“Daddy!” she cried, and was out of bed in one leap and on him.
Finch, Roma, and Archer had been woken by the unusual sounds. They came running down the stairs full of excitement. All trooped into Nicholas’ room from where he had been loudly calling them to come. Alayne, joining them, thought, “Already he is surrounded by family. It will be a wonder if I can have him to myself once more today.”
Rags appeared in the doorway and all but fainted. “The last time I laid eyes on you, sir,” he said, while they gripped hands, “was at Dunkirk and you ’ad a bloody bandage on your ’ead. Seems as though it’s always your ’ead that gets ’urt, sir.”
“A good thing it’s tough,” said Renny.
Nicholas asked, “Have you had any ill effects from this last injury?”
“Well, Uncle, my memory was bad for a time, and now and again I still feel a bit dazed for a moment. But that’s wearing off.”
“Poor head,” said Adeline, stroking it with a possessive air. Her eyes devoured him.
“We thought,” Archer said, “that you’d likely get killed. We were pretty sure you’d get killed.”
There was a storm of denial.
“I wonder, Wragge,” put in Ernest, “if I could have my breakfast tray now. All this excitement on an empty stomach is very bad for me.”
Wragge didn’t look pleased with the thought of a breakfast tray.
“Tell your wife,” said Renny, “that I shall come down in a few minutes to see her. After that you and I can have a chat.”
“I think, Wragge,” said Ernest, “that I’d better have an egg — in addition to my porridge.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Children,” said Alayne, “you must go and dress.”
“what a lovely early start we have,” said Adeline. “what a day of celebration! Daddy, don’t you think I’ve grown enormously?”
“It’s disgraceful,” he said, and drew her to his side.
Down in the basement he shook hands with fat Mrs. Wragge. She beamed at him and promised herself a morning of cooking his favourite dishes. Suddenly he exclaimed, “where are the dogs?”
Rags had just descended the stairs. He gave a deprecating shrug. “Ow, sir,” he said, “you’ll find a great difference where the dogs is concerned.”
Renny frowned. “I know. Dear old Merlin’s gone.”
“Yes. ’E’s gone. And very sad it was. I knew it would be a blow to you.”
“But where are the others?”
Rags opened the door leading into a small room that was sometimes used for an extra maid. An English sheepdog, like a mountain of animated hair, came trotting out, his eyes hidden in his hair, his bobtail lost in his hair, yet the whole somehow abounding in expression. After him came a broad-chested wrinkle-nosed bulldog and, in and out between their bulk, a little Cairn terrier.
“Hullo, dogs!” shouted Renny. “Hullo, dogs! Do you know me? Of course, you do! Look at them, cook! By George, it’s grand to see them!” He squatted on his heels, the Cairn in his arms nibbling his chin, licking his cheek. The other two shouldered each other to sniff him, to wag their welcome.
“Ain’t it wonderful how they remember ’im?” Rags asked of his wife.
“It ain’t so much they remember him as they know he loves them. They know by the way you touch them.”
“why were they sleeping in there?” asked Renny. The Wragges looked at each other.
“They’re mostly kept out of the upstairs now, sir,” said Rags, with portentous solemnity.
“But why?”
“Ow, we’re getting too grand to ’ave dawgs up there. They bring in too much dirt. Didn’t you notice the ’all, sir? It’s been done over in cream colour!”
“Cream colour! what do you mean?”
“Didn’t you notice the wallpiper was tore off and the woodwork and all was in ivory paint?”
“Good God, no! I — went upstairs with my eyes shut and came down — well, I must be blind!”
He left them abruptly and mounted the basement stairs, the dogs pressing forward with him. Alayne had just arrived in the hall.
He looked about him, with a disapproving grin. “Well,” he said. “You’ve made quite a change here.” Her lips felt stiff but she tried to smile naturally.
“I had to have it done. The old wallpaper was disgraceful.”
She had used a provocative word.
“That wallpaper,” he said, “was bought by my grandmother, nearly a hundred years ago. It came from France. You couldn’t buy its like today.”
“I know,” she said, a little impatiently, “but a hundred years is a long time. It had got very soiled.”
“It could have been cleaned.”
“Indeed it could not. Renny, just think of the children who have gone up and down those stairs putting their grubby little hands on the wall.”
“Your children —” he placed a devastating accent on the your —”may have put their grubby paws on the wall. Certainly we never were allowed to. We’d have got them smacked if we’d tried it. Did you ever feel the gold leaves and scrolls on that paper? They felt solid. I’ll bet the men had a time to get it off.”
“Yes. They did. But surely you must acknowledge that the hall looks larger, airier, more cheerful.”
“Not to me.”
“The ivory colour seems to bring out the beauty of the rugs. I hadn’t realized before what fine ones they are.”
“I had.”
“Everyone remarks how the beauty of the banister, the carving of the newel post, stands out as never before.”
“Hmph.” His eye caught a strange new ivory-coloured something against the wall. “what’s that?” he demanded.
“A radiator!” She faced him, half-defiant, half-proud. “Renny, I have had an oil heater put in! I paid for it out of my own money. What a joy it has been! An even temperature, real warmth, all over the house — for the first time.”
“We were never cold.”
“It has done away with the awful old stove that used to be put up in the hall every winter.”
He looked aghast. “The stove, Alayne! The stove! You haven’t the stove any more?”
“Everyone says what an improvement I’ve made and, as I have said before, I did it out of my own money.”
“Well — I could have shown you better ways of spending your money. And let me tell you this, I never came into the hall out of the cold and saw the old stove almost red-hot, with the dogs curled up about it, but I thought it one of the coziest sights I’d ever seen.” He turned to Finch, just coming down the stairs. “Look here, Finch, I’ve heard of soldiers who came home and found themselves not wanted. By Judas, I begin to think that’s the way it is with me! Everything I like best has been changed.” He spoke with half a laugh but there was temper in his tone. “The dogs are shut in the basement. The paper torn from the walls. A cold-blooded heating system installed. The old stove turned into junk.” He gave a flourish of his hand toward his grandmother’s room behind the stairs. “I’ll bet Gran’s room has been brought up to date. I’ll bet there’s a streamlined bedstead in it and a dressing table with three mirrors.”
Alayne would not let herself get upset. She put her arm about him and said, “Darling, nothing is changed in that room. Would you like to look in?”
“No. No.”
The old woman with her caustic tongue, her mordant vigour, had given him all the maternal tenderness he had known — she and his aunt, Lady Buckley, whose dignity and restraint had seldom unbent and whose attitude toward him had been critical. He would not look into that room.
He let himself be drawn by Alayne and by the onward rush of the children into the dining room where breakfast, unusually early, was laid. Rags was so excited that he forgot first the butter, then the marmalade. He hurried down to the kitchen for each of these, execrating his bad memory as he went. He was well aware of Renny’s chagrin over the changes at Jalna and he placed first the butter, then the marmalade before him, with a
n air of doing what he could to soften the blows that had been dealt him.
Alayne had been prepared for a certain amount of discontent over the innovations. Her idea was to make him forget these things in the general pleasure of homecoming. Finch ably came to her help and few could have felt disgruntled in the presence of the children, they were so bubbling with happy talk.
Renny’s air became more resigned. The three dogs clustered about him while he fed them scraps of buttered toast.
“I suppose the dogs just got in because you did?” said Archer.
“Right you are, Archie.”
Finch chose to laugh hilariously at this and Alayne brought herself to smile.
“The dogs are so glad to see you,” said Adeline. “They never forget, do you, pets?”
Renny fixed his eyes on his daughter’s face. He said, “Do you know, Adeline, my spaniel, dear old Merlin, promised me that he would live till I came back. And I think he would have if —”
Alayne interrupted, “It was impossible. He was so miserable. We all agreed he couldn’t go on.”
“I didn’t agree,” said Adeline.
“I didn’t agree either,” put in Archer.
“You weren’t consulted,” said Alayne, with asperity.
Renny turned to Finch. “Were you at home?”
“No. I was on a tour. But I guess he had to be done away with.”
“He promised me,” repeated Renny, “to keep well — to live — till I came back.”
“I remember,” said Roma. “Uncle Nicholas took you to one side and asked you something, and you lifted Merlin by his forepaws and you said, ‘Merlin has promised me to keep well till I come home.’”
Renny’s face lit up. He put out his hand and took one of Roma’s in it. “Fancy her remembering that!” he exclaimed. His face contracted.
“Good God,” thought Finch, “he’s going to cry!”
“Now children,” said Alayne, rising, “I think we have finished. Girls, you had better make your beds at once.”
The telephone rang in the next room. It was Piers. News was already about that the master of Jalna had returned. In less than half an hour Piers, Pheasant, and their sons, Meg and her daughter, had joined the family circle. It was a day of light, fluttering breezes. Above the treetops the sky swept up and up, into infinite harebell blueness. The dominant colour in the flower-border was the blue of the larkspurs. Blue jays flitted among the trees. Alayne had put on a blue dress.
Ernest and Nicholas established themselves in their own chairs on the lawn. The rest of the family collected round them. Renny sprawled in a deep garden chair, the Cairn terrier on his knee, the bulldog and the bobtail sheepdog at his feet. Already he had complained bitterly of the state of the latter’s coat. “Ah, Roger,” he had mourned, “you would not be the neglected bundle of rags you are if I had been at home. No wonder your mistress wants you kept out of sight.”
Adeline was humiliated. “If only you knew how often I have combed him! And Wright has too. But he has such a propensity for burrs.”
“when was he last combed?”
“Yesterday. No — I believe it was two days ago.”
“More like two weeks ago. Never mind, Roger, you’ll not be neglected now.” Roger gazed up at him with an adoring, sanctimonious expression on his woolly face.
Alayne stood in the porch contemplating the family group. It was twenty years since she had come to Jalna as Eden’s bride. And there they sat, as they had sat then, close together in the invincible bond of their kinship! There were missing from the group old Adeline, Eden, and Wakefield. What would Eden be if he were living today? The grandmother had died. Eden had died. But seven young ones had sprung into being. What strong-featured individualists these young ones would develop into! Just as their elders. She had to acknowledge that Archer, in spite of his resemblance to her gentle scholarly father, fitted well into the group. Even Nooky was developing the Court nose. Her eyes came to rest on Renny. Was it possible that she beheld him sitting safe, with his dogs, his family! For the thousandth time she admired the way he held his head, the set of his shoulders, that look which, when he was mounted, made him seem a part of the horse. He looked not much older than Piers, for Piers had grown heavy and those years in the prison camp had done something to him. Alayne crossed the grass and joined the group, coming to Renny’s side and sitting on the broad arm of his chair. He put an arm about her but not quite tenderly, for he remembered the wallpaper, the radiators and the banished stove. The various irritations he had suffered in the moment of homecoming caused him to look with added dolour on Piers’ affliction. He said:
“It’s a strange thing to see you, Piers, with one of your legs missing.”
A shock went through Alayne. How could he speak, with such dreadful openness, of what she had never yet referred to in Piers’ presence?
Piers answered a little huffily, “I have a mighty good artificial leg. I got a new one after I came home. The first was just a makeshift. I get about very well.”
“Indeed he does!” cried Pheasant. “There is almost nothing he can’t do. Just wait till you see him sitting up on the harrow! He can do anything.”
Renny pessimistically surveyed his brother. “It’s well,” he said, “to feel so. That puppy you have climbing all over you — you seem very fond of it.”
“why not? It was a birthday present — to take the place of Biddy. You knew she was run over by a car.”
“To take the place of Biddy!” repeated Renny, on a note of astonishment. “Do you mean to say that you would let this puppy take her place? But then — you never were very fond of her or she of you. She was always following me home.”
Piers stared truculently at him but said nothing. Renny turned to Meg. “It seems strange,” he said, “to think of you in that little house where Mrs. Stroud lived — a widow — in a little house.”
“It is very strange and sad,” she answered, taking his hand. “But not so bad as it might be. I have Patience and the house looks quite nice since I have turned both halves of it into one, as it was originally.”
“Meg got a very tidy sum for Vaughanlands,” said Piers.
A gleam came into Renny’s eyes. “She did! Good. I asked you in a letter, Meg, but you didn’t answer.”
“You must meet Mr. Clapperton,” said Meg. “He is a perfect dear. So kind! So generous!”
“Indeed! So far I haven’t liked what I’ve heard of him.”
“what have you heard?”
“That he bought Vaughanlands.”
A vibration went through the older members of the family. If Renny did not like the idea of Mr. Clapperton at Vaughanlands, what would his feelings be when he heard of the proposed model village? A model village, named Clappertown, at his very door! No one dared tell him of it.
Meg continued, “His kindness to poor Gemmel Griffith is simply wonderful.”
“Gemmel? She’s the cripple, isn’t she?”
“Yes. The poor girl never could walk. She just crept about the house — a terrible responsibility for her sisters.”
“The oldest one, Molly,” put in Patience, “is on the stage in New York. She’s lovely.”
“The really lovely one,” said Finch, “is Althea.”
“She’s shy,” added Roma. “She runs the other way if you meet her.”
“Well, what has this fellow done that’s so generous?” asked Renny.
Meg continued, “He took that poor, crippled girl to a specialist. She’s had a most delicate operation on her spine and before very long will be able to walk. She’s now in a nursing home. Mr. Clapperton is paying for everything.”
“He sounds damned officious.”
Alayne’s eyes met Finch’s. They laughed, almost hysterically.
“But don’t you think it was very kind and generous?” asked Meg. “It will change the girl’s whole life — and her sisters’ too.”
“She seemed to me very happy as she was. I’d have let her alone. There are e
nough girls running around.”
He turned to Nicholas, “what do you think of him, Uncle Nick?”
Nicholas blew out his cheeks. “I think,” he said, “that he is a horrid old fellow and his secretary, Mooey’s tutor, is a horrid young fellow.”
“I quite agree as to Swift,” said Piers. “I can’t stand him. I don’t like the ideas he’s putting into Mooey’s head.”
Maurice flushed. “He is a good teacher,” he said.
“That’s the main point,” said Renny. “How are you getting on?”
Pheasant broke in, “He has tried some of the exams and passed with honours. They were child’s play for him.”
“It’s maths and science that get me down,” said Maurice, “but I expect to get through them next year.”
“My God,” exclaimed Piers, “have we to endure that whippersnapper, Swift, about the place for almost another year?”
“Daddy — Daddy,” interrupted Adeline, “when are you coming to the stables? Wright has everything shining for you. He’s dying to see you. Do come — please!”
“Are you sure,” asked Renny, “that he has not had the whole interior done over in a pale ivory and central heating installed?”
“Positive. Do come!” She tugged at his arm.
He rose. “All right. Who is coming with me?”
Even Alayne, knowing the family’s predilection for each other’s society, was surprised to see them rise in a body, with the sole exception of Nicholas.
“Do you think you should attempt it?” she asked Ernest. “You haven’t walked so far in a long while.”
“He can rest in my office,” said Renny. “Take my arm, Uncle Ernest.”
Nicholas said ruefully, “I’d go like a shot, if it weren’t for my knee.”
“Fetch his wheelchair, Finch,” said Renny. “We’ll take him over.”
Finch darted off for the chair.
“Hurrah,” cried Archer. “Uncle Nicholas is having his last trip to the stables!”
“It’s not his last,” said Adeline, indignantly. “He’ll go lots of times — now that Daddy’s home.”
With many heavings and gruntings, Nicholas was installed in the wheelchair. Finch laboured behind it while Ernest leant on Renny’s arm.
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 18
