“One night I thought I was caught at last,” said Alice, with another malicious glance at the stunned Curtis. “I thought you saw the reflection of my face in the guest room window.”
Curtis made no reply.
“Of course my greatest amusement was to torment Lucia,” said Alice. “When I cut down the birch tree she loved every blow was a delight to me.”
Still Curtis made no sign. Alice continued to address him, however.
“I was really glad when you came here to board. I liked a young minister. Old Mr. Sheldon bored me to tears. It seemed as if the Conference always sent us old ministers. As long as his wife lived there was some amusement in making him worship at my shrine, for old as they were she was jealous of his devotion to me.”
“Is a woman ever too old to be jealous?” murmured Henry reflectively.
“Never,” said Alice decisively. “Nor a man either. But when she died and nobody cared how much he reverenced my saintliness I didn’t want his reverence. And I was not afraid of you. I knew you would be just as easily fooled as the rest.”
Curtis did flinch at this. It was so disgustingly true.
“I decided that I would keep quiet for a while so that you would not become disgusted and leave us. I never supposed you would fall in love with Lucia. Men, as a rule, never cared for her. And gossip engaged you to somebody else. It was very amusing to talk seriously to you about our ghosts.”
Her laughter made Curtis flinch again. The power of feeling was returning to him.
“And then you went and spoiled everything by going and falling in love with my lady cousin ... who had set her cap for you ever since you came here. Oh, yes, she did ...” as an impatient sound came from Henry. “So I decided you must go. I knew Lucia was secretly crazy about you ... though, like all the Fields, she can hide her feelings very successfully when she wants to.”
“Miss Field cares nothing for me,” cried Curtis, stung into speech.
“Oh, yes, she does. And I was afraid her feelings would win out at last. And yet, do you know, when you told me you were going, my tears of regret were very real ones. You have no idea how much I really liked you.”
Alice laughed again. Her eyes were sparkling in the moonlight.
“How did you manage the telephone business?” asked the persistent Henry.
“Oh, that! I had nothing to do with that. Some boys along the line must have been playing a trick for the fun of it. They often do ... but nobody takes any account of it in a house that isn’t supposed to be haunted. But it helped matters on nicely.”
“And ... and ... the money ...” hesitated Henry.
“I didn’t take it either. What good would it have been to me? ... and the Fields are not thieves. Without a doubt some of the Marsh gang did it ... not Julia perhaps. I don’t think she is a thief. But she has a brother.”
“The ... the binder house?”
“I didn’t set fire to it, you goose. Do you think I’d have no more sense than to risk burning my own home down? Most likely it was some prowling tramp ... anyway I know nothing of it.”
“Come, now, I’m glad to hear that,” said Henry in a tone of relief. “Somehow, that kind of stuck in my crop. Now I see my way. And you really can walk as well as anyone?”
“Of course I can. I’ve had enough exercise at nights to keep well in practice in walking. Well, what are you going to do, gentlemen, my judges?”
“I guess we don’t set up as judges,” said Henry. “What do you say, preacher?”
“I ... I have nothing to do with the matter,” stammered Curtis.
“You’ll tell silly Alec and little black Lucia anyway, I suppose, and have me turned out on the road.”
“You know they wouldn’t do that.”
“Do you suppose I’d live here now, even if they’d let me?” flashed Alice. “I’d starve first.”
“Why, no, you ain’t going to starve,” said Henry soothingly. “The preacher here can tell Alec and Lucia ... I’m not hankering for that job. It’s you I’m concerned with. Do you know what I’m going to do?”
“No,” said Alice indifferently.
“I’m going to marry you and take you away. That’s what I came home to do.”
Alice sat up in amazement and even Curtis was stirred out of his stupor.
“Do you ... mean that?” said Alice slowly.
“I do. When I came home I supposed I couldn’t since you were bedrid. But since you ain’t, what’s to hinder?”
“But ... how can you want me now?” said Alice, with a sparkle rising in her eyes.
“I don’t know, but I do ... by the nine gods I do,” said Henry emphatically. “I don’t care what you’ve done. Even if you’d taken the money and burned the binder house I’d have wanted you ... though it would have made a difference. You’re the girl I’ve wanted all my life and I’m going to have you. I’ll take you out to the Coast ... you need never see any of the folks round here again.”
“Will you take me away from here tonight ... now?” demanded Alice.
“Sure,” said Henry. “We’ll go right to the station. It’ll be time for the train when we get there. We’ll go into Charlottetown and be married as soon as I can get the licence. Some of the town preachers will do it. I reckon you ain’t hankering for the job, preacher?”
“No ... no,” said Curtis with a shudder. Alice looked at him with contempt.
“And you’ll tell the folks here what is necessary?”
“I s... I suppose so,” said poor Curtis.
Henry bent forward and tapped Alice gently on the shoulder.
“Well, that’s settled. I’ll house and dress you like a queen ... but listen, my girl, listen.”
“Now for the conditions,” said Alice.
“The conditions don’t amount to much. It’s just that there’s to be no more tricks ... no tricks with Henry Kildare. Understand?”
“I ... understand,” said Alice.
“Go upstairs and get ready.”
Alice looked down at her wrapper.
“Got anything to wear besides that?”
“I have my old navy blue suit and hat,” said Alice meekly. “They’re horribly out of style but ...”
“That don’t matter. We can get something as soon as the stores open.”
Alice rose and left the room.
“Well, preacher, what have you got to say?” demanded Henry when she had left the room.
“Nothing,” said Curtis.
Henry nodded.
“Best line to take, I guess. This is one of the things there don’t seem to be any language to fit and that’s a fact. But gosh, wasn’t she clever! Mowbray Narrows will have something to talk about for years. I knew Dr. Blythe thought there was something screwy about it all but even he didn’t suspect the whole truth.”
Alice came down. Her suit fitted her as if made yesterday, her face was flushed with triumph.
Curtis did not speak a word when she passed him in the hall.
“Hate me ... despise me,” she said passionately. “I don’t mind your hate ... but I won’t have your tolerance. And when you marry Lucia remember there is one person in the world who hopes you’ll rue it to your dying day. Lucia isn’t the paragon you imagine her by any means. She’ll rule you ... you’ll always dance to her piping. Good-bye, my dear Mr. Curtis Burns. It may be some comfort to you to know that you have solved the Field mystery after all, though it was only by accident.”
“Come on,” said Henry. “We haven’t too much time as it is. And from this day, Alice Harper, I forbid you to mention this matter to me or anyone. It’s dead ... and we’ll bury it. In a few years it will all be forgotten. And don’t let me hear any sneers at Mr. Burns. He’s one of the best. Good-bye, preacher. It was a lucky chance we missed that train. And don’t be too hard in your judgments of folks you don’t know much about.”
Mr. Sheldon came up to the old Field place the next night, having heard the incredible rumour that flew like a flame through Mowbr
ay Narrows and Glen St. Mary.
Dr. Blythe had been the one to tell him and had said,
“I always thought she had something to do with the goings-on but I confess my imagination didn’t stretch so far. I never believed she was quite so helpless as she pretended but I admit I thought she was in league with Jock or Julia.”
“I never could endure her,” said Anne Blythe emphatically. “There was something in her eyes ... and I knew she hated Lucia.”
“These women!” said the doctor, shaking his head.
Mr. Sheldon listened to Curtis’ story and shook his silvery head, too.
“Well, I suppose after a time I’ll get this through my old noodle and accept it. Just at present I can’t believe it. That’s all. We’ve dreamed it ... we’re dreaming still.”
“I think we all feel like that,” said Curtis. “Alec and Lucia have gone about in a helpless daze all day. They are too stunned to be even angry.”
“What hurts me worst,” said Mr. Sheldon tremulously, “is her ... hypocrisy. She pretended to be so interested in our church ... our work.”
“That may not have been hypocrisy, Mr. Sheldon. It may have been a real side of her warped nature.”
“So Dr. Blythe says. But to me it is incredible.”
“Nothing is incredible with abnormality. Dr. Blythe would tell you that, too. Remember you cannot judge her as you would a normal person.”
“She always seemed normal enough.”
“She has never been normal. Her own story proves that. She was hampered by heredity. Her father and grandfather were dipsomaniacs. You can’t reform your ancestors. And the shock of repressed feeling at the wedding of the man she loved evidently played havoc in her soul.”
“So Dr. Blythe says. But poor Henry Kildare!”
“Oh, not so poor. We’ve always misjudged Henry. A man doesn’t amass a fortune on the Coast without brains. He’s got the woman he always wanted.”
“But what a life ...”
“Not a bit of it. Alice can be very charming when she wants to be. You and I ought to realize that, Mr. Sheldon. Take my word for it, he’ll manage her. Besides, marriage and a home and wealth ... all she always craved ... may have a very salutary effect on her mind ...”
Mr. Sheldon shook his head. The whole thing was beyond him.
“However,” said Curtis, “we may be sure of one thing. She’ll never come back to show off her diamonds in Mowbray Narrows.”
“Mrs. Blythe says she is quite capable of that.”
“Mrs. Blythe is mistaken. No, we’ve seen the last of Alice Harper and Henry Kildare. Don’t think this hasn’t been a shock to me, Mr. Sheldon. It’s the worst I ever had.”
“I fancy there will be compensations,” said Mr. Sheldon slyly. “Mrs. Blythe says ...”
“I’ve heard the Blythes quoted in this matter until I’m tired of it,” said Curtis, a little rudely. “After all, they were only suspicious. They didn’t really know any more than the rest of us. But now I suppose people will say they knew all about it all the time.”
“Well, you know how legends grow. And really Mrs. Blythe has a wonderful insight into character.”
“Well, we’ll leave it at that. And, Mr. Sheldon, let us make a compact. Let us agree never to mention this matter to each other again.”
Mr. Sheldon agreed, a little disappointedly. There were so many things he wanted to know. But he was not without tact and he saw Lucia Field coming up the lane.
When Curtis came back from the gate in the twilight he came face to face with Lucia in the porch. He had hardly seen her all day, since he had stammered forth his tale in the morning twilight. But now he caught her exultantly.
“Sweetheart ... you’ll listen to me now ... you will ... you will,” he whispered.
Jock was coming across the yard and Lucia twisted herself from his grasp and ran. But before she ran Curtis caught a look in her eyes. He was suddenly a very happy man.
“What will Dr. Blythe say?” he wondered. He knew quite well what Mrs. Blythe would say.
Twilight at Ingleside
In the family circle at Ingleside, Anne Blythe, nee Anne Shirley, sometimes reads her occasional poems to the family circle at twilight, including Susan Baker, the assistant house-keeper who has been with them so long that she seems as one of them. Before her marriage Anne wrote occasional stories but gave this up when her children were babies. But she writes a poem now and then and reads it to her family, who sit around and listen, making no comments until the end.
DR. BLYTHE thinks:- “I wonder if we grown-ups play enough. There is Susan ... she makes a perfect slave of herself to the children. But perhaps it is play to her.”
SUSAN, who disapproves of Walter writing poetry in the highest degree, but thinks everything Mrs. Blythe does is right, thinks:- “I don’t think much of dreaming but it is nice for someone to need you, I’ll admit that. And they do need me here ... Shirley, anyhow. A family of five children and a house as big as Ingleside need more than one woman and that I will tie to.”
WALTER BLYTHE thinks:- “A great big pearl swinging above your door. I’ll always think of that when I see the full moon. I wish I could write as good poetry as mother does. Perhaps I will when I’m as old. I’m twelve now. It takes a long while to grow up.”
DR. GILBERT BLYTHE thinks:- “‘A little house with friendly rafters.’ That was how I used to think of our House of Dreams when I took Anne there as a bride sixteen years ago. A man’s first ‘home of his own’ is something he never forgets. But I would write, ‘Whenever you want to swear alone.’”
SUSAN again:- “I always did like the smell of mint. But the less said about witches before the children in my humble opinion the better. As for fools ... we all have plenty of chances to be fools ... and we take them.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “We’ll all have to hear the Fiddler some day, I suppose. What will Anne and I look like when we grow old? I’ll be bald and double-chinned ... but she will always be Anne to me.”
JEM BLYTHE aloud:- “Gosh, you can write poetry, all right, mums.”
I WISH YOU
Friend o’ mine, in the year oncoming
I wish you a little time for play,
And an hour to dream in the eerie gloaming
After the clamorous day.
(And the moon like a pearl from an Indian shore
To hang for a lantern above your door.)
A little house with friendly rafters
And someone in it to need you there,
Wine of romance and wholesome laughters
With a comrade or two to share.
(And some secret spot of your very own
Whenever you want to cry alone.)
I wish you a garden on fire with roses,
Columbines planted for your delight,
Scent of mint in its shadowy closes,
Clean gay winds at night.
(Some nights for sleeping and some to ride
With the broomstick witches far and wide.)
A goodly crop of figs to gather,
With a thistle or two to prick or sting,
Since a harvesting too harmless is rather
An unadventurous thing.
(And now and then, spite of reason or rule,
The chance to be a bit of a fool.)
I wish you a thirst that can never be sated
For all the loveliness earth can yield,
Slim, cool birches whitely mated
Dawn on an April field.
(And never too big a bill to pay
When the Fiddler finds he must up and away.)
Anne Blythe
THE OLD PATH ROUND THE SHORE
It winds beneath the shadow where the Druid fir trees lean
And through their parting boughs I see the harbour’s purple screen.
Winds from the west are blowing o’er the mid-sea’s purple skin,
And in the sunset distance the boats are coming in,
White-winged across the foam line o
f the misty, moaning bar,
And further still adown the coast shines out the lighthouse star.
’Tis just the same as when we walked together there of yore
But something’s gone forever from the old path round the shore.
Here everything still speaks of you ... the waters lisp your name,
My listening heart repeats it as it used to when you came.
Your laughter in the breezes rings more clearly than your own,
The whispers in the fir boughs seem the echo of your tone,
The summer skies above the sea are as your deep eyes blue
The sweet wild roses on the bank are waiting, dear, for you.
But rose and lover wait in vain for you will come no more
To walk, the world forgetting, on the old path round the shore.
And I must go my way alone adown the shining strand,
And miss the kisses of your lips, the pressure of your hand,
And watch with lonely eyes the gleam of purple seas afar,
And shadowy sails that drift across the misty harbour bar;
I wonder if in distant lands where rarer roses blow,
You ever think of me and of those moments long ago,
And if did fate permit it you would gladly come once more
And walk with me at sunset on the old path round the shore.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “Who were you thinking of when you wrote that, Anne?”
ANNE:- “Gilbert, if you keep on speaking in such a jealous tone I’ll give up reading my poems to you. This one was written ages ago and was prompted by the love story of Mary Royce. Don’t you remember? And of course the old path round the shore was the one at Avonlea. I’m sure you and I walked it often enough.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “Yes, we did. And my heart ached often enough after you had let somebody else walk home with you the night before.”
SUSAN baker (over her darning, thinks):- “The very idea of her letting anyone walk home with her when she might have had the doctor! I have never had a real beau but boys have walked home with me time and again. I wasn’t entirely overlooked. It doesn’t seem to have the significance today that it had then, though. Nowadays the girls run around with anybody.”