Book: Rainbow Valley

L >> Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Rainbow Valley




Ellen thought these things over as she walked home, tasting them
with reminiscent relish. The moonlit air sparkled with frost.
The snow crisped under her feet. Below her lay the Glen with the
white harbour beyond. There was a light in the manse study. So
John Meredith had gone home. Had he asked Rosemary to marry him?
And after what fashion had she made her refusal known? Ellen
felt that she would never know this, though she was quite
curious. She was sure Rosemary would never tell her anything
about it and she would not dare to ask. She must just be content
with the fact of the refusal. After all, that was the only thing
that really mattered.

"I hope he'll have sense enough to come back once in a while and
be friendly," she said to herself. She disliked so much to be
alone that thinking aloud was one of her devices for
circumventing unwelcome solitude. "It's awful never to have a
man-body with some brains to talk to once in a while. And like
as not he'll never come near the house again. There's Norman
Douglas, too--I like that man, and I'd like to have a good
rousing argument with him now and then. But he'd never dare come
up for fear people would think he was courting me again--for fear
I'D think it, too, most likely--though he's more a stranger to me
now than John Meredith. It seems like a dream that we could ever
have been beaus. But there it is--there's only two men in the
Glen I'd ever want to talk to--and what with gossip and this
wretched love-making business it's not likely I'll ever see
either of them again. I could," said Ellen, addressing the
unmoved stars with a spiteful emphasis, "I could have made a
better world myself."

She paused at her gate with a sudden vague feeling of alarm.
There was still a light in the living-room and to and fro across
the window-shades went the shadow of a woman walking restlessly
up and down. What was Rosemary doing up at this hour of the
night? And why was she striding about like a lunatic?

Ellen went softly in. As she opened the hall door Rosemary came
out of the room. She was flushed and breathless. An atmosphere
of stress and passion hung about her like a garment.

"Why aren't you in bed, Rosemary?" demanded Ellen.

"Come in here," said Rosemary intensely. "I want to tell you
something."

Ellen composedly removed her wraps and overshoes, and followed
her sister into the warm, fire-lighted room. She stood with her
hand on the table and waited. She was looking very handsome
herself, in her own grim, black-browed style. The new black
velvet dress, with its train and V-neck, which she had made
purposely for the party, became her stately, massive figure. She
wore coiled around her neck the rich heavy necklace of amber
beads which was a family heirloom. Her walk in the frosty air
had stung her cheeks into a glowing scarlet. But her steel-blue
eyes were as icy and unyielding as the sky of the winter night.
She stood waiting in a silence which Rosemary could break only by
a convulsive effort.

"Ellen, Mr. Meredith was here this evening."

"Yes?"

"And--and--he asked me to marry him."

"So I expected. Of course, you refused him?"

"No."

"Rosemary." Ellen clenched her hands and took an involuntary
step forward. "Do you mean to tell me that you accepted him?"

"No--no."

Ellen recovered her self-command.

"What DID you do then?"

"I--I asked him to give me a few days to think it over."

"I hardly see why that was necessary," said Ellen, coldly
contemptuous, "when there is only the one answer you can make
him."

Rosemary held out her hands beseechingly.

"Ellen," she said desperately, "I love John Meredith--I want to
be his wife. Will you set me free from that promise?"

"No," said Ellen, merciless, because she was sick from fear.

"Ellen--Ellen--"

"Listen," interrupted Ellen. "I did not ask you for that
promise. You offered it."

"I know--I know. But I did not think then that I could ever care
for anyone again."

"You offered it," went on Ellen unmovably. "You promised it over
our mother's Bible. It was more than a promise--it was an oath.
Now you want to break it."

"I only asked you to set me free from it, Ellen."

"I will not do it. A promise is a promise in my eyes. I will
not do it. Break your promise--be forsworn if you will--but it
shall not be with any assent of mine."

"You are very hard on me, Ellen."

"Hard on you! And what of me? Have you ever given a thought to
what my loneliness would be here if you left me? I could not
bear it--I would go crazy. I CANNOT live alone. Haven't I been
a good sister to you? Have I ever opposed any wish of yours?
Haven't I indulged you in everything?"

"Yes--yes."

"Then why do you want to leave me for this man whom you hadn't
seen a year ago?"

"I love him, Ellen."

"Love! You talk like a school miss instead of a middle-aged
woman. He doesn't love you. He wants a housekeeper and a
governess. You don't love him. You want to be 'Mrs.'--you are
one of those weak-minded women who think it's a disgrace to be
ranked as an old maid. That's all there is to it."

Rosemary quivered. Ellen could not, or would not, understand.
There was no use arguing with her.

"So you won't release me, Ellen?"

"No, I won't. And I won't talk of it again. You promised and
you've got to keep your word. That's all. Go to bed. Look at
the time! You're all romantic and worked up. To-morrow you'll
be more sensible. At any rate, don't let me hear any more of
this nonsense. Go."

Rosemary went without another word, pale and spiritless. Ellen
walked stormily about the room for a few minutes, then paused
before the chair where St. George had been calmly sleeping
through the whole evening. A reluctant smile overspread her dark
face. There had been only one time in her life--the time of her
mother's death--when Ellen had not been able to temper tragedy
with comedy. Even in that long ago bitterness, when Norman
Douglas had, after a fashion, jilted her, she had laughed at
herself quite as often as she had cried.

"I expect there'll be some sulking, St. George. Yes, Saint, I
expect we are in for a few unpleasant foggy days. Well, we'll
weather them through, George. We've dealt with foolish children
before, Saint. Rosemary'll sulk a while--and then she'll get
over it--and all will be as before, George. She promised--and
she's got to keep her promise. And that's the last word on the
subject I'll say to you or her or anyone, Saint."

But Ellen lay savagely awake till morning.

There was no sulking, however. Rosemary was pale and quiet the
next day, but beyond that Ellen could detect no difference in
her. Certainly, she seemed to bear Ellen no grudge. It was
stormy, so no mention was made of going to church. In the
afternoon Rosemary shut herself in her room and wrote a note to
John Meredith. She could not trust herself to say "no" in
person. She felt quite sure that if he suspected she was
saying "no" reluctantly he would not take it for an answer, and
she could not face pleading or entreaty. She must make him think
she cared nothing at all for him and she could do that only by
letter. She wrote him the stiffest, coolest little refusal
imaginable. It was barely courteous; it certainly left no
loophole of hope for the boldest lover--and John Meredith was
anything but that. He shrank into himself, hurt and mortified,
when he read Rosemary's letter next day in his dusty study. But
under his mortification a dreadful realization presently made
itself felt. He had thought he did not love Rosemary as deeply
as he had loved Cecilia. Now, when he had lost her, he knew that
he did. She was everything to him--everything! And he must put
her out of his life completely. Even friendship was impossible
now. Life stretched before him in intolerable dreariness. He
must go on--there was his work--his children--but the heart had
gone out of him. He sat alone all that evening in his dark,
cold, comfortless study with his head bowed on his hands. Up on
the hill Rosemary had a headache and went early to bed, while
Ellen remarked to St. George, purring his disdain of foolish
humankind, who did not know that a soft cushion was the only
thing that really mattered,

"What would women do if headaches had never been invented, St.
George? But never mind, Saint. We'll just wink the other eye
for a few weeks. I admit I don't feel comfortable myself,
George. I feel as if I had drowned a kitten. But she promised,
Saint--and she was the one to offer it, George. Bismillah!"



CHAPTER XXIII. THE GOOD-CONDUCT CLUB

A light rain had been falling all day--a little, delicate,
beautiful spring rain, that somehow seemed to hint and whisper of
mayflowers and wakening violets. The harbour and the gulf and
the low-lying shore fields had been dim with pearl-gray mists.
But now in the evening the rain had ceased and the mists had
blown out to sea. Clouds sprinkled the sky over the harbour like
little fiery roses. Beyond it the hills were dark against a
spendthrift splendour of daffodil and crimson. A great silvery
evening star was watching over the bar. A brisk, dancing,
new-sprung wind was blowing up from Rainbow Valley, resinous with
the odours of fir and damp mosses. It crooned in the old spruces
around the graveyard and ruffled Faith's splendid curls as she
sat on Hezekiah Pollock's tombstone with her arms round Mary
Vance and Una. Carl and Jerry were sitting opposite them on
another tombstone and all were rather full of mischief after
being cooped up all day.

"The air just SHINES to-night, doesn't it? It's been washed so
clean, you see," said Faith happily.

Mary Vance eyed her gloomily. Knowing what she knew, or fancied
she knew, Mary considered that Faith was far too light-hearted.
Mary had something on her mind to say and she meant to say it
before she went home. Mrs. Elliott had sent her up to the manse
with some new-laid eggs, and had told her not to stay longer than
half an hour. The half hour was nearly up, so Mary uncurled her
cramped legs from under her and said abruptly,

"Never mind about the air. Just you listen to me. You manse
young ones have just got to behave yourselves better than you've
been doing this spring--that's all there is to it. I just come
up to-night a-purpose to tell you so. The way people are talking
about you is awful."

"What have we been doing now?" cried Faith in amazement, pulling
her arm away from Mary. Una's lips trembled and her sensitive
little soul shrank within her. Mary was always so brutally
frank. Jerry began to whistle out of bravado. He meant to let
Mary see he didn't care for HER tirades. Their behaviour was no
business of HERS anyway. What right had SHE to lecture them on
their conduct?

"Doing now! You're doing ALL the time," retorted Mary. "Just as
soon as the talk about one of your didos fades away you do
something else to start it up again. It seems to me you haven't
any idea of how manse children ought to behave!"

"Maybe YOU can tell us," said Jerry, killingly sarcastic.

Sarcasm was quite thrown away on Mary.

"_I_ can tell you what will happen if you don't learn to behave
yourselves. The session will ask your father to resign. There
now, Master Jerry-know-it-all. Mrs. Alec Davis said so to Mrs.
Elliott. I heard her. I always have my ears pricked up when
Mrs. Alec Davis comes to tea. She said you were all going from
bad to worse and that though it was only what was to be expected
when you had nobody to bring you up, still the congregation
couldn't be expected to put up with it much longer, and something
would have to be done. The Methodists just laugh and laugh at
you, and that hurts the Presbyterian feelings. SHE says you all
need a good dose of birch tonic. Lor', if that would make folks
good _I_ oughter be a young saint. I'm not telling you this
because I want to hurt YOUR feelings. I'm sorry for you"--Mary
was past mistress of the gentle art of condescension." _I_
understand that you haven't much chance, the way things are. But
other people don't make as much allowance as _I_ do. Miss Drew
says Carl had a frog in his pocket in Sunday School last Sunday
and it hopped out while she was hearing the lesson. She says
she's going to give up the class. Why don't you keep your
insecks home?"

"I popped it right back in again," said Carl. "It didn't hurt
anybody--a poor little frog! And I wish old Jane Drew WOULD give
up our class. I hate her. Her own nephew had a dirty plug of
tobacco in his pocket and offered us fellows a chew when Elder
Clow was praying. I guess that's worse than a frog."

"No, 'cause frogs are more unexpected-like. They make more of a
sensation. 'Sides, he wasn't caught at it. And then that
praying competition you had last week has made a fearful scandal.
Everybody is talking about it."

"Why, the Blythes were in that as well as us," cried Faith,
indignantly. "It was Nan Blythe who suggested it in the first
place. And Walter took the prize."

"Well, you get the credit of it any way. It wouldn't have been
so bad if you hadn't had it in the graveyard."

"I should think a graveyard was a very good place to pray in,"
retorted Jerry.

"Deacon Hazard drove past when YOU were praying," said Mary, "and
he saw and heard you, with your hands folded over your stomach,
and groaning after every sentence. He thought you were making
fun of HIM."

"So I was," declared unabashed Jerry. "Only I didn't know he was
going by, of course. That was just a mean accident. _I_ wasn't
praying in real earnest--I knew I had no chance of winning the
prize. So I was just getting what fun I could out of it. Walter
Blythe can pray bully. Why, he can pray as well as dad."

"Una is the only one of US who really likes praying," said Faith
pensively.

"Well, if praying scandalizes people so much we mustn't do it any
more," sighed Una.

"Shucks, you can pray all you want to, only not in the
graveyard--and don't make a game of it. That was what made it so
bad--that, and having a tea-party on the tombstones."

"We hadn't."

"Well, a soap-bubble party then. You had SOMETHING. The
over-harbour people swear you had a tea-party, but I'm willing to
take your word. And you used this tombstone as a table."

"Well, Martha wouldn't let us blow bubbles in the house. She was
awful cross that day," explained Jerry. "And this old slab made
such a jolly table."

"Weren't they pretty?" cried Faith, her eyes sparkling over the
remembrance. "They reflected the trees and the hills and the
harbour like little fairy worlds, and when we shook them loose
they floated away down to Rainbow Valley."

"All but one and it went over and bust up on the Methodist
spire," said Carl.

"I'm glad we did it once, anyhow, before we found out it was
wrong," said Faith.

"It wouldn't have been wrong to blow them on the lawn," said Mary
impatiently. "Seems like I can't knock any sense into your
heads. You've been told often enough you shouldn't play in the
graveyard. The Methodists are sensitive about it."

"We forget," said Faith dolefully. "And the lawn is so
small--and so caterpillary--and so full of shrubs and things. We
can't be in Rainbow Valley all the time--and where are we to go?"

"It's the things you DO in the graveyard. It wouldn't matter if
you just sat here and talked quiet, same as we're doing now.
Well, I don't know what is going to come of it all, but I DO know
that Elder Warren is going to speak to your pa about it. Deacon
Hazard is his cousin."

"I wish they wouldn't bother father about us," said Una.

"Well, people think he ought to bother himself about you a little
more. _I_ don't--_I_ understand him. He's a child in some ways
himself--that's what he is, and needs some one to look after him
as bad as you do. Well, perhaps he'll have some one before long,
if all tales is true."

"What do you mean?" asked Faith.

"Haven't you got any idea--honest?" demanded Mary.

"No, no. What DO you mean?"

"Well, you are a lot of innocents, upon my word. Why, EVERYbody
is talking of it. Your pa goes to see Rosemary West. SHE is
going to be your step-ma."

"I don't believe it," cried Una, flushing crimson.

"Well, _I_ dunno. I just go by what folks say. _I_ don't give
it for a fact. But it would be a good thing. Rosemary West'd
make you toe the mark if she came here, I'll bet a cent, for all
she's so sweet and smiley on the face of her. They're always
that way till they've caught them. But you need some one to
bring you up. You're disgracing your pa and I feel for him.
I've always thought an awful lot of your pa ever since that night
he talked to me so nice. I've never said a single swear word
since, or told a lie. And I'd like to see him happy and
comfortable, with his buttons on and his meals decent, and you
young ones licked into shape, and that old cat of a Martha put in
HER proper place. The way she looked at the eggs I brought her
to-night. 'I hope they're fresh,' says she. I just wished they
WAS rotten. But you just mind that she gives you all one for
breakfast, including your pa. Make a fuss if she doesn't. That
was what they was sent up for--but I don't trust old Martha.
She's quite capable of feeding 'em to her cat."

Mary's tongue being temporarily tired, a brief silence fell over
the graveyard. The manse children did not feel like talking.
They were digesting the new and not altogether palatable ideas
Mary had suggested to them. Jerry and Carl were somewhat
startled. But, after all, what did it matter? And it wasn't
likely there was a word of truth in it. Faith, on the whole, was
pleased. Only Una was seriously upset. She felt that she would
like to get away and cry.

"Will there be any stars in my crown?" sang the Methodist choir,
beginning to practise in the Methodist church.

"_I_ want just three," said Mary, whose theological knowledge had
increased notably since her residence with Mrs. Elliott. "Just
three--setting up on my head, like a corownet, a big one in the
middle and a small one each side."

"Are there different sizes in souls?" asked Carl.

"Of course. Why, little babies must have smaller ones than big
men. Well, it's getting dark and I must scoot home. Mrs.
Elliott doesn't like me to be out after dark. Laws, when I lived
with Mrs. Wiley the dark was just the same as the daylight to me.
I didn't mind it no more'n a gray cat. Them days seem a hundred
years ago. Now, you mind what I've said and try to behave
yourselves, for you pa's sake. I'LL always back you up and
defend you--you can be dead sure of that. Mrs. Elliott says she
never saw the like of me for sticking up for my friends. I was
real sassy to Mrs. Alec Davis about you and Mrs. Elliott combed
me down for it afterwards. The fair Cornelia has a tongue of her
own and no mistake. But she was pleased underneath for all,
'cause she hates old Kitty Alec and she's real fond of you. _I_
can see through folks."

Mary sailed off, excellently well pleased with herself, leaving a
rather depressed little group behind her.

"Mary Vance always says something that makes us feel bad when she
comes up," said Una resentfully.

"I wish we'd left her to starve in the old barn," said Jerry
vindictively.

"Oh, that's wicked, Jerry," rebuked Una.

"May as well have the game as the name," retorted unrepentant
Jerry. "If people say we're so bad let's BE bad."

"But not if it hurts father," pleaded Faith.

Jerry squirmed uncomfortably. He adored his father. Through the
unshaded study window they could see Mr. Meredith at his desk.
He did not seem to be either reading or writing. His head was in
his hands and there was something in his whole attitude that
spoke of weariness and dejection. The children suddenly felt it.

"I dare say somebody's been worrying him about us to-day," said
Faith. "I wish we COULD get along without making people talk.
Oh--Jem Blythe! How you scared me!"

Jem Blythe had slipped into the graveyard and sat down beside the
girls. He had been prowling about Rainbow Valley and had
succeeded in finding the first little star-white cluster of
arbutus for his mother. The manse children were rather silent
after his coming. Jem was beginning to grow away from them
somewhat this spring. He was studying for the entrance
examination of Queen's Academy and stayed after school with the
older pupils for extra lessons. Also, his evenings were so full
of work that he seldom joined the others in Rainbow Valley now.
He seemed to be drifting away into grown-up land.

"What is the matter with you all to-night?" he asked. "There's
no fun in you."

"Not much," agreed Faith dolefully. "There wouldn't be much fun
in you either if YOU knew you were disgracing your father and
making people talk about you."

"Who's been talking about you now?"

"Everybody--so Mary Vance says." And Faith poured out her
troubles to sympathetic Jem. "You see," she concluded dolefully,
"we've nobody to bring us up. And so we get into scrapes and
people think we're bad."

"Why don't you bring yourselves up?" suggested Jem. "I'll tell
you what to do. Form a Good-Conduct Club and punish yourselves
every time you do anything that's not right."

"That's a good idea," said Faith, struck by it. "But," she
added doubtfully, "things that don't seem a bit of harm to US
seem simply dreadful to other people. How can we tell? We can't
be bothering father all the time--and he has to be away a lot,
anyhow."

"You could mostly tell if you stopped to think a thing over
before doing it and ask yourselves what the congregation would
say about it," said Jem. "The trouble is you just rush into
things and don't think them over at all. Mother says you're all
too impulsive, just as she used to be. The Good-Conduct Club
would help you to think, if you were fair and honest about
punishing yourselves when you broke the rules. You'd have to
punish in some way that really HURT, or it wouldn't do any good."

"Whip each other?"

"Not exactly. You'd have to think up different ways of
punishment to suit the person. You wouldn't punish each
other--you'd punish YOURSELVES. I read all about such a club in
a story-book. You try it and see how it works."

"Let's," said Faith; and when Jem was gone they agreed they
would. "If things aren't right we've just got to make them
right," said Faith, resolutely.

"We've got to be fair and square, as Jem says," said Jerry.
"This is a club to bring ourselves up, seeing there's nobody else
to do it. There's no use in having many rules. Let's just have
one and any of us that breaks it has got to be punished hard."

"But HOW."

"We'll think that up as we go along. We'll hold a session of the
club here in the graveyard every night and talk over what we've
done through the day, and if we think we've done anything that
isn't right or that would disgrace dad the one that does it, or
is responsible for it, must be punished. That's the rule. We'll
all decide on the kind of punishment--it must be made to fit the
crime, as Mr. Flagg says. And the one that's, guilty will be
bound to carry it out and no shirking. There's going to be fun
in this," concluded Jerry, with a relish.

"You suggested the soap-bubble party," said Faith.

"But that was before we'd formed the club," said Jerry hastily.
"Everything starts from to-night."

"But what if we can't agree on what's right, or what the
punishment ought to be? S'pose two of us thought of one thing
and two another. There ought to be five in a club like this."

"We can ask Jem Blythe to be umpire. He is the squarest boy in
Glen St. Mary. But I guess we can settle our own affairs
mostly. We want to keep this as much of a secret as we can.
Don't breathe a word to Mary Vance. She'd want to join and do
the bringing up."

"_I_ think," said Faith, "that there's no use in spoiling every
day by dragging punishments in. Let's have a punishment day."

"We'd better choose Saturday because there is no school to
interfere," suggested Una.

"And spoil the one holiday in the week," cried Faith. "Not much!
No, let's take Friday. That's fish day, anyhow, and we all hate
fish. We may as well have all the disagreeable things in one
day. Then other days we can go ahead and have a good time."

"Nonsense," said Jerry authoritatively. "Such a scheme wouldn't
work at all. We'll just punish ourselves as we go along and keep
a clear slate. Now, we all understand, don't we? This is a
Good-Conduct Club, for the purpose of bringing ourselves up. We
agree to punish ourselves for bad conduct, and always to stop
before we do anything, no matter what, and ask ourselves if it is
likely to hurt dad in any way, and any one who shirks is to be
cast out of the club and never allowed to play with the rest of
us in Rainbow Valley again. Jem Blythe to be umpire in case of
disputes. No more taking bugs to Sunday School, Carl, and no
more chewing gum in public, if you please, Miss Faith."

"No more making fun of elders praying or going to the Methodist
prayer meeting," retorted Faith.

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