Lucy Montgomery - Emily of New Moon

Emily was dreadfully embarrassed. She had just been thinking of writing that Aunt Nancy looked "withered and shrivelled;" but one couldn't say that — one COULDN'T.

"Tell the truth and shame the devil," said Aunt Nancy.

"That isn't a fair question," cried Emily.

"You think," said Aunt Nancy, grinning, "that I'm a hideous old hag and that Caroline isn't quite human. She isn't. She never was — but you should have seen ME seventy years ago. I was handsomest of all the handsome Murrays. The men were mad about me. When I married Nat Priest his three brothers could have cut his throat.

One cut his own. Oh, I played havoc in my time. All I regret is I can't live it over. 'Twas a grand life while it lasted. I queened it over them. The women hated me, of course — all but Caroline here. You worshipped me, didn't you, Caroline? And you worship me yet, don't you, Caroline? Caroline, I WISH you didn't have a wart on your nose.”

"I wish you had one on your tongue," said Caroline waspishly.

Emily was beginning to feel tired and bewildered. It was interesting — and Aunt Nancy was kind enough in her queer way; but at home Ilse and Perry and Teddy would be foregathering in Lofty John's bush for their evening revel, and Saucy Sal would be sitting on the dairy steps, waiting for Cousin Jimmy to give her the froth.

Emily suddenly realized that she was as homesick for New Moon as she had been for Maywood her first night at New Moon.

"The child's tired," said Aunt Nancy. "Take her to bed, Caroline.

Put her in the Pink Room.”

Emily followed Caroline through the back hall, through the kitchen, through the front hall, up the stairs, down a long hall, through a long side hall. Where on earth was she being taken? Finally they reached a large room. Caroline set down the lamp, and asked Emily if she had a nightgown.

"Of course I have. Do you suppose Aunt Elizabeth would have let me come without one?”

Emily was quite indignant.

"Nancy says you can sleep as long as you like in the morning," said Caroline. "Good night. Nancy and I sleep in the old wing, of course, and the rest of us sleep well in our graves.”

With this cryptic remark Caroline trotted out and shut the door.

Emily sat down on an embroidered ottoman and looked about her. The window curtains were of faded pink brocade and the walls were hung with pink paper decorated with diamonds of rose chains. It made a very pretty fairy paper, as Emily found by cocking her eyes at it.

There was a green carpet on the floor, so lavishly splashed with big pink roses that Emily was almost afraid to walk on it. She decided that the room was a very splendid one.

"But I have to sleep here alone, so I must say my prayers very carefully," she reflected.

She undressed rather hastily, blew out the light and got into bed.

She covered herself up to her chin and lay there, staring at the high, white ceiling. She had grown so used to Aunt Elizabeth's curtained bed that she felt curiously unsheltered in this low, modern one. But at least the window was wide open — evidently Aunt Nancy did not share Aunt Elizabeth's horror of night air. Through it Emily could see summer fields lying in the magic of a rising yellow moon. But the room was big and ghostly. She felt horribly far away from everybody. She was lonesome — homesick. She thought of Old Kelly and his toad ointment. Perhaps he DID boil the toads alive after all. This hideous thought tormented her. It was AWFUL to think of toads — or anything — being boiled alive. She had never slept alone before. Suddenly she was frightened. How the window rattled. It sounded terribly as if somebody — or SOMETHING — were trying to get in. She thought of Ilse's ghost — a ghost you couldn't SEE but could HEAR and FEEL was something especially spooky in the way of ghosts — she thought of the stone dogs that went "Wo — or — oo — oo" at midnight. A dog DID begin to howl somewhere. Emily felt a cold perspiration on her brow. WHAT had Caroline meant about the rest of them sleeping well in their graves? The floor creaked. Wasn't there somebody — or SOMETHING — tiptoeing round outside the door? Did something move in the corner? There were mysterious sounds in the long hall.

"I WON'T be scared," said Emily. "I WON'T think of those things, and to-morrow I'll write down all about how I feel now.”

And then — she DID hear something — right behind the wall at the head of her bed. There was no mistake about it. It was not imagination. She heard distinctly strange uncanny rustles — as if stiff silk dresses were rubbing against each other — as if fluttering wings fanned the air — and there were soft, low, muffled sounds like tiny children's cries or moans. They lasted — they kept on. Now and then they would die away — then start up again.

Emily cowered under the bedclothes, cold with real terror. Before, her fright had been only on the surface — she had KNOWN there was nothing to fear, even while she feared. Something in her braced her to endure. But THIS was no mistake — no imagination. The rustles and flutterings and cries and moans were all too real.

Wyther Grange suddenly became a dreadful, uncanny place. Ilse was right — it WAS haunted. And she was all alone here, with miles of rooms and halls between her and any human being. It was cruel of Aunt Nancy to put her in a haunted room. Aunt Nancy must have known it was haunted — cruel old Aunt Nancy with her ghoulish pride in men who had killed themselves for her. Oh, if she were back in dear New Moon, with Aunt Elizabeth beside her. Aunt Elizabeth was not an ideal bedfellow but she was flesh-and-blood. And if the windows were hermetically sealed they kept out spooks as well as night air.

"Perhaps it won't be so bad if I say my prayers over again,” thought Emily.

But even this didn't help much.

To the end of her life Emily never forgot that first horrible night at Wyther Grange. She was so tired that sometimes she dozed fitfully off only to be awakened in a few minutes in panic horror, by the rustling and muffled moans behind her bed. Every ghost and groan, every tortured spirit and bleeding nun of the books she had read came into her mind.

"Aunt Elizabeth was right — novels aren't fit to read," she thought.

"Oh, I will die here — of fright — I know I will. I know I'm a coward — I can't be brave.”

When morning came the room was bright with sunshine and free from mysterious sounds. Emily got up, dressed and found her way to the old wing. She was pale, with black-ringed eyes, but resolute.

"Well, and how did you sleep?" asked Aunt Nancy graciously.

Emily ignored the question.

"I want to go home to-day," she said.

Aunt Nancy stared.

"Home? Nonsense! Are you such a homesick baby as that?”

"I'm not homesick — not VERY — but I must go home.”

"You can't — there's no one here to take you. You don't expect Caroline can drive you to Blair Water, do you?”

"Then I will walk.”

Aunt Nancy thumped her stick angrily on the floor.

"You will stay right here until I'm ready for you to go, Miss Puss.

I never tolerate any whims but my own. Caroline knows that, don't you, Caroline? Sit down to your breakfast — and eat — EAT.”

Aunt Nancy glared at Emily.

"I won't stay here," said Emily. "I won't stay another night in that horrible haunted room. It was cruel of you to put me there.

If — " Emily gave Aunt Nancy glare for glare — "if I was Salome I'd ask for YOUR head on a charger.”

"Hoity-toity! What nonsense is this about a haunted room? We've no ghosts at Wyther Grange. Have we, Caroline? We don't consider them hygienic.”

"You have something DREADFUL in that room — it rustled and moaned and cried all night long right in the wall behind my bed. I won't stay — I won't ... “