Variable Winds at Jalna. Mazo de la Roche
car stopped but remained hidden behind the hemlocks. Roma came, trudging crossly along the gravel sweep, her eyes fixed on the group in the porch.
“She has just two expressions,” said Christian. “She either smiles or doesn’t smile.”
“She has just two tones of voice,” said Adeline. “She speaks soft and sweet or matter-of-fact and down to earth.”
“Hello,” called out Roma. “Hello, Uncle Renny.” She was the only one of the young Whiteoaks not fond of Renny. Too often he had read her a lesson.
Now he called back, “You are very late.”
“Better late than never,” she returned.
Christian said low, “She doesn’t smile.”
To Roma Adeline said, “Come on in and meet Maitland.”
All returned to the drawing-room. Fitzturgis was devoting himself to Nicholas, who drew Roma to the arm of his chair. “This little girl,” he said, “is my nephew Eden’s daughter. Eden was a poet — the first of the Whiteoaks to turn to things artistic, though my brother Ernest had quite a bent toward writing and always intended to do a book about Shakespeare but never found the time. Of course you’ve heard that young Nooky — what is it he calls himself now?”
“Christian,” said Roma.
“Ah, yes — Christian, he’s turned to painting. And Finch is a concert pianist, and Wakefield is an actor. And there’s a young man nearby who writes. What’s his name, Roma?”
“Humphrey Bell.”
“That’s it. And what does he write?”
She answered, as though in a lesson, “Short stories in the American and Canadian magazines. He’s done some radio scripts and a little work in television.”
“Well, well,” said Nicholas. “Before we know it we shall have an artists’ colony here in place of the settlement of retired British officers we set out with. Do you think that will be a change for the better, Roma?”
“I haven’t thought about it,” she returned.
Nicholas’s head sank on his breast. He looked unutterably weary. Adeline came to them. “Say goodnight to Uncle Nicholas, Mait. He’s off to bed.” She stroked the old man’s belligerent crest of hair, then drew Fitzturgis to join the other young people outdoors. They strolled down into the ravine. Roma hesitated, as though not quite knowing what to do, then followed them. At the path that led to the stream they stood in a group talking for a little. Fitzturgis held Adeline’s fingers in his.
Indoors Nicholas was being half carried to his room by Renny and Piers. They looked at him with anxiety. They had never seen him look so old.
“How do you feel?” asked Piers, when they had set him in his own big chair. “Pretty tired?”
“No, no, not too tired,” he growled, “but ready for my bed. Get me one of my pills, Renny. And you, Piers, my pyjamas.” He looked longingly at his bed.
They busied themselves waiting on him, in that room where as little boys they had felt it a privilege just to be admitted; to which he had returned, a traveller, from the mysterious outside world. Now, instead of awe, he moved them to pity and protection. Yet when he was safe in bed, propped up by his pillows, he looked imposing. He was pleased with himself, too, and inclined to take a favourable view of Fitzturgis.
“I like the man,” he said. “He appears to be a very agreeable fellow, but I can’t somehow picture him at Jalna. Can you, Piers?”
“Not for the life of me,” said Piers. And, as though Renny were not present, he went on, “I can’t imagine what Renny’s going to do with him. He’ll be of no use to anyone.”
Renny retorted, “You’re always complaining that you have too much to do.”
“What I need,” said Piers, “is another good farm hand, not a gentleman farmer to share the profits.”
“I understand from Adeline that he’ll do anything.”
“You may understand it from her, but has he said so?”
“My God!” exclaimed Renny. “The man has barely arrived.”
“He tells me,” said Nicholas, “that his brother-in-law has offered him a position in New York.”
“What sort of position?”
“He didn’t say. Ah, yes, it had something to do with advertising.”
Renny frowned. “Adeline would never go to New York. There’s plenty for him to do at Jalna.”
“Is there plenty of money for the support of another family?” asked Piers.
Renny, looking him full in the eyes, answered, “Yes.”
Piers was shaking with internal laughter. He patted his uncle’s shoulder. “Goodnight, Uncle Nick. It’s been splendid seeing you downstairs again.”
When he had gone Nicholas asked, “When is the marriage to take place? I hope it will be fairly soon. I should like to be there.”
“It wouldn’t go off properly without you, Uncle Nicholas…. Shall I put out the light?”
“Yes. I’m pretty tired but glad to have been downstairs. From now on I shall be down every evening.”
As the first light was extinguished the face on the pillow was dimmed. With the putting out of the second light the face was gone.
“Are you all right?” asked Renny.
“Fine, thanks.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight…. What are you waiting for?”
“I’m going now.” But he lingered till he heard a rhythmic snore.
In the cool night air he crossed the lawn and descended halfway down the path to the ravine. From there he could see by the misty moonlight the figures of Adeline and Fitzturgis on the bridge above the stream. He experienced an odd constriction of the heart to see her in this attitude of loving isolation with another man, in the spot where she had so often stood with him. Yet, at the same time, his almost predatory patriarchal nature reached out to draw Fitzturgis into the fold. “There is plenty for him to do here,” he thought. “Plenty for us all.”
With these contradictory emotions moving him he went to the stables. He opened the door and entered the straw-scented quietness. How different the effect of the moonlight coming in at these windows! Outdoors it whitened the paths, turned the grass to dark velvet, sought out the mystery of each separate tree. Here it showed the dim shapes of the resting horses, some lying in the straw, others standing. The moonlight caught the brightness of a buckle, the lustre of a pair of startled eyes. It turned an exquisitely made spiderweb to silver and its watchful occupant to gold. Even the enmeshed fly had its moment’s beauty.
A three-days-old foal lay secure against its dam’s side. In the darkness, the warmth, the seclusion, it felt as safe as it had within her body. Even when Renny entered the loose-box it felt no alarm. The mare gave him a low rumble of greeting as he bent to pat her.
“Good girl,” he said. “You have a lovely baby. I’m proud of you.” And his pride in his horses seemed to enter their consciousness. They moved, and low whickers came from stall and loose-box at the sound of his voice. He felt pity for the man whose pride was in his motor car, that showy piece of mechanism whose glamour perished with its glitter, whose life blood was gasoline, which rolled out of factories in mass production.
III
Getting Acquainted
FITZTURGIS HAD COME to Jalna with mingled feelings of apprehension, self-distrust, and remembered love. In what was he involving himself? As an Irishman, the close-knit family life was not new to him. But life at Jalna would be different