Rilla of Ingleside

by L. M. Montgomery

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE WEEKS WEAR BY

  Rilla read her first love letter in her Rainbow Valley fir-shadowednook, and a girl's first love letter, whatever blase, older people maythink of it, is an event of tremendous importance in the teens. AfterKenneth's regiment had left Kingsport there came a fortnight ofdully-aching anxiety and when the congregation sang in Church on Sundayevenings,

  "Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea,"

  Rilla's voice always failed her; for with the words came a horriblyvivid mind picture of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless wavesamid the struggles and cries of drowning men. Then word came thatKenneth's regiment had arrived safely in England; and now, at last,here was his letter. It began with something that made Rilla supremelyhappy for the moment and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned hercheeks with the wonder and thrill and delight of it. Between beginningand ending the letter was just such a jolly, newsy epistle as Ken mighthave written to anyone; but for the sake of that beginning and endingRilla slept with the letter under her pillow for weeks, sometimeswaking in the night to slip her fingers under and just touch it, andlooked with secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts could neverhave written them anything half so wonderful and exquisite. Kenneth wasnot the son of a famous novelist for nothing. He "had a way" ofexpressing things in a few poignant, significant words that seemed tosuggest far more than they uttered, and never grew stale or flat orfoolish with ever so many scores of readings. Rilla went home fromRainbow Valley as if she flew rather than walked.

  But such moments of uplift were rare that autumn. To be sure, there wasone day in September when great news came of a big Allied victory inthe west and Susan ran out to hoist the flag--the first time she hadhoisted it since the Russian line broke and the last time she was tohoist it for many dismal moons.

  "Likely the Big Push has begun at last, Mrs. Dr. dear," she exclaimed,"and we will soon see the finish of the Huns. Our boys will be home byChristmas now. Hurrah!"

  Susan was ashamed of herself for hurrahing the minute she had done it,and apologized meekly for such an outburst of juvenility. "But indeed,Mrs. Dr. dear, this good news has gone to my head after this awfulsummer of Russian slumps and Gallipoli setbacks."

  "Good news!" said Miss Oliver bitterly. "I wonder if the women whosemen have been killed for it will call it good news. Just because ourown men are not on that part of the front we are rejoicing as if thevictory had cost no lives."

  "Now, Miss Oliver dear, do not take that view of it," deprecated Susan."We have not had much to rejoice over of late and yet men were beingkilled just the same. Do not let yourself slump like poor CousinSophia. She said, when the word came, 'Ah, it is nothing but a rift inthe clouds. We are up this week but we will be down the next.' 'Well,Sophia Crawford,' said I,--for I will never give in to her, Mrs. Dr.dear--'God himself cannot make two hills without a hollow between them,as I have heard it said, but that is no reason why we should not takethe good of the hills when we are on them.' But Cousin Sophia moanedon. 'Here is the Gallipolly expedition a failure and the Grand DukeNicholas sent off, and everyone knows the Czar of Rooshia is apro-German and the Allies have no ammunition and Bulgaria is goingagainst us. And the end is not yet, for England and France must bepunished for their deadly sins until they repent in sackcloth andashes.' 'I think myself,' I said, 'that they will do their repenting inkhaki and trench mud, and it seems to me that the Huns should have afew sins to repent of also.' 'They are instruments in the hands of theAlmighty, to purge the garner,' said Sophia. And then I got mad, Mrs.Dr. dear, and told her I did not and never would believe that theAlmighty ever took such dirty instruments in hand for any purposewhatever, and that I did not consider it decent for her to be using thewords of Holy Writ as glibly as she was doing in ordinary conversation.She was not, I told her, a minister or even an elder. And for the timebeing I squelched her, Mrs. Dr. dear. Cousin Sophia has no spirit. Sheis very different from her niece, Mrs. Dean Crawford over-harbour. Youknow the Dean Crawfords had five boys and now the new baby is anotherboy. All the connection and especially Dean Crawford were muchdisappointed because their hearts had been set on a girl; but Mrs. Deanjust laughed and said, 'Everywhere I went this summer I saw the sign"MEN WANTED" staring me in the face. Do you think I could go and have agirl under such circumstances?' There is spirit for you, Mrs. Dr. dear.But Cousin Sophia would say the child was just so much more cannonfodder."

  Cousin Sophia had full range for her pessimism that gloomy autumn, andeven Susan, incorrigible old optimist as she was, was hard put to itfor cheer. When Bulgaria lined up with Germany Susan only remarkedscornfully, "One more nation anxious for a licking," but the Greektangle worried her beyond her powers of philosophy to endure calmly.

  "Constantine of Greece has a German wife, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that factsquelches hope. To think that I should have lived to care what kind ofa wife Constantine of Greece had! The miserable creature is under hiswife's thumb and that is a bad place for any man to be. I am an oldmaid and an old maid has to be independent or she will be squashed out.But if I had been a married woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, I would have beenmeek and humble. It is my opinion that this Sophia of Greece is a minx."

  Susan was furious when the news came that Venizelos had met withdefeat. "I could spank Constantine and skin him alive afterwards, thatI could," she exclaimed bitterly.

  "Oh, Susan, I'm surprised at you," said the doctor, pulling a longface. "Have you no regard for the proprieties? Skin him alive by allmeans but omit the spanking."

  "If he had been well spanked in his younger days he might have moresense now," retorted Susan. "But I suppose princes are never spanked,more is the pity. I see the Allies have sent him an ultimatum. I couldtell them that it will take more than ultimatums to skin a snake likeConstantine. Perhaps the Allied blockade will hammer sense into hishead; but that will take some time I am thinking, and in the meantimewhat is to become of poor Serbia?"

  They saw what became of Serbia, and during the process Susan was hardlyto be lived with. In her exasperation she abused everything andeverybody except Kitchener, and she fell upon poor President Wilsontooth and claw.

  "If he had done his duty and gone into the war long ago we should nothave seen this mess in Serbia," she avowed.

  "It would be a serious thing to plunge a great country like the UnitedStates, with its mixed population, into the war, Susan," said thedoctor, who sometimes came to the defence of the President, not becausehe thought Wilson needed it especially, but from an unholy love ofbaiting Susan.

  "Maybe, doctor dear--maybe! But that makes me think of the old story ofthe girl who told her grandmother she was going to be married. 'It is asolemn thing to be married,' said the old lady. 'Yes, but it is asolemner thing not to be,' said the girl. And I can testify to that outof my own experience, doctor dear. And I think it is a solemner thingfor the Yankees that they have kept out of the war than it would havebeen if they had gone into it. However, though I do not know much aboutthem, I am of the opinion that we will see them starting something yet,Woodrow Wilson or no Woodrow Wilson, when they get it into their headsthat this war is not a correspondence school. They will not," saidSusan, energetically waving a saucepan with one hand and a soup ladlewith the other, "be too proud to fight then."

  On a pale-yellow, windy evening in October Carl Meredith went away. Hehad enlisted on his eighteenth birthday. John Meredith saw him off witha set face. His two boys were gone--there was only little Bruce leftnow. He loved Bruce and Bruce's mother dearly; but Jerry and Carl werethe sons of the bride of his youth and Carl was the only one of all hischildren who had Cecilia's very eyes. As they looked lovingly out athim above Carl's uniform the pale minister suddenly remembered the daywhen for the first and last time he had tried to whip Carl for hisprank with the eel. That was the first time he had realised how muchCarl's eyes were like Cecilia's. Now he realised it again once more.Would he ever again see his dead wife's eyes looking at him from hisson's face? What a bonny, clea
n, handsome lad he was! It was--hard--tosee him go. John Meredith seemed to be looking at a torn plain strewedwith the bodies of "able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen andforty-five." Only the other day Carl had been a little scrap of a boy,hunting bugs in Rainbow Valley, taking lizards to bed with him, andscandalizing the Glen by carrying frogs to Sunday School. It seemedhardly--right--somehow that he should be an "able-bodied man" in khaki.Yet John Meredith had said no word to dissuade him when Carl had toldhim he must go.

  Rilla felt Carl's going keenly. They had always been cronies andplaymates. He was only a little older than she was and they had beenchildren in Rainbow Valley together. She recalled all their old pranksand escapades as she walked slowly home alone. The full moon peepedthrough the scudding clouds with sudden floods of weird illumination,the telephone wires sang a shrill weird song in the wind, and the tallspikes of withered, grey-headed golden-rod in the fence corners swayedand beckoned wildly to her like groups of old witches weaving unholyspells. On such a night as this, long ago, Carl would come over toIngleside and whistle her out to the gate. "Let's go on a moon-spree,Rilla," he would say, and the two of them would scamper off to RainbowValley. Rilla had never been afraid of his beetles and bugs, though shedrew a hard and fast line at snakes. They used to talk together ofalmost everything and were teased about each other at school; but oneevening when they were about ten years of age they had solemnlypromised, by the old spring in Rainbow Valley, that they would nevermarry each other. Alice Clow had "crossed out" their names on her slatein school that day, and it came out that "both married." They did notlike the idea at all, hence the mutual vow in Rainbow Valley. There wasnothing like an ounce of prevention. Rilla laughed over the oldmemory--and then sighed. That very day a dispatch from some Londonpaper had contained the cheerful announcement that "the present momentis the darkest since the war began." It was dark enough, and Rillawished desperately that she could do something besides waiting andserving at home, as day after day the Glen boys she had known wentaway. If she were only a boy, speeding in khaki by Carl's side to theWestern front! She had wished that in a burst of romance when Jem hadgone, without, perhaps, really meaning it. She meant it now. There weremoments when waiting at home, in safety and comfort, seemed anunendurable thing.

  The moon burst triumphantly through an especially dark cloud and shadowand silver chased each other in waves over the Glen. Rilla rememberedone moonlit evening of childhood when she had said to her mother, "Themoon just looks like a sorry, sorry face." She thought it looked likethat still--an agonised, care-worn face, as though it looked down ondreadful sights. What did it see on the Western front? In brokenSerbia? On shell-swept Gallipoli?

  "I am tired," Miss Oliver had said that day, in a rare outburst ofimpatience, "of this horrible rack of strained emotions, when every daybrings a new horror or the dread of it. No, don't look reproachfully atme, Mrs. Blythe. There's nothing heroic about me today. I've slumped. Iwish England had left Belgium to her fate--I wish Canada had never senta man--I wish we'd tied our boys to our apron strings and not let oneof them go. Oh--I shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour--but atthis very minute I mean every word of it. Will the Allies never strike?"

  "Patience is a tired mare but she jogs on," said Susan.

  "While the steeds of Armageddon thunder, trampling over our hearts,"retorted Miss Oliver. "Susan, tell me--don't you ever--didn't youever--take spells of feeling that you must scream--or swear--or smashsomething--just because your torture reaches a point when it becomesunbearable?"

  "I have never sworn or desired to swear, Miss Oliver dear, but I willadmit," said Susan, with the air of one determined to make a cleanbreast of it once and for all, "that I have experienced occasions whenit was a relief to do considerable banging."

  "Don't you think that is a kind of swearing, Susan? What is thedifference between slamming a door viciously and saying d----"

  "Miss Oliver dear," interrupted Susan, desperately determined to saveGertrude from herself, if human power could do it, "you are all tiredout and unstrung--and no wonder, teaching those obstreperous youngstersall day and coming home to bad war news. But just you go upstairs andlie down and I will bring you up a cup of hot tea and a bite of toastand very soon you will not want to slam doors or swear."

  "Susan, you're a good soul--a very pearl of Susans! But, Susan, itwould be such a relief--to say just one soft, low, little tiny d---"

  "I will bring you a hot-water bottle for the soles of your feet, also,"interposed Susan resolutely, "and it would not be any relief to saythat word you are thinking of, Miss Oliver, and that you may tie to."

  "Well, I'll try the hot-water bottle first," said Miss Oliver,repenting herself on teasing Susan and vanishing upstairs, to Susan'sintense relief. Susan shook her head ominously as she filled thehot-water bottle. The war was certainly relaxing the standards ofbehaviour woefully. Here was Miss Oliver admittedly on the point ofprofanity.

  "We must draw the blood from her brain," said Susan, "and if thisbottle is not effective I will see what can be done with a mustardplaster."

  Gertrude rallied and carried on. Lord Kitchener went to Greece, whereatSusan foretold that Constantine would soon experience a change ofheart. Lloyd George began to heckle the Allies regarding equipment andguns and Susan said you would hear more of Lloyd George yet. Thegallant Anzacs withdrew from Gallipoli and Susan approved the step,with reservations. The siege of Kut-El-Amara began and Susan pored overmaps of Mesopotamia and abused the Turks. Henry Ford started for Europeand Susan flayed him with sarcasm. Sir John French was superseded bySir Douglas Haig and Susan dubiously opined that it was poor policy toswap horses crossing a stream, "though, to be sure, Haig was a goodname and French had a foreign sound, say what you might." Not a move onthe great chess-board of king or bishop or pawn escaped Susan, who hadonce read only Glen St. Mary notes. "There was a time," she saidsorrowfully, "when I did not care what happened outside of P.E. Island,and now a king cannot have a toothache in Russia or China but itworries me. It may be broadening to the mind, as the doctor said, butit is very painful to the feelings."

  When Christmas came again Susan did not set any vacant places at thefestive board. Two empty chairs were too much even for Susan who hadthought in September that there would not be one.

  "This is the first Christmas that Walter was not home," Rilla wrote inher diary that night. "Jem used to be away for Christmases up inAvonlea, but Walter never was. I had letters from Ken and him today.They are still in England but expect to be in the trenches very soon.And then--but I suppose we'll be able to endure it somehow. To me, thestrangest of all the strange things since 1914 is how we have alllearned to accept things we never thought we could--to go on with lifeas a matter of course. I know that Jem and Jerry are in thetrenches--that Ken and Walter will be soon--that if one of them doesnot come back my heart will break--yet I go on and work and plan--yes,and even enjoy life by times. There are moments when we have real funbecause, just for the moment, we don't think about things and then--weremember--and the remembering is worse than thinking of it all the timewould have been.

  "Today was dark and cloudy and tonight is wild enough, as Gertrudesays, to please any novelist in search of suitable matter for a murderor elopement. The raindrops streaming over the panes look like tearsrunning down a face, and the wind is shrieking through the maple grove.

  "This hasn't been a nice Christmas Day in any way. Nan had toothacheand Susan had red eyes, and assumed a weird and gruesome flippancy ofmanner to deceive us into thinking she hadn't; and Jims had a bad coldall day and I'm afraid of croup. He has had croup twice since October.The first time I was nearly frightened to death, for father and motherwere both away--father always is away, it seems to me, when any of thishousehold gets sick. But Susan was cool as a fish and knew just what todo, and by morning Jims was all right. That child is a cross between aduck and an imp. He's a year and four months old, trots abouteverywhere, and says quite a few words. He has the cutest little way ofcalling me "Willa-will."
It always brings back that dreadful,ridiculous, delightful night when Ken came to say good-bye, and I wasso furious and happy. Jims is pink and white and big-eyed andcurly-haired and every now and then I discover a new dimple in him. Ican never quite believe he is really the same creature as that scrawny,yellow, ugly little changeling I brought home in the soup tureen.Nobody has ever heard a word from Jim Anderson. If he never comes backI shall keep Jims always. Everybody here worships and spoils him--orwould spoil him if Morgan and I didn't stand remorselessly in the way.Susan says Jims is the cleverest child she ever saw and can recognizeOld Nick when he sees him--this because Jims threw poor Doc out of anupstairs window one day. Doc turned into Mr. Hyde on his way down andlanded in a currant bush, spitting and swearing. I tried to console hisinner cat with a saucer of milk but he would have none of it, andremained Mr. Hyde the rest of the day. Jims's latest exploit was topaint the cushion of the big arm-chair in the sun parlour withmolasses; and before anybody found it out Mrs. Fred Clow came in on RedCross business and sat down on it. Her new silk dress was ruined andnobody could blame her for being vexed. But she went into one of hertempers and said nasty things and gave me such slams about 'spoiling'Jims that I nearly boiled over, too. But I kept the lid on till she hadwaddled away and then I exploded.

  "'The fat, clumsy, horrid old thing,' I said--and oh, what asatisfaction it was to say it.

  "'She has three sons at the front,' mother said rebukingly.

  "'I suppose that covers all her shortcomings in manners,' I retorted.But I was ashamed--for it is true that all her boys have gone and shewas very plucky and loyal about it too; and she is a perfect tower ofstrength in the Red Cross. It's a little hard to remember all theheroines. Just the same, it was her second new silk dress in one yearand that when everybody is--or should be--trying to 'save and serve.'

  "I had to bring out my green velvet hat again lately and begin wearingit. I hung on to my blue straw sailor as long as I could. How I hatethe green velvet hat! It is so elaborate and conspicuous. I don't seehow I could ever have liked it. But I vowed to wear it and wear it Iwill.

  "Shirley and I went down to the station this morning to take Little DogMonday a bang-up Christmas dinner. Dog Monday waits and watches therestill, with just as much hope and confidence as ever. Sometimes hehangs around the station house and talks to people and the rest of histime he sits at his little kennel door and watches the trackunwinkingly. We never try to coax him home now: we know it is of nouse. When Jem comes back, Monday will come home with him; and ifJem--never comes back--Monday will wait there for him as long as hisdear dog heart goes on beating.

  "Fred Arnold was here last night. He was eighteen in November and isgoing to enlist just as soon as his mother is over an operation she hasto have. He has been coming here very often lately and though I likehim so much it makes me uncomfortable, because I am afraid he isthinking that perhaps I could care something for him. I can't tell himabout Ken--because, after all, what is there to tell? And yet I don'tlike to behave coldly and distantly when he will be going away so soon.It is very perplexing. I remember I used to think it would be such funto have dozens of beaux--and now I'm worried to death because two aretoo many.

  "I am learning to cook. Susan is teaching me. I tried to learn longago--but no, let me be honest--Susan tried to teach me, which is a verydifferent thing. I never seemed to succeed with anything and I gotdiscouraged. But since the boys have gone away I wanted to be able tomake cake and things for them myself and so I started in again and thistime I'm getting on surprisingly well. Susan says it is all in the wayI hold my mouth and father says my subconscious mind is desirous oflearning now, and I dare say they're both right. Anyhow, I can makedandy short-bread and fruitcake. I got ambitious last week andattempted cream puffs, but made an awful failure of them. They came outof the oven flat as flukes. I thought maybe the cream would fill themup again and make them plump but it didn't. I think Susan was secretlypleased. She is past mistress in the art of making cream puffs and itwould break her heart if anyone else here could make them as well. Iwonder if Susan tampered--but no, I won't suspect her of such a thing.

  "Miranda Pryor spent an afternoon here a few days ago, helping me cutout certain Red Cross garments known by the charming name of 'verminshirts.' Susan thinks that name is not quite decent, so I suggested shecall them 'cootie sarks,' which is old Highland Sandy's version of it.But she shook her head and I heard her telling mother later that, inher opinion, 'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects for younggirls to talk about. She was especially horrified when Jem wrote in hislast letter to mother, 'Tell Susan I had a fine cootie hunt thismorning and caught fifty-three!' Susan positively turned pea-green.'Mrs. Dr. dear,' she said, 'when I was young, if decent people were sounfortunate as to get--those insects--they kept it a secret ifpossible. I do not want to be narrow-minded, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I stillthink it is better not to mention such things.'

  "Miranda grew confidential over our vermin shirts and told me all hertroubles. She is desperately unhappy. She is engaged to Joe Milgraveand Joe joined up in October and has been training in Charlottetownever since. Her father was furious when he joined and forbade Mirandaever to have any dealing or communication with him again. Poor Joeexpects to go overseas any day and wants Miranda to marry him before hegoes, which shows that there have been 'communications' in spite ofWhiskers-on-the-moon. Miranda wants to marry him but cannot, and shedeclares it will break her heart.

  "'Why don't you run away and marry him?' I said. It didn't go againstmy conscience in the least to give her such advice. Joe Milgrave is asplendid fellow and Mr. Pryor fairly beamed on him until the war brokeout and I know Mr. Pryor would forgive Miranda very quickly, once itwas over and he wanted his housekeeper back. But Miranda shook hersilvery head dolefully.

  "'Joe wants me to but I can't. Mother's last words to me, as she lay onher dying-bed, were, "Never, never run away, Miranda," and I promised.'

  "Miranda's mother died two years ago, and it seems, according toMiranda, that her mother and father actually ran away to be marriedthemselves. To picture Whiskers-on-the-moon as the hero of an elopementis beyond my power. But such was the case and Mrs. Pryor at least livedto repent it. She had a hard life of it with Mr. Pryor, and she thoughtit was a punishment on her for running away. So she made Mirandapromise she would never, for any reason whatever, do it.

  "Of course, you cannot urge a girl to break a promise made to a dyingmother, so I did not see what Miranda could do unless she got Joe tocome to the house when her father was away and marry her there. ButMiranda said that couldn't be managed. Her father seemed to suspect shemight be up to something of the sort and he never went away for long ata time, and, of course, Joe couldn't get leave of absence at an hour'snotice.

  "'No, I shall just have to let Joe go, and he will be killed--I know hewill be killed--and my heart will break,' said Miranda, her tearsrunning down and copiously bedewing the vermin shirts!

  "I am not writing like this for lack of any real sympathy with poorMiranda. I've just got into the habit of giving things a comical twistif I can, when I'm writing to Jem and Walter and Ken, to make themlaugh. I really felt sorry for Miranda who is as much in love with Joeas a china-blue girl can be with anyone and who is dreadfully ashamedof her father's pro-German sentiments. I think she understood that Idid, for she said she had wanted to tell me all about her worriesbecause I had grown so sympathetic this past year. I wonder if I have.I know I used to be a selfish, thoughtless creature--how selfish andthoughtless I am ashamed to remember now, so I can't be quite so bad asI was.

  "I wish I could help Miranda. It would be very romantic to contrive awar-wedding and I should dearly love to get the better ofWhiskers-on-the-moon. But at present the oracle has not spoken."