The brown eyes smiled down at him. It was certain that whatever he did that night she would approve. But suddenly he yawned, a relaxed, beneficent yawn such as had not stretched his jaws in months. His eyes watered. He was sleepy.
In spite of the activities of the house he did not wake till ten. There was barely time to shave, to dress, to eat his breakfast and go to the morning service at eleven. In truth an hour was not enough for all that had to be done. Nicholas had decided to go to church that morning. Ernest, in spite of his ninety years, never missed a Sunday even when the weather was inclement. He still stood through the longest Psalms but he no longer knelt on the worn red hassock. His sense of reverence must be satisfied by sitting with his forehead bent to the pew in front of him.
His gouty leg was the greatest obstacle to Nicholas’ churchgoing, but there were other obstacles. He could no longer see to read the service. He knew it by heart certainly but he had a way of getting muddled in the responses and producing the wrong one, in his still resonant voice, sometimes timing the uttering of it wrongly. Sometimes he dozed and snored. It tired Ernest to have Nicholas sitting beside him doing these things. Some time ago he had reached the point where he encouraged Nicholas to stay at home. Nicholas, on his part, found it very pleasant to relax in his comfortable chair or to stump about with only Alayne and himself in the house.
But this morning he made up his mind to go. It was no ordinary Sunday and he must take his part in the celebration. Wakefield, with great patience, helped him to dress. When this was accomplished he made an impressive figure. His head was indeed magnificent. Wakefield helped him down the stairs and into the car. Ernest was already there, immaculate, nervous, looking at his watch. The children had taken the way across the fields with Finch.
“Five minutes to eleven,” Ernest said, frowning “whatever is keeping Renny?”
“He slept late, and no wonder,” returned Nicholas.
Wakefield said, “He’ll be here in a jiffy.”
“I need not have hurried so,” growled Nicholas. “I’m quite out of breath.” He panted ostentatiously.
“You were a solid hour dressing.” Ernest tried to restrain his impatience but again he looked at his watch. “I remember,” he said, “how my mother disliked being late for church.”
“Run in, Wake, like a good boy,” said Nicholas, “and see what is keeping him.”
“Urge him to make haste,” added Ernest.
Wakefield darted up the steps. It was five minutes past eleven when Renny slid into the driver’s seat. “Sorry,” he said, grinning over his shoulder at his uncles, “but I couldn’t find my collection.”
The words “couldn’t find” sent a chill to the hearts of Ernest and Nicholas. Was it possible that Renny was again beginning to lose money? But he looked so cheerful they could not feel anxious. They even continued to feel a little annoyed with him.
The first hymn was over and Mr. Fennel was already reading the service when they entered. Every head turned to look at them as they progressed slowly down the aisle, Nicholas leaning heavily on Renny’s arm. Renny established them in the family pew beside Adeline and Archer, then knelt at the end next to the aisle. In the pew in front knelt Piers, Pheasant, and their three sons. Going to church was an irritation to Maurice. In Ireland he had gone or not as he pleased and usually he did not please. Now he wore the sulky expression he usually wore at church. But he was conscious of Adeline sitting directly behind him. He was sure she was looking at him. He wished he might have been sitting beside her. Nooky and Philip always looked so angelic during the service, it was hard to believe they could ever do wrong. Pheasant, casting a contemplative look at them, thought, “I wonder which of them the new baby will be like? I do hope it is a girl. I should so love to have a daughter. But it is said they are a greater problem to bring up than boys. Goodness knows, boys are problem enough. All but Nooky. He’s always so sweet and loving. How marvellous it is to think that Piers is home safe — that I am going to have another baby — that Mooey is back from Ireland — that Renny and Wake are back from the War — that the horrible mystery about the stealing of the money is cleared up. Surely no other person in the church has as much to be thankful for as I. I really ought to be pouring out my gratitude in prayer but it’s so difficult for me to concentrate on prayer and always has been. How very strange it seems to see Roma in the pew with Meg and Patience! That child looks perfectly imperturbable. I do hope my little girl won’t have a circuitous, baffling nature. How beautifully Piers’ hair grows about his temples! I do hope she will have hair like Piers. It would be lovely on a girl. Goodness, Uncle Nick has dropped his prayer book!”
Nicholas had, indeed. Now Renny was recovering it for him and Ernest was giving him a reproving look. As the service progressed, Nicholas gave his brother still more cause for feeling ruffled. He found the pew narrow and heavily shifted his bulk in it. He loudly tooted his nose. When, after the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer, Mr. Fennel said, “O Lord, show thy mercy upon us,” Nicholas, instead of joining with the rest of the congregation in saying, “And grant us thy salvation,” took the next words from Mr. Fennel’s mouth and loudly declaimed, “O Lord, save the Queen.” He did not even say the King but most emphatically the Queen, as was printed in his prayer book of Victoria’s time.
Nooky and Philip began to giggle, which set off Archer. Piers quieted his two with a look but Archer could not stop despite a pinch on the leg from Adeline and a rap on the head from Ernest’s prayer book. Renny signalled to Archer to come and sit by him. As the little boy clambered in front of the knees of his great-uncles, Nicholas demanded, “what’s up? what has he done?” He took off his glasses and frowned down on the tow head. Renny laid a calming hand on Archer’s shoulder and the giggles ceased.
Finch, standing in his surplice, behind the brass eagle of the lectern, read the Lessons with such a feeling of content as he had not known for a long while. There, sitting in the pew before him was Renny, himself again. That red head, fitting symbol of the family pride, erect, confident, seeming to shed the light of leadership on the tribe. This was one of the occasions on which Finch read too well — but this morning Mr. Fennel was not embarrassed by it.
Mr. Fennel’s sermon was on “miracles in our time.” His remarks were so heartfelt, so pointed, that every member of the small congregation felt something of the situation of the Whiteoaks in it, for by some means word had got about that the lost money had been found, that the eldest Whiteoak was no longer under a cloud. He himself looked self-conscious. Throughout the sermon he never took his eyes from the Rector’s face.
When Piers collected the offertory, Renny watched with alert interest as the contributions from his family fell on to the plate. Nicholas had a time of it to find his. “Can’t find it,” he mumbled, then did find it and the two heavy fifty-cent pieces were dropped with a clatter. Now Piers, ruddy and solid, held the plate under Renny’s nose. With an air of cool detachment he took from his pocket five clean but musty-smelling twenty-dollar bank notes and deposited them on the modest pile of silver. A shock vibrated through the three pews occupied by the Whiteoaks. A small smile flickered across Piers’ lips. Then he moved stolidly along the aisle. Pew after pew was permitted one spellbound look at Renny’s contribution. Then Piers and Peter Chalk who kept the motor repair and gasoline station and who had this year been returned from the scene of war, minus his right hand, marched side by side to the steps of the chancel where the Rector awaited them. Miss Pink, though unaware of what had happened, drew jubilant strains from the still sweet-sounding old organ. The bulk of Piers Whiteoak and Peter Chalk was impassive.
As Mr. Fennel accepted the alms a benign expression lighted his bearded face. He turned sharply, his surplice swinging, and moved toward the altar.
Nicholas, tugging the end of his moustache, muttered, not inaudibly, “Too much. Too much.”
Meg felt faint. She would be glad when the service was over and the family could meet in the churchyard.
XXIX
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FROM CHURCHYARD TO VAUGHANLANDS
MEG, WITH HER daughter on one side of her and her niece on the other, moved with as great rapidity as was decorous, out of the church and toward the family plot where she could see other members of the family already drawn together. A sumach tree had sprung up just inside the hedge which surrounded the churchyard and had reached medium size, scarcely noticed, till its leaves had turned blood red and, by the last squally rain, been swept onto the Whiteoak plot. There they lay like a gorgeous carpet. Meg looked at them astonished and then at the naked tree, its thin black limbs wet with rain.
“However did that get in here?” she asked Piers who was leaning against one of the iron supports of the fence surrounding the plot. His leg that had suffered amputation always pained after the fixed postures of church service. His brow was contracted as he turned to look at the tree.
“I’ve no idea,” he said. “The leaves are pretty though.”
“I always dislike sumachs. They’re so untidy. I must tell Noah Binns to cut it down.”
“Be here to see him do it or he’ll get the wrong tree.”
“It’s lovely,” said Roma.
Meg took Piers by the arm. “Is your leg hurting, dear?”
“A bit. It always does in church. It’s not being able to stretch it out.”
“what a pity! Piers, wasn’t it ridiculous of Renny to put such a sum in the offertory? Did you see how many notes there were?”
“Five.”
“Merciful heavens! I don’t see how you bore it — knowing how he needs money. I think I should have snatched it off the plate.”
Piers laughed. “He did what it pleased him to do. He’s had little enough pleasure for a long while. Why grudge him this?”
“I don’t grudge it, if he wants to do it but — it looked — like an act of contrition. I was so embarrassed. You should have seen Patience’s face! But Roma never flickered an eyelid.”
Meg turned to Renny who now joined them, and said, “Oh, my dear, it was so like you to make that thank-offering! But wasn’t it a little too generous? You know, if you keep on the way you have begun, you will soon be rid of all the money.”
“My feeling is,” he returned, “that I did not give half enough.”
“You should have prepared me,” laughed Piers. “I almost dropped the collection plate.”
“I am sure,” Meg went on, “that Piers will agree with me when I say that what you gave to his boys was far too much. If you had given any such sum to Patience, I should insist on her returning it.”
Piers looked uncomfortable but said nothing.
“Of course,” she continued, “if Piers is willing to allow you to hand out twenty-dollar notes like pennies to his children, just at a time when you scarcely are accountable for what you do, I am powerless to prevent it but I can only say I am astonished and mortified for him.”
“Meg,” said Piers, leaning hard on the iron fence, “you may keep your astonishment and your mortification for yourself. I feel neither.”
“Don’t quarrel,” put in Renny.
“The trouble is,” Meg said, “that Piers has become so used to taking favours from you, that he thinks nothing of them.”
“The trouble with Meg is,” retorted Piers, looking only at Renny, “that she is eternally trying to put me in an unfavourable light.”
“How unjust!” cried his sister. “why, from the time you were a small boy, I have always shielded you — stood between you and justice.”
“That’s right,” said Piers, “make me out a criminal.”
“Don’t quarrel,” repeated Renny. “I am perfectly accountable for what I do, and I’ll give away all the remainder of the money if I choose.”
Nicholas now stumped up, leaning on Maurice’s arm. Ernest, following with Patience, Pheasant, and the four children, exclaimed:
“what a glorious day! It seems as though all nature were rejoicing with us. How very pretty those scarlet sumach leaves look, scattered over the graves.”
“what I want to know,” said Meg, “is how that tree got in here. I never saw it till today.”
All eyes turned, somewhat accusingly, toward the naked tree.
“Neither have I,” Ernest agreed. “How very extraordinary!”
“Birds eat seeds,” said Archer, “and the seeds fall down in their droppings and a tree grows.”
“Those are things,” said Ernest, “that we don’t talk about in public.”
“Trees?” demanded Archer.
“No. Droppings.”
“But birds aren’t like us. They do it in public.”
Pheasant and her two little boys giggled.
“what’s all this about?” asked Nicholas. “I didn’t hear.”
“Nothing of importance, Uncle Nick,” answered Meg. “The important thing is that I am now going to take Roma to Vaughanlands, to tell Mr. Clapperton, with her own lips, that she took the money. That is what we decided yesterday, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes. Bless me — it will be the talk of the countryside.”
“Renny’s name must be cleared,” said Piers.
Ernest gave Roma a pat on the shoulder. “Well, there’s one thing certain,” he said, “they can’t put you in jail.”
“what a good thing,” said Pheasant, “that she goes back to school tomorrow.”
Renny asked of Meg, “Is Roma settling down all right?”
“She is settling down beautifully. She’s really a dear little thing and so unusual. I’m sure she meant no harm by what she did. Alayne is always talking about child psychology — why doesn’t she apply it to Roma? How is Alayne?”
“Pretty well.”
“Hm. She made quite a scene last night.”
“She was at the end of her tether. Would you like me to drive you to Clapperton’s? Finch can drive the uncles home.”
“Oh, yes. I’d like that.”
Cheerfully, considering the difficulty of her errand, Meg collected Roma and they set out along the country road where gleaming puddles reflected the blue of the sky and the last bright colours of autumn grouped themselves for a final show. The three spoke little till Renny stopped the car in front of Eugene Clapperton’s door. Looking over his shoulder, he said:
“I can’t tell you how strange it seems to me to come to this house where I saw you and Maurice living happily together, and to realize you no longer own it and — that bounder Clapperton does.”
“I’m sure it must seem very strange to you,” she said. “what sad changes took place during the wars. After the first war you came home to find dear papa in his grave — to say nothing of our stepmother — and after this war you returned to find me living in a small house and Maurice gone.”
“It’s a peculiar thing,” he said, “that all I experienced in these last years has not dimmed — not in the least dimmed — what we went through here, at the time when Eden died. It’s as though it were yesterday.”
Meg drew a deep sigh. “Yes, as though it were yesterday.”
“Did he die here?” asked Roma. “I always thought he died at Jalna.”
“why, Roma, I don’t see how you got that idea,” exclaimed Meg. “Look! You see the window at the corner, just above where the clematis grows? That’s the room, up there.” She gazed at the window as though she might again see there the emaciated figure of a young man, in a light blue dressing gown, looking longingly through the pane for a sign of spring.
Roma peered up at the window. “Did he die in the summer, Auntie Meg?”
“No. There was snow on the ground.”
“Well do I remember,” said Renny, “standing in the snow, by that spruce tree, waiting for Piers — to make him go in to look at Eden.”
“Was he dead then?” asked Roma.
“Yes.”
“why didn’t Uncle Piers want to look at him? He must have looked beautiful when he was dead. He was young and he was a poet.”
Meg and Renny exchanged looks of painful remembrance, th
en she said, “Yes, he had a beautiful face. Come now, dear, we must go in to see Mr. Clapperton. Don’t forget that you are to speak clearly and look right into his eyes. Come.”
Renny opened the door of the car for them. They got out and went up the steps to the front door. Meg had first entered this house when, as a child of two years, she had come to take tea with little Maurice Vaughan.
The door was opened by a maid who looked at them with surprise. She showed them into the living room and, in a few minutes, Eugene Clapperton with an air of being ready for anything, came in. His grey suit, his neat grey hair, looked businesslike but he wore soft, fleece-lined slippers, so that his coming was noiseless. He greeted Meg stiffly, ignoring the child.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Clapperton,” she said, in her warm, confidential voice. “This is my little niece. She and I have come on important business. Haven’t we, Roma?”
“Well, is that so?” he said, giving the two a suspicious look.
“Stand up, Roma,” Meg said, “and tell Mr. Clapperton why you have come.”
Roma stood up, as though in school. “I came,” she said clearly, “to tell that I took all that money and hid it and yesterday Uncle Renny found me with it, in the woods. I had it hidden in an old kettle.”
“whatever is this fabrication?” Eugene Clapperton demanded testily.
“It is no fabrication.” Meg spoke with some heat. “This little girl followed my brother when he came to your house, on the day when the bank notes were taken. She followed him right into the house and, when he left, she slipped into the room where the money lay on the desk and took it. All these months she’s kept the secret but now it’s discovered. Mr. Clapperton, you know what queer things children sometimes do.”
“I don’t know anything about children,” he returned with severity, his face reddening.
“She is such a good little girl,” said Meg. “It’s the first naughty thing she’s ever done.”
“If you can call a criminal act naughty.”
“Indeed, it was scarcely even naughtiness. She had been reading Robin Hood and she wanted to be like him, don’t you see?”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 432
