Aunt Elizabeth was knitting; she looked solemn but not offended or angry. She ignored Daff, but thought that Emily seemed very tall in the old, stately, twilit room. How quickly children grew up! It seemed but the other day since fair, pretty Juliet... Elizabeth Murray shut her thoughts off with a click.
"Sit down, Emily," she said. "I want to have a talk with you."
Emily sat down. So did Daffy, wreathing his tail comfortably about his paws. Emily suddenly felt that her hands were clammy and her mouth dry. She wished that she had knitting, too. It was nasty to sit there, unoccupied, and wonder what was coming. What DID come was the one thing she had never thought of. Aunt Elizabeth, after knitting a deliberate round on her stocking, said directly:
"Emily, would you like to go to Shrewsbury next week?"
Go to Shrewsbury? Had she heard aright?
"Oh, Aunt Elizabeth!" she said.
"I have been talking the matter over with your uncles and aunts," said Aunt Elizabeth. "They agree with me that you should have some further education. It will be a considerable expense, of course... no, don't interrupt. I don't like interruptions... but Ruth will board you for half-price, as her contribution to your up-bringing... Emily, I will NOT be interrupted! Your Uncle Oliver will pay the other half; your Uncle Wallace will provide your books, and I will see to your clothes. You will, of course, help your Aunt Ruth about the house in every way possible as some return for her kindness. You may go to Shrewsbury for three years on a certain condition."
What was the condition? Emily, who wanted to dance and sing and laugh through the old parlour as no Murray, not ever her mother, had ever ventured to dance and laugh before, constrained herself to sit rigidly on her ottoman and ask herself that question. Behind her suspense she felt that the moment was quite dramatic.
"Three years at Shrewsbury," Aunt Elizabeth went on, "will do as much for you as three at Queen's... except, of course, that you don't get a teacher's licence, which doesn't matter in your case, as you are not under the necessity of working for your living. But, as I have said, there is a condition."
WHY didn't Aunt Elizabeth name the condition? Emily felt that the suspense was unendurable. Could it be possible that Aunt Elizabeth was a little AFRAID to name it? It was not like her to talk for time. Was it so very terrible?
"You must promise," said Aunt Elizabeth sternly, "that for the three years you are at Shrewsbury you will give up entirely this writing nonsense of yours... ENTIRELY, except in so far as school compositions may be required."
Emily sat very still... and cold. No Shrewsbury on the one hand... on the other no more poems, no more stories and "studies," no more delightful Jimmy-books of miscellany. She did not take more than one instant to make up her mind.
"I can't promise that, Aunt Elizabeth," she said resolutely.
Aunt Elizabeth dropped her knitting in amazement. She had not expected this. She had thought Emily was so set on going to Shrewsbury that she would do anything that might be asked of her in order to go... especially such a trifling thing as this... which, so Aunt Elizabeth thought, involved only a surrender of stubbornness.
"Do you mean to say you won't give up your foolish scribbling for the sake of the education you've always pretended to want so much?" she demanded.
"Not that I WON'T... it's just that I CAN'T," said Emily despairingly. She knew Aunt Elizabeth could not understand... Aunt Elizabeth never had understood THIS. "I CAN'T help writing, Aunt Elizabeth. It's in my blood. There's no use in asking me. I DO want an education... it isn't pretending... but I can't give up my writing to get it. I COULDN'T keep such a promise... so what use would there be in making it?"
"Then you can stay home," said Aunt Elizabeth angrily.
Emily expected to see her get up and walk out of the room. Instead, Aunt Elizabeth picked up her stocking and wrathfully resumed her knitting. To tell the truth, Aunt Elizabeth was absurdly taken aback. She really wanted to send Emily to Shrewsbury. Tradition required so much of her, and all the clan were of opinion she should be sent. This condition had been her own idea. She thought it a good chance to break Emily of a silly un-Murray-like habit of wasting time and paper, and she had never doubted that her plan would succeed, for she knew how much Emily wanted to go. And now this senseless, unreasoning, ungrateful obstinacy... "the Starr coming out," thought Aunt Elizabeth rancorously, forgetful of the Shipley inheritance! What was to be done? She knew too well from past experience that there would be no moving Emily once she had taken up a position, and she knew that Wallace and Oliver and Ruth, though they thought Emily's craze for writing as silly and untraditional as she did, would not back her... Elizabeth... up in her demand. Elizabeth Murray foresaw a complete right-about-face before her, and Elizabeth Murray did not like the prospect. She could have shaken, with a right good will, the slim, pale thing sitting before her on the ottoman. The creature was so slight... and young... and indomitable. For over three years Elizabeth Murray had tried to cure Emily of this foolishness of writing and for over three years she, who had never failed in anything before, had failed in this. One couldn't starve her into submission... and nothing short of it would seem to be efficacious.
Elizabeth knitted furiously in her vexation, and Emily sat motionless, struggling with her bitter disappointment and sense of injustice. She was determined she would not cry before Aunt Elizabeth, but it was hard to keep the tears back. She wished Daff wouldn't purr with such resounding satisfaction, as if everything were perfectly delicious from a grey cat's point of view. She wished Aunt Elizabeth would tell her to go. But Aunt Elizabeth only knitted furiously and said nothing. It all seemed rather nightmarish. The wind was rising and the rain began to drive against the pane, and the dead-and-gone Murrays looked down accusingly from their dark frames. THEY had no sympathy with flashes and Jimmy-books and Alpine paths... with the pursuit of unwon, alluring divinities. Yet Emily couldn't help thinking, under all her disappointment, what an excellent setting it would make for some tragic scene in a novel.
The door opened and Cousin Jimmy slipped in. Cousin Jimmy knew what was in the wind and had been coolly and deliberately listening outside the door. HE knew Emily would never promise such a thing... he had told Elizabeth so at the family council ten days before. HE was only simply Jimmy Murray, but he understood what sensible Elizabeth Murray could not understand.
"What is wrong?" he asked, looking from one to the other.
"Nothing is wrong," said Aunt Elizabeth haughtily. "I have offered Emily an education and she has refused it. She is free to do so, of course."
"No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors," said Cousin Jimmy in the eerie tone in which he generally said such things. It always made Elizabeth shiver... she could never forget that his eeriness was HER fault. "Emily can't promise what you want. Can you, Emily?"
"No." In spite of herself a couple of big tears rolled down Emily's cheeks.
"If you COULD," said Cousin Jimmy, "you WOULD promise it for ME, wouldn't you?"
Emily nodded.
"You've asked too much, Elizabeth," said Cousin Jimmy to the angry lady of the knitting-needles. "You've asked her to give up ALL her writing... now, if you'd just asked her to give up SOME... Emily, what if she just asked you to give up SOME? You might be able to do that, mightn't you?"
"What SOME?" asked Emily cautiously.
"Well, anything that wasn't TRUE, for instance." Cousin Jimmy sidled over to Emily and put a beseeching hand on her shoulder. Elizabeth did not stop knitting, but the needles went more slowly. "STORIES, for instance, Emily. She doesn't like your writing stories, especially. She thinks they're lies. She doesn't mind other things so much. Don't you think, Emily, you could give up writing stories for three years? An education is a great thing. Your grandmother Archibald would have lived on herring tails to get an education... many a time I've heard her say it. Come, Emily?"