08 Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  They gathered about him, interested.

  He continued plaintively: “Is it possible that I can’t bring up one on the flute?”

  They howled.

  Three figures were seen approaching, a man and two women. The women were frightened, and the man himself nervous about passing this band of ruffians on the street. He clasped the arms of the women closely, set his face, and marched into their midst

  But, there was nothing to fear. The five youths gazed wonderingly into the faces of what appeared to them a portentous apparition. They crowded close, but they said nothing until the three had passed. Then George called: “Bye-bye, ladies!”

  And Finch cooed: “Ta-ta, gennelman!”

  Then a storm of bye-byes and ta-tas followed the retreating figures.

  A window was thrown up in the large house opposite, and a man in his nightclothes appeared in the opening.

  “If you hoodlums don’t get off this street in double-quick time, I’ll call the police. Now, get a move on!”

  The members of the orchestra looked at each other. Then they burst into jeers, whistles, and catcalls. Finch packed a snowball and sent it flying through the window into the angry whiskered face. A volley of snowballs followed. The householder retreated. He was going to telephone for the police.

  Almost at the moment of his disappearance a thick, hel-meted figure appeared at the corner of the street. With terrified looks they snatched up their mandolins, banjo, and flute, silent participators in all this rowdyism, and fled along the street and down a lane. From there they emerged into another street, raced along it, and heard the policeman’s whistle on the clear morning air.

  Bright red-gold wavelets of cloud appeared in the eastern sky, forerunners of the strong tide of day. Blue shadows became visible on the snow.

  Finch and George Fennel found themselves separated from the rest. They ran on for several blocks, and at last made sure that they were not pursued. They halted and looked at each other curiously as people who meet under strange circumstances for the first time.

  “Where do you live?” asked Finch.

  “With aunt in ole house in College Street.”

  After a moment’s reflection, Finch observed: “I live in ole house, too. Name of Jalna.”

  “Indeed. Are you going there now?”

  “I dunno. Where’d you say you live?”

  “I said ole house in College Street.”

  “Wanna go there?”

  “Absolutely. All the time.”

  “Tha’s nice. College Street, you say?”

  “Say, have you got anything against that street?”

  “No, no. I’m going to take you there.”

  “All righ,’ Finch. Goo’ friend to me.”

  Finch put his arm around George’s neck and they made a somewhat uneven progression along the street. Coming upon a milkman, they asked him their way, but when he had directed them they questioned his directions so sceptically that he became irritated and whipped up his horse and left them. However, they followed him to his next place of delivery, calling: “Hi, there!”

  “Well, what do you want?” he snarled, standing in the bluish snow, with a carrier of milk bottles in his hand.

  “Do you stop here or there?” demanded George.

  “Funny, ain’t you?” sneered the milkman, crashing the carrier into the wagon, and leaping in after it.

  “I suppose we can buy a bottle of milk,” said Finch.

  “Let’s see your money,” said the milkman, suspiciously, and his horse began to plod heavily along the accustomed route.

  Finch, trotting alongside, held up a silver coin. The milkman drew in his horse and sulkily handed out a bottle. “If you’d drunk more o’ this,” he said, “and less o’ the other, you wouldn’t be where you are.”

  But they discovered, when they had opened the bottle, that the milk was frozen. They tried disconsolately to dig it out with a penknife, and, failing this, they broke the bottle off the milk and left the erect frozen shape standing on the nearest doorstep.

  Finch again put his arms about his friend’s neck, and again they set out to find the house of Mrs. St. John.

  Finch cuddled George’s head against his shoulder. “What are you?” he asked.

  “Goo’ boy,” responded George.

  “Tha’s a wrong answer,” said Finch, very gravely. “Now tell me again, what are you?”

  “Goo’ boy,” persisted George, doggedly.

  “Tha’s a wrong answer.”

  And thus they proceeded with question and answer until, as by a miracle, they stood before the door of the house they sought.

  “You live here?” asked Finch, politely.

  “Yes… You live here, too?”

  “No. I live in ole house named Jalna.”

  “Oh… Well, goo’bye.”

  “Goo’bye. See you later.”

  They parted, and Finch on the next street took a taxi and drove to the station. During the ride he kept his face pressed to the window, observing with drunken interest the streets through which they passed.

  There was only a short wait until the early morning train left. The conductor on this train did not know Finch, but he had a fatherly eye on him, and awoke him from his heavy sleep before they reached the station at Weddels’, and saw him safely to the platform.

  Out here in the open, the sunshine poured down in an unobstructed flood. The sun was climbing the clear blue sky his springtime ardour unabashed by the snowfall of the night before. The snow, in truth, was now nothing more than a thin white garment on the earth. The earth was casting it aside and pushing up her bare brown bosom to the sun. She was straining her body toward him to absorb his heat.

  In the ditches, bright runnels of water were gurgling. The bare limbs of the trees shone as though they had been varnished. A rut in the road made a bathtub for a little bird. He agitated his brown wings joyously and sent up a cascade of sparkling drops.

  Finch splashed through the melting slush, his face heavy and flushed, his hair plastered over his forehead. Two farmers in a wagon, passing him, remarked that that young Whiteak was growing up no better than the rest.

  He met Rags as he was about to enter the house. The servant observed, with his air of impudent solicitude: “If I was you, Mister Finch, I shouldn’t gaow into the ’ouse lookin’ like that. I’d gaow round to the washroom and wash my fice. There’s no hobject in advertising to the family, sir, wot kind of a night you’ve spent.”

  VIII

  THE FOUR BROTHERS

  HE WENT in at the side door, and descended, with rather jerky movements, the short flight of steps leading to the basement. He was too dazed by the buzzing in his head to notice the sound of voices in the washroom, and, even when he had opened the door, he did not at once perceive that it was occupied. However, as he stood blinking in the warm, steamy atmosphere, he gradually made out the figures of his brothers. Piers was kneeling beside a large tin bathtub in which a spaniel drooped, wet and shivering, its face looking pathetically wan and meek with all the fluffy hair lathered down. Standing braced against the hand basin was Renny, pipe in mouth, directing the operations, and perched on a stepladder was little Wakefield, eating a chocolate bar.

  Finch hesitated, but it was too late to retreat—all three had seen him. He entered slowly and closed the door behind him. For a space no one paid any attention to him. Renny laid his pipe on the windowsill, snatched up a bucket of clear water, and poured it over the dog, Piers slithering his hands up and down its body to rinse away the lather.

  “Good boy, now!” cried Wakefield. “Up, Merlin, up!”

  The spaniel, released, straddled on the brick floor a moment, then shook himself mightily, sending a shower of drops in all directions.

  “Hi! Hi!” shouted Wakefield. “You’re drowning us!”

  Renny tossed a bath towel to Piers, who, his shirt sleeves rolled up on his white, muscular arms, began vigorously to rub the dog dry.

  Renny turned suddenly and
looked at Finch.

  “Well, I’ll be shot!” he exclaimed.

  Wakefield peered through the steamy air at him, and then, with a perfect imitation of the eldest Whiteoak’s tone, cried in his clear treble: “Well, I’ll be shot, too!”

  Piers looked over his shoulder at the object of their astonishment. He made no remark, but, releasing the dog, he rose and moved a step nearer for a closer inspection. Finch stood facing them, his jaw dropped in an expression of stupid resentment, his face dirty, his collar and tie askew.

  “Well,” he snarled, out of the side of his mouth, “do you like the looks of me?”

  “So well,” returned Piers, “that I’ve a mind to stick your head in this tub of suds.”

  “You just try it! Just lay a finger on me, any of you! I want to be let alone, that’s what I want. I don’t want any damned interference from anybody!” He fixed his heavy gaze on Piers. “We had a fight in this room once. Say the word and we’ll have another!”

  “A fight!” Piers gave a sarcastic laugh. “A fight, you young ass—you don’t call that a fight, I hope? You threw some water in my face and I knocked you down.” He turned to Renny. “Don’t you remember? You came in, and he was lying on the floor with a bloody nose, blubbering.”

  Finch interrupted vehemently: “I was not blubbering!”

  “Yes, you were! You always blubber when you’re punished. Snivelling is your long suit.”

  Finch, with face distorted by rage, lunged toward him, and the spaniel, exhilarated by the bath, desiring to have part in the excitement, sprang upon Finch, barking, and almost overthrew him.

  This bundle of wetness pawing him was the last straw to Finch’s nerves. The exuberant barks in his face confused him. He scarcely knew what he was doing when he kicked the spaniel. Even its yelp of pain hardly penetrated his consciousness. What did pierce it, with terrible distinctness, was Renny’s expression of white anger. Renny looked very strange, he thought, white as a ghost, with that aghast expression.

  Renny was staring as though he could not believe that Finch had kicked Merlin. Then his mouth set. He laid down his pipe, and in a stride was on him. He shook him as a terrier a rat, and then threw him on to a bench, saying: “If I thought you knew what you were doing, I’d flay you.” He bent and put his hand on the dog’s side, and looked reassuringly into his eyes.

  Finch’s eyes were on Renny’s hand, that hard, strong hand that moved with such machinelike swiftness and surety. He sprawled on the bench, his back against the wall, filled with misery, anger, and self-loathing.

  Wakefield remarked from his perch: “Usually I’m not on hand when there’s a row.” No one heard him.

  “Now,” said Renny, taking up his pipe again, “I want you to tell me where you were last night.”

  “In town,” mumbled Finch, brokenly

  “Where? You certainly weren’t at Mrs. St. John’s.”

  “I had dinner there.”

  “Yes?”

  He wished Renny’s eyes were not so fiercely, so mercilessly, questioning. It made it hard for him to think clearly, to put himself in a decent light if possible. Yet, what use in trying when he had kicked Merlin! If only Piers weren’t there, it would be easier to make a clean breast of it!

  Piers was again rubbing Merlin, but he never took his bright blue eyes from Finch’s face, and he never took the small sneering grin from his lips.

  “Well,” Finch’s voice was still more broken, “there’s this orchestra 1 belong to. I’ve never told you about that. But there is no harm in it really.”

  “A harmless bird, this!” interjected Piers.

  “An orchestra! What sort of orchestra?”

  “Oh, just a little one a few of us got up, so we could make a little money. A banjo, two mandolins, a flute, and 1—played the piano.”

  “God, what an orchestra!” exclaimed Piers, standing up and drying his arms.

  “Who are these fellows?”

  “Oh—some fellows I know. Not at school. I—just got in with them.” He must not implicate George. “We practised after school.”

  “Where did you play?”

  “In restaurants. Cheap ones. For dances.”

  “That’s what you were up to when you were spending the night with George’s aunt, eh? Was George into this—?”

  “No, no. I just happened to meet these fellows—”

  “They must be a pretty lot. Who are they?”

  “You wouldn’t know if I told you. One of them is named Lilly, and another Burns, and another Meech.”

  “But who are they? Who are their people?”

  “How much did you get for playing?” put in Piers.

  This question came as a relief. He raised his haggard eyes to Piers. “Five dollars a night.”

  “And how often have you played?”

  “I don’t—I can’t remember—but we’ve been going out for over two months.”

  “What I want to know,” insisted Renny, “is who these boys are. Are they students?”

  “No. They work. Lilly’s grandfather has a greenhouse. Sinden Meech is in some sort of tailoring establishment. Burns is in some kind of—abattoir.”

  “H’m… And so you’re in the habit of knocking about town all night drinking, eh?”

  Oh, if they wouldn’t stare at him so! He could not get his thoughts clear with those relentless eyes on him!

  “No, no,” he mumbled, wringing his fingers together. “This is the very first time… We’d been playing for a dance. We got awfully tired. And they gave us something to buck us up. But not too much, mind you. It was at the other place where we went afterward that they—someone—gave us another drink. I guess it was pretty rotten stuff, and when we came out in the street we—couldn’t find our way at first— and we separated and got together again and then I took the train for home.”

  Renny rapped his pipe on the windowsill and put it in his pocket. “You’re in no condition,” he said, looking Finch over with distaste, “to listen to a lecture now. Go to your bed and sleep this off. Then I’ll have something to say to you.”

  “If you were mine,” said Piers, “I’d hold your head under that tap for fifteen minutes and see if that would waken you up.”

  “But I’m not yours!” Finch cried, hoarsely. “I’m not anybody’s! You talk as though I were a dog.”

  “I wouldn’t insult any dog by comparing him to you!”

  Finch’s misery became too much for him. He burst into tears. He took out a soiled handkerchief and violently blew his nose.

  Wakefield began to scramble down from his stepladder. “Let me out of here,” he said. “I’m getting upset.”

  He hastened toward the door, but as he reached Piers’s side he espied a half sheet of crumpled paper lying on the floor. He bent and examined it.

  “What’s this, I wonder?” he said.

  “Give it here,” said Piers.

  Wakefield handed it to him, and Piers, smoothing it out, cast his eyes over it. His expression changed.

  “This evidently belongs to Finch,” he said, slowly. “He must have pulled it out of his pocket with his handkerchief.” He looked steadily at Finch. “Now that you’re making a clean breast of it, Finch, will you give me leave to read this aloud?”

  “Do what you darned please,” sobbed Finch.

  “It’s a note from someone to you.” He read, with distinctness:

  DEAREST FINCH—

  After you were gone last night, I was very much disturbed. You were preoccupied—not like your old self with me. Cannot you tell me what is wrong? It would be a terrible thing to me if the clarity of, our relationship were clouded. Write to me, darling Finch.

  ARTHUR.

  Piers folded the paper, and returned it to the child. “Give this back to Finch,” he said. “He’ll not want to be separated from it.” He turned then to Renny. “Did you take it in, Renny? His friend Arthur calls him ‘dearest’ and ‘darling.’ Could you have believed it possible that one of us should ever have g
ot into such a disgusting mix-up?”

  Renny said, his eyes fixed on the spaniel: “This Arthur Leigh calls him ‘dearest’ and ‘darling.’”

  “Yes! And rants about the ‘clarity of their relationship’!” He gave a flourish of his hand toward Finch. “Is it any wonder he looks a wreck—alternately boozing with butchers and tailors and spooning with a rotter like Leigh?”

  “I thought you were a little fool,” said the eldest Whiteoak, “but now I’m disgusted with you. You’ve been deceiving me, and wasting time when you should have been studying. As for this neurotic affair with Leigh—I tell you, I’m sick at heart for you.”

  Finch could not defend himself. He felt annihilated. He held Arthur’s note in one shaking hand and in the other he gripped his handkerchief, but he did not hold it to his face. He left the misery of his face exposed to the eyes of his brothers. Sobs shook his lips. Tears ran down his cheeks unheeded.

  Wakefield could not bear it. Slipping past Piers and Renny, he threw his arms about Finch’s neck.

  “Oh, don’t cry,” he implored. “Poor old Finch, don’t cry!”

  Renny said: “This is very bad for you,” and took him under the arms and put him into the passage outside.

  The little boy stood there motionless, his heart pounding heavily. He was oppressed by the strife among his elders. He had a feeling that something frightening was going to happen.

  Mrs. Wragge came out of the kitchen carrying a corn broom and a dustpan. She began angrily to sweep something off the red brick floor into the pan.

  “If that ’usband of mine,” she affirmed, “don’t quit throwin’ refuge on my clean floors, it’ll be the worse for ’im.”

  “There’s another bit, over in the corner,” said Wakefield, pointing.

  Mrs. Wragge collected it, straightened her back, and looked curiously at the door of the washroom.

  “What might they be doing in there so long?” she asked. Wakefield replied with dignity: “They might be doing almost anything, Matilda. What they are doing is washing a dog.”

  “I thought the master’s voice sounded as though he were a bit put out over something.”