Renny's Daughter. Mazo de la Roche
from the plate and began to eat it. Dennis at once stretched out his hand to do the same.
“Don’t do that, young man,” said Adeline, her mouth full. “It’s one thing for me to have bad manners. Quite another for you.”
Adeline’s mother now entered. She was in her early fifties, her look of calmness and self-possession the achievement of many years of struggle. The smile on her lips was not reflected in the clear blue depths of her eyes. She seated herself behind the tea table, her hands moved among the cups and saucers. Dennis came and stood by the tray.
“May I pass things?” he asked.
“If you’re very careful.” She began to fill the cups.
“Where is Renny?” asked Ernest.
The man, Wragge, spoke up. “’E’s in ’is office, sir, going over accounts, but ’e said to tell you he’d be in directly.”
“Thank you,” said Alayne Whiteoak, with an air of dismissal.
He did not go at once, however, but lingered to set a chair in place, to adjust a curtain, to empty an ashtray into the fireplace. It was as though he remained to irritate her. When, at last, he had gone she said:
“I wish Renny would ever be on time.”
“He has the accounts to do,” Adeline said, defensively. “He can’t very well leave in the middle of doing them.”
Ernest remarked, to bridge the moment’s tenseness between mother and daughter:
“The fire needs fresh logs.”
“I’ll put one on,” cried Dennis. He heaved the largest log on to the fire which sent up a cloud of sparks. Small eager flames beset the log as it settled onto the glowing foundation.
“Good boy,” said Nicholas. He stretched out his hand to raise the teacup to his lips but miscalculated the distance and overturned the scalding tea onto the rug.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed ruefully. “That was stupid of me.” He took out his handkerchief and began to mop up the tea.
“If you would only keep your mind on your movements the way I do,” said Ernest, “you would never upset things.”
Nicholas blew out his cheeks. “Can’t keep my mind on anything,” he rumbled. “Got very little mind left.”
“Uncle Nick,” cried Adeline, “you have a wonderful mind! Don’t worry about the rug. I’ll fetch a towel from the dogs’ room.”
Alayne said, — “I’ll pour you a fresh cup of tea, Uncle Nicholas.” But her hands trembled with irritation as she poured. She kept saying to herself, — “We shall not have him with us much longer. Be patient.”
Adeline brought a towel and a basin of water, Nicholas and Dennis watching her with concentrated interest as she mopped up the wet spot. Things were barely in order again when Renny Whiteoak entered, bringing with him a gust of cold air.
“I thought you’d like a little fresh air,” he said. “It’s terribly hot in here.”
“Please don’t leave that door open,” exclaimed his wife. “We shall freeze.”
“I should certainly be forced to go to my room,” said Ernest.
Nicholas was silent, brooding on the spilt tea, though he had a freshly-filled cup in front of him.
“It’s like spring outdoors,” said Renny. “The birds are chirping. It would do you good to get the air.” He stood beside the tea table smiling down at them, tall, wiry, his dark red hair lightly touched with grey at the temples, his high-coloured face animated by a teasing smile.
Alayne thought, — “How can he look younger than I, when he is much older! It isn’t fair. And yet it is fair because he has the power to do what I have not the power to do — draw happiness out of some deep well within himself — out of some pagan link with the primeval.” She rose and, with her graceful walk, went to the outer door and firmly closed it. When she returned to her place Renny sat down and took Dennis on his knee. “How often,” thought Alayne, “I have seen him with a child on his knee! A child on his knee or sitting astride a horse — those are the two ways I picture him most easily. I’m not particularly fond of children. I don’t very much like horses, but Renny still fascinates me.” She poured a cup of tea for him and handed it to him with a smile.
Nicholas had regained his spirits. There was a deliciously soft fresh cake and he was eating it with relish. His few remaining teeth, which were mercifully hidden behind his drooping grey moustache, were capable only of masticating soft food. He said:
“It’s high time this young lady of ours saw something of the world. I was saying to Ernest less than an hour ago that it’s high time she saw something of the world.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more, Uncle Nick,” said Adeline.
“What Adeline should have been doing in these past months,” said Alayne, “is to have gone to a university. I very much wanted to enter her at Smith, as you know.”
“Never heard of it,” declared Nicholas. “Where is it?”
Nicholas had, since the war, become tremendously anti-American. No one quite knew why. He took no trouble to conceal this feeling, for he could not remember, no matter how often he was reminded, that Alayne was an American. Though she had spent almost half her life in a British country she still was very conscious of her American roots. She subscribed to the more intellectual of American periodicals. She kept in touch with what was going on in the political scene. It was seldom she allowed herself to be stung by any of the old man’s remarks but, for some reason, this last remark of his did annoy her.
“It is the most notable women’s college on the continent,” she returned.
“Never heard of it,” he persisted, and emptied his teacup with audible gusto.
Ernest’s loved wife had been an American and he now said, — “How well I remember my dear Harriet’s descriptions of her life there. They were both enlightening and entertaining.”
Nicholas heaved himself about in his chair to look skeptically at his brother. “Never heard Harriet speak of it,” he said.
“I myself am a graduate of Smith College.” Alayne spoke with a little asperity.
“Ha,” returned the old man. “That accounts for the only fault you have.”
Alayne looked enquiringly at him.
“An air of superiority, my dear.”
Alayne flushed a little. “It is remarkable,” she said “that I should still retain that, after more than twenty years at Jalna.”
Renny laughed. “But you do,” he declared. “You do.”
“Adeline,” put in Ernest, “matriculated with honours. It is a great pity that she has not gone on with her education in a university.”
“I didn’t want to,” said Adeline. “I mean I’m not that sort of girl.
“But you are,” insisted her great-uncle. “Otherwise you would not have done so well in your exams.”
“I know enough now,” returned Adeline laconically.
“There you show your ignorance,” said Alayne. “If you want any sort of career — but” — she gave a little shrug — “we’ve been through all this before. I know you think life at Jalna is career enough for you. I only hope you won’t regret it.”
“Never fear,” put in Renny. “She won’t regret it. She’s her father’s daughter. Not one of the boys has been as keen about horses as she.”
He often spoke of his brothers as though they were his sons, of which he had only one, a boy of almost fourteen, at a preparatory school.
“The