The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche

by de la Roche, Mazo

  “Do you think it would be seemly,” Adeline asked of Philip, “to put her in the bedroom that was occupied by Lucius?”

  “It would be the next best thing to having him, I should say,” he grinned.

  So it was arranged, but the children did not want her on the attic floor with them. When she appeared there, looking buxom and abnormally clean, the three gathered about her doorway, with looks more forbidding than welcoming.

  “This room,” said Augusta, “is generally occupied by my dove.”

  “A dove and a parrot in one house,” exclaimed Mrs. Madigan. “Well, I never! And flying loose! Don’t you find that they’re rather dirty?”

  “We don’t mind dirt,” said Nicholas.

  “We like it,” said Ernest, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  Mrs. Madigan gave him a sharp tap on the wrist. “Disgusting boy!” She spoke with severity. “I’m astonished at you.”

  “He’s been told, time and again,” said Augusta, “but he forgets.”

  “He’ll not forget when I’ve been here a little while.” There was something really threatening in her high-coloured face.

  After a little she spoke again. “Don’t allow that bird in my room in future,” she said to Augusta. “It smells.”

  “Mr. Madigan smelt,” said Ernest, and he hastened to add, “My Mamma said so.”

  “He couldn’t,” she almost screamed. “It’s impossible!”

  “He scarcely ever washed,” said Nicholas.

  “This bed is lumpy. He said so,” put in Ernest.

  “I scarcely think,” said Gussie, “that Mr. Madigan would have wanted you to sleep here.”

  “I am his wife,” the governess declared firmly.

  “Are you sure?” asked Ernest.

  The little boy lacked the knowledge that might have made him question the legality of the union. He simply thought that it was queer. But Mrs. Madigan was incensed. “Leave this room at once, all of you, and don’t come near it again till I invite you.”

  Lessons began the following morning and Mrs. Madigan declared that never in her life had she met with such ignorance. “Mr. Madigan really taught us nothing but Latin and poetry,” said Augusta.

  “It’s what you call a classical education,” added Nicholas.

  “And what good will such an education be to you in this country, I’d like to know?” asked Mrs. Madigan, her eyes piercing him like gimlets. “What you need to know is how many cords there are in a woodpile, how much a month you must pay a hired man if he earns three shillings a day. Also many important dates.”

  “I know the date when Columbus discovered America,” said Ernest. “Ten sixty-six.”

  “Wrong!”

  “Mr. Madigan said so.”

  “Ernest is wrong,” said Nicholas, eagerly. “Ten sixty-six is the date of the first Grand National.”

  “Miss Busby,” began Augusta.

  “Mrs. Madigan,” the governess corrected proudly.

  Augusta gave a polite little bow. “Mrs. Madigan,” she said, “do you consider that Shakespeare was the author of his plays?”

  “If he wasn’t I’d like to know who was.”

  “I can tell you,” said Ernest. “It was Charles Lever.”

  Mrs. Madigan was so irritated by this that she slapped him. It was a shock to all three children. They had not expected such an indignity from this woman. Though she had been a neighbour they had seen very little of her. She had appeared to them as a good-natured, rather stupid woman. Now she was in the house with them, in a position of authority.

  “That will teach you,” she said, “to treat me with respect.”

  The slapped cheek turned from pink to red. Ernest, after the first drawing back, sat very straight and regarded her with dignity. Mrs. Madigan treated the other two with almost too much geniality, as though to show them what it was to be in her good graces. But they did not respond. They were conceited, stand-offish children, she reported at home.

  Clean sheets and blankets had been put on the bed she was to occupy. The carpet sweeper had been run over the floor. As Bessie was about to remove the few clothes that Lucius Madigan had left behind him, the governess said peremptorily, “You may leave my husband’s clothes here. I will take charge of them.”

  When Bessie repeated this remark to Mrs. Coveyduck, she scarcely concealed and indeed did not try to conceal her mirth. “It hardly seems respectable,” she said. “And her not married a week.”

  The children stood about the doorway of this bedroom when they had seen Amelia Madigan trudge off in the direction of her home. She scarcely could bear to wait to report on the day’s doings and how she had put young Ernest in his place.

  “Do you suppose,” Augusta asked her brothers, “that she wishes he were back?”

  “Of course she does,” said Nicholas. “She’s dying to have him back.”

  “I wish,” said Ernest, “he would suddenly come back — right into that bed — and slap her face for her.”

  “Shall you tell Mamma and Papa,” asked Nicholas, “what she did to you?”

  “No,” said Ernest. “I’ll get even with her in my own way.”

  His two elders looked on him with wonder, as he dragged the bulky bolster from the bed, turned back the bedclothes and laid the bolster under them. He made the bolster comfortable.

  “Oh, Ernest,” exclaimed Gussie. “It looks almost too natural. I’m afraid it will frighten the wits out of the poor creature.”

  “It’s not natural enough,” said Nicholas. “Do you remember how once he went to bed tight, with his clothes on, and took his pipe with him? He set fire to the bed and that roused him. He put out the fire and asked us not to tell of him and we didn’t and he never told of us.”

  “He was a fine, noble man,” said Ernest.

  “We appreciate him more, now that he’s gone,” said Gussie. She then opened the door of the clothes cupboard and discovered an old tweed jacket of Madigan’s, a battered felt hat, and a strong-smelling pipe.

  Now the children wrapped the jacket round the topmost end of the bolster, drawing the blankets close. They topped the effigy with the battered hat and laid the pipe on the pillow. For a while they stood transfixed by admiration — then, hearing footsteps on the stairs, they ran to Gussie’s room. The dove flew straight to her, alighting on her head. To him no perch in the world was so desirable as this silky black head.

  With fast-beating hearts the children waited.

  They were prepared for something but certainly they were not prepared for the screams of terror given by Mrs. Madigan. These screams came from powerful lungs. She might well have been a singer in Wagnerian opera. They heard her running down the stairs. She ran with such speed that they would scarcely have been surprised if she had landed with one leap in the downstairs hall.

  The children stared at one another in consternation.

  “We builded better than we knew,” said Gussie.

  “She seems frightened,” said Ernest. They saw, through the window, how she was running in the direction of her home. He added, “She’s in the hell of a stew.”

  “If you think,” said Augusta, “that you are admired for the bad language you use, you’re mistaken.”

  “Gussie and I could use worse language if we chose,” said Nicholas, “but we have too much sense.”

  “Let’s hear just a little of it,” said Ernest. “You might go first, Gussie.”

  But all three now had the same impulse — to investigate Lucius Madigan’s bed. It was just as they had left it. Mrs. Madigan had not discovered the hoax. Carefully they put everything in order.

  An hour later they were sent for to come down to the sitting room. It was growing dark and a bright fire sparkled on the hearth. Adeline and Philip sat like two judges. Nero lay on the bearskin rug. The heat of the fire was so great that it made him pant. He would then rise and take himself to a cooler spot, but as soon as he ceased panting he would return to the rug. Adeline was crocheting a tea cozy. Phi
lip was playing cat’s cradle with his youngest who was seated on his knee. As the three elder children entered he demanded, in his most army officer’s tone:

  “What’s this I hear about your governess?”

  “Actually,” said Gussie, “we don’t know what you’ve heard.”

  “What do you mean by that, miss?” he asked with severity.

  “We could answer better if we knew,” she said.

  “You mean you could make up fabrications to suit the occasion,” said Adeline.

  “What I want is the plain truth,” said Philip. “What did you do to her?”

  “I think it upset her pretending her husband was back.”

  “After all my trouble of engaging her,” put in Adeline, “she’s gone off without notice and sent a man for her bags.”

  “What if she’s taken your ivory pen, Papa?” asked Ernest.

  “No impertinence from you, young man,” said his father.

  “Ernest,” said Adeline, “come and hold my wool.”

  He went at once happily, feeling that they two were in league together. If there was one indoor pastime above another that he enjoyed, it was holding wool to be wound or stringing beads, and he did both very well indeed.

  “Me too!” said the tiny Philip. “Me ’old ’ool too!” He struggled to get down from his father’s knee.

  “He says he wants to hold wool too,” said Ernest.

  “I can’t teach him anything,” said Philip senior. “When I was his age I could play a first-rate game of dominoes.” He set the little one on the floor.

  “You still can play quite well,” Nicholas said kindly.

  His father stretched out an arm as though to fell him where he stood, but changed his mind, folded his arms across his broad chest, and stared gloomily into the fire. He said to Adeline, “I was against your engaging Amelia Busby —”

  “Amelia Madigan,” corrected Augusta.

  “It was no sort of marriage,” he went on. “The woman strikes me as illiterate. Madigan could never have put up with her.”

  “She can both read and write,” said Augusta.

  “Before she was married she had taught school,” said Adeline.

  Philip groaned. “I could not put up with that woman about the house,” he said. “I have enough to put up with as it is.”

  “You are very seldom about the house, Papa,” said Nicholas.

  “I am a busy man,” Philip declared. “I oversee the sowing and reaping of crops. The setting out of orchards. The breeding of horses, cattle, and sheep. I am the first one out of bed in the morning and the last to retire at night. With the winter coming on I shall have much more leisure.”

  “Every season has its disadvantages,” said Augusta.

  “It is a great mistake,” said Philip, “for any child here to think that, just because I appear good-natured and easygoing, I will tolerate any impertinence.” He threw a pine log on the fire with such force that sparks flew in all directions and Nero leapt on the sofa for safety.

  Darkness came like a black curtain outside the window but indoors it was defeated by the springing firelight, by the vivid colouring of the family. To shut out the darkness completely Bessie now came in and drew the curtains. Seeing her the baby Philip well knew it was his bedtime and crept underneath the sofa where Nero lay, to hide himself. Usually his father would have protected him but now he said with a frown:

  “Carry him off, Bessie. It’s already past his bedtime. He’s getting completely out of hand.”

  Dragged from his retreat, the little fellow held up beseeching arms. “Awnt to tiss evbody,” he begged. He pursed his scarlet lips in readiness.

  “He says he wants to kiss everybody,” translated Ernest, eager to show off.

  “When I want you to tell me what Philip says I’ll ask you,” said their father.

  “But he speaks so badly,” faltered Ernest.

  “He speaks as plainly as you do and at least knows when to hold his tongue.”

  Philip senior rose with a groan, as though suffering from lumbago, and went to his desk, where lay a box of cigarettes, and took one. He had lately begun to smoke these in preference to pipe or cigar, but to Adeline they appeared unmanly.

  She whispered to Ernest, “You did wrong, my dear, in keeping the ivory pen.”

  “Is that what’s annoying him?” he whispered back, with a look askance at his papa.

  “Yes. He won’t be happy till he gets it.” She gave her husband a loving glance, as though in proof of her understanding of him.

  “You see that smoke coming from his nostrils?” she whispered, her lips close to Ernest’s pink ear.

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  “That’s rage. Smouldering rage — ready to blaze up. We shall have no peaceful times at Jalna till you restore the ivory pen.”

  “Very well, I will,” he assented, shouldering the burden of the pen, just as though she had had nothing to do with it, which was what she intended.

  Ernest pondered for some time over the best way of restoring the pen, and decided that nothing could be better than the manner in which he had restored the gold pen. He wondered what had become of it and decided that it had been sold for the benefit of the missionary society for which the collection on that Sunday had been taken.

  Tomorrow it was Sunday again, the first Sunday in December.

  The falling of the wind that had blown throughout the month of November, the sudden stillness, the swift drop in temperature, announced the arrival of winter. Above all, enveloping all, was a heavy snowfall. Off and on there had been snow flurries but nothing like this. All the night long large snowflakes fell, slowly, tranquilly, without ceasing, as though they were conscious that there was plenty of time for what they planned to do. This plainly was to obliterate every landmark from the countryside — to smother hedges, fences, and gates, to leave no trace of paths, to render the most stalwart of trees no more than nesting places for the snowflakes. Boughs bent with the weight of them. Every gatepost was majestically crowned.

  The stillness was remarkable. The sky leaned low. The earth appeared to give up the ghost.

  Philip had been preparing for this. Sharp at ten-thirty the large family sleigh was brought to the front door by a stableman. It shone like a piano. Bear skins hung from the back and others were folded neatly on the seats, ready to cover the knees of the ensconced family. The pair of bays were fairly snorting and pawing the snow in their eagerness to be off, excited by the ringing jangle of the strings of bells that were attached to their harness. Above their shoulders hung a silver bell whose melodious notes were in contrast to the wild jangle of the harness bells.

  The horses could barely be restrained while the family settled themselves in the sleigh. Baby Philip was held in Bessie’s arms at a window to see them off. He threw kisses to them as they moved away and they threw kisses back. His father saluted him with the whip, on which there was a bow of red ribbon. He wore a wedge-shaped cap of beaver. Adeline was in a sealskin sack, and a small sealskin toque showed her gleaming hair to advantage, rivalling the ruddy tones of the sealskin. Augusta looked quite a young lady in a red velvet jacket trimmed with the same fur. When entering the church, the boys pulled off their woolly caps and their hair stood defiantly on end. Augusta gave each an admonishing look.

  Ernest sat between his parents. One hand was in the pocket of his jacket, his eyes were fixed on his prayer book of which he was very proud, as his aunt had sent it him from England one Christmas. He could scarcely bear to wait for the collecting of the offertory. A sense of goodness and peace possessed him. Life stretched before him as a succession of happy Sundays, with now and again a birthday or Christmas thrown in.

  This pen which he now fingered was not only of fine ivory but was delicately carved in a design of lilies and their graceful leaves. It was remarkable that so much could have been put into so small a space.

  Ernest was lost in thought when Philip left the pew and joined Brawn, the miller. He then appeared with th
e alms dish for the contributions from his family. Adeline, Gussie and Nicholas laid their donations on the dish and glanced toward Ernest with a certain expectancy.

  From his pocket he took the ivory pen and placed it with a flourish in the centre. He then raised his eyes to his father’s face, half-timidly but certain that this was an act of renunciation.

  Philip’s eyebrows shot up, but he did not for a moment hesitate. Briskly he took the pen from the alms dish and stuck it above his ear. Like a clerk in a dry goods shop he marched up the aisle while the organ broke into the voluntary. He stood, self-contained, stalwart, at the chancel steps, with the ivory pen behind his ear. Returning to his pew he gave a roguish wink at Ernest.

  XVIII

  A NIGHT VISITOR

  In a strange way this fall, this Christmas time, this winter, seemed to Augusta a new experience. It was almost as though she had been born again. She no longer felt a child as formerly. She did not consciously think about Guy Lacey but he glimmered in and out of her thoughts like a bright thread in the pattern of a tapestry. For the first time in her young life, she wondered what that life would be. Friends never asked her, as they asked Nicholas, what profession she would choose. “The Army, of course,” he would answer, “and after I retire, a farm in Canada.” If anybody asked the same question of Ernest, he would say, “I shall stay at home always with Papa and Mamma.” Everybody took it for granted that she, being a girl, would marry and go to the home of her husband. What would it be like, she wondered, to be the wife of a naval officer and have no proper home?

  It had been arranged, some months ago, that the two eldest children would be taken that fall to England and placed in schools there, while the two youngest would remain in Canada, under reliable care. This, however, could not be done, because no reliable person was at hand. Mrs. Coveyduck was out of the question, as already she was unable to control little Philip; and Ernest was so forward that he required someone capable of teaching him. “A pity,” said their father, “that the Irishman and the Busby girl turned out so badly.”