“Thank God,” snorted Busby, “no man has ever called me master.”
“They’ve doubtless called you by worse names,” said Philip calmly.
He watched the angry Busby mount his horse and ride away. He turned then to speak to his son but Nicholas had slipped away, eager to bear the news of Curtis Sinclair’s disaster. Philip shouted thrice for him before he appeared.
“Have you told what has happened?” Philip demanded of him.
Nicholas hung his head.
“You have?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You young rascal! Come indoors with me.”
Nicholas went, with fast-beating heart. The punishment he received was severe. He could not restrain a cry or two, which being heard by the parrot, Boney, he raised his nasal voice in a stream of curses in Hindustani. He hung head downward from his perch flapping his bright-coloured wings, and showed his dark tongue in fury. “Haramzada! Haramzada! Iflatoon!” he screamed. Then added four newly acquired English words, taught him by it was impossible to discover whom. “I hate Captain Whiteoak!” he screamed.
Up from the basement kitchen came a still more piercing scream, followed by despairing wails. Cindy and Annabelle joined their voices in wailing.
Down from the attic flew Adeline, her face deathly pale. She was met by Philip.
“What in the name of God has happened?” she cried. She looked ready to faint. Philip put his arm about her, led her into the drawing-room and shut the door behind them.
“I have had bad news,” he said.
“From Ireland?” she asked, for she somehow associated bad news with that country.
“No. From the United States. The Yankees have captured Curtis Sinclair. Busby came to gloat over it. He says they will likely hang him.”
“Merciful heaven!” cried Adeline. “Oh, the poor man! Is that what the clamour is about? We must not let Lucy know. ’Twould be the death of her.”
“I have just been giving young Nicholas a hiding,” said Philip. “He overheard and did not waste a minute in running to tell the blacks.”
“The young villain — if I set eyes on him I’ll give him another.” At that very moment she saw him, as he passed the open French windows, his face flushed and tear-stained.
Philip restrained her. “He’s had enough,” he said. “What you must do is to go straight to Lucy. Tell her that Curtis is lucky to be alive. She must not hear of hanging. There she comes down the stairs now.”
Lucy Sinclair’s agitated voice was heard above the wailing from the basement.
“Captain Whiteoak! Adeline! Something terrible has happened. Oh, what shall I do?”
“Go to her, Adeline,” said Philip. “It’s your place to go to her.”
“I can’t — I can’t! You must go.”
For answer he took her by the shoulders and pushed her into the hall. The two women met at the foot of the stairs. Adeline opened wide her arms and gathered Lucy to her breast. “My poor shorn lamb,” she moaned, “my poor plucked duckling! Oh, those villainous Yankees! Before many months they will be invading this country and will carry off all the women and put the men to the sword!”
At those words Lucy Sinclair collapsed fainting in the arms of Adeline who half helped her into the library and laid her on the sofa there. Simultaneously Cindy and Annabelle tore up the stairs from the basement, with Jerry close behind. All three threw themselves at Philip’s feet. They wailed in unison, “Save our massa, Cap’n Whiteoak! They’s gonna hang him sure.”
Philip now took command. To the Negroes he said, “If you have any regard for your mistress, stop your howling.” To Adeline, “Bring brandy for Mrs. Sinclair, while I dispatch a man to fetch the doctor.” His authoritative voice brought a certain calm. After a small glass of brandy Lucy Sinclair regained consciousness. Adeline held a bottle of smelling-salts to her nostrils, reiterating, “There, there, now,” as to a child.
But consciousness brought hysteria. Nothing could restrain the Negroes from joining their voices to that of their mistress. Philip was almost at his wits’ end. He paced up and down in front of the house waiting for the doctor. When Dr. Ramsay came he administered a sleeping draught. Lucy Sinclair was enfolded in the comfort of oblivion.
When the doctor and Philip found themselves alone together Philip said, “This is a tragic business, Dr. Ramsay. I am very much afraid that the Yankees will execute our friend Sinclair, confiscate his estate, and leave his poor wife penniless.
“The best thing for you to do, in my opinion,” said the doctor, “is to get rid of her and her servants, as soon as you can. All the countryside look on Jalna as a centre of Confederate plotting. The Yankees are going to be top dog. We live next door to them. On my part, I’m against slavery, as you know.”
“So am I,” said Philip. “But I hope I am at liberty to choose my friends.”
The two men were in the porch, seated on one of two massive oak benches. Adeline now appeared in the open door. Her hair, of a copperish red, had become loosened, and had fallen over one shoulder. Her luminous dark eyes looked out from a pale face. Dr. Ramsay hid his admiration behind a frown.
“It’s rideeculous for you, Mrs. Whiteoak,” he said, “to wear such a tragic face because of the troubles of these people. ’Twill always be so. What does our greatest poet say?
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
“My advice is — pack the Southerners back to their own country where they’ll be taken care of. Otherwise you will injure your own health.”
“Did you hear those blacks howling?” asked Philip. “Strange! They are quiet now.”
“They are quiet,” said Adeline, with great calmness, “because I have dosed them.”
“Dosed them!” exclaimed the doctor. “With what?”
“Laudanum.”
“Good God!” cried Dr. Ramsay. “Where are they?”
“In the little room at the end of the hall. Stretched out on the floor.”
And there they were revealed, snoring in the heaviest slumber. Dr. Ramsay knelt by each in turn, felt the pulse of each, lifted an eyelid of each, then rose to his feet with a sigh of relief. “You may thank God, Mrs. Whiteoak,” he said, “that you did not kill them, for you certainly dosed them heavily. How did you come by this laudanum?”
“I bought it from the chemist for Patsy O’Flynn’s toothache,” she answered simply. “It quieted the tooth and it quieted these poor darkies.” She looked with satisfaction at the recumbent forms.
Indeed the silence in the house was startling, after the violence of the grief which preceded it. Dr. Ramsay promised to return in a couple of hours. Philip and Adeline stood in the porch, watching him as he rode away. “We’re lucky,” said Philip, “to have such a good doctor in this out-of-the-way place.”
“If only,” cried Adeline, “doctors would not put on that superior, high and mighty tone! Now I feel superior to no one, yet, while he quieted only one fragile woman, I quieted three rackety blacks and made nothing of it.”
“I shall make myself scarce,” said Philip, “when they all wake up.”
At that moment the baby, Philip, toddled down the hall. Philip senior sat down and put his youngest on his knee. He allowed the little one to listen to the ticking of his massive gold watch, the heavy chain of which hung across his flowered waistcoat.
“Tick-tock, tick-tock,” said the baby.
“My favourite child,” declared Philip. “I see him as the future master of Jalna.”
“Not for many long years, I hope,” said Adeline gazing at him with sudden fondness.
“Come and sit on my other knee,” he said.
And she did.
While these things took place in the house, the three older children had hidden themselves in the wood. The bond among them was so close, possibly because of the scarcity of friends of their own age, that when one of them was in disgrace, they all felt themselves to be in disgrace. Equally they shared the burden of it, even though b
ut one bore the stripes.
Nicholas lay breast downward beneath the low-spreading branches of a magnificent beech. Ernest had stretched his slender length beside him in the self-same attitude. Augusta sat, her hands folded in her lap, brooding over her brothers. Ernest said:
“Do you suppose we shall ever be happy again?”
“I doubt it,” said Augusta. “We may be less unhappy but it’s quite a different thing to be happy.”
“I had to tell what had happened to Mr. Sinclair,” said Nicholas. “Elihu Busby had brought the news. The blacks were bound to hear it. I thought I should be the one to tell them.”
“I think that perhaps Papa wanted to be the one,” said Augusta.
“Anyhow,” said Nicholas, “he was in a towering rage. Should you like to see my bruises?”
“No.” She turned her head away. “It would not do you any good and would turn my stomach.”
“It wouldn’t turn mine,” Ernest said. “I’d like to see them. I guess they’re no worse than some I’ve had.”
“You’ve had nothing equal to this.” Nicholas sat up with a groan.
Ernest too sat up and moved closer to him. Nicholas stripped off his fine white shirt, with the fluted collar, and drew his underpants from his buttocks. “Whew!” cried Ernest. He was so impressed, so almost exhilarated by what he saw, that he rolled over twice and again ejaculated, “Whew!”
“Oh, Gussie.” He could scarcely articulate for excitement. “You ought to see! Really you ought to see.”
Augusta took one glance out of the sides of her eyes. She said, “If Papa were to come this way and see you so nearly undressed he’d give you another whacking.”
“For some reason,” said Ernest, “I feel less unhappy.”
Augusta gave him a critical look. “It’s rather heartless to feel less unhappy when you see welts on somebody else.”
“Well,” said Nicholas, “I like to show them.”
“It’s just as wrong,” Augusta said, “to boast of beatings as to boast of getting prizes.”
“I got a prize for my pony at the fall fair last year.” Nicholas spoke through the shirt he was pulling over his head.
“I got a prize,” said Ernest proudly, “for taking a dose of castor oil.”
“What would you have got if you had refused to take it?” asked Augusta.
Ernest felt insulted by this question. He scrambled to his feet and walked a short distance away. When he returned he was eating beechnuts. Augusta firmly took them from him. “You’re a naughty boy,” she said. “Those nuts will not be fit to eat till we’ve had frost.”
“Even then,” Nicholas put in, “they’ll give him bellyache and he’ll keep me awake half the night crying.”
Ernest turned his back on them. “I’m going home,” he said. “I want my dinner.”
The two older children watched his small figure disappear along the path, flanked by delicate white birch trees. Twice he looked back at them and the second time waved a hand.
“He didn’t stay unhappy for long,” remarked Nicholas.
“He’s hungry,” said Augusta. “It makes such a difference.”
“I suppose,” said Nicholas, “that Mr. Sinclair will never be hungry again. Not if he knows he is going to be hanged.”
“I wish,” Augusta’s voice trembled a little, “I wish that Mr. Madigan were here.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, except that he makes light of serious things. It takes the weight off you.” She lifted her heavy hair from her forehead and drew a deep sigh. “It’s well to be young like Ernest,” she added. “He can be unhappy and happy again in short order.”
“If he had had the hiding I got,” said Nicholas, “he’d have howled the rest of the day.”
“But he is delicate.” She spoke with a gentle folding of her hands. “We must remember that.”
“Yet he thinks well of himself,” said Nicholas, “and he can be very sarcastic. Think how he will say ‘My eye!’ with a sneering look.”
“That’s something that must be stopped.” She looked disapprovingly after the small figure being swallowed by the leafiness of the wood.
But, after a few moments, he came tearing back to them. “I’m afraid to go alone,” he gasped. “I keep thinking of Mr. Sinclair. Do you suppose they’ve hung him yet?”
“Hanged is correct,” said Augusta.
“I know,” he agreed, then repeated, “Do you suppose they’ve hung him yet?”
“You are incorrigible,” said Augusta, rising and taking him by the hand. “I will go with you. What are you eating?”
“Wintergreen berries. Farther along they are as thick as blackberries.”
Augusta promptly took them from him.
She turned then to Nicholas. “Fasten your collar,” she said. “There’s someone coming.”
“It’s Guy Lacey,” said Nicholas. “He’s home on leave from the Royal Navy. Doesn’t he look fine in his uniform?”
The handsome slender young officer now called out to them, “Hello, you there! Do you remember me?”
In unison they murmured that they did. They were a little shy but he was self-possessed, a travelled man of the world. “How you’ve grown!” he exclaimed. “I should hardly have recognized you.”
He laid his hand on Ernest’s head. “This fellow was a very small codger then.”
“There are four of us now,” said Nicholas. “There’s the baby — Philip.”
“A baby, eh?”
“Well, he’s on his feet.”
“I hear you have guests from Carolina. I’d like to meet them. We of the Royal Navy have great sympathy for the South. I hear that France is putting a finger in the pie. Certainly Washington could not have done what he did without help from the French. But all this, I guess, is Greek to you young people.”
“We have heard a great deal,” Nicholas said proudly.
“You’re lucky,” said Guy Lacey, “to be living in this lovely spot.” His eyes ranged from the hazy blue of the sky, glimpsed between the gently moving, leaf-laden boughs of the forest trees, where birds flitted, calling sweetly to each other, and lively red squirrels and chipmunks peered down in fearless curiosity at the young people below.
“Yes, you’re lucky,” continued Guy Lacey, “to live here. It’s like the garden of Eden and you, Gussie, are a romantic-looking Eve. I hope you don’t mind my calling you Gussie, the way I used to?”
“Oh, no,” she murmured, her pale cheeks burning in embarrassment.
“We boys,” said Nicholas, “are Cain and Abel. I’m Cain and I’m going to murder this young fellow.” He put his arms about Ernest and bore him to the ground where they lay laughing.
Guy Lacey said, “There’s a burr in your hair, Gussie. Did you know? Do you mind if I take it out?” With a sailor’s assurance, he took the long black tress in his hand and gently removed the burr. “What silky hair!” he exclaimed, and smiled into her eyes.
Augusta was so embarrassed that she turned to the two boys who now were on their feet, Nicholas’s tear-stained cheeks still recording his punishment. “You two young ’uns,” said Guy Lacey, “should go into the Royal Navy. It’s a good life.” With a little bow to Augusta he strode away.
“Royal Navy, my eye,” said Ernest.
Slowly Augusta followed her brothers homeward. The long lock of hair, from which Guy Lacey had taken the burr, hung over her shoulder. She raised it in her hand and looked at it in wonder. It no longer seemed quite to belong to her. Shyly she pressed it to her lips and kissed it.
Slowly the three children entered the quiet house. Once inside, Augusta flew up the stairs to see if all went well with her dove. From the moment when first she possessed it, she had loved it, but now for some reason she could not divine, she loved it even more.
Nicholas lingered in the hall, awaiting with humility the meeting with his father. Ernest noticed that the door of the small room at the end of the hall was closed. This was unusual and at onc
e he ran lightly to it to investigate. He opened the door and peeped in. What he saw was Cindy, Annabelle, and Jerry stretched motionless on the floor. He banged the door shut and, with a shriek, ran back through the hall.
“The blacks are dead!” he screamed. “Every one of them! Dead of broken hearts!”
At his cries Adeline came out of her room. When he saw her he scampered straight to her arms. She lifted him and he clung to her still screaming. He wrapped himself about her, absorbing the comfort of her body.
XII
Reward
In the days that followed the news of Curtis Sinclair’s capture by the federal forces, tension at Jalna was almost unbearable. Not one beneath that roof was unaffected. For the first time since the building of the house Philip shrank from returning to it, but spent his days in the fields or stables. He visited a number of fall fairs, taking Nicholas and Ernest with him. Adeline was glad to know they were out of the way, for she was short-tempered and found the managing of her household and the comforting of Lucy Sinclair almost more than she could cope with. In truth Lucy refused to be comforted, had frequent fits of hysteria and at night terrible dreams in which, with awful clarity, she witnessed the execution of her husband. The Negroes incurred the anger of Doctor Ramsay, for when she lost her self-control, they lost what little self-control was theirs and loudly wailed with her. It was not unusual for Adeline to find the three of them in the bedroom with Lucy, all four weeping in unison. At all hours the blacks prayed, “Oh, Lawd, save our massa!” Yet, even while they prayed, they were convinced that he was a dead man. They forgot his occasional severity and dwelt on his kindness till he became, in their eyes, a saint and a martyr.
Three of the household were less affected than the others by the tragedy of Sinclair’s fate. These were — first the piccaninny, which Cindy had named Albert, after the Prince Consort, of whom she had heard for the first time, since coming to Jalna. This infant throve amazingly, his time divided between guzzling at his mother’s breast, and dark primitive slumber. The second was the blond youngest Whiteoak who was struggling with all his might to escape from babyhood. He attempted to run and, falling, scrambled to his feet without tears. What did make him weep was to be picked up and carried when he wanted to walk, or, worse still, to be set on the chamber pot. He had few words and appeared to feel that these would be sufficient to carry him through life, for he took no trouble to add to his vocabulary.
02 Morning at Jalna Page 11
