With a thin cry, like a rabbit’s caught in a trap, he turned and fled. He hurled himself down the steps, across the lawn, through the shrubbery, into the ravine. It was shallow here but overgrown by brambles which tore at him, sought to hold him. But he struggled through them, whimpering in fear and pain. At the edge of the ravine the going was not so difficult. He could run. But where it grew steep he caught his foot in a root, fell, and rolled over and over into the stream. Frantically he struggled to his feet. The water was up to his armpits. He waded across and found the path on the other side. Dripping wet, his head and legs bleeding from scratches, he climbed the path. He went through the little gate at the edge of the lawn and the house rose in front of him, its windows alight.
The dogs heard him and, for a moment, made an uproar, but lay down again when he entered the hall. The house was full of the music of the piano. Dennis opened the door of the drawing-room and went softly in.
Finch was alone in the room. The light from a lamp fell across his supple hands as they flew up and down the keyboard, and across his long sensitive face which showed a tranquil pleasure in his playing. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Dennis standing just inside the room and smiled at him.
Dennis sank to his heels, his back against the door. The curtains were drawn against the darkness which had descended suddenly with the rain. The sweetness, the power, the gaiety of the music rose, as a wall, to keep out evil spirits.
“I’m safe,” Dennis whispered to himself. “I’m safe, with my father.”
XXX
THE READING OF THE PLAY
Before the first snowfall, Wakefield arrived from New York. He was both elated and depressed by his visit there. His agent had been enthusiastic about the play Wakefield had written. He had a manager in view who, he was sure, would be interested. It was a comedy, and good comedies were rare. New York audiences were going to laugh a lot at this play. Wakefield had pictured them as enchanted by this different sort of comedy, by a young actor who was already making his mark on the stage. And he, of course, was to play the principal part. The manager had expressed a fervent wish to meet Wakefield. Indeed, at their first meetings, Wakefield had thought all was well. But a change had come, why neither he nor his agent could guess. The manager had avoided meetings and, as it turned out, was putting his money on another play. As the agent and Wakefield were accustomed to the vagaries of the theatre they were not disconcerted, and there were other managers.
Wakefield enjoyed his stay in New York. The bequest from his Uncle Ernest made him feel tolerably rich. It had come as a splendid surprise, for he had expected that only the older members of the family would benefit. Now he planned to spend some time at Jalna, convenient for overnight trips to New York, in case he were needed.
Finch now found a new pleasure in Wakefield’s society. As a boy this younger brother had irritated him by his cocksureness. Perhaps he was envious because Wakefield had always been the favourite of the family, while he because of his unhappy mixture of awkwardness and vulnerability had often been the butt for teasing. This he had never been able to take well, and even today winced at the remembrance of some of Piers’ and Eden’s sallies at his expense. Renny had indeed been a father to him, but he had, as Finch thought, been sometimes severe with him, in contrast to his leniency toward Wakefield.
Well, all that was in the past and he looked forward to Wakefield’s stay at Jalna. Wakefield was excited at Finch’s purchase of Vaughanlands. Everything was now settled, the price paid. The two brothers spent happy hours exploring every corner of the property. Of course, they already knew it almost as well as they knew Jalna but, in Finch’s ownership, it had a new aspect.
Finch had builders at work, and on the old foundations a new house was beginning to rise. The solid plain exterior was to be the same as of old but there were to be fewer rooms and more spacious. A new bow-window was to be added to the largest, which was to be the music room. The consultations with the architect, with the builder, were an entirely new kind of interest, pleasure, and anxiety to Finch. He was surprised, though not alarmed, by the way the money went. His resources were a constant marvel to Renny. He was mystified; he was delighted; he was curious. He would have liked to know, to the last dollar, how much Finch had accumulated. But Finch, who was by nature candid and open, had learned by experience that the master of Jalna could, with all good intentions, borrow and be unable to repay, or advise investment in the stables which had so often absorbed his own means. From Ernest’s bequest he already was making improvements to them and had bought a valuable mare. Piers, on his part, had put his share of the legacy into stocks, excepting for a new fur coat for Pheasant.
Everyone was interested in Wakefield’s play, though it was only to Alayne and Pheasant that it was of deeper interest than the building of Finch’s house. One evening, not long after his coming, it was arranged that he should read it aloud. Nicholas, Renny, Alayne, Piers, Pheasant, Meg and Patience, Finch, and Adeline were gathered to hear him. Nicholas, in his comfortable chair, was seated dose to the reader, so that he might not miss a word. Finch, at the piano, was prepared to play certain snatches of music, for one of the characters in the play was a musician. Renny was sitting on the window seat, and Finch, seeing him there, recalled that it was in this same spot he had sat when the family had forgathered after the reading of the grandmother’s will — a painful recollection.
Wakefield was in his natural sphere. He was acting; he was, as his brothers said, showing off. It was evening. The lights were low, except for the lamp which illumined Wakefield’s manuscript and his dark, mobile face. The audience could not have been more attentive. Alayne, her critical faculty alert, leaned slightly forward. Meg also leaned forward but it was with encouragement for the reader, her smile only waiting to turn into a laugh, for she knew this was going to be an amusing play. Nicholas, his best ear cupped in his hand, was paying the strictest attention to all the preliminaries. In his day he had been an ardent theatre-goer. For this occasion he had thoroughly brushed his hair; had, at his request, been freshly shaved by Renny, and had put on his best suit. Back through long years, the glamour of the theatre touched him. He said to Finch, — “Start it off properly. Play ‘God Save the King.’”
Delighted to see the old man in this mood, Finch played the anthem. At the first note Nicholas struggled to his feet and remained standing solidly to the end. Then everyone sat down. Wakefield opened his manuscript and cleared his throat. At that moment the dogs decided that they wanted to come into the room from the hall. The Cairn terrier, who was an adept at scratching doors and who had left his mark on every principal door in the house, drew his sharp nails, in rapid succession, down the panels. The bulldog barked, the sheepdog whined. Alayne had been tolerantly amused at the delay caused by the anthem. She was eager to get on with the play and found this second interruption very irritating. Her decisive nature was offended. She never had liked dogs and now she exclaimed”
“what pests those animals are! Will somebody please drive them away?”
At that moment an unseen hand in the hall opened the door, and the bulldog, the sheepdog, and the Cairn terrier entered. The bulldog, with his rolling gait, went straight to the fire and seated himself on the hearthrug, facing the company, the picture of “what I have, I’ll hold.” The terrier trotted briskly to Renny and pawed his leg. Renny lifted him to his knee. Of the three the sheepdog was the only one who stood in awe of Alayne, and that awe was, in a strange way, mingled with derision. He would obey an order from her but would, at the same time, make a grimace at her, lifting his upper lip and wrinkling his nose. Now, as she pointed to the door, he gave her this look that was almost a smirk, and prepared to leave. Everyone but Alayne laughed.
“Let them stay,” said Renny. “They’ll be good.”
“They ought to be put out,” growled Nicholas.
Piers called to the sheepdog, — “Here, boy!”
Wakefield folded his manuscript. “I shall begin,” he said, “w
hen those brutes are under control.” He was not indeed angry but he was tense.
Adeline dropped to the floor beside the sheepdog and drew him onto her lap. “Be good, my pet,” she whispered.
Renny was taking a burr from the Cairn’s tail and it now gave a sharp yelp. Wakefield, with great calm, lighted a cigarette.
“Keep your hair on,” said Renny, addressing both Wakefield and the terrier. He deposited the burr in a fern pot.
The invisible hand in the hall closed the door. There was an expectant silence. Wakefield cleared his throat and began to read. He read well. He threw himself into the different parts with zest, his audience giving him their rapt attention, till, when he came to a love scene and lowered his voice seductively for the woman’s part, Nicholas interrupted.
“Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
Wakefield raised his voice a little.
“I still can’t hear you.”
“My God,” cried Wake, “I can’t shout and be subtle at one and the same time.”
Piers put in, “I don’t see anything very subtle about it. She’s simply cooing, — ‘Oh, Bill, I love you so terrifically.’”
“Well, then, I can’t coo.”
“what’s he say?” demanded Nicholas.
Meg came to the rescue. “Uncle Nick, dear, it’s a love scene. Wakefield, as the girl, wants to coo.”
Nicholas snorted. “Very well. Let him coo and have done with it.”
“Listen, Uncle,” continued Meg. “This girl is in love with a plumber. Her family are bitterly opposed to the match, though I don’t think Wakefield has made it clear whether it is because he is such a conceited young man or because he is a plumber …”
Wakefield tossed the manuscript to her lap. “You take it,” he said, “and read.”
“Now, Wakefield,” admonished Meg. “Don’t get upset.”
“I want to hear him read the play,” said Nicholas, “but if he mumbles, I can’t. I know the plot so far but, tell me, is this play a farce?”
“No, Uncle Nick,” Wakefield answered. “It’s a straight comedy but underneath lies the truth that, in spite of all this socialism, class distinctions are still pretty rigid. As for my plumber, he is not conceited. He is an intellectual and he knows his value.”
“He’s very talkative for a plumber,” said Meg. “Most of them are so taciturn.”
“I grant you he’s not a typical plumber,” said Wakefield, again taking up the manuscript. “He’s extremely clever and, but for him, the entire family would be down the drain, as it were.” A hysterical giggle came from Finch at the piano.
“Read on,” cried Nicholas.
Wakefield had no cause for further complaint about his audience. It was necessary a few times to explain a humorous point to Nicholas but, once he understood it, he laughed with enjoyment and even slapped his thigh in appreciation. Observing the strongly marked animated features of his family, Wakefield wished that a theatrical manager might have been present, to see and to hear. At the end there was an outburst of applause, so hearty that the bulldog, the sheepdog and the Cairn terrier all rose to their feet and barked.
There was not one dissenting voice in the verdict that, if the play could once find a backer, it would be a tremendous success.
XXXI
ADELINE
Alone in her room, Adeline was undressing. She was thinking of the play and more especially of the scenes between the lovers. They had been moving to her, yet most unsatisfying. Did Wakefield really know what it was to suffer in love? She had heard, though vaguely, of an unhappy affair of his own. But — did he know what it was to suffer?
As she brushed her hair she saw her reflection in the looking glass — that glass which for so many years had reflected the chestnut hair and dark eyes of her great-grandmother — she noticed how large and luminous her own eyes had become, how pale her cheeks. “No wonder,” she thought, “for I ‘let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, feed on my damask cheek’ … what a fool I am to grieve so I’m sure he doesn’t long for me or his letters would be more of a comfort. They’re not a comfort. They’re a torture. What is he trying to do? Cool me off with accounts of his everyday doings, of his mother’s doings, of his troubles with Sylvia — when he must know so well what I want to hear?” She tried to think like a grown-up woman in love — not as a yearning child.
She brushed her hair fiercely, as though she would tear it out. She shut her eyes, so she might not see her reflection. She saw instead the face of Fitzturgis, so clearly that she stood petrified, the brush poised in mid-air, devouring those loved features with her inner longing.
But the sound of his voice, which she had thought the most beautiful in the world, escaped her. And, as she desperately tried to recall its tones, the memory of his face became obscured. Then, when it reappeared, it was distorted and wore an expression of such sneering scorn that her eyes flew open in her astonishment and pain. She had no photograph of him, not even a snapshot, with which to refresh her memory. “How horrible,” she thought, “if I must carry that sneering face in my memory.” Deliberately she recalled the few times when they had embraced, when they had lost themselves in the depths of each other’s eyes. But, when she tried to recall his eyes, they were glaring at her in anger.
She took her towel from the rack and crept upstairs to the bathroom. Up there it was dark and the darkness was rounded by the snoring of Nicholas. She went into the bathroom and turned on the light. Someone had left the window open and the night air was coming in, heavy with the smell of falling snow. It came down thick and wet, clinging heavily to everything it touched. Now the bad time for the birds would begin. Before she closed the window she stood looking out into the whiteness. There was no crisp gaiety of winter but only the melancholy warning of its approach.
She shivered as she washed her face and hands. Her bare feet showed, pink with cold, on the bathroom mat. She always was forgetting to put on her bedroom slippers. She washed her face with warm water, then with cold, and felt somewhat comforted. Kneeling by her bed she said her prayers half-aloud, quickly, the same prayers she had said as a child, but that time seemed far away.
To be covered up, head and all, was what she longed for these nights. No matter how lively the evening had been, there came this longing, this loneliness at night. She would shut herself away from it, the bedclothes over her head, breathing in the warm sweetness of her body. But even in this seclusion she could hear the night sounds of the house, a creaking on the stairs, a sound of movement in walls and roof. The old house was saying to her, — “I have known tears before these you shed, and heard long-drawn sighs. Yours are not the first and will not be the last. Your grief is no more than the soft snow lying on my roof. But I have witnessed grief sharp and glittering as the sword-like icicles that hang from my eaves in midwinter.”
Oh, if only she could hear his voice!
Suddenly, like a shout in the darkness, the idea of a telephone talk came to her. She remembered how Pheasant had telephoned Mooey on his birthday. If Pheasant could do that, why not she? She would do it! She would ring him up in the morning.… But it would cost twelve dollars and she had not that much money. From whom could she ask such a sum? Uncle Nicholas. He would surely give it her. But no — she made up her mind that she would charge it to her father’s telephone account and she would, before the account came in, tell him what she had done. It was a frightening decision, but do it she would.
Now, in her excitement, she threw the quilt from her shoulders and lay wide-eyed in the darkness, imagining what the conversation with Fitzturgis would be.
In the midst of it she fell asleep and in the midst of it she woke.
She was full of purpose. Her opportunity came right after lunch. Nicholas was taking his afternoon rest and Alayne too was lying down. Finch and Wakefield were gone to see the progress of the new house. Renny was in the town making the final arrangements for the showing of his horses at the coming Horse Show. In the tenseness of waiting, Adeline r
ecalled, she knew not why, her rides with Pat Crawshay in Ireland. How gay he had been — how almost tender! How happily they had trotted along the roads among the grey-green hills! How mild had been the sunshine on his fair head and the glittering hide and mane of his mount! And how few happy recollections of Fitzturgis — moments of delight, yes — but no sustained happiness of an hour! And yet — with all the fervour of her spirit she reached out toward their troubled love.
At the first she was too excited to make clear her directions to the telephone operator, but finally they came to an understanding and she was told to wait for a ring. While she waited, she paced up and down the room. Wragge opened the door and looked in.
“Anything you want, miss?”
“No,” she answered curtly, then added, “thanks. I’m making a long distance call. I don’t want to be interrupted.”
“I’ll see to that, miss.” He gave her an inquisitive look and closed the door.
After a moment she opened it and looked up and down the hall. It was empty. She closed the door and locked it.
Her mouth was dry, her palms moist, her heart thudding so that she was conscious of it through all her body. Time passed. It seemed interminable. Her mother would be up, her father returned from the city. What would she say if they tried the door? Had either of them, she wondered, been through anything equal to this? Had her great-grandmother? Surely they had married the people they wanted, and that had been all there was to it.…
The shock of the telephone bell startled her. She took up the receiver.
“Hello!”
“You are calling a party in Eire?”
“Yes.”
“Here is your party,” said the nasal voice.
She waited. There were noises. Several times she said “Hello.” There was silence. Then, —
“Here is your party,” repeated the voice. “Go ahead.”
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 79