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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Oh, don’t say that!” cried Meg. “Not before the child. Don’t even think such things. Thought does affect a sick person. I’m sure that all Finch needs is complete rest. That’s what Renny says.”

  “Renny baffles me,” said Piers. “He lets that boy lie there getting weaker and weaker. He does nothing. Whether he’s fatalistic or merely slothful, I don’t know. For my part, I feel absolutely discouraged. I went in to see him yesterday. He was lying on the bed looking perfectly peaceful. He hadn’t a book, a newspaper, a cigarette — anything by him for amusement. I said to him — ‘How’s that pain in your head?’ — and he answered ‘It’s a lot better. It only comes now and then.’ Then I asked him if he didn’t think he ought to get up and he said that if he got up the pain would come back again, that he wanted to stay where he was till he was quite well. He said he wanted to be left alone and not worried and — when I told him what I thought about it the tears began to run out of his eyes, easily — without any effort, you might say. It was awful.”

  “Patience,” said her mother. “Go and tell Katie to bring the tea.”

  “I don’t like her to hear disturbing things,” she said when the child was gone.

  Maurice asked — “What do the uncles think of his condition?”

  Piers gave a short laugh. “They don’t take anything very seriously, except their own comfort. ‘Finch has had a breakdown. Time will mend him. We must do all we can to bring him and Sarah together again. She’s a nice girl though rather eccentric, and devoted to Finch.’ I tell you that the whole family — yourselves included — are either blind or willfully unobservant — I was going to say callous.”

  “Oh no,” interrupted Meg. “Don’t say callous! After all, the uncles have had ten times the experience that you have had, Piers. I have had the experience of a breakdown and time healed me.”

  Piers pushed out his lips and looked unconvinced.

  Maurice asked — “Do you like this new covering I’ve put on the chair?”

  Piers grunted approval.

  Meg sat down beside Piers and took his firm hand in hers. “Piers, if anything should happen — oh, I can’t put such a thought into words I should never have let it enter my mind!”

  Maurice looked at her uncomfortably, Piers blankly. “What thought?” he said.

  She almost whispered — “If anything should happen that Finch …”

  “Well — I’m prepared for it, as I’ve just said.”

  “Piers, what about our mortgage? Who would hold that?”

  “Sarah, if he has made a will in her favour. But I don’t think he has made a will. In that case she would get a third and the rest be divided equally among us.”

  Meg pondered.

  “I hope it won’t come to that,” said Maurice. He sat nursing his hand which had been crippled in the War and now had rheumatism in it.

  “What a thing to say!” cried Meg. “Just as though the thought of such a thing was not horrible to all of us!” She began to cry, her plump breast rising and falling with her gasping breaths.

  “Don’t work yourself up,” said Piers. “There’s lots of life in Finch yet. Here comes the tea.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” added Maurice, “don’t let Patience see you crying!”

  With an effort Meg controlled herself. A neat maid placed a silver tray on the table beside her. From a covered dish came the smell of hot, buttered muffins. A jar of blackberry jelly caught the light like a jewel. A round sultana cake and a pierced silver basket of thin cookies spoke well for the fare enjoyed by the summer’s paying guests.

  Patience handed about the muffins with a troubled glance at her mother’s face. Meg at once spoke brightly of the wins at the New York Horse Show. Piers agreed complacently, putting half a muffin in his mouth, that they had done well.

  “I should think,” said Meg, “that Alayne would feel humiliated. She hadn’t a good word for that new mare. She never appreciated Renny’s flair for picking up unusual horses. She doesn’t know the first thing about them herself but she’s eternally setting up her opinion.”

  “I think we’ve seen the last of her,” said Piers. “She’s been away for months and hasn’t even asked to have Adeline sent to her on a visit. She’s an unnatural mother.”

  “There is nothing natural about her!” exclaimed Meg. “Have you ever seen her give one yearning, brooding mother-look at poor little Adeline?”

  “I’ve seen her look daggers at her.”

  “And Renny! Does she ever give him that understanding, maternal look that a natural wife gives her husband?”

  Meg demonstrated this look in a way that caused Maurice to hang his head and grin sheepishly.

  Piers said — “She writes to Pheasant, you know.”

  “Surely Pheasant shows you the letters.”

  “Sometimes. I don’t ask to see them. Pheasant doesn’t think she’ll come back. She thinks her mind is in a sort of morbid condition.”

  Patience was feeding the canary.

  Meg leant close to Piers and whispered — “Whatever was it all about? Mrs. Lebraux?”

  “I dare say. They haven’t confided in me.”

  “Well, I certainly think Renny should in me. I am his only sister and he well knows that nothing he could tell me would ever pass my lips.” She took a fresh helping of jelly and poured herself another cup of tea. “This is almost the first food I have eaten today.”

  “That’s true,” confirmed Maurice.

  In silence Piers spread jelly on a cookie and covered it with another. Patience called from the window — “Sarah is coming in at the gate!”

  When Piers had come he had remarked that it was going to snow. Now Sarah’s small fur hat was white with it. Flakes clung to her smooth, black hair. While Piers had brought with him a sense of boisterous but not unkindly weather Sarah brought the feeling of white relentless winter — the snow on her hat, her pale chiselled features, her penetrating, light grey eyes.

  Meg welcomed her with effusion, and ordered a fresh pot of tea. Maurice gave her his chair by the fire and Patience seated herself on a stool close by, admiring Sarah’s beautiful clothes.

  “Really, Sarah,” said Meg, “you are wasted in this place. There are so few to appreciate the way you look.”

  “I like clothes for their own sake,” said Sarah. “But if you like the way I look I am glad. I hope you don’t mind my coming. This time in the day is very lonely, it’s neither light nor dark and the sky is heavy with snow.”

  “I don’t see how you stand it!” exclaimed Meg. “I simply must have people about me! To live in a house alone — with the trees crowding so close — I’d go mad!”

  Sarah gave a small smile. “I’ve been used to a quiet life but — sometimes I feel — as though I couldn’t go on — as though something must happen to me.”

  Maurice put in — “Why don’t you go South for the winter? I certainly should if I were in your place. By spring you would know — well, things would have settled themselves in some way.”

  “No. I must stay here. I must be near Finch. And I love this place. I can’t tell you how much I love it. It’s just that at this hour of the day —”

  Meg said warmly — “My dear, we’re delighted to have you. Come every day at this time if it cheers you. We have just been talking about poor Finch ourselves and feeling simply terrible about him.”

  Sarah turned to Piers. “Have you seen him lately?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “And how is he?”

  “The same.”

  “Did he — speak of me?”

  “No. He wasn’t very talkative.”

  “But I asked you — last week, wasn’t it? — to try to find out what he feels about me the very next time you saw him!”

  Piers lighted a cigarette. “It’s no use, Sarah. You would have known that if you’d been there. It seems a strange thing to me but I do earnestly believe that two marriages are broken up in this family. And, if one is more finally broken up
than the other, I believe it’s yours.”

  “I have not given up hope.”

  “Nor I!” said Meg. “I’m positive that it will be all right with you and Finch in just a little while.”

  Sarah looked as though she could have embraced Meg for her words.

  Piers regarded her pessimistically. He said — “What do you know about it, Meg? You haven’t been near him for weeks. It would be more to the point if you went to him — tried to rouse him, instead of being so sure that everything will come right.”

  “What is the use of my going?” cried Meg, angrily. “The last time I went he wouldn’t see me and Renny was gruff and irritable. He said he wouldn’t have Finch bothered by anyone whom he didn’t want to see. I tell you, Sarah, you’re not the only one who suffers!”

  “What is it to you as compared to me?”

  “It is a very great deal to me. Finch was a little boy of seven when his mother died. I brought him up. I was a mother to him. Family ties may not mean much to you but to us they are as strong as marriage — if not stronger.”

  “That’s right,” said Maurice. He added, in an attempt to turn the conversation:

  “I suppose you’ll stay where you are for Christmas. I wish you could spend the day with the rest of us, but —” He looked to Piers for help.

  Piers gave it with his usual bluntness. “I’m afraid we can’t ask Sarah to Jalna. I’m hoping to get Finch down to dinner.”

  “Oh, I do hope you can!” said Meg.

  Sarah asked — “I wonder what I could send him for Christmas? Can you suggest anything?”

  The others looked at her dubiously, then Meg said:

  “A cheque is always nice.”

  “Not in his state,” said Piers. “It would mean nothing to him.”

  Maurice suggested. “Some cheery-looking neckties.”

  “I have been making a scrapbook,” said Sarah, “of notices of his concerts. I take a number of musical papers. There have been some lovely things said. Do you think he might like to see them?”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” said Piers. “Though I doubt if he’d read them.”

  “What a good wife you are!” declared Meg. “How different to Alayne! Can anyone picture her making a scrapbook for Renny of notices about his horses? Wasn’t it marvellous his winning a championship at the New York Show, Sarah?”

  “Yes. It was splendid.”

  “And he hopes to breed some wonderful foals from her.”

  An enigmatic smile flickered like wintry sunlight over Sarah’s face.

  Meg said — “I suppose he has paid the interest on his mortgage by now.”

  The two men were embarrassed. Sarah answered — “Oh, yes. He’s paid it all off.”

  Meg said — “I’m so glad,” and turned to Piers. “Has he paid you for the fodder?”

  “Yes. He did that after he had sold the ponies. He’s got everything pretty well straightened up now. Even the vet.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “If it weren’t for him,” said Sarah, “Finch and I would be living together. He has turned Finch against me.”

  “Rot!” said Piers.

  “No. It’s quite true.”

  “But why should he?”

  “Because he is jealous.”

  “Then why isn’t he jealous of Pheasant?”

  “Because Pheasant hasn’t taken you away from Jalna. He can’t bear to think of Finch living in Europe. Away from his influence. And there’s another thing. He dislikes me for myself. He knows he has no power over me and he resents it. Oh, I can’t tell you how deeply I think all this out — in my house alone — and how clear it all is to me.”

  They stared at her, not knowing what to say. They were relieved by the sound of a motor and the entrance of Renny.

  After nodding to the men, kissing Patience and gravely greeting Sarah, he said to Meg:

  “Christmas beef for you! We’ve been killing. It’s extra good this year.” He deposited a precariously wrapped joint in brown paper on the end of the piano.

  Meg clasped him. “Oh, how lovely! Your beef is always so good! We shall have it spiced, eh Maurice? My, it does bring Christmas close!”

  Renny patted her shoulder, looking half-defiantly across it at Sarah. She rose to go. Piers also said he must leave. Sarah looked rather wistfully at Maurice and Meg.

  “Will you two, and Patience of course, come to dinner with me on Christmas night? The dinner at Jalna will be at two, won’t it? If you don’t come I shall be quite alone.”

  Maurice looked enquiringly at Meg.

  “We shall love to go,” she said. “You’ll not mind our leaving a bit early, will you, Renny?”

  He did mind, but he agreed that he could tolerate it. Patience was delighted at the thought of two Christmas dinners. She danced to the door with Sarah and Piers, he teasing her, pretending to carry her out into the snow. Sarah stood by, with her small impersonal smile. Meg hugged herself in the doorway.

  Maurice led Renny toward the dining room.

  “Come and have a drink,” he said.

  He filled two glasses and raised his. “Happy days. Things are looking up with us, aren’t they?”

  With rather a sombre smile Renny lifted his glass. An icy blast from the open front door rushed into the room.

  XXI

  CHRISTMAS

  AS THE SUMMER had been eager to succumb to autumn, so autumn had been all too ready to throw herself at the hoary head of winter. Those first bitter days did not pass, leaving a period of mild weather behind them, but the cold increased week by week till on Christmas morning the mercury sank to twenty degrees below zero.

  Long before Finch woke he had been aware of the increasing cold. He had known that he was snuggling closer and closer to himself, wriggling the blankets higher and higher about his ears, and that the bedcoverings could not keep him warm. By degrees he became conscious of the growing brilliance in the room and at last, with a genuine shiver down his spine, he opened his eyes.

  The room was radiant. The shapes of ferns and butterflies on the thickly furred windowpane were outlined by ruddy sunlight. The air that came in was as though it swept straight from the North Pole. The snow powdering the sill was dry as down. An excitement, a sensitive quivering thrill as of childhood, stirred through Finch’s being. It was Christmas morning!

  For a moment the remembrance of the past months was obliterated, he gave himself up to the pure joy of the moment. He listened with ecstasy to the sound of the church bells ringing across the snow. He welcomed the chill of his body. It had been snug and slack too long. He turned flat on his back and drew in the crystal air, cherished its sting in his nostrils.

  He remembered Christmases when he was a small boy, those mysterious and beautiful early wakings when Jesus, the church bells, the Christmas tree almost blinded his eyes with their glory! He remembered his fear of Santa Claus, even when he knew that he was really Uncle Nick. Dimly he remembered another Santa Claus whom he had accepted implicitly, his own father. Finch wished he might have remembered him better, known him as a father, though he was sure no father could have been kinder to him than Renny had been.

  He heard the sharp crunch of footsteps on the snow. He heard Renny’s voice ordering the dogs to go back. He was off to early service alone Finch felt a sudden pang of pity for him, going off alone. He wished he might have been well enough to go with him. He pictured himself striding with Renny across the fields, stretching their legs as they heard the last notes of the bell. He pictured Noah Binns, the bell-rope in his hands, his arms moving rhythmically up and down, his face raised toward the bell. He remembered the first Christmas morning when he had gone to Early Communion, how he had knelt trembling on the Altar steps between his grandmother and Eden. She had been ninety-six then. It must have been one of the very last times she had gone to an early service. She had kept the little thirteen-year-old lad by her side. He remembered the protecting bulk of her in her black velvet cape and heavy widow’s veil thrown
back from her face, rising on his right, and on his left Eden’s youthful figure with bent head and crossed palms. In his inmost soul he had been conscious of the Christ-child, naked in the cold, of the Christ giving His Body and His Blood to the family kneeling there. Out of the sides of his eyes he had watched Grandmother’s hands — the ruby on one of the fingers catching the light as the stained glass of the windows did — stretched eagerly toward the goblet. He saw her bonnet bend, her strongly marked features impassive and noble. He saw her under lip project below the rim of the goblet. Into his own thin hands he took it, placed his mouth where hers had been and felt the beautiful, the terrible liquid pass his lips and enter his body. He covered his face with his hands. Still, while his soul was wrapt, he could not forget those at his side. Between his fingers his glance slid toward Eden, saw him steadily raise the goblet to his lips and his blue eyes beseechingly to Mr. Fennel’s face, saw him droop when the Rector passed, as the others did, like blighted flowers….

  He lay unconscious of his body and did not hear Rags knock on the door. He came in softly, carrying Finch’s breakfast tray, and when he saw that he was awake said with a heartiness that tried to ignore Finch’s illness:

  “Merry Christmas to you, sir!”

  Finch turned his long grey eyes toward him. “Thank you, Rags. The same to you.”

  Rags set down the tray and hastened to close the window “Why, you’re like a refrigerator in ’ere, sir! It’s a Harctic Christmas, and noaw mistake. I’ve never felt a colder. The pipes in the kitchen were froze solid. The scullery pump was froze. The milk was froze. Everythink was froze but my missus’ temper and it was all of a boiling stew, believe me! But it is pretty outside — wot you can see of it.” With his finger ends he increased the size of a clear spot on the pane, then peered out through it admiringly. “It’s like a Christmas card — the kind that looks just impossible. You ought to get up and see it, Mr. Finch.” He looked speculatively toward the bed.

  “Yes, I shall, later on.”

  “Just now it’s at its prettiest.”