The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (144 page)

“Do what you think best and don’t talk like a fool!”

“It’s true and you know it. Well, I’ll see you later. Lord, how those boys have grown.”

“Haven’t they! The car will be packed. Will you take Wragge with you? I’ll send for him when we get home.”

“Righto.” Maurice turned away, the lightness of his tone contrasting with his look of hurt. The Cockney, Wragge, followed him, his shrewd eyes having absorbed the strangeness of the meeting. He threw all he could of devotion into the parting glance he gave Renny Whiteoak. He had been his batman in the War and now his look said — “Whatever ’appens you can count on me, sir.”

Renny rejoined his family. Meg had conquered her agitation and taking his arm drew him toward the three young brothers eagerly waiting to greet him. He kissed each in turn.

They had so developed since he had last seen them that it required an effort of will to place each in the cherished niche where he belonged. It was hard to tell which had changed most. He grinned, almost in embarrassment, as he looked into their three faces.

If it was a matter of mere growth Piers had it, he decided. From a sturdy little boy of less than eleven he had grown to a strapping youth of almost fifteen, with broad shoulders and head well set on a strong neck. His full blue eyes were bold and there was a look about his mouth that hinted that he would not be too eager to do what he was bid. And his hands — well, they looked ready for anything — muscular, brown, vigorous.

But could he give the palm to Piers with Eden standing there, almost as tall as himself? He had last seen Eden as a slender, fair boy of fourteen and here he was a man and almost too good-looking for he was like his poor mother who, if she had not been so delicate, would have been beautiful. Of the three young brothers Eden gave Renny the most eager, the warmest welcome, gripping his hand, looking into his eyes with a swift, penetrating glance.

Finch had changed the least; but even he was grown almost out of recognition. His hand lay small and thin in Renny’s. His teeth looked big and new between his parted lips.

“Hello!” he breathed. “Hello! I thought I’d come to meet you.”

“Good fellow.” Renny still held his hand as they all moved through the station.

Again the family which had impeded his entrance appeared on the scene. The man had placed a heavily shod foot on a bench and, elbow on knee, was staring over the heads of his family, whistling through his teeth, while children and wife in dumb resignation waited to see what he would do next. Renny nudged Meg, with a nod in their direction.

“Poor things,” she exclaimed. “How happy they are.” She smiled at the children, then glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. Her brow cleared as she saw that the crowd had closed between her and the figure of Maurice Vaughan.

Porters had arrived with Renny’s luggage. Eden and Piers were fastening the trunk to the back of the car. It had been washed for the occasion and though Renny disliked it he gave a glance of approval at it. He, Meg, and the small boy got into the back seat. Eden was a good driver. They sped smoothly along the road that lay beside the lake. It was noonday and there was little traffic once they reached the suburbs. Then there were trees in their budding leaves in front of the houses and, glimpsed between them, the lake, fluttering little bright waves.

This moment which Renny had so often pictured, strained toward in homesickness, now seemed unreal. The scene, the backs of the two youths in the front seat, the thin body of the child beside him, the clasp of Meg’s hand across the child’s knees, might, he thought, dissolve into the vapour of a dream and he find himself once more in France, with war the only reality. His weather-seasoned profile looked so aloof to Meg that she leant toward him and asked:

“Aren’t you happy to be home?”

He pressed her fingers and nodded. She felt that he was thinking that their father would not be waiting to welcome him. She herself had got used to the loss but of course it was fresh to Renny. She said in her peculiarly comforting intonation:

“We’ve made
such
preparations for you! Gran and the uncles and Aunt Augusta have been counting the hours till you come. Everything has been done — even to washing the dogs.”

“It’s grand to be home!” Again his hand pressed hers. He grinned down into Finch’s face. “Eh, Finch? What do you think of me?”

The colour rose to Finch’s forehead. He could not speak. Meg spoke for him.

“You’re a hero to Finch. Of course, you’re a hero to all of us but you know what small boys are. Who do you think he is like, Renny?”

Renny’s vivid brown eyes scrutinized the child’s long, sensitive face. “I’m damned if I know. Well, he’s got the Court nose. He’s got grey-blue eyes. Who has grey-blue eyes in our family?”

“No one. Both his parents’ eyes were blue. Isn’t Eden like his mother? But so different in disposition. He’s full of character. I can tell you, Renny, those two in the front seat are a handful. I shall be glad to have your help with them. They’ve wills of iron.”

The elder brother’s eyes turned to the two pairs of well-shaped shoulders, the bright hair and strong necks of the two. “They had better not try any of the iron-will stuff on me,” he said.

As though conscious that they were being talked about, Eden and Piers glanced toward each other, the first with a mocking smile, the second with a look half mischievous, half daring. Eden increased the speed of the car, for they were now driving between the lake and the fields that lay dark and receptive after the plough. The air was fresh, sweet with the scents of May, and the sun gave promise of summer heat. An approaching team of farm horses stirred the dust to a low cloud about their shaggy feet. Finch found his voice and shouted:

“There’s one of our wagons, Renny!”

Again Eden increased the speed.

Giving him a poke between the shoulder blades Renny exclaimed — “Stop the car!”

They were now beside the horses. He gave an admiring look at their sleek sides then noticed that the load they drew was a dozen fat pigs, shouldering each other in the straw, peering at him in a mixture of impudence and foreboding. The driver was new to him. He did not like his looks.

“By George, those are fine pigs!” he said.

“I helped to feed them,” put in Finch. “I often gave them extra feed.”

“Shall we go on?” asked Eden.

Renny enquired of the driver — “Where are you taking the pigs?”

Eden answered for him — “To market. He’ll not get much for them. We’d better be getting along. They’ll have lunch waiting at home.”

“Yes, go on.”

A sudden sense of reality swept over Renny. The sight of the farm horses, their honest eyes beneath their blond forelocks, the smell of their harness, their most hides, the jostling pigs, swept his future toward him in a living tide. There was an end to war. Life on his own land, his sister and young brothers about him. He realized for the first time that he must be a father to these boys, take their dead father’s place. He must find out what each was and do the best he could for him. The bond already existing between him and them tautened and sought strength in his heart. He drew a deep breath and took Finch’s thin hand in his. He felt its pliable bones quiescent in that clasp. He saw the childish bare knees, close together like twin chestnuts smooth and brown.

Piers hooked his arm over the back of the seat and turned to point out the changes that had taken place since Renny’s leaving. At each Renny gave a grim nod, thinking none of them for the better. He was glad when the car turned into the quiet country road where the great trees still spread their branches and caused a moment’s slackening of motorists’ speed. “I’ll protect them always,” he thought. “There’ll be one road that isn’t mutilated.”

As the car turned in at the gates the sense of naturalness that had come to him with the sight of the farm wagon increased. He felt as though he had never been away from Jalna. Why, there was the old silver birch tree with the circular white seat beneath it, the lacy new foliage moving delicately in the breeze! There was the house itself, the rosy brick a rich background for the spreading Virginia creeper that massed itself about the windows but saved its most delicate tendrils to drape above the porch. There were the dogs stretched in the warm sunshine on the steps, rousing themselves to join in a concert of barking about the car. There were two newcomers that raged about his heels till he put his hand down to them palm upward and they touched it with their nostrils and were satisfied to welcome him as having the true scent of the family.

Then he saw his father’s Clumber spaniel, Fanny, standing quietly by herself in the shadow of the porch, her fringed tail drooping, her eyes questioningly raised to his face.

“There’s old Fan,” said Piers. “She’s forgotten you.”

“Forgotten me! No — she couldn’t! Hello, Fan, old girl! Hello, old pet! It’s me — Renny!” He bent over her, his lean hand running the length of her silky coat.

She reared herself against his legs, her pensive spaniel’s face regarding him from the frame of her long ears. Her eyes were full of a mournful recognition. It was not enough to stroke her. He took her up into his arms and held her close to his breast. And his father was dead! He felt the tears rising in his throat as he hugged the spaniel close. He hid his face against one of the long ears. He heard Meg’s voice.

“Isn’t she an old dear? Oh, how she missed Papa! No one can take his place with her. I think we ought to ring the bell and give them warning inside that we’re here.”

“They’ve had warning from the dogs,” said Eden. “I hear Gran’s voice.”

Meg, however, rang the bell and an instant later the door opened and an elderly maid who had been with the family for nearly thirty years stood smiling a tearful greeting to Renny.

“Eliza!” he exclaimed. He still held the spaniel in his arms, and holding it strode toward the woman, his face alight.

“Keep that grin for me,” said a harsh voice. His grandmother pushed the maid aside with her ebony stick and herself advanced with a vigour that defied her ninety-three years. Her face, invincibly handsome because of its superb bony structure, was creased into a network of lines by her wide smile which displayed her double row of strong artificial teeth. Her brows, though shaggy, still showed their fine original arch above her dark eyes, as might the Gothic arches of a ruined cathedral through their growth of ivy. She wore a much-trimmed cap, a cashmere shawl and large woollen bedroom slippers.

Before her stick had tapped thrice on the floor of the porch she discarded it and it fell with a clatter. She opened wide her arms and Renny, setting down the spaniel, buried himself in her embrace. It was as though the gates of his past had opened, the past of his father and his grandfather who had lived and loved and begot children under this roof, to claim him to carry on their tradition. The memory of what he had witnessed in Europe, of despair and disintegration, he would throw off with his uniform and turn wholeheartedly to the stability of this dear place.

He forgot in his ardour the weakness of the symbol of this life which he embraced in the person of his grandmother. Her shawl fell off, her cap was askew, she was gasping for breath.

“Lord, what a hugger you are,” she got out. Then hastened to add — “But I like it. Don’t you ever be afraid to squeeze my ribs. I’m not made of such delicate stuff as my daughter and granddaughter. If I was I’d not have had three such big sons.”

She kept on talking, as though she would by the flow of her words exclude the rest of the family from their reunion. But her daughter, Lady Buckley, and her sons, Nicholas and Ernest, were close behind her and now claimed their share of Renny’s attention. They were tall handsome men in their middle sixties, Nicholas with a mass of iron-grey hair, a strong aquiline profile and deep-set brown eyes; Ernest blue-eyed, fair-skinned, his fine grey hair brushed smoothly over his narrow head, his sensitive lips trembling a little as he put his arm about his nephew’s shoulders.

“Welcome home, my dear fellow,” he said — “Welcome — welcome. To think we have you back at last!”

Nicholas added, in his deep voice — “By gad, Renny, it’s good to see you! And just the same!”

Renny gripped his uncles’ hands and then embraced his aunt, pressing fervent kisses on her sallow cheek. She was in mourning, her husband having died less than two years before. She held Renny close while her breast, above her high-corseted body, rose and fell in her emotion.

“My dear boy,” she said, in her contralto tones. It was all she could say and she repeated the words several times. “My dear, dear boy!”

It irritated her mother, who exclaimed brusquely — “One would think you’d given birth to him, Augusta! The way you go on! Let the lad loose. You’re smothering him. Haven’t you a word for poor Eliza, Renny?”

He detached himself from his aunt, who drew herself up, with an offended look at her mother. He turned to the maid.

“Just the same old Eliza!” he exclaimed, patting her shoulder.

“That’s right,” said his grandmother. “Tell her she is just the same. She’s got the notion that she’s worn out with working for us and needs to retire. It’s nonsense.”

Eliza smiled palely and handed the old lady’s stick to her. The entire group moved toward the dining room where the one o’clock dinner was laid, the dogs jostling each other alongside. A tawny cat belonging to Ernest glided down the stairs to a convenient height and from there jumped to his shoulder, arching herself and beginning to purr in anticipation of the meal.

Old Adeline, in the heart of the group, declared:

“I’m starving. It’s not right for a woman of my age to wait so long for her food.”

“It is very bad for you, Mamma,” said Ernest. “It simply means that, when you do get food, you will eat too much and eating too much produces flatulence which is dangerous.”

She stared impatiently into his face as he made his pronouncement, then exclaimed:

“I’ve had wind on the stomach for twenty years. It doesn’t harm me. I’m like an old sailing ship. Wind
moves
me!” Chuckling, she shuffled in her woollen slippers toward the agreeable odour of roast chicken that came from the dining room.