03 Mary Wakefield by Mazo de La Roche Read Free Book Online

a deal of his in extravagant living. You don’t keep horses and a dashing brougham and a socially-minded wife in London for nothing. Thank goodness, Nicholas was free of her now. Of course, divorce was a pretty disgraceful thing but it was she who’d run off and left Nicholas, not Nicholas her. The one visit she’d made to Jalna had been an irritation. She’d been so damn supercilious, and it had ended in a quarrel between her and Mamma. … Now, Ernest was a different sort of fellow. He was shrewd. Financial investments that were so much Greek to Philip, were as child’s play to old Ernie. It looked as though he might become a very rich man. Philip thought of him with respect.
    Out on the smoothly gravelled drive he saw a dog-cart and, just alighting from it, his father-in-law, Dr. Ramsey. He was a Scotsman by birth, a man almost seventy, but still attending to a quite large and scattered country practice. He was a spare man with a bony and well-proportioned frame, a critical manner and a vigorous belief in the absolute rightness of his own opinions. He regarded his son-in-law with a mingled affection and disapproval. He had been deeply gratified when his daughter, Margaret, an only child, had married Philip. There had been no better match in the province, in his opinion. But Philip’s easy-going ways, his indolent carriage, the very slight impediment in his speech which, in the opinion of some women, only added to his charm, were sources of irritation to Dr. Ramsey. Philip was not the man his father, Captain Whiteoak, of the Queen’s Own Hussars, had been.
    The death of his daughter had been a great blow to the doctor. He had himself attended her in her illness and the end had been terribly unexpected. He had strained every nerve to save her. Since her death he felt, in the secret recesses of his heart, that as his skill had failed to save her, he must do all in his power to keep her place in Philip’s affections vacant. In some strange way that would reconcile his spirit to her early demise. She had been a jealous girl who could not endure that Philip should give an admiring glance at any other, though why she should have minded such a small thing, Doctor Ramsey could not understand, for she had been as clever and handsome a girl as there was in the countryside. That neither of her children resembled her he deeply resented. He took it as a personal injury. Meg took after the Whiteoaks and the boy seemed to have gone out of the way to reproduce the physical traits of his Irish grandmother. Not that the doctor did not admire Adeline Whiteoak. She was a fine-looking woman but, if the boy were going to resemble a grandparent, why not him?
    “Good morning,” Philip called out, in his full, genial tones.
    “Good morning,” Dr. Ramsey, though he had been in Canada forty-five years, spoke with a considerable Scottish accent. “It’s a beautiful day.”
    Philip could see him feeling about in his mind for an appropriate quotation from Robert Burns, as a man might feel in his pocket for a coin of the right size. Now he had it and smiled as he declaimed:
    “‘The voice of Nature loudly cries,
    And many a message from the skies, That something in us never dies.’”
    “True,” agreed Philip. “Very true. It’s fine growing weather. We should have good crops.”
    The doctor took him by the coat lapel. “This country,” he said, “is in for trouble, if prices continue to rise. I’ve been shopping this morning and what do you suppose I paid for bacon? Thirteen cents a pound! It’s ridiculous. Eggs fifteen cents a dozen instead of a cent a piece! Butter twenty cents a pound! Ruin lies ahead if —”
    Philip interrupted, “Now, look here, sir, why will you buy those things when you know very well that they are produced right here on the farm and you’re welcome to all you need?”
    “I didn’t buy any,” said the doctor. “I only priced them.”
    He was quite willing to accept these favours, rightly feeling