CHAPTER XVI. AUNT UNA'S STORY
Felicity, and Cecily, Dan, Felix, Sara Ray and I were sitting oneevening on the mossy stones in Uncle Roger's hill pasture, where we hadsat the morning the Story Girl told us the tale of the Wedding Veil ofthe Proud Princess. But it was evening now and the valley beneath us wasbrimmed up with the glow of the afterlight. Behind us, two tall, shapelyspruce trees rose up against the sunset, and through the dark oriel oftheir sundered branches an evening star looked down. We sat on a littlestrip of emerald grassland and before us was a sloping meadow all whitewith daisies.
We were waiting for Peter and the Story Girl. Peter had gone to Markdaleafter dinner to spend the afternoon with his reunited parents becauseit was his birthday. He had left us grimly determined to confess to hisfather the dark secret of his Presbyterianism, and we were anxious toknow what the result had been. The Story Girl had gone that morningwith Miss Reade to visit the latter's home near Charlottetown, and weexpected soon to see her coming gaily along over the fields from theArmstrong place.
Presently Peter came jauntily stepping along the field path up the hill.
"Hasn't Peter got tall?" said Cecily.
"Peter is growing to be a very fine looking boy," decreed Felicity.
"I notice he's got ever so much handsomer since his father came home,"said Dan, with a killing sarcasm that was wholly lost on Felicity, whogravely responded that she supposed it was because Peter felt so muchfreer from care and responsibility.
"What luck, Peter?" yelled Dan, as soon as Peter was within earshot.
"Everything's all right," he shouted jubilantly. "I told father rightoff, licketty-split, as soon as I got home," he added when he reachedus. "I was anxious to have it over with. I says, solemn-like, 'Dad,there's something I've got to tell you, and I don't know how you'll takeit, but it can't be helped,' I says. Dad looked pretty sober, and hesays, says he, 'What have you been up to, Peter? Don't be afraid to tellme. I've been forgiven to seventy times seven, so surely I can forgive alittle, too?' 'Well,' I says, desperate-like, 'the truth is, father, I'ma Presbyterian. I made up my mind last summer, the time of the JudgmentDay, that I'd be a Presbyterian, and I've got to stick to it. I'm sorryI can't be a Methodist, like you and mother and Aunt Jane, but I can'tand that's all there is to it,' I says. Then I waited, scared-like. Butfather, he just looked relieved and he says, says he, 'Goodness, boy,you can be a Presbyterian or anything else you like, so long as it'sProtestant. I'm not caring,' he says. 'The main thing is that you mustbe good and do what's right.' I tell you," concluded Peter emphatically,"father is a Christian all right."
"Well, I suppose your mind will be at rest now," said Felicity. "What'sthat you have in your buttonhole?"
"That's a four-leaved clover," answered Peter exultantly. "That meansgood luck for the summer. I found it in Markdale. There ain't muchclover in Carlisle this year of any kind of leaf. The crop is going tobe a failure. Your Uncle Roger says it's because there ain't enoughold maids in Carlisle. There's lots of them in Markdale, and that's thereason, he says, why they always have such good clover crops there."
"What on earth have old maids to do with it?" cried Cecily.
"I don't believe they've a single thing to do with it, but Mr. Rogersays they have, and he says a man called Darwin proved it. This is therigmarole he got off to me the other day. The clover crop depends onthere being plenty of bumble-bees, because they are the only insectswith tongues long enough to--to--fer--fertilize--I think he called itthe blossoms. But mice eat bumble-bees and cats eat mice and old maidskeep cats. So your Uncle Roger says the more old maids the more cats,and the more cats the fewer field-mice, and the fewer field-mice themore bumble-bees, and the more bumble-bees the better clover crops."
"So don't worry if you do get to be old maids, girls," said Dan."Remember, you'll be helping the clover crops."
"I never heard such stuff as you boys talk," said Felicity, "and UncleRoger is no better."
"There comes the Story Girl," cried Cecily eagerly. "Now we'll hear allabout Beautiful Alice's home."
The Story Girl was bombarded with eager questions as soon as shearrived. Miss Reade's home was a dream of a place, it appeared. Thehouse was just covered with ivy and there was a most delightful oldgarden--"and," added the Story Girl, with the joy of a connoisseur whohas found a rare gem, "the sweetest little story connected with it. AndI saw the hero of the story too."
"Where was the heroine?" queried Cecily.
"She is dead."
"Oh, of course she'd have to die," exclaimed Dan in disgust. "I'd like astory where somebody lived once in awhile."
"I've told you heaps of stories where people lived," retorted the StoryGirl. "If this heroine hadn't died there wouldn't have been any story.She was Miss Reade's aunt and her name was Una, and I believe she musthave been just like Miss Reade herself. Miss Reade told me all abouther. When we went into the garden I saw in one corner of it an old stonebench arched over by a couple of pear trees and all grown about withgrass and violets. And an old man was sitting on it--a bent old man withlong, snow-white hair and beautiful sad blue eyes. He seemed very lonelyand sorrowful and I wondered that Miss Reade didn't speak to him. Butshe never let on she saw him and took me away to another part of thegarden. After awhile he got up and went away and then Miss Reade said,'Come over to Aunt Una's seat and I will tell you about her and herlover--that man who has just gone out.'
"'Oh, isn't he too old for a lover?' I said.
"Beautiful Alice laughed and said it was forty years since he had beenher Aunt Una's lover. He had been a tall, handsome young man then, andher Aunt Una was a beautiful girl of nineteen.
"We went over and sat down and Miss Reade told me all about her. Shesaid that when she was a child she had heard much of her Aunt Una--thatshe seemed to have been one of those people who are not soon forgotten,whose personality seems to linger about the scenes of their lives longafter they have passed away."
"What is a personality? Is it another word for ghost?" asked Peter.
"No," said the Story Girl shortly. "I can't stop in a story to explainwords."
"I don't believe you know what it is yourself," said Felicity.
The Story Girl picked up her hat, which she had thrown down on thegrass, and placed it defiantly on her brown curls.
"I'm going in," she announced. "I have to help Aunt Olivia ice a caketonight, and you all seem more interested in dictionaries than stories."
"That's not fair," I exclaimed. "Dan and Felix and Sara Ray and Cecilyand I have never said a word. It's mean to punish us for what Peter andFelicity did. We want to hear the rest of the story. Never mind what apersonality is but go on--and, Peter, you young ass, keep still."
"I only wanted to know," muttered Peter sulkily.
"I DO know what personality is, but it's hard to explain," said theStory Girl, relenting. "It's what makes you different from Dan, Peter,and me different from Felicity or Cecily. Miss Reade's Aunt Una had apersonality that was very uncommon. And she was beautiful, too, withwhite skin and night-black eyes and hair--a 'moonlight beauty,' MissReade called it. She used to keep a kind of a diary, and Miss Reade'smother used to read parts of it to her. She wrote verses in it and theywere lovely; and she wrote descriptions of the old garden which sheloved very much. Miss Reade said that everything in the garden, plotor shrub or tree, recalled to her mind some phrase or verse of herAunt Una's, so that the whole place seemed full of her, and her memoryhaunted the walks like a faint, sweet perfume.
"Una had, as I've told you, a lover; and they were to have been marriedon her twentieth birthday. Her wedding dress was to have been a gown ofwhite brocade with purple violets in it. But a little while before itshe took ill with fever and died; and she was buried on her birthdayinstead of being married. It was just in the time of opening roses. Herlover has been faithful to her ever since; he has never married, andevery June, on her birthday, he makes a pilgrimage to the old garden andsits for a long time in silence on the bench where he used to w
oo heron crimson eves and moonlight nights of long ago. Miss Reade says shealways loves to see him sitting there because it gives her such a deepand lasting sense of the beauty and strength of love which can thusoutlive time and death. And sometimes, she says, it gives her a littleeerie feeling, too, as if her Aunt Una were really sitting there besidehim, keeping tryst, although she has been in her grave for forty years."
"It would be real romantic to die young and have your lover make apilgrimage to your garden every year," reflected Sara Ray.
"It would be more comfortable to go on living and get married to him,"said Felicity. "Mother says all those sentimental ideas are bosh and Iexpect they are. It's a wonder Beautiful Alice hasn't a beau herself.She is so pretty and lady-like."
"The Carlisle fellows all say she is too stuck up," said Dan.
"There's nobody in Carlisle half good enough for her," cried the StoryGirl, "except--ex-cept--"
"Except who?" asked Felix.
"Never mind," said the Story Girl mysteriously.