“Mooey isn’t practically fatherless,” said Pheasant, almost fiercely. “Piers is likely to return quite soon. There is talk of an exchange of prisoners.”
Maurice saw the flash of antagonism between the two, but turned to Patience. He said, “How you’ve changed, Patty! You’re a woman grown.”
“You speak differently,” she returned. “I suppose you got it from Cousin Dermot. Is it Irish?”
“Heavens, no!” cried Meg. “An Irish gentleman doesn’t speak with a brogue.”
“I suppose you’ll despise our ways now,” Patience said, with a teasing look.
Maurice was embarrassed. He could only say, “Oh, no, I’ll not.”
“And you’re rich too,” she persisted, “and we are all so terribly poor.”
Maurice was scarlet. “Indeed, and I’m not.”
“Listen to the Irish of him!” laughed Patience. “Indeed and I’m not!”
Meg considered Maurice contemplatively. “what a pity,” she said, “that you don’t come into the money till you are twenty-one! You could do so much with it right now.”
“Yes, I suppose I could,” he agreed, still more confused.
“Isn’t it a strange thing —” Meg turned to Pheasant — “that Granny’s fortune was inherited by Finch, a boy of nineteen, and Cousin Dermot’s by Mooey, a boy of seventeen! It doesn’t seem fair.”
“I hope Mooey’s money lasts longer than Finch’s did,” said Pheasant. “It was shameful the way Finch’s money disappeared.”
“Shameful!” Meg’s eyes became prominent. “what do you mean, shameful? I certainly never had ...” Suddenly she remembered that Finch had paid off the mortgage on Vaughanlands. It had been only a loan but the interest had been paid more and more irregularly, till at last it was quite forgotten. Meg concluded: “Anything Finch did for us he did because he wanted to.”
“Of course,” said Pheasant. “I always thought Finch acted as though he wanted to get rid of everything Gran left him.”
“And now,” put in Patience, “he has got rid of his wife.”
“With all her wealth!” mourned Meg.
“I’m afraid,” said Pheasant, “that Mooey will think we are very cynical.”
“You may be cynical,” retorted Meg, “but I have only the welfare of the family at heart and always have had and always shall.”
As she stood planted firmly, in front of the rich foliage of late summer, she looked the very spirit of benevolence and there was no one there to contradict her. Patience regarded her with amused devotion; Pheasant, in controlled irritation; Maurice, in admiration; Nooky, in wonder; Philip, speculating as to whether she would give him anything. She gave him a kiss and exclaimed:
“He grows more like Piers every day! He’s the one perfect Whiteoak among all the children. Poor Alayne, I feel sorry for her, with that boy of hers!”
Pheasant gave a sigh. “Well,” she said, “we must be off. The uncles will be anxious to see Mooey.”
“Give them my love — the old dears! You’ll see a great change in them, Mooey. I doubt if they’ll survive till all my brothers are home again.”
“I don’t think they’ve changed much,” said Pheasant stoutly. “I think it is remarkable how little they’ve changed.”
“Remarkable — for ninety — yes. Quite remarkable for ninety.”
“Gran lived to be a hundred.”
“Men don’t endure like women. Heavens, if a man had gone through what I have! Well, he just couldn’t do it.”
Again no one contradicted her.
On the way to Jalna, Pheasant exclaimed, “She may have gone through a lot but — what care she takes of herself! And Patience is just the same. They do nothing to help, though we’re at our wits’ end at Jalna.”
“Patience is a lazy lump,” said Philip.
The car was entering the driveway of Jalna. The spruces and hemlocks stood close and dark. To Maurice it seemed not so much an entrance as a defence. The trees reared themselves to conceal the house, to protect the family. Not only the evergreen trees, but the great weeping birch on the lawn, and the oaks and the maples. The Virginia Creeper, nearing its hundredth year, now had difficulty in finding fresh space for its growth. Long tendrils were festooned from the eaves and dangled from the porch, swayed by every breeze, seeming in their avidity to reach for support down to the very humans who passed under. But, at one corner of the house, the vine had been cut away in order to make some repairs, and in that place the rosy red of the old bricks was prominent and bathed, as it were consciously, in the sunshine. Two old gentlemen were seated on chairs near to the birch tree. These were the two great-uncles, Nicholas and Ernest Whiteoak. Nicholas had a plaid travelling rug over his knees. He was somewhat sunk in his chair, his massive head well-thatched by iron-grey hair looking a little large for the body which, in the last four years, that is the years of the war, had considerably shrunk. But his shoulders still were broad though bent, his face because of its strong and handsome bony structure was still impressive, and his hands, which were his one remaining vanity and which he had inherited from his mother, looked the hands of a much younger man. His voice too had power, as he now called out:
“Hullo, hullo, hullo, Mooey! Come and kiss your old uncle! Come and kiss him quick!”
Now this was the expression which his mother, Adeline Whiteoak, had often used in her very old age and it annoyed his brother to hear it on Nicholas’ lips. Did Nick imagine that, by repeating expressions so peculiarly hers, he could live to be a hundred, as she had? Ernest could not help feeling annoyed but he smiled eagerly, as he held out both hands to Maurice, and murmured:
“Dear boy, how you’ve grown! And how like your mother you are, though you have blue eyes.”
Nicholas was rumbling on, still uttering expressions used by old Adeline, “Bring all the boys here, Pheasant. I like the young folk about me.”
His great-uncles had many questions to ask about Dermot Court and more especially about his last illness. Maurice could not recall those days without a feeling of great sadness. He wished he need not talk about them. The three boys had dropped to the grass but Pheasant still stood. Now she looked at her wrist watch, exclaiming:
“How the day is going! And I have about fifty baskets of early apples to grade and pack. You two small boys must come and help. Mooey, when the uncles have finished their talk with you, you must go into the house and see Auntie Alayne and Adeline.”
“This lawn,” observed Ernest, “badly needs mowing. I have never before seen it in such a state. The south lawn is no better than hay. It will take a scythe to prepare for the mower. I wonder if you would undertake to mow this front lawn, Mooey?”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Maurice, doubtfully.
Pheasant supplied the heartiness. “Of course, he will — he’ll love to. Come along, boys!”
Nook and Philip dragged themselves to their feet and limply followed her. A quarter hour had scarcely passed when Philip rejoined the group on the lawn.
“I thought you were helping your mother,” said Nicholas sternly.
“I couldn’t do it properly,” he returned, and lay down. The front door of the house now opened and Adeline Whiteoak came out to the porch. She wore riding breeches and a white shirt. For a moment she hesitated, looking at Maurice, then ran down the steps and came to him.
“Hullo!” she said. “So you’re back.”
Maurice took the hand she held out.
“Dear boy, kiss your cousin!” urged Ernest. The two young faces bumped softly together. “How firm her cheek is!” thought Maurice. “And as smooth as satin.”
Nicholas and Ernest looked at each other as though to say, “what a pretty pair!”
“Mummy had to take Archie to the doctor,” Adeline said. “It’s his tonsils. Roma went too because she needs new shoes. But they’ll not be long. Are you glad to be home again?”
“Yes, indeed,” he answered politely.
Ernest said to Nicholas, “He has true Irish po
liteness. He speaks like Dermot.”
“How long are you staying?” asked Adeline. “Always?”
“Till I’m twenty-one.”
“Are you glad?”
“Yes, indeed.”
He was a puzzling boy, she thought. You could not tell whether or not he meant what he said.
“Rags has homemade grape wine for us,” she went on. “Will you come in and have some?”
“Thank you. I’d like to,” he answered, with a little bow.
“Uncles, will you have some?” she leant over them, solicitously.
They gratefully declined but Philip sprang up. “I’ll have some,” he said.
“Wait till you’re asked,” returned Adeline severely. She led the way into the house. On the table in the dining room stood a squat bottle of grape juice and a plate of small biscuits. Presiding over these was Wragge, the houseman. He was a cockney who had been batman to Renny Whiteoak in the first Great War, had returned with him to Jalna, had become the devoted though critical servant of the family, further entrenching himself by marrying the cook. Again he had followed the master of Jalna to war, helped to save his life at Dunkirk, had later that year been himself severely wounded and in 1941 been discharged from the army and returned to civilian life. His wife, the cook, had always been fat while he was thin. Now she was enormously fat while he was thin to emaciation. She suffered considerably from arthritis, and he more than a little from his old wound. Her temper had always been quick. His was the sort that smouldered and sputtered. Now both were highly explosive. Still she was thankful to have him back in the basement kitchen and he was thankful each morning to discover her mountainous body beside him when he woke. He would put his arm about it, clinging to it as a shipwrecked man to a raft.
Together they did the greater part of the work in the house that was far from convenient to work in, where there were two old gentlemen who had, from infancy, been waited on and who expected summoning bells to be answered with celerity. To Alayne, Renny’s wife, fell the task of bed-making and dusting, of getting three children off to school in term time, of mending, of darning, of making the little girls do some share of the work, of supervising their studies.
Early in the war Pheasant and her two boys had come to live at Jalna, their house being let. At the time it had been considered a good arrangement but it had not worked out well — two women with different ideas of how a house should be run — too many children — too much noise for the uncles. At the end of six months Pheasant’s tenants departed and she thankfully returned with her boys to her own home, a general thanksgiving arising at the same time from Jalna.
Now Wragge came forward, beaming, to greet young Maurice.
“Welcome ’ome, sir. This is an ’appy day for the family, sir. Not only to see you return but to see you return with a fortune.”
Maurice shook hands with him. “Thank you, Rags,” he said, rather embarrassed.
“I remember,” said Wragge, “when you were born, as if it was yesterday.
I remember when you was a little codger and your father used to carry you about on his shoulder. A great pity about your father, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes, it’s a great pity.”
“He was a well-set-up gentleman and one with a good walk — a soldierly figure. Ah, well, we’ll be glad to see ’im ’ome, no matter ’ow he comes. War is hell and no mistike. I ain’t the man I was, Mr. Maurice.
You may ’ave noticed.”
“You do look a bit thin, Rags.”
“Thin is no nime for it! But — ’ave you seen my missus? She weighs fourteen stone, she does.”
He filled two glasses with the grape juice, remarking, “We’ve reached a low ebb ’ere, where liquid refreshment is concerned, sir. It’s not like the old days. To be sure, the old gentlemen keep a small supply for their own use but they guards it fierce. This ’ere grape wine my wife made last year and it’s pretty good, if I do say it. Miss Adeline enjoys it. Don’t you, miss? Wot do you think of our young lidy, sir?”
“I think she’s grown.”
Rags looked dotingly at Adeline. “Grown! why, she might pass for fifteen and she’s only thirteen! Give her another year and she’ll be ’aving admirers — if she ’asn’t already. I suspect that she ’as, if the truth was known.”
Adeline smiled imperturbably. But Maurice did not like the man’s familiarity. It was of a different quality from the familiarity of Irish servants. Seeing Adeline standing there under the portrait of her great-grandmother, the wineglass in her hand, Maurice had the desire to protect her. There was a new something about her that appealed to his developing manhood. After all, he thought, I am almost a man, I am the only young man at Jalna. Adeline needs looking after.
“Ave a biscuit, sir?” asked Rags, proffering the plate. “I’ll bet you don’t get biscuits like these in Ireland.”
“No, thank you. I’ve had a very late breakfast.”
Rags exclaimed, “Well, I must be off. I’ve promised to pluck two chickens for Mrs. Wragge.” He hastened down the basement stairs, warning as he left, “Don’t you go drinking too much of that there grape juice, Miss. It ’as a real kick in it.”
Left alone the two cousins were silent for a space. Adeline was systematically eating the cookies. Presently Maurice asked, in a new intimate tone:
“Do you like that fellow?”
“Yes,” she answered laconically. “Don’t you?”
“No. I don’t. I think he’s cheeky.”
“Oh, Rags is all right. As a matter of fact, he and I almost run this house.”
Maurice stared. “You do?”
“Well, when we want a thing done, we generally get it done.”
“Oh, I see.”
“This place,” she went on, as she finished the last biscuit, “is going to rack and ruin.”
“Is it really? why is that?”
“Well, in the house everything is out of repair. The roof. The plumbing. Everything. There’s no money for repairs. But the farm is far worse. We’ve one farmhand. We used to have four. Wright is the only man in the stables. Wright and I run the stables. If it wasn’t for us they’d be sunk.”
“You must be pretty busy.”
She nodded her head vigorously. “You bet I am. Like to feel my muscle?” She drew up the sleeve of her shirt and flexed the muscle in her round brown arm.
Maurice laid his hand on it and pressed.
“By George!” he exclaimed.
“Let’s feel yours.”
He drew back. “No.”
“You’re ashamed of it!”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’ll bet it’s as flabby as a poached egg.”
“Feel it, then.” He extended his arm.
She felt his muscle and looked aghast. “Gosh!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you take any exercise?”
“Well, I play some tennis and I walk a good deal.”
A smile lit her face, imparting an almost sardonic quality to its childish beauty. She said:
“You’ll soon get a muscle here.”
“How?” Maurice spoke defensively, deciding that she was not as pretty as he had at first thought.
“Oh, hammering in the heads of apple barrels — digging potatoes — there are lots of ways. You don’t like horses, do you?”
“I don’t like riding,” he answered resolutely.
“I’ve always heard that about you. Wright says it’s because you had too many falls schooling polo ponies. But falls haven’t turned me against riding. Like to come and see the horses?”
“I think I ought to go and find my mother.”
“Come upstairs first and see my room.”
“Very well.”
She led the way to the room that had been her father’s. Inside she tried to soften the look of pride that had come over her face. “I used to sleep on the top floor with the other children,” she said, casually, “but last spring I moved down here. It’s more convenient in case the uncles or Mummy need me and
I like it because it is Daddy’s.”
He would get even with her, Maurice thought, for what she had said about his muscle.
“I guess you like it because it makes you feel important.” He smiled.
She answered quickly, “I’d feel important if I slept in the basement.”
“I’ll bet you would. In any case, it’s not a bit like a girl’s room.”
“I don’t want it to be.”
“You wish you were a boy, then?”
“No! I just want it to be like Daddy’s room.”
Maurice did not think it was an attractive room but he felt that he was expected to praise it. “It’s very nice,” he said.
“Those pictures are famous horses. Here are his pipes,” she ran her finger across the rack on which they hung. “There are nineteen of them. He just took one with him. His clothes are still in the cupboard. I use only half of it.” She displayed the interior of the cupboard where her childish garments hung among tweed and serge and corduroy. “All his ties and shirts and things are in the drawers waiting for him.”
“You think a lot of him, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. I suppose you do of your father too.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Isn’t it awful their being gone so long?”
“Yes, it is pretty awful,” he agreed. “Especially, of course, for our mothers.”
Adeline looked at him almost sombrely. Then she said, “Well, we’d better go and find the others.”
Walking with her to the orchard, Maurice thought he had never before known what September heat could be; or perhaps he had forgotten. The sun seemed to have drawn the last drop of moisture from the land. The path beneath Maurice’s feet felt like cement. There was no breeze to stir so much as a grass blade. He wondered how the labourer he could see ploughing in a distant field could endure the heat. He glanced at Adeline. She looked warm — no more.
“This heat is awful,” he muttered.
“You’re dressed all wrong. But, if you call this hot, you should have been here last week. It took a terrific storm to clear the air. It’s nice now. There’s Auntie Pheasant with the boys.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 398
