01 The Building of Jalna (34 page)

On a warm bright morning in May the nurse had set Nicholas in his perambulator on the grass. It was near the ravine where passing workmen might amuse him, or the flight of returning birds. They came in great numbers, in clouds, filling the air with their song. Always there was some living thing to watch at Jalna.

A farm hand led past a fine team of Percheron horses, just bought by Philip. They trotted by in gentleness and strength, moving obediently to the slight drawing of the rein. Nicholas ceased to play with his woolly lamb and leant forward to watch them as though appraisingly; his brilliant dark eyeslooked out from under the frill of his pale blue silk bonnet. The great glossy flanks of the Percherons jogged up and down, the bright metal trimmings of the harness jingled. Nicholas saw how their cream-coloured tails were caught in a knot with red ribbons. He turned over his lamb to see if its tail was the same, and finding it had nothing more than a little scut of wool, he pushed out his underlip in disapproval. Gussie, sitting on a little stool by his side, thought he was about to cry. She joggled the perambulator up and down with an experienced hand.

He turned his gaze somewhat resentfully on her. He did not want to be joggled. He wanted to get out and walk He tried to unfasten the strap which held him.

“No, no,” said Gussie. “Naughty.”

She rose and held his two hands in hers. This infuriated him. He glared at her and struggled. She thought she would push the pram about to quiet him. The ground was level and smooth here so she managed very well. It was a great pleasure to her to push the pram, though their nurse had strictly forbidden it.

But Nicholas was thoroughly disgruntled. He could not forget how she had held his hands. He hurled his lamb overboard He lay down on his back and kicked. With a great deal of effort she moved the pram to where the resurrected piano stood in its case at the edge of the ravine.

“Nice piano,” she said. “Gussie will play on it.” Then she added — “But not Nicholas.”

He could not understand that there was a piano in the big box but he did understand that he was going to be denied something she was to have. He turned over and struggled to his knees, still encircled by the restraining strap. She did not see what he had done, for her head was bent in Herculean efforts. The ground had become rougher.

Nicholas leant over the back of the pram and gripped Gussie’s hat by the crown. He dragged it forward over her eyes, badly pulling her hair that was caught in the elastic. She gave a cry of pain and rage but continued to push the pram with all her might.

Only the day before the piano had, with much shouting and cracking of the whip, been dragged up from the brink of the river. Every carpenter, plasterer, woodsman and farm hand had gathered to see the four horses strain and stamp, in their efforts to raise the piano. Once the ropes had slipped and it had all but plunged back again but, at last, it stood safe on the top. Today it was to be carried into the drawing-room.

All that she had borne from Nicholas now crowded upon Gussie. Whatever she had, he wanted. Whatever she did, he interfered. He was the centre of everything. Mamma, Papa, Nurse, Lizzie — everyone liked him best. Even Patsy O’Flynn had put her down from his shoulder one morning to elevate Nicholas to that eminence. Little Ernest was nice. She could do with him but Nicholas she could not abide. The long sharp slope, up which the piano had been dragged, lay before her. It had been scraped to comparative smoothness by the weight of the piano. Gussie put all her strength into a last push to the pram. She let go.

Down the slop it hurtled. Nicholas still clinging to the back of the seat. His expression changed from surprise to joyful devil-may-careness. A wheel striking a stone caused a bump that threw him into the air. He landed in the pram again but in a different position. Gussie could no longer see his face.

Now the perambulator reached the river’s edge. It overturned, with Nicholas beneath it. He did not move. The front wheels were above the water. Suddenly Gussie was frightened. She felt alone in an immense world. She looked down the steep. The piano had
been at the bottom. Now it was at the top. The pram had been at the top, now it was at the bottom. Nicholas had been noisy, now he was silent. Things changed too much. Gussie was afraid.

She trotted in the direction from whence came the sound of an axe and voices of the two French Canadians singing. Their singing reminded her of something long past, something that was pleasant and soothing. She stood concealed, watching the swing of the axes and the way the muscles rose in lumps on their brown arms.

Gussie gave a little skip of pleasure. For an instant the forest was blotted out and she saw the kitchen of the house in the Rue St. Louis and felt Marie’s arms about her, rocking her, heard Marie’s voice singing.

“‘Alouette, Alouette,
gentile Alouette, Je te plumerait …’”

She discovered tiny pink flowers starring the young grass at her feet and bent her face down to theirs. She heard the nurse’s voice calling.

“Augusta! Augusta!” There was a frantic note in the voice.

Then Nurse saw her and ran to her.

“Where is Baby?” she panted.

“Down there,” said Gussie pointing to the bottom of the ravine.

“Merciful heaven!” She ran to the verge and peered over. Gussie followed her, watched her run frantically down the steep. Finger in mouth, she saw Nurse lift the pram, take Nicholas into her arms and examine him, then toil up again, her face crimson.

Nicholas had been no more hurt than the piano had been, Gussie decided, staring up into his face. He looked quiet and puzzled. His bonnet was down over one eye. Nurse set him on the ground, then again descended into the ravine and brought up the pram. She was completely winded. She took out the pillow and coverings and shook the earth from them. She plumped the pillow and rearranged all. Every now and again she cast a fearful glance toward the house. When Nicholas had been embraced and
tenderly kissed, Nurse bent over Gussie.

“How did it happen?” she demanded fiercely. “What did you do, you wicked girl?”

“I pushed the pram,” answered Gussie, “and it went over. I was giving him a ride.”

“It’s a marvel you did not kill him.” She took Gussie by the shoulders and shook her violently, then slapped her hands, then her cheeks. “Take that!” she said. “And don’t you dare tell Mamma or Papa about this. Now stop crying. You haven’t got the half of what you deserve.”

That afternoon the piano case was removed. The piano stood exposed to the sunlight, apparently none the worse for all it had been through. It remained to see what its tone would be. A platform on rollers had been constructed, on which it was drawn to the house, and a half-dozen men carried it with what were, to Gussie, rather frightening shoutings and strugglings. When at last it was safe in the drawing-room, the men stood about it admiring its rosewood case, the carvings of its legs, its silver candleholders, with almost as much pride as if it had been their own.

When the men were gone, Adeline and Philip, Daisy and Wilmott, were left.

“Now,” exclaimed Daisy, “things really begin to look settled and homelike! I always say that the piano is the soul of the house. I do hope it is not too dreadfully out of tune.”

“Please sit down and play something,” said Philip. “Let’s find out the worst at once.”

Daisy arranged herself on the stool, after a number of twirlings of it up and down till it was of the desired height. Then she broke into a Strauss waltz.”

“It’s not bad,” she declared, above the music. “Not bad at all. The tone is sweet.”

Philip was delighted. He put an arm about Adeline’s waist and, without considering whether or not she was in condition to waltz, whirled her away. “Hoop-la!” he cried. “Why, it’s ages since we’ve danced together.”

Supple and strong, Adeline skimmed the floor with him. Wilmott stood looking on a little gloomily, wishing he too had a partner. Then, seeing Gussie peeping round the door, he went to her, bowed deeply in the Frenchified manner he had picked up in Quebec, and said: —

“Will you do me the honour, Miss Whiteoak?”

She bowed gravely and, holding her by her hands, he led her round and round.

“We shall often have parties here,” said Adeline across Philip’s shoulder. “Surely we are the happiest people in the world!” She sank down on a sofa, happily flushed but a little tired after the waltz. Daisy turned round on the stool.

“I should so love to dance,” she said. “If anyone would dance with me.”

“Play us a tune, Wilmott!” said Philip, and raised Daisy to her feet.

Daisy’s playing had been gay, facile, if somewhat incorrect. Wilmott’s was slow, with a kind of precise sensuousness. Daisy’s sinuous body expressed, almost brazenly, her pleasure in the rhythmic movement. The two had frequently danced together this past winter.

“I do so love dancing with you, Captain Whiteoak,” she breathed. “I’m lost to all else in the world.”

He gave a gay laugh, held her a little more firmly and whirled farther down the room. Augusta stood by Wilmott’s side, thumping her small fists on the bass notes. He shook his head at her but she persisted.

“Gussie is spoiling everything,” cried Daisy. “Do stop her, Mrs. Whiteoak!”

Adeline swooped down on Gussie, picked her up and set her on the sofa. Gussie’s little pantaletted legs dangled helplessly.

“Is there no hope of our dancing together?” Wilmott asked of Adeline.

“When I have rested a little.”

Wilmott played a polka which the dancers executed with spirit.

Then he came and sat by Adeline’s side. He said: —

“I don’t think I want to dance with you to that girl’s playing. She plays horribly.”

Adeline stretched out her hand and took his. “You seem to be in an evil mood, James,” she said. “I think Daisy performs beautifully on the piano. And how she dances!”

“I had rather die than dance with her,” he said.

Philip came to them. “When you see the wallpaper on this room,” he said, “and the really handsome curtains on the windows and the carpet on the floor, you will see a room of some elegance.”

“It is certainly large,” said Wilmott. “The floor space is twice that of my entire house.”

“It is a divine room!” cried Daisy. “Picture it at night with all the candles blazing, dancers gliding over the floor, flowers in vases, an orchestra sweetly playing and outside the vastness of the forest! Oh, I envy you such a room! What do you suppose it feels like to be a pauper, Captain Whiteoak?”

“Very jolly, to judge by the look of you,” returned Philip.

“Oh, how cruel! Just because I hide my misery beneath a smile, you think I don’t care! Here I am — doomed to single blessedness! What man yearns to marry a girl without a penny?”

“In a primitive country,” said Wilmott, “a female is to be judged by her brawn.”

Daisy ran across the floor, holding out her arms.

“In that respect,” she cried, “I am even worse off. Look at me! Skin and bone! Nothing more.”

“Hoop-la!” exclaimed Philip, dancing toward her. “Strike up the music, Wilmott.”

He swept Daisy into another waltz, the music for which he provided by an extraordinary sweet whistling.

“I have something I want to tell you,” said Wilmott, taking Gussie’s tiny slippered foot into his hand. “But we never have an opportunity to talk nowadays.”

“Once we are settled it will be different. Then I shall have oceans of leisure. What is it you were going to tell me?”

“I have begun to write a book.”

Her face lighted. “Splendid! Is it a novel? Am I in it?”

“It is and I’m afraid you are. Try as I would, I could not keep you out.”

“I should be furious if you had. When will you read to me what you have written?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps never. I am very uncertain about it.”

“Those two,” observed Philip to Daisy, “seem predisposed to converse forever.”

“They are so intellectual. As for me, I have only two ideas.

“Do tell me what they are.”

“To be loved — and to love!”

Wilmott rose and went to the piano. He began to play, gravely yet sensuously. Gussie slid down the sofa and followed him. She strummed on the bass notes.

A
S PHILIP LOOKED
about him, he was struck anew by all that had been accomplished since Adeline and he had come here. He was often struck by this but this particular evening he felt something approaching awe. Not much more than a year ago he had purchased a thousand acres of land — forest, with the exception of a small clearing. Now a substantial house stood in its midst. About it was a park with as fine trees as you would see anywhere. Beyond the park there were fields, cleared of stumps and planted with oats and barley. There were even vegetables — next year there would be a flower border for Adeline. A barn was completed and in the stable beneath it there were two teams of fine farm horses, two saddle horses, and a general-purpose mare who was used for the trap or for light work. He had not been in haste to buy a carriage and carriage horses. His taste in such was exacting.

He stood between the barn and the house which he could just see through the trees, the warm red of its walls deepened by the glow from the setting sun. Smoke rose from two of its chimneys, greyish blue against the blue of the sky. Even the Jersey cows, grazing near him and looking as though such as they had grazed and bred in this spot for generations, did not move Philip as did
the sight of the smoke form his own chimneys against the sky. It was as though the smoke traced the word
home
there. Well, he had given his heart to this land. He wanted no other.

It seemed strange to him, when he thought of it, how he had been willing to leave the Army where he could have, with confidence, looked forward to advancement, how he had thrown all that aside for so primitive a life. As a youth he had wanted to enter the Army. It was a tradition of his family. Many a time he had rejoiced in the activities of military life. What had happened to him, then? It seemed that, from the time of his marriage, a strange element of unrest had come into his life. Not that Adeline had not enjoyed the pleasures of the military station, not that she had been a simple-minded country girl whose presence had drawn him from the old life. No, it had been something much deeper. It was as though Adeline had always been searching for truth and that when their lives were joined they had set out to search for it together. They had wanted reality, freedom from rules made long before their time, the opportunity to lead their lives in their own fashion. In Canada they had found that opportunity. Not once had he regretted what he had given up, nay — he rejoiced in what he had attained! He looked down at his heavy boots, his leather leggings, his corduroy breeches and jacket, and rejoiced that he looked and felt like a countryman. He went to the youngest of the cows who had lately had her first calf which still was with her, and put his hand on the cream-coloured smoothness of her shoulder. She was friendly, not timid, and raised her eyes to his face, her mouth full of the tender grass. Her little calf was by her side, weak yet lively, making feeble jumpings. He would not have exchanged them for a regiment of cavalry. A deep serenity possessed him. From early morning to night he had congenial things to do. In truth he had so much to do that sometimes he felt overwhelmed. Still, there was plenty of time ahead of him. In time he and Adeline would make Jalna what they wanted it to be. There was no haste. He had plenty of money. He had confidence in the future. He had a comfortable belief in God — a not too personal God, with His
eye always on your misdeeds, but ready to give you a hand in time of trouble and waiting at the last with magnanimous forgiveness for your sins — if they had not been heinous.