Rilla of Ingleside
a thing as self-respect. No more coaxing, concert or no concert. She
got up, boot and all.
"I am sorry you can't help us, Irene, but since you cannot we must do
the best we can."
Now this did not suit Irene at all. She desired exceedingly to sing at
that concert, and all her hesitations were merely by way of enhancing
the boon of her final consent. Besides, she really wanted to be friends
with Rilla again. Rilla's whole-hearted, ungrudging adoration had been
very sweet incense to her. And Ingleside was a very charming house to
visit, especially when a handsome college student like Walter was home.
She stopped looking at Rilla's feet.
"Rilla, darling, don't be so abrupt. I really want to help you, if I
can manage it. Just sit down and let's talk it over."
"I'm sorry, but I can't. I have to be home soon--Jims has to be settled
for the night, you know."
"Oh, yes--the baby you are bringing up by the book. It's perfectly
sweet of you to do it when you hate children so. How cross you were
just because I kissed him! But we'll forget all that and be chums
again, won't we? Now, about the concert--I dare say I can run into town
on the morning train after my dress, and out again on the afternoon one
in plenty of time for the concert, if you'll ask Miss Oliver to play
for me. I couldn't--she's so dreadfully haughty and supercilious that
she simply paralyses poor little me."
Rilla did not waste time or breath defending Miss Oliver. She coolly
thanked Irene, who had suddenly become very amiable and gushing, and
got away. She was very thankful the interview was over. But she knew
now that she and Irene could never be the friends they had been.
Friendly, yes--but friends, no. Nor did she wish it. All winter she had
felt under her other and more serious worries, a little feeling of
regret for her lost chum. Now it was suddenly gone. Irene was not as
Mrs. Elliott would say, of the race that knew Joseph. Rilla did not say
or think that she had outgrown Irene. Had the thought occurred to her
she would have considered it absurd when she was not yet seventeen and
Irene was twenty. But it was the truth. Irene was just what she had
been a year ago--just what she would always be. Rilla Blythe's nature
in that year had changed and matured and deepened. She found herself
seeing through Irene with a disconcerting clearness--discerning under
all her superficial sweetness, her pettiness, her vindictiveness, her
insincerity, her essential cheapness. Irene had lost for ever her
faithful worshipper.
But not until Rilla had traversed the Upper Glen Road and found herself
in the moon-dappled solitude of Rainbow Valley did she fully recover
her composure of spirit. Then she stopped under a tall wild plum that
was ghostly white and fair in its misty spring bloom and laughed.
"There is only one thing of importance just now--and that is that the
Allies win the war," she said aloud. "Therefore, it follows without
dispute that the fact that I went to see Irene Howard with odd shoes
and stockings on is of no importance whatever. Nevertheless, I, Bertha
Marilla Blythe, swear solemnly with the moon as witness"--Rilla lifted
her hand dramatically to the said moon--"that I will never leave my
room again without looking carefully at both my feet."
CHAPTER XIV
THE VALLEY OF DECISION
Susan kept the flag flying at Ingleside all the next day, in honour of
Italy's declaration of war.
"And not before it was time, Mrs. Dr. dear, considering the way things
have begun to go on the Russian front. Say what you will, those
Russians are kittle cattle, the grand duke Nicholas to the contrary
notwithstanding. It is a fortunate thing for Italy that she has come in
on the right side, but whether it is as fortunate for the Allies I will
not predict until I know more about Italians than I do now. However,
she will give that old reprobate of a Francis Joseph something to think
about. A pretty Emperor indeed--with one foot in the grave and yet
plotting wholesale murder"--and Susan thumped and kneaded her bread
with as much vicious energy as she could have expended in punching
Francis Joseph himself if he had been so unlucky as to fall into her
clutches.
Walter had gone to town on the early train, and Nan offered to look
after Jims for the day and so set Rilla free. Rilla was wildly busy all
day, helping to decorate the Glen hall and seeing to a hundred last
things. The evening was beautiful, in spite of the fact that Mr. Pryor
was reported to have said that he "hoped it would rain pitch forks
points down," and to have wantonly kicked Miranda's dog as he said it.
Rilla, rushing home from the hall, dressed hurriedly. Everything had
gone surprisingly well at the last; Irene was even then downstairs
practising her songs with Miss Oliver; Rilla was excited and happy,
forgetful even of the Western front for the moment. It gave her a sense
of achievement and victory to have brought her efforts of weeks to such
a successful conclusion. She knew that there had not lacked people who
thought and hinted that Rilla Blythe had not the tact or patience to
engineer a concert programme. She had shown them! Little snatches of
song bubbled up from her lips as she dressed. She thought she was
looking very well. Excitement brought a faint, becoming pink into her
round creamy cheeks, quite drowning out her few freckles, and her hair
gleamed with red-brown lustre. Should she wear crab-apple blossoms in
it, or her little fillet of pearls? After some agonised wavering she
decided on the crab-apple blossoms and tucked the white waxen cluster
behind her left ear. Now for a final look at her feet. Yes, both
slippers were on. She gave the sleeping Jims a kiss--what a dear little
warm, rosy, satin face he had--and hurried down the hill to the hall.
Already it was filling--soon it was crowded. Her concert was going to
be a brilliant success.
The first three numbers were successfully over. Rilla was in the little
dressing-room behind the platform, looking out on the moonlit harbour
and rehearsing her own recitations. She was alone, the rest of the
performers being in the larger room on the other side. Suddenly she
felt two soft bare arms slipping round her waist, then Irene Howard
dropped a light kiss on her cheek.
"Rilla, you sweet thing, you're looking simply angelic to-night. You
have spunk--I thought you would feel so badly over Walter's enlisting
that you'd hardly be able to bear up at all, and here you are as cool
as a cucumber. I wish I had half your nerve."
Rilla stood perfectly still. She felt no emotion whatever--she felt
nothing. The world of feeling had just gone blank.
"Walter--enlisting"--she heard herself saying--then she heard Irene's
affected little laugh.
"Why, didn't you know? I thought you did of course, or I wouldn't have
mentioned it. I am always putting my foot in it, aren't I? Yes, that is
what he went to town for to-day--he told me coming out on the train
to-night, I was the first person he told. He isn't in khaki yet--they
were out of uniforms--but he will be in a day or two. I always said
Walter had as much pluck as anybody. I assure you I felt proud of him,
Rilla, when he told me what he'd done. Oh, there's an end of Rick
MacAllister's reading. I must fly. I promised I'd play for the next
chorus--Alice Clow has such a headache."
She was gone--oh, thank God, she was gone! Rilla was alone again,
staring out at the unchanged, dream-like beauty of moonlit Four Winds.
Feeling was coming back to her--a pang of agony so acute as to be
almost physical seemed to rend her apart.
"I cannot bear it," she said. And then came the awful thought that
perhaps she could bear it and that there might be years of this hideous
suffering before her.
She must get away--she must rush home--she must be alone. She could not
go out there and play for drills and give readings and take part in
dialogues now. It would spoil half the concert; but that did not
matter--nothing mattered. Was this she, Rilla Blythe--this tortured
thing, who had been quite happy a few minutes ago? Outside, a quartette
was singing "We'll never let the old flag fall"--the music seemed to be
coming from some remote distance. Why couldn't she cry, as she had
cried when Jem told them he must go? If she could cry perhaps this
horrible something that seemed to have seized on her very life might
let go. But no tears came! Where were her scarf and coat? She must get
away and hide herself like an animal hurt to the death.
Was it a coward's part to run away like this? The question came to her
suddenly as if someone else had asked it. She thought of the shambles
of the Flanders front--she thought of her brother and her playmate
helping to hold those fire-swept trenches. What would they think of her
if she shirked her little duty here--the humble duty of carrying the
programme through for her Red Cross? But she couldn't stay--she
couldn't--yet what was it mother had said when Jem went: "When our
women fail in courage shall our men be fearless still?" But this--this
was unbearable.
Still, she stopped half-way to the door and went back to the window.
Irene was singing now; her beautiful voice--the only real thing about
her--soared clear and sweet through the building. Rilla knew that the
girls' Fairy Drill came next. Could she go out there and play for it?
Her head was aching now--her throat was burning. Oh, why had Irene told
her just then, when telling could do no good? Irene had been very
cruel. Rilla remembered now that more than once that day she had caught
her mother looking at her with an odd expression. She had been too busy
to wonder what it meant. She understood now. Mother had known why
Walter went to town but wouldn't tell her until the concert was over.
What spirit and endurance mother had!
"I must stay here and see things through," said Rilla, clasping her
cold hands together.
The rest of the evening always seemed like a fevered dream to her. Her
body was crowded by people but her soul was alone in a torture-chamber
of its own. Yet she played steadily for the drills and gave her
readings without faltering. She even put on a grotesque old Irish
woman's costume and acted the part in the dialogue which Miranda Pryor
had not taken. But she did not give her "brogue" the inimitable twist
she had given it in the practices, and her readings lacked their usual
fire and appeal. As she stood before the audience she saw one face
only--that of the handsome, dark-haired lad sitting beside her
mother--and she saw that same face in the trenches--saw it lying cold
and dead under the stars--saw it pining in prison--saw the light of its
eyes blotted out--saw a hundred horrible things as she stood there on
the beflagged platform of the Glen hall with her own face whiter than
the milky crab-blossoms in her hair. Between her numbers she walked
restlessly up and down the little dressing-room. Would the concert
never end!
It ended at last. Olive Kirk rushed up and told her exultantly that
they had made a hundred dollars. "That's good," Rilla said
mechanically. Then she was away from them all--oh, thank God, she was
away from them all--Walter was waiting for her at the door. He put his
arm through hers silently and they went together down the moonlit road.
The frogs were singing in the marshes, the dim, ensilvered fields of
home lay all around them. The spring night was lovely and appealing.
Rilla felt that its beauty was an insult to her pain. She would hate
moonlight for ever.
"You know?" said Walter.
"Yes. Irene told me," answered Rilla chokingly.
"We didn't want you to know till the evening was over. I knew when you
came out for the drill that you had heard. Little sister, I had to do
it. I couldn't live any longer on such terms with myself as I have been