The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche

by de la Roche, Mazo

  “I’ll say the word twice.” Noah leered at his own wit.

  “Fine,” said the cook and popped two more eggs into the boiling water. She turned then to Wright. “Will you have eggs with your tea, Mr. Wright?”

  “No, thank you,”returned Wright. “I’ll be going home for supper shortly. I thought I’d just drop in and say hello and ask what’s the news.”

  He drew up a chair and the cook poured him a cup of strong tea and pushed a plate of cookies closer to him.

  “Things go along quiet in the house,” said Mrs. Wragge. “The excitement all comes from the stables. I can tell you we were screwed up to concert pitch by East Wind’s big win yesterday. The boss went to a party last night and if he didn’t come home tight I miss my guess. His dogs was barkin’ like all get out at three o’clock this morning.”

  “I never knew a man,” said Noah, “who carried his liquor worse.”

  “Him?” cried the cook. “It’s a libel. I’ve worked in this house for half a lifetime and I never seen a man carry his liquor better. If he gets tight he has good reason for it.”

  Rags said pontifically, “I ’ave fought with ’im in two wars and I’ll s’y he can drink or let it alone as the case may be.”

  “Meaning,” said Noah, “if there’s drink to be had he’ll drink it.”

  “The Whiteoak men,” said Wright, “drink like gentlemen.”

  Noah scraped out the shell of his first egg and attacked the second. “I was brought up totalitarian,” he said, “and totalitarian I’ll die.”

  Rags winked at Wright. “Noah’s a man of ’igh principles,” he said. “’E’s severe, but ’e’ll mellow with the years.”

  “I am against drink,” declared Noah, “horse racin’, and lotteries.”

  “what are you for?” asked Rags.

  “I’m fer a better world, but I ain’t seen no signs of it. The climate gets worse and folks’ behaviour gets worse. It’s a sorry sight to see so many young ones comin’ on.”

  “Oh, Noah, don’t say that!” cried the cook. “Think of the lovely young couple who are to live in this very house next year! Think of the lovely kiddies they’ll have.”

  Noah had a trickle of egg yolk on his chin; still he contrived to look scornful. “I don’t give no heed to sex,” he said. “Hot or cold — rock or roll — it’s all the same to me.”

  “I’d like to know where you’d be if it hadn’t been for sex.” She filled his cup, putting in extra sugar.

  “I might still be an angel in heaven,” he said with satisfaction, then sought to drown his straggling moustache in tea.

  “One thing is certain,” observed Rags, “the young pair won’t ’ave much say in the management of the place — not while the present rd and mistress are aboveground.”

  “I’ve been a gravedigger all my days,” said Noah, “but I don’t calculate to dig their graves, not unless they’re carried off within the next ten years.”

  “By gum,” said Wright, “you don’t look as though you’d strength to dig a grave for a grasshopper.”

  Noah teehee-ed. “Don’t you fool yourself,” he snickered. “I’ll outlast you by many a month. You’re just the powerful kind of man that goes off quick. I’ll be ready to dig a good six feet for you.”

  “Speaking of sickness,” said the cook, addressing Wright, “how is Mr. Wakefield coming along, at Fiddler’s Hut? My husband and I don’t go to call there now, as the lady wasn’t too friendly last time we did.”

  “She’s shy,” said Wright, “but she’s very nice, and devoted to him. Regularly spoils him.”

  “He always was spoiled,” said Rags.

  “A pernicious truant and snake-in-the-grass,” said Noah.

  “But what eyes!” exclaimed the cook. “And what curly hair! I couldn’t refuse him anything.”

  Noah asked, “Is he doomed, do you think, like his brother was?”

  “Not he,” said Wright. “He’s put on weight and talks of going back on the stage soon.”

  “In his ordinary life,” said Noah, “he was a danged bad actor.”

  “Ah, he was a sweet boy.” Mrs. Wragge sighed deeply. “I can’t bear to think of him being ailing. I do like small boys. There’s that little Dennis. He’s a dear little boy. I hear he’s to have a baby brother or sister in the New Year.”

  “It’s chose a bad time to be born,” groaned Noah. “All signs pint to a bad winter and a worse spring and summer to follow. It’ll be a wonder if any of us is alive at this time next year. A terrible end is prepared for this world, and we’re moving towards it fast.”

  “Have another cup of tea,” urged the cook.

  “I don’t mind if I do. And this time don’t be so stingy with the sugar. I need something to contradict the voluptuous behaviour I see all around me.”

  The cook put three extra lumps of sugar in his tea.

  Wright remarked, “I don’t think that’s a nice way to talk in front of a lady.”

  Noah stared. “Do you mean to say the carryings-on I witness ain’t voluptuous and explosive? I seen ’em in ditches.”

  “There’s no call to talk about it,” said Wright. “I like a little refinement.”

  Noah gave the table a thump with his fist. “It’s the first time in my life,” he said, “that I’ve been accused of loose talk before a female. I’ve reverenced the female sex. I’ve reverenced them too much to marry them.”

  “That’s a loss to some woman,” said Rags.

  Noah was not mollified. He looked glumly at the table, then drained his cup and got to his feet. Walking waveringly to the door he stood with his hand on the latch and said:

  “I like misery.”

  Then he disappeared.

  There was silence for a short space, silence except for the noisy bubbling of the teakettle. Then the cook remarked:

  “That old fella’d make a dog laugh.”

  XV

  Wakefield and Molly

  Fortunately for Wakefield’s progress the weather was almost continuously fair and he was able to spend his days outdoors. The richly coloured tapestry of leaves fell from the trees and made a carpet below. The oak leaves were the last to fall, but already the glossy acorns strewed the ground and were collected and buried by squirrels that immediately forgot where they had hid them, and frisked up and down the massive tree trunks and made friends with Molly and Wakefield, as though there were no such season as winter. Birds lingered in this woodland retreat, seeming to forget the necessity of migrating. The flaming colour of a cardinal would shine out like a lamp and a few bold notes from his spring song would enliven the air. He indeed had no intention of migrating but intended to spend the winter here. In early dawn the honk of wild geese came down from the misty sky.

  Of the two beings isolated here, Wakefield was the least unhappy. At times he was almost content, for he felt the continued improvement in his condition and the doctor who came regularly to see him was satisfied. Renny kept him supplied with the necessary funds. He was in correspondence with managers who would, he hoped, offer him an engagement when it would be possible for him to accept it. Andhe was writing a play! He had already written an unsuccessful play, but this new one would be different. His heart was lifted by hope as he worked at it and, when he read scenes aloud to Molly and saw how her mobile face reflected their mood, he felt ready to fly with eagerness.

  Molly knew that she could get a part in London or New York. Both managers and audiences liked her. She had been on the point, she felt sure, of attaining stardom when Wakefield’s illness had cut short their careers, at least temporarily. Of the two, Wakefield had felt the shock of this most deeply. For a time he had varied between deep melancholy and a distraught uncertainty. But once he had decided he wanted to go to Jalna he became calmer. His spirit lightened as he looked forward in hope, instead of into a chasm of despair. To be at Jalna, to be near Meg and Renny, made him feel a child again. He accepted Molly’s sacrifice, he accepted all that was done for him, as a child accepts
the care that is given it. He did not lack company, for the family, with the exception of Adeline and Alayne, came to visit the Hut. Alayne could not bring herself to come, and Wakefield took a certain mischievous pleasure in her unease. She made him feel reckless and without compassion. He accepted Molly’s devotion as something she longed to give and even told her that the rest in this lovely spot would do her good. The warmth, the almost continuous sunshine of the autumn days brought bright tints to her cheeks and hair, which she had cut short. She had not made a very good job of it but it became her. In an old cotton dress she would wander about the woodland, keeping from the paths, and fill her little basket with wild blackberries. Standing in the heat among the bushes, with trees obscuring all but a patch of the azure sky, she would remember the wild bare hills of Wales where she had spent her childhood, the wind that blew across them — her sisters, all scattered, her brother killed in the war.

  While Wakefield was recovering his health and even enjoying the life thus thrust on him, Molly fretted ever more deeply for opportunities lost, for all that she felt slipping away from her. Sometimes a feeling of active rebellion shook her. She would wake in the terrible stillness of the woodland and long desperately for the muffled roar of traffic in a great city; would picture herself putting on her makeup in her dressing room at the theatre or the return to their apartment after the play. Here, she felt less close to Wakefield — who, in a strange way, seemed absorbed by his family. He would talk by the hour of his boyhood at Jalna: of his grandmother and how she would feed him sops of sponge cake dipped in her glass of sherry; of his uncles, Nicholas and Ernest, and what gentlemen of the old school they were; of how he had gone to the Rectory for lessons, rather than school, because of his weak heart; of how, for the same reason, he had always slept with Renny. He would hug himself in laughter as he recalled, “Even when he brought Alayne to Jalna as his bride, she had to creep into a room by herself, because I was sleeping with the bridegroom!”

  Renny continued, or so it seemed to Molly, sedulously to avoid her. He would come to see Wakefield when he knew she was out of the way. She, equally painstaking, would go into another room or hasten outdoors if she heard his step.

  But on this morning of Indian summer he came suddenly upon her as she neared the Hut. Neither could escape, and they walked, with outward unity and inward unease, to the long chair where Wakefield sat in the sun. Renny bent over him and looked down into his face.

  “Good boy,” he said, “you look fine.”

  Wakefield raised his eyes to Renny’s with the look of a son into an indulgent father’s face. “when shall I be done with all this?” he said crossly. “I’ve finished the first draft of my play and I’m tired of being an invalid.”

  “I saw your doctor yesterday. He says that another three months’ rest will cure you.”

  Wakefield gave a groan. He stretched his sunburnt arms as though in despair; but in truth he was, for the present, content with things as they were. The weather was glorious. He was indolent in its hazy blue bewitchment. He looked up at Molly. “what do you feel about another three months here, Molly?” he asked.

  “It will be all right so long as you are getting well.”

  “And Molly has blackberries for you,” Renny said heartily, but he did not look at her. When she had gone into the Hut he said to Wakefield, “I guess it’s rather dull for you sometimes.”

  “I have my play to work at,” said Wakefield. “We have visitors. Christian comes a lot. I like that boy. But I wish you came oftener, Renny.”

  “I’d come every blessed day, Wake, if it were not …”

  He hesitated, then went on: “Perhaps the time will come when you and Molly will go your separate ways. On my part I should be glad to know you had separated.”

  “We’ve no thought of such a thing. We’re perfectly happy together.”

  “Perfectly happy, eh? That’s remarkable.”

  “what do you mean, Renny?”

  “I mean what two people are perfectlyhappy together? Is there such a thing?”

  “We are not chained together by law. That’s so much the better. It’s a voluntary union and we’re satisfied to have it so. Molly has been wonderful to me. If ever she feels restive she hides it. Anyhow, in three months, I shall have completely recovered and we’ll be ready for work again.”

  “You will have Christmas at Jalna.”

  “Renny” — Wakefield’s brilliant eyes sought his brother’s — “would you invite Molly and me for Christmas dinner?”

  “what a question! Of course, we should.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, but we’d not embarrass Alayne by accepting. Possibly we shall be back in New York by then.”

  To change the subject Renny said, “We are to have visitors from Ireland. Maurice and his friend Patrick Crawshay. They’re arriving soon and making a long visit. They’re going to travel during the cold months and be back at Jalna for the centenary and the wedding.”

  “I’ll be glad to see them,” said Wakefield. “But what will Maurice feel about this wedding?”

  “He will be quite reconciled to it, you may be sure. People do get over these infatuations and are none the worse for them. I’ve had them myself — and recovered.”

  He looked hard at Wakefield, who said, “But you’re happily married, Renny.”

  “Yes — tied up this many a year.”

  He went on to talk of his horses and his plans for the fall shows. Molly slipped out through the back door and found a sequestered space among the trees where the ground was covered by pine needles. There she sank, first to her knees, then at full length, shaken by hoarse sobs. She could not have told why she wept, excepting that the gathering heartache of the past weeks had culminated in this. Yet she knew she should be happy, for she saw Wakefield in renewing health. But — the long isolation in this closed-in wood, where one knew there was a wind only because one saw the treetops swaying … her yearning for the active life of the theatre and for opportunities lost … above all, her feeling that Wakefield was being reabsorbed into the family.… As she lay there sobbing, the face of Renny Whiteoak rose before her. She saw his slanting eyes turned away from her. He hated the sight of her, she thought, and had within himself the power to take Wakefield away from her — and would take him away. He wanted to separate them; and he would separate them.

  She lay for what seemed a long while on the harsh comfort of the pine needles, in their heady scent. She was thankful she had shed no tears but could return to Wakefield undisfigured by the tempest that had torn her.

  He had got biscuits and milk for himself, and gave her a rather injured look.

  “what makes you so unsociable this morning?” he asked.

  “You seemed quite happy without me.”

  “I’ve been alone for the past hour.”

  “Poor boy. Is there anything more I can get you?”

  “Scarcely — on top of this milk. I hope I took it from the right bottle.”

  Molly flew to the refrigerator to find out and flew back to him. “It’s notthe fresh milk!” she cried. “How could you be so stupid, Wake? You know that the morning’s milk is always on the right-hand side!”

  “How the dickens do you expect me to remember about milk bottles with all I have on my mind?”

  “Oh, I’ve nothing on mymind, of course,” she snapped. “Here — give me that milk. You can’t drink it.”

  He began to drink. “It’s all right. There’s nothing the matter with it.”

  “It’s stale!”

  He took a determined gulp. She struggled to interfere. Between them the milk was spilt.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” Wakefield, with his handkerchief, mopped at the milk on his sleeve. It was ridiculous, but it made them unhappy.

  The next day Renny brought a car to where the path began and took Wakefield to the stables to weigh him. Wakefield returned jubilant, not so much over his gain in weight, though it was substantial, as over having been once
again swept along in the current of life at Jalna.

  “How real it is!” he cried. “what man in his senses would choose to live in a smoky filthy city when he might work in the fields or with those magnificent horses! Some two-year-olds were being schooled in the paddock and men and horses enjoyed it equally. I went with Renny where he was selling a colt — a lovely creature, and doesn’t Renny know how to make a sale! Piers was taking a load of apples to the railway station. What gorgeous apples! Look — I’ve filled my pockets for you.”

  Molly accepted them gratefully, not reminding him that already they had more apples than they could eat.

  “Patience was there,” he went on, “and her baby — what a cute baby Victoria is — and Adeline, galloping like all possessed. D’you know, Molly, I felt as though I’d been dead for months — no, years — and just come to life again? Oh, Molly, you don’t know what it is to love the country—to hunger for it, not as a refuge after illness but as a glorious place for living.” He snapped off a bite of apple with his white teeth.

  “Have you gained any more weight?” she asked.

  “Seven pounds. Renny’s delighted by the speed of my recovery. Three months more and I shall be stronger than ever.”

  “Three months …” she repeated. That very day she had had a letter offering her a part in a New York company — a small part, but just the sort she enjoyed playing. But she did not tell Wakefield.

  “why on earth do you look so gloomy?” he demanded. “Everything is turning out well. Think what we might be feeling if I were worse instead of better.”

  “I know. I know. And I won’t be gloomy. It’s the time of year. The leaves are beginning to turn — then they’ll fall — then there’ll be snow.”

  “You aregloomy — you are.” He flung himself on his cot. “Oh, God, how tired I am.”

  Now she was all contrition for a fault of which she was unaware. “You have overtired yourself,” she said, and she covered him where he lay and patted his back, as though he were a child.