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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Her mind went back to her married life with Eden, that first flawless, happy love. She recalled her joy in the poems he had written then, a joy as over children they had created together. What a short while it had lasted! Yet this imperfect, troubled, tortured love for Renny — how it had persisted! Like a vivid, tough-fibred thread, it had dominated the pattern of her life for ten long years. It had so dominated her life that all that had gone before seemed to belong to a different person, to be almost meaningless to her. But she would unravel that thread! She would unravel the fabric of her life to the drab and pallid warp, so that nothing of that love might remain.

  Her cough was less troublesome and might have ceased altogether but she began to cry again. She made choking, coughing sounds.

  He was at the door again. “Alayne, I’m going down to get you a hot drink. You must take it. Do you hear?” He did not wait for an answer. He padded along the passage in his felt bedroom slippers. But he was fully dressed.

  “She’s got to take it,” he kept muttering to himself as he went down the stairs. “She can’t help herself. She’s got to take it.”

  He descended the basement stairs and was in the brick-floored kitchen where the big coal stove was throwing off a steady warmth. His spaniels were lying on a mat beside it. They rose, yawning their surprise at his early arrival. Merlin uttered the deep-toned bark which, since his blindness, expressed his easily stirred emotions. Renny quieted them and went to the stove. Luckily there was hot water in the kettle. He poked the fire and opened the draught. The reflection from the living coals made a rosy glow over his haggard face.

  She must be hungry, he thought. He would take her some bread and butter and a pot of coffee. She loved coffee. Nothing else so refreshed her, she often said. He went to the cupboard where he knew it was kept and took out the red enamelled container with the picture of Windsor Castle on the lid. The heavy sound of Mrs. Wragge’s snoring came from the bedroom beyond the narrow dark passage.

  He was a little puzzled about the making of the coffee. He supposed that the process must be very much the same as for tea but the steeping rather longer. While he waited for the kettle to boil he went to the larder. A gliding step approached and Rags, in cast-off pyjamas of his own, stood at his side.

  His sharp little face showed his surprise at finding the master of Jalna, fully dressed, in search of anything so innocuous as bread and butter at that hour. He said:

  “Can I ’elp you, sir? Shouldn’t you like something a little more substantial?”

  “It’s not for myself.”

  “Ow, it’s for the mistress! Just let me get it, sir. I know ’ow thin she likes it. Nothing more than a wifer.”

  He did indeed cut the bread delicately, while Renny looked on and Mrs. Wragge’s snores echoed through the basement room. Watching Rags preparing food took Renny’s thoughts back to France. He saw him making an appetizing dish out of some odds and ends from dilapidated tins. Rags remembered it too. Cocking an eyebrow, he said:

  “Well, they weren’t such bad toimes, sir. I think they were the best toimes of my life. I shouldn’t tike it amiss if there was another war. Not if I could be your batman again, sir.”

  “There are worse things than war, eh, Rags?”

  “I’ll s’y there are, sir! There’s comradeship in war. Folk are kind to each other. There’s only one enemy. We all knoaw ’oo ’e is. But in peace, my word, there’s enemies all about us and, ’arf the toime, they’re posin’ as friends! Noaw, I ’aven’t much use for peace, sir.” He arranged the bread and butter on a plate, with little finger crooked. “There, that looks temptin’, doan’t it?”

  The boiling water was poured on the coffee. Renny carried the tray to Alayne’s door. He knocked and her voice said — “Come in.” She had unlocked the door while he was downstairs. She was sitting on the side of her bed with a blanket about her shoulders. As the door opened she turned her head and fixed her eyes on him with a look of almost impersonal wonder. She thought — “Let me look in his face again and see if there is no sign there of what he has done. Surely there is some change in his face.” But when she looked in it she saw nothing different. He wore the same look of concern, she thought, which he wore when he was worried about a sick mare. No added sensuality to mouth or cunning to eyes marked the months of deception he had passed through. He was made of iron, she thought.

  He had a feeling of poignant compassion seeing her sitting there, dishevelled, in the grey dawn. He had a feeling of anger too, at some unseen force of fate that had made this so unnecessary discovery possible. All was over between him and Clara — excepting their friendship. Why could not their few amorous encounters have passed unrevealed!

  He set the tray on the table by the bedside.

  “If you would only,” he said, “try to look on this sensibly. If you would just keep in your mind that you are the only woman —”

  “The only woman!” she interrupted hoarsely. “The only woman! Please don’t ask me to keep anything quite so grotesque in my mind. My mind is put to it now to keep its balance.”

  He said loudly, “You are the only woman in the world I could want as my wife. Clara —”

  “Yes — I know — a wife and a mistress!”

  “Not a mistress! Not a mistress! You can’t call her that. Those special feelings came and went. They left no mark. On my word of honour, Alayne, I have been true to you all our married life except for this one lapse and you know that at that time we — you and I — were not on good terms.”

  She stood up facing him. “Will you leave me alone! I can’t bear anything more.” She put her hand to her head. Again her legs felt heavy, as though they were dragged down by wet seaweed.

  He made a grimace of despair. “Please taste your coffee then — before I go.” He filled a cup for her with the clouded liquid. She took a mouthful then set down the cup with an expression of disgust.

  “I couldn’t possibly take it.”

  “Is it made so badly?”

  “It is horrible.” She lay down on the bed and turned her face away.

  “Will you have some of the bread and butter?”

  “I couldn’t eat. Please leave me.”

  With a look of deep chagrin he carried the tray to his own room.

  Its window faced the east. In the first tremulous sunrays Adeline lay curled on his bed fast asleep, her expression one of beatific calm. On the foot of the bed slept the Cairn puppy, its plump body giving little hysterical jerks in a dream.

  Renny drank the coffee Alayne had left and poured himself another cup. He folded two pieces of the bread together and took it in a single bite. He was terribly hungry.

  V

  THE LONG DAY

  He had remembered that it was Sunday when he was shaving, and he had suspended the action of the blade while he considered whether or not the day would be better for his situation than a weekday. He decided that on the whole it would make things more difficult, both for himself and Alayne. He would, in the ordinary course of living, spend more time in the house. He could not so easily absent himself from meals. On the other hand Piers and Pheasant always came to Sunday dinner and, of course, there was church.

  He had a sudden desire to take little Adeline to church. She was surely old enough. He remembered sitting through a sermon on his grandmother’s knee, when he was even smaller. He thought it would take his mind off the misery of last night, if he could see her in the family pew. It would be amusing, considering her likeness to dear old Gran. It would take Adeline out of Alayne’s way. The nursemaid always had Sunday off. Alayne would certainly not feel like being troubled by a stirring child, after the night she had spent.

  Would she appear at breakfast, he wondered. He shaved himself with difficulty because of his injured shoulder. Adeline and the puppy were tumbling together on the bed. Suddenly she sat up and stared.

  “Why did you make that funny face?”

  “My shoulder hurt me.”

  ‘‘Why?”

 
; “I’ve broken a bone.”

  “Let me kiss it.”

  He came to the bed, one half his face covered with lather, and bent over her. She planted her mouth on his arm. “Is it better now?”

  “Much better.”

  He returned to his shaving. “A good thing I am almost ambidextrous,” he thought.

  The puppy yelped and he turned sharply to see Adeline kissing it extravagantly. He asked:

  “What were you doing to him?”

  “Kissing his sore bone.”

  “Humph. Well, I must take you to Mummie to be dressed.” He washed his hands and took the child to Alayne’s door.

  “You call her,” he said.

  She called — “Mummie, Adeline wants to be dressed!”

  He went back to his room and heard Alayne’s door open and close. She would have stayed in her bed but there was the child to be cared for.

  Adeline strutted about the room on her bare, beautifully shaped feet. Alayne was dressed. She wore a blue dress that accentuated the violet shadows under her eyes. She sprinkled a little cologne on her fingers and held them to her temples.

  “Me. Me, too!” cried Adeline, holding up her flower-pink face.

  Alayne, with a sad smile, put a few drops tenderly on the russet locks.

  In glee Adeline showed every tooth.

  “More! More!”

  “No. You have had enough. You must be dressed.”

  But it was like handling a young wild thing. She turned this way and that, wriggling, shrieking with laughter. The putting on of every little garment was an ordeal. The room swam about Alayne.

  When Adeline was dressed she went to where the bottle of cologne stood and emptied it down the front of her fresh yellow frock. She strutted up and down, looking at Alayne over her shoulder.

  “I laugh at you,” she said.

  Then Alayne saw what she had done. With an icy look that cowed the child, she took her by the hand and led her downstairs. Renny and Wakefield were in the dining room waiting for her. Wakefield looked heavy-eyed and morose as if he too had not slept. He seemed to flourish his depression, as though in defiance of the bright sunshine that poured between the yellow velour curtains.

  Renny achieved a conciliatory grin and said, addressing the air midway between Alayne and Adeline — “What a nice smell! Sunday morning scent, eh?”

  Alayne was beginning to eat the half grapefruit which was served to her alone. She said:

  “She has emptied my bottle of cologne on herself.”

  Adeline made her mouth into a rosebud and rolled her eyes at her father. She bent her head so that Rags might tie the bib on her white nape. His pale glance travelled from one face to the other and, as was his habit when he felt stress in family relations, he was assiduous in his solicitude for Renny, drawing the principal dishes a little nearer to his side and whispering a message he had had from Wright, the head stableman.

  It seemed possible to talk a little when he was in the room but, when he had gone, the two men and the woman could find no word to say and the child greedily applied herself to her porridge.

  Delightful spring sounds came in at the open window, the bleating of young lambs, the rival notes of two songbirds, the soft rush of a caressing wind. Renny cast a swift look at Alayne and noticed the smooth brightness of her hair, the fastidious order of her person. He was filled with admiration that she could look so after such a night. Yet, at the same time, he had a feeling of baffled anger that she could be meticulous under stress of such emotion. Still, he had dressed with more care than usual and, if she had come dishevelled to the table, he would have deprecated it. “What can I do to make her forgive me?” he thought. He felt powerless before the walls of her desolation. A hard bright rage crept over him. He turned and stared into Wakefield’s face, then broke out:

  “What the hell is the matter with you that you haven’t a word for yourself?”

  The sombre lines of Wakefield’s face broke into astonishment and hurt as though he had been struck, then he gathered himself together and answered:

  “I did not know I was expected to make conversation.”

  “Well — you are not expected to look as though you were at a funeral.”

  “Neither of you looks very cheerful.” He scanned their faces shrewdly and divined the cause of Renny’s irritation. He turned to him almost pleadingly. “If you knew the sort of night I had you would not expect me to be cheerful. I am at my wits’ end to know what to do.”

  “Why — what is wrong, Wake?” Renny’s tone changed to one of anxiety.

  Wakefield crumbled a bit of toast on his plate and answered, almost in a whisper — “I have decided that I should not marry. I want to go into a monastery.”

  Renny looked at him dumbfounded; Alayne with a bitter smile. She said:

  “I think you are very sensible. It is better to shut yourself away from life—not give yourself to anybody.”

  Renny exclaimed harshly — “How can you say that? What about Pauline? It would break her heart. As for me — why, Wake, you don’t know what you are talking about! It’s a ghastly life — unthinkable for a Whiteoak.”

  “I’ve been thinking of nothing else for a month.”

  “But — only yesterday — you were perfectly natural — you and Pauline — at The Daffodil.”

  Alayne’s eyes, icy, accusing, pierced him. So — he was there, with Clara, yesterday morning! She said, “I suppose it was there that you hurt your shoulder.”

  He coloured but with a sudden defiant grin answered — “Yes. I was raising the porch of the tea shop.”

  Wakefield ignored the interruption. He said — “The time to speak had not come. Now it has come.”

  Renny sprang from his chair and began to walk up and down the room.

  “You can’t do it!” he cried. “You can’t! It’s appalling. I forbid it! You’re not of age. I’ll see these damned priests.”

  Wakefield answered calmly. “I wish you would. You’d find that I had no encouragement from them.”

  Renny thrust out his lips in scorn.

  “Ha! They’d never let you know! They’re too sly for you. Well, I’ll put a stop to it! God, if Gran were here, she’d raise the roof with her shame for you!”

  Wakefield returned — “You forget that one of the reasons why Grandfather left Quebec was that Gran showed Catholic sympathies.”

  “Rot! She was young. She was in a strange country. She got bravely over it. And so must you. Lord — when I think that you’d turn religious — when other young fellows are turning pagan!” He took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead, sat down resolutely at the table and drank his tea in a few gulps. Then he said:

  “We’ll not talk about it now. We’ll have it out later, Wake, when we’re quite cool and composed.”

  “I am cool and composed now,” returned Wakefield with gravity. “I have had it out with my soul. That is the important part. And Pauline will understand. I think she will be very happy for my sake.”

  The mention of Wakefield’s soul took the pith out of Renny. He leant back in his chair helpless, staring disconsolately at his untouched breakfast. Alayne looked at him with cruel amusement. She could not help herself. He had made her suffer. Now let him suffer — in his love for Wake, in his pride, in his tenderness for those Lebraux women!

  Adeline finished her breakfast. She was sweet and good, taking no notice of her elders. A heavy scent of cologne came from her. She liked it and drew up the front of her dress to sniff.

  Renny turned to Wakefield. “I suppose you have been to early Mass,” he said.

  “Yes — I am going now to see Pauline.”

  Renny turned to him almost tragically. “Wakefield, I want you to promise me one thing. I want you to promise me that you will not speak of this to Pauline till I have seen your priest. You must promise me that.”

  Wakefield answered irritably — “Oh, I suppose I can promise you that! Though it makes it difficult for me. And I can promise you somethi
ng else and that is that nothing anyone can say will prevent me doing what I have made up my mind to do.”

  “But you promise — mind, you promise!”

  Wakefield gave a muffled assent then rolled his table napkin meticulously and put it into his napkin ring drawn by a small silver goat. He had always loved the little goat, now he gave it an unconscious caress.

  Adeline looked at it enviously. She said — “I wish I had a little goat like that.”

  Wakefield gave her his charming smile. “You shall have it, Adeline! I am going away soon and must give away all my belongings. You shall have the little goat.”

  She laughed delightedly. “Go today, please!”

  “I wish I could.”

  At these words, at the thought that Wakefield wished he might leave his home today, Renny’s mouth went down at the corners as though in physical pain. He gave a short nervous laugh, then said to Alayne:

  “I don’t suppose you’ll be coming to church this morning?”

  She shook her head, looking down at her clasped hands.

  “I have a mind,” he went on, “to take Adeline with me. It is time she began to go to church and she will be off your hands for the morning. She can sit with Pheasant.”

  “Very well, though I think she is much too young.”

  She could not deny her relief at the thought of being free of the child’s activities for an hour or two.

  But she kept Adeline with her until it was time to go. For the first time that spring they heard the church bell across the fields. She put a fresh dress on Adeline, her little fawn-coloured coat and new straw hat and led her to the front porch. She sat her on the seat there and said — “Wait here till Daddy comes.” She bent and kissed her, but coldly. She wondered suddenly how Renny would manage his surplice with his arm in a sling.

  He thought he would like to take the path across the fields with the child. He could not drive the car and he wanted no one with him. He remembered the family party that used to set out on a Sunday morning — the old phaeton, driven by Hodge now dead, Grandmother, the uncles and young Wakefield established in it, the car following with himself, one or two of the whelps and perhaps Aunt Augusta and, of course, Pheasant…. Finch walking across the fields as he was now — what a tribe! But that was the way to live — one’s flesh and blood under one’s own strong roof!