The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (586 page)

“Then — what’s the matter?”

“I don’t like to be touched.”

“But, my darling …”

“Not in that way.”

He plunged after her into the darkness, as into a well. He caught her and drew her again to him. Again his passion repelled her. She struck him, and, disengaging herself, fled along the path. He found his way after her as best he could. They passed by the wood and the orchard without speaking. At last the house, with a light burning in the hall, was before them. They separated silently for their own rooms.

Finch’s House

“N
OW THIS LITTLE
occasional table,” said Meg, “is one that I’ve always loved. We must take it to the new house.”

“Yes,” agreed Finch, trying to recall something he had been told about the little table.

“And this whatnot …” she continued. “Are you paying attention to what I say, Finch…? This dear old whatnot is a piece I shall never want to part with. Still — the question is, where to put it. I do wish there were more corners in your house. The whatnot must have a corner. Then I have three corner cupboards. I wish you had built an extra room to the house while you were about it. There was one nice thing about the old house that was burned — it was roomy.”

They were in the living room of Meg’s house and Finch’s eyes were still on the occasional table.

“That table,” he said, “doesn’t it belong to Alayne?”

“Alayne?” she cried. “why, Finch — whatever do you mean? Alayne doesn’t own anything.”

“what I meant was,” he hastened to say, “I had remembered it at Jalna.”

“Certainly,” she agreed, “it used to be at Jalna. But it was lent — I should say
given
to me when I needed an extra table, years ago.”

“I intend to buy a good deal of furniture,” said Finch firmly. “The sort that will suit my sort of house. I have my own ideas, you know.”

“Of course, dear. But you would be ruined if you set out to buy furniture for a house. You don’t understand the problems you’d be faced with. Now, as to my piano. You remember the old piano at Vaughanlands you used to go to practise on when you were a boy because the noise of the scales worried Granny?”

“I do indeed,” he said. “But I’m going to buy a piano.”

“Buy a piano! With a perfectly good piano — almost an antique — at your disposal? You’ll be telling me next that you don’t want any of my furniture.”

“I’d like the occasional table,” he said.

Meg sat down plump on an over-stuffed Victorian lady’s chair. “You mean that it is all you want?”

“Yes.”

“But whatever shall I do with all my things?”

“why not sell them? This is a good time for selling.”

“But supposing you married again? where should I be?”

“That’s one contingency you need not consider,” he said.

The idea of a sale and the cash produced by it was not unpleasant to Meg. “The early fall would be the best time,” she said. “I should let Patience and Roma choose some things for themselves and sell the rest.” She mused on the thought for a space, then jumped up and threw her arms about Finch. “I’ll do it,” she cried. “I’ll go to you with only the occasional table.”

Weeks of cheerful interest followed for Finch. The heat wave passed and the pleasantest sort of weather followed — hot days for ripening, cool nights for sleeping. Alayne, of whose good taste he had the highest opinion, threw herself with almost passionate interest into the furnishing of the new house. Together they visited the city stores, where the most interesting furniture was offered. They attended an auction sale of the contents of a luxurious house, and later had dinner together at a restaurant, the continental atmosphere of which was much advertised. Finch had bought a car, and as they drove back to Jalna on the highway that when she first knew it had been a peaceful country road, Alayne felt that she had not for years so much enjoyed herself. The companionship of Finch was congenial to her. Sitting beside him in the car, her thoughts turned back to the days of his boyhood and she marvelled at the change in him, from a lanky, sullen and shy boy, to this distinguished-looking man. Yet when he turned his long light eyes to her with a questioning look or gave her his wide feckless smile he was the same Finch. She flattered herself that she had been a not feeble instrument in his development. She had been sympathetic toward him, had tried to understand him, when assuredly his family had not. It was she who had persuaded Renny to give him piano lessons. After one of these excursions when they had left the highway and were moving quietly along the country road that led to Jalna she said:

“How swiftly the years fly! I have been thinking of when you first began to play the piano.”

“It seems long ago to me. I can scarcely remember the time before that.”

She was astonished. “I picture you,” she said, “with very clear recollections of childhood and adolescence.”

“They’re all jumbled,” he muttered. “Confused and rather painful memories. But — I must have been a young beast as a boy. I wonder you took so much trouble over me. For you did, you know. I shall never forget that.”

“I refuse to listen when you talk such nonsense,” she said. “You were a sensitive boy who was not understood by his family. I merely had the intelligence to see what you might become. I am very proud of you, Finch. You are a fine artist. You have fame.”

He gave a short laugh. “It sounds first rate,” he said.

“But who is satisfied?” she exclaimed. “No artist surely. Neither are we others.”

“But you are happily married, Alayne. A happy marriage is something I cannot look back on.”

“You will marry again.”

“Never.”

“But, Finch, picture Dennis with a new mother, waiting for you in your own house when you return from a tour.” She was not so much painting a pretty picture for him as probing his feelings with feminine curiosity.

She was sympathetic, but he was not laying himself open to sympathy. He said, in a matter-of-fact tone, “I am pleased with my house as it is.”

“I am so glad of that. Because I don’t really want you married. I want to be able to walk across the ravine to find you sitting at your piano. I want you to go on playing, just as though I were not there. Perhaps I shall leave without our having exchanged a word.”

“Meggie will be there,” he said. “And Patience. Had you forgotten that?”

“Merciful heaven, I had!” she exclaimed. “what an absent-minded fool I am growing to be in my old age. But is it really settled? Can’t you get out of it?”

This was putting the matter harshly. Finch could not subscribe to such a pronouncement. “I guess,” he said, “that I am lucky to have two such women to come and keep house for me — and Dennis.”

He added his son’s name as though in an afterthought. Alayne, always puzzled by his attitude toward Dennis, said in a questioning tone, “He is a very interesting boy.” She dared not give voice to what she felt about those two female relatives pushing (as she considered) their way into this citadel of his which should be sacred to his music and his privacy.

“I scarcely know him,” he returned tersely.

“And sound as though you don’t want to,” she cried. “Really, Finch, you are impossible. Dennis will be eleven next Christmas. He is a thoughtful boy, a little backward in his studies, a little precocious in his attitude toward life. Not as Archer, who always seems
le regarder de haut en bas
.”

“Doubtless I shall see more of him in future,” said Finch. “Gosh, the way the youngsters are growing up. Piers’ boys — young men! Adeline and Roma both engaged! Tell me, Alayne, what do you feel about your future son-in-law as the weeks go on?”

“He wears well,” she said firmly. “And he fits into life atJalna better than at first I guessed he would. He really
tries
. And I imagine it’s not easy for him. I gather that he is used to doing just as he pleases,
When
he pleases. Now he will rise at six to help Piers in the orchards or on the farm. He is learning about horses from Renny, who says he is a nervous rider and always will be.” She added, in a tone scarcely audible, “I am not sure that he is
quite
happy.”

“He certainly ought to be,” said Finch. “Engaged to a girl like Adeline. Anyone can see how deeply in love she is.”

“She is little more than a child. Can one be truly in love at her age?”

“More truly I should say than later,” said Finch. “Later it’s harder to forget one’s self — and all that lies behind. Adeline has no past.”

Alayne spoke with almost impersonal gentleness. “We can only hope for the happiness of her future. She is a dear girl.”

These excursions to the city were made with a certain amount of secrecy. It would not do for Meg to discover that Alayne was assisting Finch in his choice of furniture for his house. Almost opportunely it seemed, Meg was suffering from a rash of poison ivy on her face and did not wish to be seen in public. Now Finch turned the car through the gateway of Vaughanlands, along the drive that sloped downward to where the house stood.

Alighting from the car, Finch stood to gaze, with that concentrated attention one gives to one’s own new house. His eyes devoured it. He did not yet love it but felt pride of possession mounting in him. There was as yet no soul in the house. It was but a shell. Nothing had happened in it. In virginal white it gleamed among the trees. No vine or leaf of vine or smallest tendril of vine had darkened one inch of it. It was as purely white as the new-laid egg of a Leghorn pullet.

“Shall you keep the name Vaughanlands?” asked Alayne.

“Well — I have not thought about it. Must the house have a name? Very well, I’ll keep the name. Unless you can think of a better.”

“Uncle Nicholas — indeed all the family — would like to stick to Vaughanlands, I feel sure.” They went indoors. The smell of newness greeted them. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “how fresh it is! How spick-and-span! It makes Jalna appear really fusty.” She caught his arm and pressed it. “Finch, you are going to love it. And
there
stands the piano! How splendid it looks in the almost empty room!” She moved about, viewing it, now from this angle, now from that. She stopped in front of the occasional table with a thoughtful air. It was even prettier than she remembered.

“Meg is selling her things,” he said, “with the exception of the few I want…. That little table came from Jalna. But that was so long ago.”

“Not so very long ago,” said Alayne, stroking the table with the affection of a lover. “I don’t know why Renny lent it to Meg in the first place. I have always admired it.”

“Would you like to have it back again?” Finch asked eagerly. “Because if you would —”

“No, no, no — that might annoy Meg.”

“But — if it was only lent to her.”

“That is all it was. Just lent.”

“Then, Alayne, let me give it back. Look here, I’ll take it straight out to the car.”

“I don’t wish to annoy anyone,” she said wistfully, “but I have missed this little table.”

Finch was already on his way to the car with it. When he returned she was wandering from room to room. In each she had some happy suggestion to make, some commendation of what had been done. He drove her to Jalna, carried the occasional table into the house for her, escaped, without being seen, and returned, to find Christian awaiting him. He was seated at the piano, picking out a tune with one hand. He swung round to greet Finch.

“I hope you don’t mind, Uncle Finch,” he said. “I found all the lights on and thought I’d like to try the new piano. It’s magnificent. It must be splendid to be able to play as you do. It’s hard, isn’t it, that life is so short a fellow has time to do only one thing well? And is lucky if he achieves that. As for me, I should like to be a painter, play the piano, the violin, and the flute, and write novels.”

“I know,” said Finch. “I once wanted to be an actor.”

“Did you really? Like Uncle Wake, eh? I didn’t know that. I can’t imagine your being anything but what you are. Uncle Finch, what does it feel like to be reunited with your family? After each tour I suppose you find quite a change in us young ones. Are you pleased by these changes or do you think the family is deteriorating?”

“Oh, never that,” said Finch. “I admire you all. It’s wonderful to see you young cousins developing. Adeline and Roma turning into women.”

“Adeline the very spit of great-grandmother,” laughed Christian, “and feeling very cock-a-hoop about it. Roma feeling herself the image of her poet father and conceited about that. Girls are inclined to conceit, I find. Though, goodness knows, some fellows are! Norman, for instance.”

“Roma is not in the least like Eden. She is like her mother, Minny Ware, though she lacks the jolly generosity of Minny — or so it seems to me.”

“There’s nothing very jolly or generous about Roma,” said Christian thoughtfully. “But she must be a sweet little thing. All her friends say so.” With troubled thought indenting his fair brow, he added in a lower tone, “There is one among us cousins I am worried about, Uncle Finch.”

“Yes?” Finch’s expression, so suddenly concerned, brought a smile of reassurance from the young man.

“It’s not that I’m
terribly
worried. But it’s a bit of a problem for me. It’s about Maurice.”

“Oh — I see.”

“You know he drinks too much?”

“I thought that — in London — and on the voyage out. He’s still at it, is he?”

“He bought a supply. It seemed quite a lot to me. He kept it in the cupboard in my studio. Mother and Dad didn’t know. Please don’t mention it to Dad or Uncle Renny. But I felt I had to tell you. I need the advice of one of you older ones.”

“I certainly will not tell,” said Finch. “How much does he drink?”

“I actually don’t know. He finished the first lot — with the help of Roma and Norman and two of their friends. Now he has a second supply. He likes company, but — if he has none — he’ll drink alone.”

“Alone, eh?”

“Yes, alone. So far I’ve been able to conceal it from Mother and Dad, though she suspects. Last night I had to help him up to his room. I’m awfully fond of Maurice, but — he’s making things beastly difficult. He’ll promise anything and forget his promise the next hour. It’s pretty hard to understand him.”