The tutor wore an expression half-pleased, half-apologetic, as he said, “Well, it’s not my birthday but I have been given a present. Look.”
There was no need to draw attention to his present, for it was a bulky sofa cushion of red and gold satin, with a tassel on each corner.
“I may tell you,” Madigan said confidentially, “that I became so hot carrying it that I was tempted to leave it by the roadside.”
The children stared in curiosity, while the dove walked daintily to the end of its tether.
“How beautiful!” said Augusta.
“I’ll wager I know who gave it you,” said Nicholas. “It was Amelia Busby.”
Ernest jumped up. “Let me hold it, please,” he said. “I want to know how heavy it is.”
With the cushion in his arms he exclaimed, “It’s quite light. I could carry it all that way and not be tired.” Then he promptly dropped it to the floor.
As though exhausted Madigan sank down and laid his head on the cushion. “Now,” he said, “we can all rest together in peace.”
“You’re a funny sort of teacher,” said Augusta.
“I instruct you,” Madigan said, “by example. If you will watch me you will discover without effort what you should not do — should not be.”
“We were happy here,” said Augusta, “till you came.” She spoke in wonder rather than displeasure.
“It is my fate,” said Madigan, “to bring unhappiness.”
“Then why,” asked Nicholas, “does Amelia Busby intend to marry you?”
Madigan clutched his hair, as though distraught. “Don’t tell me,” he exclaimed, “that she intends to marry me!”
“My mamma says” — Nicholas spoke didactically — “that when a woman begins to fuss over a man she means to marry him. Mamma says there’s no escape for him.”
“You are wise beyond your years,” said the tutor. “Soon you will be instructing me, instead of I you.”
Laughing he left them and carried the sofa cushion to his room on the top floor. Really he did not know what to do with it and his face sobered to a look of concern. There was no sofa in his room, so he laid it on a rather uncompromising cane-seated chair. Now he felt that the chair would be of no further use to him. He could not sit on that elegant cushion. He had a mind to carry it back to Amelia and tell her that there was no place in his life for such an article. He wished he had not shown it to the children. They would be certain to tell their mother. He had a mind to disappear that very night and leave the cushion behind him.
The children did tell their mother of this present from Amelia. They told of it in a spirit of mischief, but Adeline regarded it seriously. She would have liked to see Madigan settled comfortably in life and feared that when he left Jalna he would drift aimlessly from one indifferent position to another. She admired Madigan’s learning. When speaking of him to outsiders, she exaggerated his scholarship to lofty intellectual attainment, but to the Sinclairs she called him “that good-for-nothing Irishman — God help him.” His admiration for Lucy Sinclair was too obvious.
Adeline said, at the tea table, “I hear you’ve been given a handsome present by a young lady, Mr. Madigan.”
“Ah, ’tis of no use to me,” he said.
“Come now, don’t say that. There’s nothing more useful than a soft place to lay one’s head. Isn’t that so, Mr. Sinclair?”
“I have forgotten how to relax,” he returned.
Nicholas put in, “This cushion is of red and gold satin, with a tassel at each corner.”
Nicholas pronounced it tossel.
“Dear Mr. Madigan,” cried Adeline, “as soon as you have finished your tea, you must bring it down to show us. I’m dying to see it. Aren’t you, Lucy?”
“There is nothing that interests me more than fine needlework,” she replied.
“There is nothing that interests me less,” said Madigan.
“Ah, what an unfeeling remark!” cried Adeline, pouring him another cup of tea. “Really, this Irishman is hopeless. He gives quite a wrong impression of himself. In reality he has a tender heart and the sensibility of an —”
“Irish wolfhound,” interrupted Philip. “Another cup of tea, please.”
Lucius Madigan subsided into silent laughter. He was suddenly in high good humour. He had that day been paid his quarterly salary. This usually was the occasion of a few days’ disappearance and a return to Jalna, pale, contrite and considerably lighter in pocket. But now instead his purse was untouched and he was the centre of romantic speculation. After tea he consented to bring down the cushion for inspection. All agreed that it was handsome. Philip put it on the sofa in the sitting-room and laid his blond head on it, to his daughter’s embarrassment, for she was concerned that her parents should keep their dignity. The baby, Philip, was brought in for his bedtime romp and was tossed up by his father till he screamed with delight and wet himself.
Adeline drew Madigan into the hall and, standing impressively, with one hand on the newel-post, on the top of which a superb bunch of grapes was carved, she said, “Lucius, I have something important to say to you and I hope you’ll take it to heart.”
It was the first time she had addressed him by his Christian name and it brought tears to his eyes. He thought of himself as a poor lonely Irishman sadly out of place in this virile pioneer country. He thought of his poor mother in County Cork and how he had not written a line to her in the last ten months.
“I take everything you say to heart, Mrs. Whiteoak.” There were tears in his voice.
“Well, I say this,” she went on. “You cannot do better than by marrying Amelia Busby.”
“But —” he exclaimed, in panic.
“Listen. It is plain to see that she is badly smitten by you. She is a healthy young woman who will take every care of you. She is good-natured. She is wild to get married, which her sisters accomplished years ago.”
“But I have no means. Nothing to marry on.”
Adeline’s persuasive voice sank almost to a whisper. “Don’t let that worry you,” she said. “Amelia is a woman of means. Her bachelor uncle left her a fine farm which she has rented. He left her also a small house in the town. You could move right into it. Amelia is going on for thirty and panting to settle down with a mate. She adores you. That’s plain.”
“But why — why?” stammered Madigan. “There is nothing about me to adore.”
“You don’t know your own value,” said Adeline. “That’s the trouble with the Irish. We are too modest. The English are so quietly self-assured. The Scotch so conceited. Take my advice, Lucius, and ask Amelia for her hand. She’ll accept you, I’ll be bound.”
Madigan clasped his hands in front of him, tried to speak, failed, tried again and brought out, “There is one great obstacle to my marriage with a girl like Miss Busby.”
“Don’t tell me you’re already married.”
“Thank God, no,” he said, “but I am a Catholic.”
Adeline was astonished but not dismayed.
“Strange,” she said, “that you did not tell me this at the first, but I suppose you feared that, if I knew, I would not engage you.”
“That was my reason.” The tutor looked into her eyes with defiance. “It was not that I was ashamed of having been brought up a Catholic, but I was desperate for a situation and I knew this was a strongly Protestant community.”
“Then,” she agreed sadly, “I’m afraid it’s all up with this marriage.”
Madigan’s contrary nature asserted itself. “I don’t see why,” he said. “Religion of any sort means little to me. I have not been to confession in five years.”
“Does your mother know this?” Adeline demanded.
“She does not.”
“Poor woman — she has a wayward son.”
“I love her dearly.”
“I hope you write often to her.”
Madigan twisted his fingers together. “Very seldom,” he confessed. He was thankful when they were interrupt
ed by Ernest. “Come quickly and see Nero,” he said. “He’s shaking hands with Papa.”
They returned to the sitting room. There Nero was reared on his haunches, while Philip bent in front of him with outstretched hand. “Shake,” he said. Nero eyed the hand reluctantly but after the order was repeated, this time in a cajoling tone, he laid his woolly paw in the inviting hand.
“What a lovely picture!” cried Lucy Sinclair. “What confidence — what affection between master and dog!”
Philip, smiling, went to the tea table and returned with a piece of iced cake, which he presented to Nero, who devoured it in one mouthful.
The soft cushion was forgotten by all but Adeline and Madigan. Every now and again she gave him an encouraging smile. When he returned to his bedroom he took the cushion with him, and there it haunted him. If he woke in the middle of the night the moonlight was sure to be shining on it. He had no use of his chair, for he would not sit on the cushion for fear of crushing it.
And that was not all. The very next day he was encountered by Amelia Busby in the ravine, where he had gone to find refuge. She presented him with a plate mounded with cream puffs which she herself had made. Two days later she gave him a linen handkerchief with his initials L.M. embroidered on the corner. Almost before he was aware of it, he had made an appointment with her to walk to the lake shore.
The weather was hot and humid. The road was rough and stony, but Amelia seemed not to mind what it did to her shoes or feet. Before long she had a blister on her heel, but her amorous glances never faltered. She showed all her white teeth in a possessive smile.
On the beach she demonstrated that she could skip stones better than he. She longed to take off her shoes and stockings and paddle in the cool green water, but modesty forbade her. The rowdy waves that came tumbling on the sand gave her a wild feeling. Her black locks were blown across her light blue eyes. Madigan had not before noticed how attractive she was.
Adeline invited her to supper at Jalna, at table placed her next to Madigan. Amelia was so embarrassed by the presence of the Sinclairs that she could not bring herself to open her mouth excepting to put food into it. After supper she and Madigan disappeared into the porch and she sat close to him on one of the two stout oak benches there.
In private, Philip remarked to Adeline, “That young woman is after Madigan, tooth and claw. He has no chance of escape. And you are aiding and abetting her. Don’t deny it.”
“I want to see the poor man comfortably settled in life by the time we take the children out of his hands. He’ll never find another position as tutor.”
“I have a poor opinion of him as such,” said Philip. “For one thing, he drinks too much; for another, he has no discipline. You engaged him. I merely put up with him.”
“There is one obstacle to this marriage,” said Adeline. “Lucius is a Catholic.”
Philip opened his eyes wide. “Elihu Busby will never countenance a mixed marriage,” he said.
“He need not be told,” declared Adeline. “Lucius is not a practising Catholic. He has not been inside any church save ours — not in years.”
“My opinion of him has not risen,” said Philip. “I should like to stop this, but — what’s the use? The girl is out to capture him and capture him she will.”
Philip was right. While all about them seethed with plotting and counterplotting, Amelia Busby and Lucius Madigan became engaged. He scarcely knew how it happened, but he felt a great peace that was akin to happiness when the struggle was over and he was landed. Amelia’s family were on the whole glad of her impending departure. She was a forceful character, always convinced that she was in the right.
She made her own wedding dress and the pair were married in the Busbys’ homestead by a Presbyterian minister.
Amelia did not attempt to conceal her triumph. She had captured the man of her choice. No man in these parts, not even the rector, Mr. Pink, could compare with him in learning. To be sure he was of melancholy bent but she had high spirits enough for the pair of them. She was hopeful that he would (with her influence — for she felt nothing to be beyond her) secure a professorship in a university.
They went to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. There, in the roar of the cataract, they strolled hand in hand. At night, his tongue loosed in the dark intimacy of the hotel bedroom, he poured out the poetic longings of his Celtic soul. She understood not the half of what he was saying but she was a superb listener, her round light eyes wide open in the dark, drinking in his imagined face, as her neat rosy ears drank in his words.
On their third and last night in Niagara, Madigan was moved to confide in her all he knew of Curtis Sinclair’s plans. Through scraps of conversation overheard, through Lucy Sinclair’s impulsive confidence, he had learned more than anyone at Jalna suspected. Now, intoxicated by abstinence from drink and indulgence in animal gratification, he poured out all he knew. Amelia learned to her horror of planned raids across the line, of fires to be set, of shipping destroyed. She was in sentiment, in strength of character, her father’s daughter. She hid her feelings, she clasped Madigan close, till he slept.
She spent the first sleepless night of her life.
When morning came she knew just what to do. She slipped out of bed, dressed herself without disturbing Madigan, and went out into the little town. She knew where to find the small cottage that was the headquarters of the Yankee spies, for she had been sitting in the room knitting when they had told her father. He knew she was to be trusted.
She remained for some time in the cottage telling the men there of her discovery, but she did not disclose how it had been made. She was almost breathless from excitement, but they were fairly desperate and snatched at any clue. Also Amelia wore, like a garment, an air of wholesome reliability.
In her excitement she missed the way back to the hotel and the return took her longer than she had expected. Her amorous proclivity was in no way lessened by what Madigan had divulged. Almost she ran in her eagerness to return to him. She intended merely to tell him that she had been for an early morning stroll. She would never let him know the use to which she had put his nocturnal confidence. She had a feeling of power, and even of noble rectitude. She did not realize how deeply jealousy of Lucy Sinclair entered into her feelings.
She found the bedroom in the hotel in a state of disorder. Lucius Madigan had taken himself off and all his belongings with him, leaving no word of farewell.
X
A VARIETY OF SCENES
While Amelia and Lucius Madigan were on their brief honeymoon, the amorous affair between the mulatto, Belle, and the half-breed, Titus Sharrow, was moving to its predestined close, to the satisfaction of both. For Belle was happy in the expectation of marriage with this lithe Lothario, and he was happy in the certainty that he would seduce her.
He spoke of the good state of his spirits one morning to Wilmott, as he carried his bacon and fried potatoes to him. Wilmott raised his eyes from last week’s paper to look into the dignified but amiable countenance of his protégé.
“You look nice and cheerful this morning, Tite,” he remarked.
“I feel happy, Boss,” said Tite. “Even more so than usual. I cannot explain why but there it is. The sunshine is so yellow. The river so smooth. Yesterday I rode that old grey mare of the Whiteoaks down to the lake and it was as smooth as the river. I rode the mare out into the water till it reached her belly. She took a big drink and then turned her head to give me a look of gratitude. She was as grateful as a woman. Life is very interesting, isn’t it, Boss?”
“I suppose life is as interesting as we make it, Tite.”
“I have great curiosity, Boss,” said Tite. “When the holidays are over I shall go back to the study of law and find out still more about the right and wrong of things. You yourself have taught me a great deal, Boss.”
“You will discover more from your books than I can tell you.”
“Have you noticed, Boss, that I have become religious?”
“I have not noticed.”
Tite looked downcast, but for a moment only, then he said, “I hoped you would notice that I am more humble than I was.”
“I had not noticed.”
Tite continued, “It is not easy for me to feel humble, Boss, because I have a proud nature, but I am learning to subdue it. I have a very good example in my little friend Annabelle. She teaches me to be humble and I teach her to value herself more highly.”
“Tite” — Wilmott spoke solemnly — “I have warned you before and I warn you again to avoid any intimacy with that girl. It can only end in serious trouble for you both.”
“But we are so happy together, Boss. We have much to learn from one another.”
“I wish you would learn that I like to eat my breakfast in peace — with my newspaper.”
“There is nothing more peaceful than a week-old newspaper, Boss. You know that everything read is over and done with. It seems to me it would be a good idea if all newspapers would be delivered only when they are a week old.”
Wilmott, his mouth full of toast and bacon, uttered the one word — “Go!”
Tite, in good humour with all the world, sought the meeting place that he had chosen for his dalliance with Annabelle. This was a small open space in the heart of a dense green thicket. He and she had made meandering, scarce visible, paths to it from both Wilmott’s house and Jalna. She came to it with singing heart, full of the love of God, and of drawing the wayward Tite into that blessed communion. On his part he scarcely heard what she said. Out of his narrow Indian eyes he saw the tempting curves of her youthful yet seductive body. This was the place, this was the day. She would forget the love of God in her ardour for him. A million leaves shut them in. Among this wilderness of leaves flitted orioles, scarlet tanagers, bluebirds and golden finches, without fear. The leaves were as glossy as in springtime, though in a few weeks they would be showing the bright panoply of the fall. When a few more weeks were added, they would be blown by the will of the wind, leaving the limbs of the trees naked. But now — what luxuriance, what madness of growth! And not only the trees. Vines and creepers used the trees as foothold for their adventuring. A wild grapevine, its tendrils clinging to a young alder, reached out to embrace a young maple. Clusters of little green grapes thrived in the course of its wandering. The vine was relentless, seeking to smother what gave it support.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 43
