But in her secret soul Esme felt that the grown-ups were all wrong. Aunt Hester did look happier... but she was not really any “better.” But Esme did not say so to anyone. She knew her opinion did not count for anything with anybody. She was “only a child.”
But before she had been very long at Birkentrees Esme found out what it was for which Aunt Hester was waiting.
One night she was out on the lawn when she should have been asleep. But Aunt Jane was away and old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper, was in bed with a headache. So there was no one to look after Esme... who thought she was quite able to look after herself.
There were people who did not agree with her. Dr. and Mrs. Blythe, passing by on their way home to Glen St. Mary from Charlottetown, did not.
“They should not allow that child to associate so much with Hester Dalley,” said the doctor.
“I’ve often felt that way myself,” said Anne Blythe, “and yet why shouldn’t she?”
“Minds act and react on each other,” said the doctor, rather shortly. “At least, some minds. It mightn’t hurt Nan or Diana a mite... but the Dalleys are different. Most of them never know what is reality and what is imagination.”
“People always told me that I had too much imagination,” said Anne.
“This is a different kind of imagination. And Esme Dalley is a very impressionable child... far too much so, indeed. If she were my daughter I confess I should feel a little anxious about her. But she has no parents to look after her and nobody appears to think there is any harm in letting her associate so much with her Aunt Hester.”
“And is there?” asked Anne. “I had no parents to remember either, you know.”
“But you had a good deal of common sense mixed up with your imagination, Anne-girl,” said the doctor, smiling at her... the smile that always made Anne’s heart beat a little faster, in
spite of years of wifehood and motherhood.
“Gilbert, is Hester Dalley really out of her mind?”
“Ask a psychiatrist that, not me,” smiled Gilbert. “I don’t think she could be certified as insane. At least, nobody has ever tried. Perhaps she is quite sane and it is the rest of the world who are insane. And some people hold that everyone is a little insane, on some point or other. Susan thinks lots of people crazy whom you and I regard as quite normal.”
“Susan says Hester Dalley is ‘cracked,’” said Anne.
“Well, we’ll leave it at that, since we can’t do anything about it,” said Gilbert. “Only, I repeat my opinion that if Esme Dalley were my niece or daughter I would see to it that she was not too much with her Aunt Hester.”
“Without being able to give a single good reason for such an opinion,” taunted Anne.
“Exactly... just like a woman,” riposted the doctor.
Meanwhile Esme was thinking it would be wicked to sleep on such a beautiful night. It was a night that belonged to the fairies... a night drenched in the glimmer and glamour of a magnificent full moon. And while she sat alone by the lily pond, with old dog Gyp for company, Aunt Hester came gliding over the lawn.
She was wonderfully gowned in white and had pearls in her black hair. She looked, thought Esme, like a bride she had once seen.
“Oh, Aunty, how beautiful you are!” cried Esme... all at once realizing that Aunt Hester was still a young woman. “Why don’t you always dress like that?”
“This was to have been my wedding dress,” said Aunt Hester. “They keep it locked away from me. But I know how to get it when I want it.”
“It is lovely... and so are you,” said Esme, to whom fashion as yet meant nothing.
“Am I lovely?” said Aunt Hester. “I am glad. I want to be beautiful tonight, little Esme. If I share a secret with you will you keep it very faithfully?”
Oh, wouldn’t she! Esme thought it would be wonderful to share a secret only they two knew.
“Come, then.”
Aunt Hester held out her hand and Esme took it. They went across the lawn and through the long moonlit lane of birches. Old Gyp followed them, but when they came to the locked gate of the little, old garden, he drew back with a growl. The hair on his back rose like bristles.
“Gyppy, come on,” said Esme. But Gyp drew back a little further.
“Why does he act like that?” asked Esme. She had never seen Gyp behave like that before.
Aunt Hester made no answer. She merely unlocked the padlock with a rusty old key that seemed to turn as easily as if it had never known rust.
Esme drew back.
“Are we going in there?” she whispered timidly.
“Yes. Why not?”
“I... am a little... afraid,” confessed Esme.
“You need not be afraid. Nothing will harm you.”
“Then why do they keep the garden always locked?”
“Because they know no better,” said Aunt Hester scornfully. “Long, long ago little Janet Dalley went in there... and never came out again. I suppose that is why they keep the garden locked. As if she couldn’t have come out if she had wanted to!”
“Why did she never come out again?” whispered Esme.
“Who knows? Perhaps she liked the company she found there better than what she left behind.”
Esme thought this was just one of Aunt Hester’s “queer” sayings.
“Perhaps she fell over the stone wall into the river,” she said. “Only, if that was so, why was her little body never found?”
“No one has to stay in the garden against her will,” said Aunt Hester impatiently. “You need not be afraid to come into the garden with me, Esme.”
Esme did feel a little afraid still but she would not admit it for worlds.
She clung very closely to Aunt Hester as the latter opened the gate and went through. Gyp turned and ran. But Esme forgot all about him. And she suddenly forgot all her fear, too.
So this was the strange... the forbidden... garden! Why, there was nothing very terrible about it. In fact, nothing terrible at all. Why on earth did they keep it locked up and untended? Oh, yes, Esme remembered that it was supposed to be “haunted.” She was quite ready to call that nonsense now. Somehow she had a strange feeling that she had come home.
The garden was less overgrown than might have been expected. But it had a lonely look in the moonlight, as if it, like Aunt Hester, were waiting... waiting. There were a great many weeds, but along the south wall a row of tall lilies looked like saints in the moonglow. There were some young poplars on which the leaves were trembling and in one corner was a slim white birch which Esme knew... but could not have told how she knew... that some long-ago bride had planted.
Here and there were dim paths on which lovers of half a century ago had walked with their ladies. One of the paths, flagged with thin sandstones from the shore, ran through the middle of the garden to the river shore, where there was no fence... only a low stone wall to keep the garden from running into the river.
There... why, there was someone in the garden. A young man was coming up the sandstone path, with outstretched hands.
And Aunt Hester, who never smiled, was smiling.
“Geoffrey!” she said.
Then Esme knew what “haunted” meant but she was not in the least afraid. How foolish to be afraid. She sat on the stone wall while Aunt Hester and Geoffrey paced up and down the walks and talked in low tones.
Esme could not hear what they said and she did not want to. She only knew that she would have liked to come to the garden every night... and stay there. No wonder Janet Dalley had not come back.
“Will you bring me here again?” she asked Aunt Hester, when they finally left it.
“Would you like to come?” asked Aunt Hester.
“Yes... oh, yes.”
“Then you must never tell anyone you have been here,” said Aunt Hester.
“Of course I won’t if you don’t want me to,” said Esme. “But why, Aunt Hester?”
“Because there are so few people who understand,” said Au
nt Hester. “I did not understand until this summer. But I do now... and I am very happy, Esme. But we can go into the garden only on full moonlight nights... it is sometimes hard to wait so long. We must have some playmates for you next time. You understand now why Janet Dalley never came back, don’t you?”
“But Janet Dalley went into the garden over sixty years ago,” cried Esme, some of her fear coming back.
“There is no time in the garden,” said Aunt Hester, smiling tranquilly. “Janet could come back even now if she wanted to. But nobody ever does want to.”
“I don’t want to go away forever,” whispered Esme.
“You do not have to. I said you could come back whenever you wanted to. Now we will go to bed and you will not think of this again until the next full moon... and you will not tell a word of it to anyone.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Esme.
It was the last thing she wanted to do. Perhaps Dr. Blythe was quite right in his opinion. At any rate Anne Blythe, bending over her sleeping daughters that night, thanked God there was no Dalley blood in them. As for Susan Baker, she did not know anything about it, but if she had she would have said,
“I don’t know what those people are thinking of to let Esme Dalley spend so much time at Birkentrees with that crazy woman. You needn’t tell me craziness isn’t catching. Some kinds are.”
Esme found it very hard to wait for the next full moon. Sometimes she thought she must have dreamed it all. The garden looked so much the same by daylight as it always had. She did not know whether she hoped or feared she had.
But the next full moon did come and again Esme went with Aunt Hester to the little garden. The first night there had been no one there except the young man Aunt Hester called Geoffrey... whom in the meantime Esme had found out was her lover. Esme thought this should have frightened her... and it did. She made up her small mind that she would not go into the garden again with Aunt Hester.
But when the night of the full moon came she was wild to go. Geoffrey was there again and he and Aunt Hester walked on the stone paths as before while Esme sat on the stone wall, just where there was a little hollow filled with fragrant fern, and wondered why she had ever been afraid of the garden.
It was very different that night. It seemed to be full of people who came and went. Girls with laughing, dreamy eyes... slender women like pale flames... slim boys... twinkling children. None of them took any notice of Esme except a little girl of about her own age... a little girl with golden hair cut low over her brow and great, wistful eyes.
Esme could not have told how she knew the little girl’s name was Janet, but she did. Janet stopped as she was running by in pursuit of a silvery green moth and beckoned to Esme. Esme was on the point of following her... she often wondered what would have happened if she had followed... when Francis came.
She never understood either how she knew his name was Francis. But she did understand that she had always known him. He was tall and slender, with a boyish face on which an air of command sat strangely.
He had thick brown hair, parted in the middle, and shining dark-blue eyes. He took Esme’s hand in his and they walked about the garden and talked. She could never remember what they talked about but she knew he made her laugh.
When Esme remembered Janet and turned to look for her Janet had gone. Esme never saw her again. She did not greatly care. Francis was so funny and wonderful... he was the best of comrades. Then they danced on the open grassy space around the old, dried-up fountain where wild mint grew so thickly. It smelt so beautifully when they trod on it.
And the music to which they danced made Esme tremble with delight... and something that was not quite delight. She could not understand where the music came from and Francis only laughed when she asked him. His laugh was more delightful than any music. Esme had never heard anyone laugh so delightfully.
None of the other people who came and went spoke to them or took any notice of them. Aunt Hester never came near them. She was always with Geoffrey.
Aunt Jane was a little worried about Esme those days. She thought the child was moping. She did not run about or play as usual, but sat, like Hester, on the lawn with a dreamy, waiting face.
“I wish we could go to the garden every night,” she said to Aunt Hester.
“They only come on the nights when the moon is full,” said Aunt Hester. “Watch when the moon comes back. When it is full and casts a shadow on the birch lane we will go again.”
Dr. Blythe happened to call at Birkentrees that day and the next time he saw Esme’s Uncle Conrad he told him to take his niece away from Birkentrees as soon as possible.
But the problem was solved in a different way. When the August moon was near fullness Aunt Hester was dead. She had died very quietly in her sleep, and her face was young and smiling and happy. The doctor said her heart had been affected for some time.
She lay with flowers clasped in her pale, beautiful hands and her clan came and looked at her... and the women cried a little... and all felt secretly relieved that the problem of “poor Hester” had been decently and effectively solved.
Esme was the only one who cried very much.
“She has gone to be with Geoffrey for always,” thought Esme, “but I shall never see Francis again.”
At first the thought seemed more than she could bear. She had never gone back to Birkentrees after that summer. Uncle John had died and Aunt Jane had moved to Charlottetown.
But Esme had never quite forgotten. She always came to the conclusion that she had dreamed it all. And just as often as she concluded this she knew, somehow, she hadn’t.
“And that picture of your great-uncle, Allardyce. He was the Francis I saw in the garden... the Francis I never saw in life. Was Sally right when she said the garden was haunted? I think she must have been.”
Allardyce gave a roar of laughter and squeezed her hand. Esme shivered. She wished Allardyce wouldn’t laugh like that... wouldn’t look at her with that ready, easy, meaningless... yes, it was meaningless... smile of his. She suddenly felt that he was a stranger.
And he had a ready common-sensible explanation.
“Sally was nothing but a superstitious goose,” he said. “Your Aunt Hester was quite... well, to put it plainly, out of her mind. Oh, I’ve heard all about her. She just imagined she saw people in the garden... and somehow she made you see them, too... or think you saw them. You are such a sensitive, impressionable little thing, you know. And I daresay you imagined a good bit yourself... children do, you know. They haven’t just got the power to distinguish between what is real and what is imagination. You just ask my mother the queer things I used to tell her.”
“Aunt Hester never saw your great-uncle Francis, nor did I,” said Esme. “How could we have imagined him?”
“She must have seen his picture. She was often at Long-meadow when she was a girl. It was here she met Geoffrey Gordon, you know... a sap, if ever there was one. But she was wild about him. For that matter you may have been here yourself when you were too young to remember, and seen the picture. Now, don’t think any more about this, honey-child. It’s foolish to monkey with spooks. They’re interesting things but dangerous. So irresponsible, you see. And I don’t deny I like a good ghost yarn myself once in a while. But for a steady thing they’re not good diet.”
“All the same... I can’t marry you... ever,” said Esme.
Allardyce stared at her.
“Esme... you’re joking!”
But Esme was not joking. She had a hard time to make Allardyce believe she was in earnest but she finally succeeded. He went off in a tremendous huff, trying to make himself believe that it was just as well not to marry anyone with Dalley blood in them. His mother was furious... and relieved. Why, there was an Italian princess who was crazy about him, as everybody knew. And that insignificant little Esme Dalley had actually turned him down!
Esme had a very hard time of it with Uncle Conrad and Aunt Helen. It was impossible to make them understand. They and th
e whole clan thought she was an utter little idiot.
The only ones who really approved her action were Dr. and Mrs. Blythe. And as Esme never knew they did, it did not comfort her much.
“A bad egg, that same Allardyce Barry,” said the doctor.
“Not having met him very often, I take your word for it,” said Anne.
“I never believed a word about that yarn about the Rooshian princess,” said Susan.
One early October evening Esme found herself alone. Everyone had gone out. It was going to be a moonlit evening with a full moon.
It made her think of the old garden at Birkentrees... and strange Aunt Hester... angry Allardyce Barry... and all the trouble of that dreadful time... for which Esme knew she had never been forgiven. The clan only tolerated her now.
She found herself trembling a little with the thought and the desire that suddenly came to her... the thought of the little locked garden by the river shore and the desire to see it once more. Who knew what dim, lovely things waited there for her still?
Well, why shouldn’t she? It was only three miles to Birken-trees by a cross-country cut and Esme had always been a good walker in spite of her ethereal looks.
An hour later she was at Birkentrees.
The old house came out darkly against the sunset sky. Its grim shadow lay across the lawn and the spruce wood beyond it had turned black. There was an air of neglect over everything. Disputes among the heirs had prevented a sale.
But Esme was not interested in the house. She had come to walk on the secret paths of her enchanted garden once more and she hurried to the birch lane that led to it.
Dr. Gilbert Blythe, whizzing by in his car, saw her and recognized her.
“What on earth is that girl doing alone at that forsaken old place?” he wondered a little uneasily. He had heard tales that summer that Esme Dalley was “getting queer” like her Aunt Hester. The said tales emanated mostly from people who had said Allardyce Barry had “jilted” her.
Dr. Blythe wondered if he should stop and go over and offer her a drive home. But he had a serious case waiting for him in the Glen... and besides he had a feeling that Esme would not come. Anne always said that Esme Dalley had an iron will under all her sweetness and the doctor had a great deal of respect for the intuition of his wife.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 578