“So you’ve bought old Tillie Jollie’s house, ’Drew? What a funny little place! Well, I think you might have spoken to me about it first.”
“Jane wanted it kept a secret…Jane loves secrets,” dad explained lightly.
“Oh, Jane’s secretive enough,” said Aunt Irene, shaking a finger tenderly at Jane. “I hope it’s only ‘secretive’…but I do think you’re a little inclined to be sly.”
Aunt Irene was smiling, but there was an edge to her voice. Jane thought she would almost prefer grandmother’s venom. You didn’t have to look as if you liked that.
“If I had known I would have advised against it strongly, Andrew. I hear you paid four hundred for it. Jimmy John simply cheated you. Four hundred for a little old shack like this! Three would have been enough.”
“But the view, Irene…the view. The extra hundred was for the view.”
“You’re so impractical, Andrew,” shaking a laughing finger at him in his turn. At least, you felt the finger laughed. “Jane, you’ll have to hold the purse-strings. If you don’t, your father will be penniless by the fall.”
“Oh, I think we’ll be able to make both ends meet, Irene. If not, we’ll pull them as close together as possible. Jane’s a famous little manager. She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness.”
“Oh, Jane!” Aunt Irene was kindly amused over Jane. “If you had to have a house, ’Drew, why didn’t you get one near town? There’s a lovely bungalow out at Keppoch…you could have rented it for the summer. I could have been near you then to help…and advise…”
“We like the north shore best. Jane and I are both owls of the desert and pelicans of the wilderness. But we both like onions so we hit it off together. Why, we’ve even hung the pictures without quarreling. That’s phenomenal, you know.”
“It isn’t any joking matter, Andrew.” Aunt Irene was almost plaintive. “How about your food supplies?”
“Jane digs clams,” said dad solemnly.
“Clams! Do you expect to live on clams!”
“Why, Aunt Irene, the fishman calls every week and the butcher from the Corners comes twice a week,” said Jane indignantly.
“Darrrling!” Aunt Irene became patronizing in an instant. She patronized everything…the guest room and the ruffled curtains of yellow net Jane was so proud of… “a dear little closet,” she called it sweetly…She patronized the garden…“such a darling old-fashioned spot, isn’t it, Jane?”…She patronized the boot-shelf…“Really, Aunt Matilda Jollie had all the conveniences, hadn’t she, lovey?”
The only thing she didn’t patronize was the Apostle spoons. There was something acid in her sweetness when she spoke of them.
“I always think mother intended I should have them, ’Drew.”
“She gave them to Robin,” said ’Drew quietly.
Jane felt a tingle go over her. This was the first time she had heard dad mention mother’s name.
“But when she left…”
“We won’t discuss it, Irene, if you please.”
“Of course not, dear one. I understand. Forgive me. And now, Jane lovey, I’ll borrow an apron and help you get ready for Dr. Arnett. Bless her little heart, trying to get ready for company all by herself.”
Aunt Irene was amused at her…Aunt Irene was laughing at her. Jane was furious and helpless. Aunt Irene took smiling charge. The chickens were already cooked and the salad was already made but she insisted on making the biscuits and slicing the chickens and she would not hear to Jane going for wild strawberries.
“Luckily I brought a pie with me. I knew Andrew would like it. Men like something substantial, you know, lovey.”
This maddened Jane. She vowed in her heart that she would learn pie-making in a week’s time. Meanwhile she could only submit. When Dr. Arnett came, Aunt Irene, a smiling and gracious hostess, made him welcome. Aunt Irene, still more smiling and gracious, sat at the head of the table and poured the tea and was charmed because Dr. Arnett took a second helping of potato salad. Both men enjoyed the pie. Dad told Aunt Irene she was the best pie-maker in Canada.
“Eating is not such bad fun after all,” said dad, with a faint air of surprise, as if he had just discovered the fact, thanks to the pie. Bitterness overflowed the heart of Jane. At that moment she could cheerfully have torn everybody in pieces.
Aunt Irene helped Jane wash the dishes before she went away. Jane thanked her stars that she and Min had walked to Lantern Corners three days before and bought towels. What would Aunt Irene have said if she had had to wipe dishes with an undervest?
“I have to go now, lovey…I want to get home before dark. I do wish you were nearer me…but I’ll come out as often as I can. I don’t know what your mother would have done without me many a time, poor child. ’Drew and Dr. Arnett are off to the shore…I daresay they’ll argue and shout at each other there most of the night. Andrew shouldn’t leave you here alone like this. But men are like that…so thoughtless.”
And Jane adored being left alone. It was so lovely to have a chance to talk to yourself.
“I don’t mind it, Aunt Irene. And I love Lantern Hill.”
“You’re easily pleased”…as if she were a dear little fool to be so easily pleased. Somehow Aunt Irene had the most extraordinary knack of making you feel that what you liked or thought or did was of small account. And how Jane did resent her airs of authority in dad’s house! Had she acted that way when mother was with dad? If she had…
“I’ve brought you a cushion for your living room, lovey…”
“It’s a kitchen,” said Jane.
“…And I’ll bring my old chintz chair the next time I come—for the spare room.”
Jane, remembering the “dear little closet,” permitted herself one satisfaction.
“I think there’ll hardly be room for it,” she said.
She eyed the cushion malevolently when Aunt Irene had gone. It was so new and gorgeous it made everything look faded and countrified.
“I think I’ll stow it away on the boot-shelf,” said Jane with a relish.
CHAPTER 21
It was a sultry night and Jane went out and up and sat on the hill…“to get back into herself” as she expressed it. She had really been out of herself ever since the morning, more or less, because she had burned the toast for breakfast and walked in the humiliation of it all day. Cooking the chickens had been a bit of a strain…the wood-stove oven was not like that of Mary’s electric range…and making up the guest-room bed under Aunt Irene’s amused eyes…“fancy this baby having a spare-room,” they seemed to say…had been worse. But now she was blessedly alone again and there was nothing to prevent her sitting on the hill in the cool velvet night as long as she wanted to. The wind was blowing from the southwest and brought with it the scent of Big Donald’s clover field. All the Jimmy Johns’ dogs were barking together. The great dune that they called the Watch Tower was scalloping up against the empty north sky. Beyond it sounded the long, low thunder of the surf. A silver moth of dusk flew by, almost brushing her face. Happy had gone with dad and Dr. Arnett but the Peters came skittering up the hill and played about her. She held their purring silken flanks against her face and let them bite her cheeks delicately. It was all like a fairy-tale come true.
When she went back into the house Jane was her own woman again. Who cared for smooth, smiling Aunt Irene? She, Jane Stuart, was mistress at Lantern Hill; and she would learn to make pie crust, that she would, by the three wise monkeys, as dad was so fond of saying.
Since dad was out, Jane sat down at his desk and wrote a page or two of her letter to mother. At first she hadn’t known how she could live if she could write to mother only once a month. Then it occurred to her that though she could mail a letter only once a month, she could write a little of it every day.
We had company for supper,
wrot
e Jane. Being forbidden to mention dad she got around it by adopting the style royal.
Dr. Arnett and Aunt Irene. Did you like Aunt Irene, mummy? Did she make you feel stupid? I cooked the chickens but Aunt Irene thought pie was better than strawberries. Don’t you think wild strawberries would be more elegant than pie, mummy? I never tasted wild strawberries before. They are delicious. Min and I know where there is a bed of them. I’m going to get up early tomorrow morning and pick some for breakfast. Min’s ma says if I can pick enough of them she will show me how to make them up into jam. I like Min’s ma. Min likes her too. Min only weighed three and a half pounds when she was born. Nobody thought she’d live. Min’s ma has a pig she is feeding for their winter pork. She let me feed it yesterday. I like feeding things, mummy. It makes you important to feed things. Pigs have great appetites. So have I. There’s something in the Island air, I guess.
Miranda Jimmy John can’t bear to be joked about being fat. Miranda milks four of the cows every night. The Jimmy Johns have fifteen cows. I haven’t got acquainted with them yet. I don’t know whether I’ll like cows or not. I think they have an unfriendly look.
The Jimmy Johns have big hooks in the kitchen rafters to hang hams on.
The Jimmy John baby is so funny and solemn. It has never laughed yet although it is nine months old. They are worried about it. It has long, curly, black eyelashes. I didn’t know babies were so sweet, mummy.
Shingle Snowbeam and I have found a robin’s nest in one of the little spruce trees behind the house. There are four blue eggs in it. Shingle says we must keep it a secret from Penny and Young John or they would blow the eggs. Some secrets are nice things.
I like Shingle now. Her real name is Marilyn Florence Isabel. Mrs. Snowbeam says the only thing she could give her children was real fancy names.
Shingle’s hair is almost white but her eyes are just the right kind of blue, something like yours, mummy. But nobody could have quite such nice eyes as you.
Shingle is ambishus. She is the only one of the Snowbeams that has any ambishun. She says she is going to make a lady of herself or die in the attempt. I told her if she wanted to be a lady she must never ask personal questions and she is not going to do it anymore. But Caraway isn’t particular whether she is a lady or not so she asks them and Shingle hears the answers. I don’t like Young John Snowbeam much. He makes snoots. But he can pick up sticks with his toes.
I like the sound of the wind here at night, mummy. I like to lie awake just to listen to it.
I made a plum pudding one day last week. It would have been very successful if it had succeeded. Mrs. Jimmy John says I should have steamed it, not boiled it. I don’t mind Mrs. Johnny John knowing about my mistakes. She has such sweet eyes.
It’s such fun to boil potatoes in a three-legged iron pot, mummy.
The Jimmy Johns have four dogs. Three who go everywhere with them and one who stays home. We have one dog. Dogs are very nice, mummy.
Step-a-yard is the name of the Jimmy Johns’ hired man. Not his real name of course. Miranda says he has been in love all his life with Miss Justina Titus and knows it’s quite hopeless because Miss Justina is faithful to the memory of Alec Jacks who was killed in the Great War. She still wears her hair pompadour, Miranda says, because that is how she wore it when she said good-bye to Alec. I think that is touching, mummy.
Mummy darling, I love to think you’ll read this letter and hold it in your hands.
It did not give Jane so much pleasure to reflect that grandmother would read it too. Jane could just see grandmother’s thin-lipped smile over parts of it. “Well, like takes to like, you know, Robin. Your daughter has always had the knack of making friends with the wrong people. Snoots!”
“How nice it would be,” thought Jane, as she took a flying leap into bed for the fun of it, “if mummy was down there with dad instead of Dr. Arnett and they would be coming back to me soon. It must have been that way once.”
It was in the wee sma’s that Andrew Stuart showed his guest to the neat guest room where Jane had set Grandmother Stuart’s blue and white bowl full of crimson peonies on the little table. Then he tiptoed into Jane’s room. Jane was sound asleep. He bent over her with such love radiating from him that Jane felt it and smiled in her sleep. He touched one tumbled lock of russet-brown hair.
“It is well with the child,” said Andrew Stuart.
CHAPTER 22
With the help of Cookery for Beginners, Mrs. Jimmy John’s advice, and her own “gumption,” Jane learned to make pie crust surprisingly soon and surprisingly well. She did not mind asking Mrs. Jimmy John for advice, whereas she would have died before she would have asked Aunt Irene. Mrs. Jimmy John was a wise, serene creature, with a face full of kindliness and wisdom. She had the reputation in Lantern Hill of never getting upset over anything, even church suppers. She did not laugh when Jane came over, white with despair, because a cake had fallen or a lemon filling had run all over the plate and dad had quirked a humorous eyebrow over it. In truth, Jane, for all her natural flair for cooking, would have made a good many muddles if it had not been for Mrs. Jimmy John.
“I’d use a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch instead of a level one, Jane.”
“It says all measurements are level,” said Jane doubtfully.
“You can’t always go by what the books say,” said Step-a-yard, who was as much interested in Jane’s progress as anyone. “Just use gumption. Cooks are born, not made, I’ve always said, and you’re a born one or I miss my guess. Them codfish balls you made the other day were the owl’s whiskers.”
The day Jane achieved unaided a dinner of roast lamb with dressing, creamed peas, and a plum pudding that even Uncle Tombstone could have eaten was the proudest day of her life. What bliss to have dad pass his plate with “A little more of the same, Jane. What matter the planetesimal hypothesis or the quantum theory compared to such a dinner? Come, Jane, don’t tell me you’re ignorant of the quantum theory. A woman may get by without knowing about the planetesimal hypothesis, but the quantum theory, Jane, is a necessity in any well-regulated household.”
Jane didn’t mind when dad ragged her. If she didn’t know what the quantum theory was, she did know the plum pudding was good. She had got the recipe from Mrs. Big Donald. Jane was a great forager for recipes, and counted that day lost whose low-descending sun didn’t see her copying a new one on the blank leaves at the back of Cookery for Beginners. Even Mrs. Snowbeam contributed one for rice pudding.
“Only kind we ever get,” said Young John. “It’s cheap.”
Young John always came in for “the scrapings.” He had some sixth sense whereby he always knew when Jane was going to make a cake. The Snowbeams thought it was great fun when Jane named all her cooking utensils. The teakettle that always danced on the stove when it was coming to a boil was Tipsy, the frying pan was Mr. Muffet, the dishpan was Polly, the stew pan was Timothy, the double boiler was Booties, the rolling pin was Tillie Tid.
But Jane met her waterloo when she tried to make doughnuts. It sounded so easy…but even the Snowbeams couldn’t eat the result. Jane, determined not to be defeated, tried again and again. Everybody took an interest in her tribulations over the doughnuts. Mrs. Jimmy John suggested and Min’s ma gave hints. The store keeper at the Corners sent her a new brand of lard. Jane had begun by frying them in Timothy, then she tried Mr. Muffet. No use. The perverse doughnuts soaked fat every time. Jane woke up in the lone of the night and worried about it.
“This won’t do, my adored Jane,” said dad. “Don’t you know that worry killed the widow’s cat? Besides, people are telling me that you are old for your years. Just turn yourself into a wind-song, my Jane, and think no more on doughnuts.”
In fact, Jane never did learn to make really good doughnuts…which kept her humble and prevented her showing off when Aunt Irene came. Aunt Irene came quite often. Sometimes she stayed all night. Jane hated to put
her in the beloved guest room. Aunt Irene was always so delicately amused over Jane’s having a guest room. And Aunt Irene thought it just too funny to find Jane splitting kindling.
“Dad mostly does it but he’s been busy writing all day and I wouldn’t disturb him,” said Jane. “Besides, I like to split kindling.”
“What a little philosopher it is!” said Aunt Irene, trying to kiss her.
Jane went crimson to the ears.
“Please, Aunt Irene, I don’t like to be kissed.”
“A nice thing to say to your own aunt, lovey”…speaking volumes by an amused lift of her fair eyebrows. Smooth, smiling Aunt Irene would never get angry. Jane thought she might have liked her better after a good fight with her. She knew dad was a little annoyed with her because she and Aunt Irene didn’t click better and that he thought it must be her fault. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was very naughty of her not to like Aunt Irene. “Trying to patronize us,” Jane thought indignantly. It was not so much what she said as the way she said it…as if you were just playing at being a housekeeper for dad.
Sometimes they went to town and had dinner with Aunt Irene…gorgeous dinners, certainly. At first Jane writhed over them. But as the weeks went on, she began to feel she could hold her own even with Aunt Irene when it came to getting up a meal.
“You’re wonderful, lovey, but you have too much responsibility. I keep telling your father that.”
“I like responsibility,” said Jane huffily.
“Don’t be so sensitive, lovey”…as if it were a crime.
If Jane couldn’t learn to make doughnuts she had no trouble learning to make jam.
“I love making jam,” she said, when dad asked her why she bothered. Just to go into the pantry and look at shelf after shelf of ruby and amber jams and jellies gave her the deep satisfaction of a job well done. Morning after morning she got up early to go raspberrying with Min or the Snowbeams. Later on, Lantern Hill reeked with the spicy smells of pickles. When Jennie Lister at the Corners was given a jam and pickle shower before her wedding, Jane went proudly with the others and took a basket full of jellies and pickles. She had great fun at the shower, for by this time she knew everybody and everybody knew her. A walk to the village was a joy…she could stop to chat now with everyone she met and every dog would pass the time of day with her. Jane thought almost everybody was nice in a way. There were so many different kinds of niceness.