When Eugene Clapperton came to the fox farm that afternoon, Althea did remain hidden in her room. Free from her restraining presence, the two younger girls reached an undreamed of state of intimacy with the new neighbour. He made wide gestures with his hands as he told them of his plans for a perfect village — a village surrounded by trees, with no ugliness anywhere. It would be impossible to get more than four or five small houses built before the end of the war. Two were already well on the way to completion. Eugene Clapperton invited the sisters to come to inspect it and they accepted the invitation.
His attitude toward Gemmel had a gentle fatherliness in it that made her free and bold with him, like a spoilt child. It was well for her that Althea was not present to see her.
Althea refused to go to see the proposed village of Clappertown, as he already called it, but he came in his own car and carried off Gemmel and Garda.
“Oh, Gem,” Garda had exclaimed, “are you going to stop tittivating? One would think you were going to a party.”
With one of her swift movements, Gemmel turned from her survey of herself in the looking glass.
“Do I look pretty?” she asked.
“Oh, pretty enough. But what does it matter! Going off to visit a middle-aged man!”
“It’s a party to me and I will make the most of it. I wonder if Sidney will be there.”
Garda’s rosy cheeks became rosier.
“I don’t expect so. He is awfully bored when Mr. Clapperton gets on the subject of his village. He says there is nothing idealistic about it — that it’s just a money-making scheme.”
“Then he ought to be pleased with it, for he’s always talking about money.”
“He hates cant.”
Mr. Clapperton took the girls to that part of the estate where the two cottages were nearing completion. They were indeed pretty, though rather too close together and rather too much alike. Sidney Swift appeared out of one of them and led Garda inside to inspect it. The older man who had got out of the car, now returned to it and sat down in the seat beside Gemmel.
“May I call you Gem?” he asked. “I must say I like this new fashion of familiarity. Of course, I’m very much older than you.”
Gemmel thought wildly, “He is in love with me! Oh, help, help — what shall I do?”
But she said composedly, “I should like to be called Gem, by you.”
“Splendid,” he said, and he laid his hand on her knee. He looked deeply thoughtful.
She looked at his hand, longing to shake it off. It was a forceful hand, with short sandy hairs across the back of it. His fingers pressed her knee. “You know,” he said. “I’m worried about these poor little limbs of yours.”
An electric shock went through her. How dare he! Oh, how dare he! She flung off his hand and turned a blazing face on him.
“I don’t want anybody’s pity,” she said.
His eyes filled with tears. “Don’t be annoyed with me. But I think it’s such a crying shame you can’t run about like other girls and I’m wondering if something can be done about it.”
“Done about it!” she repeated, in a tense voice. “what do you mean done about it?”
“Well, there are very fine surgeons in this country,” he said. “They do miraculous things. I’d like to know how long it is since you consulted a first-rate doctor.”
Her heart was pounding. “I can’t remember,” she stammered. “After I had the fall, when I was a baby, they took me to one of the best doctors. My spine was injured, he said, and I’d always be a cripple. My mother died when I was very young and my stepmother just accepted what my father told her. He was a dear man but he drank a good deal and he didn’t bother much about us children. He wasn’t fussy, you know.”
“Fussy!” repeated Mr. Clapperton, on a note of contempt. “Fussy! If you’d been my daughter I’d have been scouring the earth to find a cure for you.” He struck one clenched hand into the palm of the other. “And I’ll see to it that you have the opinion of the best specialist in this country — if you’ll agree. Think of the years that have passed since your accident and of the advance in science in that time! why — there may be hope for you, my dear little girl. Will you let me help you? I mean, find out who the best man is and take you to him?”
A throbbing was set free on the air, like the strong beat of a perfect heart. The movement of the trees was the weaving of banners of hope.
“Oh, I don’t know what to say,” she stammered, her nerves quivering in fear.
“Just say you’ll let me help you. That’s all I ask.”
“But it frightens me. The thought of an operation.”
“No, no, you mustn’t say that. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just think what it would be like to run about and have fun like other girls.”
“It would be heavenly.”
“Think what it would mean to your sisters. You would have a grand time together.”
“We couldn’t afford it. It would cost too much.”
“Don’t worry about expense. Leave all that to me.”
He spoke with benign indifference to cost. Again he patted her knee. She became calm. She would do what he wished. She would trust him.
“Don’t you worry about the expense,” he repeated. “I’m not the man to do things by halves. You know I’m an idealist, a dreamer. I dream of a perfect village, out here in the woods, and I’m going to build it. I dream of a perfect girl and I’m going to do what I can about that. My only fear is that I may have raised hopes that can’t be fulfilled. That would be dreadful.”
She gave a little excited laugh. “Now that you’ve roused hope in me I don’t believe I shall ever give up hoping. Oh, Mr. Clapperton, how soon can we go to see a specialist? what have I done to deserve so much from you? whatever will my sisters say!”
XI
ADELINE AND THE ORGAN
ADELINE SAW HER trunk being lifted safely off the baggage car and out on the platform. She hastened along the platform toward it, her suitcase bumping against her legs, her tennis racket and a large paper parcel gripped tightly under one arm. Wright came running after her, and the station master followed in leisurely fashion. She was the only passenger to alight from the train.
Wright caught up with her and touched his cap deferentially, but his tone was jocular as he said, “It’s about time you came home.”
“Oh, Wright,” she gasped. “Am I actually here? Oh, my goodness, what heaven!” She laughed up at him, her eyes shining.
For an instant he was taken aback by her beauty. She’d been pretty, right enough, when she’d been home for the Easter holidays, but now — what had come over her? It was as though a shining veil, a radiance, had descended on her. There was a finish to her, a polish, a quivering first bloom that made Wright scratch his head and stare, that made the station master stare too when he came up.
“I was just telling this young lady,” said Wright, “that it’s high time she came home. It’s pretty tough on me running the place without her.”
“I guess you don’t like goin’ away to school,” said the station master, taking the check for her trunk and gazing down into her face.
“It’s a nice enough school,” she returned, “but when you know that you’re needed at home it makes you restless.”
Wright winked at the station master. “Her and me,” he said, “have run the stables together, since the boss went away.”
“So I’ve heard,” said the station master, and he gave Wright a look appreciative of Adeline’s beauty.
“I hope you won’t mind riding home in the wagon,” said Wright. “I had to come to the mill for feed and there’s no sense in wasting gasoline.”
“I’m glad it’s the wagon,” she returned. She went to the great dappled-grey team and patted an iron flank. Two pairs of liquid dark eyes looked at her in benign recognition.
Wright placed her belongings beside the bulging meal-dusty bags, helped her to the seat and mounted beside her. He turned the team and they jog
ged on to the tree-shaded country road, where the sunlight fell through the dark flutter of the leaves.
Adeline looked from side to side, from the backs of the jogging horses to Wright’s face, and she felt an extraordinary exaltation. She pulled off her hat to let the breeze cool her head and exclaimed:
“How heavenly! How’s everything been going, Wright?”
“Not too bad,” he returned. “Not too bad. I suppose you’ve heard about the boss.”
She turned a startled face on him. “Has anything happened to my father?”
“Nothing to worry about, I guess. He’s had an accident. That’s all. He was going somewheres in a jeep and it ran into a hole and he was thrown out on his head. He was in hospital but they say he’ll soon be home. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t severely hurt?”
“Yes. He sent the cable himself.”
She drew a deep sigh of relief. “Oh, Wright, won’t it be marvellous when he’s home again?”
“I’ll say it will.”
“You know, it’s over four years since I saw him.”
“Yeh. I bet you’ll hardly know him.”
She gave Wright an indignant look. “I’d know him if he was in the middle of a whole army. There’s no one a bit like him.”
“Well, I bet he won’t know you.”
“Of course he will.”
“You was a little child when he left. Now you’re — well, you’ve changed a lot.”
“I’ve grown a lot, I know — and got better-looking, I hope. My nose used to be too large for a child’s face, Uncle Ernest said.”
“It’s just right now.” Again the man studied her, saw how the quick blood moved under the delicate skin, how one movement of the lips would change the expression of the whole face, from dark to bright, from firm to gentle. Now he said, in a confidential tone:
“I’ve seen a two-year-old I’d give my eye teeth to buy. Oh, miss, I wish we could lay hands on two hundred dollars. That’s all the farmer is asking for him. He has no idea of what’s in him. I can tell you, he has the makings of one of the finest jumpers in the country, or I’m no judge of horse flesh.”
“You’re a judge of that, if anyone is,” said Adeline. “Oh, I wish I could see him!”
“You can. I’ll take you there tomorrow. He’s nothing to look at, in the ordinary way. He spent last winter outdoors and he’s grown a great rough coat. He’s so thin his back looks hollow. Unless you know a good deal about the formation of a horse, you wouldn’t see any promise in him. But if I had him home to feed up and to care for properly for the next year we’d have a winner or my name’s not Bob Wright.”
“Oh, if only Daddy were home!”
“Yes. But he ain’t, and this farmer wants to sell now. I was wondering if you could get your Uncle Finch to lend us the money.”
“I’ll try but I hear his money is gone.”
“Then there’s your two old uncles. A hundred dollars apiece wouldn’t mean much to them.”
“It hurts them terribly to part with money, I’ve heard.”
“You hear a good deal, don’t you?” he grinned.
“Well, don’t you?”
“Sure, I do ... What about young Mr. Maurice? He’s supposed to be rich.”
“He doesn’t get anything but an allowance till he’s twenty-one. Besides, he doesn’t like horses.”
“I wish you and me could go shares in the colt. But I have only a hundred dollars saved up. If only you could lay your hands on another hundred, we could buy him tomorrow and we’d never regret it, I’ll swear to that.”
“I have just sixty cents,” she said ruefully.
“Well, that won’t go far. Anyhow, you might see what you can do with them uncles of yours.”
“Have you talked to Uncle Piers about it?”
“Yes, and it’s no good. He says this is no time to go in for show horses. But I know better. War or no war this colt is worth five times what’s being asked for him.”
“Gosh, I’m dying to see him. Is the farmer an old man?”
“No. Sort of young. He got married just about a year ago. He’s fixing his place up. That’s why he is anxious for cash.”
“Two hundred dollars, eh? And you have one hundred. If I could get hold of another hundred, we’d have equal shares in him.”
“Sure.”
In the joy of homecoming, of being hugged, kissed, patted on the back, Adeline forgot the colt for a space. All the faces she knew so well smiled on her. She seemed almost a heroine. Roma gazed at her in adoration. “Oh, Adeline, I wish I might go to school too!” Archer looked on with a kind of pessimistic approval. He looked as though, if he chose, he could tell her things which would take that smile off her face.
Alayne was upset to think that the child should have been told of Renny’s accident by Wright. It was like Wright to have repeated such a happening to Adeline in the first moment of meeting her, and in his own crude way. She had forgotten to tell him to leave the breaking of the bad news to her. She feared Adeline might be shocked to hear of an injury to Renny.
“Darling,” she said, putting her arm about Adeline, “you must not worry about Daddy. He had a concussion but he will soon be all right again — at least, I hope so.”
“I’m not worrying,” answered Adeline. “Wright told me there was nothing to worry about.”
The child’s brow was as smooth as silk, her lips smiling. How little feeling she seemed to have!
“Well, I worried myself ill,” said Alayne.
“I’m sure you did,” returned Adeline cheerfully.
Alayne took her arm from the child’s shoulders.
The right moment had to be found for approaching the old uncles on the subject of purchasing the two-year-old. Adeline had already had a decisive refusal from Finch who, like Piers, saw no sense in buying show horses at this time.
She chose the moment when they were sitting together in the light shade of the old silver birch tree, on the bark of which the initials of their parents, carved there nearly a hundred years before, were still faintly visible. Ernest had a volume of Shakespeare in his hand. Nicholas was placidly drawing on his pipe. The shadows on the lawn were lengthening and in and out of them hopped Archer’s tame rabbit. Both men raised their eyes with a welcoming look as Adeline came lightly across the grass. Nicholas stretched out a long arm and drew her to him. He said to his brother:
“Isn’t her resemblance to the portrait of Mamma extraordinary?”
“If anything she’s more —” Ernest looked expressively at the young face.
“You never saw Mamma at fourteen.”
“Well,” Ernest said to Adeline, “you look nice and healthy.”
“I am. I’ve never anything wrong.”
“You’ll live to be a hundred like your great-grandmother,” said Nicholas.
She laughed. “It seems a long while to live. But I don’t mind. I think it’s good to be alive, don’t you?”
“Sometimes … sometimes,” answered Ernest. “Yes. I’ve generally thought so.”
She beamed ingratiatingly at him. “what book are you reading, Uncle Ernest?” she asked.
“Othello. I don’t suppose you know that play of Shakespeare’s. It’s not suitable for school study.”
“We’ve had Romeo and Juliet. It’s awfully boring. I like Midsummer Night’s Dream though. It hasn’t all that lovemaking.”
“I hear,” said Ernest, “that Othello is to be performed in the town before long. I should very much like to see it but I find sitting through one of Shakespeare’s plays too much of an ordeal for me at my age. But when you are quite grown up you must see Othello. It’s a great tragedy that hinges on the loss of a handkerchief. Desdemona is murdered by Othello because she loses the handkerchief he gave her.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Adeline, her mind on the colt, “I’m always losing handkerchiefs.”
“You don’t understand, Adeline. This handkerchief was a l
ove token.”
“She’s not a bit interested in love, are you, Adeline?” said Nicholas.
“Not a bit,” she returned. “But I am interested in a grand two-year-old Wright has been telling me about. He’s going to be a wonder.”
“I suppose you know,” Ernest continued, “that I am writing a book on Shakespeare.”
“Yes. I know, Uncle Ernest.”
“I should have had it completed by now, but for the war. The war, you know, dulls one’s intellect, makes one stupid. I suppose it’s the dreary round of reading the newspapers, listening to the radio. It takes the edge off one’s mind.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Now I hope to have the book completed within the next year or so. But there’s still a good deal of work to do on it.”
“I’m sure there is, Uncle Ernest.”
“what about this two-year-old?” asked Nicholas. She turned to him with her soul in her eyes.
“Oh, Uncle Nick, Wright is so excited about him! And so am I. All we need is another hundred dollars and —”
“If you are thinking of me as a partner in this,” said Nicholas, “you may put the idea right out of your head. Nothing can interest me in such a scheme. Another horse to worry over! Wait till your father comes home. Let him buy it if he wants to.”
“It will be too late!”
“I am in complete accord with your Uncle Nicholas,” said Ernest.
“Nothing would induce me to put money into a horse. Piers is quite against it and his head is screwed on right.”
Adeline had now nothing to do but to tell Wright of her failure. But, even though they could not raise the money to buy the colt, they rode over to the farmer’s the following afternoon to see it.
Adeline had a sense of disappointment when she saw the shaggy, somewhat forlorn-looking beast, with mud caked on his flanks and burrs clotted in his mane and tail. But Wright’s eloquence soon roused her to a fever heat of enthusiasm.
“If only I could get hold of him,” said the groom, “I’d make him into a wonder within the year!”
“Is there nothing we can do!” exclaimed Adeline.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 410