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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Fitzturgis said, “I have lost Sylvia. You are lost to me, Adeline.” He looked, with restrained passion, into her eyes that were on a level with his. “Love wakes men, once a lifetime each,” he quoted, his burning eyes searching her face, his hand holding hers, as though desperately.

  “Mait,” she said, her hand still warm in his, but her mouth firm and almost severe, “I wonder if it is possible for you to be faithful to one woman, even for a little while. When I was engaged to you — There was Roma. Now that you’re married to Roma — here am I.”

  He snatched his hand away. His forehead dark with a scowl, he said, “You’ve never understood me, Adeline, or even tried to understand me. While, for me, you’ve been the only — ”

  “Don’t,” she interrupted, shaken by a resurgence of her love for him. “I can’t bear it.”

  His eyes were clouded by tears. “Spare me a moment of compassion,” he said. “It’s all I ask.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, in a shaking voice, “for both of us.”

  In the tenderness of her heart she went to him and put her arm about him. Her movement had dislodged the snow from a branch above them and it fell, enveloping them in a fine mist.

  From among the trees Dennis appeared and came close to them. He looked up into Fitzturgis’s face and said, “Adeline is very kind-hearted. She took me into her bed when no one else wanted me. Now I sleep with Uncle Renny. When do you suppose my father will bring me and my little brother home again?”

  Adeline and Fitzturgis regarded him doubtfully. They did not know what to say. Inside the large window they could see Finch and Roma, she wearing a handsome grey lamb coat. When she saw them she came out, walking elegantly, as though modeling the garment.

  “what do you think of my lovely new coat?” she asked, her face rising warm and happily flushed from its embrace.

  “Very becoming,” Adeline said tersely. She had taken her arm from Fitzturgis’s shoulder. Roma appeared to have noticed nothing.

  “I hope,” Adeline spoke as to a child, “you thanked Uncle Finch for it.”

  “I don’t need to be reminded by you,” said Roma. She darted back into the house.

  Through the window they could see Roma throw her arms about Finch and hug him.

  Fitzturgis pressed his forehead against the rough bark of the pine. “My sister — ” he said — “and she scarcely in her grave … She was so proud of that new coat.… She put it on to show me.… Good God, it would scarcely meet about her.… And now …”

  Finch and Roma came out of the house. “Come and say goodbye,” she called.

  The two men gave each other a perfunctory handshake. Again Roma hugged Finch. They left him standing alone in the open doorway. Dennis was nowhere in sight.

  In the car Roma laid her beautifully shaped hands, with their red-lacquered nails, on the wheel. She made a visible movement of snuggling herself inside the grey lamb coat. After a moment she said, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.”

  Fitzturgis looked at his watch. “We’d better be moving,” he said.

  At Jalna, Adeline left them. She and Roma touched cheeks. She and Fitzturgis touched hands. When they were gone, she dropped to the seat in the porch and closed her eyes, as though to shut out the white world that surrounded her. Any suffering of mind that she had so far experienced seemed almost trivial to her, as compared to the dead weight of desolation she now felt. She was very tired. Insofar as her healthy young body permitted, she felt weak. She asked nothing, she thought, but to be left alone. Snowflakes, drifting in on her, clung to her hair.

  Now the pigeons discovered her and flew down, in a turbulence of grey wings, to seek her out for food or perhaps merely for the pleasure of being near her. Their jewel-like eyes stared at her; their coral-coloured feet, cold from the snow, touched her hands, alighted on her shoulders and knees. As though they had discovered something new and quite wonderful, they reiterated their cooing notes.

  They were scattered by a quick step crunching on the snow of the drive, and, with a great agitation of wings, they rose to the roof. When settled there they peeped down from the eave to see what it was that had disturbed them.

  Philip, in his grey cadet’s coat, came up onto the porch and seated himself beside Adeline.

  “Cold, isn’t it?” he remarked agreeably.

  “Mm,” she murmured.

  “You shouldn’t be sitting out here.” There was solicitude in his voice.

  “I don’t mind the cold.”

  “But I mind it for you,” he said, like a brave young protector.

  Without warning, without preliminary, Adeline laid her head on his shoulder. It was the first time she had made a gesture of affection toward him, and he received it with dignity and concealed surprise. He put his arm about her, and gave her a pat.

  “what we need now,” he said, “is a little pleasure. Christmas seems a long way off.”

  “I forget what it’s like to be happy.”

  “It would be good for us to go skiing. In Quebec. Lots of snow there,” he said.

  “who would go with us? We can’t go without a married person.”

  “My mother,” said Philip, “would love to go with us.”

  “She can’t! She’s taking in the baby tomorrow.”

  Philip stared in consternation, then — “I forgot,” he said, and added: “Very well. There are hills nearby where there’s a fair amount of snow. I’ll put our skis in order.… Blast that baby. It would have been better if — ” He broke off, feeling her start from him, glimpsing the shock in the pale face she raised to his. “I didn’t mean that,” he hastened to say. “I only meant that it seems hard my mother should almost be forced to take on a job like this when she has all her own work to do.”

  “I would have taken care of him,” said Adeline, “if I’d been let.”

  “I know,” said Philip. “I heard all about that meeting, when Auntie Meg had to protect the Rector, and Patience had to protect Humphrey, and Aunt Alayne had to protect her insomnia, and there was no one to protect my mother.”

  “You make us all sound horribly selfish,” said Adeline, flushing a little and sitting up straight.

  “Not you, Adeline,” he hastened to say. “But you have no experience. You don’t know the first thing about looking after a kid. Time enough for you …” He stopped and he too flushed. They fell silent, contemplating the towering possibilities of their future.

  The object of self-protective discussions from those who did not want to undertake his care, of the shrinking of a father who could not endure the sight of him, of the morbid curiosity of a brother who had hastened his entry into a wintry world, took up his abode in Piers’s house — well named The Moorings — the very next day.

  He arrived in the arms of Patience, protected from the bitter cold by a white woolen shawl that had belonged to his cousin once removed, Victoria Bell. He was at this stage singularly unattractive, having a raw red complexion, a completely bald head and a mouthing, grimacing face. His eyes, with wrinkled lids, he kept shut except now and again to peer gloomily through a bleary slit. He was almost constantly wet but always yearning to take in more liquid. Piers had a look at him on the day of his arrival and drew back in dismay.

  “whew!” he exclaimed. “what an ugly little devil!”

  Pheasant was insulted for the baby’s sake. “He’s not really ugly,” she cried. “Just very new and rather premature. He’s beautifully formed. See his darling little hands and well-shaped head.”

  “Let’s hope he will improve,” said Piers. “It’s an awful thought that Sylvia should have given her life for that. No wonder Finch can’t bear the sight of him.”

  “Dennis sees him every day,” said Pheasant proudly. “It’s really touching to see his devotion.”

  Dennis did indeed come each day and hung, as though in fascination, over the crib where the infant lay.

  “Do you suppose,” he once asked Pheasant, “that the Christ Child looked like this?�
�

  “Well, of course,” Pheasant said thoughtfully, “He was a very special child. For one thing, He had a halo.”

  “That would be an improvement,” said Dennis. He curved his white hands about the infant’s head, to try the effect.

  Another time he said to Pheasant, “Do you suppose they know when they’re being born?”

  “Goodness, no. They don’t know anything about it.”

  “I don’t see how they can help knowing.”

  “You ought,” said Pheasant, “to keep your mind off such things. They’re far beyond you.”

  “Far beyond me,” he repeated, with his enigmatic smile.

  “Yes. Just try to keep your mind off them.”

  “I can’t,” he said simply.

  “when you feel those thoughts coming on,” she advised, “say the Lord’s Prayer to yourself. You can’t think when you’re saying that.”

  “Our Father,” he said softly, “which art in Heaven — ”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Keep saying it when you need help.”

  “The trouble is,” said Dennis, “that I couldn’t ever get past ‘Our Father.’ when I say ‘Our Father,’ I mean the father of us two — me and this little codger.” And he gave three possessive pats to the little bundle in the crib.

  “You are a funny boy,” laughed Pheasant, but she did not really think he was funny. That night she remarked to Piers:

  “I do wish that Finch showed a little affection for Dennis. He needs the understanding of a father. He’s a lonely child.” She could not help remembering how little Piers had understood Maurice, or tried to understand him.

  “Finch,” said Piers, “is completely self-centred. If he weren’t, he’d never have had those nervous breakdowns when he was young. He’s absorbed in himself and his music. Today I went to his house to take him a basket of apples — you know, he always liked Talman Sweets. There he was, playing the piano, as though he hadn’t a care in the world.”

  “We can’t know what’s going on inside him.”

  “And just as well we can’t,” said Piers.

  On the day before he was to return to school Dennis looked in, through the large window of the music room, at Finch absorbed in reading a book. Finch became conscious of him and raised his eyes.

  “what do you want?” he called out. A pang pierced him as he remembered the summer night when the child’s appearance outside that window had so terrified Sylvia. “what do you want?” he repeated.

  Dennis entered by the front door and came into the music room before he answered. He stood, small and neat, just inside the door. He said, “I’m going back to school tomorrow. I’ve come to collect my things.”

  “Oh,” said Finch. “Very well. Go ahead.”

  Dennis disappeared into his bedroom. Finch could hear him rummaging, opening and shutting drawers. Finch felt uncomfortable and wondered if he should offer to help him. But, after a little, Dennis reappeared, carrying a suitcase.

  “Got everything?” asked Finch.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Like some pocket money?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Finch took out some banknotes and held out a five-dollar bill.

  Dennis took it with a murmured thank you, then asked:

  “Shall I be seeing you again?”

  Finch thought: What a grammatical, precise, little fellow he is! — and recalled what he himself had been at that age. He noticed how pale were the boy’s lips and the intensified greenish colour of his eyes that were so like Sarah’s; but hers shone beneath her jet-black hair while his hair was a pale gold.

  Dennis was waiting for an answer. Finch asked instead:

  “Is Wright driving you to the station?”

  “Uncle Renny is taking me all the way to school.”

  Dennis spoke with a certain pride but no reproach. He was indeed thinking, If my father knew what I did, perhaps he would kill me right here where I stand. But he kept his eyes on Finch’s face and the small steady smile on his lips.

  “Good,” said Finch, with forced heartiness. He held out his hand and Dennis put his hand into it.

  “You do pretty well in certain subjects,” said Finch and tried to recall what they were. He ended lamely, “I hope you’ll work hard to improve.”

  Their hands separated. Both said, “Goodbye.”

  Dennis picked up the suitcase and, bending under its weight, disappeared. He reappeared for a moment, standing suitcase in hand where the snowman had stood.

  Finch returned to his book.

  It was an unusually long winter, possibly because of a series of snowfalls from heavy skies, each of which seemed the beginning of a new season of hidden earth, hungry birds, early nightfalls and late dawns.

  But at last it was ended — the silence of winter — ended with a shout of springtime victory. There were noisy floods raging — noisy crows cawing — noisy animals in the streaming barnyard: a noisy stallion whinnying in his loosebox; noisy cockerels essaying their first crow. There were trees singing in the wind as they felt the sap stir in their trunks. It was miraculous.

  The development of Finch’s infant son during those winter months had been lovely to watch. So thought Pheasant and so agreed Piers. He had changed from a purple-faced, wrinkled gnome into a pink-and-white cherub. His bald head became covered by a curly down. He had dimples in his cheeks and smiled his good will toward all comers.

  All the family (with the exception of his father, who still avoided him) declared that there never was a nicer baby or a better-behaved one. Piers would take him in his two hands under the armpits and dandle him. Piers could pull funny faces to make Ernest laugh, but to Ernest all faces were funny and he always was ready to laugh. Pheasant loved him so dearly and found the care of him such a pleasure that she felt it scarcely honest to accept the generous allowance Finch gave her for her trouble. “I hate to take this, Finch,” she would cry. “Baby is such a darling and as good as gold. Do come and see him in his bath. You’ll love him. Of course, I know that you do love him already, but when you’ve seen him in his bath … Oh, Finch, do come.”

  But, on one pretext or another, Finch avoided this encounter with his younger son. “Finch,” said Piers, “is going to be one of those fathers who don’t like their sons. There are such, you know. I can’t understand it.”

  Pheasant remembered Maurice, but she said nothing.

  Of all those who admired Ernest, none was so fervent in homage as little Mary. He was her delight, from his first crowing in the early morning to the moment when he was tucked up beneath the old woolly blanket that had served Mary and her three brothers. He was better, she decided, than any other of her treasures. Better than the cocoon out of which the butterfly had seen the light of day. He was better than a spider. Better than a rose. Better than the lilies and carnations she had stolen from his mother’s grave. He was even better than the little silver thimble her Auntie Meg had given her at Christmas. Mary did not much like sewing, but when she took the thimble from its blue velvet case and capped the middle finger of her right hand with it, that was the signal for a delicious sensation of power. With the thimble on her finger Mary felt ready to face the emergencies of life.

  But the baby Ernest was better than any of these. She could scarcely bear to wait till spring when she might take him out in the old perambulator that Piers had brought in from the shed and given a fresh coat of enamel. Mice had got into its cushions and Pheasant was making new ones. Ernest looked almost as interested as Mary in these preparations for spring.

  It seemed to Mary that this baby, this living toy, was especially hers. She was not prepared for the possessiveness of Dennis when he returned to Jalna for the Easter holidays. She was dumfounded, speechless, when he came into the nursery where she was, as she felt, in complete charge, and demanded, “Well, what do you think you are doing?”

  She was, as a matter of fact, brushing the baby’s curly fuzz with a little old ivory hairbrush that had been used for a
ll Pheasant’s babies. Surely Dennis could see what she was doing; but he repeated, in a hectoring tone, “what do you think you are doing?” At the same time he looked at her out of his greenish eyes in a way that made her uncomfortable. His forehead was gathered into a frown.

  She stammered, “I’m — brushing Baby’s hair.”

  Dennis took the brush from her and threw it across the room. “I’ll let you know,” he said, “when this baby’s hair needs brushing. He’s mine.”

  “Yours?” she breathed. “How can he be?”

  Dennis was smiling at her now, but his smile made her even more uncomfortable than his frown.

  “Because,” he said, and seemed to be lost in thought. Then he came and whispered right into her ear, “Because I saw him born.”

  He drew back to see the effect of his words on her.

  She looked no more than puzzled.

  “You’re not to tell,” he said. “If you do, something terrible will happen to you.”

  “Something terrible?” she repeated.

  “Forget,” he said, and laughed out loud.

  He looked hard at the baby. “How long,” he asked, “has he been so pretty?”

  “He’s always been pretty,” Mary said.

  “No — he hasn’t. He was ugly, ugly as sin. Do you know how ugly sin is?”

  “He’s pretty now,” said Mary. “Can’t I brush his hair anymore?”

  Dennis took the baby into his arms. He held him close, and rubbed his cheek on the curly fuzz.

  Pheasant came into the room. “How do you like your baby brother?” she asked.

  “Oh, well enough,” said Dennis, noncommittally. “I’m like my father. I don’t care much about babies.”

  XXVIII

  Conversation in the Kitchen

  Mrs. Wragge had just taken a pan of buttermilk scones from the oven when Wright and Noah Binns descended into the warm basement kitchen from the chill outdoors. As yet there was very little spring growth, though the days were noticeably longer; even at this tea time the sun was slanting through the window to rest in rosy brightness on the copper urn that had been freshly polished.