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

by Mazo de La Roche

  In the glowing heart of the restaurant they found a table for four. Renny ordered champagne. They sat looking about them, happy and relieved. They felt as though all the other people had been in the concert hall and recognized Finch. But not one of them had.

  “I know that the woman with the red dress and the man with the eyeglass were there,” said Sarah. “I saw them.”

  She knew that she lied but she had to do it. She had to draw those two people into the circle of ripples emanating from Finch. She held his fingers under the edge of the tablecloth. It seemed to her that they two were flowing together like a single stream through the brightly lighted night. But behind the lights the darkness was waiting for them, and she smiled when she thought of its wild strangeness. She put the glass of champagne to her lips.

  “It’s wonderful to me,” said Paris, “to be here with you three. Just think — I might never have met you! Renny, I wish you weren’t leaving so soon but I envy you, going to Canada.”

  “Better come back with me,” said Renny.

  Parry’s face lighted. “If only I could get a job out there!” he sighed.

  “I think you could. I’m pretty sure of it. Anyhow, I could find plenty for you to do through the summer and autumn.”

  “I’ll come — if my parents will help me! I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”

  “Lucky dog,” said Finch, “I envy you.”

  “There’s nothing to prevent your coming too,” said Renny.

  “Nothing, except me,” said Sarah. “I’d die rather than see him throw up the place he has made for himself here. What is there for him there?” She spoke with intentional scorn.

  “The best in life, in my opinion. You’ll see, he’ll end by coming back.”

  Paris broke in to ask questions about the cost of the journey and what he should provide himself with. His face sparkled with animation. He was so eager and enthusiastic that he could always get a job, but he was so volatile and so ready for change that he seldom kept one. Only the week before he had been full of hope over his latest, his employers were the best yet. Now he gayly considered how short a notice he might give them.

  “I’m sure my parents will let me go,” he said.

  “We shall be glad to have you at Jalna,” said Renny. “I miss my own boys there.”

  Now that Finch’s recital was over the attention of all was focused on the first night of Wakefield’s play. They saw little of him for his time was taken up by rehearsals. Renny said he should like to see one of these and Wakefield readily agreed. Once more his relations with Renny were natural or he made himself believe they were. As the thought of Renny’s care over him, his generosity and gentleness, came to him more and more often in these days before Renny’s departure, Wakefield had an almost passionate desire to draw nearer to him, to erase from his own mind any feelings of bitterness he had had.

  This was one of the last rehearsals and, as a matinee was in progress at the Preyde Theatre, it was held in the clubroom of a Foreign Waiters’ Association. Renny arrived rather late. The last act was being rehearsed.

  In the lobby he had to push his way through a number of foreign-looking men, waiters out of work. Advertisements were pinned to the walls and they stared eagerly up at these. He made his way up a hare staircase and found the room to which Wake had directed him. It was a large one and many chairs stood in rows or were piled in corners. Framed certificates of chefs hung on the walls. At one end there was a sort of dais with a red plush chair standing on it. This was not used as a stage but merely stood as a reminder of the room’s real use. Skylights let in a cold light and the whole effect was shabby and down-at-heel. The scene however, which was being acted in the open space, was dramatic enough to make one forget surroundings.

  It was between Phyllis Rhys, her lover of the play, and her son, played by Wakefield. Renny sat down in a chair rather far back and tried, at first unsuccessfully, to find out what it was all about. Then he discovered that Wakefield was giving the two older people his unvarnished opinion of their behaviour. And how well he did it!

  “By God,” thought Renny, “how the boy can act!” Amazing how these half-brothers of his were so talented. Of course they had got it from their mother. It was curious that Piers was the only true Whiteoak among his brothers. Yet, sitting there, Renny suddenly marveled to think that it was to these artistic, temperamental brothers that his heart went out most strongly. Perhaps it was because they required more looking after, called more often on his protective instinct.

  He was annoyed when Wakefield was interrupted by Robert Fielding.

  “It won’t do! It won’t do at all!” objected Fielding. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Wakefield turned to him excitedly but submissively.

  “Could you do it more like this?” said Fielding. “Not quite so big, you know, but — shall I say — more poignant?”

  He looked and sounded extraordinarily foolish, Renny thought, doing Wakefield’s part, but he watched him with intensity and, when Wakefield repeated the words, Fielding ejaculated, “Good! Much better!”

  The rehearsal proceeded toward the curtain. Frederick and Catherine, their mother having left them for her lover, were alone. Catherine had given up the man she loved, for Frederick’s sake. Inexperienced, terribly vulnerable, inarticulate in their emotion, the two talked of commonplaces as the play ended.

  Ninian Fox had come and introduced himself to Renny. He annoyed him by making noises of disapproval whenever Molly was saying her lines. At the end he groaned.

  “That girl,” he declared, “will ruin everything!”

  “Why?” asked Renny coldly.

  “She has no fire. She has no feeling. Only Miss Rhys can save the play from annihilation. Hmph, well, I might have known it.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” said Renny. “I think she’s good.”

  “Do you? That’s comforting.” But he did not look comforted. He rose.

  “Will you two young people please do that last bit again?”

  Molly Griffith, her young face drawn with anxiety, returned to the charge. Wakefield, tense and determined, exclaimed: —

  “‘It’s as though we were children again, Cathie.’”

  “Come, come,” interrupted Ninian Fox. “That’s not the way you said that line before.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what’s the matter?”

  “I feel that this last scene needs something done to it. It’s really hard to put across.”

  The sandy-haired author, sitting in a distant corner, jumped to his feet.

  “I agree,” he declared.

  “But what can be done?” asked Mr. Fox.

  “I’ll try to think of something.”

  Every eye was on him as, with his large, pale eyes fixed on the ceiling, he meditated.

  “This play,” offered Ninian Fox, “is going to be a failure.”

  “Oh, no, it isn’t,” said Robert Fielding, “but I do think something ought to be done about this last scene.”

  “Can you think of anything, Phyllis?” Ninian Fox turned pathetically to the leading lady.

  She was playing with her pomeranian.

  “I might come on again,” she said.

  He looked dubious.

  “If we just had some stronger lines at the end, it would be fine,” said Wakefield.

  The author stared helplessly at the ceiling.

  The pom began to run in circles about his mistress, barking.

  “Darling, be good!” she exclaimed.

  The leading man offered — “I might come back, just for a moment, and say something ironic — if Mr. Trimble could think of anything.”

  Mr. Trimble grasped a handful of his hair.

  “I had an idea,” he said, “but it’s gone.”

  “No one can think in a noise like this,” said Fielding. He bent and picked up the Pom. It bit him and he put it down.

  “Bobby, how could you!” cried Miss Rhys. “I’ve warned you about
touching him”

  “It’s nothing!” But he reddened and sucked his knuckle.

  “I lost three thousand pounds on my last play,” said Ninian Fox. “I’m a fool to tackle plays by unknown authors.”

  Mr. Trimble also reddened and turned a vindictive look on the manager.

  Wakefield’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Poor boy,” said Miss Rhys, and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Well,” said Robert Fielding, “the play opens on Monday. We can’t go on like this. We’ve got to do something.”

  The various members of the company stood about in melancholy groups.

  “I was thinking,” said Renny, “that the boy might say something spirited at the last, such as — ‘Oh hell — let’s go for a ride!’”

  They gathered about him, friendly and companionable, eager for any suggestion.

  “That’s an idea,” said Fielding. “Perhaps not those very words but something of the sort. Perhaps you could do something with it, Mr. Trimble.”

  Trimble took out a notebook and retired to a distant corner. The company proceeded to rehearse the play from the beginning.

  Renny ceased to listen to it. He saw only the slender figure of Molly Griffith, moving in and out of the scenes. Each time she spoke her voice stirred some memory in him which he could not recapture. It was a memory of mingled tenderness and pain and an indefinite something. A perilous state of recollection went through him — of what he did not know.

  Wakefield was not in this first scene. Renny found him at his side, staring at him. Wakefield’s eyes seemed to accuse him of treachery. Perhaps not quite that, but there was accusation in them.

  Wakefield asked — “Well, what do you think of it all?”

  Renny answered, with a calculated exaggeration of his own manner — “An awful life! I should hate to live it.”

  Wakefield laughed rather bitterly. “All life is awful, I guess.”

  “That sounds like the things Eden used to say.”

  “Perhaps I am like Eden — bound for unhappiness.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not in the least like Eden.” He put his hand on Wakefield’s arm. “Is this thing nearly over? Will you come to dinner with me?”

  “Shall I bring Molly Griffith too?” Wakefield looked him straight in the eyes.

  “No, no. I shall soon be leaving for home. I want to see all I can of you — with no others about.”

  He did not see Molly Griffith again till the night of the play.

  In the house in Gayfere Street the tension was almost as great as, and had a wider scope than, before Finch’s recital, because now Adeline and Henriette had their share in it. Renny came to the house at least once every day. He, Finch, Sarah, Adeline, and Henriette were one in their admiration of Phyllis Rhys, their disparagement of the rather phlegmatic leading man, their anger at Ninian Fox’s nagging of Molly Griffith. They knew all about it, but possibly Henriette’s feelings were deepest of them all.

  As she arrived with Sarah’s breakfast tray the morning before the first night her expression was woebegone almost beyond belief. She was out of breath with the long ascent but she did not set down the tray. She stood with it poised against her stomach, towering above Sarah. “If that there play,” she said, “is a failure, there is only one person to blame and that is Mr. Fox ’isself. In the first place, he don’t pay a decent wage to any but the leading lady. In the second, ’e’s always predicting failure. In the third, ’e won’t let that lovely young lady alone. Wot’s the matter with ’im is, ’e’s jealous of her and Mr. Wakefield. I’ve seen every sort of person under the sun and I know ’is sort well. ’E’s biological — that’s what ’e is.”

  Sarah, in her delicately carven beauty, lay on the lacy pillow looking up at her.

  “You’re quite right,” she said. “I’ve been so annoyed by the whole affair that I wrote a very strong letter to Mr. Fox but Mr. Wake wouldn’t let me send it.”

  “’E was right. ’T would only have made matters worse. No — we’ve got to go through with it. Though ’ow I shall live through the first performance, I can’t imagine.”

  “Well, you have a good seat, Henriette.”

  “Yes, and I thank you for it, but I’d ’ave been better suited to the gallery with my clothes and all.”

  “Nonsense. People will take you for a dowager duchess.”

  “I’m going to have me hair done at the hairdresser’s this afternoon. I fancy a few little curls about the back of the neck. Dear, oh dear, I wish it was all over!”

  “You’ll enjoy it when the time comes.”

  “I suppose I shall but just now it seems more like something weighing down on me than something lifting up. Well, you’ll want your breakfast before it’s cold.”

  She set down the tray in front of Sarah. As she raised herself, one of the many pins and needles stuck in her front caught the topmost piece of toast and held it fast. Quite oblivious of this she departed, sighing heavily.

  Finch found Sarah sunk in the pillows weak with laughter.

  “My toast, my toast,” was all she could say. “It’s gone.”

  “But where?”

  “With Henriette! Don’t ask me.”

  Sarah was very happy in these days. She was living in the midst of excitement with no exertion on her part. She was constantly with Finch. Renny’s presence, his antagonism, gave spice to their reunion. Their connection, through Wakefield, with the theatrical world gave colour.

  Renny had wanted to give a supper party, after the play, at his hotel. But Sarah would not hear of this. It would look strange, she said, for him to give a party in a hotel when she and Finch had a roof over their heads. Renny might provide the supper but she wanted the party in the house in Gayfere Street. When Renny objected to the smallness of the rooms she insisted that a crush was jolly and that Henriette would be brokenhearted if they went elsewhere. He gave in.

  Wakefield came back from the theatre to change and snatch a bite of dinner. He was in a state of nervous depression. They all, he said, had struggled with the last act till they were in tears. Molly Griffith had all but fainted.

  Henriette took a bus to the theatre. Renny called for Sarah, Finch, and Adeline. They arrived early and, with avid interest, watched the theatre fill. Between seats sold, seats given away, and the press, the house was full. No other play was opening in London that night. The Preyde Theatre was of the old-fashioned type that pleased both Sarah and Renny. The gilded, curved fronts of the boxes, the florid curtain, gave that sense of opulence and mystery which they thought fitting in a theatre. In truth, they had never been so much in accord in their lives as at this moment when they sat listening to the orchestra and waiting for the curtain to rise. Finch had just taken his seat when an attendant handed him a note from Wakefield. It read: —

  Come behind as soon as you get this. We’re in a terrible fix — WAKE.

  Finch handed the note to Sarah, then followed the attendant along the aisle and through a door concealed by a curtain.

  Wakefield met him under a glaring white light beside two men on a stepladder.

  “Don’t fall over that rope,” he warned, then went on breathlessly — “you know, in the second act, Phyllis Rhys plays the piano. It’s a very important scene. She can’t play and the fellow who was faking it for her has just slipped on the stairs and broken his wrist. You must take his place. She’s worried almost to death. Here she is! Oh, here’s my brother, Miss Rhys!”

  “You’ll do it?” she breathed. She was wearing the costume for a winter cruise and wearing it superbly.

  “Why — I don’t know — what do you want me to play?”

  “That waltz by Mozart — you’ll find it on the piano! You’ll do it! Thank God, you’re here!” She threw both arms about his neck.

  Finch clasped her to him while waves of apprehension ran along his spine. But he said comfortingly — “Don’t worry, Miss Rhys, we’ll get through it somehow.”

  Wakefield led him across
the stage, which was furnished as a charming, very modern lounge, to where a piano stood in the opposite wing. The players were already arranged for the rise of the curtain.

  “I don’t go on for ten minutes,” said Wakefield, “so I’ll have time to put you on to the ropes. Here is the music. It will be easy for you. Now, when this light over the piano comes on, you must begin to play — at first softly, then getting louder till the music is lively. You play to where that cross is, then break off suddenly. Do you understand? Begin to play the instant the light comes on.”

  Ninian Fox put his head round the corner. He looked old and haggard.

  “Is it all right?” he whispered.

  “Yes, sir — perfectly all right.”

  The playing of the orchestra ceased. The curtain rose tremblingly. The leading man’s resonant voice was heard. “‘Tell that story again,’” he said. “‘It’s the best I’ve heard in months.’”

  The play had begun.

  Finch watched enthralled. There had been a time when he had had a success in amateur theatricals, had even thought of becoming an actor. All that came back to him now. He threw himself into the scene, now in the person of one of the players, now another. It was a moving play. The first scene between Frederick and Cathie was amusing. Wake and Molly did it so well that Finch laughed out loud. Fortunately the audience did the same. Finch was in despair with himself. “Shall I never grow up?” he thought. Yet he again forgot his self-restraint and, at the fall of the curtain, applauded loudly.

  “Good!” he exclaimed when Wakefield came to him.

  “Do you think it’s going well? Was I all right?”

  “You were splendid. So was Molly.”

  “Now, for heaven’s sake, don’t make any mistake in the piano business. The instant the light comes on begin to play. It’s one of Miss Rhys’s best scenes.”

  Wakefield had sent a note to Sarah explaining Finch’s absence. She and Renny sat watching the stage, feeling in themselves a stern responsibility for the success of this act. Phyllis Rhys carried all before her. Though the audience deplored her behaviour they could not help sympathizing with her. That was what she strove for. She sat down at the piano. Cathie was standing tense in the centre of the stage. The mother spoke in a caressing voice.