Meg beamed.
“Well, that looks better, doesn’t it? Really, I was almost hopeless of getting it clean. Look, Maurice … Maurice, look! Are you deaf?”
Maurice, sitting on his heels, obligingly admired her work. “You’ve certainly made a good job of it. I hope the old blighter won’t want to come back next year. He made that spot on the wall and burnt the seat of this chair with his cigarette. He seemed only half awake.”
“But he was very nice and so well-informed.”
“If only he had been satisfied to keep his information to himself!”
“Maurice, you mustn’t be ungrateful! Think of the money we got out of him. And his digestion being so bad he brought most of his food in packages.”
“Look what he did to the wallpaper and the chair.”
“That’s childish. Remember that we got over a hundred dollars from him.”
“I don’t see how you make that out,” He hammered noisily.
“Why, six weeks at —”
“He wasn’t here six weeks.”
“Of course, he was! Don’t you remember how the very day he arrived —?”
“I can’t hear a word you say.”
“Why do you go on hammering when I’m talking?”
“Must get this chair covered sometime. He’s weakened the springs, too.”
“What?”
“He’s weakened the springs, too. My father sat in this chair for seventy years —”
“What utter nonsense! You don’t suppose he sat in it as a baby.”
“Why not?” Maurice stared at her truculently.
“What would be his weight then? In any case your father was never a heavy man. As compared with my father and my grandfather —”
“Good Lord! I don’t suppose they ever sat in this chair.”
“What has that to do with it, I’d like to know.”
“Then why did you bring them into the discussion?”
“I didn’t. I was just comparing.”
“Why compare?”
“What did you say? Why are you muttering?”
“Muttering! If you’d choke off that canary you might hear me!”
“You said only yesterday that he’d scarcely uttered a peep for weeks!”
“What?”
“Patience, darling, could you put down the soft pedal?”
Patience wheeled on the antiquated stool. The door bell rang. She ran and looked out of the window.
“It is Uncle Piers!”
“Whew!” said Piers. “It’s turned cold, I can tell you. We’re in for a real snowstorm.”
“Yes,” said Meg. “I was just noticing that great purple cloud above the sunset. I was just comparing it in my mind to the way the sun shines out in one’s life, in spite of clouds.”
Maurice looked at her stupidly.
“I see that your morale is good,” said Piers. He sat down and took Patience on his knee. She rubbed her cheek against his firm cold one.
“Oh,” she said, “how nice and frosty you feel!”
“He always has a good colour,” said Meg. “I was like that as a young girl. But I had a terrible shock and an illness and I was always pale after that.”
Maurice stared stupidly at her.
Piers asked of Patience — “How are you getting on with your lessons?”
She smiled without answering. Meg did it for her. “Oh, she’s practising very well now that the P.G.s are gone. I couldn’t insist on it when they were here. Now Maurice begins to realize that it was worth going to the expense of a good teacher for her. He begins to appreciate her talent.”
Maurice stared at Meg. “It’s a pity,” he said, “that with a musician like Finch in the family we should have to pay for music lessons.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” agreed Meg. “When I think of the months and months he has been home and all he might have taught Patience in that time! Well — it’s depressing, to say the least of it.”
Piers answered gloomily — “It is Finch’s condition that depresses me. I don’t know what is to become of him. The weeks and the months go by and he lives the same appalling life. I’ll tell you plainly what I think. I think he is headed for a sanatorium or his grave — I don’t know which.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” cried Meg. “Not before the child. Don’t even think such things. Thought does affect a sick person. I’m sure that all Finch needs is complete rest. That’s what Renny says.”
“Renny baffles me,” said Piers. “He lets that boy lie there getting weaker and weaker. He does nothing. Whether he’s fatalistic or merely slothful, I don’t know. For my part, I feel absolutely discouraged. I went in to see him yesterday. He was lying on the bed looking perfectly peaceful. He hadn’t a book, a newspaper, a cigarette — anything by him for amusement. I said to him — ‘How’s that pain in your head?’ — and he answered ‘It’s a lot better. It only comes now and then.’ Then I asked him if he didn’t think he ought to get up and he said that if he got up the pain would come back again, that he wanted to stay where he was till he was quite well. He said he wanted to be left alone and not worried and — when I told him what I thought about it the tears began to run out of his eyes, easily — without any effort, you might say. It was awful.”
“Patience,” said her mother. “Go and tell Katie to bring the tea.”
“I don’t like her to hear disturbing things,” she said when the child was gone.
Maurice asked — “What do the uncles think of his condition?”
Piers gave a short laugh. “They don’t take anything very seriously, except their own comfort. ‘Finch has had a breakdown. Time will mend him. We must do all we can to bring him and Sarah together again. She’s a nice girl though rather eccentric, and devoted to Finch.’ I tell you that the whole family — yourselves included — are either blind or willfully unobservant — I was going to say callous.”
“Oh no,” interrupted Meg. “Don’t say callous! After all, the uncles have had ten times the experience that you have had, Piers. I have had the experience of a breakdown and time healed me.”
Piers pushed out his lips and looked unconvinced.
Maurice asked — “Do you like this new covering I’ve put on the chair?”
Piers grunted approval.
Meg sat down beside Piers and took his firm hand in hers. “Piers, if anything should happen — oh, I can’t put such a thought into words I should never have let it enter my mind!”
Maurice looked at her uncomfortably, Piers blankly. “What thought?” he said.
She almost whispered — “If anything should happen that Finch …”
“Well — I’m prepared for it, as I’ve just said.”
“Piers, what about our mortgage? Who would hold that?”
“Sarah, if he has made a will in her favour. But I don’t think he has made a will. In that case she would get a third and the rest be divided equally among us.”
Meg pondered.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” said Maurice. He sat nursing his hand which had been crippled in the War and now had rheumatism in it.
“What a thing to say!” cried Meg. “Just as though the thought of such a thing was not horrible to all of us!” She began to cry, her plump breast rising and falling with her gasping breaths.
“Don’t work yourself up,” said Piers. “There’s lots of life in Finch yet. Here comes the tea.”
“For heaven’s sake,” added Maurice, “don’t let Patience see you crying!”
With an effort Meg controlled herself. A neat maid placed a silver tray on the table beside her. From a covered dish came the smell of hot, buttered muffins. A jar of blackberry jelly caught the light like a jewel. A round sultana cake and a pierced silver basket of thin cookies spoke well for the fare enjoyed by the summer’s paying guests.
Patience handed about the muffins with a troubled glance at her mother’s face. Meg at once spoke brightly of the wins at the New York Horse Show. Piers agreed complacently, puttin
g half a muffin in his mouth, that they had done well.
“I should think,” said Meg, “that Alayne would feel humiliated. She hadn’t a good word for that new mare. She never appreciated Renny’s flair for picking up unusual horses. She doesn’t know the first thing about them herself but she’s eternally setting up her opinion.”
“I think we’ve seen the last of her,” said Piers. “She’s been away for months and hasn’t even asked to have Adeline sent to her on a visit. She’s an unnatural mother.”
“There is nothing natural about her!” exclaimed Meg. “Have you ever seen her give one yearning, brooding mother-look at poor little Adeline?”
“I’ve seen her look daggers at her.”
“And Renny! Does she ever give him that understanding, maternal look that a natural wife gives her husband?”
Meg demonstrated this look in a way that caused Maurice to hang his head and grin sheepishly.
Piers said — “She writes to Pheasant, you know.”
“Surely Pheasant shows you the letters.”
“Sometimes. I don’t ask to see them. Pheasant doesn’t think she’ll come back. She thinks her mind is in a sort of morbid condition.”
Patience was feeding the canary.
Meg leant close to Piers and whispered — “Whatever was it all about? Mrs. Lebraux?”
“I dare say. They haven’t confided in me.”
“Well, I certainly think Renny should in me. I am his only sister and he well knows that nothing he could tell me would ever pass my lips.” She took a fresh helping of jelly and poured herself another cup of tea. “This is almost the first food I have eaten today.”
“That’s true,” confirmed Maurice.
In silence Piers spread jelly on a cookie and covered it with another. Patience called from the window — “Sarah is coming in at the gate!”
When Piers had come he had remarked that it was going to snow. Now Sarah’s small fur hat was white with it. Flakes clung to her smooth, black hair. While Piers had brought with him a sense of boisterous but not unkindly weather Sarah brought the feeling of white relentless winter — the snow on her hat, her pale chiselled features, her penetrating, light grey eyes.
Meg welcomed her with effusion, and ordered a fresh pot of tea. Maurice gave her his chair by the fire and Patience seated herself on a stool close by, admiring Sarah’s beautiful clothes.
“Really, Sarah,” said Meg, “you are wasted in this place. There are so few to appreciate the way you look.”
“I like clothes for their own sake,” said Sarah. “But if you like the way I look I am glad. I hope you don’t mind my coming. This time in the day is very lonely, it’s neither light nor dark and the sky is heavy with snow.”
“I don’t see how you stand it!” exclaimed Meg. “I simply must have people about me! To live in a house alone — with the trees crowding so close — I’d go mad!”
Sarah gave a small smile. “I’ve been used to a quiet life but — sometimes I feel — as though I couldn’t go on — as though something must happen to me.”
Maurice put in — “Why don’t you go South for the winter? I certainly should if I were in your place. By spring you would know — well, things would have settled themselves in some way.”
“No. I must stay here. I must be near Finch. And I love this place. I can’t tell you how much I love it. It’s just that at this hour of the day —”
Meg said warmly — “My dear, we’re delighted to have you. Come every day at this time if it cheers you. We have just been talking about poor Finch ourselves and feeling simply terrible about him.”
Sarah turned to Piers. “Have you seen him lately?”
“Yesterday.”
“And how is he?”
“The same.”
“Did he — speak of me?”
“No. He wasn’t very talkative.”
“But I asked you — last week, wasn’t it? — to try to find out what he feels about me the very next time you saw him!”
Piers lighted a cigarette. “It’s no use, Sarah. You would have known that if you’d been there. It seems a strange thing to me but I do earnestly believe that two marriages are broken up in this family. And, if one is more finally broken up than the other, I believe it’s yours.”
“I have not given up hope.”
“Nor I!” said Meg. “I’m positive that it will be all right with you and Finch in just a little while.”
Sarah looked as though she could have embraced Meg for her words.
Piers regarded her pessimistically. He said — “What do you know about it, Meg? You haven’t been near him for weeks. It would be more to the point if you went to him — tried to rouse him, instead of being so sure that everything will come right.”
“What is the use of my going?” cried Meg, angrily. “The last time I went he wouldn’t see me and Renny was gruff and irritable. He said he wouldn’t have Finch bothered by anyone whom he didn’t want to see. I tell you, Sarah, you’re not the only one who suffers!”
“What is it to you as compared to me?”
“It is a very great deal to me. Finch was a little boy of seven when his mother died. I brought him up. I was a mother to him. Family ties may not mean much to you but to us they are as strong as marriage — if not stronger.”
“That’s right,” said Maurice. He added, in an attempt to turn the conversation:
“I suppose you’ll stay where you are for Christmas. I wish you could spend the day with the rest of us, but —” He looked to Piers for help.
Piers gave it with his usual bluntness. “I’m afraid we can’t ask Sarah to Jalna. I’m hoping to get Finch down to dinner.”
“Oh, I do hope you can!” said Meg.
Sarah asked — “I wonder what I could send him for Christmas? Can you suggest anything?”
The others looked at her dubiously, then Meg said:
“A cheque is always nice.”
“Not in his state,” said Piers. “It would mean nothing to him.”
Maurice suggested. “Some cheery-looking neckties.”
“I have been making a scrapbook,” said Sarah, “of notices of his concerts. I take a number of musical papers. There have been some lovely things said. Do you think he might like to see them?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” said Piers. “Though I doubt if he’d read them.”
“What a good wife you are!” declared Meg. “How different to Alayne! Can anyone picture her making a scrapbook for Renny of notices about his horses? Wasn’t it marvellous his winning a championship at the New York Show, Sarah?”
“Yes. It was splendid.”
“And he hopes to breed some wonderful foals from her.”
An enigmatic smile flickered like wintry sunlight over Sarah’s face.
Meg said — “I suppose he has paid the interest on his mortgage by now.”
The two men were embarrassed. Sarah answered — “Oh, yes. He’s paid it all off.”
Meg said — “I’m so glad,” and turned to Piers. “Has he paid you for the fodder?”
“Yes. He did that after he had sold the ponies. He’s got everything pretty well straightened up now. Even the vet.”
“I’m so glad.”
“If it weren’t for him,” said Sarah, “Finch and I would be living together. He has turned Finch against me.”
“Rot!” said Piers.
“No. It’s quite true.”
“But why should he?”
“Because he is jealous.”
“Then why isn’t he jealous of Pheasant?”
“Because Pheasant hasn’t taken you away from Jalna. He can’t bear to think of Finch living in Europe. Away from his influence. And there’s another thing. He dislikes me for myself. He knows he has no power over me and he resents it. Oh, I can’t tell you how deeply I think all this out — in my house alone — and how clear it all is to me.”
They stared at her, not knowing what to say. They were relieved by the sound of a motor and
the entrance of Renny.
After nodding to the men, kissing Patience and gravely greeting Sarah, he said to Meg:
“Christmas beef for you! We’ve been killing. It’s extra good this year.” He deposited a precariously wrapped joint in brown paper on the end of the piano.
Meg clasped him. “Oh, how lovely! Your beef is always so good! We shall have it spiced, eh Maurice? My, it does bring Christmas close!”
Renny patted her shoulder, looking half-defiantly across it at Sarah. She rose to go. Piers also said he must leave. Sarah looked rather wistfully at Maurice and Meg.
“Will you two, and Patience of course, come to dinner with me on Christmas night? The dinner at Jalna will be at two, won’t it? If you don’t come I shall be quite alone.”
Maurice looked enquiringly at Meg.
“We shall love to go,” she said. “You’ll not mind our leaving a bit early, will you, Renny?”
He did mind, but he agreed that he could tolerate it. Patience was delighted at the thought of two Christmas dinners. She danced to the door with Sarah and Piers, he teasing her, pretending to carry her out into the snow. Sarah stood by, with her small impersonal smile. Meg hugged herself in the doorway.
Maurice led Renny toward the dining room.
“Come and have a drink,” he said.
He filled two glasses and raised his. “Happy days. Things are looking up with us, aren’t they?”
With rather a sombre smile Renny lifted his glass. An icy blast from the open front door rushed into the room.
XXI
CHRISTMAS
AS THE SUMMER had been eager to succumb to autumn, so autumn had been all too ready to throw herself at the hoary head of winter. Those first bitter days did not pass, leaving a period of mild weather behind them, but the cold increased week by week till on Christmas morning the mercury sank to twenty degrees below zero.
Long before Finch woke he had been aware of the increasing cold. He had known that he was snuggling closer and closer to himself, wriggling the blankets higher and higher about his ears, and that the bedcoverings could not keep him warm. By degrees he became conscious of the growing brilliance in the room and at last, with a genuine shiver down his spine, he opened his eyes.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 349
