01 The Building of Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  “Not a word — and never shall. As a matter of fact, dear Mrs. Whiteoak, there are so many little incidents in my own past which I must conceal from Kate that this from Wilmott’s is imperceptible.”

  “Oh, you rogue!” said Adeline, kissing him.

  No one could call Wilmott a rogue. He stood glowering at them.

  “Aren’t you delighted?” asked Brent.

  “Yes. I am delighted. Did Mrs. Wilmott speak of my daughter?”

  “Hetty! Ah, yes, Hetty! Her mother is very pleased with Hetty. That girl is transformed. She too has thrown herself into the work. She has grown tall and strong and serious. She was seated at a small table inside the door of the lecture hall. She was distributing pamphlets against slavery. Selling autographed copies of a booklet written by her mother, at fifty cents each. The proceeds to go to the Cause. I bought one for you. Here it is.”

  He unbuttoned his coat and took the booklet from his inner pocket. Wilmott accepted it gingerly.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, very much.”

  “You know,” said Brent, “if ever this affair should leak out — as so help me God it never will through me — you can say quite simple that you and your wife separated because of her views on slavery. You can express a profound sympathy with the South.”

  “He could say nothing that would make him more unpopular here,” said Adeline. “We’re all against slavery.”

  “Then say,” continued Brent, unabashed, “that she would never stay at home as a wife should but was always gallivanting over the country, lecturing. Say you parted by mutual agreement which I can certify you have.”

  “Thank you,” said Wilmott, turning over the booklet in his hands.

  “Splendid,” Adeline agreed. “The very thing.”

  Kate Brent came seeking them.

  “There are strawberries and cream!” she called. “Do come, everybody! The berries are monstrous big and the cream as thick as Michael’s brogue.”

  “My treasure,” said Brent. “I will follow you to the ends of the earth — if you offer me strawberries.”

  “Will you kindly give my excuses to Mrs. Lacey,” said Wilmott. “I have to go home.”

  They could not dissuade him. Adeline lingered a moment. It’s ended better than we could have hoped for, hasn’t it? And you think I did well in making Michael Brent our confidant, don’t you?”

  “I think you did superbly well. But, all the same — in spite of my relief — I feel that I cut a comic figure in all this.”

  “That is the trouble with you!” she cried. “You are always thinking of people’s opinion. Now I never consider what people will think.”

  “It is part of your charm that you don’t. But I have no charm.”

  “James, you are one of the most charming men I know. And you ought to be one of the happiest.”

  “So I shall be. I promise you.”

  They parted and he followed the path through the luxuriant growth of July, to his own house.

  Whenever he had been away, his first thought on returning was to wonder what Tite was doing. Now he found him by the river’s edge, painting a wheelbarrow bright blue from a new pot of paint.

  “Well, Tite,” he said, “what are you up to?”

  Tite made a graceful gesture with the paintbrush.

  “Boss, my grandfather gave me this wheelbarrow because he is old and had no more use for it. But I do not like a red wheelbarrow, so — I paint it blue!”

  “And a very good wheelbarrow it is. Tite, are you sure your grandfather gave it to you? You told me he was very poor.”

  “So he is, Boss. That is why he has nothing more than a wheelbarrow to leave me. He guesses he’s soon going to die.”

  “And where did you get the pot of paint.”

  “Boss, I found it floating on the river.”

  Wilmott sighed and went into the house. There was an ineffable sense of peace in it. He sat down by the table and took out Henrietta’s booklet. He read it through. Then he laid it on the hearth and touched it with a lighted match. In an instant it was blazing. One word stood out from the printed page. Slavery.

  A quiet smile lighted Wilmott’s face.

  “Well,” he said, aloud, “she’s set me free, thank God. I can begin again — in peace.”

  Tite put his head in at the door. “Boss,” he said, “I want to say something.”

  Wilmott raised his head. “Yes, Tite?”

  “Boss, the folks where the garden party is gave me a basket of strawberries. I’ve a dish of them ready for your tea. There’s cream from our own cow.”

  “That sounds appetizing, Tite. I’m hungry. Bring the strawberries along.”

  Tite draped himself gracefully against the side of the door.

  “Boss, the servant girl at the place they call Jalna gave me a slab of plum cake.”

  “She did! Well, that was handsome of her. Let’s have tea.”

  Tite made a sudden leap forward, like a young animal galvanized by pleasure. He pulled off the red felt table cover and in its place laid a square of clean white linen. He began to place the dishes in orderly fashion. Wilmott put on the kettle. At first he had eaten his meals alone but he had grown so fond of Tite that he had enjoyed his company at table. The boy was slim, clean, well-behaved. Physically he was beautiful. Wilmott had ambitions for him. As they sat eating their strawberries and cream, Wilmott said: —

  “I am going to each you many things, Tite. History, geography, mathematics, English literature and even Latin.”

  “That is good, Boss,” answered Tite, cutting the plum cake carefully in half. “I am always ready to learn.”

  XIX

  THE BATHING PARTY

  “THESE CROQUET AND archery parties are all very well,” said Conway, “but I should like to see you give something more spirited in the way of entertainment. Now, where Mary and I were in the South of France, we went to some delightful parties on the seashore where the diversions were drinking champagne and bathing.”

  He raised his greenish eyes to his sister’s face, from where he sat on the floor at her feet, his head resting against her knee. Sholto sat in an identical position with his head against her other knee. Mary sat in a straight-backed chair opposite, crocheting fine lace for a border on a cambric nightcap. She said: —

  “Yes, indeed, dear Adeline, we had the most heavenly time you can imagine. Some of the bathing costumes were as pretty as pictures and when we were tired of the water we lay on the sands and sang.”

  “I can’t picture it taking place here,” said Adeline.

  “It can take place quite simply,” said Conway, “if only you will let me engineer it. First of all we must eliminate those oldsters who carp at the licence the young take. You need only get together a congenial party, provide the refreshments, and I shall look after the rest.”

  “This lake is not the Mediterranean,” said Adeline. “It’s likely to be cold.”

  “In this torrid weather! No — it will be deliciously cool. Come along, Sis, say you will!”

  “Do say you will,” repeated Sholto, turning Adeline’s rings about on her fingers.

  “We have no bathing costumes.”

  “Conway and I have,” said Mary. “The rest of you can easily buy or make them. Lydia Busby tells me she has a pattern for one. Do say yes!”

  “There really is nothing to do,” said Sholto. “We might as well be in Ireland.”

  “The moon is at the full,” said Conway, “and would give us all the light we should need.”

  “You intend to stay after sunset, then?” asked Adeline.

  “Assuredly,” said Mary. “We’d die of the heat if we went before late afternoon. Oh, if only you knew the pleasure of such a party! The freedom from long skirts and tight shoes and — above all — convention!”

  “I didn’t know that convention had ever troubled any of you,” returned Adeline.

  “We feel it here,” said Sholto. “We hate being hampered.”

 
“Then go home,” retorted his sister.

  “What a beast you are, Sis,” he returned, kissing her hand.

  She took a handful of hair on each of their heads and gave it a tug. “Have your way, then. But there will be no champagne. A good claret cup must suffice. Make out your list, Conway. Get the pattern of the bathing costume, Mary. If we’re to have the party before the dark of the moon, we must make haste.”

  They did make haste — the principal obstacle to overcome being lack of covering for their bodies. Those bidden to the party included Robert and Daisy Vaughan, the Brents, the three young Busbys, Dr. Ramsey and Wilmott. Including the five from Jalna there were to be fourteen at the bathing party. A sewing bee was held at Jalna where, with great speed and small consideration for the peculiarities of figure, costumes were produced. There was a singular likeness among them all. A bolt of dark blue flannel had been bought, along with several bolts of white braid, for the female costumes. The males were to wear their own white shirts but, for their nether parts, white flannel knee-length trousers were made. The cutting out of these, the sewing together of the two halves, produced such extraordinary results that shrieks of hysterical laughter resounded through the house. Mary laughed till she cried so that water had to be thrown on her and work was at a standstill for some time.

  Finally Sholto, as the youngest and most innocent of the males, was made to dress in the first costume completed. His shirt of course fitted admirably but the trousers, reaching midway between knee and ankle, had such a comic effect that the work was once more held up by unrestrained laughter. Sholto capered about the room shamelessly, his pale red hair on end, his thin legs flashing. Whether the trousers should be lengthened or shortened, trimmed with braid or left plain, was the subject of excited talk. It was a blessing that neither Mrs. Vaughan nor Mrs. Lacey was present.

  When Philip tried on his in the privacy of his bedroom, he found he could not sit down in them.

  “Adeline,” he shouted, “come here at once!”

  She came expectantly.

  “You may have the damned party without me,” he said. “I can’t sit down in these.”

  She walked round him, examining him critically.

  “You don’t need to sit down,” she said. “They’re for swimming in, not sitting in. You can swim, can’t you?”

  “Certainly, I can. But do you expect me to swim about continually while the rest of you sit on the shore drinking claret? Also, I doubt very much if I could swim in them. They are extraordinary tight and a most evil shape.”

  “Faith, they are,” said Adeline. “I shall give them to Wilmott and make you another pair. He’s much thinner in the thigh.”

  Another pair was made of the very last of the flannel and, though from scarcity of material they had to be made rather shorter than the others, Philip did not object, for now he would be able to both swim and sit down.

  The heat was unusual. There had been nothing to equal it in the preceding summer. Toward the full of the moon it grew even more intense. It seemed almost too great an effort to set out for the bathing party. At four o’clock the shadows of trees made the road to the lake less glaring. But the leaves were as motionless as though carved from metal. The sky had the hard brightness of a gem. The Whiteoaks’ new wagonette, drawn by a pair of spanking bays, bowled down the drive and through the gate, driven by Philip. He was a fine hand with the reins. The horses moved beautifully.

  As well as their own party, there sat on the seats facing each other the two Vaughans and Wilmott. Hampers of food were disposed beneath the seats, as well as the boxes containing the bathing costumes. On the road they discovered the Brents in a shiny new buggy and the three Busbys in an old phaeton. Young Isaac Busby was determined to race his rawboned wild-looking horses against Philip’s, in spite of the heat. Weather meant nothing to the Busbys.

  “Come on — come on!” he shouted, cracking his whip. But Philip kept his horses at a gentle trot.

  They could smell the freshness of the lake before they came upon it. A breeze rose from its faintly ruffled surface. All about it the forest crowded. It was like a guarded inland sea. Flocks of sandpipers moved trimly across the smooth beach. A cloud of kingfishers rose and cast their blueness upon the blue of the lake. A dozen ruby-throated hummingbirds hovered above a tangle of honeysuckle that grew near the beach. The road ended in a rough field and there the horses were unharnessed and tethered. Dr. Ramsey came last, riding his grey gelding and throwing a bundle on to the beach with the remark that no one was to bathe until throroughly cooled off.

  “Then I shall never bathe,” cried Mary, “for I am sure I shall never be cool again.”

  “You should take great care of yourself, Mrs. Court,” said the doctor. “You are very thin.”

  “I bathed twice a day in the Mediterranean,” she said defiantly.

  “That was very reckless of you.” He came to her side with a professional air. “May I feel your pulse?” he asked.

  Childishly she laid her thin wrist in his fingers.

  “Just as I thought. You have a very quick pulse. You should not overexert.”

  “Do feel mine,” said Adeline, “for I do believe it has stopped entirely.”

  “There is no use in my telling you to take care of yourself, Mrs. Whiteoak,” he said, severely.

  She gave a little grimace that made him smile in spite of himself. He coloured, for he had hoped to make her forget, by his severity, how he once had given way to amatory impulse.

  A thicket of wind-blown cedars grew where sand and soil met. Here Adeline, Mary, Daisy, Kate Brent, and her two sisters disrobed themselves and put on the bathing costumes. With the exception of Mary’s, these were identical. Their full flannel skirts reached to the knees, the blouses had elbow-length sleeves, the skirts and sailor collars were edged with white braid. All wore long white cotton stockings.

  Mary had kept her costume as a surprise. Now she appeared rather self-consciously out of the thicket, wearing a sky-blue bathing dress with bright red sash and scarf knotted beneath the sailor collar, and a little red silk cap. The others were enraptured, though the shortness of the skirt made Kate and her sister gasp and filled Daisy Vaughan up with envy.

  “I do wonder if I could pin mine up a little,” she said wistfully, to Adeline. “Are there any safety pins about?”

  “Not one,” said Adeline, firmly, “and you are showing quite enough leg.”

  “It does seem hard that Mrs. Court should display limbs that are so spindling while mine, which are neither like broomsticks nor too plump like the Busby girls’, should be concealed.”

  “Girls are expected to be modest.”

  “At any rate, I shall let down my hair.”

  She unloosed the pins which restrained her ringlets and they fell luxuriantly about her shoulders. Placing her hands on her hips she caught up her skirt in her finger tips so that as she advanced with the other females out of their retreat she displayed as much leg as did Mary. The group made such a picture that the gentlemen, already assembled at the lake’s rim, stared in admiration.

  Conway’s costume, like his wife’s, was different. It was in red and white stripes running horizontally, and so much of his thin white person was exposed to view that only his youth and a faunlike quality in him preserved him from the appearance of immodesty. He flew to meet Mary who flew to meet him.

  “My treasure,” he exclaimed, “let us be first in the briny deep!”

  “It isn’t briny, you idiot,” said Isaac Busby.

  “Then I shall shed tears in it and make it briny.”

  The two, taking hands, skipped into the water.

  Mary gave a cry as the chill of it touched her body. “Oh, how cold! How lovely and cold!”

  “She could not do a worse thing,” said Dr. Ramsey. He stalked judiciously to the lake’s edge and took its temperature with his toes. He had provided his own bathing costume which consisted of a grey flannel shirt and an old pair of breeches.

  “Hoop-
la!” cried Philip. “Let’s make the plunge.”

  He caught Daisy’s hand in his and they ran laughing after Conway and Mary. In another moment all were disporting themselves in the grateful coolness of the lake. It was perfect.

  Nero, who had run all the way from Jalna after the wagonette and was more dead than alive on arrival, now began to notice what was going on. He came from under the willows where he had lain, loudly panting, and advanced to the shore. From beneath his curly black thatch he observed many people apparently drowning.

  As it was againat his principles to allow people to drown, he uttered a loud bark of assurance, as though to shout — “Hold on! I’m coming!” and plunged into the water.

  He had no especial gallantry toward the female sex. A man’s life was to him as valuable as a woman’s. Therefore as Dr. Ramsey happened to be nearest him he swam with all his strength to rescue him.

  “Call your dog, Whiteoak!” the doctor shouted, warding off Nero with an upraised arm.

  Nero took this gesture as one of supplication and made haste to grasp the doctor’s shirt in his powerful jaws. He then began to drag him toward the shore.

  Dr. Ramsey, in a fury, caught him a clout on the head but Nero’s head was so protected by thick curly hair that it did not really hurt him and, if it had hurt him very badly, the result would have been the same. He would have tried only the harder to save the doctor.

  “Nero!” shouted Philip, controlling his laughter. “Here, sir! Nero!” He swam toward Nero.

  Dr. Ramsey continued to clout him. But, by the time Nero had got him to shore, his shirt was half off his back. Nero then swam toward Daisy.

  “Help!” she shrieked. “Oh, Captain Whiteoak, save me from Nero!”

  Philip now had the great fellow by the collar. He dragged him to the shore and discovering a stout stick of wood threw it far out for him to retrieve. Nero gave not another glance to drowning human beings but concentrated all his lifesaving proclivities on the stick. Again and again he brought it safely to shore till at length, quite tired-out, he retired with it beneath the willows.

  There was now an exquisite coolness abroad. It was exhilarating to swim or merely to bob up and down in the bright water. Little waves were beginning to rise and there was a faint line of foam on the beach. When they came out of the lake to lie on the warm sand they had a feeling of something new and strange in their relations. The old conventions seemed cast aside and they lay relaxed in childlike abandon. Brent put his head on Kate’s arm, while she wound his closely curling hair about her fingers. If ever she had had a fancy for Wilmott, it was forgotten now. She was utterly satisfied with her husband.