The Complete Works of L M Montgomery

by L. M. Montgomery

  “Besides, look at me,” continued Bernice rebelliously. “See how ugly I am. Look at the size of my mouth. Why did God make me ugly? Babe Kennedy says I’ve got a face like a monkey’s.”

  “You haven’t. And think how clever you are,” cried Marigold.

  “I want to be pretty,” said Bernice stubbornly. “Then people might like me. But I don’t believe in God and I’m not going to pretend I do.”

  Marigold got up with a long sigh of adjustment and flung her arms about Bernice.

  “Never mind. I love you. I love you whether you believe in God or not. I only wish you did. It’s — it’s so much nicer.”

  “I won’t have you long,” said Bernice, determinedly pessimistic. “Something’ll happen to take you away, too.”

  “Nothing can happen,” Marigold challenged fate. “Oh, of course I’ll have to go home when my visit’s ended — but we’ll write — and I’ll get Mother to ask you to Cloud of Spruce. We’ll be friends forever.”

  Bernice shook her head.

  “No. Something will happen. You’ll see. This is too good to last.”

  A new fear assailed Marigold.

  “Bernice, if you don’t believe in God how can you expect to go to heaven?”

  “I don’t. And I don’t want to,” Bernice answered defiantly. “Aunt Harriet read about heaven in the Bible. All shut in with walls and gates. I’d hate that.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better than — than—”

  “Hell? No. You wouldn’t have to pretend you liked hell if you didn’t. But I don’t believe in either place.”

  “Bernice, don’t you believe in the Bible at all?”

  “Not one word of it. It’s all about God and there isn’t any God. It’s just a — just a fairy-tale.”

  Somehow, this seemed more terrible to Marigold than not believing in God. God was far-away and invisible but the Bible was right in your hand, so to speak. She sighed again as she knelt to say her own prayers. It seemed a very lonely performance — with that little sceptic of a Bernice standing rigidly by the window, disbelieving. But Marigold prayed for her very softly. “Please, dear God, make Bernice believe in You. Oh, please, make Bernice believe in You.”

  4

  At dinner-time next day Marigold made the mistake of her life. Aunt Marcia asked what she was worrying about. And Marigold confessed that she was — not exactly worrying about Bernice but so sorry for her.

  “Because, you see, she doesn’t believe in God. And it must be terrible not to believe in God.”

  “What’s that?” Uncle Jarvis shot at her suddenly. “What’s that about Bernice Willis not believing in God?”

  “She says she doesn’t,” said Marigold mournfully.

  “Poor child,” said Aunt Marcia.

  “Poor child? Wicked child!” thundered Uncle Jarvis. “If she doesn’t believe in God you’ll not play with her again, Marigold.”

  “Oh, Jarvis,” protested Aunt Marcia.

  “I’ve said it.” Uncle Jarvis stabbed a potato with a fork as if he were spearing an infidel. “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion. We keep the Ten Commandments in this house.”

  “Oh, Jarvis, remember the poor child has no one to teach her really. That queer old—”

  “Marcia, be silent. She has had plenty of opportunity in a Christian land to learn that there is a God. Doesn’t she go to Sunday-school and church? And Harriet Caine is an earnest Christian woman. There is no doubt that Bernice has been taught the truth. But she is plainly not of the elect and she is too wicked for you to play with. Why, I refused to shake hands with Dr. Clarke because he said he believed there were two Isaiahs. Do you think I’ll tolerate infidelity?”

  Aunt Marcia knew he was inexorable and Marigold felt he was. She began to cry, though she knew tears would have no influence on Uncle Jarvis.

  “Oh, Uncle Jarvis — if Bernice — if Bernice comes to believe there is a God can’t I play with her then?”

  “Yes, but not till them.” Uncle Jarvis gave his nose a frantic tweak and left the table, his black beard fairly bristling with indignation. Uncle Jarvis had one of his headaches that day and so was more than usually theological. Aunt Marcia wanted him to take an aspirin to relieve it but he would not. It was flying in the face of God to take aspirin. If He sent you pain it was for you to endure it.

  Aunt Marcia tried to comfort Marigold but could not hold out much hope that Uncle Jarvis would change his mind.

  “Oh, if I’d only held my tongue,” moaned Marigold.

  “It would have been wiser,” agreed Aunt Marcia sadly. Thirty years of living with Jarvis Pringle had taught her that.

  Marigold never forgot Bernice’s sad little face when she told her Uncle Jarvis wouldn’t let them play together any longer.

  “Didn’t I tell you? I knew something would happen,” she said, her lips quivering.

  “Oh, Bernice, couldn’t you — couldn’t you — pretend you believe in Him?” Marigold’s voice faltered. She knew, deep in her soul, that this wasn’t right — that a friendship so purchased must be poisoned at the core. Bernice knew it, too.

  “I can’t, Marigold. Not even for you. It wouldn’t be any use.”

  “Oh, Bernice, if you come to find out — sometime — that you do believe in Him after all, you’ll tell me, won’t you? And then we can be friends again. Promise.”

  Bernice promised.

  “But I won’t. Isn’t this very thing that’s happened a proof? If there was a God He’d know it would make me feel more than ever there wasn’t.”

  The week that followed was a very lonely one for Marigold. She missed Bernice dreadfully — and that hateful Babe was always poking round, triumphing.

  “Didn’t I tell you. I knew ages ago Bernice didn’t believe there was a God. I’ll bet He’ll punish her right smart some of these days.”

  “She doesn’t pronounce sepulchre ‘see-pulker,’ anyhow,” retorted Marigold, thinking of the verse Babe had read in Sunday-school the day before.

  Babe reddened.

  “I don’t believe Miss Jackson knows how to pronounce it herself. You make me sick, Marigold Lesley. You’re just mad because you’ve found out your precious Bernice isn’t the piece of perfection you thought her.”

  “I’m not mad,” said Marigold calmly. “I’m only sorry for you. It must be so terrible to be you.”

  Marigold prayed desperately every night for Bernice’s conversion — prayed without a bit of faith that her prayer would be answered. She even tried to consult the minister about the matter, the night he came to Yarow Lane for supper.

  “Tut, tut, everybody believes in God,” he said when Marigold timidly put a suppositious case.

  So that wasn’t much help. Marigold thought wildly of refusing to eat unless Uncle Jarvis let her play with Bernice. But something told her that wouldn’t move Uncle Jarvis a hair’s breadth. He would only tell Aunt Marcia to send her home.

  And, oh, the raspberries were thick on the hill — and there was a basketful of adorable kittens in the old tumbledown barn — Uncle Jarvis was always so busy with theology that he hadn’t time to patch up his barns. And it was a shame, so it was, that Bernice must miss all this just because she couldn’t believe in God.

  5

  “I’ve found out something about Bernice Willis. I’ve found out something about Bernice Willis,” chanted Babe Kennedy triumphantly, rocking on her heels and toes in the door of the granary-loft, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  Marigold looked scornfully over her shoulder from the corner where she was arranging her cupboard of broken dishes.

  “What have you found out?”

  “I’m not going to tell you,” crowed Babe. “I’m going to tell Bernice, though. I gave her a hint of it this afternoon at the store but I wasn’t going to tell her then — I just gave her something to think of. I’m going right down to her aunt’s to tell her as soon as I’ve taken Mrs. Carter’s eggs to her. Oh, it’s awful — the awfullest thing you ever heard of. You’ll
find it out pretty soon. Everybody will. Well, bye-bye. I’ve got to be off. It’s coming up a storm, I guess.”

  Marigold made one swift bound across the granary, caught Babe by the arm, pulled her with scant regard for her eggs into the loft, slammed and bolted the door and stood with her back to it.

  “Now, you just tell me what you mean and no more nonsense about it.”

  Marigold was not a Lesley for nothing. Babe surrendered. She snapped her thin-lipped, cruel little mouth shut, then opened it.

  “Very well then. Bernice Willis’s father isn’t dead. Never was dead. He’s in the penitentiary at Dorchester, for stealing money.”

  “I — don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true — cross my heart. I overheard Mrs. Dr. Keyes from Charlottetown telling Ma all about it. He was in a bank — and he — em — embezzled the money. So he was sent to the pen for twelve years and his wife died of a broken heart — though Mrs. Keyes said it was her extravagance drove him to stealing. And Bernice’s Aunt Harriet took her. She was just a baby — and brought her up to think her father was dead, too.”

  Marigold wanted to disbelieve it. But it was too hopelessly, horribly, evidently true.

  “My, ain’t I glad I’ve never played with Bernice!” gloated Babe. “The daughter of a jail-bird. Just think of her face when I tell her!”

  “Oh, Babe—” Marigold stooped to plead with Babe Kennedy piteously, “oh, you’re not going to tell her. Please — please don’t tell her.”

  “I will so tell her. It’ll bring that pride of hers down. Carrying her head as high as if she came of honest people.”

  “If you were changed into a toad this minute you’d only look like what you are,” cried Marigold passionately.

  Babe laughed condescendingly.

  “Of course you’re sore — after thinking nobody was good enough for you to play with but Bernice. Oh, my, Miss Lesley. You can pull in your horns now, I guess. I’m going to tell Bernice right off. She’d have to know it, anyhow, soon — her father’ll soon be out of jail. I’m going to have the fun of telling her first. Think of her face. Now, you just open that door and let me out.”

  Marigold did as she was ordered. The spirit was clean gone out of her.

  This was dreadful — dreadful. No hope now that Bernice would ever believe in God. Marigold felt she could hardly blame her. “Think of her face—” Marigold did think of it — that dear, freckled, sensitive, homely little face — when Babe told her the terrible truth. And of course Babe would tell. Babe did so love to tell ugly things. Hadn’t she told Kitty Houseman she was going to die? Hadn’t she told the teacher Sally Ford had stolen Jane McKenzie’s pencil in school?

  “If I could get there and tell Bernice first,” said Marigold. “If she has to hear it she could stand it better from me. I could go by the Lower road — Mrs. Carter lives on the Upper road and I could get there before Babe. But it’s dark — and going to rain—”

  Marigold shuddered. She didn’t mind being out after dark on a road she knew. But a road she didn’t know was different.

  She ran down the granary stairs and across the birch field to the Lower road. She must get to Bernice first. But, oh, how weird and lonely that Lower road was in the sudden swoops of wind and the sudden gushes of wan moonlight between the clouds. Melancholy dogs were howling to each other across the dark farms. The wind whistled dolefully in the fence corners. Something — with red eyes — glared out at her from under a bush. And the trees!

  By daylight Marigold was a little sister to all the trees in the world. But trees took on such extraordinary shapes in the dark. A huge lion prowled through John Burnham’s field. An enormous, diabolical rooster strutted on the fence. A queer elfish old man leered at her over a gate. A very devil squatted at the turn of the road. The whole walk was full of terrors. Marigold was in a cold reek of perspiration when she reached the house behind the young spruce wood and stumbled into the little kitchen, where Bernice was — fortunately — alone.

  “Bernice,” gasped Marigold, “Babe’s coming to tell you something — something dreadful. I — tried to stop her but I couldn’t.”

  Bernice looked at Marigold with fear in her sad grey eyes.

  “I knew she meant something this afternoon. She asked me where my father was buried. I said in Charlottetown. ‘Go and see if his grave is there,’ she said. What is it? Tell me. I’d rather hear it from you than her.”

  “Oh, I can’t, Bernice — I can’t,” cried Marigold in agony. “I thought I could — but I can’t.”

  “You must,” said Bernice.

  In the end Marigold told her — haltingly — tearfully. Then buried her face in her hands.

  “Oh, I’m so happy,” said Bernice.

  Marigold pulled her away. Bernice was radiant. Eyes like stars.

  “Happy?”

  “Yes — oh, don’t you see. I’ve got somebody after all. It was so dreadful to think I didn’t belong to anybody. And Father’ll need me so much when he comes out next year. There’ll be so much I can do for him. Oh, Marigold — I do believe in God now — I’m sorry I ever said I didn’t. Of course there’s a God. I love Him — and I love everybody in the world. I don’t mind a bit how poor and ugly I am now that I have a father to love.”

  In Marigold’s utter confusion of thought only one idea stood out clearly.

  “Oh, Bernice — if you do — believe in God — Uncle Jarvis will let us play together again.”

  “Well, I do declare.” Babe Kennedy stood in the doorway. A vicious, disappointed Babe. “So that was why you didn’t want me to tell — so’s you could tell yourself.”

  “Exactly.”

  Marigold put her arm around Bernice and faced Babe defiantly. “And I have told it first. So you can just go home, Miss Meow. Nobody wants you here.”

  CHAPTER XX

  The Punishment of Billy

  1

  “I have the evil eye,” said Billy ominously. “People are scared of me.”

  “If you are going to talk nonsense we can’t be friends,” said Marigold coldly. “If you’re sensible we can have some fun.”

  Billy — nobody but Aunt Min ever called him William — looked at this sprite-like Marigold and decided to be sensible. When Aunt Min had told him that Marigold Lesley was coming to Windyside for a week Billy had two reactions.

  Firstly, he was mad. He didn’t want a girl poking and snooping round. Secondly, he was rather pleased. It would be good fun to tease her and teach her her place. Now came a third. Marigold, sleek of hair, blue of eye, light of foot, found favour in his eyes. As sign and seal that evening, sitting on the granary steps, he told her all his troubles. Marigold listened and sympathised with one side of her mind, and with the other carried on her own small thought-processes. As is the way of womenkind of all ages, whether men knew it or not.

  Marigold could not quite understand why Billy detested staying at Aunt Min’s so bitterly. For herself she rather liked it. Billy thought Aunt Min too strict to live, but in Marigold’s eyes her regimen compared very favourably with Grandmother’s. Though Marigold called her Aunt Min, according to the custom of the caste, she was really only a cousin of the Cloud of Spruce Lesleys. But she was a genuine aunt of Billy’s, that is to say, she had once been married to a half-brother of his father’s. So Marigold and Billy might call themselves cousins of a sort.

  This was Marigold’s first visit to Aunt Min, and was to be the final one of the autumn. Next week she must go to school again.

  Marigold liked Windyside. She liked the big airy house with its rooms full of quaint old furniture. There were so many beautiful things to look at, especially the scores of strange and exquisite Indian shells, brought home by Aunt Min’s sailor-husband, and the case of stuffed parrots in the hall, with the model of a full-rigged ship atop of it.

  To be sure, Aunt Min was very strict about her diet — which was why Grandmother had been so willing to let her come — and her table was something of the leanest. Aunt Min’s
temper was a bit uncertain also. She could say sharp things on occasion and had been known to slam doors. But there were compensations. For one thing, Aunt Min always asked her casually how she took her tea. For another, cats. Dozens of adorable animals basking on the window-sills, sunning themselves in the garden walks, and prowling about the barn. A batch of kittens was all in the days work at Windyside. For once in her life Marigold felt that she had all the cats she wanted.

  Now, all the use Billy had for a cat was a target.

  Marigold thought Billy very funny to look at. He had a round moon face of pink and white, large china-blue eyes, a shock of fine straight yellow hair and a mouth so wide he seemed to be perpetually grinning. But she rather liked him. He was the first boy she had ever liked.

  Hip? No, she had never liked Hip. This was entirely different.

  She listened sympathetically to his tale of woe. She thought Billy had a case.

  Billy, it seemed, had not wanted to come to Aunt Min’s at all. His mother was dead and he and his father lived together at a boarding-house, where life was tolerable because of Dad. But Dad had to go to South America on a prolonged business-trip and hence Billy’s sojourn with Aunt Min.

  “Rotten, I call it,” he growled. “I wanted to go to Aunt Nora’s. She’s a real aunt — Mamma’s own sister. Not a half-aunt like Aunt Min. I tell you Aunt Nora’s great. Always cuts a pie in six pieces. Aunt Min, ‘jever notice, always cuts it in eight. A feller can do as he likes at Aunt Nora’s. You haven’t gotter sit up on your hind-legs and act real pretty all the time there. She ain’t one of your fussy old things.”

  “Aunt Min is pretty particular,” agreed Marigold, thinking how lovely that little blue glimpse of the harbour was at the end of the orchard aisle.

  “Particular! Say, I’ve gotter wash my face every day, and brush my teeth more times ‘n you could shake a stick at. And live on health foods. Say, you ought to taste Aunt Nora’s raspberry buns.”

  “They sound good,” agreed Marigold, who herself felt certain hankerings after Salome’s pantry.