Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course

by Mazo de La Roche

  To go forth uncleless was now his idea of happiness. He got his hat and went down to the street. Before he could stop himself he had bought a bunch of violets from the flower-seller, and so had to set out with these inadequately wrapped in paper in his hand. He dropped a sixpence into the hat for the musicians. He stood listening as once more they played the Londonderry Air. Sensitive as his nerves were to music, they did not shrink before the discords. He was no more affected than a skylark might be affected by the oddities of other singers. But the look in the eyes of these men hurt him deeply.

  He went past densely crowded corners, crossing streets in the jam of evening traffic. He found himself in a little bar in North Audley Street with a whiskey and soda before him. He longed to talk to the barmaid, for he thought she looked interested in him, but had not the courage. He had never been in a bar before.

  He strolled along the street, looking in the shop windows. One, in which works of art from the East were displayed, held him. He saw a blanc-de-Chine figure rather like the Kuan Yin that Gran had given him. The little white hands of the goddess were like the half-opened buds of some night-blooming lily. Her tiny feet, set wide apart, were like resting white birds. He should have liked to lay his violets at them.

  He entered the shop and enquired the price. He was astonished to find how high it was. He told the attendant that he had one very much like it at home. He did not say where his home was, but he was aware as they continued in conversation that the man knew he was not an Englishman, and he wondered how. Finch told him that he was not going to buy anything, but the man’s interest did not flag. He seemed willing just to stand and talk about the various objects admired by Finch. Although he had barely arrived in London, he began to think of what presents he should like to take home to the others. The years that his grandparents had spent in India, the things they had brought from there, had created in their descendants an interest in things oriental. He should like to take that wicked-looking scimitar to Piers, who had a fancy for old weapons, and had been given his grandfather’s long cavalry sword. And for Meggie that embroidered screen. And Wakefield would like that carved ivory pagoda. He thought of Wake with sudden tenderness. Poor young devil—he had never been anywhere, seen anything. And, for that matter, where had Piers been, and what had Piers seen? And here was he seeing and doing so much!

  When he had left the shop he looked again into the window and saw a picture of a snow-white cockatoo, with a coral-coloured crest, and he suddenly remembered Pauline Lebraux, and thought he should like to take the picture to her. He saw her clearly for a moment, with her dense dark hair and long black-stockinged legs, standing before the cockatoo, hands clasped in rapt admiration.

  Either the things he had seen in the shop, the kindness of the man, or the thought of little Pauline, he did not consider which, gave him a feeling of deep elation as he went on his way down the street.

  He stopped before the window of an elegant saddler’s to choose the perfect saddle for Renny.

  He walked on and on. It seemed that he would never tire. At a corner, surrounded by a few stragglers, he came upon an old man, standing bare-headed, reciting Shakespeare. He had a grand old head, a battered face, and a voice hoarse from declaiming in the foggy air.

  “Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice.”

  As he was! Finch looked at him, tattered, broken, despair in his eyes. Speak of him as he was! Oh, who could do it? Who could bear to think of him as he was?

  He stood listening to the voice that was sometimes drowned by the passage of an omnibus, broken by the jeering interruptions of one of the stragglers. Yet once, Finch was sure, he had been a good actor. He had the artist’s instinct of knowing when he was appreciated. He finished, with his eyes full on Finch. He bowed, with a fine mixture of humility and tragedy, above the half-crown dropped into his hat.

  “Well, it was a good deal to give him,” Finch thought, as he walked away, “but I’ve paid more to see poorer acting.”

  He wandered on, losing all sense of direction. He was in streets of small shops and cinemas, frequented by the working class. They were a slow-moving, respectable-looking lot, with knobbly features, under the electric lights. They were exactly like crowds he had mingled with at home, when he had stayed in town for the night, and he and George Fennel had been members of an orchestra. Different from the New York crowd with its predominance of foreign faces.

  He had bacon and eggs and coffee in a Lyons shop, sitting at a table next a young couple with the most stunned expression he had ever seen. He wondered what they had done, or were going to do, that they should have that expression. The woman did not eat, but just nibbled the tip of her finger, while the man poked squares of bread into his mouth, where they were consumed, apparently without chewing or swallowing, like letters dropped into a pillar-box.

  The week they were to have spent in London lengthened into two. Nicholas and Ernest renewed old acquaintances, and were alternately elated and depressed by the revivification of their past. Finch went with them to dine at the house of the magenta-faced rider in the Row, who, after some conversation with the boy, came to the conclusion that the Whiteoaks were degenerating.

  Ernest took Finch to Westminster Abbey, and he stood awestruck, his forelock drooping, above the wreath which the Sultan of Zanzibar had lately laid on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

  Finch went on the Sunday morning to Hyde Park and stood among a group of tattered Welsh miners, listening to Socialistic and anti-Socialistic orators. He heard the latter turn the mettlesome force of an obscene vocabulary on an Irish interrupter.

  He listened to the arguments of a young lady, who looked half frozen in the wind, on behalf of the Catholic League. She spoke well, and he was moved by the sight of the crucifix upright on the ground beside her.

  He pictured himself as a leaf blown back across the sea from a root transplanted. Here, in England, his grandfather, Captain Whiteoak, had been born. Here his mother, daughter of a London journalist who was always hard up, had been born. Here she had wandered about, distraught, after her father’s death, wondering what to do, before she had decided to go to Canada as a governess. Three-quarters of him were English. All but that fourth quarter. That had come like a stormy wind out of the West—a fierce gale from Ireland—in the person of Gran.

  VIII

  NYMET CREWS

  AUGUSTA had dressed herself with even more care than usual on this afternoon. She arranged with even greater exactitude her hair, still worn in the fashion of Queen Alexandra, that curled fringe upon which her nephews had so often speculated, going to the length of making bets with each other as to whether it were her own and natural in colour, her own and dyed, or a transformation. Not one of them had ever found out. And, if her brothers knew, they loyally kept the knowledge to themselves.

  She surveyed herself in the long glass in her bedroom with inward satisfaction, but, if an onlooker had been present, he would have supposed that her reflection met with her complete disapprobation. She drew in her chin, stiffening the back of her neck, and widened her eyes into an expression of surprised offence. But this aspect was as natural to her as one of bold dominance had been to her mother. Her gaze appeared to be a defence against the object upon which she turned it, as old Adeline’s had been one of challenging curiosity.

  Augusta was little changed since her mother’s death. She had, in truth, improved in appearance.

  The last visit to Jalna, which had been prolonged to three years, had been something of a strain, enduring, as she had, the old lady’s caprices and quips at her expense, and continually expecting that so long delayed death. The lively commotion of the household had also been rather exhausting to a woman herself long past seventy. The return to the serenity of her own house, where there was no one to contradict her, without running the risk of losing their situation, and nothing more exciting than the misbehaviour of maids, was a benefit to her health.

  So, with inward satisfaction and
outward disdain, she put the finishing touches to her toilette, noted her still shapely shoulders, and the unimpaired arch of her Court nose. Her complexion had always been bad, so in that respect she had had nothing to lose.

  She went the rounds of the rooms prepared for her brothers and nephew, saw that the ewers were full of fresh water, clean towels on the racks, and sniffed the pleasant scent of lavender from the bed-linen.

  She descended to the drawing-room, where the tea table, an hour late in agreement with the arrival of the train, had just been arranged by the parlourmaid, Ellen. She had been with Augusta many years, and, having made up her mind, on the day after her arrival, that her mistress’s look of offence was directed at her, had acquired an apologetic, scuttling air with which she efficiently performed all her duties. Augusta, however, thought Ellen was an admirable servant, and was constantly singing her praises to friends.

  She looked doubtfully over the tea table. Would there be enough scones? Was one square of honey in the comb sufficient? She remembered Finch’s appetite, how she had always tried to put flesh on him and failed. Well, at any rate, there was plenty of bread and butter, and the fruitcake was unusually deep.

  She went to a window and looked across the spring greenness of the lawn and park to where she could see the road climbing upward from the village. Only one vehicle was in sight—the cart of Jim Johnson, the carrier, returning after one of his two weekly trips to Exhampton. She waited there a few minutes, but she could not be quiet for long. She was too restlessly awaiting the arrival. It would be so nice to see them. A week ago she had had all ready to receive them, when a telegram had come to say that they were remaining another seven days in London. It was so like Nicholas to have sent it at the last minute. He and Ernest had not been to visit her since her husband’s death. On that last visit they had quite tired out Sir Edwin by talking so much, and being so late to meals and disagreeing with him, as he said to her afterwards, on every subject he brought up. Well, he was safely at rest in the family vault now, and the years had made her brothers more amenable. As for Finch, he was now her favourite nephew. Eden had been once because of his charm, his good manners, his talents; but he was behaving altogether too badly. She loved Renny, but he had inherited several of Mamma’s most regrettable traits. Piers was a splendid young fellow, but sometimes surly and with quite rough manners caused, she supposed, by association with grooms and labourers. Wakefield was a darling and quite companionable for his years, but there was something about Finch that made her feel almost maternal.

  She began to be really annoyed at the lateness of the arrival of her relatives. She sat down by the table, however, and held herself together. The firelight (an unnecessary extravagance, for the afternoon was still warm) played over the folds of her black satin dress and maliciously accentuated a dark mole on her left cheek.

  A step sounded in the hall and a small spare woman appeared in the doorway. She was Mrs. Thomas Court, Augusta’s cousin by marriage. Her husband had been a son of old Adeline’s youngest brother. She had lived, since her marriage, in Ireland, but had remained in all aspects English, as Augusta was inherently English though brought up in Canada. She advanced into the room in a quick, jerky walk like a little wound-up figure. Her hair, dragged back from the forehead, vied with Augusta’s in purplish darkness. She had a complexion even more sallow, but she brightened it with two spots of rouge, and her dress, though ornate and oldfashioned, was sprightly. Her features were small, her light grey eyes intense, and the expression of her thin-lipped mouth one of unyielding conceit. Mingled with these qualities was a kind of jaunty good humour. She wore a black tailored suit, with a hairline stripe, the skirt of which reached her instep, just disclosing her rather heavy black boots that squeaked irritably as she walked. She walked straight to the window, with a side glance at the tea table.

  Outdoors a shadow had fallen.

  “Is it raining?” asked Augusta.

  “Just beginning to spot,” replied Mrs. Court, her eyes on the paved terrace.

  “I wish it would rain. The flowers need it.”

  “I hope it doesn’t. Dry weather agrees with me much better. It suits my ear.”

  “How is your ear?”

  “Going chug-chug, the same as ever.”

  Augusta deepened her contralto tones. “Dear me, how very aggravating!”

  Mrs. Court wheeled and stared at her. “Aggravating doesn’t express it at all; it’s maddening.”

  She advanced, with a businesslike air and squeaking boots, to the tea table. She pointed with a knuckly forefinger at the plate of scones. “Give me one of those and a cup of tea, and I’ll carry them to my room. Relations don’t want outsiders poking noses into their reunions.”

  “I haven’t rung for the tea yet. And your leaving us is quite unnecessary.”

  “Very well.” She sat down on an unyielding chair with buttoned-in upholstery. “But you’ll not be able to make so free with each other.”

  “There is no need to make free,” said Augusta, rather stiffly.

  Mrs. Court played a tattoo on the floor with her heels. “It makes me jumpy,” she explained, “to go so long without my tea.”

  Augusta regarded her with disapproval. “Where is Sarah?” she asked, in order to take her cousin’s mind off her stomach.

  Mrs. Court tattooed harder than ever. “Out in the rain. The girl’s mad. She quite likes to get wet. And when the sun is shining she’s as likely as not moping in the house. I call her Mole. My pet Mole.” She wagged her head, in recognition of her own wit.

  “She is a very sweet girl,” said Augusta, “mole or no mole. And I only hope she and Finch will make friends.”

  “No boy of twenty-one will ever give a second thought to her. She’s too quiet. Boys like romps. Sometimes I call her Mouse, my pet Mouse.”

  Augusta was listening to a sound outside. “Here is the car!” she cried, and hurried to meet them.

  Mrs. Court squeaked, with even more alacrity, to the bell-cord and gave it a tug.

  “Bring in the tea,” she said to the maid, “and we’d better have an extra pot.” She stood stock-still then, in the corner, watching the embraces of the family.

  Augusta turned to her at last. “Oh, you have rung for tea! Now you must come and speak to my brothers and nephew. Of course you remember Nicholas and Ernest.”

  They shook hands, recalling how the last time they had met had been in London during the Coronation ceremonies of King George.

  “Dear Edwin was alive then,” said Augusta,

  “Thomas was alive too,” said Mrs. Court, not to be outdone.

  They settled about the tea table, and Augusta noted how well her brothers looked, but she was a little disappointed in Finch’s appearance. He had the same half-starved look. It was rather hard to reflect that this lanky youth was the possessor of her mother’s fortune, when it would have graced so well Ernest’s courtly presence. Not a large fortune, but how important in a family of such restricted means! Yet, when Finch, sitting close beside her, on a chair too low for him, gave her one of his affectionate looks, her heart warmed towards him and she plied him with buttered scones. She could hardly believe she had him here. A young man. And it seemed only yesterday when he was in his cradle! Finch, with even greater wonder, stared about the room with its innumerable ornaments and framed photographs. On the walls hung watercolours of Scottish scenery painted by Sir Edwin. On the mantel was a photograph of him looking out of pale eyes, between thin whiskers. There was a photograph of Wake, in the starry-eyed beauty of five. There was one of Eden and Piers in white sailor suits, with a dog between them. On the piano, a large one of Renny on Landor, the year he had won the King’s Plate. Then there was a pretty one of Meg with Patience. And a still prettier one of Pheasant with Mooey. Everywhere he looked he saw photographs of Whiteoaks. Nicholas, Ernest, and Augusta in their young and middle-aged days. Gran, as a handsome woman of fifty, in evening dress. And what was that on the small table just beside him? Himself at w
ild-eyed thirteen! It had been taken just after his first day’s shooting, and he held the gun, in the picture, with a terrified look. No wonder he had looked terrified, for the very next week he had tripped with it, when out with Piers, and nearly sent a bullet through Piers’s back. He had got a licking for his stupidity, and the gun had been taken away from him. It was nothing short of an insult to be faced with that picture in the moment of his arrival.

  “I want you,” he whispered, “to burn that awful picture of me.”

  “But I like it, dear. It’s the only one I have of you.”

  “I’ll have one taken for you while I’m here.”

  She gave him more tea, and again he whispered:

  “I say, where’s the girl?”

  Augusta looked mysterious. “She’s like you; she’s devoted to Nature. She forgets all about her meals!”

  “That’s a lot like me!” And he helped himself to more honey.

  “I hope,” he added, “that she doesn’t look like her mother.”

  “Sh.”

  “But they’re talking to her, one in each ear. She couldn’t possibly hear me.”

  “That is her aunt by marriage. Sarah is an orphan and has been brought up by Mrs. Thomas. I must tell you about her father later.”

  A shower was now beating against the panes. As though coming directly out of it Sarah Court appeared in the doorway and came slowly toward the group about the tea table.

  What had Finch expected? An impetuous Irish girl, late for tea because she liked being out in the wet? A curly haired sprite, dancing in with rain-dappled cheeks? A sturdy matter-of-fact young person? Whatever he had vaguely expected, it was certainly not this.

  She came with a long slow gait, that imparted almost no motion to the upper part of the body. That part, held with an erectness unknown to the present generation, moved like the torso of a statue carried on a float. Her dark dress was open at the throat, but buttoned tightly down the front with the effect of an old-fashioned basque, having also the effect of that garment in a short continuation below the waist. Her skirt was too long for fashion, and was arranged at the back in a manner suggestive of a bustle. Her arms were held rigidly at her sides, her hands had an extraordinary pallor. This pallor was equalled in the profile turned toward Finch. Her black hair was brushed back from her high forehead in glossy smoothness, and worn in a heavy braided coil at the nape.