01 The Building of Jalna (20 page)

“Goodness, why don’t we call each other by our Christian names?” exclaimed Adeline. “Surely we needn’t go on Misses and Mistering in the wilds!”

“All right,” agreed Philip. “I’m willing. James, will you take Adeline back to Vaughanlands?”

“She hasn’t seen my estate yet,” said Wilmott. “It’s palatial. I should like to show it her first.”

“Splendid. You’ll admire what he has done, Adeline. Now I must be off.” He strode back to where the architect stood waiting.

Adeline and Wilmott clambered into the dusty buggy lent by the Vaughans. The grey mare was tied to a post where the main entrance was to be. She was now so in the habit of waiting that she had ambled into the ditch. It was a miracle that the buggy was not overturned.

“This nag is as quiet as a sheep,” said Wilmott, taking the reins. “I wish I owned it.”

“What an admission!”

“I want to be lazy and worthless for the rest of my life.”

“You can’t be worthless — not while Philip and I are your friends, James.”

“It’s handsome of you to say that,” and he added stiffly — “Adeline.”

The horse jogged along the sunny road that lay deep in fine white dust. Yet the road led between dense woods and seemed no more than a pale ribbon dividing into a wilderness. For all that, they met heavy wagons loaded with material for the building of Jalna, a ragged, barefoot girl driving a cow, an old cart drawn by a mule and filled with an Indian family and their effects. Raspberries glowed redly in the tangle of growth at the road’s edge. Wild lupine, chicory and gentian made patches of celestial blue. There was a constant movement among the trees as birds fluttered or squirrels and chipmunks leaped from bough to bough. Sometimes a field appeared, heavy with tall grain. It seemed a country in which fulfillment pressed forward to meet promise.

Philip had been forced to admit that Wilmott had got a bargain in his log house and the fifty acres that went with it. They had gone over the place together carefully. Wilmott had paid the money and moved in at once but had not wished Adeline to see it till it was, to his mind, presentable. Now on the bank of a full-flowing river it stood out in its little clearing, strong and weatherproof. Wilmott was proud of it. There was a dignified swagger in his movements as he assisted Adeline to dismount from the high step of the buggy, then led the way along a grass path to the door. The voice of the river came to them and the sibilant whispering of reeds on its edge. An old punt was tied to a mossy stake.

“How lovely!” exclaimed Adeline. “I had no idea it would be so lovely. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he answered, not doubting her sincerity, for he himself thought the spot perfection. He unlocked the door which opened stubbornly, and showed her inside the dwelling. It had only one room with a lean-to at the back. Evidently he had hoped she would come today or was amazingly precise in
his habits. Nothing was scattered about, in the way Philip scattered about his belongings. The floor was bare and was still moist from scrubbing. A hooked rug, showing a picture of a ship, lay in front of the small stove. The furniture had been made by the former owner — a table, two chairs, a bunk spread with a patchwork quilt. Red curtains hung at the one window. In a cupboard on the wall a patently new tea set of blue china spoke of England. Along one wall Wilmott had himself built bookshelves which were filled with books old and new, the leather and gold of their backs shining in a shaft of sunlight which fell on them as though directed. There was something touching in it all and the poor man living alone! Adeline said, in a tremulous voice, as though she had never seen anything to equal it: —

“And you have done it all by yourself!”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see how you managed it. It’s lovely.”

“Oh, ’t will do.”

“It’s so tidy!”

“You should see it sometimes.”

“And the sweet tea set! When did you buy it?”

“Two days ago.” He went to the cupboard, took out the cream jug and handed it to her. “You like the design?” he asked.

She saw a shepherd and shepherdess reclining under a tree by a river — in the background a castle. She touched the jug to her cheek.

“What smooth china! Shall I ever drink tea from it, I wonder.”

“I’ll make it now,” he said, “That is, if you will stay.”

“I’d like nothing better. Do let me help.”

He hesitated. “What of the conventions? Would people talk?”

“Because I drank tea with you? Let them! My dear James, I’ve come here to spend the rest of my days. People had better begin their gossip at once. I’ll give ’em food for it!” She moved with elastic step and swaying skirt across the room.

He returned the jug to its place. Then he turned to her impulsively. “I shall light the fire, then,” he said.

The fire was already laid. He touched a match to it and it flared up brightly. He took the tin kettle and went to the spring for water. Through the window she watched his tall figure, so conventional in its movements. “I wonder what you have in that head of yours,” she mused. “But I like you. Yes, I like you very much, James Wilmott.”

She ran her eyes over his books. Philosophy, essays, history, dry stuff for the most part, but there were a few volumes of poetry, a few works of fiction. She took out a copy of Tennyson’s poems. It had passages marked. She read: —

Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease.

Wilmott came in with the kettle, from which clear drops dripped.

“I’m reading,” she said.

“What?” he asked, stopping to look over her shoulder. “Oh, that,” he said, impassively, and went to set the kettle over the flame.

“It doesn’t seem at all like you.”

“Why?”

“It — seems too indolent.”

“Am I so energetic?”

“No. But you are purposeful, I think. This is more like you: —

“
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell …

You should have marked that one.”

“My God!” he ejaculated. “That isn’t me! I wish it were. My soul is houseless.”

“I am not subtle,” she said, replacing the book. “I’m going to take off my hat.” She removed the ridiculous little hat she wore, that had two small ribbons fluttering at the back. A sudden intimacy clouded the room.

Wilmott looked about him puzzled, as though he had forgotten where he had left things.

“Let me make the tea,” she said.

“No. I could not bear that.”

Adeline laughed. “Not bear to see me make tea?”

He gave a rather grim smile. “No. It would be too beautiful. Such things aren’t for me.”

He brewed the tea deftly enough, set out the new dishes, a square of honey in the comb, then invited her to sit down. All the while he talked. He told her of the farmer’s wife who baked his bread and sold him honey. He had bought a cow, two pigs, and some poultry. Philip was on the lookout for a good team of horses for him. Oats and barley had been sown by his predecessor. He would learn farming. With what income remained to him he would get on very well. “In short,” he said, cutting a square of honey for her, “I’ve never been so consciously happy in my life.”

Adeline took a large mouthful of bread and honey. Her eyes glowed. “Neither have I,” she said.

Wilmott was amused. “I’ll wager you have never known an hour’s real unhappiness.”

“What about when I told my mother goodbye? What about when I saw my mother and father on the pier and couldn’t go back to them? What about the voyage and Huneefa? All that since you’ve known me!”

“You must confirm what I have always thought.”

“What?”

“That you are the happiest creature I have ever known.”

“I don’t go about blazoning my sorrows,” she said, trying to look haughty as she helped herself to more honey.

“Do I?” He had reddened a little. Adeline regarded him speculatively. “Well, you said a moment ago that you are consciously happy. Perhaps you are sometimes consciously unhappy. I’m not afraid of life. I never expect the worst.”

“I am going to tell you about myself,” he said. “I never intended to but — I’m going to.”

She leant forward eagerly. “Oh, do!”

“I must beg you to keep it secret.”

“Never shall I breathe it to the face of clay!”

“Very well.” He rose, took the teapot to the stove and added water to it from the kettle. With it still in his hand he turned to her abruptly.

“I
am
married,” he said.

She stared unbelievingly. “Oh, surely not,” she said. “Surely not.”

He gave her a short laugh. “I don’t think I am mistaken. I’m not only a husband but a father.”

“Of all things! Then you lied to me, for you told me you were single.”

“Yes, I lied to you.”

“Yet you seem to me the perfect bachelor.”

“Many a time I was called the perfect husband.”

“Ah, well,” she said, with her Irish inflections intensified, “whatever you were, you’d be good at it!” She mused a moment and then added — “Lover and all.”

“
And
liar!”

She looked him in the eyes. “Are you going to tell me why you lied?” she asked.

“Yes.” He came and sat down.

“What I mean is, why you hid the fact of your marriage.”

“Yes, of course … I was running away.”

“Leaving her?”

“Yes.”

“And the child?”

“Yes.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Girl of fourteen.”

“Then you were married a long while!”

“Fifteen years. I was twenty-five.” He added, with sudden force — “Fifteen years of misery!”

“Surely not the whole fifteen!”

“We weren’t married six months till I knew that I had made a mistake. The remaining years were spent in realizing it more and more.”

“Couldn’t you do anything about it?”

“Nothing. I was rooted. Hopelessly. You can’t imagine how I was rooted, because you’ve never lived that sort of life.”

As his hand rested on the table she laid hers on it for an instant. “Please tell me about it,” she said.

Through the open door came the voice of the river, talking among its reeds. The cow Wilmott had bought lowed at the gate.

“She wants to be milked,” he said.

“Can you do it?”

“I have a young Indian helping me.”

“Oh, I do love this little place!” exclaimed Adeline. “I don’t want to think you’re unhappy here.”

“I have told you how happy I am. But things won’t be right with me till you know all the truth.”

“You’re a dangerous kind of man,” she said.

“You mean it isn’t safe to tell the truth?”

“I can bear it, but not all women can. Perhaps your wife couldn’t.”

“She never knew anything about me. Not really. She knew I held a responsible position in a large shipping house. I had married too young but I kept my nose to the grindstone. I was good at figures. They thought well of me in the business. Our friends — that is, my wife’s — said I was such a good husband and father. It was no wonder. I had a good training. She never let me alone. Tidiness, order, meticulous living, that was her aim from morning to night. That and the acquiring of possessions. No sooner had we got one thing than her heart went out to another. Glass, silver, carpets, curtains, clothes — and all to be kept in the most perfect order. No dogs about the place. The two maids — we had risen to two when I left — constantly scouring and cleaning. But if only she could have done it peaceably. She did nothing peaceably. She talked without ceasing. She would talk for hours about some trivial social triumph or defeat, or the misdoings of a maid. If she was silent it was because she was in a cold fury and that I could not stand. I would either quarrel with
her to get her out of it or just succumb and be meek. You see, she was the stronger character.”

“And the little girl?” asked Adeline, trying to fit Wilmott into this new picture.

“She’s not a little girl,” he returned testily. “She’s a big lump of a girl, with no affection and small intelligence. Her mother is convinced that Hettie inherits my musical ability. She took music lessons and was always pounding out the same piece, always with the very same mistakes. My wife was eternally talking but Hettie rarely spoke. She just sat and stared at me.”

“Faith, it was a queer life for you!” said Adeline.

Wilmott sat smiling gently at her. “You could not imagine it,” he said.

“And then what happened?”

“I applied myself more assiduously to my work. I was promoted. I made more money but managed to keep the fact secret. I began to talk to her of the East and how I longed to go there. I would interrupt her discourse on a friend’s
soirée
to talk of Bombay or Kashmir. All the while I was planning to come to the West. She could not understand my sudden talkativeness. My talk bored her excessively. Hettie would just sit staring. Hettie was always sucking lozenges flavored with cloves. When I think of her I smell cloves.”

“Ah, you should have been a bachelor!” said Adeline.

“Would that have made me immune to the scent of cloves?” he asked tartly.

“I mean, you weren’t fitted for the intimacies of family life. Not the way my father is. Smells don’t affect him or whether a woman is silent or talks. He has the knack of marriage.”

“Upon my word,” exclaimed Wilmott, “one might think you sympathized with my wife.”

“A good beating was what she needed. It would have brought out the good in her. Was she plain or pretty?”

“Pretty,” he returned glumly.

“Did she keep her looks?”

“She did.”

“And Hettie? Was she pretty?”

“As pretty as a suet pudding.”

“Whom did she resemble then?”

“My wife’s father. He was always taking snuff. It was always scattered over his waistcoat.”

“There you go again — noticing small things! Maybe you have a talent for writing.”

Wilmott flushed. “I have faint hopes in that direction.”

“Don’t let ’em be faint!” said Adeline. “Let ’em be fierce! I don’t believe in faint hopes. It wasn’t faint hopes that got me Philip.”

The mention of Philip’s name put a damper on Wilmott’s confidence. He could feel Philip’s presence in the room. He said stiffly: —