The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (488 page)

They spoke little until they reached the less busy road that ran alongside the lake. The lake was animated by small bright waves and the air was fresh. She asked questions about his journey, trying to keep her voice steady, trying to drive carefully. Really she scarcely felt capable of driving this morning. She had slept little the night before and her nerves were strung up. She did not dare look at Maurice. He asked his first question.

“How are Nook and Philip? I expected they would come too.”

“They wanted to but I wouldn’t let them. I felt that I must have you to myself at the very first. It was selfish of me. Are you disappointed?”

“Oh, no. I expect they’ve grown a lot.”

“Terrifically. But Philip the most. He’s almost as tall as Nook and weighs more. It’s very annoying to Nook.” She went on talking rather hurriedly of Philip’s escapades. She did not speak of Maurice’s father.

However, he said, “Home must seem strange without Daddy. I can hardly imagine it.”

She nodded, her lips compressed into a thin line. Then she said, “You know, we — myself and the boys — lived at Jalna for a time but it didn’t work. The children were so noisy — Philip especially — I was thankful when I could get rid of my tenants and go home again. Mooey, it will be heavenly having you with us!”

Maurice smiled but he wondered if ever he would feel at home in Canada again. That four and a half years in Ireland, in Cousin Dermot’s house, rose as a barrier of more than a thousand days of misty sunshine, quiet rain, more than a thousand nights — surely there had been nearly two thousand days and nights — nights in that great quiet house where he and the old man had been so happy together. The tranquil life had suited Maurice. Even the longing for his mother had at last subsided. Now that he was with her again he had a strange, an almost bereft feeling, as though of awareness that his old childish self was lost and would never again be found. With memory’s eye he surveyed the two pasts of his life, so completely separated by ocean and by war that they made him into two people. His mother had seen nothing of his life in Ireland. He had no one with whom he could talk about it. In this moment of his return he felt deeply lonely.

They were in the country now, with farmlands all about. There was a dry, pungent smell to the air, as though of dry vegetation, crisped by the sun, and of distant woodsmoke. He remembered the moss-grown oaks of Cousin Dermot’s park, the rich vaporous meadows, the flowery hedgerows, the pollarded willows—but Cousin Dermot was dead and the place belonged to him. He wondered if his mother realized that that estate in County Meath now belonged to him.

Pheasant went on talking, trying to pass lightly over these moments of reunion with her boy. It made her feel suddenly quite middle-aged to see him so grown. Well, she was thirty-five but she still felt like a girl. They were silent when at last the car sped along the quiet side road and turned in at the gate. On either side of it the two small boys were waiting. They stood very still but ready on the instant to spring into action.

“Here we are!” called out Pheasant. “Here’s your big brother!” The car stopped and she and Maurice alighted.

What a difference there was between him and them! They were just children. Maurice had an air of calm, a manner of the old world, acquired from Cousin Dermot in those years of close companionship. Oh, to think that she had had to part with him — to lose all those years out of their lives! Nothing she could do would bring him wholly back to her. He was part stranger and always would be. The loss was not made up by his inheriting Cousin Dermot’s fortune. That somehow made the loss greater. Maurice was independent of her and Piers. He did not need them. He had learned to do without them. But she said gaily:

“Here he is! Now give him a big hug.”

She added this last because the brothers had stood staring shyly at each other, speechless. But now Maurice gravely shook hands with each of them and they in turn gravely shook hands with him. “Just like old gentlemen being introduced!” she thought. She exclaimed:

“what a marvellous complexion you have, Mooey! You used to have no colour. You’re just peaches and cream. You make us look like Indians, doesn’t he, boys?”

She and her younger sons were, in truth, deeply tanned after a summer’s exposure to the Canadian sun. The boys’ arms and legs were as brown as their faces. Maurice, with his creamy skin, the rosy flush in his cheeks, contrasting to the brown of his hair which he had got from Pheasant, looked like a garden flower beside two tough-fibred little weeds. Their fair hair was bleached to tow, it was dry from the hot sun, it stood out in wisps. Maurice’s hair was glossy, softly waving.

He looked cared for. They had the look of running wild.

“I expect it’s the climate,” answered Maurice. “We have a lot of damp, you know.”

We! He identified himself with Ireland. But why not? It was natural. He had spent his most impressionable years there. But it hurt her. It hurt her. She said:

“Now we’ll go in and have something to eat. You must be starving. Does the house look natural?”

It looked natural, as the remembrance of a dream might seem natural, but so small, half-hidden behind its lilacs and syringas. He recalled the imposing façade of Glengorman. Surely you might put this small house, built a hundred years ago by a retired naval officer and named by him, The Moorings, into one corner of Glengorman and scarcely notice it! He answered politely:

“It looks very natural.”

“And do I?” Pheasant asked tremulously.

“Oh, yes.”

“Now, Nook and Philip, help Mooey to carry his things upstairs. Your room is waiting for you — just as when you left it. I’ll make coffee.”

She hurried indoors. The two small boys flung themselves on Maurice’s hand luggage. They clattered up the narrow stairway and deposited it, with thumps and bangs, on the floor of the bedroom. Maurice looked about. It had not changed at all, except to look smaller. There was the little bed where he had slept as long as he could remember! He thought of that night when he had first been told of the proposed visit to Ireland. He had been in his pyjamas and had just knelt down to say his prayers. His father’s voice had come up from the hall below. “Mooey, come down here!”

He had been frightened, wondering what he had done. He had scrambled quickly to his feet, then more slowly, hesitatingly moved to the top of the stairs. He had seen his father standing below, waiting for him, his strong figure erect, his face upturned. But he had not looked angry. When Maurice had reached the bottom step his father had put his arm about him and led him into the sitting room. His uncle Renny had been there. All three grown-ups had worn curious strained smiles. Then Uncle Renny, newly returned from Ireland, had told him how old Cousin Dermot lived all alone and how he liked boys and wanted Mooey to pay him a visit. The very thought of going away from home had been terrifying. He had never in all his life been separated from his mother.

“Wake up,” his father had said, “and tell us how you like the idea. Mind, you don’t have to go unless you really want to.”

“How long should I stay?” he had asked.

Uncle Renny had answered, “As long or as short a time as you want.”

His mother had exclaimed, as she watched him standing silent and bewildered, “You don’t want to go, do you, Mooey?” Her eyes had yearned towards him.

The thought of leaving her had been terrible but how glorious it would be to leave the school he hated, to be free from the strain of riding horses he feared, helping to school polo ponies under his father’s critical eye, pretending he liked to ride when even the horses were aware of his fear and made the most of that awareness. And it would get worse as time went on, not better. It had been a shadow constantly darkening his days.

Uncle Renny had taken him into the hall and had said, when they were alone, “Now, what is it you would like to ask me?”

He had twisted his fingers together and whispered, “Uncle Renny, will you please not tell Daddy what I’m going to ask?”

“May I drop dead if I do,” had been the answer.

“Well —” he had got out haltingly, “I want to know if I’ll have to ride to hounds or school polo ponies.”

Uncle Renny had reassured him. He was to do just as he pleased, never mount a horse during the whole visit unless he wanted to. And he had said, “I’ll do it. I’ll go. Tell Daddy.” Then he had run swiftly up the stairs to this very room. How far away it now seemed, like a dream. But what he had heard pass between his parents, after Uncle Renny had gone, stood out with terrible clarity. They had just closed the front door after him. He had heard his father say, with an exasperated note in his voice:

“I don’t want you to think for a moment that I’m urging this. I don’t want to part with Mooey — except for a visit. But you look as though you were giving him up forever.”

Then her voice had come, a voice choked by tears. “I am! I know I am. And another thing — you don’t love Mooey! You never have!” Yes, she had said that, her voice coming up clearly and loudly to where he was standing shivering in his pyjamas.

There had been silence for a space, then his father had almost shouted, “That’s a lie! I’ll not let him go! I’ll go right upstairs and tell him not to go!” He had begun to run up the stairs but she had run after him and stopped him. She had burst into tears and sobbed:

“I didn’t mean it, Piers! I don’t know what made me say such a thing. I want him to go to Cousin Dermot. I know he’ll have a lovely time — poor little boy!” They had gone downstairs again and he had got into his bed.

Now he was back in that room again. Nook and Philip were staring at him. Nook asked politely, “Shall we bring up your trunk?”

“Yes,” agreed Maurice, “we had better bring it up.”

They ran down the stairs together and dragged the steamer trunk from the back of the car. With puffings and gruntings on the part of the small boys they carried it to Maurice’s room. Maurice wandered about looking at the things that were so strangely familiar. Pheasant’s voice came from below. “Wash your hands, boys, and come straight down.” They could smell bacon frying.

Nook and Philip stood respectfully watching him from the doorway of the bathroom while he washed. Maurice did not know what to say to them. He was not used to small boys. They went soberly down the stair.

“Now,” said Pheasant, when they stood about the table, “I’m going to put you in Daddy’s place, Mooey. You are the man of the family — till he comes home.”

How pretty the dining room was, Maurice thought, with its gay curtains, the sun pouring in, the pretty breakfast cloth and vase of marigolds! There was bacon and an egg for Pheasant and each of the small boys but for Maurice two eggs. Nook and Philip looked on him with respect. He was a man.

“Nook,” adjured Pheasant, “sit up straight and stop holding your fork like a shovel. I don’t know where you get such manners. Just look at Mooey! He doesn’t sit or eat that way.”

Nook sat upright at once but it was not till Pheasant fixed Philip with a stern eye that he obeyed.

“After breakfast,” she went on, “I’m going to take you to see Auntie Meg and then we’ll go to Jalna. Oh, Mooey, it’s so wonderful having you home! And just think what it will be when Daddy’s home! I can scarcely imagine the joy.”

Philip put in, “Daddy’s got only one —”

“Now, now, Philip. Eat your toast. Pass him the marmalade, Nook.”

She was not hungry. She talked eagerly, her eyes drinking in the sight of Maurice sitting there. She could not relax.

“what a time we’ve had,” she said, “running Jalna without any help to speak of! In the house, just Mrs. Wragge and she quite unequal to those basement stairs; she’s fatter than ever! And the two old uncles need a good deal of waiting on. Then there are the three children to get off to school. You should see Adeline, Mooey. She’s lovely ... Poor Alayne! The house would be enough to cope with, but there are the stables — twelve horses still — the stock, cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry! If it weren’t for Wright we’d have gone quite crazy. That’s to say nothing of the farmlands and the fruit. I’ve worked like a farmhand and I guess I show it.” She looked wistfully at him across the table.

“You still look lovely,” Maurice replied, with a little bow and in Dermot Court’s own manner.

“Oh, how darling of you to say that, Mooey!” She jumped up and ran round to him and hugged him. Oh, the feel of that brown head of her first-born on her breast once more!

He put both arms about her.

When they had cleared away the breakfast things Maurice, carrying a toppling load of dishes, remembered the formality of meals at Glengorman, the white-haired butler and his air of making even breakfast a ceremony. Pheasant led him into the living room and closed the door.

“There is something I think I ought to tell you,” she said, in a low voice. “About Daddy.”

“Yes?” He stared at her, startled.

She took his hand and held it. “Oh, Mooey, he has lost a leg! I never told you in my letters. I couldn’t bear to. I couldn’t bear to tell you, when you were so far from home.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Maurice did not know what he was expected to do. Cry? Turn pale? His father had lost a leg. It was a calamity. But so far away. He remembered Piers on two strong legs. He had stood strongly on them, as though it would take a great deal to knock him over. And now only one! Maurice said, in a low voice:

“I suppose it happened years ago — when he was taken prisoner.”

“Yes ... Oh, I’ve been terribly broken up about it … Of course now I’m getting used to the thought of it ... But it’s new to you, darling.” She put both arms about him. He breathed, against her shoulder:

“I’m sorry.”

She drew a deep breath. “Well, we will do all we can to make him forget it, when he comes home.”

“Yes. Is he pretty well?”

“I think so.”

They separated and Maurice’s eyes moved toward the open window.

“We’re going now,” said Pheasant, then hesitated and added, “It will seem strange to you not to see Uncle Maurice at Vaughanlands. Poor Auntie Meg and Patience are alone there now. You must be sympathetic but cheerful when you meet Auntie Meg.”