The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (669 page)

Mazo wrote in
Finch’s Fortune:
“There they were, crowded into a taxi, making their way through the traffic of the London streets – Finch on one of the dropseats, almost dislocating his neck in the effort to see out of both windows at once. It was too unreal, seeing the places he had heard of so familiarly all his life. Westminster Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, the lions, Buckingham Palace! They thundered at him like a series of explosions. It was too much. It was overwhelming.”

As she wrote these lines, she was using memories from the recent past, when she and Caroline arrived in England. Mazo’s trip to London and Devon became Finch’s trip to London and Devon, so Finch’s trip was like a documentary in some ways. But Mazo was also inventing.

In
Finch’s Fortune
, Finch Whiteoak turns twentyone and receives the enormous inheritance his grandmother has left him. Although Finch generously gives large amounts of money to Piers and Meg, offers money to Renny, and takes his uncles on a longed-for trip to England, the family still criticizes him. Yet Gran seems to have shown wisdom in leaving her money to Finch. Renny, the head of the household, is showing poor judgment. He is spending all his time in the stables, neglecting his wife Alayne, and refusing to advise Finch on how to invest his money.

Finch joins his uncles on their trip to England and there begins to see his family in better perspective. He also meets a distant cousin with whom he falls in love. But she seems to love someone else – Finch’s best friend. Finch suffers his second breakdown. Will he recover?

Mazo and her young adopted children, Esmée and René.

Children

Our little family of two suddenly had become four
.

While Mazo was writing
Finch’s Fortune
, she and Caroline were enjoying themselves. They visited London several times and met fascinating people like Walter Allward, a Canadian sculptor who was working on a memorial for Vimy Ridge, the battle of the First World War in which many thousands of Canadians had been killed or wounded. They also went to see a Canadian actor, Raymond Massey who had a role in a play at the Savoy theatre. Massey introduced Mazo to other actors who were enthusiastic about the potential of
Jalna
as a play.>

Then in 1930 Mazo and Caroline took a four-month trip to North America to visit their old friends, relations, and acquaintances. They returned to England slowly, stopping in the Canary Islands, Casablanca, Algiers, Majorca, Naples, Taormina, Rome, Fiesole, and Paris. By the time they got back to Devon, Mazo had finished
Finch’s Fortune
, written several short stories, and begun a non-Jalna novel called
Lark Ascending
.

During these seemingly idyllic years of wandering and scribbling, Mazo and Caroline must have yearned for something more, for suddenly in 1931 they acquired two small children. The girl was about two-and-a-half years old, and the boy was about nine months. Mazo and Caroline named the girl “Esmée Verschoyle de la Roche.” They named the boy “René Richmond de la Roche.”

Where had the children come from? Whose children were they? Mazo and Caroline gave different information to different people, and some of the “information” was pure fiction. They never even told the children who they were.

Mazo told one person that the children had been left badly off by a dear friend of hers. She told another person that she and Caroline had met the children’s parents in Italy, that the father had died six months before the boy’s birth, and that the mother had died soon after the birth. Mazo told one person that the children’s parents had been killed in a car accident, and she told another that the parents had died of tuberculosis.

Some people speculated that Mazo was the birth mother of the children. Others speculated that Caroline was the birth mother. But, since (like most women of their day) Mazo and Caroline lied about their age, telling people they were younger than they were, no one except close relatives knew that both women were about fifty when the children were born. This fact makes their having given birth to either child very unlikely.

The whole truth has yet to be revealed, but a few more facts are known today. Recently Esmée (now Mrs. Rees) managed to obtain her birth and adoption certificates through a lawyer in England. Her birth certificate shows that Esmée’s original given-names were Margaret Elizabeth. It also shows that Esmée was born November 11, 1928 at Snug Cot, Selsea Avenue, Herne Bay. Herne Bay is a small town on the east coast of England in Kent County.

The full name of Esmée’s mother was Sybil Andrews Tester. The name of Esmée’s father is not given on the documents. The name Norah Andrews Tester appears on an appendix to the birth certificate. Presumably this is Sybil’s sister or mother.

A recent online search of public records in the United Kingdom indicates that a person named Sybil Andrews Tester was born about 1906 in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. This Sybil had an older sister named Norah Andrews Tester, born about 1903.

What of the other child that Mazo and Caroline adopted? Who was he? Unfortunately, all that is known is that he was born June 12, 1930 and that Mazo and Caroline always referred to him as Esmée’s natural brother. René died in 1984.

Were Esmée and René really brother and sister?

The children’s colouring differed. Esmée’s eyes were greyish blue, her eyelashes and eyebrows were dark, and her hair was the colour of pale honey. René’s eyes were brown and his hair was reddish gold. But the children do look alike in the black-and-white photographs of them taken when they were first adopted.

The children’s temperaments also differed. Esmée was lively, a little overbearing, and undemonstrative. René was gentle and affectionate. But birth order and different initial environments would help explain the children’s having different temperaments. Besides, most siblings do not look or act exactly alike.

Likely the children shared the same mother. Probably they also shared the same father.

In April 1931, Mazo and Caroline took the children to their Devon home, the farmhouse called Seckington. A few months later, the family left that house, which was too small and inconvenient, and moved to The Rectory in Hawkchurch Parish. The Rectory was a picturesque old dwelling with stone-mullioned windows arched like those of a cathedral. On the main floor there was a drawing room, dining room, and study. On the second floor there were three bedrooms, two dressing rooms, two nurseries, the bathroom, and a small room that Caroline used for typing. On the third floor there were bedrooms for the cook and the house parlourmaid.

The nurse – the woman who looked after the children – slept in the nursery. The man who worked as the gardener, chauffeur, and handyman slept in his own cottage.

Mazo and Caroline had begun to live an imitation of upper-class English life.

Mazo was not an acquisitive person, but Caroline wanted to live in a setting that suited their new circumstances. Caroline liked The Rectory. She felt it was a lovely, peaceful spot. While Mazo did her writing, Caroline had a wonderful time going around to the country auctions, buying furniture for the big old house.

Meanwhile the children spent most of their day with the staff. Charles Chant, the gardener/chauffeur/handyman, was a kind person who would seat the children on his shoulders while he marched along the garden paths. One of René’s first words was “Cha” for Chant. He called the cook “Coo-coo.” Both children shrieked with laughter as their nurse, or “nanny,” gave them their baths. They also enjoyed their hour or so after tea time with Mazo and Caroline, when all four danced to records on the gramophone. “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” was a favourite.

Mazo watched from the window of her study at The Rectory. Nurse had put little Esmée and René out on the gravel sweep, where it was dry, to enjoy the morning air. Nurse had provided the children with toys for their amusement before leaving them, but they were not playing. They were content to stare up at the moving clouds and the rooks, blown like flying leaves across the sky.

The children were dressed alike in fawn-coloured woollen suits and caps. Esmée was sitting in the chair. René occupied the perambulator.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!” cried the rooks. The black crow-like birds looked as though they were swimming in the wind. Now they were dipping low toward the dark mass of the ancient yew tree. Now they were rising high above the church tower.

The clock in the tower began to strike heavy, clanging strokes in the heavy air.

The children started as the first loud stroke assailed their sensitive ears. They looked at each other in alarm. But they recovered themselves almost at once and gazed up at the sky. They seemed to think that the strokes came from somewhere in the sky’s grey vastness.

Ten of them! It was ten o’clock.

The window of the nursery opened above Mazo’s head on the second floor.