Return to Jalna. Mazo de la Roche

was so exhilarated by the presence of the four young men that she talked almost wildly and her greenish-blue eyes glittered with excitement. Swift was a fluent talker. He spoke with authority of painting, Althea never daring to contradict him; of music, Finch laughingly disagreeing with most of his dictums and being glibly talked down; but it was Wakefield who, when Swift laid down the law about the theatre, turned his own remarks on him and brought a laugh against him. When it came to literature, young Maurice was the only one whose reading in any way compared with Swift’s. As Swift’s pupil he was respectful but already he had discovered his tutor’s limitations. On Swift’s part he found Maurice indolent and fully convinced that no tuition he could have in Canada would equal that of his old tutor in Ireland.

      On the way home Wakefield remarked to Finch, “If Swift is all he makes himself out to be, why isn’t he doing something more important than being secretary to that old gaffer, Clapperton, and tutoring Mooey?”

      “Meg says she believes he is clinging to Mr. Clapperton in the hope of inheriting his money. He’s some sort of relation.”

      “I believe he’s gone on Garda.”

      “No. He just has that snuggly manner with girls.”

      “What do you think of the other two? Aren’t they an amazing contrast?”

      “It would be a strange experience,” said Finch musingly, “to love a girl like Althea. You’d always be pursuing — and she eluding.”

      “Damned strange,” answered Wakefield and thought to himself, “especially after a hussy like Sarah.”

      “But Gemmel is the one who interests me most.”

      Wake opened his eyes in surprise. “Really! Well, of course, her being a cripple is a tragedy. You can see that she’s mad for experience — and she’s chained. I guess she lives in the experiences of her sisters.”

      “She wouldn’t find much there. She’s so different.”

      “They’re all three different. All four — counting Molly.”

      “We are not very lucky, you and I … in love, I mean. Are we, Wake?”

      Wakefield’s face grew sombre. “No more of that for me,” he said. “We’ll settle down at Jalna, when we’re old men — like Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest.”

      Finch gave a grim assent. Then suddenly one of his boyish fits of hilarity came upon him. He began to chase and wrestle with Wakefield as they descended into the ravine. The moon cast their active shadows on the snow. The stream uttered its gurglings before it turned to ice. A frightened mouse ran across the bridge. Finch found himself no match for Wakefield, whose body was hardened by military training. By the time they had mounted the other side of the ravine, his heart was thumping. He would not cry out for mercy but surrendered himself dumbly to Wakefield’s iron grasp, as in the old days he had surrendered to Piers.

      The lights of the house streamed out across the snow. The three dogs waiting in the porch rushed out, in a fury of barking, at the two dark figures rising from the ravine. Then, as they recognized members of the family, circled in joy about them. Finch exclaimed:

      “I wish to God that I could live a country life — never step inside a town from one year’s end to another — never play in front of an audience — never be sick of the sight of people — belong utterly to myself!”

      “You’d tire of it. You’d soon be panting for the excitement and the applause.”

      “Never! Excitement is mostly apprehension for me. Applause just means — thank God I haven’t failed! It would suit me to work in one of the arts where you needn’t see your public — to be a writer, a painter, a sculptor.”

      “Tame! Tame!” exclaimed Wakefield. “Give me my visible public — even if it throws rotten eggs at me!”

      They were at the door. “You always were a showy-off little beast,” Finch retorted, and was inside the house before Wake could lay hands on him.

      Their companionship was precious to them in these days. They were inseparable. Neither said what was in his mind. But Finch looked with ever increasing foreboding toward the day of Wakefield’s departure. His eyes followed Wakefield’s tall lithe figure, rested on the dark beauty of his face and wondered if this would be their last time together. They spent many hours at Meg’s, helping her and Patience to settle in the small house. Meg clung to Wakefield as the little brother to whom she had been a mother and, when the hour of parting came, she was swept by a storm of weeping. She made no pretence of being brave. But, when he was gone the ranks of the family, depleted though they were, closed behind him and life went on as before.

      Now the December days marched coldly on toward Christmas. There were five children to consider. There had always been a Christmas Tree and a Santa Claus. Piers had marvellously well played the part and, since his departure, Nicholas. What he lacked in rosiness of countenance, Pheasant applied from a rouge pot. The sonorous jollity of his Santa Claus voice was contagious. But this year he declared that he no longer could do it. Something had gone out of him, he said. He was too old. He could not read the labels on the packages. Ernest or Finch must be Father Christmas.

      But no one could, by any stretch of imagination, picture Ernest or Finch as Santa Claus. Nicholas must hold the Christmas fort till Piers came home. “Hmph, well,” growled Nicholas, “he’d better hurry. I’m ninety-one.”

      “Why, Uncle Nick,” chided Meg, “think of Granny! She lived to be a hundred and one.”

      “She was a woman,” said Nicholas, “and she hadn’t gout. She was sound, you might say, to the last.”

      “And so are you!” cried Meg, kissing him. “You’re just as sound as a dear old nut.”

      He was won over. He would do it, he declared, just this one time more.

      The cloak of family custom hung heavy, too, on Finch’s shoulders. From the time when the church was built, a Whiteoak had always read the Lessons at Morning Service. After Renny had gone to the War, Ernest had capably and with much more elegance filled this office but, for the past year, it had obviously been too much for him to undertake. There were Sundays when the weather was not fit for him to venture out. So Mr. Fennel had himself read the Lessons. Now he and Meg and the two uncles had put their heads together and decided that Finch was next in order. He was to be home for some months and it would be good for him to fill the niche in the ordered sequence of things. Family custom must not be allowed to flag but must be kept firm and upright by Whiteoak mettle.

      To Finch the idea of standing up behind the lectern and reading from the Bible was more intimidating than playing the piano in a concert hall. Yet he was pleased and even flattered by being chosen. He was thankful that neither Renny nor Piers would be there to see him. He could not have faced their amused gaze from the family pew.

      The morning dawned cold and cloudy, with much snow in the sky but little on the ground. As he descended the stairs to breakfast, the resinous scent of the tree filled the hall. Alayne and Pheasant had decorated it the day before and it was safely locked inside the library. On how many Christmas mornings had he come down those stairs, made dizzy by the wonder, the mysterious strangeness of that scent? He stood a moment alone in the hall. He was indeed alone, for Sarah had gone out of his life. He felt oddly young and untouched at this moment.

      Alayne and the children were at the breakfast table. She was having a time of it to persuade Archer to eat anything. He desired only something that was not on the table. Finch looked at him severely.

      “I can tell you this, young man,” he said, “if I had demanded things like you do, I’d have been taken by the scruff and put out of the room.”

      “What’s the scruff?” asked Archer.

      “This.” Finch laid a heavy hand on his neck. Archer wriggled away. “Who would have done it to you?” he asked.

      “Your father.”

      “Mother wouldn’t let him do it to