Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 7

I hope you will be very happy, my dear Finch, and I think you may rest assured that not one of us harbours any feeling of malevolence towards you in the matter of your inheritance.

  Your affectionate Aunt,

  AUGUSTA BUCKLEY.

  P.S.—Quite recently I had a letter from Eden. He approached me for money. He did not mention that woman.—A. B.

  Finch carried the letter to Alayne where she was arranging carnations on the birthday table.

  “Look, Finch,” she cried, “aren’t they beauties? They arrived perfectly fresh. I arranged them at first with tulle banked about them, but it didn’t suit the room at all. You can’t do what you like with this room; it’s got too much character.”

  Finch sniffed the carnations and eyed the expanse of damask and silver with some concern. He had never been the object of an occasion before, and the pleasure it gave him was overweighed by apprehension, even though the guests were only relations and the nearest neighbours. He said nervously:

  “You don’t suppose they’ll drink my health, do you? Want me to make a speech or anything? I’d be in a blue funk if I thought that was hanging over me.”

  “Of course they’ll drink your health. All you’ve got to do is to get up and make a little bow and say a few words of thanks.”

  Finch groaned.

  “Don’t be silly! How can you possibly be afraid of saying a few words at your own table when you played so splendidly before a hall full of people?”

  “If you think you cheer me by bringing up that recital, you’re mistaken. I hate the thought of it!”

  “I don’t! I look back on it with pride.” But she dared not look at him for fear her eyes should betray her knowledge that he had not played his best.

  He drew a long sigh. “Well, the table’s awfully pretty. Where are we going to have lunch?”

  “In the sitting-room. It’s ready now.”

  “I’ve just had a letter from Aunt Augusta. Have you time to read it now?”

  “Yes, I’d love to.” She sat down on the arm of a chair near a window, in an attitude that suggested both repose and capability of purpose. Finch’s eyes rested on the gold of her hair, the blue of her dress. Seeing her so he felt, as he often felt about her, that she never had and never could become one of them, even to the fitting of her person into the surrounding objects of the house. She looked as though she had just walked in from a different world, bringing with her an atmosphere of clarity and questioning, and would walk out again, her clarity perhaps disturbed, but her questioning unanswered. Yet she was easily agitated. Sometimes he felt a wildness of spirit in her, as though she would by her will force her way into the fibre of their life, take possession as she was possessed.

  She looked up and found his eyes on her and smiled.

  “What a characteristic letter!” she exclaimed. “I think her underlining is delicious. And her adjectives... Oh, my dear, what could be more perfect than malevolence!” She turned the page and read the postscript, but she made no comment on it, except by a scornful movement of the lips.

  “What do you think,” asked Finch, “of my going over to visit Aunt Augusta? I’d like to go. I’ve just told Renny that I can’t go back to ‘Varsity.”

  “How did he take it?” She was not surprised because they had talked of that together. But she could not speak of Renny without all her being quivering into oversensitiveness.

  “Just what you’d expect. We had a row.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! What a shame—on your birthday!”

  “Well—now he knows. One unexpected thing happened. Piers took my side.”

  She wondered why Piers had taken his side. She suspected him of being shrewd, and she could never be unconscious of his dislike for her, though it was concealed behind an air of heartiness. He had welcomed her even less as mistress of Jalna than he had welcomed her when she had first come there as Eden’s wife. He would have liked Pheasant to be the only woman in the house, his wife, a young girl and docile, though she had been wanton once.

  Alayne said—“You must go to England. You must!” She took him by the lapels of his coat and gave him a quick kiss. It was the first time she had ever kissed him. She realised his spiritual hunger, and the kiss was a gesture, not only of comfort, but of urge to the fulfilment of that hunger.

  He felt a high excitement. His eyes shone. “How beautiful you are to me,” he said, taking her hands in his.

  “Do you know,” she said teasingly, “I believe Aunt Augusta has it in her mind to make a match between you and this Sarah Court.”

  “Nonsense! She looks on me as a boy.”

  “Yes, but boys grow into husbands. Especially in a house with an attractive cousin.”

  “I don’t like the sound of her.”

  “She’s musical.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Well, don’t think I should want you to marry. You ought not to marry till you are fully matured. Not for years and years.”

  The luncheon bell sounded, and almost at once they heard voices in the sitting-room. They found the others there, standing about eating roast-beef sandwiches and drinking tea. Wakefield, excited by the novelty, darted here and there, half a buttered scone in each hand. Not since his grandmother’s funeral had there been such excitement in the house. Not since then had there been a meal that was not a meal, and the opening of the doors to invited guests. And all about Finch! Wakefield, for the first time in his life, regarded him with respect. He found a chair and, hooking his arms beneath its arms, dragged it towards him.

  “Here!” he cried exuberantly. “Here’s a chair! Sit down and rest yourself.”

  There was an outburst of laughter at Finch’s expense. He pushed child and chair aside, and went, with a sheepish frown, to the table where the viands were spread. He picked up a sandwich, and, before he remembered to offer the plate to Alayne, had taken a large bite from it. He attempted to get tea for her, and slopped it into the saucer. He was in despair with himself.

  Renny was in despair with him too. He stood watching his fumbling movements with brooding disapproval. What the devil was the matter with the fellow? He was always wrought up over something. And this latest! This wanting to throw up his studies the very moment of coming into his money! It was the spinelessness of him, that was what was so exasperating. If only he were wild, reckless—but this shrinking from things! Were these half-brothers whom he had reared to be one disappointment after another? All but Piers! He’d no fault to find with Piers. But Eden... Never able to earn his own living, and yet somehow able to keep that girl, Minny... He hadn’t married her though, which he ought to have done... Now Finch was coming on... And little Wake, who was like his own child, what would he make of him? He looked gloomily at the undersized boy, with his sensitive dark face, his long-lashed, brilliant eyes, too big for the face... he’d been caught lying, he’d been caught stealing... well, life was a queer, mournful thing, and this was a queer, mournful occasion, though the others might stand about grinning with their sandwiches like a lot of schoolchildren at a feed.

  Nicholas thought, with an inward chuckle—“Renny might have put a better face on it, seeing that Ernest and I have achieved a festive air. After all, the party was his idea.”

  Finch could not get enough to eat. As usual, when he was mentally disturbed, he found the cavity within more difficult to fill, especially with a scrappy meal like this. No number of buns spread with damson jam would do it. He was the last in the room. He had hoped that Renny would linger, giving him a chance to propitiate him; but, after bolting two sandwiches and a cup of tea that might well have seared insides of less tough fibre, he had stalked out.

  It seemed that the afternoon would never pass. Finch hung about the house watching the preparations, playing snatches at the piano, teasing Pheasant, and, when possible, having moments of serious conversation with Alayne on that subject of never failing interest—himself.

  He and Wakefield went to the kitchen in the basement and surveyed the
fowls all trussed up for roasting, and the wineglasses all polished up for filling, and the moulds of jelly, and the buckets filled with chopped ice into which were thrust the containers holding the Neapolitan ice sent out from town. They had never seen Mrs. Wragge’s face so purple, or Wragge’s so pallid, or Bessie’s arms, as she scrubbed the celery, so mottled. All were atwitter with excitement. They looked at Finch with wonder in their eyes, to think that he had attained this pinnacle.

  Long before it was time to dress for dinner he was in his attic room. The night had turned cold. He got into his dressing gown, a gaily coloured one that had once been Eden’s, his bedroom slippers that had once been Renny’s, took his bath towel, one of a pair given him by Meggie at Christmas, and descended to the bathroom. There was a chill there too, but he had told Rags to fill the tin tub with very hot water, and it was hot enough in all conscience. Hot enough to boil him. When he ran upstairs again he was pink from heat and in a state of high excitement.

  Already he had laid his evening clothes on the bed. They had only been worn twice before, once at a dance at the Leighs’and once at the recital. The jacket became him well, he thought, surveying himself in the small glass. Alayne had given him a white carnation to wear. He brushed his moist hair, giving special attention to the lock that had a habit of dangling on his forehead. He polished his nails and wished that his fingers were not so stained by cigarettes. A shiver ran over him which he did not know whether to attribute to excitement or the change from the hot bath to the cold room. God! How well the new cufflinks and the new wristwatch looked! He glanced at the face of the watch... It was an hour and a half before dinnertime!

  What to do! He could not go downstairs at this hour, looking like a fool, with a carnation in his buttonhole. Yet he should die of cold if he spent the intervening time up here. He cursed himself for his stupid haste.

  Still, if he chose to go down and sit for an hour and a half in the drawing-room, whose business was it but his own? He supposed he could do as he liked on his own birthday... He was halfway down the attic stairs when he heard Piers ascending the lower stairs, whistling. They would meet in the passage, or Piers, glancing up, would see him on the stairway. One look at him in those clothes, at that hour, would be enough to make Piers humorous at his expense for the evening. He could hear him greet an early arrival with— “Too bad you couldn’t have got here earlier. Young Finch has been waiting, all dressed up, for an hour and a half to welcome you!” No, he must never risk that! Not risk being seen by any of the family.

  He turned back and re-entered his room. He looked at his watch. Five minutes had passed. Somehow or other he must put in the next hour and a quarter in that cavern of coldness. He looked longingly at the bed. If only he might lie down and cover himself with the quilt and keep warm! But his suit would be ruined by wrinkles in no time. The next best thing was to wrap the quilt about him and find something to read. He folded it carefully about his shoulders, keeping one hand curved above the carnation to protect it. He felt utterly miserable... What hell coming of age was!

  From his shelf of books he took a volume of Wordsworth’s poems. It was handsomely bound, the only prize he had ever got at school. The support he craved, the something of pride in achievement, might be in that book, he thought. Something to fortify him in this hour. He sat down, opened it and read: “Presented to Finch Whiteoak for the excellence of his memorising of Holy Scripture.” And the date, nine years before. He had been a small boy then, at a small school. Nine years ago... He was getting on!

  He thought of the numerous prizes each of the others had won at school, for they had each had a subject or two in which they excelled. As for prizes for athletics... They had been put to it to find places for all the silver cups and urns... Well, at any rate, he had got one, that was better than nothing. He read stolidly for what seemed a long time, dividing his attention between his new cufflinks and watch, and the poetry for which he did not much care. But the rhythm of it eased him somehow, the quilt comforted. It was no easy matter to keep it around him, protecting the carnation with one hand and holding up the book of poems with the other. He did wish he had a cigarette; yet he was afraid of disarranging himself to get it, lest in the rearranging the carnation might be injured. It might be better to take the carnation off for the rime, but there was the danger in pinning it on again.

  He heard Wakefield running below and gave a piercing whistle to attract him. He came flying up the stairs. Finch concealed the poems under the quilt.

  “Hello,” said Wakefield, “what are you wrapped up in a quilt for?”

  “Been having a bath and got chilled. Look in that top drawer and hand me the package of cigarettes, like a good kid.”

  “I say,” exclaimed Wake, as he handed him the cigarettes, “how funny you look! You’re wrapped in a quilt, and yet I can see your pumps and pants underneath!”

  Finch scowled at him in what he hoped was a terrifying way, but he dared advance no more than his fingers from the quilt toward the cigarettes because of his cuffs. Yet Wake held them just out of reach.

  “Give them here!” snarled Finch out of the side of his mouth like a stage villain.

  “I am giving them,” Wake’s tone was meek, but his eyes were on a narrow aperture in the quilt and he brought the cigarettes no nearer. “Here they are. Why don’t you take them?”

  “How the hell can I take them when you hold them away off there?”

  “It’s not away off. It’s just a little bit of a way. What’s the matter with you? Do you feel sick? Because, if you do, perhaps you’d better not smoke.”

  Exasperated beyond endurance, Finch shot forth his hand from the quilt and snatched the packet of cigarettes, instantly drawing the quilt once more tightly about him. “Now,” he said, “clear out of here and no more of your cheek!”

  Wakefield seemed to drift out of the room and down the stairs, so pensive was his mien. Finch felt hot all over. He let the quilt slide from his shoulders and put a cigarette between his lips. He reached for a match, but, just as he struck it, he heard Wakefield and Piers talking in the passage below. He held his breath and heard soft steps ascending the stairs. Like an arrow from the bow he leaped to the door. Just as Piers reached the landing he threw himself against it. He shot the bolt. Smothered laughter came from outside.

  “Look here, Finch,” came Piers’s voice, “can you let me have a cigarette?”

  “No,” growled Finch, “haven’t got any up here.”

  “The kid says you have.”

  “He’s a little liar.”

  “Well, look here, I’d like to speak to you a minute.”

  “Sorry. I can’t just now. I’m busy.”

  “Is anything wrong? The kid says you didn’t seem very well when he was up before.”

  “Let me alone!” roared Finch, and he showed, furthermore, that the example he had had before him in the matter of swearing had not been entirely lost.

  When they had gone he looked down at the carnation. He had flattened it against the door... He looked at his wrist-watch... The fracas had done one thing for him, at any rate. It had made time fly.

  The Vaughans were the first to arrive: Meggie, a little plumper, a little more exuberantly the wife and mother; Maurice, a trifle greyer, his masculinity a trifle more muffled. She clasped Finch to her. Oh, the lovely depth of that bosom! He was never taken to it, but he wished he might burrow into its tender depths and remain forever enfolded there. She gave him three kisses on the mouth, and put a packet into his hand. “With our love and many, many good wishes.” Wake crowded up beside him to see. It was a white evening scarf of heavy silk. “Oh, thanks,” Finch murmured; and Maurice shook him by the hand.

  Maurice had been warned on the way by his wife not to make any reference to Finch’s inheritance, but he could not resist saying:

  “Well, enjoy it while you’re young!” And his glance did not indicate the scarf.

  Meg caressed Wakefield, remarked his delicate looks, and went up to Ala
yne’s room to lay off her things. The men stood about with the conciliatory air worn by them in the presence of female antagonisms. They knew that Meggie and Alayne disliked one another, that there was no love lost between Meggie and Pheasant. They would be glad when other guests arrived.

  They soon arrived in a stream. The Fennels: the rector, thickset, beaming, his hair and beard tidier than was usual even on Sundays; George, resembling him; Mrs. Fennell, long-backed, hatchet-faced, with eyes always searching for a vacant seat into which she might drop; Tom resembling her. Next, the two Miss Laceys, whose late father had been a retired Admiral, and the elder of whom had been after Nicholas forty-seven years ago. After these Miss Pink, the organist, prematurely aged by being rushed, year in and year out, through the hymns and psalms by the combined impetuosity of the Whiteoaks at a speed which she thought little short of blasphemous. She was in a flurry at exposing her shoulders in a seldom worn evening gown, and had veiled them by a scarf, though they were, in truth, the best part of her. These were the old, old friends and neighbours.

  Considerably later, and from Town, came the Leighs. They were mere acquaintances to the rest of the family, but Finch thought of Arthur Leigh as his best friend. Mother and daughter in their sheathlike gowns of delicate green had the appearance of sisters. He could scarcely wait to have Arthur alone that he might tell him of his contemplated trip, with all the more eagerness because Arthur himself had spoken of spending that summer in England.

  The party was now complete except for two people. These were neighbours, living in a small, rather isolated house, but comparative strangers. About a year and a half before, Antoine Lebraux had brought his wife and daughter from Quebec and acquired this place with the object of going into the breeding of silver foxes. He had been in the Civil Service, and, his health having broken down, he was advised to turn to an outdoor life. His wife, who had relations in Upper Canada, wished to be near them, and, within fifty miles of a brother, she had discovered this small and neglected property for sale. Lebraux, with the enthusiasm of his race, had thrown himself heart and soul into the new life. Reliable parent foxes had been bought, and he had read every book obtainable on the subject of their breeding and care.