“It is very bad for you, Mamma,” said Ernest. “It simply means that, when you do get food, you will eat too much and eating too much produces flatulence which is dangerous.”
She stared impatiently into his face as he made his pronouncement, then exclaimed:
“I’ve had wind on the stomach for twenty years. It doesn’t harm me. I’m like an old sailing ship. Wind moves me!” Chuckling, she shuffled in her woollen slippers toward the agreeable odour of roast chicken that came from the dining room.
“Look here,” said Renny, “give me time to wash my hands. I’ll just be a moment!”
He sprang up the stairs and went to his old room.
“You’ll find hot water waiting there,” called Meg after him.
“And do make haste,” added his Uncle Ernest. “My mother is faint for food.”
“I’ll be down in a jiffy,” returned Renny.
“How wonderful it is to see him running up the stairs again,” said Meg. “Oh, I shall be so glad to have him home; there’ll be someone to lean on.”
“More likely someone to order you about,” said Eden.
“I heard him say,” put in Piers, “that he had only a roll and coffee on the train. He’ll be hungry.”
“Rolls and coffee,” exclaimed the old lady. “What a Frenchified breakfast! But it’s well if he is hungry. We have plenty for him to eat.”
“I think we had better seat ourselves,” observed Lady Buckley. “It will save time when he comes down.”
But when they reached the dining room where the spring sunlight poured between the yellow velour curtains on to the table, shining on silver and smooth damask, a surprise made them halt, almost in consternation. Eliza, when laying the table, had placed Renny at its head.
On the death of Philip Whiteoak, early during the War, Nicholas and Ernest had returned to Jalna from England. To the household of women and young boys left behind, their coming had been a bulwark against the world and a restrengthening of family solidarity. There was their old mother bereft of her youngest son, eager to have one of his older brothers on either side of her. There was Meg who had lost a tender and indulgent father, whose favourite brother was in constant danger of his life in France, ready to throw both arms about her uncles’ necks and absorb the comfort of their nearness. There was Mary, Philip’s widow, soon to give her life for her child, tremulously welcoming their strong masculine presence. Their return had been a success both from the point of view of the family and their own finances. In these last years the income of each had been sorely depleted from earlier extravagance and bad investments. Life at Jalna cost them next to nothing.
Nicolas had become so used to sitting at the head of the table, facing Meg at the other end, his mother on his right hand, that the thought of relinquishing this place to Renny, who, by his father’s death, had become owner of the house, never entered his head. Neither did it enter the head of his ancient mother, peering at the joint or roasted fowls he carved so skilfully. The tender slices went to her and to Ernest and Meg, while the tough, smothered in gravy, were given to the three strong-toothed boys. Ernest, on old Adeline’s other side, thought the arrangement admirable, he taking the place of Nicholas when an attack of gout kept him in his room.
“Boys, put out the dogs,” ordered Nicholas.
There was a skirmish while Piers and Finch tugged several terriers and the spaniel by their collars from the room.
“Don’t shut the door,” said Lady Buckley. “Stand on guard so that the animals shall not re-enter. It will be more polite to Renny.”
It was in this moment of confusion that the elders discovered the new order in which they were placed at the table. Nicholas was the first to notice it. He saw that his massive silver table napkin ring which represented a classically draped female figure reclining against a heavily chased cylinder, had been removed to the first place on the right of the carver.
His hand went up to his grey moustache and he gave it a tug of chagrin. His voice, a deep one, expressed his feelings in a sonorous “Ha!” His brother’s expression was a mingling of annoyance that Nicholas was displaced and a Puckish pleasure in his discomfiture. Meg stood imperturbably by her chair.
Lady Buckley, looking her straight in the eyes, asked —
“Was it you, Margaret, who ordered my brother’s napkin ring to be displaced?”
The stilted expression brought a chuckle from Eden. Lady Buckley turned to him with some severity.
“There is nothing to laugh at,” she said. “Your uncle has filled your father’s place with dignity for almost four years. I see no reason why he should be put out of it the moment Renny returns.”
Old Adeline now became conscious that something was wrong. She peered excitedly from one face to another.
“Who’s put you out of where?” she demanded, supporting herself by the table when halfway into the chair.
“It doesn’t matter in the least,” said Nicholas. “Now then, old lady,” — he took his mother by the arm — “you must move along one place. You’re to sit between Ernest and me now.”
But she would not budge. “Who’s being put out of where?” she reiterated. “Not me, I hope. I won’t have it.”
“It is evidently considered,” said Ernest, “that Renny is the master of the house.”
The old lady was making a gallant effort to retain her former place at the table but Nicholas urged her toward the next chair. Eliza moved forward from the serving table. She said, addressing Adeline:
“I placed Mr. Renny at the head of the table of my own accord, ma’am. I thought that as it is him that owns the house it was natural he would like to carve.”
“Well! Well!” said Ernest. He eyed the pair of juicy roast chickens almost accusingly, as though they had in some way been disloyal to the established order of things. Although he and Nicholas had had their fair share of their father’s money, they could not help the inward twinge of mortification at their younger brother’s inheriting of Jalna. But he had been dead for four years and the sting of it had subsided. Renny’s return, his inheritance through his father and this pointed reminder of it, made them uncomfortably aware of the change in family relations.
“You should not have done such a thing without an express order,” said Lady Buckley.
“Certainly not, certainly not,” agreed Ernest.
“It doesn’t matter,” growled Nicholas.
“An order from me!” exclaimed old Adeline. “Nothing’s to be changed without an order from me. But it’s right for Renny to be at the head of the table. He’s his father’s eldest son. Jalna is his … Well, now, where do you want me to sit? I begin to feel very weak. I need food.” She peered eagerly at the full-breasted birds on the platter.
Nicholas got her into her chair. She unfolded her napkin and tucked it deftly beneath her chin.
“Don’t let those dogs in, boys,” she commanded.
Eliza stood rigid, her lips puckered, on the defensive against criticism of her act. All eyes were fixed expectantly on the stairway which could be glimpsed through the open door. Ernest kept repeating under his breath — “Well, well!” Nicholas drummed on the table with his fingers. Eden looked slyly at Meg, urging her to laughter, but she kept her countenance. The dogs made a concerted effort at return but was repulsed by the boys. The shadows of their waving tails were thrown against the pale woodwork of the staircase.
Renny’s feelings as he went up to his old room were a strange mixture of the familiar and the dreamlike. He had so often imagined it in his years of absence that now in its reality it was dwarfed and pressed in on itself. His