Emily's Quest (2 page)

“Yes, you do. You and Mr. Carpenter. You are the only ones who really do believe in me. Even Ilse thinks that Perry has by far the better chance of bringing home the bacon.”

“But you are not going after bacon. You're going after rainbow gold.”

“And if I fail to find it – and disappoint you – that will be worst of all.”

“You
won't
fail. Look at that star, Teddy – the one just over the youngest Princess. It's Vega of the Lyre. I've always loved it. It's my dearest among the stars. Do you remember how, years ago when you and Ilse and I sat out in the orchard on the evenings when Cousin Jimmy was boiling pigs' potatoes, you used to spin us wonderful tales about that star – and of a life you had lived in it before you came to this world? There was no three o'clock in the morning in that star.”

“What happy, carefree, little shavers we were those times,” said Teddy, in the reminiscent voice of a middle-aged, care-oppressed man wistfully recalling youthful irresponsibility.

“I want you to promise me,” said Emily, “that whenever you see that star you'll remember that I am believing in you –
hard
.”

“Will you promise
me
that whenever you look at that star you'll think of me?” said Teddy “Or rather, let us promise each other that whenever we see that star we'll
always
think of each other –
always
. Everywhere and as long as we live.”

“I promise,” said Emily, thrilled. She loved to have Teddy look at her like that.

A romantic compact. Meaning what? Emily did not know. She only knew that Teddy was going away – that life seemed suddenly very blank and cold – that the wind from the gulf, sighing among the trees in Lofty John's bush was very sorrowful – that summer had gone and autumn had come. And that the pot of gold at the rainbow's end was on some very far-distant hill.

Why had she said that thing about the star? Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?

“New Moon.           

“November 18, 19–

“T
o-day the December Number of
Marchwood's
came with my verses
Flying Gold
in it. I consider the occasion worthy of mention in my diary because they were given a whole page to themselves and illustrated – the first time ever any poem of mine was so honoured. It is trashy enough in itself, I suppose – Mr. Carpenter only sniffed when I read it to him and refused to make any comment whatever on it. Mr. Carpenter never ‘damns with faint praise' but he can damn with silence in a most smashing manner. But my poem
looked so
dignified that a careless reader might fancy there was something in it. Blessings on the good editor who was inspired to have it illustrated. He has bolstered up my self-respect considerably.

“But I did not care overmuch for the illustration itself The artist did not catch my meaning at all. Teddy would have done better.

“Teddy is doing splendidly at the School of Design. And Vega shines brilliantly every night. I wonder if he really does
always think of me when he sees it. Or if he ever does see it. Perhaps the electric lights of Montreal blot it out. He seems to see a good bit of Ilse. It's awfully nice for them to know each other in that big city of strangers.”

“November 26, 19–

“To-day was a glamorous November afternoon – summer-mild and autumn-sweet. I sat and read a long while in the pond burying-ground. Aunt Elizabeth thinks this a most gruesome place to sit in and tells Aunt Laura that she is afraid there's a morbid streak in me. I can't see anything morbid about it. It's a beautiful spot where wild, sweet odours are always coming across Blair Water on the wandering winds. And so quiet and peaceful, with the old graves all about me – little green hillocks with small frosted ferns sprinkled over them. Men and women of my house are lying there. Men and women who had been victorious – men and women who had been defeated – and their victory and defeat are now one. I never can feel either much exalted or much depressed there. The sting and the tang alike go out of things. I like the old, old red sandstone slabs, especially the one for Mary Murray with its ‘Here I Stay – the inscription into which her husband put all the concealed venom of a lifetime. His grave is right beside hers and I feel sure they have forgiven each other long ago. And perhaps they come back sometimes in the dark o' the moon and look at the inscription and laugh at it. It is growing a little dim with tiny lichens. Cousin Jimmy has given up scraping them away. Some day they will overgrow it so that it will be nothing but a green-and-red-and-silver smear on the old red stone.”

“Dec. 20, 19–     

“Something nice happened to-day I feel pleasantly exhilarated.
Madison's
took my story,
A Flaw in the Indictment!!!!
Yes, it deserves some exclamation-points after it to a certainty. If it were not for Mr. Carpenter I would write it in italics. Italics! Nay, I'd use capitals. It is very hard to get in there. Don't I know! Haven't I tried repeatedly and gained nothing for my pains but a harvest of ‘we-regrets' – And at last it has opened its doors to me. To be in
Madison's
is a clear and unmistakable sign that you're getting somewhere on the Alpine path. The dear editor was kind enough to say it was a charming story.

“Nice man!

“He sent me a check for fifty dollars. I'll soon be able to begin to repay Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace what they spent on me in Shrewsbury. Aunt Elizabeth as usual looked at the check suspiciously but for the first time forebore to wonder if the bank would really cash it. Aunt Laura's beautiful blue eyes beamed with pride. Aunt Laura's eyes really do beam. She is one of the Victorians. Edwardian eyes glitter and sparkle and allure but they never beam. And somehow I do like beaming eyes – especially when they beam over my success.

“Cousin Jimmy says that
Madison's
is worth all the other Yankee magazines put together in
his opinion
.”

“I wonder if Dean Priest will like
A Flaw in the Indictment
. And if he will say so. He
never
praises anything I write nowadays. And I feel such a craving to
compel
him to. I feel that his is the only commendation, apart from Mr. Carpenter's, that is worth anything.

“It's odd about Dean. In some mysterious way he seems to be growing younger. A few years ago I thought of him as quite old. Now he seems only middle-aged. If this keeps up he'll soon be a mere youth. I suppose the truth is that my mind
is beginning to mature a bit and I'm catching up with him. Aunt Elizabeth doesn't like my friendship with him any more than she ever did. Aunt Elizabeth has a well-marked antipathy to any Priest. But I don't know what I'd do without Dean's friendship. It's the very salt of life.”

“January 15, 19–     

“To-day was stormy. I had a white night last night after four rejections of MSS. I had thought especially good. As Miss Royal predicted, I felt that I had been an awful idiot not to have gone to New York with her when I had the chance. Oh, I don't wonder babies always cry when they wake up in the night. So often I want to do it, too. Everything presses on my soul then and no cloud has a silver lining. I was blue and disgruntled all the forenoon and looked forward to the coming of the mail as the one possible rescue from the doldrums. There is always such a fascinating expectancy and uncertainty about the mail. What would it bring me? A letter from Teddy – Teddy writes the most delightful letters. A nice thin envelope with a check? A fat one woefully eloquent of more rejected MSS? One of Ilse's fascinating scrawls? Nothing of the sort. Merely an irate epistle from Second-cousin-once-removed Beulah Grant of Derry Pond, who is furious because she thinks I ‘put her' into my story
Fools of Habit
, which has just been copied into a widely circulated Canadian farm paper. She wrote me a bitterly reproachful letter which I received to-day. She thinks I ‘might have spared an old friend who has always wished me well.' She is ‘not accustomed to being ridiculed in the newspapers' and will I, in future, be so kind as to refrain from making her the butt of my supposed wit in the public press. Second-cousin-once-removed Beulah wields a facile pen of her own, when it comes
to that, and while certain things in her letter hurt me other parts infuriated me. I never once even
thought
of Cousin Beulah when I wrote that story. The character
of Aunt Kate
is purely imaginary. And if I
had
thought of Cousin Beulah I most certainly wouldn't have put
her
in a story. She is too stupid and commonplace. And she isn't a bit like
Aunt Kate
, who is I flattered myself, a vivid, snappy, humorous old lady.

“But Cousin Beulah wrote to Aunt Elizabeth too, and we have had a family ruction. Aunt Elizabeth won't believe I am guiltless – she declares
Aunt Kate
is an exact picture of Cousin Beulah and she politely requests me – Aunt Elizabeth's polite requests are awesome things –
not
to caricature my relatives in my future productions.

“‘It is not,' said Aunt Elizabeth in her stateliest manner, ‘a thing
any
Murray should do – make money out of the peculiarities of her friends.'

“It was just another of Miss Royal's predictions fulfilled. Oh, was she as right about everything else? If she was–

“But the worst slam of all came from Cousin Jimmy, who had chuckled over
Fools of Habit
.

“‘Never mind old Beulah, pussy,' he whispered. ‘That was fine. You certainly did her up brown in
Aunt Kate
. I recognised her before I'd read a page. Knew her by her nose.' There you are! I unluckily happened to dower
Aunt Kate
with a ‘long, drooping nose.' Nor can it be denied that Cousin Beulah's nose is long
and
drooping. People have been hanged on no clearer circumstantial evidence. It was of no use to wail despairingly that I had never even thought of Cousin Beulah. Cousin Jimmy just nodded and chuckled again.

“‘Of course. Best to keep it quiet. Best to keep anything like that pretty quiet.'

“The worst sting in all this is, that if
Aunt Kate
is really like Cousin Beulah Grant then I failed egregiously in what I was trying to do.

“However, I feel much better now than when I began this entry. I've got quite a bit of resentment and rebellion and discouragement out of my system.

“That's the chief use of a diary, I believe.”

“Feb. 3, 19–     

“This was a ‘big day' I had three acceptances. And one editor asked me to send him some stories. To be sure, I hate having an editor ask me to send a story, somehow. It's far worse than sending them unasked. The humiliation of having them returned after all is far deeper than when one just sends off a MS. to some dim impersonality behind an editorial desk a thousand miles away.

“And I have decided that I can't write a story ‘to order.' 'Tis a diabolical task. I tried to lately. The editor of
Young People
asked me to write a story along certain lines. I wrote it. He sent it back, pointing out some faults and asked me to rewrite it. I tried to. I wrote and rewrote and altered and interlined until my MS. looked like a crazy patchwork of black and blue and red inks. Finally I lifted one of the covers of the kitchen stove and dumped in the original yarn and all my variations thereof.

“After this I'm just going to write what I want to. And the editors can be – canonised!

“There are northern lights and a misty new moon tonight.”

Feb. 16, 19–     

“My story
What the Jest Was Worth
was in
The Home Monthly
to-day. But I was only one of ‘others' on the cover. However, to balance that I have been listed by name as ‘one of the well-known and popular contributors for the coming year' in
Girlhood Days
. Cousin Jimmy has read this editor's foreword over half a dozen times and I heard him murmuring
‘well-known and popular'
as he split the kindlings. Then he went to the corner store and bought me a new Jimmy-book. Every time I pass a new milestone on the Alpine path Cousin Jimmy celebrates by giving me a new Jimmy-book. I never buy a notebook for myself. It would hurt his feelings. He always looks at the little pile of Jimmy-books on my writing table with awe and reverence, firmly believing that all sorts of wonderful literature is locked up in the hodge-podge of description and characters and ‘bits' they contain.

“I always give Dean my stories to read. I can't help doing it, although he always brings them back with no comment, or, worse than no comment – faint praise. It has become a sort of obsession with me to
make
Dean admit I
can
write something worth while in its line.
That
would be triumph. But unless and until he does, everything will be dust and ashes. Because – he
knows
.”

“April 2, 19–     

“The spring has affected a certain youth of Shrewsbury who comes out to New Moon occasionally. He is not a suitor of whom the House of Murray approves. Nor, which is more important, one of whom E. B. Starr approves. Aunt Elizabeth
was very grim because I went to a concert with him. She was sitting up when I came home.

“‘You see I haven't eloped, Aunt Elizabeth,' I said. ‘I promise you I won't. If I ever want to marry any one I'll tell you so and marry him in spite of your teeth.'

“I don't know whether Aunt Elizabeth went to bed with an easier mind or not. Mother eloped – thank goodness! – and Aunt Elizabeth is a firm believer in heredity.”

“April 15, 19–     

“This evening I went away up the hill and prowled about the Disappointed House by moonlight. The Disappointed House was built thirty-seven years ago – partly built, at least – for a bride who never came to it. There it has been ever since, boarded up, unfinished, heart-broken, haunted by the timid, forsaken ghosts of things that should have happened but never did. I always feel so sorry for it. For its poor blind eyes that have never seen – that haven't even memories. No homelight ever shone out through them – only once, long ago, a gleam of firelight. It might have been such a nice little house, snuggled against that wooded hill, pulling little spruces all around it to cover it. A warm, friendly little house. And a good-natured little house. Not like the new one at the Corner that Tom Semple is putting up.
It
is a bad-tempered house. Vixenish, with little eyes and sharp elbows. It's odd how much personality a house can have even before it is ever lived in at all. Once long ago, when Teddy and I were children, we pried a board off the window and climbed in and made a fire in the fireplace. Then we sat there and planned out our lives. We meant to spend them together in that very house. I suppose Teddy has forgotten all
about that childish nonsense. He writes often and his letters are full and jolly and Teddy-like. And he tells me all the little things I want to know about his life. But lately they have become rather impersonal, it seems to me. They might just as well have been written to Ilse as to me.

“Poor little Disappointed House. I suppose you will always be disappointed.”

“May 1, 19–     

“Spring again! Young poplars with golden, ethereal leaves. Leagues of rippling gulf beyond the silver-and-lilac sand-dunes.

“The winter has gone with a swiftness incredible, in spite of some terrible, black three-o'clocks and lonely, discouraged twilights. Dean will soon be home from Florida. But neither Teddy nor Ilse is coming home this summer. This gave me a white night or two recently. Ilse is going to the coast to visit an aunt – a mother's sister who never took any notice of her before. And Teddy has got the chance of illustrating a series of Northwest Mounted Police stories for a New York firm and must spend his holidays making sketches for it in the far North. Of course it's a splendid chance for him and I wouldn't be a bit sorry – if
he
seemed a bit sorry because he wasn't coming to Blair Water. But he didn't.