07 Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  Jalna

  Mazo de la Roche

  Jalna

  Copyright © 2006 The Estate of Mazo de la Roche and XYZ Publishing

  First published in Canada by Macmillan Company of Canada, 1927

  This 2006 edition of Jalna is published in a new trade paperback format.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

  recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written

  consent of the publisher - or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic

  copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency - is an

  infringement of the copyright law.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  De la Roche, Mazo, 1879-1961

  Jalna

  New ed.

  Originally published: Toronto: Macmillan, 1927.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-894852-23-4

  ISBN-10:1-894852-23-0

  I. Title.

  PS8507.E43J34 2006 C813’.52 C2006-941451-3

  PS9507.E43J34 2006

  Legal Deposit: Third quarter 2006

  Library and Archives Canada

  Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

  XYZ Publishing acknowledges the financial support our publishing program

  receives from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Book Publishing Industry

  Development Program (BPIDP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the

  ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, and the Société de

  développement des entreprises culturelles.

  Layout: Édiscript enr.

  Cover design: Zirval Design

  Cover painting: Magali Lefrançois, Jalna

  Set in Aldus 12 on 14.

  Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens, Altona (Manitoba) in September 2006.

  XYZ Publishing

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  Web site: utpress.utoronto.ca

  To the memory of

  MY FATHER

  WHITEOAKS OF JALNA

  CONTENTS

  I THE RAKE’S PROGRESS

  II THE FAMILY

  III ERNEST AND SASHA

  IV NICHOLAS AND NIP

  V PIERS AND HIS LOVE

  VI PHEASANT AND MAURICE

  VII PIERS AND PHEASANT MARRIED

  VIII WELCOME TO JALNA

  IX EDEN AND ALAYNE

  X ALAYNE AND LIFE

  XI BELOVED, IT IS MORN

  XII WELCOME AGAIN TO JALNA

  XIII INSIDE THE GATES OF JALNA

  XIV FINCH

  XV MORE ABOUT FINCH

  XVI “IN THE PLACE WHERE THE TREE FALLETH”

  XVII PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

  XVIII IN THE WIND AND RAIN

  XIX A VARIETY OF SCENES

  XX MERRY GENTLEMEN

  XXI EDEN AND PHEASANT

  XXII WAKEFIELD’S BIRTHDAY

  XXIII JUNE NIGHT AT JALNA

  XXIV THE FLIGHT OF PHEASANT

  XXV FIDDLER’S HUT

  XXVI GRANDMOTHER’S BIRTHDAY

  I

  THE RAKE’S PROGRESS

  WAKEFIELD WHITEOAK ran on and on, faster and faster, till he could run no farther. He did not know why he had suddenly increased his speed. He did not even know why he ran. When, out of breath, he threw himself face down on the new spring sod of the meadow, he completely forgot that he had been running at all, and lay, his cheek pressed against the tender grass, his heart thudding against his ribs, without a thought in his head. He was no more happy or unhappy than the April wind that raced across his body or the young grass that quivered with life beneath it. He was simply alive, young, and pressed by the need of violent exertion.

  Looking down into the crowding spears of grass, he could see an ant hurrying eagerly, carrying a small white object. He placed his finger before it, wondering what it would think when it found its way blocked by this tall, forbidding tower. Ants were notoriously persevering. It would climb up his finger, perhaps, and run across his hand. No, before it touched his finger, it turned sharply aside and hurried off in a fresh direction. Again he blocked its path, but it would not climb the finger. He persisted. The ant withstood. Harried, anxious, still gripping its little white bundle, it was not to be inveigled or bullied into walking on human flesh. Yet how often ants had scrabbled over him when he had least wanted them! One had even run into his ear once and nearly set him crazy. In sudden anger, he sat up, nipped the ant between his thumb and forefinger, and placed it firmly on the back of his hand. The ant dropped its bundle and lay down on its back, kicking its legs in the air and twisting its body. It was apparently in extreme anguish. He threw it away, half in disgust, half in shame. He had spoiled the silly old ant’s day for it. Perhaps it would die.

  Briskly he began to search for it. Neither body nor bundle of ant was to be seen, but a robin, perched on a swinging branch of a wild cherry tree, burst into song. It filled the air with its rich throaty notes, tossing them on to the bright sunshine like ringing coins. Wakefield held an imaginary gun to his shoulder and took aim.

  “Bang!” he shouted, but the robin went on singing just as though it had not been shot.

  “Look here,” complained Wakefield, “don’t you know when you’re dead? Dead birds don’t sing, I tell you.”

  The robin flew from the cherry tree and alighted on the topmost twig of an elm, where it sang more loudly than ever to show how very much alive it was. Wakefield lay down again, his head on his arm. The moist sweet smell of the earth was in his nostrils; the sun beat warmly on his back. He was wondering now whether that big white cloud that he had seen sailing up from the south was overhead yet. He would lie still and count one hundred—no, a hundred was too much, too sustained a mental effort on a morning like this; he would count up to fifty. Then he would look up, and if the cloud were overhead he would—well, he didn’t know what he would do, but it would be something terrific. Perhaps he would run at full speed to the creek and jump across, even if it were at the widest part. He pushed one hand into the pocket of his knickers and fingered his new agate marbles as he counted. A delicious drowsiness stole over him. A tender recollection of the lovely warm breakfast he had eaten filled him with peace. He wondered if it were still in his stomach, or had already changed into blood and bone and muscle. Such a breakfast should do a great deal of good. He clenched the hand belonging to the arm stretched under his head to test its muscle. Yes, it felt stronger—no doubt about that. If he kept on eating such breakfasts, the day would come when he would not stand any nonsense from Finch or from any of his brothers, even up to Renny. He supposed he would always let Meg bully him, but then Meg was a woman. A fellow couldn’t hit a woman, even though she was his sister.

  There came no sound of a footstep to warn him. He simply felt himself helpless in the grasp of two iron hands. He was dazed by a shake, and set roughly on his feet, facing his eldest brother, who was frowning sternly. The two clumber spaniels at Renny’s heels jumped on Wakefield, licking his face and almost knocking him down in their joy at discovering him.

  Renny, still gripping his shoulder, demanded: “Wh
y are you loafing about here, when you ought to be at Mr. Fennel’s? Do you know what time it is? Where are your books?”

  Wakefield tried to wriggle away. He ignored the first two questions, feeling instinctively that the third led to less dangerous channels. “Left them at Mr. Fennel’s yesterday,” he murmured.

  “Left them at Fennel’s? How the devil did you expect to do your homework?”

  Wakefield thought a moment. “I used an old book of Finch’s for my Latin. I knew the poetry already. The history lesson was just to be the same thing over again, so’s I’d have time to think up my opinion of Cromwell. The Scripture of course I could get out of Meg’s Bible at home, and”—he warmed to his subject, his large dark eyes shining—“and I was doing the arithmetic in my head as you came along.” He looked earnestly up into his brother’s face.

  “A likely story.” But Renny was somewhat confused by the explanation, as he was meant to be. “Now look here, Wake, I don’t want to be hard on you, but you’ve got to do better. Do you suppose I pay Mr. Fennel to teach you for the fun of it? Just because you’re too delicate to go to school isn’t any excuse for your being an idle little beast without an idea in your head but play. What have you got in your pockets?”

  “Marbles—just a few, Renny.”

  “Hand them over.”

  Renny held out his hand while the marbles were reluctantly extracted from the child’s pockets and heaped on his own palm. Wakefield did not feel in the least like crying, but his sense of the dramatic prompted him to shed tears as he handed over his treasures. He could always cry when he wanted to. He had only to shut his eyes tightly a moment and repeat to himself, “Oh, how terrible! How terrible!”—and in a moment the tears would come. When he made up his mind not to cry, no amount of abuse would make him. Now, as he dropped the marbles into Renny’s hand, he secretly moaned the magic formula, “Oh, how terrible! How terrible!” His chest heaved, the muscles in his throat throbbed, and soon tears trickled down his cheeks like rain.

  Renny pocketed the marbles. “No snivelling now.” But he did not say it unkindly. “And see that you’re not late for dinner.” He lounged away, calling his dogs.

  Wakefield took out his handkerchief, a clean one, still folded in a little square, put in his pocket by his sister that morning, and wiped his eyes. He watched Renny’s tall retreating figure till Renny looked back over his shoulder at him, then he broke into a jog trot toward the rectory. But the freedom of the morning was no longer his. He was full of care, a slender, sallow boy of nine, whose dark brown eyes seemed too large for his pointed face, wearing a greenish tweed jacket and shorts, and green stockings that showed his bare brown knees.

  He crossed the field, climbed a sagging rail fence, and began to trot along a path that led beside a muddy, winding road. Soon the blacksmith shop appeared, noisy and friendly, between two majestic elms. An oriole was darting to and fro from elm to elm, and, when the clanging on the anvil ceased for a moment, its sweet liquid song was scattered down in a shower. Wakefield stopped in the doorway to rest.

  “Good morning, John,” he said to John Chalk, the smith, who was paring the hoof of a huge, hairy-legged farm horse.

  “Good morning,” answered Chalk, glancing up with a smile, for he and Wake were old friends. “It’s a fine day.”

  “A fine day for those that have time to enjoy it. I’ve got beastly old lessons to do.”

  “I suppose you don’t call what I’m doing work, eh?” returned Chalk.

  “Oh, well, it’s nice work. Interesting work. Not like history and comp.”

  “What’s ‘comp.’?”

  “Composition. You write about things you’re not interested in. Now, my last subject was A Spring Walk.’”

  Well, that ought to be easy. You’ve just had one.”

  “Oh, but that’s different. When you sit down to write about it, it all seems stupid. You begin, I set out one fine spring morning,’ and then you can’t think of a single thing to write about.”

  “Why not write about me?”

  Wakefield gave a jeering laugh. “Who’d want to read about you! This comp. stuff has got to be read, don’t you see?”

  Conversation was impossible for a space, while the blacksmith hammered the shoe into place. Wakefield sniffed the delicious odour of burnt hoof that hung almost visibly on the air.

  Chalk put down the large foot he had been nursing, and remarked:

  “There was a man wrote a piece of poetry about a blacksmith once. ‘Under a spreading chestnut tree,’ it began. Ever read it? He must have wrote it to be read, eh?”

  “Oh, I know that piece. It’s awful bunk. And besides, he wasn’t your kind of blacksmith. He didn’t get drunk and give his wife a black eye and knock his kids around—”

  “Look here!” interrupted Chalk with great heat. “Cut out that insultin’ kind of talk or I’ll shy a hammer at you.”

  Wakefield backed away, but said, judicially, “There you go. Just proving what I said. You’re not the kind of blacksmith to write comp. or even poetry about. You’re not beautiful. Mr. Fennel says we should write of beautiful things.”

  “Well, I know I ain’t beautiful,” agreed Chalk, reluctantly. “But I ain’t as bad as all that.”

  “All what?” Wakefield successfully assumed Mr. Fennel’s air of schoolmasterish probing.

  “That I can’t be writ about.”

  “Well, then, Chalk, suppose I was to write down everything I know about you and hand it to Mr. Fennel’ for comp. Would you be pleased?”

  “I say I’ll be pleased to fire a hammer at you if you don’t clear out!” shouted Chalk, backing the heavy mare toward the door.

  Wakefield moved agilely aside as the great dappled flank approached, then he set off down the road—which had suddenly become a straggling street—with much dignity. The load of care that he had been carrying slid from him, leaving him light and airy. As he approached a cottage enclosed by a neat wicket fence, he saw a six-year-old girl swinging on the gate.

  “Oo, Wakefield!” she squealed, delightedly. “Come an’ swing me. Swing me!”

  “Very well, my little friend,” agreed Wakefield, cheerily. “You shall be swung, ad infinitum. Verbum sapienti.”

  He swung the gate to and fro, the child laughing at first, then shrieking, finally uttering hiccoughing sobs as the swinging became wilder, and her foothold less secure, while she clung like a limpet to the palings.

  The door of the cottage opened and the mother appeared.

  “Leave her be, you naughty boy!” she shouted, running to her daughter’s assistance. “You see if I don’t tell your brother on you!”

  “Which brother?” asked Wakefield, moving away. “I have four, you know.”

  “Why, the oldest to be sure. Mr. Whiteoak that owns this cottage.”

  Wakefield spoke confidentially now. “Mrs. Wigle, I wouldn’t if I were you. It upsets Renny terribly to have to punish me, on account of my weak heart—I can’t go to school because of it—and he’d have to punish me if a lady complained of me, of course, though Muriel did ask me to swing her and I’d never have swung her if I hadn’t thought she was used to being swung, seeing the way she was swinging as I swung along the street. Besides, Renny mightn’t like to think that Muriel was racking the gate to pieces by swinging on it, and he might raise your rent on you. He’s a most peculiar man, and he’s liable to turn on you when you least expect it.”

  Mrs. Wigle looked dazed. “Very well,” she said, patting the back of Muriel, who still sobbed and hiccoughed against her apron; “but I do wish he’d mend my roof, which leaks into the best room like all possessed every time it rains.”

  “I’ll speak to him about it. I’ll see that it’s mended at once. Trust me, Mrs. Wigle.” He sailed off, erect and dignified.

  Already he could see the church, perched on an abrupt, cedar-clad knoll, its square stone tower rising, almost menacing, like a battlement against the sky. His grandfather had built it seventy-five years before. His
grandfather, his father, and his mother slept in the churchyard beside it. Beyond the church and hidden by it was the rectory, where he had his lessons.

  Now his footsteps lagged. He was before the shop of Mrs. Brawn, who had not only sweets but soft drinks, buns, pies, and sandwiches for sale. The shop was simply the front room of her cottage, fitted with shelves and a counter, and her wares were displayed on a table in the window. He felt weak and faint. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth with thirst. His stomach felt hollow and slightly sick. Plainly, no one on earth ever needed refreshment more than he, and no one on earth had less means for the payment for such succour. He examined the contents of his pockets, but, though there was much in them of great value to himself, there was not one cent in hard cash, which was all that Mrs. Brawn really cared about. He could see her crimson face inside the window, and he smiled ingratiatingly, for he owed her thirteen cents and he did not see where he was ever going to get the money to pay it. She came to the door.

  “Well, young man, what about that money you owe me?” She was brusque indeed.

  “Oh, Mrs. Brawn, I aren’t feeling very well this morning. I get these spells. I dare say you’ve heard about them. I’d like a bottle of lemon soda, please. And about paying—” He passed his hand across his brow and continued hesitatingly: “I don’t believe I should have come out in the sun without my cap, do you? What was I saying? Oh, yes, about paying. Well, you see my birthday’s coming very soon and I’ll be getting money presents from all the family. Eighteen cents will seem no more to me than thirteen then. Even a dollar will be nothing.”

  “When does your birthday come?” Mrs. Brawn was weakening.

  Again he passed his hand across his forehead, then laid it on his stomach, where he believed his heart to be. “I can’t exactly remember, ‘cos there are so many birthdays in our family I get mixed up. Between Grandmother’s great age and my few years and all those between, it’s a little confusing, but I know it’s very soon.” As he talked, he had entered the shop and stood leaning against the counter. “Lemon soda, please, and two straws,” he murmured.