08 Whiteoaks of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Chill!” ejaculated Renny, interrupted in a rhapsody on the powers of the high jumper he was to ride the next day. “Why, there was no chill at all! It was like a conservatory. A flapper might have gone there in a chiffon shift, and felt none the worse for it.”

  He hugged Wake against his side, and gave him a sip from his glass. The little boy, anxious to be in the very heart of the party, had asked: “Renny, may I sit on your knee?”

  And his elder had demanded: “How old are you?”

  “Eleven, Renny. Not so awfully old.”

  “Too old to be nursed. I mustn’t coddle you. But you may sit on the arm of my chair.”

  Piers exclaimed, as Renny hugged the child: “Well, if that isn’t coddling!”

  “Nothing of the sort,” retorted Renny. “It’s cuddling. There’s all the difference in the world, isn’t there, Wake? Ask any girl.”

  Piers no longer sat. He stood by the side of the table smiling at everyone. He looked remarkably well standing thus, with his stocky figure, his blue eyes softly shining. He talked of the land and the crops, and of a Jersey heifer he was going to trade for an exquisite bull calf.

  Pheasant thought: “How darling he looks standing there! His eyes are as bright as Mooey’s. Dear me, that huge bottle is almost empty! Strange that I should have come from a father who is far too fond of his glass to a husband who is inclined that way, too, when I am naturally prohibitionist in my sentiments! I’m never going to encourage my little baby in taking spirits when he gets big.”

  Aunt Augusta whispered to Finch: “You must go to your studies, my dear. You should learn a great deal tonight, after those two nice glasses of wine.”

  “Huh-huh,” muttered Finch, rising from the table obediently. He took up his books from a side table where he had laid them, sighing at the thought of leaving this genial, relaxed atmosphere for the grind of mathematics. As he turned away, the lottery ticket fell from between the leaves of his Euclid to the floor.

  Wakefield sprang from the arm of Renny’s chair and picked it up. Finch was already in the hall. “He’s dropped something,” and the little boy peered at it inquisitively. “It’s a ticket—look, number thirty-one! Hello, Finch, you dropped something, my boy!”

  Finch turned back angrily. Patronizing little beast, with his cheeky “My boy!”

  “Let’s see,” said Piers, taking the ticket from Wakefield and examining it. “Well, I’ll be shot if it isn’t a lottery ticket! What are you going in for, young Finch? You’re a deep one. Out to make a fortune, eh, unknown to your family? You’re still a schoolboy, you know”—this taunt because of his failure to matriculate — “and you’re not supposed to gamble.”

  “What’s this?” demanded Renny, suspiciously. “Fetch it here.”

  Piers returned the ticket to its owner. “Take it to your big brother,” he advised, “and then run upstairs for his shaving strop.”

  Finch, glaring, thrust the ticket in his pocket and lunged toward the hall.

  “Come back here!” ordered Renny. “Now,” he continued, as the boy reappeared, “just say what that lottery ticket is for.”

  “Good Lord!” bawled the goaded Finch. “Can’t I buy a lottery ticket if I want to? You’d think I was an infant in arms!”

  “You may buy a dozen if you wish, but I don’t like the way you are acting about this one. What is it for?”

  “It’s for a canary, that’s what it’s for!” His voice was hoarse with anger. “If I can’t buy a lottery ticket for a goddam canary it’s a funny thing!”

  The outburst of merriment that leaped from the lungs of his brothers and uncles could have been equalled in volume and vitality by few families. After the roar had subsided, Renny gave another of his metallic shouts. “A canary!” he repeated. “Next thing he’ll be wanting a goldfish and a rubber plant!” But, though he laughed, in his heart he was deeply ashamed for Finch. He was fond of the boy. It was humiliating that he should be such a sissy—wanting to own a canary, of all things!

  A vigorous thumping came from the bedroom across the hall.

  “There, now,” cried Ernest, irritated concern clouding his features, “what did I tell you! You’ve wakened her. I knew you would. It’s very bad for her to be disturbed like this at her age.”

  Augusta said, without flurry: “Wakefield, go to my mother’s room. Open the door quietly and say: There is nothing wrong, Grandmama. Please compose yourself.’”

  The picture thus conjured of this scene between his small brother and his ancient grandmother caused Piers to emit a snort of laughter. His aunt and uncle Ernest looked at him with disapproval.

  Ernest remarked: “It is just as well, Piers, to teach the boy to be polite.”

  Wakefield crossed the hall, solemn with the weight of his own importance. He opened the door of his grandmother’s room and, gliding in, looked almost fearfully about that dim chamber, revealed, rather than lighted, by a night light placed on a low table near the head of the bed. Before he spoke, he closed the door behind him to shut out the robust mingling of voices from across the hall. He wanted to frighten himself a little—just a little—with the strangeness of being alone with Grandmother in this ghostly light, with the rain dripping from the eaves outside her windows, and a single red eye glowing on the hearth, as though some crouching evil spirit were watching him. He stood very still, listening to her rather wheezy breathing, just able to make out the darkness of her face upon the pillows and the restless movement of one hand upon the crimson quilt.

  The flowers and fruit painted on the old leather bedstead which she had brought with her from the East glowed duskily, less bright than the plumage of the parrot perching there. A sigh from the bed quivered on the heavy air like the perfume from some forgotten potpourri of petals gathered long ago. The bygone memories of the bed were drawn upward in the sigh. In it Augusta, Nicholas, Ernest, dead Philip, father of all the turbulent young Whiteoaks, had been conceived, in it all four had been given birth. There Philip, their father, had died. What tremors, what pains, what ecstasies, what perversities and dreams the bed had known! Here Grandmother now spent the greater part of her time.

  Her hand rose and hung above the quilt. A tiny red beam shone from the ruby ring she always wore. She was feeling for her stick. Before she was able to grasp it and rap again, Wakefield trotted to her side. He said, like a little parrot: “There is nothing wrong, Grandmama. Please compose yourself.”

  He enjoyed the dignified words Aunt Augusta had put into his mouth. He should have liked to say them over again. Indeed he did repeat: “Please compose yourself.”

  She peered up at him from under her shaggy red brows. Her nightcap had got askew and one eye was completely hidden by it, but the other fixed him with peculiar intensity.

  “Hey?” she demanded. “What’s that?”

  “Compose yourself,” he reiterated, earnestly, and patted the quilt.

  “I’ll compose this family,” she said, savagely, “with my stick! Where’s my stick?”

  He put it into her hand and then backed away a little.

  She thought a moment, trying to recall what she had wanted, then a burst of half-smothered laughter from the dining room reminded her.

  “What’s that noise mean? What are they shouting about?”

  “About a canary, Gran. Finch has a lottery ticket for one,” He came close to her now, looking eagerly into her face to watch the effect of his words.

  The effect was terrible. Her features were contorted by rage. She glared up at him, speechless, for a moment, then articulated thickly, “A canary—a bird—another bird in the louse! I won’t have it! It’ll put Boney in a rage. He won’t bear it—he’ll tear it to pieces!”

  Boney, disturbed by the sound of his name, took his head from under his wing and thrust it forward, peering down at his mistress from his perch on the painted headboard.

  “Haramzada!” he cursed wildly in Hindu. “Haramzada! Iflatoon! Paji! Paji!” He rose on his toes and flapped his wings, creat
ing a little gust of warm air that fanned Wakefield’s face.

  Old Mrs. Whiteoak had heaved herself up in the bed. She had protruded from under the quilt her large feet in purple bedsocks, and followed them by long, yellowish legs.

  “My dressing gown,” she gasped. “On the chair, there. Hand it to me. I’ll show them whether I’ll have a chit-chat flibbertigibbet canary in the house.”

  Wakefield knew that he should have run to the dining room and called one of his elders. It was an unprecedented thing that Grandmother was doing, getting up without Aunt Augusta or one of the uncles to help her. But his desire for novelty, for excitement, was greater than his prudence. He brought the heavy purple dressing gown, and helped her to put it on. He put her stick into her eager, shapely old hand.

  But to get her on to her feet! That was a different matter. Drag as he would at her arm, he could not budge her. “Ha!” she would grunt with each heroic effort, her face getting more and more the colour of her dressing gown.

  At last she laid down the stick. “No use,” she muttered. “No use… Here, take both my hands, and pull me up.” She held her two hands up to him, an eager, expectant look in the one eye which her nightcap did not conceal. It was evident that she was quite hopeful that the little boy could perform the task. But, when he took her hands and strove with all his might, the result was that his feet slipped on the rug and his small body collapsed into her arms. She broke into sudden laughter and clutched him to her, and he, half laughing at the predicament, half crying at his own impotence, began to play with the strings of her nightcap.

  “Paji! Paji! Kuza Pusth!” cried Boney, beating the air with his bright wings.

  Mrs. Whiteoak pushed Wakefield from her.

  “What were we doing?” she asked blankly.

  “I was trying to get you up, Granny.”

  “What for?” Her eye gleamed suspiciously.

  “Why, the canary, Gran. Finch’s canary, don’t you remember?”

  On the instant her old face was alight with rage.

  “Remember! Of course I remember. A canary in the house! I won’t have it. I’ll stir things up. I’ll make a scene. I must get out to the dining room.”

  “Shall I fetch Renny?”

  “No. No. No, no, no. He’d put me back in bed. Cover me up, the rascal. I know him. I must get to the dining room and give ’em all a fright. And I must do it quickly or one of them will be in here. Ernest will come whining, or Nick mumbling, or Augusta rearing up her head. No, no.”

  “What about creeping, Gran?”

  His grandmother threw him an infuriated look. “Creep, eh? One of my family creep! A Court creep! A Court, let me tell you, never creeps or crawls, even before his Maker! He walks upright, even if he has to lean on someone else to do it. Let cowards creep—let snails creep—let snakes creep—” She looked about her rather wildly. “What was I saying?’

  “You were saying all the things you’d let creep, Granny. You’d just got to snakes.”

  “But what was I going to make a scene about?”

  “About the canary, Gran.”

  “Ah, yes. We must attend to that. Try pushing me from behind, Wakefield. Mount the bed.”

  Nothing loath to try his force from another angle, the little boy scrambled on to the bed, and, kneeling behind her, pushed mightily against her shoulders.

  Grunting, straining, her eye prominent with the exertion, she rose. Rose so thoroughly, in fact, that she all but toppled forward on her face. But she balanced herself. Like some unseaworthy old vessel, battered by a storm, she still could ride the waves on occasion with a staunch front.

  Leaning heavily on Wakefield’s shoulder, she appeared in the doorway of the dining room, and cast an authoritative look over her descendants gathered there. Shock and concern displaced hilarity on their strongly marked countenances. Piers, who was nearest her, jumped to his feet and came to her side. Ernest brought a chair, and together they placed her in it.

  “Mama, Mama,” chided Ernest, adjusting her cap, so that her other too bright eye was discovered, “this is very bad for you.”

  Augusta said, sternly: “Wakefield, you are a very naughty boy. You deserve a whipping.”

  “Let the child be,” rapped out her mother. “He minds his business, and he does what he is told, which is more than you do.”

  Lady Buckley fingered her cameo brooch and looked offendedly down her nose.

  Reassured that nothing was wrong with her, Nicholas beamed across the table at his ancient parent. Her unflinching spirit, her temper, delighted him. “Game old girl,” he murmured to himself. “She’s marvellous, and no mistake.”

  “Are you hungry, Gran?” asked Renny. “Is that what brought you out?”

  “No, no, no,” ejaculated Ernest. “She’s not hungry! She had a large bowl of cornflakes and puffed rice before she went to bed.”

  His mother turned her hawklike face on him. “Cornflakes,” she muttered. “Cornflakes—silly leaves puffed rice—silly seeds… leaves and seeds—fit food for a silly canary.” She dropped her chin on her breast, turning a word over in her mind. “Canary.” Her brain fumbled over it like a blind old tigress trying to discover the nature of a strange morsel. “Canary.” Of what did it remind her? Her deep dark eyes roved over the faces of the clan till they fell on young Finch in the doorway. He was gazing at her in sheepish fascination. The instant she saw him she remembered why she had risen so vehemently from her bed. A canary! Finch’s canary in that house! A little, chirping, squeaking, hopping bird at Jalna! She wouldn’t have it!

  Her face became dark with anger. She found it difficult to speak.

  Renny said: “Give her something to eat. She’s getting in a fine old rage.”

  Wakefield tendered a plate of biscuits and cheese in her direction. With a savage look she poked it away with her stick.

  “Finch,” she articulated. “I want Finch.”

  The boy hesitated.

  “Come close where she won’t have to shout at you,” said Nicholas.

  Finch slouched into the room, grinning deprecatingly.

  “Now,” she said, peering at him from under her shaggy rust-coloured brows with sudden, lucid firmness, “what’s this I hear about a canary?”

  Finch, staring into her eyes with a bewitched feeling, could only stammer: “Oh, look here now, Gran—look here— there’s no darned canary at all—”

  “There is a canary,” she shouted, thumping her stick on the floor. “A nasty, flibbertigibbet canary that you’ve smuggled into the house. Fetch it here and I’ll wring its neck for it!”

  “Oh, I say, Gran, it’s only a lottery ticket. There’s not one chance in a hundred that I’ll win. I don’t want the thing anyway.”

  “Ha!” she retorted, furiously. “You’d lie, would you? Come here!”

  He approached guardedly, but she was swifter than he gave her credit for. With the sweeping gesture of one indulging in some sport, she caught him a blow on the knuckles, so sharp that it skinned three of them and doubled him up with the sting of it.

  “Such a disgraceful temper!” cried her daughter.

  “ Steady on, Mama,” growled Nicholas.

  Ernest rose from his chair, trembling. “Mama, this is very bad for you. You might have a stroke.”

  “Stroke, is it?” she shouted. “I gave the brat a stroke—a stroke he’ll remember. I drew the blood, I did! Put out your hand, boy, till I see it.” She was purple with excitement.

  Renny set down his glass of rum and water. He came and leaned over her. “Don’t you want to be kissed, Gran?” he inquired on a coaxing note.

  She raised her eyes and, from under the rim of her cap, peered into his face. Its lean redness, thus suddenly brought close to hers, shutting out her view of the others; his strongly carved nose, resembling her own; his lips, drawn back from his strong teeth in a smile, hard, yet still somehow tolerant and tender, caught her attention, submerged her in an enchantment she could not resist. Renny, bone of her bone, a C
ourt of Courts, one of the old stock—nothing puling about him.

  “Kiss me,” she ejaculated. “Kiss me quick!”

  Finch, under screen of the embrace, slipped from the room. Going up the thickly carpeted stairs, he could hear the loud exchange of kisses.

  Panting a good deal, the old lady looked around the room triumphantly after Renny had released her—she seemed to have gathered strength from his pressing vitality—and, giving a valiant tug to her cap which again disposed it over one eye, she demanded: “My teeth! I want my teeth. I’m hungry. Somebody get my teeth.”

  “Will one of you please get the teeth for her?” murmured Augusta, resignedly.

  Wakefield blithely danced back to the bedroom, reappearing instantly with the two sets of teeth in a tumbler of water. Mrs. Whiteoak leaned toward him as he approached, and stretched out her hands. She could scarcely endure the waiting for them. The little boy joggled the tumbler before her.

  “For pity’s sake be careful, child,” exclaimed Augusta.

  “He should never have been allowed to fetch them,” observed Ernest, and, despising himself for doing it, he poured a little more rum into his glass.

  It had been a good evening, Renny thought. What a supper the old lady had made! And how the old boys had enjoyed their spot of rum! He had never known Uncle Nicholas more entertaining than when the women were gone and the four men were alone, the glasses refilled, and the crimson curtains drawn close. A good day. His horses had done well. He had done well. He was conscious of a pleasant ache of honourable fatigue in legs and arms. Not perhaps so much an ache as a wholesome consciousness of every muscle. How the mare had pulled, had striven!