02 Morning at Jalna (18 page)

“It’s not natural enough,” said Nicholas. “Do you remember how once he went to bed tight, with his clothes on, and took his pipe with him? He set fire to the bed and that roused him. He put out the fire and asked us not to tell of him and we didn’t and he never told of us.”

“He was a fine, noble man,” said Ernest.

“We appreciate him more, now that he’s gone,” said Gussie. She then opened the door of the clothes cupboard and discovered an old tweed jacket of Madigan’s, a battered felt hat, and a strong-smelling pipe.

Now the children wrapped the jacket round the topmost end of the bolster, drawing the blankets close. They topped the effigy with the battered hat and laid the pipe on the pillow. For a while they stood transfixed by admiration — then, hearing footsteps on the stairs, they ran to Gussie’s room. The dove flew straight to her, alighting on her head. To him no perch in the world was so desirable as this silky black head.

With fast-beating hearts the children waited.

They were prepared for something but certainly they were not prepared for the screams of terror given by Mrs. Madigan. These screams came from powerful lungs. She might well have been a singer in Wagnerian opera. They heard her running down the stairs. She ran with such speed that they would scarcely have been surprised if she had landed with one leap in the downstairs hall.

The children stared at one another in consternation.

“We builded better than we knew,” said Gussie.

“She seems frightened,” said Ernest. They saw, through the window, how she was running in the direction of her home. He added, “She’s in the hell of a stew.”

“If you think,” said Augusta, “that you are admired for the bad language you use, you’re mistaken.”

“Gussie and I could use worse language if we chose,” said Nicholas, “but we have too much sense.”

“Let’s hear just a little of it,” said Ernest. “You might go first, Gussie.”

But all three now had the same impulse — to investigate Lucius Madigan’s bed. It was just as they had left it. Mrs. Madigan had not discovered the hoax. Carefully they put everything in order.

An hour later they were sent for to come down to the sitting room. It was growing dark and a bright fire sparkled on the hearth. Adeline and Philip sat like two judges. Nero lay on the bearskin rug. The heat of the fire was so great that it made him pant. He would then rise and take himself to a cooler spot, but as soon as he ceased panting he would return to the rug. Adeline was crocheting a tea cozy. Philip was playing cat’s cradle with his youngest who was seated on his knee. As the three elder children entered he demanded, in his most army officer’s tone:

“What’s this I hear about your governess?”

“Actually,” said Gussie, “we don’t know what you’ve heard.”

“What do you mean by that, miss?” he asked with severity.

“We could answer better if we knew,” she said.

“You mean you could make up fabrications to suit the occasion,” said Adeline.

“What I want is the plain truth,” said Philip. “What did you do to her?”

“I think it upset her pretending her husband was back.”

“After all my trouble of engaging her,” put in Adeline, “she’s gone off without notice and sent a man for her bags.”

“What if she’s taken your ivory pen, Papa?” asked Ernest.

“No impertinence from you, young man,” said his father.

“Ernest,” said Adeline, “come and hold my wool.”

He went at once happily, feeling that they two were in league together. If there was one indoor pastime above another that he enjoyed, it was holding wool to be wound or stringing beads, and he did both very well indeed.

“Me too!” said the tiny Philip. “Me ’old ’ool too!” He struggled to get down from his father’s knee.

“He says he wants to hold wool too,” said Ernest.

“I can’t teach him anything,” said Philip senior. “When I was his age I could play a first-rate game of dominoes.” He set the little one on the floor.

“You still can play quite well,” Nicholas said kindly.

His father stretched out an arm as though to fell him where he stood, but changed his mind, folded his arms across his broad chest, and stared gloomily into the fire. He said to Adeline, “I was against your engaging Amelia Busby —”

“Amelia Madigan,” corrected Augusta.

“It was no sort of marriage,” he went on. “The woman strikes me as illiterate. Madigan could never have put up with her.”

“She can both read and write,” said Augusta.

“Before she was married she had taught school,” said Adeline.

Philip groaned. “I could not put up with that woman about the house,” he said. “I have enough to put up with as it is.”

“You are very seldom about the house, Papa,” said Nicholas.

“I am a busy man,” Philip declared. “I oversee the sowing and reaping of crops. The setting out of orchards. The breeding of horses, cattle, and sheep. I am the first one out of bed in the morning and the last to retire at night. With the winter coming on I shall have much more leisure.”

“Every season has its disadvantages,” said Augusta.

“It is a great mistake,” said Philip, “for any child here to think that, just because I appear good-natured and easygoing, I will tolerate any impertinence.” He threw a pine log on the fire with such force that sparks flew in all directions and Nero leapt on the sofa for safety.

Darkness came like a black curtain outside the window but indoors it was defeated by the springing firelight, by the vivid colouring of the family. To shut out the darkness completely Bessie now came in and drew the curtains. Seeing her the baby Philip well knew it was his bedtime and crept underneath the sofa where Nero lay, to hide himself. Usually his father would have protected him but now he said with a frown:

“Carry him off, Bessie. It’s already past his bedtime. He’s getting completely out of hand.”

Dragged from his retreat, the little fellow held up beseeching arms. “Awnt to tiss evbody,” he begged. He pursed his scarlet lips in readiness.

“He says he wants to kiss everybody,” translated Ernest, eager to show off.

“When I want you to tell me what Philip says I’ll ask you,” said their father.

“But he speaks so badly,” faltered Ernest.

“He speaks as plainly as you do and at least knows when to hold his tongue.”

Philip senior rose with a groan, as though suffering from lumbago, and went to his desk, where lay a box of cigarettes, and took one. He had lately begun to smoke these in preference to pipe or cigar, but to Adeline they appeared unmanly.

She whispered to Ernest, “You did wrong, my dear, in keeping the ivory pen.”

“Is that what’s annoying him?” he whispered back, with a look askance at his papa.

“Yes. He won’t be happy till he gets it.” She gave her husband a loving glance, as though in proof of her understanding of him.

“You see that smoke coming from his nostrils?” she whispered, her lips close to Ernest’s pink ear.

“Yes, Mamma.”

“That’s rage. Smouldering rage — ready to blaze up. We shall have no peaceful times at Jalna till you restore the ivory pen.”

“Very well, I will,” he assented, shouldering the burden of the pen, just as though she had had nothing to do with it, which was what she intended.

Ernest pondered for some time over the best way of restoring the pen, and decided that nothing could be better than the manner in which he had restored the gold pen. He wondered what had become of it and decided that it had been sold for the benefit of the missionary society for which the collection on that Sunday had been taken.

Tomorrow it was Sunday again, the first Sunday in December.

The falling of the wind that had blown throughout the month of November, the sudden stillness, the swift drop in temperature, announced the arrival of winter. Above all, enveloping all, was a heavy snowfall. Off and on there had been snow flurries but nothing like this. All the night long large snowflakes fell, slowly, tranquilly, without ceasing, as though they were conscious that there was plenty of time for what they planned to do. This plainly was to obliterate every landmark from the countryside — to smother hedges, fences, and gates, to leave no trace of paths, to render the most stalwart of trees no more than nesting places for the snowflakes. Boughs bent with the weight of them. Every gatepost was majestically crowned.

The stillness was remarkable. The sky leaned low. The earth appeared to give up the ghost.

Philip had been preparing for this. Sharp at ten-thirty the large family sleigh was brought to the front door by a stableman. It shone like a piano. Bear skins hung from the back and others were folded neatly on the seats, ready to cover the knees of the ensconced family. The pair of bays were fairly snorting and pawing the snow in their eagerness to be off, excited by the ringing jangle of the strings of bells that were attached to their harness. Above their shoulders hung a silver bell whose melodious notes were in contrast to the wild jangle of the harness bells.

The horses could barely be restrained while the family settled themselves in the sleigh. Baby Philip was held in Bessie’s arms at a window to see them off. He threw kisses to them as they moved away and they threw kisses back. His father saluted him with the whip, on which there was a bow of red ribbon. He wore a wedge-shaped cap of beaver. Adeline was in a sealskin sack, and a small sealskin toque showed her gleaming hair to advantage, rivalling the ruddy tones of the sealskin. Augusta looked quite a young lady in a red velvet jacket trimmed with the same fur. When entering the church, the boys pulled off their woolly caps and their hair stood defiantly on end. Augusta gave each an admonishing look.

Ernest sat between his parents. One hand was in the pocket of his jacket, his eyes were fixed on his prayer book of which he was very proud, as his aunt had sent it him from England one Christmas. He could scarcely bear to wait for the collecting of the offertory. A sense of goodness and peace possessed him. Life stretched before him as a succession of happy Sundays, with now and again a birthday or Christmas thrown in.

This pen which he now fingered was not only of fine ivory but was delicately carved in a design of lilies and their graceful leaves. It was remarkable that so much could have been put into so small a space.

Ernest was lost in thought when Philip left the pew and joined Brawn, the miller. He then appeared with the alms dish for the contributions from his family. Adeline, Gussie and Nicholas laid their donations on the dish and glanced toward Ernest with a certain expectancy.

From his pocket he took the ivory pen and placed it with a flourish in the centre. He then raised his eyes to his father’s face, half-timidly but certain that this was an act of renunciation.

Philip’s eyebrows shot up, but he did not for a moment hesitate. Briskly he took the pen from the alms dish and stuck it above his ear. Like a clerk in a dry goods shop he marched up the aisle while the organ broke into the voluntary. He stood, self-contained, stalwart, at the chancel steps, with the ivory pen behind his ear. Returning to his pew he gave a roguish wink at Ernest.

XVIII

A Night Visitor

In a strange way this fall, this Christmas time, this winter, seemed to Augusta a new experience. It was almost as though she had been born again. She no longer felt a child as formerly. She did not consciously think about Guy Lacey but he glimmered in and out of her thoughts like a bright thread in the pattern of a tapestry. For the first time in her young life, she wondered what that life would be. Friends never asked her, as they asked Nicholas, what profession she would choose. “The Army, of course,” he would answer, “and after I retire, a farm in Canada.” If anybody asked the same question of Ernest, he would say, “I shall stay at home always with Papa and Mamma.” Everybody took it for granted that she, being a girl, would marry and go to the home of her husband. What would it be like, she wondered, to be the wife of a naval officer and have no proper home?

It had been arranged, some months ago, that the two eldest children would be taken that fall to England and placed in schools there, while the two youngest would remain in Canada, under reliable care. This, however, could not be done, because no reliable person was at hand. Mrs. Coveyduck was out of the question, as already she was unable to control little Philip; and Ernest was so forward that he required someone capable of teaching him. “A pity,” said their father, “that the Irishman and the Busby girl turned out so badly.”

Ernest declared, standing very straight, that if Gussie and Nicholas went to school in England, he also would like to go, but he was told that it was too expensive to send three children off at once, that he must wait his turn.

“When shall I go?” he asked.

“In a couple of years.”

“But I’ll be lonely without Gussie and Nicholas. I’ll have no one to play with.”

“You will have your little brother,” Adeline answered, giving him an absent-minded look, for her mind was on her preparations.

“I wish Mr. Madigan would come home,” said Ernest.

“
Home?
” repeated Adeline.

“He often called this house home.”

“I expect he’s at home now with his mother in Ireland.”

“Poor man.” Suddenly Ernest looked experienced, like a little old man.

Strangely enough, Augusta and Nicholas seemed content to leave him at Jalna. She gave him careful instructions for the care of her dove. Nicholas told him about the feeding of his pet rabbits. He listened with pretended docility, but he wondered how they would feel if they were to be left at home while he went off on a jaunt to England. Inside he was seething with impotent emotions.

Mrs. Lacey, who taught her own daughters, gave the young Whiteoaks some lessons. These were not a success. In certain ways they appalled her by their ignorance. In other ways they shocked her by what they knew. This was the result of Madigan’s teaching. Yet they looked on him as superior in every way to those who, since his going, had tried to force book learning into their heads.

Mrs. Madigan was such a joke to them that they screamed with laughter at the mere thought of her.

There were times when Augusta was just another child with her brothers. At other times she kept aloof from them, trying in a confused way to find the path towards womanhood. She was such a contrast to her mother that they found little companionship in each other. What seemed only ridiculous to Adeline was likely to appear pathetic to Augusta. What might throw Adeline into a fine rage would pass unnoticed by Augusta. What would appear formidable to the daughter would seem trivial to the mother. Augusta had a yearning for solitude. Adeline loved companionship. The image of Guy Lacey often came to disturb Augusta’s sleep. He would appear out of the darkness, bright and smiling in his naval uniform. She would lie entranced, waiting for him to speak, but he would disappear as silently as he had come.

She had another visitor and this one very real. It was Lucius Madigan, who came up the stairs one winter night to the schoolroom where the three young Whiteoaks were sitting in a pretence at doing lessons. Adeline and Philip had gone to Quebec for a visit.

Madigan appeared at the door and smiled at them.

It was so natural to see him there that for a moment they had not the wit to feel surprise. He had come out of their brief past to astonish them.

“What a lovely sight!” he exclaimed. “Working hard at your lessons! Oh, my dears, I could embrace you all.” He held out his arms, as though to enfold them.

Ernest was the first to recover. He rose and ran to Madigan. “We were given snowshoes for Christmas,” he said. “Want to see them?”

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” said Madigan.

The little boy ran off to fetch them.

Nicholas said, “It was better when you were here, Lucius.”

Augusta corrected him. “You are not to call Mr. Madigan by his Christian name.”

“I used to sometimes, didn’t I, Lucius?”

“Yes, and I like it,” said Madigan.

He advanced into the room and sat down at the table with them. He looked as he had used to when getting over a spree. His eyes rested on Augusta. “You look different somehow, Gussie,” he said. “Do you feel different?”

“She’s just the same,” said Nicholas. “Bossy.”

Augusta raised her long-lidded eyes to Madigan’s face. “I remember things in a different way,” she said.

“You begin to realize that you have a past,” said Madigan. “It’s a sad moment, Gussie. But never let your past haunt you. That’s a terrible thing.” He ran his hands through his hair making it stand up as though in fright.

“Are you going to see Mrs. Madigan?” Nicholas put the question boldly.

“Yes, I’m going to see my mother, Mrs. Madigan, as soon as I have money to pay my passage,” answered Madigan.

“I meant your wife,” said Nicholas.

“My God,” cried the Irishman, “does that Busby girl call herself Mrs. Madigan?” He looked distraught.

This sent the young Whiteoaks into peals of laughter. Ernest had returned with the snowshoes. Then each made a characteristic remark.

Nicholas said, “She came to tutor us but we quickly got rid of her.”

“Not before she’d slapped Ernest’s face,” said Augusta.

“If you like,” said Ernest, “I’ll show you how I made up her bed, with your coat and hat and pipe in it. That frightened her away.”

“That coat is what I came for,” said Madigan. “It has my savings sewn up in the lining and, by God, I need money.” He looked searchingly into the children’s faces. “I hope no one has meddled with the lining,” he said.

“At least we are honest,” said Augusta.

Ernest plumped the snowshoes on the table on top of the lesson books. Madigan examined them with sincere interest. “How I should love to see you on these!” he said, a light coming into his tired eyes. The children had not realized before this that his presence meant so much to them.

“How did you know our parents are away?” Augusta asked.

“I enquired in the village,” Madigan answered humbly. “But I’m not going to stay. As soon as I have recovered my bit of money I’ll be off.”

“I wish we might go with you,” said Nicholas.

“And leave this paradise?” exclaimed Madigan. “If you will take my advice you’ll grow up here and never, never travel. If I had stayed in Ireland, I’d be a less miserable man today.”

“Gussie and I are to go to school in England next spring,” said Nicholas, “but this young fellow” — and he gave a patronizing tap to Ernest’s head — “is to remain at Jalna with his baby brother.”

“I won’t! I won’t!” Ernest jerked his head away from the patronizing tap and spoke loudly. “I’ll run away first.”

Madigan looked his most melancholy. “I can’t think of anything worse than school in England,” he said, “unless it is school in Ireland. I went to one.”

“Our father says we’ll learn all sorts of things.”

“You will learn how to bear daily beatings with stoicism — that is, after the first term, when you’ll cry yourself to sleep every night.”

“Why would they beat us?” Nicholas asked without flinching.

“For the fun of it,” said Madigan. “The big boys beat the small boys for the fun of seeing them suffer.”

“But a girl would not be beaten,” said Gussie.

“There are worse things than physical pain,” said Madigan. “On my part I minded the beatings less than the moral humiliations.”

“Please tell us about it,” said Ernest. “I love to hear about suffering.”

Madigan said, “I am not hungry but I have a terrible thirst on me. Do you think your papa might have left a drop of whisky in the decanter on the sideboard? But, for God’s sake, don’t let the servants hear you, because if that Busby woman discovers I’m here she’ll be trying to meet me.”

“Her father and brothers would like to meet you,” said Augusta.

For a moment Madigan looked subdued, then he asked, “Have you still the dove with you?”

“He is the joy of my life,” said Augusta primly.

Nicholas ran down the two flights of stairs, the upper serviceably covered in linoleum, the lower carpeted in red Wilton. Shortly he reappeared carrying a decanter half-full of Scotch whisky and a tumbler. Madigan poured himself a drink. “It does me more good neat,” he said.

He drank it down.

“You used the word ‘joy,’ Gussie,” he said. “As for me I have ceased to feel that emotion, but I’m happy to think a dove can give you joy. What about you, Nicholas? Has anything the power to give you joy?”

“Snowshoeing,” said Nicholas. “When I’m on my snowshoes in the woods I’m full of joy.”

“And you, Ernest?”

“It makes me joyful to have you here again,” said the little boy.

Madigan’s eyes filled with tears. His hand that held the tumbler trembled. The house was silent, cloaked in snow. Augusta’s hands, elegantly shaped and of a pure pallor, lay clasped on the table before her.

Madigan continued, “Do not let your parents send you away to school. You will be half-dead from homesickness. You will be ill-treated and miserable.”

“What can we do?” asked Augusta.

Madigan had downed his second drink. He looked into the amber shape of the decanter and said, “If I were in your place I should run away.”

Augusta’s eyes rested on the snow-blanketed windowpane. She murmured, “How can we?”

“I advise you,” said Madigan, “to put on these delightful snowshoes and disappear into the woods. Never come back.” His elbow rested on the table, his head rested on his hand. He looked desperately tired.

“Have another drink,” suggested Nicholas.

Madigan refused with dignity. “I must keep my brain clear,” he said. “I must find my savings. I must be away from here by daylight tomorrow.” He rose, a little unsteadily, and moved towards his former bedroom, the children following him. Augusta went slowly, her head bent, her hair falling about her pale cheeks, as though she were musing on distant things. Nicholas marched along steadily, as though he were able to cope with whatever came his way. Ernest, gentle but dogged, followed last.

“I’m sorry,” Augusta said to Madigan, “but my dove sleeps here. I can’t have him in the room with me because he will perch on my pillow.”

“I don’t mind,” said Madigan. “But you must tell me his name so I may talk to him.”

“I give him a new name each season,” said Augusta. “But the names are secret, so that only he and I know them.”

“Once,” said Ernest, “I heard you call him Mortimer.”

“Mortimer is Guy Lacey’s middle name.” Nicholas gave a teasing laugh. “What a name for a dove!”

The dove settled more comfortably on his perch. Augusta went to him and stroked his silky back.

The boys pressed close after Madigan as he took his coat from the peg. When he turned it inside out they saw that the lining had been cut. Madigan put his finger inside, but there was nothing there. He gave a rueful look. “By jingo, I remember,” he said. “I took that money myself — for the honeymoon with that Busby girl.”

Ernest corrected him. “Mrs. Lucius Madigan.”

Madigan clenched his hands. “Do you want me to cuff you?” he demanded.

“She slapped my face,” said Ernest.

“That is not allowed,” said Augusta. “If any chastising is to be done, it is done by your parents.”

“They like doing it,” added Ernest.

Madigan sat down on the side of the bed. “I must rest,” he said. “Tomorrow I shall be up at sunrise. I must escape before the servants discover me.” He looked into the face of each child in turn. “Never shall I forget you.” His voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears. He sank on to the feather bed and almost immediately fell asleep.

Augusta brought a thick quilt called a “comforter,” and spread it over him. The three stood looking down at him in solicitude. Outside, the wind beat the snowflakes against the pane, enfolding the house in a deep slumberous silence, broken only by the falsetto snore of Lucius Madigan.

Augusta went to her own room and from the sill of the snow-plastered window brought what appeared to be four russet apples, brown and rather wrinkled. She gave one to each of her young brothers, then laid one with a benign gesture in the curve of the sleeper’s hand.