Book: Rainbow Valley

L >> Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Rainbow Valley




He dressed hurriedly and ate his supper less abstractedly than
usual. It occurred to him that it was a poor meal. He looked at
his children; they were rosy and healthy looking enough--except
Una, and she had never been very strong even when her mother was
alive. They were all laughing and talking--certainly they seemed
happy. Carl was especially happy because he had two most
beautiful spiders crawling around his supper plate. Their voices
were pleasant, their manners did not seem bad, they were
considerate of and gentle to one another. Yet Mrs. Davis had
said their behaviour was the talk of the congregation.

As Mr. Meredith went through his gate Dr. Blythe and Mrs. Blythe
drove past on the road that led to Lowbridge. The minister's
face fell. Mrs. Blythe was going away--there was no use in going
to Ingleside. And he craved a little companionship more than
ever. As he gazed rather hopelessly over the landscape the
sunset light struck on a window of the old West homestead on the
hill. It flared out rosily like a beacon of good hope. He
suddenly remembered Rosemary and Ellen West. He thought that he
would relish some of Ellen's pungent conversation. He thought it
would be pleasant to see Rosemary's slow, sweet smile and calm,
heavenly blue eyes again. What did that old poem of Sir Philip
Sidney's say?--"continual comfort in a face"--that just suited
her. And he needed comfort. Why not go and call? He remembered
that Ellen had asked him to drop in sometimes and there was
Rosemary's book to take back--he ought to take it back before he
forgot. He had an uneasy suspicion that there were a great many
books in his library which he had borrowed at sundry times and in
divers places and had forgotten to take back. It was surely his
duty to guard against that in this case. He went back into his
study, got the book, and plunged downward into Rainbow Valley.



CHAPTER XV. MORE GOSSIP

On the evening after Mrs. Myra Murray of the over-harbour section
had been buried Miss Cornelia and Mary Vance came up to
Ingleside. There were several things concerning which Miss
Cornelia wished to unburden her soul. The funeral had to be all
talked over, of course. Susan and Miss Cornelia thrashed this
out between them; Anne took no part or delight in such goulish
conversations. She sat a little apart and watched the autumnal
flame of dahlias in the garden, and the dreaming, glamorous
harbour of the September sunset. Mary Vance sat beside her,
knitting meekly. Mary's heart was down in the Rainbow Valley,
whence came sweet, distance-softened sounds of children's
laughter, but her fingers were under Miss Cornelia's eye. She
had to knit so many rounds of her stocking before she might go to
the valley. Mary knit and held her tongue, but used her ears.

"I never saw a nicer looking corpse," said Miss Cornelia
judicially. "Myra Murray was always a pretty woman--she was a
Corey from Lowbridge and the Coreys were noted for their good
looks."

"I said to the corpse as I passed it, 'poor woman. I hope you
are as happy as you look.'" sighed Susan. "She had not changed
much. That dress she wore was the black satin she got for her
daughter's wedding fourteen years ago. Her Aunt told her then to
keep it for her funeral, but Myra laughed and said, 'I may wear
it to my funeral, Aunty, but I will have a good time out of it
first.' And I may say she did. Myra Murray was not a woman to
attend her own funeral before she died. Many a time afterwards
when I saw her enjoying herself out in company I thought to
myself, 'You are a handsome woman, Myra Murray, and that dress
becomes you, but it will likely be your shroud at last.' And you
see my words have come true, Mrs. Marshall Elliott."

Susan sighed again heavily. She was enjoying herself hugely. A
funeral was really a delightful subject of conversation.

"I always liked to meet Myra," said Miss Cornelia. "She was
always so gay and cheerful--she made you feel better just by her
handshake. Myra always made the best of things."

"That is true," asserted Susan. "Her sister-in-law told me that
when the doctor told her at last that he could do nothing for her
and she would never rise from that bed again, Myra said quite
cheerfully, 'Well, if that is so, I'm thankful the preserving is
all done, and I will not have to face the fall house-cleaning. I
always liked house-cleaning in spring,' she says, 'but I always
hated it in the fall. I will get clear of it this year, thank
goodness.' There are people who would call that levity, Mrs.
Marshall Elliott, and I think her sister-in-law was a little
ashamed of it. She said perhaps her sickness had made Myra a
little light-headed. But I said, 'No, Mrs. Murray, do not worry
over it. It was just Myra's way of looking at the bright side.'"

"Her sister Luella was just the opposite," said Miss Cornelia.
"There was no bright side for Luella--there was just black and
shades of gray. For years she used always to be declaring she
was going to die in a week or so. 'I won't be here to burden you
long,' she would tell her family with a groan. And if any of
them ventured to talk about their little future plans she'd groan
also and say, 'Ah, _I_ won't be here then.' When I went to see
her I always agreed with her and it made her so mad that she was
always quite a lot better for several days afterwards. She has
better health now but no more cheerfulness. Myra was so
different. She was always doing or saying something to make some
one feel good. Perhaps the men they married had something to do
with it. Luella's man was a Tartar, believe ME, while Jim Murray
was decent, as men go. He looked heart-broken to-day. It isn't
often I feel sorry for a man at his wife's funeral, but I did
feel for Jim Murray."

"No wonder he looked sad. He will not get a wife like Myra again
in a hurry," said Susan. "Maybe he will not try, since his
children are all grown up and Mirabel is able to keep house. But
there is no predicting what a widower may or may not do and I,
for one, will not try."

"We'll miss Myra terrible in church," said Miss Cornelia. "She
was such a worker. Nothing ever stumped HER. If she couldn't
get over a difficulty she'd get around it, and if she couldn't
get around it she'd pretend it wasn't there--and generally it
wasn't. 'I'll keep a stiff upper lip to my journey's end,' said
she to me once. Well, she has ended her journey."

"Do you think so?" asked Anne suddenly, coming back from
dreamland. "I can't picture HER journey as being ended. Can YOU
think of her sitting down and folding her hands--that eager,
asking spirit of hers, with its fine adventurous outlook? No, I
think in death she just opened a gate and went through--on--on--
to new, shining adventures."

"Maybe--maybe," assented Miss Cornelia. "Do you know, Anne
dearie, I never was much taken with this everlasting rest
doctrine myself--though I hope it isn't heresy to say so. I want
to bustle round in heaven the same as here. And I hope there'll
be a celestial substitute for pies and doughnuts--something that
has to be MADE. Of course, one does get awful tired at
times--and the older you are the tireder you get. But the very
tiredest could get rested in something short of eternity, you'd
think--except, perhaps, a lazy man."

"When I meet Myra Murray again," said Anne, "I want to see her
coming towards me, brisk and laughing, just as she always did
here."

"Oh, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, in a shocked tone, "you surely
do not think that Myra will be laughing in the world to come?"

"Why not, Susan? Do you think we will be crying there?"

"No, no, Mrs. Dr. dear, do not misunderstand me. I do not think
we shall be either crying or laughing."

"What then?"

"Well," said Susan, driven to it. "it is my opinion, Mrs. Dr.
dear, that we shall just look solemn and holy."

"And do you really think, Susan," said Anne, looking solemn
enough, "that either Myra Murray or I could look solemn and holy
all the time--ALL the time, Susan?"

"Well," admitted Susan reluctantly, "I might go so far as to say
that you both would have to smile now and again, but I can never
admit that there will be laughing in heaven. The idea seems
really irreverent, Mrs. Dr. dear."

"Well, to come back to earth," said Miss Cornelia, "who can we
get to take Myra's class in Sunday School? Julia Clow has been
teaching it since Myra took ill, but she's going to town for the
winter and we'll have to get somebody else."

"I heard that Mrs. Laurie Jamieson wanted it," said Anne. "The
Jamiesons have come to church very regularly since they moved to
the Glen from Lowbridge."

"New brooms!" said Miss Cornelia dubiously. "Wait till they've
gone regularly for a year."

"You cannot depend on Mrs. Jamieson a bit, Mrs. Dr. dear," said
Susan solemnly. "She died once and when they were measuring her
for her coffin, after laying her out just beautiful, did she not
go and come back to life! Now, Mrs. Dr. dear, you know you
CANNOT depend on a woman like that."

"She might turn Methodist at any moment," said Miss Cornelia.
"They tell me they went to the Methodist Church at Lowbridge
quite as often as to the Presbyterian. I haven't caught them at
it here yet, but I would not approve of taking Mrs. Jamieson into
the Sunday School. Yet we must not offend them. We are losing
too many people, by death or bad temper. Mrs. Alec Davis has
left the church, no one knows why. She told the managers that
she would never pay another cent to Mr. Meredith's salary. Of
course, most people say that the children offended her, but
somehow I don't think so. I tried to pump Faith, but all I could
get out of her was that Mrs. Davis had come, seemingly in high
good humour, to see her father, and had left in an awful rage,
calling them all 'varmints!'"

"Varmints, indeed!" said Susan furiously. "Does Mrs. Alec Davis
forget that her uncle on her mother's side was suspected of
poisoning his wife? Not that it was ever proved, Mrs. Dr. dear,
and it does not do to believe all you hear. But if _I_ had an
uncle whose wife died without any satisfactory reason, _I_ would
not go about the country calling innocent children varmints."

"The point is," said Miss Cornelia, "that Mrs. Davis paid a large
subscription, and how its loss is going to be made up is a
problem. And if she turns the other Douglases against Mr.
Meredith, as she will certainly try to do, he will just have to
go."

"I do not think Mrs. Alec Davis is very well liked by the rest of
the clan," said Susan. "It is not likely she will be able to
influence them."

"But those Douglases all hang together so. If you touch one, you
touch all. We can't do without them, so much is certain. They
pay half the salary. They are not mean, whatever else may be
said of them. Norman Douglas used to give a hundred a year long
ago before he left."

"What did he leave for?" asked Anne.

"He declared a member of the session cheated him in a cow deal.
He hasn't come to church for twenty years. His wife used to come
regular while she was alive, poor thing, but he never would let
her pay anything, except one red cent every Sunday. She felt
dreadfully humiliated. I don't know that he was any too good a
husband to her, though she was never heard to complain. But she
always had a cowed look. Norman Douglas didn't get the woman he
wanted thirty years ago and the Douglases never liked to put up
with second best."

"Who was the woman he did want."

"Ellen West. They weren't engaged exactly, I believe, but they
went about together for two years. And then they just broke
off--nobody ever know why. Just some silly quarrel, I suppose.
And Norman went and married Hester Reese before his temper had
time to cool--married her just to spite Ellen, I haven't a doubt.
So like a man! Hester was a nice little thing, but she never had
much spirit and he broke what little she had. She was too meek
for Norman. He needed a woman who could stand up to him. Ellen
would have kept him in fine order and he would have liked her all
the better for it. He despised Hester, that is the truth, just
because she always gave in to him. I used to hear him say many a
time, long ago when he was a young fellow 'Give me a spunky
woman--spunk for me every time.' And then he went and married a
girl who couldn't say boo to a goose--man-like. That family of
Reeses were just vegetables. They went through the motions of
living, but they didn't LIVE."

"Russell Reese used his first wife's wedding-ring to marry his
second," said Susan reminiscently. "That was TOO economical in
my opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear. And his brother John has his own
tombstone put up in the over-harbour graveyard, with everything
on it but the date of death, and he goes and looks at it every
Sunday. Most folks would not consider that much fun, but it is
plain he does. People do have such different ideas of enjoyment.
As for Norman Douglas, he is a perfect heathen. When the last
minister asked him why he never went to church he said "Too many
ugly women there, parson--too many ugly women!" I should like to
go to such a man, Mrs. Dr. dear, and say to him solemnly, 'There
is a hell!'"

"Oh, Norman doesn't believe there is such a place," said Miss
Cornelia. "I hope he'll find out his mistake when he comes to
die. There, Mary, you've knit your three inches and you can go
and play with the children for half an hour."

Mary needed no second bidding. She flew to Rainbow Valley with a
heart as light as her heels, and in the course of conversation
told Faith Meredith all about Mrs. Alec Davis.

"And Mrs. Elliott says that she'll turn all the Douglases against
your father and then he'll have to leave the Glen because his
salary won't be paid," concluded Mary. "_I_ don't know what is
to be done, honest to goodness. If only old Norman Douglas would
come back to church and pay, it wouldn't be so bad. But he
won't--and the Douglases will leave--and you all will have to
go."

Faith carried a heavy heart to bed with her that night. The
thought of leaving the Glen was unbearable. Nowhere else in the
world were there such chums as the Blythes. Her little heart had
been wrung when they had left Maywater--she had shed many bitter
tears when she parted with Maywater chums and the old manse there
where her mother had lived and died. She could not contemplate
calmly the thought of such another and harder wrench. She
COULDN'T leave Glen St. Mary and dear Rainbow Valley and that
delicious graveyard.

"It's awful to be minister's family," groaned Faith into her
pillow. "Just as soon as you get fond of a place you are torn up
by the roots. I'll never, never, NEVER marry a minister, no
matter how nice he is."

Faith sat up in bed and looked out of the little vine-hung
window. The night was very still, the silence broken only by
Una's soft breathing. Faith felt terribly alone in the world.
She could see Glen St. Mary lying under the starry blue meadows
of the autumn night. Over the valley a light shone from the
girls' room at Ingleside, and another from Walter's room. Faith
wondered if poor Walter had toothache again. Then she sighed,
with a little passing sigh of envy of Nan and Di. They had a
mother and a settled home--THEY were not at the mercy of people
who got angry without any reason and called you a varmint. Away
beyond the Glen, amid fields that were very quiet with sleep,
another light was burning. Faith knew it shone in the house
where Norman Douglas lived. He was reputed to sit up all hours
of the night reading. Mary had said if he could only be induced
to return to the church all would be well. And why not? Faith
looked at a big, low star hanging over the tall, pointed spruce
at the gate of the Methodist Church and had an inspiration. She
knew what ought to be done and she, Faith Meredith, would do it.
She would make everything right. With a sigh of satisfaction,
she turned from the lonely, dark world and cuddled down beside
Una.



CHAPTER XVI. TIT FOR TAT

With Faith, to decide was to act. She lost no time in carrying
out the idea. As soon as she came home from school the next day
she left the manse and made her way down the Glen. Walter Blythe
joined her as she passed the post office.

"I'm going to Mrs. Elliott's on an errand for mother," he said.
"Where are you going, Faith?"

"I am going somewhere on church business," said Faith loftily.
She did not volunteer any further information and Walter felt
rather snubbed. They walked on in silence for a little while.
It was a warm, windy evening with a sweet, resinous air. Beyond
the sand dunes were gray seas, soft and beautiful. The Glen
brook bore down a freight of gold and crimson leaves, like fairy
shallops. In Mr. James Reese's buckwheat stubble-land, with its
beautiful tones of red and brown, a crow parliament was being
held, whereat solemn deliberations regarding the welfare of
crowland were in progress. Faith cruelly broke up the august
assembly by climbing up on the fence and hurling a broken rail at
it. Instantly the air was filled with flapping black wings and
indignant caws.

"Why did you do that?" said Walter reproachfully. "They were
having such a good time."

"Oh, I hate crows," said Faith airily. "The are so black and sly
I feel sure they're hypocrites. They steal little birds' eggs
out of their nests, you know. I saw one do it on our lawn last
spring. Walter, what makes you so pale to-day? Did you have the
toothache again last night?"

Walter shivered.

"Yes--a raging one. I couldn't sleep a wink--so I just paced up
and down the floor and imagined I was an early Christian martyr
being tortured at the command of Nero. That helped ever so much
for a while--and then I got so bad I couldn't imagine anything."

"Did you cry?" asked Faith anxiously.

"No--but I lay down on the floor and groaned," admitted Walter.
"Then the girls came in and Nan put cayenne pepper in it--and
that made it worse--Di made me hold a swallow of cold water in my
mouth--and I couldn't stand it, so they called Susan. Susan said
it served me right for sitting up in the cold garret yesterday
writing poetry trash. But she started up the kitchen fire and
got me a hot-water bottle and it stopped the toothache. As soon
as I felt better I told Susan my poetry wasn't trash and she
wasn't any judge. And she said no, thank goodness she was not
and she did not know anything about poetry except that it was
mostly a lot of lies. Now you know, Faith, that isn't so. That
is one reason why I like writing poetry--you can say so many
things in it that are true in poetry but wouldn't be true in
prose. I told Susan so, but she said to stop my jawing and go to
sleep before the water got cold, or she'd leave me to see if
rhyming would cure toothache, and she hoped it would be a lesson
to me."

"Why don't you go to the dentist at Lowbridge and get the tooth
out?"

Walter shivered again.

"They want me to--but I can't. It would hurt so."

"Are you afraid of a little pain?" asked Faith contemptuously.

Walter flushed.

"It would be a BIG pain. I hate being hurt. Father said he
wouldn't insist on my going--he'd wait until I'd made up my own
mind to go."

"It wouldn't hurt as long as the toothache," argued Faith,
"You've had five spells of toothache. If you'd just go and have
it out there'd be no more bad nights. _I_ had a tooth out once.
I yelled for a moment, but it was all over then--only the
bleeding."

"The bleeding is worst of all--it's so ugly," cried Walter. "It
just made me sick when Jem cut his foot last summer. Susan said
I looked more like fainting than Jem did. But I couldn't hear to
see Jem hurt, either. Somebody is always getting hurt, Faith--
and it's awful. I just can't BEAR to see things hurt. It makes
me just want to run--and run--and run--till I can't hear or see
them."

"There's no use making a fuss over anyone getting hurt," said
Faith, tossing her curls. "Of course, if you've hurt yourself
very bad, you have to yell--and blood IS messy--and I don't like
seeing other people hurt, either. But I don't want to run--I
want to go to work and help them. Your father HAS to hurt people
lots of times to cure them. What would they do if HE ran away?"

"I didn't say I WOULD run. I said I WANTED to run. That's a
different thing. I want to help people, too. But oh, I wish
there weren't any ugly, dreadful things in the world. I wish
everything was glad and beautiful."

"Well, don't let's think of what isn't," said Faith. "After all,
there's lots of fun in being alive. You wouldn't have toothache
if you were dead, but still, wouldn't you lots rather be alive
than dead? I would, a hundred times. Oh, here's Dan Reese.
He's been down to the harbour for fish."

"I hate Dan Reese," said Walter.

"So do I. All us girls do. I'm just going to walk past and
never take the least notice of him. You watch me!"

Faith accordingly stalked past Dan with her chin out and an
expression of scorn that bit into his soul. He turned and
shouted after her.

"Pig-girl! Pig-girl!! Pig-girl!!!" in a crescendo of insult.

Faith walked on, seemingly oblivious. But her lip trembled
slightly with a sense of outrage. She knew she was no match for
Dan Reese when it came to an exchange of epithets. She wished
Jem Blythe had been with her instead of Walter. If Dan Reese had
dared to call her a pig-girl in Jem's hearing, Jem would have
wiped up the dust with him. But it never occurred to Faith to
expect Walter to do it, or blame him for not doing it. Walter,
she knew, never fought other boys. Neither did Charlie Clow of
the north road. The strange part was that, while she despised
Charlie for a coward, it never occurred to her to disdain Walter.
It was simply that he seemed to her an inhabitant of a world of
his own, where different traditions prevailed. Faith would as
soon have expected a starry-eyed young angel to pummel dirty,
freckled Dan Reese for her as Walter Blythe. She would not have
blamed the angel and she did not blame Walter Blythe. But she
wished that sturdy Jem or Jerry had been there and Dan's insult
continued to rankle in her soul.

Walter was pale no longer. He had flushed crimson and his
beautiful eyes were clouded with shame and anger. He knew that
he ought to have avenged Faith. Jem would have sailed right in
and made Dan eat his words with bitter sauce. Ritchie Warren
would have overwhelmed Dan with worse "names" than Dan had called
Faith. But Walter could not--simply could not--"call names." He
knew he would get the worst of it. He could never conceive or
utter the vulgar, ribald insults of which Dan Reese had unlimited
command. And as for the trial by fist, Walter couldn't fight.
He hated the idea. It was rough and painful--and, worst of all,
it was ugly. He never could understand Jem's exultation in an
occasional conflict. But he wished he COULD fight Dan Reese. He
was horribly ashamed because Faith Meredith had been insulted in
his presence and he had not tried to punish her insulter. He
felt sure she must despise him. She had not even spoken to him
since Dan had called her pig-girl. He was glad when they came to
the parting of the ways.

Faith, too, was relieved, though for a different reason. She
wanted to be alone because she suddenly felt rather nervous about
her errand. Impulse had cooled, especially since Dan had bruised
her self-respect. She must go through with it, but she no longer
had enthusiasm to sustain her. She was going to see Norman
Douglas and ask him to come back to church, and she began to be
afraid of him. What had seemed so easy and simple up at the Glen
seemed very different down here. She had heard a good deal about
Norman Douglas, and she knew that even the biggest boys in school
were afraid of him. Suppose he called her something nasty--she
had heard he was given to that. Faith could not endure being
called names--they subdued her far more quickly than a physical
blow. But she would go on--Faith Meredith always went on. If
she did not her father might have to leave the Glen.

At the end of the long lane Faith came to the house--a big,
old-fashioned one with a row of soldierly Lombardies marching
past it. On the back veranda Norman Douglas himself was sitting,
reading a newspaper. His big dog was beside him. Behind, in the
kitchen, where his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, was getting supper,
there was a clatter of dishes--an angry clatter, for Norman
Douglas had just had a quarrel with Mrs. Wilson, and both were in
a very bad temper over it. Consequently, when Faith stepped on
the veranda and Norman Douglas lowered his newspaper she found
herself looking into the choleric eyes of an irritated man.

Norman Douglas was rather a fine-looking personage in his way.
He had a sweep of long red beard over his broad chest and a mane
of red hair, ungrizzled by the years, on his massive head. His
high, white forehead was unwrinkled and his blue eyes could flash
still with all the fire of his tempestuous youth. He could be
very amiable when he liked, and he could be very terrible. Poor
Faith, so anxiously bent on retrieving the situation in regard to
the church, had caught him in one of his terrible moods.

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