07 Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  Miss Harriet was asking:

  “Let me see, there are six of you, aren’t there? How very interesting. Just imagine Alayne having brothers and sisters, Helen. She used always to be praying for them when she was little, didn’t you, Alayne?”

  “There is only one sister,” said Eden.

  “She wrote Alayne such a kind letter,” murmured Miss Helen.

  Miss Harriet proceeded: “And your older brother went through all the terrors of the War, did he not?”

  “Yes, he was through the War,” replied Eden, and he thought of Renny’s rich vocabulary.

  “And the brother next to you is married, Alayne tells us. I do hope his wife and Alayne will be friends. Is she about Alayne’s age? Have you known her long?”

  “She is seventeen. I’ve known her all my life. She’s the daughter of a neighbour.” His mind flew for an instant to the reception given to Piers and Pheasant when they returned to Jalna after their marriage. He remembered the way poor young Pheasant had howled, and Piers had stood holding his bleeding ear.

  “I trust Alayne and she will be congenial. Then there are the two younger brothers. Tell us about them.”

  “Well, Finch is rather a—oh, he’s just at the hobbledehoy period, Miss Archer. We can hardly tell what he’ll be. At present he’s immersed in his studies. Wake is a pretty little chap. You’d quite like him. He is too delicate to go to school, and has all his lessons with our rector. I’m afraid he’s very indolent, but he’s an engaging young scamp.”

  “I am sure Alayne will love him. And she will have uncles, too. I am glad there are no aunts. Yes, Alayne, we were saying only this morning we are glad there are no aunts. We really want no auntly opposition in loving you.”

  “Then,” put in Miss Helen, “there is Eden’s remarkable grandmother. Ninety-nine, did you say, Eden? And all her faculties almost unimpaired. It is truly wonderful.”

  “Yes, a regular old—yes, an amazing old lady, Grandmother is.” And he suddenly saw her grinning at him, the graceless ancient, with her cap askew, Boney perched on her shoulder, rapping out obscene Hindu oaths in his raucous voice. He groaned inwardly and wondered what Alayne would think of his family.

  He had written asking Renny to be best man for him. Renny had replied: “I have neither the time, the togs, nor the tin for such a bust-up. But I enclose a cheque for my wedding present to you, which will help to make up for my absence. I am glad Miss Archer has money. Otherwise I should think you insane to tie yourself up at this point in your career, when you seem to be going in several directions at once and arriving nowhere. However, good luck to you and my very best regards to the lady. Your aff. bro. Renny.”

  The cheque was sufficient to pay for the honeymoon trip and to take them home to Jalna. Eden, with his head among the stars, thanked God for that.

  They were married in the austerely perfect living room of Alayne’s aunts’ house on the Hudson. Late roses of so misty a pink that they were almost mauve, and asters of so uncertain a mauve that they were almost pink, blended with the pastel shades worn by the tremulously happy aunts. A Presbyterian minister united them, for the Misses Archer were of that denomination. They had felt it keenly when their brother had embraced Unitarian doctrines, though they had never reproached him for his change of faith. Intellectually Alayne was satisfied with Unitarianism, but she had sometimes wished that the faith in which she had been reared were more picturesque even though less intellectual. In truth, religious speculation had played a very small part in her life, and when bereavement came to her she found little consolation in it. With a certain sad whimsicality, she liked at times to picture the spirit of her father meticulously going over the golf course, stopping now and again to wave a ghostly hand to the spirit of her mother peering from an upper window of the stucco bungalow.

  She thought of them a good deal on this her wedding day. They would have been so happy in her happiness. They would have loved Eden. He looked so radiant, sunburned, and confident as he smiled down at her that she became radiant and confident too.

  The Corys, Rosamund Trent, and the other friends at the wedding repast thought and said that they had never seen a lovelier couple.

  As they motored to New York to take their train Eden said:

  “Darling, I have never met so many well-behaved people in my life. Darling, let us be wild and half-mad and delirious with joy! I’m tired of being good.”

  She hugged him to her. She loved him intensely, and she longed with great fervour to experience life.

  XII

  WELCOME AGAIN TO JALNA

  WAKEFIELD slept late that morning, just when he had intended to be about early. When he opened his eyes he found that Renny’s head was not on the pillow next his as usual. He was not even dressing. He was gone, and Wake had the bed and the room to himself. He slept with Renny because he sometimes had a “bad turn” in the night and it was to his eldest brother he clung at such times.

  He spread-eagled himself on the bed, taking up all the room he could, and lay luxuriously a few minutes, rejoicing in the fact that he did not have to go to Mr. Fennel’s for lessons on this day, because it had been proclaimed a holiday by Grandmother. It was the day on which Eden and his bride were expected to arrive at Jalna. Their train was to reach the city at nine that morning and Piers had already motored to fetch them the twenty-five miles to Jalna, where a great dinner was already in preparation.

  The loud wheezing that preceded the striking of the grandfather’s clock in the upstairs hall now began. Wake listened. After what seemed a longer wheeze than usual the clock struck nine. The train carrying the bride and groom must at this moment be arriving at the station. Wakefield had seen pictures of wedding parties, and he had a vision of Eden travelling in a top hat and long-tailed coat with a white flower in his buttonhole, seated beside his bride, whose face showed but faintly through a voluminous veil and who carried an immense bouquet of orange blossoms. He did wish that Meg had allowed him to go in the car to meet them. It seemed too bad that such a lovely show should be wasted on Piers, who had not seemed at all keen about meeting them.

  Wake thought that he had better give his rabbit hutches a thorough cleaning, for probably one of the first things the bride would wish to inspect would be his rabbits. It would be some time before they arrived, for they were to have breakfast in town. He began to kick the bedclothes from him. He kicked them with all his might till he had nothing over him, then he lay quite still a moment, his small dark face turned impassively toward the ceiling, before he leaped out of bed and ran to the window.

  It was a day of thick yellow autumn sunshine. A circular bed of nasturtiums around two old cedar trees burned like a slow fire. The lawn still had a film of heavy dew drawn across it, and a procession of bronze turkeys, led by the red-faced old cock, left a dark trail where their feet had brushed it.

  “Gobble, gobble, gobble,” came from the cock, and his wattles turned from red to purple. He turned and faced his hens and wheeled before them, dropping his wings with a metallic sound.

  Wake shouted from the window: “Gobble, gobble, gobble! Get off the lawn! I say, get off the lawn!”

  “Clang, clang, clang,” resounded the gobbler’s note of anger, and the hens made plaintive, piping sounds.

  “I suppose you think,” retorted Wakefield, “that you’re fifteen brides and a groom. Well, you’re not. You’re turkeys; and you’ll be eaten first thing you know. The real bride and groom will eat you, so there!”

  “Gobble, gobble, gobble.”

  The burnished procession passed into the grape arbour. Between purple bunches of grapes, Wake could see the shine of plumage, the flame of tossing wattles.

  It was a lovely morning! He tore off his pyjamas and, stark naked, ran round and round the room. He stopped breathless before the washstand, where the brimming basin foaming with shaving lather showed how complete had been Renny’s preparations for the bride and groom.

  Wakefield took up the shaving soap and the shaving b
rush, and immersed the brush in the basin. He made a quantity of fine, fluffy, and altogether delightful lather. First he decorated his face, then produced a nice epaulette for each shoulder. Then he made a collar for his round brown neck. Next his two little nipples attracted him. He adorned them as if with the filling from two cream puffs. In order he decorated all the more prominent features of his small person. By twisting about before the mirror he managed to do even his back. It took most of the shaving stick, but the effect when his toilet was completed was worth all the trouble. He stood in rapt admiration before the glass, astonished at what a little ingenuity and a lot of lather could do. He pictured himself receiving the bride and groom in this simple yet effective attire. He was sure that Alayne would think it worth while travelling all the way from New York to see a sight like this.

  He was lost in reverie when a smothered scream disturbed him. It was uttered by Mrs. Wragge, who stood in the doorway, one hand clapped to her mouth, the other carrying a slop pail.

  “My Gawd!” she cried. “Wot a norrible sight! Ow, wot a turn it give me! My ‘eart’s doawn in my boots and my stumick’s in the top of my ‘ead.”

  She was too funny standing there, red-faced and open-mouthed. Wakefield could not refrain from doing something to her. He danced toward her and, before she realized the import of the brandished shaving brush, she had a snowy meringue of lather fairly between the eyes and down the bridge of the nose. With a scream, this time unsmothered, Mrs. Wragge dropped the pail of slops and pawed blindly at her ornate face. Meg, giving a last satisfied examination to Eden’s room, which had been prepared for the bridal pair, hurried toward the sounds of distress from her handmaiden, and, catching the little boy by the ankle just as he was disappearing under the big four-poster, dragged him forth and administered three sharp slaps.

  “There,” she said, “and there, and there! As though I hadn’t enough to do!”

  When Wakefield descended the stairs half an hour later, his expression was somewhat subdued but he carried himself with dignity, and he was conscious of looking extremely well in his best Norfolk suit and a snowy Eton collar. He had begged for just a little hair cream to make his hair lie flat, but Meg liked it fluffy, and he had not wished to insist on anything on a morning when she was already somewhat harassed.

  As he passed the door of his grandmother’s room, he could hear her saying in a cajoling tone to Boney: “Say ‘Alayne’ now, Boney. ‘Pretty Alayne.’ Say ‘Alayne.’ Say ‘Hail Columbia.’” Then her voice was drowned by the raucous tones of Boney uttering a few choice Hindu curses.

  Wakefield smiled and entered the dining room. The table was cleared, but a tray was laid on a small table in a corner. Bread and butter, marmalade, milk. He knew that if he rang the bell Rags would bring him a dish of porridge from the kitchen. It was an old silver bell in the shape of a little fat lady. He loved it, and handled it caressingly a moment before ringing it long and clearly.

  He went to the head of the basement stairs and listened. He could hear Rags rattling things on the stove. He heard a saucepan being scraped. Nasty, sticky, dried-up old porridge! He heard Rags’s step on the brick floor approaching the stairway. Lightly he glided to the clothes cupboard and hid himself inside the door, just peeping through a narrow crack while Rags mounted the stairs and disappeared into the dining room, a cigarette stuck between his pale lips and the plate of porridge tilted at a precarious angle. Wakefield reflected without bitterness that Rags would not have dared to wait on any other member of the family with such a lack of decorum. But he smiled slyly as he glided down the stairs into the basement, leaving Rags and the porridge in the dining room alone.

  The kitchen was an immense room with a great unused fireplace and a coal range that was always in use. The table and dressers were so heavy that they were never moved, and one wall was covered by an oak rack filled with platters from successive Whiteoak dinner sets. Many of these would have given delight to a collector, but the glazing on all was disfigured by innumerable little cracks from being placed in ovens far too hot.

  Wakefield gave one longing look into the pantry. How he would have liked to forage for his breakfast among those richly laden shelves! He saw two fat fowls trussed up in a roasting pan ready to put into the oven, and a huge boiled ham, and a brace of plum tarts. But he dared not. Rags would be returning at any moment. On the kitchen table he found a plate of cold toast and a saucer of anchovy paste. Taking a slice of toast and the anchovy paste, he trotted out of the kitchen and along the brick passage into the coal cellar. He heard Rags clattering down the kitchen stairs, muttering as he came. A window in the coal cellar stood open, and mounted on an empty box he found he could easily put his breakfast out on the ground and climb out after it.

  He was sorry to see how black his hands and bare knees had become in the operation. He scrubbed them with his clean handkerchief, but the only result was that the handkerchief became black. He did not like to return such a black rag to the pocket of his best suit, so he pushed it carefully out of sight in a crack just under the sill of the cellar window. Some little mouse, he thought, would be glad to find it and make a nice little nest of it.

  He carried his toast and anchovy paste to the old carriage house, and sought a favourite retreat of his. This was a ponderous closed carriage that Grandfather Whiteoak had sent to England for when he and Grandmother had first built Jalna. It had a great shell-like body, massive lamps, and a high seat for the coachman. It must have been a splendid sight to see them driving out. It had not been used for many years. Wakefield slumped on the sagging seat, eating his toast and anchovy paste with unhurried enjoyment. The fowls clucking and scratching in the straw made a soothing accompaniment to his thoughts.

  “Now, if I had my way I’d meet the brideangroom with this beautiful carriage, drawn by four white horses. I’d have the wheels all done up in wreaths of roses like the pictures of carnivals in California. And a big bunch of roses for her to carry, and a trumpeter sitting on the seat beside the coachman tooting a trumpet. And a pretty little dwarf hanging on behind, with a little silver whistle to blow when the trumpeter stopped tooting. What a happy brideangroom they’d be!”

  “Brideangroom... Brideangroom.” He liked the pleasant way those words ran together. Still, he must not linger here too long or he would not be on hand to welcome them. He decided that there was no time left for cleaning the rabbit hutches. He would go across the meadow to the road, and wait by the church corner. Then he would have a chance to meet them before the rest of the family. He clambered out of the carriage, a cobweb clinging to his hair and a black smudge across his cheek. He set the saucer containing the remainder of the anchovy on the floor and watched five hens leap simultaneously upon it, a tangle of wings and squawks, while a rooster side-stepped about the scrimmage, watching his wives with a distracted yellow eye.

  He trotted across the meadow, climbed the fence, and gained the road. He stopped long enough to pass the time of day with Chalk, the blacksmith, and was almost by the Wigles’ cottage when Muriel accosted him from the gate:

  “I’ve got ten thents.”

  He hesitated, looking at the little girl over his shoulder. “Have you? Where did you get it?” he asked with polite interest.

  “It’th a birthday prethent. I’m thaving up to buy a dolly.”

  Wake went to her and said kindly: “Look here, Muriel, you’re awfully silly if you do that. A doll costs a dollar or more, and if you save ten cents every single birthday it’d be years and years before you’d have enough to buy one. By that time you’d be too old to play with it. Better come to Mrs. Brawn’s now and buy yourself a chocolate bar. I’ll buy you a bottle of cream soda to drink with it.”

  “I don’t like cream thoda,” replied Muriel, petulantly. She opened her small hot palm and examined the coin lying on it.

  Wakefield bent over it. “Why, it’s a Yankee dime!” he exclaimed. “Goodness, Muriel, you’d better hurry up and spend it, because likely as not it’ll be no good by nex
t week.”

  Mrs. Wigle put her head out of the window of the cottage.

  “When’s your brother goin’ to mend my roof?” she demanded. “It’s leakin’ like all possessed.”

  “Oh, he was just speaking about that this morning, Mrs. Wigle. He says that just as soon as he gets this wedding reception off his hands, he’s going to attend to your roof.”

  “Well, I hope he will,” she grumbled, and withdrew her head.

  “Come along now, Muriel,” said Wake. “I haven’t much time to spare, but I’ll go with you to Mrs. Brawn’s so’s you won’t feel shy.”

  He took her hand and the little girl trotted beside him with a rather dazed expression. They presented themselves before Mrs. Brawn’s counter.

  “Well, Master Whiteoak,” she said, “I hope you’ve come to pay your account.”

  “I’m afraid not this morning,” replied Wake. “We’re so very busy getting ready for the brideangroom that I forgot. But Muriel here wants a bottle of cream soda and a chocolate bar. It’s her birthday, you see.”

  They sat on the step outside the shop with the refreshments, Wakefield sucking the sickly drink placidly through a straw, Muriel nibbling the chocolate.