Читать книгу Morning at Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 5

I

The Home in the New Country

When the American Civil War broke out, this house Jalna, in Ontario, had been completed not many years before. The owner, Captain Whiteoak, and his family had been installed there since the birth of his second son. He and his Irish wife, Adeline Court, had come from India and romantically named the house after the military station to which his regiment there was assigned. Captain Whiteoak had been tired of the restraints of army life. He had longed for the freedom and space of the New World. Adeline Whiteoak always was eager for adventure. Now they felt themselves, if not actually pioneers, to be imbued with the spirit of pioneers, yet they had surrounded themselves with many of the amenities of the old land.

The house, a substantial one of a pleasing shade of brick, with green shutters and five tall chimneys, stood in a thousand acres of land only a few miles from Lake Ontario, the shores of which were deeply wooded and were the haunt of thousands of birds. The virgin soil was rich and prolific of its life-giving growth. Whatever was planted in it flourished with abandon.

The children of the Whiteoaks knew no life other than this free and healthy round of seasons. There were four of them — Augusta, Nicholas, Ernest, and the last comer, the baby Philip. (His father had gone back on his earlier determination to be the only Philip in the family.) The parents were indulgent with them, though at times severe in discipline. Their father would give them orders, when they displeased him, in a stern military voice. Their mother would sometimes, in exasperation, beat them with her own hands, for she had a fiery temper. The daughter, Augusta, suffered discipline with dignified resignation; Nicholas, with a certain haughtiness; Ernest, with tears and promises to be good. Philip, the baby, scarcely knew what it was to be crossed, and if he were, lay down on the floor and kicked and screamed.

On this summer day, husband and wife were looking forward, with not unmixed pleasure, to a visit from an American couple from South Carolina.

“I can’t understand,” Philip was saying, “why you are so concerned over this visit. The Sinclairs must take us as they find us. We have nothing to be ashamed of in the way we live. There is no finer house or better-run estate in this province, I’ll be bound.”

“But think what they are used to,” cried Adeline. “A huge plantation, with hundreds of slaves to wait on them — We don’t know the first thing about real elegance. We should have an entire suite to offer them, instead of one paltry bedroom and a cubbyhole for Mrs. Sinclair’s maid.”

“The guestroom is not paltry. It’s a fine room handsomely furnished. If they don’t like it they can lump it.”

“And how are you going to entertain Mr. Sinclair?” she demanded. “Escort him to view the turnip field? To inspect the twin calves?”

This conversation was interrupted by the noise of their two sons racing along the passage and clattering in their sturdy boots down the stairs. As Nicholas overtook Ernest, the little boy gave a shriek of pretended terror. Ordinarily this display of high spirits would have passed unnoticed by their parents but now Philip said, “They must not carry on like this after our visitors arrive.”

“Don’t worry,” said Adeline. “I am sending the older children to the Busbys for three days. I arranged it with Mrs. Busby yesterday.”

“Gussie knows how to behave herself,” remarked Philip.

“She would miss her brothers. I want an atmosphere of complete peace when the Sinclairs arrive. In Lucy Sinclair’s last letter she spoke of the sad state of her nerves.”

“Are you aware,” demanded Philip, “that the Busbys are completely on the side of the Yankees?”

“I have not told them,” she said, “who our visitors are. Simply that they are friends we made on our last trip to England.”

Philip was perturbed. “Elihu Busby would not like it. I’m certain of that.”

“The Sinclairs are not visiting him.” She spoke hotly. “Let him mind his own business.”

“The children will tell.”

“They’d better not,” she exclaimed. She gathered her three eldest about her.

“You are to spend three days with the Busbys,” she said.

“Hurrah,” cried Nicholas. “I’ve always wanted a visit to their farm. Everybody works but they always have time for fun.”

“Listen to me, children.” Adeline spoke in a tone of portentous warning. “You are not on any account to mention that our guests are from the South and may be bringing one or two servants with them.”

“Blackamoors!” exclaimed Nicholas. “I’ve never seen one and I’m dying to.”

“Are they dangerous?” asked Ernest.

“Of course not, you little ninny,” said his mother. “Remember to say that our guests are friends we met in England. I depend on you, Augusta.”

“I’ll remember,” Augusta promised, in her low voice that would become contralto, “but sooner or later the Busbys will find out.”

“Of course they will, but if they find out at once they’ll probably be so disgusted they’ll send you home again. Patsy will drive you to the Busbys’. Now go, and remember also your manners.”

She left them.

“Manners, my eye,” said Ernest. Augusta was shocked.

“Ernest, wherever did you hear that horrid expression?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you had better forget it. Come now and wash your face and brush your hair.” She took him by the hand.

Patsy O’Flynn, the Irish servant from Adeline’s old home who had accompanied the family to Canada, was waiting on the drive with a wagonette drawn by a sturdy piebald cob. His sharp features looked out from a fringe of sandy whiskers and unkempt hair.

“Come along, do,” he urged the children, “for I’ve no time to be gallivanting the countryside, with the work of two men piled on to me.”

Philip and Adeline had come into the porch to see their children depart. It was as if they were setting out on a journey, rather than going to spend a few days with a neighbour. The children were somewhat pampered. Captain Whiteoak himself carried their portmanteau, though Nicholas was a strong lad. Adeline took out her own handkerchief and wiped Ernest’s pert little nose, though he had a clean handkerchief of his own, with the initial E on a corner, in the pocket of his blouse.

“See to it that his nose does not dribble,” she admonished Augusta. Captain Whiteoak lifted Ernest into the wagonette. Their mother raised her handsome face and gave each of her children a hearty kiss.

“Whatever comes your way,” she said, “accept it with the gracious calm shown by me.” She said to the driver, “Patsy Joe, if you let that pony wander into the ditch and overturn the wagonette, as you did once before, I’ll be the death of you.”

The wagonette moved swiftly away. Nero, the great black Newfoundland dog, bounded alongside. Summer sunshine found its way through the densest trees and glittered on the rump of the piebald cob whose hooves made only a soft thud on the sandy loam of the road.

When the Busbys’ rambling frame farmhouse appeared, Augusta said to Ernest, “Not a word now about blackamoors. Remember.”

“Blackamoors, my eye!” said Ernest. There was no time to reprimand him. They all clambered out.