Magic for Marigold (22 page)

“It's a good thing your feet don't show.”

Bitterness of Soul

1

“Here's a new morning,” said Marigold blithe as the day. Somehow she was unusually happy that autumn-tinted morning as she went to school. She always felt as if she had wings on a day like this. She loved October—loved it well in its first crimson pomp, when frosted leaves hung like a flame and the asters along the road were like pale purple songs; and even better in its later quiet of brown autumnal fields and the shadowy interfoldings of the hills over the bay; with its evenings full of the nice smell of burning leaves in Lazarre's bonfires and all its apples to be picked and stored in the apple-barn, until such time as it grew too cold and they must be put away in barrels in the cellar.

A group of girls tittered a little as Marigold passed them on the playground. She did not mind very much. Marigold was, in truth, rather a lonely creature in school. She had never “made up” with any of the girls particularly, and with the new seats that held only one there was not the olden chance for intimacies. Not one of them went her way home. She did not quarrel with them and she played games with them at noon-hour and recess, but in some mysterious way she was not of them and they faintly resented it. “Stuck-up,” they called her; though Marigold was not in the least stuck-up.

The sense of cleavage deepened as she grew older, instead of disappearing. Sometimes Marigold felt wistfully that it would be nice to have a real chum, of the kind you read about in books—not a fitful visitor like Varvara or Gwennie, bringing a wild whirl of color into your life and then vanishing as completely as if they had never existed. But she could not find her in Harmony school. And being of a nature that could not compromise with second best when best was denied Marigold made no lesser friendships. There was always Sylvia—though Sylvia was not
quite
as real as she had once seemed. The old magic still worked but it was not quite so magical now.

This morning Marigold felt something new in the school atmosphere. It was not her imagination that the girls whispered and looked at her—with much of curiosity and a little malice. Marigold felt it all through the forenoon and at recess, but no one said anything in particular to her until noon-hour. Then, as her class sat in a circle among the fern-smothered spruce-stumps on the banks of the brook below the schoolhouse the barrage opened.

“How do you like Mr. Thompson, Marigold?” asked Em Stanton with a giggle.

Marigold wondered why upon earth Mr. Thompson's name was dragged into it. He was the new minister who had come to Harmony in the spring. Marigold was not as yet vitally interested in new ministers. It had been a rather exciting time for the older folks. It would be hard to fill old Mr. Henry's place—Mr. Henry who had filled the pulpit of Harmony church for thirty years and was “a saint if ever there was one.”

“He used to make me weep
six
times every Sunday,” sighed Miss Amelia Martin. “I hoped my time would come before his. I've always felt he would be such a lovely man to bury you.”

“Oh, Lord,” Aunt Kitty Standish had prayed at the first Aid meeting after his retirement, “Oh, Lord, send us as good a minister as Mr. Henry—but, oh, Lord, you can't do it.”

Nobody thought Mr. Thompson as good but he seemed the best of the candidates.

“He's a good preacher,” said Salome, “but it's a pity he's a widower. He'll marry in the congregation and that'll spoil him.” Adding, however, by way of a comforting afterthought, “But I'm glad they've picked him. I like a comfortable-looking minister.”

Mr. Thompson had one daughter about Marigold's age—round and rosy little Jane Thompson, who went, however, to the village school, the church and manse being there, so that Marigold saw little of her save in Sunday school, where they were in the same class. Jane always knew her golden text and memory-verses and catechism-questions perfectly well—one would expect a minister's daughter to do that. But it didn't make her any the more interesting, Marigold thought. As for Mr. Thompson, she liked him when she thought about him at all—which was, to tell the truth, only when he called at Cloud of Spruce. She liked the jolly, unministerial twinkle in his eye especially. Now why should Em Stanton be so suddenly interested in her feelings towards Mr. Thompson? A disagreeable little sensation came over Marigold—as if a faint chill wind had blown over the secret places of her soul.

“I like Mr. Thompson very well,” she said stiffly.

Em gave another irritating snigger and exchanged glances with the other girls.

“That is a good thing,” she said significantly.

They expected Marigold to ask why it was a good thing, but she would not. She bit a dainty little crescent out of a hop-and-go-fetch-it and chewed it remotely.

“How will you like him for a stepfather?” said Velma Church slyly.

That particular hop-and-go-fetch-it was never eaten. Marigold laid it down in her box and stared at Velma.

“Didn't you
know
?”

“Know what?” said Marigold through pale lips.

“That your mother is going to marry him?”

Marigold wondered what had happened to her—or to the world. Had somebody slapped her in the face? Had the sun been blotted out of the sky?

“I don't—believe it—” she said helplessly.

“Everybody says so,” said Em triumphantly. “We thought you knew, of course. It's funny your mother hasn't told you. Why, he spends half his time at Cloud of Spruce.”

This was, of course, an exaggeration. But Marigold suddenly remembered with horror that Mr. Thompson had made a great many calls lately. Of course Grandmother had had a slight attack of bronchitis; but a dreadful conviction assailed her that Mr. Henry had never called so often, even when Salome had pneumonia. She stared miserably at Em.

“They're to be married before spring,
I
heard,” said Fanny Collins. “Your mother was in Summerside the other day helping him pick paper for the manse. Aunt Lindy saw them.”

“My, won't
your
nose be out of joint,” said Sally McLean.

“You'll have to be Marigold Thompson after the wedding,” said Lula Nelson.

“They'll send you to a boarding-school, true's you live,” said Dot Church.

None of these jabs produced any sign of life in Marigold. She sat as one stunned. Oh, if she could only be alone—far, far away from these hateful girls—to face this!

“Ma says your mother isn't a bit suitable for a minister's wife,” said Velma.

“Too dressy and extravagant,” added Em.

“Aunt Beth says his first wife was the finest woman that ever lived,” said Pet Dixon.

“It's a wonder your mother would marry a bluenose,” said Janet Irving.

“I guess she has a hard enough time with the old lady,” said Pet.

“Ma says Mrs. Leander has perked up amazing this fall,” said Lula.

The school-bell rang and the ring of malicious faces melted away. Marigold followed them slowly into the school. Her feet were like lead and her spirit that had “flown on feathers” in the morning was heavier still. The world had all at once got so very dark. Oh,
could
it be true? It couldn't—Marigold had another awful recollection.

“Mrs. Lesley's engaged,” Salome had said gently one day the preceding week, as she had shut the door in the face of a too-persistent insurance-man.

Oh, yes, it must be true.

“Salome,” said Marigold that evening, “do you think God ever does things out of spite?”

“Just listen to her,” said Salome. “You mustn't ask such wicked questions. That's as bad as anything Gwen Lesley could say.”

“I'm sorry,” said Marigold with more persistence, “but
does
He?”

“Of course not,” said Salome. “It's the Old Gentleman that's spiteful. What's the matter with you? You don't look just right. Have you got a cold?”

Marigold felt that a cold had got her. She was cold and sick to the core of her soul. Everything had been torn out of her little life at once. And not a word could she say to Mother about it.

2

Marigold had thought she was done forever with jealousy when she discovered the truth about Clementine's feet. And now she was in the grip of a jealousy tenfold worse.
That
had been merely a ghostly vexation of the soul.
This
was a burning torment of the heart. Perhaps Marigold was never more bitterly unhappy in all her life than she was during the two months following that day by the brook. Everything fed her suspicion and jealousy. She was filled with hate. She could not enjoy anything because she was hating Mr. Thompson so much. She even hated poor, innocent little Jane Thompson. Would Jane call Mother “mother?” If she did!

November came in, with its dark, dull twilights that made Marigold feel grown up and old—with its mournful winds rustling the dead leaves on its cold, desolate, moonless nights—with its wintry song of old gray fields and the sorrowful gray ghosts of the goldenrod in the fence corners. And Mr. Thompson's motor-lights burning cheerfully at the gate in so many of its chill evenings. Marigold felt that it was going to be November forever. “Tomorrow” had once been a word of magic to her. Now “tomorrow” would only be more cruel than today.

But it was a torturing satisfaction to hate Mr. Thompson. She felt sure she had always hated him. Lucifer certainly had—and cats
knew.
You couldn't hoodwink Lucifer. Nothing about him pleased Marigold any more. She remembered what Lazarre had once said about another Frenchman who had done something that reflected on his race.

“But you surely don't want to see him hanged,” protested Salome.

“No—no—oh, no, course we not lak to see heem hang,” acknowledged Lazarre, “but we lak to see heem
destroyed
.”

That exactly expressed Marigold's feelings towards Mr. Thompson. She would not want to see him hanged but she would cheerfully have had him “destroyed.” It was a certain ephemeral satisfaction to name the big dead Scotch thistle behind the apple-barn “Rev. Mr. Thompson” and cut it down and burn it. She looked at him drinking his tea and wished there were poison in the cup. Not enough to kill him—oh, no, just enough to make him awfully sick and disgusted with the idea of marrying any one. Once, when he grew angry over what someone in the church had done and pounded the table, Marigold had said under her breath to Mother, “See what a husband you'll have!”

She wished she could refuse to go to church but she could not do that, so she sat there scowling blackly at him. When he came to the house she was the very incarnation of disdain. And he never noticed it! To be disdainful and not have it noticed was unendurable. Half the time he couldn't even remember her name and called her Daffodil. Once he grew fatherly and tried to stroke her hair. “I'm not a cat,” said Marigold rudely, jerking away. She had to beg his pardon for that. Cloud of Spruce couldn't imagine why Marigold had taken such a scunner to the minister.

“He preaches such lovely sermons,” said Salome reproachfully. “He can draw tears to my eyes.”

“So can onions,” said Marigold savagely.

And yet when Em Stanton told her that Stanton
père
said Mr. Thompson was a shallow-pated creature Marigold flashed pale lightning at her. This would never do. If Mother were really going to marry him he must be defended.

“Oh, all right,” said Em, walking off. “I didn't know you liked him. I didn't suppose anyone could like a bluenose.”

“He isn't a bluenose,” said Marigold, who hadn't the slightest idea what a bluenose was.

“He
is.
Your Uncle Klon told me so himself the day he picked me up on the road. We met the minister in his car and your Uncle Klon said, ‘Trust a bluenose to bust the speed-limit every time.' And
I
said, ‘Is Mr. Thompson a bluenose?' and he said, ‘The very bluest of them.' So there now!”

“But what is a bluenose?” demanded Marigold wildly. She
must
know the worst.

“Well, I'm not sure but I
think
it is a dope-fiend,” said Em cautiously. “I asked Vera Church and she said she thought that's what it was. It's a terrible thing. They see hidjus faces wherever they look. There's nothing too bad for them to do. And they're that sly. Nobody would ever suspect them at first until they get so they can't hide it. Then they have to be put away.”

Put away! What did “put away” mean? But Marigold would ask no more questions of Em. Every question answered seemed to make a bad matter worse. But if Mr. Thompson ever had to be “put away” she wished it might happen before he married Mother.

Things constantly happened that tortured her. Mr. Thompson came more and more often to Cloud of Spruce. He took Mother to Summerside to pick more wallpaper; he came one evening and said to Mother,

“I want to consult you about Jane's adenoids.”

Mother took him into the orchard room and closed the door. Marigold haunted the hall outside like an uneasy little ghost. What was going on behind that closed door?
She
had a sore throat, but was Mother troubled over
that
? Not at all. She was wrapped up in Jane's adenoids—whatever they were.

When nothing happened to torture her she tortured herself. Would she have to leave dear Cloud of Spruce when Mother married Mr. Thompson? Or perhaps Mother would leave her all alone there with Grandmother, as Millie Graham's mother had done. And there would be no one to meet her any more when she came from school; or stand at the door in the twilight calling her in to shelter out of the dark; or sit by her bed and talk to her before she went to sleep. Though now her bedtime talks with Mother were not what they had been. Always some veil of strangerhood hung between them.

Lorraine feared her child was growing away from her—growing into the hard Blaisdell reserve perhaps. She could not ask Marigold what had changed her—that would be to admit change. When Aunt Anne wanted Mother to let Marigold go to her for a visit and Mother consented, Marigold refused almost tearfully—though she had once wanted so much to go. Suppose Mother would get married while she was away? Suppose that was why she wanted her to go to Aunt Anne's? And they wouldn't even have the same name! How terrible it would be to hear people say, “Oh, that is Marigold Lesley—
Mrs. Thompson's
daughter, you know.”