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

by Mazo de La Roche

  For a space his mind ceased to work. It was a confusion of images — of instincts — of a blind struggle to protect Wakefield. The icy air rushed in on him. The papers swirled on the desk, fell to the floor. He rose and shut the window.

  A knock came on the door.

  “Go away,” he shouted. “I’m busy.”

  He locked the door. He walked up and down the narrow space of the room, trying to think. He lighted a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the desk, forcing himself to be calm. One thing was certain. He must be hard — ruthless — he must put an end to this connection between Wake and Molly. Well — they were young. They would get over it. But how could he tell Wake the truth? Yet there was no other way out.

  The stable clock struck one. Lunch would be already on the table. He couldn’t go in. He couldn’t face Wake. When had he better tell him? This afternoon? No — no, he couldn’t tell him today! He’d give him another day — a few days more — to be happy in! What if Wake were killed in the war? There would always be that thought— the knowledge that he had spoiled Wake’s last months. If only some miracle might happen! If the two would quarrel — break off their engagement of their own free will! But they’d never do that. You only need see them together to know how deeply they were in love. He went into the stable and sent a boy to the house to ask for lunch to be brought to the office.

  “Tell Mrs. Whiteoak that I’m very busy.”

  Mrs. Whiteoak! Alayne! She must never know of this. It would be dreadful to her. He’d got to practise a lot of self-control in the coming days!

  The lunch was brought and he burned the food in the stove. He drank a little whiskey and water. He thought he would like to get roaring drunk — drown his troubles in the flowing bowl — that was the way poets put it!

  The fire went out. He sat a long while in the cold office. Then he went to his horses, talked to his men. He had a few hot words with Piers over an item in the vet’s bill. That somehow calmed him, gave him courage. Piers looked at him curiously and he turned away.

  He joined the others at tea. He drank a good deal of tea and managed to eat something. He talked and joked with Paris, who was easy to talk to, but kept his back turned to Wakefield. After tea he played with the children. He made them quite unmanageable, so that Alayne had to be very stern to get them to bed. She was annoyed at him and he had a hangdog feeling. In the evening they played bridge. He played so badly that Nicholas lost three dollars and was disgruntled with him.

  When he went to his room that night he shook some aspirin tablets from the bottle without counting them, crunched them in his strong teeth, and washed them down with a glass of water. He slept. He was awake for some minutes next morning before he remembered what was wrong. He rolled over with a groan and pressed his face into the pillow. He would tell Wake that morning — get it over with!

  Perhaps the boy would never be the same again. Perhaps the last affectionate words had passed between them. But it had to be. He had to tell Wake who Molly was. Better anything than this weight of apprehension in his chest. Still he could not bring himself to get up.

  He heard the familiar morning sounds. The dogs’ noisy rush outdoors to chase away imaginary trespassers. The shaking down of the coals in the hall stove. Uncle Nick’s morning cough. Alayne’s reasoning with Archer. The snow being shoveled from the paths. He’d got to get up. There was no escape. He’d got to send Wake’s world crashing, the young brother whom he’d protected all his life. There was no help for it!

  Suddenly he sprang up and began to dress. He and Ernest were at the breakfast table together but Ernest was absorbed in the morning paper and did not notice that Renny ate nothing. He asked Rags for coffee and drank three cups.

  He could hear Wake and Molly coming down the stairs. He escaped from the room into the back of the hall and out through the side door. It was not so cold as it had been. Already the icicles on the eave were dripping. One fell and splintered on the flags.

  When he decided that Wake and Molly were in the dining room he went back into the hall and got his hat and leather jacket. He heard Alayne coming down the stairs and again fled.

  He spent an hour in the stables, then, looking through a window, he saw Wakefield going toward the garage. He went out and waylaid him.

  “Where are you off to?” he asked.

  “I’m going to the Rectory.”

  “Oh.” He stood staring speculatively at Wake.

  “Anything I can do for you?” asked Wake.

  “No thanks.”

  “It’s not so cold, is it?”

  “No. We’ll be having the January thaw.” Wake opened the door of the garage.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s something I want to say to you.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ll walk along the path for a bit.”

  “Molly’s waiting.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Very well.”

  They walked along the snowy path.

  Renny threw Wake a quick glance. He saw the warm colour in his cheeks and remembered what a large-eyed sallow little boy he had been. Wake was looking interested, expecting something pleasant.

  “I suppose you’re full of plans for the future,” said Renny.

  “Yes, rather.”

  “Life’s an uncertain business. You can’t tell what will happen.”

  “I’m not looking any further ahead than my marriage.”

  “That’s what I’m going to speak about. I’m afraid it can’t take place.”

  Wake halted and looked inquiringly at Renny. He thought he had not heard him rightly, or that Renny was joking.

  “It will be a terrible disappointment to you, I know.”

  “A disappointment?”

  “Yes. You can’t marry Molly.”

  Wakefield shouted — “What do you mean?”

  “Hang on to yourself, Wake, and I’ll tell you. Let’s walk on.”

  They strode on.

  “Is this a joke?” asked Wakefield.

  “I wish to God it were.”

  “Then what’s the matter?”

  “Molly is too closely related to you for marriage.”

  “She related to me? Are you out of your mind?”

  “She’s my daughter, Wake. You can’t marry your brother’s daughter.”

  “What the hell are you driving at?” Wake’s colour was gone. His lips were white.

  “I have found out that her mother was a young woman who schooled horses for me after the last war. Both she and her husband worked for me. They were estranged, but she loved me…. I wish she hadn’t.”

  “Are you telling me that Molly is that woman’s daughter and that you’re her father?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t care!” shouted Wake. “I don’t care whose daughter she is! I’ll marry her!”

  “But you can’t. She’s your niece!”

  “You’re my half-brother. She’s my half-niece. She was born and brought up three thousand miles away. There’s no resemblance between us. What can it matter?”

  “Would you marry Patience?”

  “That’s different.”

  “There’s no difference.”

  “No one need know about this. Not even Molly.”

  “It’s against the law.”

  “No one will ever know.”

  “It’s against the laws of nature.”

  “Half that happens in the world today is against the laws of nature! I tell you, Renny, nothing can stop me.” His lips were white and set. His voice harsh. He asked: —

  “How did you find this out?”

  “She kept reminding me of someone —”

  “Is that why you looked at her — the way you did — in London?”

  “Looked at her? I don’t know. I suppose it was.”

  “God!” broke out Wakefield. “I suffered then — from jealousy. I little knew what was coming!”

  “Wake — I’m hor
ribly sorry.”

  Wakefield’s face was set. His eyes granite.

  “I’d give my right hand,” said Renny, “to have spared you this.”

  “It’s not going to stop our marriage.”

  “It must. You can’t go on with it.”

  “Who’s going to stop us! Not you, I hope. You’ve done about enough.”

  “I can’t let it go on.”

  “Do you mean you’ll tell Molly?”

  “You must do that.”

  “I’ll never do it! Does she suspect anything? Have you said anything to her?”

  “She only knows that her mother was once at Jalna. She feels something mysterious in it. She found a picture of me among her mother’s things.”

  Wakefield looked at him with hate. He said — “You’ve caused a lot of trouble in your life, haven’t you?”

  Renny’s colour rose. “I suppose I have,” he answered. “But Chris loved me, as I loved her. We met on an equal footing. I’d have been glad to marry her. Gran suspected this and she stepped in and paid their way back to England. I never saw Chris again. I didn’t know her husband had died and she’d remarried.”

  “Why didn’t she come back here and marry you?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose she loved this Griffith.”

  “I don’t believe it. I think she knew you didn’t really want to marry her.”

  “That’s all in the past. It’s the present we’ve got to think of. I want you to get through all this with —”

  “I’m going to marry Molly!” said Wake, hoarsely.

  “You must tell her who she is.”

  “I will tell her.” He wheeled to go back to the house. “She shall be judge.”

  Renny caught him by the arm. “It’s not a matter for Molly’s judgment. You must tell her who she is and that you can’t marry her. Either that or tell her that you’ve changed your mind and don’t want to marry anyone yet.” He gave Wakefield an almost beseeching look. “Perhaps that would he best. You need not even do it at once. It could be broken off by degrees and she would suffer less.”

  Wakefield’s face was contorted. “What about me? What about my suffering? I suppose it doesn’t matter. I can tear my heart out — because you once had an hour’s pleasure!”

  “Wake, I shall tell Molly myself — if you want me to.”

  He spoke quietly. They were in the pinewood. The pine trees towered in their silvered majesty above them. There was a sudden harsh outcry and a dozen pheasants rose to the treetops. Once there, their bright plumage caught the sun.

  Renny spoke still more quietly. “Whatever your feelings are, Wake, whatever Molly’s are or mine, we can do nothing to change this situation. If you don’t believe me go to your priest and ask him.”

  “I will go to him. I’ll go now.”

  “Good. I’ll take you in the car.”

  Wakefield looked dazed. His colour had come back and lay in blotches of red on his ravaged young face. They strode back the way they had come. They got into the car and in almost complete silence drove to the priest’s house.

  Renny sat outside in the car waiting for his brother. He nursed his chin in his hand. His sombre eyes saw nothing of what passed.

  Noah Binns came trudging down the road. He stopped when he saw Renny and came to the side of the car. He looked in with his toothless grin.

  “Marnin’,” he said. “Chimney’s smokin’.”

  “What chimney?”

  “Church chimney. Flues need cleanin’.”

  “Why don’t you clean them, then?”

  “They need expert cleanin’. I ain’t expert, am I?”

  “Tell Jimpson to clean them.”

  Noah trudged on, his footsteps screeching on the snowy road.

  Renny still kept his face averted when Wakefield returned to the car but, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the priest had come to the door with him. He was a small thin man with an ascetic face.

  They drove back toward Jalna in silence for a space. Then Renny saw that Wakefield was crying. He took his hand from the wheel and laid it on the boy’s.

  “You’ll have to tell her,” said Wakefield. “I can’t.”

  XXV

  RENNY AND MOLLY

  THEY CROSSED THE little bridge that spanned the silent stream and went up the steep on the other side of the ravine. The children ran behind them drawing their sleighs. Archer’s was a Christmas one, painted scarlet and gold, and he had tied on it a sleighbell from an old cutter. The bell filled the air with its clear sharp jingle.

  “How lovely it is!” said Molly. “I wish Wake were with us.”

  “Yes. But the fact is I wanted to talk to you alone for a bit and I thought this would be a good place.”

  “Oh.” She looked thoughtful, wondering what the talk was to be about.

  They passed through the oakwood and across a field. Then the house where Ernest and Harriet had lived stood before them. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney.

  “We keep a fire here in the coldest weather,” said Renny, “because of the furniture. Later on we shall try to let the house furnished.”

  “It looks very cozy.”

  “It is. Aunt Harriet had very good taste. She brought quite a lot of her own furniture from the States. One of us comes over twice a day to the furnace. Will you wait here while I go down to the cellar?”

  He unlocked the front door and showed her into the living room. There he left her and she could hear him descend into the cellar and shake down the ashes in the furnace. She was puzzled, but not really troubled, by his air of mystery. Perhaps he had brought her here to tell her something of her mother’s life in Canada. The air of the room was lifeless and she put up a window a little way. She could hear him putting on coals. He seemed a long while down there.

  Presently he returned to her. There was a smudge of ash on his forehead. He smiled at her, as though reassuringly.

  “Fire nearly out,” he said. “Do you find it cold here?”

  “Oh, no. I opened the window.”

  “It’s a pretty room — don’t you think so?”

  “Very. It must have been frightfully hard on your uncle to — give it all up.”

  “Yes, indeed. I wish you could have met Aunt Harriet. She was a sweet woman. She and I were great friends. She made that drawing of Rheims Cathedral when she was quite young. And the one of the Greek Theatre at Taormina. She’d travelled all over France and Italy. She was very intellectual.” He sighed.

  The sound of Archer’s sleighbell came tinkling through the open window. Renny went to it and looked out. The children were running toward the house.

  “You can’t come in here,” he said. “You’d better run home.”

  She heard their receding laughter, detached and half-defiant. They felt independent and daring.

  He turned again to Molly.

  “You’re sure you’re not cold?”

  “Perfectly.”

  But he put down the window.

  She looked inquiringly at him.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said, “which I’m afraid will upset you terribly.”

  She stood looking into his eyes, waiting. She had a sudden feeling of trust in him, as though it would not be possible to him really to hurt her. He said: —

  “I suppose you have thought a good deal about your mother since our talk yesterday.”

  “Yes, I have.” So it was about her mother! She had expected that. A thought illuminated her mind. He was going to tell her that he had loved her mother!

  “Perhaps you know,” he went on, “that your mother was not happily married.”

  She hesitated, then said — “I — yes, I knew.”

  “You’ll think I have no right to talk to you like this but I want you to believe that I only do it because I must.”

  “I do believe that, but — why must you?”

  “I’ll tell you in a moment. But first I must tell you that I loved your mother and that she loved me.
She was estranged from Dayborn. They didn’t live together as man and wife. It was a great surprise to me when I discovered through you that she had had a daughter after her return to England. Then I began to calculate. I asked you the date of your birth, do you remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.” She looked straight into his eyes, not flinching.

  “It came to me like a bolt out of the blue — that you were not Dayborn’s daughter, but mine.”

  In his self-control he spoke in an almost matter-of-fact tone

  Her mouth was unbearably dry. She swallowed before she could answer.

  “Perhaps you’re right. There was that picture of you I found in her things. I found a letter from — my father — oh, I have to call him my father! It was an unkind, angry letter. There was a hint I couldn’t understand but — I understand now!”

  She had said she understood but he could see that she was using all her strength to steady herself, that she had not grasped the import of what he had told her. He came and sat down beside her on the sofa. She had dropped to it as though weak, had grasped its arm in her hand so that the knuckles stood out white and tense.

  “We loved each other,” he said. “We didn’t think we were harming anyone. She’d been a better wife to Dayborn than he deserved. She was so courageous. She seemed never to think of herself. I suppose that’s why —”

  He could not go on.

  “Yes?”

  “I suppose that was why you were born. She never thought of herself.”

  She turned to look into his face. Her eyes were feverishly bright. She exclaimed: —