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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Alayne ought to go,” said Finch.

  “Of course she should,” agreed Renny. “It’s years and years since she was over there but she won’t go. She’s in a rut and won’t budge out of it.”

  Alayne in the doorway overheard this. In her heart she knew that Adeline would prefer the companionship of Renny or of Finch to hers. It was not a happy thought but it was so and she herself was probably to blame, for though she loved Adeline the child was not and never had been congenial to her. And there was her son. Was he congenial to her? He had her father’s lofty white forehead and piercing blue eyes but so far he had shown, not her father’s intellect or sweet, self-effacing nature, but an erratic mind and a profound egotism. She found herself not near to either of her children.

  She said, — “I can’t think of anyone who would enjoy the trip more than you, Finch. And I’m sure there is no one Adeline would rather have — with the exception of her father.”

  “Now then, Finch,” said Renny, “it is up to you.”

  “Dear boy,” Ernest stretched out his hand and took one of Finch’s in it. “I think you should agree to go. Mooey very kindly invited me to accompany them and I think he intended to pay all expenses but the more I think it over the more certain I become that the effort would be too great for me. I am almost ninety-five. Can you believe that?” He raised his eyes rather pathetically to Finch’s face, as though he asked for assurance that this was not so.

  “There’s a good fellow, Finch,” said Nicholas. “There’s a good fellow.”

  It was impossible to resist. Besides he wanted to go. The thought of the sea voyage, the thought of Ireland, elated him. The thought of a journey with Maurice and Adeline elated him. All his journeyings were by plane or train and solitary, with a concert looming at the end. The thought of seeing his brother Wakefield, now acting in a play in London, elated him.

  As always when Finch was moved he lost control over his voice. Now it came loudly from his mouth. “I’ll go with Adeline. I’d like to go. It’s just what I’d like to do.”

  She threw both arms about him and he felt their strength. “Oh, splendid! Oh, heavenly!” She danced about the room weaving her way in and out among her elders.

  “what’s splendid? what’s heavenly?” asked Dennis from the doorway, his eyes shining beneath his yellow fringe.

  “Uncle Finch and I are going to Ireland.”

  “Can I go too?”

  “You’re too young.”

  “People go over when they’re babies.”

  “They go with their mothers.”

  “I’ll go with my father.”

  “No,” said Finch. “You can’t come.”

  “why?”

  “There are dozens of reasons.”

  “Tell me eleven.” He tugged at Finch’s sleeve.

  Finch wanted to get away from Dennis. He ran up to his room on the top floor two steps at a time. But he heard Dennis pursuing him. He heard him coming step after step without panting. Finch turned and faced him.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I want to go to Ireland.”

  “You’re too young. Your turn will come.”

  “If we all took turns by age my turn would never come till I was old.”

  “I’ll bring you something nice — whatever you want,” Finch said comfortingly and had a recollection of Wakefield as a small boy begging to go places.

  “M — m,” murmured Dennis. He took Finch’s hand and stroked it with his cheek. He pushed back Finch’s sleeve and stroked the inside of his wrist. He stroked it as Sarah had been wont to do.

  “Let me go,” he said, breathless. “You must run along, Dennis. There’s a good boy.”

  He got rid of him and shut the door behind him. He spread open and flexed the hand Dennis had caressed.

  VIII

  IN THE BASEMENT KITCHEN

  Rags the houseman sat on the smaller of the kitchen tables smoking one of Renny’s cigarettes. His wife was scraping the burnt top off a gingerbread. An aura of pale blue smoke was about her heated head and she sucked her underlip in exasperation.

  “You always will have the oven too ’ot,” he said, in his cool Cockney accent which he retained after nearly thirty years in this country.

  “Mind your own business,” she returned briefly in her Ontario voice.

  “Are you suggesting that it ain’t my business?” he asked. “when I take burnt gingerbread in on the tea tray I’d like to know who’ll get the glum looks — you or me.”

  “The old gentlemen never complain.”

  “Don’t they? And ’ow do you know?”

  “They never complain to me.”

  “That’s it. All the complaints are reserved for yours truly. Whatever goes wrong. Now there’s gas escaping! ’Aven’t you got no sense of smell?” He sprang from the table, went to the stove, and turned off the leaking faucet.

  “In some ways,” she remarked, “I liked me old coal range better.

  “Then why don’t you use it? It’s standing there.”

  “Light a fire in it for me then. The boss likes it best too.”

  “He likes everything that gives more trouble. They all do.”

  “Tell him that.”

  “Oh, him and me get on all right. Don’t you worry.”

  She banged the oven door shut and carried the gingerbread into the pantry. “It’d take more than you to make me worry,” she said.

  When she came back she found old Noah Binns, a former farm labourer at Jalna but long since retired because of age and rheumatism, sitting in the kitchen. He frequently dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat for old times’ sake.

  “Howd’do, Mrs. Wragge,” he said, in his pessimistic tones. “Tarrible weather, ain’t it?”

  “I haven’t time to notice weather,” she said. “It takes my husband here to do that.”

  “There ain’t,” said Noah Binns, “goin’ to be no spring.”

  “No spring!” She stared.

  “No spring whatever.” He grinned, showing his one upper tooth. “We’re goin’ straight from the depths of winter straight into roastin’ boilin’ bakin’ summer — the worst yet. All the signs pint to it.”

  “Well, I never.”

  “Nor did anyone never. It’ll beat all.”

  Rags said, — “Don’t go discouraging the wife. She’s just burnt her gingerbread.”

  “I prefer it burnt,” said Binns. “It tastes less like gingerbread.”

  “I guess I won’t offer you a piece after that,” said the cook.

  “whatever you bake is good, Mrs. Wragge,” Binns hastened to say.

  With her rolling gait she went into the pantry and returned with a plate of gingerbread cut into squares.

  “I see the kettle is biling,” said Binns.

  “It’s always boiling in this kitchen. Make us a cup of tea, wife, do.” Rags now spoke affectionately.

  Noah Binns continued with his gloomy weather predictions till they all sat about the table with their cups full of hot tea. The light came into the basement windows direct off snow mounded outside the windows. Rows of aluminum and even a few old copper utensils hung on the walls. There were shelves covered by packages and bottles of cleaning mixtures, so many that Alayne often wondered how the Wragges could use them all. There was a large rack in which stood platters from many bygone dinner services mostly having their enamel cracked by much overheating. A table was crowded with brass and silver objects waiting to be cleaned.

  Rags nodded toward them. “Silver-cleaning day tomorrow. Like to come and give me a hand, Noah?”

  Binns was for a moment speechless from gingerbread, then he said, — “My working days are over. Nobody in this neighbourhood has worked so long and hard as me. And the way I’ve rung that bell.”

  The two Wragges winked simultaneously at each other.

  “The church bell you mean, Noah,” said Mrs. Wragge.

  “I rung that bell,” he said, his voice vibrating with pride, “for fift
y years. Nobody before or after has rung it so loud. When I was in my prime the churchwardens spoke to me for fear I’d bust it. I could put words into the mouth of that bell. Whenever I seen Colonel Whiteoak late for church I’d make that bell say — ‘Hurry up, you redheaded son of a gun, dang you — dang you — dang you!’ And the bell would ring it clear.”

  The Wragges shook with laughter. “And would he hurry?” she asked, making a picture of it in her mind.

  “Hurry? why, he’d come on the run. But the work got too heavy for me. For a year I ain’t been able to ring the bell and I never seen so much lateness as there is now.”

  “There’s a new drug what cures rheumatism,” said Rags. “But it won’t be ready for a year or two.”

  “I’ve no faith in drugs,” said Noah. “I’ve took enough drugs to make an atom bomb and they done me no good. The only medicine I take now is senna. I started off with senna and I’ll end with senna.”

  A knock came on the outer door. Mrs. Wragge called out — “Come in” — and Wright the head stableman entered. He was ruddy-cheeked, square built, and had been working at Jalna since he was eighteen, thirty years ago. He made a clatter stamping off snow, then greeted them with a cheerfully sarcastic, — “Lovely spring day, isn’t it?”

  Noah Binns groaned. “It’s all the spring we’ll see. Straight from this we’ll go into roastin’ boilin’ bakin’ summer. All the signs pint to it.”

  “Well, I guess we can stand it after all we’ve been through,” said Wright, drawing up a chair.

  “We don’t know what trouble is in this country,” said Rags, “except what we make for ourselves.”

  “We don’t make the bugs and the blight, do we?” Noah Binns demanded, his voice trembling with anger.

  “The greatest troublemaker about here,” said Wright, “is old Clapperton.”

  Mrs. Wragge placed tea and gingerbread in front of him. “what’s his latest?” she asked.

  “Well, you know about the Black place?”

  “Yes. He’s bought it.

  “That was a dirty trick,” said Rags, “selling it to old Clapperton without giving Colonel Whiteoak a chance to buy it.”

  “Black knew where he could get the biggest price.” Wright gloomily stirred his tea. “I’ve heard on good authority that there’s going to be a factory built there.”

  Noah Binns tee-heed into his cup. “There’ll be factories and service stations everywhere before I’m dead. There’ll be one right here where we sit.”

  “Well, you are cheerful, aren’t you?” exclaimed Rags.

  And Wright added, — “I hope I’m underground before that day.”

  Mrs. Wragge thumped a fat fist on the table. “The Colonel’d never allow it! All them that owns property would be up in arms.”

  Noah Binns pushed his face close to hers. “Have you ever knowed property owners able to stop anything?”

  “Colonel Whiteoak stopped him building bungalows,” she declared.

  “Raikes tells me,” said Wright gloomily, “that they’re going to dig the cellars for new ones as soon as the spring breaks.”

  Mrs. Wragge glared at them over her swelling bosom. “It won’t be allowed,” she said.

  A polite knock now sounded on the outer door.

  “I’ll bet it’s Tom Raikes,” said Mrs. Wragge. “He always knocks that polite way. Come in!” she sang out and Raikes entered, bent a little as though bowing. He took off his hat as he came and a black gypsy lock fell over his large eyes.

  He was made very welcome by Mrs. Wragge while the men looked at him a little doubtfully. Soon he had a cup of tea and a piece of gingerbread in front of him. As the cook placed them there his head touched her solid warm arm and he smiled gratefully up at her, his white teeth gleaming in his dark face.

  Noah Binns whispered in Wright’s ear, — “I don’t like his looks.”

  “Ssh,” Wright warned out of the side of his mouth.

  Raikes was saying, — “what a backward spring we’re having. As I came along the path the snow was up near to me knees.”

  “And more of it in the sky,” said Wright.

  “It’s tarrible,” said Noah, “how the days is lengthening. I don’t know of a worse sight than a long day and no sign of spring.”

  “Have another cup of tea, Noah.” Mrs. Wragge pushed it across the table to him without ceremony. “It’ll make you feel better.”

  “This new bell-ringer they’ve got at the church,” he said, “don’t seem to have no knack with the bell. Every Sunday I stand by him both morning and evening and my hands itch to get ahold of that rope. He can’t ring the bell proper and never will though I direct him at every pull of the rope.”

  “Lands sakes!” exclaimed Mrs. Wragge.

  “I wrastle with that young man,” he continued, “till the perspiration is apouring down both our faces. ‘Faster!’ I say, and then ‘Not so fast! Put some muscle into it!’ I say, and then I say, ‘Don’t writhe around as if you’d the stummickache.’ And he yells back and I can’t hear him for the ringing of the bell. It’s enough to drive me crazy.”

  “Land alive!” exclaimed Mrs. Wragge.

  Raikes said on a deep reminiscent note, — “You should hear the bells where I come from, Mr. Binns.”

  “That’d be in Ireland, eh?” Noah asked in a disparaging tone.

  “Yes. In Ireland. It’s only a village church but we have six lovely bells and a ringer to each. You ought to hear the chimes on a special occasion.”

  “They’d be Catholic bells, eh?” said Noah in a still more disparaging tone.

  “No. Protestant.”

  Wright said, — “I’ll never forget my trip to Ireland. Old Mr. Court there, he’d sent for little Maurice to go aver and stay with him and I took him. It was a big responsibility but I enjoyed it.”

  “Well do I remember the poor little feller comin’ to tell us goodbye. My, he was cute,” said Mrs. Wragge.

  “And he’s a grown-up young man now and going back to claim his property.” Wright gave a sigh. “Lord, how time flies!”

  “Flies!” exclaimed Noah. “Fifty year I rang that there church bell and did ever one of this here family say I done it well? No. Not one.”

  “Are you countin’ me?” Mrs. Wragge asked.

  “I was not. Do you want to be counted one of this family?”

  “Well, Colonel Whiteoak often does.”

  “You’re welcome to him.” Noah stared straight at her.

  “I suppose,” Raikes said in his soothing tones, “that it’s a fine property young Mr. Maurice owns over there.”

  “Beautiful,” Wright agreed with pride. “A mansion there is — three times the size of this, with old armour in the hall and a grand stairway.”

  “I don’t call this much of a house,” said Noah.

  “It’s the finest in these parts.” Wright said truculently.

  “Shucks. Y’ought to see some of the houses them millionaires have built, down on the shore.”

  “I have seen ’em. They’re welcome to ’em — with their swimming pools and rumpus rooms and bars. There isn’t one with stables equal to ours.” Wright pushed his cup and saucer from in front of him and folded his arms. “Them — with their three cars and a station wagon — bah! They don’t know they’re alive.”

  “I had a bit of an accident last night,” said Raikes. All looked enquiringly at him.

  “Aye. I was coming home — I was driving Mr. Clapperton’s car and a truck bumped me right into a telegraph pole. The car was pretty well smashed.”

  “My, that was bad luck,” said Mrs. Wragge. “It is hard on the nerves, these smashes. Have another cup of tea.”

  “Thanks. I will.” He drank down half of it blazing hot.

  “what’d Clapperton say?” grinned Wright.

  “He was a bit upset. But he couldn’t say much as it wasn’t my fault. He allows me the use of that car. The other’s just for the use of the family.”

  “How’s the pigs?” a
sked Wright.

  “Ah, the young ones are dead.” A look of sadness softened Raikes’ face.

  “Better luck next litter,” comforted Mrs. Wragge. “How’s that D.P. gettin’ on?”

  “She’s leaving tomorrow.”

  “Is it true she found a snake in her bedroom?”

  “I’ll bet it was Clapperton,” grinned Wright.

  Mrs. Wragge gave a yell of laughter which she quickly controlled. Rags uttered repeated giggles. Noah choked on his last mouthful of tea which he brought up. Only Raikes remained placid.

  “It was no snake,” he said, “only a harmless mouse. But it isn’t for that she’s leaving. She’s not used to country life and she’s not used to our ways. She’s going with some friends of hers. We could make her stay on but we can manage without her. I’ll help with the work.”

  “You!” laughed Mrs. Wragge. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “I’ll help you in your own kitchen this minute if you say the word.”

  “I do most of the work here,” said Rags.

  Before she could make a retort Noah Binns raised his rasping voice. “It’s a sinful crime,” he said, “the way the government brings these furriners to take the bread out of our mouths. They’re goin’ to be a blight on the country and bring it down to ruin.”

  Steps were heard and a pair of pretty legs were seen descending the stairs from the hall above. A gay plaid skirt came into view, then a green blouse, and lastly Adeline’s smiling face. The men began to shuffle their feet under the table and push back their chairs but she called out:

  “Don’t move! Goodness, what a pretty picture you make! Hello, Noah, what do you think of this for April?”

  “It’s just what I foretold, Miss, away last fall. There’ll be no spring, I says, and we’ll go straight from the depths of snow into roastin’ boilin’ bakin’ summer.”

  Adeline perched herself on the wide windowsill.

  “You must pray for good weather for me, Noah,” she said. “I’m going on an ocean voyage.”

  Noah Binns groaned. “That’s bad,” he said. “There’s storms brewin’ and German mines still floatin’ about. Danged if I’d go on an ocean voyage — not if my way was paid on the Queen Mary — and they say she rolls like all possessed.”