Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
Here Clara could wander to the apple orchard and see the glowing mounds of ripe fruit, talk with Piers of its storage or shipping. There was a boy trundling a barrow of defective or over-ripe apples towards the piggery! There were the fat healthy pigs munching the apples, their little eyes twinkling with delight, the sweet juice trickling down their throats — never reckoning how soon those throats would be cut. There was a man ploughing a ten-acre field, turning up the rich sandy loam! There were pale-plumaged gulls, come all the way from the lake to walk in the furrows — to pick up the fat worms. There were the turkeys making procession in the aisles of the blackberry canes, devouring the late neglected berries — sweetest of all — gobbling serenely beneath the harebell-blue sky — never noticing the black cloud of Thanksgiving Day ever nearer. There was a little bantam cock and his tiny bantam hen, scratching, peering, crowing, clucking, imagining the world was theirs! There was the meadow where the foals, in empty-headed abandon, kicked up their heels! There was the paddock where Renny, Pheasant, and Adeline schooled the show horses. Clara’s eyes were held longest by Pheasant, who seemed a part of the cobby little mare she rode, and there, peering between the palings, was Pheasant’s small daughter holding in her hand three late buttercups which no one would admire.
“Oh, what lovely flowers!” Clara exclaimed. She had appeared suddenly. To Mary she loomed large and strange.
“May I see?” asked Clara, kneeling to be on the proper level. She took one of the flowers and held it beneath the little girl’s chin. “You do!” she cried. “You do like butter.”
Mary smiled, pleased with herself, proud to like butter.
“Now see if I like butter.” Clara held the flower beneath her own chin.
“You too!” Mary laughed in glee. Clara caught her up and hugged her. There was something in this woman that gave the little girl confidence. They marched off, hand in hand.
The centre, the lodestar of these days of early autumn, was the colt East Wind. He stood big, not elegant but full of brawn, in his loose-box. He looked a great overgrown fellow, full of promise, beaming with confidence. Renny would plait his mane, playing with it as though it were the lovelocks of his beloved. He would say to him, “All my hopes are in you, boy.... Win for me! Win for me!”
Word came from Alayne that all was going well in New York. She was staying with her friend Rosamund Trent, who had taken Roma under her wing. She had found just the right sort of house for Roma to live in. The girl was already enrolled in a class in a school of designing. She was happier, more responsive than Alayne had ever known her. Alayne herself was well.
The weather in New York was perfect. She had several delightful invitations from old friends. She hoped to see a few of the new plays, but if all were not going smoothly at home she would return by the next train. She would even fly. But it was easy to see that she was enjoying herself. She was anxious to hear whether any promise of domestic help had come from the agencies.
In reply Renny wrote:
My dearest Alayne,
I am delighted to get such good news from you. What a little wonder you are! You just take things in hand when they seem in a hopeless muddle and set them straight. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are getting some pleasure out of this affair that started off so miserably. It will probably do Roma good to be away from home for a time, and I guess that Meg and Patience are not sorry to be rid of her. Meg is very anxious to rent her house and go to live with Finch. But he is rather a queer bird, as you know, and is in no hurry to furnish rooms for them. Maurice is still staying with him. It is really surprising how Adeline faces up to the housework, and is pretty efficient too. I think it is good for her — helps to take her mind off her disappointment in Fitzturgis. If you meet that gentleman tell him that my opinion of him remains of the lowest.
The colt is shaping up wonderfully and I think you will live to see the day when you will congratulate me on the purchase. Kelly, the trainer, is a very well-behaved fellow and is living with Wright and his wife over the garage. Now, my darling girl, I want you to enjoy yourself with your friends and don’t worry about us. Everything is going smoothly. You’d really be surprised. Adeline sends her love with mine and will write.
Yours ever,
Renny.
Adeline did write to Alayne, and Pheasant also, both assuring her that things were going well and that she was not to be anxious.
But something happened which would have caused her acute anxiety had she known of it. She had been absent less than a week when an operation for appendicitis was performed on Archer. It was performed in a hospital in the town not far from Archer’s school. Renny had gone there to be near his son, and Meg had accompanied him. He had a primitive horror and distrust of hospitals. Meg’s presence was a comfort to him.
In ten days Archer was sufficiently recovered to return to Jalna for recuperation. He looked little the worse for his ordeal, as he was always without colour. Neither had he youthful exuberance. But he had to be put to bed and waited on as an invalid for a time. Here again Meg’s comforting presence was a blessing to all. She made custards and junkets for the boy. She did not worry over dirt or disorder. Indeed she had a mischievous pleasure in tolerating conditions which would have been repellent to Alayne. The butter, for instance, which Alayne insisted should be kept in a tightly closed container in the refrigerator, now was often exposed carelessly on a kitchen shelf. Contents of saucepans boiled over on to the stove. The bulldog had long cherished an ambition to gnaw his bone in the middle of the kitchen floor. This Mrs. Wragge had forbidden and stiffened her order with a broom handle. But now Bill brought his enormous knuckle-bone and, with snufflings and grindings, worked his will on it. The spaniel Sport had long been dissatisfied with his bed and now solidly established himself on the sofa in the library, and, as this was his season for shedding his coat, his hairs were everywhere. The little Cairn terrier was in a continual state of excitement. With the acute intelligence of his breed he realized that things were not as they should be, but all his runnings here and there, all his barking, could not set them right. He had no rest. He was always barking, but he could not set things right.
The woman who came from the village to work by the day was able to put both vacuum cleaner and electric toaster out of order by the end of the first week. The door of the refrigerator became loose. Three teacups were broken and the best teapot cracked. But the weather was perfect and in the stables all went well. East Wind watched with good-humoured interest all the activities of which he was the centre. A hide like satin was the covering for the powerful mass of muscle that bound his shapely bones. He was never excited but seemed to know what was expected of him and to be certain he could do it. Though his body was somewhat heavy, he had a beautiful head that rose like a flame from his great shoulders.
When Archer was able to come downstairs Renny and Adeline sat on either side of him reporting with enthusiasm on the colt’s progress. He was entered for the most important of the autumn races.
“There’s nothing he can’t do,” cried Adeline. “If I were a man I’d like to ride him myself.”
Archer gave her a disparaging look. “Mercy!” he said.
But one evening when he and Renny were alone together he asked, “when is Mummy coming home?”
“Very soon, I expect. But I’ve told her to stay as long as she is enjoying herself. She is seeing all the new plays. Naturally I haven’t told her of your operation. That would have brought her home on the next train. She badly needs a change.”
“I am wondering,” said Archer, “whether we might have the television put in before she comes. You will remember that I have already paid an installment on a set. On your birthday I gave you the receipt.”
“By Judas, I had forgotten! There’s been so much going on. But do you think we need it?”
Archer fixed him with his penetrating blue gaze. “There are discussions on it,” he said, “of great educational value. Our headrd says that so much future education is to be visual that we cannot overestimate its importance. And there are other features besides the educational ones. There is
football
and there are
fights
.”
Archer looked touchingly white and weak. He had risen to his feet. Now he put both arms about his father’s muscular body and gave it a feeble hug. His lips parted in an expression of peculiar sweetness. It was his nearest approach to a smile.
To hear these last words from the lips of his son gave Renny a real pleasure. After all, the poor little beggar had been through a hard time. He might have died.
He returned Archer’s hug with almost painful warmth.
“We’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll see about it tomorrow.”
A few days later a peculiar sight might have been observed in front of the old house. A truck carrying two men and a number of rods, wiring, tools, and a ladder drew up. The men alighted and soon were on the top of the house. Inside and out it took them a good many hours to install the television set. But finally the work was completed and an ornament was added to the roof that would have filled its original owners with wonder. Some new sort of lightning rod, they would have guessed. But never in their most delirious imaginings would they have pictured the fantastic things that were projected on to the screen in the library. Yet their descendant, Archer Whiteoak, watched the grotesque, the inane, the stupidly revolting pictures with no more than a flicker on his pale face. He listened to noises called music which would have caused those same grandparents of his to clap their hands over their ears in horror, and never turned a hair.
As ill-luck would have it, the woman who came from the village to work contracted a serious cold and was not able to come. Adeline found herself with such an accumulation of work on her hands as she could not hope to cope with. She was really tired. She was in a temper. She thought it time that Archer should no longer demand to be waited on as an invalid. With a somewhat grudging efficiency she placed the things for his evening meal on a tray. Her feet were aching from the brick-paved floor and she frowned as she remembered the flight of stairs to be climbed.
Renny now clattered down them, the dogs at his heels, impatient for their food. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth and he wore the happy-go-lucky expression usual to him in these days.
“It’s raining,” he said. “Like cats and dogs.”
At the mention of cats the little terrier became hysterical.
“Archer’s tray,” Adeline said, indicating it with a bandaged thumb. She was always suffering from a cut or burn.
“what’s the matter?” he asked solicitously.
“Nothing.” She tried to smile.
“I know,” he exclaimed. “The work is getting too much for you. I’ll carry up this tray.”
“It was all right till Archer came.”
“I have an idea.” Balancing Archer’s tray on his palm, he said with enthusiasm, “Crowdy and the Chases are taking shelter in the porch. I’ll ask Mrs. Chase to give you a hand with the work. She’d be delighted, I know.”
“No. I can manage.”
But Adeline liked Clara Chase, and when she appeared, descending the stairs into the kitchen, she welcomed her with a smile. It was years since Clara Chase had been in that house. She had never expected to enter it again. Yet, finding that she could be of use there, she set to work without self-consciousness. It was a marvel to Adeline to see how order rose out of confusion, what good-humoured efficiency could bring to pass in a kitchen.
It was not long before the three men appeared, each eager to help with the work. From the larder Renny produced lamb chops. Chase rolled up his sleeves and prepared the vegetables. Mr. Crowdy, who had a delicate wife, turned out to be an expert chef. Not only did he broil the chops to a turn but made a delicious chocolate soufflé for a sweet and concocted a perfect salad. The dogs, in order to avoid being stepped on, took refuge on the stairway. Before long Archer appeared and seated himself on a step near the top, looking on the activities below with the air of a scientist observing the habits of insects. Mr. Crowdy, after a long admiring look at him, drew Renny into the pantry and remarked portentously, “A noble scion of a noble house.”
“A clever boy,” said Renny, “and better on a horse than you’d expect by the looks of him.”
“He’ll go far,” prophesied Mr. Crowdy.
He made a comic figure, with his crimson face rising above one of Mrs. Wragge’s aprons tied beneath his several chins.
Chase, whipping up mashed potatoes with cream, announced that they were ready and that he was starving. Clara Chase offered each of the dogs a dog biscuit. The bulldog turned up his nose still farther and walked away. The spaniel, with a reproachful look, accepted his, but soon hid it in the coal cellar. The polite little Cairn nibbled his, then put out what he had nibbled on to the floor. All three trooped upstairs with the dinner and ranged themselves about Renny’s chair.
Shortly before this, Finch and Maurice had appeared on the scene. They had disclaimed any intention of sharing the meal, but when more chops were produced, when they beheld what Mr. Crowdy had concocted, when Renny brought out some bottles of excellent hock, they were easily persuaded. He was, in truth, in his element. Outdoors it was wet and cold. Indoors it was brightly lighted and warm. At the table sat eight congenial spirits, for at this moment even Archer was congenial. The talk was of horses.
Clara Chase hesitated to sit down at that table where she was not invited when the mistress of the house was at home, but Adeline would hear of no denial. She liked Clara more and more. Tonight she loved her. It appeared to require no effort on Clara’s part to understand both Renny and his daughter. To her they seemed admirable, generous-hearted, and lovable. She wished that Adeline might have been her own daughter. Looking at Archer, she felt both protective and humble — protective because of his pale looks, humble because of his coldly intellectual mien. She did not guess that there was some quality in her that made Archer (because he was newly convalescent) want to put his head on her shoulder and brought the whine of childhood into his voice when he addressed her.