3
It was such fun to watch the arrivals from the window in Salome’s room, where she had her shelf of potted plants. The ivies and petunias fell down in a green screen behind which Marigold could peep without being seen—or being caught at it by Grandmother, who thought “peeking” at visitors extremely bad manners. Bad manners it might be, but it was too interesting to give up. The folks getting out of the cars and buggies and cutters—for all three were in use today—would have been amazed by the things Marigold, whom they still thought of as a mere baby, knew about them.
There was Uncle Peter’s Pete, who had poured whiskey into his aunt’s dandelion wine and set her drunk. How solemn and stupid he looked, not at all like a boy who would do such a trick. But you could never tell. And Aunt Katherine, who—so Uncle Klon had said—was a witch and turned herself into a gray cat at night. Marigold no longer believed that but she liked to play with the idea. Aunt Katherine certainly looked like a gray cat in her gray coat trimmed with gray fur; but her rosy smiling face was not properly witch-like. Only Uncle Klon said they were the worst kind of witches—the kind that didn’t look like witches.
Uncle Mark and Uncle Jerry were coming up the walk together. At some former Christmas feast they had quarreled and Uncle Mark had pulled Uncle Jerry’s nose. It was years before they spoke. But they seemed on good terms now. Even Old Aunt Kitty, who was really only a distant third cousin, was coming with Uncle Jarvis and Aunt Marcia. Aunt Kitty, whose bonnet had fallen off one day when she was sitting in the front pew of the old Harmony church gallery, peering over the railing to see who was sitting below. Aunt Kitty had nearly pitched after the bonnet herself in her frantic effort to grab it and had only been saved by old Mr. Peasely catching hold of her skirt. It had been a gay, wild bonnet of ostrich plumes and flowers, and its descent had made something of a sensation, especially since, by some impish trick of chance, it had landed squarely on Elder Beamish’s bald head as neatly as if it had been fitted on. The Beamishes and the Kittys—Marigold couldn’t remember Aunt Kitty’s family name—had never been good friends and this incident didn’t help matters any. Aunt Kitty looked decorous enough now as she hobbled up the walk leaning on her cane, but she had been a wild old girl at one time, Uncle Klon said.
Aunty Clo was coming, too—who really was an aunt of sorts, though Marigold never could get her placed. She did not like Aunty Clo and neither did Uncle Klon, who vowed she was certainly very much too ugly to live. “She is really lovable under her skin,” Aunt Marigold had said, fresh from a reading of Kipling. “Then for heaven’s sake, tell her to take her skin off” Uncle Klon had retorted.
Uncle Archibald’s Martin and his wife Jenny. They were a by-word for their terrible quarrels, but Aunt Marigold declared they loved each other between times enough to make up for it. Martin had left his car at the gate and she saw him stop Jenny and kiss her under the Scotch pine. Before dinner was over they were calling each other awful names across the table and scandalizing the whole clan. But as Marigold listened to the amazing epithets she thought of that long kiss under the pine and wondered if a kiss like that wasn’t worth a lot of hard names.
Aunt Sybilla, who “went in for spiritualism.” Marigold didn’t know what spiritualism was but had a vague idea that it had to do with liquor. Still, Aunt Sybilla didn’t look like that.
Uncle Charlie, whose laughter boomed over the whole garden, and Garnet Lesley, who would come to a bad end—so everyone said. It was int’resting to speculate concerning that bad end. George Lesley, who was going to be married to Mary Patterson. Marigold liked George. “I wish he would wait till I grow up,” she thought. “I believe he would like me better than Mary, because there is no fun in her. There is a good deal in me when my conscience doesn’t bother me.”
Gloomy Uncle Jarvis, with his fierce black beard, who never read any book but the Bible and was always “talking religion” to everyone within five minutes of meeting them. Aunt Honora—who must have had her face screwed up one time when the wind changed and who had taken a vow never to marry—“quite unnecessarily,” Uncle Klon said. Uncle Obadiah, whose great ears stuck out like flaps. Uncle Dan, who had a glass eye and thought nobody knew of it. And last of all Uncle Milton and Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Nora. Thirty years before Uncle Milton had jilted Aunt Nora and when he married Aunt Charlotte, Aunt Nora had decked herself out in widow’s weeds and gone to the wedding! And now here they were coming up the walk together, chatting amiably about the weather and their rheumatism. It was very int’resting, looking down on them like this when they couldn’t see her, but Marigold paid for her fun when the time came to go in to the parlor and speak to everybody. It was a dreadful ordeal and she shrank back against Mother.
“You must learn to go into a room without thinking everyone is staring at you,” said Grandmother.
“But they do stare,” shuddered Marigold. “They’re all looking at me to see how much I’ve grown since the last time or who I look like now. And Aunt Josephine will say I’m not as tall for my age as Gwennie. You know she will.”
“It won’t kill you if she does,” said Grandmother.
“You must act like a lady,” whispered Mother.
“Don’t be a coward,” said Old Grandmother from a faraway moonlit orchard.
It was Old Grandmother who did the trick. Marigold went through the ordeal of handshaking with her head up and her cheeks so crimson that even Aunt Josephine thought her complexion much better. The “big” dinner was in the orchard room, and anyone looking at the table would have known that the good old days when nobody bothered about balanced rations had not yet wholly passed at Cloud of Spruce. But Marigold and all the other small fry had theirs in the dining-room.
Marigold rejoiced over this. She never really enjoyed a meal in the orchard room, because she was so busy hating Clementine. They were catered to by Salome, who saw that they all had plenty of dressing and a piece of banana cake besides pudding. Even Uncle Peter’s Pete, who had been known to say he wished a fellow could eat two Christmas dinners at once, was satisfied. So everything was beautiful until dinner was over and the “program” under way in the parlor. And then Marigold crashed down to defeat and not even Old Grandmother’s shade could help her.
She got up to say her recitation—and not one word could she remember of it. She stood there before thousands—more or less—of faces, and could not even recall the title. It was all Uncle Peter’s Pete’s fault, so Marigold always vowed. Just before her name was called he had whispered into the back of her neck, “You haven’t washed behind your ears.” Marigold knew that territory had been washed—Salome had seen to that—but it rattled her nevertheless. And now she stood dazed, frantic, coming out with goose-flesh all over her body. If Mother had been there just to say the first line—Marigold knew she could go on if she could just remember the first line. But Mother was out helping with the dishes. And there was Pete grinning and Beulah gleefully contemptuous and Nancy squirming in sympathy.
Marigold shut her eyes in a desperate effort to forget everyone and straightway saw the most astounding things. Aunt Emma’s big cameo brooch with Uncle Ned’s hair in it expanded to gigantic size, and Aunt Emma fastened to it—Uncle Jerry with a long nose pulled out like the elephant’s child—Uncle Peter’s Pete’s aunt dancing drunkenly after dandelion wine—Aunt Katherine, a gray cat riding on a broomstick—Aunt Kitty falling headlong after her bonnet—Aunty Clo with her skin off—Uncle Obadiah, just a pair of enormous ears with a tiny manikin between them—Uncle Dan with just one huge eye winking at her all the time—
Dizzy Marigold opened her eyes to come back to reality from that fantastic world into which she had been plunged. But still she could not get that first line.
“Come, come, have you got a bone in your throat?” said Uncle Paul.
“Cat’s got her tongue,” giggled Uncle Peter’s Pete.
“Bit off more than you can chew, eh,” said Uncle
Charlie, good-naturedly.
Beulah giggled. Flesh and blood could bear no more. Marigold rushed from the room—flew upstairs—tore through Mother’s room—slammed shut her door and hurled herself on her bed in an agony of shame and humiliation.
She huddled there all the rest of the afternoon. Mother and Grandmother and Salome were too busy to think about her. Nancy searched but could not find her. Marigold wept in her pillows and wondered what they were saying about her. I don’t know if it would have comforted her any had she known they were not thinking about her at all. What was a tragedy to her was only a passing incident to them.
In the rose and purple twilight they went away. Marigold lay and listened to the cars snorting and the sleigh bells jingling and then to a tired little lonely motherless wind sobbing itself to sleep in the vines—a wind that had made a fool of itself in the great family of Winds and daren’t lift its voice above a whisper.
To Marigold came someone who had never lost the knack of looking at the world through a child’s eyes.
“Oh, Aunty Marigold, I’ve dis-dis-graced myself and—all—the Lesleys,” sobbed Marigold.
“Oh, no, darling. There’s no disgrace in a little stage fright. We all have it. The first time I tried to recite in public my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth and I sniveled—yes, sniveled, and my father had to come up and carry me down from the platform. You got away on your own legs at least.”
Marigold could not stop crying all at once, but she sat up and blew her nose.
“Oh, Aunty Marigold—really?”
“Yes, really. Father said to me, ‘I am disappointed in you,’ and I said, ‘I wouldn’t care for that if I wasn’t disappointed in myself.’”
“That’s how I feel, too,” whispered Marigold. “And then Beulah—”
“Never mind the Beulahs. You’ll find heaps of them in life. The only thing to do is ignore them. Beulah would make an excellent mouse-trap, but if she tried for a hundred years she couldn’t look as sweet and pretty as you did, standing up there with your puzzled blue eyes. And when you screwed them shut—”
“Oh, I saw such funny things, Aunt Marigold,” cried Marigold, bursting into a peal of laughter. Aunt Marigold’s little bit of artful flattery was a pick-me-up. It was true poor Beulah was very plain. Oh, how nice to be with someone who just understood and loved. Nothing seemed so disgraceful any more. A truce to vain regrets. She’d show them another time. And here was Lucifer and Salome with a plate of hop-and-go-fetch-its.
“I saved ’em for you,” said Salome. “Uncle Peter’s Pete was bound to have them but I Peted him. He’ll not try to sneak into my pantry again in a hurry.”
“I suppose I can take off this absurd ribbon now,” said Lucifer, his very whiskers vibrating with indignation. “A dog doesn’t mind making an ass of himself but a cat has his feelings.”
CHAPTER 10
The Bobbing of Marigold
1
“Sylvia has bobbed her hair,” said Marigold rebelliously.
Grandmother sniffed, as Grandmother was apt to sniff at the mention of Sylvia—though since the day of Dr. Clow’s visit she had never referred to her, and the key of The Magic Door was always in the lock. But she only said,
“Well, you’re not going to have yours bobbed, so you can make up your small mind to that. In after years you will thank me for it.”
Marigold didn’t look or feel very thankful just then. Everybody had bobbed hair. Nancy and Beulah—who laughed at her long “tails”—and all the girls in school and even Mrs. Donkin’s scared-looking little “home girl” across the road. But she, Marigold Lesley of Cloud of Spruce, had to be hopelessly old-fashioned because Grandmother so decreed. Mother would have been willing for the bob, though she might cry in secret about it. Mother had always been so proud of Marigold’s silken fleece. But Grandmother! Marigold knew it was hopeless.
“I don’t know if we should do it,” said Grandmother—not alluding to bobbed hair. “She has never been left alone before. Suppose something should happen.”
“Nothing ever happens here,” said Marigold pessimistically and untruthfully. Things happened right along—interesting things and beautiful things. But this was Marigold’s blue day. She could not go with Grandmother and Mother and Salome to Great-Aunt Jean’s golden wedding because Aunt Jean’s grandchildren had measles. Marigold did so want to see a golden wedding.
“You can get what you like for supper,” said Grandmother. “But remember you are not to touch the chocolate cake. That is for the missionary tea tomorrow. Nor cut any of my Killarney roses. I want them to decorate my table.”
“Have a good time, honey-child,” whispered Mother. “Why not ask Sylvia down to tea with you? There are doughnuts in the cellar crock and plenty of hop-and-go-fetch-its.”
But Marigold did not brighten to this. For the first time she felt a vague discontent with Sylvia, her fairy-playmate of three dream-years.
“I almost wish I had a real little girl to play with,” she said, as she stood at the gate, watching Grandmother and Mother and Salome drive off up the road—all packed tightly in the buggy. Poor Mother, as Marigold knew, had to sit on the narrow edge of nothing.
2
Perhaps this was a Magic Day. Perhaps the dark mind of the Witch of Endor, sitting on the gate post, brewed up some kind of spell. Who knows? At all events, when Marigold turned to look down the other road—the road that ran along the harbor shore to the big Summer Hotel by the dunes—there was the wished-for little girl standing by her very elbow and grinning at her.
Marigold stared in amazement. She had never seen the girl before or any one just like her. The stranger was about her own age—possibly a year older. With ivory outlines, a wide red mouth, long narrow green eyes and little dark eyebrows like wings. Bareheaded, with blue-black hair. Beautifully bobbed, as Marigold instantly perceived with a sigh. She wore an odd, smart green dress with touches of scarlet embroidery and she had wonderful slim white hands—very beautiful and very white. Marigold glanced involuntarily at her own sunburned little paws—and felt ashamed. But—the stranger had bare knees. Marigold had never seen this fashion before and she was as much horrified as Grandmother herself could have been.
Who could this girl be? She had appeared so suddenly, so uncannily. She looked different in every way from the Harmony little girls.
“Who are you?” she asked abruptly, before she realized that such a question was probably bad manners.
The stranger grinned.
“I’m me,” she said.
Marigold turned haughtily away. A Lesley of Cloud of Spruce was not going to be made fun of by any little nobody from nowhere.
But the girl in green whirled about on tip-toes till she was in front of Marigold once more.
“I’m Princess Varvara,” she said. “I’m staying at the hotel down there with Aunt Clara. My uncle is the Duke of Cavendish and Governor-General of Canada. He is visiting the Island and today they all went down to visit Cavendish, because it was called after my uncle’s great-great-grandfather. All except Aunt Clara and me. She had a headache and they wouldn’t take me because there are measles in Cavendish. I was so mad I ran away. I wanted to give Aunt Clara the scare of her life. She’s mild and gentle as a kitten but, oh, such a darned tyrant. I can’t call my soul my own. So when she went to bed with her headache I just slipped off when Olga was waiting on her. I’m going to do as I like for one day, anyhow. I’m fed up with being looked after. What’s the matter?”
“You are telling me a lot of fibs,” said Marigold. “You are not a princess. There are no princesses in Prince Edward Island. And you wouldn’t be dressed like that if you were a princess.”
Varvara laughed. There was some trick about her laugh. It made you want to laugh too. Marigold had hard work to keep from laughing. But she wouldn’t laugh. You couldn’t laugh when anybody was trying to deceive you with
such yarns.
“She must be one of the Americans down at the hotel,” thought Marigold. “And she thinks it fun to fool a silly little down-easter like me if she can. But she can’t! Imagine a princess having bare knees! Just like Lazarre’s kids.”
“How do you think a princess should be dressed?” demanded Varvara. “In a crown and a velvet robe. You’re silly. I am a Princess. My father was a Russian Prince and he was killed in The Terror. Mother is English. A sister of the Duke’s. We live in England now, but I came out to Canada with Aunt Clara to visit Uncle.”
“I’m not a bad hand at making up things myself,” said Marigold. She had an impulse to tell this girl all about Sylvia.
Varvara shrugged her shoulders.
“All right. You needn’t believe me if you don’t want to. All I want is somebody to play with. You’ll do nicely. What is your name?”
“Marigold Lesley.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten. How old are you?” Marigold was determined that the questions should not be all on one side.
“Oh, I’m just the right age. Come, ask me in. I want to see where you live. Will your mother let us play together?”
“Mother and Grandmother have gone to Aunt Jean’s golden wedding,” explained Marigold. “And Salome was invited, too, because her mother was a friend of Aunt Jean’s. So I’m all alone.”
The stranger suddenly threw her arms about Marigold and kissed her rapturously on both cheeks.
“How splendid. Let’s have a good time. Let’s be as bad as we like. Do you know I love you. You are so pretty. Prettier than I am—and I’m the prettiest princess of my age in Europe.”
Marigold was shocked. Little girls shouldn’t say things like that. Even if you thought them—sometimes, when you had your blue dress on—you shouldn’t say them. But Varvara was talking on.