Now he said, “He’ll have eyes for you all right. A man usually takes a good look at his future mother-in-law.”
She gave a shrug of impatience. “Don’t say that, please. This affair may well fade into nothing before he’s been here a week.”
“Not if I know Adeline.”
“Renny, how can you know her, any more than she can know herself? She likes to think she is the reincarnation of your grandmother — a woman of one great love — but remember how young she is. Twenty!”
“Would she know better if she were twenty-five?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you?”
Alayne flushed. “You need not have reminded me of that,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Only to remind you that the great age of twenty-five is not always infallible.”
She put a hand on either side of his head, drew it down, and kissed him. She said, “when I met you I could not help myself.” She turned then and began briskly to tidy the things on her dressing-table.
He looked at his watch. “The train is due,” he said, then added, with a touch of chagrin, “Funny Adeline didn’t want me to go with her to meet him.”
“I think it was only natural. Those first moments together w ill be something just for them. Perhaps a little embarrassing, and an outsider would have made it worse.”
“Me an outsider!” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“You’re outside their love.”
“I wish to God,” he said, “that Adeline had fancied someone I know. One thing is certain: she can’t go back to Ireland with him. He’ll have to settle down here.”
“That’s what he wants, he says.”
Staring out of the window, Renny said, with his back to her:
“Alayne, for some reason I suspect this Fitzturgis. I can’t bring myself to like the thought of him.”
She made a little ironic sound against her lipstick. “You’d feel just the same about any man Adeline was engaged to.”
“No. I deny that. I shouldn’t feel like this if it were Maurice.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Maurice is her cousin — one of the family. I do believe that if you had your way all the cousins would marry each other. How would it end? With inbreeding. You don’t do that with livestock, do you?”
He argued, for the sake of arguing, “There’s something in knowing the background of one’s son-in-law.”
“Well, Adeline has told us quite a lot about him. His mother is a garrulous widow — his sister rather odd — his land unproductive.”
“Are you trying to reassure me?” Renny exclaimed.
“It’s just my pessimistic way.”
“You don’t relish this any more than I do!”
She was silent a moment and then answered, “I think Adeline is terribly vulnerable.”
He did not like this conception of their daughter.
“She is made of good stuff,” he said.
“Of course she is, but she’s very inexperienced; and this Fitzturgis — well, you know what he’s been through.”
“Married and divorced, you mean.”
“Yes.”
Renny gave a sudden bark of laughter. He said, “Think how inexperienced I was! And you’d been married and divorced.”
He had known before he said this that it would annoy her but had not been able to stop himself.
“It’s in such bad taste,” she said. “That’s what I mind.”
“I never was in good taste, was I?” he grieved.
In a tone of the most extreme politeness she said, “I think we had better go downstairs. It will be easier to meet them there, don’t you agree?”
“I agree to anything,” he returned.
She looked at him coolly. She thought: “You are in one of your unashamed bad-boy moods, but you will find no response in me.” She asked, “Is Uncle Nicholas resting?”
“In bed. He wants Fitzturgis brought up to his room before he settles down for the night.”
“Dear me — I hope it won’t be too much for him.”
“Too much! Not a bit of it.” It was a part of his protectiveness towards his old uncle that he would not acknowledge the deterioration of his heart. He followed Alayne down the stairs to the drawing-room, where tea was laid. The windows were open and the summer breeze was warm.
Renny cast an appraising glance about the room.
“Everything looks shining,” he said, and put his nose into a bowl of roses.
Their son Archer came into the room. He was a tall boy of nearly sixteen, with a high forehead and clear light eyes. He hid his feeling of superiority toward almost everyone else beneath a retiring manner. He never smiled.
Now, looking over the tea-table, he remarked in his clear incisive voice, “I suppose we’re to starve while Adeline collects the Irishman.”
“Surely, Archer,” said his mother, “you wouldn’t have us begin without our guest.” She looked at him dubiously. She had fervently hoped that Archer would be like her father. Now ironically she found him rather too much like her father — an exaggeration of his less attractive qualities, with the gentleness, the politeness, left out, and in their place some disconcerting qualities of the Whiteoaks.
Archer said, “Probably by the time we’ve seen this Fitzturgis we’ll not want our tea.” Archer was a confirmed tea drinker, caring little for coffee, disliking milk, abhorring lemonade, ginger ale, Coca-Cola, and all soft drinks. Surreptitiously he had sampled the contents of every decanter on the sideboard and passed a cool judgment thereon, in favour of port wine.
In a moment of nervous horseplay Renny reached for his son, intending to ruffle his hair, but Archer eluded him, placing the tea-table between them.
Wragge, the houseman, appeared in the doorway. After thirty years in Canada his cockney accent still was crisp and confident. When he arrived, having been Renny Whiteoak’s batman in the First World War, he had looked old for his age. Now he looked young for it.
He said, particularly addressing Renny, which he invariably did as if no others were present, “I thought you’d like to know, sir, that the train ’as been ’eard to whistle.”
“Good,” said Renny, looking as though it were the reverse of good. “They’ll soon be here.”
A step was heard in the hall, and Wragge moved aside, with the air of making way for a personage, to allow Renny’s sister, Meg Vaughan, to enter. She was two years older than he, a stout widow of sixty-six, and in great contrast to him, for while her face was smooth and the curve of her lips retained the sweetness of her girlhood, his thin weather-beaten face was strongly lined, marked by endurance and fortitude, and his thick red hair that grew to a point on his forehead showed scarcely a grey hair, while hers was of a fine iron-grey and naturally curly. Her movements were slow, while his had an incisive swiftness. It was the same with their speech.
Now she said, “I simply could not resist dropping in to see the Irish fiancé. How excited Adeline must be! I’m sympathetic to her, you know, but …” She waited till Wragge was out of hearing, then added, “If only it might have been Maurice.”
“That’s just the way I feel,” said Renny, putting her into a comfortable chair.
She smiled at Alayne and put out a hand to Archer as though she would draw him toward her, but with a frosty glance he avoided it.
Meg said, noting Alayne’s expression, “I know I shouldn’t have said that in front of the boy. But you’ll forget what Aunty Meg said, won’t you, dear?”
“That is ‘lex non scripta,’” he returned, dropping into Latin in an irritating way he had. But it did not irritate his aunt and she exclaimed admiringly, “How clever Archer is! He picks up dead languages the way the other boys pick up slang.”
“You can say that again, Aunty,” said Archer.
“Archer!” reproved his mother. His father once more stretched out a hand to rumple him and again Archer eluded it.
Desultory talk prolonged rather than shortened the period of
waiting. Renny Whiteoak consulted his watch every three minutes. Archer surreptitiously felt the temperature of the teapot. Meg sighed and remembered her personal worries. Alayne was the first to hear the approaching car.
It appeared now on the smoothly raked gravel sweep, and all four in the room peered from the shelter of the window curtains to have their first glimpse of the visitor.
“Oh, he’s good-looking,” exclaimed Meg in relief, for she attached much importance to looks, “but less tall than I had expected.”
Archer remarked, “A little short in the leg for the breadth of the shoulder.”
“A well-built fellow,” said Renny, his appraising glance moving swiftly from Fitzturgis to the glowing face of Adeline. She had waited two years for the coming of this man. That she should be happy in the reunion was what mattered above all else.
Happiness shone from the burnished copper of her hair to her light step as she led the way into the house. The spaniel, the bulldog, and the little Cairn terrier greeted the pair noisily in the porch. Fitzturgis bent to pat them and called each by name, for Adeline had so often talked of them and written of them. But, for all her glow of happiness, she was nervously excited too. Her pallor showed it and the swift glance almost of entreaty which she gave the group that now had come into the hall.
“Welcome to Jalna,” said Renny, shaking the young Irishman’s hand.
Meg, Alayne, and Archer in turn greeted him: Meg with warmth; Alayne with calm relief, for she liked his looks better than she had expected; Archer with suspicion.
“Did you have a good crossing?” enquired Meg.
“Almost too good,” answered Fitzturgis. “The Atlantic was much smoother than your lake.”
“And the railway journey — was it comfortable?”
“Fairly. But very long. And very hot.”
Alayne put in, “You must be quite ready for tea.” She moved to the tea-table, Archer close after her. He felt the teapot. He said, in a stage whisper, “He’d probably prefer whisky.”
Fitzturgis answered, “Thank you, but I like tea.”
Renny said, “I’ll go up with you to your room first.”
“Thanks. I should like to wash my hands.”
The two men, with a purposeful air, left the room.
“May I have my tea now?” asked Archer.
His mother, in desperation, poured it.
“Well,” Adeline demanded eagerly, “what do you think of him?”
“He’s most attractive,” said Meg. “Such a sweet smile. And something a little sad in him too.”
“I’m sure I shall like him,” Alayne agreed.
Adeline drew a deep sigh of happiness and relief. “I can scarcely believe it’s all over,” she said. “The waiting, I mean.”
“There are worse things than waiting,” said Archer, putting a third lump of sugar in his tea.
“Really, you are a pest, Archer,” Adeline said hotly. “what can you know about waiting?”
“I know about cold tea,” he returned.
Adeline asked of her aunt, “why didn’t Patience come?”
Patience was Meg’s daughter, an only child, four years older than Adeline. But with her lived also the daughter of her dead brother Eden. To this younger girl, Roma, Meg was as a mother. She now answered for both girls:
“Patience thought it would be confusing for the young man to meet so many of us at once. Roma went off somewhere with her boyfriend.” A shadow crossed Meg’s face as she spoke, though she tried to look cheerful.
Adeline said, “It would not have been confusing to have Patience here. I do want her and Mait to meet.”
“He’d likely prefer Roma,” observed Archer.
“Archer, how can you say such things?” exclaimed Meg, hurt.
“Under a frivolous exterior I conceal a great deal of sagacity,” he returned.
“One thing you can’t hide is your conceit,” said Adeline.
He helped himself to a cress sandwich. “I don’t try,” he answered. “I have so much to be conceited about.”
Upstairs Maitland Fitzturgis had washed his hands and run a comb through his curly mouse-coloured hair. As he and Renny were passing the closed door of a bedroom Renny said, “In there is my Uncle Nicholas. You’ll meet him later. Goes to bed early. He’s very old.”
“He’s still living, is he?” Fitzturgis said as though surprised.
Renny stopped stock still to exclaim, “Do you mean to say that Adeline doesn’t mention him in her letters?”
“Now I come to think of it, she has.”
“I hope he takes to you,” Renny said doubtfully. “We set a good deal of store by his opinion here.”
“I shall look forward to meeting him.”
Hungry though she was, Adeline was too much excited to enjoy her tea. What for two years she had been straining toward had actually come to pass. There was her lover at Jalna, sitting among her own people — her mother pouring a second cup of tea for him — her father offering him a cigarette — her Auntie Meg giving him that sweet maternal smile. It seemed almost too good for belief. She was glad that there were not many of the clan present at this first meeting, and yet she was impatient for him to meet them all, to be approved by all and to voice his admiration of them to her. When Meg had gone and they stood alone together in the porch there came her first opportunity to ask:
“Do you like them — him — my father I mean mostly?”
“Very much,” Fitzturgis answered warmly. “I like them all.”
“Don’t you —” She found it difficult to find the words she wanted. “Don’t you think he’s — rather remarkable-looking?”
“Quite. But it’s your mother’s looks I admire. She must have been a lovely girl.”
“She was. She had beautiful fair hair. She’s an American — or was, before she was married to Daddy’s brother Eden and divorced — before she and Daddy married.”
He answered, almost absent-mindedly, “I know. Maurice, I think, told me when we first met…. A nice house, this. I like your trees. How old is the house?”
“It will be a hundred years old before long.”
“Is that all?”
“It’s not very old, I know, in your country. But here it is quite an age. We’re giving a party for the house on its centenary. Isn’t it wonderful to think that you and I will be here for it — together!”
His answer was to put an arm about her and touch her hair with his lips. “I can’t believe in it,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Soon you will,” she said happily. “At this moment nothing seems too good to be true. Everything seems possible…. Oh, Maitland, I don’t know how I lived through these two years.” She looked into his face, on a level with her own, trying to see him as others not emotionally bound to him would see him. She could not, but saw him only through the enamoured eyes of her first love.
His mind returned to what had been told him of her mother’s marriage to Eden Whiteoak. “Have you ever seen him?” he asked. “Your mother’s first husband?”
“I don’t remember him. He died when I was very small. He had a daughter, you know — by another marriage. That’s Roma. She lives with Auntie Meg.”
“You’ve something against her, haven’t you?” he asked abruptly.
“Goodness, no.” Then she added, just as abruptly, “Yes, I have. And you may as well know it. Now, at the beginning, before you meet them all.” She took his hand and led him down the steps of the porch, across the lawn and along the path toward the stables. “I’ll tell you as we go to see the horses,” she said, “and then — no more about it.”
He sniffed the sweet-smelling air. “what a lovely spot!” he exclaimed.
Gratified, even more than if he had praised her, Adeline said, “Isn’tit! We’re thankful that Jalna isn’t near the development schemes. And with five hundred acres we’re pretty safe.”
“what about Roma?” he asked, as though the subject fascinated him.
“Well, you’ve ju
st heard about her, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been hearing about her for two years.”
She opened her eyes at him. “Really? Not from me, surely.”
“Yes. You often mentioned her in your letters. You probably have no idea how often.”
“I’m surprised because I didn’t know I was a bit interested in Roma. And I wasn’t — not till she did this thing to Patience.”
“Patience?”
Adeline spoke with some heat now. “Don’t pretend, Mait, that you don’t know who Patience is.”
“Ah, yes — she’s your Aunt Meg’s daughter. I remember. There are a good many of you, you know.”
They were almost at the stables. Adeline said hurriedly: “Patience is a darling. We all love her. She’s not pretty. She’s rather too big and a little clumsy-looking but perfectly lovely with animals. She has a regular job on the farm, helping Uncle Piers. He says she’s better with an ailing young one than any man.”
“She sounds a good sort,” said Fitzturgis tranquilly.
“Oh, she is! She’s wonderful.” Adeline halted and looked him in the eyes, her own shadowed by puzzlement at what she disclosed. “Then Roma did this thing to her.”
“what?” He was almost smiling at her, she looked so young, so beautiful, so almost distraught.
“Roma took the boy Patience was in love with.”
Fitzturgis’s raised brows, the curve of his full lips, seemed to say, “Is that all?”
Adeline exclaimed, “Well, it was enough, wasn’t it?”
“Were Patience and the man engaged?”
“Not quite but almost. She adored him. Anyone could see that. And then Roma just reached out and took him. His name is Green.”
“Hm … what sort of fellow is he?”
Adeline’s lip curled in scorn. “You can imagine, can’t you? One who’d let himself be taken in by Roma. Weak as water — but Patience loved him. She was ready to devote her whole life to him.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Anyone could see it. Not that she went about ogling him or casting sheep’s eyes at him. She just gave one the feeling that she loved him with all her might…. Now I’ve told you let’s not talk about it any more.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 476