01 The Building of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Where will you get them?”

  “I have brought them with me.”

  The Whiteoaks stared. “I knew you had brought some books,” said Adeline, “for you lent me several, but I didn’t know you had enough to keep you going.”

  “There is quite a respectable library in the town. Also D’Arcy is picking up some in New York. Quite rare ones but worth the price.”

  For the hundredth time the Whiteoaks wondered about Wilmott’s financial status. At times he talked quite largely, at others as though he were a pauper. Now he asked: —

  “What of the neighbourhood? Are there any interesting or intelligent people?”

  “A good many,” said Philip. “David Vaughan to begin with. He and his wife gave a dinner party for us the other evening and we met the neighbors. A quite respectable and well-informed circle. There is a Mr. Lacey who has a son in the Navy; Mr. Pink, the clergyman; Dr. Ramsey, a rather cantankerous fellow but a man of character and, I believe, very capable; and half a dozen other families. We discussed the future of the Province. Their sincere hope is to keep it free of foreigners. They want to build up the population slowly but solidly out of sturdy British material. They want both freedom and integrity in the land. And I’ve pledged myself to this project. Vaughan contends that the United State is going to pay bitterly for opening its gates to old Europe. Well, after all, these people from Eastern and Southern Europe would as soon as not stick a knife into your back. Their religion is superstition. They’d do you in for a few pounds. Torture and cruelty are in their blood. I’ve lived a good many years in India and I’ve seen enough of treachery. Let’s go slow and sure. Let’s keep British.”

  “And Irish,” added Adeline.

  “I’m with you,” said Wilmott. “Here’s to the building of your house and this Province!” He raised the tin mug.

  When they had drunk the toast Philip produced a leather cigar case and offered a cigar to Wilmott.

  “This will keep off the mosquitoes.”

  “Thanks. I haven’t smoked a cigar since the last one you gave me.”

  Philip and Adeline were embarrassed. Wilmott was using his poverty-stricken tone. Perhaps he was conscious of this, for he added as he took the tip of his cigar: —

  “I’m no smoker.”

  “Well, I am,” said Philip, “and I can tell you that it irritates me not to be allowed to smoke in the house. Mrs. Vaughan won’t have it.”

  “Doesn’t he smoke?”

  “He has a pipe on the verandah after breakfast and at bedtime.”

  Wilmott stared about him, with a look both reflective and wondering. He said — “I suppose these forests go on and on, right to the Arctic.”

  “Yes. It gives one — a feeling.”

  “For the grandeur of it, you mean?”

  “Yes. And the stability. There ought to be enough timber for all time.”

  “Not if the people go on hacking it down and burning it — just to get rid of it.”

  Adeline rose and shook out her skirt. She said — “I want to walk about.”

  “I’ll stay here,” said Wilmott. “You two go. I shall smoke and conjure up a suitable name for your house.”

  “He’s too damned officious,” said Philip, when they were alone. “He’s planned our house to his satisfaction. Now he’s going to name it. Whatever name he chooses I’ll not have it!”

  “Oh, Phil, don’t be silly!” She gave a skip of joy. She held up her heavy skirt and petticoat and danced across the flowery grass.

  “Here will be our kitchen,” she chanted. “With a big fireplace and a brick floor! Here will be the pantries and the larder! Here the servants’ quarters! A nice wee room for Patsy O’Flynn!”

  Tucking up his coat tails and placing his hands on his hips, Philip danced to meet her.

  “Here, Madam, is my wine cellar,” he declared, “well stocked, maturing at leisure!”

  She clasped him in her arms and laid her face against his shoulder.

  “Let’s live to be old — old,” she said. “So we may enjoy it — together — for years and years and years.”

  “I promise.”

  “And you must promise to let me die first.”

  “Very well, dear, I promise.”

  “What shall we name the place? If we don’t do it soon, it’s just as you say, Wilmott will do it for us.”

  “I should like a name that has associations for me at home.”

  “But I don’t want an English name.”

  He stared, a little truculently.

  “I should like,” she said, “a name which has associations for me. What about Bally— ”

  He interrupted her. “I’m dashed if I can stomach an Irish name.”

  She glared at him.

  Wilmott’s tall figure was approaching. He was almost on the run. “I have it!” he cried.

  “Have what?” asked Philip.

  “A name for your place.”

  They looked at him defensively.

  “The name of your military station in India,” he went on. “You met there. You were married there. You will probably never be quite as happy again as you were then. It is a pretty name. It is striking. It is easy to remember. It is —”

  “Jalna,” said Adeline, musingly.

  “No,” said Philip. He looked defiantly at Wilmott.

  “Don’t you like the name?”

  “I like it well enough.”

  “Do you like it, Mrs. Whiteoak?” Wilmott looked eagerly into Adeline’s eyes. The pupils were reflecting the green of the forest. They looked mysterious.

  “You took the word out of my mouth,” she said. “I was thinking — Jalna — Jalna — as hard as I could — when you called out.”

  Philip’s face lighted. “Were you really? I confess that I like it — now I hear you say it. Jalna … yes, it’s pretty good. It’s a souvenir of my regiment. A seal on the past.”

  “And a good omen for the future,” she added. “I’m glad I thought of it.”

  Wilmott stood irresolute.

  “It’s a damned good name,” said Philip. “It’s extraordinary you should think of it just before Wilmott did.”

  “It came in a flash. Jalna, I said to myself! Then Mr. Wilmott came running with it in his mouth. But I said it first.”

  IX

  THE FOUNDATION

  THE WOODSMEN’S BLOWS resounded on the trunks of the trees. With axe and long-handled billhook they cut away the saplings and the undergrowth. Then they attacked the trees. Now the axes were whetted to extraordinary sharpness. The man swung the axe and brought it down in a deft, slanting stroke on the proud bole. Then he struck upward, meeting the first incision, and a clean chip sprang out. So, down and up, down and up, till the bole was cut halfway through. Next he attacked it from the other side. The blows rang. The sweat ran down the man’s face. The tree gave a little tremor, as though of surprise. The tremor ran through all its boughs, even to the smallest twig. At the next stroke an agitation swept among its leaves. As though in a fury he struck. Then the beech fell. At first without haste, then in a panic it flung to the ground, moaning, cracking, swinging its boughs in a storm of green leaves.

  The woodsmen were orderly, making no chaos of trunks and severed branches. The great stumps and long-reaching roots were dug up. The brush heap grew. The trees which were left to ornament the grounds spread their branches in proud security. The bright axe had passed them by. You could have driven a carriage and pair between them. The grounds took on the aspect of a park. But later, fields would stretch about the park, they would be ploughed and sown, orchards planted.

  Adeline saw Philip in a new light. He who had always been so fastidious in his dress, a bit of a dandy in fact, would return to Vaughanlands with muddy boots, with clothes wrinkled and hands scratched by thorns. He who had even sent his best shirts to England to be laundered because they could not be done to his satisfaction in India now appeared with crumpled linen and seemed not to care, even to rejoice in his
condition. He had taken an axe into his hands but he was chagrined by his own efforts as compared to the performance of these practised, tobacco-chewing woodsmen. But he spent his days in watching their progress, in lending a hand where he could. He was bitten by black flies and mosquitoes. He grew deeply tanned. All his exercise and polo playing in India had not toughened him as this life was doing. But in the evening he again presented himself as the dashing Captain of Hussars, agreeable to the neighborhood, properly attentive to Mrs. Vaughan. Before going to bed he would remove himself to the verandah and there smoke a last cigar.

  A competent architect was recommended by David Vaughan. Simplicity in design was the order of the neighborhood, but the Whiteoaks wanted their house to be the most impressive. Not pretentious but one worth looking at, with good gables and large chimneys. It was a thrilling moment when the first sod was turned for the foundation. A sharp spade was placed in Adeline’s hands by the foreman. The sod already had been marked and loosened. She rubbed her palms together, took a grip on the handle, placed her foot on the spade, gave an arch look at the assembled workmen and drove it deep into the loam. She bent, she heaved, the sod resisted.

  “It’s pretty tough, I’m afraid,” said the foreman. “I’ll loosen it some more.”

  “No,” said Adeline, her colour bright.

  “Put your back into it,” adjured Philip.

  She did. The sod released its hold, came up. She held it triumphantly on the spade, then turned it over. The house had its first foothold on the land.

  Philip admired the way these men worked. They worked with might and good heart, in fierce heat, in enervating humidity. Only during the electrical storm or the downpour of rain did they crowd into the wooden shelter they had made themselves. The Newfoundland dog, Nero, came each morning to the scene of the building with Philip. He so greatly felt the heat that Philip one day put him between his knees and clipped his fur to the shoulders so that he looked like an immense poodle.

  Wilmott kept his promise and shaved his whiskers. When he appeared before Adeline clean-shaven she scarcely knew him. He had been interesting, dignified. Now the contour of his face was visible she found him with a hungry, haunted look that was almost romantic. The bones in his face were fine. The hollows of his cheeks showed odd planes of light.

  “How you have changed!” she exclaimed.

  “It is well not to look always the same,” he answered laconically. “I suppose I look even less attractive. Handsome looks are not my strong point.”

  “Who wants handsome looks in a man!”

  “You do.”

  “I? Philip would be the same to me if he had a snub nose and no chin.”

  “Now you are talking nonsense, Mrs. Whiteoak.”

  “How rigid you are! Surely you might call me Adeline.”

  “It wouldn’t be the thing at all.”

  “Not in this wilderness?”

  “This is already a close conventional community.” “What about your log house and swamp?” “That’s my own corner.… In it I have always called you Adeline.”

  “Please don’t say Adelyne. I am accustomed to Adeleen.”

  “I suppose that’s why I pronounce it Adelyne.”

  “How cantankerous you are!” she exclaimed. “I declare I think it’s a good thing you are not married.”

  He reddened a little.

  “But perhaps you are,” she smiled.

  “I am not,” he answered stiffly, “and I thank God for it.”

  “You would be a more amiable man if you were.”

  “Should I? I doubt it.”

  She gave her happy smile. “I’m glad you aren’t,” she said. “Because I should dislike your wife. You are the sort of man who would choose a woman I’d dislike.”

  “I’d have chosen you — if I’d had the chance.”

  They were sitting on a pile of freshly cut, sappy logs, within sight and sound of the workmen. But his words created a separate space for them, an isolation as of a portrait of two, in a picture frame. They sat listening to the sound of the axe, the thud of spade, their nostrils drew in the resinous scent of the logs but they were no longer a part of the scene. Their eyes looked straight ahead and, if they had been, in fact, figures in a portrait, it would have been said that the eyes followed you everywhere.

  Nero was lying at Adeline’s feet. She put her hand on his crown and grasping a handful of thick curly hair rocked his head gently. He suffered the indignity of the caress with inviolable majesty.

  “You say that,” she murmured, “because of this place. It makes one more emotional.”

  He turned his eyes steadily on her but she saw his lips tremble. He asked: —

  “Do you doubt my sincerity?”

  “You can’t deny that you sometimes put things — oddly.”

  “Well, there’s nothing odd about that. Most men would say it.”

  “And you’ve seen me in real tempers!”

  “I am not saying you’re perfect,” he replied testily. “I am saying — ” He broke off.

  “It’s very sweet of you, Mr. Wilmott — after seeing me at my worst for over a year.”

  “Now, you’re talking nonsense.”

  “It’s better to talk nonsense.”

  “You mean in order to cover up what I said? Don’t worry. I’m not going to plague you. I just had an irrational wish to let you know.”

  Adeline’s lips curved. She looked at him almost tenderly. “You are laughing at me!” exclaimed Wilmott hotly. “You are going to make me sorry I told you.”

  “I was just smiling to see you so — impulsive. I like you all the better for it.”

  “If you think Philip wouldn’t mind my calling you by your Christian name — it would give me great pleasure.”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  “No, don’t … I’d rather not.”

  Philip was coming toward them, striding in riding breeches across the broken ground where each day flowers opened, fern fronds uncurled, only to be crushed. He said as he drew near: —

  “I have to go inspect some brick with the architect. I don’t know how long I shall be. Will you take Mrs. Whiteoak back, Wilmott?”

  “Goodness, why don’t we call each other by our Christian names?” exclaimed Adeline. “Surely we needn’t go on Misses and Mistering in the wilds!”

  “All right,” agreed Philip. “I’m willing. James, will you take Adeline back to Vaughanlands?”

  “She hasn’t seen my estate yet,” said Wilmott. “It’s palatial. I should like to show it her first.”

  “Splendid. You’ll admire what he has done, Adeline. Now I must be off.” He strode back to where the architect stood waiting.

  Adeline and Wilmott clambered into the dusty buggy lent by the Vaughans. The grey mare was tied to a post where the main entrance was to be. She was now so in the habit of waiting that she had ambled into the ditch. It was a miracle that the buggy was not overturned.

  “This nag is as quiet as a sheep,” said Wilmott, taking the reins. “I wish I owned it.”

  “What an admission!”

  “I want to be lazy and worthless for the rest of my life.”

  “You can’t be worthless — not while Philip and I are your friends, James.”

  “It’s handsome of you to say that,” and he added stiffly — “Adeline.”

  The horse jogged along the sunny road that lay deep in fine white dust. Yet the road led between dense woods and seemed no more than a pale ribbon dividing into a wilderness. For all that, they met heavy wagons loaded with material for the building of Jalna, a ragged, barefoot girl driving a cow, an old cart drawn by a mule and filled with an Indian family and their effects. Raspberries glowed redly in the tangle of growth at the road’s edge. Wild lupine, chicory and gentian made patches of celestial blue. There was a constant movement among the trees as birds fluttered or squirrels and chipmunks leaped from bough to bough. Sometimes a field appeared, heavy with tall grain. It seemed a country in which fulfillment pr
essed forward to meet promise.

  Philip had been forced to admit that Wilmott had got a bargain in his log house and the fifty acres that went with it. They had gone over the place together carefully. Wilmott had paid the money and moved in at once but had not wished Adeline to see it till it was, to his mind, presentable. Now on the bank of a full-flowing river it stood out in its little clearing, strong and weatherproof. Wilmott was proud of it. There was a dignified swagger in his movements as he assisted Adeline to dismount from the high step of the buggy, then led the way along a grass path to the door. The voice of the river came to them and the sibilant whispering of reeds on its edge. An old punt was tied to a mossy stake.

  “How lovely!” exclaimed Adeline. “I had no idea it would be so lovely. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” he answered, not doubting her sincerity, for he himself thought the spot perfection. He unlocked the door which opened stubbornly, and showed her inside the dwelling. It had only one room with a lean-to at the back. Evidently he had hoped she would come today or was amazingly precise in his habits. Nothing was scattered about, in the way Philip scattered about his belongings. The floor was bare and was still moist from scrubbing. A hooked rug, showing a picture of a ship, lay in front of the small stove. The furniture had been made by the former owner — a table, two chairs, a bunk spread with a patchwork quilt. Red curtains hung at the one window. In a cupboard on the wall a patently new tea set of blue china spoke of England. Along one wall Wilmott had himself built bookshelves which were filled with books old and new, the leather and gold of their backs shining in a shaft of sunlight which fell on them as though directed. There was something touching in it all and the poor man living alone! Adeline said, in a tremulous voice, as though she had never seen anything to equal it: —

  “And you have done it all by yourself!”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t see how you managed it. It’s lovely.”

  “Oh, ’t will do.”

  “It’s so tidy!”

  “You should see it sometimes.”

  “And the sweet tea set! When did you buy it?”