The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (454 page)

They heard a step and Finch came into the room.

“This is my brother,” said Wakefield. Molly and Finch shook hands.

“How different you two are!” she exclaimed. She looked from one to the other, hesitated, then added, “But there’s a certain resemblance. I see it now.”

“It’s our devotion to art,” said Wakefield.

“Perhaps it’s our inability to make a living,” said Finch. He added: —

“Sarah will be down in a moment.” He moved rather nervously about the room. He asked: —

“How do you like the flowers?”

“Very much. But I wish there weren’t so many of them. Why did Sarah do it?”

Finch flushed. “In honor of Miss Griffith, I think.”

“It’s like the First Night of a star,” said Molly. “I shan’t know how to thank her.”

Wakefield went to look at the tea table. Certainly Henriette had done well as to cakes and there was a bright fire in the grate. She came sighing into the room with the teapot and looked appealingly at Wakefield.

“Everything’s beautiful,” he smiled.

“That’s a blessing,” she returned, in a lugubrious whisper, “for if I ’ad anything more to do I’d have dropped dead.”

Sarah had come into the room. Molly and Finch had been talking rather shyly when she appeared in the doorway. Finch said, in the same shy voice: — “This is my wife, Sarah, Miss Griffith.”

Molly had made no definite picture in her mind of the Sarah whose presence Wakefield so resented, yet she was startled and disconcerted by Sarah’s appearance. Perhaps, after the profusion of roses, lilies, and carnations, she had expected someone rather opulent, with hair that might justifiably be called tresses. Sarah came with her gliding step, looking, as Finch had once sneeringly remarked in the days when he was struggling not to love her, as though she were on wheels. She wore a kind of peignoir, very narrow and straight, of steel-grey moiré, fastened down the front by cut-steel buttons. The black plaits of her hair lay flat against her head, and from her small pale ears drops of tourmaline hung like frozen sea water.

Finch said — “Miss Griffith admires your flowers, darling. I told her you had bought them for her and she said they made her feel like a First Night.”

Sarah smiled, well pleased.

“I said,” put in Molly Griffith, hastily, “they made me think of a
star’s
First Night, not mine.”

Sarah still smiled but said nothing.

“Tea is in,” announced Wakefield.

“Oh, look, Finch!” cried Sarah. “The lovely cakes!”

She snatched one from the plate and began to eat it before she sat down.

Molly wondered whether she was going to like or hate her. She knew she was going to like Finch. There was an odd, hungry look in his eyes and his thin cheeks, but his laugh had a sudden hilarity and his mousy-fair hair was untidy like a small boy’s. “He keeps looking at Sarah in a puzzled way,” she thought, “as though he wondered why he loved her.”

“Have you many friends in London?” Finch asked.

“Very few. I don’t make friends easily.”

“You’re like me,” said Sarah. “I could travel over half Europe and never make a friend.”

“You wear such unfriendly clothes,” said Wakefield.

“But when I do make a friend, it is for always. I never change.”

Finch’s eyes were on her.

“What about enemies?” asked Wakefield.

She poured herself a second cup of tea. “I am always willing to turn an enemy into a friend.” She turned to Molly. “After tea will you and Wake do one of your scenes together for us?”

“I’m afraid not. We don’t know our parts well enough.”

Wakefield added, “We discovered today, with Mr. Fox’s help, how little we do know.”

“Not you,” said Molly.

“He was after me too.”

Sarah persisted. “Please do a scene. I love acting. Make them, Finch.”

“If you want to see Wakefield make a monkey of himself, I don’t,” said Finch. “Have one of these nice scones.”

“There goes the doorbell!” said Wakefield. “I’ll answer it and save poor old Henriette’s legs.”

But she was there before him and brought the cablegram into the room on a silver tray. The tray shook as she held it toward Wakefield.

“They always make me tremble,” she said. “There’d ought to be a law against them.”

All eyes were on Wakefield as he read.

S
AIL FOR
I
RELAND IN FORTNIGHT SEE YOU IN
L
ONDON
WRITING
R
ENNY
.

“He’s coming!” shouted Wakefield. “Renny’s coming! I knew he would! God, I hope we’ve done the right thing, Finch! How excited they must be at home! And how excited I am! Look, Molly, here he is.” He tore open the desk and took out a newspaper cutting to show her.

“Is he coming to stay ’ere?” asked Henriette. “Not that I mind a crowd. It’s just me veins as goes back on me.”

“Not he,” said Wakefield. “He’ll stay at a comfortable hotel.”

“Ah, I suppose so,” mourned Henriette. “I can’t make anyone comfortable, no matter ’ow I try.”

Sarah, Finch, and Wakefield chorused that they were more comfortable than ever before in their lives and, only partially mollified, she drifted moaning from the room.

Molly took the picture from Wakefield and saw a tall lean horse mounted by a tall lean man. Underneath was printed. “R. C. Whiteoak, Esq., on Mrs. Spindles.”

“There he is,” repeated Wakefield. “What do you think of him?”

“I like him,” she answered gravely. “And the horse too.”

“He rode that mare in the New York Horse Show and won a big prize.”

“Did he?” She held the picture from her as though she were long-sighted and added — “He brings the outdoors right into this room, doesn’t he?”

Sarah put out her hand. “Let me see the picture, please.”

She examined it with a little smile, then said, “I’m glad he’s coming.”

Wakefield thought — “So you can flaunt your recapture of Finch in his face, my girl! That cruel little smile isn’t for nothing.”

Finch was twisting his fingers together under the table.

“Aren’t you glad he’s coming, Finch?” asked Sarah.

“I’m always glad to see Renny,” he answered.

PREPARATIONS AND JOURNEYS

A
LAYNE HAD HOPED
that there would be no family discussion over the visit to Ireland but she was disappointed. Piers and his family, Meg and her family, Uncle Ernest and Aunt Harriet came as usual to dinner on Sunday. Throughout the meal and for an hour afterward the controversy raged, threading its way in and out of the question of Johnny the Bird, into fields quite unconnected with horses and even into the remote past, when Nicholas and Ernest had words as to which of them actually owned a carriage and pair they had kept in London, in the early nineties.

Perhaps because Meg and Maurice had been told nothing of the project till it was two days old, perhaps because they honestly thought the idea of buying Johnny the Bird was ridiculous and harebrained, they were heart and soul against it. They won Piers to their side, which stirred Renny to anger. The three made a solid implacable wall against his going. On his side, Renny had only the two old uncles (Nicholas nowadays became very much flustered when he argued, lost his breath and his heart thumped), Pheasant, and Aunt Harriet. Maurice and Meg both felt that Aunt Harriet, as a comparative newcomer, had no right to be so aggressive, but because she was charming to them and more especially to their daughter, Patience, they bore with her.

She leaned forward in her chair, talking volubly and with great clearness, on Renny’s behalf. She was thrilled and exhilarated by her part in such discussions. She was like a theatregoer who had long wished herself an actress and suddenly found herself one. She did not realize that what she said carried little weight with the family.

Even Ernest was glad when she stopped talking. Even Renny was faintly abashed by her partisanship, though he loved her for it. Alayne on her part sat silent, detached and amused. She knew that all the talk was futile. Renny had made up his mind to go. She had agreed. Nothing they said could stop him. Nothing they said could send him on his way. All was settled. Yet there he sat, when he did not in his excitement stride about the room, behaving as though all hung in the balance.

She was pleased with herself in this mood. It was one she did not often achieve. And Renny was so happy about going to Ireland. It was true that he needed a change, spiritually if not physically. She knew too that he yearned to see those two of “his boys” who were in London, especially Wakefield. Sometimes she thought that the desire to see him counted for more than his desire to inspect the horse, though it was the horse he talked of.

When the visitors were gone and Nicholas had heaved himself up the stairs to lie down for a bit, Renny and Alayne were left alone together. She had a feeling of tenderness for him. She had heard him attacked. She had heard him repeatedly justifying his actions. She had felt for the thousandth time that the family did not appreciate him or the generosity that was the very stuff of his being. He was going away from her, they would be separated for weeks, and the thought of the house without him was the thought of a hearth without fire. She went about the room putting it in order. Surely no other family could do so much to untidy a room. Maurice invariably left pipe ashes somewhere. Meg always managed, though no one saw her do it, to replace certain ornaments in the position they had occupied in her day. It was a constant struggle between her and Alayne as to where a certain china gentleman, with a three-cornered hat and a flute in his hands, should stand. Alayne now gave him an accusing look, took him from the mantelpiece and firmly replaced him in his obscure corner.

“Do you like him there?” asked Renny.

“I don’t really like him at all.”

Renny was astonished. “Why, I’ve always admired him, ever since I was Archie’s size.”

“I quite understand,” she said. “But, you see, I did not meet him till my taste was formed. I think he looks quite well on this table in the corner, don’t you?”

“He might easily get knocked off. He was one of my mother’s wedding presents.”

Alayne returned the flute player to the mantelpiece. She bent over Renny’s chair and kissed the top of his head. He caught her and set her on his knee.

“How long shall you be away?” she asked.

“Well, by one of the small ships, ten days each way. As the St. Lawrence is still frozen I shall have to sail from New York. Say three weeks coming and going. A week in Ireland. Another in London. Five weeks. Is that too long?”

“If not for you, I can bear it.”

“Alayne, come with me!”

“And add to the expense!”

“Good God, we haven’t had a voyage together since our honeymoon! Surely we can afford this!”

“You seem to think that as soon as you have a few thousand dollars ahead you can afford anything.”

“Anything in reason!”

She outlined the widow’s peak of hair on his forehead with her finger. “Is Johnny the Bird in reason?” she asked.

That look of flamboyant honesty which she deplored came into his eyes. She moved her finger from his forehead to his lips and pressed them together. “Don’t say it!” she said. “I don’t want you to be convincing and reasonable. I want you to go because you want so badly to go. Nothing you can say would make me believe in the wisdom of buying this horse.”

His eyes were almost pitying now. “Of course not,” he said. “Poor little girl! Do say you’ll come! We’d have a lovely time!”

“I could not possibly face an ocean voyage in March. You would have a dreadful time with me. No — you must take your holiday alone. Make it six weeks or more, if you’re enjoying yourself. Dear knows when you will be able to go again. But, whenever it is, I will go with you.”

“Me too!” cried a voice from the hall.

“Adeline,” said Alayne, “you should not creep up on people like that. It makes them feel that you’ve been listening. And you were!”

“I couldn’t help it. I just came down the stairs in an ordinary way. You were talking. Listen, Mummie!
Please
let me go with Daddy. I’ve been talking to Uncle Nick. He thinks I
ought
to go. He says a war may come. Then goodness knows when I can. If I go I’ll not be a bit of trouble. Once, when I was little, I went on the train with Daddy and he often says how good I was.”

Alayne interrupted — “There is no use of your talking about it. Your father would not want a child with him …”

“But I’m not just a
child
. Daddy says himself that I’ve a better head than lots of grown-up people.”

“About managing a horse! I dare say. But this is quite a different matter.”

“I’d love to take her,” put in Renny. Then added — “If I can’t have you.”

“I’d never ask to go,” said Adeline, “if she were going.”

“You may have sense, Adeline,” said Alayne, flushing, “but you certainly have not tact.”

Adeline stared. “What is tact?”

“Being careful never to hurt other people’s feelings.”

“Are you?”

“I hope so.” Sometimes she was aghast at Adeline’s power of angering her. It struck her in two ways. First Adeline’s intrepid air — not rude but intrepid, as though nothing could really subdue her. Then her physical vitality. She could never be said to be “bursting with health”; no — it was something much finer than that: the spring of the dark red waves from her forehead, the proud arch of her brows, her chest which seemed as though drawn by an invisible cord upward. Sometimes looking at it Alayne felt apprehension for the day when young breasts would swell there and a woman’s eyes would look at her out of Adeline’s face. She did want to be friends with her child and she did try, but how easily the anger flared!

Renny felt himself responsible in a fashion for those qualities in Adeline which were trying to Alayne. He slid from under the pressure of this by repeating that she was old Adeline over again, but he still felt himself responsible. He and Alayne had risen and separated. They stood looking down on their daughter, who, planted firmly on her shapely feet, stared up at them.

“I’d be no trouble at all,” she said. “I know all about dressing and washing. I’m never ill. If I’m sick it’s over with quickly — like the dogs. I have my new coat and hat and three pairs of shoes. And Uncle Nick has a scheme. You wait till you hear it. He’s coming down. He’s rested.”