03 Mary Wakefield

by Mazo de La Roche

  In a moment the trap was bowling swiftly over the road to the rhythmic cadence of hoofs. Mary sank back into the comfortable seat and gave herself up to her relief.

  “I’m glad,” said Muriel Craig, handling the reins with conscious elegance, “to see you with sensible shoes. You simply have to come to it in this country.”

  “I brought these with me from England.”

  “Did you really? Oh, I can tell that now when I look at them. English shoes are the very best.” She smiled at Mary in a way she never had before. Her smile seemed to embrace Mary in its friendliness.

  “You must let me out when we come to Stead,” said Mary. “I can easily walk to the railway station.”

  “What train are you taking?”

  “The next one to Montreal.”

  “Then you’re leaving Jalna?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just a holiday?”

  “No. Permanently. I’m returning to England.”

  Muriel Craig drew in the horse to a walk. She sat silent. Mary glanced sideways at the retroussé profile, uptilted beneath the down-tilted sailor hat.

  Then Muriel Craig spoke. “I guess you’ve had words with someone at Jalna. I suspect it’s Mrs. Whiteoak. I hear she’s very difficult to get on with.”

  Mary snatched at this interpretation of her leaving. “Yes, yes, she’s very difficult.”

  “I believe she was so overbearing with the other governesses that they could not endure it.”

  “I daresay.”

  “Have you any position in view?”

  “Not exactly. I think you’d better let me out here. I don’t want to take you out of your way.”

  “Now, look here. I have something to propose. I do hope you’ll be interested.”

  Mary began to understand what people found to like in Muriel Craig. Now that she had dropped her patronizing airs she appeared candid, pleasant, full of dependable common sense.

  “This is what I have to propose. I have a friend in New York. Very well off — really rich. She has three tiny children. She would be perfectly delighted to get someone like you to teach them. She must have someone reliable. Then, any time you felt like returning to England, there you would be, right at a seaport. You’d have twice the salary you’d get in Montreal. Now, my dear, you’re not going to be so silly as to refuse. You couldn’t be. This is a heaven-sent opportunity. I’m going to take you straight home with me and you’re going to stay there while I write to my friend.” She put a hand over one of Mary’s and clasped it with comforting warmth. “This friend has been so good to me and I’m dying to do her a good turn. As for you — you’d love her and her sweet little children too.”

  Mary was so exhausted by lack of sleep, by the long walk, carrying the portmanteau, that a friendly hand held out to her was irresistible. She felt a rush of contrition for her misjudgment of Miss Craig. Her lips trembled as she answered:

  “It seems to be the perfect position for me and it’s so kind of you to offer to take me in but I think I should stay at an hotel.”

  “Hotel! The very idea. As though I could tolerate such a thing. No, you’re coming straight home with me. There is that big house, with just my father and me in it and a poor little thing like you talking of going to an hotel.” She brought the whip down sharply on the horse’s flank, clicked her tongue at him, and now they were speeding along the road at a pace that was almost alarming. It was as though Muriel Craig were afraid Mary might change her mind.

  Mary was surprised to find Mr. Craig walking across the lawn leaning on his nurse’s arm. He was the sturdiest-looking invalid imaginable and a summer’s tan added to his look of health. He greeted Mary hospitably.

  “You are very welcome, Miss Wakefield. Make yourself quite at home … I don’t understand about your being here. Have you left the Whiteoaks?”

  His daughter answered for her. “Miss Wakefield is going back to England, Father.”

  His particular illness had made him slow to understand. The nurse kept looking at him with a quizzical look, as though of perpetual encouragement.

  “Well, well,” he said, “however it is, you look very tired, young lady. You should go and lie down. Get my nurse to make you an eggnog. She’s famous at eggnogs.”

  At the earliest possible moment Muriel Craig led Mary upstairs and installed her in a large bedroom. She carried up the portmanteau herself as though it were nothing. She remained for some time giving Mary more alluring descriptions of her friend’s house, her children, her good-heartedness.

  “Now,” she said at last, “you must have a good rest while I go and write to my friend. How thankful I am I found you, you poor little thing! You looked such a picture of distress, trailing along the road, lugging that heavy portmanteau.”

  Impulsively she came and threw her arms about Mary and kissed her.

  “Poor little thing indeed,” thought Mary, “I’m taller than she. But what vitality! She’s like a steam-roller.”

  Mary herself longed for nothing but to throw herself down on the bed and let oblivion enfold her. But what a bed! It was covered by a heavy white counterpane, the ponderous pillows shielded by stiffly starched pillow shams with fluted frills. Mary gingerly lifted one off and stood not knowing what to do with it. And how should she ever arrange the bed to look as it looked now? Oh, for that eggnog which Mr. Craig had advised! Her stomach was touching her backbone. For an idiotic moment she pictured herself as eating the pillow sham in her famine.

  She was trembling from fatigue and hunger. She replaced the pillow sham and taking the folded satin quilt form the bed laid it on the floor. She opened a window, for the room was airless and threw herself on the floor, her head pillowed on the quilt. She had thought to fall instantly asleep but a painful throbbing swept through her nerves. She opened her eyes to their widest; a future black as night spread like a desert before them. Alone. Alone! She could not sleep. She was too tired for sleep. Never could she sleep again. The satin quilt, smelling of camphor, suffocated her. She flung it away and lay flat on the carpet. Large greenish medallions on a maroon ground swarmed about her. Like hideous hungry monsters crawling toward her. She pressed her hands to her eyes, shutting them out. That was better. A fresh cool wind made the curtains billow. It blew across her, bringing with it the moist earthy smell of autumn. Mary lay quiet now and presently she dropped into a deep dreamless sleep.

  XVIII

  THE SEARCH

  RENNY’S VOICE CAME down to them from the top floor, clear and high, like someone blowing with all his might on a flute. Nicholas observed:

  “What an insane song!”

  “I heard Hodge singing it,” said Ernest.

  “I often have wondered,” mused Sir Edwin, “why the repetition of meaningless words is fascinating.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ernest, “in the songs of Shakespeare’s time it was the same. ‘With a hey nonny nonny,’ you know.”

  These remarks were like little waves rippling about two glowering rocks. Adeline and Philip, their eyes on each other, said nothing.

  Then Nicholas went to Philip and threw an arm about his shoulders. “Come now, old man,” he said, “take this affair sensibly. You’ll be glad later on. I’m sure you will.”

  “I suppose you mean that I should sit twiddling my thumbs while the victim of this plot — the girl I love —”

  “I know of no plot.”

  “There was a plot. Mamma knows there was a plot.”

  Adeline demanded, “Was it part of a plot that you should follow the girl into the orchard — when you knew she was to marry another man next week — and make love to her?”

  “That had nothing to do with the plot.”

  “It has set all the neighbourhood talking.”

  “What do I care for the neighbours? All I care about is to find Mary.”

  “Philip, you didn’t trouble your head about Mary till you heard she was going to marry Clive.”

  “She was here in my house — by my side. I loved her.�
�

  Augusta put in, “I beg of you to think this over coolly, Philip.”

  He turned away, then said over his shoulder, “All your talk is wasted, I can tell you that.”

  The sound of wheels came from outside. Ernest, nearest the window, exclaimed, “It’s young Busby! Looking grim.”

  Philip strode into the porch. Clive Busby was alighting from his buggy, tying the horse to the ring in the nose of the iron horse’s head by the steps. His face was extraordinarily pale and set.

  The rest of the family followed Philip to the hall, with the exception of Sir Edwin who looked out between the curtains while nervously fondling his side-whiskers.

  Clive came up the steps like the bearer of bad news.

  “Good morning,” he said, in a controlled voice. “May I see Miss Wakefield?”

  “She’s not here,” answered Adeline, her eyes holding his. “I had a talk with her she didn’t like and she’s left. I think you should follow her, Clive. The girl’s impulsive and rather foolish but she’ll be all right.”

  “Not here!” he repeated, dazed. “Where is she?”

  “No one knows. We’ve just now discovered it.”

  “My God!” he said wildly, “She may have done something terrible.”

  “Scarcely. She carried her portmanteau with her.”

  The sound of another vehicle was heard and Doctor Ramsey, the accouchement dealt with, urging his old mare, appeared. He greeted the group without surprise.

  “A blustery day,” he said, “and that was quite a shower we had.”

  “Have you seen Miss Wakefield, by any chance?” asked Philip.

  “Miss Wakefield? Ah, yes. She and I had a little chat airly this morning. She was on her way to catch the Montreal train, as I suppose you know.”

  “Montreal!” echoed Philip. “She took the train to Montreal! Did she tell you where she was going to stay?”

  “No. She was not very communicative but she evidently had her plans well laid.”

  Clive Busby turned to Philip. “Can I see you alone?” he asked.

  “Yes. Come on.”

  Adeline exclaimed, “I think I’ll come too.”

  “Thanks,” said Philip. “We’d sooner be alone.”

  He led the way into the tunnel of pines and hemlocks that marched from gate to house. There, with the greenish light on their faces, Philip’s deeply flushed, Clive’s greyish-white beneath the tan, they measured each other, as though for a duel. Then Philip said:

  “This engagement of yours, Busby, must come to an end. Mary loves me. She made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “I will not give her up till she asks me to, with her own lips. She has been perfectly happy in our engagement. We’ve planned everything together. The mistake is on your side.”

  “Tell me, why did you come over here?”

  “Because of some gossip I’d heard.”

  “Noah Binns?”

  “God, do you think I ‘d listen to him?”

  “Lily Pink?”

  “No. Mrs. Pink. She came to Vaughanlands this morning.”

  Philip gave an exclamation of anger, then his brow cleared.

  “It’s as well that this should be settled between us now … I suppose Mrs. Pink said I’d been seen kissing Mary in the orchard.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You can’t make me believe Mary doesn’t love me. When I find her she’ll explain.”

  Philip broke off a twig of hemlock and examined it. With his eyes still fixed on it he said:

  “I wonder if she will tell you what she told my mother.”

  “What?”

  “She told my mother that she was my mistress.”

  Clive’s lips had had colour in them. Now they went greyish-white like his face.

  “You lie!” he shot out.

  “No. She did say that to my mother. But it’s not true. There has never been anything more passionate between Mary and me than what Mrs. Pink repeated. I swear that, Clive.”

  “I don’t want to hear you swear anything,” Clive exclaimed miserably. “It makes me sick that we should stand here discussing her in such a way. Mary, of all girls! She’d die of shame if she knew.”

  “The fact remains,” said Philip, “that she said that to my mother last night. You can’t be more astounded than I am to hear it.”

  “I won’t believe she said any such thing. Your mother imagined it.”

  “My mother is not in the habit of imaging things of that nature.”

  “You have treated me badly. You knew Mary and I were engaged.”

  “Not till I came home yesterday.”

  “Then you went straight to her and tried to push me out!”

  “Yes. Because I intend to marry her.”

  “Mary will never jilt me. She’s too honourable.”

  “Would you marry a girl who —”

  “I will not discuss her!” interrupted Clive. “I’ll find her and she will tell me the truth.”

  “That’s all I ask. I’ll come with you.”

  They turned, side by side, and came out on the gravel sweep before the house. Clive untied the horse and got into the buggy. His eyes met Philip’s with a look of mingled hurt and hate. He said:

  “I’m going to Montreal by the next train.”

  “So am I. But there’s not another till tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s a long while to wait.”

  Without another word Clive drove away and down the road. I shall never, he thought, enter those gates again.

  Instead of turning the horse toward Vaughanlands he drove to the railway station. Better make sure that Mary really had gone by the train.

  The stationmaster did not hurry to appear at the wicket. Clive forced himself to ask coolly:

  “Can you tell me whether Miss Wakefield went on the train to Montreal this morning?”

  “H’m. She the young lady up at Jalna?”

  “Yes.”

  The stationmaster grinned. “She missed the train. It’s funny in a country place like this, folks could miss a train with nothing else to do but catch it. But she missed it all right.”

  “Did you notice what way she went afterward?”

  “Well, she sat a while and then she went out very quiet and took the road to Stead. I reckon she planned to spend the night at the hotel and take the morning train to the city and change there for Montreal. You see this here’s only a local line. Or she might take this evening’s train to the city and stay there for the night. Whatever she does she’s got to change trains in the city.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know. Thanks very much.”

  She had missed the train! If he drove straight to Stead he might be able to find her there in the hotel. He got into the buggy and set out along the lakeshore road. Colour had returned to his face but his head felt as though an iron band encircled it. A feeling of terrible urgency made him drive the horse at a gallop along the road. He would not be able to rest till he had come face to face with Mary, had wrung the meaning of all this bewilderment from her.

  He enquired for her at the hotel in Stead. He went to a smaller, very poor hotel and enquired there. He went to the railway station. She had not been seen in any of these places. He came to the conclusion that Mary had a friend in Stead with whom she was staying. There was nothing to do but wait till the evening train.

  He drove back to Vaughanlands and put the horse in its stall. The tightness in his head had developed into a raging headache. He lay on a sofa and kind Mrs. Vaughan made him tea and rubbed camphor on his head. She tried to lead him on to talk of his trouble but, when she saw the misery in his eyes when she tentatively touched on the subject, she fell silent, putting all her sympathy into the stroking of his forehead. If she knew all, he thought, what would she think? His spirit writhed at the remembrance of what Philip had told him.

  Somehow the rest of the day passed and again he drove to the railway station at Stead. She was not there. He had told the Vaughans th
at possibly he might be away for the night. He was thankful he would be able to spend it alone. He had several drinks in the bar of the hotel, then went to bed. He slept better than he had expected, a heavy almost dreamless sleep.

  Next morning, in a heavy downpour of rain he walked to the railway station. Mary was not among the sleepy passengers waiting for the train. Neither had she appeared when it drew out. He went back to the hotel and forced down some breakfast. He tried to think what he should do next. He could not go to every house in Stead and ask for her, yet he was sure she must be there. When the rain had eased he walked doggedly through the streets of the village, looking up at the houses, hoping to see her face at a window.

  At last he decided to drive back to the Vaughans’. It was possible that there he might hear news of Mary. He heard nothing but Robert Vaughan casually remark that Philip Whiteoak had gone to Montreal. Clive smiled grimly to think of that wild-goose chase. He went out and wandered through the dark woods where Mary and he had walked hand in hand, planning the future which now looked as gloomy to him as these dripping trees shedding their summer’s pride.

  In late afternoon he drove again to Stead and searched for her at the station. Again he spent the night in the hotel and repeated the vain search on the following morning. He began to be in a panic. Mary had drowned herself! She had gone out of her mind and drowned herself in the lake. As he drove homeward he looked in growing apprehension at the tumbling green waves. To him, a Westerner, the lake was an ocean. The gulls hovered above something in the water. Clive’s heart froze with fear. Then he saw that it was a log. He stopped at several houses and asked if anyone there had seen Mary. The woman who had given her tea and a bun was one of these. She looked with curiosity at Clive and enlarged on Mary’s look of weariness and how she herself had felt worried about her.

  The horse needed no encouragement to hasten back to the stable.

  Mrs. Vaughan met Clive with a letter in her hand.

  “Miss Craig’s man brought this, Clive,” she said, so anxious to help him with looks of sympathy, longing to put her arms about him and comfort him, as though he were her own son.