Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

And what was it the letter said?

"Your verses have the true ring and we shall be glad to see more of your work."

Oh, bliss... oh, rapture! The world was hers... the Alpine Path was as good as climbed... what signified a few more scrambles to the summit?

Emily could not remain in that dark little room with its oppressive ceiling and unfriendly furniture. Lord Byron's funereal expression was an insult to her happiness. She threw on her wraps and hurried out to the Land of Uprightness.

As she went through the kitchen, Aunt Ruth, naturally more suspicious than ever, inquired with markedly bland sarcasm,

"Is the house on fire? Or the harbour?"

"Neither. It's my soul that's on fire," said Emily with an inscrutable smile. She shut the door behind her and at once forgot Aunt Ruth and every other disagreeable thing and person. How beautiful the world was... how beautiful life was... how wonderful the Land of Uprightness was! The young firs along the narrow path were lightly powdered with snow, as if, thought Emily, a veil of aerial lace had been tricksily flung over austere young Druid priestesses foresworn to all such frivolities of vain adornment. Emily decided she would write that sentence down in her Jimmy-book when she went back. On and on she flitted to the crest of the hill. She felt as if she were flying... her feet COULDN'T really be touching the earth. On the hill she paused and stood, a rapt, ecstatic figure with clasped hands and eyes of dream. It was just after sunset. Out, over the ice-bound harbour, great clouds piled themselves up in dazzling, iridescent masses. Beyond were gleaming white hills with early stars over them. Between the dark trunks of the old fir trees to her right, far away through the crystal evening air, rose a great, round, full moon.

"'It has the true ring,'" murmured Emily, tasting the incredible words anew. "They want to see more of my work! Oh, if only Father could see my verses in print!"

Years before, in the old house at Maywood, her father, bending over her as she slept had said, "She will love deeply... suffer terribly... she will have glorious moments to compensate."

This was one of her glorious moments. She felt a wonderful lightness of spirit... a soul-stirring joy in mere existence. The creative faculty, dormant through the wretched month just passed, suddenly burned in her soul again like a purifying flame. It swept away all morbid, poisonous, rankling things. All at once Emily KNEW that Ilse had never done THAT. She laughed joyously... amusedly.

"What a little fool I've been! Oh, SUCH a little fool! Of course, Ilse never did it. There's nothing between us now... it's gone... gone... gone. I'll go right to her and tell her so."

Emily hurried back adown her little path. The Land of Uprightness lay all about her, mysterious in the moonlight, wrapped in the exquisite reticence of winter woods. She seemed one with its beauty and charm and mystery. With a sudden sigh of the Wind Woman through the shadowy aisles came "the flash" and Emily went dancing to Ilse with the afterglow of it in her soul.

She found Ilse alone... threw her arms around her... hugged her fiercely.

"Ilse, do forgive me," she cried. "I shouldn't have doubted you... I DID doubt you... but now I know... I KNOW. You WILL forgive me?"

"You young goat," said Ilse.

Emily loved to be called a young goat. This was the old Ilse... HER Ilse.

"Oh, Ilse, I've been so unhappy."

"Well, don't bawl over it," said Ilse. "I haven't been very hilarious myself. Look here, Emily, I've got something to tell you. Shut up and listen. That day I met Evelyn at the Shoppe and we went back for some book she wanted and we found you sound asleep... so sound asleep that you never stirred when I pinched your cheek. Then, just for devilment I picked up a black crayon and said, 'I'm going to draw a moustache on her'... shut up! Evelyn pulled a long face and said, 'Oh, no! that would be MEAN, don't you think?' I hadn't had the slightest intention of doing it... I'd only spoken in fun... but that shrimp Evelyn's ungodly affectation of righteousness made me so mad that I decided I would do it... shut UP!... I meant to wake you right up and hold a glass before you, that was all. But before I could do it Kate Errol came in and wanted us to go along with her and I threw down the chalk and went out. That's all, Emily, honest to Caesar. But it made me feel ashamed and silly later on... I'd say a bit conscience-stricken if I had such a thing as a conscience, because I felt that I must have put the idea into the head of whoever did do it, and so was responsible in a way. And then I saw you distrusted me... and that made me mad... not tempery-mad, you see, but a nasty, cold, INSIDE sort of madness. I thought you had no business even to suspect that I could have done such a thing as let you go to class like that. And I thought, since you did, you could go on doing it... I wouldn't say one word to put matters straight. Golly, but I'm glad you're through with seein' things."

"Do you think Evelyn Blake did it?"

"No. Oh, she's quite capable of it, of course, but I don't see how it could have been she. She went to the Shoppe with Kate and me and we left her there. She was in class fifteen minutes later, so I don't think she'd have had time to go back and do it. I really think it was that little devil of a May Hilson. She'd do anything and she was in the hall when I was flourishing the crayon. She'd 'take the suggestion as a cat laps milk.' But it couldn't have been Evelyn."

Emily retained her belief that it could have been and was. But the only thing that mattered now was the fact that Aunt Ruth still believed Ilse guilty and would continue so to believe.

"Well, that's a rotten shame," said Ilse. "We can't have any real chum-talks here... Mary always has such a mob in and E. B. pervades the place."

"I'll find out who did it yet," said Emily darkly, "and MAKE Aunt Ruth give in."

On the next afternoon Evelyn Blake found Ilse and Emily in a beautiful row. At least Ilse was rowing while Emily sat with her legs crossed and a bored, haughty expression in her insolently half-shut eyes. It should have been a welcome sight to a girl who disliked the intimacies of other girls. But Evelyn Blake was not rejoiced. Ilse was quarrelling with Emily again... ergo, Ilse and Emily were on good terms once more.

"I'm so glad to see you've forgiven Ilse for that mean trick," she said sweetly to Emily the next day. "Of course, it was just pure thoughtlessness on her part... I've always insisted on THAT... she never stopped to think what ridicule she was letting you in for. Poor Ilse is like that. You know I tried to stop her... I didn't tell you this before, of course... I didn't want to make any more trouble than there was... but I TOLD her it was a horribly mean thing to do to a friend. I thought I HAD put her off. It's sweet of you to forgive her, Emily dear. You ARE better-hearted than I am. I'm afraid I could NEVER pardon anyone who had made me such a laughing- stock."

"Why didn't you slay her in her tracks?" said Ilse when she heard of it from Emily.

"I simply half-shut my eyes and looked at her like a Murray," said Emily, "and that was more bitter than death."

The High School concert in aid of the school library was an annual event in Shrewsbury, coming off in early April, before it was necessary to settle down to hard study for spring examinations. This year it was at first intended to have the usual programme of music and readings with a short dialogue. Emily was asked to take part in the latter and agreed, after securing Aunt Ruth's very grudging consent, which would probably never have been secured if Miss Aylmer had not come in person to plead for it. Miss Aylmer was a granddaughter of Senator Aylmer and Aunt Ruth yielded to family what she would have yielded to nothing else. Then Miss Aylmer suggested cutting out most of the music and all of the readings and having a short play instead. This found favour in the eyes of the students and the change was made forthwith. Emily was cast for a part that suited her, so she became keenly interested in the matter and enjoyed the practices, which were held in the school building two evenings of the week under the chaperonage of Miss Aylmer.