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Title: Emily's Quest (1927)
Author: L M Montgomery
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook
Title: Emily's Quest (1927)
Author: L M Montgomery
Chapter I
"No more cambric-tea" had Emily Byrd Starr written in her diary
when she came home to New Moon from Shrewsbury, with high school
days behind her and immortality before her.
Which was a symbol. When Aunt Elizabeth Murray permitted Emily to
drink real tea--as a matter of course and not as an occasional
concession--she thereby tacitly consented to let Emily grow up.
Emily had been considered grownup by other people for some time,
especially by Cousin Andrew Murray and Friend Perry Miller, each of
whom had asked her to marry him and been disdainfully refused for
his pains. When Aunt Elizabeth found this out she knew it was no
use to go on making Emily drink cambric-tea. Though, even then,
Emily had no real hope that she would ever be permitted to wear
silk stockings. A silk petticoat might be tolerated, being a
hidden thing, in spite of its seductive rustle, but silk stockings
were immoral.
So Emily, of whom it was whispered somewhat mysteriously by people
who knew her to people who didn't know her, "she WRITES," was
accepted as one of the ladies of New Moon, where nothing had ever
changed since her coming there seven years before and where the
carved ornament on the sideboard still cast the same queer shadow
of an Ethiopian silhouette on exactly the same place on the wall
where she had noticed it delightedly on her first evening there.
An old house that had lived its life long ago and so was very quiet
and wise and a little mysterious. Also a little austere, but very
kind. Some of the Blair Water and Shrewsbury people thought it was
a dull place and outlook for a young girl and said she had been
very foolish to refuse Miss Royal's offer of "a position on a
magazine" in New York. Throwing away such a good chance to make
something of herself! But Emily, who had very clear-cut ideas of
what she was going to make of herself, did not think life would be
dull at New Moon or that she had lost her chance of Alpine climbing
because she had elected to stay there.
She belonged by right divine to the Ancient and Noble Order of
Story-tellers. Born thousands of years earlier she would have sat
in the circle around the fires of the tribe and enchanted her
listeners. Born in the foremost files of time she must reach her
audience through many artificial mediums.
But the materials of story weaving are the same in all ages and all
places. Births, deaths, marriages, scandals--these are the only
really interesting things in the world. So she settled down very
determinedly and happily to her pursuit of fame and fortune--and of
something that was neither. For writing, to Emily Byrd Starr, was
not primarily a matter of worldly lucre or laurel crown. It was
something she HAD to do. A thing--an idea--whether of beauty or
ugliness, tortured her until it was "written out." Humorous and
dramatic by instinct, the comedy and tragedy of life enthralled her
and demanded expression through her pen. A world of lost but
immortal dreams, lying just beyond the drop-curtain of the real,
called to her for embodiment and interpretation--called with a
voice she could not--dared not--disobey.
She was filled with youth's joy in mere existence. Life was for
ever luring and beckoning her onward. She knew that a hard
struggle was before her; she knew that she must constantly offend
Blair Water neighbours who would want her to write obituaries
for them and who, if she used an unfamiliar word would say
contemptuously that she was "talking big;" she knew there would be
rejection slips galore; she knew there would be days when she would
feel despairingly that she could not write and that it was of no
use to try; days when the editorial phrase, "not necessarily a
reflection on its merits," would get on her nerves to such an
extent that she would feel like imitating Marie Bashkirtseff and
hurling the taunting, ticking, remorseless sitting-room clock out
of the window; days when everything she had done or tried to do
would slump--become mediocre and despicable; days when she would be
tempted to bitter disbelief in her fundamental conviction that
there was as much truth in the poetry of life as in the prose; days
when the echo of that "random word" of the gods, for which she so
avidly listened, would only seem to taunt her with its suggestions
of unattainable perfection and loveliness beyond the reach of
mortal ear or pen.
She knew that Aunt Elizabeth tolerated but never approved her mania
for scribbling. In her last two years in Shrewsbury High School
Emily, to Aunt Elizabeth's almost incredulous amazement, had
actually earned some money by her verses and stories. Hence the
toleration. But no Murray had ever done such a thing before. And
there was always that sense, which Dame Elizabeth Murray did not
like, of being shut out of something. Aunt Elizabeth really
resented the fact that Emily had another world, apart from the
world of New Moon and Blair Water, a kingdom starry and
illimitable, into which she could enter at will and into which not
even the most determined and suspicious of aunts could follow her.
I really think that if Emily's eyes had not so often seemed to be
looking at something dreamy and lovely and secretive Aunt Elizabeth
might have had more sympathy with her ambitions. None of us, not
even self-sufficing Murrays of New Moon, like to be barred out.
II
Those of you who have already followed Emily through her years of
New Moon and Shrewsbury* must have a tolerable notion what she
looked like. For those of you to whom she comes as a stranger let
me draw a portrait of her as she seemed to the outward eye at the
enchanted portal of seventeen, walking where the golden
chrysanthemums lighted up an old autumnal, maritime garden. A
place of peace, that garden of New Moon. An enchanted pleasaunce,
full of rich, sensuous colours and wonderful spiritual shadows.
Scents of pine and rose were in it; boom of bees, threnody of wind,
murmurs of the blue Atlantic gulf; and always the soft sighing of
the firs in Lofty John Sullivan's "bush" to the north of it. Emily
loved every flower and shadow and sound in it, every beautiful old
tree in and around it, especially her own intimate, beloved trees--
a cluster of wild cherries in the south-west corner, Three
Princesses of Lombardy, a certain maiden-like wild plum on the
brook path, the big spruce in the centre of the garden, a silver
maple and a pine farther on, an aspen in another corner always
coquetting with gay little winds, and a whole row of stately white
birches in Lofty John's bush.
* See Emily of New Moon and Emily Climbs.
Emily was always glad that she lived where there were many trees--
old ancestral trees, planted and tended by hands long dead, bound
up with everything of joy and sorrow that visited the lives in
their shadows.
A slender, virginal young thing. Hair like black silk. Purplish-
grey eyes, with violet shadows under them that always seemed darker
and more alluring after Emily had sat up to some unholy and un-
Elizabethan hour completing a story or working out the skeleton of
a plot; scarlet lips with a Murray-like crease at the corners; ears
with Puckish, slightly pointed tips. Perhaps it was the crease and
the ears that made certain people think her something of a puss.
An exquisite line of chin and neck; a smile with a trick in it;
such a slow-blossoming thing with a sudden radiance of fulfilment.
And ankles that scandalous old Aunt Nancy Priest of Priest Pond
commended. Faint stains of rose in her rounded cheeks that
sometimes suddenly deepened to crimson. Very little could bring
that transforming flush--a wind off the sea, a sudden glimpse of
blue upland, a flame-red poppy, white sails going out of the
harbour in the magic of morning, gulf-waters silver under the moon,
a Wedgwood-blue columbine in the old orchard. Or a certain whistle
in Lofty John's bush.
With all this--pretty? I cannot tell you. Emily was never
mentioned when Blair Water beauties were being tabulated. But no
one who looked upon her face ever forgot it. No one, meeting Emily
the second time ever had to say "Er--your face seems familiar but--"
Generations of lovely women were behind her. They had all given
her something of personality. She had the grace of running water.
Something, too, of its sparkle and limpidity. A thought swayed her
like a strong wind. An emotion shook her as a tempest shakes a
rose. She was one of those vital creatures of whom, when they do
die, we say it seems impossible that they can be dead. Against the
background of her practical, sensible clan she shone like a diamond
flame. Many people liked her, many disliked her. No one was ever
wholly indifferent to her.
Once, when Emily had been very small, living with her father down
in the little old house at Maywood, where he had died, she had
started out to seek the rainbow's end. Over long wet fields and
hills she ran, hopeful, expectant. But as she ran the wonderful
arch was faded--was dim--was gone. Emily was alone in an alien
valley, not too sure in which direction lay home. For a moment her
lips quivered, her eyes filled. Then she lifted her face and
smiled gallantly at the empty sky.
"There will be other rainbows," she said.
Emily was a chaser of rainbows.
III
Life at New Moon had changed. She must adjust herself to it. A
certain loneliness must be reckoned with. Ilse Burnley, the madcap
pal of seven faithful years, had gone to the School of Literature
and Expression in Montreal. The two girls parted with the tears
and vows of girlhood. Never to meet on quite the same ground
again. For, disguise the fact as we will, when friends, even the
closest--perhaps the more because of that very closeness--meet
again after a separation there is always a chill, lesser or
greater, of change. Neither finds the other QUITE the same. This
is natural and inevitable. Human nature is ever growing or
retrogressing--never stationary. But still, with all our
philosophy, who of us can repress a little feeling of bewildered
disappointment when we realize that our friend is not and never can
be just the same as before--even though the change may be by way of
improvement? Emily, with the strange intuition which supplied the
place of experience, felt this as Ilse did not, and felt that in a
sense she was bidding good-bye for ever to the Ilse of New Moon
days and Shrewsbury years.
Perry Miller, too, former "hired boy" of New Moon, medalist of
Shrewsbury High School, rejected but not quite hopeless suitor of
Emily, butt of Ilse's rages, was gone. Perry was studying law in
an office in Charlottetown, with his eye fixed firmly on several
glittering legal goals. No rainbow ends--no mythical pots of gold
for Perry. He knew what HE wanted would stay put and he was going
after it. People were beginning to believe he would get it. After
all, the gulf between the law clerk in Mr. Abel's office and the
Supreme Court Bench of Canada was no wider than the gulf between
that same law clerk and the barefoot gamin of Stovepipe Town-by-
the-Harbour.
There was more of the rainbow-seeker in Teddy Kent, of the Tansy
Patch. He, too, was going. To the School of Design in Montreal.
He, too, knew--had known for years--the delight and allurement and
despair and anguish of the rainbow quest.
"Even if we never find it," he said to Emily, as they lingered in
the New Moon garden under the violet sky of a long, wondrous,
northern twilight, on the last evening before he went away,
"there's something in the search for it that's better than even the
finding would be."
"But we WILL find it," said Emily, lifting her eyes to a star that
glittered over the tip of one of the Three Princesses. Something
in Teddy's use of "we" thrilled her with its implications. Emily
was always very honest with herself and she never attempted to shut
her eyes to the knowledge that Teddy Kent meant more to her than
anyone else in the world. Whereas she--what did she mean to him?
Little? Much? Or nothing?
She was bareheaded and she had put a star-like cluster of tiny
yellow 'mums in her hair. She had thought a good deal about her
dress before she decided on her primrose silk. She thought she was
looking very well, but what difference did that make if Teddy
didn't notice it? He always took her so for granted, she thought a
little rebelliously. Dean Priest, now, would have noticed it and
paid her some subtle compliment about it.
"I don't know," said Teddy, morosely scowling at Emily's topaz-eyed
grey cat, Daffy, who was fancying himself as a skulking tiger in
the spirea thicket. "I don't know. Now that I'm really flying the
Blue Peter I feel--flat. After all--perhaps I can never do
anything worth while. A little knack of drawing--what does it
amount to? Especially when you're lying awake at three o'clock at
night?"
"Oh, I know that feeling," agreed Emily. "Last night I mulled over
a story for hours and concluded despairingly that I could NEVER
write--that it was no use to try--that I couldn't do anything
really worth while. I went to bed on that note and drenched my
pillow with tears. Woke up at three and couldn't even cry. Tears
seemed as foolish as laughter--or ambition. I was quite bankrupt
in hope and belief. And then I got up in the chilly grey dawn and
began a new story. Don't let a three-o'clock-at-night feeling fog
your soul."
"Unfortunately there's a three o'clock every night," said Teddy.
"At that ungodly hour I am always convinced that if you want things
TOO much you're not likely ever to get them. And there are two
things that I want tremendously. One, of course, is to be a great
artist. I never supposed I was a coward, Emily, but I'm afraid
now. If I don't make good! Everybody'll laugh at me. Mother will
say she knew it. She hates to see me go really, you know. To go
and fail! It would be better not to go."
"No, it wouldn't," said Emily passionately, wondering at the same
time in the back of her head what was the OTHER thing Teddy wanted
so tremendously. "You must not be afraid. Father said I wasn't to
be afraid of anything in that talk I had with him the night he
died. And isn't it Emerson who said, 'Always do what you are
afraid to do?'"
"I'll bet Emerson said that when he'd got through with being afraid
of things. It's easy to be brave when you're taking off your
harness."
"You know I believe in you, Teddy," said Emily softly.
"Yes, you do. You and Mr. Carpenter. You are the only ones who
really do believe in me. Even Ilse thinks that Perry has by far
the better chance of bringing home the bacon."
"But you are not going after bacon. You're going after rainbow
gold."
"And if I fail to find it--and disappoint you--that will be worst
of all."
"You WON'T fail. Look at that star, Teddy--the one just over the
youngest Princess. It's Vega of the Lyre. I've always loved it.
It's my dearest among the stars. Do you remember how, years ago
when you and Ilse and I sat out in the orchard on the evenings when
Cousin Jimmy was boiling pigs' potatoes, you used to spin us
wonderful tales about that star--and of a life you had lived in it
before you came to this world. There was no three o'clock in the
morning in that star."
"What happy, carefree little shavers we were those times," said
Teddy, in the reminiscent voice of a middle-aged, care-oppressed
man wistfully recalling youthful irresponsibility.
"I want you to promise me," said Emily, "that whenever you see that
star you'll remember that I am believing in you--HARD."
"Will you promise ME that whenever you look at that star you'll
think of me?" said Teddy. "Or rather, let us promise each other
that whenever we see that star we'll ALWAYS think of each other--
ALWAYS. Everywhere and as long as we live."
"I promise," said Emily, thrilled. She loved to have Teddy look at
her like that.
A romantic compact. Meaning what? Emily did not know. She only
knew that Teddy was going away--that life seemed suddenly very
blank and cold--that the wind from the gulf, sighing among the
trees in Lofty John's bush was very sorrowful--that summer had gone
and autumn had come. And that the pot of gold at the rainbow's end
was on some very far-distant hill.
Why had she said that thing about the star? Why did dusk and fir-
scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd
things?
Chapter II
I
"NEW MOON,
"NOVEMBER 18, 19--
"To-day the December number of Marchwood's came with my verses
Flying Gold in it. I consider the occasion worthy of mention in my
diary because they were given a whole page to themselves and
illustrated--the first time ever any poem of mine was so honoured.
It is trashy enough in itself, I suppose--Mr. Carpenter only
sniffed when I read it to him and refused to make any comment
whatever on it. Mr. Carpenter never 'damns with faint praise' but
he can damn with silence in a most smashing manner. But my poem
LOOKED so dignified that a careless reader might fancy there was
something in it. Blessings on the good editor who was inspired to
have it illustrated. He has bolstered up my self-respect
considerably.
"But I did not care overmuch for the illustration itself. The
artist did not catch my meaning at all. Teddy would have done
better.
"Teddy is doing splendidly at the School of Design. And Vega
shines brilliantly every night. I wonder if he really does always
think of me when he sees it. Or if he ever does see it. Perhaps
the electric lights of Montreal blot it out. He seems to see a
good bit of Ilse. It's awfully nice for them to know each other in
that big city of strangers."
II
"NOVEMBER 26, 19--
"To-day was a glamorous November afternoon--summer-mild and autumn-
sweet. I sat and read a long while in the pond burying-ground.
Aunt Elizabeth thinks this a most gruesome place to sit in and
tells Aunt Laura that she is afraid there's a morbid streak in me.
I can't see anything morbid about it. It's a beautiful spot where
wild, sweet odours are always coming across Blair Water on the
wandering winds. And so quiet and peaceful, with the old graves
all about me--little green hillocks with small frosted ferns
sprinkled over them. Men and women of my house are lying there.
Men and women who had been victorious--men and women who had been
defeated--and their victory and defeat are now one. I never can
feel either much exalted or much depressed there. The sting and
the tang alike go out of things. I like the old, old red sandstone
slabs, especially the one for Mary Murray with its 'Here I Stay'--
the inscription into which her husband put all the concealed venom
of a lifetime. His grave is right beside hers and I feel sure they
have forgiven each other long ago. And perhaps they come back
sometimes in the dark o' the moon and look at the inscription and
laugh at it. It is growing a little dim with tiny lichens. Cousin
Jimmy has given up scraping them away. Some day they will overgrow
it so that it will be nothing but a green-and-red-and-silver smear
on the old red stone."
"DEC. 20, 19--
"Something nice happened to-day. I feel pleasantly exhilarated.
Madison's took my story, A Flaw in the Indictment!!!! Yes, it
deserves some exclamation-points after it to a certainty. If it
were not for Mr. Carpenter I would write it in italics. Italics!
Nay, I'd use capitals. It is very hard to get in there. Don't I
know! Haven't I tried repeatedly and gained nothing for my pains
but a harvest of 'we-regrets?' And at last it has opened its doors
to me. To be in Madison's is a clear and unmistakable sign that
you're getting somewhere on the Alpine path. The dear editor was
kind enough to say it was a charming story.
"Nice man!
"He sent me a cheque for fifty dollars. I'll soon be able to begin
to repay Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace what they spent on me in
Shrewsbury. Aunt Elizabeth as usual looked at the cheque
suspiciously but for the first time forebore to wonder if the bank
would really cash it. Aunt Laura's beautiful blue eyes beamed with
pride. Aunt Laura's eyes really do beam. She is one of the
Victorians. Edwardian eyes glitter and sparkle and allure but they
never beam. And somehow I do like beaming eyes--especially when
they beam over my success.
"Cousin Jimmy says that Madison's is worth all the other Yankee
magazines put together in HIS opinion.
"I wonder if Dean Priest will like A Flaw in the Indictment. And
if he will say so. He NEVER praises anything I write nowadays.
And I feel such a craving to COMPEL him to. I feel that his is the
only commendation, apart from Mr. Carpenter's, that is worth
anything.
"It's odd about Dean. In some mysterious way he seems to be
growing younger. A few years ago I thought of him as quite old.
Now he seems only middle-aged. If this keeps up he'll soon be a
mere youth. I suppose the truth is that my mind is beginning to
mature a bit and I'm catching up with him. Aunt Elizabeth doesn't
like my friendship with him any more than she ever did. Aunt
Elizabeth has a well-marked antipathy to any Priest. But I don't
know what I'd do without Dean's friendship. It's the very salt of
life."
"JANUARY 15, 19--
"To-day was stormy. I had a white night last night after four
rejections of MSS. I had thought especially good. As Miss Royal
predicted, I felt that I had been an awful idiot not to have gone
to New York with her when I had the chance. Oh, I don't wonder
babies always cry when they wake up in the night. So often I want
to do it, too. Everything presses on my soul then and no cloud has
a silver lining. I was blue and disgruntled all the forenoon and
looked forward to the coming of the mail as the one possible rescue
from the doldrums. There is always such a fascinating expectancy
and uncertainty about the mail. What would it bring me? A letter
from Teddy--Teddy writes the most delightful letters. A nice thin
envelope with a cheque? A fat one woefully eloquent of more
rejected MSS.? One of Ilse's fascinating scrawls? Nothing of the
sort. Merely an irate epistle from Second-cousin-once-removed
Beulah Grant of Derry Pond, who is furious because she thinks I
'put her' into my story Fools of Habit, which has just been copied
into a widely circulated Canadian farm paper. She wrote me a
bitterly reproachful letter which I received to-day. She thinks I
'might have spared an old friend who has always wished me well.'
She is 'not accustomed to being ridiculed in the newspapers' and
will I, in future, be so kind as to refrain from making her the
butt of my supposed wit in the public press. Second-cousin-once-
removed Beulah wields a facile pen of her own, when it comes to
that, and while certain things in her letter hurt me other parts
infuriated me. I never once even THOUGHT of Cousin Beulah when I
wrote that story. The character of Aunt Kate is purely imaginary.
And if I HAD thought of Cousin Beulah I most certainly wouldn't
have put HER in a story. She is too stupid and commonplace. And
she isn't a bit like Aunt Kate, who is, I flattered myself, a
vivid, snappy, humorous old lady.
"But Cousin Beulah wrote to Aunt Elizabeth too, and we have had a
family ruction. Aunt Elizabeth won't believe I am guiltless--she
declares Aunt Kate is an exact picture of Cousin Beulah and she
politely requests me--Aunt Elizabeth's polite requests are awesome
things--NOT to caricature my relatives in my future productions.
"'It is not,' said Aunt Elizabeth in her stateliest manner, 'a
thing ANY Murray should do--make money out of the peculiarities of
her friends.'
"It was just another of Miss Royal's predictions fulfilled. Oh,
was she as right about everything else? If she was--
"But the worst slam of all came from Cousin Jimmy, who had chuckled
over Fools of Habit.
"'Never mind old Beulah, pussy,' he whispered. 'That was fine.
You certainly did her up brown in Aunt Kate. I recognized her
before I'd read a page. Knew her by her nose.' There you are! I
unluckily happened to dower Aunt Kate with a 'long, drooping nose.'
Nor can it be denied that Cousin Beulah's nose is long AND
drooping. People have been hanged on no clearer circumstantial
evidence. It was of no use to wail despairingly that I had never
even thought of Cousin Beulah. Cousin Jimmy just nodded and
chuckled again.
"'Of course. Best to keep it quiet. Best to keep anything like
that pretty quiet.'
"The worst sting in all this is, that if Aunt Kate is really like
Cousin Beulah Grant then I failed egregiously in what I was trying
to do.
"However, I feel much better now than when I began this entry.
I've got quite a bit of resentment and rebellion and discouragement
out of my system.
"That's the chief use of a diary, I believe."
III
"FEB. 3, 19--
"This was a 'big day.' I had three acceptances. And one editor
asked me to send him some stories. To be sure, I hate having an
editor ask me to send a story, somehow. It's far worse than
sending them unasked. The humiliation of having them returned
after all is far deeper than when one just sends off a MS. to some
dim impersonality behind an editorial desk a thousand miles away.
"And I have decided that I can't write a story 'to order.' 'Tis a
diabolical task. I tried to lately. The editor of Young People
asked me to write a story along certain lines. I wrote it. He
sent it back, pointing out some faults and asking me to rewrite it.
I tried to. I wrote and rewrote and altered and interlined until
my MS. looked like a crazy patchwork of black and blue and red
inks. Finally I lifted one of the covers of the kitchen stove and
dumped in the original yarn and all my variations thereof.
"After this I'm just going to write what I want to. And the
editors can be--canonized!
"There are northern lights and a misty new moon to-night."
IV
"FEB. 16, 19--
"My story What the Jest Was Worth was in The Home Monthly to-day.
But I was only one of 'others' on the cover. However, to balance
that I have been listed by name as 'one of the well-known and
popular contributors for the coming year' in Girlhood Days. Cousin
Jimmy has read this editor's foreword over half a dozen times and I
heard him murmuring 'well-known and popular' as he split the
kindlings. Then he went to the corner store and bought me a new
Jimmy-book. Every time I pass a new milestone on the Alpine path
Cousin Jimmy celebrates by giving me a new Jimmy-book. I never buy
a notebook for myself. It would hurt his feelings. He always
looks at the little pile of Jimmy-books on my writing-table with
awe and reverence, firmly believing that all sorts of wonderful
literature is locked up in the hodge-podge of description and
characters and 'bits' they contain.
"I always give Dean my stories to read. I can't help doing it,
although he always brings them back with no comment, or, worse than
no comment--faint praise. It has become a sort of obsession with
me to MAKE Dean admit I CAN write something worth while in its
line. THAT would be triumph. But unless and until he does,
everything will be dust and ashes. Because--he KNOWS."
V
"April 2, 19--
"The spring has affected a certain youth of Shrewsbury who comes
out to New Moon occasionally. He is not a suitor of whom the House
of Murray approves. Nor, which is more important, one of whom E.
B. Starr approves. Aunt Elizabeth was very grim because I went to
a concert with him. She was sitting up when I came home.
"'You see I haven't eloped, Aunt Elizabeth,' I said. 'I promise
you I won't. If I ever want to marry any one I'll tell you so and
marry him in spite of your teeth.'
"I don't know whether Aunt Elizabeth went to bed with an easier
mind or not. Mother eloped--thank goodness!--and Aunt Elizabeth is
a firm believer in heredity."
VI
"April 15, 19--
"This evening I went away up the hill and prowled about the
Disappointed House by moonlight. The Disappointed House was built
thirty-seven years ago--partly built, at least--for a bride who
never came to it. There it has been ever since, boarded up,
unfinished, heart-broken, haunted by the timid, forsaken ghosts of
things that should have happened but never did. I always feel so
sorry for it. For its poor blind eyes that have never seen--that
haven't even memories. No homelight ever shone out through them--
only once, long ago, a gleam of firelight. It might have been such
a nice little house, snuggled against that wooded hill, pulling
little spruces all around it to cover it. A warm, friendly little
house. And a good-natured little house. Not like the new one at
the Corner that Tom Semple is putting up. IT is a bad-tempered
house. Vixenish, with little eyes and sharp elbows. It's odd how
much personality a house can have even before it is ever lived in
at all. Once long ago, when Teddy and I were children, we pried a
board off the window and climbed in and made a fire in the
fireplace. Then we sat there and planned out our lives. We meant
to spend them together in that very house. I suppose Teddy has
forgotten all about that childish nonsense. He writes often and
his letters are full and jolly and Teddy-like. And he tells me all
the little things I want to know about his life. But lately they
have become rather impersonal, it seems to me. They might just as
well have been written to Ilse as to me.
"Poor little Disappointed House. I suppose you will always be
disappointed."
VII
"May 1, 19--
"Spring again! Young poplars with golden, ethereal leaves.
Leagues of rippling gulf beyond the silver-and-lilac sand-dunes.
"The winter has gone with a swiftness incredible, in spite of some
terrible, black three-o'clocks and lonely, discouraged twilights.
Dean will soon be home from Florida. But neither Teddy nor Ilse is
coming home this summer. This gave me a white night or two
recently. Ilse is going to the coast to visit an aunt--a mother's
sister who never took any notice of her before. And Teddy has got
the chance of illustrating a series of North-west Mounted Police
stories for a New York firm and must spend his holidays making
sketches for it in the far North. Of course it's a splendid chance
for him and I wouldn't be a bit sorry--if HE seemed a bit sorry
because he wasn't coming to Blair Water. But he didn't.
"Well, I suppose Blair Water and the old life here are to him as a
tale that is told now.
"I didn't realize how much I had been building on Ilse and Teddy
being here for the summer or how much the hope of it had helped me
through a few bad times in the winter. When I let myself remember
that not once this summer will I hear Teddy's signal whistle in
Lofty John's bush--not once happen on him in our secret, beautiful
haunts of lane and brookside--not once exchange a thrilling,
significant glance in a crowd when something happened which had a
special meaning for us, all the colour seems to die out of life,
leaving it just a drab, faded thing of shreds and patches.
"Mrs. Kent met me at the post-office yesterday and stopped to
speak--something she very rarely does. She hates me as much as
ever.
"'I suppose you have heard that Teddy is not coming home this
summer?'
"'Yes,' I said briefly.
"There was a certain odd, aching triumph in her eyes as she turned
away--a triumph I understood. She is very unhappy because Teddy
will not be home for HER but she is exultant that he will not be
home for ME. This shows, she is almost sure, that he cares nothing
about me.
"Well, I dare say she is right. Still one can't be altogether
gloomy in spring.
"And Andrew is engaged! To a girl of whom Aunt Addie entirely
approves. 'I could not be more pleased with Andrew's choice if I
had chosen her myself,' she said this afternoon to Aunt Elizabeth.
TO Aunt Elizabeth and AT me. Aunt Elizabeth was coldly glad--or
said she was. Aunt Laura cried a little--Aunt Laura always cries a
bit when any one she knows is born or dead or married or engaged or
come or gone or polling his first vote. She couldn't help feeling
a little disappointed. Andrew would have been such a SAFE husband
for me. Certainly there is no dynamite in Andrew."
Chapter III
I
At first nobody thought Mr. Carpenter's illness serious. He had
had a good many attacks of rheumatism in recent years, laying him
up for a few days. Then he could hobble back to work, as grim and
sarcastic as ever, with a new edge to his tongue. In Mr.
Carpenter's opinion teaching in Blair Water School was not what it
had been. Nothing there now, he said, but rollicking, soulless
young nonentities. Not a soul in the school who could pronounce
February or Wednesday.
"I'm tired trying to make soup in a sieve," he said gruffly.
Teddy and Ilse and Perry and Emily were gone--the four pupils who
had leavened the school with a saving inspiration. Perhaps Mr.
Carpenter was a little tired of--everything. He was not very old,
as years go, but he had burned up most of his constitution in a
wild youth. The little, timid, faded slip of a woman who had been
his wife had died unobtrusively in the preceding autumn. She had
never seemed to matter much to Mr. Carpenter; but he had "gone
down" rapidly after her funeral. The school children went in awe
of his biting tongue and his more frequent spurts of temper. The
trustees began to shake their heads and talk of a new teacher when
the school year ended.
Mr. Carpenter's illness began as usual with an attack of
rheumatism. Then there was heart trouble. Dr. Burnley, who went
to see him despite his obstinate refusal to have a doctor, looked
grave and talked mysteriously of a lack of "the will to live."
Aunt Louisa Drummond of Derry Pond came over to nurse him. Mr.
Carpenter submitted to this with a resignation that was a bad omen--
as if nothing mattered any more.
"Have your own way. She can potter round if it will ease your
consciences. So long as she leaves me alone I don't care what she
does. I WON'T be fed and I WON'T be coddled and I WON'T have the
sheets changed. Can't bear her hair, though. Too straight and
shiny. Tell her to do something to it. And why does her nose look
as if it were always cold?"
Emily ran in every evening to sit awhile with him. She was the
only person the old man cared to see. He did not talk a great
deal, but he liked to open his eyes every few minutes and exchange
a sly smile of understanding with her--as if the two of them were
laughing together over some excellent joke of which only they could
sample the flavour. Aunt Louisa did not know what to make of this
commerce of grins and consequently disapproved of it. She was a
kind-hearted creature, with much real motherliness in her thwarted
maiden breast, but she was all at sea with these cheerful, Puckish,
deathbed smiles of her patient. She thought he had much better be
thinking of his immortal soul. He was not a member of the church,
was he? He would not even let the minister come in to see him.
But Emily Starr was welcomed whenever she came. Aunt Louisa had
her own secret suspicion of the said Emily Starr. Didn't she
write? Hadn't she put her own mother's second-cousin, body and
bones, into one of her stories? Probably she was looking for
"copy" in this old pagan's deathbed. THAT explained her interest
in it, beyond a doubt. Aunt Louisa looked curiously at this
ghoulish young creature. She hoped Emily wouldn't put HER in a
story.
For a long time Emily had refused to believe that it WAS Mr.
Carpenter's deathbed. He COULDN'T be so ill as all that. He
didn't suffer--he didn't complain. He would be all right as soon
as warmer weather came. She told herself this so often that she
made herself believe it. She could not let herself think of life
in Blair Water without Mr. Carpenter.
One May evening Mr. Carpenter seemed much better. His eyes flashed
with their old satiric fire, his voice rang with its old resonance;
he joked poor Aunt Louisa--who never could understand his jokes but
endured them with Christian patience. Sick people must be
humoured. He told a funny story to Emily and laughed with her over
it till the little low-raftered room rang. Aunt Louisa shook her
head. There were some things she did not know, poor lady, but she
did know her own humble, faithful little trade of unprofessional
nursing; and she knew that this sudden rejuvenescence was no good
sign. As the Scotch would say, he was "fey." Emily in her
inexperience did not know this. She went home rejoicing that Mr.
Carpenter had taken such a turn for the better. Soon he would be
all right, back at school, thundering at his pupils, striding
absently along the road reading some dog-eared classic, criticizing
her manuscripts with all his old trenchant humour. Emily was glad.
Mr. Carpenter was a friend she could not afford to lose.
II
Aunt Elizabeth wakened her at two. She had been sent for. Mr.
Carpenter was asking for her.
"Is he--worse?" asked Emily, slipping out of her high, black bed
with its carved posts.
"Dying," said Aunt Elizabeth briefly. "Dr. Burnley says he can't
last till morning."
Something in Emily's face touched Aunt Elizabeth.
"Isn't it better for him, Emily," she said with an unusual
gentleness. "He is old and tired. His wife has gone--they will
not give him the school another year. His old age would be very
lonely. Death is his best friend."
"I am thinking of myself," choked Emily.
She went down to Mr. Carpenter's house, through the dark, beautiful
spring night. Aunt Louisa was crying but Emily did not cry. Mr.
Carpenter opened his eyes and smiled at her--the same old, sly
smile.
"No tears," he murmured. "I forbid tears at my deathbed. Let
Louisa Drummond do the crying out in the kitchen. She might as
well earn her money that way as another. There's nothing more she
can do for me."
"Is there anything I can do?" asked Emily.
"Just sit here where I can see you till I'm gone, that's all. One
doesn't like to go out--alone. Never liked the thought of dying
alone. How many old she-weasels are out in the kitchen waiting for
me to die?"
"There are only Aunt Louisa and Aunt Elizabeth," said Emily, unable
to repress a smile.
"Don't mind my not--talking much. I've been talking--all my life.
Through now. No breath--left. But if I think of anything--like
you to be here."
Mr. Carpenter closed his eyes and relapsed into silence. Emily sat
quietly, her head a soft blur of darkness against the window that
was beginning to whiten with dawn. The ghostly hands of a fitful
wind played with her hair. The perfume of June lilies stole in
from the bed under the open window--a haunting odour, sweeter than
music, like all the lost perfumes of old, unutterably dear years.
Far off, two beautiful, slender, black firs, of exactly the same
height, came out against the silver dawn-lit sky like the twin
spires of some Gothic cathedral rising out of a bank of silver
mist. Just between them hung a dim old moon, as beautiful as the
evening crescent. Their beauty was a comfort and stimulant to
Emily under the stress of this strange vigil. Whatever passed--
whatever came--beauty like this was eternal.
Now and then Aunt Louisa came in and looked at the old man. Mr.
Carpenter seemed unconscious of these visitations but always when
she went out he opened his eyes and winked at Emily. Emily found
herself winking back, somewhat to her own horror--for she had
sufficient Murray in her to be slightly scandalized over deathbed
winks. Fancy what Aunt Elizabeth would say.
"Good little sport," muttered Mr. Carpenter after the second
exchange of winks. "Glad--you're there."
At three o'clock he grew rather restless. Aunt Louisa came in
again.
"He can't die till the tide goes out, you know," she explained to
Emily in a solemn whisper.
"Get out of this with your superstitious blather," said Mr.
Carpenter loudly and clearly. "I'll die when I'm d--n well ready,
tide or no tide."
Horrified Aunt Louisa excused him to Emily on the ground that he
was wandering in his mind and slipped out.
"Excuse my common way, won't you?" said Mr. Carpenter. "I HAD to
shock her out. Couldn't have that elderly female person--round
watching me die. Given her--a good yarn to tell--the rest of her--
life. Awful--warning. And yet--she's a good soul. So good--she
bores me. No evil in her. Somehow--one needs--a spice--of evil--
in every personality. It's the--pinch of--salt--that brings out--
the flavour."
Another silence. Then he added gravely,
"Trouble is--the Cook--makes the pinch--too large--in most cases.
Inexperienced Cook--wiser after--a few eternities."
Emily thought he really was "wandering" now but he smiled at her.
"Glad you're here--little pal. Don't mind being--here--do you?"
"No," said Emily.
"When a Murray says--no--she means it."
After another silence Mr. Carpenter began again, this time more to
himself, as it seemed, than anyone else.
"Going out--out beyond the dawn. Past the morning star. Used to
think I'd be frightened. Not frightened. Funny. Think how much
I'm going to know--in just a few more minutes, Emily. Wiser than
anybody else living. Always wanted to know--to KNOW. Never liked
guesses. Done with curiosity--about life. Just curious now--about
death. I'll know the truth, Emily--just a few more minutes and
I'll know the--truth. No more guessing. And if--it's as I think--
I'll be--young again. You can't know what--it means. You--who ARE
young--can't have--the least idea--what it means--to be young--
AGAIN."
His voice sank into restless muttering for a time, then rose
clearly,
"Emily, promise me--that you'll never write--to please anybody--but
yourself."
Emily hesitated a moment. Just what did such a promise mean?
"Promise," whispered Mr. Carpenter insistently.
Emily promised.
"That's right," said Mr. Carpenter with a sigh of relief. "Keep
that--and you'll be--all right. No use trying to please everybody.
No use trying to please--critics. Live under your own hat. Don't
be--led away--by those howls about realism. Remember--pine woods
are just as real as--pigsties--and a darn sight pleasanter to be
in. You'll get there--sometime--you have the root--of the matter--
in you. And don't--tell the world--everything. That's what's the--
matter--with our--literature. Lost the charm of mystery--and
reserve. There's something else I wanted to say--some caution--I
can't--seem to remember--"
"Don't try," said Emily gently. "Don't tire yourself."
"Not--tired. Feel quite through--with being tired. I'm dying--I'm
a failure--poor as a rat. But after all, Emily--I've had a--darned
interesting time."
Mr. Carpenter shut his eyes and looked so deathlike that Emily made
an involuntary movement of alarm. He lifted a bleached hand.
"No--don't call her. Don't call that weeping lady back. Just
yourself, little Emily of New Moon. Clever little girl, Emily.
What was it--I wanted to say to her?"
A moment or two later he opened his eyes and said in a loud, clear
voice, "Open the door--open the door. Death must not be kept
waiting."
Emily ran to the little door and set it wide. A strong wind of the
grey sea rushed in. Aunt Louisa ran in from the kitchen.
"The tide has turned--he's going out with it--he's gone."
Not quite. As Emily bent over him the keen, shaggy-brown eyes
opened for the last time. Mr. Carpenter essayed a wink but could
not compass it.
"I've--thought of it," he whispered. "Beware--of--italics."
Was there a little impish chuckle at the end of the words? Aunt
Louisa always declared there was. Graceless old Mr. Carpenter had
died laughing--saying something about Italians. Of course he was
delirious. But Aunt Louisa always felt it had been a very
unedifying deathbed. She was thankful that few such had come in
her experience.
III
Emily went blindly home and wept for her old friend in the room of
her dreams. What a gallant old soul he was--going out into the
shadow--or into the sunlight?--with a laugh and a jest. Whatever
his faults there had never been anything of the coward about old
Mr. Carpenter. Her world, she knew, would be a colder place now
that he was gone. It seemed many years since she had left New Moon
in the darkness. She felt some inward monition that told her she
had come to a certain parting of the ways of life. Mr. Carpenter's
death would not make any external difference for her. Nevertheless,
it was as a milestone to which in after years she could look back
and say,
"After I passed that point everything was different."
All her life she had grown, as it seemed, by these fits and starts.
Going on quietly and changelessly for months and years; then all at
once suddenly realizing that she had left some "low-vaulted past"
and emerged into some "new temple" of the soul more spacious than
all that had gone before. Though always, at first, with a chill of
change and a sense of loss.
Chapter IV
I
The year after Mr. Carpenter's death passed quietly for Emily--
quietly, pleasantly--perhaps, though she tried to stifle the
thought, a little monotonously. No Ilse--no Teddy--no Mr.
Carpenter. Perry only very occasionally. But of course in the
summer there was Dean. No girl with Dean Priest for a friend could
be altogether lonely. They had always been such good friends, ever
since the day, long ago, when she had fallen over the rocky bank of
Malvern Bay and been rescued by Dean.* It did not matter in the
least that he limped slightly and had a crooked shoulder, or that
the dreamy brilliance of his green eyes sometimes gave his face an
uncanny look. On the whole, there was no one in all the world she
LIKED quite so well as Dean. When she thought this she always
italicized the "liked." There were some things Mr. Carpenter had
not known.
*See Emily of New Moon.
Aunt Elizabeth never quite approved of Dean. But then Aunt
Elizabeth had no great love for any Priest.
There seemed to be a temperamental incompatibility between the
Murrays and the Priests that was never bridged over, even by the
occasional marriages between the clans.
"Priests, indeed," Aunt Elizabeth was wont to say contemptuously,
relegating the whole clan, root and branch, to limbo with one wave
of her thin, unbeautiful Murray hand. "Priests, indeed!"
"Murray is Murray and Priest is Priest and never the twain shall
meet," Emily shamelessly mischievously misquoted Kipling once when
Dean had asked in pretended despair why none of her aunts liked
him.
"Your old Great-aunt Nancy over there at Priest Pond detests me,"
he said, with the little whimsical smile that sometimes gave him
the look of an amused gnome, "And the Ladies Laura and Elizabeth
treat me with the frosty politeness reserved by the Murrays for
their dearest foes. Oh, I think I know why."
Emily flushed. She, too, was beginning to have an unwelcome
suspicion why Aunts Elizabeth and Laura were even more frostily
polite to Dean than of yore. She did not want to have it; she
thrust it fiercely out and locked the door of thought upon it
whenever it intruded there. But the thing whined on her doorstep
and would not be banished. Dean, like everything and everybody
else, seemed to have changed overnight. And what did the change
imply--hint? Emily refused to answer this question. The only
answer that suggested itself was too absurd. And too unwelcome.
Was Dean Priest changing from friend to lover? Nonsense. Arrant
nonsense. Disagreeable nonsense. For she did not want him as a
lover and she did want him madly as a friend. She COULDN'T lose
his friendship. It was too dear, delightful, stimulating,
wonderful. Why did such devilish things ever happen? When Emily
reached this point in her disconnected musings she always stopped
and retraced her mental steps fiercely, terrified to realize that
she was almost on the point of admitting that "the something
devilish" had already happened or was in process of happening.
In one way it was almost a relief to her when Dean said casually
one November evening:
"I suppose I must soon be thinking of my annual migration."
"Where are you going this year?" asked Emily.
"Japan. I've never been there. Don't want to go now particularly.
But what's the use of staying? Would you want to talk to me in the
sitting-room all winter with the aunts in hearing?"
"No," said Emily between a laugh and a shiver. She recalled one
fiendish autumn evening of streaming rain and howling wind when
they couldn't walk in the garden but had to sit in the room where
Aunt Elizabeth was knitting and Aunt Laura crocheting by the table.
It had been awful. And again why? Why couldn't they talk as
freely and whimsically and intimately then as they did in the
garden? The answer to this at least was not to be expressed in any
terms of sex. Was it because they talked of so many things Aunt
Elizabeth could not understand and so disapproved of? Perhaps.
But whatever the cause Dean might as well have been at the other
side of the world for all the real conversation that was possible.
"So I might as well go," said Dean, waiting for this exquisite,
tall, white girl in an old garden to say she would miss him
horribly. She had said it every one of his flitting autumns for
many years. But she did not say it this time. She found she dared
not.
Again, why?
Dean was looking at her with eyes that could be tender or sorrowful
or passionate, as he willed, and which now seemed to be a mixture
of all three expressions. He MUST hear her say she would miss him.
His true reason for going away again this winter was to make her
realize how much she missed him--make her feel that she could not
live without him.
"Will you miss me, Emily?"
"That goes without saying," answered Emily lightly--too lightly.
Other years she had been very frank and serious about it. Dean was
not altogether regretful for the change. But he could guess
nothing of the attitude of mind behind it. She must have changed
because she felt something--suspected something, of what he had
striven for years to hide and suppress as rank madness. What then?
Did this new lightness indicate that she didn't want to make a too
important thing of admitting she would miss him? Or was it only
the instinctive defence of a woman against something that implied
or evoked too much?
"It will be so dreadful here this winter without you and Teddy and
Ilse that I will not let myself think of it at all," went on Emily.
"Last winter was bad. And this--I know somehow--will be worse.
But I'll have my work."
"Oh, yes, your work," agreed Dean with the little, tolerant, half-
amused inflection in his voice that always came now when he spoke
of her "work," as if it tickled him hugely that she should call her
pretty scribblings "work." Well, one must humour the charming
child. He could not have said so more plainly in words. His
implications cut across Emily's sensitive soul like a whip-lash.
And all at once her work and her ambitions became--momentarily at
least--as childish and unimportant as he considered them. She
could not hold her own conviction against him. He must know. He
was so clever--so well-educated. He MUST know. That was the agony
of it. She could not ignore his opinion. Emily knew deep down in
her heart that she would never be able wholly to believe in herself
until Dean Priest admitted that she could do something honestly
worth while in its way. And if he never admitted it--
"I shall carry pictures of you wherever I go, Star," Dean was
saying. Star was his old nickname for her--not as a pun on her
name but because he said she reminded him of a star. "I shall see
you sitting in your room by that old lookout window, spinning your
pretty cobwebs--pacing up and down in this old garden--wandering in
the Yesterday Road--looking out to sea. Whenever I shall recall a
bit of Blair Water loveliness I shall see you in it. After all,
all other beauty is only a background for a beautiful woman."
"Her pretty cobwebs--" ah, there it was. That was all Emily heard.
She did not even realize that he was telling her he thought HER a
beautiful woman.
"Do you think what I write is nothing but cobwebs, Dean?" she asked
chokingly.
Dean looked surprised, doing it very well.
"Star, what else is it? What do you think it is yourself? I'm
glad you can amuse yourself by writing. It's a splendid thing to
have a little hobby of the kind. And if you can pick up a few
shekels by it--well, that's all very well too in this kind of a
world. But I'd hate to have you dream of being a Brontė or an
Austen--and wake to find you'd wasted your youth on a dream."
"I don't fancy myself a Brontė or an Austen," said Emily. "But you
didn't talk like that long ago, Dean. You used to think then I
COULD do something some day."
"We don't bruise the pretty visions of a child," said Dean. "But
it's foolish to carry childish dreams over into maturity. Better
face facts. You write charming things of their kind, Emily. Be
content with that and don't waste your best years yearning for the
unattainable or striving to reach some height far beyond your
grasp."
II
Dean was not looking at Emily. He was leaning on the old sundial
and scowling down at it with the air of a man who was forcing
himself to say a disagreeable thing because he felt it was his
duty.
"I WON'T be just a mere scribbler of pretty stories," cried Emily
rebelliously. He looked into her face. She was as tall as he was--
a trifle taller, though he would not admit it.
"You do not need to be anything but what you are," he said in a low
vibrant tone. "A woman such as this old New Moon has never seen
before. You can do more with those eyes--that smile--than you can
ever do with your pen."
"You sound like Great-aunt Nancy Priest," said Emily cruelly and
contemptuously.
But had he not been cruel and contemptuous to her? Three o'clock
that night found her wide-eyed and anguished. She had lain through
sleepless hours face to face with two hateful convictions. One was
that she could never do anything worth doing with her pen. The
other was that she was going to lose Dean's friendship. For
friendship was all she could give him and it would not satisfy him.
She must hurt him. And oh, how could she hurt Dean whom life had
used so cruelly? She had said "no" to Andrew Murray and laughed a
refusal to Perry Miller without a qualm. But this was an utterly
different thing.
Emily sat up in bed in the darkness and moaned in a despair that
was none the less real and painful because of the indisputable fact
that thirty years later she might be wondering what on earth she
had been moaning about.
"I wish there were no such things as lovers and love-making in the
world," she said with savage intensity, honestly believing she
meant it.
III
Like everybody, in daylight Emily found things much less tragic and
more endurable than in the darkness. A nice fat cheque and a kind
letter of appreciation with it restored a good deal of her self-
respect and ambition. Very likely, too, she had imagined
implications into Dean's words and looks that he never meant. She
was not going to be a silly goose, fancying that every man, young
or old, who liked to talk to her, or even to pay her compliments in
shadowy, moonlit gardens, was in love with her. Dean was old
enough to be her father.
Dean's unsentimental parting when he went away confirmed her in
this comforting assurance and left her free to miss him without any
reservations. Miss him she did abominably. The rain in autumn
fields that year was a very sorrowful thing and so were the grey
ghost-fogs coming slowly in from the gulf. Emily was glad when
snow and sparkle came. She was very busy, writing such long hours,
often far into the night, that Aunt Laura began to worry over her
health and Aunt Elizabeth once or twice remarked protestingly that
the price of coal-oil had gone up. As Emily paid for her own coal-
oil this hint had no effect on her. She was very keen about making
enough money to repay Uncle Wallace and Aunt Ruth what they had
spent on her high school years. Aunt Elizabeth thought this was a
praiseworthy ambition. The Murrays were an independent folk. It
was a clan by-word that the Murrays had a boat of their own at the
Flood. No promiscuous Ark for THEM.
Of course there were still many rejections--which Cousin Jimmy
carried home from the post-office speechless with indignation. But
the percentage of acceptances rose steadily. Every new magazine
conquered meant a step upward on her Alpine path. She knew she was
steadily gaining the mastery over her art. Even the "love talk"
that had bothered her so much in the old days came easily now. Had
Teddy Kent's eyes taught her so much? If she had taken time to
think she might have been very lonely. There were some bad hours.
Especially after a letter had come from Ilse full of all her gay
doings in Montreal, her triumphs in the School of Oratory and her
pretty new gowns. In the long twilights when she looked
shiveringly from the windows of the old farmhouse and thought how
very white and cold and solitary were the snow fields on the hill,
how darkly remote and tragic the Three Princesses, she lost
confidence in her star. She wanted summer; fields of daisies; seas
misty with moonrise or purple with sunset; companionship; Teddy.
In such moments she always knew she wanted Teddy.
Teddy seemed far away. They still corresponded faithfully, but the
correspondence was not what it was. Suddenly in the autumn Teddy's
letters had grown slightly colder and more formal. At this first
hint of frost the temperature of Emily's dropped noticeably.
IV
But she had hours of rapture and insight that shed a glory backward
and forward. Hours when she felt the creative faculty within her,
burning like a never-dying flame. Rare, sublime moments when she
felt as a god, perfectly happy and undesirous. And there was
always her dream-world into which she could escape from monotony
and loneliness, and taste strange, sweet happiness unmarred by any
cloud or shadow. Sometimes she slipped mentally back into
childhood and had delightful adventures she would have been ashamed
to tell her adult world.
She liked to prowl about a good deal by herself, especially in
twilight or moonlight alone with the stars and the trees, rarest of
companions.
"I can't be contented indoors on a moonlight night. I have to be
up and away," she told Aunt Elizabeth, who did not approve of
prowling. Aunt Elizabeth never lost her uneasy consciousness that
Emily's mother had eloped. And anyhow, prowling was odd. None of
the other Blair Water girls prowled.
There were walks over the hills in the owl's light when the stars
rose--one after another, the great constellations of myth and
legend. There were frosty moonrises that hurt her with their
beauty; spires of pointed firs against fiery sunsets; spruce copses
dim with mystery; pacings to and fro on the To-morrow Road. Not
the To-morrow Road of June, blossom-misted, tender in young green.
Nor yet the To-morrow Road of October, splendid in crimson and
gold. But the To-morrow Road of a still, snowy winter twilight--a
white, mysterious, silent place full of wizardry. Emily loved it
better than all her other dear spots. The spirit delight of that
dream-haunted solitude never cloyed--its remote charm never palled.
If only there had been a friend to talk things over with! One
night she awakened and found herself in tears, with a late moon
shining bluely and coldly on her through the frosted window-panes.
She had dreamed that Teddy had whistled to her from Lofty John's
bush--the old, dear, signal whistle of childhood days; and she had
run so eagerly across the garden to the bush. But she could not
find Teddy.
"Emily Byrd Starr, if I catch you crying again over a dream!" she
said passionately.
Chapter V
I
Only three dynamic things happened that year to vary the noiseless
tenor of Emily's way. In the autumn she had a love affair--as Aunt
Laura Victorianly phrased it. Rev. James Wallace, the new, well-
meaning, ladylike young minister at Derry Pond, began making
excuses for visiting Blair Water Manse quite often and from there
drifted over to New Moon. Soon everybody in Blair Water and Derry
Pond knew that Emily Starr had a ministerial beau. Gossip was very
rife. It was a foregone conclusion that Emily would jump at him.
A minister! Heads were shaken over it. She would never make a
suitable minister's wife. Never in the world. But wasn't it
always the way? A minister picking on the very last girl he should
have.
At New Moon opinion was divided. Aunt Laura, who owned to a Dr.
Fell feeling about Mr. Wallace, hoped Emily wouldn't "take" him.
Aunt Elizabeth, in her secret soul, was not overfond of him either,
but she was dazzled by the idea of a minister. And such a safe
lover. A minister would never think of eloping. She thought Emily
would be a very lucky girl if she could "get" him.
When it became sadly evident that Mr. Wallace's calls at New Moon
had ceased, Aunt Elizabeth gloomily asked Emily the reason and was
horrified to hear that the ungrateful minx had told Mr. Wallace she
could not marry him.
"Why?" demanded Aunt Elizabeth in icy disapproval.
"His ears, Aunt Elizabeth, his ears," said Emily flippantly. "I
really couldn't risk having my children inherit ears like that."
The indelicacy of such a reply staggered Aunt Elizabeth--which was
probably why Emily had made it. She knew Aunt Elizabeth would be
afraid to refer to the subject again.
The Rev. James Wallace thought it was "his duty" to go West the
next spring. And that was that.
II
Then there was the episode of the local theatricals in Shrewsbury
which were written up with vitriolic abuse in one of the
Charlottetown papers. Shrewsbury people blamed Emily Byrd Starr
for doing it. Who else, they demanded, could or would have written
with such diabolic cleverness and sarcasm? Every one knew that
Emily Byrd Starr had never forgiven Shrewsbury people for believing
those yarns about her in the old John House affair. This was her
method of revenge. Wasn't that like the Murrays? Carrying a
secret grudge for years, until a suitable chance for revenge
presented itself. Emily protested her innocence in vain. It was
never discovered who had written the report and as long as she
lived it kept coming up against her.
But in one way it worked out to her advantage. She was invited to
all the social doings in Shrewsbury after that. People were afraid
to leave her out lest she "write them up." She could not get to
everything--Shrewsbury was seven miles from Blair Water. But she
got to Mrs. Tom Nickle's dinner dance and thought for six weeks
that it had changed the current of her whole existence.
Emily-in-the-glass looked very well that night. She had got the
dress she had longed for for years--spent the whole price of a
story on it, to her Aunt's horror. Shot silk--blue in one light,
silver in another, with mists of lace. She remembered that Teddy
had said that when she got that dress he would paint her as an Ice-
maiden in it.
Her right-hand neighbour was a man who kept making "funny speeches"
all through the meal and kept her wondering for what good purpose
God had ever fashioned him.
But her left-hand neighbour! He talked little but he looked!
Emily decided that she liked a man whose eyes said more than his
lips. But he told her she looked like "the moonbeam of a blue
summer night" in that gown. I think it was that phrase that
finished Emily--shot her clean through the heart--like the
unfortunate little duck of the nursery rhyme. Emily was helpless
before the charm of a well-turned phrase. Before the evening was
over Emily, for the first time in her life, had fallen wildly and
romantically into the wildest and most romantic kind of love--"the
love the poets dreamed of," as she wrote in her diary. The young
man--I believe his beautiful and romantic name was Aylmer Vincent--
was quite as madly in love as she. He literally haunted New Moon.
He wooed beautifully. His way of saying "dear lady" charmed her.
When he told her that "a beautiful hand was one of the chief charms
of a beautiful woman" and looked adoringly at hers Emily kissed her
hands when she went to her room that night because HIS eyes had
caressed them. When he called her raptly "a creature of mist and
flame" she misted and flamed about dim old New Moon until Aunt
Elizabeth unthinkingly quenched her by asking her to fry up a batch
of doughnuts for Cousin Jimmy. When he told her she was like an
opal--milk-white outside but with a heart of fire and crimson, she
wondered if life would always be like this.
"And to think I once imagined I cared for Teddy Kent," she thought
in amazement at herself.
She neglected her writing and asked Aunt Elizabeth if she could
have the old blue box in the attic for a hope chest. Aunt
Elizabeth graciously acceded. The record of the new suitor had
been investigated and found impeccable. Good family--good social
position--good business. All the omens were auspicious.
III
And then a truly terrible thing happened.
Emily fell out of love just as suddenly as she had fallen into it.
One day she was, and the next she wasn't. That was all there was
to it.
She was aghast. She couldn't believe it. She tried to pretend the
old enchantment still existed. She tried to thrill and dream and
blush. Nary thrill, nary blush. Her dark-eyed lover--WHY had it
never struck her before that his eyes were exactly like a cow's?--
bored her. Ay, bored her. She yawned one evening in the very
midst of one of his fine speeches. Why, there was nothing to him
but fine speeches. There was nothing to add to that.
She was so ashamed that she was almost ill over it. Blair people
thought she had been jilted and pitied her. The aunts who knew
better were disappointed and disapproving.
"Fickle--fickle--like all the Starrs," said Aunt Elizabeth
bitterly.
Emily had no spunk to defend herself. She supposed she deserved it
all. Perhaps she was fickle. She must be fickle. When such a
glorious conflagration fizzled out so speedily and utterly into
ashes. Not a spark of it left. Not even a romantic memory. Emily
viciously inked out the passage in her diary about "the love the
poets dreamed of."
She was really very unhappy about it for a long while. Had she no
depth at all? Was she such a superficial creature that even love
with her was like the seeds that fell into the shallow soil in the
immortal parable? She knew other girls had these silly,
tempestuous, ephemeral affairs but she would never have supposed
she would have one--COULD have one. To be swept off her feet like
that by a handsome face and mellifluous voice and great dark eyes
and a trick of pretty speeches! In brief Emily felt that she had
made an absolute fool of herself and the Murray pride could not
stick it.
To make it worse the young man married a Shrewsbury girl in six
months. Not that Emily cared whom he married or how soon. But it
meant that HIS romantic ardours were but things of superficiality,
too, and lent a deeper tinge of humiliation to the silly affair.
Andrew had been so easily consoled also. Percy Miller was not
wasting in despair. Teddy had forgotten her. Was she really
incapable of inspiring a deep and lasting passion in a man? To be
sure, there was Dean. But even Dean could go away winter after
winter and leave her to be wooed and won by any chance-met suitor.
"Am I fundamentally superficial?" poor Emily demanded of herself
with terrible intensity.
She took up her pen again with a secret gladness. But for a
considerable time the love-making in her stories was quite cynical
and misanthropic in its flavour.
Chapter VI
I
Teddy Kent and Ilse Burnley came home in the summer for a brief
vacation. Teddy had won an Art Scholarship which meant two years
in Paris and was to sail for Europe in two weeks. He had written
the news to Emily in an off-hand way and she had responded with the
congratulations of a friend and sister. There was no reference in
either letter to rainbow gold or Vega of the Lyre. Yet Emily
looked forward to his coming with a wistful, ashamed hope that
would not be denied. Perhaps--dared she hope it?--when they met
again face to face, in their old haunted woods and trysts--this
coldness that had grown up so inexplicably between them would
vanish as a sea-fog vanishes when the sun rose over the gulf. No
doubt Teddy had had his imitation love affairs as she had hers.
But when he came--when they looked again into each other's eyes--
when she heard his signal whistle in Lofty John's bush--
But she never heard it. On the evening of the day when she knew
Teddy was expected home she walked in the garden among brocaded
moths, wearing a new gown of "powder-blue" chiffon and listened for
it. Every robin call brought the blood to her cheek and made her
heart beat wildly. Then came Aunt Laura through the dew and dusk.
"Teddy and Ilse are here," she said.
Emily went in to the stately, stiff, dignified parlour of New Moon,
pale, queenly, aloof. Ilse hurled herself upon her with all her
old, tempestuous affection, but Teddy shook hands with a cool
detachment that almost equalled her own. Teddy? Oh, dear, no.
Frederick Kent, R.A.-to-be. What was there left of the old Teddy
in this slim, elegant young man with his sophisticated air and
cool, impersonal eyes, and general implication of having put off
for ever all childish things--including foolish old visions and
insignificant little country girls he had played with in his
infancy?
In which conclusion Emily was horribly unjust to Teddy. But she
was not in a mood to be just to anybody. Nobody is who has made a
fool of herself. And Emily felt that that was just what she had
done--again. Mooning romantically about in a twilight garden,
specially wearing powder-blue, waiting for a lover's signal from a
beau who had forgotten all about her--or only remembered her as an
old schoolmate on whom he had very properly and kindly and
conscientiously come to call. Well, thank heaven, Teddy did not
know how absurd she had been. She would take excellent care that
he should never suspect it. Who could be more friendly and remote
than a Murray of New Moon? Emily's manner, she flattered herself,
was admirable. As gracious and impersonal as to an entire
stranger. Renewed congratulations on his wonderful success,
coupled with an absolute lack of all real interest in it.
Carefully phrased, polite questions about HIS work on her side;
carefully phrased polite questions about HER work on his side. She
had seen some of HIS pictures in the magazines. He had read some
of HER stories. So it went, with a wider gulf opening between them
at every moment. Never had Emily felt herself so far away from
Teddy. She recognized with a feeling that was almost terror how
completely he had changed in those two years of absence. It would
in truth have been a ghastly interview had it not been for Ilse,
who chattered with all her old breeziness and tang, planning out a
two weeks of gay doings while she was home, asking hundreds of
questions; the same lovable old madcap of laughter and jest and
dressed with all her old gorgeous violations of accepted canons of
taste. In an extraordinary dress--a thing of greenish-yellow. She
had a big pink peony at her waist and another at her shoulder. She
wore a bright green hat with a wreath of pink flowers on it. Great
hoops of pearl swung in her ears. It was a weird costume. No one
but Ilse could have worn it successfully. And she looked like the
incarnation of a thousand tropic springs in it--exotic,
provocative, beautiful. So beautiful! Emily realized her friend's
beauty afresh with a pang not of envy, but of bitter humiliation.
Beside Ilse's golden sheen of hair and brilliance of amber eyes and
red-rose loveliness of cheeks she must look pale and dark and
insignificant. Of course Teddy was in love with Ilse. He had gone
to see her first--had been with her while Emily waited for him in
the garden. Well, it made no real difference. Why should it? She
would be just as friendly as ever. And was. Friendly with a
vengeance. But when Teddy and Ilse had gone--together--laughing
and teasing each other through the old To-morrow Road Emily went up
to her room and locked the door. Nobody saw her again until the
next morning.
II
The gay two weeks of Ilse's planning followed. Picnics, dances and
jamborees galore. Shrewsbury society decided that a rising young
artist was somebody to be taken notice of and took notice
accordingly. It was a veritable whirl of gaiety and Emily whirled
about in it with the others. No step lighter in the dance, no
voice quicker in the jest, and all the time feeling like the
miserable spirit in a ghost story she had once read who had a live
coal in its breast instead of a heart. All the time, feeling, too,
far down under surface pride and hidden pain, that sense of
completion and fulfilment which always came to her when Teddy was
near her. But she took good care never to be alone with Teddy, who
certainly could not be accused of any attempt to inveigle her into
twosomes. His name was freely coupled with Ilse's and they took so
composedly the teasing they encountered, that the impression gained
ground that "things were pretty well understood between them."
Emily thought Ilse might have told her if it were so. But Ilse,
though she told many a tale of lovers forlorn whose agonies seemed
to lie very lightly on her conscience, never mentioned Teddy's
name, which Emily thought had a torturing significance of its own.
She inquired after Perry Miller, wanting to know if he were as big
an oaf as ever and laughing over Emily's indignant defence.
"He will be Premier some day no doubt," agreed Ilse scornfully.
"He'll work like the devil and never miss anything by lack of
asking for it, but won't you always smell the herring-barrels of
Stovepipe Town?"
Perry came to see Ilse, bragged a bit too much over his progress
and got so snubbed and manhandled that he did not come again.
Altogether the two weeks seemed a nightmare to Emily, who thought
she was unreservedly thankful when the time came for Teddy to go.
He was going on a sailing vessel to Halifax, wanting to make some
nautical sketches for a magazine, and an hour before flood-tide,
while the Mira Lee swung at anchor by the wharf at Stovepipe Town,
he came to say good-bye. He did not bring Ilse with him--no doubt,
thought Emily, because Ilse was visiting in Charlottetown; but Dean
Priest was there, so there was no dreaded solitude a deux. Dean
was creeping back into his own, after the two weeks' junketings
from which he had been barred out. Dean would not go to dances and
clam-bakes, but he was always hovering in the background, as
everybody concerned felt. He stood with Emily in the garden and
there was a certain air of victory and possession about him that
did not escape Teddy's eye. Dean, who never made the mistake of
thinking gaiety was happiness, had seen more than others of the
little drama that had been played out in Blair Water during those
two weeks and the dropping of the curtain left him a satisfied man.
The old, shadowy, childish affair between Teddy Kent of the Tansy
Patch and Emily of New Moon, was finally ended. Whatever its
significance or lack of significance had been, Dean no longer
counted Teddy among his rivals.
Emily and Teddy parted with the hearty handshake and mutual good
wishes of old schoolmates who do indeed wish each other well but
have no very vital interest in the matter.
"Prosper and be hanged to you," as some old Murray had been wont to
say.
Teddy got himself away very gracefully. He had the gift of making
an artistic exit, but he did not once look back. Emily turned
immediately to Dean and resumed the discussion which Teddy's coming
had interrupted. Her lashes hid her eyes very securely. Dean,
with his uncanny ability to read her thoughts, should not--must not
guess--what? What was there to guess? Nothing--absolutely
nothing. Yet Emily kept her lashes down.
When Dean, who had some other engagement that evening, went away
half an hour later she paced sedately up and down among the gold of
primroses for a little while, the very incarnation, in all seeming,
of maiden meditation fancy free.
"Spinning out a plot, no doubt," thought Cousin Jimmy proudly, as
he glimpsed her from the kitchen window. "It beats me how she does
it."
III
Perhaps Emily was spinning out a plot. But as the shadows deepened
she slipped out of the garden, through the dreamy peace of the old
columbine orchard--along the Yesterday Road--over the green pasture
field--past the Blair Water--up the hill beyond--past the
Disappointed House--through the thick fir wood. There, in a clump
of silver birches, one had an unbroken view of the harbour, flaming
in lilac and rose-colour. Emily reached it a little breathlessly--
she had almost run at the last. Would she be to late? Oh, what if
she should be too late?
The Mira Lee was sailing out of the harbour, a dream vessel in the
glamour of sunset, past purple headlands and distant, fairylike,
misty coasts. Emily stood and watched her till she had crossed the
bar into the gulf beyond. Stood and watched her until she had
faded from sight in the blue dimness of the falling night,
conscious only of a terrible hunger to see Teddy once more--just
once more. To say good-bye as it should have been said.
Teddy was gone. To another world. There was no rainbow in sight.
And what was Vega of the Lyre but a whirling, flaming, incredibly
distant sun?
She slipped down among the grasses at her feet and lay there
sobbing in the cold moonshine that had suddenly taken the place of
the friendly twilight.
Mingled with her sharp agony was incredulity. This thing could not
have happened. Teddy could no have gone away with only that
soulless, chilly, polite good-bye. After all their years of
comradeship, if nothing else. Oh, how would she ever get herself
past three o'clock this night?
"I am a hopeless fool," she whispered savagely. "He has forgotten.
I am nothing to him. And I deserve it. Didn't I forget him in
those crazy weeks when I was imagining myself in love with Aylmer
Vincent? Of course somebody has told him all about that. I've
lost my chance of real happiness through that absurd affair. Where
is my pride? To cry like this over a man who has forgotten me.
But--but--it's so nice to cry after having had to laugh for these
hideous weeks."
IV
Emily flung herself into work feverishly after Teddy had gone.
Through long summer days and nights she wrote, while the purple
stains deepened under her eyes and the rose stains faded out of her
cheeks. Aunt Elizabeth thought she was killing herself and for the
first time was reconciled to her intimacy with Jarback Priest,
since he dragged Emily away from her desk in the evenings at least
for walks and talks in the fresh air. That summer Emily paid off
the last of her indebtedness to Uncle Wallace and Aunt Ruth with
her "pot-boilers."
But there was more than pot-boiling a-doing. In her first anguish
of loneliness, as she lay awake at three o'clock, Emily had
remembered a certain wild winter night when she and Ilse and Perry
and Teddy had been "stormed in" in the old John House on the Derry
Pond Road;* remembered all the scandal and suffering that had
arisen there-from; and remembered also that night of rapt delight
"thinking out" a story that had flashed into her mind at a certain
gay, significant speech of Teddy's. At least, she had thought it
significant then. Well, THAT was all over. But wasn't the story
somewhere? She had written the outline of that alluring, fanciful
tale in a Jimmy-book the next day. Emily sprang out of bed in the
still summer moonlight, lighted one of the famous candles of New
Moon, and rummaged through a pile of old Jimmy-books. Yes, here it
was. A Seller of Dreams. Emily squatted down on her haunches and
read it through. It was GOOD. Again it seized hold of her
imagination and called forth all her creative impulse. She would
write it out--she would begin that very moment. Flinging a
dressing-gown over her white shoulders to protect them from the
keen gulf air she sat down before her open window and began to
write. Everything else was forgotten--for a time at least--in the
subtle, all-embracing joy of creation.
* See Emily Climbs.
Teddy was nothing but a dim memory--love was a blown-out candle.
Nothing mattered but her story. The characters came to life under
her hand and swarmed through her consciousness, vivid, alluring,
compelling. Wit, tears, and laughter trickled from her pen. She
lived and breathed in another world and came back to New Moon only
at dawn to find her lamp burned out, and her table littered with
manuscript--the first four chapters of her book. Her book! What
magic and delight and awe and incredulity in the thought.
For weeks Emily seemed to live really only when she was writing it.
Dean found her strangely rapt and remote, absent and impersonal.
Her conversation was as dull as it was possible for Emily's
conversation to be, and while her body sat or walked beside him her
soul was--where? In some region where he could not follow, at all
events. It had escaped him.
V
Emily finished her book in six weeks--finished it at dawn one
morning. She flung down her pen and went to her window, lifting
her pale, weary, triumphant little face to the skies of morning.
Music was dripping through the leafy silence in Lofty John's bush.
Beyond were dawn-rosy meadows and the garden of New Moon living in
an enchanted calm. The wind's dance over the hills seemed some
dear response to the music and rhythm in her being. Hills, sea,
shadows, all called to her with a thousand elfin voices of
understanding and acclaim. The old gulf was singing. Exquisite
tears were in her eyes. She had written it--oh, how happy she was!
This moment atoned for everything.
Finished--complete! There it lay--A Seller of Dreams--her first
book. Not a great book--oh, no, but HERS--her very own. Something
to which she had given birth, which would never have existed had
she not brought it into being. And it was GOOD. She knew it was--
felt it was. A fiery, delicate tale, instinct with romance,
pathos, humour. The rapture of creation still illuminated it. She
turned the pages over, reading a bit here and there--wondering if
she could really have written THAT. She was right under the
rainbow's end. Could she not touch the magic, prismatic thing?
Already her fingers were clasping the pot of gold.
Aunt Elizabeth walked in with her usual calm disregard of any
useless formality such as knocking.
"Emily," she said severely, "have you been sitting up all night
AGAIN?"
Emily came back to earth with that abominable mental jolt which can
only be truly described as a thud--a "sickening thud" at that.
Very sickening. She stood like a convicted schoolgirl. And A
Seller of Dreams became instantly a mere heap of scribbled paper.
"I--I didn't realize how time was passing, Aunt Elizabeth," she
stammered.
"You are old enough to have better sense," said Aunt Elizabeth. "I
don't mind your writing--now. You seem to be able to earn a living
by it in a very ladylike way. But you will wreck your health if
you keep this sort of thing up. Have you forgotten that your
mother died of consumption? At any rate, don't forget that you
must pick those beans to-day. It's high time they were picked."
Emily gathered up her manuscript with all her careless rapture
gone. Creation was over; remained now the sordid business of
getting her book published. Emily typewrote it on the little
third-hand machine Perry had picked up for her at an auction sale--
a machine that wrote only half of any capital letter and wouldn't
print the "m's" at all. She put the capitals and the "m's" in
afterwards with a pen and sent the MS. away to a publishing firm.
The publishing firm sent it back with a typewritten screed stating
that "their readers had found some merit in the story but not
enough to warrant an acceptance."
This "damning with faint praise" flattened Emily out as not even a
printed slip could have done. Talk about three o'clock that night!
No, it is an act of mercy not to talk about it--or about many
successive three o'clocks.
"Ambition!" wrote Emily bitterly in her diary. "I could laugh!
Where is my ambition now? What is it like to be ambitious? To
feel that life is before you, a fair, unwritten white page where
you may inscribe your name in letters of success? To feel that you
have the wish and power to win your crown? To feel that the coming
years are crowding to meet you and lay their largess at your feet?
I ONCE knew what it was to feel so."
All of which goes to show how very young Emily still was. But
agony is none the less real because in later years when we have
learned that everything passes, we wonder what we agonized about.
She had a bad three weeks of it. Then she recovered enough to send
her story out again. This time the publisher wrote to her that he
might consider the book if she would make certain changes in it.
It was too "quiet." She must "pep it up." And the ending must be
changed entirely. It would never do.
Emily tore his letter savagely into bits. Mutilate and degrade her
story? Never! The very suggestion was an insult.
When a third publisher sent it back with a printed slip Emily's
belief in it died. She tucked it away and took up her pen grimly.
"Well, I can write short stories at least. I must continue to do
that."
Nevertheless, the book haunted her. After a few weeks she took it
out and reread it--coolly, critically, free alike from the delusive
glamour of her first rapture and from the equally delusive
depression of rejection slips. And still it seemed to her good.
Not quite the wonder-tale she had fancied it, perhaps; but still a
good piece of work. What then? No writer, so she had been told,
was ever capable of judging his own work correctly. If only Mr.
Carpenter were alive! He would tell her the truth. Emily made a
sudden terrible resolution. She would show it to Dean. She would
ask for his calm unprejudiced opinion and abide by it. It would be
hard. It was always hard to show her stories to any one, most of
all to Dean, who knew so much and had read everything in the world.
But she must KNOW. And she knew Dean would tell her the truth,
good or bad. He thought nothing of her stories. But THIS was
different. Would he not see something worth while in this? If
not--
VI
"Dean, I want your candid opinion about this story. Will you read
it carefully, and tell me exactly what you think of it? I don't
want flattery--or false encouragement--I want the truth--the naked
truth."
"Are you so sure of that?" asked Dean dryly. "Very few people can
endure seeing the naked truth. It has to have a rag or two to make
it presentable."
"I DO want the truth," said Emily stubbornly. "This book has
been"--she choked a little over the confession, "refused three
times. If you find any good in it I'll keep on trying to find a
publisher for it. If you condemn it I'll burn it."
Dean looked inscrutably at the little packet she held out to him.
So THIS was what had wrapped her away from him all summer--absorbed
her--possessed her. The one black drop in his veins--that Priest
jealousy of being first--suddenly made its poison felt.
He looked into her cold, sweet face and starry eyes, grey-purple as
a lake at dawn, and hated whatever was in the packet, but he
carried it home and brought it back three nights later. Emily met
him in the garden, pale and tense.
"Well," she said.
Dean looked at her, guilty. How ivory white and exquisite she was
in the chill dusk!
"'Faithful are the wounds of a friend.' I should be less than your
friend if I told you falsehoods about this, Emily."
"So--it's no good."
"It's a pretty little story, Emily. Pretty and flimsy and
ephemeral as a rose-tinted cloud. Cobwebs--only cobwebs. The
whole conception is too far-fetched. Fairy tales are out of the
fashion. And this one of yours makes overmuch of a demand on the
credulity of the reader. And your characters are only puppets.
How could you write a real story? You've never LIVED."
Emily clenched her hands and bit her lips. She dared not trust her
voice to say a single word. She had not felt like this since the
night Ellen Greene had told her her father must die. Her heart,
that had beaten so tumultuously a few minutes ago, was like lead,
heavy and cold. She turned and walked away from him. He limped
softly after her and touched her shoulder.
"Forgive me, Star. Isn't it better to know the truth? Stop
reaching for the moon. You'll never get it. Why try to write,
anyway? Everything has already been written."
"Some day," said Emily, compelling herself to speak steadily, "I
may be able to thank you for this. To-night I hate you."
"Is that just?" asked Dean quietly.
"No, of course it isn't just," said Emily wildly. "Can you expect
me to be just when you've just killed me? Oh, I know I asked for
it--I know it's good for me. Horrible things always are good for
you, I suppose. After you've been killed a few times you don't
mind it. But the first time one does--squirm. Go away, Dean.
Don't come back for a week at least. The funeral will be over
then."
"Don't you believe I know what this means to you, Star?" asked Dean
pityingly.
"You can't--altogether. Oh, I know you're sympathetic. I don't
want sympathy. I only want time to bury myself decently."
Dean, knowing it would be better to go, went. Emily watched him
out of sight. Then she took up the little dog-eared, discredited
manuscript he had laid on the stone bench and went up to her room.
She looked it over by her window in the fading light. Sentence
after sentence leaped out at her--witty, poignant, beautiful. No,
that was only her fond, foolish, maternal delusion. There was
nothing of that sort in the book. Dean had said so. And her book
people. How she loved them. How real they seemed to her. It was
terrible to think of destroying them. But they were NOT real.
Only "puppets." Puppets would not mind being burned. She glanced
up at the starlit sky of the autumn night. Vega of the Lyre shone
bluely down upon her. Oh, life was an ugly, cruel, wasteful thing!
Emily crossed over to her little fireplace and laid A Seller of
Dreams in the grate. She struck a match, knelt down and held it to
a corner with a hand that did not tremble. The flame seized on the
loose sheets eagerly, murderously. Emily clasped her hands over
her heart and watched it with dilated eyes, remembering the time
she had burned her old "account book" rather than let Aunt
Elizabeth see it. In a few moments the manuscript was a mass of
writhing fires--in a few more seconds it was a heap of crinkled
ashes, with here and there an accusing ghost-word coming out
whitely on a blackened fragment, as if to reproach her.
Repentance seized upon her. Oh, why had she done it? Why had she
burned her book? Suppose it was no good. Still, it was hers. It
was wicked to have burned it. She had destroyed something
incalculably precious to her. What did the mothers of old feel
when their children had passed through the fire to Moloch--when the
sacrificial impulse and excitement had gone? Emily thought she
knew.
Nothing of her book, her dear book that had seemed so wonderful to
her, but ashes--a little, pitiful heap of black ashes. Could it be
so? Where had gone all the wit and laughter and charm that had
seemed to glimmer in its pages--all the dear folks who had lived in
them--all the secret delight she had woven into them as moonlight
is woven among pines? Nothing left but ashes. Emily sprang up in
such an anguish of regret that she could not endure it. She must
get out--away--anywhere. Her little room, generally so dear and
beloved and cosy, seemed like a prison. Out--somewhere--into the
cold, free autumn night with its grey ghost-mists--away from walls
and boundaries--away from that little heap of dark flakes in the
grate--away from the reproachful ghosts of her murdered book folks.
She flung open the door of the room and rushed blindly to the
stair.
VII
Aunt Laura never to the day of her death forgave herself for
leaving that mending-basket at the head of the stair. She had
never done such a thing in her life before. She had been carrying
it up to her room when Elizabeth called peremptorily from the
kitchen asking where something was. Laura set her basket down on
the top step and ran to get it. She was away only a moment. But
that moment was enough for predestination and Emily. The tear-
blinded girl stumbled over the basket and fell--headlong down the
long steep staircase of New Moon. There was a moment of fear--a
moment of wonderment--she felt plunged into deadly cold--she felt
plunged into burning heat--she felt a soaring upward--a falling
into unseen depths--a fierce stab of agony in her foot--then
nothing more. When Laura and Elizabeth came running in there was
only a crumpled silken heap lying at the foot of the stairs with
balls and stockings all around it and Aunt Laura's scissors bent
and twisted under the foot they had so cruelly pierced.
Chapter VII
I
From October to April Emily Starr lay in bed or on the sitting-room
lounge watching the interminable windy drift of clouds over the
long white hills or the passionless beauty of winter trees around
quiet fields of snow, and wondering if she would ever walk again--
or walk only as a pitiable cripple. There was some obscure injury
to her back upon which the doctors could not agree. One said it
was negligible and would right itself in time. Two others shook
their heads and were afraid. But all were agreed about the foot.
The scissors had made two cruel wounds--one by the ankle, one on
the sole of the foot. Blood-poisoning set in. For days Emily
hovered between life and death, then between the scarcely less
terrible alternative of death and amputation. Aunt Elizabeth
prevented that. When all the doctors agreed that it was the only
way to save Emily's life she said grimly that it was not the Lord's
will, as understood by the Murrays, that people's limbs should be
cut off. Nor could she be removed from this position. Laura's
tears and Cousin Jimmy's pleadings and Dr. Burnley's execrations
and Dean Priest's agreements budged her not a jot. Emily's foot
should not be cut off. Nor was it. When she recovered unmaimed
Aunt Elizabeth was triumphant and Dr. Burnley confounded.
The danger of amputation was over, but the danger of lasting and
bad lameness remained. Emily faced that all winter.
"If I only KNEW one way or the other," she said to Dean. "If I
KNEW, I could make up my mind to bear it--perhaps. But to lie
here--wondering--wondering if I'll ever be well."
"You will be well," said Dean savagely.
Emily did not know what she would have done without Dean that
winter. He had given up his invariable winter trip and stayed in
Blair Water that he might be near her. He spent the days with her,
reading, talking, encouraging, sitting in the silence of perfect
companionship. When he was with her Emily felt that she might even
be able to face a lifetime of lameness. But in the long nights
when everything was blotted out by pain she could not face it.
Even when there was no pain her nights were often sleepless and
very terrible when the wind wailed drearily about the old New Moon
eaves or chased flying phantoms of snow over the hills. When she
slept she dreamed, and in her dreams she was for ever climbing
stairs and could never get to the top of them, lured upward by an
odd little whistle--two higher notes and a low one--that ever
retreated as she climbed. It was better to lie awake than have
that terrible, recurrent dream. Oh, those bitter nights! Once
Emily had not thought that the Bible verse declaring that there
would be no night in heaven contained an attractive promise. No
night? No soft twilight enkindled with stars? No white sacrament
of moonlight? No mystery of velvet shadow and darkness? No ever-
amazing miracle of dawn? Night was as beautiful as day and heaven
would not be perfect without it.
But now in these dreary weeks of pain and dread she shared the hope
of the Patmian seer. Night was a dreadful thing.
People said Emily Starr was very brave and patient and
uncomplaining. But she did not seem so to herself. They did not
know of the agonies of rebellion and despair and cowardice behind
her outward calmness of Murray pride and reserve. Even Dean did
not know--though perhaps he suspected.
She smiled gallantly when smiling was indicated, but she never
laughed. Not even Dean could make her laugh, though he tried with
all the powers of wit and humour at his command.
"My days of laughter are done," Emily said to herself. And her
days of creation as well. She could never write again. The
"flash" never came. No rainbow spanned the gloom of that terrible
winter. People came to see her continuously. She wished they
would stay away. Especially Uncle Wallace and Aunt Ruth, who were
sure she would never walk again and said so every time they came.
Yet they were not so bad as the callers who were cheerfully certain
she would be all right in time and did not believe a word of it
themselves. She had never had any intimate friends except Dean and
Ilse and Teddy. Ilse wrote weekly letters in which she rather too
obviously tried to cheer Emily up. Teddy wrote once when he heard
of her accident. The letter was very kind and tactful and
sincerely sympathetic. Emily thought it was the letter any
indifferent friendly acquaintance might have written and she did
not answer it though he had asked her to let him know how she was
getting on. No more letters came. There was nobody but Dean. He
had never failed her--never would fail her. More and more as the
interminable days of storm and gloom passed she turned to him. In
that winter of pain she seemed to herself to grow so old and wise
that they met on equal ground at last. Without him life was a
bleak, grey desert devoid of colour or music. When he came the
desert would--for a time at least--blossom like the rose of joy and
a thousand flowerets of fancy and hope and illusion would fling
their garlands over it.
II
When spring came Emily got well--got well so suddenly and quickly
that even the most optimistic of the three doctors was amazed.
True, for a few weeks she had to limp about on a crutch, but the
time came when she could do without it--could walk alone in the
garden and look out on the beautiful world with eyes that could not
be satisfied with seeing. Oh, how good life was again! How good
the green sod felt beneath her feet! She had left pain and fear
behind her like a cast-off garment and felt gladness--no, not
gladness exactly, but the possibility of being glad once more
sometime.
It was worth while to have been ill to realize the savour of
returning health and well-being on a morning like this, when a sea-
wind was blowing up over the long, green fields. There was nothing
on earth like a sea-wind. Life might, in some ways, be a thing of
shreds and tatters, everything might be changed or gone; but
pansies and sunset clouds were still fair. She felt again her old
joy in mere existence.
"'Truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eye
to behold the sun,'" she quoted dreamily.
Old laughter came back. On the first day that Emily's laughter was
heard again in New Moon Laura Murray, whose hair had turned from
ash to snow that winter, went to her room and knelt down by her bed
to thank God. And while she knelt there Emily was talking about
God to Dean in the garden on one of the most beautiful spring
twilights imaginable, with a little, growing moon in the midst of
it.
"There have been times this past winter when I felt God hated me.
But now again I feel sure He loves me," she said softly.
"So sure?" questioned Dean dryly. "I think God is interested in us
but He doesn't love us. He likes to watch us to see what we'll do.
Perhaps it amuses Him to see us squirm."
"What a horrible conception of God!" said Emily with a shudder.
"You don't really believe that about Him, Dean."
"Why not?"
"Because He would be worse than a devil then--a God who thought
only about his own amusement, without even the devil's justification
of hating us."
"Who tortured you all winter with bodily pain and mental anguish?"
asked Dean.
"Not God. And He--sent me YOU," said Emily steadily. She did not
look at him; she lifted her face to the Three Princesses in their
Maytime beauty--a white-rose face now, pale from its winter's pain.
Beside her the big spirea, which was the pride of Cousin Jimmy's
heart, banked up in its June-time snow, making a beautiful
background for her. "Dean, how can I ever thank you for what
you've done for me--been to me--since last October? I can never
put it in words. But I want you to know how I feel about it."
"I've done nothing except snatch at happiness. Do you know what
happiness it was to me to do something for you Star--help you in
some way--to see you turning to me in your pain for something that
only I could give--something I had learned in my own years of
loneliness? And to let myself dream something that couldn't come
true--that I knew ought not to come true--"
Emily trembled and shivered slightly. Yet why hesitate--why put
off that which she had fully made up her mind to do?
"Are you so sure, Dean," she said in a low tone, "that your dream--
can't come true?"
Chapter VIII
I
There was a tremendous sensation in the Murray clan when Emily
announced that she was going to marry Dean Priest. At New Moon the
situation was very tense for a time. Aunt Laura cried and Cousin
Jimmy went about shaking his head and Aunt Elizabeth was
exceedingly grim. Yet in the end they made up their minds to
accept it. What else could they do? By this time even Aunt
Elizabeth realized that when Emily said she was going to do a thing
she would do it.
"You would have made a worse fuss if I had told you I was going to
marry Perry of Stovepipe Town," said Emily when she had heard all
Aunt Elizabeth had to say.
"Of course that is true enough," admitted Aunt Elizabeth when Emily
had gone out. "And, after all, Dean is well-off--and the Priests
are a good family."
"But so--so PRIESTY," sighed Laura. "And Dean is far, far too old
for Emily. Besides, his great-great-grandfather went insane."
"Dean won't go insane."
"His children might."
"Laura," said Elizabeth rebukingly, and dropped the subject.
"Are you very sure you love him, Emily?" Aunt Laura asked that
evening.
"Yes--in a way," said Emily.
Aunt Laura threw out her hands and spoke with a sudden passion
utterly foreign to her.
"But there's only one way of loving."
"Oh no, dearest of Victorian aunties," answered Emily gaily.
"There are a dozen different ways. YOU know I've tried one or two
ways already. And they failed me. Don't worry about Dean and me.
We understand each other perfectly."
"I only want you to be happy, dear."
"And I will be happy--I am happy. I'm not a romantic little
dreamer any longer. Last winter took that all out of me. I'm
going to marry a man whose companionship satisfies me absolutely
and he's quite satisfied with what I can give him--real affection
and comradeship. I am sure that is the best foundation for a happy
marriage. Besides, Dean NEEDS me. I can make him happy. He has
never been happy. Oh, it is delightful to feel that you hold
happiness in your hand and can hold it out, like a pearl beyond
price, to one who longs for it."
"You're too young," reiterated Aunt Laura.
"It's only my body that's young. My soul is a hundred years old.
Last winter made me feel so old and wise. YOU know."
"Yes, I know." But Laura also knew that this very feeling old and
wise merely proved Emily's youth. People who ARE old and wise
never feel either. And all this talk of aged souls didn't do away
with the fact that Emily, slim, radiant, with eyes of mystery, was
not yet twenty, while Dean Priest was forty-two. In fifteen years--
but Laura would not think of it.
And, after all, Dean would not take her away. There HAD been happy
marriages with just as much disparity of age.
II
Nobody, it must be admitted, seemed to regard the match with
favour. Emily had a rather abominable time of it for a few weeks.
Dr. Burnley raged about the affair and insulted Dean. Aunt Ruth
came over and made a scene.
"He's an infidel, Emily."
"He isn't!" said Emily indignantly.
"Well, he doesn't believe what WE believe," declared Aunt Ruth as
if that ought to settle the matter for any true Murray.
Aunt Addie, who had never forgiven Emily for refusing her son, even
though Andrew was now happily and suitably, MOST suitably, married,
was very hard to bear. She contrived to make Emily feel a most
condescending pity. She had lost Andrew, so must console herself
with lame Jarback Priest. Of course Aunt Addie did not put it in
so many blunt words but she might as well have. Emily understood
her implications perfectly.
"Of course, he's richer than a YOUNG man could be," conceded Aunt
Addie.
"And interesting," said Emily. "Most young men are SUCH bores.
They haven't lived long enough to learn that they are not the
wonders to the world they are to their mothers."
So honours were about even THERE.
The Priests did not like it any too well either. Perhaps because
they did not care to see a rich uncle's possessions thus slipping
through the fingers of hope. They said Emily Starr was just
marrying Dean for his money, and the Murrays took care that she
should hear they had said it. Emily felt that the Priests were
continually and maliciously discussing her behind her back.
"I'll never feel at home in your clan," she told Dean rebelliously.
"Nobody will ask you to. You and I, Star, are going to live unto
ourselves. We are not going to walk or talk or think or breathe
according to any clan standard, be it Priest or Murray. If the
Priests disapprove of you as a wife for me the Murrays still more
emphatically disapprove of me as a husband for you. Never mind.
Of course the Priests find it hard to believe that you are marrying
me because you care anything for me. How could you? I find it
hard to believe myself."
But you DO believe it, Dean? Truly I care more for you than any
one in the world. Of course--I told you--I don't love you like a
silly, romantic girl."
"Do you love any one else?" asked Dean quietly. It was the first
time he had ventured to ask the question.
"No. Of course--you know--I've had one or two broken-backed love
affairs--silly schoolgirl fancies. That is all years behind me.
Last winter seems like a lifetime--dividing me by centuries from
those old follies. I'm all yours, Dean."
Dean lifted the hand he held and kissed it. He had never yet
touched her lips.
"I can make you happy, Star. I know it. Old--lame as I am, I can
make you happy. I've been waiting for you all my life, my star.
That's what you've always seemed to me, Emily. An exquisite,
unreachable star. Now I have you--hold you--wear you on my heart.
And you will love me yet--some day you will give me more than
affection."
The passion in his voice startled Emily a little. It seemed in
some way to demand more of her than she had to give. And Ilse, who
had graduated from the School of Oratory and had come home for a
week before going on a summer concert tour, struck another note of
warning that disturbed faintly for a time.
"In some ways, honey, Dean is just the man for you. He's clever
and fascinating and not so horribly conscious of his own importance
as most of the Priests. But you'll belong to him body and soul.
Dean can't bear any one to have any interest outside of him. He
must possess exclusively. If you don't mind that--"
"I don't think I do."
"Your writing--"
"Oh, I'm done with THAT. I seem to have no interest in it since my
illness. I saw--then--how little it really mattered--how many more
important things there were--"
"As long as you feel like that you'll be happy with Dean. Heigh-
ho." Ilse sighed and pulled the blood-red rose that was pinned to
her waist to pieces. "It makes me feel fearfully old and wise to
be talking like this of your getting married, Emily. It seems so--
absurd in some ways. Yesterday we were schoolgirls. To-day you're
engaged. To-morrow--you'll be a grandmother."
"Aren't you--isn't there anybody in your own life, Ilse?"
"Listen to the fox that lost her tail. No, thank you. Besides--
one might as well be frank. I feel an awful mood of honest
confession on me. There's never been anybody for me but Perry
Miller. And you've got your claws in him."
Perry Miller. Emily could not believe her ears.
"Ilse Burnley! You've always laughed at him--raged at him--"
"Of course I did. I liked him so much that it made me furious to
see him making a fool of himself. I wanted to be proud of him and
he always made me ashamed of him. Oh, there were times when he
made me mad enough to bite the leg off a chair. If I hadn't cared,
do you suppose it would have mattered what kind of a donkey he was?
I can't get over it--the 'Burnley sotness,' I suppose. We never
change. Oh, I'd have jumped at him--would yet--herring-barrels,
Stovepipe Town and all. There you have it. But never mind. Life
is very decent without him."
"Perhaps--some day--"
"Don't dream it. Emily, I won't have you setting about making
matches for me. Perry never gave me two thoughts--never will. I'm
not going to think of him. What's that old verse we laughed over
once that last year in high school--thinking it was all nonsense?
Since ever the world was spinning
And till the world shall end
You've your man in the beginning
Or you have him in the end,
But to have him from start to finish
And neither to borrow nor lend
Is what all of the girls are wanting
And none of the gods can send.
"Well, next year I'll graduate. For years after that a career.
Oh, I dare say I'll marry some day."
"Teddy?" said Emily, before she could prevent herself. She could
have bitten her tongue off the moment the word escaped it.
Ilse gave her a long, keen look, which Emily parried successfully
with all the Murray pride--too successfully, perhaps.
"No, not Teddy. Teddy never thought about me. I doubt if he
thinks of any one but himself. Teddy's a duck but he's selfish,
Emily, he really is."
"No, no," indignantly. She could not listen to this.
"Well, we won't quarrel over it. What difference does it make if
he is? He's gone out of our lives anyway. The cat can have him.
He's going to climb to the top--they thought him a wow in Montreal.
He'll make a wonderful portrait painter--if he can only cure
himself of his old trick of putting YOU into all the faces he
paints."
"Nonsense. He doesn't--"
"He DOES. I've raged at him about it times without number. Of
course he denies it. I really think he's quite unconscious of it
himself. It's the hang-over from some old unconscious emotion, I
suppose--to use the jargon of modern psychologists. Never mind.
As I said, I mean to marry sometime. When I'm tired of a career.
It's very jolly NOW--but some day. I'll make a sensible wedding
o't, just as you're doing, with a heart of gold and a pocket of
silver. Isn't it funny to be talking of marrying some man you've
never even seen? What is he doing at this very moment? Shaving--
swearing--breaking his heart over some other girl? Still, he's to
marry ME. Oh, we'll be happy enough, too. And we'll visit each
other, you and I--and compare our children--call your first girl
Ilse, won't you, friend of my heart--and--and what a devilish thing
it is to be a woman, isn't it, Emily?"
Old Kelly, the tin peddler, who had been Emily's friend of many
years, had to have his say about it, too. One could not suppress
Old Kelly.
"Gurrl dear, is it true that ye do be after going to marry Jarback
Praste?"
"Quite true." Emily knew it was of no use to expect Old Kelly to
call Dean anything but Jarback. But she always winced.
Old Kelly crabbed his face.
"Ye're too young at the business of living to be marrying any one--
laste of all a Praste."
"Haven't you been twitting me for years with my slowness in getting
a beau?" asked Emily shyly.
"Gurrl dear, a joke is a joke. But this is beyond joking. Don't
be pig-headed now, there's a jewel. Stop a bit and think it over.
There do be some knots mighty aisy to tie but the untying is a cat
of a different brade. I've always been warning ye against marrying
a Praste. 'Twas a foolish thing--I might av known it. I should
've towld ye to marry one."
"Dean isn't like the other Priests, Mr. Kelly. I'm going to be
very happy."
Old Kelly shook his bushy, reddish grey head incredulously.
"Then you'll be the first Praste woman that ever was, not aven
laving out the ould Lady at the Grange. But SHE liked a fight
every day. It'll be the death av you."
"Dean and I won't fight--at least not every day." Emily was having
some fun to herself. Old Kelly's gloomy predictions did not worry
her. She took rather an impish delight in egging him on.
"Not if ye give him his own way. He'll sulk if ye don't. All the
Prastes sulk if they don't get it. And he'll be that jealous--
ye'll never dare spake to another man. Oh, the Prastes rule their
wives. Old Aaron Praste made his wife go down on her knees
whenever she had a little favour to ask. Me feyther saw it wid his
own eyes."
"Mr. Kelly, do you really suppose ANY man could make ME do that?"
Old Kelly's eyes twinkled in spite of himself.
"The Murray knee jints do be a bit stiff for that," he
acknowledged, "But there's other things. Do ye be after knowing
that his Uncle Jim never spoke when he could grunt and always said
'Ye fool' to his wife when she conterdicted him."
"But perhaps she WAS a fool, Mr. Kelly."
"Mebbe. But was it polite? I lave it to ye. And his father threw
the dinner dishes at his wife whin she made him mad. 'Tis a fact,
I'm telling you. Though the old divil WAS amusing when he was
pleased."
"That sort of thing always skips a generation," said Emily. "And
if not--I can dodge."
"Gurrl dear, there do be worse things than having a dish or two
flung at ye. Ye KIN dodge them. But there's things ye can't
dodge. Tell me now, do ye know"--Old Kelly lowered his voice
ominously--"that 'tis said the Prastes do often get tired av bein'
married to the wan woman."
Emily was guilty of giving Mr. Kelly one of the smiles Aunt
Elizabeth had always disapproved of.
"Do you really think Dean will get tired of me? I'm not beautiful,
dear Mr. Kelly, but I am very interesting."
Old Kelly gathered up his lines with the air of a man who
surrenders at discretion.
"Well, gurrl dear, ye do be having a good mouth for kissing,
anyway. I see ye're set on it. But I do be thinking the Lord
intended ye for something different. Anyway, here's hoping we'll
all make a good end. But he knows too much, that Jarback Praste,
he's after knowing far too much."
Old Kelly drove off, waiting till he was decently out of earshot to
mutter:
"Don't it bate hell? And him as odd-looking as a cross-eyed cat!"
Emily stood still for a few minutes looking after Old Kelly's
retreating chariot. He had found the one joint in her armour and
the thrust had struck home. A little chill crept over her as if a
wind from the grave had blown across her spirit. All at once an
old, old story whispered long ago by Great-aunt Nancy to Caroline
Priest flashed into her recollection. Dean, so it was said, had
seen the Black Mass celebrated.
Emily shook the recollection from her. THAT was all nonsense--
silly, malicious, envious gossip of stay-at-homes. But Dean DID
know too much. He had eyes that had seen too much. In a way that
had been part of the distinct fascination he had always had for
Emily. But now it frightened her. Had she not always felt--did
she not still feel--that he always seemed to be laughing at the
world from some mysterious standpoint of inner knowledge--a
knowledge she did not share--could not share--did not, to come down
to the bare bones of it, want to share? He had lost some
intangible, all-real zest of faith and idealism. It was there deep
in her heart--an inescapable conviction, thrust it out of sight as
she might. For a moment she felt with Ilse that it was a decidedly
devilish thing to be a woman.
"It serves me right for bandying words with Old Jock Kelly on such
a subject," she thought angrily.
Consent was never given in set terms to Emily's engagement. But
the thing came to be tacitly accepted. Dean was well-to-do. The
Priests had all the necessary traditions, including that of a
grandmother who had danced with the Prince of Wales at the famous
ball in Charlottetown. After all, there would be a certain relief
in seeing Emily safely married.
"He won't take her far away from us," said Aunt Laura, who could
have reconciled herself to almost anything for that. How could
they lose the one bright, gay thing in that faded house?
"Tell Emily," wrote old Aunt Nancy, "that twins run in the Priest
family."
But Aunt Elizabeth did not tell her.
Dr. Burnley, who had made the most fuss, gave in when he heard that
Elizabeth Murray was overhauling the chests of quilts in the attic
of New Moon and that Laura was hemstitching table linen.
"Those whom Elizabeth Murray has joined together let no man put
asunder," he said resignedly.
Aunt Laura cupped Emily's face in her gentle hands and looked deep
into her eyes. "God bless you, Emily, dear child."
"Very mid-Victorian," commented Emily to Dean. "But I liked it."
Chapter IX
I
On one point Aunt Elizabeth was adamant Emily should not be married
until she was twenty. Dean, who had dreamed of an autumn wedding
and a winter spent in a dreamy Japanese garden beyond the western
sea, gave in with a bad grace. Emily, too, would have preferred an
earlier bridal. In the back of her mind, where she would not even
glance at it, was the feeling that the sooner it was over and made
irrevocable, the better.
Yet she was happy, as she told herself very often and very
sincerely. Perhaps there WERE dark moments when a disquieting
thought stared her in the face--it was but a crippled, broken-
winged happiness--not the wild, free-flying happiness she had
dreamed of. But that, she reminded herself, was lost to her for
ever.
One day Dean appeared before her with a flush of boyish excitement
on his face.
"Emily, I've been and gone and done something. Will you approve?
Oh, Lord, what will I do if you don't approve."
"What is it you've done?"
"I've bought me a house."
"A house!"
"A house! I, Dean Priest, am a landed proprietor--owning a house,
a garden and a spruce lot five acres in extent. I, who this
morning hadn't a square inch of earth to call my own. I, who all
my life have been hungry to own a bit of land."
"WHAT house have you bought, Dean?"
"Fred Clifford's house--at least the house he has always owned by a
legal quibble. Really OUR house--appointed--foreordained for us
since the foundation of the world."
"The Disappointed House?"
"Oh, yes, that was your old name for it. But it isn't going to be
Disappointed any longer. That is--if--Emily, DO you approve of
what I've done?"
"Approve? You're simply a darling, Dean. I've always loved that
house. It's one of those houses you love the minute you see them.
Some houses are like that, you know--full of magic. And others
have nothing at all of it in them. I've always longed to see that
house fulfilled. Oh--and somebody told me you were going to buy
that big horrible house at Shrewsbury. I was afraid to ask if it
were true."
"Emily, take back those words. You knew it wasn't true. You knew
me better. Of course, all the Priests wanted me to buy that house.
My dear sister was almost in tears because I wouldn't. It was to
be had at a bargain--and it was SUCH an elegant house."
"It IS elegant--with all the word implies," agreed Emily. "But
it's an impossible house--not because of its size or its elegance
but just because of its impossibility."
"E-zackly. Any proper woman would feel the same. I'm so glad
you're pleased, Emily. I had to buy Fred's house yesterday in
Charlottetown--without waiting to consult you--another man was on
the point of buying it, so I wired Fred instantly. Of course, if
you hadn't liked it I'd have sold it again. But I FELT you would.
We'll make such a home of it, dear. I want a home. I've had many
habitations but no homes. I'll have it finished and fixed up as
beautifully as possible for you, Star--my Star who is fit to shine
in the palaces of kings."
"Let's go right up and look at it," said Emily. "I want to tell it
what is coming to it. I want to tell it it is going to LIVE at
last."
"We'll go up and look at it and IN it. I've got the key. Got it
from Fred's sister. Emily, I feel as if I'd reached up and plucked
the moon."
"Oh, I'VE picked a lapful of stars," cried Emily gaily.
II
They went up to the Disappointed House--through the old orchard
full of columbines and along the To-morrow Road, across a pasture
field, up a little slope of golden fern, and over an old meandering
fence with its longers bleached to a silvery grey, with clusters of
wild everlastings and blue asters in its corners, then up the
little winding, capricious path on the long fir hill, which was so
narrow they had to walk singly and where the air always seemed so
full of nice whispery sounds.
When they came to its end there was a sloping field before them,
dotted with little, pointed firs, windy, grassy, lovable. And on
top of it, surrounded by hill glamour and upland wizardry, with
great sunset clouds heaped up over it, the house--THEIR house.
A house with the mystery of woods behind it and around it, except
on the south side where the land fell away in a long hill looking
down on the Blair Water, that was like a bowl of dull gold now, and
across it to meadows of starry rest beyond and the Derry Pond Hills
that were as blue and romantic as the famous Alsatian Mountains.
Between the house and the view, but not hiding it, was a row of
wonderful Lombardy poplars.
They climbed the hill to the gate of a little enclosed garden--a
garden far older than the house which had been built on the site of
a little log cabin of pioneer days.
"That's a view I can live with," said Dean exultingly. "Oh, 'tis a
dear place this. The hill is haunted by squirrels, Emily. And
there are rabbits about. Don't you love squirrels and rabbits?
And there are any number of shy violets hereabouts in spring, too.
There is a little mossy hollow behind those young firs that is full
of violets in May--violets,
Sweeter than lids of Emily's eyes
Or Emily's breath.
Emily's a nicer name than Cytherea or Juno, I think. I want you to
notice especially that little gate over yonder. It isn't really
needed. It opens only into that froggy marsh beyond the wood. But
isn't it a gate? I love a gate like that--a reasonless gate. It's
full of promise. There MAY be something wonderful beyond. A gate
is always a mystery, anyhow--it lures--it is a symbol. And listen
to that bell ringing somewhere in the twilight across the harbour.
A bell in twilight always has a magic sound--as if it came from
somewhere 'far far in fairyland.' There are roses in that far
corner--old-fashioned roses like sweet old songs set to flowering.
Roses white enough to lie in your white bosom, my sweet, roses red
enough to star that soft dark cloud of your hair. Emily, do you
know I'm a little drunk to-night--on the wine of life. Don't
wonder if I say crazy things."
Emily was very happy. The old, sweet garden seemed to be talking
to her as a friend in the drowsy, winking light. She surrendered
herself utterly to the charm of the place. She looked at the
Disappointed House adoringly. Such a dear THOUGHTFUL little house.
Not an old house--she liked it for that--an old house knew too
much--was haunted by too many feet that had walked over its
threshold--too many anguished or impassioned eyes that had looked
out of its windows. This house was ignorant and innocent like
herself. Longing for happiness. It should have it. She and Dean
would drive out the ghosts of things that never happened. How
sweet it would be to have a home of her very own.
"That house wants us as badly as we want it," she said.
"I love you when your tones soften and mute like that, Star," said
Dean. "Don't ever talk so to any other man, Emily."
Emily threw him a glance of coquetry that very nearly made him kiss
her. He had never kissed her yet. Some subtle prescience always
told him she was not yet ready to be kissed. He might have dared
it there and then, in that hour of glamour that had transmuted
everything into terms of romance and charm--he might even have won
her wholly then. But he hesitated--and the magic moment passed.
From somewhere down the dim road behind the spruces came laughter.
Harmless, innocent laughter of children. But it broke some faintly
woven spell.
"Let us go in and see our house," said Dean. He led the way across
the wild-grown grasses to the door that opened into the living-
room. The key turned stiffly in the rusted lock. Dean took
Emily's hand and drew her in.
"Over your own threshold, sweet--"
He lifted his flashlight and threw a circle of shifting light
around the unfinished room, with its bare, staring, lathed walls,
its sealed windows, its gaping doorways, its empty fireplace--no,
not quite empty. Emily saw a little