Now there followed at Jalna a period of such quiet, such tranquility of spirit as had not been known there in years. The health of the old uncles was remarkably good, considering their years. They had nothing to worry about. The War was drawing to an end. Occasionally they had spirited words over what should be done about Germany and her leaders. Their ideas clashed. Those of the gentle Ernest were drastic, but Nicholas was weary of violence. Let there be an end to violence on both sides, he said. What he wanted was assurance and peace.
Finch was off on another tour. Wakefield had gone to New York to see what chances there were for him in the theatre there. In New York he again met Molly Griffith, as he had feared he would, but the meeting was not so full of pain as he had expected. He talked to her with less constriction of the heart than he would have thought possible. She was so calm, it helped him to control himself.
Wakefield urged her to visit her step-sisters who could not understand her reluctance to do so. She must be with them for Gem’s marriage, if it were possible, he said, and she promised she would, as though she longed to do what he wanted her to. A dangerous, half-melancholy friendship now sprang up from the ruins of their blighted love. Now they sought each other’s company. They were always in each other’s thoughts. He never sent her flowers, he never gave her presents, but he would take her to as quiet a restaurant as they could find and there they would sit, after their meal, smoking, talking of the days before the War and the vicissitudes of their experiences in the theatre in London. Sometimes they would laugh over these but it was seldom that their eyes met for more than a moment. His eyes would rest on her hands or on the rising and falling of her breast. She would look straight before her but above the heads of the others in the restaurant, as though she actually were seeing pictures of their loved past. They would talk of Wales and his visit to her family.
At Jalna, Renny and Alayne had time for a happier companionship than they had known for many a year. They went about more often together. They sought out old friends, and made a few new ones. They gave a few dinner parties, though it was difficult for guests to come from more than a short distance. Alayne looked and felt well but the harassment of the months after the discovery of the theft had taken something from her that would not return.
On the anniversary of Eden’s death Pheasant gave birth to a daughter. It was a normal birth but Piers worried over her more than ever he had before. He was delighted to be the father of a little girl, though disappointed that she did not look like Pheasant. She was to be like him, he thought, though Ernest said she would be like Piers’ mother. Ernest was strong on resemblances and knew where every feature of each member of the family had come from, though he had been put to it to account for Finch when he had arrived.
The child was christened Mary Pheasant, which meant, young Philip said, Happy Bird. And she indeed started off happily for, instead of crying when Mr. Fennel sprinkled water on her face, she smiled. It was a festive occasion in the Easter holidays when all the children were home. Meg and Alayne were the godmothers, Renny the godfather. Nicholas and Ernest were there — Ernest the first to have been christened in the church, of which he reminded everyone present. The winter safely battled with and now behind them, the two old men spread their spiritual plumage in the approaching sun of summer. They got out their best clothes and donned them with zest.
Maurice had looked on the approaching birth with aversion. In hours of depression he had been convinced that his mother would die. But, when he held the tiny sister in his arms, his heart went out to her and he knew he was going to love her.
“Ha-ha,” teased Adeline, “you’re old enough to be her father. I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Count up the years between Wakefield and your father then,” retorted Maurice.
“There were two marriages.”
“Never mind. This infant is my sister and I’m dotty about her.”
“So am I. She’ll be like my own child, as I’m never going to marry and have any. Let’s make an agreement, Mooey, never to marry but always to be friends — sort of partners in living, proud and single — and have little Mary for our child.”
Maurice caught her almost roughly by the wrists. “Adeline,” he said, “you are the last person on earth I’d make such an agreement with.”
Something in his eyes deepened the colour in her cheeks.
“Oh, Mooey, you are a silly!” she exclaimed and began to wrestle with him.
What with skiing, skating, and hockey she was no mean opponent. All that winter Maurice had lived a soft life of study and more study. He was humiliated by the onslaught she made.
“Gosh,” he panted, “what do they teach you at that school?”
“To be ladies. Lily handed ladies.”
Maurice suddenly quelled her and gripped her against his chest. He looked unsmilingly into her eyes.
“I wish you were eighteen,” he said.
“I wish I were! I’d show you! when I am eighteen I’ll be as strong as you.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that!” He released her, almost pushing her from him.
They stood regarding each other with challenge in their eyes, then turned away, he half-angrily, she puzzled by his look but still teasing.
Patience, Adeline, and Roma, all were excited by the approaching marriage of Eugene Clapperton and Gemmel Griffith. He would like to have a large wedding but she refused this. In the first place, she said, she did not feel able to bear the strain of walking down the aisle under the gaze of a lot of people. The use of her legs was still too new to her, she might become nervous, be forced to sit down and propel herself to the altar in the old way. How would Eugene like that? she asked with a smile that, to him, was too droll to be seemly.
So they were married by Mr. Fennel who gathered them in as stray lambs, with no others present in the church but Gemmel’s three sisters — Molly had come from New York for the occasion — and Sidney Swift.
The groom was very nervous but the bride bore herself with statuesque dignity. Garda mourned to think that there was no admiring throng to gaze at Gemmel as she moved slowly down the aisle, her hand barely touching Eugene Clapperton’s arm.
Afterwards they held a reception at Vaughanlands to which not only most of the Whiteoak family came but a large number of Eugene Clapperton’s friends from the city. It was from these that the wedding presents which loaded several large tables came. No Whiteoak had bought a present but, from the corners and cupboards of the old house, had unearthed articles presentable enough to keep them in countenance. Alayne had thought that Piers and Meg had small right to do this but Renny seemed not to mind. She herself had never felt that Jalna or its contents belonged in any way to her, so made no objection. But quite unwitting of its value, Meg had given a little china figure that had been in her room when she was a girl, and to which she felt she still had a right. It was not till one of Eugene Clapperton’s friends, who was a connoisseur in china, picked it up, examined it and exclaimed in delight, that Meg realized what a mistake she had made. It was the most valuable present of all, declared the connoisseur, and asked Meg, who happened to be standing beside him, if she knew who had given it. In a faint voice Meg had answered that it was she. Fortunately none of the family was close enough to overhear but the day was spoilt for Meg. That night she lay awake for a long while considering how it might be possible to get the china figure back.
After three weeks in Quebec, the Clappertons returned to Vaughanlands to find Gem’s sisters already established there. Indeed, they were so thoroughly established that Eugene Clapperton experienced almost a feeling of shock when he entered his home with his bride. The two girls had left their mark everywhere. In the living room Garda had taken down several prized pictures, one of them a painting of Niagara Falls, and hung in their stead strange drawings done by Althea. They had brought gaudy cushions and strewn them, it seemed to him, all over the house.
Garda’s goloshes were lying in the middle of the hall and a pair of p
ink bedroom slippers halfway up the stairs. She had a passion for small creatures. The verandah was strewn with breadcrumbs for the birds. On every sunny windowsill were boxes containing unpleasant-looking cocoons from which, as the days went on, there emerged various large moths that laid their eggs, in great numbers, on rugs and furniture. Eugene Clapperton traced a really nasty smell to a cage of white mice in a corner of his own private room — the very room from which the money had been stolen. Garda also collected shells and odd stones which decorated every available shelf and tabletop. Sidney Swift had been careful of his bicycle but Garda threw hers down wherever she alighted from it. There was no order in her habits, but she was always happy and smiling. She was almost too happy and smiling to please Eugene Clapperton. She took all the benefits he showered upon her as though they came as easily and naturally as sunshine. She never seemed to consider how hard he had worked to make so much money.
Althea now possessed a Great Dane given her by Finch who, for some obscure reason, felt it was just what she needed. It was an enormous creature, with a profound and melancholy bark and blood-chilling growl. When Althea was not taking him for long walks she was spending most of her time with him in her attic studio. He was young and his romping sounded on the ceiling of the rooms below like the prancings of a cart horse. Whenever he saw Eugene Clapperton, he growled at him.
In truth the benevolent man found his three girlies, at times, overpowering. He could not have believed how completely they would take possession of his home. In Quebec it seemed that he had made Gem implacably his, with no will or desire to have a will of her own. But now she drifted back into the atmosphere of her sisters just as though she had had no new and epoch-making experience. The three had private jokes to laugh at. In a room they grouped themselves close together, making him an outsider. He never regretted what he had done. His marriage to Gem had given his life a new meaning but he could not restrain certain moments of pensive dwelling on his ordered days with Sidney Swift.
The fox farm was let to new tenants. Renny was having the house redecorated, painted without and within. It was impossible to engage men to do the work, so Finch and Wakefield had undertaken it and were making it look like new. They joked and sang at their work in the variable spring weather. Now, on a Sunday afternoon, Alayne and Renny had come to inspect.
“It looks fine, doesn’t it?” he said.
“Very nice. Thank goodness, you have let it to people who will pay a good rent.”
“Yes, yes,” he agreed, and visions of the past tenants flashed through his mind.
“I hope they will be more congenial to me than the sisters were.”
“Oh, I think they will. I’m sure you’ll like them.”
They walked through the rooms.
“It’s a sweet little house,” she said. “I wonder what it would be like if you and I lived in a house like this? Just the two of us.”
He turned to her, surprised. “Would you like it?”
“In some ways I think I should.”
“Leave Jalna! Desert your children! And the old uncles — and all the others!”
“I’d have you.”
“That’s the way to talk,” he exclaimed, with a gratified grin. “After all you’ve been through with me — after all the worry I’ve caused you!” He put his arm about her and laid his cheek against her hair.
In the grass outside she found a fragile pink flower.
“what a backward spring,” she said. “This is the first wild flower I’ve found. It has seemed as though the flowers never would find courage to come up.”
“They always do,” he said. “They’re like you. They’ve lots of courage — when necessary.”
Adeline was home for the midterm weekend. She now came running across the grass to join them. She pushed her body between theirs and, turning her head, smiled first into Alayne’s face then into Renny’s.
“It’s glorious to be home,” she exclaimed. “I wish I might never have to leave it again.”
Renny smiled down at her. “what about that visit to Ireland with Mooey?”
“Oh, bother Mooey,” she exclaimed.
“Bother Mooey,” repeated Alayne. “I thought you and he were great friends.”
“We are,” laughed Adeline, “but still I say — bother him — bother him — bother him!”
Maurice appeared as from nowhere.
“what’s that?” he demanded. “what’s that about me?”
“I say bother you and Ireland too.”
“Just for that,” said Maurice gravely, “I will take you there and keep you forever.”
Renny's Daughter
MAZO DE LA ROCHE
DUNDURN PRESS
TORONTO
I
STIRRINGS OF SPRING
The room could scarcely have been more snug for two very old men. The birch logs in the fireplace had blazed brightly and now had been resolved into glowing red shapes that looked solid but were near the point of crumbling. Soon a fresh log would be needed. There were plenty of them in the battered basket by the hearth. The February sunshine glittered on long icicles outside the window and the steady dripping from them played a pleasant tune on the sill. It was almost time for tea.
The two old brothers, Nicholas and Ernest Whiteoak, were quite ready for it. They ate lightly but liked their food often. Tea was their favourite meal. Nicholas looked impatiently at the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf.
“what time is it?” he asked.
“A quarter past four.”
“what?”
“A quarter past four.”
“Hm. I wonder where everyone is.”
“I wonder.”
“Winter’s getting on.”
“Yes. It’s St. Valentine’s Day.”
“I have a valentine.” The clear pipe came from the hearthrug where their great-nephew Dennis was lying with a book in front of him.
“You have a valentine, eh?” exclaimed Ernest. “And do you know who sent it to you?”
“No. That’s a secret. But I guess it was Adeline.” He rose and stood between the two old men like a slender shoot growing between two ancient oaks. He wore a green pullover which accentuated his clear pallor, the blondness of his straight hair, and the greenness of his long narrow eyes.
Ernest said, in rather halting French, — “I have always considered those eyes of his rather a disfigurement. They’re altogether too green. Certainly his mother’s eyes were greenish but not like this.”
Dennis said, in English, — “I understood every word you said.”
“what did I say then?” demanded Ernest.
“You said my eyes were too green. Greener than my mother’s.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Ernest. “I apologize. I forget that you’re not just a very small boy.”
“I was nine at Christmas.”
“Eight. I well remember when I was eight. I had a beautiful birthday party, in this very house.”
“How old are you now, Uncle Ernest?”
“I am ninety-four. That seems quite old to you, I daresay.”
“Yes. Pretty old.”
“Yet I remember my eighth birthday as though it were just a month ago. It was a lovely spring day and I had a new suit for the occasion. There had been a heavy rain the night before and, as I ran out to welcome the first guest, I tripped and fell into a puddle on the drive. The front of the jacket was all wet with muddy water! Even my lace collar was wet.”
“Lace collar!”
“Yes. Boys dressed differently in those days.”
Ernest would have liked to go on talking about the past but the door opened and a young girl came in. She was the daughter of the old men’s eldest nephew, Renny Whiteoak. She went to the brothers and kissed them in turn.
“Hullo, Uncles,” she exclaimed. “You look beautiful, bless your hearts.”
“All spruced up for tea,” rumbled Nicholas. “And tired of waiting for it.”
Adeline stroked his upstanding
grey hair which the onslaught of the years had failed perceptibly to thin. “I love your hair, Uncle Nick,” she said. “It looks so massive.”
At once Ernest felt a twinge of jealousy. He passed a hand over his thin white hair and said disparagingly:
“I don’t know why it is but your Uncle Nicholas’ hair never looks as though he ran a brush over it.”
“That’s the trouble,” said Adeline. “He runs the brush over it, not through it. I’ll have a go at it one of these days and show you how handsome he can look.”
Nicholas looked up at her adoringly. He took one of her slim, strong hands in his and held it to his cheek.
“You’ve been outdoors,” he said. “I smell the frosty air on your hand.”
“Yes. I’ve just had the dogs for a walk. I’m starving.”
“Here comes the tea!” cried Dennis.
Through the door which Adeline had left open behind her, a small thin man, with close-cropped grey hair and an expression of mingled resignation and aggressiveness on his sallow face, came in, carrying a tray. Adeline sprang to his assistance and drew the tea table between the two old men.
“Good,” she exclaimed. “Plenty of bread and butter and blackberry jam. I believe I like bread and butter better than any other food.” She took a piece from the plate and began to eat it. Dennis at once stretched out his hand to do the same.
“Don’t do that, young man,” said Adeline, her mouth full. “It’s one thing for me to have bad manners. Quite another for you.”
Adeline’s mother now entered. She was in her early fifties, her look of calmness and self-possession the achievement of many years of struggle. The smile on her lips was not reflected in the clear blue depths of her eyes. She seated herself behind the tea table, her hands moved among the cups and saucers. Dennis came and stood by the tray.
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 43