Emily's Quest (17 page)

“There – it's out!”

Emily laid down – or dropped – the letter for a moment. She did not feel either pain or surprise – one does not feel either, I am told, when a bullet strikes the heart. It seemed to her that she had always known this was coming – always. At least, since the night of Mrs. Chidlaw's dinner-dance. And yet, now that it had really happened, it seemed to her that she was suffering everything of death but its merciful dying. In the dim, twilit mirror before her she saw her own face. Had Emily-in-the-glass ever looked like that before? But her room was just the same. It seemed indecent that it should be the same. After a few moments – or years – Emily picked up the letter and read on.

“I'm not in love with Teddy, of course. But he's just got to be a habit with me. I can't do without him – and I either have to do without him or marry him. He won't stand my hesitation any longer. Besides, he's going to be very famous. I shall enjoy being the wife of a famous man. Also, he will have the simoleons, too. Not that I'm altogether mercenary, Emily. I said ‘No' to a millionaire last week. A nice fellow, too – but with a face like a good-natured weasel's, if there can be such a thing. And he
cried
when I told him I wouldn't marry him. Oh, it was ghastly.

“Yes, it's mostly ambition, I grant you. And a certain odd kind of weariness and impatience with my life as it has been these last few years. Everything seems squeezed dry. But I'm really very fond of Teddy – always was. He's nice and companionable – and our taste in jokes is exactly the same. And he never bores me. I have no use for people who bore me. Of course he's too good-looking for a man – he'll always be a target for the head-hunters. But since I don't care
too
much for him I shan't be tortured by jealousy. In life's morning march when my bosom was young I could have fried in
boiling oil any one – except you – at whom Perry Miller cast a sheep's eye.

“I've thought for years and known for weeks that this was coming some day. But I've been staving Teddy off– I wouldn't let him say the words that would really bind us. I don't know whether I'd ever have scraped up the courage to let him say them, but destiny took a hand. We were out for a spin two weeks ago one evening and a most unseasonable and malignant thunderstorm came up. We had a dreadful time getting back – there was no place on that bare, lonely hill-road we could stop – the rain fell in torrents, the thunder crashed, the lightning flashed. It was unendurable and we didn't endure it. We just tore through it and cussed. Then it cleared off as suddenly as it had begun – and my nerves went to pieces – fancy! I
have
nerves now – and I began to cry like a frightened, foolish baby. And Teddy's arms were about me and he was saying I
must
marry him – and let him take care of me. I suppose I said I would because it's quite clear he thinks we are engaged. He has given me a blue Chow pup and a sapphire ring – a sapphire he picked up in Europe somewhere – an historic jewel for which a murder was once committed, I believe.

“I think it will be rather nice to be taken care of. Properly. I never was, you know. Dad had no use for me until you found out the truth about Mother – what a witch you were! And after that he adored and spoiled me. But he didn't take any more real care of me than before.

“We are to be married next June. Dad will be pleased, I fancy. Teddy was always the white-haired boy with him. Besides, I think he was beginning to be a little scared I was never going to hook a husband. Dad plumes himself on being a radical but at heart he out-Victorians the Victorians.

“And of course you must be my bridesmaid. Oh, Emily dear, how I wish I could see you to-night – talk with you – one of our old-time spiels – walk with you over the Delectable Mountain and along the ferny, frosted woodside, hang about that old garden by the sea where red poppies blow – all our old familiar places. I wish – I think I really do wish – I was ragged barefooted, wild Ilse Burnley again. Life is pleasant still – oh, I don't say it isn't. Very pleasant – in spots – like the curate's immortal egg. But the ‘first fine careless rapture' – the thrush may recapture it but we never. Emily, old pal, would you turn the clock back if you could?”

Emily read the letter over three times. Then she sat for a very long time at her window, looking blindly out on the blanched; dim world lying under the terrible mockery of a sky full of stars. The wind around the eaves was full of ghostly voices. Bits here and there in Ilse's letter turned and twisted and vanished in her consciousness like little venomous snakes, each with a mortal sting.

“Your singleness of purpose” – “you never cared for any one” – “of course you must be my bridesmaid” – “I'm really very fond of Teddy” – “my hesitation.”

Could
any girl really “hesitate” over accepting Teddy Kent? Emily heard a little note of bitter laughter. Was it something in herself that laughed – or that vanishing spectre of Teddy that had haunted her all day – or an old smothered persistent hope that laughed before it died at last?

And at that very moment probably Ilse and Teddy were together.

“If I had gone – that night – last summer – when he called – would it have made any difference?” was the question that asked itself over and over again maddeningly.

“I wish I could hate Ilse. It would make it easier,” she thought drearily. “If she loved Teddy I think I
could
hate her. Somehow it isn't so dreadful when she doesn't. It ought to be
more
dreadful. It's very strange that I can bear the thought of his loving her when I couldn't bear the thought of her loving him.”

A great weariness suddenly possessed her. For the first time in her life death seemed a friend. It was very late when she finally went to bed. Towards morning she slept a little. But awakened stupidly at dawn. What was it she had heard?

She remembered.

She got up and dressed – as she must get up and dress every morning to come for endless years.

“Well,” she said aloud to Emily-in-the-glass. “I've spilled my cup of life's wine on the ground – somehow. And she will give me no more. So I must go thirsty. Would –
would
it have been different if I had gone to him that night he called. If I only knew!” She thought she could see Dean's ironical, compassionate eyes.

Suddenly she laughed.

“In plain English – as Ilse would say – what a devilish mess I've made of things!”

L
ife, of course, went on in spite of its dreadfulness. The routine of existence doesn't stop because one is miserable. There were even some moments that were not altogether bad. Emily again measured her strength with pain and again conquered. With the Murray pride and the Starr reserve at her elbow she wrote Ilse a letter of good wishes with which nobody could have found fault. If that were only all she had to do! If only people wouldn't keep on talking to her about Ilse and Teddy.

The engagement was announced in the Montreal papers and then in the Island ones.

“Yes, they're engaged and heaven help every one concerned,” said Dr. Burnley. But he could not hide his satisfaction in it.

“Thought at one tune
you
and Teddy were going to make a match of it,” he said jovially to Emily – who smiled gallantly and said something about the unexpected always happening.

“Anyhow we'll have a wedding that
is
a wedding,” declared the doctor. “We haven't had a wedding in the clan
for God knows how long. I thought they'd forgotten how. I'll show 'em. Ilse writes me you're to be bridesmaid. And I'll be wanting you to oversee things generally. Can't trust a wedding to a housekeeper.”

“Anything I can do, of course,” said Emily automatically. Nobody should suspect what she felt – not if she died for it. She would even be bridesmaid.

If it had not been for that prospect ahead she thought she could have got through the winter not unhappily. For
The Moral of the Rose
was a success from the start. The first edition exhausted in ten days – three large editions in two weeks – five in eight weeks. Exaggerated reports of the pecuniary returns were circulated everywhere. For the first time Uncle Wallace looked at her with respect and Aunt Addie wished secretly that Andrew hadn't been consoled quite so soon. Old Cousin Charlotte, of Derry Pond, heard of the many editions and opined that Emily must be very busy if she had to put all the books together and sew them herself. The Shrewsbury people were furious because they imagined they were in the book. Every family believed
it
was the Applegaths.

“You were right not to come to New York,” wrote Miss Royal. “You could never have written
The Moral of the Rose
here. Wild roses won't grow in city streets. And your story is like a wild rose, dear, all sweetness and unexpectedness with sly little thorns of wit and satire. It has power, delicacy, understanding. It's not just story-telling. There's some magicry in it. Emily Byrd Starr, where do you get your uncanny understanding of human nature – you infant?”

Dean wrote too – “good creative work, Emily. Your characters are natural and human and delightful. And I like the glowing spirit of youth that pervades the book.”

“I had hoped to learn something from the reviews, but they are all too contradictory,” said Emily “What one reviewer pronounces the book's greatest merit another condemns as its worst fault. Listen to these – ‘Miss Starr never succeeds in making her characters convincing' and ‘One fancies that some of the author's characters must have been copied from real life. They are so absolutely true to nature that they could hardly be the work of imagination.'”

“I told you people would recognise old Douglas Courcy,” interjected Aunt Elizabeth.

“A very tiresome book – ‘a very delightful book' – ‘very undistinguished fiction' and ‘on every page the work of the finished artist is apparent' – ‘a book of cheap and weak romanticism' and ‘a classic quality in the book – ‘a unique story of a rare order of literary workmanship' and ‘a silly, worthless, colourless and desultory story' – ‘an ephemeral sort of affair' and ‘a book destined to live.' What
is
one to believe?”

“I would just believe only the favourable ones,” said Aunt Laura.

Emily sighed.

“My tendency is just the other way. I can't help believing the unfavourable ones are true and that the favourable ones were written by morons. But I don't really mind much what they say about the
book
. It's only when they criticise my heroine that I'm hurt and furious. I saw red over these reviews of darling
Peggy
. A girl of extraordinary stupidity' – ‘the heroine has too marked a self-consciousness of her mission.'”

“I
did
think she was a bit of a flirt,” conceded Cousin Jimmy.

“A thin, sweetish heroine' – ‘the heroine is something of a bore' – ‘queer but altogether too queer.'”

“I told you she shouldn't have had green eyes,” groaned Cousin Jimmy “A heroine should always have blue eyes.”

“Oh, but listen to this,” cried Emily gaily – “‘
Peg Applegath
is simply irresistible' –
‘Peg
is a remarkably vivid personality' – ‘a fascinating heroine' –
‘Peg
is too delightful not to be credited while we are under her spell' – ‘one of the immortal girls of literature.' What about green eyes now, Cousin Jimmy?”

Cousin Jimmy shook his head. He was not convinced.

“Here's a review for you,” twinkled Emily. “A psychological problem with roots that stretch for into subliminal depths which would give the book weight and value if it were grappled with sincerely'”

“I know the meaning of all those words by themselves except two, but put together they don't make any sense,” protested Cousin Jimmy ruefully.

“‘Beneath the elusiveness and atmospheric charm is a wonderful firmness of character delineation.'”

“I don't quite get that either,” confessed Cousin Jimmy, “but it sounds kind of favourable.”

“A conventional and commonplace book.'”

“What does ‘conventional' mean?” asked Aunt Elizabeth, who would not have been posed by transubstantiation or Gnosticism.

“‘Beautifully written and full of sparkling humour. Miss Starr is a real artist in literature.'”

“Oh, now,
there's
a reviewer with some sense,” purred Cousin Jimmy.

“‘The general impression left by the book is that it might be much worse.'”

“
That
reviewer was trying to be smart, I suppose,” said Aunt Elizabeth, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that she had said the very same thing herself.

“‘This book lacks spontaneity. It is saccharine and melodramatic, mawkish and naïve.'”

“I know I fell into the well,” said Cousin Jimmy pitifully. “Is that why I can't make head or tail out of that?”

“Here's one you can understand – perhaps. ‘Miss Starr must have invented the
Applegath
orchard as well as her green-eyed heroine. There are no orchards in Prince Edward Island. They are killed by the harsh, salt winds that blow across that narrow sandy strip.'”

“Read that again please, Emily.”

Emily complied. Cousin Jimmy scratched his head, then shook it. “Do they let that kind run loose over there?”

“‘The story is a charming one, charmingly told. The characters are skilfully depicted, the dialogue deftly handled, the descriptive passages surprisingly effective. The quiet humour is simply delightful.'”

“I hope this will not make you vain, Emily,” said Aunt Elizabeth warningly.

“If it does, here's the antidote. ‘This feeble, pretentious and sentimental story – if story it can be called – is full of banalities and trivialities. A mass of disconnected episodes and scraps of conversation, intermingled with long periods of reflection and self-examination.'”

“I wonder if the creature who wrote that knew the meaning of the words himself,” said Aunt Laura.

“‘The scene of this story is laid in Prince Edward Island, a detached portion of land off the coast of Newfoundland.'”

“Don't Yankees
ever
study geography?” snorted exasperated Cousin Jimmy.

“A story that will not corrupt its readers.'”

“
There's
a real compliment now,” said Aunt Elizabeth.

Cousin Jimmy looked doubtful. It sounded all right
but – of course dear little Emily's book couldn't corrupt any one but –

“‘To review a book of this kind is like attempting to dissect a butterfly's wing or strip a rose of its petals to discover the secret of its fragrance.'”

“Too highfalutin,” sniffed Aunt Elizabeth.

“‘Honeyed sentimentality which the author evidently supposes is poetic fancy.'”

“Wouldn't I like to smack his gob,” said Cousin Jimmy feelingly.

“‘Harmless and easy reading.'”

“I don't know why, but I don't quite like the sound of that,” commented Aunt Laura.

“‘This story will keep a kindly smile upon your lips and in your heart as well.'”

“Come now, that's English. I can understand
that”
beamed Cousin Jimmy.

“‘We began but found it impossible to finish this crude and tiresome book.'”

“Well, all
I
can say,” said Cousin Jimmy indignantly, “is that the oftener I read
The Moral of the Rose
the better I like it. Why, I was reading it for the fourth time yesterday and I was so interested I clean forgot all about dinner.”

Emily smiled. It was better to have won her standing with the New Moon folks than with the world. What mattered it what any reviewer said when Aunt Elizabeth remarked with an air of uttering the final judgment:

“Well, I never could have believed that a pack of lies could sound as much like the real truth as that book does.”