02 Morning at Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Yes,” said Adeline, “then make yourself scarce. I must have peace for perusing this letter.”

  “Should you like to have me read it to you?” The boy’s face was bright with curiosity. “Mr. Madigan’s handwriting is peculiar but I can read it with no trouble.”

  “And so can I,” said Ernest, who had followed his brother into the room.

  Adeline opened the letter but had difficulty in deciphering the erratic script. Before she was aware of it Nicholas was looking over her shoulder. He read aloud:

  Dear Mrs. Whiteoak,

  Pray don’t think too badly of me but I find I cannot face the life that lies before me. I am on my way back to Ireland, probably on a cattle boat. I shall always be grateful for your kindness to me. Please give my affectionate regards to my dear pupils. I should like to leave my books to them.

  Yours respectfully,

  Lucius Madigan

  When Nicholas had finished reading the letter Adeline gave him a smart slap. “Impudent boy,” she said. “How dare you read my private letter!”

  “It’s not very private,” said he. “Everyone knows Mr. Madigan disappeared and the only message he has sent was to us children.”

  “Philip,” cried Adeline, “will you stand by and do nothing about the insolence of this rogue?”

  Philip took a step towards Nicholas but the boy darted out of the room. “Come along,” he called to Ernest. “Let’s divide up the books!”

  “Books, my eye,” said Ernest. “I want his compass and his indelible pencil.”

  But when they arrived in Madigan’s room Augusta was already there, a history of the sport of cock-fighting in her hand. “I have never seen this before,” she said doubtfully. “Do you think it is suitable for us?”

  “I had better be the judge of that.” Nicholas took the book from her hand. “But how did you hear the news?”

  “Everyone knows it,” she said. “Even the blacks. Also I was standing in the passage when you read the letter. So I came straight up.”

  “Here is the compass,” said Ernest triumphantly. “Now I shall know whether I am going north or south. I’ve always wondered. Gussie, will you take the cushion?”

  The news of Madigan’s desertion of Amelia had indeed spread like wildfire. However, there were five people at Jalna for whom it had little interest. These were the Sinclairs and their servants. Their thoughts were concentrated on what, to them, was a far more important event. This was the departure of Curtis Sinclair on the following day.

  He and his wife were together in their bedroom, she in a state of tremulous excitement that she sought unsuccessfully to conceal. Her hands were shaking, her sensitive lips trembling.

  “For heaven’s sake,” he said, “try to control yourself. It’s not going to be pleasant for me to leave you in such a state.”

  “But I am so afraid for you. You are going into danger.”

  “I’m going into action — what I’ve been waiting for this long while.” His sudden sweet smile lit his face. “Be happy for me, my dear. Remember the five thousand Confederate soldiers we’re going to free at Camp Douglas. Others will join us. The accursed Yankees will get their fill of us. They can’t hold us in the Union.”

  “If only we can secede — save our country.”

  “We will. Luck is with us. Right is with us.” Then he added testily, “I wish you’d let me make my preparations in peace. It confuses me to have you buzzing about — always on the point of tears.”

  “I’ll try,” she said humbly.

  The servant Jerry entered, carrying some freshly laundered shirts. “Ah’ve brought an extra pair of boots for you, massa,” he said, “along with the shirts.” He showed them, well polished.

  “I don’t think it’s well to carry so much. One pair should be enough.”

  “These is your mos’ comfortable ones, massa. Let me try them on you.”

  Curtis Sinclair seated himself and the Negro knelt at his feet, trying the effect of the boots on him. “Ah wish,” said Jerry, “Ah might go with you, massa. Yo’ ain’t used to dressin’ yo’self. Yo’ need me to look after yo’.”

  “There will be something more important for you to do,” said Curtis Sinclair. “I hope that before long your mistress will be able to join me. You will be needed to travel with her. Unless you want to remain in this country.”

  “De Lawd forbid.” Jerry kneeling rolled his eyes ceiling ward. “Ah wants to go back to our plantation. So does Cindy. She wants to show her new baby to its pa. She ain’t nebber heard news of him. He may be livin’ and he may be dead.”

  “Well, we shall soon know everything,” said his master. “In the meantime hold yourself in readiness to take charge when I send for you.”

  When the Negro had gone, Curtis Sinclair walked up and down the room in some agitation, while his wife kept her troubled eyes on him, trying to discover all that was in his mysterious mind. The truth was that he was so occupied by the campaign in hand that he had little thought for domestic problems. At last he went to a drawer and, taking out an envelope containing bank notes, put some of them into her hand. He said:

  “This money is for your expenses when I send for you. I would to God it were more.”

  Lucy stared at it almost in consternation. She was so unused to any responsibility. “Wh-what shall I do with it now?” she stammered.

  He snatched it in some irritation from her, put it in a leather wallet and returned it to the drawer. “Leave it there,” he said, “’till the time comes, then give it into Jerry’s keeping. He’s to be trusted. As for those two women, I don’t care a tinker’s curse whether they return with us or remain in Canada. Cindy has complicated travelling by producing a baby. I doubt whether her husband begot it. Annabelle is probably with child by that rascally half-breed.”

  “No, no, I won’t believe that,” she cried. “Belle is a religious girl. She’s cried her eyes out over your anger. I mean when you caught them spooning by the river.”

  “I gave him a bloody nose,” said Curtis Sinclair with satisfaction.

  “These Indians are so revengeful. I am really afraid of what he may do.”

  “He can do nothing to harm me.”

  A shadow of suspense brooded over the house all that day. The following morning the Southerner and his host set out, mounted on spirited horses which seemed as eager to be gone as Curtis Sinclair. “I cannot attempt to thank you and Captain Whiteoak for what you have done for me and mine,” he had said to Adeline. “I never shall be able to repay you, but I hope that, in happier times, you will come to visit us in the South. We have the name of being a hospitable people, but nothing could surpass the hospitality of Jalna.”

  “We have enjoyed every moment of your visit,” declared Adeline.

  The two wives stood together in the porch watching the departure. Their arms were about each other and they smiled as they waved a goodbye. Yet a strange foreboding enveloped them. It seemed to rise out of the very earth which suddenly had taken the aspect of autumnal resignation. Grass and trees looked less green. A few leaves were fallen and a gusty wind shook the branches, as though eager to tear off the fragile armour of summer and expose their limbs to the onslaught of the equinox.

  When the horsemen were halfway to the gate a figure in a blue cotton dress darted from between the trees and on to the drive. It was Annabelle. She fairly flung herself at her master’s stirrup and, clasping his spurred boot in her hands, raised her streaming eyes to his face.

  “Forgive me — forgive me, massa,” she sobbed. “Ah didn’t mean no harm. Ah don’ wanna be left behind when you all go home!”

  Philip Whiteoak laid a soothing hand on the neck of Curtis Sinclair’s restive horse and looked down with distaste into the distorted face of the girl.

  “I won’t have any half-breed babies about,” Sinclair said harshly.

  “No — no — dere won’t be none,” Annabelle sobbed, desperately clinging to his stirrup. He asked:

  “Where is that f
ellow?”

  “Ah don’ know. He’s gone away.”

  “See him once more and you’ll be left behind!”

  “Is yo’ goin’ to sell me, massa?” she wailed.

  “I cannot sell you in Canada and no one would want you as a present.” He urged his horse forward. The pair trotted to the gate, held open by Jerry.

  “Good luck, massa!” he called out. He stood watching them disappear down the road.

  It was nightfall when Philip returned. Adeline drew him into their bedroom and closed the door.

  “What news?” she demanded.

  While she spoke excitedly, Philip answered with deliberation. “Sinclair was met,” he said, “by confederates. He is full of hope but, thinking it over, it seems to me a risky business. He will cross the border into the States tonight. Then his campaign begins. How is Lucy?”

  “She’s bearing up well,” said Adeline, “but she’s very wrought up. Upon my word, I shall be thankful when we settle down into our own life once more.”

  He was surprised. “I thought you enjoyed the Sinclairs’ visit.”

  “So I have, but I’m a little tired of Lucy’s melancholy. She’s not always congenial. Also I’m tired of those blacks who are here, there and everywhere.”

  Philip told her of the encounter with Annabelle on the driveway. “Why do women insist on being miserable?” he exclaimed. “There’s that negress. There’s Lucy Sinclair. There’s Amelia Busby. All determined to be miserable. It’s extraordinary.”

  “Not in the least,” said Adeline. “In every instance it’s the men who make them miserable. As for me, I’m at my wits’ end to keep any sort of order now that Lucius Madigan is gone. God knows he was not much of a disciplinarian but better than none.”

  “You have yourself to blame for Madigan’s marriage.”

  “I had thought it would be easy to find a tutor to replace him but it seems impossible. Just look at that trio. They are completely out of hand.”

  They peered out through the vine-embowered window and saw Augusta dressed in white pacing the lawn with one of Madigan’s books in her hand. She was declaiming from it.

  Ah, Love, but a day,

  And the world has changed!

  The sun’s away,

  And the bird estranged;

  The wind has dropped,

  And the sky’s deranged:

  Summer has stopped!

  Nicholas, the picture of boyish vitality and witless concentration, was walking on a pair of stilts, made for him by Jerry. His dark hair hung in thick waves, almost into his eyes.

  Ernest was aloof; holding the tutor’s compass before him, he sang, “Always I’ve wondered if I was going north or south or east or west. Now I know! I’m going in a circle.”

  A maid passed, carrying the baby Philip who was having a whole-hearted tantrum.

  “’Twould break a mother’s heart,” mourned Adeline, “to see her children so fey.”

  “Well, after all,” said Philip, “they are half Irish.”

  XI

  News from the South

  Life at Jalna settled down to waiting for news of Curtis Sinclair. The weather was dim and, in the mornings, misty. By late afternoon a smoky sunlight gilded the trunks of the pines. The crops of the farmland and orchard were garnered. The children, free of restraint, roamed the estate like young vagabonds, carrying picnics into the woods, riding on the farm horses, or being taken, as a great adventure, to the lake shore to bathe. That shore, bordered by trees, stretched remote and beautiful all the way to Niagara. Life at Jalna was in a state of suspense, waiting for some impending change; it was not clear what it was to be. The two women, Cindy and Annabelle, did nothing to assist their mistress to any state approaching tranquility. Always were they fussing over her, making Southern dishes to tempt her appetite, carrying eggnog laced with sherry to her. They were the centre of continuous quarrels in the kitchen, for they thought nothing was of an importance comparable with her well-being. They continually asked her questions about their master, questions which she would have given much to be able to answer. How soon would Massa send for them? How would they travel back to their homeland? Would he soon send the money needed to buy them new clothes for the journey? Oh, how badly off they were for new shoes! Cindy’s baby had grown apace. Clothes for it had been provided from the outgrown clothes of the Whiteoak children. The tiny Philip sought to play with it, as with a toy. Once, when he saw it being suckled at Cindy’s bursting black breast, he had tugged to dislodge it and himself have a share. Laughing, Cindy took the nipple from her little one’s mouth and, heaving Philip on to her lap, offered it to him. Golden head took the place of woolly black head. The piccaninny was so replete that it made no protest. The two women screamed with laughter.

  Annabelle had almost completely recovered from her infatuation for Tite Sharrow. After the encounter with Curtis Sinclair, he had disappeared. It was supposed he had gone on a visit to relations who lived on an Indian reserve, but again it was said that he had been seen in the company of Yankee spies. It was certain that Wilmott did not know his whereabouts and was inclined to think he would not mind if he never laid eyes on him again, so disgusted was he by Tite’s pursuit of Annabelle. Annabelle herself had returned, heart-sore but not heart-broken, to the shelter of her love of God. For earthly love she now turned to the devotion of Jerry in whose company she felt a security she never had experienced with Tite. In these days, laughter and tears were so imminent, each to each, that sometimes she wept in the midst of laughter, and laughed even while the tears were falling.

  The three Negroes and the black baby took such possession of the basement at Jalna that frequent quarrels reached a climax in which the Whiteoaks’ cook, after receiving her monthly wage, simply disappeared without notice. She was a strong-willed country woman and Adeline depended on her. Without the cook, she wondered how this complicated household could be maintained. Life was altogether too complicated, Adeline told Philip.

  “The house no longer belongs to us,” she said. “Those blacks are everywhere. They are dirty in their habits. As for order, I’ve never in all my life met a woman so untidy as Lucy Sinclair. She goes trailing about in her pink peignoir, with her hair streaming, looking like a dishevelled tragedy queen.”

  “She’s awfully pretty,” said Philip.

  He could scarcely have made a more unfortunate remark. Adeline’s eyes blazed. She retorted:

  “And well she might be, for she never raises a finger to do anything but titivate. As for me, I’m entirely run off my feet. Up and down stairs all day long, trying to keep order, and every other person in the house making disorder.”

  “Come and sit on my knee,” said Philip.

  Adeline gave him a look of fury.

  “Nothing that goes on in this house affects you,” she stormed. “The cook may leave. The kitchen may be taken over by blacks. Your children may become little savages — it does not matter to you, so long as things go well on the farm and in the stables.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Give the boys a taste of my razor strop?”

  “Gussie is no more manageable than they. Today she informed me that she cuts the tangles out of her hair, rather than take the trouble to comb them out. Nicholas spends hours with the blacks. I cannot believe a word Ernest says. Even the baby, Philip, throws his pap on the floor if there is not enough sugar in it to please him.”

  Philip made noises suitable to an outraged father. “I shall attend to them all,” he said heavily.

  Silence fell between them while both brooded on the fact that home was not what it had been. Much as they liked the Sinclairs they could not deny that they wished this prolonged visit were at an end.

  Philip said in a low tone, “Sometimes I wonder whether this venture of the Confederates can succeed. There are strong forces against it.”

  “But their plans are so well laid,” cried Adeline. “They’re bound to succeed.”

  Light footsteps could be heard
running along the gravel sweep. The voice of Nicholas called, “Papa, are you there?”

  Philip went to meet him.

  “Mr. Busby is here,” said the boy breathlessly. “He wants to see you. He has news for Mrs. Sinclair.”

  Elihu Busby now appeared. It was his first visit since the coming of the Southerners. He said, not attempting to hide his triumph, “Well, I guess your slave-owning friend has come to the end of his tether, Captain Whiteoak. He’s met his Waterloo.”

  “What’s this?” demanded Philip.

  Nicholas, now as bold as brass, with his father beside him, demanded in the self-same tone, “Aye — what’s this?”

  Elihu Busby answered, “Simply that this Sinclair was captured by Union soldiers as soon as he crossed the border. He’s been put in irons, I believe, and I don’t doubt that he’ll be hanged.”

  “My God!” said Philip. “This is awful. Some villain has betrayed him.”

  “He’s a dangerous man.” Elihu Busby looked his satisfaction as he added, “They’ve done well to capture him. I’ve said all along that he was up to no good here. I’ve said all along that you and your wife have laid yourself open to suspicion in housing him and his.”

  “Suspicion,” shouted Philip. “It’s no business of Lincoln or his gang what we in this country do. We’re British subjects and have naught to fear from them.”

  “Well,” said Busby, “I just thought I’d let you know what has happened to your fine gentleman from the South.”

  “You’re right,” said Philip. “The Southerners are gentlemen.”

  “They’re defeated,” Busby said, as if laying down the law. “Those hotbeds of cruelty, their plantations, are laid waste. Their miserable slaves are free.”

  “I’ll wager,” said Philip, “that those slaves are happier and as well cared for as the farm hands that work for you.”