Adeline stretched, luxuriating in comfort, then suddenly remembered the meeting with Maurice, and drew up her knees and pulled the bedclothes over her head.
“what’s the matter?” asked Sylvia.
“My cousin.” Her voice came muffled. “He is coming for me and he’ll be furious with me.”
“why?”
“I shouldn’t have brought his car here — I mean so far — without telling him. Of course, it’s not actually the car he’s angry about. It’s me.”
“I see. Has he a temper?”
“I — really don’t know.”
Sylvia laughed. “Well, it’ll be fun to find out.”
Adeline sat up on the side of the bed. “I hope so but I doubt it.”
“You seem afraid of him.”
“Oh, I can look after myself.” She sprang up and began to dress.
This morning she found nothing strange about Sylvia. Perhaps, — she thought, with a certain self-congratulation, — she had done her good. Or perhaps her malady came only in spells. Whatever the truth, never did she want to face another such night as the last. Like a healthy young animal she pushed the thought of it away from her. Her thoughts also turned away from the meeting with Maurice. Their focus was the man to whom her first love had turned.
“what hair you have,” she heard Sylvia say, “and what eyes! I didn’t realize last night what a beauty you are.”
“I’ve been thinking the same about you.”
“Oh, me!” Sylvia gave a contemptuous shrug. “I’ve lost any looks I had.”
“I admire you very much,” said Adeline, and added reflectively, “you look very much like your brother.”
“Oh, him!” exclaimed Sylvia, in the same tone in which she had said, — “ Oh, me!”
“what’s the matter with him?” Adeline demanded hotly.
“He’s just a lazy Irishman,” Sylvia said emphatically. “He’d rather go fishing or sit talking in Tim Rafferty’s cabin than get down to real work. He does a little farming. What does it amount to? He had a future ahead of him. Now he has none. My mother and I could get on without him but he won’t let us try.” Her face grew tense. She took up a lipstick and applied it with trembling hand to her pale mouth.
“I don’t think he’s lazy.” Adeline spoke with equal heat. “Perhaps your mother persuaded him to stay.”
“I suppose you’re thinking of last night. But I can tell you his being here only unnerves me the more. I was far better when he was in America. No — I am just his excuse for staying at home.”
No use in arguing with her, thought Adeline, better go into the bathroom and stay there for a little. She did and, when she returned, began to talk of something else. Soon they went down to breakfast. Fitzturgis had already eaten his and gone out. The disappointment of discovering this made it difficult for Adeline to show a cheerfulness equal to that of Mrs. Fitzturgis. She apparently had slept well and all through the meal she talked with animation if not always with clarity. She wore a different pair of earrings, more suitable for the morning, but though they were not so long, they still were long enough to play in lively fashion about the lobes of her ears. The bacon and eggs, in spite of all, tasted good to Adeline.
The round white clouds hung motionless above the shining world their predecessors had created. Tulips lay with their heads on the wet earth. Rhododendrons had cast down half their flowers. But the fuchsias looked none the worse for the storm, and the wallflowers springing from crevices in the stone wall gave out a delicious scent. “A heavenly morning,” thought Adeline, standing alone in front of the house, “and what a pity I can’t enjoy it, because of the things I have hanging over me.”
Fitzturgis came round the side of the house. Seeing her, he took three strides and was at her side.
“Let us go where we can be alone,” he said, after no more than a terse “Good morning.”
“where?”
He led the way through the shrubbery into a grove of gnarled old trees, their trunks rising out of the long grass, their boughs drooping down to it. Drenched bluebells grew thickly here and the curling fronds of bracken pushed upward through the grass.
“You’re going to get your feet soaking wet,” he said ruefully.
“It doesn’t matter.” She smiled at him, happy that this moment was granted to them.
He did not smile in return but took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Oh, Adeline,” he said, “you see how it is with me. You see why I have no right —”
“I don’t care,” she interrupted. “I love you and I’m not afraid to say so.”
“But you mustn’t. I’m not in a position …”
“This can’t go on forever. Your sister will get better.”
“I doubt it,” he said bitterly. “Sometimes I think a tragedy hangs over us.”
“Oh, no, don’t say that!” she cried, frightened. “Sylvia slept quietly all night.”
“what a trump you were to stay with her! We must seem a strange family to you.”
“Not strange. Just suffering because of the war.” They were silent for a space, then she asked, — “Do you want us to be engaged, Mait?”
He gave a short laugh. “what a question! It seems to me that I’ve shown you that it is the one thing on earth that I do want.”
“You’ve never asked me,” she said boldly. “And if you did ask me I’d say yes.”
“Adeline,” he was in an anguish of exasperation, “you torture me. You’re not too young to understand that a man must have a certain freedom if he’s to marry.”
“I didn’t say marry! I said be engaged. I don’t want to marry — not yet.”
“I have no right to ask you to be engaged. What would your parents say if you went home and told them you were engaged to a penniless Irishman with a mother and an invalid sister to support?”
She gave a mischievous smile. “I could add to that what your sister says of you.”
“what?”
“That you’re lazy.”
He flushed. “She said that, did she?”
“what she really said was that you’re not needed here — that she and your mother would be all right by themselves.”
“Oh, she’s accused me of being lazy before this,” he said bitterly. “It’s nothing new. And perhaps I am. I hadn’t much ambition left when you came on the scene. But I can tell you there’s nothing I so much want now as to work and —” he halted, his face became downcast.
“Be engaged!” she prompted, with animation.
“Oh, my darling,” he said, “if only I could!”
“All you have to do is to ask me.” She smiled in invitation of a contract.
“I will not ask you,” he returned, almost harshly. “Enough has been said against me. I refuse to have it said that I engaged myself to a young girl whom I have no prospect of marrying.”
“Do you really believe there is no prospect?”
“You saw what my sister was like last night?”
“when you were in New York she and your mother managed somehow to —”
He interrupted. “when I came back my mother was exhausted. In all that three weeks she had not had a proper night’s rest. They both were at breaking point. Sylvia may say what she will of me but she leans on me with all her might. If I’m not here — well, no one knows what might happen. If I hadn’t been here last night she’d have gone out into the storm. Mother can’t stop her. It’s best for Mother to keep out of the way.”
“I was pretty good with Sylvia, wasn’t I, Mait?”
“You were splendid. Better than I.”
“Well, then,” the words poured eagerly from her, “why couldn’t I come and stay for a bit? I’d give her something different to think about. I’m so sorry for her. I — I like her. It would be for her own sake I want to help her — as well as — oh, don’t you think I could? why — I might even cure her. What do you think of that for an idea, Mait?”
“It cannot be,” he said stubbornly.
&
nbsp; “what is the matter with you?” she cried suddenly angry. “Here I make a perfectly sound suggestion and you only turn it down, as though I were —”
“You are a darling,” he said gently, “and I love you with all my heart, but we cannot have people saying —”
“what people?”
“Your people.”
“Saying what?”
“That I took an unfair advantage of your generosity — that I tried to trap you.”
“They couldn’t say that. I wouldn’t let them.”
“You’re very brave,” he said, “and very young. You cannot stop people from saying or doing things. You’ll find that out.”
“Well, I can do what I — know is right.”
“It is not right and it can’t be thought of.”
“You mean that you don’t want me to?” Her quick colour rose. “You don’t want me to come here and help to nurse Sylvia and make her better?”
He demanded abruptly, — “Would you like to live here for years as a sort of nurse to Sylvia?”
“It might happen quite soon. Her getting better, I mean.”
“It may never happen. Think what you’d be giving up. All the life you love.”
“You’d be here.”
“My darling, you’d hate me — hate all three of us — before six months had passed.” He broke a tough twig from the tree beneath which they stood and sniffed it as though it were a flower. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “if Sylvia recovers — if I have prospects — I’ll come to Canada and ask you what your feelings are then — I’ll lay what I have to offer at your feet.”
He spoke almost lightly and it was a mistake. She drew back from him in hurt. She did not notice that the hand which held the twig shook.
“I hear a motor horn. It’s Mooey,” she said.
He caught her arm and drew her to him. “One kiss before you go,” he said.
She struggled away. “No,” she cried, “I’ll not kiss you,” and ran through the long wet grass.
Finch and Maurice were standing beside a station wagon. Mrs. Fitzturgis had come out of the house to greet them. She was effusive in expressing pleasure in having Adeline spend the night with her. Finch smiled but threw an anxious glance toward the two coming out of the grove, at Adeline’s flushed cheeks and wet shoes. He shook hands with Fitzturgis, whose cheekbones seemed to have become higher, his eyes more deeply set in the past quarter-hour. Maurice bowed, with only a faint pretence of friendliness. He asked of Adeline:
“where is the car?”
Fitzturgis answered, — “In the garage. I’ll bring it round.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Finch, as though to escape from something.
They went together.
Maurice said to Mrs. Fitzturgis, — “It was very kind of you to take my cousin in.”
“Ah, but we were only too delighted to have her. We have so little company nowadays. My daughter’s health has not been good, you know. I do hope that, now the ice is broken, we shall see quite a lot of her and of you too. You can’t imagine how dull we find living in Ireland. I wonder that a young man like you — though to be sure, youth is never dull. I well remember how gay I used to be, though now I come to think of it I always wanted to have some excitement — not exactly excitement, you know, but just to be aware of the fact that one was living, which is more than one is, here, though you’d be surprised at the things that do happen. For instance —”
The car was moving toward them along the drive.
Mrs. Fitzturgis begged the three Whiteoaks to stay for lunch, or if not for lunch, at least for a glass of sherry. When the invitation was declined with grave politeness by Maurice, with an obvious desire to be gone by Finch, and with desperate submissiveness by Adeline, she exclaimed, — “How very sorry my daughter will be to miss you! But surely you will come again! Dear me, who is Sylvia? I mean — Where is Sylvia? I do get so easily confused in these days, which is something quite new to me for I used to have an abnormally good memory — in fact my husband used to say that I never could forget anything, though that remark was not made in the sense to which I refer. Maitland, do you know where your sister is?”
Sylvia, at that moment, came out of the house, to the obvious surprise of her mother and brother. They exchanged a glance, as though to say — “whatever will she do next?” But the girl herself looked both cool and friendly. She chatted so naturally to Maurice and Finch that Adeline wondered for an instant if last night’s experience had been a dream. But no, it had not been a dream. Maitland’s expression, as his eyes rested on his sister, showed that. His lips wore the strained smile of one who is watchful and uncertain.
In spite of Mrs. Fitzturgis’ loving clinging to the visitors the goodbyes were at last said. Adeline wanted to make the return journey with Finch and whispered her wish to him, but Maurice pressed forward and jumped into the station wagon beside her. Finch followed in the car.
Adeline glanced at Maurice’s profile as they sped along the road in silence. She held her two hands tightly together, harbouring in her right palm the clasp of Maitland’s hand. She knew she had been wrong in going off by herself as she had, but she felt resentment that Maurice should so express his resentment. She said, when she could no longer bear the silence:
“You look like all the killjoys in the world rolled into one.”
“Thanks,” he returned, his lips scarcely moving, “it’s nice to know what you think of me.”
“I only think what the way you behave makes me think.”
“How clearly you put it!”
“Is all this because I took your car without asking?”
He turned to look at her.
“Be careful,” she cried, “you nearly ran over that hen.” The hen flew squawking to safety.
“Are you so callous, Adeline,” he said, speaking each word very clearly, “so callous that you can’t see how you have hurt me?”
“You have no right to use such a word about what I did.”
“what about calling me a killjoy? But I suppose it’s true and you were having a joyous time.”
“I was not! I was having —” She could not go on. Her voice died in a sob.
Maurice broke out, — “what do you suppose I felt when we came back yesterday and found you gone and hours passed before we had news of you, then that fellow cool as a cucumber — saying you were there? I’d been telephoning the police — the hospital — to find out if there’d been an accident. I was nearly crazy, I tell you.”
She could not bring herself to say she was sorry but sat frowning, with underlip thrust forward.
“Then I’m informed,” he continued, “that you’d gone in search of Fitzturgis. Do you realize what that looks like? what do you think your father would say?”
“Well — he’d have a right to say it.”
“And I haven’t!”
“No.”
He drove on in silence, his body drooping over the wheel. Their familiarity since infancy which made every expression of the face, every gesture, of the one, something instantly recognizable to the other, now was disrupted. They drew back from each other as from strangers whom they suspected and feared.
They passed on through the rising and falling-away of the barren hills, some of which were pale in sunlight, others dim beneath the clouds. Adeline’s mind flew back to Fitzturgis and she relived the scene in the grove. In imagination she fitted it with different endings, one of which curved her lips in the smile of one who dreams, and another which filled her eyes with stinging tears. Maurice spoke twice before his voice came to her.
Then, — “what did you say?” she asked.
“I said I should like to know what you are going to do.”
“I don’t know,” she answered simply.
“Are you engaged to this man?”
“That’s my own affair.”
“It won’t be yours alone — for long.”
“Does that mean you will write home and tell?”
“You have a low opinion of me.”
“Well — you could scarcely have acted meaner to me than you have since I came here.”
He stopped the machine with a jerk.
“How dare you say that to me, Adeline?” he cried.“You know that for years I’ve looked forward to this time more than to anything on earth.”
“Yes! And why? You wanted me to come and see all your grand belongings. You wanted to show off in front of me. You wanted me to do just what you chose. And because I refuse to say how wonderful you are and how proud I am to have your attentions you behave as though —”
He interrupted, — “I love you, Adeline.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
“what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t care what you do.”
“I’d better get some lessons in love-making from that brute …”
“If you mean Mait, he could show you a thing or two.”
They glared at each other with blazing eyes. The engine throbbed. Behind them Finch sounded his horn.
“I’m going back with Uncle Finch,” said Adeline. She began to open the door.
Maurice put his arm across her and held the handle fast.
“Let me go,” she cried. “I will not be stopped.”
“You will listen to me.”
With her closed fist she beat his forearm.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “Go. To the devil if you like.”
In a moment she was in the road. In another she was sitting beside Finch and the two cars again in movement.
Finch said, — “There’s no use in getting upset.”
She bit her lip to keep back the sobs. “Oh, Uncle Finch, I wish I hadn’t come in the car with Mooey!”
“Did you quarrel?”
“The last thing he said was to tell me to go to the devil.”
“That’s nothing.”
“It may be nothing to you but I’m not used to it.”
“I meant he’s just letting off steam.”
Adeline moved closer to Finch. She said, in a trembling voice: “I realize I did wrong and I’m terribly sorry, but if you knew what my feelings have been these past days —”
“Don’t worry,” Finch said comfortingly. “Maurice will get over this —”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 460
