“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “I should have done what you told me to. But she was so hungry — I hadn’t the heart to kill her.” And he added, wonderingly — “But she couldn’t get well — eat as she would.”
“I have been going over my dad’s belongings,” said Philip, “and I had to burn one of his coats — the last one he wore. Your Granny felt badly about it. It’s surprising how things hurt.”
Renny watched the ripple of grain that marked Keno’s movements in silence for a space. Then he said: —
“What I want more than anything is to ride Gallant at the Show.”
“It would mean missing some time at college.”
Renny clasped his head in his hands, and muttered — “Think how I left it! If only I could get a first at the Show — I’d go back with a better face.”
Philip looked at the stripling’s wiry form hanging over the gate. He thought of the dead mare and of his own dead father’s coat. He did not know why thinking of these things should weaken the firmness he felt he should show towards Renny, but weaken him it did. He said doubtfully: —
“I don’t know if it will be good for you. I’m afraid your grandmother and your mother and uncles won’t think so.”
“There’s nothing Gran likes so much as to see us get a first at the Show. As for the others — they’ve too much to say about me. I’m always being discussed. When I come into a room where they are collected I can tell by their faces they’ve been talking me over. Sometimes they don’t even stop when I go in. And, of course, Gran is into it, too,” he added bitterly.
“Well, well,” said Philip, “it shows how important your behaviour is to them. But do you really believe you could win on Gallant?”
Renny turned his intense gaze on him.
“I’m sure I could! There’s nothing on earth I want so much!”
“Have your own way, then,” said Philip half testily. “But see that you keep your mind on the colt. Keep that yellow-haired woman out of it.”
“I’ll never give her a thought,” said Renny.
XXI
A HORSE TO RIDE
ADELINE MADE UP HER mind that Malahide Court should accompany her on her call at Vaughanlands. At first she had thought to go by herself to see her old friend, congratulate him on his recovery, which was more rapid than they could have hoped for. But she was really afraid to leave Malahide at Jalna without her protecting presence. She did not know what Renny or Meg might do. Philip and Mary, she was afraid, would be only too pleased to see things made uncomfortable for him. Even Nicholas had of late assumed a surly attitude toward her kinsman. She was certain that Ernest had disclosed the fact that she had been giving Malahide money. Well, they were all tarred of the same brush, wanted everything for themselves, but she was equal to them.
She looked about her critically as the carriage rolled along the Vaughans’ drive. It was a poor place, she thought, compared to Jalna, lacking Jalna’s dignity and fine arrogant chimneys, but it was a pleasant place, and the sight of Robert Vaughan, wrapped in a travelling rug, on his chair on the verandah, warmed her heart.
As soon as Malahide had assisted her from the carriage she began to mount the steps impatiently while she held out in her right hand a basket in which she had brought him a jar of port wine jelly, some Malaga grapes, and a pound cake.
“Now,” she said, a little breathlessly, “just see what I’ve brought you! Nothing that will do you harm. Everything that will do you good. No — don’t try to get up! It’s enough for me to grasp your hand and find you a live man instead of a dead. You did give us a scare. And here’s my cousin Malahide come to inquire after ye.”
Robert Vaughan shook hands with them both rather tremulously. He gave them a bright fixed smile, trying hard to feel strong. Mrs. Vaughan came out of the house and saw that Mrs. Whiteoak was established in the most comfortable chair with a cushion at her back.
“Ha, that’s good!” said Adeline. “And it’s splendid to see you making such a good recovery, Robert Vaughan. It’s small wonder you were ill after all you were through. If I hadn’t been made of extraordinary tough stuff I’d have been on my own back. It’s a terrible thing to see your only granddaughter disappointed in love and a little baby left on your neighbour’s doorstep where one should not have been due for ten months, at the least.”
Mrs. Vaughan looked uneasily at her husband, but the case, thus strongly stated, seemed to have done him no harm. He sat staring into old Adeline’s face with an eager look, as though he were drawing new vitality from her abundance. Mrs. Vaughan said: —
“We are thankful that Robert has got along so well. And you have all been so kind in sending him things. Shall I take the basket from you, dear?”
But Adeline interposed — “No, let the man hold it on his knee. It will cheer him up to look at those nice titbits waiting to be eaten. Eat a few of the grapes now, Robert. They’ll do you good.”
Obediently he took a grape in his pale fingers while she looked on benignly. She said: —
“You must be well in time for the Horse Show. You must not miss that, you know.”
His face lighted. “No, I must not miss the Horse Show. Of course, I have never been so keen as you are, but I generally have a good horse to show. This year I have a very promising mare which I thought would do well in the high jumping. But” — a slow colour crept into his face — “I’m afraid I shan’t be able to show her now. Maurice was to have ridden her and — he’s still away, you know.”
“You should have sent for him! You should have brought him to your bedside and said — ‘Now, young man, see what you’ve done to me!’ That’s what I’d have done!”
Robert Vaughan gave a wan smile. His wife exclaimed: —
“Oh, but that would have been cruel! It would have broken Maurice’s heart.”
“And serve him right! But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m going to say is — why not let my cousin here ride your horse? He’d do it gladly. And rides like a centenarian — or whatever they call those beasts. Don’t you, Malahide?”
Malahide had been sitting limply, with legs outstretched, in a low wicker chair. A kitten had appeared and walked the length of his wand-like body from ankle to neck. It stood now on his chest, rubbing first one cheek, then the other, against his chin. Malahide seemed hypnotized by its attentions.
“Do you hear what I’m saying, Mally?” demanded Adeline.
He opened a slit of one languid eye. “I’d be delighted, I’m sure,” he said. “I can ride any sort of nag.”
Robert Vaughan looked ruffled, and Adeline hastened to explain: —
“Malahide thinks that all horses that are not Irish are nags.”
“This horse had an Irish sire. She’s from your own stables, Mrs. Whiteoak.”
“Of course, I know her well. I will take Malahide to see her before we go, if you’d like him to ride for you.”
Robert Vaughan could not believe in Malahide’s horsemanship, but the thought of having someone to talk to about his mare, of watching its schooling for the Show, revived his spirits. His interest in horses had been cultivated chiefly by his proximity to the horse-loving tribe at Jalna. Perhaps because of that his chief pleasure in showing his beasts lay in outstripping the Whiteoaks. He had heard rumours of Renny’s colt.
After further conversation, in which Malahide only faintly joined, Adeline said to Mrs. Vaughan: —
“Let us leave the men to talk things over. I’d like a word alone with you, my dear.”
As she passed Robert Vaughan’s chair she gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “It will put new life in you to see Malahide mounted. He’s bound to win for you.”
Robert Vaughan looked up at her admiringly.
“It shows how much you have my recovery at heart,” he said, “when you are willing to help me win from Jalna.”
“Your mare,” she returned, brusquely, “was bred in our stables and will be ridden by my kinsman. It would be all to our credit.”
>
Inside the sitting room she said to Mrs. Vaughan: —
“Now, then, let me have a look at the child.”
Mrs. Vaughan had been expecting this and she shrank from it, but she could not refuse.
“I will bring her down here,” she said, “so you need not climb the stairs.”
“I’m better able to climb them than you are,” said Adeline, “I’ll go up.”
They found the infant asleep in a bassinet in Mrs. Vaughan’s dressing room. In one hand it grasped the rubber tube of a feeding bottle, the nipple of which was still wet. Downy dark hair clung in moist rungs on its head, which, like the bud of a flower, pushed, tender and relentless, from its sheath. As they looked down on it, its lips widened in a secret smile that flickered a moment across its face and was gone.
“It hears the angels,” whispered Mrs. Vaughan.
“More likely it’s just wet itself,” said Adeline.
As though in reproach the baby opened its eyes. They looked up, in deep, dark brightness. Mrs. Vaughan took it up and laid it against her broad breast. She crooned to it.
“You love it, eh?” said her visitor.
“Ah, I can’t help loving it!”
“H’m, well, you’ve a stronger stomach than I have! Now I think I’ll take Malahide to see the horse.”
Mrs. Vaughan was deeply hurt. She did not offer to accompany them to the stable. Her excuse was that she must not leave her husband.
Adeline clung fast to Malahide’s arm as she trudged toward the stable. With the other hand she clutched the voluminous folds of her dress, showing her broad-toed shoes that were planted arrogantly, as though the path questioned her right to tread on it.
“A poor, paltry little stable,” she said. “Yet it and that house were the finest about here, till we came and built Jalna. That was a bitter pill for Robert Vaughan‘s father, I can tell ye. I and my husband and my two children — little toddlers, then, — stopped with the Vaughans while our house was being built. It was all we could to do keep the peace. And every time he had the chance, young Robert was for making love to me. I don’t suppose he has ever told his own boy that…. Not that I took any interest in him. He was too callow for my taste.”
“If only I had been there when you were young!” exclaimed Malahide. “I would have made you love me.”
She gave him a roguish look. “Well, well, it would have kept you busy — with my Philip about!”
“I’d have done it!” he declared, a smile lighting his swarthy face.
In the stable they found the tall three-year-old being groomed by a stableboy. Adeline compressed her lips and looked her over appraisingly. She said: —
“She can jump. I’ve seen her. And she has a good disposition — with just a spark of the devil in her — a promising combination for man or beast. I’m just the reverse — a devilish disposition with just a spark of good!”
“And I am here to fan that spark!” he said.
“Get along with you! Now, how do you like the looks of her? Her sire cost my son four hundred guineas. This mare takes after him. Renny’s grey colt is the mare’s half-brother and is the image of his dam, who is a disappointment.”
Malahide stroked the mare’s flank.
“I’ll win with her,” he said languidly, “if I have to jump her out of her hide to do it.”
“And I’ll go to see you, I will! I enjoy a good contest. But, mind you, that grandson of mine can ride. ‘The ridin’est critter that ever lived,’ Scotchmere says. But we’ll beat him, Malahide! We’ll punish him for putting that flittermouse into your room and the doggerel he taught Eden, and all his other bad behaviour. And I’ll show my son Philip that my kinsman can beat his son and that all this humouring of him leads to nothing.”
“I am of a forgiving disposition,” said Malahide, “but I don’t mind telling you that — to borrow one of the young man’s elegant expressions — I’d like to lick the daylights out of him.”
XXII
RIVALS
IT WAS NOT LONG BEFORE it was known that Malahide Court was to ride Robert Vaughan’s bay mare Harpie at the Show. It was recognized that the event was in the nature of a duel between Malahide and Renny. There was also a subtle feeling (first insinuated by Meg) that, if Gallant were the victor, the slight to her by Maurice’s delinquency would receive a blow in her honour.
The fact that Malahide was to ride a horse belonging to an outsider did not increase his prestige in the house. Nicholas regarded him with more suspicion than ever. Philip turned a broad shoulder toward him when possible, while Molly and Meg were never alone for five minutes that their conversation did not turn to his hateful presence in their midst, his affectations, his clothes, the chances of getting rid of him. In Renny the feeling of animosity had so risen that he could no longer trust himself to speak with civility to him, but kept an aloof, yet vindictive silence when they were in the same room.
Malahide and Adeline were now ranged on one side with the rest of the family on the other, with the exception of the two little boys, who were unconscious of the situation, though Eden knew that Meg and Renny were not pleased with him when he was friendly to Malahide. Yet Malahide fascinated him and he would sit on his knee absorbing the strange Irish folklore which Malahide had had from his nurse. Many a night the little boy lay in his crib, his head under the clothes, shivering with fear, but unwilling to tell the cause of his agitation lest he might be allowed to listen no more.
The heat of the summer had given way to the bracing brightness of early autumn. Adeline was feeling extraordinarily well. The new teeth had made it possible for her to masticate her food thoroughly, and the benefit she so derived showed in her good spirits and general alertness. She frequently laid aside her stick, on which she had began to lean rather heavily, and walked with a firm tread, even as far as Vaughanlands.
She was enjoying the situation to the full. She magnified it to the status of fine intrigue and bold cast for power. As she and Malahide ascended the deeply shaded path beyond the ravine, on their way to Vaughanlands, she entertained feelings such as an empress might have had, with her favourite at her side and the rest of the court scheming against her.
Nothing could have been better for Robert Vaughan’s recovery than this gay, caressing autumn weather and the exhilaration of watching Malahide school Harpie for the contest. He was able to walk as far as the paddock where this took place, and there he and Adeline sat, just outside the palings, while Malahide, with skill and grace and iron determination, put Harpie through her jumps. When Robert Vaughan thought the horse was being treated a little harshly he would put up one thin hand and call out — “Careful, careful, Mr. Court. Kindness is everything.”
Adeline would grin and wish that she and Malahide might have the mare to themselves. It was soon perceived, by those who looked on, that the bay had never jumped so well as she was now doing, that she was likely to be one of the best horses in the Show.
At the same time Renny was schooling Gallant, advised, derided, criticized, and cheered by his father, uncle, stepmother, and sister. Vera Lacey, too, was often there, adding her high-pitched adjurations to him flying past. Every groom, stableboy, and farm labourer who dared leave his work was on hand to watch, jealous for Jalna; and they dared much when Philip was absorbed in the activity of his boy.
It could not be said of Gallant that he had a good disposition. Irritable, sensitive, spiteful to a degree, he capered over the course, sidling from the hurdles as though in terror, backing against them instead of going over them, kicking and biting at all who approached him save Renny, yet soaring like an eagle when he did consent to jump, skimming the highest bar with the assurance of a seasoned jumper.
Those leaning against the palings of the paddock were moved to great excitement. Sometimes they feared that the boy’s neck would be broken. Sometimes Philip would utter a proud sire’s shout of approbation or Nicholas would clap his hands and send the colt spinning down the course in a frenzy of fright.
&
nbsp; “Look out — look out!” Philip once warned him. “Don’t frighten the colt!”
Nicholas retorted — “If he can’t endure the sound of a single hand clap what will he do in a thunder of applause — and a band thrown in?”
“True, true,” sighed Philip. “He must get used to it.”
After that the onlookers let themselves go, making all the din they could. Time and again the wiry rider was thrown to the ground. When he laid himself down at night he groaned with the pain of his bruises.
Of all those who watched the schooling of the colt not one was more absorbed by it than Eden. He stood close by Philip’s side, watching the feats and failures of his hero. This year, for the first time, he was to be taken to the Show. Even the baby, Peep, was sometimes a spectator, and learned to add his lusty shout to Philip’s.
The presence of Adeline at the schooling was a source of irritation to the family. For come she did, day after day, and stood, a majestic figure, at the palings, her hands firmly grasping them, her widow’s weeds in classic folds about her shoulders. They felt that, as she had cast in her lot with Malahide, she was taking a mean advantage in so closely observing all that was going on at home.
All knew that, on an occasion when Scotchmere had been sent to Vaughanlands to see how Harpie was coming on, he had been arbitrarily ordered off by Adeline, who expressed herself as scornful of such prying. Never had it been the custom, she said, in Captain Whiteoak’s time to send spies into a neighbour’s stables.
Yet when Philip, more than a little chagrined by her watchful presence and sardonic comments, said to her — “I suppose you are keeping Cousin Malahide and Robert Vaughan well posted about what goes on here,” she returned amiably — “I like to see what my grandson is doing. And if I seem to be on Robert Vaughan’s side, it is because I’m sorry for him. He was a sick man and this interest in the Show is lifting him out of himself. To be sure, he brought on his own little trouble, for he spoiled his son, and the ingratitude of a spoilt child is sharper than the stallion’s tooth.” And she marched to her room and shut the door.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 112