The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (315 page)

T
HE
D
EPARTURE

T
O
ERNEST
it seemed positively portentous that Sasha should die just before his departure for England. It was as though she had comprehended what the state of his mind must be at the thought of parting from her. She was fourteen years old, and though she seemed to be in perfect health she required certain luxuries, certain attentions, to keep her so. On whom could Ernest have depended to care for her? Alayne had promised, but her attitude towards all animals was detached. Pheasant might have done very well, but there was Mooey, always at hand to lift her up by the wrong part or to roll on her as she slept before the fire. That left a choice among Wakefield, the Wragges, and Bessie the kitchenmaid. Ernest shivered before the choice and almost felt that he should not go.

As he fondled her with concern he noticed the look of understanding in her translucent amber eyes. She was standing on him, rhythmically kneading his stomach with her forepaws, as she so often did. He fancied, half-whimsically, that she was aware of his weak digestion and that she held the belief that gentle massage, such as she gave him, would
benefit him. The benign expression she wore, when she kneaded him thus, encouraged the belief. Now to the expression of benignity was added the look of understanding.

The very next morning he had found her dead on his eiderdown. Curled up, as though sleeping, with a look of blissful peace—but dead. It was as though she had not been able to bear the anxiety in his eyes and had willed her spirit to depart in the night, setting him free from the claims of love.

He had lain back again, pulled the covers over his head, and felt much shaken. He remembered the morning she had had her last kitten on this very bed. Just given one yell, as of triumph (for she was then old), and had it, about six o’clock in the morning. He remembered when she had been given to him by one of the Lacey girls fourteen years before, a tiny golden ball of sportiveness. He had been rather bored then at the thought of owning a kitten, had not much wanted her... a dog had killed her last kitten, and now she was gone...

Everyone was sympathetic. They had dug a grave for her in the prettiest corner of the garden, just where the old stone urn marked the spot. Wakefield had filled the grave with marsh marigolds and had curled her beautiful tail about her like a plume.

Ernest thought that Nicholas was very callous in the leaving of Nip. Nip, to be sure, was not so fine fibred as Sasha, but still he merited something more than the brief injunction thrown off by Nicholas at the supper table, on the night before departure—“For heaven’s sake, look after Nip!” That had been all. But it was Nick’s way.

The two months just passed had flown for them all. The spring had been backward, then forward. Their spirits had been up, then down. It was such an upheaval. At first the
mere stupendousness of it had been exhilarating. But later, the thought of how they would be scattered was like a hovering cloud. Augusta was in England; Eden was in France or England—no one knew which; and soon Nicholas, Ernest, and Finch would be on the ocean. They felt afresh the blank left by the death of Adeline.

When old steamer trunks were carried down from the attic, rubbed up and new labels written for them, all felt definitely that the moment was at hand. New luggage was bought by Finch.

He had paid much more for it than he thought was necessary, but Arthur Leigh had been with him when he bought it and had insisted on the best. Finch was afraid of what Renny might say about such expenditure, but he had said nothing. Since the day Finch had announced his intention of going no more to the University, Renny, after his first outburst, had been cold towards him. Piers, on the other hand, had been warmer than ever before. But neither one would give him any advice about his money. If he approached Renny with—“I say, George Fennel thinks I ought to invest something in New York stocks and not be satisfied with such a low rate of interest,” Renny would shrug and say—“It’s none of my business. Do as you like with it.” And he would turn away.

If he sounded Piers on the same subject, Piers would laugh and say—“You’re going to have the time of your young life, aren’t you?” And, if Finch persisted, he might add—“Well, George ought to know something about it; he’s in the business. I should think it would be rather fun to speculate a bit.”

Finch felt like a half-fledged bird suddenly pushed from the nest. After being constantly supervised in his spending,
ordered here and there, sometimes tyrannised over, this sudden thrusting on him of responsibility bewildered him, skimmed the cream of his pleasure in his inheritance.

It was as though they had formed a conspiracy against him. His uncles never referred to the money in his presence.

It was as though they said—“By hook or crook he got what we should have had. Now let us see what he will do with it.”

He had been almost frightened when the bank book had been put into his hand, when he had interviewed the bank manager and been shown the list of Gran’s solid and conservative investments. But George had scoffed at them. George had said that, aided by one versed in the fluctuations of the market, Finch might with “speculation” double his fortune.

His head was in a whirl. It felt hot most of the time. He found that he could not quiet his nerves by playing the piano. The virtue seemed to have gone out of it. His spirit, like a captive bird that had been wont to sing in captivity, now found itself baffled in its freedom, beating itself against the walls of change.

Alayne realised something of his bewilderment, his loneliness. They had several long talks. She felt anxiety at the thought of his giving up old Adeline’s safe investments for more spectacular ones, on the advice of George Fennel. Yet, like Finch, her imagination was captured by the thought that he might greatly increase his capital by careful speculation. George had offered some tempting suggestions, and she had heard from American friends who had made large sums of late. She wrote to the head of the New York publishing house for which she had been a reader, and asked his advice. His reply was an effort to stress cautiousness, but he could not conceal jubilation over the result of his own recent investments.
In the same week came a letter from Miss Trent, with whom she had shared an apartment in New York, telling joyously of her own good luck. Renny and Piers, the two uncles, Maurice Vaughan, were children, she thought, in matters of business. To be sure, the first two exhibited a certain shrewdness in their own province, but she had seen and heard so much of mismanagement at Jalna. There was no use in consulting them. And added to their incompetence was their disinclination even to speak of Finch’s inheritance. If in some unexpected way the subject of the grandmother’s money came up, a feeling of tension was at once apparent. They shied at the mention of it, as skittish horses will shy at their own gatepost.

Alayne took her own small capital, left her by her father, out of the Government stocks where it had been invested, and bought Universal Autos with it.

When the stock began to rise steadily she could not resist telling Finch what she had done, and, after that, it was impossible for her to restrain him. But she made him tell Renny of the project. “Invest it as you like,” Renny said curtly. “I don’t know anything about stocks. I’ve never had anything to invest.” Finch knew that it was not jealousy that made him curt, but anger that he should have, at the instant of attaining his majority, refused to return to the University. This prompt refusal had symbolised to Renny the rejection by Finch of all further authority, of supervision by him as the head of the clan.

How bitter Meg Vaughan would be, Alayne thought, if Finch were to lose even a small amount of money by following her example. Meg had always regarded her as an interloper, and to have some tangible injury to lay at her door would give her real satisfaction. Finch must go, therefore,
and talk the matter over with the Vaughans. He was not loth to do this, even though he was afraid they would discourage the investment. He was in a condition of sensitiveness which made him desirous of discussing his affairs with anyone who was willing to do so. Himself and the hundred thousand dollars that were his seemed to him of vast importance, looming above all other subjects. Within an hour after it was decided that he should go to Vaughanlands he was on his way.

There was no doubt about the arrival of spring, but as yet no manifestation of it was visible in the landscape beyond an indefinite swelling of tiny leaf-buds which gave the trees the appearance of being seen behind a veil. Or, like love unrecognised, it had come, causing the heart to turn, but as yet making little difference in the outward life.

It was midday, and the cup-like formation in which the house stood had caught and held the sun. The windows were open to it, and certain pillows, curtains, and draperies piled on the sills gave evidence that spring-cleaning was in progress.

He found his sister covering a cushion with new cretonne in a design of tulips and delphiniums. Her white hands moved softly above it like two plump pigeons in a gay bit of garden. She wore a pink-and-white chintz cap in Quakerish shape, which, she fancied, gave her the appearance of being hard at work. Vaughan, who made no pretence of working, lay stretched on a sofa reading a book on fox-breeding. Since Lebraux had died, and there was a good chance that Mrs. Lebraux would give it up, he had entertained thoughts of buying her stock himself.

“Well, Finch dear,” exclaimed Meg, “so you thought you would come to see me! It’s about time. When I think how little
I see of my brothers it makes me quite sad.” She held up her smooth face expectantly.

As Finch bent to kiss her his unruly forelock fell across her eyes. He kissed her repeatedly, smelling the warm sweetness of her flesh and the peculiar stinging odour of the new cretonne.

“How untidy you look!” she said, surveying him.

“I always do, don’t I? Hello, Maurice! You seem pressed for time.”

Vaughan answered good-naturedly—“I’m digging into the question of fox-breeding a bit. I hear that Mrs. Lebraux is going to sell her stock.”

“I haven’t heard that. I think she really has nothing else to do for a living. Between the rent and the doctor’s bills I guess she’s had a pretty hard time.”

“I feel frightfully sorry for her,” said Meg. “She’s a thoroughly nice woman. So sensible, and not spoiled a bit by having married a Frenchman. And settling down here with her child as though she’d always been—” She bit her thread with a certain sharp tooth she used for this purpose. She had been quick to perceive that neither Pheasant nor Alayne liked Mrs. Lebraux, and her own feeling toward her had warmed accordingly

Her husband and her brother watched her with wonder and approval. Meggie was perfect, mysterious, richly feminine, kind.

“That’s a funny little girl of Mrs. Lebraux’s,” remarked Finch. “All legs and hair.”

“But how she can dance!” Meg’s mood held warmth for daughter as for mother. “You and she were like two fairies dancing together!”

“Thanks so much, Meggie. It’s pleasant to hear that I look like a fairy.”

“Well, you do, dancing.” She plumped the cushion with soft thumps, held it up for admiration, then sank back to rest. “Now tell me just what is going on at home? Getting ready for the trip, I suppose. To think that I have never been across to the Old Country, and now you—at your age! Able to travel as luxuriously as you like. And Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest at their age! And all their expenses paid. And here are Maurice and I with the mortgage falling due!”

“Oh, well,” growled Vaughan, “it can be renewed.”

It was not an auspicious moment, Finch thought, for asking advice about his own investments. He pulled at his lip doubtfully, then made up his mind not to broach the subject.

After a silence Meg said wistfully:

“I suppose you would not care to take over the mortgage yourself?”

Finch stared, startled. “Me? I’ve never thought about it.”

“Of course not.” She looked into his eyes, smiling at his boyishness. “But mortgages are a good investment, aren’t they, Maurice?”

“I wish I owned a few,” answered Maurice.

“What interest do you pay?” asked Finch.

“Seven per cent.”

“Great Scott! I get only four per cent on some of mine!”

“How much happier I should feel,” cried Meg, “if you held the mortgage in place of the old wretch who does!”

“There would be no need for sentiment to enter into it, on Finch’s side,” put in Vaughan quickly. “This is a valuable property. And bound to be more valuable. Look at the old Paige place that the Golf Club bought. They gave a fancy price for that. One of these days we shall be able to subdivide this and sell it in town lots.”

“Good heavens, you wouldn’t do that! Renny would never speak to you again.”

“Well, I might never do it. But Patience might when she grows up.”

Finch asked, nervously—“What is the mortgage?”

“Fifteen thousand. At seven per cent—one thousand and fifty a year—paid half-yearly.”

Meg sighed—“And the old wretch is so detestable always!”

“Why?” asked Finch.

“Oh—1 don’t know—”

Maurice interrupted her. “Meggie’s too critical. He has rough manners; that’s all that’s really wrong. He’s not such a bad old fellow.” Maurice dropped the book from the hand which had been crippled in the war and it fell to the floor. Meg frowned as he bent to pick it up.

Finch felt a glow of affection toward them as a couple, quite apart from his brotherly love for Meg. “I’ll do it,” he exclaimed. “I’ll take the mortgage over. But, look here, I’ll not accept seven per cent. It’s exorbitant. I’ll not take more than five.”

“You darling!” cried Meg. She made as if to rise and go to him, but, even in a moment of emotion such as this, the effort was too great. Instead she said again—“You darling!” And held out her arms to him.

Finch crossed to her rather shamefacedly. He did not want to be thanked. But it was wonderful, this doing things tor people and benefiting himself at the same time.

Again Meg embraced him, pressed her plump lips on his. “I don’t believe we’ll tell the others a thing about it,” she said. “I do like privacy about my own affairs, don’t you?”