Renny's Daughter. Mazo de la Roche
He strode into the little hall to open the door.
Bell looked wildly about the room, wishing that he might transform it into something that would surprise and delight her. But the room remained shabby and small. “Like me,” he thought.
Father and daughter entered together, the resemblance between them so strong that an observer would not have pictured any other man who could have begot her, yet she was delicate of flesh and appealing of outline, where he was weather-beaten and sculptured with a fierce flourish.
Bell had turned on the unshaded electric light. Beneath it his head gleamed silvery, even his eyelashes, but his eyes were blue and inviting.
“Come in, come in,” he said, and tried to sound as though he weren’t afraid of her coming.
They shook hands, then Adeline’s eye was caught by the carved chipmunk still cradled in Renny’s hand. If Bell wished to delight her he had done it.
“Oh,” she exclaimed and, when Renny had put it into her hands, she held it at a distance to drink in its charm, then, holding it close, she bent her head to kiss it. “I’ve never seen anything so sweet,” she murmured.
“Look,” said Renny, “he has made others.” He indicated the collection of small beasts and birds on the mantelshelf.
“Darlings!” cried Adeline, to first one and then another. “But I like the chipmunk best.”
“Better than the squirrel?” asked Bell.
“Much better. Squirrels have hard cold faces, cold greedy eyes, but the little chipmunk has eyes like a fawn.”
“Keep it, if you like it,” said Bell.
“Really?”
She was genuinely delighted and lingered behind Renny a moment in the room to thank him again. Bell watched them disappear into the wood that was now almost dark. He went back to the living room and rested his forehead against the mantelshelf.… “You fool,” he said to himself — “you blasted thundering fool.”
He went to where a small looking glass hung and stared at his reflection. “I won’t let her do this to me,” he said, scowling at the young man’s face that stared back at him. “I won’t give in. It’s not as though I had anything to offer her. Good God! A carved chipmunk! And she cares more for it than she does for me … She doesn’t even know she is doing anything to me.” He pressed his hand to his forehead, as though to press back the confusion of his thoughts. He went to the window and saw that all through the wood there was a new consciousness of the moon. Now the smallest twigs showed themselves conscious of her presence, casting their minute shadows on the crusty surface of the snow. His own cat came out of the wood and looked up at the window, the moonlight shining greenly in her eyes. She mewed silently, her tail limp from cold.
Bell went to the door and let her in. He thought, — “This is what I’m headed for … an old bachelor, living alone with his cat! Probably Adeline thinks of me as just that … A white-haired old fellow living alone with his cat … Doing a little carving — trying to write. God, I hope her father hasn’t told her I’m trying to write.… I needn’t worry. They’ll never talk of me …” He picked up the cat and held her against his breast. She smelt of frosty fur. “Poor pussy — poor pussy!” Her whole sinuous frame shook with the energy of her thankful purring.
“I’ll warm your milk tonight,” he assured her, and smiled at the picture of himself warming milk for his cat, in a little saucepan, in his little kitchen.
But, lying on the sofa, with the cat purring on his chest, he felt a great unharnessed power within himself. It surged up to write a poem to Adeline, to write a play about her or sculpture in marble her lovely head. Or was the power nothing but a wild desire to have her alone with him in this small house — to offer his love to her as the dark wood offered itself to the moon?
V
THE EVENING
The two figures crossed the ravine, the man and the young girl, breaking the crust of the snow, sinking to their calves in the soft snow beneath. They went through the ravine, stopping on the bridge that spanned only snow, the stream’s way traced by bending bushes and the dry stalks of cattails. Renny said:
“I remember when I first carried you down here as a baby and you were so excited to see the running water that you almost jumped out of my arms.”
“What fun! I wish I could remember it. Isn’t it strange how this little stream and the bridge across it are so much a part of our lives?”
“I’m glad you feel that way about it.”
“Oh, yes. I can’t imagine the time when you and I will not stand on this bridge together.”
“Yet some day that time will come.” He gave a little laugh, at the same time holding her hand tightly in his, as though to deny the possibility of such a parting.
“Never!” she said emphatically. “I’ll not let it.”
She raised her face to his, the flesh both rosy and cold. He smiled down at her. “You have great faith in yourself.”
“Daddy, don’t you believe that, if you wish things strongly enough, you can make them happen?”
“We’ll try it,” he said. “We’ll make a pact. We’ll wish that spring will come and the stream will run again and that Mr. Clapperton will fall in it with all his winter clothes on.”
“I was being serious,” she said.
“So am I.”
“All right then. Let’s hope he drowns.”
They laughed together at the thought of Eugene Clapperton floundering in the stream which, at its highest, was never more than two feet deep. They saw coming toward them through the ravine the figure of a man, tall, a little bent, with a gentle, hang-dog expression and an ingratiating smile.
“Who is the fellow?” asked Renny.
“He’s Mr. Clapperton’s new man — Tom Raikes. He’s a nice man.”
He came closer now and they saw that he carried a gun. He carried it with an air that seemed to say nothing on earth would induce him to fire it.
Renny said, — “You know I don’t allow any shooting about here.”
Raikes answered, in a soft Irish voice, — “I do know that, sir. I was only after the rabbits on Mr. Clapperton’s place. I had no luck at all.”
“What are you doing here?” Renny asked abruptly.
“Just taking a stroll. I hope you don’t mind.” He looked at Adeline and smiled shyly. “Miss Whiteoak and I had a little talk one day, and she kindly gave me some advice about pigs.”
“Pigs!” Renny stared in astonishment.
“I know quite a lot about them,” said Adeline stoutly.
“Yes, indeed,” continued Raikes. “Mr. Clapperton, he thought that perhaps I didn’t understand rearing the young ones in this country, but surely it would be the same here as in Ireland.”
“How long have you been out?”
“Six years.”
“Farming?”
“Well, no, sir. Not till I came to Mr. Clapperton’s. I’ve worked at a good many jobs. But I farmed for years in Ireland.”
“What’s the matter with the pigs?”
“It’s the young ones, sir. They all died.”
Renny clicked his tongue. “Too bad. Perhaps you’ll have better luck next time. And, if you want advice, go to my brother. He’s lucky with pigs.” He was turning away when the man spoke again.
“Mr. Clapperton,” he said, “has bought the land on the other side of Jalna.”