Читать книгу Centenary at Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 10

VII

Adeline and Philip

The summer was lush, the leaves broad and darkly green. Paths were overgrown, grass sprouted up in the gravel of the drive. There was a hushed, humid resignation in the midsummer air. The stream moved darkly, slowly beneath its little rustic bridge. And there on the bridge sat Adeline, lost in thought. Even on the bridge the unusual growth was noticeable, for a wild grapevine had secured a hold on one of the handrails and, with leaf and tenacious tendril, was pursuing its way to the other side of the stream.

Adeline wound a tendril round her finger like a ring. The green of the crowding foliage cast that hue on the golden brown of her dreamy eyes, so that it would have been difficult, even for those who knew her best, to pronounce what was their colour. She was living these days in a strange confusion of thought — at times reliving the experience of her engagement to the Irishman, Fitzturgis; more often, dwelling on the proposal made to her by Renny.

She had thought herself to be free of those recollections, so poignant, so capable of shattering her peace, but now they had come back to her. The meeting with Fitzturgis in Ireland. The budding, the blossoming of her first love. The days they had spent together in London, she under the guardianship of Finch. The return to Canada. The two years of waiting for Fitzturgis to come out to her. His coming to Jalna. That exciting, disturbing, disappointing time. The scene by the lake when she had discovered him and her cousin Roma bathing together. Her fierce anger at seeing their embrace. If she lived to be a hundred, as her great-grandmother had done, never could she forget the fiery violence of that moment — the moment that had changed everything. She could not recall it even now without a smile of triumph at the discomfiture of the pair in the lake and her hurling stones at them.

Bit by bit she had put that time out of her mind. It lay discarded like a torn-up illustration out of a book. But, now and again, she would take out the scraps, piece them together and form again that haunting picture. Renny, understanding her all too well, had given her a new picture to dwell on — the picture of Philip and herself at Jalna. Always it glowed, at the back of her mind, as though illumined by a secret light. Then again she would see the two of them, framed as were the portraits of their great-grandparents in the dining room, in ornate gold frames.

Love? What matter if they were not “in love”? Once she had known what it was to have her life transfigured by love — broadened into a new spaciousness, yet strangely narrowed to the passionate employment of her powers upon one individual. She felt that she had discovered all there was to know of such an entanglement. She wanted no further experience of that sort. Once was enough. Often she had pictured her future — free as the wind that blew among the trees, across the fields of Jalna. She would belong to no one but herself — and the family. But Philip was part of the family. If they two … but she could not bring herself to give words to the picture that was now so insistently in her mind, the picture which Renny had made for her — herself and Philip, gilt-framed, beautiful and silent, gazing out upon a placid world.…

This world, she knew, was in a troubled, uneasy state. Often she heard her mother and Archer discussing it, sometimes heatedly, and felt uncomfortable, and wished they wouldn’t. Philip and she could live in a world they would make for themselves. There would be no love in it. Just comradeship and love for the countryside. She amused herself by playing with these thoughts, never bringing them too close, always keeping Philip safe within his gilt frame.

But now, as she sat on the bridge, the live Philip came down the path, whistling as he came, like the boy he was. He did not see her till he was close upon her, then he stopped short and the whistle died on his pouting lips. He stood looking down at her, mildly surprised.

“Oh, hullo,” he said.

She also said, “Hullo.” Then they regarded each other irresolutely, as though they had sooner not have met and now would make the encounter as brief as possible.

The stream dominated the scene. It came out of the shadow of the trees and flowed, bronze and golden, into the sunlight that surrounded the rustic bridge. In the pool beneath, minnows darted above the yellow sand or hid themselves in the watercress, their noses safe in the dimness, only their flirting tails visible. A dragonfly in glittering armour hovered above the pool. All was in miniature. Indeed, if the pair on the bridge had suddenly descended into the pool, they would have disturbed it as two giants. Yet the time had been when, as infants, they had gazed from the safety of grown-up arms in wonder at its depth. Now, after the interchange of a swift glance, their attention was focused on the stream.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Philip.

“Yes, isn’t it?” she agreed, and on that subject they had nothing more to say.

But the stream made fluent conversation for them, with gurgling vowel sounds and hissing consonants against the reeds. The dragonfly had recklessly touched the water. His wings were wet and he might, like many another aircraft, have met his end, had not Philip scrambled down to the brink and rescued him.

“Thanks,” Adeline said tersely but with a warm look.

“Why thanks?” said Philip. “He wasn’t yours.”

“I feel as though all wild things were,” she said. “Especially those that fly.”

“Stinging insects?” he asked with a teasing look.

“Every one of them,” she said, “unless in the act of stinging.”

“There’s no use,” he said, “in being too softhearted.”

“Why did you save the dragonfly?” she demanded.

“I’d as lief drown it,” he said.

“Naughty boy.” She gave him a suddenly coy look and he scrambled back on to the bridge and sat down beside her. She glanced down at his strong brown hand lying on the rough boards of the bridge and withdrew her own hand a little distance from it.

That seemed to him a dismissal and he said:

“Well, I guess I’ll be going.” He gathered up the last notes of the song he had been whistling, repeated them, then continued in a remarkably sweet series of variations. Like a male singing bird he appeared to be showing off his accomplishments to the female.

“Pretty,” she remarked. “I wish I could whistle.”

“Try.”

She gave out one long clear note.

“Good,” he said encouragingly. “Go on.”

She made an attempt but her lips refused to be pursed. They parted in a smile and she said, “I can’t. There’s no use in trying.” He did not again urge her.

They sat in a dreamy silence, the dark green of the summer leaves casting a shadow on them. But there was nothing of youthful romance in the heart of either; there was instead an image planted by Renny Whiteoak which pleased their fancy, gave them an almost ennobling sense of security. There was no need for speech. No need excepting to say the few words that would take them out of the gilt frames now enshrining them, transform them into flesh and blood.

In spite of herself Adeline could not keep from speaking these. She wanted things to drift on as they were, but her lips that had been unable to constrain themselves to whistle now had no power to restrain those words.