Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
He looked at her haughtily. “Well, if you smoke I guess I can smoke too,” he said.
Mary was aghast. Was there anything the two didn’t know about her? And remarked, as though casually:
“Mrs. Nettleship again, I suppose.”
They looked at each other and laughed.
“Supposing we’d smelled it on you,” said Meg.
Renny drew his finely marked brows into a frown of disapproval.
“Miss Turnbull,” he said, “never painted or smoked.”
“Do you, Miss Wakefield?” asked Meg directly.
“That is not your affair. Now let us get on with our geography.”
“I considah it my affair,” said Renny, and intone unctuously, “I considah… I considah…” till Mary had to threaten to take him to his elders.
Nicholas, strangely enough, Mary began to look on as almost an ally. Out of his deep-set dark eyes he would occasionally give her a glance, half-mocking, half-sympathetic, as though he understood the difficulties of her position and was, at any rate, not against her. He would stand no nonsense from Renny and once when he was struggling and shouting against being taken upstairs
by Mary, Nicholas had appeared, promptly laid him across his knees and administered several salutary smacks on his behind.
Since the night of the party Mary had met Lily Pink only once. Both had been alone and they had met face to face on the public road near the church. Lily had given Mary the impression that, if she could have run away, she would.
“Upon my word,” Mary thought. “I might almost call it that ‘fateful night’.”
She went towards Lily smiling. It was late afternoon and their shadows lay long across the road.
“It’s two weeks and more since we met,” Mary said, after greeting her.
“Yes. Time flies,” observed Lily, like a grandmother. She carried a sheaf of gladioli.
“What lovely gladioli!” exclaimed Mary.
“They are for the church.”
“Are you going there now?”
“Yes. To practise on the organ.”
“You play so well. I shall never forget how you played for our dancing.”
Lily’s face quivered at the mention of that night which should, she thought, be buried in oblivion forever.
“You played,” Mary insisted, “as though you had composed the piece that very moment, for that very waltz. It was wonderful.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Lily spoke with puritanical rigidity, as though the very thought of enjoyment was base.
“And we danced rather well, didn’t we?”
“I never noticed.”
Mary was crestfallen. They drew apart.
A farmer’s wagon with a huge load of hay came down the road, the feet of the horses treading softly in the dust. The girls separated to let it pass between them. Mary drew a deep breath of the scented load. The gladioli caught a wisp and held it draped across their bloom.
“Well, good-bye,” said Lily, and then gave Mary a look, almost
of panic, “He’s coming!” she breathed and the gladioli trembled on her arm.
Philip looked singularly carefree to them, as he approached, as though their existence or the existence of any other woman meant nothing to him. He looked complete, bright and untarnished in his masculinity.
“I must hurry. I’m late,” said Lily but she lingered.
“Hullo!” he called out. “What are you two gossiping about?”
Lily looked at him in silent panic. Mary smiled and said, “We have only one subject for gossip.”
“I’ll wager I know what that is,” he said. “Me.”
Lily gazed at him in wonder. What
would
he say next!
“We were talking of Miss Pink’s playing,” Mary looked straight into his eyes.
He returned cheerfully, “Lily’s a wonder. She looks so cool and remote. Yet who can tell what’s in her? A bit of the devil, I sometimes think, eh, Lily?”
She turned and left them, almost running along the road, the gladioli bobbing on her arm.
“Now I’ve upset her. I shouldn’t have said that.” Philip stared after the retreating figure.
“Was she always so shy?”
“Ever since I’ve known her and I’ve known her all her life. But she’s getting worse. I’m inclined to think she dislikes me.”
For an instant Mary felt like telling him the truth. “Dislike you! Why, she loves you madly.” But she said:
“I think it would do her good to get away for a bit. She’s far too sensitive.”
“Yes. It doesn’t do. I’m afraid you are inclined to be like that too.”
“But in quite a different way.”
“You know, Miss Wakefield,” he cut at a thistle with a switch he was carrying, “I’ve been intending to tell you how sorry I am that my mother spoke to you as she did on the night of the dance. But she’s like that. She’ll come down on you like a thousand tons of brick and then forget all about it.”
Mary’s lips felt stiff as she answered, “But she hasn’t forgotten. I’m sure she dislikes me. So does Lady Buckley. It’s horrible to be disliked.”
“No, no, they don’t dislike you.”
“I think I ought to go.”
“The children and I — why, we’d be disconsolate.”
That cut her, to hear him speak of his feelings and the children’s as comparable. It meant just one thing. He had been dallying with her. There had been nothing of real feeling in him. Now he was shielding behind his children. She hardened herself to say:
“Of course, if I’m giving satisfaction…”
“Satisfaction!” he repeated warmly. “Your being here has meant so much more than that. You’ve been so” — he hesitated, then found a word he could use — “so congenial to me. I want you to feel that you’re needed.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
“And you won’t talk of leaving?”
A cloud of dust showed the approach of Doctor Ramsey in his buggy. He drew in his mare and saluted the two on the road with a grim smile.
“The drought continues,” he said. “I doubt if we’ll have good crops next year.”
“The rain will come,” said Philip easily.
“Out West the land is famished for water.”
“I must say I enjoy this weather,” said Philip.
“Naturally. You have the temperament to enjoy the passing pleasure, with no concern for the future. It’s a good way to be, eh, Miss Wakefield?” Without waiting for an answer he demanded abruptly:
“Can I give either of you a lift? I have room for only one.”
“Thank you but I am going the other way. And I need the exercise. Good morning.” Mary began to walk quickly along the road.
Philip looked pensively after her, then climbed into the buggy beside his father-in-law.
“A nice geerl,” observed Dr. Ramsey. “It’s a pity she’s so delicate.”
“Is she delicate? I hadn’t noticed.”
“You don’t think she looks strong, do you?”
“Well, perhaps not exactly
strong
, but healthy, I think.”
“I wish I could agree with you. She has a weak heart. I could tell that by the way she breathed. She should not take these long walks. Also, I fear her lungs may not be good. Poor geerl. She is lucky to have a nice quiet home with you.”
They were meeting another buggy. It was driven by Clive Busby whose visit to the Vaughans was long extended. For some reason which he did not analyse Philip always encountered him with a feeling of distaste. Now he craned round the side of the buggy top to look after him. The young Westerner had given too confident a grin. His necktie had too gay a stripe. Was he going to settle down on the Vaughans for the autumn? Certainly they must be tired of him. He saw the buggy stop, Clive Busby alight and assist Mary to the seat. Doctor Ramsey was amiably talking. The mare jogged peacefully on.
“What luck,” Clive Busby was saying, “to overtake you. As a matter of fact I knew you were walking because I’ve been to Jalna with the sailboat I made for Renny and the children told me you had come this way.”
“You are so kind to the children. You do so many nice things for them.”
He turned to look at her. He was breathing rather quickly. “I think you know why,” he said. “It isn’t for the children’s sake.”
He had one of the nicest faces she had ever seen, she thought. He was a man who, young as he was, people were always confiding in, telling their troubles to, confident of his sympathy. In the weeks since the dance he had managed to spend a good deal of time with her. She had been conscious of his drawing nearer and nearer to her with every meeting. There was something deadly in it, like the growth of a quickly-growing tree in front of a little house, protective, but shutting off the outer world, the light, freedom. All the while she liked him better, felt more and more confidence in him, found him so easy to understand. The Whiteoaks she never would understand, she thought. They
were always making new combinations, expanding impressively, taking in all that was around them, then contracting into an impenetrable knot. Sometimes she wished she were a thousand miles from them, a thousand miles from the one she loved. Well — she might well go a thousand miles — two thousand — how far was it to the prairies?
Clive Busby was saying, “You know, I can just see you out in the West, with the wind blowing your hair and the length and breadth of the land about you. I’d be afraid to tell you how often I’ve pictured you there.”
It was coming! She almost put out her hands to hold it off. She said:
“I’m afraid I’m not the sort pioneers are made of.”
“But you are!” he exclaimed eagerly. “You are. You have no idea how many of your sort go out to the West and like it. It’s a grand life. Nothing would induce them to come back to the East. Oh, Miss Wakefield — do you mind if I call you Mary?”
“I’d like it.”
“And will you call me Clive?”
“I always think of you as Clive.”
He turned his alarming blue eyes on her. They made her glad his hands were occupied with the reins. “Do you really? Well, that shows you like me, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. I feel as though I’d known you for years.”
“And yet we’ve gone on Mistering and Missing each other! Me
Missing
you! There’s a pun for you. A pretty bad one, I admit. But I can’t afford to miss you. You’re the only girl in the world for me. I hadn’t intended to say this today. I had it all fixed up to propose to you by the light of the new moon and here I am doing it out on the road in a buggy!”
Suddenly her mouth went perfectly dry. Her lips were stiff as she got out, “It’s as good a place as any but —”
He took the reins in one hand and laid the other on her two clasped hands, pressing them together, as though they represented himself and herself and he was uniting them in marriage.
“Mary —” he lingered on her name — “don’t say no. We were made for each other. I tell you, if you search the world over, you won’t find another man who loves you as I do.”
She looked down at his strong hand, with the tan of the prairies on it. She felt the comfort, yes, the comfort of his presence. She pictured herself thousands of miles away from this place where nobody cared for her, secure in the shelter of Clive Busby’s love. She who had no one in all the world, would have him. She would no longer be alone, wondering what this one thought, wondering what that one thought, surrounded by undercurrents, stifled by people, yet alone. She would be in a house with a man whose presence was comfort and security, and, beyond the house, the clear flat land, stretching to the radiant horizon.
“But, Clive,” she began.
“Say it again,” he interrupted. “It’s wonderful to hear you say my name. Say it again… Mary.”
She was not getting on with her rejection of him. Before she realized it she would be accepting him. He looked so eager it went to her heart. “Clive,” she repeated, and it was borne in on her how happy she could make him. What better could she do with her life than to make him happy?
“Yes —” he prompted — “you’re saying yes, aren’t you, Mary!”
“Give me time. I can’t answer today.”
“How long? Tomorrow?”
“No. A week.”
His face fell. “A week then. But I’ve already been away a week — still, if you want a week, Mary dear — I’ll wait. God knows I’d wait a year, if I thought you’d say yes at the end of it… Mary — there’s no one else, is there?”
“No one else wants to marry me.”
“Thank goodness for that. I thought I had to compete with some rich fellow. Someone — like Philip Whiteoak.”
“Oh, no.”
“Mary, I believe you’ll say yes — in a week. May I see you every day, in the meantime?”
“No, not once.”
“Not once?” He looked despairing.
“No… Please, Clive.”
“Very well. I’ll try to bear it but it will almost kill me.” With a grim look he took his hand from hers, gripped the reins and flapped them on the horse’s back. The horse broke into an ambling pretence of going faster. The sun came out hotter, the golden-rod blazed in the ditches.
Lily was walking up the aisle of the church, the gladioli resting on her arm. Strangely the church looked even smaller when it was empty. The stained glass windows seemed very near her. Their sumptuous colours were reflected in the flowers she carried. She walked gracefully as though a long train fell behind her. She walked with dignity, as though every eye in a crowded church were on her.
When she reached the steps of the chancel she halted there a space, with closed eyes. The figure of Philip Whiteoak, in a Prince Albert coat, with a white carnation in the button-hole, had been waiting for her. Now they moved closer, till they stood side by side. Her father, in cassock and surplice, was about to begin the wedding ceremony.
So Lily stood, going through the service, word by word, inaudibly making the responses, in her imagination hearing Philip’s voice repeat the words assigned to him. Was he placing the ring on her finger? What was she doing? Perhaps this pretence was wicked! She opened her eyes. The emptiness, the silence of the church was frightening. What would her mother think if she knew what play-acting she was up to? Surely she was a wicked girl. Surely she had, as Philip Whiteoak said, a bit of the devil in her. A bit of devil… devil… She could not help laughing as the word echoed through her mind. She actually shook with silent laughter and the gladioli trembled.
Then she pulled herself together. She went to the vestry and got the two brass vases for the flowers. She went outdoors to the
pump and filled them with water. She raised her innocent face to the sky and thought how blue it was. She looked down at the stream below the churchyard and saw how it reflected the blue sky. The vases were ice-cold in her hands.