“Patience thought it would be confusing for the young man to meet so many of us at once. Roma went off somewhere with her boyfriend.” A shadow crossed Meg’s face as she spoke, though she tried to look cheerful.
Adeline said, “It would not have been confusing to have Patience here. I do want her and Mait to meet.”
“He’d likely prefer Roma,” observed Archer.
“Archer, how can you say such things?” exclaimed Meg, hurt.
“Under a frivolous exterior I conceal a great deal of sagacity,” he returned.
“One thing you can’t hide is your conceit,” said Adeline.
He helped himself to a cress sandwich. “I don’t try,” he answered. “I have so much to be conceited about.”
Upstairs Maitland Fitzturgis had washed his hands and run a comb through his curly mouse-coloured hair. As he and Renny were passing the closed door of a bedroom Renny said, “In there is my Uncle Nicholas. You’ll meet him later. Goes to bed early. He’s very old.”
“He’s still living, is he?” Fitzturgis said as though surprised.
Renny stopped stock still to exclaim, “Do you mean to say that Adeline doesn’t mention him in her letters?”
“Now I come to think of it, she has.”
“I hope he takes to you,” Renny said doubtfully. “We set a good deal of store by his opinion here.”
“I shall look forward to meeting him.”
Hungry though she was, Adeline was too much excited to enjoy her tea. What for two years she had been straining toward had actually come to pass. There was her lover at Jalna, sitting among her own people — her mother pouring a second cup of tea for him — her father offering him a cigarette — her Auntie Meg giving him that sweet maternal smile. It seemed almost too good for belief. She was glad that there were not many of the clan present at this first meeting, and yet she was impatient for him to meet them all, to be approved by all and to voice his admiration of them to her. When Meg had gone and they stood alone together in the porch there came her first opportunity to ask:
“Do you like them — him — my father I mean mostly?”
“Very much,” Fitzturgis answered warmly. “I like them all.”
“Don’t you —” She found it difficult to find the words she wanted. “Don’t you think he’s — rather remarkable-looking?”
“Quite. But it’s your mother’s looks I admire. She must have been a lovely girl.”
“She was. She had beautiful fair hair. She’s an American — or was, before she was married to Daddy’s brother Eden and divorced — before she and Daddy married.”
He answered, almost absent-mindedly, “I know. Maurice, I think, told me when we first met…. A nice house, this. I like your trees. How old is the house?”
“It will be a hundred years old before long.”
“Is that all?”
“It’s not very old, I know, in your country. But here it is quite an age. We’re giving a party for the house on its centenary. Isn’t it wonderful to think that you and I will be here for it — together!”
His answer was to put an arm about her and touch her hair with his lips. “I can’t believe in it,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Soon you will,” she said happily. “At this moment nothing seems too good to be true. Everything seems possible…. Oh, Maitland, I don’t know how I lived through these two years.” She looked into his face, on a level with her own, trying to see him as others not emotionally bound to him would see him. She could not, but saw him only through the enamoured eyes of her first love.
His mind returned to what had been told him of her mother’s marriage to Eden Whiteoak. “Have you ever seen him?” he asked. “Your mother’s first husband?”
“I don’t remember him. He died when I was very small. He had a daughter, you know — by another marriage. That’s Roma. She lives with Auntie Meg.”
“You’ve something against her, haven’t you?” he asked abruptly.
“Goodness, no.” Then she added, just as abruptly, “Yes, I have. And you may as well know it. Now, at the beginning, before you meet them all.” She took his hand and led him down the steps of the porch, across the lawn and along the path toward the stables. “I’ll tell you as we go to see the horses,” she said, “and then — no more about it.”
He sniffed the sweet-smelling air. “What a lovely spot!” he exclaimed.
Gratified, even more than if he had praised her, Adeline said, “Isn’t it! We’re thankful that Jalna isn’t near the development schemes. And with five hundred acres we’re pretty safe.”
“What about Roma?” he asked, as though the subject fascinated him.
“Well, you’ve just heard about her, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been hearing about her for two years.”
She opened her eyes at him. “Really? Not from me, surely.”
“Yes. You often mentioned her in your letters. You probably have no idea how often.”
“I’m surprised because I didn’t know I was a bit interested in Roma. And I wasn’t — not till she did this thing to Patience.”
“Patience?”
Adeline spoke with some heat now. “Don’t pretend, Mait, that you don’t know who Patience is.”
“Ah, yes — she’s your Aunt Meg’s daughter. I remember. There are a good many of you, you know.”
They were almost at the stables. Adeline said hurriedly: “Patience is a darling. We all love her. She’s not pretty. She’s rather too big and a little clumsy-looking but perfectly lovely with animals. She has a regular job on the farm, helping Uncle Piers. He says she’s better with an ailing young one than any man.”
“She sounds a good sort,” said Fitzturgis tranquilly.
“Oh, she is! She’s wonderful.” Adeline halted and looked him in the eyes, her own shadowed by puzzlement at what she disclosed. “Then Roma did this thing to her.”
“What?” He was almost smiling at her, she looked so young, so beautiful, so almost distraught.
“Roma took the boy Patience was in love with.”
Fitzturgis’s raised brows, the curve of his full lips, seemed to say, “Is that all?”
Adeline exclaimed, “Well, it was enough, wasn’t it?”
“Were Patience and the man engaged?”
“Not quite but almost. She adored him. Anyone could see that. And then Roma just reached out and took him. His name is Green.”
“Hm … what sort of fellow is he?”
Adeline’s lip curled in scorn. “You can imagine, can’t you? One who’d let himself be taken in by Roma. Weak as water — but Patience loved him. She was ready to devote her whole life to him.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Anyone could see it. Not that she went about ogling him or casting sheep’s eyes at him. She just gave one the feeling that she loved him with all her might…. Now I’ve told you let’s not talk about it any more.”
“Good,” he returned tranquilly. His eyes swept over the fine buildings of the stables. “Your horses are well