A long-drawn howl sounded mournfully somewhere in the darkness. Daisy shrieked and threw herself into Philip’s arms. Nero rose trembling.
The men stared at each other, waiting for the next howl. It came-nearer, louder. Adeline gave an hysterical laugh. Wilmott threw open the door into the kitchen. Tite stood there, slim and dark, his mouth open, shaping another howl.
"You young rapscallion!" said Adeline. "You ought to be flogged". But she laughed naturally now.
When the Irishmen understood, they were disappointed. It was hard to persuade them that Tite had given those realistic howls. "Do it again!" they cried, like boys. Wilmott looked sternly at Tite.
"No-no!" cried Daisy. "I can’t bear it!" She made wide eyes from Philip’s shoulder.
Brent took the gun from the wall. "Here, Miss Daisy", he said, "let us see you shoot him. Remember your boast". He put the gun into her hand.
With a sudden swagger she grasped it. There was a loud explosion. The ball entered the wall above Tite’s head. Philip gave Daisy an astonished look and took the gun from her. "That’s enough from you, young woman", he said. "Behave yourself".
She stood with her breast heaving and her eyes defiant, "I’m not one to be challenged and not take it".
"Did the lady mean to kill me?" asked Tite.
Wilmott went into the kitchen and closed the door behind him. He said sternly:
"Never do such a thing again. You have frightened those ladies terribly".
"But the Mees Daisy one wanted to hear a wolf howl and I can do it so well".
"You were listening at the door, Tite".
"Yes. I was wondering if you want something before I go to bed. Did the Mees Daisy one want to kill me?"
"No, no, she was over-excited".
"Boss", Tite spoke in a low voice, "do you think she is a harlot? She told me I had long eyelashes and a mouth like a pomegranate flower. Now I repeated this to my grandmother and she says Mees Daisy is a harlot. But since then she has tried to kill me, so perhaps she is reformed".
"Bring out the bacon, the eggs and the cold potatoes", ordered Wilmott. "God knows what we shall have left to eat tomorrow".
"Another time", continued Tite stubbornly, "she said my neck was like a bronze statue’s and I told my grandmother and my grandmother said again she is a harlot".
XVI. Progress of the Season
There were no more hospitable people in the neighbourhood than the Laceys. Their house was not large but their hearts were. They liked gaiety and movement about them and the two Irishmen satisfied their liking to an extraordinary degree. They were almost always gay and they seldom were still. They settled down for a lengthy visit with the Laceys. They had been travelling so long that they were glad of the change to this backwater. Their expenses had been heavy; they were glad to pay in the coin of good fellowship. Not that they did nothing to make themselves useful. When heavy snowfalls came in midwinter, they armed themselves with shovels and dug the Laceys out, with speed and efficiency. They went over icy roads to the town to shop for Mrs. Lacey and brought her presents of Scotch marmalade and German cheese and French wine. D’Arcy played chess with Captain Lacey and Brent read aloud from the works of Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott.
Wilmott’s skating-party had started the ball rolling and that winter saw more dancing, skating and charades than the neighbourhood had ever before known. On Sunday, unless a blizzard were blowing, everybody turned out to attend the church service in the village eight miles away. In rough weather this often was a hardship. Feet and legs would be numb with cold, faces half frozen. But the Whiteoaks found the climate mild as compared with that of Quebec. Here zero weather was thought to be very cold indeed. There twenty below zero had been accepted as no more than winter’s due.
Before long it was seen by all that Kate Busby had transferred interest from Wilmott to Brent. Before long her interest amounted to attachment. It was said that Brent himself was smitten. By the time February had arrived it was obvious that he was smitten. At a St. Valentine’s party given by the Pinks he proposed, and so novel was the manner of his proposal that the entire community was startled by it. Mrs. Pink’s ingenuity and originality in entertaining her guests were endless. On this occasion a small gift or favour was laid by the plate of each. These were in the shape of hearts cut from red flannel. Beneath these were attached several other hearts, cut from white flannel, and the whole held together by rosettes of red and white wool. In the case of the ladies, bright new needles were stuck in the white hearts, thus converting them into a needle-book. In the case of the gentlemen, a fine new goose feather was thrust through the rosette, only needing to be sharpened to the required point for a pen. And there was the penwiper!
On the spot and before he would eat a mouthful, Brent took out his penknife and sharpened the quill to a long graceful point. He then got possession of Kate’s needle-book. After the meal he disappeared into another room and when he came back restored it to her-but how changed, how glorified! He had cut out a heart from a sheet of notepaper and fixed it among the white flannel hearts. On it he had written:
To My Valentine
I ask no better fate
Than that the rest of my life should be with you spent.
Your adoring
His intentions were of the best. If Kate would not live in Ireland he would settle down to live in Ontario. The one obstacle to their marriage was religion. Elihu Busby would not give his consent to his daughter’s union with a Catholic. Every man in that group of friends tried his hand at persuading him-they all liked Brent-but to no avail.
The weather was so severe in February that work on the building of Jalna all but ceased, though the sound of a lonely hammer or saw preserved the sense of continuity. The felling of trees still went on in full swing of axe. The noble growth of fifty years was felled, dismembered and neatly piled in as many minutes. The men made great fires, partly to warm themselves by, partly to get rid of the wood. In heedless extravagance they heaped the finest oak, maple and pine on the blaze; just as the deer-hunters farther north would kill five deer where one would have sufficed and left the surplus carcasses to rot; just as the wild-fowl were shot down in mad excess of need, and the singing birds for pleasure.
Adeline expected her child in April and her most cherished hope was to be established in her own home before the birth. In February, with the almost cessation of work, she saw this hope fade. Long ago the architect, the contractor and the foreman had promised that the house would be ready by April the first. She had never doubted the fulfilment of that promise. When doubt and disappointment crowded in on her she was in despair. One might have thought, as Philip said, that her life and the life of the child depended on the removal. To which, with her head buried in the pillows of her bed, she replied that it was probably so. He said that, if anyone had reason to be worried, it was he. Sitting up, with blazing eyes, she demanded what he had to worry about. In terse language he told her. They forgot they were visiting and quarrelled with the abandon of people who have been snowbound for a week and are frustrated in all their plans. They raised their voices and tried to talk each other down. Mrs. Vaughan, in the room below, could hear them and was mortified for them. Daisy, just outside their door, was so fiercely on Philip’s side that she could barely refrain from rushing in and taking part.
Mrs. Vaughan, in her restrained way, was almost as deeply disappointed in the delay as Adeline. The thought of having a birth in the house was terribly upsetting. It was so long since she herself had been confined that the complications of such an event seemed unbelievable. What, for instance, was she to do with Robert who at that time would be home from his university? Certainly he must be sent away somewhere and her pleasure in his vacation ruined. Then there was Daisy. There seemed no prospect of her visit ending for some months to come. In truth, Mrs. Vaughan felt fairly certain that nothing save marriage would remove Daisy from the family circle. She had settled herself far too comfortably into it. Her behaviour had not shown the propriety which Mrs. Vaughan would have liked. Indeed, she had more than once been driven to speak to Daisy because of the lack of delicacy she showed in her pursuit of Dr. Ramsay. He dropped in several times each week to see Adeline and, on his way in or out, Daisy was certain to waylay him. She was knitting an immense muffler for him and this had to be tried on. The doctor surrendered himself to this operation with a rather grim grace but he did surrender, and Mrs. Vaughan could not help thinking that in his heart he enjoyed it, though what could be more futile than to attempt to make a muffler fit?