08 Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  To think that I have never seen you since your mysterious disappearance to New York! And in all this time I have never had so much as a line from you!

  Yours ever,

  ARTHUR.

  Finch’s heart was quick with love for his friend when he had read this note. The plain but heavy notepaper, bearing the Leighs’ crest and Arthur’s small black handwriting, symbolized for him the dignity and elegance of Arthur’s life. The fact that he was a Court and a Whiteoak meant nothing to Finch; this note written by Arthur’s small exquisite hand was truly impressive. He carried it in his pocket as a kind of charm when he returned to Jalna.

  It required great fortitude to return. So tremulous were his nerves when he entered the house, he feared a wry look or word lest they should betray him into an hysterical outburst. The very smell of the house sent a quiver through him. The smell of the thick, heavily gilded wallpaper, the shabby tasselled curtains, the faint Eastern odour that hung near his grandmother’s room, where now reigned inviolable stillness. Did he imagine it, or was there still the odour of coffin and funeral flowers in the empty drawing-room? He stood in the hall, not knowing where to go, listening to his own heartbeats. He felt desolate and afraid in spite of George’s visit, of Arthur’s letter. For the first time he realized his grandmother’s death, and the loss those visits to her room would be to him. He realized with a constriction of the throat how much confidence he had got from those weeks of intimacy with her fierce and extravagant nature.

  Standing in the hall, he saw himself, a tiny boy not more than three, descending the stairs, a step at a time, on his little seat, lonely even then, a pathetic infant with a limp, fair lock dangling over his eyes. It had seemed a tremendous journey down those stairs, and the smells then had been strange and disturbing as now. He remembered the long-legged, red-haired big brother who, striding in leather leggings along the hall, would snatch him up and throw him, screaming with frightened laughter, across his shoulder. He remembered the smiling, teasing boy of ten that was Eden, and the ruddy-cheeked one of seven, whom he worshipped and feared, that was Piers. And the uncles… Standing there, he meditated a separate penitential apology to each for the trick he had played them, For, however unwittingly, he felt that there must have been something tricky in the way he had supplanted the others. Else they could not have felt toward him as they did. He feared that among them all there was not one who had not inwardly withdrawn from him, unless it were perhaps Eden. Eden! What a muddle! Could he go to them separately, make them understand, and still keep his self-control?

  The very thought of it took the sap out of him. His knees felt weak. He pictured the interviews as a series of finedrawn agonies. No—he could not do it. They must think of him what they would, endure his moneyed presence as best they could.

  He heard a step behind him and turned. Augusta was coming down the hall. In the dim light cast by the stained-glass window he saw that she was very pale and looked troubled. He raised his eyes humbly, wondering how she would greet him. She was beside him before she noticed his presence. Then she concentrated on him a look of melancholy relief.

  “It is you, Finch! I’m very glad you have come. I wish you would come to my room so that I may discuss something with you. I believe you are just the one I need to help me.”

  To be needed! Oh, sweet words! He followed her up the stairs, wishing that he might lift the hem of her black cashmere dress and bear it as a train. To be regarded without bitterness! To be taken under Aunt Augusta’s crepe-trimmed wing!

  In her room, she said. “It is about my dear canary that I am worried. I actually made my plans for returning to England without considering him. Now I cannot turn back. He will die unless he is tenderly cared for. Finch, dear, can I trust him to you? Will you do this for me?” Her Queen Alexandra fringe drooped above the gilded cage where the canary trig as a daffodil, searched for hempseed in his cup.

  “Tweet, tweet!” said Augusta. “Thank Heaven, he can know nothing of what is passing in my mind. Tweet, tweet! I tell you, Finch, he knows more than all the cats and dogs of the family put together. I do not boast about it, but I take the greatest pleasure in his sagacity. Can I, can I trust you to care for him?”

  “Yes, Aunt, I’ll do my very best for him. I suppose he’s pretty delicate.”

  “His health is perfect. But he needs perfect care. I shall give you minute directions about his bath, his seeds, his lump sugar, and his lettuce-leaf.”

  The canary wiped his bill vehemently on his perch and cocked an eye at them.

  “Tweet, tweet,” said Augusta, in a mournful contralto. “Tweet, tweet,” echoed Finch hoarsely.

  Poor bird, he was to know some vicissitudes under Finch’s care!

  Finch kissed his aunt fervently and, with a lightening of the shadow that hung over him, ran upstairs to his attic room to look over his clothes. He took them from the closet, examined them near the window, then laid them on the bed. The more he looked at them, the more certain he became that he must refuse Arthur Leigh’s invitation to spend a week with him. The new black ready-to-wear suit which had been hastily bought him for the funeral did not seem to help things out at all. Most of his underthings and socks had holes in them. His best hat was no better than his worst. Some ties he had bought in New York were satisfying, but scarcely enough to make him presentable. His visit to Leigh’s must be short, for, even if he could persuade Renny to buy him new clothes, they would not be ready at once, and Leigh wanted him at once.

  In the upstairs hall he met Nicholas, the one he dreaded most of all.

  “Home again?” Nicholas said, in his brusque way. “Do run down to the dining room and fetch me my glasses. I’ve left them on the table by the window/’

  Finch flew for the glasses. Nicholas took them, with a rumble of thanks, not looking at him, and retired into his room. Finch drew a deep breath of relief. Nicholas had been aloof, but not austere—not terrible as on that last day. His homecoming might not be so harrowing after all.

  Ernest came to the door of his room and beckoned to Finch. He looked delicate and distinguished. His person and his room were exquisitely neat, as though the disappointment, the hopelessness of ever possessing greater scope for self-expression, had moved him to perfect, as much as lay in his power, his restricted field of action.

  The watercolours on the walls had been rearranged, the china ornaments on the mantelpiece. A black glass vase holding a few sprays of the delicate white blooms of Queen Anne’s lace stood on his desk, where the books and papers relating to his Commentary on Shakespeare had been recently put in order. Ernest’s clothes, his tie, even his studs, were black. There were dark shadows below his eyes. Their expression, however, was gentle as they rested on Finch.

  He said, rather nervously: “Come in, come in. I’m not going to keep you.” He really meant: “But please don’t stay long.” He fidgeted to the window and settled the blind.

  Finch tried to smile without grinning, to look sympathetic without looking lugubrious. His features had never felt so large and so difficult to control.

  “I’m afraid,” said his uncle, hesitatingly, “that we—that I—all of us, indeed, have been too hard on you. I feel sure that there is nothing underhand in you, Finch. You simply didn’t realize the danger to my mother’s health in such late hours. I think I remember saying that it had killed her. In my excitement I may have said even worse things. I don’t remember. I do remember hearing someone say that you were no better than a murderer. But I think that was your aunt. I don’t think I said that.”

  “No. You just said I’d shortened her life.”

  Ernest flushed. “Yes. That was it… I’m sorry, my dear, that I said that. It is quite probably not true. She was quite old—very old, in fact—she might have died in any case.”

  “Uncle Ernie,” burst out Finch, “I had rather any one of you had got Gran’s money than me! I tell you, it’s a torture to me!”

  Ernest smiled bleakly. “You will get over that feeling. It w
ill be wonderful for you. Open the world before you very beautifully. It’s an exhilarating thing for a young man to have money, it is indeed. My father was very generous with me when I was a young man. I had a very good time, but I was foolish, credulous. It slipped through my fingers. I want you to take better care of—your money.” He pronounced the last two words with an uncontrollable wryness, as of one who had set his teeth into bitter fruit.

  Finch gulped, then said in a shaky voice: “There’s one thing certain. When I get the money I’m going to—do things for those who have a better right to it than me. If I can, I want to do something for each one that he would have liked to do if he had got the money/’ He looked beseechingly at Ernest. “I want you to go to England for a trip, and to consult those books in the British Museum for your Commentary—” He jerked his head toward the desk.

  Ernest was touched. “Oh no. I could not think of doing that.”

  “Yes, you will! To please me. And Uncle Nick—and the others—something nice for each one!” His eyes were almost radiant.

  “Well, well, we’ll see. It’s very handsome of you, anyhow.” A light was roused in his eyes, too. Then he looked meditative. He said: “There’s one person for whom I should like you to do something. Someone who, at present, can’t do much for himself. He does need help, and he’s so very brilliant. I don’t want to see him forced into some work that will take away his impulse toward poetry.”

  “You mean Eden?” Great Scott, he had never thought of Eden! Yet it was true enough what Uncle Ernest said.

  “I wonder what I could do for him?”

  Ernest said, almost cheerfully: “You will know when the time comes. I only wish something could be done now. He’s so much stronger, but he must be taken care of. He could come home if it weren’t for Piers.”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can do,” and Finch left, feeling an almost tumultuous sense of responsibility for his family.

  He did not see Piers until dinner, when he came in bare-throated, healthy, bright-eyed, after driving a good bargain for a carload of apples. He grinned at Finch, with derision rather than malice, and, after they were seated at table, said: “No wonder you took to your bed! I’d have done the same if I had got it.”

  “For God’s sake,” returned Finch, in a whisper, “shut up!” But even this meeting was much easier than he had expected. Life was going on at Jalna, the loom was moving slowly, creakingly, but it was moving, and Finch, in his new aspect, was drawn into the changed pattern.

  He was undressing that first night when he heard soft steps ascending the stairs. He was startled, for he seldom had a visitor. Wakefield appeared in the doorway.

  He advanced with an ingratiating smile. “I simply couldn’t sleep, Finch. Kenny’s out for the evening and he didn’t tell me where, so I can’t be sure what time he’ll come in.” He added rather patronizingly: “I thought you might feel nervous up here all alone after your breakdown. I thought I’d better come and bear you company.”

  Finch returned, in the same tone: “Well, I’m afraid you will repent you of your folly. I’m a beastly bedfellow, and I’m going to have the light on and read for a bit.”

  “That will just suit me!” cried Wake gaily, scrambling into the bed and clutching the sheet defensively. “I really want to talk with you about your plans, and give you a little advice about looking after all your money. You see,” he proceeded, hugging his knees, “I know more than you’d guess about money. What I mean is, that I know a lot about making a little bit of money go a long way. I could make a hundred thousand dollars seem almost like a million. If you were to make me a little allowance—I wouldn’t ask for more than twenty-five cents a week, just enough to keep Mrs. Brawn from nagging at me all the time—I’d give you advice that would be worth a lot to you. I can tell by the looks of you that you haven’t got a good head for business. Piers says you won’t have your money any time until you’ll lose it. I say, Finch, how would you like to divide it equally with me? Then we’d have loads of fun seeing who could make the most out of his share. Like the Parable of the Talents.”

  “Your particular talent,” said Finch, sitting on the edge of the bed, “is nerve. You’ve got more than anyone I know. I don’t know how you’ve reached the age you have without someone giving you a bang that would finish you, you’re so darned cheeky. As though I’d trust you with any of my money!” No doubt about it, there was a thrill in “my money”!

  Wake successfully assumed the expression of his aunt when displeased. “I hope,” he reproved, with his upper lip lengthened, “that you’re not going to be close-fisted the moment you get rich.”

  “For goodness’ sake!” shouted Finch, “have a heart! I’m not rich! How much money do you suppose I’ve got? Ninety-eight cents—that’s what. And I’m invited to spend a week with Arthur Leigh!”

  Wake looked pleased. “That’s nice, isn’t it? Because when you’re visiting a rich fellow like that you’ll not need any money. You might just as well leave the ninety-eight cents with me. It’d pay my salary for nearly a month,”

  “If I was some brothers,” declared Finch, “I’d give you a good hiding and send you downstairs. I suppose you’d tell, though.”

  Wake shook his head firmly. “No, I shouldn’t. I’d bear the pain with all the fortitude I could muster,”

  Finch groaned. “Gosh—the language you use! It’s awful to hear a small boy talking like an old gentleman of seventy. That’s what comes of having no other kids to play with.”

  Wake’s luminous eyes darkened; he played his never-failing trump card. “No—no, Finch, I don’t think it’s that… I think it’s because I’m pretty sure I’ll never live to be seventy—or p’r’aps even grow up. I want to use all the language I can in the short while I’m here.”

  “Rot!” But it was too bad to be rough with the poor little fellow… When he got his money he’d do something nice for Wake!

  He got up, undressed, changed his mind about reading, and was just going to put out the light when Wakefield said, in a cajoling tone: “I say, Finch, aren’t you going to do—you know what?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh yes, you do!” His smile was sly. “Shut the door first.”

  Finch, about to blow out the candle, growled: “Haven’t an earthly idea what you’re babbling about.”

  “You said—that day—that you—oh, Finch, please do it!” He made a gesture to express mystery. “That lovely thing you said you did—in front of the little goddess.”

  “Oh, that!” He stood motionless above the candle flame, an odd pointed shadow on his forehead, the hollows of his eyes dark.

  “You wouldn’t like that. It would frighten you.” “Frighten me! Never! I shan’t tell a soul of it.”

  “Swear!”

  “I swear.”

  “If you breathe a word of this I’m done with you forever and ever, remember!”

  He went to the cupboard. There was a mysterious rustling, while Wake sat upright on the bed shivering in ecstasy.

  Finch brought forth the figure of Kuan Yin and set it on the desk. He took from a drawer a packet of small pyramids of incense, and stood one at her feet. The moon had risen above the treetops and was sending a shaft of light, clearly defined as the blade of a sword, in at the window. Finch blew out the candle. The various objects in the room were reclaimed by darkness; only the delicate porcelain figure of Kuan Yin held the light like a jewel. He lighted the incense. A blue spiral of smoke arose from it, and spread like a tremulous veil to the verge of the moon-shaft. A pungent, exotic scent sought the expectant nostrils of the boys. They became still as the statue herself; their faces, drained of colour by the moon, seemed also shaped in porcelain. A sudden gust had arisen; the oaks began to sigh and then to shake. The moon, which had seemed clear of the treetops, now was caught in their upward straining, her light shattered into bright prisms dissolving, rejoining, dancing across the darkness. The spirits of the boys were not in their bodies, but were liberated by the
incense.

  Under the guidance of Kuan Yin, patroness of sailors, they floated through the casement into moonlit seas of an unearthly beauty.

  XXV

  A LOAN

  “WHAT do you suppose I dreamed?” asked Wake. “You’ll never guess.”

  Inarticulate sounds came from Finch’s pillow.

  “I dreamed that you were a flower!”

  A grunt that weakened into a chuckle. Finch opened an eye. “What sort of flower?”

  “Not a very pretty one, I’m afraid.” His voice was gently regretful. “I don’t know the variety. A long, yellowish sad-looking flower…”

  “Hmph.”

  “But”—gaily—“just crammed with honey!”

  “The deuce I was!”

  “Yes—and I was a bee! One of those jazzy little brown bees that go gathering—”

  It was enough. Finch smothered him under a pillow and did not release him until he admitted that he was a liar, a toady, and an altogether filthy little reptile.

  No mention was made, while Finch dressed and Wake splashed in the basin, of the ceremony of the night before. In the darkness the figure of Kuan Yin had disappeared, but Wake’s sensitive nose was aware of a subtle fragrance in the room, a delicate elation of the spirit as from a lovely half-remembered dream.

  It was a morning of swinging white clouds against an ardent blue sky. The thick yellow sunshine was flung on the grey walls of the attic room as though with a brush. More gold than gold it seemed; the sky bluer than blue; the grass and trees more green than ever green had been. That querulous artist Summer, who had given them during her season so many blurred and wanly tinted pictures, now seemed intent on splashing her last colour on the final canvas with furious brilliance.

  “What a day,” cried Wake, “for going on a visit! How I wish I were!” He paused in the scrubbing of his face with a washcloth to look pensive. “Do you know, Finch, I’ve never been on a visit in my life? Not one little visit! I wonder if ever I shall!”