Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  As she saw Eugene Clapperton’s figure approaching, a shiver ran through her. It was partly pure excitement at the coming of the man who had done so much for her, partly fear at the thought that he desired to do more. He had done enough! Let him stop there — at the barrier. She wanted no more.

  He waved his hand and called out gaily:

  “Good afternoon! My, what a picture you make! If I was an artist I’d paint you.”

  She held out her hand, turning her face upward in the old familiar movement. She greeted him shyly. He took her hand and sat down in an uncomfortable rustic chair made of cedar saplings.

  “I hope I am not disturbing happy daydreams,” he said, caressing her with his small light eyes.

  “You are always welcome,” she returned, with the old-fashioned dignity of her upbringing.

  “That’s fine.” He drew a little closer. “There was never a time when I needed your friendship more.”

  “Oh! I hope there is nothing wrong.” Never, she thought, could she speak familiarly to him.

  “I’m worried. But I didn’t come here to talk about myself. How many steps have you taken today?”

  “Seventeen. And without much help from Garda. The doctor says I shall be walking about like anyone else in a few months.”

  “You’ll never be like anyone else. You’re unique.”

  “I suppose I am — in a way.” She spoke pensively.

  “In every way,” he insisted. “I’d like to show you off — let the world see you. How would you like to go to Victoria — have a look at the Rockies? Or go down to Quebec?”

  “I’d love it.”

  “when this war is over I’m going to do some travelling. I’ve always promised myself that. Also I must have a complete change. This is the darndest place I’ve ever known. It gets on my nerves. It’s Whiteoaks whatever way I turn. I’ve got to have something new in my life.”

  “Must you wait till the war is over? Couldn’t you go away now?”

  “It’s impossible. But I am worried. I’ll tell you what happened last night. Colonel Whiteoak gave Sidney a regular beating. You ought to see him — it’s disgraceful. But, mind you, I have sympathy for the man, much as I dislike him. He caught Sidney kissing his young daughter in the dark. He’d taken her to a play before that. Sidney says it was quite innocent but evidently that red-headed ruffian didn’t agree.”

  “why, Adeline is only a child!” exclaimed Gemmel.

  “Yes. That’s why I’m sorry this happened.”

  “I’ve always envied her.” Gemmel drew the image of Adeline before her and gazed at it, rapt. “I don’t know what there is about her but I’ve envied her more than anyone I know.”

  He patted her knee. “You’ve no cause to envy a living person now, Gem. You’re perfect.”

  She made a restive movement. “You say Renny Whiteoak struck Sidney! Sidney would hate that. He is so abominably careful of himself.”

  “Sidney is no coward.” Eugene Clapperton spoke defensively. “Whiteoak is a very intimidating man. I hate the sight of him.”

  “He has been very kind to us.”

  “Kind to you? How? In what way?”

  “This house is his. He has never taken a penny in rent for it in all these years.”

  Eugene Clapperton stared in astonishment. “No rent! Well — I never! No rent! why should he let you live rent free?”

  “I guess he is just naturally generous.”

  “I don’t want his generosity for you. I’d like to get you away from this house.”

  Garda appeared, carrying a wineglass in which there was a raw egg with a little sherry on it.

  “Time for your egg!” she exclaimed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Clapperton.”

  “Eugene,” he corrected.

  “Oh, yes — Eugene.” She gave him her warm smile. “Now, take the egg, Gem.”

  Gemmel held the glass where the golden egg yolk floated like a little globe in the transparent white. “Please look the other way,” she said.

  Obediently they looked up into the trees. She took the glass in both hands, put the rim to her lips, opened her mouth wide and the golden globe disappeared.

  “It’s down,” she said.

  Their eyes returned to her, expectant, as though strength had already been added to her from the egg. She returned the glass to Garda. “Don’t go,” she said.

  “I must. I’m in the middle of ironing.” Her cheeks were hot, her palms red from her work.

  When she had gone, Clapperton exclaimed:

  “Poor child! I wish I could see a better future for her. She has no chance here in the country, pinned down to the drudgery of housework.”

  “I know,” Gemmel answered despondently.

  “And Althea. She would get over that terrible shyness if she went about and saw new places and met new people. She’s crippled mentally as you were physically. I want to look after you three girlies. I want you to have a good time. But you, above all, Gem. I’ve been waiting for months to ask you.” He bent close and whispered in her ear, “Will you marry me, Gem, little girl?”

  He was conferring another great favour on her. She heard that in his voice, read it in the slanting glimpse she had of his face. She had only to put out her hand and accept the blessings of security for Althea and Garcia who had devoted their lives to her. She could give them their chance to be what nature had designed them for — not slaves to her but free, out of reach of the restrictions of poverty. Even though she soon would be well and would no longer need their care, what could they do? They were not fitted to take a part in the struggle of the new world that was shaping about them. She could lift the burden of their support from the shoulders of Molly. All her fear, her shrinking, melted away from her, leaving her as impersonal as the egg in the wine glass. She felt herself ready to be disposed of, swallowed in one gulp, by Eugene Clapperton. And she would make him so happy!

  She was eager to get it over with. She tilted her head so that her eyes looked straight into his.

  “Yes — I will,” she answered in her sweet voice with its Welsh intonation.

  He had greatly feared she would refuse him, she was so oddly aloof, with the shyness of a wild creature, and now her assent filled him with an exhilaration he had not felt in many years. He had even forgotten that he could feel it. As he gathered her in his arms it swept through him like a spring wind, blowing away the worries and irritations of the past months. His joy, his gratification even included Althea and Garda. He would take the three sisters to be the young life of his home. Sidney must go. One of the girls could act as secretary. Above all, above all, here was Gem in his arms, her lovely dark head on his breast. Gem, restored to health, poised to take her first steps into real life, always under his guidance, her welfare the first object of his existence, always to do exactly as he told her which naturally would be for her good.

  XXIV

  AFTER DARK

  THE GRIFFITHS SAT close together in their living room three evenings later. They sat close, as though some outside force had threatened to separate them. Gemmel would have been almost unseen in the last of the twilight but for her quick gestures, the familiar turning of her head on her long graceful neck. Garda was more visible because she was in white. Althea’s face and hands, because of the extreme fairness of her skin, showed most clearly.

  “Everything is going to be different now,” she said. “This little home, in the middle of this little wood, can never be the same.”

  “It will be empty,” said Garda. “How strange! Are you sure Eugene wants Althea and me to move to Vaughanlands?”

  “He does,” Gemmel answered positively. “He says so. There’s plenty of room there.”

  “It will be heavenly,” said Garda. “Eugene is so generous. He’s a wonderful man. It will take the three of us the rest of our lives to repay him for what he has done and will do.”

  “I hate being grateful to a man,” said Althea.

  Garda laughed. “Then you are different from me. I
find myself being grateful to men just for their existing. The world would be awful without them.”

  “It would make no difference to me,” said Althea, “if they all were swept away.”

  “But you do like Eugene, don’t you?” Gemmel asked anxiously. “If you don’t, I will not go on with the engagement.”

  “what an idiotic thing to say! Of course I like Eugene. I think he’s the most generous being I’ve ever met. And I want you to marry him and do all the things you’ve longed to do.”

  “Gem,” put in Garda, “that was a funny thing to say, for a woman who is in love. You should be ready to go on with the marriage, even if Althea and I were dead set against it.”

  Gem lighted a cigarette. The flame of the match illuminated her face for an instant. “I’m not like other women! I’ve been dependent on you two for so long that I couldn’t go against you. You’ve been my physical legs till you’ve become my spiritual legs as well.”

  “I hate gratitude,” said Althea. “It’s sickening from you. Why should you be grateful to Eugene? He’s getting, what they call in this country, ‘a great kick’ out of all he does for you.”

  “I think Gem loves him for himself,” said Garda.

  “Let her come out with it then, as though she were in earnest.”

  “I am in earnest,” cried Gemmel, “I do love him.”

  “It would be horrible to marry without love,” said Garda.

  “It would be horrible to marry with love!” There was a fierceness in Althea’s voice. “I wouldn’t marry — even if I adored the ground the man walked on.”

  “It is easy for me to love,” said Garda. “I believe I could love two men at the same time.”

  “You’d better be careful,” Gemmel warned, “or you’ll come to grief.”

  “She’s just the silly kind who does,” said Althea.

  Garda hugged her own body, laughing. “You can’t make me ashamed.”

  “There is just one man living whom I could marry,” said Althea, under cover of the deepening dark.

  “A moment ago you said you wouldn’t marry — not if you adored the ground the man walked on!”

  “Yes. I did say that. But I don’t love this man. I merely mean that — oh, I’m getting tangled up!” She was filled with chagrin at what she had said — her sisters with astonishment.

  “Tell me who he is,” said Gemmel, “and I’ll get him for you.”

  “I know who he is,” laughed Garda. “He is Finch Whiteoak.”

  “Never,” Althea spoke in a whisper. “I might love Finch but I couldn’t marry him.”

  “who is it, then?”

  “I won’t tell. Nothing can persuade me. So please don’t ask.”

  “Will you tell us if we guess right?” asked Garda.

  “I say that nothing can persuade me. If you keep on trying, I’ll go to bed.”

  Garda’s giggles were silenced by a knock on the door. The Griffiths always were startled by a knock. The silence among the Welsh hills had been almost unbroken.

  Althea laid a restraining hand on the youngest sister. “Don’t go to the door. The house is dark. Whoever it is will think we are out.”

  After a little Garda whispered, “It is Finch. He always drums with his fingers on the door while he waits.”

  “Do let him in,” exclaimed Gemmel. “I want to tell him about my engagement.”

  Althea resigned herself. “Very well. Let him in.”

  Garda ran to the door. In a moment Finch’s tall figure appeared, following her.

  “Sitting in the dark!” he exclaimed. “You do look mysterious.” He dropped into a chair beside Gem.

  Garda turned on the light. She said, “We were discussing a wonderful piece of news. May I tell him, Gem?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gem is engaged.”

  Finch stared for a moment in surprise. Then he said, “To Mr. Clapperton, I suppose.”

  She nodded, smiling up at him. The darkness had sunk back into the corners of the room. The window curtains stirred in the light breeze. Finch took her slender, supple hand in his. “I hope you’ll be very happy,” he said.

  Garda answered for her. “We are delighted. Eugene is so kind. Don’t you think it is a good match?”

  “Yes. But, you know, none of us likes him very well. There’s no use in pretending that we do.”

  “It must make no difference in our friendship,” said Gemmel eagerly. “Everything must be just as it was with us.”

  He was silent.

  “We all are to move to Vaughanlands,” said Garda.

  Finch turned to Althea. “You too?”

  “Yes. He has promised me a room in the attic where I can shut myself up when I choose.”

  “It sounds like a beautiful arrangement.”

  “The house will have three mistresses in place of none,” said Garda.

  “It will have the same old master,” added Althea.

  “Althea is in a detestable mood,” said Gemmel, lighting another cigarette. “But I don’t mind. She’s just envious.” The sisters laughed and Finch had a moment’s pity for Eugene Clapperton. Still, he was a hard old bird. He could look after himself. But these three girls — always in league with each other … he asked:

  “what about Swift?”

  “He is going,” answered Garda. “Isn’t it a pity?”

  “Not as far as I am concerned.”

  “But your brother was cruel to him. Then your other brother dismissed him. And now Eugene thinks he can get on without him. Poor fellow! He came to see us this morning and he has a patch over one eye.”

  “I think it improves him,” said Althea. “It gives his face the character it lacked.”

  “what is he going to do?” asked Finch.

  Garda shrugged, pretending it did not matter to her. “Dear knows! But he’s so clever. He’ll find something.”

  “I thought of him,” said Finch, “as always attached to Clapperton. He seems almost like his son.”

  “Eugene is still fond of him,” said Gemmel, “but he doesn’t want him in the house any longer.”

  Finch asked, “whom do you suppose arrived at Jalna this morning?”

  “I can guess.” Garda’s face was alight at the mere thought of an arrival from the outer world. “Your brother Wakefield! How glad you all must be!”

  “You’re right. We heard yesterday that he was to come and he arrived before lunch.”

  “Has he left the Air Force?”

  “Yes. He’s finished with that. He’s been at it too long. Four years of flying, with scarcely a break. He shows it. He’s very tired. He had a heart attack after the last raid he took part in. When he was a small boy he had a lot of trouble with his heart but he outgrew it. Now he must have a long rest.”

  All four were silent as they remembered Wakefield’s engagement to Molly Griffith, now an actress in New York. That engagement had come to an unhappy end. The movement of the lives of those two stirred against the lives of the four in the room.

  “Life takes a lot of courage,” Gemmel said, after the silence.

  “You certainly have had courage.” said Finch.

  “No, no, I’ve never really lived. I’ve existed in a little silk cocoon, woven by my sisters.”

  Garda’s admiring eyes feasted on her. “Now you’re going to spread your wings,” she said.

  “And flutter as far as Vaughanlands! But it takes courage just the same.”

  Althea turned to Finch. “Gem doesn’t really want to get married.”

  “Indeed I do! You mustn’t think that others feel about it as you do.”

  “My marriage was a failure,” said Finch.

  There was a sense of fatality about him that fascinated the girls. He sat with his long hands clasped loosely between his knees. His light brown hair was fine and thick, there was something fine in the droop of his head.

  “But it was an experience,” said Garda.

  “One I wish I hadn’t had.”

 
Gemmel said, “Perhaps you play the better for it. It’s always being said that suffering is good for art.”

  “There wasn’t any suffering I couldn’t have imagined. Why should I experience it? Besides — it was suffocation rather than suffering.”

  He had never spoken to them of his marriage before. The sisters felt an exhilaration in his coming out of his own aloof atmosphere to talk openly to them of his private life. They tried to draw him on to say more — all but Althea. But he withdrew as suddenly as he had advanced. He was suddenly shy and before long he left. He had an unaccountable desire to kiss the sisters goodnight, as though it were goodbye. First he bent over and kissed Gemmel. She did not mind. She seemed to like it. Her skin was silken and delicate, never having been exposed to extremes of weather. She was in complete possession of herself, Finch thought. No one could take anything away from her. Yet she was passionate, he was sure. To kiss Garda was like kissing fresh fruit — a peach, an apple, with its firm, round cheek. He took her hand as he kissed her and, for an instant, closed his eyes. She turned her head till her lips touched his cheek. “Goodnight,” she murmured. He turned then toward Althea but she had disappeared.

  Garda laughed. “You’d never expect her to stay for that, would you?”

  “Gardie,” said Gemmel, “you have a horrible way of putting things.”

  “I hope I haven’t offended her,” said Finch.

  “Not at all. She likes you better than you guess.”

  All the way through the stillness of the ravine, Finch felt the atmosphere of the sisters reaching after him. It was like shadowy hands stretched out after him. All sounds were stilled for the night, the birds silent, the frogs as quiet as the cool damp stones in the stream. Even its murmur was inaudible till he reached the bridge, for the season had been dry. He stood there a space listening. All his life he had tried to put a meaning into the murmuring of the stream. Ever since he was a small boy he had been sure it uttered a message meant for him alone. Now he thought, — “I shall never know what it says till the time comes for me to die. Then I shall understand.” He pictured himself near his end, clinging weakly to the railing over the bridge, leaning low above the water to hear. He felt unspeakably lonely.