06 The Whiteoak Brothers

by Mazo de La Roche

“Well, the good Lord made them too, didn’t He?” Finch’s voice broke out in that uncontrolled way it had.

  He stood, shaken again by anger, looking after the car as, with Meg and Wakefield and the flowers established in it, it moved off. The wagon, driven by Wright, followed, the blond mane of the horse, the blond hairs on the back of Wright’s neck, glistening in the red sunlight.

  No one had asked him, Finch thought bitterly, to help to decorate the church. No one had thanked him for what he had taken so many pains to do properly. Why, he must have examined twenty pumpkins before making his choice. And there lay the onions discarded on the grass, their tender tubular stems bruised.

  Suddenly he burst out laughing at himself. Sentimentalizing over a bunch of onions — what a fool he was! No wonder his brothers made fun of him. Hands in pockets, he jigged up and down on agile feet. He was feeling very much alive, almost jocular at the thought of his own peculiarities.

  The spaniel Floss appeared from beneath the hedge and, seeing him so lively, rose and stood up against him, grinning into his face. Finch romped with her, thrusting her from him while she returned each time with all her weight against him. At last the two came down together on the grass and clasping her to him he rolled shouting with laughter…. Then, as though galvanized, he leaped up and ran toward the stables, calling to her to race him there. She ran a little way, her long ears flopping, but, seeing Renny in the distance, turned abruptly in his direction.

  This defection sobered Finch and he felt unaccountably hurt, for after all Renny was her master and she adored him. Still, why should she run after him at the very first glimpse? “It’s true,” thought Finch, “that I can’t hold anyone — not even Floss. And I’ve been so good to her.” He remembered the times he had taken burrs out of her long ears and plumed tail, brought her in out of the rain and dried her underpart on a towel.

  He thought he would not go out of the sunshine into the stables, though he wanted to inspect the new colt. But instead he would go to the small enclosure beyond and play with the six lambs that lived there. But, before that, he would smoke the cigarette he had pinched from the battered box on Eden’s desk. He looked at it rather dubiously, for it had got a crack in it from lying in his pocket. He went to a secluded spot where the silo jutted out from the barn and lighted the cigarette, carefully holding the crack together between finger and thumb. He inhaled, and the sweet scent of the tobacco — Eden refused to smoke cheap cigarettes — mingled with the sweet scent of a brushwood fire which a farmhand was tending.

  A little black hen, with a single half-grown late chick, was scratching about in the bits of straw and the weeds nearby. At the most insignificant find she clucked excitedly to her chick, which ran to examine and, if possible, devour though its crop was already bulging. When the cigarette was finished and the stub thrown down, the little hen hastened to offer it to her chick, who several times picked it up and dropped it, with enquiring bright glances at its parent.

  “Why, look here,” Finch said, “haven’t you got any sense? Now, I’ll tell you what, I’ll get you something you’ll really like.” He though he would go into the barn and fetch a handful of chopped corn.

  He went in at the door and stood motionless a moment in the cool, sweet-smelling dimness. From below came the contented moo of a cow and the sound of water running from a tap. Then from the yard there was the sound of a lamb bleating. Were they moving the lambs to a new place? He ran down the steep stairs. He saw a farmhand filling a bucket at the tap and asked:

  “Are they moving the lambs?”

  The man was a Scot. He answered, with a grin — “Well, they’re moving one o’ them. They’re butchering it.”

  Finch ran along the cement floor and looked over the half-door. The lamb was lying on its side, held down by one man, while another, with a knife …

  “Stop!” shouted Finch. “Don’t!”

  The man with the knife turned his head.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because you can’t — not on a morning like this!”

  “I have orders. You’ll soon be getting nice roast lamb for dinner.”

  The lamb raised its head and looked at Finch.

  “I tell you to stop!” he shouted. He vaulted over the half-door and ran across the cobbled yard.

  Before he reached the lamb it had uttered its cry of pain. Its white woolly breast was reddened by the blood that ran from its throat. Its disproportionate woolly legs moved, as though to run, then were still.

  “Ah, now,” said the Scot, “don’t you worry. It didn’t hurt the wee thing at all.”

  Finch turned and fled, as though from a massacre.

  Over the paths, across the stubble-fields he ran till he hid himself in the darkness of the pine wood. This pine wood was not large. Like everything at Jalna, it was not on a grand scale, though the trees themselves had grandeur because of their great age and massive boughs. They seemed to create silence. Even the migrating birds, when resting here, ceased their twittering. The carpet of pine needles muffled the thud of twittering. The carpet of pine needles muffled the thud of horses’ hooves on the bridle path. At its edge a few mushrooms, smooth as pearls, thrust upward toward the light. Finch could hear how the silence of the wood was broken by hoarse sobs as he ran. Yet he did not know he was crying.

  In the deepest part he threw himself down on the ground and hid his face in the crook of his arm. The lamb lay beside him, its trusting eyes close to his. “You will save me, I know.” Then its bleat of pain — its death that penetrated his very marrow…. It had trusted him. It had trusted the man who butchered it. It had lived the few months of its life trusting and gambolling in joy of its life. And they had killed it to eat it! To devour it! Again he saw its gashed throat with the blood gushing on to the snow-white wool. His stomach revolted. He raised himself and was sick. Then he lay back, relieved a little, and was quiet.

  He got up and covered the place where had had been sick with pine needles. He was shivering and moved to the edge of the wood where the warm sunshine touched him. He discovered a small mushroom and picked it. Its earthy scent came to him and it was damp and earth-cold against his palm.

  He could see the lamb resting against the breast of the Good Shepherd, its woolly legs dangling. “Oh, Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace,” he kept repeating, “grant us Thy peace.” The words, as though loosing a river of grief, brought blinding tears to his eyes. He neither saw nor heard Eden’s approach and was only aware of him when he dropped to the ground beside him.

  “Oh, hullo,” said Eden. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you want to be left alone?”

  “I don’t care.” Finch flung an arm across his face to hide it.

  Eden lighted a cigarette and clasped his hands across his knees. He said — “I see plenty of trouble ahead of you. You take things too hard.”

  Finch’s eyes were hidden by his arm but his mouth was draw into a grimace. He tried to speak but made only incoherent sounds.

  Eden went on — “You should be like me. I don’t let things worry me — either at home or abroad.”

  There was silence except for a sudden breeze that whispered among the pines. Then, without uncovering his eyes, Finch asked — “Eden, have you ever seen a lamb killed?”

  “So that’s what’s the matter! Why did you see it?”

  “I just happened to.”

  “Well, you know they are killed, don’t you? What about lamb and mint sauce?”

  “I’ll never touch it again.”

  “What about the poor steers and pigs?”

  Finch sat up. “I’ll never eat meat again! Why should I? People get on without it. Why — Eden, the look in the lamb’s eyes….” Again his mouth was contorted.

  “They do indeed. Whole nations have given up eating flesh and survived.” And Eden began to quote:

  Life which all creatures love and strive to keep,

  Wonderf
ul, dear, and pleasant unto each,

  Even to the meanest: yea, a boon to all

  Where pity is, for a pity makes the world

  Soft to the weak and noble for the strong.

  Unto the dumb lips of his flock he lent

  Sad pleading words — tum-te-te-tum….

  “I forget the rest.” Eden frowned crossly.

  Finch asked — “Who wrote that?”

  “I forget. But I don’t think much of it as poetry, do you?”

  “I dunno.” But Finch was flattered by having his opinion asked.

  “Orpheus taught men to abstain from slaughter yet he himself was torn to bits. But you know all about that.”

  What would it be like, Finch wondered, to have Eden for a friend? But Eden would soon tire of him, he knew. Even now he fell silent, looking straight ahead with an odd, unseeing look. Finch examined his profile. He was like his mother, Finch had heard said, heard his grandmother say, in her harsh, sardonic voice — “Like his poor flibberty-gibberty mother.” It must feel strange to be beautiful like Eden. Not that he would have wanted to. It would have been embarrassing to him. But he could have done with a few good looks, he thought.

  Eden took a notebook from his pocket, found a stub of a pencil in another pocket, and looked enquiringly at Finch.

  “Must you stay here?” he asked politely.

  “Why — why — I don’t know,” stammered Finch.

  “Because the first lines of a poem have just come into my head and I should like to be alone to write them down. If I wander off I shall probably forget them, but a walk will do you good. There’s a lot of room.”

  Finch scrambled to his feet. “Oh — all right. I’ll go.” He looked vaguely about, then turned to Eden. “You won’t tell, will you?” he asked, reddening.

  “Tell what?”

  “Wh-what I said about — the lamb?”

  “Not a word. I’m good at keeping secrets. But are you really going to reject it when it comes to the table?”

  “You wait and see.”

  “Knowing your appetite, I’ll believe it when I see it — not before.”

  Finch spoke loudly. “You’ll see it! I’ll never eat meat again.”

  He felt a constriction in his throat. Tears scalded his eyes. He stumbled over a fallen branch as he hurried away and all but fell.

  Eden called out — “Don’t hurry. I wasn’t driving you off.”

  Finch turned back. “Eden — you won’t tell that I —” he could not go on.

  Eden finished for him — “That you were crying? God, no! What a little duffer you are! Get out! You’ve made me forget that first line.”

  Finch had his midday meal at the school to which he went each day by train. During the following week he refused meat, and if he left it on his plate at supper no one noticed. But when Saturday came it was a different story. It was a day still warm and doors and windows stood open.

  When the family collected for the one o’clock dinner they were met by an excellent smell of roast lamb and mint sauce. The grandmother, supported by a son on either side, sniffed the rich odour and made a gallant attempt to walk faster. “Don’t be so slow,” she said to Ernest. “I’m not a centurion yet.”

  “Centenarian, Mamma.”

  “Ha — well, what was a centurion, then?”

  “He was commander of a hundred men in the Roman army.”

  She gave a roguish grin. “Well, I never commanded a hundred men — not quite a hundred, no!”

  Her son Nicholas patted her back that once had been supple and straight but was now stiff and bent. He looked down at her with admiration. “You certainly commanded ’em in your day, Mamma — in three countries.”

  The rest of the family, with the exception of Finch, were standing about, waiting. The visitor, Dilly Warkworth, was, as usual, trying to captivate Renny. This, in these days, when she was engaged in schooling the mare, Silken Lady, was easier to do. He was drawn to any woman who could ride well. He had thought her to be a bit of a fool, but now he admired her, in an impersonal way.

  Ernest and Nicholas steered their mother round the end of the table to her own place between them. There they could attend to her wants and try to restrain her appetite, which was all too zestful. They lowered her into the chair where she arrived with a “ha” of satisfaction, put up her two hands to straighten her beribboned cap, and fixed her eyes, which were surprisingly bright and clear for her age, on the platter Rags was about to place on the table in front of Renny. This he did with an air of especial deference and solicitude, as though the wiry and weather-beaten master of the house were a particularly aristocratic invalid. Nicholas and Ernest found this irritating and it always took them a moment or two to get over it.

  “Roast lamb,” exclaimed the grandmother. “Nothing I like better. Plenty of brown gravy and mint sauce, please.”

  Renny tested the edge of the carving knife with his thumb. He began to carve.

  Finch came in and slid into his chair with a glance of apology at his sister.

  Meg said — “I must ask you to be on time, Finch. you know perfectly well how long it takes you to tidy yourself. What is your birthday watch for, if not to help you to be on time for meals?”

  Piers gave Finch a poke in the ribs. “What’s the time by your birthday watch, my little man?” he whispered out the side of his mouth.

  Finch did not hear him. He was staring at the juicy brown roast on the platter. When it was his turn to be served, he said loudly — “None for me, please.”

  Renny threw him a piercing look — almost of consternation. “What’s the matter?” he demanded.

  “I’ll have just vegetables, please.”

  “Vegetables! Why — this is roast lamb! One of our own.”

  Unable to control himself, Finch broke out hoarsely: “That’s just it! I was there. I saw it killed.”

  “Now don’t let’s have any nonsense.” Renny spoke with some severity. He cut a slice from the roast and laid it on a plate.

  “I won’t eat it, I tell you,” shouted Finch.

  “Come, come,” soothed Piers, “be a little man.”

  Nicholas, who was becoming somewhat hard of hearing, demanded — “What is all this about?”

  The grandmother, with the first luscious mouthful on her fork, put in — “If the boy wants more, give him more. He is growing fast — needs feeding.”

  The plate was set in front of Finch. He looked down at it with loathing. He repeated — “I won’t eat it, I tell you.”

  Replying to Nicholas, Eden said — “He saw the butchering and he’s turned vegetarian. Who can blame him?”

  “If the boy wants more, give him more,” put in the grandmother, her mouth full of roast lamb.

  “That’s not the trouble,” Renny said testily. “He won’t eat what I have given him because —”

  Ernest interrupted — “My mother should not be told unpleasant things when she is eating.”

  Him she now interrupted fiercely — “I won’t be kept out of things.”

  Piers declaimed — “He never loved a dear Gazelle but it was sure to die.”

  “Ba-a,” bleated Wakefield.

  Meg helped him to mint sauce. “This lamb,” she said, “is very nice indeed and very good for you.”

  Finch, with flushed face and trembling lips, sat staring at his plate.

  Renny said — “Let’s have no more of this sentimental nonsense.

  Behave yourself and eat what you’re given.”

  “I tell you, I won’t — I can’t,” Finch got out hoarsely.

  “Ba-ba,” bleated Wakefield.

  In a sudden fury Finch caught his arm and twisted it. The little boy uttered sounds of anguish disproportionate to his hurt.

  Old Mrs. Whiteoak rapped the table with her fork. “Take them out and flog them, Renny,” she ordered. “Boys fighting at table! I won’t have it.”

  “Such fun,” cried Dilly, who had been listening open-mouthed.

  “I
am ashamed for you, Finch,” said Lady Buckley on a deep contralto note.

  Renny rose from the table, took Finch by the arm and led him into the hall. Closing the door behind him, he said — “I am going to be forced to give you such a walloping as you have never had one of these days.”

  With his mouth contorted, Finch began — “But don’t you see …” He could get no further. How could he make Renny see what he saw — the gaping wound — the pleading eyes — the blood on the snowy wool? And, if he could make him see…

  Renny was saying — “Now, you go up to your room and stay there till you get over this. Then go down to the kitchen and get something to eat. Whatever you want. If you won’t eat lamb —

  “I’ll never eat any meat again.”

  “Very well. Be a vegetarian if you like, but for goodness’ sake don’t make a fool of yourself as you did just now.”

  A vegetarian Finch remained as the days marched on. What amazed him was that no one made any further remark on his abstinence from meat. He could not know that it had been agreed to ignore him in this matter. Wakefield did indeed call out “Ba-a” to him from the shelter of Piers, but got such a savage look after the first occasion that he desisted. Finch’s relief was almost physical, so greatly he had shrunk from the chaffing, the derision he had dreaded. Now he could face a future untainted by the shame of devouring his fellow creatures. If they could but know! Indeed many a time he pictured them, as by some miracle, discovering he had not shared in the cruelty they suffered. Surely, when he died, word would pass among them and they would mourn him. It seemed hard to him that the cows, sheep, and pigs of the farm appeared to trust Piers more than him — Piers who was so zestfully a meat-eater.

  That zest — that appetite — unfortunately remained with Finch. He was growing fast — bones and muscles were hardening in him, he came to his meals ravenous. The smell of the breakfast bacon or sausages was a torture. No amount of toast and marmalade filled the yearning cavity of his inside. Scarcely an hour would pass before he would be hungry again. And when there were pork chops or veal stew or roast beef! Renny would enquire solicitously if he would take a little of the Yorkshire pudding with a little gravy on it. A bit of the pudding — yes. The gravy — no. Almost he resented the mask-like faces about the table. They were making it too easy for him. It was unnatural. They didn’t care! That was it — they didn’t care!