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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Sarah also was determined that things should go well. With a strange ingenuousness she tried to make herself as small as possible, as though to take up less room in a chair were to make her brother-in-law less conscious of her presence. So that, even while she abandoned herself to the joy of the glowing fire and that brightness in Finch’s eyes, she did so in a small way and spoke almost in a whisper. “I have never met anyone,” thought Wakefield. “at once so sly and so transparent. She’s like a crystal figure of a cat. You can see through it all right but it’s a cat nevertheless.”

  “Old Cousin Dermot,” said Finch, “reminds me of Uncle Nick. I’d like to see them together.”

  “Yes,” agreed Wakefield. “And whom does Cousin Malahide remind you of?”

  “Don’t say me!” exclaimed Sarah, in a little voice. “Don’t dare to say me!”

  “I’ve never seen two people less alike,” said Finch, but dared not meet Wakefield’s eyes, for the laughter in them.

  “He is a snake,” said Sarah. “I’ve heard your family say so.”

  Wakefield thought — “Heavens, if she knew what they say about her!”

  “Our family is too intolerant,” said Finch.

  “But they’re generally right.”

  “They would approve of Parry.”

  “How could they help?”

  “They approved of me at first,” said Sarah. “They were very nice to me — at first.”

  Wakefield pulled himself together. “First impressions are always right.” He smiled at Sarah.

  Finch gave him a look of gratitude that hurt Wake. He said, to change the subject: —

  “I must write home tonight and tell Renny about the horse.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Finch, and pulled nervously at his lip.

  “Shall you tell him about Finch and me too?” asked Sarah.

  “Yes, Sarah, and I’ll give Finch the letter to read, so he’ll know exactly what I’ve said.”

  “Thank you.” There was irony in her voice and he hastened to add: —

  “Not that anything I can say will alter Renny’s opinion.”

  There was silence for a space, then Finch asked: —

  “Should you like us to play for you, Wake?”

  “Yes. I’d like that.” He did not really want to hear them play, to be the spectator of this particular form of their intimacy, but it would be easier than making conversation. He kept his eyes on the fire as Finch went to the piano and Sarah took her violin from its case. The fire was making patterns of sparkling leaves and flowers only to wither them in the instant of their perfection. As the first note sounded he glanced furtively at Finch and Sarah. Somehow he wanted them to feel as unconscious of his presence as possible. Might he divine if they were truly happy in their coming together? Or was Finch feeling no more than a release of his troubled spirit?

  But they baffled him again. They played only light, gay, charming little pieces, throwing themselves into the playing with zest and as though with the purpose of charming away his hostility to their reunion.

  He could not but enjoy their playing. However terribly they might be unsuited to each other in their inner life, he must grant that in their playing they were one. When at last they paused, he said: —

  “I think you two ought to have a recital together. I think you’d make a great success of it.”

  “Oh, I’m not good enough!” said Sarah. “I can’t play anything really difficult. I only play the things I learned years ago.”

  “She is good enough, isn’t she, Finch?”

  “She could he but she’d never work hard enough. She’d have to work like hell for a year. Besides I’d not want her to do it. She’s not made for that sort of thing.”

  Sarah laid her violin on the piano and took two short gliding steps to his side. She put a hand on each of his cheeks. He raised his face to hers; Wakefield saw her pale profile with its thin arched nose, small mouth and pointed chin, bend to him like a menace. He turned his eyes again to the fire. It was making little blue flames that were dying and soon to droop into the ash.

  He moved restlessly in his chair.

  “Well,” he said, “if I’m going to write that letter tonight I must begin.”

  There was no answer for a moment, then Finch said, with some constraint in his voice: —

  “Why be in haste to write?”

  “He’ll want to hear from us.”

  “He has your cable.”

  “Put yourself in his place. You can imagine how the cable will excite him.”

  “Of course.”

  Sarah said — “I’m tired. I must go to bed.” She moved toward the door, then turned to pick up her shawl. “What a lovely evening! Good night, little Wake.”

  “Good night, Sarah.” He opened the door for her. As she passed she turned her cheek to be kissed. Wakefield just touched it with his lips.

  “This is such a dear little house,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m going to explore the streets all about. I shall love this part of London.”

  “Oh, no, you’ll not,” Wakefield said to himself, as the door closed behind them. “You’ll stay indoors, reading and eating sweets till Finch takes you somewhere — just the way you used to. I remember what the family used to say about that.” He opened the writing bureau and sat down before it, his young mouth set in firmness and disapproval. “I don’t like you, Sarah, and never shall. I wouldn’t give Molly Griffith’s little finger for the whole of your slinky body.”

  It was some time before he could find his pen. Finch had been using it. It was empty and when it was filled and Wakefield began to write he found the nib somehow different and less suited to him. He frowned and wrote: —

  MY DEAR RENNY,

  By now you will have had my cablegram from Ireland and I guess that you and all the family are excited. I expect you will meet with more disapproval than encouragement in the scheme. But from all I can learn about him, and from Finch’s and my own judgment, and from the opinion of Cousin Dermot who came all the way to Ballyside when he heard we were there to inspect Johnny the Bird, I do firmly believe he is a wonderful horse. Naturally I did not accept Malahide Court’s opinions. I gather that he will get a commission on the sale. He was very nice to us, in that slightly slimy way so delicately described by the family. Mrs. Court was very nice too. I fancy she has had a hard time of it. I have told you how much I think of Paris. He’s a fine fellow and the apple of his parents’ eyes. They are terribly poor. (I find myself in this letter wanting to underline certain words the way Aunt Augusta used to. Do you remember?)

  I enclose a copy of Johnny the Bird’s pedigree and a record of his accomplishments. Cousin Dermot thinks you ought to go to Ireland to see him. He is going to write to you and I leave it to him to press down the balance in Johnny’s favor.

  My mind is in fact full of another matter. I have news for you which I am afraid will trouble you greatly, as it has troubled me. It is about Finch. He and Sarah have come together again! She was waiting for him at Cousin Malahide’s and he wasn’t proof against that something in her which first fascinated him. I think it is a great mistake but Finch seems to be very happy. Sarah is with us in Gayfere Street. What will be the outcome of all this remains to be seen. I expect that Finch will write to you.

  Rehearsals begin tomorrow morning. Did I tell you that I have met a charming young actress named Molly Griffith?

  My fond love to all the family. Tell Adeline that I shall send her a necklet for her birthday.

  Your affectionate brother,

  WAKE

  “Poor old boy,” he murmered, as he blotted the letter. “I pity him when he reads this.”

  He went slowly up the stairs and at the top gave a low whistle for Finch. He appeared in shirt and trousers, with tousled hair.

  “Want to read this?”

  “If you like.” Finch’s tone was defensive. He took the sheet of notepaper in his bony, yet beautifully articulated hand. He read it without change of expression.
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  “It’s brief and to the point,” he said. “I mean the part about me.”

  “If I had written down my feelings I should have been at the desk half the night.”

  “It’s sufficient that you registered your disapproval.”

  “I think I was very moderate.”

  “You were cold and rather smug.”

  Wake’s voice trembled. “Point to one sentence that suggests either quality.”

  “I can’t. It’s just the whole tone of it.”

  “The trouble with you is that you’re self-centred and supercritical.”

  “Well, this letter is about me, isn’t it? After the horse has been disposed of.”

  “Is that what you think is cold? Writing first about the horse?”

  “Partly. No — it’s the whole tone.”

  “Very well. I’ll not send it. I’ll tear it up.”

  He snatched the letter from Finch’s hand and would have torn it across had not Finch caught him by the wrists. The feel of their flesh at grips sent a hot desire for violence through both. Wakefield’s eyes flashed. He drew back his lips from his teeth and wrenched to free his hands. Finch realized that Wakefield had lived a harder, more outdoor life than he — that he actually was stronger. He said loudly: — “You’re not to tear up that letter!”

  “I will! I’ll not have you say what you did!”

  They struggled over the letter.

  Sarah glided on to the landing. She peered over at them. She had unplaited her hair and it hung over each shoulder in a silky river. Like the pale reflection of the moon her face hung above them.

  “Are you quarreling?” she asked. “Can’t you see the stairs below you? You’ll fall if you go on like that.”

  The crushed letter fluttered to the floor. Wakefield said: —

  “Finch doesn’t like what I wrote to Renny. I want to tear it up.”

  “Let me read it.”

  He handed it to her.

  Standing beneath the gaslight she read the letter.

  “I don’t see anything wrong with it — from your point of view. After all, you’re writing what you think. Let me smooth it out and you can post it the first thing in the morning.”

  “Very well, Sarah.” He gave an accusing look at Finch and went down the stairs.

  Alone, Sarah reread the letter. She smoothed it as well as she could, then wrote at the bottom, in pencil: —

  You thought you could keep us apart. But I knew Finch better than you knew him and better than he knew himself. I never gave up hope. Now that there is no longer any need for hating you I give that up. I even forgive you for all the harm you tried to do me. That horse is a good one. Don’t be afraid to buy it.

  SARAH

  She glided down the stairs and into the living room. She found an envelope and addressed it to R.C. Whiteoak, Esq., in her large black handwriting. She found Finch’s mackintosh and put it on to cover her loosely hanging hair. She took an umbrella and let herself cautiously into the street.

  From there she could see Finch silhouetted against the window blind. She laughed, thinking how frightened he would be if he could not find her. It was raining so lightly that she did not put up the umbrella but hastened past the little houses, with their bright-coloured doors, toward Marsham Street. She kept on walking and dropped her letter into a pillar box. The streets were full of a slow-moving, quiet life. The lights were blurred by the misty rain. People glanced at her as they passed. She felt strangely happy. She thought of the two Whiteoaks in the house in Gayfere Street and how they had struggled together at the top of the stairs. What a lovely head Wakefield had! And those eyes! She felt drawn toward him but with no feeling of sex. All that feeling was for Finch. She thought of her nights with him in rapture, their isolation in the night, the immensity of the moving universe and they at its heart.

  She turned into the passage that leads into Dean’s Yard. She had never been there before and was filled with delight by the seclusion of the lovely old houses, the towering hulk of the Abbey. She discovered the cavern of the cloisters and went into them. Between pillars she saw the greenness of spring grass but she was in the blackness of the cloisters, half drowned in the dark well of the past. Her footsteps echoed on the flagstones. (“Beneath my feet bishops are buried,” she thought.) Then another sound came — other footsteps running after her.

  She had a moment’s terror. A madman — some grotesque figure that haunted these walls — the ghost of a monk — was pursuing her! She clutched her throat and pressed her body against a pillar. In an instant she would shriek. Then she saw that it was Finch who was following her.

  “Sarah!” he cried. “You’ve given me a terrible fright. Why did you come here?”

  She saw that he was ghostly pale and that, like hers, his wet hair was plastered on his forehead.

  “I could not bear,” she said, “that you and Wakefield should quarrel about me — so I left.”

  “We were not quarreling about you.”

  “I am the cause of it.”

  “Sarah, you will drive me mad, if you do such things! Come, my darling, my precious one. Come home.” He led her back through the streets.

  VII

  WAKEFIELD AND MOLLY GRIFFITH

  THE REHEARSAL WAS over and a pretty scramble it had been. Wakefield and Molly Griffith were the only two who knew their lines and hers went out of her head the moment she opened her mouth. That was in the first hour, when she was so nervous. But she got over that and she and Wakefield began to enjoy themselves. It was a good cast. The middle-aged actress who took the part of the delinquent mother would be splendid later on. Now she read her lines from the script in mystifying mumbles. She and Ninian Fox had several small quarrels which promised to develop into real wrangles. But in between these they paid each other charming compliments. Robert Fielding was everywhere, his bowler hat on the back of his head, his topcoat much too long. He was a thoughtful and polite producer. He was meticulous; nothing escaped him and he would require some minute part to be repeated endlessly, but always with gentleness and apologies to the players. When the time for Fielding’s own part came, Ninian Fox took the producing in hand. With him the case was different. He showed that he could be harsh and nagging.

  “I’m afraid of him,” said Molly, as she and Wakefield sat at lunch in the tiny basement restaurant round the corner.

  “Don’t you dare be afraid of anyone,” said Wakefield. “I won’t have it, as my grandmother used to say.”

  “You are the first boy I’ve ever known to quote his grandmother!”

  “We all of us do. She made an impression on us that we can’t get over.”

  “It’s not natural to me to be afraid but there’s something in Mr. Fox — anyhow, I’m terribly happy. Did you have a good time in Ireland?”

  Wakefield frowned. “It was rotten.”

  “Do you mean the crossing? Didn’t you like the horse?”

  “The sea was rough enough. I still feel a bit liverish. The horse is simply grand. Johnny the Bird, his name is.”

  “What a lovely name! It sounds so devil-may-care and Irish.”

  “Something really did go wrong,” said Wakefield, gravely. “I think I told you that the brother I live with was separated from his wife. It was right that he should be. But he met her in my cousin’s house and they’ve come together again. She’s come to live with Finch and me and I wish she hadn’t! That’s all.”

  “Then shan’t I be able to go to tea with you and your brother, as you promised?” A candid disappointment clouded her eyes. “She’ll probably not want me.”

  “Sarah will be very nice to you. I’m sure of that. I wonder what you will think of her. You must come soon. Let’s see — you can come tomorrow afternoon?”

  She gave a little laugh. “I’m open for engagements at any time. That’s not as pushing as it sounds. It just means that I’m rather lonely and that —” She hesitated.

  “That you rather like me?” Wakefield’s dark eyes laughed
into hers.

  “I heard it said of you this morning that you are extremely likable.”

  The waitress appeared with her tray and set their chops before them.

  “How lovely!” she said, staring at them hard, like a child.

  She looked too well pleased, he thought, and after eating in silence for a space he said ingenuously: —

  “You know, I was wondering if you’d like to borrow a few pounds from me, till our first salaries are paid. I’ve just had a check from home.”

  A bright colour came into her thin cheeks.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t borrow,” she said quickly. “I never have and I’m not going to begin.”

  “I’m dying to do something for you — however small. I think you might let me. Do, please!”

  She began to laugh.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “The expression on your face. I can see just how you begged for things as a little boy — as though your life depended on getting them. I’ll bet you were spoilt.”

  “I was not,” he answered huffily. “I was made to behave by a grandmother, an aunt, a sister, and two uncles of the Victorian school, as well as several hard-handed brothers.”

  “And you got the best of them all! I can just see you doing it.”

  “I didn’t think you could be so unkind.”

  The laughter went out of her eyes. “I’d no thought of unkindness. How could I? When you’re so perfectly lovely to me?” Her lip trembled. An exquisitely sensitive upper lip, he thought. He just touched her hand that lay on the table and asked: —

  “Will you let me lend you some of my superfluous cash?”

  She exclaimed angrily, “Am I going about wearing a cadaverous expression? What’s the matter with me, anyhow?”

  “Nothing,” he answered tranquilly. “And if you don’t want me to lend you a fiver, I shan’t. But as you have discovered I’m a spoilt boy I confess that it makes me ill not to have my own way. It would be rather a pity if I were taken ill at the beginning of rehearsals, wouldn’t it? Then that other chap who almost got my part will really get it, won’t he? I saw him talking to Ninian Fox this morning.”