Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
Adeline embraced Malahide with all her strength. He had leant down to receive her embrace but was not prepared for its primitive onslaught.
“Easy on, old lady,” cautioned Renny. He caught Malahide in time to keep him from toppling over and, at the same moment, gripped his hand. “Thank you,” he said. “We deeply appreciate your doing this. My uncles will love having the portrait.”
Malahide simpered in pleasure. He slipped his hand into Renny’s arm and leant on him as they returned to the drawing room.
Mrs. Court remained in the hall, rubbing the back of the picture. Once she began to clean anything it was hard for her to stop, but the place was large and she was small so, with the best will in the world, she could not keep up with the cobwebs and the dirt.
The next day there was a meeting of the local Hunt. Dermot Court took his two guests with him. He was Master of the Hunt and, though because of his rheumatism he seldom attempted to jump a fence or even lasted beyond the first twenty minutes, he was very popular and exercised a shrewd control over hounds and men. He knew that he should have resigned years ago but he could not bring himself to do it, not only because he shrank from giving up the sport he loved but because his rival who had built a wall with the money which should have been his was panting to be Master.
It was a fair March morning with a sweet tang in the air when Adeline ran down the wide staircase in her riding things. Her hair was in two plaits and she wore a bowler hat well on the back of her head. Dermot Court and Renny were waiting in the hall below. They might have been father and son and, many a time in those days, Dermot wished they were.
He raised Adeline’s hand to his lips.
“Here’s a picture I shall keep with me,” he said. “Have you ever ridden to hounds before, my dear?”
“No, but I’m not afraid.”
“You had better stick by me. I’ll not do anything that will be dangerous for even a little filly like you.”
Adeline nodded brightly but her mind was made up to follow her father.
“That’s good advice,” he said. “Keep near Cousin Dermot.”
He was a little uneasy about her for, though she could stick on a horse better than any child he knew, he was afraid the confusion and jostling might alarm her. As they went toward the dining room he gave her some good advice. She looked up into his eyes obediently but her mind was a wild turmoil.
She could not eat. A lot of people had come for breakfast. They were standing about with large sandwiches and cups of coffee or glasses of cherry brandy in their hands. They were an odd, mixed lot but she had a strange feeling of kinship with them for, in some way she could not have explained, they resembled her own family. She was an object of interest to them and Dermot was proud to show her off. She stood with a plate of potato chips and sausages which she could not eat, before her, talking to a horse-faced lady in a rusty black habit who turned out to be a marchioness, and a square thick-set man who made everybody laugh by saying there was going to be a war.
“You’d better hurry home, little girl,” said the lady, “or you may get caught in it.”
The man added gravely — “That is indeed true, Lady Ryall.”
Now they were in the cobbled yard where the horses were being held, their hoofs moving delicately in their eagerness to be off. The hounds were sunning themselves beside a wall, gentle and indolent-looking, dappled liver and white. Servants were moving about with trays of sandwiches and drinks. The air was a caress. Little birds were singing in the jasmine that covered the wall. A fox terrier ran here and there in a state bordering on lunacy, ignored by the hounds, shouted at by his master. Renny lifted Adeline to her saddle.
Like ladies swaying in a gentle dance the horses moved along the drive between the rows of linden trees. Adeline rode a little chestnut mare, cobby and reliable. She had ridden her but twice yet there was understanding between them. Adeline pressed her legs against the mare’s sides and stroked her mane. Her fingers felt the delicious smoothness of the rein. All her life she had seen pictures of the Hunt. All her life she had heard reminiscences of it. She had been taken to meets in Canada but thought scornfully of them as drag hunts, having no real fox as their reason. Now she was in Ireland, out with an Irish Hunt, her old Cousin Dermot ambling at her side smiling down at her with a protective air. But she wanted no one’s protection. She felt no fear. A fire was kindled inside her. She kept her eyes on her father’s back, determined to be near him. A towheaded twelve-year-old boy was edging closer to her. Now they were out on the road.
She could see the hounds ahead splashing through small puddles, their tails waving as though the breeze blew them. In an orchard a host of daffodils were in bloom. In her nostrils was the scent of polished leather and well-groomed horse. They turned in at a gate where a group of ragged children, some old men, and girls with bicycles stood by to watch them. Now they were on a rise of ground and the countryside spread before them in hills and vales, in the misty green of springtime, threaded by silver streams and dotted by white cottages. The hounds were on the fringe of a wood trotting aimlessly, it seemed, in and out of the gorse. There were boulders on the hillside surrounded by gorse. An old white farm horse ambled close.
Renny looked about for his child, saw her safe with Cousin Dermot, and turned again to his companion, a beautiful young woman in immaculate riding habit with long skirt. Low white clouds moved across the sky. A tawny something moved out of the wood and flashed down the hillside. The horn wound sweetly on the breeze. The hounds raised their voices in wild clamour. The Hunt swept, with flashing pink and streaming tails, after the fox.
“Keep close to me,” shouted Dermot.
Adeline laughed and nodded. Down the hill they swept. The boy was just ahead of her. He laughed at her over his shoulder, daring her. She could see the onlookers running through the mud of the field, keeping up as long as they could. The horses rose over a low wall at the end of the field. Beautifully the little mare jumped. Adeline felt all elastic muscle. She rose in the saddle. She was over the wall. Far ahead she could see the tawny streak enter a spinney. Forty waving tails pursued it. The thud of hoofs made a mystical music on the hillside.
Dermot stretched out a veined brown hand and caught her bridle. The horses relaxed into a walk.
“I promised to take care of you, young woman,” he said. “Don’t you go running away from me.”
Adeline flashed a smile at him. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. She longed above all things to escape from him, to follow her father, to be near the towheaded boy. He approached her.
“Stick close to Granddaddy, baby,” he jeered.
Adeline urged the mare close to his horse and, taking her foot from the stirrup, kicked it on the flank. It jumped aside, almost throwing the boy, who laughed good-humouredly.
“Spitfire!” he said and added — “Begad — they’re on the scent again!”
The sweet clangor rose like threescore bells from the hounds’ throats. Across the field, through a gate opened for them, into a lane muddy and full of holes and, at its end, a five-barred gate. Over the gate Adeline could see the huntsmen rise, hear them gallop away, saw some push through the bushes to find an easier way. Dermot was one of these and he beckoned to her. She pretended not to see. She would go over the gate! She would go over the gate!
Her heart was beating wildly. The joy that was in her seemed a thing apart from her. It sang and shouted like a living thing beside her. She patted the mare’s shoulder. She gathered her close between her legs. She lifted her over the tall gate, the shouting going on inside her, herself and the mare seeming to float in mid-air. They passed two horsemen struggling in a ditch. They galloped on to smooth turf in a wide level stretch. She could see her father ahead and the flapping of his companion’s skirt. Dermot was far behind. The towheaded boy was at her side.
“You’re a little rip!” he exclaimed. “You’re as good as any boy.”
Renny came cantering back to her.
“What did I tell you?” he demanded.
“To stay with Cousin Dermot.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t.”
“You might have broken your neck.”
Her face was radiant. “I did pretty well, didn’t I? Oh, she’s a lovely mare, Daddy!”
For a space the hounds had lost the scent. Now their deep-throated baying sounded from a copse close to a stream. Horses and riders gathered themselves together in a jubilant rush toward the spot. The old fox dashed from the copse, with the pack in full pursuit after him. He ran through the mud at the edge of the stream, clambered over a wall, ran into a yard where a woman was hanging out clothes, hesitated, with his tongue lolling and his eyes starting, to look at her ducks waddling in terror from him. He ran through them. The woman screamed. Now he was through her gate on to the road. Now he had squeezed through an opening in a quick-set hedge to a ploughed field. His eager nostrils caught the scent of another fox. He crossed the scent. Keeping close to the hedge he laboured up the hill toward the rear of the hunt. The baying was confused, less certain, not so close. He stopped to look and to ease his heart. The hounds were running hither and thither, confused by the mingled scents. There was silence except for the quacking of the ducks. Then a bitch sent up a whimper. The hounds, as though weaving a pattern, ran toward her. Then, in full cry on the new scent, they stretched their legs to the utmost and, like a dappled tide, retreated. The huntsman wound his horn. The towheaded boy gave a screech that went through Adeline’s nerves like fire.
“Yoick! Yoick! Yoick!” he screeched, and she joined in.
The old fox trotted leisurely back toward the cottage. He thought he would hide in the nearby copse till the woman went indoors. He was ravenous and the thought of a plump duck made the saliva flow. He settled quietly in the undergrowth and began to lick a cut paw. There was silence except for the comfortable quacking of the ducks.
Going home in the late afternoon, through a fine misty rain, with missel thrushes singing in the hawthorns, Adeline had never been so tired in her life or quite so happy. They had hunted three foxes and not had a kill, but she did not mind. She had had the excitement of the chase and that was what mattered. She was not tenderhearted but something deep inside her was content that the foxes lived. She had had a fall, rolled over and over in the mud and been picked up by the towheaded boy. Renny had not known of the fall till he saw the mud on her back. She had said goodbye to the boy in the shelter of a wall where they had dismounted to take a stone from his horse’s shoe. Or was the stone imaginary? At any rate she did not see it.
“I suppose I’ll never see you again,” said the boy, his towhead bent above his horse’s foot.
“Oh, I’ll be back sometime,” said Adeline laconically.
He set down the hoof. “Will you kiss me goodbye?” he asked.
She looked surprised, then a dimple played in her cheek.
“I warn you,” she said.
“Why?”
“I’m pretty strong. I almost knocked over Cousin Malahide when I kissed him.”
The boy’s grey eyes opened wide. “Did you? How old is he?”
“About seventy.”
“I guess I can stand up to it.”
Adeline dropped the mare’s bridle and advanced on the boy. She threw her two arms about him and squeezed him with all her might. Deliberately she tried to throw him off his balance, but he was firmly planted. Then she kissed him on the mouth. The mare was beginning to crop the grass. The boy looked somewhat ruffled. His mother’s voice came, peremptorily calling: —
“Pat! Wherever is that boy?”
The boy caught the mare’s bridle and helped Adeline to her saddle.
“Gosh,” she exclaimed, “I don’t need any help!”
“You’re going to have mine,” he said grimly. He remounted. Warm colour suffused his cheeks. “Well — so long,” he said. He waved his hand and trotted away.
Now going home through the rain she thought of the boy and wondered if ever she would see him again.
“What was that boy’s other name?” she asked. “Pat was one.”
“Which boy? There were several.”
“The one with the white hair.”
“I’ve no idea. What a nice little mare that is!”
“Oh, she’s a darling! Daddy, I love hunting!”
“Good! So do I.”
“When shall we come back?”
“Next year — for me. I dont know when for you.”
“I expect that when Uncle Nick and Uncle Ernest hear how good I’ve been, they’ll want me to come again.”
“They’ll more probably think this will last you the rest of your life.”
But she was not downcast. She moved in a happy dream. Between the little mare’s pricked ears she watched the unfolding of the winding country road. She put her hand into her pocket and found a packet of ginger biscuits. She munched these as she rode.
Before dinner she had a hot bath. She was to be allowed to dine with the two men. The servant who had helped her dress stared at her in admiration.
“Ach,” she exclaimed, “it’s lovely you are! With thim eyes and thim curls, that look all alive. I wish your dadda would leave you with us.”
Adeline answered seriously — “Thank you, Kathleen, but I live in the best place in the world. I’ll always want to go back there.”
She ran lightly down the wide staircase. She found herself alone in the drawing room. A chandelier burned softly overhead and by its light she saw the portrait of her great-grandmother standing on the table.
It was lovely to think that the portrait was hers. She had a good look at it and then went to look at herself in a mirror. It had a wooden frame carved in a design of lilies and dimly gilded. She was wearing a little green velvet frock with rounded neck and short sleeves. The mirror seemed to reach out to her, to clasp her to it, in its gladness at her child beauty, after years of reflecting an old man and his friends. Not satisfied with reflecting her truly, it heightened her beauty, deepening the burnish of her hair, adding to the lustre of her skin and the depth of her eyes which were the colour of a beechwood in autumn.