Читать книгу Centenary at Jalna - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 6

III

The Promising Boy

Piers Whiteoak and the youngest of his three sons stood in the green freshness of morning in the cherry orchard facing each other. Piers wore an expression of embarrassment, just lightened by amusement. Young Philip looked completely dumfounded. He really could not take in what had just been said to him.

“Don’t be stupid,” Piers said, but kindly.

“But — Dad — why — she’d never do it.”

“That’s for you to find out.”

Philip’s bright blue eyes opened wide. His mouth opened and his jaw dropped. His legs, which were as strong as two young pines, suddenly felt weak under him. He stared at Piers, who said, “You’re fond of Adeline, aren’t you?”

Philip just nodded.

Now very much in earnest, Piers went on: “Renny and I have talked this over. Mind you, it was his idea in the first place, not mine, but I agree that it would be a first-rate match for both of you. You’d be compatible. It would be establishing the family all over again — in a fine sort of way. Another good-looking, healthy pair — in love with each other and with life at Jalna. As things are going now, you’d have plenty of money to get on with. Not to be rich, certainly, but enough to get on with quite comfortably.”

Philip found his voice. “But hell, Dad. I’m only twenty.”

“You’ll grow up fast enough. This marriage would make a man of you.” A smile, with a touch of malice in it, lit Piers’s ruddy face. “Your brother Maurice would envy you. Adeline has refused him, time and again. He has told your mother so.”

“She’d reject me too,” Philip broke out, almost as though he’d be glad if she did. “She looks on me as a kid.”

“She’ll soon look on you in quite a different light if you approach her in the right way. You have no objection to the thought of marrying, have you?”

Philip, looking like a beautiful, bewildered rustic, scratched his head and said, “I’ve always thought — well, I haven’t thought much about it — but always that I’d like to be head over ears in love when I married. As you were.”

“Naturally,” said Piers. “But let me tell you this — your mother and I had a very tough time of it after we married.”

“Did you?” Philip was surprised.

“Yes. We had a tough time. Everyone was against our marriage.”

“Why, Dad?”

Piers flushed. “Oh, I can’t explain. It was just what any young couple might suffer, when their family thought they were too young and with no means for marrying. But it would be quite a different affair for you and Adeline. Everyone would be delighted.… As for love — marriages are very comfortably arranged in Europe and wear better than many of the love matches made in this country. You and Adeline would be bound to get on together. But — remember, I don’t want to urge you. Just think it over. And think how you’d enjoy being master of Jalna.”

“What about Archer?”

Piers gave a derisive chuckle. “Archer will never be what I call a man. Not that I mind a chap being studious or talented. Christian is artistic, certainly — but he has blood in his veins. Archer will never really enjoy life. You and Adeline could have a happy life at Jalna.”

“Has she been told anything of this? Because, if she has — I can’t face her. I’d be too embarrassed.”

“Don’t worry,” said Piers. “Adeline has been told nothing. But I can see that you’re not against the idea.” Piers lighted a cigarette, took a puff, then added, “Don’t let anything your mother may say prejudice you. She’s hopelessly romantic. But a man has to be practical in these days. Remember. Here is Jalna — right in your hand — if only you steer your course properly.”

“Adeline doesn’t care a damn about me.”

“You can make her care. Come, Philip,” Piers patted the boy on the shoulder, and gave his jolly laugh, “don’t take it so seriously.”

“I can’t alter my nature,” said Philip.

Philip found his mother in the pantry washing up the tea things. He took a clean towel from the rack and began to dry them for her.

She slid a glance toward him and receiving it he burst out — “I suppose you know what Dad and I were talking about.”

“Yes,” she said, “and it seems to me that a lot of trouble is being laid up for you young people.”

“Dad told me you’d probably take it like this.”

“Who do they think they are?” she cried. “Arranging other people’s lives! Pushing them about like pawns! Why — you’d think Jalna was a dukedom instead of just an Ontario farm!” Her eyes were bright with anger.

Philip dried a cup and set it carefully on a shelf. He said, “I’ve heard that you and Dad had a chilly reception at Jalna after you married.”

“Chilly!” exclaimed Pheasant. “Chilly! It was just the reception that any young couple might have who’d eloped and married without the consent of their people. But we were in love. We were desperately in love. Adeline’s a girl who might make a man miserable if she didn’t love him. Oh, Philip, I know you both so well, and I don’t want you to be rushed into a union you’ll regret — just to please the fancy of your Uncle Renny. Surely Jalna can celebrate its centenary without a wedding.”

Philip dried the last of the teaspoons and put them neatly in a drawer. He turned to find little Mary peeping in the door.

“Why are you always spying on people?” he said crossly. “This is a private conversation.”

“You think you’re private,” said Mary, “but you’re not.”

“Not with you around — spying.”

“Children!” admonished Pheasant, and Mary fled to her room. “Now you’ve hurt her feelings, Philip.”

“Please don’t call me a child in front of her. She’s conceited enough already.”

“Mary conceited! Well, I never.”

“She manages to hide it, but it’s there.”

“I suppose all females are conceited, Philip. But I think it’s because they know they have a better understanding of the problems of the world.”

“They’re the cause of most of them,” said Philip.

“Oh, darling, you sound about forty.” Laughing, Pheasant clasped him to her.

That same evening at sundown Philip and Adeline met on the path through the pine wood. These trees were a small remnant left from the primeval forest, their trunks red in the blaze of the fast disappearing sun, each needle glittering as though varnished, the cones sending out a captivating resinous scent.

The two young people were in white, the beauty of their flawless complexions enhanced by it. She knew nothing of their elders’ scheme for them, but his heart was in a tumult.

“Oh, hello,” she said, and he answered — “Hello.”

“Isn’t it nice here?” she said, sniffing the scent of the pine. “Do you smell the pines?”

He too sniffed. “It’s a healthy smell,” he said.

“How did you do in your exams?” she asked.

“Not too badly.”

“You don’t look worn out from study.”

“Look at yourself. You’re fairly bursting with health.”

She was insulted and showed it.

“What I mean is,” he said, “you look wonderful.”

This was something from Philip. She gave a little amused laugh. Now he felt insulted and showed it.

They walked together in silence, the last sunny shafts of the day pointing their path. They saw coming toward them the figure of Renny Whiteoak, his dogs at his heels. As they were in white, so was he in black, for he had just returned from a funeral.

After greeting them he exclaimed, “What a miserable thing to die in this lovely summer weather!”

“Was it a friend, Uncle Renny?”

“No, no. I thoroughly disliked the man. But I should never wish my worst enemy dead … and he was only eighty-eight.”

“That is considerably younger than Uncle Ernest and Uncle Nicholas were,” said Adeline with understanding.

“I can’t imagine being that old,” said Philip, beginning to romp with the dogs.

“I expect it gets easier to imagine, as time goes on,” said Adeline, putting her hand into her father’s.

“I’ll tell you what I was imagining, as I saw you two coming along the path,” said Renny. “I was making a picture in my mind of this pine wood as it was a century ago, when the foundations of Jalna were laid. I pictured my grandparents walking here in the evening — just as you two — and then I saw you coming — another Adeline and Philip! I can tell you I was fairly staggered by the likeness.”

Philip stopped playing with the dogs and came close to Renny, looking into his eyes with the expression of a child learning its lesson. In truth, Renny’s influence meant much more to him than that of either parent. Adeline was still ingenuously watching the dogs, her mind on them rather than on what Renny was saying. Now he went on:

“A hundred years have passed and here, you might say, was a reincarnation of the originals. You know, it gives me tremendous pleasure to see you two, walking here together. There’s no denying I’m sentimental. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m full of sentiment about Jalna and the coming of my grandparents to this new country. I hope you have a feeling about it too, because — oh, you know what I mean.” His manner, usually incisive, became gentle, almost wistful. He blinked, as though feeling tears behind his eyes, but they did not come. Indeed, his eyes looked bright and even calculating as he took in the points of the young couple before him.

“Yes, I know,” said Philip, trying to talk wisely — “changes come, but feeling remains the same.”

“My feelings don’t,” said Adeline. “They change all the time.” After a moment’s thought she added, “But about certain things I never could change. For one thing, I mean my feeling for Jalna.”

The two young people turned to look after Renny when they separated. Then Philip reached out to take Adeline’s hand. Her fingers closed amiably on his and she said, “Poor little boy — he wants his hand held by his big cousin.”

This reference to his youth was too much for Philip. Angrily he snatched his hand from hers.

“I’m going home,” he said. “You can finish your walk alone.”

“That’s what would please me,” she said.

The last of the sunlight was now gone. The wood was suddenly enveloped in twilight. The three who had stood there together were now separated by growing darkness, by intervening branches. The separation was made the more complete by the call of the whippoorwill repeated many times from the depth of the wood.