“The Thing That Couldn’t”
When the door had closed behind Mistress McIntyre, the girls got up and dressed rather laggingly. Emily thought of the day before her with some distaste. The fine flavour of adventure and romance with which they had started out had vanished, and canvassing a country road for subscriptions had suddenly become irksome. Physically, they were both tireder than they thought.
“It seems like an age since we left Shrewsbury,” grumbled Ilse as she pulled on her stockings.
Emily had an even stronger feeling of a long passage of time. Her wakeful, enraptured night under the moon had seemed in itself like a year of some strange soul-growth. And this past night had been wakeful also, in a very different way, and she had roused from her brief sleep at its close with an odd, rather unpleasant sensation of some confused and troubled journey — a sensation which old Mistress McIntyre’s story had banished for a time, but which now returned as she brushed her hair.
“I feel as if I had been wandering — somewhere — for hours,” she said. “And I dreamed I found little Allan — but I don’t know where. It was horrible to wake up feeling that I had known just immediately before I woke and had forgotten.”
“I slept like a log,” said Ilse, yawning. “I didn’t even dream. Emily, I want to get away from this house and this place as soon as I can. I feel as if I were in a nightmare — as if something horrible were pressing me down and I couldn’t escape from it. It would be different if I could do anything — help in any way. But since I can’t, I just want to escape from it. I forgot it for a few minutes while the old lady was telling her story — heartless old thing! She wasn’t worrying one bit about poor little lost Allan.”
“I think she stopped worrying long ago,” said Emily dreamily. “That’s what people mean when they say she isn’t right. People who don’t worry a little never are right — like Cousin Jimmy. But that was a great story. I’m going to write it for my first essay — and later on I’ll see about having it printed. I’m sure it would make a splendid sketch for some magazine, if I can only catch the savour and vivacity she put into it. I think I’ll jot down some of her expressions right away in my Jimmy-book before I forget them.”
“Oh, drat your Jimmy-book!” said Ilse. “Let’s get down — and eat breakfast if we have to — and get away.”
But Emily, revelling again in her story-teller’s paradise, had temporarily forgotten everything else.
“Where is my Jimmy-book?” she said impatiently. “It isn’t in my bag — I know it was here last night. Surely I didn’t leave it on that gate-post!”
“Isn’t that it over on the table?” asked Ilse.
Emily gazed blankly at it.
“It can’t be — it is — how did it get there? I know I didn’t take it out of the bag last night.”
“You must have,” said Ilse indifferently.
Emily walked over to the table with a puzzled expression. The Jimmy-book was lying open on it, with her pencil beside it. Something on the page caught her eye suddenly. She bent over it.
“Why don’t you hurry and finish your hair?” demanded Ilse a few minutes later. “I’m ready now — for pity’s sake, tear yourself from that blessed Jimmy-book for long enough to get dressed!”
Emily turned around, holding the Jimmy-book in her hands. She was very pale and her eyes were dark with fear and mystery.
“Ilse, look at this,” she said in a trembling voice.
Ilse went over and looked at the page of the Jimmy-book which Emily held out to her. On it was a pencil sketch, exceedingly well done, of the little house on the river shore to which Emily had been so attracted on the preceding day. A black cross was marked on a small window over the front door and opposite it, on the margin of the Jimmy-book, beside another cross, was written:
“Allan Bradshaw is here.”
“‘What does it mean?” gasped Ilse. “Who did it?”
“I — don’t know,” stammered Emily. “The writing — is mine.”
Ilse looked at Emily and drew back a little.
“You must have drawn it in your sleep,” she said dazedly.
“I can’t draw,” said Emily.
“Who else could have done it? Mistress McIntyre couldn’t — you know she couldn’t. Emily, I never heard of such a strange thing. Do you think — do you think — he can be there?”
“How could he? The house must be locked up — there’s no one working at it now. Besides, they must have searched all around there — he would be looking out of the window — it wasn’t shuttered, you remember — calling — they would have seen — heard — him. I suppose I must have drawn that picture in my sleep — though I can’t understand how I did it — because my mind was so filled with the thought of little Allan. It’s so strange — it frightens me.”
“You’ll have to show it to the Bradshaws,” said Ilse.
“I suppose so — and yet I hate to. It may fill them with a cruel false hope again — and there can’t be anything in it. But I daren’t risk not showing it. You show it — I can’t, somehow. The thing has upset me — I feel frightened — childish — I could sit down and cry. If he should have been there — since Tuesday — he would be dead of starvation.”
“Well, they’d know — I’ll show it, of course. If it should turn out — Emily, you’re an uncanny creature.”
“Don’t talk of it — I can’t bear it,” said Emily, shuddering.
There was no one in the kitchen when then entered it, but presently a young man came in — evidently the Dr. McIntyre of whom Mrs. Hollinger had spoken. He had a pleasant, clever face, with keen eyes behind his glasses, but he looked tired and sad.
“Good-morning,” he said. “I hope you had a good rest and were not disturbed in any way. We are all sadly upset here, of course.”
“They haven’t found the little boy?” asked Ilse.
Dr. McIntyre shook his head.
“No. They have given up the search. He cannot be living yet — after Tuesday night and last night. The swamp will not give up its dead — I feel sure that is where he is. My poor sister is broken-hearted. I am sorry your visit should have happened at such a sorrowful time, but I hope Mrs. Hollinger has made you comfortable. Grandmother McIntyre would be quite offended if you lacked for anything. She was very famous for her hospitality in her day. I suppose you haven’t seen her. She does not often show herself to strangers.”
“Oh, we have seen her,” said Emily absently. “She came into our room this morning and told us how she spanked the King.”
Dr. McIntyre laughed a little.
“Then you have been honoured. It is not to every one Grandmother tells that tale. She’s something of an Ancient Mariner and knows her predestined listeners. She is a little bit strange. A few years ago her favourite son, my Uncle Neil, met his death in the Klondyke under sad circumstances. He was one of the Lost Patrol. Grandmother never recovered from the shock. She has never felt anything since — feeling seems to have been killed in her. She neither loves nor hates nor fears nor hopes — she lives entirely in the past and experiences only one emotion — a great pride in the fact that she once spanked the King. But I am keeping you from your breakfast — here comes Mrs. Hollinger to scold me.”
“Wait a moment please, Dr. McIntyre,” said Ilse hurriedly. “I — you — we — there is something I want to show you.”
Dr. McIntyre bent a puzzled face over the Jimmy-book.
“What is this? I don’t understand—”
“We don’t understand it, either — Emily drew it in her sleep.”
“In her sleep?” Dr. McIntyre was too bewildered to be anything but an echo.
“She must have. There was nobody else — unless your Grandmother can draw.”
“Not she. And she never saw this house — it’s the Scobie cottage below Malvern Bridge, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We saw it yesterday.”
“But Allan can’t be there — it’s been locked for a month — the carpenters went
away in August.”
“Oh — I know,” stammered Emily. “I was thinking so much of Allan before I went to sleep — I suppose it’s only a dream — I don’t understand it at all — but we had to show it to you.”
“Of course. Well, I won’t say anything to Will or Clara about it. I’ll get Rob Mason from over the hill and we’ll run down and have a look around the cottage. It would be odd if — but it couldn’t possibly be. I don’t see how we can get into the cottage. It’s locked and the windows are shuttered.”
“This one — over the front door — isn’t.”
“No — but that’s a closet window at the end of the upstairs hall. I was over the house one day in August when the painters were at work in it. The closet shuts with a spring lock, so I suppose that is why they didn’t put a shutter on that window. It’s high up, close to the ceiling, I remember. Well, I’ll slip over to Rob’s and see about this. It won’t do to leave any stone unturned.”
Emily and Ilse ate what breakfast they could, thankful that Mrs. Hollinger let them alone, save for a few passing remarks as she came and went at work.
“Turrible night last night — but the rain is over. I never closed an eye. Pore Clara didn’t either, but she’s quieter now — sorter despairing. I’m skeered for her mind — her Grandmother never was right after she heard of her son’s death. When Clara heard they weren’t going to search no more she screamed once and laid down on the bed with her face to the wall — hain’t stirred since. Well, the world has to go on for other folks. Help yourselves to the toast. I’d advise ye not to be in too much of a hurry starting out till the wind dries the mud a bit.”
“I’m not going to go until we find out if—” whispered Ilse inconclusively.
Emily nodded. She could not eat, and if Aunt Elizabeth or Aunt Ruth had seen her they would have sent her to bed at once with orders to stay there — and they would have been quite right. She had almost reached her breaking-point. The hour that passed after Dr. McIntyre’s departure seemed interminable. Suddenly they heard Mrs. Hollinger, who was washing milk-pails at the bench outside the kitchen door, give a sharp exclamation. A minute later she rushed into the kitchen, followed by Dr. McIntyre, breathless from his mad run from Malvern Bridge.
“Clara must be told first,” he said. “It is her right.”
He disappeared into the inner room. Mrs. Hollinger dropped into a chair, laughing and crying.
“They’ve found him — they’ve found little Allan — on the floor of the hall closet — in the Scobie cottage!”
“Is — he — living?” gasped Emily.
“Yes, but no more — he couldn’t even speak — but he’ll come round with care, the doctor says. They carried him to the nearest house — that’s all the doctor had time to tell me.”
A wild cry of joy came from the bedroom — and Clara Bradshaw, with dishevelled hair and pallid lips, but with the light of rapture shining in her eyes, rushed through the kitchen — out and over the hill. Mrs. Hollinger caught up a coat and ran after her. Dr. McIntyre sank into a chair.
“I couldn’t stop her — and I’m not fit for another run yet — but joy doesn’t kill. It would have been cruel to stop her, even if I could.”
“Is little Allan all right?” asked Ilse.
“He will be. The poor kid was at the point of exhaustion, naturally. He wouldn’t have lasted for another day. We carried him right up to Dr. Matheson at the Bridge and left him in his charge. He won’t be fit to be brought home before to-morrow.”
“Have you any idea how he came to be there?”
“Well, he couldn’t tell us anything, of course, but I think I know how it happened. We found a cellar window about half an inch open. I fancy that Allan was poking about the house, boy fashion, and found that this window hadn’t been fastened. He must have got entrance by it, pushed it almost shut behind him and then explored the house. He had pulled the closet door tight in some way and the spring lock made him a prisoner. The window was too high for him to reach or he might have attracted attention from it. The white plaster of the closet wall is all marked and scarred with his vain attempts to get up to the window. Of course, he must have shouted, but nobody has ever been near enough the house to hear him. You know, it stands in that bare little cove with nothing near it where a child could be hidden, so I suppose the searchers did not pay much attention to it. They didn’t search the river banks until yesterday, anyhow, because it was never thought he would have gone away down there alone, and by yesterday he was past calling for help.”
“I’m so — happy — since he’s found,” said Ilse, winking back tears of relief.
Grandfather Bradshaw suddenly poked his head out of the sitting-room doorway.
“I told ye a child couldn’t be lost in the nineteenth century,” he chuckled.
“He was lost, though,” said Dr. McIntyre, “and he wouldn’t have been found — in time — if it were not for this young lady. It’s a very extraordinary thing.”
“Emily is — psychic,” said Ilse, quoting Mr. Carpenter.
“Psychic! Humph! Well, it’s curious — very. I don’t pretend to understand it. Grandmother would say it was second sight, of course. Naturally, she’s a firm believer in that, like all the Highland folk.”
“Oh — I’m sure I haven’t second sight,” protested Emily. “I must just have dreamed it — and got up in my sleep — but, then, I can’t draw.”
“Something used you as an instrument then,” said Dr. McIntyre. “After all, Grandmother’s explanation of second sight is just as reasonable as anything else, when one is compelled to believe an unbelievable thing.”
“I’d rather not talk of it,” said Emily, with a shiver. “I’m so glad Allan has been found — but please don’t tell people about my part in it. Let them think it just occurred to you to search inside the Scobie house. I — I couldn’t bear to have this talked of all over the country.”
When they left the little white house on the windy hill the sun was breaking through the clouds and the harbour waters were dancing madly in it. The landscape was full of the wild beauty that comes in the wake of a spent storm and the Western Road stretched before them in loop and hill and dip of wet, red allurement; but Emily turned away from it.
“I’m going to leave it for my next trip,” she said. “I can’t go canvassing to-day, somehow. Friend of my heart, let’s go to Malvern Bridge and take the morning train to Shrewsbury.”
“It — was — awfully funny — about your dream,” said Ilse. “It makes me a little afraid of you, Emily — somehow.”
“Oh, don’t be afraid of me,” implored Emily. “It was only a coincidence. I was thinking of him so much — and the house took possession of me yesterday—”
“Remember how you found out about Mother?” said Ilse, in a low tone. “You have some power the rest of us haven’t.”
“Perhaps I’ll grow out of it,” said Emily desperately. “I hope so — I don’t want to have any such power — you don’t know how I feel about it, Ilse. It seems to me a terrible thing — as if I were marked out in some uncanny way — I don’t feel human. When Dr. McIntyre spoke about something using me as an instrument, I went cold all over. It seemed to me that while I was asleep some other intelligence must have taken possession of my body and drawn that picture.”
“It was your writing,” said Ilse.
“Oh, I’m not going to talk of it — or think of it. I’m going to forget it. Don’t ever speak of it to me again, Ilse.”
Driftwood
“Shrewsbury,
“October 3, 19 —
“I have finished canvassing my allotted portion of our fair province — I have the banner list of all the canvassers — and I have made almost enough out of my commissions to pay for my books for my whole Junior year. When I told Aunt Ruth this she did not sniff. I consider that a fact worth recording.
“To-day my story, The Sands of Time, came back from Merton’s Magazine. But the rejection slip was typewritten, not
printed. Typewriting doesn’t seem quite as insulting as print, some way.
“We have read your story with interest, and regret to say that we cannot accept it for publication at the present time.
“If they meant that ‘with interest,’ it is a little encouragement. But were they only trying to soften the blow?
“Ilse and I were notified recently that there were nine vacancies in the Skull and Owl and that we had been put on the list of those who might apply for membership. So we did. It is considered a great thing in school to be a Skull and Owl.
“The Junior year is in full swing now, and I find the work very interesting. Mr. Hardy has several of our classes, and I like him as a teacher better than anyone since Mr. Carpenter. He was very much interested in my essay, The Woman Who Spanked the King. He gave it first place and commented on it specially in his class criticisms. Evelyn Blake is sure, naturally, that I copied it out of something, and feels certain she has read it somewhere before. Evelyn is wearing her hair in the new pompadour style this year and I think it is very unbecoming to her. But then, of course, the only part of Evelyn’s anatomy I like is her back.
“I understand that the Martin clan are furious with me. Sally Martin was married last week in the Anglican church here, and the Times editor asked me to report it. Of course, I went — though I hate reporting weddings. There are so many things I’d like to say sometimes that can’t be said. But Sally’s wedding was pretty and so was she, and I sent in quite a nice report of it, I thought, especially mentioning the bride’s beautiful bouquet of ‘roses and orchids’ — the first bridal bouquet of orchids ever seen in Shrewsbury. I wrote as plain as print and there was no excuse whatever for that wretched typesetter on the Times turning ‘orchids’ into sardines. Of course, anybody with any sense would have known that it was only a printer’s error. But the Martin clan have taken into their heads the absurd notion that I wrote sardines on purpose for a silly joke — because, it seems, it has been reported to them that I said once I was tired of the conventional reports of weddings and would like to write just one along different lines. I did say it — but my craving for originality would hardly lead me to report the bride as carrying a bouquet of sardines! Nevertheless, the Martins do think it, and Stella Martin didn’t invite me to her thimble party — and Aunt Ruth says she doesn’t wonder at it — and Aunt Elizabeth says I shouldn’t have been so careless. I! Heaven grant me patience!
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 270