01 The Building of Jalna (25 page)

“I shall certainly complain to your master,” she declared. “You are disobliging and impudent.”

“There’s no master here!” He glared at her. “No master, I tell ye! No masters!”

“Mind your manners, my man!”

“There’s no manner here neither and no ‘my man-ing.’ It’s a free country. Now are you goin’ to get out or sit there complaining?”

Mrs. Wilmott alighted cautiously, followed by her daughter. The driver went a little distance down the road. Adeline dismounted and led the way to a grassy knoll. Her horse began at once to crop the dry herbage. She said: “We can talk quite privately here. Will you sit down?”

She invited Mrs. Wilmott to be seated as though in her own drawing-room. Mrs. Wilmott looked at her inquisitively, and at the same moment explained herself. Adeline’s gaze was sympathetic.

“I am Mrs. Wilmott,” she said. “I am here to seek my husband. You must think the circumstances very strange. They are indeed. My husband is a very strange man. He is a very peculiar man. I’ve had to come all the way from London, England, in search of him. My father, Mr. Peter Quinton, he is descended from Sir Ralph Quinton who was a great inventor and scientist of the sixteenth century — you may have heard of him — I mean Sir Ralph, of
course, not of my father. Not that I should say my father is not a man of some importance, for he has stood for his borough more than once and been not too badly defeated. But naturally, he is not as important as Sir Ralph. He said to me and much as I dislike repeating the private remarks of my family to a stranger, I shall repeat this to you, for you appear so exceedingly reliable and sympathetic — he said to me — that is, my father, not Sir Ralph, said to me — ‘Henrietta, a man who had no more consciousness of his responsibilities than to go to a distant country on a pleasure trip and remain away for a year and a half without writing a line home, is not worth seeking,’ but I’m not of that opinion. A husband’s place is with his wife, I insist. Don’t you agree?”

“If it can be done,” said Adeline, her sympathetic eyes on Mrs. Wilmott’s face.

“That’s just what I say. And I have left no stone unturned till I have tracked James down. You have met him, I gather.”

“Yes. I have met him.”

“And how were you impressed by him? Pray do not try to spare my feelings. If he lived here, as you say, in a swamp with a cow and a pig, he must have reached a very low ebb.”

“He had.”

“Dear me! It is mortifying to think of such a situation. And where did he go from here? I must ask you your name. Really I never have been so informal in my life. Anyone seeing me sitting in this dusty ditch would scarcely credit what my position in London is. My father, Mr. Peter Quinton, who, I think I mentioned, is — ”

The young girl here distracted her mother’s attention by the ferocity with which she was scratching mosquito bites on her plump legs.

“Hettie!” cried Mrs. Wilmott. “Stop it!”

“I can’t,” returned Hettie, in a hoarse whimpering voice. “They itch.”

“What if they do! No lady would scratch her limbs under any circumstances.”

“Can I go into the fence corner to scratch them?”

“No. I say no, Hettie.”

“They itch.”

“I say no. That is final.” Mrs. Wilmott turned to Adeline. “I was about to ask you your name and where Mr. Wilmott went from here, but this child has me at my wit’s end with her disabilities. Since we left England she has suffered in turn from train sickness, seasickness, mumps, dyspepsia, hives, ingrowing toenails, sties, and now it is bites.”

“They itch,” said Hettie.

“Of course they itch!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilmott, in complete exasperation. “What else are they for?”

“I hate midges.”

“Well, hate them or not, you are to stop scratching.” Again she turned her eyes questioningly to Adeline.

“I am Mrs. White,” Adeline answered, swallowing the last syllable of the name. “My husband and I came over on the same ship with Mr. Wilmott. We saw a good deal of him.”

“Oh, how fortunate that I should find you! How did my husband conduct himself on the voyage?”

“Very miserable,” said Adeline.

“Did he speak of his family?”

“Never a word.”

“Dear, dear! How unfeeling of him! Dear me! What a man! And he has left this place, you say?”

“Some time ago.”

“Where did he go? Wherever it is I shall follow him.”

“He left in the darkness of night, with no word to anyone, but ’tis said he went to Mexico and died of a fever there. Now, I can give you the address of the two Irish gentlemen who are staying in New York and who can tell you much more about him than I can. If any two men on this continent can help you to discover what the true end of your husband was, these are the two.”

“He died!” cried Mrs. Wilmott, on a note of frustration. “You say he died! Oh, surely not. He never had a day’s illness in his life. He can’t be dead.”

“’Tis said he died in Mexico,” said Adeline, plucking a handful of grass.

“Who says so?”

“The word came and went. I cannot remember who said it first.”

“I must talk to these people. Who are they?”

“They’ll be glad to talk to you for, when he left, he owned money to everyone in the neighborhood. I suppose you will pay his debts?”

“Never!” There were two sharp points in Mrs. Wilmott’s eyes. “I am under no such obligation or ever could be.”

“It is a strange country,” said Adeline. “You never know what will be brought up against you.”

James was always talking about the East,” said Mrs. Wilmott. “He appeared to be fascinated by the East. I can’t imagine why he came here.”

“I believe he thought he was bound for the East.” Adeline laid the handful of grass in a little mound like a grave. “But he got on the wrong ship.”

“Dear, oh dear, oh dear! It’s enough to make me say I am well rid of him.”

“I think you are indeed,” said Adeline. “A man like that is bound to do something desperate. It boils up in him for years and then it bursts forth.”

“I thank heaven that my child bears no faintest resemblance to him. She is the image of my father.”

“I don’t like Grandpa,” said Hettie.

Mrs. Wilmott almost screamed — “Hettie, how dare you say such a thing! Your dear Grandpapa who is so superior to other people in every way!”

“I don’t like him.”

Mrs. Wilmott turned to Adeline in despair.

“I don’t know what has come over the child. Before we left home she was the most docile and respectful girl you could imagine. Now she will say quite shocking things.”

“It’s the travelling,” said Adeline. “It ruins them. On the voyage
out there was a young girl about your daughter’s age, travelling with her mother. Well, what did this girl do, d’ye suppose? At the first port she eloped with my own young brother whom I was bringing out here! She ran off with him and left her widowed mother. The poor lady was carried to the dock on a stretcher, more dead than alive.”

A slow smile spread over Hettie’s face. There was a brightening of her eyes. But Mrs. Wilmott paled as the news of her husband’s death had not made her pale. She looked with a kind of horror at Hettie. Then she said rather tremulously to Adeline: —

“What do you advise me to do?”

“I advise you to go straight to New York and make inquiries from the two gentlemen whose names I shall give you. Then, when you are satisfied of your husband’s whereabouts or of his departure from this life, you can sail from there. I am told their sailing clippers are unequaled for comfort and their new steamships too.”

“That is just what I shall do! And if I can locate Mr. Wilmott it will be due entirely to you.”

“I never liked him either,” put in Hettie.

Mrs. Wilmott looked meaningly at Adeline. Then she said — “Stop scratching your limbs, Hettie.”

“They itch.”

“You must control yourself.”

“I hate the midges.”

“You have said that far too often.”

“Not so often as they have bitten me. Mamma, when can we go?”

“Very soon, Hettie.” Mrs. Wilmott opened her reticule and took out a small memorandum tablet. She handed it to Adeline. “Will you be so kind as to write down the names and addresses of the gentlemen in New York.” Their hands touched. A feeling of benevolence came over Adeline. She had the feeling of taking care of Mrs. Wilmott, guiding her in the way she should go. She wrote the names of D’Arcy and Brent in her bold handwriting and returned the tablet.

“Irishmen, you say,” Mrs. Wilmott remarked.

“Yes.”

“I have never liked the Irish.”

“There you go,” said Hettie.

“What do you mean, child?”

“Saying what you tell me not to say.”

“Hettie, do you want to be punished?”

“How?”

“By a hard smack.”

“Smack me on the midge bites and I’d like it.”

Mrs. Wilmott rose. “I want you to believe, Mrs. White,” she said, “that my daughter was not like this at home.”

“That is what travelling does to them. My own daughter has not the manners she had.”

“It is deplorable.” Mrs. Wilmott held out her hand. “Well, goodbye,” she said. “I cannot tell you how thankful I am that we met.”

“Faith, so am I!” Adeline’s benevolent clasp enfolded Mrs. Wilmott’s small dry hand. “I should ask you to drink a dish of tea with me but my little girl has whooping cough” — this was indeed true — “and yours might contract it.”

The very thought of such a contingency was upsetting to Mrs. Wilmott. Again she told, and this time in detail, all she had been through with Hettie since leaving home. Hettie interrupted her by saying — “The carriage is going.”

The livery horses were indeed ambling dejectedly down the road, for the driver had fallen asleep and let the reins drop from his hand.

Mrs. Wilmott gave a cry and began to run after it.

“I’ll fetch him for you!” exclaimed Adeline. She hastened to her horse and began to lead him back to the road.

However, the driver had been woken by Mrs. Wilmott’s cries. He looked vindictively over his shoulder, again possessed himself of the reins, and the carriage was stopped.

Mrs. Wilmott’s bonnet had fallen back on her nape but she still was dignified. On reaching the carriage she opened her reticule
and took out her handkerchief which she waved in farewell. Hettie looked on in complete pessimism. She said: —

“I hope we don’t find him.”

“Really!” exclaimed Adeline.

“Yes. I never liked him.”

Laughing, in sudden hilarity, Adeline mounted her horse. She trotted to where Mrs. Wilmott waited. Her face sobered. She said genially: —

“A pleasant journey to you, Mrs. Wilmott.”

“Thank you and thank you again for your help. Dear, oh, dear, when I think of all that lies before me! When I think of all that lies behind! Mrs. White, I had other chances. Mr. Wilmott was not my only suitor. I shall say that and nothing more, except that my dear father was always against the alliance. ‘You can do better, Henrietta,’ he repeatedly said. ‘James Wilmott never will be a man of consequence. There is a great lack in him.’ But I was determined and this is what I get. Do hasten, Hettie! Was there ever such a slow girl! It will be night before we reach the town. When I consider the inconvenience, the expense I am put to, it is enough to turn my hair white.” She lifted her skirt and cautiously climbed into the carriage. The driver took up his whip.

Hettie was approaching slowly, dragging her feet. Her mother urged and directed her every step. At last they were seated side by side.

“Say good-bye to Mrs. White, Hettie, and thank her prettily.”

“Good-bye” said Hettie, morosely.

“Good-bye, Hettie.”

The driver chirruped to his horses. As they moved off he turned to look at Adeline. He contorted one side of his face into what seemed to be a wink of derision toward the occupants of the carriage. A cloud of dust rose and, in its midst, a white handkerchief fluttered.

A
DELINE DID NOT
go on to Jalna but returned to Wilmott’s log house. She felt a strangeness in returning there. So much had happened since she had left. Again she knocked and again she saw Tite’s dark hand draw aside the curtain. He opened the door at once.

“You want to see my boss?” he asked.

Wilmott now appeared.

“It’s a pretty sort of life I lead,” he exclaimed. “Like a criminal! And I suppose that, in a degree, I am. You may go, Tite.”

When they were alone, Adeline said rather breathlessly — “I’ve seen her!”

“Not Henrietta?”

“Yes.”

“My God!” He stared incredulously. “Is she here then?”

“She was. She’s gone. I had no time to find Philip. When I reached the road I met her coming in a hired carriage.”

“I tell you,” he said, between his teeth, “I will never go back to that woman. But I am done for in this place! Where is she?”

“On her way back to the town. Tomorrow she will go to New York in search of you. I told her it is said here that you went to Mexico and died of a fever. Ah, the lies I’ve uttered on your behalf!”

“And she believed you?” He cared nothing for the lies. He turned a look of concentrated anxiety on Adeline.

“Do I do things well or do I not? Of course, she believed me. I told her you had lived near here with a cow, a pig and an Indian. You lived in a swamp, I said, and when you left you were in debt to all the neighborhood.”

He could not restrain a look of consternation. “Good God, and that is my epitaph in England! Henrietta will tell everyone. She can’t control that tongue of hers.”

Adeline turned to him fiercely. “Follow her then and deny it! She’ll be easy to find.”

He made an excited turn about the room. “Don’t be angry with me,” he said. “Don’t expect me to say the right thing at such a moment. Don’t imagine that I’m not overflowing in gratitude to you. But I’m fairly dazed by it all. It’s happened so quickly.”

“You resent my blackening your character. Who cares for character! You are not seeking a situation! Oh, James Wilmott, the thing was to be rid of that woman! I could see meanness and cruelty sticking out all over her. What a time you must have had to please her!”