The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (107 page)

Philip would never forget. He caught Mary by the arm and they ran the short distance to the gate, in a shower of rice. They leaned from the carriage waving.

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” called everyone.

Renny ran to the road and stood there waving, listening to the beat of hoofs growing fainter, watching the carriage till it was out of sight. Suddenly the world seemed larger, echoing to the sounds of departure, and he smaller.

He went back into the house where the others had returned. Doctor Ramsey put out an arm and drew Renny to his side. “Poor wee laddie,” he said.

The wedding over, movements of a different nature stirred Jalna. Nicholas and Ernest, Edwin and Augusta bent themselves to their preparations for travel. The Buckleys made theirs with the least fuss, confining their operations as much as possible to their own room. But Nicholas and Ernest were here, there and everywhere. Their luggage strewed the hallways. Their strong voices shouted from room to room. Nicholas was happy at returning to his agreeable life in London. Ernest was exhilarated by the thought of new investments. The hearts of Edwin and Augusta yearned towards the peace of their home in Devon.

But Adeline was glad to be where she was. Canada was her country and at Jalna she had spent the happiest years of her life. She looked forward with complacency to the coming winter. Mary
was an amenable girl, if something of an enigma. She herself could generally manage Philip. She would retain the reins. Opportunely a small school was being started by two capable women in the district and to it the children could be sent for a time. They had run wild long enough.

At last, after an upheaval greater than garden party and wedding combined, the travellers to England had departed. Adeline was left alone with the children. There had been snow, the snow was gone and Indian Summer warmed the November air, cleared the sky to a stainless blue, clouded the horizon with smoky grey. The light wind bore no heavier freight than the silver savings of the milkwood pod. The stream, broadened by rains, moved tranquilly past its banks.

“All it lacks are swans,” Mary had said, on the day of the garden party.

“And swans it shall have,” he had promised.

She had only to express a wish and he was eager to fulfill it.

Now Renny had a wish and, after a good deal of persuasion, Adeline had yielded to it. Not that she did not want to humour him or did not herself enjoy the prospect of what he urged, but she had got a bit slack. To get up at sunrise had become something of an effort, especially to put on a riding habit and mount a horse and ride to the lake shore on an empty stomach, for who could eat a substantial breakfast at that hour? But the little boy begged so hard. It was nice to think how much he wanted her. She could not refuse.

It saddened her to think how she and her Philip had once, with light hearts and little effort, risen at sunrise, and ridden over the estate and galloped over the sandy country roads. Ah, the country had been grand in the fifties and sixties and even the seventies! She wondered what it would be in another fifty years. She had heard that there were Chinese laundrymen in the cities and she herself had seen an Italian pushing a barrow of red and yellow bananas along a street. Well, Philip, her husband, wouldn’t have liked it. He wanted to keep the province British. On her own part she rather liked mixtures.

As the mellow brick of the house was gilded by the early sunlight and the windows set ablaze, Hodge led Captain Whiteoak’s old mare, saddled and bridled, to the door. Renny followed on his pony. Adeline came into the porch wearing her riding habit, with its long skirt, and a bowler hat sitting jauntily on her head. The sun touching her brought out the red that still remained in her hair. She looked a fine figure. Hodge’s eyes were full of admiration, but Renny saw only his grandmother coming to ride with him at last.

Hodge assisted her to the saddle; Laura was skittish and sent the gravel flying with her dancing.

“Laura, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” exclaimed Adeline, “at your age!” She stroked the mare’s shining neck. “But you’re no more unseemly than I am. We just don’t know how to get old, do we, pet?”

Under the evergreens, splashed with light and shade, jogged the mare and the pony, the elderly woman and the little boy. They passed through the gate on to the deserted road.

Adeline smiled down at Renny. “So you’ve routed me out early at last,” she said.

He laughed up at her. “Yes. Aren’t you glad?”

“I am that.” She snuffed the air. “Why, I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. It’s glorious.”

“We’ll do it often, shan’t we? Every day?”

“Well, perhaps not every day.”

“Every other day then?”

“Take the pleasure of the moment and don’t be looking ahead.”

They cantered down the road. They did not speak again except to point out some small wild creature or comment on a new barn or admire an especially fine strawstack, till they reached the lake. Here they took the winding road by its shore. The air had changed. Now it smelt of the lake and had a coolness and a stir. Two gulls winged their way above its blueness, making haste as though to show their power. Adeline and Renny drew up to enjoy the view which, in truth, consisted of no more than the blue floor of the
lake and the blue arch of the sky where no sail, no cloud, appeared. Nothing but blueness and a hazy horizon.

“It’s a fine sight,” said Adeline.

“Yes, it’s a fine sight,” he agreed.

“I’ve always admired this world,” Adeline went on. “We’re lucky to have such a splendid world to live in. When I was a girl in Ireland I used to look at the wild sea and the headlands and the grey mountains, and think how grand they were. When I married your grandfather in India, I thought how beautiful Kashmir was, with its flowers and its temples. When I go to Devon to visit your aunt and look out over the moors, with their heather and the rushing streams and the herds of moor ponies running wild, I think how splendid.”

“But this is best,” said Renny.

“Yes. It’s best. And I hope there’s a happy life ahead of you. Now your father will always tell you you’re a Whiteoak and the Whiteoaks are English, but you must remember you’re part Irish too. And the Irish blood is your best. My grandfather was a marquis.”

“I’m part Scotch too,” he said, nodding his head. “And my Scotch grandfather is a doctor and he’s going to bring me a little brother.”

“Ay, perhaps,” she returned, a little grimly. “But Scotch or no, you’re the one that takes after me and my family. You have my hair. You have my eyes. Later on you’ll have my nose and mouth.”

He laughed at the thought of it. “Shall we ride on, Granny? Let’s ride on.”

“Very well. But not too far. I have only a cup of tea inside me and I’m getting hungry.”

“I had an apple! Come on, Granny. Let’s ride fast.” She gave Renny’s shoulder a tap with her riding crop.

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll ride fast. Lead on.”

For Edward and Anne Dimock.

Remembering the summer of 1934

and much before and after.

T
HE
R
EHEARSAL

E
VERYTHING ABOUT THE
house had been put in perfect order. Workmen had been there to mend the roof, tighten the supports of the shutters, and give the woodwork a glossy coat of new paint. They had cut back the Virginia creeper which, in its exuberant growth, would have completely covered the windows and so excluded even the peering sun from the doings of the Whiteoaks in this early summer of nineteen hundred and six.

The gravel sweep had been raked into a pattern by the gardener and Philip Whiteoak hesitated for a moment before crossing it. It seemed a pity to disarrange it, though he considered the making of the pattern rather a waste of time. Still, he could not deny that the house looked very spruce, somewhat like a man with a close haircut and shave, and a new cravat about his neck.

Philip himself looked the very reverse of spruce. A stained corduroy coat covered his broad shoulders and muddy top boots his powerful legs. He carried a fishing rod and a basket in which glistened a dozen speckled trout. One of these had life in it still and now and again drew itself into a sharp contortion above the bodies of its fellows.

As Philip lounged across the gravel and up the shining steps into the porch, he wondered lazily which of his family he would see first when he entered the house. He rather hoped it would not be his mother, with whom he had had words this morning, or his wife, who would make him feel that he should have come in by the side entrance with his mud and his fish.

As a matter of fact it was his wife whom he now saw descending the stairs in a white embroidered dress with a wide flounced skirt. He went toward her, smiling a little sheepishly, yet really unashamed.

“Hello, Molly,” he said. “You look as pretty as a picture.”

She stood, just out of his reach, critically looking at his fair, flushed face and disreputable clothes.

“Oh, Philip,” she exclaimed, “your boots
are
muddy! You might have gone —”

“No, I mightn’t,” he interrupted. “I wanted to bring my catch straight in to show it you. Aren’t they beauties?”

She ran down the steps that separated them.

“Pretty things!” She clasped her hands on his shoulder and peered into the basket.

“We’ll have them for breakfast. One is still living! I hate to see it gasp like that.”

“He feels the heat, just as I do. I always suffer in the first warm days.” He set down the basket and put his arms about her. “Give me a kiss, Molly!”

She drew down his head and pressed her cheek to his.

“I say, Molly, your cheek is just like a flower.”

“And yours is like a grater! You have not shaved today.”

“If you scold me I’ll grow a beard and do the heavy patriarch. It might be a good idea. I don’t get the respect I should.”

“No wonder, with your mother so arrogant!”

“Never mind, never mind! She knows she can’t bully me — and never could!” He smiled magnanimously and his eyes, of a particularly fine blue, flashed amiably.

When he was with Mary she felt that nothing else mattered. Her tall delicate figure swayed beside his. The light from the stained glass windows on either side of the front door threw amber and green splashes over her, hardening her fair hair into a metallic brightness.

“What has been going on this afternoon?” he asked.

“Nothing in particular, except that Meg is in town shopping and Peep has got his new tooth through.”

He had a grunt of satisfaction for the last statement and for the first the exclamation: —

“I’ll be glad when this trousseau is completed! Meggie can’t get enough to satisfy her.” But, though his tone was complaining, he smiled complacently.

“I suppose she thinks it’s the last she’ll get from you.” Then she added quickly — “Of course, an occasion like this comes only once in a girl’s life. She’s bound to want to make the most of it.” In truth Mary Whiteoak was so glad that her stepdaughter was to be eliminated from the family circle that she was willing to condone all Meg did. The thought of being free of that stubborn girl, always making things difficult for her, always clinging about her father’s neck, filled her with bliss.

“Who took her in?” asked Philip.

“Renny drove them to the train. Vera Lacey went with her. She should be back at any moment.”

“H’m. I hope Vera comes with her. Charming girl.”

A severe-looking parlormaid appeared from the dining room and announced that tea was ready. At the same moment a door at the end of the hall opened and old Mrs. Whiteoak entered. She had passed her eightieth birthday, but she moved strongly and her broad shoulders were just beginning to stoop. Although the May day was summerlike, she wore a heavy black cashmere dress with a much shirred and pleated bodice and a wide band of black velvet on the bottom of the long skirt. A lace cap trimmed with rosettes of mauve baby ribbon added to her already commanding height. Her eyes, which had once been large, were still of an intense and brilliant brown. Temper and race were implied in the lines of her mouth, and her strongly arched nose defied her fourscore years.