Peter did remember it. Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it came her turn. She recited her little piece very well, though somewhat mechanically. I think she really did much better than if she had had her desired curls. The miserable conviction that her hair, alone among that glossy-tressed bevy, was looking badly, quite blotted out all nervousness and self-consciousness from her mind. Her hair apart, she looked very pretty. The prevailing excitement had made bright her eye and flushed her cheeks rosily — too rosily, perhaps. I heard a Carlisle woman behind me whisper that Cecily King looked consumptive, just like her Aunt Felicity; and I hated her fiercely for it.
Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably, although she was pitiably nervous. Her bow was naught but a short nod—”as if her head worked on wires,” whispered Felicity uncharitably — and the wave of her lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized jerk than a wave. We all felt relieved when she finished. She was, in a sense, one of “our crowd,” and we had been afraid she would disgrace us by breaking down.
Felicity followed her and recited her selection without haste, without rest, and absolutely without any expression whatever. But what mattered it how she recited? To look at her was sufficient. What with her splendid fleece of golden curls, her great, brilliant blue eyes, her exquisitely tinted face, her dimpled hands and arms, every member of the audience must have felt it was worth the ten cents he had paid merely to see her.
The Story Girl followed. An expectant silence fell over the room, and Mr. Perkins’ face lost the look of tense anxiety it had worn all the evening. Here was a performer who could be depended on. No need to fear stage fright or forgetfulness on her part. The Story Girl was not looking her best that night. White never became her, and her face was pale, though her eyes were splendid. But nobody thought about her appearance when the power and magic of her voice caught and held her listeners spellbound.
Her recitation was an old one, figuring in one of the School Readers, and we scholars all knew it off by heart. Sara Ray alone had not heard the Story Girl recite it. The latter had not been drilled at practices as had the other pupils, Mr. Perkins choosing not to waste time teaching her what she already knew far better than he did. The only time she had recited it had been at the “dress rehearsal” two nights before, at which Sara Ray had not been present.
In the poem a Florentine lady of old time, wedded to a cold and cruel husband, had died, or was supposed to have died, and had been carried to “the rich, the beautiful, the dreadful tomb” of her proud family. In the night she wakened from her trance and made her escape. Chilled and terrified, she had made her way to her husband’s door, only to be driven away brutally as a restless ghost by the horror-stricken inmates. A similar reception awaited her at her father’s. Then she had wandered blindly through the streets of Florence until she had fallen exhausted at the door of the lover of her girlhood. He, unafraid, had taken her in and cared for her. On the morrow, the husband and father, having discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her. She refused to return to them and the case was carried to the court of law. The verdict given was that a woman who had been “to burial borne” and left for dead, who had been driven from her husband’s door and from her childhood home, “must be adjudged as dead in law and fact,” was no more daughter or wife, but was set free to form what new ties she would. The climax of the whole selection came in the line,
“The court pronounces the defendant — DEAD!” and the Story Girl was wont to render it with such dramatic intensity and power that the veriest dullard among her listeners could not have missed its force and significance.
She swept along through the poem royally, playing on the emotions of her audience as she had so often played on ours in the old orchard. Pity, terror, indignation, suspense, possessed her hearers in turn. In the court scene she surpassed herself. She was, in very truth, the Florentine judge, stern, stately, impassive. Her voice dropped into the solemnity of the all-important line,
“‘The court pronounces the defendant—’”
She paused for a breathless moment, the better to bring out the tragic import of the last word.
“DEAD,” piped up Sara Ray in her shrill, plaintive little voice.
The effect, to use a hackneyed but convenient phrase, can better be imagined than described. Instead of the sigh of relieved tension that should have swept over the audience at the conclusion of the line, a burst of laughter greeted it. The Story Girl’s performance was completely spoiled. She dealt the luckless Sara a glance that would have slain her on the spot could glances kill, stumbled lamely and impotently through the few remaining lines of her recitation, and fled with crimson cheeks to hide her mortification in the little corner that had been curtained off for a dressing-room. Mr. Perkins looked things not lawful to be uttered, and the audience tittered at intervals for the rest of the performance.
Sara Ray alone remained serenely satisfied until the close of the concert, when we surrounded her with a whirlwind of reproaches.
“Why,” she stammered aghast, “what did I do? I — I thought she was stuck and that I ought to prompt her quick.”
“You little fool, she just paused for effect,” cried Felicity angrily. Felicity might be rather jealous of the Story Girl’s gift, but she was furious at beholding “one of our family” made ridiculous in such a fashion. “You have less sense than anyone I ever heard of, Sara Ray.”
Poor Sara dissolved in tears.
“I didn’t know. I thought she was stuck,” she wailed again.
She cried all the way home, but we did not try to comfort her. We felt quite out of patience with her. Even Cecily was seriously annoyed. This second blunder of Sara’s was too much even for her loyalty. We saw her turn in at her own gate and go sobbing up her lane with no relenting.
The Story Girl was home before us, having fled from the schoolhouse as soon as the programme was over. We tried to sympathize with her but she would not be sympathized with.
“Please don’t ever mention it to me again,” she said, with compressed lips. “I never want to be reminded of it. Oh, that little IDIOT!”
“She spoiled Peter’s sermon last summer and now she’s spoiled your recitation,” said Felicity. “I think it’s time we gave up associating with Sara Ray.”
“Oh, don’t be quite so hard on her,” pleaded Cecily. “Think of the life the poor child has to live at home. I know she’ll cry all night.”
“Oh, let’s go to bed,” growled Dan. “I’m good and ready for it. I’ve had enough of school concerts.”
CHAPTER XIX.
BY WAY OF THE STARS
But for two of us the adventures of the night were not yet over. Silence settled down over the old house — the eerie, whisperful, creeping silence of night. Felix and Dan were already sound asleep; I was drifting near the coast o’ dreams when I was aroused by a light tap on the door.
“Bev, are you asleep?” came in the Story Girl’s whisper.
“No, what is it?”
“S-s-h. Get up and dress and come out. I want you.”
With a good deal of curiosity and some misgiving I obeyed. What was in the wind now? Outside in the hall I found the Story Girl, with a candle in her hand, and her hat and jacket.
“Where are you going?” I whispered in amazement.
“Hush. I’ve got to go to the school and you must come with me. I left my coral necklace there. The clasp came loose and I was so afraid I’d lose it that I took it off and put it in the bookcase. I was feeling so upset when the concert was over that I forgot all about it.”
The coral necklace was a very handsome one which had belonged to the Story Girl’s mother. She had never been permitted to wear it before, and it had only been by dint of much coaxing that she had induced Aunt Janet to let her wear it to the concert.
“But there’s no sense in going for it in the dead of night,” I objected. “It will be quite safe. You can go for it in the morning.”
“Lizzie Paxton and her daughter are going to cle
an the school tomorrow, and I heard Lizzie say tonight she meant to be at it by five o’clock to get through before the heat of the day. You know perfectly well what Liz Paxton’s reputation is. If she finds that necklace I’ll never see it again. Besides, if I wait till the morning, Aunt Janet may find out that I left it there and she’d never let me wear it again. No, I’m going for it now. If you’re afraid,” added the Story Girl with delicate scorn, “of course you needn’t come.”
Afraid! I’d show her!
“Come on,” I said.
We slipped out of the house noiselessly and found ourselves in the unutterable solemnity and strangeness of a dark night. It was a new experience, and our hearts thrilled and our nerves tingled to the charm of it. Never had we been abroad before at such an hour. The world around us was not the world of daylight. ’Twas an alien place, full of weird, evasive enchantment and magicry.
Only in the country can one become truly acquainted with the night. There it has the solemn calm of the infinite. The dim wide fields lie in silence, wrapped in the holy mystery of darkness. A wind, loosened from wild places far away, steals out to blow over dewy, star-lit, immemorial hills. The air in the pastures is sweet with the hush of dreams, and one may rest here like a child on its mother’s breast.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” breathed the Story Girl as we went down the long hill. “Do you know, I can forgive Sara Ray now. I thought tonight I never could — but now it doesn’t matter any more. I can even see how funny it was. Oh, wasn’t it funny? ‘DEAD’ in that squeaky little voice of Sara’s! I’ll just behave to her tomorrow as if nothing had happened. It seems so long ago now, here in the night.”
Neither of us ever forgot the subtle delight of that stolen walk. A spell of glamour was over us. The breezes whispered strange secrets of elf-haunted glens, and the hollows where the ferns grew were brimmed with mystery and romance. Ghostlike scents crept out of the meadows to meet us, and the fir wood before we came to the church was a living sweetness of Junebells growing in abundance.
Junebells have another and more scientific name, of course. But who could desire a better name than Junebells? They are so perfect in their way that they seem to epitomize the very scent and charm of the forest, as if the old wood’s daintiest thoughts had materialized in blossom; and not all the roses by Bendameer’s stream are as fragrant as a shallow sheet of Junebells under the boughs of fir.
There were fireflies abroad that night, too, increasing the gramarye of it. There is certainly something a little supernatural about fireflies. Nobody pretends to understand them. They are akin to the tribes of fairy, survivals of the elder time when the woods and hills swarmed with the little green folk. It is still very easy to believe in fairies when you see those goblin lanterns glimmering among the fir tassels.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” said the Story Girl in rapture. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I’m glad I left my necklace. And I am glad you are with me, Bev. The others wouldn’t understand so well. I like you because I don’t have to talk to you all the time. It’s so nice to walk with someone you don’t have to talk to. Here is the graveyard. Are you frightened to pass it, Bev?”
“No, I don’t think I’m frightened,” I answered slowly, “but I have a queer feeling.”
“So have I. But it isn’t fear. I don’t know what it is. I feel as if something was reaching out of the graveyard to hold me — something that wanted life — I don’t like it — let’s hurry. But isn’t it strange to think of all the dead people in there who were once alive like you and me. I don’t feel as if I could EVER die. Do you?”
“No, but everybody must. Of course we go on living afterwards, just the same. Don’t let’s talk of such things here,” I said hurriedly.
When we reached the school I contrived to open a window. We scrambled in, lighted a lamp and found the missing necklace. The Story Girl stood on the platform and gave an imitation of the catastrophe of the evening that made me shout with laughter. We prowled around for sheer delight over being there at an unearthly hour when everybody supposed we were sound asleep in our beds. It was with regret that we left, and we walked home as slowly as we could to prolong the adventure.
“Let’s never tell anyone,” said the Story Girl, as we reached home. “Let’s just have it as a secret between us for ever and ever — something that nobody else knows a thing about but you and me.”
“We’d better keep it a secret from Aunt Janet anyhow,” I whispered, laughing. “She’d think we were both crazy.”
“It’s real jolly to be crazy once in a while,” said the Story Girl.
CHAPTER XX.
EXTRACTS FROM “OUR MAGAZINE”
EDITORIAL
As will be seen there is no Honour Roll in this number. Even Felicity has thought all the beautiful thoughts that can be thought and cannot think any more. Peter has never got drunk but, under existing circumstances, that is not greatly to his credit. As for our written resolutions they have silently disappeared from our chamber walls and the place that once knew them knows them no more for ever. (PETER, PERPLEXEDLY: “Seems to me I’ve heard something like that before.”) It is very sad but we will all make some new resolutions next year and maybe it will be easier to keep those.
THE STORY OF THE LOCKET THAT WAS BAKED
This was a story my Aunt Jane told me about her granma when she was a little girl. Its funny to think of baking a locket, but it wasn’t to eat. She was my great granma but Ill call her granma for short. It happened when she was ten years old. Of course she wasent anybodys granma then. Her father and mother and her were living in a new settlement called Brinsley. Their nearest naybor was a mile away. One day her Aunt Hannah from Charlottetown came and wanted her ma to go visiting with her. At first granma’s ma thought she couldent go because it was baking day and granma’s pa was away. But granma wasent afraid to stay alone and she knew how to bake the bread so she made her ma go and her Aunt Hannah took off the handsome gold locket and chain she was waring round her neck and hung it on granmas and told her she could ware it all day. Granma was awful pleased for she had never had any jewelry. She did all the chores and then was needing the loaves when she looked up and saw a tramp coming in and he was an awful villenus looking tramp. He dident even pass the time of day but just set down on a chair. Poor granma was awful fritened and she turned her back on him and went on needing the loaf cold and trembling — that is, granma was trembling not the loaf. She was worried about the locket. She didn’t know how she could hide it for to get anywhere she would have to turn round and pass him.
All of a suddent she thought she would hide it in the bread. She put her hand up and pulled it hard and quick and broke the fastening and needed it right into the loaf. Then she put the loaf in the pan and set it in the oven.
The tramp hadent seen her do it and then he asked for something to eat. Granma got him up a meal and when hed et it he began prowling about the kitchen looking into everything and opening the cubbord doors. Then he went into granma’s mas room and turned the buro drawers and trunk inside out and threw the things in them all about. All he found was a purse with a dollar in it and he swore about it and took it and went away. When granma was sure he was really gone she broke down and cried. She forgot all about the bread and it burned as black as coal. When she smelled it burning granma run and pulled it out. She was awful scared the locket was spoiled but she sawed open the loaf and it was there safe and sound. When her Aunt Hannah came back she said granma deserved the locket because she had saved it so clever and she gave it to her and grandma always wore it and was very proud of it. And granma used to say that was the only loaf of bread she ever spoiled in her life.
PETER CRAIG.
(FELICITY: “Those stories are all very well but they are only true stories. It’s easy enough to write true stories. I thought Peter was appointed fiction editor, but he has never written any fiction since the paper started. That’s not MY idea of a fiction editor. He ought to make up stories out of his own head.
” PETER, SPUNKILY: “I can do it, too, and I will next time. And it ain’t easier to write true stories. It’s harder, ‘cause you have to stick to facts.” FELICITY: “I don’t believe you could make up a story.” PETER: “I’ll show you!”)
MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
It’s my turn to write it but I’m SO NERVOUS. My worst adventure happened TWO YEARS AGO. It was an awful one. I had a striped ribbon, striped brown and yellow and I LOST IT. I was very sorry for it was a handsome ribbon and all the girls in school were jealous of it. (FELICITY: “I wasn’t. I didn’t think it one bit pretty.” CECILY: “Hush!”) I hunted everywhere but I couldn’t find it. Next day was Sunday and I was running into the house by the front door and I saw SOMETHING LYING ON THE STEP and I thought it was my ribbon and I made a grab at it as I passed. But, oh, it was A SNAKE! Oh, I can never describe how I felt when I felt that awful thing WRIGGLING IN MY HAND. I let it go and SCREAMED AND SCREAMED, and ma was cross at me for yelling on Sunday and made me read seven chapters in the Bible but I didn’t mind that much after what I had come through. I would rather DIE than have SUCH AN EXPERIENCE again.
SARA RAY.
TO FELICITY ON HER BERTHDAY
Oh maiden fair with golden hair
And brow of purest white,
Id fight for you I’d die for you
Let me be your faithful knite.
This is your berthday blessed day
You are thirteen years old today
May you be happy and fair as you are now
Until your hair is gray.
I gaze into your shining eyes,
They are so blue and bright.
Id fight for you Id die for you
Let me be your faithful knite.
A FRIEND.
(DAN: “Great snakes, who got that up? I’ll bet it was Peter.” FELICITY, WITH DIGNITY: “Well, it’s more than YOU could do. YOU couldn’t write poetry to save your life.” PETER, ASIDE TO BEVERLEY: “She seems quite pleased. I’m glad I wrote it, but it was awful hard work.”)
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 409