The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (261 page)

“I shouldn’t have left him if he hadn’t been better. I think he overdid it helping Gran to get up. He gets excited about things, too… Is that high enough?” The clear flame of the lamp illumined the strongly marked features that looked as though they had been fashioned for the facing of high winds, carved more deeply the line of anxiety between the brows, accented the close-lying pointed ears.

Nothing underhand, self-seeking, in that face, Nicholas thought, but I mustn’t let the old lady get too doting about him. He’s the kind of man that women… “One thing that was keeping me awake,” he observed, peering shrewdly into the illumined face, “was the thoughts of Mama. Her spirit, isn’t it amazing?”

“A corker.”

“It seems impossible to think that some day… Renny, has she ever said anything to you about how she’s left her money?”

“Not a word. I’ve always taken it for granted that you’ll get it. You’re the eldest son and her favourite—a Court and all that—you ought to have it.”

Nicholas’s voice was sweet with reassurance. “Yes, I suppose that’s the natural thing. Just set the lamp on the table here where I can reach it. Thanks, Renny. Good night, and tell Wake that he’s to go straight to sleep and dream of a glorious trip to England Uncle Nick’s going to take him.”

“Righto. Good night.”

He took from the mantel his special pipe, the sweet instrument of his bedtime smoke, and filled it. He stretched his leather-legginged legs before him, and, as he pressed the tobacco down into the bowl with his little finger, he gazed thoughtfully at Wake sleeping on the bed. Poor little beggar! What a time he’d had with him! A rotten bad spell, and that after weeks and weeks of seeming so well. He supposed it was the raw chill of the weather they’d been having that had pulled him down. That and heaving Gran about. He was such a game youngster, he’d tackle anything.

Wake’s hair, rather long for an eleven-year-old, lay in a dark halo around his face. With his beautifully marked eyebrows, his fringed white lids, and his breath coming flutteringly through his parted lips, his appearance was such that it hurt Renny to look at him. Dash it all—would he ever rear the kid? Well, thank goodness, he was a little devil sometimes! He leaned forward and gently took the little thin wrist in his, felt the pulse. Quieter, more even. Wake lifted his lids.

“Oh, hello, Renny!”

“Hello. What are you awake for?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m better. I say, Renny, may I go to the horse show tomorrow?”

“Not if I know it. You’ll wait and go with the other kids on Saturday.”

“How much can I have to spend?”

“Spend! What on?”

“Why you know. They take around ice cream and chocolates and lemonade.”

“Twenty-five cents.”

“Oh. But last year there was a fortune-telling place just outside the restaurant part. I’d like to get my fortune told.”

“Better not. You might hear something bad.”

“What do you mean bad? Like dying?”

Renny scowled. “Good Lord, no! Like getting a sound hiding.”

“Oh… I was thinking I might hear of a fortune being left me.”

Kenny’s voice hardened. “What are you talking about, Wake? What fortune?” What the devil had the child in his mind?

“I dunno… I say, Renny, I love watching your face. The way your nostrils go. They’re funny. And the way you wiggle your eyebrows. I love watching you, more ‘specially when you don’t know it.”

How cleverly the little rascal could change the subject! Renny laughed. “Well, I guess you’re the one person who does, then.”

Wakefield stole a sly look at him. “Oh no. There was someone else. Alayne. She loved watching you. I often caught her at it.”

His elder sent forth a cloud of smoke. “What surprises me is the number of things you know which you’ve no right
to know, and how slow you are on the uptake with useful information.”

Wakefield closed his eyes. “He’s getting himself worked up to cry” thought Renny. He asked: “How about those legs? Nice and warm now? That nasty feeling gone, eh?” He put his hand under the clothes and began soothingly to rub them.

Alayne! What was she doing tonight? Was she happy? Forgetting him? Oh no, she wouldn’t forget—any more than he! He wished to God he could forget! It had always been so easy for him to forget—the natural thing. And now, after more than a year, a sudden mention of her name sent the same tremor through him—gave him a sudden jolt, as though his horse had stumbled… He rubbed the little legs rhythmically. Wake slept. The room was dimmed by a blue-grey haze of smoke… He heard Finch moving in the room above and remembered that the boy’s school fees were overdue. He unlocked a drawer and took out a slim roll of banknotes. Separating three tens and a five, he put them into an envelope, addressed and sealed it.

In the attic the only sign of habitation was the rim of light beneath Finch’s door. He was about to turn the knob when a bolt was shot on the inside and he heard the boy’s quick breathing.

“Hello,” he rapped out. “What’s this mean?”

“Oh, darn it all, Renny. I didn’t know it was you!” He slid back the bolt and stood sheepish and red.

“Did you think it was the canary fellow come to get the lottery ticket?” He grinned down at Finch sarcastically.

Finch mumbled: “Thought it was Piers.”

“Why? Had you been pinching something of his?”

The random shot went home. The boy’s flush deepened, he stammered a weak denial, and Renny’s grin exploded in a
laugh. “You’re certainly going to the dogs! What was it— ties? Cigarettes?”

“Cigarettes.”

“H’m… Well, here is your fee for the term. I should have sent it by cheque, but—the truth is, my account is a bit overdrawn. Just hand it to the bursar—and no frenzied finance on the way!” He laid a dollar on the envelope. “Get some fags for yourself, and cut out this light-fingered business. Also, keep inside your allowance.”

Finch’s hand shook as he took the money. He brought the lamp to light his elder down the stairs. “Is Wake feeling rocky tonight?” he asked, heavily.

“Yes.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry.”

He watched the lean figure descend, noticing how the lamplight sought the warm russet of leather leggings and close-cropped head. He wished to God he had some of Renny’s ginger!

Strength from music—that was what he wanted. He thought of the ivory expanse of the keyboard, and felt an ache through his soul, a quiver through his arms…

Carefully he placed the notes in a shabby leather pocket-book; then from his desk he took an old mouth organ. He went into the clothes closet and shut the door. Then, putting his head under the tail of a heavy overcoat to muffle the sound, he laid his lips against the instrument and began wistfully to play.

F
INCH
—
THE
A
CTOR

O
NE AFTERNOON,
a month later, Finch was standing among a group of amateur actors in the narrow passage between the stage and the row of dressing-rooms in the Little Theatre. They were dispersing after a rehearsal of St. John Ervine’s
John Ferguson,
and Mr. Brett, the English director, had just come up. Hands in pockets, he lounged over to Finch, and, with an eager smile lighting his clever, humorous, actorish face, observed: “I want to tell you, Whiteoak, how awfully pleased I am with your performance today. If you keep on as you’re going now, you are going to make a really splendid Cloutie John.”

“Thanks—Mr. Brett,” stammered Finch. “I’m glad you think I’m all right.” He was crimson from embarrassment and deep joy. Praise! Warm praise, before all of them!

Arthur Leigh broke in: “Yes, that’s just what I’ve been telling Finch, Mr. Brett. He’s simply splendid. I’m certain of this, that I’m doing my own part better since he’s been playing Cloutie John. He brings a feeling of absolute reality into it.”

Finch stared straight ahead of him, his fixed expression a burning mask for the confused elation of his spirit.

“Well, I’m very, very pleased,” reiterated Mr. Brett, pushing toward the door—he was yearning for his tea. “Tomorrow at the same hour, then, and everybody on time.”

The door at the end of the passage was opened and a gust of crisp December air rushed in. The players drifted in a small body on to the stone steps. The walls of the university rose about them, showing here and there a lighted window. The arch of the Memorial Tower glistened in a bright armour of ice. Leigh turned to Finch as they reached the last step.

“I wish you lived in town, Finch,” he said. “I’d like to see something of you. But there’s always that beastly train to be caught.”

“I’m afraid I’ve missed it tonight. I’ll have to take the late one. Ten-thirty.”

Leigh looked rather pleased. “That’s good news. You’ll come home with me to dinner, and we can have a talk. Besides, I’d like my mother and sister to meet you. I’ve been talking about you to them.” He turned his, clear, rather feminine gaze eagerly on Finch.

“Sorry… Sorry,” muttered the boy.

“What utter nonsense! Of course you can come. Why not?” He slipped his arm persuasively through Finch’s.

“Oh, I don’t know. At least—well, my clothes aren’t right. And besides… you know I’m no good with women— ladies. Your mother and sister ’d think me an awful dud. I’d have nothing to say, and—and—look like—Cloutie John.”

Leigh broke into delighted laughter.

“If only you would! If only you would both look and act like him! They’d throw themselves on your neck and embrace you. Come along, don’t be an idiot!” He drew Finch on through the delicate drift of snowflakes, the air on their faces icy, yet somehow crisply caressing. Other young
figures were moving quickly through the park, silhouetted against the whiteness.

Finch had, from the first moment of acquaintance, liked and admired Arthur Leigh, been flattered by the attraction he so evidently had for the other, but now he experienced a sudden outrush of warmth toward him which filled him with wonder. He felt that he loved Leigh, wanted to be his near, his closest friend. The pressure of Leigh’s slender, small-boned body against his made him feel stronger than he had ever felt before. “Very well,” he said, “I’ll go.”

They boarded a streetcar and stood together, swaying, hanging by the straps, smiling into each other’s eyes, oblivious of the other passengers. They recalled amusing moments of the rehearsal, muttered lines of their parts, were almost suffocated by laughter. They were so happy they scarcely knew what to do.

But as Leigh put his latchkey into the lock, and Finch stood behind him before the imposing doorway of Leigh’s house, young Whiteoak felt again an overwhelming shyness.

“Look here,” he began, “look here, I—I—” But the door was open and he was inside the hall, where bright firelight was dancing over the surfaces of polished wood and brass, where there was such a look of immaculacy and order as Finch had never before beheld. The sound of girls’ voices laughing together came from the drawing-room. The two youths darted up the stairway.

“Friends of Ada’s,” Leigh said, leading the way into his own room. “If once they captured us, they’d never go home. Mother hates the dinner to be late, and besides we must have a decent time for talking before you go. I refuse to hand you over to a parcel of girls.”

They threw off their coats and caps. Finch endeavoured to hide his stupefaction at the sight of so much luxury in a boy’s room. Of course, Leigh was scarcely a boy—he was twenty—but he had never talked about his home, never seemed to be especially affluent though he had plenty of pocket money. Finch had no idea what business or profession his father was in.

His host threw open a door and revealed a bathroom of virgin white and blueness. On a small table by the enamel tub stood a bowl of white narcissi just breaking into bloom.

“I like to look at lilies while I’m in the tub,” explained Leigh. “I bathe my soul in them while I bathe my skin in suds.”

Finch stared, first at the narcissi, then at his friend. “You’re rather like that chap yourself,” he mumbled.

“What chap?”

“Narcissus. I mean—you’re so—well, it’s not hard to picture you gazing at your reflection in a pool—looking awfully picturesque and all that.”

Leigh looked delighted. “How I wish I had been Narcissus! The role would have suited me perfectly—gazing and gazing, and adoring—myself! We’d better go ahead and wash, old fellow. The girls are gone, and I hear the first dinner gong.” He flung a snowy-white embroidered towel to Finch and went back to the bedroom whistling. He knew that young Whiteoak was embarrassed, shy, and he wanted to put him at his ease.

He wanted very much to gain Finch’s confidence, even his love. He felt extraordinarily drawn to the boy, whom he looked upon as much younger than himself, though the difference was only two years. Still, Finch was at school yet, while he was in his second year at Varsity. There was
something in Finch’s gaunt face and sad eyes that he found himself constantly remembering, trying to clarify into a definite attraction. From chance phrases, allusions that Finch had let fall, he felt that he was misunderstood at home, that there was no one there to appreciate the sensitive depths of his nature, no one to love him with understanding and sympathy. He himself had been always so enfolded in love and understanding. He must ask Finch about his family, try to learn something that night of the setting of his life. He could not quite make him out. He knew that his grandfather had been an officer in India, that his family owned a lot of land, but Finch was so rough at times, so almost uncouth… He brushed his waving brown hair before the glass till it shone.

Finch had not been able to bring himself to the point of using the embroidered towel. He had hung it carefully among others of its kind on the glass rack, and had rubbed his face and hands dry on a corner of a bath towel. He now appeared in the doorway very shining with a damp lock on his forehead and his long red wrists protruding pathetically from the sleeves of his blue serge coat.

In the drawing-room they found Leigh’s mother and sister. Two sisters, Finch thought at first, the mother looked so young.

“My friend Finch Whiteoak,” Leigh introduced him, a protective hand on his arm. “This is my mother, Finch, and this ill-looking young person my sister Ada.”