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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Adeline laughed. They jostled each other as they passed through the door into the porch. Antagonism and attraction struggled between them. “If only she were different,” he thought, “I could love her with all my heart.” “If only he were different,” she thought, but she did not think of love. He wanted her to be like the girls over whom he brooded in his solitude. Physically she was perfect to him. Her smile enchanted him. Why should she be so careless of those charms, bestowing her smile where it was not appreciated, for Maurice felt that no one but himself appreciated her! Yet on him she looked critically. She wished, he was sure, that he were more like her father. Once he had told her so.

  “Goodness, no,” she had said. “One of him is all I can cope with.”

  “Still you’d like me better if I were,” he had insisted.

  “One of him is all I want,” she had repeated.

  Now he said, — “Aren’t you going to put on a jacket or something? You’ll freeze.”

  “I suppose I’d better.” She darted back into the house and returned with a jacket.

  A flock of pigeons flew from the roof toward her. They sought to alight on her head and shoulders. Holding up her arms to protect herself from this demonstration of their affection she ran to the car and scrambled in. Maurice sprang in after her and slammed the door. The pigeons circled above the moving car, then were about to return to the roof when a long glittering icicle fell from the eave to the steps, with a sound of splintering glass. The pigeons swept away in the direction of the stables, their plumage shining in the sunlight.

  Maurice was happy to have her in the car with him. In its isolation he had a feeling of possessiveness over her. She sat acquiescent in the seat beside him, her burnished chestnut hair waving close about her head, the formation of her nose and chin, which, in middle age, would show the strength of her great-grandmothers profile, was now softened by youthful curves. Her lips, Maurice thought, looked unusually sweet-tempered. Conscious of his scrutiny she turned to him and smiled.

  The car bumped over a rut in the snow-drifted road. The two were bounced on the seat.

  “I hate the winter,” he exclaimed.

  “I thought you liked skiing.”

  “I do. It alleviates the monotony of cold and snow outdoors and dry heat indoors. I was made for a temperate climate, moist and gentle and green. I like tranquil people.”

  “People like me?”

  “I don’t like you, Adeline.”

  “what do you think of my going to Ireland?” she asked hurriedly.

  “I’ve always intended you should come.”

  She gave a little grunt of surprise and exasperation.

  “You are the most supercilious person I know,” she exclaimed. “You look so gentle and you speak so gently, yet you’re terribly superior inside. I guess it was your life in Ireland with that old Cousin Dermot. He spoilt you terribly. Everybody says so.”

  “what about you? You’re a spoilt child.”

  “Me? I’ve been very strictly brought up.”

  Maurice turned the car into the driveway of the grey stucco house.

  “Mother and Dad are out,” he said.

  He glanced sideways at Adeline to discover whether she were pleased or disappointed that she was to be alone with him. She showed neither feeling. Simply she wore an expression of pleasurable anticipation at the prospect of hearing a new record. They went into the comfortable living room which clearly showed one woman’s struggle against four males to preserve the freshness of its chintz, the plumpness of its cushions, the firmness of its upholstery. She had not quite succeeded or quite failed. It was a long narrow room, and in one corner stood the radio-gramophone and record cabinet.

  Adeline whistled. “Goodness, you have a lot of records. They must have cost a pretty penny.”

  “I’ve made rather a hobby of collecting them,” he said. “It’s something to do.”

  “I should think you’d have plenty to do with your university work.”

  Maurice gave a faint shrug. “Oh, I don’t work very hard. And you must remember I’m just getting over a bad attack of the flu.”

  “You do catch things, don’t you?” she said.

  Maurice thought there was a little disparagement in her voice. He answered quickly:

  “No more than most people. You’re almost too healthy.”

  Adeline laughed. “One of us has got to be strong,” she said.

  “Just what do you mean by that?” he asked eagerly.

  “Nothing — excepting that the new generation can’t afford to be delicate and elegant.”

  “I’m not delicate.” he returned hotly. “But just because I’ve never been keen about horses and sports, you think I am.”

  “You get annoyed,” she said, “if I suggest that you’re delicate. Yet you said, a moment ago, that I’m too healthy.”

  “Forgive me, Adeline.” He put his arm about her. “I wouldn’t for worlds have you different.”

  Something in his voice made her feel their isolation in the house. Detaching herself she turned on the radio. The voice of a male crooner came out, whiningly, urging his loved one to surrender.

  The two young people, with expressionless faces, stared at the radio.

  When the song was finished Adeline said, — “Imagine surrendering to that!”

  “I don’t believe you will ever know what surrender means.”

  “I don’t think I shall,” she returned serenely.

  Maurice turned off the radio and adjusted the machine for records. He put on the waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Adeline felt that here was music she could understand, very different from the lifeless sounds that had just come over the radio. She pictured Finch bending above the keyboard of the piano at Jalna. She stood by the window looking out at the snowy scene, the bare black limbs of the trees, each limb topped by a sharply defined rim of snow, the sky red in the burnished sunset.

  “That music makes me happy,” she said, at the end. “I could fly — I could dance like an angel to it.”

  “You do dance like one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Would you like to dance now?”

  “I thought I came here to listen to records.”

  “We can do both.”

  “Let’s have the records first.”

  Maurice put on several classical records. She gave her judicial attention to each. She said:

  “I like the Tchaikovsky one best.”

  “I knew you would. You see, I can guess your taste.”

  “We don’t go in for records.”

  “Adeline, will you dance?”

  “No. I’m not in the mood,” she answered tersely.

  He offered her a cigarette and they sat down side by side on the sofa.

  “I can’t tell you,” he said, “how excited I am at the thought of going back to Ireland. You know I should have gone when I came of age but my mother was ill. Wouldn’t you like to visit me in my own house, Adeline?”

  “Of course I should. We’ve always planned it. I’ll persuade Daddy to come too. See if I don’t.”

  Maurice said dreamily — “Everything is going to be different from now on. I shall be my own rd. So long as I am under this roof I’m conscious of my father’s authority.”

  Adeline gave a little sympathetic grunt. Then she said, — “Mooey, you haven’t changed a bit since you came home. Excepting, of course, to grow up.”

  “The years I spent in Ireland were the happiest of my life,” he said, in the reminiscent tone of an elderly man.

  “I think it was a very queer thing,” declared Adeline, “for your parents to do. I mean to let you go all that distance to live with an old forty-second cousin. Why, you might have died of homesickness. I’m sure I should have.”

  “It was pretty bad at first.”

  “Still, it turned out well, as he left you all his money.”

  “Adeline, you are a materialistic little beast.”

  “No, I’m not. I just l
ook facts in the face. You live in a kind of dream. You like to pretend that you don’t care about money but you like it just as well as anybody.”

  A motor car turned into the drive. In a moment the front door of the house was thrown open. Piers Whiteoak, his wife, and his youngest child entered the hall with a stamping of snowy feet and the barking of a small dog. Child and dog ran into the room.

  This baby girl was Adeline’s favourite and pet. She snatched her up and kissed her.

  “Do you remember,” she asked Maurice, “how, when Baby was born, you and I agreed never to marry but always to be friends and have her for our child?”

  “I never agreed to any such thing. It’s an idiotic idea.”

  “It would save a lot of trouble.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  Adeline opened her eyes wide. “why, Mooey, I thought it was all arranged.”

  Piers and Pheasant came into the room. Piers, at forty-four, still retained his fresh-coloured complexion, the brightness of his blue eyes. Pheasant, two years younger, had the figure of a slim girl, an eager questioning look in her eyes. What that question was she did not herself know. Even the devoted love she gave Piers did not answer it, nor even his loyal love for her.

  Piers said to his son, — “That car of yours was left directly in my way. The result was that your mother had to wade through deep snow to get round it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” exclaimed Maurice contritely but with a tremor of anger in his voice at the anger in Piers’s.

  The little girl said proudly, — “Daddy carried Baby in. Baby didn’t walk in the snow.”

  Pheasant sat down facing Maurice and Adeline. “where do you suppose we were?” she asked. “We were at the Clappertons’! Really it is the strangest household! I almost feel sorry for the old fellow. I don’t think he realized, when he married that odd girl and took her odd sisters into the house, what he was letting himself in for. The house is like a menagerie. Pets of all sorts — all over the place. And it’s so untidy! And poor Mr. Clapperton has a cowed look.”

  “He looked bad-tempered to me,” said Piers.

  “I wish I might be hidden there,” she continued, “and hear what goes on.”

  “For one thing,” said Adeline, “they can’t get any proper help. Maids won’t stay there. It was the youngest sister who did most of the work and since she’s married Mr. Clapperton’s nephew and gone to the States, things get worse and worse. Neither Mrs. Clapperton nor Althea is able to do much.”

  “They have a D.P. now,” said Pheasant, “who can speak only a dozen words of English. You’ll never guess what Mr. Clapperton whispered to me, Piers.”

  “what? I saw a good deal of whispering between you.”

  “He told me he’s planning to get on with his model village in the spring!”

  “why — he promised to give up the idea of that, to please his wife!”

  “I guess he’s tired of trying to please her. Anyhow that’s what he said.”

  “Renny’ll never allow it.”

  “I hope he can stop it but, for my part, I don’t see much harm in a pretty little model village.”

  Piers gave her a look of disgust. “A pretty little model village — right on our doorstep! Teeming with undesirable people — screaming children all over the place — I can tell you it would lower the value of our property in no time.”

  “There is a terrible need for houses.” Maurice thoroughly disliked the thought of the village but some antagonism he could not resist impelled him to be in opposition to Piers.

  “Let them build somewhere else,” Piers said hotly. “There’s plenty of room.”

  “If Mr. Clapperton builds a lot of houses next door to us,” said Adeline, “Daddy will pull them down with his own hands. And I’ll help him.”

  “Mrs. Clapperton will never let him do it,” declared Pheasant. “She has the upper hand, it’s easy to see.”

  Adeline stood up very straight. “I’m going home,” she said, “to tell Daddy and the uncles.”

  The baby girl clung to her. “No, no, Adeline stay with Mary!”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Stay to supper,” urged Piers.

  “I’ll stay tomorrow, if I may.”

  Driving to Jalna Maurice said petulantly, — “why did they have to come home, just when we were enjoying ourselves alone!” He had a feeling that if he had been left alone with Adeline the barrier that separated them might have disappeared. He had many opportunities of being alone with her yet always experienced the same feeling of frustration, of inability to draw spiritually close to her. Sometimes he told himself that this would be forever impossible, that they never could be more to each other than they now were — cousins — friends — but lovers, never. Sometimes he told himself that the trouble lay in her youth. She was, in many ways, young for her years, while he felt himself more mature than his parents. Yet he knew that in their eyes he had not touched even the fringe of experience. He knew that to Piers he was no more than a callow, rather irritating youth, to Pheasant her little son, growing up, of course, but still her little son. One thing Maurice was sure of — Adeline would never grow up in the way he wanted her to while she lived at Jalna. He was the outsider and he wanted to draw her outside with him. If he could take her to Ireland with him everything would be different. She wanted, with all her might, to go to Ireland — but not for the sake of making anything different.

  In the drawing-room, with the curtains drawn against the evening. Renny and the two old uncles sat close together in front of the fire whose light made a fragile cameo of Ernest’s face, mysterious caverns of Nicholas’ eyes, glinted on his massive seal ring and intensified the high-coloured hardiness of Renny’s face, Adeline stood regarding the three with the sombre look of one who bore tidings which would take the smiles from their faces.

  “Mr. Clapperton,” she said, “is at it again.”

  “At what?” demanded all three.

  “His village. Uncle Piers and Auntie Pheasant just came from his house and he told her he’s getting on with it in the spring.”

  Ernest struck the arm of his chair with a slender clenched fist.

  “He can’t do it,” he said, his voice breaking with anger. “I will not allow it!”

  Nicholas cupped an ear with his hand. “what’s this?” he demanded. “what’s that horrid old fellow up to? Ill-treating his poor young wife, I’ll be bound.”

  Adeline came and perched on the arm of his chair. “No, Uncle Nick — something far worse. He’s talking of building more bungalows. His model village, you know.”

  “But we stopped that years ago.”

  Renny gave a short laugh. “He perennially brings up the subject, but his wife will never let him go on with it. He’s completely under her thumb.”

  “And the right place for him, too,” said Nicholas.

  “I shouldn’t be too sure of that,” Ernest said judicially. “I should look into the matter. Tell him I will not allow it.

  “A lot he cares for you,” chuckled his brother.

  “He has the greatest respect for my opinion, as he has told me on more than one occasion.”

  “It was a bad day for everyone when he came into the neighbourhood,” said Renny. “I hate the sight of him. I think I’ll go straight over and see him.”

  III

  A TRIO AT HOME

  After Piers and his wife had left Vaughanlands the three people who made up the family sat silent for a short while, each occupied with thoughts which their calm exteriors belied. Eugene Clapperton, grey-haired, rigid, thought — “why did I tell Mrs. Whiteoak I was going to start building again? Gem would never agree to it. But I had to tell her. It made me feel better. It made me feel my own rd again. And certainly if I want to realize my life’s dream I’ll not let her prevent it. God, when I think what I’ve done for her — and her ingratitude! It makes me sick. To think she wouldn’t have been able to take a step today, if it hadn’t been for me! Look at th
e luxury I keep her in, and she was poor as a church mouse. If only I knew what is in that head of hers! Ingratitude and conceit. You’d think she owned the house. She likes to put me in the wrong — make me look small.… If only I didn’t love her it wouldn’t be so bad! But she’ll try me too far.… There’s a limit even to my endurance.” He sat smiling a little, his eyes blank, his thin ankles interlocked against the front of his chair.

  His wife thought, — “what was he whispering to Pheasant? Some foolish boasting I’m very sure. But she seemed worried by it. What could it have been that would make her look anxious? I wish he would go and leave the fire to Althea and me. His presence in the room irritates me. The way he holds his legs. The way he keeps rubbing the back of one hand with the dry palm of the other.… Yet, if his hands were moist — how horrible I dislike Eugene’s hands. The fingers are too short for his height. The thumb is coarse…. When I have him alone I will worm out of him what he was saying to Pheasant Whiteoak.

  Althea, fair and ethereally slender, sat watching a dark corner of the room. She was thinking, — “I believe I heard the tortoise move. How thrilling if he’s awake! I’m glad I brought him into this warm room. He has slept long enough. This is just the place for him. As far as I’m concerned it’s my favourite room in the house and I could make it beautiful, if I could get rid of those hideous pictures of Eugene’s and put up some good ones. That fat man knitting. That shipwreck off an incredible coast. Those cows in that repulsive meadow. I should burn them all! And Eugene with them!” She gave a little laugh.

  “And what do you find amusing, may I enquire?” asked her brother-in-law.

  “The tortoise. He’s waking. Don’t you hear him?” A steady thumping and bumping came from a small wooden box at the end of the room.

  “You have brought that creature into the best room!” Eugene Clapperton exclaimed angrily.

  “It’s the best room for him. It faces south. It’s always warm. He’s been cold long enough.”

  “I don’t like it at all.”

  Althea turned to her sister. “The tortoise does no harm, does he?”

  “Not a bit of harm. I adore him.”