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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Augusta announced one day that there were only two puzzles left. They had worked their way through all the rest. Ernest looked almost relieved, for, in truth, they had been a strain on him. But he would fling himself with all his might into the solving of these.

  Nicholas exclaimed—“Well, well, that’s a great pity! They’ve been entertaining—very entertaining. It was a good thought of yours, Augusta, to send for them. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed anything so much.” He looked at her out of his tired old eyes, and tried to smile.

  Augusta emptied the second-last puzzle on to the table— a provocative and jumbled heap.

  “This will keep you busy for some time,” she said. “Mrs. Thomas Court worked at it for three solid days, playing a tattoo on the floor with her heels all the while, she was so wrought up.”

  Ernest selected a corner piece and placed it. “You’ll find,” he observed, “that I shall do it in a day, as I did the last one.”

  “Well—I like that!” exclaimed Nicholas. “Who was it that fitted the piece of torn trouser into the dog’s mouth?”

  “Of course, you helped,” returned Ernest, “but you must admit that I did the bulk of the job.” Already he had several bits fitted together.

  Nicholas snatched up a handful, put on his glasses, and peered into them.

  Augusta gave his heavy shoulders and Ernest’s slender ones an encouraging pat and left them. They settled down to their task.

  At first they got on fairly well, but there was a great deal of landscape in the picture, mostly formed by bending reeds, and several female forms with Eastern draperies intricate and confusing. Ernest had indigestion and it made him nervous. Nicholas made a sucking noise on the mouthpiece of his pipe that was irritating. Pheasant spent an hour with them and was a great help. But it was Rags, lingering near the table, duster in hand, who discovered that the picture represented Moses in the bulrushes.

  By evening it was three-parts done, but there were pieces that could not be fitted in, though Alayne, Piers, and Wakefield all took a hand in it. At eleven o’clock weariness forced them to desist.

  “It was far better,” said Alayne to Renny, “when they played bridge. Now they care for nothing but these dreadful puzzles. I’d be demented if I went on as they do. Yet all you others encourage them.”

  “Of course we do. It keeps their minds off other things.”

  Ernest was up early the next morning. Betimes he entered the library and advanced with a determined tread to the table where the jig-saw puzzle lay. But he drew back, scarcely believing his eyes, when he saw that it was thrown together in a confused heap. His expression of dismay was so ludicrous that Nicholas, following close after, burst into laughter.

  “Whoever did this,” cried Ernest fiercely, “will regret it!” But they could not discover who had done it. There was universal astonishment and innocence. Nicholas suspected Wakefield, and Ernest Mooey, though the little boy denied that he had been near the room. It was the subject of discussion all through dinner and tea. By suppertime the puzzle had reached the stage of the night before but Ernest was too tired to go on with it. His face was flushed and he could scarcely sit still. He refused to lock the door of the library and he slept with his bedroom door ajar.

  Before he had breakfast he thought he would look in at the puzzle to assure himself that it had not been tampered with. But he was too late to prevent the disaster and Mooey not quick enough to evade him. Moses and his bulrushes were scattered over the table and even on to the floor. Mooey was trying to again put them in order.

  Ernest was upon him in two strides. He had not for a long time felt such a desire for violence in himself. He gripped the small boy by the arm and cuffed him, first on one side of the head and then on the other.

  “You young devil!” he stormed. “Take that—and that;— and that!”

  Mooey’s howls brought the rest of the family from the breakfast table. Ernest stuttered out his explanations. Nicholas said brusquely—“Well, you needn’t make such a pother about it. Children will do these things!”

  “I have seen,” said Augusta, “for some time, that he has been getting out of hand.”

  “He’s a young ruffian,” fumed Ernest. “To think of his daring to repeat the offence!” He turned to Piers. “What he deserves is a good thrashing.”

  “He’ll get it,” agreed Piers grimly.

  Mooey opened his eyes and looked at the faces about him, but, seeing that his mother’s was not among them, he again shut his eyes and broke afresh into weeping.

  Renny threw Alayne a mirthful glance.

  “I think you’re very cruel,” she said, in a tense voice.

  “I like to see the old boys up in the air,” he returned.

  Wakefield put in—“It’s not any time since young Mooey put my kodak out of order.”

  “Yes,” seconded Finch, “and he put a sponge down the lavatory yesterday.”

  “I didn’t!” cried Mooey, in a strangling voice. “It was Adeline!”

  “Well, she said it was you.”

  Nicholas looked down on his small favourite with severity mingled with compassion.

  “What made you upset the puzzle?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t upset it! I didn’t! I didn’t! I want to go to my mummy!”

  Ernest said to Piers—“If you don’t take this sort of thing out of him now he’ll be a heartbreak to you later on.”

  “I’ll take it out of him.”

  He gripped his son by the arm and they were heard descending the basement stairs to the wash-room where many a chastisement had taken place.

  Ernest and Nicholas were established over the puzzle and had already got young Moses in his basket when Pheasant appeared, leading Mooey.

  “He wants to tell you,” she said, “how sorry he is and that he’s always going to be good in future.”

  Mooey held up a tear-stained face to Ernest and said:

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Ernest. I won’t never do it again.”

  Ernest bent and kissed him but his expression was still severe.

  “If you had done it only once, my boy, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But to do it twice—that was indeed terrible.”

  Nicholas took Mooey on his knee. “Was it pretty bad?” he whispered. “Poor old boy!”

  So far but no farther could they complete the puzzle. Yet they were indomitable. By night all the family were engaged in the problem and the room was filled with smoke and loud voices. Even though the child had been punished Ernest did not quite trust him, and that night he locked the door of the library and took the key upstairs.

  But he slept badly. His dreams were tortured by Moses in his uncompleted bulrushes and the sandalled foot that would not fit any of the female figures. He grew more and more excited and at last opened his eyes in the grey morning light, to find himself seated in front of the puzzle with all its pieces in disarray before him. Some were even on the floor.

  He crept back to bed humiliated. Now he understood why he had had a cold in the head on the last two mornings. He remembered that as a boy he had been a sleepwalker. He was too just to keep the truth a secret and at breakfast he stammered out his story.

  “What I most regret,” he said, “is that poor little Mooey was punished unjustly.”

  “I told you you were making too much pother about it,” said his brother.

  “Still,” amended Augusta, “the child was getting out of hand, in any case.”

  Piers said—“Down in the basement he told me that he had thrown it about because he was sick of seeing it.”

  “And I don’t blame him!” cried Ernest. “I never want to see another jig-saw puzzle as long as I live!”

  “Aren’t you going to do the last one?” asked Augusta.

  “No, no,” said Nicholas. “We’ve had enough. We’ll stick to bridge.”

  Augusta carried the discarded puzzle up to her room. There she took out the pieces which had been the stumbling block to its completion and replaced them
in the box with the last puzzle, which was a picture of Rebecca at the well, and from it extracted the pieces pertaining to Moses. She had thought, in this way, to make the puzzles last a little longer. She gave a sly smile as she sorted them.

  She sighed then. What should she do with them? She would need them no more. They had served their purpose well. She went to the door and called Mooey.

  He came running, for he distinguished kindness in her tone. He was bewildered by all that had passed but exhilarated by the laughing attention of his father and uncles.

  “Mooey,” one of them would say, “go and ask Uncle Ernie where Moses was when the light went out.”

  Mooey would shout the question.

  “Come, come,” Ernest would answer, reddening a little, “you need not rub it in. But I daresay I deserve it. Where was he?”

  “Doing jig-saw puzzles!” Mooey would shout.

  He came running now, to Augusta. She filled his arms with the puzzle-boxes.

  “Here,” she said. “You may have them all, and, if you work at them diligently you will learn a great deal.”

  He flew to where his mother and Alayne were talking at the foot of the attic stairs. Pheasant held the infant Philip in her arms, and Alayne smiled down at him, his tiny hand clasping her finger.

  “Look! Look!” cried Mooey. “See what I have!”

  Nooky appeared and screamed at once:

  “Me too! Me too!”

  “No!” shouted Mooey. “You can’t have one! Aunt Augusta gave them to me! Look, Mummy!”

  Alayne said—“You might give Nooky just one.” She loved Nooky.

  Mooey flung one of the boxes to his little brother, then, seeing Adeline emerge from Alayne’s room, a predatory light in her eyes, he fled with his booty up the stairs to the nursery, pursued by the other children, Adeline on hands and feet screaming as she went.

  Alayne watched them, standing rigid. She said to herself—“Let them go! I don’t care what they do to each other.” Aloud she asked:

  “Is Alma up there?”

  “Yes,” answered Pheasant. “Oh, that girl! She’s impossible! If only we could afford a proper nurse!”

  “The children are like gipsies,” said Alayne. “I can do nothing with Adeline.”

  “Did she sleep last night?”

  “Sleep! There was no sleep in her till I was worn out. I have never known her worse. She not only laughed and shouted but struck herself on the eyes to keep awake.”

  “Tck! How awful! Piers says he would spank her till she would ask for nothing better than sleep.”

  “Piers is cruel. When I think of poor little Mooey! The injustice!”

  But Pheasant was loyal to her mate. “All the evidence was against Mooey. Piers only did what any good father would. He doesn’t want his child to grow up into a menace to society, does he?”

  She looked so pale, so ingenuous, as she said this, with her dark hair soft on her forehead and the child with Piers’s eyes in her arms, that Alayne suddenly kissed her.

  “You’re a sweet thing, Pheasant,” she said.

  There came a concerted howl from above and Pheasant hastened up the stairs.

  Alayne returned to her room. “Let them do what they like,” she repeated to herself. “I don’t care.”

  She was glad that Adeline had left the room. What peace without that fiery energy! The spring rain streamed down the pane and bounced on the sill. Under the eaves nesting birds talked together in the budding Virginia creeper. She stood looking out. Her thoughts were on Renny.

  “Oh, my darling,” she thought. “Oh, my darling. I wish you were here at this moment. If you were here now, I could show you all my love. I would kiss that abstracted, dark look out of your eyes. I know I could. Oh, Renny, Renny, I wish you were here!” Yet he was only in the stable. There was only that space of spring rain between them.

  Augusta appeared in the open doorway. She said:

  “I think, my dear, that we must speak seriously to Renny about the dilapidations of the house. The wallpaper in my room is disgraceful and I did not sleep half the night because of the clanging of a loose shutter.”

  “I did not sleep either,” returned Alayne moodily.

  “But why?” Augusta gave her a searching look.

  “Oh, it was Adeline. She would not sleep—nor let me.”

  “I have heard Renny’s mother complain of the very same thing. You must just be patient. But I am going away now and I should like to think that the dilapidations would be repaired this spring. My father and my brother kept the house in perfect order.”

  “Times are different,” said Alayne sullenly. At the moment she felt antagonistic toward the older people who were always talking about the perfect conditions of the past.

  Wragge came down the passage bearing a scuttle of coals. He set it down with an air at once deprecatory and impudent.

  “I ’ope you’ll excuse me, madam; I ’ope you won’t tike it amiss me drawing your attention to this ’ere coal-scuttle. But w’at you see in there are the very last coals we’ve got. I’m on my w’y with them to Mr. Ernest’s fire. But the furnace fire’s out and there’s no more ordered that I knows of.”

  Alayne fixed her eyes on the opposite wall. “I shall order coal this morning,” she said coldly

  Wragge gave a wry smile. “Excuse me, ’m, but the dealer said as ’ow ’e wouldn’t deliver any more until the last was paid for.”

  Alayne was angry, humiliated. She said: “I shall attend to that. Please take the scuttle away.” Augusta said—“I hope Mr. Ernest’s room is comfortable, Wragge.”

  Wragge answered oilily, for he had in mind a farewell tip from Augusta:

  “Oh, your Lidyship, I’d never let Mr. Ernest be uncomfortable! Not w’ile I’d a lump of coal in me cellar.”

  “Well, I’m very glad of that,” said Augusta gravely.

  Alayne thought—“One moment more and I shall scream. Renny told me that the last coal was paid for. Oh, what a liar he is! Oh, how can I endure this life!”

  Pheasant came running down the attic stairs.

  “Whatever do you suppose has happened? The roof of the nursery has been leaking and just now a quantity of plaster fell from the ceiling on to poor little Nooky’s cot! If he had been in it he would certainly have been killed! Oh, dear, it seems sometimes as though the whole family was bent on killing my poor little children—between neglect and cruelty!” She sat down midway on the stairs and buried her face in her hands.

  “It’s not my fault!” said Alayne. “It’s not my fault if the roof falls in and the shutters clang and the wallpaper sags and there’s no coal in the cellar! If you must complain— complain to Renny! I’ve really as much as I can cope with.” She hurriedly descended the stairs to the hall below. Augusta and Pheasant were left staring at each other.

  Alayne had scarcely reached the bottom of the stairs before she was ashamed of herself. She had never so lost her temper before in front of the others. She regretted that Aunt Augusta should carry away such an impression of her, and she half-turned back to apologise but could not quite make up her mind to it. She stood looking doubtfully at the door of the drawing-room deeply scored by the scratching of dogs seeking admittance there. Jock was sleeping now by the stove, his muddy feet turned toward the warmth. Piers’s wire-haired terrier, who had had her leg injured and wore a bandage smelling of carbolic, sat shivering on a chair by the hat stand.

  Alayne drew a deep breath and went into the library to the telephone. She arranged for coal to be sent collect.

  From there she went to the drawing-room, where she found Finch doubled over a book. His presence was comforting to her. She sat down near him and asked:

  “What are you reading?”

  He looked up, a strange smile flitting across his face. “Eden’s poems,” he answered.

  She drew back rebuffed. It was morbid of Finch, she thought, to sit crouched there reading those poems of his dead brother, to smile in that hallucinated way as though he w
ould draw the image of Eden between them, but she said gently:

  “I think they are good but they have not the freshness and rapture of his earlier ones.”

  “You could scarcely expect that. He was changing. The poems are full of inequalities. But there’s no indifference in them. His mind was on fire… Look here—I wonder if you’d care to see what the critics are saying about him. I’ve subscribed to a press-cutting agency.” He laid down the book and took an envelope filled with cuttings from his pocket.

  He began reading them to her in a loud, rather tremulous voice, stressing, even rereading, the passages of warmest praise, one long hand holding the open book against his side, as though from its pages he drew some sustaining virtue. His presence overshadowed for her the words he read. What was to become of this lonely boy whose face showed the suffering and the strain he had been through!

  She heard the side door open and close with a bang. She heard quick sharp steps, and the thought flew into her mind, scattering all else before it—“Here is my darling—the one I am longing for—the one who means more to me than all else in the world!…”

  He came, dripping with rain, into the hall, followed by a bull terrier he had just acquired. Jock sat up and saw the newcomer. He could bear much. He was no fighter, but he could not bear the sight of the bull terrier. With a low growl he advanced toward him. In a moment the two were rolling over together, and young Biddy, unmindful of her injury, leaped in to aid Jock. Nip, hearing the hubbub, from where he slept on Nicholas’s bed, came bounding down the stairs and stood on the last step uttering ear-splitting yelps. Mrs. Wragge, just coming up from the basement, screamed.

  The bull terrier had Jock’s foreleg gripped in his teeth. Renny was astride of them but he could not loose the bulldog’s hold. “Water,” he said to Finch, who, with the abandon of a hobbledehoy, flung down the basement stairs and reappeared with a bucket, slopping the water at every step. Mrs. Wragge had run to the dining room for a pepper-castor. “No, no,” Renny warned her away.

  At last the dogs were separated; the bulldog led to the basement by Rags, Jock’s paw bandaged in Renny’s handkerchief, Biddy’s bandage replaced, and Renny, Alayne, and Mrs. Wragge looked at each other across a pool of water on the rug. Nip still barked from the stairway.