01 The Building of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “He is like an elephant in the room,” said Wilmott. “When I get a dog it must be a small one I can tuck under my arm. Did I tell you that Tite has a pet raccoon?”

  Philip and Daisy had cheeks like roses after the cold air. Their eyes were bright and they had some jokes between them. Both refused anything to drink.

  “I am starving,” Daisy said, unwinding yards of pale blue crocheted scarf from about her neck. “I had nothing but a piece of plum cake and a cup of coffee.”

  “I’m enormously hungry also,” said Philip. “Have you a cold game pie in your larder, Wilmott? And some bottles of stout?”

  Nero lay down at Adeline’s feet and began to lick the snow from his great paws.

  “He’s no less than a snowdrift beside you,” exclaimed Wilmott. He sprang up and dragged Nero in front of the fire. Nero gave him a long, puzzled, mournful look, then returned to licking his paws.

  Wilmott bent over Philip. “I have nothing in the house,” he said, “but a side of bacon, some eggs from my own hens, some cold boiled potatoes and a jar of apple butter.”

  “A meal fit for a prince,” said Philip. “Daisy and I shall cook it.”

  Adeline thought — “Miss Daisy when they went out to skate — Daisy when they come back. I wish she’d settle down to chasing only one man.”

  Daisy arranged her ringlets on her shoulders. “This is the happiest day of my life,” she said. “If you knew how conventional it’s been you would understand. But now I’ve left all that behind. I’m a pioneer! If I heard a wolf howling outside I’d not be afraid. I’d just take a gun and go out and shoot him.”

  A long-drawn howl sounded mournfully somewhere in the darkness. Daisy shrieked and threw herself into Philip’s arms. Nero rose trembling.

  The men stared at each other, waiting for the next howl. It came — nearer, louder. Adeline gave a hysterical laugh. Wilmott threw open the door into the kitchen. Tite stood there, slim and dark, his mouth open, shaping another howl.

  “You young rapscallion!” said Adeline. “You ought to be flogged.” But she laughed naturally now.

  When the Irishmen understood, they were disappointed. It was hard to persuade them that Tite had given those realistic howls. “Do it again!” they cried, like boys. Wilmott looked sternly at Tite.

  “No — no!” cried Daisy. “I can’t bear it!” She made wide eyes from Philip’s shoulder.

  Brent took the gun from the wall. “Here, Miss Daisy,” he said, “let us see you shoot him. Remember your boast.” He put the gun into her hand.

  With sudden swagger she grasped it. There was a loud explosion. The ball entered the wall above Tite’s head. Philip gave Daisy an astonished look and took the gun from her. “That’s enough from you, young woman,” he said. “Behave yourself.”

  She stood with her breast heaving and her eyes defiant. “I’m not one to be challenged and not take it.”

  “Did the lady mean to kill me?” asked Tite.

  Wilmott went into the kitchen and closed the door behind him. He said sternly: —

  “Never do such a thing again. You have frightened those ladies terribly.”

  “But the Mees Daisy one wanted to hear a wolf how and I can do it so well.”

  “You were listening at the door, Tite.”

  “Yes. I was wondering if you want something before I go to bed. Did the Mees Daisy one want to kill me?”

  “No, no, she was overexcited.”

  “Boss,” Tite spoke in a low voice, “do you think she is a harlot? She told me I had long eyelashes and a mouth like a pomegranate flower. Now I repeated this to my grandmother and she says Mees Daisy is a harlot. But since then she has tried to kill me, so perhaps she is reformed.”

  “Bring out the bacon, the eggs, and the cold potatoes,” ordered Wilmott. “God knows what we shall have left to eat tomorrow.”

  “Another time,” continued Tite stubbornly, “she said my neck was like a bronze statue’s and I told my grandmother and my grandmother said again she is a harlot.”

  XVI

  PROGRESS OF THE SEASON

  THERE WERE NO more hospitable people in the neighborhood than the Laceys. Their house was not large but their hearts were. They liked gaiety and movement about them and the two Irishmen satisfied their liking in an extraordinary degree. They were almost always gay and they seldom were still. They settled down for a long visit with the Laceys. They had been travelling so long that they were glad of the change to this backwater. Their expenses had been heavy; they were glad to pay in the coin of good fellowship. Not that they did nothing to make themselves useful. When heavy snowfalls came in midwinter, they armed themselves with shovels and dug the Laceys out, with speed and efficiency. They went over icy roads to the town to shop for Mrs. Lacey and brought her presents of Scotch marmalade and German cheese and French wine. D’Arcy played chess with Captain Lacey and Brent read aloud from the works of Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott.

  Wilmott’s skating party had started the ball rolling and that winter saw more dancing, skating and charades, than the neighborhood had ever before known. On Sunday, unless a blizzard were blowing, everybody turned out to attend the church service in the village eight miles away. In rough weather this was often a hardship. Feet and legs would be numb with cold, faces half-frozen. But the Whiteoak s found the climate mild as compared to that of Quebec. Here zero weather was thought to be very cold indeed. There twenty below zero had been accepted as no more than winter’s due.

  Before long it was seen by all that Kate Busby had transferred her interest from Wilmott to Brent. Before long her interest amounted to attachment. It was said that Brent himself was smitten. By the time February had arrived it was obvious that he was smitten. At a St. Valentine’s party given by the Pinks he proposed, and so novel was the manner of his proposal that the entire community was startled by it. Mrs. Pink’s ingenuity and originality in entertaining her guests were endless. On this occasion a small gift or favour was laid by the plate of each. These were in the shape of hearts cut from red flannel. Beneath these were attached several other hearts, cut from white flannel and the whole held together by rosettes of red and white wool. In the case of the ladies, bright new needles were stuck in the white hearts, thus converting them into a needlebook. In the case of the gentlemen, a fine new goose feather was thrust through the rosette, only needing to be sharpened to the required point for a pen. And there was a penwiper!

  On the spot and before he would eat a mouthful, Brent took out his penknife and sharpened the quill to a long graceful point. He then got possession of Kate’s needlebook. After the meal he disappeared into another room and when he came back restored it to her — but how changed, how glorified! He had cut out a heart from a sheet of notepaper and fixed it among the white flannel hearts. On it he had written: —

  To My Valentine

  Dearest Kate

  I ask no better fate

  Than that the rest of my life should be with

  you spent.

  Your adoring

  Michael Brent

  His intentions were of the best. If Kate would not live in Ireland he would settle down to live in Ontario. The only obstacle to their marriage was religion. Elihu Busby would not give his consent to his daughter’s union with a Catholic. Every man in that group of friends tried his hand at persuading him — they all liked Brent — but to no avail.

  The weather was so severe in February that work on the building of Jalna all but ceased, though the sound of a lonely hammer or saw preserved the sense of continuity. The felling of trees still went on in full swing of axe. The noble growth of fifty years was felled, dismembered, and neatly piled in as many minutes. The men made great fires, partly to warm themselves by, partly to get rid of the wood. In heedless extravagance they heaped the finest oak, maple and pine on the blaze; just as the deer hunters farther north would kill five deer where one would have sufficed and left the surplus carcasses to rot, just as the wild fowl were shot down in mad excess of n
eed, and the singing birds for pleasure.

  Adeline expected her child in April and her most cherished hope was to be established in her own home before the birth. In February, with the almost cessation of work, she saw this hope fade. Long ago the architect, the contractor, and the foreman had promised that the house would be ready by April the first. She had never doubted the fulfillment of that promise. When doubt and disappointment crowded in on her she was in despair. One might have thought, as Philip said, that her life and the life of the child depended on the removal. To which, with her head buried in the pillows of her bed, she replied that it was probably so. He said that, if anyone had reason to be worried, it was he. Sitting up, with blazing eyes, she demanded what he had to be worried about. In terse language he told her. They forgot they were visiting and quarreled with the abandon of people who have been snowbound for a week and are frustrated in all their plans. They raised their voices and tried to talk each other down. Mrs. Vaughan in the room below, could hear them and was mortified for them. Daisy, just outside their door, was so fiercely on Philip’s side that she could barely refrain from rushing in and taking part.

  Mrs. Vaughan, in her restrained way, was almost as deeply disappointed in the delay as Adeline. The thought of having a birth in the house was terribly upsetting. It was so long since she herself had been confined that the complications of such an event seemed unbelievable. What, for instance, was she to do with Robert who at that time would be home from his university? Certainly he must be sent away somewhere and her pleasure in his vacation ruined. Then there was Daisy. There seemed no prospect of her visit ending for some months to come. In truth, Mrs. Vaughan felt fairly certain that nothing save marriage would remove Daisy from the family circle. She had settled herself far too comfortably into it. Her behaviour had not shown the propriety which Mrs. Vaughan would have liked. Indeed she had more than once been driven to speak to Daisy because of the lack of delicacy she showed in her pursuit of Dr. Ramsey. He dropped in several times each week to see Adeline and, on his way in or out, Daisy was certain to waylay him. She was knitting and immense muffler for him and this had to be tried on. The doctor surrendered himself to the operation with a rather grim grace but he did surrender, and Mrs. Vaughan could not help thinking that in his heart he enjoyed it thought what could be more futile than trying to make a muffler fit?

  The thing that worried Mrs. Vaughan about Daisy was that she appeared to be not only after Dr. Ramsey alone. When the doctor was with Adeline, Daisy was certain to be with Philip, if he were in the house. In these days, Adeline felt a weariness on her and retired early to bed. Daisy always manoeuvred to sit up with Philip who did not care when he went to bed. She would go with him over the snowdrifts on snowshoes which she had been given at Christmas, to visit Jalna. When Adeline was present, Daisy was circumspection itself but when Adeline was not there, Daisy directed almost all the conversation to Philip, and laughed a good deal. Mrs. Vaughan had tried hard to love Daisy but had not succeeded. She was critical of Adeline but could not help loving her.

  Even more than she loved their mother, Mrs. Vaughan loved the children. They grew more charming every day, she thought, yet they filled the house with their noise and the confusion of their living. Nicholas was developing a temper and when he was frustrated would make the echoes ring with his screams of rage.

  Then when things were at their gloomiest, March came in like a lamb. It did not come in like an ordinary lamb but as a gay, sweetly gamboling lamb whose bleat was the gurgle of running water, whose eyes shone like summer stars, whose tail flicked all care aside. In short the weather was unseasonably warm. But now the work on Jalna boomed and buzzed. The workmen rose early and worked late. Things which it seemed never would happen took place in the twinkling of an eye. Plaster was slapped on. Window glass was puttied in. Doorknobs and locks were screwed into place. The spindles and rail of the banister miraculously appeared and, at the foot of the stairs, the carved newel post, smooth as satin with its clustering grapes and their leaves. The men sang as they worked. The hot sun beat down on the roof and blazed in at the new windows. Great clouds of migratory birds passed overhead. The earth was teeming with vitality. The melting of the snow had been so quickly accomplished that the stream had been fed beyond control. It raged through the ravine, sweeping away the bridge of logs and carrying it to the lake. Wilmott’s river was in spate also. One night it came to his very door and he began to pack his books. He dared not to go to bed but remained watching. Every now and again he would open the door and, holding a lantern above his head, survey the threatening flood. But by sunrise it had a little subsided and by noon his books were again on their shelves.

  It was a great day for Philip and Adeline when a van, drawn by four horses, stopped in front of the door of Jalna. Here was their furniture at last! Here were the painted leather bedstead they had brought from India, and the chest of drawers with its ornate brass trimmings, the cabinet and the packing case full of jade, ivory, and silver ornaments to grace it. Here were the rugs that had taken generations of work to make, the draperies with delicate embroidery; here were the very scents and sounds of India! Here were the delicate Chippendale chairs and tables given Philip by his sister, the Empire sofa they had brought from Quebec, the massive wardrobe they had bought in London! Here the Irish silver and linen given by Lady Honoria! Here the old life in the new!

  March had only three more days to go, and still it was gentle. If only Adeline might have her own room in order — the rest of the house could wait — so that her child might be born in peace under her own roof! Day and night she strained toward this object. She could scarcely sleep for the planning in her head and the weariness of her body. The thought of time became palpable to her, as an antagonistic something with which she was running a race. Once, in the middle of the night, she pictured the unborn child as timekeeper in this race. She pictured him as a little gnome sitting cross-legged with a gold watch in his hand. At this fancy she burst out laughing.

  “What’s the matter?” exclaimed Philip starting up.

  “I laughed — so that I should not cry.”

  “Nonesense. Why should you cry?”

  “I’d better be dead than go through all I have to go through.”

  “Now, Adeline, behave yourself and think of all our mercies,” he said, for something to say.

  “Do you count yourself one of them?”

  “Assuredly.”

  “Then you count one too many.”

  He raised himself on his elbow and looked down at her. Bright moonlight was shining through the window into his face. His sister, Augusta, had sent him an embroidered nightcap and it was perched jauntily on one side of his head.

  “Oh, Philip, you look enchanting!” she exclaimed. She drew down his head and kissed him.

  “Now you must settle yourself and go to sleep,” he said, patting her shoulder.

  She sighed. “I think I might if the window were open.”

  “You know very well the doctor has warned you most particularly against the night air, since you had whooping cough.”

  “Oh, do let us have it open, just a tiny way!”

  He got up grumbling a little and opened the window a few inches. Then he drew s chair between her and the window and spread her great, flounced petticoat across it

  “There,” he said with satisfaction, “that will keep the draught off you.”

  “Oh, thank you, Phil,” she said breathing deeply. “How sweet the night air is! What a pity it should be so dangerous!” She snuggled down.

  The petticoat did not keep the night air off Philip. He could feel it fanning his cheek in the most disagreeable way. But he did not like to change his position for fear of disturbing Adeline. He began to be miserable. He was not afraid of what the night air would do to him. He just did not like it.

  Finally he solved the problem by pulling his nightcap right down over his eyes, down over his uppermost cheek, till he was sheltered but still could breathe.

&nb
sp; April came in wild and windy. The wind, discovering the five tall new chimneys, blew down them, shrieked and roared through them, as though they were outlet enough for all its energy. The new doors slammed and banged; shavings of wood blew in all directions; workmen whistled at the top of their lungs; one of them was blown from the top of a ladder and might have been killed but was scarcely hurt. The furniture was uncrated and the canvas wrapping removed. Rugs were heaped in corners. The great painted bedstead, with its design of rich-coloured flowers and fruit, through which the forms of birds and monkeys could be glimpsed, was set up in the principal bedroom. Fifty times a day Nero went upstairs and down, overseeing all.

  With the furniture from Uncle Nicholas’s house in Quebec had come the grand piano. It was delivered in a wagon by itself. When it arrived there was so much else to be done that it was decided to unload it and let it stand in its case, covered by tarpaulin, till men could be spared for the handling of such a load. The wagon was backed toward a convenient spot near the ravine. But the ground still was icy in the shade. The wagon wheels began to slip. The whole great weight began to move backward into the ravine, dragging the horses with it. Philip and Adeline looked on with dismay on his part, horror on hers. In another moment the plunging horses would be over the edge.

  “Loose the traces!” Philip shouted.

  Adeline shrieked — “Loose the traces!”

  Two men sprang forward. Massive shapes strove together above the ravine. The driver leaped from his seat in time to save himself. The heavy draught horses moved forward lightly, free of their load which crashed inexorably to the stream. It broke off branches and young trees as it fell, then came to rest supported by two boulders, so that it was not actually in the water.

  “By the Lord Harry,” said Philip, “that was a close shave!”