The Complete Works of L M Montgomery

by L. M. Montgomery

  “Get out of my way, damn you,” snarled Geoffrey. “You have always backed her up.”

  “I am her mother,” said Ursula, “and her father was Sir Lawrence Ainsley.”

  Geoffrey laughed drunkenly.

  “Why not the King of England and be done with it?” he said. “You the mother of anybody!”

  He added something too foul to repeat.

  Ursula put out both hands, still beautiful in spite of every-thing... the hands Larry had kissed and painted... the hands that had been so much admired in his portrait of an Italian princess.

  Geoffrey had shown an engraving of it to Isabel.

  “If you had hands like that you might hold a man,” he had jeered.

  Ursula gave the unsteady Geoffrey a hard push. She did it quite deliberately... knowing what she meant to do... knowing the probable consequences. She did not care in the least if they hanged her for it. Nothing mattered except saving Isabel and Patrick.

  Geoffrey Boyd went backwards down the long staircase and fell on the marble floor at its foot. Ursula looked down at him for a few moments, with a feeling of triumph such as she had never experienced since the day Larry had first told her he loved her.

  Geoffrey Boyd was lying in a rather dreadful limp heap beneath her. Somehow, she felt quite sure his neck was broken. There was no noise or disturbance anywhere. After a few moments she went back to the sewing room quietly, began another piece of work and went calmly on with her sewing. Isabel was safe.

  There was no trouble, as it happened. The maid found Geoffrey and screamed. The usual formalities were gone through. Ursula, examined, said she had heard nothing. Neither had anybody else, apparently. It was known Geoffrey Boyd had come home drunk... that was almost a daily occurrence, it appeared. Almost the only bit of scandal that came out at a very dull inquest. It was supposed he had missed his footing on the stairs and fallen. People said they had often wondered it hadn’t happened long ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Only they rather regretted there would be no divorce trial after all. A good many spicy things might have come out of that. They guessed the Burnleys would be relieved. Though it would have served them right for adopting a child of whom they knew nothing... or pretended to know nothing. Though she did look amazingly like James Burnley’s mother!

  As for Ursula Anderson nobody talked of her at all, except to say she would miss the Boyd sewing.

  The worst of Isabel’s troubles were over. But it was found she was left quite poor. Both the Burnleys died within a week of each other... oh, no, no question of suicide or anything dreadful like that. She took pneumonia and he had had some long-standing trouble for years, it seemed... and they left nothing but debts. Well, that was so often the case with those high-flyers.

  Isabel and Patrick lived in a tiny cottage in Charlottetown. Some come down for Isabel Burnley, eh? Geoffrey Boyd had squandered his fortune almost to the last penny. But she was happier than she had been for years in spite of the lean times she and Patrick experienced.

  Ursula sent Isabel some money every month. Isabel never knew where it came from but she thought an old aunt of Geoffrey’s, who had always seemed to like her, must be sending it. She never saw old Ursula Anderson now... at least, not to notice her. But Ursula saw her very often.

  When Ursula was fifty and Isabel thirty Isabel married a rich man and went to the States to live. Ursula followed her career in the papers and made exquisite dresses for her children... Larry’s grandchildren, whom he did not know existed. Isabel always wrote and thanked her sweetly. She was really rather attached to the poor old thing. She wanted to pay her, too, but Ursula would not take a cent.

  Ursula did not get much sewing to do after Isabel went away. She had done so much for her that she had lost most of her clientele. But she managed to make a living till she was seventy and then her nephew, John Anderson, took her in... much, it was said, against the wishes of his family. Isabel was dead by that time... and so was Sir Lawrence. Ursula read of their deaths in the paper. It did not affect her very much. It was all so long ago and they seemed like strangers to her. They were not the Larry she had known nor the Isabel she had loved.

  She knew Isabel’s second marriage had been a happy one and that contented her. It was well to die before the shadows began to fall.

  As for Sir Lawrence, his fame was international. One of the finest things he had done, so she had read somewhere, had been the mural decoration of a great memorial church. The beauty of the Virgin’s hands in the murals was much commented on.

  “Yes, life has been worth living,” thought old Ursula, as Maggie McLean snored resoundingly and the old dog stirred uneasily as if he felt some Great Presence nigh. “I am not sorry for anything... not even for killing Geoff Boyd. One should repent at the last, according to all accounts, but I don’t. It was just a natural thing to kill him... as one might kill a snake. How the wind blows! Larry always loved the wind... I wonder if he hears it in his grave. And I suppose those fools in the parlour down there are pitying me. Fools! Fools! Life has been good. I have had my hours. Have they ever had one? Nobody ever loved Kathie as Larry loved me... nobody ever loved her at all. And nobody loved poor John. Yes, they have despised me... the whole Anderson clan have always despised me. But I have lived... oh, I have lived... and they have never lived... at least none of my generation. I... I... I have been the one who has lived. I have sinned... so the world would say... I have been a murderess... so the world would say... but I have lived!”

  She spoke the last words aloud with such force and emphasis that old Maggie McLean wakened and started up in alarm.

  She was just in time to see poor old Ursula Anderson die. Her eyes lived on for a moment or two after the rest of her body died. They were triumphant and young. The old dog lifted his head and gave a melancholy howl.

  “Thank heaven I was awake,” thought Maggie. “The Andersons would never have forgiven me if I had been asleep. Shut up, you old brute! You give me the creeps. Somehow, she looks different from what she did in life. Well, we all have to die sooner or later. But I don’t think there’ll be much mourning for poor Ursula. There never was anything in her! Strange, too. Most of the Andersons had lots of pep, whatever else they didn’t have.”

  Maggie went downstairs, arranging her features properly as she did so.

  “She has gone,” she said solemnly. “Died as easy as a child going to sleep.”

  Everyone tried not to look relieved. Kathie roused John with a nudge. Dr. Parsons got up briskly... then tried not to look too brisk.

  “Well, she had lived her life”... “Such a life!” he added mentally. “If you like I’ll stop in at the undertaker’s on my way back and ask him to come out. I suppose you’ll want things done as... as... simply as possible?”

  He had just saved himself from saying “cheaply.” What a break that would have been! Enough to ruin his career. But would Blythe or Parker ever have thought of offering to send the undertaker? Not they. It was the little things like that that counted. In ten years’ time he would have most of their practices.

  “Thank you,” said Kathie gravely.

  “That’s mighty kind of you,” said John. To his own surprise John was thinking he would miss Aunt Ursula. No one could put on a patch like she could. But then she had sewed all her life. She could do nothing else. Queer where all the money she made had gone to.

  The doctor went out. The rain had ceased for good and the moon occasionally broke through the windy clouds. He had lost his evening with Zoe but there was tomorrow night... if some fool woman didn’t up and have a baby. He thought of Zoe in her ripe beauty... and then he thought of old Ursula Anderson upstairs in her grey flannel nightdress. She was dead.

  But then, had she ever been alive?

  “Didn’t I say she couldn’t die till the tide went out?” said Uncle Alec triumphantly. “You young folks don’t know everything.”

  UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES

  CONTENTS

  A Case of Trespass


  A Strayed Allegiance

  An Invitation Given on Impulse

  Detected by the Camera

  In Spite of Myself

  Kismet

  Lilian’s Business Venture

  A Christmas Inspiration

  A Christmas Mistake

  Miriam’s Lover

  Miss Calista’s Peppermint Bottle

  The Jest That Failed

  The Penningtons’ Girl

  The Red Room

  The Setness of Theodosia

  The Story of an Invitation

  The Touch of Fate

  The Waking of Helen

  The Way of the Winning of Anne

  Young Si

  A Patent Medicine Testimonial

  A Sandshore Wooing

  After Many Days

  An Unconventional Confidence

  Aunt Cyrilla’s Christmas Basket

  Davenport’s Story

  Emily’s Husband

  Min

  Miss Cordelia’s Accommodation

  Ned’s Stroke of Business

  Our Runaway Kite

  The Bride Roses

  The Josephs’ Christmas

  The Magical Bond of the Sea

  The Martyrdom of Estella

  The Old Chest at Wyther Grange

  The Osbornes’ Christmas

  The Romance of Aunt Beatrice

  The Running Away of Chester

  The Strike at Putney

  The Unhappiness of Miss Farquhar

  Why Mr. Cropper Changed His Mind

  A Fortunate Mistake

  An Unpremeditated Ceremony

  At the Bay Shore Farm

  Elizabeth’s Child

  Freda’s Adopted Grave

  How Don Was Saved

  Miss Madeline’s Proposal

  Miss Sally’s Company

  Mrs. March’s Revenge

  Nan

  Natty of Blue Point

  Penelope’s Party Waist

  The Girl and The Wild Race

  The Promise of Lucy Ellen

  The Pursuit of the Ideal

  The Softening of Miss Cynthia

  Them Notorious Pigs

  Why Not Ask Miss Price?

  A Correspondence and A Climax

  An Adventure on Island Rock

  At Five O’Clock in the Morning

  Aunt Susanna’s Birthday Celebration

  Bertie’s New Year

  Between the Hill and the Valley

  Clorinda’s Gifts

  Cyrilla’s Inspiration

  Dorinda’s Desperate Deed

  Her Own People

  Ida’s New Year Cake

  In the Old Valley

  Jane Lavinia

  Mackereling Out in the Gulf

  Millicent’s Double

  The Blue North Room

  The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road

  The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby

  The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner

  The Fraser Scholarship

  The Girl at the Gate

  The Light on the Big Dipper

  The Prodigal Brother

  The Redemption of John Churchill

  The Schoolmaster’s Letters

  The Story of Uncle Dick

  The Understanding of Sister Sara

  The Unforgotten One

  The Wooing of Bessy

  Their Girl Josie

  When Jack and Jill Took a Hand

  A Millionaire’s Proposal

  A Substitute Journalist

  Anna’s Love Letters

  Aunt Caroline’s Silk Dress

  Aunt Susanna’s Thanksgiving Dinner.

  By Grace of Julius Caesar

  By the Rule of Contrary

  Fair Exchange and No Robbery

  Four Winds

  Marcella’s Reward

  Margaret’s Patient

  Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves

  Missy’s Room

  Ted’s Afternoon Off

  The Doctor’s Sweetheart

  The End of the Young Family Feud

  The Genesis of the Doughnut Club

  The Girl Who Drove the Cows

  The Growing Up of Cornelia

  The Old Fellow’s Letter

  The Parting of The Ways

  The Promissory Note

  The Revolt of Mary Isabel

  The Twins and a Wedding

  A Golden Wedding

  A Redeeming Sacrifice

  A Soul That Was Not at Home

  Abel and His Great Adventure

  Akin To Love

  Aunt Philippa and the Men

  Bessie’s Doll

  Charlotte’s Ladies

  Christmas at Red Butte

  How We Went to the Wedding

  Jessamine

  Miss Sally’s Letter

  My Lady Jane

  Robert Turner’s Revenge

  The Fillmore Elderberries

  The Finished Story

  The Garden of Spices

  The Girl and the Photograph

  The Gossip of Valley View

  The Letters

  The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse

  The Little Black Doll

  The Man on the Train

  The Romance of Jedediah

  The Tryst of the White Lady

  Uncle Richard’s New Year’s Dinner

  White Magic

  Some Fools and a Saint

  The Closed Door

  The Deacon’s Painkiller

  From Out the Silence

  The House Party at Smoky Island

  For a Dream’s Sake

  The Price

  The Man Who Forgot

  Charlotte’s Quest

  A Case of Trespass

  It was the forenoon of a hazy, breathless day, and Dan Phillips was trouting up one of the back creeks of the Carleton pond. It was somewhat cooler up the creek than out on the main body of water, for the tall birches and willows, crowding down to the brim, threw cool, green shadows across it and shut out the scorching glare, while a stray breeze now and then rippled down the wooded slopes, rustling the beech leaves with an airy, pleasant sound.

  Out in the pond the glassy water creamed and shimmered in the hot sun, unrippled by the faintest breath of air. Across the soft, pearly tints of the horizon blurred the smoke of the big factory chimneys that were owned by Mr. Walters, to whom the pond and adjacent property also belonged.

  Mr. Walters was a comparative stranger in Carleton, having but recently purchased the factories from the heirs of the previous owner; but he had been in charge long enough to establish a reputation for sternness and inflexibility in all his business dealings.

  One or two of his employees, who had been discharged by him on what they deemed insufficient grounds, helped to deepen the impression that he was an unjust and arbitrary man, merciless to all offenders, and intolerant of the slightest infringement of his cast-iron rules.

  Dan Phillips had been on the pond ever since sunrise. The trout had risen well in the early morning, but as the day wore on, growing hotter and hotter, they refused to bite, and for half an hour Dan had not caught one.

  He had a goodly string of them already, however, and he surveyed them with satisfaction as he rowed his leaky little skiff to the shore of the creek.

  “Pretty good catch,” he soliloquized. “Best I’ve had this summer, so far. That big spotted one must weigh near a pound. He’s a beauty. They’re a good price over at the hotels now, too. I’ll go home and get my dinner and go straight over with them. That’ll leave me time for another try at them about sunset. Whew, how hot it is! I must take Ella May home a bunch of them blue flags. They’re real handsome!”

  He tied his skiff under the crowding alders, gathered a big bunch of the purple flag lilies with their silky petals, and started homeward, whistling cheerily as he stepped briskly along the fern-carpeted wood path that wound up the hill under the beeches and firs.

  He was a freckled, sunburned lad of thirteen years. His neighbours all sa
id that Danny was “as smart as a steel trap,” and immediately added that they wondered where he got his smartness from — certainly not from his father!

  The elder Phillips had been denominated “shiftless and slack-twisted” by all who ever had any dealings with him in his unlucky, aimless life — one of those improvident, easygoing souls who sit contentedly down to breakfast with a very faint idea where their dinner is to come from.

  When he had died, no one had missed him, unless it were his patient, sad-eyed wife, who bravely faced her hard lot, and toiled unremittingly to keep a home for her two children — Dan and a girl two years younger, who was a helpless cripple, suffering from some form of spinal disease.

  Dan, who was old and steady for his years, had gone manfully to work to assist his mother. Though he had been disappointed in all his efforts to obtain steady employment, he was active and obliging, and earned many a small amount by odd jobs around the village, and by helping the Carleton farmers in planting and harvest.

  For the last two years, however, his most profitable source of summer income had been the trout pond. The former owner had allowed anyone who wished to fish in his pond, and Dan made a regular business of it, selling his trout at the big hotels over at Mosquito Lake. This, in spite of its unattractive name, was a popular summer resort, and Dan always found a ready market for his catch.

  When Mr. Walters purchased the property it somehow never occurred to Dan that the new owner might not be so complaisant as his predecessor in the matter of the best trouting pond in the country.

  To be sure, Dan often wondered why it was the pond was so deserted this summer. He could not recall having seen a single person on it save himself. Still, it did not cross his mind that there could be any particular reason for this.

  He always fished up in the cool, dim creeks, which long experience had taught him were best for trout, and came and went by a convenient wood path; but he had no thought of concealment in so doing. He would not have cared had all Carleton seen him.

  He had done very well with his fish so far, and prices for trout at the Lake went up every day. Dan was an enterprising boy, and a general favourite with the hotel owners. They knew that he could always be depended on.