"It is a divine room!" cried Daisy. "Picture it at night with all the candles in the candelabra blazing, dancers gliding over the floor, flowers in vases, an orchestra sweetly playing and outside the vastness of the forest! Oh, I envy you such a room! What do you suppose it feels like to be a pauper, Captain Whiteoak?"
"Very jolly, to judge by the look of you", returned Philip.
"Oh, how cruel! Just because I hide my misery beneath a smile, you think I don’t care! Here I am-doomed to single blessedness! What man yearns to marry a girl without a penny?"
"In a primitive country", said Wilmott, "a female is judged by her brawn".
Daisy ran across the floor, holding out her arms.
"In that respect", she cried, "I am even worse off. Look at me! Skin and bone! Nothing more".
"Houp-la!" exclaimed Philip, dancing toward her. "Strike up the music, Wilmott".
He swept Daisy into another waltz, the music for which he provided by an extraordinarily sweet whistling.
"I have something I want to tell you", said Wilmott to Adeline, taking Gussie’s tiny slippered foot into his hand. "But we never have an opportunity to talk nowadays".
"Once that we are settled it will be different. Then I shall have oceans of leisure. What is it you were going to tell me?"
"I have begun to write a book".
Her face lighted. "Splendid! Is it a novel? Am I in it?"
"It is and I’m afraid you are. Try as I would I could not keep you out".
"I should be furious if you had. When will you read to me what you have written?"
"I don’t know. Perhaps never. I am very uncertain about it".
"Those two", observed Philip to Daisy, "seem disposed to converse for ever".
"They are so intellectual. As for me, I have only two ideas".
"Do tell me what they are".
"To be loved-and to love!"
Wilmott rose and went to the piano. He began to play, gravely. Gussie slid down from the sofa and followed him. She strummed on the bass notes.
XVIII. Visitors from Ireland
As Philip looked about him, he was struck anew by all that had been accomplished since Adeline and he had come here. He was often struck by this but this particular evening he felt something approaching awe. Not much more than a year ago he had purchased a thousand acres of land-forest, with the exception of a small clearing. Now a substantial house stood in its midst. About it was a park with as fine trees as you would see anywhere. Beyond the park there were fields, cleared of stumps and planted with oats and barley. There were even vegetables-next year there would be a flower border for Adeline. A barn was completed and in the stable beneath it there were two teams of fine farm horses, two saddle horses and a general-purpose mare who was used for the trap or for light work. He had not been in haste to buy a carriage and carriage horses. His taste in such was exacting.
He stood between the barn and the house, which he could just see through the trees, the warm red of its walls deepened by the glow from the setting sun. Smoke rose from two of its chimneys, greyish blue against the blue of the sky. Even the Jersey cows, grazing near him and looking as though such as they had grazed and bred in this spot for generations, did not move Philip as did the sight of the smoke from his own chimneys against the sky. It was as though the smoke traced the word home there. Well, he had given his heart to this land. He wanted no other.
It seemed strange to him, when he thought of it, how he had been willing to leave the Army where he could have, with confidence, looked forward to advancement, how he had thrown all that aside for so primitive a life. As a youth he had wanted to enter the Army. It was a tradition of his family. Many a time he had rejoiced in the activities of military life. What had happened to him, then? It seemed that, from the time of his marriage, a strange element of unrest had come into his life. Not that Adeline had not enjoyed the pleasures of the military station, not that she had been a simple-minded country girl whose presence had drawn him from the old life. No, it had been something much deeper. It was as though Adeline had always been searching for truth and that when their lives were joined they had set out to search for it together. They had wanted reality, freedom from rules made long before their time, the opportunity to lead their lives in their own fashion. In Canada they had found that opportunity. Not once had he regretted what he had given up, nay-he rejoiced in what he had attained! He looked down at his heavy boots, his leather leggings, his corduroy breeches and jacket and rejoiced that he looked and felt like a countryman. He went to the youngest of the cows, who had lately had her first calf which still was with her, and put his hand on the cream-coloured smoothness of her shoulder. She was friendly, not timid, and raised her eyes to his face, her mouth full of the tender grass. Her little calf was by her side, weak yet lively, making feeble jumpings. He would not have exchanged them for a regiment of cavalry. A deep serenity possessed him. From early morning to night he had congenial things to do. In truth he had so much to do that sometimes he felt overwhelmed. Still, there was plenty of time ahead of him. In time he and Adeline would make Jalna what they wanted it to be. There was no haste. He had plenty of money. He had confidence in the future. He had a comfortable belief in God-a not too personal God, with His eye always on your misdeeds, but one ready to give you a hand in time of trouble and waiting at the last with magnanimous forgiveness for your sins-if they had not been heinous.
"Co-boss", he said to the young cow, having learned the word from the farm-hands, "nice little co-boss". The calf bumped against his knees, its pink tongue protruding.
He saw Colonel Vaughan coming toward him across the field. He was carrying a basket. They exchanged greetings and the Colonel opened the basket.
"I have a little present for your wife", he said. "Some lettuces-ours are especially fine this year-also some cherries and a score of marauders who planned to devour them".
The interior of the basket was as pretty as a picture, Philip thought. The two great heads of lettuce were as green as the youngest grass. Their leaves were folded over their hearts, layer upon layer, firm and cool with scarcely a wrinkle. Only the edges were crisply curled. Against this greenness the glossy crimson of the cherries shone. A partition divided the basket and in the other half lay the bodies of twenty small bright-coloured birds. They had throats as red as the cherries and crests on their little heads. Nothing could have been sleeker than their plumage.
"The rascals came in a cloud", said Colonel Vaughan, "and settled on the tree. It was a pretty sight but I had no time to waste in admiring it. I got my shot-gun and fired it into the tree. I recharged it for the stragglers. They fell off the branches like fruit".
"By Jove, they’re pretty! But what is Adeline to do with them?"
"Have them stuffed. There is quite a good taxidermist in the town. A glass case filled with them, nicely arranged on small branches, is as pretty an ornament for a room as you could wish. If you want more I can give you double the number. I am having a score stuffed for myself".
"Thanks very much. Adeline will be delighted".
But he was a little doubtful as he entered the drawing-room where Adeline was sitting at her embroidery frame, utilising the last brightness from the west. She looked charming, he thought, in her dress of white cashmere with a cascade of lace down the front and at the elbow sleeves. He took twin cherries from the basket and hung them on one of her ears.
"There’s an earring for you!"
She put up her hand to feel. "Cherries! Oh, do give me a handful! Are they from Vaughanlands?"
"Yes. And these too. Look".