Growth of a Man. Mazo de la Roche

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      GROWTH OF A MAN

      BOOKS BY

      MAZO DE LA ROCHE

      *

      YOUNG RENNY (JALNA—1906)

      JALNA

      WHITEOAKS OF JALNA

      FINCH’S FORTUNE

      THE MASTER OF JALNA

      WHITEOAK HARVEST

      *

      LOW LIFE AND OTHER PLAYS

      PORTRAIT OF A DOG

      LARK ASCENDING

      BESIDE A NORMAN TOWER

      THE VERY HOUSE

      GROWTH OF A MAN

      Growth of a Man

       By

      MAZO DE LA ROCHE

      COPYRIGHT 1938, BY MAZO DE LA ROCHE

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT

       TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PORTIONS

       THEREOF IN ANY FORM

      FIRST EDITION

       Published September 1938

      THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOOKS

       ARE PUBLISHED BY

       LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY

       IN ASSOCIATION WITH

       THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

       For Helen and Alfred McIntyre

      GROWTH OF A MAN

       CHAPTER I

      LITTLE SHAW MANIFOLD stood at his grandfather’s side watching the train steam out of the railway station. In the train was his mother, going away from him as fast as whirling iron wheels and pounding steel pistons could carry her. The locomotive whistled and flew a black banner in triumph. As the train rounded the curve Shaw had a last glimpse of his mother’s face at a window. It was only a white disc, getting smaller and smaller, and a handkerchief fluttered beside it. He knew that the handkerchief was wet because he had seen her dabbing her eyes with it, all the way to the station.

      He did not wave back at her. His arms felt heavy and his mind dull. Neither did his grandfather, Roger Gower, wave. The old man stood solid and imperturbable, his wide-open, china-blue eyes staring above his massive grizzled beard. His hands, leathery and thickened by hard work, hung impassively at his sides. Shaw glanced up at him furtively, then away again. In that instant the train sped into insignificance, the face at the window vanished. He had not waved a good-bye to his mother! He had not waved . . . and she was gone!

      “Come along,” said his grandfather. “We can’t stand gaping here all day.” The voice came out of the beard, muffled and indistinct, like the mutter of a lion in a jungle, Shaw thought.

      He trudged after his grandfather, a small boy in a pair of heavy cloth trousers cut down from a man’s, a jacket too short for him, and a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep off the heat of the early summer sun. From under its brim his eyes looked out, with an expression guarded yet wistful. They were a greyish hazel, the eyebrows almost without arch and surprisingly thick. His nose was blunt, his mouth set and rather ugly except when he smiled. There was a sweetness in his smile and his teeth were white and even. His skin had a thick, creamy pallor that neither burned nor freckled in the sun nor chapped in the biting cold of the Ontario winter.

      He trudged after his grandfather, their heavy boots clumping on the station platform. The stationmaster came out of the weather-stained frame station and said affably:—

      “I see your daughter’s gone away, Mr. Gower.”

      “Hm, yes,” came the voice out of the beard; “she’s gone.”

      “You’ll miss her, after all these years.”

      “Hm, yes, I s’pose so. We’ve got plenty left at home.”

      “The boy’s growing.”

      “Yes, he’s coming on.” Roger Gower moved past, resentment of the questioning in every line of his short, thick figure.

      The bay mare, Nellie, was tied to the station hitching post. She bit at its already well-gnawed top in impatience and stamped the hot gravel. A bevy of flies spun about the liquid depths of her eyes, fretting her, so that she flung her head, making the rusty harness rattle.

      Roger Gower climbed heavily into the buggy whose wheels were still caked with last week’s mud. It clung to the body of the buggy, hard as cement. Shaw clambered up after him and the mare, with a toss of her head more exasperated than grateful, stretched her long legs over the dusty road. The year was 1895 and no motor vehicle had yet disturbed the maple-shaded main street of Thorriton.

      It was a pretty village in those days, its houses set well back from the road, vines shielding the porches and flower borders peeping between the white palings of the picket fences. It was a mysterious place to Shaw. The buggy moved so fast that he was not able to see all he wanted to. He turned his head to stare back at the colored glass bottles in the drugstore window. A sense of power came to him from their translucent green and blue depths. He would like to be a druggist and have such things in his possession.

      Not a word was exchanged between the two during the return to the farm. But the silence was not one of understanding. To Shaw his grandfather was a remote and powerful being, one toward whom he felt fear but no admiration. He would not be like him when he grew up. No—nor like his uncles!

      For Roger Gower the child at his side scarcely existed. His mind moved in its customary routine of crops, of ploughing, sowing, and reaping, of felling trees and fattening cattle, without a thought of the potentialities of this son of his daughter. He held the black whip in his hand but there was no need to use it except to flick at the flies that settled on the mare’s moist hide.

      Shaw folded his hands between his knees and considered the possibilities of having the afternoon to himself. It was Saturday, so there was no school, but there was always some job waiting for him, some work that he hated. He hated all physical work. He wanted only to read, to think about what he had read, to invent a secret life of thought for himself, and, when he had the chance, to play with his friend, Ian Blair. He kept his mind resolutely away from the thought of his mother.

      Still, though he did not think of her, tears began to run down his cheeks and he lowered his head so that the brim of his hat might hide them.

      The mare flung out her hoofs and picked them up again. Once in the country she gave her whole muscular body to the business of regaining her stall. In anticipation she tasted the oats and her big breast fairly burst in her haste.

      The fruitful fields were already showing their wheat and barley crops. The tall wheat stood strong and verdant. In the orchards the apples had set into sour green promise of the sweet fruit to come. The white gate at the end of the farm lane stood open. The mare turned into the lane so recklessly that Roger Gower exclaimed, “Whoa!” and jerked at the rein.

      “Get out and shut the gate.” His voice came, thick and commanding, through his beard.

      Shaw was conscious that he spoke, but his mind was far away.

      He got a tap on the knee from the butt of the whip. “Wake up! Shut the gate!”

      He