Morning at Jalna. Mazo de la Roche
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.
V
V
A Call on Wilmott
The following morning Adeline set out on foot, accompanied by Nero, to call on James Wilmott, an Englishman who had come to Canada on the same ship as the Whiteoaks. He had bought a piece of land with a log house beside the winding river. He had made himself very comfortable in a primitive way. At the edge of the river a flat-bottomed boat was moored. On the little landing stage lay his fishing tackle. There was whispering among the rushes.
Usually Adeline, when she went to visit her neighbours, rode her favourite horse — but this was a secret call. She followed the grass path to the door and knocked. As she waited she felt the sense of mystery always associated with Wilmott. In the first place he had been so reticent concerning his past life. She had looked on him as a bachelor till, some time after he was settled in his new home, she had discovered, and he had confessed to her, that he had secretly left England to escape from a detested wife. He had impoverished himself to provide for her and her child.
When the wife had discovered his whereabouts and followed him, it had been Adeline Whiteoak who had put her off the scent.
Adeline could not think of that interview, almost twelve years ago, without a mischievous chuckle. Meeting the former Mrs. Wilmott, it had been easy to understand why her husband had fled from her.
Since that time Wilmott had lived in conscious happiness with his servant, companion, protégé, and pupil, a young partly French half-breed Indian called Tite. It was he who now opened the door to Adeline. In the years he had lived with Wilmott he had grown from a bronzed stripling to a muscular but still slender young man. He had that year passed his first examination in the study of law. Wilmott was proud of him, regarding him almost in the light of a son.
“Good morning to you, Tite,” said Adeline. “Is Mr. Wilmott at home?”
“He is almost always at home,” Tite said, with a dignified inclination of the head. “I will tell him you are here. He is at the moment sewing buttons on his best pants.” Tite glided from the room and, in a few moments, Wilmott entered. Tite did not return.
“I’m sorry I have kept you waiting, Adeline.” Wilmott spoke formally, as was his habit, but his deep-set grey eyes looked so intently into hers that she coloured a little. “It is not often that you come to see me,” he added, and placed a chair for her.
She did not sit down but stood facing him.
“I come on an important mission,” she said.
He was used to her exaggerations and waited composedly for her to go on. “Yes?” He spoke warily.
“Oh, don’t be alarmed,” she broke out. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I want only to have your sympathy in what Philip and I are undertaking.”
“Philip and you?” he repeated surprised.
“Philip and I pull very well together,” she declared, “when we are of one mind … But first tell me where do your sympathies lie in this Civil War of the Americans?”
“You know that I hate slavery.”
“So do our guests from the South. But they inherited great plantations and hundreds of slaves. Those blacks were dependent on them. They were content and happy with their masters, but now the Yankee soldiers have invaded the South, pillaging, burning. Oh, ’twould break your heart to hear of the miseries those villains have brought into that happy country. Of course, you remember how your wife went through New England lecturing and stirring up hate for the South. And it was none of her business, was it?”
Wilmott did not want to be reminded of that woman. He retorted, “Surely this war is no business of ours.”
Yet when Adeline poured out the plans of Curtis Sinclair, she moved him, as she knew she could. The very fact that his one-time wife had been active in stirring up hatred for the South was enough to rouse his sympathy for that troubled land.
As he hesitated, she caught his hand in hers, exclaiming, “Ah, James, how splendid you are!”
“But I have promised nothing,” he warned. “And I hope you are not letting yourself be inveigled into some reckless act.”
“Philip and I have no part in all this but to see nothing, say nothing. Nothing more than to lend shelter for meetings.”
“Meetings?” He withdrew his hand and looked her sternly in the eyes.
“Now that I have won you over,” she said, “you are to come to Jalna tonight and hear the details. You are going to enjoy this, James.”
His voice trembled a little as he said, “You know, Adeline, that I will do anything for you.” Yet he still held his look of sternness, for he lived a rather isolated life and, once his austere features lent themselves to any expression of mood, they were reluctant to change.
When Adeline was gone, the half-breed entered. He had been eavesdropping and had heard every word, but his face showed nothing of this. He said: “I was hoping you’d tell me to make a cup of tea for the lady, Boss.”
“You know very well, Tite,” said Wilmott, “that I am not in