The door was ceremoniously opened by Rags who that morning had had a very close hair cut and in consequence looked a hardened little criminal.
“Good afternoon, Rags,” said Meg. “I think my uncles are expecting us. I hope they are well.”
“They are indeed expecting you, ma’am, and as well as can be looked for in this weather. Mr. Nicholas’ knee is pretty bad.”
He escorted them to the drawing-room which seemed to Mr. Clapperton quite full of people. All fixed their eyes enquiringly and critically on him. “Can this old gentleman be ninety?” thought Mr. Clapperton. “He certainly doesn’t look it.” He said, “Your niece, Mrs. Vaughan, has talked a lot about you to me, sir.”
They shook hands. Ernest was favourably impressed. He saw a man a little past middle age and middle height, fresh-coloured, with light enquiring eyes and thin grey hair carefully brushed. He wore spats, a pale grey suit and an air of businesslike friendliness.
“Excuse me. Can’t very well get up,” mumbled Nicholas. “Gout. Had it for years.”
“Too bad, too bad,” sympathized Mr. Clapperton. “I gathered from your niece that your health is not very good.”
“Perfectly good otherwise,” growled Nicholas.
Ernest put in, “Have you met my niece, Mrs. Piers Whiteoak? Pheasant —”
She interrupted, “Oh, yes, we’ve met. Long ago.”
Meg brought forward Finch and Wakefield. They were almost of a height but Wakefield appeared the taller, with the straightness of his training on him and the proud carriage of his head. There was a look about his mouth that showed he had known great fatigue, and a look in his eyes of one used to risking his life. The air force blue of his uniform made his skin a little sallow. Meg was proud of them both and, with that air, introduced them to the visitor, explaining the fact that Finch was not in uniform by saying:
“Finch is a concert pianist. He has made a tour right across the continent.”
“Isn’t that fine?” said Mr. Clapperton.
“Troops too much entertained. Too little trained,” growled Nicholas.
“This is my youngest brother, Wakefield,” said Meg.
“He has lately arrived on a short leave, on his way to England.”
“You’ve been an actor in London, I hear,” said Mr. Clapperton as he shook hands with him.
“Bad actor, from the first,” added Nicholas.
“We are very proud of him,” said Ernest. “He has been given the Distinguished Flying Cross by the King, for gallantry.”
“Too many decorations in this war,” said Nicholas, winking at Wakefield.
“And here,” cried Meg, “is your own young man, Mr. Swift, and our nephew, Mooey, whom he’s tutoring.”
Mr. Clapperton was not entirely pleased to find his secretary already at Jalna. He was a good-natured man but he had a firm idea of his own importance. He gave Sidney Swift a frosty smile. Then his face lighted as he looked about the room. He exclaimed:
“May I remark on the beauty of your furniture? I thought I had some nice pieces! But these!” After an admiring contemplation of the well-polished Chippendale, he added, on a deeper note, “And to think that just such pieces as these are being bombed!”
“Yes, isn’t it terrible?” said Meg.
“Too much old stuff in the world,” growled Nicholas. “World cluttered up with antiques — material and human. Isn’t that so, Mr. Swift?”
“I quite agree,” cried the young man. “I often say —” but, after a glance from Mr. Clapperton, he did not say what he often said.
At this moment Alayne entered the room with the air of elegance that always distinguished her. The party was now complete and, after welcoming Mr. Clapperton, she sat down behind the tea tray which Rags had just carried in. The new neighbour sat near her while the four young men busied themselves in carrying about teacups and plates of thin bread and butter and cakes. Mr. Clapperton remarked sympathetically to Alayne:
“I hear you have had two very ill children.”
“Yes. My little son had his tonsils taken out. It was an unusually bad case but he is better now, I’m thankful to say.”
“Tonsils,” said Nicholas, “just disappear naturally if you leave ’em alone. Mine did.”
Ernest said, “I sometimes think my health would be better if I’d had mine out.”
“It’s not too late. Have ’em out next week.”
“And your little girl,” said Mr. Clapperton to Alayne, “is she better?”
“Thank you, she has quite recovered. She is a very strong child.”
Nicholas heaved himself in his chair, so that he faced Mr. Clapperton. “Now I want to know,” he said, “why you should choose to live in the country. You strike me as a man absolutely of the town.”
“Not at all, sir,” Mr. Clapperton spoke a little huffily. “I’ve always had the ambition to end my days on a country estate where I could play at being farmer.”
“Life in the country isn’t what it used to be, you know. Help question’s terrible.”
Mr. Clapperton smiled. “I plan to use modern business methods. Everything up to date. Wages to tempt the most experienced men. Oh, I have many plans!” He gave a silent chuckle. “I’ll surprise you by what I’ll do.”
“My father,” said Ernest, “used to employ twenty men at Jalna. Farmhands, gardeners; we had our own carpenter’s shop — our own smithy.”
“And cheap labour, I’ll bet,” returned Mr. Clapperton. “Those were the days!”
“Certainly,” said Meg, “we now have to scrabble along as best we can. I’m thankful to see Vaughanlands in the hands of someone who has the money to run it properly. I’ve had enough of making shift.”
There was a silence in which Nicholas noisily supped his tea. Mr. Clapperton gave him a quick look, then turned to Maurice. “So you are the young gentleman my secretary is teaching.”
“Well, he’s trying to, sir. I’m afraid he finds it pretty heavy going at times.”
Pupil and tutor exchanged smiles. “This lad,” said Swift, “has been mentally submerged by the classics. I’m doing what I can to bring him to the surface.”
“And a mighty unpleasant surface it is,” said Finch gloomily.
“Just wait till we get the rubbish cleared away.”
“Meaning our kind,” said Nicholas, putting a small muffin whole into his mouth.
“Oh, no, Mr. Whiteoak. I mean the accumulation of outworn tradition.”
“Description answers perfectly,” growled Nicholas, through the muffin.
“People like you,” put in Mr. Clapperton, “have been the backbone of this country.”
“Very handsome of you to say so.”
“Development and change are necessary,” said Ernest, “and I always like to feel myself in the forefront of such.”
“Good man!” said his brother.
Meg now brought the conversation to personal affairs, from where it led quite naturally to the financial difficulties of the church. Mr. Clapperton was sympathetic but showed no disposition to offer financial aid. Before he left he expressed a wish to see the other rooms on the ground floor. A group progressed into the library and dining room. Mr. Clapperton might have been a connoisseur of old furniture, to judge by the profound expression with which he stood before each piece. But the truth was he knew little and gave his rapt attention to things of no value, such as the ugly and ornate whatnot which stood in a corner of the library, its shelves covered by photographs, papier mâché boxes and Victorian china ornaments. But, when in the dining room, he stood before the portraits of Captain Philip Whiteoak and his wife, Adeline, his enthusiasm increased, if that were possible.
“There,” he exclaimed, “is what I call a perfect example of a gallant English officer!”
Captain Whiteoak, blond and bold in his Hussar’s uniform, looked unconcernedly over their heads.
Meg said, “My brother Piers, the one who is a prisoner in Germany, is the image of Grandpapa.”
“And you should see my little boy, Philip!” cried Pheasant. “The likeness is remarkable.”
“As an officer,” said Nicholas, “my father was overbearing to his inferiors, insubordinate toward his superiors and was never so happy as when he got out of the army.”
“And what a striking woman your mother was!” exclaimed Mr. Clapperton, rapt before the other portrait.
“Right you are,” agreed Nicholas. “She’d hit any one of us over the head as lief as look at us.”
When the guests had gone, Meg asked, “Now what do you think of my Mr. Clapperton?”
“I think,” said Nicholas, “that he’s a horrid old fellow.”
“Do you indeed? Then what is your feeling about that good-looking secretary of his?”
“I think,” returned Nicholas, filling his pipe, “that he’s a horrid young fellow.”
VII
THE WANING OF THE YEAR
ALAYNE HAD MET with much criticism from Meg and the uncles because of her dismissal of Wright. He had been at Jalna for more than twenty years. He had been Renny’s right-hand man in the care of the horses. He had ridden beside him in many a show. He could be depended on. To be sure he was no farmer, nor did he pretend to be. To grow sufficient hay and oats for the horses satisfied him. Where the stables were concerned he was extravagant and nothing could change him. Alayne had had little to do with him before the war. Since Renny’s departure there had been a constant tug-of-war between them. He was, in her opinion, demanding, headstrong and inflexible; she, in his, close-fisted and interfering. Now they stood facing each other. She had in her hand a cheque for the amount of his wages.
“You know what I think, ma’am,” he said. “I was hired by Colonel Whiteoak and I don’t feel like taking notice from anyone but him. In fact, I ain’t going to.”
Alayne felt her anger rising. “This is ridiculous, Wright,” she said, “and you know it is. I am in complete authority here. I have given you notice. Now I intend to pay you your wages. So let us have no more arguing about it.”
He thrust his hands behind his back. “Listen here, ma’am. The farmhand has given me notice. What are you going to do when he’s left?”
“Given you notice!” she exclaimed. “If he wishes to give notice let him give it to me.”
“He’ll do that fast enough. He wants to leave at the end of a fortnight.”
“Well, let him leave. There are others. In fact, we can get along quite well with one good man at this time of year.”
Wright smiled grimly. “Perhaps you can find one,” he said.
Alayne proffered him the cheque, but he kept his hands behind his back.
“Please take this,” she said sharply, her colour rising.
“No, Mrs. Whiteoak, I ain’t going.”
“Do you like the idea of staying on without wages?” she asked.
“No. I don’t, but I’ll do it sooner than let the boss down.”
“Your flat over the garage will be needed for the new man.”
“You can’t put me out of there for three months, ma’am.”
“Then he can live in the cottage. You are doing yourself no good, Wright, by behaving like this.”
“I ain’t out to do myself good, ma’am.”
Alayne turned sharply away and left him.
Finch was her comfort in these days. Now he went to the town and at the office of the Selective Service interviewed several men. He engaged one who had been discharged from the army, and he was installed in the one cottage which remained of those built for farmhands in the early days at Jalna. He was a clean, bright-looking young man and Alayne felt that Finch had done well in acquiring him. Wright would not let him do anything more for the show horses than to clean their stalls but put the farm horses in his care, with many injunctions as to feeding.
A few days after his coming the weather turned bitterly cold. The new man gave ice-cold water to the horses to drink and one of them, a handsome Clydesdale mare, took a chill. All that Wright and the veterinary could do to save her failed and the next day she lay, a mountain of solid flesh, dead in her stall. Wright did not bring the bad news to Alayne but entrusted it to Wragge who told it with the air of one bringing tidings of a national disaster. She was greatly distressed and felt in this misfortune some sinister negligence on the part of Wright — a cruel desire to get even with her.
Now Wragge stood before her, his hands clasped on his stomach, an almost clerical look on his face. He was saying:
“I think we shall just ’ave to put our pride in our pocket, ma’am, and let Wright stay on. ’E understands the ’orses and the ’orses understand ’im. These ’ere fellers you engage ’ap’azard, they’re no good.”
She stood silent, twisting her fingers together.
Wragge went on, “Dear knows what disaster will come next, if this feller stays on.”
Adeline entered the hall from the side door. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She said, in a choking voice:
“How can I tell Daddy! whatever will he say!”
“You had better go up to your room, dear,” said Alayne.
“Ow,” put in Wragge, “she’s ’eartbroken — just like I am!”
Alayne said, “You may tell Wright to come and I will see him here.”
She did see him and, in a controlled voice, revoked her decision to discharge him. The new man was sent away. But all this did not bring back the grand Clydesdale and Alayne’s heart was heavy.
But the house was far from gloomy. Finch and Wakefield were happy in being once again at Jalna (even though Wakefield’s time there would be short). Since Sarah’s marriage, Finch felt a new freedom. He was done with that phase of his life — done with it! Never again would those slender arms wind themselves about his neck as though to suffocate him, never again those narrow eyes, set like jewels in the head, discharge their cold passion into his soul. He had seen the last of Sarah, the very last. If ever again he loved a woman, and he doubted that, it would be a woman, normal — yes, absolutely normal — equable, one who knew neither ecstasies nor despairs but mild temperatures, like settled May weather.
He and Wakefield had had their disappointments, he in his marriage, Wakefield in his broken engagement. He had been engaged to Molly Griffith whose stepsisters now lived at the fox farm but it had been necessary, because of a tragic circumstance, to forego the marriage. That had been four years ago. In the bitter months at the first, Wakefield had hardened into manhood. He had an imperious way with him which took the place of his former air of a spoilt boy. He was animated; he was gay but he had within him the memory of the bliss that had borne no fruit. In their attitude toward money, the brothers were a complete contrast. When Finch had been possessed of a fortune, he had lent or given it away with scarcely a thought. He had seen Sarah’s wealth depart with her, with only relief. Now that he had little money it did not at all trouble him. He liked old clothes, he liked old possessions. He had given much of what he had made in his concert tours to war charities.
Wakefield, on the other hand, had inherited the extravagant tastes of both Courts and Whiteoaks. He liked spending money for the sheer exhilaration of spending it. He enjoyed acquiring anything new, from a thoroughbred to a pair of shoes. Old possessions depressed him, with the strong exception of Jalna and its furnishings. To him these retained their lustre unimpaired. During his short leave he constantly caused concern to Finch, vexed Alayne, delighted the children, half-worried, half-gratified the uncles, by the manner in which he threw money about — when he could lay hands on it. He reminded Nicholas and Ernest pleasurably of their own spendthrift youth, though his expenditures were insignificant compared to theirs. Now he seldom was with them for long without getting money out of them on one pretext or another. He was able even to get something from Meg. Poor boy, she would think, he may never come back to us again! The things he thought he needed were amazing, and he would store these away in his room against the time of his return. In a curious way it made him more sure that he woul
d return, to have all these possessions awaiting him.
Finch several times had urged Wakefield to go with him to see the Griffith girls at the fox farm. Wakefield had refused because of his last painful meeting there with Molly, but now, on this dark afternoon in early winter, he consented.
There was light snow on the ground as the brothers crossed the ravine. Through it showed the brown leaves and the rough brown grass.
The brown stream hurried past tiny snow-mounded islands and, stalking by himself in lonely masculine grandeur, was a cock pheasant, his wide blue collar bright as though burnished.
The three sisters were sitting by the fire in the living room when the knock sounded on the door. Althea swiftly gathered up the sketch she was making; Gemmel closed the book she was reading aloud; Garda suspended her knitting needles. So apart was their life that a knock at the door was enough to send them into confusion.
“For heaven’s sake, see who it is!” whispered Althea to Garda who flew to peep between curtains.
“It’s Finch and Wakefield Whiteoak!” she exclaimed, getting scarlet.
“Sh!” hissed Gemmel. “Fetch my lipstick — quick!” She had lately taken to using lipstick which neither of the others did. She took a small comb from her pocket and began to comb her dense dark hair. In spite of the affliction that cut her off from the pursuits of other young people, she thought more of her personal appearance than either of her sisters.
Garda flew noiselessly upstairs and brought back the lipstick which Gemmel lavishly applied. The knock sounded again. Althea was gliding from the room. Gemmel caught her by the skirt.
“Let me go!” Althea whispered fiercely.
“No! You mustn’t. They’ll think it strange if you don’t show up.”
“Tell them I’m ill.” Her beautiful wan face was flushed by colour. “Let me go, Gemmel!” But Garda had already opened the door. She greeted Wakefield as an old friend, for he had visited them in Wales. But Althea’s lips barely moved in a soundless greeting.
Garda ran to put the kettle on. Finch seated himself where he could look at Althea.
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 9