01 The Building of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “The trouble with you is you’re too well. If you were miserable and ill, as I am, you would be glad to sit still.”

  “You are not miserable and ill,” he returned, “or you wouldn’t be, if you did not lace yourself so disgracefully.”

  “Then you’d like to take me out looking like a bale of hay?”

  “I’ll wager your mother never laced so, when she was in the family way.”

  “She did! No one ever knew when she was going to have a baby.”

  “No wonder she buried four!”

  Adeline hurled the infant’s petticoat to the floor and sprang up. She looked magnificent.

  At that moment Marie ushered Wilmott into the room. He threw Adeline an admiring look, took her hand, bent over it and kissed it.

  “Upon my word,” exclaimed Philip, “you are getting Frenchified!”

  “The fashion becomes this room and becomes Mrs. Whiteoak,” Wilmott returned, without embarrassment.

  “It’s namby-pamby,” answered Philip.

  “Namby-pamby!” repeated Wilmott, flushing.

  “Yes,” said Philip, sulkily.

  Wilmott gave a short laugh. He looked at Adeline.

  “I like it,” she declared. “Manners can’t be too elegant for me.”

  “Each country has its own,” said Philip. “I am satisfied to leave it at that.”

  “It is much pleasanter,” she said, “to have your hand kissed than to be given a handshake that presses your rings into your fingers till you feel like screaming, as Mr. Brent does.”

  She picked up her sewing and again seated herself. Wilmott took a stiff-backed chair in a corner. Philip opened the red shutters and put up the window. He looked into the street. The milk cart, drawn by a donkey, appeared. The brass can flashed in the hot sunshine. Six nuns passed close to the window, their black robes billowing, their grave faces as though carved from wax.

  Philip went for his duck shooting and returned in high spirits. The sport had been excellent, the weather perfect. The St. Lawrence, now of a hyacinth blue, swept between its gorgeous banks that were tapestried in brilliant hues by the sharp night frosts of October. Adeline felt extraordinarily well as compared to the period before Augusta’s birth. She walked, she drove, she went to parties and gave parties. The friendship between her and Wilmott strengthened. He had a fine baritone voice and could accompany himself on the piano. Sometimes they sang together and, with him for support, Adeline managed to keep the tune. They would sing the songs she loved, from The Bohemian Girl. She would lean against the piano, looking down into his face while they sang, “I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls” or “Then You’ll Remember Me,” and wonder what his past had been. He was always reticent concerning it. He often spoke of the necessity of his finding congenial work but made no move to do so. He left the lodgings he had taken and moved to still cheaper ones. Philip and Adeline had a suspicion that his meals were all too slight, yet he preserved his almost disdainful attitude toward food at their abundant board. He talked of purchasing land.

  The sudden sharp cold, the squalls of snow that came in November, were a surprise. If November were like this, what would winter be! Philip bought Adeline a handsome sealskin sacque, richly shaded from golden brown to darkest, and of a rare fineness. A great muff accompanied it and, at the French milliner’s, she had a little toque made of the same fur. Philip declared he had never seen her handsomer. Against the background of the sealskin, the colours of her hair and eyes were brightly accented, the scarlet of her lips declared.

  For himself Philip ordered to be made a greatcoat lined with mink and with a collar of mink. A wedge-shaped mink cap was worn at a jaunty angle on his fair head. Adeline could not behold him, thus clothed, without delighted laughter.

  “Philip, you do look sweet!” she would exclaim and kiss him on both cheeks in the French manner she had acquired.

  They both were proud of Gussie’s appearance. She stepped forth firmly in fur-trimmed boots of diminutive size, a white lamb coat and muff and a bonnet of royal-blue velvet. Marie then would place her in a snow-white sleigh with upward-sweeping runners and push her triumphantly along the steep and slippery streets. They chattered in French when Marie paused to rest.

  Wilmott provided himself with no adequate protection against the cold. He must save his capital, he declared. He said he never felt the cold, though he looked half-frozen when he appeared at the Whiteoaks’ door and always went straight to the fire. Sometimes he would bring a newspaper printed in Ontario and read aloud advertisements of land for sale in that province, or accounts of its social and political life.

  Philip had engaged the best English doctor in town for Adeline’s confinement but willfully, it seemed to him, she was confined a fortnight before the expected time. The doctor had driven in his sleigh to a village twenty miles down the river to attend another accouchement when Adeline’s pains came on. She was sitting with Philip in the drawing-room playing a game of backgammon. It was late afternoon, the curtains were drawn and a fire blazed on the hearth. Boney, on his perch, was conducting a low-toned conversation with himself in Hindu. His breast was pouted, his neck sunk into his shoulders, he kept opening and closing one claw on the perch like sensitive fingers. Adeline gave a cry and put her hand to her side.

  “A pain!” she cried. “A terrible pain!”

  She doubled herself over the backgammon board, sending the men in all directions. Philip sprang up.

  “I’ll fetch you some brandy,” he said.

  He strode to the dining room and returned with a small glass of brandy. She still had her hand to her side but she was calm.

  “Are you better?” he asked.

  “Yes. But give me the brandy.” She sipped a little.

  “It must be something you ate,” he said, eyeing her anxiously.

  “Yes … those nuts … I shouldn’t touch Brazil nuts.” She took another sip.

  “Come to the sofa and lie down.”

  He raised her to her feet. She took a step, then gave another cry. Boney echoed it and peered inquisitively into her face.

  “My God!” said Philip.

  “Send for the doctor! Quick! Quick! Quick!” she cried. “The child’s coming!”

  “It can’t! The doctor’s out of town.”

  “Then fetch another!” She tore herself away from him, ran to the sofa and lay down, gripping her body in her hands. “Get Berthe Balestrier’s doctor! Call Marie!”

  In half an hour a short, burly French doctor with a pointed black mustache stepped out of the December dark into the brightly lighted bedroom to which Marie had supported Adeline. Philip walked the floor below, filled with apprehension and distrust.

  Inside of another hour a son was born to the Whiteoaks.

  The celerity of this birth as compared to Gussie’s, and Adeline’s speedy recovery from it, were a miracle to her. She gave all the credit to Dr. St. Charles. She sang his praises to everyone who came to see her. She even gave him credit for the vigour of the lusty babe. Though Philip did not much like the idea, she added St. Charles to the chosen name, and, though Christmas was three weeks off, the name Noel. She was truly happy. Adeline was able to nurse Nicholas, which she had not been fitted to do for Gussie. She found an English nurse who, with the arrogance of her class, took almost complete possession of the babe. Marie however would not give up Gussie. She and the nurse established two hostile camps in the domestic quarters. The nurse had the advantage of knowing she was almost indispensable to Adeline. Marie knew that Philip reveled in her soufflés and meringues. When it came to having words, she had all the advantage of being able to pour forth a flood of mingled English and French, unintelligible as she grew angrier, unanswerable except by glares and head tossings. The nurse extolled her charge’s beauty. He was the handsomest infant in Quebec. He looked like the Christ Child. Marie could see no such resemblance and she, being a good Catholic, ought at least to know something of the appearance of the Blessed Infant. She told how people stopped he
r in the street to admire la petite Augusta, in her white lamb coat and blue velvet bonnet.

  There was no disagreement between the parents as to the relative beauty of their children. Nicholas was indeed a fair child and, in the months that followed, he grew more attractive each week. His skin was like a milk-white flower petal. His brown eyes had golden lights in them and early sparkled with mischief and vitality. He was not bald at his birth but had a pretty coating of brown down which grew so fast that, by the time he was five months old, his nurse could coax it into a fine Thames tunnel, the very pride of her life. Adeline could see in him a strong resemblance to her mother but there was a promise of Whiteoak stalwartness in his infant frame. Philip said he was the image of Adeline without the red hair. Adeline thanked God he had not inherited that. She hoped none of her children would for she looked on red hair as a blemish. She had her wish. Not one of her four children had an auburn hair in his head. It remained for her eldest grandson to inherit, even in a more pronounced degree, her colouring.

  The christening was an event in Quebec. The robe worn by Adeline and her brothers, somewhat the worse for wear, was sent out from Ireland to adorn him. The ceremony at the Garrison Church, the guests being entertained afterwards at the Whiteoaks’ house where short but effective speeches were made and much champagne was drunk to the health and future happiness of Nicholas Noel St. Charles.

  The Whiteoaks gave a still larger party at mid-Lent. The guests were asked to wear the costume of the reign of Louis XVI. How they were transformed by powdered hair and patches, by the elegance of their costumes! Philip and Adeline were charming hosts. They were in their element. The house in the Rue St. Louis echoed laughter and the music of the dance, as it had not since the days of the Duke of Kent. During the supper a cageful of artificial singing birds which Adeline had been given by Philip as a Christmas present broke into song to the delight of the company. Monsieur Balestrier drank a little too much champagne. Adeline danced rather too often with Wilmott, though it was small wonder for he danced perfectly in his satin breeches and silk stockings displayed the shapeliest of legs. He was wrong in having spent so much money on a costume whose usefulness was for no more than a night, but such was Adeline’s ill influence on him, he told her, smiling somewhat grimly down into her eyes.

  The elderly brother and sister, Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Granville, wore authentic costumes of the period brought from France in the early days. He wore the costume with melancholy distinction which, as the night wore on, changed to a strange gaiety. He was Adeline’s partner in a quadrille when suddenly he stopped dancing, fixing his eyes on her with a look of terror.

  “What is the matter?” she asked anxiously.

  “Maman!” he said, in a choking voice. “Maman! Don’t leave me!”

  He stood transfixed, his fine face frozen into a mask of fear. His sister came hurriedly and led him away. Those who noticed the incident remarked only that poor Monsieur de Granville had had another of his attacks of nerves but his sister perceived something more serious and early next morning sent for Dr. St. Charles. He could do little to stem the violence of the fever and delirium that followed. All the haunting horror which had darkened Monsieur de Granville’s life burst upon him like an electric storm that throws a vivid light into the darkest shadow. He recalled everything. The dimly remembered horrors of his childhood were as though they had happened yesterday.

  For almost a week he was in this state, then the fever left him. He became calm. He had no recollection of what had happened. He spoke regretfully of his having to leave the charming party of the Whiteoaks and begged his sister to see to it that his costume was carefully folded and laid away. That night he died in his sleep.

  The death of Monsieur de Granville was a shock to Adeline. Birth and death had visited the adjacent houses in so short a time! If only she had not given the fancy-dress party, poor Mademoiselle de Granville would not now be going to Mass weighed down by black, with black rings under her eyes! A bronchial cough kept Adeline indoors. The weather was bitterly cold. It had been a severe winter and surely it was time for spring. But day by day it grew colder. Great snowfalls made the streets impassable; snow weighed upon the roofs till, having formed a mass too great for the slope, it slid off with a crash into the street. All day long men in mufflers and ear muffs shoveled the snow, building high walls of it on either side of the roads so that to see anyone on the opposite side was impossible. Milk was delivered in frozen blocks. Meat was frozen. One morning Pat O’Flynn found a dog frozen stiff on the doorstep. Philip had his ears frozen when returning home from dinner at the Fort. The thermometer sank to thirty degrees below zero. The lights of the Lower Town twinkled palely at night like little cold stars. The sun, aloof all day, blazed at its setting into crimson grandeur across the ice-bound St. Lawrence. Like ice made manifest the metallic clangor of church bells sounded in early morning across the town. Adeline could hear the closing of the door and Marie’s footsteps crunching on the snow as she hastened to Mass. Gussie made herself a little shrine in a corner of the kitchen out of a white table napkin laid over a box on which stood a picture of the Sacred Heart and, in front of it, a candle in a tin candlestick. She genuflected when she passed this. She knelt before it crossing herself and moving her lips as in prayer. And she scarcely two! Marie’s eyes filled with tears as she watched her. Was the little one perhaps too good to live? Nicholas’s nurse exclaimed to Adeline: —

  “The child is turning into a papist, ma’am. Right here, under our eyes.”

  “She might do worse, Matilda. If it pleases her to make a little shrine, I shan’t interfere.”

  A new member of the household and one who took up a good deal of room was Nero, a huge black Newfoundland dog. Though he was young he was burly and possessive. He behaved as though he were master of the house and his coat was so thick that he was puzzled to know whether a beating was in correction or play. He usually rolled in the snow before coming into the house. Once inside, he gave himself a tremendous shake, creating a fair snowstorm, then took his place on the best rug, at Philip’s feet, and set about licking his great snowy paws.

  He was the centre of the Whiteoaks’ first “family group.” The photographer arranged Adeline on a Louis Quinze chair which her billowing garments quite concealed, with Nicholas on her lap. She wore he sealskin sacque and little cap beneath which her hair escaped in thick curls. The infant on her lap was clothed in white rabbit skin with the exception of his dimpled feet, which were bare. Gussie stood at her mother’s knee, looking almost as broad as long in her white lamb coat and velvet bonnet. Philip, in his fur-lined coat, stood proudly beside his family and at their feet lay Nero, also manifestly impervious to twenty-below-zero weather. Behind the group was a somewhat Grecian landscape but this was offset by the impressive snowstorm that enveloped all.

  The Whiteoaks and their friends gazed long at this picture. Philip bought a magnifying glass, the better to discover its details. Two dozen photographs were ordered, twenty-three of which were carefully wrapped by him and posted to friends and relations in England, Ireland, and India, from which countries came in return letters admiring, jocular, and commiserating as regards the climate of Quebec. The twenty-fourth picture was framed in maroon velvet and stood on a marble-topped table in the drawing-room, along with an alabaster casket and ivory and jade figures from the East.

  The cold was indeed trying. It was still winter when April came. Wilmott had definitely made up his mind to go to Ontario. He did his best to persuade the Whiteoaks to do the same. Philip already had a friend, a retired Anglo-Indian Colonel, who had settled on the fertile shore of Lake Ontario. Colonel Vaughan was an older man than Philip. The Colonel had known him in India, and his attitude toward him in this new land was almost fatherly. He urged him to remove to Ontario where they might be neighbors. “Here,” he wrote, “the winters are mild, we have little snow, and in the long fruitful summer the land yields grain and fruit in abundance. An agreeable little settlement of re
spectable families is being formed. You and your talented lady, my dear Whiteoak, would receive the welcome here that people of your consequence merit. If you come, our home shall be yours till you have built a suitable residence. My wife joins me in this offer in the most whole-hearted manner. Our house is comparatively large and, though we live simply, I think we could make you comfortable.”

  The transplanting to Canada had stimulated Adeline’s venturous nature. She was ready to move on, from province to province if need be, till the ideal situation was found. She had made friends in Quebec but she could go back to visit them. Her health had not been what she had hoped for there. She dreaded another winter in that cold draughty house. The death of Monsieur de Granville had affected her deeply. She felt in a small degree responsible for it. And the crêpe-clad figure of Mademoiselle de Granville was a sad reminder. More than any of these, her desire to retain Wilmott as a friend influenced her. His friendship meant more to her than that of anyone in Quebec. If he went to Ontario this would be lost to her. She consented to the migration.

  Once Philip and Wilmott had won Adeline over, they threw themselves heart and soul into the preparation for the journey. The property in Quebec was disposed of, though for a lesser sum than Philip had hoped for. The packing of the furniture, the innumerable small preparations, took time and energy. Only a year had passed since they had thrown themselves with enthusiasm into turning the house in the Rue St. Louis into an abode to their liking, and now it was dismantled! It resumed its air of melancholy. They had made no impression on it.

  All the Balestriers wept at parting from them. From Monsieur Balestrier downward, they wept with less and less restraint till, when it came to Lou-lou, the youngest, he clung to Adeline’s neck screaming and kicking. To comfort him she gave him a little mechanical dancing monkey he had long admired. His tears were turned to joy. Pleasure swept upward as it had progressed downward till at the last Monsieur Balestrier was able to smile as he kissed Philip on both cheeks and bad him return to Quebec when he found Ontario unbearable as certainly he would.