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

by Mazo de La Roche

Renny carried off the newspapers which he found next day in the sitting room to his office in the stables, and there sat poring over them with knitted brow. On the whole, he thought the notices of the concert were very good, though a strange jumble of adjectives was used to describe the boy’s playing. Well, the hall had been three-quarters filled, and the takings respectable, and that was a good thing.

  He lighted his pipe and leant back puffing at it. His mind revolved round his affairs, with Maurice’s subdividing of the property adjoining Jalna, as its pivot. That was what he could not forget, and that was what he seemingly could not prevent. For the thousandth time he pictured the appearance of the fields when jerry-built bungalows dotted them, when clotheslines hung from fence to fence, and mongrels and screaming children ran through his own woods, tearing up the flowers, tearing the beautiful bark from the birch trees, throwing stones at the birds. It gave him a gloomy pleasure to imagine the worst. If only Maurice had not had the land divided into small lots there would have been hope of a tolerable neighbour, but he had been set in his own way as offering him the best chance of a large profit.

  He could scarcely be angry with Maurice. He was having a rough time of it. With the help of a boy he was doing the work of the place, coming in at dark, tired out, and depressed with the sense of approaching failure. All that kept up his spirits was the hope of selling his lots.

  Well, if things kept on as they were, on a steady decline, it would not be long before he was in the same pass as Maurice, selling off Jalna in paltry lots until the house would stand like a leaky old battleship surrounded by the small craft of a summer resort… At the thought a voice from the house seemed to cry out to him to save it from such ignominy. Without knowing what he did he sprang from his chair, strode to the windows and looked with passionate and possessive pride at the red brick walls, hung with a rich tapestry of autumn-tinted Virginia creeper, at the chimneys from which woodsmoke from his own logs curled.

  A quiver passed over his face and it was with an effort that he turned it into a humorous grimace. His pipe had gone out. He relighted it and stood puffing steadily, for it was drawing badly, and he received from this simple act and the benign bulk of the house surrounded by trees a sense of direct comfort. Things would get better. They would get better. It could not go on like this. He pushed his hands into his pockets and his fingers closed on a penknife given him by his father when he was a boy.

  There was a tap on the door. It opened at almost the same moment and Piers came in. He extracted a large, perfectly shaped Macintosh Red from his pocket and laid it on Renny’s desk. He said:

  “There should be no complaint against the apples this year. Just look at that fellow! And there’s not such a crop as to glut the market.”

  They stood, in the stark bareness of the room, whose only distinguishing feature was the array of photographs and coloured lithographs of horses on the walls, staring at the apple whose glowing colour, satin skin, and spicy perfume made it the perfect symbol for the temptation of Eve.

  “The Northern Spies and greenings and russets and pippins,” went on Piers, “are just as good. I should have a first-rate profit from them if they’re handled properly. The shortage of packers is the trouble just now.”

  “What about selling the orchards as they stand?

  Piers pushed out his lips. “No. I can do better with them if I handle them myself. I guess I’ll have to engage a packer.”

  Renny looked at him speculatively.

  “I don’t suppose,” he said slowly, “that you would tolerate the thought of engaging Eden. All of us know something about packing apples.”

  A suffused look clouded Piers’s full eyes. “What do you take me for?” he growled. “Now I’ll tell you what. I’d rather let all the apples rot on the trees… I’d rather cut the trees down with my own hands…”

  “Keep your shirt on! I’m not going to ask you to do it. I only thought that he might work in one orchard while you were in another…”

  Piers spoke more quietly but with an intensity that was sufficient emphasis. “Jalna is not large enough for that swine and me.”

  “Well, well,” Renny spoke as though to a rearing horse, “I suppose I shouldn’t have suggested it. But he wants work so badly and out-of-door work is what he should have.”

  “Let him help Maurice then! Maurice is wearing himself out. I saw him this morning and he’s hobbling about with lumbago. He tells me that Eden is sitting on the verandah writing poetry, or reading up for his lectures.”

  “Eden is not fit to do ordinary farm work.”

  “He is looking a damned sight more fit than Maurice. And Maurice was never brought up to work. He’s always led an easy life.”

  “He has no weakness such as Eden has.”

  “What about his hand? He showed me this morning how the wrist is swollen. The leather bandage he wears has got too tight. He says that there are dozens of things Eden could do—if he would. He could look after the stock mornings and evenings, for instance. The boy doesn’t do it properly. He stuffs the beasts on hay till their bellies are fit to burst. And the horses are lying down resting when Maurice wants them for work. He won’t ask Eden to help—not if he drops down himself. For my part,” an almost hearty ring came into Piers’s voice, “I think it’s up to you to tell Eden what a sponge he is.”

  Renny picked up the apple, sniffed it, and laid it down again.

  He said—“I’ll go over and have a talk with him.”

  “Well, if you do, don’t let him persuade you that he isn’t strong enough to work. Maurice says he eats twice what he does.”

  “God!” exclaimed Renny. “He grudges him what he eats, eh?” He spoke with bitter chagrin and turned about in the narrow room with the restive movements of a wild animal made captive. He said:

  “I won’t stand this! I’ll insist on paying Maurice for his board.”

  Piers, in his turn, spoke soothingly. “No, no, don’t do that! Maurice would be frightfully cut up. All you have to do is to make Eden see things as they are. I suppose he goes about with his head in the clouds.”

  “Maurice made a mistake,” said Renny, “in trying to work his farmlands himself. He had a good tenant in Kyle.”

  “If you call a tenant good who can’t pay his rent. You don’t want that sort yourself.”

  “Where has Kyle gone?”

  “Into the city. Got a job in a warehouse.”

  “Poor devil!”

  Renny sat down in front of his desk. He touched his newspapers with the stem of his pipe. “Finch didn’t do so badly, eh? They’ve given him good notices.”

  “He’s all right. Got a good head on his shoulders, too. You’ll see, he’ll marry Sarah.”

  A quick step sounded on the floor of the passage. Without a warning knock the door was thrown open and Wakefield appeared in an old jersey and baggy trousers, as was his habit on Saturday mornings. He wore an expression of being worked up to the point of making a breathtaking statement, and, when he saw that Piers was in the office, he exhaled, in a gasp of disappointment.

  His brothers regarded him with amused smiles.

  “You seem pressed for time,” said Piers.

  “Perhaps he’s come to apply for a job,” Renny said, grinning.

  Wakefield gave an excited laugh.

  “That’s just what I have come for!” he exclaimed.

  His elders looked at him tolerantly. What foolery had the youngster in his mind?

  “That is exactly what I have come for,” he repeated.

  “I may as well say it in front of you—since you’re here, Piers. Though I had intended talking it over quietly with Renny first.” He took out a ball of a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

  “Sorry to be in the way,” said Piers.

  “No, no. It’s all right. It concerns you. So you had better be here.”

  “What have you been up to?” asked Renny with a frown.

  Wakefield thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He s
aid defiantly:

  “Nothing… But I want to go to work!”

  “What do you mean, go to work?” demanded Renny.

  “I want to leave school and work with you fellows at Jalna.”

  They stared at him disbelievingly.

  “I’m in dead earnest, I tell you! I was never so much in earnest in my life before. I want a job. I will work for either or both of you, and you’ll see that I can do as good a day’s work as any man.”

  As any man! They looked at his slender neck and wrists, the delicate modelling of his face, and grinned.

  Renny said—“I can’t let you leave school, Wake. In the first place, you must have an education. In the second, you’re not strong enough. You might strain your heart.”

  Wakefield answered passionately:

  “As for education—I say to hell with it! Can you tell me what good your education has done you? Can either of you remember the things you swotted over for exams?”

  “Of course we can,” answered Renny.

  “Then why are you always stuck when I ask you to help me out?”

  “When I said we remembered things, I didn’t mean it in an exact sense. I meant that study broadens the mind and teaches you to think.”

  “Come now, Renny, be honest! Has your education helped you in the stables?” He turned to Piers. “Would a University education have helped you on the farm?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “Then look at Finch! What would have become of his music if he had been studying for exams?”

  Renny answered—“You have no special talent like Finch. But you’re clever, and I’ve always promised myself that I’d put you through ‘Varsity. By that time things will be better.”

  Wakefield fixed his brilliant eyes on Renny’s face. He said:

  “Once you asked me, Renny, whether I wanted to be like Eden and Finch—go in for art, and all that—or be an outdoor man like you and Piers. Now I can answer you. I want to be like you and Piers. I want to work for you. And if you won’t let me—if you force me to go to school—I’ll run away and find work somewhere else!”

  “Look here,” said Renny quietly, “stick it out till next spring, when you’ll matriculate. Then I’ll see what can be done.”

  “But I don’t want to matriculate! I don’t want to be wasting my life. I have—things I want to do.”

  Piers said to Renny—“It would cut down your expenses considerably.”

  “Of course it would!” cried Wakefield. “I’m a frightful expense. I feel mean every time I ask for half a dollar—”

  “Oh, come, come, come!” interrupted Renny, flushing red.

  Wakefield answered—“It’s not your fault that I feel that way, Renny. You’re too generous, that’s your only fault! But I know how tight money is. I can see that on every hand. All I ask is for you to let me be a man and to cease being a burden on you.”

  Cease being a burden on him? Renny gave an abrupt laugh and threw his arm about the boy’s shoulders. “You’re a little fool,” he said.

  “At the same time,” said Piers, “there’s a good deal of sense in what he says. Now this is my suggestion. Let him cut out school for a year. Let him work, seeing that he wants to. He can do a bit of reading at home. He’ll gain a lot of physical strength—perhaps be stronger for the rest of his life because of it. Then, if he’s tired of work and wants to go to his books, he can.”

  Renny was weakening. Wakefield saw it and his face lighted.

  “I think that’s a very good suggestion,” he said. “Just give me a year—on trial! If I don’t do a man’s work you can fire me, and I’ll go back to school.”

  “The question is,” said Renny, looking at Piers, “will you overwork him?”

  “No. I know what he’s capable of. And I’ll pay him what he’s worth to me. You can do the same when he works for you.”

  “Why, yes,” exclaimed Wake excitedly. “You can let one of your men go! We could get along quite well.”

  “His strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure,” said Renny, and he smiled grimly to cover his tenderness.

  He and Wakefield were alone now. He had sat down at his desk and he looked up rather shyly at the boy.

  “Is it Pauline?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yes—it’s Pauline.”

  “I thought so.” He picked up a pen, dipped it in the ink and made a pretence of jotting down some memoranda. He was thinking: “What ought I to do? With a word I might break up all this and send him back to school. But how can I bring myself to do it? To tell him that she loves me… it would be enough to make him hate me… the man he has looked on as a father… and old enough to be her father…”

  Wakefield stood by the door looking down on Renny’s bent head. Renny appeared to him invulnerable, cast in an invincible mould. Nevertheless, tender-hearted toward him. He said, with a tremor in his voice:

  “I ought to be frank with you, Renny. If I’m not, you’ll not realise how desperately in earnest I am… She has not said she loves me, and I don’t feel that I have any right to press her to say so. But, in these last weeks she has changed. There’s a seriousness about her, and she has the gentlest way of looking at me. She likes to be with me, and she’s even said that she’s happier alone with me than at any other time. That’s something to go on, eh?”

  “A good deal, I should say.”

  “Renny, do you think that that mother of hers is kind to her?”

  Renny raised his head with a jerk. “I think she’s tremendously kind.”

  “Well, I am glad of that because sometimes I’ve doubted it. Pauline speaks of her in an odd sort of way, as if her mother had hurt her. Then again she’ll say—‘Oh, Mummy is so good to me!’ As though she forced herself to acknowledge it.”

  “You may take it from me that Mummy is good to her.”

  There was a short silence in which the stamping of hooves and the jangle of harness could be heard, then Renny said:

  “It is a serious thing you’re proposing, Wake. You’re proposing to dedicate yourself to a girl who may have quite different ideas for her future in her head.”

  Wakefield answered eagerly—“But our ideas are the same on almost every subject. I’ve purposely brought up different test questions, and it’s amazing how our ideas fit in.”

  “But don’t you think you could offer her more if you went in for a profession?”

  “There you’re wrong!” cried Wakefield. “Pauline hates city life. She’d pine away without her foxes and her fields. She is far more suited to the life we lead than—well, Alayne, for instance.”

  Renny got to his feet, and the spaniels who had been waiting outside the door for him, began to scratch on it and whine. He said:

  “Very well. Take your year. But remember, you must do some reading when you have the time. And remember, too, that you’re only seventeen and that there are a good many girls in the world.”

  “But only one for me!” He gripped Renny’s arm. “Look here, you won’t let anyone know about Pauline, will you?”

  “Not a soul.”

  There was strong opposition from the older members of the family when that evening they were told that Wakefield was leaving school for a year. There was all the more opposition as there had been no conclave to discuss the proposal. Renny announced his decision in a matter-of-fact tone, just as Augusta, Nicholas, Ernest, and Piers were settling down to a game of cards. Alayne was buried in a book of essays and Pheasant had Mooey on her knee, reading him the story of Bluebeard. Wake was at the fox farm, and Finch had gone into town to consult his agent about the proposed tour. The parrot Boney was sitting muffled on his perch. The lamps were lit. It was the first cold evening and the crackling fire was agreeable, as was that sense of shut-in-ness, even imper-viousness, which the Whiteoaks had the power of creating, as though by the united beating of their hearts they built a wall around them.

  Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest laid down their cards with one accord: Piers, on the
other hand, examined those he held with apparent concentration.

  “It is nothing short of ridiculous,” boomed Augusta, “for that child to be allowed to say whether or no he will go to University.”

  “Egad! It’s not the way we were brought up,” said Nicholas.

  “Mamma,” declared Ernest, “would have taken a stick to one of us if we had ventured such a proposal. A whelp like you!’ she would have shouted, and, as like as not, drawn blood from us. And serve us right!”

  At his words a vision of the old woman came to them as they sat close together in the room where, for seventy-five years, she had played cards, supped tea, gossiped, wrangled, and domineered over her descendants. They saw her, in her beribboned cap, her purple velvet tea gown, her shapely old hands flashing with rings, her teeth prominent in a grin or getting out of her control and being noisily sucked back into position, her eyes bright with the desire to draw the full savour from life. And, as though their vision of her had produced the sound of her harsh old voice in Boney’s ears, he reared himself on his perch, flapped his wings and screamed:

  “Shaitan! Shaitan ka batka! Chore! Chore!”

  As his wings sank to his sides, feathers fell from beneath them and settled slowly to the floor.

  “It beats all,” said Nicholas, “how he understands. He knew we were talking of her—”

  “And it made him swear,” added Piers, throwing down his cards. “Now, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you’re quite wrong about Gran’s attitude toward Wake’s leaving school. I think she’d look on it as a good idea to let him develop physically, and not rush him through ‘Varsity.”

  Alayne spoke for the first time. “Wakefield never grew out of his delicacy until he went to school,” she said, in her cool voice.

  “And—mark my words,” said Nicholas, “if he leaves it for a year he’ll never go back. That’s just what you did, Piers.”

  “Have I ever regretted it?” asked Piers.

  “That’s quite beside the mark. You are an outdoor fellow. Wakefield would repay a classical education. I have had dreams of sending him to Oxford, though that seems hopeless now.”