Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
T
HE WOODSMEN’S BLOWS
resounded on the trunks of the trees. With axe and long-handled billhook they cut away the saplings and the undergrowth. Then they attacked the trees. Now the axes were whetted to extraordinary sharpness. The man swung the axe and brought it down in a deft, slanting stroke on the proud bole. Then he struck upward, meeting the first incision, and a clean chip sprang out. So, down and up, down and up, till the bole was cut halfway through. Next he attacked it from the other side. The blows rang. The sweat ran down the man’s face. The tree gave a little tremor, as though of surprise. The tremor ran through all its boughs, even to the smallest twig. At the next stroke an agitation swept among its leaves. As though in a fury he struck. Then the beech fell. At first without haste, then in a panic it flung to the ground, moaning, cracking, swinging its boughs in a storm of green leaves.
The woodsmen were orderly, making no chaos of trunks and severed branches. The great stumps and long-reaching roots were dug up. The brush heap grew. The trees which were left to ornament the grounds spread their branches in proud security. The bright axe had passed them by. You could have driven a carriage and pair
between them. The grounds took on the aspect of a park. But later, fields would stretch about the park, they would be ploughed and sown, orchards planted.
Adeline saw Philip in a new light. He who had always been so fastidious in his dress, a bit of a dandy in fact, would return to Vaughanlands with muddy boots, with clothes wrinkled and hands scratched by thorns. He who had even sent his best shirts to England to be laundered because they could not be done to his satisfaction in India now appeared with crumpled linen and seemed not to care, even to rejoice in his condition. He had taken an axe into his hands but he was chagrined by his own efforts as compared to the performance of these practised, tobacco-chewing woodsmen. But he spent his days in watching their progress, in lending a hand where he could. He was bitten by black flies and mosquitoes. He grew deeply tanned. All his exercise and polo playing in India had not toughened him as this life was doing. But in the evening he again presented himself as the dashing Captain of Hussars, agreeable to the neighborhood, properly attentive to Mrs. Vaughan. Before going to bed he would remove himself to the verandah and there smoke a last cigar.
A competent architect was recommended by David Vaughan. Simplicity in design was the order of the neighborhood, but the Whiteoaks wanted their house to be the most impressive. Not pretentious but one worth looking at, with good gables and large chimneys. It was a thrilling moment when the first sod was turned for the foundation. A sharp spade was placed in Adeline’s hands by the foreman. The sod already had been marked and loosened. She rubbed her palms together, took a grip on the handle, placed her foot on the spade, gave an arch look at the assembled workmen and drove it deep into the loam. She bent, she heaved, the sod resisted.
“It’s pretty tough, I’m afraid,” said the foreman. “I’ll loosen it some more.”
“No,” said Adeline, her colour bright.
“Put your back into it,” adjured Philip.
She did. The sod released its hold, came up. She held it triumphantly on the spade, then turned it over. The house had its first foothold on the land.
Philip admired the way these men worked. They worked with might and good heart, in fierce heat, in enervating humidity. Only during the electrical storm or the downpour of rain did they crowd into the wooden shelter they had made themselves. The Newfoundland dog, Nero, came each morning to the scene of the building with Philip. He so greatly felt the heat that Philip one day put him between his knees and clipped his fur to the shoulders so that he looked like an immense poodle.
Wilmott kept his promise and shaved his whiskers. When he appeared before Adeline clean-shaven she scarcely knew him. He had been interesting, dignified. Now the contour of his face was visible she found him with a hungry, haunted look that was almost romantic. The bones in his face were fine. The hollows of his cheeks showed odd planes of light.
“How you have changed!” she exclaimed.
“It is well not to look always the same,” he answered laconically. “I suppose I look even less attractive. Handsome looks are not my strong point.”
“Who wants handsome looks in a man!”
“You do.”
“I? Philip would be the same to me if he had a snub nose and no chin.”
“Now you are talking nonsense, Mrs. Whiteoak.”
“How rigid you are! Surely you might call me Adeline.”
“It wouldn’t be the thing at all.”
“Not in this wilderness?”
“This is already a close conventional community.” “What about your log house and swamp?” “That’s my own corner.… In it I have always called you Adeline.”
“Please don’t say
Adelyne
. I am accustomed to
Adeleen
.”
“I suppose that’s why I pronounce it
Adelyne
.”
“How cantankerous you are!” she exclaimed. “I declare I think it’s a good thing you are not married.”
He reddened a little.
“But perhaps you are,” she smiled.
“I am not,” he answered stiffly, “and I thank God for it.”
“You would be a more amiable man if you were.”
“Should I? I doubt it.”
She gave her happy smile. “I’m glad you aren’t,” she said. “Because I should dislike your wife. You are the sort of man who would choose a woman I’d dislike.”
“I’d have chosen you — if I’d had the chance.”
They were sitting on a pile of freshly cut, sappy logs, within sight and sound of the workmen. But his words created a separate space for them, an isolation as of a portrait of two, in a picture frame. They sat listening to the sound of the axe, the thud of spade, their nostrils drew in the resinous scent of the logs but they were no longer a part of the scene. Their eyes looked straight ahead and, if they had been, in fact, figures in a portrait, it would have been said that the eyes followed you everywhere.
Nero was lying at Adeline’s feet. She put her hand on his crown and grasping a handful of thick curly hair rocked his head gently. He suffered the indignity of the caress with inviolable majesty.
“You say that,” she murmured, “because of this place. It makes one more emotional.”
He turned his eyes steadily on her but she saw his lips tremble. He asked: —
“Do you doubt my sincerity?”
“You can’t deny that you sometimes put things — oddly.”
“Well, there’s nothing odd about that. Most men would say it.”
“And you’ve seen me in real tempers!”
“I am not saying you’re perfect,” he replied testily. “I am saying — ” He broke off.
“It’s very sweet of you, Mr. Wilmott — after seeing me at my worst for over a year.”
“Now, you’re talking nonsense.”
“It’s better to talk nonsense.”
“You mean in order to cover up what I said? Don’t worry. I’m not going to plague you. I just had an irrational wish to let you know.”
Adeline’s lips curved. She looked at him almost tenderly. “You are laughing at me!” exclaimed Wilmott hotly. “You are going to make me sorry I told you.”
“I was just smiling to see you so — impulsive. I like you all the better for it.”
“If you think Philip wouldn’t mind my calling you by your Christian name — it would give me great pleasure.”
“I’ll ask him.”
“No, don’t … I’d rather not.”
Philip was coming toward them, striding in riding breeches across the broken ground where each day flowers opened, fern fronds uncurled, only to be crushed. He said as he drew near: —
“I have to go inspect some brick with the architect. I don’t know how long I shall be. Will you take Mrs. Whiteoak back, Wilmott?”
“Goodness, why don’t we call each other by our Christian names?” exclaimed Adeline. “Surely we needn’t go on Misses and Mistering in the wilds!”
“All right,” agreed Philip. “I’m willing. James, will you take Adeline back to Vaughanlands?”
“She hasn’t seen my estate yet,” said Wilmott. “It’s palatial. I should like to show it her first.”
“Splendid. You’ll admire what he has done, Adeline. Now I must be off.” He strode back to where the architect stood waiting.
Adeline and Wilmott clambered into the dusty buggy lent by the Vaughans. The grey mare was tied to a post where the main entrance was to be. She was now so in the habit of waiting that she had ambled into the ditch. It was a miracle that the buggy was not overturned.
“This nag is as quiet as a sheep,” said Wilmott, taking the reins. “I wish I owned it.”
“What an admission!”
“I want to be lazy and worthless for the rest of my life.”
“You can’t be worthless — not while Philip and I are your friends, James.”
“It’s handsome of you to say that,” and he added stiffly — “Adeline.”
The horse jogged along the sunny road that lay deep in fine white dust. Yet the road led between dense woods and seemed no more than a pale ribbon dividing into a wilderness. For all that, they met heavy wagons loaded with material for the building of Jalna, a ragged, barefoot girl driving a cow, an old cart drawn by a mule and filled with an Indian family and their effects. Raspberries glowed redly in the tangle of growth at the road’s edge. Wild lupine, chicory and gentian made patches of celestial blue. There was a constant movement among the trees as birds fluttered or squirrels and chipmunks leaped from bough to bough. Sometimes a field appeared, heavy with tall grain. It seemed a country in which fulfillment pressed forward to meet promise.
Philip had been forced to admit that Wilmott had got a bargain in his log house and the fifty acres that went with it. They had gone over the place together carefully. Wilmott had paid the money and moved in at once but had not wished Adeline to see it till it was, to his mind, presentable. Now on the bank of a full-flowing river it stood out in its little clearing, strong and weatherproof. Wilmott was proud of it. There was a dignified swagger in his movements as he assisted Adeline to dismount from the high step of the buggy, then led the way along a grass path to the door. The voice of the river came to them and the sibilant whispering of reeds on its edge. An old punt was tied to a mossy stake.
“How lovely!” exclaimed Adeline. “I had no idea it would be so lovely. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” he answered, not doubting her sincerity, for he himself thought the spot perfection. He unlocked the door which opened stubbornly, and showed her inside the dwelling. It had only one room with a lean-to at the back. Evidently he had hoped she would come today or was amazingly precise in
his habits. Nothing was scattered about, in the way Philip scattered about his belongings. The floor was bare and was still moist from scrubbing. A hooked rug, showing a picture of a ship, lay in front of the small stove. The furniture had been made by the former owner — a table, two chairs, a bunk spread with a patchwork quilt. Red curtains hung at the one window. In a cupboard on the wall a patently new tea set of blue china spoke of England. Along one wall Wilmott had himself built bookshelves which were filled with books old and new, the leather and gold of their backs shining in a shaft of sunlight which fell on them as though directed. There was something touching in it all and the poor man living alone! Adeline said, in a tremulous voice, as though she had never seen anything to equal it: —
“And you have done it all by yourself!”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see how you managed it. It’s lovely.”
“Oh, ’t will do.”
“It’s so tidy!”
“You should see it sometimes.”
“And the sweet tea set! When did you buy it?”
“Two days ago.” He went to the cupboard, took out the cream jug and handed it to her. “You like the design?” he asked.
She saw a shepherd and shepherdess reclining under a tree by a river — in the background a castle. She touched the jug to her cheek.
“What smooth china! Shall I ever drink tea from it, I wonder.”
“I’ll make it now,” he said, “That is, if you will stay.”
“I’d like nothing better. Do let me help.”
He hesitated. “What of the conventions? Would people talk?”
“Because I drank tea with you? Let them! My dear James, I’ve come here to spend the rest of my days. People had better begin their gossip at once. I’ll give ’em food for it!” She moved with elastic step and swaying skirt across the room.
He returned the jug to its place. Then he turned to her impulsively. “I shall light the fire, then,” he said.
The fire was already laid. He touched a match to it and it flared up brightly. He took the tin kettle and went to the spring for water. Through the window she watched his tall figure, so conventional in its movements. “I wonder what you have in that head of yours,” she mused. “But I like you. Yes, I like you very much, James Wilmott.”
She ran her eyes over his books. Philosophy, essays, history, dry stuff for the most part, but there were a few volumes of poetry, a few works of fiction. She took out a copy of Tennyson’s poems. It had passages marked. She read: —
Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease.
Wilmott came in with the kettle, from which clear drops dripped.
“I’m reading,” she said.
“What?” he asked, stopping to look over her shoulder. “Oh, that,” he said, impassively, and went to set the kettle over the flame.
“It doesn’t seem at all like you.”
“Why?”
“It — seems too indolent.”
“Am I so energetic?”
“No. But you are purposeful, I think. This is more like you: —
“
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell …
You should have marked that one.”
“My God!” he ejaculated. “That isn’t me! I wish it were. My soul is houseless.”
“I am not subtle,” she said, replacing the book. “I’m going to take off my hat.” She removed the ridiculous little hat she wore, that had two small ribbons fluttering at the back. A sudden intimacy clouded the room.