Emily's Quest (18 page)

E
mily, coming home one January night from an evening call, decided to use the cross-lots road that skirted the Tansy Patch. It had been a winter almost without snow and the ground under her feet was bare and hard. She seemed the only living creature abroad in the night and she walked slowly, savouring the fine, grim, eerie charm of flower-less meadows and silent woods, of the moon breaking suddenly out of black clouds over the lowlands of pointed firs; and trying, more or less successfully, not to think of the letter that had come from Ilse that day – one of Ilse's gay, incoherent letters, where one fact stood out barely. The wedding day was set – the fifteenth of June.

“I want you to wear harebell blue gauze over ivory taffeta for your bridesmaid dress, darling. How your black silk hair will shine over it!

“My ‘bridal robe' is going to be of ivory velvet and old Great-aunt Edith in Scotland is sending me out her veil of rose-point and Great-aunt Theresa in the same historic land is sending me a train of silver oriental embroidery that her
husband once brought home from Constantinople. I'll veil it with tulle. Won't I be a dazzling creature? I don't think the dear old souls knew I existed till Dad wrote them about my ‘forthcoming nuptials.' Dad is far more excited over everything than I am.

“Teddy and I are going to spend our honeymoon in old inns in out-of-the-way European corners – places where nobody else wants to go – Vallambroso and so on. That line of Milton's always intrigued me – ‘thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambroso.' When you take it away from its horrible context it is a picture of sheer delight.

“I'll be home in May for my last preparations and Teddy will come the first of June to spend a little while with his mother. How
is
she taking it, Emily? Have you any idea? I can't get anything out of Teddy, so I suppose she doesn't like it. She always hated me, I know. But then she seemed to hate every one – with a special venom for you. I won't be particularly fortunate in my mother-in-law. I'll always have an eerie feeling that she's secretly heaping maledictions on my head. However, Teddy is nice enough to make up for her. He really is. I'd no idea how nice he could be and I'm growing fonder of him every day. Honestly. When I look at him and realise how handsome and charming he is I can't understand why I'm not madly in love with him. But it's really much more comfortable not to be. If I were I'd be heartbroken every time we quarrelled. We're always quarrelling – you know me of old. We always will. We'll spoil every wonderful moment with a quarrel. But life won't be dull.”

Emily shivered. Her own life was looking very bleak and starved just then. Oh, how – nice – it would be when the wedding was over – the wedding where
she
should be bride – yes,
should
– and was to be bridesmaid – and people done
talking of it. “Harebell blue over ivory taffeta!” Sackcloth and ashes, rather.

“Emily, Emily Starr.”

Emily almost jumped. She had not seen Mrs. Kent in the gloom until they were face to face – at the little side path that led up to the Tansy Patch. She was standing there, bareheaded in the chill night, with outstretched hand.

“Emily, I want to have a talk with you. I saw you go past here at sunset and I've been watching for you ever since. Come up to the house.”

Emily would much rather have refused. Yet she turned and silently climbed the steep, root-ribbed path, with Mrs. Kent flitting before her like a little dead leaf borne along by the wind. Through the ragged old garden where nothing ever grew but tansy, and into the little house that was as shabby as it had always been. People said Teddy Kent might fix up his mother's house a bit if he were making all the money folks said he was. But Emily knew that Mrs. Kent would not let him – would not have anything changed.

She looked around the little place curiously. She had not been in it for many years – not since the long-ago days when she and Ilse and Teddy had been children there. It seemed quite unchanged. As of yore, the house seemed to be afraid of laughter. Some one always seemed to be praying in it. It had an atmosphere of prayer. And the old willow to the west was still tap-tapping on the window with ghostly finger-tips. On the mantel was a recent photograph of Teddy – a good one. He seemed on the point of speaking – of saying something triumphant – exultant.

“Emily, I've found the rainbow gold. Fame – and love.”

She turned her back on it and sat down. Mrs. Kent sat opposite – a faded, shrinking little figure with the long scar slanting palely across her bitter mouth and lined face – the face that must have been very pretty once. She was looking intently, searchingly at Emily; but, as Emily instantly realised, the old smouldering hatred had gone out of her eyes – her tired eyes that must once have been young and eager and laughter-lit. She leaned forward and touched Emily's arm with her slim, claw-like fingers.

“You know that Teddy is going to marry Ilse Burnley,” she said.

“Yes.”

“What do you feel about it?”

Emily moved impatiently.

“What do my feelings matter, Mrs. Kent? Teddy loves Ilse. She is a beautiful, brilliant, warm-hearted girl. I am sure they will be very happy.”

“Do
you
still love him?”

Emily wondered why she did not feel resentment. But Mrs. Kent was not to be judged by ordinary rules. And here was a fine chance to save her face by a cool little lie – just a few indifferent words. “Not any longer, Mrs. Kent. Oh, I know I once imagined I did – imagining things like that is one of my weaknesses unfortunately. But I find I don't care at all.”

Why couldn't she say them? Well, she couldn't that was all. She could never, in any words, deny her love for Teddy. It was so much a part of herself that it had a divine right to truth. And was there not, too, a secret relief in feeling that here at least was one person with whom she could be herself– before whom she need not pretend or hide?

“I don't think you have any right to ask that question, Mrs. Kent. But – I do.”

Mrs. Kent laughed silently.

“I used to hate you. I don't hate you any longer. We are one now, you and I. We love him. And he has forgotten us – he cares nothing for us – he has gone to
her
.”

“He does care for you, Mrs. Kent. He always did. Surely you can understand that there is more than one kind of love. And I hope – you are not going to hate Ilse because Teddy loves her.”

“No, I don't hate her. She is more beautiful than you, but there is no mystery about her. She will never possess him wholly as you would have. It's quite different. But I want to know this – are you unhappy because of this?”

“No. Only for a few minutes now and then. Generally I am too much interested in my work to brood morbidly on what can't be mine.”

Mrs. Kent had listened thirstily. “Yes – yes – exactly. I thought so. The Murrays are so sensible. Some day – some day – you'll be glad this has happened – glad that Teddy didn't care for you. Don't you think you will?”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, I am sure of it. It's so much better for you. Oh, you don't know the suffering and wretchedness you will be spared. It's madness to love anything too much. God
is
jealous. If you married Teddy he would break your heart – they always do. It is best – you will live to feel it was best.”

Tap – tap – tap went the old willow.

“Need we talk of this any more, Mrs. Kent?”

“Do you remember that night I found you and Teddy in the graveyard?” asked Mrs. Kent, apparently deaf to Emily's question.

“Yes.” Emily found herself remembering it very vividly – that strange wonderful night when Teddy had saved her from mad Mr. Morrison and said such sweet, unforgettable things to her.

“Oh, how I hated you that night!” exclaimed Mrs. Kent. “But I shouldn't have said those things to you. All my life I've been saying things I shouldn't. Once I said a terrible thing – such a terrible thing. I've never been able to get the echo of it out of my ears. And do you remember what
you
said to
met
That was why I let Teddy go away from me. It
was your
doing. If he hadn't gone you mightn't have lost him. Are you sorry you spoke so?”

“No. If anything I said helped to clear the way for him I'm glad – glad.”

“You would do it over again?”

“I would.”

“And don't you hate Ilse bitterly? She has taken what you wanted. You
must hate
her.”

“I do not. I love Ilse dearly as I always did. She has taken nothing from me that was ever mine.”

“I don't understand it – I don't understand it,” half whispered Mrs. Kent. “
My
love isn't like that. Perhaps that is why it has always made me so unhappy. No, I don't hate you any longer. But oh, I did hate you. I knew Teddy cared more for you than he did for me. Didn't you and he talk about me – criticise me?”

“Never.”

“I thought you did. People were always doing that – always.”

Suddenly Mrs. Kent struck her tiny thin hands together violently.

“Why didn't you tell me you didn't love him any longer? Why didn't you – even if it was a lie? That was what I wanted to hear. I could have believed you. The Murrays never lie.”

“Oh, what does it matter?” cried tortured Emily again. “My love means nothing to him now. He is Ilse's. You need not be jealous of me any longer, Mrs. Kent.”

“I'm not – I'm not – it isn't that.” Mrs. Kent looked at her very oddly. “Oh, if I only dared – but no – but no, it's too late. It would be no use now. I don't think I know what I'm saying. Only – Emily – will you come to see me sometimes? It's lonely here – very lonely – so much worse now when he belongs to Ilse. His picture came last Wednesday – no Thursday. There is so little to distinguish the days here. I put it up there, but it makes things worse. He was thinking of her in it – can't you tell by his eyes he was thinking of the woman he loves? I am of no importance to him now. I am of no importance to anybody.”

“If I come to see you – you mustn't talk of him – or of them,” said Emily, pityingly.

“I won't. Oh, I won't. Though that won't prevent us from thinking of them, will it? You'll sit there – and I'll sit here – and we'll talk of the weather and think of
him
. How amusing! But – when you've really forgotten him – when you really don't care any more – you'll tell me, won't you.”

Emily nodded and rose to go. She could not endure this any longer. “And if there is ever anything I can do for you, Mrs. Kent –”

“I want rest – rest,” said Mrs. Kent, laughing wildly. “Can you find that for me? Don't you know I'm a ghost, Emily? I died years ago. I walk in the dark.”

As the door closed behind her Emily heard Mrs. Kent beginning to cry terribly. With a sigh of relief she turned to the crisp open spaces of the wind and the night, the shadows and the frosty moon. Ah, one could breathe here.

I
lse came in May – a gay laughing Ilse. Almost
too
gay and laughing, Emily thought. Ilse had always been a merry irresponsible creature; but not quite so unceasingly so as now. She never had a serious mood, apparently. She made a jest of everything, even her marriage. Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura were quite shocked at her. A girl who was so soon to assume the responsibilities of wedded life should be more thoughtful and sober. Ilse told Emily they were mid-Victorian screams. She chatted ceaselessly when she and Emily were together, but never
talked
to her, despite the desire expressed in her letters for old-time spiels. Perhaps she was not quite all to blame for this. Emily, in spite of her determination to be exactly the same as of yore, could not help a certain restraint and reserve, born of her secret pain and her fierce determination to hide it. Ilse felt the restraint, though wholly unsuspicious of the cause. Emily was just naturally growing a little bit New Moonish, that was all, living there alone with those dear old antediluvians.

“When Teddy and I come back and set up house in Montreal you must spend every winter with us, darling. New Moon is a dear place in summer, but in winter you must be absolutely buried alive.”

Emily made no promises. She did not see herself as a guest in Teddy's home. Every night she told herself she could not possibly endure to-morrow. But when to-morrow came it was livable. It was even possible to talk dress and details calmly with Ilse. The harebell blue dress became a reality and Emily tried it on two nights before Teddy was expected home. The wedding was only two weeks away now.

“You look like a dream in it, Emily,” said Ilse, stretched out on Emily's bed with the grace and abandon of a cat – Teddy's sapphire blotting her finger darkly. “You'll make all my velvet and lace gorgeousness look obvious and crude. Did I tell you Teddy is bringing Lorne Halsey with him for best man? I'm positively thrilled – the great Halsey. His mother has been so ill he didn't think he could come. But the obliging old lady has suddenly recovered and he's actually coming. His new book is a wow. Everybody in Montreal was raving over it and he's the most interesting and improbable creature. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you and he were to fall in love with each other, Emily?”

“Don't go matchmaking for me, Ilse,” said Emily with a faint smile, as she took off the harebell dress. “I feel in my bones that I shall achieve old-maidenhood, which is an entirely different thing from having old-maidenhood thrust upon you.”

“To be sure, he looks like a gargoyle,” said Ilse meditatively. “If it hadn't been for that I think I might have married him myself. I'm almost sure I could have. His way of making love was to ask me my opinion about things. That was agreeable. But I had a hunch that if we were married he would stop
asking for my opinion. That would
not
be agreeable. Besides, nobody could ever tell what he really thought. He might be looking as though he adored you and thinking he saw crow's-feet around your eyes. By the way, isn't Teddy the most beautiful thing?”

“He was always a nice-looking boy.”

“‘A nice-looking boy,'” mimicked I. “Emily Starr, if you ever do marry I hope your husband will chain you in the dog-kennel. I'll be calling you Aunt Emily in a minute. Why, there's nobody in Montreal who can hold a candle to him. It's his looks I love really – not him. Sometimes he bores me – really. Although I was so sure he wouldn't. He never did before we were engaged. I have a premonition that some day I'll throw the teapot at him. Isn't it a pity we can't have two husbands? One to look at and one to talk to. But Teddy and I will be byway of being a stunning couple, won't we, honey? He so dark – I so fair. Ideal. I've always wished I was ‘a dark ladye' – like you – but when I said so to Teddy he just laughed and quoted the old verse,

That's the nearest Teddy will ever get to calling
me
an angel. Luckily. For when all's said and done, Emily, I'd rather – are you sure the door is shut so that Aunt Laura won't drop dead? – I'd
much
rather be a siren than an angel. Wouldn't you?”

“Let's check up the invitations now and make sure we haven't left anybody out,” was Emily's response to this riot of words.

“Isn't it terrible to belong to a clan like ours?” said Ilse peevishly. “There's such a ghastly lot of old frumps and bores that have to be among those present. I hope some day I'll get where there are no relations. I wish the whole damn affair was over. You're sure you addressed a bid to Perry, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if he'll come? I hope he will. What a goose I was ever to fancy I cared so much for him! I used to hope – all sorts of things, in spite of the fact I knew he was crazy about you. But I never hoped after Mrs. Chidlaw's dinner-dance. Do you remember it, Emily?”

Yes, Emily remembered
that
.

“Till then I'd always hoped a
little
– that some day when he realised he couldn't have you – I'd catch his heart on the rebound – wasn't that the Victorian phrase? I thought he'd be at the Chidlaws' – and I knew he had been invited. And I asked Teddy if Perry were coming. Teddy looked right into my eyes meaningly and said, ‘Perry will not be here. He's working on the case he has to appear in to-morrow. Perry's goal is ambition. He has no time for love.'

“I knew he was trying to warn me – and I knew it was no use to go on hoping – anything. So I gave up definitely. Well, it's turned out all right. Isn't it charming how things do turn out so beautifully? Makes one quite believe in an overruling Providence. Isn't it nice to be able to blame everything on God?”

Emily hardly heard Ilse as she mechanically hung up the blue dress in her closet and slipped into a little green sport suit. So
that
was what Teddy had said to Ilse that night years ago when she knew he had uttered the word “love.” And she had been so chilly to him because of it. Well, not likely it mattered. No doubt he had only been warning Ilse because he wanted
her to turn her maiden thoughts from Perry and concentrate them on himself. She felt relieved when Ilse finally went home. Ilse's light, continual chatter rather got on her nerves – though she was ashamed to admit it. But then her nerves were on edge under this long-drawn-out torture. Two weeks more of it – and then, thank God, at least peace.

She went up to the Tansy Patch in the dusk to take back a book Mrs. Kent had lent her the night before. The visit must be made before Teddy came home. She had been up to the Tansy Patch several times since that first evening and an odd sort of friendship had sprung up between her and Mrs. Kent. They lent each other books and talked of everything except the one thing that mattered most to them. The book Emily was returning was an old copy of
The South African Farm
. Emily had expressed a wish to read it and Mrs. Kent had gone upstairs and presently came down with it – her white face a little whiter and the scar burning redly across it as always when she was deeply moved.

“Here is the book you want,” she said. “I had it in a box upstairs.”

Emily finished reading the book before she went to sleep. She was not sleeping well now and the nights were long. The book had a musty, unaired odour – evidently the box Mrs. Kent spoke of had not been opened for a long time. And in it Emily found a thin letter, unstamped, addressed to Mrs. David Kent.

The curious thing about the letter was that it was, apparently, unopened. Well, letters often resealed themselves like that, if placed under pressure, when the flap had pulled open untorn in the first opening. Not likely it was of much significance.
But of course she would mention it when she took the book back.

“Did you know there was a letter in this book, Mrs. Kent?”

“A letter. Did you say a letter?”

“Yes. Addressed to you.”

Emily held the letter out to Mrs. Kent, whose face became ghastly as she looked at the handwriting.

“You found that – in that book?” she whispered. “In that book that hasn't been opened for over twenty-five years? Do you know – who wrote this letter? My – husband wrote it – and I have never read it – never known of it.”

Emily felt herself in the presence of some tragedy – the secret torture of Mrs. Kent's life, perhaps.

“I will go away – so that you can read it alone,” she said gently and went out, leaving Mrs. Kent standing in the shadowy little room, holding the letter in her hand – as one might hold a snake.

“I sent for you to-night because there is something I must tell you,” said Mrs. Kent.

She was sitting, a tiny erect, determined creature in the armchair by the window in the harsh light of a cold sunset. It was June but it was cold. The sky was hard and autumnal. Emily, walking up the cross-lots path, had shivered, and wished herself at home. But Mrs. Kent's note had been urgent – almost peremptory. Why in the world did she want her! Surely, it could not be anything in connection with Teddy. And yet what else could make Mrs. Kent send for her in this fashion?

The moment she saw Mrs. Kent she was conscious of a curious change in her – a change hard to define. She was as
frail, as pitiful as ever. There seemed even a certain defiant light in her eyes. But for the first time since she had known Mrs. Kent Emily did not feel that she was in the presence of an unhappy women. There was peace here – a strange, sorrowful, long-unknown peace. The tortured soul was – at last – off the rack.

“I have been dead – and in hell – but now I am alive again,” said Mrs. Kent. “It's you who have done this – you found that letter. And so there is something I must tell you. It will make you hate me. And I shall be sorry for that now. But it must be told.”

Emily felt a sudden distaste for hearing whatever it was Mrs. Kent had to tell. It had – must have – something to do with Teddy. And she did not want to hear anything –
anything
– about Teddy now – Teddy who would be Ilse's husband in two weeks.

“Don't you think – perhaps – it would be better not to tell me?”

“It must be told. I have committed a wrong and I must confess it. I cannot undo it – I suppose it is too late to undo it – but it must be told. But there are other things that must be told first. Things I've never spoken of– things that have been torturing me until I've screamed out loud at night sometimes with the anguish of them. Oh, you will never forgive me – but I think you will be a little sorry for me.”

“I've always felt sorry for you, Mrs. Kent.”

“I think you did – yes, I think you did. But you couldn't realise it all. Emily, I wasn't like this when I was a girl. I was – like other people then. And I was pretty – indeed I was. When David Kent came and made me love him I was pretty. And he loved me –
then
– and he always loved me. He says so in this letter.”

She plucked it from the bosom of her dress and kissed it almost savagely.

“I can't let you see it, Emily. No eyes but mine must ever see it. But I'll tell you what is in it. Oh, you can't know – you can't understand how much I loved him, Emily. You think you love Teddy. But you don't – you
can't
love him as I loved his father.”

Emily had a different opinion on this point, but she did not say so.

“He married me and took me home to Malton where his people lived. We were so happy at first – too happy. I told you God was jealous. And his people did not like me – not from the first. They thought David had married beneath him – that I wasn't good enough for him. They were always trying to come between us. Oh, I knew; I knew what they were after. His mother hated me. She never call me Aileen – only you' and ‘David's wife.' I hated her because she was always watching me – never said anything – never did anything. Just
watched
me. I was never one of them. I never seemed able to understand their jokes. They were always laughing over something – me, half the time, I thought. They would write letters to David and never mention me. Some of them were always freezingly polite to me and some of them were always giving me digs. Once one of his sisters sent me a book on etiquette. Something was always hurting me – and I couldn't strike back – I couldn't hurt what was hurting me. David took their part – he had secrets with them he kept from me. But in spite of it all I was happy – till I dropped the lamp and my dress caught fire and scarred my face like this. After that I couldn't believe David could keep on loving me. I was so ugly. My nerves got raw and I couldn't help quarrelling with him over every trifle. But he was patient. He forgave me again and again. Only I was
so afraid he couldn't love me with that scar. I knew I was going to have a baby, but I kept putting off telling him. I was afraid he would love it more than he did me. And then – I did a terrible thing. I hate to tell you of it. I – I poisoned it. I don't know what possessed me. I never used to be like that – not till I was burned. Perhaps it was because the baby was coming.”

Mrs. Kent stopped and changed suddenly from a woman quivering with unveiled feeling to a prim Victorian.

“I shouldn't talk about such matters to a young girl,” she said anxiously.

“I have known for some years that babies do not come in Dr. Burnley's black bag,” assured Emily gravely.

“Well” – Mrs. Kent underwent another transformation into passionate Aileen Kent again – “David found out what I had done. Oh, – oh, his face! We had a dreadful quarrel. It was just before he went out to Winnipeg on a business trip. I – I was so furious over what he said that I screamed out – oh, Emily – that I hoped I would never see his face again. I never did. God took me at my word. He died of pneumonia in Winnipeg. I never knew he was ill till the word of his death came. And the nurse was a girl he had once thought something of and who loved him.
She
waited on him and tended him while I was at home hating him. That is what I have thought I could never forgive God for. She packed up his things and sent them home – that book among them. He must have bought it in Winnipeg. I never opened it – I never could bear to touch it. He must have written that letter when he was near death and put it in the book for me – and perhaps died before he could tell her it was there. Maybe she knew and wouldn't tell me. And it has been there all these years, Emily – all these years when I've been believing David died angry with me – unforgiving me. I've dreamed of him night after night – always with his face
turned away from me. Oh, twenty-seven years of that, Emily – twenty-seven years. Think of it. Haven't I atoned! And last night I opened and read his letter, Emily – just a few lines scribbled with a pencil – his poor hand could hardly hold it. He called me Dear Little Wife and said I must forgive him –
I
forgive
him
– for being so harsh and angry that last day – and he forgave me for what I had done – and said I mustn't worry over it nor over what I said about not seeing his face again – he knew I didn't mean it – that he understood things better at the last – and he had always loved me dearly and always would – and – something more I can't tell anybody – too dear, too wonderful. Oh, Emily, can you imagine what this means to me – to know he didn't die angry with me – that he died loving me and thinking tenderly of me? But I didn't know it then. And I – I don't think I've ever been quite right since. I know all his people thought me crazy. When Teddy was born I came up here away from them all. So that they couldn't lure him away from me. I wouldn't take a cent from them. I had David's insurance – we could just live on that. Teddy was all I had – and
you
came – and I knew you would take him from me. I knew he loved you – always. Oh, yes he did. When he went away I used to write him of all your flirtations. And two years ago – you remember he had to go to Montreal so suddenly – and you were away – he couldn't wait to say good-bye. But he wrote you a letter.”