IV
That same winter it was bruited abroad that Jim Butterworth, of Derry Pond, had bought or was about to buy the Disappointed House. He meant, so rumour said, to haul it away, rebuild and enlarge it; and doubtless when this was done he would install therein as mistress a certain buxom, thrifty damsel of Derry Pond known as "Geordie Bridge's Mabel." Emily heard the report with anguish. She slipped out that evening in the chill spring dusk and went up the dim overgrown path over the spruce hill to the front gate of the little house like an unquiet ghost. Surely it couldn't be true that Dean had sold it. The house belonged to the hill. One couldn't imagine the hill without it.
Once Emily had got Aunt Laura to see about bringing her own belongings from it... all but the gazing-ball. She could not bear to see that. It must be still hanging there, reflecting in its silver gloom by the dim light that fell through the slits of the shutters, the living-room just as it was when she and Dean had parted. Rumour said Dean had taken nothing from it. All he had put in it was still there.
The little house must be very cold. It was so long since there was a fire in it. How neglected... how lonely... how heartbroken it looked. No light in the window... grass growing thickly over the paths... rank weeds crowding around the long-unopened door.
Emily stretched out her arms as if she wanted to put them around the house. Daff rubbed against her ankles and purred pleadingly. He did not like damp, chilly prowls... the fireside at New Moon was better for a pussy not so young as he once was. Emily lifted the old cat and set him on the crumbling gatepost.
"Daff," she said, "there is an old fireplace in that house... with the ashes of a dead fire in it... a fireplace where pussies should bask and children dream. And that will never happen now, Daff, for Mabel Geordie doesn't like open fireplaces... dirty, dusty things... a Quebec heater is so much warmer and more economical. Don't you wish... or DO you!... Daff, that you and I had been born sensible creatures, alive to the superior advantages of Quebec heaters!"
Chapter XXVII
I
It came clearly and suddenly on the air of a June evening. An old, old call... two higher notes and one long and soft and low. Emily Starr, dreaming at her window, heard it and stood up, her face suddenly gone white. Dreaming still... she must be! Teddy Kent was thousands of miles away, in the Orient... so much she knew from an item in a Montreal paper. Yes, she had dreamed it... imagined it.
It came again. And Emily KNEW that Teddy was there, waiting for her in Lofty John's bush... calling to her across the years. She went down slowly... out... across the garden. Of course Teddy was there... under the firs. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should come to her there, in that old-world garden where the three Lombardies still kept guard. Nothing was wanting to bridge the years. There was no gulf. He put out his hands and drew her to him, with no conventional greeting. And spoke as if there were no years... no memories... between them.
"Don't tell me you can't love me... you can... you must... why, Emily"... his eyes had met the moonlit brilliance of hers for a moment... "you DO."
II
"It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other," said Emily some minutes... or hours... later.
"I've been trying all my life to tell you I loved you," said Teddy. "Do you remember that evening long ago in the To-morrow Road after we left high school? Just as I was trying to screw up my courage to ask you if you'd wait for me you said night air was bad for you and went in. I thought it was a poor excuse for getting rid of me... I knew you didn't care a hoot about night air. That set me back for years. When I heard about you and Aylmer Vincent... Mother wrote you were engaged... it was a nasty shock. For the first time it occurred to me that you really didn't belong to me, after all. And that winter when you were ill... I was nearly wild. Away there in France where I couldn't see you. And people writing that Dean Priest was always with you and would probably marry you if you recovered. Then came the word that you WERE going to marry him. I won't talk of that. But when you... YOU... saved me from going to my death on the Flavian I knew you DID belong to me, once and for all, whether YOU knew it or not. Then I tried again that morning by Blair Water... and again you snubbed me mercilessly. Shaking off my touch as if my hand were a snake. And you never answered my letter. Emily, WHY didn't you? You say you've always cared... "
"I never got the letter."
"Never got it? But I mailed it... "
"Yes, I know. I must tell you... she said I was to tell you... " She told him briefly.
"My MOTHER? Did THAT?"
"You mustn't judge her harshly, Teddy. You know she wasn't like other women. Her quarrel with your father... did you know... "
"Yes, she told me all about that... when she came to me in Montreal. But THIS... Emily... "
"Let us just forget it... and forgive. She was so warped and unhappy she didn't know what she was doing. And I... I... was too proud... too proud to go when you called me that last time. I WANTED to go... but I thought you were only amusing yourself... "
"I gave up hope then... finally. It had fooled me too often. I saw you at your window, shining, as it seemed to me, with an icy radiance like some cold wintry star... I knew you heard me... it was the first time you had failed to answer our old call. There seemed nothing to do but forget you... if I could. I never succeeded, but I thought I did... except when I looked at Vega of the Lyre. And I was lonely. Ilse was a good pal. Besides, I think I thought I could talk to her about you... keep a little corner in your life as the husband of some one you loved. I knew Ilse didn't care much for me... I was only the consolation prize. But I thought we could jog along very well together and help each other keep away the fearful lonesomeness of the world. And then"... Teddy laughed at himself... "when she 'left me at the altar' according to the very formula of Bertha M. Clay I was furious. She had made such a fool of me... me, who fancied I was beginning to cut quite a figure in the world. My word, how I hated women for awhile! And I was hurt, too. I had got very fond of Ilse... I really did love her... in a way."
"In a way." Emily felt no jealousy of that.
III
"I don't know as I'd take Ilse's leavings," remarked Aunt Elizabeth.
Emily flashed on Aunt Elizabeth one of her old starry looks.
"Ilse's leavings. Why, Teddy has always belonged to me and I to him. Heart, soul and body," said Emily.
Aunt Elizabeth shuddered. One ought to feel these things... perhaps... but it was indecent to say them.
"Always sly," was Aunt Ruth's comment.
"She'd better marry him right off before she changes her mind AGAIN," said Aunt Addie.
"I suppose she won't wipe HIS kisses off," said Uncle Wallace.
Yet, on the whole, the clan were pleased. Much pleased. After all their anxieties over Emily's love affairs, to see her "settled" so respectably with a "boy" well known to them, who had, so far as they knew at least, no bad habits and no disgraceful antecedents. And who was doing pretty well in the business of picture-painting. They would not exactly say so, but Old Kelly said it for them.
"Ah, now, that's something like," said Old Kelly approvingly.