“He’s a perfect wizard,” said his sister admiringly.
Ernest almost simpered. It was so wonderful to feel oneself a successful man of affairs.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
Philip was pulling burrs from his dog’s tail and hiding them under the chair where he sat.
“The land is good enough for me,” he said. “I’d rather invest in wheat and oats and apples.”
Ernest looked down at him tolerantly. “I think you’re very wise, Philip, to stick to what you understand.”
“I get rattled when I bother about money.”
His mother craned her neck to look at him. “Whatever are you doing?” she said.
“Nothing. Just sitting here. Twiddling my thumbs.” He winked at Augusta who could not forbear a smile in return even though she saw the burrs beneath his chair.
XI
THE PARTY
“I WANT A dinner party,” said Adeline, “and dance afterward. I like my friends to know I’m home.”
“Everybody knows you’re home, old dear,” returned Philip. “And don’t you think you’d better wait till the weather cools off? People would melt, dancing in this heat.”
“I have danced in hotter weather, with tight stays on me and an enormous bustle. I don’t see what makes you so lazy, Philip. Neither your father nor I had a lazy bone in our bodies.”
Philip lighted his pipe and concealed the burnt match beneath the chair he was seated on. He said, “Neither you nor my father ever did what I call an honest day’s work that I ever saw —”
His mother interrupted him in outraged tones. “Not work! Your father and I not work! You should have seen him when this place was being built. He’d heave up a timber, with two men at the other end! He had the strength of two.”
“Yes. I’ve heard about that. But it took only a short while. Not a whole day.”
“He had to conserve his strength. A man needed to conserve what strength he had in those days.”
“As for me, I have my oats to get in before the weather changes. I pitch in and help my men, you know.”
“And a pretty beet-red colour you’ve got yourself!”
“It makes me feel nice and safe. No girl would run after a beet-red widower.”
Adeline laughed scornfully. “Look in your mirror and you’ll see how your looks are spoilt. That sunburnt face makes your hair brighter, your eyes bluer, your teeth whiter.”
“How dreadful,” said Philip. “I sound like a picture on a cigar box.”
“You’re a handsome man and very like your father.”
Adeline did not often acknowledge this likeness and Philip was duly flattered. He grunted appreciatively.
“You were his favourite child.”
“H’m.”
“He had great hopes of you. And so have I.”
“What sort of hopes, Mamma?”
She was put to it to say what were these hopes. Philip was just past thirty and had never shown ambition.
He insisted, “What are those hopes, Mamma?”
She took his brown, strong hand in her long supple hand and squeezed it. “That you’ll never make a fool of yourself in any way. That’s a good deal to hope for in any man, isn’t it?”
“Too much.”
“Ah, Philip, you’re my white-headed boy. ’Twould break my heart if you were to throw yourself away in a foolish marriage with some silly girl.”
“Your heart is made of tougher stuff than that, Mamma.”
“You talk of my never having worked. Just think. I bore three sons in the wilds of Canada and brought up my four children, with just what help I could get.”
He gave his engaging smile. “How well you talk, Mamma! If you go on like that you’ll have me crying.”
His pipe had gone out. Again he lighted it.
Adeline exclaimed, “I saw what you did with that burnt match! I see the two of them under your chair. Pick them up this moment, Philip, and put them in a proper place.”
Renny ran into the room. Philip drew the little boy to him and put the burnt matches in the pocket of his blouse. “Something nice for you,” he said. “Bury them and fire weed will come up.”
“It won’t, will it, Granny?” He climbed into her lap and clasped her neck. “Sing me something,” he begged, “like you used to.”
She hugged him close. “I can’t sing.”
“You can so.”
She had, as a matter of fact, a quite good voice but little idea of tune. She sang”
‘“There was an old woman had three sons,
Jerry and James and John;
Jerry was hung, James was drowned,
John was lost, and never was found;
And there was the end of her three sons,
Jerry and James and John!’”
Renny lay, lolling on her lap, savouring her song. His bare brown legs lay relaxed on hers, his heels gently kicking her shins. She looked across his head at Philip.
“This boy,” she said, “is the apple of my eye.”
“He certainly looks likes you, Mamma.”
“Oh, he showed his good sense!” She kissed him rapturously on the mouth. Boney, in his cage, cried out in jealousy.
“I wish,” said Renny, “that I had a little brother.”
“And what would you do with him?”
“I’d teach him to ride. I’d take care of him.”
“No, no. One small boy in the house is quite enough.”
Sir Edwin Buckley looked in at the door. On seeing him Renny leaped from Adeline’s lap. “Uncle Edwin,” he cried, “you promised to help me with my train. It won’t run.”
Sir Edwin looked at him disapprovingly. “A little restraint, please, if I am to help you with it.”
The little boy galloped from the room and back again carrying the train. Sir Edwin tweaked up his trousers at the knees, knelt gingerly and bent his side-whiskered face above the toy. Philip and Adeline leant forward fascinated.
August, coming into the room, remarked, “Edwin’s bent toward mechanical things always amazes me.”
“You forget, my dear,” said Sir Edwin, “that my grandfather was a scientist.”
“And got a baronetcy for discovering something about bugs!” laughed Adeline. “It’s always struck me as funny.”
“It was an extremely important discovery,” said Sir Edwin with dignity, “and has saved thousands of lives.”
“If we go on saving lives to the extent we now are,” she returned, “the world will be overcrowded in the next fifty years.”
Sir Edwin did not hear her. His gaze was riveted on the little locomotive.
“Mamma wants to give a party,” Philip remarked to his sister.
“I think that is highly appropriate,” agreed Augusta.
“You don’t think the weather too warm?”
“In Canada,” said Augusta, “the weather is always too warm or too cold.”
“People will get very hot dancing.”
“If the liquid refreshment is good, they will not mind. A claret cup will help.”
In an aside to Philip, Adeline remarked, “I never get anything better than cooking sherry in her house.”
Presently the little locomotive was repaired and toddled across the floor. Renny clapped his hands in delight.
Nicholas and Ernest agreed with their mother that a party would be delightful. Invitations to a dinner for sixteen people were sent out and three times as many were invited to a dance afterward. Everywhere in the house there was a bustle of preparation.
Mary was in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not she were expected to be present. Her mind was soon relieved by Adeline’s saying, with a smile, “You must wear your best bib and tucker on Friday night, Miss Wakefield.”
She has a beautiful, a gay smile, thought Mary, why is it that I fear her? She answered:
“Thank you. It is very kind of you.”
“You dance, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes.”
“So do I. Does that surprise you?”
Mary felt that Mrs. Whiteoak was rather old for dancing, but, on the other hand, nothing she might do could surprise her.
“I’m sure you dance very well,” she said.
Adeline grinned, “Oh, I can still move me legs to the music.”
From now on Mary could think of nothing but the party. It was madness, she knew, to beautify herself for Philip’s sake. She scarcely saw him nowadays, except at meal-time, when she sat isolated between the two children who were now not allowed to talk at table. They sat speechless, drinking in the animated talk of their elders which to Meggie was more interesting than food. What a contrast these meals were, Mary often thought, to the first one she had at Jalna.
Mary brought out her one evening dress. It was turquoise blue, a thin material and cut low. It looked sadly wrinkled, yet Mary shrank from taking it to the basement to press. She waited till Mrs. Nettleship was away for the day, then took it down, hoping she would meet no one on the way. Eliza was agreeable. She admired the dress. Neither Miss Cox nor Miss Turnbull had anything approaching it. When parties were given they had kept to their room. When the dress was pressed it satisfied even Mary’s scrutiny. She felt that she could look her best in it.
She did not realize that her looks had been enhanced by the outdoor life, the sunshine, at Jalna. Her neck had rounded, the lovely pallor of her cheeks was tinged by colour. She only knew that she felt stronger, and could walk over quite rough ground without fatigue.
The weather turned cool on the night of the party. A fresh breeze from the west sprang up. Adeline felt justified in her choice of the day and again and again drew attention to her perspicacity. She was dressed for the dinner quite an hour before the time appointed, but she did not mind. She was out to the porch, into the dining-room to inspect the table, to the drawing-room to inspect the floor, to the kitchen to give final directions there. Mrs. Nettleship was in a state of chill and hollow-voiced disapproval. She detested all forms of entertaining. Though she curried favour with Adeline, she disliked her, as she disliked all women. She liked men, almost she loved them, but took a sadistic pleasure in making things uncomfortable for them.
Rugs and carpets had been taken up and floors waxed. Doors and windows stood open to the evening air. The air coming in at the windows was heavy with the scent of nicotiana, its starry flowers already white against the August dusk. Already the days were beginning to shorten.
Mary, from her window, could see the guests arriving for dinner. She had not been invited to share this part of the entertainment. The guests were old friends of the family and she would, she told herself, have felt de trop. She was glad to sit quietly upstairs waiting for the dance. She had had a time of it to persuade the children to go to bed. She wondered if there were any other children with such high spirits. Even though she was so much stronger she found them tiring.
As she sat, with an elbow on the window-sill and her cheek resting on her hand, she pictured Philip sitting at the head of his table, being charming to his guests. She wondered, if, during the whole day, he had given one thought to her. She wondered if he had given a thought to his brief married life, and regretted the young wife, who should have been at his side tonight. Mary had a moment’s poignant pity for Margaret. The children had shown Mary their mother’s photograph in an album with a heavy silver clasp. They had shown it, hard-hearted little creatures that they were, without a trace of pity or regret for the stern-faced young woman, holding a spray of lilies in her hand.
Now Mary heard them pattering about in the passage. She went out to them, drawing her brow into a frown of authority. How she wished they had gone properly to sleep! But any frown she could produce was quickly obliterated by their looks of astonished admiration.
“Oo! Miss Wakefield,” from Meg, “don’t you look beautiful!”
“She’s a princess,” cried Renny, and threw his arms about her.
“Renny,” said Mary, “you’re squashing my dress!” She tried vainly to restrain him.
Meg pulled him off and then said firmly, “Turn around and let’s see you properly.”
Mary showed off her dress for their pleasure.
“Whirl round,” commanded Meg, “till we see what you’ll look like when you dance.”
Up and down the passage Mary whirled, her full skirt billowing about her like sea waves.
“I hear wheels on the drive!” shouted Renny. “People are coming to the dance!”
The children flew to look out of the window. She would have a time of it to get them to bed. “Let them stay up,” she thought, “it won’t hurt them just this once.”
In her own room she took a dark red rose from a tumbler of water, wiped its stem and fastened it in her hair, just at the nape, where the curling coil was. But she could not make up her mind to go down the stairs. Twice she hung over the banisters listening to the first sweet music of the two violins and the harp, and fled back up the stairs again. Oh, if only she had someone to go down with! But she was alone — always alone.
Then Eliza appeared. “I’ve been sent to ask you if you’d care to come down to the dancing,” she said.
Philip had sent for her! She was sure Philip had sent for her. “Who sent you?” she asked.
“Mrs. Whiteoak.”
“I’ll come right down.”
Why had Mrs. Whiteoak troubled to send for her? she wondered. The truth was that Adeline would not risk Philip’s looking on Mary as a poor down-trodden governess. He might forget her himself but his mother must not.
Adeline’s fine arched eyebrows flew up when she saw Mary enter the room. Beauty! And beauty far from unadorned. The number of flounces! The sweep of shoulder and milk-white breast exposed! There was not another such low-cut dress in the room. Adeline’s eyes sought for her daughter. It would be worth her own shock to witness the far greater shock on Augusta’s face. There she was! And looking full at Mary Wakefield. Adeline could not control a chuckle of delight as she beheld the change which came over that long sallow countenance. It changed from an expression of urbane hospitality to one of positive outrage — even unbelief of her own senses. Then dancing couples came between them. Augusta’s face was lost.
Adeline made her way to Mary’s side.
“Well, my dear,” she said, “you look very pretty and gay.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Whiteoak,” Mary answered, colouring.
“But you must not stand here unattended. A set of the Lancers is just being formed. That is the one dance our dear Mr. Pink knows. I’m sure he’d be delighted to dance it with you.” She caught Mr. Pink who was just passing, by the arm.
“Here’s a lovely partner, all set to dance the Lancers with you.”
Mr. Pink had dined well. He held strong ideas on feminine modesty in dress. He would not have allowed his own daughter to wear a low-cut gown. But, if Adeline hoped that he would be too replete to enjoy springing about or too outraged by Mary’s décolleté to desire her as a partner she was to be disappointed. Mr. Pink bowed with alacrity and curved a plump elbow for Mary’s hand. He looked like a happy cherub in a clerical collar.
The violins and the harp sang. The room was full of people, for when Adeline set out to give a party she remembered more and more people whom she liked to entertain. Unlike the parties of the present day which are given exclusively for people of the same generation, when different generations bore each other to the point of misery, this party was composed of many ages. Lily Pink was not the youngest, nor Adeline the oldest. All romped merrily together through the Lancers.
If Mr. Pink looked like a cherub, he danced like an angel. He was light as a feather. Probably during the whole course of their married life Mrs. Pink had never disapproved of him so thoroughly as during this set of Lancers, when she saw him buoyantly marching with the other gentlemen, only to meet Miss Wakefield at the end of the march and whirl her off into a waltz; when she saw him, acting as pivot with the other gentlemen, while Mary, with the other ladies
, flew on the outer edge. It was the expression on his face that Mrs. Pink most disliked. Positively, she thought, he looks like a cave man. She wondered fearfully if, during his long years of work among the heathen, he might have picked up some heathen ways.
When the Lancers were over he thanked Mary and wiped his perspiring face.
“Quite warm, isn’t it” he remarked, “but you look cool as a cucumber.”
“I never get too warm dancing,” she said, “and the music is divine.”
“You can always depend on Mrs. Whiteoak to have good musicians.”
“It makes such a difference in one’s pleasure.”
“Yes. Good music, and a partner who dances as you do, Miss Wakefield.”
“You dance well too, Mr. Pink.”
“Well, I don’t get a great deal of practice. This is the only house where I have the opportunity.”
“What a pity!” Mary’s tone of voice was so sincere that for a moment Mr. Pink wondered if he had not made a mistake in going into the ministry, with its manifold restrictions.
“Ah, here comes the Admiral!” said Mr. Pink. “And they are playing a schottische. Lucky man.”
Admiral Lacey bowed, asked Miss Wakefield for the honour of the dance and led her off. Now it was his turn to be unpopular with his wife. She liked to see him enjoy himself. No wife took more pleasure in her husband’s pleasure. But his jauntiness on this occasion, the way he did the “one, two, three and a kick”, was past belief. No couple in the room could compare to them. In fact, the other couples, one by one, dropped out and left the floor to them. Mrs. Lacey looked about for her daughters. She hated to have them see their father so disporting himself. But that madcap Violet had gone out into the garden with her partner, and Ethel seemed to have eyes for no one but Nicholas Whiteoak. Really, Mrs. Lacey had cause for concern. There was her elderly husband dancing like a sailor on the lower deck, with a young woman only partially clothed, and there was one daughter out in the darkness with dear knows whom, and the other daughter brazenly flirting with a divorced man. Mrs. Lacey admired Nicholas, his air of a man of the world. At one time she would have been delighted by a marriage between him and Ethel. But that was when his name had been untarnished by divorce. Now, a thousand times no!
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 74
