“You’d better lie down at once,” he said, “and I’ll cover you up.”
But Ernest detached himself and, going to the radiator, put his hand on it. He said complainingly:
“It’s almost cold. There has been little or no fire all day.”
Renny’s face shadowed. He said—“You’ll be warm enough when you’re under the eiderdown.” Rather brusquely he led him to the bed and covered him up.
When he had closed the door behind him he stood motionless outside it listening. He wondered whether Alayne were in her room or above in the nursery. As he hesitated he saw Pheasant cross the passage and enter her room. For a moment her figure was darkly silhouetted against a window. She had raised her hands to touch her hair and he perceived that she was with child. A swift emotion made his heart swell—pride that another Whiteoak was on the way and, mingled with the pride, a kind of anger at the intruding of this new life when Eden’s was passing away.
Pheasant disappeared into the room. He went toward the door and asked:
“Where is Alayne?”
She came and looked out at him, her eyes dark and wistful in her pale face.
“She’s upstairs giving Adeline her tea. You’d better not go up. Alayne has trouble enough in getting her to eat properly.”
He stood for a moment rebuffed. Then he said—“I must see her.”
“Well, then, I’ll go up and stay with Adeline.”
She looked tired, he thought. Almost ill.
“What nonsense,” he said, and sprang up the stairs.
The door of the nursery was shut but his step had been heard, and Mooey flung it open, delighted with this unexpected diversion. He was eating an apple and, with a mouthful distending his cheek, he exclaimed:
“Hullo, Uncle Renny!”
His small brother, slavish imitator in all he did, came running too.
“Hullo, Uncle Wenny!” he cried.
Adeline alone remained at the children’s table. She had been perversely refusing to eat and Alayne had been painstakingly explaining to her that, when she had finished her milk, she would see the pretty picture on the bottom of her mug. Bits of bread were scattered on the floor about her and, when she had the chance, she thrust other bits into the proffered milk.
“Swing me up, please,” shouted Mooey.
“Me too, me too,” clamoured Nooky.
Little Adeline, seeing her father, kicked her heels on her high chair in joy and, snatching the mug from her mother’s hand, began greedily to drink the milk. Her eyes beamed at Renny over the rim of the mug.
“How jolly you all look here,” he said, taking up Nooky.
Alayne gave a faint smile. “I have been sitting here an hour trying to induce her to eat her tea.”
Adeline set down the empty mug. Milk and crumbs trickled down her chin. She was enraged by the sight of Nooky in her father’s arms. To show it she began to throw the cutlery to the floor. Alayne caught her hands and held them.
“She wants you to put Nooky down,” explained Mooey.
Renny set him down.
Adeline showed a double row of pearls and held out her arms. “Up, up, Dadda!”
Renny snatched her up and pressed his cheek against her damask one.
“Could you come downstairs?” he asked. “I want to talk to you.”
“I suppose so,” she said doubtfully, “but we’ll have to take Baby too. Alma is having her tea in the kitchen.”
The three descended the stairs followed by the two little boys. Alayne closed her door before Mooey and Nooky had time to enter.
She could hear Pheasant intercept them in the passage, driving them back up the stairs with mingled threats and promises. “Children, you shall each have a chocolate bar if you’ll go back upstairs and be good till Alma comes. Mooey, if you climb on the banister, I’ll tell Daddy! Nooky dear, don’t lick the wallpaper! Take his hand, Mooey… If I have to go up after you, my lads, you’ll be sorry!”
Renny set his daughter on her feet. Like a small automaton she started off immediately toward the cupboard. She flung open the door, took out a hot-water bottle and returned with it to him.
“For you,” she lisped with an ingratiating smile.
Alayne wrenched it from her. “Did you ever see such a child!” she exclaimed. “She’s into mischief the instant she’s put down.” She took a sponge and wet it in the ewer. “I must wipe her face and hands before we talk. Really, it’s hopeless teaching her to eat properly.”
Adeline turned up a rosy face resignedly puckered against the sponge. Renny watched mother and child, feeling suddenly tired in body and mind. The shock, the grief he had undergone, assumed an unreal aspect. He wished he had gone away by himself for a while. He felt unequal to telling Alayne of what had happened. He dreaded her reception of the news. He had a mind not to tell her but to leave her to hear it from the old people.
She had finished washing the child and said:
“Now, go and show your clean hands.”
Adeline marched up to him, holding out two moist pink palms.
“Yes,” he approved. “Nice and clean.”
For the first time since he had come in Alayne looked at him consciously. Something in his voice had penetrated her irritability.
“What is wrong?” she asked quickly
He frowned but did not answer.
“Renny!” She came to him and put her hand on his arm.
Adeline, sensitive to a situation beyond her understanding, stood motionless staring up at them.
“I can’t tell you,” he muttered, and turned away.
“Renny, you must tell me. You’re frightening me.” She had turned pale. She looked at him pleadingly
“No, no. Someone else had better tell you. I can’t.” He stood rigid, his fount of tenderness sterile. He looked at her as a man might look at a woman who superficially resembled a woman he had loved.
“You are being very cruel,” she said. Her pride forced her to withdraw her hand from him. She was deeply hurt.
“I can’t tell you,” he repeated. “You must ask the others.”
“Very well. I shall.” She turned in one of her swift graceful movements and went from the room.
He listened to the sound of her steps descending the stair. When he heard the door of the drawing-room open and close behind her, he went into the passage and stood listening but he could distinguish no voices. He could hear nothing but Jock’s elbow knocking on the floor as he scratched himself beside the stove in the hall below.
Little Adeline had followed him and now clasped her arms about one of his legs, which appeared to her as a towering pillar. And so they stood thus united.
XVI
THE FESTIVE SEASON
RENNY, followed by his spaniels, Piers’s terrier, and Jock, the sheepdog, was prowling through the snowy winter woods in search of a Christmas tree. Among the bare-limbed oaks and maples the vigorous green of the young spruces invited him. They thrust out their boughs, tier upon tier, their central peaks seeming designed to support a gilded star. The snow lay feathery on them and still fell in a sunlit mist. The sun, silver and rayless, showed himself less grand this morning, but gently cognisant of the earth’s approach.
Renny desired a specially fine tree this Christmas, for little Adeline was now old enough to appreciate it. He had another reason too, perhaps rather a glimmering instinct in the troubled depths of his mind than a definite thought. The finer the tree the more freely might the spirit of Christmas radiate from it. He would choose a tree with boughs to hold a hundred candles.
The dogs hurried here and there snuffing and scratching at the snow-hidden burrows of rabbit and groundhog, the spaniels leaving ruffled trails behind their feathered feet, pretty young Biddy covering as much ground as the other three put together.
He chose his tree and, when he struck it the first blow with his axe, a rabbit darted from under the broad shelter of its boughs and scurried away with the dogs in pursuit.
The tree fell
, shaking off its frail burden of snow, and stretched its length where its growing shadow had long been cast. The clean-cut stump it left looked insignificant to have been the support of so broad a stretch of boughs. A delicious scent rose from the bruised needles, a scent reminiscent to Renny of two-score past Christmases and their festivities.
He followed a distant clamour from the dogs and found them circled about a grizzly groundhog at bay with its back against a tree. It showed its yellow teeth, never taking its eyes from its assailants. The spaniels and Jock were obedient when whistled off, but Biddy had to be caught and cuffed and, on the way back, her hackle bristled and she whined distractedly.
Renny laid down the tree behind the carriage house, for he heard the children’s voices from the snow-covered lawn. He began to hack off a few of the lowest branches to make the contour of the tree more seemly for its high destiny. He did not hear steps in the snow but a shadow was thrown beside the prostrate tree and, looking up, he saw Finch. He had just returned that morning from his tour. One glance at his face discovered that he had heard the news about Eden.
“Hullo!” said Renny, straightening himself. “You back?”
“Yes. Just an hour ago.”
“Have a good tour?”
“Pretty good.”
Renny raised the tree and held it upright.
“What do you think of that for a Christmas tree?”
“Splendid. We haven’t had so big a one in a long time.” Finch tried to speak cheerfully, but he had a sense of shock in finding Renny preoccupied with so trivial a matter. How could he think of a Christmas tree at a time like this? Why he looked as absorbed in what he was doing as though no blackness shadowed them.
“I suppose,” observed Renny, “that you’ve done rather well financially. How much did you make?”
“I shan’t know until things are settled up.” He spoke tersely. He had dreaded meeting Renny, now he shrank from his apparent materialism. Yet he was relieved. He drew a deep breath of the tingling air. The poignant scent of the tree stabbed him. Seeing it stricken so, he thought of Eden. He broke out:
“This is terrible, Renny! They’ve been telling me. I can hardly believe it.”
“You’ll believe it all right when you see him,” replied Renny. “He’s gone down quickly in the last fortnight. He’s had haemorrhage.”
Finch wrung his fingers together. His mouth was contorted as though he were about to cry
“It’s too horrible,” he said. “I don’t see how you can bear to think about Christmas, Renny.”
Renny stood facing him, grasping the tree. He looked splendid, Finch thought bitterly, the picture of strength and vigour. Renny said:
“Well, there are the kids. There’s no use in making them miserable. And we can’t do Eden any good by mourning. I like Christmas myself, and I mean to have as good a one as possible—under the circumstances.”
Fat, red-faced Mrs. Wragge appeared from the scullery, carrying a dishpan heaped with tea towels she had been washing.
“Now then, cook!” said Renny, “just have a look at this tree! Room for presents for everyone on that, eh?”
“Lord bless you, sir, it is a grand one! It’ll tike some trimming, and I’d like nothing better than to ‘ave a ’and in it myself, if ’tweren’t that I’m so bad on me legs along o’ me varicose veins.”
“So they’re troubling you?”
“Troubling me! I’ve got three ulsters the size of pennies on me left leg and me right one is not what you’d call perfect. But I do admire that tree, and if I ’ad coloured paper I’d make some pretty decorations for it, which I could sitting in comfort.”
Finch left them and went toward the house. He was without coat or hat. He buttoned his jacket and shivered. The children saw him and began to shout:
“Hullo, Uncle Finch! Hullo! Hullo!”
Mooey and Patience were making snowballs. They ran nearer, holding them aloft, ready to throw. As they ran they jostled Nooky and he fell, plunging his little red hands into the snow. Adeline came last, marching steadily, the picture of infantile triumph.
“Snow—snow—snow,” she chanted.
“Why are you here?” Finch asked of Patience.
She answered—“I live here now. Uncle Eden’s at our house. Mummy’s nursing him. I’ve lost a tooth. Look!” She held up her round face and displayed a gap in the milk-white row of her teeth.
Finch rescued Nooky and dried his hands on his handkerchief. He had a tender feeling for the tiny boy.
“Love Uncle Finch?” he mumbled against his cheek.
“Ah,” replied Nooky, and clasped his neck.
Finch thought—“If only I could be like the children and not be forced to face things! They don’t see what goes on so long as they are fed and cared for. Their very hair sticks out with egotism. Their eyes are as bright as the eyes of animals. And Eden is dying… I think it might have been broken to me carefully and not blurted out by Uncle Nick, while Uncle Ernie and Alayne and Wakefield were all staring at me.”
The words had been more terrible, uttered in Nicholas’s sonorous, broken tones. Ernest had seemed a bundle of nerves, fingering his chin, biting his nails. Alayne had sat rigid, as though she did not know what it was to relax. Wakefield had appeared to be more interested in Finch’s reaction to the news than in the news itself. Augusta was not there. She had gone to stay at Vaughanlands. Pheasant had slipped out of the room soon after Finch’s arrival. She knew that the family were waiting for her to leave so that they might be free to talk…
A snowball shot past and hit Mooey on the head. Finch turned and saw Renny. At the same instant one caught him on the ear. Rage overwhelmed him. He set Nooky down and fled from the scene of romping.
“The brute!” he muttered, digging the snow from his ear. “He doesn’t care! He doesn’t care! He and Piers and Maurice have killed Eden among them—making him work like a labourer—curse them!”
He had dreaded going to Vaughanlands but now he hastened in that direction, as if there were no time to spare.
He found his sister in the pantry stirring an eggnog for Eden. She looked reassuringly natural. He held her plump body close to his, kissing her.
“Oh, Meggie,” he groaned, “this is a terrible blow! How are we going to go through with it? Can I help you? Tell me something I can do!”
Meg put him from her gently.
“We’ll not talk now. I must get this eggnog ready”
“May I see him?”
“Of course. He was speaking of you only this morning. Here, you may take him this. That will be helping. Be careful not to slop it.” She gave it to him cautiously, for she had filled it to the brim, as was her way.
He mounted the stairs, his eyes riveted on the glass. His hand shook so that the liquid overflowed and dripped on to the carpet.
“God!” he exclaimed between set teeth, “to think that I can’t carry this up without spilling it!”
He stood wondering what to do, then he put his lips to the glass and drank a mouthful or two so that he was able to carry it.
He tapped on the door of Eden’s room and Augusta’s voice said “Come in.”
He entered and found her alone in the room. The windows were wide open, the fine snow sifting in on the air. She was making the bed. The bedclothes were heaped on a chair and she was shaking a mattress.
“Well, my dear,” she said, “so you’ve come back to us! And you look very well. The tour did not tire you greatly?”
“I’m all right,” he said. He went to her and kissed her, holding the glass gingerly. “Look here,” he added, “you shouldn’t be doing this alone. It’s far too heavy for you.”
He set down the glass, took the mattress from her and turned it over, shaking it vigorously.
They made the bed together, smoothing the sheets so there should be no wrinkles, and Finch asked:
“Do you think it’s a good bed?”
“I think it’s a very good bed.” She talked to him calmly all the
while, by her dignified restraint helping him to control himself.
When the bed lay smooth and white he stood looking down at it for a moment and his heart turned with pity in his breast. His eyes sought Augusta’s and he made a quick gesture with his hand toward the bed. She came to him and patted his shoulder. “You must be a good brave boy,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“In Meg’s sitting room. He’s reading or writing—something to pass the time.”
Finch stood outside the door of the sitting room. His tongue was dry and clung to the roof of his mouth. He did not know how to face Eden. He pictured himself in Eden’s position—how he would have risen to face the brother who entered, his eyes wide with horror, his body shaken by sobs. He could not muster the courage to go in. But Eden’s voice, with the old note of irritability, called from the room:
“Who’s that? Why don’t you come in if you’re coming?”
Finch went in hesitatingly, the glass of eggnog in his hand.
“Meggie sent you this,” he managed to get out in a trembling voice.
“She’s half an hour late with it,” observed Eden. He took the glass and began to drink, avoiding Finch’s eyes.
Finch had been prepared for a change in him but he was not prepared to see him so etherealised, so transparent, with such hollow, shining eyes and feverish cheeks. He wore a light-blue dressing gown and was sitting by the table with writing things in front of him.
When he had finished the eggnog he turned and looked at Finch, as though it had given him strength.
“Good old Meggie,” he said. “She’s put lots of brandy in it.”
Finch looked at him, filled with an immense pity. He longed to give out strength to him.
Eden said—“Sit down and tell me how you got on.”
In a voice he could not recognise as his own Finch recalled what he could. Eden listened eagerly. “You’re doing well,” he said, and added significantly—“Stick to it. Don’t let yourself worry. Don’t be too sympathetic. That’s the only way for an artist.”
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 61
