The cat rose and retreated in deliberate haste; Jims ran after him. The cat dodged through the rose paths and eluded Jims’ eager hands, just keeping tantalizingly out of reach. Jims had forgotten everything except that he must catch the cat. He was full of a fearful joy, with an elfin delight running through it. He had escaped from the blue room and its ghosts; he was in his Garden of Spices; he had got the better of mean old Aunt Augusta. But he must catch the cat.
The cat ran over the lawn and Jims pursued it through the green gloom of the thickly clustering trees. Beyond them came a pool of sunshine in which the old stone house basked like a huge grey cat itself. More garden was before it and beyond it, wonderful with blossom. Under a huge spreading beech tree in the centre of it was a little tea table; sitting by the table reading was a lady in a black dress.
The cat, having lured Jims to where he wanted him, sat down and began to lick his paws. He was quite willing to be caught now; but Jims had no longer any idea of catching him. He stood very still, looking at the lady. She did not see him then and Jims could only see her profile, which he thought very beautiful. She had wonderful ropes of blue-black hair wound around her head. She looked so sweet that Jims’ heart beat. Then she lifted her head and turned her face and saw him. Jims felt something of a shock. She was not pretty after all. One side of her face was marked by a dreadful red scar. It quite spoilt her good looks, which Jims thought a great pity; but nothing could spoil the sweetness of her face or the loveliness of her peculiar soft, grey-blue eyes. Jims couldn’t remember his mother and had no idea what she looked like, but the thought came into his head that he would have liked her to have eyes like that. After the first moment Jims did not mind the scar at all.
But perhaps that first moment had revealed itself in his face, for a look of pain came into the lady’s eyes and, almost involuntarily it seemed, she put her hand up to hide the scar. Then she pulled it away again and sat looking at Jims half defiantly, half piteously. Jims thought she must be angry because he had chased her cat.
“I beg your pardon,” he said gravely, “I didn’t mean to hurt your cat. I just wanted to play with him. He is such a very handsome cat.”
“But where did you come from?” said the lady. “It is so long since I saw a child in this garden,” she added, as if to herself. Her voice was as sweet as her face. Jims thought he was mistaken in thinking her angry and plucked up heart of grace. Shyness was no fault of Jims.
“I came from the house over the wall,” he said. “My name is James Brander Churchill. Aunt Augusta shut me up in the blue room because I spilled my pudding at dinner. I hate to be shut up. And I was to have had a ride this afternoon — and ice cream — and maybe a movie. So I was mad. And when your Very Handsome Cat came and looked at me I just got out and climbed down.”
He looked straight at her and smiled. Jims had a very dear little smile. It seemed a pity there was no mother alive to revel in it. The lady smiled back.
“I think you did right,” she said.
“You wouldn’t shut a little boy up if you had one, would you?” said Jims.
“No — no, dear heart, I wouldn’t,” said the lady. She said it as if something hurt her horribly. She smiled again gallantly.
“Will you come here and sit down?” she added, pulling a chair out from the table.
“Thank you. I’d rather sit here,” said Jims, plumping down on the grass at her feet. “Then maybe your cat will come to me.”
The cat came over promptly and rubbed his head against Jims’ knee. Jims stroked him delightedly; how lovely his soft fur felt and his round velvety head.
“I like cats,” explained Jims, “and I have nothing but a gobbler. This is such a Very Handsome Cat. What is his name, please?”
“Black Prince. He loves me,” said the lady. “He always comes to my bed in the morning and wakes me by patting my face with his paw. He doesn’t mind my being ugly.”
She spoke with a bitterness Jims couldn’t understand.
“But you are not ugly,” he said.
“Oh, I am ugly — I am ugly,” she cried. “Just look at me — right at me. Doesn’t it hurt you to look at me?”
Jims looked at her gravely and dispassionately.
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “Not a bit,” he added, after some further exploration of his consciousness.
Suddenly the lady laughed beautifully. A faint rosy flush came into her unscarred cheek.
“James, I believe you mean it.”
“Of course I mean it. And, if you don’t mind, please call me Jims. Nobody calls me James but Aunt Augusta. She isn’t my whole aunt. She is just Uncle Walter’s half-sister. He is my whole uncle.”
“What does he call you?” asked the lady. She looked away as she asked it.
“Oh, Jims, when he thinks about me. He doesn’t often think about me. He has too many sick children to think about. Sick children are all Uncle Walter cares about. He’s the greatest children’s doctor in the Dominion, Mr. Burroughs says. But he is a woman-hater.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, I heard Mr. Burroughs say it. Mr. Burroughs is my tutor, you know. I study with him from nine till one. I’m not allowed to go to the public school. I’d like to, but Uncle Walter thinks I’m not strong enough yet. I’m going next year, though, when I’m ten. I have holidays now. Mr. Burroughs always goes away the first of June.”
“How came he to tell you your uncle was a woman-hater?” persisted the lady.
“Oh, he didn’t tell me. He was talking to a friend of his. He thought I was reading my book. So I was — but I heard it all. It was more interesting than my book. Uncle Walter was engaged to a lady, long, long ago, when he was a young man. She was devilishly pretty.”
“Oh, Jims!”
“Mr. Burroughs said so. I’m only quoting,” said Jims easily. “And Uncle Walter just worshipped her. And all at once she just jilted him without a word of explanation, Mr. Burroughs said. So that is why he hates women. It isn’t any wonder, is it?”
“I suppose not,” said the lady with a sigh. “Jims, are you hungry?”
“Yes, I am. You see, the pudding was spilled. But how did you know?”
“Oh, boys always used to be hungry when I knew them long ago. I thought they hadn’t changed. I shall tell Martha to bring out something to eat and we’ll have it here under this tree. You sit here — I’ll sit there. Jims, it’s so long since I talked to a little boy that I’m not sure that I know how.”
“You know how, all right,” Jims assured her. “But what am I to call you, please?”
“My name is Miss Garland,” said the lady a little hesitatingly. But she saw the name meant nothing to Jims. “I would like you to call me Miss Avery. Avery is my first name and I never hear it nowadays. Now for a jamboree! I can’t offer you a movie — and I’m afraid there isn’t any ice cream either. I could have had some if I’d known you were coming. But I think Martha will be able to find something good.”
A very old woman, who looked at Jims with great amazement, came out to set the table. Jims thought she must be as old as Methusaleh. But he did not mind her. He ran races with Black Prince while tea was being prepared, and rolled the delighted cat over and over in the grass. And he discovered a fragrant herb-garden in a far corner and was delighted. Now it was truly a garden of spices.
“Oh, it is so beautiful here,” he told Miss Avery, who sat and looked at his revels with a hungry expression in her lovely eyes. “I wish I could come often.”
“Why can’t you?” said Miss Avery.
The two looked at each other with sly intelligence.
“I could come whenever Aunt Augusta shuts me up in the blue room,” said Jims.
“Yes,” said Miss Avery. Then she laughed and held out her arms. Jims flew into them. He put his arms about her neck and kissed her scarred face.
“Oh, I wish you were my aunt,” he said.
Miss Avery suddenly pushed him away. Jims was horribly afraid he had offende
d her. But she took his hand.
“We’ll just be chums, Jims,” she said. “That’s really better than being relations, after all. Come and have tea.”
Over that glorious tea-table they became life-long friends. They had always known each other and always would. The Black Prince sat between them and was fed tit-bits. There was such a lot of good things on the table and nobody to say “You have had enough, James.” James ate until he thought he had enough. Aunt Augusta would have thought he was doomed, could she have seen him.
“I suppose I must go back,” said Jims with a sigh. “It will be our supper time in half an hour and Aunt Augusta will come to take me out.”
“But you’ll come again?”
“Yes, the first time she shuts me up. And if she doesn’t shut me up pretty soon I’ll be so bad she’ll have to shut me up.”
“I’ll always set a place for you at the tea-table after this, Jims. And when you’re not here I’ll pretend you are. And when you can’t come here write me a letter and bring it when you do come.”
“Good-bye,” said Jims. He took her hand and kissed it. He had read of a young knight doing that and had always thought he would like to try it if he ever got a chance. But who could dream of kissing Aunt Augusta’s hands?
“You dear, funny thing,” said Miss Avery. “Have you thought of how you are to get back? Can you reach that pine bough from the ground?”
“Maybe I can jump,” said Jims dubiously.
“I’m afraid not. I’ll give you a stool and you can stand on it. Just leave it there for future use. Good-bye, Jims. Jims, two hours ago I didn’t know there was such a person in the world as you — and now I love you — I love you.”
Jims’ heart filled with a great warm gush of gladness. He had always wanted to be loved. And no living creature, he felt sure, loved him, except his gobbler — and a gobbler’s love is not very satisfying, though it is better than nothing. He was blissfully happy as he carried his stool across the lawn. He climbed his pine and went in at the window and curled up on the seat in a maze of delight. The blue room was more shadowy than ever but that did not matter. Over in the Garden of Spices was friendship and laughter and romance galore. The whole world was transformed for Jims.
From that time Jims lived a shamelessly double life. Whenever he was shut in the blue room he escaped to the Garden of Spices — and he was shut in very often, for, Mr. Burroughs being away, he got into a good deal of what Aunt Augusta called mischief. Besides, it is a sad truth that Jims didn’t try very hard to be good now. He thought it paid better to be bad and be shut up. To be sure there was always a fly in the ointment. He was haunted by a vague fear that Aunt Augusta might relent and come to the blue room before supper time to let him out.
“And then the fat would be in the fire,” said Jims.
But he had a glorious summer and throve so well on his new diet of love and companionship that one day Uncle Walter, with fewer sick children to think about than usual, looked at him curiously and said:
“Augusta, that boy seems to be growing much stronger. He has a good color and his eyes are getting to look more like a boy’s eyes should. We’ll make a man of you yet, Jims.”
“He may be getting stronger but he’s getting naughtier, too,” said Aunt Augusta, grimly. “I am sorry to say, Walter, that he behaves very badly.”
“We were all young once,” said Uncle Walter indulgently.
“Were you?” asked Jims in blank amazement.
Uncle Walter laughed.
“Do you think me an antediluvian, Jims?”
“I don’t know what that is. But your hair is gray and your eyes are tired,” said Jims uncompromisingly.
Uncle Walter laughed again, tossed Jims a quarter, and went out.
“Your uncle is only forty-five and in his prime,” said Aunt Augusta dourly.
Jims deliberately ran across the room to the window and, under pretence of looking out, knocked down a flower pot. So he was exiled to the blue room and got into his beloved Garden of Spices where Miss Avery’s beautiful eyes looked love into his and the Black Prince was a jolly playmate and old Martha petted and spoiled him to her heart’s content.
Jims never asked questions but he was a wide-awake chap, and, taking one thing with another, he found out a good deal about the occupants of the old stone house. Miss Avery never went anywhere and no one ever went there. She lived all alone with two old servants, man and maid. Except these two and Jims nobody had ever seen her for twenty years. Jims didn’t know why, but he thought it must be because of the scar on her face.
He never referred to it, but one day Miss Avery told him what caused it.
“I dropped a lamp and my dress caught fire and burned my face, Jims. It made me hideous. I was beautiful before that — very beautiful. Everybody said so. Come in and I will show you my picture.”
She took him into her big parlor and showed him the picture hanging on the wall between the two high windows. It was of a young girl in white. She certainly was very lovely, with her rose-leaf skin and laughing eyes. Jims looked at the pictured face gravely, with his hands in his pockets and his head on one side. Then he looked at Miss Avery.
“You were prettier then — yes,” he said, judicially, “but I like your face ever so much better now.”
“Oh, Jims, you can’t,” she protested.
“Yes, I do,” persisted Jims. “You look kinder and — nicer now.”
It was the nearest Jims could get to expressing what he felt as he looked at the picture. The young girl was beautiful, but her face was a little hard. There was pride and vanity and something of the insolence of great beauty in it. There was nothing of that in Miss Avery’s face now — nothing but sweetness and tenderness, and a motherly yearning to which every fibre of Jims’ small being responded. How they loved each other, those two! And how they understood each other! To love is easy, and therefore common; but to understand — how rare that is! And oh! such good times as they had! They made taffy. Jims had always longed to make taffy, but Aunt Augusta’s immaculate kitchen and saucepans might not be so desecrated. They read fairy tales together. Mr. Burroughs had disapproved of fairy tales. They blew soap-bubbles out on the lawn and let them float away over the garden and the orchard like fairy balloons. They had glorious afternoon teas under the beech tree. They made ice cream themselves. Jims even slid down the bannisters when he wanted to. And he could try out a slang word or two occasionally without anybody dying of horror. Miss Avery did not seem to mind it a bit.
At first Miss Avery always wore dark sombre dresses. But one day Jims found her in a pretty gown of pale primrose silk. It was very old and old-fashioned, but Jims did not know that. He capered round her in delight.
“You like me better in this?” she asked, wistfully.
“I like you just as well, no matter what you wear,” said Jims, “but that dress is awfully pretty.”
“Would you like me to wear bright colors, Jims?”
“You bet I would,” said Jims emphatically.
After that she always wore them — pink and primrose and blue and white; and she let Jims wreathe flowers in her splendid hair. He had quite a knack of it. She never wore any jewelry except, always, a little gold ring with a design of two clasped hands.
“A friend gave that to me long ago when we were boy and girl together at school,” she told Jims once. “I never take it off, night or day. When I die it is to be buried with me.”
“You mustn’t die till I do,” said Jims in dismay.
“Oh, Jims, if we could only live together nothing else would matter,” she said hungrily. “Jims — Jims — I see so little of you really — and some day soon you’ll be going to school — and I’ll lose you.”
“I’ve got to think of some way to prevent it,” cried Jims. “I won’t have it. I won’t — I won’t.”
But his heart sank notwithstanding.
One day Jims slipped from the blue room, down the pine and across the lawn with a tear-stained face
.
“Aunt Augusta is going to kill my gobbler,” he sobbed in Miss Avery’s arms. “She says she isn’t going to bother with him any longer — and he’s getting old — and he’s to be killed. And that gobbler is the only friend I have in the world except you. Oh, I can’t stand it, Miss Avery.”
Next day Aunt Augusta told him the gobbler had been sold and taken away. And Jims flew into a passion of tears and protest about it and was promptly incarcerated in the blue room. A few minutes later a sobbing boy plunged through the trees — and stopped abruptly. Miss Avery was reading under the beech and the Black Prince was snoozing on her knee — and a big, magnificent, bronze turkey was parading about on the lawn, twisting his huge fan of a tail this way and that.
“My gobbler!” cried Jims.
“Yes. Martha went to your uncle’s house and bought him. Oh, she didn’t betray you. She told Nancy Jane she wanted a gobbler and, having seen one over there, thought perhaps she could get him. See, here’s your pet, Jims, and here he shall live till he dies of old age. And I have something else for you — Edward and Martha went across the river yesterday to the Murray Kennels and got it for you.”
“Not a dog?” exclaimed Jims.
“Yes — a dear little bull pup. He shall be your very own, Jims, and I only stipulate that you reconcile the Black Prince to him.”
It was something of a task but Jims succeeded. Then followed a month of perfect happiness. At least three afternoons a week they contrived to be together. It was all too good to be true, Jims felt. Something would happen soon to spoil it. Just suppose Aunt Augusta grew tender-hearted and ceased to punish! Or suppose she suddenly discovered that he was growing too big to be shut up! Jims began to stint himself in eating lest he grew too fast. And then Aunt Augusta worried about his loss of appetite and suggested to Uncle Walter that he should be sent to the country till the hot weather was over. Jims didn’t want to go to the country now because his heart was elsewhere. He must eat again, if he grew like a weed. It was all very harassing.
Uncle Walter looked at him keenly.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 729