The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (481 page)

The snow was deep in the ravine and, as Renny one day had done, he struggled through it and up the other side. He found Wakefield waiting for him.

“I saw you coming,” he said.

Finch glanced at him sharply. Wake looked like a stranger, he thought. He had always envied Wakefield the light heart he carried but now he saw him as a man with bitterness in his breast. And a pale stoicism was in his face as though he had made up his mind to suffer no more.

“Why —” stammered Finch — “what’s the matter, Wake? You’ve something bad to tell me!”

“Bad enough. I can’t marry Molly.”

After he had spoken he stood with downcast eyes, looking at the snow. The wind swung round to the north and blew a cloud of powdery snow over them. The sun, which had been but well on its way up the heavens, was already beginning to decline. Finch put his arm about his brother’s shoulders and drew him along the path.

“What happened?” he asked.

Wakefield gave a harsh laugh.

“You ask me as though I could tell it all in a sentence! Well, I guess I have told it all. We can’t marry. That’s enough for me.”

“But why? For God’s sake, tell me why, Wake.”

Wakefield raised his eyes to Finch’s face. “I oughtn’t to tell you this, I suppose. But I can’t help it. Remember, it’s to go no further.”

“No need to tell me that.”

“We can’t marry because Renny is Molly’s father. Her mother was an Englishwoman — a Mrs. Dayborn — who helped school the horses at Jalna after the last war.”

Finch stood facing the wind, unable for a moment to realize the import of this statement. As Wakefield’s face was cold and set, Finch’s broke up into compassion and dismay. It was like touching something that had no feeling, to tighten his hand on Wake’s arm.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes. We’re all sure — those of us who know of it. There’s no use in your getting upset, Finch. The marriage is off. We’ve got to make a new life for ourselves. But at this moment the thing I most want to do is to go overseas and be killed.”

It was characteristic of Finch and a certain comfort to Wakefield that he asked no questions. He accepted the tragic truth about Molly’s parentage as something from the passionate past of their eldest brother which neither of them could make clear or change by a thousand questions and answers. He recalled certain remarks of Eden’s concerning an attachment between Renny and a girl who could do anything with a horse. He recalled how, on the night of his recital, when they were seated at a table in the restaurant, he had suddenly thought — “Why, Molly Griffith carries her head as Renny does, and her hair grows in a point like his!” He had been going to remark this but something had interrupted him. Now he said: —

“This is awful for you, Wake…. I wondered what was wrong but I never dreamed of anything so … so devastating. I don’t know what to say … I wish I could help you. I can see what it’s done to you. What does Renny feel?”

“Oh, he’s sorry.”

“Sorry! I should think you’d almost hate him.”

“I do.”

“There’s one thing, Wake. You have your belief. Your religion. You’re not like a fellow who has nothing spiritual for ballast.”

“I have nothing spiritual for ballast.”

Finch broke out excitedly, “But, look here, you can’t do that! You can’t throw aside your faith just when you need it more than you ever have! Now is your priest’s chance to help you. Go to him.”

“I have been and it’s no use. He was kind. He couldn’t have been kinder. But something inside me has gone hard and cold.”

“That will change.”

“I hope so.”

“Can you depend on him to keep it quiet?”

Wake opened his eyes and stared at Finch. “He is less likely to tell it than I.”

“How many know of it? At Jalna, I mean. Besides we three principals” — Wake gave a short laugh — “only Alayne and the uncles. They’ve been very kind. Especially Uncle Ernest…. Oh, I shall get over it, I suppose, but — just now — I want — what I said.”

They turned at the sharp crunch of footsteps in the snow and saw Renny approaching, followed by Merlin. The blind spaniel recognized Finch and jumped joyously about him but he was stiff from rheumatism.

Renny’s weather-beaten face now showed little sign of the stress and strain he had been through. Its decisive aquiline contours, its high colouring, gave it a kind of invincible sanguineness. He kissed Finch and exclaimed: —

“Hello! Back again! Well, it’s good to see you. You look well.”

He cast a quick glance from one brother to the other, obviously wondering what Finch thought of Wakefield’s changed looks and whether Wakefield had told him of the broken engagement.

Finch coloured under the glance but Wakefield was impassive. His eyes were fixed on a gap in the evergreens where, beyond the stables, he could see the snowy fields, fold upon fold, in white drifts. Renny put a hand on an arm of each and drew them toward the house.

“Come along in,” he urged, “the uncles are wanting to see you.”

Wakefield frowned and turned himself away. A strange antagonism filled him at the touch of Renny’s hand but Finch moved obediently at his elder’s side. They heard a shout and Piers came running toward them.

“Hi!” he shouted. “Wait for me!”

When he saw that they waited he slackened his steps and marched toward them with a military step. Finch was startled to see that he was in uniform. “He looks more than ever like Grandfather,” he thought. After shaking hands he said: —

“I didn’t know you were in training, Piers.”

“I have been, all the fall and winter.”

“Home Guard,” put in Renny tersely.

“Home Guard be damned!” said Piers. “I’m leaving for England in a fortnight.”

Renny could scarcely have looked more astonished if one of the pines in the ravine had lifted its roots and declared its intention of going to the war.

“But you can’t!” he exclaimed.

Piers opened his eyes wide. “I should like to know why!”

“Who will look after Jalna?”

Piers’s eyes became still more prominent. “Why should I be the one?”

“You always have stayed at home.”

“I know I have. I’ve stayed at home while the rest of you have gone out and done things. But — there’s a war on now! And I’m going to be first on the scene! Of course, it would have been a very nice arrangement for you to go off like a conqueror with Rags at your heels — Wake and Paris to get their wings and drop bombs on Berlin — Finch to do some sort of war work in London — and I wait here till I fight the Germans on the doorstep of Jalna! Thanks for nothing! I’m leaving with the next contingent!”

Renny’s face changed. He stood speechless, grinning at Piers’s pugnacity. Piers wheeled, turned, tramped up and down in the snow, he looked fine in his uniform. The window of the sitting room was thrown up and Ernest called out: —

“What’s all the excitement about? Come, Piers, and show yourself! Finch, my boy, your Uncle Nick and I are waiting to see you.”

LEAVE-TAKINGS

I
T WAS A
time of such upheaval at Jalna that Piers’s going overseas was not such a shock to the household as might have been feared. It was not till he had actually departed that the full force of the blow was felt. Then it really was a blow. His going was so sudden, so inexorable, that nothing that might follow seemed impossible. Sometimes in the minds of the old uncles and Meg and Pheasant and Alayne, one disaster after another loomed as probable.

There had been so much to do before Piers sailed that there was little time for reflection. He was here, there, and everywhere, talking over the care of orchards and farmlands with his men, arranging for the future of his wife and sons in the event of his not returning, making his will — though he had little enough to leave. A family dinner party was given for him, the night before he left, at which he got drunk and made a very good speech.

Then suddenly he was gone! It was as though the sound of a bugle had died. It was as though there were a palpable rent in the fabric of Jalna. Whoever came or went, Piers had always been there. With his complexion as fresh as a spring morning, his eyes as blue as June skies, with the hardness of winter in his back and sinews, he had strode over the land throughout the seasons.

His uncles had placed him, in his uniform, beneath the portrait of his grandfather in
his
uniform. Piers’s health had been drunk, he had been wished Godspeed and been full of pride. Whiteoaks had gone out to fight for England throughout the centuries and why not he?

But Pheasant walked the little empty house alone, wringing her hands, when he had gone. Mooey had been taken to Ireland. Piers had gone to the war. Would she ever again see either of them? The two sons left to her seemed small and weak and remote. Three times she had been brought to bed with Piers’s sons. Now he was gone!

She folded his civilian clothes and laid them away. What a pity he had bought that last suit! He could well have done without it and she had been against buying it, but he would have it. Now here it was, still retaining the roundness of his body. And he was gone! She knelt beside the drawer where she had laid it, shaken by sobs.

The next to leave were Renny and Rags. It was now the first of March. Renny had so recently been in England that it seemed as though he were merely making another visit. The name of Johnny the Bird once more appeared in conversation. The Vaughans and Pheasant and her boys spent much of their time at Jalna. Like their mother, the uncles wanted the young people about them. Alayne lived in a kind of dream. She had felt strangely moved in the parting with Piers. Now in this leave-taking with her heart of hearts she felt dreamlike and almost detached. She did not think “He will come back” or “He will not come back.” Her mind was not capable of such surmise. She only noticed the little things about him she had always loved. She could scarcely take her eyes off him. The passion of her earliest love for him tormented her, yet it was the passion of a dream.

On his part he felt a constant gratitude toward her for the way she had borne the news of Molly’s parentage. Things might have been so bad between them but they were in truth happier than ever. He would sit beside her, holding her hand in his strong fingers, giving her directions as to what should be done in the stables about this or that, in certain eventualities — just as though she understood.

It was the first time he had ever talked to her of his horses in that earnest familiar way, as though he were confident of her understanding and sympathizing. She knew that, in doing this, he was showing his gratitude to her, throwing open that door of his other life. She was touched. But then — everything he did in these days touched her. There seemed a pathos and finality in all his acts, as though they were last rites before a sacrifice. Sometimes she felt like crying out that he ought not to leave her. He had fought in one war. His brothers were to fight in this. Let that be enough. Sometimes she was almost angered by the loyalty of this young country to the Motherland. Why should all these men be in training for a war in Europe? It might be better, she thought, if there were more hardheaded materialism and less idealism of a bygone generation. But there were other times when she too was carried on the tide and felt herself heart and soul in the struggle.

She talked to him of the children and, for the first time, confessed that she was disappointed in Archer. He had been such a wonderful baby with that noble forehead and that profound look in his eyes which so reminded her of her father. He had been so gentle, showed a thoughtful mind and a touching dignity. But now at five he showed neither ordinary common sense nor dignity. Nothing she could say
shamed
him. He was utterly absorbed in his own ignoble activities and had no real love for anyone. Tears filled her eyes.

Renny threw back his head and laughed.

“Ashamed of Archie! That’s nonsense. He’s a queer egg, but he’ll come through. He’ll go into business and retrieve the family fortunes. I promise you.”

Before he left he gave Archer his first pony and the little fellow bestrode it with no more fear and no more pleasure than he showed toward his tricycle. He just sat there while the groom led the pony about the paddock looking as though the weight of the world lay on his brow, but Renny noted with pride that he had good hands on the reins and a good leg in the stirrup.

Renny had not seen Molly since she and her sisters had moved into the fox farm. She was taking the train to the town each day to her war work and on her return kept to the house for fear of meeting either him or Wakefield. But he felt that he must speak to her once again before leaving. He wanted to make sure that the girls were comfortably settled in.

On his last Saturday afternoon he went to the fox farm, thinking on this day he would find her in. But he went reluctantly, for he dreaded meeting her. He drank in the pure air and filled his eyes with the sight of the trees, ice-sheathed after a wild storm. He thought he would like to carry this picture away with him.

It was the first week in March but the countryside was ice-bound. There was a feeling of brittle restraint in the air. He had that same feeling in himself and his spirit strained to the time when he would break through and enter what lay ahead of him. A deep sensuous urge to see Johnny the Bird welled up in him. He wanted to win the Grand National with that horse. Perhaps the great race might not again be run for years but it was to be run this spring and Johnny the Bird must win it! He was not going into this war as he had gone into the last — fired by the spirit of careless adventure. Then he had gone, leaving his father as master of Jalna, with no special responsibilities of his own. Now he had wife and children, the uncles were old and depended on him. The thought of the race rose like a bright beacon above the sea of uncertainty and turmoil.

The girls heard the ring at the door. There were just three of them in the house for Molly had had to do extra work that afternoon and was not yet home. They had heard no step and were in a panic.

“Peep out between the curtains, Garda,” whispered Gemmel, “and see who it is.” Garda tiptoed into the sitting room and back again.