Nicholas said loudly, — “I want to hear of this whole affair from the very beginning. My, how glad I am that we’ve got the best of old Clapperton at last.”
Renny interjected, “Don’t say anything against him, Uncle Nick. He died a hero.”
“And lived the life of a horrid old fellow,” retorted Nicholas. “Another drop of Scotch, please.”
Meg said, while sipping her sherry, — “Gem Clapperton has been having a private sale of some of her belongings. I went in the other day and you’ll never guess what I bought.” Without waiting for an answer she went on happily, — “I bought that wonderful oil painting of the shipwreck which was saved from the fire. It wasn’t in the least damaged. She practically gave it away and I simply couldn’t resist. Isn’t it rather nice to think that it will hang on a wall of the new house at Vaughanlands — just as it used to on the old?”
“No,” shouted Finch. “No!” He set down his glass and left the room. He heard Piers laughing. He ran up the two flights of stairs two steps at a time. In his room he sat down on the bed and gripped the bedpost in both hands. What was the matter with him, he wondered. He was always making himself ridiculous in front of the family. Even today. He cursed the nerves that betrayed him. He pressed his thumb and middle finger against his temples and closed his eyes. Three women, a child, and that picture!
When he opened them, Dennis was standing in the doorway, his odd greenish eyes questioning.
“Are you really going to build a house?” asked the little boy.
“Yes.”
“Am I to live with you?”
Finch tried to speak like an affectionate father — “Yes, of course.”
“Then I’ll have a house, the same as Archer has.” He came and put his arm, with a possessive air, about Finch’s neck.
“Would you mind going?” Finch said. “I’d like to be alone.”
“To think?”
“Yes.”
“I want to be alone too. I’ll go to my own room and we’ll both sit thinking about the house we’re going to build.”
Downstairs, by the fire, Nicholas and Alayne were alone together. He was tired from all the talk and confusion but he had something he wanted to say.
“Alayne.”
“Yes, Uncle Nicholas.”
“I’m afraid that sometimes I may not have shown you how much I think of you and how grateful I am for your kindness to Ernest and me. But I do think a very great deal of you and — I’m very grateful. That’s all.”
She rose and came to him and kissed him on the forehead. “You both have been very dear to me,” she said.
Looking back over her life at Jalna, she thought how, in spite of the times when the continued presence of the two old men had seemed a burden and an irritation, it was true that they were very dear to her. In truth there had been times when life in that house would have been less bearable without them, for they had supplied in their talk and their reminiscences, something of the Old World which her spirit craved. They had been conscious of the cultivation of her mind. They had appreciated her. Now one of them was gone and for this one left she felt an added tenderness. For a while she sat talking with Nicholas, then left him to doze, sunk in his chair.
She went out on the porch to let the air cool her face. The sky was darkening. A streak of gold showed in the west without brightening it. The light from the hall and the drawing-room showed the crimson of the Virginia creeper with which the house was clothed. Soon the leaves would fall, but now they had a richness, a seeming permanence, as though frost could not harm them. A few indeed lay scattered in the porch and she picked up one and felt its smoothness and admired its vivid colour. Even when the leaves fell the stout branches of the creeper would enfold the house. It would cling against the walls waiting for the ever-coming spring to renew it.
XXIX
DENNIS ALONE
The leaves were coming down, faster and faster. The elms had shed nearly all of theirs. The maples had a bright-coloured carpet beneath them, and at every gust they cast down another shower, some yellow, some red, some rusty green. The trunk of the old silver birch on the front lawn gleamed white against the evergreens.
Dennis was trotting purposefully in the direction of Vaughanlands and, though it was evening and an owl was hooting in the ravine, he was not nervous. He came up on to the lawn and looked at the ruin of the house, its roofless walls rising darker than the twilight.
A feeling of pride welled up from his quickly-beating heart. The lawyers had done their work, he knew, and this house and all the land that went with it now belonged to his father. Consequently it belonged to him too. “It is mine,” he said out loud, and he walked up close to the house and looked it over. “Archer can’t come here unless I say. I’ll invite people here when I want them, and when I don’t want them they daren’t come.”
The black skeleton walls looked grand to Dennis. He pictured them changing into a fine house in no time. He would have a bedroom next to his father’s and they would have long talks together. They would drive in and out in their own car. They would be like two men, driving and walking and talking together. He would be as important as Archer, more important because there was Adeline at Jalna to order Archer about.
The front steps were still standing and the door with the knocker on it. He went up the steps and reached up to the knocker. He knocked vigorously.
He was not prepared for the hollow reverberations of the knocking. It sounded terribly loud on that door that led nowhere. The twilight deepened. What if the door opened and something strange and horrible appeared? He wished he had not knocked. Somehow it had made everything different. Behind that door rose the menace of a phantom house. What dreadful beings might not lie in wait for the summons of that knock. He pictured them stirring — rising out of the grey rubble — drifting forward to answer the door — towering high above him.
He wanted to run, faster than he ever ran before, but he dared not turn his back on the door for fear that it might open and skeleton hands seize him from behind. He stood with his eyes staring at those threatening panels, his heart ready to leap from his breast. The sound of the knocking still echoed in his ears. Now was added the sound of raindrops — not pattering on a roof, but falling into that roofless cavern — on to What?
Tom Raikes, who was living with the Barkers, had, in complicity with Barker, bought several bottles of rye whisky and hidden them in the cellar of the ruin where he and Barker could retreat when they chose, unknown to Mrs. Barker. On this evening the wife was out and the two men looked forward to some carefree hours together. Raikes had come to fetch a bottle of rye. He was startled by the sudden resounding knock. Down in the cavern where he crouched it sounded so eerie that, for a moment, he was shaken. Who or what was after him now?
His long legs bent, he emerged cautiously into the rubble-strewn passage, crept up the charred stairs and peered round the skeleton wall to the porch. The relief on his face when he saw the little boy was almost comic. His jaw dropped and a smile replaced his look of consternation. Only a little prying youngster at the door! And already he was frightened. Well, he’d give him a real fright. He’d larn him!
He crept along a beam till he reached the door. He laid his hand on the brass doorknob. Raikes was too subtle to fling wide the door and appear with a threat on the sill. All he did was gently to turn the knob without opening the door. He agitated the knob a little, as though the hand that held it shook in ghostly fury.
Dennis had heard the creeping steps. Now his terrified eyes were riveted on the turning knob. What horror would appear when the door opened? He tried to run but his legs were rigid. Only his heart leaped and bounded.
Again and again the doorknob turned. At last, with infinite caution, the narrowest possible crack of door opened, barely wide enough for an abominable eye to peer through. The tension of the child’s nerves snapped.
With a thin cry, like a rabbit’s caught in a trap, he turned and fled. He hurled himself down the s
teps, across the lawn, through the shrubbery, into the ravine. It was shallow here but overgrown by brambles which tore at him, sought to hold him. But he struggled through them, whimpering in fear and pain. At the edge of the ravine the going was not so difficult. He could run. But where it grew steep he caught his foot in a root, fell, and rolled over and over into the stream. Frantically he struggled to his feet. The water was up to his armpits. He waded across and found the path on the other side. Dripping wet, his head and legs bleeding from scratches, he climbed the path. He went through the little gate at the edge of the lawn and the house rose in front of him, its windows alight.
The dogs heard him and, for a moment, made an uproar, but lay down again when he entered the hall. The house was full of the music of the piano. Dennis opened the door of the drawing-room and went softly in.
Finch was alone in the room. The light from a lamp fell across his supple hands as they flew up and down the keyboard, and across his long sensitive face which showed a tranquil pleasure in his playing. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Dennis standing just inside the room and smiled at him.
Dennis sank to his heels, his back against the door. The curtains were drawn against the darkness which had descended suddenly with the rain. The sweetness, the power, the gaiety of the music rose, as a wall, to keep out evil spirits.
“I’m safe,” Dennis whispered to himself. “I’m safe, with my father.”
XXX
THE READING OF THE PLAY
Before the first snowfall, Wakefield arrived from New York. He was both elated and depressed by his visit there. His agent had been enthusiastic about the play Wakefield had written. He had a manager in view who, he was sure, would be interested. It was a comedy, and good comedies were rare. New York audiences were going to laugh a lot at this play. Wakefield had pictured them as enchanted by this different sort of comedy, by a young actor who was already making his mark on the stage. And he, of course, was to play the principal part. The manager had expressed a fervent wish to meet Wakefield. Indeed, at their first meetings, Wakefield had thought all was well. But a change had come, why neither he nor his agent could guess. The manager had avoided meetings and, as it turned out, was putting his money on another play. As the agent and Wakefield were accustomed to the vagaries of the theatre they were not disconcerted, and there were other managers.
Wakefield enjoyed his stay in New York. The bequest from his Uncle Ernest made him feel tolerably rich. It had come as a splendid surprise, for he had expected that only the older members of the family would benefit. Now he planned to spend some time at Jalna, convenient for overnight trips to New York, in case he were needed.
Finch now found a new pleasure in Wakefield’s society. As a boy this younger brother had irritated him by his cocksureness. Perhaps he was envious because Wakefield had always been the favourite of the family, while he because of his unhappy mixture of awkwardness and vulnerability had often been the butt for teasing. This he had never been able to take well, and even today winced at the remembrance of some of Piers’ and Eden’s sallies at his expense. Renny had indeed been a father to him, but he had, as Finch thought, been sometimes severe with him, in contrast to his leniency toward Wakefield.
Well, all that was in the past and he looked forward to Wakefield’s stay at Jalna. Wakefield was excited at Finch’s purchase of Vaughanlands. Everything was now settled, the price paid. The two brothers spent happy hours exploring every corner of the property. Of course, they already knew it almost as well as they knew Jalna but, in Finch’s ownership, it had a new aspect.
Finch had builders at work, and on the old foundations a new house was beginning to rise. The solid plain exterior was to be the same as of old but there were to be fewer rooms and more spacious. A new bow-window was to be added to the largest, which was to be the music room. The consultations with the architect, with the builder, were an entirely new kind of interest, pleasure, and anxiety to Finch. He was surprised, though not alarmed, by the way the money went. His resources were a constant marvel to Renny. He was mystified; he was delighted; he was curious. He would have liked to know, to the last dollar, how much Finch had accumulated. But Finch, who was by nature candid and open, had learned by experience that the master of Jalna could, with all good intentions, borrow and be unable to repay, or advise investment in the stables which had so often absorbed his own means. From Ernest’s bequest he already was making improvements to them and had bought a valuable mare. Piers, on his part, had put his share of the legacy into stocks, excepting for a new fur coat for Pheasant.
Everyone was interested in Wakefield’s play, though it was only to Alayne and Pheasant that it was of deeper interest than the building of Finch’s house. One evening, not long after his coming, it was arranged that he should read it aloud. Nicholas, Renny, Alayne, Piers, Pheasant, Meg and Patience, Finch, and Adeline were gathered to hear him. Nicholas, in his comfortable chair, was seated dose to the reader, so that he might not miss a word. Finch, at the piano, was prepared to play certain snatches of music, for one of the characters in the play was a musician. Renny was sitting on the window seat, and Finch, seeing him there, recalled that it was in this same spot he had sat when the family had forgathered after the reading of the grandmother’s will — a painful recollection.
Wakefield was in his natural sphere. He was acting; he was, as his brothers said, showing off. It was evening. The lights were low, except for the lamp which illumined Wakefield’s manuscript and his dark, mobile face. The audience could not have been more attentive. Alayne, her critical faculty alert, leaned slightly forward. Meg also leaned forward but it was with encouragement for the reader, her smile only waiting to turn into a laugh, for she knew this was going to be an amusing play. Nicholas, his best ear cupped in his hand, was paying the strictest attention to all the preliminaries. In his day he had been an ardent theatre-goer. For this occasion he had thoroughly brushed his hair; had, at his request, been freshly shaved by Renny, and had put on his best suit. Back through long years, the glamour of the theatre touched him. He said to Finch, — “Start it off properly. Play ‘God Save the King.’”
Delighted to see the old man in this mood, Finch played the anthem. At the first note Nicholas struggled to his feet and remained standing solidly to the end. Then everyone sat down. Wakefield opened his manuscript and cleared his throat. At that moment the dogs decided that they wanted to come into the room from the hall. The Cairn terrier, who was an adept at scratching doors and who had left his mark on every principal door in the house, drew his sharp nails, in rapid succession, down the panels. The bulldog barked, the sheepdog whined. Alayne had been tolerantly amused at the delay caused by the anthem. She was eager to get on with the play and found this second interruption very irritating. Her decisive nature was offended. She never had liked dogs and now she exclaimed”
“what pests those animals are! Will somebody please drive them away?”
At that moment an unseen hand in the hall opened the door, and the bulldog, the sheepdog, and the Cairn terrier entered. The bulldog, with his rolling gait, went straight to the fire and seated himself on the hearthrug, facing the company, the picture of “what I have, I’ll hold.” The terrier trotted briskly to Renny and pawed his leg. Renny lifted him to his knee. Of the three the sheepdog was the only one who stood in awe of Alayne, and that awe was, in a strange way, mingled with derision. He would obey an order from her but would, at the same time, make a grimace at her, lifting his upper lip and wrinkling his nose. Now, as she pointed to the door, he gave her this look that was almost a smirk, and prepared to leave. Everyone but Alayne laughed.
“Let them stay,” said Renny. “They’ll be good.”
“They ought to be put out,” growled Nicholas.
Piers called to the sheepdog, — “Here, boy!”
Wakefield folded his manuscript. “I shall begin,” he said, “when those brutes are under control.” He was not indeed angry but he was tense.
Adeline dropped to th
e floor beside the sheepdog and drew him onto her lap. “Be good, my pet,” she whispered.
Renny was taking a burr from the Cairn’s tail and it now gave a sharp yelp. Wakefield, with great calm, lighted a cigarette.
“Keep your hair on,” said Renny, addressing both Wakefield and the terrier. He deposited the burr in a fern pot.
The invisible hand in the hall closed the door. There was an expectant silence. Wakefield cleared his throat and began to read. He read well. He threw himself into the different parts with zest, his audience giving him their rapt attention, till, when he came to a love scene and lowered his voice seductively for the woman’s part, Nicholas interrupted.
“Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
Wakefield raised his voice a little.
“I still can’t hear you.”
“My God,” cried Wake, “I can’t shout and be subtle at one and the same time.”
Piers put in, “I don’t see anything very subtle about it. She’s simply cooing, — ‘Oh, Bill, I love you so terrifically.’”
“Well, then, I can’t coo.”
“what’s he say?” demanded Nicholas.
Meg came to the rescue. “Uncle Nick, dear, it’s a love scene. Wakefield, as the girl, wants to coo.”
Nicholas snorted. “Very well. Let him coo and have done with it.”
“Listen, Uncle,” continued Meg. “This girl is in love with a plumber. Her family are bitterly opposed to the match, though I don’t think Wakefield has made it clear whether it is because he is such a conceited young man or because he is a plumber …”
Wakefield tossed the manuscript to her lap. “You take it,” he said, “and read.”
“Now, Wakefield,” admonished Meg. “Don’t get upset.”
“I want to hear him read the play,” said Nicholas, “but if he mumbles, I can’t. I know the plot so far but, tell me, is this play a farce?”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 474