But she knew she would only be laughed at. Her character, at least, was without reproach. Nobody, not even her own kith and kin, would put any faith in such a tale. Nor would it make any difference to Geoffrey. Even if he believed it.
“Fancy the sly old thing,” she could hear him saying. And the Burnleys would be furious. Aunt Nan was dead and she had no evidence whatever to prove that she had been a great artist’s light-o-love. But she made up her mind that there would be no divorce for all that. Some way she would prevent it ... she made up her mind firmly on that.
She was sewing in one of the upstairs rooms of the house the day Geoffrey Boyd came home drunk and whipped Patrick mercilessly in the library, while Isabel crouched on the floor outside the door and moaned in her helpless anguish. The last time Geoffrey had come home drunk he had hung his fox terrier up in the stable and whipped it to death. Would he kill Patrick, too?
When he came out and the sobbing boy ran to his mother he said to her,
“When I have Patrick all to myself ... as I shall have sooner or later, my darling ... he shall have a good dose of the whip every day. You have made a baby of him with your coddling. I shall make a man of him. Was your father a minister, do you think?”
Ursula had sewed quietly and steadily through it all. Not a stitch was misplaced. Even Isabel thought her very unfeeling. But when Geoffrey came reeling up the stairs she was standing at the head, waiting for him. Isabel had taken Patrick to his room. There was nobody about. Her eyes were blazing and her gaunt little form in its plain black gown was quivering.
“Get out of my way, damn you,” snarled Geoffrey. “You have always backed her up.”
“I am her mother,” said Ursula, “and her father was Sir Lawrence Ainsley.”
Geoffrey laughed drunkenly.
“Why not the King of England and be done with it?” he said. “You the mother of anybody!”
He added something too foul to repeat.
Ursula put out both hands, still beautiful in spite of every-thing ... the hands Larry had kissed and painted ... the hands that had been so much admired in his portrait of an Italian princess.
Geoffrey had shown an engraving of it to Isabel.
“If you had hands like that you might hold a man,” he had jeered.
Ursula gave the unsteady Geoffrey a hard push. She did it quite deliberately ... knowing what she meant to do ... knowing the probable consequences. She did not care in the least if they hanged her for it. Nothing mattered except saving Isabel and Patrick.
Geoffrey Boyd went backwards down the long staircase and fell on the marble floor at its foot. Ursula looked down at him for a few moments, with a feeling of triumph such as she had never experienced since the day Larry had first told her he loved her.
Geoffrey Boyd was lying in a rather dreadful limp heap beneath her. Somehow, she felt quite sure his neck was broken. There was no noise or disturbance anywhere. After a few moments she went back to the sewing room quietly, began another piece of work and went calmly on with her sewing. Isabel was safe.
There was no trouble, as it happened. The maid found Geoffrey and screamed. The usual formalities were gone through. Ursula, examined, said she had heard nothing. Neither had anybody else, apparently. It was known Geoffrey Boyd had come home drunk ... that was almost a daily occurrence, it appeared. Almost the only bit of scandal that came out at a very dull inquest. It was supposed he had missed his footing on the stairs and fallen. People said they had often wondered it hadn’t happened long ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Only they rather regretted there would be no divorce trial after all. A good many spicy things might have come out of that. They guessed the Burnleys would be relieved. Though it would have served them right for adopting a child of whom they knew nothing ... or pretended to know nothing. Though she did look amazingly like James Burnley’s mother!
As for Ursula Anderson nobody talked of her at all, except to say she would miss the Boyd sewing.
The worst of Isabel’s troubles were over. But it was found she was left quite poor. Both the Burnleys died within a week of each other ... oh, no, no question of suicide or anything dreadful like that. She took pneumonia and he had had some long-standing trouble for years, it seemed ... and they left nothing but debts. Well, that was so often the case with those high-flyers.
Isabel and Patrick lived in a tiny cottage in Charlottetown. Some come down for Isabel Burnley, eh? Geoffrey Boyd had squandered his fortune almost to the last penny. But she was happier than she had been for years in spite of the lean times she and Patrick experienced.
Ursula sent Isabel some money every month. Isabel never knew where it came from but she thought an old aunt of Geoffrey’s, who had always seemed to like her, must be sending it. She never saw old Ursula Anderson now ... at least, not to notice her. But Ursula saw her very often.
When Ursula was fifty and Isabel thirty Isabel married a rich man and went to the States to live. Ursula followed her career in the papers and made exquisite dresses for her children ... Larry’s grandchildren, whom he did not know existed. Isabel always wrote and thanked her sweetly. She was really rather attached to the poor old thing. She wanted to pay her, too, but Ursula would not take a cent.
Ursula did not get much sewing to do after Isabel went away. She had done so much for her that she had lost most of her clientele. But she managed to make a living till she was seventy and then her nephew, John Anderson, took her in ... much, it was said, against the wishes of his family. Isabel was dead by that time ... and so was Sir Lawrence. Ursula read of their deaths in the paper. It did not affect her very much. It was all so long ago and they seemed like strangers to her. They were not the Larry she had known nor the Isabel she had loved.
She knew Isabel’s second marriage had been a happy one and that contented her. It was well to die before the shadows began to fall.
As for Sir Lawrence, his fame was international. One of the finest things he had done, so she had read somewhere, had been the mural decoration of a great memorial church. The beauty of the Virgin’s hands in the murals was much commented on.
“Yes, life has been worth living,” thought old Ursula, as Maggie McLean snored resoundingly and the old dog stirred uneasily as if he felt some Great Presence nigh. “I am not sorry for anything ... not even for killing Geoff Boyd. One should repent at the last, according to all accounts, but I don’t. It was just a natural thing to kill him ... as one might kill a snake. How the wind blows! Larry always loved the wind ... I wonder if he hears it in his grave. And I suppose those fools in the parlour down there are pitying me. Fools! Fools! Life has been good. I have had my hours. Have they ever had one? Nobody ever loved Kathie as Larry loved me ... nobody ever loved her at all. And nobody loved poor John. Yes, they have despised me ... the whole Anderson clan have always despised me. But I have lived ... oh, I have lived ... and they have never lived ... at least none of my generation. I ... I ... I have been the one who has lived. I have sinned ... so the world would say ... I have been a murderess ... so the world would say ... but I have lived!”
She spoke the last words aloud with such force and emphasis that old Maggie McLean wakened and started up in alarm.
She was just in time to see poor old Ursula Anderson die. Her eyes lived on for a moment or two after the rest of her body died. They were triumphant and young. The old dog lifted his head and gave a melancholy howl.
“Thank heaven I was awake,” thought Maggie. “The Andersons would never have forgiven me if I had been asleep. Shut up, you old brute! You give me the creeps. Somehow, she looks different from what she did in life. Well, we all have to die sooner or later. But I don’t think there’ll be much mourning for poor Ursula. There never was anything in her! Strange, too. Most of the Andersons had lots of pep, whatever else they didn’t have.”
Maggie went downstairs, arranging her features properly as she did so.
“She has gone,” she said solemnly. “Died as easy as a child going to sleep.”
Everyone tried not to look relieved. Kathie roused John with a nudge. Dr. Parsons got up briskly ... then tried not to look too brisk.
“Well, she had lived her life” ... “Such a life!” he added mentally. “If you like I’ll stop in at the undertaker’s on my way back and ask him to come out. I suppose you’ll want things done as ... as ... simply as possible?”
He had just saved himself from saying “cheaply.” What a break that would have been! Enough to ruin his career. But would Blythe or Parker ever have thought of offering to send the undertaker? Not they. It was the little things like that that counted. In ten years’ time he would have most of their practices.
“Thank you,” said Kathie gravely.
“That’s mighty kind of you,” said John. To his own surprise John was thinking he would miss Aunt Ursula. No one could put on a patch like she could. But then she had sewed all her life. She could do nothing else. Queer where all the money she made had gone to.
The doctor went out. The rain had ceased for good and the moon occasionally broke through the windy clouds. He had lost his evening with Zoe but there was tomorrow night ... if some fool woman didn’t up and have a baby. He thought of Zoe in her ripe beauty ... and then he thought of old Ursula Anderson upstairs in her grey flannel nightdress. She was dead.
But then, had she ever been alive?
“Didn’t I say she couldn’t die till the tide went out?” said Uncle Alec triumphantly. “You young folks don’t know everything.”
The Fourth Evening
CANADIAN TWILIGHT
A filmy western sky of smoky red
Blossoming into stars above a sea
Of soft mysterious dim silver spread
Beyond the long grey dunes’ serenity,
Where the salt grasses and sea poppies press
Together in a wild sweet loneliness.
Seven slim poplars on the windy hill
Talk some lost language of an elder day,
Taught by the green folk that inhabit still
The daisied field and secret friendly way,
Forever keeping in their solitudes
The magic ritual of our northern woods.
The darkness woos us like a perfumed flower
To reedy meadow pool and wise old trees,
To beds of spices in a garden bower
And the spruce valley’s dear austerities,
I know their lure of dusk but evermore
I turn to the enchantment of the shore.
The idle ships dream-like at anchor ride
Beside the piers where wavelets lap and croon,
One ghostly sail slips outward with the tide
That swells to meet the pale imperial moon.
Oh fading ship, between the dark and light
I send my heart and hope with you tonight.
Walter Blythe
RILLA FORD:- “He speaks of the enchantment of the shore. Yet I think he really loved the woods better. How many twilights we spent together! And then the horror! But I always feel that his heart and hope are still with me, though that dreadful memory of the day the news of his death came at times overwhelms me. And now Gilbert has joined the air force and I have to wait again! ... How Walter writing poetry used to annoy poor Susan! When I think of Walter it almost seems wicked to have been glad that Ken came back. But what would I have done if he hadn’t! I could never have been as brave as Una.”
OH, WE WILL WALK WITH SPRING TODAY
Oh, we will walk with spring today,
With fair and laughing Lady May,
In all sweet carelessness among
The gods who ruled when earth was young:
On secret trails of spell and rune
Where wondrous things might happen soon,
Some hidden pixy whisper low
A wise Lost Word of Long Ago
Or naked foot of dryad press
Her path of haunted loveliness.
Oh, we will walk and hear and see
Enchantment, magic, mystery,
Some hilly field of sun and grass
Where tantalizing shadows pass,
Some lonely tree in cobweb bloom
Woven upon no earthly loom,
Some gay, unconquered brook that sings
Legends of old forgotten springs,
Some necromantic pines that teach
The lore of a diviner speech.
Oh, we will walk with spring today
Along a scented blossom way,
In friendly mossy hollows sip
A sacramental fellowship,
And tryst with winds that seem in truth
To blow from out the Land of Youth,
Oh, we will be as glad as song
And happy as our quest is long,
With hearts that laugh because in Spring
One can believe in anything.
Walter Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “Yes, one can believe in anything in spring, thank God. I remember in the old days, Anne, I used to believe in spring that I could win you, in spite of everything.”
JEM BLYTHE:- “Great snakes, dad o’ mine, you don’t mean to tell me that there was ever any question about that!”
DR. BLYTHE:- “Ah, you young fry don’t know as much about your mother’s youth and mine as you think. I had a hard time to get her, I can tell you that.”
SUSAN:- “Even in spring it seems quite impossible to believe there could ever have been any question about that. If I was a girl and a man like Dr. Blythe as much as looked at me ...” Shakes her head and thinks what a queer world it is.
DR. BLYTHE:- “Why, there were years Anne wouldn’t even speak to me.”
ANNE:- “The line should be ‘in youth one can believe in anything.’” (sighs.)
DR. BLYTHE:- “I agree with you. But ... we lost our son, Anne, as did many others, but we have our memories of him and souls cannot die. We can still walk with Walter in the spring.”
GRIEF
To my door came grief one day
In the dawnlight ashen grey,
All unwelcome entered in,
Took the seat where Joy had been
At my hearthstone when the glow
Of my fire had faded low,
In Love’s own accustomed place
Grief sat with me face to face.
In the noonday’s ministry
Grief was ever near to me,
In the mournful eventide
Grief was closely at my side,
Shrinking from her sullen woe
Much I longed to see her go.
Music lost its tender grace
When I looked on her grim face,
Flowers no more were sweet to me,
Sunshine lost its witchery,
Laughter hid itself in fear
Of that Presence dour and drear,
Little dreams in pale dismay
Made all haste to steal away.
Reft of what had made me glad,
Grief alone was all I had,
Then I took her to my breast,
Cherished her as welcome guest,
Fairer every day she grew,
More beloved, kind and true ...
Thus it was that Grief to me
Friend and comrade came to be.
Broke at last a bitter day
When my dear Grief went away;
On a silver-dappled dawn
I awoke and found her gone;
Oh, the emptiness and smart
That she left within my heart!
Vain my lonely, ceaseless plea,
“Faithless Grief, come back to me!”
Anne Blythe
ANNE, sighing:- “I wrote that years ago, as an echo of Matthew’s death. Since then I have learned that some griefs are more faithful.”
UNA MEREDITH:- “Ah, indeed yes.”
SUSAN BAKER, coming in from the garden:-”I wonder what they are all so sober about. I suppose they are thinking of Walter’s death. I’ve always suspected that Una was in love with him
. Well, I am going to make some muffins for supper ... that ought to cheer them up.”
THE ROOM
This is a haunted room,
This quiet firelit place,
Where glimmering mirrors bloom
With many a misty face.
Here a young lover still
Dreams his wild heart away
In splendid anguish till
The cruel gleam of day.
The little Spanish bride,
Lonely beyond belief,
Homesick until she died,
Comes in her alien grief.
A miser counts his gold
With furtive anxious breath,
A prisoner as of old,
Not even freed by death.
And she who hated so
Hates still, a fugitive
Unhappy guest of woe,
Who cannot yet forgive.
There are no happy ghosts ...
The happy dead lie still;
Only they come, the hosts,
Who did or suffered ill.
Old scandals lurk and creep,
Old lies and mockeries,
Secrets that poisoned sleep,
And ancient cruelties.
Oh, who would think this room,
This pleasant firelit place,
Where rosy shadows bloom
Was such a haunted place?
Anne Blythe
SUSAN:- “I remember hearing that story of the Spanish bride when I was a girl. A sea captain brought her home and she died of homesickness. People said she ‘walked.’ Do you think it possible, doctor?”
DR. BLYTHE:- “Do you believe in ghosts, Susan?”
SUSAN:- “No, indeed ... but ... but ...”
JEM BLYTHE:- “But you’re afraid of them all the same.”
SUSAN, indignantly:- “I am not!”
ANNE:- “It’s odd that every other person you meet has seen one.”
JEM:- “Or imagined they did. Who was the old miser, mums?”