"I wanted that, too," said Emily.
"M - m." Aunt Ruth pursed her mouth. "So you tell me. In that case I don't see why Elizabeth didn't send you to Queen's. She has pampered you enough in other ways, I'm sure - I would expect her to give in about this, too, if she thought you really wanted it. You will sleep in the kitchen chamber. It is warmer in winter than the other rooms. There is no gas in it but I could not afford to let you have gas to study by in any case. You must Ilse candles - you can burn two at a time. I shall expect you to keep your room neat and tidy and to be here at my exact hours for meals. I am very particular about that. And there is another thing you might as well understand at once. You must not bring your friends here. I do not propose to entertain them."
"Not Ilse - or Perry - or Teddy?"
"Well, Ilse is a Burnley and a distant connection. She might come in once in a while - I can't have her running in at all times. From all I hear of her she isn't a very suitable companion for you. As for the boys - certainly not. I know nothing of Teddy Kent - and you ought to be too proud to associate with Perry Miller."
"I'm too proud not to associate with him," retorted Emily.
"Don't be pert with me Em'ly. You might as well understand right away that you are not going to have things all your own way, here, as you had at New Moon. You have been badly spoiled. But I will not have hired boys calling on my niece. I don't know where you get your low tastes from, I'm sure. Even your father seemed like a gentleman. Go upstairs and unpack your trunk. Then do your lessons. We go to bed at nine o'clock!"
Emily felt very indignant. Even Aunt Elizabeth had never dreamed of forbidding Teddy to come to New Moon. She shut herself in her room and unpacked drearily. The room was such an ugly one. She hated it at sight. The door wouldn't shut tight; the slanting ceiling was rain stained, and came down so close to the bed that she could touch it with her hand. On the bare floor was a large "hooked" mat which made Emily's eyes ache. It was not in Murray taste - nor in Ruth Dutton's taste either, to be just. A country cousin of the deceased Mr. Dutton had given it to her. The centre, of a crude, glaring scarlet, was surrounded by scrolls of militant orange and violent green. In the corners were bunches of purple ferns and blue roses.
The woodwork was painted a hideous chocolate brown, and the walls were covered with paper of still more hideous design. The pictures were in keeping, especially a chromo of Queen Alexandra, gorgeously bedizened with jewels, hung at such an angle that it seemed the royal lady must certainly fall over on her face. Not even a chromo could make Queen Alexandra ugly or vulgar, but it came piteously near it. On a narrow, chocolate shelf sat a vase filled with paper flowers that had been paper flowers for twenty years. One couldn't believe that anything could be as ugly and depressing as they were.
"This room is unfriendly - it doesn't want me - I can never feel at home here," said Emily.
She was horribly homesick. She wanted the New Moon candle-lights shining out on the birch trees - the scent of hop-vines in the dew - her purring pussy cats - her own dear room, full of dreams - the silences and shadows of the old garden - the grand anthems of wind and billow in the gulf-that sonorous old music she missed so much in this inland silence. She missed even the little graveyard where slept the New Moon dead.
"I'm not going to cry." Emily clenched her hands. "Aunt Ruth will laugh at me. There's nothing in this room I can ever love. Is there anything out of it?"
She pushed up the window. It looked south into the fir grove and its balsam blew in to her like a caress. To the left there was an opening in the trees like a green, arched window, and one saw an enchanting little moonlit landscape through it. And it would let in the splendour of sunset. To the right was a view of the hillside along which West Shrewsbury straggled: the hill was dotted with lights in the autumn dusk, and had a fairy-like loveliness. Somewhere near by there was a drowsy twittering, as of little, sleepy birds swinging on a shadowy bough.
"Oh, this is beautiful," breathed Emily, bending out to drink in the balsam-scented air. "Father told me once that one could find something beautiful to love everywhere. I'll love this."
Aunt Ruth poked her head in at the door, unannounced.
"Em'ly why did you leave that antimacassar crooked on the sofa in the dining-room?"
"I - don't - know," said Emily confusedly. She hadn't even known she had disarranged the antimacassar. Why did Aunt Ruth ask such a question, as if she suspected her of some dare, deep, sinister design?
"Go down and put it straight."
"Em'ly Starr, put that window down at once! Are you crazy?
"The room is so close," pleaded Emily.
"You can air it in the daytime but never have that window open after sundown, I am responsible for your health now. You must know that consumptives have to avoid night air and draughts."
"I'm not a consumptive," cried Emily rebelliously.
"Contradict, of course."
"And if I were fresh air any time is the best thing for me. Dr. Burnley says so. I hate being smothered."
"Young people think old people to be fools and old people know young people to be fools.'" Aunt Ruth felt that the proverb left nothing to be said. "Go and straighten that antimacassar, Em'ly."
"Em'ly" swallowed something and went. The offending antimacassar was mathematically corrected.
Emily stood for a moment and looked about her. Aunt Ruth's dining-room was much more splendid and "up-to-date" than the "sitting-room" at New Moon where they had "company" meals. Hardwood floor - Wilton rug - Early English oak furniture. But it was not half as "friendly" as the old New Moon room, Emily thought. She was more homesick than ever. She did not believe she was going to like anything in Shrewsbury - living with Aunt Ruth, or going to school. The teachers all seemed flat and insipid after pungent Mr. Carpenter and there was a girl in the Junior class she had hated at sight. And she had thought it would be all so delightful - living in pretty Shrewsbury and going to High School. Well, nothing ever is exactly like what you expect it to be, Emily told herself in temporary pessimism as she went back to her room. Hadn't Dean told her once that he had dreamed all his life of rowing in a gondola through the canals of Venice on a moonlit night? And when he did he was almost eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Emily set her teeth as she crept into bed.
"I shall just have to fix my thoughts on the moonlight and romance and ignore the mosquitoes," she thought. "Only - Aunt Ruth does sting so."
POT-POURRI
"September 20, 19-
"I have been neglecting my diary of late. One does not have a great deal of spare time at Aunt Ruth's. But it is JL Friday night and I couldn't go home for the week-end so I come to my diary for comforting. I can spend only alternate week-ends at New Moon. Aunt Ruth wants me every other Saturday to help 'houseclean.' We go over this house from top to bottom whether it needs it or not, as the tramp said when he washed his face every month, and then rest from our labours for Sunday.
"There is a hint of frost in the air tonight. I am afraid the garden at New Moon will suffer. Aunt Elizabeth will begin to think it is time to give up the cook-house for the season and move the Waterloo back into the kitchen. Cousin Jimmy will be boiling the pigs' potatoes in the old orchard and reciting his poetry. Likely Teddy and Ilse and Perry - who have all gone home, lucky creatures - will be there and Daff will be prowling about. But I must not think of it. That way homesickness lies.
"I am beginning to like Shrewsbury and Shrewsbury school and Shrewsbury teachers - though Dean was right when he said I would not find any one here like Mr. Carpenter. The Seniors and Juniors look down on the Preps and are very condescending. Some of them condescended to me but I do not think they will try it again - except Evelyn Blake, who condescends every time we meet, as we do quite often, because her chum, Mary Carswell, rooms with Ilse at Mrs. Adamson's boarding-house.
"I hate Evelyn Blake. There is no doubt at all about that. And there is as little doubt that she hates me. We are instinctive enemies - we looked at ea
ch other the first time we met like two strange cats, and that was enough. I never really hated any one before. I thought I did but now I know it was only dislike. Hate is rather interesting for a change. Evelyn is a Junior - tall, clever, rather handsome. Has long, bright, treacherous brown eyes and talks through her nose. She has literary ambitions, I understand, and considers herself the best dressed girl in High School. Perhaps she is; but somehow her clothes seem to make more impression on you than she does. People criticise Ilse for dressing too richly and too old but she dominates her clothes for all that. Evelyn doesn't. You always think of her clothes before you think of her. The difference seems to be that Evelyn dresses for other people and Ilse dresses for herself. I must write a character sketch of her when I have studied her a little more. What a satisfaction that will be!
"I met her first in Ilse's room and Mary Carswell introduced us. Evelyn looked down at me - she is a little taller, being a year older - and said,
"'Oh, yes, Miss Starr? I've heard my aunt, Mrs. Henry Blake, talking about you.'
"Mrs. Henry Blake was once Miss Brownell. I looked straight into Evelyn's eyes and said,
"'No doubt Mrs. Henry Blake painted a very flattering picture of me.'
"Evelyn laughed - with a kind of laugh I don't like. It gives you the feeling that she is laughing at you not at what you've said.
"'You didn't get on very well with her, did you? I understand you are quite literary. What papers do you write for?'
"She asked the question sweetly but she knew perfectly well that I don't write for any - yet.
"'The Charlottetown Enterprise and the Shrewsbury Weekly Times,' I said with a wicked grin. 'I've just made a bargain with them. I'm to get two cents for every news item I send the Enterprise and twenty-five cents a week for a society letter for the Times'
"My grin worried Evelyn. Preps aren't supposed to grin like that at Juniors. It isn't done.
"'Oh, yes, I understand you are working for your board,' she said. 'I suppose every little helps. But I meant real literary periodicals.'
"'The Quill? I asked with another grin.
"The Quill is the High School paper, appearing monthly. It is edited by the members of the Skull and Owl, a 'literary society' to which only Juniors and Seniors are eligible. The contents of The Quill are written by the students and in theory any student can contribute but in practice hardly anything is ever accepted from a Prep. Evelyn is a Skull and Owlite and her cousin is editor of The Quill. She evidently thought I was waxing sarcastic at her expense and ignored me for the rest of her call, except for one dear little jab when dress came up for discussion.
"'I want one of the new ties,' she said. 'There are some sweet ones at Jones and McCallum's and they are awfully smart. The little black velvet ribbon you are wearing around your neck, Miss Starr, is rather becoming. I used to wear one myself when they were in style.'
"I couldn't think of anything clever to say in retort. I can think of clever things so easily when there is no one to say them to. So I said nothing but merely smiled very slowly and disdainfully. That seemed to annoy Evelyn more than speech, for I heard she said afterwards that 'that Emily Starr' had a very affected smile.
"Note: - One can do a great deal with appropriate smiles. I must study the subject carefully. The friendly smile - the scornful smile - the detached smile - the entreating smile - the common or garden grin.
"As for Miss Brownell - or rather Mrs. Blake - I met her on the street a few days ago. After she passed she said something to her companion and they both laughed. Very bad manners, I think.
"I like Shrewsbury and I like school but I shall never like Aunt Ruth's house. It has a disagreeable personality. Houses are like people - some you like and some you don't like - and once in a while there is one you love. Outside, this house is covered with frippery. I feel like getting a broom and sweeping it off. Inside, its rooms are all square and proper and soulless. Nothing you could put into them would ever seem to belong to them. There are no nice romantic corners in it, as there are at New Moon. My room hasn't improved on acquaintance, either. The ceiling oppresses me - it comes down so low over my bed - and Aunt Ruth won't let me move the bed. She looked amazed when I suggested it.
"'The bed has always been in that corner,' she said, just as she might have said, 'The sun has always risen in the east.'
"But the pictures are really the worst thing about this room - chromos of the most aggravated description. Once I turned them all to the wall and of course Aunt Ruth walked in - she never knocks - and noticed them at once.
"'Em'ly, why have you meddled with the pictures?'
"Aunt Ruth is always asking 'why' I do this and that. Sometimes I can explain and sometimes I can't. This was one of the times I couldn't. But of course I had to answer Aunt Ruth's question. No disdainful smile would do here.
"'Queen Alexandra's dog collar gets on my nerves,' I said, 'and Byron's expression on his death-bed at Missolonghi hinders me from studying.'
"'Em'ly,' said Aunt Ruth, you might try to show a little gratitude.'
"I wanted to say,
"'To whom - Queen Alexandra or Lord Byron?' but of course I didn't. Instead I meekly turned all the pictures right side out again.
"'You haven't told me the real reason why you turned those pictures,' said Aunt Ruth sternly. 'I suppose you don't mean to tell me. Deep and sly - deep and sly - I always said you were. The very first time I saw you at Maywood I said you were the slyest child I had ever seen.'
"Aunt Ruth, why do you say such things to me?' I said, in exasperation. 'Is it because you love me and want to improve me - or hate me and want to hurt me - or just because you can't help it?'
"'Miss Impertinence, please remember that this is my house. And you will leave my pictures alone after this. I will forgive you for meddling with them this time but don't let it happen again. I will find out yet your motive in turning them around, clever as you think yourself.'
"Aunt Ruth stalked out but I know she listened on the landing quite a while to find out if I would begin talking to myself She is always watching me - even when she says nothing - does nothing - I know she is watching me. I feel like a little fly under a microscope. Not a word or action escapes her criticism, and, though she can't read my thoughts, she attributes thoughts to me that I never had any idea of thinking. I hate that worse than anything else.
"Can't I say anything good of Aunt Ruth? Of course I can.
"She is honest and virtuous and truthful and industrious and of her pantry she needeth not to be ashamed. But she hasn't any lovable virtues - and she will never give up trying to find out why I turned the pictures. She will never believe that I told her the simple truth.
"Of course, things 'might be worse.' As Teddy says, it might have been Queen Victoria instead of Queen Alexandra.
"I have some pictures of my own pinned up that save me - some lovely sketches of New Moon and the old orchard that Teddy made for me, and an engraving Dean gave me. It is a picture in soft, dim colours of palms around a desert well and a train of camels passing across the sands against a black sky gemmed with stars. It is full of lure and mystery and when I look at it I forget Queen Alexandra's jewelry and Lord Byron's lugubrious face, and my soul slips out - out - through a little gateway into a great, vast world of freedom and dream.
"Aunt Ruth asked me where I got that picture. When I told her she sniffed and said,
"'I can't understand how you have such a liking for Jarback Priest. He's a man I've no Ilse for.'
"I shouldn't think she would have.
"But if the house is ugly and my room unfriendly, the Land of Uprightness is beautiful and saves my soul alive. The Land of Uprightness is the fir grove behind the house. I call it that because the firs are all so exceedingly tall and slender and straight. There is a pool in it, veiled with ferns, with a big grey boulder beside it: It is reached by a little, winding, capricious path so narrow that only one can walk in it. When I'm tired or lonely or angry or too ambitious I go there
and sit for a few minutes. Nobody can keep an upset mind looking at those slender, crossed tips against the sky. I go there to study on fine evenings, though Aunt Ruth is suspicious and thinks it is just another manifestation of my slyness. Soon it will be dark too early to study there and I'll be so sorry. Somehow, my books have a meaning there they never have anywhere else.
"There are so many dear, green corners in the Land of Uprightness, full of the aroma of sun-steeped ferns, and grassy, open spaces where pale asters feather the grass, swaying gently towards each other when the Wind Woman runs among them. And just to the left of my window there is a group of tall old firs that look, in moonlight or twilight, like a group of witches weaving spells of sorcery. When I first saw them, one windy night against the red sunset, with the reflection of my candle, like a weird, signal flame, suspended in the air among their boughs, the flash came - for the first time in Shrewsbury-and I felt so happy that nothing else mattered. I have written a poem about them.
"But oh, I burn to write stories. I knew it would be hard to keep my promise to Aunt Elizabeth but I didn't know it would be so hard. Every day it seems harder - such splendid ideas for plots pop into my mind. Then I have to fall back on character studies of the people I know. I have written several of them. I always feel so strongly tempted to touch them up a bit - deepen the shadows - bring out the highlights a little more vividly But I remember that I promised Aunt Elizabeth never to write anything that wasn't true so I stay my hand and try to paint them exactly as they are.
"I have written one of Aunt Ruth. Interesting but dangerous. I never leave my Jimmy-book or my diary in my room. I know Aunt Ruth rummages through it when I'm out. So I always carry them in my book-bag.
"Ilse was up this evening and we did our lessons together. Aunt Ruth frowns on this - and, to be strictly just, I don't know that she is wrong. Ilse is so jolly and comical that we laugh more than we study, I'm afraid. We don't do as well in class next day-and besides, this house disapproves of laughter.
"Perry and Teddy like the High School. Perry earns his lodging by looking after the furnace and grounds and his board by waiting on the table. Besides, he gets twenty-five cents an hour for doing odd jobs. I don't see much of him or Teddy, except in the week-ends home, for it is against the school rules for boys and girls to walk together to and from school. Lots do it, though. I had several chances to but I concluded that it would not be in keeping with New Moon traditions to break the rule. Besides, Aunt Ruth asks me every blessed night when I come home from school if I've walked with anybody. I think she's sometimes a little disappointed when I say 'No.'
Emily Climbs Page 10