The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (430 page)

“Oh, Finch!” said Pheasant, full of sympathy.

“Dear heart alive, how glad I am!” said Meg and folded him to her bosom.

Finch stood among them half laughing, half crying. It was all so strange, so unexpected. The room seemed new to him. The very house seemed new. And all the faces about him….

Piers steered him toward the fire. Wakefield pulled forward old Adeline’s chair. “He shall sit in Gran’s chair! A great honour. He’s a most important guest. Say Merry Christmas to Uncle Finch, children!”

“Merry Christmas, Uncle Finch,” they murmured shyly. All but Adeline, who ran and laid her head on his knees. Really, he could hardly bear it … all this love … this welcome …

Renny was standing by his chair looking down at him with an odd smile.

“Glad you came?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m awfully glad.”

Nicholas looked at his large, old-fashioned watch. He said:

“Are we having something soon?”

Rags came in bringing sherry and biscuits.

“Good!” said Piers. “Just what this fellow needs.” He brought a glass of sherry and a biscuit to Finch.

Finch sipped the sherry and felt himself warmed and strengthened by the presence of the warm living people about him. He felt that every one of them gave him something — even baby Philip. The very dogs seemed glad to see him. Jock, the bob-tailed sheepdog, came and laid his muzzle on Finch’s foot. The spaniels sat shoulder to shoulder, giving soft looks at him. The Cairn puppy scrambled to his knee. They brought Boney on his perch and set him near the chair. He never spoke now but he curved his beak and made chuckling sounds as though in senile mirth. Finch settled himself luxuriously in the depths of grandmother’s chair.

The family talked, but rather quietly, not giving him too much attention — allowing him rather to look on as an outsider, till the first excitement of the reunion was over. Nicholas came and sat close to him and laid his large hand on Finch’s knee. Meg talked of the sermon and of how the anthem would have failed utterly had not the Whiteoaks saved it. The children collected in the hall, taking turns at peeping through the keyhole of the library.

Before dinner was announced a savoury odour stole through the room, mingling with the scent of the spruce and balsam boughs that arched the doorways and festooned the pictures. The dogs rose, stretched, yawned, sat down on alert haunches with eyes on the door through which Rags would enter. It was all too lovely, Finch thought, too lovely to be believed in. He was glad he had come down.

At last Rags appeared. There was a shout of joy from the children. Piers came and heaved Finch from his chair. “Now for a dinner as
is
a dinner!” he exclaimed. “Lord, what an appetite you used to have!”

Finch, feeling weak in his legs but strong in his heart, moved with the others to the dining room. They were like a solid wall around him.

When he was in his chair Meg came and ran her hands over his hair. “You might have tidied it, Piers, before you brought him down!”

“I wanted him to look picturesque. The artist, fresh from the throes of composition.”

“But his hair is so lank! Not at all like Wake’s which always looks charming when it’s dishevelled.”

“Hm, well, Wake’s hair won’t look charming much longer.”

At this reference to Wake’s future, Meg drew a deep sigh and sat down. Nicholas was scowling at her, his eyes almost closed.

“Sorry, Uncle Nick,” she said. Patience giggled. Maurice winked at Patience.

Every head was bent. Nicholas muttered:

“For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful. For Christ’s sake. Amen.”

Adeline formed the words of the grace in unison with Nicholas. She said a loud Amen. Renny stood and swept the carving knife along the steel. He cast a swift look about the table. The face of his grandmother, of Eden, of Alayne flashed into his mind.

“It’s a pity,” he said, “that we’re not all here!”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Ernest. “How Mamma enjoyed the dark meat of turkey! And that looks like a particularly delicious one.”

“
And
the stuffing,” added Nicholas. “I’m very fond of it, too.’’

“She was not the only one,” said Renny. “There was Eden. He should be here.”

“Please don’t remind me of Eden now!” said Meg. “It is too sad.”

Piers stared straight in front of him. Pheasant dropped her head and a dark colour dyed her neck.

Mooey said — “I forget Uncle Eden.”

“Hush!” said Meg, frowning at him.

“I don’t forget him,” said Patience. “I often remember him.”

“Do you really?” said Renny, smiling at her. “Do you really?”

“That bird will be cold,” observed Nicholas, his chin in his hand.

Wakefield put in — “Finch is looking very hungry.”

The spell was broken. Renny carved the turkey with expedition. Everyone began to talk. They agreed that Mrs. Wragge had never cooked a better dinner. Her gravy had never been smoother, richer, her cranberry jelly never more perfectly set, her cauliflower whiter or enfolded in a more creamy sauce. The plum pudding was so rich that it could hold itself together and no more. The brandy flared, reflected in the eyes of those about the table. The children all had some. Even baby Philip had his share from Pheasant’s spoon. They would have sat long over the dessert, the nuts, and raisins but the children were impatient for the Tree.

As soon as they had left the table Piers mysteriously disappeared and Wakefield announced that Santa Claus would soon be there. Finch was once more established in his chair by the fire, left to smoke a cigarette in quiet while the others trooped into the library. He could hear the resonant tones of Santa Claus calling out the children’s names, the joyful cries of the children as they opened their packages. He could hear Wake’s laughter, Renny’s chaffing of Santa Claus, Meg’s and Pheasant’s higher tones. It was all as it should be. He went softly to the door of the drawing room from where he could see the tree, starry with lighted candles, powdered with silver-dust. He had a glimpse of Santa Claus’s red cap and white beard, of Renny with Philip in his arms. He watched unseen, then went back to his chair. His illness was over, he felt. Every day, from now on, he would come downstairs.

Meg came carrying a large flat book that looked like a scrapbook, and a number of other packages.

“These are all for you,” she said, “but I shall give you the book first as it’s the most important.”

He looked at the packages embarrassed.

“But I haven’t a present for anyone,” he said.

“As though that mattered! Do look at the book!”

He took it in his hands and opened it.

“Who is it from?” he asked suspiciously.

“Can’t you guess?”

His thin cheeks coloured. He laid the book on one side. “I think I’ll open the packages first.”

He was pleased, he was touched, by their thought for him. The ties, the gloves, the cigarette box, the pullover. They were just what he wanted, he said. His brothers and uncles came in to see him open his presents, except Piers who had again disappeared. Pheasant stayed behind with the children.

“Do look at the book!” urged Meg.

Finch took it up and began to examine the newspaper cuttings pasted in it. The print was blurred before his eyes. He looked up at the faces above him. “I haven’t my glasses,” he said. “I can’t read without them.”

“Do run and fetch his glasses, Wake,” said Meg.

“No. I’ll read it aloud to him. Is it something nice? Is it perhaps something about his playing?” Wake pretended not to know although Meg had already told him about the book. He began to read, in rather a pompous tone, an article on Finch’s playing, from a French musical journal. Wakefield read the French carefully. The others listened attentively to take in the sense.

Finch listened quietly at first, with bent head. Then the words and all that they implied began to beat like hammers on his brain. The blood surged to his head. How could Sarah have done this horrible thing to him? How could the others stand about him, tormenting him? He felt that he could scarcely breathe. But he got up steadily and took two strides to Wakefield. He took the book from his hands and laid it on the leaping flames of the fire. He turned to Meg.

“This,” he said, “is what I think of it. Tell her.”

He sat down in his grandmother’s chair and looked defiantly at them.

“Oh no, not that!” cried Meg. “Not after all her trouble!”

She made as though to rescue the book from the fire.

“Let it alone!” said Finch hoarsely. He took the poker from the hearth and poked the book down among the flames. It looked bright and new, as though the fire could not harm it.

Wakefield came and sat on the arm of Finch’s chair and said quietly — “All right, old man. Perhaps it’s best to burn it. You don’t need to be told how you can play. Just put everything, but getting well, out of your mind.”

Renny said to Maurice — “Sarah is a stupid woman. No one but a stupid woman would have done such a thing. I stick to that.”

“I feel sorry for the poor girl.”

“I don’t. She simply refuses to be shaken off.”

“Well, after all, she loves him.”

“Does she! I doubt it. I think she loves only herself.”

“She thinks you are against her.”

“So she has told me.”

Maurice gave him a significant look. “You know it is to your advantage to be friends with her.”

He answered grimly — “I know it only too well.”

Ernest and Nicholas showed their disapproval of Finch’s actions by turning their backs on him and talking in low tones. Nicholas lighted his pipe and settled down to examine all the Christmas cards that had come to the house. He had Rags bring a small table and he spread them out on it. Ernest read the first page of
Lost Horizon
, sent to him by Alayne. He was glad that he had sent her those dainty handkerchiefs.

Meg went back to the children, passing Piers in the doorway.

“Meggie!” called Wakefield sharply and, when she returned, gave her a look that said — “Please don’t tell Piers what has just happened!”

She pouted a little, for she had wanted to tell Piers, and passed on. Wakefield went to the wood basket where, among smooth logs of silver birch, a grotesquely shaped pine root lay. He placed it on the burning book and said, smiling at Finch:

“So — that’s the end of that!”

Piers came straight to them.

“How do you feel?” he asked Finch.

“Splendid!” answered Wakefield for him. “He’ll be a new man in a week.”

Finch sat drumming his fingers on the arms of the chair. He felt excited, almost exhilarated. He felt that he had, by his act, cut himself off definitely from Sarah, before them all. The burning of those collected references to his playing gave him a new power of resistance. He watched the flames darting upward about the pine root, fed by the kindling of the book beneath.

Suddenly he saw that the resinous root had been the home of a colony of ants. Out of every crevice they came running in terror. From every spongy chamber their minute black bodies emerged, flying from the terror of fire.

“Look!” he cried. “Look — the ants! Take it off!”

Now the forerunners of the insects discovered a projecting arm of the root which touched the side of the hearth. Along this they led the way, the black army following them in dense columns, their panic subsiding as they realized there was escape.

The surprised grin on Piers’s face turned to a frown. He snatched up the hearth brush and began to sweep the ants back onto the glowing coals. Wakefield gave a whistle of dismay.

Finch leapt up and caught Piers’s arm.

“You can’t do that!” he shouted. “Don’t! It’s horrible!”

The army of ants, regardless of the fate that had overtaken their first detachment, rushed with all speed from the flames behind them. They began to spread themselves over the hearth and onto the rug.

“You young fool!” said Piers. “Do you want them all over the room?”

“But you can’t burn them alive! It’s horrible!” Finch struggled to wrench the brush from Piers’s hand.

Wakefield exclaimed — “Never mind, Piers! Let them come! Remember St. Francis!”

“What’s up?” demanded Renny.

Maurice and Nicholas shouted to Piers to brush back the ants.

“Couldn’t we get a dustpan,” said Ernest, “and gather them up?”

Piers pushed Finch into his chair. He squatted solidly before the hearth and, as the ants reached it, brushed them back onto the coals. Even though he did, some escaped and hid themselves in the rug or among the birch logs.

Finch’s face was distorted. He got up and said, in a shaking voice, to Piers:

“It isn’t necessary! It was brutal!” He was ghastly pale.

Wakefield took him by the arm and said soothingly — “Come and lie down for a bit. You’re tired.”

Finch jerked himself away and swiftly left the room. He almost ran up the first flight of stairs. The din of the children with drums and horns pursued him. He kept repeating to himself — “Ugh! It was disgusting! To see them frizzling — it was horrible!”

In the drawing room Renny said severely — “I knew how it would be! You had no right to drag him down here! He wasn’t fit for it.”

At the second flight of stairs Finch’s strength failed him. He sat down on the bottom step. He heard Wakefield coming after him. “Don’t come!” he called out. “I don’t want any of you near me!”

He was so weak that he almost crept up the remainder of the steps. He went into his room and bolted the door. He flung himself on the bed, repeating passionately — “The brute! The brute!” It seemed to him that the room was full of ants. They swarmed from every crack, from every smallest crevice. From every direction they came swarming toward the bed. In four black columns they mounted its four legs. They were all over the quilt dancing, writhing, uttering minute cries of agony as the heat of his body destroyed them. Their bodies turned into small black notes, the notes of a dancing, mincing tune of pain. All through his being he heard it. He was the instrument on which it was played….

Maurice and Meg had gone through the ravine to the fox farm, Patience dancing between them through the snow on which the evening shadows lay icy blue. Husband and wife had spent the walk in discussing the question of whether or not Sarah should be told of the fate of her present to Finch. Meg thought she should. Maurice thought not. They compromised by deciding to tell her that Finch had not yet had the quiet necessary for appreciating the scrapbook. Tomorrow Meg would go to her and tell her what had happened.