When she was gone he looked up at the portrait of her great-grandmother that hung over the sideboard. “A chip,” he said, “off the old block, if ever there was one.”
Outdoors the air was so crisp, so brilliant, that Adeline scarcely knew what to do with herself. She could not remember a morning that looked like this, so frosty in the shadow, so bright in the sun, so strange, so wild. Under the old pear tree on the lawn a few brown pears lay on the cold grass. Glossy cones lay under the evergreens. Adeline began to run in circles.
Faster and faster she ran, her eyes bright like a wild thing’s, her heart going like a little engine. She ran till she fell and lay with the world going round and round with her. She was the very heart and centre of the world. She could make it whirl round and round. When she took a tumble the sky bent over her in surprise. All the frosty little marigolds in the border were staring. She snuffed their pungent scent. The smell of the ponies came from her jersey. She screamed for joy.
She rolled over and over on the grass, screaming. She flung her arms and legs about.
Old Merlin who sometimes now allowed Renny and Floss to go off without him, was disturbed from his dream in the sunny porch. He came across the lawn and licked the back of her neck as she lay face downward. She rolled over and looked up into his blind eyes. He beamed down at her, his tongue dangling, ready to give her another lick. How she loved him!
To show it she clutched handfuls of the wavy hair on his neck and pulled down his head. She laughed up at him, thrusting out her under jaw and making little savage endearing noises. She kicked him on the underside while she pulled his coat with all her might.
Suddenly he gave a yelp of pain and jerked himself away from her. He went and sat down on the steps looking offended. Then he lifted up a front leg and licked himself underneath.
She lay on her stomach, her dimpled elbows in the grass, staring at him, an amused smile flashing over her face. She began to pluck handfuls of grass and put them on top of her head. The tiny spears fell over her face in a shower and tickled her neck. She got up and began to trudge toward the stables, putting a pear in her pocket on the way.
She stuck out her lips and exclaimed — “You would, would you?” — to nothing in particular, and slapped her own thigh. Doing this she discovered that she was on a pony and began to gallop at top speed.
She discovered that her breeches were slipping down and she hitched them up and held them. Standing so she moved aside to let the new stableboy Wilf pass through the door leading a horse. Seeing her the horse swerved and knocked his hip on the doorpost. He reared.
Adeline glared at the boy. “Why don’t you walk backwards, silly?” she said.
Wilf looked confused and Wright, appearing at the door, grinned. “Right you are, miss,” he said. “I never knew a clumsier boy.”
Adeline looked critically at the horse and then went toward her father’s office.
“Are you coming to help with the ponies?” called Wright, grinning at the back view he had of her.
“You bet!” returned Adeline.
At the door of the office she gave her breeches another hitch and knocked with the side of her fist.
“Hello!” said Renny. “Who’s there?”
She made her face into the very emblem of sweetness and showed it inside the door. He said:
“I’m doing accounts. You’ll have to keep still.”
“I don’t mind,” she returned, and sidled into the room. She liked it better than any of the rooms in the house.
Its yellow oak desk, littered with ofttimes not too clean papers, with the swivel chair where Renny sat, the shiny lithographs of racing horses on the walls, the ugly stove with which it was heated in winter, were to Adeline admirable objects, unchangeably connected with the being she loved best.
Floss came to meet her and she stroked her carefully.
“That’s right,” said Renny, with an approving glance.
“I always stroke them this way,” she said demurely.
He looked at her from under his lashes. “Come and pet me.”
She rushed to him and caught his hand in hers.
“I will kiss your hand,” she said.
She began to kiss it with great tenderness, as though it were something fragile. Then her kisses became more fervent and she pressed her lips hard, first on the back, then on the palm of his hand. She closed his fingers on the last kiss and looked gravely into his face. “I love you, Daddy,” she said.
He hugged her close. “Do you? Now you must be quiet and good while I finish these accounts. Then we’ll get to work.”
She slid on to a chair and took the winter pear from her pocket. It was so hard that she could take only small bites but it had a nice taste and it gave her something to do. She crunched it on her back teeth, staring hard at the spot where she would next bite.
Renny shot her a look. “Don’t chew so loudly. It’s bad manners.”
She returned his look blankly, then swallowed whole what she had in her mouth. She swung her legs against the chair and gazed at the pictures of the horses, saying over their names in her mind.
“Stop kicking the chair leg. I’m adding up figures.”
She desisted and became limp, the nibbled pear cupped wetly in her hand. She gazed at Renny, wondering at the corrugations on his forehead. She scowled, trying to make some on her own, and felt the velvet results with her fingers.
For all her high spirits she was able to keep still longer than most young children. She finished the pear as quietly as she could, wiped her palm on the corduroy velvet of her breeches, then waited patiently, getting colder and colder.
There was a mauve tinge to her cheeks when Renny at last shut the drawer of the desk with a bang and got to his feet. In this low room he looked immensely tall and strong to her. He snatched her up and kissed her.
“Why, look at your breeches! They’re falling off!”
He set her down and did what he could to put her clothes in order. In the stable they met Wright. Renny said — “You should shake hands with Wright, Adeline. He and his wife have a nice little baby.”
Adeline gave Wright her hand. “Many happy returns,” she said.
The men exchanged amused glances.
“I want to see the baby. Is it in the stables?”
“Not yet,” answered Wright. “But you may see it. Could I take her, sir? My missus would be proud to show it.”
“Good. But don’t be long.”
Wright took her hand and they crossed the stable yard and climbed the stairs to Wright’s rooms over the garage. Adeline was filled with excitement and delight when she saw the infant. She had no more than a glance for Mrs. Wright’s chalk-white face on the pillow. She snuggled the baby, hugged it, kissed it, tried to take it from its mother and carry it about.
“No, no,” said Wright. “It’s too young.”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“A boy.”
“What is its name?”
“It has no name yet.”
“No name!” She was astonished.
“Should you like to name it, Miss?”
“Yes. Call it Jim.”
“Are you willing, Missus?” asked Wright.
“Jim’s a nice name.”
“All right. We’ll call it Jim.”
“I want one like it for my own.”
“You’re too young.”
“Can only grown-up people have them?”
“Yes.”
“Babies are nice but I like colts better?”
“Ah, you’re a character.”
“My mummie has gone away. She’s gone away to get a baby, just like yours. Only smaller, even. About this size.” She held her hands six inches apart.
Wright and his wife exchanged looks, then he led Adeline full of importance to the paddock where Piers was, and Mooey mounted on the grey pony. Piers had just been dunning Renny for the last year’s supply of fodder he had had from the farm. A stableman was setting up low whi
te gates for the schooling.
The grey pony looked beautiful, his coat sleek and a white star on his forehead. He was being schooled for a hunter. Mooey trotted him around a few times on the flat, looking anxiously at his father and uncle.
“Now then!” called out Piers. “Go to it!”
He was dissatisfied with the jumps though they were quite good ones. “The pony did it all by himself. You might as well not have been on him. Buck up, and ride as though you had some guts! Sit farther back!”
Around and over the gates the pony circled, again and again, his bold roving eyes alight for mischief. Mooey was keyed up to master the pony, to take the jumps better, not to be tossed off, as he knew the pony had it in his mind to do. He was thrown but scrambled quickly to his feet, caught the pony and mounted again, turning his face, set in a strained smile, toward Piers.
Adeline appeared from the stable riding Wakefield’s old pony. It was a dark bay with a small neat head and kind eyes. She pressed her knees against it, her lips pouted in pride.
“Look at her!” exclaimed Piers. “Look at her feet and her legs! Just right, by gosh! Look at her hands and her wrists! Adeline, round your wrists just a bit more! She’s going to make a good one.” He grinned triumphantly at Renny. “She won’t be tossed off like a feather pillow!”
“I want to jump!” cried Adeline. She headed her pony straight at one of the gates.
“Look out!” shouted Renny to Wilf, who sprang forward and laid the gate flat.
“Pig!” said Adeline to the boy, as her pony jumped like a grasshopper over nothing. “Dirty pig! I want to jump!” She rolled her eyes accusingly at her father.
“Lay down the pole for her, Wilf,” said Renny.
The boy ran and fetched the white pole over which Adeline was accustomed to practise. She looked on with disfavour and, as it was being put in position, turned her pony’s head toward another of the gates.
Jumping was in the cold autumn air. The old pony did not mind showing what he could do. Adeline made movements with her arms as she had seen Wright do, who believed in lifting his mount over the jumps. She jogged the pony’s mouth and Renny and Piers looked around just in time to see Adeline dive forward toward the pony’s ears as he cleared the gate. He slowed up and she regained her place in the saddle. She gave a shout of triumph as she cantered past the men and straight into Mooey.
The grey pony was startled but not ill-pleased. Here was more mischief! He reared, ducked, bowed, and sent Mooey over his head.
“Good God!” groaned Piers. “The boy is fit only for a rocking horse!”
Renny darted forward and caught the bay pony’s bridle as the grey wheeled, kicked at it, and galloped the length of the paddock.
Mooey gathered himself up, his face muddy, one hand clamping his knee.
“Are you hurt?” asked Renny.
“No,” lied Mooey and threw a furious glance at Adeline.
Patience Vaughan appeared on the pony she was to ride at the Show and the schooling proceeded. The sun pushed back the mist and shone out almost as hot as in summer. The grass of the paddock looked green again and the muddy spots by the jumps glistened. Pony after pony was put through its training.
Adeline, petted and arrogant, was always getting in the way, having to be rescued from danger. She was gloriously happy, with an animal instinctive happiness. She saw nothing beyond this morning.
But it came to an end and Piers asked her if she would like to go home with him for dinner. Renny had lifted her from her pony and he smoothed the red hair back from her hot forehead.
“Want to go?” he asked.
“No. I’ll stay with you.”
“But I’m going out to lunch in Stead.”
“I’ll go with Uncle Piers, then.”
It was lovely at the Harbour, she thought — small and sunny, with zinnias and marigolds close to the door, and Baby Philip running and falling down and picking himself up again. She liked the looks of Pheasant in her yellow dress and necklace of beads like scarlet berries. Pheasant washed her and tidied her hair.
“Did you ever see such hair!” she exclaimed to Piers, as it flew after the comb. “And such skin! Oh, I wish I had a little girl!”
“It’s a pity Mooey isn’t one,” answered Piers.
“Didn’t he do well this morning?”
“I did well!” put in Adeline.
“I’ll say you did!” said Piers. “But he had two tumbles and both unnecessary.”
Pheasant looked reproachfully and pityingly at her eldest when he came to the table. He sat very straight, avoiding her eyes. She bent over him, whispering in his ear:
“Corn for lunch.”
He brightened and looked up at her with gratitude, not for the dish he liked best but for the sweet comfort in her tone.
After the roast pork, potatoes, and apple sauce, the corn came in a large dish. The full, smooth-pearled ears were wrapped in a snowy napkin. Adeline’s eyes glowed as Pheasant selected an ear for her.
“Golden Bantam!” she said, smacking her lips.
“It’s not. It’s Country Gentleman,” said Mooey, glad to contradict her. The schooling had made him nervous. He slid a piece of butter along the rows of his ear of corn and, when it had melted, buried his teeth in the kernels.
“Me! Me!” cried Baby Philip.
“No, no, darling,” said Pheasant, “you’re not big enough.”
Philip hurled himself back in his high chair, rage and misery in his blue eyes.
Piers already showed a tendency to humour this son. He put a small ear of corn into his hands and grinned approvingly as the baby attacked it.
“Well,” said Pheasant, “if he has colic all night, you may sit up with him.”
Philip rolled his eyes truculently at her over his buttery prize.
Nook knew that he could not digest corn and ate his baked potato pensively. He was thinking of how he had hidden his latest treasure — a wild canary’s nest in two tiers, with an unhatched cowbird’s egg in the lower one — at the first sound of Adeline’s voice. Now he could enjoy playing with her. Here he was on his own ground and was less intimidated by her than at Jalna.
Pheasant put them to rest together on a big bed, out of hearing of the baby. They rolled and laughed and shouted till Nook’s cheeks were a wild-rose pink and Adeline’s eyes glittered like a young animal’s. Mooey had gone off by himself to the woods.
After tea Renny called for Adeline. He tied his horse and had a cup with Pheasant, who had the baby on her knee.
“Philip is quiet, for him,” he said.
“Yes. He’s just been getting up the corn Piers gave him at dinner. Piers is so reckless with the children.”
“You should control him.” He spoke severely.
“Control him! Could Alayne control you?” Alayne’s name was out before she could stop herself. Well, surely there was no harm in speaking that name, when Renny had never acknowledged a break between them! She felt that she would rather like to force him to some admission.
He was startled but he stared at her as though he would stare down any intrusion on her part into his affairs. Then abruptly he answered her question with another, so shrewdly put that it forced a direct answer.
“You hear from her regularly, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Has she said when she is coming back?”
Well, two can play at hedging, thought Pheasant, and asked:
“Are you expecting her?”
“No.” Again he stared, and the blood surged to his hard, high-coloured face.
“It is a great pity.”
He rose instantly and looked at his wrist watch. “Where is Adeline?” he asked.
It was an unnecessary question, for the children were making a hubbub overhead.
Pheasant went into the hall and called:
“Nook, bring Adeline down. Her daddy is here.”
They could not hear her. She went halfway up the stairs, calling to him. The noise ceased a
nd the children appeared smiling and flushed. Nook was so happy that he ran and fetched his bird’s nest to show Adeline. Proudly he displayed the chamber with the cowbird’s egg unhatched in it.
“You mustn’t touch,” he warned, but Adeline had already snatched it.
Pheasant wiped the sticky yolk from her little hand, Renny carried her off. Nook, in despair, was rolling on the floor. Philip found a piece of the eggshell and ate it.
Going home Adeline was in a state of bliss. Beneath her was the great powerful horse, at her back the muscular wall of her father’s body. When the horse turned his head she saw the glint of his teeth against the bit. Her father’s arm was the strongest in the world. The frosty air almost drove her mad with joy. Never before had she seen a new moon glitter out in a frosty sky — and she on horseback. She shouted at the top of her lungs. She rocked from side to side, testing the power of that never-failing arm. She would have liked to go on riding so forever.
But he would not even take her to the stables. He put her down at the door of the house and Rags called down the basement stairs to Alma that she was back. There was nothing to do but go to bed. She felt resentful toward the whole world.
She mounted the stairs reluctantly, dragging on Alma’s hand. She was a sight, Alma declared, with her jersey torn and her breeches sagging to her heels. She must be very quiet for Roma was fast asleep.
She realized that she was very tired. She could hardly drag one foot after the other. Outside her mother’s door she stopped and pointed a grimy finger.
“I want her,” she said.
“Well, you can’t have her,” said Alma. “She’s hundreds of miles away.”
“I know. She’s gone to get a baby. Like Wright’s. Only just so big.” She held up her hands two inches apart.
Alma smothered a laugh. “Oh, the things you say,” she giggled.
“’Cause I know,” said Adeline sturdily.
She was good and very quiet while she was undressed and washed. She ran naked to peep between the bars of the crib at Roma curled up, with a wisp of hair that looked white, starting from her white forehead. Adeline pushed out her lips to kiss her but Roma was too far away.
She felt very small and alone when the light was out. She comforted herself by remembering a little blue butterfly that, long ago, in the morning time, she had seen opening and shutting its wings like a fan. She wondered what had become of it.
Books 9-12: Finch's Fortune / The Master of Jalna / Whiteoak Harvest / Wakefield's Course Page 98