Maurice always managed to bring the conversation around to Meggie. It was difficult for Finch to find anything pleasant to tell about her in these days, but he discovered that Maurice was even more interested to hear of her can-tankerousness than her sweetness. It seemed to give him a certain glum satisfaction to know that things were at sixes and sevens with her.
Finch had not been so happy since he was a very little fellow. He had perhaps never been so happy. He discovered in himself a yearning for perfection in the interpretation of his simple musical exercises, which he had never had in his Latin translations or his math. He discovered that he had a voice. All the way home through the black ravine he would sing, sometimes at the top of his lungs, sometimes in a tender, melancholy undertone.
But how his school work suffered! His report at the end of the term was appalling. As Eden said, he out-Finched himself. In the storm that followed, his one consolation was that a large share of the blame was hurled at Renny. However, that did him little good in the end, for Renny turned on him, cursing him for a young shirker and threatening to stop the lessons altogether. Aunt Augusta and Alayne stood by him, but with caution. Augusta did not want her visit to become too unpleasant, and Alayne had come to regard her position in the house as a voyageur making his difficult progress among treacherous rocks and raging rapids. She could endure it till the New Year—when Eden was to take a position in town which Mr. Evans had got for him—and no longer.
At this moment, when Finch, a naked wretch at the cart’s tail, with fingers of scorn pointing at him from all directions, alternately contemplated running away and suicide, he suddenly ceased to be an object of more than passing scorn, and little Wakefield took the centre of the stage. Piers had for some time been missing cartridges. Wake had for an equal length of time seemed to have an unlimited supply of marshmallows. And a sneaking stable-boy had “split,” and it was discovered that Wake was emptying the cartridges, making neat little packets of the gunpowder, and selling it to the village boys for their own peculiar violences.
When cornered, Wake had denied all knowledge of gunpowder, whether in cartridges or bulk. But Meg and Piers, searching his little desk, had come upon the neat little packets, all ready to sell, with a box full of coppers, and even a carefully written account of sales and payments. It was serious. Meg said he must be whipped. The young Whiteoaks had set no high standard of morality for a little brother to live up to, but still this was too bad.
“Flog him well,” said Gran. “The Courts stole, but they never lied about it.”
“The Whiteoaks,” said Nicholas, “often lied, but they never stole.”
Ernest murmured: “Wakefield seems to combine the vices of both sides.”
“He’s a little rotter,” said Piers, “and it’s got to be taken out of him.”
Alayne was aghast at the thought of the airy and gentle Wake being subjected to the indignity of physical punishment. “Oh, couldn’t he please get off this time?” she begged. “I’m sure he’ll never do such a thing again.”
Piers gave a short scornful laugh. “The trouble with that kid is he’s been utterly ruined. If you’ll let me attend to him, I’ll wager he doesn’t pinch anything more.”
“I strongly disapprove of a delicate child like Wakefield being made to suffer,” said Lady Buckley
The culprit, listening in the hall, put his head between the curtains at this and showed his little white, tear-stained face.
“Go away, sir,” said Nicholas. “We’re discussing you.”
“Please, please—”
Renny, who had been captured for the conclave and who stood gloomily, cap in hand, with snow-crusted leggings, turned to go. “Well, I’m off.”
“Renny!” cried his sister, peremptorily. “Why are you going? You have got to whip Wake.” The opposition of Alayne and Augusta had turned her sisterly anxiety to correct the child into relentless obstinacy.
Renny stood with bent head, looking sulkily into his cap. “The last time I licked him, he shivered and cried half the night. I’ll not do it again.” And he turned into the hall, pushing Wakefield aside and slamming the front door behind him.
“Well, of all the damned sloppiness!” broke out Piers.
“Don’t worry,” said Meg, rising. “Wakefield shall be punished.” Her immobile sweet face was a shade paler than usual.
“This isn’t a woman’s job,” declared Piers. “I’ll do it.”
“No. You’ll be too hard on him.”
“Let me flog the boy,” cried Grandmother. “I’ve flogged boys before now. I’ve flogged Augusta. Haven’t I, Augusta? Get me my stick!” Her face purpled with excitement.
“Mamma, Mamma,” implored Ernest, “this is very bad for you.”
“Fan her,” said Nicholas. “She’s a terrible colour.”
Meg led Wakefield up the stairs. Piers, following her to the foot, entreated: “Now, for heaven’s sake don’t get chicken-hearted. If you’re going to do it, do it thoroughly.”
“Oh, don’t you wish it were you?” exclaimed Pheasant, tugging at his arm.
“Which?” he laughed. “Giving or getting one?”
“Getting, of course. It would do you good.”
Nicholas and Ernest also came into the hall, and after them shuffled Grandmother, so exhilarated that she walked alone, thumping her stick on the floor and muttering: “I’ve flogged boys before now.”
Finch draped himself against the newel post and thought of thrashings of his own. Augusta and Alayne shut themselves in the living room.
Eden came out of his room above to discover the cause of the disturbance, but Meg would not speak. With set face she pushed Wakefield before her into her room and closed the door. However, Piers, in vehement tones, sketched the recent criminal career of the youngest Whiteoak.
Eden perched on the handrail, gazing down at the faces of his brothers, uncles, and grandmother with delight. He said, dangling a leg:
“You’re priceless. It’s worth being interrupted in the very heart of a tropic poem to see your faces down there. You’re like paintings by the great masters: Old Woman with Stick. The Cronies (that’s Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest). Young Man with Red Face (you, Piers). Village Idiot (you, Finch). As a matter of fact, I was at my wit’s end for a rhyme. Perhaps brother Wake, in his anguish, will supply me with one.”
“What’s he saying?” asked Gran. “I won’t have any of his back chat.”
Ernest replied mildly: “He is just saying that we look as pretty as pictures, Mamma.”
“She’s beginning at last,” announced Piers, grinning.
A sound of sharp blows cascaded from Meg’s room, blows that carried the tingling impact of bare skin. Staccato feminine blows, that ceased as suddenly as they had begun.
“He’s not crying, poor little beggar,” said Eden.
“That’s because he’s not hurt,” stormed Piers. “What does the woman think she’s doing? Giving love taps to a kitten? Good Lord! She’d hardly begun till she’d stopped. Hi, Meggie, what’s the matter? Aren’t you going to lick the kid?”
Meg appeared at the door of her room. “I have whipped him. What do you want me to do?”
“You don’t mean to say that you call that a licking? Better not touch him at all. It’s a joke.”
“Yes,” agreed Nicholas, “if you’re going to tan a boy, do it thoroughly.”
Grandmother said, her foot on the bottom step: “I’d do it thoroughly. Let me at him!”
“Steady on, Mamma,” said Nicholas. “You can’t climb up there.”
“For God’s, sake, Meggie,” exclaimed Piers, “go back and give him something he’ll remember for more than five minutes!”
“Yes, yes, Meggie,” said Ernest, “a little swishing like that is worse than nothing.”
“Give him a real one! Give him a real one!” bawled Finch, suddenly stirred to ferocity. He had suffered, by God! Let that pampered little Wake suffer for a change.
Boney screamed: “Jab kutr! N
imak haram! Chore!”
Meg swept to the top of the stairs. “You are like a pack of wolves,” she said at white heat, “howling for the blood of one poor little lamb. Wake is not going to get one more stroke, so you may as well go back to your lairs.”
Eden threw his arms about her, and laid his head on her comfortable shoulder.
“How I love my family!” he exclaimed. “To think that after the New Year I shall be out of it all. Miss such lovely scenes as this.”
Meg did not try to understand Eden. She knew that he was pleased with her because he hugged her, and that was enough.
“Do you blame me for telling just how heartless I thought they were?”
“You were perfectly right, old girl.”
“Eden, I hope you won’t mind what I’m going to say, but I do wish Alayne would not interfere between me and the children. She has such ideas.”
“Oh, she has the habit of wanting to set everything right. She’s the same with me. Always telling me how unmethodical I am, and how untidy with my things. She means well enough. It’s just her little professorial ways.”
“Poor lamb!” said Meggie, stroking the shining casque of his hair.
Wake’s voice came, broken by sobs: “Meggie!”
Meg disengaged herself from Eden’s arms. “There, now, I must go to him, and tell him he’s forgiven.”
The party downstairs had retreated after Meggie’s attack, leaving a trail of wrangling behind them. Piers reached for his cap, and, stopping at the door of his grandmother’s room, said, loud enough for Alayne to hear: “They’re spoiling the two kids among them, anyway. As for Eden, he’s no better than another woman! “
“He’s like his poor flibbertigibbet mother,” said Gran.
The cloud under which Wakefield awoke next morning was no more than a light mist, soon dispelled by the sun of returning favour. Before the day was over he was his own dignified, airy, and graceless self again, a little subdued perhaps, a little more anxious to please, a shade more subtle in the game of his life.
The game of life went on at Jalna. A stubborn heavy game, requiring not so much agility of mind as staying power and a thick skin. The old red house, behind the shelter of spruce and balsam, drew into itself as the winter settled in. It became the centre of whirling snow flurries. Later on, its roof, its gables, and all its lesser projections became bearers of a weight of slumbrous, unspotted snow. It was guarded by snow trees. It was walled by a snow hedge. It was decked, festooned, titivated by snow wreaths, garlands, and downy flakes. The sky leaned down toward it. The frozen earth pressed under it. Its habitants were cut off from the rest of the world. Except for occasional tracks in the snow, there was little sign of their existence. Only at night dim lights showed through the windows, not illuminating the rooms, but indicating by their mysterious glow that human beings were living, loving, suffering, desiring, beneath that roof.
Christmas came.
Books for Alayne from New York, with a chastely engraved card enclosed from Mr. Cory. More books, and a little framed etching from the aunts up the Hudson. An overblouse, in which she would have frozen at Jalna, from Rosamund Trent. Alayne carried them about, showing them, and then laid them away. They seemed unreal.
There were no holly wreaths at Jalna. No great red satin bows. But the banister was twined with evergreens, and a sprig of mistletoe was suspended from the hanging lamp in the hall. In the drawing-room a great Christmas tree towered toward the ceiling, bristling with the strange fruit of presents for the family, from Grandmother down to little Wake.
A rich hilarity drew them all together that day. They loved the sound of each other’s voices; they laughed on the least provocation; by evening, the young men showed a tendency toward horseplay. There was a late dinner, dominated by the largest turkey Alayne had ever seen. There was a black and succulent plum pudding with brandy sauce. There were native sherry and port. The Fennels were there; the two daughters of the retired admiral; and lonely little Miss Pink, the organist. Mr. Fennel proposed Grandmother’s health, in a toast so glowing with metaphor and prickling with wit that she suggested that if he were three sheets in the wind on Sunday he would preach a sermon worth hearing. The admiral’s daughters and Miss Pink were flushed and steadily smiling in the tranced gaiety induced by wine. Meg was soft and dimpled as a young girl.
A great platter of raisins smothered in flaming brandy was carried in by Rags, wearing the exalted air of an acolyte.
Seeing Rags’s hard face in that strange light carried Renny as in a dream to another very different scene. He saw Rags bent over a saucepan in a dugout in France, wearing a filthy uniform, and, oddly enough, that same expression. But why, he could not remember. He had picked Rags up in France. Renny looked up into his eyes with a smile, and a queer worshipping grin spread over Rags’s grim hard-bitten face.
The raisins were placed on the table in the midst of the company. Tortured blue flames leaped above them, quivering, writhing, and at last dying into quick-running ripples. Hands, burnished like brass, stretched out to snatch the raisins. Wake’s, with its round child’s wrist; Finch’s, bony and predatory; Piers’s, thick, muscular; Grandmother’s, dark, its hook-like fingers glittering with jewels—all the grasping, eager hands and the watchful faces behind them illuminated by the flare; Gran’s eyes like coals beneath her beetling red brows.
Pheasant’s hands fluttered like little brown birds. She was afraid of getting burned. Again and again the blue flames licked them and they darted back.
“You are a little silly,” said Renny. “Make a dash for them, or they’ll be gone.”
She set her teeth and plunged her hand into the flames. “Oh—oh, I’m going to be burned!”
“You’ve only captured two,” laughed Eden, on her other side, and laid a glossy cluster on her plate.
Renny saw Eden’s hand slide under the table and cover hers in her lap. His eyes sought Eden’s and held them a moment. They gazed with narrowed lids, each seeing something in the other that startled him. Scarcely was this unrecognized something seen when it was gone, as a film of vapour that changes for a moment the clarity of the well-known landscape and shows a scene obscure, even sinister—The shadow passed, and they smiled, and Eden withdrew his hand.
Under the mistletoe Mr. Fennel, Grandmother having been carefully steered that way by two grandsons, caught and kissed her, his beard rough, her cap askew.
Uncle Ernest, a merry gentleman that night, caught and kissed Miss Pink, who most violently became Miss Scarlet.
Tom Fennel caught and kissed Pheasant. “Here now, Tom, you fathead, cut that out!” from Piers.
Finch, seeing everything double after two glasses of wine, caught and kissed two white-shouldered Alaynes. It was the first time she had worn an evening dress since her marriage.
Nicholas growled to Ernest: “Did you ever see a hungry wolf? Look at Renny glowering in that corner. Isn’t Alayne lovely tonight?”
“Everything’s lovely,” said Ernest, rocking on his toes. “Such a nice Christmas!”
They played charades and dumb crambo.
To see Grandmother (inadvertently shouting out the name of the syllable she was acting) as Queen Victoria, and Mr. Fennel as Gladstone!
To see Meg as Mary, Queen of Scots, with Renny as executioner, all but cutting off her head with the knife with which he had carved the turkey!
To see Alayne as the Statue of Liberty, holding a bedroom lamp on high (“Look out, Alayne, don’t tilt it so; you’ll have the house on fire!”), and Finch as a hungry immigrant!
You saw the family of Jalna at their happiest in exuberant play.
Even when the guests were gone and the Whiteoaks getting ready for bed, they could not settle down. Ernest, in shirt and trousers, prowled through the dim hallway, a pillow from his bed in one hand. He stopped at Renny’s door. It was ajar. He could see Renny winding his watch, Wake sitting up in bed, chattering excitedly. Ernest hurled the pillow at Renny’s head. He staggered, bewildered by t
he unexpected blow, and dropped his watch.
“By Judas,” he said, “if I get you!” With his pillow he started in pursuit.
“A pillow fight! A pillow fight!” cried Wake, and scrambled out of bed.
Ernest had got as far as his brother’s room. “Nick,” he shouted, in great fear, “save me!”
Nicholas, his grey mane on end, was up and into it. Piers, like a bullet, sped down the hall. Finch, dragged from slumber, had barely reached the scene of conflict when a back-banded blow from Eden’s pillow laid him prostrate.
Nicholas’s room was a wreck. Up and down the passage the combatants surged. The young men forgot their loves, their fears, their jealousies, the two elderly men their years, in the ecstasy of physical, half-naked conflict.
“Boys, boys!” cried Meg, drawing aside her chenille curtain.
“Steady on, old lady!” and a flying pillow drove her into retreat.
Pheasant appeared at her door, her short hair all on end. “May I play, too?” she cried, hopping up and down.
“Back to your hole, little hedgehog!” said Renny, giving her a feathery thump as he passed.
He was after Nicholas, who had suddenly become cognizant of his gout and could scarcely hobble. Piers and Finch were after him. They cornered him, and Nicholas, from being the well-nigh exhausted quarry, became the aggressor, and helped to belabour him.
Eden stood at the top of the stairs, laughingly holding off little Wake, who was manfully wielding a long old-fashioned bolster. Ernest, with one last hilarious fling in him, stole forth from his room, and hurled a solid sofa cushion at the pair. It struck Eden on the chest. He backed. He missed his footing. He fell. Down the stairs he went, crashing with a noise that aroused Grandmother, who began to rap the floor with her stick.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 203
