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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “I ask no better sight,” said Rags, “than to see the boss on horseback.”

  Noah remarked, with concentrated bitterness, “Of all men on horseback, he makes me feel the worst.”

  The cook stared. “Well, for goodness’ sake!”

  “Yes,” said Noah, “my gorge is stirred up when I see him prancing on a horse.”

  “I guess you don’t like him, Mr. Binns.”

  Noah shook his head and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “It ain’t because I don’t like him. He affected me that way when I first saw him mounted. He was only a toddler and his pa was holdin’ him steady on a Shetland pony. My gorge rose then.”

  “Have some more tea,” comforted Mrs. Wragge.

  But he pushed away his cup. “No, thanks.” He sighed. “I feel kind of sickly. I guess it’s the humility in the atmosphere. Heat and humility. That’s what I can’t stand. And there’s more of it coming.”

  “I suppose you mean humidity,” said Wragge.

  “You can call it any fancy name you like. I call it humility. It’s a biblical term and it’s good enough for me.”

  The tea tray was now ready and Wragge carried it up the stairs, at the top of which the dogs were waiting.

  The intensity of the heat had lessened, but there was a strange stillness in the air as Renny, Finch, Adeline, Fitzturgis, and Archer walked through the ravine and up the steep path to Vaughanlands.

  The little stream which had been seeking and finding the lake in all these hundred years since Captain Philip Whiteoak had first spanned it here with a rustic bridge now moved languidly past the luxuriant growth that edged it. A diminutive island of sand was occupied by a stout glistening frog that stared up at those who crossed the bridge with bold-eyed unconcern. A pleasant coolness rose from the water.

  “Couldn’t we two stay here,” Fitzturgis whispered to Adeline, “and let the others go on?”

  She was astonished. “But, Mait, don’t you want to see Uncle Finch’s new house?”

  “Not a thousandth part so much as I want to see you.”

  “We shall have all the evening together.” She gave him her eager smile. “I want it as much as you do. But Uncle Finch will expect us to go to the house.”

  “How do you know?”

  She called out to Finch, who was ahead, “Uncle Finch, do you really want us?”

  He stopped and turned to wait for them. “Of course I do.” Yet secretly he would have liked to be alone in this first inspection of the house.

  They followed the path across a stubble field where small birds were finding their evening meal. Trees grew so thickly about the house that its whiteness was discernible some time before its design could be guessed, even though a number of trees had been destroyed in the fire which had burned the earlier building. Now this house was seen to be of typical West Coast architecture, all on one floor, with few but very large windows.

  “The Vaughan who built the old house must be turning over in his grave,” remarked Renny, first to stand in front of this new one.

  “Do you like it?” asked Finch.

  “It makes me think of the advertising pages in magazines. All it lacks is a shiny new car and a shiny new wife.”

  Adeline said to Fitzturgis, “I adore it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were ours?”

  Archer remarked, “It seems to me a perfect house for a concert pianist” — Finch looked doubtfully pleased — “and his pathetic child.”

  “I don’t think Dennis is at all pathetic,” said Adeline. “You are pathetic because you imagine you know so much and really know so little.”

  Archer was imperturbable. “All children are pathetic,” he said. “And all old people.”

  “what about those in between?” asked Fitzturgis.

  “They are just pitiable.”

  Finch said, “when I have my piano and my furniture it will look different.”

  “Shall you get a wife also?” asked Archer.

  His father gave him a look and he went and peered in through the largest window.

  “That’s the music room,” said Finch. He had the key of the front door and now unlocked it and they trooped into the house. The sound of their steps and their voices were magnified into a false importance. Adeline and Fitzturgis smiled into each other’s eyes, thinking how well they could do with this charming new house.

  He said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. The music room is so large. The others small and cozy. The outdoors seems to come right in at the windows. It seems made for —” He hesitated, searching for a word.

  “Us,” put in Adeline. “Ifever you tire of it, Uncle Finch, we’ll take it over.”

  “It will cost plenty to furnish it,” said Renny. “There are some nice old pieces at Jalna I can let you have. Chairs and a cabinet.”

  “Thanks. I’d love to have them — if Alayne wouldn’t mind.”

  Archer looked thoughtful. “She’d mind very much, I’m pretty sure.”

  “why,” said Renny, “your mother often remarks that the house has too much furniture.”

  “It’s one thing,” said Archer, “to say that, but it’s quite another to give the things away.”

  At this remark everyone but him looked embarrassed. Finch said, “It would only be temporary. I’d give the things back whenever she wanted.”

  Archer looked intensely interested. “I’ve heard her say that if you lend a piece of furniture to anyone it’s the hardest thing in the world to get it back again. When they’ve possessed it for a while they look on it as their own and they resist if you ask for it. Aunty Meg was like that with an occasional table we lent her.”

  “After all,” Renny said, “the furniture belongs to me.”

  “Would you dare take the occasional table?” asked Archer.

  “I have forgotten the incident.”

  Renny led the way through the echoing house. “It’s a tiny place,” he said. “Just three bedrooms. I don’t see where you all are to sleep.”

  “All?” repeated Finch, trying to look as though he did not understand.

  “Yes. One for you. One for Dennis. That leaves one for Meg and the girls. But Roma will be getting married.”

  Archer said, “I don’t think Aunty Meg will like to share a room with Patience who so often comes in from working in the stable.”

  “what a marvelous kitchen!” exclaimed Adeline. “And no basement stairs! No one need mind doing the work in this house. I’d just love it.”

  “Mercy!” said Archer.

  V

  Maurice at Home

  PHEASANT HELD MAURICE tightly in her arms, her eyes searching his face with loving anxiety. “I just can’t believe in you …” Her voice had both laughter and tears in it. “Are you sure you are here in the flesh?”

  “Yes, and with a mosquito bite already.”

  “Oh, Mooey, darling …”

  How sweet the childish name sounded to him! He smiled lovingly down into her eyes. Piers was occupied with the car and let him go into the house alone. The room, with its memories of childhood, engulfed him. It was hard for him to free himself from them, to see his mother clearly. Hardest of all to forget was the goodbye they had said when he had first gone to Ireland. Neither of them would ever forget that. It had left its scar on them.

  But she laughed up at him and said, “I believe you are taller. Have you grown?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re thinner. Are you well, Mooey?”

  “Perfectly…. How pretty you look, Mummy. And the house! Those curtains are new, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. Fancy your noticing…. Are you hungry, dear?”

  “No. I’m much too hot. I’d forgotten how hot it can be.”

  “Your tweeds are so heavy. Do take your jacket off. I’ll make you a cold drink.”

  Piers came in. He gave Pheasant a quick glance as though begging her not to fuss over the boy the moment he arrived. Little Mary came in. She was eating an ice cream cone.

 
“where did you get that?” demanded Piers.

  “Philip gave it to me. He has one himself.”

  “Hello, little sister,” said Maurice. “Will you come and kiss me?”

  She turned and fled.

  “She’s shy,” said Piers. “She’ll get over it and be as bold as brass — the way they all are.”

  “She’s pretty,” said Maurice, but without enthusiasm. He thought they might well have done without this last addition to the family.

  Pheasant now brought iced drinks on a small tray.

  “what is it?” asked Maurice.

  “Ginger ale.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Yes, indeed…. But — might I have a drop of whisky in mine? The plane flight has left me a bit squeamish.”

  “Certainly,” said Piers, feeling ready for a drink himself. He went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Canadian rye.

  Maurice looked at the label.

  “I haven’t any Irish,” said Piers, “if that’s what you want.”

  “No, no. This is fine, thanks.”

  “Take a mouthful from the glass to make room for the whisky.” Maurice drank half the glass.

  “Say when,” said Piers, looking rather hard at his son.

  “You may fill it up.” Maurice gave a little laugh. “As I said — I feel a bit squeamish.”

  Piers filled the glass. He beamed at Maurice.

  “I do think he is thinner, don’t you, Piers?” Pheasant asked. She was longing to stroke her boy’s hair.

  “It’s a wonder,” said Piers, “he isn’t getting fat and lazy. What do you do with yourself, Maurice? I mean, how do you pass the time?”

  “Oh, the time passes fast enough.”

  “It’s a wonderful thing,” Piers went on, “for a young fellow to have an independent fortune. It was lucky for you that you went to visit Cousin Dermot.”

  “Yes, indeed. Where is Nook? Have I got to call him Christian now?”

  “You’ve got to try. I find it hard.”

  “I’m quite used to it,” said Pheasant, “except that at bedtime I always say ‘Goodnight, Nooky.’”

  “Listen to her,” laughed Piers. “She still looks on you boys as though you were five-year-olds.”

  Little Mary again came in, sidled between Piers’s knees and stared large-eyed at Maurice.

  “whom do you think she’s like?” asked Pheasant, smiling encouragement at her daughter.

  “Certainly not you,” said Maurice. “More like Father.”

  “No,” said Piers. “Like my mother. She’s named for her, you know. Tell brother your name, pet.”

  Little Mary, in panic, scrambled on to his knees and hid her face against him. She did not mind the heat from his stalwart body.

  “Wait till you see Philip,” said Pheasant. “He’s grown devastatingly handsome in the past two years.”

  “He’ll outgrow that,” said Piers. “I was the same at his age.”

  Pheasant was silent.

  “Wasn’t I?” he repeated.

  “why, yes, dear.” She spoke in a comforting tone. Then to the little girl she said, “Run to the studio and tell Christian that big brother is here.”

  Mary gripped Piers and hid her face. Setting her on her feet, he said in a tone of command, “Run along with you.”

  All three elders watched her go — Pheasant, loving yet critical; Piers, tender yet stern; Maurice, detached and a little impatient.

  Mary went out through the kitchen door and across the yard to the studio. She could see Christian there, scraping paint from a palette. The room looked very large, Christian very forbidding in his smock; the smell of the paint was sinister. She stood looking in through the crack of the door and a tear ran down her cheek. The world so large, so full of strange scents and sounds! So many men — and another one come. She could hear Philip’s piercing sweet whistle as he crossed the yard. He strode past her without seeing her and went into the studio.

  “Do you know what?” he said, in his new man’s voice. “Maurice is here. In the house with Mother and Dad. I saw him through the window.”

  Christian gave an exclamation of surprise, began to pull off his smock, decided to leave it on, and the two passed Mary on their way back to the house. She had not given Christian the message. She had not done as she was told. Tears ran down her cheeks and she scratched a mosquito bite on the back of her neck.

  Indoors the three brothers stared at each other, trying to recapture the old familiarity. The two younger always had been together. Maurice was the outsider. They felt that he now considered himself superior to them — in experience of life, in travel, in his position as a young man of means. Philip frankly looked up to him, even while he was inclined to show off in front of him, as a citizen of a young, uninhibited, flagrantly rich country.

  “And how is poor ould Ireland?” he asked.

  “Fine,” smiled Maurice. He was in good spirits now. He looked Philip over admiringly.

  “I hope you’re not homesick for the ould sod,” Philip said, eyeing Maurice’s clothes with envy.

  Christian put in, “Don’t mind Philip. It’s just his idea of wit.”

  Pheasant said, “It’s wonderful having Mooey home with us, isn’t it, boys?”

  “Splendid,” agreed Piers, wanting to be included. “where is that little Mary?” he added.

  The boys said they had not seen her.

  “I’d better find her.” Piers rose and went with his slight limp toward the door. “Sometimes she has a little cry all by herself.”

  “He just dotes on her,” Pheasant said to her sons when they were alone.

  “It used to be me,” said Philip, “till she came.”

  In the two years that had passed since Maurice had last seen his brothers Christian had developed mentally more than had Philip. Those two had been the comrades, whispering and laughing together. But now Christian no longer found Philip adequate but reached out toward Maurice. In an odd way he felt himself to be richer in experience than his elder because of his dedication to art. He looked on Maurice as a dilettante in life and himself as an ardent worker. Yet he envied Maurice his experience in travel. They had had a few talks in Maurice’s last visit from Ireland which he could not forget. He wanted to place himself again on that footing with his brother — yes, and to leave the lighthearted scatterbrained Philip outside.

  At the first opportunity when, in the cool of the evening, they were alone together in the studio Christian brought the talk round to Adeline and her lover. Maurice had been very nice about the pictures, had wanted to buy one, which immediately Christian had given him. Maurice sat on a bench, with it on his knee, as though he would not risk being parted from it. Christian admired his air of detachment that was tempered by a gentle authority.

  In colouring the brothers were a curious contrast. The mild, moist air of Ireland had preserved the rich gloss of childhood in Maurice’s dark hair. His face, untanned by hot sun, showed a warm flush in the cheeks. But Christian’s fair hair was bleached to straw colour and his skin tanned to mahogany.

  “I remember your telling me,” said Christian, “and I was proud of your confidence, that you loved Adeline. However, I suppose that’s all over now.”

  He saw a bitter smile bend Maurice’s lips. “It was always a one-sided affair. Adeline never cared for me. But I’m damned if I can discover what she finds in Fitzturgis. He has always seemed to me a surly brute.”

  “I think he’s very much in love.”

  “Do Adeline’s parents like him?”

  “Well, to tell the truth, I think that Aunt Alayne likes him very much and that Uncle Renny has a few doubts. But you know what Uncle Renny is.”

  “Indeed I don’t. I really don’t know what any of you are. I’m an outsider, Nooky.”

  “You’ll not be for long. You’ll be very much an insider … with me, anyway. I want to be your friend … if you’ll let me.”

  Christian was fr
ank and a little detached, even when he spoke warmly. Maurice was impulsive — eager to be loved — all too ready to be hurt. Now he exclaimed:

  “There’s nothing I want so much.”

  Christian laughed. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing that I can attain.”

  They had lighted cigarettes and they smoked in silence for a space. Outside the wide, open doorway (wide enough to have admitted a carriage in former days) a pair of bats, darker than the night, padded the languid air with silent wings.

  “How different this is,” said Maurice. “The very smell of the air is different.”

  “I should like to see Ireland.”

  “You must come and stay with me. You must come when I go back this time. Could you do that?” There was a sudden eagerness in Maurice’s voice. Heretofore he had considered only a visit from his parents, though it was his mother he really wanted. But the flowering into manhood of Christian, the newborn thought — “Here is a brother who may be a friend” — made Maurice reach out toward Christian. There was something in him one could trust, one could lean on, thought Maurice. He did not realize that he wanted someone to lean on, to cling to — but there was the longing. As a child he had been swept away from all that was familiar to him into a strange country, into a strange house, not like a boy sent to boarding school among other boys, but into a great lonely house, with an old man. The gentleness, the affection, he had found there had never quite effaced his feeling of insecurity. All of his childhood he had felt insecure in his father’s affection. Now, in manhood, he had a feeling of resentment, of wariness, toward Piers. But in this tranquil nighttime his heart warmed to Christian.

  “You must come and stay with me,” he repeated.

  “I’d love to,” said Christian, and added, “It must be nice to have a place of one’s own at your age, to invite whoever you like to come and stay with you.”

  “I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought about it.”

  Christian was curious about the life of this little-known brother. “Do you often have friends to stay?” he asked.

  “I’ve never had anyone — not yet. Except, of course, Adeline and Uncle Finch.”

  “But what do you do? I mean you’re not like a chap who paints or writes.”