02 Morning at Jalna (13 page)

Augusta took him into her arms. In an odd way she felt that his small familiar body would be a shield for the inadequacy of her bathing dress. He clasped her tight.

Guy Lacey’s appearance was even more embarrassing to Augusta than was her own. It was all very well for her father and brothers to romp on the beach in semi-nakedness, but — this young man whom she was accustomed to meet in uniform!

“Come on in,” said Guy.

“Yes,” called out Adeline. “Go on in, Gussie.”

Adeline took possession of her youngest. Guy took Gussie firmly by the hand. They walked sedately, as though for a ceremony, into the bright water of the lake. Gussie felt that she should make some conversation. The trouble was she could think of nothing to say excepting, “The lake is very large.” When those words had passed her lips, she saw them in her imagination as a sentence at the top of a page in a copy book. “The lake is very large.” Write carefully, children. No blots, please. Then she saw a primer, a first reader, with a lesson that began: “The lake is very large. I see the lake. It is as big as the sea.” She could not stop herself from saying, in her clear voice which, when she was grown up, would be contralto, “It is as big as the sea.”

Guy Lacey gave his light easy laugh. “Have you ever seen the sea, Gussie?”

“Not to remember. When I was a baby I went in a sailing ship from India to England — then came to Canada.” She was proud of having travelled so far, but Guy Lacey only said, “This lake is tame compared to the sea.”

“Is it?” she breathed, her eyes on the dim blue horizon; then added, “Is the sea colder than this?”

“Do you find the water cold?” he asked solicitously. “Then the thing to do is —
duck
.”

“Duck?” she repeated.

“Yes. I’ll count three. Then we’ll both duck.”

“Do!” she giggled, and so unusual it was for Augusta to giggle that instantly she looked serious.

Guy was counting. “One — two — three —
duck
!”

Down they went, he now gripping her two hands. They were engulfed, half-drowned it seemed, in the immensity of the lake. She held her breath.

Then it was down again and up into the balmy air, her long tresses — Guy thought of her hair as “tresses” — streaming over her shoulders.

“Why, Gussie,” he exclaimed laughing, “you look just like a mermaid — that lovely black hair — those alluring eyes.” His white teeth gleamed in his wet face. He had a lock of yellow hair plastered on his forehead.

They danced up and down, holding hands. Gussie was no longer cold. Her blood raced through her veins. She felt wild, reckless, as she had never felt before.

“Hoopla!” shouted Philip, and bore down upon them.

He was followed by the two boys, Guy’s little sisters and Adeline. A battle of splashing ensued. The small boys sought to duck Guy but it was he who ducked them. Adeline delighted in this sort of wild play. None of the young people was so boisterous as Philip and she. Those remaining on the shore were well occupied. Admiral Lacey was in charge of Baby Philip who, from the safety of the Admiral’s arms, watched his family apparently about to drown and, being safe himself, enjoyed the spectacle. He clasped his hands over his round little stomach and laughed in glee. Every few moments Admiral Lacey would shout to his daughters:

“Be careful, girlies!”

Or to his son, “Watch over your sisters, Guy!”

Not one of them paid the slightest attention to him or indeed heard him.

Mrs. Lacey was well occupied in unpacking the picnic hamper and laying the table for tea. The cloth was spread on the fine clean sand and, considering the haste of the arrangements, there was a generous supply of ham sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, cucumbers in vinegar, and plain fruit cake.

James Wilmott had not brought a bathing suit but was occupied in building a fire for the boiling of a pot of water to cook corn and make the tea. He was an expert at this, choosing stones of the right shape to support the large black pot. But his chief concern was the salmon he had himself donated. As the sun sank toward the horizon the breeze fell and the air became deliciously warm. The bathers felt that they could remain in the lake all night. But Wilmott was anxious about the salmon. He had made a miniature cellar among the shrubs to keep it cool. Every so often he took it out and sniffed it. It retained the freshness of its odour. Nevertheless he was anxious.

He went to Mrs. Lacey and said, “I am of the opinion that the salmon should be eaten. It cannot stand this heat without spoiling.”

Mrs. Lacey, her face crimson, asked, “Has the pot boiled?”

“It has boiled.”

“Then I shall put in the corn.” One by one she dropped the symmetrical ears of corn into the bubbling pot. She called to her husband:

“Tell the children to come at once. They have been too long in the water as it is.” To Wilmott she remarked, “I’m surprised that Mrs. Whiteoak allows little Ernest to remain so long in the lake. He is a delicate boy and might easily get his death.”

Wilmott said gruffly, “Mrs. Whiteoak has no more sense than a child.”

Mrs. Lacey was delighted to hear him speak disparagingly of Adeline because she had been under the impression that he almost too warmly admired her. Mrs. Lacey found James Wilmott now more congenial to her than she had thought possible. Again she called out to her husband, “Order Guy to bring in his sisters at once.”

Admiral Lacey set Baby Philip on the sand, cupped his own hands about his mouth and shouted, “Ship ahoy! Ethel! Violet! Come ashore! Your mamma orders!”

“Supper,” shouted Wilmott, with a scornful look in Adeline’s direction.

The bathers now emerged dripping. They sought suitable retreats for drying and dressing themselves among the scrubby cedars. Philip and Guy together, the three young girls, each with her own towel and modesty, Nicholas only half drying himself before he pulled on his tight ankle-length trousers, his undervest, his cambric shirt, his jacket trimmed with silk braid. Already his hair was drying into charming waves about his ears and neck. “Really such hair is wasted on a boy,” Mrs. Lacey observed to Adeline, who had just appeared in a flannel wrapper, with Ernest by the hand. The little boy was delicate, and for fear he might take cold she had given him a brisk rub down and wrapped him in a plaid shawl. He was in high feather and danced along, the fringe of the shawl trailing after him.

The party seated themselves on the sand about the tea-cloth. They were hungry and could scarcely bear to wait for the first course. This was the steaming hot corn on the cob, to be eaten with salt, pepper, and plenty of butter. Wilmott carried the pot round the festive cloth and laid a glistening ear of corn, with its pearl-like kernels, on the plate of each. The only two who were left out were Baby Philip and Nero. Adeline had her little one on her lap and now and again fed him enormous spoonfuls of bread and milk with brown sugar.

“How angelic Baby has been!” said Mrs. Lacey. “He’s never cried once.”

“I’m ravenous,” declared Ernest, and at that Adeline espied the ear of corn on his plate. She nipped it up and laid it in front of Nicholas. “Ernest must not eat corn,” she said. “It gives him a terrible bellyache.”

“But I’m hungry!”

Mrs. Lacey looked offended by the word bellyache.

“What can I eat?” Ernest’s lip trembled, yet he knew his mother did right in taking the ear of corn from him.

Wilmott rose with alacrity. “You shall have the first helping of salmon,” he said, and strode to where he had buried the crock containing it. The crock felt delightfully cool when he unearthed it. The salmon looked tempting when he uncovered it. Ernest’s eyes shone when the firm pink slice of the fish was laid on his plate.

“Are you going to say thanks?” asked Adeline.

“Thank you very much, sir,” Ernest said, his hunger mounting. He was greedy for the first bite but scarcely was it in his mouth when he spat it back on to his plate.

Every eye was on him.

“Whatever is wrong?” demanded Wilmott.

He picked up the plate and sniffed the fish.

“It stinks,” said Ernest.

Philip and Adeline fixed stern glances on their son.

“How dare you spit out a special present?” she asked with severity. A kernel of corn hung on her red underlip.

“How dare you say it stank?” demanded Philip.

Ernest began to cry. “Leave the table,” ordered Philip.

“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Guy Lacey. “The poor little beggar!”

“This is none of our business,” said his father.

Mrs. Lacey said to her daughters, “Ethel — Violet — don’t stare.”

Wilmott rose with dignity. He emptied the salmon from Ernest’s plate back into the crock, rose and stalked away with it across the sand.

Nero who all this while had been gazing hungrily at the party about the table and avidly sniffing the scent of the salmon, now slunk after Wilmott with an air so patently criminal in its intent that only the picnickers’ absorption in their own doings prevented his being detected.

When Wilmott had buried the salmon deep, rinsed the crock that had contained it in the purifying water of the lake, he returned to the table. Philip at once proffered a plate heaped with ham sandwiches.

“Have some, old man,” he said. “They’re first-rate. Have some cucumber. Too bad about the salmon but those things will happen. I remember a picnic in India —”

Adeline interrupted, “Stop, Philip! You’re not to tell about that picnic. You’re worse than that little viper Ernest.”

Wilmott asked, “Is Ernest to have nothing to eat?”

“Supperless to bed. That’s his medicine,” said Philip.

Guy Lacey dropped a sandwich into his own pocket.

Meantime the outcast walked lonely along the beach. He felt ill-used, outraged. He was as furiously angry as was possible to his gentle nature. He talked to himself in a growling voice. “I was expected to swallow that stinking fish, wasn’t I? I wish every one of them had been made to swallow a big mouthful of it. ’Specially Mamma and Papa. Nobody cares if I’m sick. Nobody cares if I’m hungry. They can have their old picnic. I don’t want any of it. I’ll not eat anything for a week — I’m damned if I will.”

Now the sun was a glowing crimson ball casting its fiery causeway athwart the placid lake. A flock of gulls sailed by, close to shore. The sound of little waves lapping on the sand only made the silence more serene. Ernest ceased his dogged plodding and stared in wonder at the clouds of pink and amethyst which drifted with the sun in his setting.

Ernest began to feel more peaceful. A thrill of something — was it joy in the lonely beauty of the evening sky? — ran through his nerves. Now he heard the voice of Gussie calling him. “Ernest! Ernest! We’re going!”

He had a mind to hide among the scrubby trees that grew dense and mysterious along the shore. But they were too dense, too mysterious. He could see, out of the sides of his eyes, Gussie coming hurriedly towards him. “Ernest! Listen, dear! We’re going!”

She had called him
dear
! He would show her what they had done to him. He laid himself flat on the sand and began to cry.

Now she was bending over him. “You can’t stay here, you know. Patsy O’Flynn has the horses ready. You don’t want to be left here alone, do you?”

She assisted him to his feet. Suddenly he felt weak and wobbly. In his excitement he had eaten almost no lunch. One day, not long ago, he had heard his mother say of someone, “Poor man, he is old before his time!” Now this remark came back to him and he thought, “Old before my time. That’s what I am.”

The others of the party did not notice him when he came back with Augusta. They were occupied in collecting their belongings and clambering into the wagonette and the Laceys’ phaeton which were now waiting at the bottom of the road. Wilmott had ridden his old black mare that somehow had a funereal look. He had not yet recovered from the way his gift of salmon had turned out. Yet most of the others were in high spirits.

“Where is Nero?” shouted Philip. “Nicholas, go and find Nero and be quick about it.”

Nicholas ran along the beach calling to Nero. It was not long before he returned, dragging him by the collar. “Nero’d dug up the salmon,” he announced, “and eaten it!”

Out of his woolly black face Nero gave a roguish look.

“Merciful heaven!” cried Adeline. “It will be the death of him!”

“I’m afraid I did not bury it deep enough,” Wilmott said contritely.

“Nothing can kill that dog,” said Philip.

He gave Nero a clout, then bundled him into the wagonette beside Nicholas and Ernest.

“He ought to follow the horses,” said Adeline.

“Too much effort after that meal. It would be the death of him.” Philip was growing impatient. “Come, come, everybody. Into your seat, Adeline. Is the baby asleep? Goodbye, Wilmott — better luck next time.”

Wilmott, on his mare, was the first to leave. He called back, “I warn you not to invite me to the next picnic. I am guaranteed a spoil-sport. Happy dreams, Nero!”

Guy Lacey came to the side of the wagonette. He remembered the ham sandwich he had hidden in his pocket for Ernest. Surreptitiously he took it out. Furtively he offered it to the little boy. But before Ernest could get his hands on it, Nero had intercepted and, in one mouthful, bolted it.