The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Read Online Free PDF Page A

sufficiently mellow whole. But it was not the noble pile she had described and at a glance he could see signs of dilapidations. Not even its rich cloak of ivy concealed the crumbling stonework.
    Adeline craned her neck in delight to see every bit of it.
    “Oh, Philip,” she cried, “isn’t it a lovely house?”
    “It is indeed.”
    “Your sister’s little house is nothing, compared to it.”
    “Augusta’s house was built in the time of Queen Anne.”
    “Who cares for Queen Anne!” laughed Adeline. “Queen Anne is dead and so is that stuffy cathedral town. Oh, give me the country! Give me Ireland! Give me my old home!” Tears rained down her cheeks.
    “I’ll give you a smack,” said Philip, “if you don’t control yourself. No wonder you’re thin.”
    “Oh, why did I marry a phlegmatic Englishman!” she exclaimed. “I expected you to go into raptures over the place.”
    “Then you expected me to behave like a fool which I am not.”
    They had now stopped before the door and a half-dozen tame deer had sauntered up to see them alight from the carriage. Adeline declared that she could recognize each one and that they remembered her.
    The footman who opened the door was in handsome livery though rather too tight for him. He greeted Adeline enthusiastically.
    “Ah, God bless you, Miss Adeline! It’s grand to see ye back. My, ’tis yourself has got thin in the body! What have they been doing to you out yonder? And is this lovely gentleman your husband? Welcome, sir, y’r honour. Come right in. Patsy, look after the luggage o’ thim and be quick about it.” He turned then and shouted at three dogs which had begun to bark loudly.
    Philip felt suddenly self-conscious. He did not quite know how to meet his wife’s family. All she had told him of them made them seem less, rather than more, real. He was prepared not to like them, to find them critical of him, yet the tall gentleman who now came quickly down the stairway held out his hand with a genial smile.
    “How d’ye do, Captain Whiteoak,” he said, taking Philip’s finger in a thin muscular grasp. “Welcome to Ireland. I’m very glad to see you, sir. I apologize for not going to the station myself but I had a wearisome business at the Courthouse that must be attended to.… And now, my girl, let’s have a look at you!”
    He took Adeline in his arms and kissed her. Philip then had a good look at him.
    Adeline had spoken of her father, Renny Court, as a fine figure of a man, but to Philip’s mind his back was too thin and certainly not flat enough at the shoulders, and his legs were not quite straight. It was amusing to see how Adeline’s lovely features had been modeled on this man’s bony aquiline face. And his hair must once have been auburn too, for there was a rusty tinge across the grey of his head. Certainly his eyes were hers.
    Philip became conscious that others had come into the hall, a woman somewhat beyond middle age, and three youths.
    “Oh, Mother, here I am!” Adeline turned from her father and flung her arms about her mother.
    Lady Honoria Court still retained beauty of a Spanish type which had been handed down in her family since the days of the Armada when a Spanish don had remained to marry an ancestress. Honoria was a daughter of the old Marquis of Killiekeggan, who, with the famous Marquis of Waterford, had raised the sport of steeplechasing from a not very respectable one to its present eminence.
    One of the dogs, an Irish staghound, raised itself on its hind legs against the ayah, in order to look into Gussie’s face. Both nurse and child shrieked in terror. Renny Court ran across the hall, caught the hound by its heavily studded collar and, dragging it away, cuffed it.
    “Did you ever see such a dog!” cried Lady Honoria. “He does so love children! What a sweet baby! We have a man in the town who takes the loveliest daguerreotypes. You must have one made of her while you are here, Adeline.”
    Lady Honoria laughed a