Emily of New Moon
invisible, hovering Tenderness. One couldn’t be afraid or bitter
where love was--and love was everywhere. Father was going through the
door--no, he was going to lift a curtain--she liked _that_ thought
better, because a curtain wasn’t as hard and fast as a door--and he
would slip into that world of which the flash had given her glimpses.
He would be there in its beauty--never very far away from her. She
could bear anything if she could only feel that Father wasn’t very far
away from her--just beyond that wavering curtain.
Douglas Starr held her until she fell asleep; and then in spite of his
weakness he managed to lay her down in her little bed.
“She will love deeply--she will suffer terribly--she will have glorious
moments to compensate--as I have had. As her mother’s people deal with
her, so may God deal with them,” he murmured brokenly.
CHAPTER III
A HOP OUT OF KIN
Douglas Starr lived two weeks more. In after years when the pain
had gone out of their recollection, Emily thought they were the
most precious of her memories. They were beautiful weeks--beautiful
and not sad. And one night, when he was lying on the couch in the
sitting-room, with Emily beside him in the old wing-chair, he went past
the curtain--went so quietly and easily that Emily did not know he was
gone until she suddenly felt the strange _stillness_ of the room--there
was no breathing in it but her own.
“Father--Father!” she cried. Then she screamed for Ellen.
Ellen Greene told the Murrays when they came that Emily had behaved
real well, when you took everything into account. To be sure, she had
cried all night and hadn’t slept a wink; none of the Maywood people who
came flocking kindly in to help could comfort her; but when morning
came her tears were all shed. She was pale and quiet and docile.
“That’s right, now,” said Ellen, “that’s what comes of being properly
prepared. Your pa was so mad at me for warning you that he wasn’t
rightly civil to me since--and him a dying man. But I don’t hold any
grudge against him. _I_ did my duty. Mrs. Hubbard’s fixing up a black
dress for you and it’ll be ready by supper time. Your ma’s people will
be here tonight, so they’ve telegraphed, and I’m bound they’ll find you
looking respectable. They’re well off and they’ll provide for you. Your
pa hasn’t left a cent but there ain’t any debts, I’ll say _that_ for
him. Have you been in to see the body?”
“Don’t call him _that_,” cried Emily, wincing. It was horrible to hear
Father called _that_.
“Why not? If you ain’t the queerest child! He makes a better looking
corpse than I thought he would, what with being so wasted and all. He
was always a pretty man, though too thin.”
“Ellen Greene,” said Emily suddenly, “if you say any more of--those
things--about Father, I will put the black curse on you!”
Ellen Greene stared.
“I don’t know what on earth you mean. But that’s no way to talk to me,
after all I’ve done for you. You’d better not let the Murrays hear you
talking like that or they won’t want much to do with you. The black
curse indeed! Well, here’s gratitude!”
Emily’s eyes smarted. She was just a lonely, solitary little creature
and she felt very friendless. But she was not at all remorseful for
what she had said to Ellen and she was not going to pretend she was.
“Come you here and help me wash these dishes,” ordered Ellen. “It’ll
do you good to have something to take up your mind and then you won’t
be after putting curses on people who have worked their fingers to the
bone for you.”
Emily, with an eloquent glance at Ellen’s hands, went and got the dish
towel.
“Your hands are fat and pudgy,” she said. “The bones don’t show at all.”
“Never mind sassing back! It’s awful, with your poor pa dead in there.
But if your Aunt Ruth takes you she’ll soon cure you of that.”
“Is Aunt Ruth going to take me?”
“I don’t know, but she ought to. She’s a widow with no chick or child,
and well-to-do.”
“I don’t think I want Aunt Ruth to take me,” said Emily deliberately,
after a moment’s reflection.
“Well, _you_ won’t have the choosing likely. You ought to be thankful
to get a home anywhere. Remember you’re not of much importance.”
“I am important to myself,” cried Emily proudly.
“It’ll be some chore to bring _you_ up,” muttered Ellen. “Your Aunt
Ruth is the one to do it, in my opinion. _She_ won’t stand no nonsense.
A fine woman she is and the neatest housekeeper on P. E. Island. You
could eat off her floor.”
“I don’t want to eat off her floor. I don’t care if a floor is dirty as
long as the tablecloth is clean.”
“Well, her tablecloths are clean too, I reckon. She’s got an elegant
house in Shrewsbury with bow windows and wooden lace all round the
roof. It’s very stylish. It would be a fine home for you. She’d learn
you some sense and do you a world of good.”
“I don’t want to learn sense and be done a world of good to,” cried
Emily with a quivering lip. “I--I want somebody to love me.”
“Well, you’ve got to behave yourself if you want people to like you.
You’re not to blame so much--your pa has spoiled you. I told him so
often enough, but he just laughed. I hope he ain’t sorry for it now.
The fact is, Emily Starr, you’re queer, and folks don’t care for queer
children.”
“How am I queer?” demanded Emily.
“You talk queer--and you act queer--and at times you look queer.
And you’re too old for your age--though that ain’t _your_ fault. It
comes of never mixing with other children. I’ve always threaped at
your father to send you to school--learning at home ain’t the same
thing--but he wouldn’t listen to me, of course. I don’t say but what
you are as far along in book learning as you need to be, but what you
want is to learn how to be like other children. In one way it would
be a good thing if your Uncle Oliver would take you, for he’s got a
big family. But he’s not as well off as the rest, so it ain’t likely
he will. Your Uncle Wallace might, seeing as he reckons himself the
head of the family. He’s only got a grown-up daughter. But his wife’s
delicate--or fancies she is.”
“I wish Aunt Laura would take me,” said Emily. She remembered that
Father had said Aunt Laura was something like her mother.
“Aunt Laura! _She_ won’t have no say in it--Elizabeth’s boss at New
Moon. Jimmy Murray runs the farm, but he ain’t quite all there, I’m
told--”
“What part of him isn’t there?” asked Emily curiously.
“Laws, it’s something about his mind, child. He’s a bit simple--some
accident or other when he was a youngster, I’ve heard. It addled his
head, kind of. Elizabeth was mixed up in it some way--I’ve never heard
the rights of it. I don’t reckon the New Moon people will want to be
bothered with you. They’re awful set in their ways. You take my advice
and try to please your Aunt Ruth. Be polite--and well-behaved--mebbe
she’ll take a fancy to you. There, that’s all the dishes. You’d better
go upstairs and be out of the way.”
“Can I take Mike and Saucy Sal?” asked Emily.
“No, you can’t.”
“They’d be company for me,” pleaded Emily.
“Company or no company, you can’t have them. They’re outside and
they’ll stay outside. I ain’t going to have them tracking all over the
house. The floor’s been scrubbed.”
“Why didn’t you scrub the floor when Father was alive?” asked Emily.
“He liked things to be clean. You hardly ever scrubbed it then. Why do
you do it now?”
“Listen to her! Was I to be always scrubbing floors with my rheumatiz?
Get off upstairs and you’d better lie down awhile.”
“I’m going upstairs, but I’m not going to lie down,” said Emily. “I’ve
got a lot of thinking to do.”
“There’s one thing I’d advise you to do,” said Ellen, determined to
lose no chance of doing her duty, “and that is to kneel down and pray
to God to make you a good and respectful and grateful child.”
Emily paused at the foot of the stairs and looked back.
“Father said I wasn’t to have anything to do with your God,” she said
gravely.
Ellen gasped foolishly, but could not think of any reply to this
heathenish statement. She appealed to the universe.
“Did any one ever hear the like!”
“I know what _your_ God is like,” said Emily. “I saw His picture in
that Adam-and-Eve book of yours. He has whiskers and wears a nightgown.
I don’t like Him. But I like Father’s God.”
“And what is your father’s God like, if I may ask?” demanded Ellen
sarcastically.
Emily hadn’t any idea what Father’s God was like, but she was
determined not to be posed by Ellen.
“He is clear as the moon, fair as the sun, and terrible as an army with
banners,” she said triumphantly.
“Well, you’re bound to have the last word, but the Murrays will teach
you what’s what,” said Ellen, giving up the argument. “They’re strict
Presbyterians and won’t hold by any of your father’s awful notions. Get
off upstairs.”
Emily went up to the south room, feeling very desolate.
“There isn’t anybody in the world who loves me now,” she said, as
she curled up on her bed by the window. But she was determined she
would not cry. The Murrays, who had hated her father, should not see
her crying. She felt that she detested them all--except perhaps Aunt
Laura. How very big and empty the world had suddenly become. Nothing
was interesting any more. It did not matter that the little squat
apple-tree between Adam-and-Eve had become a thing of rose-and-snow
beauty--that the hills beyond the hollow were of green silk,
purple-misted--that the daffodils were out in the garden--that the
birches were hung all over with golden tassels--that the Wind Woman was
blowing white young clouds across the sky. None of these things had any
charm or consolation for her now. In her inexperience she believed they
never would have again.
“But I promised Father I’d be brave,” she whispered, clenching her
little fists, “and I will. And I _won’t_ let the Murrays see I’m afraid
of them--I won’t _be_ afraid of them!”
When the far-off whistle of the afternoon train blew beyond the hills,
Emily’s heart began to beat. She clasped her hands and lifted her face.
“Please help me, Father’s God--_not_ Ellen’s God,” she said. “Help me
to be brave and not cry before the Murrays.”
Soon after there was the sound of wheels below--and voices--loud,
decided voices. Then Ellen came puffing up the stairs with the black
dress--a sleazy thing of cheap merino.
“Mrs. Hubbard just got it done in time, thanks be. I wouldn’t ’a’
had the Murrays see you not in black for the world. They can’t say I
haven’t done my duty. They’re all here--the New Moon people and Oliver
and his wife, your Aunt Addie, and Wallace and his wife, your Aunt Eva,
and Aunt Ruth--Mrs. Dutton, _her_ name is. There, you’re ready now.
Come along.”
“Can’t I put my Venetian beads on?” asked Emily.
“Did ever any mortal! Venetian beads with a mourning dress! Shame on
you! Is this a time to be thinking of vanity?”
“It isn’t vanity!” cried Emily. “Father gave me those beads last
Christmas--and I want to show the Murrays that I’ve got _something_!”
“No more of your nonsense! Come along, I say! Mind your
manners--there’s a good deal depends on the impression you make on
them.”
Emily walked rigidly downstairs before Ellen and into the parlour.
Eight people were sitting around it--and she instantly felt the
critical gaze of sixteen stranger eyes. She looked very pale and plain
in her black dress; the purple shadows left by weeping made her large
eyes look too large and hollow. She was desperately afraid, and she
knew it--but she would not let the Murrays see it. She held up her head
and faced the ordeal before her gallantly.
“This,” said Ellen, turning her around by the shoulder, “is your Uncle
Wallace.”
Emily shuddered and put out a cold hand. She did not like Uncle
Wallace--she knew that at once--he was black and grim and ugly, with