Old Kelly, the tin peddler, who had been Emily's friend of many years, had to have his say about it, too. One could not suppress Old Kelly.
"Gurrl dear, is it true that ye do be after going to marry Jarback Praste?"
"Quite true." Emily knew it was of no use to expect Old Kelly to call Dean anything but Jarback. But she always winced.
Old Kelly crabbed his face.
"Ye're too young at the business of living to be marrying any one... laste of all a Praste."
"Haven't you been twitting me for years with my slowness in getting a beau?" asked Emily shyly.
"Gurrl dear, a joke is a joke. But this is beyond joking. Don't be pig-headed now, there's a jewel. Stop a bit and think it over. There do be some knots mighty aisy to tie but the untying is a cat of a different brade. I've always been warning ye against marrying a Praste. 'Twas a foolish thing... I might av known it. I should 've towld ye to marry one."
"Dean isn't like the other Priests, Mr. Kelly. I'm going to be very happy."
Old Kelly shook his bushy, reddish grey head incredulously.
"Then you'll be the first Praste woman that ever was, not aven laving out the ould Lady at the Grange. But SHE liked a fight every day. It'll be the death av you."
"Dean and I won't fight... at least not every day." Emily was having some fun to herself. Old Kelly's gloomy predictions did not worry her. She took rather an impish delight in egging him on.
"Not if ye give him his own way. He'll sulk if ye don't. All the Prastes sulk if they don't get it. And he'll be that jealous... ye'll never dare spake to another man. Oh, the Prastes rule their wives. Old Aaron Praste made his wife go down on her knees whenever she had a little favour to ask. Me feyther saw it wid his own eyes."
"Mr. Kelly, do you really suppose ANY man could make ME do that?"
Old Kelly's eyes twinkled in spite of himself.
"The Murray knee jints do be a bit stiff for that," he acknowledged, "But there's other things. Do ye be after knowing that his Uncle Jim never spoke when he could grunt and always said 'Ye fool' to his wife when she conterdicted him."
"But perhaps she WAS a fool, Mr. Kelly."
"Mebbe. But was it polite? I lave it to ye. And his father threw the dinner dishes at his wife whin she made him mad. 'Tis a fact, I'm telling you. Though the old divil WAS amusing when he was pleased."
"That sort of thing always skips a generation," said Emily. "And if not... I can dodge."
"Gurrl dear, there do be worse things than having a dish or two flung at ye. Ye KIN dodge them. But there's things ye can't dodge. Tell me now, do ye know"... Old Kelly lowered his voice ominously... "that 'tis said the Prastes do often get tired av bein' married to the wan woman."
Emily was guilty of giving Mr. Kelly one of the smiles Aunt Elizabeth had always disapproved of.
"Do you really think Dean will get tired of me? I'm not beautiful, dear Mr. Kelly, but I am very interesting."
Old Kelly gathered up his lines with the air of a man who surrenders at discretion.
"Well, gurrl dear, ye do be having a good mouth for kissing, anyway. I see ye're set on it. But I do be thinking the Lord intended ye for something different. Anyway, here's hoping we'll all make a good end. But he knows too much, that Jarback Praste, he's after knowing far too much."
Old Kelly drove off, waiting till he was decently out of earshot to mutter:
"Don't it bate hell? And him as odd-looking as a cross-eyed cat!"
Emily stood still for a few minutes looking after Old Kelly's retreating chariot. He had found the one joint in her armour and the thrust had struck home. A little chill crept over her as if a wind from the grave had blown across her spirit. All at once an old, old story whispered long ago by Great-aunt Nancy to Caroline Priest flashed into her recollection. Dean, so it was said, had seen the Black Mass celebrated.
Emily shook the recollection from her. THAT was all nonsense... silly, malicious, envious gossip of stay-at-homes. But Dean DID know too much. He had eyes that had seen too much. In a way that had been part of the distinct fascination he had always had for Emily. But now it frightened her. Had she not always felt... did she not still feel... that he always seemed to be laughing at the world from some mysterious standpoint of inner knowledge... a knowledge she did not share... could not share... did not, to come down to the bare bones of it, want to share? He had lost some intangible, all-real zest of faith and idealism. It was there deep in her heart... an inescapable conviction, thrust it out of sight as she might. For a moment she felt with Ilse that it was a decidedly devilish thing to be a woman.
"It serves me right for bandying words with Old Jock Kelly on such a subject," she thought angrily.
Consent was never given in set terms to Emily's engagement. But the thing came to be tacitly accepted. Dean was well-to-do. The Priests had all the necessary traditions, including that of a grandmother who had danced with the Prince of Wales at the famous ball in Charlottetown. After all, there would be a certain relief in seeing Emily safely married.
"He won't take her far away from us," said Aunt Laura, who could have reconciled herself to almost anything for that. How could they lose the one bright, gay thing in that faded house?
"Tell Emily," wrote old Aunt Nancy, "that twins run in the Priest family."
But Aunt Elizabeth did not tell her.
Dr. Burnley, who had made the most fuss, gave in when he heard that Elizabeth Murray was overhauling the chests of quilts in the attic of New Moon and that Laura was hemstitching table linen.
"Those whom Elizabeth Murray has joined together let no man put asunder," he said resignedly.
Aunt Laura cupped Emily's face in her gentle hands and looked deep into her eyes. "God bless you, Emily, dear child."
"Very mid-Victorian," commented Emily to Dean. "But I liked it."
Chapter IX
I
On one point Aunt Elizabeth was adamant Emily should not be married until she was twenty. Dean, who had dreamed of an autumn wedding and a winter spent in a dreamy Japanese garden beyond the western sea, gave in with a bad grace. Emily, too, would have preferred an earlier bridal. In the back of her mind, where she would not even glance at it, was the feeling that the sooner it was over and made irrevocable, the better.
Yet she was happy, as she told herself very often and very sincerely. Perhaps there WERE dark moments when a disquieting thought stared her in the face... it was but a crippled, broken- winged happiness... not the wild, free-flying happiness she had dreamed of. But that, she reminded herself, was lost to her for ever.
One day Dean appeared before her with a flush of boyish excitement on his face.
"Emily, I've been and gone and done something. Will you approve? Oh, Lord, what will I do if you don't approve."
"What is it you've done?"
"I've bought me a house."
"A house!"
"A house! I, Dean Priest, am a landed proprietor... owning a house, a garden and a spruce lot five acres in extent. I, who this morning hadn't a square inch of earth to call my own. I, who all my life have been hungry to own a bit of land."