“But if she didn’t — love — them,” faltered Aunt Laura.
“Laura, you need not be indelicate.”
Old Kelly, who still went his rounds—”and will till the crack of doom,” declared Ilse — had quite given up teasing Emily about getting married, though he occasionally made regretful, cryptic allusions to “toad ointment.” There was none of his significant nods and winks. Instead, he always gravely asked her what book she did be working on now, and drove off shaking his spiky gray head. “What do the men be thinking of, anyway? Get up, my nag, get up.”
Some men were still thinking of Emily, it appeared. Andrew, now a brisk young widower, would have come at the beck of a finger Emily never lifted. Graham Mitchell, of Shrewsbury, unmistakably had intentions. Emily wouldn’t have him because he had a slight cast in one eye. At least, that was what the Murrays supposed. They could think of no other reason for her refusal of so good a match. Shrewsbury people declared that he figured in her next novel and that she had only been “leading him on” to “get material.” A reputed Klondike “millionaire” pursued her for a winter, but disappeared as briefly in the spring.
“Since she has published those books she thinks no one good enough for her,” said Blair Water folks.
Aunt Elizabeth did not regret the Klondike man — he was only a Derry Pond Butterworth, to begin with, and what were the Butterworths? Aunt Elizabeth always contrived to give the impression that Butterworths did not exist. They might imagine they did, but the Murrays knew better. But she did not see why Emily could not take Mooresby, of the firm of Mooresby and Parker, Charlottetown. Emily’s explanation that Mr. Mooresby could never live down the fact that he had once had his picture in the papers as a Perkins’ Food Baby struck Aunt Elizabeth as very inadequate. But Aunt Elizabeth at last admitted that she could not understand the younger generation.
III
Of Teddy Emily never heard, save from occasional items in newspapers which represented him as advancing steadily in his career. He was beginning to have an international reputation as a portrait painter. The old days of magazine illustrations were gone and Emily was never now confronted with her own face — or her own smile — or her own eyes — looking out at her from some casual page.
One winter Mrs. Kent died. Before her death she sent Emily a brief note — the only word Emily had ever had from her.
“I am dying. When I am dead, Emily, tell Teddy about the letter. I’ve tried to tell him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell my son I had done that. Tell him for me.”
Emily smiled sadly as she put the letter away. It was too late to tell Teddy. He had long since ceased to care for her. And she — she would love him for ever. And even though he knew it not, surely such love would hover around him all his life like an invisible benediction, not understood but dimly felt, guarding him from ill and keeping from him all things of harm and evil.
IV
That same winter it was bruited abroad that Jim Butterworth, of Derry Pond, had bought or was about to buy the Disappointed House. He meant, so rumour said, to haul it away, rebuild and enlarge it; and doubtless when this was done he would install therein as mistress a certain buxom, thrifty damsel of Derry Pond known as “Geordie Bridge’s Mabel.” Emily heard the report with anguish. She slipped out that evening in the chill spring dusk and went up the dim overgrown path over the spruce hill to the front gate of the little house like an unquiet ghost. Surely it couldn’t be true that Dean had sold it. The house belonged to the hill. One couldn’t imagine the hill without it.
Once Emily had got Aunt Laura to see about bringing her own belongings from it — all but the gazing-ball. She could not bear to see that. It must be still hanging there, reflecting in its silver gloom by the dim light that fell through the slits of the shutters, the living-room just as it was when she and Dean had parted. Rumour said Dean had taken nothing from it. All he had put in it was still there.
The little house must be very cold. It was so long since there was a fire in it. How neglected — how lonely — how heartbroken it looked. No light in the window — grass growing thickly over the paths — rank weeds crowding around the long-unopened door.
Emily stretched out her arms as if she wanted to put them around the house. Daff rubbed against her ankles and purred pleadingly. He did not like damp, chilly prowls — the fireside at New Moon was better for a pussy not so young as he once was. Emily lifted the old cat and set him on the crumbling gatepost.
“Daff,” she said, “there is an old fireplace in that house — with the ashes of a dead fire in it — a fireplace where pussies should bask and children dream. And that will never happen now, Daff, for Mabel Geordie doesn’t like open fireplaces — dirty, dusty things — a Quebec heater is so much warmer and more economical. Don’t you wish — or do you! — Daff, that you and I had been born sensible creatures, alive to the superior advantages of Quebec heaters!”
Chapter XXVII
I
It came clearly and suddenly on the air of a June evening. An old, old call — two higher notes and one long and soft and low. Emily Starr, dreaming at her window, heard it and stood up, her face suddenly gone white. Dreaming still — she must be! Teddy Kent was thousands of miles away, in the Orient — so much she knew from an item in a Montreal paper. Yes, she had dreamed it — imagined it.
It came again. And Emily knew that Teddy was there, waiting for her in Lofty John’s bush — calling to her across the years. She went down slowly — out — across the garden. Of course Teddy was there — under the firs. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should come to her there, in that old-world garden where the three Lombardies still kept guard. Nothing was wanting to bridge the years. There was no gulf. He put out his hands and drew her to him, with no conventional greeting. And spoke as if there were no years — no memories — between them.
“Don’t tell me you can’t love me — you can — you must — why, Emily” — his eyes had met the moonlit brilliance of hers for a moment—”you do.”
II
“It’s dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other,” said Emily some minutes — or hours — later.
“I’ve been trying all my life to tell you I loved you,” said Teddy. “Do you remember that evening long ago in the To-morrow Road after we left high school? Just as I was trying to screw up my courage to ask you if you’d wait for me you said night air was bad for you and went in. I thought it was a poor excuse for getting rid of me — I knew you didn’t care a hoot about night air. That set me back for years. When I heard about you and Aylmer Vincent — Mother wrote you were engaged — it was a nasty shock. For the first time it occurred to me that you really didn’t belong to me, after all. And that winter when you were ill — I was nearly wild. Away there in France where I couldn’t see you. And people writing that Dean Priest was always with you and would probably marry you if you recovered. Then came the word that you were going to marry him. I won’t talk of that. But when you — you — saved me from going to my death on the Flavian I knew you did belong to me, once and for all, whether you knew it or not. Then I tried again that morning by Blair Water — and again you snubbed me mercilessly. Shaking off my touch as if my hand were a snake. And you never answered my letter. Emily, why didn’t you? You say you’ve always cared—”
“I never got the letter.”
“Never got it? But I mailed it—”
“Yes, I know. I must tell you — she said I was to tell you—” She told him briefly.
“My mother? Did that?”
“You mustn’t judge her harshly, Teddy. You know she wasn’t like other women. Her quarrel with your father — did you know—”
“Yes, she told me all about that — when she came to me in Montreal. But this — Emily—”
“Let us just forget it — and forgive. She was so warped and unhappy she didn’t know what she was doing. And I — I — was too proud — too proud to go when you called me that last time. I want
ed to go — but I thought you were only amusing yourself—”
“I gave up hope then — finally. It had fooled me too often. I saw you at your window, shining, as it seemed to me, with an icy radiance like some cold wintry star — I knew you heard me — it was the first time you had failed to answer our old call. There seemed nothing to do but forget you — if I could. I never succeeded, but I thought I did — except when I looked at Vega of the Lyre. And I was lonely. Ilse was a good pal. Besides, I think I thought I could talk to her about you — keep a little corner in your life as the husband of some one you loved. I knew Ilse didn’t care much for me — I was only the consolation prize. But I thought we could jog along very well together and help each other keep away the fearful lonesomeness of the world. And then” — Teddy laughed at himself—”when she ‘left me at the altar’ according to the very formula of Bertha M. Clay I was furious. She had made such a fool of me — me, who fancied I was beginning to cut quite a figure in the world. My word, how I hated women for awhile! And I was hurt, too. I had got very fond of Ilse — I really did love her — in a way.”
“In a way.” Emily felt no jealousy of that.
III
“I don’t know as I’d take Ilse’s leavings,” remarked Aunt Elizabeth.
Emily flashed on Aunt Elizabeth one of her old starry looks.
“Ilse’s leavings. Why, Teddy has always belonged to me and I to him. Heart, soul and body,” said Emily.
Aunt Elizabeth shuddered. One ought to feel these things — perhaps — but it was indecent to say them.
“Always sly,” was Aunt Ruth’s comment.
“She’d better marry him right off before she changes her mind again,” said Aunt Addie.
“I suppose she won’t wipe his kisses off,” said Uncle Wallace.
Yet, on the whole, the clan were pleased. Much pleased. After all their anxieties over Emily’s love affairs, to see her “settled” so respectably with a “boy” well known to them, who had, so far as they knew at least, no bad habits and no disgraceful antecedents. And who was doing pretty well in the business of picture-painting. They would not exactly say so, but Old Kelly said it for them.
“Ah, now, that’s something like,” said Old Kelly approvingly.
IV
Dean wrote a little while before the quiet bridal at New Moon. A fat letter with an enclosure — a deed to the Disappointed House and all it contained.
“I want you to take this, Star, as my wedding-gift. That house must not be disappointed again. I want it to live at last. You and Teddy can make use of it as a summer home. And some day I will come to see you in it. I claim my old corner in your house of friendship now and then.”
“How very — dear — of Dean. And I am so glad — he is not hurt any longer.”
She was standing where the To-morrow Road opened out on the Blair Water valley. Behind her she heard Teddy’s eager footsteps coming to her. Before her on the dark hill, against the sunset, was the little beloved grey house that was to be disappointed no longer.
Pat of Silver Bush Series
PAT OF SILVER BUSH
McClelland & Stewart published Pat of Silver Bush in 1933, the first of two novels about Patricia Gardiner, the fourth child of a farm family living on Prince Edward Island. In the course of the novel, Pat grows up and learns to deal with change, although she finds it very difficult and resists it whenever possible.
The story revolves around the triumphs and tragedies of her large family and her best friends, the orphan, Hilary “Jingle” Gordon, and Elizabeth “Bets” Wilcox. She also maintains a close relationship with the family housekeeper, Judy Plum, who offers entertaining and poignant counsel. Montgomery based the Silver Bush farm on that of her Campbell cousins in Park Corner, where she spent enjoyable holidays and married in 1911 and in this late period novel she reflects on the passing of time. Montgomery dedicated the novel to “Alec and May and the Secret Field.” Alec was a cousin and childhood friend who later married May. Montgomery referred to a field on Alec’s farm in Cavendish. Elements of Pat of Silver Bush appeared in other stories, including the lost dog and encounter with a witch in “Charlotte’s Quest” (Family Herald, January1933), and the heirloom mirror in “The Mirror” (Canadian Home Journal, January 1931).
A first edition copy of Pat of Silver Bush
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 1
Introduces Pat
1
“Oh, oh, and I think I’ll soon have to be doing some rooting in the parsley bed,” said Judy Plum, as she began to cut Winnie’s red crepe dress into strips suitable for “hooking.” She was very much pleased with herself because she had succeeded in browbeating Mrs. Gardiner into letting her have it. Mrs. Gardiner thought Winnie might have got another summer’s wear out of it. Red crepe dresses were not picked up in parsley beds, whatever else might be.
But Judy had set her heart on that dress. It was exactly the shade she wanted for the inner petals of the fat, “raised” roses in the fine new rug she was hooking for Aunt Hazel . . . a rug with golden-brown “scrolls” around its edges and, in the centre, clusters of red and purple roses such as never grew on any earthly rose-bush.
Judy Plum “had her name up,” as she expressed it, for hooked rugs, and she meant that this should be a masterpiece. It was to be a wedding gift for Aunt Hazel, if that young lady really got married this summer, as, in Judy’s opinion, it was high time she should, after all her picking and choosing.
Pat, who was greatly interested in the rug’s progress, knew nothing except that it was for Aunt Hazel. Also, there was another event impending at Silver Bush of which she was ignorant and Judy thought it was high time she was warned. When one has been the “baby” of a family for almost seven years just how is one going to take a supplanter? Judy, who loved everybody at Silver Bush in reason, loved Pat out of reason and was worried over this beyond all measure. Pat was always after taking things a bit too seriously. As Judy put it, she “loved too hard.” What a scene she had been after making that very morning because Judy wanted her old purple sweater for the roses. It was far too tight for her and more holy than righteous, if ye plaze, but Pat wouldn’t hear of giving it up. She loved that old sweater and she meant to wear it another year. She fought so tigerishly about it that Judy . . . of course . . . gave in. Pat was always like that about her clothes. She wore them until they simply wouldn’t look at her because they were so dear to her she couldn’t bear to give them up. She hated her new duds until she had worn them for a few weeks. Then she turned around and loved them fiercely, too.
“A quare child, if ye’ll belave me,” Judy used to say, shaking her grizzled head. But she would have put the black sign on any one else who called Pat a queer child.
“What makes her queer?” Sidney had asked once, a little belligerently. Sidney loved Pat and didn’t like to hear her called queer.
“Sure, a leprachaun touched her the day she was born wid a liddle green rose-thorn,”
answered Judy mysteriously.
Judy knew all about leprachauns and banshees and water-kelpies and fascinating beings like that.
“So she can’t ever be just like other folks. But it isn’t all to the bad. She’ll be after having things other folks can’t have.”
“What things?” Sidney was curious.
“She’ll love folks . . . and things . . . better than most . . . and that’ll give her the great delight. But they’ll hurt her more, too. ’Tis the way of the fairy gift and ye have to take the bad wid the good.”
“If that’s all the leppern did for her I don’t think he amounts to much,” said young Sidney scornfully.
“S . . . sh!” Judy was scandalised. “Liddle ye know what may be listening to ye. And I’m not after saying it was all. She’ll see things. Hundreds av witches flying be night over the woods and steeples on broomsticks, wid their black cats perched behind them. How wud ye like that?”
“Aunt Hazel says there aren’t any such things as witches, ‘specially in Prince Edward Island,” said Sidney.
“If ye don’t be belaving innything what fun are ye going to get out av life?” asked Judy unanswerably. “There may niver be a witch in P. E. Island but there’s minny a one in ould Ireland even yet. The grandmother av me was one.”
“Are you a witch?” demanded Sidney daringly. He had always wanted to ask Judy that.
“I might be having a liddle av it in me, though I’m not be way av being a full witch,” said Judy significantly.
“And are you sure the leppern pricked Pat?”
“Sure? Who cud be sure av what a fairy might be doing? Maybe it’s only the mixed blood in her makes her quare. Frinch and English and Irish and Scotch and Quaker . . . ’tis a tarrible mixture, I’m telling ye.”
“But that’s all so long ago,” argued Sidney. “Uncle Tom says it’s just Canadian now.”
“Oh, oh,” said Judy, highly offended, “if yer Uncle Tom do be knowing more about it than meself whativer are ye here plaguing me to death wid yer questions for? Scoot, scat, and scamper, or I’ll warm your liddle behind for ye.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 303