Return to Jalna. Mazo de la Roche

told.”

      Dermot Court had laughed. “Your great-grandmother was among ’em,” he had said. “But of course you don’t remember her.”

      Maurice had been terribly homesick on that first night in Ireland, but the next day had been warm and sunny; Dermot had shown him the lawns, smooth as bowling greens, the yews clipped into fanciful shapes, the lodge embowered in ivy, the pasture where the mares and their colts grazed. Later, by himself, Maurice had crossed the bluish green fields and climbed the hill, from where he had a glimpse of the sea. It was all so different from his own home.

      Jalna had seemed very old to him. The house had been built almost ninety years ago, but ninety years was as nothing in this place. Surely those gnarled oak trees were as old as the Druids! At home he had been the eldest of three small brothers. His father had been sharp with him. At Cousin Dermot’s he became the young, tender, cherished heart of the house, the apple, as everyone said, of the old man’s eye.

      At the end of his first summer in Ireland the war had come. It had now been going on for four years. In spite of all the letters from home Maurice had felt remote from the war, as Cousin Dermot felt remote from it. Even when his father and his uncles had gone overseas to fight, even when he had heard that his father was a prisoner in Germany, he had felt remote from the war, leading his peaceful life with his tutor and the old man.

      Now Dermot Court was dead and young Maurice Whiteoak was on his way home.

      Again he thought of the change in himself. He had gone over in charge of Wright, doing just what Wright had told him to do; he had come back by himself, doing just as he pleased. He had left home wearing the clothes of a small boy. He was returning in the garb of a man. He tried to feel the unconcern of the seasoned traveller, a man who had been abroad and knew all about life. But, as the train neared the city, a tremor ran through him and his mouth became suddenly dry. Who would be there at the station to meet him? Not his father, for his father was still a prisoner in Germany. Perhaps his mother would come! At the thought of her his heart gave a quick thud. It moved in his breast as though it were a thing apart from him, imprisoned there. Her figure rose before him, as he had seen her at the moment of their parting, more than four years ago. Her arms had been held close against her body, as though she forcibly restrained them from clinging to him, but her eyes had clung to him in anguish. She had feared she might never see him again. Now he had a sharp stab of jealousy as he thought how his brothers had been close beside her all these years, and he far away. He was almost a stranger.

      He looked out at the fields baked brown in the late summer drought, at the wire fences and the ugly little houses of the suburbs. The train was nearing the city. People were beginning to gather their things together. Two officers in the seat in front of him rose to their feet, looking very rigid and erect. Maurice thought of his uncles and supposed they would look like that. And his father in the prison camp! He pictured him in an old uniform, almost ragged and his hair unkempt but his face still fresh-coloured and authoritative. He had a guilty feeling of relief that his father would not be at home when he arrived there. He remembered his father’s eyes and how they could give you a look that made you tremble. It would be easier to return home with only his mother and his brothers there.

      While he was thinking he had got to his feet, scarcely knowing he did so and was moving slowly toward the door of the railway carriage with the other passengers. Agitating memories crowded in on him. He almost shrank from alighting from the train. But now he was on the platform surrounded by people struggling to find porters. There were very few of them and they were almost overwhelmed by luggage. At last he managed to capture one. He was among the last to pass through the station. He kept on the watch for his mother and had a sudden fear that he might not recognize her.

      There was no need. He was in her arms before ever he saw her. She had darted from among those who waited and flown straight to him.

      “Mooey,” she was saying, “why, Mooey darling, how you’ve grown!” She was holding back the tears from her eyes but they were in her voice.

      He put his arm tightly about her and they walked together so linked. “Mooey!” He had not heard himself called by that old pet name for four years. Instead of bringing her closer it had set her apart in a half-forgotten life. He dared not look into her face.

      “I have the car here,” she was saying rather breathlessly. “Is that your luggage? Why, Mooey, you’re almost a man! Travelling alone — with all those things! Oh, to think you are back again! I can scarcely believe in it.”

      She was smaller than he had expected her to be. He remembered having looked up into her face. Now she was looking up into his. The pain of their parting distorted the joy of their reunion. Even as they held close to each other they felt that they were about to be torn apart. They made slow progress through the station crowded with men in uniform.

      “How much shall I give the porter?” he asked, displaying some silver coins on his palm.

      She took one and gave it to the man. The luggage was in the car. The early morning sunlight was dazzling on the expanse of clean pavement. Pheasant said:

      “Hop in, darling. Let’s get out of this — to where we can talk.” He got in and she started the car. There was something new about her, Maurice thought, as though she were used to looking after herself, doing things in her own way. She wore a funny little black beret and she had on quite a lot of lipstick. Somehow he didn’t like that. He wanted everything to be just as it had been before he went to Ireland.

      They spoke little until they reached the less busy road that ran alongside the lake. The lake was animated by small bright waves and the air was fresh. She asked questions about his journey, trying to keep her voice steady, trying to drive carefully. Really she scarcely felt capable of driving this morning. She had slept little the night before and her nerves were strung up. She did not dare look at Maurice. He asked his first question.

      “How are Nook and Philip? I expected they would come too.”

      “They wanted to but I wouldn’t let them. I felt that I must have you to myself at the very first. It was selfish of me. Are you disappointed?”

      “Oh, no. I expect they’ve grown a lot.”

      “Terrifically. But Philip the most. He’s almost as tall as Nook and weighs more. It’s very annoying to Nook.” She went on talking rather hurriedly of Philip’s escapades. She did not speak of Maurice’s father.

      However, he said, “Home must seem strange without Daddy. I can hardly imagine it.”

      She nodded, her lips compressed into a thin line. Then she said, “You know, we — myself and the boys — lived at Jalna for a time but it didn’t work. The children were so noisy — Philip especially — I was thankful when I could get rid of my tenants and go home again. Mooey, it will be heavenly having you with us!”

      Maurice smiled but he wondered if ever he would feel at home in Canada again. That four and a half years in Ireland, in Cousin Dermot’s house, rose as a barrier of more than a thousand days of misty sunshine, quiet rain, more than a thousand nights — surely there had been nearly two thousand days and nights — nights in that great quiet house where he and the old man had been so happy together. The tranquil life had suited Maurice. Even the longing for his mother had at last subsided. Now that he was with her again he had a strange, an almost bereft feeling, as though of awareness that his old childish self was lost and would never again be found. With memory’s eye he surveyed the two pasts of his life, so completely separated by ocean and by war that they made him into two people. His mother had seen nothing of his life in Ireland. He had no one with whom he could talk about it. In this moment of his return he felt deeply lonely.

      They were in the country now, with farmlands all about. There was a dry, pungent smell to the air, as though of dry vegetation, crisped by the sun, and of distant woodsmoke. He remembered the moss-grown oaks of Cousin Dermot’s park, the rich vaporous meadows, the flowery hedgerows, the pollarded willows—but Cousin Dermot was dead and the place belonged to him. He wondered if his mother realized that that estate in County Meath now belonged to him.

      Pheasant went on