Renny's Daughter. Mazo de la Roche
thought there was a little disparagement in her voice. He answered quickly:
“No more than most people. You’re almost too healthy.”
Adeline laughed. “One of us has got to be strong,” she said.
“Just what do you mean by that?” he asked eagerly.
“Nothing — excepting that the new generation can’t afford to be delicate and elegant.”
“I’m not delicate.” he returned hotly. “But just because I’ve never been keen about horses and sports, you think I am.”
“You get annoyed,” she said, “if I suggest that you’re delicate. Yet you said, a moment ago, that I’m too healthy.”
“Forgive me, Adeline.” He put his arm about her. “I wouldn’t for worlds have you different.”
Something in his voice made her feel their isolation in the house. Detaching herself she turned on the radio. The voice of a male crooner came out, whiningly, urging his loved one to surrender.
The two young people, with expressionless faces, stared at the radio.
When the song was finished Adeline said, — “Imagine surrendering to that!”
“I don’t believe you will ever know what surrender means.”
“I don’t think I shall,” she returned serenely.
Maurice turned off the radio and adjusted the machine for records. He put on the waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Adeline felt that here was music she could understand, very different from the lifeless sounds that had just come over the radio. She pictured Finch bending above the keyboard of the piano at Jalna. She stood by the window looking out at the snowy scene, the bare black limbs of the trees, each limb topped by a sharply defined rim of snow, the sky red in the burnished sunset.
“That music makes me happy,” she said, at the end. “I could fly — I could dance like an angel to it.”
“You do dance like one.”
“Thanks.”
“Would you like to dance now?”
“I thought I came here to listen to records.”
“We can do both.”
“Let’s have the records first.”
Maurice put on several classical records. She gave her judicial attention to each. She said:
“I like the Tchaikovsky one best.”
“I knew you would. You see, I can guess your taste.”
“We don’t go in for records.”
“Adeline, will you dance?”
“No. I’m not in the mood,” she answered tersely.
He offered her a cigarette and they sat down side by side on the sofa.
“I can’t tell you,” he said, “how excited I am at the thought of going back to Ireland. You know I should have gone when I came of age but my mother was ill. Wouldn’t you like to visit me in my own house, Adeline?”
“Of course I should. We’ve always planned it. I’ll persuade Daddy to come too. See if I don’t.”
Maurice said dreamily — “Everything is going to be different from now on. I shall be my own master. So long as I am under this roof I’m conscious of my father’s authority.”
Adeline gave a little sympathetic grunt. Then she said, — “Mooey, you haven’t changed a bit since you came home. Excepting, of course, to grow up.”
“The years I spent in Ireland were the happiest of my life,” he said, in the reminiscent tone of an elderly man.
“I think it was a very queer thing,” declared Adeline, “for your parents to do. I mean to let you go all that distance to live with an old forty-second cousin. Why, you might have died of homesickness. I’m sure I should have.”
“It was pretty bad at first.”
“Still, it turned out well, as he left you all his money.”
“Adeline, you are a materialistic little beast.”
“No, I’m not. I just look facts in the face. You live in a kind of dream. You like to pretend that you don’t care about money but you like it just as well as anybody.”
A motor car turned into the drive. In a moment the front door of the house was thrown open. Piers Whiteoak, his wife, and his youngest child entered the hall with a stamping of snowy feet and the barking of a small dog. Child and dog ran into the room.
This baby girl was Adeline’s favourite and pet. She snatched her up and kissed her.
“Do you remember,” she asked Maurice, “how, when Baby was born, you and I agreed never to marry but always to be friends and have her for our child?”
“I never agreed to any such thing. It’s an idiotic idea.”
“It would save a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Adeline opened her eyes wide. “Why, Mooey, I thought it was all arranged.”
Piers and Pheasant came into the room. Piers, at forty-four, still retained his fresh-coloured complexion, the brightness of his blue eyes. Pheasant, two years younger, had the figure of a slim girl, an eager questioning look in her eyes. What that question was she did not herself know. Even the devoted love she gave Piers did not answer it, nor even his loyal love for her.
Piers said to his son, — “That car of yours was left directly in my way. The result was that your mother had to wade through deep snow to get round it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” exclaimed Maurice contritely but with a tremor of anger in his voice at the anger in Piers’s.
The little girl said proudly, — “Daddy carried Baby in. Baby didn’t walk in the snow.”
Pheasant sat down facing Maurice and Adeline. “Where do you suppose we were?” she asked. “We were at the Clappertons’! Really it is the strangest household! I almost feel sorry for the old fellow. I don’t think he realized, when he married that odd girl and took her odd sisters into the house, what he was letting himself in for. The house is like a menagerie. Pets of all sorts — all over the place. And it’s so untidy! And poor Mr. Clapperton has a cowed look.”
“He looked bad-tempered to me,” said Piers.
“I wish I might be hidden there,” she continued, “and hear what goes on.”
“For one thing,” said Adeline, “they can’t get any proper help. Maids won’t stay there. It was the youngest sister who did most of the work and since she’s married Mr. Clapperton’s nephew and gone to the States, things get worse and worse. Neither Mrs. Clapperton nor Althea is able to do much.”
“They have a D.P. now,” said Pheasant, “who can speak only a dozen words of English. You’ll never guess what Mr. Clapperton whispered to me, Piers.”
“What? I saw a good deal of whispering between you.”
“He told me he’s planning to get on with his model village in the spring!”
“Why — he promised to give up the idea of that, to please his wife!”
“I guess he’s tired of trying to please her. Anyhow that’s what he said.”
“Renny’ll never allow it.”
“I hope he can stop it but, for my part, I don’t see much harm in a pretty little model village.”
Piers gave her a look of disgust. “A pretty little model village —