Lucy Montgomery - Emily's Quest

"Were you ever in such a state that you could neither cry nor pray nor swear?" demanded Ilse.

"Sometimes," agreed Emily dryly. "But I don't take it out on books that never harmed me. I just go and bite off somebody's head."

"There wasn't anybody's head handy to bite off, but I did something that was just as effective," said Ilse, casting a malevolent glance at Perry Miller's photograph which was propped up on Emily's desk.

Emily glanced at it, too, and her face Murrayfied, as Ilse expressed it. The photograph was still there but where Perry's intent and unabashed eyes had gazed out at her were now only jagged, unsightly holes.

Emily was furious. Perry had been so proud of those photographs. They were the first he had had taken in his life. "Never could afford any before," he had said frankly. He looked very handsome in them, though his pose was a bit truculent and aggressive with his wavy hair brushed back sleekly, and his firm mouth and chin showing to excellent advantage. Aunt Elizabeth had gazed at it, secretly wondering how she had ever dared make such a fine-looking young man as that eat in the kitchen. And Aunt Laura had wiped her eyes sentimentally and thought that perhaps... after all... Emily and Perry... a lawyer would be quite a thing to have in the family, coming in a good third to minister and doctor. Though, to be sure, Stovepipe Town...

Perry had rather spoiled the gift for Emily by proposing to her again. It was very hard for Perry Miller to get it into his head that anything he wanted he couldn't get. And he had always wanted Emily.

"I've got the world by the tail now," he said proudly. "Every year'll find me higher up. Why can't you make up your mind to have me, Emily?"

"Is it just a question of making up one's mind?" asked Emily satirically.

"Of course. What else?"

"Listen, Perry," said Emily decidedly. "You're a good old pal. I like you... I'll always like you. But I'm tired of this nonsense and I'm going to put a stop to it. If you ever again ask me to marry you I'll never never speak to you as long as I live. Since you are good at making up your mind make up yours which you want... my friendship or my non-existence."

"Oh, well." Perry shrugged his shoulders philosophically. He had about come to the conclusion anyhow that he might as well give up dangling after Emily Starr and getting nothing but snubs for his pains. Ten years was long enough to be a rejected but faithful swain. There were other girls, after all. Perhaps he had made a mistake. TOO faithful and persistent. If he had wooed by fits and starts, blowing hot and cold like Teddy Kent, he might have had better luck. Girls were like that. But Perry did not say this. Stovepipe Town had learned a few things. All he said was:

"If you'd only stop looking at me in a certain way I might get over hankering for you. Anyhow, I'd never have got this far along if I hadn't been in love with you. I'd just have been a hired boy somewhere or a fisherman at the harbour. So I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten how you believed in me and helped me and stood up for me to your Aunt Elizabeth. It's been... been"... Perry's handsome face flushed suddenly and his voice shook a little... "it's been... sweet... to dream about you all these years. I guess I'll have to give it up now. No use, I see. But don't take your friendship from me too, Emily."

"Never," said Emily impulsively putting out her hands. "You're a brick, Perry dear. You've done wonders and I'm proud of you."

And now to find the picture he had given her ruined. She flashed on Ilse eyes like a stormy sea.

"Ilse Burnley, how dare you do such a thing!"

"No use squizzling your eyebrows up at me like that, beloved demon," retorted Ilse. "Hasn't no effect on me a-tall. Couldn't endure that picture no-how. And Stovepipe Town in the background."

"What you've done is on a level with Stovepipe Town."

"Well, he asked for it. Smirking there. 'Behold ME. I am a Person In The Public Eye.' Never had such satisfaction as boring your scissors through those conceited orbs gave me. Two seconds more of looking at them and I'd have flung up my head and howled. Oh, how I hate Perry Miller. Puffed up like a poisoned pup!"

"I thought you told me you loved him," said Emily rather rudely.

"It's the same thing," said Ilse morosely. "Emily, why can't I get that creature out of my mind! It's too Victorian to say heart. I haven't any heart. I don't love him... I DO hate him. But I can't keep from thinking about him. THAT'S just a state of mind. Oh, I could yell at the moon. But the real reason I dug his eyes out was his turning Grit after having been born and raised Conservative."

"You are Conservative yourself."

"True but unimportant. I hate turncoats. I've never forgiven Henry IV for turning Catholic. Not because he was a Protestant but just because he was a turncoat I would have been just as implacable if he had been Catholic and turned Protestant. Perry has changed his politics just for the sake of getting into partnership with Leonard Abel. There's Stovepipe Town for you. Oh, he'll be Judge Miller and rich as wedding-cake... but... ! I wish he had had a hundred eyes so that I could have bored them all out! This is one of the times I feel it would be handy to have been a bosom friend of Lucrezia Borgia."

"Who was an excellent and rather stupid woman beloved for her good works."

"Oh, I know the modern whitewashers are determined to rob history of anything that is picturesque. No matter, I shall cling to my faith in Lucrezia and William Tell. Put that picture out of my sight. PLEASE, Emily."

Emily put the maltreated picture away in a drawer of her desk. Her brief anger had gone. She understood. At least she understood why the eyes had been cut out. It was harder to understand just why Ilse could care so much and so incurably for Perry Miller. And there was just a hint of pity in her heart as well... condescending pity for Ilse who cared so much for a man who didn't care for her.

"I think this will cure me," said Ilse savagely. "I can't... I won't love a turncoat. Blind bat... congenital idiot that he is! Pah, I'm through with him. Emily, I wonder I don't hate you. Rejecting with scorn what I want so much. Ice-cold thing, did you ever really care for anything or any creature except that pen of yours?"

"Perry has never really loved me," evaded Emily. "He only imagines he does."

"Well, I'd be content if he would only just imagine he loved me. How brazen I am about it. You're the one person in the world I can have the relief of saying such things to. That's why I can't let myself hate you, after all. I daresay I'm not half as unhappy as I think myself. One never knows what may be around the next corner. After this I mean to bore Perry Miller out of my life and thoughts just as I bored his eyes out. Emily," with an abrupt change of tone and posture, "do you know I like Teddy Kent better this summer than I ever did before."

"Oh." The monosyllable was eloquent, but Ilse was deaf to all its implications.

"Yes. He's really charming. Those years in Europe have done something to him. Perhaps it's just that they've taught him to hide his selfishness better."

"Teddy Kent isn't selfish. Why do you call him selfish? Look at his devotion to his mother."

"Because she adores him. Teddy likes to be adored. That's why he's never fallen in love with any one, you know. That... and because the girls chased him so, perhaps. It was sickening in Montreal. They made such asses of themselves... waiting on him with their tongues hanging out... that I wanted to dress in male attire and swear I wasn't of their sex. No doubt it was the same in Europe. No man alive can stand six years of that without being spoiled... and contemptuous. Teddy is all right with US... he knows we're old pals who can see through him and will stand no nonsense. But I've see him accepting tribute... graciously bestowing a smile... a look... a touch as a reward. Saying to every one just what he thought she'd like to hear. When I saw it I always felt I'd love to say something to him that he'd think of for years whenever he woke up at three o'clock o'night."