“And the way it’s growing! whatever way you look there’s hundreds of new little houses and wherever you go you hear foreigners talking,” she continued.
“Them’s new Canadians,” said Noah. “They was born and bred to be new Canadians. You couldn’t stop them if you tried.”
“who’s trying to stop them?” she demanded.
“London ain’t what it used to be,” said Rags. “So my missus and me moved to one of them new villages, developed on an old estate, but life there wasn’t as ’appy as we’d hexpected.”
“I bet it wasn’t,” said Noah.
“what was the trouble?” asked Wright.
Rags answered solemnly, “It was the nightingales.”
“They’d drive you crazy,” said the cook. “There was no peace for them. Babies — invalids — working folk that needed their rest. They couldn’t get it, for the nightingales singing.”
“That was bad,” Noah mumbled, through lips fringed by coconut shreds. “Very, very bad. Worse than motor traffic. Danged if I’d not sooner have motor traffic than birds piping away in the dead of night. It’s unnatural. Motor traffic is natural.”
“I’ve always fancied a bird in the house,” said Mrs. Wragge. “Then you can cover the cage with a cloth if necessary. But them nightingales you couldn’t control.”
Down the stairs from above Dennis appeared and was greeted affably by the cook.
“You haven’t grown as fast as you might,” she said. “Do they give you plenty to eat at school?”
“I’ll shoot up later,” he returned. “We get plenty to eat but not cake like that.”
At once she placed a slice on a plate for him and he drew a chair to the table beside Wright. All four adults regarded him with concentrated interest as he ate.
“I haven’t seen your new ma yet,” said Mrs. Wragge. “I suppose you love her dearly.” She gave a knowing look at the men.
“She’s a lovely young lady,” said Wright.
“I haven’t seen the woman yet I’d want to share my home with,” said Noah.
“If one of these modern girls got after you, you wouldn’t have a chance,” observed Wright with a wink at Rags.
“Is that the way it is?” asked Dennis.
“Oh, they’ve been after me these many years,” said Noah, “but I know how to circumference them.”
“I was caught young,” said Wright, “and I don’t regret it.”
“I’ll not get caught,” said Dennis. “I shall live in a ranch house with my children — and no wife.”
He was pleased by the laugh this brought. He continued, “Just as my father and I settle down to enjoy ourselves, my stepmother says for me to make myself scarce because she wants to be alone with my father.”
“Well, of all the cruel things I ever heard!” cried the cook.
“You wouldn’t think it to look at her,” said Wright.
“Would you think I was a desirous man to look at me?” asked Noah.
Wright answered, “If you mean desirable, I have my doubts.”
Mrs. Wragge leaned across the table to say firmly to the little boy, “Don’t let yourself be put upon, dearie. Stand up for yourself. Reely, it’s shameful the things some women will do.”
“Don’t go putting notions in the child’s head,” said Rags. “It’ll unsettle ’im.”
Noah Binns tapped the table with his teaspoon. He said: “Organize — that’s the way to get things done. All my life I’ve organized. Whether it’s ringin’ the church bells or diggin’ a grave, I organize.” He stared hard at Dennis.
“Now, young man,” he went on, “you’ve got to organize against the schemes of that woman or she’ll get the best of you.”
“what’s organize?” asked Dennis.
“Organized labour,” said Noah, “is what has kept this country from being ruled by danged aristocrats and Tories.”
“The Tories are in power in the province now,” said Wright. “Don’t forget that.”
“The way you men get off the track is terrible,” said Mrs. Wragge — “while here’s this little boy waiting for advice.”
“Thanks,” said Dennis, rising, “but I think I’ll go.”
“My advice,” said Noah Binns, “is: Organize, plan, lay a deep scheme, and don’t let nothing stop you.”
Wright left with Dennis. Outside he said, “Don’t you pay any attention to what Noah Binns says. He’s not worth it. You mark my words. Your stepmother means well by you, I’m sure of that. But she’s delicate. She’s nervous, and she had a great shock in the war.”
“what was that?” asked Dennis.
“Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you,” said Wright, “but I think I will. It may sort of help you to understand her better.”
Dennis’s eyes were on Wright’s face. “what was it?” he asked.
“Well,” Wright said, almost whispering, “she was in London, with her first husband, at the time of the Blitz. You know what the Blitz was?”
“Yes. I know.”
“I don’t suppose I ought to tell you this. If your father wanted you to know, I guess he’d have told you.”
“I think he’d rather you told me.”
Wright was longing to tell him. Now he got it out. “Well, what she saw was — her husband blown to pieces before her very eyes. It was a terrible shock for a sensitive lady and I guess she’s never been the same since.”
Dennis ran home through the shadows cast by the tall trees. This summer the leaves seemed larger than usual and of a more intense green. This colour was strangely reflected in the little boy’s eyes.
He found Sylvia in the music room writing a letter. She smiled at him and said, “I’ve just been writing a letter to my mother, telling her about our lovely house, and now I find I have no stamp for it.”
“I have stamps,” said Dennis. “I have a stamp collection. When my father is on a tour he sends me valuable stamps from everywhere he goes.”
“I’d love to see them,” said Sylvia.
“I keep them under lock and key. They’re too valuable to be left lying about.”
There was something unfriendly in his tone, Sylvia thought. She drew into herself. “I only want an ordinary five-cent stamp,” she said. “Surely that’s a simple thing to need.”
Dennis regarded her intently. He appeared to want to ask her something important. She smiled at him and said, in her voice that was like music, “Yes, Dennis, what is it?” She raised her hand as though to touch him.
“Have you ever,” he asked abruptly, “seen anybody killed?”
The colour retreated from her face. “Yes,” she breathed. “Once — I did.”
“So did I,” he said. “It was my mother. In a motor accident. I was only four but I remember. Her blood was on the road. It was on me too.” He raised his voice. “Do you see blood, when you think about the one you saw killed?”
“Don’t! Don’t!” She covered her eyes with her hands. “I can’t bear it.” She gave a cry as of one in pain and her slender body was shaken by sobs.
Finch’s steps were heard running along the drive.
Dennis moved lightly out of the room.
“Sylvia!” cried Finch. “For God’s sake, what’s the matter?”
She made a desperate effort to control herself.
He took her in his arms. “My darling one,” he kept repeating and soon she was quiet.
“I was writing to my mother,” she said, “and something I wrote was upsetting to me … Oh, nothing that has happened here … Something out of the past … It’s all over. See how steady I am.” She achieved a smile, then hid her face on his shoulder.
“Was Dennis here?” asked Finch. “I thought I saw him through the window.”
“He was here — a moment before — I think.”
“Did he say anything that upset you?”
“No, no. He was telling me of the wonderful collection of stamps you’ve sent him.”
“Stamps!”
Finch excl
aimed. “I’ve never sent him a stamp in his life.” He wheeled and turned toward the child’s room. “what the devil does he mean?”
Sylvia caught his arm. But now again she was overcome and could not speak. “There, there,” he kept on saying, and patted her on the back, as one would comfort a child. Not till she was calm did he detach himself from her clinging hands and go to Dennis. He was hot with anger at the child. Either he had deliberately been the cause of Sylvia’s distress or he had not. But he was entangled with it, whatever his intentions.
Finch strode to Dennis’s room. He went in and closed the door after him. The child had remained unmoved by Sylvia’s outburst but he flinched when he saw Finch’s frown. He stood up straight in front of the window.
Finch said, keeping his voice low with an effort, “why did you tell those lies to Sylvia?”
“I thought there was only one lie,” said Dennis.
Dennis had a surprising power of angering Finch. He found himself with a hot desire to take hold of his son roughly. That would not do and he said, in a controlled voice, “You said you had a stamp collection andyou said I’d sent you stamps for it. What does it matter how many lies? You lied.”
Dennis hung his head. “I thought you had.”
“You knew I hadn’t. Why did you lie?”
“I don’t know.”
A silence fell that seemed almost fearful to Finch, for his nerves were shaken by Sylvia’s distress.
Through the window Dennis was watching a red squirrel. Finch asked suddenly, “Was Sylvia upset before you spoke to her? I mean did you say anything to upset her?”
“I couldn’t know how, could I?”
“Well, I just wondered. You were with her.”
They looked into each other’s eyes — each trying to fathom what lay hidden.
Finch drew a sigh. “Sylvia is very delicate,” he said.
“Is it a misfortune to have a delicate wife?”
“She must be taken care of.”
“By you and me?” Dennis asked eagerly, moving a little toward Finch.
“You must not make yourself troublesome.”
Dennis said at once: “I won’t be troublesome.”
“As for your lying,” said Finch, “for that you’ll stay in your room for the rest of the day.”
He left Dennis and returned to Sylvia. He was very anxious about her, and puzzled because she had seemed particularly well and gay all that day.
“There’s one thing I have made up my mind about,” she said, “and it is that I’m never going to be the cause of trouble between you and Dennis. He is your only child and nothing must spoil your relationship.” She spoke with vehemence, as though she had thought anxiously on the subject.
“You must not look for trouble,” he said, sitting down beside her. “As for the bond between Dennis and me, I’m afraid I’m not much of a father — but he does irritate me with his clinging ways and now — this lying.”
“If only he will cling to me!” she exclaimed. “That’s what I should love. It will be tragic for me, if he holds something against me. He always speaks of you with such a possessive air.”
“Possessive — yes,” said Finch. “That’s his mother all over again.”
“Finch,” she said, “Dennis remembers that tragedy. He remembers it clearly. It made a terrible impression on him.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what upset you, then?”
“I was very much moved. How could I help being moved? It brought back …”
“It’s a lie,” Finch said loudly.
“Hush. He’ll hear you.”
Finch spoke more quietly. “It’s a lie. Dennis remembers nothing of that accident. He doesn’t remember his mother. I’m sure of that. I’ve a mind to go back and face him with it. He ought to be punished.”
“No, no, no.” Sylvia laid a restraining hand on his. “You would turn him effectually against me. If I’m to be a good mother to him — Oh, I do want to be a good mother, and you can help me, darling.”
“I had no mother,” said Finch, “and I can tell you I was roughly treated sometimes.”
“Then you must be all the more understanding with Dennis.” She spoke with confidence, almost with authority. “Remember the little boy you were.”
After a little she arranged a tray for Dennis and carried it to Finch for his inspection. On it were sandwiches, strawberries and cream and sweet biscuits.
“May I take it to him?” she asked.
“Good Lord,” Finch said, “it looks like a treat rather than a punishment.”
“It’s not a punishment. Dennis is just having a tray in his room.” And she repeated, “May I take it?”
“If you wish,” Finch said indifferently.
Dennis was lying flat on his back on the neat white bed. There was a strange austerity in the outline of his narrow shape beneath the sheet. His eyes were closed and he did not open them when Sylvia entered. She set the tray on a low table beside the bed.
“It’s turning much warmer,” she said, as though casually. “I think it’s going to be a hot night.”
How pale he was! Surely he never could look really warm. He did not open his eyes. He scarcely seemed to breathe. It was as though he were listening with his whole body — with every bit of him.
She laid her hand with a caressing movement on his forehead. She had, ever since they were together, longed to touch his hair. Now she found it fine and silky, rather long for a boy’s hair but becoming. Her heart went out to him.
“Dennis dear,” she said, “aren’t you hungry?”
Still without opening his eyes he said: “Go away. And take the tray away.”
V
Seen Through a Picture Window
The night did indeed turn hot. It felt breathlessly hot in Dennis’s small room. There was no slightest breeze to stir the curtains. The sheet that covered him no longer felt pleasant to the touch. He threw it off and raised his legs straight into the air. He was naked.
He could hear the daily woman and Sylvia talking in the kitchen. Now the table was being laid in the dining room. The woman was a good cook and an appetizing smell pervaded this part of the house. But Dennis was not hungry. He listened, tense, as he heard Finch go into the bedroom he shared with Sylvia. With all his might he wished that those two did not share a room. He wished that Finch would come in to see him, but he trembled with fear at the thought of Finch’s frown.
He had no visitor all that long evening but a mosquito. It had got in, despite the wire screening, and hovered about him incessantly buzzing. It seemed not able to make up its mind to bite him but never stopped singing of its intention. He hated it and longed to kill it.
He held up his bare knee in the twilight and said:
“Come on — come on — bite me if you dare!”
But the mosquito refused to be tempted.
Sometimes it sang close to his ear. Sometimes it became tangled in his hair. Then its buzzing was maddening. He struck at it in a fury of resentment.
“You devil — you devil — you she-devil,” he said between his clenched teeth. For he had learned at school that it was the female mosquito which stung. “You she-devil,” he growled. “why doesn’t your husband kill you?” He had a picture in his mind, then, of the female mosquito being killed by the male and he forgot everything else in the pleasure of witnessing that death — the wings torn off, the sting ripped out.
But it was only for a moment. Soon the mosquito was buzzing about his lips and nostrils. He became intolerably hot, even though he was naked. With the increasing heat, darkness descended. But he knew it was light where Finch and Sylvia were eating their dinner. He could bear the clink of dishes and the rather heavy footfall of the daily woman. Then at last she left for her home. He heard her footsteps on the path.
Now the mosquito was buzzing about his body. Twice it alighted on his leg but though he struck at it he failed to kill it. He lay still scarc
ely breathing, till he felt the tickle of it on his knee. Then out shot his hand and he struck it and crushed it.
There came the peace of silence. No more buzzing. He sprang out of bed and turned on the light so that he might discover the corpse of his tormentor.… Very small it looked, crushed there on his knee. A trickle of blood, his own fresh blood, stained the paleness of his skin. He turned out the light and flung himself again on the bed, savouring his victory.
He was waked by the itching of the bite on his knee. He could hear the piano being softly played in the music room and pictured Finch with his hands on the keys and Sylvia sitting close by. He began to scratch the mosquito bite — rhythmically, as though in time to the music. The more he scratched the bite, the more it burned and itched. He could feel the blood trickling down his leg.
So curious was he to see the bite and the blood, he again turned on the light that he might examine it. “whew,” he exclaimed in surprise, and again, “whew.” Certainly he must have scratched hard to draw so much blood.
It was on his hand too.… He could not stop himself from putting his hand to his forehead to leave a bloody imprint there. He stood in front of the looking-glass, gloating over his reflection with the bloodstained forehead. He ran his fingers through his hair, so that it stood upright. He was almost afraid of his reflection, it looked so strange. He wished the pair in the music room could see him, could see what they’d done to him.
As he had been unable to stop himself from smearing his forehead, so now he could not stop himself from putting first one palm and then the other on his bleeding leg. After that he carefully made a mark on his side, just beneath his heart. Now he knew what one who had been crucified looked like. He examined himself in the mirror and found himself growing a little sick.
It was so hot in the room he made up his mind to go outdoors through the window. The sill was low and it was nothing to him to climb over it onto the smooth grass. The grass was deliciously cool to his feet, the night air to his feverishly hot body. The light from a young moon was just touching the petals of a white peony. Sylvia was proud of this, its first bloom. It was a single variety, looking and smelling like a large water lily. Dennis ruthlessly pulled off the flower, scattering its petals as he went toward the picture window. The fresh air made his body light and daring, but his mind was sunk in resentment. Incoherent thoughts of vengeance, for he did not know what, possessed it.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 514
