And then it appeared that Gwendolen never answered back.
Once and once only did Marigold, for a fleeting moment, think she might like Gwendolen in spite of her goodness. It was when Aunt Josephine told how Gwendolen had once got up in the middle of the night and gone downstairs in the dark to let in a poor, cold, miserable pussy-cat crying on the doorstep. But the next minute Aunt Josephine was describing how careful Gwendolen was to keep her nails clean — looking at Marigold’s as she talked.
“Gwendolen has such lovely white half-moons at the base of her nails.”
Now, Marigold had no half-moons.
“In short” — though it never really was in short with Aunt Josephine—”Gwendolen is a perfect little lady.”
Somehow that phrase got under Marigold’s skin as nothing else had done.
“I’m fed up with this,” she reflected furiously. It was the first time she had ever dared to use this new expression even in thought. Grandmother and Mother merely got rather tired of things. But rather tired was too mild to express her feelings towards the perfect little lady. And under it all that persistent stabbing ache of jealousy. Marigold would have liked as well as any one else to have a clan reputation of being a perfect lady.
And now Gwendolen was coming to Cloud of Spruce for a visit. Luther had written Grandmother that he wanted his little girl to visit Harmony and get acquainted with all her relatives. Especially did he want her to know Cloud of Spruce, where he had had such jolly times when a boy. Grandmother screwed up her lips a bit over the reference to “jolly times” — she remembered some of them — but she wrote back a very cordial invitation.
Aunt Josephine, who was just completing a visit, said she hoped, if Gwendolen came up for the mooted visit, Marigold would learn from her how a really nice little girl should behave. If Marigold had not been there Grandmother would have bristled up and said that Marigold was a pretty well-behaved child on the whole and her friends reasonably satisfied with her. She would probably have added that Luther Lesley had been a devil of a fellow when he was young and Annie Vincent was the biggest tomboy on the Island before she was married. And that it was curious, to say the least of it, that the pair of them should have produced so saintly an offspring.
But Marigold was there, so Grandmother had to look at her sternly and say, “I hope so too.”
Marigold did not know that when she had betaken her wounded spirit to the gay ranks of rosy hollyhocks beside the grey-green apple-barn for solace, Grandmother remarked to Mother,
“Thank mercy that is over. We won’t have another infliction of the old fool for at least three months.”
“Aunt Josephine ‘likes cats in their place,’” said Lucifer. “I know the breed.”
2
And then Gwendolen Vincent Lesley came. Marigold got up early the day she was expected, in order to have everything in perfect readiness for the task of entertaining a thorough lady. She was going to be as proper and angelic and spiritual as Gwendolen if it killed her. It was hard to have Mother say pleadingly, “Now, please see if you can behave nicely when Gwennie is here,” as if she never behaved nicely when Gwennie wasn’t there. For a moment Marigold felt an unholy desire that the very first thing she might do would be to scoop up a handful of mud and throw it at the visitor. But that passed. No, she was going to be good — not commonly good, not ordinarily good, but fearfully, extraordinarily, angelically good.
They met. Gwendolen stiffly put out a slender immaculate hand. Marigold glanced apprehensively at her own nails — thank goodness they were clean, even if they had no half-moons. And oh, Gwendolen was just as beautiful — and just as ladylike — and just as faultless as Aunt Josephine had painted her. Not one comforting, consoling defect anywhere.
There were the famous nut-brown curls falling around her delicate, spiritual face — there were the large, mild, dewy blue eyes and the exquisitely arched brows — there were the pearly teeth and the straight Grecian nose, the rosebud mouth, the shell-pink ears that lay back so nicely against her head, the cherubic expression, the sweet voice — very sweet. Marigold wondered if it was jealousy that made her think it was a little too sweet.
Marigold could have forgiven Gwendolen her beauty but she couldn’t forgive her her hopeless perfection of conduct and manners. They had a ghastly week of it. They didn’t, as Uncle Klon would have expressed it, click worth a cent in spite of the determined spirituality of both. And oh, how good they both were. Grandmother began to think there might be something in a good example after all.
And they bored each other nearly to death.
Marigold felt forlornly that they might have had such a good time if Gwendolen wasn’t so horribly proper and if she hadn’t to live up to her. Swinging in the apple-barn — housekeeping among the currant-bushes — rollicking in the old grey hay-barn full of cats — prowling about the spruce wood — wading in the brook — gathering mussels down by the shore — making nonsense rhymes — talking sleepy little secrets after they went to bed. But there were no secrets to talk over — nice girls didn’t have secrets. And of course Gwendolen was occupied — presumably — repeating hymns.
Once there was a terrible thunderstorm. Marigold was determined she would not show how frightened she was. Gwendolen remarked calmly that the lightning kept her from going to sleep and covered her head with the bedclothes. Marigold wouldn’t do that — Gwendolen might think she was doing it because she was terrified. Mother came to the door and said, “Darling, are you frightened?”
“No, not a bit,” answered Marigold gallantly, hoping that the bed-clothes would keep Gwendolen from noticing how her voice was shaking.
“Aren’t thunderstorms jolly?” asked Gwendolen in the morning.
“Aren’t they?” answered Marigold most enthusiastically.
It was Gwendolen’s beautiful table-manners that were hardest to emulate. This had always been one of Marigold’s weak points. She was always in such a hurry to get through and be at something. But now she liked to linger at the table as long as possible. There would be all the less time to spend in Gwendolen’s dull company, cudgelling her brains for some amusement that would be proper and spiritual. Gwendolen ate slowly, used her knife and fork with the strictest propriety, apparently enjoyed crusts, said “Excuse me” whenever indicated, and asked, “May I have the butter if you please, Aunt Lorraine?” where Marigold would have polished it off in two words, “Butter, mums?” And oh, but she would have loved Gwendolen if the latter had ever spilled one drop of gravy on the tablecloth!
One night they went to church with Grandmother to hear a missionary speak. Marigold hadn’t wanted to go especially, but Gwendolen was so eager for it that Grandmother took them along, though she did not approve of small girls going out to night meetings. Marigold enjoyed the walk to the church — enjoyed it so much that she had an uneasy feeling that it wasn’t spiritual to enjoy things to such an extent. But the white young clouds sailing over the moonlit sky were so dear — the shadows of the spruces on the road so fascinating — the sheep so pearly-white in the silver fields — the whole dear, fragrant summer night so friendly and lovesome. But when she said timidly to Gwendolen,
“Isn’t the world lovely after dark?” Gwendolen only said starchily,
“I don’t worry so much about the heathen in summer when it’s warm, but oh, what do they do in cold weather?”
Marigold had never worried about the heathen at all, though she faithfully put a tenth of her little allowance every month in a mite-box for them. Again she felt bitterly her inferiority to Gwendolen Vincent and loved her none the better for it.
But it was that night she prayed,
“Please make me pretty good but not quite as good as Gwen, because she never seems to have any fun.”
“Those two children get on beautifully,” said Grandmother. “They’ve never had the slightest quarrel. I really never expected that the visit would go off half so well.”
Mother agreed — it was better to agree with Grandm
other — but she had a queer conviction that the children weren’t getting on at all. Though she couldn’t have given the slightest reason for it.
3
Came a morning when Grandmother and Mother had to go into Harmony village. Grandmother was getting a new black satin made and Mother had a date with the dentist. They would be away most of the forenoon and Salome had been summoned away by the illness of a relative, but Gwendolen was so good and Marigold so much improved that they did not feel any special anxiety over leaving them alone. But just before they drove away Grandmother said to them,
“Now mind you, don’t either of you stick your head between the bars of the gate.”
Nobody to this day knows why Grandmother said that. Marigold believes it was simply predestination. Nobody ever had stuck her head between the bars of the gate and it had been there for ten years. A substantial gate of slender criss-cross iron bars. No flimsy wire gates for Cloud of Spruce. It had never occurred to Marigold to stick her head between the bars of the gate. Nor did it occur to her now.
But as soon as Grandmother and Mother had disappeared from sight down the road Gwendolen the model, who had been strangely silent all the morning, said deliberately,
“I am going to stick my head through the bars of the gate.”
Marigold couldn’t believe her ears. After what Grandmother had said! The good, so-obedient Gwendolen!
“I’m not going to be bossed by an old woman any longer.”
She marched down the steps and down the walk, followed by the suddenly alarmed Marigold.
“Oh, don’t — don’t, please, Gwennie,” she begged. “I’m sure it isn’t safe — the squares are so small. What if you couldn’t get it out again?”
For answer, Gwendolen stuck her head through one of the oblong spaces between the bars. Pushed her head through to be exact — and it was a tight squeeze.
“There!” she said triumphantly, her mop of curls falling forward over her face and confirming a wild suspicion Marigold had felt at the breakfast-table — that Gwendolen had not washed behind her ears that morning.
“Oh, take it out — please, Gwennie,” begged Marigold.
“I’ll take it out when I please, Miss Prunes-and-prisms. I’m so sick of being good that I’m going to be just as bad as I want to be after this. I don’t care how shocked you will be. You just watch the next thing I do.”
Marigold’s world seemed to spin around her. Before it grew steady again she heard Gwendolen give a frantic little yowl.
“Oh, I can’t get my head out,” she cried. “I can’t — get — my — head — out.”
Nor could she. The thick mop of curls falling forward made just the difference of getting in and getting out. Pull — writhe — twist — squirm as she might, she could not free herself. Marigold, in a panic, climbed over the gate and tried to push the head back — with no results save yelps of anguish from Gwendolen, who, if she were hurt as badly as she sounded, was very badly hurt indeed.
Gwendolen was certainly very uncomfortable. The unnatural position made her back and legs ache frightfully. She declared that the blood was running into her head and she would die. Marigold, shaking in the grip of this new terror, murmured faintly,
“Will it — do — any good — to pray?”
“Pray — pray. If you went for the blacksmith it would do more good than all the prayers in the world, you sickening, pious little cat!” said the spiritual Gwendolen.
The blacksmith! Phidime Gautier. Marigold went cold all over. She was in mortal dread of Phidime, who was a dead shot with tobacco-juice and not the least particular about his targets. She had never really believed the legend about the baby, but the impression of it was still in possession of her feelings. Phidime was very gruff and quick-tempered and never “stood for any kids” hanging round his shop. Marigold felt that she could never have the courage to go to Phidime.
“Oh, don’t you think if I took you round the waist and pulled hard I could pull you out?” she gasped.
“Yes, and pull my head clean off,” snapped Gwendolen. She gave another agonised squirm but to no effect, except that she nearly scraped one of her ears off. Suddenly she began shrieking like a maniac. “I can’t stand this another minute — I can’t,” she gasped between shrieks. “Oh — I’m dying — I’m dying.”
Marigold dared hesitate no longer. She tore off down the road like a mad thing. As she went the wild howls of Gwendolen Vincent could be heard faintly and more faintly. Was Gwennie dead? Or just yelled out?
“Hey, left a pie in the oven?” shouted Uncle Jed Clark as she spun by him.
Marigold answered not. To reach the blacksmith shop, to gasp out her tale, took all the breath she had.
“For de love of all de saints,” said Phidime. He killed a nail on the floor with a squirt of tobacco-juice and hunted out a file very deliberately. Phidime had never seen any reason why he should hurry. And Gwennie might be dead!
Eventually the file was found, and he started up the road like the grim black ogre of fairy-tales. Gwendolen was not dead. She was still shrieking.
“Here now, stop dat yelling,” said Phidime unsympathetically.
It took some time to file the bar and Phidime was not overly gentle. But at last it was done and Gwendolen Vincent was free, considerably rumpled and dishevelled, with a head that felt as if it were three sizes larger than ordinarily.
“Don’t you go for do dat fool t’ing any more again,” said Phidime warningly.
Gwendolen looked up at him and said spitefully,
“Old devil-face!”
Marigold nearly dropped in her tracks. Ladylike? Spiritual? Not to speak of commonly grateful?
“You keep dat sassy tongue of yours in your haid,” said Phidime blackly as he turned away. Gwendolen stuck her tongue out at him.
Marigold was feeling a bit shrewish after her terror. She looked at Gwendolen and uttered the four most unpopular words in the world.
“I told you so,” said Marigold.
“Oh, shut your head!”
This was indecent. “Shut your mouth” was an old friend — Marigold had often heard the boys at school using it — but “shut you head” was an interloper.
“I don’t care if you are shocked, Miss Prim,” said Gwendolen. “I’m through with trying to be as good as you. Nobody could be. I don’t care what Aunt Josephine says.”
“Aunt — Jo-seph-ine!”
“Yes, Aunt Jo-seph-ine! She does nothing all the time she is at Rush Hill but sing your praises.”
“Mine!” gasped Marigold.
“Yes. She just held you up as a perfect model — always telling me how good you were! I knew I’d hate you — and I didn’t want to come here for a visit — I like to go somewhere where something’s happening all the time — but Father made me. And I made up my mind I’d be just as ladylike as you. Such a week!”
“Aunt Josephine told me you were a model — a perfect lady. I’ve been trying to be as good as you,” gasped Marigold.
They looked at each other for a moment — and understood. Gwendolen began to laugh.
“I just couldn’t stand it a day longer. That’s why I stuck my head in the gate.”
“Aunt Josephine told me you said hymns before you went to sleep — and took an angel for your model — and—”
“I was just stuffing Aunt Josephine. My, but it was easy to pull her leg.”
Which was wicked of course. But in proportion to the wickedness did Marigold’s sudden and new-born affection for Gwendolen Vincent increase.
“She made me so mad praising you. I wanted to show her you weren’t the only saint in the world.”
“Did you really want to hear that missionary?” asked Marigold.
“I sure did. Wanted to hear if he’d tell any cannibal yarns so’s we could make a game of them when I went back to Rush Hill,” said Gwennie promptly.
Which was wickeder still. But oh, how Marigold loved Gwennie.
“We’ve wasted a week,” she sai
d mournfully.
“Never mind. We’ll make up for it this week,” said Gwendolen Vincent ominously.
Grandmother can’t understand it to this day. She never forgot that second week.
“One of your deep ones, that,” Salome always said afterwards, whenever any one mentioned the name of Gwendolen Vincent.
“You can’t always tell a saint by the cut of his jib,” remarked Lucifer, who had never felt that his tail was safe in spite of Gwendolen’s saintliness.
CHAPTER XII
Marigold Entertains
1
“No more fat for me. I’ve nearly died eating fat this week,” was Gwendolen’s declaration of independence that night at supper. Grandmother, who hadn’t noticed the gate yet — Phidime had wired it up rather cleverly — wondered what had happened to her.
“You should eat the fat with the lean,” she said severely.
Gwennie stuck out her tongue at Grandmother. It gave Marigold a shock to realise that anybody could do that and live. Grandmother actually said nothing. What was there to say? But she reflected that Annie Vincent’s child possibly ran truer to form than they had supposed after all. Grandmother would never have admitted it, but she was almost as tired of Gwennie’s perfection as Marigold was. So she pretended not to see the grimace.
Grandmother had to pretend blindness a good many times in the days that followed, rather than outrage hospitality and incur Annie Vincent’s eternal wrath by spanking her offspring or sending her home with a flea in her ear. The famed serenity of Cloud of Spruce was smashed to smithereens. A day without a thrill was a lost day for Gwennie.
Marigold enjoyed it — with reservations. Gwennie cared nothing for story-books or kittens and knew nothing whatever about the dryads that lived in the beech clump or the wind spirits that came up the harbour on stormy nights. Marigold would never have dreamed of telling her about Sylvia or taking her along the secret paths of her enchanted groves. But still Gwennie was a good little scout. There was always something doing when she was about, and she was funny. She was always “taking off” some one. She could imitate anyone to perfection. It was very amusing — though you always had a little uneasy feeling that the minute your back was turned she might be imitating you. Grandmother really was very cross the day Gwennie spilled soup over Mrs. Dr. Emsley’s silk dress at the dinner-table because she was “taking off” the old doctor’s way of eating soup and sending poor Marigold into convulsions of unholy mirth.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 466