The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche

by de la Roche, Mazo

  “What can I do?”

  “Have him here.”

  “When he comes, he draws into himself. We are farther apart than ever.”

  “He is afraid of being alone with you. You should ask someone else as well. Why not have him here with Alayne? She’d like to see you two marry. She told me so. She thinks it would be the happiest thing for you both.”

  A pale light, as though from within, lighted Sarah’s face. “Oh, if Alayne would help me, I’d do anything on earth for her. I’ve never had initiative. I wait in corners, reaching toward what I want, but I won’t venture out. I’m helpless. My aunt broke my will, as she put it, when I was a child.”

  “No, no, my girl!” thought Renny, “you’ve a will like iron.” He said:

  “Alayne and I will do all we can to help. It is more perhaps than you think.”

  “I wish there were something I could do for you. I know it’s a difficult time.”

  He looked at her a little distantly. “There is nothing.”

  They fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. The pug smacked his lips repeatedly, tasting something imaginary, and, at last, swallowed it.

  Renny asked then—“How are your investments? Everything all right?”

  It was a moment before she could recall her mind from her thoughts. Then she answered:

  “No. Some stocks have gone down terribly. The real estate is all right.”

  His eyes glowed. “It’s the only thing… I’ve just been wondering how you would like to take a mortgage on Jalna. It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it? We’ve never borrowed a penny on it but I’m driven now. And I’d rather it was you—in fact, you are the only person on earth I can bear the thought of holding a mortgage on it. You’re one of us—or will be soon. It would be a family affair.”

  His weather-beaten face looked eagerly into hers. He was so afraid she would refuse that he talked excitedly, giving her no opening to reply. He poured out his love for Jalna, extolled its unique beauties, urged its soundness as an investment. She sat listening, looking at him out of her narrow eyes, breathing quickly through her narrow nostrils, her small, secretive mouth compressed. The sunlight played on the intricate black braids of her hair, it discovered no flaw on her white skin.

  When, at last, he was silent, waiting almost miserably for her reply, she answered:

  “I shall be glad to do as you say.” She was willing as a child to be guided by him. He could have embraced her.

  But he insisted that he should pay a high interest on the mortgage. It was agreed that nothing should be said to the family of the transaction until it was necessary to tell them.

  They lunched in the exhilarating intimacy of conspirators. She confessed to him that she had never loved Arthur Leigh, and he confided to her that Alayne often misunderstood him and that occasionally they quarrelled.

  XXVI

  LOVE’S AWAKENING

  WHEN it was suggested to Finch that he should go with Alayne to visit Sarah, his impulse was to refuse. But Alayne urged him and he gave way partly to please her, partly because Jalna was becoming unbearable to him. He missed Augusta, in whom he woke the only motherliness she ever felt, and the burden of his uncle’s depression pressed down on him. He despised himself for being irritated by the sight of Wakefield’s happy sunburnt face, his ready laughter when there was so little to laugh at. He felt ashamed of the brutal way in which he sometimes spoke to the boy, but the words would blaze forth before he could help himself, and he was the more ashamed because of the magnanimous spirit in which Wakefield accepted his roughness.

  The other members of the family were relieved by his absence. They were tired of seeing him always going out of a room as they entered it.

  Renny drove Alayne and Finch to Sarah’s house, wearing the mysterious smile that was puzzling them in these days. When he met Sarah the smile was replaced by a look of concentrated innocence that sat strangely on his hard, highly coloured features.

  Sarah’s attitude toward Finch was aloof. Her hands, when they touched his, cool and renunciatory. Still, his spirit responded to the quickening influence of her nearness. He could not be in the house with her and not feel the old enchantment circling them about. Even though Sarah spoke little to him he knew that she was always watching him.

  She and Alayne sat together on the terrace and left the hammock-couch under its striped white-and-green awning to him. There was a garden pool circled by irises and a magnolia tree. Most of the flowers in the garden were white and heavy-scented.

  Alayne thought that a marriage with Sarah was the perfect thing for Finch. She was not too sensitive but she was strangely and subtly alive.

  The weather continued in settled loveliness. Each day imitated the one preceding, adding to it the brightness of advancing summer. Only occasionally a small cloud stole shyly across the steady blue of the sky. It was hot by day but at night a coolness came. The gardener soaked the lawn from the hose and the flowers went to sleep with wet petals.

  Finch improved in looks and spirits more quickly than Alayne had dared hope. He sought out Sarah and her instead of shunning them.

  At the end of the week Alayne left. Meg had been keeping her child for her and she dreaded to hear what mischief or tempers might have upset Meg’s house.

  When she was gone and Sarah and Finch were alone together, they were startled by the change her going made in their relations. They did not know what to say to each other. This new intimacy frightened them. Alayne’s presence had held them together and kept them apart. They wandered about house and garden, avoiding each other. When they were together every word they spoke seemed profoundly significant. Sarah would think—“Oh, why did I say that? I shall drive him away!” Or—“That hardness in his voice is a sign of his hate.”

  Finch would think—“Why did she say that? I believe that she is trying to tell me that I mean nothing to her.” Or—“I must not give myself away—must not let her know how being alone with her affects me.”

  Hour by hour his strength and vitality increased. He was getting well and strong. He felt life and the desire for life abounding within him. A reaction against the melancholy of winter and spring had begun. The hot summer sun, the warm moonlit nights, filled him with a sense of power to enjoy. A sensual magnetism drew him toward Sarah. He began to realise that he drew a strange nourishment from her. He was stronger for her nearness. Yet, if she had her way, she would hold him a prisoner. The thought of bonds was horrible to him.

  When they went out together he was restive to return to their isolation.

  She said, at the end of the second week:

  “I am going to sell this place.”

  He hid his surprise.

  “I thought you were quite settled here.”

  “Me settled here? Oh no. I’m too much an outsider. I shall sell it and go back to Ireland.”

  He said politely—“We’d miss you, Sarah.”

  “The others may—a very little. Not you. You’re too much absorbed by yourself—your music—and that is right.”

  “You are unjust. I should miss you terribly.” He added quickly—“You are a link with so much that has been beautiful in my life.”

  “Well, perhaps—a link. But a link is not in itself important… It will soon be as though you had never seen me.”

  “And what about you? Will you forget me so easily?”

  She was desperate. She threw off the veil of her concealment.

  “You will be always with me.”

  “Sarah, I can’t let you go! I—I need you. I’ll lose something, if you go, that no one else can give me. Why should you want to leave me?”

  A quiver trespassed the immobility of her lips. She said:

  “I must leave you. It is because of you that I must go. Don’t let us talk about it… But I had to tell you.”

  He rose quickly and left the room which opened on to the garden. He went to the far end and stood among the flowering shrubs, listening to the hurried beat of his own heart. “I�
�ll go home,” he muttered aloud. “I’ll go home. I won’t stay here. She’s cruel. She wants to torment me.”

  He could not see her side of any question. It was always that she was cruel—that she wanted to torment him.

  The tea was set on the brick terrace and he saw her waiting for him. He crossed the warm sun-splashed grass and approached her with a dark brow. She saw his strong lithe movements, how his face had filled out in the past fortnight. But, when he drew close, she looked down at the teacups.

  He said, after a silence:

  “I must go home. I really should not have stayed so long. It’s been frightfully good of you to have me.”

  Her fingers were pressed to her cheek and he saw the pressure increase against its white firmness. But she said, almost coldly:

  “I think the change has done you good. I’m glad of that.”

  She did not oppose him when he suggested going that evening. They spoke little to the time of his leaving, when he held her hand for a moment and thanked her stiffly for her hospitality. He left her standing by the magnolia tree, the pug sitting at her feet.

  As the train moved past the summer fields and the lake he began to feel that he had torn himself from all that was most desirable in life. Torn himself from one who desired him, to return to the intricate relations of his family to not one of whom he was necessary, a house heavy with memories of Eden. He shrank from the house and the people in it. He sank lower in his seat, staring gloomily out of the window.

  He was roused by the name of the station preceding his own. The woman in the seat opposite was alighting there. She was old and laden with packages. He found himself helping her with them, then following her to the platform. He found himself watching the train steam out of the station, with no thought of the suitcase he had left in the rack.

  It was growing dark as he stood waiting for a bus. It came and he climbed into it, found it almost empty and, pulling his hat over his eyes, settled himself in a corner. He did not ask himself why he was returning to Sarah moved by an impulse stronger than that which had driven him from her. Without question he accepted the fact that he could not, at this moment, do without her. He did not even ask himself what he would say to her in explanation of a so abrupt change of mind. He slumped in his corner, clasping his knee in his hands, his bony wrists projecting from his sleeves, thought almost suspended. Only instinct was alive, turning toward Sarah.

  The light had faded from the sky and the street lamps passed in blurred procession outside the pane. In the town the streets were beginning to fill with the evening crowd, working men, clerks and their girls, walking arm in arm, and sometimes groups of laughing girls together. Finch gave them a sidelong glance from under the brim of his hat but there was an unseeing look in his eyes.

  After the bus it was necessary to take a taxi. As he got into it he remembered the suitcase he had left in the train and he gave a growl of derision. What a fool he was! Rushing away like that… Losing his suitcase… Rushing back… But he must return to Sarah… come what may.

  What if she had gone out? He pressed his face to the window and peered out to see if the house were in darkness. The street was dark and quiet. Yes, there were softly shaded lights in the house.

  He paid the driver and went slowly toward the door. Sarah had given him a latchkey which he had forgotten to return. He went into the house and stood motionless in the empty drawing-room.

  The pug had heard him come in and it now entered and came to him with an amused, cynical expression. There was a cool, detached, humorous expression in its wrinkled face. It seemed to be saying—“You are a fool, but it is not yet too late. Escape while there is time.”

  What irrevocable thing was he contemplating? Offering himself. Binding himself, forever and forever. That pale china clock was ticking away the hours, ticking away the life which he was passionately eager to make the most of. And he was going to offer his young, free life to another… to be bound… to be enslaved… not to art… but to Sarah’s white flesh, to Sarah’s black hair, to her desire…

  No, no, he could not do it! Now he was awake. He could see clearly the danger of it. Why had he ever thought of coming back! But yet… Indecision moved him this way and that as a reed in conflicting currents. He stood pulling at his lip, staring, with an expression of fear at his reflection in a mirror.

  When Sarah opened the door he backed away from her as though she were a ghost. And like a ghost, she was so pale, she moved glidingly toward him.

  “I—I’ve come back,” he stammered.

  “Yes?” She looked at him expectantly.

  “Sarah!” He ceased to move backward and she to move forward. They stood rigid. The pug stood between them with an air of resentful solemnity.

  Then the enchantment of her presence overcame his fears. Fate could not touch him with her always beside him. She would always be there to pour out his love upon. Aphrodite to whom he might offer his body… From retreating he advanced, and she stood waiting.

  XXVII

  THE FAMILY AGAINST HIM

  MAURICE AND MEG were overheated when they reached the shady corner of the lawn where Nicholas and Ernest were sitting, each with a glass of barley water in front of him and a slowly swaying fan in his hand. Alayne had been reading aloud to them and had left the book upside-down on her chair while she went into the house in answer to the telephone. It was ninety degrees in the shade.

  The two uncles smiled their welcome at the advancing pair, for a call from them was an unexpected pleasure on such an afternoon.

  “Meggie does look hot, poor creature,” observed Ernest, “but then she’s getting so stout.”

  “Maurice is heavy, too. He looks older.” Nicholas then called out:

  “You are courageous! Come and have some barley water. There’s nothing better for cooling one.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Meg. “This is the hottest day yet! But how comfortable you are here! There’s always a breeze stirring at Jalna. It’s so different from the hollow where we are stuck.” She sank into a chair.

  Maurice, dropping to the grass, uttered a deprecating grunt. “I can’t feel much difference,” he said. “It’s hellish everywhere.”

  Nicholas quickly drained his glass and refilled it for Maurice, his handsome old hand with the heavy seal ring shaking a good deal, so that some of the liquid was spilt on the rustic table.

  Meg took up Alayne’s glass. “Whose is this?” she asked. “Alayne’s? Well, she won’t mind if I finish it. Oh, how delicious !… And how cool!”

  “It must have been very hot coming through the ravine,” said Ernest, fanning her. “You should have waited till later in the day.”

  Maurice replied—“As a matter of fact, we wanted to get here before Renny returned. We’ve something we want to talk over with you.”

  Meg refilled her glass to the brim. “Yes, Maurice, tell them about it quickly, while we are alone. For I suppose Alayne will soon be out. I’ve never known anyone who seemed to be always on deck as she is.”

  “She’s a good girl, a good girl,” said Nicholas.

  Ernest leaned forward with intense interest but still fanning Meg.

  “Do tell us what you have in mind. As you say, we shan’t be alone for long.”

  Maurice gave a grim laugh. “She’ll soon have to know all about it. Perhaps she will be able to solve the mystery.”

  Ernest drew a deep breath. “The mystery! What mystery? I do hope there is nothing wrong.”

  “As far as I am concerned,” answered Maurice, “there is nothing wrong. As for Renny—he’s got his own way—as he usually does. He’s bought the land I was subdividing—lock, stock, and barrel. Paid me cash for it!”

  “Good God!” ejaculated Nicholas. “But how could he? Where did he get the money?”

  Ernest exclaimed—“But what about the lots you had sold? There were two bungalows going up! What about them?”

  “Oh, they were barely begun. But he bought them and the lots too. He bought e
verything. The first time any land has been added to Jalna for a good many years, eh?”

  “Well, well, well,” said Nicholas, grinning with satisfaction, “this beats all! I must say I admire him for that. A slice of Vaughanlands for Jalna, eh?”

  “Mamma would have been pleased to have seen a stop put to those bungalows,” said Ernest. “I’ve known for several days that Renny had something up his sleeve. Some scheme or other. And I worried a little, for I don’t always see eye to eye with him in his schemes. When did the transaction take place?”

  “This morning. He came over in a most hilarious mood. He laughed and ragged me about the bungalows for quite a while before he came to the point. Then suddenly he got rather disagreeable. Demanded what was my lowest price for the damned land. I told him and he wrote me a cheque on the spot. Then he told me that he had bought the four lots and the buildings. Of course, I’m awfully glad for your sakes and ours too, but I’m wondering how it all came about. Meg thought perhaps you’d know.”

  “There is only one way,” said Ernest, “and that is Alayne’s private means. She must have handed that over to him.”

  “Well, and I think she should,” said Meg. “If I had money I should consider it my duty to give it to Maurice at such a time as this. A wife must sacrifice herself.”

  They saw Alayne coming toward them across the lawn. Temperate greetings were exchanged.

  “Shall I tell her?” Ernest had whispered, and Meg had nodded an affirmative. He therefore said, with a playful air:

  “Alayne, dear, we’ve heard the news! And we’re delighted, every one of us. It’s such a relief to think that the subdivision is no longer necessary.”

  “All we wonder,” said Meg, “is that you didn’t do it before.”

  “Do what before?”

  “Why, buy the land and the lots before!”

  “I’m quite in the dark,” Alayne returned, sitting down on the seat beside Nicholas. There was both coldness and apprehension in her voice.