"Then why ... why ...?"
"Lots of people thought your Grandmother Kennedy was at the bottom of it. She was dead against them marrying, you know. They were staying at the big hotel on the south shore that summer after the war. Your dad was just home. It was love at first sight with him. I dunno's I blamed him. Your ma was the prettiest thing I ever did see ... like a little gold butterfly she was. That little head of hers sorter shone like."
Oh, didn't Jane know it! She was seeing that wonderful knot of pale luminous gold at the nape of mother's white neck.
"And her laugh ... it was a little tinkling, sparkling, young laugh. Does she laugh like that yet, Jane Stuart?"
Jane didn't know what to say. Mother laughed a great deal ... very tinkly ... very sparkly ... but was it young?
"Mother laughs a good deal," she said carefully.
"She was spoiled of course. She'd always had everything she wanted. And when she wanted your pa ... well, she had to have him too. For the first time in her life, I'm guessing, she wanted something her mother wouldn't get for her. The old madam was dead against it. Your ma couldn't stand up to her but she ran away with your pa. Old Mrs Kennedy went back to Toronto in a towering rage. But she kept writing to your ma and sending her presents and coaxing her to go for visits. Your pa's folks weren't any more in favour of the match than your ma's. He could have had any Island girl he liked. One in particular ... Lilian Morrow. She was yaller and spindling then but she's grown into a handsome woman. Never married. Your Aunt Irene favoured her. I've always said it was that two-faced Irene made more trouble than your grandmother. She's poison, that woman, just sweet poison. Even when she was a girl she could say the most p'isonous things in the sweetest way. But she had your pa roped and tied ... she'd always petted and pampered him ... men are like that, Jane Stuart, every one of them, clever or stupid. He thought Irene was perfection and he'd never believe she was a mischief-maker. Your pa and ma had their ups and downs, of course, but it was Irene put the sting into them, wagging that smooth tongue of hers ... 'She's only a child, 'Drew' ... when your dad was wanting to believe he'd married a woman, not a child. 'You're so young, lovey' ... when your ma was feeling scared she'd never be old and wise enough for your pa. And patronizing her ... she'd patronize God, that one ... running her house for her ... not that your ma knew much about it ... that was one of her troubles, I guess ... she'd never been taught how to manage or connive ... but a woman don't like another woman sailing in putting things to rights. I'd have sent her off with a flea in her ear ... but your ma had darn too little spunk ... she couldn't stand up to Irene."
Of course, mother couldn't stand up to Aunt Irene ... mother couldn't stand up to any one. Jane bit deep into a juicy apple rather savagely.
"I wonder," she said, as if more to herself than to Little Aunt Em, "if father and mother would have been happier if they had married other people."
"No, they wouldn't," said Aunt Em sharply. "They was meant for each other, whatever spoiled it. Don't you go thinking different, Jane Stuart. 'Course they fought! Who don't? The times I've had with my first and second! If they'd been let alone they'd likely have worked it out sooner or later. At the last, when you was rising three, your ma went to Toronto to visit the old madam and never come back. That's all anybody knows about it, Jane Stuart. Your pa sold the house and went for a trip round the world. Leastwise, that's what they said but I ain't believing the world is round. If it was, when it turned round all the water would fall out of the pond, wouldn't it? Now, I'm going to get you a bite to eat. I've got some cold ham and pickled beets and there's red currants in the garden."
They ate the ham and beets and then went out to the garden for the currants. The garden was an untidy little place, sloping to the south, which somehow contrived to be pleasant. There was honeysuckle over the paling ... "to bring the humming-birds," said Little Aunt Em and white and red hollyhocks against the dark green of a fir coppice and rampant tiger-lilies along the walk. And one corner was rich in pinks.
"Nice out here, ain't it?" said Little Aunt Em. "It's a fine, marvellous world ... oh, it's a very fine, marvellous world. Don't you like life, Jane Stuart?"
"Yes," agreed Jane heartily.
"I do. I smack my lips over life. I'd like to go on living for ever and hearing the news. Always a tang to the news. Some of these days I'm going to scrape up enough spunk to go in a car. I've never done it yet, but I will. Mrs Big Donald says it's the dream of her life to go up in an airy-plane but I draw the line at sky-hooting. What if the engine stopped going while you was up there? How are you going to get down? Well, I'm glad you come, Jane Stuart. We're both wove out of the same yarn."
Little Aunt Em gave Jane a bunch of pansies and a handful of geranium slips when she went away.
"It's the right time of the moon to plant them," she said. "Good- bye, Jane Stuart. May you never drink out of an empty cup."
Jane walked home slowly, thinking over several things. She loved being out alone at night. She liked the great white clouds that occasionally sailed over the stars. She felt, as she always felt when alone with the night, that she shared some lovely secret with the darkness.
Then the moon rose ... a great honey-hued moon. The fields all about were touched with her light. The grove of pointed firs on an eastern hill was like a magic town of slender steeples. Jane tripped along gaily, singing to herself, while her black shadow ran before her on the moonlit road. And then, just around a turn, she saw cows before her. One of them, a big black one with a strange white face, was standing squarely in the middle of the road.
Jane came out in gooseflesh. She could not try to pass those cows ... she could not. The only thing to do was to execute a flanking movement by climbing the fence into Big Donald's pasture and going through it until she was past the cows. Ingloriously Jane did so. But half-way along the field she suddenly stopped.
"How can I blame mother for not standing up to grandmother when I can't stand up to a few cows?" she thought.
She turned and went back. She climbed the fence into the road. The cows were still there. The white-faced one had not moved. Jane set her teeth and walked on with steady, gallant eyes. The cow did not budge. Jane went past it, head in air. When she was beyond the last cow, she turned and looked back. Not a cow of them had paid her the slightest attention.
"To think I was afraid of you," said Jane contemptuously.
And there was Lantern Hill and the silver laughter of the harbour underneath the moon. Jimmy John's little red heifer was in the yard and Jane drove it out fearlessly.
Dad was scribbling furiously when she peeped into the study. Ordinarily Jane would not have interrupted him but she remembered that there was something she ought to tell him.
"Dad, I forgot to tell you the house caught fire this afternoon."
Dad dropped his pen and stared at her.
"Caught fire?"
"Yes, from a spark that fell on the roof. But I went up with a pail of water and put it out. It only burned a little hole. Uncle Tombstone will soon fix it. The Snowbeams were awful mad they missed it."
Dad shook his head helplessly.
"What a Jane!" he said.
Jane, having discharged her conscience and being hungry again after her walk, made a meal off a cold fried trout and went to bed.
Chapter 26
"I like a patch of excitement about once a week," dad would say and then they would get into the old car, taking Happy with them and leaving milk for the Peters, travelling east, west and sideways, as the road took them. Monday was generally the day for these gaddings. Every day meant something at Lantern Hill. Tuesday Jane mended, Wednesday she polished the silver, Thursday she swept and dusted downstairs, Friday upstairs, Saturday she scrubbed the floor and did extra baking for Sunday. On Monday, as dad said, they just did fool things.