Rainbow Valley
Susan, white with indignation, heard Miss Cornelia’s story of Mary
Vance’s exploit.
“Oh, the hussy—oh, the littly hussy!” she said, as she carried Rilla
away for purification and comfort.
“This thing has gone far enough, Anne dearie,” said Miss Cornelia
resolutely. “Something must be done. _Who_ is this creature who is
staying at the manse and where does she come from?”
“I understood she was a little girl from over-harbour who was visiting
at the manse,” answered Anne, who saw the comical side of the codfish
chase and secretly thought Rilla was rather vain and needed a lesson or
two.
“I know all the over-harbour families who come to our church and that
imp doesn’t belong to any of them,” retorted Miss Cornelia. “She is
almost in rags and when she goes to church she wears Faith Meredith’s
old clothes. There’s some mystery here, and I’m going to investigate
it, since it seems nobody else will. I believe she was at the bottom of
their goings-on in Warren Mead’s spruce bush the other day. Did you
hear of their frightening his mother into a fit?”
“No. I knew Gilbert had been called to see her, but I did not hear what
the trouble was.”
“Well, you know she has a weak heart. And one day last week, when she
was all alone on the veranda, she heard the most awful shrieks of
‘murder’ and ‘help’ coming from the bush—positively frightful sounds,
Anne dearie. Her heart gave out at once. Warren heard them himself at
the barn, and went straight to the bush to investigate, and there he
found all the manse children sitting on a fallen tree and screaming
‘murder’ at the top of their lungs. They told him they were only in fun
and didn’t think anyone would hear them. They were just playing Indian
ambush. Warren went back to the house and found his poor mother
unconscious on the veranda.”
Susan, who had returned, sniffed contemptuously.
“I think she was very far from being unconscious, Mrs. Marshall
Elliott, and that you may tie to. I have been hearing of Amelia
Warren’s weak heart for forty years. She had it when she was twenty.
She enjoys making a fuss and having the doctor, and any excuse will
do.”
“I don’t think Gilbert thought her attack very serious,” said Anne.
“Oh, that may very well be,” said Miss Cornelia. “But the matter has
made an awful lot of talk and the Meads being Methodists makes it that
much worse. What is going to become of those children? Sometimes I
can’t sleep at nights for thinking about them, Anne dearie. I really do
question if they get enough to eat, even, for their father is so lost
in dreams that he doesn’t often remember he has a stomach, and that
lazy old woman doesn’t bother cooking what she ought. They are just
running wild and now that school is closing they’ll be worse than
ever.”
“They do have jolly times,” said Anne, laughing over the recollections
of some Rainbow Valley happenings that had come to her ears. “And they
are all brave and frank and loyal and truthful.”
“That’s a true word, Anne dearie, and when you come to think of all the
trouble in the church those two tattling, deceitful youngsters of the
last minister’s made, I’m inclined to overlook a good deal in the
Merediths.”
“When all is said and done, Mrs. Dr. dear, they are very nice
children,” said Susan. “They have got plenty of original sin in them
and that I will admit, but maybe it is just as well, for if they had
not they might spoil from over-sweetness. Only I do think it is not
proper for them to play in a graveyard and that I will maintain.”
“But they really play quite quietly there,” excused Anne. “They don’t
run and yell as they do elsewhere. Such howls as drift up here from
Rainbow Valley sometimes! Though I fancy my own small fry bear a
valiant part in them. They had a sham battle there last night and had
to ‘roar’ themselves, because they had no artillery to do it, so Jem
says. Jem is passing through the stage where all boys hanker to be
soldiers.”
“Well, thank goodness, he’ll never be a soldier,” said Miss Cornelia.
“I never approved of our boys going to that South African fracas. But
it’s over, and not likely anything of the kind will ever happen again.
I think the world is getting more sensible. As for the Merediths, I’ve
said many a time and I say it again, if Mr. Meredith had a wife all
would be well.”
“He called twice at the Kirks’ last week, so I am told,” said Susan.
“Well,” said Miss Cornelia thoughtfully, “as a rule, I don’t approve of
a minister marrying in his congregation. It generally spoils him. But
in this case it would do no harm, for every one likes Elizabeth Kirk
and nobody else is hankering for the job of stepmothering those
youngsters. Even the Hill girls balk at that. They haven’t been found
laying traps for Mr. Meredith. Elizabeth would make him a good wife if
he only thought so. But the trouble is, she really is homely and, Anne
dearie, Mr. Meredith, abstracted as he is, has an eye for a
good-looking woman, man-like. He isn’t _so_ other-worldly when it comes
to that, believe _me_.”
“Elizabeth Kirk is a very nice person, but they do say that people have
nearly frozen to death in her mother’s spare-room bed before now, Mrs.
Dr. dear,” said Susan darkly. “If I felt I had any right to express an
opinion concerning such a solemn matter as a minister’s marriage I
would say that I think Elizabeth’s cousin Sarah, over-harbour, would
make Mr. Meredith a better wife.”
“Why, Sarah Kirk is a Methodist,” said Miss Cornelia, much as if Susan
had suggested a Hottentot as a manse bride.
“She would likely turn Presbyterian if she married Mr. Meredith,”
retorted Susan.
Miss Cornelia shook her head. Evidently with her it was, once a
Methodist, always a Methodist.
“Sarah Kirk is entirely out of the question,” she said positively. “And
so is Emmeline Drew—though the Drews are all trying to make the match.
They are literally throwing poor Emmeline at his head, and he hasn’t
the least idea of it.”
“Emmeline Drew has no gumption, I must allow,” said Susan. “She is the
kind of woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, who would put a hot-water bottle in your
bed on a dog-night and then have her feelings hurt because you were not
grateful. And her mother was a very poor housekeeper. Did you ever hear
the story of her dishcloth? She lost her dishcloth one day. But the
next day she found it. Oh, yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, she found it, in the
goose at the dinner-table, mixed up with the stuffing. Do you think a
woman like that would do for a minister’s mother-in-law? I do not. But
no doubt I would be better employed in mending little Jem’s trousers
than in talking gossip about my neighbours. He tore them something
scandalous last night in Rainbow Valley.”
“Where is Walter?” asked Anne.
“He is up to no good, I fear, Mrs. Dr. dear. He is in the attic writing
something in an exercise book. And he has not done as well in
arithmetic this term as he should, so the teacher tells me. Too well I
know the reason why. He has been writing silly rhymes when he should
have been doing his sums. I am afraid that boy is going to be a poet,
Mrs. Dr. dear.”
“He is a poet now, Susan.”
“Well, you take it real calm, Mrs. Dr. dear. I suppose it is the best
way, when a person has the strength. I had an uncle who began by being
a poet and ended up by being a tramp. Our family were dreadfully
ashamed of him.”
“You don’t seem to think very highly of poets, Susan,” said Anne,
laughing.
“Who does, Mrs. Dr. dear?” asked Susan in genuine astonishment.
“What about Milton and Shakespeare? And the poets of the Bible?”
“They tell me Milton could not get along with his wife, and Shakespeare
was no more than respectable by times. As for the Bible, of course
things were different in those sacred days—although I never had a high
opinion of King David, say what you will. I never knew any good to come
of writing poetry, and I hope and pray that blessed boy will outgrow
the tendency. If he does not—we must see what emulsion of cod-liver oil
will do.”
CHAPTER VIII.
MISS CORNELIA INTERVENES
Miss Cornelia descended upon the manse the next day and
cross-questioned Mary, who, being a young person of considerable
discernment and astuteness, told her story simple and truthfully, with
an entire absence of complaint or bravado. Miss Cornelia was more
favourably impressed than she had expected to be, but deemed it her
duty to be severe.
“Do you think,” she said sternly, “that you showed your gratitude to
this family, who have been far too kind to you, by insulting and
chasing one of their little friends as you did yesterday?”
“Say, it was rotten mean of me,” admitted Mary easily. “I dunno what
possessed me. That old codfish seemed to come in so blamed handy. But I
was awful sorry—I cried last night after I went to bed about it, honest
I did. You ask Una if I didn’t. I wouldn’t tell her what for ‘cause I
was ashamed of it, and then she cried, too, because she was afraid
someone had hurt my feelings. Laws, _I_ ain’t got any feelings to hurt
worth speaking of. What worries me is why Mrs. Wiley hain’t been
hunting for me. It ain’t like her.”
Miss Cornelia herself thought it rather peculiar, but she merely
admonished Mary sharply not to take any further liberties with the
minister’s codfish, and went to report progress at Ingleside.
“If the child’s story is true the matter ought to be looked into,” she
said. “I know something about that Wiley woman, believe _me_. Marshall
used to be well acquainted with her when he lived over-harbour. I heard
him say something last summer about her and a home child she had—likely
this very Mary-creature. He said some one told him she was working the
child to death and not half feeding and clothing it. You know, Anne
dearie, it has always been my habit neither to make nor meddle with
those over-harbour folks. But I shall send Marshall over to-morrow to
find out the rights of this if he can. And _then_ I’ll speak to the
minister. Mind you, Anne dearie, the Merediths found this girl
literally starving in James Taylor’s old hay barn. She had been there
all night, cold and hungry and alone. And us sleeping warm in our beds
after good suppers.”
“The poor little thing,” said Anne, picturing one of her own dear
babies, cold and hungry and alone in such circumstances. “If she has
been ill-used, Miss Cornelia, she mustn’t be taken back to such a
place. _I_ was an orphan once in a very similar situation.”
“We’ll have to consult the Hopetown asylum folks,” said Miss Cornelia.
“Anyway, she can’t be left at the manse. Dear knows what those poor
children might learn from her. I understand that she has been known to
swear. But just think of her being there two whole weeks and Mr
Meredith never waking up to it! What business has a man like that to
have a family? Why, Anne dearie, he ought to be a monk.”
Two evenings later Miss Cornelia was back at Ingleside.
“It’s the most amazing thing!” she said. “Mrs. Wiley was found dead in
her bed the very morning after this Mary-creature ran away. She has had
a bad heart for years and the doctor had warned her it might happen at
any time. She had sent away her hired man and there was nobody in the
house. Some neighbours found her the next day. They missed the child,
it seems, but supposed Mrs. Wiley had sent her to her cousin near
Charlottetown as she had said she was going to do. The cousin didn’t
come to the funeral and so nobody ever knew that Mary wasn’t with her.
The people Marshall talked to told him some things about the way Mrs.
Wiley used this Mary that made his blood boil, so he declares. You
know, it puts Marshall in a regular fury to hear of a child being
ill-used. They said she whipped her mercilessly for every little fault
or mistake. Some folks talked of writing to the asylum authorities but