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

by Mazo de La Roche

  Philip now stood in the open door of the studio where he could see Maurice turning over some sketches Christian had made during the past spring, examining them intently and yet, strangely, seeming scarcely to see them. Piers and Pheasant, taking little Mary with them, were away for the day. Christian was away on some affair of his own. Maurice was in possession of the studio. Philip saw that an almost empty glass was on a table beside him. Philip wondered if Maurice were a bit lonely and whether or not he would welcome a visit from him. He saw the glass emptied, then Maurice turned and saw him.

  “Ah, hullo, Philip,” he said. “Going fishing?”

  “I’ve just come back. No luck. Would you like a game of tennis?”

  “Too hot.”

  “It’s good for you. You sweat and you feel better.”

  “Sorry, Philip. I’m not in the mood. Get Fitzturgis to play with you.”

  Philip gave a crow of amusement. “Him! He feels the heat worse than you. Besides, he is off with Uncle Renny and two horse-dealers to a sale. You should have seen him yesterday on the three-year-old Sligo. He’s a bit of a devil. They’re hoping to sell him to a man who has made a pot of money and is going in for horses and fox-hunting. Well, Sligo gave Maitland such a tumble as you never saw — right over his head. I thought his neck would be broken, but he’s up and around today, his wrist bandaged. Dad says he’ll never be much good with horses, or farming either. He’s just not interested.”

  “Poor devil, I feel for him. Where is Adeline?”

  “She and Uncle Finch have driven to town to meet Maitland’s sister. She’s coming on a visit, you know. Staying on for the wedding.”

  “Yes, so I’ve heard.” Maurice went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of Scotch. Philip watched fascinated. He wondered if Maurice were going to get tight.

  “It’s a strange thing,” said Maurice, settling down to his glass, “to see Adeline — so bright and beautiful — about to make so undistinguished a match. She might have had anyone. Don’t you agree?”

  “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Do you ever think?” Maurice spoke with some severity.

  “Well — I have plenty to think of without troubling my head over her.”

  “what — for instance?”

  “I can’t tell you offhand — but I think a good deal.”

  “Do you ever think about girls?”

  Philip gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sometimes. Not seriously. There’s no particular girl.”

  “I’ll bet they are hotfoot after you.”

  “They do notice me occasionally.”

  “Do you realize, Philip, what a handsome fellow you are?”

  “I only know that I look like great-grandfather.”

  “He had a happy life — serene and contented — married to the woman he loved.” Maurice drank a third of his glass. “Not like me, Philip. I must stand by and see Adeline hitched up with that blasted Fitzturgis.”

  Never before had Maurice spoken so to Philip. The boy was flattered by being treated as an equal but could find no adequate return but a large-eyed look of sympathy, a compressing of his pouting lips, several nods of the head.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” said Maurice, his eyes filling with tears, “if I can bear to be here for the wedding.”

  “why — you wouldn’t go away, would you?”

  “who would really mind? Be honest. Tell me that, Philip.”

  “We’d all be sorry. We’d be terribly sorry.”

  Maurice drew a deep sigh. “I like to think so. Perhaps you and Christian and Mother —”

  Philip interrupted: “But he’s going back with you, isn’t he? To Ireland, I mean.”

  “why, yes, so he is. I guess we must be here for the wedding. But I’d a damned sight sooner go.” Maurice emptied his glass and sat in melancholy contemplation of an unfinished picture on an easel. “Very charming but very immature,” he murmured. “Don’t tell Christian I said that…. Praise, praise, that’s what they want.”

  Philip did not know whether to go or stay. As he lingered undecided, Patience appeared in the doorway accompanied by a large, very curly, brown poodle.

  “Oh, hullo,” she said. “Am I interrupting?”

  Her eyes swept the scene. She caught the poodle by the collar. “No mischief, Becky, please.”

  As she stood there in her blue overalls, the brightness of the summer garden behind her, the poodle in its soft graceful prancing attitude by her side, she appeared to Maurice as the embodiment of the season. He could not think of her as anything but serene — yet somewhere in the back of his mind was the recollection of unhappiness. He groped for this, while she stood with an enquiring smile on her sun-browned face, then he remembered she had been jilted. Poor girl! And by that hollow, lacquered excuse for a man — Norman!

  He ran his hand through his hair, as though to clear his brain, and turned his heavy eyes on her.

  “Hullo, Patty,” he said. “Come in and have a drink.” He got to his feet a little unsteadily.

  She released the poodle and entered. It preceded her with a soft gambolling motion and a look of human intelligence and inhuman gaiety in its eyes. Its topknot curled ridiculously.

  “A drink,” repeated Patience. “I was just going home for tea.”

  “Your day’s work done. The very hour for a cocktail. Let me make you a cocktail. Go into the house, Philip, and bring the cocktail-shaker and ice.”

  “No, thanks.” She came and sat down near him.

  “Can’t I persuade you?”

  “I want my tea and Becky wants hers.”

  Philip said, “Well, I’ll be off. I promised to be at the stables when Uncle Renny came back.”

  “He’s back now,” said Patience.

  “Gosh! How did Mister Fitzturgis come through the day?”

  “He’s cheerful. Perhaps a bit pensive.”

  Maurice growled. “what the hell has he to be pensiveabout?”

  Philip gave Patience a roguish look, as though to say, “Here’s a man with a grievance.” For a moment he romped with the poodle, then was gone.

  Maurice offered Patience a cigarette, which she accepted. They sat smoking, watching the poodle, who with a kind of rowdy intensity investigated every corner of the room.

  “If you won’t have a cocktail,” said Maurice, “let me give you a whisky and soda.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t drink.”

  “Good girl.” After a moment he added, “I wish I didn’t.”

  She said, with a direct look into his eyes, “why not stop it, then?”

  His own gaze faltered. “That’s not easy to do, Patty,” he said, “once you’ve begun.”

  She struck herself on her knee with her brown hand. “Just say to yourself, ‘I won’t,’ and stick to it. You’ve character, surely.”

  “I get depressed,” he said. “I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not necessary to anyone.”

  “what about your parents — your brothers?”

  “You’re not trying to make me believe I’m necessary to my father or to Christian and Philip, are you?”

  “But to your mother you are.”

  “Oh no.”

  “You are her favourite son.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I feel it in the way she speaks of you.”

  His face lighted with the smile he had kept from boyhood, a smile that showed his vulnerability, how little he was proof against criticism or weapon. He said, “Mummy’s a darling and — well, there’s something special between us — we’ve sufferedtogether. To tell the truth, that consciousness of suffering is always with us when we are together — both holding us together and apart.” After a silence he added, as though to bolster his belief in himself, “Philip says they would miss me if I were to leave before the wedding.”

  “But, Mooey” — she was almost too astonished for speech — “that’s what you came over for — to be at Adeline’s wedding.”

  “I did not,” he declared with
violence. “It was my time for a visit and it simply coincided with this wedding. Do you suppose that I would cross the ocean to see Adeline married to a man I detest? And — he detests me. Were you here that night when we almost came to blows?”

  “No, but I heard of it.”

  “who told you?”

  “Roma. She said it was a scene typical of two badly adjusted people.”

  “Good God — what a mind she has! How do you endure living with her?”

  “I shan’t be much longer.”

  “Oh yes, she’s getting married — to Norman.”

  The contempt in his voice brought a flame to Patience’s cheeks. She bent to caress the poodle that had settled between her knees and was searching her face with cold analytical intelligence.

  “I forgot,” Maurice said. “You liked him once.”

  “I still like him,” she returned gently. “I couldn’t stop liking him because he changed his mind.”

  “Perhaps not. But you could despise him for his bad taste.”

  “Roma is very pretty. I’m not in the least pretty.”

  “You’re better than merely pretty. You have looks that will endure.”

  She gave him a teasing glance. She said, “I suppose you would value Adeline just as much if she looked like me?”

  “She would not be Adeline without that face, that hair, those eyes.”

  “There you go — loving her for her looks!”

  “Did I ever say I loved her?”

  “Somebody said so…. You know what the family is … in on everyone’s business.”

  “I think that’s terribly irritating.”

  Patience returned stoutly, “I like it — because they all really love one…. Roma resents it.”

  “why do you always bring Roma into things?”

  “I guess because I’m not able to keep her out.”

  “Patience, you are so understanding. Can you tell me what the real Adeline is? Is she just a flawless young animal, with nothing in her head? Or is she a woman doomed to tragedy?”

  Patience saw that his glass was empty. She said gently, “Mooey, I wish you’d promise me to give up this drinking. It’s bad enough in company, but to sit here alone … it’s all wrong.”

  He demanded, “what did I say to make you take that tone?”

  “I think you are not quite sober.”

  “But don’t you agree that it’s a tragedy for Adeline to give herself to Fitzturgis? Oh God, it makes me sick.”

  He went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of French brandy. The poodle trotted softly beside him, peered into the cupboard, half entered it.

  Patience said, “Becky, don’t! Maurice, don’t!”

  He said, “You use exactly the same tone to me as to this poodle. Is thy servant a dog?”

  She went to him and put the bottle back on the shelf. “Please, don’t,” she said. “You’re too good for this sort of thing. Will you trust me with the key? I’ll lock up for a bit, if you agree.”

  “No, no, Patience, you can be sure I shan’t drink any more today…. One little drink tomorrow, and the next day — none. I’m in dead earnest.”

  “But you are not really sober.”

  “Perfectly sober. Put me to any test you like. Shall I stand on one leg? Walk along a crack in the floor? Repeat the alphabet backward?”

  He stood before her, looking rather like the scion of some banished royal family. Or perhaps an earnest young actor studying a part. At that moment there was born in her a desire to serve him, to protect him, from the world and from himself. She contrasted his elegantly shaped head, his rumpled locks, with Norman’s, which were the very model for advertisements of hair cream. At that moment the thought of Norman became less painful to her and slightly distasteful.

  “You and I,” she said, “both have suffered.”

  He came and took her hand. “We have indeed,” he said, though he did not for a moment consider that her suffering could equal his.

  They stood holding hands, their lips parted forlornly. “We will help each other,” she said in a comforting voice.

  “I wish I knew some way of helping you, Patience. You’ve been so sweet to me.”

  “You can help me,” she said in a tone between coaxing and command, “by cutting out this drinking — above all, this solitary drinking.”

  “I will.” He spoke fervently, as though in a religious service. “I swear I will.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad, Maurice. I have been worried about you. Christian has been worried.”

  “No need to be worried any longer,” he said. “I’m determined to stop drinking — except with the greatest moderation. Just a drink in a sociable way with others. Never alone.”

  “I’m so glad,” she repeated.

  There came the sound of a motor, then little Mary’s voice.

  “I must be off,” Patience said. “Are you sure it would not be better for me to lock the cupboard and take the key?”

  “Positive. I shall be a rock for firmness. Look. I’ll lock it. There. And I’ll give the key to Christian.”

  “Splendid. You’ve made me feel ever so much better…. Come, Becky.”

  The poodle searched their faces with amused disbelief. But she was glad to be going — going anywhere, at any time, with Patience.

  Maurice stood in the doorway watching them disappear down the road. He felt a new bond between himself and Patience. He had been treated as badly by Adeline as Patience had been treated by Norman. But to have lost Norman was a benefit as compared to the tragedy of losing Adeline. In this moment of melancholy he was convinced that Adeline had once loved him.

  He heard small footsteps running. He hid himself behind the door as Mary ran into the studio. She was calling, “Maurice, come to tea! Mummy says you’re to come! I’m to bring you to tea!”

  She stood in the middle of the great empty room, a tiny figure. She looked fearfully about her — at the pictures ranged about the walls; at a life-size charcoal drawing of a human skeleton. She knew she should have given the message to Maurice, but how could she? He was not there. She retired to a dim corner of the studio and shed a few tears.

  Maurice stood silent, unmoved, till she trotted off. Then he found the key of the cupboard and poured himself another drink.

  He tried to picture Adeline, to concentrate all his faculties on the calling up of the beloved image. But he could not extricate her face from the confused shadows of his imagination. Had she a face? Had she eyes that stabbed him — a smile that captivated him? Then, if they were real, why could he not recall them? The face of Patience was clear enough. He blinked to rid himself of it. She had begged him not to drink and he had promised. He had promised, but … only to get rid of her. Now he could not get rid of her face — that faithful look in her eyes…. If only he could remember Adeline’s eyes those eyes that mocked his pain. The deep-set eyes of Fitzturgis came to him — came without any other features — a triumphant light in them. The only way to rid himself of them, to recall Adeline’s eyes in their stead, was by drinking. He would drink till he could remember what he chose — forget what he chose. Yes — forget, and promises be damned!

  Time passed and he sat there, his legs outstretched, his hands limp, his mouth open emitting the slow heavy breaths. It was beginning to rain, and Pheasant, having put her little daughter to bed, stepped inside, for she liked the feel of this room, its aloofness from the house, a room where something was being created by the hand of an artist. She did not know how Christian’s pictures would be judged by the world, if indeed they would be thought worthy of judgment. But to her they were wonderful, amazing. The sunsets had splendour in them; the woodlands, which she had known all her life, authentic mystery. Christian, in his artist’s smock, was a miracle, as he was in his first baby clothes.

  She wandered about the studio, seeing the pictures dimly in the evening light, tranquil in the solitude. She was close beside Maurice before she saw him. She looked down in astonishment at the lounging figure,
and he raised his heavy eyes to hers.

  “why, Maurice!” she exclaimed. “You here?”

  “Yes,” he said heavily.

  “where were you when Mary came to call you?”

  “Here.”

  “Maurice — you’ve been drinking!” She bent over him in solicitude. He put out a hand to catch hers and hold it to his breast.

  The first spatter of rain had become a determined shower, its vertical lines descending with ringing clarity on the roof of the studio. Pheasant wondered whether she should leave her boy here till Christian’s return or take him now into the house through the rain. In any case Piers must not see him. She decided that he should go without delay.

  “Maurice,” she said, speaking more firmly than her tremulous heart warranted, “your father has gone to Jalna to enquire after a cow that has just calved. I want you to be safely in bed when he returns. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do,” he returned with sudden hot anger. “I’m to scuttle out of the way in deadly fear of my old man. But I’m not afraid. To hell with —”

  He did not finish. He was on his feet, reeling toward the door. There he stopped. “W-why,” he said thickly, “it’s raining.” He turned back, as though to venture out in the rain were impossible.

  Half laughing but on the verge of tears, Pheasant caught him by the arm and steadied him. “Come,” she said. “The rain will do you good.” She steered him through the door and along the streaming path to the house. Though the distance was so short, both were wet through when they arrived. They looked like fearful refugees escaping from tyranny.

  Up the stairs she propelled him, he clinging to the banister. At the top they heard Mary calling. She had been woken by the sound of the rain gurgling in the eaves and dreaded a thunderclap.

  “I must go to her,” Pheasant said, pushing Maurice into his room and closing the door on him.

  He went, feeling deserted, ill-used. He muttered, “One squeak from young Mary and I’m nothing.”

  He moved forward unsteadily in the darkness. He tripped over a stool and fell with a resounding crash.

  The rain drummed on the roof. Little Mary, hearing Maurice’s fall, called out in panic for her mother. Above the drum of the rain came the sound of a motor. Piers had arrived, and with him Christian, whom he had overtaken on the road. Maurice uttered a groan. Pheasant turned on the light and bent over him.