Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

"This love story is no good," he said bluntly.

"I know that it isn't what I wanted to make it," sighed Emily.

"No story ever is," said Mr. Carpenter. "You'll never write anything that really satisfies you though it may satisfy other people. As for love stories, you can't write them because you can't feel them. Don't try to write anything you can't feel... it will be a failure... 'echoes nothing worth.' This other yarn now... about this old woman. It's not bad. The dialogue is clever... the climax simple and effective. And thank the Lord you've got a sense of humour. THAT'S mainly why you're no good at love stories, I believe. Nobody with any real sense of humour CAN write a love story."

Emily didn't see why this should be. She liked writing love stories... and terribly sentimental, tragical stories they were.

"Shakespeare could," she said defiantly.

"You're hardly in the Shakespeare class," said Mr. Carpenter dryly.

Emily blushed scorchingly.

"I KNOW I'm not. But you said NOBODY."

"And I maintain it. Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. Though HIS sense of humour was certainly in abeyance when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. However, let's come back to Emily of New Moon. THIS story... well, a young person might read it without contamination."

Emily knew by the inflection of Mr. Carpenter's voice that he was not praising her story. She kept silence and Mr. Carpenter went on, flicking her precious manuscripts aside irreverently.

"This one sounds like a weak imitation of Kipling. Been reading him lately?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. Don't try to imitate Kipling. If you MUST imitate, imitate Laura Jean Libbey. Nothing good about this but its title. A priggish little yarn. And Hidden Riches is not a story... it's a machine. It creaks. It never made me forget for one instant that it WAS a story. Hence it ISN'T a story."

"I was trying to write something very true to life," protested Emily.

"Ah, that's why. We all see life through an illusion... even the most disillusioned of us. That's why things aren't convincing if they're too true to life. Let me see... The Madden Family... another attempt at realism. But it's only photography... not portraiture."

"What a lot of disagreeable things you've said," sighed Emily.

"It might be a nice world if nobody ever said a disagreeable thing, but it would be a dangerous one," retorted Mr. Carpenter. "You told me you wanted criticism, not taffy. However, here's a bit of taffy for you. I kept it for the last. Something Different is comparatively good and if I wasn't afraid of ruining you I'd say it was absolutely good. Ten years from now you can rewrite it and make something of it. Yes, ten years... don't screw up your face, Jade. You have talent... and you've got a wonderful feeling for words... you get the inevitable one every time... that's a priceless thing. But you have some vile faults, too. Those cursed italics... forswear them, Jade, forswear them. And your imagination needs a curb when you get away from realism."

"It's to have one now," said Emily, gloomily.

She told him of her compact with Aunt Elizabeth. Mr. Carpenter nodded.

"Excellent."

"Excellent!" echoed Emily blankly.

"Yes. It's just what you need. It will teach you restraint and economy. Stick to facts for three years and see what you can make of them. Leave the realm of imagination severely alone and confine yourself to ordinary life."

"There isn't any such thing as ordinary life," said Emily.

Mr. Carpenter looked at her for a moment.

"You're right... there isn't," he said slowly. "But one wonders a little how you know it. Well, go on... go on... walk in your chosen path... and 'thank whatever gods there be' that you're free to walk it."

"Cousin Jimmy says nobody can be free who has a thousand ancestors."

"And yet people call that man simple," muttered Mr. Carpenter. "However, your ancestors don't seem to have wished any special curse on you. They've simply laid it on you to aim for the heights and they'll give you no peace if you don't. Call it ambition... aspiration... cacoëthes scribendi... any name you will. Under its sting... or allure... one has to go on climbing... until one fails... or... "

"Succeeds," said Emily, flinging back her dark head.

"Amen," said Mr. Carpenter.

Emily wrote a poem that night... Farewell to New Moon... and shed tears over it. She felt every line of it. It was all very well to be going to school... but to leave dear New Moon! Everything at New Moon was linked with her life and thoughts... was a part of her.

"It's not only that I love my room and trees and hills... they love me," she thought.

Her little black trunk was packed. Aunt Elizabeth had seen that everything necessary was in it, and Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy had seen that one or two unnecessary things were in it. Aunt Laura had told Emily that she would find a pair of black lace stockings inside her strap slippers... even Laura did not dare go so far as silk stockings... and Cousin Jimmy had given her three Jimmy-books and an envelope with a five-dollar bill in it.

"To get anything you want with, Pussy. I'd have made it ten but five was all Elizabeth would advance me on next month's wages. I think she suspected."

"Can I spend a dollar of it for American stamps if I can find a way to get them?" whispered Emily anxiously.

"Anything you like," repeated Cousin Jimmy loyally... though even to him it did not appear an unaccountable thing that any one should want to buy American stamps. But if dear little Emily wanted American stamps, American stamps she should have.

The next day seemed rather dream-like to Emily... the bird she heard singing rapturously in Lofty John's bush when she woke at dawn... the drive to Shrewsbury in the early crisp September morning... Aunt Ruth's cool welcome... the hours at a strange school... the organization of the "Prep" classes... home to supper... surely it must all have taken more than a day.

Aunt Ruth's house was at the end of a residential side street... almost out in the country. Emily thought it a very ugly house, covered as it was with gingerbread-work of various kinds. But a house with white wooden lace on its roof and its bay windows was the last word of elegance in Shrewsbury. There was no garden... nothing but a bare, prim, little lawn; but one thing rejoiced Emily's eyes. Behind the house was a big plantation of tall, slender fir-trees... the tallest, straightest, slenderest firs she had ever seen, stretching back into long, green, gossamered vistas.

Aunt Elizabeth had spent the day in Shrewsbury and went home after supper. She shook hands with Emily on the doorstep and told her to be a good girl and do exactly as Aunt Ruth bade her. She did not kiss Emily, but her tone was very gentle for Aunt Elizabeth. Emily choked up and stood tearfully on the doorstep to watch Aunt Elizabeth out of sight... Aunt Elizabeth going back to dear New Moon.

"Come in," said Aunt Ruth, and "PLEASE don't slam the door."

Now, Emily never slammed doors.

"We will wash the supper dishes," said Aunt Ruth. "You will always do that after this. I will show you where everything is put. I suppose Elizabeth told you I would expect you to do a few chores for your board."

"Yes," said Emily briefly.

She did not mind doing chores, any number of them... but it was Aunt Ruth's TONE.

"Of course your being here will mean a great deal of extra expense for me," continued Aunt Ruth. "But it is only fair that we should all contribute something to your bringing up. I think, and I have always thought, that it would have been much better to send you to Queen's to get a teacher's licence."

"I wanted that, too," said Emily.

"M... m." Aunt Ruth pursed her mouth. "So you tell me. In that case I don't see why Elizabeth didn't send you to Queen's. She has pampered you enough in other ways, I'm sure... I would expect her to give in about this, too, if she thought you really wanted it. You will sleep in the kitchen chamber. It is warmer in winter than the other rooms. There is no gas in it but I could not afford to let you have gas to study by in any case. You must use candles... you can burn two at a time. I shall expect you to keep your room neat and tidy and to be here at my exact hours for meals. I am very particular about that. And there is another thing you might as well understand at once. You must not bring your friends here. I do not propose to entertain them."