Emily's Quest (16 page)

O
n her twenty-fourth birthday Emily opened and read the letter she had written “from herself at fourteen to herself at twenty-four.” It was not the amusing performance she had once expected it to be. She sat long at her window with the letter in her hand, watching the light of yellow, sinking stars over the bush that was still called Lofty John's oftener than not, from old habit. What would pop out when she opened that letter? A ghost of first youth? Of ambition? Of vanished love? Of lost friendship? Emily felt she would rather burn the letter than read it. But that would be cowardly. One must face things – even ghosts. With a sudden quick movement she cut open the envelope and took out the letter.

A whiff of old fragrance came with it. Folded in it were some dried rose-leaves – crisp brown things that crumbled to dust under her touch. Yes, she remembered that rose – Teddy had brought it to her one evening when they had been children together and he had been so proud of that first red rose that bloomed on a little house rosebush Dr. Burnley had given
him – the only rose that ever did bloom on it, for that matter. His mother had resented his love for the little plant. One night it was accidentally knocked off the window-sill and broken. If Teddy thought or knew there was any connection between the two facts he never said so. Emily had kept the rose as long as possible in a little vase on her study table; but the night she had written her letter she had taken the limp, faded thing and folded it – with a kiss – between the sheets of paper. She had forgotten that it was there; and now it fell in her hand, faded, unbeautiful, like the rose-hopes of long ago, yet with some faint bitter-sweetness still about it. The whole letter seemed full of it – whether of sense or spirit she could hardly tell.

This letter was, she sternly told herself, a foolish, romantic affair. Something to be laughed at. Emily carefully laughed at some parts of it. How crude – how silly – how sentimental – how amusing! Had she really ever been young and callow enough to write such flowery, exultant nonsense? And one would have thought, too, that fourteen regarded twenty-four as verging on venerable.

“Have you written your great book?” airily asked Fourteen in conclusion. “Have you climbed to the very top of the Alpine Path? Oh, Twenty-Four, I'm envying you. It must be splendid to
be you
. Are you looking back patronisingly and pityingly to
met
You wouldn't swing on a gate now, would you? Are you a staid old married woman with several children, living in the Disappointed House with One-You-Know-Of? Only
don't
be stodgy, I implore you, dear Twenty-Four. And do be dramatic. I love dramatic things and people. Are you Mrs. — —? What name will fill those blanks? Oh, dear Twenty-Four, I put into this letter for you a kiss – and a handful of moonshine – and the soul of a rose – and some
of the green sweetness of the old hill field – and a whiff of wild violets. I hope you are happy and famous and lovely; and I hope you haven't quite forgotten.

     “Your foolish

             “O
LD
S
ELF
.”

Emily locked the letter away.

“So much for that nonsense,” she said scoffingly

Then she sat down in her chair, and dropped her head on her desk. Little silly, dreamy, happy, ignorant Fourteen! Always thinking that something great and wonderful and beautiful lay in the years ahead. Quite sure that the “mountain purple” could be reached. Quite sure that dreams always come true. Foolish Fourteen, who yet had known how to be happy.

“I'm envying
you
,” said Emily. “I wish I had never opened your letter, foolish little Fourteen. Go back to your shadowy past and don't come again – mocking me. I'm going to have a white night because of you. I'm going to lie awake all night and pity myself.”

Yet already the footsteps of destiny were sounding on the stairs – though Emily thought they were only Cousin Jimmy's.

He had come to bring her a letter – a thin letter – and if Emily had not been too much absorbed in herself at fourteen she might have noticed that Cousin Jimmy's eyes were as bright as a cat's and that an air of ill-concealed excitement pervaded his whole being. Moreover that, when she had thanked him absently for the letter and gone back to her desk, he remained in the shadowy hall outside, watching her slyly through the half-open door. At first he thought she was not going to open
the letter – she had flung it down indifferently and sat staring at it. Cousin Jimmy went nearly mad with impatience.

But after a few minutes more of absent musing Emily roused herself with a sigh and stretched out a hand for the letter.

“If I don't miss my guess, dear little Emily, you won't sigh when you read what's in that letter,” thought Cousin Jimmy exultantly.

Emily looked at the return address in the upper corner, wondering what the Wareham Publishing Company were writing to her about. The big Warehams! The oldest and most important publishing house in America. A circular of some kind, probably. Then she found herself staring incredulously at the typewritten sheet – while Cousin Jimmy performed a noiseless dance on Aunt Elizabeth's braided rug out in the hall.

“I – don't – understand,” gasped Emily.

“I don't – understand –” said Emily again.

Cousin Jimmy could hold himself in no longer. He made a sound between a whoop and hurrah. Emily flew across the room and dragged him in.

“Cousin Jimmy,
what
does this mean? You must know something about it – how did the House of Wareham ever get my book?”

“Have they really accepted it?” demanded Cousin Jimmy.

“Yes. And
I
never sent it to them. I wouldn't have supposed it was the least use – the
Warehams. Am
I dreaming?”

“No. I'll tell you – don't be mad now, Emily. You mind Elizabeth asked me to tidy up the garret a month ago. I was moving that old cardboard box you keep a lot of stuff in and the bottom fell out. Everything went – so – all over the garret. I gathered 'em up – and your book manuscript was among 'em. I happened to look at a page – and then I set down – and Elizabeth came up an hour later and found me still a-sitting there on my hams reading. I'd forgot everything. My, but she was mad! The garret not half done and dinner ready. But I didn't mind what she said – I was thinking, ‘If that book made me forget everything like that there's
something
in it.
I'll
send it somewhere.' And I didn't know anywhere to send it but to the Warehams. I'd always heard of them. And I didn't know
how
to send it – but I just stuffed it in an old cracker box and mailed it to them off-hand.”

“Didn't you even send stamps for its return?” gasped Emily, horrified.

“No, never thought of it. Maybe that's why they took it. Maybe the other firms sent it back because you sent stamps.”

“Hardly.” Emily laughed and found herself crying.

“Emily, you ain't mad at me, are you?”

“No – no – darling – I'm only so flabbergasted, as you say yourself, that I don't know what to say or do. It's all so – the
Warehams!
“

“I've been watching the mails ever since,” chuckled Cousin Jimmy. “Elizabeth has been thinking I've gone clear daft at last. If the story had come back I was going to smuggle it back to the garret – I wasn't going to let you know. But
when I saw that thin envelope – I remembered you said once the thin envelopes always had good news – dear little Emily don't cry!”

“I can't – help it – and oh, I'm sorry for what I called you, little Fourteen. You weren't silly – you were wise – you knew.”

“It's gone to her head a little,” said Cousin Jimmy to himself. “No wonder – after so many setbacks. But she'll soon be quite sensible again.”

T
eddy and Ilse were coming home for a brief ten days in July. How was it, wondered Emily, that they always came together? That couldn't be just coincidence. She dreaded the visit and wished it were over. It would be good to see Ilse again – somehow she could never feel a stranger with Ilse. No matter how long she was away, the moment she came back you found the old Ilse. But she did not want to see Teddy. Teddy who had forgotten her. Who had never written since he went away last. Teddy who was already famous, as a painter of lovely women. So famous and so successful that – Ilse wrote – he was going to give up magazine work. Emily felt a certain relief when she read that. She would no longer dread to open a magazine lest she see her own face – or soul – looking at her out of some illustration – with “Frederick Kent” scrawled in the corner, as if to say “know all men by these presents that this girl is mine.” Emily resented less the pictures which looked like her whole face than the ones in which only the eyes were hers. To be able to paint her eyes like that Teddy must know
everything that was in her soul. The thought always filled her with fury and shame – and a sense of horrible helplessness. She would not – could not – tell Teddy to stop using her as a model. She had never stooped to acknowledge to him that she had noticed any resemblance to herself in his illustrations – she never would stoop.

And now he was coming home – might be home any time. If only she could go away – on any pretence – for a few weeks. Miss Royal was wanting her to go to New York for a visit. But it would never do to go away when Ilse was coming.

Well – Emily shook herself. What an idiot she was! Teddy was coming home, a dutiful son, to see his mother – and he would doubtless be glad enough to see old friends when their actual presence recalled them to his memory; and why should there be anything difficult about it? She must get rid of this absurd self-consciousness. She would.

She was sitting at her open window. The night outside was like a dark, heavy, perfumed flower. An expectant night – a night when things intended to happen. Very still. Only the loveliest of muted sounds – the faintest whisper of trees, the airiest sigh of wind, the half-heard, half-felt moan of the sea.

“Oh, beauty!” whispered Emily, passionately, lifting her hands to the stars. “What would I have done without you all these years?”

Beauty of night – and perfume – and mystery. Her soul was filled with it. There was, just then, room for nothing else. She bent out, lifting her face to the jewelled sky– rapt, ecstatic.

Then she heard it. A soft, silvery signal in Lofty John's bush – two higher notes and one long, low one – the old, old call that would once have sent her with flying feet to the shadows of the firs.

Emily sat as if turned to stone, her white face framed in the vines that clustered round her window. He was there – Teddy was there – in Lofty John's bush – waiting for her – calling to her as of old. Expecting her!

Almost she had sprung to her feet – almost she had run downstairs where he was waiting for her. But –

Was he only trying to see if he still had the old power over her?

He had gone away two years ago without even a written word of farewell. Would the Murray pride condone that? Would the Murray pride run to meet the man who had held her of so little account? The Murray pride would not. Emily's young face took on lines of stubborn determination in the dim light. She would not go. Let him call as he might. “Whistle and I'll come to you, my lad,” indeed! No more of that for Emily Byrd Starr. Teddy Kent need not imagine that he could come and go as went the years and find her meekly waiting to answer his lordly signal.

Again the call came – twice. He was there – so close to her. In a moment if she liked, she could be beside him – her hands in his – his eyes looking into hers – perhaps –

He had gone away without saying good-bye to her!

Emily rose deliberately and lighted her lamp. She sat down at her desk near the window, took up her pen and fell to writing – or a semblance of writing. Steadily she wrote – next day she found sheets covered with aimless repetitions of old poems learned in schooldays – and as she wrote she listened. Would the call come again? Once more? It did not. When she was quite sure it was not coming again she put out her light and lay down on her bed with her face in the pillow. Pride was quite satisfied. She had shown him she was not to be whistled
off and on. Oh, how thankful she felt that she had been firm enough not to go. For which reason, no doubt, her pillow was wet with savage tears.

He came next night – with Ilse – in his new car. And there was handshaking and gaiety and laughter – oh, a great deal of laughter. Ilse was looking radiant in a big yellow hat trimmed with crimson roses. One of those preposterous hats only Ilse could get away with. How unlike the neglected, almost ragged Ilse of olden days. Yet just as lovable as ever. Nobody could help loving Ilse. Teddy was charming, too – with just the right amount of mingled interest and detachment an old resident coming back to childhood's home would naturally feel. Interested in everything and everybody. Oh, yes, indeed, hugely! Ilse tells me you're bringing out a book. Capital. What's it about? Must get a copy. Blair Water quite unchanged. Delightful to come back to a place where time seems to stand still.

Emily almost thought she must have dreamed the whistle in Lofty John's bush.

But she went for a drive to Priest Pond with him and Ilse – and made quite a sensation, for cars were still great novelties thereabouts. And they had a merry, delightful time – then and for the few remaining days of their visit. Ilse had meant to stay three weeks but found she could stay only five days. And Teddy, who seemed to be master of his own time, decided to stay no longer, too. And they both came over to say goodbye to Emily and all went for a farewell moonlit spin – and laughed a great deal – and Ilse, with a hug, declared it was just like old times and Teddy agreed.

“If only Perry had been round,” he amended. “I'm sorry not to have seen old Perry. They tell me he is getting on like a house afire.”

Perry had gone to the Coast on business for his firm. Emily bragged a little about him and his success. Teddy Kent need not suppose he was the only one who was arriving.

“Are his manners any better than they used to be?” asked Ilse.

“His manners are good enough for us simple Prince Edward Islanders,” said Emily, nastily.

“Oh, well, I admit I never saw him pick his teeth in public,” conceded Ilse. “Do you know” – with a sly, sidelong glance at Teddy which Emily instantly noticed – “once I fancied myself quite in love with Perry Miller.”

“Lucky Perry!” said Teddy with what seemed a quiet smile of satisfied understanding.

Ilse did not kiss Emily good-bye, but she shook hands very cordially as did Teddy. Emily was thanking her stars, in genuine earnest this time, that she had not gone to Teddy when he whistled – if he ever had whistled. They drove gaily off down the lane. But when a few moments later Emily turned to go into New Moon there were flying footsteps behind her and she was enveloped in a silken embrace.

“Emily darling, good-bye. I love you as much as ever – but everything is so horribly changed – and we can never find the Islands of Enchantment again. I wish I hadn't come home at all – but say you love me and always will. I couldn't bear it if you didn't.”

“Of course I'll always love you, Ilse.”

They kissed lingeringly – almost sadly – among the faint, cold, sweet perfumes of night. Ilse went down the lane to where Teddy was purring and scintillating for her – or his
car was – and Emily went into New Moon where her two old aunts and Cousin Jimmy were waiting for her.

“I wonder if Ilse and Teddy will ever be married,” said Aunt Laura.

“It's time Ilse was settling down,” said Aunt Elizabeth.

“Poor Ilse,” said Cousin Jimmy inexplainably

One late, lovely autumn day in November Emily walked home from the Blair Water post-office with a letter from Ilse and a parcel. She was athrill with an intoxication of excitement that easily passed for happiness. The whole day had been a strangely unreasonably delightful one of ripe sunshine on the sere hills, faint, grape-like bloom on the far-away woods and a soft, blue sky with little wisps of grey cloud like cast-off veils. Emily had wakened in the morning from a dream of Teddy – the dear, friendly Teddy of the old days – and all day she had been haunted by an odd sense of his nearness. It seemed as if his footstep sounded at her side and as if she might come upon him suddenly when she rounded a spruce-fringed curve in the red road or went down into some sunny hollow where the ferns were thick and golden – find him smiling at her with no shadow of change between them, the years of exile and alienation forgotten. She had not really thought much about him for a long while. The summer and autumn had been busy – she was hard at work on a new story – Ilse's letters had been few and scrappy. Why this sudden, irrational sense of his nearness? When she got Ilse's fat letter she was quite sure there was some news of Teddy in it.

But it was the little parcel that was responsible for her excitement. It was stamped with the sign manual of the House
of Wareham and Emily knew what it must hold. Her book – her
Moral of the Rose
.

She hurried home by the cross-lots road – the little old road over which the vagabond wandered and the lover went to his lady and children to joy and tired men home – the road that linked up eventually with the pasture field by the Blair Water and the Yesterday Road. Once in the grey-boughed solitude of the Yesterday Road Emily sat down in a bay of brown bracken and opened her parcel.

There lay her book.
Her
book, spleet-new from the publishers. It was a proud, wonderful, thrilling moment. The crest of the Alpine Path at last? Emily lifted her shining eyes to the deep blue November sky and saw peak after peak of sunlit azure still towering beyond. Always new heights of aspiration. One could never reach the top really. But what a moment when one reached a plateau and outlook like this! What a reward for the long years of toil and endeavour and disappointment and discouragement.

But oh, for her unborn
Seller of Dreams!

The excitement at New Moon that afternoon almost equalled Emily's own. Cousin Jimmy gave up unblushingly his plan of finishing the ploughing of the hill field to sit at home and gloat over the book. Aunt Laura cried – of course – and Aunt Elizabeth looked indifferent, merely remarking in a tone of surprise that it was bound like a real book. Evidently Aunt Elizabeth had been expecting paper covers. But she made some rather foolish mistakes in her quilt patches that afternoon and she did not once ask Jimmy why he wasn't ploughing. And when some callers dropped in later on
The Moral
of the Rose
was mysteriously on the parlour table, though it had been up on Emily's desk when Aunt Elizabeth saw the automobile drive into the yard. Aunt Elizabeth never mentioned it and neither of the callers noticed it. When they went away Aunt Elizabeth said witheringly that John Angus had less sense than ever he had and that for her part, if
she
were Cousin Margaret, she would
not
wear clothes twenty years too young for her.

“An old ewe tricked out like a lamb,” said Aunt Elizabeth contemptuously.

If they had done what was expected of them in regard to
The Moral of the Rose
Aunt Elizabeth would probably have said that John Angus had always been a jovial, good-natured sort of creature and that it was really wonderful how Cousin Margaret had held her own.

In all the excitement Emily had – not exactly forgotten Ilse's letter, but wanted to wait until things had settled down a little before reading it. At twilight she went to her room and sat down in the fading light. The wind had changed at sunset and the evening was cold and edged. What Jimmy called a “skiff” of snow had fallen, suddenly whitening the world and the withered, unlovely garden. But the storm-cloud had passed and the sky was clear and yellow over the white hills and dark firs. The odd perfume that Ilse always affected floated out of her letter when it was opened. Emily had always vaguely disliked it. But then her taste differed from Ilse's in the matter of perfumes as in so many others. Ilse liked the exotic, oriental, provocative odours. To the day of her death Emily will never catch a whiff of that perfume without turning cold and sick.

“Exactly one thousand times have I planned to write to you,” wrote Ilse, “but when one is revolving rapidly on the wheel of thing there doesn't seem to be an opportunity for anything one really wants to do. All these months I've been so rushed that I've felt precisely like a cat just one jump ahead of a dog. If I stopped for a breath it would catch me.

“But the spirit moves me to utter a few yowls to-night. I've something to tell you. And your darling letter came to-day – so I will write to-night, and let the dog eat me if he will.

“I'm glad you're keeping well and good-humoured. There are times I envy you fiercely, Emily – your New Moon quiet and peace and leisure – your intense absorption and satisfaction in your work – your singleness of purpose. ‘If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light.' That's either in the Bible or Shakespeare, but wherever it is, it is true. I remember you told me once you envied me my opportunities of travel. Emily, old dear, rushing about from one place to another isn't travelling. If you were like your foolish Ilse, chasing a score of butterfly projects and ambitions you wouldn't be so happy. You always remind me – always did remind me, even in our old chummy days – of somebody's line – ‘her soul was like a star and dwelt apart.'

“Well, when one can't get the thing one really wants, one can't help chasing after anything that
might
make a decent substitute. I know you've always thought me an unmitigated donkey because I cared so much about Perry Miller. I knew you never quite understood. You couldn't. You never really cared a hoot about any he-creature, did you, Emily? So you thought me an idiot. I daresay I was. But I'm going to be sensible in future. I'm going to marry Teddy Kent.