The World of Jennie G. by Elisabeth Ogilvie

Author:Elisabeth Ogilvie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781608936151
Publisher: Down East Books

Twenty-Nine

MRS. MACKENZIE was spoken of with respect and affection while the family settled happily down to do things they couldn’t do when she was at home. The girls were allowed to ride their ponies bareback around the meadow, and Tony was given time to take them riding outside the grounds.

Eliza took them at high tide to a little beach on the creek, where they played with other children, paddling, sailing boats, and skimming flat pebbles across the water in games of ducks and drakes. They had been frantic to play with some Highland children ever since they’d seen them arrive, and now they had permission to entertain at a picnic supper in the orchard; Nabby passed on the invitation and brought three little girls between six and ten in age. No one could be shy for long with Sukey and Frank, and the experiment proved that with encouragement Highland children could be as noisy as bom Yankees. They learned Indian war whoops in no time at all.

Tony went openly at night to a house on the creek end of Main Street, where he played duets with Mr. Porter, the tailor. The General entertained certain old comrades of much lower rank, including Joseph Pulsifer; they played cards, billiards, talked, drank rum punch, and ate the hearty late suppers Mrs. Frost left for them. Between these sessions the General dined at houses in and out of town where Lydia MacKenzie never went.

He had intended to send the barouche to Tenby to bring back his daughter Christian and his grandson for a visit, but with the outbreak of cholera infantum in town, the idea had to be given up. The General was too busy being sociable to be disappointed for long.

Jennie practiced for the proposed musical evenings, though she wasn’t sure that even one would take place. But she had a good excuse for playing. Once when Tony came home from riding with the girls while she was there, they played duets with melodies they both knew. The girls, Eliza, and Mrs. Frost were their audience, so he couldn’t talk to Jennie about Mairi, but she knew he wanted to; he approached it when he played almost perfectly the song Mairi had sung to Jared. He had heard it only once.

“What is it?” he asked Jennie. “A lullaby, a farewell—what? I can’t tell whether it is sad or hopeful.”

“It can mean whatever you are feeling at the time perhaps,” said Jennie. “We don’t know the language, so it can mean anything.” But she had recognized the words of endearment in it and knew they could have been equally for a child, a lover, or the memory of the dead. “It is most likely to be a lullaby,” she said. “What else would she be singing to quiet a child?”

Alick went to the tailor, finally, because his breeches were wearing thin, and he consented to have two pairs made. Mr. and Mrs. Porter both did the tailoring, and they looked curiously alike. Choosing a good serviceable worsted should have been easy, but Alick’s Olympian detachment made it awkward.

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