The Blythes Are Quoted (38 page)

She picked up the flowered daffodil chiffon that Chrissie had worn to the barn dance and hung it tenderly in the closet, secretly delighted that she could do that once more for her darling. She knew old Mrs. Clark thought girls should hang up their own dresses. Susan Baker at Ingleside had told her the Blythe girls had to. But after all, one had to admit that the Blythes were not the Clarks.

Her lamb must have looked lovely in it. With those little golden-brown curls of hers sleeking out of it and bunched behind her pretty ears.

Clack did not know ... and would be horrified to know ... that the dress had cost Adam Clark seventy dollars. It was pretty but not any prettier than those the Blythe girls wore ... and Susan Baker had told her they made all their own dresses. The only consolation Clack would have had was that it must have horrified penurious old Mrs. Clark, who thought it
sinful to spend money on dresses when it should have been given to missions. Clack would have forgiven old Adam Clark anything for that.

“Clack darling! Salt-rising bread and butter ... I’ve never tasted any since you left ... Aunty thinks it isn’t wholesome.”

“Neither it is ... at least Dr. Blythe says so ...”

“You all seem to swear by Dr. Blythe around here.”

“For a man he will do,” said Clack cautiously, who would have died for any of the Ingleside family. “But a bit of salt-rising bread, once in a while, is not going to hurt anybody. Susan Baker makes it now and then and Mrs. Blythe winks at it and the doctor says, ‘What good bread this is, Susan.’ Oh, you have to learn how to manage the men!”

“And wild strawberries!”

“I picked them strawberries in the back orchard this morning. They’re fresh as fresh.”

“And Jersey cream in that lovely little old jug with the verse of poetry on it! Aunty used to want you to sell it to her, you remember?”

“When I am dead and gone, lamb, you are to have that jug. I have left it to you in my will. Don’t forget that.”

“Don’t talk about wills and death on such a morning, Clack darling. Look at those gold and purple pansies! Did you grow them yourself, Clack darling?”

“Susan Baker brought them up to me,” acknowledged Clack reluctantly. “Mrs. Blythe is a great one to grow pansies. Were her twins at the barn dance last night, Chrissie? I suppose so, though they are mere children.”

“Why, everybody was there! Why were you so opposed to my going, Clack darling?”

“I ... I thought ... I thought ...”

“You thought they were beneath the Clarks. Be honest, Clack. Or else you were afraid of Aunty.”

“I was never afraid of your aunt ... but I am quite sure she was the means of sending you here ... and she always gets her own way.”

“It wasn’t Aunty ... it was dad.”

“She put him up to it. But it is of no use to argue with you, my lamb. Are you hungry?”

“Am I hungry? I’ve had nothing to eat except a slice of pie since your incomparable supper last night. I couldn’t eat more than a slice ... whereat my partner was highly offended. Of course Kenneth Ford bought Nan Blythe’s ... I don’t know how he knew it was hers but he evidently did.”

“Susan Baker has a special way of crimping the edges of her pies,” explained Clack. “Oh, there are tricks in all trades, my lamb ... even carpenters sometimes drive nails with a screwdriver. And mostly at a barn dance the boys know whose pie is being auctioned off. Though the Blythe girls are rather young to be going to dances ... I suppose Kenneth Ford was disappointed Rilla wasn’t there. However, it is their own business ... I suppose both the Blythe girls had dozens after their pies?”

“Oh, yes, they seem very popular. Or else it was Susan’s crimps. My partner couldn’t have had any such an arrangement. Probably he was a stranger.”

“Who bought your pie?” asked Clack, with affected carelessness, as she put shoetrees into a pair of slippers with ridiculous heels.

“A young man by the name of Don Glynne. He said he was the new gardener at Miss Merrion’s.”

“I heard Miss Merrion had one,” said Clack, concealing her horror over Chrissie’s eating a pie with a gardener. After
all, a gardener was much better than some lout of a hired man. “He came about a week ago. I hear she is very well satisfied with him, so he must be some gardener, for she is awful hard to please. She has had five in a year. You know she has a place just outside Lowbridge. It is becoming cele-brated for its rock and water gardens. She only came there to live a few years ago and she makes a sort of hobby of her gardens.”

“So he told me. You see, he was really the only ... possible man there.”

“So I would suppose,” said Clack, as sarcastically as it was possible for Clack to speak. But she found herself wishing old Mrs. Clark might know of it.

“I liked him, Clack darling. I felt acquainted with him as soon as we were introduced. I liked him because he was tall and had good shoulders and sleek black hair and eyebrows that flew up at the corners with cloudy blue-black eyes under them. He was the best-looking man there except Jem Blythe. And they say he is as good as engaged to the minister’s daughter.”

“But that is absurd, my lamb.”

“What is absurd, darling Clack? Jem Blythe being good-looking ... or his being engaged to Faith Meredith?”

“Neither. Jem is a very handsome boy and Faith Meredith will make him a very suitable wife when the time comes. After all they are only children yet and Jem has to get through college. He is going to be a doctor like his father. I only hope he will be half as good a one.”

“How you people around here worship the Blythes! Of course they are a nice family ...”

“I should not be living today if it were not for Dr. Blythe!” said Clack.

“Then I owe him an eternal debt of gratitude. But let us return to our argument. What do you consider so absurd?”

“Why, liking a man just because he has cloudy blue-black eyes. The worst rascal I ever knew had eyes something like that. He is in jail now.”

“You couldn’t have a better reason, Clack darling. I feel sure that George has prominent, gooseberry green eyes.”

Clack tingled. She felt that she was on the verge of the secret ... the real reason why old Mrs. Clark had allowed Chrissie to come to Memory. But she remained outwardly calm.

“Who is George?” she asked, lifting the tray off Chrissie’s bed and affecting indifference.

“‘Who is George?’ says she. To think anyone doesn’t know there is a George!”

“I know a dozen Georges,” said Clack patiently.

“Well, I might as well tell you the story now as any other time. Then you’ll know why I was sent here. That is, if you are interested, Clack. If not, there is no use boring you.”

“Oh, you know I am not bored,” said the diplomatic Clack. “And anyhow I know quite well that your aunt is behind it all.”

“I have some suspicion myself, Clack. I feel sure dad would never have thought it out for himself.”

“If your aunt is behind it you might as well give in at once,” said Clack. “She’ll get her way, never fear.”

“She shall not, Clack. She will not, Clack. Well, if you must know ... you’re not to tell even Susan Baker.”

“I don’t tell Susan Baker ... or anyone else ... secrets that belong to other people,” said Clack indignantly.

“Well, his whole name is George Fraser ... and he is the man dad and Aunty are determined I shall marry. There, you have the deadly truth at last, Clack darling.”

Polly Claxton felt more bewildered than ever.

“Then why don’t you know what colour his eyes are?”

Though as she spoke Clack remembered that
she
could not remember what colour her own husband’s eyes had been. She had an impression that they were a greyish blue.

“Because I have never seen him, darling Clack.”

“Never seen him! And yet you are going to marry him!”

“Never,” said Chrissie energetically. “And I hope I never shall see him. Though I have my qualms. You know Aunty is for getting her own way by hook or crook. And of course she has dad on her side this time.”

Yes, Clack knew very well. But why in the world did both old Mrs. Clark and Adam Clark want Chrissie to marry this George if she didn’t want to? Adam Clark usually took the side of Chrissie ... though, as Clack reflected somewhat venomously, it seldom did any good. In the end, old Mrs. Clark had her way. There must be money in the matter. Clack knew very well that Adam Clark was by no means as rich as rumour reported him.

“But she is going to find her match in me,” Chrissie was saying energetically. “I
won’t
marry George, Clack ... I simply won’t.”

“Have you fallen in love with anybody else?” asked Clack anxiously.

That
would be a complication indeed. Clack knew Chrissie had the Clark will, too.

“Why do they want you to marry him? And how does it come you have never seen him?”

“Because he is only a third cousin or something. And he has always lived at the Coast. You know all the Clarks think it isn’t really proper to marry someone totally unrelated to you.”

“Yes, I know. It is a family tradition,” nodded Clack. “And how about money?”

“Oh, this George is simply rolling.”

“Ah,” thought Clack. “That explains a good many things.” But she was prudent enough not to say it.

“Well, my Great-uncle Edward died about a year ago. He was disgustingly rich.”

“There are worse things than money,” said Clack wisely. “You can do a lot of good with it.”

“I’m sure Uncle Edward never did anything good with his. He just delighted in accumulating it. But we didn’t expect to get any of his billions ... you know the old quarrel?”

Yes, Clack knew of it. Adam Clark had told her once when he had had a glass too much ... as Clack charitably put it. Old Mrs. Clark would have died before she told it to a servant.

“Well, of course, that was another moth-eaten tradition that had to be honoured. So we were all amazed, Clack, when we heard about his will. Wills are horrid things, aren’t they, Clack?”

“They generally make a lot of trouble,” said Clack, “but still how could things go along without them? And may I ask what was the matter with your Uncle Edward’s will?”

“You may ask anything you like, darling.”

“Did he leave his money to you?”

“No such good luck ... at least not exactly. He left it all to this detestable George Fraser and me if we married each other before I was twenty-one ... just another year. Did you ever, Clack darling, hear of anything more horribly, hopelessly Victorian than that? I ask you!”

“Things might be worse,” said Clack. “I’ve heard of many queer wills in my time.”

Clack hadn’t the least idea what Victorian meant but she knew Chrissie did not like the will and she did not blame her.
It would not be a pleasant thing for anybody to have to marry someone they had never seen. But she understood Adam Clark and old Mrs. Clark a little more clearly now. They worshipped money, as she very well knew. Chrissie must have got her disposition from her dead mother. There wasn’t an ounce of Clark in her ... but then she had never known poverty.

It was a comfort to Clack that at least it wasn’t that she had fallen in love with anyone at the barn dance. But she was still convinced that if old Mrs. Clark wanted Chrissie to marry this unknown George Chrissie would have to do it.

“What if you don’t marry him ... or he doesn’t want to marry you?” ... though Clack could not conceive this possible. Still, he might already be in love with some other girl. Clack shuddered. It was a dreadful tangle. As for a month at Memory curing Chrissie of her obstinacy, that was sheer nonsense. No, old lady Clark had something up her sleeve.

“Then it all goes to some hospital. And of course I said I wouldn’t marry him. That was why I was banished here. Though you can’t imagine how glad I was to be banished, darling.”

“You couldn’t be any gladder than I was to have you come,” said Polly Claxton truthfully.

“And ... imagine it, Clack ... this George actually wrote father, telling him that he couldn’t get away from his business this summer but would try to come in the fall. So it seems the creature actually works.”

“Well, he is none the worse of that, darling,” said Clack wisely.

“I’m not saying he is. I like people who work. But he might have been interested enough ... however, that is beside the question. He didn’t want to come, that was all.”

“Perhaps he didn’t like the idea of marrying someone he had never seen any more than you did,” suggested Clack.

“But at least he could have come and ... and seen me ... and we could have talked the matter over. But he wouldn’t, and dad ... prompted, as I am quite as well aware as you are, Clack ... don’t deny it ... by Aunty ... conceived the idea of going to the Coast and taking me with him. Fancy, Clack darling, just fancy.”

“It was a silly idea,” conceded Clack, who thought it worse than silly.

“Being trotted out there to see if I’d do! They were so afraid those millions would slip through their fingers yet. As they will!”

“Hmm,” said Clack.

“They are afraid George might fall in love with somebody else. Perhaps he is in love with her already. Clack, I never thought of that.”

“It is quite likely,” agreed Clack. “Remember he has never seen you.”

“Perhaps that is why he couldn’t leave his horrid business to come and see me. But he could have told us. Well, if that is the case I’m even up with him for I said no and stuck to it. We had ructions.”

“I should think it likely,” said Clack, remembering her own ructions with old Mrs. Clark ... in which it was a good deal of satisfaction to recall that old Mrs. Clark had not
always
been the victor.

“You know you can never convince Aunty that anything she does not believe can be true.”

“I know it too well, darling lamb.”

“You don’t know how nice it is to be called ‘lamb’ again! Well, of course she couldn’t believe that anyone would turn down five millions.”

“It
is
a lot of money,” said Clack meditatively.

“Darling Clack, don’t sound so mercenary. You are not, really. Do you mean to tell me you would marry anyone you had never seen for his money?”

“No, lamb ... but I’d have a look at him first.”