“I couldn’t — you know I couldn’t,” I cried — and then I blushed to my ears.
“Are you sure you couldn’t?” bending a little nearer.
“Quite sure,” I murmured.
He surrendered my hymnal at last.
“Will you give me a rose?”
I unpinned the whole cluster and handed it to him. He lifted it until it touched his lips. As for me, I scuttled up the lane in the most undignified fashion. At the turn I looked back. He was still standing there with his hat off.
July Twenty-fourth.
On Monday afternoon I slipped away to the shore while Aunt Martha and Mrs. Saxby were taking their regular nap and I was supposed to be reading sermons in my room.
Mr. Shelmardine was leaning against the old boat, but he came swiftly across the sand to meet me.
“This is very kind of you,” he said.
“I ought not to have come,” I said repentantly. “But it is so lonely there — and one can’t be interested in sermons and memoirs all the time.”
Mr. Shelmardine laughed.
“Mr. and Mrs. Allardyce are on the other side of the boat. Will you come and meet them?”
How nice of him to bring them! I knew I should like Mrs. Allardyce, just because Aunt Martha didn’t. We had a delightful stroll. I never thought of the time until Mr. Shelmardine said it was four o’clock.
“Oh, is it so late as that?” I cried. “I must go at once.”
“I’m sorry we have kept you so long,” remarked Mr. Shelmardine in a tone of concern. “If she should be awake, what will the consequences be?”
“Too terrible to think of,” I answered seriously. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shelmardine, but you mustn’t come any further.”
“We will be here tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
“Mr. Shelmardine!” I protested. “I wish you wouldn’t put such ideas into my head. They won’t come out — no, not if I read a whole volume of sermons right through.”
We looked at each other for a second. Then he began to smile, and we both went off into a peal of laughter.
“At least let me know if Miss Fiske rampages,” he called after me as I fled.
But Aunt Martha was not awake — and I have been to the shore three afternoons since then. I was there today, and I’m going tomorrow for a boat sail with Mr. Shelmardine and the Allardyces. But I am afraid the former will do something rash soon. This afternoon he said: “I don’t think I can stand this much longer.”
“Stand what?” I asked.
“You know very well,” he answered recklessly. “Meeting you in this clandestine manner, and thereby causing that poor little conscience of yours such misery. If your aunt were not so — unreasonable, I should never have stooped to it.”
“It is all my fault,” I said contritely.
“Well, I hardly meant that,” he said grimly. “But hadn’t I better go frankly to your aunt and lay the whole case before her?”
“You would never see me again if you did that,” I said hastily — and then wished I hadn’t.
“That is the worst threat you could make,” he said.
July Twenty-fifth.
It is all over, and I am the most miserable girl in the world. Of course this means that Aunt Martha has discovered everything and the deserved punishment of my sins has overtaken me.
I slipped away again this afternoon and went for that boat sail. We had a lovely time but were rather late getting in, and I hurried home with many misgivings. Aunt Martha met me at the door.
My dress was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful. I know I looked very disreputable and also, no doubt, very guilty and conscience-stricken. Aunt gave me an unutterable look and then followed me up to my room in grim silence.
“Marguerite, what does this mean?”
I have lots of faults, but untruthfulness isn’t one of them. I confessed everything — at least, almost everything. I didn’t tell about the telescopes and deaf-mute alphabet, and Aunt was too horror-stricken to think of asking how I first made Mr. Shelmardine’s acquaintance. She listened in stony silence. I had expected a terrible scolding, but I suppose my crimes simply seemed to her too enormous for words.
When I had sobbed out my last word she rose, swept me one glance of withering contempt, and left the room. Presently Mrs. Saxby came up, looking concerned.
“My dear child, what have you been doing? Your aunt says that we are to go home on the afternoon train tomorrow. She is terribly upset.”
I just curled up on the bed and cried, while Mrs. Saxby packed my trunk. I will have no chance to explain matters to Mr. Shelmardine. And I will never see him again, for Aunt is quite capable of whisking me off to Africa. He will just think me a feather-brained flirt. Oh, I am so unhappy!
July Twenty-sixth.
I am the happiest girl in the world! That is quite a different strain from yesterday. We leave Fir Cottage in an hour, but that doesn’t matter now.
I did not sleep a wink last night and crawled miserably down to breakfast. Aunt took not the slightest notice of me, but to my surprise she told Mrs. Saxby that she intended taking a farewell walk to the shore. I knew I would be taken, too, to be kept out of mischief, and my heart gave a great bound of hope. Perhaps I would have a chance to send word to Francis, since Aunt did not know of the part my spyglass had played in my bad behaviour.
I meekly followed my grim guardians to the shore and sat dejectedly on my rug while they paced the sand. Francis was on the rocks. As soon as Aunt Martha and Mrs. Saxby were at a safe distance, I began my message: “All discovered. Aunt is very angry. We go home today.”
Then I snatched my glass. His face expressed the direst consternation and dismay. He signalled: “I must see you before you go.”
“Impossible. Aunt will never forgive me. Good-bye.”
I saw a look of desperate determination cross his face. If forty Aunt Marthas had swooped down upon me, I could not have torn my eyes from that glass.
“I love you. You know it. Do you care for me? I must have my answer now.”
What a situation! No time or chance for any maidenly hesitation or softening aureole of words. Aunt and Mrs. Saxby had almost reached the point where they invariably turned. I had barely time to spell out a plain, blunt “yes” and read his answer.
“I shall go home at once, get Mother and Connie, follow you, and demand possession of my property. I shall win the day. Have no fear. Till then, good-bye, my darling.”
“Marguerite,” said Mrs. Saxby at my elbow, “it is time to go.”
I got up obediently. Aunt Martha was as grim and uncompromising as ever, and Mrs. Saxby looked like a chief mourner, but do you suppose I cared? I dropped behind them just once before we left the shore. I knew he was watching me and I waved my hand.
I suppose I am really engaged to Francis Shelmardine. But was there ever such a funny wooing? And what will Aunt Martha say?
After Many Days
The square, bare front room of the Baxter Station Hotel — so called because there was no other house in the place to dispute the title — was filled with men. Some of them were putting up at the hotel while they worked at the new branch line, and some of them had dropped in to exchange news and banter while waiting for the mail train.
Gabe Foley, the proprietor, was playing at checkers with one of the railroad men, but was not too deeply absorbed in the game to take in all that was said around him. The air was dim with tobacco smoke, and the brilliant, scarlet geraniums which Mrs. Foley kept in the bay window looked oddly out of place. Gabe knew all those present except one man — a stranger who had landed at Baxter Station from the afternoon freight. Foley’s hotel did not boast of a register, and the stranger did not volunteer any information regarding his name or business. He had put in the afternoon and early evening strolling about the village and talking to the men on the branch line. Now he had come in and ensconced himself in the corner behind the stove, where he
preserved a complete silence.
He had a rather rough face and was flashily dressed. Altogether, Gabe hardly liked his looks, put as long as a man paid his bill and did not stir up a row Gabe Foley did not interfere with him.
Three or four farmers from “out Greenvale way” were drawn up by the stove, discussing the cheese factory sales and various Greenvale happenings. The stranger appeared to be listening to them intently, although he took no part in their conversation.
Presently he brought his tilted chair down with a sharp thud. Gabe Foley had paused in his manipulation of a king to hurl a question at the Greenvale men.
“Is it true that old man Strong is to be turned out next week?”
“True enough,” answered William Jeffers. “Joe Moore is going to foreclose. Stephen Strong has got three years behind with the interest and Moore is out of patience. It seems hard on old Stephen, but Moore ain’t the man to hesitate for that. He’ll have his own out of it.”
“What will the Strongs do?” asked Gabe.
“That’s the question everyone in Greenvale is asking. Lizzie Strong has always been a delicate little girl, but maybe she’ll manage to scare up a living. Old Stephen is to be the most pitied. I don’t see anything for him but the poorhouse.”
“How did Stephen Strong come to get into such a tight place?” the stranger asked suddenly. “When I was in these parts a good many years ago he was considered a well-to-do man.”
“Well, so he was,” replied William Jeffers. “But he began to get in debt when his wife took sick. He spent no end of money on doctors and medicines for her. And then he seemed to have a streak of bad luck besides — crops failed and cows died and all that sort of thing. He’s been going behind ever since. He kind of lost heart when his wife died. And now Moore is going to foreclose. It’s my opinion poor old Stephen won’t live any time if he’s turned out of his home.”
“Do you know what the mortgage comes to?”
“Near three thousand, counting overdue interest.”
“Well, I’m sorry for old Stephen,” said Gabe, returning to his game. “If anybody deserves a peaceful old age he does. He’s helped more people than you could count, and he was the best Christian in Greenvale, or out of it.”
“He was too good,” said a Greenvale man crustily. “He just let himself be imposed upon all his life. There’s dozens of people owes him and he’s never asked for a cent from them. And he’s always had some shiftless critter or other hanging round and devouring his substance.”
“D’ye mind that Ben Butler who used to be in Greenvale twenty years ago?” asked a third man. “If ever there was an imp of Satan ’twas him — old Ezra Butler’s son from the valley. Old Stephen kept him for three or four years and was as good to him as if he’d been his own son.”
“Most people out our way do mind Ben Butler,” returned William Jeffers grimly, “even if he ain’t been heard tell of for twenty years. He wasn’t the kind you could forget in a hurry. Where’d he go? Out to the Kootenay, wasn’t it?”
“Somewhere there. He was a reg’lar young villain — up to every kind of mischief. Old Stephen caught him stealing his oats one time and ‘stead of giving him a taste of jail for it, as he ought to have done, he just took him right into his family and kept him there for three years. I used to tell him he’d be sorry for it, but he always persisted that Ben wasn’t bad at heart and would come out all right some day. No matter what the young varmint did old Stephen would make excuses for him—’his ma was dead,’ or he ‘hadn’t had no bringing-up.’ I was thankful when he did finally clear out without doing some penitentiary work.”
“If poor old Stephen hadn’t been so open-handed to every unfortunate critter he came across,” said Gabe, “he’d have had more for himself today.”
The whistle of the mail train cut short the discussion of Stephen Strong’s case. In a minute the room was vacant, except for the stranger. When left to himself he also rose and walked out. Turning away from the station, he struck briskly into the Greenvale road.
About three miles from the station he halted before a house built close to the road. It was old-fashioned, but large and comfortable-looking, with big barns in the rear and an orchard on the left slope. The house itself was in the shadow of the firs, but the yard lay out in the moonlight and the strange visitor did not elect to cross it. Instead, he turned aside into the shadow of the trees around the garden and, leaning against the old rail fence, gave himself up to contemplation of some kind.
There was a light in the kitchen. The window-blind was not down and he had a fairly good view of the room. The only visible occupant was a grey-haired old man sitting by the table, reading from a large open volume before him. The stranger whistled softly.
“That’s old Stephen — reading the Bible same as ever, by all that’s holy! He hasn’t changed much except that he’s got mighty grey. He must be close on to seventy. It’s a shame to turn an old man like him out of house and home. But Joe Moore always was a genuine skinflint.”
He drew himself softly up and sat on the fence. He saw old Stephen Strong close his book, place his spectacles on it, and kneel down by his chair. The old man remained on his knees for some time and then, taking up his candle, left the kitchen. The man on the fence still sat there. Truth to tell, he was chuckling to himself as he recalled all the mischief he had done in the old days — the doubtful jokes, tricks, and escapades he had gone through with.
He could not help remembering at the same time how patient old Stephen Strong had always been with him. He recalled the time he had been caught stealing the oats. How frightened and sullen he had been! And how gently the old man had talked to him and pointed out the sin of which he had been guilty!
He had never stolen again, but in other respects he had not mended his ways much. Behind old Stephen’s back he laughed at him and his “preaching.” But Stephen Strong had never lost faith in him. He had always asserted mildly that “Ben would come out all right by and by.” Ben Butler remembered this too, as he sat on the fence.
He had “always liked old Stephen,” he told himself. He was sorry he had fallen on such evil times.
“Preaching and praying don’t seem to have brought him out clear after all,” he said with a chuckle that quickly died away. Somehow, even in his worst days, Ben Butler had never felt easy when he mocked old Stephen. “Three thousand dollars! I could do it but I reckon I’d be a blamed fool. I ain’t a-going to do it. Three thousand ain’t picked up every day, even in the Kootenay—’specially by chaps like me.”
He patted his pocket knowingly. Fifteen years previously he had gone to the Kootenay district with visions of making a fortune that were quickly dispelled by reality. He had squandered his wages as soon as paid, and it was only of late years that he had “pulled up a bit,” as he expressed it, and saved his three thousand dollars.
He had brought the money home with him, having some vague notion of buying a farm and “settling down to do the respectable.” But he had already given up the idea. This country was too blamed quiet for him, he said. He would go back to the Kootenay, and he knew what he would do with his money. Jake Perkins and Wade Brown, two “pals” of his, were running a flourishing grocery and saloon combined. They would be glad of another partner with some cash. It would suit him to a T.
“I’ll clear out tomorrow,” he mused as he walked back. “As long as I stay here old Stephen will haunt me, sure as fate. Wonder what he was praying for tonight. He always used to say the Lord would provide, but He don’t appear to have done it. Well, I ain’t His deputy.”
The next afternoon Ben Butler went over to Greenvale and called at Stephen Strong’s. He found only the old man at home. Old Stephen did not recognize him at first, but made him heartily welcome when he did.
“Ben, I do declare! Ben Butler! How are you? How are you? Sit down, Ben — here, take this chair. Where on earth did you come from?”
“Baxter just now — Kootenay on the large scale,” answered Ben. “Tho
ught I’d come over and see you again. Didn’t expect you’d remember me at all.”
“Remember you! Why, of course I do. I haven’t ever forgot you, Ben. Many’s the time I’ve wondered where you was and how you was getting on. And you tell me you’ve been in the Kootenay! Well, well, you have seen a good bit more of the world than I ever have. You’ve changed a lot, Ben. You ain’t a boy no longer. D’ye mind all the pranks you used to play?”
Ben laughed sheepishly.
“I reckon I do. But it ain’t myself I come here to talk about — not much to say if I did. It’s just been up and down with me. How are you yourself, sir? They were telling me over at Baxter that you were kind of in trouble.”
The old man’s face clouded over; all the sparkle went out of his kind blue eyes.
“Yes, Ben, yes,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “I’ve kind of gone downhill, that’s a fact. The old farm has to go, Ben — I’m sorry for that — I’d have liked to have ended my days here, but it’s not to be. I don’t want to complain. The Lord does all things well. I haven’t a doubt but that it all fits into His wise purposes — not a doubt, Ben, although it may be kind of hard to see it.”
Ben was always skittish of “pious talk.” He veered around adroitly.
“I dunno as the Lord has had much to do with this, sir. Seems to me as if ’twas the other one as was running it, with Joe Moore for deputy. The main thing, as I look at it, is to get a cinch on him. How much does the mortgage amount to, sir?”
“About three thousand dollars, interest and all.”
Old Stephen’s voice trembled. The future looked very dark to him in his old age.
Ben put his hand inside his coat and brought out a brand-new, plump pocketbook. He opened it, laid it on his knee, and counted out a number of crisp notes.
“Here, sir,” he said, pushing them along the table. “I reckon that’ll keep you out of Joe Moore’s clutches. There’s three thousand there if I ain’t made a mistake. That’ll set you clear, won’t it?”
“Ben!” Old Stephen’s voice trembled with amazement. “Ben, I can’t take it. It wouldn’t be fair — or right. I could never pay you back.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 624