Rilla of Ingleside
show herself off to Susan--Susan, who thought nobody was grown up until
she was sixty! And that horrid Cousin Sophia with her digs about
freckles and legs! What business had an old--an old beanpole like that
to talk of anybody else being long and thin? Rilla felt all her
pleasure in herself and her evening clouded and spoiled. The very teeth
of her soul were set on edge and she could have sat down and cried.
But later on her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the
gay crowd bound for the Four Winds light.
The Blythes left Ingleside to the melancholy music of howls from Dog
Monday, who was locked up in the barn lest he make an uninvited guest
at the light. They picked up the Merediths in the village, and others
joined them as they walked down the old harbour road. Mary Vance,
resplendent in blue crepe, with lace overdress, came out of Miss
Cornelia's gate and attached herself to Rilla and Miss Oliver who were
walking together and who did not welcome her over-warmly. Rilla was not
very fond of Mary Vance. She had never forgotten the humiliating day
when Mary had chased her through the village with a dried codfish. Mary
Vance, to tell the truth, was not exactly popular with any of her set.
Still, they enjoyed her society--she had such a biting tongue that it
was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a habit of ours--we can't do without
her even when we are furious with her," Di Blythe had once said.
Most of the little crowd were paired off after a fashion. Jem walked
with Faith Meredith, of course, and Jerry Meredith with Nan Blythe. Di
and Walter were together, deep in confidential conversation which Rilla
envied.
Carl Meredith was walking with Miranda Pryor, more to torment Joe
Milgrave than for any other reason. Joe was known to have a strong
hankering for the said Miranda, which shyness prevented him from
indulging on all occasions. Joe might summon enough courage to amble up
beside Miranda if the night were dark, but here, in this moonlit dusk,
he simply could not do it. So he trailed along after the procession and
thought things not lawful to be uttered of Carl Meredith. Miranda was
the daughter of Whiskers-on-the-moon; she did not share her father's
unpopularity but she was not much run after, being a pale, neutral
little creature, somewhat addicted to nervous giggling. She had silvery
blonde hair and her eyes were big china blue orbs that looked as if she
had been badly frightened when she was little and had never got over
it. She would much rather have walked with Joe than with Carl, with
whom she did not feel in the least at home. Yet it was something of an
honour, too, to have a college boy beside her, and a son of the manse
at that.
Shirley Blythe was with Una Meredith and both were rather silent
because such was their nature. Shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate,
sensible, thoughtful, full of a quiet humour. He was Susan's "little
brown boy" yet, with his brown hair, brown eyes, and clear brown skin.
He liked to walk with Una Meredith because she never tried to make him
talk or badgered him with chatter. Una was as sweet and shy as she had
been in the Rainbow Valley days, and her large, dark-blue eyes were as
dreamy and wistful. She had a secret, carefully-hidden fancy for Walter
Blythe that nobody but Rilla ever suspected. Rilla sympathized with it
and wished Walter would return it. She liked Una better than Faith,
whose beauty and aplomb rather overshadowed other girls--and Rilla did
not enjoy being overshadowed.
But just now she was very happy. It was so delightful to be tripping
with her friends down that dark, gleaming road sprinkled with its
little spruces and firs, whose balsam made all the air resinous around
them. Meadows of sunset afterlight were behind the westerning hills.
Before them was the shining harbour. A bell was ringing in the little
church over-harbour and the lingering dream-notes died around the dim,
amethystine points. The gulf beyond was still silvery blue in the
afterlight. Oh, it was all glorious--the clear air with its salt tang,
the balsam of the firs, the laughter of her friends. Rilla loved
life--its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum
of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of
silver and shadow. It was her first party and she was going to have a
splendid time. There was nothing in the world to worry about--not even
freckles and over-long legs--nothing except one little haunting fear
that nobody would ask her to dance. It was beautiful and satisfying
just to be alive--to be fifteen--to be pretty. Rilla drew a long breath
of rapture--and caught it midway rather sharply. Jem was telling some
story to Faith--something that had happened in the Balkan War.
"The doctor lost both his legs--they were smashed to pulp--and he was
left on the field to die. And he crawled about from man to man, to all
the wounded men round him, as long as he could, and did everything
possible to relieve their sufferings--never thinking of himself--he was
tying a bit of bandage round another man's leg when he went under. They
found them there, the doctor's dead hands still held the bandage tight,
the bleeding was stopped and the other man's life was saved. Some hero,
wasn't he, Faith? I tell you when I read that--"
Jem and Faith moved on out of hearing. Gertrude Oliver suddenly
shivered. Rilla pressed her arm sympathetically.
"Wasn't it dreadful, Miss Oliver? I don't know why Jem tells such
gruesome things at a time like this when we're all out for fun."
"Do you think it dreadful, Rilla? I thought it wonderful--beautiful.
Such a story makes one ashamed of ever doubting human nature. That
man's action was godlike. And how humanity responds to the ideal of
self-sacrifice. As for my shiver, I don't know what caused it. The
evening is certainly warm enough. Perhaps someone is walking over the
dark, starshiny spot that is to be my grave. That is the explanation
the old superstition would give. Well, I won't think of that on this
lovely night. Do you know, Rilla, that when night-time comes I'm always
glad I live in the country. We know the real charm of night here as
town dwellers never do. Every night is beautiful in the country--even
the stormy ones. I love a wild night storm on this old gulf shore. As
for a night like this, it is almost too beautiful--it belongs to youth
and dreamland and I'm half afraid of it."
"I feel as if I were part of it," said Rilla.
"Ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid of perfect things. Well,
here we are at the House of Dreams. It seems lonely this summer. The
Fords didn't come?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Persis didn't. Kenneth did--but he stayed with
his mother's people over-harbour. We haven't seen a great deal of him
this summer. He's a little lame, so didn't go about very much."
"Lame? What happened to him?"
"He broke his ankle in a football game last fall and was laid up most
of the winter. He has limped a little ever since but it is getting
better all the time and he expects it will be all right before long. He
has been up to Ingleside only twice."
"Ethel Reese is simply crazy about him," said Mary Vance. "She hasn't
got the sense she was born with where he is concerned. He walked home
with her from the over-harbour church last prayer-meeting night and the
airs she has put on since would really make you weary of life. As if a
Toronto boy like Ken Ford would ever really think of a country girl
like Ethel!"
Rilla flushed. It did not matter to her if Kenneth Ford walked home
with Ethel Reese a dozen times--it did not! Nothing that he did
mattered to her. He was ages older than she was. He chummed with Nan
and Di and Faith, and looked upon her, Rilla, as a child whom he never
noticed except to tease. And she detested Ethel Reese and Ethel Reese
hated her--always had hated her since Walter had pummelled Dan so
notoriously in Rainbow Valley days; but why need she be thought beneath
Kenneth Ford's notice because she was a country girl, pray? As for Mary
Vance, she was getting to be an out-and-out gossip and thought of
nothing but who walked home with people!
There was a little pier on the harbour shore below the House of Dreams,
and two boats were moored there. One boat was skippered by Jem Blythe,
the other by Joe Milgrave, who knew all about boats and was nothing
loth to let Miranda Pryor see it. They raced down the harbour and Joe's
boat won. More boats were coming down from the Harbour Head and across
the harbour from the western side. Everywhere there was laughter. The
big white tower on Four Winds Point was overflowing with light, while
its revolving beacon flashed overhead. A family from Charlottetown,
relatives of the light's keeper, were summering at the light, and they
were giving the party to which all the young people of Four Winds and
Glen St. Mary and over-harbour had been invited. As Jem's boat swung in
below the lighthouse Rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and
donned her silver slippers behind Miss Oliver's screening back. A
glance had told her that the rock-cut steps climbing up to the light
were lined with boys, and lighted by Chinese lanterns, and she was
determined she would not walk up those steps in the heavy shoes her
mother had insisted on her wearing for the road. The slippers pinched
abominably, but nobody would have suspected it as Rilla tripped
smilingly up the steps, her soft dark eyes glowing and questioning, her
colour deepening richly on her round, creamy cheeks. The very minute
she reached the top of the steps an over-harbour boy asked her to dance
and the next moment they were in the pavilion that had been built
seaward of the lighthouse for dances. It was a delightful spot, roofed
over with fir-boughs and hung with lanterns. Beyond was the sea in a
radiance that glowed and shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests and
hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky
shadows and its crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner swung in among
the dancers; she drew a long breath of delight; what witching music Ned
Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his fiddle--it was really like
the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to
dance. How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful
the moonlight was over everything! This was life--enchanting life.
Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings.
CHAPTER IV
THE PIPER PIPES
Rilla's first party was a triumph--or so it seemed at first. She had so
many partners that she had to split her dances. Her silver slippers
seemed verily to dance of themselves and though they continued to pinch
her toes and blister her heels that did not interfere with her
enjoyment in the least. Ethel Reese gave her a bad ten minutes by
beckoning her mysteriously out of the pavilion and whispering, with a
Reese-like smirk, that her dress gaped behind and that there was a
stain on the flounce. Rilla rushed miserably to the room in the
lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary ladies' dressing-room,
and discovered that the stain was merely a tiny grass smear and that
the gap was equally tiny where a hook had pulled loose. Irene Howard
fastened it up for her and gave her some over-sweet, condescending
compliments. Rilla felt flattered by Irene's condescension. She was an
Upper Glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of the
younger girls--spiteful friends said because she could queen it over
them without rivalry. But Rilla thought Irene quite wonderful and loved
her for her patronage. Irene was pretty and stylish; she sang divinely
and spent every winter in Charlottetown taking music lessons. She had
an aunt in Montreal who sent her wonderful things to wear; she was