As he talked the colour left his face. He was white and tense. Renny’s weather-beaten face, on the contrary, deepened in colour. He stared in surprise, then put up his hand and stroked an eyebrow in embarrassment.
“Ah ...” he said, “so.” And after a little he repeated — “Ah ... so ... yes, I see.” He looked at the scattered sheets of music as though for inspiration. “Well, that’s as it may be,” he went on. “We all have to compromise, as it were.... Has Finch told you he has written a piano concerto? It’s good, I can tell you. I enjoy it thoroughly. He’s a bit of a genius, this fellow. Look here, Dennis” — for the little boy now came into the room — “tell Uncle Wake what the movements are.”
“First movement: allegro spiritoso; second movement: adagio; third movement: minuet and trio; finale: presto,” rattled off the little boy with surprising glibness, while Finch regarded him in pessimistic wonder.
“Get Finch to play it for you, Wake,” said Renny. “You’ll love it.... Isn’t this a picturesque little house he has built!” It was the first time Renny had deigned to praise Finch’s house, but he now ran his hand across the door nearest him and praised the quality and finish of the wood.
Dennis and the Great Dane were looking up at him expectantly. “This boy,” Renny remarked to Wakefield, “wasgiven Finch by a woman who loved him too well. This dog was given him by one who loved him not enough. I wonder what the next one will give him.... Well,” he added thoughtfully, “that’s as it may be.... Dennis, do you want to come with me and see a lovely pair of twin lambs?”
“Oh yes,” cried Dennis. “Let’s go now!”
Dog, boy, and man left with one accord. Finch and Wakefield saw them climb into Renny’s mud-splashed car — Dennis in the front seat beside Renny, the Great Dane occupying the rear seat.
There was silence for a moment after the sound of the departing car, then Wakefield said:
“He took it pretty well, didn’t he?”
Finch’s only answer was an hysterical laugh. He lay back in his chair laughing. He laughed till there were tears in his eyes. Blinking them away, he said seriously, “Tell me more about the Fitzturgis family.”
“Well,” said Wakefield, “one thing I can tell you is that our little Roma is hot in pursuit of Maitland.”
“Ah ... so,” murmured Finch, in very poor imitation of Renny. “That’s as it may be.... But ... actually, the one I should like to hear about is Sylvia.”
“She is a lovely girl, Finch,” said Wakefield, “and, I believe, is very much in love with you.”
XXIII
The Spring Moves On
BEFORE THE RECTOR and Meg had returned from their honeymoon, Pheasant, taking little Mary with her, had set out for the long-promised visit to Ireland. Never before had she made a sea voyage, and now to set out, a little child in her care, without Piers to look after her, was almost more than she could face. Yet face it she must, for this was a season when Piers could not absent himself from the farm. It was planned that later he should follow her. The bequests from Nicholas had made so many pleasant things possible. Letters from Christian were reassuring on the subject of Maurice. They were the best of companions, Christian wrote, and it was seldom that Maurice drank more than was good for him — so seldom that this had ceased to be an anxiety. Christian himself was supremely content. Both sons were counting the days till Pheasant’s arrival.
Piers was to spend the time of her absence at Jalna. Young Philip, when the holidays came, would be there also. By a miracle, it seemed, Alayne’s domestic worries were solved. The winter had been a nightmare of makeshift. The daily help was erratic, to say the best of it. Adeline, though strong and willing, could scarcely be depended on. She was quite likely to put a joint in the oven, then ride off on her mare, Bridget, and be seen no more for hours. However, one propitious day a Dutch farmer and his wife were sent by an agency. The man intended to farm in Canada later on but first wanted to learn the methods of Canadian agriculture. The couple agreed to remain at Jalna for the season. The man was to help Piers on the farm, the wife to do the cooking. At the beginning Alayne hoped they would stay till the Wragges’ return, but after a month of the Dutch couple’s efficiency, cleanliness, and energy she frequently wished she might keep them permanently.
But the felicity in the kitchen was a dim affair compared with the exultation in the stables. The high hopes of the horsy company of Renny, Wright, Crowdy, Chase, and the trainer were filled to overflowing by the colt East Wind. In the spring races at the Woodbine blithely he blew past the winning-post a full length ahead of the favourite. Before the year was out he was to be a winner at Jamaica, New York, and Maryland — earning for Renny almost a hundred thousand dollars.
“I don’t want to crow over you, Alayne,” Renny would exult, “but you must acknowledge that I used very good judgment in buying East Wind. Think what he’s done for us.”
“It’s splendid,” Alayne would admit, “but I do hope you will save what you have made and take no further risks.”
“Trust me,” he would say. “I will show both caution and enterprise — as I always have.”
* * *
In June, when the freshness of early summer was brightly visible, even in so great a city as New York, when all the little hat shops of Fifth Avenue showed gay little hats decked with artificial flowers so natural that they looked real, and the florists’ windows displayed flowers so perfect that they looked artificial, Finch arrived there with the manuscript of his concerto to arrange for publication.
One of the first things he did was to telephone Wakefield, who promptly invited him to lunch with himself and Molly. The two made a scene of blissful domesticity as together they prepared the lunch.
“It’s glorious,” Wakefield said, “to buy your food yourself and cook it yourself, after eating in restaurants.”
“who does the cooking?” asked Finch.
“Me,” said Molly, her cheeks pink as she bent above a pan of sizzling sweetbreads.
“And she’s really good at it.” Wakefield’s eyes joined in the praise of his lips. “But I make the salad.”
It was a delicious meal and Finch did justice to it. Both Molly and Wakefield asked him many questions about his concerto, about his plans for the coming season, but neither could keep long from the subject that held their single-minded interest — the stage. They were in a new play, the scene of which was set in medieval Florence.
“You should see Molly in her costumes. It’s her best part in New York, you know. You must come tonight. I’ll get you a ticket.”
“You should see Wake,” said Molly. “He takes the part of a Spanish prince and looks it.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” said Wakefield, “that I simply resemble my Irish relations.”
They were so happy together Finch envied them — Molly with her sleek waves of golden-bronze hair, her daring, tilted profile, the golden freckles on her nose. The pictureof what she was, the woman she was, showed in her face, as did her profession of acting. It was mobile, yet it was steady. To Finch it seemed the face of one who had been in flight but was now come to rest.
Before he left he asked, “what of your sisters, Molly?”
“Althea is here in New York, doing very well in commercial art. Garda is happily married and living in Detroit where her husband has something to do with motor cars. Gem — you remember Gem?”
“who could forget her?”
“She married Tom Raikes, you know. They went back to Wales and she bought the house we used to live in. She has two children and is expecting a third.”
“I hope she’s happy.”
“As happy as any woman living with Tom could be.”
Finch longed to speak of Sylvia but could not find the words. He lingered, hoping they would do so, but neither mentioned her name. He left them, feeling oddly depressed. Why would they not say her name? Did they avoid speaking of her because they thought Finch shrank from speaking of her? Or were they so selfishly absorbed by the fasci
nation of their own life that they had no feeling for others? No feeling for him?
In the afternoon he was free to wander in the streets. This was new to him because on other visits he had an engagement to face or was about to sail or had just arrived and was on his way somewhere else. The day was warm. On his return to his hotel he enjoyed a cool shower.
He kept thinking of Wakefield and Molly. What right had they to be happy? They had been magnificent, he had thought, in their renunciation of each other. Often he had told himself that he could not have done it. Secretly he had been ashamed to think, had even resented, that Wakefield had developed into a stronger character than he. Now he found in himself a feeling of almost outrage because Wakefield had put aside renunciation like a suit of armour and appeared vulnerable and unashamed as Molly’s lover.
He was early at the theatre. It amused him to watch the seats filling. These were theatre-goers, he thought, and their faces were somehow different from concert-goers. There was a quite good audience. The play had been running for a week.
Three seats next to his remained vacant till just before the curtain rose. Then their occupants filed in, disturbing those in the same row with them. The three, a man and two women, murmured an apology as they passed. Finch hated late-comers and gave their dark figures a surly look. The lights had gone down. The man seated himself in the middle. The woman next Finch dropped her program. Both she and Finch bent to pick it up. Their hands touched. He saw her incline her head in thanks and felt somehow mollified.
The first act went well, though it was a little confusing. When the curtain fell the three late-comers bent to consult their programs. Finch cast a glance at the woman on his left. He saw the close curling hair, the shapely nape. There was something familiar about her. She raised her head and he saw her profile. She did not yet see him. It was Sylvia. On her other side sat Fitzturgis, and beyond him Roma. This was of Wakefield’s engineering.
Finch’s first thought was to escape. He could not meet her here, not in this way. But — if he left she would almost certainly see him go — see him running away from her. This was no chance encounter. Wakefield had arranged it. Did Sylvia possibly know that their seats were side by side? Did Fitzturgis know? But they did not glance at him. They, and Roma, appeared absorbed in each other.
After the second act came the intermission. Finch scarcely had known what was taking place on the stage during this act. He could give his mind to nothing but the fact of Sylvia’s nearness. He felt isolated with her as he had felt isolated when he played the piano for her in his own house. At moments a strange happiness surged through him and he longed to turn to her.
When the lights came up and people were pouring into the aisles on their way to the foyer he remained in his seat, as though studying his program, till the three had passed out. He watched them move along the aisle, Sylvia first, with her graceful walk, her lovely wan face and too-slim body; Roma, round-checked, smiling up at Fitzturgis. When they were lost in the crowd Finch too went out but avoided them.
Wakefield had asked him to listen to the comments of people about him concerning the play, and more especially what might be said of himself or Molly. But it was impossible. Finch was conscious of nothing but Sylvia’s nearness. He had thought he was finished with Sylvia, but now, in this crowded theatre, she was nearer to him than ever. Does anything in life ever end, he wondered. Sarah was dead, buried far away in California, yet he had not finished with her. Even at an hour such as this her pale face, her black hair appeared before him. Perhaps in her grave her black hair remained living, perhaps it had grown, longer and longer, swathing her from head to feet.... He was scarcely conscious of returning to his seat, but found himself in it. The three had not yet come back. He thrust the thought of Sarah from him. He hated the thought of her. She was dead and should have remained dead, not come back to force her cold presence on him.
He kept his head bent, reading the advertisements in his program. Roma was pressing past his knees. His little niece so near to him. Her touch made her seem a child again. Her head was bent, as she peered into his face. “Uncle Finch!” she was saying. “what a surprise!”
“Roma.” He took her hand in his. His heart warmed to her.
“Look, Mait,” she said, over her shoulder. “See who’s here.”
Fitzturgis smiled down at Finch but firmly propelled Roma toward her seat. The lights were going down. He had a brief glimpse of Sylvia’s face. Then she was sitting beside him in the dimness. He had seen, too, that she had made an attempt to change places with Roma, had heard Fitzturgis say in a low voice, “Sit down — sit down.”
The voices of the actors came loudly, meaningless, from the stage. There all was brightness, colour, movement. Here, the four whose lives were so interwoven mingled in a new pattern; here was darkness, isolation. Finch could see the paleness of Sylvia’s arms meeting in her tensely clasped hands. He remembered, he lived again, those hours at night when he had played to her, when their newly born love had been the theme of all he played. He was tremulous in that recollection, shaken by the thought that he had let her go — no, not that — had driven her out of his life.
What if now she would refuse to enter it again?
Her face was turned away. She was not looking at the stage but appeared to be studying her brother’s profile. The play had ceased to have any meaning for them. They might have been sleepwalkers for all the meaning the play had. Yet now on the stage was Wakefield uttering words of impassioned love.
“My life is yours.... Do with it what you will.... Forgive me if I cannot make myself worthy of you.... It will not be for lack of trying. Oh, my beloved....”
High-flown words, but Finch made them speak for him. He laid his hand on Sylvia’s arm. She did not move. She was now looking at the stage, as though rapt. Finch slid his hand along her arm till her hand was reached. Their two hands lay together like the hands of sleepers dreaming the same dream
His hand folded itself about hers. With all his skill as a musician he sought to give her the message which later his lips would give. She understood. Her fingers closed on his. He raised her hand to his breast.
A good moment had come in the play. There was loud applause.
THE END
Centenary at Jalna
MAZO DE LA ROCHE
DUNDURN PRESS
TORONTO
I
Mary Whiteoak’s World
This little Mary was eight years old, rather small and tender for her age, more puzzled than pleased by what she discovered around her, yet, at times, swept on the wings of a wild joy. But this always happened when she was alone, when there was silence, except for perhaps the sound of leaves being tumbled by a breeze or a sudden burst of song from an unseen bird. Then she would raise her arms and flap them like wings. She would utter a little cry, as though her feelings were too much for her.
There was nothing to give her special joy on this cold morning in early May. There was a north wind that made the growing things in the garden tremble. Some of them were about six inches tall, but the leaf buds of the maples had barely appeared.
“My God,” exclaimed Renny Whiteoak, coming into the studio where Mary was, “it’s as cold as charity in here! why are you hiding yourself away?”
He took her small icy hands in his to warm them, but she gave an enigmatic smile.
She said, “I’m not cold.”
Her hands were hidden in his sinewy horseman’s hands. “The trouble with women,” he said, “is that you never wear enough clothes. Look at that skimpy little dress you have on.”
She did not quite know whether or not her feelings were hurt. She liked this uncle better than any other male, even her father, who doted on her. She had him in the studio, all to herself, yet — lumping her in with all women, as he had, appeared to thrust a responsibility on her that she could not, without tears, accept.…The tears were ready, somewhere in the back of her throat, but she swallowed them.
“I didn’t choose the
dress,” she murmured. “It was put on me.”
“By your mother?”
“Yes.” She did not say how pleased she had been when the sunshine of this May morning had seemed to warrant a cotton dress. And it was her favourite colour, light blue, the colour of her eyes.
“But your mother did not tell you to come into this cold studio, did she?”
“I came to see the cocoon.” She led him to a windowsill where the cocoon had lain all the winter. One end of it was open and out of it had crawled (no more prepossessing than a worm) a moist brown moth.
Renny lifted Mary to the windowsill so they might watch it together. The sill was dusty and rather rough, for the studio had once been a stable, but the tender flesh of the little girl’s thighs accepted it without a shudder.
“It’s going to be a beauty,” said Renny, as the moth stretched its wings. They opened and closed like fans, and new colours (pink, blue, and glossy brown) were discovered as the wings dried.
The moth gained strength. It crept to Renny’s finger and slowly made the ascent to his knuckle. He opened the window and a shaft of sunshine entered.
“It’s wonderful,” said Renny, “how growing things prosper in the sun!”
“Prosper?” she questioned, somehow connecting the word with making money.
“Flourish,” he replied, “grow plump and strong. You could do with some sunshine yourself.”
“Should I grow wings?”
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 113
