Читать книгу Return to Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 7

I YOUNG MAURIRICE’S RETURN

IT WAS MORE than four years since Maurice Whiteoak had left his native land and now he was once more within its borders. Then he had sailed by passenger ship from Halifax to Côbh. He had returned in plane and warship by way of Portugal and New York. He smiled as he considered the change wrought in him by those four years in Ireland. He was a different being, he thought, from the child of thirteen who had gone to live with Cousin Dermot. How timid he had been then! The very marrow of him had shuddered as he had stood waiting with the maid in the hall while old Dermot Court had interviewed Wright, in whose charge Maurice had been. When Wright had come out of the room he had winked at Maurice as they passed and whispered, “I hope you’ll like the old boy better than I do.”

Maurice had slowly but steadily entered the room where Dermot was waiting. Dermot had looked very old, sitting there in the high-backed chair, but his voice had been strong and his handclasp warm. Maurice clearly remembered the first words they had exchanged.

“How do you do?” Dermot had said.

“Quite well, thank you, sir,” he had answered. And the conversation had continued, “I hear you were seasick coming across.”

“A little. After that it was fine.”

Then Dermot had given him a penetrating look and asked, “Do you think you can bear to visit me for a while?”

“Yes. I’m sure I can.” His own voice had sounded very small and wavering even to himself.

“Remember,” — Dermot had continued — “if you don’t like me you may go home whenever you choose.”

“Mummy told me that.”

“But I’ll say this for myself — I’m not hard to get on with. Some of the Courts were, you know.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Dermot Court had laughed. “Your great-grandmother was among ’em,” he had said. “But of course you don’t remember her.”

Maurice had been terribly homesick on that first night in Ireland, but the next day had been warm and sunny; Dermot had shown him the lawns, smooth as bowling greens, the yews clipped into fanciful shapes, the lodge embowered in ivy, the pasture where the mares and their colts grazed. Later, by himself, Maurice had crossed the bluish green fields and climbed the hill, from where he had a glimpse of the sea. It was all so different from his own home.

Jalna had seemed very old to him. The house had been built almost ninety years ago, but ninety years was as nothing in this place. Surely those gnarled oak trees were as old as the Druids! At home he had been the eldest of three small brothers. His father had been sharp with him. At Cousin Dermot’s he became the young, tender, cherished heart of the house, the apple, as everyone said, of the old man’s eye.

At the end of his first summer in Ireland the war had come. It had now been going on for four years. In spite of all the letters from home Maurice had felt remote from the war, as Cousin Dermot felt remote from it. Even when his father and his uncles had gone overseas to fight, even when he had heard that his father was a prisoner in Germany, he had felt remote from the war, leading his peaceful life with his tutor and the old man.

Now Dermot Court was dead and young Maurice Whiteoak was on his way home.

Again he thought of the change in himself. He had gone over in charge of Wright, doing just what Wright had told him to do; he had come back by himself, doing just as he pleased. He had left home wearing the clothes of a small boy. He was returning in the garb of a man. He tried to feel the unconcern of the seasoned traveller, a man who had been abroad and knew all about life. But, as the train neared the city, a tremor ran through him and his mouth became suddenly dry. Who would be there at the station to meet him? Not his father, for his father was still a prisoner in Germany. Perhaps his mother would come! At the thought of her his heart gave a quick thud. It moved in his breast as though it were a thing apart from him, imprisoned there. Her figure rose before him, as he had seen her at the moment of their parting, more than four years ago. Her arms had been held close against her body, as though she forcibly restrained them from clinging to him, but her eyes had clung to him in anguish. She had feared she might never see him again. Now he had a sharp stab of jealousy as he thought how his brothers had been close beside her all these years, and he far away. He was almost a stranger.

He looked out at the fields baked brown in the late summer drought, at the wire fences and the ugly little houses of the suburbs. The train was nearing the city. People were beginning to gather their things together. Two officers in the seat in front of him rose to their feet, looking very rigid and erect. Maurice thought of his uncles and supposed they would look like that. And his father in the prison camp! He pictured him in an old uniform, almost ragged and his hair unkempt but his face still fresh-coloured and authoritative. He had a guilty feeling of relief that his father would not be at home when he arrived there. He remembered his father’s eyes and how they could give you a look that made you tremble. It would be easier to return home with only his mother and his brothers there.

While he was thinking he had got to his feet, scarcely knowing he did so and was moving slowly toward the door of the railway carriage with the other passengers. Agitating memories crowded in on him. He almost shrank from alighting from the train. But now he was on the platform surrounded by people struggling to find porters. There were very few of them and they were almost overwhelmed by luggage. At last he managed to capture one. He was among the last to pass through the station. He kept on the watch for his mother and had a sudden fear that he might not recognize her.

There was no need. He was in her arms before ever he saw her. She had darted from among those who waited and flown straight to him.

“Mooey,” she was saying, “why, Mooey darling, how you’ve grown!” She was holding back the tears from her eyes but they were in her voice.

He put his arm tightly about her and they walked together so linked. “Mooey!” He had not heard himself called by that old pet name for four years. Instead of bringing her closer it had set her apart in a half-forgotten life. He dared not look into her face.

“I have the car here,” she was saying rather breathlessly. “Is that your luggage? Why, Mooey, you’re almost a man! Travelling alone — with all those things! Oh, to think you are back again! I can scarcely believe in it.”

She was smaller than he had expected her to be. He remembered having looked up into her face. Now she was looking up into his. The pain of their parting distorted the joy of their reunion. Even as they held close to each other they felt that they were about to be torn apart. They made slow progress through the station crowded with men in uniform.

“How much shall I give the porter?” he asked, displaying some silver coins on his palm.

She took one and gave it to the man. The luggage was in the car. The early morning sunlight was dazzling on the expanse of clean pavement. Pheasant said:

“Hop in, darling. Let’s get out of this — to where we can talk.” He got in and she started the car. There was something new about her, Maurice thought, as though she were used to looking after herself, doing things in her own way. She wore a funny little black beret and she had on quite a lot of lipstick. Somehow he didn’t like that. He wanted everything to be just as it had been before he went to Ireland.

They spoke little until they reached the less busy road that ran alongside the lake. The lake was animated by small bright waves and the air was fresh. She asked questions about his journey, trying to keep her voice steady, trying to drive carefully. Really she scarcely felt capable of driving this morning. She had slept little the night before and her nerves were strung up. She did not dare look at Maurice. He asked his first question.

“How are Nook and Philip? I expected they would come too.”

“They wanted to but I wouldn’t let them. I felt that I must have you to myself at the very first. It was selfish of me. Are you disappointed?”

“Oh, no. I expect they’ve grown a lot.”

“Terrifically. But Philip the most. He’s almost as tall as Nook and weighs more. It’s very annoying to Nook.” She went on talking rather hurriedly of Philip’s escapades. She did not speak of Maurice’s father.

However, he said, “Home must seem strange without Daddy. I can hardly imagine it.”

She nodded, her lips compressed into a thin line. Then she said, “You know, we — myself and the boys — lived at Jalna for a time but it didn’t work. The children were so noisy — Philip especially — I was thankful when I could get rid of my tenants and go home again. Mooey, it will be heavenly having you with us!”

Maurice smiled but he wondered if ever he would feel at home in Canada again. That four and a half years in Ireland, in Cousin Dermot’s house, rose as a barrier of more than a thousand days of misty sunshine, quiet rain, more than a thousand nights — surely there had been nearly two thousand days and nights — nights in that great quiet house where he and the old man had been so happy together. The tranquil life had suited Maurice. Even the longing for his mother had at last subsided. Now that he was with her again he had a strange, an almost bereft feeling, as though of awareness that his old childish self was lost and would never again be found. With memory’s eye he surveyed the two pasts of his life, so completely separated by ocean and by war that they made him into two people. His mother had seen nothing of his life in Ireland. He had no one with whom he could talk about it. In this moment of his return he felt deeply lonely.

They were in the country now, with farmlands all about. There was a dry, pungent smell to the air, as though of dry vegetation, crisped by the sun, and of distant woodsmoke. He remembered the moss-grown oaks of Cousin Dermot’s park, the rich vaporous meadows, the flowery hedgerows, the pollarded willows—but Cousin Dermot was dead and the place belonged to him. He wondered if his mother realized that that estate in County Meath now belonged to him.

Pheasant went on talking, trying to pass lightly over these moments of reunion with her boy. It made her feel suddenly quite middle-aged to see him so grown. Well, she was thirty-five but she still felt like a girl. They were silent when at last the car sped along the quiet side road and turned in at the gate. On either side of it the two small boys were waiting. They stood very still but ready on the instant to spring into action.

“Here we are!” called out Pheasant. “Here’s your big brother!” The car stopped and she and Maurice alighted.

What a difference there was between him and them! They were just children. Maurice had an air of calm, a manner of the old world, acquired from Cousin Dermot in those years of close companionship. Oh, to think that she had had to part with him — to lose all those years out of their lives! Nothing she could do would bring him wholly back to her. He was part stranger and always would be. The loss was not made up by his inheriting Cousin Dermot’s fortune. That somehow made the loss greater. Maurice was independent of her and Piers. He did not need them. He had learned to do without them. But she said gaily:

“Here he is! Now give him a big hug.”

She added this last because the brothers had stood staring shyly at each other, speechless. But now Maurice gravely shook hands with each of them and they in turn gravely shook hands with him. “Just like old gentlemen being introduced!” she thought. She exclaimed:

“What a marvellous complexion you have, Mooey! You used to have no colour. You’re just peaches and cream. You make us look like Indians, doesn’t he, boys?”

She and her younger sons were, in truth, deeply tanned after a summer’s exposure to the Canadian sun. The boys’ arms and legs were as brown as their faces. Maurice, with his creamy skin, the rosy flush in his cheeks, contrasting to the brown of his hair which he had got from Pheasant, looked like a garden flower beside two tough-fibred little weeds. Their fair hair was bleached to tow, it was dry from the hot sun, it stood out in wisps. Maurice’s hair was glossy, softly waving.

He looked cared for. They had the look of running wild.

“I expect it’s the climate,” answered Maurice. “We have a lot of damp, you know.”

We! He identified himself with Ireland. But why not? It was natural. He had spent his most impressionable years there. But it hurt her. It hurt her. She said:

“Now we’ll go in and have something to eat. You must be starving. Does the house look natural?”

It looked natural, as the remembrance of a dream might seem natural, but so small, half-hidden behind its lilacs and syringas. He recalled the imposing façade of Glengorman. Surely you might put this small house, built a hundred years ago by a retired naval officer and named by him, The Moorings, into one corner of Glengorman and scarcely notice it! He answered politely:

“It looks very natural.”

“And do I?” Pheasant asked tremulously.

“Oh, yes.”

“Now, Nook and Philip, help Mooey to carry his things upstairs. Your room is waiting for you — just as when you left it. I’ll make coffee.”

She hurried indoors. The two small boys flung themselves on Maurice’s hand luggage. They clattered up the narrow stairway and deposited it, with thumps and bangs, on the floor of the bedroom. Maurice looked about. It had not changed at all, except to look smaller. There was the little bed where he had slept as long as he could remember! He thought of that night when he had first been told of the proposed visit to Ireland. He had been in his pyjamas and had just knelt down to say his prayers. His father’s voice had come up from the hall below. “Mooey, come down here!”

He had been frightened, wondering what he had done. He had scrambled quickly to his feet, then more slowly, hesitatingly moved to the top of the stairs. He had seen his father standing below, waiting for him, his strong figure erect, his face upturned. But he had not looked angry. When Maurice had reached the bottom step his father had put his arm about him and led him into the sitting room. His uncle Renny had been there. All three grown-ups had worn curious strained smiles. Then Uncle Renny, newly returned from Ireland, had told him how old Cousin Dermot lived all alone and how he liked boys and wanted Mooey to pay him a visit. The very thought of going away from home had been terrifying. He had never in all his life been separated from his mother.

“Wake up,” his father had said, “and tell us how you like the idea. Mind, you don’t have to go unless you really want to.”

“How long should I stay?” he had asked.

Uncle Renny had answered, “As long or as short a time as you want.”

His mother had exclaimed, as she watched him standing silent and bewildered, “You don’t want to go, do you, Mooey?” Her eyes had yearned towards him.

The thought of leaving her had been terrible but how glorious it would be to leave the school he hated, to be free from the strain of riding horses he feared, helping to school polo ponies under his father’s critical eye, pretending he liked to ride when even the horses were aware of his fear and made the most of that awareness. And it would get worse as time went on, not better. It had been a shadow constantly darkening his days.

Uncle Renny had taken him into the hall and had said, when they were alone, “Now, what is it you would like to ask me?”

He had twisted his fingers together and whispered, “Uncle Renny, will you please not tell Daddy what I’m going to ask?”

“May I drop dead if I do,” had been the answer.

“Well —” he had got out haltingly, “I want to know if I’ll have to ride to hounds or school polo ponies.”

Uncle Renny had reassured him. He was to do just as he pleased, never mount a horse during the whole visit unless he wanted to. And he had said, “I’ll do it. I’ll go. Tell Daddy.” Then he had run swiftly up the stairs to this very room. How far away it now seemed, like a dream. But what he had heard pass between his parents, after Uncle Renny had gone, stood out with terrible clarity. They had just closed the front door after him. He had heard his father say, with an exasperated note in his voice:

“I don’t want you to think for a moment that I’m urging this. I don’t want to part with Mooey — except for a visit. But you look as though you were giving him up forever.”

Then her voice had come, a voice choked by tears. “I am! I know I am. And another thing — you don’t love Mooey! You never have!” Yes, she had said that, her voice coming up clearly and loudly to where he was standing shivering in his pyjamas.

There had been silence for a space, then his father had almost shouted, “That’s a lie! I’ll not let him go! I’ll go right upstairs and tell him not to go!” He had begun to run up the stairs but she had run after him and stopped him. She had burst into tears and sobbed:

“I didn’t mean it, Piers! I don’t know what made me say such a thing. I want him to go to Cousin Dermot. I know he’ll have a lovely time — poor little boy!” They had gone downstairs again and he had got into his bed.

Now he was back in that room again. Nook and Philip were staring at him. Nook asked politely, “Shall we bring up your trunk?”

“Yes,” agreed Maurice, “we had better bring it up.”

They ran down the stairs together and dragged the steamer trunk from the back of the car. With puffings and gruntings on the part of the small boys they carried it to Maurice’s room. Maurice wandered about looking at the things that were so strangely familiar. Pheasant’s voice came from below. “Wash your hands, boys, and come straight down.” They could smell bacon frying.

Nook and Philip stood respectfully watching him from the doorway of the bathroom while he washed. Maurice did not know what to say to them. He was not used to small boys. They went soberly down the stair.

“Now,” said Pheasant, when they stood about the table, “I’m going to put you in Daddy’s place, Mooey. You are the man of the family — till he comes home.”

How pretty the dining room was, Maurice thought, with its gay curtains, the sun pouring in, the pretty breakfast cloth and vase of marigolds! There was bacon and an egg for Pheasant and each of the small boys but for Maurice two eggs. Nook and Philip looked on him with respect. He was a man.

“Nook,” adjured Pheasant, “sit up straight and stop holding your fork like a shovel. I don’t know where you get such manners. Just look at Mooey! He doesn’t sit or eat that way.”

Nook sat upright at once but it was not till Pheasant fixed Philip with a stern eye that he obeyed.

“After breakfast,” she went on, “I’m going to take you to see Auntie Meg and then we’ll go to Jalna. Oh, Mooey, it’s so wonderful having you home! And just think what it will be when Daddy’s home! I can scarcely imagine the joy.”

Philip put in, “Daddy’s got only one —”

“Now, now, Philip. Eat your toast. Pass him the marmalade, Nook.”

She was not hungry. She talked eagerly, her eyes drinking in the sight of Maurice sitting there. She could not relax.

“What a time we’ve had,” she said, “running Jalna without any help to speak of! In the house, just Mrs. Wragge and she quite unequal to those basement stairs; she’s fatter than ever! And the two old uncles need a good deal of waiting on. Then there are the three children to get off to school. You should see Adeline, Mooey. She’s lovely ... Poor Alayne! The house would be enough to cope with, but there are the stables — twelve horses still — the stock, cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry! If it weren’t for Wright we’d have gone quite crazy. That’s to say nothing of the farmlands and the fruit. I’ve worked like a farmhand and I guess I show it.” She looked wistfully at him across the table.

“You still look lovely,” Maurice replied, with a little bow and in Dermot Court’s own manner.

“Oh, how darling of you to say that, Mooey!” She jumped up and ran round to him and hugged him. Oh, the feel of that brown head of her first-born on her breast once more!

He put both arms about her.

When they had cleared away the breakfast things Maurice, carrying a toppling load of dishes, remembered the formality of meals at Glengorman, the white-haired butler and his air of making even breakfast a ceremony. Pheasant led him into the living room and closed the door.

“There is something I think I ought to tell you,” she said, in a low voice. “About Daddy.”

“Yes?” He stared at her, startled.

She took his hand and held it. “Oh, Mooey, he has lost a leg! I never told you in my letters. I couldn’t bear to. I couldn’t bear to tell you, when you were so far from home.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Maurice did not know what he was expected to do. Cry? Turn pale? His father had lost a leg. It was a calamity. But so far away. He remembered Piers on two strong legs. He had stood strongly on them, as though it would take a great deal to knock him over. And now only one! Maurice said, in a low voice:

“I suppose it happened years ago — when he was taken prisoner.”

“Yes ... Oh, I’ve been terribly broken up about it … Of course now I’m getting used to the thought of it ... But it’s new to you, darling.” She put both arms about him. He breathed, against her shoulder:

“I’m sorry.”

She drew a deep breath. “Well, we will do all we can to make him forget it, when he comes home.”

“Yes. Is he pretty well?”

“I think so.”

They separated and Maurice’s eyes moved toward the open window.

“We’re going now,” said Pheasant, then hesitated and added, “It will seem strange to you not to see Uncle Maurice at Vaughanlands. Poor Auntie Meg and Patience are alone there now. You must be sympathetic but cheerful when you meet Auntie Meg.”

“Yes,” said Maurice dutifully. He had not been much moved when he had been told, more than a year ago, of the death of Maurice Vaughan, his mother’s father. Pheasant’s children had always called him Uncle Maurice because he had been married to Auntie Meg. He had never seemed in the least like a grandfather.

“It was very sad,” went on Pheasant. “He was ill such a short time. His heart, you remember.”

“Yes. I remember.” But he had forgotten.

“Auntie Meg has been very brave.”

“Yes. She would be brave.”

“Now we shall go!” Pheasant spoke cheerfully.

Maurice thought, “I’m glad that’s over.” He asked, “Couldn’t we go to Jalna first? I’d like to see Adeline.”

“No. Auntie Meg would feel hurt. Nook and Philip will want to come. Oh, Mooey, I do hope you will have some influence over Philip! He’s completely out of hand. There is no one here who can do anything with him.”

The two small boys now came running in. Philip at ten did indeed look a handful to manage. He looked courageous and self-willed; while Nook, with his gentle amber eyes and sensitive mouth, had an air of reserve and shyness. Pheasant looked the three over.

“You’re not a bit alike,” she declared. “Mooey, you are like me, I think. Philip is the image of Daddy. And Nooky,” putting an arm about him, “you are just yourself.”

Now they were in the car passing between fields of sunburnt stubble and orchards bright with apples. “This is home,” thought Maurice. “How strange it seems! This is my mother and these are my two brothers. My father has lost a leg and Uncle Maurice is dead. It’s as though we were a coloured glass window that had been broken and then put together in a new pattern.”

Philip would put his hand on the steering wheel. “Philip, will you stop! You’ll have us in the ditch,” Pheasant said, but she could not stop him. It ended by his keeping his hand there. “You see I can steer as well as anyone,” he said.

What a dusty car! thought Maurice. The windows grimy, mud dried on the wheels. Cousin Dermot would have refused to set his foot inside such a car. But it could go! In a few minutes they were at Vaughanlands, the low, verandahed house standing in its hollow almost hidden in greenery, in which the yellow note of fall was already struck. A bed of scarlet salvia and many-coloured dahlias made the background for a matronly figure in a mauve cotton dress.

She looked more familiar to Maurice than even his mother and his brothers had done. Among the curving masses of foliage, Meg Vaughan looked nobly in her place. Her hair had become almost white and this set off her fine complexion and the clear blue of her eyes. She clasped Maurice to her breast and exclaimed:

“Home at last! How you have grown, Mooey! Oh, what sad changes since you left! Your father a prisoner with a leg lost, your uncles gone from Jalna and our sad loss here.” Yet in spite of this sad recital there was a comfortable look about Meg. She did not make Maurice feel unhappy, as his mother had done.

Now his cousin Patience appeared on the scene, a slim edition of her mother but with grey eyes. Maurice held out his hand but Meg exclaimed, “What formality! You must kiss each other. To think, Pheasant, that they both are seventeen — and practically fatherless!”

“Mooey isn’t practically fatherless,” said Pheasant, almost fiercely. “Piers is likely to return quite soon. There is talk of an exchange of prisoners.”

Maurice saw the flash of antagonism between the two, but turned to Patience. He said, “How you’ve changed, Patty! You’re a woman grown.”

“You speak differently,” she returned. “I suppose you got it from Cousin Dermot. Is it Irish?”

“Heavens, no!” cried Meg. “An Irish gentleman doesn’t speak with a brogue.”

“I suppose you’ll despise our ways now,” Patience said, with a teasing look.

Maurice was embarrassed. He could only say, “Oh, no, I’ll not.”

“And you’re rich too,” she persisted, “and we are all so terribly poor.”

Maurice was scarlet. “Indeed, and I’m not.”

“Listen to the Irish of him!” laughed Patience. “Indeed and I’m not!”

Meg considered Maurice contemplatively. “What a pity,” she said, “that you don’t come into the money till you are twenty-one! You could do so much with it right now.”

“Yes, I suppose I could,” he agreed, still more confused.

“Isn’t it a strange thing —” Meg turned to Pheasant — “that Granny’s fortune was inherited by Finch, a boy of nineteen, and Cousin Dermot’s by Mooey, a boy of seventeen! It doesn’t seem fair.”

“I hope Mooey’s money lasts longer than Finch’s did,” said Pheasant. “It was shameful the way Finch’s money disappeared.”

“Shameful!” Meg’s eyes became prominent. “What do you mean, shameful? I certainly never had ...” Suddenly she remembered that Finch had paid off the mortgage on Vaughanlands. It had been only a loan but the interest had been paid more and more irregularly, till at last it was quite forgotten. Meg concluded: “Anything Finch did for us he did because he wanted to.”

“Of course,” said Pheasant. “I always thought Finch acted as though he wanted to get rid of everything Gran left him.”

“And now,” put in Patience, “he has got rid of his wife.”

“With all her wealth!” mourned Meg.

“I’m afraid,” said Pheasant, “that Mooey will think we are very cynical.”

“You may be cynical,” retorted Meg, “but I have only the welfare of the family at heart and always have had and always shall.”

As she stood planted firmly, in front of the rich foliage of late summer, she looked the very spirit of benevolence and there was no one there to contradict her. Patience regarded her with amused devotion; Pheasant, in controlled irritation; Maurice, in admiration; Nooky, in wonder; Philip, speculating as to whether she would give him anything. She gave him a kiss and exclaimed:

“He grows more like Piers every day! He’s the one perfect Whiteoak among all the children. Poor Alayne, I feel sorry for her, with that boy of hers!”

Pheasant gave a sigh. “Well,” she said, “we must be off. The uncles will be anxious to see Mooey.”

“Give them my love — the old dears! You’ll see a great change in them, Mooey. I doubt if they’ll survive till all my brothers are home again.”

“I don’t think they’ve changed much,” said Pheasant stoutly. “I think it is remarkable how little they’ve changed.”

“Remarkable — for ninety — yes. Quite remarkable for ninety.”

“Gran lived to be a hundred.”

“Men don’t endure like women. Heavens, if a man had gone through what I have! Well, he just couldn’t do it.”

Again no one contradicted her.

On the way to Jalna, Pheasant exclaimed, “She may have gone through a lot but — what care she takes of herself! And Patience is just the same. They do nothing to help, though we’re at our wits’ end at Jalna.”

“Patience is a lazy lump,” said Philip.

The car was entering the driveway of Jalna. The spruces and hemlocks stood close and dark. To Maurice it seemed not so much an entrance as a defence. The trees reared themselves to conceal the house, to protect the family. Not only the evergreen trees, but the great weeping birch on the lawn, and the oaks and the maples. The Virginia Creeper, nearing its hundredth year, now had difficulty in finding fresh space for its growth. Long tendrils were festooned from the eaves and dangled from the porch, swayed by every breeze, seeming in their avidity to reach for support down to the very humans who passed under. But, at one corner of the house, the vine had been cut away in order to make some repairs, and in that place the rosy red of the old bricks was prominent and bathed, as it were consciously, in the sunshine. Two old gentlemen were seated on chairs near to the birch tree. These were the two great-uncles, Nicholas and Ernest Whiteoak. Nicholas had a plaid travelling rug over his knees. He was somewhat sunk in his chair, his massive head well-thatched by iron-grey hair looking a little large for the body which, in the last four years, that is the years of the war, had considerably shrunk. But his shoulders still were broad though bent, his face because of its strong and handsome bony structure was still impressive, and his hands, which were his one remaining vanity and which he had inherited from his mother, looked the hands of a much younger man. His voice too had power, as he now called out:

“Hullo, hullo, hullo, Mooey! Come and kiss your old uncle! Come and kiss him quick!”

Now this was the expression which his mother, Adeline Whiteoak, had often used in her very old age and it annoyed his brother to hear it on Nicholas’ lips. Did Nick imagine that, by repeating expressions so peculiarly hers, he could live to be a hundred, as she had? Ernest could not help feeling annoyed but he smiled eagerly, as he held out both hands to Maurice, and murmured:

“Dear boy, how you’ve grown! And how like your mother you are, though you have blue eyes.”

Nicholas was rumbling on, still uttering expressions used by old Adeline, “Bring all the boys here, Pheasant. I like the young folk about me.”

His great-uncles had many questions to ask about Dermot Court and more especially about his last illness. Maurice could not recall those days without a feeling of great sadness. He wished he need not talk about them. The three boys had dropped to the grass but Pheasant still stood. Now she looked at her wrist watch, exclaiming:

“How the day is going! And I have about fifty baskets of early apples to grade and pack. You two small boys must come and help. Mooey, when the uncles have finished their talk with you, you must go into the house and see Auntie Alayne and Adeline.”

“This lawn,” observed Ernest, “badly needs mowing. I have never before seen it in such a state. The south lawn is no better than hay. It will take a scythe to prepare for the mower. I wonder if you would undertake to mow this front lawn, Mooey?”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Maurice, doubtfully.

Pheasant supplied the heartiness. “Of course, he will — he’ll love to. Come along, boys!”

Nook and Philip dragged themselves to their feet and limply followed her. A quarter hour had scarcely passed when Philip rejoined the group on the lawn.

“I thought you were helping your mother,” said Nicholas sternly.

“I couldn’t do it properly,” he returned, and lay down. The front door of the house now opened and Adeline Whiteoak came out to the porch. She wore riding breeches and a white shirt. For a moment she hesitated, looking at Maurice, then ran down the steps and came to him.

“Hullo!” she said. “So you’re back.”

Maurice took the hand she held out.

“Dear boy, kiss your cousin!” urged Ernest. The two young faces bumped softly together. “How firm her cheek is!” thought Maurice. “And as smooth as satin.”

Nicholas and Ernest looked at each other as though to say, “What a pretty pair!”

“Mummy had to take Archie to the doctor,” Adeline said. “It’s his tonsils. Roma went too because she needs new shoes. But they’ll not be long. Are you glad to be home again?”

“Yes, indeed,” he answered politely.

Ernest said to Nicholas, “He has true Irish politeness. He speaks like Dermot.”

“How long are you staying?” asked Adeline. “Always?”

“Till I’m twenty-one.”

“Are you glad?”

“Yes, indeed.”

He was a puzzling boy, she thought. You could not tell whether or not he meant what he said.

“Rags has homemade grape wine for us,” she went on. “Will you come in and have some?”

“Thank you. I’d like to,” he answered, with a little bow.

“Uncles, will you have some?” she leant over them, solicitously.

They gratefully declined but Philip sprang up. “I’ll have some,” he said.

“Wait till you’re asked,” returned Adeline severely. She led the way into the house. On the table in the dining room stood a squat bottle of grape juice and a plate of small biscuits. Presiding over these was Wragge, the houseman. He was a cockney who had been batman to Renny Whiteoak in the first Great War, had returned with him to Jalna, had become the devoted though critical servant of the family, further entrenching himself by marrying the cook. Again he had followed the master of Jalna to war, helped to save his life at Dunkirk, had later that year been himself severely wounded and in 1941 been discharged from the army and returned to civilian life. His wife, the cook, had always been fat while he was thin. Now she was enormously fat while he was thin to emaciation. She suffered considerably from arthritis, and he more than a little from his old wound. Her temper had always been quick. His was the sort that smouldered and sputtered. Now both were highly explosive. Still she was thankful to have him back in the basement kitchen and he was thankful each morning to discover her mountainous body beside him when he woke. He would put his arm about it, clinging to it as a shipwrecked man to a raft.

Together they did the greater part of the work in the house that was far from convenient to work in, where there were two old gentlemen who had, from infancy, been waited on and who expected summoning bells to be answered with celerity. To Alayne, Renny’s wife, fell the task of bed-making and dusting, of getting three children off to school in term time, of mending, of darning, of making the little girls do some share of the work, of supervising their studies.

Early in the war Pheasant and her two boys had come to live at Jalna, their house being let. At the time it had been considered a good arrangement but it had not worked out well — two women with different ideas of how a house should be run — too many children — too much noise for the uncles. At the end of six months Pheasant’s tenants departed and she thankfully returned with her boys to her own home, a general thanksgiving arising at the same time from Jalna.

Now Wragge came forward, beaming, to greet young Maurice.

“Welcome ’ome, sir. This is an ’appy day for the family, sir. Not only to see you return but to see you return with a fortune.”

Maurice shook hands with him. “Thank you, Rags,” he said, rather embarrassed.

“I remember,” said Wragge, “when you were born, as if it was yesterday.

I remember when you was a little codger and your father used to carry you about on his shoulder. A great pity about your father, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes, it’s a great pity.”

“He was a well-set-up gentleman and one with a good walk — a soldierly figure. Ah, well, we’ll be glad to see ’im ’ome, no matter ’ow he comes. War is hell and no mistike. I ain’t the man I was, Mr. Maurice.

You may ’ave noticed.”

“You do look a bit thin, Rags.”

“Thin is no nime for it! But — ’ave you seen my missus? She weighs fourteen stone, she does.”

He filled two glasses with the grape juice, remarking, “We’ve reached a low ebb ’ere, where liquid refreshment is concerned, sir. It’s not like the old days. To be sure, the old gentlemen keep a small supply for their own use but they guards it fierce. This ’ere grape wine my wife made last year and it’s pretty good, if I do say it. Miss Adeline enjoys it. Don’t you, miss? Wot do you think of our young lidy, sir?”

“I think she’s grown.”

Rags looked dotingly at Adeline. “Grown! Why, she might pass for fifteen and she’s only thirteen! Give her another year and she’ll be ’aving admirers — if she ’asn’t already. I suspect that she ’as, if the truth was known.”

Adeline smiled imperturbably. But Maurice did not like the man’s familiarity. It was of a different quality from the familiarity of Irish servants. Seeing Adeline standing there under the portrait of her great-grandmother, the wineglass in her hand, Maurice had the desire to protect her. There was a new something about her that appealed to his developing manhood. After all, he thought, I am almost a man, I am the only young man at Jalna. Adeline needs looking after.

“Ave a biscuit, sir?” asked Rags, proffering the plate. “I’ll bet you don’t get biscuits like these in Ireland.”

“No, thank you. I’ve had a very late breakfast.”

Rags exclaimed, “Well, I must be off. I’ve promised to pluck two chickens for Mrs. Wragge.” He hastened down the basement stairs, warning as he left, “Don’t you go drinking too much of that there grape juice, Miss. It ’as a real kick in it.”

Left alone the two cousins were silent for a space. Adeline was systematically eating the cookies. Presently Maurice asked, in a new intimate tone:

“Do you like that fellow?”

“Yes,” she answered laconically. “Don’t you?”

“No. I don’t. I think he’s cheeky.”

“Oh, Rags is all right. As a matter of fact, he and I almost run this house.”

Maurice stared. “You do?”

“Well, when we want a thing done, we generally get it done.”

“Oh, I see.”

“This place,” she went on, as she finished the last biscuit, “is going to rack and ruin.”

“Is it really? Why is that?”

“Well, in the house everything is out of repair. The roof. The plumbing. Everything. There’s no money for repairs. But the farm is far worse. We’ve one farmhand. We used to have four. Wright is the only man in the stables. Wright and I run the stables. If it wasn’t for us they’d be sunk.”

“You must be pretty busy.”

She nodded her head vigorously. “You bet I am. Like to feel my muscle?” She drew up the sleeve of her shirt and flexed the muscle in her round brown arm.

Maurice laid his hand on it and pressed.

“By George!” he exclaimed.

“Let’s feel yours.”

He drew back. “No.”

“You’re ashamed of it!”

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ll bet it’s as flabby as a poached egg.”

“Feel it, then.” He extended his arm.

She felt his muscle and looked aghast. “Gosh!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you take any exercise?”

“Well, I play some tennis and I walk a good deal.”

A smile lit her face, imparting an almost sardonic quality to its childish beauty. She said:

“You’ll soon get a muscle here.”

“How?” Maurice spoke defensively, deciding that she was not as pretty as he had at first thought.

“Oh, hammering in the heads of apple barrels — digging potatoes — there are lots of ways. You don’t like horses, do you?”

“I don’t like riding,” he answered resolutely.

“I’ve always heard that about you. Wright says it’s because you had too many falls schooling polo ponies. But falls haven’t turned me against riding. Like to come and see the horses?”

“I think I ought to go and find my mother.”

“Come upstairs first and see my room.”

“Very well.”

She led the way to the room that had been her father’s. Inside she tried to soften the look of pride that had come over her face. “I used to sleep on the top floor with the other children,” she said, casually, “but last spring I moved down here. It’s more convenient in case the uncles or Mummy need me and I like it because it is Daddy’s.”

He would get even with her, Maurice thought, for what she had said about his muscle.

“I guess you like it because it makes you feel important.” He smiled.

She answered quickly, “I’d feel important if I slept in the basement.”

“I’ll bet you would. In any case, it’s not a bit like a girl’s room.”

“I don’t want it to be.”

“You wish you were a boy, then?”

“No! I just want it to be like Daddy’s room.”

Maurice did not think it was an attractive room but he felt that he was expected to praise it. “It’s very nice,” he said.

“Those pictures are famous horses. Here are his pipes,” she ran her finger across the rack on which they hung. “There are nineteen of them. He just took one with him. His clothes are still in the cupboard. I use only half of it.” She displayed the interior of the cupboard where her childish garments hung among tweed and serge and corduroy. “All his ties and shirts and things are in the drawers waiting for him.”

“You think a lot of him, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I suppose you do of your father too.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Isn’t it awful their being gone so long?”

“Yes, it is pretty awful,” he agreed. “Especially, of course, for our mothers.”

Adeline looked at him almost sombrely. Then she said, “Well, we’d better go and find the others.”

Walking with her to the orchard, Maurice thought he had never before known what September heat could be; or perhaps he had forgotten. The sun seemed to have drawn the last drop of moisture from the land. The path beneath Maurice’s feet felt like cement. There was no breeze to stir so much as a grass blade. He wondered how the labourer he could see ploughing in a distant field could endure the heat. He glanced at Adeline. She looked warm — no more.

“This heat is awful,” he muttered.

“You’re dressed all wrong. But, if you call this hot, you should have been here last week. It took a terrific storm to clear the air. It’s nice now. There’s Auntie Pheasant with the boys.”

Philip had returned to the orchard. Boards laid on trestles made a table for the array of baskets which Pheasant and Nook were packing with the reddest apples, Maurice thought, he had ever seen. Philip was bringing them the apples from a great mound on the ground. Pheasant cried:

“It’s a perfect shame to be working on your first day home, Mooey, but these apples must be put on the train at two o’clock. We’re slaves here, aren’t we, Adeline? Don’t be so rough with the apples, Philip! And look here, Nook, don’t you go putting the best ones on the top or we shall get a bad name.”

“I don’t do it to be dishonest,” said Nook. “But just because they look prettier that way.”

“Everyone expects the best apples to be on the top,” said Adeline, tersely. “I looked into some baskets at the market and they all had. And I asked the man and he said they all had.”

“I’d put the best on top,” Philip declared, “and I’d put rotten ones underneath.”

“You little scoundrel!” Pheasant gave him a look, half-stern, half-laughing.

“Not rotten,” said Adeline. “Just not quite so round and rosy. They’d taste just as good.”

“What would those underneath be like in Ireland, Mooey?” asked Pheasant, her eyes caressing him.

“Oh, they’d be rotten enough.”

He took off his jacket and set to work. But he was slow, unaccustomed. The heat was almost intolerable to him. Every time he was near to Pheasant she touched him. She could scarcely believe that she had him back. She said:

“No one of us is going to do a hand’s turn of work this afternoon. We shall just give ourselves up to the joy of having you back. We’re going to have a picnic tea on the lawn and Mrs. Wragge is making ice cream!”

“Hurrah!” shouted Philip.

“Hurrah!” shouted Nook, putting a misshapen apple in the bottom of the basket he was packing.

Maurice felt like one in a dream. The half-forgotten life of his childhood had opened to receive him, had taken him back. Its walls had closed behind him. He thought of September in County Meath. He drew back to him the picture of Glengorman in September, the hushed cool meadows, the river that seemed scarcely to move, and how it gave back, almost unbroken, the reflection of the slow-flying heron. And the life with Dermot Court! He had been the cherished child of the old man. From the moment he had entered the house he had done just as he had pleased, he could do no wrong. He had been the white-haired boy.

And now he was home again — where it had once seemed to him that he could do nothing to please his father. Now he was one of many. He did not know what to say to his young brothers. All about him was an activity in which he would be expected to take a part. There was something new, purposeful and practical, in his mother. She was asking:

“Can you drive a car, Mooey?”

“Yes, indeed I can,” he answered.

“Oh, that’s splendid! You will be able to drive the truck to the station. It takes such a lot of Wright’s time and puts him completely out of temper.”

A strange feeling of loneliness came over Maurice.