Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
Nicholas, Ernest, and Philip stood together on the steps of the porch. Hodge jumped down from his seat and went to the horses’ heads. Nicholas opened the carriage door. Augusta, holding up her skirt, descended the steps and was thrice clasped in brotherly arms. Sir Edwin followed and genially shook hands. Then Cousin Malahide gathered up an incredibly long, thin body from a corner of the carriage, and advanced with a sombre smile to meet his hosts. Nicholas’s strong eyebrows rose toward his crest of greying hair. He tugged at his moustache. Ernest answered the smile with a wry movement of his sensitive lips. Philip grasped the hand extended languidly to him.
“Welcome to Jalna,” he said.
“I am sorry to hear,” added Ernest, also shaking hands, “that you have had a rough voyage.”
“A filthy voyage,” replied Malahide Court. His voice was unexpectedly full and deep. His disparaging gaze took in the house, the flower beds with their geraniums just set out, the faces of the three brothers.
“How charming!” he said, addressing Sir Edwin.
“Yes, yes,” Sir Edwin said nervously. “I’ve always loved this place. Shall we go in, Philip? Augusta and I are anxious to see her mother.”
“And Mamma will be eager to see us,” answered Augusta, in her contralto tones.
They mounted the steps, Philip and Sir Edwin coming last.
“Well,” asked Sir Edwin, “what do you think of him?”
Philip answered deliberately — “I can’t make him out. I’m wondering what we should do with such an exotic at Jalna.”
Sir Edwin looked worried. “Well, well, do you really think him so odd? But he has a very good mind. He knows a great deal about ancient Greek sculpture. He and I have had some interesting talks.”
“How did you happen to bring him with you?”
“Really, I don’t quite know. He was paying us a visit and the time went on and — he just came with us.”
“You mean you couldn’t shake him?”
“Just that!”
“But why should he have wanted to come here?”
“I can’t quite make out. I think that things were rather uncomfortable for him in Ireland. An allowance he had from his mother is temporarily cut off, so he cannot live in Paris, where he usually goes when out of Ireland.”
“Well, well, we must make the best of him,” said Philip, philosophically. “Perhaps he will amuse Mamma.”
Mamma was receiving him as they entered, a puzzled grin fixed on her face as she peered searchingly into his.
He was all in black. If her ebony stick with its ivory handle had suddenly betaken itself from her hand and bowed over her rings, it might have made some such figure as Malahide Court. His face had the sallowness of old ivory. His eyes were heavy-lidded and glistening, his chin pointed. His nose, strongly arched, jutted from his narrow face, with a flourish of long, widely flanged nostrils.
“Now, and this is a surprise,” said Adeline. “I’m glad to see you and I’ll be glad to hear news of the family at first hand.” She looked him over and added — “Are you in mourning?”
“Yes.” He laid a hand, from which he had removed the black glove, on his cravat, and passed it down over his waistcoat. “For my lost youth.” The hand might have been used as a model for the hands in portraits by the old masters.
Adeline chose to consider this a joke. She gave a sudden bark of laughter. The noise roused her parrot, Boney, half asleep on his perch behind a fire screen. He rose on his toes, peered over the screen, and broke into a torrent of Hindoo curses.
“
Shaitan! Shaitan ka bata! Shaitan ka butcka! Piakur! Piakur! Jab kutr!
”
He followed this tirade with loud cackling laughter.
“That’s my parrot,” said Adeline, proudly. “I taught him myself. I’ll wager you didn’t understand a word he said.”
Malahide Court not only understood, but threw back at the bird other Hindoo curses that made Adeline stare admiringly.
The parrot was in a paroxysm of rage. Screaming furiously, he flapped his wings and would have flown into the newcomer’s face but that he was restrained by the slender chain on his leg.
Lady Buckley thought the scene was disgraceful and told her favourite brother, Ernest, so. They stood together, arm in arm, happy in their reunion. At that moment Meg appeared in the doorway, eager to greet the arrivals.
Ernest asked of his sister — “How do you think Mamma looks? You have not seen her for two years.”
“Splendid,” returned Augusta. “I only hope I shall be as exuberant at her age.”
“Then you must soon begin,” returned Ernest, “for you certainly are not now and I don’t know that I should like it. It would not at all suit your style.” He looked at her admiringly.
In truth Augusta had never been so attractive in her life as she now was. Middle age became her. Her Queen Alexandra fringe, of a rich, possibly questionable brown, accentuated the tranquil dignity of her features. She wore too many chains, bracelets, and brooches, but always appeared aloof from fashion rather than overdressed.
Meg could scarcely restrain her mirth at the sight of Malahide Court, bending with arched back over her hand. This fascinating Irish cousin who, in moments of dreaming, she had pictured as capable of making Maurice a little jealous!
“Meggie’s not used to hand kissing,” said her grandmother. “She’s a simple country girl.”
“Then this will seem more natural.” And he kissed Meg’s round cheek.
Meg drew back, repelled by the touch of his face against hers, and to cover this Augusta exclaimed: —
“We must see the others! Mary and her children. And where is Renny?”
“He’s never about when he’s wanted,” said Philip. “I don’t know what he does with himself. Ah, here come Mary and the babe!”
She hesitated, tall and fair in the doorway, her child in her arms. He clutched her neck in his small embrace, his pink cheek pressed against hers.
Augusta kissed Mary all the more warmly because she knew that Adeline disliked her. She cooed to the infant on a deep, enticing note. He grasped a handful of the jet that trimmed the front of her dress.
“He is the image of Philip!” she declared.
“He is far more like his grandfather,” said Adeline. “He’s got my husband’s very look and his flat back. Did you ever see such a back on a twenty-months child? Turn him around, Molly, so they can see his back.”
Mary turned him around and all eyes were fixed on the plump back and downy head. Malahide Court was forgotten.
Augusta asked — “Where is Eden?” The little boy was a favourite with her.
A shadow of annoyance crossed Mary’s face. “I can’t imagine. He was dressed and had promised to wait for me on the landing, but he disappeared. I dare say he is off somewhere with Renny.”
“Drat the boy!” said his grandmother. “Why doesn’t he come? Wait till you see him, Malahide! You’ll say you’ve never seen such a Court. Red hair and all.”
Malahide Court poked at the baby with a long forefinger. “The perfect age!” he said. “The perambulator age; the carried-in-arms age; the nipple, diaper, and talcum age! Why did I ever live to outgrow it!”
They were staring at him, trying to picture him as a baby, when Renny, with Eden clinging to his hand, came into the room. The two were greeted by reprimands from the family, with the exception of their grandmother, who raised her voice above the others. “Come now, Renny, and show yourself to my Cousin Malahide. There’s a fine lad, Malahide. You must see him on a horse. He’ll make you think of my father, old Renny Court.”
The two shook hands, eying each other, the one without enthusiasm, the other with astonishment, dislike, and a touch of hilarity.
Eden looked into the strange face bent above him with an intent, rather unchildlike stare, then he raised his eyes to his mother’s and smiled.
“A very unusual smile,” said Cousin Malahide, still holding the little hand. “There’s a shadow of pain in it which shows that he already is conscious that true mirth does not exist.”
“No wonder he looks pained,” muttered Renny to Meg. “This fellow is making me sick. Do you mean to say we’ve got to have him about for weeks?”
“Even months,” answered Meg. “Isn’t he awful? His clothes — his waist! I believe he wears corsets! Look at Father’s face!”
Philip’s face was indeed a study as his eyes followed the figure of Cousin Malahide, who had left the group and was moving about the room examining the Chippendale pieces with the intentness of a connoisseur.
Later, when the one o’clock lunch was announced, and Adeline led the way leaning on Malahide’s arm, followed by Aunt Augusta with Eden by the hand, and Mary with Sir Edwin, Renny elongated his body, drew back his diaphragm to nothingness, assumed a sneering simper, and offered his arm to Meg. She, producing as well as she could on her round girlish face the arch grin of the old lady, clung to it and urged him toward the laden table. The three brothers, bringing up the rear, observed the caricature with tolerance, even with malicious amusement. Philip said: —
“I pity that gentleman if those two young rascals choose to make his life miserable. Lord, what a waist he has! Do you suppose he can put a solid meal out of sight?”
But Cousin Malahide, though his eyebrows all but disappeared when he saw the meal before him, displayed an unexpectedly good appetite. He vied with Adeline in second helpings, praised the sherry, and after a few glasses became so amusing that they wondered if, after all, they might not find him good company.
T
HE
V
ISITOR
I
N THE DAYS THAT
followed, the newcomer made himself thoroughly at home. He explored the house, from the basement kitchen, and what was rather pretentiously called “the wine cellar,” to the attic. He was never embarrassed, no matter where he was discovered, always proffering some glib explanation of his curiosity and drifting unabashed into further investigations.
He devoted at least two hours each day to gossip with his old kinswoman, raking up for her pleasure one scandalous happening after another, recalling almost forgotten members of her family to her mind with whatever was most disgraceful in their lives. He went to see her before she was up in the morning, when she still wore her befrilled nightdress, and sat by her bed, and flattered her and fed her parrot with toast.
He showed too that he could ride a horse, his incredibly long thin figure seeming to become a part of the spirited mare Renny had hoped would throw him.
To Adeline this unexpected visit, this revival of interest in her past, gave a renewed strength and vivacity. She had been feeling the weight of her eighty-odd years, moving slower, talking less, eating more often and less at a time, becoming slovenly at table. The fact that she could not properly chew her food was depressing to her. She would cast a gloomy look about the table at her descendants crunching the crisp rind of the roast pork and mutter: “All very well for you! But am I to live on potatoes and gravy?”
“The apple sauce is very nice, Mamma,” Philip would say, pressing his sister’s foot under the table and, as he had expected, sending his mother into a rage.
“Apple sauce! Apple sauce! D’ye think I can live on such slop? D’ye think I can keep my strength on pap? D’ye think I want to sit by and watch my children and my grandchildren gorge themselves while I starve! I that have carried great lumps of children in my body and eaten plenty for the two of us!”
“Perhaps you ate more than you needed, Granny,” suggested Meg.
“Ate — ate — ate —” mimicked old Adeline. “What a way to pronounce a decent word! I say
et
and my family says
et!
”
“I was taught to pronounce it
ate
at school, Granny.”
“Then unlearn it! I won’t have any silly finicking ways of speech in this house!
Et
it was and
et
it is, and I wish to God I could do it!”
She stared mournfully at the pork.
“Well,” said Philip, “as I have been saying for some time, what you need is two good sets of artificial teeth. Then you could chew in comfort.”
“Quite true,” agreed Sir Edwin. “Very true indeed.”
The old lady eyed her son-in-law disparagingly. “Yours don’t seem to do you much good. You mumble your food like a rabbit.”
“They have a way now,” said Malahide, “of sticking some sort of needle in the gum which deadens the pain. I had four out that way and it didn’t hurt at all.”
His kinswoman peered into his face.
“I don’t see any lacking,” she observed.
“They were my wisdom teeth,” he grinned. “That is why I came out here.”
Adeline struck the table with the handle of her fork.
“I’ll not bear it any longer,” she said. “I’ll have them out!”
Although, as Philip had said, he had been urging her to this step, he felt something like consternation at the sudden decision. He abhorred any distasteful activity, and his first thought was that his mother might demand his support in the operation. He defended himself at once. He leaned forward to pat her shoulder.
“Splendid!” he exclaimed. “It will be a great improvement. I know of an excellent dental surgeon. Edwin and Augusta shall take you to him.”
Augusta drew back her chin.
“Impossible!” she declared. “It would be too harrowing to me to see my mother suffer.”
“But I shan’t suffer! Malahide says I’ll not suffer.”
“Mamma, I beg you not to ask this of me!” said Augusta. “Philip is the one to take you. It is his suggestion.”
Philip looked suddenly sulky. “Let Nicholas do it. He is her eldest son.”
Nicholas leaned back in his chair. “I feel as Gussie does,” he said. “I could not do it under any circumstances. Ernest is the one to accompany Mamma. He has tact. He has a woman’s gentleness and a man’s fortitude.”
Ernest’s expression was bitter as he listened to this eulogy of himself.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you quite forget that I was sick when I saw the vet extract only six teeth from a mare.”
“I have sixteen,” said his mother. “You will never do.” She looked almost pathetically into the faces about her. “Am I to go to the dentist alone?” she asked.
“If you will have me,” said Malahide, “I’ll be charmed to accompany you.”