When she saw Don offering Chrissie the quarter of an apple on the point of his garden knife one day she felt much more at ease. It was a pity such a nice fellow should have such manners. And him looking so much like a gentleman, too!
Chrissie thought the apple the most delicious she had ever tasted. She knew the knife was clean... Don had washed it in the brook before he carved up the apple.
But it was not until Don kissed her... for the first time... that night on the shore... and just for one second was the centre of her universe... that she knew something else.
“From now on you are mine,” he said, between his set teeth.
Chrissie knew there was only one way of escape... and she took it.
“Let us be sane,” she said, as lightly as wave froth in the sand. “You know this can’t go on. I’ve liked you very much... for the summer. But I must have a different beau for the wintertime. Really.”
“So... that is how it is?” said Don.
“You knew it, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I ought to have known it,” said Don.
He laughed.
“Life is a joke,” he explained, “and what is a joke for but to be laughed at?”
He looked at Chrissie. She wore a silvery dress and looked like a mermaid just slipped out of the sea. She knew he thought her the loveliest thing in the world. This is one of the things a woman knows without being told.
“Suppose I just said,” went on Don, “‘You have got to marry me and no more nonsense about it’?”
“You wouldn’t like it,” said Chrissie still more frothily.
She knew by his face that she would have to tell the lie she had hoped to escape telling.
“You see... I like you as a friend but I don’t care anything about you in any other way.”
“And that,” said Don, “is that.”
They went back through the scented moonshine in a very dreadful silence.
But at the corner of the spruce where the road branched off to Miss Merrion’s Don spoke again.
“I think you were lying when you said you didn’t love me. The real reason is... you think a gardener is not good enough for a governess.”
“Don’t be absurd, Don.”
“So many true things are absurd.”
“Well, I am going to tell you the truth at last. I have been acting a lie all summer. Oh yes, I’m ashamed of it but that doesn’t make matters any better now. I am not a governess. I don’t know how you ever got the idea that I was.”
“I think you know very well... and I think you intended me to think you were.”
“You could easily have found out by asking somebody.”
“Do you think I was going to discuss you with the people around here?”
“Well, I’m not Chrissie Dunbar either... at least, I am Phyllis Christine Dunbar Clark... the daughter of Adam Clark of Ashburn... though that may not mean anything to you.”
“Oh, yes, it means something,” said Don, slowly and icily. “I know who Adam Clark is... and what the Clarks are. I seem to have been nicely fooled all round. But then I am so easily fooled. I believe in people so readily. I even believed Mrs. Blythe when she told me...”
“What did she tell you?” cried Chrissie.
“Never mind. Merely a harmless answer to a harmless question I asked her. Anyone could have told me... it is common knowledge. It all comes back to the fact that I have been made an easy fool of. So easy. It really couldn’t have been easier, Miss Clark.”
“I am going away tomorrow,” said Chrissie coldly, her ignorance of what Mrs. Blythe could have told him still rankling in her heart. Not that it could have made any difference.
“So this is good-bye?”
“Yes.”
“Good-bye, Miss Clark.”
He was gone... actually gone. At first she couldn’t believe it. Then she lied again in saying, “Thank Heaven.”
She went up to her room and made up her mind that she would cry till ten o’clock and then put Don Glynne out of her mind forever.
She cried for the specified time... very softly into her pillow, so that Clack would not hear her.
Then she got up... picked up a very hideous china cow that Clack, for some unknown reason, had always kept on the dressing table... some unknown sweetheart of her youth had given it to her... and threw it out of the window. It made a satisfying crash on the stones of the walk.
Chrissie felt much better.
“In about twenty years or so I’ll be pretty well over it,” she said.
In a cool green dawn Chrissie packed her trunk. She was all ready to go when an amazed Clack came in.
“I’ve stayed out my month, dearest, and now I’m going back to Ashburn. Don’t deny that, under your grief, you are feeling secretly relieved... you’ve been worrying about Don and me. You needn’t have... oh, if you knew how much you needn’t have! I hate Don Glynne... hate him!”
“I wonder,” thought Clack.
Then she added, “Are you going to marry George?”
“No, I am not going to marry George. Aunty and dad may... and will... spill emotions and rage over everything... but nothing will induce me to marry George.”
“I wonder,” thought Clack again.
When Phyllis... it had to be Phyllis again... got back to Ashburn Aunty Clark looked at her critically.
“You look very washed out, my dear. I suppose you had a deadly dull time at Memory. If you had done as your father wished this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I had a lovely time at Memory,” said Phyllis. “And such peace and quiet. And I may as well tell you, Aunty dear, that I am not going to marry George Fraser and you are not to mention his name to me again. I am not going to marry anybody.”
“Very well, dear,” said Aunty Clark, so meekly that Phyllis looked at her in alarm. Wasn’t the old dear feeling well?
Phyllis went to town and bought a gorgeous new dress... a divine thing, really, of black net with rows upon rows of tiny pleated frills around the skirt and a huge red rose on its breast... red as the roses she had helped to spray in the Merrion gardens.
She did not notice that the clerk looked a little queer when she told him to charge it.
She wore it that night to the dinner party Adam Clark was giving some important visiting Englishman and sparkled impudently all through the meal.
“My daughter has just been spending a month with her old nurse in the country,” apologized Adam Clark, who thought she was really going too far. “This is... ahem... her reaction against its monotony.”
Monotony! Peace and quiet! Ashburn seemed horribly dull, Phyllis reflected at her room window that night. Horribly peaceful... horribly quiet. With a ghostly abominable moon looking down at you!
That moon would be shining somewhere on Don. What was he doing? Dancing at the Walk Inn with some other girl probably. Only remembering her with scorn and hatred because she had deceived him.
Well, did it matter? Not at all.
The Memory interlude was over. Definitely over. And George was just as definitely disposed of. Horrible, fat George!
She would never see tall, lean Don again but at least she would not have to marry pudgy George. As for Uncle Edward’s millions...
“I’d rather keep boarders to help Don out than spend millions with George,” she thought violently and ridiculously.
But it was absurd to think of marrying a gardener.
Besides, she no longer had the chance of doing it. Aunty Clark and dad must have resigned themselves to her refusal of George. Neither of them had mentioned his name or the trip to the Coast since her return.
Then she heard it... Don’s whistle... just as she had heard it so often in the mornings at Memory!
It came from the shrubbery at the back of Ashburn. Don was there... she hadn’t the least doubt of it... hate her he might... despise her he might... but he was there... calling her... calling the heart out of her body.
Of course she had lied when she said she
didn’t love him. And he hadn’t believed her either. Thank God he hadn’t believed her. Love him! She’d show him whether she loved him or not. He might just be trying to get even with her but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that he was there.
And in the midst of it all how she wished she hadn’t broken poor, dear Aunty Clack’s china cow.
She flew downstairs and out of the side door and across the dew-wet lawn, her dress trailing in the grass. But it didn’t matter about dresses. As a gardener’s wife she wouldn’t need dinner dresses... or would she? Perhaps even gardeners had parties of their own. But that didn’t matter either. She would be happy in a dinnerless desert with Don and wretched in Paradise without him.
They didn’t say a word when they met... not for a long time. They were otherwise occupied. And they were the only two real people in the world.
But at last...
“So you were lying,” said Don.
“Yes,” said Chrissie... always Chrissie now. Never again Phyllis. “And I think you knew it.”
“After I cooled down I did,” said Don. “Do you know where little girls go who tell lies?”
“Yes... to heaven. Because that’s where I am now.”
“If I hadn’t come what would you have done?”
“Gone back to Memory. Oh, that Englishman! He was so dull. Even gooseberry George would have been better.”
“Do you think you will ever be sorry you didn’t marry George?”
“Never.”
There was another interlude.
“I’ll always be sure of a job as a gardener,” said Don. “But how will your family feel about it?”
“They will never forgive me... at least Aunty... but that doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, I think they’ll forgive you,” said Don. “I’m not really worrying over their forgiveness. The question that bothers me is... will you forgive me?”
“Forgive you! For what?”
“For deceiving you so shamelessly.”
“Deceiving me? What on earth do you mean?”
“Chrissie, darling, put your head down on my shoulder... so... and don’t look at me or say one word until I’ve finished. I’m not Don Glynne...”
“Not Don Glynne!” gasped Chrissie, disobeying him from the beginning. “Then... who are you?”
“Well... at least... my mother’s name was Glynne... I’m... I’m... my whole name is George Donald Fraser... no, keep still... I came east to see you... to tell you frankly I wasn’t marrying for money. I got here just as you got into the car to drive away. I saw you... I saw you. Your lashes keeled me over. I decided then and there to follow you... and I did. I... I was lucky enough to get the job at Miss Merrion’s. I am a good gardener. It’s always been my hobby. Old Uncle Edward had the finest garden at the Coast. I took a course in gardening at the university. And I won the Premier’s cup for a bowl of roses at the Flower Show last year. Some day I’m going to have gardens that will make Miss Merrion’s seem like a cottage plot. You’ll help me weed them, won’t you, darling? No, not yet. You must forgive me... after all, I just did what you did yourself. The pot shouldn’t hold a grudge against the kettle. Now?”
Chrissie snuggled a bit closer if that was possible.
“Things like this simply can’t happen,” she said. “They must be arranged by Providence. But it’s rather odious... really... to think how pleased Aunty will be!”
Don kissed her hair and the tips of her ears. He knew he was forgiven but he knew there was one thing he had not told her... one thing he must never tell her... one thing that she would never forgive. He must never tell her that he had gone into Ashburn after she had driven away and that the whole plot was a concoction of her aunt’s, with her father’s consent. Old Mrs. Clark had been a school friend of Jane Merrion’s.
Clack had been quite correct on her estimate of old Mrs. Clark.
Here Comes the Bride
The old church at Glen St. Mary was crowded. Somehow this particular wedding seemed unusual. It was not often there was a church wedding in Glen St. Mary and still less often one of the summer colony. Somebody from Charlottetown was playing the wedding march very faintly and softly and the two families most concerned stood in small clusters or alone, the collective reverberence of their words rising and falling in soft waves of sound.
A bored reporter from the Daily Enterprise was covering the function.
“The old church at Glen St. Mary was thronged with guests this afternoon for the marriage of Evelyn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James March, who are spending their summer in Glen St. Mary, to Dr. D’Arcy Phillips, professor of biology at McGill and son of Mrs. F.W. Phillips and the late Frederick Phillips of Mowbray Narrows.
“The church was beautifully decorated with white mums by the teenage girls’ class of Glen St. Mary and the lovely bride was given away by her father. She wore ivory satin, fashioned with a mid-Victorian line and a halo of seed pearls held in place her wedding veil of rare old lace. It was whispered that the rather faded bow of blue ribbon hidden under the pearls was worn by Mrs. Gilbert Blythe at her own wedding. ‘Something borrowed and something blue,’ you know.
“Miss Marnie March was maid of honour for her sister and the three bridesmaids, Miss Rhea Bailey, Miss Diana Blythe and Miss Janet Small, wore period gowns of silver cloth and picture hats of periwinkle blue with bouquets of blue iris, etc., etc., etc.
“The reception afterwards was held at Merestead, the beautiful new summer home of the Marches at Glen St. Mary, where glowing roses made an attractive decoration for the glowing rooms. The bride’s table was centred with the handsome wedding cake made by Mary Hamilton, who has been with the Marches thirty years as cook, nurse, and beloved member of the household.
“Mrs. March received her guests in a modish gown of grey, with a slight train, smart hat of black straw, and corsage of deep purple Princess violets.
“Mrs. Frederick Phillips was in blue chiffon, matching hat, and corsage of yellow rosebuds.
“Later the bride and groom left to spend their honeymoon at the groom’s camp, Juniper Island, Muskoka, Ontario. The bride’s going-away ensemble etc., etc., etc.
“Among the guests were Mrs. Helen Bailey, Miss Prue Davis, Mrs. Barbara Morse, Mr. Douglas March (great-uncle of the bride, a hearty octogenarian of Mowbray Narrows), Mrs. Dr. Blythe, etc.”
Aunt Helen Bailey, sister of the bride’s father and the mother of three unwedded and unbespoken daughters, among them one of the bridesmaids, thinking,
“So Amy has really got Evelyn off her hands at last. What a relief it must be to her! A girl like Evelyn... past her first youth... with one of those skins that age early... not like Mrs. Blythe’s. Will that woman ever grow old!... and that affair with Elmer Owen... it’s really quite a triumph to get her married, even to a poor young professor like D’Arcy Phillips. I can remember him running barefoot round Glen St. Mary and cutting up didoes with the Ingleside boys.
“Amy was simply heartbroken when the engagement to Elmer was broken off. She tried to brazen it off but everyone knew. Of course Evelyn never cared a scrap for him... it was his money she was after. That girl hasn’t a particle of heart... she couldn’t love anyone.
“I wonder what really went wrong between her and Elmer... nobody knows, though that silly Mrs. Blythe looks so wise when it is spoken of. Of course his parents never approved of it, but at one time he seemed quite taken with her. Amy certainly thought she had him trussed and skewered. How she used to purr over it! Such a ring! It must almost have killed Evelyn to give it back. It will be a long time before D’Arcy Phillips will be able to give her a square emerald.
“It was really indelicate the way she snapped D’Arcy up the moment Elmer threw her over. But it’s easy enough to get a man if you don’t care what you do. My poor girls haven’t the audacity necessary for today. They’re sweet and well-bred and womanly, but that doesn’t count any longer. It’s all very well for Dr. Blythe to say girls are the same in all ages. A lot he knows! No
, nowadays you’ve got to stalk your man.
“Why don’t they come? The seats in these country churches are always so hard. Look at that mosquito on Morton Gray’s fat jowl! Doesn’t the man feel it? No, he’s probably too thick-skinned to feel anything. I wish I could give it a slap... my nerves are getting jumpy.
“What a lot of guests! And all the yokels from Glen St. Mary and Mowbray Narrows. I suppose a fashionable wedding is a treat to them. Prue Davis has a new dress and is trying to look as if it were an ordinary occasion. Poor Prue! Barbara Morse is making nasty remarks about everyone. I know by the look on her face. Ah, Mrs. Blythe has just snubbed her. I can tell by the look on her face. But it won’t cure Barbara. The ruling passion! She’d gossip at a funeral, so why not at a fashionable wedding, where everyone knows the bride is taking the groom as a consolation prize and he is taking her heaven knows why... probably because she just went after him. It’s all nonsense of Mrs. Blythe to say they have always been in love. Everybody knows they fought like cat and dog all their lives. Evelyn has an indomitable will under all that surface sugar... just like Mrs. Blythe. I wonder if Dr. Blythe is as happy as he pretends to be. No man could be.
“Is that really Jim’s old Uncle Douglas there? I suppose they can have all their country cousins since the groom is only D’Arcy and the wedding in Glen St. Mary. But if it had been Elmer, at some fashionable church in town, they’d have been kept in the background. Uncle Douglas is evidently enjoying himself. A wedding feast is a wedding feast no matter how it comes about. He’ll have something to talk about for years. What is Rose Osgood wearing? She must simply have put her hand in the family ragbag and pulled out the first thing she grabbed. I wonder how Mrs. Blythe, living in Glen St. Mary, always contrives to look so up-to-date. Well, I suppose her daughters...
“There goes Wagner at last, thank goodness. Here they come. Four ushers... four bridesmaids... two flower girls and a page. Humph! Well, I hope everything’s paid for. Those white mums must have cost Jim a small fortune. I don’t believe for a moment they came from the Ingleside garden. How could anyone grow mums like that in a little country place like Glen St. Mary? Where Jim finds the money I’m sure I can’t imagine.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 594