Book: Rainbow Valley

L >> Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Rainbow Valley




"Anyhow, I'm glad it wasn't what I was afraid it was," murmured
Una to herself.

Behind them, in the study, Mr. Meredith had sat down at his desk
and buried his face in his arms.

"God help me!" he said. "I'm a poor sort of father. Oh,
Rosemary! If you had only cared!"



CHAPTER XXVIII. A FAST DAY

The Good-Conduct Club had a special session the next morning
before school. After various suggestions, it was decided that a
fast day would be an appropriate punishment.

"We won't eat a single thing for a whole day," said Jerry. "I'm
kind of curious to see what fasting is like, anyhow. This will be
a good chance to find out."

"What day will we choose for it?" asked Una, who thought it would
he quite an easy punishment and rather wondered that Jerry and
Faith had not devised something harder.

"Let's pick Monday," said Faith. "We mostly have a pretty FILLING
dinner on Sundays, and Mondays meals never amount to much
anyhow."

"But that's just the point," exclaimed Jerry. "We mustn't take
the easiest day to fast, but the hardest--and that's Sunday,
because, as you say, we mostly have roast beef that day instead
of cold ditto. It wouldn't be much punishment to fast from
ditto. Let's take next Sunday. It will be a good day, for
father is going to exchange for the morning service with the
Upper Lowbridge minister. Father will be away till evening. If
Aunt Martha wonders what's got into us, we'll tell her right up
that we're fasting for the good of our souls, and it is in the
Bible and she is not to interfere, and I guess she won't."

Aunt Martha did not. She merely said in her fretful mumbling
way, "What foolishness are you young rips up to now?" and thought
no more about it. Mr. Meredith had gone away early in the
morning before any one was up. He went without his breakfast,
too, but that was, of course, of common occurrence. Half of the
time he forgot it and there was no one to remind him of it.
Breakfast--Aunt Martha's breakfast--was not a hard meal to miss.
Even the hungry "young rips" did not feel it any great
deprivation to abstain from the "lumpy porridge and blue milk"
which had aroused the scorn of Mary Vance. But it was different
at dinner time. They were furiously hungry then, and the odor of
roast beef which pervaded the manse, and which was wholly
delightful in spite of the fact that the roast beef was badly
underdone, was almost more than they could stand. In desperation
they rushed to the graveyard where they couldn't smell it. But
Una could not keep her eyes from the dining room window, through
which the Upper Lowbridge minister could be seen, placidly
eating.

"If I could only have just a weeny, teeny piece," she sighed.

"Now, you stop that," commanded Jerry. "Of course it's hard--but
that's the punishment of it. I could eat a graven image this very
minute, but am I complaining? Let's think of something else.
We've just got to rise above our stomachs."

At supper time they did not feel the pangs of hunger which they
had suffered earlier in the day.

"I suppose we're getting used to it," said Faith. "I feel an
awfully queer all-gone sort of feeling, but I can't say I'm
hungry."

"My head is funny," said Una. "It goes round and round
sometimes."

But she went gamely to church with the others. If Mr. Meredith
had not been so wholly wrapped up in and carried away with his
subject he might have noticed the pale little face and hollow
eyes in the manse pew beneath. But he noticed nothing and his
sermon was something longer than usual. Then, just before be gave
out the final hymn, Una Meredith tumbled off the seat of the
manse pew and lay in a dead faint on the floor.

Mrs. Elder Clow was the first to reach her. She caught the thin
little body from the arms of white-faced, terrified Faith and
carried it into the vestry. Mr. Meredith forgot the hymn and
everything else and rushed madly after her. The congregation
dismissed itself as best it could.

"Oh, Mrs. Clow," gasped Faith, "is Una dead? Have we killed
her?"

"What is the matter with my child?" demanded the pale father.

"She has just fainted, I think," said Mrs. Clow. "Oh, here's the
doctor, thank goodness."

Gilbert did not find it a very easy thing to bring Una back to
consciousness. He worked over her for a long time before her
eyes opened. Then he carried her over to the manse, followed by
Faith, sobbing hysterically in her relief.

"She is just hungry, you know--she didn't eat a thing to-day--
none of us did--we were all fasting."

"Fasting!" said Mr. Meredith, and "Fasting?" said the doctor.

"Yes--to punish ourselves for singing _Polly Wolly_ in the
graveyard," said Faith.

"My child, I don't want you to punish yourselves for that," said
Mr. Meredith in distress. "I gave you your little scolding--and
you were all penitent--and I forgave you."

"Yes, but we had to be punished," explained Faith. "It's our
rule--in our Good-Conduct Club, you know--if we do anything
wrong, or anything that is likely to hurt father in the
congregation, we HAVE to punish ourselves. We are bringing
ourselves up, you know, because there is nobody to do it."

Mr. Meredith groaned, but the doctor got up from Una's side with
an air of relief.

"Then this child simply fainted from lack of food and all she
needs is a good square meal," he said. "Mrs. Clow, will you be
kind enough to see she gets it? And I think from Faith's story
that they all would be the better for something to eat, or we
shall have more faintings."

"I suppose we shouldn't have made Una fast," said Faith
remorsefully. "When I think of it, only Jerry and I should have
been punished. WE got up the concert and we were the oldest."

"I sang _Polly Wolly_ just the same as the rest of you," said
Una's weak little voice, "so I had to be punished, too."

Mrs. Clow came with a glass of milk, Faith and Jerry and Carl
sneaked off to the pantry, and John Meredith went into his study,
where he sat in the darkness for a long time, alone with his
bitter thoughts. So his children were bringing themselves up
because there was "nobody to do it"--struggling along amid their
little perplexities without a hand to guide or a voice to
counsel. Faith's innocently uttered phrase rankled in her
father's mind like a barbed shaft. There was "nobody" to look
after them--to comfort their little souls and care for their
little bodies. How frail Una had looked, lying there on the
vestry sofa in that long faint! How thin were her tiny hands,
how pallid her little face! She looked as if she might slip away
from him in a breath--sweet little Una, of whom Cecilia had
begged him to take such special care. Since his wife's death he
had not felt such an agony of dread as when he had hung over his
little girl in her unconsciousness. He must do something--but
what? Should he ask Elizabeth Kirk to marry him? She was a good
woman--she would be kind to his children. He might bring himself
to do it if it were not for his love for Rosemary West. But
until he had crushed that out he could not seek another woman in
marriage. And he could not crush it out--he had tried and he
could not. Rosemary had been in church that evening, for the
first time since her return from Kingsport. He had caught a
glimpse of her face in the back of the crowded church, just as he
had finished his sermon. His heart had given a fierce throb. He
sat while the choir sang the "collection piece," with his bent
head and tingling pulses. He had not seen her since the evening
upon which he had asked her to marry him. When he had risen to
give out the hymn his hands were trembling and his pale face was
flushed. Then Una's fainting spell had banished everything from
his mind for a time. Now, in the darkness and solitude of the
study it rushed back. Rosemary was the only woman in the world
for him. It was of no use for him to think of marrying any
other. He could not commit such a sacrilege even for his
children's sake. He must take up his burden alone--he must try
to be a better, a more watchful father--he must tell his children
not to be afraid to come to him with all their little problems.
Then he lighted his lamp and took up a bulky new book which was
setting the theological world by the ears. He would read just
one chapter to compose his mind. Five minutes later he was lost
to the world and the troubles of the world.



CHAPTER XXIX. A WEIRD TALE

On an early June evening Rainbow Valley was an entirely
delightful place and the children felt it to be so, as they sat
in the open glade where the bells rang elfishly on the Tree
Lovers, and the White Lady shook her green tresses. The wind was
laughing and whistling about them like a leal, glad-hearted
comrade. The young ferns were spicy in the hollow. The wild
cherry trees scattered over the valley, among the dark firs, were
mistily white. The robins were whistling over in the maples
behind Ingleside. Beyond, on the slopes of the Glen, were
blossoming orchards, sweet and mystic and wonderful, veiled in
dusk. It was spring, and young things MUST be glad in spring.
Everybody was glad in Rainbow Valley that evening--until Mary
Vance froze their blood with the story of Henry Warren's ghost.

Jem was not there. Jem spent his evenings now studying for his
entrance examination in the Ingleside garret. Jerry was down
near the pond, trouting. Walter had been reading Longfellow's
sea poems to the others and they were steeped in the beauty and
mystery of the ships. Then they talked of what they would do
when they were grown up--where they would travel--the far, fair
shores they would see. Nan and Di meant to go to Europe. Walter
longed for the Nile moaning past its Egyptian sands, and a
glimpse of the sphinx. Faith opined rather dismally that she
supposed she would have to be a missionary--old Mrs. Taylor told
her she ought to be--and then she would at least see India or
China, those mysterious lands of the Orient. Carl's heart was
set on African jungles. Una said nothing. She thought she
would just like to stay at home. It was prettier here than
anywhere else. It would be dreadful when they were all grown up
and had to scatter over the world. The very idea made Una feel
lonesome and homesick. But the others dreamed on delightedly
until Mary Vance arrived and vanished poesy and dreams at one
fell swoop.

"Laws, but I'm out of puff," she exclaimed. "I've run down that
hill like sixty. I got an awful scare up there at the old Bailey
place."

"What frightened you?" asked Di.

"I dunno. I was poking about under them lilacs in the old
garden, trying to see if there was any lilies-of-the-valley out
yet. It was dark as a pocket there--and all at once I seen
something stirring and rustling round at the other side of the
garden, in those cherry bushes. It was WHITE. I tell you I
didn't stop for a second look. I flew over the dyke quicker than
quick. I was sure it was Henry Warren's ghost."

"Who was Henry Warren?" asked Di.

"And why should he have a ghost?" asked Nan.

"Laws, did you never hear the story? And you brought up in the
Glen. Well, wait a minute till I get by breath all back and I'll
tell you."

Walter shivered delightsomely. He loved ghost stories. Their
mystery, their dramatic climaxes, their eeriness gave him a
fearful, exquisite pleasure. Longfellow instantly grew tame and
commonplace. He threw the book aside and stretched himself out,
propped upon his elbows to listen whole-heartedly, fixing his
great luminous eyes on Mary's face. Mary wished he wouldn't look
at her so. She felt she could make a better job of the ghost
story if Walter were not looking at her. She could put on
several frills and invent a few artistic details to enhance the
horror. As it was, she had to stick to the bare truth--or what
had been told her for the truth.

"Well," she began, "you know old Tom Bailey and his wife used to
live in that house up there thirty years ago. He was an awful
old rip, they say, and his wife wasn't much better. They'd no
children of their own, but a sister of old Tom's died and left a
little boy--this Henry Warren--and they took him. He was about
twelve when he came to them, and kind of undersized and delicate.
They say Tom and his wife used him awful from the start--whipped
him and starved him. Folks said they wanted him to die so's they
could get the little bit of money his mother had left for him.
Henry didn't die right off, but he begun having fits--epileps,
they called 'em--and he grew up kind of simple, till he was about
eighteen. His uncle used to thrash him in that garden up there
'cause it was back of the house where no one could see him. But
folks could hear, and they say it was awful sometimes hearing
poor Henry plead with his uncle not to kill him. But nobody
dared interfere 'cause old Tom was such a reprobate he'd have
been sure to get square with 'em some way. He burned the barns
of a man at Harbour Head who offended him. At last Henry died
and his uncle and aunt give out he died in one of his fits and
that was all anybody ever knowed, but everybody said Tom had just
up and killed him for keeps at last. And it wasn't long till it
got around that Henry WALKED. That old garden was HA'NTED. He
was heard there at nights, moaning and crying. Old Tom and his
wife got out--went out West and never came back. The place got
such a bad name nobody'd buy or rent it. That's why it's all
gone to ruin. That was thirty years ago, but Henry Warren's
ghost ha'nts it yet."

"Do you believe that?" asked Nan scornfully. "_I_ don't."

"Well, GOOD people have seen him--and heard him." retorted Mary.
"They say he appears and grovels on the ground and holds you by
the legs and gibbers and moans like he did when he was alive. I
thought of that as soon as I seen that white thing in the bushes
and thought if it caught me like that and moaned I'd drop down
dead on the spot. So I cut and run. It MIGHTN'T have been his
ghost, but I wasn't going to take any chances with a ha'nt."

"It was likely old Mrs. Stimson's white calf," laughed Di. "It
pastures in that garden--I've seen it."

"Maybe so. But I'M not going home through the Bailey garden any
more. Here's Jerry with a big string of trout and it's my turn
to cook them. Jem and Jerry both say I'm the best cook in the
Glen. And Cornelia told me I could bring up this batch of
cookies. I all but dropped them when I saw Henry's ghost."

Jerry hooted when he heard the ghost story--which Mary repeated
as she fried the fish, touching it up a trifle or so, since
Walter had gone to help Faith to set the table. It made no
impression on Jerry, but Faith and Una and Carl had been secretly
much frightened, though they would never have given in to it. It
was all right as long as the others were with them in the valley:
but when the feast was over and the shadows fell they quaked with
remembrance. Jerry went up to Ingleside with the Blythes to see
Jem about something, and Mary Vance went around that way home.
So Faith and Una and Carl had to go back to the manse alone.
They walked very close together and gave the old Bailey garden a
wide berth. They did not believe that it was haunted, of course,
but they would not go near it for all that.



CHAPTER XXX. THE GHOST ON THE DYKE

Somehow, Faith and Carl and Una could not shake off the hold
which the story of Henry Warren's ghost had taken upon their
imaginations. They had never believed in ghosts. Ghost tales
they had heard a-plenty--Mary Vance had told some far more
blood-curdling than this; but those tales were all of places and
people and spooks far away and unknown. After the first
half-awful, half-pleasant thrill of awe and terror they thought
of them no more. But this story came home to them. The old
Bailey garden was almost at their very door--almost in their
beloved Rainbow Valley. They had passed and repassed it
constantly; they had hunted for flowers in it; they had made
short cuts through it when they wished to go straight from the
village to the valley. But never again! After the night when
Mary Vance told them its gruesome tale they would not have gone
through or near it on pain of death. Death! What was death
compared to the unearthly possibility of falling into the
clutches of Henry Warren's grovelling ghost?

One warm July evening the three of them were sitting under the
Tree Lovers, feeling a little lonely. Nobody else had come near
the valley that evening. Jem Blythe was away in Charlottetown,
writing on his entrance examinations. Jerry and Walter Blythe
were off for a sail on the harbour with old Captain Crawford.
Nan and Di and Rilla and Shirley had gone down the harbour road
to visit Kenneth and Persis Ford, who had come with their parents
for a flying visit to the little old House of Dreams. Nan had
asked Faith to go with them, but Faith had declined. She would
never have admitted it, but she felt a little secret jealousy of
Persis Ford, concerning whose wonderful beauty and city glamour
she had heard a great deal. No, she wasn't going to go down
there and play second fiddle to anybody. She and Una took their
story books to Rainbow Valley and read, while Carl investigated
bugs along the banks of the brook, and all three were happy until
they suddenly realized that it was twilight and that the old
Bailey garden was uncomfortably near by. Carl came and sat down
close to the girls. They all wished they had gone home a little
sooner, but nobody said anything.

Great, velvety, purple clouds heaped up in the west and spread
over the valley. There was no wind and everything was suddenly,
strangely, dreadfully still. The marsh was full of thousands of
fire-flies. Surely some fairy parliament was being convened that
night. Altogether, Rainbow Valley was not a canny place just
then.

Faith looked fearfully up the valley to the old Bailey garden.
Then, if anybody's blood ever did freeze, Faith Meredith's
certainly froze at that moment. The eyes of Carl and Una
followed her entranced gaze and chills began gallopading up and
down their spines also. For there, under the big tamarack tree
on the tumble-down, grass-grown dyke of the Bailey garden, was
something white--shapelessly white in the gathering gloom. The
three Merediths sat and gazed as if turned to stone.

"It's--it's the--calf," whispered Una at last.

"It's--too--big--for the calf," whispered Faith. Her mouth and
lips were so dry she could hardly articulate the words.

Suddenly Carl gasped,

"It's coming here."

The girls gave one last agonized glance. Yes, it was creeping
down over the dyke, as no calf ever did or could creep. Reason
fled before sudden, over-mastering panic. For the moment every
one of the trio was firmly convinced that what they saw was Henry
Warren's ghost. Carl sprang to his feet and bolted blindly.
With a simultaneous shriek the girls followed him. Like mad
creatures they tore up the hill, across the road and into the
manse. They had left Aunt Martha sewing in the kitchen. She was
not there. They rushed to the study. It was dark and
tenantless. As with one impulse, they swung around and made for
Ingleside--but not across Rainbow Valley. Down the hill and
through the Glen street they flew on the wings of their wild
terror, Carl in the lead, Una bringing up the rear. Nobody tried
to stop them, though everybody who saw them wondered what fresh
devilment those manse youngsters were up to now. But at the gate
of Ingleside they ran into Rosemary West, who had just been in
for a moment to return some borrowed books.

She saw their ghastly faces and staring eyes. She realized that
their poor little souls were wrung with some awful and real fear,
whatever its cause. She caught Carl with one arm and Faith with
the other. Una stumbled against her and held on desperately.

"Children, dear, what has happened?" she said. "What has
frightened you?"

"Henry Warren's ghost," answered Carl, through his chattering
teeth.

"Henry--Warren's--ghost!" said amazed Rosemary, who had never
heard the story.

"Yes," sobbed Faith hysterically. "It's there--on the Bailey
dyke--we saw it--and it started to--chase us."

Rosemary herded the three distracted creatures to the Ingleside
veranda. Gilbert and Anne were both away, having also gone to
the House of Dreams, but Susan appeared in the doorway, gaunt and
practical and unghostlike.

"What is all this rumpus about?" she inquired.

Again the children gasped out their awful tale, while Rosemary
held them close to her and soothed them with wordless comfort.

"Likely it was an owl," said Susan, unstirred.

An owl! The Meredith children never had any opinion of Susan's
intelligence after that!

"It was bigger than a million owls," said Carl, sobbing--oh, how
ashamed Carl was of that sobbing in after days--"and it--it
GROVELLED just as Mary said--and it was crawling down over the
dyke to get at us. Do owls CRAWL?"

Rosemary looked at Susan.

"They must have seen something to frighten them so," she said.

"I will go and see," said Susan coolly. "Now, children, calm
yourselves. Whatever you have seen, it was not a ghost. As for
poor Henry Warren, I feel sure he would be only too glad to rest
quietly in his peaceful grave once he got there. No fear of HIM
venturing back, and that you may tie to. If you can make them
see reason, Miss West, I will find out the truth of the matter."

Susan departed for Rainbow Valley, valiantly grasping a pitchfork
which she found leaning against the back fence where the doctor
had been working in his little hay-field. A pitchfork might not
be of much use against "ha'nts," but it was a comforting sort of
weapon. There was nothing to be seen in Rainbow Valley when
Susan reached it. No white visitants appeared to be lurking in
the shadowy, tangled old Bailey garden. Susan marched boldly
through it and beyond it, and rapped with her pitchfork on the
door of the little cottage on the other side, where Mrs. Stimson
lived with her two daughters.

Back at Ingleside Rosemary had succeeded in calming the children.
They still sobbed a little from shock, but they were beginning to
feel a lurking and salutary suspicion that they had made dreadful
geese of themselves. This suspicion became a certainty when
Susan finally returned.

"I have found out what your ghost was," she said, with a grim
smile, sitting down on a rocker and fanning herself. "Old Mrs.
Stimson has had a pair of factory cotton sheets bleaching in the
Bailey garden for a week. She spread them on the dyke under the
tamarack tree because the grass was clean and short there. This
evening she went out to take them in. She had her knitting in
her hands so she hung the sheets over her shoulders by way of
carrying them. And then she must have dropped one of her needles
and find it she could not and has not yet. But she went down on
her knees and crept about to hunt for it, and she was at that
when she heard awful yells down in the valley and saw the three
children tearing up the hill past her. She thought they had been
bit by something and it gave her poor old heart such a turn that
she could not move or speak, but just crouched there till they
disappeared. Then she staggered back home and they have been
applying stimulants to her ever since, and her heart is in a
terrible condition and she says she will not get over this fright
all summer."

The Merediths sat, crimson with a shame that even Rosemary's
understanding sympathy could not remove. They sneaked off home,
met Jerry at the manse gate and made remorseful confession. A
session of the Good-Conduct Club was arranged for next morning.

"Wasn't Miss West sweet to us to-night?" whispered Faith in bed.

"Yes," admitted Una. "It is such a pity it changes people so
much to be made stepmothers."

"I don't believe it does," said Faith loyally.



CHAPTER XXXI. CARL DOES PENANCE

"I don't see why we should be punished at all," said Faith,
rather sulkily. "We didn't do anything wrong. We couldn't help
being frightened. And it won't do father any harm. It was just
an accident."

"You were cowards," said Jerry with judicial scorn, "and you gave
way to your cowardice. That is why you should be punished.
Everybody will laugh at you about this, and that is a disgrace to
the family."

"If you knew how awful the whole thing was," said Faith with a
shiver, "you would think we had been punished enough already. I
wouldn't go through it again for anything in the whole world."

"I believe you'd have run yourself if you'd been there," muttered
Carl.

"From an old woman in a cotton sheet," mocked Jerry. "Ho, ho,
ho!"

"It didn't look a bit like an old woman," cried Faith. "It was
just a great, big, white thing crawling about in the grass just
as Mary Vance said Henry Warren did. It's all very fine for you
to laugh, Jerry Meredith, but you'd have laughed on the other
side of your mouth if you'd been there. And how are we to be
punished? _I_ don't think it's fair, but let's know what we have
to do, Judge Meredith!"

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