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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Wakefield regarded the coat dreamily, then, as it seemed to him, without volition on his part, he put out his hand and turned the coat inside out. Yes, there was the edge of the pocketbook projecting above the worn lining of the pocket! Well, he might as well see how much old Piers had in it. No harm in that.

  He took it hesitatingly from the pocket and opened it. There were what seemed to Wakefield a great many banknotes in it. Ten-dollar bills laid flat one upon another. No fives—no twenties—just tens and tens and tens. No wonder it had looked bulky! Nice clean notes they were, too, fresh from the bank, clean, crisp, powerful.

  Then between him and the pocketbook he saw Pauline’s hand, and the third finger of her left hand. He saw on it a half-hoop of pearls and diamonds, such as his heart was set on buying for her. Never till that ring was on her finger would she be properly bound to him. One of these notes, two of them, even three of them, would scarcely be missed. In fact they were really due him, considering the way he worked. And it was so terribly difficult for him to save money. A real start like this would give him courage.

  He fluttered the notes under his thumb. Would he? No, no! Would he? Yes—something drove him to it. He grew hot all over. His skin pricked. He shut the pocketbook with a snap—opened it again and looked straight into Piers’s face as he advanced toward the door of the apple-house!

  In a frenzy of self-preservation Wakefield slammed the door in his brother’s face, hurled the pocketbook into the darkest corner of the apple-house and fled through the door at the other end, slamming it also behind him. By this time he heard Piers’s feet spurning the cement within. Outside he looked wildly about, hoping Renny might be near to protect him, but no one was about except old Noah Binns, wheeling a barrow of decaying apples in the direction of the piggery.

  Wakefield shot past him like an arrow. Without looking back he kept toward the house.

  Noah set down the barrow, rubbed his hands in glee, and cried:

  “He’s right after ye, sure enough!” and added to himself—“Dang both on ’em!”

  Wakefield’s feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground, yet, nearer and nearer, he could hear Piers’s in pursuit. He ran behind a small woodhouse and from that dodged into the shelter of a battalion of sheets waving on the line. Terror-stricken, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Piers’s face fiery red bearing down upon him.

  He could not reach the house. Piers would be able to head him off and perhaps drag him back into the woodshed. But, nearer than the house, was the old carriage house where the carriage in which his grandmother had always driven to church still stood. If only he could gain it and lock the door! But, when he got to it, the door was shut. A ladder stood against the wall and, without further consideration, he dashed up it and ran across the roof.

  There was a skylight in the carriage house and he noticed that it was open. He had a mind to fling himself into it, for a broken neck seemed preferable to being caught by Piers. But, after one glance at the rearing shafts of the carriage below and its glass lamps, he flew on and was just about to jump off the roof to the grass on the other side, when he heard Piers’s footsteps springing from the top of the ladder. He felt paralysed by terror. He could not force his legs to move in any direction. Then he heard a slithering sound, a bump, a groan, and looked round to see Piers’s muscular hands showing above the edge of the skylight.

  A sweet feeling of relief welled up in him. It seemed too good to be true. His lungs, which had been cramped with pain, expanded. He crept on tiptoe to the skylight and looked into the aperture.

  Piers was clinging desperately to the edge, his legs dangling in space, and underneath him the lamps, the dashboard, and the rearing shafts of the old carriage.

  Wakefield tiptoed to the top of the ladder and placed his foot on the nearest rung. He would send help back to Piers. Rather an heroic thing to do, for to leave him to die would be to save himself.

  However, Piers heard him and shouted:

  “Are you going to leave me here, you filthy young thief?”

  Wakefield stood hesitant at the top of the ladder, looking at the beautiful world about him to which he had been so miraculously restored.

  “Wake!” came Piers’s voice, with a note of anguish in it, “you little swine, come here!”

  Wakefield left the ladder and came slowly toward the skylight. “Were you wanting me?” he asked.

  “Of course I want you! How long do you think I can hang here without falling?”

  “Well, I was going for help.”

  “Don’t leave me!” shouted Piers. “My arms are almost broken! Come and help me out!”

  Wakefield approached him gingerly. He saw that Piers was in a bad way, that the projection offered him the slenderest hold, that, if he left him, he would probably go down to his death on the wheels of Gran’s chariot. He squatted beside the skylight and placed his hands under Piers’s armpits.

  Piers uttered a grunt of relief. “Lift!” he ejaculated.

  Wakefield heaved at him without avail.

  “Lift, can’t you! Have you no more strength than a kitten?”

  “Are you under the impression that you have no more weight than one?” asked Wakefield severely.

  “Shout for help, then!”

  But their voices had already attracted Finch, who was returning to the house.

  “Anything wrong?” he called from the bottom of the ladder.

  “Come quick!” cried Wakefield, “and help me to save Piers!”

  Finch’s long face appeared so speedily that he seemed to have ascended the ladder in one bound.

  “Thank God!” groaned Piers, as he felt the bony arms grip him.

  “Now then,” gasped Finch, “both at once! Heave…”

  Up he came, and the three lay in a dishevelled heap on the roof.

  Finch was the first to sit up and look at the faces of the other two. He began to laugh hysterically.

  “You wouldn’t laugh,” said Piers, nursing his arm, “if you were in my place.”

  “Or mine,” chimed in Wakefield.

  Piers growled—“I’ve not finished with you.”

  “What’s it all about?” asked Finch.

  “I’ll not tell you. It’s a disgrace to the family. One thing I will say, and that is that this young man is going to land in gaol some day.”

  Wakefield rose. He said, with an attempt at airiness:

  “Well, I’m off!”

  “No, you’re not,” returned Piers, catching him by the leg. Wakefield struggled.

  “Look out!” shouted Finch. “You’ll be off the roof in another minute!” He moved to a safe distance from them.

  “If I hadn’t hurt my arm,” said Piers, “he’d get the best hiding of his life!” He jerked Wakefield’s leg from under him and he fell with a crash.

  “Be careful what you do!” shouted the boy. “Or I’ll set fire to your old barn.”

  Piers gave Finch a horrified look across the prostrate body.

  “He’s a downright criminal,” he said. “I always felt that he had it in him.”

  “He doesn’t mean it,” said Finch, feeling sorry for Wakefield.

  “Doesn’t he? Well, now, I’ll tell you what I caught him doing!”

  The culprit threw an arm across his eyes and lay still.

  “I caught him in the act,” went on Piers slowly, “of stealing money out of my pocketbook.”

  “You did! Well—he’s a nice one.”

  A thought struck Piers and he exclaimed—“What did you do with the pocketbook?”

  “It’s in the apple-house,” muttered Wakefield. “And all I was doing was looking to see what you had… You’re always crying poverty.”

  “Young liar! You were stealing.”

  “Well, after all,” said Finch, “he kept you from falling through the skylight.”

  Wakefield began to cry. “I saved his life,” he sobbed, “and this is the thanks I get.”

  “What rot!” retorted Piers. “I shouldn’t
have been much hurt.”

  Finch was suddenly on Wakefield’s side.

  “You’d have broken your leg, at the least,” he said. “Come along, kid. We’ll go and find the pocketbook. You’d better put some liniment on that arm, Piers.”

  With one accord they gathered themselves up and descended the ladder.

  But Wakefield spent the weekend at Meggie’s.

  XV

  THE TENTH THURSDAY

  ACCEPTANCE OF LIFE, and of himself as a frail vessel tossed on its surface, came to Eden on these sharp November mornings while he was in the stable. The mist that always seemed to linger about Vaughanlands, for it lay in a hollow, was chill and penetrating as he crossed the yard, making him shiver, but in the stable there was a comforting animal warmth, there was calm breathing from the massive, barrel-like bodies, a glad glow in the great eyes of the beasts. They reached eagerly toward the hay with which he filled their mangers, plunged their lips into the ice-cold water he offered in the bucket, and made way with decent civility when he cleaned their stalls.

  The hard work made him sweat. Drops fell from his forehead on to the straw. He could feel sweat running down his back and his chest.

  He did not mind the work. He wondered if perhaps, after all, tranquillity came only with labour. He looked with satisfaction at the barrow mounded with dung which he had shovelled from the stalls. He trundled it along the uneven floor and dumped it on to the great heap in the stable-yard. He groomed the hard flanks of the farm horses and, the dust making him cough, he thought of the pot of tea he had set brewing in the kitchen before he came out.

  When all else was done he fed the poultry and flung open the door of the poultry-house. He stood leaning against the door watching the squawking, pecking crew while the red sun beamed on the upkicked straw and the dangling comb of the cock.

  Morning after morning he stood so, for a little, resting before he returned to the house to bathe and breakfast. He was happier, now that he was helping Maurice. Renny had been surprised and relieved by his eager acceptance of the suggested farm work. Maurice was innately indolent and, once that he was no longer driven by necessity, he drifted more completely into his plans for subdividing his land.

  He had actually sold two lots. One was being held, but on the other a flimsy erection was already being put up by a retired grocer. Maurice took a sincere interest in its progress and spent a part of each day agreeably in aiding and advising the builder, and occasionally showing prospective purchasers over the property.

  The weather was heavy. Eden felt the strain of going into town to give his Thursday readings. His dinner afterward with Sarah and the remote calm of her presence was a deep relief to him. They would sit without talking because his voice was husky after the strain. On the ninth Thursday he had difficulty in restraining a cough which threatened to spoil the effect of his reading. He went to Sarah profoundly depressed. They scarcely spoke during dinner, but, afterward in the drawing-room, she talked quickly and lightly without waiting for an answer. Watching her, he noticed that a change had come over her face in the past few months. Her eyes had a burning look, and a faint colour warmed the marble of her cheeks. But any changes in her were of only momentary interest to him.

  “I am wondering,” he interrupted her at last, “whether I can keep up until next Thursday. I feel frightfully tired.”

  “Don’t you think,” she suggested, “that it is the farm work? You are not used to anything of that sort. For my part I think it is cruel of them to ask you. But then—relations are cruel.”

  “I don’t think it is cruel,” he returned. “I look so fit… They don’t realise… Besides, I like the work.”

  “What don’t they realise?” She looked a little startled.

  “Well, that I’m not so fit as I look. I’ve a temperature all the time.”

  “But that is terrible! You must see a doctor.”

  “I’ve been under our old doctor’s care ever since I came home. He helped me into the world.”

  “And will help you out!” she cried scornfully

  “He is satisfied with me, he says.”

  “I don’t believe this part of the country—it’s low and damp—is healthful for you. Will you see a good doctor—to please Finch and me? We’re both so fond of you!”

  “I cannot afford it,” he muttered.

  “Let me pay! You must.”

  He got up impatiently and began to walk about the room.

  “I shall be all right—once these Thursdays are over. The next one—the last, thank God!—is my own poetry. I must do that well.” He stopped in front of her. “Do you know, Sarah, I still have a hundred and seventy dollars of the money I got from those women! I have only spent thirty dollars in nine weeks!”

  “I used to spend less than that,” she returned.

  “Yes—I suppose you did. But I guess you spend a good deal more than that now.” He looked at her appraisingly, again noticing the recent change in her.

  “You look different, Sarah,” he said. “I wonder what is going on in that sleek black head of yours.”

  “Why should I not look different?” she asked. “I’m a different woman. When I look back on my old life I can’t believe in it. I tell myself that that was I, but I don’t really believe in it.”

  “You’re so much happier now?”

  “I don’t know what it is to be happy,” she answered with meaning.

  “But you will yet. I am sure you will.”

  “I wish I were sure of it.”

  A veiled smile passed across Eden’s face. “Sure of him, you mean!” he said teasingly.

  “He hates me,” she said.

  “No, no, Sarah. He is afraid of you. That’s all.”

  She asked ingenuously as a child—“How can I stop that?”

  He sat down beside her. “By pretending that you are afraid of him.”

  “It would be no pretence! I’m terrified of him.” She gave a little nervous laugh, then pushed a box of cigarettes toward him. “Here are some of your favourite Russians,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve given up smoking,” he said. “It makes me cough.”

  “Hard luck! I shan’t take one either.”

  “Please do. I’ll like to watch you smoke. We’ll talk about young Finch.”

  They talked, and Eden wondered if perhaps, after all, a marriage with Sarah might bring Finch happiness. But he could not bring himself to believe that. She would entrap him, and Finch should be free. Still, he was sorry for her, even while he distrusted her. She fascinated him.

  In the days that followed Eden amused himself, kept his mind off his own troubles by thinking of Sarah and Finch. He had an odd feeling that it was for him to bring them together or keep them apart. He felt that he had a certain power over Finch, who was at this time away on the tour that had been arranged for him.

  But, by the end of the week, his thoughts were occupied only with his own condition. His cough had become so much worse that Meg was concerned and dosed him with rum and honey, flaxseed tea, and patent cough medicines. He was drenched with sweat after his early morning work in the stable, but his pride kept him from complaining to Maurice. He would drag himself back to his bed and throw himself on it where still was the shape of his body in moisture from his sweat of the night. Much of the day he spent bent over his desk. His feverish brain found its solace in a new dramatic poem. “Thank God!” he said aloud, as he drove Maurice’s car through the bitter cold streets, whirling dust half choking him, “this will soon be over!” It was his tenth Thursday.

  Renny was in his office the next morning, as was his custom after breakfast. He was reading his mail, which consisted mostly of bills and circulars. The morning paper lay open on the desk, its back page uppermost, showing a large advertisement of Christmas goods by a department store. He laid down his last letter and his eyes fell on the advertisement. Was it possible that Christmas was so near? He smiled as he thought that little Adeline would be old enough to enjoy it
this year.

  He rubbed his eyes, which were smarting from the smoke of the small stove, which always refused to draw when the wind was off the lake. Yet he must have the fire for there was a raw, penetrating chill in the air. Outside lay several inches of wet snow. He had been walking in that and, as it had melted from his boots, it had formed a small puddle on the floor beneath them.

  A quick rap sounded on the door and, when he said “Come in,” it opened halfway and Eden was revealed standing back from it.

  “Are you alone?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Renny answered, startled at seeing him there.

  Eden entered and closed the door behind him. He looked dishevelled, desperate, and wild.

  Renny sprang up and went to him.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  Eden tried to answer but he could make no sound at first. Then his voice came loud and harsh.

  “I’m ill… I’ve been to see a doctor… My God, Renny, I’m going to die!”

  Renny looked at him horrified, yet unbelieving.

  “What are you saying?” he said roughly. “I don’t think you know. You’ve been drinking!”

  Eden gave a despairing laugh. “No such luck! It’s true, I tell you… I saw a specialist yesterday. He was a cold-blooded fellow. Well—I asked him for the truth! I’ve been suspecting it but, by God, I didn’t want to hear it!”

  “What did he say?”

  “I’ve about three months. He couldn’t do anything for me. No one can!” His face cleared for a moment and he added: “No wonder you look staggered. I was staggered myself.”

  Renny took him by the arm. “Sit down and tell me about it.” He put Eden into his chair.

  Eden wrung his hands together under the desk. He raised his stricken eyes to Renny’s face. He spoke in jerky sentences in a broken voice.

  “I’ve been feeling rotten for a month… But this week has been the limit… I made up my mind to see a specialist… Sarah told me she didn’t think old Harding much good… Anyhow he hadn’t seen me lately. I’ve been getting worse, I tell you—for some time.”