Rilla of Ingleside
"Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey
shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for
one; and for another, Miller here, now, and I, we'd raise a dust,
wouldn't we, Miller? No Germans need apply for this old country, eh?"
Harvey ran down the steps laughing.
"I declare, I think all you boys talk the craziest stuff," said Mary
Vance in disgust. She got up and dragged Miller off to the rock-shore.
It didn't happen often that they had a chance for a talk together; Mary
was determined that this one shouldn't be spoiled by Walter Blythe's
silly blather about Pipers and Germans and such like absurd things.
They left Walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the
beauty of Four Winds with brooding eyes that saw it not.
The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack
Elliott's announcement, she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer
thinking about her. She felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. It was worse
than if he had never noticed her at all. Was life like this--something
delightful happening and then, just as you were revelling in it,
slipping away from you? Rilla told herself pathetically that she felt
years older than when she had left home that evening. Perhaps she
did--perhaps she was. Who knows? It does not do to laugh at the pangs
of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that
"this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she were home, in
bed, crying into her pillow.
"Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently--oh, so absently. He really
didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought.
"Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter
much to us in Canada, do you?"
"Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able
to take a hand. I won't--thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten luck,
I call it."
"I don't see why we should fight England's battles," cried Rilla.
"She's quite able to fight them herself."
"That isn't the point. We are part of the British Empire. It's a family
affair. We've got to stand by each other. The worst of it is, it will
be over before I can be of any use."
"Do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for
your ankle? asked Rilla incredulously.
"Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands. Jem'll be off, I'll bet
a cent--Walter won't be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry
Meredith--he'll go! And I was worrying about being out of football this
year!"
Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem--and Jerry! Nonsense! Why
father and Mr. Meredith wouldn't allow it. They weren't through
college. Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid news to himself?
Mark Warren came up and asked her to dance. Rilla went, knowing Kenneth
didn't care whether she went or stayed. An hour ago on the sand-shore
he had been looking at her as if she were the only being of any
importance in the world. And now she was nobody. His thoughts were full
of this Great Game which was to be played out on bloodstained fields
with empires for stakes--a Game in which womenkind could have no part.
Women, thought Rilla miserably, just had to sit and cry at home. But
all this was foolishness. Kenneth couldn't go--he admitted that
himself--and Walter couldn't--thank goodness for that--and Jem and
Jerry would have more sense. She wouldn't worry--she would enjoy
herself. But how awkward Mark Warren was! How he bungled his steps!
Why, for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first
thing about dancing; and who had feet as big as boats? There, he had
bumped her into somebody! She would never dance with him again!
She danced with others, though the zest was gone out of the performance
and she had begun to realize that her slippers hurt her badly. Kenneth
seemed to have gone--at least nothing was to be seen of him. Her first
party was spoiled, though it had seemed so beautiful at one time. Her
head ached--her toes burned. And worse was yet to come. She had gone
down with some over-harbour friends to the rock-shore where they all
lingered as dance after dance went on above them. It was cool and
pleasant and they were tired. Rilla sat silent, taking no part in the
gay conversation. She was glad when someone called down that the
over-harbour boats were leaving. A laughing scramble up the lighthouse
rock followed. A few couples still whirled about in the pavilion but
the crowd had thinned out. Rilla looked about her for the Glen group.
She could not see one of them. She ran into the lighthouse. Still, no
sign of anybody. In dismay she ran to the rock steps, down which the
over-harbour guests were hurrying. She could see the boats below--where
was Jem's--where was Joe's?
"Why, Rilla Blythe, I thought you'd be gone home long ago," said Mary
Vance, who was waving her scarf at a boat skimming up the channel,
skippered by Miller Douglas.
"Where are the rest?" gasped Rilla.
"Why, they're gone--Jem went an hour ago--Una had a headache. And the
rest went with Joe about fifteen minutes ago. See--they're just going
around Birch Point. I didn't go because it's getting rough and I knew
I'd be seasick. I don't mind walking home from here. It's only a mile
and a half. I s'posed you'd gone. Where were you?"
"Down on the rocks with Jem and Mollie Crawford. Oh, why didn't they
look for me?"
"They did--but you couldn't be found. Then they concluded you must have
gone in the other boat. Don't worry. You can stay all night with me and
we'll 'phone up to Ingleside where you are."
Rilla realized that there was nothing else to do. Her lips trembled and
tears came into her eyes. She blinked savagely--she would not let Mary
Vance see her crying. But to be forgotten like this! To think nobody
had thought it worth while to make sure where she was--not even Walter.
Then she had a sudden dismayed recollection.
"My shoes," she exclaimed. "I left them in the boat."
"Well, I never," said Mary. "You're the most thoughtless kid I ever
saw. You'll have to ask Hazel Lewison to lend you a pair of shoes."
"I won't." cried Rilla, who didn't like the said Hazel. "I'll go
barefoot first."
Mary shrugged her shoulders.
"Just as you like. Pride must suffer pain. It'll teach you to be more
careful. Well, let's hike."
Accordingly they hiked. But to "hike" along a deep-rutted, pebbly lane
in frail, silver-hued slippers with high French heels, is not an
exhilarating performance. Rilla managed to limp and totter along until
they reached the harbour road; but she could go no farther in those
detestable slippers. She took them and her dear silk stockings off and
started barefoot. That was not pleasant either; her feet were very
tender and the pebbles and ruts of the road hurt them. Her blistered
heels smarted. But physical pain was almost forgotten in the sting of
humiliation. This was a nice predicament! If Kenneth Ford could see her
now, limping along like a little girl with a stone bruise! Oh, what a
horrid way for her lovely party to end! She just had to cry--it was too
terrible. Nobody cared for her--nobody bothered about her at all. Well,
if she caught cold from walking home barefoot on a dew-wet road and
went into a decline perhaps they would be sorry. She furtively wiped
her tears away with her scarf--handkerchiefs seemed to have vanished
like shoes!--but she could not help sniffling. Worse and worse!
"You've got a cold, I see," said Mary. "You ought to have known you
would, sitting down in the wind on those rocks. Your mother won't let
you go out again in a hurry I can tell you. It's certainly been
something of a party. The Lewisons know how to do things, I'll say that
for them, though Hazel Lewison is no choice of mine. My, how black she
looked when she saw you dancing with Ken Ford. And so did that little
hussy of an Ethel Reese. What a flirt he is!"
"I don't think he's a flirt," said Rilla as defiantly as two desperate
sniffs would let her.
"You'll know more about men when you're as old as I am," said Mary
patronizingly. "Mind you, it doesn't do to believe all they tell you.
Don't let Ken Ford think that all he has to do to get you on a string
is to drop his handkerchief. Have more spirit than that, child."
To be thus hectored and patronized by Mary Vance was unendurable! And
it was unendurable to walk on stony roads with blistered heels and bare
feet! And it was unendurable to be crying and have no handkerchief and
not to be able to stop crying!
"I'm not thinking"--sniff--"about Kenneth"--sniff--"Ford"--two
sniffs--"at all," cried tortured Rilla.
"There's no need to fly off the handle, child. You ought to be willing
to take advice from older people. I saw how you slipped over to the
sands with Ken and stayed there ever so long with him. Your mother
wouldn't like it if she knew."
"I'll tell my mother all about it--and Miss Oliver--and Walter," Rilla
gasped between sniffs. "You sat for hours with Miller Douglas on that
lobster trap, Mary Vance! What would Mrs. Elliott say to that if she
knew?"
"Oh, I'm not going to quarrel with you," said Mary, suddenly retreating
to high and lofty ground. "All I say is, you should wait until you're
grown-up before you do things like that."
Rilla gave up trying to hide the fact that she was crying. Everything
was spoiled--even that beautiful, dreamy, romantic, moonlit hour with
Kenneth on the sands was vulgarized and cheapened. She loathed Mary
Vance.
"Why, whatever's wrong?" cried mystified Mary. "What are you crying
for?"
"My feet--hurt so--" sobbed Rilla clinging to the last shred of her
pride. It was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet
than because--because somebody had been amusing himself with you, and
your friends had forgotten you, and other people patronized you.
"I daresay they do," said Mary, not unkindly. "Never mind. I know where
there's a pot of goose-grease in Cornelia's tidy pantry and it beats
all the fancy cold creams in the world. I'll put some on your heels
before you go to bed."
Goose-grease on your heels! So this was what your first party and your
first beau and your first moonlit romance ended in!
Rilla gave over crying in sheer disgust at the futility of tears and
went to sleep in Mary Vance's bed in the calm of despair. Outside, the
dawn came greyly in on wings of storm; Captain Josiah, true to his
word, ran up the Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it streamed on
the fierce wind against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable
beacon.
CHAPTER V
"THE SOUND OF A GOING"
Rilla ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple grove behind
Ingleside, to her favourite nook in Rainbow Valley. She sat down on a
green-mossed stone among the fern, propped her chin on her hands and
stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the August afternoon--so
blue, so peaceful, so unchanged, just as it had arched over the valley
in the mellow days of late summer ever since she could remember.
She wanted to be alone--to think things out--to adjust herself, if it
were possible, to the new world into which she seemed to have been
transplanted with a suddenness and completeness that left her half
bewildered as to her own identity. Was she--could she be--the same
Rilla Blythe who had danced at Four Winds Light six days ago--only six
days ago? It seemed to Rilla that she had lived as much in those six
days as in all her previous life--and if it be true that we should
count time by heart-throbs she had. That evening, with its hopes and
fears and triumphs and humiliations, seemed like ancient history now.
Could she really ever have cried just because she had been forgotten
and had to walk home with Mary Vance? Ah, thought Rilla sadly, how