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

  Adeline was contrite when she saw him humped there in his cage, an expression of abysmal gloom on his beak. She uncovered him and spoke to him in comforting Hindoo all the while she changed the black cashmere dress she had worn to the picnic for her second-best black silk. What a relief it was to take off her bonnet and put on a fresh lace cap! She fastened the collar of her bodice with a diamond brooch set in twists of dull gold.

  She took Boney from his cage and attached to his leg the slender chain of his perch. She took the perch in her hand and, carrying it in front of her, appeared, as though in procession, at the door of the drawing room, where the rest of the family were gathered.

  “Poor old Boney!” she said. “What a day he’s had! I left him with his cage covered, a thing I never remember doing before. Now he’s coming into the heart of the company.” She planted his perch in the middle of the room and sat herself in the chair Malahide placed for her.

  Philip said — “Hadn’t we better have something to eat? It seems a long while since the picnic tea.”

  His mother looked at him sharply. “What’s the matter with supper? We’re accustomed to supper, aren’t we?”

  “But, Mamma,” objected Mary, “when do we eat such a tea as that? For my part I could not touch another mouthful, but of course we can easily have supper for any who want it.”

  “Nothing but a whiskey and soda and some biscuits for me,” said Nicholas. “What about you, Malahide?”

  Malahide’s preoccupation of the afternoon had returned. He was sunk in a deep chair in a dark corner of the room. He held his chin in his hand and his heavy eyes regarded the family with languid indifference behind which a spark of anger burned. He had disliked the day he had spent almost as much as Boney had disliked his, and he was too tired, for once, to conceal his feelings. He answered, in a low voice: —

  “I’ll have a whiskey, but no biscuits, thank you.”

  Adeline said — “What, losing your appetite, Mally? Now I want a pot of tea and some buttered toast and anchovy paste. You children will sup with your Granny, won’t you?”

  Meg and Renny agreed that they would. Philip went for the whiskey and soda, and in a short time Eliza appeared with a silver pot of tea, a pile of toast, so well buttered that golden globules oozed from slice to slice, collecting in a pool on the plate beneath. Adeline’s eyes gleamed as she dipped into the anchovy paste.

  “I like things off a tray,” said Meg. “I enjoy them more than my regular meals.”

  “It’s a bad habit,” said Renny, thickly spreading a slice for himself.

  “Nothing that you enjoy is a bad habit,” observed their grandmother. “It’s the food you eat without enjoyment that plays hob with your stomach.” With satisfaction she placed her lips to her brimming cup of tea.

  The hiss of the syphon sounded and Nicholas filled his pipe. A steady glow from the ceiling lamp cast a charmed light about the circle, with the exception of the corner where Malahide drooped. He tossed off his whiskey with a desperate air.

  If Boney had expected some rare titbit in compensation for the dullness of his day he was disappointed. No one paid any attention to him. He walked the length of his perch, claw over claw, regarding the company with angry glances. He opened his beak wide and brought it together with a snap. He dropped his wings and, thrusting forward, exclaimed: —

  “To hell with Cousin Malahide!”

  Ripples of pleasure stirred his plumage as he uttered this sentence, for it was the first time he had said it except in solitude.

  “What’s that? What does he say?” demanded Nicholas.

  Boney turned to him with an undulation of his supple neck. He repeated ferociously: —

  “To hell with Cousin Malahide! To hell with Malahide! Hell — hell — hell — with Malahide!”

  Was there something in the inflection, in the metallic enunciation of these words, that made all eyes turn to Renny? Malahide set down his glass and went green rather than white.

  Renny burst into loud laughter. He doubled himself over his folded arms. It was more than Nicholas and Philip could bear. They joined their mirth to his. Their laughter was more than Mary and Meg could withstand. All their dislike of Malahide was loosed in shrill feminine merriment.

  Boney rocked in his perch, ribald, relentless, screaming to make himself heard above the confusion he had created. He leered from one face to the other and repeated: —

  “Hell — hell — hell with Cousin Malahide — Paji — Haramzada — Iflatoon — Kuza Pusth — Sug prast — hell — hell — hell — with Malahide!”

  Malahide Court rose slowly to his feet and took a long, menacing step in the direction of the parrot. He said, with his lip lifted in a snarl: —

  “To hell with you, I say! And to hell with the one who taught you these insulting words! You swear at me? Listen then: Soor — Soor — Kunjus — Kutni! Churail! Afimche!”

  Bent on his perch, with cocked head, drinking in every oath that Malahide had uttered, as though listening to the ravings of another parrot, Boney could now restrain himself no longer. More furiously than before he screamed:

  “Hell with Malahide! Hell with Malahide! Hell — hell — hell! Iflatoon! Chore!”

  “Filthy bird,” sneered Malahide, drawing a step closer. “Nimak Haram! Nimak Halol! Sakth Dil!”

  “Byman! Sala! Dagal! To hell with Malahide!”

  “Piakur! Subakhis! Jab kute!”

  In a paroxysm of rage Boney rocked and cursed. It seemed that he would choke with the hate that was in him. And the louder he screamed his imprecations the more his listeners abandoned themselves to laughter — all but Adeline and Malahide.

  Renny exclaimed, in Meg’s ear — “This is all too much! I shall die of joy.”

  Her lips formed the words — “Me too!”

  Adeline sat, with one heavily ringed hand shading her face, of which it could be seen that the colour was steadily deepening.

  Squatting on his perch, with drooped wings, while waves of fury shook his brilliant plumage, Boney confronted Malahide. Their two mouths upcurving beneath their drooping beaks gave them a curious resemblance.

  As Malahide delivered himself of a litter of black curses and shook a long forefinger in the parrot’s face, Boney thrust out his head and caught the finger in his beak. Malahide doubled up in pain.

  Before he could retaliate Boney leaped the length of his chain and settled on Adeline’s shoulder. He began to peck wickedly at the ribbons on her cap.

  “Too bad, too bad, Malahide,” said Philip, ordering his face to calmness.

  Malahide turned on him. “Don’t you sympathize with me! You have insulted me.”

  “No, no — but the bird was so damn funny.”

  Mary said — “I hope you’re not hurt.”

  Malahide almost screamed — “No, you don’t! You hope very much that I am hurt. And I am! Look at that!” He shook his finger at her, from which the crimson drops sprang.

  “Have another whiskey and soda,” advised Nicholas.

  “I want nothing from this house! I leave tonight.”

  “Come,” said Philip. “We’ve not treated you badly.”

  “Badly! Your young ruffian has made life here a hell for me.”

  At the word Boney swayed on Adeline’s shoulder and rasped “Hell — hell — hell with Malahide!”

  Adeline snatched the antimacassar from the back of her chair and threw it over his head.

  Malahide continued — “Yes, it was he who taught the parrot that insult.”

  Adeline said — “He shall apologize.”

  Philip turned to his son. “I agree. You must apologize to Malahide.”

  “I’m damned if I will.”

  “What — what —” said Philip, glaring at him, but with laughter in his eyes. “You refuse?”

  “I apologize,” said Renny, grinning. “I apologize for teaching Boney to say ‘To hell with Cousin Malahide!’”

  Boney raved under the antimacassar: —

  �
��Hell — hell — hell!”

  Malahide bowed elaborately to Renny. He said, in concentrated passion: —

  “We will have this out — when the night of the Show comes. Then you — and your bucking bronco — shall bite the dust.”

  “Well said, Malahide!” declared Adeline. “Now come and let me bind your poor finger.”

  With something of childlike docility he went to her, while keeping a watchful eye on the parrot. She took her own handkerchief and deftly tied up the wound.

  Philip, with a long look into Nicholas’s eyes, pushed the decanter toward him. Molly began softly strumming on the piano, while Renny and Meg disappeared behind the long window curtains in a pretended search for the new moon.

  XXVI

  TENTING TONIGHT

  IT WAS WITH DIFFICULTY that Adeline had restrained her amusement at the duet between her parrot and her kinsman. It had been a scene after her own heart, and when she and Boney were in the seclusion of her room, she gave him not a little praise for the manner in which he had performed his part in it. Yet she was troubled about Malahide. If, as it seemed, he was to nurse his anger too fiercely, it might have an ill effect on his nerves. He and Harpie must win at the Show. Robert Vaughan had set his heart on it. Her championing of Malahide must be justified, her desire to triumph over Philip and Renny gratified. In the days intervening between now and the event, Malahide must be protected, humoured, praised.

  But when he appeared next morning at her door he brought with him a gloom that her archest smile could not disperse. He seemed already sick with the taste of defeat. An impersonal blackness seemed engendered at his very core. Her smile wavered as she looked into his face.

  “This is the end,” he said. “I shall go.”

  “Go!” she repeated, frowning. “But where?”

  “God knows! Anywhere away from here!”

  She took the lapel of his coat and drew him into the room. “You’re flurried,” she said, “and no wonder. But let me tell you how much I admired the challenge you flung at that young rascal.”

  “That,” he said, “was in the heat of the moment. This morning I have no more bowels than a jellyfish.”

  “Now, I’ll tell you what,” she said, “you shall spend the time between now and the Show at Vaughanlands. The change will do you good. The congenial company — everyone on your side — will put new life into you.”

  If it were possible to look blacker, he now did.

  “Well,” she said, impatiently, “what have you against the Vaughans?”

  He dropped into a chair and took his head in his hands. “It is no use, Cousin Adeline,” he said. “I could not endure the atmosphere of that house. Robert Vaughan and his wife bore me, crush me, take away what energy I have left. I shall send a cable to my mother and tell her that she must receive me. I must go home.” And he added, bitterly — “If one can call it a home.”

  Adeline’s shaggy red brows went up to her cap. She pulled her bell cord and asked Eliza to bring Mr. Court a glass of gin and bitters. He was far from well. Eliza had a great contempt for Malahide. She obeyed grimly.

  As he sipped the drink he sank still lower in his chair, but his eyes brightened.

  “How is your finger?” Adeline asked with solicitude.

  “It kept me awake most of the night. Parrot bites have been known to be fatal.” He examined his finger, still dressed in her handkerchief, with an expression as gloomy as though it were already carrion.

  “My goodness, Mally!” exclaimed Adeline, “I’ve never seen anyone so down as you are! What am I to do with you?” There was genuine exasperation in her tone.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Even you. I’ll have to go home to my mother.”

  “You can’t, and that’s flat,” she returned. “Listen now, I have an idea. There’s a very good tent about somewhere which is used for hunting trips. I’ll have it put up for you in a quiet spot at the river’s edge. You shall camp out for a bit. It will do you a world of good. I only wish I were young enough for it. I’ve tented in my day.”

  Malahide reluctantly allowed himself to be led under the harebell-blue arch of the October sky. But when he saw the pretty spot, on a secluded curve of the stream, his gloom lightened. The gin and bitters had also had an effect. He agreed that it would be pleasant to camp here and, under Adeline’s fostering, his determination to ride Harpie to triumph was again roused.

  Philip and Renny were busied with the schooling of polo ponies. Nicholas was spending the day with friends in town. Meg and Molly had gone on an excursion with the Laceys. It was not till evening that Adeline disclosed to them the erection of the tent by the river and Malahide’s migration there. He had taken only one or two travelling bags with him. The rest of his luggage was piled in his room as though for departure. In truth, Adeline felt that the time was not distant when she would be willing to see him set sail for Ireland. The long winter was drawing near and she looked forward to a comfortable and secluded period with her family.

  The news was received with amusement and relief. The family could scarcely believe that Malahide was actually out of the house. One after another they went to the door of his room and looked at the mound of luggage which rose with something of the mysterious appearance of the earth thrown up by a burrowing animal. And how he had burrowed into their life at Jalna! Nicholas expressed skepticism as to his leaving. When Malahide found it too cold in the tent, he said, he would come back to the house. Nothing could keep him out.

  As, singly, they had inspected his room, they went in a body to overlook his new retreat. It was on the opposite side of the stream, the riverbank there being much lower. So, from the shelter of a group of sumacs and alders they looked down on the white tent set among pines and half hidden by bushes. Before it the stream moved swift and darkling and the setting sun left it in cool remote shadow. There was not a sign of life about.

  “I’d give a good deal to see inside that tent,” said Mary.

  Meg said — “You would discover Malahide stretched at full length on his cot, a bottle of poison in one hand and a picture of Gran in the other.”

  “Let’s hope he’ll take the poison,” said Renny.

  Mary laughed. “He would thrive on it.”

  “How vindictive you all are,” said Philip. “For my part, I feel sorry for poor old Malahide.”

  “There he is!” exclaimed Nicholas. “Don’t let him see us.”

  They drew back and, from the shelter of the reddening leaves, watched him appear from his tent carrying a kettle. He came to the water’s edge, knelt, and allowed it to fill. Every movement he made was regarded with curiosity by the watchers. He collected some brushwood and lighted a small fire in front of the tent, and hung the kettle there on a support evidently made by more experienced hands than his. A blue spiral of smoke rose above the pines and dissolved into the tender azure of the sky. He then disappeared into his tent.

  As they returned along the river’s edge they had a feeling of unease as though Malahide, leading his singular existence, were capable of exercising a charm, enervating and evil, against them and against their horses.

  This feeling was perhaps fostered by an intense glow, of a colour approaching saffron, which now pervaded the atmosphere. The very grass and leaves took on this tone, and their own faces were transformed by its radiance. An extraordinary hush prevailed. Even the murmur of the river was muted as though a finger had been laid upon its lips. Bright-coloured tendrils of poison ivy stretched toward their path. Two old farm horses, now past work but kept as pensioners by Philip, were allowed to roam here. They had grown wild in their ways and at sight of the approaching group were suddenly affrighted. They stood staring a space from under their forelocks, which were clotted with burrs, then neighed loudly and galloped up and down, squealing and kicking. Renny, who had gathered a handful of acorns, began to pepper the beasts with these.

  Philip laid a restraining hand on his arm. He asked: —

  “How did the colt behave this mor
ning?”

  The boy gave him a tragic look. “Like the devil. Scotchmere is in the depths. Says we had better not show him.”

  “Don’t be worried by Scotchmere. Perhaps you’ve worked Gallant too hard. Give him a rest. Feed him up a bit. What about the ponies?”

  “They were splendid.”

  “If that fellow,” said Nicholas, “gets the best of us, I’ll never hold up my head again. You must not let him, Renny.”

  Renny threw up his last acorn and caught it. “Its easy to talk,” he said. “I wish you had seen Gallant this morning — rocking about like a drunken sailor.”

  “I think you excite him,” declared Meg. “Why don’t you try to be calm like I am?”

  “Yes,” agreed Mary. “I think we should all try to be calmer about this affair, not let it take such a hold on us. For my part, I can think of little else.”

  Philip hooked his arm into hers. “Think of me, Molly,” he whispered, “for a change.”

  They did indeed try to regard the approaching contest with more detachment in the days that followed. Gallant was kept quiet for several days, and when his schooling began again, the family disposed themselves about the paddock in attitudes of exaggerated nonchalance. Molly even brought her knitting and affected to count stitches at moments of tension.

  The absence of Malahide from the house was indeed a source of tranquility, though Adeline did not allow it to be forgotten how he had been driven out, and it became the habit of Boney, in the most peaceful moments, to ejaculate the mischievous words taught him by Renny.

  The weather continued to be perfect, and each morning Adeline called at the tent for Malahide and they proceeded together to Vaughanlands. Each morning she carried some special dainty to him. By her direction his more substantial wants were supplied from the kitchen. Mary was so thankful to have him out of the house that she herself saw that his needs were plentifully provided for.

  Malahide’s moods were a problem to Adeline in these days. They varied between deep dejection and a boastful hilarity that was unusual in him. She suspected that he was drinking too much. The strain of her guardianship began to tell on her and she did not sleep as she was accustomed to. Her temper was short.