Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
As Renny and Alayne entered the door they saw him beneath the tower, bent double in the effort of pulling the rope. He gave a toothless grin at Renny.
“Dang him,” he thought, “he’d better come!”
Renny had gone round to the vestry to get into his surplice. It was the first time in Alayne’s life that she had walked down that aisle alone. Surely the old grandmother was at her side! Or Aunt Augusta, or Eden! But why should she think of the dead rather than the living? Her answer to her own question was — “I have a naturally unhappy disposition. No matter how gay I am — as I was gay with Renny a moment ago — I’m far too ready to turn to introspection and melancholy.”
She saw Piers look over his shoulder and stare in surprise at her. Then Pheasant looked and stared in surprise. Then the three round faces of the little boys showed their surprise over the back of the pew. She went into the pew behind them and knelt down.
Miss Pink began to play softly on the organ. The Vaughans were just coming in. Alayne saw Meg’s eyes sweep the family already assembled. She saw her whisper the news of
her
presence to Maurice. He looked decorously across the aisle at her and smiled. Patience was plainly conscious of the new hat with long ribbons that Renny had brought her from London. Alayne now felt the approach of Ernest and her Aunt Harriet. Ernest’s clearing of his throat was scarcely audible yet so characteristic. There was a faint odor of Hoyt’s cologne emanating from Aunt Harriet. Yes — she was right — they were coming into the seat with her.
Ernest whispered, “Is anything wrong with Nicholas?”
“He’s just rather tired.”
She saw the shadow on Ernest’s face. She knew he worried about his brother. He could not tolerate the thought that Nick might be failing. Aunt Harriet leaned across him to say: —
“How nice it is to see you at church, dear” Alayne smiled in return but her smile was a little wry. She could not help remembering how earnest a Unitarian her aunt had been and how she had always held a gentle contempt for what she thought of as the less intellectual denominations. But Aunt Harriet had considered it a wifely duty to accept her husband’s religious faith. She could not expect, at his time of life, to change his views, but the gusto with which she accepted that faith was highly irritating to her niece. Aunt Harriet had in fact taken the little church, its Rector, and the Book of Common Prayer under her wing. She was President of the Women’s Auxiliary.
Alayne remembered intellectual religious discussions between her father and Aunt Harriet. She wondered what her father would think if he could see his sister today.
She heard Noah Binns’s boots squeak as he made his way to a back seat. Miss Pink began to play the Processional hymn. The voices of the choir rose. The chirping of the little birds outside the window near her was silenced. The round heads of the choirboys reached her side. But it was Ernest, Piers, Maurice, Meg, and Renny who led the singing. It was their nature to sing fast. It was Miss Pink’s nature to play slowly. Year in, year out, the duel between Miss Pink and the Whiteoaks went on, without either side losing the sense of their own entire rightness. The heavy notes of the organ clung like millstones round the necks of the family but without avail. The last syllable of the Amen came roundly from their throats before she had tackled the first. Midway between these opposing forces the helpless choir wavered, now hastening with the Whiteoaks, now dragging behind with Miss Pink. Mr. Fennel, the Rector, had long ago solved the problem for himself. He gave no heed to the organist, the choir, or the family, but sang to suit his own mood, in a particularly fine baritone. Now, with his open hymnal before him, his beard spread on his breast, he came at the end of the procession. Renny walked ahead of him, his eyes fixed on the stained-glass windows of the chancel which were dedicated to the memory of Captain Philip Whiteoak and his wife, Adeline.
As Renny’s surplice touched Alayne’s shoulder she glanced swiftly into his face. How many billions of faces in the world, she thought, yet only one that had the power of making heaven or hell for her. Deeply as she loved her son he could never take his father’s place. Sexual love was stronger than maternity. Yet, knowing herself, she felt that this should not have been so. If she had not been uprooted from her own sphere, she thought, it would not have been so. But she would not have had her life otherwise.
In the vestry, his head just having emerged through his surplice, Renny had been greeted by Mr. Fennel.
“It’s good to have you back,” he had said. “I’ve heard that the trip was a great success.”
“Yes, yes — I bought a grand horse.”
“In Ireland, eh?”
“Yes. In Ireland.”
“How are Finch and Wakefield?”
“Fine.”
“You know what the Lessons are?”
“Yes. Uncle Nicholas found them for me.”
“Good. There goes the organ. Are you ready, boys?”
The choirboys shuffled their feet and made their soap-shiny faces solemn. Renny poked one of them with his hymnbook.
“You’re out of line,” he said.
They passed through the door and began to move decorously down the aisle.
Kneeling in the chancel, the smell of his freshly ironed surplice in his nostrils, the worn leather book in his hand, he thought how good it was to be at home again. Wherever he went, no matter how long he stayed, it was good to be home again. This was his place. He had a pity for men who had no fixed or definite place in life. In varying degrees he knew every soul under this roof. A stranger seldom came in at the door. From Noah Binns, whom he had always disliked, to Alayne whom he loved with passion, each one fitted into the scheme of things as the pieces of stained glass fitted into the windows. Each was needed to complete the design. He was conscious of his own dire deficiencies but felt, without humility, that he was needed too. Somehow he was the receptacle of what had once lived in his forefathers. He was tough-fibred and strong. That something he would guard and pass on to his son.
He went to the lectern to read the first Lesson. He saw Alayne’s eyes on him. He knew she did not enjoy coming to church. She had come to be near him. They would walk back through the fields together. He cleared his throat and read: —
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straight-way forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
Alayne thought — “What grand words! I wish they might be shouted from the housetops in these days. I wonder what Renny thinks of them. Or does he think about the Lessons? He read better than usual. Today he seems almost perfect to me. If only I could go on feeling like this!” She gave her little ironic smile. One thing she liked about church. It was a good place for thinking in.
The service was over before she realized it, she was so deep in thought. She had made no attempt to listen to the sermon. In a dream she rose at the end with the others, passed down the aisle and waited outside the door for Renny. She lifted her face to the sweetness of the breeze. The air inside the church had grown close. Not feeling unfriendly but merely aloof, she moved away from the family and walked slowly down the steep path toward the gate. She knew they would not be pleased at her doing this but she did not care. They all would be at Jalna for lunch. She was entitled to this privacy. She wanted to make sure that Renny and she would have the walk home together. She clung, with almost pathetic tenderness, to these first moments of isolation with him. In a strange way the feeling of her first love for him came back to her, its troubled and perilous straining toward their moments alone. She shunned every face she knew and walked out of the gate and down the road alone.
He came running after her.
“You are in a hurry!” he said.
He gave her a swift look, conscious of some emotion in her deeper than she would reveal. He smiled down into her face.
“I had to shake hands with everybody,” he said, “and they all seemed to know I’d bought Johnny the Bird.”
“Darling,” she said, and caught his fingers in hers.
They dallied on the way home, following the stream, looking for the first hepaticas. The sun came out hot. Alayne’s shoes were muddy. It was a long while since she had been so carefree and happy. She was glad that she had not stood in the way of his going to Ireland. “If anything happens to him,” she thought, “I can say that I did not stand in the way of his doing the things he most wanted to.”
It was the first time she had ever thought of anything happening to him. He had seemed immune to illness and danger. Since their marriage he had had many accidents but had come through them so well that she had a sudden feeling of shame to remember how calmly she had taken the news of a bone broken in polo, cuts and bruises in his other activities. Suddenly, moving among the trees, he looked strangely vulnerable in his quickness and leanness. Why, a bullet, a splinter of shell, would kill or blind him as easily as any man. She knew that, if war came, he would join his old regiment. What if she should lose him or have him returned to her arms maimed?
When they reached Jalna the family was there in full possession. Returning and finding them everywhere Alayne felt how slight was her hold on the place, compared to theirs. In truth she never had had any feeling of possession toward the old house. Like an alloy, which it could not absorb into its metal, it rejected her. Yet young Philip Whiteoak, who had not slept half a dozen nights under its roof, seemed as much a part of the place as Piers.
Nicholas was rested, freshly shaved and eager for company. He and Paris had had a long talk and Nicholas had decided that the young man was as unlike his father as possible and a very lively companion. Everyone asked questions about Johnny the Bird, the Grand National, the house in Gayfere Street and the doings of Finch and Wakefield. Maurice and Meg both said they thought it was a good thing that Finch and Sarah had come together again. It did seem a pity that her fortune should be lost to the family.
Paris Court had heard Jalna and its occupants so often described by his father, yet described as they were thirty years ago, that he had a strange dreamlike feeling, as though he had slept and woken to find figures in some familiar tale grown up or aged in the interval. What a letter he would write home! He pictured his father and mother laughing over it for weeks. The well-stocked stables, the crowded table, the abundant food, the sense of plenty, gave Paris the feeling that the Whiteoaks were indeed relatives to be cherished, to say nothing of the fact that he liked them for their own sakes. The portrait his father had given Renny was a delight to the family. Adeline, the child, was hung beside Adeline the young woman, and the living Adeline was stood beneath them for comparison and a deep satisfaction.
If anything were needed to spoil her further, thought Alayne, the visit abroad and the acquiring of the picture were enough. Adeline’s head was carried more overbearingly, if possible, her glance was more daring than before. Yet she was overflowing with love and her gentleness toward Archer was charming. He, coming downstairs in his Sunday best and finding the house full of people, walked among them as though the weight of the world were on his brow.
“Upon my word,” said Meg, “the look of him would turn sweet milk sour.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” said Nicholas. “He really is a good old scout, aren’t you, Archie?”
Archer gave a wry smile, stared past them and marched on about his business.
The afternoon was well on its way before Renny was able to have Piers to himself. He took him to his own room further to inspect the photographs and record of Johnny the Bird. While Piers was still examining these Renny said: — “It strikes me that Mooey isn’t coming along very well.”
Piers frowned and answered impatiently — “You’re right. He’s a problem, that boy. He’s growing fast yet he doesn’t eat as he should. He’s lackadaisical about riding. He gets in a blue funk if a horse begins to cut up. If I reprimand him he’s on the point of tears. I’d think he was like those artistic brothers of ours but he doesn’t show any talent for anything — not for anything.”
“I’ve always been fond of Mooey,” said Renny.
“Good Lord, so have I! If I hadn’t I’d have skinned him alive. Now I understand Nook — more or less. But I don’t understand Mooey and never shall.”
Renny took a pipe from the rack and began to fill it. He said, “I was telling Cousin Dermot about Mooey.”
Piers looked vague and said, “Oh, were you?”
“He was very much interested in him. His own sons are dead and his only grandson was killed in the hunting field some years ago. He has a nice fortune and he has no heir. He liked what I told him about Mooey.”
Piers opened his eyes wide. What was coming? Now he was completely alert.
“The upshot of our talk was,” Renny went on, “that Cousin Dermot would like to have Mooey visit him. If they got on well together — and I’m sure they would — he would want to keep Mooey as his own son — make him his heir. It would be a grand thing for the boy.”
“How long do you think the old man will live?” asked Piers.
“Do you ask that from a mercenary point of view?” asked Renny sharply.
“You are asking me to part with my eldest son!”
“Well — Cousin Dermot says he’s good for another ten years, and I’m inclined to believe him. Mooey would then be twenty-three.”
“Pheasant would never agree.”
“We should tell her that it would be just a visit but that it might lead to Cousin Dermot making the boy his heir. Pheasant’s too sensible not to realize what that would mean to Mooey. It would change his whole life, without a doubt.”
“When does he want him to go? How would he get there?”
“I am thinking of sending Wright over to help with the training of the horse. I want someone of my own on the spot. Wright would look after Mooey very well. He’s known him all his life.”