The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (444 page)

Nicholas remarked — “You ate a hearty lunch.”

“Yes. I did.”

“When did you have tea?” asked Alayne.

“I had none.”

“Would you like some now?”

“No, thanks. I believe I’ll have a whiskey and soda.”

“Have you got a chill?” asked Nicholas.

“No. There’s not much wrong with me. I guess I need a change. I’ve thought so for some time. Do you know, —” he turned to Alayne with an ingratiating smile, — “I have it in my mind to go to Ireland.”

“To Ireland!” she repeated, on a suddenly suspicious note. “But why?”

He tightened his arm about her. “Well, for one thing, the climate agrees with me and for another I promised dear old Dermot Court, in 1919, that I’d go back to see him before he died. I’ve just heard from him and he wants me, most particularly, to go over soon.” His eyes had a deep light of sincerity in them. His mouth took on the lines of classic truth.

Nicholas made deep unintelligible noises inside himself. He made as though to hand the cablegrams to Alayne, then changed his mind and stuffed them into his pocket. After all, they weren’t his to show and if Renny chose to approach the matter from a sentimental angle, let him.

“Is Daddy ill?” asked Adeline.

“Ask him.” answered Nicholas. “I’m inclined to think it’s a kind of horse fever.”

“Did he catch it in the stables?”

“Partly. And partly inherited it. It’s incurable but not fatal. Except to the family of the afflicted one.”

“Now you’re talking rubbish.” Adeline said.

Alayne firmly detached herself from Renny.

“Really,” she said. “I wish you would tell me what all this is about!”

Renny answered, “It’s quite true that I need a change. It’s quite true that I promised Dermot Court I would go back to Ireland to see him. It is also true that there is a horse for sale who has got it in him to win the Grand National.”

The sympathy that had softened her features fled, leaving them sharpened, her eyes intense.

“I do wish,” she said, “that you would be candid.”

“I am candid.”

“You made me believe that you were not well, when all that was wrong was your craving to see this horse. Uncle Nicholas, do help me persuade him not to do this! It’s insane. How much do they ask you to pay for the horse?”

“Only five hundred guineas.” he answered.

“Five hundred guineas!” Angry colour flooded her face and she added bitterly — “I have seen you at your wit’s end for five hundred
dollars
.”

“I know,” he answered quietly. “But things are better now and I count myself fortunate that I can spare the money to buy this horse. Now listen, Alayne, let me read these cables to you. When you hear them you’ll understand —”

“I’ll not listen to them,” she retorted. “I know only too well what they contain. If you go to Ireland and see this horse, you will buy it. It’s as certain as that I am standing here. You will spend any amount of money in having it trained. But it won’t win the race. It will break its leg or its neck or some woman will kill it — like that other one was killed!”

He looked at her, speechless, too astonished for words. Then he said, his lip trembling a little: —

“That was unkind of you, Alayne.”

She turned away and went to the window. There was blackness outside, and the sound of rain. Wragge, the houseman, came in and put coals on the fire. He went about drawing curtains. She moved from the window and went to the mantelpiece and laid her hands on it.

When Wragge had gone, Renny said — “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The family is coming to dinner on Sunday. This is Friday. We’ll talk the thing over and, if the majority is set against it, I’ll give up the idea. But I warn you I shall be throwing away one of the best chances of my life.”

Already Nicholas was beginning to weaken. He said: —

“By gad. I never knew Dermot to back a horse that was not a sound one! The only time Ernest ever won a pot of money at the races was on a tip he got from Dermot. Does Ernest know about this horse?”

Affection for his uncles shone in Renny’s eyes. He felt that they would be on his side. Pheasant already was. Piers could be won over. Meg was easily caught up by his enthusiasms. That left just Maurice and Aunt Harriet and he anticipated little opposition from them.

“I don’t want any family conclave about the matter,” said Alayne. “If you’ve made up your mind to go, go.”

“I have not made up my mind and I want to hear what the family thinks about it.”

With her back still toward him she said: —

“All the family knows that when your mind is made up to buy a horse nothing will stop you. Adeline, run off to the other children.”

Adeline spoke breathlessly. “Daddy, if you go to Ireland, may I go with you?”

“I’m not at all sure if I’m going,” he returned.

“Adeline, I asked you to leave the room.”

“I think I might be answered that one little question.”

“Really, you are ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“To speak of an ocean voyage as a little thing.”

“I didn’t.”

“
Will
you leave the room?” There was such tension in Alayne’s voice that both men were startled. When the child had gone, Nicholas rumbled: —

“End of a long winter. Hard on nerves.”

Alayne thought — “I cannot have a few words with my husband in private. And I’m losing all my self-restraint. But it’s no wonder. Adeline is exactly like them. She’s unbearable. That look she gave Renny before she left the room ...”

“I’m willing to bet,” said Renny, “that Uncle Ernest and Aunt Harriet will say I ought at least to see the horse — to say nothing of keeping my promise to Dermot Court. I’ll say nothing more about my need of a change of air. I’ve survived a good many winters and I dare say I shall survive this.”

Alayne laid her forehead against the mantelpiece and began to laugh. Nicholas joined in.

“You think,” said Renny, “that because I look as hard as nails I have no feeling. Well, perhaps I shall surprise you some day.”

Alayne turned and faced him.

“How can you say such things!”

“I think I’m justified.”

“Nonsense!” said Nicholas. “Alayne and I are merely envious of your health.”

Wragge sounded the gong in the hall. The dogs, once more established about the stove, rose to their feet as one and stretched. The noise of the gong had hurt Biddy’s head. She raised her high soprano in a howl. The bobtailed sheep dog joined in, his voice seeming to emanate through all his shaggy coat. But the bulldog, his under jaw projecting in an expression of intensely masculine scorn, led the way toward the dining room. Alayne forestalled them.

“No,” she said, firmly, “I can’t have you in here. Your coats smell in this weather. Please don’t let them in, Wragge.”

She said nothing, however, against Renny’s sixteen-year-old blind spaniel Merlin, already lying by the side of his chair.

Adeline was the only one of the children who shared the evening meal with the grownups. She sat very upright, facing Nicholas, whose gaze frequently was raised from her small face, surrounded by its mass of dark red hair, to the portrait of his mother behind her. Her eyes flew from the face of one parent to the other, her partisanship of Renny showing in the smile that curved her lips when she looked at him, and the wary look that came into her eyes when they met her mother’s.

Alayne was determined there should be no discussion at the table. Mealtime at Jalna had too often been the field of heated argument and she was striving to uproot this long established habit while her children were still young. Renny knew what was in her mind and somewhat taciturnly applied himself to his broiled chop. He gave it the extra dose of Worcester sauce which Adeline had learned to associate with the mood he was now in. She stretched out a leg that was growing long and gave him a little poke with her toe beneath the table. He flashed her a look of understanding and, as their eyes met an electric vibration caused Alayne to give them both a cool, detached glance. But she began to talk cheerfully of an article she had been reading, in an American weekly, on the situation in Europe. Nicholas was interested and they bore the conversation between them. Wragge waited solicitously on Renny as he always did in crises such as this.

The telephone rang in the next room. Wragge hurried to answer it. It was Aunt Harriet wanting to speak to Renny. He rose with alacrity as though a telephone talk in the middle of this meal were a relief. Those sitting at table could hear all he said.

“Oh, yes, Aunt Harriet,” he was saying, “I’ll have the roof attended to at once. A pity it leaked on your best bed. Yes, I’ll come round and look at it myself. I want to talk to you in any case. I want Uncle Ernie’s opinion — and of course yours too — about two cables I’ve had from the Old Country. One is from Wakefield. He’s getting on fine. He’s been to Ireland to see a most extraordinary horse. It has a great future ahead of it…. Yes, it is interesting, isn’t it? Our cousin, Dermot Court, — Uncle Ernie must have spoken of him to you, — is frightfully keen about this horse. He urges me to let nothing stand in the way of my seeing it — not even the ocean! Ha! ha! But I don’t expect to go across — even though it’s the chance of a lifetime…. Would you? But of course you’re one woman in a thousand. Ha! Ha! Yes, I know you would. What do you suppose young Adeline wants? She wants to go with me,
if
I go! But there’s not much likelihood of a change for yours truly…. Yes, I still have a bit of a cough. But it’s nothing. I’m as strong as a horse. It’s Alayne who needs a change. I wish she would go South. You and she might go together, eh?... Yes, it would be a wonderful thing for Adeline to go to the Old Country. She’s old enough now to appreciate it. Oh, well, perhaps the day will come. It’s lucky you rang up. I was wanting to speak to you. Alayne and I are having a little theatre party tomorrow night and we want you and Uncle Ernie to join us.
Candida
. Is that highbrow enough for you? You’re a New England intellectual, aren’t you? Or once were…. No longer one, eh! No wonder, living among us! Well, whatever you are, you suit me!” There was a long silence while Aunt Harriet apparently relieved herself of much pent-up desire for conversation. Occasionally he made small noises of appreciation or gave a chuckle. Wragge had removed his plate from the table to keep his chop warm. Nicholas had made no attempt to eat but had sat with his hand curved about his ear determined to hear what was being said in the next room. Drops of moisture gleamed on the ends of his grey moustache and the shapely old hand lying on the tablecloth trembled a little.

Leaning toward Alayne, he asked — “Are they coming? Is he going?”

“I have no idea,” she returned remotely. Adeline answered, “Yes, they’re coming. Uncle Nick, and I think — I’m pretty sure — he’s going.”

“You have no reason for making either statement,” said Alayne.

“I guessed by the way he spoke.”

“Please don’t speak of your father as
he
.”

Adeline looked daring. “Renny, then.”

“Now you’re being just silly.”

Renny returned to the room.

Nicholas demanded, without waiting to swallow a mouthful of peas, “Are they pleased about the play? And what do they think of your going to Ireland?”

“Aunt Harriet is delighted to go to
Candida
. As to the other, well — she’s not unsympathetic. Rags, my dinner!”

Wragge placed it before him as though he were an invalid. Renny shot a quick glance at Alayne. “Sorry to have interrupted the meal,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter.” She was thinking, with a good deal of irritation, of her Aunt Harriet. Just a few years ago Harriet Archer had been a typical New England spinster of the intellectual sort, elderly, well-tuned-out, with an admirable, though not stiff-necked loyalty to her traditions. Her investments had gone wrong. She had lost almost all she had. Renny Whiteoak had invited her to spend the rest of her life at Jalna. There she had met Ernest and he and she had found each other so congenial that they had made a match of it.

This was all very well and Alayne had been happy for her aunt’s sake. What she could not understand was her aunt’s desire to remodel herself on the Whiteoak design. Aunt Harriet, of course, denied that she had. She simply said that her new environment had brought out a latent something in herself. The very traits in the family which most irritated Alayne were interesting or amusing or even admirable to her aunt. To Alayne there was something affected in this. She did not believe in Aunt Harriet’s sincerity. She thought Harriet was posing and she hated poseurs.

So their relations, though affectionate, were not so sympathetic as they once had been. Alayne was quite prepared to find her aunt favorable to Renny’s scheme and surprised at her own opposition to it.

The theatre party was to have dinner in town. Uncle Ernest and Aunt Harriet appeared at Jalna promptly at five o’clock. Ernest was always glad of the opportunity to wear evening clothes, and he wore them extremely well. A man of sixty might well have been proud of the slender, upright figure of him, at eighty-five. His wife, many years younger, was a pretty sight in a black velvet evening gown, with jade necklace and earrings which had once graced the person of old Adeline Whiteoak. Her silvery hair was charmingly curled and her neat features and clear blue eyes expressed almost girlish anticipation.

Nicholas, Renny, and Alayne rose to greet them. There was a pleasant flutter of excitement in the room. Alayne put aside her misgivings and prepared to enjoy the evening.

“Well, my boy,” Ernest said to his brother, “and how are you? You’re looking very well, considering the weather.”

Nicholas drew him aside. He said — “Alayne’s greatly upset over the Irish Question. If he takes that trip and buys that horse and loses that race, she’ll be a sick woman, and no wonder!”

Ernest smiled tolerantly. “He’ll not lose the race. I have implicit trust in Dermot Court. I shall never forget the tip he gave me. I should not hesitate, if I were a few years younger, to buy the horse myself.”

Nicholas was impressed. “Well, well, you’d better say something like that to Alayne.”

Harriet took Renny’s hands in hers and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the chin.