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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Fitzturgis and Adeline stood alone together in the crowd.

  “Goodbye, Mait,” she said and gave him her hand.

  He took it and held it. “I will come,” he said.

  “How soon can you come?”

  “I’ll let you know.” He paused irresolute, as though he tried to say something, then repeated his goodbye and turned away.

  But she would not yet part with him. A space had cleared ahead of them. Suiting her step to his she walked beside him toward the main door.

  “How soon?” she asked.

  “Very soon.”

  “We’ve said goodbye, haven’t we?” she said when they reached the door.

  “Yes.”

  A porter had engaged a car for him and it stood waiting, his suitcases inside.

  “My darling one,” said Fitzturgis quietly, “I must leave you now.”

  She held up her face to be kissed. He put his arms about her and their lips met. Then he sprang into the car and was gone.

  She was in a daze till she found herself in Maurice’s old Armstrong-Siddeley, driven by the same Patsy who had come to meet him when he was a small boy.

  “You’re not a bit changed, Patsy,” exclaimed Maurice.

  “Och, I’m the same ould Patsy,” he agreed, showing a number of black teeth under a shaggy grey moustache, “but the place is not the same — with the masther dead and gone and you away off in Canada. It’s glad I am ye’ve come home, and everything clane and tidy for your welcome, though me missus says the curtains is like to fall down and the cairpets to break under yer feet, what with the moth and the rot.”

  Adeline whispered to Finch, — “Listen to him — calling this ‘home’ to Mooey.”

  “And so it will be, from now on. What a pity his mother could not have come to see him in it!”

  “Yes,” she agreed, then added happily, “but we’re here to enjoy it and we shall tell her all about it … Look, Uncle Finch, a cart with a darling little donkey! I remember them so well. You know, the time when I was in Ireland before doesn’t seem very long ago, but what a difference! Now I’m grown up.” She added to herself, — “grown up — a woman — deeply in love!”

  She mused on herself, at the change in herself …

  When they reached Cork the streets were busy. But women with black shawls over their heads moved slowly in an ancient leisure. Over all hung the canopy of a clear blue sky and bright pale sunshine. They went into a restaurant and had buns and hot coffee to warm them. Adeline talked of everything she saw, yet her eyes were in constant search of that one figure. The family at Jalna were proud of their well-shaped bodies. They noticed, more than they should, the proportions, the carriage of other men. So Adeline had noted with admiration that Fitzturgis, though not tall, was admirably proportioned. Now where was he? Hastening along the road toward his home or somewhere in Cork? what would she not have given for just one more glimpse of him!

  Maurice avoided her eyes. He would not be friends with her — not yet. Perhaps never again would their relations be the same. And yet, what was this little infatuation for Fitzturgis? Nothing more, in all probability, than a shipboard affair that would be forgotten after a week on land. But try as he would to be philosophic about it Maurice was much disturbed. Never before had Adeline shown a preference for any man. The callow love passages of most girls were not for her.

  As the car moved along the country road toward Glengorman Maurice ceased to make response to Patsy’s recital of all that had taken place during his absence and gave himself up to the disappointment of his return.

  “She has spoilt it all,” he thought, remembering how he had lain awake most of the night. “Last night — the night before landing — and today — the day I have so long looked forward to — she has spoilt them both. I’ll never forgive her for this.” He was conscious, in every fibre, of her sitting in the seat behind. He could hear her voice and imagined how, the evening before, that same voice had said loving things to Fitzturgis.

  Perhaps too easily he felt himself living in the midst of uncertainty, felt himself slighted. He who should have been the proud eldest son, like his uncle Renny, was the son his father liked least. Nothing he could do, he felt, was congenial to his father. Even his mother, whose love for him was so palpable, had let him be sent away to Ireland when he was a small boy, to live with an old man she had never seen. She had, not long ago, confessed to him that it had nearly broken her heart — she had been persuaded by others to give him up. Maurice had not forgiven her. Even though the visit had brought forth the planned-for fruit and he had inherited Glengorman he had not forgiven her. Even though his years in Ireland had been the happiest of his life he would never forgive her. She should not have let him go.

  Finch was remembering his last visit to Ireland and his reconciliation with his wife from whom he had been separated. She had sought him out, not he her. She had rekindled the dark fire of his passion for her. Dennis had been conceived. When Dennis was born her love had been transferred to him. She had thrown off her infatuation for Finch as a snake sloughs its skin. How different she had been from the traditional Irishwoman! She had been reserved, with a strange stillness in that white face of hers. Never could she have been called laughter-loving or gay. The very jet-black convolutions of her hair, worn long when other women wore theirs short, had a classic coldness. And how rigid had been her movements! Before they had parted for the last time the sight of her crossing a room had called forth an antagonism from him, yet with all this coldness, this rigidity, there had been the hooded passion of her secret nature.… And now she was dead and buried. How long had she been dead? Was it four years? Sarah dead.… He pictured her grave in the Californian cemetery and, for a moment’s abhorrence, what lay in the grave.… The country they were passing through was indistinct before his eyes. Dim curtains of colour opened, closed, melted into each other. Patsy’s voice came from the front seat but no intelligible words.

  Now he saw the bare hills in their rocky greenness, the wooded valley where a stream ran, an empty mansion, with its roof burned off.

  At last they reached Glengorman, passed through the stone gateway, along the drive to the house. Adeline was satisfied with the gargoyles above the door. That was as it should be. But she was disappointed because there was no line of bowing domestics to welcome Maurice, only Patsy’s wife, Kathleen, a wisp of a woman, not nearly so impressive as Mrs. Wragge. And what did she do but throw both arms about him and kiss him. “Just for ould times’ sake, when you were a darlin’ boy!”

  Later Patsy said to his wife, — “There’s no nature in him. Hardly a word did he spake and him with all this waitin’ for him.”

  “I’d respect him less if he chattered,” returned Kathleen. “He’s mourning for the ould rd, and right and proper it is. You must remember too that he’s part English.”

  Lunch was waiting and, when they sat down at table, Maurice was in the heavy carved chair where once old Cousin Dermot had sat, Adeline on his right, Finch on his left. Beyond them the table stretched empty. Maurice was embarrassed, shy, proud, all at once. Here he was very much “somebody,” instead of a young unimportant member of a large family. Adeline was elated by the changes of scene, her eyes bright, as though poised to receive all that came to her. Finch’s dark thoughts had slid away from him, like seaweed from a swimmer, and he was ready to strike out boldly, to enjoy this freedom from the stress of life.

  Maurice looking at Adeline thought, — “I’m a fool to let myself be troubled by that fellow. She’ll forget him in no time here.” His spirits lifted. Thoughts of his new free life crowded in on him. There were so many things he would do. He was freed from his father’s critical gaze that always both angered and took the pith out of him. He looked forward to the day when Piers would visit him at Glengorman, see him as rd there.

  “This house makes Jalna seem small, doesn’t it, Adeline?” he asked.

  “Small? No. Jalna’s big enough. This is too big.”

  �
�You think so?”

  “Well, we have more land. You have only two hundred acres. We have five.”

  “Children, children —” grinned Finch.

  “what I mean is,” she said, “it is the land that counts. It’s rather silly for one boy to live alone in a house this size.”

  “I shan’t always be alone.”

  “Good luck to you, Mooey, whoever you choose.”

  “All this means nothing to you, does it?” he exclaimed angrily, as though they two were alone.

  “Everything concerning you means a lot to us, doesn’t it, Uncle Finch?”

  “We’ve got to be very civil to Mooey,” said Finch. “He has us at his mercy.”

  “Adeline loves to deflate one,” Maurice complained.

  “So did Gran,” said Finch.

  Adeline preened herself, tossing back her russet locks.

  “It’s been a great mistake,” declared Maurice, “this telling Adeline how much she resembles Gran. She might have been a nicer girl …”

  “Wait till I’m a hundred and you’ll see how nice I shall be!” she cried.

  “I shall not be here to see. I’ll die long before you.”

  “Of course you will. You’ll give up the ghost at the first creak in your joints.”

  “And you’ll hang on, I suppose, till everyone is tired of you.”

  “No one was tired of Gran.”

  “People could endure more in those days.”

  They were always on the verge of a quarrel.

  Patsy came in carrying a bottle of wine. He said:

  “This is a bottle of rare good wine, sir. I managed to save it when the executors locked up the cellar and all. It’s been waitin’ on ye all these years and ye couldn’t find a betther, if ye scraped Ireland with a small tooth-comb.” His little eyes glistened under his coarse grey brows.

  Amity reblossomed. Maurice’s health was drunk and his future happiness at Glengorman.

  He had left his dog, a fawn-coloured Labrador bitch, behind him when he returned to Canada. After lunch she appeared with her son, as large as she. She sprang on Maurice and made much of him.

  “She remembers me!” Maurice cried delighted.

  At first shyly, then a little closer, gambolled the son, his muscular body brimming with careless vitality. His mother and he locked jaws and pushed one another this way and that. Their life was one long-drawn amiable wrestling.

  Now Maurice set out to show his property to cousin and uncle. They climbed a long flight of moss-grown stone steps between high walls in the garden. Rhododendrons heavy with bloom pressed close to the walls, hung over them. The dogs took the steps in bounds and stood waiting at the top where, on level ground, were the stables, their only occupants a cow and several hens and geese with their broods.

  Adeline went from stall to stall. “Splendid!” she declared. “what a fine place for horses!” She caught her cousin by the arm. “Mooey, will you let me fill these stalls with horses for you? Wouldn’t you like to spend some of your money on your stables?”

  “Not a penny,” he returned curtly. “I’m quite satisfied to keep chickens. I like them.”

  The tiny chickens ran about the stable yard. The gander thrust out his neck and hissed.

  Maurice led the others through the formal gardens to a knoll where an ancient beech spread its mossy limbs and where Adeline was afraid to step for fear she should tread on a primrose. Their clusters grew thick, creamy-gold, arranged as though to pattern the knoll. Maurice raised his arm and pointed. “There is the sea!”

  “May we go to the shore now?” she asked.

  “I’d rather show you the house first — if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, show us the house first,” said Finch.

  “Oh, yes, we’d love to see the house,” agreed Adeline, and thought, — “The shore can wait. I’d like to go there all by myself.” She took a hand of each and linked together they returned to the house.

  It had the chill of a place long shut up. Now all the windows stood open and the mild sunshine entered. It sought out dim mirrors and tarnished gilt frames, the rosewood of cabinets and the china figures inside. It gleamed on the smooth stone flags of a passage and on the glass doorknobs of the bedrooms. Maurice pointed out a group of little pictures — portraits of fighting-cocks, made from feathers.

  “Look!” he cried. “I remember admiring those the very first day I was here. Aren’t they clever?”

  Adeline read the words beneath one of the cocks.

  “‘The Bronze Cyclone who was known to kill two other cocks in five minutes.’ whew!” she gasped. “He was a little terror, wasn’t he?”

  “I never looked at the words,” said Maurice, drawing back, “only at the bird.”

  “He’s lovely,” breathed Adeline, her eyes held by his spurs. “You’re lucky to own such interesting things.”

  “Now I feel I’m really at home,” he said. “Everything had grown a little dim. And yet, in a way, it’s unreal with Cousin Dermot gone … I called him Grandfather, you know.”

  “Yes, I know … But it won’t seem unreal for long — not with me here. Will it, Mooey?”

  XIV

  LOVE’S PROGRESS

  Adeline chose a path that led from a corner of the garden half-hidden by rhododendrons and then on through a plantation of specimen trees brought from foreign parts by some former Court. These had, through the long years, grown to enormous size and a great silence reigned among them. Some had such strange leaves that she paused to examine them; some were cloaked in grey moss; the branches of some, when they drooped to the earth, found succour there and sent down new roots and up rose a new tree; some had bark with such deep crevices that she could lay her hand in them. Wherever there was an open space where sunshine fell, a rhododendron presented its mass of pink or coral-coloured or mauve flowers. Never still, the two Labradors moved swiftly through the long grass, noses to earth, their golden backs smooth as snakes, their long tails waving against the bluebells.

  To be alone, that was what she had been longing for. This was her second day at Glengorman and always Finch or Maurice had been by her side, calling her to come and see this or come and do that. She craved solitude by the sea and in that solitude to savour the joy of this new emotion that possessed her, that ran through her like a quick fire in the grass.

  She crossed steep hillsides, their only growth grey boulders, and now she saw the glistening blue floor of the inlet, and beyond it the bare, mountainous, grey-green land. Calling the dogs she ran down the hillside to the rocky shore. On a little grassy point among the rocks she threw herself down, her cheek on the grass, her eyes seeing no more than that small space, the clumps of sea-pinks, the smooth shoulder of rock, the scrap of sky. It was enough. She could not have borne more. Deep down among the rocks, the small waves came and went, repeating without one weary note the first song they had learned.

  She was conscious of all her being; of her feet that had run so gladly down the hillside and now lay side by side, the toes pressing the earth; of her knees, strong and supple, that so often had clasped a horse’s sides; her loins, her sides, her breast rising and falling with the weight of the salt air. One hand curved about a clump of sea-pinks to protect them in case she made a sudden movement. She did not know what she might do next. She felt as inconsequent as the two dogs who came and sniffed her and then ran off again, satisfied to know she was there.

  She closed her eyes and swam in the crimson and gold world behind their lids. She drew long slow happy breaths of the salt air. She tried to think, to realize that she was here, to be entirely conscious of her inner self. What came to her was the image of Fitzturgis, surrounded by a scarlet and gold aura, like the image of a saint. That image stood high above all the world and she held it a moment, in breathless worship … what had he done to her in those few days? Her spirit melted in pity for herself and her eyes filled with tears.

  She opened them and the translucent spring world formed itself and the sound o
f the wavelets in the crevice below came to her …

  Her hand was still curved about the cluster of sea-pinks. She touched them with her fingers, then sat up and looked about her, as though for the first time. A little freighter, foreign-looking, was moving past in the direction of Cork. The hills and woods on the opposite shore were brighter. Set in a park she could make out a large white mansion and, here and there, a farm-house.

  The Labrador bitch came and nuzzled her coaxingly, then planted a large paw on the sea-pink cluster.

  “Oh, naughty Bridget!” cried Adeline and heaved up the paw. In distress she examined the flowers. They were not broken. One by one the little heads would rise again. Down to the very water’s edge grew their fellows. A scrap of earth no bigger than a thimble made a cradle for their young.

  Now, with the two dogs, she scrambled up the steep and ran along the stony path up to a barren hilltop. There the wide sea stretched before her, lustrous in the sunshine like a damascened shield. There was wind here and it pressed her thin skirt against her thighs, caught at her breath and blew out the bright waves of her hair. She threw up her arms and stood on her toes, straining upward as though on wings. “Oh, Maitland Fitzturgis,” she sang, “I do love you!”

  She laughed at herself, but sang it out again and again, running over the hilltop, not knowing what to do with herself for joy. The dogs leaped about her and about each other, carrying on their endless loving combat. Rolling over and over, gnawing, making as though to swallow one another. The son was the more persistent, the mother in the last event the stronger.

  So they progressed, over the hill, down into a valley, in whose shelter rhododendrons had sprung up, and bluebells. She saw the figure of a man standing, fishing rod in hand, on a jutting rock. She saw his arm rise and in a sweeping movement throw out the line. She saw the glitter of the fly as it danced above the pool. Again and again he cast and at last, swimming brightly into the air, came a fish. Detaching it from the hook he laid it in a fishing basket and she saw that there were others there.