Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
He tasted it, added more milk and held the cup to her lips. She drank deeply, her face flushing at the unusual heat, her eyes rolling up at him.
She would have stayed on for a while but he got rid of her by admiring her riding togs and the day’s work ahead of her. Fortified by the drink she descended to the dining room.
She gave the bell-rope a tug and Rags came up from the basement. He grinned admiringly at her. “Good-morning, Miss.”
“G’morning. I want my breakfast.”
“Better come along down to the kitchen. Cook’ll give it to you.”
“I want it here.” She climbed to the seat of a chair and held out her bib to him. “Put it on me,” she ordered.
He tied it on her nape while she held up her curls.
“Wot d’you fancy?” he asked.
“Sausage.”
“There ain’t none.”
“He had some.” She pointed to her father’s plate.
“’Ow do you knoaw?”
“There was a crumb left. I ate it.”
Rags looked shocked. “You! The mistress of the ’ouse, peckin’ abaht on other folk’s plates like a sparrer!”
“Sausage! Sausage! I want sausage!”
She sank in her chair and put a stubby shoe on the table and kicked it.
“If your mother could see you!” But he was really amused. He clattered down the stairs to the kitchen and returned with two sausages and some fried potatoes on a large plate. She was sitting upright now, eating cold toast spread with bitter orange marmalade. Rags took this from her hand and placed the plate in front of her. His wife had already cut the sausages into pieces suitable for the child.
“And wot do you plan to do today?” he asked, leaning on the back of a chair and watching her genially as she ate with gusto.
“Work,” she answered, with her cheek bulging.
“Wot at, may I ask?”
“Schooling the ponies.”
“You’re getting them ready for the show, eh?”
“Yes.”
“That grey one is a ’andful for you.”
“Ha, ha!” She laughed joyously. “I’m not afraid.”
“You’re wot I calls a well-plucked ’un.”
“Oh!”
“
And
, w’en you’re older, an overdose of sex appeal, or I miss my guess.”
“Ha! ha! ha!”
“And you’ve beauty, you knaow — of a kind. Though not the film type — which, I may say, appeals most to me.”
“Ha! ha! ha! ha!”
“Come now, you mustn’t laugh so. You’ll choke. Besides, there’s nothing to laugh at. I’m tryin’ to ’ave a serious conversation with you.”
“No you’re not. You’re funny. I like fun.”
“You’ve never said a truer word than that. I never saw anyone that likes it better. ’Ave some more marmalade?”
“No. Lift me down.”
“Please!” he admonished.
“Please.”
“Wot abaht your grice?”
Docilely she bent her head, folded her hands, and murmured:
“For what we have received may the Lord make us truly thankful, For Christ’s sake, Amen.”
He lifted her down, wiped her mouth, and took off her bib.
“A ’appy day to you!” he said. “And mind you doan’t fall and break your neck.”
She stood in the doorway in her baggy breeches and baize green jersey and waved her hand to him.
When she was gone he looked up at the portrait of her great-grandmother that hung over the sideboard. “A chip,” he said, “off the old block, if ever there was one.”
Outdoors the air was so crisp, so brilliant, that Adeline scarcely knew what to do with herself. She could not remember a morning that looked like this, so frosty in the shadow, so bright in the sun, so strange, so wild. Under the old pear tree on the lawn a few brown pears lay on the cold grass. Glossy cones lay under the evergreens. Adeline began to run in circles.
Faster and faster she ran, her eyes bright like a wild thing’s, her heart going like a little engine. She ran till she fell and lay with the world going round and round with her. She was the very heart and centre of the world. She could make it whirl round and round. When she took a tumble the sky bent over her in surprise. All the frosty little marigolds in the border were staring. She snuffed their pungent scent. The smell of the ponies came from her jersey. She screamed for joy.
She rolled over and over on the grass, screaming. She flung her arms and legs about.
Old Merlin who sometimes now allowed Renny and Floss to go off without him, was disturbed from his dream in the sunny porch. He came across the lawn and licked the back of her neck as she lay face downward. She rolled over and looked up into his blind eyes. He beamed down at her, his tongue dangling, ready to give her another lick. How she loved him!
To show it she clutched handfuls of the wavy hair on his neck and pulled down his head. She laughed up at him, thrusting out her under jaw and making little savage endearing noises. She kicked him on the underside while she pulled his coat with all her might.
Suddenly he gave a yelp of pain and jerked himself away from her. He went and sat down on the steps looking offended. Then he lifted up a front leg and licked himself underneath.
She lay on her stomach, her dimpled elbows in the grass, staring at him, an amused smile flashing over her face. She began to pluck handfuls of grass and put them on top of her head. The tiny spears fell over her face in a shower and tickled her neck. She got up and began to trudge toward the stables, putting a pear in her pocket on the way.
She stuck out her lips and exclaimed — “You would, would you?” — to nothing in particular, and slapped her own thigh. Doing this she discovered that she was on a pony and began to gallop at top speed.
She discovered that her breeches were slipping down and she hitched them up and held them. Standing so she moved aside to let the new stableboy Wilf pass through the door leading a horse. Seeing her the horse swerved and knocked his hip on the doorpost. He reared.
Adeline glared at the boy. “Why don’t you walk backwards, silly?” she said.
Wilf looked confused and Wright, appearing at the door, grinned. “Right you are, miss,” he said. “I never knew a clumsier boy.”
Adeline looked critically at the horse and then went toward her father’s office.
“Are you coming to help with the ponies?” called Wright, grinning at the back view he had of her.
“You bet!” returned Adeline.
At the door of the office she gave her breeches another hitch and knocked with the side of her fist.
“Hello!” said Renny. “Who’s there?”
She made her face into the very emblem of sweetness and showed it inside the door. He said:
“I’m doing accounts. You’ll have to keep still.”
“I don’t mind,” she returned, and sidled into the room. She liked it better than any of the rooms in the house.
Its yellow oak desk, littered with ofttimes not too clean papers, with the swivel chair where Renny sat, the shiny lithographs of racing horses on the walls, the ugly stove with which it was heated in winter, were to Adeline admirable objects, unchangeably connected with the being she loved best.
Floss came to meet her and she stroked her carefully.
“That’s right,” said Renny, with an approving glance.
“I always stroke them this way,” she said demurely.
He looked at her from under his lashes. “Come and pet me.”
She rushed to him and caught his hand in hers.
“I will kiss your hand,” she said.
She began to kiss it with great tenderness, as though it were something fragile. Then her kisses became more fervent and she pressed her lips hard, first on the back, then on the palm of his hand. She closed his fingers on the last kiss and looked gravely into his face. “I love you, Daddy,” she said.
He hugged her close. “Do you? Now you must be quiet and good while I finish these accounts. Then we’ll get to work.”
She slid on to a chair and took the winter pear from her pocket. It was so hard that she could take only small bites but it had a nice taste and it gave her something to do. She crunched it on her back teeth, staring hard at the spot where she would next bite.
Renny shot her a look. “Don’t chew so loudly. It’s bad manners.”
She returned his look blankly, then swallowed whole what she had in her mouth. She swung her legs against the chair and gazed at the pictures of the horses, saying over their names in her mind.
“Stop kicking the chair leg. I’m adding up figures.”
She desisted and became limp, the nibbled pear cupped wetly in her hand. She gazed at Renny, wondering at the corrugations on his forehead. She scowled, trying to make some on her own, and felt the velvet results with her fingers.
For all her high spirits she was able to keep still longer than most young children. She finished the pear as quietly as she could, wiped her palm on the corduroy velvet of her breeches, then waited patiently, getting colder and colder.
There was a mauve tinge to her cheeks when Renny at last shut the drawer of the desk with a bang and got to his feet. In this low room he looked immensely tall and strong to her. He snatched her up and kissed her.
“Why, look at your breeches! They’re falling off!”
He set her down and did what he could to put her clothes in order. In the stable they met Wright. Renny said — “You should shake hands with Wright, Adeline. He and his wife have a nice little baby.”
Adeline gave Wright her hand. “Many happy returns,” she said.
The men exchanged amused glances.
“I want to see the baby. Is it in the stables?”
“Not yet,” answered Wright. “But you may see it. Could I take her, sir? My missus would be proud to show it.”
“Good. But don’t be long.”
Wright took her hand and they crossed the stable yard and climbed the stairs to Wright’s rooms over the garage. Adeline was filled with excitement and delight when she saw the infant. She had no more than a glance for Mrs. Wright’s chalk-white face on the pillow. She snuggled the baby, hugged it, kissed it, tried to take it from its mother and carry it about.
“No, no,” said Wright. “It’s too young.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A boy.”
“What is its name?”
“It has no name yet.”
“No name!” She was astonished.
“Should you like to name it, Miss?”
“Yes. Call it Jim.”
“Are you willing, Missus?” asked Wright.
“Jim’s a nice name.”
“All right. We’ll call it Jim.”
“I want one like it for my own.”
“You’re too young.”
“Can only grown-up people have them?”
“Yes.”
“Babies are nice but I like colts better?”
“Ah, you’re a character.”
“My mummie has gone away. She’s gone away to get a baby, just like yours. Only smaller, even. About this size.” She held her hands six inches apart.
Wright and his wife exchanged looks, then he led Adeline full of importance to the paddock where Piers was, and Mooey mounted on the grey pony. Piers had just been dunning Renny for the last year’s supply of fodder he had had from the farm. A stableman was setting up low white gates for the schooling.
The grey pony looked beautiful, his coat sleek and a white star on his forehead. He was being schooled for a hunter. Mooey trotted him around a few times on the flat, looking anxiously at his father and uncle.
“Now then!” called out Piers. “Go to it!”
He was dissatisfied with the jumps though they were quite good ones. “The pony did it all by himself. You might as well not have been on him. Buck up, and ride as though you had some guts! Sit farther back!”
Around and over the gates the pony circled, again and again, his bold roving eyes alight for mischief. Mooey was keyed up to master the pony, to take the jumps better, not to be tossed off, as he knew the pony had it in his mind to do. He was thrown but scrambled quickly to his feet, caught the pony and mounted again, turning his face, set in a strained smile, toward Piers.
Adeline appeared from the stable riding Wakefield’s old pony. It was a dark bay with a small neat head and kind eyes. She pressed her knees against it, her lips pouted in pride.
“Look at her!” exclaimed Piers. “Look at her feet and her legs! Just right, by gosh! Look at her hands and her wrists! Adeline, round your wrists just a
bit
more!
She’s
going to make a good one.” He grinned triumphantly at Renny. “
She
won’t be tossed off like a feather pillow!”
“I want to jump!” cried Adeline. She headed her pony straight at one of the gates.
“Look out!” shouted Renny to Wilf, who sprang forward and laid the gate flat.
“Pig!” said Adeline to the boy, as her pony jumped like a grasshopper over nothing. “Dirty pig! I want to jump!” She rolled her eyes accusingly at her father.
“Lay down the pole for her, Wilf,” said Renny.
The boy ran and fetched the white pole over which Adeline was accustomed to practise. She looked on with disfavour and, as it was being put in position, turned her pony’s head toward another of the gates.
Jumping was in the cold autumn air. The old pony did not mind showing what he could do. Adeline made movements with her arms as she had seen Wright do, who believed in lifting his mount over the jumps. She jogged the pony’s mouth and Renny and Piers looked around just in time to see Adeline dive forward toward the pony’s ears as he cleared the gate. He slowed up and she regained her place in the saddle. She gave a shout of triumph as she cantered past the men and straight into Mooey.
The grey pony was startled but not ill-pleased. Here was more mischief! He reared, ducked, bowed, and sent Mooey over his head.
“Good God!” groaned Piers. “The boy is fit only for a rocking horse!”
Renny darted forward and caught the bay pony’s bridle as the grey wheeled, kicked at it, and galloped the length of the paddock.
Mooey gathered himself up, his face muddy, one hand clamping his knee.
“Are you hurt?” asked Renny.
“No,” lied Mooey and threw a furious glance at Adeline.
Patience Vaughan appeared on the pony she was to ride at the Show and the schooling proceeded. The sun pushed back the mist and shone out almost as hot as in summer. The grass of the paddock looked green again and the muddy spots by the jumps glistened. Pony after pony was put through its training.