Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

"The only real cat is a grey cat!"

One late August evening Emily heard Teddy's signal whistle from the To-morrow Road, and slipped out to join him. He had news... that was evident from his shining eyes.

"Emily," he cried excitedly, "I'm going to Shrewsbury after all! Mother told me this evening she had made up her mind to let me go!"

Emily was glad... with a queer sorriness underneath, for which she reproached herself. How lonesome it would be at New Moon when her three old pals were gone! She had not realized until that moment how much she had counted on Teddy's companionship. He had always been there in the background of her thoughts of the coming year. She had always taken Teddy for granted. Now there would be nobody... not even Dean, for Dean was going away for the winter as usual... to Egypt or Japan, as he might decide at the last moment. What would she do? Would all the Jimmy-books in the world take the place of her flesh-and-blood chums?

"If you were only going, too!" said Teddy, as they walked along the To-morrow Road... which was almost a To-day Road now, so fast and so tall had the leafy young maples grown.

"There's no use wishing it... don't speak of it... it makes me unhappy," said Emily jerkily.

"Well, we'll have week-ends anyhow. And it's you I have to thank for going. It was what you said to Mother that night in the graveyard that made her let me go. I know she's been thinking of it ever since, by things she would say every once in a while. One day last week I heard her muttering: 'It's awful to be a mother... awful to be a mother and suffer like this.' Yet she called me selfish!' And another time she said, 'Is it selfish to want to keep the only thing you have left in the world?' But she was lovely to-night when she told me I could go. I know folks say Mother isn't quite right in her mind... and sometimes she IS a little queer. But it's only when other people are around. You've no idea, Emily, how nice and dear she is when we're alone. I hate to leave her. But I MUST get some education!"

"I'm very glad if what I said has made her change her mind, but she will never forgive me for it. She has hated me ever since... you know she has. You know how she LOOKS at me whenever I'm at the Tansy Patch... oh, she's very polite to me. But her eyes, Teddy."

"I know," said Teddy, uncomfortably. "But don't be hard on Mother, Emily. I'm sure she wasn't always like that... though she has been ever since I can remember. I don't know ANYTHING of her before that. She never tells me anything... I don't know a thing about my father. She won't talk about him. I don't even know how she got that scar on her face."

"I don't think there's anything the matter with your mother's mind, really," said Emily slowly. "But I think there's something troubling it... always troubling it... something she can't forget or throw off. Teddy, I'm sure your mother is HAUNTED. Of course, I don't mean by a ghost or anything silly like that. But by some terrible THOUGHT."

"She isn't happy, I know," said Teddy, "and, of course, we're poor. Mother said to-night she could only send me to Shrewsbury for three years... that was all she could afford. But that will give me a start... I'll get on somehow after that. I KNOW I can. I'll make it up to her yet."

"You will be a great artist some day," said Emily dreamily.

They had come to the end of the To-morrow Road. Before them was the pond pasture, whitened over with a drift of daisies. Farmers hate the daisies as a pestiferous weed, but a field white with them on a summer twilight is a vision from the Land of Lost Delight. Beneath them Blair Water shone like a great golden lily. Up on the eastern hill the little Disappointed House crouched amid its shadows, dreaming, perhaps, of the false bride that had never come to it. There was no light at the Tansy Patch. Was lonely Mrs. Kent crying there in the darkness, with only her secret, tormenting heart-hunger for companion?

Emily was looking at the sunset sky... her eyes rapt, her face pale and seeking. She felt no longer blue or depressed... somehow she never could feel that way long in Teddy's company. In all the world there was no music like his voice. All good things seemed suddenly possible with him. She could not go to Shrewsbury... but she could work and study at New Moon... oh, how she would work and study. Another year with Mr. Carpenter would do a great deal for her... as much as Shrewsbury, perhaps. She, too, had her Alpine Path to climb... she WOULD climb it, no matter what the obstacles in the way... no matter whether there was any one to help her or not.

"When I am I'll paint you just as you're looking now," said Teddy, "and call it Joan of Arc... with a face all spirit... listening to her voices."

In spite of her voices Emily went to bed that night feeling rather down-hearted... and woke in the morning with an unaccountable conviction that some good news was coming to her that day... a conviction that did not lessen as the hours passed by in the commonplace fashion of Saturday hours at New Moon... busy hours in which the house was made immaculate for Sunday, and the pantry replenished. It was a cool, damp day when the fogs were coming up from the shore on the east wind, and New Moon and its old garden were veiled in mist.

At twilight a thin, grey rain began to fall, and still the good news had not come. Emily had just finished scouring the brass candlesticks and composing a poem called Rain Song, simultaneously, when Aunt Laura told her that Aunt Elizabeth wanted to see her in the parlour.

Emily's recollections of parlour interviews with Aunt Elizabeth were not especially pleasant. She could not recall any recent deed, done or left undone, which would justify this summons, yet she walked into the parlour quakingly: whatever Aunt Elizabeth was going to say to her it must have some special significance or it would not be said in the parlour. This was just one of Aunt Elizabeth's little ways. Daffy, her big cat, slipped in beside her like a noiseless, grey shadow. She hoped Aunt Elizabeth would not shoo him out: his presence was a certain comfort: a cat is a good backer when he is on your side!

Aunt Elizabeth was knitting; she looked solemn but not offended or angry. She ignored Daff, but thought that Emily seemed very tall in the old, stately, twilit room. How quickly children grew up! It seemed but the other day since fair, pretty Juliet... Elizabeth Murray shut her thoughts off with a click.

"Sit down, Emily," she said. "I want to have a talk with you."

Emily sat down. So did Daffy, wreathing his tail comfortably about his paws. Emily suddenly felt that her hands were clammy and her mouth dry. She wished that she had knitting, too. It was nasty to sit there, unoccupied, and wonder what was coming. What DID come was the one thing she had never thought of. Aunt Elizabeth, after knitting a deliberate round on her stocking, said directly:

"Emily, would you like to go to Shrewsbury next week?"

Go to Shrewsbury? Had she heard aright?

"Oh, Aunt Elizabeth!" she said.

"I have been talking the matter over with your uncles and aunts," said Aunt Elizabeth. "They agree with me that you should have some further education. It will be a considerable expense, of course... no, don't interrupt. I don't like interruptions... but Ruth will board you for half-price, as her contribution to your up-bringing... Emily, I will NOT be interrupted! Your Uncle Oliver will pay the other half; your Uncle Wallace will provide your books, and I will see to your clothes. You will, of course, help your Aunt Ruth about the house in every way possible as some return for her kindness. You may go to Shrewsbury for three years on a certain condition."

What was the condition? Emily, who wanted to dance and sing and laugh through the old parlour as no Murray, not ever her mother, had ever ventured to dance and laugh before, constrained herself to sit rigidly on her ottoman and ask herself that question. Behind her suspense she felt that the moment was quite dramatic.