Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny

by de la Roche, Mazo

  “I think you had my message,” answered Adeline.

  He stood in the doorway. He said, “What’s all this about?” He looked his usual good-tempered self.

  “Sit down, sit down, my dear,” said his mother. “We want a few explanations from you.”

  Sir Edwin flushed. “Not I. Really not I, Philip.”

  Philip gave a short laugh. He sat down just inside the door.

  “Well, after all,” thought Sir Edwin, “it’s his house. He has a right to do as he likes in it.”

  Jake came in and sat between Philip’s feet.

  Adeline clutched her chin in her hand as a man might clutch his beard. She regarded Philip in silence for a space and then asked, “Tell me, Philip, have you considered Miss Wakefield to be a young woman of character you were willing to entrust your children to?”

  The good humour left his face. He frowned.

  “I certainly have.”

  “Shut the door, Philip.”

  He put out his hand and shut the door.

  “Yet,” she went on, “that girl became engaged to Clive Busby who is as fine a young fellow as I know, and, while preparing for her marriage to him, allowed you to go right on making love to her.”

  “I’ve scarcely spoken to her in these weeks. There’s been nothing between us.”

  “No? What about your meeting in the orchard last evening?”

  “Did Noah Binns come and tell you that?”

  “No. He told Lily Pink and she told me.”

  “Little fool.”

  “You don’t deny that there was a passionate love scene between you?”

  “Noah Binns! Passion! You make me laugh. I thought his mind rose no higher than bugs and blight.”

  Adeline fastened on the last word. “Blight! That’s what she’s been. A blight on this place. She is to marry Clive Busby next week. Yet she clasps you in her arms and —”

  “Come now,” he interrupted, “don’t tell me that Noah went into details! Or perhaps it was Lily.”

  Adeline raised her voice, her eyes blazed into his.

  “Don’t try to be funny over this, Philip. I won’t have it. And I don’t need Noah Binns to tell me what that woman is to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that she is your mistress.”

  “That’s a lie!” he shouted.

  Adeline sprang to her feet. “Do you dare tell me I lie?”

  He answered more quietly, “It’s malicious gossip, whoever is responsible for it. Mary is as virtuous as any girl living.”

  “I repeat,” said Adeline, “that she is your mistress.” She held up her hand, in a peremptory gesture. “She told me so herself.”

  A shock of consternation went through the room. Ernest rose and took a step forward, as though he would put himself between his mother and Philip who had turned startlingly pale. Nicholas tugged at his moustache, to hide the sardonic smile that hardened his lips. Augusta’s sallow face flushed deeply. Sir Edwin nibbled at some inaudible words. He took out his watch and looked at the time. Time for a row, he nibbled inaudibly, time for a row.

  “Mother,” said Philip, his voice trembling, “can you look me in the face and tell me that?”

  “I can. I went up to her room last night.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “I wanted to give her a chance to defend herself.”

  “When was this? Where was I?”

  “In bed. As I say I went up to her room —”

  “Poor little thing!” exclaimed Philip.

  “Don’t worry about her. She can look after herself. She’s an adventuress with a past behind her. Now — don’t interrupt … I asked her, quite simply, what she meant by preparing to marry young Busby and at the same time carrying on a love affair with you. She had nothing to say for herself. Then I asked her, plump and plain, if she was your mistress. She wouldn’t answer. Then I said, ‘He’s been up to your room at night, hasn’t he?’ And she said ‘Yes,’”

  “She didn’t understand you,” cried Philip.

  Adeline’s flexible lips curled in scorn. “Not understand me! Do I generally make myself clear? She understood me well enough. I repeated, ‘Are you his mistress?’ Oh, she understood! You might as well try to paint a blackamoor white as to make her out virtuous.”

  “She could not have understood you,” he repeated doggedly.

  “Bring her down! I’d like to hear her deny it.”

  “I will, by God!”

  He flung open the door and leaped up the stairs, two steps at a time. Jake, thinking this was some new game, ran after him joyously barking. They could be heard ascending the second flight of stairs. Then nothing more could be heard.

  “I should like,” observed Sir Edwin, “to know what they are saying up there.”

  “You are much better not knowing,” said his wife.

  “It was I,” said Ernest, “who brought this trouble on us, and I’m very sorry about it. I never was more deceived in my life. The next time a governess is engaged, someone else can choose her.”

  “What astounds me,” said Nicholas, “is that she’d be so brazen. Tell the truth, Mamma, weren’t you surprised?”

  “I was indeed.”

  “What do you say she’ll do now?”

  “Philip’s coming!”

  All faces turned expectantly toward the door.

  Philip was alone. Augusta and Ernest looked relieved; Adeline, Nicholas and Sir Edwin disappointed.

  “She’s not there,” said Philip quickly. “She’s gone!”

  “She’s out with the children,” suggested Ernest.

  “She’s gone, I tell you! Her trunk is packed. Her portmanteau gone. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”

  “Eliza has made the bed,” said Augusta.

  “No. She was up there and I asked her. She said the room was just as it is now when she went into it.” He turned to Adeline. “You have driven Mary away. God only knows what you have shocked her into doing.” His eyes were tragic. In his excitement he had run his hand through his hair. Standing erect it added to his distraught appearance.

  Adeline laughed derisively. “Me shock her? Ah, my dear, she’s not so easily shocked. She can look out for herself. But brazen as she is, she could not face us this morning after what she told me last night.”

  “I tell you she didn’t know what she was saying!”

  “Have sense, Philip,” Nicholas put in tersely. “Mary Wakefield is no ignorant schoolgirl.”

  “Indeed,” added Sir Edwin, “she seems to be a woman of strong character.”

  “I was taught,” said Augusta, “to look on such a character as frail.”

  “Now then, Philip,” Adeline spoke with an air of finality, “it’s time to put this nonsense out of your head. I have no doubt that you are not the first with Mary Wakefield. Nor will you be the last …”

  “I will not hear another word against her,” he shouted. “And if you won’t believe her, perhaps you’ll believe me. I have never been to bed with her. I swear it — though I despise myself for going to the trouble of denying what anyone who knows Mary …” he could not go on. He stood, with his hands clenched, glaring at them.

  “But surely,” said Ernest, “no girl would knowingly damage her own character.”

  “She did know,” declared Adeline. “She knew exactly what I said and what she said.”

  “Then she is deranged,” said Philip.

  “Perhaps her derangement is just love for you,” suggested Nicholas, “and disappointment because she isn’t getting you.”

  “She is getting me! Make no mistake about that. I’m going now to find her and I’m going to marry her.”

  “You fool,” cried Adeline, “you would marry a girl who will have no rag of reputation left after this!”

  In the hall Renny began to sing, in his penetrating treble voice, the new song he had just learned from a stableman.

  “‘Ta ra ra boom de-ay

  Ta ra ra boo
m de-ay’”

  Adeline called him and he appeared, red-cheeked, red-haired, brown-eyed, brown-jacketed, as in autumn colouring. He had forgotten he had run away but now he remembered and stood rigid.

  “Have you seen your governess this morning?” asked Adeline.

  “No, Granny. She’s sick.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She didn’t come out of her room?”

  “And you haven’t heard anything about her?”

  “No. I haven’t.”

  “Very well. Run along now.”

  His brow cleared. He relaxed and ran out singing:

  “‘Ta ra ra boom de-ay

  Ta ra ra boom de-ay’”

  XVII

  ESCAPE

  WITH HER EAR to the panel of the door Mary could hear that Adeline was descending the stairs. She listened for a moment, even after all was silent. Then she came back and stood facing her reflection in the mirror. It was as though she looked at a stranger. A different Mary was looking out at her, a Mary with dilated nostrils and bold, defiant eyes. A stranger. She laughed at her own reflection in triumph. I had the best of Mrs. Whiteoak, she thought, she was dumbfounded, she didn’t know what to say. I had the best of her.

  She began to pace up and down the room, unable to think clearly, except for that one thought — I had the best of her. She came up here to humiliate me, to accuse me, but I took the wind out of her sails. She thought she’d frighten me but I was equal to her! Those eyes of hers that seem to blaze into yours — but she found mine could blaze back. Never in my life had I such a moment. It was like something on the stage, only they’d never dare put such a scene on the stage — a girl declaring she was loose, when she was — just the reverse! It would upset all ideas of morality. It would be shameful. People would say what a horrible play. And no wonder! I am a horrible woman … Yet I don’t mind … I don’t care … All that matters to me is that I got the best of her. I did not allow myself to be intimidated. Every single bit of her has been intimidating to me — the way her eyes are set in her head, the way she uses her hands. There’s been something fatal in her for me. But tonight she must have felt stunned … She must be wondering at this minute what on earth to do. She must be wondering what I am going to do. That girl, she’ll think, can never marry Clive now! What if she intends to marry my Philip?

  Philip. His name was like a cold hand laid on her heart. Her exalted brain halted in its imaginings. Her taut nerves slackened. Suddenly her legs felt weak and she sat down on the bed. She stared blankly in front of her. She did not know how long a time passed, but she began to be very cold. Her mouth felt unbearably dry yet she could not bring herself to the point of getting a drink. She sat like one doomed, while his name rang like a bell through the empty chambers of her mind.

  After a while a few scalding tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away on the frilled cuff of her nightdress. But they freed her from the weakness, the lethargy, that had overtaken her. She looked about the room, noticing the strange shadows thrown by the lamplight. She noticed the worn spot in the carpet in front of the dressing-table. She noticed the wax flowers and fruit under glass on the mantelshelf. She looked down and saw her bare feet, side by side, close together, on the mat by the bed. They looked very white, and somehow pathetic. They will carry me, she thought, far away from this house, as they brought me to it … For now the knowledge that she was going away came clearly to her. In the morning Mrs. Whiteoak would tell Philip what she had said. Never again could she look him in the face after the preposterous lie she had told.

  Now she went to the washstand and filled a glass from the water bottle. The coldness of the water showed how the nights were becoming cold. She drank it down thirstily. Then she took the folded “comforter” from the foot of the bed, wrapped it round her and sat down, this time drawing her feet up. She clasped them in her hands. It was hard to know which was coldest, hands or feet, but they comforted each other.

  She must think what to do.

  Now she could think. The exhilaration of her encounter with Adeline was gone, the exhaustion which followed it, was gone. She could think clearly with a part of her mind. In its recesses there still was a dark turmoil of emotion.

  Should she go to Clive, tell him everything? Would she be able to convince him that what she had said to Adeline was a lie? And if she could, would he be willing to marry a girl to whom such a lie would occur? But she did not want to marry Clive! She would die rather than tell Clive what she had done. She would die rather than marry him when she loved Philip with her whole being. Now that Philip had touched the torch of her love from him into full flame she wondered that she ever had contemplated marrying Clive … Yet, if Clive would be disgusted if he knew what she had said in anger, what would be Philip’s contempt! Philip who had told her he loved her, had kissed her in the orchard, had begged her to walk with him in the moonlight. They would not understand, and how could they when she herself did not understand? Even sitting on her bed, wrapped in the comforter, with the chill dawn greying the window, the thought of that moment when she had taken the wind out of Adeline’s sails made her pulses thrill in renewed exhilaration. How those dark eyes whose fire she had found so hard to face, had stared in blank astonishment! How that mouth, with the strong lines about it, had dropped open! At the recollection Mary laughed, even though she knew that in that moment sh had ruined her life.

  She thought of the words people used in speaking of a girl who had been seduced. “He ruined her.” Well — it could be said of her that she ruined herself. Mary’s laugh was fixed in an ironic smile which made her pale face oddly older.

  One thing was certain. She must leave Jalna. The thought of meeting Philip, the thought of facing the family, was not to be borne. So acute was the stab of this thought that she sprang up and began to put on her clothes. She did not know where she might go. There would be time to make plans when she was safely outside the gate. Standing in her petticoat she poured water from the ewer into the basin. She had always liked this basin with its big red roses shining under the water. The water came from a cistern and was soft, as though just fallen from the clouds. She dashed it on her face, pressed it to her burning eyes. The large linen towel smelt of the outdoors.

  She packed her trunk, strapped it, packed things for immediate use in her portmanteau, then put on her hat and coat. She was now breathless with haste. The sun was touching the tree tops. At any moment the servants would be astir, the dogs barking to see her set out. She must not be seen.

  She took a last look round to make sure she had forgotten nothing. This room, so stamped by her emotions, could it ever be the same again? Surely, in far-off years, someone lying in that bed would be conscious of the shadow of Mary Wakefield.

  Carrying her portmanteau she crept down the stairs.

  Outside Philip’s door she hesitated, her heart seeming to halt its beat while she willed a last message through the panel … “I love you, Philip, and never shall love any man but you. Good-bye, my dearest love.”

  She stole down the stairs.

  The front door stood wide open and the incomparable sweetness of the September morning poured into the hall. She was not the first member of the household to be about! She heard Mrs. Nettleship’s harsh voice in the kitchen below singing a hymn — “Pull for the Shore, brothers, pull for the Shore,” she sang in quavering appeal. Jake’s acute ear discovered Mary’s soft step in the hall. He scratched at the door of the dogs’ room and whined. In panic she hastened through the door and down the steps. She did not look back till she was safe behind the heavy branches of the evergreens that made the driveway a tunnel of greenness. Then between the branches she looked back at the house. Bluish-grey smoke curled straight up from two of its five chimneys. Where the sun struck warmest on the roof the pigeons had gathered, bowing to each other, making rich confidential noises in their throats, their iridescent breasts gleaming. Now that many leaves of the Virginia creeper had fallen the pinkish red of the brick was shown.
The house, now forty years old, was like a comfortable fresh-complexioned matron in early middle age. It looked serene, complacent, confident of the beneficence of the future.

  She turned away and trudged down the drive. Strangely enough her thoughts were not fixed on Philip but on Adeline. Since their interview of the night before Adeline’s image was so imprinted on her consciousness that she wondered if ever again it could be erased. If I were a sculptor, she thought, I could do a head of her from memory. Her nostrils, her eyelids, her lips, are clearer to me than my own. The worst of hating her is that something in me has always been drawn to her. But, what matter, for I shall never see her again? Or pass through this gate again, or see his face again.

  The portmanteau was heavier than she had expected. It kept thudding against her leg as she walked. She shifted it from hand to hand. The distance to the railway station was little more than a mile, however. She knew there was an early morning train to Montreal. She would take that train and, in Montreal, find some employment, no matter what, and through it save enough to return to England. She might get the passage paid in return for caring for an invalid or children. The one clear purpose in her mind was to go far away from this place. I would starve, she thought, rather than meet any of them again.

  She heard the sound of a horse’s hoofs on the road and stepped aside to let it pass. As it grew close she saw that the man in the buggy was Doctor Ramsey. He drew in his horse and stared down at her in surprise.

  “Good morning, Miss Wakefield,” he said, “this is a surprise, meeting you abroad so airly. And your portmanteau, too! Are you off for a holiday?”

  “Yes,” she returned, “I’m catching a train.”

  “And they let you come afoot! And carrying that heavy load. Come, I’ll take you to the station.” He began to tie the reins to the dashboard. “Just a wee minute and I”ll have you and your baggage in the buggy.”

  “No — no, thank you. The rest of the walk is nothing. I’d — I’d rather walk. I like it.”

  Doctor Ramsey had heard too many women tell too many lies to be taken in by this.