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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “It will be nice to have another house in the family to visit,” said Ernest.

  That very day two scrubbing women were sent to prepare the house for Sarah. Noah Binns was sent to cut the grass and tidy the flower borders. The next morning a farm wagon conveyed two loads of furniture and Meg went to town with Sarah to buy curtains and kitchen utensils. A cousin of Alma Patch was discovered who could both cook and wait at table. At evening Sarah and her French maid glided through the ravine to the fox farm. Sarah was excited as a child.

  Before she left she wrote a note to Finch and slipped it under his door, running down the attic stairs afterward with a tapping of high heels. She did not resent that he refused to see her. She would not have had things other than as they were. It was all a part of the wonderful game of marriage with Finch whose every mood, every gesture, fascinated her. She pictured him behind the door watching her note appear, going fearfully to fetch it, reading its passionate fearless phrases with a quickening heart, struggling feverishly against the physical longing for her. Soon, soon, he would cry out that longing!

  Finch listened to the tapping of her retreat, saw the note appear under the door. He saw it appear, and disappear under the edge of the worn carpet. He left it so hidden. He turned his head on his pillow, looking peacefully at the dim flowers of the wallpaper. He wanted nothing but to remain where he was. In this room he could come breast to breast with the soul of his boyhood. The walls spoke to him. The leaning roof bent like a wing above him. The faded patchwork was a shield between him and the world. Sometimes the pain was with him; sometimes he lay weak and calm, free from it.

  He refused to let the servant come in to make his bed but got up when it became too tumbled and put it in order himself. He went to the linen cupboard along the passage and got clean sheets when there was no one about. He loved his room so, he wanted no one but himself to enter it.

  He lay listening to the noises of the house. Adeline’s laughter and rages, the boom of Nicholas’s voice, the barking or growls of dogs, the shuffle of Bessie’s carpet sweeper. Sometimes he heard the thud of horses’ hoofs beneath his window and once a stableboy’s shrill whistle sounded like the notes of a violin. He sprang up in bed, starting with sweat, and was only reassured when the whistle ended in a guffaw. When Renny or his uncles came in to see him he pretended to be asleep or that the pain made talk impossible. He was ravenous for his breakfast but the other meals were carried away almost untouched.

  At the end of ten days Piers, without warning, appeared at his bedside. In all this time Finch had scarcely given him a thought except to remember him as the grand and tormenting companion of his boyhood. Now he looked up at him in wonder, at his fine shoulders, at his face enriched by a long summer of outdoor work, his hands strong and firm from the handling of horses.

  Piers said, with his derisive grin, but not feeling as sure of himself as he looked — “Taking a rest cure, eh? How do you feel?”

  “A bit better, I think,” mumbled Finch, the old sheepish look flickering into his face. “I was pretty tired.”

  “Well, you’ve had time to rest and, if you stay here much longer, you’re going to make yourself into an invalid. What you need now is some exercise.”

  Finch turned his face away. “I’m not up to it yet.” he muttered.

  “And never will be — if you don’t make the effort. I’ve come to take you out — anywhere you like. I’ll leave that to you — but you’ve got to get out of this bed and out of this house.”

  “Look here — I simply can’t — when I move, the pain — you don’t understand, Piers.”

  “I think I understand you — about as well as anyone can. And I know that, if you’re let alone, you’ll never get up.”

  “Rot!”

  “It isn’t rot. You know it’s the truth. You have a long stretch of life ahead of you and a lot of work to do. Come now” — Piers’s tone changed to one of almost entreaty — “let me help you on with your clothes. I have the car at the door. I’ll take you for a nice run along the lakeshore. There is a glorious breeze. The leaves are beginning to turn.”

  For answer Finch rolled over and drew the bedclothes over his head.

  In an instant Piers was on him. Grasping the coverings he stripped them from the bed and gave Finch a sounding smack on the buttocks.

  “Come now, up with you!” he said.

  Finch suddenly discovered that he wanted to surrender himself to Piers. He wanted his strong hands to master him. He let Piers help him on with his clothes, half laughing, feeling very shaky in the legs.

  Piers held his arm as they went down the stairs. “Does he know,” thought Finch, “that I am dizzy, or is he just bullying me?”

  Not a soul was about. Had Piers warned them out of the way? The car, bright after a hosing, stood on the drive. Piers put Finch into the seat beside him.

  Softly the car rolled beneath the arching trees. A change had taken place since Finch had last looked about him. The leaves of the birch trees were turning to gold, the oak to russet, the maple to blazing red. The stubble fields lay swarthy in the sun and goldenrod and Michaelmas daisies rose, bright-headed and tough-stemmed, by the fences. Fragile flowers were gone and red mountain ash berries told of frosts to come. Finch leant back in the seat, absorbing the scene, not speaking.

  They passed along the shore of the lake that lay ruffled under the harebell-blue arch of the sky. A fringe of foam crept up the sandy shore, subsided and again frothed up. I must forget, thought Finch, how I once tried to drown myself in it. It was too beautiful, the way I sank into its brightness. I was stronger when I was drowning than I am now. Why did Eden save me?

  Piers let the car slow down and lighted a cigarette. Everything he did with his hands was right, Finch thought. Not a hair’s-breadth of indecision, just strong, easy, capable movements.

  Piers slid his blue eyes to Finch’s face and away again. There was something benevolent in the glance. He said carelessly:

  “You’ve always taken things too seriously.”

  “I know,” muttered Finch.

  “Even as a young boy, you were the same.”

  “No need to tell me that.”

  “I was a callous cub.”

  “Don’t let’s talk, Piers.”

  “I’m not going to. But I do want to get you out of the rut you’re in. I know that I’m not artistic — no imagination, or that sort of thing. But I know when horse or man is headed for a fall. I knew that Eden was. But he was never any good. You are. I knew that spoiling Wake was bad for him but no one else could see that. I always felt that Renny’s marriage to Alayne would turn out badly for them both. But nothing could stop them. I’d like to see you make a good job of your life. You started out so well. You got all Gran’s money. You have a talent that ought to make you famous — according to what the critics say. You’ve married a rich wife. But — you took your legacy too seriously. I know that we made it hard for you but shouldn’t have let a little criticism drive you to —”

  “Don’t,” interrupted Finch twisting his fingers together.

  “I’m not going to…. Then you took your music too seriously. You let it be your master, instead of mastering it…. Now you are taking your marriage too seriously.”

  “My God!” broke out Finch, “you took your own marriage seriously enough — when you found out —”

  Piers’s face darkened. “I did take it seriously. But not too seriously. I kept my head. No one can deny that. I wasn’t going to have my marriage wrecked.”

  “You loved Pheasant!”

  Piers stared. “And don’t you —”

  “I hate her! No … not hate … It’s more like fear —”

  “There you go — Fear!”

  “I tell you, she stifles me…. She takes the life out of me…. I can’t live with her, Piers!” His voice rose. He looked so wild that Piers let out the speed and growled:

  “No one is going to ask you to. Not till you want. But — will you just put yourself
into my hands — do what I say for a few days? Perhaps a week?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Come for a drive with me every day. I’ll not trouble you by talking like this again. You’ll just get the air and a change of scene. Then, at night, I want you to take a good horn of Scotch — enough to make you forget your troubles. You have no idea how much good it will do you. It’s the best medicine you can have. Will you do it?”

  Finch gave a little laugh. “It sounds easy,” he said. “I don’t mind taking the whiskey if you think it will do me good. I’m not sure about the motoring. I like my own room, you know.”

  “You will never get well while you stick in it. I know what I’m talking about. What you need is movement in the open air. Why, you look better already!”

  Finch gave in. That night Piers came to Jalna and administered the dose of Scotch with a steady hand and a benign eye. A rich glow enveloped Finch. His nerves tingled, then relaxed. He fell into a heavy sleep. But next day the pain in his head was worse and he refused to leave his room.

  XVII

  EARLY AUTUMN

  RENNY WALKED BESIDE the wagon that conveyed Clara Lebraux’s furniture, together with some pieces from the attic at Jalna, to the fox farm. The load did not include the things he himself had bought at the sale. He liked having the bookcase and cabinet in his bedroom and he had taken the coffee table to his office in the stables and had arranged his smoking things on it. He could not bring himself to return these pieces to the fox farm.

  As he helped Sarah to arrange the rooms — Meg was also there, her presence adding comfort to the scene — he reflected on the vicissitudes of this house. He could scarcely believe that Clara and Pauline were gone from it forever and he would have given much to have seen Clara’s sturdy figure capably putting the place in order, Pauline, by turns serious and gay, in place of Sarah gliding helplessly about and her French maid making a mountain out of every molehill. They were unreal to him and he liked reality. That was what he had liked best about Clara, her warm vibrant reality. Still Sarah was taking this affair with admirable calm. She was in a difficult position but was uncomplaining. Indeed she seemed to feel more pleasure than unhappiness in making this separate home to which she expected to bring Finch as soon as he was fit.

  Meg was affectionate toward Sarah. She praised her openly for unselfish devotion to Finch, comparing it with the cold selfishness of some wives, and if her lips did not frame Alayne’s name, her tone breathed it.

  All the family began to find Alayne’s continued absence suspicious. As they watched the mails and no letters came from her to Renny they were certain that she had left him for good. Before long she acknowledged this in a letter to Pheasant, who kept her posted on the welfare of her child and who indeed never failed to send the most minute gossip connected with the family. Pheasant felt an isolated pride in being the only one to whom Alayne wrote but she wished that Alayne would write more frankly to her. There was something detached and impersonal about her letters. Pheasant felt sure that she had more to tell than of the trivial doings of herself and her aunt.

  Ernest and Nicholas were hurt by Alayne’s not writing to them. A coldness had sprung up between them and they felt that the fault was on Alayne’s side. She was changed, she was cold and her old graceful charm seemed to have left her. At the same time they were not ill-pleased that Sarah had removed her presence, for it was an emphatic one and now they felt freer to live their own lives in their own way. They laughingly called Adeline the little mistress of Jalna. She liked this and put on an air of authority in the house. She was four years old and she was a woman of authority. So she felt, and Alma Patch could no longer control her. She got up, went to bed when she pleased, and ate what her keen taste demanded. Food that would cause pain to Pheasant’s boys affected her not at all. She ate hard russet apples, juicy peaches skin and all, slices of current cake between meals. She drank strong tea, lemonade, cider, or buttermilk. She threw off all authority and marched fresh-skinned and firm-fleshed to meet life.

  Renny had bought her her first riding suit, had it made to order by his own tailors, who marvelled at her proportions, so fine for her age. In truth she looked noble with her auburn curls shortened a bit and her legs as straight as God could make them.

  Soon she vied with Mooey in schooling the ponies. He was envious of her daring and strained every nerve to hold his superiority as a nine-year-old. Renny gave his time to preparing his horses for the shows. His hope lay in the newly acquired mare, tempered by the doubt that he would ever break her of her strange habit of walking on her hind legs. These legs were so thin and she held them so stiffly that the stableman nicknamed her “Mrs. Spindles,” and the name stuck. In her lay Renny’s hope of paying Sarah the interest on the mortgage, of which two installments were now due.

  The Vaughans’ position was not so straightened as it had been. Meg’s paying guests had been profitable, but to produce the interest for Finch was out of the question. This caused Meg and Maurice little anxiety because Finch apparently did not notice that the time for payment had arrived. He spent his days in his room, only getting up to tidy his bed and not again repeating either of Piers’s prescriptions.

  With Piers and Pheasant things had improved. Crops had been munificent, fruit and stock had both sold comparatively well. The Miss Laceys had decided to spend the rest of their lives in California and agreed that Piers should buy their house on easy terms. Piers made his first payment and came home to tea hilarious. He kissed Pheasant and the baby and gave each of the boys twenty-five cents to spend. He walked round the garden saying “My garden” — Pheasant knocked loudly on the door crying “My door.” The boys, taking it up, ran all over the place shouting “Mine — mine” to everything they touched.

  Heavy autumn rains came and Sarah’s longing for Finch grew beyond all bounds. She came to Jalna at dusk on a day of gales and rain, wrapped in a white waterproof cape. She looked like one of the silver birch trees given motion and sight for its longing. The rain dripped from her as she stood waiting for Wragge to open the door. A black tendril of hair lay flat against her cheek. Once more the leaves of the Virginia creeper were beginning to fall into the porch, as every autumn they closed the chapter of the past summer. Merlin, dripping wet after a prowl, came snuffling at Sarah’s heels. He raised his blind face and gave her a deprecating grin as he recognized her, then pushed ahead to be first to enter the house.

  Wragge was long in answering the door. She could hear his steps coming, then he waited to put on the light. Merlin could scarcely endure his anxiety. He pushed his stern against Sarah, scratched the door and whined. There were so many scratches on the door that these new ones made no impression — no more than another fallen leaf on the porch.

  When the door opened Merlin shot into the hall and, placing the side of his head on the carpet, propelled himself in an effort to dry his long ears. Wragge looked surprised.

  “Oah,” he said, and hesitated, as though he were a jailer.

  “I came to see Mr. Whiteoak — Mr. Renny,” Sarah said, softly.

  “Oah, you can see ’im,” said Wragge. “Will you come in, please?”

  Sarah smiled and asked — “How is my husband?”

  Wragge’s defences melted before that strange sweet smile which lighted only the lower part of the face, leaving the eyes cold and grey beneath their fine black brows. He glanced toward the door of the sitting room and spoke almost in a whisper.

  “Pretty bad, I should s’y, ma’am. ’E takes very little nourishment — ’im as always was the ’eartiest heater in the family. And ’is nerves! Well — if nerves ever was unstrung, ’is are.”

  “Wragge, I must go up to him,” said Sarah.

  Wragge’s face puckered in worry. “I doan’t knaow if I ought to let you, ma’am — without permission. It might set ’im off. ’E won’t see no one.”

  “But I must,” said Sarah. “I promise you I won’t set him off. It will do him good to see me.”
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  “Well, ’m, if you do, I ’ope you won’t mention music to ’im, for ’e’s turned clean against it. Only the other day Miss Adeline began to strum on the pianner and ’e came tearing down the stairs enough to frighten you and shouted to ’er to stop. ’E looked ’alf mad.”

  “I’ll not talk of music, Wragge.” She slid past him into the hall and was halfway up the stairs when the door of the sitting room opened and Renny came out. In two strides he was at the banister. He thrust his hand between the spindles and caught hold of her cape.

  “You dare!” she said. “You dare try to prevent me seeing Finch!”

  “I can’t let you go up! It would upset him.”

  “It is you and your brothers who are coming between us…. Let me go up!” She tore open her cape at the throat and let it fall in his hand. She ran like a hare up the two flights of steps to Finch’s door.

  He was after her, two steps at a time.

  Merlin raised his muzzle and gave his deep, bewildered bark. Wragge picked up Sarah’s cape and hung it carefully on the rack from the top of which the carved fox’s head grinned down at him.

  Renny caught her just as she laid her hand on the doorknob. He held her tight, their two hearts pounding. He said, in a fierce whisper:

  “No — no — you’re not going in!”

  “I am! Let me go! Finch!”

  Renny stifled her mouth against his shoulder. He pressed her body against his and carried her struggling down the stairs to the hall. He took her inside the sitting room and shut the door behind them.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he said. “You’ll spoil all your chances with him — if you force yourself on him now.”

  “You are determined to keep us apart.”

  “Sarah, you are a stupid woman Can’t you feel that sometimes a husband may want to be left alone?”

  Her eves shone with hate. “I feel why your wife has left you alone! You are absolutely ruthless!”