RETURN TO JALNA
RETURN
TO
JALNA
MAZO DE LA ROCHE
DUNDURN PRESS
TORONTO
Copyright © The Estate of Mazo de la Roche and Dundurn Press Limited, 2010
First published in Canada by Macmillan Company of Canada in 1946.
This 2010 edition of Return to Jalna is published in a new trade paperback format.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Copy Editor: Matt Baker
Design: Jesse Hooper
Printer: Transcontinental
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
De la Roche, Mazo, 1879-1961
Return to Jalna / by Mazo de la Roche.
ISBN 978-1-55488-742-2
I. Title.
PS8507.E43R48 2010 C813’.52 C2009-907536-9
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
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To Betty and Daniel Macmillan in friendship
CONTENTS
VI A Chastisement and a Tea Party
VIII Piers’ Return
IX Days of Spring
X Gemmel and Mr. Clapperton
XI Adeline and the Organ
XII Roma in the Moonlight
XIII Renny’s Return
XIV The Wheelbarrow, the Organ, and the Model Village
XV Almost a Proposal
XVI Grandmother’s Room
XVII The Theft
XVIII Conclave
XIX A Changed Life
XX Othello
XXI Piers and His Son
XXII Renny and His Daughter
XXIII The Proposal
XXIV After Dark
XXV The Finding
XXVI Alayne Hears the Good News
XXVII The Children
XXVIII The Clear Air
XXIX From Churchyard to Vaughanlands
XXX A Morning Call
XXXI Finch and His Son
XXXII A Debt Repaid
XXXIII Into the Year Nineteen Forty-Five
XXXIV Settling Down
IT WAS MORE than four years since Maurice Whiteoak had left his native land and now he was once more within its borders. Then he had sailed by passenger ship from Halifax to Côbh. He had returned in plane and warship by way of Portugal and New York. He smiled as he considered the change wrought in him by those four years in Ireland. He was a different being, he thought, from the child of thirteen who had gone to live with Cousin Dermot. How timid he had been then! The very marrow of him had shuddered as he had stood waiting with the maid in the hall while old Dermot Court had interviewed Wright, in whose charge Maurice had been. When Wright had come out of the room he had winked at Maurice as they passed and whispered, “I hope you’ll like the old boy better than I do.”
Maurice had slowly but steadily entered the room where Dermot was waiting. Dermot had looked very old, sitting there in the high-backed chair, but his voice had been strong and his handclasp warm. Maurice clearly remembered the first words they had exchanged.
“How do you do?” Dermot had said.
“Quite well, thank you, sir,” he had answered. And the conversation had continued, “I hear you were seasick coming across.”
“A little. After that it was fine.”
Then Dermot had given him a penetrating look and asked, “Do you think you can bear to visit me for a while?”
“Yes. I’m sure I can.” His own voice had sounded very small and wavering even to himself.
“Remember,” — Dermot had continued — “if you don’t like me you may go home whenever you choose.”
“Mummy told me that.”
“But I’ll say this for myself — I’m not