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

by Mazo de La Roche

  They found him in the barnyard and, after a good deal of coaxing, he was persuaded to enter the van. They had not reached the end of the lane when a great commotion took place inside, followed by a heavy thud. The van stopped. The groom and the child, with white faces, galloped up. The hired man, Bob, peered into the little window of the van.

  “God Almighty!” he cried. “He’s down on his back! He’s turned a somerset!”

  What had happened seemed impossible to believe. The colt had indeed, by some extraordinary convulsion, turned completely over and lay on his back, his head toward the rear of the van.

  The farmer ran up and looked in.

  “His back’ll be broke,” he said.

  “Sure,” agreed Bob. “There’s nothing to do but shoot him. Got a gun?”

  “Hold on,” said Wright. “Hold on. What the hell are you talking about a gun for. Get me a rope, mister.”

  The farmer ran to a shed and came panting back with a heavy rope. His wife came pounding after him, distressed for fear the horse would die and the organ would be taken away from her. Wright had the door of the van open.

  The horse, looking monstrous, lay on his back, his heavy hooves dangling. His mud-caked belly looked disproportionately large, his teeth showed in a hideous grimace, his half-shut eyes were dull. Mrs. Carter thought, “And I got a beautiful organ for that! If he dies they will take the organ away!” She said to Adeline:

  “Come along with me, dear. We’ll go into the house and shut the door.”

  She tried to draw her away but Adeline threw her an angry look. “I won’t leave him,” she said fiercely.

  “His back’s broke,” said the farmer. “I can tell by the way he lies.”

  Adeline was stroking the colt’s head. She was whispering, “Our Father which art in Heaven; don’t let his back be broken … Hallowed be Thy name; don’t let his back be broken … Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil: don’t let his back be broken.”

  Wright tied the rope about the colt’s neck, so that it would not slip.

  “Now,” he said to Carter and Bob, “we’ll pull him out and see what happens.”

  The three men pulled with all their might. The great supine bulk moved slowly out of the van. A pale tongue protruded at the side of the mouth. Out of the van and on to the ground the horse moved with the listlessness of the first primeval monster that stirred in early slime.

  “Give him a kick,” said Bob, “and see if he notices.”

  Wright knelt by the colt’s head. He patted it reassuringly. Suddenly a convulsion stirred its frame. Its hooves clove the air like thunderbolts. It champed its teeth, rolled over and was on its feet, looking speculatively at those about it, as though it wondered what they would do to it next.

  “Is it all right?” asked Mrs. Carter.

  “Sure,” said Wright, untying the rope.

  “By ginger, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Nor me. I’ve worked twenty-five years with horses, and I never saw a horse turn a somerset in a van before. He was scared to death.”

  “He’ll never go into it again,” said Bob.

  But Wright talked a little to the colt, took him by the forelock and led him, without mishap, back into the van. He said to Adeline:

  “I’ve got to stay on the van to watch him. You’ll have to lead my horse. So mind what you’re about and don’t get into any trouble on the way home.”

  Mounted on her own horse and leading Wright’s bony mare, Adeline’s heart sang as they returned to Jalna. The lumbering van ahead was a lovely sight to her. She doubted not felicity, in every shape and form, in the future. They turned into the gate at the back of the estate, far from the house.

  When the colt was led into a loose box and had been given a bucket of fresh water and a feed of oats, Adeline threw both arms about Wright and hugged him with all her strength.

  “Oh, I’m so happy,” she breathed.

  He looked down frowning into her upturned face, where the eager blood showed its movement beneath the skin with every emotion. He took her wrists and disengaged himself from her.

  “You hadn’t ought to do that,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “Hug me.”

  “why?”

  “Because you’re too old.”

  “Too old?”

  “Yes. It ain’t suitable.”

  She laughed. “why, I could hug that post, I’m so happy.”

  “Go ahead and hug the post,” he returned sulkily. “That’s all right.” He went along the passage to the harness room to get the clippers.

  “You’re an old meany!” she shouted after him. “Old meany! Old meany!” She would have liked to throw something after him. But she was not really angry. When Wright began to clean the colt’s rough coat, then to clip him, she looked on in an ecstacy of interest.

  “Do you know, Wright,” she said, “I prayed that the colt’s back wouldn’t be broken.”

  “So did I,” answered Wright.

  She was taken aback. “You? You prayed?”

  “You don’t suppose you’re the only one who can pray, do you?”

  “what did you say?”

  “That’s my own business. I didn’t say much. Just sort of thought it.”

  She watched fascinated as the skilful clippers ran smoothly across the colt’s rump, and clots of shaggy hair fell to the floor. She said:

  “I hadn’t thought of you praying, Wright, though you do sometimes go to church.”

  He straightened himself and gave his quizzical look. “when I first came to Jalna I never went to church. Then one day the boss said to me, ‘I don’t like a man working for me who never goes inside the church. So if you can’t make up your mind to go to service once a month, you can get to hell out of here.’”

  “I think that was sensible.”

  “You do, uh? Well — I was mad enough to leave that very day. But I liked the place and I liked him. So I’ve stayed ever since. I like Mr. Fennel too. He’s got a kind heart and he’s a good head — for a clergyman.”

  Freed from his unkempt coat, shining like a chestnut, his mane and tail combed, even his hooves washed, the colt stood bright-eyed as though in wonder at himself. Adeline and Wright studied him blissfully. They had in him an endless subject for happy speculation.

  When at last she turned toward the house, she realized that she was very hot and very dirty. She skirted the lawn, passed through the little wicket gate that led to the ravine and descended the steep path.

  Down there it was shady and cool. The stream, still moving with something of the vigour of spring, pushed its way among a verdant growth of honeysuckle, flags, and watercress. Near the rustic bridge there was a sandy pool in which minute minnows lived a complete and volatile life.

  Adeline undressed and stepped into the pool. It was very cold. Slowly she sank into the water, forming a silent “whew” with her lips. She had brought a cake of a much advertised soap, in great favour with Wright, that had a repulsive scent of carbolic and with this she scrubbed herself, then lay down in the pool with her head on the mossy rim and allowed the stream to carry away the soapy lather. She picked a spray of watercress and ate it. She lay so still that the minnows lost their fear of her and darted alongside her relaxed limbs.

  She heard a whistle and the sound of steps. She recognized the whistle as belonging to Maurice. She leaped beneath the bridge where her clothes already were, and crouched there smiling to herself.

  Maurice saw the hideous pink of the cake of soap. He had a stick in his hand and, leaning across the rail of the bridge, he tried to impale the soap on it. Adeline could hear him give little grunts of annoyance at his failure and she could scarcely restrain her laughter. Finally the soap slid quite out of sight in a tangle of watercress. Maurice gave up the attempt and went on his way across the bridge.

  A spasm of hunger contracted Adeline’s stomach. She scrambled out of the water, sat in a patch of sunlight for three minutes to dry he
rself, discovered that she was cold and all out in gooseflesh, frowned at the discomfort of hunger and cold, scrambled into her clothes, ran across the bridge and up the steep path to the house for lunch.

  It was a pity, she thought, that she could not relate all the events of the morning but there was so much in her life that she could not tell.

  XII

  ROMA IN THE MOONLIGHT

  THE YOUNG MOON, no more than a week old, was very bright in the clear dark-blue sky but the branches of the pines often hid it in their blackness so that the night seemed dark. But then again the branches would weave, the moon would throw its light on the quiet night.

  Roma had brought the book for a walk. She had had it in her possession for some time but this evening she had the desire to walk out into the woods with it where no one would be near her. She had crossed the bridge and climbed up the far side of the ravine into the little wood of oaks and pines that shut the sight of the fox farm from Jalna.

  The book was Last Poems, written by her father, Eden Whiteoak. There had been three books of his poems standing together on a shelf in the library. She liked this one best because of its pretty colour, the shape of the lettering on it and the title — Last Poems. As they were the last he had written, it seemed to bring him nearer to her. She had taken it from the shelves and hidden it in her room. Now tonight she had wanted to carry it on a walk.

  She knew little of Eden. Alayne sometimes felt, now that Roma was old enough to understand, that she should tell the child something of the peculiar situation which once had existed at Jalna but — what to say, and what to leave unsaid? Surely some other member of the family would one day tell Roma what she should know, before insensate gossip reached her ears. But who was to tell her? Renny was far away. It would have been impossible to Finch. Nicholas was the one to have done it but he thought the child too young to be troubled by such thoughts as might arise from the knowledge of what had taken place. Ernest more than once had remarked to Roma that her father had been a beautiful young man and that, if he had lived, he might have done great things with his talent. When she was older she must read his poems. It had remained for Alma Patch, a girl from the village who had used to come by the day to help with the children, to enlighten Roma. Alma was married now and had a weak-minded child of two, but she still could be persuaded at times to lend a hand with the work at Jalna. She was weak and thin but she would scrub floors, wash clothes, or stand all day on a ladder picking cherries. Always she brought with her her child, who stayed close beside her all the while she worked. Once when she had taken him by train to town he had fallen out of the window onto the rails. The train had been stopped and crew and passengers had alighted in panic, expecting to find a mangled little body. But Oswald had got to his feet and was running unhurt after the train, howling for his mother. To her this escape was an everlasting pride. She was always telling the story of it and keeping it fresh in her son’s mind by frequent reference. “Ossie, Ossie,” she would reiterate, in a peculiar singsong and in the baby talk he understood, “Ossie — the chain yan down the chack — the chain yan down the chack!”

  It was she who told Roma all she knew of Eden.

  “why, surely you know,” Alma had said, “that your pa was married to Mrs. Whiteoak that is!”

  Roma had stared in bewilderment. “Then, is she my mother? Are Adeline and I sisters?”

  “You are a silly girl! Of course you and Adeline ain’t sisters. You’re cousins, because her pa and your pa were brothers.”

  “But if my father was married to Auntie Alayne —”

  “They didn’t have no children. Then your pa ran off with a Miss Ware that was staying with Mrs. Vaughan, and your Auntie Alayne divorced him. I suppose you know what divorce is.”

  “It’s getting unmarried.”

  “Then your Auntie Alayne stayed in New York for a while and then she up and married Colonel Whiteoak, and they had Adeline and Archer.”

  “But where do I come in?”

  “Well, you was born away off in Italy or France or somewheres, and your pa and ma died and you came here when you was about the size of Ossie.” She snatched up her infant and hugged him. “Ossie — Ossie — the chain yan down the chack!”

  Many a time Roma had pondered on this conversation. Indeed, she seldom was alone when she did not speculate on the strangeness of the grown-ups’ behaviour and her own peculiar situation. But she did not speak of this to anyone. Whether or not her mother or father had done something wrong she could not understand but she felt something melancholy in her beginning. She clung to the thought of Eden’s being a poet and she liked the book she now carried so well that she hesitated beneath the trees in the moonlight to examine it, as though she had not done so a hundred times already. She admired the delicate green of the cover, the way his name, Eden Whiteoak, stood out in fine gold letters, the little wreath of gold flowers. She would keep this book always and perhaps later she would take his two other books from the library and keep them too.

  She heard a step, looked round, and saw Finch coming through the wood.

  “Hullo,” he said. “You here, Roma?”

  She smiled, hiding the book.

  How fair she looked in the moonlight! But she was a queer little thing. One never knew what she was thinking. He took her hand in his. “Coming with me to the fox farm?” he asked.

  “They won’t want a child there,” she answered.

  “I’m not going to stay. I’m just going to ask after Gemmel.”

  “Is she ill?”

  “No. But she’s in a hospital. She’s been having an examination — X-rays, you know — and that sort of thing, by a specialist. They think there’s a possibility that she may be cured.”

  “That would be nice … Did you see the owl?”

  “Yes. I don’t like them. They’re always after some poor little beggar of a mouse or small bird. They’re uncanny. They frighten me.”

  “I like them … There’s Althea Griffith. She’ll try not to meet us. She always hurries away. Do you see her turning back?”

  Finch began to run after Althea. He called out, “I want to ask after your sister. That’s all.”

  As he caught up to her he looked at her half-admiringly, half-fascinated by her invincible shyness.

  She spoke quietly. “The specialist says she should have been operated on years ago. They’ve known — skilful surgeons, I mean — how to do this particular operation for years. But away in the mountains in Wales, we’d never had any hope of such a thing. We’d just accepted what the doctors said when she was a baby.”

  “Will they operate now?”

  “Oh, yes. They’ve every hope she’ll be walking in a few months.”

  “Aren’t you terribly excited? Aren’t you and Garda happy?”

  She clasped her hands under her chin and stood rigid as she answered, “I don’t know. We’re dazed.”

  “I’m sure you are. But when you can think calmly —”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” she interrupted. “I’m out here trying to think calmly. You’ve no idea how hard it is to do. If Gem learns to walk, we shall have to begin an entirely new life. The whole pattern of our existence has been fitted round the fact that she’s always stationary. She’s the pivot.”

  “But if you three can go about together in the future, you’ll be awfully happy, won’t you? I have a picture in my mind of Gemmel running.”

  “So have I, and it frightens me.” Althea relaxed suddenly and stood leaning against the rough trunk of an old oak, as though tired.

  “How is Gemmel bearing the strain?”

  “Quite coolly. Almost impersonally — as though someone else’s fate, not hers, were to be decided. But I know her. Underneath she’s on fire.”

  Althea had said so much freely and without the strange cloak of shyness that disguised her real self. Now she looked at Finch startled and began to retreat from him. She remembered with terror what Gemmel had said of his feeling for her, that Gemmel had tol
d him of the sketch she had made of him.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “I must. I have things to do. Goodnight.” She almost fled along the path away from him. He felt angry at her. What was the matter with her? He could have loved her, he thought, at that moment, if she had not had that atmosphere of impenetrability enveloping her. Suffering as she was, he longed to hurt her. He stood looking after her resentfully till, in her white dress, she looked no wider than a moonbeam.

  “She’s shy,” said Roma.

  “How clever of you to discover it! Come on, let’s go home.”

  “She always acts like that.”

  “Does she really?”

  “I don’t believe the doctors will cure Gemmel, do you?”

  “Yes. I’m sure they will.” They were descending the path holding hands. He asked, “what is that book?”

  She held it up so the moonlight fell on it. Finch’s jaw dropped. He stammered, “why, Roma, why — where did you get it?”

  “In the library.”

  “Did someone give it to you?”

  “No. I took it. I thought I had a right to.”

  “Well. I suppose you have.” He leant against the railing of the bridge, looking down into the stream. He could see the sickroom and Eden on the bed, terribly emaciated. The book had just come from the publishers. He had put it into Eden’s hands, hoping for some gleam of pleasure. But Eden had only said, “How very nice,” and handed it back to him. Then he had said, quite loudly, “Don’t leave me alone! I don’t want to be alone.” But a week had passed before Eden died.

  “Have you read the poems, Roma?” he asked.

  “Some of them. I wanted to bring the book on a walk. You won’t tell, will you?”

  “Never. Look here, Roma, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Some day we’ll bring one of Eden’s books out to the woods and we’ll read the poems aloud. We’ll take turns. Should you like that?”