The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (606 page)

“We’ve brought you a present,” called out Patience.

After some persuasion the poodle consented to relinquish the basket, for it felt that it was giving up considerable prestige in doing so. From the basket Patience produced a late fledgling wrapped in a bit of flannel. The poodle stood expectant, hoping it would be given to her.

“Wright found it chilled through,” said Patience. “It must have flies caught for it. At the moment it’s absolutely stuffed, but it will soon be hungry again.” The two girls sat down on the steps of the porch, guarding the fledgling.

“It’s a dear little thing,” said Adeline, “but I expect it will die. They generally do.”

“Not if you feed them often enough. This fellow is quite strong.” They sat talking in confidential tones of this and that but always keeping from the subject nearest their hearts, till suddenly Patience said:

“when are you going home?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You know that he and his sister have left?”

“Yes. Did they say goodbye to you, Patience?”

“No. They left a sort of general goodbye. Sylvia said she would write. It’s all rather a miserable ending to the summer, don’t you think?”

“I shall never feel the same again.”

“The only person,” said Patience, “who has come through this summer unscathed is Roma.”

“what has she to say for herself?”

“Nothing.”

“Yet she must be triumphant, after two such killings.”

“I avoid her. I begged Mummy to keep off the subject, but she tackled Roma when they two were alone. Roma simply looked at her, cool as a cucumber, and said she’d done nothing. It isn’t her fault, she says, if men like her.”

“The viper!”

“Uncle Renny came and had a talk with her.”

“Oh, I wish he hadn’t. She’ll be more and more pleased with herself.”

“I scarcely think Uncle Renny talked to her about
that
sort of thing. He told Mummy he wanted to find out what Roma would like to do. She told him she’s yearning to go to New York and take a course in something — dress designing, I think it is. Well, she has the money to pay her way. None of us will weep to see her go — God knows.”

“It’s been tough on you,” said Adeline, “having her always in the house with you.”

“Oh, I haven’t particularly minded,” Patience said tranquilly, “not till she took Norman away from me, and I don’t much mind that now. It’s surprising how one gets used to things.... The truth is, Adeline, that I’ve found someone I care for — more than ever I did for Norman.”

“Humphrey Bell?”

“Yes.... He doesn’t know that I care for him, and he’s said nothing to me, but it goes to show that one can recover — that one does not die of a broken heart.”

“My heart isn’t broken,” Adeline said fiercely. “It’s had a hell of a jolt, but it’s not broken.” She gave a sudden wild laugh as she remembered the scene by the lake shore. “Oh, Patience, if only you had been there to see me stoning them!” But, even as she laughed, tears sprang to her eyes.

The voice of Christian called to them from the doorway of his studio. “Oh, girls, come and see!”

The girls slowly rose, Patience carrying the basket with the fledgling. Adeline said vehemently, “Never again shall I trust any man.”

“You’re quite right,” said Patience. “I may love them, but I’ll never trust them.”

“Hard words,” exclaimed Christian, who had overheard. “Surely you’ll make an exception in my favour.”

Adeline threw him a fiery look. Was he daring to be waggish at a time like this?

Christian felt himself to be immeasurably more mature than the two girls. He felt that his experience as an artist had given a breadth, a depth, unknown to them in their affairs of the heart. On the other hand, Patience considered herself as by far the most mature. She was in years the eldest. She had early been left fatherless, with a mother who leaned on her, while they had been sheltered by the dominating presence of Renny and Piers. She had a steady job while they were dependent. She was a wage-earner while they were lilies of the field. As for Adeline, she looked on the other two as little more than children who had experienced nothing of the devastating emotions experienced by herself. And when they entered the studio, there was Maurice, thinking of himself as a weary man of the world, considering the other three as little more conversant with real life than the fledgling that Patience now presented to him.

He set it on his forefinger and surveyed it pityingly. He was, in fact, already a little drunk.

“Poor creature!” he said. “Pushed from the nest. Its family not caring a damn what happens to it. I know just how it feels.”

He looked so elegant, so old, standing there with the bird on his finger that Christian was moved to say:

“I wish I had the skill to paint you—as you stand there.”

“Go ahead,” said Maurice. “The bird and I will pose for you! Call the picture The Two Orphans.”

“The point is,” said Patience, “not to let it starve. Do you think you could find a worm for it, Mooey?”

Christian squeezed a tube of paint. “Here’s a pretty green worm for you, birdie,” he said, offering it to the fledgling.

“Brute!” Adeline shouldered him away.

“But really,” he said, “it’s the dearest worm and just dying to be eaten.”

Maurice moved rather uncertainly to the door. “I’ll find a worm,” he said, “if it’s the last thing I do.”

Just outside the door he came face to face with Piers.

“what’s that you have?” demanded Piers, trying to look more friendly than he felt.

“Oh,” said Maurice, and before he could stop himself added, “Someone told me you had gone into town.”

“So that’s why you came — thinking I was out of the way.”

“No — no — really I can’t remember what it was I thought.”

Piers fixed him with a stern eye. “Well, I think you have behaved very badly. You must know how you hurt your mother by going off in a temper to stay with Finch.”

“I was not in a temper. I went because I felt that my presence was irritating to you.”

“It was your drinking that irritated me. Have you no self-control? Do you intend deliberately to hurt your mother?”

“No,” Maurice said loudly. “It was to spare her feelings that I left.”

“Well — you are to come back.”

“No, no. I can’t do that.”

“Then go into the house now and tell her I want you back. That’s only fair to me.”

“All right. I’ll do that.” And he added, in a muffled tone, “Sorry, Dad.” He moved uncertainly toward the house.

“Good God!” exclaimed Piers. “You’ve been drinking already at this hour!”

Maurice had forgotten the fledgling. It fluttered, half fell to the ground, from where the poodle deftly picked it up and returned it unscathed to Patience.

Those in the studio pretended they had heard nothing of what had passed between Piers and Maurice. This last exclamation from Piers they could not ignore.

“Isn’t it awful?” said Patience. “I knew he had. Poor Mooey!”

“I don’t pity him.” Adeline spoke in the manner of her father. “He deserves to have a stick taken to his back.”

Christian began to mix some paint on his palette. He said, “How can you know what his feelings are?”

“I ought to know, for he’s always telling me about them.”

Piers, for a moment, thought he would not allow Maurice to go to Pheasant as he was, but decided, with a grim smile, “Let her see her darling tight — in the middle of the morning. Perhaps she’ll understand better how I feel.”

He brought out his car and drove to Vaughanlands.

He heard the piano, saw Dennis sitting on the bottom step of the porch.

“Hullo,” he greeted the little boy. “You keeping out of the way?”

“Yes.” Dennis stood up in a defensive attitude. “My father is composing. I don’t think he’d want a visitor.”

“I’m not an ordinary visitor. He leaves you on guard, eh? How do you like living here, Dennis?”

“Well, I don’t actually live here. Not all the while. But as soon as Maurice goes I shall.”

“Good. Well, I’m going in to see what I can do about it. You wait out here, Dennis.”

Piers went quietly into the music room where Finch was seated at the piano. Now he took his hands from the keys and began to write notes. Sheets of paper with other notes were scattered on floor and piano. Finch looked supremely happy. Even when he raised his eyes and met the somewhat quizzical gaze of Piers his look of happiness did not fade. He seemed scarcely conscious of Piers’s presence.

“Having lots of fun, eh?” asked Piers.

Finch drew a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “Lots of fun ... I’ve done a piece I’d like you to hear. It’s been in my head for some time and now it’s written down. Like to hear it?”

Piers was immensely flattered. Never before had Finch confided, as it were, a composition to him.

“Fire away,” he said. “I’d love to hear it.”

Finch turned again to the piano.

When he had played the gay and tuneful piece to the end Piers exclaimed, “It’s the best thing you’ve done!” Then, realizing that this was not the right thing to say, since the composition was of a light nature, he amended, “I should say it suits me better. It sounds as though you’d been in a happy mood when you wrote it. Most of your stuff is a bit too serious for me.”

“This came to me one night when I had been playing to someone.... I rather think it was to Sylvia Fleming.... She’d gone, but ... well, there was this thing in my head.”

“You should dedicate it to her,” said Piers.

“Oh no ... I couldn’t do that.... Please don’t repeat what I said to anyone ... not to anyone.... What’s she doing with herself these days?”

Piers’s blue eyes became prominent and somehow bluer. There was both astonishment and laughter behind them. “Don’t you really know?” he demanded.

“I don’t. Why should I know?”

“Well — as the story was told to me — she spent half the night here, listening to music, we’ll suppose, and Renny came and took her back to Jalna, that he and Alayne might get their night’s rest and to save your reputation. Yet — you don’t know what she’s doing with herself!”

“what are you driving at?”

“My dear fellow, she’s in New York.”

“Sylvia?”

“whom else are we talking of?”

Finch had turned on the piano seat to face Piers. Now he turned his back to him and asked, “when did she go?”

“Yesterday morning. She and Fitzturgis both.”

“It’s unbelievable.” Again he turned to face Piers.

“On the contrary,” laughed Piers, “it’s quite natural. Our dear little Roma got after him and the poor guy hadn’t a chance. Adeline has broken off their engagement. He and his sister have gone back to New York. Adeline never does things by halves. She sent him packing — with a flea in his ear. I don’t know when I’ve been so pleased about anything.”

“It’s contemptible of Sylvia,” exclaimed Finch, “to go away without saying goodbye. Why,” he added in excitement, “we were friends — dear friends!”

“Do you think she realized that?”

“Of course she did.”

“The best thing for you to do is to put the thought of her out of your mind. For my part I hope we have seen the last of the Fitzturgis family.”

A step was heard, an indolent step, and Maurice came into the room. When he saw Piers he drew back, as though he would retreat, but Piers enquired casually, “Well, did you see your mother?”

“Yes. She understands.”

“Understands what?”

“She agrees to my staying with Uncle Finch for a bit — if he wants me.”

“Of course I want you,” said Finch.

“Did your mother remark your condition?” Piers asked with a teasing smile.

“She saw nothing in it to remark.” Maurice frowned darkly and sank into the most comfortable chair.

Piers said, addressing Finch, “Try to keep him sober — if you can.”

Finch sat with his elbows on the music rack and his head on his hands. He did not hear what was being said. The memory of that mysterious and lovely night when he had played to Sylvia shut him off from all else. She should not have gone without saying goodbye to him. She should not have gone. He realized now that he wanted to play the new composition to her.

Piers was leaving. He said, “I hope you don’t forget that Renny’s birthday is tomorrow. We’re expected to dinner — all of us. There’ll be mixed feeling at the celebration. Uncle Nicholas gone. Yet — there is his money to be pleased about. Adeline’s engagement off. Yet — Fitzturgis gone. That’s something to make a fellow cheerful.”

“I agree with you on that score,” said Maurice.

Outside Dennis accompanied Piers to his car.

“You said,” the little boy spoke accusingly, “that you were going to do something about Maurice.”

“Oh yes — you’d like him to vacate your room, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. I want to live here with my father.”

“what about coming to stay with me for a bit?”

Dennis considered this, then said, “Thanks. But I think I shall wait about here till Maurice goes.”

“Very well. But come along and have lunch with us.”

“Thanks. But I think my father will expect me for lunch.”

“Remind him to buy a present for Uncle Renny.”

“I’d better see him about it now.”

Piers picked him up and put him inside the car.

“You’ll come along with me,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Dennis, “but I think my father —” The car was now on its way.

* * *

Renny’s birthday was the occasion of a dinner party which included all the family, even to its youngest member, little Mary. Fifteen sat down to table — Renny, Alayne, their son and daughter; Meg, her daughter and Roma; Piers, Pheasant, their three sons and daughter; Finch and his son. It was the first family party from which Nicholas was absent. Mary sat on an equal footing with the other guests. She wore her best white dress with a pink sash, and while she was pleased to see her plate (it was one of the old Worcester dinner service) well-mounded before her, she made no attempt to eat.

It had been necessary for Wakefield to remain in New York for a time, but he had sent a telegram of congratulation and expected to return to Jalna for a visit.

Adeline had come home that afternoon. Not before had she been able to face that homecoming, with Fitzturgis gone — even though driven away by herself. It seemed to her that she had been absent for a long while, that she had crossed a gulf, that Piers’s house was at a great distance, that she was a different being from the girl who had discovered Roma and Fitzturgis on the lake shore. Yet — now that she was in her own place again, now that the feel and smell of Jalna were enfolding her — how natural, how
strangely
natural, it all was!