Centenary at Jalna. Mazo de la Roche
as he took in the points of the young couple before him.
“Yes, I know,” said Philip, trying to talk wisely — “changes come, but feeling remains the same.”
“My feelings don’t,” said Adeline. “They change all the time.” After a moment’s thought she added, “But about certain things I never could change. For one thing, I mean my feeling for Jalna.”
The two young people turned to look after Renny when they separated. Then Philip reached out to take Adeline’s hand. Her fingers closed amiably on his and she said, “Poor little boy — he wants his hand held by his big cousin.”
This reference to his youth was too much for Philip. Angrily he snatched his hand from hers.
“I’m going home,” he said. “You can finish your walk alone.”
“That’s what would please me,” she said.
The last of the sunlight was now gone. The wood was suddenly enveloped in twilight. The three who had stood there together were now separated by growing darkness, by intervening branches. The separation was made the more complete by the call of the whippoorwill repeated many times from the depth of the wood.
IV
IV
In the Basement Kitchen — and After
He was affectionately known to the Whiteoaks as “Rags” and his wife as “Mrs. Rags,” though their name was Wragge. Alayne felt little affection for them, or so she thought, for her Dutch couple had been admirable. Yet, when the Wragges were once more established in the basement, she experienced a kind of inner glow, as though their presence had brought back to her something that she had thought lost — an excitement in living, an earthy appreciation of the rough-and-tumble side of days at Jalna. For one thing, both Rags and his wife had a lively sense of humour, where the admirable Dutch couple had none. The Cockney pair were zestful observers of all that went on about them, while the Dutch couple were absorbed in their own affairs. Renny, on his part, was delighted to have Rags again with him at Jalna. Together they had passed through two wars. They had racy memories in common.
On this summer afternoon the basement kitchen was the scene of a reunion. From a glaring recipe that occupied a full page in the evening paper the cook had made a cake which now sat in the middle of the table and was sprinkled thickly with coconut, its layers held together by jam, and there were chopped nuts through it. Also on the table were ham sandwiches, radishes, sliced cucumbers, and a large pot of tea. At one end of the table, which was covered by a red-and-white-checked tea cloth, sat the cook, even more florid and stout than before her stay in England. At the other end Rags, even greyer of face and thinner. Both were in high spirits. At one side sat Wright, who for many years had been the head of the stables at Jalna, a fine man of stocky frame and intrepid nature who spoke in a deep resonant voice and was always seen in leather leggings. Opposite him Noah Binns. All his long cantankerous life he had lived in this neighbourhood and found little to please him. From the time he was old enough to hold a hoe he had been a labourer, adept in wasting time, self-opinionated as any town counsellor. Now, through the sale of his cottage on the highway and his old age pension, he had retired. He had never married, had a poor regard for women, but kept on the right side of the cook.
She said, “Have another radish, Mr. Binns. It’s grand to see you able to champ them hard things, for you used to be a bit short on teeth.”
“No thank you,” said Noah. “It’s true that my dentures can tackle anything but my stomach ain’t that plausible. It prefers soft food.”
“Another sandwich?”
“I’ve ate several of them. I think I’ll start on the cake.”
The cook helped him to a generous slice which he attacked with avidity, shreds of coconut clinging to his straggling grey moustache and the bristles on his chin.
“Delidgious,” he said. “I’ve never tasted cake like that since you went away. I didn’t think much of that Dutch couple. They were terrible penurious with the refreshments. You’d a thought they’d have paid for the food themselves the way they doled it out. The last time I came to the door they never answered my knock, though I could hear them jabbering away in their own lingo at the same time. Well, I says to myself, I can be standoffish as well as you. So I never called on them again. I’m a proud man. Pride hasn’t been my downfall. If it wasn’t fer pride I’d like to know where I’d be.”
“Hans and Frieda,” said Wright, “were always nice to me. I guess they sort of looked on me as one of the family.”
Noah Binns grinned. “Danged if I’d want to be took fer one of this family.”
“And why not, I’d like to know?” demanded Rags.
“Because of mortality,” said Noah. “I was raised in a mortal home and I never forget it.”
“I don’t want to hear anything said against this family.” Wright looked squarely at Noah.
Unperturbed, Noah replied, “I like the family or I wouldn’t visit here, but danged if I want to be took fer one of them.”
“Not much danger of that,” grinned Wright. “Not with your face.”
“Danged if I’d call the boss handsome,” said Noah.
“Put him on a horse and there’s no one in the country can equal him for looks,” said Wright.
“Then the credit goes to the horse, don’t it?” said Mrs. Wragge.
“What would Noah look like on a prancing thoroughbred?” asked Wright.
At the thought of that spectacle Rags and his wife could not restrain their mirth. To ease the moment, she said, lolling a little in her chair, “Ah, it’s good to be back.”
“This here country can’t be beat,” said Noah. “It’s the best in the world.”
“And the way it’s growing! Whatever way you look there’s hundreds of new little houses and wherever you go you hear foreigners talking,” she continued.
“Them’s new Canadians,” said Noah. “They was born and bred to be new Canadians. You couldn’t stop them if you tried.”
“Who’s trying to stop them?” she demanded.
“London ain’t what it used to be,” said Rags. “So my missus and me moved to one of them new villages, developed on an old estate, but life there wasn’t as ’appy as we’d hexpected.”
“I bet it wasn’t,” said Noah.
“What was the trouble?” asked Wright.
Rags answered solemnly, “It was the nightingales.”
“They’d drive you crazy,” said the cook. “There was no peace for them. Babies — invalids — working folk that needed their rest. They couldn’t get it, for the nightingales singing.”
“That was bad,” Noah mumbled, through lips fringed by coconut shreds. “Very, very bad. Worse than motor traffic. Danged if I’d not sooner have motor traffic than birds piping away in the dead of night. It’s unnatural. Motor traffic is natural.”
“I’ve always fancied a bird in the house,” said Mrs. Wragge. “Then you can cover the cage with a cloth if necessary. But them nightingales you couldn’t control.”
Down the stairs from above Dennis appeared and was greeted affably by the cook.
“You haven’t grown as fast as you might,” she said. “Do they give you plenty to eat at school?”
“I’ll shoot up later,” he returned. “We get plenty to eat but not cake like that.”
At once she placed a slice on a plate for him and he drew a chair to the table beside Wright. All four adults regarded him with concentrated interest as he ate.
“I