When he stood inside the hall where the bob-tailed sheepdog, the bulldog, and the Cairn terrier were humped by the stove pulling at the clots of snow between their toes, he stood warming his hands and listening to the voices of the two old uncles in the library, like the rustling of the two last oak leaves on the tree in the ravine, he thought. Urgent and steady came the tick of the grandfather clock. Now the sound of the dogs licking their wet paws, and a growl from the little Cairn as the sheepdog lay down too close to him.
Cap in hand he stood in the doorway of the library.
“I’ll not come in,” he said. “I’m too snowy.”
“Thank you, dear boy,” said Uncle Ernest. “I am so very susceptible to cold.”
“Where have you been?” asked Uncle Nicholas.
“A good walk. Then I dropped in on Humphrey Bell.”
“Albino-looking fellow,” remarked Nicholas.
“He served in the Air Force. A very nice young man,” reproved Ernest.
“Didn’t say he wasn’t nice.” Nicholas spoke testily. “Said he looked like an albino.” Nicholas stretched till the chair creaked beneath him. “What a long day! I shall be glad when spring comes. Spring! It’s March. Think of the primroses in England. Why, you could hardly put your foot down without treading on ’em. Shall never see them again.” He voiced a “Ho-hum,” that was something between a yawn and a grunt of resignation, for he was not unhappy.
“Your Uncle Nicholas has days,” Ernest remarked, “when he will not listen to the radio. Says it tires him.”
His brother’s grey moustache bristled. “Didn’t say it tired me. Said it made me tired. It makes me tired because there are too many stars. Stars used to be few and far between and they shone brightly. Now there’s a regular Milky Way of radio stars. They make me tired. That’s what I said. Too much of everything. That’s what I say.”
They heard Adeline’s footsteps flying down the stairs. She brought palpable joy into the room. “What do you suppose?” she cried. “Mother and Daddy have said I may go to Ireland with Maurice! And they’d like you to go with me, Uncle Finch, to look after me. As though I needed looking after! Daddy says the rest will do you so much good. Will you come, please? Because whether I go or not depends a great deal on you.”
Renny now followed his daughter into the room and Finch asked of him, — “Why don’t you take Adeline over yourself? She’d rather have you than anyone else.”
“I know. And I’d like tremendously to go, but for one thing —”
“Now don’t say it’s the money,” cried Adeline. “You know you can afford it, darling.”
“For one thing,” he persisted, “it’s the expense. For another — and I won’t say it doesn’t count most — it’s that I’m afraid to leave home for fear of what Clapperton will do. I’ve heard that he plans to build a factory of some sort on the Black place.”
“He couldn’t!” cried Ernest. “My parents would turn over in their graves.”
“A lot he’d care. He’s a business man. It would be a paying venture. It would be two miles from his own house.”
Nicholas said, — “He’ll never do it. I’m sure of that. It would depreciate the value of his own property. All this talk is to aggravate us. He knows it will and the horrid old fellow enjoys it.”
“I think you’re right, Uncle Nick,” said Finch.
Adeline caught his arm in her hands and rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. She said, — “It’s decided somebody’s got to go with Mooey and me. Daddy won’t. So you must, Uncle Finch. It’ll simply break my heart if I can’t go.”
“Alayne ought to go,” said Finch.
“Of course she should,” agreed Renny. “It’s years and years since she was over there but she won’t go. She’s in a rut and won’t budge out of it.”
Alayne in the doorway overheard this. In her heart she knew that Adeline would prefer the companionship of Renny or of Finch to hers. It was not a happy thought but it was so and she herself was probably to blame, for though she loved Adeline the child was not and never had been congenial to her. And there was her son. Was he congenial to her? He had her father’s lofty white forehead and piercing blue eyes but so far he had shown, not her father’s intellect or sweet, self-effacing nature, but an erratic mind and a profound egotism. She found herself not near to either of her children.
She said, — “I can’t think of anyone who would enjoy the trip more than you, Finch. And I’m sure there is no one Adeline would rather have — with the exception of her father.”
“Now then, Finch,” said Renny, “it is up to you.”
“Dear boy,” Ernest stretched out his hand and took one of Finch’s in it. “I think you should agree to go. Mooey very kindly invited me to accompany them and I think he intended to pay all expenses but the more I think it over the more certain I become that the effort would be too great for me. I am almost ninety-five. Can you believe that?” He raised his eyes rather pathetically to Finch’s face, as though he asked for assurance that this was not so.
“There’s a good fellow, Finch,” said Nicholas. “There’s a good fellow.”
It was impossible to resist. Besides he wanted to go. The thought of the sea voyage, the thought of Ireland, elated him. The thought of a journey with Maurice and Adeline elated him. All his journeyings were by plane or train and solitary, with a concert looming at the end. The thought of seeing his brother Wakefield, now acting in a play in London, elated him.
As always when Finch was moved he lost control over his voice. Now it came loudly from his mouth. “I’ll go with Adeline. I’d like to go. It’s just what I’d like to do.”
She threw both arms about him and he felt their strength. “Oh, splendid! Oh, heavenly!” She danced about the room weaving her way in and out among her elders.
“What’s splendid? What’s heavenly?” asked Dennis from the doorway, his eyes shining beneath his yellow fringe.
“Uncle Finch and I are going to Ireland.”
“Can I go too?”
“You’re too young.”
“People go over when they’re babies.”
“They go with their mothers.”
“I’ll go with my father.”
“No,” said Finch. “You can’t come.”
“Why?”
“There are dozens of reasons.”
“Tell me eleven.” He tugged at Finch’s sleeve.
Finch wanted to get away from Dennis. He ran up to his room on the top floor two steps at a time. But he heard Dennis pursuing him. He heard him coming step after step without panting. Finch turned and faced him.
“Well?” he asked.
“I want to go to Ireland.”
“You’re too young. Your turn will come.”
“If we all took turns by age my turn would never come till I was old.”
“I’ll bring you something nice — whatever you want,” Finch said comfortingly and had a recollection of Wakefield as a small boy begging to go places.
“M — m,” murmured Dennis. He took Finch’s hand and stroked it with his cheek. He pushed back Finch’s sleeve and stroked the inside of his wrist. He stroked it as Sarah had been wont to do.
“Let me go,” he said, breathless. “You must run along, Dennis.