Whiteoak Harvest. Mazo de la Roche
“At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead.”
Mooey thought — “Funny how just bowing down killed him dead. If he’d had the fall I did he’d have had something to die for…. I do like Uncle Renny. Those were delicious candies he gave me…. I wonder if his shoulder hurts as badly as my sore spot.”
Adeline, lolling on the end of the pew thought — “What a big big house! God’s house. This is His party. We must be good. I am good. I am as good as — oh, I see Daddy’s legs under his white dress! Daddy, Daddy, Mummie, Mummie, I can say prayers as well as anybody — Gentle Jesus — I know more words every day. I look like dear old Gran. Soon I’ll be four. I know all the words Daddy reads. Uncle Piers holds me too tight.”
Daddy was reading — “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.” He paused, then — “Here endeth the First Lesson.”
Adeline yawned, showing without reserve the charming interior of her mouth. She too had had a poor night. Piers took her on his knee and she rested her head against his shoulder.
She was good all through the service, even when he left her and joined Maurice in taking up the offertory. But she was a little troubled till Mooey whispered to her — “Have your penny ready.” She held it tightly while she watched the progress of her uncles up and down the aisles. At last Piers held the alms dish in front of her. She was amazed by all the silver and copper she saw on it. She placed her penny in the middle and would have taken a piece of silver in return had not Piers passed on with the dish.
He and Maurice stood shoulder to shoulder at the chancel steps while Mr. Fennell advanced to meet them and Miss Pink sounded triumphant notes on the organ. As churchwarden, Renny cast a speculative glance at the offertory.
The service seemed long that morning. The air coming in at the windows was so inviting, so filled with the promise of fine days to come that Whiteoak flesh and blood longed passionately to be out in it. Those living ones gathered about the green plot for an exchange of greetings as they always did while the rest of the congregation was departing. The Easter flowers on the graves were still comparatively fresh. It was Meg who had laid them there and, while no grave was flowerless, the offerings were ranged in importance from the wreaths on her grandparents’, parents’, and Eden’s graves to the few daffodils that marked the graves of her stepmother and infant half-brothers and -sisters.
Renny was the last to join the group. She turned to him with an affectionate — “Well, dear, I’m glad to see that you are able to be out this morning. But you look quite pale for you. How sweet Adeline was!”
“Next Sunday,” said Piers, “you may have her in your pew.”
“Oh, Piers,” exclaimed Pheasant, “she was no trouble at all! We liked having her, didn’t we, Nook?”
Nook smiled doubtfully. He was rather afraid of Adeline. The children began to run about the low iron fence that enclosed the plot, enjoying the new springiness of the grass, the escape from restraint.
Renny looked from Meg’s face to Maurice’s, from him to Piers and then to Pheasant. There was a frown on his brow that drew them visibly closer together. They looked enquiringly at him. He said:
“Well, I’ve a pretty piece of news for you. I haven’t heard anything in many a long day that has made me as sick as this.”
Maurice took off his hat and passed his hand over his greying hair. Meg’s mouth became an “O” of apprehension, Piers stared and blew out his cheeks and Pheasant exclaimed:
“I’m not surprised! I have felt something hanging over us. I walked under a ladder at the stables yesterday. The last three times I’ve been to the pictures I’ve had seat number thirteen. Last night I dreamed of wild animals and at breakfast Piers upset the salt.”
Meg said disapprovingly — “I think those are queer sayings for a Christian just come out of church.”
Renny glared at them. “Have you finished? Now, what I want to tell you is this — Wakefield says he is going into a monastery — going to be a monk — going to throw Pauline over and be a monk! What do you think of that?”
The news was so different from anything she had expected that Meg scarcely knew how to take it. If it had been fresh money losses she would have groaned. If it had been bad news of absent loved ones she would have wept. But for this she was quite unprepared. She closed her eyes and said — “I think I’m going to faint.”
Maurice, with conjugal skepticism, said — “I don’t think you are — just keep calm.”
But Renny clasped her in his sound arm and said excitedly:
“Run to the pump quick, Piers, and fetch water; she is fainting! She’ll be unconscious in a moment.”
Piers ran, leaping across the graves toward the old pump in the rear of the church. The children, not knowing what was wrong, ran joyously after him. Pheasant began to fan Meg with her prayer book. They supported her on the iron railing till Piers returned with the water in a tin mug. She kept her eyes closed till he approached her, then, fearing he might dash it in her face, she opened them and sat upright.
“Just give me a drink of the water,” she said. “It will revive me.”
The children gathered about, staring into her face.
“I knew she’d take it hard,” observed Renny.
Piers said — “There’s no use in our getting upset, we’ll simply not allow it. He’s not of age. He can’t do it.”
“Do you think he is in earnest?” asked Maurice.
“Absolutely. He’s been wrestling with the idea for a month, he says. Had it out with his soul, he says.”
They turned the words over in their minds. Meg took a draught of water from the rusted mug. Piers gave it to Mooey to return to the pump and the other children trailed after him.
“This comes,” said Piers, “of allowing his engagement to Pauline. I always thought it was a mistake. I never thought that he really knew his mind. Now this is just something new that attracts him. But he must be stopped before it’s too late.”
Meg exclaimed — “I will go to him — on my bended knees! I will tell him what it will mean to the family if he deserts us. Oh, to think of it! To think he’d not confide in me! I’ve been a mother to him. I wore myself out nursing him — a puny little baby, with such eyes and such a mass of dark hair! Do you suppose they’ll shave his head? I couldn’t bear that! I’ll go to him at once!”
Maurice put it — “You can’t, Meggie. Remember the P.G.s’ Sunday dinner. You like to oversee that.”
Meg rose. “Yes. I must be home for that. But, this afternoon — we will come to tea. My child shall implore him not to do anything so dreadful.” She looked almost serene as she saw this scene in mind’s eye, saw the deferential faces of her men folk.
Piers said — “Among us we’ll put a stop to it. He’s a queer kid. And look at Finch. He’s certainly got a queer streak in him.”
They remembered Finch’s queer streak. They remembered Eden. Meg looked down almost accusingly at her stepmother’s grave. She pointed a suede-gloved finger at it.
“There,” she said, “is the source.”
Piers looked uncomfortable. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Some of the Courts had queer streaks.”
“But not this sort!” cried Meg. “Did you ever hear of a Court entering a monastery? Did you ever hear of a Court doing the sort of thing Finch has done? No, Piers, you cannot deny that your mother was different. You might well kneel here by the graves of our loved ones and thank God that you are a Whiteoak — even while you respect her