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

by Mazo de La Roche

  This world, she knew, was in a troubled, uneasy state. Often she heard her mother and Archer discussing it, sometimes heatedly, and felt uncomfortable, and wished they wouldn’t. Philip and she could live in a world they would make for themselves. There would be no love in it. Just comradeship and love for the countryside. She amused herself by playing with these thoughts, never bringing them too close, always keeping Philip safe within his gilt frame.

  But now, as she sat on the bridge, the live Philip came down the path, whistling as he came, like the boy he was. He did not see her till he was close upon her, then he stopped short and the whistle died on his pouting lips. He stood looking down at her, mildly surprised.

  “Oh, hullo,” he said.

  She also said, “Hullo.” Then they regarded each other irresolutely, as though they had sooner not have met and now would make the encounter as brief as possible.

  The stream dominated the scene. It came out of the shadow of the trees and flowed, bronze and golden, into the sunlight that surrounded the rustic bridge. In the pool beneath, minnows darted above the yellow sand or hid themselves in the watercress, their noses safe in the dimness, only their flirting tails visible. A dragonfly in glittering armour hovered above the pool. All was in miniature. Indeed, if the pair on the bridge had suddenly descended into the pool, they would have disturbed it as two giants. Yet the time had been when, as infants, they had gazed from the safety of grown-up arms in wonder at its depth. Now, after the interchange of a swift glance, their attention was focused on the stream.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Philip.

  “Yes, isn’t it?” she agreed, and on that subject they had nothing more to say.

  But the stream made fluent conversation for them, with gurgling vowel sounds and hissing consonants against the reeds. The dragonfly had recklessly touched the water. His wings were wet and he might, like many another aircraft, have met his end, had not Philip scrambled down to the brink and rescued him.

  “Thanks,” Adeline said tersely but with a warm look.

  “why thanks?” said Philip. “He wasn’t yours.”

  “I feel as though all wild things were,” she said. “Especially those that fly.”

  “Stinging insects?” he asked with a teasing look.

  “Every one of them,” she said, “unless in the act of stinging.”

  “There’s no use,” he said, “in being too softhearted.”

  “why did you save the dragonfly?” she demanded.

  “I’d as lief drown it,” he said.

  “Naughty boy.” She gave him a suddenly coy look and he scrambled back on to the bridge and sat down beside her. She glanced down at his strong brown hand lying on the rough boards of the bridge and withdrew her own hand a little distance from it.

  That seemed to him a dismissal and he said:

  “Well, I guess I’ll be going.” He gathered up the last notes of the song he had been whistling, repeated them, then continued in a remarkably sweet series of variations. Like a male singing bird he appeared to be showing off his accomplishments to the female.

  “Pretty,” she remarked. “I wish I could whistle.”

  “Try.”

  She gave out one long clear note.

  “Good,” he said encouragingly. “Go on.”

  She made an attempt but her lips refused to be pursed. They parted in a smile and she said, “I can’t. There’s no use in trying.” He did not again urge her.

  They sat in a dreamy silence, the dark green of the summer leaves casting a shadow on them. But there was nothing of youthful romance in the heart of either; there was instead an image planted by Renny Whiteoak which pleased their fancy, gave them an almost ennobling sense of security. There was no need for speech. No need excepting to say the few words that would take them out of the gilt frames now enshrining them, transform them into flesh and blood.

  In spite of herself Adeline could not keep from speaking these. She wanted things to drift on as they were, but her lips that had been unable to constrain themselves to whistle now had no power to restrain those words.

  “There’s one thing we could do — both of us,” she said, “if we wanted.… ” Those words, the assertion of their right to choose, repeated themselves in her stubborn heart. Did she wanthim? Did he wanther? Surely not. There would be nothing new to discover, each in the other. They who had romped together as children, she the older and stronger of the two … Yet — no matter how her heart rebelled — her lips could not keep from saying the words, so eloquently desired by Renny.

  He kept his eyes averted but asked, “what could we do?”

  “We could get married.”

  “Yes,” he said, under his breath. “We could.”

  “If we wanted.”

  “Certainly. If we wanted.”

  Now her eyes looked straight into his. “what about you?” she asked. “Do you want to?”

  His face was suffused by colour, while she looked remarkably cool.

  “Yes,” he mumbled, gazing down into the stream.

  “Really?” she asked, with a scornful look for his mumbling.

  He could not speak but nodded violently.

  “Very well,” she heard herself say, “let’s.”

  “when?” he got out.

  “Next year — for the centenary, of course.”

  There followed a silence, empty rather than pregnant. Yet Adeline was not disappointed by this emptiness. It was as though a burden had been lifted from her and in its place this empty buoyancy.

  “Shall we go and tell …” Daddyshe had been about to say, but, instead, she said, “everybody?”

  As though electrified by the prospect of activity, Philip in one agile movement was on his feet. He took her hand and for a moment they stood linked, then darted from the bridge and up the steep to the lawn above. Facing the lawn rose the house, richly clothed in its mantle of Virginia creeper. So dense was the growth of the vine that the principal upstairs windows were half-overhung by it, giving the effect of eyes half-hidden by a wink. The house seemed to be saying: “Well, in my time I have seen a number of affianced couples, of brides and grooms to be, but — this engagement beats all!”

  VIII

  How They Took the News

  The announcement of the engagement of Adeline and Philip ranked with the family as a major event, one of the same interest accorded to the events of the outer world, such as an alliance of two great powers or the collision of two great ships at sea. To some it was an announcement of pure happiness and promise. To others the reverse.

  There was little harmony between Renny and Alayne in this affair, he viewing it as a personal achievement accomplished by his own finesse. He considered that he had been delicately artful in his handling of the young people, while Alayne felt that he had been ruthlessly impulsive. Both boy and girl, she thought, were far too much under his influence. There was no clear judgment on the part of Philip and Adeline. Neither was there passion. Passion, in spite of her cool exterior, she could have understood, for once it had played havoc in her own life. Adeline’s former fiancé, Maitland Fitzturgis, had possessed qualities which had appealed to Alayne. She had been eager to welcome him into the family. But this unformed youth, this Philip, she could only regard in puzzlement and dismay.

  So Renny took his triumph to his sister for understanding. She received him in a flood of happy tears.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. “Really I don’t know when anything has made me so happy. And how delighted dear Gran and the uncles would have been to see another Philip and Adeline at Jalna! It might have meant little if the young pair had resembled the families of their mothers, but there is Philip, the image of our grandfather; and there is Adeline, the very picture of Gran — though I do hope she will have a nicer disposition as she matures. I can never quite forget how Gran put me off in her will with an old-fashioned watch and chain, and an Indian shawl that her parrot used to make his nest in.”

  “I know, I know. It w
as a shame,” Renny said soothingly, though certainly he had had more to complain of than Meg in that will. But it was far in the past, and the betrothal of the young pair was in the glowing present.

  “We must have a celebration,” he went on. “A dinner party for the tribe — with plenty of good food and drink. I will provide champagne, and Alayne will buy a new dress for Adeline. I am glad Finch is home after his tour and that Patience has had her baby. Wakefield may possibly come from New York, and Piers’s two older boys from abroad. Then there is Roma in New York. She’ll naturally want to be here.”

  “Dear me,” said Meg, “such a gathering is almost enough for the wedding itself. It will be thrilling to have such a reunion.” She dried her tears and gave her incomparably sweet smile. Together they went into the garden to tell the good news to the Rector; but he was more concerned by the plight of his hollyhocks, which had on the previous night been blown over by wind and rain.

  “Flat on their lovely faces,” he mourned, “and I have only myself to blame, for I could have staked them up. Many people,” he went on, “think of hollyhocks as rather common flowers. That is because they will flourish with little or no attention in the workingman’s garden. But to me there is something regal in their height and their simplicity. They do not realize that the can so easily be toppled — ”

  Meg interrupted — “Rupert dear, surely you are thrilled by the news Renny brings us? Just think. Adeline and Philip are going to be married next year and right now we are to have a dinner party at Jalna in celebration.”

  “Very nice. Very nice indeed,” said the Rector. “I am glad Adeline got rid of Fitzturgis. He was too experienced … A divorcé and all that. Too experienced altogether for Adeline. Not really nice. But — if I have an objection to Philip it is that he’s not experienced enough. Why — it seems only yesterday when I held him in my arms at the font, and he looked such surprise out of his big blue eyes. Let’s see, what names did I give him? Philip … yes, Philip Vaughan.… Do you think you could hammer these stakes into the ground for me, Renny, to support the hollyhocks? Dear me, their stalks appear to be cracked. I do hope the sap will be able to find its way through to the blossoms.”

  He put a hammer into Renny’s hand. With stakes and raffia they rescued the hollyhocks, which, standing again upright, looked serenely unconscious of past downfall.

  “Well,” said Renny, “I’m glad you are pleased by the engagement. On my part I think nothing so heartening has come my way for many a year.”

  “Not East Wind?” asked the Rector.

  “There’s a wide difference between a racehorse and one’s only daughter,” Renny said in an admonishing tone, a tone almost clerical, as though he were the clergyman and Mr. Fennel the layman.

  The Rector’s mind, however, was on his garden. “See those hydrangeas,” he said, lifting one great white bloom. “How well they bore the storm! They bend but they do not break.”

  “They look good enough to eat,” said his wife. “They always remind me of a delicious dish of curds.”

  Though Meg had (or pretended she had) little interest in food where she herself was concerned, she took great pleasure in the arrangements for the dinner party at Jalna. In the immediate family there were thirteen to sit down at table, but word came that very week that Piers’s second son, Christian, who had been abroad studying art, would be returning in time for the party.

  “Let’s hope,” Piers said to Pheasant, “that he will be able to sell some of his pictures. It’s been an expensive business sending him abroad to study, and I must say he doesn’t appear to appreciate what I’ve done for him. He takes it all for granted.”

  “Oh, he appreciates it all right,” said Pheasant. “He’s often said what a generous father you are.”

  “Has he? Well, you have never told me that before. It’s a good thing for a father to hear occasionally that he is something more than a mere provider.”

  As a matter of fact, Piers was proud of his artist son and never grudged what was spent on him. Neither did he consider that Renny was really the loser, though Piers was badly behind in his payments for rent of the farmland of Jalna. Occasionally the brothers had what they called a “business talk,” in which Piers was able to convince Renny that to run a farm was much harder work and much less profitable than to run stables. Now the engagement of Adeline and Philip had drawn the two men closer.

  Little Mary was not sure that Christian’s return was pleasing to her. In his absence, his studio had been hers to do what she liked in. With his coming all was different. New canvases he had brought with him lined the walls. He was here, there, and everywhere, his light pleasant voice bringing its atmosphere of the outer world. He had been home for less than a week when he wrote a letter to his elder brother in Ireland.

  He carried it to his mother and said, “I’ve written to Maurice. Have you a message for him?”

  “Tell him I shall be writing before long. Tell him we’re looking forward to his coming this fall. Be sure to say that.”

  “Should you like to read what I’ve written?”

  Pheasant was staking a larkspur. She pulled off her gardening gloves and took the letter from him. As she read, he studied her sensitive face with an artist’s interest.

  “Well,” he said, “is it all right?”

  “I suppose so. But why do you pretend that you think Maurice has ceased to care about Adeline? I’m sure he hasn’t.”

  “It was easier to write that way.”

  Pheasant returned the letter to him. “I suppose so,” she said, then added: “It was very hard on Maurice — leaving home when he was only a child — even though it turned out so well for him, in a material way. And — it nearly broke my heart.” Christian kissed Pheasant tenderly.

  He had often before heard her say this sort of thing, but he himself felt that Maurice had been lucky.

  What Christian had written was:

  My Dear Maurice,

  Here I am — home again and, after the first excitement, feeling as though I had never been away. Everything is so exactly the same. You of course have had the experience of returning after a long absence, time and again. But this is my first. One of the things I most enjoyed abroad was my visit with you. I feel as though I had not thanked you enough for it but I really am tremendously grateful. I have said everything is the same but it is not — quite. In fact I have one startling bit of news. Mother agreed that I should be the bearer of it. For some reason she seemed to shrink from writing it. I think the reason probably is that she is against the project. But myself I think it is rather a good idea. It certainly is picturesque and traditional and all that.

  I know, Maurice, that you were more than a little in love with Adeline. What man wouldn’t be! I was, myself — that is I was in love with her graceful walk and her lovely hair and those eyes of hers. And I still am — as an artist. But in spirit she and I are miles apart and always shall be. When I was in Ireland with you I felt that you too had quite got over your early infatuation or whatever you like to call it. You spoke of her so seldom and, when you did speak of her, you seemed so natural, so uninterested, that I don’t think this news will trouble you …

  Maurice Whiteoak was lounging on the sun-warmed steps in front of Glengorman, his home in Ireland, and he was reading the letter aloud to his close friend and confidant, Sir Patrick Crawshay, a young man in his thirties and a neighbour.

  Maurice interrupted himself to exclaim: “what the devil is the fellow driving at? why doesn’t he get to the point?”

  “Certainly he is mysterious,” said Pat Crawshay. “But read on. Let’s discover who is the happy man.”

  “Happy man?” repeated Maurice, as though dazed.

  “Obviously he is trying to tell you of Adeline’s engagement to someone.”

  Maurice’s eyes returned to the letter, but for a moment he seemed to have trouble in making out the words. Then he read on:

  If I had been asked who was the most unlikely suitor I could think o
f, I should have said this boy. But perhaps he has already written to you himself and made the affair clear. I believe and I’m sure Mother believes that it was engineered by Uncle Renny — you may imagine why — I can’t.

  Maurice broke off to say: “For the love of God, get on with the news! what isthe fellow’s name?”

  Yet a sinking of the heart made that name less of a surprise than he would have thought. He read on:

  Philip and I were pals, as you know, but the three years between us seems much more since I have been away. Now I feel closer to you. Philip’s just a big boy.

  Now it was Patrick Crawshay who interrupted. “Philip … He’s your youngest brother, isn’t he?”

  Maurice raised sombre eyes to his friend’s face. “Yes. A big lump of a boy and, though he’s as pretty as a picture, it’s unbelievable that Adeline should fall in love with him.”

  “But why,” demanded Patrick Crawshay, “should your uncle favour the match?”

  “Family pride. Worship of family traditions. The boy hasn’t a bean. He’s not very intelligent, but — Oh, I can’t talk about it.” Maurice threw himself on his back and stretched out a hand to pull off the infant buds of flowers which bordered the steps. He held the buds to his face from which all colour had fled, and sniffed them, as though he hoped by their scent to revive his spirits.

  “This is a blow, Pat,” he said. “There’s no use in denying it. You know — I’ve never tried to hide my love for Adeline. I still love her, without hope. And now — to get this news! My young brother. It’s a hell of a situation. I don’t know how to bear it. I can’t imagine what she sees in him. Why — it’s not so long ago that I laid him across a bench (it was my last visit home but one) and warmed his behind for him. God, I wish I might lay hands on him now!”