Emily's Quest (13 page)

E
mily, just home from an interminable weeks' visit at Uncle Oliver's, where a cousin had been getting married, heard at the post-office that Teddy Kent had gone.

“Left at an hour's notice,” Mrs. Crosby told her. “Got a wire asking if he would take the vice-principalship of the College of Art in Montreal and had to go at once to see about it. Isn't that splendid? Hasn't he got on? It's really quite wonderful. Blair Water should be very proud of him, shouldn't it? Isn't it a pity his mother is so odd?”

Fortunately Mrs. Crosby never took time to await any answer to her questions. Emily knew she was turning pale and hated herself for it. She clutched her mail and hastened out of the post-office. She passed several people on the way home and never realised it. As a consequence her reputation for pride went up dangerously. But when she reached New Moon Aunt Laura handed her a letter.

“Teddy left it. He was here last night to say good-bye.”

The proud Miss Starr had a narrow escape from bursting
into hysterical tears on the spot. Murray in hysterics! Never had such a thing been heard of – never must be heard of. Emily gritted her teeth, took the letter silently and went to her room. The ice around her heart was melting rapidly. Oh, why had she been so cool and dignified with Teddy all that week after Mrs. Chidlaw's dance? But she had never dreamed he would be going away so soon. And now –

She opened her letter. There was nothing in it but a clipping of some ridiculous poetry Perry had written and published in a Charlottetown paper – a paper that was not taken at New Moon. She and Teddy had laughed over it – Ilse had been too angry to laugh – and Teddy had promised to get a copy for her.

Well, he had got it.

She was sitting there, looking whitely out into the soft, black, velvety night with its goblin-market of wind-tossed trees, when Ilse, who had also been away in Charlottetown, came in.

“So Teddy has gone. I see you have a letter from him, too.”

Too!

“Yes,” said Emily, wondering if it were a lie. Then concluded desperately she did not care whether it was a lie or not.

“He was terribly sorry to have to go so suddenly, but he had to decide at once and he couldn't decide without getting some more information about it. Teddy won't tie himself down too irrevocably to any person, no matter how tempting it is. And to be vice-principal of that college at his age is some little bouquet. Well, I'll soon have to go myself. It's been a gorgeous vacation but – Going to the dance at Derry Pond to-morrow night, Emily?”

Emily shook her head. Of what use was dancing now that Teddy was gone?

“Do you know,” said Ilse pensively, “I think this summer has been rather a failure, in spite of our fun. We thought we could be children again, but we haven't been. We've only been pretending.”

Pretending? Oh, if this heartache were only a pretence! And this burning shame and deep, mute hurt. Teddy had not even cared enough to write her a line of farewell. She knew – she had known ever since the Chidlaw dance – he did not love her, but surely friendship demanded something. Even her friendship meant nothing to him. This summer had been only an interlude to him. Now he had gone back to his real life and the things that mattered. And he had written Ilse. Pretend? Oh, well, she would pretend with a vengeance. There were times when the Murray pride was certainly an asset.

“I think it's as well the summer is over,” she said carelessly. “I simply
must
get down to work again. I have neglected my writing shamefully the past two months.”

“After all, that's all you really care about, isn't it?” said Ilse curiously. “I love my work but it doesn't possess me as yours possesses you. I'd give it up in a twinkling for – well, we're all as we're made. But is it really comfortable, Emily, to care for only one thing in life?”

“Much more comfortable than caring for too many things.”

“I suppose so. Well, you ought to succeed when you lay everything on the altar of your goddess. That's the difference between us. I'm of weaker clay. There are some things I couldn't give up – some things I
won't
. And as Old Kelly advises, if I can't get what I want – well, I'll want what I can get. Isn't that common sense?”

Emily, wishing she could fool herself as easily as she could other people, went over to the window and kissed Ilse's forehead.

“We aren't children any longer – and we can't go back to childhood, Ilse. We're women – and must make the best of it. I think you'll be happy yet. I
want
you to be.”

Ilse squeezed Emily's hand. “Darn common sense!” she said drearily.

If she had not been in New Moon she would probably have used the unexpurgated edition.

“Nov. 17, 19–     

“T
here are two adjectives that are never separated in regard to a November day– ‘dull' and ‘gloomy' They were wedded together in the dawn of language and it is not for me to divorce them now. Accordingly then, this day has been dull and gloomy, inside and outside, materially and spiritually.

“Yesterday wasn't so bad. There was a warm autumnal sun and Cousin Jimmy's big heap of pumpkins made a lovely pool of colour against the old grey barns, and the valley down by the brook was mellow with the late, leafless gold of juniper-trees. I walked in the afternoon through the uncanny enchantment of November woods, still haunted by loveliness, and again in the evening in the afterglow of an autumnal sunset. The evening was mild and wrapped in a great, grey, brooding stillness of windless field and waiting hill – a stillness which was yet threaded through with many little eerie, beautiful sounds which I could hear if I listened as much with my soul as my
ears. Later on there was a procession of stars and I got a message from them.

“But to-day
was
dreary. And to-night virtue has gone out of me. I wrote all day but I could not write this evening. I shut myself into my room and paced it like a caged creature. “Tis the middle of the night by the castle clock,' but there is no use in thinking of sleep. I can't sleep. The rain against the window is very dismal and the winds are marching by like armies of the dead. All the little ghostly joys of the past are haunting me – all the ghostly fears of the future.

“I keep thinking – foolishly– of the Disappointed House to-night – up there on the hill with the roar of the rainy wind about it. Somehow this is what hurts me worst to-night. Other nights it is the fact that I don't even know where Dean is this winter – or that Teddy never writes a line to me – or just that there are hours when sheer loneliness wrings the stamina out of me. In such moments I come to this old journal for comforting. It's like talking it out to a faithful friend.”

“Nov. 30, 19–     

“I have two chrysanthemums and a rose out. The rose is a song and a dream and an enchantment all in one. The ‘mums are very pretty, too, but it does not do to have them and the rose too near together. Seen by themselves they are handsome, bright blossoms, pink and yellow, and cheery looking very well satisfied with themselves. But set the rose behind them and the change is actually amusing. They then seem like vulgar, frowsy kitchen maids beside a stately, white queen. It's not the fault of the poor ‘mums that they weren't
born roses, so to be fair to them I keep them by themselves and enjoy them that way.

“I wrote a
good
story to-day. I think even Mr. Carpenter would have been satisfied with it. I was happy while I was writing it. But when I finished it and came back to reality –

“Well, I'm not going to growl. Life has at least grown
livable
again. It was
not
livable through the autumn. I know Aunt Laura thought I was going into consumption. Not I. That would be too Victorian. I fought things out and conquered them and I'm a sane,
free
woman once more. Though the taste of my folly is still in my mouth at times and very bitter it is.

“Oh, I'm really getting on very well. I'm beginning to make a livable income for myself and Aunt Elizabeth reads my stories aloud o' evenings to Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy. I can always get through
to-day
very nicely. It's to-morrow I can't live through.”

“January 15, 19–     

“I've been out for a moonlit snowshoe tramp. There was a nice bite of frost in the air and the night was exquisite – a frosty, starry lyric of light. Some nights are like honey – and some like wine – and some like wormwood. To-night is like wine – white wine – some clear, sparkling, fairy brew that rather goes to one's head. I am tingling all over with hope and expectation and victory over certain principalities and powers that got a grip on me last night about three o'clock.

“I have just drawn aside the curtain of my window and looked out. The garden is white and still under the moon, all ebony of shadow and silver of frosted snow. Over it all the delicate traceries where trees stand up leafless in seeming
death and sorrow. But only seeming. The life-blood is at their hearts and by and by it will stir and they will clothe themselves in bridal garments of young green leaves and pink blossoms. And over there where the biggest drift of all lies deep the Golden Ones will uplift their trumpets of the morning.

“And far beyond our garden field after field lies white and lonely in the moonlight. Lonely? I hadn't meant to write that word. It slipped in. I'm
not
lonely – I have my work and my books and the hope of spring – and I know that this calm, simple existence is a much better and happier one than the hectic life I led last summer.

“I believed that before I wrote it down. And now I don't believe it. It isn't true. This is stagnation!!

“Oh, I am – I
am
– lonely – with the loneliness of unshared thought. What is the use of denying it? When I came in I
was
the victor – but now my banner is in the dust again.”

“Feb. 20, 19–     

“Something has happened to sour February's temper. Such a peevish month. The weather for the past few weeks has certainly been living up to the Murray traditions.

“A dreary snowstorm is raging and the wind is pursuing tormented wraiths over the hills. I know that out beyond the trees Blair Water is a sad, black thing in a desert of whiteness. But the great, dark, wintry night outside makes my cosy little room with its crackling fire seem cosier, and I feel much more contented with the world than I did that beautiful night in January. To-night isn't so – so
insulting
.

“To-day in
Glassford's Magazine
there was a story illustration by Teddy. I saw my own face looking out at me in the
heroine. It always gives me a very ghostly sensation. And today it angered me as well. My face has
no right
to mean anything to him when I don't.

“But for all that, I cut out his picture, which was in the ‘Who's Who' column, and put it in a frame and set it on my desk. I have no picture of Teddy. And to-night I took it out of the frame and laid it on the coals in the fireplace and watched it shrivel up. Just before the fire went out of it a queer little shudder went over it and Teddy seemed to wink at me – an impish, derisive wink – as if he said:

“‘You
think
you've forgotten – but if you had you wouldn't have burned me. You are mine – you will always be mine – and I don't want you.'

“If a good fairy were suddenly to appear before me and offer me a wish it would be this: to have Teddy Kent come and whistle again and again in Lofty John's bush. And I would not go – not one step.

“I
can't
endure this. I
must
put him out of my life.”

T
he Murray clan had a really terrible time in the summer that followed Emily's twenty-second birthday Neither Teddy nor Ilse came home that summer. Ilse was touring in the West and Teddy betook himself into some northern hinterland with an Indian treaty party to make illustrations for a serial. But Emily had so many beaus that Blair Water gossip was in as bad a plight as the centipede who couldn't tell which foot came after which. So many beaus and not one of them such as the connection could approve of.

There was handsome, dashing Jack Bannister, the Derry Pond Don Juan – “a picturesque scoundrel,” as Dr. Burnley called him. Certainly Jack was untrammelled by any moral code. But who knew what effect his silver tongue and good looks might have on temperamental Emily? It worried the Murrays for three weeks and then it appeared that Emily had some sense, after all. Jack Bannister faded out of the picture.

“Emily should never have even
spoken
to him,” said Uncle Oliver indignantly. “Why, they say he keeps a diary and writes down all his love-affairs in it and what the girls said to him.”

“Don't worry. He won't write down what I said to him,” said Emily, when Aunt Laura reported this to her anxiously.

Harold Conway was another anxiety. A Shrewsbury man in his thirties, who looked like a poet gone to seed. With a shock of wavy dark auburn hair and brilliant brown eyes. Who “fiddled for a living.”

Emily went to a concert and a play with him and the New Moon aunts had some sleepless nights. But when in Blair Water parlance Rod Dunbar “cut him out” things were even worse. The Dunbars were “nothing” when it came to religion. Rod's mother, to be sure, was a Presbyterian, but his father was a Methodist, his brother a Baptist and one sister a Christian Scientist. The other sister was a Theosophist, which was worse than all the rest because they had no idea
what
it was. In all this mixture what on earth was Rod? Certainly no match for an orthodox niece of New Moon.

“His great-uncle was a religious maniac,” said Uncle Wallace gloomily. “He was kept chained in his bedroom for sixteen years.
What
has got into that girl? Is she idiot or demon?”

Yet the Dunbars were at least a respectable family; but what was to be said of Larry Dix – one of the “notorious Priest Pond Dixes” – whose father had once pastured his cows in the graveyard and whose uncle was more than suspected of having thrown a dead cat down a neighbour's well for spite? To be sure, Larry himself was doing well as a dentist and was such a deadly-serious, solemn-in-earnest young man that nothing much could be urged against him, if one could only swallow the fact that he was a Dix. Nevertheless, Aunt Elizabeth was much relieved when Emily turned him adrift.

“Such presumption,” said Aunt Laura, meaning for a Dix to aspire to a Murray.

“It wasn't because of his presumption I packed him off,” said Emily. “It was because of the way he made love. He made a thing ugly that should have been beautiful.”

“I suppose you wouldn't have him because he didn't propose romantically,” said Aunt Elizabeth contemptuously.

“No. I think my real reason was that I felt sure he was the kind of man who would give his wife a vacuum cleaner for a Christmas present,” vowed Emily.

“She will not take anything seriously,” said Aunt Elizabeth in despair.

“
I
think she is bewitched,” said Uncle Wallace. “She hasn't had one decent beau this summer. She's so temperamental decent fellows are scared of her.”

“She's getting a terrible reputation as a flirt,” mourned Aunt Ruth. “It's no wonder nobody worth while will have anything to do with her.”

“Always with some fantastic love-affair on hand,” snapped Uncle Wallace. The clan felt that Uncle Wallace had, with unusual felicity, hit on the very word. Emily's “love-affairs” were never the conventional, decorous things Murray love-affairs should be. They were indeed fantastic.

But Emily always blessed her stars that none of the clan except Aunt Elizabeth ever knew anything about the most fantastic of them all. If they had they would have thought her temperamental with a vengeance.

It all came about in a simple, silly way. The editor of the Charlottetown
Argus
, a daily paper with some pretensions to literature, had selected from an old U.S. newspaper a certain
uncopyrighted story of several chapters –
A Royal Betrothal
, by some unknown author,
Mark Greaves
, for reprinting in the special edition of
The Argus
, devoted to “boosting” the claims of Prince Edward Island as a summer resort. His staff was small and the compositors had been setting up the type for the special edition at odd moments for a month and had it all ready except the concluding chapter of
A Royal Betrothal
. This chapter had disappeared and could not be found. The editor was furious, but that did not help matters any. He could not at that late hour find another story which would exactly fill the space, nor was there time to set it up if he could. The special edition must go to press in an hour. What was to be done?

At this moment Emily wandered in. She and Mr. Wilson were good friends and she always called when in town.

“You're a godsend,” said Mr. Wilson. “Will you do me a favour?” He tossed the torn and dirty chapters of
A Royal Betrothal over
to her. “For heaven's sake, get to work and write a concluding chapter to that yarn. I'll give you half an hour. They can set it up in another half-hour. And we'll have the darn thing out on time.”

Emily glanced hastily over the story. As far as it went there was no hint of what “Mark Greaves” intended as a
dénouement
.

“Have you any idea how it ended?” she asked.

“No, never read it,” groaned Mr. Wilson. “Just picked it for its length.”

“Well, I'll do my best, though I'm not accustomed to write with flippant levity of kings and queens,” agreed Emily. “This Mark Greaves, whoever he is, seems to be very much at home with royalty.”

“I'll bet he never even saw one,” snorted Mr. Wilson.

In the half-hour allotted to her Emily produced a quite respectable concluding chapter with a solution of the mystery
which was really ingenious. Mr. Wilson snatched it with an air of relief, handed it to a compositor, and bowed Emily out with thanks.

“I wonder if any of the readers will notice where the seam comes in,” reflected Emily amusedly. “And I wonder if Mark Greaves will ever see it and if so what he will think.”

It did not seem in the least likely she would ever know and she dismissed the matter from her mind. Consequently when, one afternoon two weeks later, Cousin Jimmy ushered a stranger into the sitting-room where Emily was arranging roses in Aunt Elizabeth's rock-crystal goblet with its ruby base – a treasured heirloom of New Moon – Emily did not connect him with
A Royal Betrothal
, though she had a distinct impression that the caller was an exceedingly irate man.

Cousin Jimmy discreetly withdrew and Aunt Laura, who had come in to place a glass dish full of strawberry preserves on the table to cool, withdrew also, wondering a little who Emily's odd-looking caller could be. Emily herself wondered. She remained standing by the table, a slim, gracious thing in her pale-green gown, shining like a star in the shadowy, old-fashioned room.

“Won't you sit down?” she questioned, with all the aloof courtesy of New Moon. But the newcomer did not move. He simply stood before her staring at her. And again Emily felt that, while he had been quite furious when he came in, he was not in the least angry now.

He must have been born, of course, because he was there – but it was incredible, she thought, he could ever have been a baby. He wore audacious clothes and a monocle, screwed into one of his eyes – eyes that seemed absurdly like little black currants with black eyebrows that made right-angled triangles above them. He had a mane of black hair reaching to his
shoulders, an immensely long chin and a marble-white face. In a picture Emily thought he would have looked rather handsome and romantic. But here in the New Moon sitting-room he looked merely weird.

“Lyrical creature,” he said, gazing at her.

Emily wondered if he were by any chance an escaped lunatic.

“You do not commit the crime of ugliness,” he continued fervently. “This is a wonderful moment – very wonderful. Tis a pity we must spoil it by talking. Eyes of purple-grey, sprinkled with gold. Eyes that I have looked for all my life. Sweet eyes, in which I drowned myself eons ago.”

“Who are you?” said Emily crisply, now entirely convinced that he was quite mad. He laid his hand on his heart and bowed.

“Mark Greaves – Mark D. Greaves – Mark Delage Greaves.”

Mark Greaves! Emily had a confused idea that she ought to know the name. It sounded curiously familiar.

“Is it possible you do not recognise my name! Verily this is fame. Even in this remote corner of the world I should have supposed –”

“Oh,” cried Emily, light suddenly breaking on her. “I – I remember now. You wrote
A Royal Betrothal
.”

“The story you so unfeelingly murdered – yes.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Emily interrupted. “Of course you would think it unpardonable. It was this way – you see –”

He stopped her by a wave of a very long, very white hand.

“No matter. No matter. It does not interest me at all now. I admit I was very angry when I came here. I am stopping at the Derry Pond Hotel of The Dunes – ah, what a name – poetry – mystery – romance – and I saw the special edition of
The Argus
this morning. I was angry – had I not a right to be? – and yet more sad than angry. My story was barbarously mutilated. A happy ending. Horrible.
My
ending was sorrowful and artistic. A happy ending can never be artistic. I hastened to the den of
The Argus
. I dissembled my anger – I discovered who was responsible. I came here – to denounce – to upbraid. I remain to worship.”

Emily simply did not know what to say. New Moon traditions held no precedent for this.

“You do not understand me. You are puzzled – your bewilderment becomes you. Again I say a wonderful moment. To come enraged – and behold divinity. To realise as soon as I saw you that you were meant for me and me alone.”

Emily wished somebody would come in. This was getting nightmarish.

“It is absurd to talk so,” she said shortly. “We are strangers –”

“We are
not
strangers,” he interrupted. “We have loved in some other life, of course. And our love was a violent, gorgeous thing – a love of eternity. I recognised you as soon as I entered. As soon as you have recovered from your sweet surprise you will realise this, too. When can you marry me?”

To be asked by a man to marry him five minutes after the first moment you have laid eyes on him is an experience more stimulating than pleasant. Emily was annoyed.

“Don't talk nonsense, please,” she said curtly. “I am not going to marry you at any time.”

“Not marry me? But you must! I have never before asked a woman to marry me. I am the famous Mark Greaves. I am rich. I have the charm and romance of my French mother and the common sense of my Scotch father. With the French side of me I feel and acknowledge your beauty and mystery. With
the Scotch side of me I bow in homage to your reserve and dignity. You are ideal – adorable. Many women have loved me but I loved them not. I enter this room a free man. I go out a captive. Enchanting captivity! Adorable captor! I kneel before you in spirit.”

Emily was horribly afraid he would kneel before her in the flesh. He looked quite capable of it. And suppose Aunt Elizabeth should come in.

“Please go away,” she said desperately. “I'm – I'm very busy and I can't stop talking to you any longer. I'm sorry about the story – if you would let me explain –”

“I have said it does not matter about the story. Though you must learn never to write happy endings – never. I will teach you. I will teach you the beauty and artistry of sorrow and incompleteness. Ah, what a pupil you will be! What bliss to teach such a pupil! I kiss your hand.”

He made a step nearer as if to seize upon it. Emily stepped backward in alarm.

“You
must
be crazy,” she exclaimed.

“Do I look crazy?” demanded Mr. Greaves.

“You do,” retorted Emily flatly and cruelly.

“Perhaps I do – probably I do. Crazy – intoxicated with wine of the rose. All lovers are mad. Divine madness! Oh, beautiful, unkissed lips!”

Emily drew herself up. This absurd interview must end. She was by now thoroughly angry.

“Mr. Greaves,” she said – and such was the power of the Murray look that Mr. Greaves realised she meant exactly what she said. “I shan't listen to any more of this nonsense. Since you won't let me explain about the matter of the story I bid you good-afternoon.”

Mr. Greaves looked gravely at her for a moment. Then he said solemnly:

“A kiss? Or a kick? Which?”

Was he speaking metaphorically? But whether or no –

“A kick,” said Emily disdainfully.

Mr. Greaves suddenly seized the crystal goblet and dashed it violently against the stove.

Emily uttered a faint shriek – partly of real terror – partly of dismay. Aunt Elizabeth's treasured goblet.

“That was merely a defence reaction,” said Mr. Greaves, glaring at her. “I had to do that – or kill you. Ice-maiden! Chill vestal! Cold as your northern snows! Farewell.”

He did not slam the door as he went out. He merely shut it gently and irrevocably, so that Emily might realise what she had lost. When she saw that he was really out of the garden and marching indignantly down the lane as if he were crushing something beneath his feet, she permitted herself the relief of a long breath – the first she had dared to draw since his entrance.