“But they’re having some supper pretty soon.”
“I can do without that. Do you mind going?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Good. Now what are you to say?”
“I’m to say you are staying here but you’ll be there for breakfast. Goodnight.” He vanished as quickly as he had come.
It seemed too good to be true. The whip-poor-will, as though in an ecstasy of relief, gave himself up to the reiteration of his cry. The woods rang with it. A screech-owl gave forth his quaking call. Finch went from room to room, turning off the lights — all but the one in his bedroom. He looked longingly at the bed. But not yet could he lie in it. He discovered that his mouth was very dry. But the water was not yet available in the house. He must just forget his thirst. He would play something of Haydn’s and find tranquility.
But when he laid his hands on the keys they were helpless. The fluid keyboard had become a frozen stream. The keys were frozen — immovable. He rested his elbows on the keyboard and his head on his hands. He gave himself up to the quiet of the night.
After a time he went and lay down on his bed. Physically he began to be at ease. He stretched his body to its fullest length and threw out his arms. An immense relief enveloped him to think that he had been able to send that message by Dennis. He was thankful that Dennis had come, and still more thankful that he had gone…. Taken the message. He began to feel drowsy….
He was roused by the sound of quick footsteps on the flagstones of the terrace. He heard them enter at the open door. He held his breath, listening…. Then came the sound of a crash — not heavy, but as of a small body falling on the floor of the music room, and simultaneously the rattle of dishes. Finch sprang up. It was very dark in the music room. In his confusion he forgot where the electric switch was. He fumbled along the wall, dazed.
The clear treble voice of Dennis came out of the darkness.
“It was a surprise,” he said, “but I fell.”
“A surprise,” muttered Finch. “A surprise. What the devil are you up to?” Suddenly he found the electric switch. Two floor lamps and several wall lights brightly discovered the scene. Dennis lay sprawled on the floor. A hamper beside him had burst open and its contents discharged — sandwiches, fruit, broken dishes, a Thermos bottle.
Dennis lay on his back, softly beating the floor with his fists. Tears were in his eyes. “I’m disappointed,” he said. “It was to be a lovely surprise for you. I gave the message and Mrs. Wragge packed the hamper. Aunty said to. And here are your pyjamas and here are mine. We’ve moved in.”
Finch picked up the Thermos bottle.
“what’s in this?” he asked, his mouth parched.
“Coffee. With cream in it. There’s sugar in this little bag. And here are scones and butter and black cherries and cheese and — gee whiz — the cups are broken!”
“I have plenty of dishes here,” said Finch. He went to the pantry and filled a large cup with coffee. It seemed to him the best he ever had tasted. It put new life into him. He could hear Dennis moving about gathering up the contents of the hamper. He came and asked, “where shall we have our picnic?”
“Anywhere you like,” said Finch.
“I choose the kitchen, then. It’s a pretty little kitchen.” He began deftly to lay the table. He drew up two chairs. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
“I believe I am.” This was true. Finch suddenly found himself very hungry. He drank a second cup of coffee and looked over the little spread on the table with interest.
“Coffee should be taken last — not first,” Dennis said with some severity.
“I know, but I was very thirsty.”
“It’s nice to have your own way sometimes,” said Dennis.
They sat facing each other across the small table. Mrs. Wragge had been generous, but soon they made a clean sweep of the food and had poured the last cups of coffee. They had eaten in silence, Dennis with outward composure though inwardly a little shy, a little puzzled by this strange father.
Suddenly he asked, “what should I call you?”
Finch’s mind was far away. With a start he repeated: “Callme? what do you mean, callme?”
“Well, I generally just say you. But what do you like to be called — Father — Daddy — Papa — Pop?” At the last he gave his high laugh and said again, “Pop.”
“Certainly not that,” said Finch, “if you value your skin.”
“what then?”
“Daddy, I think. You’re still a small boy.”
Inexplicably Dennis jumped up, ran round the table to Finch and hugged him. “May I stay here with you tonight?” he whispered close into Finch’s ear. “I have my pyjamas, you know.” His arms tightened. “Please, please, let me stay. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”
Finch looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock, long past the boy’s bedtime. He looked very small and pale.
“Very well,” Finch said gruffly. “To bed with you, then, and keep yourself small.”
Somehow he had become resigned to the boy’s presence. A blessed peace had descended on his nerves. He felt healthily tired. He knew that he could sleep. He moved quietly about the rooms, making things tidy for the night. He lighted another cigarette and sat by the open window of the music room, looking out into the gentle darkness. Tomorrow he would have solitude — seclusion.
VII
Maurice
THERE WERE MOMENTS when Maurice half regretted this visit home. At these times he wondered whether the pleasure of being again under the same roof with his mother and Christian compensated for the pain of seeing Adeline and Fitzturgis together as so obviously lovers. He avoided it when possible, but in that closely knit circle it was not always possible. He longed to remove Adeline physically out of reach of Fitzturgis; yet when, as it occasionally happened, he found himself alone with her he became almost speechless, behaving, as she thought, like a sulky boy. A boy … that was what he really longed to be. He had not felt ready for manhood when Dermot Court died and left him in possession of his estate. Maurice had clung to his position in that house, of a cherished boy dreaming of a distant future, living in a present where there was no responsibility. Now here in Canada he felt himself to be once again under Piers’s discipline. He could not forget his childhood fear of his father. The very form and face of Piers invited him to challenge, mystified him, made him feel both roused and helpless. He thought of his mother as suffering under Piers’s arbitrary domination, yet he could see how Piers about the house meekly did as Pheasant told him.
Young Philip looked on Maurice as something of a curiosity. A brother and no brother — a visitor, yet one of the family — one of the family, yet an outsider, because he owned a place in Ireland to which he would before long return. A few presents and the evidence of means which lay behind them, these produced respect in Philip, but he envied no one. That autumn he was entering the Royal Military College as a cadet. He was to make the army his career. There would be another Captain Philip Whiteoak!
At first Philip had been hurt by the realization that Christian now was closer to Maurice than to him — in temperament and tastes. The two older brothers could talk about art in a way that frankly bored Philip. Well, they might have art. He would be kept busy in living. One hope which he lovingly harboured was that Renny should make him heir to Jalna. Why not? Of what use would land and a large house and a stable full of horses be to Archer? All Archer would require for content were a small apartment and plenty of books.
Philip had twice helped Christian steer Maurice to his room past the bedroom where their parents slept. He had seen his mother give a swift, pained look at Maurice, as though she guessed what her sons so carefully sought to hide from her. Maurice was such gay company when he was sober and in good spirits. His different way of speaking lent piquancy to what he said. When he had drunk, even a little too much, he became downcast, and his every word and movement was crowned by a melancholy intensity.
Philip now stood in
the open door of the studio where he could see Maurice turning over some sketches Christian had made during the past spring, examining them intently and yet, strangely, seeming scarcely to see them. Piers and Pheasant, taking little Mary with them, were away for the day. Christian was away on some affair of his own. Maurice was in possession of the studio. Philip saw that an almost empty glass was on a table beside him. Philip wondered if Maurice were a bit lonely and whether or not he would welcome a visit from him. He saw the glass emptied, then Maurice turned and saw him.
“Ah, hullo, Philip,” he said. “Going fishing?”
“I’ve just come back. No luck. Would you like a game of tennis?”
“Too hot.”
“It’s good for you. You sweat and you feel better.”
“Sorry, Philip. I’m not in the mood. Get Fitzturgis to play with you.”
Philip gave a crow of amusement. “Him! He feels the heat worse than you. Besides, he is off with Uncle Renny and two horse-dealers to a sale. You should have seen him yesterday on the three-year-old Sligo. He’s a bit of a devil. They’re hoping to sell him to a man who has made a pot of money and is going in for horses and fox-hunting. Well, Sligo gave Maitland such a tumble as you never saw — right over his head. I thought his neck would be broken, but he’s up and around today, his wrist bandaged. Dad says he’ll never be much good with horses, or farming either. He’s just not interested.”
“Poor devil, I feel for him. Where is Adeline?”
“She and Uncle Finch have driven to town to meet Maitland’s sister. She’s coming on a visit, you know. Staying on for the wedding.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard.” Maurice went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of Scotch. Philip watched fascinated. He wondered if Maurice were going to get tight.
“It’s a strange thing,” said Maurice, settling down to his glass, “to see Adeline — so bright and beautiful — about to make so undistinguished a match. She might have had anyone. Don’t you agree?”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“Do you ever think?” Maurice spoke with some severity.
“Well — I have plenty to think of without troubling my head over her.”
“what — for instance?”
“I can’t tell you offhand — but I think a good deal.”
“Do you ever think about girls?”
Philip gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sometimes. Not seriously. There’s no particular girl.”
“I’ll bet they are hotfoot after you.”
“They do notice me occasionally.”
“Do you realize, Philip, what a handsome fellow you are?”
“I only know that I look like great-grandfather.”
“He had a happy life — serene and contented — married to the woman he loved.” Maurice drank a third of his glass. “Not like me, Philip. I must stand by and see Adeline hitched up with that blasted Fitzturgis.”
Never before had Maurice spoken so to Philip. The boy was flattered by being treated as an equal but could find no adequate return but a large-eyed look of sympathy, a compressing of his pouting lips, several nods of the head.
“Sometimes I wonder,” said Maurice, his eyes filling with tears, “if I can bear to be here for the wedding.”
“why — you wouldn’t go away, would you?”
“who would really mind? Be honest. Tell me that, Philip.”
“We’d all be sorry. We’d be terribly sorry.”
Maurice drew a deep sigh. “I like to think so. Perhaps you and Christian and Mother —”
Philip interrupted: “But he’s going back with you, isn’t he? To Ireland, I mean.”
“why, yes, so he is. I guess we must be here for the wedding. But I’d a damned sight sooner go.” Maurice emptied his glass and sat in melancholy contemplation of an unfinished picture on an easel. “Very charming but very immature,” he murmured. “Don’t tell Christian I said that…. Praise, praise, that’s what they want.”
Philip did not know whether to go or stay. As he lingered undecided, Patience appeared in the doorway accompanied by a large, very curly, brown poodle.
“Oh, hullo,” she said. “Am I interrupting?”
Her eyes swept the scene. She caught the poodle by the collar. “No mischief, Becky, please.”
As she stood there in her blue overalls, the brightness of the summer garden behind her, the poodle in its soft graceful prancing attitude by her side, she appeared to Maurice as the embodiment of the season. He could not think of her as anything but serene — yet somewhere in the back of his mind was the recollection of unhappiness. He groped for this, while she stood with an enquiring smile on her sun-browned face, then he remembered she had been jilted. Poor girl! And by that hollow, lacquered excuse for a man — Norman!
He ran his hand through his hair, as though to clear his brain, and turned his heavy eyes on her.
“Hullo, Patty,” he said. “Come in and have a drink.” He got to his feet a little unsteadily.
She released the poodle and entered. It preceded her with a soft gambolling motion and a look of human intelligence and inhuman gaiety in its eyes. Its topknot curled ridiculously.
“A drink,” repeated Patience. “I was just going home for tea.”
“Your day’s work done. The very hour for a cocktail. Let me make you a cocktail. Go into the house, Philip, and bring the cocktail-shaker and ice.”
“No, thanks.” She came and sat down near him.
“Can’t I persuade you?”
“I want my tea and Becky wants hers.”
Philip said, “Well, I’ll be off. I promised to be at the stables when Uncle Renny came back.”
“He’s back now,” said Patience.
“Gosh! How did Mister Fitzturgis come through the day?”
“He’s cheerful. Perhaps a bit pensive.”
Maurice growled. “what the hell has he to be pensiveabout?”
Philip gave Patience a roguish look, as though to say, “Here’s a man with a grievance.” For a moment he romped with the poodle, then was gone.
Maurice offered Patience a cigarette, which she accepted. They sat smoking, watching the poodle, who with a kind of rowdy intensity investigated every corner of the room.
“If you won’t have a cocktail,” said Maurice, “let me give you a whisky and soda.”
“Thanks, but I don’t drink.”
“Good girl.” After a moment he added, “I wish I didn’t.”
She said, with a direct look into his eyes, “why not stop it, then?”
His own gaze faltered. “That’s not easy to do, Patty,” he said, “once you’ve begun.”
She struck herself on her knee with her brown hand. “Just say to yourself, ‘I won’t,’ and stick to it. You’ve character, surely.”
“I get depressed,” he said. “I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not necessary to anyone.”
“what about your parents — your brothers?”
“You’re not trying to make me believe I’m necessary to my father or to Christian and Philip, are you?”
“But to your mother you are.”
“Oh no.”
“You are her favourite son.”
“How do you know?”
“I feel it in the way she speaks of you.”
His face lighted with the smile he had kept from boyhood, a smile that showed his vulnerability, how little he was proof against criticism or weapon. He said, “Mummy’s a darling and — well, there’s something special between us — we’ve sufferedtogether. To tell the truth, that consciousness of suffering is always with us when we are together — both holding us together and apart.” After a silence he added, as though to bolster his belief in himself, “Philip says they would miss me if I were to leave before the wedding.”
“But, Mooey” — she was almost too astonished for speech — “that’s what you came over for — to be at Adeline’s wedding.”
“I did not,” he declared with violence. “It was my time for a visit
and it simply coincided with this wedding. Do you suppose that I would cross the ocean to see Adeline married to a man I detest? And — he detests me. Were you here that night when we almost came to blows?”
“No, but I heard of it.”
“who told you?”
“Roma. She said it was a scene typical of two badly adjusted people.”
“Good God — what a mind she has! How do you endure living with her?”
“I shan’t be much longer.”
“Oh yes, she’s getting married — to Norman.”
The contempt in his voice brought a flame to Patience’s cheeks. She bent to caress the poodle that had settled between her knees and was searching her face with cold analytical intelligence.
“I forgot,” Maurice said. “You liked him once.”
“I still like him,” she returned gently. “I couldn’t stop liking him because he changed his mind.”
“Perhaps not. But you could despise him for his bad taste.”
“Roma is very pretty. I’m not in the least pretty.”
“You’re better than merely pretty. You have looks that will endure.”
She gave him a teasing glance. She said, “I suppose you would value Adeline just as much if she looked like me?”
“She would not be Adeline without that face, that hair, those eyes.”
“There you go — loving her for her looks!”
“Did I ever say I loved her?”
“Somebody said so…. You know what the family is … in on everyone’s business.”
“I think that’s terribly irritating.”
Patience returned stoutly, “I like it — because they all really love one…. Roma resents it.”
“why do you always bring Roma into things?”
“I guess because I’m not able to keep her out.”
“Patience, you are so understanding. Can you tell me what the real Adeline is? Is she just a flawless young animal, with nothing in her head? Or is she a woman doomed to tragedy?”
Patience saw that his glass was empty. She said gently, “Mooey, I wish you’d promise me to give up this drinking. It’s bad enough in company, but to sit here alone … it’s all wrong.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 486