His voice was soft and he had a slight sibilant lisp.
“My dear young cousins, how glad I am to welcome you here. Our son’s letters have been full of his pleasure in meeting you. Having you here brings back to me my visit to Jalna, which was one of the happiest times in my life.”
His hand lay silken and relaxed in Wakefield’s. It was difficult to think of him as controlling a horse or taking a jump, yet Wakefield knew he could do both. He replied with deference to Malahide. He had an air that always drew elderly men to him.
Finch was shaking hands with Mrs. Court. It was easy to see where Paris had got his looks. She was of compact build and quite fifteen years younger than her husband. Her black hair was grey at the temples but her skin was smooth and her blue eyes had a determined and cheerful light in them. There was a wryness to her smile as though many a time her laughter had been inward and bitter. She made the brothers very welcome and sat down with Paris at her side. It was clear that both parents doted on him.
She said to her husband — “These young men have a strong look of the Courts, haven’t they?”
“Especially Wakefield.” answered Malahide. “He bears a certain resemblance to his dear grandmother, though, if I remember rightly, it was Renny who inherited her red hair.” As he said the name “Renny” he gave a smile that was almost a simper.
“Gosh,” thought Finch, “I don’t like that smile! It makes me feel that he has something nasty up his sleeve.”
“When I visited at Jalna,” went on Malahide, “the baby of the family was Piers. He was a perfect Whiteoak and a great pet of mine. But I admired Eden even more. I looked on him as the flower of the flock.”
The sudden mention of Eden’s name brought a contraction of the heart to Finch. He drew down his sensitive upper lip and stared at Malahide in silence.
“I quite agree,” said Wakefield. “It has always been a grief to me that Eden died. I feel that he and I would have been such friends.”
“Did he leave any children?” asked Mrs. Court.
“A girl who is being brought up with Renny’s children. She’s a dear little thing.”
“And your uncles,” inquired Malahide. “I hope they flourish. I fagged for Nicholas, as a boy at school in England, and I must say he was pretty hard on me. But Ernest was a charming fellow, a dear man. He married late in life, didn’t he?”
“Yes. We think a lot of our aunt by marriage. She’s an American and so is Renny’s wife.”
“And so am I,” laughed Mrs. Court. “Your family seems to like my countrywomen. But the truth is I’ve lost all connection with America. I’ve never been there since my marriage. I have no relations there. I feel myself Irish, through and through.”
Wakefield noticed then that she spoke with a slight Irish accent which Malahide did not. Paris held one of his mother’s hands in his and stroked it, and now and again raised it to his lips. Now he spoke to his father.
“Tell the boys about the lovely horse, Dada,” he said. “And must we dress for dinner?”
“No dressing for dinner tonight,” put in Mrs. Court. “It is getting late and you three boys must be very hungry. What sort of crossing did you have?”
“Vile. All our English food is at the bottom of the Irish Sea. We’re starving. Shall I go and urge on the dinner?”
“There is plenty of time,” said Malahide. He proceeded to question Wakefield about his new profession and, once drawn on to talk of that, Wakefield forgot all about food and poured out his London experiences. Something he said led to the discovery of his conversion to Catholicism and his stay in the monastery.
“I’m very sympathetic indeed to that,” said Malahide, “for, though the Courts have always been members of the Church of England, there is much in the Catholic faith that I admire and I’ve often thought that, with my sensitive nature, I would have found real sanctuary in a monastery.”
His wife and son looked at him and it was impossible to tell what was in their minds. He talked of monasteries in Spain and France as though he were deeply familiar with them. Finch felt dizzy with hunger and fatigue. He wished he had let Wakefield make this visit alone — but no, he could not wish himself back in London. The strange unreality of this house would lift him out of himself — once he was rested. Rest — that was what he needed.
Old Jamesie came in carrying a tray on which were four small glasses, a small decanter half full of sherry, and a silver basket of biscuits.
The sherry slid down Finch’s throat like a burning sweet caress. He took a biscuit. It was flabby as flannel but he ate it. Mrs. Court also took one but she did not touch the sherry. “It gives me a headache,” she explained, but Finch thought she looked longingly at the decanter.
Wakefield was enjoying himself. He had lived such a sequestered life at Jalna, his one excursion his sojourn in the monastery, that each new experience was an unfolding of vital interest to him. The tiny glasses of sherry had long been emptied when dinner was announced. Malahide led the way with his wife on his arm. His willowy figure, his drooping back, slightly bowed legs, and affected walk, filled Finch with a sudden hilarity. He found himself suffocating a laugh. He dared not meet Wakefield’s eyes. Wakefield so fitted himself into the scene that he might have spent his days in this house. “Damned little play-actor,” muttered Finch to himself.
Their footsteps sounded melancholy on the stone flagging of the hall. The double doors of the dining room stood open. The table was lighted by six candles.
“There is no need for such an illumination,” said Mrs. Court. She took a heavy silver extinguisher from a drawer and extinguished two of the candles. Finch remembered how he had seen her draw aside a lump of coal, not yet ignited, before they had left the drawing room. He noticed her small, bony, capable hands and the set of her lips.
The silver on the long table bore a resemblance to the silver at Jalna. Some of it bore the same crest. But there resemblance ended. When Jamesie lifted the heavy silver cover from the platter in front of Malahide, the chicken disclosed was so small that Finch felt he could have eaten it all himself. He remembered the prodigality that weighted the table at Jalna and wished he might have seen the face of the master of Jalna had he been set down to this.
The room was very large, the walls covered by portraits, some too dim to be clear in candlelight. One, a man in armor just behind Malahide, showed a startling resemblance to him.
Malahide took up the carving knife and fork and smiled across the table at his wife. He looked like a dastardly pirate, thought Finch, ready to knife you in the back. But he spoke in his soft voice.
“What part of the bird would you like, my dear?”
“A very thin slice from the breast,” she answered, “and a little of the stuffing. You know I must eat lightly at night.”
But she did not eat lightly of potatoes and artichokes. She mounded her plate with these, drowning them in the watery gravy. Malahide gave Finch and Wakefield a drumstick each and to his son the neck and the parson’s nose. As he did this he said simperingly: —
“Ever since Paris was a little fellow he has firmly demanded these tidbits and now, though it looks childish, I must humour him.”
Paris smiled good-humouredly and he also helped himself liberally to vegetables and gravy.
Now Malahide transferred the remainder of the bird, almost shyly, to his own plate. “It is for me,” he said, “to pick the bones. But it is surprising what can be got from a little carcass like this when there is a will and, I might almost add, necessity.”
One of Finch’s long legs moved beneath the table toward Wakefield. He pressed his brother’s foot with his. Their eyes met. Malahide drew on his guests to talk. Before Finch was aware of it he found himself talking about music. Malahide divided his attention between Finch and his own plate. When the bones were cleaned he wiped his fingers delicately and, while the plates were being changed, talked of great pianists he had heard and of orchestras which had given him pleasure. When he could possibly bring
in a kindly remark about one of the family at Jalna he never failed to do so. Wakefield began to think that Malahide had been badly used by the family and that they were unjustly prejudiced against him.
There was a salad of a few limp leaves of lettuce, some spongy radishes and cucumbers. Then came a raspberry flan which Malahide meticulously divided into five equal portions. Then a dish of green apples and pears was placed on the table and flanked by smaller dishes of nuts and raisins. Still, at the end of the meal, Finch felt ravenous. Nerves and weariness always made him hungry, but Wakefield was one of those happy people who can eat little or much, as occasion offers.
The dining room grew colder and colder. There was a draught through it that toyed with the hair on Wakefield’s forehead. He felt a shiver down his back yet he was strangely happy and could not understand Finch’s expression of melancholy as he looked across the dimly lighted expanse of table to him.
In the black-paneled hall their heads turned, in one movement, to look at the small portrait of a little girl of eight whose laughing face was clustered about by waves of dark red hair. Finch exclaimed: — “Why, she’s the image of Adeline! Look, Wake! It might be her portrait.”
“Who is Adeline?” asked Paris.
“She’s my brother Renny’s child. She’s just the age of this one. Lord, it makes me feel strange!”
“This is your grandmother, Adeline Court,” said Malahide. “I’m very fond of the picture. It was given by her father in part payment of a debt to mine. Only part payment, mind you, and that was all my father ever got. Yet, when your grandmother visited here, just before she sailed for Canada, — that was more than eighty years ago, — she took that picture off the wall, after everyone was in bed, and hid it in one of her trunks. She was leaving early the next morning. But my mother discovered the loss and refused to let her take her trunks from the house. I believe that there was quite a scene, for both ladies had violent tempers. Your grandfather offered to pay for the painting but my mother refused. Finally he persuaded your grandmother to return it, but you can imagine the parting. I’m very fond of that portrait. I greatly admired your grandmother.”
He took up a candle from the chest nearby and held it close to the smiling child face.
“What a skin!” he said. “I wonder if it was as milky white as that!”
“I’m sure of it,” said Wakefield, “for little Adeline’s is just the same. Finch, wouldn’t Renny love to have this picture?”
“I’m afraid you would never part with it,” Finch said to Malahide.
Malahide’s hand, so nearly the colour of the candle wax that they seemed one, began to tremble. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “The day your brother buys the horse I’m interested in, I’ll send him the portrait as a token of friendship, as a charm to bring good luck.”
“He would be delighted,” said Wakefield. “When shall we see the horse?”
“The first thing after breakfast.”
Finch did not speak. He was wrapped in the strangeness of life that had turned that red-lipped child, with the flowerlike flesh, into the old, old woman he had called grandmother, who had left him her fortune, now all disappeared. He lingered behind the others, fascinated by the picture.
“And this was you, Gran,” he murmured.
As they sat over coffee in the drawing room Malahide told them of the horse. It had been bred and was now owned by a Mr. Madigan, who was in dire straits financially and would take a low price for the horse.
“He has little idea,” said Malahide, “of its glorious potentialities. He knows it can run, and run fast, for that has been proved. But I can see deeper than he can and I warn you that, if your brother misses this opportunity, he would miss the greatest in his life so far as racing is concerned.”
“How much do you think Mr. Madigan is asking for the horse?” asked Wakefield.
“I believe,” said Malahide solemnly, “that he would take as little as five hundred guineas for him. You probably have some idea of what he will be worth when he has won the Grand National.”
Wakefield drew a deep sigh. He knew that such a sum would be very hard for Renny to lay hands on. Then there would be the training of the horse and his keep. And always there was the chance of failure. He looked anxiously at Finch.
“I don’t think we ought to do it,” said Finch.
“There is no need to decide in a hurry,” said Malahide. “When you have seen the horse, write to your brother. Get him to come over to Ireland and see for himself. There’d be no harm in that, surely. We’ll have photographs taken and sent to him. Come now, let us put it out of our minds till the morning. There is so much to talk over.”
“It is a great joy,” said Mrs. Court, “to have you three young people here. It makes us believe that spring has come.”
They asked Finch to play for them and half reluctantly he went across to the piano seat. He had practised so much in the past weeks that he shrank from the very voice of the piano, yet the potent attraction of the keyboard drew him. He longed to put his hands on it as a man might long to touch a loved one. There was a violin lying on the piano. The sight of it brought back the memory of Sarah and the summer when he had first met her. Far clearer and more real than the moment he was living in came the recollection of those days in Devon when they had played Chopin and Brahms together. He could see her standing by the piano, her white still face slanting across the violin, her chin holding it close as though inexorably. He could see her narrow green eyes and the glossy braids of her black hair encircling her small head which he afterward came to think of as snake-like. And those pale hands, with their unguessed strength! The sweetness of her kisses, her warm sweet breath on his face! This dim, moist landscape beyond the windows became for him the sunny Devon fields, the rolling moors. Surely their first love had been the happiest time of his life! Yet, before the honeymoon, he was afraid of something in her. And after — her all-possessing passion for him, that left him no freedom, had sickened him, thrown a sickly light over all they did. Yet — now he wondered if the fault were not in himself. He knew he was not the sort of man Sarah should have loved. She should have loved a man like Renny. Indeed she had once said to him that, if she did not so hate Renny, she could have loved him. Certainly she had no attraction for Renny. Finch laid his hand on the violin to feel its vibrant smoothness. He heard Wakefield’s voice.
“He’s dreaming. But I believe he is in the mood to play. He’s good. I can tell you.”
That roused him and he sat down on the faded yellow velvet seat. He began softly to play — not the pieces he was preparing for his recital but some of those he had played with Sarah. As he played he kept looking at the violin and he fancied that it would speak to him. It seemed in some delicate and subtle fashion to respond to the vibration of the piano beneath it. The figures in the room became more and more dreamlike. He had a glimpse of Cousin Malahide’s ivory hand shielding his face, as though something in the music had made it vulnerable. He saw Mrs. Court, still as a statue, the candlelight shining on her forehead and in her fixed blue gaze. There was Paris, his face no longer laughing and gay but drawn together, as though he were searching his mind for something lost there. Wakefield sat with bent head and arms folded, his darkness not sparkling and rich-hued now, but sombre. Of what did he dream? “Oh, my darling Sarah,” thought Finch, over and over, “why did I drive you away from me? Why did my love turn to hate?”
As the three young men went along an upstairs corridor to their rooms, Paris held a hand curved about the candle he carried, yet the draught almost blew it out.
“It’s at this corner,” he said, “where the bit of wall is fallen down.”
Finch could see a jagged aperture at the corner and the wall all green and discoloured.
“It doesn’t trouble us at all,” said Paris, “except in the worst weather and then we hang a blanket over it.”
“Have you no electric light?” asked Wakefield. “For my own part I love the candlelight, but I
was just wondering.”
“We did have electricity,” said Paris, “but my mother found that the servants wasted it, so she had it turned off at the main. Well, here we are, and if you’re anything like I am, you’re ready to tumble into bed at once.” He laid his hand on Finch’s arm. “Good Lord, I wish I could play like you! It wrings the heart out of one. Now, is there anything you want? Would you like some food on a tray? You might be hungry in the night.”
There was something unconvincing in this invitation and both brothers declared they could take nothing more till breakfast. Then they found themselves alone. Wakefield faced Finch with a little laugh.
“What a house!” he exclaimed. “And what people! Yet in some curious way I feel very near them. Of course, I’m very fond of Parry. His mother is an enigma but I like her. And I can’t help thinking that Cousin Malahide has been maligned by the family. You know, I can’t keep my eyes off him. He’s beautiful in an unholy sort of way. What do you feel about buying that horse, Finch? They’ve given you by far the better room. Mine is little and bare but I don’t mind. It takes me back to the monastery. Look at your bed hangings. Be careful they don’t fall down in the night and smother you.”
Finch answered him in monosyllables. He was tired and Wakefield’s manner of leaping from one subject to another always made him close up. He went to see Wakefield’s room to be rid of him, and so was.
As he shut his own door behind him he drew a deep breath of relief. He wanted to be alone. He took off his jacket and hung it up, stretched his arms and lighted a last cigarette. The casement was open and a musical drip of rain came from an eave. It was so damp he thought he would close the casement but found he could not because ivy had so strongly entwined itself about the hinges that they would not move. As he turned away he faced his own reflection in a tall pierglass whose tarnished gilt frame was topped by an eagle. He stood motionless, straining every nerve to discover what it was in the room that made him feel uneasy, as though he were not alone. He thought: —
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 117
