Renny's Daughter. Mazo de la Roche
something of real interest had been said.
“What is that?” he demanded. “Ireland? Who’s going to Ireland?” The very name of Ireland uttered was enough to rouse him from sleep, for from there had come his strong-willed mother as a young woman, to there she often had returned to visit; Ireland she had constantly elevated as the greatest of countries, its speech had coloured her own, and though she never had been able to get on with her relations there, she had boasted of them as superior in wit and breeding to the Whiteoaks.
“Ireland,” Nicholas repeated. “We haven’t a living relation there now — except old Dermot Court.”
“He died years ago, Uncle Nick, and left his property to young Maurice. Don’t you remember?” Renny looked anxiously into the old man’s face. “Maurice goes over this spring to claim it.”
Nicholas’ brow cleared. “Ah, yes. I remember now. And a very nice property it is. I saw a good deal of Dermot at one time. Best manners of any man I ever knew. Who’s going to Ireland, did you say?”
“Me!” Adeline gave a daring look at her father.
“I wish you would try not to be aggressive,” said Alayne.
“I do try. But you’ve no idea how hard it is.”
She now threw a coaxing look about the circle of grown-ups. “It will be such a wonderful opportunity for me to see something of the world. You know the war kept me from ever being taken anywhere. I actually don’t know anything of life outside Jalna, do I?”
“The thing for you to do,” said Ernest, with a sly smile, “is to marry Maurice and go to Ireland on your honeymoon.”
The suggestion of marriage for Adeline was distasteful to Renny. He expected that, in due course, she would marry but he looked on that time as years distant. He regarded Adeline as a child. He did not want Adeline to marry till the perfect mate for her appeared — if such a one existed. He did not think Maurice and she were suited to each other. He was not even sure that Maurice cared for Adeline except as a cousin. Alayne, on the other hand, would have liked to see her daughter’s future secure. She was convinced that Maurice was attracted to Adeline, and, in truth, felt that, if there would be any unsuitability in the match, it would be because he was finer-fibred and more sensitive than Adeline. The young girl, with her passionate love of country life, of horses and dogs, her tardy approach to things intellectual, was not and never had been a congenial companion to Alayne. She had been surprised and pleased by her excellent standing in her studies but it had been disappointing to find that Adeline’s attitude toward scholastic achievement seemed to be that she could do well in anything she chose but that, once she had mastered what was in the books, she had little further interest in them. Alayne’s hopes for intellectual companionship lay in her son, whose school reports showed that he was already impressing his teachers with his ability. Archer was an omnivorous reader. Adeline liked the old romantic novels she found on the bookshelves in the library. Many of these had belonged to her great-grandmother for whom she was named, and Alayne sometimes suspected that part of the child’s interest in them was because they had been handled and read by the woman whose portrait she so much resembled. She had devoured the old copies of the Boys’ Own and the books of Talbot Baines Reed that were heaped in a corner of the attic. Not long ago Alayne had discovered her reading Tom Jones.
“Do you like it?” Alayne had asked, herself hating the book excepting in an academic fashion.
“Oh, yes,” Adeline had answered. “Those were the days. I wish I’d lived then.”
“Well, don’t give it to Archer,” Alayne had said.
“Of course not,” Adeline had agreed promptly. “But he probably knows more than you think.”
“Yes,” Ernest now repeated. “Marry your cousin and go to Ireland on your honeymoon.”
“She’d better not suggest such a thing to me,” said Renny.
“I can’t very well till Maurice suggests it to me,” laughed Adeline.
“Come now, come now —” Ernest shook his head teasingly at her.
She flushed. “I want to go to Ireland for fun,” she said. “Not on a honeymoon.”
“No better fun,” rumbled Nicholas, but stopped himself at a look from Alayne.
“I want to go to Ireland,” Dennis said in his high clear voice. “My mother came from Ireland.”
“Did she!” Adeline exclaimed. “I always thought she was an American like my mother.”
Nicholas gave a thump on the arm of his chair. “The ignorance of these children is unbelievable,” he declared. “Dennis’s mother was a Court. She was of a good old Irish family. Nothing American about her.”
“I wasn’t ignorant,” said Dennis. “I knew she was Irish.”
“But she died in the States, didn’t she?” Adeline asked.
“Yes,” Renny answered curtly. Then demanded, — “What has put the idea of going to Ireland into your head?”
“Well, I went there once with you,” she said, “and it was the best time I’ve ever had in my life.”
“You said,” put in Dennis, severely, “you’d never been anywhere.”
“Don’t be cheeky,” ordered Nicholas, and put a piece of cake into Dennis’s hand.
“What I meant,” said Adeline, “was that the war had stopped me going back to Ireland. Oh, I do so want to go when Maurice goes and I don’t see what’s to prevent me.”
“If Maurice’s mother were going as she planned to do, it might be possible for you to go too,” said Alayne, “but she can’t get away any more than I can.”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be proper for two young cousins to go on a voyage together.”
“It would be highly improper,” said Ernest, “unless —” He could not keep his mind off the thought of the marriage.
“We are always talking about going to Ireland,” Adeline muttered, “yet nobody goes.”
Ernest patted her knee. “Maurice is now his own master. We shall see what happens. You may be able to go with him in a relationship that will please everyone.”
“Did I hear my name?” asked a voice from the doorway. All turned to look at Maurice Whiteoak.
II
THE COUSINS
He was a slender, graceful young fellow, with a sensitive lace, a contrast to his father, Piers Whiteoak, who in middle age had grown thickset and who looked on the world with a challenge. When no more than a child Maurice had been sent to Ireland to live, at the invitation of a childless relative, Dermot Court, in the acknowledged hope that he would be made the old man’s heir. What might have been a boring experiment for the man and a tragic experience for the boy had turned out well. Each had been happy in the other’s company. A deep love and understanding had grown up between them, and when, five years later, Dermot Court had died, Maurice had inherited from him his large house which was in fair repair, and an income sufficient for its maintenance. He had returned to his parents’ house, a stranger, a shy, proud stripling of seventeen, financially independent of them, but vulnerable as ever to his father’s sarcasms.
Now Nicholas said to him, — “We’re wishing we might go to Ireland with you, Mooey.”
“Especially your cousin Adeline wishes it,” Ernest added.
“I should be glad to entertain all of you,” said Maurice. “You’d be welcome at Glengorman.”
Dennis carried the plate of cakes to him. “Have one,” he said, ingratiatingly.
“Bread and butter first, thank you.” Maurice helped himself to a piece, then sat down beside Adeline.