Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course

by Mazo de La Roche

  He turned back the way he had come and met Renny on the path through the birchwood.

  “Hullo!” said Renny, “where have you been?”

  “To the fox farm.”

  “Were you? Em glad of that. I think you should go sometimes to see Pauline. She’s a lonely girl.”

  “I just looked in... I wasn’t speaking to anyone.”

  Renny stared. “But why did you go?”

  Wake shook his head petulantly. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, when you’d got there, why didn’t you speak?”

  “I don’t think I like Pauline. She’s so silly about her old fox.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what she’s made of him. He was such a poor specimen I was for stripping his pelt off him, but now he’s to be saved for breeding.”

  “Well, well,” said Wakefield judicially.

  “It would be a good thing for you to have a companion of your own age. You’d better come back with me. I’m going there now.” He noticed then the unkempt appearance of his young brother. “Look here. When have you had a bath?”

  “I went to the lake with Piers yesterday. I took soap with me.”

  “But your clothes—” He touched the ragged jersey.” “How long have you been going on like this?”

  “Please, Renny don’t touch me! I hate to be pulled at... I like my rags.”

  “And your hair—Good Lord, I must take you to the barber. You look like the Minstrel Boy.”

  Wake’s eyes blazed up into his. “I am! I’ve just been writing a beautiful poem!”

  It seemed too bad to be true; but Renny controlled his lips, held back the expression of dismay that rose to them, forced them into a genial grin. “You have? Right now—out in the open? I see you have your writing-case that Meggie gave you. What do you say to reading the poem to me?”

  “Oh, I’ll like that! If you won’t be contemptuous.”

  “Of course I shan’t! We’ll sit down here. Now, fire away!”

  They sat down in the shadow of the silver birches—the little cold faces of the Michaelmas daisies were turned towards the young poet. Renny stared at him—his little boy, his darling—at that cursed rhyming already! Oh, that fanciful, second wife of his father’s!

  Wakefield opened the lacquer case and took out the verses. He read them in a small, carefully modulated voice, with an ecstatic singsong to it.

  THE DRAKE

  He has two wives, both plump and blonde,

  Complacent, roguish, kind.

  I’ve never seen a family

  So sweetly of one mind.

  In May beneath the hemlock’s shade,

  Each duck arranged her nest,

  And each upon a dozen eggs

  Composed her downy breast.

  Each thrust her head beneath her wing

  And breathed the heady scent

  Of feathers, warm straw, warmer eggs,

  While drake his ardour spent

  In rocking round and round the coop

  To ward off stalking foe,

  Or taking each in turn to swim

  In the cold stream below.

  In dim green pools they floated, dived,

  Then up the slope he led,

  Each in her turn, while wetly gleamed

  His jewel-bright, dark blue head.

  Full twenty cowslip balls one morn

  Into the nests were spilled,

  Drake, hearing those faint, infant pipes

  With pride of life was filled.

  Down a green vista of rich shade

  The farmer’s wife, their god,

  Bore one warm duck, and the two broods

  To a run set on fine sod.

  Nor anger, pain, nor jealousy

  Inflame the two outside,

  Only between the bars they peer

  In love and simple pride.

  Round and around the run they rock

  In ceaseless, sweet converse.

  Each loves the other, each the brood

  For better and for worse.

  But there’s no worse, time sweetly flies.

  ’Tis August now, the flock

  Troop down the lawn to the cool stream

  And on its wavelets rock.

  Wakefield’s face was flushed, his lips trembled, as he waited for what Renny would say.

  Renny said: “I think it’s very good. I like it very much.”

  “Oh, Renny, do you really? I think it’s by far the best thing I’ve done.”

  The best thing he’d done! So this wasn’t the first time! He’d been at it for God knew how long. “You’ve written others, then?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve been working hard all summer. I’ve written any number of poems. I’ve read a whole book of poetry Alayne had. I’ve read Eden’s two books, and I know some of his poems by heart. But this is the first thing I’ve done that I think is really beautiful.” His eyes glowed happily into his brother’s. “I’m so glad you think so too, Renny.”

  The master of Jalna achieved a wry smile. “Yes, it appears to me to be a perfectly good poem. The only question I should like to ask you is—why write it?”

  “Why, that’s the whole thing—writing it! You see something you like. Then you want to make others see it. Only you want to make them see it more clearly than they could ever have seen it for themselves.”

  “But why? Why not see it yourself and be satisfied?”

  “Because”—he knitted his slender black brows—“you want to give them a picture to keep. You want them to see it the way you did.”

  “But you only give yourself a lot of trouble. People will read your poem and forget all about it in five minutes. I don’t understand.”

  “But, Renny, when Cora had her last colt, and she was so proud about it, you came to the house and told us just how she’d whinnied to you, and how pleased she was with herself. You mimicked her till it was just as though we saw her.”

  “That wasn’t writing a poem about her.”

  “It was your kind of poem, Renny.”

  “Now, look here! When Eden was a boy he was always writing rhymes. Now he’s a man, he’s still at it. It’s never done him any good. It’s mostly got him into trouble.”

  “Do you mean marrying Alayne?”

  Renny’s loud laugh shattered the quiet. “No, I don’t mean that. The trouble there was all hers.” He changed the subject. “Now, take young Finch. Music is his trouble. He’s been strumming on the piano ever since he could toddle. He used to stand on tiptoe to reach the keyboard and got his hands smacked for it. I’ve spent a lot of money on him because I was made to believe that he was a genius. I never really believed it. He acknowledged himself that he had never played worse than at his recital last spring and yet he practised six hours a day for it. Music has brought him nothing but trouble. Poetry has brought Eden nothing but trouble. Neither of them is strong. Now, Wake, do you want to be like those two or like Piers and me? I know we’re not artistic or anything of that sort. Intellectual ladies don’t get hysterical over us. But we’re normal chaps. We’ve good digestions, good nerves, and healthy appetites.”

  “But I’m sickly to begin with. What’s the use in my trying to be like you and Piers?”

  “You’re not sickly!” retorted Renny angrily, “you have a weakness but you’ll outgrow that. I want you to outgrow this other thing too. Why, I’ve never seen you look fitter than you do now. And, by George, how you’re growing! Come and saddle your pony and we’ll go for a ride... Poetry of motion, eh, what?”

  XXIV

  RETURN OF NICHOLAS AND ERNEST

  IT WAS good to be at home again.

  When Nicholas let himself down into the armchair in his own bedroom, with Nip quivering with delight on his knee, he felt that this was the return from his last trip abroad. Every few minutes Nip turned to give his face or his hand a quick lick of the tongue. The luggage had been carried upstairs and the box which contained the presents had been opened.

  It was the rule
that a returning Whiteoak should not fail to bring presents to the rest of the family. Especially was this the rule when the journey had been to the Old Country Ernest had now unpacked and distributed the presents. He was beaming happily on his nieces with their scarves and strings of beads (Meg’s a little the handsomer), on his nephews with their gloves and neckties. A flaxen-haired doll had been brought to Patience and a nigger doll in striped suit and red waistcoat to Mooey. Their eyes were sparkling with gratification. Ernest had enjoyed himself thoroughly, but he was now beginning to feel rather tired. He had arranged that the opening of the box should take place in Nick’s room.

  Now, at any moment, he might fade away to his own and relax. He had forgotten what splendid voices his nephews had. How their noise and laughter excited and fatigued one. Meg kept her arm about his shoulders. It was a lovely plump arm, but it weighed on him. In the midst of all the present-giving she was trying to tell him about her operation. Maurice was trying to explain something about having slept IN his room which he simply could not take in because of the din. Patience and Mooey were running round and round him in circles, holding their dolls on high.

  “Hold them nicely children,” he admonished. “Isn’t yours a droll fellow, Mooey?”

  Mooey halted in his gambols to examine the leering, black face. One of the eyes was tight shut while the other stared horribly.

  “Isn’t he nice?” urged Pheasant.

  “He’s only got one bad eye,” returned Mooey.

  Meg, too, urged her offspring to expressions of gratitude.

  “Patience, tell Uncles how you love your beautiful dolly.”

  “Her’s dot a daity face,” answered Patience. She moistened a corner of her diminutive handkerchief on her tongue and began to rub the doll’s cheeks. “I s’all wash her face,” she said, “but not her breeches.”

  “Here!” cried Mooey, “you’re not allowed to say breeches!”

  “l am so!”

  “You are not!”

  “I am so!”

  “Oh, hell, you’re not!”

  “Pig, Pig, Pig!”

  “Nig, nig, nig!”

  Ernest glided away to his own room...

  Later, when all was quiet, he returned. He found his brother with a glass of whiskey and soda before him and Nip still on his knee.

  “I had to have a peg,” explained Nicholas to Ernest’s disapproving look toward the glass, “to buck me up after all that row. What an exciting lot they are! Children getting badly spoiled too.”

  Ernest picked up one of the doll’s shoes from the floor and put it on his finger. “Yes—but they’re very sweet. I haven’t seen two prettier children anywhere. It’s very good to be home again.”

  “Yes. I’ve taken my last trip. Here I stick till they take me off to lie beside Mama. Sit down, Ernie, and rest yourself. You must be tired after all the to-do.”

  Ernest sat down near enough to stroke the little dog’s head. He remembered Sasha and sighed. He asked:

  “Did you notice anything about Pheasant?”

  Nicholas grunted. “Strange we weren’t told of it.”

  “We didn’t get many letters. Meggie’s operation was the subject of most of them. What do you think about it, Nick?”

  “I think there are kids enough about the house, but I suppose she is going to have a regular Whiteoak family.”

  “Poor child! She looks pale. Much more ailing than Meggie.” He tapped his teeth with the tips of his fingers and added, in a reflective tone—“Do you know, Nick, that the Vaughans are still staying here? I’d only been in my room a few moments when Maurice came to my door. He said he’d forgotten some of his things. There were his brushes on the dressing table and a coat on the back of the door. I naturally looked a little surprised and he explained, rather apologetically, that Meggie isn’t fit yet for the responsibility of housekeeping. I remarked how well she is looking. Then he told me that their house has been let furnished and that the tenants were very keen to have it for another month.”

  “H’m. It is rather strange. But not half so strange as Alayne’s not being home yet. Why it must be two months since her aunt died. What did she say in her letter to you?”

  “She said she was going to visit Miss Archer for a time, but I certainly expected to find her at Jalna when we returned. Meggie has her room.”

  “Well,” growled Nicholas, “it was hers before it was Alayne’s.”

  “Of course, of course, but if Alayne were suddenly to return it would be awkward.”

  “Where is Maurice going to hang out now?”

  “In the attic, he said. In Finch’s room.” A yawn made his eyes water. He had slept little on the train. When, in a short while, the dinner gong sounded he was almost too tired to respond. Yet he still felt the exhilaration of the return and he was curious to press further enquiries about Alayne.

  In the passage they passed Wragge carrying a tray, on which were arranged creamed sweetbreads on toast and a glass of sherry, to Meg. The two tall old gentlemen stood aside while the little Cockney, with an air mysterious and important, slid past them with the tray.

  Nicholas chuckled as he heavily descended the stairs. “At her old tricks again, I see. I fancy this convalescence will extend through the rest of her life. She’s always preferred her little lunches to proper meals and, at last, she has an authentic excuse.”

  Ernest, following, poked him warningly between the shoulders. Maurice was in the hall below. He was talking to Renny and two men who appeared at first to be strangers, but when they faced round turned out to be Renny’s objectionable friends Crowdy and Chase.

  Their presence in the hall came as a shock to the returned travellers. Renny was not quite comfortable about their advent either. He concealed his misgivings under a formal manner. He introduced his friends to his uncles as though unaware that they had met before.

  Nicholas greeted them in a gruff tone, not claiming any former acquaintanceship. Ernest said—“I think we have met before,” and went down the hall to look in his mother’s room. He was astonished to find Mr. Crowdy at his side. He wondered what he could say to be rude to him but could think of nothing. It went against the grain to speak to him at all.

  The door of the room stood open. It seemed that his mother had just left it. As the outline of her body was imprinted on the mattress of the old painted bedstead, so her spiritual shape had left its stamp on the atmosphere of the room. It would not be put aside. Though her fiery brown eyes had dried to dust in their sockets, they still kindled in this cherished retreat. The rubies and diamonds on her strong old hands still flashed. Her carven nose, her mobile mouth, around which a few stiff hairs had grown, were as existent in this room as the parrot that had fondly pecked at them.

  He sat, humped on his perch, his pale eyelids updrawn. A piece of cardboard which had been given him to play with, lay torn in fragments beneath him. He stood on one scaly foot, while with the other he clutched a bar of the cage.

  Mr. Crowdy stared at Boney over Ernest’s shoulder, breathing portentously. When Ernest, with a deep sigh, turned away, Mr. Crowdy extended his left hand toward him, palm upward. With his right forefinger he traced mysterious marks on it. Then, with a piercing look into Ernest’s eyes, he observed:

  “Rare old bird.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ernest, polite in spite of himself, “and he used to talk quite wonderfully.”

  “Hasn’t spoken a word,” Mr. Crowdy informed him, “for over two years. He’ll never talk again.”

  “I suppose not.”

  They moved toward the dining room where the others were waiting. They gathered, six men and a boy, about the table. It was all so different from what Ernest and Nicholas had expected. It was their first homecoming without the extended welcome of their mother’s arms. Instead, there were present these objectionable strangers. Yet, how delicious the roast beef was! They had tasted none like it—so juicy and so rare—since they had left Jalna. Renny drew them on to talk of their trip. There was a pr
opitiatory air about him. Plainly he knew very well what they thought of such company. But nothing could have been more deferential than the manners of Messrs. Crowdy and Chase. After the elderly men had had their say, Mr. Crowdy told of his one and only trip to the Old Land in his young days, when he had gone—though he did not clearly explain in what capacity he had gone—with a rich American gentleman who had crossed to buy some thoroughbreds.

  Chase had been born in Leicestershire but he had not a good word to say of his own country. He never wanted to set eyes on it again. However, at the close of the meal, he told several stories so amusing that Nicholas and Ernest forgot for the moment their dislike of him.

  But when they had returned to their rooms it all came back. They drew each other’s attention to a number of things that had jarred on their sensibilities. Had Nicholas noticed Crowdy’s nails? Had Ernest noticed the way Chase sat sideways in his chair with his legs crossed? And Renny’s ill-groomed appearance? And Wakefield’s actual rags? And the general air of rakishness about the whole establishment? Where were Meggie’s eyes? Even Pheasant, poor child, should know better!

  “Nicholas,” said Ernest, in deep solemnity, “everything in Mama’s room was grey with dust.”

  They captured Piers who was passing the door, and brought him into Nicholas’s room. He came somewhat reluctantly.

  “Are you,” asked Nicholas petulantly, “in a very great rush? We should like to have a word with you.”

  Piers seated himself on the piano stool and looked at them questioningly out of his prominent blue eyes. He, at any rate, they thought, looked just as he should.

  “Now,” growled his elder uncle, “what does it all mean? How does it come about that those two ruffians are making themselves at home in Jalna? Why are the Vaughans still here? And why is Alayne not here?”