Book: Rainbow Valley

L >> Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Rainbow Valley




Faith took another long, earnest look into Miss West's eyes.
They were very serious--there was no laughter in them, not even
far, far back. With a little sigh she sat down on the old pine
beside her new friend and told her all about Adam and his cruel
fate.

Rosemary did not laugh or feel like laughing. She understood and
sympathized--really, she was almost as good as Mrs. Blythe--yes,
quite as good.

"Mr. Perry is a minister, but he should have been a BUTCHER,"
said Faith bitterly. "He is so fond of carving things up. He
ENJOYED cutting poor Adam to pieces. He just sliced into him as
if he were any common rooster."

"Between you and me, Faith, _I_ don't like Mr. Perry very well
myself," said Rosemary, laughing a little--but at Mr. Perry, not
at Adam, as Faith clearly understood. "I never did like him. I
went to school with him--he was a Glen boy, you know--and he was
a most detestable little prig even then. Oh, how we girls used
to hate holding his fat, clammy hands in the ring-around games.
But we must remember, dear, that he didn't know that Adam had
been a pet of yours. He thought he WAS just a common rooster.
We must be just, even when we are terribly hurt."

"I suppose so," admitted Faith. "But why does everybody seem to
think it funny that I should have loved Adam so much, Miss West?
If it had been a horrid old cat nobody would have thought it
queer. When Lottie Warren's kitten had its legs cut off by the
binder everybody was sorry for her. She cried two days in school
and nobody laughed at her, not even Dan Reese. And all her chums
went to the kitten's funeral and helped her bury it--only they
couldn't bury its poor little paws with it, because they couldn't
find them. It was a horrid thing to have happen, of course, but
I don't think it was as dreadful as seeing your pet EATEN UP.
Yet everybody laughs at ME."

"I think it is because the name 'rooster' seems rather a funny
one," said Rosemary gravely. "There IS something in it that is
comical. Now, 'chicken' is different. It doesn't sound so funny
to talk of loving a chicken."

"Adam was the dearest little chicken, Miss West. He was just a
little golden ball. He would run up to me and peck out of my
hand. And he was handsome when he grew up, too--white as snow,
with such a beautiful curving white tail, though Mary Vance said
it was too short. He knew his name and always came when I called
him--he was a very intelligent rooster. And Aunt Martha had no
right to kill him. He was mine. It wasn't fair, was it, Miss
West?"

"No, it wasn't," said Rosemary decidedly. "Not a bit fair. I
remember I had a pet hen when I was a little girl. She was such
a pretty little thing--all golden brown and speckly. I loved her
as much as I ever loved any pet. She was never killed--she died
of old age. Mother wouldn't have her killed because she was my
pet."

"If MY mother had been living she wouldn't have let Adam be
killed," said Faith. "For that matter, father wouldn't have
either, if he'd been home and known of it. I'm SURE he wouldn't,
Miss West."

"I'm sure, too," said Rosemary. There was a little added flush on
her face. She looked rather conscious but Faith noticed nothing.

"Was it VERY wicked of me not to tell Mr. Perry his coat-tails
were scorching?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, terribly wicked," answered Rosemary, with dancing eyes.
"But _I_ would have been just as naughty, Faith--_I_ wouldn't
have told him they were scorching--and I don't believe I would
ever have been a bit sorry for my wickedness, either."

"Una thought I should have told him because he was a minister."

"Dearest, if a minister doesn't behave as a gentleman we are not
bound to respect his coat-tails. I know _I_ would just have
loved to see Jimmy Perry's coat-tails burning up. It must have
been fun."

Both laughed; but Faith ended with a bitter little sigh.

"Well, anyway, Adam is dead and I am NEVER going to love anything
again."

"Don't say that, dear. We miss so much out of life if we don't
love. The more we love the richer life is--even if it is only
some little furry or feathery pet. Would you like a canary,
Faith--a little golden bit of a canary? If you would I'll give
you one. We have two up home."

"Oh, I WOULD like that," cried Faith. "I love birds.
Only--would Aunt Martha's cat eat it? It's so TRAGIC to have
your pets eaten. I don't think I could endure it a second time."

"If you hang the cage far enough from the wall I don't think the
cat could harm it. I'll tell you just how to take care of it and
I'll bring it to Ingleside for you the next time I come down."

To herself, Rosemary was thinking,

"It will give every gossip in the Glen something to talk of, but
I WILL not care. I want to comfort this poor little heart."

Faith was comforted. Sympathy and understanding were very sweet.
She and Miss Rosemary sat on the old pine until the twilight
crept softly down over the white valley and the evening star
shone over the gray maple grove. Faith told Rosemary all her
small history and hopes, her likes and dislikes, the ins and outs
of life at the manse, the ups and downs of school society.
Finally they parted firm friends.

Mr. Meredith was, as usual, lost in dreams when supper began that
evening, but presently a name pierced his abstraction and brought
him back to reality. Faith was telling Una of her meeting with
Rosemary.

"She is just lovely, I think," said Faith. "Just as nice as Mrs.
Blythe--but different. I felt as if I wanted to hug her. She
did hug ME--such a nice, velvety hug. And she called me
'dearest.' It THRILLED me. I could tell her ANYTHING."

"So you liked Miss West, Faith?" Mr. Meredith asked, with a
rather odd intonation.

"I love her," cried Faith.

"Ah!" said Mr. Meredith. "Ah!"



CHAPTER XXI. THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD

John Meredith walked meditatively through the clear crispness of
a winter night in Rainbow Valley. The hills beyond glistened
with the chill splendid lustre of moonlight on snow. Every
little fir tree in the long valley sang its own wild song to the
harp of wind and frost. His children and the Blythe lads and
lasses were coasting down the eastern slope and whizzing over the
glassy pond. They were having a glorious time and their gay
voices and gayer laughter echoed up and down the valley, dying
away in elfin cadences among the trees. On the right the lights
of Ingleside gleamed through the maple grove with the genial lure
and invitation which seems always to glow in the beacons of a
home where we know there is love and good-cheer and a welcome for
all kin, whether of flesh or spirit. Mr. Meredith liked very well
on occasion to spend an evening arguing with the doctor by the
drift wood fire, where the famous china dogs of Ingleside kept
ceaseless watch and ward, as became deities of the hearth, but
to-night he did not look that way. Far on the western hill
gleamed a paler but more alluring star. Mr. Meredith was on his
way to see Rosemary West, and he meant to tell her something
which had been slowly blossoming in his heart since their first
meeting and had sprung into full flower on the evening when Faith
had so warmly voiced her admiration for Rosemary.

He had come to realize that he had learned to care for Rosemary.
Not as he had cared for Cecilia, of course. THAT was entirely
different. That love of romance and dream and glamour could
never, he thought, return. But Rosemary was beautiful and sweet
and dear--very dear. She was the best of companions. He was
happier in her company than he had ever expected to be again.
She would be an ideal mistress for his home, a good mother to his
children.

During the years of his widowhood Mr. Meredith had received
innumerable hints from brother members of Presbytery and from
many parishioners who could not be suspected of any ulterior
motive, as well as from some who could, that he ought to marry
again: But these hints never made any impression on him. It was
commonly thought he was never aware of them. But he was quite
acutely aware of them. And in his own occasional visitations of
common sense he knew that the common sensible thing for him to do
was to marry. But common sense was not the strong point of John
Meredith, and to choose out, deliberately and cold-bloodedly,
some "suitable" woman, as one might choose a housekeeper or a
business partner, was something he was quite incapable of doing.
How he hated that word "suitable." It reminded him so strongly
of James Perry. "A SUIT able woman of SUIT able age," that
unctuous brother of the cloth had said, in his far from subtle
hint. For the moment John Meredith had had a perfectly
unbelievable desire to rush madly away and propose marriage to
the youngest, most unsuitable woman it was possible to discover.

Mrs. Marshall Elliott was his good friend and he liked her. But
when she had bluntly told him he should marry again he felt as if
she had torn away the veil that hung before some sacred shrine of
his innermost life, and he had been more or less afraid of her
ever since. He knew there were women in his congregation "of
suitable age" who would marry him quite readily. That fact had
seeped through all his abstraction very early in his ministry in
Glen St. Mary. They were good, substantial, uninteresting women,
one or two fairly comely, the others not exactly so and John
Meredith would as soon have thought of marrying any one of them
as of hanging himself. He had some ideals to which no seeming
necessity could make him false. He could ask no woman to fill
Cecilia's place in his home unless he could offer her at least
some of the affection and homage he had given to his girlish
bride. And where, in his limited feminine acquaintance, was such
a woman to be found?

Rosemary West had come into his life on that autumn evening
bringing with her an atmosphere in which his spirit recognized
native air. Across the gulf of strangerhood they clasped hands
of friendship. He knew her better in that ten minutes by the
hidden spring than he knew Emmeline Drew or Elizabeth Kirk or Amy
Annetta Douglas in a year, or could know them, in a century. He
had fled to her for comfort when Mrs. Alec Davis had outraged his
mind and soul and had found it. Since then he had gone often to
the house on the hill, slipping through the shadowy paths of
night in Rainbow Valley so astutely that Glen gossip could never
be absolutely certain that he DID go to see Rosemary West. Once
or twice he had been caught in the West living room by other
visitors; that was all the Ladies' Aid had to go by. But when
Elizabeth Kirk heard it she put away a secret hope she had
allowed herself to cherish, without a change of expression on her
kind plain face, and Emmeline Drew resolved that the next time
she saw a certain old bachelor of Lowbridge she would not snub
him as she had done at a previous meeting. Of course, if
Rosemary West was out to catch the minister she would catch him;
she looked younger than she was and MEN thought her pretty;
besides, the West girls had money!

"It is to be hoped that he won't be so absent-minded as to
propose to Ellen by mistake," was the only malicious thing she
allowed herself to say to a sympathetic sister Drew. Emmeline
bore no further grudge towards Rosemary. When all was said and
done, an unencumbered bachelor was far better than a widower with
four children. It had been only the glamour of the manse that
had temporarily blinded Emmeline's eyes to the better part.

A sled with three shrieking occupants sped past Mr. Meredith to
the pond. Faith's long curls streamed in the wind and her
laughter rang above that of the others. John Meredith looked
after them kindly and longingly. He was glad that his children
had such chums as the Blythes--glad that they had so wise and gay
and tender a friend as Mrs. Blythe. But they needed something
more, and that something would be supplied when he brought
Rosemary West as a bride to the old manse. There was in her a
quality essentially maternal.

It was Saturday night and he did not often go calling on Saturday
night, which was supposed to be dedicated to a thoughtful
revision of Sunday's sermon. But he had chosen this night
because he had learned that Ellen West was going to be away and
Rosemary would be alone. Often as he had spent pleasant evenings
in the house on the hill he had never, since that first meeting
at the spring, seen Rosemary alone. Ellen had always been there.

He did not precisely object to Ellen being there. He liked Ellen
West very much and they were the best of friends. Ellen had an
almost masculine understanding and a sense of humour which his
own shy, hidden appreciation of fun found very agreeable. He
liked her interest in politics and world events. There was no
man in the Glen, not even excepting Dr. Blythe, who had a better
grasp of such things.

"I think it is just as well to be interested in things as long as
you live," she had said. "If you're not, it doesn't seem to me
that there's much difference between the quick and the dead."

He liked her pleasant, deep, rumbly voice; he liked the hearty
laugh with which she always ended up some jolly and well-told
story. She never gave him digs about his children as other Glen
women did; she never bored him with local gossip; she had no
malice and no pettiness. She was always splendidly sincere. Mr.
Meredith, who had picked up Miss Cornelia's way of classifying
people, considered that Ellen belonged to the race of Joseph.
Altogether, an admirable woman for a sister-in-law.
Nevertheless, a man did not want even the most admirable of women
around when he was proposing to another woman. And Ellen was
always around. She did not insist on talking to Mr. Meredith
herself all the time. She let Rosemary have a fair share of him.
Many evenings, indeed, Ellen effaced herself almost totally,
sitting back in the corner with St. George in her lap, and
letting Mr. Meredith and Rosemary talk and sing and read books
together. Sometimes they quite forgot her presence. But if
their conversation or choice of duets ever betrayed the least
tendency to what Ellen considered philandering, Ellen promptly
nipped that tendency in the bud and blotted Rosemary out for the
rest of the evening. But not even the grimmest of amiable
dragons can altogether prevent a certain subtle language of eye
and smile and eloquent silence; and so the minister's courtship
progressed after a fashion.

But if it was ever to reach a climax that climax must come when
Ellen was away. And Ellen was so seldom away, especially in
winter. She found her own fireside the pleasantest place in the
world, she vowed. Gadding had no attraction for her. She was
fond of company but she wanted it at home. Mr. Meredith had
almost been driven to the conclusion that he must write to
Rosemary what he wanted to say, when Ellen casually announced one
evening that she was going to a silver wedding next Saturday
night. She had been bridesmaid when the principals were married.
Only old guests were invited, so Rosemary was not included. Mr.
Meredith pricked up his ears a trifle and a gleam flashed into
his dreamy dark eyes. Both Ellen and Rosemary saw it; and both
Ellen and Rosemary felt, with a tingling shock, that Mr. Meredith
would certainly come up the hill next Saturday night.

"Might as well have it over with, St. George," Ellen sternly told
the black cat, after Mr. Meredith had gone home and Rosemary had
silently gone upstairs. "He means to ask her, St. George--I'm
perfectly sure of that. So he might as well have his chance to
do it and find out he can't get her, George. She'd rather like
to take him, Saint. I know that--but she promised, and she's got
to keep her promise. I'm rather sorry in some ways, St. George.
I don't know of a man I'd sooner have for a brother-in-law if a
brother-in-law was convenient. I haven't a thing against him,
Saint--not a thing except that he won't see and can't be made to
see that the Kaiser is a menace to the peace of Europe. That's
HIS blind spot. But he's good company and I like him. A woman
can say anything she likes to a man with a mouth like John
Meredith's and be sure of not being misunderstood. Such a man is
more precious than rubies, Saint--and much rarer, George. But he
can't have Rosemary--and I suppose when he finds out he can't
have her he'll drop us both. And we'll miss him, Saint--we'll
miss him something scandalous, George. But she promised, and
I'll see that she keeps her promise!"

Ellen's face looked almost ugly in its lowering resolution.
Upstairs Rosemary was crying into her pillow.

So Mr. Meredith found his lady alone and looking very beautiful.
Rosemary had not made any special toilet for the occasion; she
wanted to, but she thought it would be absurd to dress up for a
man you meant to refuse. So she wore her plain dark afternoon
dress and looked like a queen in it. Her suppressed excitement
coloured her face to brilliancy, her great blue eyes were pools
of light less placid than usual.

She wished the interview were over. She had looked forward to it
all day with dread. She felt quite sure that John Meredith cared
a great deal for her after a fashion--and she felt just as sure
that he did not care for her as he had cared for his first love.
She felt that her refusal would disappoint him considerably, but
she did not think it would altogether overwhelm him. Yet she
hated to make it; hated for his sake and--Rosemary was quite
honest with herself--for her own. She knew she could have loved
John Meredith if--if it had been permissible. She knew that
life would be a blank thing if, rejected as lover, he refused
longer to be a friend. She knew that she could be very happy
with him and that she could make him happy. But between her and
happiness stood the prison gate of the promise she had made to
Ellen years ago. Rosemary could not remember her father. He had
died when she was only three years old. Ellen, who had been
thirteen, remembered him, but with no special tenderness. He had
been a stern, reserved man many years older than his fair, pretty
wife. Five years later their brother of twelve died also; since
his death the two girls had always lived alone with their mother.
They had never mingled very freely in the social life of the Glen
or Lowbridge, though where they went the wit and spirit of Ellen
and the sweetness and beauty of Rosemary made them welcome
guests. Both had what was called "a disappointment" in their
girlhood. The sea had not given up Rosemary's lover; and Norman
Douglas, then a handsome, red-haired young giant, noted for wild
driving and noisy though harmless escapades, had quarrelled with
Ellen and left her in a fit of pique.

There were not lacking candidates for both Martin's and Norman's
places, but none seemed to find favour in the eyes of the West
girls, who drifted slowly out of youth and bellehood without any
seeming regret. They were devoted to their mother, who was a
chronic invalid. The three had a little circle of home
interests--books and pets and flowers--which made them happy and
contented.

Mrs. West's death, which occurred on Rosemary's twenty-fifth
birthday, was a bitter grief to them. At first they were
intolerably lonely. Ellen, especially, continued to grieve and
brood, her long, moody musings broken only by fits of stormy,
passionate weeping. The old Lowbridge doctor told Rosemary that
he feared permanent melancholy or worse.

Once, when Ellen had sat all day, refusing either to speak or
eat, Rosemary had flung herself on her knees by her sister's
side.

"Oh, Ellen, you have me yet," she said imploringly. "Am I
nothing to you? We have always loved each other so."

"I won't have you always," Ellen had said, breaking her silence
with harsh intensity. "You will marry and leave me. I shall be
left all alone. I cannot bear the thought--I CANNOT. I would
rather die."

"I will never marry," said Rosemary, "never, Ellen."

Ellen bent forward and looked searchingly into Rosemary's eyes.

"Will you promise me that solemnly?" she said. "Promise it on
mother's Bible."

Rosemary assented at once, quite willing to humour Ellen. What
did it matter? She knew quite well she would never want to marry
any one. Her love had gone down with Martin Crawford to the
deeps of the sea; and without love she could not marry any one.
So she promised readily, though Ellen made rather a fearsome rite
of it. They clasped hands over the Bible, in their mother's
vacant room, and both vowed to each other that they would never
marry and would always live together.

Ellen's condition improved from that hour. She soon regained her
normal cheery poise. For ten years she and Rosemary lived in the
old house happily, undisturbed by any thought of marrying or
giving in marriage. Their promise sat very lightly on them.
Ellen never failed to remind her sister of it whenever any
eligible male creature crossed their paths, but she had never
been really alarmed until John Meredith came home that night with
Rosemary. As for Rosemary, Ellen's obsession regarding that
promise had always been a little matter of mirth to her--until
lately. Now, it was a merciless fetter, self-imposed but never
to be shaken off. Because of it to-night she must turn her face
from happiness.

It was true that the shy, sweet, rosebud love she had given to
her boy-lover she could never give to another. But she knew now
that she could give to John Meredith a love richer and more
womanly. She knew that he touched deeps in her nature that
Martin had never touched--that had not, perhaps, been in the girl
of seventeen to touch. And she must send him away to-night--send
him back to his lonely hearth and his empty life and his
heart-breaking problems, because she had promised Ellen, ten
years before, on their mother's Bible, that she would never
marry.

John Meredith did not immediately grasp his opportunity. On the
contrary, he talked for two good hours on the least lover-like of
subjects. He even tried politics, though politics always bored
Rosemary. The later began to think that she had been altogether
mistaken, and her fears and expectations suddenly seemed to her
grotesque. She felt flat and foolish. The glow went out of her
face and the lustre out of her eyes. John Meredith had not the
slightest intention of asking her to marry him.

And then, quite suddenly, he rose, came across the room, and
standing by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly
still. Even St. George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own
heart beating and was sure John Meredith must hear it too.

Now was the time for her to say no, gently but firmly. She had
been ready for days with her stilted, regretful little formula.
And now the words of it had completely vanished from her mind.
She had to say no--and she suddenly found she could not say it.
It was the impossible word. She knew now that it was not that
she COULD have loved John Meredith, but that she DID love him.
The thought of putting him from her life was agony.

She must say SOMETHING; she lifted her bowed golden head and
asked him stammeringly to give her a few days for--for
consideration.

John Meredith was a little surprised. He was not vainer than any
man has a right to be, but he had expected that Rosemary West
would say yes. He had been tolerably sure she cared for him.
Then why this doubt--this hesitation? She was not a school girl
to be uncertain as to her own mind. He felt an ugly shock of
disappointment and dismay. But he assented to her request with
his unfailing gentle courtesy and went away at once.

"I will tell you in a few days," said Rosemary, with downcast
eyes and burning face.

When the door shut behind him she went back into the room and
wrung her hands.



CHAPTER XXII. ST. GEORGE KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT

At midnight Ellen West was walking home from the Pollock silver
wedding. She had stayed a little while after the other guests
had gone, to help the gray-haired bride wash the dishes. The
distance between the two houses was not far and the road good, so
that Ellen was enjoying the walk back home in the moonlight.

The evening had been a pleasant one. Ellen, who had not been to
a party for years, found it very pleasant. All the guests had
been members of her old set and there was no intrusive youth to
spoil the flavour, for the only son of the bride and groom was
far away at college and could not be present. Norman Douglas had
been there and they had met socially for the first time in years,
though she had seen him once or twice in church that winter. Not
the least sentiment was awakened in Ellen's heart by their
meeting. She was accustomed to wonder, when she thought about it
at all, how she could ever have fancied him or felt so badly over
his sudden marriage. But she had rather liked meeting him again.
She had forgotten how bracing and stimulating he could be. No
gathering was ever stagnant when Norman Douglas was present.
Everybody had been surprised when Norman came. It was well known
he never went anywhere. The Pollocks had invited him because he
had been one of the original guests, but they never thought he
would come. He had taken his second cousin, Amy Annetta Douglas,
out to supper and seemed rather attentive to her. But Ellen sat
across the table from him and had a spirited argument with
him--an argument during which all his shouting and banter could
not fluster her and in which she came off best, flooring Norman
so composedly and so completely that he was silent for ten
minutes. At the end of which time he had muttered in his ruddy
beard--"spunky as ever--spunky as ever"--and began to hector Amy
Annetta, who giggled foolishly over his sallies where Ellen would
have retorted bitingly.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.