Mrs. Lawrence, finding someone else could make more noise than she could, ceased yooping. She got on her feet, scattering a shower of hairpins on the floor, with the noted Carberry temper sticking out of every kink and curve of her abundant figure, and assisted by Aunt Marigold and Uncle Percy, moved slowly to the stairs.
“One must—make allowances—of course,” she sobbed, “for the things—children will do. I am—glad—it wasn’t your fault—Lorraine. I didn’t—think—I had—deserved that—of you.”
“Dear Mrs. Lawrence, don’t be angry,” implored Lorraine.
“Angry—oh, no. I’m not angry—I’m only—heartbroken. If God—”
“You might as well leave God out of it,” said Gwen.
“Gwen, keep quiet,” said Uncle Klon furiously.
Whereupon Gwen threw back her head and yelled loud and long.
Everybody was now in the room or the hall, or crowding up to the windows outside. Marigold felt as if everyone in the world were staring at her.
“Could you run us home, Horace?” said Grandmother wearily. “I’m tired—and this has about finished me. Do you want to stay for supper, Lorraine?”
“No—oh, no,” said Lorraine, struggling to keep back her tears.
In the back seat of the car Marigold cried for sorrow and Gwen howled for vexation of spirit. But Uncle Klon laughed so uproariously that Grandmother said nervously:
“Horace, do pay attention to your steering. I don’t see how you can laugh. It’s been simply a terrible affair. If it had been any one but old Mrs. Lawrence!”
“Good for her,” said Uncle Klon. “I don’t believe anyone ever told her the truth about herself before. It was priceless.”
Gwen stopped sniffling and pricked up her ears. After all, there was something nice about Uncle Klon.
“But it must have been a shock to see Clementine’s dress suddenly come before her like that,” said Grandmother. What was the matter with Grandmother’s voice? Grandmother couldn’t be laughing—she couldn’t. But was she trying not to laugh? “You know, Horace, she really worshipped Clementine.”
“Clementine was a good little scout,” said Uncle Klon. “I always liked her. It was to her credit that she wasn’t spoiled by such a silly old mother.”
“She was a pretty thing,” said Grandmother. “I remember her in that dress. People raved about her skin and her hands.”
“Clem certainly had pretty hands. It was a pity she had such huge feet,” said Uncle Klon.
“She couldn’t help her big feet,” rebuked Grandmother.
“Of course not. But they were certainly—generous,” laughed Uncle Klon. “No wonder the old lady kept all her boots. Too much good leather to waste. Clem had only one quarrel in her life that she never made up. The quarrel with Emmy Carberry. Emmy was going to marry a man neither the Carberrys nor the Lawrences approved of. ‘I wouldn’t be in your shoes for the world, Emmy,’ said Clem solemnly.”
“‘Don’t worry, Clem darling,’ said Emmy, sticking out a foot in her little Number Two’s beside poor Clem’s brogans. ‘You could never get into them.’ Of course, Clem never forgave her.”
Just then in a twinkle something happened to poor, crushed, weeping Marigold in the back seat. The spirit of jealousy departed from her forever—at least as far as Clementine was concerned. Clementine had big feet. And Mother had feet that even Uncle Klon thought perfection. Oh—Marigold smiled through her tears in the darkness—oh, she could afford to pity Clementine.
“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t take the hide off you,” said Uncle Klon as he lifted Gwen from the car.
“I made you laugh,” said Gwen saucily.
“You shameless young hussy,” said Uncle Klon.
Grandmother said nothing. Of what use was it saying anything to Gwen? Of what use was it trying to drown fish? And she was going home the next evening. Besides, in her secret soul, Grandmother was not sorry that Caroline Lawrence had got her “come uppance” at last.
“Well, this is the end of Wednesday. Now for Thursday. But they might have given us a bite to eat,” grumbled Gwen as she rolled into bed. “I wish I’d swiped that little plate of striped sandwiches. But did you ever see anything so funny as that old dragon yowling? Didn’t I shut her up! I hope the devil flies away with her before morning. After all I’m glad I’m going home tomorrow night, Marigold. I like you better than I ever dreamed I’d do after Aunt Jo’s sickening praises. But your Grandmother gets my goat.”
“Aren’t you going to say your prayers?” reminded Marigold.
“No use waking God up at this hour of the night,” said Gwen drowsily.
She was sleeping like a lamb before Marigold had finished her prayers. Marigold was very, very thankful and told God so. Not exactly that Clementine had big feet, of course, but that the horrible feeling of hatred and jealousy had gone completely out of her little heart. It was so comfortable.
Mother gave Marigold a little scolding in the morning.
“Mrs. Lawrence might have died of heart-failure. Think how you would have felt. As it is, we heard this morning that she cried all night—cried violently,” Mother added, fearing that Marigold was not just alive to the awfulness of what she had done.
“Never you worry,” said Salome. “It served old Madam right. Her and her old boots. Thinking she’s like Queen Victoria. But all the same, I’m thankful that limb of Satan is going home tonight. I should really like to have a few minutes’ peace. I feel as if I’d been run through a meat-chopper these three weeks. Heaven help the clan when she grows up.”
“Amen,” said Lucifer with an emphatic whisk of his tail.
Gwennie went home that evening.
“Now maybe we can call our souls our own again,” said Salome. And yet she did not say it very briskly. Nor did she snub Lazarre when he remarked mournfully,
“By gosh, you t’ink somebody was die in de house.”
The lost serenity of Cloud of Spruce had returned to it, only slightly rippled next day by the arrival of an inky postcard from Gwen, addressed to Grandmother.
“I forgot to tell you that I dropped one of your best silver spoons through a crack in the apple-barn floor day before yesterday. I think you can get it easily if you crawl under the barn.”
Marigold missed her badly for two days and in a lesser degree for the third. But after all, it was very nice to be alone with Sylvia again. Laughter and frolics were good things, but one didn’t want to laugh and frolic all the time. She was like one tasting the beauty of quiet after days of boisterous, stimulating wind. The velvet faces of the pansies were waiting for her in the twilight and her own intimate, beloved trees welcomed her once more to their fraternity. When she shut the little Green Gate behind her she went into a different world—where one could be happy and have beautiful hours without being noisy all the time. She turned and looked down on the old vine-hung house and the harbor beyond. There was no sound in the great quiet world but the song of the wind. And there were soft, dewy shadows in every green meadow-nook of Mr. Donkin’s farm.
“If I could have picked my place to be born, I’d have picked Cloud of Spruce,” she whispered, holding out her arms as if she wanted to put them around the house—this beautiful old place that so many hands had made and so many hearts had loved.
And Clementine’s ghost was forever laid. The next time she went to the graveyard she stole over and put a little flower on Clementine’s grave—poor pretty Clementine. She no longer felt that she wanted to push her away from Father’s side. And she knew now that Father hadn’t married Mother just for a housekeeper. For she had told Mother the whole story, and Mother had laughed a little and cried a little.
“I was never jealous of Clementine. They were children. He did love her very dearly. But to me he gave the love of his manhood. I know.”
So Marigold had no further grudge against Clemen
tine’s picture. She could look at it calmly and agree that it was very beautiful. But once she gave herself the satisfaction of remarking to it,
“It’s a good thing your feet don’t show.”
CHAPTER 14
Bitterness of Soul
1
“Here’s a new morning,” said Marigold blithe as the day. Somehow she was unusually happy that autumn-tinted morning as she went to school. She always felt as if she had wings on a day like this. She loved October—loved it well in its first crimson pomp, when frosted leaves hung like a flame and the asters along the road were like pale purple songs; and even better in its later quiet of brown autumnal fields and the shadowy interfoldings of the hills over the bay; with its evenings full of the nice smell of burning leaves in Lazarre’s bonfires and all its apples to be picked and stored in the apple-barn, until such time as it grew too cold and they must be put away in barrels in the cellar.
A group of girls tittered a little as Marigold passed them on the playground. She did not mind very much. Marigold was, in truth, rather a lonely creature in school. She had never “made up” with any of the girls particularly, and with the new seats that held only one there was not the olden chance for intimacies. Not one of them went her way home. She did not quarrel with them and she played games with them at noon-hour and recess, but in some mysterious way she was not of them and they faintly resented it. “Stuck-up,” they called her; though Marigold was not in the least stuck-up.
The sense of cleavage deepened as she grew older, instead of disappearing. Sometimes Marigold felt wistfully that it would be nice to have a real chum, of the kind you read about in books—not a fitful visitor like Varvara or Gwennie, bringing a wild whirl of color into your life and then vanishing as completely as if they had never existed. But she could not find her in Harmony school. And being of a nature that could not compromise with second best when best was denied Marigold made no lesser friendships. There was always Sylvia—though Sylvia was not quite as real as she had once seemed. The old magic still worked but it was not quite so magical now.
This morning Marigold felt something new in the school atmosphere. It was not her imagination that the girls whispered and looked at her—with much of curiosity and a little malice. Marigold felt it all through the forenoon and at recess, but no one said anything in particular to her until noon-hour. Then, as her class sat in a circle among the fern-smothered spruce-stumps on the banks of the brook below the schoolhouse the barrage opened.
“How do you like Mr. Thompson, Marigold?” asked Em Stanton with a giggle.
Marigold wondered why upon earth Mr. Thompson’s name was dragged into it. He was the new minister who had come to Harmony in the spring. Marigold was not as yet vitally interested in new ministers. It had been a rather exciting time for the older folks. It would be hard to fill old Mr. Henry’s place—Mr. Henry who had filled the pulpit of Harmony church for thirty years and was “a saint if ever there was one.”
“He used to make me weep six times every Sunday,” sighed Miss Amelia Martin. “I hoped my time would come before his. I’ve always felt he would be such a lovely man to bury you.”
“Oh, Lord,” Aunt Kitty Standish had prayed at the first Aid meeting after his retirement, “Oh, Lord, send us as good a minister as Mr. Henry—but, oh, Lord, you can’t do it.”
Nobody thought Mr. Thompson as good but he seemed the best of the candidates.
“He’s a good preacher,” said Salome, “but it’s a pity he’s a widower. He’ll marry in the congregation and that’ll spoil him.” Adding, however, by way of a comforting afterthought, “But I’m glad they’ve picked him. I like a comfortable-looking minister.”
Mr. Thompson had one daughter about Marigold’s age—round and rosy little Jane Thompson, who went, however, to the village school, the church and manse being there, so that Marigold saw little of her save in Sunday school, where they were in the same class. Jane always knew her golden text and memory-verses and catechism-questions perfectly well—one would expect a minister’s daughter to do that. But it didn’t make her any the more interesting, Marigold thought. As for Mr. Thompson, she liked him when she thought about him at all—which was, to tell the truth, only when he called at Cloud of Spruce. She liked the jolly, unministerial twinkle in his eye especially. Now why should Em Stanton be so suddenly interested in her feelings towards Mr. Thompson? A disagreeable little sensation came over Marigold—as if a faint chill wind had blown over the secret places of her soul.
“I like Mr. Thompson very well,” she said stiffly.
Em gave another irritating snigger and exchanged glances with the other girls.
“That is a good thing,” she said significantly.
They expected Marigold to ask why it was a good thing, but she would not. She bit a dainty little crescent out of a hop-and-go-fetch-it and chewed it remotely.
“How will you like him for a stepfather?” said Velma Church slyly.
That particular hop-and-go-fetch-it was never eaten. Marigold laid it down in her box and stared at Velma.
“Didn’t you know?”
“Know what?” said Marigold through pale lips.
“That your mother is going to marry him?”
Marigold wondered what had happened to her—or to the world. Had somebody slapped her in the face? Had the sun been blotted out of the sky?
“I don’t—believe it—” she said helplessly.
“Everybody says so,” said Em triumphantly. “We thought you knew, of course. It’s funny your mother hasn’t told you. Why, he spends half his time at Cloud of Spruce.”
This was, of course, an exaggeration. But Marigold suddenly remembered with horror that Mr. Thompson had made a great many calls lately. Of course Grandmother had had a slight attack of bronchitis; but a dreadful conviction assailed her that Mr. Henry had never called so often, even when Salome had pneumonia. She stared miserably at Em.
“They’re to be married before spring, I heard,” said Fanny Collins. “Your mother was in Summerside the other day helping him pick paper for the manse. Aunt Lindy saw them.”
“My, won’t your nose be out of joint,” said Sally McLean.
“You’ll have to be Marigold Thompson after the wedding,” said Lula Nelson.
“They’ll send you to a boarding-school, true’s you live,” said Dot Church.
None of these jabs produced any sign of life in Marigold. She sat as one stunned. Oh, if she could only be alone—far, far away from these hateful girls—to face this!
“Ma says your mother isn’t a bit suitable for a minister’s wife,” said Velma.
“Too dressy and extravagant,” added Em.
“Aunt Beth says his first wife was the finest woman that ever lived,” said Pet Dixon.
“It’s a wonder your mother would marry a bluenose,” said Janet Irving.
“I guess she has a hard enough time with the old lady,” said Pet.
“Ma says Mrs. Leander has perked up amazing this fall,” said Lula.
The school-bell rang and the ring of malicious faces melted away. Marigold followed them slowly into the school. Her feet were like lead and her spirit that had “flown on feathers” in the morning was heavier still. The world had all at once got so very dark. Oh, could it be true? It couldn’t—Marigold had another awful recollection.
“Mrs. Lesley’s engaged,” Salome had said gently one day the preceding week, as she had shut the door in the face of a too-persistent insurance-man.
Oh, yes, it must be true.
“Salome,” said Marigold that evening, “do you think God ever does things out of spite?”
“Just listen to her,” said Salome. “You mustn’t ask such wicked questions. That’s as bad as anything Gwen Lesley could say.”
“I’m sorry,” said Marigold with more persistence, “but does He?”
“Of course
not,” said Salome. “It’s the Old Gentleman that’s spiteful. What’s the matter with you? You don’t look just right. Have you got a cold?”
Marigold felt that a cold had got her. She was cold and sick to the core of her soul. Everything had been torn out of her little life at once. And not a word could she say to Mother about it.
2
Marigold had thought she was done forever with jealousy when she discovered the truth about Clementine’s feet. And now she was in the grip of a jealousy tenfold worse. That had been merely a ghostly vexation of the soul. This was a burning torment of the heart. Perhaps Marigold was never more bitterly unhappy in all her life than she was during the two months following that day by the brook. Everything fed her suspicion and jealousy. She was filled with hate. She could not enjoy anything because she was hating Mr. Thompson so much. She even hated poor, innocent little Jane Thompson. Would Jane call Mother “mother?” If she did!
November came in, with its dark, dull twilights that made Marigold feel grown up and old—with its mournful winds rustling the dead leaves on its cold, desolate, moonless nights—with its wintry song of old gray fields and the sorrowful gray ghosts of the goldenrod in the fence corners. And Mr. Thompson’s motor-lights burning cheerfully at the gate in so many of its chill evenings. Marigold felt that it was going to be November forever. “Tomorrow” had once been a word of magic to her. Now “tomorrow” would only be more cruel than today.
But it was a torturing satisfaction to hate Mr. Thompson. She felt sure she had always hated him. Lucifer certainly had—and cats knew. You couldn’t hoodwink Lucifer. Nothing about him pleased Marigold any more. She remembered what Lazarre had once said about another Frenchman who had done something that reflected on his race.
“But you surely don’t want to see him hanged,” protested Salome.
“No—no—oh, no, course we not lak to see heem hang,” acknowledged Lazarre, “but we lak to see heem destroyed.”
That exactly expressed Marigold’s feelings towards Mr. Thompson. She would not want to see him hanged but she would cheerfully have had him “destroyed.” It was a certain ephemeral satisfaction to name the big dead Scotch thistle behind the apple-barn “Rev. Mr. Thompson” and cut it down and burn it. She looked at him drinking his tea and wished there were poison in the cup. Not enough to kill him—oh, no, just enough to make him awfully sick and disgusted with the idea of marrying any one. Once, when he grew angry over what someone in the church had done and pounded the table, Marigold had said under her breath to Mother, “See what a husband you’ll have!”