But she answered loudly.
“Be quiet till I’ve had my say!”
He looked at her silently, his face hardening. The light from the lamp in the hall poured in through the wide doorway.
“Miss Wakefield,” said Adeline, “I think you have missed your vocation. You should not have been a teacher but a professional dancer. You’re too good at it for a private drawing-room and I’m glad you had the sense to restrain yourself till my guests were gone, for they’re a conventional lot and I am afraid they would have been scandalized to see such abandon. I’m not conventional but your dancing opened my eyes to what a young woman will do when she lets herself go.”
“You flatly contradict yourself,” said Philip. “You say you never saw prettier dancing, and why didn’t we do it when all the people were here and they’d have loved it. The next instant you say you’re glad we restrained ourselves and that they’d have been horrified.”
“You know what I mean!” shouted Adeline.
“I’m sorry,” Mary got out. She turned and fled from the room.
Lily Pink was weeping over her keyboard. Adeline said to her more quietly:
“Go to bed, my dear. It’s nearly morning.”
Lily rose, her face distorted like a child’s from crying.
“There’s nothing for you to cry about, Lily,” said Philip, as she passed him. He put out his hand to give her a comforting pat but she shrank away as though he were about to strike her and cried out, “No!”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Philip looking after her.
“You may well be,” said Adeline gloomily.
“What have I done?”
“You’ve done enough to make me want to take a stick to your back. If your father had come in on this scene he’d have raised the roof with the rage that was in him.”
In the doorway Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest now appeared. Augusta wore a long dark red wrapper but her brothers were in night-shirts, over which they had pulled trousers. Nicholas’ thick dark hair stood up in magnificent confusion but Ernest’s fine fair hair was still sleek.
“Whatever is up?” demanded Nicholas.
“We were dancing,” answered Philip.
“We?” echoed Augusta’s deep tones.
“Yes,” he returned with a brazen look at her. “Mary Wakefield and me.”
He was purposely ungrammatical and it made what he said the more brazen.
“Tell them,” said Adeline, “just how you were dancing.”
He was still imperturbable. “Well,” he said, “I hadn’t danced with the poor girl all the evening. We had the room to ourselves.”
“Yes,” said Adeline, “they had the room to themselves. He put out the candles but there was moonlight. Plenty of light for me to see the shameless performance.”
“Who was playing the piano?” asked Nicholas.
“Who but Lily Pink!”
“I didn’t think she had it in her.”
“Edwin remarked to me,” said Augusta, “with the bedclothes over his head — for he was trying to go to sleep — that the music sounded to him positively vicious.”
A smile flickered across Adeline’s face, then faded.
“It was that,” she said, “and I guess her poor parents would have hidden their heads in shame, if they had heard it and seen what I saw. The children’s governess swooping up and down the room, draped over Philip’s arm like a courtesan! Ah, she’s no better than she should be.”
“I won’t hear a word against her,” said Philip.
“You’ll hear whatever I have to say,” declared Adeline, her eyes blazing.
He was standing quite near her but in his anger he shouted as though she were deaf:
“I repeat that I won’t!”
“Don’t you dare shout at me, sir!”
“Then don’t you say such things of Miss Wakefield.”
“I say she’s a wanton!”
“Then you lie.”
Adeline sprang on Philip and caught him by the shoulders to shake him, but he took her wrists in his hands and held her. Boney who had not yet got over his joy in the return of his mistress, paid no heed whatever to this disturbance but continued to snuggle himself beneath her chin and to utter caressing words in his foreign lingo. Mother and son, locked together, glared into each other’s eyes.
Nicholas rumbled, “That’s no way to speak to Mamma. I can’t allow it.”
“I’m sorry,” muttered Philip. “But she drove me to it.” He still gripped Adeline’s wrists.
“Free me, sir!” she demanded, her face only a few inches from his.
“What will you do, if I do let you go?” he asked half-laughing.
“You’ll see,” she hissed, like the villainess in a play.
Ernest came and gently withdrew Philip’s hands.
“This is bad for you, Mamma,” he said. “You should be in your bed.” She shook him off.
“I want,” she said, folding her arms and facing Philip, “to be assured that that —” she hesitated over what she should call Mary, then went on — “wanton young person shall leave the house tomorrow.”
“I can’t do it,” returned Philip calmly. “In the first place, she’s done nothing wrong. In the second place I’ve engaged her for a year.”
“You are not bound if she misbehaves herself.”
“She hasn’t.”
Nicholas put in, “I shouldn’t go into that again if I were you. Let’s talk over the affair quietly tomorrow.”
“There is no talking over this quietly,” said Adeline. “She is to go.”
“No, Mamma.” Philip spoke with pointed calm. “I cannot and will not dismiss her.”
Adeline demanded fiercely, “How often have you been up to her bedroom?”
Augusta uttered a contralto groan, as she saw peaceful retirement receding.
“Not once,” Philip answered with great distinctness.
Adeline laughed. “Come now, come now, tell the truth. How many times?”
“That sort of pastime may have been the custom in your dear father’s house — not in mine.”
“Philip —” Adeline spoke with passion — “why will you always be saying that Jalna is yours? Everyone knows it already.”
“It’s very irritating,” said Nicholas.
“And after all,” put in Augusta, “Nicholas is the eldest son.”
“All I said was that in my house that sort of thing is not done.”
“And you insult my poor father’s memory,” cried Adeline, “and he in the grave!”
“Many a time I hear you say worse of him.”
She could not deny this. She struck one clenched fist into the palm of the other. “If your father,” she said, “whom we all agree was a man of good character, even though my poor father — God rest his soul — was not —”
Earnest interrupted, “Mamma, why must you talk in that Irish peasant way when you are upset? It sounds so affected.”
“It makes what I say more impressive,” she returned. “And God knows it’s myself who needs to be impressive, with my youngest son blackening my father’s memory and flaunting his —”
“Better not use that word, Mamma,” said Philip. “Because it only makes me more determined not to be overridden in this affair.”
“What I am trying to say, only I can’t get a word in edgeways, is that if Philip’s father were here he would send that girl off tomorrow morning.”
“I wish,” put in Augusta, “that I might have seen the dance.”
“Yes,” agreed Ernest, “if only we had come down a little sooner!”
“I wish you had,” said Philip. “You could have seen nothing wrong.”
Adeline grinned. “No. Because you had taken care to put out the lights. Why had you put out the lights?”
“Because I liked the idea of dancing in the moonlight.”
“I am sorry to see,” said Adeline, “that you, a young father — widower of as noble a young woman as ever drew breath
—”
Philip’s eyes were prominent with astonishment.
“You are late in discovering it, Mamma.”
“Mamma —” Ernest thoughtfully bit his thumb — “just what did you mean when you said that Miss Wakefield was draped across Philip’s arm? I think a great deal depends on that.”
“I’ll show you,” Adeline answered with gusto. “Step back and I’ll show you. Put your arm round my waist, Philip … You might play me a waltz, Nicholas.”
Before Philip could stop himself he put an arm about her waist. He held her rigidly a moment, then drew himself decisively away. He strode to the door and from there he said, with an angry tremor in his voice:
“I tell you all that you are wasting your time and had better be in your beds, for nothing you can say will make me dismiss Mary Wakefield and that’s flat.”
They heard him going up the stairs.
Adeline’s face fell. Then she brightened. “Ernest, you put your arm about me and we’ll show them.”
“I can’t, Mamma. It would be quite different.”
“The point is,” said Nicholas, through a yawn, “that Philip is in one of his mulish moods. Nothing we can say will change him.”
“He is adamant,” said Augusta. “But he cannot go on being adamant, if he feels disapproval of his behaviour from every side, combined with complete restraint and perfect politeness.”
“Augusta is quite right,” said Ernest. “Also I am positive that Philip has only a passing regard for this girl. He was lonely and she was thrown in his path.”
“By you,” added Adeline grimly.
Ernest grew pink but went on, “Tonight I noticed that by the end of the party he had had a little — a very little — too much to drink. That, combined with the moonlight, the music —”
“Good God,” interrupted his mother, “he’s thirty! He’s been married once. If he can’t withstand a little feeble moonlight and a waltz played by Lily Pink …”
“Certainly,” said Nicholas, “she put her whole soul into her playing.”
“Then,” declared his sister, “there is something terribly wrong with Lily’s soul.”
Nicholas laughed, “I’m going to bed,” he said. “Let me take you to your room, Mamma.”
“No,” she said with sad dignity. “I’ll go alone. The time has come for me to learn that I’m a poor widow whose children will not stretch a helping hand to her.”
She kissed each in turn and, only slightly drooping, left the room. The parrot had lowered his breast to her shoulder, puffed himself and closed his eyes.
Nicholas winked at the other two. “A very fine exit,” he said.
When they reached the passage above there was silence throughout the house, except for a bubbling cosy snore from Sir Edwin.
XII
MEETINGS ON THE ROAD
THE MAJESTY of the garnered harvest was at Jalna. Day after day heavy wagons had borne their rich loads to the barn. There never had been a better year for crops, except for the corn which Adeline would call maize. It had grown to a great height but had been battered down by a heavy storm. Nevertheless it had half raised itself again and was saved. The boughs of the apple trees were weighted by sound fruit, the Duchess, the Astrakan, the Baldwin, the Northern Spy, the pippen, the snow apple — best of all. Down where the stream passed near the stables grew a wild apple tree whose little sweet apples tasted like pears and were valued most by Meg and Renny. They hid in this tree, eating its fruit; it was always in their pockets; they stored it under their pillows for bedtime refreshment. It was responsible for lack of appetite, for hives, sometimes for pains in their insides. But nobody suspected the apple tree.
The sun, having ripened the grain and coloured the fruit, now turned his wayward strength to painting great splashes of gold and purple in the ditches and the edge of the woods where goldenrod and Michaelmas daisies drew what moisture they could find, through their tough stalks. Even the mushrooms did not escape his colouring, for here and there appeared red ones and others that were mauve. To Adeline these were toadstools and poison and so she trained the children. They discovered the pale Indian pipes which alone never saw the sun, picked them, carried them a little way, then threw them down and trampled them.
Philip’s cows and sheep and pigs had done well, but they were of small account compared to his horses. He had made a name for himself as a breeder of the best Clydesdales in the country. Yet he was not happy, and no prosperity on the land could overcome the discomfort of his life in the house. One could not be at outs with Adeline and forget it. Her atmosphere advanced before her as an outrider — hung on her skirts like a train. If she were displeased, her displeasure was unforgettable, to herself and to its object. Now she was displeased with Philip and her displeasure was dark indeed. She was mystified because, though Philip had so bluntly refused to let Mary Wakefield be dismissed, he had so far as she could discover never seen her alone since the night of the dance. And how she had watched him and how she had watched Mary! “Upon my word,” she would say to herself, “I shall be worn out with all the watching, yet it is my duty and do it I must.” Mary was not difficult to watch, for of late she had spent most of her free time in her own room, but Philip was here, there and everywhere. She would send Ernest or Nicholas on some pretext to look for him. They well knew what was in her mind but humoured her, Nicholas cynically — feeling sure that Philip was carrying on his affair with Mary in his own indolent but persistent fashion — Ernest, anxious to prevent any alliance that would cause trouble in the family. In truth he gave only a small part of his mind to the matter, for he had anxieties of his own, of which he would speak to no one but bore them in secret.
He, Nicholas and the Buckleys were shortly returning to England. Adeline would be alone with Philip and the children. By that time, she was confident, she would have Mary on the way to departure also. She had almost entirely ignored Mary since the night of the dance but, when she did speak to her, it was with a kind of fierce graciousness, as though in the twinkling of an eye she might bite her head off. As for Mary, the mere sight of Adeline walking towards her was enough to make her heart pound. She avoided all the family but the children. The days passed in a sort of dream. Something, she felt, was bound to happen. She could not go on like this. The pageantry of autumn began to unroll, as though in the last act of a play, in which she, the heroine, did not know her lines, did not even know whether the play were melodrama or farce. She was conscious that she was inadequate to hold her own among these other players whose roles so well suited them.
Passing the drawing-room she would have a glimpse of the two older brothers, Lady Buckley, and Adeline playing a game of whist. It would be after tea and the evening growing cool but not yet dark enough for lamplight. The sun, very low, would send its light flickering through moving branches. It was not always easy to distinguish an eight spot from a ten spot. Augusta would be holding her hand high, on a level with her eyes, to catch the light; Ernest trying not to see what cards she held, yet somehow glimpsing them. Nicholas would be wearing the eyeglasses which he had just lately taken to for reading and card playing, and from which depended a black ribbon. But Adeline, with a humorous twist to her mouth, would be scrutinizing the faces of the other players, as if from them, rather than from her own hand she would be guided in her next play.
Sometimes Mary would have a brief picture of Sir Edwin playing at backgammon with his mother-in-law. His even-featured face, between his neat side-whiskers, was as impassive as an egg. When he spoke it was in a clipped monotone, but Adeline’s voice came out, hard and clear.
“Deuce!” would come softly from Sir Edwin’s lips.
“Trey!” would be rapped out from Adeline’s strongly-molded ones.
“Doublets!”
“Quatre!” And Boney, on her shoulder, would repeat the word. If they heard Mary pass, they gave no sign.
All appeared to have forgotten the scene on the night of the party. All appeared to be hardly aware of M
ary’s existence. Her dance with Philip began to seem like a dream. Yet in solitude she enacted it over again, lived it, as though it were all that were real in her life — the return down the stairs, with hair and face freshened — she scarcely knew why but — there was the hope! It had been an unacknowledged hope, without foundation, for he had not come to her once that night. Then — how the hope had been justified! It had blazed into bloom, almost stifling her with its power. Unbelievably she had found herself in Philip’s arms, his powerful body moving so lightly beside hers, his arms bounding her world. Nothing else had mattered but the sweep of their embraced bodies in the long room, lighted only by moonlight, the throb of the waltz, the scent of the nicotiana coming in at the window. There was her world, her life, she had thought. Nothing could ever be the same again! That must go on — encircling her.
But things were the same again — now painfully the same. The routine of her days, the long wakeful nights moved on, with no one to notice her changed looks, her heavy eyes. Even her hair seemed changed and did not want to curl but hung in limp locks.
She was sure that Philip avoided her, that is, when she was alone. If the children were with her he would appear as his former self, chaffing Renny, stroking Meg’s hair, asking questions to which he scarcely seemed to expect an answer, about their progress. Sometimes Mary, with an almost fierce determination, would persuade his eyes to meet hers. When they did, for an instant, it was as if they were alone together, with the beat of the waltz on the air, instead of the voices of the children, her heart would palpitate, she would look away from him speechless. If only, she thought, her position had not been so ambiguous — if only she had felt sure of her ground in any quarter. But, even with the children, even with Mrs. Nettleship and Eliza, she felt uncertain. Sometimes the children were friendly, even clinging, but again they would whisper together and eye her as an outsider. Then, she thought, Mrs. Nettleship had been at work.
Once Renny suddenly kissed her right on the mouth, then rubbed the back of his hand over his two lips and examined it.
Mary was startled, then angered. She exclaimed, “If that’s the way you feel about my kisses, don’t kiss me again.”
Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny Page 76