She was sympathetic, but he was not laying himself open to sympathy. He said, in a matter-of-fact tone, “I am pleased with my house as it is.”
“I am so glad of that. Because I don’t really want you married. I want to be able to walk across the ravine to find you sitting at your piano. I want you to go on playing, just as though I were not there. Perhaps I shall leave without our having exchanged a word.”
“Meggie will be there,” he said. “And Patience. Had you forgotten that?”
“Merciful heaven, I had!” she exclaimed. “what an absent-minded fool I am growing to be in my old age. But is it really settled? Can’t you get out of it?”
This was putting the matter harshly. Finch could not subscribe to such a pronouncement. “I guess,” he said, “that I am lucky to have two such women to come and keep house for me — and Dennis.”
He added his son’s name as though in an afterthought. Alayne, always puzzled by his attitude toward Dennis, said in a questioning tone, “He is a very interesting boy.” She dared not give voice to what she felt about those two female relatives pushing (as she considered) their way into this citadel of his which should be sacred to his music and his privacy.
“I scarcely know him,” he returned tersely.
“And sound as though you don’t want to,” she cried. “Really, Finch, you are impossible. Dennis will be eleven next Christmas. He is a thoughtful boy, a little backward in his studies, a little precocious in his attitude toward life. Not as Archer, who always seems le regarder de haut en bas.”
“Doubtless I shall see more of him in future,” said Finch. “Gosh, the way the youngsters are growing up. Piers’ boys — young men! Adeline and Roma both engaged! Tell me, Alayne, what do you feel about your future son-in-law as the weeks go on?”
“He wears well,” she said firmly. “And he fits into life atJalna better than at first I guessed he would. He really tries. And I imagine it’s not easy for him. I gather that he is used to doing just as he pleases, Whenhe pleases. Now he will rise at six to help Piers in the orchards or on the farm. He is learning about horses from Renny, who says he is a nervous rider and always will be.” She added, in a tone scarcely audible, “I am not sure that he is quitehappy.”
“He certainly ought to be,” said Finch. “Engaged to a girl like Adeline. Anyone can see how deeply in love she is.”
“She is little more than a child. Can one be truly in love at her age?”
“More truly I should say than later,” said Finch. “Later it’s harder to forget one’s self — and all that lies behind. Adeline has no past.”
Alayne spoke with almost impersonal gentleness. “We can only hope for the happiness of her future. She is a dear girl.”
These excursions to the city were made with a certain amount of secrecy. It would not do for Meg to discover that Alayne was assisting Finch in his choice of furniture for his house. Almost opportunely it seemed, Meg was suffering from a rash of poison ivy on her face and did not wish to be seen in public. Now Finch turned the car through the gateway of Vaughanlands, along the drive that sloped downward to where the house stood.
Alighting from the car, Finch stood to gaze, with that concentrated attention one gives to one’s own new house. His eyes devoured it. He did not yet love it but felt pride of possession mounting in him. There was as yet no soul in the house. It was but a shell. Nothing had happened in it. In virginal white it gleamed among the trees. No vine or leaf of vine or smallest tendril of vine had darkened one inch of it. It was as purely white as the new-laid egg of a Leghorn pullet.
“Shall you keep the name Vaughanlands?” asked Alayne.
“Well — I have not thought about it. Must the house have a name? Very well, I’ll keep the name. Unless you can think of a better.”
“Uncle Nicholas — indeed all the family — would like to stick to Vaughanlands, I feel sure.” They went indoors. The smell of newness greeted them. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “how fresh it is! How spick-and-span! It makes Jalna appear really fusty.” She caught his arm and pressed it. “Finch, you are going to love it. And therestands the piano! How splendid it looks in the almost empty room!” She moved about, viewing it, now from this angle, now from that. She stopped in front of the occasional table with a thoughtful air. It was even prettier than she remembered.
“Meg is selling her things,” he said, “with the exception of the few I want…. That little table came from Jalna. But that was so long ago.”
“Not so very long ago,” said Alayne, stroking the table with the affection of a lover. “I don’t know why Renny lent it to Meg in the first place. I have always admired it.”
“Would you like to have it back again?” Finch asked eagerly. “Because if you would —”
“No, no, no — that might annoy Meg.”
“But — if it was only lent to her.”
“That is all it was. Just lent.”
“Then, Alayne, let me give it back. Look here, I’ll take it straight out to the car.”
“I don’t wish to annoy anyone,” she said wistfully, “but I have missed this little table.”
Finch was already on his way to the car with it. When he returned she was wandering from room to room. In each she had some happy suggestion to make, some commendation of what had been done. He drove her to Jalna, carried the occasional table into the house for her, escaped, without being seen, and returned, to find Christian awaiting him. He was seated at the piano, picking out a tune with one hand. He swung round to greet Finch.
“I hope you don’t mind, Uncle Finch,” he said. “I found all the lights on and thought I’d like to try the new piano. It’s magnificent. It must be splendid to be able to play as you do. It’s hard, isn’t it, that life is so short a fellow has time to do only one thing well? And is lucky if he achieves that. As for me, I should like to be a painter, play the piano, the violin, and the flute, and write novels.”
“I know,” said Finch. “I once wanted to be an actor.”
“Did you really? Like Uncle Wake, eh? I didn’t know that. I can’t imagine your being anything but what you are. Uncle Finch, what does it feel like to be reunited with your family? After each tour I suppose you find quite a change in us young ones. Are you pleased by these changes or do you think the family is deteriorating?”
“Oh, never that,” said Finch. “I admire you all. It’s wonderful to see you young cousins developing. Adeline and Roma turning into women.”
“Adeline the very spit of great-grandmother,” laughed Christian, “and feeling very cock-a-hoop about it. Roma feeling herself the image of her poet father and conceited about that. Girls are inclined to conceit, I find. Though, goodness knows, some fellows are! Norman, for instance.”
“Roma is not in the least like Eden. She is like her mother, Minny Ware, though she lacks the jolly generosity of Minny — or so it seems to me.”
“There’s nothing very jolly or generous about Roma,” said Christian thoughtfully. “But she must be a sweet little thing. All her friends say so.” With troubled thought indenting his fair brow, he added in a lower tone, “There is one among us cousins I am worried about, Uncle Finch.”
“Yes?” Finch’s expression, so suddenly concerned, brought a smile of reassurance from the young man.
“It’s not that I’m terriblyworried. But it’s a bit of a problem for me. It’s about Maurice.”
“Oh — I see.”
“You know he drinks too much?”
“I thought that — in London — and on the voyage out. He’s still at it, is he?”
“He bought a supply. It seemed quite a lot to me. He kept it in the cupboard in my studio. Mother and Dad didn’t know. Please don’t mention it to Dad or Uncle Renny. But I felt I had to tell you. I need the advice of one of you older ones.”
“I certainly will not tell,” said Finch. “How much does he drink?”
“I actually don’t know. He finished the first lot — with the help of Roma and Norman and two of thei
r friends. Now he has a second supply. He likes company, but — if he has none — he’ll drink alone.”
“Alone, eh?”
“Yes, alone. So far I’ve been able to conceal it from Mother and Dad, though she suspects. Last night I had to help him up to his room. I’m awfully fond of Maurice, but — he’s making things beastly difficult. He’ll promise anything and forget his promise the next hour. It’s pretty hard to understand him.”
“Does he see much of Fitzturgis?”
“Very little. On his first night at home we had a little party — Adeline and Fitzturgis were there, and Maurice was disagreeable to him — actually insulting. But, you understand, he was tight. Fitzturgis pushed Maurice off a bench. They’ve scarcely spoken since. Scarcely been in each other’s company.”
“I’ll see Maurice. I’ll do what I can.”
“And you’ll not tell?”
“No. It’s a shame that he should behave like this.”
“And when he is drinking too much he is not himself. Mother notices it. What I’m afraid of is there’ll be a regular bust-up with Dad. Maurice has invited me to go back to Ireland with him on a visit, but Dad would never let me go if he found out that Maurice is a hard drinker.”
Finch did not answer. His mind had flown back to a night when he himself was eighteen years old. He had left his studies and stolen into the bedroom occupied by Piers and Pheasant to see if he could find a cigarette to smoke. His nerves had been torturing him. Maurice had been asleep in his cradle. Finch remembered bending over him in curiosity. He had gone weak with tenderness as he gazed down at that baby slumber — at the round, baby fist curled beneath the flower-petal cheek. He had kissed the baby repeatedly in an almost ecstatic yearning. And now the baby was a man — Maurice — a “hard drinker.”
“He and I,” Christian was saying, “have become very good friends in the past weeks. I don’t want anything — not anything — to come between us.”
“I’ll have a talk with him…. What do you think, Christian, of his feelings toward Adeline?”
“He loves her. I have no doubt of it. I think that is at the bottom of his trouble, poor fellow.”
When Christian had gone the last light was fading. Behind the trees to the westward where the great window of the living-room faced, little red-gold sparklets of the afterglow danced between the leaves. “No curtains at this window,” thought Finch. “Just the outdoors, coming right into the room.” It was a little past midsummer. The glorious energetic period of growth was slackening into the period of ripening. Finch was deeply conscious of this feeling of repose in the land. He wanted to draw it into his own house, into his own breast. There was weariness in him and a great longing for repose. At that moment he wanted, above all things, his house to himself. He wanted to get acquainted with it — to go from room to room, looking out of each window in turn, returning always to the music room and to the piano. But not yet could he bring himself to touch the keys. Before that moment there must be the agreement of peace between his spirit and his hands.
He took off his jacket and went and hung it in the clothes cupboard of his bedroom. It was the first garment he had hung there and he contemplated it almost in wonder. He took a packet of cigarettes from a pocket in the jacket and lighted one. He gave the mattress of the bed a thump with his fist to test its resilience. It had cost plenty. He wished he might sleep there tonight — in the house alone.
The isolation was delicious. The silence was almost palpable. As the sun disappeared, a fresh breeze stirred the new curtains at the window. Alayne had chosen the curtains. At the time Finch had been a little doubtful of the choice, but now he saw that they were perfect. No other colour, no other pattern would have pleased him as did these. Patience had come that morning and made up his bed. It looked so inviting that he wished he might sleep in it tonight. No other bedroom was yet furnished, and he felt that he would have liked them to remain empty — to have lived there in delicious isolation, alone.
He remembered hotel bedrooms, berths in trains and ships — hotel lounges, dining rooms, bars, taxicabs, concert halls, crowds, people — above all, people. And here was this bedroom, alone in the new house — none other furnished — and beyond the ravine, Jalna — and along the road Piers’s house, The Moorings, and near the church Meg’s house! All these loved people. But he wished — and made a wry face at himself for the wish — that Meg and the two girls would stay where they were. To be alone in this house with his piano — to give himself up to composing. He knew he had better work in him than had yet been put to paper. To be alone.
He remembered, standing there with his chin in his band, how as a boy he had thought it would be the very height of felicity to have a room of one’s own. Piers had been a tyrannical sharer of room and bed. Piers had found a good deal of amusement in baiting him.
He remembered bedrooms he had shared with his wife Sarah, and he stretched his arms ceilingward, stretched all his body to its utmost, in his relief to be free. No other woman — no other marriage — not for him. The piano his woman. Music his mistress. The trees his audience…. He looked at his watch. He should be moving along to Jalna. He had a mind to spend the night here alone, to play the piano for the first time in this dear house of his.
But how to send word that he was not coming? If only he had a telephone installed. He would have to go to Jalna and tell them. But he would return here — and alone. He would spend the night alone with his piano … in the house alone. This was what he had been straining toward — to be alone!
From the wood beyond Jalna a whip-poor-will began to call. In mindless energy it threw its cruel command into the dusk. Whip-poor-will … whip-poor-will.From bough to bough it flitted. It might have been singing love words for all it knew! From his earliest days Finch had loved and feared this bird’s song. Piers had told him in mischief that it cried Whip-poor-Finch, and for a long while he had believed that. Now he stood listening in the darkening room till there was silence again.
A small, remarkably sweet boy’s voice came from the doorway. “Did you hear the whip-poor-will?” it said.
He wheeled and saw his son.
“Did you hear it?” repeated the boy. “I counted thirty-one times it did the call without taking breath.”
“Once,” said Finch, “I counted more than two hundred times.”
“Gee whiz!” Dennis gave his high-pitched treble laugh. He then stood irresolute, as though not sure of his welcome. Finch wondered if he should embrace the boy — give him a hug and a kiss. The Whiteoaks were a demonstrative family. Renny was never embarrassed by kissing his brothers. Yet Finch could not make up his mind to move across the room to the side of his son — to draw him close — after almost a year’s separation…. Was it that some essence of Sarah clung about the boy — emanated from him? Was it that Sarah had been so possessive toward Dennis that she had created a barrier Finch could not overcome? Another shadow fell. Again the whip-poor-will began to call.
“There he goes,” exclaimed Dennis and counted the calls aloud. “One — two — three — four — five —”
Finch went to the clothes cupboard and took his jacket from the hook. Dennis at once stopped counting and followed. He said:
“So this is where you keep your clothes? Is that all you have? what a nice house! I’d better turn on the light.” Without waiting for permission he switched on the light and the room shone forth in all its newness. “what a pretty lamp!” said Dennis. “what a nice room!” He stood transfixed a moment in admiration and was himself revealed as small for his age, of compact build, with clear-cut features, straight fair hair and greenish eyes — eyes like Sarah’s. But Sarah’s hair had been black.
“which is my room?” asked Dennis. He spoke with an almost quizzical air, as though he already knew and was tempting Finch to subterfuge.
“The small room at the back.”
Dennis repeated, on a note of disappointment, “The small room at the back.”
“The others are fo
r Meg and the girls.”
“But I thought we were going to live here — you and me … alone together.”
His clear eyes, that looked shallow as a bird’s, rested, as it were, accusingly on Finch’s face, which now had a look of great weariness. Finch asked abruptly, “why are you home from camp so soon?”
“But it’s not soon. Uncle Renny sent me for only half the season because you were coming home. Wasn’t that good?”
“Splendid,” said Finch heavily.
Dennis seemed to have taken possession of the house. He went from room to room, turning on all the lights, moving as though to music, moving as though he had never been tired in his life.
“why is my room not furnished?” he demanded.
“I haven’t got round to that yet.”
“Yours is the only bedroom furnished, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
A shadow crossed the little boy’s face. It was as though he said, “That’s being selfish, isn’t it?”
Finch thought, “Oh, to be rid of him — rid of everybody — to be alone.” The crawling, creeping pain that had troubled him toward the end of his tour now again struck the back of his neck, his temples. He pressed a middle finger and thumb to them. He went to the window of the living room, and looked out into the darkness. Dennis pressed down treble keys of the piano and it cried out as though in anguish.
“Don’t!” exclaimed Finch roughly. “Come away from there.”
Dennis hung his head, his lips quivering. Then he came and slipped his hand into Finch’s with a proprietary air. What a small firm hand — like Sarah’s.
Finch asked quietly, “Will you be afraid to go back to Jalna in the dark?”
“No. For I shall have you.”
Finch gently returned Dennis’s hand to him. He said, “what I meant was, I wish you would go home.”
“This is home,” interrupted Dennis.
“I know — I know…. I wish you would go to Jalna and tell Aunty Alayne that I have decided to spend the night here. Tell them that I am quite all right but I am going to sleep here. I shall be there for breakfast.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 485