The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (386 page)

Alayne watched them, standing rigid. She said to herself—“Let them go! I don’t care what they do to each other.” Aloud she asked:

“Is Alma up there?”

“Yes,” answered Pheasant. “Oh, that girl! She’s impossible! If only we could afford a proper nurse!”

“The children are like gipsies,” said Alayne. “I can do nothing with Adeline.”

“Did she sleep last night?”

“Sleep! There was no sleep in her till I was worn out. I have never known her worse. She not only laughed and shouted but struck herself on the eyes to keep awake.”

“Tck! How awful! Piers says he would spank her till she would ask for nothing better than sleep.”

“Piers is cruel. When I think of poor little Mooey! The injustice!”

But Pheasant was loyal to her mate. “All the evidence was against Mooey. Piers only did what any good father would. He doesn’t want his child to grow up into a menace to society, does he?”

She looked so pale, so ingenuous, as she said this, with her dark hair soft on her forehead and the child with Piers’s eyes in her arms, that Alayne suddenly kissed her.

“You’re a sweet thing, Pheasant,” she said.

There came a concerted howl from above and Pheasant hastened up the stairs.

Alayne returned to her room. “Let them do what they like,” she repeated to herself. “I don’t care.”

She was glad that Adeline had left the room. What peace without that fiery energy! The spring rain streamed down
the pane and bounced on the sill. Under the eaves nesting birds talked together in the budding Virginia creeper. She stood looking out. Her thoughts were on Renny.

“Oh, my darling,” she thought. “Oh, my darling. I wish you were here at this moment. If you were here now, I could show you all my love. I would kiss that abstracted, dark look out of your eyes. I know I could. Oh, Renny, Renny, I wish you were here!” Yet he was only in the stable. There was only that space of spring rain between them.

Augusta appeared in the open doorway. She said:

“I think, my dear, that we must speak seriously to Renny about the dilapidations of the house. The wallpaper in my room is disgraceful and I did not sleep half the night because of the clanging of a loose shutter.”

“I did not sleep either,” returned Alayne moodily.

“But why?” Augusta gave her a searching look.

“Oh, it was Adeline. She would not sleep—nor let me.”

“I have heard Renny’s mother complain of the very same thing. You must just be patient. But I am going away now and I should like to think that the dilapidations would be repaired this spring. My father and my brother kept the house in perfect order.”

“Times are different,” said Alayne sullenly. At the moment she felt antagonistic toward the older people who were always talking about the perfect conditions of the past.

Wragge came down the passage bearing a scuttle of coals. He set it down with an air at once deprecatory and impudent.

“I ’ope you’ll excuse me, madam; I ’ope you won’t tike it amiss me drawing your attention to this ’ere coal-scuttle. But w’at you see in there are the very last coals we’ve got. I’m on my w’y with them to Mr. Ernest’s fire. But the furnace fire’s out and there’s no more ordered that I knows of.”

Alayne fixed her eyes on the opposite wall. “I shall order coal this morning,” she said coldly

Wragge gave a wry smile. “Excuse me, ’m, but the dealer said as ’ow ’e wouldn’t deliver any more until the last was paid for.”

Alayne was angry, humiliated. She said: “I shall attend to that. Please take the scuttle away.” Augusta said—“I hope Mr. Ernest’s room is comfortable, Wragge.”

Wragge answered oilily, for he had in mind a farewell tip from Augusta:

“Oh, your Lidyship, I’d never let Mr. Ernest be uncomfortable! Not w’ile I’d a lump of coal in me cellar.”

“Well, I’m very glad of that,” said Augusta gravely.

Alayne thought—“One moment more and I shall scream. Renny told me that the last coal was paid for. Oh, what a liar he is! Oh, how can I endure this life!”

Pheasant came running down the attic stairs.

“Whatever do you suppose has happened? The roof of the nursery has been leaking and just now a quantity of plaster fell from the ceiling on to poor little Nooky’s cot! If he had been in it he would certainly have been killed! Oh, dear, it seems sometimes as though the whole family was bent on killing my poor little children—between neglect and cruelty!” She sat down midway on the stairs and buried her face in her hands.

“It’s not my fault!” said Alayne. “It’s not my fault if the roof falls in and the shutters clang and the wallpaper sags and there’s no coal in the cellar! If you must complain— complain to Renny! I’ve really as much as I can cope with.” She hurriedly descended the stairs to the hall below. Augusta and Pheasant were left staring at each other.

Alayne had scarcely reached the bottom of the stairs before she was ashamed of herself. She had never so lost her temper before in front of the others. She regretted that Aunt Augusta should carry away such an impression of her, and she half-turned back to apologise but could not quite make up her mind to it. She stood looking doubtfully at the door of the drawing-room deeply scored by the scratching of dogs seeking admittance there. Jock was sleeping now by the stove, his muddy feet turned toward the warmth. Piers’s wire-haired terrier, who had had her leg injured and wore a bandage smelling of carbolic, sat shivering on a chair by the hat stand.

Alayne drew a deep breath and went into the library to the telephone. She arranged for coal to be sent collect.

From there she went to the drawing-room, where she found Finch doubled over a book. His presence was comforting to her. She sat down near him and asked:

“What are you reading?”

He looked up, a strange smile flitting across his face. “Eden’s poems,” he answered.

She drew back rebuffed. It was morbid of Finch, she thought, to sit crouched there reading those poems of his dead brother, to smile in that hallucinated way as though he would draw the image of Eden between them, but she said gently:

“I think they are good but they have not the freshness and rapture of his earlier ones.”

“You could scarcely expect that. He was changing. The poems are full of inequalities. But there’s no indifference in them. His mind was on fire… Look here—I wonder if you’d care to see what the critics are saying about him. I’ve subscribed to a press-cutting agency.” He laid down the book and took an envelope filled with cuttings from his pocket.

He began reading them to her in a loud, rather tremulous voice, stressing, even rereading, the passages of warmest praise, one long hand holding the open book against his side, as though from its pages he drew some sustaining virtue. His presence overshadowed for her the words he read. What was to become of this lonely boy whose face showed the suffering and the strain he had been through!

She heard the side door open and close with a bang. She heard quick sharp steps, and the thought flew into her mind, scattering all else before it—“Here is my darling—the one I am longing for—the one who means more to me than all else in the world!…”

He came, dripping with rain, into the hall, followed by a bull terrier he had just acquired. Jock sat up and saw the newcomer. He could bear much. He was no fighter, but he could not bear the sight of the bull terrier. With a low growl he advanced toward him. In a moment the two were rolling over together, and young Biddy, unmindful of her injury, leaped in to aid Jock. Nip, hearing the hubbub, from where he slept on Nicholas’s bed, came bounding down the stairs and stood on the last step uttering ear-splitting yelps. Mrs. Wragge, just coming up from the basement, screamed.

The bull terrier had Jock’s foreleg gripped in his teeth. Renny was astride of them but he could not loose the bulldog’s hold. “Water,” he said to Finch, who, with the abandon of a hobbledehoy, flung down the basement stairs and reappeared with a bucket, slopping the water at every step. Mrs. Wragge had run to the dining room for a pepper-castor. “No, no,” Renny warned her away.

At last the dogs were separated; the bulldog led to the basement by Rags, Jock’s paw bandaged in Renny’s handkerchief, Biddy’s bandage replaced, and Renny, Alayne, and Mrs.
Wragge looked at each other across a pool of water on the rug. Nip still barked from the stairway.

“My word,” said Mrs. Wragge, “them dogfights do give me a turn! As many as I’Ve seen I can’t seem to get used to ’em.” She pressed a fat hand to her bosom.

Renny glanced at Alayne’s face and away again.

“You’d better,” he said to the cook, “have Bessie come and mop this up at once.”

“Yes, sir, though where to find her I don’t know, for she’s always hiding in corners. What I was going to say is that the kitchen range is smoking like all possessed an’ will do until the chimbley’s cleaned. Me eyes is smoked almost out of me ’ead along of it an’ the blood’s still running out of the joint an’ it a quarter to one by the kitchen clock though goodness knows it may be wrong for it’s been gaining on me this twelvemonth an’ I’ve asked times an’ times to ’ave it seen to. I Ope you don’t mind my speakin’ so, out of my own basement, sir.”

He grinned at her genially. “I’ll have the chimney cleaned tomorrow. Did the fishmonger bring the salmon? And did the cases of stout come?”

When Mrs. Wragge had gone, Alayne said, in a tone too low for Finch, who had re-entered the drawing-room, to hear:

“Do you know that there is always twice as much fish ordered as is needed? And must you have a case of stout? The bills for provisions in this house are appalling.”

He gave her an admiring look, as though he thought— “You are a shrewd little thing!”

He said—“I am used to seeing plenty of food on the table. I dislike cheese-paring. As for the stout—that is for Uncle Ernest. He needs it—poor old chap!”

“I’ve ordered coal,” she said, in a self-conscious voice. “It is to come collect. I’ll pay for it.”

He arched his brows. “My rich little wife!” he exclaimed. He put his arms about her and laid his head on her shoulder.

She clasped his hard body and thought—“He has no conscience. He is without conscience and he is as aloof as a tree, though he lays his head on my shoulder.” Now that she held him in her arms she was not thinking—“My darling—my own darling!”

He was aware that she was not approving of him. He straightened himself and, to change the subject, asked, with a jerk of his head toward the drawing-room:

“How is that boy getting on? His nerves, I mean.”

She drew a loosened strand of her hair into place and answered, half-petulantly:

“Oh—Finch! I don’t know. He never plays the piano. He is in there now… reading Eden’s poems.”

“Is he really! He was very fond of Eden. We all were, weren’t we? We, all of us, miss him…” He looked at her challengingly

She thought—“He is angry with me because I am not mourning for Eden. Was there ever such a position!”

He went to the door of the drawing-room and looked in. Finch was sunk in a deep chair, his hands clasped on his chest, his legs stretched at full length.

“Hullo, Finch,” said Renny, “is your cold better?”

“Yes, thanks,” he answered, without looking up.

Renny frowned at him speculatively, then said:

“There’s just time before dinner for you to play a piece. Play me something nice, will you? I’m a bit tired and I’d like some good music.”

“I can’t play,” growled Finch.

“Come now—just a short piece—a fugue or a gavotte— or something of the sort.”

Finch looked at him, suddenly suspicious. Was he being baited? “You know I’m off colour,” he growled. “Why I—I’m hardly able to play a scale. I daren’t try.”

Renny came into the room and turned over some music on the piano. “This looks easy,” he said. “Try this.”

Finch began to laugh. He laughed suddenly, naturally.

Renny grinned. “Come now. Try this over. To please me.”

Alayne, in the doorway, was making signs to him to desist.

Rags intervened by a prolonged sounding of the gong. The noise swelled to a deafening clamour, diminished, swelled again and, at last, as the family were collected, died away, and Rags, with a grand air, appeared at Renny’s elbow. Renny looked up at him and asked an inaudible question to which Rags replied by a humorous pantomime affirmative.

Ernest had seated himself with a sigh. Nicholas had not appeared.

“Where is Uncle Nick?” asked Renny.

“He can’t get out of his bed,” answered Ernest. “His gout is very bad. He’s having a tray. No wonder he feels the weather. It is terrible. Terrible.” The rain drove against the pane. “I’m afraid I shouldn’t take roast pork, Renny,” he said, “but it looks very nice. And apple sauce, too. I’m very fond of that.”

“It will do you good,” encouraged Renny, and cut him a juicy slice.

But when it was set in front of him, Ernest did not begin to eat. He stared, seeing nothing, and then he yawned without restraint. “Oh, ho, ho, ho,” he yawned.

Mooey, with poised fork, was entertained.

“Oh, ho, ho, ho,” he imitated, in his pretty treble.

“Don’t imitate me, boy,” said Ernest sternly.

Pheasant commanded her son to attend to his dinner.

“But,” she observed, “there’s an old saying that yawning is contagious and I really believe it is, for I feel like yawning myself this very minute.”

Piers pinched her thigh and she laughed instead.

Laughter was pleasant in Renny’s ears these days. He gave a bark of laughter himself, though he did not know what the joke was about.

Pheasant, seeing his good-humour, said:

“Have you heard about the plaster? A huge piece of it has fallen off the nursery ceiling right into poor little Nooky’s cot.”

The master of Jalna was noisily crunching a bit of crisp rind.

“Was Nooky in the cot?” he asked.

“Good heavens, no!”

“Why worry then?”

“But he
might
have been killed!”

Piers asked sharply of Renny—“Aren’t you going to send for the plasterer? The entire ceiling should be done.”

Renny dropped a piece of meat to one of his spaniels and watched the dog devour it without replying.