Emily Climbs (14 page)

T
he High School concert in aid of the school library was an annual event in Shrewsbury, coming off in early April, before it was necessary to settle down to hard study for spring examinations. This year it was at first intended to have the usual programme of music and readings with a short dialogue. Emily was asked to take part in the latter and agreed, after securing Aunt Ruth’s very grudging consent, which would probably never have been secured if Miss Aylmer had not come in person to plead for it. Miss Aylmer was a granddaughter of Senator Aylmer and Aunt Ruth yielded to family what she would have yielded to nothing else. Then Miss Aylmer suggested cutting out most of the music and all of the readings and having a short play instead. This found favour in the eyes of the students and the change was made forthwith. Emily was cast for a part that suited her, so she became keenly interested in the matter and enjoyed the practices, which were held in the school building two evenings of the week under the chaperonage of Miss Aylmer.

The play created quite a stir in Shrewsbury. Nothing so ambitious had been undertaken by the High School students
before: it became known that many of the Queens Academy students were coming up from Charlottetown on the evening train to see it. This drove the performers half wild. The Queen’s students were old hands at putting on plays. Of course they came to criticise. It became a fixed obsession with each member of the cast to make the play as good as any of the Queen’s Academy plays had been, and every nerve was strained to that end. Kate Errol’s sister, who was a graduate of a school of oratory, coached them, and when the evening of the performance arrived there was burning excitement in the various homes and boarding-houses of Shrewsbury.

Emily, in her small, candle-lighted room, looked at Emily-in-the-Glass with considerable satisfaction – a satisfaction that was quite justifiable. The scarlet flush of her cheeks, the deepening darkness of her grey eyes, came out brilliantly above the ashes-of-roses gown, and the little wreath of silver leaves, twisted around her black hair, made her look like a young dryad. She did not, however,
feel
like a dryad. Aunt Ruth had made her take off her lace stockings and put on cashmere ones – had tried, indeed, to make her put on woollen ones, but had gone down in defeat on that point, retrieving her position, however, by insisting on a flannel petticoat.

“Horrid bunchy thing,” thought Emily resentfully – meaning the petticoat, of course. But the skirts of the day were full and Emily’s slenderness could carry even a thick flannel petticoat.

She was just fastening her Egyptian chain around her neck when Aunt Ruth stalked in.

One glance was sufficient to reveal that Aunt Ruth was very angry.

“Em’ly, Mrs. Ball has just called. She told me something that amazed me. Is this a
play
you’re taking part in tonight?”

Emily stared.

“Of course it’s a play, Aunt Ruth. Surely you knew that.”

“When you asked my permission to take part in this concert you told me it was a
dialogue
,” said Aunt Ruth icily.

“O-o-h – but Miss Aylmer decided to have a little play in place of it. I
thought
you knew, Aunt Ruth – truly I did. I thought I mentioned it to you.”

“You didn’t think anything of the kind, Em’ly – you deliberately kept me in ignorance because you knew I wouldn’t have allowed you to take part in
i play
.”

“Indeed, no, Aunt Ruth,” pleaded Emily, gravely. “I never thought of hiding it. Of course, I didn’t feel like talking much to you about it because I knew you didn’t approve of the concert at all.”

When Emily spoke gravely Aunt Ruth always thought she was impudent.

“This crowns all, Em’ly. Sly as I’ve always known you to be I wouldn’t have believed you could be as sly as this.”

“There was nothing of the kind about it, Aunt Ruth!” said Emily impatiently. “It would have been silly of me to try to hide the fact that we were getting up a play when all Shrewsbury is talking of it. I don’t see how you could
help
hearing of it.”

“You knew I wasn’t going anywhere because of my bronchitis. Oh, I see through it all, Em’ly. You cannot deceive
me
.

“I haven’t tried to deceive you. I thought you knew – that is all there is to it. I thought the reason you never spoke of it was because you were opposed to the whole thing. That is the truth, Aunt Ruth. What difference is there between a dialogue and a play?”

“There is
every
difference,” said Aunt Ruth. “Plays are wicked.”

“But this is such a
little
one,” pleaded Emily despairingly – and then laughed because it sounded so ridiculously like the nursemaid’s excuse in
Midshipman Easy
. Her sense of humour was untimely; her laughter infuriated Aunt Ruth.

“Little or big, you are not going to take part in it.”

Emily stared again, paling a little.

“Aunt Ruth – I
must
– why, the play would be ruined.”

“Better a play ruined than a soul ruined,” retorted Aunt Ruth.

Emily dared not smile. The issue at stake was too serious.

“Don’t be so – so – indignant, Aunt Ruth” – she had nearly said unjust. “I am sorry you don’t approve of plays – I won’t take part in any more – but you can see I
must
do it tonight.”

“Oh, my dear Em’ly, I don’t think you are quite as indispensable as all
that
.”

Certainly Aunt Ruth was very maddening. How disagreeable the word “dear” could be! Still was Emily patient.

“I really am – tonight. You see, they couldn’t get a substitute at the last moment. Miss Aylmer would never forgive me.”

“Do you care more about Miss Aylmer’s forgiveness than God’s?” demanded Aunt Ruth with the air of one stating a decisive position.

“Yes – than
your
God’s,” muttered Emily, unable to keep her patience under such insensate questions.

“Have you no respect for your forefathers?” was Aunt Ruth’s next relevant query. “Why, if they knew a descendant of theirs was play-acting they would turn over in their graves!”

Emily favoured Aunt Ruth with a sample of the Murray look.

“It would be excellent exercise for them. I am going to take my part in the play tonight, Aunt Ruth.”

Emily spoke quietly, looking down from her young height with resolute eyes. Aunt Ruth felt a nasty sense of helplessness: there was no lock to Emily’s door – and she couldn’t detain her by physical force.

“If you go, you needn’t come back here tonight,” she said, pale with rage. “This house is locked at nine o’clock.”

“If I don’t come back here tonight, I won’t come at all.” Emily was too angry over Aunt Ruth’s unreasonable attitude to care for consequences. “If you lock me out I’ll go back to New Moon.
They
know all about the play there – even Aunt Elizabeth was willing for me to take part.”

She caught up her coat and jammed the little red-feather hat, which Uncle Oliver’s wife had given her at Christmas, down on her head. Aunt Addie’s taste was not approved at New Moon but the hat was very becoming and Emily loved it. Aunt Ruth suddenly realised that Emily looked oddly mature and grown-up in it. But the knowledge did not as yet dampen her anger. Em’ly was gone – Em’ly had dared to defy her and disobey her – sly, underhand Em’ly – Em’ly must be taught a lesson.

At nine o’clock a stubborn, outraged Aunt Ruth locked all the doors and went to bed.

The play was a big success. Even the Queen’s students admitted that and applauded generously. Emily threw herself into her part with a fire and energy generated by her encounter with Aunt Ruth, which swept away all hampering consciousness of flannel petticoats and agreeably astonished Miss Errol, whose one criticism of Emily’s acting had been that she was rather cold and reserved in a part that called for more abandon. Emily was showered with compliments at the close of the performance. Even Evelyn Blake said graciously,

“Really, dear, you are quite wonderful – a star actress – a poet – a budding novelist – what surprise will you give us next?”

Thought Emily, “Condescending, insufferable creature!”

Said Emily, “
Thank
you!”

There was a happy, triumphant walk home with Teddy, a gay good-night at the gate, and then – the locked door.

Emily’s anger, which had been sublimated during the evening into energy and ambition, suddenly flared up again, sweeping everything before it. It was unbearable to be treated thus. She had endured enough at Aunt Ruth’s hands – this was the proverbial last straw. One could not put up with
everything
, even to get an education. One owed
something
to one’s dignity and self-respect.

There were three things she could do. She could thump the old-fashioned brass knocker on the door until Aunt Ruth came down and let her in, as she had done once before – and then endure weeks of slurs because of it. She could fly up-street and down-street to Ilse’s boardinghouse – the girls wouldn’t be in bed yet – as she had likewise done once before, and as no doubt Aunt Ruth would expect her to do now; and then Mary Carswell would tell Evelyn Blake and Evelyn Blake would laugh maliciously and tell it all through the school. Emily had no intention of doing either of these things; she knew from the moment she found the door locked just what she would do. She would walk to New Moon – and stay there! Months of suppressed chafing under Aunt Ruth’s perpetual stings burst into a conflagration of revolt. Emily marched out of the gate, slammed it shut behind her with no Murray dignity but plenty of Starr passion, and started on her seven-mile walk through the midnight. Had it been three times seven she would have started just the same.

So angry was she, and so angry she continued to be, that the walk did not seem long, nor, though she had no wrap save her cloth coat, did she feel the cold of the sharp April night.

The winter’s snow had gone but the bare road was hard-frozen and rough – no dainty footing for the thin kid slippers of Cousin Jimmy’s Christmas box. Emily reflected with what she considered a grim, sarcastic laugh that it was well, after all, that Aunt Ruth had insisted on cashmere stockings and flannel petticoat.

There was a moon that night, but the sky was covered with curdled grey clouds, and the harsh, bleak landscape lay dourly in the pallid grey light. The wind came across it in sudden, moaning gusts. Emily felt with considerable dramatic satisfaction that the night harmonised with her stormy, tragic mood.

She would
never
go back to Aunt Ruth’s, that was certain. No matter what Aunt Elizabeth might say – and she
would
say aplenty, no doubt of that – no matter what any one would say. If Aunt Elizabeth would not let her go anywhere else to board she would give up school altogether. She knew it would cause a tremendous upheaval at New Moon. Never mind. In her very reckless mood upheavals seemed welcome things. It was time somebody upheaved. She would not humiliate herself another day – that she would not! Aunt Ruth had gone too far at last. You could not safely drive a Starr to desperation.

“I have done with Ruth Dutton forever,” vowed Emily feeling a tremendous satisfaction in leaving off the “Aunt.”

As she drew near home the clouds cleared away suddenly, and when she turned into the New Moon lane the austere beauty of the three tall Lombardies against the moonlit sky made her catch her breath. Oh, how wonderful! For a moment she almost forgot her wrongs and Aunt Ruth. Then bitterness rushed over her soul again – not even the magic of the Three Princesses could charm it away.

There was a light shining out of the New Moon kitchen
window, falling on the tall, white birches in Lofty John’s bush with spectral effect. Emily wondered who could be up at New Moon: she had expected to find it in darkness and had meant to slip in by the front door and up to her own dear room, leaving explanations to the morning. Aunt Elizabeth always locked and barred the kitchen door every night with great ceremony before retiring, but the front door was never locked. Tramps and burglars would surely never be so ill-mannered as to come to the front door of New Moon.

Emily crossed the garden and peeped through the kitchen window. Cousin Jimmy was there alone, sitting by the table, with two candles for company. On the table was a stoneware crock and just as Emily looked in he absently put his hand into it and drew out a chubby doughnut. Cousin Jimmy’s eyes were fixed on a big beef ham pendent from the ceiling and Cousin Jimmy’s lips moved soundlessly. There was no reasonable doubt that Cousin Jimmy was composing poetry, though why he was doing it at that hour o’ night was a puzzle.

Emily slipped around the house, opened the kitchen door gently, and walked in. Poor Cousin Jimmy in his amazement tried to swallow half a doughnut whole and then couldn’t speak for several seconds. Was
this
Emily – or an apparition? Emily in a dark-blue coat, an enchanting little red-feather hat – Emily with wind-blown night-black hair and tragic eyes – Emily with tattered kid slippers on her feet – Emily in this plight at New Moon when she should have been sound asleep on her maiden couch in Shrewsbury?

Cousin Jimmy seized the cold hands Emily held out to him.

“Emily, dear child, what has happened?”

“Well, just to jump into the middle of things – I’ve left Aunt Ruth’s and I’m not going back.”

Cousin Jimmy didn’t say anything for a few moments. But he did a few things. First, he tiptoed across the kitchen and carefully shut the sitting-room door; then he gently filled the stove up with wood, drew a chair up to it, pushed Emily into it and lifted her cold, ragged feet to the hearth. Then he lighted two more candles and put them on the chimney-piece. Finally he sat down in his chair again and put his hands on his knees.

“Now, tell me all about it.”

Emily, still in the throes of rebellion and indignation, told it pretty fully.

As soon as Cousin Jimmy got an inkling of what had really happened he began to shake his head slowly – continued to shake it – shook it so long and gravely that Emily began to feel an uncomfortable conviction that instead of being a wronged, dramatic figure she was by way of being a bit of a little fool. The longer Cousin Jimmy shook his head the smaller grew her heroics. When she had finished her story with a defiant, conclusive “I’m
not
going back to Aunt Ruth’s,
anyhow
,” Cousin Jimmy gave a final wag to his head and pushed the crock across the table.