To have faced her with a look that was almost intimidating — to have ordered her from the room! A smile of ironic admiration bent Adeline’s lips.
“It was little sleep I had last night,” was her greeting to Augusta next morning.
“I’m sorry for that, Mamma. You generally sleep so well.”
“I don’t complain, but many a wakeful night I’ve had, worrying over my children. You and Edwin did well, Augusta, whether intentionally or from lack of ability, not to have any.”
“Is it anything special, Mamma? Will you care to tell me?”
It is enough to scandalize the countryside. Are the children with Mary Wakefield?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“As soon as I’ve had a little food to stay me, I want to see Philip.”
“Alone, Mamma?”
“No. I want you all to be there. Tell Philip to be waiting in the library.”
The children were not with Mary. They had wakened at the usual time, been the first to have breakfast, a meal which Mary almost invariably shared with them. Now, this morning, being free of restraint, they had wild spirits; Renny, although the smaller, able to run faster, leading the way, Meg panting close behind, her light brown mane flying. They were off to the pig-sty to see a new family of piglets, pink and clean, squirming beside the protective bulk of their mother.
Philip discovered them there, long past lesson time, and sent them back to the house. Up the two flights of stairs they ran, and, on tiptoe, went into the schoolroom. Mary was not there. The door of her bedroom was shut.
“Her headache’s worse,” giggled Meg. “She’s going to stay in bed.”
“Hurrah!”
“We shall have the day off.”
“Hurrah!”
“Let’s sneak out of the house, down into the ravine, over the bridge, through the woods, pretending we’re Indians.”
“Hurrah!”
“We’ll go to the Vaughans. Mrs. Vaughan bought six baskets of peaches yesterday, I heard her say.”
“They’re putting a ring in a boar’s nose! Hodge told me. Let’s run. We may be in time.”
They were gone and no one saw them go.
When Adeline had had her third cup of tea she rose and sailed majestically toward the sitting-room. She seated herself in a high-backed chair, the light from the window full in her face. She could see the wild clouds of the Equinox already gathering to obscure the sun. One cloud sent down a scatter of glittering raindrops and then moved away.
Nicholas came into the room with his tolerant look of a man-of-the-world that said nothing that might happen could surprise or upset him.
“Good morning, Mamma,” he said, kissing the top of her head, “you slept late this morning.”
“I did and no wonder, for I lay awake half the night worrying about the goings on in this house.”
Nicholas blew out his cheeks. “Well, Gussie told me something was troubling you. Let’s hope it isn’t serious.”
“Should I be lying awake if it weren’t serious?”
“Of course not. Will you tell me what the trouble is?”
“Wait till we all are here. Where are the others? Why don’t they come?”
“They’re coming.”
Augusta, Sir Edwin and Ernest now entered the room. Augusta seated herself on the sofa. Ernest, after greeting his mother, sat down beside Augusta. Sir Edwin stood hesitating.
“Perhaps,” he said, “I had better not intrude.”
“It will be no intrusion,” returned his mother-in-law. “I want you.”
“I am sure,” said Augusta, “that, if advice on any delicate matter is needed, yours will be most valuable.”
“This matter,” Adeline said decisively, “is not delicate.”
“Has this matter to do with Philip?” asked Ernest.
“It has.”
“And Miss Wakefield?”
“Yes.”
“Dear me.”
Augusta put in, “Perhaps, after all, Edwin had better go.”
Adeline gave her sudden mordant grin. “It’s never too late to learn,” she said.
“How true that is,” exclaimed Ernest. “Only a few years ago I knew practically nothing of the Stock Market. Now I have, you might say, its intricacies at my fingertips.” He placed the tips of his delicate fingers together and smiled complacently.
His family looked at him with respect.
“Where is Philip?” demanded Adeline. “Ernest, do go and find him.”
“I hope he is in a better temper than he was last night,” said Nicholas.
Philip’s voice came from the hall. “Anybody calling me?”
“I think you had my message,” answered Adeline.
He stood in the doorway. He said, “What’s all this about?” He looked his usual good-tempered self.
“Sit down, sit down, my dear,” said his mother. “We want a few explanations from you.”
Sir Edwin flushed. “Not I. Really not I, Philip.”
Philip gave a short laugh. He sat down just inside the door.
“Well, after all,” thought Sir Edwin, “it’s his house. He has a right to do as he likes in it.”
Jake came in and sat between Philip’s feet.
Adeline clutched her chin in her hand as a man might clutch his beard. She regarded Philip in silence for a space and then asked, “Tell me, Philip, have you considered Miss Wakefield to be a young woman of character you were willing to entrust your children to?”
The good humour left his face. He frowned.
“I certainly have.”
“Shut the door, Philip.”
He put out his hand and shut the door.
“Yet,” she went on, “that girl became engaged to Clive Busby who is as fine a young fellow as I know, and, while preparing for her marriage to him, allowed you to go right on making love to her.”
“I’ve scarcely spoken to her in these weeks. There’s been nothing between us.”
“No? What about your meeting in the orchard last evening?”
“Did Noah Binns come and tell you that?”
“No. He told Lily Pink and she told me.”
“Little fool.”
“You don’t deny that there was a passionate love scene between you?”
“Noah Binns! Passion! You make me laugh. I thought his mind rose no higher than bugs and blight.”
Adeline fastened on the last word. “Blight! That’s what she’s been. A blight on this place. She is to marry Clive Busby next week. Yet she clasps you in her arms and —”
“Come now,” he interrupted, “don’t tell me that Noah went into details! Or perhaps it was Lily.”
Adeline raised her voice, her eyes blazed into his.
“Don’t try to be funny over this, Philip. I won’t have it. And I don’t need Noah Binns to tell me what that woman is to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that she is your mistress.”
“That’s a lie!” he shouted.
Adeline sprang to her feet. “Do you dare tell me I lie?”
He answered more quietly, “It’s malicious gossip, whoever is responsible for it. Mary is as virtuous as any girl living.”
“I repeat,” said Adeline, “that she is your mistress.” She held up her hand, in a peremptory gesture. “She told me so herself.”
A shock of consternation went through the room. Ernest rose and took a step forward, as though he would put himself between his mother and Philip who had turned startlingly pale. Nicholas tugged at his moustache, to hide the sardonic smile that hardened his lips. Augusta’s sallow face flushed deeply. Sir Edwin nibbled at some inaudible words. He took out his watch and looked at the time. Time for a row, he nibbled inaudibly, time for a row.
“Mother,” said Philip, his voice trembling, “can you look me in the face and tell me that?”
“I can. I went up to her room last night.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I w
anted to give her a chance to defend herself.”
“When was this? Where was I?”
“In bed. As I say I went up to her room —”
“Poor little thing!” exclaimed Philip.
“Don’t worry about her. She can look after herself. She’s an adventuress with a past behind her. Now — don’t interrupt … I asked her, quite simply, what she meant by preparing to marry young Busby and at the same time carrying on a love affair with you. She had nothing to say for herself. Then I asked her, plump and plain, if she was your mistress. She wouldn’t answer. Then I said, ‘He’s been up to your room at night, hasn’t he?’ And she said ‘Yes,’”
“She didn’t understand you,” cried Philip.
Adeline’s flexible lips curled in scorn. “Not understand me! Do I generally make myself clear? She understood me well enough. I repeated, ‘Are you his mistress?’ Oh, she understood! You might as well try to paint a blackamoor white as to make her out virtuous.”
“She could not have understood you,” he repeated doggedly.
“Bring her down! I’d like to hear her deny it.”
“I will, by God!”
He flung open the door and leaped up the stairs, two steps at a time. Jake, thinking this was some new game, ran after him joyously barking. They could be heard ascending the second flight of stairs. Then nothing more could be heard.
“I should like,” observed Sir Edwin, “to know what they are saying up there.”
“You are much better not knowing,” said his wife.
“It was I,” said Ernest, “who brought this trouble on us, and I’m very sorry about it. I never was more deceived in my life. The next time a governess is engaged, someone else can choose her.”
“What astounds me,” said Nicholas, “is that she’d be so brazen. Tell the truth, Mamma, weren’t you surprised?”
“I was indeed.”
“What do you say she’ll do now?”
“Philip’s coming!”
All faces turned expectantly toward the door.
Philip was alone. Augusta and Ernest looked relieved; Adeline, Nicholas and Sir Edwin disappointed.
“She’s not there,” said Philip quickly. “She’s gone!”
“She’s out with the children,” suggested Ernest.
“She’s gone, I tell you! Her trunk is packed. Her portmanteau gone. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”
“Eliza has made the bed,” said Augusta.
“No. She was up there and I asked her. She said the room was just as it is now when she went into it.” He turned to Adeline. “You have driven Mary away. God only knows what you have shocked her into doing.” His eyes were tragic. In his excitement he had run his hand through his hair. Standing erect it added to his distraught appearance.
Adeline laughed derisively. “Me shock her? Ah, my dear, she’s not so easily shocked. She can look out for herself. But brazen as she is, she could not face us this morning after what she told me last night.”
“I tell you she didn’t know what she was saying!”
“Have sense, Philip,” Nicholas put in tersely. “Mary Wakefield is no ignorant schoolgirl.”
“Indeed,” added Sir Edwin, “she seems to be a woman of strong character.”
“I was taught,” said Augusta, “to look on such a character as frail.”
“Now then, Philip,” Adeline spoke with an air of finality, “it’s time to put this nonsense out of your head. I have no doubt that you are not the first with Mary Wakefield. Nor will you be the last …”
“I will not hear another word against her,” he shouted. “And if you won’t believe her, perhaps you’ll believe me. I have never been to bed with her. I swear it — though I despise myself for going to the trouble of denying what anyone who knows Mary …” he could not go on. He stood, with his hands clenched, glaring at them.
“But surely,” said Ernest, “no girl would knowingly damage her own character.”
“She did know,” declared Adeline. “She knew exactly what I said and what she said.”
“Then she is deranged,” said Philip.
“Perhaps her derangement is just love for you,” suggested Nicholas, “and disappointment because she isn’t getting you.”
“She is getting me! Make no mistake about that. I’m going now to find her and I’m going to marry her.”
“You fool,” cried Adeline, “you would marry a girl who will have no rag of reputation left after this!”
In the hall Renny began to sing, in his penetrating treble voice, the new song he had just learned from a stableman.
“‘Ta ra ra boom de-ay
Ta ra ra boom de-ay’”
Adeline called him and he appeared, red-cheeked, red-haired, brown-eyed, brown-jacketed, as in autumn colouring. He had forgotten he had run away but now he remembered and stood rigid.
“Have you seen your governess this morning?” asked Adeline.
“No, Granny. She’s sick.”
“How do you know?”
“She didn’t come out of her room?”
“And you haven’t heard anything about her?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Very well. Run along now.”
His brow cleared. He relaxed and ran out singing:
“‘Ta ra ra boom de-ay
Ta ra ra boom de-ay’”
XVII
ESCAPE
WITH HER EAR to the panel of the door Mary could hear that Adeline was descending the stairs. She listened for a moment, even after all was silent. Then she came back and stood facing her reflection in the mirror. It was as though she looked at a stranger. A different Mary was looking out at her, a Mary with dilated nostrils and bold, defiant eyes. A stranger. She laughed at her own reflection in triumph. I had the best of Mrs. Whiteoak, she thought, she was dumbfounded, she didn’t know what to say. I had the best of her.
She began to pace up and down the room, unable to think clearly, except for that one thought — I had the best of her. She came up here to humiliate me, to accuse me, but I took the wind out of her sails. She thought she’d frighten me but I was equal to her! Those eyes of hers that seem to blaze into yours — but she found mine could blaze back. Never in my life had I such a moment. It was like something on the stage, only they’d never dare put such a scene on the stage — a girl declaring she was loose, when she was — just the reverse! It would upset all ideas of morality. It would be shameful. People would say what a horrible play. And no wonder! I am a horrible woman … Yet I don’t mind … I don’t care … All that matters to me is that I got the best of her. I did not allow myself to be intimidated. Every single bit of her has been intimidating to me — the way her eyes are set in her head, the way she uses her hands. There’s been something fatal in her for me. But tonight she must have felt stunned … She must be wondering at this minute what on earth to do. She must be wondering what I am going to do. That girl, she’ll think, can never marry Clive now! What if she intends to marry my Philip?
Philip. His name was like a cold hand laid on her heart. Her exalted brain halted in its imaginings. Her taut nerves slackened. Suddenly her legs felt weak and she sat down on the bed. She stared blankly in front of her. She did not know how long a time passed, but she began to be very cold. Her mouth felt unbearably dry yet she could not bring herself to the point of getting a drink. She sat like one doomed, while his name rang like a bell through the empty chambers of her mind.
After a while a few scalding tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away on the frilled cuff of her nightdress. But they freed her from the weakness, the lethargy, that had overtaken her. She looked about the room, noticing the strange shadows thrown by the lamplight. She noticed the worn spot in the carpet in front of the dressing-table. She noticed the wax flowers and fruit under glass on the mantelshelf. She looked down and saw her bare feet, side by side, close together, on the mat by the bed. They looked very white, and somehow pathetic. They will carry me, she thought, far away from this house, as
they brought me to it … For now the knowledge that she was going away came clearly to her. In the morning Mrs. Whiteoak would tell Philip what she had said. Never again could she look him in the face after the preposterous lie she had told.
Now she went to the washstand and filled a glass from the water bottle. The coldness of the water showed how the nights were becoming cold. She drank it down thirstily. Then she took the folded “comforter” from the foot of the bed, wrapped it round her and sat down, this time drawing her feet up. She clasped them in her hands. It was hard to know which was coldest, hands or feet, but they comforted each other.
She must think what to do.
Now she could think. The exhilaration of her encounter with Adeline was gone, the exhaustion which followed it, was gone. She could think clearly with a part of her mind. In its recesses there still was a dark turmoil of emotion.
Should she go to Clive, tell him everything? Would she be able to convince him that what she had said to Adeline was a lie? And if she could, would he be willing to marry a girl to whom such a lie would occur? But she did not want to marry Clive! She would die rather than tell Clive what she had done. She would die rather than marry him when she loved Philip with her whole being. Now that Philip had touched the torch of her love from him into full flame she wondered that she ever had contemplated marrying Clive … Yet, if Clive would be disgusted if he knew what she had said in anger, what would be Philip’s contempt! Philip who had told her he loved her, had kissed her in the orchard, had begged her to walk with him in the moonlight. They would not understand, and how could they when she herself did not understand? Even sitting on her bed, wrapped in the comforter, with the chill dawn greying the window, the thought of that moment when she had taken the wind out of Adeline’s sails made her pulses thrill in renewed exhilaration. How those dark eyes whose fire she had found so hard to face, had stared in blank astonishment! How that mouth, with the strong lines about it, had dropped open! At the recollection Mary laughed, even though she knew that in that moment sh had ruined her life.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 84