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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Finch lifted Dennis to his knee as they turned in at the gate. “Look,” he said. “This is Jalna, where you’re going to live.”

  “Oh. Was I ever here before?”

  “Yes. When you were a baby.”

  “Shall I have someone to play with?”

  “Yes. Other children and dogs. Lots of dogs.”

  Dennis laughed in delight but when they went into the hall and the dogs rose from where they sprawled about the hot stove and made aloud barking, he clung to Finchs legs in terror. Renny picked him up and set him on his shoulder.

  “Now you’re safe,” he said.

  Finch exclaimed, “The stove! why, Renny, you’ve got the stove back!”

  Renny grinned triumphantly. “Yes. Doesn’t it look cozy? The dogs like it. I like it. The uncles like it. I thought it a good time to install it again while Alayne is in New York. She’d have objected, you know. But she won’t be able to say much, coming home after such a visit.”

  “Has she been told about Dennis?”

  “Not yet. But she’ll love having him.”

  Nicholas’ voice came from the library. “I’m in here, Finch! Come right in and bring the child. How glad I am to see you!”

  XXXII

  A DEBT REPAID

  A WEEK LATER Alayne and Renny returned to Jalna from New York. They were accompanied by Rosamond Trent, a friend of Alayne’s before her marriage to Eden, who, during all the years, had kept up a steady correspondence with her and for whom Alayne had a peculiar affection though Miss Trent often irritated her. In the days when they had shared an apartment together Rosamond had mothered Alayne, poured out on her a passionate devotion, offered homage to Alayne’s intellect. Alayne had relaxed under the mothering, tried her best to deserve the devotion, and realized the homage to be somewhat excessive. Rosamond Trent’s exuberance was often trying but her kindness was inexhaustible. She had a deep pity for Alayne because of her marriage to the two Whiteoaks who had buried her in the Canadian countryside for the past twenty years, yet she had at the same time envy for Alayne because she lived a life that was rich in experience unknown to her or to her other friends. In Alayne’s rare visits to New York, Rosamond Trent had done everything in her power to make Alayne happy, had in truth done her best to make Alayne sorry she had ever left New York. Always she had wanted to visit Alayne at Jalna and always Alayne had shrunk from such a visit. What could she do to make things exciting enough for Rosamond? what could she do to smooth over the eccentricities of Nicholas, the delinquencies of the Wragges, the presence of too many dogs, the unmanageableness of Renny? Yet perversely she felt pride in those contrasts to Rosamond’s well-oiled existence. There had been, however, no pride in the one bathroom with its vociferous plumbing which served the whole family, no pride in the old stove that, to her mind, disfigured the hall in cold weather, no pride in the smell of horses that every so often got into the house. Rosamond would be a visitor she never would be able to forget for a moment and she shrank from entertaining her at Jalna.

  Yet now she was at the door!

  Rosamond had literally asked for an invitation. And she had made known to Alayne her reason for her eager desire to visit Jalna. Hearing it, Alayne had cast anxiety aside and doubly welcomed her friend. When Renny had arrived, he warmly seconded the invitation. She was not the sort of woman who attracted him, but she was Alayne’s friend and that was enough.

  Rags opened the door with a bow and a deferential smile of welcome. Miss Trent looked him over with approval. “what a nice face!” she whispered to Alayne. “The real old family retainer type.” Rags overheard her and his smile solidified into a look of such sweet servitude that even Renny noticed it. Alayne noticed nothing but the stove in the middle of the hall, from where she had thought it was banished forever.

  Her accusing eyes sought Renny’s. “Has anything gone wrong with the oil heating?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He returned her look with an arch grin. “But there’s something so cheerful about the old stove. The uncles like it. The dogs like it. It makes the hall cozy. Don’t you agree, Miss Trent?”

  “I do indeed. I haven’t seen a coal stove since I used to visit my grandfather’s farm in Vermont when I was a child.”

  Alayne felt mortified. What was the use of trying to do anything with this house — this family? But she controlled herself and turned to greet Nicholas and Ernest who were being given an arm down the stairs by Finch and Wakefield. It was mid-morning and the two old gentlemen were making their first appearance of the day, having taken particular care with their toilet, more especially Ernest who, fifteen years before, had had a great admiration for Rosamond Trent.

  That admiration was not lessened as he again met her. Her fur-trimmed coat, her odd but very becoming hat, her beautifully done hair which, in the interval, had become a fine even grey, the perfection of her makeup — vivid as to lips but not too vivid — filled him with a pleasurable animation.

  “I never shall forget the time we crossed the ocean together,” he exclaimed, grasping her hand.

  “Nor I!” She returned the grasp, her eyes glowing.

  “I was there too,” mumbled Nicholas, “though I don’t suppose you remember.”

  “As though I could forget!” she cried. “I enjoyed every minute of it. What a happy world!” She turned then to Finch. Both remembered how, on that voyage, she had borrowed ten thousand dollars of his newly inherited fortune, to put into an antique business she had started, and how she never had repaid it. The slump of the thirties had made repayment impossible, but a flush overspread her cheeks.

  “You were such a sweet boy,” she said.

  He gave an embarrassed laugh.

  Alayne said, “Rosamond, this is my youngest brother-in-law, Wakefield.”

  Miss Trent looked into the handsome young face and declared, “He is very like you, Colonel Whiteoak.”

  “Thanks,” said Renny, delighted.

  “I escaped the red hair,” said Wakefield.

  Alayne was looking for Archer. She saw a little boy descending the stairs but he did not run down to meet her and he was only half Archer’s size.

  “why — who —” her astonishment made her almost speechless. “whoever is this?”

  Finch stared at her in consternation. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that Renny has not told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “About — Sarah.”

  “Renny has told me nothing.”

  Renny took the child into his arms and said, “This is Sarah’s little boy. Sarah was killed in a motor accident, while Finch was in California. Finch brought him home to Jalna. Kiss Auntie Alayne, Dennis.” He held the child close to Alayne. Dennis obediently clasped her neck and kissed her.

  Her face, after its momentary eclipse behind his small person, appeared deeply flushed. Another child — a young child — in the house — and Sarah dead! It was cruel to have broken such news to her at a moment like this. She felt too confused to do more than turn and hold out her hand to Finch.

  “You must have been terribly shocked,” she got out.

  “Yes.” Still holding her hand he said, “Renny told me he would tell you.”

  Renny was dividing his caresses among the dogs, having set down the child. He said, “I didn’t see any sense in telling her before we came home.”

  Nicholas put in, “Well, well, it’s all over with Sarah. She was a strange girl. Let’s put her out of our minds. Tell us about New York, Alayne. You look amazingly well.”

  Rosamond Trent had thrown her arm about Alayne, as though to keep her from falling, “I think a little sherry would be good for her,” she said.

  Wakefield hurried to get it. The rest moved into the drawing-room where a bright fire encircled birch logs on the hearth. Ernest conducted Miss Trent to a chair.

  “No need to be upset,” Renny said shortly, to Alayne.

  “You could scarcely expect me to hear news like that, without a qualm.”

  On he
r other side Finch said, “Dennis is not to stay at Jalna unless you want him, Alayne. I’m looking for a nurse for him. They’re terribly hard to find.”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Renny. “Of course, we want him. He’s company for Archer.”

  “who is looking after him now?” she asked.

  “Everyone gives a hand,” said Renny. “He seems to like it. He can dress himself. I’ve had him on Wake’s old pony already. He’s going to make a rider.”

  “where is Archer?”

  “At school,” answered Nicholas. “He played truant yesterday. Wakefield warmed his seat for him.”

  Wakefield returned with glasses and a decanter of sherry on a tray. He said cheerfully, “We don’t want Archer to waste his time like I did, do we?”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Renny. “So you gave him a warming, eh?”

  Alayne felt stiff with resentment. She drank her sherry in silence. Rosamond Trent, as a connoisseur in antiques, was admiring the graceful old pieces glowing in the firelight. Ernest was delighted to have her as a visitor. In these dreary days of early winter, with the war still dragging on, she would be an exhilarating companion. Finch captured his son and turned him outdoors to play with Archer’s old tricycle. He thought that Alayne might have given Dennis a warmer welcome. He always had stood by her. It was true she had held out a sympathetic hand to him when she was told of Sarah’s death, but she had not been sympathetic about Dennis’ coming. A little child! A very small boy! what was he in the house? Nothing. Alayne had been too occupied in resenting the smacking Wake had given Archer, to think of Dennis as a poor little motherless boy and himself as a widower.

  The family outside Jalna were eager to meet Miss Trent. Piers and his family, Meg and hers, all came and all were favourable toward her. From Meg down to Dennis, they admired and liked her. She was so whole-souled, so appreciative of what they had, so generous toward what they had not, so friendly. Only Nicholas remained aloof from this concerted approval.

  Alayne relaxed in the success of her friend. Now she was glad she had invited her to Jalna. The visit to New York had done Alayne good. She felt extraordinarily well and happy. She accepted the return of the old stove to the hall as one of those inevitable things that happened at Jalna. You might struggle to change it but you could not change it. To see Renny himself again, almost more than himself, was enough to make her happy. He had put on flesh in these last weeks. He looked the picture of a hard, weather-beaten huntsman, in love with life, as he lived it in his own limited sphere. He talked of what he would do with his horses, when the war was over. Soon it would be over. He let others talk and mourn over the problem of reconstruction. They were as helpless as he but had not the sense to realize it. He did not worry over matters he was not capable of controlling. Rosamond Trent, from disliking him — from trying, as she once had done, to influence Alayne against him — came to admire him, to like him, perilously near to loving him.

  She had been a week at Jalna. She had, as it were, got her bearings in the household, before she approached Finch on one of the chief objects of her visit. He was alone, sunk in a deep chair in the library with a book, when she came in. She wore that marvellously well-groomed air which so attracted Ernest, so made him wish he was thirty years younger, and so irritated Nicholas. Finch gathered himself out of the chair and gave her a vague smile. He did not want to be interrupted.

  “Reading!” she exclaimed. “Then I won’t come in.” But she was in.

  He offered her a chair and a cigarette.

  “I’m glad to find you alone,” she said. “I want to talk with you.” She sat down and inhaled the smoke from her first puff.

  “Oh!” He looked enquiringly at her. He hoped she was not wanting to borrow more money from him.

  “Your uncles are safe in the drawing-room,” she said, and added with enthusiasm, “what old darlings they are!”

  “Yes.”

  “Especially your Uncle Ernest. He’s a real museum piece.”

  “I’m so used to him, you know, he doesn’t seem out-of-the-way to me.”

  “I guess that’s true.” She studied the rug for a moment of indecision and then came to the point, with dramatic emphasis. “My principal reason for making this visit is to pay my debt.”

  “Your debt,” he repeated, bewildered.

  She laughed gaily. “Certainly. My debt to you. Surely you haven’t forgotten?”

  “No, I hadn’t forgotten. You say you want to pay it?”

  “It’s about time, isn’t it?”

  He could not answer. No one who had borrowed money from him had ever paid it back. It was incredible that Rosamond Trent should. He stammered, “Well — I don’t know.”

  But obviously she was in earnest. She was taking a cheque out of the white handbag she carried, and saying, “I’ve made it out for fifteen thousand dollars. I know that the compound interest on ten thousand dollars for fifteen years would be terrific. I can’t calculate it, can you?”

  “Not possibly,” he answered, looking at the cheque she had put into his hand as though it were a viper. “You mustn’t think of such a thing.”

  “But I must pay interest.”

  “I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “I hadn’t! I’ve brooded on it. All through the depression, all through my financial recovery, I’ve brooded on it. When I knew you were married to a rich wife, I didn’t worry so much but, when I heard you were divorced, I’d wake in the middle of the night and think, ‘That poor boy is wanting his money!’ Of course, I know you are making enormous sums by your recitals but — a debt is a debt and, if you’re anything like I am, you like people to pay you what they owe you.”

  “I wasn’t worrying.”

  “But I was! And now — after all these years — I can breathe freely again.” She drew a deep breath to prove it, her beautifully controlled body gallantly responding.

  “I don’t want interest.”

  “Nonsense! Interest is due and must be paid. Remember you have a child to bring up. He’s lovely. I wish he was mine.”

  Finch pocketed the cheque, very pleased to have it, yet somehow very uncomfortable in accepting it.

  Ernest appeared in the doorway. He said, “Do come and talk to Nicholas and me. We’re dreadfully bored by each other. If you don’t come soon we shall be driven to quarrel.”

  Finch was glad to escape from the somewhat embarrassing situation. He was glad to have the unexpected cheque but found it difficult to accept. The debt was too old, its payment like a too extravagant present. Rosamond Trent, on the contrary, sprang up with buoyancy, taking Ernest’s arm and walking him back to the drawing-room at a quick pace. Rags had just brought in a pot of chocolate and a plate of biscuits. Nicholas, of late, ate lightly at table and grew hungry between meals. The mid-morning chocolate and biscuits were very pleasant to him, though he found the quality of the biscuits very inferior to those of years past.

  “what’s the matter with food?” he demanded. “Can you tell me, Miss Trent?”

  He offered her chocolate and biscuits which she accepted, saying, “I shouldn’t. I’m putting on weight. But I can’t resist. I’ve been hungry ever since I came to Jalna.”

  “Now,” said Nicholas, peremptorily, “tell me what you think of that biscuit.”

  “It’s very nice.”

  “Nice! It’s no better than a mixture of flannel and starch soaked in water. We used to make good biscuits in this country but the makers have learned that the public will pay just as much for a poor quality of food as a good — and like it!” He thrust a biscuit under his shaggy moustache and washed it down with a large mouthful of chocolate. For a moment he could not speak, then he continued, “We used to make biscuits almost as good as English biscuits. Now look what we have, and the makers have the cheek to advertise them as “English Style Biscuits” — whatever that may mean.”

  “It’s just too bad,” said Miss Trent, critically biting into another biscuit.

  “And bread,” we
nt on Nicholas. “The baker’s bread is uneatable, yet the advertisements are full of drivel about its excellence. Thank God, Mrs. Wragge can make good bread.”

  “It’s delicious,” agreed Miss Trent. She loved to hear Nicholas go on like this.

  “Baker’s bread,” he continued, working himself up, “has no crust. The bread is made to suit the people of today. They’re too lazy to chew. When they are as old as I am they won’t have any teeth. I have twelve. Seven upper — five lower.” He dipped a biscuit in his chocolate.

  “when we were children,” put in Ernest, “and were hungry between meals, we were given hard crusts of delicious fresh homemade bread, with butter and brown sugar on them.”

  “And the sugar was brown,” added his brother. “Dark brown, with what a flavour! Not the tasteless yellowish stuff that is called brown today.”

  “Then there is the fruit,” said Ernest. “what a difference in the fruit!”

  Nicholas blew out his breath in contempt. He said, “The new generation have never tasted a good banana and never will. Fifty years ago we ate only the large red banana, rich, mellow, really good. Then came the yellow banana, not so good but still eatable. Now we have the green banana that rots before it ripens.”

  “And the peaches,” almost chanted Ernest, “with their crimson cheeks, their golden flesh! Now the wretched under-ripe fruit is covered by red netting to make it appear ripe.”

  “The variety is no good to begin with,” growled Nicholas. “The growers discovered coarse-grained varieties that ship well, and the good old kinds are pushed off the market.”

  Ernest chimed in, “Piers tells me he can’t sell our little snow apples. I don’t suppose you ever tasted a snow apple till you came to Jalna, Miss Trent.”

  “No — and I adore them.”

  Nicholas fixed accusing eyes on her. “You adore them! Yet it is you Americans who have taught us all these tricks.”

  Ernest gave him a warning look.

  Nicholas chuckled and added, “I confess there never were apter pupils.”

  “I’m afraid we started it,” agreed Miss Trent, smiling.