“what are you going to do with him?” asked Roma.
“Open the door,” ordered Finch.
Adeline opened the front door and Finch stepped into the porch. All three dogs came into the house. Finch carried Archer to the steps and held him head downward over a snowdrift.
“Want to be dropped into that and left there?” he asked.
“I don’t mind,” answered Archer impassively.
“All right. Here goes!” He lowered Archer till his tow hair touched the snow. He lowered him till his head was buried. The little girls shrieked. Alayne could be heard talking, on her way up the basement stairs. The bell of Ernest’s room was loudly ringing below. The two old men were having breakfast in bed, in preparation for a tiring day. Now Ernest wanted his. Two short rings meant that he wanted porridge, toast and tea. One prolonged ring indicated that he wanted an egg. This was a prolonged ring. It went on and on.
Finch reversed Archer and stood him on his feet. His lofty white brow was surmounted by snowy locks.
“Now are you going to behave yourself?” asked Finch, grinning.
“I still don’t want my breakfast,” answered Archer. “And I still want to see the Tree.”
“wherever is that terrible draught coming from?” cried Alayne. “And who let the dogs in?”
Finch leaped up the stairs.
Oh, if Renny and Piers and Wake were home, how happy he would be! He pictured them, one after the other, at their various pursuits. What a Christmas it would be when they all were at Jalna once again! He knocked at Ernest’s door and went in.
“Merry Christmas, Uncle Ernest!” He went to the bed and kissed him.
“Merry Christmas, my boy! Will you just prop those pillows behind me a little more firmly. How cold it is! Please don’t touch me again with your hands. They’re icy.”
Finch tucked the eiderdown about him. “Is that better?”
The old gentleman looked nice indeed, with his lean pink face, his forget-me-not blue eyes and his silvery hair brushed smooth. Nicholas, when Finch visited him, was a contrast. His hair, his eyebrows, his moustache, still iron-grey, were ruffled. His bed was untidy and on the table at his side lay his pipe and tobacco pouch, with burnt matches strewn about.
After the season’s greetings, Finch asked, “Have you rung for your breakfast yet, Uncle Nick?”
“No, no. I never ring till I’ve heard Rags bring your Uncle Ernest’s. No matter how early I wake he always gets ahead of me. So now I just smoke a pipe and resign myself to waiting. How many times did he ring?”
“One long one.”
“Means he wants an egg. Doesn’t need an egg when he’s going to eat a heavy dinner. Tomorrow he’ll be taking indigestion tablets, you’ll see.”
Nicholas stretched out an unsteady handsome old hand, found his pipe and a pigeon’s feather with which he proceeded to clean it. What did it feel like to be ninety? Finch wondered. Very comfortable, to judge by the way Uncle Nick pulled contentedly at his pipe.
“So you’re going to read the Lessons, eh?” the old man asked.
“Yes, and I’m scared stiff.”
Nicholas stared. “You nervous — after all you’ve done!”
“This is different.”
“I should think it is. A little country church, as familiar to you as your own home. Your own family there to support you.”
“That’s just it. When I see you all facing me while I read out of the Bible, it will seem preposterous. And I haven’t had any practice. I don’t know how to read out of the Bible.”
“Good heavens, you’ve been often enough to church!”
“It’s not the same.”
Nicholas thought a minute, then he said, “I’ll tell you what. You get my prayer book out of the wardrobe, then you can let me hear you read. I’ll tell you how it sounds.”
Finch went with alacrity to the towering walnut wardrobe that always had worn an air of mystery to him.
“Door to the left,” directed his uncle. “Hatbox where I keep my good hat.”
Finch opened the door. A smell which was a mixture of tobacco, old tweed, and broadcloth, came out. He took the lid from the large leather hatbox. There inside was his uncle’s top hat and in its crown lay his prayer book, the gilt cross on its cover worn dim by the years.
“I remember,” said Finch, “when you wore that silk hat every Sunday.”
“Ah, there was dignity in those days! On this continent we shall sink before long to shirt-sleeves and not getting to our feet when a woman comes into the room — to judge by what I see in the papers. Well, you boys weren’t brought up that way. Now, let’s hear you read.”
Nicholas had in his younger days played the piano quite well. He was convinced that Finch had inherited his talent from him. Though his fingers had long been too stiff for playing, he still kept his old square piano in his room and sometimes when he was alone fumbled over the few stray bars he remembered. Now Finch sat down before the keyboard and placed the open book on the rack. He read the Epistle through. He looked enquiringly at his uncle.
“Too loud,” said Nicholas.
“Not for the church, Uncle.”
“You must learn to control your voice. It’s a good one but it’s erratic.”
“I expect I’ll make a mess of the whole thing.”
“Nonsense. You read far better than old Fennel.” The jingling of dishes on Ernest’s tray could be heard.
“There he is!” exclaimed Nicholas. He searched the top of his bedside table and found two envelopes. Wragge appeared at the door.
“Merry Christmas, sir!” His small grey face, with its jutting nose and chin, took on an expectant beam.
Nicholas handed him the envelopes.
“One for you — one for your wife. Merry Christmas to you both. Bring me porridge — thick toast, gooseberry jam.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. It’s very nice to be remembered. Mr. Ernest did the sime for us. Mrs. Wragge will thank you later, sir.”
When he had gone, Finch groaned. “Gosh, I completely forgot to give them anything! No wonder he gave me a chilly look. How much was in the envelopes, Uncle Nick?”
“Five in each. Ernest gives them the same. Well — it keeps ’em good-humoured. They have a lot of trays to cope with.”
Finch walked alone across the fields to church. A slight fall of snow had made them freshly white. There showed no human footprint but the winding path was clearly defined among the tall dead grasses, the stalks of Michaelmas daisy and goldenrod. In and about ran the footprints of pheasants. Rabbits had been there too, leaving their Y-shaped prints, and field mice their tiny scratchings. From a twisted old thorn tree, a chickadee piped his last recollection of spring.
Now Finch could see the church tower rising from its knoll and in the graveyard two figures. They were Meg and Patience. As he drew near he saw that they were standing by the plot where the Vaughans were laid. It was the second Christmas that Meg’s husband, Maurice Vaughan, had been gone from her. Yet Finch felt that it would scarcely be seemly to call out “Merry Christmas” to Meg and Patience, mourning by his grave.
But Meg saved Finch embarrassment by at once seeing him and coming toward him with arms outstretched. She still wore black but today she had brightened it by pinning a little nosegay of pink artificial daisies on the breast of her black lamb coat which had seen twelve seasons’ wear.
“Merry Christmas!” she exclaimed, folding Finch to her bosom, “and many, many of them!”
Finch hugged them both, then, after an appreciative glance at the wreath on the grave, said:
“Hadn’t you better come into the church? You’ll get cold standing here.”
“Yes, we’ll go at once. How do you like the wreath? I think it’s marvellous the way they make these wreaths of bronze leaves. They look so natural. But they’re terribly expensive.”
“It’s very nice, Meggie.”
“I was saying to Patience, just as you came up, how strange it is to think tha
t when I die I shall have to lie here among the Vaughans, instead of with the Whiteoaks, where I’d feel so much more at home.”
“It seems strange.”
“Do you think it might possibly be arranged that I should be buried among my own family?”
“Don’t talk about it, Meggie.”
Finch could not remember the time when death had not seemed real and terrible to him. The loss of both parents, when he was seven, had made an indelible impression on him. But Patience had the feeling that she could never die. Her mother too must live and live. She took Meg’s hand and drew her toward the church. The last bell began to ring. People were mounting the icy steps — figures symbolic of the arduous Christian way. Finch hastened to the vestry. Patience called after him:
“You’ll find the surplices nice and clean, Uncle Finch. Mother and I washed and ironed them all.”
“Good for you!”
As he passed the door he had a glimpse of Noah Binns ringing the bell, bending almost double to impart additional Christmas fervour into the act. Bellringer, gravedigger, farm-worker he had been for many a year, putting energy into only the first two of these callings. Now that he was in his seventies he spared himself still more in farm work, yet demanded higher wages — and got them. He had a patronizing and resentful attitude toward the Whiteoak family. He firmly believed that they would like to put him out of his job of bellringer and he had made up his mind to hang on to it as long as he could hang on to the bell rope.
Now his ferret eyes and Finch’s large grey ones exchanged a look of mutual challenge.
“Hurry up,” said Binns’ eyes, “or I’ll stop ringing before you get your danged surplice on.”
Finch’s eyes said, “If you let me down it will be the worse for you.”
The church was filled with the scent of greenery that was twined about pulpit, font and choir stalls. From his own body there came to Finch the clean smell of his freshly laundered surplice. Now he was in his seat near the steps of the chancel. There was no escape. He was in for reading the Lessons. Miss Pink, the organist, bent all her powers to the playing of the opening hymn. Finch stole a sly look at the congregation. For a brief moment his eyes rested on the family pews. There were the dear old uncles, with Archer fenced in between them and Adeline and Roma on the far side of Ernest. Alayne had not come. In the pew behind were Pheasant and her three sons. Across the aisle, in the Vaughan pew, Meg and Patience. All, down to Archer, knew the Christmas hymn by heart, so they were able to rivet their full attention on Finch. He began to feel horribly nervous. His mouth felt dry. He was sure his voice would come with a croak.
The calm tones of the Rector led the congregation through the intricacies of the service. Finch watched him standing or kneeling there, his brown beard streaked with silver, and thought of his simple acceptance of the Christian faith and his unostentatious adherence to it in his daily life. Finch felt calmed. After the singing of the Venite Exultemus Domino he moved with a kind of awkward dignity to his place behind the brass eagle. In a low voice he read:
“Here beginneth the First Chapter of the Hebrews.”
Meg’s whisper, fierce in its intensity, came distinctly to him.
“Louder!”
No one regarded this admonishment of Meg’s as out of place. Those of the congregation who were near enough to hear her, thought it well that she should make an effort to keep Finch up to the family’s standard of reading the Lessons. As for Finch, he coloured deeply, then really let his voice out. It was a strong and moving voice. It had power in it. No one could complain now that what he read was not audible.
“‘Here beginneth the First Chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews … God, who at sundry times and divers manners spake in times past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.’” And so proceeded till he came to the question: “‘For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?’” Then his eyes rested for a moment on the congregation and he gathered the breast of his surplice in his hand and pulled at it as though he would rend it. He read on:
“‘... Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands; they shall perish, but thou remainest, and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail.’”
Surely Finch read the sombre words far too well. Surely his voice was too moving and the expression on his long face, of too profound a melancholy. “As a vesture thou shalt fold them up!” It was not pleasant on a fine Christmas morning, thought Ernest. It was hardly decent. The little church had never heard the scriptures so read before. Even Mr. Fennel thought Finch was overdoing it.
But it was the way he tugged at his surplice that most worried the family. When he took his place behind the lectern to read the Second Lesson, his Uncle Nicholas clutched the lapel of his own coat, tugged at it and shook his head so hard that his grey hair fell over his forehead. Finch wondered what was the matter with him. Then he perceived that his Uncle Ernest was doing the same. Startled, he clutched his surplice the tighter. He began to read in a loud nervous tone. Then he saw Meg. She was pulling at her fur collar as though she would pull it off! She was shaking her head! Now he understood. He released his surplice, controlled his voice. Suddenly he felt quite calm. He read the Second Lesson with credit and not too much feeling.
Pheasant’s sons walked back with him across the fields. Rather they ran through the frosty air, drinking in its sweetness, rolling snowballs between their palms to hurl at each other. They were at Jalna as soon as the car which carried Nicholas and Ernest. Nicholas was somewhat disgruntled, for Ernest had insisted on his being bundled up in too many coats, mufflers, and rugs. He could not extricate himself from them. Twice he had tried to heave himself out of the seat and each time his heavy old body had sunk back onto the cushions. He had just got over a cold and Ernest was anxious about him.
“Dammit,” growled Nicholas. “I feel like a feather bed. I’m stuck here. Tell the others. You must have dinner without me.” He pushed out his lips beneath his grey moustache and blew angrily.
Wright now proffered his help. “Let me give you a hand, sir.”
“No use in trying, Wright. I’m stuck. Hullo, Finch! Tell them to have dinner without me — and the Tree without me.”
Finch laughed and grasped him by the arms. Between them he and Wright got the old man out of the car and up the steps. The front door flew open and the children, still wearing their outdoor things, came tumbling out.
“Merry Christmas!” they shouted. “Merry Christmas, Uncle Nick!”
“You’ve wished me that three times already,” growled Nicholas.
“It can’t be wished too often, can it?” retorted Adeline.
All the way into the house Nicholas grumbled. He grumbled all the while he was being divested of his wraps. He was more and more depressed about playing the part of Santa Claus. The saint might be old but he had no gouty knee to hamper him. He was hale and hearty.
The three dogs had pushed their way into the house. The five children tore upstairs to take off their things, then tore down again. The rich smell of roasting turkey and stuffing rose from the basement. Through the keyhole and crevices of the library door the pungent scent of the Tree stole forth.
“why are Alayne and Pheasant trying to restrain the children?” Nicholas thought. “Let ’em make all the noise they can. It will take a lot of noise to fill the void made by the absence of Renny and Piers and Wakefield.”
At last they were seated about the table, with the massive turkey in front of Ernest. Rags had put an edge on the carving knife that might have divided a feather pillow at one stroke. Ernest faced the task with admirable calm. He twitched up his cuffs and took the knife and fork in hand. Alayne, facing him, sat very erect, a fixed smile on her lips. She did not see Ernest, but Renny, at the
head of the table, the carving knife and fork poised, his bright gaze moving from the turkey to the face of the one he was about to serve, well knowing the particular choice of each member of the family. Pheasant must not let herself think of that prison camp in Germany! No — she must keep the thought of Piers far back in her mind, remembering only the children and that this was their day. But not so long ago — though sometimes it seemed half a lifetime — Piers had been Santa Claus, pink and white and jovial. She clenched her hands beneath the table till self-control came, then she laughed and chaffed with Finch and Mooey. Finch was in high spirits. He had come through his ordeal without disgrace, even with some credit. Physically he was feeling better than in years. He and Pheasant and Mooey never stopped laughing and talking. Rags and his wife, she in a new black dress with snowy cuffs and apron, bustled about the table. Bright sunlight, streaming between the yellow velvet curtains, shone on the silver basket mounded with bright fruit, the gay crackers, the shining heads of the children.
But it touched something else. Nicholas bent forward to see. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Grouped about the centrepiece were three photographs framed in holly leaves. They were of Renny, Piers, and Wakefield.
“Well,” growled Nicholas, “I’ll be shot!”
He looked down at the richly mounded plate in front of him, at the mound of cranberry jelly Rags was offering him, in confusion and gloom.
“I don’t like it at all,” he muttered, but nobody heard him.
He raised his voice and repeated, “I don’t like it at all.”
“what don’t you like, Uncle Nick, dear?” asked Meg.
He pointed three times. “These memorial pictures. They fuss me. They take away my appetite. If they’re left on the table I shall be sick.”
“That is just the way I feel, Uncle Nick,” said Meg, with a reproachful look at Alayne and Pheasant whose idea it had been.
“I think it’s a grand idea,” said Finch. “It makes you feel that the chaps are almost with us in the flesh.”
“I am sure they would be pleased,” said Ernest.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 406