Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
When the meal was finished he decided he would go to bed. Renny helped him up the stairs, helped him to undress, sat by his bed till he fell asleep, under the soothing influence of a glass of whisky and water. He bent over him as he slept, watching how the puffed-out breath set the shaggy grey moustache aquiver, fearful, because of the way of Ernest’s passing, that at any moment the breath might cease. But no — it went resolutely on, increasing in volume to a comfortable snore, and Renny tiptoed from the room.
In the passage he met Adeline. “I want you,” he said, “to go into Uncle Nick’s room every little while and see that he’s all right. I have things to do.”
She went and sat on the window seat on the landing. The dark curtains were drawn there but she parted them, making a crack through which she could look out into the night. The new moon, clean-cut as a poised dagger, hung above the hooded trees. Adeline felt an exhaustion she never before had experienced. She had had no sleep on the plane and her eyelids were as though weighted. An unutterable sadness pressed on her heart. She felt that she would never see Fitzturgis again. She recalled the astonishment, the incredulity, on his face at the idea of flying across the ocean for the funeral of an uncle. She recalled Finch’s brusque suggestion that they should say goodbye, there, on the spot. They had complied without protest. He had taken her in his arms, pressed his lips to hers, murmured a few words she could not hear, and left.
He was gone out of her life. Like Uncle Ernest’s, her life was over. It was done with.… The grandfather clock on the landing gathered itself together to strike the hour. It seemed to hum and haw over the striking, as though reluctant. But from Ernest’s bedroom the hour came, clear and sweet, from his little glass travelling clock whose visible works had always charmed her. Who would wind it now, she wondered. She knew where the key was kept, in the little drawer in the yew-tree desk in Ernest’s room … With a start, she remembered her father’s injunction to look in on Nicholas. She hastened to his room, only remembering to move quietly after she had reached the door. It stood open and through it, like a persistent call to life, sounded the old man’s snoring. It rumbled in his throat and shook his lips. Gentle moonlight just touched the articles on the dressing table. The rest of the room was very dark. The light glimmered on the tumbler in which had been the whisky and water. It touched the yellowish ivory of the toilet articles, bottles with silver stoppers, the glass of a framed photograph.
In the passage Alayne, coming up the stairs, met Adeline. How quietly everyone moved! It was Adeline’s first experience of death. She had a sudden desire to go to her mother and hide herself in her for protection. The heavy scent of flowers came up the stairway.
“We’ve had more people in,” said Alayne, with an exhausted smile. “I think that is the last of them.”
“I wish I could help.”
Alayne gave her a curious look. “what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Daddy told me to keep an eye on Uncle Nicholas.”
“Really, there is no need for that. Your father is over careful. In any case, I shall be quite near in my own room. You must go to bed, Adeline. You look terribly tired.”
“All right,” Adeline answered in a choking voice. “I’ll go.” She put her arms about Alayne and they clung together, in the most loving embrace they ever had known.
“You must not feel so badly, darling,” Alayne said, conscious of Adeline’s tears. “Let us be thankful that Uncle Ernest had no suffering.”
Adeline could not tell her that it was Fitzturgis for whom the tears came …
When the last of the visitors were gone Renny and Piers stood outdoors in the cool of the night. The moon had long since disappeared. It was very dark. Piers took out his cigarette lighter, the one Pheasant had given him on his last birthday, and held it to Renny’s cigarette. The flame illumined the aquiline features, the long flat cheeks, the brown eyes, in which there were greenish lights.
Piers thought, — “Old Redhead wears well. No matter how much worry he has, he is able to take it.”
The light from a window touched the leaves on the nearest trees. These few leaves stood out wetly bright, the rest were a dark mass. Finch came through the door and joined his brothers. It was characteristic of him that, on occasions of stress, he could look more grievously afflicted than anyone else. Now Renny and Piers regarded him with mingled tolerance and cynicism. Renny said:
“You’d better go to bed.”
“I’m not going to bed.”
“Then how would you like,” asked Renny, “to stay in the room with Uncle Ernest?”
“I couldn’t.” Finch’s voice came loudly. “I couldn’t possibly.”
Piers spoke soothingly. “Of course not. You’re tired out. We’re all tired out.” And he added, — “I was just saying I’ll be glad when all this is over.”
“He can’t forget his haying,” said Renny.
“It’s strange,” Finch’s voice was now low and husky, “how the crops are gathered in and, in our turn, we’re gathered in.”
“Sort of jolly merry-go-round, isn’t it?” said Piers.
Renny said, — “This is the first funeral at Jalna since Gran’s.”
“I’ll never forget that day,” said Piers. “The weather was perfect. The whole countryside turned out. There’ll be no such crowd tomorrow!”
“I’m afraid not,” agreed Renny. “Uncle Ernest had a retiring nature. He made no such impression. He didn’t live to be a hundred.”
Piers yawned. “I’m going home, fellows.”
“Be here in good time tomorrow,” adjured Renny.
Piers went to where his car was parked. In a moment he passed the others with a wave of the hand. The headlights of the car fell on a syringa bush in full bloom. The movement of air brought the sweet scent to the two standing in the darkness.
“You say you’re not going to bed?” asked Renny.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Come in and we’ll have a drink.”
Standing in the dining room by the sideboard they raised their glasses in silence. The portrait of their grandmother, in her yellow satin gown, smiled down on them, that of their grandfather, in his Hussar’s uniform, wore a look of unquestioned and unquestioning wellbeing, not reflected on the faces of his descendants.
“They lived in better days,” said Renny.
Finch nodded, feeling the glow of the spirits through all his nerves.
“It’s a funny thing,” continued Renny. “I’ve been through two wars. I’ve seen a lot of death. But …” He reached for the decanter and poured another drink. “But — I never grow …” he sought for a word, then added, — “less afraid. I have a horror of death. To tell you the truth, and you must never repeat this to Piers, I should like to hide in the woods till all this is over. It’s a sort of instinctive animal feeling that I can’t explain.
“Yet you are the one who attends to everything — insists that everything shall be properly done.”
“Naturally.”
Finch raised his voice a little. “And you are the one who suggested I should stay in that room tonight.”
“Yes,” he grinned.
Finch had swallowed his second drink far too quickly. His thoughts became confused, there was the roaring of a distant sea in his ears, Renny’s face appeared to him hawklike, the eyes gleaming, the grin cruel.
“It was a damn cruel thing to suggest,” he muttered.
“I wanted to find out about you.”
“Well, I didn’t do it and I wouldn’t do it for any man … Don’t think I didn’t love Uncle Ernest. I thought more of him than any of you did.” He spoke incoherently.
“That’s possible.”
“what I mean is, Uncle Ernest understood me better than anyone else did.”
“Ah, he had a kind heart.”
“He had an understanding heart.” Finch spoke angrily now, as though someone had denied this.
“True. Very true.”
Finch took another drink, this time in stormy silence, his hand shaking, his heart beating heavily.
“If you go to bed now,” said Renny, “you’ll sleep like a log.” He took Finch by the arm. “Come along,” he urged.
“No!” But he allowed himself to be propelled toward the door.
In the hall Renny halted abruptly, his eyes caught by a thin line of light beneath the door of Adeline’s room. This room had once been her grandmother’s.
“Look,” exclaimed Renny. “Adeline’s light! Good God, that child shouldn’t be sleeping down here alone.”
“Adeline’s a brave kid,” muttered Finch.
Renny tapped on the door. There was no answer. He gently opened it. Adeline’s clothes had been cast off in confusion over chairs and floor. She lay, in her white nightdress, without other covering, her white feet close together, one arm shielding her eyes.
“why, she’s grown !” exclaimed Renny. “How tall she is!” She uncovered her eyes and looked at them without surprise.
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” said Renny. “You should have gone to the spare room.”
“I wanted my own room. Mummy said to go with her but I said I’d stay here.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“I’ll shtay with her,” said Finch. “Lie on the floor outshide her door.”
“No. She shall go upstairs.” Renny put a hand beneath her head and raised her to a sitting position.
She looked up into his face. “Daddy, I want to see Uncle Ernest. Now. I can’t sleep till I do.”
“Very well, you shall.”
“No, Adeline, don’t do that,” Finch said hoarsely. “Don’t let her, Renny. It will be upsetting to her.”
Without answering, Renny set her on her feet. She stood white-draped, large-eyed, a symbol of youthful sorrow. Renny, with Finch following, led her along the hall to the door of the room where Ernest lay. He opened it.
At first Adeline could see only the flowers, wreath upon wreath, cross after cross, lying on the tables, lying on the casket, roses and lilies sending out their amorous scent, weighted with a cloying sweetness. Renny, with his arm close about her, led her to the casket. Finch stood a little behind. Her first thought was, why had they made Uncle Ernest so tidy? To be sure, his hair always was smooth, his clothes in order, but this terrible sleekness, this iron immaculateness, was unreal. And he who always had a pink complexion was now a strange waxen white. He wore a faint secretive smile, unlike any smile she had ever seen on Uncle Ernest’s face.
She looked at him quite calmly. This was not the dear old man over whose body she had romped as a child, who had been so eager for her to marry Maurice. This was a stranger. He was as unreal as the unreal flowers about him.
“It’s extraordinary how natural he looks, isn’t it?” said Renny.
“Yes,” she breathed, and added after a moment, — “I’d like to go now.”
“It’s a beautiful old face,” said Finch, and bent and kissed Ernest on the forehead.
“It is,” agreed Renny, “and he had a beautiful nature. There never was another Whiteoak with such a gentle disposition.”
They went into the dim hall, closing the door behind them.
“Now do you feel more natural?” Renny asked.
“Yes. I’ll go to whatever room you say.”
He led her up the stairs to the spare room, while Finch, with a muttered good-night, mounted, rather unsteadily, the second flight of stairs.
Alayne, in a dressing-gown, appeared from her room.
“This child,” said Renny, “has decided to sleep in the spare room after all.”
“That is what I begged her to do but she refused.” Alayne spoke in the impersonal tone of extreme weariness.
“Well — she sees now that you were right.”
Adeline stood between them, docile, in her long white nightdress. She looked on while they turned down the covers, plumped the pillow, and prepared a nest for her. When she was in it she looked up at them trustingly, lovingly, as when she was a child.
THE BELL TOLLS FOR ERNEST
Although Noah Binns was now a man of seventy-eight, he insisted that he should not only toll the bell for Ernest but dig his grave for him also. From the moment when he learned of Ernest’s death, these two acts loomed large in his mind, with himself as the central figure. A sparkling breeze tossed the leaves and it was pleasantly cool. He had made a good start with the grave on the day before, so this morning it was just a matter of digging it a little deeper and shaping it.
As he stood in the cool earth-smelling cavity he thought how remarkable it was that, in spite of all modern inventions, nothing better than a grave had been invented for the finish of a man. Noah made this remark to young Elmer Chalk who had succeeded him as sexton.
“There ain’t nothing better,” he said, “than a grave. It beats cremation hollow.”
“Give me cremation every time,” said Chalk.
“
Every time!
” repeated Noah, in derision. “There’s only one time. Why do you want to be cremated?”
“It’s cleaner.”
“I call ashes dirty. Who wants to be a handful of ashes? Let me keep my shape as long as it will last.”
“How long do you say it will last?”
Noah indicated, with a jerk of his earthy thumb, the graves enclosed in this plot. “If you was to open these up,” he said, “you’d be surprised. You’d find Captain Whiteoak; the old lady, his wife; their son Philip and his two wives; Philip’s son Eden, and them three babies — all with their clothes on.”
In spite of himself young Chalk was impressed.
“Just the same,” he said, “give me cremation. What about being buried alive?”
“I seen every one of these, except the babies, and, if ever folks was dead, they was.” With an air of finality he drove the spade into the rich earth.
“My grandfather, the blacksmith, knew them all.”
“And I dug
his
grave and it was a cheap coffin his folks gave him.”
“They gave him the best they could afford.”
“Hmph … Well, I have the money saved up in the bank to pay fer as fine a funeral for me as fer any danged Whiteoak.”
Still nettled, the young man returned, — “There won’t be so many to mourn for you, Mr. Binns.”
“I don’t want no mourning for me. But I’ve lived a danged sight better life than some of them that rests in this plot. That young feller, Eden, he was no good but you’d ha’ thought he was a saint, the way they buried him.”
“what did you expect them to do?”
“There’s ways and ways. Folks like them are gettin’ rare. Before long they’ll be distinct.”
“Extinct,” corrected Chalk.
“Have it your own way. That’s what young folks is like. They think they know it all. When I feel like givin’ a young feller a kick in the pants, I remember I hadn’t no sense when I was his age.”
It was seldom that Noah Binns was so talkative, but grave-digging always exhilarated him. It had been hard indeed for him because of advancing years to give up this profitable pleasure.
Now the job was done and he leant on his spade tired out. Young Chalk had gone and the churchyard was silent except for the flutter of birds’ wings as they hastened with food for their young, and the occasional passing of a motor car along the road below. Like some ancient robin, Noah drew an earthworm out from the side of the grave, examined it critically, then dropped it on the ground and drove the spade through it. He watched the agitation of the two halves for a moment, then planted his heavy boot on them.
There was now little enough time in which to go home, have some food, wash himself, and return to toll the bell for the service. He tossed out his spade, laid his hands on the sides of the grave, and prepared to heave himself out. But he could not. The grave was too deep and his arms were too tired. Again and again he heaved himself but each time his body seemed to grow heavier and his arms weaker. He began to feel exhausted, trapped. His voice, when he opened his mouth and called for young Chalk, came hollowly. His mouth hung open disclosing his one black tooth. He began desperately but weakly to call for help. At first the birds were frightened but they became used to the calling and a hen robin even dropped to the mound of earth beside the grave and began pecking in it for worms.
Noah felt ready to drop. In a panic he uttered a loud hoarse yell. “Help! Help!”
He heard steps, first on the gravel, then on the grass. He looked up, in mingled relief and chagrin, into the face of Renny Whiteoak. He had rather have been rescued by anyone else.
“Huh,” he grunted, with a truculent look upward, as though he would deny his predicament.
“what’s the matter?” demanded Renny.
“I’ve dug this here grave too deep. There ain’t no call fer any grave to be this deep. I can’t get out.”
“The digging’s too hard for you. You should have let Elmer do it.”
“Don’t you worry about me.” Noah stretched his mouth in a malevolent grin. “I’ll dig many a grave yet.”
“why, you were retired at our last churchwardens’ meeting.”
“I still dig for them as is over ninety. And I’d like to see anyone stop me!”
“My God,” exclaimed Renny, “I’ve a mind to leave you down there.”
“Then what’ll you do with your uncle? There ain’t room fer two?” Noah’s grin became jocular.
Renny frowned. “Come now,” he said, grasping Noah’s arms, “out with you!”
Profoundly relieved, Noah sprawled a moment on the grass, then gathered up his spade and earth-stained coat. Without a thank you he clumped down the steep path to the gate and along the roadside toward home. All the way there he grumbled over his ill-luck in being forced to call for help from a grave. Such a thing had never happened to him before.
By an odd coincidence the black coat which he wore to the funeral was an old one given to him by Ernest Whiteoak. He greatly fancied himself in it and, when he had washed, eaten, and donned it, he had a good look at himself in the little looking glass in his kitchen. The weather was turning hot again. His coat was tight. He was as thankful as it was possible for him to be when he got a lift right from his own door to the church. He felt quite fresh as he climbed the steps. He took off his black hat and laid it on a bench in the vestibule. In there it was quiet and cool. He examined the bell rope with great exactness, as though he feared it might not be strong enough to withstand the fervour of his pulling. High up in the steeple he could see the brazen bell hanging in slumber, waiting for his summons to toll.
The relations between Noah Binns and this bell were peculiar. He looked on it as having a proud, aloof, and stubborn nature which only he could control. He could, as he thought, make it talk, be jubilant, or strike its iron bosom in mourning. There was no doubt that the bell, on its part, was moody. For several years it had had a tendency to ring a flat and toneless note for a wedding and a cheerful flippant one for early Communion or a funeral. As Noah gazed up into the dimness where it hung he wore a look of grim command. As he dropped the bell rope from his hand a quiver ran along it, up to the brooding bell.
“Ninety-five strokes I’ll give the old gentleman. Ninety-five — if it kills me — one hundred and one I gave his old mother and had lumbago fer a week. Thirty-one to his nephew Eden. And so it goes — right back to a single ding fer a baby. A good thing it was that not all of them lived. There’s a danged sight too many of ’em.”
He straightened himself, spat on both palms, and grasped the rope. He pulled hard but, though the bell rocked in its high place, only a toneless grunt came from it. Noah bared his tooth in anger, put all the strength in him on to the rope. “Come now, get goin’, you rascal. Get goin’.”
He must have pulled too hard, for the bell now walloped in the steeple, its tongue, as though in its cheek, defying him. But, at last, he was able to bring forth the slow sonorous notes of the tolling, each one dying away over the summer fields before the next one struck. Noah counted them aloud, though his voice was inaudible, even to himself. So slow was the tolling that small birds, affrighted by a note, would fly from the roof of the church, circle, and alight again before the next one struck.
Young Chalk appeared in the vestibule, dressed in his Sunday clothes. “How’re you getting on?” he shouted.
“Fine.”
“Shall I take ahold too?”
“Shut up. Ye’re makin’ me lose count.”
Chalk stepped into the church. It was peaceful and cool in there but the air coming in at the windows was hot.
Before half the number of strokes had been counted, people began to appear, pass through the door and take seats quietly in the body of the church. Quite a number were already gathered when the hearse and the cars bearing the mourners appeared. Renny, Piers, Finch, and Nooky shouldered the coffin and carried it up the steep path. Slowly they approached the church, the bell knelling their progress.
In the vestibule, Renny turned his head to look at Noah who, straining on the bell-rope, increased the velocity of the strokes, in an exhausting attempt to achieve the ninety-fifth. His jaw dropped in dismay at Renny’s peremptory nod to desist. A final clang broke from the bell as the procession entered the church.
It passed the font which had been built for Ernest’s christening. Almost a century ago his weak infant body had lain in the arms of the Rector while water was sprinkled upon his face, he having already, through his godparents, renounced the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, and the carnal lusts of the flesh. Now, meekly he lay in his coffin before the chancel steps.
Mr. Fennel looked old and fragile, but his voice rang out clear and strong, saying:
“‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die!’”
Nicholas had walked very slowly along the aisle, leaning on the strong arm of Piers’ son Philip. He had let himself down into the pew cautiously, then rested his grey head on his hand, the light touching the heavy signet ring which he always wore. Alayne, sitting beside him, laid her hand on his arm, and, after a little, he took her hand in his.
Ernest lay, among his flowers, unable to hear the words that were spoken, or to smell the summer scents that filled the air. His favourite hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” did not penetrate his fastness. By ones and twos the people came forward to look in his face. Nicholas had taken his last look before they had left the house but now he strained upward in his seat to glimpse his brother’s profile once again.
The pallbearers raised the heavy coffin and the service proceeded by the grave.
Scarcely had the last of the congregation left the churchyard when young Chalk threw off his jacket and began to fill in the unsightly cavity with earth. As that mound diminished so the grave was filled, the grave was made and well shaped, it was covered by flowers. Chalk was joined by Noah Binns and the two looked down admiringly at their work.