Book: Rainbow Valley

L >> Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Rainbow Valley




"What were you crying for then?"

"Oh, I just got to thinking of things when I was here alone. I
thought of having to go back to Mrs. Wiley--and of being licked
for running away--and--and--and of going to hell for telling
lies. It all worried me something scandalous."

"Oh, Mary," said poor Una in distress. "I don't believe God will
send you to hell for telling lies when you didn't know it was
wrong. He COULDN'T. Why, He's kind and good. Of course, you
mustn't tell any more now that you know it's wrong."

"If I can't tell lies what's to become of me?" said Mary with a
sob. "YOU don't understand. You don't know anything about it.
You've got a home and a kind father--though it does seem to me
that he isn't more'n about half there. But anyway he doesn't
lick you, and you get enough to eat such as it is--though that
old aunt of yours doesn't know ANYTHING about cooking. Why, this
is the first day I ever remember of feeling 'sif I'd enough to
eat. I've been knocked about all of my life, 'cept for the two
years I was at the asylum. They didn't lick me there and it
wasn't too bad, though the matron was cross. She always looked
ready to bite my head off a nail. But Mrs. Wiley is a holy
terror, that's what SHE is, and I'm just scared stiff when I
think of going back to her."

"Perhaps you won't have to. Perhaps we'll be able to think of a
way out. Let's both ask God to keep you from having to go back
to Mrs. Wiley. You say your prayers, don't you Mary?"

"Oh, yes, I always go over an old rhyme 'fore I get into bed,"
said Mary indifferently. "I never thought of asking for anything
in particular though. Nobody in this world ever bothered
themselves about me so I didn't s'pose God would. He MIGHT take
more trouble for you, seeing you're a minister's daughter."

"He'd take every bit as much trouble for you, Mary, I'm sure,"
said Una. "It doesn't matter whose child you are. You just ask
Him--and I will, too."

"All right," agreed Mary. "It won't do any harm if it doesn't do
much good. If you knew Mrs. Wiley as well as I do you wouldn't
think God would want to meddle with her. Anyhow, I won't cry any
more about it. This is a big sight better'n last night down in
that old barn, with the mice running about. Look at the Four
Winds light. Ain't it pretty?"

"This is the only window we can see it from," said Una. "I love
to watch it."

"Do you? So do I. I could see it from the Wiley loft and it was
the only comfort I had. When I was all sore from being licked
I'd watch it and forget about the places that hurt. I'd think of
the ships sailing away and away from it and wish I was on one of
them sailing far away too--away from everything. On winter
nights when it didn't shine, I just felt real lonesome. Say,
Una, what makes all you folks so kind to me when I'm just a
stranger?"

"Because it's right to be. The bible tells us to be kind to
everybody."

"Does it? Well, I guess most folks don't mind it much then. I
never remember of any one being kind to me before--true's you
live I don't. Say, Una, ain't them shadows on the walls pretty?
They look just like a flock of little dancing birds. And say,
Una, I like all you folks and them Blythe boys and Di, but I
don't like that Nan. She's a proud one."

"Oh, no, Mary, she isn't a bit proud," said Una eagerly. "Not a
single bit."

"Don't tell me. Any one that holds her head like that IS proud.
I don't like her."

"WE all like her very much."

"Oh, I s'pose you like her better'n me?" said Mary jealously.
"Do you?"

"Why, Mary--we've known her for weeks and we've only known you a
few hours," stammered Una.

"So you do like her better then?" said Mary in a rage. "All
right! Like her all you want to. _I_ don't care. _I_ can get
along without you."

She flung herself over against the wall of the garret with a
slam.

"Oh, Mary," said Una, pushing a tender arm over Mary's
uncompromising back, "don't talk like that. I DO like you ever
so much. And you make me feel so bad."

No answer. Presently Una gave a sob. Instantly Mary squirmed
around again and engulfed Una in a bear's hug.

"Hush up," she ordered. "Don't go crying over what I said. I
was as mean as the devil to talk that way. I orter to be skinned
alive--and you all so good to me. I should think you WOULD like
any one better'n me. I deserve every licking I ever got. Hush,
now. If you cry any more I'll go and walk right down to the
harbour in this night-dress and drown myself."

This terrible threat made Una choke back her sobs. Her tears
were wiped away by Mary with the lace frill of the spare-room
pillow and forgiver and forgiven cuddled down together again,
harmony restored, to watch the shadows of the vine leaves on the
moonlit wall until they fell asleep.

And in the study below Rev. John Meredith walked the floor with
rapt face and shining eyes, thinking out his message of the
morrow, and knew not that under his own roof there was a little
forlorn soul, stumbling in darkness and ignorance, beset by
terror and compassed about with difficulties too great for it to
grapple in its unequal struggle with a big indifferent world.



CHAPTER VI. MARY STAYS AT THE MANSE

The manse children took Mary Vance to church with them the next
day. At first Mary objected to the idea.

"Didn't you go to church over-harbour?" asked Una.

"You bet. Mrs. Wiley never troubled church much, but I went
every Sunday I could get off. I was mighty thankful to go to
some place where I could sit down for a spell. But I can't go to
church in this old ragged dress."

This difficulty was removed by Faith offering the loan of her
second best dress.

"It's faded a little and two of the buttons are off, but I guess
it'll do."

"I'll sew the buttons on in a jiffy," said Mary.

"Not on Sunday," said Una, shocked.

"Sure. The better the day the better the deed. You just gimme a
needle and thread and look the other way if you're squeamish."

Faith's school boots, and an old black velvet cap that had once
been Cecilia Meredith's, completed Mary's costume, and to church
she went. Her behaviour was quite conventional, and though some
wondered who the shabby little girl with the manse children was
she did not attract much attention. She listened to the sermon
with outward decorum and joined lustily in the singing. She had,
it appeared, a clear, strong voice and a good ear.

"His blood can make the VIOLETS clean," carolled Mary blithely.
Mrs. Jimmy Milgrave, whose pew was just in front of the manse
pew, turned suddenly and looked the child over from top to toe.
Mary, in a mere superfluity of naughtiness, stuck out her tongue
at Mrs. Milgrave, much to Una's horror.

"I couldn't help it," she declared after church. "What'd she
want to stare at me like that for? Such manners! I'm GLAD stuck
my tongue out at her. I wish I'd stuck it farther out. Say, I
saw Rob MacAllister from over-harbour there. Wonder if he'll
tell Mrs. Wiley on me."

No Mrs. Wiley appeared, however, and in a few day the children
forgot to look for her. Mary was apparently a fixture at the
manse. But she refused to go to school with the others.

"Nope. I've finished my education," she said, when Faith urged
her to go. "I went to school four winters since I come to Mrs.
Wiley's and I've had all I want of THAT. I'm sick and tired of
being everlastingly jawed at 'cause I didn't get my home-lessons
done. I'D no time to do home-lessons."

"Our teacher won't jaw you. He is awfully nice," said Faith.

"Well, I ain't going. I can read and write and cipher up to
fractions. That's all I want. You fellows go and I'll stay
home. You needn't be scared I'll steal anything. I swear I'm
honest."

Mary employed herself while the others were at school in cleaning
up the manse. In a few days it was a different place. Floors
were swept, furniture dusted, everything straightened out. She
mended the spare-room bed-tick, she sewed on missing buttons, she
patched clothes neatly, she even invaded the study with broom and
dustpan and ordered Mr. Meredith out while she put it to rights.
But there was one department with which Aunt Martha refused to
let her interfere. Aunt Martha might be deaf and half blind and
very childish, but she was resolved to keep the commissariat in
her own hands, in spite of all Mary's wiles and stratagems.

"I can tell you if old Martha'd let ME cook you'd have some
decent meals," she told the manse children indignantly. "There'd
be no more 'ditto'--and no more lumpy porridge and blue milk
either. What DOES she do with all the cream?"

"She gives it to the cat. He's hers, you know," said Faith.

"I'd like to CAT her, "exclaimed Mary bitterly. "I've no use for
cats anyhow. They belong to the old Nick. You can tell that by
their eyes. Well, if old Martha won't, she won't, I s'pose. But
it gits on my nerves to see good vittles spoiled."

When school came out they always went to Rainbow Valley. Mary
refused to play in the graveyard. She declared she was afraid of
ghosts.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," declared Jem Blythe.

"Oh, ain't there?"

"Did you ever see any?"

"Hundreds of 'em," said Mary promptly.

"What are they like?" said Carl.

"Awful-looking. Dressed all in white with skellington hands and
heads," said Mary.

"What did you do?" asked Una.

"Run like the devil," said Mary. Then she caught Walter's eyes
and blushed. Mary was a good deal in awe of Walter. She
declared to the manse girls that his eyes made her nervous.

"I think of all the lies I've ever told when I look into them,"
she said, "and I wish I hadn't."

Jem was Mary's favourite. When he took her to the attic at
Ingleside and showed her the museum of curios that Captain Jim
Boyd had bequeathed to him she was immensely pleased and
flattered. She also won Carl's heart entirely by her interest in
his beetles and ants. It could not be denied that Mary got on
rather better with the boys than with the girls. She quarrelled
bitterly with Nan Blythe the second day.

"Your mother is a witch," she told Nan scornfully. "Red-haired
women are always witches." Then she and Faith fell out about the
rooster. Mary said its tail was too short. Faith angrily
retorted that she guessed God know what length to make a
rooster's tail. They did not "speak" for a day over this. Mary
treated Una's hairless, one-eyed doll with consideration; but
when Una showed her other prized treasure--a picture of an angel
carrying a baby, presumably to heaven, Mary declared that it
looked too much like a ghost for her. Una crept away to her room
and cried over this, but Mary hunted her out, hugged her
repentantly and implored forgiveness. No one could keep up a
quarrel long with Mary--not even Nan, who was rather prone to
hold grudges and never quite forgave the insult to her mother.
Mary was jolly. She could and did tell the most thrilling ghost
stories. Rainbow Valley seances were undeniably more exciting
after Mary came. She learned to play on the jew's-harp and soon
eclipsed Jerry.

"Never struck anything yet I couldn't do if I put my mind to it,"
she declared. Mary seldom lost a chance of tooting her own horn.
She taught them how to make "blow-bags" out of the thick leaves
of the "live-forever" that flourished in the old Bailey garden,
she initiated them into the toothsome qualities of the "sours"
that grew in the niches of the graveyard dyke, and she could make
the most wonderful shadow pictures on the walls with her long,
flexible fingers. And when they all went picking gum in Rainbow
Valley Mary always got "the biggest chew" and bragged about it.
There were times when they hated her and times when they loved
her. But at all times they found her interesting. So they
submitted quite meekly to her bossing, and by the end of a
fortnight had come to feel that she must always have been with
them.

"It's the queerest thing that Mrs. Wiley hain't been after me,"
said Mary. "I can't understand it."

"Maybe she isn't going to bother about you at all," said Una.
"Then you can just go on staying here."

"This house ain't hardly big enough for me and old Martha," said
Mary darkly. "It's a very fine thing to have enough to eat--I've
often wondered what it would be like--but I'm p'ticler about my
cooking. And Mrs. Wiley'll be here yet. SHE'S got a rod in
pickle for me all right. I don't think about it so much in
daytime but say, girls, up there in that garret at night I git to
thinking and thinking of it, till I just almost wish she'd come
and have it over with. I dunno's one real good whipping would be
much worse'n all the dozen I've lived through in my mind ever
since I run away. Were any of you ever licked?"

"No, of course not," said Faith indignantly. "Father would never
do such a thing."

"You don't know you're alive," said Mary with a sigh half of
envy, half of superiority. "You don't know what I've come
through. And I s'pose the Blythes were never licked either?"

"No-o-o, I guess not. But I THINK they were sometimes spanked
when they were small."

"A spanking doesn't amount to anything," said Mary
contemptuously. "If my folks had just spanked me I'd have
thought they were petting me. Well, it ain't a fair world. I
wouldn't mind taking my share of wallopings but I've had a darn
sight too many."

"It isn't right to say that word, Mary," said Una reproachfully.
"You promised me you wouldn't say it."

"G'way," responded Mary. "If you knew some of the words I COULD
say if I liked you wouldn't make such a fuss over darn. And you
know very well I hain't ever told any lies since I come here."

"What about all those ghosts you said you saw?" asked Faith.

Mary blushed.

"That was diff'runt," she said defiantly. "I knew you wouldn't
believe them yarns and I didn't intend you to. And I really did
see something queer one night when I was passing the over-harbour
graveyard, true's you live. I dunno whether 'twas a ghost or
Sandy Crawford's old white nag, but it looked blamed queer and I
tell you I scooted at the rate of no man's business."



CHAPTER VII. A FISHY EPISODE

Rilla Blythe walked proudly, and perhaps a little primly, through
the main "street" of the Glen and up the manse hill, carefully
carrying a small basketful of early strawberries, which Susan had
coaxed into lusciousness in one of the sunny nooks of Ingleside.
Susan had charged Rilla to give the basket to nobody except Aunt
Martha or Mr. Meredith, and Rilla, very proud of being entrusted
with such an errand, was resolved to carry out her instructions
to the letter.

Susan had dressed her daintily in a white, starched, and
embroidered dress, with sash of blue and beaded slippers. Her
long ruddy curls were sleek and round, and Susan had let her put
on her best hat, out of compliment to the manse. It was a
somewhat elaborate affair, wherein Susan's taste had had more to
say than Anne's, and Rilla's small soul gloried in its splendours
of silk and lace and flowers. She was very conscious of her hat,
and I am afraid she strutted up the manse hill. The strut, or
the hat, or both, got on the nerves of Mary Vance, who was
swinging on the lawn gate. Mary's temper was somewhat ruffled
just then, into the bargain. Aunt Martha had refused to let her
peel the potatoes and had ordered her out of the kitchen.

"Yah! You'll bring the potatoes to the table with strips of skin
hanging to them and half boiled as usual! My, but it'll be nice
to go to your funeral," shrieked Mary. She went out of the
kitchen, giving the door such a bang that even Aunt Martha heard
it, and Mr. Meredith in his study felt the vibration and thought
absently that there must have been a slight earthquake shock.
Then he went on with his sermon.

Mary slipped from the gate and confronted the spick-and-span
damsel of Ingleside.

"What you got there?" she demanded, trying to take the basket.

Rilla resisted. "It'th for Mithter Meredith," she lisped.

"Give it to me. I'LL give it to him," said Mary.

"No. Thuthan thaid that I wathn't to give it to anybody but
Mithter Mer'dith or Aunt Martha," insisted Rilla.

Mary eyed her sourly.

"You think you're something, don't you, all dressed up like a
doll! Look at me. My dress is all rags and _I_ don't care! I'd
rather be ragged than a doll baby. Go home and tell them to put
you in a glass case. Look at me--look at me--look at me!"

Mary executed a wild dance around the dismayed and bewildered
Rilla, flirting her ragged skirt and vociferating "Look at
me--look at me" until poor Rilla was dizzy. But as the latter
tried to edge away towards the gate Mary pounced on her again.

"You give me that basket," she ordered with a grimace. Mary was
past mistress in the art of "making faces." She could give her
countenance a most grotesque and unearthly appearance out of
which her strange, brilliant, white eyes gleamed with weird
effect.

"I won't," gasped Rilla, frightened but staunch. "You let me go,
Mary Vanth."

Mary let go for a minute and looked around here. Just inside the
gate was a small "flake," on which a half a dozen large codfish
were drying. One of Mr. Meredith's parishioners had presented
him with them one day, perhaps in lieu of the subscription he was
supposed to pay to the stipend and never did. Mr. Meredith had
thanked him and then forgotten all about the fish, which would
have promptly spoiled had not the indefatigable Mary prepared
them for drying and rigged up the "flake" herself on which to dry
them.

Mary had a diabolical inspiration. She flew to the "flake" and
seized the largest fish there--a huge, flat thing, nearly as big
as herself. With a whoop she swooped down on the terrified
Rilla, brandishing her weird missile. Rilla's courage gave way.
To be lambasted with a dried codfish was such an unheard-of thing
that Rilla could not face it. With a shriek she dropped her
basket and fled. The beautiful berries, which Susan had so
tenderly selected for the minister, rolled in a rosy torrent over
the dusty road and were trodden on by the flying feet of pursuer
and pursued. The basket and contents were no longer in Mary's
mind. She thought only of the delight of giving Rilla Blythe the
scare of her life. She would teach HER to come giving herself
airs because of her fine clothes.

Rilla flew down the hill and along the street. Terror lent wings
to her feet, and she just managed to keep ahead of Mary, who was
somewhat hampered by her own laughter, but who had breath enough
to give occasional blood-curdling whoops as she ran, flourishing
her codfish in the air. Through the Glen street they swept,
while everybody ran to the windows and gates to see them. Mary
felt she was making a tremendous sensation and enjoyed it.
Rilla, blind with terror and spent of breath, felt that she could
run no longer. In another instant that terrible girl would be on
her with the codfish. At this point the poor mite stumbled and
fell into the mud-puddle at the end of the street just as Miss
Cornelia came out of Carter Flagg's store.

Miss Cornelia took the whole situation in at a glance. So did
Mary. The latter stopped short in her mad career and before Miss
Cornelia could speak she had whirled around and was running up as
fast as she had run down. Miss Cornelia's lips tightened
ominously, but she knew it was no use to think of chasing her.
So she picked up poor, sobbing, dishevelled Rilla instead and
took her home. Rilla was heart-broken. Her dress and slippers
and hat were ruined and her six year old pride had received
terrible bruises.

Susan, white with indignation, heard Miss Cornelia's story of
Mary Vance's exploit.

"Oh, the hussy--oh, the littly hussy!" she said, as she carried
Rilla away for purification and comfort.

"This thing has gone far enough, Anne dearie," said Miss Cornelia
resolutely. "Something must be done. WHO is this creature who
is staying at the manse and where does she come from?"

"I understood she was a little girl from over-harbour who was
visiting at the manse," answered Anne, who saw the comical side
of the codfish chase and secretly thought Rilla was rather vain
and needed a lesson or two.

"I know all the over-harbour families who come to our church and
that imp doesn't belong to any of them," retorted Miss Cornelia.
"She is almost in rags and when she goes to church she wears
Faith Meredith's old clothes. There's some mystery here, and I'm
going to investigate it, since it seems nobody else will. I
believe she was at the bottom of their goings-on in Warren Mead's
spruce bush the other day. Did you hear of their frightening his
mother into a fit?"

"No. I knew Gilbert had been called to see her, but I did not
hear what the trouble was."

"Well, you know she has a weak heart. And one day last week,
when she was all alone on the veranda, she heard the most awful
shrieks of 'murder' and 'help' coming from the bush--positively
frightful sounds, Anne dearie. Her heart gave out at once.
Warren heard them himself at the barn, and went straight to the
bush to investigate, and there he found all the manse children
sitting on a fallen tree and screaming 'murder' at the top of
their lungs. They told him they were only in fun and didn't
think anyone would hear them. They were just playing Indian
ambush. Warren went back to the house and found his poor mother
unconscious on the veranda."

Susan, who had returned, sniffed contemptuously.

"I think she was very far from being unconscious, Mrs. Marshall
Elliott, and that you may tie to. I have been hearing of Amelia
Warren's weak heart for forty years. She had it when she was
twenty. She enjoys making a fuss and having the doctor, and any
excuse will do."

"I don't think Gilbert thought her attack very serious," said
Anne.

"Oh, that may very well be," said Miss Cornelia. "But the matter
has made an awful lot of talk and the Meads being Methodists
makes it that much worse. What is going to become of those
children? Sometimes I can't sleep at nights for thinking about
them, Anne dearie. I really do question if they get enough to
eat, even, for their father is so lost in dreams that he doesn't
often remember he has a stomach, and that lazy old woman doesn't
bother cooking what she ought. They are just running wild and
now that school is closing they'll be worse than ever."

"They do have jolly times," said Anne, laughing over the
recollections of some Rainbow Valley happenings that had come to
her ears. "And they are all brave and frank and loyal and
truthful."

"That's a true word, Anne dearie, and when you come to think of
all the trouble in the church those two tattling, deceitful
youngsters of the last minister's made, I'm inclined to overlook
a good deal in the Merediths."

"When all is said and done, Mrs. Dr. dear, they are very nice
children," said Susan. "They have got plenty of original sin in
them and that I will admit, but maybe it is just as well, for if
they had not they might spoil from over-sweetness. Only I do
think it is not proper for them to play in a graveyard and that I
will maintain."

"But they really play quite quietly there," excused Anne. "They
don't run and yell as they do elsewhere. Such howls as drift up
here from Rainbow Valley sometimes! Though I fancy my own small
fry bear a valiant part in them. They had a sham battle there
last night and had to 'roar' themselves, because they had no
artillery to do it, so Jem says. Jem is passing through the
stage where all boys hanker to be soldiers."

"Well, thank goodness, he'll never be a soldier," said Miss
Cornelia. "I never approved of our boys going to that South
African fracas. But it's over, and not likely anything of the
kind will ever happen again. I think the world is getting more
sensible. As for the Merediths, I've said many a time and I say
it again, if Mr. Meredith had a wife all would be well."

"He called twice at the Kirks' last week, so I am told," said
Susan.

"Well," said Miss Cornelia thoughtfully, "as a rule, I don't
approve of a minister marrying in his congregation. It generally
spoils him. But in this case it would do no harm, for every one
likes Elizabeth Kirk and nobody else is hankering for the job of
stepmothering those youngsters. Even the Hill girls balk at
that. They haven't been found laying traps for Mr. Meredith.
Elizabeth would make him a good wife if he only thought so. But
the trouble is, she really is homely and, Anne dearie, Mr.
Meredith, abstracted as he is, has an eye for a good-looking
woman, man-like. He isn't SO other-worldly when it comes to
that, believe ME."

"Elizabeth Kirk is a very nice person, but they do say that
people have nearly frozen to death in her mother's spare-room bed
before now, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan darkly. "If I felt I had
any right to express an opinion concerning such a solemn matter
as a minister's marriage I would say that I think Elizabeth's
cousin Sarah, over-harbour, would make Mr. Meredith a better
wife."

"Why, Sarah Kirk is a Methodist," said Miss Cornelia, much as if
Susan had suggested a Hottentot as a manse bride.

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