Lucy Montgomery - Emily's Quest

"JUNE 15, 19...

"I picked strawberries on the banks of Blair Water this afternoon among the windy, sweet-smelling grasses. I love picking strawberries. The occupation has in it something of perpetual youth. The gods might have picked strawberries on high Olympus without injuring their dignity. A queen... or a poet... might stoop to it; a beggar has the privilege.

"And to-night I've been sitting here in my dear old room, with my dear books and dear pictures and dear little window of the kinky panes, dreaming in the soft, odorous summer twilight, while the robins are calling to each other in Lofty John's bush and the poplars are talking eerily of old, forgotten things.

"After all, it's not a bad old world... and the folks in it are not half bad either. Even Emily Byrd Star is decent in spots. Not altogether the false, fickle, ungrateful perversity she thinks she is in the wee sma's... not altogether the friendless, forgotten maiden she imagines she is on white nights... not altogether the failure she supposes bitterly when three MSS. are rejected in succession. And NOT altogether the coward she feels herself to be when she thinks of Frederick Kent's coming to Blair Water in July."

Emily was reading by the window of her room when she heard it... reading Alice Meynell's strange poem, "Letter From A Girl To Her Own Old Age," and thrilling mystically to its strange prophecies. Outside dusk was falling over the old New Moon garden; and clear through the dusk came the two high notes and the long low one of Teddy's old whistle in Lofty John's bush... the old, old call by which he had so often summoned her in the twilights of long ago.

Emily's book fell unheeded to the floor. She stood up, mist-pale, her eyes dilating into darkness. Was Teddy there? He had not been expected till the next week, though Ilse was coming that night. Could she have been mistaken? Could she have fancied it? Some chance robin call...

It came again. She knew as she had known at first that it was Teddy's whistle. There was no sound like it in the world. And it had been so long since she had heard it. He was there... waiting for her... calling for her. Should she go? She laughed under her breath. Go? She had no choice. She must go. Pride could not hold her back... bitter remembrance of the night she had waited for his call and it had not come could not halt her hurrying footsteps. Fear... shame... all were forgotten in the mad ecstasy of the moment. Without giving herself time to reflect that she was a Murray... only snatching a moment to look in the glass and assure herself that her ivory crepe dress was very becoming... how lucky it was that she had happened to put on that dress!... she flew down the stairs and through the garden. He was standing under the dark glamour of the old firs where the path ran through Lofty John's bush... bareheaded, smiling.

"Teddy."

"Emily."

Her hands were in his... her eyes were shining into his. Youth had come back... all that had once made magic made it again. Together once more after all those long weary years of alienation and separation. There was no longer any shyness... any stiffness... any sense or fear of change. They might have been children together again. But childhood had never known this wild, insurgent sweetness... this unconsidered surrender. Oh, she was his. By a word... a look... an intonation, he was still her master. What matter if, in some calmer mood, she might not quite like it... to be helpless... dominated like this? What matter if to-morrow she might wish she had not run so quickly, so eagerly, so unhesitatingly to meet him? To-night nothing mattered except that Teddy had come back.

Yet, outwardly, they did not meet as lovers... only as old, dear friends. There was so much to talk of... so much to be silent over as they paced up and down the garden walks, while the stars laughed through the dark at them... hinting... hinting...

Only one thing was not spoken of between them... the thing Emily had dreaded. Teddy made no reference to the mystery of that vision in the London station. It was as if it had never been. Yet Emily felt that it had drawn them together again after long misunderstanding. It was well not to speak of it... it was one of those mystic things... one of the gods' secrets... that must not be spoken of. Best forgotten now that its work was done. And yet... so unreasonable are we mortals!... Emily felt a ridiculous disappointment that he didn't speak of it. She didn't want him to speak of it. But if it had meant anything to him must he not have spoken of it?

"It's good to be here again," Teddy was saying. "Nothing seems changed here. Time has stood still in this Garden of Eden. Look, Emily, how bright Vega of the Lyre is. Our star. Have you forgotten it?"

Forgotten? How she had wished she COULD forget.

"They wrote me you were going to marry Dean," said Teddy abruptly.

"I meant to... but I couldn't," said Emily.

"Why not?" asked Teddy as if he had a perfect right to ask it.

"Because I didn't love him," answered Emily, conceding his right.

Laughter... golden, delicious laughter that made you suddenly want to laugh too. Laughter was so SAFE... one could laugh without betraying anything. Ilse had come... Ilse was running down the walk. Ilse in a yellow silk gown the colour of her hair and a golden-brown hat the colour of her eyes, giving you the sensation that a gorgeous golden rose was at large in the garden.

Emily almost welcomed her. The moment had grown too vital. Some things were terrible if put into words. She drew away from Teddy almost primly... a Murray of New Moon once more.

"Darlings," said Ilse, throwing an arm around each of them. "Isn't it divine... all here together again? Oh, how much I love you! Let's forget we are old and grown-up and wise and unhappy and be mad, crazy, happy kids again for just one blissful summer."

A wonderful month followed. A month of indescribable roses, exquisite hazes, silver perfection of moonlight, unforgettable amethystine dusks, march of rains, bugle-call of winds, blossoms of purple and star-dust, mystery, music, magic. A month of laughter and dance and joy, of enchantment infinite. Yet a month of restrained, hidden realization. Nothing was ever said. She and Teddy were seldom ever alone together. But one felt... knew. Emily fairly sparkled with happiness. All the old restlessness that had worried Aunt Laura had gone from her eyes. Life was good. Friendship... love... joy of sense and joy of spirit... sorrow... loveliness... achievement... failure... longing... all were part of life and therefore interesting and desirable.

Every morning when she awakened the new day seemed to her like some good fairy who would bring her some beautiful gift of joy. Ambition was, for the time at least, forgotten. Success... power... fame. Let those who cared for them pay the price and take them. But love is not bought and sold. It is a gift.

Even the memory of her burned book ceased to ache. What did one book more or less matter in this great universe of life and passion? How pale and shadowy was any pictured life beside this throbbing, scintillant existence! Who cared for laurel, after all? Orange blossoms would make a sweeter coronet. And what star of destiny was ever brighter and more alluring than Vega of the Lyre. Which, being interpreted, simply meant that nothing mattered any more in this world or any other except Teddy Kent.

"If I had a tail I'd lash it," groaned Ilse, casting herself on Emily's bed and hurling one of Emily's treasured volumes... a little old copy of the Rubaiyat Teddy had given her in high school days... across the room. The back came off and the leaves flew every which way for a Sunday. Emily was annoyed.