Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

The play created quite a stir in Shrewsbury. Nothing so ambitious had been undertaken by the High School students before: it became known that many of the Queen's Academy students were coming up from Charlottetown on the evening train to see it. This drove the performers half wild. The Queen's students were old hands at putting on plays. Of course they came to criticize. It became a fixed obsession with each member of the cast to make the play as good as any of the Queen's Academy plays had been, and every nerve was strained to that end. Kate Errol's sister, who was a graduate of a school of oratory, coached them and when the evening of the performance arrived there was burning excitement in the various homes and boarding-houses of Shrewsbury.

Emily, in her small, candle-lighted room, looked at Emily-in-the- Glass with considerable satisfaction... a satisfaction that was quite justifiable. The scarlet flush of her cheeks, the deepening darkness of her grey eyes, came out brilliantly above the ashes-of- roses gown, and the little wreath of silver leaves, twisted around her black hair, made her look like a young dryad. She did not, however, FEEL like a dryad. Aunt Ruth had made her take off her lace stockings and put on cashmere ones... had tried, indeed, to make her put on woollen ones, but had gone down in defeat on that point, retrieving her position, however, by insisting on a flannel petticoat.

"Horrid bunchy thing," thought Emily resentfully... meaning the petticoat, of course. But the skirts of the day were full and Emily's slenderness could carry even a thick flannel petticoat.

She was just fastening her Egyptian chain around her neck when Aunt Ruth stalked in.

One glance was sufficient to reveal that Aunt Ruth was very angry.

"Em'ly, Mrs. Ball has just called. She told me something that amazed me. Is this a PLAY you're taking part in to-night?"

"Of course it's a play, Aunt Ruth. Surely you knew that."

"When you asked my permission to take part in this concert you told me it was a DIALOGUE," said Aunt Ruth icily.

"O-o-h... but Miss Aylmer decided to have a little play in place of it. I THOUGHT you knew, Aunt Ruth... truly I did. I thought I mentioned it to you."

"You didn't think anything of the kind, Em'ly... you deliberately kept me in ignorance because you knew I wouldn't have allowed you to take part in a PLAY."

"Indeed, no, Aunt Ruth," pleaded Emily, gravely. "I never thought of hiding it. Of course, I didn't feel like talking much to you about it because I knew you didn't approve of the concert at all."

When Emily spoke gravely Aunt Ruth always thought she was impudent.

"This crowns all, Em'ly. Sly as I've always known you to be I wouldn't have believed you could be as sly as this."

"There was nothing of the kind about it, Aunt Ruth!" said Emily impatiently. "It would have been silly of me to try to hide the fact that we were getting up a play when all Shrewsbury is talking of it. I don't see how you could HELP hearing of it."

"You knew I wasn't going anywhere because of my bronchitis. Oh, I see through it all, Em'ly. You cannot deceive ME."

"I haven't tried to deceive you. I thought you knew... that is all there is to it. I thought the reason you never spoke of it was because you were opposed to the whole thing. That is the truth, Aunt Ruth. What difference is there between a dialogue and a play?"

"There is EVERY difference," said Aunt Ruth. "Plays are wicked."

"But this is such a LITTLE one," pleaded Emily despairingly... and then laughed because it sounded so ridiculously like the nursemaid's excuse in Midshipman Easy. Her sense of humour was untimely; her laughter infuriated Aunt Ruth.

"Little or big, you are not going to take part in it."

Emily stared again, paling a little.

"Aunt Ruth... I MUST... why, the play would be ruined."

"Better a play ruined than a soul ruined," retorted Aunt Ruth.

Emily dared not smile. The issue at stake was too serious.

"Don't be so... so... indignant, Aunt Ruth"... she had nearly said unjust. "I am sorry you don't approve of plays... I won't take part in any more... but you can see I MUST do it to-night."

"Oh, my dear Em'ly, I don't think you are quite as indispensable as all THAT."

Certainly Aunt Ruth was very maddening. How disagreeable the word "dear" could be! Still was Emily patient.

"I really am... to-night. You see, they couldn't get a substitute at the last moment. Miss Aylmer would never forgive me."

"Do you care more about Miss Aylmer's forgiveness than God's?" demanded Aunt Ruth with the air of one stating a decisive position.

"Yes... than YOUR God's," muttered Emily, unable to keep her patience under such insensate questions.

"Have you no respect for your forefathers?" was Aunt Ruth's next relevant query. "Why, if they knew a descendant of theirs was play-acting they would turn over in their graves!"

Emily favoured Aunt Ruth with a sample of the Murray look.

"It would be excellent exercise for them. I am going to take my part in the play to-night, Aunt Ruth."

Emily spoke quietly, looking down from her young height with resolute eyes. Aunt Ruth felt a nasty sense of helplessness: there was no lock to Emily's door... and she couldn't detain her by physical force.

"If you go, you needn't come back here to-night," she said, pale with rage. "This house is locked at nine o'clock."

"If I don't come back here to-night, I won't come at all." Emily was too angry over Aunt Ruth's unreasonable attitude to care for consequences. "If you lock me out I'll go back to New Moon. THEY know all about the play there... even Aunt Elizabeth was willing for me to take part."

She caught up her coat and jammed the little red-feather hat, which Uncle Oliver's wife had given her at Christmas, down on her head. Aunt Addie's taste was not approved at New Moon but the hat was very becoming and Emily loved it. Aunt Ruth suddenly realized that Emily looked oddly mature and grown-up in it. But the knowledge did not as yet dampen her anger. Em'ly was gone... Em'ly had dared to defy her and disobey her... sly, underhand Em'ly... Em'ly must be taught a lesson.

At nine o'clock a stubborn, outraged Aunt Ruth locked all the doors and went to bed.

The play was a big success. Even the Queen's students admitted that and applauded generously. Emily threw herself into her part with a fire and energy generated by her encounter with Aunt Ruth, which swept away all hampering consciousness of flannel petticoats and agreeably astonished Miss Errol, whose one criticism of Emily's acting had been that she was rather cold and reserved in a part that called for more abandon. Emily was showered with compliments at the close of the performance. Even Evelyn Blake said graciously,

"Really, dear, you are quite wonderful... a star actress... a poet... a budding novelist... what surprise will you give us next?"

Thought Emily, "Condescending, insufferable creature!"

Said Emily, "THANK you!"

There was a happy, triumphant walk home with Teddy, a gay good night at the gate, and then... the locked door.

Emily's anger, which had been sublimated during the evening into energy and ambition, suddenly flared up again, sweeping everything before it. It was unbearable to be treated thus. She had endured enough at Aunt Ruth's hands... this was the proverbial last straw. One could not put up with EVERYTHING, even to get an education. One owed SOMETHING to one's dignity and self-respect.

There were three things she could do. She could thump the old- fashioned brass knocker on the door until Aunt Ruth came down and let her in, as she had done once before... and then endure weeks of slurs because of it. She could fly up-street and down-street to Ilse's boarding-house... the girls wouldn't be in bed yet... as she had likewise done once before, and as no doubt Aunt Ruth would expect her to do now; and then Mary Carswell would tell Evelyn Blake and Evelyn Blake would laugh maliciously and tell it all through the school. Emily had no intention of doing either of these things; she knew from the moment she found the door locked just what she would do. She would walk to New Moon... and stay there! Months of suppressed chafing under Aunt Ruth's perpetual stings burst into a conflagration of revolt. Emily marched out of the gate, slammed it shut behind her with no Murray dignity but plenty of Starr passion, and started on her seven-mile walk through the midnight. Had it been three times seven she would have started just the same.