The Whiteoak Brothers. Mazo de la Roche

little moth miller zigzagged past him and he all but put his hand to crush it, then changed his mind. Let it lay its eggs where it would. Let the worms produced devour what they would. They had as great a hunger as Grandmother at her tray and perhaps, in the sight of God, as much right to eat.

      The rain thundered on the slope of the roof, made gurgling noises in the eaves. The roof leaked in one corner. There was the spot adjoining his own bedroom…. Let it leak. It was none of his business. Let the moth and the flood share the house between them…. In weary melancholy he lay down on the bare floor, resting his head on a canvas dunnage bag. Tears filled his eyes, and somehow he felt the better for them. He was alone. He was at the end of things. He did not care. He heard someone give a hoarse sob and wondered if it might be he….

      When he woke he felt cold and stiff. The rain had somewhat lessened but the sky had darkened with its load of rain to come. The clear treble voice of his youngest brother came to him. “Finch,” he called, as he mounted the stairs. “Finch, where are you?” Timidly, as though he remembered stories of ghosts and witches, he opened the door and put his small pointed face and curly dark head inside.

      “Why are you lying on the floor?” he asked in surprise.

      “Because I’m not standing up and poking my nose into other people’s business.”

      “Oh.” Wakefield now assumed the manner of his Uncle Ernest.

      “Well, you’re wanted, my boy.”

      “Who wants me?”

      “Everybody. It’s dinnertime.” The family at Jalna still held to the country custom of dinner in the middle of the day and still drank tea at that meal. “Tea” itself was eaten at five o’clock and a substantial supper at eight.

      “Why — why, it’s impossible.” Finch got up and stretched. “I’ve only been here a little while. I was studying and I …” No, he would not say he fell asleep.

      “What were you studying? I don’t see any books.”

      “Did you never hear of doing problems in your head? Well, that’s what I was doing.”

      “It’s dinnertime. You’re to hurry.”

      The sound of the rain was broken by the crescendo resonance of the brass gong, sounded by Wragge.

      “There! Didn’t I tell you?” Wakefield jumped up and down in excitement. He ran to Finch and tugged at his hand. “Do hurry.”

      “I ought to tidy myself.”

      “There’s no time.”

      Finch suddenly felt gentle toward the little brother. He let himself be led down the two flights of stairs to the door of the dining room. Strangely it was shut. With a flourish Wakefield opened it and shouted —

      “Here he is! Here he is!”

      Finch was dazed by what met his eyes. The family were assembled, standing about the table — Meg and Renny at either end — Grandmother and the two uncles on one side — Eden and Piers on the other, with his place awaiting him between Piers and Wakefield. Wakefield had run to his own chair beside Meg, on which was a thick volume of British Poets to raise him to a comfortable level. But why were they standing up waiting for him? And as for the table — surely it had not been made to look like this for him.

      The yellow velour curtains had been drawn to shut out the weather. The heavy silver candelabrum had been set on the shining damask on the table. The candlelight glimmered in the eyes of the smiling family, made their smiles beautiful. Grandmother stood bent, her knuckles on the table, eager to sit down, the purple ribbons in her best cap trembling. She grinned up at Finch. “Happy birthday, you young rascal,” she called out. “Come and kiss me.”

      “Happy birthday! Many happy returns of the day!” sang out his brothers, sister, and uncles.

      It was almost too much. Indeed it was altogether too much — the transition from melancholy and neglect, to this warmth of kinship, this beaming acknowledgment of the day, this glory of candlelight, fruit, and little dishes of nuts and raisins, as though it were Christmas…. He stumbled over Renny’s spaniel Merlin, because his eyes were strangely blurred, and almost fell into his grandmother’s arms. The spaniel yelped and scuttled beneath the table.

      “Steady, steady, old lady,” said Nicholas, supporting her. “What a clumsy fellow you are, Finch.”

      The grandmother gave him a resounding kiss. His uncles slapped him on the back. Meg held out her plump arms and enfolded him. “We thought we’d give you a nice surprise, Finch, dear, by pretending we’d forgotten all about your birthday. Wasn’t it fun? It was all my idea.”

      “Wonderful fun,” mumbled Finch, against her cheek.

      “Now sit down and eat a good meal. You are so dreadfully thin. Then we shall have the presents.”

      Wragge had placed a platter on which was a joint of beef, surrounded by Yorkshire pudding, in front of Renny, who, after testing the edge of the knife with his thumb, at once set about carving it.

      “I know what you’re getting,” said Wakefield. “I wish my birthday would hurry up. June is a better time to be born in than March.”

      “Attend to your food,” said Nicholas.

      “I haven’t any. No fat, Renny, please.”

      “Dish gravy,” put in Grandmother. “I do like dish gravy. And Yorkshire pudding.”

      “There you are, Gran. You know what’s good for you.”

      When it was Finch’s turn to be served, such an enormous helping was put on his plate that even he, with his growing boy’s appetite, was a little abashed. “Oh, look here, Renny, what do you think I am? A rhinoceros?”

      “More like an ostrich,” Piers said.

      “He’ll be better-looking as he gets older. He has the Court nose. He cannot look quite undistinguished with that,” said kindly Ernest.

      “What’s that about the Court nose?” demanded Grandmother, having herself been a Court.

      “Finch has it,” cried Wakefield.

      She peered across the table at Finch, a bit of Yorkshire pudding clinging to her underlip. “I don’t see it,” she said.

      “He’s just wiped it off,” laughed Piers. “He’s been crying.”

      Grandmother retrieved the bit of pudding with her tongue. “I won’t have the nose made fun of,” she declared.

      A spirited discussion on the personal appearance of both Courts and Whiteoaks ensued. Finch was forgotten. He had, for a wonder, little appetite. Even when the birthday cake, with fifteen candles, arrived, he felt no hunger for it. When he tried to blow out the candles, with one great puff, he had to make three attempts before he managed it.

      “I could do better myself,” said Grandmother.

      Later he was presented with a number of quite expensive gifts. The year before he had been given a bicycle. He was a lucky boy and he knew it, yet somehow the spiritual clouds of the morning were not quite shifted by the sunshine of this hour. He had been the subject of good wishes, yet could not feel as he knew he ought to feel. He stood staring out of the library window at the rain that had become only a grey drizzle. From the hall he heard the sound of the grandfather clock preparing to strike — a kind of rattling wheeze. But, before it reached the point, the black marble clock, with the gilt face, which stood on the mantelshelf in this room, gave out its musical effortless notes. One-two-three. Instantly, as though in resentment at this forestalling, the grandfather clock struck harsh and strong. The Dresden clock in the drawing-room made its sweet response. All three eager to push forward into the mystery ahead.

      His sister came up behind him and clasped him about the middle, she so plump, he so thin.

      She said — “I do think it was