Return to Jalna. Mazo de la Roche

I do, sir,” said Rags. “And a quite bad cold Mr. Ernest caught.”

      “What I most object to,” observed Ernest, “is that it keeps the drawing-room and library so warm that we no longer feel the need for the grate fires. They were undoubtedly cheerful.”

      “We still often have one in the evening.”

      “Yes, but it’s not the same as when one comes downstairs in the morning and sees a blaze crackling on the hearth.”

      Rags spoke with that unctuous quality which Alayne detested, in his voice. “It was indeed cheerful, sir. And I never grumbled at carrying the coals or wood, did I?”

      “Indeed you didn’t.”

      Alayne rose abruptly. “I must go to the children,” she said. “They will come to the table without washing unless I oversee them.”

      “Speaking of the children, ma’am,” said Rags, “I have a note ’ere from Master Archer’s teacher. I met her on the road and she ’anded it to me.”

      “Why didn’t you give it to me before?” asked Alayne.

      “W’y, ma’am, I should think you’d know. Everything was knocked right out of me ’ead by the behaviour of that there oil ’eater.”

      What an impudent way of speaking the man had, thought Alayne. She gave him an icy look as she took the note. She read:

      Dear Mrs. Whiteoak,

      I do so dislike to complain of dear little Archer, but he has been very late for school every morning this week and yesterday he did not appear till afternoon. This is very bad for his work which, as you know, is uneven.

      He is so clever in some ways. But …

      “Is anything wrong?” interrupted Nicholas.

      “No — not exactly.”

      “You look very disturbed,” observed Ernest, peering at her. “It’s bad to get upset over minor irritations.”

      Rags was listening. To him Alayne said, “You may telephone for the repair man.” When he had left the room she exclaimed, almost tragically:

      “It’s about Archer. He has been playing truant again. Really, I don’t know what to do about him.”

      “Boarding school is the place for boys,” growled Nicholas. “The Spartan life there makes men of them.”

      Ernest said, “You are not severe enough with Archer. You should give him a punishment he’d remember.”

      Alayne loved her son with an almost painful devotion, painful because he fell so short of being what she would have him, fell so short of the large nobility of her father whom he physically resembled. She said:

      “Miss Pink is not the type of teacher to hold Archer’s interest. She is far too old-fashioned.”

      The door opened and the boy of eight years came into the room. He looked at his elders with an air of profound pessimism. As this was his habitual expression it roused no concern. He had a high white forehead, clear-cut features, a rather thin face but a sturdy body and legs. His eyes were intensely blue, his hair very fair, straight, and dry. He stood planted in the middle of the room, as though inviting attack.

      “Now then, sir,” said Ernest, “what about these complaints of you?”

      “We know what you’ve been up to,” added Nicholas. “So there is no use in hedging.”

      “I don’t like going to school,” said Archer. “It makes me tired.”

      His mother looked at him anxiously. “Archer, when you say school makes you tired, do you mean it makes you tired in a slangy sense or do you mean that it tires you?”

      Archer looked as though he had the weight of the universe on his shoulders as he considered this. Then he replied:

      “Miss Pink makes me tired and lessons tire me.”

      Nicholas slapped his thigh. “Good man! You’ve explained it perfectly.”

      “Don’t praise him,” said Ernest. “It’s bad for him when he’s been obstreperous.”

      “A little praise hurts no one,” returned Nicholas.

      “But he should not be praised for a cheeky answer.”

      “I don’t think Archer intended to be that,” said Alayne.

      Ernest fixed a penetrating look on Archer. “Which did you intend,” he demanded, “to be cheeky or clever?”

      “Both,” Archer answered promptly.

      “We are getting nowhere,” said Alayne. “Archer had better come up to my room with me,” She rose and took the little boy’s hand.

      “A swishing is what he needs.” Ernest clenched his delicate white hand, as though it held the implement of chastisement. “Perhaps Finch would do it for you.”

      “Why doesn’t Roma see that he gets to school?” asked Nicholas. “Where is Roma?”

      Roma was standing just outside the door with her ear to the keyhole. She drew back as Alayne and Archer came out. Alayne asked suspiciously:

      “What are you doing here, Roma?”

      “Waiting for Archer.”

      Roma spoke in a quiet little voice, and she had a quiet little face, an air as though she consciously made herself someone to pass unnoticed. When she was just old enough to run about she had been brought to Jalna, the fruit of dead Eden’s connection with Minny Ware, an English girl. The child had been conceived in Rome whence came her name. She had known, almost from the first, that Alayne did not like her. She did not like Alayne. Roma was not shrinking or timid. If she had a self-effacing air, it was because she chose to be so. At eleven she looked more than two years younger than Adeline. To judge by her limbs she might later be tall but now was small for her age. She had an odd charm, with her glistening fair hair, her narrow strange-coloured eyes, her high cheek bones and the sensitive full-lipped mouth which she had got from her father.

      “Are you sure you were not listening at the door, Roma?” asked Alayne.

      “Quite sure.” Roma smiled a little.

      “That question was not intended to be amusing,” Alayne said sternly.

      Roma took the smile from her face.

      “I want you both to come in here with me.” Alayne led the children into the sitting room.

      They stood facing her where she seated herself, looking imperviously small and innocent. Roma thought, “She has heaps of lines in her forehead when she’s worried. Why should she care if Archer goes to school? He won’t do what Miss Pink says. He won’t do what she says. He won’t mind anyone but Adeline. I wonder if I dare smile again.” The smile flickered across her lips.

      “Roma,” said Alayne, “you knew very well that you were doing wrong in letting Archer play truant. You are older. You should guide him to do right.”

      “He won’t let me.”

      “You should have told me he was not at school.”

      “That would be telling tales.”

      “Archer must be told of, when he does anything so wrong as this.”

      “I’m hungry,” said Archer. “Could I have my tea?”

      “Yes. But no cake. No jam. Just salad and bread.”

      “Salad gives me indigestion.”

      “Then you may have an egg.”

      “Thank you, Mother.” He spoke in a sweet soothing voice. He got on to her lap and laid his cheek against hers.