Lucy Montgomery - Emily Climbs

"Dean found me there: he was close beside me before I was aware of his presence.

"'You are smiling,' said Dean. 'I like to see a woman smiling to herself. Her thoughts must be innocent and pleasant. Has the day been kind to you, dear lady?'

"'Very kind... and this evening is its best gift. I'm SO happy to- night, Dean... just to be alive makes me happy. I feel as if I were driving a team of stars. I wish such a mood could last, I feel so sure of myself to-night... so sure of my future. I'm not afraid of ANYTHING. At life's banquet of success I may not be the guest of honour, but I'll be among those present.'

"'You looked like a seeress gazing into the future as I came down the walk,' said Dean, 'standing here in the moonlight, white and rapt. Your skin is like a narcissus petal. You could dare to hold a white rose against your face... very few women can dare that. You aren't really very pretty, you know, Star, but your face makes people think of beautiful things... and that is a far rarer gift than mere beauty.'

"I like Dean's compliments. They are always different from anybody else's. And I like to be called a woman.

"'You'll make me vain,' I said.

"'Not with your sense of humour,' said Dean. 'A woman with a sense of humour is never vain. The most malevolent bad fairy in the world couldn't bestow two such drawbacks on the same christened babe.'

"'Do you call a sense of humour a drawback?' I asked.

"'To be sure it is. A woman who has a sense of humour possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn anyone who differs from her. No, Emily, the woman with a sense of humour isn't to be envied.'

"This view of it hadn't occurred to me. We sat down on the stone bench and thrashed it out. Dean is not going away this winter. I am glad... I would miss him horribly. If I can't have a good spiel with Dean at least once a fortnight, life seems faded. There's so much COLOUR in our talks; and then at times he can be so eloquently quiet. Part of the time tonight he was like that: we just sat there in the dream and dusk and quiet of the old garden and HEARD each other's thoughts. Part of the time he told me tales of old lands and the gorgeous bazaars of the East. Part of the time he asked me about myself, and my studies and my doings. I like a man who gives me a chance now and then to talk about myself.

"'What have you been reading lately?' he asked.

"'This afternoon, after I finished the pickles, I read several of Mrs. Browning's poems. We have her in our English work this year, you know. My favourite poem is The Lay of the Brown Rosary... and I am much more in sympathy with Onora than Mrs. Browning was.'

"'You would be,' said Dean. 'That is because you are a creature of emotion yourself. YOU would barter heaven for love, just as Onora did.'

"'I will not love... to love is to be a slave,' I said.

"And the minute I said it I was ashamed of saying it... because I knew I had just said it to sound clever. I don't really believe that to love is to be a slave... not with Murrays, anyhow. But Dean took me quite seriously.

"'Well, one must be a slave to SOMETHING in this kind of a world,' he said. 'No one is free. Perhaps, after all, O daughter of the Stars, love is the easiest master... easier than hate... or fear... or necessity... or ambition... or pride. By the way, how are you getting on with the love-making parts of your stories?'

"'You forget... I can't write stories just now. When I can... well, you know long ago you promised you would teach me how to make love artistically.'

"I said it in a teasing way, just for a joke. But Dean seemed suddenly to become very much in earnest.

"'Are you ready for the teaching?' he said, bending forward.

"For one crazy moment I really thought he was going to kiss me. I drew back... I felt myself flushing... all at once I thought of Teddy. I didn't know what to say... I picked up Daff... buried my face in his beautiful fur... listened to his inner purring. At that opportune moment Aunt Elizabeth came to the front door and wanted to know if I had my rubbers on. I hadn't... so I went in... and Dean went home. I watched him from my window, limping down the lane. He seemed very lonely, and all at once I felt terribly sorry for him. When I'm with Dean he's such good company, and we have such good times that I forget there must be another side to his life. I can fill only such a little corner of it. The rest must be very empty.

"November 14, 19...

"There is a fresh scandal about Emily of New Moon plus Ilse of Blair Water. I have just had an unpleasant interview with Aunt Ruth and must write it all out to rid my soul of bitterness. Such a tempest in a teapot over nothing! But Ilse and I DO have the worst luck.

"I spent last Thursday evening with Ilse studying our English literature together. We did an evening of honest work and I left for home at nine. Ilse came out to the gate with me. It was a soft, dark, gentle, starry night. Ilse's new boarding-house is the last house on Cardigan-street, and beyond it the road veers over the little creek bridge into the park. We could see the park, dim and luring, in the starlight.

"'Let's go for a walk around it before you go home,' proposed Ilse.

"We went: of course, I shouldn't have: I should have come right home to bed, like any good consumptive. But I had just completed my autumnal course of cod-liver emulsion... ugh!... and thought I might defy the night air for once. So... we went. And it was delightful. Away over the harbour we heard the windy music of the November hills, but among the trees of the park it was calm and still. We left the road and wandered up a little side trail through the spicy fragrant evergreens on the hill. The firs and pines are always friendly, but they tell you no secrets as maples and poplars do: they never reveal their mysteries... never betray their long-guarded lore... and so, of course, they are more interesting than any other trees.

"The whole hillside was full of nice, elfish sounds and cool, elusive night smells... balsam and frosted fern. We seemed to be in the very heart of a peaceful hush. The night put her arms around us like a mother and drew us close together. We told each other everything. Of course, next day I repented me of this... though Ilse is a very satisfactory confidante and never betrays anything, even in her rages. But then it is not a Murray tradition to turn your soul inside out, even to your dearest friend. But darkness and fir balsam make people do such things. And we had lots of fun, too... Ilse is such an exhilarating companion. You're never dull a moment in her company. Altogether we had a lovely walk and came out of the park feeling dearer to each other than ever, with another beautiful memory to share. Just at the bridge we met Teddy and Perry coming off the Western Road. They'd been out for a constitutional hike. It happens to be one of the times Ilse and Perry are on speaking terms, so we all walked across the bridge together and then they went their way and we went ours. I was in bed and asleep by ten o'clock.

"But somebody saw us walking across the bridge. Next day it was all through the school: day after that all through the town: that Isle and I had been prowling in the park with Teddy Kent and Perry Miller till twelve o'clock at night. Aunt Ruth heard it and summoned me to the bar of judgment to-night. I told her the whole story, but of course she didn't believe it.

"'You know I was home at a quarter to ten last Thursday night, Aunt Ruth,' I said.

"'I suppose the time was exaggerated,' admitted Aunt Ruth. 'But there must have been SOMETHING to start such a story. There's no smoke without SOME fire. Emily, you are treading in your mother's footsteps.'