Free 02 Morning at Jalna by Mazo de La Roche

warn you, Tite Sharrow, to be careful what you’re up to.”
    Tite lifted the oars, from which a delicate rain of clear drops slid back into the river. He called, in his soft voice, “I’m only taking Annabelle for a little boat ride. She’d never been in a boat.”
    “Does your mistress know you’re doing this, Belle?” called out Adeline.
    The girl burst out laughing. “Ah’ll tell her, Miss Whiteoak. Don’ you worry. Ah’ll tell her.”
    As Adeline stood there she felt the moisture from the wet earth rise between her toes. Her shoes were sodden wet. She did not mind. In curiosity her eyes followed the boat as it moved mysteriously up the river between the misty green banks. The half-breed and the mulatto. What was between them? She must warn Lucy Sinclair and James Wilmott of the danger to Annabelle. Yet how boldly Annabelle had spoken — and shown all her white teeth in laughter! Doubtless she was a hussy.
    Adeline herself was laughing as she followed the path to Wilmott’s open door. She could glimpse him sitting at a table writing. He looked serene, absorbed in what he was doing. Yet he heard her laugh and raised his head. The sight of her, the sound of her laughter, made his pulse quicken.
    “Good morning to you,” she said.
    He sprang to his feet. “Mrs. Whiteoak,” he exclaimed.
    “Am I not Adeline — James?”
    “I try not to call you that,” he said, “or to think of you as that.”
    “Yet,” she smiled, “I don’t feel in the least guilty when I think of you as James or call you James.”
    “It’s different.”
    “But why different?”
    “I belong to no one.”
    She considered this. Then — “I refuse to belong so completely to anyone that I cannot call a friend by his Christian name — especially such a solemn sweet name as James.” She came into the room.
    “Dear James,” she said, “forgive me if I have interrupted your study. What is the book?”
    “I have a habit,” he said, “of copying into this notebook extracts from what I have read — bits that have particularly impressed me.”
    “How fascinating!” she cried. “May I see?” She bent over the page.
    Wilmott tried not to look at her milk-white nape. No man could be expected to look at it and not desire to touch it. Adeline read, “‘The uttered part of a man’s life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small unknown proportion. He himself never knows it, much less do others.’”
    “Thomas Carlyle,” said Wilmott.
    Adeline raised her head to give him an admiring look. “How clever you are!” she breathed.
    “Do you agree with Carlyle?” Wilmott asked.
    “It’s quite beyond me.” She spoke humbly. “But if you agree, I do also, James.”
    He gave an ironic chuckle. “That’s news to me,” he said.
    Folding her arms across her chest she said, in the voice of a conspirator, “Things are coming to a head, James. Our plans are laid for a brilliant coup.”
    Wilmott closed the door into the kitchen.
    “Don’t worry about Tite,” she laughed. “He’s up the river with Annabelle.”
    “That young woman,” said Wilmott, “has a good influence on Tite. He used to be something of a cynic in his superficial way. But now he studies the Scriptures. When they are together they speak only of religion, he tells me. In short, I think he has done some soul searching.”
    “My dear James,” said Adeline. “You are so credulous.”
    “Credulous!” He was affronted.
    “What I mean is, it’s a good thing you have me to protect you.” She took a turn about the room, her mind brimming with the plans afoot. So eager she was that the Sinclairs had confided all to her.
    “As for protecting,” said Wilmott, “I think it is you who need protection.”
    “Oh, I am enjoying myself,” she said gaily. “I thrive on excitement. James, do you never get carried away by your feelings?”
    “I’m afraid I do.”
    “Ah, I should like to see that.”
    “Adeline,” he said almost