"I never heard the rights of that story," said Caroline. "Who was his wife?"
"Beatrice Mitchell--one of the Shrewsbury Mitchells. She was only eighteen when Allan married her. He was thirty-five. Emily, never you be fool enough to marry a man much older than yourself."
Emily said nothing. The Scottish Chiefs was forgotten. Her finger-tips were growing cold as they always did in excitement, her eyes turning black. She felt that she was on the verge of solving the mystery that had so long worried and puzzled her. She was desperately afraid that Aunt Nancy would branch off to something else.
"I've heard she was a great beauty," said Caroline.
Aunt Nancy sniffed.
"Depends on your taste in style. Oh, she was pretty--one of your golden-haired dolls. She had a little birthmark over her left eyebrow--just like a tiny red heart--I never could see anything but that mark when I looked at her. But her flatterers told her it was a beauty spot--'the Ace of Hearts' they called her. Allan was mad about her. She had been a flirt before her marriage. But I will say--for justice among women is a rare thing, Caroline--you, for instance, are an unjust old hag--that she didn't flirt after marrying--openly, at least. She was a sly puss--always laughing and singing and dancing--no wife for Allan Burnley if you ask me. And he could have had Laura Murray. But between a fool and a sensible woman did a man ever hesitate? The fool wins every time, Caroline. That's why you never got a husband. You were too sensible. I got mine by pretending to be a fool. Emily, you remember that. You have brains--hide them. Your ankles will do more for you than your brains ever will."
"Never mind Emily's ankles," said Caroline, keen on a scandal hunt. "Go on about the Burnleys."
"Well, there was a cousin of hers--Leo Mitchell from Shrewsbury. You remember the Mitchells, don't you, Caroline? This Leo was a handsome fellow--a sea-captain. He had been in love with Beatrice, so gossip ran. Some said Beatrice wanted him but that her people made her marry Allan Burnley because he was the better match. Who knows? Gossip lies nine times and tells a half truth the tenth. She pretended to be in love with Allan anyhow, and he believed it. When Leo came home from a voyage and found Beatrice married he took it coolly enough. But he was always over at Blair Water. Beatrice had plenty of excuses. Leo was her cousin--they had been brought up together--they were like brother and sister--she was so lonesome in Blair Water after living in a town--he had no home except with a brother. Allan took it all down--he was so infatuated with her she could have made him believe anything. She and Leo were always together there when Allan was always seeing his patients. Then came the night Leo's vessel--The Lady of Winds--was to sail from Blair Harbor for South America. He went--and my lady Beatrice went with him."
A queer little strangled sound came from Emily's corner. If Aunt Nancy or Caroline had looked at her they would have seen that the child was white as the dead, with wide, horror-filled eyes. But they did not look. They knitted and gossiped on, enjoying themselves hugely.
"How did the doctor take it?" asked Caroline.
"Take it--take it--nobody knows. Everybody knows what kind of man he's been ever since, though. He came home that night at dusk. The baby was asleep in its crib and the servant girl was watching it. She told Allan that Mrs. Burnley had gone to the harbor with her cousin for a good-bye walk and would be back at ten. Allan waited for her easily enough--he never doubted her--but she didn't come back. She had never intended to come back. In the morning The Lady of Winds was gone--had sailed out of the harbor at dark the night before. Beatrice had gone on board with him--that was all anybody knew. Allan Burnley said nothing, beyond forbidding her name ever to be mentioned in his hearing again. But The Lady of Winds was lost with all on board off Hatteras and that was the end of that elopement, and the end of Beatrice with her beauty and her laughter and her Ace of Hearts."
"But not the end of the shame and wretchedness she brought to her home," said Caroline shrewishly. "I'd tar and feather such a woman."
"Nonsense--if a man can't look after his wife--if he blinds his own eyes--Mercy on us, child, what is the matter?"
For Emily was standing up, holding out her hands as if pushing some loathly thing from her.
"I don't believe it," she cried, in a high, unnatural voice. "I don't believe Ilse's mother did that. She didn't--she couldn't have--not Ilse's mother."
"Catch her, Caroline!" cried Aunt Nancy.
But Emily, though the back parlor had whirled about her for a second, had recovered herself.
"Don't touch me!" she cried passionately. "Don't touch me! You--you--you liked hearing that story!"
She rushed out of the room. Aunt Nancy looked ashamed for a moment. For the first time it occurred to her that her scandal-loving old tongue had done a black thing. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
"She can't go through life in cotton wool. Might as well learn spades are spades now as ever. I would have thought she'd have heard it all long ago if Blair Water gossip is what it used to be. If she goes home and tells this I'll have the indignant virgins of New Moon coming down on me in holy horror as a corrupter of youth. Caroline, don't you ask me to tell you any more family horrors before my niece, you scandalous old woman. At your age! I'm surprised at you!"
Aunt Nancy and Caroline returned to their knitting and their spicy reminiscences, and upstairs in the Pink Room Emily lay face downwards on her bed and cried for hours. It was so horrible--Ilse's mother had run away and left her little baby. To Emily that was the awful thing--the strange, cruel, heartless thing that Ilse's mother had done. She could not bring herself to believe it--there was some mistake somewhere--there was.
"Perhaps she was kidnapped," said Emily, trying desperately to explain it. "She just went on board to look around--and he weighed anchor and carried her off. She couldn't have gone away of her own accord and left her dear little baby."
The story haunted Emily in good earnest. She could think of nothing else for days. It took possession of her and worried and gnawed at her with an almost physical pain. She dreaded going back to New Moon and meeting Ilse with this consciousness of a dark secret which she must hide from her. Ilse knew nothing. She had asked Ilse once where her mother was buried and Ilse had said, "Oh, I don't know. At Shrewsbury, I guess--that's where all the Mitchells are buried."
Emily wrung her slim hands together. She was as sensitive to ugliness and pain as she was to beauty and pleasure, and this thing was both hideous and agonizing. Yet she could not keep from thinking about it, day and night. Life at Wyther Grange suddenly went stale. Aunt Nancy and Caroline all at once gave up talking family history, even harmless history, before her. And as it was painful repression for them, they did not encourage her hanging round. Emily began to feel that they were glad when she was out of hearing, so she kept away and spent most of her days wandering on the bay shore. She could not compose any poetry--she could not write in her Jimmy-book--she could not even write to her father. Something seemed to hang between her and her old delights. There was a drop of poison in every cup. Even the filmy shadows on the great bay, the charm of its fir-hung cliffs and its little purple islets that looked like outposts of fairyland, could not bring to her the old "fine, careless rapture." She was afraid she could never be happy again--so intense had been her reaction to her first revelation of the world's sin and sorrow. And under it all, persisted the same incredulity--Ilse's mother couldn't have done it--and the same helpless longing to prove she couldn't have done it. But how could it be proved? It couldn't. She had solved one "mystery" but she had stumbled into a darker one--the reason why Beatrice Burnley had never come back on that summer twilight of long ago. For, all the evidence of facts to the contrary notwithstanding, Emily persisted in her secret belief that whatever the reason was, it was not that she had gone away in The Lady of Winds when that doomed ship sailed out into the starlit wonder of the gulf beyond Blair Harbor.
CHAPTER 26
On the Bay Shore
"I wonder," thought Emily, "how much longer I have to live."
She had prowled that evening further down the bay shore than she had ever gone before. It was a warm, windy evening; the air was resinous and sweet; the bay a misty turquoise. That part of the shore whereon she found herself seemed as lonely and virgin as if no human foot had ever trodden it, save for a tiny, tricksy path, slender as red thread and bordered by great, green, velvety sheets of moss, that wound in and out of the big firs and scrub spruces. The banks grew steeper and rockier as she went on and finally the little path vanished altogether in a plot of bracken. Emily was just turning to go back when she caught sight of a magnificent spray of farewell-summer, growing far out on the edge of the bank. She must get it--she had never seen farewell-summers of so dark and rich a purple. She stepped out to reach them--the treacherous mossy soil gave way under her feet and slid down the steep slope. Emily made a frantic attempt to scramble back but the harder she tried, the faster went the landslide, carrying her with it. In a moment it would pass the slope and go over the brink of the rocks, straight to the boulder-strewn shore thirty feet below. Emily had one dreadful moment of terror and despair; and then she found that the clump of mossy earth which had broken away had held on a narrow ledge of rock, half hanging over it; and she was lying on the clump. It seemed to her that the slightest movement on her part would send it over, straight to the cruel boulders underneath.
She lay very still, trying to think--trying not to be afraid. She was far, far away from any house--nobody could hear her if she screamed. And she did not even dare to scream lest the motion of her body dislodge the fragment on which she lay. How long could she lie there motionless? Night was coming on. Aunt Nancy would grow anxious when the dark fell and would send Caroline to look for her. But Caroline would never find her here. Nobody would ever think of looking here for her, so far away from the Grange, in the spruce barrens of the Lower Bay. To lie there alone all night--to fancy the earth was slipping over--waiting for help that would never come--Emily could hardly restrain a shudder that might have been ruinous.
She had faced death once before, or thought she had, on the night when Lofty John had told her she had eaten a poisoned apple--but this was even harder. To die here, all alone, far away from home! They might never know what had become of her--never find her. The crows or the gulls would pick her eyes out. She dramatized the thing so vividly that she almost screamed with the horror of it. She would just disappear from the world as Ilse's mother had disappeared.
What had become of Ilse's mother? Even in her own desperate plight Emily asked herself that question. And she would never see dear New Moon again and Teddy and the dairy and the Tansy Patch and Lofty John's bush and the mossy old sundial and her precious little heap of manuscripts on the sofa shelf in the garret.
"I must be very brave and patient," she thought. "My only chance is to lie still. And I can pray in my mind--I'm sure God can hear thoughts as well as words. It is nice to think He can hear me if nobody else can. O God--Father's God--please work a miracle and save my life, because I don't think I'm fit to die yet. Excuse my not being on my knees--You can see I can't move. And if I die please don't let Aunt Elizabeth find my letter-bills ever. Please let Aunt Laura find them. And please don't let Caroline move out the wardrobe when she house-cleans because then she would find my Jimmy-book and read what I wrote about her. Please forgive all my sins, especially not being grateful enough and cutting a bang, and please don't let Father be very far away. Amen."
Then, characteristically she thought of a postscript. "And oh, please let somebody find out that Ilse's mother didn't do that."
She lay very still. The light on the water began to turn warm gold and rose. A great pine on a bluff in front of her overflowed in a crest of dark boughs against the amber splendor behind it--a part of the beauty of the beautiful world that was slipping away from her. The chill of the evening gulf breeze began to creep over her. Once a bit of earth broke off at her side and went down--Emily heard the thud of the little pebbles in it on the boulders below. The portion upon which one of her legs lay was quite loose and pendent also. She knew it might break off, too, at any moment. It would be very dreadful to be there when it got dark. She could see the big spray of farewell-summer that had lured her to her doom, waving unplucked above her, wonderfully purple and lovely.
Then, beside it, she saw a man's face looking down at her!
She heard him say, "My God!" softly to himself. She saw that he was slight and that one shoulder was a trifle higher than the other. This must be Dean Priest--Jarback Priest. Emily dared not call to him. She lay still and her great, gray-purple eyes said, "Save me."
"How can I help you?" said Dean Priest hoarsely, as if to himself. "I cannot reach you--and it looks as if the slightest touch or jar would send that broken earth over the brink. I must go for a rope--and to leave you here alone--like this. Can you wait, child?"
"Yes," breathed Emily. She smiled at him to encourage him--the little soft smile that began at the corners of her mouth and spread over her face. Dean Priest never forgot that smile--and the steadfast child-eyes looking out through it from the little face that seemed so perilously near the brink.
"I'll be as quick as I can," he said. "I can't go very fast--I'm a bit lame, you see. But don't be frightened--I'll save you. I'll leave my dog to keep you company. Here, Tweed."
He whistled--a great, tawny-gold dog came in sight.
"Sit right there, Tweed, till I come back. Don't stir a paw--don't wag a tail--talk to her only with your eyes."
Tweed sat down obediently and Dean Priest disappeared.
Emily lay there and dramatized the whole incident for her Jimmy-book. She was a little frightened still, but not too frightened to see herself writing it all out the next day. It would be quite a thrilling bit.
She liked to know the big dog was there. She was not so learned in lore of dogs as in lore of cats. But he looked very human and trusty watching her with great kindly eyes. A gray kitten was an adorable thing--but a gray kitten would not have sat there and encouraged her. "I believe," thought Emily, "that a dog is better than a cat when you're in trouble."
It was half an hour before Dean Priest returned.
"Thank God you haven't gone over," he muttered. "I hadn't to go as far as I feared--I found a rope in an empty boat up-shore and took it. And now--if I drop the rope down to you, are you strong enough to hold it while the earth goes and then hang on while I pull you up?"
"I'll try," said Emily
Dean Priest knotted a loop at the end and slid it down to her. Then he wound the rope around the trunk of a heavy fir.
"Now," he said.
Emily said inwardly, "Dear God, please--" and caught the swaying loop. The next moment the full weight of her body swung from it, for at her first movement the broken soil beneath her slipped down--slipped over. Dean Priest sickened and shivered. Could she cling to the rope while he drew her up?
Then he saw she had got a little knee-hold on the narrow shelf. Carefully he drew on the rope. Emily, full of pluck, helped him by digging her toes into the crumbling bank. In a moment she was within his reach. He grasped her arms and pulled her up beside him into safety. As he lifted her past the farewell-summer Emily reached out her hand and broke off the spray.
"I've got it, anyhow," she said jubilantly. Then she remembered her manners. "I'm much obliged to you. You saved my life. And--and--I think I'll sit down a moment. My legs feel funny and trembly."
Emily sat down, all at once more shaky than she had been through all the danger. Dean Priest leaned against the gnarled old fir. He seemed "trembly" too. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Emily looked curiously at him. She had learned a good deal about him from Aunt Nancy's casual remarks--not always good-natured remarks, for Aunt Nancy did not wholly like him, it seemed. She always called him "Jarback" rather contemptuously, while Caroline scrupulously called him Dean. Emily knew he had been to college, that he was thirty-six years old--which to Emily seemed a venerable age--and well-off; that he had a malforme
d shoulder and limped slightly; that he cared for nothing save books nor ever had; that he lived with an older brother and traveled a great deal; and that the whole Priest clan stood somewhat in awe of his ironic tongue. Aunt Nancy had called him a "cynic." Emily did not know what a cynic was but it sounded interesting. She looked him over carefully and saw that he had delicate, pale features and tawny-brown hair. His lips were thin and sensitive, with a whimsical curve. She liked his mouth. Had she been older she would have known why--because it connoted strength and tenderness and humor.
In spite of his twisted shoulder there was about him a certain aloof dignity of presence which was characteristic of many of the Priests and which was often mistaken for pride. The green Priest eyes, that were peering and uncanny in Caroline's face and impudent in Jim Priest's, were remarkably dreamy and attractive in his.
"Well, do you think me handsome?" he said, sitting down on another stone and smiling at her. His voice was beautiful--musical and caressing.
Emily blushed. She knew staring was not etiquette, and she did not think him at all handsome, so she was very thankful that he did not press his question, but asked another.
"Do you know who your knightly rescuer is?"
"I think you must be Jar--Mr. Dean Priest." Emily flushed again with vexation. She had come so near to making another terrible hole in her manners.
"Yes, Jarback Priest. You needn't mind the nickname. I've heard it often enough. It's a Priest idea of humor." He laughed rather unpleasantly. "The reason for it is obvious enough, isn't it? I never got anything else at school. How came you to slide over that cliff?"
"I wanted this," said Emily, waving her farewell-summer.
"And you have it! Do you always get what you go after, even with death slipping a thin wedge between? I think you're born lucky. I see the signs. If that big aster lured you into danger it saved you as well, for it was through stepping over to investigate it that I saw you. Its size and color caught my eye. Otherwise I should have gone on and you--what would have become of you? Whom do you belong to that you are let risk your life on these dangerous banks? What is your name--if you have a name! I begin to doubt you--I see you have pointed ears. Have I been tricked into meddling with fairies, and will I discover presently that twenty years have passed and that I am an old man long since lost to the living world with nothing but the skeleton of my dog for company?"