The Rector spoke of Sylvia, of her gentle nature, and how she had endeared herself to all who knew her. He spoke but shortly, for he could not trust his voice to remain steady, not with the sight of Meg weeping in the pew below, of Finch’s stricken eyes fixed on that lovely face in the coffin.
The moment came when the lid was closed, when the pallbearers raised their burden to their shoulders. The bearers — Renny, Piers, Wakefield, Christian, Philip, and Humphrey Bell — were followed down the aisle by Finch and Fitzturgis; close after them, Dennis and Sylvia’s American brother-in-law; then the remainder of the family.
Fortunately only the surface of the earth had been frozen. The disfiguring yellow mound of this had been covered by an emerald-green rug of artificial grass. The wind was bright with tiny snow particles. It sang its own heedless song to those grouped about the grave. It froze the tears on the cheeks of the women, and lay in waiting to freeze the flowers that were laid on the grave.
Now Mr. Fennel spoke the final words, the wind snatching them from his mouth; but to those standing by the grave these few were clearly audible: “… cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; … fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.…”
At last all the dark figures moved away across the whiteness of the snow and the graveyard was deserted.
XXV
The Stolen Flowers
An unobserved spectator had watched the ceremony by the grave with keenest interest, yet little understanding or sympathy. It all was so new and strange to her. This was the small Mary Whiteoak who, dressed in a warm blue snowsuit, was hidden behind a group of shrubs at the edge of the graveyard. White berries grew sparsely on these shrubs and birds came there to eat them. Just before Mary’s arrival, a cardinal had tilted there, like an exotic blossom on this northern shrub, but her coming had frightened him away, and he was now hidden in the twilight of a massive spruce tree. From there, as the funeral cortège moved from the graveyard, he gave a joyous whistle, as though boldly to give voice to the life that was in him.
Now Mary emerged from her hiding place and cautiously drew near the new grave. Yet it was not the grave she wished to examine but the flowers laid by it. These delicate flowers, blooming in the wintry cold, were fascinating to her and she had a great longing to possess even a very few, to smell their perfume in that arctic air.
This longing was irresistible. Indeed, she did not try to resist but with nervous care chose and plucked two white roses, a golden lily, three freesias and a carnation. These she hastened with — taking care not to fall — away from the graveyard. She kept her eyes on them as she ran across the snowy field and the bare woodland, where there was a path, to the Hut.
It was not easy to open the door, which squeaked in protest, but she laid all her strength against it and it opened. Sheltered from the wind, it felt comparatively warm in the Hut, and so welcoming, and so truly her own, that her lips parted in a smile of pleasure to find herself there.
She well knew how to melt snow in a saucepan to make water for the flowers to stand in. This accomplished, she filled a vase and arranged the two roses, the lily, the three freesias and the carnation in it. She set it on the table in the middle of the room and gazed in rapture. She wished that Sylvia might be there to admire with her. But Sylvia, she knew, was in heaven, flying with beautiful wings, above green pastures and still waters, as in the Twenty-third Psalm. She was not to be pitied, yet Mary could not help pitying her a little for not being there to admire the flowers from her own funeral.
Mary had been given a real little wristwatch on Christmas, to make her more conscious of the passing of time. She viewed it with mingled pride and apprehension, for she was not at all sure that she was able to tell the time.
Now she examined its face slowly, trying to make sure whether it said twenty-five minutes to five or twenty-five minutes past seven. She turned her wrist this way and that, peering at the enigmatic face of the watch, but she could not discover. Then she heard the barking of dogs and a man’s whistling. She peeped out of the window and saw her uncle Renny taking his dogs for a walk.
Suddenly the Hut seemed rather chill and lonely. A saffron cast from a saffron sky made the room strange. Mary thought she would like to join Renny and his dogs. Slipping through the door, she ran after them and put her small bare hand into his. He did not seem surprised to see her, but, gripping her hand, strode on. She noticed, then, that he was all in black, which seemed odd.
After they had walked a short distance, he remarked:
“You should learn not to drag your heels over the crusty surface of the snow. It will wear holes in your snow boots, and they cost money.”
XXVI
In Search of a Home
Two days later the women of the family were gathered at the tea hour, in the cozy warmth of the drawing room at Jalna. But, though the room was cozy and warm, those concerned in this meeting were experiencing emotions which had neither of these qualities. They were, in fact, trying to settle on at least a temporary home for the infant left behind by Sylvia.
One thing Alayne felt she must make clear. It was that there was no place at Jalna for a crying baby. As she was explaining this, she was interrupted by her daughter. “But, Mummy,” said Adeline, “I shouldn’t in the least mind looking after him. No more than another puppy or a foal.”
“You have no faintest idea of what such an undertaking entails,” said Alayne. “But you do know that I have been suffering for some time with insomnia.” She lowered her voice, showing how well she knew that such a disability was not worth discussing with the young. “There are nights when I have not closed my eyes before three o’clock.”
“But this house is so large,” said Meg. “The baby and his nurse could sleep in the attic.”
“It’s chilly up there.” Alayne now spoke quite emphatically. “Also, quite soon I expect Maurice and Patrick Crawshay to return. I cannot heap too much work on Wragge and the cook. They are no longer young and often have too much to do.” She now turned to Roma. “It seems to me,” she said, “that, as Sylvia’s sister has been married for some years and has no children, she and her husband are the natural ones to take the child into their home. Also her mother is there to help.”
“They live in an apartment,” said Roma. “They have no facilities.”
“what about you and Maitland?” persisted Alayne.
“We live in an apartment,” returned Roma. “We have no facilities.”
“There is nothing I should enjoy more,” broke forth Meg, “than to welcome that poor darling little waif into the Rectory, but I must think of Rupert. Never, never could he write his sermons with a crying infant in the house.”
“I love having the little one with me,” said Patience, “but I must think of Humphrey. Two babies in one small house are absolutely fatal to his work. Both of them were crying at three o’clock this morning, and, as though that weren’t hard enough on him, I fell halfway downstairs with a saucepan of warm milk!” She held out a skinned elbow as proof.
“what unselfish wives!” exclaimed Alayne, with something approaching a sneer. “I confess I am thinking only of myself and my domestic help at Jalna. It’s out of the question.”
Pheasant had sat listening in silence to all that was being said. Now she spoke, rather breathlessly but with cheerful resignation. “I seem to be the only one,” she said, “who is in a position to look after Sylvia’s baby, and I’ll gladly do it.”
Oh, if only she had not brought Sylvia’s name into the discussion! It stabbed the atmosphere like a sword and was followed by a wounded silence. This was broken by Meg. “Certainly Piers does no brain work that will be affected by a baby in the house. Nor have you domestic help to be imposed on, or insomnia to keep you awake, for I noticed that you nodded and almost fell asleep at the last meeting of the Women’s Institute.”
After these remarks by Meg, the feeling in the room became less strained. Wragge brought in the tea things. Everyone looked kindly at P
heasant, who, with composure, began to eat a currant bun.
Patience went and sat close to her. She whispered:
“when may I take the baby to you?”
“Anytime.”
“It’s terribly good of you. Do you think Piers will mind?”
“He’ll think it’s the right thing to do — and he likes babies.”
Patience hastened to say: “Oh, so does Humphrey. He’s sweet to them. It’s just his work. I must guard that. Did I tell you that he’s writing a play for television?”
Roma moved to sit near them. “Is it accepted?” she inquired skeptically.
“It’s been practically accepted,” said Patience proudly. “Of course, nothing is certain.”
“There’s more truth than fiction in that,” said Roma.
“Humphrey,” went on Patience, “puts everything he has into his work. He never considers what it is taking out of him.”
“Everyone to his taste,” said Roma.
Meg was rising to go. “I hope everyone understands,” she said, addressing Alayne, “that I long to have the baby with me, and that nothing would prevent me if the Rector were not obliged to have a certain amount of seclusion. As Jalna is a considerably larger house, I should have thought …” She added, after a moment’s reflection: “Especially as no important mental work is being carried on here — indeed no mental work of any sort — ”
“It’s impossible,” said Alayne, “for me to have a newborn infant and trained nurse here at this time.”
“If you haven’t the facilities, you haven’t,” said Roma. “Everybody understands that. What I can’t understand is why Uncle Finch cannot keep his two children at home. Why should he get out of his responsibilities?”
“For some reason,” said Meg, “Finch appears to feel little affection for either child.”
Alayne made a gesture of extreme weariness. “Finch,” she said, “has been through an appalling time.”
“Haven’t we all?” said Roma.
“I must be going,” Meg said. “You had better come with me, Roma. You have your packing to do.”
“It’s been done for days,” said Roma, but rose, too, with her air of docility. She came to Adeline and held up her smooth cheek to be kissed. “when next we meet, it will be for your wedding.” Her voice was as cool as the firm flesh of her cheek. Adeline had a momentary desire to bite it, but gave it a noncommittal peck. “That’s funny-smelling scent you use,” she observed.
“French,” said Roma. “Six dollars per quarter ounce.”
Alayne went to bed early, hoping, yet scarcely daring to hope, for a good night’s sleep at last. To make more sure of this she had taken a sleeping pill. Were they losing their efficacy? she wondered. But, no — there was the gentle benign drowsiness stealing over her — beginning at her toes — creeping deliciously upward, along the stretched-out length of her taut body …
But there was nothing benign about the sudden opening of her door, the introduction of a stark, russet-coloured head into the aperture. Even though Alayne could not see his face, she could picture that ingratiating grin of his, which, for some reason, she liked least of all the expressions that passed over his bony, mobile features — possibly because it appeared when he knew he was not wanted, or when he offered her an opinion best kept to himself. Or so she thought.
All Alayne’s senses were acute, her sense of smell particularly so. This appeared to be the only trait which her daughter had inherited from her. Alayne and Adeline passed their days conscious of every odour, good or not so good, which came their way. They wrinkled their noses, curled their lips, over the unpleasant. They bumbled like intoxicated bees in the scent of flowers, of new-mown grass.
Now, as Renny came into the room that was full of scentless, snow-washed air, and leaned over her, she drew back into her pillows with a distraught wrinkling of the nose. “Your soap,” she moaned. “what is it? It has a horrid smell.”
“It’s something new in detergents,” he said, bending closer that she might better sniff it — “guaranteed to kill all odours — even the smell of the stable.”
“I’ve become used to the smell of Windsor soap,” she said. “I quite like it — but this is something new.”
“It is,” he agreed cheerfully, as though it were eight o’clock in the morning and an hour when one could speak of something new. “Surely you have heard the singing commercials about it on the radio.” And he began to sing, in an unmusical voice, the refrain which she had heard but once and instantly turned off.
His singing was the last straw to her load of misery.
Beneath the bedclothes she kicked like a small child in a tantrum and said, with whining intonation, “Go away — please!”
“I’m going — in just a minute.” He patted the bedclothes to quiet her. “But first, tell me — have you girls settled who’s to take the baby?”
Alayne now gave herself up to a night of insomnia. “It’s settled,” she said.
“And he’s to come to Jalna?”
She replied, in a clear, definite tone: “Pheasant is to take him in for the present.”
“Pheasant! Good God!” he ejaculated. “Surely she’s the last to undertake that job!”
“why?”
“She does her own work — has three men and a little girl on her hands.”
Alayne sat up in bed. “We are expecting Maurice and Pat Crawshay very soon. We have a wedding in prospect. Wragge suffers from lumbago, the cook from varicose veins. I will not speak of my own affliction.”
“Affliction,” he repeated bewildered. “what affliction?”
“Most people would call insomnia quite an affliction. I’ve been suffering from it for months.”
“Now, Alayne,” he said, “just let me mix you a good stiff drink before you go to bed and I’ll guarantee you will sleep.”
“It would have the very opposite effect. You ought to know that.”
“Well — well,” he soothed; then said, returning to the subject that stirred his emotions at the moment, “Adeline says she will look after the baby.”
“Adeline is completely ignorant of such things. If the baby is forced on us it will have to bring a trained nurse with it.”
“Well — well,” he said again, and then added, “These matters always settle themselves in the end.”
He had left the door open behind him and now a new odour assailed Alayne’s sensitive nostrils. She scrambled out of bed, managing, in spite of haste and pink woolen bed socks, to look graceful and even dignified.
“I smell something burning,” she declared. “It comes from the kitchen. I must go right down. Oh, dear, whatever can it be?”
For answer he picked her up and returned her to her bed. He left her there and ran down the two flights of stairs to the basement. Shortly after, he returned to find her waiting in the passage.
He gave her a cheerful grin. “It was only a saucepan that cook had left on the range. Giblets, by the look of it. Scorching. Stuck to the saucepan. I took it off and left a window wide open. It’ll be nice and cold in the kitchen when she gets up. That’ll larn her.”
Renny’s dogs, hearing his voice, had come to the door of his bedroom, to which they had retired some time ago, and scratched on it and whined — the bulldog on a deep, authoritative note, the spaniel ready to break into a bark, and the little cairn terrier in apparent anguish. Renny opened the door and the three came tumbling out.
“Oh, how rested they are,” exclaimed Alayne. “why can I never feel rested like that?”
“Because you don’t go about it the right way, my darling,” he said. “They lead an outdoor life — ”
“when they’re not sleeping beside the fire,” she interrupted.
He continued, “They lick their dishes clean at every meal.”
“And frequently bring up what they’ve eaten,” she added sarcastically.
He paid no attention to this but went on: “when they go to bed they haven’t a thought in their heads
but what fun tomorrow is going to be. You would feel rested too, if you behaved as they do.”
Now from the hall below, into which Adeline’s room opened, came her voice, raised in excitement: “Daddy — Daddy — whatever is wrong? I smell something horrible.”
“Giblets. In the kitchen,” he said. “Go back to bed.”
Alayne leaned over the banister. “Isn’t it horrible, darling?” she called down to Adeline. Mother and daughter sniffed together in congenial disgust.
Now the talking had disturbed Dennis, tucked up in Renny’s bed. He woke from the nightmare that for the past nights had been haunting him.
“Save me — save me!” he screamed, and struggled wild-eyed to get from under the quilts.
The cairn terrier rushed at the bed, in a mood to bite the child, for he resented his being there. The spaniel sat down in the middle of the room and howled, while the bulldog bundled himself down the stairs and scratched at the front door to be let out.
Wakefield appeared from his bedroom, only half-awake. He had smelled nothing, but was thoroughly frightened by the confusion. He saw Alayne and Adeline in their nightdresses, Renny with the sobbing child in his arms.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 531
