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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Well, I never thought that Adeline and he were suited to each other.”

  “I quite agree. They would have been a very badly matched pair.” He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Not a bit like us.”

  Alayne felt extraordinarily shaken. She grasped Renny’s arms in her two hands, as though to dispossess herself of any wild and weak thoughts, to hold herself strong by his strength.

  The air reverberated to the sound of the dinner gong. Nowadays Alayne seldom heard it without thinking, “Soon the Wragges will be leaving. Gongs will be a thing of the past.” But this evening it brought the one thought, “How can I bear to meet Maitland after what has happened?”

  “I think I shall not go down,” she said.

  “I know just how you feel.” He patted her on the back. “But I think you must — for Sylvia’s sake. That poor girl isn’t herself these days. Possibly she suspects something between her brother and Roma. God knows he has managed to pull the wool over my eyes.”

  Alayne longed to have a few moments to herself while she finished dressing, but Renny remained with her and they descended the stairs together. Fitzturgis, Sylvia, and Archer were in the porch but now joined them. Fitzturgis showed extreme pallor beneath his tan. He avoided meeting Alayne’s eyes. He gave a swift glance to the dinner table noting that no place had been laid for Adeline.

  Renny said to him in an undertone before taking his own place, “Adeline has gone away for the time being. I thought it was best to let her go. We shall be more comfortable without her, I think.”

  At the thought of comfort at that meal Fitzturgis gave a sardonic smile.

  “Consummatum est,”murmured Archer.

  In reverent hush, as for a corpse in the house, Rags waited at table. Somehow tonight he looked wan and old. There was a fringe on the edge of his cuff.

  Alayne pulled herself together. She and Sylvia talked in high excited tones about an anthology of poetry they had been reading, about recipes for blackberry cordial, about which varieties of dahlias they best liked. Now and again Renny joined in with some facetious remark. Fitzturgis was almost silent. When silence fell, Archer, with uncanny tact, held forth in a monologue on his opinion of a scientific broadcast he had heard concerning the weather variations of the past season.

  “I wish,” he said, “that we might have television. Some of the discussions on it are very interesting.”

  “Television,” repeated Alayne, to whom the word conjured up visions of repulsive faces and still more repulsive sounds. “Oh, surely not, Archer.”

  “I am too old to he harmed by it,” he said, “and too young to be revolted.”

  “Also,” said Alayne, “the cost is prohibitive.”

  Archer turned to give an appraising look at his father, who, in response, winked at him.

  The meal was somehow finished with, everyone moved out of doors. The rain had ceased and the air was incomparably fresh and sweet. The grass of the lawn had that day been mown and lay in several wet sweet-smelling mounds. A family of robins were busy in search of their evening meal. Archer was faintly amused to see to what length a worm could be stretched in its unearthing.

  Renny looked at his watch. “I must go to the stables for a few minutes,” he said. “Wright is a little anxious about one of the brood mares.”

  As he moved in that direction Fitzturgis followed him. He said, as he overtook him, “My sister and I are planning to return to New York by the morning train. I had hoped to see Adeline again, but — she has made it plain that she doesn’t want to see me. I think I ought to go, don’t you?”

  There was a note of appeal in his voice, as though he would put himself in Renny’s hands, as though his longing to see Adeline must be subdued to what her father thought was right. Yet, even as he said the words, he felt stirring in him a restiveness, a desire to free himself from the bonds that clamped him to this place, to this long-legged, redheaded man who faced him. If only he might have taken Adeline away with him.... But how often she had said to him, “I could be happy nowhere but at Jalna.”

  Renny agreed, not too readily but as though with proper consideration. He would arrange, he said, to have the car on hand whenever Fitzturgis required it. He added, suddenly descending from dignity to something like a grin, “Well, from having a double wedding in view, we have nothing and are even losing our servants!”

  In return, Fitzturgis achieved a rather grim smile. He turned back toward the house and found Alayne standing alone in the porch. He joined her, quite unable to control the embarrassment, the shame on his face.

  Alayne, always ready to give him a look of interest, now looked away, then again forced her eyes to meet his which were fixed on her with a look almost tragic.

  He exclaimed, “Mrs. Whiteoak, what must you think of me? The worst, I’m afraid.”

  Alayne was indeed less stung by his fault than by what her own feelings for him had been. She had so warmly accepted him into the family circle, not so much as Adeline’s fiancé, but as a new member congenial to herself who had in him something almost lover-like in his attitude to her. Now a word which had been a favourite of her mother’s, in the expression of contempt, came into her mind — the word odious— but whether it came as applied to Fitzturgis or to herself she did not know or try to discover. She was unhappy enough without analysis of the situation.

  Fitzturgis put one foot on the bottom step and, raising his eyes to hers, said, “There seems nothing left for me to do but put on a hang-dog look and skulk away — as a man who had the bad taste to make love to another girl while engaged....”

  “Don’t,” Alayne interrupted. “Please, don’t....”

  “You have been so perfectly charming to me,” he got out. “I shall never forget that.”

  She coloured deeply. She could find nothing to say.

  Archer appeared, a railway timetable in his hand.

  “There is no choice of trains,” he said. “You could not catch the evening train. I have marked the hour when the morning train leaves. You asked for this, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” said Fitzturgis. “Thanks. I suppose I had better do my packing tonight.”

  “Can I help in any way?” Archer enquired almost affably. He was one of those people who always are glad to see visitors depart.

  XVIII

  Renny’s Birthday

  A NIGHT, A day, and another night had passed, yet Adeline still remained in Piers’s house. She felt that she could not yet bear to return home. Pheasant had shown her such a sweet sympathy, not in words but in an enfolding warmth of heart; Piers and his sons had so splendidly behaved as though nothing were wrong; little Mary had trotted after her and confided in her, so like a little angel, that Adeline’s outraged feelings, her anger and soreness of heart, began to be a little eased.

  On this second morning she saw Patience and the poodle coming along the path to the door. The poodle was carrying a small basket in its mouth and looked so ridiculously like a china poodle of Victorian days that Adeline had to smile and felt it strange to discover herself smiling.

  “We’ve brought you a present,” called out Patience.

  After some persuasion the poodle consented to relinquish the basket, for it felt that it was giving up considerable prestige in doing so. From the basket Patience produced a late fledgling wrapped in a bit of flannel. The poodle stood expectant, hoping it would be given to her.

  “Wright found it chilled through,” said Patience. “It must have flies caught for it. At the moment it’s absolutely stuffed, but it will soon be hungry again.” The two girls sat down on the steps of the porch, guarding the fledgling.

  “It’s a dear little thing,” said Adeline, “but I expect it will die. They generally do.”

  “Not if you feed them often enough. This fellow is quite strong.” They sat talking in confidential tones of this and that but always keeping from the subject nearest their hearts, till suddenly Patience said:

  “when are you going home?”

&nb
sp; “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “You know that he and his sister have left?”

  “Yes. Did they say goodbye to you, Patience?”

  “No. They left a sort of general goodbye. Sylvia said she would write. It’s all rather a miserable ending to the summer, don’t you think?”

  “I shall never feel the same again.”

  “The only person,” said Patience, “who has come through this summer unscathed is Roma.”

  “what has she to say for herself?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yet she must be triumphant, after two such killings.”

  “I avoid her. I begged Mummy to keep off the subject, but she tackled Roma when they two were alone. Roma simply looked at her, cool as a cucumber, and said she’d done nothing. It isn’t her fault, she says, if men like her.”

  “The viper!”

  “Uncle Renny came and had a talk with her.”

  “Oh, I wish he hadn’t. She’ll be more and more pleased with herself.”

  “I scarcely think Uncle Renny talked to her about thatsort of thing. He told Mummy he wanted to find out what Roma would like to do. She told him she’s yearning to go to New York and take a course in something — dress designing, I think it is. Well, she has the money to pay her way. None of us will weep to see her go — God knows.”

  “It’s been tough on you,” said Adeline, “having her always in the house with you.”

  “Oh, I haven’t particularly minded,” Patience said tranquilly, “not till she took Norman away from me, and I don’t much mind that now. It’s surprising how one gets used to things.... The truth is, Adeline, that I’ve found someone I care for — more than ever I did for Norman.”

  “Humphrey Bell?”

  “Yes.... He doesn’t know that I care for him, and he’s said nothing to me, but it goes to show that one can recover — that one does not die of a broken heart.”

  “My heart isn’t broken,” Adeline said fiercely. “It’s had a hell of a jolt, but it’s not broken.” She gave a sudden wild laugh as she remembered the scene by the lake shore. “Oh, Patience, if only you had been there to see me stoning them!” But, even as she laughed, tears sprang to her eyes.

  The voice of Christian called to them from the doorway of his studio. “Oh, girls, come and see!”

  The girls slowly rose, Patience carrying the basket with the fledgling. Adeline said vehemently, “Never again shall I trust any man.”

  “You’re quite right,” said Patience. “I may love them, but I’ll never trust them.”

  “Hard words,” exclaimed Christian, who had overheard. “Surely you’ll make an exception in my favour.”

  Adeline threw him a fiery look. Was he daring to be waggish at a time like this?

  Christian felt himself to be immeasurably more mature than the two girls. He felt that his experience as an artist had given a breadth, a depth, unknown to them in their affairs of the heart. On the other hand, Patience considered herself as by far the most mature. She was in years the eldest. She had early been left fatherless, with a mother who leaned on her, while they had been sheltered by the dominating presence of Renny and Piers. She had a steady job while they were dependent. She was a wage-earner while they were lilies of the field. As for Adeline, she looked on the other two as little more than children who had experienced nothing of the devastating emotions experienced by herself. And when they entered the studio, there was Maurice, thinking of himself as a weary man of the world, considering the other three as little more conversant with real life than the fledgling that Patience now presented to him.

  He set it on his forefinger and surveyed it pityingly. He was, in fact, already a little drunk.

  “Poor creature!” he said. “Pushed from the nest. Its family not caring a damn what happens to it. I know just how it feels.”

  He looked so elegant, so old, standing there with the bird on his finger that Christian was moved to say:

  “I wish I had the skill to paint you—as you stand there.”

  “Go ahead,” said Maurice. “The bird and I will pose for you! Call the picture The Two Orphans.”

  “The point is,” said Patience, “not to let it starve. Do you think you could find a worm for it, Mooey?”

  Christian squeezed a tube of paint. “Here’s a pretty green worm for you, birdie,” he said, offering it to the fledgling.

  “Brute!” Adeline shouldered him away.

  “But really,” he said, “it’s the dearest worm and just dying to be eaten.”

  Maurice moved rather uncertainly to the door. “I’ll find a worm,” he said, “if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Just outside the door he came face to face with Piers.

  “what’s that you have?” demanded Piers, trying to look more friendly than he felt.

  “Oh,” said Maurice, and before he could stop himself added, “Someone told me you had gone into town.”

  “So that’s why you came — thinking I was out of the way.”

  “No — no — really I can’t remember what it was I thought.”

  Piers fixed him with a stern eye. “Well, I think you have behaved very badly. You must know how you hurt your mother by going off in a temper to stay with Finch.”

  “I was not in a temper. I went because I felt that my presence was irritating to you.”

  “It was your drinking that irritated me. Have you no self-control? Do you intend deliberately to hurt your mother?”

  “No,” Maurice said loudly. “It was to spare her feelings that I left.”

  “Well — you are to come back.”

  “No, no. I can’t do that.”

  “Then go into the house now and tell her I want you back. That’s only fair to me.”

  “All right. I’ll do that.” And he added, in a muffled tone, “Sorry, Dad.” He moved uncertainly toward the house.

  “Good God!” exclaimed Piers. “You’ve been drinking already at this hour!”

  Maurice had forgotten the fledgling. It fluttered, half fell to the ground, from where the poodle deftly picked it up and returned it unscathed to Patience.

  Those in the studio pretended they had heard nothing of what had passed between Piers and Maurice. This last exclamation from Piers they could not ignore.

  “Isn’t it awful?” said Patience. “I knew he had. Poor Mooey!”

  “I don’t pity him.” Adeline spoke in the manner of her father. “He deserves to have a stick taken to his back.”

  Christian began to mix some paint on his palette. He said, “How can you know what his feelings are?”

  “I ought to know, for he’s always telling me about them.”

  Piers, for a moment, thought he would not allow Maurice to go to Pheasant as he was, but decided, with a grim smile, “Let her see her darling tight — in the middle of the morning. Perhaps she’ll understand better how I feel.”

  He brought out his car and drove to Vaughanlands.

  He heard the piano, saw Dennis sitting on the bottom step of the porch.

  “Hullo,” he greeted the little boy. “You keeping out of the way?”

  “Yes.” Dennis stood up in a defensive attitude. “My father is composing. I don’t think he’d want a visitor.”

  “I’m not an ordinary visitor. He leaves you on guard, eh? How do you like living here, Dennis?”

  “Well, I don’t actually live here. Not all the while. But as soon as Maurice goes I shall.”

  “Good. Well, I’m going in to see what I can do about it. You wait out here, Dennis.”

  Piers went quietly into the music room where Finch was seated at the piano. Now he took his hands from the keys and began to write notes. Sheets of paper with other notes were scattered on floor and piano. Finch looked supremely happy. Even when he raised his eyes and met the somewhat quizzical gaze of Piers his look of happiness did not fade. He seemed scarcely conscious of Piers’s presence.

  “Having lots of fun, eh?” asked Piers.

  Finch dre
w a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “Lots of fun ... I’ve done a piece I’d like you to hear. It’s been in my head for some time and now it’s written down. Like to hear it?”

  Piers was immensely flattered. Never before had Finch confided, as it were, a composition to him.

  “Fire away,” he said. “I’d love to hear it.”

  Finch turned again to the piano.

  When he had played the gay and tuneful piece to the end Piers exclaimed, “It’s the best thing you’ve done!” Then, realizing that this was not the right thing to say, since the composition was of a light nature, he amended, “I should say it suits me better. It sounds as though you’d been in a happy mood when you wrote it. Most of your stuff is a bit too serious for me.”

  “This came to me one night when I had been playing to someone.... I rather think it was to Sylvia Fleming.... She’d gone, but ... well, there was this thing in my head.”

  “You should dedicate it to her,” said Piers.

  “Oh no ... I couldn’t do that.... Please don’t repeat what I said to anyone ... not to anyone.... What’s she doing with herself these days?”

  Piers’s blue eyes became prominent and somehow bluer. There was both astonishment and laughter behind them. “Don’t you really know?” he demanded.

  “I don’t. Why should I know?”

  “Well — as the story was told to me — she spent half the night here, listening to music, we’ll suppose, and Renny came and took her back to Jalna, that he and Alayne might get their night’s rest and to save your reputation. Yet — you don’t know what she’s doing with herself!”

  “what are you driving at?”

  “My dear fellow, she’s in New York.”

  “Sylvia?”

  “whom else are we talking of?”

  Finch had turned on the piano seat to face Piers. Now he turned his back to him and asked, “when did she go?”

  “Yesterday morning. She and Fitzturgis both.”

  “It’s unbelievable.” Again he turned to face Piers.

  “On the contrary,” laughed Piers, “it’s quite natural. Our dear little Roma got after him and the poor guy hadn’t a chance. Adeline has broken off their engagement. He and his sister have gone back to New York. Adeline never does things by halves. She sent him packing — with a flea in his ear. I don’t know when I’ve been so pleased about anything.”