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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “The uncles don’t look very well,” he said.

  “Ah, it was the winter,” said Meg. “And the anxiety. But now that you are home and the summer coming, you’ll see how they will pick up.”

  “I hope so.” After a moment’s silence, in which he absorbed the almost forgotten sweet humming of bees in a flowering-currant bush, he exclaimed, “Gosh, it will seem strange to see someone else at Vaughanlands! what is this fellow, Clapperton, like?”

  “Very nice indeed,” said Meg. “You must go with me to call on him. He has all sorts of interesting schemes. A sunroom, a swimming pool, a rose garden with a sun dial.”

  “Hmph.”

  “You won’t say that when you meet him ... Oh, Piers, it will be such a relief to have someone at Jalna who has experience of farming and knows how the farm horses should be cared for! Of course, you have been told about the Clydesdale mare.”

  “No. What was that?”

  Meg poured out the story of Wright’s dismissal, of the man whom Alayne and Finch had engaged and how he had caused the death of the Clydesdale. Piers gave a grunt of heartfelt anger at the tale of incompetence and disaster.

  “It was the same with everyone,” said Finch. “Everyone was having trouble.”

  “It is a mercy,” declared Meg, “that Wright had the loyalty to stay on even though Alayne discharged him. I can’t tell you how overbearing she has become, yet she has little control of her children.”

  “I miss Adeline,” said Piers. “when are her holidays?”

  “Early in June. She’s growing to be a lovely girl. How she hates going to boarding school! But Alayne would have it. Poor little Archer and Roma were dying to stay home today because of your coming but Alayne wouldn’t hear of it. Really, she’s becoming a tyrant. The servants don’t like her. Wright hates her, for she thwarts him at every turn. The poor dogs are so cowed they scarcely dare enter the house. She has torn off the lovely embossed wallpaper that has been in the hall ever since the house was built and had the walls done in cream-colour. It’s really shocking.”

  Piers’ eyes became prominent. “I didn’t notice! I was in such a hurry to see the uncles, I didn’t notice. The woman must be mad. She’ll have old redhead in a rage when he comes home.”

  “She can find money for everything she wants to do,” said Meg, “but she’s positively penurious when other things are suggested. No one but Rags and Cook and Wright would have stayed with her.”

  “You exaggerate,” said Finch. “I think Alayne is very kind. Think of how much she must have endured in having Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest here!”

  “Endured!” cried Meg. “Think of what it has meant to her to have them as companions! Alayne knew nothing of the world when she came to Jalna.”

  “She came from New York.”

  “Oh, that!” said Meg.

  “Here they come!” Piers waved his hand in welcome to his uncles who now appeared in the porch, followed by Rags carrying an armful of cushions and travelling rugs.

  “We’re coming,” said Ernest, “to enjoy the sunshine. It is the first day we have found it really warm enough for sitting on the lawn. How green the grass is!”

  “And there’s the puppy!” Nicholas clapped his hands at it. “A good one too. I’d like a puppy of my own but I daren’t suggest it to Alayne.”

  Meg gave Piers a look.

  “And I,” added Ernest, “have wished many a time in the past winter for a Persian kitten. They’re very amusing little things. But — of course — they make trouble.” He sighed and sank into the chair Rags had arranged for him.

  “This ’ouse, Mr. Piers,” said Rags in a low tone, “ain’t what it was in regard to pets. I don’t object to them. My wife don’t object. It’s the mistress who objects.”

  Piers scarcely heard. He was playing with the puppy. Oh, the delicious gnawing of its tiny teeth on his fingers! Oh, the velvet softness of its hide! Oh, its ignorance of misery or of pain!

  Meg was saying, “Tomorrow I will take you to see Mr. Clapperton. I’m sure you’ll like him.”

  Piers turned to Nicholas. “what do you think of him, Uncle Nick?”

  “Think he’s a horrid old fellow.”

  “Oh, Uncle Nick,” cried Meg, “how can you say such a thing! I think he is very nice and so is his secretary, young Mr. Swift who is cramming Mooey.”

  “Cramming Mooey!” repeated Piers. “I haven’t been told of that.”

  “He’s no better,” said Nicholas. “A horrid young fellow.”

  The next afternoon Meg did take Piers to call on Mr. Clapperton. She had arranged for this by telephone as she wanted to make sure that the new owner of Vaughanlands would be at home. It was very strange to Piers to stop before that door, to ring the bell, to be met by a stranger.

  The neCentenaryomer seemed a decent sort, in spite of what Uncle Nicholas had said. There was something innocent-looking about him. He had a wide-awake enquiring look in his eyes. Yet there was a hard little quirk at the corner of his mouth, like a wrought-iron handle on a door.

  “Ah, Mrs. Vaughan,” he said, “come in, come in. I have just been thinking of you, for I need your advice about several things.”

  They warmly shook hands and Meg introduced Piers.

  “It must feel wonderful to you to be at home again.” Mr. Clapperton was leading them into the room that once had been particularly Meg’s own. Now bereft of its chintz and soft cushions, it looked uncompromising. Yet it looked luxurious. Everything looked luxurious to Piers. He felt like a chessman who had been swept from the chessboard, thrown into a desolate dustbin, a rubbish heap where he had lain for years and now been somehow rescued, wiped clean, tidied up and once again placed on the board to play his part. At Jalna he could talk but here he was almost dumb. He disappointed Meg by his terse responses to Mr. Clapperton’s questions.

  But Mr. Clapperton was not rebuffed. He talked on and on about greenhouses, swimming pools, sunrooms. It was very hard to get anything in the way of building done but he was satisfied to go slowly. To play with ideas delighted him — now that he had leisure for playing.

  After Piers’ half-washed companions in the prison camp, Mr. Clapperton looked miraculously clean. He looked as though from birth onward he had been miraculously clean. He began to talk of the new bathroom he was installing, “For I cannot bear to share my bathroom with anyone, Mrs. Vaughan. Not even my secretary, who is quite a fastidious young man.”

  In the next room a typewriter was clicking energetically.

  “Oh, I can quite understand,” agreed Meg who, all her life, had been accustomed to sharing the one bathroom with the family.

  “Is that your secretary typing?” asked Piers.

  “Yes. That’s Sidney.”

  “He’s tutoring my boy. I was at the stables this morning when he came. I haven’t met him.”

  “Ah, he’s very brilliant. When the War is over and he finds his proper niche, I think he’ll make a name for himself.”

  Piers gave a grunt.

  “Now, Mrs. Vaughan, I want you to come outdoors and inspect some of the things I’ve planned to do on the estate.” He spoke with relish.

  It was late in the May afternoon. There was an inexpressible balminess, a golden gilding in the air. Bees suddenly had become active, humming above the buttercups, lolling in the blossoms of an elm locust. Piers, staring across the fields, forgot what Meg and Mr. Clapperton were saying. His eyes rested on the hazy blue distance. Then he saw a man ploughing and two men planting trees.

  “You are fortunate,” Meg was saying, “to be able to get men.”

  “Veterans of the War. I pay high wages. Can you see what they are doing, Mrs. Vaughan?”

  “That one is ploughing, isn’t he? But — what a long furrow!”

  “It isn’t a furrow!” Mr. Clapperton chuckled. “It’s a street! I’m laying out a village. That’s the surprise I’ve hinted at. Now you see for yourself.”

  “A village!” Meg was thunderstruck.

&n
bsp; “Yes. A village!” He gave a delighted laugh. “You know how one has ideas in one’s mind — things you’d love to do, if you just had the money. Well, my idea has always been a model village. A pretty little village. A real picture village. When I retired from business — with plenty of money — I looked about me for a site. I wanted a place in the real country but not too far from the city. I must have people for my village. Well, there is a great scarcity of small houses, isn’t there? I expect to get only half a dozen built this year. But after the War it will grow like wildfire.”

  “why didn’t you tell me this at the first?” Meg asked in a trembling voice.

  “Because, being a business man, my dear lady, I was afraid you might raise the price. Besides which I wanted to surprise you and everyone else. Childish of me, but I’m like that.”

  “Mr. Clapperton,” said Meg, “if I had known you would start a village here, I should not have raised the price of the estate, I should have refused to sell. As a matter of fact you mustn’t do it.”

  “But why not?” He looked astonished and hurt.

  “Because my family will never forgive you, if you do. Once my husband sold some land to a builder who intended to put up a few bungalows but my eldest brother never rested till he had put a stop to it.”

  “Well, I’m afraid he’ll have to put up with my village. It’s been a dream of mine for years. Just you wait till you see it, Mrs. Vaughan. You’ll be delighted with it and so will your family. It isn’t going to be one of these ugly villages that looks like a bit of a city broken off and set down in the country. Mine will be as pretty as a picture. No two houses exactly alike. Trees along the streets. You see I’m having them planted already. And when the time comes for a gasoline station! Well, just wait till you see what Sidney and I have planned!”

  “where are you going to find buyers for these houses?” asked Piers.

  “I’m not going to sell. Just rent. You should see the waiting list I have, of people who want to get out into the country but still be accessible to their work. I even have a name chosen for my village. You’ll never guess.”

  “Clappertown?” said Piers.

  Mr. Clapperton leant backward in his astonishment. “However did you guess?”

  “I’m good at that sort of thing. And you’re probably going to name the streets after trees — Maple Avenue, Spruce Avenue, Chestnut Avenue — and plant only the sort of tree to suit the name.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. What a fine idea!”

  “And when you reach the point of building a pub, you can call it the Clapperton Arms.”

  Mr. Clapperton laughed and flushed. “I see you have the right spirit,” he said. “Honestly, Mrs. Vaughan, I don’t believe you’ll have any fault to find with my planning. Please come over here and let me tell you.”

  They went to where they could see the little streets being marked by the plough, the little trees planted neatly at the verge. Instinct told Meg and Piers that to reason with Mr. Clapperton was useless. He was realizing the dream of his life. Indeed, he scarcely seemed to hear any objections they made.

  Piers was so deeply content to be home again that he was not disturbed by the proposed building scheme. If a new village were to appear on the scene, it might not do much harm. Anyhow, it was better than the devastation he had witnessed in Europe. What he wanted was to hasten back to his own house, to be under the same roof with Pheasant, to play with his puppy. He did not want to worry about anything.

  He found Pheasant working in her flower border.

  “I’ve made up my mind to have more flowers this summer,” she said, kissing him rapturously, “now that you’re home!”

  Under the embrace, she concealed the fact that she had been having a time of it with Philip. She had had hard work to keep from saying, “Just wait till your father comes back!”

  Piers’ name often had been held over Philip’s head, by various members of the family, by Rags and by Wright. One look into Piers’ face had shown Philip what sort of man he was. In his presence the little boy was nothing less than an angel. The entrance of Piers into his vicinity had an effect nothing short of marvellous. The moment before he might have been looking and behaving like a small terror but the sound of Piers’ voice, his step, a glimpse of him coming his way, brought a look of sweet obedience into Philip’s face.

  More than once Pheasant had to turn her own face away to hide the laughter in her eyes. She could not bear to tell Piers of his badness, though Maurice urged her to. It was Maurice’s earnest prayer that Piers would one day walk in on the scene of a fracas. But Philip seemed to have a sixth sense that warned him of his sire’s approach. Now he came into the garden and slipped a small grubby hand into Piers’, as though for protection. He raised his baby-blue eyes to Piers

  Piers smiled at Pheasant. “By George, he’s like Grandfather! I believe he’s going to look even more like him than I do.”

  “Same pugnacious spirit, too,” she replied.

  Piers squeezed the little hand. He was proud of Philip. And of Nooky too, but the feeling of antagonism that Maurice had roused in him when a child was still roused by the youth. Piers tried to conceal this beneath a hearty manner but Maurice was conscious of it, even acknowledged to himself that he had expected it and that it would not take much to make him reciprocate. Yet they had been but two days together.

  “where’s the puppy? where’s Trixie?” he asked. Maurice came out of the house with her.

  “She’s just been making a puddle,” he said, “in the dining room.”

  “I hope you cleaned it up,” said Pheasant.

  “Indeed I did.”

  “My God,” exclaimed Piers. “You’ve got an Irish accent.”

  “He affects it occasionally,” said Pheasant.

  “Don’t do it,” said Piers. “Trixie and I don’t like it. Do we, Trixie?” He picked up the puppy who went wild with kissing him and trying to fall out of his arms at one and the same time.

  Piers became suddenly serious. “Have you heard the news?” he asked.

  “what news?”

  “This man, Clapperton, is going to build a model village or some sort of monstrosity on Vaughanlands.”

  “No!” she cried, astonished. “who told you?”

  “Himself. He must be pretty rich.”

  “It’s a horrible idea,” Pheasant exclaimed. “Has Meg been told?”

  “Yes. She can’t prevent it.”

  “why didn’t she have building restrictions put in the agreement?”

  “Don’t ask me! But she’s taking it without much fuss. Why not? Changes are in the air. Anyhow, he’ll probably lose all his money in the scheme. It’s crazy.”

  “No, he won’t,” put in Maurice. “He has a wonderful business head. Everything he does prospers.”

  “So you knew about it all the while?” said Piers, staring at him.

  “Yes. Sidney Swift told me. But nothing could be done about it, so I kept it to myself.”

  “A strange thing to do.”

  Maurice flushed. “I knew it would be a worry.”

  “Well, I’m not going to worry about it,” said Piers. ‘But just wait till Renny comes home! If he isn’t the death of that old blighter, it will be a wonder.”

  Nothing, indeed, could disturb Piers for more than a moment. His serenity at being home once again was too deep. He woke each morning with a delicious, calm surprise at finding himself under his own roof, with the five hundred fertile acres of Jalna smiling in the May sunshine. The day was not long enough for all he had to do. He loosed the pent-up vitality of the imprisoned years on the waiting land. Wright did the ploughing and he the harrowing, the seeding. As he sat behind the massive bodies of the team, as a thousand times he had dreamed of doing, watched the dark tillage spread or thought of the grain sown, gladness filled him that he had survived with the strength to do a man’s work. Sometimes Pheasant’s image came between him and the fields. In the years of absence she had become strangely unreal, a
symbol of love and womanhood rather than flesh and blood. But now she was a warm, breathing being again whose heart he felt beating against his, who could not keep her eyes off him, who treated him sometimes like the returned hero of the war and sometimes like a little lost child returned to her. Whichever way it was, it suited Piers.

  Never a day passed when he did not go to Jalna to see his uncles. Fresh from his farm work, ruddy, tanned by the increasing heat of the sun, he brought new vigour to them. It was amazing to see how they improved. Day by day they looked less and less like men nearing their end. Just to watch Piers eat his tea, just to witness the amount of bread and jam he consumed, was enough to make them hungry. He never visited them without telling them some ridiculous story to make them laugh. He made them go to the stables to inspect the fine calves and foals and little pigs that were arriving with an unprecedented strength and gusto. Even the hens hatched large broods as though to show him what they could do.

  The note of peevishness left Ernest’s voice. He put on weight. Nicholas growled and grumbled less. His gout troubled him less, so that he was able to walk about and enjoy the garden. Piers’ return had given a new meaning to life at Jalna. Now it seemed possible that the torn fabric of that life might be mended, the course of its stream again might flow strongly.

  No one felt this more deeply than Finch. No longer was he leaned on, as a last support. He took his place as a younger brother. He threw himself into the work with all his strength, which was not great at the outset, for he had been very tired at the end of his tour. But working with the horses, driving the truck in the early morning, planting the vegetable garden, gave him a new vitality. Many a time he thought he would like to go on living such a life, with music no more than a love to come home to rather than an overbearing mistress, as it must be in the life of a concert pianist.

  There was one person who rejected all physical labour and that was young Maurice. Always there were his studies to intervene. To judge by what he said, Sidney Swift was an exacting teacher but often they were heard by Pheasant in lively conversation, not of a mathematical sort. Maurice often returned to Vaughanlands with Swift and sometimes they went to town together. Piers did not like the tutor and looked forward to the day when he would see the last of him.