The Blythes Are Quoted (44 page)

She ran to meet him with lovely dimpled hands outstretched.

“Oh, I’ve been waiting for you all the evening, Mr. Randebush,
hoping
you would come. I had such a dreadful night without the aspirin. And you’ve brought some!”

“I hope it’s fresh. I had to get it at the store since Dr. Blythe wasn’t home.”

“I’m sure it will be all right. You are really so kind and thoughtful. You
must
sit down and talk to me for a little while.”

Timothy, who had come to the conclusion that the feeling in the pit of his stomach was chronic and that he’d better consult Dr. Blythe about it, sat down slowly.

“Amos worked his first wife to death,” Timothy found himself saying, without the least idea why he said it.

Then he was overcome with remorse.

“No, he didn’t. She worked herself to death. But he didn’t prevent her.”

Again, remorse. Blue cats! What sort of a man was he, slandering his brother like this?

“I don’t suppose he could have prevented her. Some women are like that.”

Alma Winkworth was laughing. Her laugh, like everything else about her, was pleasant.

“You
have
such a knack of putting things, Mr. Randebush.”

The firelight sparkled and shimmered over her shining hair and beautiful dress. Timothy could see her thus quite clearly all the way home.

She had thanked him so appealingly for his visit and asked him if he couldn’t come again. Well, he might ... after a night or two. Of course it was mighty lonesome for her there with not even a dog to talk to. Suppose he took her a dog. No, that would never do. A dog might attract attention by barking. But a cat, now. The very thing. She had mentioned she was fond of cats ... also that she had heard a rat. He’d take her a cat. He’d better take it the next evening. Rats sometimes did a lot of damage.

By four o’clock the next day Timothy was skimming across the Harbour. In the bow was a yowling, squirming, shapeless thing ... Matilda Merry’s cat tied up in a potato bag.

Timothy suspected that Matilda Merry would raise Cain when she missed her pet but after kidnapping women you grew callous in respect to cats.

Alma insisted that Timothy have supper with her and vowed she was delighted with the cat. While they sat and talked after supper she held the creature on her lap and caressed it.

Timothy had a spasm of horror when he realized that he was envying the cat.

The next day Amos suddenly announced that he was starting for Toronto on Monday instead of Wednesday. There was some fox business to be attended to before the Exhibition came on. Timothy was relieved. Amos had not been a very cheerful housemate of late ... worried because Alma Winkworth was lingering so long in Charlottetown, most likely. He didn’t know her address so he couldn’t hunt her up.

Well, Amos would soon be gone so he could set Alma free. The thought plunged him into gloom instead of exultation.

It took him some little time to realize what had happened to him. He did not go to Joe’s Island that night or the next night ... would not have gone for a million dollars, he told himself.

But he had to go the third night for Amos was safely on his way to Toronto and there was no longer the slightest need for keeping Alma Winkworth mewed up. Besides, the Blythes were back and he mistrusted Mrs. Blythe. She was entirely too clever for a woman.

“I thought you were never coming back,” said Alma with tender reproach. “I’ve missed you so.”

With one look of those soft eyes Alma could say more things than most women could utter in a year. Their sorcery had undone Timothy and he knew it at last ... and did not care.

“I’m a wreck ... shattered fore and aft,” he thought dismally. He had really felt it since the moment she looked at the star. It was a kind of relief to admit it ... though everyone would laugh at him ... except Mrs. Blythe. Somehow he felt she would not laugh.

“Amos has gone to Toronto and I’ve come to let you out,” he said desperately.

For a fleeting second it struck him that she didn’t look overjoyed. Then she said slowly,

“Would you mind telling me now why you brought me here in the first place?”

“To keep Amos from proposing to you,” Timothy blurted out. She might as well know the worst of him.

“Your brother asked me to marry him the night before you kidnapped me,” she was saying quietly. “I ... I said ‘no.’ I felt I didn’t ... couldn’t ... marry anybody unless I really loved him ... I really couldn’t ... much as I’d like to have a home of my own.”

She had said it ... but it didn’t make sense. Timothy stared blankly at her. She smiled mischievously at him.

“Of course it would have been nice to have been related to
you
, dear Mr. Randebush.”

Timothy cleared his throat.

“Miss Winkworth ... Alma ... I never was one to beat about the bush. Mrs. Blythe would tell you that if she was here.”

Mrs. Blythe had told Alma a good many things about Timothy but she kept her own counsel.

“Will you marry
me
?” said Timothy. “I ... I am very fond of stars. Mrs. Blythe could tell you that. I’ve got a good house on my own farm ... if it’s fixed up a bit and a veranda built on. I’d like to take care of you ...”

Alma Winkworth smiled again ... with a little relief in it. No more insolent and absurd customers for renewed beauty ... no more lean vacations in cheap boarding houses.
And
the fine-looking man she had admired so much the first time she had seen him in Glen St. Mary Church.

“Why don’t you set your cap for Timothy Randebush?” Mrs. Blythe had said once teasingly. “He’s away ahead of Amos in every way.”

She came close to him. Timothy Randebush, tingling with the thrills of the first love in all his forty-five years, found himself clasping her in his arms.

An hour ... or a century ... later, Timothy, carrying the cat and the packaway ... Matilda Merry often wondered where her cat had been so long but then cats had their ways ... turned down the hall to the side door.

“We’ll go out this way, Miss Winkworth ... Alma ... dear. It’ll be easier for you walking down to the beach than from the other doors.”

He set down the packaway and the cat, selected a key and tried to open it. It would not turn. He tried the knob. The door opened easily.

“Blue cats! The door is unlocked!” he exclaimed.

“It has been unlocked ever since I came here,” said Alma Winkworth demurely. “Mrs. Blythe and I were over here one day and I suppose we forgot to lock it. She has a key to it, you know.”

Out in the ways of the wind went I,

And its elfin voices sang to me,

I heard it calling from far and nigh

In wild sweet notes that rang to me.

Wind of the east and wind of the west,

Whichever blows I love it the best,

Wind of the night and wind of the day,

’Tis a very good friend of mine alway.

Came the wind of the salt grey seas,

With a bite and a tang in the breath of it,

Binding with bitter sorceries

Those who walk in the path of it.

Told me many a ghostly tale

Of ragged rock and vanished sail,

Told me of mystery shores afar

Where islands of enchantment are.

Out of a solitude free as thought

Came the wind of the waste to me,

The wind of the waste where man is not,

By the way of the stars it raced to me.

Whispered to me of a lonely land,

Leagues of unbroken, moon-washed sand,

Great serenities, sunset born,

Midnoon hush and unfettered morn.

Came the wind of the long green hill,

A vagabond wind to the heart of it,

Loud or low as it listeth, still

Courage and laughter are part of it.

A madcap wind that knows full well

Where the fairy folk of the upland dwell,

A wind that knows a mortal’s quest

Must lead to the gateways of the west.

But I loved the wind of the valley more

With the homely wholesome croon of it,

The wind of the hearth and the open door,

Friendship and love were the boon of it.

Wind of a garden of balm and musk,

Wind of the midnight, wind of the dusk,

Wind of the valley, blow for me

Wherever my own fireside may be.

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:- “I’ve always liked the wind, as I think I’ve remarked before.” susan:- “I can’t say as much. It sounds so dismal at night, yowling round the eaves.”

JEM BLYTHE
:- “I like that verse about ‘my own fireside,’ mother. When I was in the trenches I used to think of the wind blowing up the harbour around Ingleside.”

DR. BLYTHE
:- “Your poem reminds me curiously of Walter’s, although it is quite different in a way. I think that it is one of your best efforts, Anne-girl. That you can write so well shows the wound is healing.”

ANNE
,
sadly:
- “But the scar will always be there, Gilbert.”

DR. BLYTHE
:- “Yes, with us all. Don’t think I don’t realize that, darling.”

Love, is it dawn that creeps in so grey,

Like the timid ghost,

All shrinking and pale, of the dead sweet night,

Lived and enjoyed to the uttermost

Of its swift delight!

Love, hold me close for I am a-cold

With the grave’s own chill,

And my cheek must yet have the smear of the mould ...

I have dreamed a dream as here I lay

Next to your heart ... in my dream I died

And was buried deep, deep in the yard beside

The old church on the hill.

(Oh, the dream was bitter!)

By my gravestone a rose was blowing red,

Red as love.

The world was full of the laughter of spring ...

I heard it down there in my clammy bed ...

The little birds sang in the trees above,

The wind was glad with the clouds that fled

All white and pearly across the sky,

And the pretty shadows went winking by

Like tricksy, madcap thoughts awing.

You had buried me in my wedding gown

Of silk and lace ...

My hair curled blackly my neck adown,

But my lips, I knew, were white in my face,

And the flower I held in my stiff hand yet

Was slimy and wet.

(Keep me from death, oh my lover!)

Still, though the clay was heaped over me,

I could see ... I could see

The folk going by to the old church door;

Wives and mothers and maids went by

All fine and silken, rosy and sweet:

Some came with a tear their graves to greet

But to mine only old mad Margaret came,

And she laughed to herself as she read my name

With an evil laughter evil and sly,

That pierced like a dart to my cold heart’s core.

I saw the old maid go bitterly in

Who had known no love ...

Two brothers who hated each other well ...

Miser Jock with his yellow skin ...

A girl with the innocent eyes of a dove ...

A young wife with a bonny child ...

And Lawrence, the man who never smiled

With his lips but always mocked with his eyes.

(Oh love, the grave makes us far too wise,

I knew why he mocked!)

Then I felt a thrill the dank earth through

And I knew ... oh, I knew

That it came from your step on our path from the dale ...

Almost my heart began to beat!

And you passed by with another bride

Proud of her golden ring at your side ...

That slim white girl who lives at the mill,

Who has loved you always and loves you still,

With her hair the colour of harvest wheat

And her lips as red as mine were pale.

How I hated her, so tall and fair,

And shining of hair ...

Love, I am so little and dark!

My heart, that had once soared up like a lark

At your glance, was as a stone in my breast;

Never once did you look my way,

Only at
her
you looked and kissed

With your eyes her eyes of amethyst ...

My eyes were sunk in cruel decay

And the worms crawled in the silk of my vest ...

(Keep me from death, oh my lover!)

Love, hold me close for I am a-cold!

It was only a dream ... as a dream it has fled.

Kiss me warm from its lingering chill,

Burn from my face the taint of the dead,

Kiss my hair that is black not gold ...

Am I not as sweet as the girl at the mill?

(Oh, the dream was bitter!)

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:- “Anne-girl, I’ve no earthly wish to interfere with anything you want to write. But isn’t that rather morbid?”

SUSAN
,
under her breath:
- “She never wrote like that before Walter died. I wish I’d gone to school longer and then maybe I’d understand it. And I’ve never made light of dreams since Miss Oliver’s dreams in the war. But I
do
think Absalom Flagg might have waited a little longer before marrying again. I wonder if Mrs. Dr. dear was thinking of him and Jen Elliott. As for the old maid who had never known love ... well, I’ve got past the stage of caring. Mrs. Blythe didn’t mean to hurt my feelings and that I will tie to.”

ANNE
:- “The whole thing was the outcome of some story I heard long ago.”

DR. BLYTHE
:- “It just doesn’t seem like you ... not like my Anne-girl of old Avonlea days, that’s all.”

ANNE
,
trying to laugh:
- “Would
you
marry as quick as that if I died, Gilbert?”

DR. BLYTHE
,
really laughing:
- “Quicker, if Susan would have me. Isn’t it about time for supper?”

SUSAN
:- “It is ready and your favourite pie is ready, too.”

DR. BLYTHE
,
thinking:
- “I imagine it’s time Anne had a trip somewhere.”