“He is indeed. And what remarkable eyes for a man of his age — for a man of any age.”
“There’s where he got them.” She laughed and pointed to the portrait of her great-grandmother that hung above the sideboard.
“And now you are the inheritor,” said Fitzturgis, with one of his rare, ardent looks.
Nicholas saw that they were looking at the portrait. He gave a little bow toward it and said, “My mother — a granddaughter of the Marquess of Killiekeggan; and the companion portrait is my father, in the uniform of an officer of Hussars.”
Fitzturgis was conscious that the eyes of all were on him, even the eyes of young Archer, as though to observe the effect of the portraits on him. It was as though they wanted him to understand the influence which these two people, long dead, still exerted on the lives of all at Jalna.
Nicholas was saying, “I should like you to have met my brother. He sat next me at table here. He died — bless my soul, it will be two years in July.”
Fitzturgis’s face clouded. He was not likely to forget that death, the summons to return to Jalna for the funeral in the very hour when he and Adeline had counted on days of enchantment in London. He said glumly, “I remember.”
Renny shot him a look. What had the fellow in his mind?
Nicholas was drinking his soup audibly from the cup. He set it down and wiped his grey moustache. “Ireland,” he said. “What times that name conjures up! What stories of my mother of her girlhood! And my brother and I had many a good visit there. Let me see — do you remember my cousin Dermot Court?”
“I have often heard of him.”
“He had beautiful manners. You don’t see such manners nowadays, though my brother Ernest had very good manners — hadn’t he, Alayne?”
Nicholas was exhilarated by dining once more downstairs, and with the company as well. He ate his share of the roast lamb, new potatoes and peas. He praised the cherry pie. He was in a mood for reminiscence rather than for giving his attention to the talk of others. The eyes of Adeline and Fitzturgis met across the table. They were outwardly attentive but inwardly wondering what experience the future would bring, she striving toward its enrichment of her life, he trying to picture himself as part of this scene.
A decanter of burgundy was set on the table. Its glow in the glass produced a brightness to all eyes, and Archer was moved to quote, “‘Dum vivimus vivamus.’”
“I was in England,” said Nicholas, “in 1930. That year the Grand National was won by an Irish horse, Shaun Goilin. His dam, Golden Day, was at grass in a paddock in Ireland, and in an adjoining field there were a number of two-year-olds. During the night several of these rascals jumped the fence between and the result was Shaun Goilin. No one ever knew which colt was his sire, but it was a lucky bit of wildness.”
“‘Qui capit —’” began Archer, but Adeline interrupted him.
“For goodness’ sake don’t be always showing off,” she said in a loud whisper.
He gave her an icy look, and Fitzturgis began to wonder if he were going to dislike his future brother-in-law.
“Life,” Nicholas was declaring, “can only be understood backward.”
“Quotation from Kierkegaard,” said Archer under his breath.
Nicholas continued, “Now I see so clearly all the mistakes I made and could have avoided.”
“I don’t think you made many mistakes, Uncle Nick,” said Renny.
Nicholas blew under his drooping moustache, emptied his glass and set it sharply on the table. “You young people,” he said, “have your lives ahead of you, but I shall soon be extinguished. I don’t mind telling you I shall be sorry to leave this world. I find it very interesting. But my marriage turned out badly.” He fixed his eyes on Fitzturgis. “Don’t let your marriage turn out badly. It’s a new experience for you. Be guarded — be guided — what I mean is — well, you’ve never been married before. You don’t know what marriage is.” Nicholas had quite forgotten that Fitzturgis was a divorcé.
“I was married,” said Fitzturgis, looking steadily at him.
“No! Really — dear me, then I shouldn’t have said that. Well, well, perhaps it’s better for you to have had experience. Not that mine helped me. A little more of the burgundy, please, Renny.”
Renny, filling his glass, remarked, “We all are the better for experience. Divorce is of little account in this modern world.” He glanced at his wife to see if he had said the wrong thing.
Her eyes were on Fitzturgis, sympathetic to his flushed embarrassment.
Nicholas, fortified by more wine, now said to him, “I suppose your wife was an Irishwoman.”
“No. An Englishwoman.”
“Ah, I remember now! An actress. But I just cannot recall her name.”
Fitzturgis burst out, “Must we discuss this now?”
Adeline smiled across the table at him. “I don’t mind, Mait.” Turning to Nicholas, she said, “Her name is Georgina Lennox, Uncle Nick. She lives in London. She’s a friend of Uncle Wakefield’s.”
“Ha, ha,” laughed Nicholas. “So — we’re all in the same boat. Alayne, Maitland, and I!”
“O tempora! O mores!” observed Archer.
“What of Wakefield’s play?” asked Nicholas. “Did it come on?”
“It ran for three weeks,” said Renny. “I suppose it was a failure, but I thought it was pretty good when he read it to us, didn’t you, Alayne?” Wakefield was his youngest brother, to whom he had been a father.
Nicholas turned courteously to Fitzturgis. “I regret,” he said, “if I have brought up a subject embarrassing to you. I am a very old man. My memory fails me. I say things I shouldn’t. But I’m not as bad at that sort of thing as my mother was, am I, Renny?”
“It’s all in the family,” said Renny. “Maitland will soon be one of us.”
Fitzturgis looked slightly rueful, but a smile flickered on his lips. “It’s all right,” he said.
Alayne’s eyes met his. “A newcomer to Jalna,” she said, “has certain things to get used to.”
“I suppose you too were very much a newcomer once,” he said, in a tone which set them apart.
“Twenty-five years ago I was a newcomer.”
Archer said, “I suppose I might be called a newcomer since I’ve been here only fifteen years.”
“Very new indeed,” said Alayne repressively.
“Yet I got used to things in little or no time. Now nothing surprises me.”
Adeline said, “I pity your wife, if ever any girl is crazy enough to marry you.”
“No girl will ever get the chance,” he said. “I intend to look at life as an observer. I shall leave it to you to propagate our kind.”
The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Piers and his family, who always came early. After the introduction to Fitzturgis they crowded about the table, drawing up chairs as though for a meal. They were given a glass of port, Piers raising his toward Adeline and her fiancé with a little bow and a — “to your future happiness.” The two young boys, Philip and Archer, were alike only in their youth — both at the dawn of life — but Philip was as a radiant rosy dawn, while Archer was a pale and frosty one with a penetrating air.
Philip, with a loving look at Renny, said, “Uncle Renny is going to leave Jalna to me, aren’t you, Uncle Renny?”
“I might