Emily loved her pussies. She had brought them up herself, as she proudly said. They had been given to her when they were kittens by her Sunday-school teacher.
“A living present is so nice,” she told Ellen, “because it keeps on getting nicer all the time.”
But she worried considerably because Saucy Sal didn’t have kittens.
“I don’t know why she doesn’t,” she complained to Ellen Greene. “Most cats seem to have more kittens than they know what to do with.”
After supper Emily went in and found that her father had fallen asleep. She was very glad of this; she knew he had not slept much for two nights; but she was a little disappointed that they were not going to have that “real talk.” “Real” talks with Father were always such delightful things. But next best would be a walk — a lovely all-by-your-lonesome walk through the grey evening of the young spring. It was so long since she had had a walk.
“You put on your hood and mind you scoot back if it starts to rain,” warned Ellen. “You can’t monkey with colds the way some kids can.”
“Why can’t I?” Emily asked rather indignantly. Why must she be debarred from “monkeying with colds” if other children could? It wasn’t fair.
But Ellen only grunted. Emily muttered under her breath for her own satisfaction, “You are a fat old thing of no importance!” and slipped upstairs to get her hood — rather reluctantly, for she loved to run bareheaded. She put the faded blue hood on over her long, heavy braid of glossy, jet-black hair, and smiled chummily at her reflection in the little greenish glass. The smile began at the corners of her lips and spread over her face in a slow, subtle, very wonderful way, as Douglas Starr often thought. It was her dead mother’s smile — the thing that had caught and held him long ago when he had first seen Juliet Murray. It seemed to be Emily’s only physical inheritance from her mother. In all else, he thought, she was like the Starrs — in her large, purplish-grey eyes with their very long lashes and black brows, in her high, white forehead — too high for beauty — in the delicate modelling of her pale oval face and sensitive mouth, in the little ears that were pointed just a wee bit to show that she was kin to tribes of elfland.
“I’m going for a walk with the Wind Woman, dear,” said Emily. “I wish I could take you, too. Do you ever get out of that room, I wonder. The Wind Woman is going to be out in the fields to-night. She is tall and misty, with thin, grey, silky clothes blowing all about her — and wings like a bat’s — only you can see through them — and shining eyes like stars looking through her long, loose hair. She can fly — but to-night she will walk with me all over the fields. She’s a great friend of mine — the Wind Woman is. I’ve known her ever since I was six. We’re old, old friends — but not quite so old as you and I, little Emily-in-the-glass. We’ve been friends always, haven’t we?”
With a blown kiss to little Emily-in-the-glass, Emily-out-of-the-glass was off.
The Wind Woman was waiting for her outside — ruffling the little spears of striped grass that were sticking up stiffly in the bed under the sitting-room window — tossing the big boughs of Adam-and-Eve — whispering among the misty green branches of the birches — teasing the “Rooster Pine” behind the house — it really did look like an enormous, ridiculous rooster, with a huge, bunchy tail and a head thrown back to crow.
It was so long since Emily had been out for a walk that she was half crazy with the joy of it. The winter had been so stormy and the snow so deep that she was never allowed out; April had been a month of rain and wind; so on this May evening she felt like a released prisoner. Where should she go? Down the brook — or over the fields to the spruce barrens? Emily chose the latter.
She loved the spruce barrens, away at the further end of the long, sloping pasture. That was a place where magic was made. She came more fully into her fairy birthright there than in any other place. Nobody who saw Emily skimming over the bare field would have envied her. She was little and pale and poorly clad; sometimes she shivered in her thin jacket; yet a queen might have gladly given a crown for her visions — her dreams of wonder. The brown, frosted grasses under her feet were velvet piles. The old mossy, gnarled half-dead spruce-tree, under which she paused for a moment to look up into the sky, was a marble column in a palace of the gods; the far dusky hills were the ramparts of a city of wonder. And for companions she had all the fairies of the country-side — for she could believe in them here — the fairies of the white clover and satin catkins, the little green folk of the grass, the elves of the young fir-trees, sprites of wind and wild fern and thistledown. Anything might happen there — everything might come true.
And the barrens were such a splendid place in which to play hide and seek with the Wind Woman. She was so very real there; if you could just spring quickly enough around a little cluster of spruces — only you never could — you would see her as well as feel her and hear her. There she was — that was the sweep of her grey cloak — no, she was laughing up in the very top of the taller trees — and the chase was on again — till, all at once, it seemed as if the Wind Woman were gone — and the evening was bathed in a wonderful silence — and there was a sudden rift in the curdled clouds westward, and a lovely, pale, pinky-green lake of sky with a new moon in it.
Emily stood and looked at it with clasped hands and her little black head upturned. She must go home and write down a description of it in the yellow account-book, where the last thing written had been, “Mike’s Biography.” It would hurt her with its beauty until she wrote it down. Then she would read it to Father. She must not forget how the tips of the trees on the hill came out like fine black lace across the edge of the pinky-green sky.
And then, for one glorious, supreme moment, came “the flash.”
Emily called it that, although she felt that the name didn’t exactly describe it. It couldn’t be described — not even to Father, who always seemed a little puzzled by it. Emily never spoke of it to any one else.
It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside — but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond — only a glimpse — and heard a note of unearthly music.
This moment came rarely — went swiftly, leaving her breathless with the inexpressible delight of it. She could never recall it — never summon it — never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days. It never came twice with the same thing. To-night the dark boughs against that far-off sky had given it. It had come with a high, wild note of wind in the night, with a shadow wave over a ripe field, with a greybird lighting on her window-sill in a storm, with the singing of “Holy, holy, holy” in church, with a glimpse of the kitchen fire when she had come home on a dark autumn night, with the spirit-like blue of ice palms on a twilit pane, with a felicitous new word when she was writing down a “description” of something. And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.
She scuttled back to the house in the hollow, through the gathering twilight, all agog to get home and write down her “description” before the memory picture of what she had seen grew a little blurred. She knew just how she would begin it — the sentence seemed to shape itself in her mind: “The hill called to me and something in me called back to it.”
She found Ellen Greene waiting for her on the sunken front-doorstep. Emily was so full of happiness that she loved everything at that moment, even fat things of no importance. She flung her arms around Ellen’s knees and hugged them. Ellen looked down gloomily into the rapt little face, where excitement had kindled a faint wild-rose flush, and said, with a ponderous sigh:
“Do you know that your pa has only a week or two more to live?”
A Watch in the Night
Emily stood quite still and looked up at Ellen’s broad, red face —
as still as if she had been suddenly turned to stone. She felt as if she had. She was as stunned as if Ellen had struck her a physical blow. The colour faded out of her little face and her pupils dilated until they swallowed up the irises and turned her eyes into pools of blackness. The effect was so startling that even Ellen Greene felt uncomfortable.
“I’m telling you this because I think it’s high time you was told,” she said. “I’ve been at your pa for months to tell you, but he’s kept putting it off and off. I says to him, says I, ‘You know how hard she takes things, and if you drop off suddent some day it’ll most kill her if she hasn’t been prepared. It’s your duty to prepare her,’ and he says, says he, ‘There’s time enough yet, Ellen.’ But he’s never said a word, and when the doctor told me last night that the end might come any time now, I just made up my mind that I’d do what was right and drop a hint to prepare you. Laws-a-massy, child, don’t look like that! You’ll be looked after. Your ma’s people will see to that — on account of the Murray pride, if for no other reason. They won’t let one of their own blood starve or go to strangers — even if they have always hated your pa like p’isen. You’ll have a good home — better’n you’ve ever had here. You needn’t worry a mite. As for your pa, you ought to be thankful to see him at rest. He’s been dying by inches for the last five years. He’s kept it from you, but he’s been a great sufferer. Folks say his heart broke when your ma died — it came on him so suddent-like — she was only sick three days. That’s why I want you to know what’s coming, so’s you won’t be all upset when it happens. For mercy’s sake, Emily Byrd Starr, don’t stand there staring like that! You give me the creeps! You ain’t the first child that’s been left an orphan and you won’t be the last. Try and be sensible. And don’t go pestering your pa about what I’ve told you, mind that. Come you in now, out of the damp, and I’ll give you a cooky ‘fore you go to bed.”
Ellen stepped ‘down as if to take the child’s hand. The power of motion returned to Emily — she must scream if Ellen even touched her now. With one sudden, sharp, bitter little cry she avoided Ellen’s hand, darted through the door and fled up the dark staircase.
Ellen shook her head and waddled back to her kitchen. “Anyhow, I’ve done my duty,” she reflected. “He’d have just kept saying ‘time enough’ and put it off till he was dead and then there’d have been no managing her. She’ll have time now to get used to it, and she’ll brace up in a day or two. I will say for her she’s got spunk — which is lucky, from all I’ve heard of the Murrays. They won’t find it easy to overcrow her. She’s got a streak of their pride, too, and that’ll help her through. I wish I dared send some of the Murrays word that he’s dying, but I don’t dast go that far. There’s no telling what he’d do. Well, I’ve stuck on here to the last and I ain’t sorry. Not many women would ‘a’ done it, living as they do here. It’s a shame the way that child’s been brought up — never even sent to school. Well, I’ve told him often enough what I’ve thought of it — it ain’t on my conscience, that’s one comfort. Here, you Sal-thing, you git out! Where’s Mike, too?”
Ellen could not find Mike for the very good reason that he was upstairs with Emily, held tightly in her arms, as she sat in the darkness on her little cot-bed. Amid her agony and desolation there was a certain comfort in the feel of his soft fur and round velvety head.
Emily was not crying; she stared straight into the darkness, trying to face the awful thing Ellen had told her. She did not doubt it — something told her it was true. Why couldn’t she die, too? She couldn’t go on living without Father.
“If I was God I wouldn’t let things like this happen,” she said.
She felt it was very wicked of her to say such a thing — Ellen had told her once that it was the wickest thing any one could do to find fault with God. But she didn’t care. Perhaps if she were wicked enough God would strike her dead and then she and Father could keep on being together.
But nothing happened — only Mike got tired of being held so tightly and squirmed away. She was all alone now, with this terrible burning pain that seemed all over her and yet was not of the body. She could never get rid of it. She couldn’t help it by writing about it in the old yellow account-book. She had written there about her Sunday-school teacher going away, and of being hungry when she went to bed, and Ellen telling her she must be half-crazy to talk of Wind Women and flashes; and after she had written down all about them these things hadn’t hurt her any more. But this couldn’t be written about. She could not even go to Father for comfort, as she had gone when she burned her hand so badly, picking up the red-hot poker by mistake. Father had held her in his arms all that night and told her stories and helped her to bear the pain. But Father, so Ellen had said, was going to die in a week or two. Emily felt as if Ellen had told her this years and years ago. It surely couldn’t be less than an hour since she had been playing with the Wind Woman in the barrens and looking at the new moon in the pinky-green sky.
“The flash will never come again — it can’t,” she thought.
But Emily had inherited certain things from her fine old ancestors — the power to fight — to suffer, — to pity — to love very deeply — to rejoice — to endure. These things were all in her and looked out at you through her purplish-grey eyes. Her heritage of endurance came to her aid now and bore her up. She must not let Father know what Ellen had told her — it might hurt him. She must keep it all to herself and love Father, oh, so much, in the little while she could yet have him. She heard him cough in the room below: she must be in bed when he came up; she undressed as swiftly as her cold fingers permitted and crept into the little cot-bed which stood across the open window. The voices of the gentle spring night called to her all unheeded — unheard the Wind Woman whistled by the eaves. For the fairies dwell only in the kingdom of Happiness; having no souls they cannot enter the kingdom of Sorrow.
She lay there cold and tearless and motionless when her father came into the room. How very slowly he walked — how very slowly he took off his clothes. How was it she had never noticed these things before? But he was not coughing at all. Oh, what if Ellen were mistaken? — what if — a wild hope shot through her aching heart. She gave a little gasp.
Douglas Starr came over to her bed. She felt his dear nearness as he sat down on the chair beside her, in his old red dressing-gown. Oh, how she loved him! There was no other Father like him in all the world — there never could have been — so tender, so understanding, so wonderful! They had always been such chums — they had loved each other so much — it couldn’t be that they were to be separated.
“Winkums, are you asleep?”
“No,” whispered Emily.
“Are you sleepy, small dear?”
“No — no — not sleepy.”
Douglas Starr took her hand and held it tightly.
“Then we’ll have our talk, honey. I can’t sleep either. I want to tell you something.”
“Oh — I know it — I know it!” burst out Emily. “Oh, Father, I know it! Ellen told me.”
Douglas Starr was silent for a moment. Then he said under his breath, “The old fool — the fat old fool!” — as if Ellen’s fatness was an added aggravation of her folly. Again, for the last time, Emily hoped. Perhaps it was all a dreadful mistake — just some more of Ellen’s fat foolishness.
“It — it isn’t true, is it, Father?” she whispered.
“Emily, child,” said her father, “I can’t lift you up — I haven’t the strength — but climb up and sit on my knee — in the old way.”
Emily slipped out of bed and got on her father’s knee. He wrapped the old dressing-gown about her and held her close with his face against hers.
“Dear little child — little beloved Emilykin, it is quite true,” he said. “I meant to tell you myself to-night. And now the old absurdity of an Ellen has told you — brutally I suppose — and hurt you dreadfully. She has the brain of a hen and the sensibility of a cow. May jackals sit on her grandmother’s grave!
I wouldn’t have hurt you, dear.”
Emily fought something down that wanted to choke her.
“Father, I can’t — I can’t bear it.”
“Yes, you can and will. You will live because there is something for you to do, I think. You have my gift — along with something I never had. You will succeed where I failed, Emily. I haven’t been able to do much for you, sweetheart, but I’ve done what I could. I’ve taught you something, I think — in spite of Ellen Greene. Emily, do you remember your mother?”
“Just a little — here and there — like lovely bits of dreams.”
“You were only four when she died. I’ve never talked much to you about her — I couldn’t. But I’m going to tell you all about her to-night. It doesn’t hurt me to talk of her now — I’ll see her so soon again. You don’t look like her, Emily — only when you smile. For the rest, you’re like your namesake, my mother. When you were born I wanted to call you Juliet, too. But your mother wouldn’t. She said if we called you Juliet then I’d soon take to calling her ‘Mother’ to distinguish between you, and she couldn’t endure that. She said her Aunt Nancy had once said to her, ‘The first time your husband calls you “Mother” the romance of life is over.’ So we called you after my mother — her maiden name was Emily Byrd. Your mother thought Emily the prettiest name in the world — it was quaint and arch and delightful, she said. Emily, your mother was the sweetest woman ever made.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 217