“That’s well,” he said. “I admit I have been pretty anxious on that score.”
“That sounds as though I’ve been acting the part of the jilted maiden.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said testily. “You’ve been so natural, it’s seemed too good to be true.” He paused, picked up a small bronze horse that was a paperweight, and considered it. This had been a birthday present to him from Adeline and Fitzturgis. “As for him,” Renny went on, “he never could understand or appreciate a thoroughbred — horse or woman. It simply wasn’t in him. He was too damned self-centred.”
“why do we have to talk about him?” Adeline broke out.
“We don’t. What I’ve been wondering is whether the thought of marriage — in the future — ever comes to you. You’re young, healthy, good-looking. It would be natural.”
“I never give it a thought.”
“Never?”
“I have enough in my life, as it is. I have you, Daddy. I have Jalna andthe family. Why should I want another man hanging about?”
“Not if he were the right man?”
She turned to him squarely. “Don’t imagine,” she said, “that I can’t guess what’s in your mind. I know you too well.”
So flabbergasted was he by this remark that he was speechless for a space. Then he got out, “But why — how?”
“I should have been pretty dull,” she said, “if I hadn’t guessed.” She laughed, almost derisively, it seemed to him, and he felt his well-laid plan had fallen through.
“Poor darling,” she said, and came and sat on his knee. “Poor darling.” She toyed with his dense unyielding hair.“what a disappointment for you.”
He caught her hand and held it. “This is no joke,” he said angrily. “It’s a very serious affair. It’s your future — if you will consent — andit’s my dearest wish.”
“Do you expect me to consent? How can I consent to anything so vague?”
“It isn’t vague in my mind,” he said eagerly. “It’s solid. It’s as real as flesh and blood. It’s the very heart of all I hold most dear.”
“what about Philip and me?” she said, bringing their two names out into the open. “We don’t hold each other dear. We’re just two cousins. I’ve had experience. I’ve loved and been disappointed. Philip is just a boy.”
“I’m sorry,” said Renny, “that you should have guessed what I have in mind, because I wanted to tell you of it in my own way.”
“You think you could persuade me, Daddy?”
“I’d never try to persuade you to acquiesce in any plan of mine unless I were confident it would make you happy.” He tried not to sound high-flown.
“I suppose,” she said, seriously now, “Philip and I have a right to be happy.”
“And that’s what I want,” he exclaimed, “above all things! The pair of you are cut out for each other. It would be a perfect match.”
She had got off his knee and was walking nervously up and down the little room. Even in that restricted space it could be seen how graceful was her walk. In truth the grace of her walk, the musical quality of her voice, were her greatest charms. Now she demanded:
“Have you spoken of this to Philip?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t!” she cried. “Not before you spoke to me.”
“I thought it should be first in the mind of the man.”
“The man!The boy— only twenty! How did he take it?”
“Calmly. Seriously. Like the nice chap he is.”
“I suppose he’s thinking of Jalna — with me thrown in. What of my brother?”
“Archer will never settle down to country life.”
“Would Philip?”
“I’m sure he would. I’m sure he’d like nothing better. What better life could a young pair have than the life you and he would enjoy here? Another Philip and Adeline — after a hundred years! And you two the very incarnation of the other pair.”
“Life is different now, Daddy. There isn’t the same belief.”
“Belief doesn’t need to be conscious, Adeline. There’s too much said and written about our feelings nowadays. If we just go ahead and livewe can be as happy as ever people were. There’s the great thing about this marriage I propose. You and Philip have it in you to live and be happy.”
“Youpropose,” she repeated. “That’s funny — when one comes to think of it. You proposeand Philip and I do the marrying.” She faced him almost accusingly and he noticed how pale she had grown and how large and darkly tragic appeared her eyes.
“No need to look at me like that,” he said. “Put the whole affair out of your mind. Forget what I have said. Only remember this, my pet, that your happiness is what I crave, above all things. And I’ll be honest with you. The thought of losing you is almost more than I can bear. If you and Philip married I’d have you safe at Jalna.”
“I don’t want to marry anyone.” Without warning she burst into tears.
He took her in his arms and kissed her trembling lips.
“Not now, perhaps, but — the day will come. Then some brute will appear on the scene who will captivate you and off you’ll gallop with him and never a look behind.”
Now her tears were mixed with laughter. They clung together. Noises from the stables reached them, then a sudden shower sounded on the roof and a distant roll of thunder. These sounds enclosed them. They smelled the rain, heard the thunder, and wished for nothing but to be together.
VII
Adeline and Philip
The summer was lush, the leaves broad and darkly green. Paths were overgrown, grass sprouted up in the gravel of the drive. There was a hushed, humid resignation in the midsummer air. The stream moved darkly, slowly beneath its little rustic bridge. And there on the bridge sat Adeline, lost in thought. Even on the bridge the unusual growth was noticeable, for a wild grapevine had secured a hold on one of the handrails and, with leaf and tenacious tendril, was pursuing its way to the other side of the stream.
Adeline wound a tendril round her finger like a ring. The green of the crowding foliage cast that hue on the golden brown of her dreamy eyes, so that it would have been difficult, even for those who knew her best, to pronounce what was their colour. She was living these days in a strange confusion of thought — at times reliving the experience of her engagement to the Irishman, Fitzturgis; more often, dwelling on the proposal made to her by Renny.
She had thought herself to be free of those recollections, so poignant, so capable of shattering her peace, but now they had come back to her. The meeting with Fitzturgis in Ireland. The budding, the blossoming of her first love. The days they had spent together in London, she under the guardianship of Finch. The return to Canada. The two years of waiting for Fitzturgis to come out to her. His coming to Jalna. That exciting, disturbing, disappointing time. The scene by the lake when she had discovered him and her cousin Roma bathing together. Her fierce anger at seeing their embrace. If she lived to be a hundred, as her great-grandmother had done, never could she forget the fiery violence of that moment — the moment that had changed everything. She could not recall it even now without a smile of triumph at the discomfiture of the pair in the lake and her hurling stones at them.
Bit by bit she had put that time out of her mind. It lay discarded like a torn-up illustration out of a book. But, now and again, she would take out the scraps, piece them together and form again that haunting picture. Renny, understanding her all too well, had given her a new picture to dwell on — the picture of Philip and herself at Jalna. Always it glowed, at the back of her mind, as though illumined by a secret light. Then again she would see the two of them, framed as were the portraits of their great-grandparents in the dining room, in ornate gold frames.
Love? what matter if they were not “in love”? Once she had known what it was to have her life transfigured by love — broadened into a new spaciousness, yet strangely narrowed to the passionate employment of her powers upon one individual. She felt that she had discovered all there
was to know of such an entanglement. She wanted no further experience of that sort. Once was enough. Often she had pictured her future — free as the wind that blew among the trees, across the fields of Jalna. She would belong to no one but herself — and the family. But Philip was part of the family. If they two … but she could not bring herself to give words to the picture that was now so insistently in her mind, the picture which Renny had made for her — herself and Philip, gilt-framed, beautiful and silent, gazing out upon a placid world.…
This world, she knew, was in a troubled, uneasy state. Often she heard her mother and Archer discussing it, sometimes heatedly, and felt uncomfortable, and wished they wouldn’t. Philip and she could live in a world they would make for themselves. There would be no love in it. Just comradeship and love for the countryside. She amused herself by playing with these thoughts, never bringing them too close, always keeping Philip safe within his gilt frame.
But now, as she sat on the bridge, the live Philip came down the path, whistling as he came, like the boy he was. He did not see her till he was close upon her, then he stopped short and the whistle died on his pouting lips. He stood looking down at her, mildly surprised.
“Oh, hullo,” he said.
She also said, “Hullo.” Then they regarded each other irresolutely, as though they had sooner not have met and now would make the encounter as brief as possible.
The stream dominated the scene. It came out of the shadow of the trees and flowed, bronze and golden, into the sunlight that surrounded the rustic bridge. In the pool beneath, minnows darted above the yellow sand or hid themselves in the watercress, their noses safe in the dimness, only their flirting tails visible. A dragonfly in glittering armour hovered above the pool. All was in miniature. Indeed, if the pair on the bridge had suddenly descended into the pool, they would have disturbed it as two giants. Yet the time had been when, as infants, they had gazed from the safety of grown-up arms in wonder at its depth. Now, after the interchange of a swift glance, their attention was focused on the stream.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Philip.
“Yes, isn’t it?” she agreed, and on that subject they had nothing more to say.
But the stream made fluent conversation for them, with gurgling vowel sounds and hissing consonants against the reeds. The dragonfly had recklessly touched the water. His wings were wet and he might, like many another aircraft, have met his end, had not Philip scrambled down to the brink and rescued him.
“Thanks,” Adeline said tersely but with a warm look.
“why thanks?” said Philip. “He wasn’t yours.”
“I feel as though all wild things were,” she said. “Especially those that fly.”
“Stinging insects?” he asked with a teasing look.
“Every one of them,” she said, “unless in the act of stinging.”
“There’s no use,” he said, “in being too softhearted.”
“why did you save the dragonfly?” she demanded.
“I’d as lief drown it,” he said.
“Naughty boy.” She gave him a suddenly coy look and he scrambled back on to the bridge and sat down beside her. She glanced down at his strong brown hand lying on the rough boards of the bridge and withdrew her own hand a little distance from it.
That seemed to him a dismissal and he said:
“Well, I guess I’ll be going.” He gathered up the last notes of the song he had been whistling, repeated them, then continued in a remarkably sweet series of variations. Like a male singing bird he appeared to be showing off his accomplishments to the female.
“Pretty,” she remarked. “I wish I could whistle.”
“Try.”
She gave out one long clear note.
“Good,” he said encouragingly. “Go on.”
She made an attempt but her lips refused to be pursed. They parted in a smile and she said, “I can’t. There’s no use in trying.” He did not again urge her.
They sat in a dreamy silence, the dark green of the summer leaves casting a shadow on them. But there was nothing of youthful romance in the heart of either; there was instead an image planted by Renny Whiteoak which pleased their fancy, gave them an almost ennobling sense of security. There was no need for speech. No need excepting to say the few words that would take them out of the gilt frames now enshrining them, transform them into flesh and blood.
In spite of herself Adeline could not keep from speaking these. She wanted things to drift on as they were, but her lips that had been unable to constrain themselves to whistle now had no power to restrain those words.
“There’s one thing we could do — both of us,” she said, “if we wanted.… ” Those words, the assertion of their right to choose, repeated themselves in her stubborn heart. Did she wanthim? Did he wanther? Surely not. There would be nothing new to discover, each in the other. They who had romped together as children, she the older and stronger of the two … Yet — no matter how her heart rebelled — her lips could not keep from saying the words, so eloquently desired by Renny.
He kept his eyes averted but asked, “what could we do?”
“We could get married.”
“Yes,” he said, under his breath. “We could.”
“If we wanted.”
“Certainly. If we wanted.”
Now her eyes looked straight into his. “what about you?” she asked. “Do you want to?”
His face was suffused by colour, while she looked remarkably cool.
“Yes,” he mumbled, gazing down into the stream.
“Really?” she asked, with a scornful look for his mumbling.
He could not speak but nodded violently.
“Very well,” she heard herself say, “let’s.”
“when?” he got out.
“Next year — for the centenary, of course.”
There followed a silence, empty rather than pregnant. Yet Adeline was not disappointed by this emptiness. It was as though a burden had been lifted from her and in its place this empty buoyancy.
“Shall we go and tell …” Daddyshe had been about to say, but, instead, she said, “everybody?”
As though electrified by the prospect of activity, Philip in one agile movement was on his feet. He took her hand and for a moment they stood linked, then darted from the bridge and up the steep to the lawn above. Facing the lawn rose the house, richly clothed in its mantle of Virginia creeper. So dense was the growth of the vine that the principal upstairs windows were half-overhung by it, giving the effect of eyes half-hidden by a wink. The house seemed to be saying: “Well, in my time I have seen a number of affianced couples, of brides and grooms to be, but — this engagement beats all!”
VIII
How They Took the News
The announcement of the engagement of Adeline and Philip ranked with the family as a major event, one of the same interest accorded to the events of the outer world, such as an alliance of two great powers or the collision of two great ships at sea. To some it was an announcement of pure happiness and promise. To others the reverse.
There was little harmony between Renny and Alayne in this affair, he viewing it as a personal achievement accomplished by his own finesse. He considered that he had been delicately artful in his handling of the young people, while Alayne felt that he had been ruthlessly impulsive. Both boy and girl, she thought, were far too much under his influence. There was no clear judgment on the part of Philip and Adeline. Neither was there passion. Passion, in spite of her cool exterior, she could have understood, for once it had played havoc in her own life. Adeline’s former fiancé, Maitland Fitzturgis, had possessed qualities which had appealed to Alayne. She had been eager to welcome him into the family. But this unformed youth, this Philip, she could only regard in puzzlement and dismay.
So Renny took his triumph to his sister for understanding. She received him in a flood of happy tears.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. “Really I don’t know when anything has made me so happy. And how
delighted dear Gran and the uncles would have been to see another Philip and Adeline at Jalna! It might have meant little if the young pair had resembled the families of their mothers, but there is Philip, the image of our grandfather; and there is Adeline, the very picture of Gran — though I do hope she will have a nicer disposition as she matures. I can never quite forget how Gran put me off in her will with an old-fashioned watch and chain, and an Indian shawl that her parrot used to make his nest in.”
“I know, I know. It was a shame,” Renny said soothingly, though certainly he had had more to complain of than Meg in that will. But it was far in the past, and the betrothal of the young pair was in the glowing present.
“We must have a celebration,” he went on. “A dinner party for the tribe — with plenty of good food and drink. I will provide champagne, and Alayne will buy a new dress for Adeline. I am glad Finch is home after his tour and that Patience has had her baby. Wakefield may possibly come from New York, and Piers’s two older boys from abroad. Then there is Roma in New York. She’ll naturally want to be here.”
“Dear me,” said Meg, “such a gathering is almost enough for the wedding itself. It will be thrilling to have such a reunion.” She dried her tears and gave her incomparably sweet smile. Together they went into the garden to tell the good news to the Rector; but he was more concerned by the plight of his hollyhocks, which had on the previous night been blown over by wind and rain.
“Flat on their lovely faces,” he mourned, “and I have only myself to blame, for I could have staked them up. Many people,” he went on, “think of hollyhocks as rather common flowers. That is because they will flourish with little or no attention in the workingman’s garden. But to me there is something regal in their height and their simplicity. They do not realize that the can so easily be toppled — ”
Meg interrupted — “Rupert dear, surely you are thrilled by the news Renny brings us? Just think. Adeline and Philip are going to be married next year and right now we are to have a dinner party at Jalna in celebration.”
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 516