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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Inside Sylvia lay down on her bed. The “daily” brought her lunch to her on a tray. She kept repeating to herself, “Tomorrow morning Finch will come home.” In the afternoon she slept. Dennis had gone off by himself. The house was quiet except for the cautious movements of the “daily.” “You’re looking poorly,” said the woman. “Don’t you think you should call in the doctor? You really do look bad.”

  “No, no. I’m feeling much better. I shall be all right.”

  She rose, and she and Dennis sat down to the evening meal that had been prepared for them. She could scarcely see him across the table, she was so weary.

  “I’m sorry to be such a dull companion,” she said, “but I’m a little tired.”

  “why?” he asked, his cool greenish eyes on her face. With the same cool ruthless gaze he watched her heavy movements as she went to the kitchen to make the coffee. The “daily” had gone because of illness in her own family. Dennis sprang up to carry in the tray for her. She felt ready to drop, to sink to the floor in the misery that now almost overwhelmed her. But the coffee revived her. She chatted quite naturally with Dennis, recalling happenings in Ireland that she thought might amuse him. She longed desperately to go to her bed — yet there was the boy, looking at her brightly, waiting to be amused.

  His bright cruel eyes followed her with disgust and hate as she moved to the window.

  “The snowman looks lovely in the light from the window,” she said.

  Dennis did not answer. She turned to look at him and was surprised by the pale contortion on his lips.

  “what’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He tried to smile.

  She turned again to the window. Tomorrow Finch will be here, she was telling herself. Tomorrow — tomorrow.

  “The snowman looks lovely,” she repeated, and tried to forget that odd look in the boy’s face.

  Presently a terrible pain struck her like a blow.

  She cried out in her shock and surprise. Then she said, speaking hurriedly — “Dennis — the doctor — telephone him to come,” she said, repeating the doctor’s number. She could not control her voice. The pain increased.

  The telephone was in the hall. Dennis went out to it. He could not bring himself to dial the doctor’s number. He wanted to be alone with Sylvia — to savour his power over her. He looked into the music room and saw her moving heavily to her bedroom, her face ugly with pain. His hatred for her, his repulsion for her condition, surged through him, loosed in a morbid tide.

  “Did you phone the doctor?” she asked.

  “No.” He looked steadily at her.

  “why? why?” Her voice broke into a scream.

  “I forgot the number.”

  She repeated it to him loudly. “Tell him to hurry — my baby is coming!” She laid herself on her bed, doubled up in her agony.

  An extraordinary sense of power possessed Dennis. His small body was fairly shaken by this sense of power. He strode up and down the music room, listening to her groans, but he would not telephone the doctor.

  Presently she began to scream and continued to scream. He ran out of the house, leaving the front door open behind him. With his bare hands he made snowballs and hurled them with all his might at the snowman. Sometimes they stuck to the snowman, became a part of him. One of them flew past him and struck the window of the music room, leaving a blob of whiteness on the glass. Dennis aimed snowballs — and harder ones — at the window, hoping it would break, feeling great power within himself.

  He longed for violence. After a little, he went to the open door and stood listening to the shuddering cries within. Then he ran, fairly flying, over the snow and among the tall black trees to the edge of the ravine. There was the stream, frozen but not frozen hard. He tore helter-skelter down the steep and on to the snow-covered slushy ice. He would like, so he thought, to run along the stream to the bridge and so to Jalna. But the ice was slushy and began to give way; so he scrambled back to land and climbed the steep. He was panting and his heart beating fast.

  He returned to the house. All was silence.

  Trembling with fear and that strange guilty power, he went to the door of Sylvia’s room and looked in.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  Rolling her bloodshot bulging eyes toward him, she said thickly:

  “A little. Is the doctor coming soon?”

  “He says he can’t come.”

  “But why — why?” She raised herself on her elbow and glared at him.

  “He says he’s tired.”

  “He must be mad.” She rolled out of bed and onto her feet and somehow reached the telephone. But she had forgotten the doctor’s telephone number.

  “Tell me his number,” she asked, in a strange harsh voice. Dennis could only remember the number of the veterinarian. She dialed it and he heard her say, “It’s Mrs. Finch Whiteoak speaking. Come quickly — for God’s sake.…”

  She collapsed in pain over the telephone. Later she somewhat recovered herself and said:

  “Dennis, are you sure you gave me the right number?”

  “No,” he said, “I’m not sure.”

  “The voice didn’t sound right,” she said, “but he promised to come.”

  She went back to her bed. Her movements were heavy, lunging. Dennis watched her with repulsion. Then he turned swiftly and strode outdoors. His very smallness and grace made his movements more striking. He walked up and down in front of the house.

  Sylvia called out to him: “Shut the door! Oh, it’s so cold — I’m freezing — I’m freezing!” Her voice faltered against her chattering teeth.

  In a sudden fury of antagonism Dennis shouted: “If you want the door shut — do it yourself!”

  He strutted back and forth in front of the house, with each turn becoming more violent. He felt ready to burst with the wickedness let loose in him. He strutted, holding himself very straight, eyeing the house whence came those animal noises of suffering.

  Now he ran to the open door and shouted: “Go ahead! Have your monster! That’s what it is going to be, you know — a monster — a monster. My father doesn’t want it — I don’t want it — it’s yours.”

  Out again he ran, in the black shadows of trees, into the glittering white of moonlight. Now he was out on the road — running and shouting. He ran past the church, with its peaceful graveyard. He did not know where he was going. He began to be very tired and turned again home. He must have been running a long while, he thought, for the moon was losing itself in the branches of the pines.

  By the time he reached the cold, lighted house with the snowman on guard, he was moving slowly, timidly. All his fire was burnt out. He passed through the hall. There was icy silence like a frozen garment. Fearfully he looked into Sylvia’s room.

  What he saw made him turn and run out of the house. Outside he stood stock-still, trembling with fear. Where could he find help? where — oh, where?

  He became aware of the sound of an approaching car. He stood waiting while it raced along the drive and stopped with a jerk at the door. Out of it alighted the veterinarian, a burly kindly man. Against this man’s bulk Dennis flung himself. He gripped the lusty figure in his small arms and burst into tears.

  “Save me,” he sobbed. “Save me!”

  XXII

  Winter

  The light in the drawing room was a greyish reflection of the snow-laden sky. Alayne had had a fire laid, but it still was no more than tentative little flames licking at the kindling. The faces of the three who were in the room, standing about the fire, were of a greyish tint also. Meg’s iron-grey hair and Alayne’s, of a silvery white, gave a touching feminine dignity to their pallor. The fading of Piers’s ruddy colour was to make him appear less robust, older, but not more dignified. In truth, his expression was one of rather boyish incredulity, as though he were saying to himself, What happened last night was impossible. He had been in bed when Renny had telephoned him, but had dressed and come at once to Jalna.
<
br />   The three were almost silent, but cast anxious looks across the hall to the door of the library.

  Presently it opened and Renny Whiteoak emerged.

  As he joined them Piers said: “Well, how did he take the news?”

  “Like a man. I can tell you I’m proud of him. I had expected a breakdown. You know what his nerves are. But he controlled himself marvelously well. I think he’s dazed by the shock.”

  “Poor boy,” said Meg. “My heart aches for him.”

  “It’s a strange thing,” observed Piers, “that Finch is the only one of us fellows to be widowed, and he has been twice widowed.”

  “It is not so strange, Piers,” said Meg, looking full at him, “as your use of the English language. It is impossible for a man to be widowed.”

  “It is grammatically correct,” said Piers.

  “Neither is it accurate,” Meg went on, “to speak of a man as a widower when his divorced wife dies, as Finch’s first wife. I am sure Alayne did not look on herself as a widow when her divorced husband, our dear Eden, died, especially as she was already married again.” Meg turned her full blue gaze somewhat accusingly on Alayne, who received the look in rigid silence.

  Renny appeared not to hear this interchange. He said, “I think I had better bring him in here by the fire.”

  “Good idea,” said Piers, and put on another log.

  “And he should have a nice cup of tea, poor dear,” said Meg. “He is probably hungry, and would enjoy a little buttered toast with his tea.”

  “Coffee would be more stimulating,” said Alayne, “if he can take anything, which I doubt.”

  “when I met him at the airport,” said Renny, “I took his suitcase from him and led him to my car. I said nothing, but there was something in the way I met him that made him suspicious. He gave me a fearful look and asked if everything was all right at home. I drove a little distance; then I stopped the car and told him. I told him straight. I thought it best.”

  “Lord, I’m glad I hadn’t to do that,” said Piers.

  “what did he say?” asked Meg.

  Alayne turned away and went to the window and looked out on the snow-muffled scene.

  “At first,” said Renny, “he seemed unable to take it in. He just stared and went very pale. Then I told him how the doctor arrived before the end but too late to help her. So she didn’t die alone, poor girl.”

  Alayne moved from the window to the fireplace, and pressed her forehead to the mantelshelf.

  “Did he speak then?” asked Piers.

  “Yes. He said — over and over: ‘Sylvia — my wife — dead … I should not have left her.’ Then I told him he must come straight to Jalna — that everything was being attended to properly at his house. I had no trouble with him, as I said; he seemed dazed, and hasn’t spoken since. I think it would do him good to come in by the fire.”

  “Will you order tea, Alayne?” asked Meg.

  “I gave him a good stiff whiskey and soda as soon as I got him into the house,” said Renny. He crossed the hall toward the library.

  “He isn’t able to take much in the way of spirits, you know,” said Piers. He took a turn about the room, pausing to look into the cabinet of ivory curios from India, as though it were new to him. Indeed everything appeared strange and new to him on this grim morning. Now he said:

  “what I can’t understand is why Finch went off to New York leaving Sylvia alone, except for a young boy.”

  Alayne sprang to Finch’s defence. “The daily woman had promised Finch to stay the night, but something went wrong at her home and she couldn’t — or said she couldn’t.”

  Piers persisted, “In that case why didn’t Sylvia ask Pheasant or Meg or you to come?”

  “That I do not know, but I think Sylvia felt quite secure for the one night. She was not expecting her baby for some weeks, you know.”

  “It was very foolish of her,” said Piers. “Has anybody questioned Dennis as to just what happened?”

  Meg spoke up, with tears in her voice. “The poor child is bewildered by it all. He looks really ill. Such an experience is very bad for him. Rupert says he should be allowed to forget it, if he can.”

  “But when he saw that Sylvia was ill, why didn’t he telephone to someone in the family to come?”

  “All this probing is in very bad taste, Piers,” said Meg. “We are here to comfort Finch. This is a house of mourning.” Alayne left the room for coffee as Renny returned with Finch.

  Piers had drawn their grandmother’s wing chair close to the fire that now brightly blazed. Finch went toward it, but before he reached it, Meg’s maternal figure interposed. With outstretched arms she gathered him to her bosom and held him. Tears ran down her pale cheeks.

  For a space, during which the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf, Finch submitted, then almost roughly disengaged himself. Piers came to him and held out his hand. In silence they gripped hands. Piers said, “It’s hard for you. She was a lovely girl. I admired her greatly. Anything that Pheasant and I can do — you know.”

  “Thanks,” muttered Finch. He sat down in the wing chair and held out his hands to the blaze. Against the pallor of his face his blue-grey eyes looked very large, tragic, but with no questioning in them — just silent acceptance of Sylvia’s fate, of his family’s ministering to him.

  Alayne now came into the room, followed by Wragge, who carried a tray bearing a coffeepot and cups. He arranged the tray beside Finch, then said, in a discreetly low voice:

  “May I beg to offer deepest sympathy from myself and my missus, sir.”

  “Thank you, Rags,” said Finch — then added: “You did speak, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. I was offering you most heartfelt sympathy.”

  “Ah, yes,” Finch said vaguely. “It’s very kind of you.”

  “Shouldn’t you rather have had tea, Finch dear?” Meg asked, coming to him and stroking his hair.

  “This will do nicely, thank you.”

  With a steady hand he raised the cup to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of the scalding liquid. It burnt him, and his eyes watered from the pain.

  “It’s not a matter,” said Meg, “of making-do. It’s the question of which drink will give you the greater comfort.”

  “Now that he has coffee,” put in Piers, “let him drink it in peace.”

  “Really, Piers,” said Meg, “the things you say are shocking. Surely if anyone can bring peace to Finch in this sorrow, it is his only sister.” She continued to stroke his head. Gently he put up his hand, took hers away from his head and gently returned it to her.

  She remained standing beside him and said, “One blessing you have in your loss, dear, is Sylvia’s child that is left to you.”

  He stared up at Meg, not comprehending.

  “Sylvia’s child,” she repeated. “Her baby.”

  “Don’t!” Finch shouted hoarsely. He put out his hand as though to ward off a blow.

  It was at this moment that Dennis came into the room. He moved slowly, shyly, his child’s face bearing no imprint of what he had been through. He stood irresolute, looking from one to another of the grown-ups. He then moved beside Renny who put an arm about him. Finch did not appear to notice him.

  Meg said, brokenly through her tears, “You have two sons now, Finch. Two dear children to live and plan for.”

  “Keep them out of my sight,” said Finch.

  Alayne came and took Dennis by the hand and led him from the room. He went with her, as though blindly, but, when they were in the library and he saw the television set, he went to it and turned it on, though softly. Alayne was surprised and rather shocked to see him do this, but thought: After all, he’s only a child, and, if he can occupy his mind with this, so much the better.

  “what was it my father said?” Dennis asked.

  “He did not mean it,” Alayne hastened to say.

  Music was coming through the television set. The musicians were shown on the screen.


  “That’s the sort of thing,” Dennis said, “that my father detests. We must keep it out of his sight.”

  So the child had heard, thought Alayne. And how deeply had he been wounded? There had been something odd in the way he had repeated, in his clear voice, Finch’s very words.

  “I think we had better turn it off,” she said.

  “You mean because there’s somebody dead?” he asked.

  She hastened to say, “No, no, but you might find music that would — ” She hesitated, then finished calmly — “That would better suit our mood — our feelings.”

  “You mean funeral music?” he asked, almost brightly.

  “I think your father would not like that.”

  “He can’t hear it, if it is low,” Dennis said argumentatively.

  “Very well.” Alayne turned toward the door.

  “Auntie Alayne — ” Before he spoke he had turned off the music.

  “Yes, Dennis.”

  “Do you think my father will be fond of that baby? when he feels better, I mean.”

  “Of course, he will.”

  “where is it?”

  “It’s at home. Pheasant is there looking after it.”

  “I hope they will keep it out of my sight.” Dennis gave her a swift and penetrating glance, as though to observe the effect of these words on her.

  As Alayne was considering what to say to the boy, Wakefield and Adeline came into the room, he looking overwrought, Adeline’s eyes reddened and swollen from weeping.

  Alayne’s lips formed the words, “Be careful,” and she glanced at Dennis. Wakefield, however, broke out:

  “It’s the cruelest thing that’s ever happened to us.”

  “Has Uncle Finch come?” Adeline asked.

  “Yes,” said Alayne. “And for his sake, control yourselves. He’s having coffee in the drawing room.”

  Again Wakefield broke out, “He should never have left Sylvia — alone — at this time.”

  “She wasn’t alone,” Adeline said. “Dennis was there.” She put an arm round the boy, in a comforting gesture.