The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (519 page)

“I’m afraid Mooey is like me.”

“He’s not a bit like you. You are congenial to me, aren’t you?”

“If Mooey had been a girl, it would have been different.”

Piers lighted his pipe and threw the burnt match on the floor.

“It would not have been in the least different,” he said. “what were you like as a girl? Were you afraid of horses? No. You’d ride anything on four legs. You rode in a horse show not many months before Mooey was born.”

“Perhaps that’s why he hates riding.”

Piers ignored this. He continued, “Were you always moping about with a book under your arm? No. Were you self-opinionated and la-di-da? No. If you had been any of these things I’d never have married you.”

“You couldn’t have helped yourself,” said Pheasant. “I’d have married you.”

A few days later Maurice remarked casually to his mother, “Swift and I are going to town to see a show of some sort on Monday night. I’m taking Adeline with me. She hasn’t been about much in her holidays and she goes back to school on Wednesday.”

“That will be nice for her.” Pheasant was pleased by his thoughtfulness. “You must be careful to choose a nice film. Her mother is very particular about what she sees.”

Maurice gave a little grunt.

“I do wish,” Pheasant went on, “that I could go to
Othello
. It’s to be here next week, you know. But good seats are so expensive.”

Maurice bit his knuckle, not looking at her. Then he said, “I’ll take you. We’ll go toward the end of the week.”

“Oh, Mooey, I wasn’t hinting,” she cried.

“I know you weren’t, Mummy. But my allowance is quite decent and there aren’t many ways of spending it out here. Do you think Father would like to go?”

“No, no. Shakespeare bores him. But how lovely it will be for us to go together!” She flung both arms about him. “Mooey, whatever girl gets you is going to be lucky.”

“No girl is going to get me in a hurry,” he laughed. “I guess I’ll wait for Adeline.”

“That would be a lovely match. Everyone would be pleased. The way she’s coming on I don’t think you’d have many years to wait.”

In these days Adeline was living in a dream. Hour by hour she ticked off the days, straining toward the great night. She had lied to Alayne. She had tried hard not to lie. It had hurt her to lie with her mother’s candid blue eyes on her. But she was cornered. She had been forced to say what film Maurice had asked her to see before Alayne would give her consent. Alayne was satisfied by the choice.

Once the lie was told, Adeline put it out of her mind. She would make it up to her mother by perfect behaviour to the last day of the holidays. She took extra care in making her bed. She ran errands cheerfully. She even darned Archer’s socks which was a trial to her.

She led Ernest on to talk of
Othello
.

“I think the best Othello I ever saw,” he said, “was Matheson Lang. What a voice! what grandeur he added to Shakespeare’s words! Dear child, I was enraptured.”

“They say Paul Robeson has a wonderful voice.”

“I dare say but — I don’t want to see him in the part. No negro could be convincing to me as the Moor. An Englishman, with his face blackened, looks the part much more. You see I’ve been to Morocco.”

“You’ve had a wonderful life, Uncle Ernest.” Her eyes were full of admiration.

Ernest was gratified. “Yes, indeed I have, Adeline. I have had wide experience. Life on two continents. Travel. A keen interest in art, through many years. Art in all its forms. It’s a great solace in one’s old age.”

“when I’m older will you let me read your book on Shakespeare?” “I shall be delighted to, Adeline. I hope to finish it within the next year or so.”

“Have you come to
Othello
yet?”

Ernest could not help looking pleased with himself. “One of my best chapters is on
Othello
. This is the point I emphasized — that no matter how great the passion two lovers have for each other, nothing can make them one. They are two separate beings to the end. And that is their tragedy. This is beyond you. But some day you’ll understand, dear child.”

She was silent, trying to survey, with her inner eye, the mysterious future that lay before her.

Hour by hour she pressed forward to the night of
Othello
. She began to feel that here was a turning point in her life. For one thing it was the first play of Shakespeare’s she had seen. For another it was the first occasion when she had gone out in the evening without her mother or one of her uncles. She was being carefully brought up. She wished it were just she and Maurice who were going. She thought she did not like Sidney Swift.

Yet, when on the night of the play she climbed into the car, he smiled at her in such a friendly, intimate way that she changed her mind. It might be good fun having him along. Renny and Alayne stood on the steps to see them off. Adeline suddenly felt as though she were going a long way from them, as though she were leaving on a voyage. Perhaps it was because she had lied about where she was going. She did wish she hadn’t been obliged to do that.

“Goodbye,” said Alayne, “and I do hope you’ll enjoy yourselves.”

“I wish you were coming with us, Mrs. Whiteoak,” said Swift.

Adeline thought, he doesn’t know Mooey and I are deceiving her.

“Film plays don’t interest me,” answered Alayne.

“what is the play?” Renny asked absently.

Maurice and Adeline each waited for the other to answer. She felt her cheeks burning.

“‘Lassie Come Home,’” returned Swift, smiling.

He does know, thought Adeline, and he doesn’t a bit mind lying!

“See that you don’t miss that last train, Mooey,” called out Renny as the car moved down the drive.

It was not far to the station and they had not long to wait. Seated in the train between the two young men, Adeline abandoned herself to the rich anticipated pleasure of the night. The train was crowded, most of the passengers being soldiers. Even the aisles were full of them. When they looked at Adeline she looked back, without timidity and without boldness. Maurice and Swift talked a little to each other across her. Sometimes they gave her a smiling look. It was so obvious that, to her, this was a great occasion.

In the city there was the ride in the tram, then they were in the brightly lighted lobby of the theatre. Maurice already had the tickets. Adeline had a feeling that he had paid for Swift’s ticket, which seemed hardly fair. Swift was older and a tutor. He should have bought his own ticket. Adeline had heard that he was a sponge.

The theatre was filling fast. They had excellent seats. Maurice disliked any but the best. Now they were seated, with Adeline in the middle. She took off her little hat, laid it on her lap and looked happily about her. Maurice leaned toward Swift and said:

“My father and mother came here to a play the evening after they were married. They ran away, you know.”

“Yes?” said Swift. “I wonder what was the play they saw.”

“It was a Russian musical show.
Chauve Souris
, they called it.”

“I’ll bet she had a great thrill out of it.”

“Not more than I’m having out of this,” put in Adeline.

Swift looked down into her face. “It’s thrill enough for me,” he said, “just to watch you.” He could not keep his eyes off her but she was unconscious of this. She was watching the orchestra take their places. Now they were playing “God Save the King.” The audience rose. Adeline stood at attention, her eyes steady, her hands at her sides.

Now the curtain was up. The street in Venice was discovered. Roderigo and Iago were plotting. Now the stalwart figure of the Moor appeared. His simplicity, his dignity, the grandeur of his voice went straight to Adeline’s heart. She was fiercely on his side. She could not understand how any man could be as wicked as Iago. In the first interval she asked:

“But how
can
he be so wicked?”

“He’s scarcely human,” returned Swift. “He’s almost disembodied cruelty, delighting in suffering.” He could not keep his thoughts from Adeline. As the play went on, he imagined he saw her emerging from childhood to womanhood before his eyes. He pictured her as a flower bud forced open by the fierce passions of the play. Did she understand the half of its implications? he wondered. Maurice’s cheeks burned. He wished with all his heart he had not brought her. She was the only child in the audience. In the intermission people were staring at her. He felt angry at Swift for letting him bring her. He threw him an accusing look as they were smoking a cigarette in the foyer. They had left Adeline in her seat.

“If I’d had any idea —” Maurice said grimly.

“Idea of what?”

“You know what I mean.”

“If you mean that some of the expressions used aren’t fit for a
nice
young girl to hear, you can stop worrying. Adeline is too excited about the play to notice them and wouldn’t understand if she did.”

“I hope not.”

When they were back in their seats, Maurice asked Adeline if she were still enjoying the play.

“Oh, yes, even more. But I don’t understand how Othello can be so cruel to Desdemona. He’s so splendid and he really loves her.”

“I suppose jealousy made him brutal.”

The curtain rose. Adeline gave her passionate attention to the players. As the climax in its horror drew near, Swift was aware that Adeline’s body was rigid. It strained upward, as though she would rise and fly to the stage and take part in the scene. When the massive Moor in his sumptuous robe drew near the bed on which Desdemona slept, and he said:

I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow
And smooth as monumental alabaster,
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

Put out the light, and then put out the light.

Swift groped for Adeline’s hand in the dark, found it and held it close. Again his mind was on her rather than on the play and he felt a cruel pleasure in her pain. Yet he longed to comfort her — to kiss her — hold her in his arms.

When the final curtain fell she seemed too dazed to realize that all was over. Maurice had to find her hat which had fallen to the floor. Even the cool night air did not change her. They went to a restaurant and ordered sandwiches and coffee. Adeline shaded her eyes with her hand. She could not eat but drank the coffee. Now and again Swift glanced at her. He and Maurice discussed the play in low tones. On the homeward journey in the train she sat silent, looking out into the night, seeing there the tragedy re-enacted. The young men were silent too. Maurice was troubled by seeing how deeply Adeline had been stirred. Swift was sensually savouring his own emotion, thinking that never before had he felt like this towards a girl.

At the gate of Jalna, Swift said, “If you’d like to get on, Maurice, I’ll take Adeline to the door and then take the path through the ravine, home.”

“Is that all right, Adeline?” asked Maurice.

“I don’t need anyone to take me.”

“Yes, you do,” said Swift. “It’s very dark.”

They got out of the car and watched Maurice drive away. The countryside was deeply quiet. The moon, past its prime, had risen but still was hidden behind the trees. The great hemlocks and balsams that bordered the drive, made it a black tunnel. Swift took Adeline’s hand and led her into it.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, trying to appear natural.

Her fingers clung to his but she said, “I couldn’t possibly get lost here. I know it like I know the palm of my hand.”

“I’ve been looking at your hands tonight and I think they’re the loveliest I’ve ever seen.”

She was pleased. “I got them from my great-grandmother. She lived to be a hundred and one.”

“I hope you don’t do that.” There was a tremor in his voice. “I can’t bear the thought of age in connection with you. I want you to live to your perfect maturity — then no more.”

“That’s a funny wish.”

They were halfway along the drive. “Shall we stop here for a bit and talk? It seems a shame to go indoors after such an evening. You did enjoy it, didn’t you, Adeline?”

She drew her hand from his and laid it against the trunk of a hemlock. She said, “I’ll never feel the same again. Everything will seem different.”

“You really saw tonight,” he said, “how glorious and how terrible love can be. Have you thought much about love?”

“No. I’m too young.”

He gave a little laugh. “Well, I’m not so young, but it seems to me I’ve never really thought about it till tonight.”

“But you’d seen that play before!”

“It wasn’t the play.”

There was a silence, vibrant with the mysterious sounds of the night.

“I wish I could explain you to yourself,” he said, “and explain the effect you have on me.” He thought a moment then he went on, “I can imagine a time when the soul wandered through every part of the human body and every part expressed the feeling of the soul. But now that time has disappeared and it’s only the rare person who shows obedience to the soul — even to the fingertips — like a kind of rhythm running through every movement. You are one of those people. Do you understand what I mean?”

“A little.”

“The faces of most young girls and most women are empty. If you looked behind them you’d find nothing. But yours is different. I can’t find out what’s there. Not yet. Is this queer sort of talk? But, oh, Adeline, I want to find out! I want to be the first to show you love.”

He took her in his arms and pressed his lips to her cheek. He put his hand on the back of her head and forced her face toward his. Now his passionate kisses were on her lips. For a moment she was too confused, too astonished to struggle. Then a sickening consciousness of the difference between this embrace and any that ever had been given her by the family, galvanized her. She became a fury of resistance. Swift was startled, enraged by her strength. She was like a strong boy. In the darkness he felt blind anger and desire. They wrestled, clasped together, like some nocturnal animal moving beneath the trees.

Freeing her lips she cried out, “Don’t! Don’t!”

He exclaimed, “Don’t you be a little fool!”

Renny, who had been unwilling to go to bed till Adeline was safely home, had wandered some distance from the house. Hearing the engine of the car he had hastened back to meet her. The padding of his steps across the lawn was unheard by the two. He pushed through the heavy boughs of the evergreens and was upon them, all his being alight with fury for the protection of his child.