The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (558 page)

Pat chuckled. “I’m afraid you’re a failure as a babysitter, Maurice.”

“I’m not worrying,” said Maurice, his young forehead tied into knots. “ They won’t meet again. I’ll see to that.

When the morning post came it was handed to him and almost tremblingly he watched for a letter bearing an Irish stamp and addressed to Adeline. He did not ask himself what he would do with it if one came, but he had confused imaginings of throwing it in the fire — of striding to her with an accusing scowl and demanding that she should open it and read the contents to him — of carrying it to Finch and asking his advice. Never did he attribute his anger to jealousy. No, he was righteously angry because Adeline, before the ship had even reached the shores of Ireland, had given her first love to a stranger. He did not quite look on Fitzturgis as a villain but as next door to one. When her guardians, her uncle and her cousin, had barely turned their backs, he had made love to a foolish young girl.

Adeline herself watched eagerly for a letter, though in those first days she was too full of the happiness of her love for Fitzturgis to feel more than a moment’s disappointment that a letter did not come. The days passed in dreamlike happiness. Over and over again she relived those moments on the dim deck, the night before they reached Cobh.

Then suddenly her mood changed. A night of wind whipped the sea into wildness. The cold rain slanted in stinging darts out of the black sky. It hissed against the pine and she could not sleep. Always she had been a poor sleeper. As a small child this wakefulness of hers had been a torment to Alayne. The child’s cot had been in her room. Adeline’s chatter, her singing and laughter, as though it had been noonday, instead of late at night, had been an almost unbearable trial.

Now, in those night hours at Glengorman, her love for Fitzturgis had drawn sleep from her pillow. She lay awake recalling his every feature, recalling all they had said to each other, having imaginary conversations with him, saying things so witty to him that she laughed aloud at the thought of them; he saying such beautiful things to her that they brought tears to her eyes.

But this night of storm had changed her mood. She tossed on the bed in a sudden panic of misgiving. Why did he not write to her? Oh, why did he not write?

Then she remembered his telling her that he was no good at letter writing. Once he started he could do it, but the hard thing was to start. A great sense of relief flooded her mind. That explained everything. He did not want to write. Nothing would satisfy him but to see her. And there had been so much for him to do, after an absence. He would come tomorrow. When the rain had ceased they two would walk together by the sea.

She was quiet for a while, then she thought, — “If he really loved me, nothing would keep him away. Nothing. He would throw aside everything to come to me. He does not love me!” She threw herself to the other side of the bed. She put out one foot from under the bedclothes to feel the cool air on it. She threw aside her pillows and lay with her burning cheek against the sheet. But she could not endure any position for long. At last she rose and walked about the room. She went to the open window and let the wet wind flutter her nightdress. She could hear the roaring of the sea, and the voices of the land where branches strained as though they would be torn from the tree and the wind whistled through the crevices, rattled shutters and shook the garden gate.

“Oh, where are you sleeping, my dear love?” she said aloud, and then pictured him not asleep but standing by a window, looking out into the blackness, as she was. That comforted her and she put out her hands, felt for the bedpost, crept back between the sheets shivering. Yet it was long before she slept.

The next day was aglitter with sunshine. The stones and roof of the house shone as though polished. So did the leaves of the laurels, and petals of rhododendrons lay scattered everywhere. The succulent stems of the bluebells could not stand up under the weight of the flowers but let them droop to the grass. The wind had fallen and the air was warm.

Patrick Crawshay had bought a new sailing boat and Finch and Maurice went to inspect it. Adeline had said she wanted to explore the shore. They left without her. She had made up her mind to find Fitzturgis. She could not face another such night as the last. She told Patsy she was going to take out the car.

“Wisha, young lady,” he said, “ye’ll be into the ditch as sure as fate. Ye know we drive different in this country.”

“I know, and I can do it. Don’t worry about me. If my cousin comes home before me, tell him I shall be back by evening.”

Prophesying disaster the old man brought round the car. He gave Adeline a flood of directions which she did not understand and stood mournfully shaking his head as she drove off. She was glad the road was so quiet, for in truth the car had a different gear from that she was used to. However, she met no one in the first miles but a boy with a load of gravel drawn by a thin horse, and a woman with a cartful of children drawn by a shaggy donkey. Adeline felt proud with purpose, pleased with herself. Why had she not thought of doing this before! Still, even if she had thought of it, there had always been Finch and Maurice about. Today was her first chance and she was making good use of it.

She passed through a village where all the shop windows looked dingy but the one where spirits were sold, and that shone invitingly. She came to a small town and enquired there for the hamlet of which Fitzturgis had spoken. Carefully she was directed, so carefully, with so many ins and outs, and ups and downs, that it was all she could do to keep the half of it in her head. She set out again, feeling suddenly hungry, wishing she had bought a chocolate bar in the shop. There had been a mistake in the supposed distance. She had already driven twenty miles. She took a wrong turning and found herself in the squelching ruts of a lane, face to face with a team of horses dragging a great oak whose trunk was wreathed in ivy. The labourers came to the car giving her directions that she could not follow because she did not understand half of what they said.

A little discouraged she backed out of the lane. She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to four. She was on the road again. She would find him. She would. Her thoughts reached out like hands drawing him to her.

“Oh, Mait, tell me where you are — please tell me where you are,” she kept saying over and over.

Along the road a little way she overtook a Protestant clergyman riding a bicycle. She stopped the car and spoke to him. He put his feet to the ground and looked at her out of guileless eyes in a ruddy face.

“Fitzturgis,” he repeated. “Maitland Fitzturgis. Yes — I’ve heard the name. Let me think. Yes, I remember. He bought Mr. Brady’s house, some time ago. His grandfather used to own quite a large property, but in his father’s time it passed into other hands.”

“He lives alone with his mother,” Adeline said, eager to show that they were not strangers to her.

“His mother, yes. And I think there’s a sister.”

“But she’s in New York.”

“Oh, is she?” He looked doubtful, then he brightened. “Well, now, I’ll tell you how to find his house. Take the third turning to the left, then straight on, over a humpbacked bridge, then the second turn to the left — still to the left, mind you — and you’ll come to the ruin of a small church. If you have the time it’d be well worth your while to go in and have a look at it, for it has some finely moulded trefoil-headed windows and some very interesting carved tombs.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t time today. Could you tell me where I go after I pass the church?”

“Well, let me see. You pass the church and take the second turn to the right and down in a meadow you’ll see the ruin of an ancient castle. If you had the time to spare it would be well worth your while —”

“I’m terribly sorry,” interrupted Adeline in desperation, glancing surreptitiously at her watch, “but I have no time to spare. I must hurry on. When I have passed the ruins of the castle, which way shall I turn?”

“what a pity you are in a hurry! Perhaps another time you will return.”

“Oh, I hope I shall.”

With his hands indolently holding the handlebars of his bicycle he continued, — “Now about this road — to tell the truth, I am afraid I can’t direct you clearly after you reach the castle, but you’ll surely meet someone who can. I’m so sorry …”

Adeline thanked him and drove on. She saw that the afternoon was past its prime and she had not yet found the humpbacked bridge. But she had made up her mind. Nothing would hinder her, not if she searched till nightfall. It would be impossible, she told herself, to turn back.

At last she came quite suddenly upon the bridge and, standing in fishing boots, in the stream below, was a young man with a rod. She got out of the car, leaned against the railing of the bridge and called out, — “I’m sorry to trouble you but can you please direct me to where a Mr. Maitland Fitzturgis lives?”

The young man looked up. For a moment he seemed transfixed by the figure on the bridge, then he came out of the water, clambered up the bank to her side and demanded in a high querulous voice:

“who is it you want to find?”

When she told him he said, — “It’s not an aisy place to find but I’m going that way myself and if you’ll give me a lift I’ll direct you to the very gate.”

Gladly she opened the door of the car to him and shyly he seated himself beside her. All the directions he gave, and they were so intricate she wondered how she would ever find her way back again, he gave in that same high sad-sounding voice.

“It’s very much farther than I had thought,” she said.

“Ah, we’re very inaccurate about distance,” he answered, “and you’ll find that few will tell you the way correctly.”

“Do you know Mr. Fitzturgis?” she could not help asking.

“I do not. But my father knew his father. He was a well-off man once.”

They passed among the bare green hills and in the valleys below saw rich greenness and fields with stone walls about them, and white farmhouses. There was a man in one of the fields swinging a scythe.

“How peaceful it is!” Adeline exclaimed.

“Yes, it’s peaceful enough. Haven’t you peace where you come from?”

“Ah,” she spoke in Ernest’s very tone, “the country’s not what it used to be. It’s mechanized. The young men want to go to the cities. They’ve no love for the land … Did you say you’d never seen Mr. Fitzturgis?”

“I’ve never set eyes on him, but I’ve heard that he’s a nice young man. Here we are at his gate. You’ll see himself.”

He got out of the car, bowed politely and sauntered down the road, soon disappearing between high hedges, for here was a place of richer soil, where flowery hedges grew, and the house in front of her was hidden by rhododendrons massed with white and coral-pink blooms. She could only glimpse the white stucco house, half-hidden in wistaria, with a glass vestibule and a small conservatory and a smooth-shorn lawn in front.

For some reason she could not have explained, she was disappointed in the house. It was not the sort of house she had expected him to live in. And suddenly she was very shy. How could she drive up to the door and ask for him? If only she would see him walking down the road — smiling with delight to discover her! Instead of him she saw coming a herd of cattle, ambling on and off the road, driven by two barefoot boys who waved sticks at them, shouted at them, but to whom they paid little attention. She would be surrounded by them. In panic she drove through the gateway and stopped the car just inside. A buxom girl was walking down the drive. Adeline alighted from the car and went to meet her.

“Can you tell me if Mr. Fitzturgis lives here?” she asked.

“Indeed he does,” answered the girl, in a hearty voice, “but he’s off.”

“He’s not at home?”

“No miss.”

It was too bad to believe. She had not counted on this. She stood staring forlornly at the girl.

“I’ll tell you what,” said the girl, “you’ll find him at ould Tim Rafferty’s, for he said he was goin’ there. It’s across the road and down a bit.”

“May I leave my car here?”

“Sure you may, and it’s myself will show you the way to Tim Rafferty’s.”

They went through the gate and into the midst of the cattle. The boys hallooed and whacked them with their sticks. A small low cloud threw down a spatter of rain. The girls had to move into the squelchy ditch and Adeline gave a wild hop to avoid stepping on a beaming rosette of primroses.

A short way along the road, its thatched roof just visible as it perched on the steep hillside, was the whitewashed cottage.

“Are you sure he’s here?” Adeline asked nervously.

“I saw him pass through the gate itself. Ould Tim was worritin’ about somethin’ and Mr. Fitzturgis went to pacify him.”

“I see. Thank you very much.” She watched the girl go down the road, then opened the wicket gate and, escorted by half-a-dozen hens, crossed the little yard to the door of the cabin.

It stood wide open and on a bench by the fire she saw Maitland Fitzturgis sitting beside a sturdy rosy-cheeked old man, with a grey moustache and thick grey hair growing low above his forehead. One glance showed her that, then her eyes, in joyful wonder, were fixed on Fitzturgis. It seemed to her so long since she had seen him that she half expected him to be changed. But no — there he was, just as when they had parted at Cobh, excepting that now his face was lighted by astonishment, by incredulity, as though he saw a vision.

FITZTURGIS AT HOME

“Hello, Mait, I thought I’d look you up,” Adeline said, her voice trembling, a pulse in her throat throbbing.

“Adeline,” he gasped, coming to her with hands outstretched. “Is it possible?”

She could not answer. The trembling of her voice now had become the trembling of her whole being. So had her love swept through her at the sight of him standing there, his intent eyes fixed on her, his troubled smile, the beautifully moulded structure of his face, his curly hair that seemed to have no colour of its own, but, where the firelight touched it, was edged by bronze.

“who brought you?” he demanded.

“I came alone.” She could no more than whisper the words.

“Alone,” he echoed. He raised his arms as though to take her into them, then let them fall.

His uncertainty gave her strength. “Yes,” she said boldly, “and no one knows I came.”

Now her strength was coming back to her. They stood looking into each other’s eyes, seeing there the sea at night and the two of them alone on the deck, feeling how the circling of their blood had joined and, as in a miracle, flowed together.

“No one knows you came,” he repeated, under his breath, and she saw the colour mount to his forehead, as though he were embarrassed that she had to seek him out, instead of his going in search of her.

The old man sat on the bench, his bright eyes full of curiosity. In his left hand he held an egg which he had been eating from the shell, and in his right a spoon which he raised as though in salute. His bare feet were planted side by side on the earth floor.

“This,” said Fitzturgis, “is Tim Rafferty. Tim — this young lady comes all the way from Canada.”

Rafferty spoke in a voice so hearty that it was almost a roar. “Welcome to this country and welcome under my roof,” he roared, “and I wish I might stand up to welcome you proper but I’ve the rheumatics so bad from bein’ in the wather so much that ’tis all I can do to get from me bed to me bench here, wid the help of me niece.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Adeline, holding out her hand, but it was clear that he did not ask for pity. He beamed benignly up at her, laid down his spoon on the seat beside him and clasped her hand in his warm grasp.

The slatternly middle-aged woman came forward, smiling sadly, and shook hands also.

“I must tell you,” said Fitzturgis, “that Tim has been a great fisherman in his day. There isn’t a stream hereabout that he doesn’t know by heart —”

“And all the fish in it,” roared Rafferty. “Never did I cast me line in vain and ’twas fishin’ be day and night that gave me the rheumatics.”

He made room for Adeline on the bench beside him, his niece first dusting it with her soiled apron. Fitzturgis seated himself opposite, the fire burning low on the hearth between. The stone fireplace filled one end of the little room. The hens picked for breadcrumbs.

“Do please finish your egg,” Adeline said anxiously.

“Och, it can wait. It’s not often we have a visitor as foine as you, my lady.” With his spoon he pointed proudly to Fitzturgis. “This gentleman’s father I worked for, and his grandfather, and he owning all the land about and as fine a man as ye’d meet in a lifetime. Go into the bedroom, Katie, and bring his picture to show the young lady.”

Adeline saw then that the niece was barefoot too. Her black hair hung in strings about her face. She came back carrying a large framed photograph of a man of forty, wearing a large cravat and sidewhiskers. It too she polished with her apron.

“He’s very nice,” said Adeline to Fitzturgis, across the picture of his grandfather. “Do you remember him?”

“No. I wish I did.”

Rafferty began a long story about the grandfather, his brogue so enriched as he talked that Adeline could not follow it. She wanted to go, to be alone with Fitzturgis. Why did he sit there smiling as though they had hours to spare, when in truth the day was nearly done? A sense of foreboding crept into her mind. At last she said:

“I think I must be going.” She stood up.

“Yes. Of course.” He stood up too. “Perhaps Miss Whiteoak will come again, Tim. Then you can finish your story.”

“And there’s your egg to be finished,” said Adeline. “It will be quite cold.”

Rafferty made a grand gesture with the egg. “Sure it will kape,” he declared, “but if ye must be going, I’ll wish ye God speed, and may God bless ye, young lady, and give ye the foine husband ye deserve.”

“Would ye like to see the bedroom then?” asked the niece.

Adeline said she would and was led into the one other room. The niece returned the picture to its place on the wall. She remarked, — “The beds is not made yet, miss, because of the wakeness that comes over me in the marnins. I’ve hardly the strenth to move at all.” She looked at the two tumbled beds that almost filled the room, as though she longed to creep into one. She began to pour out the details of an operation she had undergone. In the other room the old man was roaring jovially at Fitzturgis.

When at last he and she stood on the road together the sun was sliding down through misty clouds toward the mountain. On a little river far below, the wild swans moved among the rushes. Fitzturgis asked, in an almost matter-of-fact tone, — “where is your car?”

She answered, in a small voice, — “In the driveway of your house. A maid was coming out and she told me where you were. You see,” she hurried on, “I had the car out and I knew this was your direction and — I thought I’d just drop in and see you.” She was faint for food, her heart was beating heavily. Suddenly a gulf had come between her and Fitzturgis. He was almost a stranger. She turned her head to look at him and their eyes met but only for an instant. Then they looked away again as though even a glance of intimacy was unbearable. “what is the matter?” she thought. “what has spoilt everything?” Even the earth beneath her feet felt less secure, and she who walked as lightly as a young doe stumbled. He caught her arm, and her name came from his lips in solicitude.

“Come in here and sit down,” he said and he led her through the gate, past the car, and to a seat beneath a grim grey-green cork tree. It was twilight in here and there was a smell of damp. He picked up a mossy twig from the mossy ground and tried to break it but it only bent.

“Adeline,” he began.

“Yes?” she encouraged, her eyes, her whole being waiting.

“I want to talk to you,” he said, “to explain why I’ve acted as I have — though nothing I say can make it right.”

“Not
right
,” she repeated, the sense of duty that had been implanted in her raising its head.

“I had no right,” he went on, in a low voice, “to make love to you — I mean, to say those words of love to you.”

A light broke on her. “You mean you’re already engaged?”

“No.”

“Married?”

“No.” He had managed to break the twig. He threw it to the ground and now his hands hung limp between his knees. “Not married — but I am not free. I’m irrevocably tied. You asked me if I lived alone and I told you my mother came to stay with me sometimes. The truth is that she lives with me. She’s dependent on me because my father lost everything he had — drank himself to death.”

“Is
that
all!” she exclaimed, relieved.

“I wish it were. But my sister also is dependent on me. She lives here too.”

“I thought she lived in New York.”

“That’s the married one. This one is younger. She’s twenty-eight. She was married to a friend of mine. He was in the Air Force. She was going to have a baby. He came to London on a few days’ leave. She loved this chap with all her heart. There was an air-raid and she saw him killed — horribly. She was splashed with his blood. Then the baby was born dead and she nearly died. It unhinged her and she was in a mental home for several years. Then the war was over and I was back in London. The mental homes were crowded and my sister was said to be almost well. She was brought back to my mother, and now — the two of them — they’ve no one but me. They’re quite incapable of looking after themselves — as you will see.”

“Do you want me to meet them?”

“Of course. But now you see why I had no right to say one word of love to you. I’m not a free man. And I’m a poor man. It’s all I can do to keep this place going.”

“It’s a terribly sad story, Mait. I wish you’d told me before.”

“It was such a happy time I hadn’t the heart to tell you. Everything would have been changed.”

“Nothing is changed in me.” She spoke in a low but confident voice. In truth she could not discover what all this had to do with their love. Their love was like the hills beyond the valley. Though clouds hung over them the hills were not changed.

“I did wrong,” he persisted, “to rouse any feeling in you of love for me.” And he spoke like a man who knew his power.

“You could not help it,” she said. “Just to be near you made me —” She could not continue. Her voice trembled. She pressed her hands together between her knees.

From the far end of the bench his deep-set eyes were fixed on her in pity and longing.

“It’s very hard on you,” she said.

He gave a short laugh. “I hadn’t thought of being sorry for myself, not till you came on the scene. Now I confess I am.”

“Can’t anything be done?”

“Wait till you meet my mother and sister. That will be answer enough.”

A shadow, darker than the tree, closed over them. Raindrops fell on the leaves. His hand moved along the bench and closed over her two hands pressed together. She turned her face toward him. Her eyes, eager and loving, were raised to his but her lips were firm in her innate dignity.

“It’s beginning to rain,” she said.

He bent his head above her hands and kissed them.

“I must go,” she said, and gently withdrew her hands.

“Go!” he repeated blankly, and straightened. “You can’t go without coming into the house, meeting my family. However did you find your way here?”

“I asked.”

“And they — Finch and Maurice — let you come alone?”

“I’ve told you — they don’t know.”

“Good God — what will they think?”

She smiled. “I can’t imagine.”

“Did you have lunch?”

“No.”

“Nor tea?”

“No.”

“why, my darling —” he exclaimed in consternation, “you must be starved.”

“I am rather hungry. No — I think I’m past being hungry.”

He looked at his watch. “It is five o’clock. I must take you straight to the house and my mother will give you tea.”

She said reluctantly, — “Do you think your mother will want to meet me?”

“She’ll be delighted. Make no mistake about that.”

“And your sister?” The word he had used about her —
unhinged
— came to Adeline’s mind and she found she was afraid of the sister.

“Oh, she’s very quiet,” he answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

They stood up. The tree let down a veil of rain in front of them.

“We must run for it,” he said. “Give me your hand.”

She put her hand in his. They bent beneath the branches and then ran along the drive to the house. The front door stood open. On a table in the hall there was a bowl of tulips. He led her past it into a long low room where a table set with tea-things stood beside a small fire of greenish wood that gave off more smoke than flame. At the table sat a woman in her fifties, with a round pale face, rather puffy eyes and a mass of hair that was dyed a rich henna. She wore a green knitted pullover, a necklet of heavy beads and long earrings to match. A stare of astonishment widened her eves. Fitzturgis said:

“Mother, this is Miss Adeline Whiteoak. We met on board ship. She comes from Canada.”

Mrs. Fitzturgis took Adeline’s hand in a warm soft clasp and held it. “Ah, yes,” she said, “how very nice! I’m so glad you’ve looked us up. We are so few in this benighted spot that we’re glad of a call from literally anyone. I mean we are a great many people but they’re all the wrong sort. I mean that to a woman like myself who has been accustomed to pick and choose it’s simply ghastly to live in so isolated a way. Upon my word, if ever I’d known I should come to such a point I’d have gone stark staring — no, of course, I don’t mean anything so drastic as
mad
— certainly not. But I’d have resented it deeply.”

“Yes, Mother,” put in Fitzturgis. “And will you please give us tea? Miss Whiteoak is starving.”

Mrs. Fitzturgis at once sprang to her feet and snatched up the teapot. So precariously did she balance it that a driblet of tea ran from its spout to the carpet. Fitzturgis put out his hand to the pot. “Mother, see what you’re doing!” he exclaimed.

She was unperturbed. “That old carpet,” she said scornfully. “I’m sure Miss Whiteoak will see that nothing can make it look worse.” She now shifted the teapot so that its dribbling pointed toward Adeline.

“Mother!” cried Fitzturgis, and again righted it.

“Don’t be so fussy, Maitland. You’ve completely put out of my head what I was saying.” She put a hand to her forehead. “You know, Miss Whiteoak, but indeed you cannot know, for you are far too young to realize, how trouble and continual anxiety can destroy one’s memory, not that I ever had a particularly good memory, for my own mother used to say to me, ‘Alicia, your head is no more than a sieve.’ But you know what young girls are, my dear, being one yourself — and an extremely pretty one. I must take the time to tell you, even though my son is glowering at me so, that your hair is exactly what mine was, not so many years ago. Do you remember, Mait?”

“Yes,” he frowned. “Let me make the tea, Mother.”

“Indeed I shall not. I am very, very exact about tea-making, as you well know.”

“Don’t you think there may still be enough in the pot?” asked Adeline.

“It has lost all its goodness and must be quite cold. We waited for my son till we could not wait any longer. He seems to make a point of being late for tea. Only yesterday — no, it was not yesterday but the day before.”

A low clear voice spoke from a settee in a dim corner.

“For goodness sake, make the tea, if you’re going to.”

Adeline started and turned to see a young woman in tweed jacket and skirt sitting there and smoking a cigarette.