Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
Curtis Sinclair thought the talk should be changed to a lighter subject, for he feared that his wife was about to burst into tears. He therefore praised the roast duckling. “I must tell you,” he said, “that, shortly before we left Richmond, Mrs. Sinclair paid seventy-five dollars for a turkey.”
There were general comments of amazement, then Adeline cried, “How I should love to see Richmond! The very name captivates me. It’s so romantic, so civilized, while here we are in the wilds.”
“But you have everything,” said Lucy Sinclair. “Beautiful furniture, exquisite linen, superb silver! I cannot tell you how surprised we were to find it so, for we had pictured log cabins — with Indians and wolves prowling about.”
The Whiteoaks were uncertain whether to be pleased or not. Philip said, “You’d have to go far North or West to find such conditions.”
Lucius Madigan remarked, from the far end of the table where he sat with his three pupils:
“If you want to see wildness, Mrs. Sinclair, you should go to Ireland.”
“We have many soldiers of Irish antecedents in our Carolinian army,” she said, “and they are the best fighters of all.”
“My grandfather, the Marquis of Killiekeggan,” said Adeline, “was a great fighter. In his day he fought seven duels.”
“A
Marquis
,” Lucy Sinclair breathed, wide-eyed. “Did you say your grandfather was a Marquis?”
“Indeed he was,” said Adeline, “and a hard drinker, even for an Irish Marquis.”
Nicholas spoke up. “It’s a wonder that Mamma hadn’t told you already about her grandfather, the Marquis. Usually she tells about him at the start.”
Adeline might well have been angry. On the contrary she looked pleased and joined in the laughter.
Little Ernest felt that he had been long enough in obscurity and now remarked in his treble voice, “Before our visitors came we ate dinner at noon and supper at night. Why?”
“Because it’s more stylish, silly,” said Nicholas.
Adeline threw her sons a baleful glance. “Any more insolence from you two,” she said, “and you leave the table.”
Philip remarked tranquilly, “At Jalna we lead the life of country people. In fact, it is necessary in this strenuous part of the world.”
Madigan appeared to be cherishing a secret joke. He shook with silent laughter, but no one paid any attention to him. Admiral Lacey told stories of the early days of his settling in Canada. He never tired of these reminiscences or of the sound of his own voice. Though he was strongly on the side of the South in the American Civil War he was of the opinion that they were managing their campaign badly and Curtis Sinclair agreed with him.
After dessert the three ladies and Augusta went to the drawing-room. The tutor and the two boys disappeared into the moonlit darkness of the lawn. The men left at table filled their glasses with port. Philip Whiteoak remarked, “I admire the restraint you show, Mr. Sinclair. I’m doubtful of my ability to hang on to myself as you do.”
“It would be impossible to me,” said Admiral Lacey. “I’d be furiously trying to do something about it.”
“You mean,” said Sinclair, “that you would not leave your country to its fate and escape to a foreign one.”
The Admiral was a little embarrassed.
“You know your limitations, sir,” he said with a glance at Curtis Sinclair’s hump, “better than I do.”
The Southerner’s beautiful hand fingered the crystal stem of his wine glass.
“We of the South,” said Sinclair, “have much to avenge. It’s not enough to burn your house and leave your plantation a scorched ruin, as some are doing. There are those among us who want something more active than the mere destruction of our own property.” He paused and looked enquiringly into the faces of the other two.
“You can be sure of our sympathy in anything you do,” said Philip Whiteoak.
“With the exception of joining the Confederate army” — the Admiral spoke fiercely and drained his glass — “I will do anything I can to co-operate. But I am a poor man. I cannot give money.”
“We are not without funds,” said the Southerner haughtily.
He went on: “Last spring an officer of the Union army — a Colonel Dahigren — was killed in action. Our men found on his body an order from headquarters to sack and burn Richmond. We have not forgiven that, and never shall.”
“Dastardly,” declared Admiral Lacey. “As bad as Cromwell’s Ironsides.”
“Even worse,” said Philip. “Now what do you plan to do?”
However, Curtis Sinclair retreated. He tapped nervously on the table with his fingers. He said, in a low voice, “It would take me some time to explain just what are our plans and I’m sure Mrs. Whiteoak will be expecting us in the drawing-room.” It could be seen that, at the moment, he had nothing more to say. Shortly the three men joined the ladies.
It was noticeable to Philip Whiteoak that the atmosphere in that room was not of the happiest. Lucy Sinclair was sitting on a blue satin settee, the flounces of her Paris gown spread gracefully about her, the tip of one tiny slippered foot just showing. She was exclaiming on the beauty of some little ivory elephants from India, which Adeline had taken from a cabinet to show her. But Mrs. Lacey sat aloof, looking askance at the other two. Her husband, without a glance at her, went straight to Lucy Sinclair’s side. Curtis Sinclair joined Adeline by the cabinet. Philip sat down beside Mrs. Lacey.
“Is it possible,” she asked, in a tense whisper, “that all Southern women behave as flirtatiously?”
“Sh,” he whispered back, “she will hear you.”
“What are you two whispering about?” cried Mrs. Sinclair. “Not about me and the dear Admiral, I hope.”
“I was thinking,” said Mrs. Lacey, “that after all you say you have been through, I should expect you to be a little subdued.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Sinclair, “if you had known me before, you would see a great difference in me. But it’s my nature to be gay, and when I’m in such good company —”
There was a welcome interruption here, as the tutor and the three children came into the room through one of the French windows that opened on the terrace. The gentle summer breeze moved the curtains, and those inside the room could feel the pine-scented darkness of the night, barely lit by a few distant stars and a young moon rising above the ravine. A whippoorwill was repeating, with mournful ecstasy, his three insistent notes.
“Ernest,” cried his mother, “you should be in your bed.”
“I have come to say goodnight.” The little boy spoke with polite self-possession and went to her.
She opened her arms wide, exclaiming, “Come and kiss me quick then and be off with you.” She spoke in consciously Irish accents and made a consciously dramatic picture with her child, as though protecting him from all the dangers of this world.
“What lovely children!” Lucy Sinclair remarked to Admiral Lacey. “How I envy the parents! It’s a sorrow to my husband and me that we have no children. How I could have loved a daughter!”
“I have two girls,” the Admiral said proudly, “and one son. He is in the Royal Navy.”
Adeline gave Ernest a resounding kiss. “Now,” she said, “say your goodnights to all the company.”
Nothing reluctant, Ernest embraced and kissed each one in turn. He wished he might stay a little longer in the drawing-room in the light of the chandelier. When he put his arms about Lucy, he said, “I can recite ‘Bingen on the Rhine.’”
She smelled his sweet child’s breath. She pressed him to her and said, “Will you recite it for me? I adore recitations.” Mrs. Lacey, seeing the embrace, thought, “She pursues even little boys.”
Ernest asked, “May I recite, Mamma?”
“You may,” she answered grandly, “if you don’t disgrace yourself by forgetting the words.”
“I’ll not forget,” he promised with confidence. He moved to a position where he faced the company. He began, in his treble tones:
A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;
There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was lack of woman’s tears.
But a comrade was beside him, as his life-blood ebbed away,
And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say.
And so on to the end without one mistake.
At the burst of applause, Ernest blushed and ran to sit by his mother.
“Who, in this part of the world, taught him to recite with such feeling and such distinctness?” asked Lucy Sinclair.
“Our rector’s wife,” said Adeline, “is very clever. She teaches them to recite and to play the piano.”
“The piano,” exclaimed Lucy. “Which of them plays the piano?”
It could be seen that Nicholas was the one. His downcast eyes, the pout of his lips, showed his embarrassment.
“Come now,” urged Adeline, “play that pretty piece of Schubert’s.”
“No, Mamma” — he shook his head — “I can’t.”
“Why, you played it only the other day for my girls and me,” cried Mrs. Lacey.
“That was different.”
“Go to the piano at once, sir,” commanded his father.
Nicholas rose and, with a hangdog air, sat down at the instrument. Without too many mistakes he played the piece through.
“What spirit — what finish!” exclaimed Lucy Sinclair.
“My wife should know,” said her husband, “for she studied music in Europe.”
“She must play for us,” said Adeline.
“If there is one thing above another that I enjoy, it’s a musical evening,” declared the Admiral, who scarcely knew one tune from another.
“What I enjoy,” said Mrs. Lacey, “are recitations.”
“Ah, you should hear my daughter recite,” Adeline said.
Nicholas had been well applauded for his performance and now returned to his tutor’s side where he sat silent on a sofa just inside the door.
“Gussie,” said Captain Whiteoak, “stand up and recite ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’”
Unsmilingly and with girlish dignity Augusta rose and went to a suitable spot, not too near her audience, for her voice must be raised. In spite of her youth she was impressive, her sallow face intense, her black hair hanging in ordered ringlets to her waist. When she spoke the words “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,” she slightly waved her right hand and gazed into space, “Into the jaws of death rode the Six Hundred ...”
It was more than Lucy Sinclair could bear. She burst into tears. As he witnessed her emotion the Admiral’s eyes also filled with tears. Adeline put an arm about Lucy and patted her back. Lucy sobbed:
“It was noble and heroic. You recited it beautifully, Gussie.”
“I always want to cry when I hear that piece,” said Adeline, “but it is hard for me to shed tears.”
Lucius Madigan’s voice, as though talking to himself, came from where he sat. “I can’t understand,” he said, “why such a tragic mistake should be celebrated. It is best forgotten.”
“What would you have done if you’d been given that order?” asked Nicholas of the tutor.
“Run the other way as fast as I could,” he answered without hesitation.
As he was an Irishman, this was considered to be funny. Everyone, with the exception of Lucy, laughed. She was wiping her eyes. Mrs. Lacey regarded her without sympathy. What right had she, an American, to work herself up over the Charge of the Light Brigade!
“I wish,” said little Ernest, “that Mr. Madigan would sing one of his Irish songs.”
“Ah, yes, do.” Adeline spoke with rich emotion. “Though it breaks my heart to hear them.” Always she spoke as though her poor torn heart were in Ireland, but in reality she had been glad to leave that country. Though she loved her family, she couldn’t get on with her father. “Mrs. Sinclair will play your accompaniment, I’m sure. She plays so beautifully. Her fingers ripple over the keys like a brook over its pebbles.”
Soon Madigan’s cool Irish tenor voice charmed all in his rendering of “The Last Rose of Summer.”
N
IGHT
When the guests had gone Philip Whiteoak and Curtis Sinclair went out into the velvet darkness of the summer night, for there was now no moon. They paced up and down in front of the house talking, talking. The door stood open and the lamplight from the hall fell on the figures of the two men when they passed. They were in striking contrast. Both were bareheaded and Philip Whiteoak was a head taller than the other. His fresh complexion, his bold handsome features, broad shoulders and flat back, his look of being accustomed to command, would make many another man wish he might be in Philip’s shoes. He restrained his stride to suit the awkward walk of the southerner. Yet, in spite of the hump on his back, Sinclair was a figure of dignity. An arresting figure. A face subtle and sensitive.
When at last they turned into the house the Southerner held out his hand. “Goodnight, Captain Whiteoak,” he said, “and thank you. I hope I shall do nothing to make you regret your kindness.” They shook hands with warmth and Philip went straight to his own room.
He expected to find Adeline asleep but the moment he tiptoed into the room she sat up in bed. The candle nightlight on a table by the head of the bed barely revealed his stalwart figure.
“Whatever have you been up to?” she demanded. “What were you two men talking about?”
“Go to sleep.” He spoke peremptorily.
“I will not go to sleep. I must know what all this talk is about.”
“Why?” He came to her side.
“Because,” she cried, “I am a woman and cannot rest till I know.”
“Behave yourself and go to sleep,” he said.
She caught his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I’m burning with curiosity,” she declared.
He gave her cheek a playful pinch.
“Good God,” she cried, “can’t you recognize that I am a woman of character, able to take part in any scheme that’s afoot?”
Her parrot, roused by her raised voice, uttered loud protests in Hindustani, opened his beak, and showed his dark tongue.
“What possessed me to marry an Irishwoman I can’t fathom,” Philip said, and sat down on the bed beside her.
However, he was so full of Curtis Sinclair’s plan that he could not restrain himself from imparting some of it to her. In fact it would be necessary for her to know. She was not an ordinary female to be put off with a few half-truths. She was a person to be reckoned with. Sometimes he almost wished she were of weaker fibre but, looking into her luminous eyes that had nothing wistful in them, seeing her proud and forward-looking profile, he could not wish her to be different. The snowy frill of her nightdress came up to her chin. He put his finger under her chin and remarked, “Well, here goes.”
“Yes?” she breathed eagerly.
“Curtis Sinclair,” he said, “is one of the organizers of an underground group — agents of the Southern Confederacy. They are being sent to Canada by President Jefferson Davis.” Philip hesitated. He fingered his cravat. “I doubt if I should be telling you this, Adeline,” he said.
“In any case, I’d get it out of Lucy,” she retorted.
He went on, looking suddenly very serious, “These men are to conduct raids across the border with the object of destroying Northern shipping on the Great Lakes.”
Adeline threw herself back on her plump down pillows, her body quivering with excitement.
“What a glorious revenge!” she cried.
“By Jove,” he said, “you have a wicked grin.”
“I feel wicked when I think of those despicable Yankees.” Suddenly she too became serious. “What part are we to play in this?” she demanded. “For the Sinclairs must expect us to play a part, otherwise he would not have confided in you.”
“Our part is to be a passive one,” said Philip. “It simply is to allow Curtis Sinclair to receive certain members of this underground group under our roof and to give them orders.”
“
I
will receive them.” Again she sat up. “No one shall be able to say that I have not played my part.”
“You have no part in this,” he cried firmly. “All you have to do is to see nothing — say nothing.”
“And all those brave men coming here! Never.”
As she raised her voice, the parrot fluttered down from the head of her bed uttering noises of protest. He alighted at the foot, then walked the length of her body and, when he reached her head, pressed his feathered cheek to hers.
“Dear Boney,” she murmured to him.
In Hindustani, the only language he knew, he muttered terms of endearment to her.
Philip began to undress. He said:
“Put that bird back on his perch. I refuse to get into bed with him.”
Adeline rose and carried Boney to his cage. Through the bars he swore at Philip. “
Haramzada — Iflatoon!
”
Adeline, looking tall in her voluminous nightdress, went to the open window. “The lilac has almost finished its blooming,” she said, “but oh, how heavenly the scent! Come and smell.”
Together they sniffed the scent of the lilac and the sweet air of the virgin countryside. There was no sound other than the faint rustle of the leaves and the splash of the stream in the green depths of the ravine.
Upstairs in the Sinclairs’ room the two Southerners had been discussing, first the evening that lay behind them, then the problems that lay ahead.
Lucy Sinclair exclaimed, “I am quite in love with these Whiteoaks. They are so natural, so spontaneous, and so handsome. Isn’t her colouring exquisite? That auburn hair — that creamy complexion — those eyes! Thank God, I am a woman who can admire other women.”
“Whiteoak is a very nice fellow.” Curtis Sinclair said. “He is quite willing to let me use his house as headquarters. Of course, all will be done secretly. The men will come here only after dark. They will leave as quietly as they come. I think the neighbours will suspect nothing.”
At this moment Lucy Sinclair’s maid came into the room. “Ah’ve come,” she said, “to brush yo’ haar, missus. My goodness, it does need attention.” She wielded the brush as she spoke, as though it were a weapon. Her face shone with benign purpose. When her mistress, wrapped in a satin peignoir, sank into a chair, she set to brushing the long, fair locks with soothing strokes.
“Are you getting on better with the other servants here, Annabelle?” asked Lucy Sinclair. “I hope you are always polite to them.”
“Laws, missus, I’m all smiles when I speaks to them. All but that Irishman, Patsy, for I can’t understand half what he says.” Annabelle doubled up with laughter at the mere thought of Patsy.
Now Cindy, the Negress, entered, her arms full of freshly laundered clothes which she began to lay in bureau drawers, at the same time complaining loudly that she had been unable to get possession of the flatirons before evening. “We’ll all be in rags, missus,” she said, in a mournful voice, “if we don’ git some new clothes purty soon. Jus’ you look at dis here shoe!” She held up a foot for inspection. The sole of her shoe was worn into a hole.
“Have patience,” Lucy Sinclair soothed her. “We shall have new clothes when this horrible war is over. Then we shall go home, I hope.”
The Negress raised her hands to heaven. “Ah pray to God, missus, it will be before winter comes, for they tell me it’s bitter cold here and de snow up to your waist. Us niggers would suttainly die of cold.”
Curtis Sinclair had been standing by the window with his back to the room. When the servants had left, he turned and asked his wife, “Where do those two sleep?”
“In the small bedroom next this,” she said. “And Jerry is tucked away somewhere in the basement.”
“We should not have brought these three slaves with us,” he said. “It’s too much to expect of the Whiteoaks.”
“Surely you would not want me to wait on myself!” There was a hysterical note in her voice. Twice she said this, her voice trembling.
“Of course not,” he answered.
“And you must know that both women are in need of new clothes. Jerry too needs new clothes and shoes. All three are badly off for something new.”
“They may go to the devil,” he said calmly. “I have no money to spend on them.” He took out his watch and began to wind it. She said nothing more.