Jalna: Books 1-4: The Building of Jalna / Morning at Jalna / Mary Wakefield / Young Renny (41 page)

“Poor girl,” said Philip, in a tone not too heartfelt, for Adeline’s eyes were on him. “Poor girl.”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Adeline. “Poor girl.”

Robert went on in the same curiously guarded tone: —

“Well, Tite’s story was that having his gun with him he at once set out to find some food for her. He shot a grouse, built a fire and roasted it. Daisy was ravenous. When she had eaten and slept for a little he supported her as far as a certain clearing he knew and left her there while he came home for help.”

“And she hadn’t heard our shouting or the reports of our guns!” exclaimed Philip.

“She says she heard nothing.”

“She must have wandered a long way.”

“Yes, she had wandered a long way.”

“That boy, Tite, must know the forest well.”

“He knows it like the palm of his hand. Well, to make a long story short. I went back with Tite while my father set about spreading the word to the other searchers that Daisy was found. When we reached the clearing there she was, sitting waiting for us in rags and tatters, with her hair down her back and her face dirty. We put her on the horse behind me and brought her home. My mother almost fainted at the sight of her. Mother had got the big tin bath full of hot water, and fresh clothes ready for her. I came straight over here.”

Adeline laid a gently hand on Robert’s arm. “You must be tired and hungry,” she said. “Philip, dear, would you ask Mrs. Coveyduck to bring us some of the hot scones she’s just made — and a pot of chocolate. My limbs are trembling so from excitement that I fear they’d fail me. Otherwise I’d never ask you to run my errands, Philip. You know I’m not the sort of wife to do that, am I?”

“Listen to her!” said Philip, giving Robert a wink. He went in search of Mrs. Coveyduck.

“Now,” said Adeline, her face close to Robert’s, “tell me what you think about it all.”

He turned his face away.

“You don’t believe this story, do you, Robert?”

“Not a word of it,” he answered, his face sombre.

“But you believe that Tite found Daisy.”

“Yes, I believe he found her.”

“But not just today?”

“I tell you,” he cried fiercely, “I hated to have her on the horse with me! I hated her arms about me!”

“She couldn’t have helped but hear the guns and the shouting, could she?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“Why don’t you believe Tite’s story, Robert?”

“Because it was false. The story she poured out to me when I met her was false. Every tree in the forest shouted that she was false — false as hell!” He wrung his fingers together. “And when I saw my mother embracing her, weeping over her — my father shaken and aged by this week of misery — I could have killed her!”

“She can’t help what she is, Robert,” said Adeline, taking his hand. “I don’t feel angry at her now. If it isn’t one man, it’s another — with her. How did she greet your mother?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I came away.”

Philip returned through the hall. He said: —

“Mrs. Coveyduck is delighted. The chocolate is preparing. The scones smell delicious. What about that reward of a hundred pounds which your father offered for Miss Daisy’s discovery, Robert?”

“Oh, Tite had heard of that and claimed it in the first breath!”

“What a windfall for Tite!” exclaimed Philip, laughing. “He will probably leave Wilmott and set himself up as chief of his tribe.”

As they spoke of him, they saw Wilmott hastening along the drive. His face was alight. “Have you heard the news?” he cried. Then, seeing Robert, added, “But of course you have. What a relief! I was with the searching party when Colonel Vaughan appeared. We had given up hope of finding Miss Vaughan alive.” He sat down beside the others. He fanned himself with his hat. Then he turned to Robert. “There must be great rejoicing at Vaughanlands.”

“Yes,” answered Robert, with a smile that had more of pain than happiness in it. “But my mother is feeling quite ill.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” Wilmott’s face was alight with sympathy.

“Faith,” exclaimed Adeline, “we all have been under a cloud! But now it’s lifted.” Her eyes smiled into Robert’s. “Now we must put all unhappy things out of our minds. We have a great deal to be thankful for.”

“Listen to her!” said Philip. “She sounds like a preacher. She really is a bit of a devil but she has these pious spells. I am always afraid of what she may say at such times.”

“You all know,” said Adeline, still smiling, “that Daisy and I quarreled. Shall I tell you what I did to her?”

“No,” answered Philip. “No one wants to know. Here comes the chocolate. While we drink it, Robert must tell us more of what happened this morning.” He placed a small table and Mrs. Coveyduck beamingly set down a laden tray.

An hour later Robert returned to Vaughanlands. Philip hastened with relief to his workmen. Adeline and Wilmott were left alone. He said, with a somewhat remote expression on his thin face: —

“Now that this excitement is over perhaps you will be a little interested in my manuscript.”

Her eyebrows flew up. “Is it possible, James, that you have been able to do any writing in this past week?”

“I had a considerable amount written at the time of the bathing party. I had intended reading it to you the next day, then — this fantastic thing happened. Perhaps you are no longer interested.”

“I am indeed. Please bring the manuscript tomorrow morning. I promise you we shall be quite undisturbed. I am pining to hear it read.”

“If it bores you, you must stop me.”

“Nothing you write could bore me.… James, do you think Tite will get the reward?”

He flushed a little. “I imagine he will.”

“Do you think he deserves it?”

“Well, it is certain that he found Miss Vaughan.”

“Do you feel anything mysterious in his finding her?”

“Yes.”

“What did Tite say when he came back?”

“Simply that he had found her and wanted the reward.”

“It has been a strange affair,” she said.

“Very strange.”

“I was terribly frightened, James.”

“I know.”

There was a silence, then she said: —

“James, it’s a fine thing to live with a forest all about you, you writing a beautiful book and fishing in your river, Philip building a church and raising crops! As for me — ” she laid her hand on her heart — “here I am in the midst — as happy as a queen with my own roof over my head and my babies all about me!”

Wilmott’s smile was curiously tender and grim.

“You deserve to be,” he said.

The next day he brought the manuscript and seated in the cool shade of the drawing-room he read aloud to her. While she listened, her gaze was intent on his face across which many expressions flitted, but through them all showed a certain battered wistfulness and an inviolate dignity. In repose, Wilmott looked singularly undefeated and even cold. As Adeline listened to the unfolding of the tale she recognized herself in the heroine and,
for all his attempts at disguise, Wilmott as the hero. But this only increased her enjoyment. With her elbow on the arm of her chair and her chin in her palm she drank in every word and pronounced it a masterpiece. She could scarcely bear to wait for the ending. She begged him to waste no more time but to concentrate with all his might in completing the romance. It would be a great success. It would rival
The Mysteries of Udolpho
.

When Wilmott returned home he found Tite cleaning a fine salmon for their evening meal. The bright scales flew from the sharpness of his knife like sparks from an anvil. His slim brown torso was bare but he wore an old straw hat. He looked up smiling. He held up the fish for Wilmott’s inspection.

“Boss,” he said, “it is a fine fish.”

“Yes, Tite, it’s a fine one, and especially as the fishing has been poor of late. That is a good knife you have.”

Tite turned the knife over in his hand and gazed reflectively at it. “Boss, it is a present from my cousin on the Reserve.”

“Your relations are very kind to you.”

“Yes. My cousin is descended from a great chief. He is all Indian but I am part French.”

“I know. Tite, do you feel yourself different from the pure Indians?”

“Boss, if pure means good, I am as pure as they are.” He sat back on his bare heels and looked up at Wilmott. “But that Mees Daisy says I have an Indian mouth and French eyes. Do you think I have?”

Wilmott exclaimed in sudden anger — “If you mention Miss Daisy’s name once more to me, Tite, I will throw you out, neck and crop!”

“Very well, Boss. But I have something I want to show you.” He took off his hat and out of its crown brought a paper packet. He opened it and showed it to be made up of clean bank notes.

“The reward!” ejaculated Wilmott. “Is it all there?”

“Yes, Boss. But we had better take it into the house and count it.” He held the bank notes to his nose and sniffed them.
“I like the smell of money, Boss, but it smells better when it has been about more.”

“Mr. Vaughan should not have handed over such a sum to a boy like you. He should have given it to some responsible person to keep for you. But, of course, I shall do that.”

“Mr. Vaughan said he would keep it for me but I said I wanted it all — right away. He seemed to want to get rid of me.”

“Well, wash your hands and we’ll go in and count the notes.”

Tite obediently laid the fish in a basket and washed his hands at the river’s edge. In the house Wilmott sat down by the table in the kitchen and counted the money.

“One hundred pounds,” he declared. “It is a lot of money for you to have earned so easily, Tite.”

“Boss, it was not so easy. I searched the bush for a long while before I found her You see, I do not say her name, Boss, as you told me not to. I wonder if my grandmother will still think she is a harlot when she hears of the good fortune she has brought me.”

“We shall not discuss that.”

Wilmott looked reflectively at Tite. What a change had taken place in the boy during this year of their close association. He could write a good clear hand. He could read any book Wilmott gave him and reading absorbed him completely. Every day his vocabulary was enlarged. He was studying history, geography, mathematics, and Latin. He was worthy of a good education, Wilmott thought. He said: —

“Your future is now assured, Tite. This reward, added to what I can do for you, will put you through college. You may be able to enter a profession if you work hard. What do you thin you would like to be? Have you thought of it?”

Tite drew up a chair and faced Wilmott across the table.

“I want to be just what you are, Boss,” he said.

Wilmott gave a bark of laughter. “That’s no ambition at all,” he said.

“It is enough for me, Boss,” Tite returned. “Just to live here alone with you and fish in the river and grow a few things on the
land and read books in the evening, is all I want.”

Wilmott was touched. “It suits me, too,” he said, “better than any other life I can imagine. You’ve been a good boy, Tite, and I’m very fond of you.”

“And I am very fond of you, also, Boss. Like mine, your eyelashes are long and your neck like bronze column. But I cannot say that your mouth —”

“What did I tell you, Tite?” said Wilmott. “If you think you will please me by applying to me the foolish things that girl said of you, you are much mistaken.”

“Of course I am, Boss. I am sure she is a harlot.”

“Now,” said Wilmott, ignoring the last remark, “I am going to deposit this money in the bank for you, to be drawn on as needed. Do you agree?”

“Oh, yes, Boss. But could we keep back a pound or two to buy us a few treats, such as candied fruit and bull’s-eyes?”

“I shall buy those for you,” said Wilmott.

“But I should like to buy them with my own money, Boss. You see, the wagest you pay me are not very high and I give something to my grandmother. Now I come to think of it, I give all my wages to my family.

“Balderdash!” said Wilmott, but he flung him a pound note. “Take it,” he said testily, “and do what you like with it.”

“Mille remerciments,”
said Tite, smiling. “You see I can speak a little French, on occasion, Boss.”

A W
EEK LATER
, Daisy Vaughan left her uncle’s house and returned to Montreal. It was understood that the nervous and physical strain she had been under had made a complete change necessary. The Whiteoaks did not see her before her departure but those who did declared that she looked not in the least ill or dejected. Indeed Kate Brent said that Daisy had never looked better or been more talkative. It had been as good as a play to hear her description of the days she had been lost in the forest. She had had encounters with wild animals which had been seen by no other in that vicinity for a generation. But she seemed willing to return to Montreal. She could no longer endure, she said, to remain in such a backwater.

Colonel Vaughan accompanied his niece on the journey. Her visit had been an expensive one for him. Besides providing for her for a year, which included the buying of some quite expensive clothes, there had been considerable cost connected with the searching party, to say nothing of the large reward paid to Tite. Now there was the expense of the journey.

After Daisy’s return to Montreal she corresponded regularly with Lydia Busby for some time. She wrote of the gaiety of that town, the
soirées
, the balls. She filled Lydia with a mad desire
to do something of the sort. At last came the news of Daisy’s engagement to a South American artist who had been painting in the Laurentians; and finally invitations to her wedding. She and her husband were to leave at once for Paris where they would for some years make their home.

But though these letters caused much disturbance in the breasts of the young Busbys, so that their father was put to it to keep them in order, they made little impression at Jalna. There, with the harvest to be garnered, the winter quarters for the growing number of livestock to be got ready, the house to be prepared for an impending visit from Adeline’s parents, the building of the church to be sufficiently completed for consecration and the christening of Ernest, little interest was left over for the doings of the outer world. Adeline and Philip consigned Daisy to the past.