Wilmott took these lessons seriously. He found the minds of his pupils an interesting contrast. He found they knew more than he gave them credit for. The Irishman had, in his erratic way, taught them a great deal. In spite of their advantages they were not such good students as was the half-breed, Titus Sharrow. He had a power of concentration which they lacked. He took such pride in what he had learned, yet sometimes Wilmott wondered if he had, in any degree, changed from the young barbarian he had first known. While the lessons were in progress Tite usually stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen, his arms folded, his intent eyes fixed first on one face, then on another. Usually he preserved a decorous silence, but when Wilmott’s enthusiasm or wit was suddenly pointed by the telling phrase, Tite would double over in silent laughter and slap his thigh.
Nero would become so overheated that he would gather himself up with a groan, move to a cooler spot and cast himself down with another groan. But soon he would return to the heat of the stove.
Early in the year the young mulatto woman Annabelle had found her way back to Jalna and been made welcome by Adeline and the cook, Mrs. Coveyduck. She had tales to tell of devastation in the South that fairly wrung the hearts of these two. Where their feelings were at variance was in their attitude towards the proposed marriage between Tite and Annabelle. To Adeline it was an unmixed blessing — a good-natured healthy young woman to serve Wilmott, to keep the cottage clean and to keep Tite satisfied. What would happen to Wilmott if Tite went to the West, as sometimes he threatened to do! “He’ll never stay there,” said Philip. “A lazy dog like Tite. In the West they work.”
As for Mrs. Coveyduck, she never had trusted Tite and thought Annabelle far too good for him. The airs he gave himself were infuriating to her. Yet when she found that Annabelle loved Tite and that nothing would dissuade her, she knitted a “cloud,” as they called it, in light blue wool, to keep her warm on her honeymoon, and mittens of the same colour.
But there was no proper honeymoon. Adeline had said to Wilmott: “James, I think you are the man to give Annabelle away. I am arranging the ceremony. It will be a bit of fun to brighten this long wintertime.”
“Fun!” he had repeated. “I don’t call getting married fun. And if I must give anyone away it will be Tite.”
That made her laugh. She was exhilarated by the thought that Wilmott would acquire an industrious and docile servant, at no wage beyond her keep. She brought two goose-feather pillows to the little room off Wilmott’s kitchen which Belle and Tite were to occupy. On top of the pillows she laid two frilled pillow shams on which were outlined in red stitching the words: I Slept and Dreamt that Life was Beauty. I Woke and Found that Life was Duty.
When Tite saw these he was as deeply impressed as even Adeline could have wished.
“Boss,” he said, “always have I desired elegance and now I have it. Annabelle and I shall sleep and dream of beauty. You, Boss, will wake with the smell of bacon and potatoes frying, making a cheerful tickling in your nostrils….” Tite was thoughtful for a space, while Wilmott ostentatiously buried himself in a book.
“May I know what you are reading, Boss?” Tite asked.
“The marriage service,” answered Wilmott. “I want to know what you are going to promise.”
Tite asked, as though shocked, “Do you forget the marriage ceremony, Boss?”
“I forget,” Wilmott said tersely.
“I think it will be best,” Tite said, “for Belle and me to go to the Indian Reserve and be married by the minister there. My grandmother would be very happy to meet the bride and we could visit her for a few days and meet other members of her tribe. It will be educational for Belle and a great occasion for my grandmother.”
Wilmott was relieved by this suggestion. The less he saw of the newlyweds the better pleased he would be. Sometimes he regretted that he had given permission for the pair to move into his cottage. He was so snug there but he was lonely in the long winter evenings. He missed Tite’s lively presence — there was no doubt about that.
Therefore when, with a jingle of sleigh bells and a small blizzard, the young couple appeared one early evening at his door, he made them welcome. He had not before noticed, or had forgotten, how pretty Belle was. In fact they were a charming young couple. They established themselves without fuss in the little room off the kitchen. As Tite had foretold, Wilmott woke in the morning with the delicious smell of hot muffins in his nostrils. Never had he tasted such coffee as Belle made. Never had he realized that chicken could be so richly and yet tenderly cooked. And the young wife was as quiet as a mouse about the cottage. She wore carpet slippers. Never did she raise her voice. Tite also was quieter, more thoughtful for Wilmott’s comfort. Little did Wilmott guess the hilarity which took possession of the mulatto and the half-breed when his presence was removed, when he went to a neighbouring house for dinner or to spend the evening. Tite and Belle would sing, dance, and shout. They would chase each other through the cottage without restraint. They would fairly raise the roof.
As the winter drew on Wilmott allowed Tite to take a hand in the teaching of the children. He discovered that Tite had an amazing talent for interesting the young Whiteoaks in their studies. He felt that here was a born teacher. At the same time he would not be sorry when the children left for England and school. He enjoyed having them as pupils, yet they took up altogether too much of his day. The children themselves had never been so happy. They had a warm affection for Wilmott. They found an exciting teacher in Tite. When Annabelle appeared each mid-morning carrying a tray on which were a pot of cocoa and a dish of hot buttered corn cake, they beamed their happiness. The boys did not look forward. They lived in the present. But Augusta awaited the spring as a time of wonderful happenings.
The season of Lent brought still heavier snowfalls. Snowshoeing was a delight, especially when the sun, gaining heat as spring approached, softened the surface of the snow and, when the icy cold of night enveloped the land, a firm glittering crust was formed. What glorious fun to slide down their favourite hillside, squatting on their snowshoes!
On Good Friday Wilmott left the teaching to Tite. Wilmott was assisting the rector with the Easter music and was spending the day between church and rectory. The children had been invited, with Wilmott’s consent, to spend the day at the cottage. Belle had prepared a feast for the midday dinner. She and Tite waited at table with mock formality, but soon the formality had disappeared and the five were seated together, eating lemon pie, eating nuts and raisins, and drinking blackcurrant cordial. Tite smoked one of Wilmott’s cigars. Now and again, stretched on the sofa, he uttered a whoop of uncontrollable animal spirits.
Presently Annabelle grew serious. “This is a real solemn day,” she said. “The day of Our Lawd’s Crucifixion. We’d ought to be thinkin’ of dat and not jes playin’.”
“What can we do to make us feel solemn?” asked Ernest.
“Think of Mrs. Madigan,” suggested Nicholas.
“She just makes me feel sick,” said Ernest.
Annabelle sat, with eyes rolled ceilingward, in silence for a space, then she said, “Ah know what we could do. Act a religious play. I saw one at home long time ago — before the war. We could show the mob wantin’ to crucify Our Lord. We could show the Crucifixion — not really — jes pretend, Ah mean —” and she gave a reassuring pat to Ernest’s shoulder — “then we could have the glory of the Resurrection.”
“Explain,” said Augusta. “It would be a lovely thing to do.”
As Belle unfolded the plan of acting the sacred events, all five occupants of the room became equal — the three young Whiteoaks, the lithe half-breed, the freed slave. She indeed was the instructor. The others hung speechless on her words till Tite exclaimed:
“I will take the part of a soldier.”
“Do you feel that you can do it properly?” Augusta asked.
“Just watch me,” he said fervently.
Exalted, Annabelle stared admiringly at Augusta. “Little Missus,�
� she said, “you sure ought to be the Madonna, ’cause you have the right face and the beautiful hair.”
Tite stared at Gussie, as though he had never before seen her clearly.
“What shall I be?” came from Ernest.
“You gonna be our Lawd,” said Belle.
“And me?” demanded Nicholas. “Somebody horrible, please.”
“Pilate,” at once said Belle. “I guess Tite and me will jes’ have to be the mob.”
“Right,” agreed Nicholas. “Let’s get things moving while there’s time.”
They cleared the room for the play — all but Tite who went to the woodshed and returned carrying two pieces of scantling nailed together in the form of a cross. This he laid on the floor.
“You’ll not really crucify me?” Ernest, in spite of the fact that he had been chosen for the part of Jesus, was beginning to be a little frightened.
“We not gonna tech a hair of yo’ dear little head,” promised Annabelle, and put her arm about him. She brought a piece of white linen and wrapped him in it.
“He should be naked,” said Tite.
Ernest’s modesty was revolted by this. Annabelle exclaimed, “No, no. He look jes’ fine the way he is.” She laid her blue scarf about Augusta’s shoulders and brushed her long hair. Belle was in her element. She placed each child to the best effect. Nicholas washed his hands in a basin of water and said loudly, “I find no fault in this man.”
Tite shouted “Crucify him!” and leaped about Ernest in what resembled an Indian war dance. He picked up Ernest and laid him on the cross. Augusta knelt at his feet, shedding real tears. Nicholas forgot he was Pilate and joined Tite in dancing and uttering wild yells. Belle forgot she was civilized and leaped up and down, her head almost striking the ceiling, while she screamed, “Save us, Lawd!” Ernest lay on the cross, his little pink hands clenching and unclenching in imagined pain. Nero barked with all his strength. The situation was entirely out of control.
The room was stuffing hot. No one in it perceived the faces at the window. It was not until there came a thunderous knock on the door (Tite had bolted it) that it was thrown open and Wilmott, Adeline, and Philip were disclosed on the threshold. After the din in the room the silence that fell was frightening.
XX
PUNISHMENT
The silence was broken by Wilmott who said — in a voice no one in the room had heard before — “I’m ashamed of you. Ashamed of every one of you.”
Philip boomed, “It’s an orgy. Nothing less than an orgy.”
“What would have been the end to it,” Adeline said, “if we had not come on the scene, I hate to think.” She added, in a voice quivering with curiosity, “But I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”
Tite kept his head. He stood up, very dignified and straight. He said, “We did get a little excited, but” — he waved an inviting hand — “if you, lady and gentlemen, will sit down, we’ll act out the play and you’ll see that we meant no harm.”
Annabelle was crying without restraint.
When the door had been opened Nero had shot out into the snow. Now he was scratching on the door to come in again.
Wilmott said, “The first thing for you young people to do is to tidy up.”
“Ernest,” said Philip, “take off that white thing. Gussie and Nicholas, get ready to come home.”
“Shall we put on our snowshoes?” they asked.
“Let me explain,” said Tite.
“I want no explanations from you.” Philip’s frown would have made most young men quail but Tite’s face was impassive. He said, addressing Wilmott, “You know me, Boss, and you know I would do nothing to disgrace you. What we were acting was a religious play. We were carried away by our feelings. It’s a beautiful thing, Boss, to be carried away by religious inspiration.”
“Take Annabelle to her room,” Wilmott said tersely. He stood with folded arms as Tite led the weeping mulatto away. “I’m terribly sorry this has happened,” he added to Adeline.
“It goes to show how little the dark races can control themselves. Now if I had been here I should have taken them in hand and made the play truly religious.” Her eyes shone. She looked down in wonder at the cross on which her small son had been stretched.
“You probably would have been jumping and screaming with the best of them,” said Philip in an undertone.
It was seldom that the children were taken out at night in the big red sleigh with the buffalo robes. But now they were tucked snugly into the back seat, the fur rug up to their chins, their flushed cheeks tingling in the icy air, their ears filled with the splintered music of the sleigh bells. The night was so clear that every sound, every sight, became brilliantly intensified. The moon rose up into the blueness of the sky, casting the shadows of the trees in splendour on the snow, turning the manes of the horses into flying metal.
Adeline delighted in the dashing over the smooth road, the boundless glittering solitude. “Can’t we go home the long way by the church, Philip? I do adore sleigh riding on a night like this. It’s as though we owned the earth.”
So they went the long way, but Nero went the short way and was waiting on the porch for them when they jingled up the drive between the rows of snow-laden spruces and hemlocks. Adeline and the children went indoors (Ernest ready to drop from sleepiness) but Philip took the horses and sleigh to the stables.
When he returned on foot, his long strides crunching the snow, moonlight still flooded the land, the moon in its majestic power reducing the earth to no more than its footstool. Inside the hall Philip listened. He could hear his family moving about in the sitting room. Ernest was saying, “Mamma, I’m hungry,” in a whiny voice, and her reply, “And so am I. It takes a sleigh ride to give one an appetite.” She had so enjoyed this that she had forgotten the disgraceful scene at the cottage and beamed at her children. All divested themselves of their wraps and when she sank into a chair and Nicholas knelt at her feet to draw off her fur-lined boots, Ernest climbed on to her lap and repeated, “Mamma, I’m hungry.” Nero picked up one of the snow boots, gave it a thorough shaking, and carried it under the sofa.
In a sonorous voice Philip remarked from the doorway, “So — this is the way you young ’uns are being punished. Well, you won’t feel so pert when I’ve done with you.”
Adeline chimed in with, “And you’ll feel still less pert when I’ve done with you.” She pushed Ernest off her lap, and reached out to give Nicholas a slap.
He evaded it and said, “We were not really to blame. It was Tite and Belle. She’d seen something like it in the South.”
“You should not have taken part in such a performance,” answered Philip. “That couple are a bad example to you. Very well, you’re off — the three of you — to England in the spring — to schools which will discipline you as you’ve never before been disciplined.”
The thought of being left at home while Augusta and Nicholas went to England had been almost unbearable to Ernest. Now the news that he was to accompany them to a terrifying English school was even worse. As always when he was upset, Ernest’s stomach clamoured for food. He whined, “I’m hungry.”
“To bed! All of you,” ordered their father.
“Thank you for a lovely sleigh ride,” said Ernest.
“That sleigh ride,” said Philip, “was to please your mother. You just happened to be there.” He smiled into his blond moustache. “You may count yourselves lucky that you’re not to be thrashed till the morning.”
Three pairs of mournful eyes looked into his.
“We’re to be thrashed in the morning?” quavered Nicholas.
“Before or after breakfast?” asked Ernest.
Philip considered. “Before breakfast,” he said. “Razor strop.”
“What about Gussie?” asked Nicholas.
“Her mother will deal with her.”
“I’d rather you did,” said Augusta, sedately.
“What? You’d rather I did?”
“Yes, Papa.”
Adeline looked smug. “You see,” she said, “they really stand in awe of me.”
“Might I,” asked Ernest, “have one little dry crust of bread?”
Philip sprang up, went through the wide doorway to the dining room, and returned with the biscuit jar which was in the shape of a wooden barrel with silver bands. “Take these,” he said, “and eat them in your rooms. Then straight to bed.”
He dragged Nero from under the sofa and rescued Adeline’s snow boot from him. “A buckle is missing,” he said, and spoke sternly to Nero who immediately spat it out.
Augusta took it to her mother, asking at the same time, “Would you mind telling me what my punishment is to be, mamma?”
“A dose of rhubarb powder,” grinned Adeline. “Twill be both punishment and cure, for it has an abominable taste and will likely save you from a bilious attack.”
“But why should I have a bilious attack?”
“You know as well as I do how excitement affects your liver.”
The two small boys were already on their way upstairs with the biscuits and now Augusta followed them. She wanted nothing to eat, the horrid vision of the rhubarb powder hovered before her. She felt ill.
Her room was deluged by moonlight. She closed the door behind her. She gave herself up to the silence and the moonlight. She was experiencing one of her lonely times. She seemed to belong to no one, no place. Not even to Jalna. Yet the thought of going away frightened her. If only she could fly away with her dove and be lost — the two of them — in some ancient and beautiful land! But, though she felt light spiritually, she was more conscious of her body than ever before. Her arms and legs felt heavy, her head strangely light. She felt a strange dizzy resentment towards the way her parents treated her. Their half-jocular sternness, their refusal to consider her as almost grown up. If Guy Lacey were here, she thought, he would protect me.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 56