Whiteoaks of Jalna/Chapter 21
In the hall he almost ran into Mr. Patton, who was putting on his coat. Mr. Patton had the uncomfortable expression on his face of one who has eaten something that has disagreed with him. The expression on the face of Renny, who was accompanying him to the door, was even more uncomfortable. He said: "You're sure there's no doubt of her sanity?"
Mr. Patton puckered his lips. "None whatever."
"Well, she had a right to do what she liked with her own money, but—it's rather hard on my uncles."
"Yes, yes. . . . Yes, indeed."
"And so entirely unexpected. She never seemed to care especially for him. She was much more partial to Piers."
"You never can tell."
"With women—I suppose not."
"Nor men, either. It's extraordinary what some of them will do." Mr. Patton took his hat from the rack, looked into it; then, casting a furtive look into the silent sitting-room, he added, in a muffled tone: "I actually tried to dissuade her. I don't mind saying this to you. But—she was" He shrugged.
"Not very tolerant of interference. I know."
Mr. Patton said, picking up his brief-bag, and looking into Renny's eyes with some embarrassment: "It's hard on you, too. Particularly as in most of the former wills"
Renny scowled. "I'm not worrying about that. How many wills did you say there have been?"
"Eight during the twenty years I have looked after her affairs. Some changes, of course, were only minor. In most of them you"
They became conscious of the little boy's presence. He was staring up at them inquisitively. Renny saw a question coming, and took the back of his neck in a restraining hand. Mr. Patton's lips unpuckered into a smile.
"He's looking pretty well," he remarked.
"There's no bone to him. Just gristle. He's got no appetite."
The lawyer felt Wake's arm. "Not very firm! Still, his eyes are bright; but then your family runs to bright eyes."
"Who" began Wakefield, and Renny's fingers tightened on his neck.
He and Mr. Patton shook hands. The lawyer hurried out to his car.
"But who" began Wake again.
The master of Jalna took out a cigarette, struck a match on the underside of the hatrack, and, after its flare had lighted the cigarette and been reflected in his eyes, threw it into the umbrella-stand. He turned then toward the fantastic silence of the sitting-room. Wakefield followed.
This was the strangest room he had ever been in. The drawing-room had seemed strange when Grandmother lay there in her coffin with the lighted candles about her and the presence of death making the air heavy, but this was stranger still. For, though the air was heavy as death, it was pregnant with the life of battling emotions.
Nicholas still sat in the corner with his pipe. He held it in his teeth, and stared at Renny and Wakefield as they came into the room without seeming to see them. He stroked the back of Nip, his terrier, with a large trembling hand, and seemed to be unaware of his presence also.
Ernest was rubbing the nails of one hand against the palm of the other, as though he had never stopped, but now he did stop, and began to tap his teeth with them, as though all the polishing had been leading up to that. Augusta looked more natural than the others, but what disturbed Wake was that her eyes, fixed on Ernest, were full of tears. He had never seen tears in them before.
The eyes of Piers, Maurice, and even the infant, Patience, were on Finch, and Finch looked more miserable than Wakefield had ever seen anyone look in all his life. Certainly he had not fallen heir to a fortune!
"But who?" he entreated, in his penetrating treble. "Who?"
All the eyes, dark and light, intense and mournful, turned on him. Words froze on his lips. He began to cry.
"No wonder the child weeps," said Augusta, regarding him gloomily. "Even he is conscious of the outrage of it."
Nicholas took his pipe from his mouth, tapped it over the hearth, then blew it out with a whistling sound. He said nothing, but Piers broke out: "I always knew he had a yellow streak. But how he accomplished this"
"My mother," declared Augusta, "must have been demented. Let Mr. Patton say what he will"
"Old ninny," said Piers, "to allow a woman of that age to play ducks and drakes with her money! It's a case for the courts. We must never stand for it. Are you going to let yourself be done out of what is really yours, Renny?"
"Really his!" cried Augusta.
"Yes, really his! What about those other wills?"
Augusta's glazed eyes flashed away the tears. "What of the will in which all was left to your Uncle Ernest?"
Ernest suddenly seemed to feel weak. He sat down and twisted his fingers between his knees, and his underlip between his teeth.
"That was years ago!" retorted Piers.
"She was sane then. She must have been quite mad when she made this will."
Ernest held up his hand. "Don't! Don't! I can't bear to hear Mama spoken of so!"
"But, Ernest, the money should be yours!"
"I can do without the money."
Piers glared at Augusta. "I don't see why the blazes you insist that the money should come to Uncle Ernest! What about Uncle Nick? What about Renny? Renny's had the whole family to keep for years!"
"Shut up!" growled Renny, savagely.
"How dare you insult us?" cried Augusta. "This is my brothers' home! I have been here to look after my mother. What could she have done without me, I should like to know?"
"Kept up an establishment of her own! She'd plenty of money!"
Nicholas pointed with his pipe at Piers. "Say one word more!" he thundered. He struggled to rise, but could not. Ernest sprang up, trembling, and went to him. Grasping his arm, he pulled him to his feet. Augusta also went to him, and the three stood together facing the younger generation.
"I repeat what I said," said Piers.
Renny interrupted: "It doesn't matter what he says! I've never grudged"
Nicholas exclaimed, sardonically: "Well, now, that's handsome of you! Very handsome of you! You haven't grudged us a roof! Our meals! We ought to feel grateful. Eh, Augusta? Eh, Ernest?"
Renny's face went white. "I don't understand you. You purposely put me in the wrong!"
Augusta drew back her head with an almost snakelike movement. "If I had ever known! If I had ever dreamed! But, never mind, I shall be going back to England soon."
"For God's sake, be fair!" cried Renny. "Have I ever acted as though I didn't want any one of you here? I have always wanted you. I always wanted Gran!"
Piers burst out: "That's the trouble! Renny's been too generous. And now this is the thanks he gets!"
"You to talk!" snarled Nicholas. "You who brought your wife here, when everyone was against it!"
"Yes, and who was she?" thrust Augusta.
Nicholas proceeded: "And what did she do? Made a little hell here!"
"Eden would have been all right," cried Ernest, "if only she had let him alone!"
Piers strode toward them, his hands clenched, but Meg interrupted with: "Everyone talks so selfishly! As though his side of the question was the only one. What about me? Put off with an old India shawl and a big gold watch and chain no one ever carries the like of now!"
Augusta cried, passionately: "My mother's watch was a valued possession to her! She thought you, as the only granddaughter, should have it, and those India shawls are priceless nowadays!"
"Yes! I've seen Boney make his bed on this one!"
Piers was trying to shoulder himself from Renny's restraining hand. "Do you expect me," he muttered, "to let them say such things about Pheasant? I'll murder someone before I've done!"
Renny said, with composure, though he was still white: "Don't be a fool! The old people are all wrought up. They don't know what they're saying. If you care a straw for me, Piers, hang on to yourself!"
Piers bit his lip and scowled down at his boots.
Meg's voice was heard again. "When I think of the lovely things she had! I could have borne her giving the ruby ring to Pheasant, if she'd treated me fairly afterward. But a watch and chain—and a shawl that Boney'd made a nest in!"
"Margaret!" thundered Augusta.
Meg's face was a mask of obstinacy. "What I want to know is who the ruby ring really belongs to!"
"Belonged to, you mean, before your grandmother gave it away," corrected Maurice.
"I think," said Ernest, "it was the one she intended for Alayne."
"As though Alayne needed one of my grandmother's rings!" Meg's mask of obstinacy was broken by temper.
Renny said, with a chest vibration in his voice: "Each grandson's wife is to have a piece of jewellery, or the grandson a piece for his prospective wife. As I understand the will, Aunt Augusta and I are to make the choice. Isn't that so, Aunt?"
Augusta nodded, judicially. "Pheasant already has her bequest."
"She has nothing of the sort!" said Piers, vehemently. "The ruby ring was a present entirely outside the will."
"I agree," said Renny.
A sultry lull fell on the room for a moment, in which could be heard the ticking of the clock, the heavy breathing of Nicholas, and the loud tap of a woodpecker on a tree near the open window. The momentary silence was broken by Augusta's contralto tones.
"The whole situation is disgraceful," she said. "I've never known such insensibility. Here I and my brothers are put off with not very valuable personal possessions of my mother's, and expected to be content while all the squabbling goes on among the rest of you over her jewels."
Nicholas added fuel to the flame: "And the memory of our mother is insulted by one nephew who says she sponged on Renny"
"And we, too," put in Ernest.
Nicholas continued, gnawing his grey moustache: "While another nephew benevolently tells us that he's never grudged us shelter and our meals!"
"If you're going to bring that up again," Renny exclaimed, despairingly, "I shall get out, and that's flat!"
Maurice Vaughan said, heavily: "What we should all do is to get down to brass tacks, if possible, and find out why your grandmother did such an extraordinary thing as to leave all her money to Finch."
Augusta reared her head in his direction. "My mother was deranged—there is no doubt of it."
"Have you anything to go on?" asked Vaughan. "Had she been acting strangely, in your opinion?"
"I've noticed a difference."
Meg asked eagerly: "What sort of things, Auntie?"
"For one thing, I overheard her several times talking to herself."
Talking to herself! The phrase produced a strange tremor in the room. Those in the corners appeared to draw toward the centre, as though their intense individualism were about to be merged.
"Ha!" said Vaughan. "Did you notice anything singular in what she said? Did she ever mention Finch's name?"
Augusta pressed her finger to her brow. "M—yes. Yes, she did! She muttered something once about Finch and a Chinese goddess."
Nicholas leaned forward, clasping his gouty knee. "Did you ask her what she meant?"
"Yes. I said: 'Mama, whatever do you mean?' and she said: 'That lad has guts, though you mightn't think it!' . . . I did wish she would not use such coarse expressions!"
Vaughan looked at the faces about him. "I think that is sufficient proof. Do what you like about an appeal, but I think no one who was sane would ramble like that."
Nicholas rolled his grey-crested head from side to side. He growled: "That's nothing. If anyone could hear my mutterings to myself, I might easily be considered dotty."
Piers flashed: "You may be, but the rest of us aren't! It's a case for the courts!"
"Yes, indeed!" chimed Meg. "We might easily arrange to have the money divided equally."
Augusta cocked her Queen Alexandra fringe. "If it could be done—it's really the just way out of the difficulty."
Ernest raised his long face from gnawing his forefinger. "It seems to me," he faltered, "that I've never known Mama brighter than she was that last day."
Meg exclaimed, ironically: "If you call it bright, giving away her most valuable ring on a mere whim!"
"For the Lord's sake," shouted Piers, "try to get your mind off that ring! One would think it represented a fortune!"
"It quite probably does," returned his sister suavely. "What can you know of the value of jewels—you, a crude boy who has been nowhere, seen nothing?"
Piers's eyes grew prominent. "I should like to know what you've seen and done?" he inquired, sarcastically. "You spent nearly twenty years trying to make up your mind to marry your next-door neighbour."
Meg burst into tears, and the baby, hearing her mother cry, put her kid slippers in the air and wept with all her might.
Above the noise Maurice called to Piers: "I won't have you insulting my wife!"
"Make her let my wife alone then!" retorted Piers.
Augusta boomed: "Is it our duty, I wonder, to make an appeal? To settle the matter in court?"
"What's that you say?" asked Nicholas. "I can't hear you for the noise those girls are making!"
"I said I wondered if we should go to law about it."
The sound of crying ceased as suddenly as it had begun. All the heads in the room—they seemed to Finch, sitting guiltily on his ottoman, to have swollen to the size of balloons—turned, as though drawn by a magnet, facing Renny. It was one of those volcanic moments when the entire family shouldered all responsibility upon him. The faces, which had been distorted with emotion, gradually smoothed out as though each had inhaled some numbing incense, and an almost ceremonial hush fell on the room. Renny, the chieftain, was to speak. Goaded, harried, he was to give expression to the sentiments of the clan.
He stood, his hands resting on the table, his red hair raised into a crest as though distraught, and said, in his rather metallic voice: "We shall do no such thing! We'll settle our affairs in our own way without any intervention from outsiders. I had rather give up Jalna than take Gran's will into court! As to her sanity—sane or insane, her money was hers to do what she liked with! I believe she was perfectly sane. I think I never knew a better brain than hers. All her life she knew what she wanted to do—and did it. And if this last act of hers is a bitter pill for some of us, all we can do is to swallow it, and not get cockeyed fighting over it. Imagine the newspaper articles! 'Descendants of Centenarian at War over Will'! How should we like that?"
"Horrible!" said Ernest.
"No, no, no. It would never do," muttered Nicholas, indistinctly.
"Newspapers—outsiders gossiping!" Augusta gasped. "I never could bear that!"
"But still" wavered Meg.
Piers said: "You are the one most concerned, Renny. If you're willing to take it lying down"
Nicholas heaved himself about in his chair and looked sombrely at Piers. "I can't see why you persist in regarding Renny as the one chiefly concerned. It's very irritating. It's impertinent."
Renny broke in: "That's beside the point, Uncle Nick! The point is that we can't go to law over Gran's will, isn't it?"
Nicholas gave a proud and melancholy assent. No, they could not go to law. The wall about them must be kept intact. Their isolation must not be thrown down like a glove, to challenge notoriety. Bitter as the disappointment was, it must be borne. The Whiteoaks would not supply a heading for a column in any of the tawdry newspapers of the day. Gossip for the neighbourhood! Their affairs settled by a court! They were a law unto themselves.
The temporary breach in their protective wall closed up, knitting them together, uniting them against interference. Renny had spoken, and a sigh of acquiescence, even of relief, rose from the tribe. Not one of them—not, in his heart of hearts, even Piers—wanted to go to law over the will. That would have been to acknowledge weakness, to have offered submission to a decree from outside Jalna.
Even Maurice Vaughan felt the hypnotic spell of the family. Impossible to fight against it. Knuckle under and bear with them, that was all one could do. They raised Cain, and then they took hands and danced in a circle around the Cain they had raised. They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind, but they wanted no outside labour to help garner that harvest. . . . Maurice took his baby daughter and dandled her. She was the image of her mother. He wondered if she would have her mother's nature. Well, she might do worse. Meggie was almost perfect. He was lucky to have got her. And the baby, too!
Piers was standing with his back to the mantel, looking at Finch with narrowed eyes. "There's one thing I think we should find out," he said.
He got no further, for at that moment a tap sounded on the folding doors, they were drawn apart, and the dining-room was discovered, with the table set for dinner.
Rags said, addressing Augusta: "The dinner has been ready for some time, your ladyship. You seemed so occupied that I thought I 'ad better not disturb you before." His eyes flew about the room, his impudent nose quivered, scenting trouble.
Augusta rose and passed her hands down her sides, smoothing her dress. She said to Renny: "Shall you ask your sister and her husband to dinner?"
He thought: "She's punishing me for what Piers said about her and the uncles stopping here so long. She won't take it on herself to invite Meg and Maurice to dinner. Lord, as though there weren't enough trouble!" Well, he would not give her the satisfaction of appearing to notice anything. He said: "Of course you two will stay to dinner."
"There's Baby," said Meg.
"Tuck her up on the sofa. She's all but asleep."
"Oh, I don't think I had better!" Her tears overflowed again.
Nicholas hobbled up, stiff after sitting so long in one position, and tucked his hand under her arm. "Come, come, Meggie, stop your grizzling and have a good dinner," he rumbled. "'More was lost at Mohacs Field.'"
Even with old Adeline gone, they retained the air of a procession as they moved into the dining-room. Nicholas first, holding by the arm plump-cheeked Meg; next Ernest, struggling against self-pity, comforted by Augusta at his side, full of pity for him. Then Piers, Finch, and Wakefield. Finch looked as though he did not see where he was going, and when Piers jostled against him in the doorway he all but toppled over. Maurice and Renny came last.
Maurice said, grinning: "So you're to have the old painted bedstead! What are you going to do with it?"
"Get into it and stay there, if this sort of thing keeps up," returned the master of Jalna.
He sat down at the head of his table and cast his sharp glance over the clan. Still a goodly number, even though Gran and Eden were missing. After a while young Mooey would be big enough to come to table. . . . But Pheasant was not there. He frowned. Just then she entered timidly, and slid into her place between Piers and Finch.
"Where have you been hiding all morning?" asked Renny.
"Oh, I thought I was superfluous," she answered, trying to appear sophisticated, entirely grown up, and not at all nervous.
Piers pressed his ankle against hers. She trembled. Was it possible that he was signalling her—telling her that Mooey was the heir? Her eyes slid toward his face. No jubilation there. A grim, half-jocular look about the firm, healthy lips. Poor little Mooey had not got the money. Then who had? Her gaze, sheltered by long lashes, sought one face after another, and found no answer. Had there been a mistake? Was there perhaps no fortune after all? Under cover of the voices of Maurice and Renny, discussing the points of a two-year-old with determined cheerfulness, she whispered to Finch on her left: "For goodness' sake, tell me, who is the lucky one?"
His voice came in a sepulchral whisper:
"Me!"
She whispered back: "There may be thousands who would believe you, but I can't."
"It's true."
"It is not!"
Yet, looking into his eyes, she saw that it was. She began to laugh, silently, yet hysterically, shaking from head to foot. It was too much for Finch; he, too, shook with soundless mirth, very near to tears. The eyes of all at the table were turned on them in shocked disapproval or disgust. Finch—an indecent young ruffian. Pheasant—a hussy.
Augusta saved the moment from tragedy by declaring, sonorously: "They're mad! They must be mad."
The meal proceeded. With decisive movements of his thin muscular hands Renny cut from the joint portions to the taste of each member of the circle—for Nicholas, it must be very rare, with a rim of fat; for Ernest, well done, not a vestige of fat; for Augusta, well done and fat. For all, generous pieces of Yorkshire pudding. For Wake alone fat, when he hated fat! "See that he eats it, Aunt!" And—"Wakefield, you must or you won't grow strong!" Then the usual slumping on his spine until Meg transferred the despised morsel from his plate to hers.
To a family of weaker fibre such a scene as the one just passed in the sitting-room might have ended all appetite for dinner. It was not so with the family at Jalna. The extravagant and wasteful energy of their emotions now required fresh fuel. They ate swiftly and with relish, only in an unusual silence, for they were still oppressed by that empty chair between Nicholas and Ernest, and into their silence was flung, every now and again, the sharp memory of the harsh old voice, crying: "Gravy! I want more gravy! Dish gravy, please, on this bit of bread!"
Ah, how her shadow hung on them! How the yellow light, sifting through the blinds, threw a sort of halo about her chair! Once Ernest's cat crept from his knee to the empty chair, but no sooner was she seated there than Nicholas's terrier leaped to drag her down, as though he knew that empty seat was sacred.
Renny fed his spaniels with scraps from his plate. He shot swift glances at the plates of his aunt and uncles. He urged their replenishment, but they steadfastly refused. He set his teeth. They were remembering, he was sure, what Piers had said; out of hurt pride they were refusing second helpings.
When a steamed blackberry pudding came, with its syrupy purple sauce, deep melancholy settled on them. It was the first pudding of this kind they had had since her death. How she would have loved it! How her nose and chin and cap would have pressed forward to meet it as it advanced toward her! How she would have mashed the pudding into its sauce, and dribbled the sauce on her chin! Ernest almost found himself saying aloud: "Mama, must you do that?"
They ate the pudding in heavy silence. Finch and Pheasant were barely able to restrain their insane laughter. Wakefield's eyes were bright with admiration as they rested on the tall silver fruit-dish in the middle of the table. From its base sprung a massive silver grapevine, beneath the shelter of which stood a silver doe and her fawn. It was heaped with glowing peaches and ripe pears. Aunt Augusta had had it brought out on the day of the funeral, and it had remained. Wakefield wished it might remain for ever. He wished he might have been placed opposite it instead of at the far end, so that the nearness of the darling little fawn might take his mind off the terrible silence. He knew now quite definitely that he had not inherited Grandmother's money, and he did not so very much mind. He had had a nice morning pretending that he was the heir, and he did not see why the others could not accept their disappointment as he did. . . . Funny to think of Finch. . . . Would Finch take Gran's room now and sleep in the painted bed? He pictured Finch propped on the pillows with Boney perching at the head. Finch, in a nightcap and teeth like Grandmother's! Wake was rather frightened by this picture. He put his head to one side and reassured himself by the sight of Finch looking wretched, beyond the fruit-dish. A queer greyish colour over Finch's face made him remember something. He puckered his forehead, winked fast, and then broke the silence.
"Renny," he questioned, with great distinctness, "was Finch born with a caul?"
The steaming cup of tea halfway to the lips of the master of Jalna was suspended; his eyebrows shot upward in astonishment.
"A caul!" he snapped. "A caul! What the devil—what put that into your head?"
Meg broke in. "I think it is too bad of you, Renny, to swear at Wake! He was only asking a natural question!"
"A natural question! Well, if you call cauls natural, I'll be"
"There you go again!"
"No, I don't."
"Only because I stopped you! Really, you can't speak without swearing!"
Piers asked: "But was he?"
"Was who?"
"Finch. Born with a caul."
"Yes, he was," answered Meg, stroking Wakefield's hair.
"Extraordinary!" said Nicholas, wiping his moustache and staring at Finch. "I had never heard of one in the family."
Meg said: "His mother kept it in a little box, but after she died it disappeared."
Ernest observed: "It is supposed to be a good omen. To bring luck."
Piers laughed. "Aha! Now we've hit it! Good luck! It's the caul that did it!" He laughed into Finch's face. "Why didn't you let us know about it before? We might have been on our guard. Gosh, you're a dirty dog, Finch, to go sneaking around with a caul on your head, rounding up all the ducats in the family!"
Finch pushed back his chair and rose, shaking with rage. "Come outside with me!" he said, chokingly. "Only come outside with me! I'll show you who's a dirty dog—I'll"
"Sit down!" ordered Renny.
Nicholas thundered: "Have you no sense of decency, you young ruffian?"
Everyone began to talk at once. Wakefield listened, astonished yet not ill-pleased, as one who had sown the seed of a daisy and raised a fierce, thorny cactus. A caul. To think that one little word like that should raise this storm.
Finch sat down and rested his head on his hand.
Ernest looked across at him not unkindly. "You need never be afraid of the water," he said. "One who is born with a caul is never drowned."
Augusta asked of Wakefield: "But, my dear, however did you hear of such a thing?"
"Finch told me himself. I wish I'd got one!"
"So do I!" said Piers. "It seems a shame that Finch should have all the luck."
Pheasant could remain in doubt no longer. "But what are they?"
"One doesn't explain them," replied Augusta, looking down her nose.
Renny regarded Finch with no good eye. "I don't like your telling the youngster about such things. I don't like it at all. I'll have a word with you about this. Another cup of tea, Aunt, please."
Good appetite had attended all the Whiteoaks at dinner, but Finch had eaten as though famished. In spite of the fact that he was in acute disfavour, looked upon with suspicion and reproach, something inside him was ravening for food. He felt that if he could appease that something he might not feel so light-headed. But he rose from the table unsatisfied. . . . If only he could escape and hide himself in the woods! Press his hot forehead against the cool earth and his breast upon the pine needles! He made a stumbling effort to go into the hall instead of returning to the sitting-room with the others, but Nicholas laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"Don't go away, boy. I should like to ask you a few questions."
"Yes," agreed Ernest, on his other side, "I should like to find out something of the inside of this affair, if possible."
Finch returned, as between gaolers, to the torture room. He heard the clock on the landing strike two, and this was echoed in a silvery tone by the French clock in the drawing-room, and in an abrupt metallic voice by the clock on the mantelpiece of the sitting-room. Nicholas took out his large hunting-case watch and looked at it. . . . Ernest looked at his nails. . . . Meg hung over her baby. . . . Maurice dropped into a comfortable chair and began to fill his pipe with his active hand, the disabled one lying, unmoved and smooth, on the leather arm of the chair. Finch, seeing it, felt a sudden morbid envy of it. It was hopelessly injured, neglected, let alone. . . . Renny took the muzzle of one of his spaniels in his lean brown hands, opened it, and examined the healthy white teeth. . . . Piers, in a corner, laughed at Pheasant. . . . Augusta produced a piece of crochet work from a bag, and a long, stabbing crochet-hook. . . . Finch saw them all as torturers.
There was Rags, closing the folding doors upon them, seeming to say: "There naow, I leave you to your own devices! Whatever you may gaow through, it's all the sime to me!"
But not yet were they to settle down. A voice came from Grandmother's room, crying: "Nick! Nick! Nick!"
Ernest clapped his hands on his ears.
"Boney!" ejaculated Nicholas, hoarsely. "God, what has come over the bird?"
"He has made up his mind," said Augusta, "to torture us."
Ernest cautiously removed his hands from his ears. "It is unbearable! I don't know what we are going to do about it."
Maurice suggested: "Perhaps it would be better to put him away, as he seems to be out of sorts and all that."
Every blazing glance in the room branded him as an outsider.
"He will be all right," said Renny, "as soon as he's done moulting. He ought to have a few drops of brandy in his drinking water. I remember Gran used to give him that for a tonic. Fetch him in here, Wake. He needs company."
The parrot was brought, squatting glumly on his perch, and placed in the middle of the room beside the ottoman on which Finch had uncomfortably disposed his lanky form. Boney ruffled himself, shook his wings, and three feathers drifted to the floor.
"It's uncanny," muttered Nicholas, "that he should have forgotten his Hindu, and should say only my name."
"It's dreadful," said Ernest.
"I think," declared Augusta, "there's something portentous about it. It's as though he were trying to tell us something."
"He looks strangely agitated," said Ernest.
Everyone looked at Boney, who returned melancholy stare for stare out of cold yellow eyes.
After a silence, Nicholas heaved himself in his chair and turned to Finch. "Did my mother ever give you reason to believe that she was going to leave her money to you?"
"No, Uncle Nick." Finch's voice was scarcely audible.
"Did she ever speak to you of the disposal of her property?"
"No, Uncle Nick."
"Did she ever speak to you of having made a new will?"
"No—she never spoke of any will to me."
"You had no faintest idea that her will was in your favour?"
"No."
"Then you would have us believe that you were as much surprised as we were this morning when Patton read the will?"
Finch flushed deeply. "I—I was terribly surprised."
"Come, come," put in Piers, "don't expect us to believe that! You never turned a hair when Patton read the will. I was looking at you. You knew damn well what was coming."
"I didn't!" shouted Finch. "I didn't know a thing about it!"
"Stay!" said Nicholas. "Don't get blustery, Piers. I want to untwist this tangle, if possible." His eyes, under his shaggy brows, pierced Finch. "You say you were as astonished as the rest of us by the will. Just tell us, please, what in your opinion was my mother's reason for making you her heir."
Finch twisted his hands between his knees. He wished some tidal wave might rise and sweep him from their sight.
"Yes," urged Ernest, "tell us why you think she did such a thing. We are not angry at you. We only want to find out whether there was any reason for such an extraordinary act."
"I don't know of any reason," stammered Finch. "I—I wish she hadn't!"
He did himself no good by this admission. The words coming from his mouth, drawn in misery, made him the more contemptible.
Nicholas turned to Augusta. "What was that about Mama's talking to herself? Something about a Chinese goddess."
Augusta laid down her crochet work. "I couldn't make it out. Just some mumbled words about Finch and the goddess Kuan Yin. It was then she said that he had more—you know what. I prefer not to repeat it."
"Now, what about this Chinese goddess, Finch? Do you know what my mother meant by coupling your name with such a strange one?"
"I don't see why she should have," he hedged, weakly.
"Did she at any time mention a Chinese goddess to you?"
"Yes." He was floundering desperately. "She said I might learn—she—that is, she said I might get to understand something of life from her."
"From her?"
"Yes. Kuan Yin."
"This is worth following up," said Vaughan.
"It sounds as though Gran and Finch were both a little mad at the time," said his wife.
"At the time," repeated Nicholas. "Just how long ago did this conversation take place?"
"Oh, quite a bit ago. At the beginning of summer."
Nicholas said, pointing at Finch with his pipe: "Now, tell us exactly what led up to this conversation."
Ernest interrupted him, nervously: "The little Chinese goddess Mama brought from India! Of course. I have not seen the little figure for some time. Strange I didn't miss it! Have you noticed it lately, Augusta?"
Augusta tapped the bridge of her nose sharply with her crochet-hook, as though to stimulate her faculty of nosing out secrets. "No—I have not. It is gone! It is gone from Mama's room! It has been stolen!"
Finch burned his bridges. "No, it hasn't. She gave it to me."
"Where is it?" demanded Nicholas.
"In my room."
"I was in your room this morning," said Augusta. "I thought I smelled something strange. The goddess was not there! I should have noticed instantly!"
Finch cared for nothing now but to have this cross-questioning done with. He said, with weary contempt for the consequences: "You did not see her because she is hidden. I keep her hidden. The stuff you smelled was incense. I was burning it before her at sunrise. I forgot to shut my door when I came down."
If Finch had suddenly produced horns on his young brow, or hoofs instead of worn brown shoes, he could scarcely have appeared as a greater monstrosity to his family. The monotonous pressure of their various personalities upon his bruised spirit was violently withdrawn. The recoil was so palpable that he raised his head and drew a deep breath, as though inhaling a draught of fresh air.
They drew back shocked from a Whiteoak who had risen at sunrise to burn incense before a heathen goddess. What sort of abortion had the English governess—young Philip's second wife—produced? That they, Courts and Whiteoaks—gentlemen, soldiers, "god-damming" country squires—should come to this! A white-faced, wincing boy who did fantastic things in his attic room while his family slept! And to this one had old Adeline, toughest-fibred of them all, left her money!
Their invincible repugnance toward such a deviation from their traditions caused a tremor of bewilderment to shake their tenacity. Finch, slumping on his ottoman, seemed a creature apart.
But this spurious advantage was soon past. The circle tightened again.
Nicholas, his chin gripped in his hand, said: "When I was at Oxford there were fellows who did that sort of thing. I never thought to see a nephew of mine . . ."
"He'll be turning Papist next," said Piers. "Look at those candles he set up around poor old Gran!"
"Yes, and you allowed him to do it!" exclaimed Augusta, accusingly to Nicholas.
Nicholas ignored this. He continued: "You expect us to believe that you hoped to gain nothing by my mother's will, when in secret she was giving you valuable presents?"
"I didn't know it was valuable."
Meg cried: "You must have thought it was very strange that she should be giving away things she had treasured all these years! The goddess—the ruby ring!"
"What motive had you in hiding the present?" probed Nicholas.
"I dunno."
"Yes. You do know. Don't lie. We're going to get to the bottom of this!"
"Well, it was hers, I thought. I didn't think—I knew she wouldn't want it mentioned."
"And what else?"
"I thought I'd get into a row."
"Just for having a present given you? Come, now!"
Ernest interjected: "But why should she have given him anything? I can't make it out!"
Piers grinned sarcastically. "Look at him, and you'll understand. He's such an intriguing young devil. I am always longing to give him something."
Renny spoke, from where he sat on the window-seat. "Cut that out, Piers."
Nicholas continued: "Were you often alone with my mother? I don't remember ever finding you together!"
Finch writhed; his chin sank to his breast. He set his teeth.
Renny said: "Make a clean breast of it, Finch! Hold your head up."
He was intolerably miserable. He could not bear it. Yet he must bear it. They would give him no peace till they had everything out of him.
"Buck up!" said Renny. "You didn't steal the goddess, or the money either. Don't act as though you had!"
Finch raised his head. He fixed his eyes on Augusta's crochet work, which lay on her lap, and said in a husky voice:
"I've been going to the church to practise on the organ at night. Once, when I came in very late, Gran called me. I went into her room and we talked together. That was the night she gave me the goddess. After that I went often—almost every night." He stopped with a jerk.
There was a sultry silence while they waited for him to go on.
Nicholas nudged him, almost gently. "Yes? You went every night to my mother's room. You talked. Would you mind telling me what about?"
"I talked about music, but not much. She did most of the talking. The old days here—her life in India, and about when she was a young girl in the Old Country."
Ernest cried: "No wonder she was drowsy in the daytime! Awake half the night talking!"
Finch was reckless now. They might as well have something to rage about. "I used," he said, "to go to the dining-room and get biscuits and glasses of sherry, and that made her enjoy it more. It helped keep her awake."
"No wonder she was drowsy! No wonder she was absent-minded!" cried Ernest, almost in tears.
Augusta said, with dreadful solemnity: "No wonder that for the last month her breakfast trays have come away almost untouched!"
"I saw her failing day by day!" wailed Meg.
Nicholas cast a grim look at those about him. "This has probably shortened her life by years."
"It has killed her!" said Ernest, distractedly.
"He's little better than a murderer!" said Augusta.
He could look them in the eyes now. They knew the worst. He was a monster, and a murderer. Let them take him out and hang him to the nearest tree! He was almost calm.
Their tempers were surging this way and that like waves driven by variable winds. They were all talking at once, blaming him, blaming each other, desperately near to blaming old Adeline! And the voice of Uncle Nicholas, like the voice of the seventh wave, was the most resonant, the most terrible. It was the voice of the wronged eldest son.
Presently the voice of Piers, full of malicious laughter, disentangled itself from the others. He was saying: "The whole thing is a tremendous joke on the family. We thought Finch was queer. A weakling. But, don't you see, he's the strongest, the sanest, of the lot? He's been pulling the wool over everybody's eyes for years. Poor, harmless, hobbledehoy Finch! Well-meaning, but so simple! I tell you, he's as cool and calculating as they make them! He's had this under his hat ever since he came back from New York!"
"Rot!" said Renny.
"You'd stand up for him, Renny! Why, he's fooled you all along! Didn't he trick you into thinking he went in to Leighs' to study, when he was up to his eyes in play-acting? Didn't he trick you nicely over the orchestra? He was supposed to be studying then, and he was playing the piano in cheap restaurants, and coming home drunk in the morning! And now he's tricked you out of Gran's money!" The laughter had died out of his voice—it was savage.
Enraged, Finch cried out: "Shut up! It's a pack of lies!"
"Deny that you ever set out to deceive Renny!"
"What about you? You deceived him when you got married!"
"I wasn't cheating him out of anything!"
Finch rose to his feet, his arms rigid at his side, his hands clenched. "I'm not cheating Renny! I don't want to cheat anyone. I don't want the money! I want to give it back! I won't take it! I won't take it—I won't take it"
He burst into despairing tears. He walked up and down the room, wringing his hands, entreating Nicholas—entreating Ernest to take the money. He stopped before Renny, his face broken into a grotesque semblance to that of a gargoyle by devastating emotion, and begged him to take the money. He was so distraught that he did not know what he was doing, and when Renny pulled him on to the window-seat beside him he sank down bewildered, dazed by his own clamorous beseechings. His throat ached as though he had been screaming. Had he been screaming? He did not know. He saw them looking at him out of white, startled faces. He saw Pheasant run from the room. He saw Meggie clutching her crying baby. He heard Renny's voice in his ear, saying: "For Christ's sake, get hold of yourself! You make me ashamed for you!"
He put his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. Against his cheek he felt the roughness of Renny's tweed sleeve, and he wanted to rub against it, to cling to it, to cry his heart out against it like a frightened little boy.
In a heavy undertone the talk went on and on, but no one addressed him. They were done with him now. They could not or would not take the money from him, but they would let him alone, and they would talk and talk, till from afar off the tidal wave he had been praying for would come roaring and sweep them all into oblivion. . . .
The tidal wave came, and it was Rags; the oblivion, tea.