Lucy Montgomery - Emily's Quest

Old Great-aunt Nancy of Priest Pond died that summer, very suddenly. "I'm tired of living. I think I'll stop," she said one day... and stopped. None of the Murrays benefited by her will; everything she had was left to Caroline Priest; but Emily got the gazing-ball and the brass chessy-cat knocker and the gold ear- rings... and the picture Teddy had done of her in water-colours years ago. Emily put the chessy-cat on the front porch door of the Disappointed House and hung the great silvery gazing-ball from the Venetian lantern and wore the quaint old ear-rings to many rather delightful pomps and vanities. But she put the picture away in a box in the New Moon attic... a box that held certain sweet, old, foolish letters full of dreams and plans.

They had glorious minutes of fun when they stopped to rest occasionally. There was a robin's nest in the fir at the north corner which they watched and protected from Daffy.

"Think of the music penned in this fragile, pale blue wall," said Dean, touching an egg one day. "Not the music of the moon perhaps, but an earthlier, homelier music, full of wholesome sweetness and the joy of living. This egg will some day be a robin, Star, to whistle us blithely home in the afterlight."

They made friends with an old rabbit that often came hopping out of the woods into the garden. They had a game as to who could count the most squirrels in the daytime and the most bats in the evening. For they did not always go home as soon as it got too dark to work. Sometimes they sat out on their sandstone steps listening to the melancholy loveliness of night-wind on the sea and watching the twilight creep up from the old valley and the shadows waver and flicker under the fir-trees and the Blair Water turning to a great grey pool tremulous with early stars. Daff sat beside them, watching everything with his great moonlight eyes, and Emily pulled his ears now and then.

"One understands a cat a little better now. At all other times he is inscrutable, but in the time of dusk and dew we can catch a glimpse of the tantalizing secret of his personality."

"One catches a glimpse of all kinds of secrets now," said Dean. "On a night like this I always think of the 'hills where spices grow.' That line of the old hymn Mother used to sing has always intrigued me... though I can't 'fly like a youthful hart or roe.' Emily, I can see that you are getting your mouth in the proper shape to talk about the colour we'll paint the woodshed. Don't you do it. No one should talk paint when she's expecting a moonrise. There'll be a wonderful one presently... I've arranged for it. But if we MUST talk of furniture let's plan for a few things we haven't got yet and MUST have... a canoe for our boating trips along the Milky Way, for instance... a loom for the weaving of dreams and a jar of pixy-brew for festal hours. And can't we arrange to have the spring of Ponce de Leon over in that corner? Or would you prefer a fount of Castaly? As for your trousseau, have what you like in it but there MUST be a gown of grey twilight with an evening star for your hair. Also one trimmed with moonlight and a scarf of sunset cloud."

Oh, she liked Dean. HOW she liked him. If she could only love him!

One evening she slipped up alone to see her little house by moonlight. What a dear place it was. She saw herself there in the future... flitting through the little rooms... laughing under the firs... sitting hand in hand with Teddy at the fireplace... Emily came to herself with a shock. With Dean, of course, with Dean. A mere trick of the memory.

There came a September evening when everything was done... even to the horseshoe over the door to keep the witches out... even to the candles Emily had stuck all about the living-room... a little, jolly, yellow candle... a full, red, pugnacious candle... a dreamy, pale blue candle... a graceless candle with aces of hearts and diamonds all over it... a slim, dandyish candle.

And the result was good. There was a sense of harmony in the house. The things in it did not have to become acquainted but were good friends from the very start. They did not shriek at each other. There was not a noisy room in the house.

"There's absolutely nothing more we can do," sighed Emily. "We can't even PRETEND there's anything more to do."

"I suppose not," agreed Dean regretfully. Then he looked at the fireplace where kindlings and pinewood were laid.

"Yes, there is," he cried. "How could we have forgotten it? We've got to see if the chimney will draw properly. I'm going to light that fire."

Emily sat down on the settee in the corner and when the fire began to burn Dean came and sat beside her. Daffy lay stretched out at their feet, his little striped flanks moving peacefully up and down.

Up blazed the merry flames. They shimmered over the old piano... they played irreverent hide-and-seek with Elizabeth Bas' adorable old face... they danced on the glass doors of the cupboard where the willow-ware dishes were; they darted through the kitchen door and the row of brown and blue bowls Emily had ranged on the dresser winked back at them.

"This is home," said Dean softly. "It's lovelier than I've ever dreamed of its being. This is how we'll sit on autumn evenings all our lives, shutting out the cold misty nights that come in from the sea... just you and I alone with the firelight and the sweetness. But sometimes we'll let a friend come in and share it... sip of our joy and drink of our laughter. We'll just sit here and think about it all... till the fire burns out."

The fire crackled and snapped. Daffy purred. The moon shone down through the dance of the fir-boughs straight on them through the windows. And Emily was thinking... could not help thinking... of the time she and Teddy had sat there. The odd part was that she did not think of him longingly or lovingly. She just thought of him. Would she, she asked herself, in mingled exasperation and dread, find herself thinking of Teddy when she was standing up to be married to Dean?

When the fire had died down into white ashes Dean got up.

"It was worth while to have lived long dreary years for this... and to live them again, if need be, looking back to it," he said, holding out his hand. He drew her nearer. What ghost came between the lips that might have met? Emily turned away with a sigh.

"Our happy summer is over, Dean."

"Our FIRST happy summer," corrected Dean. But his voice suddenly sounded a little tired.

They locked the door of the Disappointed House one November evening and Dean gave the key to Emily.

"Keep it till spring," he said, looking out over the quiet, cold, grey fields across which a chilly wind was blowing. "We won't come back here till then."

In the stormy winter that followed, the cross-lots path to the little house was so heaped with drifts that Emily never went near it. But she thought about it often and happily, waiting amid its snows for spring and life and fulfilment. That winter was, on the whole, a happy time. Dean did not go away and made himself so charming to the older ladies of New Moon that they almost forgave him for being Jarback Priest. To be sure, Aunt Elizabeth never could understand more than half of his remarks and Aunt Laura put down to his debit account the change in Emily. For she was changed. Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Laura knew that, though no one else seemed to notice it. Often there was an odd restlessness in her eyes. And something was missing from her laughter. It was not so quick... so spontaneous as of old. She was a woman before her time, thought Aunt Laura with a sigh. Was that dreadful fall down the New Moon stairs the only cause? WAS Emily happy? Laura dared not ask. DID she love Dean Priest whom she was going to marry in June? Laura did not know; but she DID know that love is something that cannot be generated by any intellectual rule o' thumb. Also that a girl who is as happy as an engaged girl should be does not spend so many hours when she should be sleeping, pacing up and down her room. This was not to be explained away on the ground that Emily was thinking out stories, Emily had given up writing. In vain Miss Royal wrote pleading and scolding letters from New York. In vain Cousin Jimmy slyly laid a new Jimmy-book at intervals on her desk. In vain Laura timidly hinted that it was a pity not to keep on when you had made such a good start. Even Aunt Elizabeth's contemptuous assertion that she had always known Emily would get tired of it... "the Starr fickleness, you see"... failed to sting Emily back to her pen. She could not write... she would never try to write again.