Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “It seems strange.”

  “Do you think it might possibly be arranged that I should be buried among my own family?”

  “Don’t talk about it, Meggie.”

  Finch could not remember the time when death had not seemed real and terrible to him. The loss of both parents, when he was seven, had made an indelible impression on him. But Patience had the feeling that she could never die. Her mother too must live and live. She took Meg’s hand and drew her toward the church. The last bell began to ring. People were mounting the icy steps — figures symbolic of the arduous Christian way. Finch hastened to the vestry. Patience called after him:

  “You’ll find the surplices nice and clean, Uncle Finch. Mother and I washed and ironed them all.”

  “Good for you!”

  As he passed the door he had a glimpse of Noah Binns ringing the bell, bending almost double to impart additional Christmas fervour into the act. Bellringer, gravedigger, farm-worker he had been for many a year, putting energy into only the first two of these callings. Now that he was in his seventies he spared himself still more in farm work, yet demanded higher wages — and got them. He had a patronizing and resentful attitude toward the Whiteoak family. He firmly believed that they would like to put him out of his job of bellringer and he had made up his mind to hang on to it as long as he could hang on to the bell rope.

  Now his ferret eyes and Finch’s large grey ones exchanged a look of mutual challenge.

  “Hurry up,” said Binns’ eyes, “or I’ll stop ringing before you get your danged surplice on.”

  Finch’s eyes said, “If you let me down it will be the worse for you.”

  The church was filled with the scent of greenery that was twined about pulpit, font and choir stalls. From his own body there came to Finch the clean smell of his freshly laundered surplice. Now he was in his seat near the steps of the chancel. There was no escape. He was in for reading the Lessons. Miss Pink, the organist, bent all her powers to the playing of the opening hymn. Finch stole a sly look at the congregation. For a brief moment his eyes rested on the family pews. There were the dear old uncles, with Archer fenced in between them and Adeline and Roma on the far side of Ernest. Alayne had not come. In the pew behind were Pheasant and her three sons. Across the aisle, in the Vaughan pew, Meg and Patience. All, down to Archer, knew the Christmas hymn by heart, so they were able to rivet their full attention on Finch. He began to feel horribly nervous. His mouth felt dry. He was sure his voice would come with a croak.

  The calm tones of the Rector led the congregation through the intricacies of the service. Finch watched him standing or kneeling there, his brown beard streaked with silver, and thought of his simple acceptance of the Christian faith and his unostentatious adherence to it in his daily life. Finch felt calmed. After the singing of the Venite Exultemus Domino he moved with a kind of awkward dignity to his place behind the brass eagle. In a low voice he read:

  “Here beginneth the First Chapter of the Hebrews.”

  Meg’s whisper, fierce in its intensity, came distinctly to him.

  “Louder!”

  No one regarded this admonishment of Meg’s as out of place. Those of the congregation who were near enough to hear her, thought it well that she should make an effort to keep Finch up to the family’s standard of reading the Lessons. As for Finch, he coloured deeply, then really let his voice out. It was a strong and moving voice. It had power in it. No one could complain now that what he read was not audible.

  “‘Here beginneth the First Chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews … God, who at sundry times and divers manners spake in times past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.’” And so proceeded till he came to the question: “‘For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?’” Then his eyes rested for a moment on the congregation and he gathered the breast of his surplice in his hand and pulled at it as though he would rend it. He read on:

  “‘... Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands; they shall perish, but thou remainest, and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail.’”

  Surely Finch read the sombre words far too well. Surely his voice was too moving and the expression on his long face, of too profound a melancholy. “As a vesture thou shalt fold them up!” It was not pleasant on a fine Christmas morning, thought Ernest. It was hardly decent. The little church had never heard the scriptures so read before. Even Mr. Fennel thought Finch was overdoing it.

  But it was the way he tugged at his surplice that most worried the family. When he took his place behind the lectern to read the Second Lesson, his Uncle Nicholas clutched the lapel of his own coat, tugged at it and shook his head so hard that his grey hair fell over his forehead. Finch wondered what was the matter with him. Then he perceived that his Uncle Ernest was doing the same. Startled, he clutched his surplice the tighter. He began to read in a loud nervous tone. Then he saw Meg. She was pulling at her fur collar as though she would pull it off! She was shaking her head! Now he understood. He released his surplice, controlled his voice. Suddenly he felt quite calm. He read the Second Lesson with credit and not too much feeling.

  Pheasant’s sons walked back with him across the fields. Rather they ran through the frosty air, drinking in its sweetness, rolling snowballs between their palms to hurl at each other. They were at Jalna as soon as the car which carried Nicholas and Ernest. Nicholas was somewhat disgruntled, for Ernest had insisted on his being bundled up in too many coats, mufflers, and rugs. He could not extricate himself from them. Twice he had tried to heave himself out of the seat and each time his heavy old body had sunk back onto the cushions. He had just got over a cold and Ernest was anxious about him.

  “Dammit,” growled Nicholas. “I feel like a feather bed. I’m stuck here. Tell the others. You must have dinner without me.” He pushed out his lips beneath his grey moustache and blew angrily.

  Wright now proffered his help. “Let me give you a hand, sir.”

  “No use in trying, Wright. I’m stuck. Hullo, Finch! Tell them to have dinner without me — and the Tree without me.”

  Finch laughed and grasped him by the arms. Between them he and Wright got the old man out of the car and up the steps. The front door flew open and the children, still wearing their outdoor things, came tumbling out.

  “Merry Christmas!” they shouted. “Merry Christmas, Uncle Nick!”

  “You’ve wished me that three times already,” growled Nicholas.

  “It can’t be wished too often, can it?” retorted Adeline.

  All the way into the house Nicholas grumbled. He grumbled all the while he was being divested of his wraps. He was more and more depressed about playing the part of Santa Claus. The saint might be old but he had no gouty knee to hamper him. He was hale and hearty.

  The three dogs had pushed their way into the house. The five children tore upstairs to take off their things, then tore down again. The rich smell of roasting turkey and stuffing rose from the basement. Through the keyhole and crevices of the library door the pungent scent of the Tree stole forth.

  “why are Alayne and Pheasant trying to restrain the children?” Nicholas thought. “Let ’em make all the noise they can. It will take a lot of noise to fill the void made by the absence of Renny and Piers and Wakefield.”

  At last they were seated about the table, with the massive turkey in front of Ernest. Rags had put an edge on the carving knife that might have divided a feather pillow at one stroke. Ernest faced the task with admirable calm. He twitched up his cuffs and took the knife and fork in hand. Alayne, facing him, sat very erect, a fixed smile on her lips. She did not see Ernest, but Renny, at the head of the table, the carving knife and fork poised, his bright gaze moving from the turkey to the face of the one he was about t
o serve, well knowing the particular choice of each member of the family. Pheasant must not let herself think of that prison camp in Germany! No — she must keep the thought of Piers far back in her mind, remembering only the children and that this was their day. But not so long ago — though sometimes it seemed half a lifetime — Piers had been Santa Claus, pink and white and jovial. She clenched her hands beneath the table till self-control came, then she laughed and chaffed with Finch and Mooey. Finch was in high spirits. He had come through his ordeal without disgrace, even with some credit. Physically he was feeling better than in years. He and Pheasant and Mooey never stopped laughing and talking. Rags and his wife, she in a new black dress with snowy cuffs and apron, bustled about the table. Bright sunlight, streaming between the yellow velvet curtains, shone on the silver basket mounded with bright fruit, the gay crackers, the shining heads of the children.

  But it touched something else. Nicholas bent forward to see. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Grouped about the centrepiece were three photographs framed in holly leaves. They were of Renny, Piers, and Wakefield.

  “Well,” growled Nicholas, “I’ll be shot!”

  He looked down at the richly mounded plate in front of him, at the mound of cranberry jelly Rags was offering him, in confusion and gloom.

  “I don’t like it at all,” he muttered, but nobody heard him.

  He raised his voice and repeated, “I don’t like it at all.”

  “what don’t you like, Uncle Nick, dear?” asked Meg.

  He pointed three times. “These memorial pictures. They fuss me. They take away my appetite. If they’re left on the table I shall be sick.”

  “That is just the way I feel, Uncle Nick,” said Meg, with a reproachful look at Alayne and Pheasant whose idea it had been.

  “I think it’s a grand idea,” said Finch. “It makes you feel that the chaps are almost with us in the flesh.”

  “I am sure they would be pleased,” said Ernest.

  “They’d hate it,” muttered Nicholas. “’Twould make ’em feel dead.”

  “Nonsense,” said his brother.

  “The chaps would be pleased,” said Finch.

  “They’d feel dead,” persisted Nicholas.

  Tears began to run down Pheasant’s cheeks.

  Alayne rose and took the pictures from the table. She carried them from the room with dignity, then with an impassive face returned to her place at the table. Nicholas emptied his wineglass. He felt better now. He joined in the lively talk. He drank a good deal and at last, when Finch and Meggie dressed him in his Santa Claus costume, they declared they had never seen it more becomingly worn. He forgot all about his gout. He was a noble, magnificent Father Christmas. Everyone said so. At the last Adeline threw her arms about him and drew his head down to whisper:

  “You were splendid, Uncle Nick. Archer and Philip absolutely believed in you. Christmas is being almost as good as though Daddy were here.”

  So the year drew to its close. It was a mild winter. Yet there was enough snow to make it difficult for the birds to find food. Beneath Ernest’s bedroom window there was a feeding table for birds on which Mrs. Wragge, three times a day, placed large bowlfuls of cut-up fresh bread. On it clustered the sparrows, getting more than their share of the food. But there were sleek, slate-coloured little juncos too, and many a time the lively flash of a blue jay. The two old men watched them with never-failing interest. There was great excitement on the morning when a cardinal and his mate appeared. Shy at first, they soon grew bolder, till their coral-coloured beaks pecked as intrepidly on the table as any sparrows. But when the pheasants trailed up out of the ravine the little birds gave way to them. Sparrows and juncos perched in the old hawthorn in which the table was built, to watch the great birds devour their bread, but a flash of blue and a flash of scarlet showed which way the blue jays and the cardinals had flown.

  VIII

  PIERS’ RETURN

  THE WINTER MONTHS were mild enough but when the time for spring came and there was no sign of spring it was a drag on the spirits of all save the youngest. In March and for part of April the countryside was covered by a shining layer of ice. People slipped and slithered as they walked. Fat Mrs. Wragge, carrying bread to the birds’ table, fell and broke a bone in her leg which laid her up completely for a fortnight and sadly hampered her for another. To see her hobbling about the kitchen with her huge leg in a cast seemed the last straw to Alayne. Rags suffered from a continuous cold in the head. They were a pernicious pair, Alayne thought, yet she thanked God that they were there to get through the work somehow.

  The ice was so smooth that even the dogs walked gingerly. As for the pheasants, they slipped and fell, sometimes on their breasts and sometimes on their tails, in a most droll and unbirdlike manner. This glassy monotony went on and on, week after week. It did not snow; it did not rain; it did not thaw. Winds blew down branches and blew them across the ice. The fringe of icicles, hanging from the eave outside Ernest’s bedroom window, separated the colours in the sunrays as prisms.

  In these spring months the two old men deteriorated so greatly that the others of the family began to doubt whether they would live to see Renny and Piers again. They lost appetite. They lost heart. They talked longingly of faraway days when they used to go to the South of France in the winter. They greatly missed Adeline’s presence from the house. Alayne at last had had her way and Adeline had been sent as a boarder to a girls’ school. Even the war news ceased to interest Nicholas and Ernest. When Adeline came home for the Easter holidays, she brought new life to them. She was so joyful to be at Jalna again, so full of stories of her escapades at school (exaggerated to make them laugh) such a sight for sore eyes as she galloped by on her sturdy bay cob, Timothy! But soon the holidays were over and again the brothers sank back in melancholy.

  Then one day came news which electrified the family. There had been an exchange of prisoners of war and Piers was among those expected to arrive in Canada early in May. Pheasant, who bore the news, was almost beside herself with excitement. What she had hoped for, prayed for, at times despaired of, was going to happen! The relief was almost more than she could bear. But she had not much time for thinking. There was so much to be done. The house must be shining from end to end. She must have new clothes. Everything must be beautiful for the welcome of her mate. It was more than four years since she had seen him. He had been taken prisoner so soon after going to the front. What would those years have done to him? She did not let herself think. There was no time for thought. Polishing furniture, cleaning silver, making herself a new blouse, buying herself a new suit and hat, buying new clothes for the children. She kept her feet on the ground by making the money fly.

  Sometimes she felt inundated by the flood of memories, anticipations and apprehensions, that swept over her. Sometimes her mind was a blank while she polished and sewed. Then came the day when she went to the hairdresser and when she bought a box of French facepowder and a bottle of nail enamel, which last she never brought herself to the point of using. Then, on top of that, the day when his train arrived, eight hours late.

  Finch and Maurice had persuaded her not to go to the railway station. Better welcome him in their own house with a good meal waiting. But they took the two small boys with them, wearing their Sunday suits and carrying a packet of sandwiches, in case the train should be delayed. Pheasant was thankful to have them off her hands. How she put in the day she did not know. By evening she felt exhausted by waiting. Her legs ached from walking the floor. Yet, when she heard the car coming through the mild May twilight, she ran swiftly to open the door. Then panic possessed her. She could not open it. Her throat was so dry she could not have uttered a sound. Nooky threw the door wide open.

  She saw Piers carefully descend from the car, the golden light from the afterglow full on his face.

  “We had a terribly long wait,” cried Nooky. “We thought he’d never come. But he’s here!”

  This was her own Piers, limping swif
tly toward her. His face was tanned by the sea voyage, his blue eyes were shining into hers. He crushed her against his breast.

  “Home again — home again — little Pheasant!”

  If she had gone to the station she could have hung on to herself but here, in their own home, hearing his familiar voice in the familiar surroundings, she broke down and sobbed in an anguish of relief — relief, and regret for the years of their life which they had lost.

  She had forgotten how stalwart he was. In these years she had lived among boys and old men or seen Finch’s lanky figure. But what a chest Piers had! what shoulders! what a strong column of a neck!

  “By God,” he again exclaimed, staring about him, “it’s just the same! I can’t believe in it.”

  “And me,” she got out, through her tears, “what about me? Am I very changed?”

  He held her off and looked at her. “Changed! You look just like you did the day I married you.”

  “We’re changed!” cried Philip. “Daddy didn’t know us.”

  “what do you think of Mooey?” asked Pheasant.

  Piers looked speculatively at the youth. “He’s just what I expected. He hasn’t changed — except to grow tall.”

  “It’s wonderful,” said Finch. “Your part of the family is united again. Piers from the war. Mooey from Ireland. It’s what you’ve been longing for, all these years, Pheasant. I’ll bet you are happy, aren’t you?”

  “Happy!” The word was too much for her. She broke into sobs.

  “None of that,” said Piers, in a gruff voice. “That’s no way to welcome a fellow. All right … all right … we’ll go away again, won’t we, Mooey?”

  “You shall stay just where you are!” cried Pheasant, laughing through her sobs. She threw her arms around both of them and clasped them fiercely to her. “You’ll never, never get away from me again.”

  Piers, a little shaken on his artificial leg, clasped Pheasant and Mooey to him, while Mooey, with eyes shining, clasped both parents. The sight was more than Nook and Philip could stand. They hurled themselves against the interlaced trio with the impetus of players in a Rugby match. There was a moment when it seemed that all five would go to the floor. Finch watched them, his face set in a happy grin, his eyes wet with tears.