Emily Climbs (24 page)

Perry’s “impudence” – Aunt Ruth called it that, and, really, I think he
was
impudent – naturally made a bad matter worse. Aunt Ruth turned to Emily.

“Perhaps
you
can explain how you came to be here, at this hour, kissing this fellow in the dark?”

Emily flinched from the crude vulgarity of the question as if Aunt Ruth had struck her. She forgot how much appearances justified Aunt Ruth, and let a perverse spirit enter into and possess her. She lifted her head haughtily.

“I have no explanation to give to such a question, Aunt Ruth.”

“I didn’t think you would have.”

Aunt Ruth gave a very disagreeable laugh, through which a thin, discordant note of triumph sounded. One might have thought that, under all her anger, something pleased Aunt Ruth. It
is
pleasant to be justified in the opinion we have always entertained of anybody. “Well, perhaps you will be so good as to answer some questions. How did this fellow get here?”

“Window,” said Perry laconically, seeing that Emily was not going to answer.

“I was not asking
you
, sir. Go,” said Aunt Ruth, pointing dramatically to the window.

“I’m not going to stir a step out of this room until I see what you’re going to do to Emily,” said Perry stubbornly.

“
I
,” said Aunt Ruth, with an air of terrible detachment, “am not going to do anything to Emily.”

“Mrs. Dutton, be a good sport,” implored Perry coaxingly “It’s all my fault – honest! Emily wasn’t one bit to blame. You see, it was this way –”

But Perry was too late.

“I have asked my niece for an explanation and she has refused to give it. I do not choose to listen to yours.”

“But –” persisted Perry.

“You had better go, Perry,” said Emily, whose face was flying danger signals. She spoke quietly, but the Murrayest of all Murrays could not have expressed a more definite command. There was a quality in it Perry dared not disregard. He meekly scrambled out of the window into the night. Aunt Ruth stepped forward and shut the window. Then, ignoring Emily utterly, she marched her pink flanneled little figure back upstairs.

Emily did not sleep much that night – nor, I admit, did she deserve to. After her sudden anger died away, shame cut her like a whip. She realised that she had behaved very foolishly in refusing an explanation to Aunt Ruth. Aunt Ruth had a right to it, when such a situation developed in her own house, no matter how hateful and disagreeable she made her method of demanding it. Of course, she would not have believed a word of it; but Emily, if she had given it, would not have further complicated her false position.

Emily fully expected she would be sent home to New Moon in disgrace. Aunt Ruth would stonily decline to keep such a girl any longer in her house –Aunt Elizabeth would agree with her – Aunt Laura would be heartbroken. Would even Cousin Jimmy’s loyalty stand the strain? It was a very bitter
prospect. No wonder Emily spent a white night. She was so unhappy that every beat of her heart seemed to hurt her. And again I say, most unequivocally, she deserved it. I haven’t one word of pity or excuse for her.

A
t the Saturday morning breakfast-table Aunt Ruth preserved a stony silence, but she smiled cruelly to herself as she buttered and ate her toast. Any one might have seen clearly that Aunt Ruth was enjoying herself– and, with equal clearness, that Emily was
not
. Aunt Ruth passed Emily the toast and marmalade with killing politeness, as if to say,

“I will not abate one jot or tittle of the proper thing. I may turn you out of my house, but it will be your own fault if you go without your breakfast.”

After breakfast Aunt Ruth went uptown. Emily suspected that she had gone to telephone to Dr. Burnley a message for New Moon. She expected when Aunt Ruth returned to be told to pack her trunk. But still Aunt Ruth spoke not. In the middle of the afternoon Cousin Jimmy arrived with the double-seated box-sleigh. Aunt Ruth went out and conferred with him. Then she came in and at last broke her silence.

“Put on your wraps,” she said. “We are going to New Moon.”

Emily obeyed mutely. She got into the back seat of the sleigh and Aunt Ruth sat beside Cousin Jimmy in front.
Cousin Jimmy looked back at Emily over the collar of his fur coat and said, “Hello, Pussy,” with just a shade too much of cheerful encouragement. Evidently Cousin Jimmy believed something very serious had happened, though he didn’t know what.

It was not a pleasant drive through the beautiful greys and smokes and pearls of the winter afternoon. The arrival at New Moon was not pleasant. Aunt Elizabeth looked stern – Aunt Laura looked apprehensive.

“I have brought Emily here,” said Aunt Ruth, “because I do not feel that I can deal with her alone. You and Laura, Elizabeth, must pass judgment on her behaviour yourselves.”

So it was to be a domestic court, with her, Emily, at the bar of justice. Justice – would she get justice? Well, she would make a fight for it. She flung up her head and the colour rushed backed into her face.

They were all in the sitting-room when she came down from her room. Aunt Elizabeth sat by the table. Aunt Laura was on the sofa ready to cry. Aunt Ruth was standing on the rug before the fire, looking peevishly at Cousin Jimmy, who, instead of going to the barn as he should have done, had tied the horse to the orchard fence and had seated himself back in the corner, determined, like Perry, to see what was going to be done to Emily. Ruth was annoyed. She wished Elizabeth would not always insist on admitting Jimmy to family conclaves when he desired to be present. It was absurd to suppose that a grown-up child like Jimmy had any right there.

Emily did not sit down. She went and stood by the window, where her black head came out against the crimson curtain as softly and darkly clear as a pine-tree against a sunset of spring. Outside a white, dead world lay in the chilly twilight of early March. Past the garden and the Lombardy
poplars the fields of New Moon looked very lonely and drear, with the intense red streak of lingering sunset beyond them. Emily shivered.

“Well,” said Cousin Jimmy, “let’s begin and get it over. Emily must want her supper.”

“When you know what
I
know about her, you will think she needs something besides supper,” said Mrs. Dutton tartly.

“I know all any one need know about Emily,” retorted Cousin Jimmy.

“Jimmy Murray, you are an ass,” said Aunt Ruth, angrily.

“Well, we’re cousins,” agreed Cousin Jimmy pleasantly.

“Jimmy, be silent,” said Elizabeth, majestically. “Ruth, let us hear what you have to say.”

Aunt Ruth told the whole story. She stuck to facts, but her manner of telling them made them seem even blacker than they were. She really contrived to make a very ugly story of it, and Emily shivered again as she listened. As the telling proceeded Aunt Elizabeth’s face became harder and colder, Aunt Laura began to cry, and Cousin Jimmy began to whistle.

“He was kissing her
neck
” concluded Aunt Ruth. Her tone implied that, bad as it was to kiss on ordinary places for kissing, it was a thousand-fold more scandalous and disgraceful to kiss the neck.

“It was my ear, really,” murmured Emily, with a sudden impish grin she could not check in time. Under all her discomfort and dread, there was
Something
that was standing back and
enjoying
this – the drama, the comedy of it. But this outbreak of it was most unfortunate. It made her appear flippant and unashamed.

“Now, I ask you,” said Aunt Ruth, throwing out her pudgy hands, “if you can expect me to keep a girl like her any longer in my house?”

“No, I don’t think you can,” said Elizabeth slowly.

Aunt Laura began to sob wildly. Cousin Jimmy brought down the front legs of his chair with a bang.

Emily turned from the window and faced them all.

“I want to explain what happened, Aunt Elizabeth.”

“I think we have heard enough about it,” said Aunt Elizabeth icily – all the more icily because of a certain bitter disappointment that was filling her soul. She had been gradually becoming very fond and proud of Emily, in her reserved, undemonstrative Murray way: to find her capable of such conduct as this was a terrible blow to Aunt Elizabeth. Her very pain made her the more merciless.

“No, that won’t do now, Aunt Elizabeth,” said Emily quietly. “I’m too old to be treated like that. You
must
hear my side of the story.”

The Murray look was on her face – the look Elizabeth knew and remembered so well of old. She wavered.

“You had your chance to explain last night,” snapped Aunt Ruth, “and you wouldn’t do it.”

“Because I was hurt and angry over your thinking the worst of me,” said Emily. “Besides, I knew
you
wouldn’t believe me.”

“I would have believed you if you had told the truth,” said Aunt Ruth. “The reason you wouldn’t explain last night was because you couldn’t think up an excuse for your conduct on the spur of the moment. You’ve had time to invent something since, I suppose.”

“Did you ever know Emily to tell a lie?” demanded Cousin Jimmy.

Mrs. Dutton opened her lips to say “Yes.” Then closed them again. Suppose Jimmy should demand a specific instance? She felt sure Emily had told her – fibs – a score of times, but what proof had she of it?

“
Did
you?” persisted that abominable Jimmy.

“I am not going to be catechised by you.” Aunt Ruth turned her back on him. “Elizabeth, I’ve always told you that girl was deep and sly, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” admitted poor Elizabeth, rather thankful that there need be no indecision on
that
point. Ruth had certainly told her so times out of number.

“And doesn’t this show I was right?”

“I’m – afraid – so.” Elizabeth Murray felt that it was a very bitter moment for her.

“Then it is for
you
to decide what is to be done about the matter,” said Ruth triumphantly.

“Not yet,” interposed Cousin Jimmy resolutely. “You haven’t given Emily the ghost of a chance to explain. That’s no fair trial. Now let her talk for ten minutes without interrupting her once.”

“That is only fair,” said Elizabeth with sudden resolution. She had a mad, irrational hope that, after all, Emily might be able to clear herself.

“Oh – well –” Mrs. Dutton yielded ungraciously and sat herself down with a thud on old Archibald Murray’s chair.

“Now, Emily, tell us what really happened,” said Cousin Jimmy.

“Well, upon my word!” exploded Aunt Ruth. “Do you mean to say
I
didn’t tell what really happened?”

Cousin Jimmy lifted his hand.

“Now – now – you had your say. Come, Pussy.”

Emily told her story from beginning to end. Something in it carried conviction. Three of her listeners at least believed her and felt an enormous load lifted from their minds. Even Aunt Ruth, deep down in her heart, knew Emily was telling the truth, but she would not admit it.

“A very ingenious tale, upon my word,” she said derisively.

Cousin Jimmy got up and walked across the floor. He bent down before Mrs. Dutton and thrust his rosy face with its forked beard and child-like brown eyes under his shock of grey curls, very close to hers.

“Ruth Murray,” he said, “do you remember the story that got around forty years ago about you and Fred Blair?
Do
you?”

Aunt Ruth pushed back her chair. Cousin Jimmy followed her.

“Do you remember that you were caught in a scrape that looked far worse than this?
Didn’t
it?”

Again poor Aunt Ruth pushed back her chair. Again Cousin Jimmy followed.

“Do you remember how mad you were because people wouldn’t believe you? But your father believed you –
he
had confidence in his own flesh and blood.
Hadn’t
he?”

Aunt Ruth had reached the wall by this time and had to surrender at discretion.

“I – I – remember well enough,” she said shortly.

Her cheeks were a curdled red. Emily looked at her interestedly.
Was
Aunt Ruth trying to blush? Ruth Dutton was, in fact, living over some very miserable months in her long past youth. When she was a girl of eighteen she had been trapped in a very ugly situation. And she had been innocent – absolutely innocent. She had been the helpless victim of a most impish combination of circumstances. Her father had believed her story and her own family had backed her up. But her contemporaries had believed the evidence of known facts for years – perhaps believed it yet, if they ever thought about the matter. Ruth Dutton shivered over the remembrance of her suffering under the lash of scandal. She no longer dared to refuse credence to Emily’s story but she could not yield gracefully.

“Jimmy,” she said sharply, “will you be good enough to go away and sit down? I suppose Emily
is
telling the truth – it’s a pity she took so long deciding to tell it. And I’m sure that creature
was
making love to her.”

“No, he was only asking me to marry him,” said Emily coolly.

You heard three gasps in the room. Aunt Ruth alone was able to speak.

“Do you intend to, may I ask?”

“No. I’ve told him so half a dozen times.”

“Well, I’m glad you had that much sense. Stovepipe Town, indeed!”

“Stovepipe Town had nothing to do with it. Ten years from now Perry Miller will be a man whom even a Murray would delight to honour. But he doesn’t happen to be the type I fancy, that’s all.”

Could
this
be Emily – this tall young woman coolly giving her reasons for refusing an offer of marriage – and talking about the “types” she fancied? Elizabeth – Laura – even Ruth looked at her as if they had never seen her before. And there was a new respect in their eyes. Of course they knew that Andrew was – was – well, in short, that Andrew
was
. But years must doubtless pass before Andrew would – would – well,
would!
And now the thing had happened already with another suitor – happened “half a dozen times” mark you! At that moment, although they were quite unconscious of it, they ceased to regard her as a child. At a bound she had entered their world and must henceforth be met on equal terms. There could be no more family courts.
They felt
this, though they did not perceive it. Aunt Ruth’s next remark showed it. She spoke almost as she might have spoken to Laura or Elizabeth, if she had deemed it her duty to admonish them.

“Just suppose, Em’ly, if any one passing had seen Perry Miller sitting in that window at that hour of the night?”

“Yes, of course, I see your angle of it perfectly, Aunt Ruth. All I want is to get you to see
mine
. I was foolish to open the window and talk to Perry – I see that now. I simply didn’t think – and then I got so interested in the story of his mishaps at Dr. Hardy’s dinner that I forgot how time was going.”

“Was Perry Miller to dinner at
Dr. Hardy’s?
” asked Aunt Elizabeth. This was another staggerer for her. The world – the Murray world – must be literally turned upside-down if Stovepipe Town was invited to dinner on Queen Street. At the same moment Aunt Ruth remembered with a pang of horror that Perry Miller had seen her in her pink flannel nightgown. It hadn’t mattered before – he had been only the help-boy at New Moon.
Now
he was Dr. Hardy’s guest.

“Yes. Dr. Hardy thinks he is a very brilliant debater and says he has a future,” said Emily.

“Well,” snapped Aunt Ruth, “
I
wish you would stop prowling about my house at all hours, writing novels. If you had been in your bed, as you should have been, this would never have happened.”

“I wasn’t writing novels,” cried Emily. “I’ve never written a word of fiction since I promised Aunt Elizabeth. I wasn’t writing
anything
. I told you I just went down to get my Jimmy-book.”

“
Why
couldn’t you have left that where it was till morning?” persisted Aunt Ruth.

“Come, come,” said Cousin Jimmy, “don’t start up another argument. I want my supper. You girls go and get it.”

Elizabeth and Laura left the room as meekly as if old Archibald Murray himself had commanded it. After a moment Ruth followed them. Things had not turned out just as she
anticipated; but, after all, she was resigned. It would not have been a nice thing for a scandal like this concerning a Murray to be blown abroad, as must have happened if a verdict of guilty had been found against Emily.

“So
that’s
settled,” said Cousin Jimmy to Emily as the door closed.

Emily drew a long breath. The quiet, dignified old room suddenly seemed very beautiful and friendly to her.

“Yes, thanks to you,” she said, springing across it to give him an impetuous hug. “Now, scold me, Cousin Jimmy, scold me
hard
.”

“No, no. But it
would
have been more prudent
not
to have opened that window, wouldn’t it now, Pussy?”

“Of course it would. But prudence is such a shoddy virtue at times, Cousin Jimmy. One is ashamed of it – one likes to just go ahead and – and –”

“And hang consequences,” supplied Cousin Jimmy.

“Something like that,” Emily laughed. “I hate to go mincing through life, afraid to take a single long step for fear somebody is watching. I want to ‘wave my wild tail and walk by my wild lone.’ There wasn’t a bit of real harm in my opening that window and talking to Perry. There wasn’t even any harm in his trying to kiss me. He just did it to tease me. Oh, I
hate
conventions. As you say – hang consequences.”