WREATHS OF HOLLY
THE PLAY HAD a three months’ run. Wakefield and Molly had made a distinctive place for themselves in the hearts of New York theatregoers. They admired Molly’s look of fragility and breeding combined with vitality. When she wore riding clothes she looked capable of hard work with a horse. They liked her freshness and lack of self-consciousness. Now that she was away from Ninian Fox, her acting showed more freedom and initiative than before. No young actor in years had so captivated New York as Wakefield. The management wanted them to go on tour with the play. They had offers from Hollywood. But what they wanted and what they had done was to come to Canada. Wakefield was to enter the Air Force and Molly to find some sort of war work. They wanted to be married in the New Year.
They arrived at Jalna the night before Christmas Eve. There had been no snow in New York but here the ground was white and the stars trembled blue and low above the treetops. The spruces crowded the driveway in their black bulk but the old silver birch cast a fine tracery of its branches on the snowy lawn. The steps were shoveled clean, the snow mounded high at the sides in glistening peaks and pale blue shadows. All the windows were alight and, in those on the first floor, holly wreaths hung.
None of the family had come to meet them. There had been much to do in preparation for Christmas and that morning Sarah had given birth to a son. If anything were needed to give Wakefield’s homecoming a glittering sense of the Season it was the news that a new Whiteoak had chosen Christmas for the time of his arrival.
Wakefield felt almost unbearably excited as they got out of the car and he helped the man carry their bags to the door. When he had left them, Wakefield took Molly by the shoulders and placed her in front of the door facing him.
“I want to see you in your new setting!” he exclaimed. “I want to see how you become Jalna. For it is our home whether we live here or not.”
A smile illumined his face. His eyes were shining. He kissed her on each cold cheek, then on her warm lips. He opened the door.
“You become it very well,” he said.
He stood in the halt and looked about him, drinking in the familiar scene, the heavy scrolled wallpaper which had been there since the house was built, the slender grace of the banister, the hatstand with the carved head of a fox grinning down at them. Renny’s hat, weather-beaten to a soft mole colour, hung there with children’s caps and a dog’s lead.
The dogs rose in a ferocious chorus from where they lay about the glowing stove. They almost knocked Wakefield over before they discovered who he was. Then they almost knocked him over in their joy. Meg came out of the drawing room and closed the door behind her.
“I had to be the first to greet you,” she said. She clasped Wakefield to her bosom in a moment’s bliss before she turned to welcome Molly.
“We are so glad to have you, my dear,” she said.
Well might Wake look on her as a mother, Molly thought. It was easy to see how she adored him.
Meg took them straight into the drawing room where the uncles and Alayne were waiting. Alayne had faintly resented Meg’s welcoming of their guest but it was Meg’s way to be possessive. Alayne gave Molly her hand, smiling and critical. She thought — “An attractive girl but I don’t believe I’m going to like her.”
“What a charming child!” said Nicholas, aloud. “Do you mind if I kiss you, my dear?”
She held up her face like a child. Nicholas kissed her, so did Ernest.
“You see,” said Ernest, “we’ve been told of your engagement.”
The boy and girl looked so young standing there that the elders felt a compassion for them, wondering what sort of life they would have together, what sort of world awaited them.
Nicholas drew Wakefield aside. “What are they saying of the war in New York?” he asked.
“They’re calling it a phony war,” laughed Wakefield.
Nicholas blew through his grey moustache. “Phony? What’s that?”
“Well … it’s not very exciting to watch.”
Nicholas turned to his brother. “Do you hear that, Ernie? They’ve got a word for this war over there. They call it phony.”
“Well, well,” said Ernest.
Adeline and Roma had been allowed to stay up. They now came into the room. Roma, as always, stood as though sheltering behind Adeline.
Wakefield kissed them and exclaimed at their growth as he had heard returning elders exclaim at his when he was a child.
“Have you done any hunting since I saw you?” he asked Adeline.
“Lots, but not real foxes. And I sent a postcard of Niagara Falls to Pat Crawshay and he sent me one of Blarney Castle.”
Meg put in — “Now I must take Wake and Miss Griffith to their rooms.” It was as though she were mistress of the house.
“Call me Molly.”
“May I? That will be nice.”
“Tomorrow night we hang up our stockings,” said Adeline. “The Christmas Tree is in the sitting room. You can’t go in there.”
“I can smell it!” cried Wake. “I’ve been wondering all along what the lovely scent was.” He went eagerly to the door of the sitting room and put his nose to the keyhole.
The pungent spicy sweetness of the spruce tree came through to him. The mystery, the entrancing tremors of childish Christmas Eves, stirred him. He put out a hand to Molly.
“Come,” he said, “come and smell.”
She bent and sniffed.
“How lovely! What sort of tree is it?”
“Spruce.”
“We don’t have them so sweet in Wales.”
He laughed. “They grow only at Jalna.”
The children had followed them into the hall and crowded to the keyhole to sniff the tree.
“Children!” called Alayne. “You must go to bed!”
They giggled together, hiding behind Wakefield.
“I’ve never had a Christmas Tree,” said Molly.
“How appalling!” said Wakefield in consternation. Then added — “But I’m glad you’ll have your first one with us. And, unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ll get a very nice present on it.”
“Never had a Christmas Tree!” cried the children in unison. “But why? Didn’t you like them?”
Wake answered — “She lived on a mountaintop where there were no trees.”
Meg came and led all four upstairs. Wake ran his hand along the banister. “I used to get smacked for sliding down this,” he said.
Archer called out from his mother’s room where he slept. “Come and see me!”
They found him sitting up in his cot, his rather stiff tow hair standing upright, his eyes intense beneath his tall white brow.
“The future master of Jalna” said Wake gayly.
Archer held out his hand. Molly took it and Wake kissed the top of his head. He deigned to smile.
“Sit down and we’ll talk,” he said.
“Now Archie,” said Meg, “you know we can’t do that. It’s time you were fast asleep.”
He dived under the bedclothes, making them into a tent. From beneath it he made terrifying noises.
“He’s a hyena,” said Roma. “He’s been one all day.”
Alayne came running up the stairs. She was deeply humiliated. She tried to draw down the covers but, knowing the touch of her hand, he made himself into several hyenas. The cot heaved and strained under his rollings and shriekings. Meg came to Alayne’s assistance and together they managed to uncover him. He looked imperturbably up at them. His hair and his pyjamas were wet with sweat. Alayne took him into her arms. He languished against her.
“I’m a ba-a-by,” he said, and took the lobe of her ear into his mouth.
The little girls ran, shrieking with laughter, up the stairs to the third floor where Alma waited to put them to bed. A choir was singing Christmas carols over the radio.
In his own room Wake felt himself enfolded under the roof as a child on the breast. The smells, the sounds, the feel of the carpet beneath his feet, drew him back into the old life. It would always be the same. But now Molly would become a part of it. No matter where they went they would belong here. She was his and he was hers and they both belonged to Jalna.