The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (254 page)

M
AZO DE LA
R
OCHE

For Hugh Eayrs

F
INCH

F
ROM
the turnstile where the tickets were taken, a passage covered by striped red and white awning led to the hall of the Coliseum. The cement floor of this passage was wet from many muddy footprints, and an icy draught raced through it with a speed greater than that of the swift horses within.

There were but a few stragglers entering now, and among these was eighteen-year-old Finch Whiteoak. His raincoat and soft felt hat were dripping; even the smooth skin on his thin cheeks was shining with moisture.

He carried a strap holding a couple of textbooks and a dilapidated notebook. He was unpleasantly conscious of these as the mark of a student, and wished he had not brought them along. He tried to conceal them under his raincoat, but they made such a repulsive-looking lump on his person that he sheepishly brought them forth and carried them in full view again.

Inside the hall he found himself in a hubbub of voices and sounding footfalls, and in the midst of a large display of flowers. Monstrous chrysanthemums, strange colours flaming behind their curled petals, perfect pink roses that seemed
to be musing delicately on their own perfection, indolent crimson roses, weighed down by their rich colour and perfume, crowded on every side.

With the sheepish smile still lingering on his lips, Finch wandered among them. Their elegance, their fragility, combined with the vividness of their colouring, gave him a feeling of tremulous happiness. He wished that there were not so many people. He would have liked to drift about among the flowers alone, absorbing their perfume rather than inhaling it, absorbing their rich gaiety rather than beholding it. A pretty young woman, quite ten years older than he, bent over the great pompom of a chrysanthemum, within which burned a sultry orange, and touched it with her cheek. “Adorable thing,” she breathed, and glanced smilingly at the awkward stripling beside her. Finch grinned in return, but he moved away. Yet, when he had made sure that she was gone, he returned to the dusky bloom and gazed into it as though he would discover there some essence of the female loveliness that had caressed it.

He was roused by the sound of a man’s voice shouting through a megaphone in the inner part of the building where the horse show was in progress. He looked at his wristwatch and discovered that it was a quarter to four o’clock. He would not dare to show himself at the ringside for at least another half hour. He had cut the last period at school so that he might have time to see something of the other exhibits before the events in which his brother Renny was to take part were due. Renny would expect to see him then, but he would certainly be sharp with him if he discovered that he had missed any of his lessons. Finch had failed to pass his matriculation examinations the summer before, and his present attitude toward Renny was one of humble propitiation.

He moved into the automobile section. As he was examining a lustrous dark blue touring car, a salesman came up and began to expatiate on its perfections. Finch was embarrassed, yet pleased, at being treated with deference, addressed as “sir.” He stood talking with the man a few minutes, looking as sagacious as he could and keeping his books out of sight. When at last he strolled away, he threw his shoulders back and tightened his expression into one of manly composure.

He gave no more than a glance at the display of apples, and the aquariums of goldfish. He thought he would have a look at the kennels of silver foxes. A long stairway led to this section. Up here under the roof was a different world, a world smelling of disinfectants, a world of glittering eyes, of pointed muzzles and upstanding, vigorous fur. Trapped, all of them, behind the strong wire of their cages. Curled up in tight balls, with just one watchful eye peering; scratching in the clean straw, trying to find a way out of this drear imprisonment; standing on hind legs, with contemptuous little faces pointing through the netting. Finch wished he might open the doors of all the cages. He pictured that wild scampering, that furious padding across the autumn fields, that mad digging of burrows and hiding in the hospitable earth, when he had set them free! Oh, if he could only set them free to run, to dig, to breed in the earth as they had been born to do!

Word seemed to go from cage to cage that someone had come to help them. Wherever he looked, expectant eyes seemed to be fixed on him. The little foxes yawned, stretched, shivered with expectancy. Waited…

A bugle sounded from below. Finch came to himself. He slouched away, hurrying toward the stairs, turning his back on the prisoners.

At the head of the stairway an elderly man was drooping mournfully before an exhibit of canaries. He accosted the boy, offering him a ticket in a lottery. The prize was to be a handsome bird in full song.

“Only twenty-five cents for the ticket,” he said, “and the canary is worth twenty-five dollars. A regular beauty. Here ’e is in this cage. I’ve never bred a grander bird. Look at the shape and colour of ’im. And you ought to ’ear ’im sing! What a present for your mother, young man, and Christmas coming in another six weeks!”

Finch thought that if he had had a mother living it would have been an extremely nice present for her. He pictured himself presenting it, in its glittering gilt cage, to a shadowy lovely young mother of about twenty-five. He fixed his hungry light eyes on the canary, trig and ruddy from special feeding, and muttered something incoherent. The exhibitor produced a ticket.

“Here you are—number thirty-one. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was the lucky number. Sure you wouldn’t like to buy two? You might as well buy two while you’re about it.”

Finch shook his head, and produced the twenty-five cents. As he descended the stairs he cursed himself for his weakness. He had been short enough of funds without throwing away money. He tried to picture Renny’s being chivied into buying a lottery ticket for a canary.

After this expenditure he refrained from buying a programme of events for the horse show. The cheaper seats were so filled that he was obliged to take one near the back among a varied assortment of men and youths. The man next him was rather the worse for liquor. He held the bulky paperbound programme for the events of the week so close to his nose that they almost touched.

“Damned shilly programme,” he was muttering. “Each page shillier than page before.”

Judging was taking place inside the ring. The tanbark was dotted with men holding their mounts. Three judges, notebooks in hand, strolled from horse to horse, now and again consulting together. The horses stood motionless, all but one which capered pettishly at the end of the reins. The exhilarating odour of tanbark and good horseflesh hung on the air, which was still cool in spite of the closely packed spectators.

The man with the megaphone announced the winners. Ribbons were presented, and they disappeared after the defeated competitors into the regions behind. The band struck up.

“Damned usheless programme,” sounded in Finch’s ear. “Make nothing of it.”

“Perhaps I can,” said the boy, longing to look at the programme, yet not wanting to be seen in conversation with such a person.

“Buy one for yourshelf!” returned the man loudly. “Don’t imagine you’re going to shponge on me for one.”

There was a laugh from the nearby spectators. Finch slumped in his seat, crimson, humiliated. He was thankful for the crash of music from the band that heralded the Musical Ride.

His spirits rose as he watched the glossy creatures, ridden by soldiers from the barracks, trip coyly and yet contemptuously through the intricate evolutions. He allowed himself to be carried away by the sensuous harmony of sound, of movement, of colour. The lights suspended from the lofty ceiling, shrouded by bright flags and bunting, quivered in the metallic vibrations of the air.

The next event was the judging of ladies’ saddle horses. There were fifteen entries, among them Silken Lady, ridden by Finch’s sister-in-law, Pheasant Whiteoak. She came in at the tail of the string, a large number 15 on a white square attached to her waist. Finch felt a sudden leap of pride as he watched Lady circle the tanbark, showing her good blood and her pride of life in every step. He felt a pleasant sense of proprietorship in Pheasant, too. She was like a slender boy in her brown coat and breeches, with her bare, closely cropped head. Odd how young she looked, after all she’d been through. That affair of hers with Eden that had nearly separated Piers and her. The two seemed happier now. Piers was awfully keen that Pheasant should make a good showing in the jumps. A hard fellow, Piers—he must have given her a rough time of it for a while. A good thing that Eden was safely out of the way. He’d made trouble enough—been a bad brother to Piers, a bad husband to Alayne. All over now! Finch gave his mind to the riders.

A stout man in the uniform of a colonel put them through their paces, sending them trailing, now swift, now slow, around the ring. Pheasant’s pale face grew pink. Ahead of her rode a short plump girl in immaculate English riding clothes, a glossy little bell-topped hat, a snowy stock. A youth next to Finch told him that she came from Philadelphia. She had a noble-looking mount. The judges were noticing him. Finch felt a sinking of the heart as the American horse swept rhythmically over the tanbark. When the riders dismounted and stood in various limp attitudes beside their horses, Finch’s eyes were riveted on Pheasant and the girl from Philadelphia.

It was as he feared. The blue ribbon was attached to the bridle of the plump girl’s horse. Silken Lady did not even get
the second or third. They were awarded to horses from other towns in the province. Pheasant, her little face immobile, rode out with the troop of the defeated.

The Ladies’ Hunters class came on. The sense of pleasurable anticipation was enhanced by the joyous throbbing of the drums beneath the martial air played by the horns. The first rider entered, her mount, with arching neck and polished hoofs, spurning the tanbark. With a gay air of assurance he sped lightly toward the four-foot gate. Then, as the rider dropped his head for the jump, he swerved aside and galloped easily along the track. The tension was relaxed into amusement. Laughter rippled over the boxes and broke loudly from the rear seats. Rider wheeled horse sharply and rode him again at the gate. He leaped it with ease. Without mishap he jumped the wall, then the first oxer, but as he cleared the bars he kicked the top rail and it clattered to the ground. Another try! Again the balking at the gate, again the leap, but this time two rails were scattered. A bugle sounded. Rider and horse disappeared, the girl dejected, the beast ingenuously pleased with himself.

Two more entries came and went without creating a stir. The next rider was the girl from Philadelphia. The beautiful horse looked too tall for the plump little figure in the perfect riding-habit. But he knew his business. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the jumping. Only one mishap in the twice around—a tick behind. They sailed off amid a steady beat of handclaps.

Then Pheasant on The Soldier, half brother to Silken Lady. Finch’s heart beat heavily as they trotted into the arena. It was no joke to manage The Soldier. He was scarcely a fit mount for a slim girl of nineteen. He approached the gate sidewise, showing his teeth in a disagreeable grin.
Pheasant trotted him back to the starting point, and again headed him with soft encouragement toward the gate.

“Give him tashte o’ whip!” advised the man beside Finch.

Again The Soldier balked at the jump. Again Pheasant wheeled him and made a fresh start, but this time a sharp cut as they approached the gate sent him flying over it like a swallow. Then over each of the tall white gates he flew, the white “socks” on his hind legs flashing, his ginger-coloured tail streaming.

Finch was grinning happily. Good little Pheasant. Good boy Soldier. He added his applause violently to the storm that commended them. Still, his eyes were anxious as he awaited the second time around. This time there was no balking, but a swift triumphant flight over gate, over hedge, over double oxer. But one never knew what The Soldier would do. At the last gate he swerved aside, galloped past it, and, amid handclaps and laughter, disappeared.

The Philadelphia girl, Pheasant, and three others were recalled for a “jump off.” All five did well, but the American horse was the best. Sadly, Finch agreed that the judges were right when he was awarded the blue ribbon, and The Soldier the red. “But the girl can’t ride like young Pheasant, anyhow,” he thought.

Now came the Corinthian Class, grey and chestnut, bay and black, streaming along the track close on each other’s heels. Ah, there was Renny! That thin, strong figure that looked as though it were a part of the long-legged roan mare. A quiver of excitement ran through the crowd, like a breeze stirring a field of wheat. As the sound of the band died away the thunder of hoofs took up the music, sweeter by far! Finch could not bear to remain in his seat. He slid past the knees of those between him and the aisle, and descended the
steps. He joined the line of men that lounged against the paling that surrounded the track.