“Uncle Ernest, this child is Eden’s. Minny brought her to me in Paris. Minny is terribly ill. She couldn’t keep the child. Eden never knew about it — the baby, I mean. I’m going to look after her.”
Ernest, Nicholas, and Alayne stood rooted. Nicholas could not take it in. He turned to his brother and demanded testily:
“What’s he say? Who is the child?”
“Eden’s,” returned Ernest, with surprising composure. “Eden’s and Minny’s.”
Nicholas stared, stupefied. “But — but — Eden is dead! What’s all this talk? I can’t understand!”
“It’s Eden’s child,” repeated Ernest and his clear blue eyes searched Alayne’s face to see how she would take the news.
She looked almost as mystified as Nicholas. She went slowly to the child and scanned its face. Then she turned almost pleadingly to Piers, to whom she had not spoken for weeks.
“Do you think this is true?” she asked.
Nothing she could have done could have drawn Piers’s sympathy to her as this appeal to his judgment. He gave her a look of almost tender solicitude.
“It’s rough on you,” he said, “having it brought to Jalna.”
Nicholas repeated — “I don’t understand.”
Sarah smiled almost maliciously. “It’s easy to understand. Minny was that sort of girl, you know. And Finch is the sort of man who would come to her rescue.”
“It’s rough on Alayne,” repeated Piers.
Finch exclaimed loudly — “It has nothing to do with Alayne! I should think Alayne would feel sorry for the poor little thing.”
At this moment Adeline, freshly dressed for the occasion, rushed out of the house. Instantly her eyes discovered the other child and she had no interest in anyone else. She reached up to her, trying to drag her from the arms of the maid.
“Set her down,” commanded Ernest. “Let us see her.”
The child stood motionless, dazed but not afraid, its dress, of a foreign cut, crumpled against its thin body. The maid encouraged her in staccato French.
Adeline was enraptured by the sudden appearance of the girl child smaller than herself. She inspected her with beaming assurance then grasped her wrist and led her toward the house. The child hung back timidly.
Nicholas’s voice came, as though shaken out of him. “Finch, do you tell me that this is Eden’s and Minny’s child?”
“Yes, Uncle Nick.”
“Well, well, I don’t know what Renny’ll say to this. I can’t think what he’ll say to it.” Suddenly he picked up the little creature and held her in front of him. “Minny’s eyes and cheekbones!” he growled. “No doubt about that…. I must tell Renny of this! I am the one to tell him! Where is he now? Why isn’t he here?” He stood irresolute holding the child in his hands, the thin legs with soiled knees, dangling.
Alayne said — “Where would he be but in the stables? A new arrival there is more important than one at the house.”
Finch exclaimed eagerly — “I do wish you would tell him, Uncle Nick! It’s just as you say. You are the one to do it.” He thought — “I’m scarcely home…. I’m not inside the door before I feel the pressure of all their spirits on mine and I get bewildered…. I can’t remember whether or not I’ve spoken to Alayne…. How ill she looks!” He said — “What a crowd of us to descend on you, Alayne! It’s a beastly nuisance for you, I know.”
“It is nothing,” she said, and she returned his kiss affectionately.
Sarah came and stood close beside them. She looked at Alayne as though she would snatch Finch’s kiss from her. Alayne said to her:
“I suppose you have had a wonderful time in Europe.”
“For itself I hate Europe,” answered Sarah. “I was dragged about it too much by my aunt. But wherever Finch is, is wonderful to me!”
“That’s the way to feel!” exclaimed Ernest. Then he added — “I do wish Nick wouldn’t be so impulsive! Why can’t he wait till Renny comes instead of rushing off like that!”
Nicholas was indeed clambering into the car, very stiffly because of his gouty knee, and still carrying the child. Piers had returned to his place at the wheel.
“Do let him go, Uncle Ernie!” said Finch. “He’s taking a load of responsibility off me.”
“But I wish we could see how Renny receives Roma,” said Sarah.
“Yes,” said Ernest. “It’s scarcely fair to the rest of us to present her so secretly.”
“Secretly!” Alayne gave a harsh laugh. Finch turned to her quickly.
“Are you angry with me, Alayne?” he asked timidly.
“Angry? No. You couldn’t help yourself. You had to be yourself. Just as Eden couldn’t really die.”
He answered — “Do you feel that way about him too, Alayne? I’m just the same. I never can believe that Eden is really gone from us — especially since I’ve had Roma.”
Adeline had insisted on getting into the car with Nicholas and the child. Piers drove them straight to that part of the stables where he knew Renny was. He sent a message to him by a stable boy who was passing with a bucket of water. The boy hurried off, slopping the water a little as he went.
Piers lighted a cigarette and said over his shoulder — “If you want my opinion of this affair, Uncle Nick, I think Finch has acted like a damned fool.”
“But what could he do? Minny was desperately ill, he says.”
“That’s possible. It’s possible too that she was deceiving him. In any case she had rich friends who could have provided for the kid. It’s an imposition on Alayne, bringing it here, I say.”
“Well, well, we’ll see what Renny says.”
“It doesn’t require much imagination to guess that. He’ll receive it with open arms.”
The stable door was opened by the boy and Renny appeared carrying a few-hours-old foal in his arms. He exclaimed:
“The boy told me you were here, Uncle Nick, and I wanted you to see this. Isn’t it a beauty?”
He was in trousers and shirt with uprolled sleeves. His hair was on end and his face wore a look of exultation. The foal hung limply in his arms, its disproportionate legs dangling, its neck arched with the stark strangeness of some prehistoric beast.
Adeline shouted — “Let me see it! Let me see it!”
When Nicholas opened the door of the car she scrambled out and ran to Renny’s side. She was in ecstasy over the foal, pressing her hands into its soft coat, caressing its little hoofs.
Renny stared surprised at the child Nicholas was holding on his knee. Nicholas exclaimed:
“Yes, yes, I’ve never seen a better! Splendid little fellow!”
“Whose child is that?” asked Renny.
“Why — Finch and Sarah brought it.”
“Coltie! Coltie!” cried Adeline. “Bring the little girl to see it, Uncle Nick! She wants to see it. Daddy, let me hold it!”
Renny advanced to the side of the car carrying the foal. There had been something fateful, something deliberately impressive, in Uncle Nick’s voice. What the devil has happened now? he thought. There’s something up! He said:
“So they’ve arrived! I hope you apologized for me. I must go to the house.” He stared at the child that stared fearfully at the foal.
“Stroke it! Stroke it!” cried Adeline.
Nicholas put out his hand and filled it with the foal’s delicate hide. It lay weakly in Renny’s arms, giving itself to their handling. Renny dismissed the stableboy with a nod.
“Whose is she?” he asked, as his mind revolved around strange possibilities. Uncle Nick would not look like that if it were an ordinary child. Something in its face held him fascinated. The pupils of its slanting eyes were dilated with fear as it stared at the foal.
Before Nicholas could answer Piers said roughly — “It’s Eden’s. His and Minny Ware’s.”
Nicholas scowled at him for thus forestalling his news. Piers jumped out of the car and said, half apologetically:
“Well, tell him all about it. God kno
ws, I don’t want to! I’ll take the foal to its dam.”
For a moment, Renny, while he scrutinized the child’s features, retained his statuesque pose with the foal. Then he surrendered it to Piers who bore it away, weak and resigned, its head now drooping over Piers’s arm. Adeline, forgetting her absorption in the other child, danced at his side. She carried one of the foal’s hoofs in her hand with careless familiarity.
“You say she is Eden’s?” To Renny the child was, at first glance, feminine and a personality. It would have been impossible for him to use the impersonal pronoun of it.
“Yes. Minny brought it to Finch in Paris. She is ill. T.B. I’m afraid. Not going to get better.”
“But Eden never spoke of a child!”
“He didn’t know. But look at it.”
He put the child out of the car into Renny’s hands. Its legs dangled and it gave itself, helpless and unprotestmg, as the foal. Renny’s eyes pierced it and its face quivered. An odd veiled smile passed across its pale face.
“By Judas! It’s true!” exclaimed Renny. “She is Eden’s daughter! Eden’s little girl! Why — it’s wonderful! It’s staggering! But it’s true! Uncle Nick…. Uncle Nick…. I can’t tell you how…. Why — it’s like getting word from him! God — I can’t tell you how glad I am to have his child! The way Eden had to suffer … and die … well — it was all so unnecessary … and there was always the thought that he had gone and left nothing behind him but hard feeling … but now … this little girl.…” He pressed the child against his shoulder and bent his head to touch hers. She curved her arm about his neck and snuggled against him with an air of submissive satisfaction.
Nicholas said — “Finch is going to bear the expense, and I’m quite willing to help. I’m glad, on the whole, that he has brought her home. I feel as you do about Eden…. But who will look after her? Will Meg, I wonder?”
“Meg has enough on her hands. She couldn’t possibly manage a young child. Even if it had a nurse. No, no, her place is at Jalna. I like kids about. She will be a companion for Adeline.”
Nicholas pulled the end of his grey moustache. “What about Alayne?” he asked.
Alayne’s unhappiness rose before Renny like a black curtain that he could touch. He said:
“I must talk it over with her.”
X
CHANGING WINDS
HE COULD STILL feel the tangibility of her unhappiness when he found her alone in the dining room counting the table silver. She was laying the various sizes of forks and spoons in neat piles. When he came in and closed the door behind him she paused in what she was doing and looked at him. But she waited for him to speak. He felt his heart beating heavily. When he was away from her he forgot her power to make him feel uncontrolled. To steady himself he said:
“Counting the silver, eh? Anything missing?”
She picked up a thin, worn teaspoon with the crest almost obliterated. “One of these,” she said. “But it must be somewhere about. That girl Bessie is so careless. These spoons are favourites of yours, I know.” She spoke in a low polite voice.
“Yes, I’ve always liked those little spoons.” He took one up and laid it against his cheek. “They’re so smooth and fine. I hope that missing one will be found.”
“Yes, I hope so.” She proceeded with her counting and he stood watching her intently, conscious of the delicate scent of her hair and her flesh, and of her antagonistic remoteness.
When she had meticulously laid the last fish fork in its place, she said:
“I know exactly what you are going to say, so please don’t worry yourself about the manner of saying it. Subtleties are quite unnecessary with me.”
He thought: It’s all this unhappiness that has made her so baffling. I can’t say anything in the way I intend. I can’t get near her. He said:
“Well, if you know just what I’m wanting to say, what have you to say about it yourself?”
“Nothing.” Her eyes, looking into his now, had become frozen, shallow. “You must do just as you please…. There will be nothing new in that.”
He said, bitterly — “What a brute you make me out!”
“No. But you have always done as you’ve pleased. You can’t deny that.”
“I do deny it!” he said hotly. “When I look back over my life it seems to me I’ve had a lot of hampering and thwarting.”
“I dare say it does…. But I shall certainly not hamper or thwart you in anything anymore.”
“You will not object to the child’s living with us?”
“Haven’t I said that I won’t hamper you?”
He answered gravely — “I wish I could thank you. But how can I? You make it impossible.” Then, in spite of himself, warmth and eagerness came into his voice. “Alayne, I do think we shall never regret taking her. After all, you loved Eden once and he loved you…. I expect that the worst thing he ever did to you was to make way for me.”
Her mouth began to shake.
“Don’t!” he cried. “I can’t bear it!”
“Bring the child here!” she gasped. “Bring her here!”
“Not if it’s going to make you feel like this!”
She steadied herself, her hands clutching the spoons. “Her coming means nothing to me — one way or the other … now.”
He gave his shoulders a despairing fling. She again began to count the spoons, her lips moving inaudibly.
He went out and stood in the hall. He thought: “What sort of life have I now? Everything hopelessly muddled…. I can’t see how it’s all come about … Clara going … Pauline and Wake gone … Alayne hating me … Eden’s child here…. If only I knew some way out of the mess…. That white-faced Sarah and the mortgage…. Funny name — Roma! Poor little thing…. Must go and see her…. God! That was a nasty twinge in my shoulder!”
He went up the stairs and found the child in the nursery where Adeline had laid out all her treasures before her. The child looked doubtfully at them and at her, but, when Renny came in, she went to him and raised her slanting eyes to his and a smile flickered across her face. He took her by the arm and lifted her from the floor. There was nothing to her!
“Why, you’re a mosquito!” he said. “Have they fed you enough, I wonder?”
“Lift me! Lift me!” cried Adeline, pushing her plump shoulder against his hand.
But she showed no tendency to be jealous of Roma. There was something unchildlike in her arrogance of security. She gave her favours or she denied them. She was honey-sweet or she flew into tantrums. But she always felt herself in the very centre of her world. She ate, drank, slept, was petted or punished, firm in this assurance. Beside her Roma was fragile as an eggshell, her dry, fair hair like moonlight compared to the exuberant sun of Adeline’s auburn curls. For the first weeks Roma scarcely spoke at all. Then she began to talk a little in an odd mixture of French and English that delighted Adeline who picked up the French words eagerly, declaring that she had made them up herself. The two children were inseparable. Adeline was more amenable than ever before. Roma did just what she told her.
Renny never saw the two playing together without a fresh surprise, a deeper satisfaction that Eden had sent back this token of himself to be reared, to be cherished at Jalna. The broken link was re-forged, the circle complete.
He gave up trying for Alayne’s forgiveness and spent most of his day in the stables. He had bought the mare, of which he had spoken to Alayne. He had bought her against Maurice’s advice, against Piers’s advice, even against his own better judgment. For, though she had been offered at a low price, she had already got the reputation of a hysterical nature and a half-mad habit of walking on her hind legs when being shown. She was a bright chestnut with a blonde mane and tail and so long-legged, long-necked, and small headed that she seemed to have stepped from an old print, rather than from an Ontario stable. She had full, proud eyes, with a kind of noble fear in them, as though she had not yet grown accustomed to the strange world in which she found herself. Her eyes slid fr
om stall to stall, warily observing her new companions. Her wide nostrils snuffed the flesh of her new master. In the possession of the mare, in the problem of schooling and showing her, Renny found solace from the unsolvable problem of his own life.
Finch felt a relief that was almost painful, in being once more at Jalna. His other absences had seemed as nothing to this last. It had cut him off, thrown him into a new and mystifying life. He had been struggling for months against the torture of his nerves.
Now he would relax, he would learn to sleep again, the pains in his neck and temples would subside. He would plunge his spirit in the cool deep of the woods, try to put out of his mind all he had been through.
His relief was so great, he was so tired in that first week, that he did indeed sleep better. There was a temporary dulling of all his overwrought senses. He talked, scarcely knowing what he said, but it passed for sense. There did not seem to be much wrong with him. Over and over again he traced the paths through wood and field. He stood watching the farm labourers at work. He stood watching Renny, Piers, and Mooey schooling the horses. He walked when all the house was dark and the stable dogs barked at the sound of his steps but he would not set his foot outside the gates of Jalna.
At the end of the week he longed to see his old friend, George Fennel, the Rector’s son. George was so tranquil, so receptive, so easy to talk to. Finch could not understand the change that had come over Alayne. He had strained toward the hour when they would be alone together. He felt sure that she would understand. But now she was changed. She was withdrawn into herself. She was almost silent and, though she appeared to listen attentively to what he said, her answers came at random. Her face had a closed-in look and she gave Finch no encouragement to open his heart to her.
He could not talk to George Fennel as he might have talked to Alayne, still he craved the comfort of George’s sturdy presence, and one night, after a hot sunset, he walked to the Rectory across the fields and along the paved road that he liked to remember as the dusty country one he had known as a boy.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 338