“So ... that is how it is?” said Don.
“You knew it, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I ought to have known it,” said Don.
He laughed.
“Life is a joke,” he explained, “and what is a joke for but to be laughed at?”
He looked at Chrissie. She wore a silvery dress and looked like a mermaid just slipped out of the sea. She knew he thought her the loveliest thing in the world. This is one of the things a woman knows without being told.
“Suppose I just said,” went on Don, “‘You have got to marry me and no more nonsense about it’?”
“You wouldn’t like it,” said Chrissie still more frothily.
She knew by his face that she would have to tell the lie she had hoped to escape telling.
“You see ... I like you as a friend but I don’t care anything about you in any other way.”
“And that,” said Don, “is that.”
They went back through the scented moonshine in a very dreadful silence.
But at the corner of the spruce where the road branched off to Miss Merrion’s Don spoke again.
“I think you were lying when you said you didn’t love me. The real reason is ... you think a gardener is not good enough for a governess.”
“Don’t be absurd, Don.”
“So many true things are absurd.”
“Well, I am going to tell you the truth at last. I have been acting a lie all summer. Oh yes, I’m ashamed of it but that doesn’t make matters any better now. I am not a governess. I don’t know how you ever got the idea that I was.”
“I think you know very well ... and I think you intended me to think you were.”
“You could easily have found out by asking somebody.”
“Do you think I was going to discuss you with the people around here?”
“Well, I’m not Chrissie Dunbar either ... at least, I am Phyllis Christine Dunbar Clark ... the daughter of Adam Clark of Ashburn ... though that may not mean anything to you.”
“Oh, yes, it means something,” said Don, slowly and icily. “I know who Adam Clark is ... and what the Clarks are. I seem to have been nicely fooled all round. But then I am so easily fooled. I believe in people so readily. I even believed Mrs. Blythe when she told me ...”
“What did she tell you?” cried Chrissie.
“Never mind. Merely a harmless answer to a harmless question I asked her. Anyone could have told me ... it is common knowledge. It all comes back to the fact that I have been made an easy fool of. So easy. It really couldn’t have been easier, Miss Clark.”
“I am going away tomorrow,” said Chrissie coldly, her ignorance of what Mrs. Blythe could have told him still rankling in her heart. Not that it could have made any difference.
“So this is good-bye?”
“Yes.”
“Good-bye, Miss Clark.”
He was gone ... actually gone. At first she couldn’t believe it. Then she lied again in saying, “Thank Heaven.”
She went up to her room and made up her mind that she would cry till ten o’clock and then put Don Glynne out of her mind forever.
She cried for the specified time ... very softly into her pillow, so that Clack would not hear her.
Then she got up ... picked up a very hideous china cow that Clack, for some unknown reason, had always kept on the dressing table ... some unknown sweetheart of her youth had given it to her ... and threw it out of the window. It made a satisfying crash on the stones of the walk.
Chrissie felt much better.
“In about twenty years or so I’ll be pretty well over it,” she said.
In a cool green dawn Chrissie packed her trunk. She was all ready to go when an amazed Clack came in.
“I’ve stayed out my month, dearest, and now I’m going back to Ashburn. Don’t deny that, under your grief, you are feeling secretly relieved ... you’ve been worrying about Don and me. You needn’t have ... oh, if you knew how much you needn’t have! I hate Don Glynne ... hate him!”
“I wonder,” thought Clack.
Then she added, “Are you going to marry George?”
“No, I am not going to marry George. Aunty and dad may ... and will ... spill emotions and rage over everything ... but nothing will induce me to marry George.”
“I wonder,” thought Clack again.
When Phyllis ... it had to be Phyllis again ... got back to Ashburn Aunty Clark looked at her critically.
“You look very washed out, my dear. I suppose you had a deadly dull time at Memory. If you had done as your father wished this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I had a lovely time at Memory,” said Phyllis. “And such peace and quiet. And I may as well tell you, Aunty dear, that I am not going to marry George Fraser and you are not to mention his name to me again. I am not going to marry anybody.”
“Very well, dear,” said Aunty Clark, so meekly that Phyllis looked at her in alarm. Wasn’t the old dear feeling well?
Phyllis went to town and bought a gorgeous new dress ... a divine thing, really, of black net with rows upon rows of tiny pleated frills around the skirt and a huge red rose on its breast ... red as the roses she had helped to spray in the Merrion gardens.
She did not notice that the clerk looked a little queer when she told him to charge it.
She wore it that night to the dinner party Adam Clark was giving some important visiting Englishman and sparkled impudently all through the meal.
“My daughter has just been spending a month with her old nurse in the country,” apologized Adam Clark, who thought she was really going too far. “This is ... ahem ... her reaction against its monotony.”
Monotony! Peace and quiet! Ashburn seemed horribly dull, Phyllis reflected at her room window that night. Horribly peaceful ... horribly quiet. With a ghostly abominable moon looking down at you!
That moon would be shining somewhere on Don. What was he doing? Dancing at the Walk Inn with some other girl probably. Only remembering her with scorn and hatred because she had deceived him.
Well, did it matter? Not at all.
The Memory interlude was over. Definitely over. And George was just as definitely disposed of. Horrible, fat George!
She would never see tall, lean Don again but at least she would not have to marry pudgy George. As for Uncle Edward’s millions ...
“I’d rather keep boarders to help Don out than spend millions with George,” she thought violently and ridiculously.
But it was absurd to think of marrying a gardener.
Besides, she no longer had the chance of doing it. Aunty Clark and dad must have resigned themselves to her refusal of George. Neither of them had mentioned his name or the trip to the Coast since her return.
Then she heard it ... Don’s whistle ... just as she had heard it so often in the mornings at Memory!
It came from the shrubbery at the back of Ashburn. Don was there ... she hadn’t the least doubt of it ... hate her he might ... despise her he might ... but he was there ... calling her ... calling the heart out of her body.
Of course she had lied when she said she didn’t love him. And he hadn’t believed her either. Thank God he hadn’t believed her. Love him! She’d show him whether she loved him or not. He might just be trying to get even with her but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that he was there.
And in the midst of it all how she wished she hadn’t broken poor, dear Aunty Clack’s china cow.
She flew downstairs and out of the side door and across the dew-wet lawn, her dress trailing in the grass. But it didn’t matter about dresses. As a gardener’s wife she wouldn’t need dinner dresses ... or would she? Perhaps even gardeners had parties of their own. But that didn’t matter either. She would be happy in a dinnerless desert with Don and wretched in Paradise without him.
They didn’t say a word when they met ... not for a long time. They were otherwise occupied. And they were the only two real people in the world.
But at last ...<
br />
“So you were lying,” said Don.
“Yes,” said Chrissie ... always Chrissie now. Never again Phyllis. “And I think you knew it.”
“After I cooled down I did,” said Don. “Do you know where little girls go who tell lies?”
“Yes ... to heaven. Because that’s where I am now.”
“If I hadn’t come what would you have done?”
“Gone back to Memory. Oh, that Englishman! He was so dull. Even gooseberry George would have been better.”
“Do you think you will ever be sorry you didn’t marry George?”
“Never.”
There was another interlude.
“I’ll always be sure of a job as a gardener,” said Don. “But how will your family feel about it?”
“They will never forgive me ... at least Aunty ... but that doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, I think they’ll forgive you,” said Don. “I’m not really worrying over their forgiveness. The question that bothers me is ... will you forgive me?”
“Forgive you! For what?”
“For deceiving you so shamelessly.”
“Deceiving me? What on earth do you mean?”
“Chrissie, darling, put your head down on my shoulder ... so ... and don’t look at me or say one word until I’ve finished. I’m not Don Glynne ...”
“Not Don Glynne!” gasped Chrissie, disobeying him from the beginning. “Then ... who are you?”
“Well ... at least ... my mother’s name was Glynne ... I’m ... I’m ... my whole name is George Donald Fraser ... no, keep still ... I came east to see you ... to tell you frankly I wasn’t marrying for money. I got here just as you got into the car to drive away. I saw you ... I saw you. Your lashes keeled me over. I decided then and there to follow you ... and I did. I ... I was lucky enough to get the job at Miss Merrion’s. I am a good gardener. It’s always been my hobby. Old Uncle Edward had the finest garden at the Coast. I took a course in gardening at the university. And I won the Premier’s cup for a bowl of roses at the Flower Show last year. Some day I’m going to have gardens that will make Miss Merrion’s seem like a cottage plot. You’ll help me weed them, won’t you, darling? No, not yet. You must forgive me ... after all, I just did what you did yourself. The pot shouldn’t hold a grudge against the kettle. Now?”
Chrissie snuggled a bit closer if that was possible.
“Things like this simply can’t happen,” she said. “They must be arranged by Providence. But it’s rather odious ... really ... to think how pleased Aunty will be!”
Don kissed her hair and the tips of her ears. He knew he was forgiven but he knew there was one thing he had not told her ... one thing he must never tell her ... one thing that she would never forgive. He must never tell her that he had gone into Ashburn after she had driven away and that the whole plot was a concoction of her aunt’s, with her father’s consent. Old Mrs. Clark had been a school friend of Jane Merrion’s.
Clack had been quite correct on her estimate of old Mrs. Clark.
~ Part Two ~
Walter Blythe was the poet of the family at Ingleside.
His mother sympathized with his ambitions, the rest looked upon it as “Walter’s fad,” and Susan Baker disapproved of it darkly.
The First World War came. All the Blythe boys went and Walter was killed at Courcelette. He had destroyed most of his poems before going overseas but left a few with his mother.
Mrs. Blythe occasionally read some of her own verses to the family in the evenings and now she included one of Walter’s now and then, partly by way of keeping his memory keenly alive in the hearts of his brothers and sisters and partly to please Susan, who now treasured every scrap of Walter’s scribblings.
Another Ingleside Twilight
INTERLUDE
Today a wind of dream
Blew down the raucous street,
I heard a hidden stream
Laugh somewhere at my feet.
I felt a mist of rain
Trembling against my face ...
I knew that wind had lain
In many a haunted place.
I saw a sea-beach dim
By many a silver dune,
Where sandy hollows brim
With magic of the moon.
I saw a shadowy ship
Upon her seaward way,
And felt upon my lip
A kiss of yesterday.
I walked again beside
The dark enchantress, Night,
Until the dawn’s white pride
Brought back a lost delight.
O wind of dream, blow still,
For I would have it stay ...
That ghostly pressure sweet and chill,
That kiss of yesterday.
Walter Blythe
JEM BLYTHE:- “I wonder if poor Walter ever kissed a girl in his life.”
FAITH MEREDITH, quietly:-“Yes, he kissed Una goodbye before he went away.”
RILLA BLYTHE:- “But this was written before that so it must have been a dream kiss.”
SUSAN BAKER, sadly:- “I remember the day he writ this, over there in the maple grove. I scolded him for wasting his time when Ian Flagg was beating him in the arithmetic exams. Oh, if I hadn’t scolded him!”
NAN BLYTHE:- “Don’t cry, Susan. We all do things we wish we hadn’t. I used to tease Walter about writing poetry, too.”
COME, LET US GO
Friendly meadows touched with spring,
Full of shadows that run and swing,
Little white sheep on the greening hills,
Gardens that beckon with daffodils,
Gardens sweet and old and dear
Loved for many a vanished year.
Pine trees dim in the morning mist,
Seaside valleys of amethyst,
Gypsy breezes that purr and croon,
By noontide river or twilight dune,
And a silent place by a brackened stream
That harbours an unforgotten dream.
A path that is charted by silver stars
Down to the shadowy pasture bars,
Along where the moon-white birches shine
Like silver ladies all fair and fine,
To a waiting house where I’m sure I may
Live for a while in yesterday.
And I will catch as I softly fare,
The breath of the violets waiting there,
I will hear as I pause at the open door
The call of the waves on the ghostly shore,
And I know right well that I shall not miss
On my face the sting of the sea-wind’s kiss.
The gentle night will be kind to me,
The ivied porch will be motherly,
By the old stone step and the sagging sill
The hopes of youth are lingering still,
And I shall find when that step is crossed
A secret of peace that the world has lost.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “You were thinking of the old days in Avonlea when you wrote that, weren’t you, Anne?”
ANNE:- “Partly ... and partly of the secret of peace the world has lost. Nothing has been the same since the war, Gilbert. Nothing will ever be the same again.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “No. But we know our son gave his life for his country. And we still have peace and love at Ingleside, dearest.”
A JUNE DAY
Come, ’tis a day that was born for dreaming,
A day in June for adventurers.
We will have done with worry and scheming,
Here, where a west wind purrs;
We will forget we are tired and old,
We will forget our plots for gold,
We will just remember the little wild rose,
And the lure of a cloud that comes and goes.
We will just remember the nested meadow,
And the wonderful peace of the high blue skies,
The leaves’ green flicker, the wood-fern’s shadow,
Th
e moths and the butterflies.
We will drive out fear and take hope instead,
We will wander just where our feet are led,
Taking no heed for roof or bar,
Till we keep an old tryst with the evening star.
Good-bye for a day to the bitter striving,
The fret and corrosion of desk and mart,
Ours will be gypsy honey for hiving,
And ours the childhood heart.
Ours to loiter by brooks empearled,
As if there were never a clock in the world,
Ours to march with the windy firs ...
We are June-time adventurers!
Walter Blythe
DR. BLYTHE, thinking:- “Commonplace verse ... but the boy had something in him. He always seemed older than his years. Why is it that young people always like to write poetry about being old and tired? Walter had all his mother’s love for nature.”
SUSAN BAKER, thinking:- “I wish, too, that there was never a clock in the world. And I wish I’d never opened my mouth to scold Walter for writing poetry.”
JEM BLYTHE (aside to Faith Meredith):- “Mother reads a poem of Walter’s over to us every now and then. I wonder if it is good for her.”
FAITH (aside):- “Yes, it is. It helps an old ache. Do you think if you hadn’t come back from that German prison I wouldn’t have cherished and reread every letter you ever wrote me?”
WIND OF AUTUMN
I walked with Wind of Autumn across the upland airy,
Where canny eyes might hope to spy the little Men in Green,
By road of firs that should have led right on to land of faery,
Enchanted lands the sun and moon between.
I might have met the Olden Gods in those wild friendly places,
I think they peeped at me and laughed as I went on my way,
The little fauns and satyrs hid in all the haunted places