The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (534 page)

He laughed, embarrassed by his own fervour.

Then he said, seriously, “Now, Gem, I want you to make Colonel Whiteoak understand that you persuaded me to do this. I don’t want him to get the idea that he intimidated me. Tell him, the first time you see him, that you persuaded me. Understand?”

“Yes, Eugene. I will.”

FINCH AND HIS SON

A
LAYNE WENT TO
visit her friend, Rosamond Trent, in November. It was a time when the countryside was, to her mind, melancholy. New York would be a revivifying change, the theatrical season in full swing, clean pavements to walk on instead of muddy paths or wet grass, shops overflowing with luxurious commodities, restaurants with luxurious food, a renewal of old acquaintances. She was to be gone a month.

Finch had left some weeks earlier on a concert tour. Never before had he set out on a tour feeling so tired. The strain of long hours of practising, added to the tension of contemplating Renny’s struggle against the web that enmeshed him, had taken much of his vitality from him. The long engulfment of the war had taken something he felt he never could regain. Perhaps it was the power of enjoying solitude. There seemed no more to be any real solitude. The world lay in a tangled heap and, until he could extricate himself, he would always be tired. He was not fearful of his own performance in his recitals. He knew that, no matter how tired he was, he always could, when the moment came, forget his weariness and put himself with abandon into his playing. But afterwards he paid for it in hours of wakefulness when he should have been refreshing himself with sound sleep. He had sedative tablets which he took when driven to it. They were not habit-forming but he was afraid of them. He would look at his watch at three in the morning and say, “If I am not asleep in an hour I will take one.” Then he would lie in the dark listening to the sounds of a strange city, trying, with all his might, to sleep. Then he would think, “I am trying too hard. It doesn’t matter whether I sleep or not. I will relax and care about nothing.” He would stretch his body on the bed and relax, inch by inch, consciously, putting all thoughts out of his head. On this night a face appeared before his closed eyes, the face of a man he had seen in one of the front seats at his concert. The forehead had been noticeably large, now it was enormous. It pressed the eyes, nose and mouth down, down and down, till they disappeared into the collar. The face, now all forehead, grew larger and larger. Finch threw himself to the other side of the bed. A street car rattled past the hotel.

Now, to quiet himself, he thought of Jalna and all those at home. He pictured each one of the family, from Nicholas down to Archer. For a space he was calm. He drew deep breaths. Then he noticed that they all had enormous foreheads that pressed their features, down and down, into their necks. Nicholas’ grey moustache was swallowed, Renny’s grin of triumph over finding the money. Rags, featureless, floated about with the tea tray. Someone — was it himself? — was playing the piano.

He flung to the other side of the bed. He felt suffocated by the heat of the bedroom. He had turned off the radiator and opened the window but still it was too warm. The overheating of the hotels was one of the trying things about a town. He found himself, as so often, envying Renny and Piers.

Resolutely he lay on his back. He pictured the little church at home, the first snowfall lying in the churchyard. He pictured the family plot, where those who had given themselves to so many emotions now lay at peace. The snow lay lightly on the graves. Too lightly, for it did nothing to restrain those within. A restless movement ran through their bones. In frantic haste his spirit fled from the place. He pressed his fingers to his temples. Was it possible that he was going to have one of those attacks of pain in his head and neck which once before had nearly wrecked him? He gently massaged the back of his neck. He looked at his watch. Just twenty minutes had passed since last he had looked at it. He could not go on like this. He took one of the tablets in a gulp of water and settled down to let it work its beneficent will. But he was so thoroughly awake that the tablet took some time to soothe him. In truth his imagination seemed more terribly alive. He felt himself playing Bach’s Italian Concerto in F major. But he could not control the black keys. The white keys behaved themselves, doing his bidding, but the black keys raced away from under his fingers like ants. He wondered why the thought of ants was so intolerable to him. There was some painful scene in his memory connected with ants but he could not recall what it was. Now the black keys had run right away from the keyboard, scuttled down the legs of the piano and were clambering up the legs of the bed. They were running this way and that over the bedspread. Finch stretched out his hand and turned on the light. He took another tablet, for he must be fit to play that night. He remembered that he was in Oregon and that the Pacific was near. That was a calming thought. He pictured the endless rolling of the waves. He tried to repeat poetry about the sea but the poems eluded him. One line from some forgotten poem went on and on in his brain— “Hateful is the dark blue sky.” Over and over it was reiterated till he felt nothing, could see nothing but that dark blue arch burning above him. “Hateful is the dark blue sky.” Not since boyhood had he remembered the words — beautiful and menacing ...

He woke at nine, relaxed but not rested. Thank God, he thought, I have only two more concerts to get through! He took a bath and had a pot of tea and some toast sent up to him — poor tea and poor toast. Scarcely had he swallowed it when a telegram was brought in. Something had happened at home, he thought, and tore it open in nervous haste.

Nothing had happened at Jalna. The telegram was signed by a lawyer in San Francisco and told of the death of Finch’s former wife, Sarah, in a motor accident. “Would Mr. Whiteoak come as soon as possible and take charge of his son who at present was with Mr. Voynitsky.” Finch read the telegram three times before he took in its meaning. Even then he could not bring himself to believe it. Sarah dead! Sarah — who had seemed impervious to the weakness of flesh!

She had been like the figure of a woman cut from ivory or porcelain. He always had been so sure she would outlive him by many years. And she was dead. He could not believe it. He could see her in his aunt’s house in Devon, her violin tucked under her chin, her glittering eyes fixed on him, as though he were the source of her music. And how she had sapped his vitality! But he lived and she was dead — killed suddenly, in a brutal crash. He groaned — picturing it — her blood on the pavement, her black plaits soaked in blood. He pictured her on the cliffs in Cornwall, gliding over the sheep-cropped grass with that strange gliding walk of hers. And she was dead! He pictured her as she had appeared in his bedroom in Ireland when her white arms had drawn him on to the bed with her, renewing their life together when he had thought himself free of her forever. And now he was free of her forever and could not believe it, did not want to be free of her at that price. How white her skin had been and how fine! It had never sunburned or tanned. Other women had looked weather-beaten, coarse, beside her. And now that skin was grey in death.

She who had never liked children had been like a tigress with her own. She never would let Finch share the child with her. The child was everything. Finch had sunk to second place. And now here was that Russian — Sarah’s third husband — in possession of the child. Finch lay back in his chair, oblivious to his surroundings, thinking of Sarah, the child, the Russian.

The telephone rang. The leader of the orchestra wished to see him. An appointment was made. The telephone rang again. The president of a women’s club invited him to be the guest of the club at lunch. Controlling the irritation in his voice he politely refused. The telephone rang again. A newspaper reporter wanted an interview. He couldn’t give an interview to anyone! He was too tired. Would he answer a few questions over the phone? He would, and answered them so wildly that, when he hung up the receiver, he was hot with anger and humiliation. The telephone rang again. It was another newspaper reporter. Finch managed to answer a few questions with moderate politeness. He got his hat and went out into the street.

Fortunately he had only two more engagements to fill. He felt incapable of filling them with success but somehow he did. At the end he felt less tired than he had expected. It was not playing the piano that tired him — it was the people he had to meet. If the people could have been obliterated, excepting as audiences, he could have enjoyed a concert tour. But there always were the people — talking, eternally talking. If only he might have talked to the few who interested him! But inevitably they were pushed into the background by those who did not interest him.

Now it was over. He had interviewed the lawyer in San Francisco and learned from him that all there was left of Sarah’s fortune was to be held in trust for her child. Finch was astonished by the dwindling of that fortune. The lawyer shrugged. He intimated that probably the Russian knew what had become of it. Still, it was a tidy sum for a boy to inherit. In Sarah’s will no provision was made for him till he came of age and into possession of the whole. The interest would mount up.

As the taxi moved in a cold grey fog towards the house where Sarah had lived, Finch had a feeling of utmost unreality. He could not picture Sarah in this place. He had seen her in many places but he could not picture her here. Why he could not have said but it was impossible to him. And now there was this Russian to be interviewed. Perhaps, when he had met him, he would be able to picture her here.

His mouth was dry when the taxi turned into the short drive that led to the Spanish-looking, stucco house, half-covered by a climbing rose. A big-boned Swedish woman opened the door in answer to his ring. He asked for Mr. Voynitsky and was shown into a living room with many windows. Many windows did not succeed in making the very modern furniture look comfortable. A smallish man with a wide smile sprang up from a very deep chair and advanced to meet Finch.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Whiteoak,” he said with a strong foreign accent. “I am very pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands, his small compact hand gripping Finch’s firmly.

“Won’t you please sit down,” he said, and at once offered Finch a cigarette. No? A cigar, then. No? Then, surely a drink. Finch wanted none of these.

Voynitsky lighted a cigarette. His wide smile that discovered small square teeth, passed from his face and a look of melancholy took its place. He was oily, thought Finch, a villainous-looking little fellow, whatever he did. And Sarah had gone to bed with him! Well — in the dark he might be all right. Finch never had understood Sarah; meeting her third husband he understood her less than ever.

“This has been a terrible calamity,” observed Voynitsky.

“Yes. Were you — in the car, when it happened?”

“Fortunately not. If I had been driving, never could I have forgiven myself. Sarah was herself driving. A truck came along very fast. She turned to one side. The pavement was wet. The car skidded. It struck a telegraph pole. Sarah was instantly killed.”

The pupils of Finch’s eyes dilated in horror.

“Was she alone?” he asked.

“No. The child was with her.”

“He saw that!”

“He is too young to understand. He’s all right.”

“He is with you here?”

“Yes, but I am giving up this house. You will like to have your little boy with you at once, I am sure. He is a nice little boy. I am very fond of him. Yes — very fond. He is a little spoilt. Sarah could deny him nothing.” Voynitsky began to bite his nails, as though in irritation at some recollection. Finch thought, “They didn’t get on very well, not all the time.” The little man may have got most of Sarah’s money away from her but, when it came to quarrelling, Sarah could hold her own.

“Yes,” said Finch, “I will take him with me today.”

“That is good, because I must sell this house at once. The associations here are too painful, you understand.”

Finch looked about the room, trying to discover something that might remind him of Sarah. Her body had rested against these very cushions but no spiritual imprint of her remained in the room. She had gone out of it — a healthy young woman — and never come back. Now Finch wanted nothing so much as to leave this house — never see it or its owner again.

“I heard you play last night,” Voynitsky was saying. “I was in the audience. I enjoyed your playing so much.”

Finch muttered something incoherent. He was glad he had not known that Voynitsky was present.

“I should have liked,” Voynitsky went on, “to have made myself known, to have thanked you at the end, but I thought it might be embarrassing for both of us. Allow me to thank you now.” He showed both upper and lower teeth in his smile — like the winner of a beauty contest.

Oh, to have him at Jalna! Oh, to treat him rough! To take him by his oily hair and obliterate his oily smile in a snowdrift! To make him plough a field under Piers’ direction — to put him on one of Renny’s horses and make him go over hurdles — to make him dig holes in the ground and then chuck him into one of them!

“I am glad you enjoyed my playing,” said Finch, “and I agree that it would have been embarrassing for us to have met last night.”

“Sarah,” said Voynitsky, “adored your playing. She herself played the violin well.”

“Yes. Did she keep it up?”

“Not as she should. Happiness made her indolent, so I told her.”

Both men were lost in their own thoughts for a space, then the Russian said:

“I will bring your boy to you.” He went briskly to a door at the end of the room and called to someone.

A moment later a thickset, foreign-looking woman entered with the child by the hand. The room, the Russian, the nurse, the child: all were unreal to Finch. In this situation he scarcely could believe in himself. Here was a room in California. Here was Sarah’s third husband. Here was a stolid woman with his own child by the hand. Here was his child! Here were he and his child looking into each other’s eyes.