Emily thought rapidly. She loved writing stories: it would be a hard thing to give them up. But if she could still write air-born fancies in verse... and weird little Jimmy-book sketches of character... and accounts of everyday events... witty... satirical... tragic... as the humour took her... she might be able to get along.
"Try her... try her," whispered Cousin Jimmy. "Propitiate her a little. You do owe her a great deal, Emily. Meet her half-way."
"Aunt Elizabeth," said Emily tremulously, "if you will send me to Shrewsbury I promise you that for three years I won't write anything that isn't TRUE. Will that do? Because it's ALL I can promise."
Elizabeth knitted two rounds before deigning to reply. Cousin Jimmy and Emily thought she was not going to reply at all. Suddenly she folded up her knitting and rose.
"Very well. I will let it go at that. It is, of course, your stories I object to most: as for the rest, I fancy Ruth will see to it that you have not much time to waste on it."
Aunt Elizabeth swept out, much relieved in her secret heart that she had not been utterly routed, but had been enabled to retreat from a perplexing position with some of the honours of war. Cousin Jimmy patted Emily's black head.
"That's good, Emily. Mustn't be too stubborn, you know. And three years isn't a lifetime, pussy."
No: but it seems like one at fourteen. Emily cried herself to sleep when she went to bed... and woke again at three by the clock, of that windy, dark-grey night on the old north shore... rose... lighted a candle... sat down at her table and described the whole scene in her Jimmy-book; being exceedingly careful to write therein no word that was not strictly true!
CHAPTER 6. SHREWSBURY BEGINNINGS
Teddy and Ilse and Perry whooped for joy when Emily told them she was going to Shrewsbury. Emily, thinking it over, was reasonably happy. The great thing was that she was going to High School. She did not like the idea of boarding with Aunt Ruth. This was unexpected. She had supposed Aunt Ruth would never be willing to have HER about and that, if Aunt Elizabeth DID decide to send her to Shrewsbury, she would board elsewhere... probably with Ilse. Certainly, she would have greatly preferred this. She knew quite well that life would not be very easy under Aunt Ruth's roof. And then she must write no more stories.
To feel within her the creative urge and be forbidden to express it... to tingle with delight in the conception of humorous or dramatic characters, and be forbidden to bring them into existence... to be suddenly seized with the idea of a capital plot and realize immediately afterward that you couldn't develop it. All this was a torture which no one who has not been born with the fatal itch for writing can realize. The Aunt Elizabeths of the world can never understand it. To them, it is merely foolishness.
Those last two weeks of August were busy ones at New Moon. Elizabeth and Laura held long conferences over Emily's clothes. She must have an outfit that would cast no discredit on the Murrays, but common sense and not fashion was to give the casting vote. Emily herself had no say in the matter. Laura and Elizabeth argued "from noon to dewy eve" one day as to whether Emily might have a taffeta silk blouse... Ilse had three... and decided against it, much to Emily's disappointment. But Laura had her way in regard to what she dared not call an "evening dress," since the name would have doomed it in Elizabeth's opinion: it was a pretty crepe thing, of a pinkish-grey... the shade, I think, which was then called ashes- of-roses... and was made collarless... a great concession on Elizabeth's part... with the big puffed sleeves that look very absurd to-day, but which, like every other fashion, were pretty and piquant when worn by the youth and beauty of their time. It was the prettiest dress Emily had ever had... and the longest, which meant much in those days, when you could not be grown up until you had put on "long" dresses. It came to her pretty ankles.
She put it on one evening, when Laura and Elizabeth were away, because she wanted Dean to see her in it. He had come up to spend the evening with her... he was off the next day, having decided on Egypt... and they walked in the garden. Emily felt quite old and sophisticated because she had to lift her shimmering skirt clear of the ribbon grasses. She had a little greyish-pink scarf wound around her head and looked more like a star than ever, Dean thought. The cats were in attendance... Daffy, sleek and striped, Saucy Sal, who still reigned supreme in the New Moon barns. Cats might come and cats might go, but Saucy Sal went on for ever. They frisked over the grass plots and pounced on each other from flowery jungles and rolled insinuatingly around Emily's feet. Dean was going to Egypt but he knew that nowhere, even amid the strange charm of forgotten empires, would he see anything he liked better than the pretty picture Emily and her little cats made in the prim, stately, scented old garden of New Moon.
They did not talk as much as usual and the silences did queer things to both of them. Dean had one or two mad impulses to throw up the trip to Egypt and stay home for the winter... go to Shrewsbury perhaps; he shrugged his shoulders and laughed at himself. This child did not need his looking after... the ladies of New Moon were competent guardians. She was only a child yet... in spite of her slim height and her unfathomable eyes. But how perfect the white line of her throat... how kissable the sweet red curve of her mouth. She would be a woman soon... but not for him... not for lame Jarback Priest of her father's generation. For the hundredth time Dean told himself that he was not going to be a fool. He must be content with what fate had given him... the friendship and affection of this exquisite, starry creature. In the years to come her love would be a wonderful thing... for some other man. No doubt, thought Dean cynically, she would waste it on some good-looking young manikin who wasn't half worthy of it.
Emily was thinking how dreadfully she was going to miss Dean... more than she had ever missed him before. They had been such good pals that summer. She had never had a talk with him, even if it were only for a few minutes, without feeling that life was richer. His wise, witty, humorous, satiric sayings were educative. They stimulated... stung... inspired her. And his occasional compliments gave her self-confidence. He had a certain strange fascination for her that no one else in the world possessed. She felt it though she could not analyse it. Teddy, now... she knew perfectly well why she liked Teddy. It was just because of his Teddyness. And Perry... Perry was a jolly, sunburned, outspoken, boastful rogue you couldn't help liking. But Dean was different. Was his charm the allure of the unknown... of experience... of subtle knowledge... of a mind grown wise on bitterness... of things Dean knew that she could never know? Emily couldn't tell. She only knew that everybody tasted a little flat after Dean... even Teddy, though she liked him best.
Oh, yes, Emily never had any doubt at all that she liked Teddy best. And yet Dean seemed to satisfy some part of her subtle and intricate nature that always went hungry without him.
"Thank you for all you've taught me, Dean," she said as they stood by the sundial.
"Do you think you have taught me nothing, Star?"
"How could I? I'm so young... so ignorant... "
"You've taught me how to laugh without bitterness, I hope you'll never realize what a boon that is. Don't let them spoil you at Shrewsbury, Star. You're so pleased over going that I don't want to throw cold water. But you'd be just as well off... better... here at New Moon."