOTHER, AND CHILD
IT WAS TRUE that the small Adeline was a bone of contention between Alayne and Renny. Again and again Alayne determined that this should not be so, yet, in her own mind, she felt herself powerless to prevent it. The child was almost two, strong on her legs, intelligent, sly, already seeming to know and relish the fact that she was an unsolvable problem to her mother. Already she would look shrewdly from one face to another, when her parents exchanged a sharp word. If Renny reprimanded her or gave her a slap, as he sometimes did, she would fly into a tantrum, stiffen herself, pull his hair or bite him. This violence of hers charmed him. He would hug her to him, covering her distorted face with kisses, and, when th
e storm subsided, dandle her as though she were a model of infant propriety.
Sometimes Alayne was in despair over her arrogance and lack of consideration for the other children. Nooky was hopelessly afraid of her. He dropped whatever he had when he saw her blazing brown eyes fixed on it. Even six-years-old Mooey thought twice before he crossed her. And Piers encouraged her in her predatory habits, as did Renny.
She had odd ways with her too. She liked the dark, and, being a poor sleeper, would lie awake talking and laughing to herself. At first, when Alayne rose from her own bed and went to her, she would become quiet and, being turned over and tucked in, would settle down and fall asleep. But, as months went on, she took more and more pleasure apparently in the perversion of night into day. She would sleep for five or six hours, then wake refreshed just as Alayne was settling into unconsciousness.
A sudden chuckle would startle the darkness. This would be followed by a loud laugh. Nothing Alayne could do would stop the wild laughing. Sometimes she would roar like a bear, moo like a cow, or chatter unintelligibly. Unless Alayne took her up and carried her about the room, or took her into her own bed, she would not be quiet. Now the nights were growing cool and it was a hardship to be up. Neither could one rest with a kicking little body beside one. Alayne grew wan and irritable from loss of sleep.
Adeline disturbed Nicholas and Ernest too, but Renny, once he was asleep, was almost impervious to noise. Yet he did sometimes hear her and advised Alayne to slap her or dash cold water on her.
One night he came into the room and found mother and daughter facing each other, the one pale and almost in tears, the other flushed and wearing an unchildlike grin. It was almost three o’clock.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Alayne answered tragically—“She has been awake for two solid hours, laughing and talking. I am positively unnerved. I don’t know what to do with her.” She looked at the child, almost hating her; at the man, almost hating him for having given the child to her.
Renny, lithe and striped in his pyjamas, advanced toward Adeline.
“Why were you laughing?” he asked.
She only stared at him, sitting upright in her cot, her dark red hair massed above her forehead.
“Why do you laugh?” he repeated sternly.
“I must,” she answered, in her baby accents.
“Why?”
“I must.”
He sat down on Alayne’s bed and took the child on his knee.
“What do you see?”
She smiled and pointed in front of her.
“Do you see funny things?”
She nodded and put half her hand into her mouth.
“Look here,” he said to Alayne, “this won’t do! You’re tired out. Now I’ve got an idea… The old-fashioned way was to give kids a good hiding when they persisted in anything they were told not to do. But now it’s different. You’re supposed to study them. Find out what they need and give it to them.”
“Yes.” Alayne looked at the two of them, feeling hypnotised.
“Now I think,” he went on, dandling the child, “that Adeline has a laughing complex. Just because you are always so serious with her, d’you see?”
“Yes.” Alayne leaned against the dressing table, tired through and through.
“What she needs is someone to laugh with her.”
“She has the other children to laugh with her all day. Why should she want to laugh at night?”
“At night she wakes and she is lonely and she thinks life is strange and—well, you know, Gran was a sardonic old bird, and Adeline takes after her.”
“It seems hard that Pheasant’s children should both be so gentle, and mine—”
“Now, look here, you get right into bed and forget everything. I’ll take the kid.”
“Where?”
“To my room. I’m going to laugh with her.”
“Renny—it’s too ridiculous.”
“No. It’s modern psychology.”
“Will you bring her back?”
“Yes, as soon as she is asleep. I’ll tuck her in and never wake you.”
With the child on his arm he led Alayne to her bed and drew the eiderdown over her. She caught his hand and kissed it, half sobbing.
“I’m a perfect baby myself. I don’t know what has come over me.”
“Sweet girl.” He patted her cheek.
She lay, still as an animal in its burrow, listening as he crossed the passage, opened and shut the door of his room. His presence had comforted her, but the touch of his hand had set her pulses throbbing, filled her with a terrible unease. She drew deep breaths, drinking in the stormy sweetness of the night… Oh, why had he left her?
Why did the passionate tears flow at the thought of him? Once they had lain in this house, separated by the walls of her marriage with Eden, suffering their anguish of desire… Now, they belonged, each to each—and still they were separated, still her spirit called to him and beat against its walls.
She had heard the child give a crow of delight at being carried into his room. Then there was silence, and she hoped it had quietened, perhaps fallen asleep. But before long her strained ears caught the sound of its laughter. Then came an answering muffled roar from Renny… She dragged the bedclothes over her head. But curiosity, a sudden amusement, overcame her. She threw them back and listened.
Adeline’s laughter grew louder and so did her father’s. She screamed in fantastic mirth and his muffled roars became shouts.
“As though anyone could sleep in such a maddening noise! They’ll have the whole house up!”
She lay listening. After a little a heavenly silence fell and she hoped the child had succumbed. But no—the laughter broke out again, shout upon shout. They took turns in a wild duet. Alayne heard other voices in the passage, opening and shutting of doors. “Oh, those poor old people! Uncle Ernest will get his death! And Aunt Augusta, at her age!”
Renny should be ashamed. From loving him her heart swung to hate. Dishevelled, she scrambled out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown and slippers, and hurried to his room. She found the whole family crowded into it: Augusta, with her hair in curlers and a bottle of smelling salts in her hand; Nicholas looking like an old lion with his crest of iron-grey hair; Ernest, sleek-headed, and in a handsome robe; Piers and Pheasant like two figures from a stage bedroom scene; Finch looking about sixteen, with his hysterical boy’s grin; and Wakefield, sitting up in bed, with the bored expression of an elderly man.
Alayne took them all in, in one furious glance. Her glance also took in Renny, seated in the one chair, his daughter on his knee, while, for the moment, they desisted from their unbecoming mirth.
Nicholas turned to Alayne. “What do you think of this new psychology?” he asked.
Ernest put in—“I don’t like it. It’s too noisy. I’ll lie awake for hours after this.”
“Well,” said Piers, “I’m for the rod. If one of mine carried on that way…”
Pheasant interrupted—“It’s a very good thing for you to see how other fathers do. For my part, I think Renny is perfectly right. Even an infant has frustrations.”
“No one worries about mine,” said Ernest.
“Yours are the best part of you,” returned his brother.
Ernest looked offended.
Augusta smelled her salts but did not utter a word. A mosquito buzzing about the room became fascinated by her curlers, noisily investigating first one and then another of them.
Renny and his daughter were staring at each other. A flicker, as of pain, crossed her face, her eyes darkened. She opened her mouth and laughed. In a moment they were laughing in unison. Even his man’s laughter did not drown her shouts. Her voice had become hoarse in her efforts to outdo him.
It was dreadful, Alayne thought. The pair of them looked half mad. Adeline flashed her eyes over her audience and laughed louder than ever. Her hair clung damply to her head.
An audience! thought Alayne. That’s what they want. Nothi
ng is too fantastic for them to do, if only they have an audience… She must interfere, but she dreaded interfering with him in front of the family. One never knew—or, more precisely, she never knew—what he would do. His family had a more profound knowledge of him.
Without warning, Augusta swooped down and took Adeline from his arms.
“Enough of such foolhardiness!” she exclaimed in her deepest tones. “You will make a persistent and incorrigible rogue of her!” She took up the child who went to her, not only without protest but with open arms, clutching Augusta’s neck and rolling her eyes accusingly at Renny.
“Naughty Dada!” she said, and repeated the words to her audience.
Alayne looked gratefully at Augusta.
“Say what you like!” exclaimed Renny. “It’s done her good. She’ll never want to laugh at night again.”
“Nor in the daytime either, I should think,” said Wakefield. “In effect, I feel tired out.”
Renny’s face softened. “We’ll all go to bed now,” he said.
“I shall take the child with me,” announced Augusta.
“Good for you, Gussie!” said Nicholas. “You have more courage than I have.”
Already little Adeline was relaxed against her great-aunt’s shoulder, her mouth drooping in a baby pout.
When Alayne left Augusta’s room and the strange spectacle of her and little Adeline bedded together, she returned to her own room to find Renny there, standing by the window, brightly outlined in the moonlight.
The moon had been hidden behind the treetops but now it swam clear of them and poured its silver down the sky. The room was full of it; the angles of the furniture sharpened by it. A candle that Alayne had lighted for the sake of the child had sunk into itself, like a dancer into her skirt. Through the open window the provocative scent of late summer drifted in. The house was silent.
She stood in the doorway watching him, herself unseen. He was over by the window, the space of the room was between them, yet it was as though she held him in her arms. He was a part of her, even though their oneness tortured her at times. He was as much a part of her as though she were a tree and he one of her branches thrown out against the moonlight. Yet he was remote. She could not subdue him. All she could do was to hold him in the inexorable bond of her love.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 297