The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (165 page)

“Oh, gee,” he whimpered, “the storm’s awful!”

Eden grinned. “I thought you liked it. I thought you’d like to sleep right out in it.”

Finch opened his eyes which he had kept tightly shut. They were met by the fierce glare of lightning. He shut them again and scrambled in a panic across Piers’s body. Eden put his pillow beneath his head, turning the wet side down.

“Thank you, Eden.” Finch burrowed into the pillow. He pulled the sheet over his head.

Eden jerked Piers’s pillow from under his head and plumped it down on his face.

“Take that! You lazy dog!” he said.

He closed the window and went to his own room. He sat down by his desk and leant his head on his hand. He did not close his window but sat looking out into the storm. A feeling of melancholy crept over him. What was it all about? What had happened to him tonight? No great experience was over but something was done with. Why had he made a fool of Uncle Ernest? He had got the better of him. He had shown the family that he would go his own way. But what was that way? Where, oh where, would it lead him?

R
AGS’S
W
EDDING

A
FTER THE STORM
, morning broke fair as a flower. The grass had been washed till every blade shone. The curled petals of dahlias which had been filled with rain now spilled it out as the heavy blooms drooped. There was a wind from the west and round white clouds like chariots were rolled across the sky.

In the kitchen all was preparation for the wedding. Eliza had come back to take Rags’s place while he went on his honeymoon which was to be a two days excursion to Niagara Falls. Eliza was disapproving of the union between two people both of whom she disliked. It would have been better, she thought, if neither of them had come to Jalna, let alone being married there and settling down to be as common and as wasteful as they chose. She disapproved still more the family’s making their wedding a gala occasion, just as though the two had been serving well at Jalna for years. But the old lady had taken a fancy to Rags, also she liked excitement of any sort, on any pretext. There she was in her room, choosing what cap to wear, just as though it were the wedding of one of the family! She had bought Maggie a fine silk dress and Rags a pair of cufflinks. Generally she was close enough. It took a wedding to loosen her purse strings. It was a pity there were no weddings in the family. There was Mr. Ernest who should have been married long ago. There was Miss Meg who had been treated so cruelly by Mr. Vaughan. If only some other nice man would come along and win her!

There was Mr. Renny! Eliza’s lips took a downward curve when she thought of him, but her eyes softened. There was one thing about the affair, she would enjoy doing her old work again for a couple of days, investigating the corners, seeing how Rags kept the silver. Eliza would say this for Maggie, that she had prepared an appetizing array of dishes to tide the family over her absence. But what airs the woman put on, with her hair frizzed and her feet crammed into high-heeled slippers, and a red fox fur for going away in — with the thermometer likely to rise to eighty. Worst of all, Rags had stuck labels from a hotel in Paris on their two suitcases! How had he come by them? Eliza could not trust herself to speak of these. She just gave them a look of scornful unbelief as Rags set the cases, with a lordly air, by the kitchen door for the housemaid to carry out. Still, it was nice to be at Jalna once more, to take the old lady’s breakfast to her, to fetch Mr. Renny’s shaving water and to see how little Wakefield had made friends with him.

The boys were to miss afternoon school in order to be home in time for the wedding. The preparations for it had given Piers and Finch that feeling of hilarity which made them mislay each of their belongings in turn, dawdle over their breakfast and seem likely to miss their train. Eden was preoccupied and inclined to be irritable with his juniors.

As the three sped along the country road on their bicycles toward the little railway station, Eden felt irked by the monotony of these journeyings. Yet he infinitely preferred them to being in residence in the college. He wished he had Oxford ahead of him. His uncles had gone there but the family exchequer would no longer run to it, or so at least Renny said. For some reason which he did not try to fathom, his mind turned resolutely away from the affair of the night before. The poetic intimacy between him and Amy Stroud he felt was no longer possible. What would follow he did not know. What he did know was that she no longer existed for him as a woman. She had become a symbol. As a symbol he would defend her against — what? Again his mind turned away from the thought.

His brothers were pressing too close behind him. It was understood that he should lead the way. Yet he could see the front wheel of Piers’s bicycle and he gave him a warning look over his shoulder. The freshness of the air succeeding the sultriness of the day before, the hilarity of the wedding preparations, made Piers oblivious to Eden’s senior claim. He rode past him through a deep puddle, sending a spray of muddy water over Eden’s grey-flannelled legs. Finch, following blindly in Piers’s wake, did the same. As he passed Eden and saw the fury in his face, he pedalled with all his might, almost colliding with Piers’s back wheel.

“Look out!” shouted Piers.

“You young blighters!” exclaimed Eden.

Finch wobbled distractedly. It seemed that he would topple over and that Eden would crash into him but somehow he righted himself and sped, grinning insanely, after Piers into the station yard.

Eden followed slowly, wishing that he had the two at home. They hurried, exchanging mischievous looks, into the baggage room where they were allowed to keep their bicycles. They stood them against the wall and, not able to control their hilarious grins, watched Eden approach.

“I suppose you think you’re funny,” he said scathingly.

They stared speechless at his damaged trousers.

“It’s hard on a fellow,” he said, “to have two such imbeciles always at his heels.”

Piers’s eyes met his daringly. Finch giggled. Eden banged his bicycle into its place. He continued:

“I had a mind to pull you off your bikes and roll the two of you over into that puddle.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t!” said Piers.

“I wouldn’t, eh?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I’d like to know why.”

“You might do it to the kid — not me!”

“Not you, eh? Come back with me now and I’ll show you.”

“All right.” Piers turned truculently toward the door. Eden walked close beside him. He said:

“If you come back with me to that puddle, you’ll be sorry.”

“So will you.”

The whistle of the locomotive shrieked at the crossing. Several people, carrying suitcases, hastened across the platform.

“I can’t do it in front of these people,” said Eden. “I’ll see you about it later.” He took out his handkerchief and attempted to dry the mud spots on his trousers.

He jostled Piers against the door as they entered the carriage, and had the satisfaction of seeing him wince. There was only one vacant seat to be had. Eden took it and, drawing a book from his pocket, settled down to dignified reading. He ignored the two who had to stand by his side all the way to town. Each time Finch raised his eyes to Piers’s face. Piers winked at him.

Ernest slept late that morning. He had slept heavily the whole night through. He felt heavy-eyed and oppressed in spirit when he woke but after a cold bath his depression lifted. In reviewing the events of the night before he felt the exhilaration of one who has had a narrow escape. What might not have happened if his intimacy with Amy Stroud had progressed? He might have been drawn into marriage with her and some instinct told him that she was not the wife for him. He doubted if the woman lived who was the wife for him. He had done his best to win Mrs. Stroud from Eden. He had been worsted. His spirit was tranquil. No more hot walks to her house. No more long fervid conversations that left him feeling tired. He would gracefully fade out of the picture. He would pass the torch to other hands. Let Nick have a go at her!

He sauntered almost jauntily to his mother’s room. She was already dressed for the wedding. He bent and kissed her.

“How early you are dressed, Mamma,” he said.

“Anticipation is the best part of a wedding,” she replied.

“I hope this one will turn out well. While these two are not perfect as servants, they have their merits. She is an excellent cook and he will turn his hand to anything. I hope they appreciate what you are doing for them today.”

“I like a party. The wedding breakfast is to be laid on tables on the drying green. The Rector and his wife are coming and the Lacey girls and Lily Pink. Weddings always amuse them. I’ve also asked that man Dayborn and his sister, and told them to bring their child. Then there’s that Mrs. Stroud. I want to see you and her together.”

“There will be nothing in that to interest you, Mamma. I’ve given up.”

She stared up at him from under the lace edging of her cap.

“Given up what?”

“Mrs. Stroud. It is useless for me to interfere. Eden and she are attached beyond my undoing. In fact, it is I who am undone.”

“D’ye mean to say you can’t cut out that stripling?”

“Yes. No one can say that I haven’t tried. I have given up time when I should have been working on my book. My own feelings even have become involved.”

“Ha! She
is
a charmer then!”

“Of the most dangerous sort, for she has no beauty, though she has fine eyes and an alluring voice.”

“I wish we had sent Nicholas to do the job.”

“So indeed do I. He would have undertaken it as an adventure. I accepted it as a crusade.”

The more Ernest talked, the more pleased he was with the situation. He wished that Augusta might have been there to hear him. But his mother was impressed. He confided to her the details of his many visits to Mrs. Stroud. He told her of the dice throwing of the night before.

Her shaggy eyebrows went up.

“A duel! ’Pon my word it was next thing to a duel! You’ve heard of the duel that was fought for me, when I was but fifteen. ’Twas between Lord Boyne and young Tim Crawshay. They fought with swords for an hour. My brother Abram held the hourglass in his hand. They fought till they fell down exhausted, but they were such fine swordsmen that neither of them had a scratch!”

Ernest had heard the story many times but he becomingly asked:

“Which did you favour after that, Mamma?”

“Neither. While they fought I sat waiting with a young Lieutenant of the Guards. He was so sympathetic that I took no notice of either of them again.”

“I hope that you feel that I did my best, Mamma.”

“I do, Ernest. But I wish it had been Nick. Gout and all, I think he would have beat you.”

“Mamma, no man living could do more than I have done. I have been tossed like a billow on the brine. Mrs. Stroud is infatuated with Eden.”

Adeline thrust out her lips. “Then I will have something to say to her.”

By afternoon the breeze fell. It was hotter than ever. The brilliant breathless air enmeshed the countryside in a golden veil in which a thousand crickets, locusts and grasshoppers sang; the fluff of milkweed and pollen of goldenrod hung; the voices of farm workers and neigh of horses were muffled.

Eliza looked cool and collected but the poor bride, after a final encounter with the wedding breakfast, was crimson-faced and, as she herself said, in a lather of sweat. Eliza clothed her in a garment of talcum powder before squeezing her into the new silk dress.

As for Rags, he was wearing a morning suit which had been Renny’s before the War. A tailor had cut it down for him but it still was somewhat long in leg and sleeve, and the tails almost reached his knees. However, the tailor had made a good job of the shoulders and, as this part was all Rags saw of himself in the small looking glass in his room, he was in a state of high satisfaction. He was pallid as the bride was flushed, as spare as she was full bosomed, as composed as she was flustered.

Rags walked across the fields to the church with a Cockney groom with whom he had struck up a friendship. Renny drove the bride in the dogcart. He was to give her away. Eden took Meg and his younger brothers in the car, while old Hodge, the coachman, drove the carriage wherein sat Adeline, Ernest and little Wakefield.

There were a number of people already in the church when they arrived, for work on farm and in stables had ceased for the occasion. The friends of the family were in the front pews. There was a scattering of people from the village in the back of the church.

Eden slid into a pew beside Mrs. Stroud who was sitting alone. He made facetious remarks to her under his breath about the groom’s costume, the bride’s colour and the company in general. Rags was just
not
comic as he stood waiting by the chancel steps. But there was a dignity about him, a
savoir faire
, that induced the negative.

Miss Pink, having scrubbed her hands with her pocket handkerchief, fervently produced the wedding march on the organ. Adeline craned her neck, while holding Wakefield close, to watch the approach of the bride. Renny, wearing the austere expression of a father who is not positive that he is giving his daughter to a man worthy of her, led the cook up the aisle. She suddenly bloomed into a shy and trustful bride. She savoured every moment of this greatest day of her life. As they passed Adeline, Wakefield struggled on her knee.

“I want to go too!” his little voice piped.

“Hush,” she admonished him and pressed his face against the crepe of her veil.

Eden whispered to Mrs. Stroud — “What if it were you and me!”

She coloured deeply and her fingers touched his hand that lay on the seat between them.

Piers whispered to Finch — “I wonder if Eden changed his pants!”

Finch gave a suffocated giggle. The sound of it horrified him. Then he heard himself give another. He clenched his hands till his nails hurt him. The back of his not too well washed neck grew red. He shook with giggles. Meg looked across Piers at him and beckoned. He clambered across Piers’s knees and sat on Meg’s other side. When he dared raise his eyes he beheld Mr. Fennel, the Rector, performing the last of the ceremony.