What an impudent way of speaking the man had, thought Alayne. She gave him an icy look as she took the note. She read:
Dear Mrs. Whiteoak,
I do so dislike to complain of dear little Archer, but he has been very late for school every morning this week and yesterday he did not appear till afternoon. This is very bad for his work which, as you know, is uneven.
He is so clever in some ways. But …
“Is anything wrong?” interrupted Nicholas.
“No — not exactly.”
“You look very disturbed,” observed Ernest, peering at her. “It’s bad to get upset over minor irritations.”
Rags was listening. To him Alayne said, “You may telephone for the repair man.” when he had left the room she exclaimed, almost tragically:
“It’s about Archer. He has been playing truant again. Really, I don’t know what to do about him.”
“Boarding school is the place for boys,” growled Nicholas. “The Spartan life there makes men of them.”
Ernest said, “You are not severe enough with Archer. You should give him a punishment he’d remember.”
Alayne loved her son with an almost painful devotion, painful because he fell so short of being what she would have him, fell so short of the large nobility of her father whom he physically resembled. She said:
“Miss Pink is not the type of teacher to hold Archer’s interest. She is far too old-fashioned.”
The door opened and the boy of eight years came into the room. He looked at his elders with an air of profound pessimism. As this was his habitual expression it roused no concern. He had a high white forehead, clear-cut features, a rather thin face but a sturdy body and legs. His eyes were intensely blue, his hair very fair, straight, and dry. He stood planted in the middle of the room, as though inviting attack.
“Now then, sir,” said Ernest, “what about these complaints of you?”
“We know what you’ve been up to,” added Nicholas. “So there is no use in hedging.”
“I don’t like going to school,” said Archer. “It makes me tired.”
His mother looked at him anxiously. “Archer, when you say school makes you tired, do you mean it makes you tired in a slangy sense or do you mean that it tires you?”
Archer looked as though he had the weight of the universe on his shoulders as he considered this. Then he replied:
“Miss Pink makes me tired and lessons tire me.”
Nicholas slapped his thigh. “Good man! You’ve explained it perfectly.”
“Don’t praise him,” said Ernest. “It’s bad for him when he’s been obstreperous.”
“A little praise hurts no one,” returned Nicholas.
“But he should not be praised for a cheeky answer.”
“I don’t think Archer intended to be that,” said Alayne.
Ernest fixed a penetrating look on Archer. “which did you intend,” he demanded, “to be cheeky or clever?”
“Both,” Archer answered promptly.
“We are getting nowhere,” said Alayne. “Archer had better come up to my room with me,” She rose and took the little boy’s hand.
“A swishing is what he needs.” Ernest clenched his delicate white hand, as though it held the implement of chastisement. “Perhaps Finch would do it for you.”
“why doesn’t Roma see that he gets to school?” asked Nicholas. “where is Roma?”
Roma was standing just outside the door with her ear to the keyhole. She drew back as Alayne and Archer came out. Alayne asked suspiciously:
“what are you doing here, Roma?”
“Waiting for Archer.”
Roma spoke in a quiet little voice, and she had a quiet little face, an air as though she consciously made herself someone to pass unnoticed. When she was just old enough to run about she had been brought to Jalna, the fruit of dead Eden’s connection with Minny Ware, an English girl. The child had been conceived in Rome whence came her name. She had known, almost from the first, that Alayne did not like her. She did not like Alayne. Roma was not shrinking or timid. If she had a self-effacing air, it was because she chose to be so. At eleven she looked more than two years younger than Adeline. To judge by her limbs she might later be tall but now was small for her age. She had an odd charm, with her glistening fair hair, her narrow strange-coloured eyes, her high cheek bones and the sensitive full-lipped mouth which she had got from her father.
“Are you sure you were not listening at the door, Roma?” asked Alayne.
“Quite sure.” Roma smiled a little.
“That question was not intended to be amusing,” Alayne said sternly.
Roma took the smile from her face.
“I want you both to come in here with me.” Alayne led the children into the sitting room.
They stood facing her where she seated herself, looking imperviously small and innocent. Roma thought, “She has heaps of lines in her forehead when she’s worried. Why should she care if Archer goes to school? He won’t do what Miss Pink says. He won’t do what she says. He won’t mind anyone but Adeline. I wonder if I dare smile again.” The smile flickered across her lips.
“Roma,” said Alayne, “you knew very well that you were doing wrong in letting Archer play truant. You are older. You should guide him to do right.”
“He won’t let me.”
“You should have told me he was not at school.”
“That would be telling tales.”
“Archer must be told of, when he does anything so wrong as this.”
“I’m hungry,” said Archer. “Could I have my tea?”
“Yes. But no cake. No jam. Just salad and bread.”
“Salad gives me indigestion.”
“Then you may have an egg.”
“Thank you, Mother.” He spoke in a sweet soothing voice. He got on to her lap and laid his cheek against hers. She said:
“Go upstairs and wash and brush your hair, Roma. I wish to talk privately to Archer. I am deeply hurt, and very displeased with both of you.”
Adeline was going up the stairs as Roma closed the door of the sitting room behind her.
“Hullo,” said Adeline. “who’s in there?”
“Aunt Alayne and Archer. He’s been late for school all week. About ten or eleven o’clock. And yesterday he didn’t come till afternoon.”
Adeline whistled, then said, “Come on up to my room.” She darted up the stairs. Roma followed.
Inside Adeline’s room she shut the door and locked it.
“Goodness!” said Roma. “Your back’s all over mud. So is your leg.”
“Jester threw me. He was in a bad mood. Gosh, it hurt! I want you to rub liniment on me. I don’t want Mummy to know. She wouldn’t let me ride him at the Show next week.”
“She won’t anyway. I heard her say so.”
Adeline was drawing off her muddy pullover. She dropped it to the floor. “We’ll see about that,” she said.
“Couldn’t Wright ride him?”
“Jester is in the ladies’ saddle horse class, you duffer.”
“Couldn’t Auntie Pheasant ride him?”
“She couldn’t possibly handle him. She hasn’t been riding. She hasn’t the time.”
Having stripped her upper part she got a bottle of liniment from the cupboard and handed it to Roma. She turned her beautiful suntanned back to her.
“Rub here,” she commanded, and indicated the area below the small of the back. She groaned as Roma rubbed but repeated, “Harder.”
The handle of the door was rattled. “Let me in,” came Archer’s voice.
“Go away!”
“No! I want to come in.”
“We’re busy.”
A kick resounded on the door.
Adeline went to it, opened it, grasped a handful of his dry tow hair and half lifted him into the room by it. Again she locked the door. Archer made no outcry but, when she freed him, examined her back with scientific interest.
“It doesn’t look sor
e,” he said.
“I wish you had it.”
“I’d rather have it than my tonsils. They have got to come out, the doctor says.”
“I saw a horse at the Queenstown fair that had had his tonsils out.”
“Did it bleed much?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But it saved his life.”
“I expect having mine out will save mine.”
“A lot of expense and trouble for a small thing,” observed Roma.
Archer made a pass at the bottle of liniment. Adeline took it from Roma. “That’s enough,” she said. “Now I must attend to my leg.” She pulled up the leg of her breeches and disclosed a knee, with a deep rasp on it.
Roma drew back but Archer leant close, his high white forehead giving him a profound look. Adeline produced a bottle of iodine. He begged:
“Please, Adeline, let me put it on! I won’t hurt you half as much as you’d hurt yourself. Please do!” He tried to take possession of the swab she had made.
She hesitated, then said firmly, “No. I’ll do it myself.” She immersed the swab in the iodine, looked at the bloody knee, looked at Roma and Archer pathetically. “Oo, how I hate to !” she said. “It will hurt like the dickens.”
“Let Archer do it,” said Roma.
“No.”
“I’ll put my arm round you,” said Archer.
This he did, leaning rather heavily on her. She set her teeth. She pressed the swab to her knee. Colour flooded her face. Again and again she sterilized the rasped place. She handed the swab to Roma, then sat down and rocked herself.
A knock came on the door. The handle turned. Alayne’s voice said,
“why have you locked the door, Adeline?”
“So Archer wouldn’t bother me.”
“Well, let me in, dear, I want to speak to you.”
Adeline pointed under the bed. Silently Archer scrambled beneath it. Adeline kicked her muddy pullover after him. She drew down the leg of her breeches and opened the door. Alayne came in, noting with distaste that peculiar air of squalor which children are able to impart to the rooms they occupy. She said:
“So you are changing, Adeline. That’s right. What a smell of iodine!”
“I scratched my finger,” said Roma. She went to the medicine cupboard and, before returning the bottle to it, stuck her finger in the iodine. She held up the finger in front of Alayne who remarked:
“That is right. It’s well to be careful.” Then she turned to Adeline. “Did you know,” she asked, “that Archer has been playing truant from school?”
“I knew he’d been a little late.”
“How did you know?”
“He remarked that he’d been a little late.”
“A little late!” cried Alayne. “Yesterday he did not arrive till afternoon.”
“I expect it’s his tonsils. They’re poisoning his system and making him tired.”
“I suppose they are, poor little fellow. But how I dread his having them out!”
“He’ll be all right, Mummy. If you’ll let me, I will go with him to the hospital.”
Alayne gave a little laugh. “You know you are suggesting the impossible, Adeline.”
The child flushed. Alayne noticed her beautiful back, her shoulders where the dark auburn waves of her hair floated. Alayne gave her a pat, then sniffed her hand. “Liniment! what is the matter?”
“I’m a bit stiff. Roma was rubbing my back. Jester is quite a one to pull, you know, Mummy.”
“Adeline, if you knew how I dislike your riding that horse! If your father were here I don’t think he’d want you to. I don’t think Jester is suitable for a girl to ride.”
“Oh, Mummy, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Alayne’s voice came sharply. “Adeline, I will not have you speak to me like that.”
“Sorry. But, really, if you’d ever ridden him you’d think he was perfect. He canters like an angel.”
“Well, someone else can ride him at the Ormington Show. I’ll not endure the thought of your riding that temperamental creature in such a big show. He’s terrifying.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
“Wright can ride him.”
“He can’t! He’s too severe with him. Jester hates Wright! He loves me! I’ll get a big price for him, you’ll see.”
“Adeline, don’t be foolish. You must listen to me. We can hire someone to ride Jester. Anyhow we are not dependent on the sale of one horse.”
“It will make three I’ve sold.”
Alayne tried to speak patiently. “I know. You have done very well. But the time has come for you to — to —” She hesitated.
Adeline’s luminous eyes, with the changeful lights in their brown depths, were fixed on hers.
“To what?” she asked.
“Well, you’re thirteen. You’re not just a little girl. The people you meet at these fall fairs and horse shows aren’t always the sort you should associate with. It isn’t as though I were there with you.”
“Come with me, then.”
“And stand for hours among horses and grooms and queer people? You know how I’d hate it.”
“Lots of the people aren’t queer.”
“I know. But the atmosphere would be very uncongenial to me. It would be impossible. You are quite aware of that.”
“Auntie Pheasant and Maurice would go with me, in the car.”
Alayne was losing patience. She said, “Now, let us have an end to this. I forbid you to go.”
Adeline’s breast heaved. She gave a hard sob, then controlled herself. “Just this once,” she pleaded.
“At the next show it would be just the same.”
“It’s almost the end of the season.”
“You are getting behind with your school work.”
“who cares!” Adeline cried, defiantly.
“Now you are being just stupid,” Alayne said coldly. “I care. Your father cares very much. You think because he likes to see you ride, that your riding is most important to him but he is anxious to see you well educated. I think I have made a mistake in letting you have his room. Because it is covered with pictures of horses and trophies, you have got the idea that he cares for little else! You are quite mistaken. He admires culture in a woman and, I may tell you, he admired it in me.”
Roma kept blowing on the finger she had dipped in the iodine. Alayne asked irritably:
“why do you do that?”
“It stings.”
Roma held up the finger.
“I can see no cut.”
“It’s under the nail.”
“I think you are making an unnecessary fuss over it.”
Roma’s eyes grew large, as they did when she was reproved.
Alayne had had to turn from Adeline. There had been something in her face that had the power of rousing a desire to hurt her, not physically but by a calculated thrust against her personal egotism. Now Alayne, her hand on the door knob, turned away.
“Tidy this room. I must go to Archer,” she said and left.
Archer threw Adeline’s pullover from under the bed, then crept out, got stiffly to his feet like an old man, and walked over the pullover. He went to the window and observed:
“I see three men in a car going to the stable.”
Adeline leaped to his side.
“It’s Mr. Crowdy and Mr. Chase!” she cried excitedly. “They’ve brought a man to see Rosina. They said they would. Wright and I’ve been expecting him all the week!”
She snatched her pullover from the floor and dragged it over her head. She pulled up her breeches and tightened her belt.
“I’m coming too,” said Roma.
“No. You stay and tidy the room. Tell Mummy I’m studying. I’ll buy you a big chocolate bar tomorrow. I’ve got to see these men.”
“I’m coming,” declared Archer.
She turned to him fiercely. “No!’ She ran lightly down the stairs and out of the house. The three dogs were waiting o
utside. When she opened the door the little Cairn terrier darted into the house and up to Nicholas’ room but the other two ran with Adeline to the stables, the bobtailed sheepdog in loose shaggy movements, the bulldog solidly, with sturdy purpose.
The stable was brightly lighted by the electric lights, though outside the Western sky was still aflame. The four men were in Rosina’s loose box. She was a delicately made mare who could be intractable when things did not go to please her. She moved toward Adeline as she entered, as though to tell her that at this moment she was not too well pleased.
“Here’s my young lady,” said Wright, and the other three took off their hats.
One of them was a stranger to Adeline but the others she had known as long as she could remember. Chase was a lawyer who had been too indifferent to his profession to succeed in it. He had drifted quite naturally into the profession of horse dealing. He did not make a very good living at it but he was a single man who wanted little. If it had not been for his friend, Crowdy, he might often have been in financial straights, but Crowdy had the flair for picking a likely horse at a low cost, while Chase supplied the gentlemanly element that carried many a deal through. Now, with ceremony, he introduced the somewhat nervous buyer to Adeline.
“This young lady,” he said, “knows as much about horseflesh as any man. She’s carrying on the business with Wright here, while her father, Colonel Whiteoak, is overseas.”
“She,” declared Crowdy, “is A 1 in all respects.”
Adeline gravely shook hands with the stranger.
“Welcome to our stables,” she said, as she had heard her father say.
“This here gentleman,” said Wright, “has come to look at Rosina. He likes her looks but he thinks she’s high-strung. He’s buying for a lady friend who’s not much of a rider.”
“She’s as nervous,” said the stranger, “as seven thousand cats.”
Adeline gravely considered this. Then, “This is her horse,” she said. “Your lady friend couldn’t fall off her if she tried. Any more than she could fall off a rocking chair.”
“And she’s pretty as a picture,” put in Chase.
“And dirt cheap at the price,” added Crowdy. “Did you say to me the other day that someone has an option on her?”
Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna Page 6
