Читать книгу Whiteoak Heritage - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 4

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The train was nearing its destination and the three men lighted cigarettes and fixed their eyes on the swiftly passing fields, expectant of the first glimpse of the town. The expressions on their faces were remarkably different. Their very attitudes showed something of the contrast of their feelings. For two, it was a return; for one, the introduction to a new country. All three were in khaki. One wore the uniform of a captain, one of a sergeant, one of a private. The last sat by himself and, even though he stared through the window, his ears were alert for anything the others might say. He sat, tense and neat-looking, in spite of the clumsy cut of his uniform. He had mouse-coloured hair, pale eyes with fine lines about them, an inquisitive nose, an impudent mouth, and a jutting, obstinate chin. His name was John Wragge.

The sergeant, Maurice Vaughan, was thirty-four and heavy for his age. His brows were drawn together by a deep line above his fine grey eyes. His mouth wore a look of somewhat sullen endurance but lighted boyishly when he smiled, as he was now doing. He had had an officers’ training course before leaving Canada but, in England, had reverted in order to get to the front. He had risen to the rank of sergeant, been twice wounded and brought back with him, as souvenir of the War, a crippled hand which wore a leather bandage, and which he was just beginning to use again, clumsily and not without pain.

The third member of the party was Renny Whiteoak, lifelong friend of Vaughan and two years his junior, being just past thirty. He had been educated in a military college and, at the outbreak of war, joined the Buffs, a regiment with which his family had long been associated. He had been awarded the D.S.O. for an act of distinguished bravery. The officer’s uniform well suited his lean body of which the flesh seemed rather a weathered and durable sheath for the active muscles beneath, than the evidence of good nourishment. His strong, aquiline profile, his close-cut dark-red hair, his vivid brown eyes added to the impression of nervous vitality. He was saying:

“I’ll bet that the first person to meet me, inside the house, will be the old lady. When the door opens there she’ll be, with both arms stretched out to hug me.”

Maurice Vaughan smiled. “I can just see her. What a fine woman she is for her age! As a matter of fact, for any age. I wonder if she’s failed much while you’ve been away. Four years is a long time for a person of ninety. She is that, isn’t she?”

“She’ll be ninety-four next September. But I don’t think she’s failed. The last letter I had from her was full of news about all the family. And it was perfectly legible, except toward the end. She said how glad she was spring had come. She never sets foot outdoors till the snow has gone.”

“It must be nice,” said Maurice, “to know that such a welcome is waiting for you. Relations of all ages—right down to the kid you’ve never seen.”

He instantly wished he had not said that. It would bring to Renny’s mind the loss of his father and his stepmother while he was away. His father had died before he had been absent a year. His stepmother had survived the birth of her last child for only a few weeks. Renny Whiteoak, however, answered composedly:

“Yes, it is nice.” His face softened and he added—“I’m keen to see the youngster. Wakefield they named him. His mother’s maiden name.”

“I might as well,” said Maurice, “have been killed for all the rejoicing there will be over my home-coming.”

His friend drew down his mobile brows and bit his lip in embarrassment. He could think of nothing to say for a moment, then he got out:

“I’m mighty glad you’re here.”

Still embarrassed he turned to Wragge. “What do you think of this country?”

Wragge had, before the War, been a cellarman in a London wholesale wine merchant’s establishment. He answered with a grin:

“Well, sir, I used to spend my days underground before I went to France. After that I lived in the trenches. I’m not much of a judge of landscapes but those rail fences do look funny after ’edges and walls.”

“They look good to me.”

“I expect they do, sir. It’s all wot you’re used to. That’s a pretty bit of woodland there. It’s a nice colour.”

“Those are young maples, just coming into leaf. The tips are red. Look, Maurice.”

“Yes, I was just admiring them. And the blue of the sky.”

After a pause Renny said—“There’s young Pheasant. She’ll be glad to see you.”

“I don’t think so. Why should she? We have been separated for four years, and she’s only twelve now.”

“But you’ve written, haven’t you?”

“I’ve sent her a few picture post-cards.”

“Christmas presents?”

“I wasn’t where I could buy anything suitable. I didn’t think of it, and that’s the truth.”

“Well—I’ll say you are the world’s worst father! If I had a kid——” He saw that Wragge was straining to hear what was said, and broke off with a frown.

“I know—I know,” said Maurice. He nervously fingered the leather bandage on his maimed hand and his mind turned back, in self-condemnation not untouched by self-pity, to the time of his early manhood when he had been engaged to Renny’s sister, Meg. Meg and he had been perfectly suited to each other, he was sure of that. Both families had been delighted by the prospective union. He had wrecked it, made a fool of himself, by getting entangled in a momentary passion for the niece of the village dressmaker.

It was an experience he had thought to leave behind undiscovered, except as it had affected his own maturity. But a child had been born of those few meetings in a summer wood. The girl had taken the child to his parents’ house. Maurice had confessed his fatherhood. The engagement had been broken off by Meg, who ever since had been as inaccessible to him as if she lived in a foreign country and knew no word, nor wanted to know a word, of the language he spoke.

That Maurice could continue to love Meg after twelve years in such a situation was a miracle to Renny, and not an edifying one. Maurice should have broken down her resentment by a more flamboyant constancy or simply found someone else to love, someone who would be a mother to his child. Still, Renny cherished Maurice’s fidelity as something unique, the proof of Meg’s desirability, even a tribute to the Whiteoak family.

He leaned toward his friend and said in an undertone—“Perhaps it will be different with you and Meg now—the War and all that ... your being wounded.... Well, I think you ought to fix it up somehow.”

“God, I should like to!” said Maurice, “but I have no hope at all.”

A movement was going through the passengers, a tentative reaching out toward their belongings, a searching of the narrowing fields for the first ugly intrusion of suburbs.

A few minutes more and they were indeed arriving. The three men in uniform stood up, put on their caps with characteristic gestures; Wragge, the Cockney, slapping on his jauntily, as though with it on one side of his head he was prepared for anything; Maurice Vaughan deliberately, as if he assumed with it the burden of what lay ahead; Renny Whiteoak with a decisive movement in which his hair seemed to join, clinging against the rim of the cap as though to clamp it the more closely to the sharply sculptured outline of his head.

He was the first of the three to stride through the railway station, eager to see who was there to meet him. As he reached the barrier his progress was hindered by a straggling group composed of a man in private’s uniform, a woman and five children, ranging in age from three to ten years. The man was plainly embarrassed by the six pairs of eyes turned up to him as his family crowded about him like sheep. They were strangers to him, and he did not know how to reunite himself with them. His face was a blank. His wife wore an apologetic smile, as though it were her fault that the children had grown beyond his recognition.

But now Renny discovered those who were waiting for him. He pressed his way through the straggling family and went eagerly to meet his sister and his three brothers. He had expected that Eden and Piers would be there, possibly one of his uncles, but he had not expected young Finch. The sight of Meg was a happy surprise. And looking just the same—after all she had been through! Her complexion as fresh, her hair the same soft light brown, the curve of her lips as full and affectionate. Her lips parted in a tremulous smile when she saw him and she raised her two arms ready for the embrace. Now he had her in his, pressing her close. He felt that there was perhaps a little more body to her. She had, he guessed, put on six or eight pounds in his absence.

“Oh, Renny, my dear, how thankful I am!” She clung to him, unwilling to surrender him to the others. He was her own, her very own brother. They had had the same mother. As she pressed him to her the painful imaginings of what might happen to him in the war melted away and her one thought was—“I have him safe, and quite unchanged.”

But even while she savoured the first joy of this reunion she saw, over Renny’s shoulder, the figure of Maurice—looked straight into his eyes. She had not known he was returning with her brother. She had not given him a thought.

Renny felt her go rigid in his arms. Then she burst into tears.

“It’s all right, old girl,” he said, his voice husky. “I’ve come home and you’ll never get rid of me again.”

“It’s not that,” she sobbed. “It’s Maurice. I can’t meet him. Please don’t ask me to.”

Renny screwed round his head and gave his friend a distracted look. Then he loosed himself from Meg’s arms and returned swiftly to Maurice. He said:

“Look here, I can’t ask you to come with me. Meggie’s too upset, seeing me again and all that.”

Maurice, very white, returned—“Seeing me and all that, you mean! Never mind, I’ll go on a local train. It’s all right. Tell Meg I’m sorry to have appeared at such an inopportune time.”

His sympathy torn between the two, Renny exclaimed, almost in exasperation;

“Do what you think best and don’t talk like a fool!”

“It’s true and you know it. Well, I’ll see you later. Lord, how those boys have grown.”

“Haven’t they! The car will be packed. Will you take Wragge with you? I’ll send for him when we get home.”

“Righto.” Maurice turned away, the lightness of his tone contrasting with his look of hurt. The Cockney, Wragge, followed him, his shrewd eyes having absorbed the strangeness of the meeting. He threw all he could of devotion into the parting glance he gave Renny Whiteoak. He had been his batman in the War and now his look said—“Whatever ’appens you can count on me, sir.”

Renny rejoined his family. Meg had conquered her agitation and taking his arm drew him toward the three young brothers eagerly waiting to greet him. He kissed each in turn.

They had so developed since he had last seen them that it required an effort of will to place each in the cherished niche where he belonged. It was hard to tell which had changed most. He grinned, almost in embarrassment, as he looked into their three faces.

If it was a matter of mere growth Piers had it, he decided. From a sturdy little boy of less than eleven he had grown to a strapping youth of almost fifteen, with broad shoulders and head well set on a strong neck. His full blue eyes were bold and there was a look about his mouth that hinted that he would not be too eager to do what he was bid. And his hands—well, they looked ready for anything—muscular, brown, vigorous.

But could he give the palm to Piers with Eden standing there, almost as tall as himself? He had last seen Eden as a slender, fair boy of fourteen, and here he was a man and almost too good-looking, for he was like his poor mother, who, if she had not been so delicate, would have been beautiful. Of the three young brothers Eden gave Renny the most eager, the warmest welcome, gripping his hand, looking into his eyes with a swift, penetrating glance.

Finch had changed the least; but even he was grown almost out of recognition. His hand lay small and thin in Renny’s. His teeth looked big and new between his parted lips.

“Hello!” he breathed. “Hello! I thought I’d come to meet you.”

“Good fellow.” Renny still held his hand as they all moved through the station.

Again the family which had impeded his entrance appeared on the scene. The man had placed a heavily shod foot on a bench and, elbow on knee, was staring over the heads of his family, whistling through his teeth, while children and wife in dumb resignation waited to see what he would do next. Renny nudged Meg, with a nod in their direction.

“Poor things,” she exclaimed. “How happy they are.” She smiled at the children, then glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. Her brow cleared as she saw that the crowd had closed between her and the figure of Maurice Vaughan.

Porters had arrived with Renny’s luggage. Eden and Piers were fastening the trunk to the back of the car. It had been washed for the occasion and though Renny disliked it he gave a glance of approval at it. He, Meg, and the small boy got into the back seat. Eden was a good driver. They sped smoothly along the road that lay beside the lake. It was noonday and there was little traffic once they reached the suburbs. Then there were trees in their budding leaves in front of the houses and, glimpsed between them, the lake, fluttering little bright waves.

This moment which Renny had so often pictured, strained toward in homesickness, now seemed unreal. The scene, the backs of the two youths in the front seat, the thin body of the child beside him, the clasp of Meg’s hand across the child’s knees, might, he thought, dissolve into the vapour of a dream and he find himself once more in France, with war the only reality. His weather-seasoned profile looked so aloof to Meg that she leant toward him and asked:

“Aren’t you happy to be home?”

He pressed her fingers and nodded. She felt that he was thinking that their father would not be waiting to welcome him. She herself had got used to the loss but of course it was fresh to Renny. She said in her peculiarly comforting intonation:

“We’ve made such preparations for you! Gran and the uncles and Aunt Augusta have been counting the hours till you come. Everything has been done—even to washing the dogs.”

“It’s grand to be home!” Again his hand pressed hers. He grinned down into Finch’s face. “Eh, Finch? What do you think of me?”

The colour rose to Finch’s forehead. He could not speak. Meg spoke for him.

“You’re a hero to Finch. Of course, you’re a hero to all of us, but you know what small boys are. Who do you think he is like, Renny?”

Renny’s vivid brown eyes scrutinised the child’s long, sensitive face. “I’m damned if I know. Well, he’s got the Court nose. He’s got grey-blue eyes. Who has grey-blue eyes in our family?”

“No one. Both his parents’ eyes were blue. Isn’t Eden like his mother? But so different in disposition. He’s full of character. I can tell you, Renny, those two in the front seat are a handful. I shall be glad to have your help with them. They’ve wills of iron.”

The elder brother’s eyes turned to the two pairs of well-shaped shoulders, the bright hair and strong necks of the two. “They had better not try any of the iron-will stuff on me,” he said.

As though conscious that they were being talked about, Eden and Piers glanced toward each other, the first with a mocking smile, the second with a look half mischievous, half daring. Eden increased the speed of the car, for they were now driving between the lake and fields that lay dark and receptive after the plough. The air was fresh, sweet with the scents of May, and the sun gave promise of summer heat. An approaching team of farm horses stirred the dust to a low cloud about their shaggy feet. Finch found his voice and shouted:

“There’s one of our wagons, Renny!”

Again Eden increased the speed.

Giving him a poke between the shoulder-blades Renny exclaimed—“Stop the car!”

They were now beside the horses. He gave an admiring look at their sleek sides, then noticed that the load they drew was a dozen fat pigs, shouldering each other in the straw, peering at him in a mixture of impudence and foreboding. The driver was new to him. He did not like his looks.

“By George, those are fine pigs!” he said.

“I helped to feed them,” put in Finch. “I often gave them extra feed.”

“Shall we go on?” asked Eden.

Renny enquired of the driver—“Where are you taking the pigs?”

Eden answered for him—“To market. He’ll not get much for them. We’d better be getting along. They’ll have lunch waiting at home.”

“Yes, go on.”

A sudden sense of reality swept over Renny. The sight of the farm horses, their honest eyes beneath their blond forelocks, the smell of their harness, their moist hides, the jostling pigs, swept his future toward him in a living tide. There was an end to war. Life on his own land, his sister and young brothers about him. He realised for the first time that he must be a father to these boys, take their dead father’s place. He must find out what each was and do the best he could for him. The bond already existing between him and them tautened and sought strength in his heart. He drew a deep breath and took Finch’s thin hand in his. He felt its pliable bones quiescent in that clasp. He saw the childish bare knees, close together like twin chestnuts smooth and brown.

Piers hooked his arm over the back of the seat and turned to point out the changes that had taken place since Renny’s leaving. At each Renny gave a grim nod, thinking none of them for the better. He was glad when the car turned into the quiet country road where the great trees still spread their branches and caused a moment’s slackening of motorists’ speed. “I’ll protect them always,” he thought. “There’ll be one road that isn’t mutilated.”

As the car turned in at the gates the sense of naturalness that had come to him with the sight of the farm wagon increased. He felt as though he had never been away from Jalna. Why, there was the old silver birch tree with the circular white seat beneath it, the lacy new foliage moving delicately in the breeze! There was the house itself, the rosy brick a rich background for the spreading Virginia creeper that massed itself about the windows but saved its most delicate tendrils to drape above the porch. There were the dogs stretched in the warm sunshine on the steps, rousing themselves to join in a concert of barking about the car. There were two newcomers that raged about his heels till he put his hand down to them palm upward and they touched it with their nostrils and were satisfied to welcome him as having the true scent of the family.

Then he saw his father’s Clumber spaniel, Fanny, standing quietly by herself in the shadow of the porch, her fringed tail drooping, her eyes raised questioningly to his face.

“There’s old Fan,” said Piers. “She’s forgotten you.”

“Forgotten me! No—she couldn’t! Hello, Fan, old girl! Hello, old pet! It’s me—Renny!” He bent over her, his lean hand running the length of her silky coat.

She reared herself against his legs, her pensive spaniel’s face regarding him from the frame of her long ears. Her eyes were full of a mournful recognition. It was not enough to stroke her. He took her up into his arms and held her close to his breast. And his father was dead! He felt the tears rising in his throat as he hugged the spaniel close. He hid his face against one of the long ears. He heard Meg’s voice.

“Isn’t she an old dear? Oh, how she missed Papa! No one can take his place with her. I think we ought to ring the bell and give them warning inside that we’re here.”

“They’ve had warning from the dogs,” said Eden. “I hear Gran’s voice.”

Meg, however, rang the bell and an instant later the door opened and an elderly maid who had been with the family for nearly thirty years stood smiling a tearful greeting to Renny.

“Eliza!” he exclaimed. He still held the spaniel in his arms, and holding it strode toward the woman, his face alight.

“Keep that grin for me,” said a harsh voice. His grandmother pushed the maid aside with her ebony stick and herself advanced with a vigour that defied her ninety-three years. Her face, invincibly handsome because of its superb bony structure, was creased into a network of lines by her wide smile which displayed her double row of strong artificial teeth. Her brows, though shaggy, still showed their fine original arch above her dark eyes, as might the Gothic arches of a ruined cathedral through their growth of ivy. She wore a much-trimmed cap, a Cashmere shawl and large woollen bedroom slippers.

Before her stick had tapped thrice on the floor of the porch she discarded it and it fell with a clatter. She opened wide her arms, and Renny, setting down the spaniel, buried himself in her embrace. It was as though the gates of his past had opened, the past of his father and his grandfather who had lived and loved and begot children under this roof, to claim him to carry on their tradition. The memory of what he had witnessed in Europe, of despair and disintegration, he would throw off with his uniform and turn wholeheartedly to the stability of this dear place.

He forgot in his ardour the weakness of the symbol of this life which he embraced in the person of his grandmother. Her shawl fell off, her cap was askew, she was gasping for breath.

“Lord, what a hugger you are,” she got out. Then hastened to add—“But I like it. Don’t you ever be afraid to squeeze my ribs. I’m not made of such delicate stuff as my daughter and granddaughter. If I was I’d not have had three such big sons.”

She kept on talking, as though she would by the flow of her words exclude the rest of the family from their reunion. But her daughter, Lady Buckley, and her sons, Nicholas and Ernest, were close behind her and now claimed their share of Renny’s attention. They were tall handsome men in their middle sixties, Nicholas with a mass of iron-grey hair, a strong aquiline profile and deep-set brown eyes; Ernest blue-eyed, fair-skinned, his fine grey hair brushed smoothly over his narrow head, his sensitive lips trembling a little as he put his arm about his nephew’s shoulders.

“Welcome home, my dear fellow,” he said. “Welcome—welcome. To think we have you back at last!”

Nicholas added, in his deep voice—“By gad, Renny, it’s good to see you! And just the same!”

“More than ever like the Courts!” declared their mother, who herself had been a Court.

Renny gripped his uncles’ hands and then embraced his aunt, pressing fervent kisses on her sallow cheek. She was in mourning, her husband having died less than two years before. She held Renny close while her breast, above her high-corseted body, rose and fell in her emotion.

“My dear boy,” she said, in her contralto tones. It was all she could say and she repeated the words several times. “My dear, dear boy!”

It irritated her mother, who exclaimed brusquely—“One would think you’d given birth to him, Augusta! The way you go on! Let the lad loose. You’re smothering him. Haven’t you a word for poor Eliza, Renny?”

He detached himself from his aunt, who drew herself up, with an offended look at her mother. He turned to the maid.

“Just the same old Eliza!” he exclaimed, patting her shoulder.

“That’s right,” said his grandmother. “Tell her she is just the same. She’s got the notion that she’s worn out with working for us and needs to retire. It’s nonsense.”

Eliza smiled palely and handed the old lady’s stick to her. The entire group moved toward the dining-room, where the one o’clock dinner was laid, the dogs jostling each other alongside. A tawny cat belonging to Ernest glided down the stairs to a convenient height and from there jumped to his shoulder, arching herself and beginning to purr in anticipation of the meal.

Old Adeline, in the heart of the group, declared:

“I’m starving. It’s not right for a woman of my age to wait so long for her food.”

“It is very bad for you, Mamma,” said Ernest. “It simply means that, when you do get food, you will eat too much, and eating too much produces flatulence, which is dangerous.”

She stared impatiently into his face as he made this pronouncement, then exclaimed:

“I’ve had wind on the stomach for twenty years. It doesn’t harm me. I’m like an old sailing-ship. Wind moves me!” Chuckling, she shuffled in her woollen slippers toward the agreeable odour of roast chicken that came from the dining-room.

“Look here,” said Renny, “give me time to wash my hands. I’ll be just a moment!”

He sprang up the stairs and went to his old room.

“You’ll find hot water waiting there,” called Meg after him.

“And do make haste,” added his Uncle Ernest. “My mother is faint for food.”

“I’ll be down in a jiffy,” returned Renny.

“How wonderful it is to see him running up the stairs again,” said Meg. “Oh, I shall be so glad to have him home; there’ll be someone to lean on.”

“More likely someone to order you about,” said Eden.

“I heard him say,” put in Piers, “that he had had only a roll and coffee on the train. He’ll be hungry.”

“Rolls and coffee,” exclaimed the old lady. “What a Frenchified breakfast! But it’s well if he is hungry. We have plenty for him to eat.”

“I think we had better seat ourselves,” observed Lady Buckley. “It will save time when he comes down.”

But when they reached the dining-room, where the spring sunlight poured between the yellow velour curtains on to the table, shining on silver and smooth damask, a surprise made them halt, almost in consternation. Eliza, when laying the table, had placed Renny at its head.

On the death of Philip Whiteoak, early during the War, Nicholas and Ernest had returned to Jalna from England. To the household of women and young boys left behind, their coming had been a bulwark against the world and a restrengthening of family solidarity. There was their old mother bereft of her youngest son, eager to have one of his older brothers on either side of her. There was Meg, who had lost a tender and indulgent father, whose favourite brother was in constant danger of his life in France, ready to throw both arms about her uncles’ necks and absorb the comfort of their nearness. There was Mary, Philip’s widow, soon to give her life for her child, tremulously welcoming their strong masculine presence. Their return had been a success both from the point of view of the family and their own finances. In these last years the income of each had been sorely depleted from earlier extravagance and bad investments. Life at Jalna cost them next to nothing.

Nicholas had become so used to sitting at the head of the table, facing Meg at the other end, his mother on his right hand, that the thought of relinquishing this place to Renny, who, by his father’s death, had become owner of the house, never entered his head. Neither did it enter the head of his ancient mother, peering at the joint or roasted fowls he carved so skilfully. The tender slices went to her and to Ernest and Meg, while the tough, smothered in gravy, were given to the three strong-toothed boys. Ernest, on old Adeline’s other side, thought the arrangement admirable, he taking the place of Nicholas when an attack of gout kept him in his room.

“Boys, put out the dogs,” ordered Nicholas.

There was a skirmish while Piers and Finch tugged several terriers and the spaniel by their collars from the room.

“Don’t shut the door,” said Lady Buckley. “Stand on guard so that the animals shall not re-enter. It will be more polite to Renny.”

It was in this moment of confusion that the elders discovered the new order in which they were placed at table. Nicholas was the first to notice it. He saw that his massive silver table-napkin ring, which represented a classically draped female figure reclining against a heavily chased cylinder, had been removed to the first place on the right of the carver.

His hand went up to his grey moustache and he gave it a tug of chagrin. His voice, a deep one, expressed his feelings in a sonorous “Ha!” His brother’s expression was a mingling of annoyance that Nicholas was displaced and a Puckish pleasure in his discomfiture. Meg stood imperturbably by her chair.

Lady Buckley, looking her straight in the eyes, asked—“Was it you, Margaret, who ordered my brother’s napkin ring to be displaced?”

The stilted expression brought a chuckle from Eden. Lady Buckley turned to him with some severity.

“There is nothing to laugh at,” she said. “Your uncle has filled your father’s place with dignity for almost four years. I see no reason why he should be put out of it the moment Renny returns.”

Old Adeline now became conscious that something was wrong. She peered excitedly from one face to another.

“Who’s put you out of where?” she demanded, supporting herself by the table when half-way into the chair.

“It doesn’t matter in the least,” said Nicholas. “Now then, old lady”—he took his mother by the arm—“you must move along one place. You’re to sit between Ernest and me now.”

But she would not budge. “Who’s being put out of where?” she reiterated. “Not me, I hope. I won’t have it.”

“It is evidently considered,” said Ernest, “that Renny is the master of the house.”

The old lady was making a gallant effort to retain her former place at table but Nicholas urged her toward the next chair. Eliza moved forward from the serving-table. She said, addressing Adeline:

“I placed Mr. Renny at the head of the table of my own accord, ma’am. I thought that as it is him that owns the house it was natural he would like to carve.”

“Well! Well!” said Ernest. He eyed the pair of juicy roast chickens almost accusingly, as though they had in some way been disloyal to the established order of things. Although he and Nicholas had had their fair share of their father’s money, they could not help the inward twinge of mortification at their younger brother’s inheriting of Jalna. But he had been dead for four years and the sting of it had subsided. Renny’s return, his inheritance through his father and this pointed reminder of it, made them uncomfortably aware of the change in family relations.

“You should not have done such a thing without an express order,” said Lady Buckley.

“Certainly not, certainly not,” agreed Ernest.

“It doesn’t matter,” growled Nicholas.

“An order from me!” exclaimed old Adeline. “Nothing’s to be changed without an order from me. But it’s right for Renny to be at the head of the table. He’s his father’s eldest son. Jalna is his.... Well, now, where do you want me to sit? I begin to feel very weak. I need food.” She peered eagerly at the full-breasted birds on the platter.

Nicholas got her into her chair. She unfolded her napkin and tucked it deftly beneath her chin.

“Don’t let those dogs in, boys,” she commanded.

Eliza stood rigid, her lips puckered, on the defensive against criticism of her act. All eyes were fixed expectantly on the stairway which could be glimpsed through the open door. Ernest kept repeating under his breath—“Well, well!” Nicholas drummed on the table with his fingers. Eden looked slyly at Meg, urging her to laughter, but she kept her countenance. The dogs made a concerted effort at return but were repulsed by the boys. The shadows of their waving tails were thrown against the pale woodwork of the staircase.

Renny’s feelings as he went up to his old room were a strange mixture of the familiar and the dreamlike. He had so often imagined it in his years of absence that now in its reality it was dwarfed and pressed in on itself. His own reflection in the mirror stared out at him like a stranger. The shiny lithographs of famous horses that adorned the wall seemed ready to rear in astonishment at his claim to be flesh and blood.

But he must not keep the family waiting. He went to the washstand and poured warm water from the can into the basin. He had a sudden feeling of childhood, of being sent from the table to wash his hands. But these hands that he now lathered were the weather-hardened hands of a soldier. They had to take into their grasp the reins of a new life.

As he inadequately rubbed a towel between his palms, his eyes fixed on the fields that spread beyond his windows, he suddenly felt that he was being watched. He wheeled and discovered a tiny figure standing in the doorway. It was a little boy of less than four years, dressed in a white knitted suit, his mass of brown curls and his bright dark eyes contrasting in their vitality to the fragility of his body, his small pale face and his thin little legs. For an instant he could not think who the child was, then it rushed upon him that it was the brother he had never seen, his father’s posthumous child.

“Hello!” he got out. “And what’s your name?”

The mite stared at him, his eyes becoming larger, his mouth smaller and rounder in his astonishment.

“Hello!” repeated Renny, with what he imagined was a friendly grin. “I’ll get you!”

He dived at him and tossed him up. Well, that was what he did to little boys. But this little boy was evidently different. Instead of squealing in delight and crying “Do it again! Do it again!” he gave a scream of fright and then burst into tears. Renny did not know whether to set him down and leave him or to carry him downstairs. He decided to do the last. Tucking him under his arm he ran quickly down the stairs. Wakefield had apparently stopped crying but he was only holding his breath. They reached the dining-room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Renny began, then the screams broke out afresh. The little boy kicked and struggled. The dogs followed them into the room. The spaniel, fearful that Wakefield was being hurt, stood on her hind legs and pawed at the intruder. Her nails scratched Wakefield’s bare leg. He kicked and screamed more loudly than ever. The dogs barked.

Meg rose from her chair and flew to her darling’s rescue.

“Come to Meggie then! Meggie’s pet!” She took him to her breast.

“Why, his leg is bleeding!” exclaimed Ernest. “Whatever have you done to him?”

“Good God!” said Nicholas. “It’s enough to give him a fit.”

Eliza was examining the scratch.

“I’ll get vaseline and a bandage,” she said. “Come with Eliza, my pet.”

“No, no!” he shrieked. “Won’t go! Send the bad man away!”

“Give him to me,” commanded Lady Buckley. “I can quiet him when no one else can.”

It was true. On her ample lap, her clean handkerchief bound about his leg, he became tranquil and beamed at the faces about him. His grandmother was only half sympathetic. She did not like the delay. She wanted her dinner. She looked critically at Renny as he prepared to take his place. He himself was concerned at the unfortunate introduction to the last-born of the family. He dropped into his chair with an apologetic air.

“Put the dogs out,” said Ernest. “They are irritating Sasha.” The cat was indeed arching her back and swinging her tail on his shoulder.

“Must they go out?” asked Renny. “They used to stop in. Do you remember how Dad used to pull burrs out of them and hide the burrs under his chair?”

This sudden unexpected reference to the dead Philip fell almost brutally on the ears of those about him. The tremor of laughter in his voice shocked the elders and made the three boys grin in response. In truth Renny had not yet come to believe in his father’s death. Jalna was so bound up in his thoughts of Philip that to return to the one was to bring the living presence of the other to his mind.

But now he felt that he had said something unseemly. His already high-coloured face took on a deeper tinge. He picked up the carving-knife and said nervously—“So I am to do this job! Well, I’m afraid I shall make a hash of it.” He talked excitedly of his journey while he carved.

His uncles, his aunt, and Eliza standing by, thought he showed no proper appreciation of the honour done him. They were not consoled by the fact that he showed little discrimination in his apportioning of the birds. It was disconcerting to see eleven-year-old Finch stuffing his greedy young mouth with the tenderest breast. It was annoying to see heedless Piers devouring those juicy ovals of flesh dug out of the back with the knife’s tip, just north of the Pope’s nose.

But his sister and his grandmother were satisfied. To Meg the sight of him sitting opposite her, his red head bent above his task, his eyes, under their dark lashes, giving her quick glances of affection, filled her with bliss. She could not eat.

“You’re eating nothing, Meggie!” he exclaimed.

“I’m too happy,” she answered. “Besides, I never eat much. And I’ve Baby to feed.” She was offering morsels to the little boy, who refused them, turning his face against his great-aunt’s breast with petulance.

“I hope you are not spoiling him,” said Renny.

A derisive laugh came from Piers. “Spoiling him!” he exclaimed. “He’s the most spoilt kid in the world.”

“No, no,” said Lady Buckley. “His delicacy makes a certain amount of humouring necessary.”

“It is not well to cross him,” agreed Ernest. “He needs encouragement. I was a delicate child and I know how such a one can suffer at the hands of people of coarser grain.”

“I should like to know who caused you suffering,” rumbled Nicholas. “I seem to remember how you always had the best of everything because you were ailing.”

Their mother spoke in a tone of surprising energy. “I took great care of my children. I wrapped ’em up against the cold. I kept ’em out of the heat of the sun. I dosed ’em with sulphur in the spring and senna in the Fall. I never lost a child. My mother lost five out of sixteen.... H’m, well, I don’t know what this is you’ve given me but I can’t eat it at all. You don’t carve the way your uncle did.”

“Sorry,” said Renny. “I know I’m damned awkward, but I shall get used to it.”

“There’s a nice bit of breast,” said Nicholas, pointing with his fork. “Cut that off for her.”

Renny complied.

“Renny,” said Finch, “when can I see your wounds?”

Meg turned horrified eyes on Finch.

“How can you say such things? It was bad enough to know that Renny was wounded, without speaking of it the moment he arrived.”

“I always say,” declared Lady Buckley, “that delicacy of mind cannot be instilled too early. I don’t see much of it in these boys.”

“What we want,” said Piers, “is to hear Renny talk about the War. We want to hear how he carved up the Germans. Tell us about when you won the D.S.O., Renny.”

“Time enough for that later,” answered Renny gruffly.

“You must come to my room,” said Eden, “and tell everything.”

Meg interrupted—“Isn’t Wakefield pretty, Renny?”

“Pretty as a picture. Are you going to make friends with me, you young scamp?”

“Whom do you think he is like?”

Renny considered the little face. “I don’t know. Me?”

“A little. He’s got the Court nose.”

“Rot,” said Eden. “His nose is like mine.”

“He has glorious eyes.”

“He looks like my brother Thaddeus,” said their grandmother, peering round her hawk’s nose to stare at him.

“Who are you like, you rogue?” cooed Meg.

Finch stared pessimistically at his little brother. Why all this fuss? Why should he have been so important from the day of his birth while himself had such casual treatment? He gave Wakefield’s empty high chair that crowded his elbow a push, then helped himself liberally to chow-chow.

“Renny,” he said, with his mouth full, “I do want to see your wounds!”

“Now,” said Meg, “you may leave the table. You’re a naughty boy.”

He flushed and began reluctantly to drag himself out of his chair.

“Please don’t send him away,” exclaimed Renny; “not at my first meal at home.”

“But he’s making me feel faint.”

“Nonsense, Meggie—you’re made of better stuff than that.”

“Very well. If Renny wants you to stay. But see that you behave.”

Wakefield’s little voice penetrated. “Baby wants to go to Uncle Ernest.” He struggled from Lady Buckley’s lap.

Ernest was flattered. He took the child on his knee and mounded his own fork with mashed potato for him.

“More g’avy,” demanded Baby.

Ernest plastered gravy on the potato. The little mouth opened wide. The fork was inserted. Baby beamed at everyone.

“Gad!” ejaculated Nicholas. “I’d almost forgotten the champagne!”

He rose and limped to a side table where the bottles were cooling on ice. “This is my contribution to the feast. Renny, we’re going to drink your health, my boy.”

They did. All the family stood about him, wishing him prosperity and a long and happy life. He was moved. His eyes glistened and his mouth softened to an expression of protective tenderness. There they were—his own flesh and blood—clustered about him, wishing him well, drawn close to him in the bond of kinship, from the old, old grandmother down to the baby, Wakefield. The years of separation, of confusion, were over. Now there would be peace for the rest of their days. The roof bent over them. The walls closed about. He had taken his place as the head of the family. He would be a father to these boys. As he raised his own glass to his lips he had a physical sensation of the tightening bonds between himself and each of the others about the table, as though his very sinews were taut in the dark close bonds.

Old Adeline left her place and came in the voluminous folds of her dress to his side. She took him in her arms.

“Ha!” she exclaimed, kissing him almost vehemently on the mouth. “I’ve lost my son ... Philip is gone ... but I’ve got you!” She hugged him close. “Lord, how hard you are! You give me strength.... This old body of mine hasn’t lived in vain! The lot of you ... you’d never have been ... if it wasn’t for me!”

Still clinging to Renny she looked triumphantly about. “Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest.... Not a child among ’em! Well—I’m rotting old timber but you’re young and tough, Renny. Bless you!”

“Champagne,” whispered Ernest to Meg, “always goes straight to Mamma’s head.”