08 Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  Finch could not bear to go indoors. He kept to the road that led past Jalna, through the village of Weddels’, down to the lake. This was four miles from the church. A rush of cool air rose from the lake. It was stirring softly, as though in its sleep. It glittered in the moonlight like a great monster, clothed in bright armour. As it slept, white foam curled from its lips along the shore. Finch undressed and ran out into the water. He plunged, he swam, he floated on its dark, bright surface, his body white as foam. It seemed that he could not sufficiently surrender himself to it. He wanted to be one with it, to make it one with him. He felt that if he could completely surrender himself to the lake he would be able to understand life. He rested on its glimmering darkness, as on the rise and fall of a deep bosom. He closed his eyes tightly, and saw the unnamable colour of life. It swam in intermingling circles, wave upon wave, before his closed eyes. He felt inexpressibly powerful and pure. He felt completely empty of thought. The flame within him had consumed all thought and left only instinct, the instinct to become one with the lake…

  His eyelids lift. He stares into the glowing face of the moon, fascinated. The lake speaks to him. It speaks with his own voice, for it is he. He hears the words rise from its dark bosom, floating on the golden air. “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land… Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.”

  Suddenly he turns over, swims strongly, plunging, wrestling with the lake. It is no longer a part of him, but an antagonist. At last he is tired out, and, wading to the shore, he lies down on the smooth sand and watches the moon sink behind the treetops.

  This was the first of many nights. More and more often he slipped out of the house and went to the church to play. The church, which on weekdays seemed to belong to no one, on Sundays to the Whiteoak family at night belonged to him. He would play for hours, afterward wandering about the fields or along the roads, and, on warm nights, going to the lake. At night he was fearless and free. In the daytime, depressed by lack of sleep and nervous excitement, he had an air of slinking, of avoiding the others. Renny, noticing the shadows under his eyes, told Piers to give him some work on the farm land to set him up. For a terrible week he was subject to Piers, to his robust ragging, while his back ached, his palms blistered, and he felt ready to drop from fatigue. No music those nights. A dead-beat stumbling to bed. Finch could see that the farm labourers, the stablemen, were vastly amused by his weakness, his stupidity. They would let him struggle with a task too heavy for him, without an offer of assistance, while they tumbled over each other to wait on Piers. He could not understand it. Things came to a head at the end of the week in a quarrel. Finch was kicked. He retaliated with a blow from his bony fist on Piers’s jaw. The next day Finch had to stay in bed, and Renny ordered that he should be allowed to go his way in peace. No use to trouble about him. He was a problem that could not be solved.

  The next night he resumed his playing in the church.

  Returning home past midnight, he let himself in at the side door of the house and was just passing his grand-mother’s room when her voice called: “Who is there? Come here, please.”

  Finch hesitated. He had a mind to steal up the stairs without answering. He did not want her to know that he had been out till that hour. She might get to watching him. Questions might be asked. Still, she might really need someone. Worst of all, she might be about to stage another deathbed scene. That would be appalling.

  As he hesitated, she called again, sharply: “Who’s there? Come quickly, please!”

  Finch opened the door of her room and put his head inside. By the night light he could see her propped up on her two pillows, her nightcap shadowing her eyes, her old mouth sunken. But her expression was inquiring rather than anxious; her hands were clasped with resignation on the coverlet.

  He felt suddenly tender toward her. He asked: “Want a drink, Grannie dear? Anything I can do?”

  “Ha, it’s you, is it, Finch? Well, well, you don’t often visit me at this hour. You don’t often visit me at all. I like boys about me. Come and sit you down. I want to be talked to.”

  He came to the bedside and looked down at her. She took his hand and pulled him close, and closer till she could kiss him.

  “Ha!” she said. “Nice smooth young cheek! Now sit here on the bed and be a nice boy. You are a nice boy, aren’t you?”

  Finch gave his sheepish grin. “I’m afraid not, Gran.”

  “Not nice! Who says so?”

  “I don’t think anyone has ever called me a nice boy, Gran.”

  “I do. I do. I call you a very nice boy. If, anybody says you’re not a nice boy he’ll hear from me. I won’t have it. I say you’re a very nice boy. You’re a pretty boy, too, in this light, with your lock hanging over your forehead and your eyes bright. You’ve got an underfed, aye, a starved look. But you’ve got the Court nose, and that’s something to go on. Life will never down you altogether when you’ve got that nose. You’re not afraid of life, are you?” She peered up at him, with so understanding a look in her deep old eyes that Finch was startled into saying: “Yes, I am. I’m awfully afraid of it.”

  She reared her head from the pillow. “Afraid of life! What nonsense. A Court afraid of life! I won’t have it. You mustn’t be afraid of life. Take it by the horns. Take it by the tail. Grasp it where the hair is short. Make it afraid of you. That’s the way I did. Do you think I’d have been here talking to you this night—if I’d been afraid of life? Look at this nose of mine. These eyes. Do they look afraid of life? And my mouth—when my teeth are in—it’s not afraid either!”

  He sat on the side of the bed, stroking her hand. “You’re a wonderful woman, Gran. You’re twice the man I’ll ever be.”

  “Don’t say that. Give yourself time. Mother’s milk hardly dry on your lips yet… How’s that music? I hear you thumping away at it. Coming on?”

  “Pretty well, Gran.” He stopped stroking her hand and held it tightly in both of his. “There’s nothing I like quite so much.”

  Her arched eyebrows went up. “Really! Well, well, I expect you get that from your poor mother. She was always tra-la-la-ing about the house.”

  He closed his eyes, picturing his mother singing about that house. He said, in a low voice: “I wish she had lived, Gran.”

  Her fingers tightened on his. “No, no. Don’t say that. She wasn’t fit to cope with life. She was one of those people who are always better dead—if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I know,” he answered, and added to himself: “Like me!”

  What was the boy thinking? She peered up at him. “Don’t get ideas in your head,” she said, sternly.

  “I’m no good, Gran.”

  Her voice became harsh, but her eyes were kind. “None of that now! What have I been telling you? Piers has been knocking you around. I heard about it.”

  He reddened. “I landed him a good one in the face.”

  “You did, eh? Good for you! H’m… Boys fighting. Young animals. My brothers used to fight, I can tell you. In County Meath. Take their jackets off and at it! My father used to pull their hair for it. Ha!”

  Her eyes closed, her hand relaxed. She fell into a doze.

  Finch looked at her lying there. So near to death. A year or two at the most, surely. And how full of courage she was! Courage and a good digestion—she’d always had both. And in what good stead they had stood her! Even in her sleep she was impressive—not pathetic, lying there, toothless, with her nightcap over one eye. He tried to absorb some of her courage into himself. He fancied it might be done. Here alone with her at night in her own stronghold.

  A gust came down the chimney an
d the night light flickered. Boney, perched on the head of the bed, stirred, and made a clucking noise in his sleep. Finch thought it would be best for him to go, while she slept. He was with-drawing his hand, but her fingers closed on it. She opened her eyes.

  “Ah,” she muttered, “I was thinking. I didn’t doze. Don’t tell me I dozed. I like a spell of thinking. It sets me straight.”

  “Yes, Gran, I know. But it’s not good for you to lose so much sleep. You’ll be tired tomorrow.”

  “Not a bit of it. If I’m tired, I’ll stop here, and rest. It’s the family that makes me tired, fussing over me. Fuss fuss, fuss, ever since that night.” She looked at him quizzically. “You remember the night I nearly died?”

  He nodded. He hoped she wasn’t going to try anything like that again.

  She saw anxiety in his eyes and said: “Don’t worry. I shan’t do that again. It might be boy and wolf. They mightn’t come running when I’d really need them. But they fuss, Finch, because I have Patton out. I like to see my lawyer. I keep thinking up little bequests for old friends—Miss Pink—the Lacey girls—even old Hickson and other folk in the village.” A shrewd gleam came into her eyes. “I suppose you’re not worrying about who I’m going to leave my money to, eh?”

  “God, no!”

  “Don’t curse! Too much God and hell and bloody about this house. I won’t have it.”

  “All right, Gran.”

  “I’m going to give you a present,” she said.

  “Oh, no, Gran, please don’t!” he exclaimed, alarmed.

  “Why not, I’d like to know?”

  “They’d all say I’d been sucking up to you.”

  “Let me hear them! Send anyone that says that to me.”

  “Well, please let it be something small that I can hide.”

  “Hide my present! I won’t have it! Stick it up! Put it in full view! Invite the family to come and look at it! If anyone says you’re sucking up send him to me. I’ll take the crimp out of him!”

  “Very well, Gran,” agreed Finch, resignedly.

  Her old eyes roved about the room. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to give you. I’m going to give you that porcelain figure of Kuan Yin—Chinese goddess. Very good. Good for you to have. She’s not afraid of life. Lets it pass over her. You’re no fighter. You’re musical. Better let it pass over you. But don’t let it frighten you… Fetch her over here, and mind you don’t drop her!”

  He had seen the porcelain figure all his life, standing on the mantelpiece, amid a strange medley of bowls, vases, and boxes—Eastern and English, ancient and Victorian. It was so crowded on the mantelpiece that he felt reasonably hopeful that the little goddess would not be missed by the family. He lifted her gently from the spot where she had stood for more than seventy years, and carried her to his grandmother. The old hands stretched out toward the delicate figure, closed round it eagerly.

  “If you could see the place,” she said, “where I got this! Another life. Another life. Most of the English out there were down on the East, down on the Eastern religions—but I wasn’t. They understand a lot that we don’t. Western religions are flibbertigibbet beside Eastern religions. Don’t tell that I said that! Here, take her”—she put the goddess into his hands—“something for you to remember me by.”

  “As though I could ever forget you, Gran!”

  She smiled mockingly, and for a flash he saw, toothless and all as she was, Eden’s smile on her face. “Well, time will tell… Look in her face! What do you see?”

  He knitted his brow, his face close to the porcelain oval of the statuette’s. “Something very deep and calm… I—I can’t quite make it out.”

  “Well, well, take it along. You’ll understand some day. Good night, child, I’m tired… Wait—do you often prowl about like this?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you do?”

  “You won’t tell on me, Gran?”

  “Come, come, I’m over a hundred. Even a woman can learn to keep her mouth shut in that time!”

  He said, almost in a whisper: “I go to the church, and play the organ.”

  She showed no surprise. “And you’re not afraid alone there at night, with all the dead folk outside?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, you’re a queer boy! Music, always music with you. Well, a church is an interesting place once you get the parson and the people out of it. Real music can get in then, and a real God! Nothing flibbertigibbet about religion then.”

  She was very tired; her voice had become a mumble; but she made a last effort and said: “I like your coming in like this. My best sleep is over by midnight—just catnaps after that. Night’s very long. I want you, every time you’ve been at the church, to come for a chat afterward. Does me good. Come right in—I’ll be awake.” And as she said the word “awake” she fell asleep.

  And so these strange night meetings began. Night after night, week after week, Finch crept out of the house, had his hours of happiness, of faunlike freedom, and crept in again. He never failed to go to her room, and always she was awake, waiting for him. Her eyes, under their rust-red brows, fixed on him eagerly, as he glided in and drew the door to behind him. He looked forward to the meetings as much as she. Bizarre assignations they were, between the centenarian and a boy of nineteen. Like secret lovers, they avoided each other in the presence of the family, fearing that some intimate look, some secret smile, might betray their intimacy. Finch came to know her, to understand the depths of her, sometimes mordant, sometimes touchingly tender, as he was sure no other member of the household understood her. She no longer seemed old to him, but ageless, like the Chinese porcelain goddess she had given him. Sometimes, in the beam of the night light, propped in her richly painted bed, she looked beautiful to him, a rugged reclining statue carved by some sculptor who expressed in it his dreams of an indomitable soul.

  One night in August, she startled him by asking abruptly: “Well, boy, whom shall I leave my money to?”

  “Oh, don’t ask me that, Gran! That’s for you to say.”

  “I know. But, just supposing you were in my place, whom would you leave it to? Remember, it’s going in one lump sum to somebody. I won’t have my bit of money cut up like a cake! Right or wrong, my mind’s fixed on that. Now then, Finch, who’s to get it, eh?”

  “I say—I can’t possibly—”

  “Nonsense! Do as I tell you. Name the one you think is most deserving. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it. I won’t have it.”

  “Well,” he answered with sudden determination and even a look of severity on his lips, “I should say, since you ask me, that there’s only one person who really deserves to have it!”

  “Yes? Which one?”

  “Renny!”

  “Renny, eh? That’s because he’s your favourite.”

  “Not at all. I was putting myself in your place, as you told me to.”

  “Then because he’s head of the house?”

  “No, not that. If you can’t see, I can’t tell you.”

  “Of course you can. Why?”

  “Very well. You’ll be annoyed with me, though.”

  “No, I shan’t. Out with it!”

  “Well, Kenny’s always hard up. He’s brought up the lot of us. He’s had Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernie living here for years. Ever since I can remember. You’ve always made your home with him. He likes having you. It wouldn’t be like home to him if you weren’t here. And he likes having the uncles and Aunt Augusta. But, just the same, he’s at his wits’ end sometimes to know where to dig up money enough to pay wages, and butcher bills, and the vet, and all that.”

  She was regarding him steadfastly. “You can be plainspoken,” she said, “when you like. You’ve got a good forthright way with you, too. I can’t see eye to eye with you on every point, but I’m glad to know what you think. And I’m not angry with you.” She began to talk of something else.

  She did not bring up the subject again, but talked to him of her past, rec
alling the days when she and her Philip were young together, and even went back to the days of her girlhood in County Meath. Finch learned to pour out to her his thoughts, as he had never done to anyone before, and probably never would again with such unrestraint. When at last he would steal up to his room, something of her would be still with him in the figure of Kuan Yin, standing on his desk.

  XVIII

  DEATH OF A CENTENARIAN

  OLD Adeline was being dressed for tea by Augusta. That is, she was having her hair tidied, her best cap with the purple ribbon rosettes put on, and her box of rings displayed before her. She had felt a little tired when she waked from her afternoon nap, so she had had Augusta put a peppermint drop into her mouth, and she mumbled this as she looked over her rings. She chose them with special care, selecting those of brilliant contrasting stones, for the rector was to be present, and she knew that he disapproved of such a show of jewels on such ancient hands, or indeed on any hands.

  Augusta stood patiently holding the box, looking down her long nose at her mother’s still longer one curved in pleasurable speculation. Adeline chose a ring—a fine ruby, set round with smaller ones. She was a long time finding the finger on which she wore it, and putting it on. The box trembled slightly in Augusta’s hand. Her mother bent forward, fumbled, discovered her emerald ring, and put it on. Again she bent forward, dribbling a little from the peppermint on to the velvet lining of the box.

  “Mama,” said Augusta, “must you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Dribble on the velvet.”

  “I’m not dribbling. Let me be.” But she fumbled for her handkerchief and wiped her lips.

  She put on six rings, a cameo bracelet, and a brooch containing her Philip’s hair. She turned then to the mirror, adjusted her cap, and scrutinized her face with one eyebrow cocked.

  “You look nice and bright this afternoon, Mama,” said Augusta.

  The old lady shot an upward glance at her. “I wish I could say the same for you,” she returned.

  Augusta drew back her head with an offended air and surveyed her own reflection. Really, Mama was very short with one! It took a lot of patience…