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

by Mazo de La Roche

  The living dogs waited expectantly for him to go on. Now, when he moved, they became the leaders and he followed them to the road and along it to the church. It looked closed-in on itself, the stained-glass windows one uniform brownish colour, the heavy door shut against the world. What had it to do with the world? Inside its walls one might hear the story of Noah and the Flood, but what had that to do with the clouds and rain of today? That was all very well when there were half-a-dozen people on the earth. If he had been Noah he would have taken Merlin and Floss into the Ark, and for horses his mare, Cora, and a beautiful high-jumper he had owned after the last war. Launceton, that was his name.

  He was still smiling a little at the thought when he saw the Rector pruning a hedge in his garden. His grey beard and hair were curly in the damp air — the scent of the clipped cedar filled the air, the flat, sharply articulated leaves of it lay all about. The dogs slipped through the hedge and Mr. Fennel disappeared for a moment as he bent down to pat them. Then he put his hand over the hedge to greet Renny.

  “Lovely rains we’ve been having,” he said.

  “Yes. I suppose they’re needed.”

  “It’s a great benefit to the fall wheat.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “You’re no farmer, Renny.”

  “No. I leave that to Piers.”

  “You must miss the Horse Shows — both financially and for their pleasure.”

  “I miss nothing but my peace of mind,” Renny returned sombrely.

  Mr. Fennel made a sound of sympathy, then he asked:

  “Have you found any more of the notes lately?”

  “Yes. They turn up steadily. But there are still more than half of them missing. I found one this morning in a drawer I constantly use. But the odd thing is that this note smells distinctly musty. It points out pretty clearly that they’re hidden somewhere outdoors and that these rains are dampening them.”

  “That is interesting. I believe you’re right.”

  “I’ve wasted a lot of time searching in the house and stable. But imagine starting on five hundred acres! No. I shall never discover them.”

  “But, if they turn up, one by one, will you be satisfied?”

  “How can I be? I shall not know what I may do next.”

  “Then why do you go on searching?”

  “I must.”

  Mr. Fennel gently opened and closed the garden shears he held.

  “Renny,” he said, “I think we must do something.”

  “I’ve promised Piers to consult a psychopathist next week. Nothing else will satisfy the family.”

  “I don’t believe a psychopathist will help you.”

  “Neither do I, but I have promised.”

  Mr. Fennel ran his thumb along the cutting edge of the shears, as though to prepare for a fresh pruning. He said, almost laconically:

  “what do you say to doing away with useless effort? You have been dropping buckets into an empty well. Now let us go to a well which is ever brimming to the top with help for us. But perhaps you have already done this. Forgive me for taking for granted that you haven’t.”

  Renny turned away his face in embarrassment. “If you mean praying, I haven’t. It would be impossible to me — in the personal way you mean.”

  Mr. Fennel studied the profile presented to him. From the front, Renny’s face had seemed to him stationary, set in the mould in which inheritance, experience, and passion had formed it, unchangeable in its essence. But the side view appeared moving, full of possibilities, capable of expressing the soul.

  “I suggest,” said the Rector, “that we should go into the church and kneel together and ask divine help in solving this mysterious trouble.”

  With his profile still turned, Renny answered, “No, no, I couldn’t do that.”

  “why?”

  “I should feel a fool!”

  “Do you feel wise, as you stand here?”

  “No, but I feel natural. The other would be unnatural to me.”

  “Unnatural to you who have assisted in the services in that church your grandfather built — where you were christened, confirmed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Renny,” the Rector put his hand across the hedge and tapped him on the breast, “I have asked your help many times. I have asked you for money for the church when I knew you had little to spare, and you never refused me. I ask you to do something that I desire more earnestly than anything I have asked before. Don’t refuse. Come with me into the church for a few minutes.”

  Now Renny turned his eyes on him with a half-humorous look. “You make it impossible for me to refuse. But I certainly think I shall be a comic spectacle for the Almighty, if he happens to notice me.”

  “He will notice you,” said Mr. Fennel, “and you will not be comic.” He stuck the point of the shears into the ground, wiped his palms on the wet grass and came through the gate to Renny.

  Together they went into the church.

  It was cool in there. There was no sun to shine through the stained glass windows. They had retreated into themselves, holding, as it were, their bright colours close. Each section of coloured glass was complete in itself, not merging into one glowing picture, but startlingly blue or crimson or gold. To Renny the interior of the church was as familiar as a room in his own house.

  He stopped short as he heard the organ softly played.

  “It is Finch,” said the Rector. “He will make no difference.”

  They went up the aisle. At the chancel steps Mr. Fennel turned to Renny. “We will kneel here,” he said.

  They knelt side by side. Mr. Fennel bent his head, folded his hands and closed his eyes. Renny knelt upright, his dark gaze resting on the altar where there were blue asters from Meg’s garden. The smell of cedar came from Mr. Fennel. He looked as tranquil as though this were an everyday occasion.

  Finch had heard their entrance but had continued to play till they knelt. The sight had amazed him. It even frightened him. He saw the solemnity of their attitudes. If it had been anyone but Renny ... his wary yet subdued look went to Finch’s heart. His hands sank from the keyboard. He bent his head but he kept his eyes fixed on Renny, so steadfast in his isolation. Mr. Fennel’s voice was now audible. He prayed:

  “Our divine Father, we have come to thee today most earnestly to ask Thy help for Thy servant, kneeling here beside me. For many weeks he has suffered anguish of spirit, from the fear that he is no longer aware of all that he does. Yet though he has struggled manfully to understand the strange predicament in which he finds himself he has failed. But where manhood fails, Godhead triumphs. So he has come to Thee to implore Thy help. Here in Thy house, we implore that help, for Thy Son’s sake. Amen.”

  “Amen,” muttered Renny, rigid, half angry at what he was doing.

  For a space there was silence as they remained kneeling. Then the faint, late summer song of a small bird came through the open window and the patter of a few raindrops sounded in the leaves. As in a procession the three men passed down the aisle, for Finch had joined them.

  Outside the dogs were sitting mournfully waiting on the doorstep. They rose, shook themselves and led the way down the walk. The Rector laid his hand on Renny’s arm. “Thank you for doing what I asked,” he said. “Now let us wait calmly and see what happens.” He smiled in his beard and went back to his hedge cutting.

  The brothers walked on together toward Jalna.

  Renny gave an embarrassed laugh. “Don’t tell Piers or Alayne about this,” he said. “I did it to please the old boy.”

  “I don’t see anything strange about it. If your religion means anything to you it ought to be good for that. I’m glad you did it.”

  “But you won’t tell Piers or Alayne?”

  Curiously there came to Finch’s mind the picture of himself as a small boy, saying to Renny in a choking voice, “You won’t tell the others you gave me a licking, will you, Renny?”

  Now he answered, “Certainly I’ll not tell them but I repe
at that I’m glad you did it.”

  Finch directed his steps toward the accustomed path across the fields but Renny said, “Let’s go round through the woods. They are looking lovely now.”

  “It will be pretty wet.”

  “A little damp won’t hurt you.”

  They continued their way along the road, once standing aside to let an army truck, filled with soldiers, pass. They went through a farm gate and found themselves on the edge of the pine wood. Oaks and maples were there also, and, in the heart of the wood, an assembly of silver birches. But the pines predominated. There was a magnificent toughness in them. Each branch appeared complete and solitary in itself but the whole was cohesive and daring in outline, not subject to the seasons as were the oaks and maples. All the autumn these last had lorded it in the majesty of their rich colouring but now, since the heavy rains, half their brightness lay at their feet or drooped ready to fall. But the pines faced the winter with the same equanimity with which they had greeted the spring. Never were the boughs so dense as to conceal their noble trunks. The rust-coloured pine needles lay thick on the ground but there was undergrowth too, brambles, wild raspberry canes, the vine of bittersweet and the venturesome wild grape vine whose tiny fruit would pucker the mouth with its sourness.

  Through the wood a bridle path had, for nearly a century, been the delight of galloping young Whiteoaks. Along its verge the undergrowth was thickest. Here the weather for some reason seemed more cheerful. Men and dogs stretched their legs and breathed with greater freedom.

  Roger, the sheepdog, pressed his shaggy body among the bushes, sniffing, while the others ran along the path in chase after a buck rabbit whose great leaps were to save him from destruction. Now Roger continued to snuffle, then uttered a cry of delight.

  “what has he found, I wonder?” said Finch, following him into the thicket.

  “Here, Roger!” called Renny, striding along the bridle path.

  But Finch pressed his way through the brambles that seemed deliberately to impede him. Roger was whining and Finch heard a childish voice whisper, “Be quiet, Roger.” Then he saw a fair head and shoulders covered by a blue jersey, bent beneath the undergrowth. Roma was crouching there. Now she raised a white, frightened face to Finch.

  “Sh,” she breathed. “Don’t tell!”

  He stood staring down at her. “what are you doing?” he demanded.

  She knelt, white and frightened but smiling now, pretending not to be afraid.

  “I am playing a game,” she whispered.

  “A nice place for a game! why, you’re wet as a rat. What sort of game?”

  She was fondling Roger. She drew him in front of her, trying to hide something with his bulk. “It’s too silly to tell. I’ve been playing it for years.”

  Finch, remembering his childhood, was sorry to have spied on her. He said, “Don’t tell me, if you don’t want to. But you’ll catch a cold here. Can’t you finish the game another time?”

  “We have only the weekend at home. Was it Uncle Renny who called Roger?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked still more frightened. “Please, Uncle Finch, don’t tell him I’m here. It’s — a secret.”

  Renny’s voice came back to them. “Finch! where are you? what’s the matter?”

  “Do go, Uncle Finch,” she implored. “I shall get into terrible trouble if you don’t.”

  Renny was coming back. He was whistling to Roger but Roma held him fast. He struggled, whining in his anxiety. She held him tightly by a handful of hair and when, in a panic, he tore himself away, a number of grey hairs were left in her grasp. He yelped in pain.

  Finch turned to intercept Renny. Whatever the child was up to he would not give her away. He could hear her scrabbling among the undergrowth as though she were hiding something. A sudden thought illuminated his mind. He wheeled, turned back toward where she hid, wheeled again, walking in a circle. Renny reached his side. He demanded, “what the dickens is going on?”

  “Nothing.” Finch felt dazed.

  “Well — you certainly look queer.” With a decisive sweep of the arm, Renny parted the bushes. Roma was crouching there, a mysterious smile on her pale upturned face.

  “Roma!” Renny bent forward to discover what she sought to conceal.

  But now she no longer tried to hide anything. She stood up straight and looked into his eyes, her hair, wet from the rain-soaked undergrowth, lay flat on her forehead. She said, in a low confidential voice:

  “I did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Took the money from Mr. Clapperton and gave it to you.”

  Renny turned to Finch, as though to ask if he also had heard.

  “Yes?” said Finch. “You took the money?”

  Roma nodded, in a determined way. “I wanted Uncle Renny to have it. That old man had too much and Uncle Renny not enough. I knew that, because I’d heard talk. So when Archer told me about Robin Hood and how he had taken money from the rich and given it to people who needed it, I thought, why couldn’t I? So I did — and the rest of it’s here.”

  Renny crashed through the bushes to where she held up an old teakettle. He took it from her in frantic haste and lifted the lid. Inside there was a brown paper package tied with a piece of tape. With fingers visibly trembling he untied it and disclosed a roll of bank notes, all of the twenty-dollar denomination. He held them to his strong aquiline nose.

  “They smell of mould,” he said.

  He turned to Finch. “I’m glad you’re here, Finch. If you weren’t, I’d think I was dreaming.” Then he broke out. “The money! My God — I’ve found it! It’s in my hand! And my mind’s all right —” He struck himself on the forehead with his clenched hand. “I’m not demented! The money is found! Can you believe it? Oh, Roma, tell me all about it. Make it clear, for I feel dazed. How did you get hold of these bills?”

  Finch put his arm about him. He looked so wild that Finch was afraid for him. Roma’s face had lost the frightened look. It had an expression of secret pride.

  “I took them,” she said, “that morning you went to see Mr. Clapperton. I heard you tell Archer he couldn’t go with you. I was behind the big syringa bush. So I followed you and when you went into Mr. Clapperton’s house, I went onto the verandah and I heard you being angry with each other and then I saw him go into the room at the back and I went down the hall and peeped in at you.”

  “Go on — go on.” His eyes were avid on her face.

  “Are you angry, Uncle Renny?”

  “No, no, go on!”

  In her quick child’s voice she continued, “I peeped in and I saw you go out by the french window and I saw all the money on the desk and I gathered it up and ran out without making a sound and I hid the bills under a big stone. All but one.” She gave a little peal of laughter.

  “Yes? Go on.”

  Finch wondered how Roma could talk, with those burning eyes fixed on hers. When he was a child he would have been hopelessly stammering, getting mixed up, not able to go on. But she continued, “I kept that in my hand and before we went in to lunch I crept up behind you — you were sitting on your heels taking a burr out of Roger — and I put my arms round you.”

  “I remember! My God, I remember!”

  She laughed again at the remembrance of her cunning.

  “I hugged you and I pushed the twenty-dollar bill into your pocket without you knowing. Wasn’t it a lovely surprise?”

  “A beautiful surprise. Oh, Roma, Roma — what you did to your poor uncle that day!”

  “That’s why I did it. I knew you were poor and Mr. Clapperton was rich. Even when I was listening I heard him talk that way. So I just took the money for you.”

  “And what then, Roma?” Renny held her with his eyes.

  “Then, after lunch, I went back and took the bills from under the stone. I’d almost forgotten where I’d hidden it. Wouldn’t it have been awful if I’d never found it? Because you’d never have had it.”

  “Yes. G
o on.”

  “But I found it and I knew where there was an old teakettle and I put all the money in it. Then I brought it here and hid it in the bushes and every time I wanted to I came and took out a bill and put it some place where I knew you’d find it. Didn’t I think of a lot of funny places?”

  “You did indeed — God forgive you!”

  “I have a mysterious mind. Even when I was going to school I didn’t forget you. I hid some bills for you to find while I was away, and as soon as I came home I got out another to give you.”

  “The one that smelt musty!” he exclaimed.

  The full import of his release from dreadful apprehension now swept over him. He caught Roma beneath the armpits, lifted her so that her face was on a level with his, then kissed her rapturously.

  “Roma,” he exclaimed, “you’ve saved my reason by being here at this minute. If you knew what relief I feel! I’m a new man!” She kissed him back and he set her down and turned to Finch. “We must go straight home and tell Alayne. Poor girl — how happy she’ll be! But first I must count the bills.” He ran through them, counting aloud. “All here! Nothing more to worry about. What’s the matter, Finch? Haven’t you anything to say? Good God, if you’d been through what I have, you’d find plenty to say!”

  “Roma did a terrible thing. She is old enough to know better.”

  “She thought she was doing a beautiful thing, didn’t you, Roma? For my part, I can think of nothing but the relief. An iron band that was round my head has snapped. I am free. I am not headed for the madhouse.”

  “Very well,” answered Finch. “Let’s accept this as a blessing. The money’s found. I’ll try to forget what you’ve been through and be glad with you, Renny, but I could weep when I think of the past months.”

  “They’re gone. Done with! Let’s go back to Jalna. Won’t the uncles be glad? Poor old boys! I’m afraid they’ve been pretty miserable.” He plunged through the undergrowth and back to the path. In one hand he carried the teakettle. Roma clung to the other. He exclaimed: