Finch helped himself from the bowl of hot porridge and poured milk over it, closely observed by Wakefield.
“What are you staring at?” demanded Finch.
“You’re greedy.”
Meg interposed — “Eat your porridge, darling.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Aren’t you well?” At once her voice had an anxious tone. She scrutinized his pointed, rather sallow face.
“What he needs,” said Nicholas, “is a little wholesome neglect.”
“Oh, Uncle Nicholas, you know very well that Wake could never have lived if I had not watched over him so carefully.”
“Very true indeed,” agreed Ernest.
The little boy looked languidly from one face to the other, savouring his delicacy.
A quick step sounded in the hall and the master of Jalna came into the room, followed by three dogs, two Clumber spaniels and the English sheepdog.
“The dogs!” cried Meg. “They must be dripping!”
“Not they,” returned their master. “They know that this weather isn’t fit for a dog. It’s a filthy day and no mistake.” He laid his fingers against his sister’s warm white neck for a moment, then, with a good morning to his uncles, went to his place at the head of the table, the dogs majestically ranging themselves on either side of him.
Ernest Whiteoak was of a fastidious nature. He was conscious not only of a pleasant clean smell of Windsor soap from his eldest nephew but also of a slight smell of the stables, and from the coats of the dogs their characteristic odour. He took out his handkerchief and sniffed the pure scent of Vapex from it.
Renny gave him a quick look. “A cold Uncle Ernest?”
“No, no. I just use a little Vapex on my handkerchief. As a protection. Nothing more.”
“Good.” Renny helped himself to porridge and added — “It’s a bad time for colds and, as I said, this is a filthy day.” He turned to Finch. “I guess you’re glad you don’t have to go to school. It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”
Finch longed to shout — “It’s my birthday, that’s what it is! And nobody has the decency to remember it.” But he looked glumly at his plate with a muttered assent.
His Uncle Ernest eyed him with mild disapproval.
“It is a good thing,” he said, “to form the habit in youth of getting up cheerful in the morning. I formed that habit many years ago and I have found it beneficial to my own health and to the comfort of those about me.”
“Yes, indeed, Uncle Ernest,” agreed Meg, “you are an example to everyone.”
“I’m cheerful,” piped Wakefield. “But I can’t eat this porridge. Would you like to have it, Finch?”
Finch gave him a quelling look and applied himself morosely to his own.
Nicholas wiped his drooping iron-grey moustache on an enormous linen table-napkin. “I’m glad,” he said, “that we’re on the way to spring.”
“This rain,” said Ernest, “will take away the last of the snow.”
“But if it freezes,” added Renny, “we shall have the devil of a mess.” He turned to Wakefield. “There are twin lambs in the barn this morning.”
“Oo — may I go back with you and see them?”
“Yes.” He looked fondly at his small brother. “If you eat up your breakfast.”
“Renny, do you think I might have a pony for my birthday?”
Now, thought Finch, that will remind them! Now they’ll remember that it’s my birthday.
But it didn’t. Everyone began to discuss the question of a pony for Wakefield, as though it were a matter of profound importance. Wragge, the houseman, who had been Renny’s batman in the war, had returned with him in 1919, and established himself as a permanent fixture at Jalna by marrying the cook, now brought in another dish of bacon and eggs. He was a small wiry man who imparted an air of jaunty good humour to his domestic activities. He had a pronounced cockney accent and cherished an unaffected devotion to Renny. He was familiarly called Rags.
Renny Whiteoak was at this time thirty-seven years old, tall and thin, with an elegantly sculptured head covered by dark-red wiry hair. His complexion was somewhat weather-beaten and his brown eyes had a wary look, as though thus far in his life he had encountered a fair amount of trouble and was prepared for more. His eyebrows were a salient feature of his face, quickly expressing by their contractions or upraisings, their sudden movements, as though independent of each other, his moods of anger, dismay, or jocularity. He raised them now as Eden and Piers came into the room, and glanced at his wristwatch.
“Sorry,” said Eden, bending to kiss his sister.
“But you’re not really late, dear, only your porridge will be cold.”
“Preserve me from it hot or cold. Morning, everybody.” He smiled at the faces about the table and seated himself at the left of his eldest brother, who said, while helping him to bacon and eggs —
“What I was remarking is his clothes.”
It was obvious that Eden wore jacket and trousers over his pyjamas.
“If I had appeared at table in such undress when I was a young fella,” observed Nicholas, “my father would have ordered me to leave.” He glanced with reminiscent pride at the portrait of the handsome officer in Hussar’s uniform which hung above the sideboard beside that of his wife. The dominating presence of this portrait, painted in London seventy years ago, had influenced even the second generation of Whiteoaks to be born in Canada. In their earliest years the splendour of the uniform had attracted them, and as they grew this grandfather was often pointed out to them as the model of what a British officer should be, firm in discipline, quick in decision, inexorable in justice. His gallantry had been equalled only by his strength of character. No one told them of his weaknesses which were charming.
Eden shrugged his shoulders in a new and irritating way he had, and said — “Well, he was a martinet, wasn’t he? He’d not have done for these days.”
“It is a good thing for you,” said his Uncle Ernest, “that my mother did not hear that remark.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude, Uncle Ernie, but things have changed, you know. Especially since the war.”
“For the worse,” put in Nicholas. “Where the young are concerned.”
Eden laid down his knife and fork and laughed. His blue eyes regarded his uncle across the table with ironic amusement. “Come now, Uncle Nick, were you always well-behaved?”
“I was human.”
“And so am I — very.”
“That has nothing to do with coming to breakfast in pyjamas and uncombed hair.”
“You have just remarked how things have changed.”
“Not that much.”
Renny now spoke. “Say the word, Uncle Nicholas, and I’ll see to it that he goes upstairs and dresses.”
“No, no. Let Meg decide. If she doesn’t mind …”
Eden