The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (343 page)

“But I’m sickly to begin with. What’s the use in my trying to be like you and Piers?”

“You’re not sickly!” retorted Renny angrily, “you have a weakness but you’ll outgrow that. I want you to outgrow this other thing too. Why, I’ve never seen you look fitter than you do now. And, by George, how you’re growing! Come and saddle your pony and we’ll go for a ride... Poetry of motion, eh, what?”

I
T WAS
good to be at home again.

When Nicholas let himself down into the armchair in his own bedroom, with Nip quivering with delight on his knee, he felt that this was the return from his last trip abroad. Every few minutes Nip turned to give his face or his hand a quick lick of the tongue. The luggage had been carried upstairs and the box which contained the presents had been opened.

It was the rule that a returning Whiteoak should not fail to bring presents to the rest of the family. Especially was this the rule when the journey had been to the Old Country Ernest had now unpacked and distributed the presents. He was beaming happily on his nieces with their scarves and strings of beads (Meg’s a little the handsomer), on his nephews with their gloves and neckties. A flaxen-haired doll had been brought to Patience and a nigger doll in striped suit and red waistcoat to Mooey. Their eyes were sparkling with gratification. Ernest had enjoyed himself thoroughly, but he was now beginning to feel rather tired. He had arranged that the opening of the box should take place in Nick’s room.

Now, at any moment, he might fade away to his own and relax. He had forgotten what splendid voices his nephews had. How their noise and laughter excited and fatigued one. Meg kept her arm about his shoulders. It was a lovely plump arm, but it weighed on him. In the midst of all the present-giving she was trying to tell him about her operation. Maurice was trying to explain something about having slept
IN
his room which he simply could not take in because of the din. Patience and Mooey were running round and round him in circles, holding their dolls on high.

“Hold them nicely children,” he admonished. “Isn’t yours a droll fellow, Mooey?”

Mooey halted in his gambols to examine the leering, black face. One of the eyes was tight shut while the other stared horribly.

“Isn’t he nice?” urged Pheasant.

“He’s only got one bad eye,” returned Mooey.

Meg, too, urged her offspring to expressions of gratitude.

“Patience, tell Uncles how you love your beautiful dolly.”

“Her’s dot a daity face,” answered Patience. She moistened a corner of her diminutive handkerchief on her tongue and began to rub the doll’s cheeks. “I s’all wash her face,” she said, “but not her breeches.”

“Here!” cried Mooey, “you’re not allowed to say breeches!”

“l am so!”

“You are not!”

“I am so!”

“Oh, hell, you’re not!”

“Pig, Pig, Pig!”

“Nig, nig, nig!”

Ernest glided away to his own room...

Later, when all was quiet, he returned. He found his brother with a glass of whiskey and soda before him and Nip still on his knee.

“I had to have a peg,” explained Nicholas to Ernest’s disapproving look toward the glass, “to buck me up after all that row. What an exciting lot they are! Children getting badly spoiled too.”

Ernest picked up one of the doll’s shoes from the floor and put it on his finger. “Yes—but they’re very sweet. I haven’t seen two prettier children anywhere. It’s very good to be home again.”

“Yes. I’ve taken my last trip. Here I stick till they take me off to lie beside Mama. Sit down, Ernie, and rest yourself. You must be tired after all the to-do.”

Ernest sat down near enough to stroke the little dog’s head. He remembered Sasha and sighed. He asked:

“Did you notice anything about Pheasant?”

Nicholas grunted. “Strange we weren’t told of it.”

“We didn’t get many letters. Meggie’s operation was the subject of most of them. What do you think about it, Nick?”

“I think there are kids enough about the house, but I suppose she is going to have a regular Whiteoak family.”

“Poor child! She looks pale. Much more ailing than Meggie.” He tapped his teeth with the tips of his fingers and added, in a reflective tone—“Do you know, Nick, that the Vaughans are still staying here? I’d only been in my room a few moments when Maurice came to my door. He said he’d forgotten some of his things. There were his brushes on the dressing table and a coat on the back of the door. I naturally looked a little surprised and he explained, rather apologetically, that Meggie isn’t fit yet for the responsibility of housekeeping. I remarked how well she is looking. Then he told me
that their house has been let furnished and that the tenants were very keen to have it for another month.”

“H’m. It is rather strange. But not half so strange as Alayne’s not being home yet. Why it must be two months since her aunt died. What did she say in her letter to you?”

“She said she was going to visit Miss Archer for a time, but I certainly expected to find her at Jalna when we returned. Meggie has her room.”

“Well,” growled Nicholas, “it was hers before it was Alayne’s.”

“Of course, of course, but if Alayne were suddenly to return it would be awkward.”

“Where is Maurice going to hang out now?”

“In the attic, he said. In Finch’s room.” A yawn made his eyes water. He had slept little on the train. When, in a short while, the dinner gong sounded he was almost too tired to respond. Yet he still felt the exhilaration of the return and he was curious to press further enquiries about Alayne.

In the passage they passed Wragge carrying a tray, on which were arranged creamed sweetbreads on toast and a glass of sherry, to Meg. The two tall old gentlemen stood aside while the little Cockney, with an air mysterious and important, slid past them with the tray.

Nicholas chuckled as he heavily descended the stairs. “At her old tricks again, I see. I fancy this convalescence will extend through the rest of her life. She’s always preferred her little lunches to proper meals and, at last, she has an authentic excuse.”

Ernest, following, poked him warningly between the shoulders. Maurice was in the hall below. He was talking to Renny and two men who appeared at first to be strangers,
but when they faced round turned out to be Renny’s objectionable friends Crowdy and Chase.

Their presence in the hall came as a shock to the returned travellers. Renny was not quite comfortable about their advent either. He concealed his misgivings under a formal manner. He introduced his friends to his uncles as though unaware that they had met before.

Nicholas greeted them in a gruff tone, not claiming any former acquaintanceship. Ernest said—“I think we have met before,” and went down the hall to look in his mother’s room. He was astonished to find Mr. Crowdy at his side. He wondered what he could say to be rude to him but could think of nothing. It went against the grain to speak to him at all.

The door of the room stood open. It seemed that his mother had just left it. As the outline of her body was imprinted on the mattress of the old painted bedstead, so her spiritual shape had left its stamp on the atmosphere of the room. It would not be put aside. Though her fiery brown eyes had dried to dust in their sockets, they still kindled in this cherished retreat. The rubies and diamonds on her strong old hands still flashed. Her carven nose, her mobile mouth, around which a few stiff hairs had grown, were as existent in this room as the parrot that had fondly pecked at them.

He sat, humped on his perch, his pale eyelids updrawn. A piece of cardboard which had been given him to play with, lay torn in fragments beneath him. He stood on one scaly foot, while with the other he clutched a bar of the cage.

Mr. Crowdy stared at Boney over Ernest’s shoulder, breathing portentously. When Ernest, with a deep sigh, turned away, Mr. Crowdy extended his left hand toward him, palm upward. With his right forefinger he traced mysterious
marks on it. Then, with a piercing look into Ernest’s eyes, he observed:

“Rare old bird.”

“Yes,” agreed Ernest, polite in spite of himself, “and he used to talk quite wonderfully.”

“Hasn’t spoken a word,” Mr. Crowdy informed him, “for over two years. He’ll never talk again.”

“I suppose not.”

They moved toward the dining room where the others were waiting. They gathered, six men and a boy, about the table. It was all so different from what Ernest and Nicholas had expected. It was their first homecoming without the extended welcome of their mother’s arms. Instead, there were present these objectionable strangers. Yet, how delicious the roast beef was! They had tasted none like it—so juicy and so rare—since they had left Jalna. Renny drew them on to talk of their trip. There was a propitiatory air about him. Plainly he knew very well what they thought of such company. But nothing could have been more deferential than the manners of Messrs. Crowdy and Chase. After the elderly men had had their say, Mr. Crowdy told of his one and only trip to the Old Land in his young days, when he had gone—though he did not clearly explain in what capacity he had gone—with a rich American gentleman who had crossed to buy some thoroughbreds.

Chase had been born in Leicestershire but he had not a good word to say of his own country. He never wanted to set eyes on it again. However, at the close of the meal, he told several stories so amusing that Nicholas and Ernest forgot for the moment their dislike of him.

But when they had returned to their rooms it all came back. They drew each other’s attention to a number of things that had jarred on their sensibilities. Had Nicholas noticed
Crowdy’s nails? Had Ernest noticed the way Chase sat sideways in his chair with his legs crossed? And Renny’s ill-groomed appearance? And Wakefield’s actual rags? And the general air of rakishness about the whole establishment? Where were Meggie’s eyes? Even Pheasant, poor child, should know better!

“Nicholas,” said Ernest, in deep solemnity, “everything in Mama’s room was
grey with dust.”

They captured Piers who was passing the door, and brought him into Nicholas’s room. He came somewhat reluctantly.

“Are you,” asked Nicholas petulantly, “in a very great rush? We should like to have a word with you.”

Piers seated himself on the piano stool and looked at them questioningly out of his prominent blue eyes. He, at any rate, they thought, looked just as he should.

“Now,” growled his elder uncle, “what does it all mean? How does it come about that those two ruffians are making themselves at home in Jalna? Why are the Vaughans still here? And why is Alayne not here?”

Piers blew out his cheeks and expelled his breath through his lips. “Damned if I know,” he said.

“Nonsense! Of course you know all about it,” Nicholas spoke sternly.

Ernest put in—“Don’t bombard the boy with questions, Nick! Ask him one thing at a time. I’ll begin... Piers, can you tell me why the care of my mother’s room has been neglected during my absence? There is a film of dust over all the furniture. In fact every room I have seen looks as though it needed a thorough cleaning.”

“I shouldn’t think you’d need to ask that question,” returned Piers. “You and Uncle Nick have been away. Renny always spoils servants. If Mrs. Wragge cooks good meals and
Rags falls over himself serving them it’s all that Renny asks. Renny doesn’t mind disorder in the house. He rather likes it. Lots of food—plenty of company—and no one to criticise him or his dogs!”

“How long has this been going on?” asked Nicholas. “Didn’t Alayne object?”

“Rather! Latterly, her life was just one long objection, I think. Once a week she stirred things up in the basement so that the Wragges were on the point of leaving. And she was after Wake, and after Mooey, and even after Renny and his dogs. Pheasant heard her tell Renny that he talked like a fool, and heard him tell her that she was the worst-tempered woman he’d ever met. I never expected that marriage to turn out well. Then there was the affair of that dog. I don’t suppose anyone wrote to you about that. But, anyhow, Alayne and Pheasant and the house servants and Quinn, a man I took on since you left, all thought the dog was mad, and Alayne got Renny’s gun and they stabbed him with pitchforks. Soon after that Alayne left.”

During this quick recital Piers’s full lips had scarcely moved. He sat regarding his uncles with an imperturbable expression while the tale of horrors that had wrecked the life of Jalna gushed from him as from a fountain. Ernest, who had been prepared to probe the matter with question after guarded question, felt slightly sick. Nicholas, with dropped jaw, sat dumbfounded. If the faded medallions of the carpet had parted, disclosing a chasm beneath, they could scarcely have been more aghast.

“But—but I thought Alayne’s aunt had died!” stammered Ernest.

“So she did. Most opportunely. It gave Alayne an excuse for cutting out.”

“Piers, I don’t think you know what you are saying. If you are trying to—to pull our leg, I think you have chosen a very unfortunate time. As you have told it, the whole affair sounds a dreadful muddle to me. Can you understand it, Nick?”

“I only understand that if I had been here things would never have got into such a mess.”

“Just what I was saying to Pheasant the other day,” agreed Piers heartily. “We’ve never been without an old person in the house before. It was as though we’d thrown our ballast overboard.”

Nicholas pulled at his grey moustache grimly. “I should have been something more than mere ballast if I had been here... Your explanation has been very incoherent, Piers. I wish you would tell me one thing clearly. What does Renny think about Alayne’s leaving him?”

“I don’t think he realises it.”

“Doesn’t realise—” Ernest spoke in a bass voice for the first time in his life... “Doesn’t realise that his wife has left him?”

“No. I don’t think he does. Pheasant and I both think that he believes she’s just in a tantrum and that she’ll get over it. But she won’t. You can take it from me. She’s found a second Whiteoak too much for her.”