Ernest declared, standing very straight, that if Gussie and Nicholas went to school in England, he also would like to go, but he was told that it was too expensive to send three children off at once, that he must wait his turn.
“When shall I go?” he asked.
“In a couple of years.”
“But I’ll be lonely without Gussie and Nicholas. I’ll have no one to play with.”
“You will have your little brother,” Adeline answered, giving him an absent-minded look, for her mind was on her preparations.
“I wish Mr. Madigan would come home,” said Ernest.
“Home?” repeated Adeline.
“He often called this house home.”
“I expect he’s at home now with his mother in Ireland.”
“Poor man.” Suddenly Ernest looked experienced, like a little old man.
Strangely enough, Augusta and Nicholas seemed content to leave him at Jalna. She gave him careful instructions for the care of her dove. Nicholas told him about the feeding of his pet rabbits. He listened with pretended docility, but he wondered how they would feel if they were to be left at home while he went off on a jaunt to England. Inside he was seething with impotent emotions.
Mrs. Lacey, who taught her own daughters, gave the young Whiteoaks some lessons. These were not a success. In certain ways they appalled her by their ignorance. In other ways they shocked her by what they knew. This was the result of Madigan’s teaching. Yet they looked on him as superior in every way to those who, since his going, had tried to force book learning into their heads.
Mrs. Madigan was such a joke to them that they screamed with laughter at the mere thought of her.
There were times when Augusta was just another child with her brothers. At other times she kept aloof from them, trying in a confused way to find the path towards womanhood. She was such a contrast to her mother that they found little companionship in each other. What seemed only ridiculous to Adeline was likely to appear pathetic to Augusta. What might throw Adeline into a fine rage would pass unnoticed by Augusta. What would appear formidable to the daughter would seem trivial to the mother. Augusta had a yearning for solitude. Adeline loved companionship. The image of Guy Lacey often came to disturb Augusta’s sleep. He would appear out of the darkness, bright and smiling in his naval uniform. She would lie entranced, waiting for him to speak, but he would disappear as silently as he had come.
She had another visitor and this one very real. It was Lucius Madigan, who came up the stairs one winter night to the schoolroom where the three young Whiteoaks were sitting in a pretence at doing lessons. Adeline and Philip had gone to Quebec for a visit.
Madigan appeared at the door and smiled at them.
It was so natural to see him there that for a moment they had not the wit to feel surprise. He had come out of their brief past to astonish them.
“What a lovely sight!” he exclaimed. “Working hard at your lessons! Oh, my dears, I could embrace you all.” He held out his arms, as though to enfold them.
Ernest was the first to recover. He rose and ran to Madigan. “We were given snowshoes for Christmas,” he said. “Want to see them?”
“There’s nothing I’d like better,” said Madigan.
The little boy ran off to fetch them.
Nicholas said, “It was better when you were here, Lucius.”
Augusta corrected him. “You are not to call Mr. Madigan by his Christian name.”
“I used to sometimes, didn’t I, Lucius?”
“Yes, and I like it,” said Madigan.
He advanced into the room and sat down at the table with them. He looked as he had used to when getting over a spree. His eyes rested on Augusta. “You look different somehow, Gussie,” he said. “Do you feel different?”
“She’s just the same,” said Nicholas. “Bossy.”
Augusta raised her long-lidded eyes to Madigan’s face. “I remember things in a different way,” she said.
“You begin to realize that you have a past,” said Madigan. “It’s a sad moment, Gussie. But never let your past haunt you. That’s a terrible thing.” He ran his hands through his hair making it stand up as though in fright.
“Are you going to see Mrs. Madigan?” Nicholas put the question boldly.
“Yes, I’m going to see my mother, Mrs. Madigan, as soon as I have money to pay my passage,” answered Madigan.
“I meant your wife,” said Nicholas.
“My God,” cried the Irishman, “does that Busby girl call herself Mrs. Madigan?” He looked distraught.
This sent the young Whiteoaks into peals of laughter. Ernest had returned with the snowshoes. Then each made a characteristic remark.
Nicholas said, “She came to tutor us but we quickly got rid of her.”
“Not before she’d slapped Ernest’s face,” said Augusta.
“If you like,” said Ernest, “I’ll show you how I made up her bed, with your coat and hat and pipe in it. That frightened her away.”
“That coat is what I came for,” said Madigan. “It has my savings sewn up in the lining and, by God, I need money.” He looked searchingly into the children’s faces. “I hope no one has meddled with the lining,” he said.
“At least we are honest,” said Augusta.
Ernest plumped the snowshoes on the table on top of the lesson books. Madigan examined them with sincere interest. “How I should love to see you on these!” he said, a light coming into his tired eyes. The children had not realized before this that his presence meant so much to them.
“How did you know our parents are away?” Augusta asked.
“I enquired in the village,” Madigan answered humbly. “But I’m not going to stay. As soon as I have recovered my bit of money I’ll be off.”
“I wish we might go with you,” said Nicholas.
“And leave this paradise?” exclaimed Madigan. “If you will take my advice you’ll grow up here and never, never travel. If I had stayed in Ireland, I’d be a less miserable man today.”
“Gussie and I are to go to school in England next spring,” said Nicholas, “but this young fellow” — and he gave a patronizing tap to Ernest’s head — “is to remain at Jalna with his baby brother.”
“I won’t! I won’t!” Ernest jerked his head away from the patronizing tap and spoke loudly. “I’ll run away first.”
Madigan looked his most melancholy. “I can’t think of anything worse than school in England,” he said, “unless it is school in Ireland. I went to one.”
“Our father says we’ll learn all sorts of things.”
“You will learn how to bear daily beatings with stoicism — that is, after the first term, when you’ll cry yourself to sleep every night.”
“Why would they beat us?” Nicholas asked without flinching.
“For the fun of it,” said Madigan. “The big boys beat the small boys for the fun of seeing them suffer.”
“But a girl would not be beaten,” said Gussie.
“There are worse things than physical pain,” said Madigan. “On my part I minded the beatings less than the moral humiliations.”
“Please tell us about it,” said Ernest. “I love to hear about suffering.”
Madigan said, “I am not hungry but I have a terrible thirst on me. Do you think your papa might have left a drop of whisky in the decanter on the sideboard? But, for God’s sake, don’t let the servants hear you, because if that Busby woman discovers I’m here she’ll be trying to meet me.”
“Her father and brothers would like to meet you,” said Augusta.
For a moment Madigan looked subdued, then he asked, “Have you still the dove with you?”
“He is the joy of my life,” said Augusta primly.
Nicholas ran down the two flights of stairs, the upper serviceably covered in linoleum, the lower carpeted in red Wilton. Shortly he reappeared carrying a decanter half-full of Scotch whisky and a tumbler. Madigan poured himself a drink. “It does me more good neat,” he sa
id.
He drank it down.
“You used the word ‘joy,’ Gussie,” he said. “As for me I have ceased to feel that emotion, but I’m happy to think a dove can give you joy. What about you, Nicholas? Has anything the power to give you joy?”
“Snowshoeing,” said Nicholas. “When I’m on my snowshoes in the woods I’m full of joy.”
“And you, Ernest?”
“It makes me joyful to have you here again,” said the little boy.
Madigan’s eyes filled with tears. His hand that held the tumbler trembled. The house was silent, cloaked in snow. Augusta’s hands, elegantly shaped and of a pure pallor, lay clasped on the table before her.
Madigan continued, “Do not let your parents send you away to school. You will be half-dead from homesickness. You will be ill-treated and miserable.”
“What can we do?” asked Augusta.
Madigan had downed his second drink. He looked into the amber shape of the decanter and said, “If I were in your place I should run away.”
Augusta’s eyes rested on the snow-blanketed windowpane. She murmured, “How can we?”
“I advise you,” said Madigan, “to put on these delightful snowshoes and disappear into the woods. Never come back.” His elbow rested on the table, his head rested on his hand. He looked desperately tired.
“Have another drink,” suggested Nicholas.
Madigan refused with dignity. “I must keep my brain clear,” he said. “I must find my savings. I must be away from here by daylight tomorrow.” He rose, a little unsteadily, and moved towards his former bedroom, the children following him. Augusta went slowly, her head bent, her hair falling about her pale cheeks, as though she were musing on distant things. Nicholas marched along steadily, as though he were able to cope with whatever came his way. Ernest, gentle but dogged, followed last.
“I’m sorry,” Augusta said to Madigan, “but my dove sleeps here. I can’t have him in the room with me because he will perch on my pillow.”
“I don’t mind,” said Madigan. “But you must tell me his name so I may talk to him.”
“I give him a new name each season,” said Augusta. “But the names are secret, so that only he and I know them.”
“Once,” said Ernest, “I heard you call him Mortimer.”
“Mortimer is Guy Lacey’s middle name.” Nicholas gave a teasing laugh. “What a name for a dove!”
The dove settled more comfortably on his perch. Augusta went to him and stroked his silky back.
The boys pressed close after Madigan as he took his coat from the peg. When he turned it inside out they saw that the lining had been cut. Madigan put his finger inside, but there was nothing there. He gave a rueful look. “By jingo, I remember,” he said. “I took that money myself — for the honeymoon with that Busby girl.”
Ernest corrected him. “Mrs. Lucius Madigan.”
Madigan clenched his hands. “Do you want me to cuff you?” he demanded.
“She slapped my face,” said Ernest.
“That is not allowed,” said Augusta. “If any chastising is to be done, it is done by your parents.”
“They like doing it,” added Ernest.
Madigan sat down on the side of the bed. “I must rest,” he said. “Tomorrow I shall be up at sunrise. I must escape before the servants discover me.” He looked into the face of each child in turn. “Never shall I forget you.” His voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears. He sank on to the feather bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
Augusta brought a thick quilt called a “comforter,” and spread it over him. The three stood looking down at him in solicitude. Outside, the wind beat the snowflakes against the pane, enfolding the house in a deep slumberous silence, broken only by the falsetto snore of Lucius Madigan.
Augusta went to her own room and from the sill of the snow-plastered window brought what appeared to be four russet apples, brown and rather wrinkled. She gave one to each of her young brothers, then laid one with a benign gesture in the curve of the sleeper’s hand.
XIX
DOINGS OF THE WHITEOAK CHILDREN
In the morning he was gone and no one in the house, with the exception of the children, knew of his visit. He had not left even a footprint in the snow, for the wind had obliterated them.
Yet his deserted wife, by some means, heard that he had been seen in the neighbourhood and ploughed her way through the drifts to Jalna to enquire after him. Her long heavy skirt was caked with snow, even to the knees. She marched into the room where the children were drawing maps and demanded:
“Has anyone here seen my husband?”
“He spent all his savings on his honeymoon,” said Ernest, licking his crayon for colouring Ireland green.
She strode into the room and stood over him. “How dare you insult me?” She looked all teeth, blazing cheeks and round angry eyes.
“Ernest didn’t mean to insult you,” said Augusta. She bent her head above her map and her silky black hair fell over her face.
“All he had from Gussie was a russet apple,” said Nicholas. “And we’re not even sure he ate that.”
“Yes, he did,” said Ernest. “I know, because I found the seeds in his bed.”
“Then he spent the night here! When did he leave?” The frustrated woman strode up and down in her fury, clots of snow falling off her.
“Miss Busby —” began Nicholas.
“Mrs. Madigan,” she corrected, fairly spitting the words out, while her colour deepened, if that were possible.
Nicholas continued, “It looked like a little brown apple, but actually it was a medlar. You don’t eat them till they’re rotten.”
“This is very confusing for Mrs. Madigan,” Augusta said politely and with dignity. “We have only one medlar tree and this is the first year it has borne fruit.”
Ernest went on as though he were giving a lesson, “Each medlar has five hard seeds. I found them in Mr. Madigan’s bed. Should you like to see them?”
Her answer was to wheel, march out of the room, and down the stairs. Nero, who never had liked her, now appeared and, taking the hem of her skirt in his teeth, escorted her to the front door. Two floors up the children ran to the window to see her go.
Scarcely had she disappeared in the falling snow when there came the sweet jangle of sleigh bells and Philip and Adeline arrived, a day sooner than was expected. The children tore down the stairs to meet them. Adeline, glowingly handsome in her sealskin sack and cap, gathered all three into her arms but, when her youngest was carried to her, put them aside to embrace him.
In the days that followed, they were a happy family, in the fastness of midwinter. But such tranquility could not last — not with undisciplined children having too much time on their hands.
“You’re a graceless trio,” declared Adeline, eyeing her three eldest and holding baby Philip close, as though he were her one treasure. “If I, in my young days, had shown as little sense, my father would have turned me out of doors, to wander with the gypsies.”
“What fun!” said Nicholas.
“Why do you always say ‘my father,’ rather than ‘my mother?’” asked Augusta.
“Because,” said Adeline, “I resemble my father.”
The children pondered on this, trying to make sense out of it, but could not.
The rescue from illiteracy came from Wilmott. “When your young ones go to school in England, they will be jeered at for little ignoramuses, Adeline,” he said.
“But why? I don’t understand.” Really she felt insulted. “Nicholas can play quite nicely on the piano, Gussie and Ernest both can recite poetry.”
“What about mathematics?”
“I have got on without them,” she answered proudly.
“You would get on if you were completely illiterate.” It was seldom he spoke with such lack of restraint. Now to cover up the slip he hastened to add, “I was going to offer to give them lessons for the rest of the winter if you are agreeable to the idea.”
“Oh, James, how heavenly that would be!” Before he could stop her she threw both arms about his neck.
He drew away but not before the sweet scent of her brought a moment’s delight to his nostrils. “I should scarcely call it heavenly,” he said stiffly, “and I fancy the children will not, but I will try to make it interesting, if you will let them come to my place. Five times a week from nine till twelve.”
And so it was arranged.
Now it was that the snowshoes which had been given the children at Christmas came into full use.
It was a winter of great feathery drifts, that in shadow had a bluish tone stolen from the blue skies. At night the moon in its splendour subdued all earthly things. In time to reach Wilmott’s cottage by nine, allowing for a little loitering on the way, the children set out. They put on their moccasins when they first got up, over two pairs of thick woollen stockings, that is to say one pair of stockings and one pair of socks. Outside they tied on their snowshoes.
In the weeks since Christmas they had become accustomed to these. No longer did the snowshoes feel clumsy or get tangled up with each other, but moved lightly across the snow, leaving prints like the shadows of birds. Often at that hour in the morning it was bitterly cold, but the children did not mind. Their stomachs were warmed by oatmeal porridge that had cooked for two hours. On their heads the boys had red woollen toques with bobbing tassels, but Augusta wore a hood of the same colour with a red silk bow beneath her pointed chin. On their backs were strapped satchels holding their books.
Long before it was time to set out for Wilmott’s cottage Nero stationed himself in the porch, his eager eyes fixed on the front door. He too had had a bowl of porridge, to say nothing of bacon rinds and scraps of toast and marmalade and a dish of tea. He felt replete, yet all agog for the walk. Nothing could restrain him. Before the children were anywhere near Wilmott’s door, he was there, scratching on it to be let in.
Invariably the door was opened by Tite Sharrow. Wilmott was seated at a small table and gave the young scholars a tranquil “good morning.” They clumped in their snowshoes straight through to the kitchen, Nero stopping on the way to give himself a tremendous shake. He then settled down in front of the stove to pull out the clots of snow from the dense black curls that covered him.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 55
