One evening a fortnight later Constance, with her arms full of ferns and wood-lilies, came out of the pine woods above Heartsease Farm just as heavy raindrops began to fall. She had prolonged her ramble unseasonably, and it was now nearly night, and very certainly a rainy night at that. She was three miles from home and without even an extra wrap.
She hurried down the lane, but by the time she reached the main road, the few drops had become a downpour. She must seek shelter somewhere, and Heartsease Farm was the nearest. She pushed open the gate and ran up the slope of the yard between the hedges of sweetbriar. She was spared the trouble of knocking, for as she came to a breathless halt on the big red sandstone doorstep, the door was flung open, and the white-haired, happy-faced little woman standing on the threshold had seized her hand and drawn her in bodily before she could speak a word.
“I saw you coming from upstairs,” said Aunt Flora gleefully, “and I just ran down as fast as I could. Dear, dear, you are a little wet. But we’ll soon dry you. Come right in — I’ve a bit of a fire in the grate, for the evening is chilly. They laughed at me for loving a fire so, but there’s nothing like its snap and sparkle. You’re rained in for the night, and I’m as glad as I can be. I know who you are — you are Miss Foster. I’m Aunt Flora, and this is Uncle Charles.”
Constance let herself be put into a cushiony chair and fussed over with an unaccustomed sense of pleasure. The rain was coming down in torrents, and she certainly was domiciled at Heartsease Farm for the night. Somehow, she felt glad of it. Mrs. Hewitt was right in calling Aunt Flora sweet, and Uncle Charles was a big, jolly, ruddy-faced old man with a hearty manner. He shook Constance’s hand until it ached, threw more pine knots in the fire and told her he wished it would rain every night if it rained down a nice little girl like her.
She found herself strangely attracted to the old couple. The name of their farm was in perfect keeping with their atmosphere. Constance’s frozen soul expanded in it. She chatted merrily and girlishly, feeling as if she had known them all her life.
When bedtime came, Aunt Flora took her upstairs to a little gable room.
“My spare room is all in disorder just now, dearie, we have been painting its floor. So I’m going to put you here in Jeannie’s room. Someway you remind me of her, and you are just about the age she was when she left us. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t think I could put you in her room, not even if every other floor in the house were being painted. It is so sacred to me. I keep it just as she left it, not a thing is changed. Good night dearie, and I hope you’ll have pleasant dreams.”
When Constance found herself alone in the room, she looked about her with curiosity. It was a very dainty, old-fashioned little room. The floor was covered with braided mats; the two square, small-paned windows were draped with snowy muslin. In one corner was a little white bed with white curtains and daintily ruffled pillows, and in the other a dressing table with a gilt-framed mirror and the various knick-knacks of a girlish toilet. There was a little blue rocker and an ottoman with a work-basket on it. In the work-basket was a bit of unfinished, yellowed lace with a needle sticking in it. A small bookcase under the sloping ceiling was filled with books.
Constance picked up one and opened it at the yellowing title-page. She gave a little cry of surprise. The name written across the page in a fine, dainty script was “Jean Constance Irving,” her mother’s name!
For a moment Constance stood motionless. Then she turned impulsively and hurried downstairs again. Mr. and Mrs. Bruce were still in the sitting room talking to each other in the firelight.
“Oh,” cried Constance excitedly. “I must know, I must ask you. This is my mother’s name, Jean Constance Irving, can it be possible she was your little Jeannie?”
A fortnight later Miss Channing received a letter from Constance.
“I am so happy,” she wrote. “Oh, Miss Channing, I have found ‘mine own people,’ and Heartsease Farm is to be my own, own dear home for always.
“It was such a strange coincidence, no, Aunt Flora says it was Providence, and I believe it was, too. I came here one rainy night, and Aunty put me in my mother’s room, think of it! My own dear mother’s room, and I found her name in a book. And now the mystery is all cleared up, and we are so happy.
“Everything is dear and beautiful, and almost the dearest and most beautiful thing is that I am getting acquainted with my mother, the mother I never knew before. She no longer seems dead to me. I feel that she lives and loves me, and I am learning to know her better every day. I have her room and her books and all her little girlish possessions. When I read her books, with their passages underlined by her hand, I feel as if she were speaking to me. She was very good and sweet, in spite of her one foolish, bitter mistake, and I want to be as much like her as I can.
“I said that this was almost the dearest and most beautiful thing. The very dearest and most beautiful is this — God means something to me now. He means so much! I remember that you said to me that he meant nothing to me because I had no human love in my heart to translate the divine. But I have now, and it has led me to Him.
“I am not going back to Taunton. I have sent in my resignation. I am going to stay home with Aunty and Uncle. It is so sweet to say home and know what it means.
“Aunty says you must come and spend all your next vacation with us. You see, I have lots of vacation plans now, even for a year ahead. After all, there is no need of the blue pills!
“I feel like a new creature, made over from the heart and soul out. I look back with shame and contrition on the old Constance. I want you to forget her and only remember your grateful friend, the new Constance.”
Ida’s New Year Cake
Mary Craig and Sara Reid and Josie Pye had all flocked into Ida Mitchell’s room at their boarding-house to condole with each other because none of them was able to go home for New Year’s. Mary and Josie had been home for Christmas, so they didn’t really feel so badly off. But Ida and Sara hadn’t even that consolation.
Ida was a third-year student at the Clifton Academy; she had holidays, and nowhere, so she mournfully affirmed, to spend them. At home three brothers and a sister were down with the measles, and, as Ida had never had them, she could not go there; and the news had come too late for her to make any other arrangements.
Mary and Josie were clerks in a Clifton bookstore, and Sara was stenographer in a Clifton lawyer’s office. And they were all jolly and thoughtless and very fond of one another.
“This will be the first New Year’s I have ever spent away from home,” sighed Sara, nibbling chocolate fudge. “It does make me so blue to think of it. And not even a holiday — I’ll have to go to work just the same. Now Ida here, she doesn’t really need sympathy. She has holidays — a whole fortnight — and nothing to do but enjoy them.”
“Holidays are dismal things when you’ve nowhere to holiday,” said Ida mournfully. “The time drags horribly. But never mind, girls, I’ve a plummy bit of news for you. I’d a letter from Mother today and, bless the dear woman, she is sending me a cake — a New Year’s cake — a great big, spicy, mellow, delicious fruit cake. It will be along tomorrow and, girls, we’ll celebrate when it comes. I’ve asked everybody in the house up to my room for New Year’s Eve, and we’ll have a royal good time.”
“How splendid!” said Mary. “There’s nothing I like more than a slice of real countrified home-made fruit cake, where they don’t scrimp on eggs or butter or raisins. You’ll give me a good big piece, won’t you, Ida?”
“As much as you can eat,” promised Ida. “I can warrant Mother’s fruit cake. Yes, we’ll have a jamboree. Miss Monroe has promised to come in too. She says she has a weakness for fruit cake.”
“Oh!” breathed all the girls. Miss Monroe was their idol, whom they had to be content to worship at a distance as a general thing. She was a clever journalist, who worked on a paper, and was reputed to be writing a book. The girls felt they were highly privileged to be boarding in the same house, and c
ounted that day lost on which they did not receive a businesslike nod or an absent-minded smile from Miss Monroe. If she ever had time to speak to one of them about the weather, that fortunate one put on airs for a week. And now to think that she had actually promised to drop into Ida’s room on New Year’s Eve and eat fruit cake!
“There goes that funny little namesake of yours, Ida,” said Josie, who was sitting by the window. “She seems to be staying in town over the holidays too. Wonder why. Perhaps she doesn’t belong anywhere. She really is a most forlorn-appearing little mortal.”
There were two Ida Mitchells attending the Clifton Academy. The other Ida was a plain, quiet, pale-faced little girl of fifteen who was in the second year. Beyond that, none of the third-year Ida Mitchell’s set knew anything about her, or tried to find out.
“She must be very poor,” said Ida carelessly. “She dresses so shabbily, and she always looks so pinched and subdued. She boards in a little house out on Marlboro Road, and I pity her if she has to spend her holidays there, for a more dismal place I never saw. I was there once on the trail of a book I had lost. Going, girls? Well, don’t forget tomorrow night.”
Ida spent the next day decorating her room and watching for the arrival of her cake. It hadn’t come by tea-time, and she concluded to go down to the express office and investigate. It would be dreadful if that cake didn’t turn up in time, with all the girls and Miss Monroe coming in. Ida felt that she would be mortified to death.
Inquiry at the express office discovered two things. A box had come in for Miss Ida Mitchell, Clifton; and said box had been delivered to Miss Ida Mitchell, Clifton.
“One of our clerks said he knew you personally — boarded next door to you — and he’d take it round himself,” the manager informed her.
“There must be some mistake,” said Ida in perplexity. “I don’t know any of the clerks here. Oh — why — there’s another Ida Mitchell in town! Can it be possible my cake has gone to her?”
The manager thought it very possible, and offered to send around and see. But Ida said it was on her way home and she would call herself.
At the dismal little house on Marlboro Road she was sent up three flights of stairs to the other Ida Mitchell’s small hall bedroom. The other Ida Mitchell opened the door for her. Behind her, on the table, was the cake — such a fine, big, brown cake, with raisins sticking out all over it!
“Why, how do you do, Miss Mitchell!” exclaimed the other Ida with shy pleasure. “Come in. I didn’t know you were in town. It’s real good of you to come and see me. And just see what I’ve had sent to me! Isn’t it a beauty? I was so surprised when it came — and, oh, so glad! I was feeling so blue and lonesome — as if I hadn’t a friend in the world. I — I — yes, I was crying when that cake came. It has just made the world over for me. Do sit down and I’ll cut you a piece. I’m sure you’re as fond of fruit cake as I am.”
Ida sat down in a chair, feeling bewildered and awkward. This was a nice predicament! How could she tell that other Ida that the cake didn’t belong to her? The poor thing was so delighted. And, oh, what a bare, lonely little room! The big, luxurious cake seemed to emphasize the bareness and loneliness.
“Who — who sent it to you?” she asked lamely.
“It must have been Mrs. Henderson, because there is nobody else who would,” answered the other Ida. “Two years ago I was going to school in Trenton and I boarded with her. When I left her to come to Clifton she told me she would send me a cake for Christmas. Well, I expected that cake last year — and it didn’t come. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. You’ll think me very childish. But I was so lonely, with no home to go to like the other girls. But she sent it this year, you see. It is so nice to think that somebody has remembered me at New Year’s. It isn’t the cake itself — it’s the thought behind it. It has just made all the difference in the world. There — just sample it, Miss Mitchell.”
The other Ida cut a generous slice from the cake and passed it to her guest. Her eyes were shining and her cheeks were flushed. She was really a very sweet-looking little thing — not a bit like her usual pale, timid self.
Ida ate the cake slowly. What was she to do? She couldn’t tell the other Ida the truth about the cake. But the girls she had asked in to help eat it that very evening! And Miss Monroe! Oh, dear, it was too bad. But it couldn’t be helped. She wouldn’t blot out that light on the other Ida’s face for anything! Of course, she would find out the truth in time — probably after she had written to thank Mrs. Henderson for the cake; but meanwhile she would have enjoyed the cake, and the supposed kindness back of it would tide her over her New Year loneliness.
“It’s delicious,” said Ida heartily, swallowing her own disappointment with the cake. “I’m — I’m glad I happened to drop in as I was passing.” Ida hoped that speech didn’t come under the head of a fib.
“So am I,” said the other Ida brightly. “Oh, I’ve been so lonesome and downhearted this week. I’m so alone, you see — there isn’t anybody to care. Father died three years ago, and I don’t remember my mother at all. There is nobody but myself, and it is dreadfully lonely at times. When the Academy is open and I have my lessons to study, I don’t mind so much. But the holidays take all the courage out of me.”
“We should have fraternized more this week,” smiled Ida, regretting that she hadn’t thought of it before. “I couldn’t go home because of the measles, and I’ve moped a lot. We might have spent the time together and had a real nice, jolly holiday.”
The other Ida blushed with delight.
“I’d love to be friends with you,” she said slowly. “I’ve often thought I’d like to know you. Isn’t it odd that we have the same name? It was so nice of you to come and see me. I — I’d love to have you come often.”
“I will,” said Ida heartily.
“Perhaps you will stay the evening,” suggested the other Ida. “I’ve asked some of the girls who board here in to have some cake, I’m so glad to be able to give them something — they’ve all been so good to me. They are all clerks in stores and some of them are so tired and lonely. It’s so nice to have a pleasure to share with them. Won’t you stay?”
“I’d like to,” laughed Ida, “but I have some guests of my own invited in for tonight. I must hurry home, for they will most surely be waiting for me.”
She laughed again as she thought what else the guests would be waiting for. But her face was sober enough as she walked home.
“But I’m glad I left the cake with her,” she said resolutely. “Poor little thing! It means so much to her. It meant only ‘a good feed,’ as Josie says, to me. I’m simply going to make it my business next term to be good friends with the other Ida Mitchell. I’m afraid we third-year girls are very self-centred and selfish. And I know what I’ll do! I’ll write to Abby Morton in Trenton to send me Mrs. Henderson’s address, and I’ll write her a letter and ask her not to let Ida know she didn’t send the cake.”
Ida went into a confectionery store and invested in what Josie Pye was wont to call “ready-to-wear eatables” — fancy cakes, fruit, and candies. When she reached her room she found it full of expectant girls, with Miss Monroe enthroned in the midst of them — Miss Monroe in a wonderful evening dress of black lace and yellow silk, with roses in her hair and pearls on her neck — all donned in honour of Ida’s little celebration. I won’t say that, just for a moment, Ida didn’t regret that she had given up her cake.
“Good evening, Miss Mitchell,” cried Mary Craig gaily. “Walk right in and make yourself at home in your own room, do! We all met in the hall, and knocked and knocked. Finally Miss Monroe came, so we made bold to walk right in. Where is the only and original fruit cake, Ida? My mouth has been watering all day.”
“The other Ida Mitchell is probably entertaining her friends at this moment with my fruit cake,” said Ida, with a little laugh.
Then she told the whole story.
“I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” she concluded, �
�but I simply couldn’t tell that poor, lonely child that the cake wasn’t intended for her. I’ve brought all the goodies home with me that I could buy, and we’ll have to do the best we can without the fruit cake.”
Their “best” proved to be a very good thing. They had a jolly New Year’s Eve, and Miss Monroe sparkled and entertained most brilliantly. They kept their celebration up until twelve to welcome the new year in, and then they bade Ida good night. But Miss Monroe lingered for a moment behind the others to say softly:
“I want to tell you how good and sweet I think it was of you to give up your cake to the other Ida. That little bit of unselfishness was a good guerdon for your new year.”
And Ida, radiant-faced at this praise from her idol, answered heartily:
“I’m afraid I’m anything but unselfish, Miss Monroe. But I mean to try to be more this coming year and think a little about the girls outside of my own little set who may be lonely or discouraged. The other Ida Mitchell isn’t going to have to depend on that fruit cake alone for comfort and encouragement for the next twelve months.”
In the Old Valley
The man halted on the crest of the hill and looked sombrely down into the long valley below. It was evening, and although the hills around him were still in the light the valley was already filled with kindly, placid shadows. A wind that blew across it from the misty blue sea beyond was making wild music in the rugged firs above his head as he stood in an angle of the weather-grey longer fence, knee-deep in bracken. It had been by these firs he had halted twenty years ago, turning for one last glance at the valley below, the home valley which he had never seen since. But then the firs had been little more than vigorous young saplings; they were tall, gnarled trees now, with lichened trunks, and their lower boughs were dead. But high up their tops were green and caught the saffron light of the west. He remembered that when a boy he had thought there was nothing more beautiful than the evening sunshine falling athwart the dark green fir boughs on the hills.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 666