“And what may that be?” asked Noah Binns, pointing a disparaging finger at it.
“That’s an urn,” answered Rags, “brought ’ere a ’undred years ago by the family. It came all the way from India, it did.”
“what’s its use?” demanded Noah.
“It can be used for tea but it’s reely ornamental. It’s kept in the library. It’s a favourite of the mistress.”
“I don’t see nothing ornamental about it.” Noah dropped heavily into a chair. “If it was mine I’d toss it into the dump heap.”
Rags laughed good-humouredly. “I put a deal of elbow grease on it,” he said, “to get that polish. Just see the glow where the sun strikes it.”
Wright remarked, “It’s the colour of Miss Adeline’s hair.”
“In my young days,” said Noah, “red hair was looked on as an affliction. In perticler fer young women. I look on it as an affliction today. I’ll never ferget the first time I set eyes on the old grandmother. She was fairly young then and I was just a boy. I’d heard a lot of raving about her looks but what I said was, ‘She’d be passable, if it wasn’t fer her red hair.’ That’s what I said, and I’d make the same remark today about her great-grandaughter. She’d be passable, if it wasn’t fer her red hair.”
“She’s a lovely young lady,” said Wright, now seating himself at the cook’s invitation.
Mrs. Wragge poured tea for everybody and heaped a plate with the scones, which were of the sort to melt in the mouth. She handed about a square of honey in the comb. Noah leaned forward in his greed and was the first to take a scoop from the golden square. Liberally he helped himself to the rich dairy butter and dropped five lumps of sugar into his tea.
Continuing the discussion of Adeline’s looks, the cook said:
“She has lovely eyes too.”
“Ah,” Wright agreed, “she gets them from her father.”
Noah cackled with laughter. He laughed as he swallowed and had to be thumped on the back by Rags to relieve his choking. He said, when he was able to speak, “Well, I’ve heared funny things but him with lovely eyes beats all.”
“They’re inherited from the old lady,” said the cook. “Mr. Wakefield has them too.”
“They’re welcome to ’em,” said Noah. “I see all I need to see with the pair I’ve got. I’ve watched the world goin’ downhill fer eighty years and longer. I look forward to more calamities before I pass on.”
“You’re a bit depressed after all that happened at Christmastime,” said Mrs. Wragge. “Have some more tea and another scone.”
Plate and cup replenished, Noah continued: “It was a hard season on everyone, and the hardest thing I had to do was to choose a Christmas card. It’s a terrible responsibility to choose the right card. You’ve got to choose careful, and they get dearer every year.”
“Do you send many cards?” asked Wright, with a wink at the cook.
“I send one only,” said Noah. “Every Christmas it’s the same problem. Sometimes I wish I’d never started it. Sometimes I’m driven to hope that, afore another Christmas, death will intervene and put an end to the worry of it.”
“You might tell us who the lady is,” said the cook, eaten up by curiosity.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” leered Noah. He was so overcome by the humour of the situation that again he choked.
When he had recovered and been given a third cup of tea and a third scone, there was silence for a space; then Wright remarked, “All our troubles seem small compared to the death of that sweet young lady.”
“Don’t start talking about her,” said Mrs. Wragge, “or you’ll have me crying, and when I start I can’t stop.”
“She’s always been like that,” said her husband, not without pride.
“That death,” said Noah, “was a terrible disappointment to me.”
The others at table stared at him uncomprehending.
“The weather,” he explained, “was so danged miserable and my insides so upset after the Christmas feasting that I wasn’t able to help dig the grave. I’d set my heart on that from the hour when I knowed the lady was doomed.”
“Sakes alive,” said the cook, “you give me the creeps.”
“You couldn’t know,” said Wright. “It’s impossible.”
Noah struck the table with his fist. “I knowed,” he said, “the last time I set eyes on her. That was three weeks before Christmas and she had on a new fur coat. ‘It’s a fine day,’ she said, and she looked up at the sky. ‘It’s agoin’ to be a fine winter,’ she said, ‘I look forward to it’ — and, at that very minute, I saw the grave waitin’ fer her and I said to myself, ‘Noah, you’ll dig her grave one of these times.’ It was a terrible promonition.”
“Gravedigging is a pleasure I can get on without,” said Rags, his eyes on his wife, who was close to tears.
“I’m an expert at it,” said Noah. “You need to love the work to be an expert. What I enjoy most is digging a grave for a young person. I know all the misery they’re to be spared.”
“That’s a wrong way to look at life,” said Wright. “There’s just as much pleasure in it as misery.”
“If you had your life to live over again, Mr. Wright,” asked the cook, “what would you be, if you could choose?”
“Just what I am, where I am,” said Wright sturdily. “It suits me.”
“And you, Jack?” she asked her husband, with a coy look. “what would you choose to be?”
Rags threw back his head. “Me?” he said. “Oh, I’d be master of Jalna. I can’t think of a better life.”
“You can choose him, if you like,” said Noah Binns, “but I wouldn’t lead the life he’s led, not fer a million dollars.”
“He enjoys himself,” said Rags, “as much as ever he did, and that’s saying a good deal.”
“Time takes away our pleasures,” said Noah, “but there’s one pleasure it’s left me and that’s champing my dentures.” The others at table sat spellbound while he, with obvious enjoyment, champed his false teeth together.
XXIX
Spider or Rose
Wakefield, restored in health, had sailed for England, in the hope of having his play produced — in the hope also of securing a part for himself in any play. He had, through his illness, lost so much time that he felt himself to be bankrupt in funds and in theatrical connections, though certainly not in talent and initiative. Renny was meanwhile supporting him generously, but with strict injunctions to return to Jalna in time for Adeline’s wedding.
“But it will be impossible,” Wakefield had exclaimed, “if I’m acting in a play in London!”
“You’ll manage it somehow,” Renny had said. “I find that when I very much want to do something, I usually contrive to do it.”
Wakefield had given one of his trustful boyish looks at his elder. He could not have revealed how much more important to him were his own enterprises than the marriage of those two young people. Renny would not have understood, or would have chosen not to understand. A new and desperately urgent life was thrusting up out of the colonial past, but he ignored it, not so much in antagonism as in absorption by his own manner of life. He simply could not imagine a change in Jalna itself.
The vine-clad house, surrounded by its lawns, its meadows, its pastures, and woods, were to him the enduring symbol of the life his grandparents had carved out of the wilds of a new country, and to which his uncles and parents had adhered. He saw no reason for changing it. The word “nationalism” had not occurred to him. He saw no stigma in the word “colonialism.” He was proud of his country but disliked the idea of boasting about it. Some months ago he had been able to buy two hundred acres adjoining Jalna. A small house, badly in need of repair, stood on this, and a leaky barn. As was usual with him, he informed his wife of this transaction only after its completion. Yet he had, on occasion, consulted her, but that was when he had wanted to borrow money from her. Alayne was not averse to his purchase of this property, because she knew that all abou
t them prices for land were rising. He had bought this at a bargain. Now she counseled him to sell when a profitable moment came. He listened to her counsel gravely and nodded as though in agreement, but he had no intention of selling. He liked this neglected farm as it was. House and barn, put in order, would be very useful to him and to Piers. The two spent happy hours inspecting it. They looked with protective pride at its trees, of which some were fine. Never would these be cut down, they said, to make way for little boxlike bungalows.
The stream that passed through Jalna meandered also through this farm. Yet, early that spring, it had been in flood, done damage to the barn, swept away a poultry house with the poultry in it, and almost uprooted three immense willow trees. Though almost taken by the flood, the tenacious roots of the willows still held fast to the bank, and their drooping branches were graced by a cloud of golden-green leaves. Birds, attracted possibly by the singing of the stream, sang also there, one pair even going to the length of building a nest.
The two young men, Maurice and Sir Patrick, returned to Jalna in this springtime, after lengthy travels. So full were they of all they had seen that, for three successive nights, they talked till long past midnight. California, Arizona, Mexico — they were enthusiastic about all. The family, from four other houses, came to see and hear them. The reactions of the different members might have been interesting to the travellers had they found it possible to be interested in anything outside their own recitals in those first days. Alayne recalled her visit to Italy with her parents. Renny remembered incidents of horse shows in New York. But no one was interested. On the fourth night the Rector began to talk of missions in the North. Meg began to talk of the Women’s Institute; Piers of breeding cattle; Patience of the television play Humphrey was writing; Pheasant of the baby, Ernest. At this point Finch, who had been present for the first time, excused himself and left.
“One would think,” cried Pheasant, “that he’d be glad to hear how his little boy is thriving — even though his birth did bring tragedy. He’s a perfectly lovely baby, and I know something about babies, having had four.” Pheasant looked truculently at those present, as though daring them to deny it.
“Finch will come round,” said the Rector comfortingly. “He’ll come round.”
“But little Ernest is so sweet, and Finch has never once kissed him or even given him one little pat.”
“Has he ever shown any affection for his other son?” said Piers and answered his own question. “No — and never will.”
“It’s high time for the baby to be christened,” said Meg. “We must choose godparents and arrange a date before the wedding. There is also Dennis’s Confirmation at his boarding school. How I love these ceremonials! As many as possible of us should go to see Dennis confirmed.”
However, it turned out that Dennis was not to be confirmed that spring. The school chaplain wrote to Finch:
I am rather anxious about your boy. After attending several of the preparatory classes, he came to me and told me he felt he ought not to be confirmed yet. When I questioned him, he refused to give a direct answer but gave me the impression that he is suffering from a sense of guilt. I am wondering if you may be able to throw some light on this difficult situation. I think that, if you could come to the school and have a talk with Dennis, it might be a great help to him, and also to me.
Finch read this letter and thought, “Is it possible Dennis is remembering that fright he gave Sylvia when he appeared outside the window, smeared with blood? By God, he deserves to have a sense of guilt and no pity given him.” Sylvia’s terrified face came between Finch and the letter. She had been brave, too, in her fear, and forgiven the wretched child, and now possibly he was justly suffering — if he had it in him to feel contrition. Through the wall of ice that divided Finch from his son, he saw his small white face distorted by emotion. He must go to the school, try to discover what lay behind all this. Finch was not driven to go by fatherly concern but by a chill curiosity. For the first time he had a desire to seek out Dennis.
The impulse moved him to lose no time. Within an hour he was on his way to the school. He sped through the blowy spring morning with a feeling of purposefulness he had not experienced since Sylvia’s death. His heavy heart was lightened by it.
Less than fifteen miles on the way he was delayed by a train at a village crossing. Standing there also was a truck loaded with calves on their way to the slaughterhouse. Their anxious eyes looked out on the green world where they had been so lately free and now were captive.
The howl of the train whistle made their eyes start. They shuddered in fear and one of them raised its voice. The train passed. The truck jolted across the tracks, but the calves were so closely packed in the truck that they could not fall. They could not move.
Neither could Finch continue on his way. His reason was powerless to prod him to start the car. He wanted nothing but to turn back — if only it were possible to turn back on the road where Sylvia was lost to him …
The virtue was gone out of him. He could not move forward. Slowly he turned his car about and returned the way he had come. The spring wind blew in his face. The roots struggled in the chill bed of the loam to send up their shoots. Finch said to himself that he would write to the chaplain telling him not to urge Dennis to be confirmed; to let him come naturally to the point where he desired it. But that letter was not written. The chaplain’s troubled letter remained unanswered.
When Finch reached the lately acquired farm which Piers had cleverly named New Farm, he stopped his car beside a gate that led into a stony field. He could hear hammering from where two farm hands were mending the roof of the barn. The hammering, softened by distance, was pleasant to the ear. There was an urgent rhythm to it. Finch left his car on the side of the road and went through the gate to where the three willows, dressed in wistful green, bent over a pool left by the flood of the stream. There was an oak nearby that had not yet put forth so much as a leaf, and there were the willows, exquisitely dressed.… A low-hung April cloud moved eastward and let the warmth of the sun full on the bank of the stream by the pool.
There must be small fish in the pool — suckers possibly, or sunfish — for a boy had left his fishing rod on the bank, gone off on some other boyish quest and forgotten it, or decided that there were no fish to be caught. The rod was no more than a willow wand, but it had a fishhook on a string and on the hook a writhing worm. It was long since Finch had fished. He thought he would like to catch even a very small fish. He dropped to the bank, in the sudden appealing warmth of the sun, and examined rod and bait.
His eyes became riveted on the writhings of the worm. Bloated and blindly twisting, it uttered a voiceless cry: Save me — save me!
Squatting on the bank Finch set about releasing it. He withdrew the hook, but the worm broke in half. Its writhing ceased. Ruefully he looked at it lying on his palm. The worm had waited long for this day and now had come to this — two half-worms, never to be joined together.
There was nothing for Finch to do but put it on the hook again, which he did, and, squatting there on the bank, dropped the bait into the pool. A feeling of something approaching tranquility stole up through his body, beginning in his feet planted on the sun-warmed earth, and seeping, like sap through trunk and limbs of a winter-bound tree, up to his very scalp.
All about him green shoots were seeking the sun. Green leaves were in the very act of untying themselves from the rolled-up package of a backward spring. On a mossy stone a slippery green frog sat staring with calculating coldness at the budding world in front of him.
Suddenly Finch felt a lively tug on the line. It was more than a nibble. It was a bite — and he landed, with a grin of triumph, a small fish. Carefully he took the hook from its lip. It was scarcely damaged and, after an inspection of it, he returned it to the pool, where it vanished, as though it had never suffered such an experience.
Finch removed the body of the worm from the hook and proffered it to the frog, which refused
it with a glassy stare — then, with incredible agility, leaped down into the pool.
Finch’s housekeeper had made a package of lunch for him to eat on the motor trip. This he now opened and ate the sandwiches, sitting beside the stream. He dangled his legs over the edge of the bank in a freedom from tension unknown to him for months. The worm, the fish, the frog, glided through his empty mind as shapes in a crystal bowl. The meaningless murmur of the stream was music enough.
This New Farm was a place of the greatest interest to little Mary Whiteoak. Whenever she was given the chance she came to it. Especially was she fascinated by the farmhouse. It was being reshingled, painted inside and out. When it was in good order, Wright and his family were coming to live in it. But Mary, as much as was possible to the tenderness of her nature, grudged Wright the farmhouse. She would have liked to live there alone, with the baby Ernest. She knew so well how to care for him — he was so happy with her — she would wish for no interference from anyone.
Weeks passed. It was no longer spring but summer.
The time for Ernest’s christening was near at hand. Next came the centenary celebration of Jalna, and, following it, the wedding of Adeline and Philip. To Mary, the christening was by far the most important. She frequently talked about it to Ernest, telling him how properly he must behave himself, and that he was to wear the christening robe of his great-uncle Ernest for the occasion, and that the robe was a mass of the finest tucks and lace insertion, from neck to hem.
Already Pheasant had washed and exquisitely ironed the robe, and it now lay between sheets of tissue paper, in a particular drawer that was scented by a bag of lavender.
There was no doubt about it — Pheasant and Piers were infatuated by the baby. Piers quite simply doted on him. Now on this morning in early June Piers had, at Mary’s urgent request, brought her and little Ernest with him to New Farm. She had sat beside Piers in the car, holding the baby on her lap, as sensible as any little woman. As for Ernest, so intently did he watch Piers’s handling of the car that, as Piers remarked later to Pheasant, he might soon have it in his mind to apply for a driving licence.
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 138
