01 The Building of Jalna (31 page)

The thing that worried Mrs. Vaughan about Daisy was that she appeared to be not only after Dr. Ramsey alone. When the doctor was with Adeline, Daisy was certain to be with Philip, if he were in the house. In these days, Adeline felt a weariness on her and retired early to bed. Daisy always manoeuvred to sit up with Philip who did not care when he went to bed. She would go with him over the snowdrifts on snowshoes which she had been given at Christmas, to visit Jalna. When Adeline was present, Daisy was circumspection itself but when Adeline was not there, Daisy directed almost all the conversation to Philip, and laughed a good deal. Mrs. Vaughan had tried hard to love Daisy but had not succeeded. She was critical of Adeline but could not help loving her.

Even more than she loved their mother, Mrs. Vaughan loved the children. They grew more charming every day, she thought,
yet they filled the house with their noise and the confusion of their living. Nicholas was developing a temper and when he was frustrated would make the echoes ring with his screams of rage.

Then when things were at their gloomiest, March came in like a lamb. It did not come in like an ordinary lamb but as a gay, sweetly gamboling lamb whose bleat was the gurgle of running water, whose eyes shone like summer stars, whose tail flicked all care aside. In short the weather was unseasonably warm. But now the work on Jalna boomed and buzzed. The workmen rose early and worked late. Things which it seemed never would happen took place in the twinkling of an eye. Plaster was slapped on. Window glass was puttied in. Doorknobs and locks were screwed into place. The spindles and rail of the banister miraculously appeared and, at the foot of the stairs, the carved newel post, smooth as satin with its clustering grapes and their leaves. The men sang as they worked. The hot sun beat down on the roof and blazed in at the new windows. Great clouds of migratory birds passed overhead. The earth was teeming with vitality. The melting of the snow had been so quickly accomplished that the stream had been fed beyond control. It raged through the ravine, sweeping away the bridge of logs and carrying it to the lake. Wilmott’s river was in spate also. One night it came to his very door and he began to pack his books. He dared not to go to bed but remained watching. Every now and again he would open the door and, holding a lantern above his head, survey the threatening flood. But by sunrise it had a little subsided and by noon his books were again on their shelves.

It was a great day for Philip and Adeline when a van, drawn by four horses, stopped in front of the door of Jalna. Here was their furniture at last! Here were the painted leather bedstead they had brought from India, and the chest of drawers with its ornate brass trimmings, the cabinet and the packing case full of jade, ivory, and silver ornaments to grace it. Here were the rugs that had taken generations of work to make, the draperies with delicate embroidery; here were the very scents and sounds of India! Here were the delicate Chippendale chairs and tables given Philip by his
sister, the Empire sofa they had brought from Quebec, the massive wardrobe they had bought in London! Here the Irish silver and linen given by Lady Honoria! Here the old life in the new!

March had only three more days to go, and still it was gentle. If only Adeline might have her own room in order — the rest of the house could wait — so that her child might be born in peace under her own roof! Day and night she strained toward this object. She could scarcely sleep for the planning in her head and the weariness of her body. The thought of time became palpable to her, as an antagonistic something with which she was running a race. Once, in the middle of the night, she pictured the unborn child as timekeeper in this race. She pictured him as a little gnome sitting cross-legged with a gold watch in his hand. At this fancy she burst out laughing.

“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Philip starting up.

“I laughed — so that I should not cry.”

“Nonesense. Why should you cry?”

“I’d better be dead than go through all I have to go through.”

“Now, Adeline, behave yourself and think of all our mercies,” he said, for something to say.

“Do you count yourself one of them?”

“Assuredly.”

“Then you count one too many.”

He raised himself on his elbow and looked down at her. Bright moonlight was shining through the window into his face. His sister, Augusta, had sent him an embroidered nightcap and it was perched jauntily on one side of his head.

“Oh, Philip, you look enchanting!” she exclaimed. She drew down his head and kissed him.

“Now you must settle yourself and go to sleep,” he said, patting her shoulder.

She sighed. “I think I might if the window were open.”

“You know very well the doctor has warned you most particularly against the night air, since you had whooping cough.”

“Oh, do let us have it open, just a tiny way!”

He got up grumbling a little and opened the window a few inches. Then he drew s chair between her and the window and spread her great, flounced petticoat across it

“There,” he said with satisfaction, “that will keep the draught off you.”

“Oh, thank you, Phil,” she said breathing deeply. “How sweet the night air is! What a pity it should be so dangerous!” She snuggled down.

The petticoat did not keep the night air off Philip. He could feel it fanning his cheek in the most disagreeable way. But he did not like to change his position for fear of disturbing Adeline. He began to be miserable. He was not afraid of what the night air would do to him. He just did not like it.

Finally he solved the problem by pulling his nightcap right down over his eyes, down over his uppermost cheek, till he was sheltered but still could breathe.

April came in wild and windy. The wind, discovering the five tall new chimneys, blew down them, shrieked and roared through them, as though they were outlet enough for all its energy. The new doors slammed and banged; shavings of wood blew in all directions; workmen whistled at the top of their lungs; one of them was blown from the top of a ladder and might have been killed but was scarcely hurt. The furniture was uncrated and the canvas wrapping removed. Rugs were heaped in corners. The great painted bedstead, with its design of rich-coloured flowers and fruit, through which the forms of birds and monkeys could be glimpsed, was set up in the principal bedroom. Fifty times a day Nero went upstairs and down, overseeing all.

With the furniture from Uncle Nicholas’s house in Quebec had come the grand piano. It was delivered in a wagon by itself. When it arrived there was so much else to be done that it was decided to unload it and let it stand in its case, covered by tarpaulin, till men could be spared for the handling of such a load. The wagon was backed toward a convenient spot near the ravine. But the ground still was icy in the shade. The wagon wheels began to slip. The whole
great weight began to move backward into the ravine, dragging the horses with it. Philip and Adeline looked on with dismay on his part, horror on hers. In another moment the plunging horses would be over the edge.

“Loose the traces!” Philip shouted.

Adeline shrieked — “Loose the traces!”

Two men sprang forward. Massive shapes strove together above the ravine. The driver leaped from his seat in time to save himself. The heavy draught horses moved forward lightly, free of their load which crashed inexorably to the stream. It broke off branches and young trees as it fell, then came to rest supported by two boulders, so that it was not actually in the water.

“By the Lord Harry,” said Philip, “that was a close shave!”

“I’ll bet that pianner is bust to bits,” said a man with a red neckerchief. “Nobody’ll never play on it no more.”

All but the driver ran through the icy slush to look down at the piano. It had been made in France, crossed the ocean, stood for many years in the drawing-room of the house in the Rue St. Louis, travelled by barge, boat, and wagon to this place and now lay, dumb and disgraced at the bottom of the ravine.

“Can we get it up, do you think?” asked Adeline, still white from the shock.

“It’ll take four horses to haul it up and it’ll fall to pieces on the way,” said the man who had spoken before.

“Certainly we shall raise it,” said Philip comfortingly to Adeline. “You will play ‘The Harp that Once thro’ Tara’s Halls,’ on it yet.”

He turned to the man with the red neckerchief. “It was you who directed the driver. Otherwise the piano would not be where it is. Now you say it can’t be raised whole. I don’t want men like you working on my place. Ask the foreman for your money. You’re discharged.”

The man stared at him. “The foreman engaged me,” he said. “It’s for him to discharge me. Not you.”

Philip took him by the red neckerchief. “I have a mind,” he said, “to throw you down on top of the piano.” He gave him a hearty push. “Now, go, and be quick about it.” The man skulked off.

All the rest of the day Adeline felt shaken. Her knees trembled as she hastened to and from the bedroom she was preparing. They had chosen the room at the end of the hall behind the drawing-room as her own; cool in summer and warm in winter, far from the noise of the children. A servant had been engaged, the daughter of a farm laborer, who followed Adeline about, getting in her way rather than helping her. The girl could neither read nor write. Her incompetence and stupidity were a marvel to Adeline but she was good-natured and strong as an ox.

A married couple, the man a trained gardener and the woman a good cook, were on their way from Devon. They had been engaged by Philip’s sister and it was hoped that they would be installed in the house before the time of Adeline’s confinement, a fortnight or more hence. Their bedroom, comfortably furnished in the basement, awaited them. They were bringing with them a supply of kitchen utensils and garden tools such as they had been accustomed to. Adeline wished with all her heart that they were at Jalna, as she strove to bring some slight order out of the chaos which surrounded her. Everywhere she went the girl, Lizzie, followed her, tripping over the litter on the floor, dropping things, exclaiming at the wonders from India.

“Sakes alive!” she said, pointing to the painted bedstead. “Is that there to sleep in?”

“Yes. Draw the mattress toward you. It’s not on straight.”

“Land sakes, I’d have bad dreams if I slept in it.”

“I dare say. Now help me to open this chest.”

“What’s them things all over it?”

“Dragons.”

“They look heathenish.”

“They are.”

“Your furniture don’t look like Christian furniture.”

“It isn’t. What have you dropped now?”

“It looks like a doll.”

The small porcelain figure had been wrapped in a piece of Eastern embroidery which the girl had taken from the chest.
Adeline snatched it up from the floor. She examined it anxiously. “Thank God,” she exclaimed, “it isn’t broken! If you had broken that, my girl, I’d have made an end of you.” She held the porcelain figure tenderly in her hands. It was the goddess, Kuan Yin.

“Is it a doll?” asked Lizzie.

“It is a Chinese goddess. Oh, how beautiful and wise she is! How glad I am she wasn’t broken! See her sweet hand and her little feet like flowers!”

“She looks comic,” said Lizzie.

“I wish I could put you down in China for five years, Lizzie, and see what would happen to you.”

Lizzie giggled, “Perhaps I’d come back looking like that there,” she said.

Adeline set the goddess on the mantelpiece. “There I shall place her,” she said, “to guard the room. She shall stay there always.”

“It’s sinful to worship images,” said Lizzie. “My pa wouldn’t let me work for folks that worship images.”

“Well, when you next see him, you can tell him I say my prayers to this one. It will be fun to see what happens.”

“I won’t do that, ma’am. I want to stay here.”

“Good for you, Lizzie! Now gather up some of the paper and shavings from the hall and lay a fire here. It’s very cold.”

“You don’t look cold,” observed Lizzie. “Your cheeks is red as if you had the fever.” She crammed paper and shavings tightly into the grate.

“No, no, not that way, Lizzie!” Adeline was worn-out by the girl’s stupidity but she liked her. She wondered what the well-trained Devon servants would make of her.

Mrs. Pink came in later to see what she could do to help but her admiration for what was already unpacked, and her shock over the disaster to the piano, took most of her energy. Mr. Pink called for her and he too joined in the inspection and condolence. Still later Philip came, accompanied by Captain Lacey, Thomas D’Arcy, and Michael Brent. It was like a party. Philip tore down to the wine cellar where already a case of wine was installed and
brought up a bottle of Madeira. Wine glasses were discovered. Wilmott appeared and at once said he knew the proper method for rescuing the piano from the ravine and that if he had been there it never would have fallen. Adeline was suddenly gay and full of confidence. When she and Philip drove back to Vaughanlands, she felt strong and hopeful of having everything in order before the arrival of her child. It was disgraceful, Mrs. Vaughan thought, the way Adeline laced herself though, after all, who could blame her, considering how she was exposed to public view? Her condition might well pass unnoticed, so small was her waist, so voluminous her skirts.

When Adeline woke in the dawn with a mild rain pattering on the roof and the song of a chickadee coming from the maple tree outside the window, she had a startled feeling as though someone had put a hand on her and roughly disturbed her. She lay very still, her heart beating quickly. She lay waiting, her wide open eyes fixed on the window, pale in the early light.

Then she felt the touch again. It was a sharp pain that stabbed her very vitals. She was filled with apprehension. Was this the warning of her confinement? Was she to be caught here, be forced to have her child where she was determined not to have it? Sweat broke out on her forehead. She gave a little moan.

Then she felt better. Probably it was a false alarm. She had had others in her time. But she would take no risks. Let Philip oppose her as she might, she would sleep that night in her own house! She lay planning each step of the day. After a while she slept.