Emily of New Moon Page 4

  "Go and sit on the sofa," ordered Ellen.

  Emily sat on the sofa with her eyes cast down, a slight, black, indomitable little figure. She folded her hands on her lap and crossed her ankles. They should see she had manners.

  Ellen had retreated to the kitchen, thanking her stars that that was over. Emily did not like Ellen but she felt deserted when Ellen had gone. She was alone now before the bar of Murray opinion. She would have given anything to be out of the room. Yet in the back of her mind a design was forming of writing all about it in the old account book. It would be interesting. She could describe them all--she knew she could. She had the very word for Aunt Ruth's eyes--"stone-gray." They were just like stones--as hard and cold and relentless. Then a pang tore through her heart. Father could never again read what she wrote in the account book.

  Still--she felt that she would rather like to write it all out. How could she best describe Aunt Laura's eyes? They were such beautiful eyes--just to call them "blue" meant nothing--hundreds of people had blue eyes--oh, she had it--"wells of blue"--that was the very thing.

  And then the flash came!

  It was the first time since the dreadful night when Ellen had met her on the doorstep. She had thought it could never come again--and now in this most unlikely place and time it had come--she had seen, with other eyes than those of sense, the wonderful world behind the veil. Courage and hope flooded her cold little soul like a wave of rosy light. She lifted her head and looked about her undauntedly--"brazenly" Aunt Ruth afterwards declared.

  Yes, she would write them all out in the account book--describe every last one of them--sweet Aunt Laura, nice Cousin Jimmy, grim old Uncle Wallace, and moonfaced Uncle Oliver, stately Aunt Elizabeth, and detestable Aunt Ruth.

  "She's a delicate-looking child," said Aunt Eva, suddenly, in her fretful, colorless voice.

  "Well, what else could you expect?" said Aunt Addie, with a sigh that seemed to Emily to hold some dire significance. "She's too pale--if she had a little color she wouldn't be bad-looking."

  "I don't know who she looks like," said Uncle Oliver, staring at Emily.

  "She is not a Murray, that is plain to be seen," said Aunt Elizabeth, decidedly and disapprovingly.

  "They are talking about me just as if I wasn't here," thought Emily, her heart swelling with indignation over the indecency of it.

  "I wouldn't call her a Starr either," said Uncle Oliver. "Seems to me she's more like the Byrds--she's got her grandmother's hair and eyes."

  "She's got old George Byrd's nose," said Aunt Ruth, in a tone that left no doubt as to her opinion of George's nose.

  "She's got her father's forehead," said Aunt Eva, also disapprovingly.

  "She has her mother's smile," said Aunt Laura, but in such a low tone that nobody heard her.

  "And Juliet's long lashes--hadn't Juliet very long lashes?" said Aunt Addie.

  Emily had reached the limit of her endurance.

  "You make me feel as if I was made up of scraps and patches!" she burst out indignantly.

  The Murrays stared at her. Perhaps they felt some compunction--for, after all, none of them were ogres and all were human, more or less. Apparently nobody could think of anything to say, but the shocked silence was broken by a chuckle from Cousin Jimmy--a low chuckle, full of mirth and free from malice.

  "That's right, puss," he said. "Stand up to them--take your own part."

  "Jimmy!" said Aunt Ruth.

  Jimmy subsided.

  Aunt Ruth looked at Emily.

  "When I was a little girl," she said, "I never spoke until I was spoken to."

  "But if nobody ever spoke until they were spoken to there would be no conversation," said Emily argumentatively

  "I never answered back," Aunt Ruth went on severely. "In those days little girls were trained properly. We were polite and respectful to our elders. We were taught our place and we kept it."

  "I don't believe you ever had much fun," said Emily--and then gasped in horror. She hadn't meant to say that out loud--she had only meant to think it. But she had such an old habit of thinking aloud to Father.

  "Fun!" said Aunt Ruth, in a shocked tone. "I did not think of fun when I was a little girl."

  "No, I know," said Emily gravely. Her voice and manner were perfectly respectful, for she was anxious to atone for her involuntary lapse. Yet Aunt Ruth looked as if she would like to box her ears. This child was pitying her--insulting her by being sorry for her--because of her prim, impeccable childhood. It was unendurable--especially in a Starr. And that abominable Jimmy was chuckling again! Elizabeth should suppress him!

  Fortunately Ellen Greene appeared at this juncture and announced supper.

  "You've got to wait," she whispered to Emily. "There ain't room for you at the table."

  Emily was glad. She knew she could not eat a bite under the Murray eyes. Her aunts and uncles filed out stiffly without looking at her--all except Aunt Laura, who turned at the door and blew her a tiny, furtive kiss. Before Emily could respond Ellen Greene had shut the door.

  Emily was left all alone in the room that was filling with twilight shadows. The pride that had sustained her in the presence of the Murrays suddenly failed her and she knew that tears were coming. She went straight to the closed door at the end of the parlor, opened it, and went in. Her father's coffin stood in the center of the small room which had been a bedroom. It was heaped with flowers--the Murrays had done the proper thing in that as in all else. The great anchor of white roses Uncle Wallace had brought stood up aggressively on the small table at the head. Emily could not see her father's face for Aunt Ruth's heavily-fragrant pillow of white hyacinths lying on the glass, and she dared not move it. But she curled herself up on the floor and laid her cheek against the polished side of the casket. They found her there asleep when they came in after supper. Aunt Laura lifted her up and said,

  "I'm going to take the poor child up to bed--she's worn right out."

  Emily opened her eyes and looked drowsily about her.

  "Can I have Mike?" she said.

  "Who is Mike?"

  "My cat--my big gray cat."

  "A cat!" exclaimed Aunt Elizabeth in a shocked tone. "You must not have a cat in your bedroom!"

  "Why not--for once?" pleaded Laura.

  "Certainly not!" said Aunt Elizabeth. "A cat is a most unwholesome thing in a sleeping apartment. I'm surprised at you, Laura! Take the child up to bed and see that there are plenty of bedclothes. It's a cold night--but let me hear no more talk of sleeping with cats."

  "Mike is a clean cat," said Emily. "He washes himself--every day."

  "Take her up to bed, Laura!" said Aunt Elizabeth, ignoring Emily.

  Aunt Laura yielded meekly. She carried Emily upstairs, helped her undress, and tucked her into bed. Emily was very sleepy. But before she was wholly asleep she felt something, soft and warm and purry and companionable, snuggling down by her shoulder. Aunt Laura had sneaked down, found Mike and brought him up to her. Aunt Elizabeth never knew and Ellen Greene dared not say a word in protest--for was not Laura a Murray of New Moon?

  CHAPTER 4

  A Family Conclave

  Emily wakened at daylight the next morning. Through her low, uncurtained window the splendor of the sunrise was coming in, and one faint, white star was still lingering in the crystal-green sky over the Rooster Pine. A fresh sweet wind of dawn was blowing around the eaves. Ellen Greene was sleeping in the big bed and snoring soundly. Except for that the little house was very still. It was the chance for which Emily had waited.

  Very carefully she slipped from her bed, tiptoed across the room and opened the door. Mike uncoiled himself from the mat on the middle of the floor and followed her, rubbing his warm sides against her chilly little ankles. Almost guiltily she crept down the bare, dark staircase. How the steps creaked--surely it would waken everybody! But nobody appeared and Emily got down and slipped into the parlor, drawing a long breath of relief as she closed the door. She almost ran across the room to the
other door.

  Aunt Ruth's floral pillow still covered the glass of the casket. Emily, with a tightening of the lips that gave her face an odd resemblance to Aunt Elizabeth, lifted up the pillow and set it on the floor.

  "Oh, Father--Father!" she whispered, putting her hand to her throat to keep something down. She stood there, a little shivering, white-clad figure, and looked at her father. This was to be her good-bye; she must say it when they were alone together--she would not say it before the Murrays.

  Father looked so beautiful. All the lines of pain had vanished--his face looked almost like a boy's except for the silver hair above it. And he was smiling--such a nice, whimsical, wise little smile, as if he had suddenly discovered something lovely and unexpected and surprising. She had seen many nice smiles on his face in life but never one just like this.

  "Father, I didn't cry before them," she whispered. "I'm sure I didn't disgrace the Starrs. Not shaking hands with Aunt Ruth wasn't disgracing the Starrs, was it? Because she didn't really want me to--oh, Father, I don't think any of them like me, unless perhaps Aunt Laura does a little. And I'm going to cry a little bit now, Father, because I can't keep it back all the time."

  She laid her face on the cold glass and sobbed bitterly but briefly. She must say good-bye before anyone found her. Raising her head she looked long and earnestly at the beloved face.

  "Good-bye, dearest darling," she whispered chokingly.

  Dashing away her blinding tears she replaced Aunt Ruth's pillow, hiding her father's face from her forever. Then she slipped out, intent on speedily regaining her room. At the door she almost fell over Cousin Jimmy, who was sitting on a chair before it, swathed in a huge, checked dressing-gown, and nursing Mike.

  "S-s-h!" he whispered, patting her on the shoulder. "I heard you coming down and followed you. I knew what you wanted. I've been sitting here to keep them out if any of them came after you. Here, take this and hurry back to your bed, small pussy."

  "This" was a roll of peppermint lozenges. Emily clutched it and fled, overcome with shame at being seen by Cousin Jimmy in her nightgown. She hated peppermints and never ate them, but the fact of Cousin Jimmy Murray's kindness in giving them to her sent a thrill of delight to her heart. And he called her "small pussy," too,--she liked that. She had thought nobody would ever call her nice pet names again. Father had had so many of them for her--"sweetheart" and "darling" and "Emily-child" and "dear wee kidlet" and "honey" and "elfkin." He had a pet name for every mood and she had loved them all. As for Cousin Jimmy, he was nice. Whatever part of him was missing it wasn't his heart. She felt so grateful to him that after she was safely in her bed again she forced herself to eat one of the lozenges, though it took all her grit to worry it down.

  The funeral was held that forenoon. For once the lonesome little house in the hollow was filled. The coffin was taken into the parlor and the Murrays as mourners sat stiffly and decorously all round it, Emily among them, pale and prim in her black dress. She sat between Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Wallace and dared not move a muscle. No other Starr was present. Her father had no near living relatives. The Maywood people came and looked at his dead face with a freedom and insolent curiosity they would never have presumed on in life. Emily hated to have them looking at her father like that. They had no right--they hadn't been friendly to him while he was alive--they had said harsh things of him--Ellen Greene had sometimes repeated them. Every glance that fell on him hurt Emily; but she sat still and gave no outward sign. Aunt Ruth said afterwards that she had never seen a child so absolutely devoid of all natural feeling.

  When the service was over the Murrays rose and marched around the coffin for a dutiful look of farewell. Aunt Elizabeth took Emily's hand and tried to draw her along with them but Emily pulled it back and shook her head. She had said her good-bye already. Aunt Elizabeth seemed for a moment to be on the point of insisting; then she grimly swept onward, alone, looking every inch a Murray. No scene must be made at a funeral.

  Douglas Starr was to be taken to Charlottetown for burial beside his wife. The Murrays were all going but Emily was not to go. She watched the funeral procession as it wound up the long, grassy hill, through the light gray rain that was beginning to fall. Emily was glad it was raining; many a time she had heard Ellen Greene say that happy was the corpse the rain fell on; and it was easier to see Father go away in that soft, kind, gray mist than through sparkling, laughing sunshine.

  "Well, I must say the funeral went off fine," said Ellen Greene at her shoulder. "Everything's been done regardless. If your father was looking down from heaven at it, Emily, I'm sure he'd be pleased."

  "He isn't in heaven," said Emily.

  "Good gracious! Of all the children!" Ellen could say no more.

  "He isn't there yet. He's only on the way. He said he'd wait around and go slow until I died, too, so that I could catch up with him. I hope I'll die soon."

  "That's a wicked, wicked thing to wish," rebuked Ellen.

  When the last buggy had disappeared Emily went back to the sitting-room, got a book out of the bookcase, and buried herself in the wing-chair. The women who were tidying up were glad she was quiet and out of the way.

  "It's well she can read," said Mrs. Hubbard gloomily. "Some little girls couldn't be so composed--Jennie Hood just screamed and shrieked after they carried her mother out--the Hoods are all such a feeling people."

  Emily was not reading. She was thinking. She knew the Murrays would be back in the afternoon; and she knew her fate would probably be settled then. "We'll talk the matter over when we come back," she had heard Uncle Wallace saying that morning after breakfast. Some instinct told her just what "the matter" was; and she would have given one of her pointed ears to hear the discussion with the other. But she knew very well she would be sent out of the way. So she was not surprised when Ellen came to her in the twilight and said:

  "You'd better go upstairs, Emily. Your aunts and uncles are coming in here to talk over the business."

  "Can't I help you get supper?" asked Emily, who thought that if she were going and coming around the kitchen she might catch a word or two.

  "No. You'd be more bother than help. March, now."

  Ellen waddled out to the kitchen, without waiting to see if Emily marched. Emily got up reluctantly. How could she sleep tonight if she did not know what was going to happen to her? And she felt quite sure she would not be told till morning, if then.

  Her eyes fell on the oblong table in the center of the room. Its cloth was of generous proportions, falling in heavy folds to the floor. There was a flash of black stockings across the rug, a sudden disturbance of drapery and then--silence. Emily, on the floor under the table, arranged her legs comfortably and sat triumphant. She would hear what was decided and nobody would be any the wiser.

  She had never been told that it was not considered strictly honorable to eavesdrop, no occasion for such instruction ever having arisen in her life with her father; and she considered that it was a bit of pure luck that she had thought of hiding under the table. She could even see dimly through the cloth. Her heart beat so loudly in her excitement that she was afraid they would hear it; there was no other sound save the soft, faraway singing of frogs through the rain, that sounded through the open window.

  In they came; down they sat around the room; Emily held her breath; for a few minutes nobody spoke, though Aunt Eva sighed long and heavily. Then Uncle Wallace cleared his throat and said,

  "Well, what is to be done with the child?"

  Nobody was in a hurry to answer. Emily thought they would never speak. Finally Aunt Eva said with a whine,

  "She's such a difficult child--so odd. I can't understand her at all."

  "I think," said Aunt Laura timidly, "that she has what one might call an artistic temperament."

  "She's a spoiled child," said Aunt Ruth very decidedly. "There's work ahead to straighten out her manners, if you ask me."

  (The little listener under the table turned her head and shot a scornful
glance at Aunt Ruth through the tablecloth. "I think that your own manners have a slight curve." Emily did not dare even to murmur the words under her breath, but she shaped them with her mouth; this was a great relief and satisfaction.)

  "I agree with you," said Aunt Eva, "and I for one do not feel equal to the task."

  (Emily understood that this meant Uncle Wallace didn't mean to take her and she rejoiced thereat.)

  "The truth is," said Uncle Wallace, "Aunt Nancy ought to take her. She has more of this world's goods than any of us."

  "Aunt Nancy would never dream of taking her and you know it well enough!" said Uncle Oliver. "Besides, she's entirely too old to have the bringing up of a child--her and that old witch Caroline. Upon my soul, I don't believe either of them is human. I would like to take Emily--but I feel that I can hardly do it. I've a large family to provide for."

  "She'll not likely live long to bother anyone," said Aunt Elizabeth crisply. "She'll probably die of consumption same as her father did."

  ("I won't--I won't!" exclaimed Emily--at least she thought it with such vim that it almost seemed that she exclaimed it. She forgot that she had wanted to die soon, so that she could overtake Father. She wanted to live now, just to put the Murrays in the wrong. "I haven't any intention of dying. I'm going to live--for ages--and be a famous authoress--you'll just see if I don't, Aunt Elizabeth Murray!")

  "She is a weedy looking child," acknowledged Uncle Wallace.

  (Emily relieved her outraged feelings by making a face at Uncle Wallace through the tablecloth. "If I ever possess a pig I am going to name it after you," she thought--and then felt quite satisfied with her revenge.)

  "Somebody has to look after her as long as she's alive though, you know," said Uncle Oliver.

  ("It would serve you all right if I did die and you suffered terrible remorse for it all the rest of your lives," Emily thought. Then in the pause that happened to follow, she dramatically pictured out her funeral, selected her pall-bearers, and tried to choose the hymn verse that she wanted engraved on her tombstone. But before she could settle this Uncle Wallace began again.)

  "Well, we are not getting anywhere. We have to look after the child--"