When she and Roma were undressing for bed Meg made cocoa and brought it to the girls.
“This will help you to sleep,” she said. “There’s nothing like a hot nourishing drink after a party. The night has turned cool.”
“Thanks,” said Roma, “but I never need anything to make me sleep. I sleep like a log.”
“Ah, I wish I did,” said Meg with a yawn. “when I think of the sleepless nights I have spent I wonder I am not as thin as a stick.”
Her daughter gave her a look of tender solicitude; her niece one of cool disbelief. All three sipped their cocoa. Pink with the comfort of it, Roma remarked:
“what a fool Maurice made of himself tonight!”
“Any psychologist would tell you,” said Meg, “that the poor boy is the victim of his upbringing.”
“I wish I’d been such a victim,” returned Roma.
“Sent away from home, when you were only a child, to live in a huge old house with a very old man!”
“Yes — and fall heir to his money. It would have just suited me.”
“I should have died of homesickness,” said Patience.
“I dare say.” Roma stepped out of her dress and stood like a child in her slip, her hair soft about her short white neck.
Later, in Meg’s bedroom, where a framed photograph of her dead husband stood on the dressing table, Patience said to her mother, “what do you suppose Humphrey Bell told me tonight?”
“Humphrey Bell — why, he wasn’t at the party.”
“I met him, in the tomato patch.”
“Patience! How could you go wandering in the tomato patch with your pretty dress on?”
“I forgot.” This had been her excuse all her life and was now accepted by Meg as inevitable.
“Well, what did he tell you?”
“He told me that he has let a part of his house. We’d been speaking of his living alone and he’d said he liked it. Then he told me that money is so tight with him that he has let the greater part of his house to the Chases. I know Mr. Chase. He’s a friend of Uncle Renny’s. He’s been married just lately to a widow, a Mrs. Lebraux. She and her first husband had once lived in that very house. They were friends of Uncle Renny’s too.”
“Dear me,” said Meg, “that is strange. I knew Mrs. Lebraux slightly. I can’t imagine what that man Chase, who was supposed to be a woman-hater, saw in her. Alayne disliked her, and, I’m afraid, had some reason for her dislike. Your Uncle Renny used to go there a great deal.”
“You mean,” said Patience, “that he went there more often than Auntie Alayne approved of?”
“I’m afraid so. But I shouldn’t be talking like this. I always have tried to see my sisters-in-law in the best light possible…. Still there’s no use in my trying to hide the fact that Alayne is a frantically jealous woman. I grant he has given her some cause for jealousy. He’s one of those men who just naturally attract other women. He can’t help it, poor dear. One thing is certain: that woman won’t be welcome as a neighbour to poor Alayne.”
“Oh.” Patience looked deeply thoughtful, then said, “But all that must have been over years and years ago.”
“Things are never over with wives,” said Meg.
At Jalna Renny, Alayne, and Archer were left in the drawing-room. She was tired and was about to kiss her son goodnight and seek the comfort of her bed, when he said, “We are to have the Chases as neighbours.”
“what Chases?” asked Renny. “I know only one Chase and he’s unmarried.”
“That horsy Chase who used to come here occasionally?” Alayne asked of Renny.
“Yes. He’s the only Chase I know. He seemed a confirmed bachelor.”
“Patience tells me,” said Archer, “that Humphrey Bell has let part of his house to a couple named Chase. She and her first husband once lived in that same house and bred foxes.”
“It’s unbelievable,” said Renny. “I can’t picture old Chase as married. Upon my word there must be some mistake. Old Chase — why, if ever a man despised women he did.” Renny tried to speak with unconcern, but Archer, who was extremely sensitive to the moods of his parents, noted his embarrassment. He gave his mother a penetrating look.
Alayne said, “I cannot imagine a less attractive pair.”
“You can’t, eh?” said Renny.
“No, I cannot.”
A chilly silence fell between them.
Then Renny remarked, “Chase is quite a good-looking fellow, and he’s clever too.”
“Really?” She could not have sounded less interested in Mr. Chase.
“He’s a very clever lawyer,” said Renny. “though his interests are now chiefly in racehorses.”
“So I have gathered from his conversation.”
While this chilly interchange was being carried on, the minds of both were fixed on the woman whom the horse fancier had lately married. “Clara,” thought Renny. “Clara married again! How many years is it since I’ve seen her? what is she like now?” his mind dwelt for a moment on that amorous episode of the past. Then, with an inward chuckle, he pictured her and Chase together.
“That dreadful time,” thought Alayne, “when because of her I almost hated him, is far in the past. I never give her a thought now and probably neither does Renny. I must not let any recollection of it trouble me. It is well that Archer is here. He protects us from ourselves and from each other. Archer is ours and we are his. Nothing can change that.”
Archer remarked, “How nice it is when all the people are gone.”
Alayne looked at the ormolu clock on the mantelshelf. “I wish,” she said, “that Sylvia would come. I can’t think what is keeping her so long at Vaughanlands.”
“Shall I go and find out?” asked Archer.
“Goodness, no.” Alayne came and put her arm about him. He did not soften under her caressing touch but turned his head to scrutinize her face.
“I shall go myself,” said Renny, “and bring her back, but not for a while. Finch is probably playing for her.”
“Mercy!” said Archer.
The Wragges, man and wife, had been asleep in bed for hours, but Alayne, for something to complain about, since her heart felt suddenly heavy, dragged forth their images, and said:
“I thought Wragge was terribly slow in waiting at table tonight. And he so tilted the soup plates that I was afraid my soup would land in my lap.”
“I didn’t notice,” said Renny.
“I don’t see how you could fail to notice,” she went on. “By the time he had served those at the farther end the soup of those first served was cold.”
“I noticed,” said Archer. “Mine was.”
“As for Cook,” Alayne continued, “she grows more and more extravagant. She spoils half her dishes by too many eggs, too much butter, too much sugar. Tonight the meringues were sickeningly sweet.”
“Were they?” said Renny cheerfully. “I didn’t notice.”
“I did,” said Archer. “Mine were.”
“The worst of her is,” Alayne continued, “that she won’t pay any attention when I try to reason with her. She simply looks the other way or changes the subject.”
“She always listens to me,” said Renny.
“She always listens to me,” said Archer.
“You both are fortunate in not being forced to discuss meals with her. She is utterly lacking in judgment. She takes pride in never following a recipe. She makes dishes ‘out of her head.’ She is both erratic and self-opinionated. Sometimes I hardly know how to endure her stubbornness.”
Renny gave Alayne the grin so like his grandmother’s.
“You won’t have to put up with her much longer,” he said. “They’re leaving.”
She stared at him, not able to take this in. She looked unbelievingly at him. Surely he was joking — being teasing and inconsiderate, just when she needed a little sympathy.
“Yes,” he repeated. “They’re leaving. Right after the weddings. Rags told me this morning.”
�
�Mercy!” said Archer.
Alayne sat down.
For a moment she was too dazed to speak. Then she asked in a hoarse voice, “why did you not tell me this before?”
“I thought it would be upsetting to you, but to judge by the way you feel toward them you’ll be glad to see them go.”
“Don’t be cruel,” cried Alayne. “You know quite well that I simply can’t get on without the Wrages. They had been here for years when I first came to Jalna. I may complain of them a little — once in a great while — but to run this big old house, with its basement kitchen and all its inconveniences, with the sort of domestic help one gets nowadays — well, I don’t see how I can.”
“‘Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est,’”said Archer, and slipped out of the room.
Renny put his arms about Alayne and drew her head to his breast. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said. “The Wragges are only going home for a year. I’m sure they’ll come back. We shall get along somehow. I’ll look after Uncle Nick. If it comes to the worst Adeline can cook the meals. Fitzturgis can wash the dishes and carry the coals. You can keep us all in order. It will be quite a picnic.”
“Picnic,” wailed Alayne. “We are to have a picnic this very day! I must go to my bed and get what rest I can, even though I shall not sleep a wink.”
XIII
Nicholas Departs
THE PICNIC, whICH was looked forward to in varying degrees of pleasure or the reverse, did not take place. The thoughts of the family were shocked into a very different channel by the sudden serious illness of Nicholas. When, as usual, he had his breakfast in bed he was not feeling well. In mid-morning he suffered great pain in his leg. Fortunately the family doctor was in his office and in a short time was at the old man’s bedside. He diagnosed the case as one of coronary thrombosis. In little more than an hour two nurses were in the house. It had taken on the atmosphere of a hospital.
Nicholas had protested that he did not want to go to one of those institutions, and Renny upheld him in this, though no member of the family abhorred the sight of those uniformed women in the house as did he. He looked on them with mingled abhorrence and fear. His concern, his grief, over his uncle were written on his weather-beaten face. He could scarcely bear to stay in the room with him. He could scarcely bear to remain away. At mealtimes, during the days that followed, he would eat in brooding silence, except possibly to exclaim, “Can’t anybody think of something cheerful to say?” Yet when Alayne, Adeline, or Fitzturgis essayed to be animated, he would look at them in melancholy surprise, as though he wondered how they could bring themselves to do it. He persuaded Meg to come to Jalna and to remain till either Nicholas had recovered or the worst had happened. He urged Piers and Finch to be constantly at hand. He ordered Archer to be ready to run at top speed to summon him from his office in the stables if necessary.
“Good God!” exclaimed Fitzturgis to Sylvia when they were sitting in the cobweb-hung summer house. “How long does he expect the old gentleman to live? He is ninety-eight. He has had his day, and a long one too.”
“I look on Renny Whiteoak as a romantic,” said Sylvia. “I think he is dedicated to the romantic past of the family. And I think the dear old uncle somehow typifies it for him.”
“Is Uncle Nicholas going to recover?”
“Alayne Whiteoak thinks not. She thinks it is only a matter of days. The doctors are not hopeful.”
“But he’s better — so Adeline tells me.”
“Yes. A little better. But — think of his age.”
Fitzturgis said gloomily, “what a time to choose for dying! It’s upset everything.”
“when can the wedding take place?”
He returned irritably, “How can I tell? Adeline won’t even discuss it. The poor girl is like the rest of us — weighed down by her father’s mood. On my part, I like him less and less.”
“I realize that.”
“I hope,” he said anxiously, “that I haven’t shown it.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve been beautifully behaved. To tell the truth, I don’t think that any of the family notices our behaviour. They are too occupied by this calamity. It’s as though the foundations of their life shook.”
“Imagine getting worked up because a man of nearly a hundred is dying!”
“He is an old pet,” said Sylvia, with sudden tears in her eyes, “and I know just how they feel.”
“It’s just that they can’t see themselves without him.”
On one of his better days Nicholas said to Renny, who was sitting close beside him, his head bent to hear that voice which so lately had been strong and sonorous:
“what I have saved will be yours, Renny. I wish it were more. You’ve been so good to me.”
“No, no, Uncle Nick — you mustn’t talk like this. You’re getting better.” Renny patted him gently on the breast, as though he would impart some of his own vitality into the failing parts beneath.
Nicholas gave a smile of great sadness but with a touch of his old sardonic humour. He said, “It’s time I went, Renny. I don’t think Mama would have liked me to rival her in age.”
Renny patted him the harder. “But you’re not tired of life, Uncle Nick.”
“No … not tired of life … I’ve had a good life but very … very tired …” He closed his eyes. He longed for rest.
Two days later he died. All were aware the end was coming. He was no longer suffering but was quiet and peaceful. Renny and Alayne were in the room with him. He was conscious, though dimly so. As they moved about, for they were restless, tense from waiting, he did not notice. The nurse was in the kitchen eating her lunch.
A golden sunshine enveloped the house. There was no slightest breeze. The leaves of the Virginia creeper grew so thick that they overlapped. There had been a shower and all were washed clean. The pigeons sat motionless on the roof. Above Renny’s consciousness that Nicholas was about to die was the vivid consciousness that old Adeline was present in the house. He could feel her strong presence in the room.
Nicholas spoke in a small voice, not opening his eyes. “Mama ... Papa …” he said, “hold my hands.”
They knelt on either side of the bed, holding his hands…. Now he was gone.
* * *
Wakefield Whiteoak was in New York when news of the illness of Nicholas reached him. He was acting in a play — a translation from the French — that had had a success in London. It ran for only three performances in New York. This great disappointment to the company and financial loss to the backers of the play was regarded by Renny as a fitting coincidence, since it made it possible for Wakefield to come to Jalna. He had arrived the night before, in time to see Nicholas alive — to be kissed and welcomed by him.
“How did the play go?” Nicholas had whispered.
“Fine,” Wake had answered. “A great success.”
“Splendid.”
Wakefield was thankful that he had given Nicholas that tiny offering of pleasure.
He had hoped to visit Jalna after a real success of the play in New York, but he had instead come home at the death of a member of the family very dear to him. From his boyhood Wakefield had felt pride when his resemblance to Nicholas was remarked. His was a much more slender frame. He had, in proportion, smaller hands and feet. He always would lack the massive look of Nicholas. But his thick waving hair, his luminous dark eyes, his nose — a distinguishing mark of his grandmother’s family — these he had in common with Nicholas. He had inherited, too, his uncle’s love of spending money and a spirit that could be mocking but was more often warmly affectionate.
On the morning of the funeral there was a gentle rain, but after lunch it had cleared and bright sunlight shone on the flower-covered coffin as it was carried from the house. In it lay the gaunt old man who had first been carried into that house in his mother’s arms — a lusty crowing baby — who thousands of times had run up and down its stairs, in and out through its doors. Through its rooms he had moved slowly, lean
ing on his stick, an old man, suffering from gout. From his life abroad he had always returned there and the house had beamed its welcome.
Now to Renny, along with his three brothers and his two eldest nephews, shouldering the weight of the coffin, the house appeared to wear a look of shock, of surprise. Not again would it hear the joyous infant shout of Nicholas, or his slow step as an old man.
The entire family went to the service at the church, even to little Mary. She who so often retired into a quiet corner by herself to shed a few tears, now sat in dry-eyed wonder among the grown-ups, some of whom she perceived were crying. Pheasant could scarcely restrain her sobs as she remembered how Nicholas had once given her a lovely doll when she was a little girl.
Lying in his coffin at the chancel steps there was no doubt about it, Nicholas was as distinguished-looking a man as you might see in a year’s travel. All marks of suffering had left his face, which wore the look of a wilful and individualistic Victorian gentleman. Renny had been tempted to leave the ring with the large green stone which he always wore on his hand, but Nicholas had wanted Renny to have it.
When they came out of the church into the churchyard, rain was once more falling, but it was a gentle rain and Mr. Fennel looked unperturbed as his head and his surplice grew wet at the graveside. Little Mary, holding tightly to her father’s hand, leant forward to peep down into the grave.
XIV
The Bequests
THOUGH NICHOLAS, IN the flesh, had departed, and his body lay in the churchyard, his presence was still evident in the house. That is to say, he had left his mark, the flavour of his strongly masculine individuality, in the rooms he had frequented. There, in the drawing-room, was the chair, close to the tea table, that deep, comfortable chair, so snug to sink into but difficult to heave yourself out of when you were a heavy old man with gout. The arms of the chair were broadened and flattened by the pressure of his hands. There was the recollection of him seated at the piano, playing from his favourite Mendelssohn, the firelight luminous on his face. When he had played he had taken those who listened back into another day, made them feel a part of that day.
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 98