The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (530 page)

“Honestly?” he demanded.

“Of course. They never could send you away because there’s no one on earth who would take you in.”

He laughed happily. “Aren’t you glad Roma’s gone? There’ll be just us two and we’ll do everything together, shan’t we, Adeline?”

Downstairs all was quiet. The uncles were tired out. Nicholas lay sunk in his chair sleeping. A bubbling snore vibrated his grey moustache. Ernest sat close by the fire, resting his nerves with a game of patience. Winter was on the way and now they could settle down peacefully to wait for it.

THE CLEAR AIR

T
HE TWO CARS
had gone and he stood alone in the porch. It had been a great year for growth and the Virginia Creeper, unsatisfied by all its conquest of the past ninety years, had reached out with new vigour to spread its lusty leaves on every prominence where it could find support. Time and again it had been pruned but not this year. Now the tendrils draped the porch, the new growth clinging to the old or hanging loose, so that those who went in or out had to push it aside. Today rain dripped from it, ruddy fallen leaves carpeted the porch, still there were enough and to spare. His warm-coloured tweeds, the red of his hair, the weather-beaten tone of his skin, fitted well with the autumn tints about him.

Never had a rain seemed so cleansing. He felt its beneficence through all his being. He stretched out his hand palm upward and when it was wet he laid it against his forehead. There was a blessing in it. He drew deep breaths of the damp air. His lungs seemed truly to expand for the first time in months. His heart beat with a new gladness in the mere fact of life. The fact of his sanity, his soundness, vibrated through him. Suddenly he laughed at the thought that he ever could have doubted it, been taken in, enmeshed by a child’s game of make-believe. But what a pity he had had to send her away! He had seen by her little face that she had not wanted to go, even though Meg and Patience were so kind. Still, it would be only temporary, he would see to that. Alayne would agree to her coming back to Jalna after a little. He must go up to Alayne, poor girl, and cheer her up. He must think of something nice to do for her. But first he must telephone the Rector. He turned swiftly and went into the library.

Mr. Fennel’s voice answered his ring.

“Hullo,” said Renny, “I have something to tell you.” He could not keep the joy out of his voice.

“You have found the money?”

“Come now, you might have let me tell you.”

“The first syllable you spoke, told me.”

“I found it not more than half an hour after I left you. It was hidden in the woods. I’m coming over this evening to tell you all about it. I can’t tell you over the phone.”

“Of course not. I’ll be glad to see you.”

There was a silence, then Renny said with some embarrassment, “I must thank you for what you did for me.”

“Don’t thank me. Give thanks where it is due.”

“Yes. Certainly. Well, I’ll come over this evening. You’ll see a new man in me. It’s as though a load I’d been staggering under for months, had been swept away. You’ll be surprised when you hear how.”

“I’m prepared for anything, Renny, since we prayed for help.”

“Well — goodbye. I’ll be over.”

“Goodbye, and God bless you.”

Renny hung up the receiver and sat a moment, resting his head on his hands. His most trivial act seemed to have a new importance, as though adumbrated against a clear sky. He felt marvellously self-conscious, as though everything he did were a marvel. The very room appeared more spacious, when of late its walls had drawn to press him in, to suffocate him. Now he would go up to Alayne. He mounted the stairs and went straight into her room. The windows were open and the rain was blowing on to the sills.

He went and sat on the bed beside her. He bent over her, looking into her tear-stained face.

“Roma’s gone,” he said. “I sent her to Meg’s.”

She opened her eyes wide in surprise.

“Gone,” she repeated. “For how long?”

“To stay. Meg is going to keep her. As you feel so bitter against her, it seemed the best thing to do.”

She half-rose, leaning on her elbow, her eyes searching his. “Don’t you feel bitter?” she asked tensely.

“No. I’m just thankful to find that I’m — all right.”

“what are you made of?” she exclaimed. “You have suffered hellishly. I have suffered. Yet you feel no bitterness at the one who caused it all.”

“She didn’t understand.”

“Not understand that she was
thieving
and
lying?
Please don’t ask me to believe that.”

“Alayne, I don’t ask you to believe anything except that I am sound and out from under that cloud. My God, surely that is enough to make you happy!” His voice broke.

She drew his head down to where her lips would rest between his brows. She said, “Darling, it will make me happy — later on. But just now I can’t think of anything but of how you were made to suffer.”

“Help me to forget. That’s all I ask.”

“I will, I will,” she said, stroking his head. “And — Renny, thank you for sending Roma to Meg. I couldn’t have forgotten with her in the house.”

She knew that never, never could she forget or forgive what Roma had done. It was the culmination of the years of distrust she had felt toward her. She must pretend to forget, for Renny’s sake, but she would never submit to having Roma at Jalna again.

“Do you know,” he said, “you are looking very tired. Now I’ve got an idea.”

“Tired!” she repeated. “That’s putting it mildly. Any looks I have ever had, I’ve lost.”

He denied this with a kiss. “Don’t you want to know what my idea is?”

“Yes.”

“It’s for you to go to New York for a visit. You haven’t been there for years. Not since Adeline was four. Do you remember?”

Did she remember? She was not likely to forget the time she had left him, as she thought finally and, after months in which she had more and more longed for him, he had gone there and brought her and her aunt triumphantly back.

“Yes,” she breathed, “I remember.”

“A change will do you good,” he went on. “Your friends will like to have you visit them. That Miss Trent, you know, is always urging you to go.”

The thought of going to New York, the thought of mingling again in that swift, intense life, made her pulses quicken. To get away from this backwater, away from all these relations — but she said, “No, not unless you will come with me.”

“We can’t afford that,” he said. “You know very well we can’t. Miss Trent couldn’t take me in. Hotels are abominably expensive. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll go and spend a few days with you and bring you home. How would you like that?”

She could not resist. The prospect put new life into her. To leave this house where she had spent such days and nights of apprehension, seen Renny so suffer; to breathe new air; to mingle with the cosmopolitan crowds, far from this rain-soaked countryside; to see the newest plays; to be far from the uncles with their irritating habits of the aged; to be far from the children with their irritating habits of the young; five hundred miles from the Wragges, with whom she had struggled alone for nearly four years — oh, it was bliss! Even to be — and she scarcely could bring herself to acknowledge it — away for a little while from Renny whose face, whose every act had become the focus of her anguished observation. Away from him she could rest her mind from him, the weight of his presence would be lifted from, her. Perhaps, at that distance, she would be able to achieve a saner feeling about Roma, no longer be swept by such a surge of bitter anger at the thought of her. She said, twining her arms about him:

“I will go, if you will promise faithfully to come for me.”

“I promise.” He kissed her, but half-absently. He could not give his mind wholly to any thought but that of his release.

She wished she might stay in her room and not be forced to meet the family again that evening, but she knew Renny would expect her to be at the table and feel keen disappointment if she did not appear. He must not be disappointed. Also she felt a new energy in herself. The thought of change stirred her. She took pains with her dressing, putting on a light blue voile dress with bright flowers on it, and silver sandals.

The meal passed off well. Nicholas and Ernest were tired and talked little, but they said again and again how nice she looked. Adeline too was quieter than usual, giving Alayne contemplative glances as though wondering about her. No place had been set for Roma. Finch and Wakefield talked determinedly of impersonal things. Renny seemed scarcely to know what they were saying but laughed and agreed with his brothers. Rags, for some reason, cast disapproving looks at Alayne. All were conscious of her new vitality.

“There is nothing to equal travel,” said Ernest. “I never took a journey but it did me good.”

“I guess,” said Nicholas, “that I have taken my last.”

“Nonsense, Uncle Nick,” Renny spoke from where he stood by the sideboard. “when you’ve had a few glasses of this good claret, you’ll not say that. It’s some I stored in the cellar before I went to the war. One of these days you’ll be setting out for old London.”

The good claret did warm the old man’s spirit. He did, before he left the table, talk of a visit to England, but Renny must go with him to look after him — or Finch. Finch would do.

“Now,” said Renny, “we are to drink to Alayne’s visit to New York. She’s had a pretty monotonous time since the beginning of the war.”

“The monotony broken only by worry,” put in Ernest.

“Oh, no, Uncle Ernest,” she objected.

“I say, yes. And I say you deserve a holiday.”

“And may it be a happy one,” said Renny, smiling at her and drinking.

“God bless her,” added Nicholas, wiping his moustache. “Ha — that’s good claret, a very good flavour.”

“Thank you all,” said Alayne, tears in her eyes. Really they could be sweet, when they wanted to, she thought. She would remember this evening. It was so different from what she had expected. She had feared objections to Roma’s going, even expressions of pity for the child. But there was nothing of the sort. Roma had gone to Meggie’s. And why not, they seemed to say? Meg was her aunt and would be kind to her.

Did Renny know what weariness was? she wondered, as she saw him set out for the Rectory that evening. But she was not sorry to see him go. She was too tired for talk. The uncles went early to bed while she and Wakefield sat in the drawing-room listening to Finch’s desultory playing. He would play what came into his head, reaching out toward the concord of sounds as one might reach out to a tame bird. When it eluded him, he did not try to follow it but let it go, and turned to another. He sat, with head bent, the firelight playing on his sensitive face. Alayne wondered about him, about his wife Sarah and about their child. He must be almost five years old. Did Finch ever think of him? Surely he would, under the influence of Sarah and her Russian husband, grow into a being alien to Finch. But one’s own children — right beneath one’s own roof — what would they grow into? Roma was definitely and most dreadfully herself, in spite of all influence. She must put Roma out of her head. The thought of Roma made her feel ill. She said:

“Play Bach, will you please, Finch. I want to be held, so I can’t think of anything but the music.”

“I never think so freely as when I’m listening to Bach,” said Wakefield. “He unties the strings, unbuttons the buttons, and I let myself go.”

“I can’t remember anything straight through tonight.”

“Then play just bits,” said Alayne. “Drown the sound of the rain. It comes down heavier and heavier.”

“Summer is gone,” Wakefield said. “why should we live in a climate where we freeze half the year? I wish my grandfather had built Jalna in New Zealand or South Africa.”

“Then I’d never have known it,” said Alayne.

“And been all the better off, I should say.” Finch got up and stretched his arms.

“No, no,” begged Alayne. “Please go on. We’re sorry we talked, aren’t we, Wakefield?”

“It didn’t matter.” But, now that there was silence, he sat down again and began to play.

All was quiet when Renny returned. He had stayed late at the Rectory. He had hoped to find the house so when he came back to it. He came quietly into the hall, locking the door after him. It had turned cold outside and he missed the glow of the old stove that had so long stood there. He missed the sight of the dogs stretched comfortably about it. Those unfriendly radiators Alayne had installed had taken as much from the spirit of the house as they had given it in physical comfort. He hung his hat on the hat rack, from which the carved head of a fox looked sharply down on him. He ran his hand across his own head, in a peculiar sweeping gesture. He stood with his head poised, as though in relish of its liberation. He raised his eyes to the eyes of the fox — a hunted creature. He knew what it was to feel hunted by shadowy huntsmen, riding nightmares. But now he was free of all that. He was in control of his mind. He would think what thoughts he chose — pursue them or not, as he liked. He ran his hand caressingly over the glossy walnut grapes with their leaves that decorated the newel post. Tonight he had an especial love for the house, and through its weather-mellowed bricks and staunch timbers he felt an especial intimacy come out to him.

He gently opened the door of Adeline’s room and went in. It was pitch dark except where the light from the hall fell on the mirror. In this luminous space the objects of the room were dimly seen. He went to the side of the bed and sat down on it. He could just make out the lines of her body, slender and severe beneath the covering, and her head dark on the pillow. He bent and put his lips to her cheek. She woke without fear and said, “Is that you, Daddy?”

“Yes,” he answered, “but don’t wake. I only wanted to make sure you were all right. Go to sleep.”

“Lie down beside me.”

“I mustn’t. My clothes are damp.”

“where have you been?”

“At Mr. Fennel’s.”

“Were you telling him how glad you are?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe there was a miracle?”