“Some of it,” said Susan cautiously, who had heard it and believed it. “But they always say that when a girl marries a man with money.”
“I could have died with rage and spite, Susan Baker. I was all built up to hate me fine Elmer whin he come in June. But I couldn’t kape it up for he was a rale nice liddle chap in spite av his money...”
“Mrs. Dr. dear said he was one of the nicest men she had ever met and she thought Evelyn March was a very lucky girl.”
“Ah, well, she weren’t to blame, not knowing. We all liked him... aven Evie. Marnie hild off a bit at first... ah, there’s the gr-r-and girl for ye, Susan Baker...”
“I always liked her what little I’ve seen of her,” admitted Susan, adding in thought, “She didn’t put on the airs Evelyn did.”
“Evie is by way av being my fav’rite bekase I looked after her whin she was a baby and her mother so sick.”
“Just like me and Shirley,” thought Susan.
“So she’s always seemed like me own. But Marnie’s a swate thing and whin she took to moping it worried me, Susan Baker.”
“When Shirley had the scarlet fever I was like to have gone clean out of my head,” said Susan. “But I always like to think I didn’t fail Mrs. Dr. dear for all that. Night after night, Mary Hamilton...”
“Marnie couldn’t bear the talk av the wedding... and me thinking it was bekase she felt so bad over Evie’s going and maybe a bit sore at Elmer bekase he said, ‘Hello, gypsy,’ whin Evie introduced thim. ‘Hello, magazine-ad man,’ said Marnie. Sure and she was niver at a loss for an answer, whin people did be teasing her. It’s the blind thing I was, Susan Baker, but whin ye look back on things ye can see thim as ye couldn’t whin they was under yer nose.”
“You never spoke a truer word in your life, Mary Hamilton,” agreed Susan, wondering if Mary would ever come to the point of her story.
“Though I couldn’t be putting me finger on what was missing. Innyway, iverything was smooth as crame on top and they got all their plans made and Elmer wint back to Montreal. And after he was gone I wint into Marnie’s room to swape, thinking she was out, and there she was sitting, crying, Susan Baker... crying so pretty... no noise... only just the big tears rolling down her nice liddle brown chakes.”
“The way Mrs. Dr. dear cries,” thought Susan. “It’s the real way of crying. I remember when Shirley... and Walter...”
“‘Darlint, what do be the matter?’ sez I in a bit av a panic. It was sich an uncommon thing to see Marnie cry. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ sez she, ‘only I’m in love with the man me sister is going to marry... and I’m to be her maid of honour... and I wish I was dead,’ sez she.
“Was I tuk aback, Susan Baker!”
“Like I was when Rilla brought the baby home in the soup tureen,”* thought Susan. “Will I ever be forgetting that day!”
“Nothing,” continued Mary, “could I think av saying, only stupid-like, ‘There’s a lot av min in the world, me darlint. Why be getting in sich a pother over one?’
“‘Bekase he’s the only one for me,’ sez me poor Marnie.”
“Old maid as I am I could have told you she would say that,” said Susan.
“‘But ye nadn’t worry,’ sez Marnie... as if a body could help worrying. ‘Evelyn isn’t going to know this... or aven suspict it. Oh, oh, Mollie,’ sez she, getting reckless like, ‘whin I first saw him I said, ‘Magazine-ad man,’ and now I could kiss his shoes! But no one’ll iver know it excipt you, Mollie, and if you iver tell I’ll slaughter you in cold blood.’ So I shouldn’t be retelling you, Susan Baker, and me conscience...”
“Now, never mind your conscience, Mary Hamilton. Marnie was meaning her own class and anyhow everything has changed since then. She wouldn’t be minding now,” said Susan, rather guiltily but consoling herself that she would never breathe a word of it to a living soul.
*See Rilla of Ingleside.
“Tell, was it?” Mary Hamilton was too wrapped up in her tale to listen to Susan Baker’s interruptions. “If I could have done inny good be telling I’d have shouted it from the housetops. But I couldn’t, so I hild me tongue. And thin, on top of all that, comes me fine D’Arcy, raging mad, as I could very well be telling, but as cold as ice.
“I did be hearing it all as they fought it out on the verandy. Not that I did be listening av purpose, Susan Baker, but whin people are as close to ye as they were to me ye can’t be hilping hearing what they do be saying.
“Short and swate it was.
“‘Are ye going to sell yersilf for money? I’ll not belave it till I hear it from yer own lips,’ sez he.
“‘I’m going to marry Elmer Owen,’ sez Evelyn politely, ‘and I happen to love him, Mr. Phillips.’ ‘Ye lie,’ sez D’Arcy... not over-polite now, was it, Susan Baker. And Evie sez, icier than himsilf and white wid rage, ‘Git out av me sight, D’Arcy Phillips, and stay out av it.’”
“When the upper crust get quarrelling there isn’t much difference between us,” thought Susan. “That sounds just like something Whiskers-on-the-Moon might have said in one of his tantrums.”
“‘I’ll take ye at yer word,’ sez D’Arcy. ‘I’m going to New York tonight’... he was interning there for a year, whativer that may mean... ‘and ye’ll niver see me again, Evelyn March.’ Did ye iver be hearing the like?”
“Many’s the time,” said Susan.
“Well, wid that he wint. And me poor pet comes inty the kitchen and looks at me, still holding her head high, but wid a face like death. ‘He’s gone, Mollie,’ she said, ‘and he’ll niver come back. And I wish I was dead.’
“‘Do ye be wanting him to come back?’ sez I. ‘No lies now, me pet. A lie do be a refuge I’m not blaming inny woman for taking betimes... ‘“
“The times I’ve said I didn’t care whether I ever got married or not,” reflected Susan. “Except to Mrs. Dr. dear. I could never tell a lie to her somehow.”
“‘... but this is too serious for it. Iverything’s snarled up and I’m going to straighten it out wid a jerk, but I’m wanting to know where I stand first.’
“‘I do want him back... and he’s the only one I’ve iver loved or iver will love,’ sez she... as if I didn’t know that and always had been knowing av it! ‘There’s the truth for ye at last. But it’s too late. His train laves in fifteen minutes. I wudn’t give in... me pride wouldn’t let me... and he’s gone... he’s gone! And innyhow he’s always hated me!’
“I’d picked that day to clane me oil stove, Susan Baker, and was I be way av being a sight! But I had no time to change inty me latest from Paris. Out I wint to the garage... thank Hiven the little runabout was there!
“I tuk a pace off the garage door as I backed out and just shaved the lily pond. But me only worry was cud I be getting to the station afore the train wint. Niver cud I do it by the highway but there did be a witch’s road I knew av.”
“The shortcut by the Narrows road,” thought Susan. “It hasn’t been used for years. I thought it was closed up. But to a woman like Mollie Hamilton...”
“Down the highway I wint at the rate av no man’s business...”
“The doctor said he’d met her and never had such a narrow escape from a head-on collision in his life,” thought Susan.
“Didn’t I be thanking Hiven there wasn’t any speed cops in this part av the Island... and niver before did I be having the satisfaction av hitting it up to siventy. Just afore I rached me side cut what did I be seeing but a big black cat, looking as if he intinded to cross the road and me heart stood still. I do be supposing ye think I’m a superstitious ould fool, Susan Baker...”
“Not me,” said Susan. “I don’t know that I hold much with black cats... though I remember one crossed me path the evening before we heard of Walter’s death... but never mind that. Dreams, now, are different. While the Great War was going on there was a Miss Oliver boarding at Ingleside. And the dreams that girl would have! And every one came true. Even the doctor... but as for the cats we can all b
e having our own opinion of them. Did I ever tell you the story of our Jack Frost?”
“Yis... but I did be thinking it was my story ye was wanting to hear...”
“Yes... yes... go on,” said Susan repentantly.
“Well, ayther luck was wid me or the Ould Scratch had business for him somewhere ilse for he turned around and wint back and I slewed round inty me cut.
“’Twas be way av being a grand ride, Susan Baker. Niver will I be knowing the like again I’m thinking. I skimmed over a plowed field and tore through a brook and up a muddy lane and through the backyard av the Wilson farmhouse. I’m swearing I motored slap inty a cow though where she wint whin I struck her I’ll niver be telling ye...”
“I can be telling you,” said Susan. “She wasn’t much hurt except for a bit of skin or two, but she went clean off her milk and if the doctor hadn’t talked Joe Wilson round... or even then if the Wilsons’ bill had ever been paid... he’d have made all the trouble he could for you.”
“I slipped through the haystacks and I wint right over an acre of sparrow grass wid no bumps to spake av... and thin up looms a spruce hedge and a wire fince beyant it. And I did be knowing I had a few minutes to spare.
“I mint to stop and rin for it... the station was just on the other side... but I was a bit ixcited like... and did be putting me foot on the accelerator instid av the brake...”
“Thank the Good Man above I’ve resisted all temptation to learn to drive a car,” thought Susan piously.
“I wint slap through the hedge...”
“Sam Carter vowed he never saw such a sight in his life,” said Susan.
“... and the fince and bang inty the ind av the station. But the hedge and the fince had slowed me up a bit and no rale harm was done to the station.
“D’Arcy was jist stepping on the train...”
“Ah, now we’re coming to the exciting part,” thought Susan. “Everybody has been wondering what she said to him.”
“I grabbed him by the arm and I sez...”
“Both arms,” thought Susan.
“‘D’Arcy Phillips, Evelyn do be breaking her liddle heart for you and ye get straight back to her... and if I iver hear av any more jawing and fighting betwane ye, I’ll give ye both a good spanking, for it’s clane tired I am av all yer nonsinse and misunderstanding. It’s time ye both grew up.’”
“Do people ever grow up?” reflected Susan. “The doctor and Mrs. Blythe are the only people I know of who really seem to have grown up. Certainly Whiskers-on-the-Moon didn’t. How he run.” And Susan reflected with considerable satisfaction upon a certain pot of boiling dye which the said Whiskers-on-the-Moon had once narrowly escaped.
“‘Not a yap out av ye,’ sez I, wid considerable severity.”
“They say she nearly shook the bones out of his skin,” thought Susan, “though nobody had any idea why.”
“‘Just be doing as you’re told,’ sez I.
“Well, Susan Baker, ye can be seeing for yersilf today what come av it. The insurance company was rale rasonable.”
“And lucky for poor Jim March they were,” thought Susan.
“But ye haven’t heard the whole wonder. Whin Evie told Elmer she couldn’t iver be marrying him bekase she was going to marry D’Arcy Phillips didn’t we be looking for a tithery-i! But he tuk it cool as a cowcumber and sez, sez he... what do ye be thinking he said, Susan Baker?”
“I could never guess what any man said or thought,” said Susan. “But I think I hear them coming...”
“Well, he did be saying, ‘He’s the brother-in-law I’d have picked.’
“She didn’t know what he was maning. But he turned up the nixt wake wid his fine blue car and its shining wire wheels. And I’ve been hearing that the moment he did be seeing Marnie, whin he came to plan the widding wid Evie, he knew he’s made a mistake, but he was too much av a gintleman to let on. He’d have gone through it widout moving a single hair if he’d had to.”
“Maybe not if he’d known that Marnie had fell in love with him, too,” said Susan. “It is them... Well, I’m obliged to you for telling me the rights of the affair, Mary, and if there’s anything you’d like to know... if it doesn’t concern the family at Ingleside... I’ll be right glad to tell you.”
“Here they come, Susan Baker... sure and me pet lights up the church, doesn’t she? It’ll be long afore it sees a prettier bride.”
“That depends on how long it is before Nan and Jerry Meredith get married,” thought Susan. “Though Nan always declares she’ll never be married in the church. The Ingleside lawn for her, she says. I’m thinking she’s right... there’s too much chance for gossip at these church weddings.”
“And now we’ll shut up our yaps, Susan Baker, until they’re married safe and sound...
“That do be a load lifted from me mind. Will ye be coming home wid me, Susan, and having a cup av tay in me kitchen? And I’ll see ye get a sight av the prisints. They’re elegant beyant words. Did ye iver see a happier bride? It’s mesilf that’s knowing there niver was a happier one.”
“I’d like anyone to say that to Mrs. Dr. dear, or Rilla for that matter,” thought Susan. Aloud,
“He’s a bit poor, I’m hearing.”
“Poor is it? Have sinse, Susan Baker. I’m telling ye they’re rich beyant the drames av avarice. Young... and...”
“An old maid like myself is not supposed to know much about such things,” said Susan with dignity. “But maybe you’re right, Mary Hamilton... maybe you’re right. One can learn a good deal from observation in this world, as Rebecca Dew used to say. And the doctor and Mrs. Blythe were poor enough when they started out. Ah, them happy days in the old House of Dreams,* as they used to call it! It grieves me to the heart they’ll never return. Thank you, Mary, but I must be getting back to Ingleside. I have duties there. I’ll have a cup of tea with you some other day when things have quieted down. And I’m real thankful to you for telling me the rights of the whole story. If you knew... the gossip...”
*See Anne’s House of Dreams.
“Sure and I can be guessing,” said Mary. “But take my advice, Susan Baker, and larn to drive a car. Ye can niver tell whin the knack’ll come in handy.”
“At my age! That would be a sight. No,” said Susan firmly. “I’ll trust to my own two legs as long as they’ll carry me, Mary Hamilton.”
Brother Beware
There had been no change in the Randebush household in the Upper Glen for fifteen years... ever since Nancy, beloved wife of Amos Randebush, had died. Amos and his brother Timothy and Matilda Merry just jogged along peacefully and contentedly. At least Amos and Timothy were contented. If Matilda Merry... who belied her name if ever a woman did... was not contented it was her own fault. She had a good place as housekeeper and a pleasant grievance of chronic rheumatism. People said she was a fortune to Dr. Gilbert Blythe. Amos paid her fair wages and never growled when the biscuits were soggy or the roast was overdone. Sometimes, when he looked at her sitting at the head of his table and contrasted her skinny mouse-coloured hair and pessimistic countenance with Nancy’s glossy tresses and rosy face, he sighed. But he never said anything. As for the rheumatism, a woman must have something to talk about.
Timothy was more philosophic. Matilda suited him very well. Nancy had been good-looking and a good housekeeper but blue cats, how she made you toe the mark in everything! You had to wear the soles off your boots scraping them before you came in. Even the minister and Dr. Blythe were no exception. Amos had at times rebelled under her rule though he remembered only her good qualities now. That was what women did to you, even after they were dead. Timothy thanked his stars that none of them had ever succeeded in bamboozling him. No, thank you! He had always hated them all in general, except Mrs. Dr. Blythe, whom he tolerated, but how he hated the Winkworth woman in particular! Dimples, by gad! Airs and graces, by jiminy! Taffy-coloured hair and come-hither eyes! Blue cats! Could anyone have supposed that Amos could be such a fool? Wasn’t one les
son enough? Evidently not, when you had a spineless creature like Amos and a plotting, wheedling, designing, desperate hussy like the Winkworth woman to deal with! Hold your horses! Amos might be quite helpless before her fascinations and Mrs. Blythe might be helping things along... hadn’t he heard she had a passion for matchmaking?... but Amos had a brother to save him in spite of himself.
Miss Alma Winkworth was boarding with the Knapps at Glen St. Mary. It was reported through the Knapps that she worked in Hillier’s Beauty Shoppe in Boston, that she had had an operation and had to have a longer vacation than her usual two weeks before going back to work. Timothy hadn’t a speck of faith in that operation. Very likely the doctor and Mrs. Blythe were in the plot. Alma Winkworth wouldn’t look so blooming if she had had an operation. It was merely a play for sympathy. She had just come to Glen St. Mary to see if she couldn’t catch a man, and, by golly, she was on the point of succeeding. Would succeed if he, Timothy, didn’t put a spoke in her wheel.
They had seen her first in church, sitting in the Blythe pew in front of them... Maria Knapp never went to church... a smiling creature, looking, as far as hair and complexion went, like a remarkably good advertisement for a beauty shop. Amos had never been the same man since. Next evening he went down to the Knapps’ on some trumped-up excuse and that was the creature’s opportunity. Look what she had done to him already. For all it was harvest time, when men had to work and sleep, Amos mooned through the day and when night came shaved and dressed, touched up his moustache and went to the Glen on some excuse about a meeting of the Fox Breeders’ Association.
Another bad sign was that Amos had suddenly become sensitive about his age. When, on his fiftieth birthday, Timothy congratulated him on attaining the half-century mark Amos peevishly remarked that he didn’t feel a day over forty. The Winkworth woman had told the Blythes that she was forty, no doubt to encourage Amos, for would any single woman admit to being forty if she had no nefarious purpose in it?
It seemed to Timothy that nothing less than a miracle could prevent Amos from asking the Winkworth woman to marry him. He had not done it yet... Timothy was sure of that, from Amos’ continual air of nervousness and uncertainty. But very soon he would screw his courage to the sticking point. He would have to do it before another ten days elapsed for then he had to leave for the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, in charge of a consignment of silver foxes the Fox Breeders’ Association was sending there. He would be absent for two weeks and the Winkworth woman’s vacation would be over before he returned. So Timothy felt quite sure Amos would propose to her before he went.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 597