03 Mary Wakefield

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Yes. She’s very nice,” he answered, a little coldly.

  “It means so much to have a good kind creature about them.”

  “It does indeed.” He looked about him for the good kind creature but she was not to be seen.

  “I can’t possibly dance after all that supper,” said Muriel Craig. “Could we go out for a stroll? There’s such heavenly moonlight.”

  Adeline came into the hall. “How sensible you are!” she exclaimed. “That’s just what I should like to do, but the night air gives me a buzzing in my left ear. Infirmities of age coming on me, you know.” She showed her fine teeth in a smile that quickly sobered as she saw Mary standing alone on the porch.

  “Ah, there you are, Miss Wakefield,” she said. “I have been looking for you. Here is a young man who is dying for a waltz with you. Mr. Robertson,” she turned to the young man whom she had only that moment espied, “this is Miss Wakefield, who waltzes like a dream.”

  Mr. Robertson was pale, with hair parted in the middle, and a very high collar which had gone very limp from the heat. He vaguely offered his arm to Mary, and began vaguely to waltz round and round with her. Apparently he never had heard of reversing.

  Mary felt slightly dizzy. A surge of almost intolerable disappointment made her limbs heavy. She wished she were upstairs, alone in her bedroom. She had a mind to make an excuse to go to see if the children were safely tucked up. She had a sudden feeling of love for the children. With them she might find ease from the anguish of jealousy. But Mr. Robertson, though vague-looking, was firm. He held her closely, turning round and round.

  And, after him, returned Clive Busby to make sure she had not forgotten her promise to drive with him.

  The time dragged on. It was past midnight. It was two o’clock. The guests were leaving. Horses, scarcely able to endure the waiting to return to their own stables, pawed the gravel drive. Carriage lamps flashed. There were shouts of “Whoa!”

  Lily Pink was spending the night at Jalna. Her mother was delicate and could not endure the late hours, so Lily was to remain. Like Mary she had an ache in her heart. Not that she had expected Philip would ask her to dance and, even if she had, she was sure she would have danced her worst. But she could not comfort herself. The ache persisted. She stood smilingly with the family in the drawing-room that now looked very large and bare, while they congratulated themselves that the party had gone so well.

  “And did you enjoy yourself, my dear?” Augusta asked her kindly.

  “Oh, yes, Lady Buckley. It was lovely.”

  “You looked very nice dancing. I always like dotted Swiss muslin on a young girl.”

  “Mother and I made the dress ourselves.”

  “Your mother is an excellent needlewoman and I’m glad you take after her. I have always enjoyed sewing.”

  “I’ve always hated it,” said Adeline.

  Ernest observed gallantly, “My very best dance of the evening was with Lily.”

  “She treated me with scorn,” said Philip. “Never once glanced in my direction.”

  “But there were those who did,” put in Sir Edwin. “No one could fail to notice the die-away looks Miss Craig gave you.”

  Nicholas remarked, “That young woman is a strange mixture of rigidity and voluptuousness. From the waist down she dances like a boarding-school miss, and from the waist up like Salome.”

  “This is scarcely proper conversation in front of a young girl,” said Augusta.

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” Lily blushed prettily. “And after all, Salome is biblical.”

  Philip went to the dining-room where all signs of supper had been cleared away, save for the remains of the tongue on a platter on the sideboard. He cut three slices from the tongue and, with these on his palm, went to the back of the hall where, in a small room, his three spaniels had retired to their respective mats. He fed a slice of tongue to each. The parent dogs took their share gently and a little reproachfully, as though this were poor compensation for the evening they had spent, but Jake wolfed his, trying to swallow Philip’s hand with it. He patted all three.

  “Good dogs. Now lie down. Go to mats.”

  Jake tried to take possession of each of his parents’ mats in turn but when driven off by them curled himself up on his own, with only an upturned roguish eye to show that he lived.

  As Philip returned through the hall, he reflected with content that the party was over, his crops which were above the average in quality, were almost completely garnered, his horses promised well. In a day or two he would go on the fishing trip he had been looking forward to. Before long there would be the duck shooting. Would he ever get Jake properly trained for a gun dog? He doubted it. Jake was a bit of a fool. His best friend couldn’t deny that.

  When he was passing his mother’s door she called to him.

  “Come in, Philip, and tell me good night.”

  He found her still dressed but with her hair hanging about her shoulders. Her parrot sitting on her wrist, gazed into her face with a possessive air. He chuckled in pleasure over her return to him.

  “He won’t let me undress,” she said. “He’s for billing and cooing the whole night through.”

  “No wonder. He appreciates how alluring you look with your hair down. I hope you’re not too tired.”

  “Well, I am rather tired. But I’ve given my party and I’m satisfied.”

  Adeline was pleased with her youngest born tonight. Holding Boney at arm’s length, so that he should not bite him, with her other arm she clasped Philip to her bosom and planted a warm kiss on his mouth.

  “You darling boy,” she breathed.

  “Dear old girl.”

  “Not one of the others means to me what you do.”

  “Not one of them feels as I do about you.”

  They swayed lovingly together till Boney began to walk up her arm with murder in his eye. Then she gently pushed Philip away. “The bird is jealous. You better go.”

  “Good night, Mamma.”

  “Good night, my dear.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  He discovered the drawing-room empty, with the exception of Lily. When the older ones had gone upstairs she had lingered, she did not know why. Quite a time ago Mary had disappeared up the stairs. She had not said whether or no she would come back. Lily looked at her own reflection in the mirror above the mantelshelf. It was a very old mirror and gave back her reflection in a wavering way, like an image mirrored in water. But she thought she had never looked so pretty. She wished that the Swiss muslin dress might have been low cut. Then Philip might have danced with her. She knew her arms and shoulders were lovely, for her own mother had told her so.

  Philip stood looking into the room.

  “Everybody but us gone to bed, Lily?”

  “All but Miss Wakefield. I don’t know about her.”

  They stood looking at each other, silent. Then he came into the room and lighted a cigarette. Eliza looked in at the door.

  “Shall we lay down the rugs tonight, sir?” she asked.

  “No. Get to your beds. You must be tired.”

  Thank you, sir, but I’m not really tired.

  Again they were alone. Lily was speechless but she could hear the thumping of her heart. The scent of the nicotiana came in, almost unbearably sweet. Chaotic thought choked Lily’s mind. Oh, if only she could speak! Oh, if her heart did not beat so fast and hard!

  She heard Mary coming down the stairs. What relief! And what disappointment!

  Philip stood, looking Mary over as she came into the room. He said, “Well, Miss Wakefield, Lily and I had given you up. We thought we were the last of the party.”

  “I went up to see if the children were all right.”

  “At this hour! What did you expect them to be doing?”

  “It was hard for them to settle down.”

  She thought his smile was skeptical, that he knew she had gone up to tidy her hair and put fresh powder on her face. She wished she had not come dow
n again.

  “Did you enjoy the party?” he asked, a slight constraint in his voice.

  Her back was to Lily. She framed the word no with her lips.

  Lily asked quite loudly, “What did you say, Miss Wakefield?”

  “I said nothing.”

  “Lily,” said Philip. “Play something.”

  “Me? Why should I play?” She could force herself to speak now that a third person was there. “My playing would sound dreadful after the real musicians.”

  “Nonsense. I thought they sounded rather tinny. Didn’t you, Miss Wakefield?”

  “I liked their playing.”

  Lily asked, “Should I disturb the others — your mother?”

  “They’re not in bed yet. Play, Lily.” He closed the door.

  Lily spread her skirt on the piano stool. She bent her head over the keys, thinking what she should play. She who was aching to dance with Philip herself, must play for his dancing with another. She felt a sob rising in her throat and drowned it in the opening chords of a Strauss waltz. Not only would she play but she would play her best.

  There was an old moon and its face could now be seen at one of the french windows.

  Philip said, “We don’t need the light.” He took an extinguisher from the mantel and began to put out the lights of the chandelier. The lights from the many candles illumined his face. Scores of crystal prisms reflected their flames in all the colours of the rainbow. The candles were extinguished like stars and, as the chandelier swayed, a faint tinkling music came from the prisms. Philip put his arm about Mary’s waist. They moved slowly into the waltz. Moonlight now flooded the room.

  One thing besides sewing Lily could do well, play dance music. But never before had she played like this, when she could scarcely see the keys for tears. But she did not need to see the keys. The music flowed from her heart through her fingers. The two on the floor moved as one body. No other dancers that night had been like these, Lily thought. Their grace, their delight in the rhythmic movement, their long gliding steps that seemed to take them beyond the room, out into the moonlight, filled her with bitter joy. She sought for comparisons. “They are like two birds flying together — they are like two waves dancing together — they are like two flowers blowing on one stalk.” She could not be flowery enough to please herself — to torture herself.

  “Good,” said Philip, at the end. “Splendid, Lily.”

  Mary still leant against his shoulder, without a thought in her head. Her mind was as smooth as a beach that a summer storm has swept.

  “Like another?” he asked, after a little.

  “Yes.”

  “Another waltz. Play us another waltz, Lily.”

  Lily turned the knife in her breast and played better than ever. She put all her longing into the slow beat of the waltz.

  They danced to the far dim end of the room and there Mary felt Philip’s lips touch her hair, his arm tighten on her waist. She willed the rest of the world to stay away, to give her this moment, but the sound of the piano flooded the house, for, at the last Lily had played with passion. The door opened and Adeline stood there in her dressing-gown, Boney clinging to her breast.

  Dancers and music stopped.

  “Go on,” said Adeline.

  “Don’t let me stop you.”

  They looked at her speechless.

  “I had a glimpse of you before you stopped,” she said. “I’ve never seen such prettier dancing. Why didn’t you dance like that when all the people were here? They’d have loved it.”

  Philip moved from Mary’s side to his mother’s.

  “No need to be nasty,” he said in a low tone.

  But she answered loudly.

  “Be quiet till I’ve had my say!”

  He looked at her silently, his face hardening. The light from the lamp in the hall poured in through the wide doorway.

  “Miss Wakefield,” said Adeline, “I think you have missed your vocation. You should not have been a teacher but a professional dancer. You’re too good at it for a private drawing-room and I’m glad you had the sense to restrain yourself till my guests were gone, for they’re a conventional lot and I am afraid they would have been scandalized to see such abandon. I’m not conventional but your dancing opened my eyes to what a young woman will do when she lets herself go.”

  “You flatly contradict yourself,” said Philip. “You say you never saw prettier dancing, and why didn’t we do it when all the people were here and they’d have loved it. The next instant you say you’re glad we restrained ourselves and that they’d have been horrified.”

  “You know what I mean!” shouted Adeline.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary got out. She turned and fled from the room.

  Lily Pink was weeping over her keyboard. Adeline said to her more quietly:

  “Go to bed, my dear. It’s nearly morning.”

  Lily rose, her face distorted like a child’s from crying.

  “There’s nothing for you to cry about, Lily,” said Philip, as she passed him. He put out his hand to give her a comforting pat but she shrank away as though he were about to strike her and cried out, “No!”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Philip looking after her.

  “You may well be,” said Adeline gloomily.

  “What have I done?”

  “You’ve done enough to make me want to take a stick to your back. If your father had come in on this scene he’d have raised the roof with the rage that was in him.”

  In the doorway Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest now appeared. Augusta wore a long dark red wrapper but her brothers were in night-shirts, over which they had pulled trousers. Nicholas’ thick dark hair stood up in magnificent confusion but Ernest’s fine fair hair was still sleek.

  “Whatever is up?” demanded Nicholas.

  “We were dancing,” answered Philip.

  “We?” echoed Augusta’s deep tones.

  “Yes,” he returned with a brazen look at her. “Mary Wakefield and me.”

  He was purposely ungrammatical and it made what he said the more brazen.

  “Tell them,” said Adeline, “just how you were dancing.”

  He was still imperturbable. “Well,” he said, “I hadn’t danced with the poor girl all the evening. We had the room to ourselves.”

  “Yes,” said Adeline, “they had the room to themselves. He put out the candles but there was moonlight. Plenty of light for me to see the shameless performance.”

  “Who was playing the piano?” asked Nicholas.

  “Who but Lily Pink!”

  “I didn’t think she had it in her.”

  “Edwin remarked to me,” said Augusta, “with the bedclothes over his head — for he was trying to go to sleep — that the music sounded to him positively vicious.”

  A smile flickered across Adeline’s face, then faded.

  “It was that,” she said, “and I guess her poor parents would have hidden their heads in shame, if they had heard it and seen what I saw. The children’s governess swooping up and down the room, draped over Philip’s arm like a courtesan! Ah, she’s no better than she should be.”

  “I won’t hear a word against her,” said Philip.

  “You’ll hear whatever I have to say,” declared Adeline, her eyes blazing.

  He was standing quite near her but in his anger he shouted as though she were deaf:

  “I repeat that I won’t!”

  “Don’t you dare shout at me, sir!”

  “Then don’t you say such things of Miss Wakefield.”

  “I say she’s a wanton!”

  “Then you lie.”

  Adeline sprang on Philip and caught him by the shoulders to shake him, but he took her wrists in his hands and held her. Boney who had not yet got over his joy in the return of his mistress, paid no heed whatever to this disturbance but continued to snuggle himself beneath her chin and to utter caressing words in his foreign lingo. Mother and son, locked together, glared into each other’s eyes.

&nbs
p; Nicholas rumbled, “That’s no way to speak to Mamma. I can’t allow it.”

  “I’m sorry,” muttered Philip. “But she drove me to it.” He still gripped Adeline’s wrists.

  “Free me, sir!” she demanded, her face only a few inches from his.

  “What will you do, if I do let you go?” he asked half-laughing.

  “You’ll see,” she hissed, like the villainess in a play.

  Ernest came and gently withdrew Philip’s hands.

  “This is bad for you, Mamma,” he said. “You should be in your bed.” She shook him off.

  “I want,” she said, folding her arms and facing Philip, “to be assured that that —” she hesitated over what she should call Mary, then went on — “wanton young person shall leave the house tomorrow.”

  “I can’t do it,” returned Philip calmly. “In the first place, she’s done nothing wrong. In the second place I’ve engaged her for a year.”

  “You are not bound if she misbehaves herself.”

  “She hasn’t.”

  Nicholas put in, “I shouldn’t go into that again if I were you. Let’s talk over the affair quietly tomorrow.”

  “There is no talking over this quietly,” said Adeline. “She is to go.”

  “No, Mamma.” Philip spoke with pointed calm. “I cannot and will not dismiss her.”

  Adeline demanded fiercely, “How often have you been up to her bedroom?”

  Augusta uttered a contralto groan, as she saw peaceful retirement receding.

  “Not once,” Philip answered with great distinctness.

  Adeline laughed. “Come now, come now, tell the truth. How many times?”

  “That sort of pastime may have been the custom in your dear father’s house — not in mine.”

  “Philip —” Adeline spoke with passion — “why will you always be saying that Jalna is yours? Everyone knows it already.”

  “It’s very irritating,” said Nicholas.

  “And after all,” put in Augusta, “Nicholas is the eldest son.”

  “All I said was that in my house that sort of thing is not done.”

  “And you insult my poor father’s memory,” cried Adeline, “and he in the grave!”