Lucy Montgomery - Emily's Quest

"What about emeralds?" Ilse wrote back... a bit nastily, Emily thought, not knowing that a Shrewsbury correspondent of Ilse's wrote her now and then some unreliable gossip about Perry Miller's visits to New Moon. Perry did come to New Moon occasionally. But he had given up asking Emily to marry him and seemed wholly absorbed in his profession. Already he was regarded as a coming man and shrewd politicians were said to be biding their time until he should be old enough to "bring out" as a candidate for the Provincial House.

"Who knows? You may be 'my lady' yet," wrote Ilse, "Perry will be Sir Perry some day."

Which Emily thought was even nastier than the scratch about the emerald.

At first it did not seem that the Lost Diamond had brought luck to any one at New Moon. The very evening of its finding Aunt Elizabeth broke her leg. Shawled and bonnetted for a call on a sick neighbour... bonnets had long gone out of fashion even for elderly ladies, but Aunt Elizabeth wore them still... she had started down cellar to get a jar of black currant jam for the invalid, had tripped in some way and fallen. When she was taken up it was found that her leg was broken and Aunt Elizabeth faced the fact that for the first time in her life she was to spend weeks in bed.

Of course New Moon got on without her, though she believed it couldn't. But the problem of amusing her was a more serious one than the running of New Moon. Aunt Elizabeth fretted and pined over her enforced inactivity... could not read much herself... didn't like to be read to... was sure everything was going to the dogs... was sure she was going to be lame and useless all the rest of her life... was sure Dr. Burnley was an old fool... was sure Laura would never get the apples packed properly... was sure the hired boy would cheat Cousin Jimmy.

"Would you like to hear the little story I finished to-day, Aunt Elizabeth?" asked Emily one evening. "It might amuse you."

"Is there any silly love-making in it?" demanded Aunt Elizabeth ungraciously.

"No love-making of any kind. It's pure comedy."

"Well, let me hear it. It may pass the time."

Emily read the story. Aunt Elizabeth made no comment whatever. But the next afternoon she said, hesitatingly, "Is there... any more... of that story you read last night?"

"No."

"Well, if there was... I wouldn't mind hearing it. It kind of took my thoughts away from myself. The folks seemed... sort of... real to me. I suppose that is why I feel as if I want to know what happens to them," concluded Aunt Elizabeth as if apologizing for her weakness.

"I'll write another story about them for you," promised Emily.

When this was read Aunt Elizabeth remarked that she didn't care if she heard a third one.

"Those Applegaths are amusing," she said. "I've known people like them. And that little chap, Jerry Stowe. What happens to him when he grows up, poor child?"

Emily's idea came to her that evening as she sat idly by her window looking rather drearily out on cold meadows and hills of grey, over which a chilly, lonesome wind blew. She could hear the dry leaves blowing over the garden wall. A few great white flakes were beginning to come down.

She had had a letter from Ilse that day. Teddy's picture, The Smiling Girl, which had been exhibited in Montreal and had made a tremendous sensation, had been accepted by the Paris Salon.

"I just got back from the coast in time to see the last day of its exhibition here," wrote Ilse. "And it's you... Emily... it's you. Just that old sketch he made of you years ago completed and glorified... the one your Aunt Nancy made you so mad by keeping... remember? There you were smiling down from Teddy's canvas. The critics had a great deal to say about his colouring and technique and 'feeling' and all that sort of jargon. But one said, 'The smile on the girl's face will become as famous as Mona Lisa's.' I've seen that very smile on your face a hundred times, Emily... especially when you were seeing that unseeable thing you used to call your flash. Teddy has caught the very soul of it... not a mocking, challenging smile like Mona Lisa's... but a smile that seems to hint at some exquisitely wonderful secret you could tell if you liked... some whisper eternal... a secret that would make every one happy if they could only get you to tell it. It's only a trick, I suppose... YOU don't know that secret any more than the rest of us. But the smile suggests that you do... suggests it marvellously. Yes, your Teddy has genius... that smile proves it. What does it feel like, Emily, to realize yourself the inspiration of a genius? I'd give years of my life for such a compliment."

Emily didn't quite know what it felt like. But she did feel a certain small, futile anger with Teddy. What right had he who scorned her love and was indifferent to her friendship to paint her face... her soul... her secret vision... and hang it up for the world to gaze at? To be sure, he had told her in childhood that he meant to do it... and she had agreed then. But everything had changed since then. Everything.

Well, about this story, regarding which Aunt Elizabeth had such an Oliver Twist complex. Suppose she were to write another one... suddenly the idea came. Suppose she were to expand it into a book. Not like A Seller of Dreams, of course. That old glory could come back no more. But Emily had an instantaneous vision of the new book, as a whole... a witty, sparkling rill of human comedy. She ran down to Aunt Elizabeth.

"Aunty, how would you like me to write a book for you about those people in my story? Just for you... a chapter every day."

Aunt Elizabeth carefully hid the fact that she was interested.

"Oh, you can if you want to. I wouldn't mind hearing about them. But mind, you are not to put any of the neighbours in."

Emily didn't put any of the neighbours in... she didn't need to. Characters galore trooped into her consciousness, demanding a local habitation and a name. They laughed and scowled and wept and danced... and even made a little love. Aunt Elizabeth tolerated this, supposing you couldn't have a novel without some of it. Emily read a chapter every evening, and Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy were allowed to hear it along with Aunt Elizabeth. Cousin Jimmy was in raptures. He was sure it was the most wonderful story ever written.

"I feel young again when I'm listening to you," he said.

"Sometimes I want to laugh and sometimes I want to cry," confessed Aunt Laura. "I can't sleep for wondering what is going to happen to the Applegaths in the next chapter."

"It might be worse," conceded Aunt Elizabeth. "But I wish you'd cut out what you said about Gloria Applegath's greasy dish-towels. Mrs. Charlie Frost of Derry Pond, will think you mean her. Her towels are always greasy."

"Chips are bound to light somewhere," said Cousin Jimmy. "Gloria is funny in a book, but she'd be awful to live with. Too busy saving the world. Somebody ought to tell her to read her Bible."

"I don't like Cissy Applegath, though," said Aunt Laura apologetically. "She has such a supercilious way of speaking."

"A shallow-pated creature," said Aunt Elizabeth.

"It's old Jesse Applegath I can't tolerate," said Cousin Jimmy fiercely. "A man who would kick a cat just to relieve his feelings! I'd go twenty miles to slap the old he-devil's face. But"... hopefully... "maybe he'll die before long."

"Or reform," suggested Aunt Laura mercifully.

"No, no, don't let him reform," said Cousin Jimmy anxiously. "Kill him off, if necessary, but don't reform him. I wish, though, you'd change the colour of Peg Applegath's eyes. I don't like green eyes... never did."

"But I can't change them. They ARE green," protested Emily.

"Well, then, Abraham Applegath's whiskers," pleaded Cousin Jimmy. "I like Abraham. He's a gay dog. Can't he help his whiskers, Emily?"