Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
He broke out excitedly — “Tell me the truth! Why is Sarah doing this? I am sure you know.”
“She thinks — she blames Renny for your refusing to live with her.”
“Then — is she getting even with him? Or trying to force me back to her?”
“Either — or both. I’m not sure that I know.”
“Miss Archer, tell me the truth. Did you come to see whether you could persuade me to go back to Sarah?”
Harriet averted her eyes. It took some courage for her to reply.
“I thought perhaps if you knew…. People do come together again — after separation.”
“Not after a separation like ours,” he said savagely. “I tell you, I wouldn’t do that — not to save Jalna — not for Renny’s sake — well, it’s just unthinkable!”
She looked at him pathetically. “Do you think I ought to go to him — tell him what she has threatened?”
“No. I’ll go myself. He’s over there now, talking to Piers. I’ll go straight to him.”
“Do you think he will be able to raise the money?”
“I think he’d move heaven and earth to save Jalna.”
He smiled at her. It was the first time she had seen his wide boyish smile and her heart warmed to him. She said:
“He’s been so kind to me. No one in all my life has ever been so kind. I can’t bear to think …” She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Perhaps after you have talked with him, you will tell me what he said. I’ll just sit here and wait.”
Finch covered the ground between them and Renny in long strides. Renny turned an approving look on him.
“Well,” he said, “I haven’t seen you walk like that for a long while.”
“Look here, Renny.” He took Renny by the sleeve and drew him along the path. The wagon was lumbering away from them, leaving the evil smell of the Bordeaux mixture.
“Renny,” said Finch, “I’ve just been having a talk with Miss Archer.”
“I’m glad of that. Nice little woman, isn’t she? And fits in surprisingly well.”
Finch gave a short laugh. “Yes, surprisingly…. She has just been telling me that the mortgage on Jalna expires this summer. I’d forgotten.”
Renny’s eyebrows went up. “Why the devil should she tell you that?”
“Because Sarah has just told her that she intends to foreclose.”
Renny showed instant alarm but exclaimed:
“She won’t do it!”
“You don’t know Sarah if you say that. She’s absolutely relentless. Hasn’t she given you any warning?”
“She’s dropped hints. She’s said she’d like to own Jalna. She’s said she would like to spend the rest of her days here. Of course, the root of it all is, that she wants you.” He turned his penetrating gaze on Finch.
Finch bore it and its implications without flinching. He put his hands in his pockets and his fingers closed over the key of the piano. He said.
“And can’t have me.”
“That’s right! Stick to that! She’d ruin your life. I hate the sight of her myself.”
“Renny, what shall you do?” There was still in his tone something of the old implicit belief in Renny’s power.
The face he looked into was formidable enough at this moment to justify the belief. Its weather-beaten hardness was concentrated into a defensive widening of the nostrils and strengthening of the muscles about the mouth.
“I must raise the money! The witch is mistaken if she thinks she’ll ever make her nest in Jalna. If I can’t get any of my friends to help me out — and I’m afraid there’s not much chance of that — in these days — then I must sell off the horses — some of the land — I’ll sell my soul if necessary —” His eyes blazed into Finch’s.
Finch caught him by the arm. “Renny — the solution lies with me! It’s all as easy as rolling off a log! I have enough money left to pay off the mortgage. You must take it!”
Renny’s lips softened to tenderness. “You would do that, Finch? But you mustn’t! It isn’t fair!”
“But it is fair! It’s just — and nothing more.”
“God — it will take a load off my mind to have it in your hands instead of hers!”
“No, no, I don’t mean that! I don’t mean that at all! Renny, I don’t want to hold a mortgage on Jalna. I’d loathe it. It’s bad enough holding a mortgage on Vaughanlands. You know in your heart that it’s only fair you should have a share of Gran’s money. This is your share. You are to pay the money to Sarah and tear up the papers. I want nothing out of it — but my freedom! And I’ll feel a thousand times freer when she has her clutches off you — her death grip — her mortgage!” He was becoming too excited. His lips trembled. He began to shake all over. Looking at him, realizing what he was doing, Renny too was deeply moved. He could not speak. He just stood staring, his proud face softening more and more till his lips trembled also.
“Shut up!” he said gently. “You’re making a fool of yourself — and me too —” He took out a clean handkerchief, neatly folded, shook it and loudly blew his nose.
“It’s all right, isn’t it? You’ll do it straight away?” said Finch.
“Will I? It’s the happiest day of my life — I can tell you that. I’ve been worried over this more than anyone knows. I’ve been to the bank — I’ve tried to get a loan from them — but they’re being damned careful about loans in these days. As for selling my horses — it would ruin me! But that’s all over, thanks to you, Finch. You’re the best brother in the world, old man.”
“Don’t!” said Finch. “Don’t thank me, Renny. I can’t bear it!”
Abruptly he turned away and began to walk swiftly along the sandy path marked by the wheels of the farm wagon. From it he turned into the narrow bridle path that led through the wood. It was the first time this year that he had gone there. It was a place too pregnant with the memories of his boyhood — all those strange fears and exalted hopes. He had had the dread also of meeting Sarah there, for Piers had told him of seeing her in the very heart of it.
Now he did not give her a thought. He thought of nothing but the new lightness and strength that was pouring into him. His breast ached with the colossal uprising of his spirit. As he strode among the pines he struck his breast with his hand feeling the new power in him. He tried to think what this power was. It rose to him out of the land, as though from the soles of his feet. There was a communion between him and the land such as he had not felt in years. But this was something new because in it was the blending of his childhood, his boyhood, his manhood. All his past, present, and future, all the splendour and misery of his thoughts were one with the land…. He threw himself on the pine needles at the foot of the tall dark trees that shut out the sunlight and buried his face in his arms.
He lay there pressing his body against the life-giving earth. Why am I suddenly so strong, so well, he thought. What has broken the chains that held me to fear and pain? I don’t need to ask myself this. It is because I have given away the last of Gran’s money. I’ve given it to Renny who should have had it all…. I’ve been so selfish, so morbidly wrapped up in my own suffering, that I have forgotten the suffering of others. I was like a swimmer who has been submerged under a great wave, suffocating, cut off from the light and air. But now I can breathe. I can see the light … I’ve given away everything. I’ve forgotten myself. Now I’m conscious of all that’s about me — in a new way. There’s no fear in me. It goes through me like music…. like music….
He turned on his side and looked at his sensitive bony hand spread out on the pine needles. His hand had a new meaning. Something apart from himself. His fingers were like five separate beings with individual power of their own. But his wrist bound them to him.
He heard the most minute sounds…. Surely he heard the very rustling of the pine needles as they made room for those that, this moment, fell…. Surely he heard the murmurs of the moss that edged the hump of that strong root…. Was it not possible that he heard the pine roots communing with each other in the warm earth? Heard the faint cry of the bud as it first felt the air?
Something sharp pressed against his hip. He rolled over and thrust his hand in his pocket. He found the key of the piano and took it out. It was warmed by his body. He lay smiling, with it in his hand. The strange, yet rather fascinating discord the children had made on the piano that morning, began to go through his head.
P
AID IN
F
ULL
A
CARD WAS
stuck above the electric bell stating that it was out of order. But there was a knocker on the door, a man in armour made of brass. Renny knocked on this and the small sharp blows vibrated through the house. Sarah answered the door herself, standing on the threshold with the expectant air she always had now when summoned.
A shadow crossed her face when she saw who it was. Then she smiled a little and gave him a slanting inquisitive look, feeling sure that Miss Archer’s message had brought him there. If there was to be a scene between them, she thought, she would summon all the cruelty in her to hurt him as he had hurt her. But she spoke to him gently and they went into a small living room. This was the room where Antoine Lebraux had died, but Sarah had so changed it that it was not recognizable to Renny. It was furnished in green. The lamp was green-shaded and in its light their faces showed pallid, almost sinister. Magazines, boxes of sweets, and cushions were littered about. The air was heavy with the scent of Russian cigarettes. Yet Sarah looked cool and fresh. She glanced inquisitively at the dispatch case he carried in his hand.
He set it on the table and said:
“You may well look at it. There is a good deal of money in it. It’s the last of any transaction — business or otherwise — between you and me.”
She was mystified. She said:
“You look exactly like an agent of some sort — or a piano tuner. Have you come to tune my piano?”
“No. I’ve come to pay the piper.” He opened the case and showed her that it was filled with bank notes. “There — there is the amount of the mortgage in full!”
“The amount of the mortgage in full?” she repeated faintly.
“Yes. Miss Archer told me that you had made up your mind to foreclose, so I have brought the money. I suppose it’s idiotic of me but I couldn’t bear to pay it by cheque. I wanted to hand the actual money to you — to see the lump sum pass from my hands to yours. I wish I could have brought it in gold or even silver. But it would have been very inconvenient for you, even if I could have done it. Now, if you will sit down opposite me, I will count out the money on the table. I want you to be sure that it’s right.”
“Why, yes, if you like —” She sat down beside the table obediently like a child.
But she could not keep her mind on the counting. Her eyes moved from the capable shifting of the notes between his fingers to his face, greenish bronze in the strange light. So all her revenge on him had come to this? He was sitting opposite her unwelding, link by link, the chain by which she had thought to bind Jalna to her….
Curiously, as she watched him, her antagonism faded. It was possible that no heat of anger could survive in the watery-green light of the room. Her glance was almost obsequious as she watched the mound of notes grow beneath his hands, the thousands upon thousands of dollars. She said:
“It was wonderful that you could lay your hands on all that at a moment’s notice.”
“Ssh!” he returned sharply, and went on counting.
She drooped silent, submissive. When he had laid the last note on the pile he said:
“I couldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for Finch.”
Her breath was expelled in a sharp exhalation.
“Finch!” she repeated. “Did he lend you all that?”
“He didn’t lend it. He gave it.”
“But why should he do that?”
A smile flickered across Renny’s face.
“Oh,” he said, “I think you can guess.”
“You mean … so that I should have to go away from here?”
“Yes. I haven’t seen him look so happy in years as when he gave me that money.”
Her tone was almost confidential. “Then you think it’s absolutely hopeless — his ever coming back to me?”
“I told you that long ago. But you would persist. Now you can see that it’s quite useless. You’ll have to go away, Sarah.”
“But where can I go? What can I do?”
“Good God!” he answered testily. “You have the whole world before you! You’re young. You should find another man.”
“Finch is the one man I could love. He is the only being in the world who matters to me.”
“You should meet other people. It’s wrong to shut yourself up here like a hermit. It has made you neurotic.”
She was looking at him steadily. He was struck silent by the look of hate in her eyes.
“Why should you look at me like that?” he asked. “I’ve only done what is natural.”
She did not answer. She seemed to draw on all her reserve of power to concentrate her look on him.
He gave a short laugh and said — “Well, I’ve paid the money … so that’s the end of that.”
She shouted, with a vehemence that startled him — “I won’t take your money! I won’t have it!” She snatched up the mound of banknotes from the table and darted toward the glowing fire.
He sprang after her and caught her by the wrists. She gave a scream so piercing that he turned pale. She tore one hand free and with it struck him again and again. “You devil!” she screamed. “I’ll kill you!”
He held her off while he gathered up the notes. He thrust them into a deep drawer of the writing table, locked it, then tossed the key into the glowing coals.
She sank on to the couch and buried her face in her hands.
He asked — “Have you the papers in the house?”
“No,” she answered hoarsely. He scarcely knew the voice for Sarah’s.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I can get them later. But you must sign this receipt for the money…. If I’d known you’d carry on like this I should certainly have sent a cheque to your lawyer. Now, I want you to behave yourself and sit up.” He carried the receipt on a blotting pad to her side.
She sat up rigid and took the pen from his hands.
“Sign here,” he said, pointing the place with his finger. She signed. Then she raised her white face, Medusa-like under her black hair, to his: “If it had been you,” she said, “if it had been you I’d loved, you would have never cast me off. Oh, I wish it had been you!”