02 Morning at Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  Soon Madigan’s cool Irish tenor voice charmed all in his rendering of “The Last Rose of Summer.”

  IV

  Night

  When the guests had gone Philip Whiteoak and Curtis Sinclair went out into the velvet darkness of the summer night, for there was now no moon. They paced up and down in front of the house talking, talking. The door stood open and the lamplight from the hall fell on the figures of the two men when they passed. They were in striking contrast. Both were bareheaded and Philip Whiteoak was a head taller than the other. His fresh complexion, his bold handsome features, broad shoulders and flat back, his look of being accustomed to command, would make many another man wish he might be in Philip’s shoes. He restrained his stride to suit the awkward walk of the southerner. Yet, in spite of the hump on his back, Sinclair was a figure of dignity. An arresting figure. A face subtle and sensitive.

  When at last they turned into the house the Southerner held out his hand. “Goodnight, Captain Whiteoak,” he said, “and thank you. I hope I shall do nothing to make you regret your kindness.” They shook hands with warmth and Philip went straight to his own room.

  He expected to find Adeline asleep but the moment he tiptoed into the room she sat up in bed. The candle nightlight on a table by the head of the bed barely revealed his stalwart figure.

  “Whatever have you been up to?” she demanded. “What were you two men talking about?”

  “Go to sleep.” He spoke peremptorily.

  “I will not go to sleep. I must know what all this talk is about.”

  “Why?” He came to her side.

  “Because,” she cried, “I am a woman and cannot rest till I know.”

  “Behave yourself and go to sleep,” he said.

  She caught his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I’m burning with curiosity,” she declared.

  He gave her cheek a playful pinch.

  “Good God,” she cried, “can’t you recognize that I am a woman of character, able to take part in any scheme that’s afoot?”

  Her parrot, roused by her raised voice, uttered loud protests in Hindustani, opened his beak, and showed his dark tongue.

  “What possessed me to marry an Irishwoman I can’t fathom,” Philip said, and sat down on the bed beside her.

  However, he was so full of Curtis Sinclair’s plan that he could not restrain himself from imparting some of it to her. In fact it would be necessary for her to know. She was not an ordinary female to be put off with a few half-truths. She was a person to be reckoned with. Sometimes he almost wished she were of weaker fibre but, looking into her luminous eyes that had nothing wistful in them, seeing her proud and forward-looking profile, he could not wish her to be different. The snowy frill of her nightdress came up to her chin. He put his finger under her chin and remarked, “Well, here goes.”

  “Yes?” she breathed eagerly.

  “Curtis Sinclair,” he said, “is one of the organizers of an underground group — agents of the Southern Confederacy. They are being sent to Canada by President Jefferson Davis.” Philip hesitated. He fingered his cravat. “I doubt if I should be telling you this, Adeline,” he said.

  “In any case, I’d get it out of Lucy,” she retorted.

  He went on, looking suddenly very serious, “These men are to conduct raids across the border with the object of destroying Northern shipping on the Great Lakes.”

  Adeline threw herself back on her plump down pillows, her body quivering with excitement.

  “What a glorious revenge!” she cried.

  “By Jove,” he said, “you have a wicked grin.”

  “I feel wicked when I think of those despicable Yankees.” Suddenly she too became serious. “What part are we to play in this?” she demanded. “For the Sinclairs must expect us to play a part, otherwise he would not have confided in you.”

  “Our part is to be a passive one,” said Philip. “It simply is to allow Curtis Sinclair to receive certain members of this underground group under our roof and to give them orders.”

  “I will receive them.” Again she sat up. “No one shall be able to say that I have not played my part.”

  “You have no part in this,” he cried firmly. “All you have to do is to see nothing — say nothing.”

  “And all those brave men coming here! Never.”

  As she raised her voice, the parrot fluttered down from the head of her bed uttering noises of protest. He alighted at the foot, then walked the length of her body and, when he reached her head, pressed his feathered cheek to hers.

  “Dear Boney,” she murmured to him.

  In Hindustani, the only language he knew, he muttered terms of endearment to her.

  Philip began to undress. He said:

  “Put that bird back on his perch. I refuse to get into bed with him.”

  Adeline rose and carried Boney to his cage. Through the bars he swore at Philip. “Haramzada — Iflatoon!”

  Adeline, looking tall in her voluminous nightdress, went to the open window. “The lilac has almost finished its blooming,” she said, “but oh, how heavenly the scent! Come and smell.”

  Together they sniffed the scent of the lilac and the sweet air of the virgin countryside. There was no sound other than the faint rustle of the leaves and the splash of the stream in the green depths of the ravine.

  Upstairs in the Sinclairs’ room the two Southerners had been discussing, first the evening that lay behind them, then the problems that lay ahead.

  Lucy Sinclair exclaimed, “I am quite in love with these Whiteoaks. They are so natural, so spontaneous, and so handsome. Isn’t her colouring exquisite? That auburn hair — that creamy complexion — those eyes! Thank God, I am a woman who can admire other women.”

  “Whiteoak is a very nice fellow.” Curtis Sinclair said. “He is quite willing to let me use his house as headquarters. Of course, all will be done secretly. The men will come here only after dark. They will leave as quietly as they come. I think the neighbours will suspect nothing.”

  At this moment Lucy Sinclair’s maid came into the room. “Ah’ve come,” she said, “to brush yo’ haar, missus. My goodness, it does need attention.” She wielded the brush as she spoke, as though it were a weapon. Her face shone with benign purpose. When her mistress, wrapped in a satin peignoir, sank into a chair, she set to brushing the long, fair locks with soothing strokes.

  “Are you getting on better with the other servants here, Annabelle?” asked Lucy Sinclair. “I hope you are always polite to them.”

  “Laws, missus, I’m all smiles when I speaks to them. All but that Irishman, Patsy, for I can’t understand half what he says.” Annabelle doubled up with laughter at the mere thought of Patsy.

  Now Cindy, the Negress, entered, her arms full of freshly laundered clothes which she began to lay in bureau drawers, at the same time complaining loudly that she had been unable to get possession of the flatirons before evening. “We’ll all be in rags, missus,” she said, in a mournful voice, “if we don’ git some new clothes purty soon. Jus’ you look at dis here shoe!” She held up a foot for inspection. The sole of her shoe was worn into a hole.

  “Have patience,” Lucy Sinclair soothed her. “We shall have new clothes when this horrible war is over. Then we shall go home, I hope.”

  The Negress raised her hands to heaven. “Ah pray to God, missus, it will be before winter comes, for they tell me it’s bitter cold here and de snow up to your waist. Us niggers would suttainly die of cold.”

  Curtis Sinclair had been standing by the window with his back to the room. When the servants had left, he turned and asked his wife, “Where do those two sleep?”

  “In the small bedroom next this,” she said. “And Jerry is tucked away somewhere in the basement.”

  “We should not have brought these three slaves with us,” he said. “It’s too much to expect of the Whiteoaks.”

  “Surely you would not want me to wait on myself!” There was a hysterical note in her voice. Twice she said this, h
er voice trembling.

  “Of course not,” he answered.

  “And you must know that both women are in need of new clothes. Jerry too needs new clothes and shoes. All three are badly off for something new.”

  “They may go to the devil,” he said calmly. “I have no money to spend on them.” He took out his watch and began to wind it. She said nothing more.

  V

  A Call on Wilmott

  The following morning Adeline set out on foot, accompanied by Nero, to call on James Wilmott, an Englishman who had come to Canada on the same ship as the Whiteoaks. He had bought a piece of land with a log house beside the winding river. He had made himself very comfortable in a primitive way. At the edge of the river a flat-bottomed boat was moored. On the little landing stage lay his fishing tackle. There was whispering among the rushes.

  Usually Adeline, when she went to visit her neighbours, rode her favourite horse — but this was a secret call. She followed the grass path to the door and knocked. As she waited she felt the sense of mystery always associated with Wilmott. In the first place he had been so reticent concerning his past life. She had looked on him as a bachelor till, some time after he was settled in his new home, she had discovered, and he had confessed to her, that he had secretly left England to escape from a detested wife. He had impoverished himself to provide for her and her child.

  When the wife had discovered his whereabouts and followed him, it had been Adeline Whiteoak who had put her off the scent.

  Adeline could not think of that interview, almost twelve years ago, without a mischievous chuckle. Meeting the former Mrs. Wilmott, it had been easy to understand why her husband had fled from her.

  Since that time Wilmott had lived in conscious happiness with his servant, companion, protégé, and pupil, a young partly French half-breed Indian called Tite. It was he who now opened the door to Adeline. In the years he had lived with Wilmott he had grown from a bronzed stripling to a muscular but still slender young man. He had that year passed his first examination in the study of law. Wilmott was proud of him, regarding him almost in the light of a son.

  “Good morning to you, Tite,” said Adeline. “Is Mr. Wilmott at home?”

  “He is almost always at home,” Tite said, with a dignified inclination of the head. “I will tell him you are here. He is at the moment sewing buttons on his best pants.” Tite glided from the room and, in a few moments, Wilmott entered. Tite did not return.

  “I’m sorry I have kept you waiting, Adeline.” Wilmott spoke formally, as was his habit, but his deep-set grey eyes looked so intently into hers that she coloured a little. “It is not often that you come to see me,” he added, and placed a chair for her.

  She did not sit down but stood facing him.

  “I come on an important mission,” she said.

  He was used to her exaggerations and waited composedly for her to go on. “Yes?” He spoke warily.

  “Oh, don’t be alarmed,” she broke out. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I want only to have your sympathy in what Philip and I are undertaking.”

  “Philip and you?” he repeated surprised.

  “Philip and I pull very well together,” she declared, “when we are of one mind … But first tell me where do your sympathies lie in this Civil War of the Americans?”

  “You know that I hate slavery.”

  “So do our guests from the South. But they inherited great plantations and hundreds of slaves. Those blacks were dependent on them. They were content and happy with their masters, but now the Yankee soldiers have invaded the South, pillaging, burning. Oh, ’twould break your heart to hear of the miseries those villains have brought into that happy country. Of course, you remember how your wife went through New England lecturing and stirring up hate for the South. And it was none of her business, was it?”

  Wilmott did not want to be reminded of that woman. He retorted, “Surely this war is no business of ours.”

  Yet when Adeline poured out the plans of Curtis Sinclair, she moved him, as she knew she could. The very fact that his one-time wife had been active in stirring up hatred for the South was enough to rouse his sympathy for that troubled land.

  As he hesitated, she caught his hand in hers, exclaiming, “Ah, James, how splendid you are!”

  “But I have promised nothing,” he warned. “And I hope you are not letting yourself be inveigled into some reckless act.”

  “Philip and I have no part in all this but to see nothing, say nothing. Nothing more than to lend shelter for meetings.”

  “Meetings?” He withdrew his hand and looked her sternly in the eyes.

  “Now that I have won you over,” she said, “you are to come to Jalna tonight and hear the details. You are going to enjoy this, James.”

  His voice trembled a little as he said, “You know, Adeline, that I will do anything for you.” Yet he still held his look of sternness, for he lived a rather isolated life and, once his austere features lent themselves to any expression of mood, they were reluctant to change.

  When Adeline was gone, the half-breed entered. He had been eavesdropping and had heard every word, but his face showed nothing of this. He said: “I was hoping you’d tell me to make a cup of tea for the lady, Boss.”

  “You know very well, Tite,” said Wilmott, “that I am not in the habit of entertaining ladies.”

  “But Mrs. Whiteoak is a great tea-drinker, Boss.”

  “That is nothing to us,” Wilmott said curtly.

  “I know that very well, Boss. But I thought she might like a cup of tea for the sake of her nerves. It must be strange to her to have slaves in the house.”

  “That is nothing to us,” repeated Wilmott.

  A silence followed, then Tite, with a sidelong look, asked, “Have you seen the slaves, Boss?”

  “I have not. How many are there?”

  “Three, Boss.”

  “Well!” Wilmott ejaculated. “Well — that seems rather a lot. Are they men or women?”

  “One man and two women, Boss.”

  “Have you spoken with them?”

  “I am always friendly with strangers, Boss. I have talked with them. The older woman is fat; for one thing she is heavy with child.”

  “Tck!” exclaimed Wilmott.

  “Yes indeed, Boss.”

  “Is the man her husband?”

  “No, Boss. She left her husband and three children in the South because she is so devoted to her mistress — just as I would leave my wife and my children, if I had them, to go with you.”

  “I should advise you,” said Wilmott, “not to question these Negroes. Better keep away from them, Tite.”

  “I am a friendly man, Boss.” The half-breed showed his white teeth in a smile. “Also I have no class-consciousness. I myself am of mixed blood. I am scarcely white. Yet a young white lady once told me that I had a mouth like a pomegranate flower. Do you think that was meant as a compliment, Boss?”

  “Don’t remind me of that affair, Tite,” Wilmott said sternly.

  “That was years ago, and I am of a more noble character now. You have heard of the noble red man, Boss?”

  “I am glad to hear of your nobility,” said Wilmott, wondering whether education had been good for Tite.

  “The young woman slave” — Tite spoke in a judicial tone — “is a mulatto — the shade of café au lait. You see, I know a little French. She is a very pretty girl, Boss.”

  “I want you to keep strictly away from that young woman.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Tite with dignity. “Still, she is very pretty and her name is Annabelle. Her face is sensitive — a quality you don’t find very often in women.”

  “Keep away from her,” repeated Wilmott, “or you may get into trouble.”

  “Trouble with whom, sir?”

  “Probably with the Negro man.”

  “Oh, no, Boss. Annabelle is miles above him. He is an ignorant fellow who knows not how to read or write, though he can do arithmetic in his head.
”

  “How do you come by all this information, Tite?”

  “I keep my eyes and ears open. That is what makes life interesting.”

  Tite drifted away. He fished in a shady pool of the stream which abounded in fish. He cleaned and cooked fish for the evening meal. He washed up. When dusk fell he took the narrow path to Jalna by which Adeline had come that morning.

  The sounds and smells of night were stealing out, at first as though timidly, then taking possession of the darkness. The scent of virgin soil, of cedar, of pine, of the balm of Gilead tree, weighed sweetly on the night air. The twittering of small birds, the confidential croaking of frogs, the newly awakened chorus of the locusts, joined in the dismissal of day and the welcoming of night.

  The half-breed did not consciously give himself to these pleasures. He absorbed them through his very pores — the soles of his feet, the skin of his dark face. Plainly this night walk was not aimless, for he turned abruptly from the path that led to Jalna, descended another path that would have been difficult to find, had he been less sensitive to the feel of the earth and the change in the air, as he followed the path down into the ravine. Down there a stream was moving swiftly, unseen but clearly heard in its nocturnal singing. It was spanned by a rustic bridge and walking across it was a large white owl whose hearing, even more acute than Tite’s, detected the coming of the young man. It rose, with a heavy flutter of wings, into the shelter of a massive tree.

  Tite gave a little laugh and, raising an imaginary bow, sent an imaginary arrow into the owl’s white breast. As though in wonder, it uttered a loud “whoo-whoo.” Tite now went and stood on the bridge listening. He had not long to wait. A dark figure stole out from the undergrowth. The young mulatto girl joined him silently on the bridge.

  He took her hand and they stood so linked for a moment. Then he said, “You did well, Annabelle, not to keep me waiting. I am an impatient fellow and would have searched till I found you — and then —”