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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Now you’re talking nonsense. But I have a sick boy on my hands. Can’t you be patient for a little? You were brought up to be patient. You weren’t allowed to put yourself first.”

  “I am in love.”

  She stood before him, sleek, black-haired, not disarranged after the struggle. Everything about him was repellent to her. She hated the look of authority in his eyes, as though his word were law in that house, hated his hard, shapely hands with their close-cut nails that looked as though they were scrubbed with a stiff brush. The hate was all the more poignant because she envied him, for Finch’s sake, his formidable strength.

  “I am in love,” she repeated. “And the one I love is ill and you are keeping us apart. Your own sister thinks we should be together.”

  He made a contemptuous grimace. “What does Meg know of his condition? I tell you, no one knows but Wakefield and me.”

  “And both of you hate women,” she cried, “or you couldn’t treat them so! He drove Pauline to a convent and you drove Alayne back to her old life. You are trying to turn Finch —”

  He interrupted — “I am trying to save Finch from an absolute breakdown.”

  “I demand one thing,” she said. “He must be seen by a specialist. I will bring one here myself. Finch must see him.”

  “Very well — do.”

  “If the specialist says he can be moved I will take him to my house.”

  “Very well — do.”

  “Oh, you think you’re safe! You think you have his spirit broken! You think you’ve got him fast. You want to rule the house — as your old grandmother did! She stood up like granite while other people stumbled and fell. If you were put out of this house your strength would go. It’s the awful pride of this house that makes you so arrogant. Jalna reeks of pride and tyranny.”

  He grinned at her, not ill-pleased.

  “The house is all right,” he said. “Gran was all right. We are all all right. But you are letting your feelings run away with you. No one wants to see Finch on his feet — back at his work — more than I do. Bring the specialist along. Perhaps Finch will see him. Perhaps he won’t. We can only try.”

  “I will see one tomorrow,” she said. She passed him, hating the smell of tobacco and horses that came from him, and went into the hall. With great deference Wragge took the white cape from the rack and put it about her shoulders. Only the moment before he had deftly stepped back from his position with his ear at the panel of the sitting-room door. There was a humorous melancholy in his eyes.

  A gust of wind, with a splutter of rain on it, came in when the front door was opened. Floss came too, wet and draggled. Merlin met and kissed her. They both looked expectantly at Sarah, wanting her to go so that the door might be shut on the night. Renny asked:

  “Shall I go with you through the ravine? It’s getting dark.”

  “No — thank you. I’d rather go alone.”

  The door was shut on her. Renny and Rags exchanged a look. Rags said:

  “I think I’ll fetch you a little gin and water, sir. There’s nothing like it to steady the nerves.”

  “Thanks, Rags. Where are my uncles?”

  “Just in the drawing room, sir. It’s a blessing the wind’s ’owling like all possessed. They’ve ’eard nothink.”

  Renny joined them, pausing by Ernest’s chair to admire the progress he had made with his needlework that day. Nicholas was reading aloud from Henry Esmond, in his sonorous voice. The wind strove against the French windows and cried out in the chimney. But Boney sat silent on his perch, muffled, somnolent, one half-open eye sufficing to show him all he wanted of the world.

  “Sarah’s been here,” observed Rennv tersely.

  Nicholas laid down his book. “Well, well, why didn’t she come in to see us?”

  “She was rather upset. She wants to bring a specialist to see Finch. I think it may be a good idea. But I dare say Finch won’t see him. Sarah’s a bit of a fool.”

  “Why?” asked Ernest putting his needle into the calyx of a flower.

  “Well — she seems to think I’m trying to keep Finch and her apart.”

  “I’ll tell her that’s not so,” said Ernest.

  “If you ask me,” said Nicholas, taking out his pipe, I think her case is hopeless.”

  The shadow on Renny’s face deepened. He had a feeling almost of dread toward Sarah.

  He talked for a while with his uncles then went to the room where the two children slept. The wind had disturbed them and they looked up at him from their cots like two small, alert animals. Which one would he go to first? Roma invited him with her slanting eyes while she kept her lips folded together. Adeline wriggled her toes against the sheet, inviting him. He went and caught the toes in his fingers and tweaked them. She was galvanized into activity. She leaped from under the bedclothes and sprang up and down on the mattress. She threw him daring looks from under her lashes.

  “And you were tucked in so neatly!” he exclaimed.

  “I don’t mind! You’ll tuck me in again, won’t you? You get up too, Roma! You jump too! Up and down — up and down — très jolie — très jolie — I talk French, Daddy!” Roma scrambled to her feet also. The two tiny girls jumped and chanted in unison. Then Renny gathered them both into his arms and they smothered him with hugs.

  He hated what he had to do when they were tucked into their cots and he drew a deep breath before he went to Finch’s room.

  Finch started up from the corner where he was sitting in the darkness, when the door opened. In the light from the passage Renny saw him standing, tall and gaunt, a dressing gown over his pyjamas.

  Renny asked casually — “Don’t you want a light?”

  “No — perhaps — I don’t care,” muttered Finch.

  Renny closed the door and put on the light. The room was unspeakably forlorn. Finch, with that look of suffering on his face, the dressing gown slack on his thin body, brought Eden poignantly to Renny’s mind. He said anxiously:

  “You have no cough, have you?”

  “No — I don’t think so…. Renny, I know who was out there.”

  “She came to see you but I wouldn’t let her in. She’s gone.”

  “Don’t let her in — ever! I — I — don’t want to see her … she tires me with her talk and her … You see, Renny, this pain makes me different. I’m not like I was when we married. I loved her then — I think — and I loved music but … I can’t bear to think of either now … love and music are torture to me….” He began to bite at his thumbnail almost violently, as though to steady the shaking of his hand.

  “Don’t bite your nails! You may be sure I’ll never let her in. You shall not be forced to see anyone you don’t want to see.”

  “But — supposing you weren’t here?”

  “I don’t think she’ll come again. But she wants you to see a specialist and I think you ought to do it. We are — none of us — satisfied with the way you’re getting on. He would probably fix you up in no time.”

  “I have seen a specialist!” said Finch excitedly. “I saw that French specialist. He was a nice man. He understood. He understood that all those recitals and the travelling were a strain and he understood about Sarah too — without my ever telling him. And he said the only thing for it was rest and to keep to myself. Sarah never understood that I needed privacy. She was always there. She loved going from place to place — meeting people — showing me off. She would sleep half the day but — she wouldn’t let me sleep at night! I forgot how to sleep. And my eyes hurt and then the pain began.”

  “I know,” said Renny. “Still I think you ought to see a doctor whom she will choose. You can tell him just how you feel — about everything. She will believe it if she hears it from him.”

  An idea came to Finch. He would see the specialist and through him make Sarah understand that he could never live with her again.

  The next day she brought the doctor to see him, waiting in the drawing room with Nicholas and Ernest while the interview
took place. She sat rigid and almost silent except when Renny came and stood in the doorway for a moment, then she pointed to him and said:

  “There’s the man, Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest, who is trying to separate me from the one I love.”

  “The uncles know that is not true,” said Renny.

  “They can’t deny it!”

  “It was Uncle Ernie who suggested your going to the fox farm and Uncle Nick agreed.”

  “It is you who stand between me and Finch,” she repeated sullenly.

  “It will all come right, my dear,” said Ernest.

  Nicholas puffed silently at his pipe.

  In his room Finch was being diagnosed by the specialist. He was a spare, grey-faced man who looked rather ill himself. He had neither heart, humour, nor understanding, and did well in the diagnosis of sensitive patients. He had even written a book on diseases of the nerves, a copy of which always stood upright on the desk in his office. He dressed in and copied the manner of Harley Street. His handsome car and chauffeur in livery waited outside. The antagonism Finch instinctively felt towards him made the interview easier. He answered the doctor’s questions in a cold, hostile voice. When the doctor said that a special ultraviolet ray treatment was called for, Finch agreed apathetically to go to a hospital three times a week. He would agree to any treatment he said, looking with cold hostility into the specialist’s eyes, but he could never agree to live with his wife again. Would the doctor make her understand that? It would be well if he could.

  Renny took Finch in the car to the hospital in town for the prescribed treatments, calling for him promptly at the specified time. Finch envied him the interval which he knew would be spent with his horsey friends, while he lay stretched on a cot, all his nerves tingling under the electric rays, the experienced fingers of a nurse massaging his neck and spine. He lay there supine under the hands, listening to the strange cries of a dumb child who was being treated in the next cubicle and the voluble groans of a stout Italian on the other side. He rather liked the treatment. He liked his nurse and she liked him. She seemed dubious as to its efficacy but the specialist dropped in for a few moments each time and pompously encouraged her.

  At first Finch felt that here, after all, was something that was going to help him. He liked the drives to town, slouched in the car beside Renny who drove so differently to Piers. One never knew what Renny or the car would do next — the car seeming to try to behave like a horse, while Renny viewed its efforts with suspicion. The weather was wild and rainy. The lake tossed foam from its greyness. The ugly suburbs of the town were hidden in a sweeping mist. The windshield steamed. There was ease in Finch’s pain and he looked forward to the firm manipulation of the nurse’s hands. How often she would pause and ask — “Do you think this is really helping you?” And Finch would answer — “Yes, I am sure it is. I slept better last night.” When he had got home he had fallen into an exhausted stupor. The grey-faced specialist now looked at him with approval. He almost beamed when he entered the cubicle and found Finch prostrate under the powerful ray, the nurse skillfully kneading his spinal nerves. But, driving home, Renny slid anxious looks at him.

  Then, one black afternoon of blowing leaves and gusty clouds, Finch began to cry on the way home. Renny, with set face, looked straight ahead of him for a space. Tears rolled down Finch’s face. He felt too weak to wipe them away.

  Renny said — “You’re all right. We shall be home soon. Come now — there’s a good fellow.” He spoke soothingly, as to a frightened horse.

  Finch tried to speak but he could not. He felt the tears running down his cheeks, warm and salty. He felt the car leap forward. Renny was speeding to get him home … back to Jalna — back to the safety of his own dear room….

  When they were there, behind the closed door, Finch said — “I can’t go on with it…. I can’t go on…. The pain is worse … it’s like claws tearing.” He turned his long grey-blue eyes, full of suffering, on Renny.

  Renny answered curtly — “No need to go on. You shall do just as you like.”

  “What I want is,” said Finch, “what I want …”

  “Yes, what is it that you want?”

  “I want to go back there” — he made a tragic gesture toward the bed — “and stay till I am well.”

  “All right. I think it is the best thing you can do.”

  Finch’s gratitude hurt him. He helped Finch to undress, laying his glasses on the chest of drawers, hanging his coat in the cupboard.

  “I’ll be better soon,” said Finch. “Only I can’t go to the hospital again and I can’t see Sarah. You’ll make her understand that, won’t you, Renny? I can’t see her!”

  “You’ll get over this.”

  “I’ll play again — I think. But I’ll never live with Sarah. She — she — oh, I can’t explain! But — I tell you — look here — I tell you —” He looked wild; he became incoherent.

  “See her and tell her so.”

  “No!”

  “Write to her.”

  “I can’t write. I can’t hold the pen. It — isn’t legible.”

  “My God, you have got yourself into a mess! Is your head paining now?”

  “Horribly.”

  Renny drew a sharp breath. “Well — get to bed! We’ll see what that will do for you. I’ll tell Sarah.”

  “I wish you’d get her to go away from the fox farm. She seems — so near.”

  “I can’t drive the woman out of her house. She is barely settled.”

  “But you’ll see her today? And tell her about me? You’ll tell her I can’t….”

  “Yes, I’ll see her today. Keep your hair on.”

  As Renny walked through the ravine to the fox farm he considered with acute discomfort the position into which he was now forced. He had to tell Sarah that the husband she apparently doted on could not and would not see her, that he refused to contemplate a life anywhere near to her. This at a time when she held a heavy mortgage on Jalna and had already accused himself of coming between her and Finch! How many distasteful things he had had to do of late! He could scarcely reckon them up. Indeed to reckon them up was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to put them out of his mind during the respite of this walk through the ravine.

  He felt rudderless without his spaniels at his heels. He had left them at home because of Sarah’s pug who would go into spasms of barking at sight of them, persist in barking throughout the visit. He was a spoilt little devil.

  The rain beat down on him, the wind beat the wet branches of the trees that seemed all too ready to sacrifice their leaves on the icy altar of winter. The trees this season seemed to have no pride in rich foliage, changing to despondent yellow and brown instead of their brighter tones. Their wet limbs discovered the forsaken birds’ nests and a faint twitter of birdsong came from the naked branches of a wild cherry tree.

  The boards of the little bridge were plastered with wet leaves and edged with vivid green moss. The stream, welling full, hurried between the rank borders of long grass, harsh iris leaves, and a few pale forget-me-nots. It gave back no reflection but detached, sullen, occupied solely by its own swift progression, slid under the bridge, its voice lost in the wind and rain.

  Renny laid his hands on the slippery smoothness of the railing and looked down into the stream. His eyes followed its turnings almost unseeing so familiar was the scene, yet an essence rich and comforting entered into him from it. It held so many memories for him — memories from his very infancy — that he knew its changes as the changes on the faces of his own family. But, unlike them, it was yearly rejuvenated.

  An inner chamber of his mind opened and out of it came the remembrance of that scene between him and Alayne, after she had discovered him with Clara. Again he saw Alayne, shadowy behind the electric torch as she turned it full on him. He saw her bending over the stream, clinging to the rail, in an agony of jealousy, in this very spot. Where he now stood. Her body had hung over the rail here … her dear body….

&
nbsp; He was startled by that sudden feeling of her dearness. That, combined with the great distance between them…. She had gone out of his life … gone away…. She was not going to live with him ever again…. Not until this minute had he taken it completely in, the fact that she was lost to him. And it seemed a strange moment for this realization to come, when he had his mind so filled with the affairs of someone else.

  Now the stream, as though it reversed its mood, gave him back the reflection of Alayne — not tortured by hate but happy, relaxed, her blue eyes beaming up at him, her white arms round his neck. He saw her body — her dear body — strong and sweet in love for him. Yet he had not been able to shield her from what had come between them. And it was false, a traitorous disruption of their love, because no woman could ever put her out of her place in his heart and no man rivalled him in hers…. He had loved Clara. He still loved Clara. It had been a wrench to give her up — as a friend who understood him without explaining, who accepted him as he was, without yearning to make him over. Their interval of passion had, to him, been only as a red poppy blossoming in the rich grain of their friendship. It had been garnered with the grain. It had, now that all was over, taken on the sober hue of comradeship.

  It seemed almost unbelievable to him when Sarah herself opened the door. It was unnatural to see her in that house. For an instant he saw in her stead Pauline, as a long-legged child, holding her pet fox in her arms, her dark hair framing her face. His heart contracted as he remembered how that face was now framed. And the little fox was dead….

  Sarah looked at him startled, then said:

  “You look like a brigand!”

  “Do I?” He grinned, trying to look amicable.

  “Yes — with that battered-looking hat pulled over your eyes and your collar turned up.”

  “I need to — it’s raining like the devil.” He took off his hat and the rain ran from its brim.

  She looked at his head disclosed in the electric light. It was to her the head of an enemy, stark and invulnerable. His bright eyes roused a fierce antagonism in her.

  After an embarrassed pat to the pug he followed Sarah into the living room. She sat down, arranging her skirts about her and touching the twists of her sleek hair, as though for his inspection. He waited for her to speak, which she did in a sweet, rather pleading tone.