Books 5-8: Whiteoak Heritage / Whiteoak Brothers / Jalna / Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “We are enjoying on this Sunday morning still another benefit conferred on us by a member of that family which has been so generous with its gifts in the past — right from the time when Captain Whiteoak gave the land and built on it this church. Now the lady who was his beloved wife, and who, I am happy to say, is with us this morning, has donated cushions for all the pews in the church. This is a really splendid gift and one that I am sure you all deeply appreciate. The cushions are handsome and will add greatly to the physical comfort of our members. I can only hope that in this bodily comfort none of us will forget that we are in God’s house.... And now, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost....”

  Dilly’s cheeks were flaming. Eden folded his arms and looked straight up into Mr. Fennel’s face. Piers hung his head. But the grandmother’s eyes were heavy with tears at mention of Captain Whiteoak. The tears hung in her eyes till she blinked, then they trickled down either side of her strongly modelled, handsome old nose which defied the shapeless onslaught of time. Meg clasped her hand and squeezed it. Her family turned their heads to smile at her. All the congregation craned to have a glimpse of her, to make their offering of gratitude. Wakefield made no attempt to conceal his self-importance. If he had himself donated the cushions he could not have felt more the Triton among the minnows.

  The wintry sunshine pencilled the shadows of bare twigs on the windows. Its thin light was not flattering but picked out warm spots, wrinkles, and grey hairs, showed how Farmer Tomkins had cut himself shaving, how young Fred Miller was getting a boil, how the brasses needed cleaning, and where there was a bit of plaster loose. But the splashes of colour from the stained-glass window, in memory of Captain Whiteoak, were clear and serene. In truth there was a serenity and confidence about the whole scene, as though the actors, in pews, choir, and pulpit, were playing parts they well understood, uttering lines well suited to them, feeling emotions for which their forefathers had prepared them. Mr. Fennel’s sermon was not long. It was without rhetoric and rather dull, but his voice was pleasant; he preached of goodness rather than sin, and no aspect of fear or doubt entered into it.

  As all rose at the end Piers managed to get possession of the hymn-book and to tear out the page where the verse was written.

  The voices of the Whiteoaks, soprano, tenor, and baritone, led in the singing of the last hymn, the little choir being quite helpless against them.

  Let all the world in every corner sing,

  My God and King!

  The heavens are not too high,

  His praise my thither fly;

  The earth is not too low,

  His praises there may grow.

  Let all the world in every corner sing,

  My God and King!

  Let all the world in every corner sing,

  My God and King!

  The church with psalms must shout,

  No door can keep them out;

  But above all the heart

  Must bear the largest part.

  Let all the world in every corner sing,

  My God and King!

  And such confirmed royalists were the Whiteoaks that the hymn’s reference to their King might well have been understood by a listener to refer to their allegiance to George V.

  Like an ancient battleship moving massively among lesser craft the grandmother made her way toward the door. The cushions in the now empty pews lay like quiet ripples on either side of her.

  “Dear Mrs. Whiteoak,” exclaimed the younger Miss Lacey, “never have I known such cushions! They’re a perfect dream!”

  “Never have I been so comfortable in church,” added her sister. “I positively luxuriated.”

  Everybody wanted to speak to her, to give her a word of thanks. She was in great good humour. In the vestibule she encountered Noah Binns. He had a piece of news to give her. It was that he had been appointed assistant gravedigger.

  “That’s what I am, from now on,” he said with a leer. “Assistant gravedigger. Would you remember my father, ma’am? Eli Binns? We don’t expect him to last more than a few days more. I’ll be diggin’ fer him pretty soon. That’ll be my first. Quite an enigma fer me.”

  “Ah, that’s sad,” she answered.

  Noah looked pious. He said — “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Nothing could be fairer than that.”

  Wakefield seemed to have heard those last words before. He pondered over them as he moved decorously through the vestibule. His eyes and Noah’s met. All the way home, with the jingling of the bells as an accompaniment, he chanted — “Nothing could be fairer than that.”

  Lady Buckley met Renny in the hall. She was feeling much better but was looking quite sallow. These two were for the moment alone. He put his arm about her and asked:

  “Better, Aunty?”

  “Better of the migraine, but —” she compressed her lips.

  He looked her over anxiously. “Something else — somewhere?”

  “It is Finch,” she answered with a deep sigh.

  “Finch? Is his tooth worse?”

  “I only wish it were his tooth.”

  “Whatever is wrong?”

  She took him by the lapel of his coat and said into his ear — “Finch was — and probably still is — drunk.”

  Renny drew back, as though from a woman demented.

  She saw this and repeated with great firmness — “Drunk — to the point of frenzy.”

  “Is he? Where?” he shot out.

  “In there.”

  Renny threw open the door and the boy sprawled under the afghan was discovered.

  Renny gave Augusta an anxious look. “Are you all right, Aunty?” he asked.

  She drew herself up, offended. “Am I or am I not capable,” she demanded, “to judge whether a person is in a frenzy?”

  “He looks quiet enough now,” said Renny.

  “He is now dead drunk.”

  Renny strode into the room and bent over Finch. “Hm,” he said, and straightened himself and scratched his chin. He wondered whether or not to wake the boy.

  Lady Buckley continued — “The first manifestation was an outrageous uproar on the piano. Loud pedal down. A pounding that must surely have broken some strings. The din was horrible. Ill as I was, I tottered downstairs, and there was Finch raging up and down the keyboard and all four dogs howling.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “I must say,” she added, “in justice to him, that he suffered himself to be led to the couch without any further disturbance.”

  “I wish I’d been here,” said Renny.

  “Oh, he did need a man!”

  Renny patted her shoulder. “Just leave us for a bit, Aunty.”

  She hesitated, saying — “Don’t be too ...”

  “No, no, I won’t.”

  Her voice trailed away, as did her long dressing gown.

  He took the afghan off Finch. He then administered half a dozen hard slaps and thumps over the boy’s bony person and ended by raising him to a sitting position by the ear.

  With difficulty Finch opened his glazed eyes. He blubbered: “Ow — my ear! Whash amatter? Whatafidone?”

  “You know damned well.”

  Finch put his fist to his face. “It was my tooth. It ached.” He gave a dazed smile. “It’sh better now. I took whisky for it.” He appeared not to have noticed the whacking he had got. Renny, observing this, gave it to him all over again.

  Augusta had gone into the drawing-room, closing the door after her, for she felt she could bear no more. In from outdoors now appeared grandmother, a son on her either side.

  “I’m ready to drop,” she declared, in her strong old voice, “with the weight of the coat. Take it off me as fast as you can.”

  Divested of it she stood leaning on her stick, her eyes caught by the sight of Finch on the couch and Renny standing over him. As the second chastisement was taking place, she shuffled with all the haste that was in her, to their side.

  “What’s this?�
� she demanded. “What’s going on?”

  “This young fool,” Renny said, “has been drinking”

  “Him!” she cried. “And scarcely off his mother’s milk! Flog him well for it, Renny. Of what use is your hand? My father always took a stick to his boys.”

  “I won’t do it again,” Finch got out. “I promish.”

  The room was now full of others, asking questions, rebuking, laughing, according to their natures. Wakefield came last, chanting in his shrill treble:

  “An enigma! That’s what he is. An enigma!” With the image of Noah Binns looming in his mind, he chanted — “Room for scope! That’s what he wanted. Nothing could be fairer than that!”

  Meg took him by the hand and led him from the room.

  Nicholas came from the drawing-room with news that three strings of the piano were broken.

  “Finch must pay for them out of his pocket money,” Renny decreed.

  “I’ll pay,” said Nicholas. “But he’s not again to touch the piano. Augusta says the uproar was appalling.”

  Ernest added — “And if there is one thing above another that Augusta craves, it is peace.”

  “Don’t we all?” grinned his mother, who enjoyed nothing better than conflict.

  Wragge now appeared carrying a small tray on which there were glasses of sherry.

  “We’ll have that in the drawing-room, Rags,” Renny said, and then asked in a lower tone — “Have you seen anything of this young man this morning?”

  Wragge looked with surprise at the figure on the couch. “I ’ad a glimpse of ’im, sir, ’olding to ’is fice. I think it was a toothache ’e ’ad.”

  Renny grinned, looking that moment extraordinarily like his grandmother. He said — “Well, I generally keep the spirits under lock and key. I shall have to be more careful in future, if the kids are going to take to drink.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir,” Wragge agreed imperturbably.

  Nicholas was filling his pipe, with the comfort of a man who had been through a church service. He remarked:

  “The boy isn’t fit to come to table. He’d better go up to his bed.”

  “Yes,” agreed Renny. “Go up to bed, Finch.”

  “Good Lord,” laughed Eden, “he’s fallen asleep again.”

  “I’ll wake him up,” said Piers.

  Renny said — “He can stay where he is,” and covered him up with the afghan. His hair, wild as a brush heap, and his flushed miserable face were all that was left visible of him.

  Eden picked up a crumpled half-package of cigarettes that had fallen from Finch’s pocket. “There isn’t a crime,” he said, “that this little boy doesn’t experiment with. I believe these are mine.” He helped himself to a cigarette and was about to drop the remainder into his pocket when Piers snatched them from him. Then Piers, remembering Indigo Lake, returned it with a smile.

  The processions moved into the drawing-room and Dilly came dancing down the stairs. She had on one of the new-fashioned dresses with the terrible short skirt. Ernest regarded her prettily-shaped legs with interest, but he remarked — “I always consider sherry as indigestible stuff.”

  “Nothing better for you before Sunday dinner,” said Nicholas. “Come along, Dilly, have a glass of sherry.” And he put an arm about the young woman.

  For a brief moment she believed it to be Renny’s arm, for he was close on her other side, and she made her eyes large at him. His look of abstraction, however, undeceived her and she turned to Nicholas and clasped his shoulder.

  “Ha,” grunted the grandmother, ensconced with her sherry. “This is good. I do like to go to morning service and come home to a glass of sherry.” She took a sip and beamed about her. “My fur coat was no great weight at all.... D’you think they like the red cushions?”

  “They love them,” said Nicholas.

  Ernest added — “It seemed to me that the Rector spoke very nicely of you, Mamma.” As his niece came into the room, he asked — “Can you tell me, Meggie, what we are having for dinner?”

  “A roast of veal, Uncle Ernest, stuffed. French fried potatoes. Fritters. Lemon pie, with meringue. Nuts and raisins.”

  Ernest set down his glass with a groan. “From my point of view,” he said, “it couldn’t be worse.”

  “Shall I order something different for you?”“

  Yes, have an egg poached for him,” said Nicholas, with seeming good-humour.

  Ernest returned tartly — “No, no, I prefer to eat what the others do.

  In fact a little veal will do me no harm. I shall eschew the nuts and raisins.”

  His mother nodded approval. She said — “I always eschew my food well. It helps digestion.”

  “I said eschew, Mamma.”

  “So did I.” With audible gusto she munched a little biscuit which Meg now brought her. She then turned to Dilly and Eden. “What were you young rascals up to in church?” she demanded benignly.

  Piers came and stood in front of her. He said — “They’re both poets, Gran. Listen to this.” He produced the leaf from the hymn-book and read:

  The congregation sag and snooze,

  There are red cushions on the pews,

  The reader reads so badly.

  The congregation sags and snoozes,

  There are red cushions on the pewses —

  I’m dying to kiss you madly!

  “Did they make it up?” asked the grandmother.

  “Oh, yes, dear Mrs. Whiteoak,” moaned Dilly, “and we’re so ashamed.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of. Quite a good poem. Now go ahead and do it.”

  “Kiss, do you mean?” asked Dilly, as though horrified.

  “Certainly. Go ahead.”

  With a little scream Dilly held out her flowerlike cheek to Eden, who gave it a peck.

  “That’s not what I call kissing madly,” said his grandmother. “Now that eldest grandson of mine — he could show you. Ha, ha — what about it, Renny?”

  Dilly answered for him — “Oh, his mind is more on chastisement.”

  “Chastity,” repeated the grandmother. “Ah, it’s a great thing. A very great thing, as my father used to say — if you don’t overdo it.”

  Augusta here rose in great dignity. She said — “This is a strange Sunday. A most unedifying Sunday.”

  Meg nodded sadly — “Yes, indeed, Aunt Augusta. Carousing at home. Writing ribald rhymes in church. And the strange thing is that the Lesson Renny read was full of warnings — sunspots and the like.”

  Renny said, from where he stood in the doorway:

  “‘And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars.’

  There was nothing about sunspots.”

  “But surely you agree,” cried Meg, “that they all are warnings. These spots appear in the heavens — then disaster follows on the earth.”

  Wakefield here put in — “Nothing could be fairer than that.”

  “I like that rhyme,” said the grandmother, “the one about the cushions I gave. I shall paste it in my scrapbook. Fetch me the book, Ernest.”

  “Bless your heart, old dear,” said her son Nicholas. “No one has seen that scrapbook for thirty years.”

  “Have I pasted naught in it for all those years?”

  “Nothing that I know of.”

  “Dear me,” she sighed, “how time flies. What was the last thing I pasted in the book?”

  Renny answered — “It was a newspaper cutting about the first time I rode at the Horse Show. I was seven.”

  Dilly hissed at him — “What a frightful egotist you are!”

  Piers presented his grandmother with the leaf from the hymn-book on which the jingle was written. However, as she was holding it between finger and thumb Boney flew down from his perch, secured it, and tore it to ribbons. At the same moment Wragge loudly sounded the gong for Sunday dinner, which effectively put all else out of the old lady’s head.

  Finch dimly heard the gong, was faintly conscious of the talk and clink of cutlery in
the dining room. He was more and more conscious of the feeling of nausea which was creeping over him. The odour of the roast veal came through the cracks of the folding doors, the odour of rich gravy.... The first wave of nausea passed, but later on, when the second wave attacked him, he sprang from the couch and ran down the hall to the little room where the dogs slept and where there were taps and a basin. Groaning, he bent over the basin.

  When dinner was over Meg found him still in this room sitting on a stool near the window. She came in and laid her hand on his neck. She asked:

  “Are you feeling better?” He nodded, unable to speak.

  “And you’ll not do a wicked thing like that again, will you?”

  Vigorously he shook his head.

  She went on “Everybody was so upset. For my part I could scarcely eat my dinner.”

  He shuddered. “Would you mind not talking about eating, Meg?”

  She stroked his head, then drew back from him.

  “Your hair,” she brought out, in disgust. “Whatever have you got on it?”

  “I dunno. Why?”

  “It’s sticky. It must be washed. I shall wash it now.”

  He drew back in horror. “Oh, no, Meggie! No! You can’t! I won’t! Not my hair — please!” His voice broke in a squeak of misery.

  Meanwhile Meg had removed her blouse and put on a large enveloping apron which she kept in this room. She had taken from the cupboard a cake of Windsor soap and a clean crash towel. Finch viewed these implements of torture with crapulent misery. Always he had hated hair-washing but never so bitterly as now.

  Meg now turned on the hot water in the basin. She demanded —– “How often do you wash your hair?”

  He was so miserable that she had to repeat the question before he took it in. Then he muttered:

  “My hair gets washed when I have a bath.”

  “That’s no way to do. No wonder it is in such a condition.” She was olterably brisk, dabbing her hand in the basin to test the temperature of the water.

  He rose from his stool and made a zigzag movement toward the door. He said — “I’m not well enough. I can’t, I tell you!”