To Marigold’s relief and Gwen’s disappointment there was no frog pie. Indeed, there wasn’t much of anything but fried ham and potatoes with some blueberry jam—which suggested rather dismal recollections to Marigold. The dinner was a dull affair, for Aunt Lily was still sulky, Granny was busy gobbling and the Weed Man was silent. It was one of his peculiarities that he seldom talked inside any house.
“Can’t think or talk right with walls round me—never could,” he had told Salome once.
After dinner the Weed Man paid for their meal with a bottle of liniment for Granny’s “paralattics,” and Granny bade them a friendly good-bye.
“It’s sorry I am that ye’re goin’ instead o’ comin’,” she said graciously.
She pulled Marigold so close to her that Marigold had a horrible idea that Granny Phin was going to kiss her. If that happened Marigold knew she would, never be the same girl again. But Granny only whispered,
“She’s a bit purtier than you, but I like you best—ye look like a bit o’ spring.”
Which was a nicer compliment than one would have expected old Granny Phin to pay.
4
Their afternoon drive led along the winding shore of a little river running into the Head of the Bay. Far down was the blue, beckoning harbor and beyond it the sunny dunes and the misty gulf. The Weed Man shook his whip at it mournfully.
“One poetry has vanished from the gulf forever,” he said, more to himself than to the girls. “When I was a boy that gulf there would be dotted with white sails on a day like this. Now there’s nothing but gasoline boats and they’re not on speaking terms with romance at all. Romance is vanishing—romance is vanishing out of our world.”
He shook his head gloomily. But Marigold, looking on the world with the eyes of youth, saw romance everywhere. As for Gwennie she was not concerned with romance or the lack of it but only with her stomach.
“Gee, I’m hungry,” she said. “I didn’t get half enough at the Phins’s. Where’ll we have supper?”
“Down at my place,” said the Weed Man. “We’re going there now. Tabby’ll have a bite for us. After supper I’ll take you home—if the weather keeps good-humored. Those weather-gaws aren’t out for nothing. It’ll rain cats and dogs tomorrow.”
Marigold wondered what weather-gaws were—and then forgot in thinking how interesting it would be if it really rained cats and dogs. Little silk-eared kittens everywhere by the basketful—loads of darling pudgy puppies.
The Weed Man’s “place” was at the end of a wood road far down by the red harbor shore. He did not like to have his fellow-mortals too close to him. The little white-washed house seemed to be cuddled down among shrubs and blossoms. There were trees everywhere—the Weed Man would never have any cut down—and four blinking, topaz-eyed kittens in a row on the window-sill, all looking as if they had been cut out of black velvet by the same pattern.
“Cloud o’ Spruce breed,” said the Weed Man as he lifted the girls down. “Your Old Grandmother gave me the great-Grandmother of them. You are very welcome to my poor house, young ladies. Here, Tabby, we’ve company for supper. Bring along a glass o’ water apiece.”
“Goodness, aren’t we going to have anything for supper but a glass of water?” whispered Gwen.
But Marigold was taken up with Tabby Derusha, about whom she had heard her elders talking. She was not, so Salome said, “all there.” She was reported to go Abel one better in the matter of heresy, for she didn’t believe in God at all. She laughed a great deal and seldom went from home.
Tabby was very stout and wore a dress of bright red-and-white striped material. Her face was round and blank but her red hair was abundant and beautiful, and she had her brother’s kind, childlike blue eyes. She laughed pleasantly at the girls as she brought them the water.
“Down with it—every drop,” ordered the Weed Man. “Everyone who comes into my house has to drink a full glass of water first thing. People never drink half enough water. If they did they wouldn’t have to pay as many doctors’ bills. Drink, I say.”
Marigold was not in the least thirsty and she found the second half of the generous tumbler hard to “down.” Gwennie drank half of hers.
“Finish,” said the Weed Man sternly.
“There, then,” said Gwennie, and threw the rest of her water in the Weed Man’s face.
“Oh, Gwennie!” cried Marigold reproachfully. Miss Tabby laughed. The Weed Man stood quite still, looking comical enough with the water dripping from his whiskers.
“That’ll save me washing my face,” he said—and it was all he did say.
“How does Gwennie do such things and get away with it?” wondered Marigold. “Is it because she’s so pretty?”
She was ashamed of Gwennie’s manners. Perhaps Gwen was a little ashamed of herself—if shame were possible to her—for she behaved beautifully at the table—making only one break, when she asked Tabby curiously if it were true she didn’t believe in God.
“As long as I can laugh at things I can get along without God,” said Tabby mysteriously. “When I can’t laugh I’ll have to believe in Him.”
They had a good supper with plenty of Tabby’s applecake and cinnamon buns and raisin-bread and the Weed Man’s stories in between. But when he came in after supper and said the rain was very near and they must wait till morning to go home, it was not so very pleasant.
“Oh, we must go home,” cried Marigold. “Please, please take us home, Mr. Derusha.”
“I can’t drive you home and then drive back fourteen miles in a rainstorm. I am content with my allotted portion but I am poor—I can’t afford a buggy. And my umbrella’s full of holes. You’re all right here. Your folks know where you are and won’t worry. They know we’re clean. Your Grandmother was rained in here one night herself seven years ago. You go right to bed and sleep, and morning’ll be here ’fore you know it.”
5
“I know I won’t sleep a wink in this horrid place,” said Gwen snappily, looking scornfully around the tiny bedroom and seeing only the bare uneven floor with its round, braided rug, the cheap little bureau with its cracked mirror, the chipped pitcher and bowl, the stained and cracked ceiling, the old-fashioned knitted lace that trimmed the pillow slips. Marigold saw these things, too, but she saw something else—the view of the harbor through the little window, splendid in the savage sunset of approaching storm. Marigold was tired and rather inclined to think that doing everything you wanted wasn’t such fun after all; but under the spell of an outlook like that, the sense of romance and adventure persisted. Why couldn’t Gwen make the best of things? She had been grumbling ever since supper. She wasn’t such a sport after all.
“If the wind changes, your face will always look like that.”
“Oh, don’t try to be smart,” snapped Gwen. “Old Abel should have taken us home. He promised to. I’m scared to death to sleep in the same house with Tabby Derusha. Anyone can see she’s cracked. She might come in and smother us with a pillow.”
Marigold was a little frightened of Tabby herself—now that it was dark. But all she said was,
“I do hope Salome won’t forget to give the cats their strippings.”
“I do hope there aren’t any bed-bugs in this bed,” said Gwen, looking at it with disfavor. “It looks like it.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure there isn’t. Everything is so clean,” said Marigold. “Let’s just say our prayer and get into bed.”
“I wonder you aren’t afraid to say your prayers after that lie you told T. B. today about having been in Heaven,” said Gwen—who was tired and out of sorts and determined to wreak it on somebody.
“It wasn’t a lie—it wasn’t—oh, you don’t understand,” cried Marigold, “It was Sylvia—”
She stopped short. She had never told Gwennie about Sylvia. Gwen had somehow got an inkling that Marigold had some secret connected with the s
pruce wood and teased her to tell it at intervals. She pounced on Marigold’s inadvertent sentence.
“Sylvia! You’ve some secret about Sylvia, whoever she is. You’re mean and dirty not to tell me. Friends always tell each other secrets.”
“Not some kinds of secrets. I’m not going to tell you about Sylvia, and you needn’t coax. I guess I have a right to my own secrets.”
Gwen threw one of her boots at the wall.
“All right then. Keep it to yourself Do you think I want to know your horrid secrets? I do know one of them, anyhow. You’re jealous of Clementine Lawrence.”
Marigold colored hotly. How on earth had Gwennie found that out? She had never mentioned Clementine to her.
“Oh-h-h!” Gwennie chuckled maliciously. She had to torment somebody as an outlet to her nerves, and Marigold was the only one handy. “You didn’t think I knew that. You can’t hide things from me. Gee, how sour you looked when I praised her picture! Fancy being jealous of a dead woman you never saw! It is the funniest thing I ever heard of.”
Marigold writhed. The worst of it was it was true. She seemed to hate Clementine more bitterly every day of her life. She wished she could stop it. It was a torture when she thought of it. And it was torture to think that Gwennie had stumbled on it.
“Of course,” went on Gwen, “the first Mrs. Leander was ever so much handsomer than your mother. Of course your father would love her best. Ma says widowers just marry the second time for a housekeeper. I could just stand and look at Clementine’s picture for hours. When I grow up I’m going to have mine taken just like that, looking at a lily, with my hair done the same way. I’m never going to have my hair bobbed. It’s common.”
“The Princess Varvara had hers bobbed,” retorted Marigold.
“Russian princesses don’t count.”
“She is a grand-niece of Queen Victoria.”
“So she said. You needn’t put on any airs with me, Marigold Lesley, because you had a princess visiting you. I’m a—a—Democrat.”
“You’re not. Its only in the States there are Democrats.”
“Well, it’s something that doesn’t take stock in kings and queens, anyway. I forget the right word. And as for politics, do you know I’m going to be a Tory after this. Sir John Carter is ever so much better looking than our Liberal man.”
“You can’t be a To—Conservative,” cried Marigold, outraged at this topsy-turvy idea. “Why—why—you were born a Grit.”
“You’ll see if I can’t. Well—” Gwen had got her clothes off and wriggled into one of the rather skimpy little cotton nightgowns Tabby had unearthed from somewhere for them, “now for prayers. I’m awful tired of saying the same old prayer. I’m going to invent a new one of my own.”
“Do you think it’s—safe?” asked Marigold dubiously. When you were a stranger in a strange land wouldn’t it be best to stick to the tried and tested in prayers as well as politics.
“Why not? But I know what I’ll do. I’m going to say your prayer—the one your Aunt Marigold made up for you.”
“You shan’t,” cried Marigold. “That’s my very own special prayer.”
“Selfish pig,” said Gwennie.
Marigold said no more. Perhaps it was selfish. And anyway Gwennie would say it if she wanted to. She knew her Gwennie. But she also knew her own dear prayer would be spoiled for her forever if that imp from Rush Hill said it.
Gwennie knelt down with one eye on Marigold. And at the last moment she relented. Gwen wasn’t such a bad sort after all. But having said that she was going to invent a new prayer it was up to her to invent one. She wouldn’t back down altogether, but Gwen suddenly discovered that it was not such an easy thing to invent a prayer.
“Dear God,” she said slowly, “please—please—oh, please never let me have moles like Tabby Derusha’s. And never mind about the daily bread—I’m sure to have lots of that—but please give me lots of pudding and cake and jam. And please bless all the folks who deserve it.”
“There, that’s done,” she announced, hopping into bed.
“I’m sure God will think that a funny prayer,” said Marigold.
“Well, don’t you suppose He wants a little amusement sometimes?” demanded Gwennie. “Anyway, it’s my own prayer. It isn’t one somebody else made up for me. Gee, Marigold, what if there should be a nest of mice in this bed? There’s a chaff tick.”
What gruesome things Gwennie did think of. They had blown out their lamp and it was very dark. They were fourteen miles from home. The raindrops began to thud against the little windows. Was Tabby Derusha “cracked.”
“Abel sent in some apples for you.”
Gwennie, to use her own expression, let out a yelp. Tabby was standing by their bed. How could she have got there without their hearing her? Certainly it was eerie. And when she had gone out again they did not dare eat the apples for fear there were worms in them.
“What’s that snuffing at the door?” whispered Gwen. “Do you s’pose its old Abel Derusha turned into a wolf?”
“It’s only Buttons,” scoffed Marigold. But she was glad when a sudden snore proclaimed that Gwen had fallen asleep. Before she went to sleep herself Tabby Derusha came in again—silently as a shadow, with a little candle this time. She bent over the bed. Marigold, cold with sudden terror, kept her eyes shut and held her breath. Were they going to be killed? Smothered with pillows?
“Dear little children,” said Tabby Derusha, lifting one of Gwen’s lovely curls gently. “Hair soft as silk—sweet little faces—pretty little dears.”
There was a touch soft as a rose-leaf on Marigold’s cheek. Tabby gloated over them for a few minutes longer. Then she was gone, as noiselessly as she had come. But Marigold was no longer afraid. She felt as safe and as much at home as if she were in her own blue room at Cloud of Spruce. After all, it had been an int’resting day. And Gwen was all right. She hadn’t stolen her prayer. Marigold said it over again under her breath—the beautiful little prayer she loved because it was so beautiful and because Aunt Marigold had made it up for her—and went to sleep.
6
“I didn’t sleep a wink the whole night,” vowed Gwen.
“Never mind, here’s a new morning—such a lovely new morning,” said Marigold.
The rain was over. The southwest wind the Weed Man had promised Captain Simons was blowing. The clouds were racing before it. Down on the beach the water was purring in little blue ripples. The sky in the east was all rosy silver. The grass was green and wet on the high red cliffs. Over the harbor hung a milky mist. Then the rising sun rent it apart and made a rainbow of it. A vessel came sailing through it over a glistening path. Never, thought Marigold, had the world seemed so lovely.
“What are you doing?” said Gwen, struggling impatiently into her clothes, much annoyed because Buttons had got in after all and slept on her dress.
“I—I think—I’m praying,” said Marigold dreamily.
7
Uncle Klon came for them in his car before breakfast was over.
“Are they very mad at Cloud of Spruce?” asked Gwennie. Rather soberly for her. She did not like Uncle Klon. He was always too many for her.
“There’s a special Providence for children and idiots,” said Uncle Klon gently. “Jim Donkin forgot to give the message till late last night and they were so relieved to find out where you had gone, that the dining-room rather sank into the background. You’d better not look again on blueberry wine when it is purple, Miss Gwen.”
“It’s a good thing we’re too big to be spanked,” whispered Gwen, when she saw Grandmother’s face.
“I believe you,” said Lucifer.
CHAPTER 13
A Ghost Is Laid
1
That affair of the blueberry wine was certainly a bad business. There was some secret talk at Cloud of Spruce of sending Gwennie home after i
t. But nothing came of it, and Gwennie never even knew it had been mooted. It would never do to offend Luther and Annie, Grandmother concluded, though for her part she couldn’t understand Josephine. But the real reason was that they all liked Gwennie in spite of—or maybe because of—her deviltries. “An amusing compound of mischief and precocity,” said Uncle Klon, who liked to be amused.
“A darn leetle minx,” said Lazarre, but he ran his legs off for her. “A child of Beelzebub,” said Salome, but kept the old stone cookie-jar full of hop-and-go-fetch-its for Gwennie. Gwennie might be saintly or devilish as the humor took her, but she was not a bit stuck-up about her looks and she had Annie Vincent’s kind, ungrudging heart and Luther Lesley’s utter inability to hold any spite. As for Marigold, she and Gwennie had some terrible spats, but they had so much fun between that the fights didn’t greatly matter. Though Gwennie had a poisonous little tongue when she got mad and said some things that rankled—especially about Clementine.
Clementine’s picture had been left on the orchard room wall when most of Old Grandmother’s faded brides had been packed away in the oblivion of the garret. There she hung in the green gloom, with her ivory-white face, her sleek braided flow of hair, her pale beautiful hands and her long-lashed eyes forever entreating the lily. Marigold felt she would not have hated Clementine so much if she had looked squarely and a little arrogantly at you like the other brides—if you could have met her eyes and defied them.
But that averted, indifferent gaze, as if you didn’t matter at all—as if what you felt or thought didn’t matter at all. Oh, for the others Clementine Lesley might be dead, but for Marigold she was torturingly alive and she knew Father had only married Mother for a housekeeper. All his love belonged to that disdainful Lady of the Lily. And Gwennie, suspecting this secret wound in Marigold’s soul, turned the barb in it occasionally by singing the praises of Clementine’s picture.