03 Mary Wakefield Read online

“I love sheep.”

  “I breed kids too,” he went on, “horrible little kids. A perfect nuisance. I’m thinking of getting rid of them — that is, unless you can make something of them.”

  Again came Renny’s treble laugh, this time, it seemed to Mary, with something mocking in it.

  “I’m going to try very hard.” She straightened her shoulders and did her best to look efficient.

  “It’s quite a difficult thing for a man,” he said seriously, “where there is no mother.” If he were looking for sympathy, there it was, in Mary’s eyes.

  “A fellow just has to do the best he can.”

  “I think you’ve done wonderfully well.”

  “Do you hear that, Renny? Miss Wakefield thinks I’m a wonderful success as a father. That means she thinks you’re wonderful children.” He put his arm around the little boy, then turned with fatherly pride to Mary. “I’ll bet you can’t produce better complexions in England.”

  “They look pictures of health.” More and more she dreaded being left alone with the children. There was something intimidating about them. They were not at all like little pitchers waiting to be filled with knowledge from text-books.

  “I brought some books with me,” she said.

  “Good. And they have a supply. If there is anything you want, let me know. Now I’m going about my work and you can get to yours. Renny!”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “No monkey tricks. Meggie!”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Be a good girl. Help Miss Wakefield.”

  A moment more and Mary was alone with the two who stood regarding her appraisingly. She smiled as confidently as she could and asked, “Do we do lessons in the sitting-room?”

  “Goodness, no,” answered Meg. “That’s where Papa smokes.” She continued to stare coolly at Mary.

  They boy did not speak but stood, with a hand grasping the door knob, swinging his body gently from side to side.

  “Show me then,” said Mary. She put her arm about Meg’s shoulders. Heavens, the plump firmness of them! She gave the impression of stubbornness right through her clothes. She wriggled free of Mary’s arm. Mary thought, that’s the last time I put my arm about you without your inviting me.

  Meg led the way into the hall. A door opposite the door of the dining-room stood ajar. Mary glanced through it. She gave the merest glance but both children saw her. They looked at each other and smiled in a secretive way.

  That’s Granny’s room,” said Renny in his clear high voice. “She’ll be coming soon. Everyone’s afraid of her.”

  “It was she who sent Miss Turnbull away,” added Meg.

  “Why?” Mary could not help asking.

  “Oh, she didn’t like her.”

  “Want to see the room?” asked Renny. As he spoke he flung open the door and stalked in, with an air of ownership. “I can do what I like in here. Come on in.”

  “Oh, no,” objected Mary.

  Meg caught her by the hand and dragged her in. “You’d better see it now,” she said, “because when Granny comes home you can’t.”

  “I always can,” said Renny. “That’s her bed. Like to sleep in it?” Mary saw an ornate leather bedstead painted in a rich design of flowers and fruit, between the glowing petals and leaves of which grinning faces of monkeys appeared and heavy-winged butterflies clung, as though in sensuous rapture. Over the mattress lay a coverlet of satin, embroidered in India, in threads of gold and mulberry. On the mantelshelf stood the figure of a Chinese goddess and among the English walnut furniture were pieces of inlaid ebony. The room had a semi-oriental look distasteful to Mary but outside the open window a great white lilac tree displayed its plumes and filled the air with its scent. Mary pictured the lovely red-lipped brown-eyed young woman of the portrait in this room, tried to visualize her has almost seventy. Perhaps she would be bent, complaining, suffering from rheumatism. She said:

  “You shouldn’t have forced me in here, Meg. Come, we must get to work.” She took Renny’s hand and was surprised by the grip of the small hard fingers. He tugged at her hand.

  “Do you like it?” he insisted. “Should you like to sleep here?”

  “No,” she answered firmly. “Now show me the school-room.”

  “You don’t like it?” he cried, his little face expressing chagrin and even anger. “Why — it’s a beautiful room.”

  Mary hastened to say, “I didn’t mean that I don’t think it’s a beautiful room. I only meant it’s too grand for me. I like a more simple room to sleep in.”

  “Do you like the room you have?” Now he swung on her hand as he had before swung on the door.

  “Very much. Now will you please show me the room where we are to work?”

  They darted, as by a common impulse, into the hall and up the two flights of stairs. Mary heard a door slam. With dignity she followed them to the top. “Children!” she called.

  Renny threw open a door and stood facing her. Behind him she saw a table littered with books.

  “I consider,” he said, “that I am too old to be taught by a woman.”

  “That is what your father engaged me for, so we must be pleasant about it, mustn’t we?” Mary tried to keep a cheerful smile but she found the small boy intimidating.

  “I consider,” he continued, “that you don’t know enough.”

  Meg threw herself on to a worn leather couch and exploded into giggles.

  “I know more than you think. Come now, that’s a good boy.”

  “I considah, I considah, I considah,” he went on, in a high affected tone, his eyebrows raised superciliously.

  Mary began to feel panic. What if she could do nothing with them? What if she had to confess this to Philip Whiteoak?

  Suddenly Renny changed his tactics. He darted to a cupboard, opened the door and began to rummage on a shelf. He approached her with a small glass jar in his hands.

  “Want to see them?” he asked.

  Meg jumped up and came to his side.

  “What?” asked Mary, relieved yet suspicious.

  He held the jar close to his face. She saw two revolting pinkish-brown objects.

  “Meggie’s tonsils!” he shouted.

  “How horrid!” She drew away in disgust.

  “I consider them my greatest treasures.” He studied them in rapt concentration.

  “Why do you keep on saying you consider?” Mary asked to change the subject.

  His sister answered for him. “Miss Turnbull was always saying it. Don’t you like it?”

  “No. To me it sounds very egotistical.”

  He would not let her know he did not understand the adjective.

  “That’s why I like it,” he said.

  A step sounded on the stairs. It was familiar to the children and Mary guessed whose it was. Philip came into the room. His tranquil gaze rested for a moment on the little group before he spoke, then he said, “Well, now, that’s a funny way to entertain Miss Wakefield. Are you sure she likes such things?”

  The children stood motionless, except that Renny joggled the tonsils a little.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” said Mary.

  “Put them away, Renny. No, give them to me. I’ll take charge of them for a bit.” The jar was transferred from his son’s hand to his. “What I came up to say is, I’m going to drive to a farm ten miles along the lake shore this afternoon and if the children are good, Miss Wakefield, and I mean very good, the three of you may come with me — that is, if you would like the drive.” His eyes questioned Mary.

  “I should like it very much.” Thanksgiving filled her heart. If only she could get through these first days all would be well.

  “If you have any trouble of any sort, Miss Wakefield,” he said, his eyes now on his children, “please let me know.”

  He left them and was barely to the head of the stairs when Renny, planting himself in front of Mary, drawled:

  “I considah —”

  “What’s that you say?” called back Philip.<
br />
  “Nothing, Papa. We’re just beginning to work.”

  Philip continued his descent, smiling to himself. He was not going to have that young rascal make life miserable for such a lovely girl. Each time he saw Mary he was more astonished by her looks. Whatever could have possessed Ernest to have engaged such a beauty! He wagered that if his mother or sister had interviewed her she never would have been engaged. They had been at obvious pains to choose unattractive governesses for the children. Well, they need not worry. He had no desire to marry again. He was very content as he was. He owned a fine property. His occupations could not have been more congenial. From morning to night he was doing the things he wanted to. He had a deep sense of gratitude to his father for having left Jalna to him. Neither Nicholas nor Ernest would have appreciated it half so much as he. The governor had realized that. Their tastes were of the Old World — London and Paris, with a fling now and again on the Riviera. He was all for the New. Give him Canada every time, and to him Jalna was Canada. Both his brothers had had their share of his father’s money. Nicholas had spent a deal of his in extravagant living. You don’t keep horses and a dashing brougham and a socially-minded wife in London for nothing. Thank goodness, Nicholas was free of her now. Of course, divorce was a pretty disgraceful thing but it was she who’d run off and left Nicholas, not Nicholas her. The one visit she’d made to Jalna had been an irritation. She’d been so damn supercilious, and it had ended in a quarrel between her and Mamma. … Now, Ernest was a different sort of fellow. He was shrewd. Financial investments that were so much Greek to Philip, were as child’s play to old Ernie. It looked as though he might become a very rich man. Philip thought of him with respect.

  Out on the smoothly gravelled drive he saw a dog-cart and, just alighting from it, his father-in-law, Dr. Ramsey. He was a Scotsman by birth, a man almost seventy, but still attending to a quite large and scattered country practice. He was a spare man with a bony and well-proportioned frame, a critical manner and a vigorous belief in the absolute rightness of his own opinions. He regarded his son-in-law with a mingled affection and disapproval. He had been deeply gratified when his daughter, Margaret, an only child, had married Philip. There had been no better match in the province, in his opinion. But Philip’s easy-going ways, his indolent carriage, the very slight impediment in his speech which, in the opinion of some women, only added to his charm, were sources of irritation to Dr. Ramsey. Philip was not the man his father, Captain Whiteoak, of the Queen’s Own Hussars, had been.

  The death of his daughter had been a great blow to the doctor. He had himself attended her in her illness and the end had been terribly unexpected. He had strained every nerve to save her. Since her death he felt, in the secret recesses of his heart, that as his skill had failed to save her, he must do all in his power to keep her place in Philip’s affections vacant. In some strange way that would reconcile his spirit to her early demise. She had been a jealous girl who could not endure that Philip should give an admiring glance at any other, though why she should have minded such a small thing, Doctor Ramsey could not understand, for she had been as clever and handsome a girl as there was in the countryside. That neither of her children resembled her he deeply resented. He took it as a personal injury. Meg took after the Whiteoaks and the boy seemed to have gone out of the way to reproduce the physical traits of his Irish grandmother. Not that the doctor did not admire Adeline Whiteoak. She was a fine-looking woman but, if the boy were going to resemble a grandparent, why not him?

  “Good morning,” Philip called out, in his full, genial tones.

  “Good morning,” Dr. Ramsey, though he had been in Canada forty-five years, spoke with a considerable Scottish accent. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  Philip could see him feeling about in his mind for an appropriate quotation from Robert Burns, as a man might feel in his pocket for a coin of the right size. Now he had it and smiled as he declaimed:

  “‘The voice of Nature loudly cries,

  And many a message from the skies, That something in us never dies.’”

  “True,” agreed Philip. “Very true. It’s fine growing weather. We should have good crops.”

  The doctor took him by the coat lapel. “This country,” he said, “is in for trouble, if prices continue to rise. I’ve been shopping this morning and what do you suppose I paid for bacon? Thirteen cents a pound! It’s ridiculous. Eggs fifteen cents a dozen instead of a cent a piece! Butter twenty cents a pound! Ruin lies ahead if —”

  Philip interrupted, “Now, look here, sir, why will you buy those things when you know very well that they are produced right here on the farm and you’re welcome to all you need?”

  “I didn’t buy any,” said the doctor. “I only priced them.”

  He was quite willing to accept these favours, rightly feeling that the medical attention he gave the two children fully compensated for them. To the grown-ups at Jalna he sent a bill, which was moderate.

  “I don’t want anything this morning, thank you. What I came in for was to see if the wee ones would like to accompany me on my rounds. ’Twould be a change for them.”

  The children had got past the age when to go on his rounds with their grandfather was a treat. They had ponies of their own. And also he expected too much from them in sedateness of behaviour and was given to lecturing. Philip thanked Dr. Ramsey. “But they are busy at their lessons, sir. You see, the new governess arrived last night.”

  “Well, is that so? And what like is she?”

  “Very nice.”

  “Verra nice,” repeated the doctor irritably. “That conveys nothing to me. I mean does she appear to be a woman of strong character and erudition? The last one was a fool.”

  Philip stroked the mare’s neck. “I’ve scarcely had time to judge. I expect that my brother went into these things.”

  “Hm. What age is she?”

  “It’s hard to tell. Youngish.”

  “Under forty?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t see eye to eye with you in bringing over an English-woman to train your children. Now, if she were Scottish it would be different.”

  “It’s really my mother and Ernest. By the way, he’s made some amazingly good investments lately.”

  “That’s fine. For they are usually quite the revairse, aren’t they?”

  Philip looked after his father-in-law, sitting very upright as he rattled off in his dog-cart, and wondered what he would say when he beheld Miss Wakefield. Behold was the right word for a girl so stunning as she. Yes, she was stunning. You forgot what you were saying to her, for staring at her. That is, for trying not to stare at her. It wasn’t so much actual beauty perhaps, as that willowy graceful form, that smile that had something melancholy in it; her mouth went down at the corners rather than up when she smiled. He wasn’t sure. He must notice.

  His three Clumber spaniels, Sport and Spot and their half-grown puppy, Jake, came leaping about his legs. He bent and distributed caresses as equally as he could, considering that Jake was determined to get more than his share. Philip had to cuff him gently away to give the parents a chance.

  “Come along, then, we’ll go for a walk.” He turned in the direction of the orchard where the spraying of the apple trees was going on. A fine crop promised. All the land, the woods, the fields, shone this morning, as though in beneficent mood. The very house wore its mantle of Virginia creeper with a smiling air, as though conscious of its decoration. The myriad little leaves of the silver birch trees on the lawn trembled with life. Philip had in himself a feeling of almost creative achievement, as though he were a part of the secret purpose of the universe.

  IV

  THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE

  MARY HAD LITTLE trouble with the children during the rest of that morning. She gave it over to trying to make friends with them, in finding out what their studies had been and letting them show her their text-books. Some of these had been handed down from their father and uncles, some were forty years old, dog-eared
and out of date, yet for some reason it was these the children liked best. There was a tattered history of Ireland with their grandmother’s name, Adeline Court, in it and her age, fourteen. The books which had belonged to Ernest were in much better condition than those which had belonged to Nicholas. Those in which Philip’s name was scrawled were worst of all.

  When Mary touched Meg the little girl drew away but sometimes Renny would lean against her shoulder, as though deliberately. Once he turned his eyes and looked close into hers and she wondered what lay behind their mysterious darkness. He could read and write quite well for a seven-year-old. She felt new courage to attack her work. The morning passed quickly.

  The children chattered all through the one o’clock dinner and were encouraged by their father. He felt shy of the new governess. She was so different from what he had expected. He was very conscious of her presence. Over and over he wondered, chuckling at the thought, what would be the expression on his mother’s face when she saw Miss Wakefield.

  When he saw how daintily she was dressed for the outing he felt he should have done something to titivate his own costume but the effort was too great. He decided to go as he was, in rather a disreputable old tweed suit and a battered straw hat. But nothing could have been more shining than the Surrey and the chestnut pair harnessed to it. The horses were superbly matched. Plenty of elbow-grease had been expended on the polishing of their equipment. Their fine eyes rolled in their eagerness to be off. Mary’s heart sank as she saw polished hoofs stamping the gravel. Could one pair of arms control them? Her long cloth skirt hampered her in climbing to the seat. She placed a foot on the step and Philip took her by the arm. He took her by both arms and half-lifted her up. She was there, on the rear seat and Meg scrambling up after her!

  Philip took the reins from the stable boy and gave the encouraging chirrup for which the horses had been waiting. Now their hoofs made a staccato tapping on the drive and scattered gravel to the verge of the well-cared-for lawn. As they turned into the road and Mary became conscious of Philip’s competence with the reins, saw with what skill he controlled the two fiery beasts, her fear subsided and she felt a kind of wild exhilaration. It was thrilling to bowl along the white road between the spreading branches of massive oaks, her responsibility lifted from her for the moment and nothing to do but give herself up to enjoyment. How often similar equipages had passed her in London and she had looked with envy on the occupants! Now here she was, in this spacious new country, riding behind a glittering pair, her little charges docile, her employer — but no, she must not keep thinking about her employer, how well his coat sat on his broad shoulders, the way his hair grew on the back of his sun-burned neck. And even while she told herself to keep her mind off him, she inwardly exclaimed, “He’s like no one else! He’s fascinating!”