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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Renny ascended the stairs. Outside Adeline’s room he stopped and listened. There was no sound within. For a moment he had an impulse to go in and make her repeat to him the happenings of the evening from first to last — by some overpowering act of his own to cleanse her from Swift’s touch. His own little girl! His anger welled up against young Maurice who had exposed her to this by his carelessness — his lying. Perhaps it all had been arranged between Swift and him. Who knew what Maurice really was?

  He strode into the library and took the receiver from the telephone. He asked for the number he wanted. The bell buzzed several times, then Maurice’s voice answered.

  “Is that you, Maurice?”

  “Yes, Uncle Renny.”

  “Still up, eh?”

  “Yes. I was reading.”

  “Reading Othello, I suppose.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Maurice answered:

  “Yes.”

  Renny exclaimed, in a voice harsh with anger, “I won’t trouble telling you what I think of you. Send your father to the phone.”

  “Uncle Renny, please let me explain.”

  “I don’t want any of your explanations!” shouted Renny. “Send Piers to the phone.”

  “But he’s in bed asleep. It’s past two o’clock.”

  “what the hell do I care what time it is! Tell him I want to speak to him.”

  “But Uncle Renny —”

  “If you don’t send him to the phone I’ll drive over there and rouse him myself.”

  “Very well.”

  Renny sat motionless, a grim smile on his lips, waiting for Piers’ voice. It came.

  “Hullo, Renny. What’s the matter?”

  “I wish you were here. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “what’s wrong?”

  “Everything.”

  Piers now spoke with false composure. “Please tell me what you want me to do. Do you want me at Jalna?”

  Renny unleashed the anger in his voice. “No. I just want you to thrash your eldest son for me.”

  “what has he done?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he took my daughter to see a negro actor in Othello tonight. Rather a sensual play for a very young girl, isn’t it? But he didn’t tell me he was taking her. Nor you, nor his mother, I’ll bet. He said he was taking her to a movie. Swift went with them. Maurice left Swift to bring Adeline to the house. I found them in the pitch dark in the drive — struggling together. He’d been trying to make love to her. This is what Maurice exposed my daughter to.”

  “what did you do?”

  “Gave Swift something to remember and took Gran’s stick to Adeline’s back.”

  “Gosh!”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “You mustn’t take it too seriously, Renny.”

  “what — what?” shouted Renny.

  “Hang on to yourself. What I mean is, Adeline will forget this — or almost forget it — if you’ll let her.”

  “My God, I wish you had a daughter — then you’d know how I feel!”

  “I have an eldest son who is a disappointment. He always was spineless, and living with that old man in Ireland did him no good. I’ve always disliked Swift. He’ll never come into my house again. As for Maurice — I’ll tell him what I think of him.”

  “Tell him from me that he’s not to see Adeline — nor speak to her for the rest of the holidays.”

  “All right. You’d better go to bed now, old man.”

  “I’ll not go to bed tonight. What would be the use? I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Tch! Was Adeline much upset?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor kid! She couldn’t know what was going to happen.”

  “Go and hold poor little Mooey’s hand and tell him how sorry you are for him!”

  “Don’t imagine I’m not angry about this, Renny. If you were here you wouldn’t be disappointed in what I’ll say to him. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Renny turned out the lights and went upstairs. A light was still burning in Alayne’s room. He tapped on the door.

  “Come in.”

  She had put on a dressing gown, for the night had suddenly turned chill. She was shaking a tablet from a bottle.

  “A sedative,” she said. “Will you have one?”

  “A dozen.”

  “Don’t be foolish.” She gave him one and a drink to take it in.

  “I’ve been telephoning Piers,” he said.

  “Oh, no!” she exclaimed reproachfully. “Not at this hour!”

  “Did you imagine that I should let Maurice have a comfortable night’s sleep after what he did?”

  “I suppose not.” She sighed deeply. “what did Piers say?”

  “He didn’t say a great deal, but he’ll give Maurice a piece of his mind.”

  “I could not have believed this of Maurice. I think Sidney Swift has been very bad for him.”

  “when Meg sold Vaughanlands to Clapperton, she did a bad day’s work for us.” The name Clapperton brought the theft, like the touch of a cold hand on his heart. The corrugations on his forehead hardened. Alayne came to his side, where he had seated himself in front of her dressing table, and began to stroke them.

  “I think I should go down to Adeline,” she said, knowing he would not let her. “She may be crying.”

  “Let her cry.”

  “Oh, Renny, you should not have done what you did! If my father had laid a hand on me, I’d have died. But I can’t imagine him doing such a thing.”

  “Can you imagine yourself giving him such cause?” he asked sombrely.

  For answer she sneezed.

  “You are catching cold,” he exclaimed, “and no wonder — going about in your bare feet.”

  She put out her hand across him and opened the top drawer of her dressing table to get a handkerchief.

  She opened the drawer, looked in and quickly shut it again. “They are not in that drawer after all,” she said.

  “why did you shut that drawer?” he demanded.

  He put his hand on the knob to open it.

  She did not answer but held the drawer shut.

  “I know,” he said, his voice hoarse with anger and hate for himself. “I know. You don’t need to tell me. I saw it. It’s another of those cursed twenty-dollar bills.”

  Her arm dropped to her side. She let him open the drawer. Lying on top of the little pile of handkerchiefs in the left-hand compartment was the crisp new note, the figure “20” standing out on the greenish-yellow ground like a menace, the face of the King like a calm rebuke.

  Renny took it out and looked at it.

  “In your room,” he said. “I have put it here in your room. Alayne, is this the first time you have found one of the notes here?”

  “There was one other,” she answered, not looking at him, “about ten days ago. I couldn’t bear to tell you.”

  “why don’t you watch me more closely?” he broke out. “Nobody watches me! I’m allowed to drift about in my derangement —”

  “You are not deranged!” she interrupted. “I won’t let you use that word.”

  “Tell me a word, then. Give me a word, for God’s sake, that will describe me!”

  He looked so wild that she was frightened. She put her arms about him and clasped his head to her breast. She felt his hot tears on her breast.

  “Oh, don’t, don’t darling!” She was crying too. “I can’t bear it.”

  He raised his eyes, wet with tears, to her face.

  “It looks,” he said, “as though you are to be the mother of a wanton and the wife of a —”

  “Be careful! I will not hear you say such things!”

  He closed his eyes, resting his head against her breast, listening to the beating of her heart. “Very well,” he said, resignedly. “I won’t say them.”

  “You know they’re not true.”

  “Oh, Alayne, if only I could
find where I’ve hidden that money!”

  “You will. I know you will. Quite unexpectedly you’ll come on it and everything will be cleared up.”

  “Everything but my mind,” he returned bitterly.

  She spoke with confidence. “Your mind will be clear too.”

  He drew away from her and took a notebook from his pocket. In it he entered, in his small firm handwriting, the fact that another of the notes had been found, and where, with the date. After that he went to his own room to undress. Alayne stole down to Adeline’s door. It was locked. She asked, “Would you like me to come in, Adeline?”

  The child’s voice answered quietly, “No thanks, Mummy. I’m all right.”

  “Would you like something to eat, or a drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Goodnight, then.”

  “Goodnight.”

  The first intangible essence of the day crept into Alayne’s room, the first bird notes sounded among the late summer leaves before Renny slept, with Alayne’s arm about him. Still she lay awake.

  XXI

  PIERS AND HIS SON

  PIERS TURNED FROM the telephone and took up his crutches. Awkwardly he ascended the stairs and went toward Maurice’s room, one leg of his pyjamas dangling empty. Pheasant intercepted him.

  “Mooey says it was Renny on the phone.”

  “It was,” answered Piers, moving on.

  “why couldn’t he have waited till morning, when he knows it’s hard for you going up and down the stairs without your leg?”

  “Because he was in a rage, and no wonder.”

  “whatever has happened? He’s not angry at Mooey, is he?”

  “He certainly is!” Piers went into his son’s room and shut the door after him.

  Maurice was sitting by a table on which there was a reading lamp, making a pretence of reading. He raised his eyes guardedly to Piers’ face.

  “Reading Othello, I see,” remarked Piers, pleasantly.

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Didn’t get enough of it at the theatre, eh?”

  Maurice was silent. A tremor of fear ran through him. He had been so afraid of Piers when he was a child. Now, standing there on his crutches, his healthy face flushed with anger, he was almost as intimidating as ever. He said:

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I should think you would have had more sense than to take a child like Adeline to see such a play as Othello.”

  “I didn’t think it would hurt her.”

  “And you didn’t think it would hurt her to be made love to by Swift?”

  “How was I to know he would make love to her?”

  “You should have taken her home yourself. You must have a pretty good idea of what sort of man he is. It was a damned stupid thing to do and I am ashamed of you.”

  “I’m sorry.” Maurice made the apology perfunctorily. Piers was more irritated than appeased by it.

  He said, “Being sorry won’t help poor little Adeline. Her father took a stick to her back.”

  “No!” Maurice was aghast. “Surely not!”

  “He did. And I won’t say she didn’t deserve it. But I will say you deserved it more.”

  “It was cruel. I don’t see how Uncle Renny could do it.”

  “Well, you know, he is very like our grandmother and she was always ready to give us a rap with her stick. There was the gold-headed stick standing ready and Renny laid it on Adeline in the good old family tradition.” Piers chuckled.

  A rush of anger brought Maurice to his feet. He walked excitedly about the room with clenched hands.

  “I hate such scenes!” he said hotly.

  “The trouble with you is that you’re spoilt. That old man in Ireland completely spoilt you.”

  “I shall not be sorry to go back there.”

  “It’s just the place for you,” returned Piers pleasantly. “An old ivy-covered mansion, on the point of tumbling down — a few tottering retainers to touch their forelocks to you — a friend or two like Swift, to sponge on you. Upon my word, Mooey, I don’t know how I ever got you.”

  They stared at one another in their hostility. Then Piers added, “I won’t have Swift about the place any longer. In the morning I’ll tell him to go.”

  “All right. I don’t care.”

  “Another thing. You are to go to Jalna right after breakfast, and apologize to Renny.”

  Maurice bowed coldly.

  “Renny says you are not to see Adeline again before she goes back to school. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, go to bed. Make up your mind to turn over a new leaf. See if you can be a little more manly — a little less self-centred. Goodnight.”

  He turned, leaning on his crutches, opened the door and stumped back to Pheasant.

  Maurice did not undress. In his anger and his humiliation he threw himself on the bed, grinding his head into the pillow, clutching the bedclothes in his hands. In the blackness behind his closed eyes his father’s fresh-coloured face, with that ironic smile, stood out. Maurice had felt secure in his homecoming. He had, as his support, the cherished years of his life at Glengorman. He was almost a man. He had patronized Pheasant and the little boys. A father, returning after years in a German prison camp, surely was no longer one to intimidate. He was proud of his father. They might even become friends.

  Yet soon their relations were much as they had always been, excepting that a new resentment was added on either side — on Piers’ side because Maurice now had the aloofness of a young man — on Maurice’s, because that aloofness was so vulnerable. He lay, with nerves tense, seething in his resentment. Adeline’s image rose before him, as her enchanted gaze was fixed upon the stage.

  At last he slept and woke late to hear his young brothers scuffling in the next bedroom. For an instant he was bewildered to find himself lying fully dressed on the bed. Then the happenings of the night returned to him, and with them the consciousness that his head ached and that he was very hot. And there was his father to face! And the apology to Renny. He got to his feet and pressed his fingers against his temples. The noise from the next room increased. He undressed and dressed again in loose flannel trousers and jersey. He went to the bathroom and laved his head and face with cold water. On the way back he looked in at the small boys while he dried his hair with a rough towel. Their room was in disorder. As Nooky put the sheets on the bed, Philip pulled them off. They whacked each other with the pillows. Philip’s cheeks were bright pink, his fair hair waved upright. Nooky’s face was a delicate pink all over and his fine straight hair fell over his forehead. Maurice regarded them pessimistically.

  “where’s Father?” he asked.

  At that instant Piers’ voice came from below.

  “Boys! Come to the head of the stairs!”

  Close to each other, as though for support, they went as they were bid. Philip’s face assumed a look of sweet obedience.

  Piers looked up at them. “I want you,” he said, “to get on with your work. If I call you down here, you’ll be sorry.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” said Philip, sweetly and cheerfully. Nooky hung his head, speechless.

  Piers stood staring up at them. They turned humbly and re-entered the bedroom. Once there, Philip leaped on Nooky’s back and they crashed as one body to the floor. There was a roar from below. They rose and, grasping the bedclothes, began to hurl them with passionate eagerness onto the bed.

  Maurice turned from the scene with distaste. He went to his own room, brushed his hair and, hearing Piers go out through the front door, went down to the dining room. The teapot had been left for him, and toast and marmalade. He wanted nothing but tea. He poured himself a cup and lighted a cigarette. Through the window he could see Pheasant working in the garden. There must be quite a wind, for her hair was blowing back from her face.

  His cigarette was just half-smoked when Piers came into the room through another door. Maurice felt himself start and his start was obvious to Piers. He came and sat down at t
he table facing Maurice.

  Maurice thought, “Good Lord, is he going to begin again?”

  Piers looked at him thoughtfully. He said:

  “Remember what I have told you. When you’ve finished your breakfast you are to go and apologize to your Uncle Renny.”

  “Can’t I do it by phone?”

  “No. And you are not to speak to Adeline.”

  Maurice pushed his chair from the table. “I’ve been told all this before.”

  Piers still looked thoughtfully at him. “There is something else I must tell you,” he said. “There is to be no unpleasantness in the house over this affair. You are to be cheerful with me and I’m to be cheerful with you.”

  Maurice stared at him suspiciously. What was he driving at?

  “Your mother is not to be worried,” Piers went on. “She’s had more than her share of anxiety in the past. Now she’s to be made as happy as possible. She’s going to have a child.”

  Maurice stared at Piers, dumbfounded.

  Piers laughed. “Well — what’s so remarkable about that? Other women have babies. Why not she?”

  The colour deepened in Maurice’s cheeks. “Of course — of course,” he stammered, but could think of nothing else to say. He had a sense of shock, of outrage, of calculated injury to himself.

  Piers laughed again but this time it was more of a chuckle. “Upon my word,” he said, “one would think you were hearing of the facts of life for the first time.”

  “It’s just that —”

  “Wouldn’t you like a little sister?” Piers’ voice now had a cajoling tone. “Come now, tell Daddy you’d like a baby sister.”

  At that moment Maurice hated Piers. He rose stiffly. “I guess I’d better be off.”

  The smile left Piers’ face. He said, “I rang up Swift this morning and told him — that is, I told Clapperton to tell him — that his services as tutor will not be needed any longer. Swift is indisposed, Clapperton says.”

  “Oh! All right. Well, I guess I’ll go.” He left the room, hurried out of the house by a door where he would not be seen by Pheasant, and turned in the direction of Jalna. Bitterness welled up in him. His mother ... his mother ... Oh, he could not bear to think of it! It was horrible. It was indecent. That brute — that cocksure, smiling brute — to do this to her — and laugh about it. If he had been asked to guess a thousand things that might have happened, surely this would be the last to enter his mind.