Читать книгу Centenary at Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 4
I
ОглавлениеI
Mary Whiteoak’s World
This little Mary was eight years old, rather small and tender for her age, more puzzled than pleased by what she discovered around her, yet, at times, swept on the wings of a wild joy. But this always happened when she was alone, when there was silence, except for perhaps the sound of leaves being tumbled by a breeze or a sudden burst of song from an unseen bird. Then she would raise her arms and flap them like wings. She would utter a little cry, as though her feelings were too much for her.
There was nothing to give her special joy on this cold morning in early May. There was a north wind that made the growing things in the garden tremble. Some of them were about six inches tall, but the leaf buds of the maples had barely appeared.
“My God,” exclaimed Renny Whiteoak, coming into the studio where Mary was, “it’s as cold as charity in here! Why are you hiding yourself away?”
He took her small icy hands in his to warm them, but she gave an enigmatic smile.
She said, “I’m not cold.”
Her hands were hidden in his sinewy horseman’s hands. “The trouble with women,” he said, “is that you never wear enough clothes. Look at that skimpy little dress you have on.”
She did not quite know whether or not her feelings were hurt. She liked this uncle better than any other male, even her father, who doted on her. She had him in the studio, all to herself, yet — lumping her in with all women, as he had, appeared to thrust a responsibility on her that she could not, without tears, accept.…The tears were ready, somewhere in the back of her throat, but she swallowed them.
“I didn’t choose the dress,” she murmured. “It was put on me.”
“By your mother?”
“Yes.” She did not say how pleased she had been when the sunshine of this May morning had seemed to warrant a cotton dress. And it was her favourite colour, light blue, the colour of her eyes.
“But your mother did not tell you to come into this cold studio, did she?”
“I came to see the cocoon.” She led him to a windowsill where the cocoon had lain all the winter. One end of it was open and out of it had crawled (no more prepossessing than a worm) a moist brown moth.
Renny lifted Mary to the windowsill so they might watch it together. The sill was dusty and rather rough, for the studio had once been a stable, but the tender flesh of the little girl’s thighs accepted it without a shudder.
“It’s going to be a beauty,” said Renny, as the moth stretched its wings. They opened and closed like fans, and new colours (pink, blue, and glossy brown) were discovered as the wings dried.
The moth gained strength. It crept to Renny’s finger and slowly made the ascent to his knuckle. He opened the window and a shaft of sunshine entered.
“It’s wonderful,” said Renny, “how growing things prosper in the sun!”
“Prosper?” she questioned, somehow connecting the word with making money.
“Flourish,” he replied, “grow plump and strong. You could do with some sunshine yourself.”
“Should I grow wings?”
“Heaven forbid!”
“Why ‘Heaven forbid’?”
“Because you’re angel enough as you are.”
This pleased her. Indeed, conversation with him was always a pleasure to her. She bent her head closer to the moth to watch its progress along his hand. Her fine hair separated and fell forward, exposing her tender nape. His eyes moved to it, away from the moth which, with a quiver of new life, prepared to fly.
“Why does it take so long?” she asked.
“Well, it took you more than a year to learn to walk.”
“Had I been in a cocoon?”
“Sort of.” She turned her head sideways and gave him a slanting look.
“Tell me,” she said, “all about — everything.”
“You ask your mother.” His tone became brusque. “I wouldn’t know.”
“I think you know everything,” she said.
Together they watched the moth’s progress from a lumbering movement to a confident preparation for flight. It had become more brightly coloured, its body smaller, its wings larger, capable of flight.
Renny Whiteoak lifted it from his hand and set it outside on the sunny sill. “Come along,” he said, “you’ll freeze if you stay here.”
“I like this studio. I come here to think.”
“About Christian?”
Christian was her brother, the owner of the studio, who was studying art in Paris.
“No. About all of us. Do you know how many houses there are, with us in them?”
He pretended not to know. “How many?”
“Five,” she cried in triumph. “First there’s ours — ”
“You should put Jalna first,” he interrupted. For a moment she looked downcast, then strung off the names quickly.
“First there’s Jalna, where you live. Then there’s my house — ”
Again he interrupted — “You should say my father’s house.”
Instantly she brought out, for she was a regular churchgoer, “In my father’s house are many mansions. What’s a mansion, Uncle Renny?”
“A large residence.”
“How could there be a lot of large residences in one house, Uncle Renny?”
“That particular house is heaven.”
She pondered over this as she hopped beside him through the door into the sunshine.
“Is Jalna a mansion?” she asked.
“Good Lord, no. It’s just a fair-sized house.”
She hid her disappointment and went on with her list.
“First there’s Jalna. Then there’s my father’s house. That sounds silly to me. Does it sound silly to you?”
“Rather. Better say my house, as you did the first time. That’s two, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Jalna and my house and Uncle Finch’s house and Aunt Meg’s and Patience’s. That’s five houses, all belonging to us. Shall we call on them, just you and me together?”
“All right,” he said. “It’s rather a good idea. We’ll go to Jalna first. I’ve already told your mother that I’m taking you to see the new foal.”
She was so happy to do this that she wanted to reward him. She said, “There’s a starling’s nest under the eave,” and she pointed it out to him. The starling had just gone in, with a bit of string dangling from his beak. He was quite hidden, now that he was under the eave, but a pigeon had seen him and had flown to the roof to peer in at the happy householder. As though that were not enough he hopped down from the roof and went in to observe the progress of the nest-building. His feet showed clean and coral-coloured. His pouting breast was the banner of desirous conjugality. Deeply he cooed as he stood half-hidden with the starling.
“Poor old boy,” said Renny. “He’s dying for a nest of his own and is too lazy to build one.”
Mary’s eager sympathy, where birds and beasts were concerned, overflowed in a tear or two. She wiped them on the back of her uncle’s hand that she closely held.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, as though unable to bear the sight of the pigeon’s frustration.
Together they strolled along the road and entered a field across which a path, newly thawed, led to Jalna. Mary’s shoelace was dangling and Renny bent to tie it. Consciously feminine, she savoured his attitude of service to her. She sniffed the good smell of tweed and pipe tobacco that rose from him. As he had looked down in tenderness at her white nape, now she gazed in wonder at his weather-beaten one. All the long winter it had been shielded by a collar; still it looked weather-beaten. With curiosity she examined his high-coloured, pointed ears, his dense red hair.
She asked, “Why is your hair a different colour in spots?”
He sat on his heels and stared at her in surprise. He was astonished. “A different colour? Where?”
“There,” she touched the hair at his temple with her forefinger. “It’s sort of grey there.”
“Grey,” he repeated. “Grey. I hadn’t noticed. You mean really grey?”
She was proud to have discovered something about him that he himself hadn’t noticed. She danced up and down and chanted — “Grey! Grey! Grey!”
“Well, I’ll be dashed,” he said, rather to himself than to her. “I hadn’t noticed more than a few scattered grey hairs, but really grey, you say, at the temples? Hm — well — I’m past sixty. I suppose it’s to be expected.” He tried to sound resigned, then burst out: “Why, my grandmother lived to be a hundred, and she never went grey. But, of course, her hair was hidden by a lace cap. I couldn’t very well wear a lace cap, could I, Mary? Would you like to see me in a lace cap?”
“You look nice,” said Mary, in a comforting tone, for she felt that he was troubled.
Hand in hand they crossed the brown field, he leaving the path to her and walking alongside in his thick-soled brown boots that left their imprint on the rough grass. They came to another field, into which gave a five-barred gate. The field beyond was somehow greener and more spring-like. A benign cow stood there, waiting for the grass to grow. Renny Whiteoak laid his hand on the gate.
“See this gate, Mary?” he asked.
She nodded, her fine fair hair blown by the north wind.
“Well,” he went on, “I’ve been in the habit of vaulting this gate, just for the fun of it, when I cross this field. I haven’t done it since last fall. Now I’m going to make a test. If I can vault over this gate — well and good. If I can’t I shall realize that the grey hairs are a sign of decrepitude.”
“What shall you do then?” she asked, only half-understanding.
“I’ll burst into tears,” he said emphatically. “How would you like to see me burst into tears?”
The thought of seeing him in tears brought the all too ready tears into her own eyes.
He saw them and declared, “We’ll cry together.”
He took a clean neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and put it into her hand. “We can share this,” he said. “It’s large but we’ll need it.” Near the gate he halted. “Now — be ready, Mary — go!”
He took a few quick steps to the gate, laid a hand on it and vaulted it smartly, turning on the other side to face his niece with a grin.
“How was that?” he demanded.
She clapped her hands, with the handkerchief between them. She gave a little laugh of delight. “Oh, that was good,” she cried. “Do it again!”
The grin faded from his face. “How like a woman,” he said, opening the gate for her to pass through. “A man does his damnedest and all she can find to say is — ‘Do it again.’”
Mary wiped her eyes, then her nose, with the handkerchief and returned it to him. The cow moved a little closer to watch them pass. They were observed also by Renny Whiteoak’s son, Archer, a University student, home for the weekend.
“Well, Archer, and what did you think of that for a jump?” Renny’s eager brown eyes sought his son’s cold blue ones.
“Very spry,” returned the youth judicially.
“I’ll bet you couldn’t do it.”
“I never have pretended,” said Archer, “to be athletic. It’s all I can do to find the path and, when I have found it, to stay on it. But I admire high spirits — never say die — all that sort of thing.” Archer liked a Latin quotation and now added — “Nec mora nec requies.”
He joined the other two, taking care that they should be between him and the cow.
Renny had not liked the word “spry.” To get even with his son he remarked, “That’s a nasty-looking pimple you have on your chin.”
“It may not add to my appearance,” said Archer, “but it has added considerably to my comfort, as, because of it, I am excused from a tea party Auntie Meg is giving at the Rectory. I was to have helped pass the tarts but she thinks that pimples and pastry are too apropos.”
“That’s the Women’s Institute,” Mary piped up proudly. “I’m going to the party to help.”
They passed from the field into the apple orchard, where the trees, after valorous effort throughout the month of April, had produced only the tiniest leaf buds, where the path was half-hidden by last year’s dead grass, where a few dying snowflakes huddled in the deepest shade.
“Will spring ever come to us!” Archer exclaimed disconsolately.
“In a few weeks this orchard will be white with bloom.” The word “white” touched the master of Jalna in a tender spot. He bent his head in front of Archer. “Do you see anything wrong with my hair?” he demanded.
Archer examined it without interest. “Nothing,” he said, “except that it’s red.”
“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Renny, affronted.
“I admit that it suits you,” said Archer. “You were born and bred to what it indicates, but I have always been thankful I did not inherit it.”
Renny straightened himself and gave a disparaging glance at his son’s dry pale thatch.
“I know it’s not handsome hair,” said Archer, “but it will see me through courtship and marriage. By that time I shall probably be as bald as a doorknob.”
“I had not thought of you in connection with marriage.” Renny spoke with respect rather than unkindness.
“Why not?”
“Well, possibly because you’re so highbrow.”
“I may be highbrow,” Archer said stiffly, “but I believe I shall be capable of propagating my kind.”
“That’s just it. Your kind isn’t suited to the life we lead here. I can’t picture your kind as breeding horses and farming. You’ve said that yourself.”
Archer spoke with an edge to his voice. “I suppose you have my sister in mind for the job.…”
“I had thought of the possibility.”
“Have you a mate for her in mind?”
“I have my ideas.”
“For what they are worth,” said Archer. “Where she is concerned you can’t be certain of anything. To wit, she’s a female.”
When conversing with Archer, Renny sometimes found himself using pedantic expressions quite unlike his naturally terse manner. Now he said, “What I was endeavouring to elucidate is whether you notice any change in my hair.”
“Elucidate,” repeated Archer, drawing back.
“Yes. Find out.”
“I’ve noticed it’s a bit grey at the temples.”
“You have — and you didn’t tell me!”
“It seems natural, and —” here Archer gave his singularly sweet smile — “looks rather nice.”
Renny returned the look glumly. “I don’t understand,” he said. “My grandmother’s hair was still red at my age.”
Mary was dancing from one foot to another, hugging herself to keep from freezing.
“Come along,” Renny said, taking her hand. He swept her over a puddle at the edge of the orchard and they made their way across the sodden lawn, round the house to the front door.
Inside the hall the three dogs, having too much sense to go out on such a morning, rose to greet them with overdemonstrative affection for Renny, tolerance for little Mary, and cool curiosity for Archer. He remarked:
“Funny to meet you without the dogs.”
Renny took the cairn terrier into his arms. “This little one,” he said, “is not as hardy as he used to be. He’s promised me to take care of himself. One of the others has a sore paw, and one a touch of rheumatism.”
“Poor things,” said Archer, without sympathy.
Alayne Whiteoak, Renny’s wife, came out of the library, a book of essays in her hand. That room had been no more than a sitting room, with few books, when she had come, as a bride, to Jalna, but now its walls were lined with well-arranged volumes. It also had a television set which Alayne deplored. Little Mary at once went into the library and turned it on. A seductive baritone voice came into the hall. Alayne could imagine the face from which it issued. She called out:
“Mary, you did not ask permission to do that.” Mary did not hear her.
“She loves it,” said Renny.
“It gives her a sense of power,” said Archer, “and that’s why she turns it on.”
“Well,” Alayne spoke sharply, “go and turn it off, Archer.”
He went into the library and closed the door after him.
Alone with Renny, Alayne avoided looking at his muddy boots by looking at his attractive face, with its well-marked aquiline features, adroit mouth, and amber eyes. However, she so well concealed her admiration that he thought she was annoyed at him — as indeed she all but was.
“Little wife,” he said, and made as though to kiss her, but she moved away. If there was one form of his endearments she liked less than “little wife,” it was “wee wifie,” which he occasionally produced when he happened to remember that he had had a Scottish grandfather. But “little wife” was bad enough to make her reject amorous overtures from him.
“Why did Mary come?” she asked.
“That’s very interesting. She suggested that we should call at all five of the houses belonging to our family. I think that’s rather clever of her. What I mean is, she’s the youngest of the tribe. She’s just beginning to understand what it is to belong to a family, to …” He hesitated.
“To be a Whiteoak,” she finished for him, with a touch of irony.
He did not notice that. He accepted what she had said, as wisdom.
“So,” he went on, “Mary and I are making the rounds, and I’m going to tell her a little about each of the houses as we visit them. And about the families who live there, of course.”
“I must go into town this afternoon,” Alayne said, feeling little interest in Mary’s education. “Will you drive me or shall I ask Hans?” Hans was the husband of the cook. A Dutch couple had served the household well while Wragge, the Cockney houseman, was, with his wife, taking a prolonged holiday in England.
Renny amiably agreed to drive Alayne into the city, though he hated and feared the traffic. “I have no business there myself,” he said. “I can start at whatever time you like.”
A little later he and Mary were standing, hand in hand, on the gravel sweep in front of the house. She was sorry to leave the television, but she was so pleased to be going about with Renny that nothing else really mattered. Even the wetness and cold of her feet did not matter, and the hand that lay in Renny’s was warm as toast.
“This house,” he was saying, “is where your roots are.”
“My roots?” she repeated, looking down at her small wet feet.
“Yes. Your beginnings. Your father and mother came here when they were first married.” His mind flew back to that homecoming and the hot reception the young pair had suffered. He saw, as clear as though it were yesterday, the passionately excited group, the grandmother in their midst. She’d given Piers a sound rap on the hand with her stick. The poor little bride had cried, and no wonder.
“It’s the most important house of the five, I know,” Mary said, looking up into his face.
“You’re right, and it’s soon going to have a birthday — its hundredth birthday. That’s what they call a centenary. And it’s going to have a celebration!”
“A party?”
“Yes. A really splendid party.”
“Shall I be there?”
“We’ll all be there. And let me tell you, Mary, there’s nothing in the world so strong as a close-knit family group. It gives you confidence. It gives you good cheer. It may give you a bad hour occasionally but it’s always there to go to in time of trouble and it’s there to share your joys.”
Mary nodded agreement, even though she did not understand half of what he said.
Looking down into her child’s face, he said, “You’ll remember this later and it will mean a lot to you.”
To show that she understood, she said, “The house will soon be a hundred years old.”
He exclaimed eagerly — “And for the occasion, all the woodwork, shutters, porch, and doors will be freshly painted. The woodwork’s paint always has been green, but I’m seriously thinking of ivory paint this year. It would set off the rosy colour of the brick and the green of the Virginia creeper.”
The Virginia creeper, at the time, showed not a single green leaf. Its leaves were tightly rolled and looked like little red tongues, stuck out in derision.
“Will you paint the front door ivory?” Mary asked.
“No. The door will keep its natural oak colour. The brass knocker looks well on it, don’t you agree?”
“It’s a very nice house,” said Mary. “Our family has five homes and it’s the best.”
The house appeared to absorb all this attention and praise with great self-satisfaction. If a house could be said to look smug, certainly it did. It seemed to say: “I will remain here, to justify your lives, as long as this country survives.”
Seven pigeons slid down the sloping roof and stood poised for flight, their jewel-like eyes, their burnished throats, bright with the promise of the season. The steps that now came running along the drive were those of Renny’s daughter, Adeline. She was five years older than Archer and though slim was exuberantly formed, as compared to the stark austerity of his youthful frame. These two were in every way a contrast: his fair hair, dry and inclined to stand upright, while hers, of a rich auburn that in sunlight glowed red, curled, as though caressingly, about her vivid face; his eyes a constant blue, hers a changeful brown; his lips composed in a thoughtful and almost satiric (or so he hoped) line, hers ready to smile or be sad.
“I heard your voice, Daddy,” she exclaimed. “Where are you going? To the stables? Hello, Mary.” She kissed the little girl with warmth and a certain possessiveness.
Renny said, “Mary and I are making the rounds of the family, just to see that everyone is in their place and behaving themselves and to let them know we are on the spot if they want our advice or our help.”
Mary looked important.
“Good,” said Adeline. “I’ll go with you as far as the stables.” She wore riding clothes and already had been exercising her favourite horse. That was what had brought the brilliant colour to her cheeks.
In the stable they inspected the foal — weak, rough-coated, timid of eye, but standing on his legs. A whicker of warning and pride made him move closer to his mother, who showed no sign of the ordeal of giving him birth. At this time she was the heroine of the stables. Nothing was too good for her.
Mary sniffed the scent of clean straw and hay. She remarked, “It’s warmer here than outdoors. Why is it warmer here than outdoors?”
“It’s animal warmth,” said Adeline. “It’s the healthiest kind of warmth.”
“I wish,” said Mary, “that I might go to see East Wind.… He’s my favourite of all the horses.”
Renny and Adeline exchanged a look over the child’s head. The look said: What an amazingly clever child she is. The things she thinks up!
“He certainly should be my favourite!” Renny spoke with warmth, for all his present prosperity, so long delayed, was due to the prowess of East Wind on the racetrack.
The thoroughbred stood now in his loose box, eyeing them nonchalantly. He was big, brawny, without elegance, but full of confidence. No sudden contingency alarmed him. He enjoyed racing. He had an impeccable digestion and iron nerves. Renny Whiteoak had spent a large part of the legacy from a loved uncle in acquiring East Wind. He had bought him in the face of bitter though almost silent opposition from his wife. And how well had that purchase turned out! The rangy colt had won race after race. Wealthy racing men had offered large sums for him, but a kind of stubborn loyalty caused Renny to refuse even the most tempting offers. East Wind’s place was at Jalna as long as he lived.
It was this same loyalty that led Renny now to the side of his loved old mare, Cora. She was approaching forty years of age but was in fine fettle — her teeth tolerably good; her intelligence, so Renny thought, amazing. She loved him with the ardour of a strong, one-track nature. He now submitted to her moist nuzzling, her pushing and her nipping, giving her in return a playful cuff, as well as a kiss.
After the visit to the stables, uncle and niece went down a path, through a ravine and across a rushing brown stream that not long ago had been frozen. Now it flowed only a few inches below the small rustic bridge spanning it. “I won’t walk across,” cried Mary. “I won’t! I won’t! I’m afraid!”
“I’m surprised at you,” said Renny. “Every spring you see this little stream in flood. Why should it frighten you now?”
“It never came so close before.” Mary looked at it askance. “It’s turned into something different. I don’t like it. I’ll get my feet wet,” she said, as though they could be any wetter. He picked her up, strode across the bridge with her, set her down on the other side. Happily she clambered up the path on the far side of the ravine. Passing through a bit of woodland in whose shelter the first hepaticas, the snow-white bloodroot bloomed, and the crows were cawing, they came to the small house known as the Fox Farm. Here lived Renny’s niece, Patience, married to a writer named Humphrey Bell. She opened the door to them and it could be seen at once that they had called at an unpropitious time. After kissing them she whispered:
“Humphrey is desperately working on a radio play. He must finish it by evening. I’m so sorry he can’t come down. He’ll be sorry too.”
“Okay,” said Renny, “if he’s not able to come down, I’ll go up and see him.”
“Oh, no!” She tried to intercept him, but he was already on his way up the uncarpeted stairs that creaked at every step.
When the two cousins were left below, Mary remarked, “I like television better than radio.”
“I like radio best,” said Patience, “because Humphrey makes more out of radio. I do wish Uncle Renny hadn’t gone up.”
“Shall I go up and tell him?”
“Goodness, no. It’s very bad for a writer to be interrupted in his work.”
“We’re making a tour of the family houses.” Mary looked important. “You are second on our list.”
The two men now descended the stair together, their boots clumping in unison. Patience, who looked on her husband as an artist to be protected and cherished, searched his face in anguish to discover what damage this interruption might have done him. But his was an inscrutable face, principally because of his extreme fairness. He had narrowly escaped being an albino.
“We’re going to have a drink,” he said to Patience and went to the pantry and brought out a bottle of rye.
Patience and Mary looked on in a kind of speechless disapproval while the two men, having produced a completely masculine atmosphere, sipped their drinks and talked about the weather.
“Have another?” Humphrey invited, suddenly looking carefree, as though he had not a living to earn and his wife were not pregnant. On her part she placed her bulk between him and her uncle, as though to protect him.
“No second drink in the morning,” said Renny. “But this was just what I needed to warm me up.”
“You never look chilly.”
“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.”
Meg gave a pleased smile. “And who is everybody?” she asked, helping herself to another slice of fruit loaf.
“Everybody in the family.”
Meg now said, in the dictatorial tone of someone hearing the Catechism, “Name them.”
“All the ones that live — that live — ”
“Convenient.” Renny supplied the word.
“Convenient,” Mary said with a pleased smile at her aunt, who, taking another large bite of fruit loaf, mumbled through it:
“And who comes from a distance?”
“My brother and Uncle Wakefield and Roma.”
“Isn’t she clever?” exclaimed Renny. “She knows everything.”
“It would be nice,” said Meg, “if we could celebrate the centenary by a wedding. Adeline’s, for example.”
“It would indeed, but whom is she to marry?”
“There’s that dear boy, Maurice, who loves her to distraction and always has. How would you like to see your favourite brother married to Adeline, Mary?”
“I have no favourites,” said Mary. “My brothers are all just men.”
“I know, dear,” Meg spoke patiently, “but you must have a man for a wedding. Whom would you choose for a bridegroom — a fairy prince — for Adeline?”
“Mr. Fitzturgis,” said Mary promptly.
Renny and Meg groaned in unison. They had unhappy memories of Adeline’s engagement to the Irishman. Renny took some credit to himself that it had been broken off.
At that moment the Rector entered the room. He had a genial greeting for the two visitors and a look that was half-admiring, half-reproachful for his wife. They had been elderly widow and widower when they had married. He still had not grown accustomed to encountering her and her relatives always about the house, and he deplored her habit of frequent little lunches from trays.
“She never eats a proper meal,” he said to Renny.
“She never has. Yet she thrives. See how plump she is, while I, who eat like a horse at table, am thin as a rail.”
“What is a rail?” asked Mary.
“A rail,” observed the Rector, “is a kind of water bird — rather rangy and thin.” He went and opened a window, exclaiming, “How stuffy it is in here!” During the years after the death of his first wife he had lived in a pleasurable draft from open windows; now in his second marriage he was always complaining of the stuffiness of the rooms.
This open window affected Meg and Renny not at all, but it was right at Mary’s back. She grew colder and colder. Shivering, she watched her aunt empty the teapot, demolish the last currant from the fruit loaf; heard her uncle and the Rector discussing the lateness of the season; she thought of the different houses she had visited that morning and longed for home.
At last they were on their way there. Holding tightly to Renny’s hand, getting out of the path of motor cars, every yard of the way familiar to her, her blood moved more quickly, her spirits rose. She inquired:
“Uncle Renny, why do some ladies get fat?”
“It’s the life they lead.”
“Does the life they lead make them get fat in different parts of them?”
“It certainly does.”
“Auntie Meg is fat all over.”
“She certainly is.”
“But Patience is fat only in her tummy. Why?”
“Ask your mother.”
“Don’t you know?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Do you always mind your own business?”
“I try.” After a little he said, “I hope you’re not tired or cold or hungry.”
“Oh, no. I’m all right.” But he could feel that she was lagging.
“Good girl,” he said, and to encourage her began to sing, in a not particularly tuneful voice, an old song he had learned from his maternal grandfather, a Scottish doctor:
Oh, hame came oor guid man at eve,
And hame came he,
And there he spied a saddle-horse
Whaur nae horse should be.
“And hoo came this horse here?
And whase can he be?
And hoo came this horse here
Wi’oot the leave o’ me?”
“Horse?” quoth she.
“Aye, horse,” quoth he …
“Tis but a bonny milch coo
My mither sent to me.”
“Milch coo!” quoth he.
“Aye, milch coo,” quoth she …
“But saddles upon much coos
Never did I see.”
By the time he had finished the song they had arrived at his brother’s house. The wicket gate stood invitingly open, the fox terrier Biddy came in rapture to meet them, and Piers Whiteoak opened the door.
“We’re holding back lunch for you,” he said to Renny. “I suppose you’ll stay. Have you any idea what time it is?”
“To tell the truth I haven’t. Mary and I have been on a tour. Tell Daddy about it, Mary.”
Seated on Piers’s knee, the warmth from his robust body reaching out to comfort her little thin one, the beam from his fresh-coloured face encouraging her, she could think of nothing to say but — “We saw all the family.”
“Well,” said Piers, “there’s nothing very new about that, is there?”
“Oh, but we saw them in a different way,” said Renny. “In the past we took it for granted that our kindred was the most important thing in the world for us. Now the youngsters must be taught.”
“What about Archer?” asked Piers.
“That boy’s an oddity — but, beneath his oddities, he’s a Whiteoak all right.”
Piers grunted. He took off his daughter’s shoes and socks and held her little cold feet in his warm hands. “So you visited all the family houses,” he said to her.
“Yes, every one.”
“And which do you like best? I mean including our own home.”
Certainly Piers expected her to choose her own, but at once she answered — “Jalna.”
Renny gave a delighted grin. “There,” he exclaimed, “she chooses Jalna! I’ve explained to her about its centenary. Now, Mary” — he looked at her intently out of his dark eyes — “tell us why you like Jalna best.”
Without hesitation, she answered, “Because it has television.”
Crestfallen, the brothers stared at her in silence a moment, then broke into a shout of laughter.
Piers’s wife, Pheasant, setting a platter of lamb chops on the table, heard this last. “There’s a modern child for you,” she said, and added wistfully — “When I was a child, how romantic Jalna seemed to me! All the family who lived there were glamorous.”
“Even me?” Piers asked flirtatiously.
“Even you.”
After twenty-seven years of marriage, they still were lover-like.
While they were enjoying the lamb chops a persistent ringing came from the telephone. Piers answered it and, returning to the table, said, “It was from Jalna. Alayne, wanting to know if you were here and why you had not sent word. She sounded a bit annoyed.”
“By George, I forgot.”
For a moment Renny was subdued, but soon his naturally good spirits were restored. He liked being with Pheasant and Piers. The brothers had many interests in common: the livestock, the farm with its orchards and small fruits. Since Renny’s unprecedented success with the racehorse, East Wind, Piers had troubled his head less and less about being in debt to him for the rent of the farmlands. Renny was a generous elder brother. If he had money on hand for his needs, he gave little thought to what was owing him. On the other hand he had not been scrupulous, when he was hard up, in days past, about acquiring the wherewithal from his wife’s private means or from his brother Finch who had inherited a fortune from his grandmother.
Seated beside her brown-eyed, brown-haired mother, Mary dallied with the hot food on her plate. So long had she gone hungry, she had lost appetite. Now that she was warm and no longer straining to keep up with Renny’s strides on the wet paths, the windy road, she could look back on the tour with pride and even pleasure.
“You should have heard us singing as we came down the road,” Renny was saying. “Do you remember that old song, Piers?” and he sang:
Oh, hame came oor guid man at eve,
And hame came he,
And there he spied a saddle-horse
Whaur nae horse should be.
“I had it from my maternal grandfather. He was a self-opinionated old Scotch doctor. Do you remember him, Piers?”
“I can’t very well remember him, for he died before I was born.”
“Well, you’ve heard of him often enough — Dr. Ramsey — your own grandfather.”
“You forget,” said Piers, “that we are half-brothers?”
An unpleasant reminder that, to the master of Jalna. He wanted the relationship to be intervolved, with no break. He frowned and asked, “Then who was your maternal grandfather?” He would not do him the courtesy of remembering him.
“He was a London journalist — drank rather heavily, I believe.”
“Oh, yes. I remember now. Well, never mind — we had the same paternal grandfather, and what a man he was! Philip Whiteoak!” He mused on the name a moment, then added: “I’m glad you named one of your sons for him and that the boy is the very spit of him.”
“He’s a rascal,” said Piers. “He’ll be coming home from college soon and I have a thing or two to say to him about his extravagance. Christian will be coming from Paris, too.”
“And Maurice from Ireland,” cried Pheasant. “All three brothers at home! Won’t that be lovely, Mary?”
Mary was not at all sure it would. In truth, home seemed pleasanter to her, more her very own, when those three unruly, loud-talking young men were away. After lunch, with clean dry socks and shoes on, and a warm sweater, she wandered again into the garden. Somehow there was a difference in all the growing things. It was as though they heard spring singing in the distance, and were poised to listen. She discovered the moth, that morning freed from the prison of its cocoon. It was clinging to a newly opened leaf, in a ray of pale sunlight. It attracted the attention of a bird which hovered above it. But the moth, in self-protection, raised its wings, vibrating them. From its hind wings two spots like eyes glared in threat. The bird, alarmed by this insect ferocity, flew away. Yet it did not fly far. Somewhere by its hidden nest it burst into a cheeping song that was the only one it knew.
Mary thought of all the houses she had that morning visited, of the people in them. They all were parts of the family. They were the family — her world. They were separate, yet they were one. Their faces were distinct, yet merged into the weather-beaten countenance of her Uncle Renny.
