“There’s old Jerome going home from seeing Anne Stockard,” said one. “Wonder what on earth he’s laughing at. Seems to me if I couldn’t get a wife without hoeing a fifteen-year row, I’d give up trying.”
But, then, the speaker was a Hamilton, and the Hamiltons never had any perseverance.
Jerome, although a well-to-do man, owning a good farm, had, so to speak, no home of his own. The old Irving homestead belonged to his older brother, who had a wife and family. Jerome lived with them and was so used to it he didn’t mind.
At forty a lover must not waste time. Jerome thought out the details that night, and next day he opened the campaign. But it was not until the evening after that that Anne Stockard heard the news. It was her niece, Octavia, who told her. The latter had been having a chat up the lane with Sam Mitchell, and came in with a broad smile on her round, rosy face and a twinkle in her eyes.
“I guess you’ve lost your beau this time, Aunt Anne. It looks as if he meant to take you at your word at last.”
“What on earth do you mean?” asked Anne, a little sharply. She was in the pantry counting eggs, and Octavia’s interruption made her lose her count. “Now I can’t remember whether it was six or seven dozen I said last. I shall have to count them all over again. I wish, Octavia, that you could think of something besides beaus all the time.”
“Well, but listen,” persisted Octavia wickedly. “Jerome Irving was at the social at the Cherry Valley parsonage last night, and he had Harriet Warren there — took her there, and drove her home again.”
“I don’t believe it,” cried Anne, before she thought. She dropped an egg into the basket so abruptly that the shell broke.
“Oh, it’s true enough. Sam Mitchell told me; he was there and saw him. Sam says he looked quite beaming, and was dressed to kill, and followed Harriet around like her shadow. I guess you won’t have any more bother with him, Aunt Anne.”
In the process of picking the broken egg out of the whole ones Anne had recovered her equanimity. She gave a careful little laugh.
“Well, it’s to be hoped so. Goodness knows it’s time he tried somebody else. Go and change your dress for milking, Octavia, and don’t spend quite so much time gossiping up the lane with Sam Mitchell. He always was a fetch-and-carry. Young girls oughtn’t to be so pert.”
When the subdued Octavia had gone, Anne tossed the broken eggshell out of the pantry window viciously enough.
“There’s no fool like an old fool. Jerome Irving always was an idiot. The idea of his going after Harriet Warren! He’s old enough to be her father. And a Warren, too! I’ve seen the time an Irving wouldn’t be seen on the same side of the road with a Warren. Well, anyhow, I don’t care, and he needn’t suppose I will. It will be a relief not to have him hanging around any longer.”
It might have been a relief, but Anne felt strangely lonely as she walked home alone from prayer meeting the next night. Jerome had not been there. The Warrens were Methodists and Anne rightly guessed that he had gone to the Methodist prayer meeting at Cherry Valley.
“Dancing attendance on Harriet,” she said to herself scornfully.
When she got home she looked at her face in the glass more critically than she had done for years. Anne Stockard at her best had never been pretty. When young she had been called “gawky.” She was very tall and her figure was lank and angular. She had a long, pale face and dusky hair. Her eyes had been good — a glimmering hazel, large and long-lashed. They were pretty yet, but the crow’s feet about them were plainly visible. There were brackets around her mouth too, and her cheeks were hollow. Anne suddenly realized, as she had never realized before, that she had grown old — that her youth was left far behind. She was an old maid, and Harriet Warren was young, and pretty. Anne’s long, thin lips suddenly quivered.
“I declare, I’m a worse fool than Jerome,” she said angrily.
When Saturday night came Jerome did not. The corner of the big, old-fashioned porch where he usually sat looked bare and lonely. Anne was short with Octavia and boxed the cat’s ears and raged at herself. What did she care if Jerome Irving never came again? She could have married him years ago if she had wanted to — everybody knew that!
At sunset she saw a buggy drive past her gate. Even at that distance she recognized Harriet Warren’s handsome, high-coloured profile. It was Jerome’s new buggy and Jerome was driving. The wheel spokes flashed in the sunlight as they crept up the hill. Perhaps they dazzled Anne’s eyes a little; at least, for that or some other reason she dabbed her hand viciously over them as she turned sharply about and went upstairs. Octavia was practising her music lesson in the parlour below and singing in a sweet shrill voice. The hired men were laughing and talking in the yard. Anne slammed down her window and banged her door and then lay down on her bed; she said her head ached.
The Deep Meadows people were amused and made joking remarks to Anne, which she had to take amiably because she had no excuse for resenting them. In reality they stung her pride unendurably. When Jerome had gone she realized that she had no other intimate friend and that she was a very lonely woman whom nobody cared about. One night — it was three weeks afterward — she met Jerome and Harriet squarely. She was walking to church with Octavia, and they were driving in the opposite direction. Jerome had his new buggy and crimson lap robe. His horse’s coat shone like satin and had rosettes of crimson on his bridle. Jerome was dressed extremely well and looked quite young, with his round, ruddy, clean-shaven face and clear blue eyes.
Harriet was sitting primly and consciously by his side; she was a very handsome girl with bold eyes and was somewhat overdressed. She wore a big flowery hat and a white lace veil and looked at Anne with a supercilious smile.
Anne felt dowdy and old; she was very pale. Jerome lifted his hat and bowed pleasantly as they drove past. Suddenly Harriet laughed out. Anne did not look back, but her face crimsoned darkly. Was that girl laughing at her? She trembled with anger and a sharp, hurt feeling. When she got home that night she sat a long while by her window.
Jerome was gone — and he let Harriet Warren laugh at her and he would never come back to her. Well, it did not matter, but she had been a fool. Only it had never occurred to her that Jerome could act so.
“If I’d thought he would I mightn’t have been so sharp with him,” was as far as she would let herself go even in thought.
When four weeks had elapsed Jerome came over one Saturday night. He was fluttered and anxious, but hid it in a masterly manner.
Anne was taken by surprise. She had not thought he would ever come again, and was off her guard. He had come around the porch corner abruptly as she stood there in the dusk, and she started very perceptibly.
“Good evening, Anne,” he said, easily and unblushingly.
Anne choked up. She was very angry, or thought she was. Jerome appeared not to notice her lack of welcome. He sat coolly down in his old place. His heart was beating like a hammer, but Anne did not know that.
“I suppose,” she said cuttingly, “that you’re on your way down to the bridge. It’s almost a pity for you to waste time stopping here at all, any more than you have of late. No doubt Harriet’ll be expecting you.”
A gleam of satisfaction flashed over Jerome’s face. He looked shrewdly at Anne, who was not looking at him, but was staring uncompromisingly out over the poppy beds. A jealous woman always gives herself away. If Anne had been indifferent she would not have given him that slap in the face.
“I dunno’s she will,” he replied coolly. “I didn’t say for sure whether I’d be down tonight or not. It’s so long since I had a chat with you I thought I’d drop in for a spell. But of course if I’m not wanted I can go where I will be.”
Anne could not get back her self-control. Her nerves were “all strung up,” as she would have said. She had a feeling that she was right on the brink of a “scene,” but she could not help herself.
“I guess it doesn’t matter much what I want,” she said stonily. “At any rate,
it hasn’t seemed that way lately. You don’t care, of course. Oh, no! Harriet Warren is all you care about. Well, I wish you joy of her.”
Jerome looked puzzled, or pretended to. In reality he was hugging himself with delight.
“I don’t just understand you, Anne,” he said hesitatingly “You appear to be vexed about something.”
“I? Oh, no, I’m not, Mr. Irving. Of course old friends don’t count now. Well, I’ve no doubt new ones will wear just as well.”
“If it’s about my going to see Harriet,” said Jerome easily “I don’t see as how it can matter much to you. Goodness knows, you took enough pains to show me you didn’t want me. I don’t blame you. A woman has a right to please herself, and a man ought to have sense to take his answer and go. I hadn’t, and that’s where I made my mistake. I don’t mean to pester you any more, but we can be real good friends, can’t we? I’m sure I’m as much your friend as ever I was.”
Now, I hold that this speech of Jerome’s, delivered in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, as of a man stating a case with dispassionate fairness, was a masterpiece. It was the last cleverly executed movement of the campaign. If it failed to effect a capitulation, he was a defeated man. But it did not fail.
Anne had got to that point where an excited woman must go mad or cry. Anne cried. She sat flatly down on a chair and burst into tears.
Jerome’s hat went one way and his cane another. Jerome himself sprang across the intervening space and dropped into the chair beside Anne. He caught her hand in his and threw his arm boldly around her waist.
“Goodness gracious, Anne! Do you care after all? Tell me that!”
“I don’t suppose it matters to you if I do,” sobbed Anne. “It hasn’t seemed to matter, anyhow.”
“Anne, look here! Didn’t I come after you for fifteen years? It’s you I always have wanted and want yet, if I can get you. I don’t care a rap for Harriet Warren or anyone but you. Now that’s the truth right out, Anne.”
No doubt it was, and Anne was convinced of it. But she had to have her cry out — on Jerome’s shoulder — and it soothed her nerves wonderfully. Later on Octavia, slipping noiselessly up the steps in the dusk, saw a sight that transfixed her with astonishment. When she recovered herself she turned and fled wildly around the house, running bump into Sam Mitchell, who was coming across the yard from a twilight conference with the hired men.
“Goodness, Tavy, what’s the matter? Y’ look ‘sif y’d seen a ghost.”
Octavia leaned up against the wall in spasms of mirth.
“Oh, Sam,” she gasped, “old Jerome Irving and Aunt Anne are sitting round there in the dark on the front porch and he had his arms around her, kissing her! And they never saw nor heard me, no more’n if they were deaf and blind!”
Sam gave a tremendous whistle and then went off into a shout of laughter whose echoes reached even to the gloom of the front porch and the ears of the lovers. But they did not know he was laughing at them and would not have cared if they had. They were too happy for that.
There was a wedding that fall and Anne Stockard was the bride. When she was safely his, Jerome confessed all and was graciously forgiven.
“But it was kind of mean to Harriet,” said Anne rebukingly, “to go with her and get her talked about and then drop her as you did. Don’t you think so yourself, Jerome?”
Her husband’s eyes twinkled.
“Well, hardly that. You see, Harriet’s engaged to that Johnson fellow out west. ‘Tain’t generally known, but I knew it and that’s why I picked on her. I thought it probable that she’d be willing enough to flirt with me for a little diversion, even if I was old. Harriet’s that sort of a girl. And I made up my mind that if that didn’t fetch it nothing would and I’d give up for good and all. But it did, didn’t it, Anne?”
“I should say so. It was horrid of you, Jerome — but I daresay it’s just as well you did or I’d likely never have found out that I couldn’t get along without you. I did feel dreadful. Poor Octavia could tell you I was as cross as X. How did you come to think of it, Jerome?”
“A fellow had to do something,” said Jerome oracularly, “and I’d have done most anything to get you, Anne, that’s a fact. And there it was — courting fifteen years and nothing to show for it. I dunno, though, how I did come to think of it. Guess it was a sort of inspiration. Anyhow, I’ve got you and that’s what I set out to do in the beginning.”
Young Si
Mr. Bentley had just driven into the yard with the new summer boarder. Mrs. Bentley and Agnes were peeping at her from behind the parlour curtains with the keen interest that they — shut in by their restricted farm life — always felt in any visitor from the outside world lying beyond their boundary of purple misted hills.
Mrs. Bentley was a plump, rosy-cheeked woman with a motherly smile. Agnes was a fair, slim schoolgirl, as tall as her mother, with a sweet face and a promise of peach blossom prettiness in the years to come. The arrival of a summer boarder was a great event in her quiet life.
“Ain’t she pretty?” whispered Mrs. Bentley admiringly, as the girl came slowly up the green slope before the house. “I do hope she’s nice. You can generally calculate on men boarders, but girls are doubtful. Preserve me from a cranky boarder! I’ve had enough of them. I kinder like her looks, though.”
Ethel Lennox had paused at the front door as Mrs. Bentley and Agnes came into the hall. Agnes gazed at the stranger with shy, unenvious admiration; the latter stood on the stone step just where the big chestnut by the door cast flickering gleams and shadows over her dress and shining hair.
She was tall, and gowned in some simple white material that fell about her in graceful folds. She wore a cluster of pale pink roses at her belt, and a big, picturesque white hat shaded her face and the glossy, clinging masses of her red hair — hair that was neither auburn nor chestnut but simply red. Nor would anyone have wished it otherwise, having once seen that glorious mass, with all its wonderful possibilities of rippling luxuriance.
Her complexion was of that perfect, waxen whiteness that goes with burnished red hair and the darkest of dilated violet eyes. Her delicately chiselled features wore what might have been a somewhat too decided impress of spirit and independence, had it not been for the sweet mouth, red and dimpled and curving, that parted in a slow, charming smile as Mrs. Bentley came forward with her kindly welcome.
“You must be real tired, Miss Lennox. It’s a long drive from the train down here. Agnes, show Miss Lennox up to her room, and tea will be ready when you come down.”
Agnes came forward with the shy grace that always won friends for her, and the two girls went slowly up the broad, old-fashioned staircase, while Mrs. Bentley bustled away to bring in the tea and put a goblet of damask roses on the table.
“She looks like a picture, doesn’t she, John?” she said to her husband. “I never saw such a face — and that hair too. Would you have believed red hair could be so handsome? She seems real friendly — none of your stuck-up fine ladies! I’ve had all I want of them, I can tell you!”
“Sh — sh — sh!” said Mr. Bentley warningly, as Ethel Lennox came in with her arm about Agnes.
She looked even more lovely without her hat, with the soft red tendrils of hair lying on her forehead. Mrs. Bentley sent a telegraphic message of admiration across the table to her husband, who was helping the cold tongue and feeling his way to a conversation.
“You’ll find it pretty quiet here, Miss Lennox. We’re plain folks and there ain’t much going and coming. Maybe you don’t mind that, though?”
“I like it. When one has been teaching school all the year in a noisy city, quiet seems the one thing to be desired. Besides, I like to fancy myself something of an artist. I paint and sketch a little when I have time, and Miss Courtland, who was here last summer, said I could not find a more suitable spot. So I came because I knew that mackerel fishing was carried on along the shore, and I would have a chance to study character among the fishermen.”
“Well, the shore ain’t far away, and it’s pretty — though maybe us folks here don’t appreciate it rightly, being as we’re so used to it. Strangers are always going crazy over its ‘picturesqueness,’ as they call it. As for ‘character,’ I reckon you’ll find all you want of that among the Pointers; anyway, I never seed such critters as they be. When you get tired of painting, maybe you can amuse yourself trying to get to the bottom of our mystery.”
“Oh, have you a mystery? How interesting!”
“Yes, a mystery — a mystery,” repeated Mr. Bentley solemnly, “that nobody hain’t been able to solve so far. I’ve give it up — so has everyone else. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“But what is it?”
“The mystery,” said Mr. Bentley dramatically, “is — Young Si. He’s the mystery. Last spring, just when the herring struck in, a young chap suddenly appeared at the Point. He appeared — from what corner of the globe nobody hain’t ever been able to make out. He bought a boat and a shanty down at my shore and went into a sort of mackerel partnership with Snuffy Curtis — Snuffy supplying the experience and this young fellow the cash, I reckon. Snuffy’s as poor as Job’s turkey; it was a windfall for him. And there he’s fished all summer.”
“But his name — Young Si?”
“Well, of course, that isn’t it. He did give himself out as Brown, but nobody believes that’s his handle — sounds unnatteral here. He bought his establishment from ‘old Si,’ who used to fish down there and was a mysterious old critter in a way too. So when this young fellow stepped in from goodness knows where, some of the Pointers christened him Young Si for a joke, and he never gets anything else. Doesn’t seem to mind it. He’s a moody, keep-to-himself sort of chap. Yet he ain’t unpopular along shore, I believe. Snuffy was telling me they like him real well, considering his unsociableness. Anyways, he’s as handsome a chap as I ever seed, and well eddicated too. He ain’t none of your ordinary fishermen. Some of us kind of think he’s a runaway — got into some scrape or another, maybe, and is skulking around here to keep out of jail. But wife here won’t give in to that.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 620