Emily Climbs (16 page)

“One loses so much when one becomes incredulous,” said Emily – and then thought that was a rather clever remark and wished she had a Jimmy-book to write it down.

So, having washed her soul free from bitterness in the aerial bath of the spring night and tingling from head to foot with the wild, strange, sweet life of the spirit, she came to Aunt Ruth’s when the faint, purplish hills east of the harbour were growing clear under a whitening sky She had expected to find the door still locked; but the knob turned as she tried it and she went in.

Aunt Ruth was up and was lighting the kitchen fire.

On the way from New Moon Emily had thought over a dozen different ways of saying what she meant to say – and now she used not one of them. At the last moment an impish inspiration came to her. Before Aunt Ruth could – or would – speak Emily said,

“Aunt Ruth, I’ve come back to tell you that I forgive you, but that this must not happen again.”

To tell the truth, Mistress Ruth Dutton was considerably relieved that Emily
had
come back. She had been afraid of Elizabeth and Laura – Murray family rows were bitter things – and truly a little afraid of the results to Emily herself if she had really gone to New Moon in those thin shoes and that insufficient coat. For Ruth Dutton was not a fiend – only a rather stupid, stubborn little barnyard fowl trying to train up a skylark. She was honestly afraid that Emily might catch a cold and go into consumption. And if Emily took it into her head
not
to come back to Shrewsbury – well, that would “make talk” and Ruth Dutton hated “talk” when she or her doings was the subject. So, all things considered, she decided to ignore the impertinence of Emily’s greeting.

“Did you spend the night on the streets?” she asked grimly.

“Oh, dear no – I went out to New Moon – had a chat with Cousin Jimmy and some lunch – then walked back.”

“Did Elizabeth see you? Or Laura?”

“No. They were asleep.”

Mrs. Dutton reflected that this was just as well.

“Well,” she said coldly, “you have been guilty of great ingratitude, Em’ly, but I’ll forgive you this time” – then stopped abruptly. Hadn’t that been said already this morning? Before she could think of a substitute remark Emily had vanished upstairs. Mistress Ruth Dutton was left with the unpleasant sensation that, somehow or other, she had not come out of the affair quite as triumphantly as she should have.

“Shrewsbury, 

“April 28, 19–

“This was my week-end at New Moon and I came back this morning. Consequently this is blue Monday and I’m homesick. Aunt Ruth, too, is always a little more
unlivable
on Mondays – or seems so by contrast with Aunt Laura and Aunt Elizabeth. Cousin Jimmy wasn’t quite so nice this week-end as he usually is. He had several of his queer spells and was a bit grumpy for two reasons: in the first place, several of his young apple trees are dying because they were girdled by mice in the winter; and in the second place he can’t induce Aunt Elizabeth to try the new creamers that every one else is using. For my own part I am secretly glad that she won’t. I don’t want our beautiful old dairy and the glossy brown milk pans to be improved out of existence. I can’t think of New Moon without a dairy.

“When I could get Cousin Jimmy’s mind off his grievances we explored the Carlton catalogue and discussed the best selections to make for my two dollars’ worth of owl’s laughter. We planned a dozen different combinations and beds, and got several hundred dollars’ worth of fun out of it, but finally settled
on a long, narrow bed full of asters – lavender down the middle, white around it and a border of pale pink, with clumps of deep purple for sentinels at the four corners. I am sure it will be beautiful: and I shall look at its September loveliness and think, ‘
This
came out of my head!’

“I have taken another step in the Alpine Path. Last week the
Ladies’ Own Journal
accepted my poem,
The Wind Woman
, and gave me two subscriptions to the
Journal
for it. No cash – but that may come yet. I
must
make enough money before very long to pay Aunt Ruth every cent my living with her has cost her. Then she won’t be able to twit me with the expense I am to her. She hardly misses a day without some hint of it – ‘No, Mrs. Beatty, I feel I can’t give quite as much to missions this year as usual – my expenses have been much heavier, you know’ – ‘Oh, no, Mr. Morrison, your new goods are beautiful but I can’t afford a silk dress
this
spring’ – ‘This davenport should really be upholstered again – it’s getting fearfully shabby – but it’s out of the question for a year or two.’ So it goes.

“But my soul doesn’t belong to Aunt Ruth.

“
Owl’s Laughter
was copied in the Shrewsbury
Times
– ‘hunter’s moan’ and all. Evelyn Blake, I understand, says she doesn’t believe I wrote it at all – she’s
sure
she read something exactly like it somewhere some years ago.

“Dear Evelyn!

“Aunt Elizabeth said nothing at all about it, but Cousin Jimmy told me she cut it out and put it in the Bible she keeps on the stand by her bed. When I told her I was to get two dollars’ worth of seeds for it she said I’d likely find when I sent for them that the firm had gone bankrupt!

“I have a notion to send that little story about the child that Mr. Carpenter liked to
Golden Hours
. I wish I could get it typewritten, but that is impossible, so I shall have to write
it very plainly. I wonder if I
dare
. They would surely pay for a story.

“Dean will soon be home. How glad I will be to see him! I wonder if he will think I have changed much. I have certainly grown taller. Aunt Laura says I will soon have to have really long dresses and put my hair up, but Aunt Elizabeth says fifteen is too young for that. She says girls are not so womanly at fifteen nowadays as they were in
her
time. Aunt Elizabeth is really frightened, I know, that if she lets me grow up I’ll be eloping – ‘like Juliet.’ But I’m in no hurry to grow up. It’s nicer to be just like this – betwixt-and-between. Then, if I want to be childish I can be, none daring to make me ashamed; and if I want to behave maturely I have the authority of my extra inches.

“It’s a gentle, rainy evening tonight. There are pussy willows out in the swamp and some young birches in the Land of Uprightness have cast a veil of transparent purple over their bare limbs. I think I will write a poem on
A Vision of Spring
.

“May 5, 19–

“There has been quite an outbreak of spring poetry in High School. Evelyn has one in the May
Quill
on
Flowers
. Very wobbly rhymes.

“And Perry! He also felt the annual spring urge, as Mr. Carpenter calls it, and wrote a dreadful thing called
The Old Farmer Sows His Seed
. He sent it to
The Quill
and
The Quill
actually printed it – in the ‘jokes’ column. Perry is quite proud of it and doesn’t realise that he has made an ass of himself. Ilse turned pale with fury when she read it and hasn’t spoken to him since. She says he isn’t fit to associate with. Ilse is far too hard on Perry. And yet, when I read the thing, especially the verse,

I wanted to murder him myself. Perry can’t understand what is wrong with it.

“‘It rhymes, doesn’t it?’

“Oh, yes, it rhymes!

“Ilse has also been raging at Perry lately because he has been coming to school with all but one button off his coat. I couldn’t endure it myself, so when we came out of class I whispered to Perry to meet me for five minutes by the Fern Pool at sunset. I slipped out with needle, thread and buttons and sewed them on. He didn’t see why it wouldn’t have done to wait till Friday night and have Aunt Tom sew them on. I said,

“‘Why didn’t you sew them on yourself, Perry?’

“‘I’ve no buttons and no money to buy any’ he said, ‘but never mind, some day I will have gold buttons if I want them.’

“Aunt Ruth saw me coming in with thread and scissors, etc., and of course wanted to know where, what and why. I told her the whole tale and she said,

“‘You’d better let Perry Miller’s friends sew his buttons on for him.’

“‘I’m the best friend he’s got,’ I said.

“‘I don’t know where you get your low tastes from,’ said Aunt Ruth.

“May 7, 19–

“This afternoon after school Teddy rowed Ilse and me across the harbour to pick May-flowers in the spruce barrens up the Green River. We got basketfuls, and spent a perfect
hour wandering about the barrens with the friendly murmur of the little fir trees all around us. As somebody said of strawberries so say I of May-flowers, ‘God might have made a sweeter blossom, but never did.’

“When we left for home a thick white fog had come in over the bar and filled the harbour. But Teddy rowed in the direction of the train whistles, so we hadn’t any trouble really and I thought the experience quite wonderful. We seemed to be floating over a white sea in an unbroken calm. There was no sound save the faint moan of the bar, the deep-sea call beyond, and the low dip of the oars in the glassy water. We were alone in a world of mist on a veiled, shoreless sea. Now and then, for just a moment, a cool air current lifted the mist curtain and dim coasts loomed phantom-like around us. Then the blank whiteness shut down again. It was as though we sought some strange, enchanted shore that ever receded farther and farther. I was really sorry when we got to the wharf, but when I reached home I found Aunt Ruth all worked up on account of the fog.

“‘I knew I shouldn’t have allowed you to go,’ she said.

“‘There wasn’t any danger really, Aunt Ruth,’ I protested, ‘and look at my lovely May-flowers.’

“Aunt Ruth wouldn’t look at the May-flowers.

“‘No danger – in a white fog! Suppose you had got lost and a wind had come up before you reached land?’

“‘How could one get lost on little Shrewsbury harbour, Aunt Ruth?’ I said. ‘The fog was wonderful – wonderful. It just seemed as if we were voyaging over the planet’s rim into the depth of space.’

“I spoke enthusiastically and I suppose I looked a bit wild with mist drops on my hair, for Aunt Ruth said coldly, pityingly,

“‘It is unfortunate that you are
so excitable
, Emily.’

“It is maddening to be frozen and pitied, so I answered recklessly,

“‘But think of the fun you miss when you’re non-excitable, Aunt Ruth. There is nothing more wonderful than dancing around a blazing fire. What matter if it end in ashes?’

“‘When you are as old as I am,’ said Aunt Ruth, you will have more sense than to go into ecstasies over white fogs.’

“It seems to me impossible that I shall either grow old or die. I
know
I will, of course, but I don’t
believe
it. I didn’t make any answer to Aunt Ruth, so she started on another tack.

“‘I was watching Ilse go past. Em’ly, does that girl wear
any
petticoats?’

“‘
Her clothing is silk and purple
,’ I murmured, quoting the Bible verse simply because there is something in it that charms me. One couldn’t imagine a finer or simpler description of a gorgeously dressed woman. I don’t think Aunt Ruth recognised the quotation: she thought I was just trying to be smart.

“‘If you mean that she wears a purple silk petticoat, Em’ly, say so in plain English. Silk petticoats, indeed. If
I
had anything to do with her I’d silk petticoat her.’

“‘Some day
I
am going to wear silk petticoats,’ I said.

“‘Oh, indeed, miss. And may I ask what
you
have got to get silk petticoats with?’

“‘I’ve got
a. future,’
I said, as proudly as the Murrayest of all Murrays could have said it.

“Aunt Ruth sniffed.

“I have filled my room with May-flowers and even Lord Byron looks as if there might be a chance of recovery.

“May 13, 19–

“I have made the plunge and sent my story
Something Different
to
Golden Hours
. I actually trembled as I dropped
it into the box at the Shoppe. Oh, if it should be accepted!

“Perry has set the school laughing again. He said in class that France
exported fashions
. Ilse walked up to him when class came out and said, ‘You
spawn
!’ She hasn’t spoken to him since.

“Evelyn continues to say sweet cutting things and laugh. I might forgive her the cutting things but never the laugh.

“May 15, 19–

“We had our Prep ‘Pow-wow’ last night. It always comes off in May. We had it in the Assembly room of the school and when we got there we found we couldn’t light the gas. We didn’t know what was the matter but suspected the Juniors. (Today we discovered they had cut off the gas in the basement and locked the basement doors.) At first we didn’t know what to do: then I remembered that Aunt Elizabeth had brought Aunt Ruth a big box of candles for my use. I tore home and got them – Aunt Ruth being out – and we stuck them all around the room. So we had our Pow-wow after all and it was a brilliant success. We had such fun improvising candle holders that we got off to a good start, and somehow the candle-light was so much more friendly and inspiring than gas. We all seemed to be able to think of wittier things to say. Everybody was supposed to make a speech on any subject he or she wished. Perry made the speech of the evening. He had prepared a speech on ‘Canadian History – very sensible and, I suspect, dull; but at the last minute he changed his mind and spoke on ‘candles’ – just making it up as he went along, telling of all the candles he saw in different lands when he was a little boy sailing with his father. It was so witty and interesting that we sat enthralled and I think the students will forget about French fashions and the old farmer who left the hoeing and weeding to God.

“Aunt Ruth hasn’t found out about the candles yet, as the old box isn’t quite empty. When I go to New Moon tomorrow night I’ll coax Aunt Laura to give me another box – I know she will – and I’ll bring them to Aunt Ruth.

“May 22, 19–

“Today there was a hateful, long, fat envelope for me in the mail.
Golden Hours
has sent my story back. The accompanying rejection slip said:

“At first I tried to extract a little comfort from the fact that they had read it with ‘keen interest.’ Then it came home to me that the rejection slip was a printed one, so of course it is just what they send with
all
rejected manuscripts.

“The worst of it was that Aunt Ruth had seen the packet before I got home from school and had opened it. It was humiliating to have
her
know of my failure.

“‘I hope
this
will convince you that you’d better waste no more stamps on such nonsense, Em’ly. The idea of your thinking
you
could write a story fit to be published.’

“‘I’ve had two poems published,’ I cried.

“Aunt Ruth sniffed.

“‘Oh,
poems
. Of course they have to have something to fill up the corners.’

“Perhaps it’s so. I felt very flat as I crawled off to my room with my poor story. I was quite ‘content to fill a little space’ then. You could have packed me in a thimble.

“My story is all dog-eared and smells of tobacco. I’ve a notion to burn it.

“No, I
won’t
!! I’ll copy it out again and try somewhere else. I
will
succeed!

“I think, from glancing over the recent pages of this journal, that I am beginning to be able to do without italics. But sometimes they are necessary.

“New Moon, Blair Water.

“May 24, 19–                 

“‘For lo, the winter is past: the rain is over and gone: the flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds has come.’

“I’m sitting on the sill of my open window in my own dear room. It’s so lovely to get back to it every now and then. Out there, over Lofty John’s bush, is a soft yellow sky and one very white little star is just visible where the pale yellow shades off into paler green. Far off, down in the south ‘in regions mild of calm and serene air’ are great cloud-palaces of rosy marble. Leaning over the fence is a choke-cherry tree that is a mass of blossoms like creamy caterpillars. Everything is so lovely– ‘the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing.’