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

by Mazo de La Roche

  “I don’t want to see you do it.”

  “You’d better not. It will be a horrible sight.”

  “Goodbye,” she said again, then asked, “what shall I do with the food I brought you?”

  He sprang up and took the loop of rope in his grimy hands. “Will you go?” he shouted. “I’m going to hang myself this minute!”

  Mary went into the house and heard Finch moving restlessly about the living room. When he saw her he said: “They’ve not found Dennis yet. Where do you suppose he’s gone, Mary?” His eyes searched her little face, as though for help in the troubles that had befallen him.

  She did not answer him at once because she was not sure that Dennis would be ready to be found. She was looking at a little vase with a few flowers in it.

  “Those are the flowers you dropped the last time you were here. I put them in water to save for you.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Finch.”

  Surely Dennis was ready now.… She raised her gentle blue eyes to Finch’s haggard face. She said, “Dennis is in the loft over the stable. You will never see him alive again.”

  “Mary,” shouted Finch. “what are you saying?”

  “what he told me to. Come and see.”

  She led the way and he followed in a daze of bewilderment. Outside they met Archer, who had discovered footprints leading from the strawberry bed to the stable. He said, “I believe I’ve discovered him. I think he’s hiding somewhere about here.”

  “He’s in the hayloft,” said Mary, and repeated with relish, “You will never see him alive again.”

  “Dennis is dead,” Finch said hoarsely. “You must go up, Archer, — I can’t.” The blood had drained from his face, leaving it grey. He was shaking all over.

  His expression imperturbable but his body brilliantly agile, Archer darted into the stable and up the ladder to the loft. They heard him exclaim, “Mercy!”

  Dennis had been standing on a box with the loop of rope about his neck. When he heard Finch’s voice he kicked the box from beneath him. The noose tightened. His face was congested when Archer caught and held him in his arms. The rope was not well tied. It was easy for Archer to free him. But he struggled.

  “Let me go,” he gasped. “I will hang myself! I will — I will.”

  He was bitterly disappointed. He had fully expected he would be discovered by Finch.

  Now Finch, hearing his voice, climbed the ladder and appeared, followed by Mary.

  Dennis held out his arms to Finch. “I’m dying,” he cried melodramatically. “Forgive me — I’m dying.”

  He did indeed look terribly ill.

  “I think I’ll go home,” said Mary. “Ernest will be wanting me.”

  A few hours later Finch walked through the ravine to Jalna. He found Alayne cutting blue delphiniums in the flower border. Even with his mind troubled as it was, he thought how becoming the graceful blue flowers were to her.

  “Alayne,” he said, and put out his hand to touch her.

  She caught his hand in both hers and held it.

  “You’ve heard?” he asked, in an unsteady voice.

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Are you sure Dennis meant to — do what he did? Archer says not.”

  Finch made a grimace of pain. “I’m sure he meant to. My God, Alayne, the rope was there — round his neck. He looked terrible.”

  “what does the doctor say?”

  “He’s put him to bed with a sedative. He’s to stay there for a couple of days. He fell asleep gripping my hand. I should have felt deeply touched, but — I simply shrank from his hand. The doctor says he’s very sensitive — very young for his age.”

  “Yes, yes — very young for his age — that’s what I think,” said Alayne. “The way he clings to your sleeve — the way he boasts.”

  “And yet — ” Finch turned away from her, as though he could not trust himself to speak of this — then turned again to her — “and yet there are times when he seems to me capable of anything. Alayne — often he made Sylvia unhappy. Consciously, I think, he made her unhappy. I never can forgive him that.”

  “Surely you imagine that, Finch.” Her pitying eyes looked into his. She was seeing him again as the unhappy boy she remembered. “You have a troublesome imagination, you know.”

  “I wish it were imagination,” Finch said bitterly. “But — it was terribly real. And — another thing — I have a feeling that something happened — on the night Sylvia died — something Dennis feels responsible for. When we found him in the loft he kept repeating ‘Forgive me — I’m dying!’ But I have been haunted by a feeling — not explainable — when he and I are alone in the house together.”

  “You must put such thoughts out of your mind,” Alayne said. “You must think of Dennis as an odd boy, but not as you are picturing him.”

  “He’s so terribly like Sarah.”

  “He may seem so to you, but he is really just himself, and there is no doubt about his love for you.” She gave a wry smile. “I should be glad if Archer showed a demonstrative love for either of his parents.”

  At this point Piers came on the scene, crossing the lawn toward them, from the direction of the stables. It would have embarrassed Piers to speak of the near-tragic happening of that morning. Instead, he remarked to Finch in a genial tone:

  “If you were a racehorse at stud, Finch, you would soon have no reputation as a sire, for you can’t get an offspring that bears the slightest resemblance to you. Look at your two boys — Dennis, who is the very spit of Sarah, except for his yellow hair; and Ernest, who is going to be the image of Sylvia, and has her lovely nature too. There’s the lad that’s going to be the comfort of your old age, Finch. Come along over to my house now and meet him. I can tell you I wish he were mine. You come along too, Alayne.”

  “Shall we?” she asked eagerly of Finch.

  But he turned away. “Thanks very much,” he said. “But I’ve things I must do at home.”

  They watched his tall figure disappear down into the ravine.

  XXXIV

  The Wedding

  The three sons of Piers and Pheasant were, on this July morning, passing an agreeable hour in Christian’s studio. The young artist himself was intently scrutinizing a mixture of blues that he had on his palette. A midsummer landscape stood on the easel before him, but he was not satisfied that he had captured the exact blue of the sky.

  “It must be fun to puddle about with paints all day,” said Philip, rather patronizingly.

  “Much more fun than getting married,” Christian said serenely. “You must be growing rather nervous, old fellow.”

  “Me?” laughed Philip. “I leave nerves to the bride.”

  Maurice, from where he sat on a windowsill, gave a groan.

  “what’s that groan for?” demanded Philip.

  “For your youthful exuberance,” said Maurice.

  “when you come to think of it,” said Philip, “it’s odd that I, the youngest, should be the first to marry.”

  “In the fairy tales I used to read as a child,” Christian returned happily, “the youngest son invariably married the princess — thank goodness.”

  “Tell the truth,” said Philip, “neither of you would object to being in my shoes.”

  “We’re green with envy,” said Christian, squeezing green paint out of a tube.

  “You remember those very modern portraits you did of Adeline and me that Archer bought?” asked Philip.

  “I do indeed. I quite like them. Better than the second pair.”

  “Well, Archer is determined to display them with the rest of the wedding presents, but I tell him that Uncle Renny will never allow it.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “Like so much else,” put in Maurice.

  “where is Pat Crawshay this morning?” asked Philip. “You’re seldom without him, Maurice.”

  “He’s off to buy you a wedding present.”

  “Gosh, I wish I knew what he has in mind,” Philip said, from th
e bottom of his heart.

  “Probably a clock,” said Maurice, “or table silver. There’s so little of that sort of thing at Jalna.”

  “That’s our trouble.” Philip looked rosily serious. “Adeline and I have everything we need for the house. But there are other things we should appreciate.” Suddenly he asked, without embarrassment, “Look here, Maurice, do you mind telling me what you are giving us?”

  “A cheque,” Maurice said curtly.

  Philip was delighted. “Nothing could be better.” He spoke with warmth. “For if there is anything we’re likely to be short of — it’s cash.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Maurice, but did not say of what.

  “It’s a pity” — Philip still addressed Maurice with great affability — “that you and Pat are leaving for Ireland so soon. You’ll be gone when we come back from our honeymoon.”

  “Please God,” said Maurice.

  “what about young Dennis?” asked Christian. “Will he be able to travel so soon? He’s been pretty ill, hasn’t he?”

  “I’ve quite given up that idea,” said Maurice. “He doesn’t want to leave home, and I don’t want to take him — not after what happened.”

  “what actually did happen?” asked Christian.

  “Archer says that Dennis tried to hang himself, but I never believe what Archer says. He talks just to hear himself.”

  “I’m afraid it is quite true,” said Maurice. “It’s been a shock to me and terribly disappointing.”

  Archer appeared in the doorway just in time to hear this. He advanced into the studio and spoke as a professor delivering a lecture from a platform.

  “Disappointments,” he said, “are generally pleasurable in the end. It’s the rewards that are hard to take. Now I have in me the power of joyous abandon, yet I never find anything that moves me to more than a wistful smile. I have in me the faculty for great suffering, yet I am never moved to exclaim anything more heartfelt than ‘Mercy!’ That’s what I said when I took the noose off Dennis’s neck.”

  “How is he?” asked Maurice.

  “I’ve just seen him,” said Archer. “He was in bed doing a crossword puzzle. He’ll be up and dressed tomorrow and as troublesome as ever.”

  “He deserves a good hiding,” said Philip.

  “How did Uncle Finch take it?” asked Maurice.

  “Very badly. At first I thought he was going to faint, but when Dennis clutched him and made noises of suffering he pulled himself together. When I went there this morning he was surrounded by manuscript. ‘My work,’ he said, ‘of the past month.’ ‘Are you pleased with it?’ I asked. ‘Just this much,’ he said, and tore it to bits.”

  “what a pity!” exclaimed Maurice.

  “In a brief space,” said Archer, “I have seen a child attempt to hang himself, a musician destroy the work he has sweated over — and in no time I expect to see a young man stick out his neck for the marriage yoke.”

  Philip laughed and blushed. “whatever way you look at it,” he said, “we’re getting a lot of splendid wedding presents. I’m off to Jalna now to help Adeline arrange them. We’re setting them out on tables in the library.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Archer. “I want the two portraits I’m giving you shown to advantage.”

  At this moment Noah Binns appeared. He was carrying a large, flat, paper package. He gave a bleary wink at Philip and said, “I’ll bet a dime to a doughnut that you can’t guess what I’ve got here.”

  “A wedding present?” said Philip.

  Noah’s face fell. “You guessed right, but I bet you can’t guess what the present is — not in a hundred years.”

  “A calendar?”

  “No. Not a calendar. Look.” Noah ripped off the paper wrapping and, appropriating an easel, set the present in view. He grinned delightedly when he saw the puzzled looks of the young men. “It’s an enlargement,” he boasted, “of a snapshot, took by a tourist, of your family plot in the graveyard. Gravestones and iron fence and all. I paid good money to git it enlarged. I bought the frame at Woolworth’s. D ’ye think the young lady’ll like it?” Now he looked anxious.

  “She’ll love it,” said Philip.

  “It goes to show,” said Noah, “what young brides and bridegrooms come to. Like the rest of us.”

  Philip grinned unbelieving, but Maurice exclaimed, “It’s horrible. He can’t give that to Adeline!”

  Philip doubled up in laughter. “She’ll love it,” he said.

  Noah rewrapped the picture. “I witnessed a terrible accident when I was in the city buyin’ that picter frame,” he said. “There was an old grey horse drawin’ a milk wagon. I guess it thought it was the last horse in the city. Then along comes another old nag hitched to another milk wagon. The first old nag hadn’t seen another horse since he could remember. He’d seen millions of cars. The driver told me he guessed the danged horse thought he was a car hisself. Anyways, when he saw this other horse it near scared the daylights outa him. He rared and kicked and busted the wagon to bits. It was a senseless sight.”

  Noah was exhilarated by his adventures. Now he rewrapped the enlarged snapshot with the remark, “I hope this here will be hung in a constituous position.”

  “It certainly will,” said Philip genially.

  Renny Whiteoak was surprisingly touched by this present from Noah and delighted him by placing it prominently. Yet he refused to allow the portraits first painted by Christian to be seen. “They’re hideous modern caricatures,” he said. “The place for them is the attic.” Archer was resigned. “I shall take them with me to Oxford,” he said, “to show how art progresses in Canada.”

  Adeline was not resigned. “After all,” she said to Philip, “it’s our wedding and we should be allowed to do what we choose with our presents.”

  How this remark endeared her to Philip! The “we” … the “our” — gave such body to a prospect which sometimes appeared to him dreamlike. The fact that he was going to live in the home of his bride, a house with which he was as familiar as with the house of his parents, made the union somehow unreal. He would be glad when the wedding was over and they were settled down. Yet he looked forward with confidence to their honeymoon. It would settle all emotions that perturbed him.

  Two nights before the wedding day Archer opened the door of his father’s bedroom and put his head inside. It was pitch-dark and midnight. Renny had just turned off the light.

  Archer said, “I can hear Adeline crying in her room.”

  Renny sprang up and joined him in the passage. “You must have exceptional hearing,” he said. “I can’t hear a sound.”

  “Listen.”

  Now Renny could faintly hear his daughter’s muffled sobbing. He went straight to Alayne’s room and bent over her. She was, for a wonder, fast asleep.

  “Alayne,” he said, “you must go to Adeline, she’s crying. You must go to her. I can’t.”

  Alayne was startled into instant sensibility. She rose, put on a dressing gown and slippers. She looked concerned but not distraught. In Adeline’s room a dim light was burning. Adeline lay stretched on the bed, face hidden in the pillow.

  “whatever is the matter, darling?” Alayne put a comforting arm about the girl.

  “I can’t do it,” sobbed Adeline. “I can’t go on with it. I’d die first.” Now that she was discovered she no longer restrained her weeping.

  “Tell me — ” Alayne spoke urgently. “You must tell me.”

  “I can’t go on with this,” Adeline sobbed, while Renny, Archer, and the three dogs listened miserably in the hall. “I can’t marry Philip.… or anyone.”

  “If you are thinking of Maitland,” Alayne said calmly, “remember he is not free.”

  “why did you say that?” demanded Adeline. “I’m thinking of no one but Philip, and I can’t have him in this room. I want to be my own — by myself.”

  Renny now came to the door. “We can put Philip in Uncle Nick’s room,” he said, “if you don’t want him
here.” Alayne patted Adeline’s back, as when she was a tiny child.

  “You shall not marry,” she said, “if you do not want to; but remember — you must return every one of your wedding presents, with a note explaining that the wedding is not to take place.”

  Adeline almost screamed: “Write fifty notes of that sort — on top of all my thank-you notes? I’d rather get married!”

  Archer now came carrying a tray with instant coffee and digestive biscuits for all four. “I would feel just the same if I were going to be married. I’d scream the house down.”

  Adeline laughed through her tears and hungrily ate more than her share of the digestive biscuits. From this time she moved forward to the ceremony without hesitation.

  On the morning preceding the wedding, Finch, accompanied by Dennis, came to view the presents. Renny went with them into the library. “A nice display, isn’t it?” he said, with the very same expression he wore when showing the medals and ribbons won by his horses.

  “Very nice indeed,” Finch said admiringly. “Keep your hands off them, Dennis,” he added, as the boy handled one thing after another.

  Dennis wore a white singlet and grey trousers. He looked fragile, yet alert and happy. With him out of earshot, Renny said to Finch, “what are you going to do about him, now that the visit to Ireland is off?”

  “I have heard of a school in New England where they take in difficult boys and, as I have some concert engagements there, I’m going to take him along.”

  Dennis had caught the last words. Now he came, with a light, almost dancing step to Renny. “My father and I,” he said proudly, “are to travel together. It’s the first time we’ve done that since I was a little fellow and he brought me from California after my mother died.”

  “That will be fun,” said Renny.

  “Yes, won’t it?” He caught Finch’s sleeve in his hand and held it. He added, “I’m going to hear him play in two concerts. I’ve heard him practicing these pieces. I won’t be like the rest of the audience. I’ll know everything beforehand, and that’s what I like.”

  The midsummer leaves made silken-green curtains for every window of the church. The clay had come when Renny led his only daughter up the aisle to give her in marriage to the bridegroom of his choice. Young Philip, immaculately dressed, looked a young man to be proud of. He and his brother Christian stood at the chancel steps for what seemed a long time before the bride appeared. The small church was packed with people. A sigh of admiration rose from them as Adeline, very pale and beautiful, progressed along the aisle. Renny led her proudly, protectively. Her only attendant was her little cousin, Mary.