01 The Building of Jalna (24 page)

Wilmott had taken Tite’s copybook into his hands. He bent his gaze on it in an absent-minded way. Adeline came over and looked over his shoulder. She said, in an undertone: —

“I shall come over tomorrow morning — soon after breakfast.”

“Names are amusing,” Philip was saying. “I knew of another Vaughan in the Army in India. He was no relation to your uncle, Miss Daisy, but he had the same name. He even looked like him. Did you ever notice that people who look alike have similar voices?”

“Tomorrow morning,” whispered Adeline, into the copybook, “and — don’t worry.”

A
NXIOUS AS
A
DELINE
was she drew in the reins and slackened the pace of the quiet bay horse so that she might look up the drive that led to Jalna. There was no gate as yet. The drive was no more than a rough track. Piles of lumber, heaps of brick and sand disfigured the ground before the house, but there stood the house with its roof firmly on, its five chimneys staunch and tall, waiting for her and Philip! There was a sagacious look about it, as though it were conscious that it had no drab destiny, but was to be the home of two people who were beloved by each other and who loved life. The builder promised that in early spring they should move in.

Adeline could scarcely endure the waiting for that day. She had now been five months at Vaughanlands. No people could have put themselves about with a better grace than the Vaughans. Still, two grownups, two children and their nurse, were a large addition to the work of the house. Domestic help was cheap enough but untrained and ignorant. All her life Adeline had been waited on. Work got done somehow and never had she troubled her head as to how. In the past months she had often seen Mrs. Vaughan tired-out. Yet, when she tried to help her she did everything wrong and experienced dreadful boredom into the bargain. It took all the
nurse’s time to care for the children and to wash and iron their little clothes. She saw to it that it took all her time. Adeline at last appealed to Patsy O’Flynn.

“For the love of God, Patsy-Joe, take hold and help with the housework! For if you can’t make yourself useful I shall have to send you back to Ireland.”

“Me make mesilf useful!” he cried, affronted. “If I haven’t, I’d like to know who has! How would your honour have got here, with the babies and the goat and the dog and all — if it hadn’t been for me! ’Tis yersilf has many a time said so and now you throw me uselessness in me teeth and expect me to swallow it!”

“Very well, Patsy-Joe,” Adeline said sadly. “I’ll clean the silver and wash the glass and make the beds myself, if you are to talk like that.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” he grumbled, “but ’tis the most small, inconvenient house I iver was in, and the servants the worst.”

He did turn in and help with the work and might have been heard saying to the housemaid — “Mind yer manners, ye ill-taught wench. Curtsy and say ‘Please, yer honour!” whin ye sake to the misthress, or I’ll be the death of ye.” The buxom girl took it in good part. Wherever Patsy-Joe went he was a favourite.

The horse’s hoofs moved quietly in the deep dust of the road. In spite of early autumn rains, the land lay dry as tinder. Even the heavy dews at night could do no more than moisten the parched lips of the plants. But colour was bright on every side. With careless flamboyance the trees ran the bold scale from bronze to fiery red. The fields showed the hot blue of chicory and yellow stubble, the fence corners, the crimson sumacs. The purple clusters of elderberries looked ready to drip from the trees in their overripeness. Ten thousand crickets filled the lazy air with their metallic music. How much, thought Adeline, they could do with two single notes! One note was grave and one was gay, and with the two they could do anything.

She had slept little last night. It was only by strong curbing of herself that she had remained in bed. She had felt that by springing up and pacing the floor she might find some means of
saving Wilmott from discovery by his wife. The aghast look in his eyes had frightened her. What if he were gone when she arrived at his house? He had looked capable of anything at the moment when Daisy had told of the meeting with that woman. But Daisy and Philip had seemed to notice nothing. Wilmott was not a man you would suspect. Not that he seemed without mystery but he appeared to carry it in his heart and not as a physical covering. You wouldn’t think of him as hiding from a woman, thought Adeline. But hiding he was and must be protected. Her love for Philip never wavered but the small, unbridled something in her that would stray loved Wilmott also, with a bold protective love.

His bit of river was as smooth as a blue glass plate and the rushes along its verge, even in their dryness, were too still for whispering. The little new landing stage shone out clean and white. His fishing tackle lay on it and the flat-bottomed boat was moored beside it. Everything was so still that Adeline had a sense of foreboding as she knocked at the door. There was no answer but she saw the window blind move and had a glimpse of Tite’s thin dark hair.

“It is Mrs. Whiteoak!” she called out.

The door opened and he stood there, in his shirt and trousers but barefoot. He said, in his soft voice: —

“Come in, Missis. My boss he want to see you. You wait here and I bring him. You go inside and shut the door.”

She entered the house.

Tite’s copybook was open on the table. He had been at work, the ink was still wet on his laborious pothooks. Her heart was warm with pity for Wilmott as she looked about the room where he had made himself so comfortable, so mentally at ease. It was very tidy. Try as he might he would never shake off the punctilious habits inflicted on him by that wife. He came quickly into the room alone and closed the door behind him. He looked pale and his eyes were heavy.

“You have not slept either,” she said.

“I did not trouble to go to bed. But I’m sorry you should lie awake on my account. After all, we have jumped to a conclusion.
There might conceivably be another Mrs. Wilmott — one who would be welcomed by her husband.” He smiled grimly. “I must try to find out more particulars from Miss Vaughan. Yesterday my mind refused to work. I was as near to panic as I have ever been.”

“I’m afraid you have reason for it,” she said. “When I had Daisy to myself I brought up the matter again and found that the Mrs. Wilmott she met came from the very part of London you lived in. She was pretty, too — very neat in appearance, Daisy said, and precise in her speech, with a high-pitched voice and a little quirk at the corner of her mouth.”

“My God,” he exclaimed, “you’ll have the girl suspicious!”

“I don’t think so. Anyhow, we had to make certain. I think we can be certain, don’t you?”

“My wife will never rest till she finds me!” he exclaimed. He looked wildly about the room.

“Don’t look so desperate.”

“I
am
desperate. I tell you, Adeline, I will not live with my wife again. I’ll hang myself from one of these rafters first!”

“She must not find you.”

“She will find me! You don’t know her. I tell you she’s indefatigable. Nothing will stop her.”

“You tell me this,” cried Adeline. “Yet you took passage to Canada without changing your name! You lived in Quebec under your own name! What did you expect?”

He spoke more calmly. “I thought she would abide by my decision.”

“Was that her habit?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Adeline. I left her well provided for. She had the child. Why should she follow me?”

“Oh, listen to the man!” Adeline folded her arms to imprison her exasperation. “Oh, the innocence! It is no wonder she is seeking you, James. For what a blank you have left in her life! How can she be herself without you there to badger and to hector and harass? God help her, she is like a waterfall with nothing to fall over!”

“Well, she won’t have me! I shall clear out. To think that she may walk in here at any moment! Did she mention a child?”

“Yes, she spoke of her daughter who had mumps on the voyage out.”

Wilmott’s face showed no fatherly concern at this news.

“Is the girl like her mother?” asked Adeline.

“No, but she is absolutely under her influence.”

“Who wouldn’t be!” exclaimed Adeline. “Who could live in the same house with such a woman and not be under her influence? You couldn’t, James.”

“I kept my secret hidden from her all those years,” he said grimly. “My secret intention to leave her.”

“You did well. What have you told Tite?”

“That I may be going away.”

She swept to him and took his head between her hands. She looked compellingly into his eyes. “You shall not go!” she said.

He drew violently away from her. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me — I love you too well! I have to keep telling myself that Philip is my friend.”

“We must take Philip into our confidence.” Her hands had dropped to her sides as though they had not touched him. She looked at him calmly. “We must tell him all. He and I will go to the town and see if we can find out where your wife is. It’s just as you say, she’s had plenty of time to follow you here.”

“What will Philip think of me?”

“He’ll be on your side. You have impoverished yourself for her. You can’t deliver over your body to her. What man would expect you to? Not Philip!”

“I wish it were not necessary to tell him.”

“Tell him yourself. As man to man you’ll make him understand.”

“If anyone can do that, you can, Adeline.”

She smiled. “Ah, I might do it too well.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I get carried away. I might make the situation too melodramatic.
Philip might want to keep out of it. I’ll send him to you. You shall tell him in your own dignified way.”

“I still think it would be better for me to leave.”

“There is no need for that,” she declared.” I’ll tell the woman you are dead.”

Wilmott gave a sardonic laugh. “She’ll never believe you,” he said.

Adeline’s eyes were blazing when she turned on him. “Not believe me!” she cried. “If I can’t convince a flibbertigibbet like that, my name is not Adeline Court!” She took his hand, as though sealing a compact. Then she went to the door. “To think,” she said, “that Henrietta may walk up this path at any moment!”

Then she showed her white teeth in a mischievous smile. “Leave Henrietta to me,” she said.

Wilmott stood looking at the russet plaits of her hair beneath the little velvet hat, and the intimate grace of her nape as it melted into her shoulder. It was hard for him to believe in the existence of Henrietta.

“The first thing is to find Philip,” she said finally, “and to send him here to you.”

“My God, what an interview!”

He went with her to where the horse was tethered, and helped her to mount. “Everything will be all right,” she called back to him as she rode away.

She was halfway to Jalna when she saw a carriage approaching. It was of the type hired out by livery stables and drawn by a pair of lean horses. She saw that a woman and a young girl were in the seat behind the driver.

Adeline’s heart began to thud rapidly against her side. But she hastened forward. As she passed the dust-covered carriage she took a good look at the occupants.

The driver wore a shabby livery and weather-beaten top hat. He had a harassed, almost plaintive look. He was comforting himself by chewing tobacco, a trickle from which discoloured his chin. Behind him, very upright on the uncomfortable seat,
sat a smallish, fresh-coloured woman. She was pretty and self-possessed, looking young to be the mother of the lumpish girl at her side. She gave Adeline a keen look, then leaned forward and poked the driver in the back.

“Stop the horses,” she commanded.

Either from stupidity or self-will he continued on his way, his eyes fixed on the flies that buzzed above the heads of the horses, moving with them in a horrid halo.

Mrs. Wilmott poked him again but more fiercely.

“I shall certainly complain of you to your master,” she declared. “You are the stupidest man I have ever seen. Stop the horses and try to attract that lady’s attention!”

The driver gave her a lowering look over his shoulder. “Did you say
master
?” he growled. “We don’t call no on master in this country. This here country is a free country. But if you want me to holler to the lady, I will.”

He gave a loud bellow of — “Hi there, ma’am! You’re wanted!”

His horses had not required any order to stop but now made as though to go into the ditch where they saw the long grass. He wrenched at the reins. “Whoa,” he bellowed. “Stay on the road, can’t you? It’s bad enough to traipse all over the countryside without you pullin’ the arms of me!” The horses, with hanging heads, settled down to wait.

Adeline had drawn bridle and was slowly approaching. Her colour was high. She looked more composed than she felt. When she had stopped her horse beside the carriage she looked down inquiringly into the face of Mrs. Wilmott, who said: —

“I wonder if you can give me any information of the whereabouts of Mr. James Wilmott. I am told he bought a property in this locality.”

“Yes,” returned Adeline, in a deep quiet tone, “he did. A little log cabin it was, far up the river where the swamp is, and an acre or two of land. An Indian boy was with him.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Wilmott’s face showed a faint look of shock. “Really. A swamp, did you say? An Indian! How degrading!”

“It was not all swamp. He had a cow and a pig and a few fowls. He might have been worse off.”

“Is he gone from there?”

“Yes. He’s gone.”

Mrs. Wilmott drew a deep breath, then between pale lips she said, in a tense tone — “I should like to speak to you privately.” She looked at the slumping back of the driver. Then she said: —

“Just drive along the road a short distance while I converse with this lady. Hold the horses steady while my daughter and I get out of the carriage. Now be very careful. Steady the horses!”

“Remember I’m paid by the hour,” he grumbled. “You’ll have a pretty bill.” He shifted his tobacco to the other cheek and looked vindictively over his shoulder at her.