01 The Building of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “I hope it’s nothing I’ve done — or Philip or the children — or our dog or our goat.”

  “No — nothing of that sort. It’s about a cousin of mine, Daisy Vaughan. She’s coming to visit us and Mother wishes she wouldn’t, just now.”

  “Then why doesn’t she write and tell her not to?” asked Adeline.

  “She can’t very well, as Father thinks we should have Daisy. She is his only brother’s child and an orphan. She’s been staying with relatives on her mother’s side, in Montreal. She’s had a falling-out with them and written a pathetic letter to Father and he’s inviting her to spend some months with us.”

  “I declare,” said Adeline, “this is a nuisance! The house is full enough already, what with me and mine. No wonder your mother is vexed.”

  “Oh, she’ll manage. Mother always does.”

  “Do you know this Daisy?”

  “Yes, I’ve been to her aunt’s house in Montreal. There were daughters in the house. I don’t think she got on very well with them.”

  “Is she forward, then — or pert? If she is, I’ll take her down.”

  “She’s almost as old as you. About twenty-five. Quite dashing, too, but not at all interesting to me. In fact, the thought of her coming bores me excessively. I hate the thought that college will soon open and I must go.” He looked into her eyes, his sensitive boy’s face troubled.

  “Don’t worry, Bobby. We’re friends and always shall be.”

  “I am not thinking of the future,” he said. “It’s the present that interests me. You make light of my feelings. You don’t care a tuppence, really.”

  “I care a great deal. I am a stranger here. You have helped to make me happy.”

  “You are lucky to be able to settle down so quickly. I don’t belong anywhere.”

  Adeline opened her brown eyes wide at him. “Why, Bobby, what a way to talk! When you’ve had more experience of life you’ll not worry about belonging places.”

  He answered gloomily — “That’s the trouble. I have no experience. You are only interested in men who have had experience. Your stiff-necked friend, Wilmott, for example.”

  “What do you know about him?” she asked sharply.

  “Oh, nothing — except that he looks unutterable things … I can’t tolerate him.”

  They had, somewhat breathless from talking while they climbed, reached the top of the steep. The walls of the house rose before them, roofless, with gaping windows and scantling floors. Great stacks of brick and mounds of gravel flanked it. Piles of sweet-scented lumber lay ready. But the workmen, their lunches eaten, were having their noon-hour relaxation. They lay on the ground or sprawling on the lumber, with the exception of two French Canadians. These were lumbermen who had been attracted by the high wages Philip offered. As though they had not had exercise enough in their work they now were dancing with great vivacity and energy. They leaped, stamped, twirled, with intricate steps, snapping their fingers, their teeth flashing. One was middle-aged, with a red handkerchief tied about a thin corded neck, the other young, handsome but no more agile, indeed not so much so. The music for the dance was supplied by an old man seated on the great stump of a pine tree. He was Fiddling Jock. He had expected to be turned out but the Whiteoaks had been taken by his oddity and allowed him to stay on. Philip had given him shingles to mend his leaky roof and new glass to fill the broken windows. No one knew when the cottage had been built, probably by some settler who long ago had died or found the place too lonely. Adeline had christened it Fiddler’s Hut. Now she sang out: —

  “Splendid, Jock! Ah, but that’s a fine tune! Play up! Make ’em dance!”

  The old fellow nodded violently. With a flourish of his bow he increased the tempo of the music till the feet of the two dancers seemed possessed of a mad spirit. Robert Vaughan was, as usual, amused and a little embarrassed by her familiarity with the men. He would not have had her different but he resented the fact that her unconventionality gave rise to criticism in the neighborhood. “Damn their strait-lacedness!” he thought. “She is perfect.” But still she made him feel embarrassed.

  The Frenchmen sat down breathless. The old Scot reached for a tin mug of tea and took a swig of it. The mug was held to no visible mouth, for the lower part of his face was hidden by an enormous growth of grizzled beard. He wore a grey jacket and a kilt of Scotch tartan so faded that to which clan it belonged was no longer discernible. His bare knees were thin and hairy. He looked as durable and tough as a tree growing on a stony hillside but there was an appealing, lonely look in his wide-open blue eyes.

  Adeline clapped her hands. She exclaimed: —

  “You should give them an Irish tune, Jock. If you played an Irish jig for them on Irish pipes they’d not be hopping about in that feeble fashion.”

  “There’s nae chunes sae fu’ o’ sperrit as the Scottish chunes,” he answered stoutly. “And as for dancin’, I’ll warrant no Irishman livin’ could beat you Frenchies.”

  “Ah, you should see them dance in Galway,” she said. “And their whistling as clear as a pipe!”

  “We have two Irishmen here,” said Jock, “and they have no more dance in them than clods.”

  “They’re from Belfast. That’s the reason.” She turned to the French Canadians — “Bon! Vous êtes très agiles. Je vous admire beaucoup.”

  “Merci, Madame,” they said in one voice.

  “Wad ye be givin’ a pairty when ye move into your fine hoose?” asked Jock.

  “Indeed we shall.”

  “I’d like fine tae play ma fiddle for it. D’ye think I micht? I’ll learn an Irish jig for the occasion if ye’ll allow me.”

  “I engage you on the spot.”

  “It will cost ye naething, mind. I’d like to mak’ a return for a’ ye’ve done for me.”

  As they went toward the walls of the house Robert exclaimed — “You can’t have that fellow at your party! It would be the talk of the countryside.”

  “But he plays at all the weddings and christenings, doesn’t he?”

  “Not of your sort.”

  “I’m just an immigrant,” she declared. “I want to be like the other immigrants.”

  “Captain Whiteoak will never agree.”

  “We shall see.”

  They mounted the temporary steps and went in at the doorless door.

  But Robert continued to look gloomy. He said — “Women exert too much influence on us men.”

  A dimple darted into Adeline’s cheek and away again.

  “If she’s the right sort of woman it’s good for you, isn’t it?”

  “The right sort of woman could do anything with me.”

  “Then we must be on the watch for her. But don’t you ever let her do things to you till I have inspected her … Come along, Bobby, let’s see the house!” She took his hand and led him in. “Isn’t it enchanting?”

  They had inspected it the day before but the beams put into place since then, the rows of brick added, the mortar just setting into hardness, were of enthralling interest. The walls had no more to support than the ethereal arch of the sky. But they stood solid, waiting, as though in a kind of benevolent eagerness to shoulder their expected burden.

  “Isn’t it enchanting?” she repeated. “Oh, the things that will happen here! It’s enough to frighten one, isn’t it, Bobby, to think of the things that are crowding in on us?” She bent her brows to a dark line. “Wouldn’t it have been strange if, when the architect brought us the sketches of the house, he could have brought a sketch of all that lay before us here?”

  “Perhaps you will not spend all the rest of your days here. You may want to move. Perhaps you will want to go to another part of the country or even back to the Old Land. There are many who do.”

  “Never! Not Philip and me! We’ve come here to stay. Canada will have our bones. Jalna will be our home.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Do you know, Bobby, that is the first time I have called the place Jalna, naturally and easily. Now the name belon
gs to it just as Philip and I do.”

  Young Vaughan was watching a figure bent double behind a newly rising partition. He pressed her arm and whispered: —

  “There’s a half-breed fellow in here. I think he’s stealing something. Let’s watch him.”

  They crept forward in time to see the youth filling his pockets with nails and screws from a box of carpenter supplies. As he saw himself observed he straightened his body and looked at them coolly. He was very thin, very dark, with chiseled features of surprising beauty. They were of the aquiline Indian type, though less pronounced, but he had a warm colour in his cheeks and his hair, instead of being coarse and straight, was fine and hung in wavy locks about his thin cheeks. His clothes were ragged. He was about Robert’s age.

  “Well now,” said Adeline, “that’s a fine trick you’re at!”

  “I work for Mr. Wilmott,” he answered gently. “I’m building a poultry house for him and I ran short of nails. I thought maybe the carpenters wouldn’t mind me taking a few.”

  “It’s a good thing for you they didn’t catch you at it,” said Robert.

  “They were for Mr. Wilmott,” he returned, keeping his eyes on Adeline’s face.

  She went forward eagerly. “Take all you want!” she exclaimed. “There are all sizes and shapes here. Come, let’s see what you have.”

  Hesitatingly he drew some specimens from his pockets.

  “’Tis not half enough! Come, here is a bit of sacking. Fill it up. Would you like some of these nice hinges and hooks? And here’s a funny-looking thing but it might be useful.”

  The young half-breed knelt eagerly beside her, and began snatching all that caught his eye.

  “My goodness,” exclaimed Robert, “you mustn’t do that! The carpenters know just what supplies they have and need them.”

  “We can buy more,” said Adeline. “Besides there are tons of nails here. No one could miss what we’ve taken.”

  The half-breed deftly knotted the four corners of the sacking and slipped away. Before he left he gave Adeline a smile of gratitude.

  “It will be a wonder to me,” said Robert Vaughan, “if anything movable is left on this place after two days. Every thief in the neighborhood will be here.”

  “But the Indians are honest. Your father told me so.”

  “The half-breeds aren’t.”

  “Tell me about that boy.”

  “I don’t know much except that his name is Titus Sharrow. They call him Tite. He’s no good. I don’t see why Mr. Wilmott employs him. I am told that he sleeps in the house.”

  “How does he come to be a half-breed? Are his parents living?”

  “I don’t think so. I believe he’s really a quarter French. His mother’s father was a French Canadian. It’s a shame, the way they took up with the Indian women.”

  “The boy is charming.”

  “I call that a funny adjective to use about a half-breed thief.”

  “He wasn’t stealing.”

  “Do you think Mr. Wilmott sent him for nails, then?”

  “I daresay,” she answered a little huffily, as though Wilmott’s honour was in question, or her friendship for him.

  “Well, here comes Captain Whiteoak! Let’s tell him all about it.”

  “For pity’s sake, no! Don’t breathe a word of it, please.”

  Philip strode up. “Adeline, I have a dozen things to ask you,” he exclaimed, and they entered on a long and fascinating discussion of building problems.

  Two weeks passed and the niece, Daisy Vaughan, arrived. She was a visitor unwanted by all. David Vaughan had not seen his niece since she was in her teens. The slight reports he had had of her were not endearing. Her coming would disarrange his wife’s housekeeping still further and, heaven knew, the Whiteoaks had disarranged it enough for any woman’s endurance. But he had family loyalty. Daisy was his only brother’s only child. She had written him a pathetic letter. He could do no less than offer her hospitality. Mrs. Vaughan would not have dreamed of opposing him but she felt injured. This sense of well-bred and restrained injury encircled her silvery head like a dim halo. Adeline was all on her side. “Dear Mrs. Vaughan,” she would say, “this is the last straw for you, I know. Philip and I and our tribe were quite enough but, with your husband’s trooping in, ’t will be the end of you. Once the roof is on our house I promise you we shall decamp.”

  “Don’t speak of it,” said Mrs. Vaughan. “I shall manage.”

  Robert was certain that Daisy would always be on hand when he wanted to talk to Adeline. If they two walked together, Daisy would be present. She was a pushing, unnecessary girl and he hated the thought of her.

  Aside from the feeling that her coming would make rather a crowd in the house, Philip was not averse to it. Daisy was a pretty name. She would be sprightly, probably amusing — in truth he was so happily absorbed in the building of his house that events outside it affected him little. He stood somewhat behind the others, his hands in his pockets, while they put the best face on their welcome. Robert had driven the long way to meet her.

  She wasn’t petite and she wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t at all like a daisy. But, by Jove, Philip thought, she had self-confidence and she displayed originality in her dress. You could see that, even though it was travel-worn. She kissed her aunt and uncle and was introduced to the Whiteoaks.

  “Are you very tired, my dear?” asked Mrs. Vaughan, herself looking very tired.

  “Not at all,” answered Daisy, “though it was monstrous hot and dusty travelling. The friends I was travelling with from Montreal were half-dead but I seem to be made of India rubber.”

  As she spoke she untied the wide ribbon of her bonnet from beneath the brim of which her face looked out with an eagerness that seemed to express determination to take in at one glance everything that was to be seen.

  “She is like no Vaughan that ever was,” thought her uncle.

  “I do hope she is not a minx,” thought Mrs. Vaughan.

  “Egad, what a small waist,” was Philip’s inward comment.

  “Ugly, but dangerous.” Adeline was taking her in. “A grinning hussy. Let her keep away from me!” She said: “You are not in the least like a daisy. Your parents should not have named you till they’d had a better look at you.”

  Daisy looked sideways at her. “Can you think of a flower name that would suit me better? They were set on a flower name.”

  “In Ireland,” said Adeline, “there’s a wild flower the peasants call Trollopin’ Bet.”

  Philip caught Adeline’s fingers in his hand and pressed them sharply. “Behave yourself!” he said. He gave a startled look at Daisy.

  Adeline jerked away her hand like a child who says — “I will do as I please!”

  “You can’t offend me,” laughed Daisy. “I’m made of India rubber, as I told you.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mr. Vaughan. “What did Adeline say?”

  “She said I should have been named for that red-haired Queen Elizabeth,” answered Daisy. She took off her bonnet and disclosed luxuriant dark hair, dressed elegantly.

  The scornful emphasis on the word red-haired had brought the colour to Adeline’s cheeks. She sought for words to fling at the newcomer which would not affront her host and hostess.

  “If ’tis my head —” she began.

  “Good God!” interrupted Philip. “Nicholas is going to fall downstairs!”

  He sprang up the steps, three at a time, to catch the baby who, on hands and knees, had crept to the top to see what was going on. Philip ran down with him in his arms and held him up for visitor’s inspection.

  “What do you think of this,” he demanded, “at nine months!”

  “The angel!” exclaimed Daisy Vaughan.

  Nicholas knew not what shyness was. He sat on his father’s arm, his hair rising in a curly crest, and beamed at the visitor. He had a look of unutterable well-being. When she held out her hands to him he went to her with great good-humour and examined her face with i
nterest.

  It was a short face with high cheekbones, narrow eyes, and a turned-up nose. The mouth was large and full of fine teeth. When the under lip met the upper, which it did not often do, it caused the chin to recede a little though not enough to be disfiguring. She was thin but not bony. Her waist was indeed incredibly small. To this part of her Adeline bent a look of extreme exasperation, for she had recently made certain that she herself was to have another child. The sight of that waist and the thought of what lay before herself was enough to put her out of temper.

  “I know nothing of babies,” said Daisy, “but to me this one seems the most beautiful I have seen. Is he your only child?” She raised her eyes to Philip’s face.

  “We have a little daughter,” he answered. “She’s up there somewhere with her nurse.”

  “How lovely! How old is she?”

  “I’m not quite sure. How old is Gussie, Adeline?”

  “I’m damned if I know,” returned Adeline, bitterly. “But I know I had her.”

  She took care to lower her voice so as not to be heard by Mrs. Vaughan, who now exclaimed: —

  “Gussie is the dearest child and so intelligent! Will you let me take you to your room now, my dear, then you must have something to eat.”

  David Vaughan went to the dining room to fetch a decanter of sherry. Robert followed his mother and Daisy up the stairs, carrying Daisy’s dressing case. The Whiteoaks were alone in the hall. Philip had again taken Nicholas into his own arms. He said with a stern look at Adeline: —

  “You seem determined to disgrace yourself. You must know the Vaughans aren’t used to such talk.”

  She wound a lock of her red hair on her finger. “They will be used to it before I leave,” she said.

  “You may have to leave sooner than you are prepared for, if you go on like this.”

  “I am prepared for anything!” she answered hotly.

  “Where would you plan to go from here,” he returned, “with the roof not yet on his house?”

  “I could stay with Mr. Wilmott.” She gave him a roguish look.

  He laughed. “I believe Wilmott could manage you.”

  “You little know him,” she returned.