cockles of my heart, and I began to enjoy the Sewing
Circle famously. I got a lot of pretty new dresses and
the dearest hat, and I went everywhere I was asked and
had a good time.
But there is one thing you can be perfectly sure of. If
you do wrong you are going to be punished for it
sometime, somehow and somewhere. My punishment was
delayed for two months, and then it descended on my
head and I was crushed to the very dust.
Another new family besides the Mercers had come to
Avonlea in the spring - the Maxwells. There were just
Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell; they were a middle-aged couple
and very well off. Mr. Maxwell had bought the lumber
mills, and they lived up at the old Spencer place which
had always been "the" place of Avonlea. They lived
quietly, and Mrs. Maxwell hardly ever went anywhere
because she was delicate. She was out when I called and
I was out when she returned my call, so that I had
never met her.
It was the Sewing Circle day again - at Sarah
Gardiner's this time. I was late; everybody else was
there when I arrived, and the minute I entered the room
I knew something had happened, although I couldn't
imagine what. Everybody looked at me in the strangest
way. Of course, Wilhelmina Mercer was the first to set
her tongue going.
"Oh, Miss Holmes, have you seen him yet?" she
exclaimed.
"Seen whom?" I said non-excitedly, getting out my
thimble and patterns.
"Why, Cecil Fenwick. He's here - in Avonlea - visiting
his sister, Mrs. Maxwell."
I suppose I did what they expected me to do. I dropped
everything I held, and Josephine Cameron said
afterwards that Charlotte Holmes would never be paler
when she was in her coffin. If they had just known why
I turned so pale!
"It's impossible!" I said blankly.
"It's really true," said Wilhelmina, delighted at this
development, as she supposed it, of my romance. "I was
up to see Mrs. Maxwell last night, and I met him."
"It - can't be - the same - Cecil Fenwick," I said
faintly, because I had to say something.
"Oh, yes, it is. He belongs in Blakely, New Brunswick,
and he's a lawyer, and he's been out West twenty-two
years. He's oh! so handsome, and just as you described
him, except that his hair is quite gray. He has never
married - I asked Mrs. Maxwell - so you see he has
never forgotten you, Miss Holmes. And, oh, I believe
everything is going to come out all right."
I couldn't exactly share her cheerful belief.
Everything seemed to me to be coming out most horribly
wrong. I was so mixed up I didn't know what to do or
say. I felt as if I were in a bad dream - it must be a
dream - there couldn't really be a Cecil Fenwick! My
feelings were simply indescribable. Fortunately every
one put my agitation down to quite a different cause,
and they very kindly left me alone to recover myself. I
shall never forget that awful afternoon. Right after
tea I excused myself and went home as fast as I could
go. There I shut myself up in my room, but not to write
poetry in my blank book. No, indeed! I felt in no
poetical mood.
I tried to look the facts squarely in the face. There
was a Cecil Fenwick, extraordinary as the coincidence
was, and he was here in Avonlea. All my friends - and
foes - believed that he was the estranged lover of my
youth. If he stayed long in Avonlea, one of two things
was bound to happen. He would hear the story I had told
about him and deny it, and I would be held up to shame
and derision for the rest of my natural life; or else
he would simply go away in ignorance, and everybody
would suppose he had forgotten me and would pity me
maddeningly. The latter possibility was bad enough, but
it wasn't to be compared to the former; and oh, how I
prayed - yes, I did pray about it - that he would go
right away. But Providence had other views for me.
Cecil Fenwick didn't go away. He stayed right on in
Avonlea, and the Maxwells blossomed out socially in his
honor and tried to give him a good time. Mrs. Maxwell
gave a party for him. I got a card - but you may be
very sure I didn't go, although Nancy thought I was
crazy not to. Then every one else gave parties in honor
of Mr. Fenwick and I was invited and never went.
Wilhelmina Mercer came and pleaded and scolded and told
me if I avoided Mr. Fenwick like that he would think I
still cherished bitterness against him, and he wouldn't
make any advances towards a reconciliation. Wilhelmina
means well, but she hasn't a great deal of sense.
Cecil Fenwick seemed to be a great favorite with
everybody, young and old. He was very rich, too, and
Wilhelmina declared that half the girls were after him.
"If it wasn't for you, Miss Holmes, I believe I'd have
a try for him myself, in spite of his gray hair and
quick temper - for Mrs. Maxwell says he has a pretty
quick temper, but it's all over in a minute," said
Wilhelmina, half in jest and wholly in earnest.
As for me, I gave up going out at all, even to church.
I fretted and pined and lost my appetite and never
wrote a line in my blank book. Nancy was half frantic
and insisted on dosing me with her favorite patent pills.
I took them meekly, because it is a waste of
time and energy to oppose Nancy, but, of course, they
didn't do me any good. My trouble was too deep-seated
for pills to cure. If ever a woman was punished for
telling a lie I was that woman. I stopped my
subscription to the Weekly Advocate because it still
carried that wretched porous plaster advertisement, and
I couldn't bear to see it. If it hadn't been for that I
would never have thought of Fenwick for a name, and all
this trouble would have been averted.
One evening, when I was moping in my room, Nancy came
up.
"There's a gentleman in the parlor asking for you, Miss
Charlotte."
My heart gave just one horrible bounce.
"What - sort of a gentleman, Nancy?" I faltered.
"I think it's that Fenwick man that there's been such a
time about," said Nancy, who didn't know anything about
my imaginary escapades, "and he looks to be mad clean
through about something, for such a scowl I never
seen."
"Tell him I'll be down directly, Nancy," I said quite
calmly.
As soon as Nancy had clumped downstairs again I put on
my lace fichu and put two hankies in my belt, for I
thought I'd probably need more than one. Then I hunted
up an old Advocate for proof, and down I went to the
parlor. I know exactly how a criminal feels going to
execution, and I've been opposed to capital punishment
ever since.
I op
ened the parlor door and went in, carefully closing
it behind me, for Nancy has a deplorable habit of
listening in the hall. Then my legs gave out
completely, and I couldn't have walked another step to
save my life. I just stood there, my hand on the knob,
trembling like a leaf.
A man was standing by the south window looking out; he
wheeled around as I went in, and, as Nancy said, he had
a scowl on and looked angry clear through. He was very
handsome, and his gray hair gave him such a
distinguished look. I recalled this afterward, but just
at the moment you may be quite sure I wasn't thinking
about it at all.
Then all at once a strange thing happened. The scowl
went right off his face and the anger out of his eyes.
He looked astonished, and then foolish. I saw the color
creeping up into his cheeks. As for me, I still stood
there staring at him, not able to say a single word.
"Miss Holmes, I presume," he said at last, in a deep,
thrilling voice. "I - I - oh, confound it! I have
called - I heard some foolish stories and I came here
in a rage. I've been a fool - I know now they weren't
true. Just excuse me and I'll go away and kick myself."
"No," I said, finding my voice with a gasp, "you
mustn't go until you've heard the truth. It's dreadful
enough, but not as dreadful as you might otherwise
think. Those - those stories - I have a confession to
make. I did tell them, but I didn't know there was such
a person as Cecil Fenwick in existence."
He looked puzzled, as well he might. Then he smiled,
took my hand and led me away from the door - to the
knob of which I was still holding with all my might -
to the sofa.
"Let's sit down and talk it over 'comfy,' " he said.
I just confessed the whole shameful business. It was
terribly humiliating, but it served me right. I told
him how people were always twitting me for never having
had a beau, and how I had told them I had; and then I
showed him the porous plaster advertisement.
He heard me right through without a word, and then he
threw back his big, curly, gray head and laughed.
"This clears up a great many mysterious hints I've been
receiving ever since I came to Avonlea," he said, "and
finally a Mrs. Gilbert came to my sister this afternoon
with a long farrago of nonsense about the love affair I
had once had with some Charlotte Holmes here. She
declared you had told her about it yourself. I confess
I flamed up. I'm a peppery chap, and I thought - I
thought - oh, confound it, it might as well out: I
thought you were some lank old maid who was amusing
herself telling ridiculous stories about me. When you
came into the room I knew that, whoever was to blame,
you were not."
"But I was," I said ruefully. "It wasn't right of me to
tell such a story - and it was very silly, too. But who
would ever have supposed that there could be real Cecil
Fenwick who had lived in Blakely? I never heard of such
a coincidence."
"It's more than a coincidence," said Mr. Fenwick
decidedly. "It's predestination; that is what it is.
And now let's forget it and talk of something else."
We talked of something else - or at least Mr. Fenwick
did, for I was too ashamed to say much - so long that
Nancy got restive and clumped through the hall every
five minutes; but Mr. Fenwick never took the hint. When
he finally went away he asked if he might come again.
"It's time we made up that old quarrel, you know," he
said, laughing.
And I, an old maid of forty, caught myself blushing
like a girl. But I felt like a girl, for it was such a
relief to have that explanation all over. I couldn't
even feel angry with Adella Gilbert. She was always a
mischief maker, and when a woman is born that way she
is more to be pitied than blamed. I wrote a poem in the
blank book before I went to sleep; I hadn't written
anything for a month, and it was lovely to be at it
once more.
Mr. Fenwick did come again - the very next evening, but
one. And he came so often after that that even Nancy
got resigned to him. One day I had to tell her
something. I shrank from doing it, for I feared it
would make her feel badly.
"Oh, I've been expecting to hear it," she said grimly.
"I felt the minute that man came into the house he
brought trouble with him. Well, Miss Charlotte, I wish
you happiness. I don't know how the climate of
California will agree with me, but I suppose I'll have
to put up with it."
"But, Nancy," I said, "I can't expect you to go away
out there with me. It's too much to ask of you."
"And where else would I be going?" demanded Nancy in
genuine astonishment. "How under the canopy could you
keep house without me? I'm not going to trust you to
the mercies of a yellow Chinee with a pig-tail. Where
you go I go, Miss Charlotte, and there's an end of it."
I was very glad, for I hated to think of parting with
Nancy even to go with Cecil. As for the blank book, I
haven't told my husband about it yet, but I mean to
some day. And I've subscribed for the Weekly Advocate
again.
Chapter III
Her Father's Daughter
"WE must invite your Aunt Jane, of course," said Mrs.
Spencer.
Rachel made a protesting movement with her large,
white, shapely hands - hands which were so different
from the thin, dark, twisted ones folded on the table
opposite her. The difference was not caused by hard
work or the lack of it; Rachel had worked hard all her
life. It was a difference inherent in temperament. The
Spencers, no matter what they did, or how hard they
labored, all had plump, smooth, white hands, with firm,
supple fingers; the Chiswicks, even those who toiled
not, neither did they spin, had hard, knotted, twisted
ones. Moreover, the contrast went deeper than
externals, and twined itself with the innermost fibers
of life, and thought, and action.
"I don't see why we must invite Aunt Jane," said
Rachel, with as much impatience as her soft, throaty
voice could express. "Aunt Jane doesn't like me, and I
don't like Aunt Jane."
"I'm sure I don't see why you don't like her," said
Mrs. Spencer. "It's ungrateful of you. She has always
been very kind to you."
"She has always been very kind with one hand," smiled
Rachel. "I remember the first time I ever saw Aunt
Jane. I was six years old. She held out to me a small
velvet pincushion with beads on it. And then, because I
did not, in my shyness, thank her quite as promptly as
I should have done, she rapped my head with her
bethimbled finger to 'teach me better manners.' It hurt
<
br /> horribly - I've always had a tender head. And that has
been Aunt Jane's way ever since. When I grew too big
for the thimble treatment she used her tongue instead -
and that hurt worse. And you know, mother, how she used
to talk about my engagement. She is able to spoil the
whole atmosphere if she happens to come in a bad humor.
I don't want her."
"She must be invited. People would talk so if she
wasn't."
"I don't see why they should. She's only my great-aunt
by marriage. I wouldn't mind in the least if people did
talk. They'll talk anyway - you know that, mother."
"Oh, we must have her," said Mrs. Spencer, with the
indifferent finality that marked all her words and
decisions - a finality against which it was seldom of
any avail to struggle. People, who knew, rarely
attempted it; strangers occasionally did, misled by the
deceit of appearances.
Isabella Spencer was a wisp of a woman, with a pale,
pretty face, uncertainly-colored, long-lashed grayish
eyes, and great masses of dull, soft, silky brown hair.
She had delicate aquiline features and a small, babyish
red mouth. She looked as if a breath would sway her.
The truth was that a tornado would hardly have caused
her to swerve an inch from her chosen path.
For a moment Rachel looked rebellious; then she
yielded, as she generally did in all differences of
opinion with her mother. It was not worth while to
quarrel over the comparatively unimportant matter of
Aunt Jane's invitation. A quarrel might be inevitable
later on; Rachel wanted to save all her resources for
that. She gave her shoulders a shrug, and wrote Aunt
Jane's name down on the wedding list in her large,
somewhat untidy handwriting - a handwriting which
always seemed to irritate her mother. Rachel never
could understand this irritation. She could never guess
that it was because her writing looked so much like
that in a certain packet of faded letters which Mrs.
Spencer kept at the bottom of an old horsehair trunk in
her bedroom. They were postmarked from seaports all
over the world. Mrs. Spencer never read them or looked
at them; but she remembered every dash and curve of the
handwriting.
Isabella Spencer had overcome many things in her life
by the sheer force and persistency of her will. But she
could not get the better of heredity. Rachel was her
father's daughter at all points, and Isabella Spencer
escaped hating her for it only by loving her the more
fiercely because of it. Even so, there were many times
when she had to avert her eyes from Rachel's face
because of the pang of the more subtle remembrances;
and never, since her child was born, could Isabella
Spencer bear to gaze on that child's face in sleep.
Rachel was to be married to Frank Bell in a fortnight's
time. Mrs. Spencer was pleased with the match. She was
very fond of Frank, and his farm was so near to her own
that she would not lose Rachel altogether. Rachel
fondly believed that her mother would not lose her at
all; but Isabella Spencer, wiser by olden experience,
knew what her daughter's marriage must mean to her, and
steeled her heart to bear it with what fortitude she
might.
They were in the sitting-room, deciding on the wedding
guests and other details. The September sunshine was
coming in through the waving boughs of the apple tree
that grew close up to the low window. The glints
wavered over Rachel's face, as white as a wood lily,
with only a faint dream of rose in the cheeks. She wore
her sleek, golden hair in a quaint arch around it. Her
forehead was very broad and white. She was fresh and
young and hopeful. The mother's heart contracted in a
spasm of pain as she looked at her. How like the girl
was to - to - to the Spencers! Those easy, curving
outlines, those large, mirthful blue eyes, that finely
molded chin! Isabella Spencer shut her lips firmly and
crushed down some unbidden, unwelcome memories.
"There will be about sixty guests, all told," she said,
as if she were thinking of nothing else. "We must move
the furniture out of this room and set the supper-table