Aunt Clara has since told me something of him. He is, she says, a gay, handsome fellow, frank and friendly, and very fond—or so it would appear—of jesting and talking with our sex, among whom he is a decided favorite. Not at all a flirt, you understand; but simply as Nature made him. And this, it seems, Elizabeth does not like. O, in spite of her queenliness, she is not above a little honest human jealousy. Hence her quarrel with Anthony, and the present deplorable state of affairs. Yet Aunt says that Anthony cares for no woman in the world except Elizabeth, and never has cared for any other. But such is my sister’s pride that she will not listen for a moment to any pleas of his for forgiveness and has sent back all his letters unopened.
Now, I love my sister who is unhappy: and, although I have never seen him, I also like this Anthony, who is very certainly unhappy, too. Would that I could unravel this tangle in their loves! Perhaps Fate has brought me to Halifax for no other purpose; and, though I must confess that I do not at present see any way of helping this unlucky pair of lovers out of their dilemma, still, my vision may be clearer later on. It is on the knees of the gods. Be assured that if I can do anything, I shall, even if, as I suspect, this strange Elizabeth would resent successful interference as keenly as failure.
But her anger shall not daunt me from doing her a sisterly kindness!
I am, dear Coz,
Your most affectionate, Eve.
Dear Coz: Did I not tell you that Fate was mixed up in this matter? When you hear my story you will doubtless say that Evelyn Stuart seems to have taken a much more prominent part in it than Fate; but that will be your shortness of sight, my dear, even as Elizabeth persists in being angry with me. For two whole days she has not vouchsafed me a word or a look; but I have the approval of my conscience. And, besides, I think Elizabeth will come to her senses and forgive me in time.
But to my story. O, my dear, such a story! And remember it is a secret which none but you and I and my lovely and provoking sister must ever know; least of all Anthony, who must go to his grave in ignorance of it.
Four days ago I was curled up comfortably in the library at dusk, indulging in brilliant day dreams, when one of the maids entered with a letter which she said had just been left at the door for me. I took it, opened it without looking at the address, and walked to the window to read it by the fast fading light. Well, the letter was not for me. It began, “My Dear Elizabeth,” and was signed, “Yours repentantly, Anthony Allen.”
I picked up the envelope, which was addressed plainly enough to Miss Elizabeth Stuart. In the dim light the maid had mistaken me for her, which happens frequently. Did I read the letter? You ask. Verily, yes; or, rather, when I glanced at it the meaning of the few lines written on the page was borne in upon me without any effort on my part. As nearly as I can remember—for I had no after opportunity of refreshing my memory—the letter being in ashes five minutes later, they ran thus:
For the last time I implore your forgiveness. On Friday morning I sail for England. I am going there on business; but I shall remain there indefinitely if you will not pardon me. Will you meet me at the old spot at the end of the Pine Walk to-morrow evening at sunset? If you do not come, I shall know that you have wholly ceased to care for me, and I shall never trouble you again.
I went to Elizabeth with the letter. “The maid brought me this,” I said, laying it on the table before her. “I opened it and caught the sense of it before I knew it was not mine.”
Elizabeth snatched up the letter, glanced at it, and flung it into the smoldering fire in the grate beside her. With all her beauty and dignity, I must say that for the moment she looked the shrew and vixen and nothing else.
“O, Elizabeth!” I cried in dismay. “Won’t you forgive him? Won’t you go to the Pine Walk?” Which was a foolish speech; for I had had time enough to learn right well that my sister goes by contraries.
“No!” said Elizabeth, all her pride and anger flaming in her face and behind it the heartbreak looking out of her eyes.
“But he is going away,” I pleaded, still unwisely, “and he will not come back unless you forgive him! You are setting the feet of your pride on the neck of your happiness, Dearest.”
“Do not speak of this again, Evelyn, if you value my affection,” said Elizabeth in her haughtiest manner. “Once and for all, I will not go to meet Anthony Allen!”
I said no more then but ventured to hope that she hardly meant it. Anxiously all the next day I watched for a hint of relenting. No such hint came. Dearly would I have loved to shake the girl! At sunset I went to her again as she was reading in the library. I say ‘reading,’ dear Mils, but considering the fact that she was holding the book upside down, I take the liberty to think that the pain of deciphering it must have overweighed the pleasure of the story.
“Elizabeth,” I said pleadingly, “he is waiting there for you now. Think of it! Won’t you go?”
“Evelyn Stuart,” said she icily, “must I tell you in plain English that I permit no interference with my affairs, before you will cease to intrude yourself into that which does not concern you?”
Indeed, at that I had almost left her to her fate. And I should have had she alone been concerned—but there was Anthony. It was for his good I did what I did.
I ran upstairs to her room, whipped her crimson dress out of her wardrobe, and hastened to my own. The dress fitted me perfectly, and, when I had wrapped Elizabeth’s red scarf around my head to shade my face and peered into the mirror, I was well satisfied. True, it was a very rosy Elizabeth I saw; but surely even she, at such a time, would be flushed, and by now the light would be very dim in the Pine Walk.
I slipped out of the side door and hurried down past the pines. A curve in the walk shut me from the house just before I came to the hedge between the demesnes of Beechwood and Rockywold. There at the gate was a manly figure. Indeed, my heart could not have beaten more uncomfortably if I had been Elizabeth herself.
At sight of me he sprang over the gate and hastened toward me. O, dear Mils, he was very handsome, this same Anthony! No wonder that Elizabeth loves him in spite of herself! A dash of fair hair over a sunburned brow, a pair of frank, blue eyes, a laughing mouth—so much I had time to see before I found myself engulfed in his arms.
“Elizabeth!” he cried. “My darling, my darling!”
And then—and then—but I really could not help it, dear Mils, and I took good care that it should not happen again; for I drew myself quite haughtily away and averted my face.
“You have forgiven me?” he said, holding my hand.
“Yes,” I whispered, “but I cannot stay any longer now. I must hurry back, Anthony. You have forgotten that this is the night of Mrs. Dacre’s dance and I have yet to dress.”
“O, yes,” he cried gaily. “I wasn’t going but now I will. And I shall meet you there, my sweet?”
“Yes,” I promised, although I had my painful doubts.
“Wait just another moment,” he entreated. He put his hand into his vest pocket, and the next moment I felt something slipped over my finger.
“That is never to be taken from its rightful place again!” he said triumphantly, and then he bent his head but I broke away and fairly ran back through the Pine Walk.
Arriving at the house, I went straight to the library again. Dear Mils, surely my errand was a righteous one, and I needed that assurance to sustain me.
“Elizabeth,” I said, “it is time you were dressing for Dacre’s dance. Remember, it is six miles out to the place.”
“I am not going,” said Elizabeth without looking up from her book. And, indeed it had been arranged that Aunt Clara and I should go without her.
“O, yes, you are,” I said. “I have just been down to the Pine Walk to meet Anthony. He took me for you, not unnaturally, and I forgave him most wholeheartedly and promised him that you would meet him at the dance.”
“Evelyn!�
� Elizabeth stood up. If you could have seen her, dear Mils! For once in my life I was frightened, but I would not show it.
“Don’t eat me, dear sister,” I said. “I knew you wanted to forgive Anthony and that your pride would not let you. You ought to be very grateful to me for having spared you the trouble and humiliation. I shall not go to the dance—and you will. If you keep your own counsel, Anthony will never know it was not you he met in the Pine Walk. And here is your ring.”
I laid it on the table beside her and got myself out of the room for, dear Mils, she looked as if she might throw it at me. And I was not at all easy in my mind either, for I had not the least idea whether she would go to the dance or not.
But go she did, with mystified Aunt Clara, and I stayed home. The next day Aunt Clara told me that Anthony and Elizabeth were reconciled.
“She was very gracious to him at Dacre’s last night,” said our good, unsuspecting aunt. “I was a little surprised, for the child is so proud and so resentful when her anger is really aroused that I feared she would never forgive him. But I suppose that when she found out he was going away her love got the better of her pride.”
It was hardly that way, dear Mils, but I did not say so to Aunt Clara—and all is well that ends well. Elizabeth will be long in forgiving me; but I think that in time she will. As for Anthony, he is safely off to England, and before he returns I shall be gone. So he will never suspect that the girl of the Pine Walk was not his stately Elizabeth, after all. Dear Mils, is it not all a delightful little comedy? I laugh merrily to myself about it. Laugh with me when you read this.
Your affectionate Coz, Eve.
Editors’ note: This story was published in the Sunday Magazine of the New York Tribune and other metropolitan papers (October 23, 1910), illustrated by John Newton Howitt (1885–1958). It was found by Christy Woster (in the New York Tribune), Benjamin Lefebvre (in the Boston Sunday Post), and Donna Campbell (in the Philadelphia Press). This story is available to view online in the Ryrie-Campbell collection.
L. M. Montgomery had lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, while attending Dalhousie College in 1895–96 and again when she went to work for the Halifax Echo newspaper in 1901–02. Later, she set her third “Anne” book, Anne of the Island, in Halifax, which she called “Kingsport.” By 1910 when “For the Good of Anthony” was published, she had published Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Kilmeny of the Orchard, and many other stories and poems while living in Cavendish, PEI, caring for her elderly grandmother Macneill. She was also finishing up her work on her fourth novel, The Story Girl, at this time.
Nine other Montgomery stories were published in 1910, along with twelve poems.
Our Neighbours at the Tansy Patch
(1918)
Part I
When, during our second summer at the Tansy Patch, the whiskers of one of our cats were cut off mysteriously, we always blamed a small boy pertaining to a family living near us, behind a thick spruce grove. Whether we were right or wrong in this conclusion I cannot say. None of us, not even our redoubtable Salome, cared to accuse any member of this family openly. We had too well-founded dread of “Granny’s” tongue. So nothing was ever said about “Doc’s” whiskers, and our amiable relations with our neighbours remained undisturbed.
They were certainly a curious assortment. Salome always referred to them as “them lunatics behind the bush,” and asserted vehemently that “every one of them is crazier than the others ma’am.” She thought it quite dreadful that Dick and I should allow the children to consort with them so freely; but the children liked them, and we ourselves found an endless source of amusement in their peculiarities. They were even better fun than our cats, we thought.
The head of the house was a handsome, middle-aged man whom we seldom saw and with whom, save on one memorable occasion, we never had any conversation. His legal name appeared to be William Conway. His offspring called him “Paw.” Aunt Lily always referred to him pathetically as “my poor brother,” and Granny called him “my worthless skinamulinx of a son-in-law.” What his wife had called him I wot not. She had died, it appears, eight years previously, when Millicent Mary Selina Munn Cook Conway had been born. If she resembled her mother it is not probable that her bereaved spouse sorrowed as one without hope.
When Timothy Benjamin, the oldest son—better known, it may be said as T. B.—paid us a long, friendly, first call, Salome had asked him bluntly, “What does your father do for a living?”
“Nawthing, mostly,” was T. B.’s frank and laconic response.
“Then how do you get along?” demanded Salome.
“My old beast of a granny has a little money. We live on that,” said T. B. easily. “Folks round here call paw lazy, but he says no, he’s just contented.”
“Does he never work?”
“Nope. He fiddles and fishes. And he hunts for buried treasure.”
“Buried treasure?”
“Yip—down on them sand-hills ’cross from the hotel. He says Captain Kidd buried millions there. He keeps a-digging for it, paw does. Says when he finds it we’ll all be rich.”
“Your father’d better be digging in his garden,” said Salome, severely. “I never saw such a scandal of weeds.”
“That’s what Granny says,” retorted T. B.
Salome was squelched for the time being. The thought that she and Granny could be of the same opinion about anything enraged her into silence.
Of Mr. Conway’s prowess as fisherman and treasure-seeker I know nothing, but I can testify to his ability as a violinist. When he fiddled, on his tumble-down “back stoop,” on the summer evenings, the music that drifted over to the Tansy Patch, through the arches of the spruce wood, was enchanting. Even Salome, who prided herself on her ear for music, admitted that.
“It’s angelic, ma’am, that’s what it is,” she said with solemn reluctance. “And to think that lazy good-for-nothing could make it! What could Providence have been thinking of, ma’am? My good, hard-working brother John tried all his life to learn to play well on the fiddle and he never could. And this Bill Conway can do it without trying. Why, he can almost make me dance, ma’am.”
That would have been a miracle, indeed! But Dick and I often did dance, on our own stoop, in time to the witching lilts of the invisible musician beyond the spruces.
In appearance Mr. Conway looked like a poet run to seed. He had a shock of wavy, dark auburn hair, a drooping moustache and a goatee, and brilliant brown eyes. He was either shy or unsociable; we did not know which. At all events, he never came near us. “Jest too lazy to talk, that’s all.” T. B. assured us. “Paw hasn’t nothin’ again’ yous.”
The first member of the family to call on us—and the only one who ever paid us a formal call—was Aunt Lily (Miss Lilian Alethea Conway, according to the limp, broken-cornered card she left behind). The formality of her call consisted in her leaving this card. For the rest, she stayed the afternoon, took supper with us, and then remained for the evening.
“I am not, my dear Mrs. Bruce, a soulless society woman,” was her somewhat unnecessary introductory remark. She swam up the steps—she really had a very graceful walk—and subsided limply into a rocker. She wore a rumpled dress of pale blue muslin with a complicated adornment of black velvet ribbon, and her long, thin arms were encased in cream lace gloves—remarkably nice gloves, of their kind, at that. Some of Granny’s money must have gone into those gloves. She had a pale, freckled face and reddish hair. Yet she was not absolutely lacking in beauty. Later on I saw her once in the moonlight and was surprised by her good looks. Her features were quite classical and if she had known how to do anything with her hair she would have been a pretty woman.
I asked her to come into the house, but she assured me she preferred to remain outside.
“I love to sit and watch the golden bees plundering the sweets of the clover,” she said dreamily, clasping her lace-cover
ed hands. Neither bees nor clover were noticeable about the Tansy Patch, but that did not worry Aunt Lily. She rolled her large, blue eyes upon me and added.
“I adore the country, Mrs. Bruce. The city is so artificial. Don’t you truly think the city is so artificial? There can be no real interchange of soul in the city. Here, in the beautiful country under God’s blue sky, human beings can be their real and highest selves. I am sure you agree with me, Mrs. Bruce.”
I did, or pretended to. Salome and I knitted the afternoon away while Aunt Lily swayed idly and unceasingly in her rocker, and talked quite as idly and unceasingly. She told us all there was to be told about her family and herself. She kept a diary, it appeared.
“I must have some place to pour out my soul in, Mrs. Bruce,” she said pathetically. “Some day, if you wish, I will show you my journal. It is a self-revelation. And yet I cannot write out what burns in my bosom. I envy my niece Dorinda her powers of expression. Dorinda is a poetess, Mrs. Bruce. She experiences the divine afflatus. My poor brother can express the deepest emotions of his soul in music, but I can only wield my halting pen. Yet my journal is not devoid of interest, Mrs. Bruce, and I should not object to sharing it with a sympathetic friend.”
“I should like to see it,” I assured her—sincerely enough—for I suspected that journal would be rather good fun.
“I will bring it to you some day then,” said Aunt Lily, “and when you read it, remember—O, pray remember—that it was written by a being with a tired heart. I suffer greatly, Mrs. Bruce, from a tired heart.”
I did not know whether this was a physical or an emotional ailment. Salome understood it to be the former and asked quite sympathetically,
“Did you every try a mustard plaster at the pit of your stomach, Miss?”
“I fear that would not benefit a weary heart, Miss Silversides,” sighed Aunt Lily. “Possibly you have never suffered, as I have, from a weary, wounded heart.”
After Many Years Page 9