What would it be like, Finch wondered, to have Eden for a friend? But Eden would soon tire of him, he knew. Even now he fell silent, looking straight ahead with an odd, unseeing look. Finch examined his profile. He was like his mother, Finch had heard said, heard his grandmother say, in her harsh, sardonic voice — “Like his poor flibberty-gibberty mother.” It must feel strange to be beautiful like Eden. Not that he would have wanted to. It would have been embarrassing to him. But he could have done with a few good looks, he thought.
Eden took a notebook from his pocket, found a stub of a pencil in another pocket, and looked enquiringly at Finch.
“Must you stay here?” he asked politely.
“Why — why — I don’t know,” stammered Finch.
“Because the first lines of a poem have just come into my head and I should like to be alone to write them down. If I wander off I shall probably forget them, but a walk will do you good. There’s a lot of room.”
Finch scrambled to his feet. “Oh — all right. I’ll go.” He looked vaguely about, then turned to Eden. “You won’t tell, will you?” he asked, reddening.
“Tell what?”
“Wh-what I said about — the lamb?”
“Not a word. I’m good at keeping secrets. But are you really going to reject it when it comes to the table?”
“You wait and see.”
“Knowing your appetite, I’ll believe it when I see it — not before.”
Finch spoke loudly. “You’ll see it! I’ll never eat meat again.”
He felt a constriction in his throat. Tears scalded his eyes. He stumbled over a fallen branch as he hurried away and all but fell.
Eden called out — “Don’t hurry. I wasn’t driving you off.”
Finch turned back. “Eden — you won’t tell that I —” he could not go on.
Eden finished for him — “That you were crying? God, no! What a little duffer you are! Get out! You’ve made me forget that first line.”
Finch had his midday meal at the school to which he went each day by train. During the following week he refused meat, and if he left it on his plate at supper no one noticed. But when Saturday came it was a different story. It was a day still warm and doors and windows stood open.
When the family collected for the one o’clock dinner they were met by an excellent smell of roast lamb and mint sauce. The grandmother, supported by a son on either side, sniffed the rich odour and made a gallant attempt to walk faster. “Don’t be so slow,” she said to Ernest. “I’m not a centurion yet.”
“Centenarian, Mamma.”
“Ha — well, what was a centurion, then?”
“He was commander of a hundred men in the Roman army.”
She gave a roguish grin. “Well, I never commanded a hundred men — not quite a hundred, no!”
Her son Nicholas patted her back that once had been supple and straight but was now stiff and bent. He looked down at her with admiration. “You certainly commanded ’em in your day, Mamma — in three countries.”
The rest of the family, with the exception of Finch, were standing about, waiting. The visitor, Dilly Warkworth, was, as usual, trying to captivate Renny. This, in these days, when she was engaged in schooling the mare, Silken Lady, was easier to do. He was drawn to any woman who could ride well. He had thought her to be a bit of a fool, but now he admired her, in an impersonal way.
Ernest and Nicholas steered their mother round the end of the table to her own place between them. There they could attend to her wants and try to restrain her appetite, which was all too zestful. They lowered her into the chair where she arrived with a “ha” of satisfaction, put up her two hands to straighten her beribboned cap, and fixed her eyes, which were surprisingly bright and clear for her age, on the platter Rags was about to place on the table in front of Renny. This he did with an air of especial deference and solicitude, as though the wiry and weather-beaten master of the house were a particularly aristocratic invalid. Nicholas and Ernest found this irritating and it always took them a moment or two to get over it.
“Roast lamb,” exclaimed the grandmother. “Nothing I like better. Plenty of brown gravy and mint sauce, please.”
Renny tested the edge of the carving knife with his thumb. He began to carve.
Finch came in and slid into his chair with a glance of apology at his sister.
Meg said — “I must ask you to be on time, Finch. you know perfectly well how long it takes you to tidy yourself. What is your birthday watch for, if not to help you to be on time for meals?”
Piers gave Finch a poke in the ribs. “What’s the time by your birthday watch, my little man?” he whispered out the side of his mouth.
Finch did not hear him. He was staring at the juicy brown roast on the platter. When it was his turn to be served, he said loudly — “None for me, please.”
Renny threw him a piercing look — almost of consternation. “What’s the matter?” he demanded.
“I’ll have just vegetables, please.”
“Vegetables! Why — this is roast lamb! One of our own.”
Unable to control himself, Finch broke out hoarsely: “That’s just it! I was there. I saw it killed.”
“Now don’t let’s have any nonsense.” Renny spoke with some severity. He cut a slice from the roast and laid it on a plate.
“I won’t eat it, I tell you,” shouted Finch.
“Come, come,” soothed Piers, “be a little man.”
Nicholas, who was becoming somewhat hard of hearing, demanded — “What is all this about?”
The grandmother, with the first luscious mouthful on her fork, put in — “If the boy wants more, give him more. He is growing fast — needs feeding.”
The plate was set in front of Finch. He looked down at it with loathing. He repeated — “I won’t eat it, I tell you.”
Replying to Nicholas, Eden said — “He saw the butchering and he’s turned vegetarian. Who can blame him?”
“If the boy wants more, give him more,” put in the grandmother, her mouth full of roast lamb.
“That’s not the trouble,” Renny said testily. “He won’t eat what I have given him because —”
Ernest interrupted — “My mother should not be told unpleasant things when she is eating.”
Him she now interrupted fiercely — “I won’t be kept out of things.”
Piers declaimed — “He never loved a dear Gazelle but it was sure to die.”
“Ba-a,” bleated Wakefield.
Meg helped him to mint sauce. “This lamb,” she said, “is very nice indeed and very good for you.”
Finch, with flushed face and trembling lips, sat staring at his plate.
Renny said — “Let’s have no more of this sentimental nonsense.
Behave yourself and eat what you’re given.”
“I tell you, I won’t — I can’t,” Finch got out hoarsely.
“Ba-ba,” bleated Wakefield.
In a sudden fury Finch caught his arm and twisted it. The little boy uttered sounds of anguish disproportionate to his hurt.
Old Mrs. Whiteoak rapped the table with her fork. “Take them out and flog them, Renny,” she ordered. “Boys fighting at table! I won’t have it.”
“Such fun,” cried Dilly, who had been listening open-mouthed.
“I am ashamed for you, Finch,” said Lady Buckley on a deep contralto note.
Renny rose from the table, took Finch by the arm and led him into the hall. Closing the door behind him, he said — “I am going to be forced to give you such a walloping as you have never had one of these days.”
With his mouth contorted, Finch began — “But don’t you see …” He could get no further. How could he make Renny see what he saw — the gaping wound — the pleading eyes — the blood on the snowy wool? And, if he could make him see…
Renny was saying — “Now, you go up to your room and stay there till you get over this. Then go down to the kitchen and get something to eat. Whatever you want. If
you won’t eat lamb —
“I’ll never eat any meat again.”
“Very well. Be a vegetarian if you like, but for goodness’ sake don’t make a fool of yourself as you did just now.”
A vegetarian Finch remained as the days marched on. What amazed him was that no one made any further remark on his abstinence from meat. He could not know that it had been agreed to ignore him in this matter. Wakefield did indeed call out “Ba-a” to him from the shelter of Piers, but got such a savage look after the first occasion that he desisted. Finch’s relief was almost physical, so greatly he had shrunk from the chaffing, the derision he had dreaded. Now he could face a future untainted by the shame of devouring his fellow creatures. If they could but know! Indeed many a time he pictured them, as by some miracle, discovering he had not shared in the cruelty they suffered. Surely, when he died, word would pass among them and they would mourn him. It seemed hard to him that the cows, sheep, and pigs of the farm appeared to trust Piers more than him — Piers who was so zestfully a meat-eater.
That zest — that appetite — unfortunately remained with Finch. He was growing fast — bones and muscles were hardening in him, he came to his meals ravenous. The smell of the breakfast bacon or sausages was a torture. No amount of toast and marmalade filled the yearning cavity of his inside. Scarcely an hour would pass before he would be hungry again. And when there were pork chops or veal stew or roast beef! Renny would enquire solicitously if he would take a little of the Yorkshire pudding with a little gravy on it. A bit of the pudding — yes. The gravy — no. Almost he resented the mask-like faces about the table. They were making it too easy for him. It was unnatural. They didn’t care! That was it — they didn’t care!
He tried to fill up upon chocolate bars and nuts. He ate large numbers of apples and bananas but his stomach cried out for meat. Meg had fish cooked especially for him but he had never liked fish. He did like macaroni and cheese, but that same night he was teased by the delicious scent of baked ham. Wakefield would learn forward to watch him eat as though he were an animal in a zoo. Otherwise his abstinence was unnoticed.
One night when all the household were out with the exception of himself, studying in the library, and Grandmother and Wakefield tucked up in bed, his resolve broke. There had been cold roast pork for supper, fine and tender, with a crisp rind. He dropped his books and stole down the stairs to the basement. He turned on the light in the kitchen where there was a pleasant warmth from the fire in the coal range. Some copper utensils, brought from England by his grandparents but now unused, hung on the walls. They caught the light, eagerly, as though meaning had been given back to them. He could see his reflection moving in them from one to another.
He opened the door of the larder. There were leftovers in bowls on the shelves. There was a side of bacon hanging from the ceiling. There was a platter of uncooked sausages and half a meat-pie. But beneath a large dish-cover he found what he wanted — the remainder of the roast pork. It had been cooked with stuffing and some of this lay crumbled on the platter. He collected a little mound of it with his fingers and put it into his mouth. Oh, the delicious flavour! He tore a crisp rind from the joint and crunched it almost savagely. How long was it since he had tasted meat? He could not remember. It seemed half a lifetime. He found a sharp knife and cut himself a large slice of the fine white meat. He felt like the discoverer of roast pork. He ate a second slice. Then he turned his attention to the cold meat-pie. His hunger surprised even himself but at last it was satisfied.
He turned out the lights and stole softly up the stairs. He heard his grandmother snoring as he passed her door.
No more study for him that night. He lay back in Nicholas’s leather armchair replete. He did not think but merely felt a deep animal content — like a tiger that has devoured his prey.
But next day the problem was there. How to make the complete face-about. All day long at school it kept nagging at him. Could he go to Meg and persuade her to say the doctor had ordered meat for him, that if he did not eat meat he would die? But everyone knew he was not ill. There was nothing to do but to face the music. Meat he must have.
At supper there was a very substantial dish of beef stew with dumplings, for Renny and Piers had been at a fall fair at some distance. Their cheeks were ruddy from the strong northwest wind they had faced. And there, sitting opposite him, was his grandmother who had had no exercise whatever, waiting eagerly for her share.
“Granny, dear,” Meg was saying, “don’t you think you had better have a poached egg?”
Ernest added — “I agree that she had better have a poached egg.”
His mother peered up at him truculently from under the lace frill of her cap. “I want a dumpling,” she said.
“But, Mamma, they are so hard to digest.”
“Speak for yourself,” she retorted. “I can digest ’em.”
Ernest said, out of the side of his mouth nearest Renny — “A small one, then.”
“What’s that he says?” she demanded. “A small one? Nothing of the sort. A big one! I say a big one, Renny. You would not starve your poor ould grandma, would you?” She spoke these last words in the rich Irish brogue she had heard in her girlhood days.
Nicholas chuckled — “Give her a dumpling, Renny, and let her put up with the consequences.”
“What fun!” exclaimed Dilly.
Finch looked glumly down at the fried potatoes, fried eggs, and rather watery stewed tomatoes which Wragge had set before him.
Meg enquired — “What is the matter, dear? Aren’t you hungry? Would you rather have some blancmange?”
Renny leant toward him, with a cajoling air. “Have a little of the stew,” he said.
Every eye was on Finch. But he did not care.
“Yes,” he said firmly, “I’ll have some of the stew — quite a lot.”
Everyone watched fascinated while Renny mounded a plate with the juicy meat, the rotund dumplings, the rich gravy, in which small mushrooms were smothered.
With an unrestrained giggle Wragge removed the fried eggs from in front of Finch and set the stew in its place.
“If he’s been rude,” said the grandmother, “he shouldn’t have his supper. Take him out and cuff him, Renny. That’s the way my father kept them polite.”
“He’s all right,” grinned Renny. “Go to it, Finch.”
Amid an outburst of laughter Finch applied himself to the steaming stew. All about him he heard — “Ha-ha-ha! ho-ho-ho! he-he-he!” and from Wakefield — “Ba-ba-ba!” One would think, he said to himself, that nothing quite so funny had ever happened before, but he was impervious to derision or chaffing. He continued doggedly to enjoy the stew. Fortunately at this moment Grandmother mislaid her dumpling.
“Where is it?” she demanded, peering all about her.
All eyes were not on her plate. At last Wragge discovered it on her lap. He gathered it up in her table-napkin and she was given a fresh one. This effectively took the attention of the family from Finch. She herself was vastly amused.
“A dumpling,” she chuckled, “a dumpling in my lap — of all things!” The talk then turned to the fall fair and the meal ended on a high cheerful note.
It was so mild this evening that the front door stood open. The dogs saw a rabbit cross the lawn and rushed out to chase it. Then Wakefield scampered after them. And after him — all the others — even the grandmother.
“Give me your arms, boys,” she said to her elderly sons. “I want to see the moon.”
The harvest moon was indeed a sight of great splendour. The sun had sunk, a resplendent red ball, in the luminous west. Now it was as though it rose again, in the dark-blue east, so like it was to the red harvest moon. The Virginia creeper that covered the front of the house had, in the frosty night, turned to a rich tapestry of bronze and gold and scarlet. Adeline Whiteoak, as a young woman, had planted it there, had guided its puny tendrils in its first year, had held a watering can high above it to refresh it in the drought. Now she s
tood bent, nearly a hundred years old, gazing up at it as it embraced and beautified the house, clung to it, fastened its hold in every crevice, draped its tendrils over the porch, and soon would cast down its leaves and rest till its next budding time.
Already many of the leaves of birch and maple had fallen and had that day been raked into a heap on the lawn. Wakefield ran into its midst and began kicking the leaves about, throwing an armful in Finch’s face. Now Finch was after him, throwing an armful in Finch’s face. Now Finch was after him, showering leaves on him. And Piers was after Finch, and Eden after Piers, and Renny after Eden, in a storm of flying leaves. Now Eden was down and his brothers were burying him in leaves. He lay acquiescent while they made a great mound on him.
“Here lies a dead poet!” chanted Piers, and Eden was up again and the leaves flying about him.
“Ha,” said old Adeline Whiteoak, “I like to see the whelps rioting. I like to see the harvest moon. Now I shall go to bed…. A dumpling in me lap. Who would have thought of it! Tck-tick.”
XIV
THE FALLING LEAVES
Now almost all of the leaves had fallen, though the strong brown oak leaves were slow to loose their hold and, when they did, sailed majestically to the ground with an air of intention rather than defeat. There seemed no end to the leaves that fall. Their density on the trees seemed scarcely to account for their great numbers when they fell. They were raked into heaps and burned, blazing brilliantly for a little, then declining to a quietly glowing mass, the sweet-smelling incense from which rose to the blue sky. But no matter how many were burned our how many law in hollows or in the ravine, many were left to be blown about by the untiring wind. It was not a playful wind but a strong, chill wind that spoke of icy gales to come. The leaves were blown across paths and roads, first in one direction then another. Scarcely were they settled in one spot when they were hurled back where they had come from. And so, like refugees without a country, they could find nowhere to rest.
Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna Page 43
