“When?”
“Oh, before he came here. They only moved to this church last spring. He says he can lick his weight in wildcats. And he took the diploma for learning the whole Shorter Catechism by heart.”
Marigold felt rather bored with this prodigy.
“What does he look like?”
“He’s handsome. His eyes are just like an archangel’s,” said Amy fervently.
“How do you know? Did you ever see an archangel’s eyes?” demanded Marigold relentlessly.
2
The choir was singing “Joy to the World” and Marigold was thinking of “Tidal, king of nations,” in the chapter the minister had just read. That phrase always fascinated her whenever she heard it. There was something so mysterious about it. Tidal, king of nations, was so much grander than just Tidal, king of one little country. Splendid. Triumphal. An entrancing figure of royalty ruling over hundreds of subject peoples. And just then Marigold saw Hip and thought no more forever of Tidal, king of nations.
He was sitting right across from her in the corner seat, staring at her. He continued to stare at her. Marigold felt that glance on her inescapably. She tried to look away—she fought against looking back—but in the end her eyes always returned to the corner seat to find his eyes still intent on her. Eyes can say so much in a second. Marigold felt very queer.
And, oh, he was handsome. Just like the slim princeling of fairy-tales. Brown curls shining in the lamplight. Cheeks rose-red under golden-tan. Dark-blue, romantic eyes. She felt that she would die of shame and humiliation when an old lady behind her suddenly held a peppermint out to her over the back of the seat. Marigold had to take it—and could not help looking at Hip as she did it. She could not—would not—did not eat it, but she felt as if Hip must see it all the time, moist and sticky in her warm, unwilling hand, and despise her for a baby who had to be kept good in church with peppermints. Marigold, to her dying day, never quite forgave Aunt Lucy Bates, who thought she had done a kind act to Lorraine Winthrop’s little girl.
Marigold found her legs were trembling when she got up for the last hymn. Her face was burning under Hip’s seemingly mesmerized eyes. She was sure every living soul in the church must notice him.
One at least had. Marigold met Caroline on the porch, going out, and it seemed to her that Caroline was a bit cool.
“Did you see Hip Price?” asked Caroline.
“Hip Price?” Marigold was not without the feminine knack of protective coloration. “Who is he?”
“That boy in the corner seat. I saw him staring at you. He always stares like that at a new girl.”
“Sly thing,” thought Marigold—not meaning Hip.
Amy did not go back with them. She was staying all night with June. So Marigold walked home alone with Aunt Irene. Not altogether alone.
On the other side of the road, until they reached the pasture gate, stalked a slender figure with a smart cap worn a bit rakishly on the back of its head. The figure whistled The Long, Long Trail. Marigold knew that it was Hip Price and she also knew that the manse was away on the other side of the church. It is terrific what damsels of eleven do know sometimes. But she was—almost—glad when they left the road and started up over the fields.
As they walked along Marigold was not thinking of the charm of starlit evening or the wind in the trees or the pixie lantern-shadows. I shall not tell you what she was thinking of. I will only state that next day she scorched a panful of cookies she had been left to watch because she was thinking of the same thing. Aunt Irene was annoyed. A Cloud of Spruce Lesley was supposed never to be careless. But Marigold with shining eyes and a dreamy smile lingering on her lips, did not worry about the cookies at all.
3
During the following three weeks life was a thing of rainbows for our Marigold. She had a delightful secret—a secret that nobody knew. Even when she wrote “everything” to Mother she did not tell her about Hip Price. Though she put an extra row of kisses in to make up for it.
The morning after that memorable Sunday evening, when Marigold went down to the end of the lane to mail Mother’s letter, she found a letter in the box addressed to herself. Marigold trembled again—a delicious trembling. She sat down among the goldenrod under a friendly little spruce-tree and read it. It was a very wonderful epistle. Ask Marigold. To be told she was beautiful! Once in a while she had heard a hint that she was pretty. But beautiful! And what did it matter that he spelled “angel” angle? Angel really was a very tricky word. Anybody might spell it wrong. Besides, doesn’t everybody know that it doesn’t make a mite of difference how a love-letter is spelled? He signed himself “fondestly yours” with lots of flourishes and curlicues. And there was a little x for a P. S.
Marigold’s cheeks were so rosy when she went back to the house that Aunt Irene thought the child was picking up wonderfully. Marigold slept that night with Hip’s letter under her pillow. And found another in the mailbox the next morning! In which he asked her if she were going to June Page’s party Thursday evening and would she wear the blue dress she had worn to church? Would she? She had been wondering which of her two “good” dresses became her most and had been dangerously near selecting the green. And he wrote, “When the moon rises tonight think of me and I’ll think of you.” Marigold hunted out the time of moonrise in the almanac. Really, the moons of Owl’s Hill were wonderful. Cloud of Spruce never had such moons. And would any other boy she knew ever think of saying a thing like that? Not in a thousand years.
Hip cornered her off at the party and asked her why she hadn’t answered his letters. Marigold didn’t think she could without Aunt Irene knowing.
“But you don’t mind my writing them?” asked Hip softly—tenderly. Looking at her as if his very life depended on her answer. Marigold, dyed in blushes, confessed she didn’t. Whereupon Hip surveyed the room with the air of a conqueror. When called upon to recite he gave “Casabianca” in ringing tones, standing all beautiful and brave as the immortal hero. A horrible thought suddenly arose in Marigold’s mind. Did he know he was all beautiful and brave? She strangled and buried the hateful intruder instantly.
Hip was certainly captivating. He said such smart up-to-date things like “attaboy” and “apple-sauce” and “I’ll tell the world!”—looking at Marigold to see if she admired his smartness. And he walked home with her—not exactly from the house. He joined her on the road, having dashed across lots. And at the gate of Owl’s Hill lane he took her hand and kissed it. Marigold had read of young knights doing that but that it should happen to her!
It was thrilling to hear of all the deeds of high emprise Hip had done. That he had once saved a little girl from being burned to death—Amy must have got it twisted—that he often climbed to the very top of telegraph-poles—that he had once stopped a team of runaway horses by his own unaided prowess—that he would, on occasion, really relish a fight with blood-maddened tigers. As for sea-serpents, take Hip’s word for it, they ate out of his hand.
“I don’t believe he’s done all the wonderful things he’s always talking about,” Amy said scornfully once.
Marigold knew what that meant. Just sheer jealousy. And of course it was also jealousy that led Caroline to say that Hip had bitten his sister when he was four years old and left open old Mr. Simon’s gate on purpose so that the pigs could get into the garden. Marigold did not believe a word of it.
She had such a funny feeling when other people pronounced his name. It was thrilling to go to church and listen to Mr. Price preaching. His father. Marigold hated old Tom Ainsworth for sleeping in church. And there was one almost painfully rapturous day when she and Amy were invited to the manse to tea. To eat a meal at the same table with Hip was something in the nature of a rite, with the big maple rustling outside the window on which, Hip told her, he had cut their intertwined initials. How bitterly she resented it when his mother told him to keep his elbow off the table
and not talk with his mouth full!
And every morning that romantic journey to the mailbox to find a letter—a delightful letter. There were times when Marigold felt, though she would not admit it even to herself, that she really liked Hip’s letters much better than Hip himself.
In one he told her she was his Little Queen. And he had written that especial sentence in red ink—or—was it?—could it be—Marigold had heard of such things. She pitied every other girl, especially the consecrated Caroline, and thought of Hip every time the moon rose or didn’t rise.
“You are so different from everybody else,” Hip told her. Clever Hip.
4
The course of true love even at eleven never runs smooth. There came a dreadful day when she and Hip almost quarreled. Marigold had been told a certain shameful little secret by Netta Caroll about Em Dawes. Em Dawes was living with an aunt down in the village because her father and mother were divorced, true’s you live. Netta had heard it over in Halifax and cross your heart you were never to tell a word of it. Marigold promised solemnly she would never tell. And then Hip, with his uncanny nose for secrets, discovered that Marigold had one and coaxed her to tell him.
Marigold wanted to tell him—yearned to tell him—felt her heart must really break if she didn’t tell him. But there was her solemn promise. Lesleys did not break their solemn promises. It was a custom of their caste. Hip grew angry when he found her so unexpectedly unmalleable, and when anger gave him nothing—except perhaps the look in Marigold’s face—he became sad and reproachful. She didn’t like him a bit, of course, when she wouldn’t tell him what she and Netta had been whispering about that time.
“If you don’t tell me,” said Hip earnestly, “I’ll go and drown myself. When you see me lying dead you’ll wish you’d told me.”
Hip rather overreached himself there, because Marigold didn’t believe at all that there was the slightest fear of his drowning himself. She stuck gallantly to her determination not to tell, despite his pleadings. And then the next afternoon, when it became known that Hip Price had disappeared and could not be found anywhere, though everybody in the community was madly searching for him, Marigold thought she must die. Had Hip actually drowned himself because he thought she did not like him? Had he? The dread was intolerable. How terrible to live all your life remembering that someone had drowned himself because of you! Who could support such a prospect?
“I heard a dog howling under my window last night,” sobbed Amy. “Mother says that’s a sure sign of death.”
“That was only old Lazy Murphy’s dog. Surely you don’t think he knows anything,” protested Marigold. She was resentful of Amy’s crying. What right had Amy to cry about Hip? She, Marigold, could not cry. Her dread went too deep for tears.
“His mother believes he’s kidnapped,” said Amy, hunting for a dry spot in her handkerchief. “She’s just been going from one fainting fit to another all day. But some say he was seen going down the river in that leaky old boat of Shanty George’s. Certain death, Shanty George says it was. Oh, I won’t sleep a wink tonight.”
Then came Caroline and June, and Caroline and June were also in tears—which did not improve the looks of either of them. Or their tempers, evidently. Caroline was shrewish.
“I don’t see what you’re crying about, June Page. He wasn’t your minister’s son. You’re a Baptist.”
“I guess I’ve as good a right to cry as you,” retorted June. “Hip was my friend—my special friend. He thought more of me than of any girl in Owl’s Hill. He’s told me so dozens of times. He told me I was different from anybody he’d ever met. Cry! I will cry. Just you try to stop me.”
An unbecoming red flush had risen in Caroline’s pale face.
“Did Hip Price really tell you that?” she asked in a queer voice. Marigold, in the background, stood as if turned to the proverbial stone. Amy had put her handkerchief in her pocket.
“Yes, he did. And wrote it. I’ve had a letter from him every day for weeks.”
“So have I,” said Caroline.
June in her turn stopped crying and glared at Caroline.
“You haven’t.”
“I have. I can show them to you. And he told me I was different from any one he ever knew and that he couldn’t help being crazy about me.”
“He wrote me that, too,” said June.
They looked at each other. No more tears were shed for Hip—nor would be if he were lying forty fathoms deep.
“Did he ever kiss your hand?” demanded Caroline.
June giggled—a giggle that seemed to make everything ugly. “More than that,” she said significantly.
Marigold involuntarily brushed something from her hand. The power of thought had returned to her. She was very thankful now that she hadn’t been able to cry. There were no stains on her face. Calmly, proudly as any Lesley of them all, she drained her cup of wormwood and gall.
June began to cry again—in self-pity this time. The Pages, Marigold reflected disdainfully, had no pride.
“He called me his Little Queen,” she sobbed, “and said I had a crown of golden hair.”
To call June Page’s hair golden when it was just tow-colored! And fancy a Little Queen with a nose like a dab of putty! Oh, it was to laugh.
Caroline did not cry. But she looked very limp. She had been also Little-Queened. “And he said my eyes were so sweet and provoking.”
To think of those round pale eyes of Caroline’s being called sweet and provoking! Oh, of course Hip had left old Simon’s gate open and bit his sister—bit her frequently. Not a doubt of it.
“He’s just been a regular mean two-faced deceitful little sneak,” said June violently, “and I hope he is drowned, I do.”
“I didn’t think a minister’s son would do that,” said Caroline mournfully. There was something especially terrible about a minister’s son doing a thing like that. Whom could one trust if not a minister’s son?
“I believe they are the worst sometimes,” said June. “Well, you can have him.”
“I don’t want him!” said Caroline superbly, remembering at last that she was consecrated.
They went away on that note. Amy looked guiltily at Marigold.
“I—I wasn’t going to tell them,” she said, “but I got letters from Hip, too. Lovely letters. I can’t believe he didn’t mean them. Of course he was just fooling them but—”
“He was fooling everybody,” said Marigold shortly. “And we needn’t worry over his being drowned. He’ll turn up safe and sound. I’m going home to write to Mother.”
Marigold did write to Mother—not telling her quite everything, however. But first she burned a packet of schoolboy love-letters. She felt as if she had been mixed up in something very grimy. And she suddenly felt a great longing to be sitting on the old wharf below Cloud of Spruce, watching the boats coming in and feeling the clear, fresh sea-breeze from the dunes blowing in her face. Oh, how she hated and despised Hip Price.
But what was it Old Grandmother had said once?—That it was the hardest thing in the world to be just.
“I guess I was as much to blame as Hip,” admitted Marigold candidly.
All that saved her self-respect was the fact that she had not told him The Secret.
5
Hip turned up safe and sound next day. He had gone for a day’s ride with Lazy Murphy’s son-the-peddler and Lazy Murphy’s horse had taken sick eighteen miles away, in a place where there was no telephone. So Owl’s Hill folks gave up searching and Mrs. Price recovered from her fainting fits and Hip came straight up to Owl’s Hill to see Marigold. It was rather unfortunate that Hip should have selected that day for appearing out in kilts. He had thin legs.
“Come on for a walk down to the pasture-spring,” he whispered.
“No, thank you, Howard.”
Hip had never heard that an enchantment is at an
end as soon as the enchanter is called by name. But he knew there was something wrong with Marigold, standing there, the very incarnation of disdain.
“What’s the matter? You don’t look as if you were glad to see me back. And I was thinking of you every minute I was away.”
“And about June and Caroline, too?” asked Marigold sweetly, as one who knew her Hip at last.
For the first time since she had known him Hip lost face.
“So they’ve blabbed,” he said. “Why, I was just seeing how much they’d believe. It was different with you—honest—You’ve got them skinned a mile.”
“I think you’d better go home,” said Marigold sarcastically. “Your mother may be anxious about you. She might even take a fainting-fit. Good-bye.”
Marigold went away stiffly, regally, without a backward glance. Hip had not drowned himself in despair over her lack of confidence, but he was for her not only dead but, as the French would say, very dead.
“He was never very int’resting, anyhow—not even as much as Johnsy,” she thought, suddenly clear-sighted.
It seemed years since she had left home. At the end of that long red road were Mother and Sylvia and Cloud of Spruce. She felt clean once more.
“I guess it was only red ink after all,” she said.
CHAPTER 19
How It Came to Pass
1
When Marigold had gone to visit Aunt Anne and then Aunt Irene, something was started. Grandmother gloomily said,
“They’ll all be wanting her now,” and her prediction was speedily fulfilled. Aunt Marcia wanted her share of Marigold, too.
“If Anne and Irene Winthrop could have her I think I should too. She’s never spent a night in my house—my favorite brother’s child,” she said reproachfully.