“Keep your shirt on,” said Piers soothingly. “You won’t be twenty-one for long. My advice is to make the most of it. Go away for a while and he’ll forgive you and want you back.” He looked over the letters. “Here is one for you from England. A birthday greeting from Aunt Augusta, I guess.”
Finch took the letter and glanced at the spidery handwriting. He turned, with an ache in his throat, in the direction of the house. ‘Thanks,” he muttered; and added— “And thanks for standing up for me.”
“That was nothing. I don’t usually see eye to eye with you, but I do in this. You’d be a fool to waste your time in doing what you hate when you have all the world before you... Do you like the cufflinks?” Piers was one of those who find it difficult to express thanks for a gift themselves, but who take a sincere pleasure in the reiterated thanks of others.
Finch brightened. “Oh, yes. I like them awfully.”
“They’re quite good ones, you know.”
“I can see that. But you and Pheasant shouldn’t have done it. It was too much.”
“Well, I’ve never given you a present before... and, if you like them...”
“I like them tremendously.”
“We went into town together to pick them out. The day the car broke down and she got that chill.”
Finch’s gratitude deepened. “I remember. It was too bad her getting a chill on my account.”
“She didn’t mind... There goes the stable clock. I’ll be late for lunch. I don’t suppose it will amount to much today, with the dinner coming on... I’ll take the kid with me.”
On the way to the house Finch opened his Aunt’s letter. He had a deep affection for her. She had shown him many kindnesses on her visits to Jalna, had worried considerably over his thinness, and tried unsuccessfully to fatten him. It was like her to have remembered his birthday, and to have posted her letter in time to reach him on the very day. He read, his lips twisting into a wry smile at the last paragraph:
LYMING HALL,
NYMET CREWS, DEVON,
18th February.
MY DEAR NEPHEW,
When you receive this letter you will, I trust, be well and happy, and at the proud moment of attaining your majority. You are arriving at manhood surrounded by the most auspicious circumstances. I only wish I might be with you to give you my good wishes in person. But I very much doubt whether I shall ever visit Canada again. The mere undertaking of the journey at my age is terrific. The sea voyage with its attendant nausea, the exhausting journey by rail in the discomfort and heat of your trains, and, added to this, the sad knowledge that my dear mother no longer awaits with extended arms for my coming. Neither do my brothers invariably show me that consideration which they should. Particularly I mention Nicholas. Mentioning him, of course, in the strictest confidence.
I should like very much to have you visit me this summer during your holidays. Even a short stay in England at this period of your life would help to broaden you.
I wish I could offer you lively society, as I might have done once; but those days are past. They are gone like the days when my parents entertained so lavishly at Jalna.
But I can offer you young company in the shape of Sarah Court, your cousin once removed. She and the aunt (by marriage) with whom she lives are coming from Ireland to spend part of the summer with me. Mrs. Court’s husband was the brother of Sarah’s father. They were the sons of Thomas Court, my mother’s youngest brother. Mrs. Court is an Englishwoman, though still living in Ireland, and you would never think that Sarah herself was Irish. She is twenty-five, a quite superior girl intellectually, musical like yourself. I have always esteemed the aunt, though she is a very peculiar woman and places too much importance (in my opinion) on her high blood pressure. I am sure you and Sarah would get on together.
If you would like to visit me, I shall write to Renny and tell him that it is my desire to have you. It was such a delight to me that he and Alayne were married from my house and spent their honeymoon nearby. Give my fondest love to my other dear nephews and nieces, my brothers (I so often long to see them), and my baby grand-nephew.
I hope you will be very happy, my dear Finch, and I think you may rest assured that not one of us harbours any feeling of malevolence towards you in the matter of your inheritance.
Your affectionate Aunt,
AUGUSTA BUCKLEY.
P.S.—Quite recently I had a letter from Eden. He approached me for money. He did not mention that woman.—A. B.
Finch carried the letter to Alayne where she was arranging carnations on the birthday table.
“Look, Finch,” she cried, “aren’t they beauties? They arrived perfectly fresh. I arranged them at first with tulle banked about them, but it didn’t suit the room at all. You can’t do what you like with this room; it’s got too much character.”
Finch sniffed the carnations and eyed the expanse of damask and silver with some concern. He had never been the object of an occasion before, and the pleasure it gave him was overweighed by apprehension, even though the guests were only relations and the nearest neighbours. He said nervously:
“You don’t suppose they’ll drink my health, do you? Want me to make a speech or anything? I’d be in a blue funk if I thought that was hanging over me.”
“Of course they’ll drink your health. All you’ve got to do is to get up and make a little bow and say a few words of thanks.”
Finch groaned.
“Don’t be silly! How can you possibly be afraid of saying a few words at your own table when you played so splendidly before a hall full of people?”
“If you think you cheer me by bringing up that recital, you’re mistaken. I hate the thought of it!”
“I don’t! I look back on it with pride.” But she dared not look at him for fear her eyes should betray her knowledge that he had not played his best.
He drew a long sigh. “Well, the table’s awfully pretty. Where are we going to have lunch?”
“In the sitting-room. It’s ready now.”
“I’ve just had a letter from Aunt Augusta. Have you time to read it now?”
“Yes, I’d love to.” She sat down on the arm of a chair near a window, in an attitude that suggested both repose and capability of purpose. Finch’s eyes rested on the gold of her hair, the blue of her dress. Seeing her so he felt, as he often felt about her, that she never had and never could become one of them, even to the fitting of her person into the surrounding objects of the house. She looked as though she had just walked in from a different world, bringing with her an atmosphere of clarity and questioning, and would walk out again, her clarity perhaps disturbed, but her questioning unanswered. Yet she was easily agitated. Sometimes he felt a wildness of spirit in her, as though she would by her will force her way into the fibre of their life, take possession as she was possessed.
She looked up and found his eyes on her and smiled.
“What a characteristic letter!” she exclaimed. “I think her underlining is delicious. And her adjectives... Oh, my dear, what could be more perfect than malevolence!” She turned the page and read the postscript, but she made no comment on it, except by a scornful movement of the lips.
“What do you think,” asked Finch, “of my going over to visit Aunt Augusta? I’d like to go. I’ve just told Renny that I can’t go back to ‘Varsity.”
“How did he take it?” She was not surprised because they had talked of that together. But she could not speak of Renny without all her being quivering into oversensitiveness.
“Just what you’d expect. We had a row.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! What a shame—on your birthday!”
“Well—now he knows. One unexpected thing happened. Piers took my side.”
She wondered why Piers had taken his side. She suspected him of being shrewd, and she could never be unconscious of his dislike for her, though it was concealed behind an air of heartiness. He had welcomed her even less as mistress of Jalna than he had welcomed her when she had first come there
as Eden’s wife. He would have liked Pheasant to be the only woman in the house, his wife, a young girl and docile, though she had been wanton once.
Alayne said—“You must go to England. You must!” She took him by the lapels of his coat and gave him a quick kiss. It was the first time she had ever kissed him. She realised his spiritual hunger, and the kiss was a gesture, not only of comfort, but of urge to the fulfilment of that hunger.
He felt a high excitement. His eyes shone. “How beautiful you are to me,” he said, taking her hands in his.
“Do you know,” she said teasingly, “I believe Aunt Augusta has it in her mind to make a match between you and this Sarah Court.”
“Nonsense! She looks on me as a boy.”
“Yes, but boys grow into husbands. Especially in a house with an attractive cousin.”
“I don’t like the sound of her.”
“She’s musical.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Well, don’t think I should want you to marry. You ought not to marry till you are fully matured. Not for years and years.”
The luncheon bell sounded, and almost at once they heard voices in the sitting-room. They found the others there, standing about eating roast-beef sandwiches and drinking tea. Wakefield, excited by the novelty, darted here and there, half a buttered scone in each hand. Not since his grandmother’s funeral had there been such excitement in the house. Not since then had there been a meal that was not a meal, and the opening of the doors to invited guests. And all about Finch! Wakefield, for the first time in his life, regarded him with respect. He found a chair and, hooking his arms beneath its arms, dragged it towards him.
“Here!” he cried exuberantly. “Here’s a chair! Sit down and rest yourself.”
There was an outburst of laughter at Finch’s expense. He pushed child and chair aside, and went, with a sheepish frown, to the table where the viands were spread. He picked up a sandwich, and, before he remembered to offer the plate to Alayne, had taken a large bite from it. He attempted to get tea for her, and slopped it into the saucer. He was in despair with himself.
Renny was in despair with him too. He stood watching his fumbling movements with brooding disapproval. What the devil was the matter with the fellow? He was always wrought up over something. And this latest! This wanting to throw up his studies the very moment of coming into his money! It was the spinelessness of him, that was what was so exasperating. If only he were wild, reckless—but this shrinking from things! Were these half-brothers whom he had reared to be one disappointment after another? All but Piers! He’d no fault to find with Piers. But Eden... Never able to earn his own living, and yet somehow able to keep that girl, Minny... He hadn’t married her though, which he ought to have done... Now Finch was coming on... And little Wake, who was like his own child, what would he make of him? He looked gloomily at the undersized boy, with his sensitive dark face, his long-lashed, brilliant eyes, too big for the face... he’d been caught lying, he’d been caught stealing... well, life was a queer, mournful thing, and this was a queer, mournful occasion, though the others might stand about grinning with their sandwiches like a lot of schoolchildren at a feed.
Nicholas thought, with an inward chuckle—“Renny might have put a better face on it, seeing that Ernest and I have achieved a festive air. After all, the party was his idea.”
Finch could not get enough to eat. As usual, when he was mentally disturbed, he found the cavity within more difficult to fill, especially with a scrappy meal like this. No number of buns spread with damson jam would do it. He was the last in the room. He had hoped that Renny would linger, giving him a chance to propitiate him; but, after bolting two sandwiches and a cup of tea that might well have seared insides of less tough fibre, he had stalked out.
It seemed that the afternoon would never pass. Finch hung about the house watching the preparations, playing snatches at the piano, teasing Pheasant, and, when possible, having moments of serious conversation with Alayne on that subject of never failing interest—himself.
He and Wakefield went to the kitchen in the basement and surveyed the fowls all trussed up for roasting, and the wineglasses all polished up for filling, and the moulds of jelly, and the buckets filled with chopped ice into which were thrust the containers holding the Neapolitan ice sent out from town. They had never seen Mrs. Wragge’s face so purple, or Wragge’s so pallid, or Bessie’s arms, as she scrubbed the celery, so mottled. All were atwitter with excitement. They looked at Finch with wonder in their eyes, to think that he had attained this pinnacle.
Long before it was time to dress for dinner he was in his attic room. The night had turned cold. He got into his dressing gown, a gaily coloured one that had once been Eden’s, his bedroom slippers that had once been Renny’s, took his bath towel, one of a pair given him by Meggie at Christmas, and descended to the bathroom. There was a chill there too, but he had told Rags to fill the tin tub with very hot water, and it was hot enough in all conscience. Hot enough to boil him. When he ran upstairs again he was pink from heat and in a state of high excitement.
Already he had laid his evening clothes on the bed. They had only been worn twice before, once at a dance at the Leighs’and once at the recital. The jacket became him well, he thought, surveying himself in the small glass. Alayne had given him a white carnation to wear. He brushed his moist hair, giving special attention to the lock that had a habit of dangling on his forehead. He polished his nails and wished that his fingers were not so stained by cigarettes. A shiver ran over him which he did not know whether to attribute to excitement or the change from the hot bath to the cold room. God! How well the new cufflinks and the new wristwatch looked! He glanced at the face of the watch... It was an hour and a half before dinnertime!
What to do! He could not go downstairs at this hour, looking like a fool, with a carnation in his buttonhole. Yet he should die of cold if he spent the intervening time up here. He cursed himself for his stupid haste.
Still, if he chose to go down and sit for an hour and a half in the drawing-room, whose business was it but his own? He supposed he could do as he liked on his own birthday... He was halfway down the attic stairs when he heard Piers ascending the lower stairs, whistling. They would meet in the passage, or Piers, glancing up, would see him on the stairway. One look at him in those clothes, at that hour, would be enough to make Piers humorous at his expense for the evening. He could hear him greet an early arrival with— “Too bad you couldn’t have got here earlier. Young Finch has been waiting, all dressed up, for an hour and a half to welcome you!” No, he must never risk that! Not risk being seen by any of the family.
He turned back and re-entered his room. He looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed. Somehow or other he must put in the next hour and a quarter in that cavern of coldness. He looked longingly at the bed. If only he might lie down and cover himself with the quilt and keep warm! But his suit would be ruined by wrinkles in no time. The next best thing was to wrap the quilt about him and find something to read. He folded it carefully about his shoulders, keeping one hand curved above the carnation to protect it. He felt utterly miserable... What hell coming of age was!
From his shelf of books he took a volume of Wordsworth’s poems. It was handsomely bound, the only prize he had ever got at school. The support he craved, the something of pride in achievement, might be in that book, he thought. Something to fortify him in this hour. He sat down, opened it and read: “Presented to Finch Whiteoak for the excellence of his memorising of Holy Scripture.” And the date, nine years before. He had been a small boy then, at a small school. Nine years ago... He was getting on!
He thought of the numerous prizes each of the others had won at school, for they had each had a subject or two in which they excelled. As for prizes for athletics... They had been put to it to find places for all the silver cups and urns... Well, at any rate, he had got one, that was better than nothing. He read stolidly for what seemed a long time, dividing his attent
ion between his new cufflinks and watch, and the poetry for which he did not much care. But the rhythm of it eased him somehow, the quilt comforted. It was no easy matter to keep it around him, protecting the carnation with one hand and holding up the book of poems with the other. He did wish he had a cigarette; yet he was afraid of disarranging himself to get it, lest in the rearranging the carnation might be injured. It might be better to take the carnation off for the rime, but there was the danger in pinning it on again.
He heard Wakefield running below and gave a piercing whistle to attract him. He came flying up the stairs. Finch concealed the poems under the quilt.
“Hello,” said Wakefield, “what are you wrapped up in a quilt for?”
“Been having a bath and got chilled. Look in that top drawer and hand me the package of cigarettes, like a good kid.”
“I say,” exclaimed Wake, as he handed him the cigarettes, “how funny you look! You’re wrapped in a quilt, and yet I can see your pumps and pants underneath!”
Finch scowled at him in what he hoped was a terrifying way, but he dared advance no more than his fingers from the quilt toward the cigarettes because of his cuffs. Yet Wake held them just out of reach.
“Give them here!” snarled Finch out of the side of his mouth like a stage villain.
“I am giving them,” Wake’s tone was meek, but his eyes were on a narrow aperture in the quilt and he brought the cigarettes no nearer. “Here they are. Why don’t you take them?”
“How the hell can I take them when you hold them away off there?”
“It’s not away off. It’s just a little bit of a way. What’s the matter with you? Do you feel sick? Because, if you do, perhaps you’d better not smoke.”
Exasperated beyond endurance, Finch shot forth his hand from the quilt and snatched the packet of cigarettes, instantly drawing the quilt once more tightly about him. “Now,” he said, “clear out of here and no more of your cheek!”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 255
