The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (583 page)

“Do you honestly wish I had red hair and dark eyes?”

“Not with your kind of mind.”

“Do you consider Dad’s mind superior to mine?”

“I do.”

“Because it’s instinctive rather than analytical?”

Adeline could endure him no longer. Forcibly she tried to eject him from the house into the outdoor heat. This roused the dogs, who set up a loud barking, and during the uproar Renny and Fitzturgis returned from the sale. Renny was in great good humour, having been able to acquire the mare he had set his heart on at what seemed to him a reasonable price, though he had warned Fizturgis not to mention the amount to the family, with the exception of Adeline, who could be trusted to keep it to herself.

Fitzturgis was pale from the excessive heat. He and Finch shook hands with moderate friendliness, but Renny put his arm about his brother and hugged him. He was delighted to hear that Maurice had come with him.

“As soon as we have had some tea, Finch, we shall go to inspect your house and then on to see Maurice. It will be cooler by that time. Will you come with us, Alayne?”

But Alayne begged off. It was much too hot for her, she said, and she suggested that Fitzturgis also might prefer the coolness of the house. Adeline, however, showed her eagerness to go with Renny and Finch.

“It’s not really hot now,” she said. “And the new house is in deep shade.”

“You’ll have to cut down some trees, Finch,” said Renny. “But don’t do it till I can be with you. I know just which ones to choose.” He looked at his watch. “By the time we return the mare will be here. I shall ask Rags to hurry the tea along.” he strode to the hall and to the top of the stairs which led to the basement kitchen.

Alayne muttered under her breath, “There is a bell.” But he wanted to tell Wragge of his purchase. He shouted his name down the stairway. Wragge, in shirtsleeves, appeared at the bottom.

“Rags, d’you think your missus could hurry along the tea a bit? We want to go over to the new house.”

“It’ll be up directly, sir. We’re ’aving it iced today, if that will be all right, sir.”

“Fine. And, Rags.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I bought the mare I’ve wanted! A regular beauty. Wonderful brood mare — short muscular back — well-let-down hocks — deep through the heart! You’ll fall in love with her at sight.”

“I bet I shall, sir. I
am
glad for you.” He was already pulling on his jacket. His wife said, as he turned back into the kitchen:

“Another horse, eh? And a fancy price, I make my guess.” Her tone expressed complete disapproval.

“A lovely brood mare! Ah, ’e knaows wot ’e’s about,” exclaimed Wragge. “’E ’as vision
and
knowledge.”

Noah Binns, an old man, now past eighty, a frequent visitor to Mrs. Wragge’s kitchen and a great consumer of her good cakes, took a deep drink of tea and remarked, “All he lacks is common sense.
That
he ain’t never had.”

“I’d like to know what you mean?” said Rags truculently.

“It’s not common sense to break your bones and spend your money on horses. If there’s one animal I despise it’s a horse.”

“They had their uses once,” said the cook, “in pioneer days.”

“Them days is over.” Noah sank his gums into a piece of rich chocolate cake. “This is a machine age and I’m glad of it — danged if I ain’t. I seen enough of horses and their riders in my youth.” His mouth was so full he was scarcely intelligible.

“I ask no better sight,” said Rags, “than to see the boss on horseback.”

Noah remarked, with concentrated bitterness, “Of all men on horseback, he makes me feel the worst.”

The cook stared. “Well, for goodness’ sake!”

“Yes,” said Noah, “my gorge is stirred up when I see him prancing on a horse.”

“I guess you don’t like him, Mr. Binns.”

Noah shook his head and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “It ain’t because I don’t like him. He affected me that way when I first saw him mounted. He was only a toddler and his pa was holdin’ him steady on a Shetland pony. My gorge rose then.”

“Have some more tea,” comforted Mrs. Wragge.

But he pushed away his cup. “No, thanks.” He sighed. “I feel kind of sickly. I guess it’s the humility in the atmosphere. Heat and humility. That’s what I can’t stand. And there’s more of it coming.”

“I suppose you mean humidity,” said Wragge.

“You can call it any fancy name you like. I call it humility. It’s a biblical term and it’s good enough for me.”

The tea tray was now ready and Wragge carried it up the stairs, at the top of which the dogs were waiting.

The intensity of the heat had lessened, but there was a strange stillness in the air as Renny, Finch, Adeline, Fitzturgis, and Archer walked through the ravine and up the steep path to Vaughanlands.

The little stream which had been seeking and finding the lake in all these hundred years since Captain Philip Whiteoak had first spanned it here with a rustic bridge now moved languidly past the luxuriant growth that edged it. A diminutive island of sand was occupied by a stout glistening frog that stared up at those who crossed the bridge with bold-eyed unconcern. A pleasant coolness rose from the water.

“Couldn’t we two stay here,” Fitzturgis whispered to Adeline, “and let the others go on?”

She was astonished. “But, Mait, don’t you want to see Uncle Finch’s new house?”

“Not a thousandth part so much as I want to see you.”

“We shall have all the evening together.” She gave him her eager smile. “I want it as much as you do. But Uncle Finch will expect us to go to the house.”

“How do you know?”

She called out to Finch, who was ahead, “Uncle Finch, do you really want us?”

He stopped and turned to wait for them. “Of course I do.” Yet secretly he would have liked to be alone in this first inspection of the house.

They followed the path across a stubble field where small birds were finding their evening meal. Trees grew so thickly about the house that its whiteness was discernible some time before its design could be guessed, even though a number of trees had been destroyed in the fire which had burned the earlier building. Now this house was seen to be of typical West Coast architecture, all on one floor, with few but very large windows.

“The Vaughan who built the old house must be turning over in his grave,” remarked Renny, first to stand in front of this new one.

“Do you like it?” asked Finch.

“It makes me think of the advertising pages in magazines. All it lacks is a shiny new car and a shiny new wife.”

Adeline said to Fitzturgis, “I adore it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were ours?”

Archer remarked, “It seems to me a perfect house for a concert pianist” — Finch looked doubtfully pleased — “and his pathetic child.”

“I don’t think Dennis is at all pathetic,” said Adeline. “You are pathetic because you imagine you know so much and really know so little.”

Archer was imperturbable. “All children are pathetic,” he said. “And all old people.”

“what about those in between?” asked Fitzturgis.

“They are just pitiable.”

Finch said, “when I have my piano and my furniture it will look different.”

“Shall you get a wife also?” asked Archer.

His father gave him a look and he went and peered in through the largest window.

“That’s the music room,” said Finch. He had the key of the front door and now unlocked it and they trooped into the house. The sound of their steps and their voices were magnified into a false importance. Adeline and Fitzturgis smiled into each other’s eyes, thinking how well they could do with this charming new house.

He said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. The music room is so large. The others small and cozy. The outdoors seems to come right in at the windows. It seems made for —” He hesitated, searching for a word.

“Us,” put in Adeline. “
If
ever you tire of it, Uncle Finch, we’ll take it over.”

“It will cost plenty to furnish it,” said Renny. “There are some nice old pieces at Jalna I can let you have. Chairs and a cabinet.”

“Thanks. I’d love to have them — if Alayne wouldn’t mind.”

Archer looked thoughtful. “She’d mind very much, I’m pretty sure.”

“why,” said Renny, “your mother often remarks that the house has too much furniture.”

“It’s one thing,” said Archer, “to say that, but it’s quite another to give the things away.”

At this remark everyone but him looked embarrassed. Finch said, “It would only be temporary. I’d give the things back whenever she wanted.”

Archer looked intensely interested. “I’ve heard her say that if you lend a piece of furniture to anyone it’s the hardest thing in the world to get it back again. When they’ve possessed it for a while they look on it as their own and they resist if you ask for it. Aunty Meg was like that with an occasional table we lent her.”

“After all,” Renny said, “the furniture belongs to me.”

“Would you dare take the occasional table?” asked Archer.

“I have forgotten the incident.”

Renny led the way through the echoing house. “It’s a tiny place,” he said. “Just three bedrooms. I don’t see where you all are to sleep.”

“All?” repeated Finch, trying to look as though he did not understand.

“Yes. One for you. One for Dennis. That leaves one for Meg and the girls. But Roma will be getting married.”

Archer said, “I don’t think Aunty Meg will like to share a room with Patience who so often comes in from working in the stable.”

“what a marvelous kitchen!” exclaimed Adeline. “And no basement stairs! No one need mind doing the work in this house. I’d just love it.”

“Mercy!” said Archer.

Maurice at Home

P
HEASANT HELD MAURICE 
tightly in her arms, her eyes searching his face with loving anxiety. “I just can’t believe in you …” Her voice had both laughter and tears in it. “Are you sure you are here in the flesh?”

“Yes, and with a mosquito bite already.”

“Oh, Mooey, darling …”

How sweet the childish name sounded to him! He smiled lovingly down into her eyes. Piers was occupied with the car and let him go into the house alone. The room, with its memories of childhood, engulfed him. It was hard for him to free himself from them, to see his mother clearly. Hardest of all to forget was the goodbye they had said when he had first gone to Ireland. Neither of them would ever forget that. It had left its scar on them.

But she laughed up at him and said, “I believe you are taller. Have you grown?”

“No.”

“But you’re thinner. Are you well, Mooey?”

“Perfectly…. How pretty you look, Mummy. And the house! Those curtains are new, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Fancy your noticing…. Are you hungry, dear?”

“No. I’m much too hot. I’d forgotten how hot it can be.”

“Your tweeds are so heavy. Do take your jacket off. I’ll make you a cold drink.”

Piers came in. He gave Pheasant a quick glance as though begging her not to fuss over the boy the moment he arrived. Little Mary came in. She was eating an ice cream cone.

“where did you get that?” demanded Piers.

“Philip gave it to me. He has one himself.”

“Hello, little sister,” said Maurice. “Will you come and kiss me?”

She turned and fled.

“She’s shy,” said Piers. “She’ll get over it and be as bold as brass — the way they all are.”

“She’s pretty,” said Maurice, but without enthusiasm. He thought they might well have done without this last addition to the family.

Pheasant now brought iced drinks on a small tray.

“what is it?” asked Maurice.

“Ginger ale.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Yes, indeed…. But — might I have a drop of whisky in mine? The plane flight has left me a bit squeamish.”

“Certainly,” said Piers, feeling ready for a drink himself. He went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Canadian rye.

Maurice looked at the label.

“I haven’t any Irish,” said Piers, “if that’s what you want.”

“No, no. This is fine, thanks.”

“Take a mouthful from the glass to make room for the whisky.” Maurice drank half the glass.

“Say when,” said Piers, looking rather hard at his son.

“You may fill it up.” Maurice gave a little laugh. “As I said — I feel a bit squeamish.”

Piers filled the glass. He beamed at Maurice.

“I do think he is thinner, don’t you, Piers?” Pheasant asked. She was longing to stroke her boy’s hair.

“It’s a wonder,” said Piers, “he isn’t getting fat and lazy. What do you do with yourself, Maurice? I mean, how do you pass the time?”

“Oh, the time passes fast enough.”

“It’s a wonderful thing,” Piers went on, “for a young fellow to have an independent fortune. It was lucky for you that you went to visit Cousin Dermot.”

“Yes, indeed. Where is Nook? Have I got to call him Christian now?”

“You’ve got to try. I find it hard.”

“I’m quite used to it,” said Pheasant, “except that at bedtime I always say ‘Goodnight, Nooky.’”

“Listen to her,” laughed Piers. “She still looks on you boys as though you were five-year-olds.”

Little Mary again came in, sidled between Piers’s knees and stared large-eyed at Maurice.

“whom do you think she’s like?” asked Pheasant, smiling encouragement at her daughter.

“Certainly not you,” said Maurice. “More like Father.”

“No,” said Piers. “Like my mother. She’s named for her, you know. Tell brother your name, pet.”

Little Mary, in panic, scrambled on to his knees and hid her face against him. She did not mind the heat from his stalwart body.

“Wait till you see Philip,” said Pheasant. “He’s grown devastatingly handsome in the past two years.”

“He’ll outgrow that,” said Piers. “I was the same at his age.”

Pheasant was silent.

“Wasn’t I?” he repeated.

“why, yes, dear.” She spoke in a comforting tone. Then to the little girl she said, “Run to the studio and tell Christian that big brother is here.”

Mary gripped Piers and hid her face. Setting her on her feet, he said in a tone of command, “Run along with you.”