03 Mary Wakefield (22 page)

“How I love those two children!”

Ernest made no reply but Philip gave her a gratified look. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “Sometimes they’re pretty bad, you know.”

She refused to believe any such thing. Ernest held the cob steady while Philip assisted her to mount the seat. A well-shod foot, a pretty ankle and a rustling taffeta petticoat were, for an intriguing moment, visible. Ernest said good-bye coolly, and, lighting a cigarette paced a number of times up and down the house. His naturally sanguine nature took heard. After all, he was not ruined. He still had enough to live on, and live quite well too, provided he spent part of each year at Jalna. He always enjoyed being there. Philip was a good-humoured and generous host. In truth, Adeline and her three older children scarcely looked on Philip as a host but rather as the youngest son who had by good fortune been chosen by his father as inheritor of the
estate and whose duty it was to make them welcome at all times. As for Philip there was nothing he liked better than to have them there with him.

Now Ernest made his way back to the garden seat and dropped down on it with a sigh. Nicholas gave him a dubious look. He hoped Ernest was not going to remain in the dumps over his losses.

Adeline remarked, “Did ye notice how well the cob moved down the drive? He knew he had a good man at the reins.”

“That young woman,” said Nicholas, “handled them as if they were hot pokers.”

Adeline turned to Ernest. “Did you make any headway with her?” she asked.

“Not a bit,” he replied testily. “And to tell you the truth I don’t want to. She is not at all my sort. I have no wish to be married.”

“It seems a pity,” said Adeline, “never to put out a hand to capture all that money. These losses of yours, Ernest, show how easy it is to lose it. Now here is a fortune, at our very door and I have two attractive sons —”

“What’s the matter with Philip?” asked Nicholas.

“I don’t want another woman at Jalna.”

“Mamma,” said Ernest, “it is inevitable that Philip will marry again. It’s plain that Miss Craig wants him. Take my advice and don’t do anything to discourage him. If you do you may get a daughter-in-law you’ll like much less. You might even get Miss Wakefield who hasn’t a shilling to her name.”

Adeline turned to him sharply. “Have you seen anything suspicious since the dance?”

“N — no. But propinquity often leads to regard.”

“Ernest, you did a bad day’s work when you engaged that designing creature. I might have known better than to trust you to show any sense where a female is concerned.”

“You might indeed,” he returned tranquilly. “I don’t know the first thing about the average woman. You are the only woman I pretend to understand, but then you make yourself so clear.”

“Certainly,” put in Nicholas, “Miss Craig makes her intention clear. She is tooth and claw after Philip and, in my opinion, he wants to be hooked.”

“Speaking of being hooked,” said Ernest, “here are his fish. He’s gone off without a second thought for them. I think I had better carry them down to the kitchen.” He picked up the basket from where it stood on the rustic table. He hesitated a moment and then said, “I have an investment in mind which I am positive will recoup the losses I have had — not only cancel them but make me a great deal more. The thing is that I shall be on the spot to watch the fluctuations of the stocks. If I had been there this summer things would be very different with me now.” He went to the house gently swinging the basket of fish in his hand.

“D’ye think he may do what he says?” Adeline asked, her eyes following Ernest.

“I shouldn’t be surprised. He has a decided flair for speculation, but don’t you ever be persuaded, Mamma, to invest anything on his advice.”

“Trust me to hang on to what I have!” she exclaimed. “It’s little enough, God knows, but ’twill keep me in my old age.”

She watched Nicholas light a fresh cigarette and put out her shapely hand for one. However, she surreptitiously took the light he gave her and looked almost fearfully toward the house as she inhaled.

“That hussy, Miss Wakefield, smokes,” she said. “I wouldn’t have Nettle see me do it, not for anything.”

The trap bowled brightly along the tree-lined road, the cob moving in accord with the pleasant pressure he felt on the reins. Philip and Muriel Craig made a handsome pair, she very upright, her sailor hat tilted forward, he wearing a checked coat and yellow gloves. He twiddled the whip, admiring the scarlet ribbon on its handle.

“I can’t tell you,” she said, “how nice it is just to sit here, with my hands in my lap and watch someone else drive — particularly when they handle the reins as you do.”

“This cob,” he said, “is gentle enough, but he needs more exercise. I’m afraid you’re a bit nervous, Miss Craig.”

“I am — I am! And I’m so ashamed. I don’t think I should be half so nervous on horseback. It’s the thought of this high trap overturning that makes me tremble. My father promises to buy me a saddle horse if I’ll learn to ride it. But who will teach me? There are so few who ride excepting your family.”

“I’ll gladly teach you.”

She clapped her hands. “Oh, how lovely that will be! Are you sure it won’t bore you?”

“Come now, Miss Craig, can you imagine my being bored in your company?”

“I wish I couldn’t” she said humbly, “but I’m afraid I can imagine anything. I’m far too imaginative.”

Philip looked into her round, matter-of-fact eyes and doubted it. A couple of generations ago, he decided, she would have been pretending to swoon.

“Oh,” she cried, “there is Miss Wakefield on the road ahead of us! Do you think we could squeeze her into the seat with us? She walks as though she were so tired.”

“It would be a close fit,” he returned, his eyes searchingly on Mary’s back. “Besides, she’s going only as far as the Pinks’. Do you really think she seems tired?”

“Perhaps it’s just her shoes. I always feel that shoes should be chosen for the wear they’re to have. What I mean is, on rough country roads it’s better to have brogues like I wear.”

They had overtaken Mary. Philip drew in the horse. She looked up at them defensively. Miss Craig leaned toward her with a solicitous air.

“We think you look
so
tired, Miss Wakefield. We’d love to give you a lift but there’s scarcely room for three on the seat. So I’m going to propose that Mr. Whiteoak shall drive you to the Pinks’ while
I trudge manfully along the road in my big brogues. Your shoes are so dainty, they’re better suited to city pavements, aren’t they?”

“Thank you. I’m not at all tired.”

“Oh, yes, you are! You can’t fool us. We know, by the way you walk. Do let me out, Mr. Whiteoak.”

“If anyone is to get out it will be me.” He put the reins into her hands. Their hands touched and she gave him a small, intimate smile, as though they spoke in a language no one else could understand.

Mary included him in the icy look she gave Miss Craig.

“I want to walk,” she said. “My shoes may be all wrong but they feel quite comfortable to me. Good morning.” She turned away.

“Now we’ve offended you!” cried Miss Craig. “Please, please don’t be offended, Miss Wakefield! It breaks my heart if I think I’ve offended anyone. You mustn’t misunderstand me. I think your shoes are quite the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I only meant — I’d love to walk and let Mr. Whiteoak drive you to the Pinks.”

Mary gave her a look of speechless anger and literally strode down the road. Little whorls of dust circled about her skirts.

Miss Craig returned the reins to Philip. She drooped, almost on his shoulders, and he saw that her eyes were swimming in tears.

“Why,” he exclaimed, in astonishment, “surely you’re not crying!”

“Oh, I’m such a silly,” she sobbed.

“You are indeed.” His eyes were puzzled and kind. “I don’t know what it all was about.”

“She hates me and I can’t bear to be hated.”

“Now that’s sheer nonsense.”

“You saw the look on her face.”

He could not deny that he had.

“But you mustn’t cry,” he said, and patted her hand.

His sympathy was more than she could bear. Now her head was indeed on his shoulder, her sailor hat tilted precariously over one ear. He flapped the reins on the cob’s back and they jogged past Mary in this position.

Philip had never been more uncomfortable. With Miss Craig’s head so unexpectedly on his shoulder — “just as though I were a
hired man taking my girl for a buggy ride,” he thought — with Mary’s eyes boring a hole in his back, he thought yearningly of the tranquil hours he had spent with his fishing rod.

He shifted his shoulder a little and she sat upright and straightened her hat. Her face was flushed and smiling now. He had never seen her look so pretty. She was leaning forward to smile at a figure that was just emerging from the shadow of a clump of cedars.

“Did you see?” she laughed. “Young Mr. Busby? He’s waiting for Miss Wakefield. No wonder she was annoyed with me for offering her a lift. She didn’t want to miss him.”

“He’s probably not waiting for her.”

“Oh, certainly he is. I felt something in the air. And now I’m
so
glad because I know she wasn’t really angry at me but only at my interference with her plans. I’m
so
glad, because I think she’s a dear thing, and always
so
unhappy-looking.” Her voice took on a new intimacy. “Just glance over your shoulder and see this meeting. It will be fun to see them get together, in spite of our efforts to divide them.”

“Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort.” He flicked the cob with the whip, and stared sulkily between its ears. After a moment he asked, “Well, did they meet!”

“You
know
I’m peeping! But I just can’t help myself. It’s so fascinating to get a glimpse of a romantic love affair at close quarters. The rich young rancher and the poor governess! Now — they
have
met! And what a meeting! Did I say her feet were tired? I take it all back. She fairly ran to him and he’s taken both her hands. Oh, it’s divine! Why
will
you drive so fast, Mr. Whiteoak? Don’t you think it’s good for me to see two happy people?”

Mary had watched the passing of the trap, the attitudes of its occupants with astonishment. She was so astonished to see Muriel Craig’s head against Philip’s shoulder, her sailor hat pushed rakishly to one side that, for a moment, she felt no other emotion.

“Good heavens!” she said out loud. “Is that the way things are with them! He’ll be kissing her next — out on the open road!” Her voice shook and was strangled in her throat by a surge of jealousy. She could only say, “Oh, Philip, how
could
you? Philip…” The beloved name became a knife to stab her breast. Jealousy made her feet uncertain. She scarcely could keep on the road. She had a mind to throw herself into the dusty ditch, to tear at the nettles and thistles with her bare hands. She had not imagined jealousy could be so devastating as this. Her feelings on the night of the dance when he had ignored her were as nothing compared to the vehemence of what she now suffered.

What could have passed between them to make that stiff-starched creature droop to his shoulder like a flower in the heat of the sun? And her hat! Mary’s sensitive lip curled at the thought of Muriel Craig’s hat! The fool, the stupid creature! And
he
, the flirt, the heartless flirt, treating her, Mary — alone in a strange country, so terribly alone — with calculated cruelty!

Her eyes, though they were wide open, were unaware of Clive Busby coming toward her. She would have passed oblivious of him but he hastened to meet her with his hands outstretched. He took hers into them and his grasp was sharp on her fingers. She looked into his face, scarcely seeing him.

“Why,” he exclaimed, “why, Mary, your hands are ice cold! And out in the sun — on a day like this!”

Over his shoulder she saw the trap disappear round a bend in the road.

“I have been sitting most of the day teaching, “she said. “My circulation is poor. But I’m quite all right.” She gently withdrew her hands and walked on.

He fell into step at her side.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he persisted. “You’re very pale.”

“I’m perfectly well.”

“Mary, you didn’t turn pale because you saw me coming?”

“I didn’t see you.”

“You know what day it is?”

“No. What day?”

“Mary… you’re tormenting me!”

Then she remembered.

“The week is up,” she said. “I remember now.”

His voice trembled in his hurt. “Does it mean so little to you then? Oh, Mary…” She saw the rich colour flood to his face.

She spoke in a breathless staccato way. “I’ve been thinking so much — my mind is confused. I’d forgotten the exact day. But you mustn’t be fond of me, Clive. You mustn’t.”

“As though I can help it! You might as well say to Niagara, ‘Restrain yourself.’ Mary, I’ve lived years in this past week and all of them with you — out on the prairies. All of them with you.”

She turned her eyes away from him. “Haven’t you thought of the reverse?”

“No! I wouldn’t let myself. I made up my mind to have this week of hope even if — no, I never let myself think of — I couldn’t.” He was not able to speak coherently but tried with his appealing eyes to draw hers back to him.

Is all this so important, she thought, does it matter what I do — whether I marry him or not? Does it matter what becomes of me? But I do mind being alone. It is comforting to have him walking along the road beside me — to know if I put out my hand I can touch him. When she spoke her mouth felt dry and her lips stiff. The poison of jealousy had run through her, like fire in prairie grass.

“Clive,” she said, “you wouldn’t want to marry a woman who —”

“Loves someone else!” he broke in, his voice suddenly harsh. “That’s what you’re trying to say. I know you love someone else and I think I know who it is. Mary, is it Philip Whiteoak you love? Are you trying to tell me you love Philip Whiteoak?”

She looked at him aghast, as though a stranger had stopped her on the road and talked to her of the secrets of her heart. What colour she had ebbed from her face. She walked faster, the fresh breeze blowing the thin stuff of her dress against her taut body.