Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
He took up a candle from the chest nearby and held it close to the smiling child face.
“What a skin!” he said. “I wonder if it was as milky white as that!”
“I’m sure of it,” said Wakefield, “for little Adeline’s is just the same. Finch, wouldn’t Renny love to have this picture?”
“I’m afraid you would never part with it,” Finch said to Malahide.
Malahide’s hand, so nearly the colour of the candle wax that they seemed one, began to tremble. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “The day your brother buys the horse I’m interested in, I’ll send him the portrait as a token of friendship, as a charm to bring good luck.”
“He would be delighted,” said Wakefield. “When shall we see the horse?”
“The first thing after breakfast.”
Finch did not speak. He was wrapped in the strangeness of life that had turned that red-lipped child, with the flowerlike flesh, into the old, old woman he had called grandmother, who had left him her fortune, now all disappeared. He lingered behind the others, fascinated by the picture.
“And this was you, Gran,” he murmured.
As they sat over coffee in the drawing room Malahide told them of the horse. It had been bred and was now owned by a Mr. Madigan, who was in dire straits financially and would take a low price for the horse.
“He has little idea,” said Malahide, “of its glorious potentialities. He knows it can run, and run fast, for that has been proved. But I can see deeper than he can and I warn you that, if your brother misses this opportunity, he would miss the greatest in his life so far as racing is concerned.”
“How much do you think Mr. Madigan is asking for the horse?” asked Wakefield.
“I believe,” said Malahide solemnly, “that he would take as little as five hundred guineas for him. You probably have some idea of what he will be worth when he has won the Grand National.”
Wakefield drew a deep sigh. He knew that such a sum would be very hard for Renny to lay hands on. Then there would be the training of the horse and his keep. And always there was the chance of failure. He looked anxiously at Finch.
“I don’t think we ought to do it,” said Finch.
“There is no need to decide in a hurry,” said Malahide. “When you have seen the horse, write to your brother. Get him to come over to Ireland and see for himself. There’d be no harm in that, surely. We’ll have photographs taken and sent to him. Come now, let us put it out of our minds till the morning. There is so much to talk over.”
“It is a great joy,” said Mrs. Court, “to have you three young people here. It makes us believe that spring has come.”
They asked Finch to play for them and half reluctantly he went across to the piano seat. He had practised so much in the past weeks that he shrank from the very voice of the piano, yet the potent attraction of the keyboard drew him. He longed to put his hands on it as a man might long to touch a loved one. There was a violin lying on the piano. The sight of it brought back the memory of Sarah and the summer when he had first met her. Far clearer and more real than the moment he was living in came the recollection of those days in Devon when they had played Chopin and Brahms together. He could see her standing by the piano, her white still face slanting across the violin, her chin holding it close as though inexorably. He could see her narrow green eyes and the glossy braids of her black hair encircling her small head which he afterward came to think of as snake-like. And those pale hands, with their unguessed strength! The sweetness of her kisses, her warm sweet breath on his face! This dim, moist landscape beyond the windows became for him the sunny Devon fields, the rolling moors. Surely their first love had been the happiest time of his life! Yet, before the honeymoon, he was afraid of something in her. And after — her all-possessing passion for him, that left him no freedom, had sickened him, thrown a sickly light over all they did. Yet — now he wondered if the fault were not in himself. He knew he was not the sort of man Sarah should have loved. She should have loved a man like Renny. Indeed she had once said to him that, if she did not so hate Renny, she could have loved him. Certainly she had no attraction for Renny. Finch laid his hand on the violin to feel its vibrant smoothness. He heard Wakefield’s voice.
“He’s dreaming. But I believe he is in the mood to play. He’s good. I can tell you.”
That roused him and he sat down on the faded yellow velvet seat. He began softly to play — not the pieces he was preparing for his recital but some of those he had played with Sarah. As he played he kept looking at the violin and he fancied that it would speak to him. It seemed in some delicate and subtle fashion to respond to the vibration of the piano beneath it. The figures in the room became more and more dreamlike. He had a glimpse of Cousin Malahide’s ivory hand shielding his face, as though something in the music had made it vulnerable. He saw Mrs. Court, still as a statue, the candlelight shining on her forehead and in her fixed blue gaze. There was Paris, his face no longer laughing and gay but drawn together, as though he were searching his mind for something lost there. Wakefield sat with bent head and arms folded, his darkness not sparkling and rich-hued now, but sombre. Of what did he dream? “Oh, my darling Sarah,” thought Finch, over and over, “why did I drive you away from me? Why did my love turn to hate?”
As the three young men went along an upstairs corridor to their rooms, Paris held a hand curved about the candle he carried, yet the draught almost blew it out.
“It’s at this corner,” he said, “where the bit of wall is fallen down.”
Finch could see a jagged aperture at the corner and the wall all green and discoloured.
“It doesn’t trouble us at all,” said Paris, “except in the worst weather and then we hang a blanket over it.”
“Have you no electric light?” asked Wakefield. “For my own part I love the candlelight, but I was just wondering.”
“We did have electricity,” said Paris, “but my mother found that the servants wasted it, so she had it turned off at the main. Well, here we are, and if you’re anything like I am, you’re ready to tumble into bed at once.” He laid his hand on Finch’s arm. “Good Lord, I wish I could play like you! It wrings the heart out of one. Now, is there anything you want? Would you like some food on a tray? You might be hungry in the night.”
There was something unconvincing in this invitation and both brothers declared they could take nothing more till breakfast. Then they found themselves alone. Wakefield faced Finch with a little laugh.
“What a house!” he exclaimed. “And what people! Yet in some curious way I feel very near them. Of course, I’m very fond of Parry. His mother is an enigma but I like her. And I can’t help thinking that Cousin Malahide has been maligned by the family. You know, I can’t keep my eyes off him. He’s beautiful in an unholy sort of way. What do you feel about buying that horse, Finch? They’ve given you by far the better room. Mine is little and bare but I don’t mind. It takes me back to the monastery. Look at your bed hangings. Be careful they don’t fall down in the night and smother you.”
Finch answered him in monosyllables. He was tired and Wakefield’s manner of leaping from one subject to another always made him close up. He went to see Wakefield’s room to be rid of him, and so was.
As he shut his own door behind him he drew a deep breath of relief. He wanted to be alone. He took off his jacket and hung it up, stretched his arms and lighted a last cigarette. The casement was open and a musical drip of rain came from an eave. It was so damp he thought he would close the casement but found he could not because ivy had so strongly entwined itself about the hinges that they would not move. As he turned away he faced his own reflection in a tall pierglass whose tarnished gilt frame was topped by an eagle. He stood motionless, straining every nerve to discover what it was in the room that made him feel uneasy, as though he were not alone. He thought: —
“It’s exactly the setting for a ghost story. All that is needed is a headless monk or something of the sort to come from that cupboard.”
The thought had barely come into his mind when the door of the cupboard actually did move. He felt a creeping down his spine. He felt sick with fright. He riveted his eyes, brilliant with fright, on the moving door. It opened softly and his wife stepped into the room.
So often his imaginings had been fantastic that he did not for a moment think of her as real. He just stared at her, awaiting what might happen next.
But her voice, when it came, dispelled all thoughts of the supernatural. He had thought that Sarah must be dead and her spirit come to reproach him, but that voice, sweeter than any he had ever heard, with the sweetness of the muted notes of a violin, was warm and vibrant with life.
“Finch,” she said, “don’t be angry! I had to see you — just for a moment. I did not go down to dinner because I was afraid it would anger you. I hid here to have the joy of being near you for one little moment. Don’t be angry, Finch. Say you don’t hate me!”
“Sarah!” He said her name in a voice not his own but like the voice of a sleepwalker. “Was that your violin I saw?”
“Yes. I forgot to hide it.”
“I felt that you were near. But — not in the flesh.”
“Finch, my little one, say you don’t hate me.”
“I think — I’m not sure — but — oh, Sarah, I could not get you out of my mind.”
“You wanted me!” She gave a cry of delight and glided to him. How familiar was that gliding walk, in which the legs seemed scarcely to move but the whole body to swim forward.
Without his volition his arms were raised. He closed his eyes, then felt the weight of her against his breast. He felt the sweetness of her breath on his mouth. Strength surged into his body and a delirious wildness into his soul. He carried her to the four-poster, with its tattered brocade canopy, and laid her on it and knelt beside her.
“Finch,” she whispered, “say that we are to he united again. Oh, if you knew what an abyss of loneliness I have been through! Oh, your lovely eyes — let me kiss them!” She drew down his head and laid her lips first on one eyelid, then on another.
The door handle turned softly and Wakefield stood silhouetted against the light in the corridor.
“Did you call me, Finch?” he asked. “I thought I heard your voice.” He peered toward the bed and saw Finch kneeling there.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he said. “Finch, you are praying and I interrupted you! God bless you, Finch.” He closed the door gently and was gone.
In his own room he stood motionless, his dark head bent in thought. What a queer fellow Finch was! He never seemed to be religious — not outwardly — but in his heart he must be deeply so.
JOHNNY THE BIRD
W
AKEFIELD SLEPT SOUNDLY
, almost dreamlessly. Perhaps it was being in the country again, perhaps it was talking of the purchase of a horse for Renny, but whatever it was his one short dream was about his eldest brother. In it he was himself a child again and sleeping with Renny, as he had been accustomed to do. He had pains in his legs, as he had often had in those years of his delicacy, and Renny was rubbing them with his thin muscular hands. Lying on his back he looked up into that weather-bitten, highly-coloured face, with the lean flat cheeks and the hair growing in a russet peak on the forehead, and noted the concern for him written there. But he felt no gratitude or affection, just anger, and he heard himself say: “I’ve found you out! You can’t deceive me. You’re going to be married! You’ve got her hidden in this room!”
He had dreamed this in the moment before waking. He smiled as he remembered the dream and he looked up still smiling into the face of the pink-cheeked maid who had brought him early tea. He sat up in bed, his hair tousled, while she placed before him the tea and a plate of thin bread and butter.
“What sort of weather is it?” he asked.
“Sure ’tis the loveliest you ever seen. And one of the sheep in the pasture has a little new lamb.”
The air coming in at the window was mild and mistily sunny. Wakefield turned the two slices of bread together and rolled them into a cylinder. He took a large mouthful of tea and gayly greeted Finch when he opened the door.
“Hullo! How did you sleep? I believe the weather has changed.”
Finch closed the door behind him and came to the side of the bed. He looked at Wakefield almost sombrely. He said: —
“Wake, I’ve something to tell you. When you came into my room last night I wasn’t praying. I was kneeling beside Sarah. She was on the bed.”
Wakefield was for a moment astonished into immobility. He sat transfixed. Then he was frightened. He was afraid for Finch’s mind. Something terrible had happened to it. Coming to Ireland, into a house where she might well have visited sometime, had unhinged Finch. He was very tired. His nerves had been troubling him. Wakefield set the tray to one side and moved, with childlike swiftness, to his brother. He gripped his hand.
“It’s all right,” he said. “She hasn’t come back. You’ve been dreaming. You’ll never need to see her again, Finch.”
“I had need,” said Finch harshly. “She is in that room across the passage. She was with me all night. I slept with her.”
“That’s impossible.” Wakefield spoke sternly. “You dreamed it, Finch. You know you did. Sarah is not in this house.”
“If you don’t believe me, come and see her! She is there now, in the flesh. In the flesh, by God!”
Wakefield’s incredulity began to weaken. After all it was not impossible that Sarah should be in the house. She was a cousin of Malahide’s and might visit him, quite probably
would
visit him, if she thought it might lead to a meeting with Finch. His anger rose.
“Are you telling me in truth,” he said, “that that woman came to your room last night and that you slept with her?”
“Yes,” said Finch, in the same harsh voice, “I did. Not because she tempted me to but because I wanted to. I tell you, Wake, I am mad about her. And the reason everything has gone wrong with me, the reason I am not well, is because I would not live with her. I sent her away from me when I knew she was my salvation.”
“That is preposterous. And you know it. Sarah always sapped the vitality from you and tortured you by her very presence. Didn’t you beg Renny to keep her away from you? Didn’t you run up two flights of stairs and hide yourself in your room when she came into the house? You’ve said with your own lips, to me, that you hated her. This is just the madness of a moment, Finch. Tell me where she is and I will find her and talk to her. You must not see her again.”