Emily of New Moon
frowning, bristly brows and a stern, unpitying mouth. He had big
pouches under his eyes, and carefully-trimmed black side-whiskers.
Emily decided then and there that she did not admire side-whiskers.
“How do you do, Emily?” he said coldly--and just as coldly he bent
forward and kissed her cheek.
A sudden wave of indignation swept over Emily’s soul. How _dared_ he
kiss her--he had hated her father and disowned her mother! She would
have none of his kisses! Flash-quick, she snatched her handkerchief
from her pocket and wiped her outraged cheek.
“Well--_well_!” exclaimed a disagreeable voice from the other side of
the room.
Uncle Wallace looked as if he would like to say a great many things but
couldn’t think of them. Ellen, with a grunt of despair, propelled Emily
to the next sitter.
“Your Aunt Eva,” she said.
Aunt Eva was sitting huddled up in a shawl. She had the fretful face
of the imaginary invalid. She shook hands with Emily and said nothing.
Neither did Emily.
“Your Uncle Oliver,” announced Ellen.
Emily rather liked Uncle Oliver’s appearance. He was big and fat and
rosy and jolly-looking. She thought she would not mind so much if _he_
kissed her, in spite of his bristly white moustache. But Uncle Oliver
had learned Uncle Wallace’s lesson.
“I’ll give you a quarter for a kiss,” he whispered genially. A joke was
Uncle Oliver’s idea of being kind and sympathetic, but Emily did not
know this, and resented it.
“I don’t _sell_ my kisses,” she said, lifting her head as haughtily as
any Murray of them all could do.
Uncle Oliver chuckled and seemed infinitely amused and not a bit
offended. But Emily heard a sniff across the room.
Aunt Addie was next. She was as fat and rosy and jolly-looking as her
husband and she gave Emily’s cold hand a nice, gentle squeeze.
“How are you, dear?” she said.
That “dear” touched Emily and thawed her a trifle. But the next in
turn froze her up instantly again. It was Aunt Ruth--Emily knew it was
Aunt Ruth before Ellen said so, and she knew it was Aunt Ruth who had
“well--welled” and sniffed. She knew the cold, grey eyes, the prim, dull
brown hair, the short, stout figure, the thin, pinched, merciless mouth.
Aunt Ruth held out the tips of her fingers, but Emily did not take them.
“Shake hands with your Aunt,” said Ellen in an angry whisper.
“She does not want to shake hands with me,” said Emily, distinctly,
“and so I am not going to do it.”
Aunt Ruth folded her scorned hands back on her black silk lap.
“You are a very ill-bred child,” she said; “but of course it was only
what was to be expected.”
Emily felt a sudden compunction. Had she cast a reflection on her
father by her behaviour? Perhaps after all she should have shaken hands
with Aunt Ruth. But it was too late now--Ellen had already jerked her
on.
“This is your Cousin, Mr. James Murray,” said Ellen, in the disgusted
tone of one who gives up something as a bad job and is only anxious to
be done with it.
“Cousin Jimmy--Cousin Jimmy,” said that individual. Emily looked
steadily at him, and liked him at once without any reservations.
He had a little, rosy, elfish face with a forked grey beard; his hair
curled over his head in a most un-Murray-like mop of glossy brown; and
his large, brown eyes were as kind and frank as a child’s. He gave
Emily a hearty handshake, though he looked askance at the lady across
from him while doing it.
“Hello, pussy!” he said.
Emily began to smile at him, but her smile was, as always, so slow in
developing that Ellen had whisked her on before it was in full flower,
and it was Aunt Laura who got the benefit of it. Aunt Laura started and
paled.
“Juliet’s smile!” she said, half under her breath. And again Aunt Ruth
sniffed.
Aunt Laura did not look like any one else in the room. She was almost
pretty, with her delicate features and the heavy coils of pale, sleek,
fair hair, faintly greyed, pinned closely all around her head. But it
was her eyes that won Emily. They were such round blue, _blue_ eyes.
One never quite got over the shock of their blueness. And when she
spoke it was in a beautiful, soft voice.
“You poor, dear, little child,” she said, and put her arm around Emily
for a gentle hug.
Emily returned the hug and had a narrow escape then from letting
the Murrays see her cry. All that saved her was the fact that Ellen
suddenly pushed her on into the corner by the window.
“And this is your Aunt Elizabeth.”
Yes, this was Aunt Elizabeth. No doubt about that--and she had on a
stiff, black satin dress, so stiff and rich that Emily felt sure it
must be her very best. This pleased Emily. Whatever Aunt Elizabeth
thought of her father, at least she had paid him the respect of her
best dress. And Aunt Elizabeth was quite fine looking in a tall,
thin, austere style, with clear-cut features and a massive coronet
of iron-grey hair under her black lace cap. But her eyes, though
steel-blue, were as cold as Aunt Ruth’s, and her long, thin mouth was
compressed severely. Under her cool, appraising glance Emily retreated
into herself and shut the door of her soul. She would have liked to
please Aunt Elizabeth--who was “boss” at New Moon--but she felt she
could not do it.
Aunt Elizabeth shook hands and said nothing--the truth being that she
did not know exactly what to say. Elizabeth Murray would not have felt
“put about” before King or Governor-General. The Murray pride would
have carried her through there; but she did feel disturbed in the
presence of this alien, level-gazing child who had already shown that
she was anything but meek and humble. Though Elizabeth Murray would
never have admitted it, she did not want to be snubbed as Wallace and
Ruth had been.
“Go and sit on the sofa,” ordered Ellen.
Emily sat on the sofa with her eyes cast down, a slight, black,
indomitable little figure. She folded her hands on her lap and crossed
her ankles. They should see she had manners.
Ellen had retreated to the kitchen, thanking her stars that _that_ was
over. Emily did not like Ellen but she felt deserted when Ellen had
gone. She was alone now before the bar of Murray opinion. She would
have given anything to be out of the room. Yet in the back of her mind
a design was forming of writing all about it in the old account book.
It would be interesting. She could describe them all--she knew she
could. She had the very word for Aunt Ruth’s eyes--“stone-grey.” They
were just like stones--as hard and cold and relentless. Then a pang
tore through her heart. Father could never again read what she wrote in
the account book.
Still--she felt that she would rather like to write it all out. How
could she best describe Aunt Laura’s eyes? They were such beautiful
eyes--just to call them “blue” meant nothing--hundreds of people had
blue eyes--oh, she had it--“wells of blue”--that was the very thing.
And then the flash came!
It was the first time since the dreadful night when Ellen had met her
on the doorstep. She had thought it could never come again--and now in
this most unlikely place and time it _had_ come--she had seen, with
other eyes than those of sense, the wonderful world behind the veil.
Courage and hope flooded her cold little soul like a wave of rosy
light. She lifted her head and looked about her undauntedly--“brazenly”
Aunt Ruth afterwards declared.
Yes, she _would_ write them all out in the account book--describe
every last one of them--sweet Aunt Laura, nice Cousin Jimmy, grim old
Uncle Wallace, and moon-faced Uncle Oliver, stately Aunt Elizabeth and
detestable Aunt Ruth.
“She’s a delicate-looking child,” said Aunt Eva, suddenly, in her
fretful, colourless voice.
“Well, what else could you expect?” said Aunt Addie, with a sigh that
seemed to Emily to hold some dire significance. “She’s too pale--if she
had a little colour she wouldn’t be bad-looking.”
“I don’t know who she looks like,” said Uncle Oliver, staring at Emily.
“She is not a Murray, that is plain to be seen,” said Aunt Elizabeth,
decidedly and disapprovingly.
“They are talking about me just as if I wasn’t here,” thought Emily,
her heart swelling with indignation over the indecency of it.
“I wouldn’t call her a Starr either,” said Uncle Oliver. “Seems to me
she’s more like the Byrds--she’s got her grandmother’s hair and eyes.”
“She’s got old George Byrd’s nose,” said Aunt Ruth, in a tone that left
no doubt as to her opinion of George’s nose.
“She’s got her father’s forehead,” said Aunt Eva, also disapprovingly.
“She has her mother’s smile,” said Aunt Laura, but in such a low tone
that nobody heard her.
“And Juliet’s long lashes--hadn’t Juliet very long lashes?” said Aunt
Addie.
Emily had reached the limit of her endurance.
“You make me feel as if I was made up of scraps and patches!” she burst
out indignantly.
The Murrays stared at her. Perhaps they felt some compunction--for,
after all, none of them were ogres and all were human, more or less.
Apparently nobody could think of anything to say, but the shocked
silence was broken by a chuckle from Cousin Jimmy--a low chuckle, full
of mirth and free from malice.
“That’s right, puss,” he said. “Stand up to them--take your own part.”
“Jimmy!” said Aunt Ruth.
Jimmy subsided.
Aunt Ruth looked at Emily.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “I never spoke until I was spoken
to.”
“But if nobody ever spoke until they were spoken to there would be no
conversation,” said Emily argumentatively.
“I never answered back,” Aunt Ruth went on severely. “In those days
little girls were trained properly. We were polite and respectful to
our elders. We were taught our place and we kept it.”
“I don’t believe you ever had much fun,” said Emily--and then gasped in
horror. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud--she had only meant to
_think_ it. But she had such an old habit of thinking aloud to Father.
“Fun!” said Aunt Ruth, in a shocked tone. “I did not think of fun when
I was a little girl.”
“No, I know,” said Emily gravely. Her voice and manner were perfectly
respectful, for she was anxious to atone for her involuntary lapse.
Yet Aunt Ruth looked as if she would like to box her ears. This child
was _pitying_ her--insulting her by being sorry for _her_--because of
her prim, impeccable childhood. It was unendurable--especially in a
Starr. And that abominable Jimmy was chuckling again! Elizabeth should
suppress him!
Fortunately Ellen Greene appeared at this juncture and announced supper.
“You’ve got to wait,” she whispered to Emily. “There ain’t room for you
at the table.”
Emily was glad. She knew she could not eat a bite under the Murray
eyes. Her aunts and uncles filed out stiffly without looking at
her--all except Aunt Laura, who turned at the door and blew her a tiny,
furtive kiss. Before Emily could respond Ellen Greene had shut the door.
Emily was left all alone in the room that was filling with twilight
shadows. The pride that had sustained her in the presence of the
Murrays suddenly failed her and she knew that tears were coming. She
went straight to the closed door at the end of the parlour, opened
it, and went in. Her father’s coffin stood in the centre of the small
room which had been a bedroom. It was heaped with flowers--the Murrays
had done the proper thing in that as in all else. The great anchor of
white roses Uncle Wallace had brought stood up aggressively on the
small table at the head. Emily could not see her father’s face for Aunt
Ruth’s heavily-fragrant pillow of white hyacinths lying on the glass,
and she dared not move it. But she curled herself up on the floor and
laid her cheek against the polished side of the casket. They found her
there asleep when they came in after supper. Aunt Laura lifted her up
and said,