“Of course,” went on Gwen, “the first Mrs. Leander was ever so much handsomer than your mother. Of course your father would love her best. Ma says widowers just marry the second time for a housekeeper. I could just stand and look at Clementine’s picture for hours. When I grow up I’m going to have mine taken just like that, looking at a lily, with my hair done the same way. I’m never going to have my hair bobbed. It’s common.”
“The Princess Varvara had hers bobbed,” retorted Marigold.
“Russian princesses don’t count.”
“She is a grand-niece of Queen Victoria.”
“So she said. You needn’t put on any airs with me, Marigold Lesley, because you had a princess visiting you. I’m a — a — Democrat.”
“You’re not. It’s only in the States there are Democrats.”
“Well, it’s something that doesn’t take stock in kings and queens, anyway. I forget the right word. And as for politics, do you know I’m going to be a Tory after this. Sir John Carter is ever so much better looking than our Liberal man.”
“You can’t be a To — Conservative,” cried Marigold, outraged at this topsy-turvy idea. “Why — why — you were born a Grit.”
“You’ll see if I can’t. Well—” Gwen had got her clothes off and wriggled into one of the rather skimpy little cotton nightgowns Tabby had unearthed from somewhere for them, “now for prayers. I’m awful tired of saying the same old prayer. I’m going to invent a new one of my own.”
“Do you think it’s — safe?” asked Marigold dubiously. When you were a stranger in a strange land wouldn’t it be best to stick to the tried and tested in prayers as well as politics.
“Why not? But I know what I’ll do. I’m going to say your prayer — the one your Aunt Marigold made up for you.”
“You shan’t,” cried Marigold. “That’s my very own special prayer.”
“Selfish pig,” said Gwennie.
Marigold said no more. Perhaps it was selfish. And anyway Gwennie would say it if she wanted to. She knew her Gwennie. But she also knew her own dear prayer would be spoiled for her forever if that imp from Rush Hill said it.
Gwennie knelt down with one eye on Marigold. And at the last moment she relented. Gwen wasn’t such a bad sort after all. But having said that she was going to invent a new prayer it was up to her to invent one. She wouldn’t back down altogether, but Gwen suddenly discovered that it was not such an easy thing to invent a prayer.
“Dear God,” she said slowly, “please — please — oh, please never let me have moles like Tabby Derusha’s. And never mind about the daily bread — I’m sure to have lots of that — but please give me lots of pudding and cake and jam. And please bless all the folks who deserve it.”
“There, that’s done,” she announced, hopping into bed.
“I’m sure God will think that a funny prayer,” said Marigold.
“Well, don’t you suppose He wants a little amusement sometimes?” demanded Gwennie. “Anyway, it’s my own prayer. It isn’t one somebody else made up for me. Gee, Marigold, what if there should be a nest of mice in this bed? There’s a chaff tick.”
What gruesome things Gwennie did think of. They had blown out their lamp and it was very dark. They were fourteen miles from home. The raindrops began to thud against the little windows. Was Tabby Derusha “cracked.”
“Abel sent in some apples for you.”
Gwennie, to use her own expression, let out a yelp. Tabby was standing by their bed. How could she have got there without their hearing her? Certainly it was eerie. And when she had gone out again they did not dare eat the apples for fear there were worms in them.
“What’s that snuffing at the door?” whispered Gwen. “Do you s’pose it’s old Abel Derusha turned into a wolf?”
“It’s only Buttons,” scoffed Marigold. But she was glad when a sudden snore proclaimed that Gwen had fallen asleep. Before she went to sleep herself Tabby Derusha came in again — silently as a shadow, with a little candle this time. She bent over the bed. Marigold, cold with sudden terror, kept her eyes shut and held her breath. Were they going to be killed? Smothered with pillows?
“Dear little children,” said Tabby Derusha, lifting one of Gwen’s lovely curls gently. “Hair soft as silk — sweet little faces — pretty little dears.”
There was a touch soft as a rose-leaf on Marigold’s cheek. Tabby gloated over them for a few minutes longer. Then she was gone, as noiselessly as she had come. But Marigold was no longer afraid. She felt as safe and as much at home as if she were in her own blue room at Cloud of Spruce. After all, it had been an int’resting day. And Gwen was all right. She hadn’t stolen her prayer. Marigold said it over again under her breath — the beautiful little prayer she loved because it was so beautiful and because Aunt Marigold had made it up for her — and went to sleep.
6
“I didn’t sleep a wink the whole night,” vowed Gwen.
“Never mind, here’s a new morning — such a lovely new morning,” said Marigold.
The rain was over. The southwest wind the Weed Man had promised Captain Simons was blowing. The clouds were racing before it. Down on the beach the water was purring in little blue ripples. The sky in the east was all rosy silver. The grass was green and wet on the high red cliffs. Over the harbour hung a milky mist. Then the rising sun rent it apart and made a rainbow of it. A vessel came sailing through it over a glistening path. Never, thought Marigold, had the world seemed so lovely.
“What are you doing?” said Gwen, struggling impatiently into her clothes, much annoyed because Buttons had got in after all and slept on her dress.
“I — I think — I’m praying,” said Marigold dreamily.
7
Uncle Klon came for them in his car before breakfast was over.
“Are they very mad at Cloud of Spruce?” asked Gwennie. Rather soberly for her. She did not like Uncle Klon. He was always too many for her.
“There’s a special Providence for children and idiots,” said Uncle Klon gently. “Jim Donkin forgot to give the message till late last night and they were so relieved to find out where you had gone, that the dining-room rather sank into the background. You’d better not look again on blueberry wine when it is purple, Miss Gwen.”
“It’s a good thing we’re too big to be spanked,” whispered Gwen, when she saw Grandmother’s face.
“I believe you,” said Lucifer.
CHAPTER XIII
A Ghost Is Laid
1
That affair of the blueberry wine was certainly a bad business. There was some secret talk at Cloud of Spruce of sending Gwennie home after it. But nothing came of it, and Gwennie never even knew it had been mooted. It would never do to offend Luther and Annie, Grandmother concluded, though for her part she couldn’t understand Josephine. But the real reason was that they all liked Gwennie in spite of — or maybe because of — her deviltries. “An amusing compound of mischief and precocity,” said Uncle Klon, who liked to be amused.
“A darn leetle minx,” said Lazarre, but he ran his legs off for her. “A child of Beelzebub,” said Salome, but kept the old stone cooky-jar full of hop-and-go-fetch-its for Gwennie. Gwennie might be saintly or devilish as the humour took her, but she was not a bit stuck-up about her looks and she had Annie Vincent’s kind, ungrudging heart and Luther Lesley’s utter inability to hold any spite. As for Marigold, she and Gwennie had some terrible spats, but they had so much fun between that the fights didn’t greatly matter. Though Gwennie had a poisonous little tongue when she got mad and said some things that rankled — especially about Clementine.
Clementine’s picture had been left on the orchard room wall when most of Old Grandmother’s faded brides had been packed away in the oblivion of the garret. There she hung in the green gloom, with her ivory-white face, her sleek braided flow of hair, her pale beautiful hands and her long-lashed eyes forever entreating the lily. Marigold felt she would not have hated Clementine so much if she had looked squarely and a
little arrogantly at you like the other brides — if you could have met her eyes and defied them.
But that averted, indifferent gaze, as if you didn’t matter at all — as if what you felt or thought didn’t matter at all. Oh, for the others Clementine Lesley might be dead, but for Marigold she was torturingly alive and she knew Father had only married Mother for a housekeeper. All his love belonged to that disdainful Lady of the Lily. And Gwennie, suspecting this secret wound in Marigold’s soul, turned the barb in it occasionally by singing the praises of Clementine’s picture.
The only faint comfort Marigold had was a hope that if Clementine had lived to be old she might have become enormously fat like her mother up at Harmony village. A good many Lawrences lived in or about Harmony and none of them, it was whispered, cared very much for Lorraine, though they were always painfully polite to her. Marigold knew this, as she knew so many things older folk never dreamed of her knowing, and always felt whenever old Mrs. Lawrence’s eye rested on her that she had no right to exist. If she could only have believed thoroughly that Clementine would have looked like her mother when she grew old she would not have been jealous of her.
For old Mrs. Lawrence was a funny old dame, and one is never jealous of funny people.
Mrs. Lawrence was very proud of her resemblance to Queen Victoria and dressed up to it. She had three chins, a bosom like a sheep and a harmless, if irritating, habit of shedding hairpins wherever she went. Her favourite adjective was “Christian,” and she had a very decided dislike to being reminded that she was either fat or old. She constantly wore a brooch with Clementine’s hair in it and when she talked of her daughter — as she did very often — she snuffled. In spite of this, Mrs. Lawrence had many good qualities and was a decent old soul enough, as Uncle Klon said.
But Marigold saw only her defects and foibles because that was all she wanted to see in Clementine’s mother; and it rejoiced her when Uncle Klon poked fun at Mrs. Lawrence’s pet peculiarity of saving all her children’s boots. It was said she had a roomful of them — every boot or shoe that her family of four had ever worn from their first little slipper up. Which did nobody any harm and need not have given Marigold such fierce pleasure. But when was jealousy ever reasonable?
2
Uncle Peter’s son Royal had married and brought his bride home to Harmony. She was said to be unusually pretty, and even Aunt Josephine had said she was the most exquisite bride she had ever seen. There had been the usual clan jollifications in her honour, and now Uncle Klon and Aunt Marigold were giving a party for her — a “fancy dress” dance where all the young fry were to be masked. It sounded very int’resting to Marigold and very provocative to Gwennie as they listened to Mother and Grandmother talking it over at the supper-table. Both wished intensely that they could see that party. But both knew that they must go right to bed as soon as Mother and Grandmother had gone.
“And be good little girls,” said Grandmother warningly.
“There’s no fun in being a good little girl,” said Gwennie, with a pout at Grandmother. “I don’t see why we can’t go to that party, too.”
“You were not invited,” said Mother.
“You are not old enough to go to parties,” said Grandmother.
“Your day is coming,” comforted Salome.
Uncle Klon came out from Harmony for them in his car — already dressed in his fancy costume — a great, flowered-velvet coat that had belonged to some Great-great across the sea, a real sword, and a powdered wig. With lace ruffles at wrist and breast. Mother and Grandmother were not wearing fancy dress, but Grandmother was very splendid in velvet and Mother very pretty in brown brocade and pearls. And Marigold felt delightfully that it was just like a bit out of a story, and she wished she could go up the hill and tell Sylvia about it. She had never even seen Sylvia since Gwennie came, and there were times when she was consumed with longing for her. But she never went up the hill. Gwennie simply must not find out about Sylvia.
“Run on in, kidlets, and go to bed now,” said Uncle Klon, grinning rather maliciously, because he knew perfectly well how they hated it.
“Don’t call me ‘kidlet,’” flashed Gwen.
After the car had purred off in the twilight, she sat down on the veranda steps and would not say a word. Such a visitation of silence was rare with Gwennie, but Marigold rather welcomed it. She was glad to sit and dream in the lovely twilight, while Lucifer skulked like a black demon among the flower-beds.
It was not the Lucifer of Old Grandmother’s days. That Lucifer had gone where good cats go. But there had been another Lucifer to step into his four shoes, looking so exactly like him that in a few weeks it seemed just the same old Lucifer. There had been a procession of Lucifers and Witches for generations at Cloud of Spruce, all looking so much alike that Phidime and Lazarre thought they were one and the same and concluded they were the Old Lady’s devils.
Salome, after milking, came along.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’ve got a headache. And it’s time you went, too. There’s lemonade and cookies for you in the pantry.”
“Lemonade and cookies,” said Gwennie scornfully, after Salome had gone in, leaving a couple of minxes at large in Cloud of Spruce. “Lemonade and cookies! And they are having all kinds of ices and salads and cakes at the party.”
“There’s no use thinking about that,” said Marigold with a sigh. “It’s 9 o’clock. We might as well go to bed.”
“Bed! I’m going to the party.”
Marigold stared.
“The party? But you can’t.”
“Maybe I can’t. But I will. I’ve been thinking it all out. We’ll just go. It’s only a mile in — we can easily walk it. We must be dressed up ourselves so that if any one sees us they’ll think we belong to the party. There’s heaps of things in those chests in the garret and I’ll make masks. We won’t go in the house — just peep in at the windows and see all the dresses and the fun.”
So far had evil communications corrupted good manners that Marigold felt no qualms of conscience at all. It would certainly be int’resting. And she was quite wild to see that “exquisite bride” and all the wonderful costumes. Uncle Peter’s Pete, she had heard, was going as a devil. The only thing that gave her to think was whether they could really get away with it.
“What if Grandmother catches us?” she said.
“A fig for your grandmother. She won’t — and if she does, what then? She can’t kill us. Have some gizzard.”
Marigold had lots of “gizzard” and in ten minutes they were in the garret tiptoeing cautiously lest Salome hear them in the retreat of her kitchen chamber. The garret was rather a spooky place by candlelight, and Marigold had never been there after dark before.
Great bunches of dried herbs hung from the nails in the rafters, together with bundles of goose-wings, hanks of yarns and various discarded coats. Grandmother’s big loom, where she still wove homespun blankets, was before the window. An old, old piano was in one corner and there was some legend of a ghostly lady who played on it by times. And there was a chest under the eaves filled with silken dresses in which gay girls had danced years ago. Marigold had never seen the contents of that chest, but Gwennie seemed to know all about them. She must have been rummaging, Marigold thought. Gwennie had — one rainy day when nobody knew where she was — and she knew what was in the big chest, but she did not know — and neither did Marigold — that the little gown of misty green crêpe with tiny daisies sprinkled over it and a satin girdle with a rhinestone buckle in it, which was lying in a box on the top of the contents of the chest, had been a dress of Clementine’s. Marigold knew that Clementine had been buried in her wedding-dress and that old Mrs. Lawrence had taken away the rest of her pretty gowns. But this one had been overlooked; perhaps Mrs. Lawrence did not know it still existed. The first Mrs. Leander had her own reasons for keeping it and it had remained in the box in which she had placed it all those years.
“Here’s the very thing for you,” s
aid Gwen. “I’m going as a fortune-teller, with this scarlet cloak and hood and the pack of cards. They’re all here together — somebody must have worn them once to a fancy ball.”
Marigold fingered the emerald satin of the girdle lovingly. She adored satin.
“But I can’t wear this,” she objected. “It’s miles too big for me.”
“Put it on,” ordered Gwen. “I can fix it for you. I’m a crackerjack at that. Ma says I’m a born dressmaker. Let’s go down to our room. Salome’ll hear us creaking about up here.”
Marigold put on the daisy dress, with its pretty, short sleeves of lace and its round low neck. Oh, it was pretty even if it were old-fashioned and wrinkled. Marigold was tall for her ten years and Clementine had been small and slight; still the dress was too long — and loose. But resourceful Gwennie, with a paper of safety-pins, worked marvels. The skirt was looped up at intervals all around and the pins hidden under clusters of daisies Gwen got off an old hat and which matched the daisies in the dress admirably.
“Now get your good slippers and pink silk stockings,” commanded Gwen, sprinkling her own cloak and the green dress lavishly with Mother’s violet water. “I’ve got to make our masks.”
Which she proceeded to do, slashing ruthlessly into Old Grandmother’s widow “fall” of stiff black crêpe. Then she put on her own red stockings and fixed up a “wand” for herself out of an old umbrella handle with a silvery Christmas-tree ball at the end and a Japanese snake of scarlet paper wreathed around the handle. Nobody could deny that Gwen was past mistress in her own particular brand of magic, and Marigold was lost in admiration of her cleverness. A few minutes later two black-faced figures, one in green and one in red, slipped silently out of Cloud of Spruce and fled along the dark Harmony road, while Salome slept the sleep of the just in the kitchen chamber and Lucifer told the Witch of Endor that he’d be condemned if he ever let that young demon from Rush Hill walk him about the yard on his hind legs again.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 469