Books 13-16: Return to Jalna / Renny's Daughter / Variable Winds at Jalna / Centenary at Jalna

by Mazo de La Roche

  Adeline looked from side to side, from the backs of the jogging horses to Wright’s face, and she felt an extraordinary exaltation. She pulled off her hat to let the breeze cool her head and exclaimed:

  “How heavenly! How’s everything been going, Wright?”

  “Not too bad,” he returned. “Not too bad. I suppose you’ve heard about the boss.”

  She turned a startled face on him. “Has anything happened to my father?”

  “Nothing to worry about, I guess. He’s had an accident. That’s all. He was going somewheres in a jeep and it ran into a hole and he was thrown out on his head. He was in hospital but they say he’ll soon be home. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Are you sure he wasn’t severely hurt?”

  “Yes. He sent the cable himself.”

  She drew a deep sigh of relief. “Oh, Wright, won’t it be marvellous when he’s home again?”

  “I’ll say it will.”

  “You know, it’s over four years since I saw him.”

  “Yeh. I bet you’ll hardly know him.”

  She gave Wright an indignant look. “I’d know him if he was in the middle of a whole army. There’s no one a bit like him.”

  “Well, I bet he won’t know you.”

  “Of course he will.”

  “You was a little child when he left. Now you’re — well, you’ve changed a lot.”

  “I’ve grown a lot, I know — and got better-looking, I hope. My nose used to be too large for a child’s face, Uncle Ernest said.”

  “It’s just right now.” Again the man studied her, saw how the quick blood moved under the delicate skin, how one movement of the lips would change the expression of the whole face, from dark to bright, from firm to gentle. Now he said, in a confidential tone:

  “I’ve seen a two-year-old I’d give my eye teeth to buy. Oh, miss, I wish we could lay hands on two hundred dollars. That’s all the farmer is asking for him. He has no idea of what’s in him. I can tell you, he has the makings of one of the finest jumpers in the country, or I’m no judge of horse flesh.”

  “You’re a judge of that, if anyone is,” said Adeline. “Oh, I wish I could see him!”

  “You can. I’ll take you there tomorrow. He’s nothing to look at, in the ordinary way. He spent last winter outdoors and he’s grown a great rough coat. He’s so thin his back looks hollow. Unless you know a good deal about the formation of a horse, you wouldn’t see any promise in him. But if I had him home to feed up and to care for properly for the next year we’d have a winner or my name’s not Bob Wright.”

  “Oh, if only Daddy were home!”

  “Yes. But he ain’t, and this farmer wants to sell now. I was wondering if you could get your Uncle Finch to lend us the money.”

  “I’ll try but I hear his money is gone.”

  “Then there’s your two old uncles. A hundred dollars apiece wouldn’t mean much to them.”

  “It hurts them terribly to part with money, I’ve heard.”

  “You hear a good deal, don’t you?” he grinned.

  “Well, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I do ... What about young Mr. Maurice? He’s supposed to be rich.”

  “He doesn’t get anything but an allowance till he’s twenty-one. Besides, he doesn’t like horses.”

  “I wish you and me could go shares in the colt. But I have only a hundred dollars saved up. If only you could lay your hands on another hundred, we could buy him tomorrow and we’d never regret it, I’ll swear to that.”

  “I have just sixty cents,” she said ruefully.

  “Well, that won’t go far. Anyhow, you might see what you can do with them uncles of yours.”

  “Have you talked to Uncle Piers about it?”

  “Yes, and it’s no good. He says this is no time to go in for show horses. But I know better. War or no war this colt is worth five times what’s being asked for him.”

  “Gosh, I’m dying to see him. Is the farmer an old man?”

  “No. Sort of young. He got married just about a year ago. He’s fixing his place up. That’s why he is anxious for cash.”

  “Two hundred dollars, eh? And you have one hundred. If I could get hold of another hundred, we’d have equal shares in him.”

  “Sure.”

  In the joy of homecoming, of being hugged, kissed, patted on the back, Adeline forgot the colt for a space. All the faces she knew so well smiled on her. She seemed almost a heroine. Roma gazed at her in adoration. “Oh, Adeline, I wish I might go to school too!” Archer looked on with a kind of pessimistic approval. He looked as though, if he chose, he could tell her things which would take that smile off her face.

  Alayne was upset to think that the child should have been told of Renny’s accident by Wright. It was like Wright to have repeated such a happening to Adeline in the first moment of meeting her, and in his own crude way. She had forgotten to tell him to leave the breaking of the bad news to her. She feared Adeline might be shocked to hear of an injury to Renny.

  “Darling,” she said, putting her arm about Adeline, “you must not worry about Daddy. He had a concussion but he will soon be all right again — at least, I hope so.”

  “I’m not worrying,” answered Adeline. “Wright told me there was nothing to worry about.”

  The child’s brow was as smooth as silk, her lips smiling. How little feeling she seemed to have!

  “Well, I worried myself ill,” said Alayne.

  “I’m sure you did,” returned Adeline cheerfully.

  Alayne took her arm from the child’s shoulders.

  The right moment had to be found for approaching the old uncles on the subject of purchasing the two-year-old. Adeline had already had a decisive refusal from Finch who, like Piers, saw no sense in buying show horses at this time.

  She chose the moment when they were sitting together in the light shade of the old silver birch tree, on the bark of which the initials of their parents, carved there nearly a hundred years before, were still faintly visible. Ernest had a volume of Shakespeare in his hand. Nicholas was placidly drawing on his pipe. The shadows on the lawn were lengthening and in and out of them hopped Archer’s tame rabbit. Both men raised their eyes with a welcoming look as Adeline came lightly across the grass. Nicholas stretched out a long arm and drew her to him. He said to his brother:

  “Isn’t her resemblance to the portrait of Mamma extraordinary?”

  “If anything she’s more —” Ernest looked expressively at the young face.

  “You never saw Mamma at fourteen.”

  “Well,” Ernest said to Adeline, “you look nice and healthy.”

  “I am. I’ve never anything wrong.”

  “You’ll live to be a hundred like your great-grandmother,” said Nicholas.

  She laughed. “It seems a long while to live. But I don’t mind. I think it’s good to be alive, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes … sometimes,” answered Ernest. “Yes. I’ve generally thought so.”

  She beamed ingratiatingly at him. “what book are you reading, Uncle Ernest?” she asked.

  “Othello. I don’t suppose you know that play of Shakespeare’s. It’s not suitable for school study.”

  “We’ve had Romeo and Juliet. It’s awfully boring. I like Midsummer Night’s Dream though. It hasn’t all that lovemaking.”

  “I hear,” said Ernest, “that Othello is to be performed in the town before long. I should very much like to see it but I find sitting through one of Shakespeare’s plays too much of an ordeal for me at my age. But when you are quite grown up you must see Othello. It’s a great tragedy that hinges on the loss of a handkerchief. Desdemona is murdered by Othello because she loses the handkerchief he gave her.”

  “Goodness!” exclaimed Adeline, her mind on the colt, “I’m always losing handkerchiefs.”

  “You don’t understand, Adeline. This handkerchief was a love token.”

  “She’s not a bit interested in love, are you, Adeline?” said Nic
holas.

  “Not a bit,” she returned. “But I am interested in a grand two-year-old Wright has been telling me about. He’s going to be a wonder.”

  “I suppose you know,” Ernest continued, “that I am writing a book on Shakespeare.”

  “Yes. I know, Uncle Ernest.”

  “I should have had it completed by now, but for the war. The war, you know, dulls one’s intellect, makes one stupid. I suppose it’s the dreary round of reading the newspapers, listening to the radio. It takes the edge off one’s mind.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “Now I hope to have the book completed within the next year or so. But there’s still a good deal of work to do on it.”

  “I’m sure there is, Uncle Ernest.”

  “what about this two-year-old?” asked Nicholas. She turned to him with her soul in her eyes.

  “Oh, Uncle Nick, Wright is so excited about him! And so am I. All we need is another hundred dollars and —”

  “If you are thinking of me as a partner in this,” said Nicholas, “you may put the idea right out of your head. Nothing can interest me in such a scheme. Another horse to worry over! Wait till your father comes home. Let him buy it if he wants to.”

  “It will be too late!”

  “I am in complete accord with your Uncle Nicholas,” said Ernest.

  “Nothing would induce me to put money into a horse. Piers is quite against it and his head is screwed on right.”

  Adeline had now nothing to do but to tell Wright of her failure. But, even though they could not raise the money to buy the colt, they rode over to the farmer’s the following afternoon to see it.

  Adeline had a sense of disappointment when she saw the shaggy, somewhat forlorn-looking beast, with mud caked on his flanks and burrs clotted in his mane and tail. But Wright’s eloquence soon roused her to a fever heat of enthusiasm.

  “If only I could get hold of him,” said the groom, “I’d make him into a wonder within the year!”

  “Is there nothing we can do!” exclaimed Adeline.

  “Nothing I know of unless we rob a bank.”

  “Is there nothing we could trade for him?”

  “The man wants cash.”

  They were standing outside the farmhouse beneath a pair of giant elm locusts in flower, while the young wife of the farmer made them a cup of tea. She came now, with it on a tray.

  “I’m sorry you won’t come in and have something to eat,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Adeline, “but we must be getting home.”

  “This tea hits the right spot,” put in Wright.

  “My mother always says there’s nothing like a cup of tea,” said the young wife.

  “We’re great tea drinkers at Jalna,” agreed Adeline. “You have a pretty place here.”

  “We think it’s real pretty. Would you like to come in and see the parlour?”

  “You go along, Miss,” said Wright. “I’ll wait here with the horses.”

  Adeline followed the farmer’s wife into the house and expressed the admiration she honestly felt for the red-papered room, furnished with mission oak upholstered in bright green velours.

  “There’s only one thing we need,” said the farmer’s wife, “and that’s a piano or an organ. I was always used to one at home and I miss it terrible. I get homesick for it. Jim says he’ll get me one when he can afford it, but dear knows when that will be.”

  Adeline’s mind was a murky whirlpool of seething thoughts, shot through by phosphorescent gleams. She said slowly:

  “I have an organ of my own that was left to me by my great-grandmother, but I never play on it. I’m not musical, you see. The only piece I know straight through is ‘God Save the King.’ I’d give this organ as a hundred dollars on the colt if your husband wants to get one for you. It’s worth far more than a hundred. My great-grandmother bought it years and years ago, when things were made well. It’s got shirred silk in its front and places for candles. You could have a lovely time playing on that organ. You’d never be homesick any more.” Heartfelt conviction beamed from Adeline’s eyes.

  The farmer was dragged in by his wife. Half against his will, half willingly, he agreed to the exchange. But first he went out to Wright and asked him if the young lady had the power so to dispose of her property. Wright, completely mystified, declared that she was a spoilt child who could do whatever she wanted and that if she said the organ was hers to swap, it certainly was.

  “But what organ is it?” he demanded, as soon as he and Adeline were mounted on their eager homeward-hastening horses.

  “Have you never seen it? It’s in that little room in the basement, between the cook’s bedroom and the wine cellar. It’s been there all my life. Everybody’s forgotten about it. Aunt Augusta had a fancy to learn to play the organ when she was a girl, and great-grandmother bought it for her. Nobody wants it. Oh, Wright, isn’t it glorious that I had this idea and we are going to get that darling colt?”

  But Wright wore a dubious frown. “We might find ourselves in trouble over this. I ain’t going to help steal any organ to help buy any colt, and that’s flat.”

  Adeline’s eyes were dark with the earnestness in her. “Well, you are a duffer. The organ’s mine. I asked my father once if I could have it and he said sure, when I was older.”

  “But you ain’t musical.”

  “I liked the looks of the organ and I thought the time might come when I’d want to trade it for a horse.”

  “How’d we get it out of the basement without anybody finding out? The missus would never fall in with that scheme.”

  “She’d never know. Rags will help us with it. We’ll do it early in the morning before anyone is about. We’ll just slide it out of the basement door into the truck and you’ll drive it over to the farmer.”

  “How about when the folks see the colt at Jalna? The missus’d be for firing me again.”

  “We’ll say you raised the money somehow and the colt’s yours.”

  “That there colt’s got to be fed.”

  “There’s lots of pasture and you brought a wagon load of feed from the mill yesterday. Say, Wright, what’s the matter with you? Aren’t you glad?”

  “Sure I’m glad.” He grinned at her to prove it. “But I’m sort of scared.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You’re a terror. That’s what you are.”

  She gave her horse a flick of encouragement. He needed no more to break into a gallop. Wright galloping behind, they skirted the fluttering surface of the lake. Joyful birds darted about them. Adeline’s heart was joyful. She could hardly endure the waiting till tomorrow.

  Tomorrow came and at six sharp the truck was waiting outside the basement. Long dew-drenched shadows lay across the lawn. The house was still but as though watchful. It had seen many odd comings and goings. The Wragges, husband and wife, were in the basement and opened the door to Wright. He entered, grinning and a little sheepish. Adeline was waiting in the room where the organ was. She had a cloth with furniture polish and had rubbed the rosewood surface of the organ till it shone.

  “Ha,” exclaimed Wright, “is that it?”

  “Yes,” said Adeline. “Isn’t it pretty?”

  “It sure is. My gosh, if the boss finds this out he may not like it!”

  “This ’ere room,” said Rags, “is never entered except by me. I keep the key.”

  “Do you think you’ll need my help?” asked his wife.

  “We certainly shall. That organ is ’eavier than it looks. You don’t want me to bust myself lifting it, do you?”

  “You’ll never bust yourself workin’,” said his wife.

  Wright had brought a small hand truck and on to it they heaved the organ. He trundled it along the passage to the door. He had laid boards on the four steps and up these he and the Wragges began to push the instrument.

  “Push harder,” said Adeline, “it’s hardly moving.”

  Mrs. Wragge was panting like a steam engine. The lacing of
her stays broke and she uttered a sigh of relief. Her bulky form, her husband’s thin one, Wright’s sturdy frame, struggled with the weight of the organ. Slowly it ascended into the outer air, arduously they strove to heave it into the waiting truck.

  “This ain’t no job for a woman,” declared Mrs. Wragge, her hair falling over her face.

  “If I haven’t busted myself it will be a wonder,” said Rags.

  Wright kept swearing steadily under his breath.

  “I’ll help,” said Adeline. “I bet I can lift more than Rags can.” She pressed in among them and thrust her fierce young strength into the lifting.

  It made an appreciable difference. Perhaps it was that which finally shot the organ into the truck. She laughed in delight.

  “Sh!” ordered Wright violently. “Do you want your ma looking out of the window?”

  Adeline watched the truck move slowly out of sight along the drive. She could scarcely endure the waiting to see the colt. But two hours passed before Wright returned.

  “Is everything settled?” she asked.

  “Fine. We got the organ into the parlour and Mrs. Carter sat right down at it and played “The Bluebells of Scotland.” It sounded swell. They’re tickled with their part of the bargain, I can tell you. Now I’m going for the colt. Want to come?”

  Wright had got a somewhat reluctant permission from Alayne to keep the colt, supposed to be his alone, at Jalna. There was, as he said, plenty of pasture and he would buy oats and meal for it from his own pocket. She did not believe he would and she thought he showed a good deal of effrontery in making such a request. But what could she do?

  With the hired man driving the horse van and Wright and herself trotting far enough behind to escape its dust, Adeline was as happy on that June morning as a human being could well be. She was happier than Wright, for he had some qualms over what he had done.

  When they reached the farm they had to go into the parlour and see how well the organ looked standing between the two windows, with a pink china vase and a photograph of the Carters’ wedding group, standing on the top. At Adeline’s earnest request Mrs. Carter played “The Bluebells of Scotland.” She followed this with “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean,” and would have continued with other pieces but that her husband reminded her that it was half-past nine and there was the horse to be got into the van.