07 Jalna Read online

  But they lived for only a year in that city. The house in the Rue St. Louis was flush with the street—a dim, chilly French house, sad with ghosts from the past. The sound of church bells was never out of their ears, and Philip, discovering that Adeline sometimes went secretly to those Roman churches, began to fear that she would under such influence become a papist. But, as they had lingered in London long enough to have their portraits done, so they lingered in Quebec long enough to become the parents of a son. Unlike little Augusta, he was strong and healthy. They named him Nicholas, after the uncle who had left Philip the legacy (now himself “Uncle Nicholas,” who sat at his mother’s right hand when Wakefield entered the dining room).

  With two young children in a cold drafty house; with Adeline’s health a source of anxiety; with far too many French about Quebec to be congenial to an English gentleman; with a winter temperature that played coyly about twenty dazzling degrees below zero; the Whiteoaks felt driven to find a more suitable habitation.

  Captain Whiteoak had a friend, a retired Anglo-Indian colonel who had already settled on the fertile southern shore of Ontario. “Here,” he wrote, “the winters are mild. We have little snow, and in the long, fruitful summer the land yields grain and fruit in abundance. An agreeable little settlement of respectable families is being formed. You and your talented lady, my dear Whiteoak, would receive the welcome here that people of your consequence merit.”

  The property in Quebec was disposed of. The mahogany furniture, the portraits, the two infants, and their nurse were somehow or other conveyed to the chosen Province. Colonel Vaughan, the friend, took them into his house for nearly a year while their own was in process of building.

  Philip Whiteoak bought from the Government a thousand acres of rich land, traversed by a deep ravine through which ran a stream lively with speckled trout. Some of the land was cleared, but the greater part presented the virgin grandeur of the primeval forest. Tall, unbelievably dense pines, hemlocks, spruces, balsams, with a mingling of oak, ironwood, and elm, made a sanctuary for countless song birds, wood pigeons, partridges, and quail. Rabbits, foxes, and hedgehogs abounded. The edge of the ravine was crowned by slender silver birches, its banks by cedars and sumachs, and along the brink of the stream was a wild sweet-smelling tangle that was the home of water rats, minks, raccoons, and blue herons.

  Labour was cheap. A small army of men was employed to make the semblance of an English park in the forest, and to build a house that should overshadow all others in the county. When completed, decorated, and furnished, it was the wonder of the countryside. It was a square house of dark red brick, with a wide stone porch, a deep basement where the kitchens and servants’ quarters were situated, an immense drawing-room, a library (called so, but more properly a sitting room, since few books lived there), a dining room, and a bedroom on the ground floor; and six large bedrooms on the floor above, topped by a long, low attic divided into two bedrooms. The wainscoting and doors were of walnut. From five fireplaces the smoke ascended through picturesque chimneys that rose among the treetops.

  In a burst of romantic feeling, Philip and Adeline named the place Jalna, after the military station where they had first met. Everyone agreed that it was a pretty name, and Jalna became a place for gaiety. An atmosphere of impregnable well-being grew up around it. Under their clustering chimneys, in the midst of their unpretentious park with its short, curving drive, with all their thousand acres spread like a green mantle around them, the Whiteoaks were as happy as the sons of man can be. They felt themselves cut off definitely from the mother country, though they sent their children to England to be educated.

  Two boys were born to them at Jalna. One was named Ernest, because Adeline, just before his birth, had been entranced by the story of Ernest Maltravers. The other was given the name Philip for his father. Nicholas, the eldest son, married in England, but after a short and stormy life together his wife left him for a young Irish officer, and he returned to Canada, never to see her again. Ernest remained unmarried, devoting himself with almost monastic preoccupation to the study of Shakespeare and the care of himself. He had always been the delicate one. Philip, the youngest, married twice. First, the daughter of a Scottish physician who had settled near Jalna, and who had brought his future son-in-law into the world. She had given him Meg and Renny. His second wife was the pretty young governess of his two children who were early left motherless. The second wife, treated with coldness by all his family, had four sons, and died at the birth of Wakefield. Eden, the eldest of these, was now twenty-three; Piers was twenty; Finch, sixteen; and little Wake, nine.

  Young Philip had always been his father’s favourite, and when the Captain died it was to Philip that he left Jalna and its acres—no longer, alas, a thousand, for land had had to be sold to meet the extravagances of Nicholas and the foolish credulities of Ernest with his penchant for backing other men’s notes. They had had their share, “more than their share, by God,” swore Captain Whiteoak.

  He had never had any deep affection for his only daughter, Augusta. Perhaps he had never quite forgiven her the bad time she had given him on the passage from England to Canada. But if he had never loved her, at least he had never had any cause to worry over her. She had married young—an insignificant young Englishman, Edwin Buckley, who had surprised them all by inheriting a baronetcy, through the sudden deaths of an uncle and a cousin.

  If Augusta’s father had never been able to forgive her for the intricacies of her toilet on that memorable voyage, how much more difficult was it for her mother to forgive her for attaining a social position above her own! To be sure, the Courts were a far more important family than the Buckleys; they were above title-seeking; and Sir Edwin was only the fourth baronet; still, it was hard to hear Augusta called “her ladyship.” Adeline was unfeignedly pleased when Sir Edwin died and was succeeded by a nephew, and thus Augusta, in a manner, was shelved.

  All this had happened years ago. Captain Whiteoak was long dead. Young Philip and both his wives were dead. Renny was master of Jalna, and Renny himself was thirty-eight.

  The clock seemed to stand still at Jalna. Renny’s uncles, Nicholas and Ernest, thought of him as only a headlong boy. And old Mrs. Whiteoak thought of her two sons as mere boys, and of her dead son, Philip, as a poor dead boy.

  She had sat at that same table for nearly seventy years. At that table she had held Nicholas on her knee, giving him little sips out of her cup. Now he slouched beside her, a heavy man of seventy-two. At that table Ernest had cried with fright when first he heard the explosion of a Christmas cracker. Now he sat on her other side, white-haired—which she herself was not. The central chamber of her mind was hazy. Its far recesses were lit by clear candles of memory. She saw them more clearly as little boys than as they now appeared.

  Countless suns had shone yellowly through the shutters on Whiteoaks eating heartily as they ate today, talking loudly, disagreeing, drinking quantities of strong tea.

  The family was arranged in orderly fashion about the table with its heavy plate and vegetable dishes, squat cruets, and large English cutlery. Wakefield had his own little knife and fork, and a battered silver mug which had been handed down from brother to brother and had many a time been hurled across the room in childish tantrums. At one end sat Renny, the head of the house, tall, thin, with a small head covered with dense, dark red hair, a narrow face, with something of foxiike sharpness about it, and quick-tempered red-brown eyes; facing him, Meg, the one sister. She was forty, but looked older because of her solid bulk, which made it appear that, once seated, nothing could budge her. She had a colourless, very round face, full blue eyes, and brown hair with a strand of grey springing from each temple. Her distinguishing feature was her mouth, inherited from Captain Whiteoak. In comparison with the mouth in the portrait, however, hers seemed to show all its sweetness with none of its stubbornness. In her it became a mouth of ineffable feminine sweetness. When she laid her cheek against her hand, her short thick arm resting on the
table, she seemed to be musing on that which filled her with bliss. When she raised her head and looked at one of her brothers, her eyes were cool, commanding, but the curve of her mouth was a caress. She ate little at the table, attending always to the wants of others, keeping the younger boys in order, cutting up her grandmother’s food for her, sipping endless cups of China tea. Between meals she was always indulging in little lunches, carried to her own room on a tray—thick slices of fresh bread and butter with gooseberry jam, hot muffins with honey, or even French cherries and pound cake. She loved all her brothers, but her love and jealousy for Renny sometimes shook her solidity into a kind of ecstasy.

  The half brothers were ranged in a row along one side of the table, facing the window. Wakefield; then Finch (whose place was always vacant at dinner time because he was a day boy at a school in town); next Piers, he too resembling Captain Whiteoak, but with less of the sweetness and more of the stubbornness in his boyish mouth; last Eden, slender, fair, with the appealing gaze of the pretty governess, his mother.

  Across the table the grandmother and the two uncles; Ernest with his cat, Sasha, on his shoulder; Nicholas with his Yorkshire terrier, Nip, on his knees. Renny’s two clumber spaniels lay on either side of his armchair.

  Thus the Whiteoaks at table.

  “What is accepted?” shouted Grandmother.

  “Poems,” explained Uncle Ernest, gently. “Eden’s poems. They’ve been accepted.”

  “Is that what you’re all chattering about?”

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Who is who?”

  “The girl who’s accepted them.”

  “It’s not a girl, Mamma. It’s a publisher.” Eden broke in: “For God’s sake, don’t try to explain to her!”

  “He shall explain it to me,” retorted Grandmother, rapping the table violently with her fork. “Now then, Ernest, speak up! What’s this all about?”

  Uncle Ernest swallowed a juicy mouthful of rhubarb tart, passed up his cup for more tea, and then said: “You know that Eden has had a number of poems published in the university magazine and—and in other magazines, too. Now an editor—I mean a publisher—is going to bring out a book of them. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, the ribbons on her large purple cap shaking. “When’s he going to bring it out? When’s he coming? If he’s coming to tea I want my white cap with the mauve ribbons on. Is he going to bring it out in time for tea?”

  “My God!” groaned Eden, under his breath, “listen to her! Why do you try to tell her things? I knew how it would be.”

  His grandmother glared across at him. She had heard every word. In spite of her great age, she still bore traces of having been a handsome woman. Her fierce eyes still were bright under her shaggy reddish eyebrows. Her nose, defiant of time, looked as though it had been moulded by a sculptor who had taken great pains to make the sweep of the nostrils and arch of the bridge perfect. She was so bent that her eyes stared straight on to the victuals that she loved.

  “Don’t you dare to curse at me!” She thrust her face toward Eden. “Nicholas, order him to stop cursing at me.”

  “Stop cursing at her,” growled Nicholas, in his rich, deep voice. “More tart, Meggie, please.”

  Grandmother nodded and grinned, subsiding into her tart, which she ate with a spoon, making little guttural noises of enjoyment.

  “Just the same,” said Renny, carrying on the conversation, “I don’t altogether like it. None of us have ever done anything like that.”

  “You seemed to think it was all right for me to write poetry when I only had it published in the varsity magazine. Now when I’ve got a publisher to bring it out—”

  Grandmother was aroused. “Bring it out! Will he bring it today? If he does, I shall wear my white cap with mauve—”

  “Mamma, have some more tart,” interrupted Nicholas. “Just a little more tart.”

  Old Mrs. Whiteoak’s attention was easily diverted by an appeal to her palate. She eagerly held out her plate, tilting the juice from it to the cloth, where it formed a pinkish puddle.

  Eden, after sulkily waiting for her to be helped to some tart, went on, a frown indenting his forehead: “You simply have no idea, Renny, how difficult it is to get a book of poems published. And by a New York house, too! I wish you could hear my friends talk about it. They’d give a good deal to have accomplished what I have at my age.”

  “It would have been more to the point,” returned Renny, testily, “to have passed your exams. When I think of the money that’s been wasted on your education—”

  “Wasted! Could I have done this if I hadn’t had my education?”

  “You’ve always been scribbling verses. The question is, can you make a living by it?”

  “Give me time! Good Lord, my book isn’t in the printer’s hands yet. I can’t tell what it may lead to. If you—any of you—only appreciated what I’ve really done—”

  “I do, dear!” exclaimed his sister. “I think it’s wonderfully clever of you, and, as you say, it may lead to—to anywhere.”

  “It may lead to my being obliged to go to New York to live, if I’m going to go in for writing,” said Eden. “One should be near one’s publishers.”

  Piers, the brother next to him, put in: “Well, it’s getting late. One must go back to one’s spreading of manure. One’s job may be lowly—one regrets that one’s job is not writing poetry.”

  Eden pocketed the insult of his tone, but retorted: “You certainly smell of your job.”

  Wakefield tilted back in his chair, leaning toward Piers. “Oh, I smell him!” he cried. “I think the smell of stable is very appetizing.”

  “Then I wish,” said Eden, “that you’d change places with me. It takes away my appetite.”

  Wakefield began to scramble down, eager to change, but his sister restrained him. “Stay where you are, Wake. You know how Piers would torment you if you were next him. As for you going to New York, Eden—you know how I should feel about that.” Tears filled her eyes.

  The family rose from the table and moved in groups toward the three doorways. In the first group Grandmother dragged her feet heavily, supported by a son on either side, Nicholas having his terrier tucked under one arm and Ernest his cat perched on his shoulder. Like some strange menagerie on parade, they slowly traversed the faded medallions of the carpet toward the door that was opposite Grandmother’s room. Renny, Piers, and Wakefield went through the door that led into a back passage, the little boy trying to swarm up the back of Piers, who was lighting a cigarette. Meg and Eden disappeared through the double doors that led into the library.

  Immediately the manservant, John Wragge, known as “Rags,” began to clear the table, piling the dishes precariously on an immense black tray decorated with faded red roses, preparatory to carrying it down the long steep stairs to the basement kitchen. He and his wife inhabited the regions below, she doing the cooking, he carrying, besides innumerable trays up the steep stairs, all the coal and water, cleaning brasses and windows, and waiting on his wife in season and out. Yet she complained that he put the burden of the work on her, while he declared that he did his own and hers too. The basement was the scene of continuous quarrels. Through its subterranean ways they pursued each other with bitter recriminations, and occasionally through its brick-floored passages a boot hurtled or a cabbage flew like a bomb. Jalna was so well built that none of these altercations were audible upstairs. In complete isolation the two lived their stormy life together, usually effecting a reconciliation late at night, with a pot of strong tea on the table between them.

  Rags was a drab-faced, voluble little Cockney, with a pert nose and a mouth that seemed to have been formed for a cigarette holder. He was at the head of the back stairs as Renny, Piers, and Wakefield came along the passage. Wakefield waited till his brothers had passed, and then leaped on Rags’s back, scrambling up him as though he were a tree, and nearly precipitating themselves and the loaded tray down the stairs
.

  “Ow!” screamed Rags. “’E’s done it again! ‘E’s always at it! This time ‘e nearly ‘ad me down. There goes the sugar bison! There goes the grivy boat! Tike ‘im orf me, for pity’s sike, Mr. W’iteoak!”

  Piers, who was nearest, dragged Wakefield from Rags’s back, laughing hilariously as he did so. But Renny came back frowning. “He ought to be thrashed,” he said, sternly. “It’s just as Rags says—he’s always after him.” He peered down the dim stairway at the Whiteoak butler gathering up the debris.

  “I’ll stand him on his head,” said Piers.

  “No—don’t do that. It’s bad for his heart”

  But Piers had already done it, and the packet of gum had fallen from Wakefield’s pocket.

  “Put him on his feet,” ordered Renny. “Here, what’s this?” And he picked up the pink packet.

  Wake hung a bewildered, buzzing head. “It’s g-gum,” he said faintly. “Mrs. Brawn gave it to me. I didn’t like to offend her by saying I wasn’t allowed to chew it. I thought it was better not to offend her, seeing that I owe her a little bill. But you’ll notice, Renny”—he raised his large eyes pathetically to his brother’s face—“you’ll notice it’s never been opened.”

  “Well, I’ll let you off this time.” Renny threw the packet down the stairs after Rags. “Here, Rags, throw this out!”