Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“Well, fetch her straight back here afterward. And there’s one thing I wish you’d tell me. Have you ever heard your brother say aught about mending my roof? It leaks into the best room like all possessed every time it rains.”
Wakefield knitted his slender black brows. “I’ve never heard him say a single word about it, Mrs. Wigle. He doesn’t seem to mind what roof leaks so long as the stable roof doesn’t. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do—I’ll mend your roof myself!”
“Bless the child! As though you could mend my roof!”
“I mean, I’ll have it mended for you. You see, IVe inherited all my grandmama’s money, and HI be wanting to do all sorts of nice things for ladies that have been kind to me. Come along, Muriel.”
Mrs. Wigle was dazed before the splendour of it. A little boy with all that fortune! Beautiful to see him holding her Muriel by the hand. She followed them, rolling her arms tightly in her apron, into Mrs. Brawn’s shop. She did not give him time to tell his news to fat Mrs. Brawn. She poured it out for him, and the two women stood, wrapped in admiration, while he scrutinized the contents of the window.
“I was so excited,” he murmured, half to himself, “that I couldn’t eat my breakfast. ‘Air,’I said, ‘I’ve got to have air’… I think I’ll have two currant buns, a little dish of custard cakes, and three bottles of Orange Crush. Muriel, what would you like?”
He stood before the counter, slender, fragile, the toe of one crossed foot resting on the floor, his dark head bent above the bottle from which the lovely drink ebbed through two straws into his throat. Before him stood the unopened bottles, the custard cakes, a currant bun. He held the other bun, soft, sticky, warm from the oven. At his shoulder was the tow head of Muriel, her eyes raised adoringly to his face, as she munched a bun. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth.
Above his head the voices of the two women babbled on, discussing his wonderful prospects. Mrs. Brawn cared nothing
that he owed her twenty cents and was fast running up his account. Mrs. Wigle forgot her leaky roof. She rolled and unrolled her hands in her apron. From the stove in the back room was wafted the insidious smell of burning cakes. Wakefield’s head was full of beautiful thoughts—like whirling golden coins.
B
EQUEST
I
N THE HALL
he almost ran into Mr. Patton, who was putting on his coat. Mr. Patton had the uncomfortable expression on his face of one who has eaten something that has disagreed with him. The expression on the face of Renny, who was accompanying him to the door, was even more uncomfortable. He said: “You’re sure there’s no doubt of her sanity?”
Mr. Patton puckered his lips. “None whatever.”
“Well, she had a right to do what she liked with her own money, but—it’s rather hard on my uncles.”
“Yes, yes… Yes, indeed.”
“And so entirely unexpected. She never seemed to care especially for him. She was much more partial to Piers.”
“You never can tell.”
“With women—I suppose not.”
“Nor men, either. It’s extraordinary what some of them will do.” Mr. Patton took his hat from the rack, looked into it; then, casting a furtive look into the silent sitting room, he added, in a muffled tone: “I actually tried to dissuade her. I don’t mind saying this to you. But—she was—” He shrugged.
“Not very tolerant of interference. I know.”
Mr. Patton said, picking up his brief-bag, and looking into Renny’s eyes with some embarrassment: “It’s hard on you, too. Particularly as in most of the former wills—”
Renny scowled. “I’m not worrying about that. How many wills did you say there have been?”
“Eight during the twenty years I have looked after her affairs. Some changes, of course, were only minor. In most of them you—”
They became conscious of the little boy’s presence. He was staring up at them inquisitively. Renny saw a question coming, and took the back of his neck in a restraining hand. Mr. Patton’s lips unpuckered into a smile.
“He’s looking pretty well,” he remarked.
“There’s no bone to him. Just gristle. He’s got no appetite.”
The lawyer felt Wake’s arm. “Not very firm! Still, his eyes are bright; but then your family runs to bright eyes.”
“Who—” began Wakefield, and Renny’s fingers tightened on his neck.
He and Mr. Patton shook hands. The lawyer hurried out to his car.
“But who—” began Wake again.
The master of Jalna took out a cigarette, struck a match on the underside of the hat rack, and, after its flare had lighted the cigarette and been reflected in his eyes, threw it into the umbrella stand. He turned then toward the fantastic silence of the sitting room. Wakefield followed.
This was the strangest room he had ever been in. The drawing-room had seemed strange when Grandmother lay there in her coffin with the lighted candles about her and the presence of death making the air heavy, but this was stranger
still. For, though the air was heavy as death, it was pregnant with the life of battling emotions.
Nicholas still sat in the corner with his pipe. He held it in his teeth, and stared at Renny and Wakefield as they came into the room without seeming to see them. He stroked the back of Nip, his terrier, with a large trembling hand, and seemed to be unaware of his presence also.
Ernest was rubbing the nails of one hand against the palm of the other, as though he had never stopped, but now he did stop, and began to tap his teeth with them, as though all the polishing had been leading up to that. Augusta looked more natural than the others, but what disturbed Wake was that her eyes, fixed on Ernest, were full of tears. He had never seen tears in them before.
The eyes of Piers, Maurice, and even the infant, Patience, were on Finch, and Finch looked more miserable than Wakefield had ever seen anyone look in all his life. Certainly he had not fallen heir to a fortune!
“But who?” he entreated, in his penetrating treble.
“Who?”
All the eyes, dark and light, intense and mournful, turned on him. Words froze on his lips. He began to cry.
“No wonder the child weeps,” said Augusta, regarding him gloomily. “Even he is conscious of the outrage of it.”
Nicholas took his pipe from his mouth, tapped it over the hearth, then blew it out with a whistling sound. He said nothing, but Piers broke out: “I always knew he had a yellow streak. But how he accomplished this—”
“My mother,” declared Augusta, “must have been demented. Let Mr. Patton say what he will—”
“Old ninny,” said Piers, “to allow a woman of that age to play ducks and drakes with her money! It’s a case for the
courts. We must never stand for it. Are you going to let yourself be done out of what is really yours, Renny?”
“Really
his I”
cried Augusta.
“Yes, really
his I
What about those other wills?” Augusta’s glazed eyes flashed away the tears. “What of the will in which all was left to your Uncle Ernest?”
Ernest suddenly seemed to feel weak. He sat down and twisted his fingers between his knees, and his underlip between his teeth.
“That was years ago!” retorted Piers.
“She was sane then. She
must
have been
quite mad
when she made this will.”
Ernest held up his hand. “Don’t! Don’t! I can’t bear to hear Mama spoken of so!”
“But, Ernest, the money should be yours!”
“I can do without the money.”
Piers glared at Augusta. “I don’t see why the blazes you insist that the money should come to Uncle Ernest! What about Uncle Nick? What about Renny? Renny’s had the whole family to keep for years!”
“Shut up!” growled Renny, savagely.
“How dare you insult us?” cried Augusta. “This is my brothers’ home! I have been here to look after my mother. What could she have done without me, I should like to know?”
“Kept up an establishment of her own! She’d plenty of money!”
Nicholas pointed with his pipe at Piers. “Say one word more!” he thundered. He struggled to rise, but could not. Ernest sprang up, trembling, and went to him. Grasping his arm, he pulled him to his feet. Augusta also went to him, and the three stood together facing the younger generation.
“I repeat what I said,” said Piers.
Renny interrupted: “It doesn’t matter what he says! I’ve never grudged—”
Nicholas exclaimed, sardonically: “Well, now, that’s handsome of you! Very handsome of you! You haven’t grudged us a roof! Our meals! We ought to feel grateful. Eh, Augusta? Eh, Ernest?”
Renny’s face went white. “I don’t understand you. You purposely put me in the wrong!”
Augusta drew back her head with an almost snakelike movement. “If 1 had ever known! If I had ever dreamed! But, never mind, I shall be going back to England soon.”
“For God’s sake, be fair!” cried Renny. “Have I ever acted as though I didn’t want any one of you here? I have always wanted you. I always wanted Gran!”
Piers burst out: “That’s the trouble! Renny’s been too generous. And now this is the thanks he gets!”
“You to talk!” snarled Nicholas. “You who brought your wife here, when everyone was against it!”
“Yes, and who was she?” thrust Augusta.
Nicholas proceeded: “And what did she do? Made a little hell here!”
“Eden would have been all right,” cried Ernest, “if only she had let him alone!”
Piers strode toward them, his hands clenched, but Meg interrupted with: “Everyone talks so selfishly! As though his side of the question was the only one. What about me? Put off with an old India shawl and a big gold watch and chain no one ever carries the like of now!”
Augusta cried, passionately: “My mother’s watch was a valued possession to her! She thought you, as the only granddaughter, should have it, and those India shawls are priceless nowadays!”
“Yes! I’ve seen Boney make his bed on this one!”
Piers was trying to shoulder himself from Kenny’s restraining hand. “Do you expect me,” he muttered, “to let them say such things about Pheasant? I’ll murder someone before I’ve done!”
Renny said, with composure, though he was still white: “Don’t be a fool! The old people are all wrought up. They don’t know what they’re saying. If you care a straw for me, Piers, hang on to yourself!”
Piers bit his lip and scowled down at his boots.
Meg’s voice was heard again. “When I think of the lovely things she had! I could have borne her giving the ruby ring to Pheasant, if she’d treated me fairly afterward. But a watch and chain—and a
shawl
that Boney’d made a nest in!”
“Margaret!” thundered Augusta.
Meg’s face was a mask of obstinacy. “What I want to know is who the ruby ring really belongs to!”
“Belonged
to, you mean, before your grandmother gave it away,” corrected Maurice.
“I think,” said Ernest, “it was the one she intended for Alayne.”
“As though Alayne needed one of my grandmother’s rings!” Meg’s mask of obstinacy was broken by temper.
Renny said, with a chest vibration in his voice “Each grandson’s wife is to have a piece of jewellery, or the grandson a piece for his prospective wife. As I understand the will, Aunt Augusta and I are to make the choice. Isn’t that so, Aunt?”
Augusta nodded, judicially. “Pheasant already has her bequest.”
“She has nothing of the sort!” said Piers, vehemently. “The ruby ring was a present entirely outside the will.”
“I agree,” said Renny.
A sultry lull felt on the room for a moment, in which could be heard the ticking of the clock, the heavy breathing of Nicholas, and the loud tap of a woodpecker on a tree near the open window. The momentary silence was broken by Augusta’s contralto tones.
“The whole situation is disgraceful,” she said. “I’ve never known such insensibility. Here I and my brothers are put off with not very valuable personal possessions of my mother’s, and expected to be content while all the squabbling goes on among the rest of you over her jewels.”
Nicholas added fuel to the flame: “And the memory of our mother is insulted by one nephew who says she sponged on Renny—”
“And we, too,” put in Ernest.
Nicholas continued, gnawing his grey moustache: “While another nephew benevolently tells us that he’s never grudged us shelter and our meals!”
“If you’re going to bring that up again,” Renny exclaimed, despairingly, “I shall get out, and that’s flat!”
Maurice Vaughan said, heavily: “What we should all do is to get down to brass tacks, if possible, and find out why your grandmother did such an extraordinary thing as to leave all her money to Finch.”
Augusta reared her head in his direction. “My mother was deranged—there is no doubt of it.”
“Have you anything to go on?” asked Vauhan. “Had she been acting strangely, in your opinion?”
“I’ve noticed a difference.”
Meg asked eagerly: “What sort of things, Auntie?”
“For one thing, I overheard her several times talking to herself.”
Talking to herself! The phrase produced a strange tremor in the room. Those in the corners appeared to draw toward the centre, as though their intense individualism were about to be merged.
“Ha!” said Vaughan. “Did you notice anything singular in what she said? Did she ever mention Finch’s name?”
Augusta pressed her finger to her brow. “M—yes. Yes, she did! She muttered something once about Finch and a Chinese goddess.”
Nicholas leaned forward, clasping his gouty knee. “Did you ask her what she meant?”
“Yes. I said: ’Mama, whatever do you mean?’ and she said: That lad has guts, though you mightn’t think it!’… I did wish she would not use such coarse expressions!”
Vaughan looked at the faces about him. “I think that is sufficient proof. Do what you like about an appeal, but I think no one who was sane would ramble like that.”
Nicholas rolled his grey-crested head from side to side. He growled: “That’s nothing. If anyone could hear my mutterings to myself, I might easily be considered dotty.”
Piers flashed: “You may be, but the rest of us aren’t! It’s a case for the courts!”
“Yes, indeed!” chimed Meg. “We might easily arrange to have the money divided equally.”
Augusta cocked her Queen Alexandra fringe. “If it could be done—it’s really the just way out of the difficulty.”