The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (618 page)

“It’s my colouring. Now
you
never look warm.”

“I suppose it’s my colouring — or lack of it,” said Humphrey Bell ruefully.

“Have you,” asked Renny, as he finished his drink, “noticed anything about my hair?”

“Only,” answered Bell, “how thick it is and — how red.”

“Uncle Renny can’t help that,” put in Patience. “I’m used to it and I like it.”

Renny gave her a hug. “Thank you, Patty. However, this child tells me I am going grey at the temples. I don’t want to be self-centred like my poor old grandmother, but it came as rather a shock.”

Was he being funny? Patience wondered. She said — “I had noticed.”

“Had you noticed, Humphrey?” Renny demanded.

“I had noticed,” said Bell, with the air of a man who says — I can face life as well as you.

“But it was Mary who broke the news to me.” Renny’s dark eyes were fixed on the little girl with an accusing look that brought tears to her own eyes.

“Give the little one a Coke, Patience,” said Bell kindly. He knew nothing of children but supposed it was the thing to do.

Renny intervened. “No — never a Coke. My brother Piers said, when Mary arrived, she was never to see a comic or taste a Coke, and he’s stuck to it.”

“Well, I’m awfully glad you dropped in,” said Bell, wistfully thinking of his work upstairs.

“We are on a tour, Mary and I, of the family houses.” Renny put an arm about Mary and went on to inform her, “This house, as you know, was once lived in by people who bred foxes.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, thinking of those people.

“Funny,” said Patience, “how the name stuck to it.”

“No family has lived very long in this house,” continued Renny, instructing Mary as though in a matter of importance, “but all have been connected more or less closely with Jalna.”

“Humphrey and I hope to live here a long while,” said Patience.

“Of course you will,” said Renny cheerfully. He glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, Mary and I must be moving on if we are to complete the tour before lunch.”

When the Bells were left alone together Patience took his hand and led him back upstairs to his study.

“Poor dear,” she said tenderly. “Poor, poor dear! what an interruption! Your day’s work will be ruined, I’m afraid. I try so hard to protect you,” she mourned.

He could not tell her that she tried too hard, that all he wanted was to be let alone.

He was a source of wonder to her. She would raise herself on her elbow in bed and brood over his face, as he slept, in mingled curiosity and delight. She had been brought up surrounded by males but they were uncles and cousins. Humphrey was different. He was an enigma. When she heard, on the radio, something he had written, she was almost overcome by pride and her desire to protect him from intrusions on his work. But Humphrey, hearing it broadcast, was ashamed to acknowledge that it was his. Still more ashamed was he of his lack of appreciation for her care of him, his longing to be not fussed over.

Now he heard her go slowly down the stairs and he had a sudden fear lest she should fall. He ran to the top of the stairs and called, “Be careful, dear!”

She looked over her shoulder. “Careful of what?”

“Of falling.”

“You dear old silly,” she said and plodded on down the stairs.

He returned to his writing.

Hand in hand Renny and Mary passed through a gathering of noble oaks, embosomed by evergreens, crossed a stile and were on a new path across a field.

“That is a nice little house,” said Mary, “where Patience and Humphrey live.”

“Yes, it’s not a bad little house.”

“who owns it?”

“I do. Why do you ask?”

“Daddy says they should pay more rent.”

“Well, I like that.”

“Then why don’t you ask for more, Mummy says.”

“Mary, you tell your parents that when I want their advice I’ll ask for it.”

“Yes, Uncle Renny.” She felt rebuffed. She had tried grown-up conversation on him and it had failed. For a short space she plodded beside him in silence. She rather wished she had not come, and she was beginning to get hungry.

“where are we going now?” she asked.

He stopped stock-still to say, “Do you mean to tell me you don’t know?”

She hastened to say, “It’s Vaughanlands, where Uncle Finch lives.”

As they drew near the house that was built in a hollow, Mary timidly asked, “Do you own this too?”

Gazing at it without admiration he replied, “God forbid.”

“God forbids lots of things, doesn’t He?” said Mary.

“what I mean is that I don’t like the style of this house — its architecture. It’s a new house, built to take the place of a fine old house that once stood here. It was burnt to the ground — do you remember?”

“Oh, yes, and Uncle Finch built this new one. It’s pretty.” She saw the large picture window in the living room and, looking out of it, a woman wearing a white pullover.

“That’s Sylvia,” said Mary. “Must we go in?”

She was shy, but Sylvia Whiteoak came out to meet them. Mary had a strange feeling, an uncomfortable feeling about this new wife of Finch’s, possibly because she herself was so patently shy. Also she had heard it said that Sylvia had once suffered a “bad nervous breakdown.” Mary did not at all like the thought of that. It was mysterious, and Mary half-expected to see Sylvia come to pieces before her very eyes. Also Mary was becoming colder and hungrier. Much as she liked to be with Renny, she almost wished the tour were over.

He was telling Sylvia about it. “You are the third on our list,” he was saying. “I picked Mary up at her own home. First we visited Jalna. Next the Fox Farm.”

“How are Humphrey and Patience?” said Sylvia. “I like them both so much.”

Even that simple remark made Sylvia seem strange to Mary. You did not say you liked or disliked anybody in the family. They were a part of it, so you neither liked nor disliked them. They were just there.

“You are the third on our list,” repeated Renny, not noticing her remark. “After you we shall call at the Rectory — then to Piers’s in time for Mary’s lunch.” Mary wondered if that time would ever come. Her little cold hand lay acquiescent in Renny’s. She curled and uncurled her toes against the damp sodden soles of her shoes.

“How interesting,” said Sylvia in her pleasant Irish voice. “But what is the object of the tour?”

“It’s to make Mary conscious of the connection — the family bond that — well, you know what I mean. She goes to each of our houses in turn. She sees some of the family in every one of them. It gives her a feeling of what we are to each other.”

For the first time Mary spoke up. “It’s a tour,” she said.

“Now I understand,” said Sylvia, “and I’m proud to be included, even though Finch is not here. Won’t you come in and have a drink? I can make a quite good cocktail.”

Renny looked at his wristwatch. “It’s half-past eleven. Too early for a cocktail. But I shouldn’t mind a small glass of sherry, if you have it.”

Inside the music room that was dominated by the concert grand piano, Sylvia brought sherry in a plum-coloured glass decanter. The window was so large that the newly awakened trees crowded almost into the room. Mary saw how one maple tree had young green leaves and a kind of diminutive bloom, while the tender leaves of another were of a strange brownish shade, but in time they would be green.

Sylvia was holding a box of chocolates in front of Mary. She took one but, when she bit into it, discovered that the filling was marzipan. This she disliked above all flavours. It made her feel positively ill, yet she had to swallow the morsel she had bitten off.

“I had a letter from Finch this morning,” Sylvia was saying. “His tour is nearly over and I’m sure he will be thankful. These tours are so tiring!”

They are indeed, thought Mary. She too would be thankful when her tour was over. She kept the sweet hidden in her hand. She could feel her palm getting sticky from the melted chocolate. She wondered what she could do to be rid of it.

“Do have another,” Sylvia was urging her.

“No, thank you.”

“But surely you can eat two chocolates!”

“Of course, she can,” said Renny. He took one from the box and put it into Mary’s hand. She bit into it and it was marzipan.

“Thanks,” she murmured and might have added “for nothing.”

She sat, holding the two chocolates in her two hands, while Sylvia and Renny sipped sherry and ate biscuits. At last, in desperation, she asked, “May I go to the bathroom, please?”

“I’ll show you where it is,” said Sylvia.

“I know.” Mary thought of how she had watched this house being built, before ever Sylvia had married Uncle Finch and come there to live. In the bathroom she put the two chocolates into the lavatory and turned the handle. A great rush of water swept them away. Not a decent little rush such as came at home, when you turned the handle, but a cataract like Niagara that swept the chocolates out of sight forever. But Mary’s palms were still sticky from them. She wiped her hands on a white damask towel and was troubled to see the brown stains left on it. These she folded out of sight and trotted back to the music room.

When Sylvia and Renny were left alone she said, “what a shy little thing Mary is! It’s a wonder, with three older brothers. One would expect her to be forward.”

“She’s very like her paternal grandmother. She’s named for her. She came as governess to my sister Meg and me. Then she married my father.”

“I want so much to be friends with the children of the family,” said Sylvia.

“There are only two. This one and Finch’s boy, but before long Patience will make her addition to the tribe.”

“Finch’s boy.… Tell me about Dennis. I did not see much of him in the Easter holidays. Finch and I were busy settling in, and Dennis seemed always to be off about his own affairs. He’s not a very friendly child. Is he shy too?”

“Quite the reverse. A self-possessed little fellow — small for his age. He’ll be fourteen next December and looks eleven.”

“He has no resemblance to Finch.” Sylvia spoke wistfully. If the boy had been like Finch she was sure she would have understood him — sure that he would have been easy to make friends with. Finch was such a friendly soul. Finch reached out toward people.

“Unfortunately Dennis takes after his mother,” Renny said cheerfully. “She was a bit of a devil. You’ll make Finch happy. She only made him miserable.”

Mary had returned to the room. She overheard these last words, from the strange talk of grown-ups, from which she shrank. Sylvia now took her hand and said:

“You do like me, don’t you?”

Mary despairingly searched her mind for an answer.

“I like
you
so much,” went on Sylvia.

She was at it again, talking about things that Mary preferred to keep private. She looked into Sylvia’s lovely pale face and murmured, “I think I must be going. Thanks for the nice chocolates.”

“Have another.”

Mary drew back from the proffered box.

“Better not,” said Renny. “It’s her lunchtime. But first we must go to my sister’s. We’re making the rounds, Mary and I.”

“Is she walking all the way?”

“A walk like this is nothing to her, is it, Mary?”

“Oh, no,” said Mary. “Are we going now?”

Sylvia kissed her and soon they were outdoors again.

Striding along the path Renny remarked, “That’s one of these newfangled houses. All very well, if you’ve never lived in anything better.”

“I’d not like to live there,” Mary said stoutly. “I’d rather live at home.”

“Or at Jalna,” he suggested.

She agreed with an emphatic nod. She was suddenly happy. The wind had ceased, the sun come out warm and almost spring-like. Suddenly on a mound a cluster of trilliums rose out of the wet earth, their white blooms held up like chalices, as though they had that instant sprung up from pure joy.

Renny and Mary stood looking down at them.

“You know better than to pick, don’t you?” he said.

“I’ve known that all my life.” She was proud of her knowledge of growing things. “It kills the bulb.… Is Sylvia Dennis’s stepmother?”

“Yes.”

“I thought stepmothers were cruel.”

“Nonsense. I myself had a stepmother, and a very sweet woman she was.”

“Does Dennis like her?”

“He will when he gets used to her.”

Mary was thankful when one of the farm wagons from Jalna overtook them and they rumbled in it, behind the two stout percherons, and were deposited at the gate of the Rectory — which, behind its tall greening hedge, looked the proper cozy setting for Auntie Meg. She met them and enfolded them in a warm embrace. She was having a cup of tea from a tray in the living room and at once brought two extra cups and poured some for each of them.

“And I have some thin slices of fruit loaf — really nice and fresh, with good raisins in it that you might like. You know how it is with me. I eat scarcely anything at table but must have a little snack now and again to keep me going. This is really the first food I’ve had today.”

“I know what you are about meals,” Renny said sympathetically. “It’s a wonder you don’t starve. Mary and I are due for lunch in a short while, so we don’t need anything to eat now but we’ll gladly drink a cup of tea with you.”

Mary was hungrily eyeing the slices of fruit loaf but she politely began to sip her tea. Renny was explaining to his sister the reason for the tour, while she, without seeming to do so, was sweeping clean the tray. Every now and then she would smile at Mary, a smile of such peculiar sweetness that the little girl forgot how hungry she was and how wet were her feet.

Renny, drinking a second cup of tea, was saying, “With the centenary of Jalna coming next year, I thought it a good thing to give the youngest of the family an idea of what it means to us.”

“You couldn’t do a better thing,” said Meg. “Modern times are so strange. One can’t be sure what children are thinking. One must guide them as best one can.”

Renny spoke firmly to the child. “Tell Auntie Meg what you know about the centenary at Jalna.”

With a slight quaver in her voice Mary answered, “Everybody’s got to come.”