The Story Girl Read online

  “Tell them both,” said Felix greedily, “but tell the ghost one first.”

  “I don’t know.” The Story Girl looked dubious. “That sort of story ought to be told in the twilight among the shadows. Then it would frighten the souls out of your bodies.”

  We thought it might be more agreeable not to have the souls frightened out of our bodies, and we voted for the Family Ghost.

  “Ghost stories are more comfortable in daytime,” said Felix.

  The Story Girl began it and we listened avidly. Cecily, who had heard it many times before, listened just as eagerly as we did. She declared to me afterwards that no matter how often the Story Girl told a story it always seemed as new and exciting as if you had just heard it for the first time.

  “Long, long ago,” began the Story Girl, her voice giving us an impression of remote antiquity, “even before Grandfather King was born, an orphan cousin of his lived here with his parents. Her name was Emily King. She was very small and very sweet. She had soft brown eyes that were too timid to look straight at anybody—like Cecily’s there—and long, sleek, brown curls—like mine; and she had a tiny birthmark like a pink butterfly on one cheek—right here.

  “Of course, there was no orchard here then. It was just a field; but there was a clump of white birches in it, right where that big, spreading tree of Uncle Alec’s is now, and Emily liked to sit among the ferns under the birches and read or sew. She had a lover. His name was Malcolm Ward and he was as handsome as a prince. She loved him with all her heart and he loved her the same; but they had never spoken about it. They used to meet under the birches and talk about everything except love. One day he told her he was coming the next day to ask a very important question, and he wanted to find her under the birches when he came. Emily promised to meet him there. I am sure she stayed awake that night, thinking about it, and wondering what the important question would be, although she knew perfectly well. I would have. And the next day she dressed herself beautifully in her best pale blue muslin and sleeked her curls and went smiling to the birches. And while she was waiting there, thinking such lovely thoughts, a neighbour’s boy came running up—a boy who didn’t know about her romance—and cried out that Malcolm Ward had been killed by his gun going off accidentally. Emily just put her hands to her heart—so—and fell, all white and broken among the ferns. And when she came back to life she never cried or lamented. She was changed. She was never, never like herself again; and she was never contented unless she was dressed in her blue muslin and waiting under the birches. She got paler and paler every day, but the pink butterfly grew redder, until it looked just like a stain of blood on her white cheek. When the winter came she died. But next spring”—the Story Girl dropped her voice to a whisper that was as audible and thrilling as her louder tones—“people began to tell that Emily was sometimes seen waiting under the birches still. Nobody knew just who told it first. But more than one person saw her. Grandfather saw her when he was a little boy. And my mother saw her once.”

  “Did you ever see her?” asked Felix skeptically.

  “No, but I shall some day, if I keep on believing in her,” said the Story Girl confidently.

  “I wouldn’t like to see her. I’d be afraid,” said Cecily with a shiver.

  “There wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of,” said the Story Girl reassuringly. “It’s not as if it were a strange ghost. It’s our own family ghost, so of course it wouldn’t hurt us.”

  We were not so sure of this. Ghosts were unchancy folk, even if they were our family ghosts. The Story Girl had made the tale very real to us. We were glad we had not heard it in the evening. How could we ever have got back to the house through the shadows and swaying branches of a darkening orchard? As it was, we were almost afraid to look up it, lest we should see the waiting, blue-clad Emily under Uncle Alec’s tree. But all we saw was Felicity, tearing over the green sward, her curls streaming behind her in a golden cloud.

  “Felicity’s afraid she has missed something,” remarked the Story Girl in a tone of quiet amusement. “Is your breakfast ready, Felicity, or have I time to tell the boys the Story of the Poet Who Was Kissed?”

  “Breakfast is ready, but we can’t have it till father is through attending to the sick cow, so you will likely have time,” answered Felicity.

  Felix and I couldn’t keep our eyes off her. Crimson-cheeked, shining-eyed from her haste, her face was like a rose of youth. But when the Story Girl spoke, we forgot to look at Felicity.

  “About ten years after Grandfather and Grandmother King were married, a young man came to visit them. He was a distant relative of grandmother’s and he was a Poet. He was just beginning to be famous. He was very famous afterward. He came into the orchard to write a poem, and he fell asleep with his head on a bench that used to be under grandfather’s tree. Then Great-Aunt Edith came into the orchard. She was not a Great-Aunt then, of course. She was only eighteen, with red lips and black, black hair and eyes. They say she was always full of mischief. She had been away and had just come home, and she didn’t know about the Poet. But when she saw him, sleeping there, she thought he was a cousin they had been expecting from Scotland. And she tiptoed up—so—and bent over—so—and kissed his cheek. Then he opened his big blue eyes and looked up into Edith’s face. She blushed as red as a rose, for she knew she had done a dreadful thing. This could not be her cousin from Scotland. She knew, for he had written so to her, that he had eyes as black as her own. Edith ran away and hid; and of course she felt still worse when she found out that he was a famous poet. But he wrote one of his most beautiful poems on it afterwards and sent it to her—and it was published in one of his books.”

  We had seen it all—the sleeping genius—the roguish, red-lipped girl—the kiss dropped as lightly as a rose-petal on the sunburned cheek.

  “They should have got married,” said Felix.

  “Well, in a book they would have, but you see this was in real life,” said the Story Girl. “We sometimes act the story out. I like it when Peter plays the poet. I don’t like it when Dan is the poet because he is so freckled and screws his eyes up so tight. But you can hardly ever coax Peter to be the poet—except when Felicity is Edith—and Dan is so obliging that way.”

  “What is Peter like?” I asked.

  “Peter is splendid. His mother lives on the Markdale road and washes for a living. Peter’s father ran away and left them when Peter was only three years old. He has never come back, and they don’t know whether he is alive or dead. Isn’t that a nice way to behave to your family? Peter has worked for his board ever since he was six. Uncle Roger sends him to school, and pays him wages in summer. We all like Peter, except Felicity.”

  “I like Peter well enough in his place,” said Felicity primly, “but you make far too much of him, mother says. He is only a hired boy, and he hasn’t been well brought up, and hasn’t much education. I don’t think you should make such an equal of him as you do.”

  Laughter rippled over the Story Girl’s face as shadow waves go over ripe wheat before a wind.

  “Peter is a real gentleman, and he is more interesting than you could ever be, if you were brought up and educated for a hundred years,” she said.

  “He can hardly write,” said Felicity.

  “William the Conqueror couldn’t write at all,” said the Story Girl crushingly.

  “He never goes to church, and he never says his prayers,” retorted Felicity, uncrushed.

  “I do, too,” said Peter himself, suddenly appearing through a little gap in the hedge. “I say my prayers sometimes.”

  This Peter was a slim, shapely fellow, with laughing black eyes and thick black curls. Early in the season as it was, he was barefooted. His attire consisted of a faded, gingham shirt and a scanty pair of corduroy knickerbockers; but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that he seemed to be much better dressed than he really was.

  “You don’t pray very often,” insisted Felicity.

  �
��Well, God will be all the more likely to listen to me if I don’t pester Him all the time,” argued Peter.

  This was rank heresy to Felicity, but the Story Girl looked as if she thought there might be something in it.

  “You never go to church, anyhow,” continued Felicity, determined not to be argued down.

  “Well, I ain’t going to church till I’ve made up my mind whether I’m going to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian. Aunt Jane was a Methodist. My mother ain’t much of anything but I mean to be something. It’s more respectable to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or something, than not to be anything. When I’ve settled what I’m to be I’m going to church same as you.”

  “That’s not the same as being born something,” said Felicity loftily.

  “I think it’s a good deal better to pick your own religion than have to take it just because it was what your folks had,” retorted Peter.

  “Now, never mind quarrelling,” said Cecily. “You leave Peter alone, Felicity. Peter, this is Beverley King, and this is Felix. And we’re all going to be good friends and have a lovely summer together. Think of the games we can have! But if you go squabbling you’ll spoil it all. Peter, what are you going to do to-day?”

  “Harrow the wood field and dig your Aunt Olivia’s flower beds.”

  “Aunt Olivia and I planted the sweet peas yesterday,” said the Story Girl, “and I planted a little bed of my own. I am not going to dig them up this year to see if they have sprouted. It is bad for them. I shall try to cultivate patience, no matter how long they are coming up.”

  “I am going to help mother plant the vegetable garden to-day,” said Felicity.

  “Oh, I never like the vegetable garden,” said the Story Girl. “Except when I am hungry. Then I do like to go and look at the nice little rows of onions and beets. But I love a flower garden. I think I could be always good if I lived in a garden all the time.”

  “Adam and Eve lived in a garden all the time,” said Felicity, “and they were far from being always good.”

  “They mightn’t have kept good as long as they did if they hadn’t lived in a garden,” said the Story Girl.

  We were now summoned to breakfast. Peter and the Story Girl slipped away through the gap, followed by Paddy, and the rest of us walked up the orchard to the house.

  “Well, what do you think of the Story Girl?” asked Felicity.

  “She’s just fine,” said Felix, enthusiastically. “I never heard anything like her to tell stories.”

  “She can’t cook,” said Felicity, “and she hasn’t a good complexion. Mind you, she says she’s going to be an actress when she grows up. Isn’t that dreadful?”

  We didn’t exactly see why.

  “Oh, because actresses are always wicked people,” said Felicity in a shocked tone. “But I daresay the Story Girl will go and be one just as soon as she can. Her father will back her up in it. He is an artist, you know.”

  Evidently Felicity thought artists and actresses and all such poor trash were members one of another.

  “Aunt Olivia says the Story Girl is fascinating,” said Cecily.

  The very adjective! Felix and I recognized its beautiful fitness at once. Yes, the Story Girl was fascinating and that was the final word to be said on the subject.

  Dan did not come down until breakfast was half over, and Aunt Janet talked to him after a fashion which made us realize that it would be well to keep, as the piquant country phrase went, from the rough side of her tongue. But all things considered, we liked the prospect of our summer very much. Felicity to look at—the Story Girl to tell us tales of wonder—Cecily to admire us—Dan and Peter to play with—what more could reasonable fellows want?

  IV

  The Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess

  When we had lived for a fortnight in Carlisle we belonged there, and the freedom of all its small fry was conferred on us. With Peter and Dan, with Felicity and Cecily and the Story Girl, with pale, gray-eyed little Sara Ray, we were boon companions. We went to school, of course; and certain home chores were assigned to each of us for the faithful performance of which we were held responsible. But we had long hours for play. Even Peter had plenty of spare time when the planting was over.

  We got along very well with each other in the main, in spite of some minor differences of opinion. As for the grown-up denizens of our small world, they suited us also.

  We adored Aunt Olivia; she was pretty and merry and kind; and, above all, she had mastered to perfection the rare art of letting children alone. If we kept ourselves tolerably clean, and refrained from quarrelling or talking slang, Aunt Olivia did not worry us. Aunt Janet, on the contrary, gave us so much good advice and was so constantly telling us to do this or not to do the other thing, that we could not remember half her instructions, and did not try.

  Uncle Roger was, as we had been informed, quite jolly and fond of teasing. We liked him; but we had an uncomfortable feeling that the meaning of his remarks was not always that which met the ear. Sometimes we believed Uncle Roger was making fun of us, and the deadly seriousness of youth in us resented that.

  To Uncle Alec we gave our warmest love. We felt that we always had a friend at court in Uncle Alec, no matter what we did or left undone. And we never had to turn his speeches inside out to discover their meaning.

  The social life of juvenile Carlisle centred in the day and Sunday Schools. We were especially interested in our Sunday School, for we were fortunate enough to be assigned to a teacher who made our lessons so interesting that we no longer regarded Sunday School attendance as a disagreeable weekly duty; but instead looked forward to it with pleasure, and tried to carry out our teacher’s gentle precepts—at least on Mondays and Tuesdays. I am afraid the remembrance grew a little dim the rest of the week.

  She was also deeply interested in missions; and one talk on this subject inspired the Story Girl with a desire to do a little home missionary work on her own account. The only thing she could think of, along this line, was to persuade Peter to go to church.

  Felicity did not approve of the design, and said so plainly.

  “He won’t know how to behave, for he’s never been inside a church door in his life,” she warned the Story Girl. “He’ll likely do something awful, and then you’ll feel ashamed and wish you’d never asked him to go, and we’ll all be disgraced. It’s all right to have our mite boxes for the heathen, and send missionaries to them. They’re far away and we don’t have to associate with them. But I don’t want to have to sit in a pew with a hired boy.”

  But the Story Girl undauntedly continued to coax the reluctant Peter. It was not an easy matter. Peter did not come of a churchgoing stock; and besides, he alleged, he had not yet made up his mind whether to be a Presbyterian or a Methodist.

  “It isn’t a bit of difference which you are,” pleaded the Story Girl. “They both go to heaven.”

  “But one way must be easier or better than the other, or else they’d all be one kind,” argued Peter. “I want to find the easiest way. And I’ve got a hankering after the Methodists. My Aunt Jane was a Methodist.”

  “Isn’t she one still?” asked Felicity pertly.

  “Well, I don’t know exactly. She’s dead,” said Peter rebukingly. “Do people go on being just the same after they’re dead?”

  “No, of course not. They’re angels then—not Methodists or anything, but just angels. That is, if they go to heaven.”

  “S’posen they went to the other place?”

  But Felicity’s theology broke down at this point. She turned her back on Peter and walked disdainfully away.

  The Story Girl returned to the main point with a new argument.

  “We have such a lovely minister, Peter. He looked just like the picture of St. John father sent me, only he is old and his hair is white. I know you’d like him. And even if you are going to be a Methodist it won’t hurt you to go to the Presbyterian church. The nearest Methodist church is six miles away, at Markdale, and you can’t atte
nd there just now. Go to the Presbyterian church until you’re old enough to have a horse.”

  “But s’posen I got too fond of being Presbyterian and couldn’t change if I wanted to?” objected Peter.

  Altogether, the Story Girl had a hard time of it; but she persevered; and one day she came to us with the announcement that Peter had yielded.

  “He’s going to church with us to-morrow,” she said triumphantly.

  We were out in Uncle Roger’s hill pasture, sitting on some smooth, round stones under a clump of birches. Behind us was an old gray fence, with violets and dandelions thick in its corners. Below us was the Carlisle valley, with its orchard-embowered homesteads, and fertile meadows. Its upper end was dim with a delicate spring mist. Winds blew up the field like wave upon wave of sweet savour—spice of bracken and balsam.

  We were eating little jam “turnovers,” which Felicity had made for us. Felicity’s turnovers were perfection. I looked at her and wondered why it was not enough that she should be so pretty and capable of making such turnovers. If she were only more interesting! Felicity had not a particle of the nameless charm and allurement which hung about every motion of the Story Girl, and made itself manifest in her lightest word and most careless glance. Ah well, one cannot have every good gift! The Story Girl had no dimples at her slim, brown wrists.

  We all enjoyed our turnovers except Sara Ray. She ate hers but she knew she should not have done so. Her mother did not approve of snacks between meals, or of jam turnovers at any time. Once, when Sara was in a brown study, I asked her what she was thinking of.

  “I’m trying to think of something ma hasn’t forbid,” she answered with a sigh.

  We were all glad to hear that Peter was going to church, except Felicity. She was full of gloomy forebodings and warnings.

  “I’m surprised at you, Felicity King,” said Cecily severely. “You ought to be glad that poor boy is going to get started in the right way.”