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

by Mazo de La Roche

  He could think of this calmly, but the thought of Wakefield was black with mystery, almost unbearable. He began to think of him as dead. He woke once in the night convinced that Wakefield was dead and that the family had decided that his nerves were not in a fit state to bear the news and had concocted this tale of the monastery.

  He got out of bed without waking Sarah and went to Renny’s room. Inside he could hear the crude ticking of the alarm clock and the soft snuffling of the Cairn puppy. Renny’s breathing came strong and deep. “What breathing!” thought Finch. “To breathe like that a man’s mind must be at peace.” He went close to the bed and put out his hand in the blackness. He touched the puppy and, giving itself up to the unexpected nocturnal caress, it turned up its warm round belly and wriggled. Finch pressed his fingers on the puppy and felt the soft flutter of its heart.

  “Renny,” he said. “Renny!”

  “Yes — who’s that?”

  “Finch. I want to ask you something. May I turn on the light?”

  He could feel Renny heave his body with the effort of answering. He muttered “Yes,” and flung his arm across his eyes as the unshaded light struck them. For an instant Finch saw his mouth unguarded by his eyes. He had a sudden desire to bend and kiss it.

  But now the brown eyes stared up at him and Renny asked sharply — “Anything wrong?” Again he was on his pedestal and Finch a schoolboy. He answered, trying to keep his voice calm:

  “It’s about Wake. I think you’re deceiving me.”

  “Deceiving you?” Renny raised himself to stare.

  Finch’s voice came loud and hollow.

  “I believe Wake’s dead! I’m sure of it! You’ve made up this story of the monastery to deceive me. You think I’m not well enough to hear the truth. But I tell you I must know.”

  Renny beat down the stammered words with a laugh. But he looked anxiously at Finch as he answered:

  “I think you’re well enough for a good hiding. And you’d get it if you were ten years younger. You talk like an idiot! Wake dead! Well, I’m damned! What will you imagine next!”

  He turned out of bed in striped pyjamas and went to his chest of drawers and began to search in one. “You must think we take it coolly.”

  “You all seem different. There’s something wrong in the house. I feel it.”

  “Hm, well, we’re depressed about his shutting himself off like this. But dead! Here’s one of his letters. Read that.” He put the letter, with its small, erratic handwriting, into Finch’s hand.

  Finch’s body curved over the letter, the hollows in his cheeks accentuated by the ceiling light. It was the simple out pouring of a boy happy in a new life. A schoolboy’s letter, though it ended with the tentative urge toward conversion.

  Finch laid it down and muttered shamefacedly — “It’s all right. I can see that. I don’t know what put such an idea into my head. I’m not well, Renny. My nerves are hellish.” He dared not look into Renny’s eyes.

  The puppy was sitting smiling at them. Gaps showed where his milk teeth had come out. One ear was cocked, the other drooping. His forelegs looked as though they were about to give under the weight of his round body.

  Renny pushed the puppy out of his way and got back into bed. He said:

  “Now you go back to Sarah and forget this nonsense. You’ll be all right in a little while. A month at Jalna will make a new man of you.”

  Finch put his hand on the switch and looked enviously at the pair on the bed. “I’m awfully sorry, Renny,” he said, “to have got you up like this. I’m a damned fool. You see,” he put his hand to his head, “it’s the pain here. It makes everything seem different to me.”

  “Neuralgia. That’s what the doctor said, isn’t it? Nervous strain. Just try to keep your mind off it. You’ll soon be all right.”

  Finch looked at him out of the cage of his pain, and said huskily:

  “I hope so. I can’t go on like this. It’s been getting steadily worse.”

  “Ever try liniment?”

  “I’ve rubbed on Baum Analgesique. But this pain is all over my head.”

  “Look on the top shelf of that small cabinet. There’s a largish bottle. The label is stained. That mixture is put up for me by a vet. An old Scotch remedy. I’ve used gallons of it on horse and man. Always put it on the grooms when they get kicked. It smells like the devil and acts like a charm.”

  Finch went to the little cabinet which he had seen planted against the faded wallpaper all his life. He remembered its mystery to him as a small boy, how he had been caught investigating the contents of a bottle of laudanum and had his seat warmed. The tenseness in his head was temporarily relieved. His nostrils drank in the smell of the liniment.

  “Rub it in well,” said Renny. “It won’t hurt your hair.”

  Finch acquiesced, feeling tired and peaceful. He stood under Renny’s eye, in the comfort of his jocular directions and rubbed on the liniment. It stung and it smarted his eyeballs. He gave himself up to its stinging and smarting and the pain was eased. His strong bony fingers rubbed and rubbed.

  “My God!” exclaimed Renny. “You’ll have the skin off! Go to bed now. But you can’t go to Sarah smelling like a sick stallion. You’ll have to sleep in your old room. The bed may not be made up. Take that quilt from under the puppy. Take the liniment too. You may keep it. I’ll get another bottle. You’ll soon be all right.” He grinned up at Finch, showing all his strong teeth.

  Oh, the wonderful, harsh comfort of him! Finch could have wept with the ease of it. He pressed the sticky black bottle against his chest and stole up the attic stairs. He was a boy again, creeping up the narrow dark stairway. The window of his room showed grey against the blackness. It stood open. A cold mist was blown across his bed.

  He did not mind. He did not mind. Nothing mattered. The pain was still. It lay curled up sleeping like a snake in its nest somewhere in the middle of his head. He touched with his fingertips the sore places in the back of his neck. They quivered like jelly beneath his touch, horribly sensitive. When he touched them he felt as though he would scream, like some horrible instrument whose too sensitive keys had been drummed.

  He curled his palm under his cheek and lay very still, absorbing the quiet cool night. It spread over him like a wing and all his pain was gone. Only the sore spots remained. He lay still and peaceful, as when he was a young boy, safe in the darkness after a day of bewilderment or unhappiness. He had shared this room with Piers till Piers had married. He could almost feel Piers’s sturdy body in the bed with him, feel that sense of both fear and security in his nearness.

  Now the vine that always tapped on his window when there was a breeze began to talk to him. Shadow answered shadow as the early dawn disturbed the darkness. Oh, that peace of his own dear room! He rested on it. He drew it about him. It folded itself over him.

  Purposely he kept Sarah out of his mind. She stood just outside it waiting the first chance to enter, ready to make herself thin as a knife, if she could but enter. But he turned his thoughts peacefully away from her. His mind was a blank; he was sinking into sleep when, not the thought of her but she in the flesh, stole into the room and bent over the bed.

  “Why did you leave me?” she whispered.

  He kept his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, but she saw that he was awake.

  “Why did you come up here?” she asked, and her black plaits fell across his body.

  “It was the pain,” he answered, keeping his eyes tight shut. “I smell of liniment.”

  She sniffed him, the cold point of her nose touching his face. “I don’t mind. It’s rather a nice stinging smell.”

  “It’s beastly! Do go back to bed, Sarah.”

  “No. I don’t mind the smell. I’ll get in here. I like this room because you were a boy in it.”

  He scowled up at her. “There are no sheets. Just the mattress.”

  She laughed so that he saw all her small teeth. “I don’t mind. It will be fun lying on just the mattress. I�
��d love to sleep on the ground with you. You know that.” She crept under the quilt and pressed close to him.

  “You’ll be sick,” muttered Finch. “I smell like a horse.”

  “I don’t mind.” She snuggled closer.

  Peace was gone from him but a restless sleep came. In the morning he felt better and he made up his mind that he would go to see Wakefield that very day. Ernest had already been and was eager to go again. Sarah was determined to accompany them. It was Nicholas who ordered them to let Finch go alone. The boy might have a nervous breakdown, he said, if he were harried by constant companionship. Solitude was what he needed. Nicholas’s leonine head, his deep voice, the sombre lines cut on his face lent might to what he said. Finch took a train after breakfast and arrived at the monastery soon after the midday meal.

  He felt very nervous as he waited at the broad low door, the ugly brown paint of which was blistered by the sun. But before it was answered, Wakefield ran across the parched grass to his side and threw both arms about him.

  “Hullo, Finch! Hullo — hullo! How splendid to see you! I was reading over there under that tree and I looked up and could scarcely believe my eyes. I’ve been hoping every day you’d come.”

  Finch grasped his hand and searched his face to see what change was there. Wake looked stronger than he had ever seen him. His eyes did not appear so luminously large with his cheeks fuller and his skin as brown as a berry. There was a certain severity about his mouth, a look of reflection, and his nose was developing a fine Court arch. He returned Finch’s gaze smiling and asked:

  “What do you think of me in this?” He gathered the skirts of his gown in one hand and strode, with what seemed to Finch some of his old vanity, along the walk and back.

  “It looks rather funny,” said Finch, “but I suppose I’ll get used to it…. You look happy, Wake.”

  “I am. Happier than I dreamed was possible.”

  “But then you’ve always been a happy fellow. I mean you were always sure of yourself, rather —” Finch hesitated for a word.

  “Cocky,” supplied Wake. “I know just how you must have felt about me. I think I was full of conceit. But I wasn’t really happy. I was too self-conscious for that. But now I’ve given up all self. Come along to my tree and we’ll talk about me.” He caught Finch by the arm and drew him toward a bench beneath a chestnut tree that was turning prematurely brown. Other black-gowned figures were about, some slender like Wakefield, some thick-set or rotund.

  It was evidently a time of recreation. They strolled together in groups or sat reading. On the bench where Wakefield had sat lay a volume of St. Thomas Aquinas. He picked it up and his fingers closed caressingly over its worn leather covers.

  Finch thought — “If only I could know what is in his mind! And how he came to do this strange thing and how much of his happiness is real and how much play-acting! But I’m a beast to suspect him for a moment. He is absolutely sincere. The look in his eyes … the very movement of his hands….” He said gently:

  “Will you tell me something about it, Wake? I thought that you were terribly keen on Pauline. What changed your feelings? Would you mind telling me?”

  “Well, you know, Finch, I was always rather religious. Do you remember how I used to pray for my grandmother when I was a kid? Of course, that was presumption and very irritating to my uncles, but it showed that I had a feeling for prayer. Then I stopped praying and began to write poetry. But I wasn’t really a poet, like Eden was. With me it was just a phase and it passed. Then I fell in love with Pauline and everything was different. What I wanted above all things was to have her for my own. I wanted to work to make enough money to marry. And I did work, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” agreed Finch. “You worked damned hard.”

  Wakefield looked pleased. “You’re the first one who has said that, Finch. No matter how hard I worked I was looked on as a sort of playboy who couldn’t do a man’s job. I worked hard in the garage too. Later on I expect to work hard at teaching. There’s a tremendous lot to be done.” He looked capable of doing his share.

  Finch thought — “Is this novice really Wakefield? Is this Wake in the long black gown? Am I Finch? Are we two sitting together under this chestnut tree with those black crows of men flitting about? If only the pain keeps off … I can believe in anything … I can believe in God … if only the pain and confusion leave my head….”

  He picked up the book of Thomas Aquinas and opened it. The print was blurred before his eyes. He took off his glasses and pressed his eyeballs. Then he looked again. Now he saw the letters. But there were two of each. He turned his eyes to Wake’s face and saw his features grotesquely duplicated. He closed his eyes.

  “You aren’t well, are you, Finch?”

  Wakefield’s voice was warm with sympathy.

  “I’m all right.” Finch spoke gruffly. “I’m just tired. Those concerts were a strain.”

  Wakefield laid a brown hand on Finch’s knee. “If you weren’t married, I’d be after you! I’d never rest till I had you, Finch! You could be so happy in this life. You were not made for the stupidities and futile excitements of the world. You could make such wonderful use of your music. And, if I could have you beside me here, well — I’d ask for nothing more.”

  Finch thought — “How deep does it go with him? Is he just exhilarated by this new life or has he really found something that will last always?”

  He asked — “How did you come to do it? Which of you — I mean, surely you didn’t give up Pauline of your own free will.”

  “No — not of my own will. But God’s.”

  Finch moved restlessly on the seat.

  “You see, I had to be a Catholic to marry Pauline. At first I didn’t think much about it. She was the important object. But I was willing. It seemed rather a picturesque thing to do. I began after a little to get interested in my talks with the priest. Then I went to a mission for men. And I began to be unhappy. Every day I got more miserable and I lay awake half the night. But I kept it all to myself.” His lips set in a firm line.

  Finch thought — “Who is he like? I see Gran’s face in his, and Renny’s, and Eden’s, and even Piers’s. He’s like all of them but me! I’ll never get nearer to him than I am now.”

  Wakefield went on — “Then suddenly I found out that I wanted the religious life. Nothing but that. Nothing else would do. I consulted my priest. He was doubtful. But I knew I had a vocation. You can imagine what the family said.”

  “Yes…. What I can’t imagine is what Pauline said. It must have been a shock to her.”

  “That was the remarkable thing. That is what makes it all seem so divinely ordered. Almost the first thing she said to me was — ‘I sympathize more than you know. I have often thought I should like to enter a convent.’”

  “She said that, did she?”

  “Yes. And her look told me even more than her words. She wasn’t playing up to me. My belief is that we turned off the path we had taken at the very same moment. The same thought had been working in us both, though we were unconscious of it.”

  Finch looked down at his glasses dangling between his fingers. “And you don’t regret her? I mean, you can bear the thought of never seeing her again?”

  “Oh, I am sure I shall see her again. I look forward to that. But it will be different — naturally.”

  “I don’t suppose there is a chance of my ever seeing her again.”

  “Uncle Ernest told me that she is going to be at her mother’s sale, to help her. You might see her there. If you do, Finch, please give her my love and tell her I hope she is as happy as I am. Give my love to her mother too.”

  Finch remembered the blonde, stocky woman and felt a sudden compassion for her. He felt a pang in his heart at the thought that Pauline was going from them all forever. A thin old priest came to them across the burnt grass. Wakefield introduced Finch to him and the three proceeded to join a group of other novices.

  They were all natural and frie
ndly with Finch. Wakefield must have talked a good deal of his family. They asked Finch questions about his concerts and his experience in the world of music. To Finch it seemed that Wakefield already occupied in the monastery something of the position he had had at Jalna. He seemed a favourite with the older priests.

  He took Finch over the grounds. To the vegetable garden where lay brothers were working with an industry Finch had never before witnessed. He wished Piers might have seen them. He was shown over the monastery and saw Wakefield’s room. He looked at him curiously, out of his long, large-pupiled eyes.

  Finch had a good tea and was extraordinarily hungry.

  He stood beside Wakefield in the chapel at Benediction. The light from the stained glass windows fell across the heads and shoulders of these men withdrawn from the world. They seemed suddenly cold and aloof from him. The air was rich with incense. As he fixed his eyes on the glittering monstrance the pain in his head began again. He wanted to get away.

  At the gate the brothers shook hands. Wakefield said:

  “Remember, Finch, you will never be out of my thoughts. I shall always be praying for you. I have hopes that you may become a Catholic. And Renny too. I even have hope for him.”

  “What about Piers?” asked Finch grimly.

  Wake gave one of his old mischievous grins. “Well,” he said, “I haven’t much hope of Piers.”

  XII

  SALE AT THE FOX FARM

  THE ATMOSPHERE of an auction sale was not a novelty at Jalna. Once a year Renny and Piers held a sale of surplus stock. The bustle in preparation for it, the actual event, the rearrangement of stables afterward, and the gratification or disappointment in the result, were a solid part of each year.

  But the sale at the fox farm was different. It was still called the fox farm though the foxes had disappeared. Their wire-netted runs stood forsaken or sagged to the ground. But the little house was charming inside. Clara and Pauline had delighted in keeping it so. Now it would stand bereft, its associations torn from it like a clinging creeper. To Renny it was a black day. He would be glad when it was over and the door locked on that chamber of his life. He had done all he could to arrange for a successful sale. Now he had only to stand by and watch the familiar objects disappear one by one.