The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (245 page)

“Oh, well, anyone can see that he’s got talent. I saw it long ago; that is why I chose Mr. Rogers.”

She made no reply for a moment, but still smiled, her soft blue eyes searching his. Then she said:

“I don’t think you realize, Renny, how strange your attitude toward Alayne is becoming. You have almost a possessive air. Sometimes I think it would be better if Eden had never brought her here. I’ve tried to like her, but—”

“Oh, my God!” said Renny, wheeling, and beginning to stride away. “You women make me sick. There’s no peace with you. Imagine the entire family by the ears because of a kid’s music lessons!” He gave a savage laugh.

Meg, watching him flounder, was aware of depths she had only half suspected. She said:

“It’s not that. It’s not that. It’s the feeling that there’s something wrong—some sinister influence at work. From the day Eden brought the girl here I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of something in her. Something fatal and dangerous. First she wormed her way—”

“Wormed her way’! Oh, Meggie, for heaven’s sake!”

“Yes, she did! She literally wormed her way into the confidence of the uncles. Then she captivated poor Finch. Just because she told him he was musical, he is willing to practise till he’s worn out and Grannie is ill. Then she turned Wake against me. He won’t mind a thing I say. And now you, Renny! But this is dangerous. Different. Oh, I’ve seen it coming.”

He had recovered himself.

“Meggie,” he said, stifling her in a rough tweed hug, “if you would ever eat a decent meal—you know you literally starve yourself—and ever go out anywhere for a change, you wouldn’t get such ideas into your head. They’re not like you. You are so sane, so well balanced. None of us has as sound a head as you. I depend on you in every way. You know that.”

She collapsed, weeping on his shoulder, overwhelmed by this primitive masculine appeal. But she was not convinced. Her sluggish nature was roused to activity against the machinations of Alayne and Lady Buckley.

That evening when Finch went to the drawing-room to practise he found the piano locked. He sought Renny in the harness room of the stable.

“Look here,” Finch burst out, almost crying, “what do you suppose? They’ve gone and locked me out. I can’t practise my lesson. They’ve been after me for a week about it, and now I’m locked out.”

Renny, pipe in mouth, continued to gaze in whole-souled admiration at a new russet saddle.

“Renny,” bawled Finch, “don’t you hear? They’ve locked me out of the drawing-room, and I met Rags in the hall and he gave one of his beastly grins and said, ‘Ow, Miss W’iteoak ‘as locked up that pianer. She’s not goin’ to ‘ave any pianer playin’ in the ‘ouse till the old lidy’s recovered. She’s in a pretty bad w’y, she is, with all your rattlety-bangin’.’ I’d like to know what I’m to do. I may as well throw the whole thing up if I’m not allowed to practise.”

Renny made sympathetic noises against the stem of his pipe and continued to gaze at the saddle.

Finch drove his hands into his pockets and slumped against the door jamb. He felt calmer now. Renny would do something, he was sure, but he dreaded a row with himself the centre of it.

At last the elder Whiteoak spoke. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Finch. I’ll ask Vaughan if you may practise on his piano. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. The housekeeper’s deaf, so her nerves won’t be upset. I’ll have the piano tuned. It used to be a good one. Then you’ll be quite independent.”

Soon young Finch might be seen plunging through the ravine on the dark December afternoons to the shabby, unused drawing-room at Vaughanlands. He brought new life to the old piano, and it, like land that had lain fallow for many years, responded joyfully to his labour, and sent up a stormy harvest of sound that shook the prismed chandelier. Often he was late for the evening meal, and would take what he could get in the kitchen from Mrs. Wragge. Several times Maurice Vaughan asked him to have his supper with him, and Finch felt very much a man, sitting opposite Maurice with a glass of beer beside him, and no question about his smoking.

Maurice always managed to bring the conversation around to Meggie. It was difficult for Finch to find anything pleasant to tell about her in these days, but he discovered that Maurice was even more interested to hear of her can-tankerousness than her sweetness. It seemed to give him a certain glum satisfaction to know that things were at sixes and sevens with her.

Finch had not been so happy since he was a very little fellow. He had perhaps never been so happy. He discovered in himself a yearning for perfection in the interpretation of his simple musical exercises, which he had never had in his Latin translations or his math. He discovered that he had a voice. All the way home through the black ravine he would sing, sometimes at the top of his lungs, sometimes in a tender, melancholy undertone.

But how his school work suffered! His report at the end of the term was appalling. As Eden said, he out-Finched himself. In the storm that followed, his one consolation was that a large share of the blame was hurled at Renny. However, that did him little good in the end, for Renny turned on him, cursing him for a young shirker and threatening to stop the lessons altogether. Aunt Augusta and Alayne stood by him, but with caution. Augusta did not want her visit to become too unpleasant, and Alayne had come to regard her position in the house as a voyageur making his difficult progress among treacherous rocks and raging rapids. She could endure it till the New Year—when Eden was to take a position in town which Mr. Evans had got for him—and no longer.

At this moment, when Finch, a naked wretch at the cart’s tail, with fingers of scorn pointing at him from all directions, alternately contemplated running away and suicide, he suddenly ceased to be an object of more than passing scorn, and
little Wakefield took the centre of the stage. Piers had for some time been missing cartridges. Wake had for an equal length of time seemed to have an unlimited supply of marshmallows. And a sneaking stable-boy had “split,” and it was discovered that Wake was emptying the cartridges, making neat little packets of the gunpowder, and selling it to the village boys for their own peculiar violences.

When cornered, Wake had denied all knowledge of gunpowder, whether in cartridges or bulk. But Meg and Piers, searching his little desk, had come upon the neat little packets, all ready to sell, with a box full of coppers, and even a carefully written account of sales and payments. It was serious. Meg said he must be whipped. The young Whiteoaks had set no high standard of morality for a little brother to live up to, but still this was too bad.

“Flog him well,” said Gran. “The Courts stole, but they never lied about it.”

“The Whiteoaks,” said Nicholas, “often lied, but they never stole.”

Ernest murmured: “Wakefield seems to combine the vices of both sides.”

“He’s a little rotter,” said Piers, “and it’s got to be taken out of him.”

Alayne was aghast at the thought of the airy and gentle Wake being subjected to the indignity of physical punishment. “Oh, couldn’t he please get off this time?” she begged. “I’m sure he’ll never do such a thing again.”

Piers gave a short scornful laugh. “The trouble with that kid is he’s been utterly ruined. If you’ll let me attend to him, I’ll wager he doesn’t pinch anything more.”

“I strongly disapprove of a delicate child like Wakefield being made to suffer,” said Lady Buckley

The culprit, listening in the hall, put his head between the curtains at this and showed his little white, tear-stained face.

“Go away, sir,” said Nicholas. “We’re discussing you.”

“Please, please—”

Renny, who had been captured for the conclave and who stood gloomily, cap in hand, with snow-crusted leggings, turned to go. “Well, I’m off.”

“Renny!” cried his sister, peremptorily. “Why are you going? You have got to whip Wake.” The opposition of Alayne and Augusta had turned her sisterly anxiety to correct the child into relentless obstinacy.

Renny stood with bent head, looking sulkily into his cap. “The last time I licked him, he shivered and cried half the night. I’ll not do it again.” And he turned into the hall, pushing Wakefield aside and slamming the front door behind him.

“Well, of all the damned sloppiness!” broke out Piers.

“Don’t worry,” said Meg, rising. “Wakefield shall be punished.” Her immobile sweet face was a shade paler than usual.

“This isn’t a woman’s job,” declared Piers. “I’ll do it.”

“No. You’ll be too hard on him.”

“Let me flog the boy,” cried Grandmother. “I’ve flogged boys before now. I’ve flogged Augusta. Haven’t I, Augusta? Get me my stick!” Her face purpled with excitement.

“Mamma, Mamma,” implored Ernest, “this is very bad for you.”

“Fan her,” said Nicholas. “She’s a terrible colour.”

Meg led Wakefield up the stairs. Piers, following her to the foot, entreated: “Now, for heaven’s sake don’t get chicken-hearted. If you’re going to do it, do it thoroughly.”

“Oh, don’t you wish it were you?” exclaimed Pheasant, tugging at his arm.

“Which?” he laughed. “Giving or getting one?”

“Getting, of course. It would do you good.”

Nicholas and Ernest also came into the hall, and after them shuffled Grandmother, so exhilarated that she walked alone, thumping her stick on the floor and muttering: “I’ve flogged boys before now.”

Finch draped himself against the newel post and thought of thrashings of his own. Augusta and Alayne shut themselves in the living room.

Eden came out of his room above to discover the cause of the disturbance, but Meg would not speak. With set face she pushed Wakefield before her into her room and closed the door. However, Piers, in vehement tones, sketched the recent criminal career of the youngest Whiteoak.

Eden perched on the handrail, gazing down at the faces of his brothers, uncles, and grandmother with delight. He said, dangling a leg:

“You’re priceless. It’s worth being interrupted in the very heart of a tropic poem to see your faces down there. You’re like paintings by the great masters: Old Woman with Stick. The Cronies (that’s Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest). Young Man with Red Face (you, Piers). Village Idiot (you, Finch). As a matter of fact, I was at my wit’s end for a rhyme. Perhaps brother Wake, in his anguish, will supply me with one.”

“What’s he saying?” asked Gran. “I won’t have any of his back chat.”

Ernest replied mildly: “He is just saying that we look as pretty as pictures, Mamma.”

“She’s beginning at last,” announced Piers, grinning.

A sound of sharp blows cascaded from Meg’s room, blows that carried the tingling impact of bare skin. Staccato feminine blows, that ceased as suddenly as they had begun.

“He’s not crying, poor little beggar,” said Eden.

“That’s because he’s not hurt,” stormed Piers. “What does the woman think she’s doing? Giving love taps to a kitten? Good Lord! She’d hardly begun till she’d stopped. Hi, Meggie, what’s the matter? Aren’t you going to lick the kid?”

Meg appeared at the door of her room. “I have whipped him. What do you want me to do?”

“You don’t mean to say that you call that a licking? Better not touch him at all. It’s a joke.”

“Yes,” agreed Nicholas, “if you’re going to tan a boy, do it thoroughly.”

Grandmother said, her foot on the bottom step: “I’d do it thoroughly. Let me at him!”

“Steady on, Mamma,” said Nicholas. “You can’t climb up there.”

“For God’s, sake, Meggie,” exclaimed Piers, “go back and give him something he’ll remember for more than five minutes!”

“Yes, yes, Meggie,” said Ernest, “a little swishing like that is worse than nothing.”

“Give him a real one! Give him a real one!” bawled Finch, suddenly stirred to ferocity. He had suffered, by God! Let that pampered little Wake suffer for a change.

Boney screamed: “Jab kutr! Nimak haram! Chore!”

Meg swept to the top of the stairs. “You are like a pack of wolves,” she said at white heat, “howling for the blood of one poor little lamb. Wake is not going to get one more stroke, so you may as well go back to your lairs.”

Eden threw his arms about her, and laid his head on her comfortable shoulder.

“How I love my family!” he exclaimed. “To think that after the New Year I shall be out of it all. Miss such lovely scenes as this.”

Meg did not try to understand Eden. She knew that he was pleased with her because he hugged her, and that was enough.

“Do you blame me for telling just how heartless I thought they were?”

“You were perfectly right, old girl.”

“Eden, I hope you won’t mind what I’m going to say, but I do wish Alayne would not interfere between me and the children. She has such ideas.”

“Oh, she has the habit of wanting to set everything right. She’s the same with me. Always telling me how unmethodical I am, and how untidy with my things. She means well enough. It’s just her little professorial ways.”

“Poor lamb!” said Meggie, stroking the shining casque of his hair.

Wake’s voice came, broken by sobs: “Meggie!”

Meg disengaged herself from Eden’s arms. “There, now, I must go to him, and tell him he’s forgiven.”

The party downstairs had retreated after Meggie’s attack, leaving a trail of wrangling behind them. Piers reached for his cap, and, stopping at the door of his grandmother’s room, said, loud enough for Alayne to hear: “They’re spoiling the two kids among them, anyway. As for Eden, he’s no better than another woman! “

“He’s like his poor flibbertigibbet mother,” said Gran.

The cloud under which Wakefield awoke next morning was no more than a light mist, soon dispelled by the sun of
returning favour. Before the day was over he was his own dignified, airy, and graceless self again, a little subdued perhaps, a little more anxious to please, a shade more subtle in the game of his life.

The game of life went on at Jalna. A stubborn heavy game, requiring not so much agility of mind as staying power and a thick skin. The old red house, behind the shelter of spruce and balsam, drew into itself as the winter settled in. It became the centre of whirling snow flurries. Later on, its roof, its gables, and all its lesser projections became bearers of a weight of slumbrous, unspotted snow. It was guarded by snow trees. It was walled by a snow hedge. It was decked, festooned, titivated by snow wreaths, garlands, and downy flakes. The sky leaned down toward it. The frozen earth pressed under it. Its habitants were cut off from the rest of the world. Except for occasional tracks in the snow, there was little sign of their existence. Only at night dim lights showed through the windows, not illuminating the rooms, but indicating by their mysterious glow that human beings were living, loving, suffering, desiring, beneath that roof.