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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Adeline exclaimed contritely, — “Your dinner is getting cold. Come, Maitland.”

  They said goodnight.

  Now they were in a taxicab moving slowly through the press and glare of the streets. It had begun to rain, only a shower but enough to run down the windows of the cab. One drop would trickle half-way, hesitate, then would be joined by another. The two, accelerated, would hasten the rest of the way. The faces of the people on the “islands” were blurred. Some looked anxiously upward, but most looked quietly enduring. A crop of umbrellas suddenly appeared, like mushrooms in damp weather.

  The rain made a wall of intimacy about the two in the cab. But he could not forgive her for having forced the meeting between him and Georgina Lennox. It rankled with him that she had overridden him, for he looked on her as tender and tractable. He remembered how she had sat beside him on the grass in the park, her body half-folded, with her back against a tree. There had been the smell of warm grass. Now — it was stuffy in the cab and he opened a window wide and let in the smell of the rain. He kept the side of his shoulder to her and his face averted.

  Now she felt the stronger of the two. “Angry, Maitland?” she enquired, in a caressing tone.

  “Yes,” he returned briefly, and he put out an angry hand and clasped hers.

  “I couldn’t help it. I wanted her to see us together.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “But you’re angry.”

  “If you want the truth I think it was rather stupid.”

  “Well — that’s forthright.”

  She tried to withdraw her hand but he held it close.

  “I want to forget the past,” he said.

  “But — I’ve just heard about it.”

  “Well,” he said, “you have seen me face to face with her. How do you feel?”

  “I wonder what you ever found in her to love.”

  “So do I.”

  “Is she a good actress?”

  “Very good — within her limits.”

  The taxicab was held up in the traffic. People surged past. Umbrellas bobbed. The rain, no longer a shower, came down in a silent grey curtain.

  “Oh, it’s lovely in here,” exclaimed Adeline. “I wish it might go on and on.”

  “Shall I tell the man to drive round for a bit?”

  “Just for a little while. But — do you want to?”

  “Adeline, I don’t quite know what I want.” But he leant forward, tapped the glass and told the driver to go round the park.

  They passed the Marble Arch and went along the Bayswater Road, under the blurred lights, the trees thick and dark on their left.

  “Are you bored?” asked Adeline, he was so quiet.

  “By my life — yes.”

  “I never could be bored.”

  “You are lucky.”

  “But I can suffer. I can be unhappy. At this moment I’m happy and adventurous. Have you forgiven me for what I did?”

  “No.”

  “Have you an unforgiving nature?”

  “I think I have.”

  “Do you still wish we could go away somewhere together and not come back?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, Mait.” She sank back into her dark corner of the cab.

  They were silent for a space. Pictures from his past stormed upon him. She had no past other than childhood. Never had they shared any experience. Never had they done anything together. A throng of figures crowded his mind — from his life in London, from his life in Malaya, from the war. In hers there were only the family.

  But he began to talk in desultory fashion, of Georgina, of Sylvia and her dead husband. Some of the things he recalled were trifling but he had never talked of them before and it was a relief. Of some things, which were the important ones, he spoke only in broken sentences which he completed with an expressive gesture.

  “Mait,” she once interrupted him to say, “you are a little Frenchified. It’s funny, but you are.”

  “I had a French grandmother.”

  “Do you remember her?”

  “I do indeed.”

  The cab moved on. The rain had ceased but the pavements were running with water. Out of the darkness came a glimpse of the shabby wooden fence sprung up during the war to take the place of wrought iron. Now the dark trees were so heavy with rain that, at each gust of wind, they produced little individual showers of their own. The taxi-driver’s back was a black hump of resignation. As Fitzturgis talked he became more tranquil. She stored away all he said, to ponder in the future which spread mysterious before her.

  They passed over a little bridge, she saw the glint of water among the trees, they passed Hyde Park Corner, then went all the way round, for the third time. At last they were in Dover Street and he was paying the driver. They went along the quiet passage of the hotel and looked through the glass screen into the lounge. A few people were sitting there but not Finch.

  “I think I should see him,” said Fitzturis, “and explain. Shall I ring up his room?”

  “Yes.” She surrendered herself to his care.

  While they waited, she asked — “You’ll stay in London for a few days, now you’re here, won’t you?”

  He nodded, his eyes fixed on Finch coming toward them. He was pale and his hair looked as though he had run his hands through it. Without looking at Fitzturgis, he said, — “I’ve had a cable from Renny. Uncle Ernest died last night. We’re to be back for the funeral. I’ve been able to get passage on a plane for tomorrow.”

  XXV

  RETURN TO JALNA

  Renny Whiteoak and his son Archer were waiting at the airport for the plane from Montreal. It was late and, as their eyes continually sought the sky for a sign of it, they moved restlessly across the grassy verge beyond the waiting room, unable to settle down stoically as the others did. Physically there was no resemblance between them, but in common they wore grey suits and on the left sleeve of each was a black band of crape. So unusual had this sign of mourning become that people turned to look at them, sometimes in curiosity, sometimes with a little amusement, as they would look at people who had not moved with the times.

  Archer asked, — “May I break the news to Adeline?”

  “Don’t be silly,” returned his father. “If she doesn’t know, why is she coming?”

  “I thought Uncle Finch was just bringing her.”

  “He’d have to tell her.”

  “If I were going to a university abroad and Uncle Nicholas died, would you send for me?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And if Auntie Meg died and Uncle Piers died and Auntie Pheasant died, would you keep right on sending for me?”

  “I should probably be dead too.”

  Archer considered this and, as he turned over in his mind the enthralling possibilities of these flights, the gleaming plane appeared in the pale blue sky.

  “There it is,” he cried and ran forward.

  Down the plane sank and reached the runway. From being a fabulous bird it became rather an undignified piece of mechanism as it trundled along, hesitated, stopped and disgorged. The passengers, from being helpless, strapped-in creatures, suddenly became active as ants, clutching their belongings, on the march, defensive. They did not cast a look behind but hastened forward to whatever pleasures or miseries awaited them.

  Adeline caught Renny’s arm. “Oh, Daddy, how glad I am to see you!”

  “Uncle Ernest is dead,” said Archer.

  Adeline gave him a hug but he disengaged himself. He fixed his eyes on Finch. “The funeral,” he said, “is tomorrow.”

  “So soon!” exclaimed Finch.

  “It’s not soon. He’s been dead for days.”

  Renny drew Finch aside. “This has been a blow,” he said, “on top of all that went before. I’m sorry I had to send for you, but — you understand.”

  “Yes. How is Uncle Nick?”

  Renny’s face lighted in pride. “He’s bearing up wonderfully. Far better than I could have ho
ped.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Finch heavily. “Tell me how it happened.”

  “Well — he was determined to see the ruin —”

  “Ruin! What ruin?”

  “Ruin of Vaughanlands. It was burned down.”

  “Burned down!” almost shouted Finch.

  “Yes. And Clapperton in it. Well, as I said, Uncle Ernest insisted —”

  “But why didn’t you tell me in the cable?”

  “I told you all that mattered.”

  Finch looked about him, at the hurrying figures, at Archer stowing luggage in the car, as though at a picture too unreal for belief. He muttered, — “You were saying he was determined to go.”

  “Yes. He insisted and it was too much for him. He died in his sleep.”

  “That was merciful.”

  As Archer stowed away the luggage with unnecessary precision, he was saying to Adeline in his high detached voice, “The roof is fallen in. Everything is as black as your boot, and Philip says Mr. Clapperton was too. In fact, I know he was, for I saw him myself.”

  “How terrible!” For the moment, Uncle Ernest’s death was obliterated by this catastrophe.

  “Yes,” improvised Archer, his body rigid, “and I took off my jacket and covered his face. It’s the proper thing to do, you know. I mean where his face had been.”

  Renny, coming up to them at this moment, noticed Adeline’s extreme pallor. She looked as though she might faint. He took her arm and half lifted her into the car, then slid under the wheel beside her.

  “Don’t feel so badly,” he said. “After all, he was pretty old and he went without pain.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, and grasped his knee in her hand, as though for support.

  During the drive to Jalna he spoke of the arrangements for the funeral, Finch leaning forward to hear, Archer, in his eagerness, listening as though he would tear the words from his father’s mouth. The evening was descending in gentle gold and green. The rain had repainted the greenness of the land. The sun moved in and out behind little gilded clouds, casting its light now here, now there, now touching a slope, now sending spears of brightness into a dark wood. When they reached Jalna, all the windows of the house were ablaze and, for an instant, the terror of fire shocked Adeline’s nerves. Now the gravel crunched beneath the wheels and the car stopped at the side entrance.

  Catching Adeline by the hand, Archer whispered, — “Want to go round to the front and see the long black streamer on the door?” He dragged on her hand, urging her.

  “I saw it.”

  Renny opened the door, with calculated caution. In the hall there was dimness because of drawn blinds but it was almost brutally broken by splashes of crimson and purple from the stained-glass windows. There was a heavy scent of flowers.

  Piers came from the drawing-room to meet them, moving with the decorous air with which he carried the alms dish along the aisle on a Sunday. He looked fresh and pink-skinned and so natural that the two neCentenaryomers let their eyes rest on him in relief.

  He took their hands. “You made it, eh?” he said. “Did you have a good trip?”

  “Fine,” answered Finch. “There was no trouble.”

  “who is in there?” Renny asked, nodding toward a murmur of voices from the drawing-room.

  Piers gave the name of some old friends of Ernest’s.

  “Lord,” exclaimed Renny, in a whisper, “I haven’t heard of them in years.”

  “I didn’t know them, they’d aged so,” said Piers.

  “Don’t take them up to Uncle Nick.”

  “Oh, no. They haven’t suggested it. Alayne is with them.”

  Finch asked, — “May Adeline and I go upstairs?” Renny nodded and they tiptoed up the stairs.

  In the passage they were met by Roma. “Oh, hello,” she said, looking Adeline up and down, and holding a flower-pale cheek toward Finch. He bent and kissed it, then, in long silent strides, mounted to his own room. He closed the door after him and stood motionless in the safety of the room. How often, in his boyhood, had he come to its shelter, how often, in his manhood, returned to find it unchanged, waiting for him. The bed whose mattress knew every bone in his body, the washing stand at which he had gone through the perfunctory ablutions of youth, the dressing table with the mottled mirror into which he had peered in anxiety to tie his first evening tie, the window through which he had looked out at the night sky.

  Still moving softly, as though he feared to wake someone, he went to the window and leant his forehead against the frame. Beyond the trees he could see the roofs of the stables and the last sunray touching the weathervane. He could see the orchard and the fields heavy with growing grain. Over all there was a look of finality, as though all movement, all effort had come to an end with the passing of Ernest. Not that Ernest had made much effort in his life, except to enjoy it, in a pleasant and amiable way. Forty years ago he had begun his book on Shakespeare. He had written some chapters, born of books he had read on the subject. There were reminiscences of actors he had seen in the famous parts, and these were the only original bits in the manuscript. Ernest had cherished it, even to the last year, and promised himself that he would yet finish it, even though, a quarter of a century ago, his mother had twitted him for his inability to get on with it. Now the manuscript of his life had the final words added to it. His had been the first birth under this roof and he had spent the greater part of his life here.

  “I did not want him to die,” Finch said aloud. “I wanted him to be always here when I came home.”

  A sudden fear that he would be asked to look at Ernest swept through him. If he were forced to do that, he would not sleep tonight. He closed his eyes, seeing Ernest’s face, disturbed by the fear of death. He could not, would not, go into that room!

  A soft drumming came on the panel of the door. He knew at once to whom those small capable fingers belonged. A vision of Sarah, drumming on his door, came to him. He stood motionless, staring defensively at the door. The small fingers increased the tempo of their beat. A treble voice asked, — “May I come in?”

  “Not now,” answered Finch. “I’ll be down.”

  “Soon?”

  “Yes, soon.”

  “I’ll be waiting at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “Good.”

  But there was no sound of footsteps leaving. Just silence. Finch listened for a little, then flung open the door. Dennis was standing there, pale, fair, with his hands clasped in front of him, as though to restrain them from drumming. Finch demanded:

  “why didn’t you go when I told you to?”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “How did you say it?”

  “You told me you were going and I said ‘Good.’”

  “Do I do any harm just waiting?”

  “Well, not exactly. But when you say you’re going to do a thing, you should do it.” Finch heard the dictatorial tone in his own voice and was embarrassed. He patted the little boy on the shoulder. “what I mean is,” he went on, “it’s not proper to listen outside people’s doors.”

  Dennis gave his small secret smile. “But I like to. I like to imagine what they’re doing. Did you bring me a present from Ireland?”

  “No. I’m sorry, Dennis.”

  “From England?”

  “I left too suddenly. I intended to.”

  “what would it have been if you’d got it?”

  “Will you go!” Finch exclaimed loudly. “This is no time to talk of presents.”

  Dennis turned away. Two steps down the stairs he looked over his shoulder. “We’re supposed not to talk loudly,” he said.

  Trembling with emotion and fatigue Finch poured water into the basin and washed his face and hands. He brushed his hair. He cleaned his nails, and the sharp point of the knife penetrated the quick beneath the nail and it bled. With an exclamation of pain he thrust the finger into his mouth and sucked it. The pain seemed to go right up his arm into h
is breast.

  Now he felt more calm and went slowly down the stairs into the library. Everyone was gathered there before the evening meal. The sun was set but it was still light. The room seemed full of people — Renny and Alayne, Piers and Pheasant, Meg and her daughter Patience, Adeline, Roma, and Dennis. And there, yes, there he was, in an armchair in a corner, his thick grey hair long to his collar, his hand clasping his chin — Nicholas. Looking into his face, Finch thought that there were traced all the experiences through which he had passed in his long life — the bold, carefree youth of a boy born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the storms and passions of middle life, the rugged serenity of later years. Now indeed he had had a great shock. The brother, so closely bound to him in affection, if not in tastes, had closed his eyes on this world. Nicholas had often regarded Ernest with amusement, but always had been tolerant toward him. Though Ernest had been of delicate physique, Nicholas had, for some reason, expected him to be the longer-lived. In truth Nicholas had not brooded on death. Now it had come so close to him that he felt the chill air of eternity on his forehead. His crest of grey hair rose as though in protest.

  Finch put his hands on his shoulders, leant down, and kissed him. “Uncle Nick,” was all he could say.

  Nicholas’ voice came shaky but still deep-toned.

  “Good of you — very good of you — to come. Ernest would be pleased. Very pleased.”

  Now Finch was enfolded in his sister’s arms. “Oh, Finch, dear, what a frightful time we have been through! It’s been hard for everyone, but — for me! Just imagine what it’s been for me. I went to Vaughanlands as a bride and now it’s burned down!”

  “You got a good price for it,” put in Piers.

  She threw him a reproachful look. “If that isn’t like you, Piers, to think of money at such a time!”

  “I’m always thinking of it,” he rejoined. “I’m forced to.”

  The folding doors into the dining room were opened at that moment by Wragge, immensely important in a greenish black suit and large old-fashioned cravat. He announced the evening meal in a whisper.

  “where is Wakefield?” demanded Nicholas.

  “He couldn’t get away, Uncle Nick. He hopes to come before long.”