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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Rags had been an interested listener to the conversation. He was cognisant of every slightest change of inflection or expression. He now said, in his nasal voice:

  “I hope you’ll pardon me speaking, Madam. But I ’ad just arrived at Jalnar at that time. And it was always my opinion that the little boy might ‘ave pined away an’ died if ’e ’adn’t got the attentions ’e did from ’is Grandmother. Coming right after the sights I’d seen in the War, madam, I thought it was the prettiest picture I’d ever be’eld.”

  Alayne regarded him with icy disapproval. But Renny grinned up at him showing every tooth, resembling his grandmother to a degree very irritating to Alayne, though in this he was blameless.

  Piers said—“Well, of course, there would be one advantage in having the kid take his meals with us. As it is, the kitchenmaid has either to look after him just when she’s needed in the kitchen, or he has to be down there during mealtime.”

  “And always the dynger of getting scalded!” put in Rags.

  Alayne looked into the marmalade jar. “Please take this to the kitchen and have it filled,” she said sternly. “It’s been put on the table almost empty, and you can see what the edge is like.”

  Rags gave her an astonished look as he took the jar, as though he would say—“Well, who comes ’ere ordering me abaht!”

  Since her return to Jalna as mistress Alayne had been diffident about giving orders to him. It was easy enough to give orders to the cook or the kitchenmaid. They were respectful and friendly. But she felt a cold antagonism in Rags, a resentment, and a desire to thwart her at every turn. He was aware, she felt sure, of her dislike of his intruding into the conversation of the family, and consequently he intruded the more often. He was aware that she was sensitive to draughts, and it seemed to her that there was one in every room. In old Adeline’s time she had felt stifled often for lack of air, but it seemed not to matter to the Whiteoaks whether the air they breathed was vitiated or a veritable whirlwind. Sometimes the presence of the little Cockney in the house was almost more than she could bear.

  When he had gone she said:

  “I think Bessie can easily be spared at mealtime to look after Mooey. She gets the vegetables ready for cook, brings in the fuel, and, after Pheasant goes to him, Bessie is ready to wash up. I can’t see that she is needed in the kitchen at mealtime.”

  “That’s quite beside the point,” said Renny. “It’s the servants’ business to get their work done whether or no. I was talking about the look of the table. Too damned lonely.”

  Wakefield, responsive to Renny’s mood, exclaimed:

  “I think the table looks awfully lonely!”

  “Well,” said Alayne, “I think you’re the most sentimental people I’ve ever known. For my part I think we could be very cosy, if only you would take the leaves out, as I suggested, Renny, and make the table smaller.” She had longed to speak sharply to Wakefield, but had managed to restrain herself.

  A chill breeze from the shady side of the house blew in on her off the wet lawn. Without a word she rose and went to the window and tried to close it. It was swollen by the damp and she could not move it. For an instant Renny watched her struggles, then he sprang up and came to her side.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted the window shut?” he asked, bringing it down with a bang.

  She gave a little shrug and returned to her chair. Piers and Pheasant exchanged a look. Wakefield saw the look and stared inquisitively at Alayne.

  Piers said—“Where is the marmalade? It was here a moment ago.”

  “I gave the jar to Wragge to have it filled,” said Alayne. Piers could not have failed to see her do it. He was doing his part to irritate her evidently.

  Piers looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I must be off. I can’t wait for it.”

  “Oh, don’t go without your marmalade, Piers!” said Pheasant, holding him by the sleeve. “You’re so fond of it. Do ring the bell, Wake, and hurry Rags along!”

  Wakefield ran to the bell-cord and pulled it violently. It was seldom used now, and had become frayed and unable to bear strain. At the second tug it broke in his hand.

  “Now, there,” exclaimed Renny, “what are you trying to do?”

  “There was no need to be so rough,” said Pheasant. “Alayne, I do wish you had not sent the marmalade pot away before Piers had got some. There was plenty in it for him.”

  “Go to the top of the stairs and shout to Rags,” said Piers.

  Wakefield, waving the end of bell-cord, ran to the stairs, crying—“Rags! Hurry up!” Before he returned to the table, he ran twice round it waving the cord.

  “Sit down!” growled the master of Jalna, and he gave an apologetic grin towards Alayne’s end of the table. His eyes avoided hers.

  Wragge came panting into the room.

  “Where is the marmalade?” demanded Pheasant.

  Wragge looked injured.

  “W’y, I was just fetching it, I’m, when first came the ring of the bell, and right on top of that a shout. It gave me such a turn that I dropped it. I thought there must be something hurgent, ’m.”

  “It is urgent. Did you break the jar?”

  “Well, ’m, I ’ope not. I know I was a bit long, but Mrs. W’iteoak”—he made a bow, half cringing, half impudent, to Alayne—“she complained of the way the jar was washed, so I ’ad to find Mrs. Wragge to get ’er to wash it—the maid being upstairs minding the little boy, ’m—and I was just fetching it when the ring and the shout came.”

  “Please bring some more, and hurry. Mr. Piers is waiting.”

  Alayne sat silent, sipping her tea, trying to control her irritation, to conceal her hatred of the little Cockney. She said to herself—“It is nothing. I must not be easily upset. This is my life.”... A mental picture was presented to her of breakfast at her father’s table. The little embroidered mats on the round polished table, the slender silver vase holding perhaps three roses, the fragile china, the grapefruit, loosened from its rind, sweetened and decorated with Maraschino cherries by her mother the night before, the delicious coffee. Her father reading an editorial from the New York Times in his slow, precise New England voice. Her mother exquisitely neat, with her special digestive bread and her dish of stewed figs before her. Before she was aware of it her eyes filled with tears.

  Her thoughts were broken by the sound of Mooey’s voice at the door. Wragge was standing in the hall with the little boy on his sloping shoulder.

  “Oh, what a nish brekkus!” Mooey was saying. “Hello, Mummy! I’ve got a nish ’orsie to wide!”

  Pheasant cried—“Hello, darling!” Then—“Why did you bring him down, Rags?” But she was obviously pleased.

  Wragge answered—“? was crying’ ’is little eyes out, ’m, being left alone by Bessie for a bit while she went to answer the door, I being in the kitchen at the time, along o’ the marmalade jar.”

  “He deserves a licking for crying for that,” observed Piers, eating marmalade as though it were a delicacy he had never tasted before.

  “Don’t be such a harsh parent, Father,” said Pheasant.

  “Don’t Father me!”

  Pheasant continued—“But it is rather inconvenient taking Bessie from the kitchen to mind him when he’d be quite all right here, isn’t it?” She cast a propitiatory glance at Alayne.

  Wakefield exclaimed, through a mouthful of toast—“Come to your old uncle, Mooey!”

  “I want to go to Unca Renny,” said Mooey, holding out his arms.

  Wragge sidled into the room with the child. Renny took him on his knee.

  It was a small thing, thought Alayne, but it showed their attitude toward her. They had all known that she did not want the child brought to the table, but his presence was to be inflicted on her nevertheless. The presence of such a young child was an affliction, she persisted in her mind. There would be still less possibility of sensible conversation now. Not that the conversation at Jalna was ever intellectually stimulating to her. But now she
foresaw that the cleverness or naughtiness of a baby would be its centre. Renny was already looking pleased, feeding the child from his plate, Wragge beaming down at them.

  It seemed that they would never finish breakfast. Piers had forgotten his haste. Pheasant was leaning forward gazing at her child. Alayne noticed a long “runner” on the shoulder of her knitted jumper. Wakefield’s hair looked as though it had not been brushed that morning. He was saying in a whining voice:

  “I aren’t very well this morning. I don’t think I should go to lessons.”

  “You’re perfectly well,” returned his elder brother. “Get along with you! It’s nine o’clock.”

  Alayne rose from the table. “I think you will have to excuse me,” she said. “I must see Cook at once about the dinner.”

  Renny half rose, still holding the child. He caught her dress as she passed and drew her to him. She went rigidly like an offended little girl. The moment he touched her, dignity seemed to fall from her. Her intellectual clarity made her aware of this and, while she despised herself for her weakness, her resentment toward him increased. He held up his face to be kissed, his lips pouted, the darkness of his eyes deepened. She was in no mood to kiss him, still less in the presence of the family. She shook her head, compressing her lips.

  His eyebrows went up. He formed with his lips—“What’s the matter with you?”

  “Kiss him! Kiss him!” cried Mooey, tugging at her.

  Alayne kissed him instead. He had left a sticky mark on her sleeve where he clutched her.

  “Don’t mind us!” cried Pheasant gaily. “I’ve never seen you two kiss and I’d love to.”

  “Our form improves as the day wears on,” returned Renny.

  Alayne was offended and she did not trouble to hide it. Yet, as she descended the stairs to the basement, she had the feeling of having been priggish.

  Mrs. Wragge usually came upstairs for her orders. She greatly preferred to do this, for, as she put it to her husband: “I don’t want none of the ladies nosin’ about in my kitchen. Miss Meggie, she stayed out of it. Mrs. Piers, she stays out of it. Now let Mrs. Renny stop out of it!”

  Consequently Alayne received a very glum greeting from her when she appeared in the kitchen.

  Looking Mrs. Wragge in the eyes, she asked—“Is anything wrong, Cook?”

  Mrs. Wragge, rather taken aback by this quick pouncing on her unusual aspect, said:

  “I ain’t just myself this morning along o’ my innards. I come over sick in the night. I should be in me bed, but I wouldn’t ast for the time off, not with Bessie spendin’ hours upstairs mindin’ the baby and me ‘usband smashin’marmalade jars on me clean floor.”

  “It was ridiculous,” said Alayne, conscious that Wragge was within hearing, “for him to drop the jar just because the bell rang.”

  “Oh, Alfred’s a bundle o’ nerves, ’e is, along o’ shell shock and worry over the way me innards took on last night.” She folded her stout arms on her heaving bosom and regarded Alayne with something approaching defiance. “An’ were you wantin’ anything special down ’ere this morning, ’m?”

  “I thought I would just have a look about the pantries. And I want to see how much canned fruit and jam is left, so we shall know how much to put up this year.”

  “There ain’t none left,” said Mrs. Wragge, following her into the larder, “nor ’asn’t been for months. I could ’ave done down a lot more than I did, but there weren’t no bottles to put it in.”

  “Then, why ever didn’t you say so?”

  “I did, ’m. I ast Mr. W’iteoak for more before he set out for England to ’is weddin’, but ’e said that things were too easy broke in this ’ouse and that if there wasn’t jam pots enough we must do with less jam.”

  Alayne felt that this remark was thrown at her with the intention of intimidating her. She felt that the three servants were aware that she was not used to dealing with servants and that therefore they intended to impose on her. She had, up to this moment, liked Mrs. Wragge, had thought her quite superior to her jaunty little husband, but now she began to dislike her. Holding her head high she preceded the cook into the larder and began to investigate conditions there with a rather quaking spirit.

  First of all was the smell. She did not like the smell at all.

  “I don’t see what it can be, ’m,” declared Mrs. Wragge sniffing. “There ain’t nothing ’ere to smell. Bessie scrubs it out on ’er ’ands and knees every day of ’er life.”

  “What is in this crock?” asked Alayne, lifting its lid. It was half full of biscuits and small cakes tossed in together. She picked up a biscuit. It was as limp as a bit of flannel. “Don’t you know,” she said severely, “that biscuits should not be put in with cakes? After this, keep them quite separate.”

  She saw butter on three different dishes, all uncovered. She saw a large bowl which had held preserves and now was empty but unwashed, with a lining of green mould, across which a spider scuttled. She saw a cheese half-finished while a fresh one was cut into. She saw milk and cream at every stage from that morning’s to wrinkled sourness. Lifting a heavy silver dish-cover she discovered a roast of meat that was unquestionably the cause of the smell. For all these things she reproved Mrs. Wragge. When she discovered an old Staffordshire bowl filled with leftover beetroot, her reproof was inflamed to denunciation of such practices.

  From the larder she went to the china-closet and pointed out that the china was not properly washed. Instead of a glittering and pure surface, it showed a dull one; it was not smooth to the touch.

  “Well, ’m,” declared Mrs. Wragge desperately, “they’re washed every blessed time in strong suds.”

  “I smell it on them,” said Alayne. “They are not half-rinsed.” Mentally she recalled the stark immaculateness of the china-closet in the house of her aunts, on the Hudson.

  She went to the kitchen and drew Mrs. Wragge’s attention to the blackened condition of the saucepans. She drew her attention to the fact that the glazing on every one of the platters in the big platter-rack was cracked from overheating.

  Bessie was in the scullery plucking fowls. Their feathers whitened the floor like snow. They were even in her thick black hair and sticking to her plump neck. She was a pretty girl with a turned-up nose and full red lips. She got to her feet when Alayne appeared, looking rather frightened. She held the fowl by one leg, its ghastly beak touching the floor. Its fellows, already plucked, lay on the table beside her.

  “Don’t you think, Bessie,” said Alayne pleasantly, “that it would be better if you were to have a box to put the plumage in?”

  Bessie did not know what plumage was and she looked still more frightened.

  Alayne remained a little longer trying to talk cheerfully and arranging with Mrs. Wragge to have a tour of inspection of the basement once every week. Next time, she thought, it would be much easier. Then she would penetrate into the mysterious bricked passage that led to the wine cellar. She longed to see the place in perfect order. It would help to fill in the time to keep it so, for time often hung heavy on her hands. On the way to the stairs she passed a dishevelled bedroom and had a glimpse of Wragge making the bed, a cigarette in his mouth.

  She felt tired but not ill-pleased with herself as she went to her bedroom. She would show these servants that she was not a figurehead. She would show Piers and Pheasant that she was as much mistress of Jalna as Renny was master. She would show Renny...

  She was astonished to find Mooey in her room. He was standing in front of her dressing table, and he had a tin of talcum powder in his hand. She saw that he was sprinkling all her toilet articles with the powder, that he had already whitened his hair, and that the rug and chairs showed what could be done with a single tin of talcum.

  She was tired and irritated or she would not have been so sharp with him. “Oh, you naughty boy!” she said, giving him a shake, “don’t ever dare come into my room again!”

  He looked up at her, tears springing to his eyes. He made
his mouth square and uttered a howl of woe. She hustled him to the door and pushed him into the passage. As she turned back she saw that old Benny was lying in the middle of her new mauve silk bedspread. He was curled up tightly, with one hazel eye rolled toward her, with an air that intimated that it would take more than her disapproval to budge him from this new-found nest.

  It was perhaps the first time in Alayne’s life that she had experienced the violence of primitive rage. She knew that he had fleas, for she often saw him scratching himself. And after last night’s rain his paws were certain to be muddy. She snatched up a slipper and struck him sharply with the heel of it, first on the head, then on the stern. The effect of retribution on Mooey was as nothing compared to its effect on Ben. He screamed as though all the bad dreams he had ever had were come true. He jumped from the bed, leaving a dark moist imprint of himself, but instead of running out of the room he took refuge under the bed. From there, on hands and knees, she was obliged to dislodge him with the slipper. By now she was almost beside herself. She followed him to the door and threw the slipper after him. He bounded down the passage yelping hysterically. Mooey was still wailing. Pheasant appeared at the door of her room with him in her arms.

  “Why, Alayne, Mooey says you hit him! Whatever had he done?” Pheasant looked very much the offended mother.

  “He threw powder all over my room,” answered Alayne hotly. “Really, Pheasant, he must not be allowed to go in there by himself. He’s too mischievous.”

  “Was that all?” said Pheasant coldly.

  Renny came up the stairs with Benny mourning at his heels. “What have you been doing to poor old Ben? I’ve never heard him make such a row.” When he saw Alayne’s lace he burst into loud laughter. She had got the talcum on her hands, then on her nose and chin. Her hair, for once, was ruffled.