The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche

by de la Roche, Mazo

  “That was kind of you, Uncle Finch,” she said quietly.

  Finch, expecting a despairing outburst from her, was grateful for her self-control. “Good girl,” he said. He stopped himself from adding, — “You’ll get over this.” Instead he asked, — “Should you like to go for a walk?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “But — do you mind if I go alone? I want to think.”

  Finch was relieved. “Of course. It would be better. Take the dogs with you.”

  “Uncle Finch.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to leave.”

  “Well, we are leaving in a week.”

  “I want us to go now. Tomorrow. I can’t bear being here any longer.”

  Finch was willing. To go to London, to have the excitement of meeting Wakefield, of the theatres, the crowds, would do Adeline good.

  “Very well,” he said, “we’ll leave as soon as I can get passages for us. But there’s one thing you must promise. You must make friends with Mooey before we leave.”

  “I promise.”

  They walked side by side along the drive, Adeline with dignity refusing the weakness of another backward glance. In front of the house Maurice was playing with the Labradors, ostentatiously at ease. He flung a stick for them and they hurled their muscular fawn-coloured bodies after it in an abandon of pursuit. The mother secured it but her son gave her no peace. He rollicked beside her, jostling her, growling and at last caught the stick in his mouth also, and so united they galloped gracefully to their rd’s feet.

  Maurice did not look at Adeline but again threw the stick. This time the son captured it and Bridget, the mother, as though disgruntled, lowered her tail and slipped out of sight among the rhododendrons. When Adeline reached the path that led to the sea Bridget was there beside her, trotting through the bracken, its unfolding fronds tickling her sides.

  They moved on together, trees close on their right, and on their left the path falling away to the black rocks below. The tide was moving in, pressing with resonance through glistening clefts, rippling, muttering, plashing with faint but inexorable urging against seaweed and sand. Now and again Adeline paused to look down on it, then walked swiftly on. She must be out on the stony headland, alone. In a tiny cove she saw two boys draw in their boat. They had been gathering seagulls’ eggs from the cliffs. She saw the great basketful of them and for a moment pictured the young gulls that never would be hatched. She saw the bare brown feet of the boys and their long windblown hair.

  She gained the open. The path led to a low stone wall and beyond it wound among grey boulders upward to the headland. She looked about her. There was no one in sight, no living creature but Bridget at her side. She climbed the stile over the wall. With a leap Bridget passed over it and seemed to move with a new grace and a new meaning, as though an invisible leash had been taken off her.

  Adeline walked steadily along the path, among the boulders. No one could hear her now and she cast off all restraint and cried openly. At first the painful tears stung her eyes, then they came more freely. She cried out loud, hearing her own voice, now hoarse, tearing at her throat, now high and clear like a weeping child’s. Bridget gave her one look askance, then no more.

  Where the path ended at the cliff’s edge, she stood looking out on the open sea where no sail was to be seen, only endlessly moving waves. She grew calmer and, at last, she sat down on the brink, quiet except for the heavy rise and fall of her breast. She picked up a small stone and cast it over the brink. She heard the faint noise of its falling but it made no sound when it disappeared into the sea. “I shall disappear out of his life like that little stone that’s been swallowed up by the sea.” She felt her helplessness in the immense movement of the world. She was used to thinking of herself as a strong character, in contrast to Roma whom she thought of as weak. She had had no experience of life to prepare her for the emotions that had stirred her since the birth of her love for Fitzturgis. She found herself battling in a world she could not comprehend. Now she was alone, her heart aching with the love she could not tear from it, and with the consciousness that Fitzturgis was rd of himself, hardened by life, able to face with fortitude what he had to face. She felt a kind of anger at him for his strength. If he would have sat down and wept with her, she could have borne it. But this loneliness, this desolation …

  She threw herself on the hard ground, and again crying aloud, she clutched at the harsh dry grass and tore it. She rolled to the very brink of the cliff and lay looking down at the tide grappling at its base. As she lay watching the insurge of the waves, she grew quieter. She lay still for a while, watching the dim sun lose itself in the dim horizon.

  At last she sat up and looked about for the Labrador. Bridget had left her to explore the ciffside, trotting among the grey boulders, discovering in that barrenness scents that woke instincts long forgotten. She was lost to view among these prehistoric forms for a time. Now Adeline saw her returning as though in fear. As she drew nearer her fear grew. The hair along her spine stood upright, her mouth hung open, and her eyes rolled in terror.

  “Bridget! Come!” called Adeline, and the dog all but flung itself on her for protection. It looked back toward the more distant boulders, watchful for the source of its panic. Adeline too was afraid. She rose and went toward the spot where Bridget had been. But when she was there she discovered nothing on the hillside but the stark boulders. Now she saw in them grotesque resemblances to idiotic or distorted human heads. Bridget had refused to follow her but sat with pricked ears, statuesque and watchful against the sky.

  Adeline found nothing but the emptiness of the stony land, the emptiness of the sky and the emptiness of the sea. The wind dried the tears on her cheeks. She returned to Bridget and they went homeward along the path. All the way, Bridget kept close behind her. Every now and again Adeline would feel the touch of the sensitive muzzle against her leg.

  She had made up her mind to be friendly with Maurice. It was easier when she found Pat Crawshay having a drink with him and Finch. The three men looked at her with concern. It was plain that she had been crying. Blades of grass clung to her hair. One of her stockings was twisted. Addressing Pat Crawshay rather than the others she poured out the story of Bridget’s fright.

  Pat heard it with gravity. “No one can tell what she saw,” he said. “Queer things have happened among those hills.”

  “why, surely,” exclaimed Finch, “you don’t believe Bridget actually saw something?”

  “She may not have seen it as we see. Perhaps she just felt it. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of strange frights on that bit of land.”

  “Oh,” said Adeline, drawing a long breath, “no wonder I was afraid.”

  “You did well to run home,” said Pat, “or we might never have seen you again.”

  “Don’t frighten her,” said Maurice, on a protective note.

  “I’m just warning her.” His eyes embraced her, from her twisted stocking to her rumpled hair.

  She moved to stand beside him, as though to show her confidence in him.

  Maurice brought her a glass of sherry. “This will steady you,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Their hands touched and she gave him a little smile.

  Two days later, she and Finch were on the packet on their way across the Irish Sea.

  It was a nice new packet glistening with fresh paint. They sat, side by side, in the lounge, unnoticed by the group of Irish people, mostly women, who sat solidly and wholesomely in the middle of the room, discussing in loud practical voices the affairs of their village. The women held their baskets and bundles on their knees as though they would not risk parting with them, even for a moment. On their own knees the men laid their hard-worked hands that looked large and resigned.

  Finch was glad to take Adeline away from Ireland. The last thing he had expected when they had set out on their voyage from Canada was such complications as had arisen from her meeting with Fitzturgis. Looking back, he blamed himself for not having dis
covered the way the wind was blowing and seen to it that Adeline and Fitzturgis were not left alone together. But how he would have hated to interfere. It was not in his nature to dominate or even to guide others. He had found the circuitous turnings of his own spiritual path quite enough. Now he looked at her sitting composedly beside him, her eager eyes absorbing the oddities of the group before them, and he wondered how deep the wound had been.

  They took a turn on the little deck before they went to bed. It was a starless night and dark sky and dark sea were one.

  “The second part of our voyage,” he said.

  “Yes. How different from the first part! This is so dark and quiet.” Her words implied not only the exterior darkness and quiet but that of her spirit.

  Finch answered cheerfully, — “The Irish Sea can be very choppy.”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  Still more cheerfully he continued, — “This is a new boat, you know. They’ve got some sort of contraption on her that keeps her steady.”

  “Yes. So the steward told me.”

  There was silence between them for a space, then she asked, — “Uncle Finch, was your wife your first love?”

  “Good Lord, no. I’d half a dozen of them. It is really the best way. You get something out of your system.”

  “Did it get something out of your system?”

  “To tell the truth, no. I can’t even remember their names.”

  “Then — you married your first real love?”

  “Yes.”

  “How lucky you were!”

  “Lucky —” he broke out — “lucky! If I had known what that marriage was to bring me I’d have run to the ends of the earth to avoid it.”

  He could just make out the pale disc of her face, but he saw the widening darkness of her eyes.

  “How terrible for you!” she breathed.

  “Yes, it was rather.”

  “Were you happy for long?”

  “No. Not for long.”

  “But I don’t see,” the words seemed to come painfully from her, “how that could be. Not if you really loved.”

  “We did, but she had a way of distorting love — hers and mine — that made a new picture. Something I wasn’t prepared for.”

  “Was it as hard for her, do you think, as for you?”

  “I don’t think it was. She never was a defenceless sort of person. If things didn’t go right one way, she’d try another. She was as complete as a —” He stopped.

  “As a what?”

  “I can’t use that word about Sarah.”

  “If I guess right will you tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Just the same, I don’t think that you and Sarah ever loved each other as Mait and I do.”

  “People in love always feel that way.”

  “I never expected you to be cynical, Uncle Finch. You’ve been so understanding. If it hadn’t been for you I couldn’t have borne — all this.” She looked back toward the land. “Isn’t it strange,” she said, “how a curtain seems to have fallen? It’s like the end of a play. No — just the end of the first act.”

  Later she lay in her berth, feeling the movement of the ship beneath her, the throb of its engine like the beating of a lonely heart. She wondered at herself that she was able to lie there so quietly while each beat of the engine took her farther away from Maitland. She pictured him in the house with his mother and Sylvia. Was he lying awake thinking of her? Or was he sleeping with that aloof, tranquil air that made him unapproachable? She fell asleep and, as he receded from her, his face became clearer and his presence more actual, till she awoke, feeling herself in his arms. From then on she slept fitfully till early morning, but was in deep sleep when the steward knocked on her door.

  What a contrast that same steward was, when he came to get her bags, to the spruce young man of the night before. Now his jacket hung open above his crumpled shirt. His hair stood on end. “Picture him, if you can,” said Finch, “on a British ship.”

  At Fishguard, into the train and the long hours’ journey through Wales, past the farms, the red fields, the woods, into England. Finch buried himself in a book. Adeline stared out of window, observed the other passengers in the railway carriage. Would this day of joggling on the train never end?

  But end it did at Paddington and among the first of those waiting on the platform they espied Wakefield, tall, slim, his dark face eager.

  XXIII

  LONDON

  Wakefield Whiteoak was, for once in his life, early for an appointment. Or was the train late? He fidgeted along the platform, stopping at a bookstall to pick up a book, open it, and lay it down without even noticing its title. Turning away he almost collided with a stout woman carrying two cups of tea. As it was, the start made her slop some of it and she gave him an angry look. “Thenks,” she said sarcastically. “Thenks very much indeed.”

  Wakefield raised his hat. Speaking with a foreign accent, he replied, — “Madame, a thousand pardons. I am in a state of excitement. I wait to meet the Contessa di Piccadillo and I thought you were she. The resemblance is remarkable.”

  “Well,” she said, softened, “anything I can do to ’elp.…”

  “You are too kind. Ah, there is the Contessa at last,” he exclaimed, as he saw Georgina Lennox, an actress and a friend of his, coming toward him. He hastened to meet her. Affectionately they embraced.

  The stout woman looked after him with a pleased smile.

  “whatever has brought you here, Georgie?” he asked.

  “I’ve been seeing off my aunt and uncle and their two Pekes. What a time I had finding a carriage to suit them all! My aunt wanted one where she could smoke. My uncle wanted no smoking and the Pekes wanted no outsiders in it.”

  “And did you get them settled?”

  “Of course I did. And what about you? why are you here?”

  “To meet my older brother and my niece.”

  “where from?”

  “Ireland. Will you come into the restaurant and have a glass of sherry?”

  “Is there time?”

  “There’s always time to spare — or none at all.”

  “Well, this time there’s none at all, for here comes the train.”

  “Wait with me and meet them, won’t you, Georgie?”

  “I’d love to.”

  They moved along the platform toward Finch and Adeline. Before they saw him Wakefield had a good look at them. Finch was just the same, he thought; perhaps more tired, but with that look of being puzzled by life, confused by its strangeness, which he had worn as a boy. As for Adeline, she had grown up — and what a walk! He had seen the struggles of young actresses to achieve such a walk, and here she was doing it unconsciously along the platform at Paddington. If she had been plain as a pipe-stem that walk would have distinguished her.

  He kissed her and clasped Finch by the hand.

  “Wonderful to see you here,” he said. “I never really believed you’d come.”

  “why not?” said Adeline. “Don’t I always do what I say I will?”

  He possessively took her by the arm, then introduced her and Finch to Georgina Lennox. Soon the four were packed into a taxi on their way to the hotel. Adeline relapsed into childhood and made no attempt to take part in the conversation. She was fascinated by what she saw through the window of the cab. She was suspended midway between exhilaration at the prospect of what lay ahead and the pain of the parting with Fitzturgis.

  “I have no right to be at this family reunion,” said Georgina Lennox. “Let me out at Hyde Park Corner, Wakefield.”

  “No. You’re to come and have tea with us.”

  “I’ve had tea.”

  She sank back, with a smile at Finch. He smiled back at her, his large grey-blue eyes blinking a little behind his glasses, for he was tired. Their knees touched and he sought to move his long legs out of the way.

  “Don’t move,” she said. “I’ve plenty of room.”

  “Georgie’s a most adaptable pe
rson,” said Wakefield.

  Georgina Lennox (her real surname was Panks) was the daughter of a prosperous Midland manufacturer of stockings. He had given her a good education at an expensive school, and when she had shown a desire for stage life he had sent her to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She had an allowance sufficient for an attractive little apartment in town and had known nothing of the hand-to-mouth existence of most struggling young actresses. She had some experience of the screen and had taken a minor but striking part in a successful film.

  During the drive from Paddington to the hotel she talked with animation to the men, with an occasional question to Adeline, this with the air of one who encourages a shy child. (“what does she think I am?” wondered Adeline. “I’m taller than she. I have feelings she has never known, for she’s shallow — too full of her own importance.”) Adeline sat aloof, in her corner, taking no part in the conversation.

  Finch said to Wakefield, — “I’m told you have written a play.”

  Wakefield made a grimace of despair. “I have written a play. That is the easy part. The hard part is to get hold of a man who’s willing to risk a loss on it.”

  “It’s a lovely play,” exclaimed Georgina Lennox, “and I’m dying to play the leading part.”

  “You’d look it certainly,” he said.

  “You think I couldn’t act it?”

  “I simply don’t know.”

  The two began eagerly to discuss the part, as though it were not possible for them to keep their minds for long from the fascination of their profession. As Finch listened, he remembered how he once had had leanings toward the theatre. What would his life have been, he wondered, had he followed that bent. He did not envy actors the bickerings, the jealousies of their profession. What he did envy them was the warmth of companionship, the friendships they formed. In comparison his life was isolated, lonely.

  Miss Lennox alighted at Hyde Park Corner, after expressing eager hopes of again meeting Finch and Adeline very soon.

  “I’m glad she’s gone,” Adeline exclaimed.

  “Don’t you like her?” asked Wakefield, surprised.