Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“Oh, yes. My great-uncles can’t bear the slightest draught. My uncle Ernest knows when the thermometer falls one degree below seventy-five. He just
knows
. He feels it all through him.” She looked proudly about the little circle. “And my great-uncle Nicholas is a wonderful old man. He can play the piano though he’s ninety-six. Not new pieces, of course, just bits of the ones he learned long ago. We’re hoping they’ll live to be a hundred like my great-grandmother did.” Fitzturgis led her on to talk of Jalna, of horses and riding. He sat watching her face, now happily animated, now serious, one elbow on an arm of his chair, his hand shielding the telltale lips that could not hide his longing for her. The mild firelight played over the features of the group — the man, his mother, his sister, and the girl he loved, drawing them into a pensive intimacy, as though they had known each other for years.
When it was time to prepare the dinner Mrs. Fitzturgis rose with dignity. “I do all my own cooking, Miss Whiteoak,” she said, “and since you have asked me to call you by your Christian name, I will, though I don’t approve of using Christian names too early in acquaintance, but you are so young and so friendly that I’d like to call you Adeline — you pronounce it
Adeleen
, don’t you? — as I say I do all my own work with the exception of what little my son can do to help, for he is busy all the day with his farm — well, not exactly
busy
all the day because I often think he’s inclined to indolence like his poor father was, though when his father became really interested in anything, I’ve never known anyone who could be more absorbed, unless it is my son. As I say I shall go now and prepare the dinner. Fortunately I have a chicken stewing — well, not exactly a chicken, for to tell the truth it isn’t very young but it’s been simmering so long that I’m sure it will be tender, though perhaps not so actually
tender
, as possibly eatable. Mike, the man who works for my son, always peels the potatoes for me, for the sake of my hands, no — frankly for
my
sake, he’s so very obliging, and I don’t allow Sylvia to do anything with a knife, she’s so nervous. So, if you will come and give me a hand, Maitland, we’ll soon have dinner ready, though it can scarcely be dignified by the name of dinner as there are only two simple courses and one of them uncertain to say the least of it.” Mrs. Fitzturgis smiled jauntily at Adeline, the firelight gleaming on her earrings.
Adeline thought, — “She smiles but her eyes look as though she’d cried a lot.” She said, — “Please let me help. I’d love to.” She feared to be left alone with Sylvia, who, as though aware of this, said, in her cool musical voice, — “Yes, do let her help you, Mother. I’m in no mood to be companionable.” As though to settle it she picked up a book from the sofa and buried her nose in it.
This unexpected pleasure of helping to prepare the meal in the old-world kitchen with Fitzturgis by her side, touching her, as they passed, recklessly snatching a kiss from her, for in this moment he ceased to restrain his love, filled her with a wild exhilaration. Her mood affected Mrs. Fitzturgis, making her happy, and all three were for the time like people with no troubles.
Adeline kept her mind from the thought of tomorrow. Her gaiety affected them all. Even Sylvia laughed outright at some nonsense passing between the lovers at table. At the sound of her daughter’s laughter Mrs. Fitzturgis sprang up, ran round the table to Sylvia’s side and embraced her, then returned to her seat smiling, with tears in her eyes.
“Oh, how happy you’ve made us!” she exclaimed. She gave Adeline and Fitzturgis no opportunity to be alone together. This was not from any desire to separate them but because she herself so enjoyed the girl’s company, was so eager to pour out the trivialities of her pent-up talk, so anxious that she should enjoy her dinner, so determined that she should be comfortable in her bedroom. Adeline had hoped that mother and daughter might go early to bed, leaving her and Maitland to sit together by the fire. All through the evening she pictured the two of them sitting together by the fire.
But that was not to be. Mrs. Fitzturgis all but put her to bed. She brought a nightdress of Sylvia’s for her and a little crocheted jacket of wool to wear over it because of the chill of the bedroom. The bedroom, thought Adeline, left alone in it, felt as though it had not been occupied in a lifetime. Everything she touched had a clammy chill on it. Outside the rain still whipped the heavy foliage of the rhododendrons … She heard the clock in the passage give a rattling wheeze, as though this were its last effort, then sound the strokes of twelve. She fell asleep.
Though she did not hear it the clock had just struck one when she was woken by the sound of voices. They were raised as though in anger. Adeline sat up alert and shivering in apprehension. She heard Sylvia say:
“Let me go! I tell you I will go! Neither you nor anyone else can stop me.”
Then came the voice of Fitzturgis but she could not tell what he said. Sylvia’s voice was raised still more fiercely.
“You can’t stop me! I’ve got to go outdoors.”
There was the sound of a scuffle and a thud on the bedroom door. A girl less impulsive or of a more timid nature would have covered her head with the bedclothes in fear, but Adeline sprang out of bed and threw open the door, standing there in her nightdress staring with startled eyes at the brother and sister.
They stood, locked in each other’s arms, like two wrestlers.
Fitzturgis was facing her. He tried to smile reassuringly He said, — “Don’t be frightened. Sylvia is feeling nervous. That’s all.” He released his sister and she wheeled and faced Adeline. She wore a loose coat over her nightclothes but her feet were bare. Her face was pale and distorted by emotion. She raised her hands in a beseeching gesture toward Adeline.
“Make him let me go,” she said. “You can understand that I must be out of this house … out in the open … in the rain. You love Mait. I can see that. Make him let me go or — I swear I’ll do something desperate.”
“Come, come, Sylvia.” Fitzturgis took her gently by the arm but she violently tore herself away.
“Will you tell me,” asked Adeline, trying to think what Renny would have done at such a time, “why you want to go out? It’s an awful night, you know. You’d get as wet as a rat.”
“what should I care!” Sylvia cried wildly. “It’s what I’d like. I’m suffocating in the house.”
“I guess you’d a bad dream,” said Adeline quietly, though she felt her heart beating uncomfortably in her throat.
“Yes, that’s what I woke from.” Sylvia passed her hand across her forehead and Adeline could see the beads of sweat there. “A terrible dream. My baby — my poor little baby — was in bed with me. It was living and it was feeling for my breast — the way a baby would — but my heart was breaking and I knew the milk in my breast had turned to blood. Then the window opened — not the door, mind you, but the window — and Dick, my husband, crawled in over the sill. He said, — ‘I’ve come for the baby — all the way through this storm’ — and I said — ‘You can’t take it out. It will kill it!’ And he laughed, as though it was a huge joke, and said, — ‘
Kill
it! why, it’s dead as a doornail already.’ And I felt for the baby and it was an ice-cold nail — driven into my heart!”
“That’s the way she goes on,” said Fitzturgis, quietly, as though deadly tired.
Sylvia laid her forearm against the wall and hid her face on it. She was shaking as though from cold.
“Go back to bed, like a good girl,” said Fitzturgis.
“No!”
“But you must.” He spoke authoritatively. “You know very well that I shall not let you go out.”
Adeline laid a firm, comforting hand on the shaking shoulder. She said, — “Will you let me go with you to your room — for company I mean? We could talk.”
Sylvia raised her face, her blue eyes wet with tears. She gave Adeline a penetrating look, then, — “Yes,” she breathed.
They went into Sylvia’s room together. Fitzturgis stood hesitating in the doorway, anxious for Adeline.
“May I speak to you for a moment?” he asked.
His sister broke in, — “To talk about me! That’s what you want.”
“Nonsense. It’s something — just between us.”
“All right. Talk then.” Sylvia sank to her bed as though exhausted.
Adeline followed him into the passage. “I think she’ll be quiet now,” he said, in a muffled voice, “but it’s a shame you should lose your sleep like this. I hope you weren’t too badly frightened.”
“Oh, no.”
“I shall leave the light on, in the passage, and when she’s quiet you will go back to your room. If you have any trouble … well, I shall be listening.”
She smiled rather wanly at him. She was so tired she wanted terribly to yawn. All emotion had left her.
“You must be sorry you looked me up,” he said.
Still with the pale smile on her face she said, — “No. How could I be sorry … except for you?”
She went back into Sylvia’s room, closing the door behind her. Sylvia had thrown her coat over a chair and got into bed.
“Shall I put out the light?” asked Adeline.
“Yes. I don’t mind the dark, now that you’re here.”
Adeline felt her way to the bed and crept in beside Sylvia. She put her arm about her. How thin that body was, compared with the firm, rounded slenderness of her own!
“Talk to me,” Sylvia said, “talk steadily. Tell me about your horses and dogs and your old uncles. Anything you can think of. Only talk. It’s the silence that’s so horrible.”
Adeline held her firmly. She told her of the foal that had been dropped the very day she had left for New York, of its markings, of its sire’s pedigree, of the prizes its dam had won. Purposely she went into details of the achievements of all the horses she could remember. When that came to an end she told her of Mr. Clapperton and the threat of his bungalows, of Tom Raikes and the name he was getting for drinking and car-smashing and generally cheating his employer. On and on she talked, till her voice grew husky, but if she stopped, Sylvia would say, like an insatiable child, — “Tell me more.”
The image of everyone at Jalna was, in turn, conjured up and an oddly frank biography of them related, but when, at last, she reached the “cute” sayings of baby Mary, Sylvia said, — “Go on, tell me more.”
Now Adeline turned to Maurice and Finch. She told how Maurice had come to live with Cousin Dermot when he was a small boy, of his life with the old man and of how he had inherited his property. Within ten minutes she had exhausted the adventures and possibilities of Maurice’s life. But Sylvia still said, “Tell me more.”
Finch only was left. Adeline, with a supreme effort, tore from her memory all she knew about Finch. She was glad she had saved him till the last, for Sylvia showed a new sort of interest. She no longer just listened but asked questions, made comments, was in arms on Finch’s side. Adeline remembered little of Sarah, Finch’s wife, but she ruthlessly repeated all she could recall of what she had heard Renny, Piers and the great-uncles say of her. And, listening to this recital, Sylvia forgot about herself and her being expanded toward the life of another. Her limbs relaxed, her body, beneath Adeline’s arm, rose and fell in regular breathing. At last she slept … Now there was only one thing left for Adeline to do — to say her prayers. These she mumbled in a husky whisper, even thanked God that she had been able to keep awake, and had scarcely said Amen when oblivion came to her also.
WORDS WITH MAURICE
It was nine o’clock when Adeline woke to find Sylvia dressing in the room and glittering after-storm sunshine pouring in at the window. For a moment she was confused. Where was she and who was the slim white-skinned girl with the curling fair hair and large blue eyes? Sylvia smiled at her.
“Have a good night?” she asked, as if that sort of night were nothing out of the ordinary.
“Oh, yes,” Adeline answered, remembering all. “Is it late?”
“Not really late but later than I have slept for a long while. It’s a lovely morning.”
Adeline stretched, luxuriating in comfort, then suddenly remembered the meeting with Maurice, and drew up her knees and pulled the bedclothes over her head.
“what’s the matter?” asked Sylvia.
“My cousin.” Her voice came muffled. “He is coming for me and he’ll be furious with me.”
“why?”
“I shouldn’t have brought his car here — I mean so far — without telling him. Of course, it’s not actually the car he’s angry about. It’s me.”
“I see. Has he a temper?”
“I — really don’t know.”
Sylvia laughed. “Well, it’ll be fun to find out.”
Adeline sat up on the side of the bed. “I hope so but I doubt it.”
“You seem afraid of him.”
“Oh, I can look after myself.” She sprang up and began to dress.
This morning she found nothing strange about Sylvia. Perhaps, — she thought, with a certain self-congratulation, — she had done her good. Or perhaps her malady came only in spells. Whatever the truth, never did she want to face another such night as the last. Like a healthy young animal she pushed the thought of it away from her. Her thoughts also turned away from the meeting with Maurice. Their focus was the man to whom her first love had turned.
“what hair you have,” she heard Sylvia say, “and what eyes! I didn’t realize last night what a beauty you are.”
“I’ve been thinking the same about you.”
“Oh,
me!
” Sylvia gave a contemptuous shrug. “I’ve lost any looks I had.”
“I admire you very much,” said Adeline, and added reflectively, “you look very much like your brother.”
“Oh,
him!
” exclaimed Sylvia, in the same tone in which she had said, — “ Oh,
me!
”
“what’s the matter with him?” Adeline demanded hotly.
“He’s just a lazy Irishman,” Sylvia said emphatically. “He’d rather go fishing or sit talking in Tim Rafferty’s cabin than get down to real work. He does a little farming. What does it amount to? He had a future ahead of him. Now he has none. My mother and I could get on without him but he won’t let us try.” Her face grew tense. She took up a lipstick and applied it with trembling hand to her pale mouth.
“I don’t think he’s lazy.” Adeline spoke with equal heat. “Perhaps your mother persuaded him to stay.”
“I suppose you’re thinking of last night. But I can tell you his being here only unnerves me the more. I was far better when he was in America. No — I am just his excuse for staying at home.”
No use in arguing with her, thought Adeline, better go into the bathroom and stay there for a little. She did and, when she returned, began to talk of something else. Soon they went down to breakfast. Fitzturgis had already eaten his and gone out. The disappointment of discovering this made it difficult for Adeline to show a cheerfulness equal to that of Mrs. Fitzturgis. She apparently had slept well and all through the meal she talked with animation if not always with clarity. She wore a different pair of earrings, more suitable for the morning, but though they were not so long, they still were long enough to play in lively fashion about the lobes of her ears. The bacon and eggs, in spite of all, tasted good to Adeline.
The round white clouds hung motionless above the shining world their predecessors had created. Tulips lay with their heads on the wet earth. Rhododendrons had cast down half their flowers. But the fuchsias looked none the worse for the storm, and the wallflowers springing from crevices in the stone wall gave out a delicious scent. “A heavenly morning,” thought Adeline, standing alone in front of the house, “and what a pity I can’t enjoy it, because of the things I have hanging over me.”
Fitzturgis came round the side of the house. Seeing her, he took three strides and was at her side.
“Let us go where we can be alone,” he said, after no more than a terse “Good morning.”
“where?”
He led the way through the shrubbery into a grove of gnarled old trees, their trunks rising out of the long grass, their boughs drooping down to it. Drenched bluebells grew thickly here and the curling fronds of bracken pushed upward through the grass.
“You’re going to get your feet soaking wet,” he said ruefully.
“It doesn’t matter.” She smiled at him, happy that this moment was granted to them.
He did not smile in return but took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Oh, Adeline,” he said, “you see how it is with me. You see why I have no right —”
“I don’t care,” she interrupted. “I love you and I’m not afraid to say so.”
“But you mustn’t. I’m not in a position …”
“This can’t go on forever. Your sister will get better.”
“I doubt it,” he said bitterly. “Sometimes I think a tragedy hangs over us.”
“Oh, no, don’t say that!” she cried, frightened. “Sylvia slept quietly all night.”
“what a trump you were to stay with her! We must seem a strange family to you.”
“Not strange. Just suffering because of the war.” They were silent for a space, then she asked, — “Do you want us to be engaged, Mait?”
He gave a short laugh. “what a question! It seems to me that I’ve shown you that it is the one thing on earth that I do want.”
“You’ve never asked me,” she said boldly. “And if you did ask me I’d say yes.”
“Adeline,” he was in an anguish of exasperation, “you torture me. You’re not too young to understand that a man must have a certain freedom if he’s to marry.”
“I didn’t say marry! I said be engaged. I don’t want to marry — not yet.”
“I have no right to ask you to be engaged. What would your parents say if you went home and told them you were engaged to a penniless Irishman with a mother and an invalid sister to support?”
She gave a mischievous smile. “I could add to that what your sister says of you.”
“what?”
“That you’re lazy.”
He flushed. “She said that, did she?”
“what she really said was that you’re not needed here — that she and your mother would be all right by themselves.”
“Oh, she’s accused me of being lazy before this,” he said bitterly. “It’s nothing new. And perhaps I am. I hadn’t much ambition left when you came on the scene. But I can tell you there’s nothing I so much want now as to work and —” he halted, his face became downcast.
“Be engaged!” she prompted, with animation.
“Oh, my darling,” he said, “if only I could!”
“All you have to do is to ask me.” She smiled in invitation of a contract.
“I
will not
ask you,” he returned, almost harshly. “Enough has been said against me. I refuse to have it said that I engaged myself to a young girl whom I have no prospect of marrying.”
“Do you really believe there is no prospect?”
“You saw what my sister was like last night?”
“when you were in New York she and your mother managed somehow to —”
He interrupted. “when I came back my mother was exhausted. In all that three weeks she had not had a proper night’s rest. They both were at breaking point. Sylvia may say what she will of me but she leans on me with all her might. If I’m not here — well, no one knows what might happen. If I hadn’t been here last night she’d have gone out into the storm. Mother can’t stop her. It’s best for Mother to keep out of the way.”
“I was pretty good with Sylvia, wasn’t I, Mait?”
“You were splendid. Better than I.”
“Well, then,” the words poured eagerly from her, “why couldn’t I come and stay for a bit? I’d give her something different to think about. I’m so sorry for her. I — I like her. It would be for her own sake I want to help her — as well as — oh, don’t you think I could? why — I might even cure her. What do you think of that for an idea, Mait?”
“It cannot be,” he said stubbornly.
“what is the matter with you?” she cried suddenly angry. “Here I make a perfectly sound suggestion and you only turn it down, as though I were —”
“You are a darling,” he said gently, “and I love you with all my heart, but we cannot have people saying —”
“what people?”
“Your people.”
“Saying what?”
“That I took an unfair advantage of your generosity — that I tried to trap you.”
“They couldn’t say that. I wouldn’t let them.”
“You’re very brave,” he said, “and very young. You cannot stop people from saying or doing things. You’ll find that out.”
“Well, I can do what I — know is right.”
“It is not right and it can’t be thought of.”
“You mean that you don’t
want
me to?” Her quick colour rose. “You don’t
want
me to come here and help to nurse Sylvia and make her better?”
He demanded abruptly, — “Would you like to live here for years as a sort of nurse to Sylvia?”
“It might happen quite soon. Her getting better, I mean.”
“It may never happen. Think what you’d be giving up. All the life you love.”
“You’d be here.”
“My darling, you’d hate me — hate all three of us — before six months had passed.” He broke a tough twig from the tree beneath which they stood and sniffed it as though it were a flower. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “if Sylvia recovers — if I have prospects — I’ll come to Canada and ask you what your feelings are then — I’ll lay what I have to offer at your feet.”
He spoke almost lightly and it was a mistake. She drew back from him in hurt. She did not notice that the hand which held the twig shook.
“I hear a motor horn. It’s Mooey,” she said.
He caught her arm and drew her to him. “One kiss before you go,” he said.
She struggled away. “No,” she cried, “I’ll not kiss you,” and ran through the long wet grass.
Finch and Maurice were standing beside a station wagon. Mrs. Fitzturgis had come out of the house to greet them. She was effusive in expressing pleasure in having Adeline spend the night with her. Finch smiled but threw an anxious glance toward the two coming out of the grove, at Adeline’s flushed cheeks and wet shoes. He shook hands with Fitzturgis, whose cheekbones seemed to have become higher, his eyes more deeply set in the past quarter-hour. Maurice bowed, with only a faint pretence of friendliness. He asked of Adeline:
“where is the car?”
Fitzturgis answered, — “In the garage. I’ll bring it round.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Finch, as though to escape from something.
They went together.
Maurice said to Mrs. Fitzturgis, — “It was very kind of you to take my cousin in.”
“Ah, but we were only too delighted to have her. We have so little company nowadays. My daughter’s health has not been good, you know. I do hope that, now the ice is broken, we shall see quite a lot of her and of you too. You can’t imagine how dull we find living in Ireland. I wonder that a young man like you — though to be sure, youth is never dull. I well remember how gay I used to be, though now I come to think of it I always wanted to have some excitement — not exactly
excitement
, you know, but just to be aware of the fact that one was
living
, which is more than one is, here, though you’d be surprised at the things that do happen. For instance —”
The car was moving toward them along the drive.
Mrs. Fitzturgis begged the three Whiteoaks to stay for lunch, or if not for lunch, at least for a glass of sherry. When the invitation was declined with grave politeness by Maurice, with an obvious desire to be gone by Finch, and with desperate submissiveness by Adeline, she exclaimed, — “How very sorry my daughter will be to miss you! But surely you will come again! Dear me, who is Sylvia? I mean —
Where
is Sylvia? I do get so easily confused in these days, which is something quite new to me for I used to have an abnormally good memory — in fact my husband used to say that I never could forget anything, though that remark was not made in the sense to which I refer. Maitland, do you know where your sister is?”
Sylvia, at that moment, came out of the house, to the obvious surprise of her mother and brother. They exchanged a glance, as though to say — “whatever will she do next?” But the girl herself looked both cool and friendly. She chatted so naturally to Maurice and Finch that Adeline wondered for an instant if last night’s experience had been a dream. But no, it had not been a dream. Maitland’s expression, as his eyes rested on his sister, showed that. His lips wore the strained smile of one who is watchful and uncertain.
In spite of Mrs. Fitzturgis’ loving clinging to the visitors the goodbyes were at last said. Adeline wanted to make the return journey with Finch and whispered her wish to him, but Maurice pressed forward and jumped into the station wagon beside her. Finch followed in the car.
Adeline glanced at Maurice’s profile as they sped along the road in silence. She held her two hands tightly together, harbouring in her right palm the clasp of Maitland’s hand. She knew she had been wrong in going off by herself as she had, but she felt resentment that Maurice should so express his resentment. She said, when she could no longer bear the silence:
“You look like all the killjoys in the world rolled into one.”
“Thanks,” he returned, his lips scarcely moving, “it’s nice to know what you think of me.”
“I only think what the way you behave makes me think.”
“How clearly you put it!”
“Is all this because I took your car without asking?”
He turned to look at her.
“Be careful,” she cried, “you nearly ran over that hen.” The hen flew squawking to safety.
“Are you so callous, Adeline,” he said, speaking each word very clearly, “so callous that you can’t see how you have hurt me?”