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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “I am thinking,” Eden said, “of the ecstasy that bluebell must feel in its colour—how it must push out each fibre into the soil to get more pigment for it—how it spreads its leaves ike hands to catch the sunrays, and, before it flowers, how it holds up its pale green bud like a mouth towards the rain. And all of this with just one idea—colour!”

  “And yet, after all those thoughts,” said Finch, “you have picked it!”

  “That is my way of reaching out to get colour for myself.”

  “Eden, you’re a queer sort of fellow.”

  “Yet I shouldn’t be surprised if I have more pure thoughts in the twenty-four hours than some of the people who complain that I am immoral.”

  “Just what do you mean by pure thoughts?”

  Eden rolled on to his back and let the sun shine on his face. “I mean thoughts of men and women as happy natural beings, making the most of every hour of their short stay here, like these flowers do or those birds overhead—satisfied that there shall be any number of varieties of their kind, not trying to force themselves to one dun colour or one self-righteous squeak.”

  Finch grunted acquiescence. “That’s just the way I feel,” he said. “Only I think you’re wrong when you say that Renny has no imagination. I think he has lots of imagination. Only he’s like a spirited horse and, I think, his imaginings rather startle him.”

  “Do you really? That’s interesting... By the way, how do he and Alayne get on?”

  Finch wished that Eden hadn’t asked that question. Discussing Alayne and Renny with him was too difficult. “They get on very well,” he answered hesitatingly—“that is, as far as I can tell.”

  “I can’t imagine their getting on. No Whiteoak that ever lived could satisfy Alayne’s ideal of what a husband should be. All those cold-blooded New England ancestors—with a few stolid Dutchmen thrown in—are too much alive in her to make it possible for her to understand us.”

  Finch felt suddenly frightened for Alayne. “But Renny’s not a bit like you!”

  “Yes he is! Only where I am weak he is strong, and where I am strong he’s as weak as water.”

  “I’ve never seen any signs of weakness in Renny!”

  “Have you seen any signs of strength in me?”

  Finch laughed, but did not answer.

  Eden went on—“Well, when you begin to look for the one you’ll perhaps stumble on the other.”

  “The only trouble I have noticed is that she doesn’t see enough of him. I think she often feels hurt because he spends so much time with his horses.” It was easier to discuss them with Eden than he had thought.

  Eden laughed. “She may thank her stars that he does. Let them remain distant acquaintances and passionate lovers and they may get on. Renny couldn’t be a companion to a woman of Alayne’s sort. She’s too exquisitely precise. She’s a very sweet-pea-ish kind of woman.”

  “I think that’s rather good,” Finch said. “There’s something delicate and alert and fragrant about her—rather like the sweet-pea, though I know you don’t intend it as a compliment.”

  “A woman shouldn’t be like any particular flower. It grows monotonous. She should be like a whole garden of flowers—indefinite, restful, drugging the senses, not stimulating them to irritation.”

  “Is that what Minny is like?” He reddened then at his 3wn boldness.

  “Minny is like a vegetable garden—nourishing, wholesome, a kind of roughage for the soul.”

  “She sings beautifully.”

  “Doesn’t she! I sometimes think when she is singing to me in the evening that, if only she would pass away as she sings, I could adore the memory of her forever!”

  Finch considered this remark in silence. He could not follow the swift, erratic changes of Eden’s mind, the mystery of his relations with women. He felt pity for any woman who loved Eden... Pity, too, for a woman who loved Renny... And was not there something in young Pheasant to stir one’s compassion? Perhaps then it amounted to this—that any woman who gave herself in love was to be pitied. What then of the woman who would perhaps one day love him? Would she move another heart to pity?

  He lay in the increasing warmth of the sun, his eyes gazing into the tangle of grass blades as into a forest. At that moment it had to him the impenetrability of a forest, above which leant the perfumed globes of the bluebells. His lips parted and he drew the sweet air into his mouth... A long sigh came from Eden. Was it of content or longing?

  The face of his cousin, Sarah Court, rose in his mind, fixed there as though in a trance. Dreamily he examined it, feature by feature... the high white forehead under the drawn-back hair; the eyes that repelled all warmth, yet held the light of some inner fire; the high-bridged, narrow-nostrilled nose; the mouth, small, secret, withdrawn between that nose and jutting chin; the full white throat developed like that of a singer.

  Hotly he wished that he were alone that he might meditate on that face, its potentialities, in this solitude. He turned his back on Eden and lay face downward, pressing against the tender growth of grass and flowers.

  Then, with hidden face, he experienced the sensation that had come to him at intervals for years. A form, mistlike, opaque, yet the shape of himself, drew out from his breast, and when its entire pale length had emerged, and it had sprung free of him, it floated near him, leaving him empty as a sighing shell, but with a strange feeling of power, as if he were at that moment capable of doing unimagined things. As it left his breast it drew all sense of the I away from him, and, at the same time, all weakness. The impersonal being that was left held an undirected, elemental strength. The strange feeling of power was there, but with no desire to exercise it.

  The sensation passed like a breath from a mirror, leaving him the reflection of his normal self. He found his mind still dwelling on the thought of Sarah Court. In a muffled voice he asked Eden if he had ever seen her.

  Eden answered drowsily that he had.

  Had he spoken to her?

  No. The old aunt saw to that. He was an outcast.

  Had he really seen her face?

  Yes.

  What did he think of her?

  Eden sat up, clasping his ankles. “Think of her? Why, I think that by the time she’s fifty her nose and chin will meet.”

  Finch remembered how the lamplight had glimmered on the point of her chin, turning it to porcelain, as she stood beside the piano. He remembered how she had held the violin a prisoner with it, seemed to dig it into the very wood of the violin.

  He said huskily—“She’d be a funny sort of girl to kiss, wouldn’t she?”

  “God, you’d never be able to tear yourself away from her!”

  “There’s something very beautiful about her too.” He turned over and faced Eden, half-shamefacedly.

  “Is there?” A troubled look came into Eden’s eyes. “I wish I might meet her. I have had nothing but glimpses of her passing the lodge. She’s always going off alone. Minny can’t bear the sight of her, yet she’s always routing me out of my chair to see her go by. She cries, in a stage whisper—’For Heaven’s sake, come. That old-fashioned creature is mincing past. What a dead-and-alive profile! What skirts!’And we peep between the curtains.”

  “If only you two were married, we might have some good times together. There’s a tennis court that could be made into quite a decent one.”

  Eden gave a grimace that made his handsome face grotesque. “No! I tried it once; it doesn’t suit me. Talk of prostituting one’s art—better that than smothering it in the marriage-bed... I was only twenty-three when I married Alayne. Perhaps when I’m thirty-five I’ll try it again. No man should marry before that... Don’t you do it, young Finch!”

  “This situation,” said Finch, “is very worrying to Aunt Augusta. Here you are, one might say, on her doorstep—”

  “Her very expression,” shouted Eden. “You’ve been talking me over.”

  “Well, that’s natural, isn’t it?” But he got very red. “Anyhow, there are you and Minn
y at the lodge, and Aunt can’t invite you to the Hall—she can’t even speak of you to her guests—”

  “Because we’re living in sin!” interrupted Eden. “Whereas, if we went to a registry office where some old gaffer, probably of the most disgusting habits, would say a few words over us and have us sign our names in a book she’d perhaps invite us to play tennis! No—we’ll play tennis on our own kitchen-table, with two spoons and a lump of sugar, and we’ll cry—’Love all and marry none!’But I’m damned if we’ll get married for the sake of an introduction to old Mrs. Court!”

  “I see,” said Finch. “But it would be nice, all the same, if you were married... Well, since this not being married is so good for your writing, I suppose you’ve done a lot of poetry this year.”

  Eden looked at him suspiciously. Was this youth making fun of him? But Finch looked serious, as few can look serious. His expression was indeed lugubrious. Eden answered, rather sulkily.

  “Not a great deal. I got some good material from the libraries in Paris for my poem of New France. But I believe my natural bent is toward lyrics. Eve had a good many published in magazines this year. Have you seen any of them?”

  “No, I scarcely ever see magazines. I’d like awfully well to hear them though.”

  “Very well. The first evening you are free come in and I’ll read some of them to you... Sometimes I think I’ll attempt a novel, but I don’t believe Ed succeed. There’s something in a poet turning novelist like a beggar turning highwayman.”

  He offered Finch a cigarette, and they smoked in silence for a space. The sun beat down on them hotly now, and from the hedge an unseen bird uttered a prolonged sweet, sweet, then broke into a gushing warble.

  Eden said—“As you know how hard up I am, there’s no need for me to tell you that I can’t pay you what I owe you yet. But when this long poem’s published—”

  “Look here, you’re not to bother about that! I’ve just been wondering if I couldn’t help you a little more.”

  Eden’s eyes, as they returned Finch’s gaze, had in them a look almost of sadness. The boy had such a kind of idiot-generosity in him, such inimitable silly kindness, that it almost hurt one!

  “That’s awfully good of you,” he said. “Perhaps you may. And would you mind telling me if you’ve been doing things for the others too?”

  It was difficult for Finch not to look proud as he replied— “Well, I brought the uncles over here, did everything quite decently. And I’m putting up a new piggery for Piers. And I bought a new motor car for the family. A Dodge, this year’s model. But Renny won’t get into it. And I’ve taken over the mortgage for Maurice and Meggie though, of course, that’s nothing, because they pay me a higher interest than I get anywhere else. Oh, yes, and I paid for a new iron fence for the plot in the graveyard. The old one was falling to pieces of rust.”

  Eden considered these various financial activities in silence while he calculated roughly what they would amount to. He said:

  “I hope you’re not going to overdo this fairy godfather business, or you may find yourself sitting on someone’s doorstep along with Minny and me.”

  Finch laughed. “No danger of that. I’ve changed Gran’s investments to much better ones. I had a frightful row with old Purvis over it. He was for refusing to let me take it out of the Government Bonds. They brought about four and a half per cent. Fancy! But George Fennel—he’s in a broker’s office you know—advised me to put a good deal into New York stocks. Purvis was awfully disagreeable until Renny wrote to him and said that I was to do just as I liked. Then he gave in.”

  “Hmph! I don’t believe Renny would care if you lost it— I shouldn’t be surprised if he were glad—if only it would bring you to heel. He’d rather support the entire family, till they drop like rotten plums from the tree, than have such a rival as you are now. He’s extravagantly paternal; yet here are you taking the whole family under your wing. Snatching his role from him. No wonder he won’t ride in the car you bought. He’d acknowledge himself as one of your pensioners. Old Redhead isn’t greedy for anything but to be chief of the clan. What else have you invested in?”

  “Nickel, and some Western stocks. And I lent ten thousand to that Miss Trent—Alayne’s friend, you know—at nine per cent. She insisted on paying an exorbitant interest. It really makes me feel uncomfortable. She’s in the antique business. Over here to buy things. She has a stock in New York, so there’s no risk. She crossed with us, and we saw something of her in London. She and Uncle Ernie were rather too thick to please Uncle Nick and me. We were quite worried about him.”

  Eden rose.

  “I think I’d like to go home,” he said. “This is too much for my little brain.” He yawned and stretched his white bare arms. “But it perceives one thing with awful clarity. You are going to sneak back to Jalna dead broke, world-weary, with nothing but the rags you stand in, and Renny is going to receive you with open arms. The returned Prodigal. It will be a return quite after his own heart.”

  “I suppose you’re remembering how good he was to you when you came back,” said Finch.

  2

  AFTERNOON

  That afternoon, when Augusta had carried off her brothers and Mrs. Court to pay a call at the Vicarage, Finch went into the drawing-room and sat down at the piano. His fingers ached to play, for he had not done so since the day on the boat. Soon after lunch Sarah had disappeared into the park carrying a book. The day was warm and there was a feeling of tranquillity on the countryside, now that the first passion of young growth was over. The trees, the fields, the flowers, the birds and beasts had given themselves up to the sustained bliss of their fruition with no thought of its evanescence.

  Finch had drawn aside one of the curtains just far enough to allow the sunlight to slant across the dimness of the room. He sat with his hands on the keyboard waiting for the moment to come when he must play. The black keys, he thought, were like black birds perched in a row on a marble balustrade. Soon he would scatter them into flight. They would be scattered, singing sweetly and mournfully.

  He played Moszkowski’s Habanera. He played with a dreamy joy. As he finished he was aware that someone had come into the room, but, instead of the irritation that he usually felt at an intrusion, he was glad of this new presence. He did not look round, but sat motionless while the harmony still lingered in the room. He was not surprised when his cousin’s voice came almost in a whisper from behind him.

  “May I come in and listen?” she asked.

  “Please do,” he answered, still without looking round.

  She came in and seated herself, her hands folded in her lap. She gave him a little smile, but after that fixed her eyes on the scene beyond the open window. He was able to study her face as he played.

  He had never seen a face so still, so repressed, yet with a strange eagerness. He could not decide where this eagerness was shown. Not in the eyes with their withdrawn look. Not in the small sweet mouth with its almost sucked-in appearance. It seemed to come from some luminosity within or from her attitude, the posture of her arms suggesting folded wings, aquiver for flight. Her expression did not change as he played piece after piece, but when he ceased she said:

  “Will you play with me one day?”

  She spoke with the simplicity of a child, and again he was conscious of the caressing sweetness of her voice. He thought there was a look half frightened in her eyes as she spoke, and he had a sudden sensuous desire to say something brutal to her to startle her into betraying herself. Instead, he said:

  “I should like to accompany you now, if you will let me.”

  She got up without a word and went to the window seat where her violin case lay. She bent over it, taking out the violin and dusting it with a piece of silk that lay in the case. Then she put it under her chin and began to tune it. She did this in a manner so aloof that Finch began to feel nervous, wondering if he could accompany her.

  “What shall we play?” he asked, turning over her music.

&nbs
p; “Anything you like.”

  He found something by Brahms that he knew, but at first the going was not easy. The rather frozen beauty of her playing seemed impossible to merge with the fluid grace of his. It was as though a frozen lake had said to a running stream— “Come, merge with me.”

  They almost gave up in despair. Then, suddenly in a waltz of Chopin, they achieved the flow, the union of spirit for which they had been striving. Something seemed loosed in her. A delicate flush came in her cheeks. Finch delighted in the sense of power this gave him. They played on and on, speaking only in hushed tones between the pieces. It was miraculous to him that there should be such a change in her playing, and he wondered if a corresponding change would lake place in her attitude toward him.

  But this was not so. As soon as the music was over she was as remote, as monosyllabic as before. When they heard the others returning, though, she whispered:

  “Do not tell them we played together.” As she said this her face wore the expression of mischievousness sometimes seen in the faces of women painted by medieval Italian artists.

  “And you will let me accompany you again?” he whispered back.

  She nodded, her lips folded close, her greenish eyes glittering. She was like a child, he thought, full of playful malice against elders who repressed her. He heard Mrs. Court holding forth on the tepidity of spirit displayed by the Vicar on the subject of Prayer Book Reform. “Upon my word,” she was declaring, “you might think, to hear him, that one Prayer Book is as good as another.” He heard Augusta suggesting that they play bridge that evening. Might not he and Sarah be alone for a while? He was going to ask her, but found himself saying instead:

  “I think Sarah is a beautiful name.”

  She raised her brows and repeated the name after him. He thought her way of saying it was delightful. “Sair-rah.” The syllables were like sweet stressed notes.

  He continued rapidly then—“I don’t believe you care for bridge. I hate it. Would you come out to the garden for a while?”

  “Perhaps.”