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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Twelve people sat down to breakfast. Besides Wake and herself, there were the two uncles, Renny and his wife, Paris Court, the three children of the house, and Piers’s boys, who had arrived soon after sunrise, carrying the contents of their stockings. Porridge, sausage and bacon, toast and marmalade, were the breakfast, and from the uncles down the family ate with gusto, with the exception of Alayne and Archer. She was occupied in keeping him in order and he was preoccupied with some little lead animals he had brought to the table. He made them jump back and forth over his porridge. Such behaviour would never have been tolerated from Wake when he was Archer’s age. He looked disapprovingly at his nephew.

  “Archer,” said Alayne, “you must eat your breakfast or leave the table.”

  “I want to leave,” he answered, coolly.

  Rags bent over him. “Give them to me and I’ll tike them to the kitchen and feed them.”

  “I want to come too.” He began to climb from his chair.

  “Darling,” whispered Alayne, “eat your breakfast and we’ll have a lovely time afterward.”

  “No. See this elephant jump!”

  Nicholas stretched out a long arm and took possession of the elephant. Archer slid on to his backbone and down under the table.

  “Leave him there,” said Renny.

  “I prefer to take him upstairs.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll take him, if he must go. Archie, come here!”

  Archer crept the length of the table and scrambled up between his father’s knees. His tow head appeared above the edge of the table. He clasped his father round the neck. Renny offered him a piece of sausage on his fork. He ate it with relish.

  “He’ll eat for me,” said Renny.

  “It is better,” said Ernest, “to persuade small children, rather than force them.”

  “Do you remember,” said Nicholas, “how Mamma used to feed Wakefield biscuits soaked in sherry?”

  “Don’t believe it, Molly,” said Wake.

  “I am finished,” said Alayne. “I will take Archer upstairs.”

  As she came toward him he burrowed into his father’s breast. He had so much that was beautiful and good in him, she thought, it was humiliating to see him behave like this. Adeline was chuckling.

  Archer scrambled from his father’s knee and wobbled down the room. “I’m a jellyfish,” he said.

  Everybody laughed but Alayne. She followed him, humiliated.

  “A jellyfish,” he repeated, shaking from head to foot. “A wimbly wambly jellyfish.”

  Rags carried him from the room. He lay limp across Rags’s arms, staring impassively at the ceiling. Alayne followed with folded arms and bent head.

  “Chief mourner,” whispered Wake to Molly.

  All that happened excited and amused her. She wondered if ever she could be unhappy again.

  In all her life she had been to church just three times. She had attended the wedding of a maid in a Nonconformist village church in Wales. She had been to an Easter-morning service in Westminster Abbey. She had gone to Mass on Sunday in New York with Wakefield. When he spoke of his religious experiences to her she was embarrassed. They were beyond the bounds of her knowledge of him. Religion for her was an uncharted land. She knew little more of religion than a young heathen but she knew how to love, to forgive, and to put others before self. She knew she had to become a Catholic, outwardly at least, in order to marry Wake, but the little books he had given her to study were in the bottom of her trunk. She simply could not understand them, nor did she know how to go about the searching of her soul. She only knew that she loved Wake with every bit of her and she saw no reason why a God who was a complete stranger to her should enter into their scene. Yet, if Wake wanted her to be baptized in his faith, she was willing.

  “I really shouldn’t go to a Protestant church,” he said to her that morning, “but I know old Renny would love to have me and I very much want you to see the church my grandfather built and — to see my family in action in it!”

  “Hadn’t you rather go for a walk?”

  “No. I want you to come to church.”

  She lightly stroked his cheek.

  “Very well, but you must show me what to do.”

  “I’m glad, Molly, that you’ve never had any religious instruction. It will all come as a revelation.”

  “You’re revelation enough for me! Do you know, you’re the first actor I’ve met with an atom of religion in him.”

  “I’m much besides an actor,” he answered, a little stiffly.

  Renny was delighted when he found that Wakefield was coming to church. “I’ll tell you what,” he said to Molly, “we’ll get him away from the papists between us. We can do it, if we work together.”

  “On the contrary,” said Wake, “I’ll convert you two. I’ve got Molly and, sooner or later, I’ll get you.”

  He had no hope of such an achievement but he liked to tease his elder.

  The church was full of the scent of spruce and hemlock. The pillars were twined with them, the pews embowered. Flame-coloured chrysanthemums burned on the altar. Smilax and holly twined about the pulpit and lectern. Surplices were white as snow and smelled of the frosty air. Some few must have worked very hard. Never did Noah Binns ring the bell more vigourously, never did his boots squeak louder. In spite of much scraping of soles outside the door, clots of snow were tracked up the aisle but soon melted in the warm air. There was a good deal of coughing, sneezing, and blowing, as people settled into the pews.

  Wakefield crossed himself.

  Molly, beside him, made a faint gesture with her hand just above her waistline, then looked apprehensively about her not knowing what to do next. The effect of Wakefield’s act on those about him was electric. Noah Binns had been squeaking up the aisle to do something to a window and was at Wakefield’s side at the moment of devotion. Noah stopped dumbfounded, his jaw dropped, staring at Wakefield’s face. Across the aisle the three Vaughans bent their startled gaze on him. Piers nudged Pheasant and said something. There was a quirk beneath Nicholas’s moustache. Ernest lost his place in his hymnbook. Mr. Fennel thrust his fingers in his beard and looked sternly at Wakefield. But it was Renny who put things into movement again. He raised his voice in the Christmas hymn with more than wonted vigour. The family joined in. Noah squeaked on his way. Wakefield looked at his hymnbook as though unconscious of the stir he had created. Molly looked at him.

  She sat absorbing the strange new atmosphere. Mr. Fennel’s voice went on and on. It was a good voice and she liked the way he read. She wondered what sort of actor he would have made. She began to choose parts for him and for all the family. What would they say, she thought, if they knew what was going on in her mind? What was going on in their minds? Were they as completely absorbed by this strange ritual as they appeared to be? Wake had said — “There is so much in me besides the actor.” She must try to understand that other part of him. There must be nothing alien between them. Their understanding must be many-sided and complete. She remembered how he had opened his heart to her family. Now she must do the same by his. As she sat there unobserved, she was aware of a singleness of heart, a staunchness, that seemed a part of the very fabric of this little building. She felt it encircling the family, and her in the midst of them. The Rector had come there as a very young man. Now his beard was grey. How many times had he gone through the intricacies of the service? Why, surely he must be able to do it in his sleep! Yet there were freshness and good faith in his movements as he stepped up into the pulpit. He folded his hands and said a short prayer.

  Mr. Fennel could scarcely keep his eyes from Molly’s face as he repeated the story of the Birth. Her face was so rapt, she might he hearing it for the first time. He could only conclude that never before had she heard it so well told. His heart glowed. His fingers sought his beard and his beaming hazel eyes dwelt on the Whiteoak pew.

  Outside she caught Wakefield’s arm.

  “What an old pet the Rector is! He’d have made a fine a
ctor, wouldn’t he?”

  “He wanted to go on the stage when he was a young chap but something — I think it was his father — stopped him. He’s the happiest man I know. I’ve told you that he taught me when I was a small fellow. He’ll be coming to supper tonight.”

  The Miss Laceys, very old and bent, came to make much of Wake. They cherished a playbill from the London Theatre, they said, with his and Molly’s names on it. They congratulated the young pair. Other old friends crowded about. Merry Christmas was on every lip. The children ran in and out among the snowy gravestones. Wakefield led Molly to the family plot. Here the graves were obliterated. It was a smooth white coverlet under which the dead Whiteoaks rested. The stream that threw an arm about the graveyard was frozen. Here was complete immobility.

  Molly stared at the names on the granite plinth.

  “What a lot of you are buried here!”

  “Yes. It looks forbidding now. But you should see it in summer, or when the maples are red in the fall. Now the crosses marking each grave are covered. But look.”

  He stepped over the low iron fence and with his hands brushed the snow away from one of them. It bore the name of Eden. “I’ve told you about him.”

  “Yes. Poor Eden!”

  Roma peered round the corner of the church at them. She was filled with curiosity because she knew they were engaged. She wore a little red hat, her cheeks and nose were pink from cold. Molly did not connect her with the cross marked “Eden.” Roma was followed by Nook and Adeline, pelting each other with snow. Nook was a happy boy in these days for, as he was not old enough to take the journey to school without Mooey’s protection, he now again had lessons with the children at Jalna.

  The children were followed by Piers and Pheasant. He said: —

  “We’re going to Vaughanlands to see the new baby. Pheasant thought you two might like to come.”

  “I’d love to,” Wakefield agreed at once.

  “Oh, yes,” said Molly, “it’s a perfect thing to do on Christmas Day.”

  They sent the two boys on to Jalna and made their way over the snowy road to Vaughanlands.

  Meg was already there to welcome them. The living room was homelike in bright chintz and a dancing fire. Patience, now a boarding-school girl home for the holidays, was possessive toward the baby.

  “I’ll bring him down,” she said. “No one can make him so comfortable as me.”

  They waited expectantly. She returned with the infant, carrying him deftly. An odor of warm flannel came with him, and a kind of sanctity, because he was newborn and it was Christmas today.

  “Oh, the darling!” cried Pheasant, clasping her hands.

  “My goodness,” said Wake, “he looks a hundred!”

  Piers blew out his cheeks. He said: —

  “I’ve never seen an uglier one. He’s got the worst points of both parents.”

  “He’s sweet,” said Molly. “What are they going to call him?”

  “Dennis — after Sarah’s father.”

  “May I hold him?” asked Pheasant. She took him tenderly into her arms.

  “Be careful,” warned Patience. “He must be held just so.”

  “How is Sarah?” Piers asked Meg.

  “I’ve never seen such an ecstatic mother. You’d think no one had ever had a baby before. She’d love to see you for a moment, Pheasant.”

  Sarah looked statue-white and still, as her sisters-in-law went into the room. But when she opened her eyes they were bright with bliss. She gave her small, secret smile.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?” she asked.

  “Perfectly sweet,” answered Pheasant.

  “And to think he came at Christmas time! We’re calling him Holly for a pet name. Oh, if only Finch could see him! He must come! I’ve made Maurice cable him. He must see the baby in his first exquisiteness. Did you ever see such skin — such eyes? I always knew he’d be beautiful but I never dreamed of anything like this. I shall live for him. How thankful I am I got him safely out of England! Tell Patience to bring him, Meg. I can’t bear him out of my sight.”

  Patience brought him and Sarah curved her body about him like, as Pheasant said on the way to Jalna, a cat about its kitten.

  “I always knew she’d be like that,” said Piers. “Three cheers for Finch! He’s freed himself. He’ll never be of any importance to Sarah again, mark my words.”

  Wakefield exclaimed: —

  “If the baby has accomplished that he’s my favourite nephew!”

  “‘My name is joy!’” quoted Molly. “‘I am but two days old!’”

  “I wish we all were,” said Piers. “The four of us. On our way to the Christmas Tree with a comforter in each of our mouths. Instead of which I’m Santa Claus.”

  “Are you really?” said Molly.

  “Wait till you see him. He’s grand.”

  Piers looked modestly pleased. “I do my best. Having the ruddy countenance and the portly form necessary, I’m not so bad.”

  Molly found herself enfolded in an atmosphere of Christmas bustle such as she had never before known. The Dinner rose, like a succulent mountain to be demolished, before the climax of the Tree was reached. The sitting room, a sweet-smelling fortress, was still unstormed. Through the other rooms and up and down the stairs children and dogs circled, raced, shouted, and barked. The baritone and tenor voices of seven men made a rich masculine background for the voices of women and children. Rags flew here and there with trays of sherry and biscuits. The children were eating the sweets from their stockings in spite of their mothers’ warnings.

  Parry Court had known but meagre celebrations in his home, though he had invariably travelled from wherever he was to be with his parents at that season. Here he was gayest of them all. Piers and he kept the children in a gale of excitement. He was more congenial to Piers than any brother he had. Parry, as a good rider and a lover of good farm stock, had been of real help in the past months at Jalna. By skillfully playing Renny against Piers he had made both believe he had worked much harder than actually was the case. Everybody liked him. To the old men he seemed atrociously modern, yet sympathetic and with the high spirits of the young men of their day. In the past two months Ernest had found him a real comfort. Of all those under the roof, Pheasant was the least happy, for she was always thinking of Mooey.

  Archer’s usually pale face showed a bright pink cheek. He was drunk with half-mad expectancy and present hilarity. He had shouted till he was hoarse. He did not even hear his mother’s warnings. He stalked, a tiny and ruthless bandit, through the forest of the grownups. He did not care what he did. He would as lief hurl his drumstick at the head of Santa Claus as not. He could not eat his dinner and its most savoury smell was nothing compared to the smell filtering through the keyhole of the sitting room.

  Old Merlin had not felt so well in months as he did today. Again and again he raised his rich voice and declared that this was so. He had had an injury to a toenail and one forepaw was bandaged. This he held up to each new arrival for sympathy, then told how well he felt. He was the only one of the dogs which Alayne allowed in the dining room. Proudly, with waving tail, he walked past the other dogs, scenting their envy, and took his place by Renny’s chair.

  It was a tribute to the carving powers of the master of Jalna that each one of the seventeen people about the table had been served with a suitable portion of the glistening brown turkey and that he himself had swallowed two bites of his own portion before the seventh served (who was Piers) applied for a fresh helping. Rags came tottering in pretended exhaustion under the weight of a second turkey and Renny, desperately filling his mouth and with a flourish of the carving knife, attacked it.

  After the dark succulence of the pudding — which was the one part of the dinner Archer craved, refusing to eat the jelly and cream provided by Alayne — came the crackers. Finch had sent these from London and, to show their appreciation, everyone said he had never heard crackers crack so loudly before or seen such splendid headdresses come
out of them.

  Ernest put on a pink frilled bonnet for a moment, then, out of deference to Harriet’s memory, took it off. There was delight when a jockey’s cap came out of Renny’s cracker. It became him just a little too well. Alayne thought, and wished he were not so excessively pleased with it. Wonder of wonders, Archer drew a judge’s wig and sat glowering at the company from under it as though for two pins he would pronounce a drastic sentence on each one.

  Piers disappeared.

  What a jostling there was in the hall! Rags had built too great a fire in the stove, so that it was unbearably hot. Then someone had flung open the front door and the icy air, bright with fine snow particles, came flying in.

  Ernest was roasting on one side and freezing on the other. He demanded: —

  “Who opened that door?”

  Paris answered, “I’m afraid I did, sir. Shall I close it?”

  “Yes, do, or I shall be in bed tomorrow.”

  Someone stepped on the sheep dog’s toe and he yelped in agony.

  “Who did that?” shouted Renny.

  “It was Uncle Nick.”

  Nicholas glowered. “It was not. I’m miles from the dog.”

  Young Philip at the keyhole cried — “The candles on the Tree are lighted!”

  Meg swept him from the keyhole and blocked it with her plump person.

  “What are we waiting for?” asked Archer.

  “Santa Claus, you little silly,” answered Roma.

  “I thought he came last night.”

  “He did, but he’s coming again.”

  Renny swung him to his shoulder. “Wait and see.”

  Wake said to Molly — “I wonder if you’ll like your present.”

  She asked — “Is it large, small, square, round, soft, or hard?”

  “It’s small, round, and hard.”

  “Is it something lasting?”

  “It will last forever.”

  Maurice exclaimed, “What the dickens is the matter in there? Thump on the door. Meggie.”

  Meg began a steady thumping.

  “We want Santa Claus!” everybody sang out in unison.

  “Where is Daddy?” asked Nook.