Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

"Don't!" said Ilse savagely, "Don't say another word about him. It's awful... it's hideous... but what can WE do?"

"Nothing. That's the dreadful thing about it. It seems wicked to go on about our own business, asking for subscriptions, when that child is not found."

By this time they had reached the main road. The rest of the afternoon was not pleasant. Stinging showers came at intervals: between them the world was raw and damp and cold, with a moaning wind that came in ominous sighing gusts under a leaden sky. At every house where they called they were reminded of the lost baby, for there were only women to give or refuse subscriptions. The men were all away searching for him.

"Though it isn't any use NOW," said one woman gloomily, "except that they may find his little body. He can't have lived this long. I jest can't eat or cook for thinking of his poor mother. They say she's nigh crazy... I don't wonder."

"They say old Margaret McIntyre is taking it quite calmly," said an older woman, who was piecing a log-cabin quilt by the window. "I'd have thought she'd be wild, too. She seemed real fond of little Allan."

"Oh, Margaret McIntyre has never got worked up about anything for the past five years... ever since her own son Neil was frozen to death in the Klondyke. Seems as if her feelings were frozen then, too... she's been a little mad ever since. SHE won't worry none over this... she'll just smile and tell you she spanked the King."

Both women laughed. Emily, with the story-teller's nose, scented a story instantly, but though she would fain have lingered to hunt it down Ilse hustled her away.

"We MUST get on, Emily, or we'll never reach St. Clair before night."

They soon realized that they were not going to reach it. At sunset St. Clair was still three miles away and there was every indication of a wild evening.

"We can't get to St. Clair, that's certain," said Ilse. "It's going to settle down for a steady rain and it'll be as black as a million black cats in a quarter of an hour. We'd better go to that house over there and ask if we can stay all night. It looks snug and respectable... though it certainly is the jumping-off place."

The house at which Ilse pointed... an old whitewashed house with a grey roof... was set on the face of a hill amid bright green fields of clover aftermath. A wet red road wound up the hill to it. A thick grove of spruces shut it off from the gulf shore, and beyond the grove a tiny dip in the land revealed a triangular glimpse of misty, white-capped, grey sea. The near brook valley was filled with young spruces, dark-green in the rain. The grey clouds hung heavily over it. Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds in the west for one magical moment. The hill of clover meadows flashed instantly into incredibly vivid green. The tri-angle of sea shimmered into violet. The old house gleamed like white marble against the emerald of its hilly background, and the inky black sky over and around it.

"Oh," gasped Emily, "I never saw anything so wonderful!"

She groped wildly in her bag and clutched her Jimmy-book. The post of a field-gate served as a desk... Emily licked a stubborn pencil and wrote feverishly. Ilse squatted on a stone in a fence corner and waited with ostentatious patience. She knew that when a certain look appeared on Emily's face she was not to be dragged away until she was ready to go. The sun had vanished and the rain was beginning to fall again when Emily put her Jimmy-book back into her bag, with a sigh of satisfaction.

"I HAD to get it, Ilse."

"Couldn't you have waited till you got to dry land and wrote it down from memory?" grumbled Ilse, uncoiling herself from her stone.

"No... I'd have missed some of the flavour then. I've got it all now... and in just exactly the right words. Come on... I'll race you to the house. Oh, smell that wind... there's nothing in all the world like a salt sea-wind... a savage salt sea-wind. After all, there's something delightful in a storm. There's always SOMETHING... deep down in me... that seems to rise and leap out to meet a storm... wrestle with it."

"I feel that way sometimes... but not to-night," said Ilse. "I'm tired... and that poor baby... "

"Oh!" Emily's triumph and exultation went from her in a cry of pain. "Oh... Ilse... I'd forgotten for a moment... how could I! WHERE can he be?"

"Dead," said Ilse harshly. "It's better to think so... than to think of him alive still... out to-night. Come, we've got to get in somewhere. The storm is on for good now... no more showers."

An angular woman panoplied in a white apron so stiffly starched that it could easily have stood alone, opened the door of the house on the hill and bade them enter.

"Oh, yes, you can stay here, I reckon," she said, not inhospitably, "if you'll excuse things being a bit upset. They're in sad trouble here."

"Oh... I'm sorry," stammered Emily. "We won't intrude... we'll go somewhere else."

"Oh, we don't mind YOU, if you don't mind US. There's a spare room. You're welcome. You can't go on in a storm like this... there isn't another house for some ways. I advise you to stop here. I'll get you a bit of supper... I don't live here... I'm just a neighbour come to help 'em out a bit. Hollinger's my name... Mrs. Julia Hollinger. Mrs. Bradshaw ain't good for anything... you've heard of her little boy mebbe."

"Is this where... and... he... hasn't... been found?"

"No... never will be. I'm not mentioning it to her"... with a quick glance over her shoulder along the hall... "but it's my opinion he got in the quicksands down by the bay. That's what I think. Come in and lay off your things. I s'pose you don't mind eating in the kitchen. The room is cold... we haven't the stove up in it yet. It'll have to be put up soon if there's a funeral. I s'pose there won't be if he's in the quicksand. You can't have a funeral without a body, can you?"

All this was very gruesome. Emily and Ilse would fain have gone elsewhere... but the storm had broken in full fury and darkness seemed to pour in from the sea over the changed world. They took off their drenched hats and coats and followed their hostess to the kitchen, a clean, old-fashioned spot which seemed cheerful enough in lamp-light and fire-glow.

"Sit up to the fire. I'll poke it a bit. Don't mind Grandfather Bradshaw... Grandfather, here's two young ladies that want to stay all night."

Grandfather stared stonily at them out of little, hazy, blue eyes and said not a word.

"Don't mind him"... in a pig's whisper... "he's over ninety and he never was much of a talker. Clara... Mrs. Bradshaw... is in there"... nodding towards the door of what seemed a small bedroom off the kitchen. "Her brother's with her... Dr. McIntyre from Charlottetown. We sent for him yesterday. He's the only one that can do anything with her. She's been walking the floor all day but we've got her persuaded to lie down a bit. Her husband's out looking for little Allan."

"A child CAN'T be lost in the nineteenth century," said Grandfather Bradshaw, with uncanny suddenness and positiveness.

"There, there now, Grandfather, I advise YOU not to get worked up. And this is the twentieth century now. He's still living back there. His memory stopped a few years ago. What might your names be? Burnley? Starr? From Blair Water? Oh, then you'll know the Murrays? Niece? Oh!"

Mrs. Julia Hollinger's "Oh" was subtly eloquent. She had been setting dishes and food down at a rapid rate on the clean oil-cloth on the table. Now she swept them aside, extracted a table-cloth from a drawer of the cupboard, got silver forks and spoons out of another drawer, and a handsome pair of salt and pepper shakers from the shelves.

"Don't go to any trouble for us," pleaded Emily.

"Oh, it's no trouble. If all was well here you'd find Mrs. Bradshaw real glad to have you. She's a very kind woman, poor soul. It's awful hard to see her in such trouble. Allan was all the child she had, you see."