The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (453 page)

“I’m afraid of him,” said Molly, as she and Wakefield sat at lunch in the tiny basement restaurant round the corner.

“Don’t you dare be afraid of anyone,” said Wakefield. “I won’t have it, as my grandmother used to say.”

“You are the first boy I’ve ever known to quote his grandmother!”

“We all of us do. She made an impression on us that we can’t get over.”

“It’s not natural to me to be afraid but there’s something in Mr. Fox — anyhow, I’m terribly happy. Did you have a good time in Ireland?”

Wakefield frowned. “It was rotten.”

“Do you mean the crossing? Didn’t you like the horse?”

“The sea was rough enough. I still feel a bit liverish. The horse is simply grand. Johnny the Bird, his name is.”

“What a lovely name! It sounds so devil-may-care and Irish.”

“Something really did go wrong,” said Wakefield, gravely. “I think I told you that the brother I live with was separated from his wife. It was right that he should be. But he met her in my cousin’s house and they’ve come together again. She’s come to live with Finch and me and I wish she hadn’t! That’s all.”

“Then shan’t I be able to go to tea with you and your brother, as you promised?” A candid disappointment clouded her eyes. “She’ll probably not want me.”

“Sarah will be very nice to you. I’m sure of that. I wonder what you will think of her. You must come soon. Let’s see — you can come tomorrow afternoon?”

She gave a little laugh. “I’m open for engagements at any time. That’s not as pushing as it sounds. It just means that I’m rather lonely and that —” She hesitated.

“That you rather like me?” Wakefield’s dark eyes laughed into hers.

“I heard it said of you this morning that you are extremely likable.”

The waitress appeared with her tray and set their chops before them.

“How lovely!” she said, staring at them hard, like a child.

She looked too well pleased, he thought, and after eating in silence for a space he said ingenuously: —

“You know, I was wondering if you’d like to borrow a few pounds from me, till our first salaries are paid. I’ve just had a check from home.”

A bright colour came into her thin cheeks.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t borrow,” she said quickly. “I never have and I’m not going to begin.”

“I’m dying to do something for you — however small. I think you might let me. Do, please!”

She began to laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

“The expression on your face. I can see just how you begged for things as a little boy — as though your life depended on getting them. I’ll bet you were spoilt.”

“I was not,” he answered huffily. “I was made to behave by a grandmother, an aunt, a sister, and two uncles of the Victorian school, as well as several hard-handed brothers.”

“And you got the best of them all! I can just see you doing it.”

“I didn’t think you could be so unkind.”

The laughter went out of her eyes. “I’d no thought of unkindness. How could I? When you’re so perfectly lovely to me?” Her lip trembled. An exquisitely sensitive upper lip, he thought. He just touched her hand that lay on the table and asked: —

“Will you let me lend you some of my superfluous cash?”

She exclaimed angrily, “Am I going about wearing a cadaverous expression? What’s the matter with me, anyhow?”

“Nothing,” he answered tranquilly. “And if you don’t want me to lend you a fiver, I shan’t. But as you have discovered I’m a spoilt boy I confess that it makes me ill not to have my own way. It would be rather a pity if I were taken ill at the beginning of rehearsals, wouldn’t it? Then that other chap who almost got my part will really get it, won’t he? I saw him talking to Ninian Fox this morning.”

“That boy! I should hate to act with him. He’s got horrid hands.”

Wakefield pushed away his plate. As he did so she glanced at his shapely brown hand, then swiftly into his eyes.

“I can’t make you out,” she said.

“Neither can I make myself out. I’ve never been this way before. I mean wanting so frightfully to do something for somebody. It isn’t that you’re pathetic or appealing. On the contrary, you strike me as being extremely self-sufficient. It’s just some quality in myself that is released by your nearness.”

“That’s all right then. You’ll get over it as soon as we part.”

“I suppose I shall but it’s disintegrating while it lasts. I simply can’t eat.”

“That’s a pity because the food is so good.” She helped herself to Worcester sauce.

He watched her eat with interest. He continued: —

“Perhaps, if you won’t let me lend you a little money, there is something else I could do. Has anyone been rude to you? I’d love to knock him down.”

“Everyone is nice to me. If you won’t eat I won’t.” She laid down her knife and fork. “
Please
, Mr. Whiteoak!”

“I’ll eat on one condition only. If you’ll call me Wakefield and come out to lunch with me every day for a fortnight.”

“Very well. I agree!” She gave him a smile that was almost motherly. “I think you’re sweet.”

With an air of triumph he took up his knife and fork. “That sweetness, my girl, conceals an iron will.” He attacked a chop.

But, though they might talk of other things, the subject that held never-ending fascination was the play. They were so enthralled that they all but forgot the afternoon rehearsal. They hurried on to the stage breathless, to find the others being amiably harried by Fielding, with the exception of the leading lady, Phyllis Rhys. She and Ninian Fox were enjoying a whiskey and soda in his office. The theatre was very cold.

Wakefield was impatient of the easy-going slackness of the actors, the way they mumbled their lines. His idea was to do the thing beautifully from the start. He was irritated by Fielding’s tolerance and good humour. He and Molly threw themselves gayly into their first amusing brother-and-sister scene. Everyone smiled at them. When they were free they went to sit together on a coil of rope in the wings. They lighted cigarettes.

“Will you come to our place to tea tomorrow?” asked Wakefield.

“After having had lunch with you? Don’t you think that’s rather too much?”

“Not for me. I want you to meet my brother. I should like to know what you think of him and his wife. Do you generally stand by first impressions or do you sometimes reverse your judgment?”

“I think first impressions are always the truest.”

“Now tell me what were your —”

“I shall do nothing of the sort.”

The youth who was to understudy Wakefield put his head round the corner.

“You’re wanted,” he said, with a smile that showed small, widely spaced teeth, then vanished.

“I hate that fellow,” said Wakefield. “I know he thinks he can do Frederick better than I can.”

“Anyhow he’s making himself generally useful.”

“Will you come to tea, Molly?”

“Yes, Wakefield.”

The rehearsal proceeded on its confused and muddling way.

Wakefield was anxious that the house in Gayfere Street should look its best the next afternoon. He had acknowledged Sarah’s position there by asking her if he might bring Molly Griffith to tea. Sarah had agreed. She had even seemed pleased.

That morning he went down into the kitchen to prepare the way with Henriette. She was sitting at the kitchen table eating bread and margarine and drinking tea, her large weak eyes gazing upward through the window at the legs of the passers-by.

“Legs, legs, legs.” she was saying to herself, as Wakefield came into the kitchen, “legs coming and going — God only knows where and why. I’d give a good deal if they’d stop.”

“Oh, good morning, Henriette,” said Wakefield, cheerfully. “I’ve come to tell you that I’m having a friend to tea and I’d like it to be even nicer than usual. I’ll bring home some petits fours.”

While he spoke, Henriette had been slowly and painfully rearing herself to her feet. With each twinge in her joints she gave a groan. Now she towered above Wakefield.

“Aven’t the teas pleased you?” she asked, with a tremor in her voice.

“They’ve been perfect. I said
even
better than usual, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t ’ear it that way. But then my ’ead buzzes so I don’t ’ear half that’s said to me. As for bringing cakes ’ome, I’ve shopped in London for forty years and my father was a French chef. I think I know a petite four when I see one.”

“Sit down, Henriette, do sit down! I only wanted to buy them because it’s such fun.”

She lowered herself into her chair with a groan. “
Fun
, did you say?
Fun?
I wish I found such things funny.”

“Well, you see, Henriette, it’s new to me.”

She looked at him disparagingly. “Yes,” she said. “You’re very new.”

“I’ll bring home some flowers for the table,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I like flowers, though they do make me think of funerals.”

“I’ll bring such gay-coloured ones they can’t possibly do that.”

“The gayer they are the more they make me think of funerals. I realize how short their little lives are and how our lives pass — mine in this ’ere kitchen.”

He ran up the stairs two steps at a time. He was afraid he would be late for rehearsal. He and Sarah and Finch had been to a play the night before and he had slept late. He was extraordinarily happy. He had recovered from the shock of Finch’s reunion with Sarah. He was beginning to think that it might not after all be so had having her in the house. Finch certainly seemed to have a new confidence and had returned to his practising with fervor. But Wakefield realized that the greatest cause of his happiness was his friendship with Molly Griffith. He poured out himself to her in their leisure periods. She heard so much from him about Jalna and his family that she had dreamt of them the night before and in her mind she began to confuse them with the characters of the play she was acting in.

The rehearsals were becoming more serious. Robert Fielding was, Wakefield thought, too fussy about the grouping on the stage. He would stare at the actors in an agony of consideration, then try some other grouping. Not till the leading lady showed irritation and Ninian Fox impatience could he bear to let the acting proceed. When he was taking his own part things went better, for he played it with zest and Ninian Fox directed with a firm touch. Wakefield was angered by his attitude toward Molly. He treated her as a beginner with no experience. He intimated that, though she did the lighter scenes well, he had grave fears that she would never succeed in the more emotional ones.

Mr. Trimble, the sandy-haired author of the play, invited Wakefield and Molly to lunch with him. The three got on well and Wakefield learned more about his part than he had in rehearsals. “Now I feel that I’m really getting inside Frederick,” he said. “Don’t you feel like that about Catherine?” he asked Molly.

She shook her head. “Not yet. Mr. Fox has made me self-conscious.”

“You’ll get over that, won’t she, Mr. Trimble?”

“I find Mr. Fox very irritating,” he returned. “But I was prepared for that. I’d been told a good deal about him.”

In the afternoon things went better. Wakefield and Molly were in good spirits when they set out to walk to Gayfere Street. The day was clear and cold. They discovered that they walked well together. “I wish you could walk with me in the Welsh hills,” she said.

“I shall!” he exclaimed, above the traffic. “I’m sure I shall.”

He pictured her in the hills and himself striding beside her. His blood ran quickly in his veins and he had a swift sense of power. After all, this crowded street was glorious — almost as free as the hills. Perhaps it was that Molly brought the hills with her.

He stopped to buy flowers from a barrow.

“You choose,” he said.

“What flowers suit your room?”

“None. Anyway there isn’t much choice. Do you like violets?”

“I love them.”

He bought six bunches.

“Goodness gracious!” she said. “You’re reckless.”

As they strode on he admired the way she carried herself, the long graceful sweep of her thigh, the strength and buoyancy of her step. He compared Sarah’s short, gliding steps, her rigidly held torso, unfavorably to this easy and generous walk. And she could move beautifully across the stage, too. Ninian Fox had praised this in her.

“I’m nervous,” she said, as they turned into Smith Square.

“Of what?”

“Of meeting your people.”

“You might well be, if you were to meet them en masse. But these two! Finch is very easy to know. And as for Sarah — well, she’s a queer, remote creature. A devil too, I assure you. I expect you’ll dislike her but it doesn’t matter. Be nice to Henriette. She hates visitors.”

“I’m more nervous than ever.”

Henriette gave them a watery smile of welcome. Wakefield noted with humiliation the toast crumbs down her front. But she had put on a large brooch containing the plaited hair of her father, the chef.

“This is Henriette who does for Finch and me,” said Wakefield. “Till you have tasted Henriette’s soup you don’t know what the joy of the palate can be.”

Henriette’s smile grew firmer and she murmured that she made the best soup she could with what few bones she could get hold of.

The sitting room was empty of people but seemed full of flowers. Roses, lilies, carnations, were everywhere. This is Sarah’s doing, thought Wakefield, and how like her to overdo it! He said: —

“Our violets will be lost here. Leave them in the hall. You must take them with you when you go.”

He was chagrined. He bad pictured Molly and himself decking the room with violets.

“Oh, thank you,” said Molly. “But it’s really too much.” She put the violets in the hall, then went into the room and buried her nose among dark red carnations. As usual, music was scattered everywhere. Finch’s spectacles, his pipe and tobacco pouch, were on the floor. Wakefield went about tidying and growling his disapproval.

“What an old scold you are!” she exclaimed. “You’d never do for our house, which always looks as though it had been stirred up with a stick.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Does it? I think of your house as beautifully kept.”

She gave a little bitter laugh. “Come and see.”