“wh — what’s the matter?” stammered Wakefield.
“Stop staring,” ordered Renny, “and go downstairs and let that dog out.” He added, “By Judas — did ever another man have such a temperamental family?”
But there was no doubt about it that the eldest Whiteoak took a great deal of pleasure in his family and in his position as head of it.
XXVII
Winter Moves On
Roma and Fitzturgis were to leave for New York that night, but now, in the hard bright light of day, they had come to Jalna, in the Rector’s old car, to make their goodbyes. Roma’s face, except for the seriousness of its expression, showed no trace of the emotions of recent days. Even though she had felt no deep emotion, she had seen those nearest her deeply affected, and she had experienced fatigue and loss of sleep. The face of Fitzturgis was, on the contrary, ravaged by grief. His brows were drawn together in a knot of melancholy concentration; dark shadows gathered beneath his eyes; deep lines marked the sombre bend of his lips; his skin was sallow; and even though he was fresh- shaven, he had the look of needing a shave. His dark grey suit would have been the better for pressing. But his strong, upright figure, of no more than middle height, showed no drooping of despondency, and his mouse-coloured, curly hair stood upright.
“Well, it’s good flying weather,” said Renny, looking out of the window.
“I do hope you’ll have a comfortable flight,” said Alayne.
Roma gave a little yawn. “I expect to sleep all the way,” she said.
“Have you been to Piers’s to say goodbye?” asked Renny.
“I have,” said Roma.
“Did you see the baby?”
“Yes. He’s sweet. Auntie Meg thinks it would be nice to call him Ernest. Uncle Ernest was — I forget just what — but she thinks it would be nice.”
“I agree,” said Renny. “We couldn’t choose a better name for him than Ernest or one with happier recollections. What does Finch say?”
“He hasn’t said. I don’t think he cares.”
“Very well,” said Renny. “We’ll name him Ernest Nicholas or Nicholas Ernest.”
Alayne said, in a low voice, “I think Sylvia might well have wished to name her child for her brother.”
“No, no,” Fitzturgis said hastily. “Not after me. Give him a Whiteoak name.”
“Anyhow,” observed Roma, “what’s in a name?”
“I think,” said Renny agreeably, “we shall stick to Ernest.”
“Surely,” Alayne said, with some tartness, “we are not in a position to name him. That must be done by his father.”
“He couldn’t care less,” said Roma.
Adeline had stood silent during this conversation, wondering where and how she was to say goodbye to Fitzturgis. She stood by the window, looking out at the snowy silence of the scene, remembering their long walk at night, the agitation that had so stirred their hearts. There must be no emotion in their goodbye. She could not bear the pain of it — not because of her own suffering but because of his.
Roma was speaking in her low, matter-of-fact but pleasant-toned voice. “Mait and I,” she was saying, “must say goodbye to Uncle Finch.” She turned to Adeline. “Should you like to come with us?” she asked, on an almost pleading note.
Adeline thought, Roma wants to show off, in front of me. She wants to show how much Mait is hers now.… But Roma wanted Adeline’s company for a quite different reason. She had, in truth, such an invincible shrinking from emotional scenes that she reached out toward Adeline for support in this meeting between Finch and Fitzturgis. She did not expect the two men to break into weeping. She did not know what she expected, and, like a child, she shrank from the unknown. The thought, scarcely formed in her mind, was, why can’t people be let to die, without all this fuss? She looked pleased when Adeline said, “All right. I’ll go.”
The three got into the motor car, Fitzturgis and Roma in the front seat, Adeline in the rear. She had on a shabby fur jacket which she kept in the little room at the end of the hall and in the pocket of which her straying hand discovered three chestnuts and half a chocolate bar. She sat silent fingering the nuts and gazing thoughtfully at the two in the seat in front. They did not speak either, except that Roma, driving, remarked on the bad state of the road.
Finch’s house looked new, yet pleasantly secluded among its trees. Strangely the sound of the piano came from within, broken chords and arpeggios. Standing by the front door, as though on guard, was Dennis, looking even smaller and paler than usual. He had blue shadows beneath his eyes.
“I’m not sure that my father will want visitors,” he said. “He’s composing a piano concerto and he doesn’t like interruptions. That’s why I’m here.”
“He’ll want to see us,” said Roma. “We’ve come to say goodbye.” She said to Adeline, “You go in first.”
“Coming?” Adeline asked of Dennis.
He shook his head. “Three will be enough in the room at a time,” he said.
Adeline led the way. They entered the room, where a manuscript of music lay scattered on piano and floor; where Finch, in cold concentration, bent over the keyboard.
When he was conscious of their presence he took his hands from the keys and clasped them together. He rose and stood, gaunt and formal, to greet them.
“Oh, hullo, Uncle Finch,” said Roma. “Mait and I are off tonight. We’ve come to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” said Finch, rather too promptly; then, as though realizing this, he added, “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thanks, but we’ve no time. We’ve a thousand things to do.” Roma was eager to have this leave-taking done with.
For something to say, Adeline remarked, “We saw Dennis outside.”
“Really,” said Finch and then spoke to Fitzturgis, as though just conscious of his presence. “It’s good flying weather. You should have a pleasant flight to New York.”
“A pleasant flight.…” Fitzturgis inaudibly repeated the words, as though savouring them without relish. He said aloud, “Yes, it should be all right.”
“The roads are awful here,” remarked Roma.
“I suppose they are,” said Finch.
“Drifts,” she said, “bumping along. But I don’t mind. If you can’t cure it, you can endure it.” She gave a little shiver. “It’s awfully cold too.”
“I’m not cold,” said Adeline, for the sake of contradicting Roma.
“You have on a fur coat.”
“This old thing,” said Adeline.
“You have another — a good one — at home,” Roma said enviously. “I have none, and no prospect of one.” She gave a sidelong glance at Fitzturgis, who received it imperturbably.
“We have no time to spare,” he said. “We should be getting along.”
“Then you can’t sit down?” said Finch.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Uncle Finch, what are you composing?” asked Adeline, her eyes on the scattered manuscript, as though from it she might discover an answer to the mysteries of life and death that troubled her.
“Just something I was working on before.…” he said curtly.
Roma hugged herself and shivered. “I’m so cold,” she said. “I can’t get warm. Even in here.”
Finch looked at her contemplatively, then said, “Sylvia had a new fur coat. If you would like to have it, you may. I think it would fit you well enough.”
Roma beamed. “That would be nice,” she said. “Might I have it soon?”
“You may have it now. Come and try it on.” He led the way to Sylvia’s room, taking long quiet steps, his head forward.
The other two were left together in the chill disorder of the music room. Fitzturgis said, “Let’s get out of here. I can’t breathe in this house.… God — what callousness.”
His expression was one of such poignant pain that Adeline hastened with him outdoors. He took her hand and they moved, as though for shelter, under a massive pine, a few of whose cones lay,
sticky with resinous juice, on the snow.
Fitzturgis said, “I have lost Sylvia. You are lost to me, Adeline.” He looked, with restrained passion, into her eyes that were on a level with his. “Love wakes men, once a lifetime each,” he quoted, his burning eyes searching her face, his hand holding hers, as though desperately.
“Mait,” she said, her hand still warm in his, but her mouth firm and almost severe, “I wonder if it is possible for you to be faithful to one woman, even for a little while. When I was engaged to you — There was Roma. Now that you’re married to Roma — here am I.”
He snatched his hand away. His forehead dark with a scowl, he said, “You’ve never understood me, Adeline, or even tried to understand me. While, for me, you’ve been the only — ”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, shaken by a resurgence of her love for him. “I can’t bear it.”
His eyes were clouded by tears. “Spare me a moment of compassion,” he said. “It’s all I ask.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, in a shaking voice, “for both of us.”
In the tenderness of her heart she went to him and put her arm about him. Her movement had dislodged the snow from a branch above them and it fell, enveloping them in a fine mist.
From among the trees Dennis appeared and came close to them. He looked up into Fitzturgis’s face and said, “Adeline is very kind-hearted. She took me into her bed when no one else wanted me. Now I sleep with Uncle Renny. When do you suppose my father will bring me and my little brother home again?”
Adeline and Fitzturgis regarded him doubtfully. They did not know what to say. Inside the large window they could see Finch and Roma, she wearing a handsome grey lamb coat. When she saw them she came out, walking elegantly, as though modeling the garment.
“what do you think of my lovely new coat?” she asked, her face rising warm and happily flushed from its embrace.
“Very becoming,” Adeline said tersely. She had taken her arm from Fitzturgis’s shoulder. Roma appeared to have noticed nothing.
“I hope,” Adeline spoke as to a child, “you thanked Uncle Finch for it.”
“I don’t need to be reminded by you,” said Roma. She darted back into the house.
Through the window they could see Roma throw her arms about Finch and hug him.
Fitzturgis pressed his forehead against the rough bark of the pine. “My sister — ” he said — “and she scarcely in her grave … She was so proud of that new coat.… She put it on to show me.… Good God, it would scarcely meet about her.… And now …”
Finch and Roma came out of the house. “Come and say goodbye,” she called.
The two men gave each other a perfunctory handshake. Again Roma hugged Finch. They left him standing alone in the open doorway. Dennis was nowhere in sight.
In the car Roma laid her beautifully shaped hands, with their red-lacquered nails, on the wheel. She made a visible movement of snuggling herself inside the grey lamb coat. After a moment she said, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.”
Fitzturgis looked at his watch. “We’d better be moving,” he said.
At Jalna, Adeline left them. She and Roma touched cheeks. She and Fitzturgis touched hands. When they were gone, she dropped to the seat in the porch and closed her eyes, as though to shut out the white world that surrounded her. Any suffering of mind that she had so far experienced seemed almost trivial to her, as compared to the dead weight of desolation she now felt. She was very tired. Insofar as her healthy young body permitted, she felt weak. She asked nothing, she thought, but to be left alone. Snowflakes, drifting in on her, clung to her hair.
Now the pigeons discovered her and flew down, in a turbulence of grey wings, to seek her out for food or perhaps merely for the pleasure of being near her. Their jewel-like eyes stared at her; their coral-coloured feet, cold from the snow, touched her hands, alighted on her shoulders and knees. As though they had discovered something new and quite wonderful, they reiterated their cooing notes.
They were scattered by a quick step crunching on the snow of the drive, and, with a great agitation of wings, they rose to the roof. When settled there they peeped down from the eave to see what it was that had disturbed them.
Philip, in his grey cadet’s coat, came up onto the porch and seated himself beside Adeline.
“Cold, isn’t it?” he remarked agreeably.
“Mm,” she murmured.
“You shouldn’t be sitting out here.” There was solicitude in his voice.
“I don’t mind the cold.”
“But I mind it for you,” he said, like a brave young protector.
Without warning, without preliminary, Adeline laid her head on his shoulder. It was the first time she had made a gesture of affection toward him, and he received it with dignity and concealed surprise. He put his arm about her, and gave her a pat.
“what we need now,” he said, “is a little pleasure. Christmas seems a long way off.”
“I forget what it’s like to be happy.”
“It would be good for us to go skiing. In Quebec. Lots of snow there,” he said.
“who would go with us? We can’t go without a married person.”
“My mother,” said Philip, “would love to go with us.”
“She can’t! She’s taking in the baby tomorrow.”
Philip stared in consternation, then — “I forgot,” he said, and added: “Very well. There are hills nearby where there’s a fair amount of snow. I’ll put our skis in order.… Blast that baby. It would have been better if — ” He broke off, feeling her start from him, glimpsing the shock in the pale face she raised to his. “I didn’t mean that,” he hastened to say. “I only meant that it seems hard my mother should almost be forced to take on a job like this when she has all her own work to do.”
“I would have taken care of him,” said Adeline, “if I’d been let.”
“I know,” said Philip. “I heard all about that meeting, when Auntie Meg had to protect the Rector, and Patience had to protect Humphrey, and Aunt Alayne had to protect her insomnia, and there was no one to protect my mother.”
“You make us all sound horribly selfish,” said Adeline, flushing a little and sitting up straight.
“Not you, Adeline,” he hastened to say. “But you have no experience. You don’t know the first thing about looking after a kid. Time enough for you …” He stopped and he too flushed. They fell silent, contemplating the towering possibilities of their future.
The object of self-protective discussions from those who did not want to undertake his care, of the shrinking of a father who could not endure the sight of him, of the morbid curiosity of a brother who had hastened his entry into a wintry world, took up his abode in Piers’s house — well named The Moorings — the very next day.
He arrived in the arms of Patience, protected from the bitter cold by a white woolen shawl that had belonged to his cousin once removed, Victoria Bell. He was at this stage singularly unattractive, having a raw red complexion, a completely bald head and a mouthing, grimacing face. His eyes, with wrinkled lids, he kept shut except now and again to peer gloomily through a bleary slit. He was almost constantly wet but always yearning to take in more liquid. Piers had a look at him on the day of his arrival and drew back in dismay.
“whew!” he exclaimed. “what an ugly little devil!”
Pheasant was insulted for the baby’s sake. “He’s not really ugly,” she cried. “Just very new and rather premature. He’s beautifully formed. See his darling little hands and well-shaped head.”
“Let’s hope he will improve,” said Piers. “It’s an awful thought that Sylvia should have given her life for that. No wonder Finch can’t bear the sight of him.”
“Dennis sees him every day,” said Pheasant proudly. “It’s really touching to see his devotion.”
Dennis did indeed come each day and hung, as though in fascination, over the crib where the infant lay.
“Do you suppose,” he once asked Pheasant, “
that the Christ Child looked like this?”
“Well, of course,” Pheasant said thoughtfully, “He was a very special child. For one thing, He had a halo.”
“That would be an improvement,” said Dennis. He curved his white hands about the infant’s head, to try the effect.
Another time he said to Pheasant, “Do you suppose they know when they’re being born?”
“Goodness, no. They don’t know anything about it.”
“I don’t see how they can help knowing.”
“You ought,” said Pheasant, “to keep your mind off such things. They’re far beyond you.”
“Far beyond me,” he repeated, with his enigmatic smile.
“Yes. Just try to keep your mind off them.”
“I can’t,” he said simply.
“when you feel those thoughts coming on,” she advised, “say the Lord’s Prayer to yourself. You can’t think when you’re saying that.”
“Our Father,” he said softly, “which art in Heaven — ”
“That’s right,” she said. “Keep saying it when you need help.”
“The trouble is,” said Dennis, “that I couldn’t ever get past ‘Our Father.’ when I say ‘Our Father,’ I mean the father of us two — me and this little codger.” And he gave three possessive pats to the little bundle in the crib.
“You are a funny boy,” laughed Pheasant, but she did not really think he was funny. That night she remarked to Piers:
“I do wish that Finch showed a little affection for Dennis. He needs the understanding of a father. He’s a lonely child.” She could not help remembering how little Piers had understood Maurice, or tried to understand him.
“Finch,” said Piers, “is completely self-centred. If he weren’t, he’d never have had those nervous breakdowns when he was young. He’s absorbed in himself and his music. Today I went to his house to take him a basket of apples — you know, he always liked Talman Sweets. There he was, playing the piano, as though he hadn’t a care in the world.”
“We can’t know what’s going on inside him.”
“And just as well we can’t,” said Piers.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 532