The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (166 page)

Now they were man and wife, grappled together for a long serving of the Whiteoaks. The master of Jalna bent his red head ceremoniously and imprinted a kiss on the cheek of the bride.

The wedding cake, made by the bride but iced elaborately by a confectioner, stood in the middle of the long table. The table was conveniently close to the kitchen so that platters could be replenished with ease. All commonizing articles such as clotheslines and props had been removed from the scene. The grass had been shaved and watered. A great bunch of dahlias stood near the cake.

It was an impressive sight to see Rags escort old Adeline to her place at the head of the table. She had removed her mantle and bonnet and wore a mauve-and-white cap with rosettes of ribbon.

“Who but you, dear Mrs. Whiteoak,” said the eldest Miss Lacey who had once been a flame of Nicholas’s, “would have thought of doing anything so charming!”

“It’s not the first party I’ve given for my servants.”

“Indeed, I remember others. But this is especially kind as they have not been with you very long.”

“Time flies when you’re past ninety,” returned Adeline, “I’ll not be here to give them a silver wedding breakfast.”

“I wish Nicholas had been here.”

“I think he stayed in Quebec to avoid it. He has no taste for such junketings.”

“I declare,” said Miss Pink, “my fingers stuck with heat to the keys of the organ! I thought I’d never get through with the march. What a pretty thing that young Mrs. Cummings is! But how strange of her to have brought her baby to a wedding.”

“I invited him. To my mind there’s no more appropriate guest at a wedding than a baby.”

“Oh yes,” agreed Miss Pink faintly.

Ernest found himself beside Mrs. Stroud. He was not distressed by this. He was his usual detached, urbane self. She was conscious of a change in him but could not have named what it was. It was probably, she thought, the presence of his family. Eden, on the other hand, was so openly attentive to her as to be embarrassing. Yet she gloried in his attentions.

It was an irritation to her that Dayborn was seated opposite her. His expression was stony. He spoke only in answer to questions and then taciturnly. Chris looked heavy-eyed, as though she had shed tears. It was characteristic of Amy Stroud that the scene of the night before had finally closed the door of her friendship against them. Their plight moved her to no generous impulse.

Renny was rising. He said:

“It is with real pleasure that I propose the health of the bride. Not only for her own sake and the sake of her husband but for the sakes of all of my family. Four times every day I bless her. In the morning with her good porridge inside me I go to my stables as ready for work as any horse there. At noon I return, knowing that a delicious joint and a tempting sweet await me. At tea time I know that the tea will be hot and that there will be plenty of it. At night — well, her suppers invariably fill the bill. What more can a man want in his bride — except beauty and charm and, if anyone doubts that Mrs. Wragge possesses both, let him look at her smiling there. As for Rags — he is in some ways a better cook than she, because she has to have good materials and plenty of them (I know that because of the bills I pay) but, when Rags and I were at the front and he said ‘There’s not a blasted thing to eat, sir, but what’s in this tin, and the carcass of a hen’ — then I knew that a particularly good feed was coming. I foresee a long happy union for these two and I have great pleasure in proposing the health of the bride.”

He sat down.

“Hear! hear!” said the Rector, who had eaten a particularly large meal.

“Very good,” said Ernest, thinking how much better he could have done it.

The bride’s health was drunk. She blushed furiously.

“Now then,” urged the best man, kicking the groom under cover of the table.

Wragge rose with trembling but conscious of the elegance of his appearance. He bowed profoundly. His emotions gave a touch of poignancy to his Cockney accent.

“Lidies and gentlemen, I want to thank you very much for your good wishes to my wife —”

He was interrupted by loud applause, led by Piers. He bowed again and proceeded:

“My wife and myself. This ’ere getting married is new to me and that there ceremony at the church a greater hordeal than shell fire. I little thought, when I came to Jalner, that I’d get ’itched up so soon but I believe I’ve made a good choice. Mrs. Wragge and I feel like old family retainers. When I first went to Captain Whiteoak as ’is batman in France, I says to myself — ‘That’s the gentleman I’m going to stick to in ’ealth or — blown to bits!’ And so I ’ave and so I will.” He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his face with one of the dozen silk handkerchiefs which were Meg’s present to him.

The cheering, led by Piers, was vociferous.

The day continued fine and hot. The married pair set out for Niagara Falls. Eliza took the reins into her hands. The gramophone had been brought out and Finch put on one record after another, till the three pieces of wedding cake he had eaten began to have their effect on him. He went down to the washroom in the basement and was sick. The family and their friends retired to the house, leaving the rest of the guests to enjoy themselves unhampered. Dayborn seized the first opportunity to draw Renny aside.

C
ONTRASTING
S
CENES

“I
WANT TO
tell you something,” said Dayborn. “Can we go in here?”

He jerked his head toward the open door of the sitting room. The folding doors between it and the dining room were shut. Renny nodded and they went in, closing the door behind them.

“What’s up?” asked Renny, wondering if Dayborn again wanted an advance of wages.

Dayborn answered in a tense voice — “We’ve got to go.”

“Go! When? Why? What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Stroud has given us notice to get out of her house. She gives us three days.”

“The hell she has! How much are you behind with the rent?”

“Two months. That has nothing to do with it. She doesn’t want such near neighbours.”

“D’you mean the noise?”

“Lord, no! Just the proximity. She doesn’t want her doings spied on.”

“Do you spy on her?”

“If you call it spying to stand in your own door before you go to bed. Your uncle and your brother were both there last night. You may say there’s safety in numbers but I say the woman is a bitch. I’d put nothing past her. I wish you’d heard her fly at me when she discovered I’d seen things. There was no innocence there. She simply raged. Told us to get out. If you want my opinion of her I’ll give it.”

“Yes?”

“She’s no better than a prostitute. Not as good, for there’s no necessity in it.”

Renny knit his brow. For the moment his chief concern was that Dayborn and Chris had nowhere to go. He said:

“It’s a devil of a mess. There’s not a vacant house anywhere about. There’s no one who takes lodgers. How long does she give you?”

“Three days.”

“She was in a temper. She’s probably over it now.”

“Not she. She hasn’t spoken to either of us today.”

“I’ll see her. Perhaps something can be done. But first I want to see my uncle. Find him, will you, and tell him I want to speak to him here. How are Launceton’s legs?”

“He’s still nibbling at them. It’s just nerves. They’re not filling up.”

“He’s been working too hard in the heat. Tell Scotchmere to bandage them.”

“All right. I’ll send your uncle here first.” He opened the door. Mrs. Stroud’s rich laugh came from the drawing room. Dayborn stood with his hand on the doorknob. “In the first place,” he said, “she’s a social climber and so I told her.”

“You blasted fool,” said Renny.

He stood motionless thinking till Ernest came. He closed the door behind him.

“What is that young Dayborn so mysterious about?” he asked.

“There’s no mystery. Mrs. Stroud has ordered him and his family to leave their house in three days. There was a row last night after you and Eden left.”

There was no embarrassment in Ernest’s face. He replied urbanely — “Really! I’m sorry for that. But we can’t do anything about it, can we?”

“
Do
anything! I can’t part with Dayborn and Chris now. They’re too important to me!”

“If the rent is paid I don’t think Mrs. Stroud can force them to go without a month’s notice.”

“Of course not! Why didn’t we think of that! I’ll pay the rent and they’ll have the month for looking about for a place.” His face cleared, then darkened again. He said:

“Dayborn says Mrs. Stroud is a devil. What do you think?”

“I think she probably has devil enough in her to be stimulating.”

Renny gave him a shrewd look.

He asked:

“How much longer is it going to take you to cut Eden out?”

“I’ve thrown up the sponge. I’ve tried and I’ve failed. I look on the affair as very serious.”

The colour in Renny’s already high-coloured face intensified. He exclaimed hotly:

“The young fool! With a woman that age!”

“What about yourself at eighteen?”

“I deserved a thrashing. My father was too easygoing. The woman is a pest. She has turned out Dayborn and Chris and roped in Eden. I shall have a word to say to her, and to him too.”

“I wish you were more cautious. You may do more harm than good. I sometimes fear I have.”

“I’ll be crafty.”

There were voices in the hall. Someone was going.

“I had better go back to our guests,” said Ernest. “The Laceys are leaving.”

“Uncle Ernest, I wish you would tell Chris I want to speak to her. She must be very upset. Bring her here, will you?”

Renny walked impatiently about the room. Through the window he could see the Miss Laceys departing. What a hot walk they had ahead of them. Why had no one thought of taking them home in the car. He stuck his head out of the window.

“Wait a moment!” he called. “Someone will take you home. It’s as hot as blazes.”

They came over to the window.

“Oh, how kind of you!”

“That will be nice.”

“It’s been such a delightful afternoon —”

“And quite picturesque —”

“I always think a meal out of doors —”

“Dear Mrs. Whiteoak is wonderful. She said to me —”

“And she even had a piece of the wedding cake. I said to her —”

“No, it was I who said —”

They chattered on, interrupting each other, as all his life he remembered their doing. They would think nothing of spending an hour by the window. He heard Chris enter the room. He signalled to her behind his back. She took his hand in hers.

The elder Miss Lacey was saying:

“I remember a garden party at Jalna. It was just such a September day as this. Your grandfather was still living and he —”

“What a good-looking man,” interrupted her sister. “D’you know I think that Piers —”

“But, if I may say it, I think that Piers will never have the —”

“How could he! Life and manners are —”

“To be sure, but as I —”

Renny ruthlessly interrupted the amiable flow of words. He felt Chris’s lips against his palm.

“Just wait a moment, will you,” he said. “I’ll get one of the boys to bring the car.”

He withdrew his head. Chris was in the shadow behind him. Silently he held her close.

The younger Miss Lacey’s voice came clearly: “Certainly
he
has not his grandfather’s manners. Did you notice how —”

“
Did
I? And the abrupt way he —”

With a rueful grimace at hearing himself so criticized Renny pushed Chris farther into the shadow. “Back in a moment, darling,” he whispered.

He looked into the drawing room. His grandmother, uncle and sister were there with the Fennels and Miss Pink. He went to the dining room. Eden and Mrs. Stroud were standing beneath the portrait of Adeline. They were talking in a low tone but met his eyes without embarrassment. He said:

“Sorry to interrupt but I want Eden to drive the Miss Laceys home in the car. I’d send one of the men but they’re playing games of some sort out there.”

“Much better interrupt us than them,” said Mrs. Stroud with an enigmatic smile.

Eden said deliberately, — “All right. I’ll take Mrs. Stroud too. It’s a good idea.”

He left the room. There was a moment’s somewhat embarrassed silence. Then she remarked, looking from Renny to the portrait — “There is a resemblance between you and your grandmother, isn’t there?”

“It has always been remarked,” he replied stiffly.

“It must be extraordinary to be a member of such a large family. I have lived alone so much. I have never had more than one other person in the house with me since I was a child.”

“That partly explains you,” he said.

She was on the defensive. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that, if you had had young brothers, you would know a boy for a boy when you met one.”

She flashed him a look of anger.

“Perhaps Eden is less of a boy than you think.”

“I don’t see,” he said, “how you can be interested in him. However, if you are, you are, and that’s that. There is quite a different matter I should like to talk to you about. I’ll come to see you this evening, if you don’t mind.”

For a moment she felt that she must refuse him. She was conscious of a kind of harsh dexterity in him that might worst her in a conflict. Yet how could she refuse? She heard herself saying:

“Yes, I’ll be glad to see you. Any time this evening.”

Eden had returned. He gave Renny a swift look as though to penetrate what was going on in his mind, then said to Mrs. Stroud:

“I’ve brought the car around. Will you come?”

“Yes. I must say goodbye first.”

Renny bowed gravely to her as she passed him. He went through the folding doors into the sitting room, closing them behind him. Chris was still standing where he had left her.

“They’ve gone, haven’t they?”

He looked out of the window.

“Not yet. Mrs. Stroud and Eden were in the dining room. I’m going to see her tonight.”

“It won’t do any good. She’s adamant. If you had heard the scene she made with Jim last night!”