The doors of the stables were wide open to let in the mild sweet air. The horses had been bedded and fed. The smell of clean straw came to him and, when he stepped inside, the sounds of placid enjoyment of the evening meal. The occupants of stalls and loose boxes looked out at him as he passed, with a kind of noble unconcern, as though recognize him they could, if they but thought it worth the while. He was a part of Jalna, they knew, but a being of no importance.
How different he was from the young girl who stood beside the aged mare, Cora, in the loose box at the farther end of the passage! The very sight of her, the sound of her voice, created a stir of pleasure that was transmitted in some mysterious way from stall to stall. Finch now saw her leaning against the mare’s shoulder, her auburn hair touched by sunlight slanting through a small window so that there was a look of the young crusader about her, or the young saint.
Finch smiled at this fancy. Adeline, he guessed, was a very human child and probably badly spoilt. She was looking up into Wright’s face who lounged beside her, and they talked with the air of intimates. Wright had put her on her first pony when she was five. Since then horses had been the absorbing subject of all their conversations. Finch heard her say:
“If we can’t show our horses properly, what’s the use of keeping them?”
Wright returned glumly, “That’s just what the mistress thinks. She don’t see no sense in it. She’d like to see the lot of them sold.”
“And have my father come home and find empty stables!”
“Sure. Except for Cora here and the roan and the work horses. She’d like to see ’em all sold.”
“Never!” exclaimed Adeline hotly. “We’ll never do it, Wright! You’ll stand by me, won’t you?”
Wright threw the most profound feeling into his voice. “I’d rather,” he said, “part with my wife and child than with these here horses. But the mistress — she don’t understand how you and me and the boss feel.”
“Let her keep out of this! Let her attend to her own affairs!”
Finch now thought it better to appear. He did so with an air of innocence, as having overheard nothing. He kissed Adeline. It was like kissing a flower, her cheek was so cool, so fresh. The freshness, the newness of her was so potent. Her nose no longer looked too large for her child’s face. It was superb. And what nostrils — designed to express pride, fierceness, if need be! The mouth no longer a rosebud but with the smiling lips of a happy girl.
“I was pretty sure,” said Finch, “where I should find you.”
“Wright and I,” returned Adeline proudly, “run the stables.”
“It keeps us busy, I can tell you, sir,” put in Wright grinning. Then he added soberly, “I don’t know what I’d do without Miss Adeline. There’s nothing she won’t turn her hand to. She rides at all the best shows. Of course, there aren’t any real big ones since the war but there’s a good many. Gosh, you ought to see her ride, sir! I often say to my wife that one of the reasons I hope the boss will come out of this war alive is so he can see her ride.”
“I hope he will,” said Finch.
Wright went on, “I can’t say we get all the cooperation from the big house that we should, sir. It makes it hard to carry on. There’s things that need doing about the stables and we can’t get permission to have them done. It will be different when the boss comes home.”
“I write to him every week,” said Adeline.
“To tell him how well you are getting on at school, I suppose,” said Finch.
“I hate school!”
“So did I.”
“It spoils everything. You can’t get on with what you really want to do.”
“I never bothered much about school,” said Wright. “They learned me how to read and write. That was enough for me. Now take Mr. Maurice, he likes book learning. But he hasn’t got no use for horses.”
“He hasn’t got any use for anything that looks like work,” declared Adeline. “We thought when he came home he’d be an extra man. But he’s a lazy dog. Gosh, isn’t he lazy, Wright?”
Wright, with a straw between his teeth, laughed derisively. “Say, I’d back one of his two little brothers against him for work, any day. Just to see him take a hold of anything manual, shows he hasn’t any interest in it. But he’s got the dough, so he’ll be able to do what he likes.”
Finch said, “Come along, Adeline, I want to talk to you.”
“Don’t you want to see the horses first?”
“I’ll see them tomorrow. It’s Saturday. You’ll be at home.”
Outside he said to her, “Look here, I don’t think you ought to discuss family affairs with Wright. He’s too familiar.”
Her fine brows went up. “who shall I discuss them with?”
“I don’t think you should have said what you did about your mother — just as I was going in I heard you.”
“Pooh — that was nothing!”
“It wasn’t respectful to her.”
“I’m always respectful to her.”
“But you should be, behind her back, as well as to her face.”
“I know. But you can’t think how hard it is for Wright and me, with her always interfering. Do you know she wants to send me to boarding school? She knows we can’t afford it but she wants to send me away from Jalna. Yet we sold the horse I rode at the Yelland show, for eighteen hundred dollars! what do you think of that?” Her eyes flashed pride at Finch. Her slender body was taut with pride.
“Splendid!” he exclaimed.
“The American who bought him said he wouldn’t have made an offer if he hadn’t seen me ride him.”
“Fine!”
“Well, that was a lot of money, wasn’t it, Uncle Finch?”
“It was. Does your father know?”
“I wrote right away. I guess he’ll have my letter by now. You can see how it’s necessary for me to be here. Yet Mummy’s always talking of sending me to boarding school.”
The calm golden beauty of the October evening was descending on the orchard as they passed by. It was dusk already beneath the trees but great mounds of apples could be seen, and some of the branches hung low with their weight.
“It looks a profitable crop,” remarked Finch.
Adeline drew her brows together in a line of troubled responsibility. “If we can harvest them! We simply can’t get men.”
“I will turn in tomorrow morning,” he declared.
“Tell Mummy that. She will be glad.”
Adeline’s tone was so heartfelt that Finch turned to look down at her, striding beside him. There was something pathetic, he thought, in the little figure, for all its courage. Above it arched the immensity of the sky; behind rose the bulk of the stables, their occupants to be cared for, exercised, exhibited at shows; there stretched the army of apple trees, their fruit to be garnered and sold; ahead the dark shape of vine-embowered house with all its problems. The child, he felt sure, was eager to thrust her slender shoulders under the weight of responsibility, never considering herself a responsibility or problem.
Oh, it was good to be home! He put out his hand and took one of Adeline’s in it. They swung along together.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “you’ll have a new hired-man. The thought of physical work is bliss.”
“Good,” she returned stoutly. “Tomorrow is Saturday. I’ll be working with you.”
As they neared the house he looked across the ravine where dark night was settling. “How are those girls who live at the fox farm?” he asked.
“They’re a funny lot. They keep to themselves. They lead a very confiscated life.”
“Do you mean isolated?”
“I expect I do. Their sister’s an actress and she supports them. They’re queer but I like them. Do you know them?”
“A little. I think I’ll go to see them on my afternoon off — if you can spare me.”
III
THE SISTERS
ON THE FOLLOWING day the three sisters who lived in the house called t
he fox farm were gathered about a round table eating their evening meal. The house had once been occupied by people who bred silver foxes, and though that had been years ago the name still clung. The three had lived here since the first year of the war. Their step-sister had brought them out from Wales that she might better provide for them. Though they were grown up they were helpless as children when it came to looking after themselves. Before coming to Canada they had lived on a remote farm in the heart of the Welsh hills. They had seen almost no one outside their own family. Then their father had died, their brother been killed in an airplane accident. They had been helpless, like frightened children, and had obediently and eagerly journeyed to this new world to which their step-sister, herself only a young girl, had urged them to come. She was an actress whose occasional appearances on the screen made it possible for her to provide for them. Yet her heart was with the legitimate stage and it was there she hoped to make her name.
The three about the table showed little physical resemblance to each other, but there was a resemblance that was visible to the most casual observer. It was the likeness of people who have lived identical lives since birth. The thought of being separated, one from the other, would have been terrible to them even while they were filled with curiosity for the outer world. The journey from Wales to the fox farm had been their one adventure.
Though the table was round, the dignity of a place at its head was given by the presence of the teapot in front of Althea, the eldest, a silvery-fair girl in her middle twenties. At first sight she looked very thin till it was seen that her bones were unusually small. She wore an attractive dress of a light green colour which was in contrast to the careless, almost shabby attire of her sisters, both of whom were eating much more heartily than she.
Gemmel, the one next to her in age, had a pale, pointed face, wide at the temples, with large greenish-blue eyes and lively dark hair. The dominant expression of her face was an almost ruthless interest in those about her. The circle of her activity was small, for she had been unable to walk since early childhood because of a fall. Her hands were supple and very strong. By means of them, half-sitting, half-kneeling, she propelled herself about the house.
Garda, the youngest, was a sturdy girl of twenty, with rosy cheeks and childlike eyes, but she had a temper. She was by far the strongest of the three and took it as a matter of course that she should do the rough work. Between times of working she was indolent, loved her bed, and had to be routed out in the morning. In the early hours Althea wandered through woods and fields, secure in the thought that she ran little risk at that time of meeting her neighbours, for she was restrained by an unconquerable shyness.
Now Garda exclaimed, “It does seem unfair, Althea, that you should be the only one of us who can wear Molly’s clothes. Look at that lovely dress you have on and no one to see you!”
“If you weren’t so greedy,” returned Althea, “you mightn’t be so fat.”
“I’m not fat! It’s you and Molly who are so tall and thin.” She buttered another piece of bread.
“I’d gladly give you the dress if you could get into it.”
“I know you would but it’s hopeless. Nothing that Molly casts off will fit me. I might as well eat and be merry.”
Gemmel broke in impatiently. “Do let’s stop talking about clothes and talk about the Whiteoaks. To think that you’ve had three encounters with them today, Garda! Now begin at the beginning and tell all over again.”
“Goodness, I shall be tired of the very name of Whiteoak!”
“Rubbish! Now which was it you met first?”
Garda, with an air of resignation that did not conceal her gusto for the recital, began, “It was Mrs. Piers Whiteoak. I was coming from the village with my arms full of packages when she overtook me in her car. She was on her way from the railway station. She’d been seeing about a large shipment of apples. She had her eldest son with her. He’s home from Ireland, you know.”
“We ought to,” laughed Althea. “We’ve heard of him a dozen times in the past month.”
“Oh, I wish I might see him!” Gemmel drew a long sigh. “He must be sweet. How old do you say he is?”
“Seventeen. But he seems older. He has what I call polished manners.”
“And they gave you a lift?”
“Yes. Oh, she’s so happy to have him home again! And she’s heard that next spring there will be an interchange of prisoners and her husband may be returned. Her eyes shone when she told me that. I asked Maurice where he was going to school and he said they were looking about for a tutor to prepare him for the university. He is to be in Canada till he is twenty-one and then he is going back to Ireland.”
“He has lots of money,” said Gemmel. “Owns a mansion and large estate.”
“Don’t interrupt. When he goes back his mother is to go with him for a long visit. She’s dying to see his place. You can see that she adores him.”
“what a pity he’s so young!” exclaimed Gemmel. “You might marry him, Garda.”
“I’m not so old as all that.”
“Seventeen and twenty! Let’s see! when he goes back to Ireland he’ll be twenty-one and you twenty-four. No, it wouldn’t be impossible. Especially as he is old for his years and you young for yours.”
“So you want to be rid of me!”
“No, but it would be fun.”
“Well,” Garda went on, “she let me out of the car at our gate and I was just turning in through it when who should appear but Finch, with two dogs at his heels. He arrived only yesterday.”
“To think,” cried Gemmel, “that I wasn’t looking out of the window!”
“Never mind. He’s coming to see us.”
Althea flushed. “I’ll not see him.”
“You’re the one he wants to see. He asked after you at once.”
“Not after me?” Gemmel’s eyes were tragic.
“Yes. After you too. But he likes Althea best. It’s easy to see that. Well, we talked for a bit and he told me quite simply that he’s divorced.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Gemmel. “Would you marry a divorced man, Althea?”
“I would marry no one.”
“But you do admire him?”
“Yes.”
“He has such an interesting face,” said Garda. “He looks as though he’d experienced every emotion.”
“I should like to give him a new one,” said Gemmel boldly.
“It’s shocking to hear you, Gemmel,” Althea protested. “You sound positively brazen.”
Garda spoke soothingly. “She doesn’t mean it.”
Gemmel hunched her flexible shoulders and gave her reckless laugh. “Offer me the chance,” she said. She took a cigarette from her pocket, where she carried them loose, and lighted it. There was something impudent about her that caused her sisters to look at her half-disapprovingly, half-admiringly.
“I pity him,” said Althea, “for I think I’ve never seen a more selfish face than his wife’s.”
“She’s not his wife now.”
“People don’t forget cruel experiences, Garda.”
“But it makes them appreciate kindness all the more.”
“what else did he say?” asked Gemmel.
“He said he was very tired and so glad to be at Jalna again. He’s going to help with the work. They are filling the silos tomorrow. They have tables set out in the old carriage house. Quite a feast, he said. I can’t see him working. He’s every inch an artist.”
“Now then, tell us of the third encounter,” demanded Gemmel.
“Oh, how persistent you are!” exclaimed Althea.
“You enjoy gossip just as much as I do.”
“I know I do but I’m ashamed of myself for it.”
Garda continued, “The third encounter was with Mrs. Vaughan. I do like her. She’s so unaffected and so friendly. Finch had just left me when she came down the road. She was on her way to see her uncles and she was taking a jar of apple jelly to them. She seemed to
think it would ease the blow she had in store for them. I’ve already told you what it is.”
“Yes, yes, but tell us again.”
“It is simply that she has sold Vaughanlands. The entire property. And to a Mr. Clapperton — a widower.”
“How marvellous!” cried Gemmel.
Althea gave a small derisive smile. “That she has sold Vaughanlands or that she’s sold it to a widower?”
“Both. A new neighbour to watch.”
“She has known for some time that she must sell it,” went on Garda. “She simply cannot run that big place alone. It’s going to ruin. But at the last she settled everything quickly. The papers are signed, the first payment made. She moves out at the end of the month.”
“where to, I wonder?”
“She would have liked to go to Jalna till the end of the war but she practically said that her sister-in-law, Mrs. Renny, is very difficult to get on with. Mrs. Piers tried to live there with her two little boys in the early part of the war but she had to give up and go back to her own house. So Mrs. Vaughan has bought a house on the road where the church is. It will be a sad change for her, she says.”
“Tell us about the widower,” said Gemmel.
“He’s a retired business man who has always wanted to live in the country — work in a garden, read books — that sort of man. Very nice, she says. Would it be proper for us to call on him, Althea?”
“Heavens, no!” She rose and began to collect the plates.
Gemmel watched her admiringly. “You are exactly like the drawings in fashion advertisements,” she said. “Impossibly slim and tall, with an impossibly lovely face. It’s a pity you’re so — whatever you are that makes you hate people.”
“I don’t hate people. I only ask to be let alone.” She carried the dishes to the kitchen. As though in defiance she began to sing.
“How that song takes me back to Wales!” exclaimed Gemmel. “Oh, we were happy there, weren’t we — when Father and Christopher were alive?”
“Be careful,” said Garda, “or you’ll make me cry.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 400