Lucy Montgomery - Emily of New Moon

"In the afternoon some of the Priests come to see Aunt Nancy and to stay to supper. Leslie Priest always comes. He is Aunt Nancy's favourite neffew, so Jim says. I think that is because he pays her compliments. But I saw him wink at Isaac Priest once when he paid her one. I don't like him. He treats me as if I were a meer child. Aunt Nancy says terrible things to them all but they just laugh. When they go away Aunt Nancy makes fun of them to Caroline.

Caroline doesn't like it, because she is a Priest and so she and Aunt Nancy always quarrel Sunday evening and don't speak again till Monday morning.

"I can read all the books in Aunt Nancy's bookcase except the row on the top shelf. I wonder why I can't read them. Aunt Nancy said they were French novels but I just peeped into one and it was English. I wonder if Aunt Nancy tells lies.

"The place I love best is down at bay shore. Some parts of the shore are very steep and there are such nice, woodsy, UNEXPECTED places all along it. I wander there and compose poetry. I miss Ilse and Teddy and Perry and Saucy Sal a great deal. I had a letter from Ilse to-day. She wrote me that they couldn't do anything more about the Midsummer Night's Dream till I got back.

It is nice to feel so necessary.

"Aunt Nancy doesn't like Aunt Elizabeth. She called her a 'tyrant' one day and then she said 'Jimmy Murray was a very clever boy.

Elizabeth Murray killed his intellect in her temper — and nothing was done to her. If she had killed his body she would have been a murderess. The other was worse, if you ask me.' I do not like Aunt Elizabeth at times myself but I felt, dear Father, that I must stand up for MY FAMILY and I said 'I do not want to hear such things said of my Aunt Elizabeth.' "And I just gave Aunt Nancy a LOOK. She said 'Well, Saucebox, my brother Archibald will never be dead as long as you're alive. If you don't want to hear things don't hang around when Caroline and I are talking. I notice there are plenty of things you like to hear.' "This was sarcasm, dear Father, but still I feel Aunt Nancy likes me but perhaps she will not like me very long. Jim Priest says she is fickle and never liked any one, even her husband, very long.

But after she had been sarcastic to me she always tells Caroline to give me a piece of pie so I don't mind the sarcasm. She lets me have real tea, too. I like it. At New Moon Aunt Elizabeth won't give me anything but cambric tea because it is best for my health.

Aunt Nancy says the way to be healthy is to eat just what you want and never think about your stomach. But then she was never threttened with consumption. She says I needn't be a bit frightened of dying of consumption because I have too much ginger in me. That is a comfortable thought. The only time I don't like Aunt Nancy is when she begins talking about the different parts of me and the effect they will have on the men. It makes me feel so silly.

"I will write you oftener after this, dear Father. I feel I have been neglecting you.

"P. S. I am afraid there are some mistakes in spelling in this letter. I forgot to bring my dictionary with me.

"JULY 22.

"Oh, dear Father, I am in a dreadful scrape. I don't know what I am to do. Oh, Father, I have broken Aunt Nancy's Jakobite glass.

It seems to me like a dreadful dream.

"I went into the parlour to-day to look at the pickled snake and just as I was turning away my sleeve caught the Jakobite glass and over it went on the harth and SHIVERED INTO FRAGMENTS. At first I rushed out and left them there but afterwards I went back and carefully gathered them up and hid them in a box behind the sofa.

Aunt Nancy never goes into the parlour now and Caroline not very often and perhaps they may not miss the glass until I go home. But it HAUNTS me. I keep thinking of it all the time and I cannot enjoy anything. I know Aunt Nancy will be furious and never forgive me if she finds out. I could not sleep all night for worrying about it. Jim Priest came down to play with me today but he said there was no fun in me and went home. The Priests mostly say what they think. Of course there was no fun in me. How could there be? I wonder if it would do any good to pray about it. I don't feel as if it would be right to pray because I am deceiving Aunt Nancy.

"JULY 24.

"Dear Father, this is a very strange world. Nothing ever turns out just like what you expect. Last night I couldn't sleep again. I was so worried. I thought I was a coward, and doing an underhanded thing and not living up to my tradishuns. At last it got so bad I couldn't stand it. I can bear it when other people have a bad opinion of me but it hurts too much when I have a bad opinion of myself. So I got out of bed and went right back through all those halls to the back parlour. Aunt Nancy was still there all alone playing Solitare. She said what on earth was I out of bed for at such an hour. I just said, short and quick to get the worst over, 'I broke your Jakobite glass yesterday and hid the pieces behind the sofa.' Then I waited for the STORM TO BURST. Aunt Nancy said 'What a blessing. I've often wanted to smash it but never had the courage. All the Priest clan are waiting for me to die to get that glass and quarrel over it and I'm tickled to think none of them can have it now and yet can't pick a fuss with me over smashing it.

Get off to bed and get your beauty sleep.' I said 'And you aren't mad at all, Aunt Nancy?' 'If it had been a Murray airloom I'd have torn up the turf' Aunt Nancy said. 'But I don't care a hoot about the Priest things.' "So I went back to bed, dear Father, and felt very much releeved, but not so heroyik.

"I had a letter from Ilse to-day. She says Saucy Sal has had kittens at last. I feel that I ought to be home to see about them.

Likely Aunt Elizabeth will have them all drowned before I get back.

I had a letter from Teddy too, not much of a letter but all filled with dear little pictures of Ilse and Perry and the Tansy Patch and Lofty John's bush. They made me feel homesick.

"JULY 28.

"Oh, Father dear, I have found out all about the mistery of Ilse's mother. It is so terrible I can't write it down even to you. I cannot believe it but Aunt Nancy says it is true. I did not think there could be such terrible things in the world. No, I can't believe it and I won't believe it no matter who says it is true. I KNOW Ilse's mother COULDN'T have done anything like that. There must have been a fearful mistake somewhere. I am so unhappy and feel as if I could never be happy any more. Last night I wept on my pilllow, like the heroins in Aunt Nancy's books do.”

Great-aunt Nancy and Caroline Priest were wont to colour their grey days with the remembered crimsons of old, long-past delights and merry-makings, but they went further than this and talked over any number of old family histories before Emily with a total disregard of her youth. Loves, births, deaths, scandals, tragedies — anything that came into their old heads. Nor did they spare details. Aunt Nancy revelled in details. She forgot nothing, and sins and weaknesses that death had covered and time shown mercy to were ruthlessly dragged out and dissected by this ghoulish old lady.

Emily was not quite certain whether she really liked it or not. It WAS fascinating — it fed some dramatic hunger in her — but it made her feel unhappy somehow, as if something very ugly were concealed in the darkness of the pit they opened before her innocent eyes.

As Aunt Laura had said, her youth protected her to some extent, but it could not save her from a dreadful understanding of the pitiful story of Ilse's mother on the afternoon when it seemed good to Aunt Nancy to resurrect that tale of anguish and shame.

Emily was curled up on the sofa in the back parlour, reading The Scottish Chiefs because it was a breathlessly hot July afternoon — too hot to haunt the bay shore. Emily was feeling very happy. The Wind Woman was ruffling over the big maple grove behind the Grange, turning the leaves until every tree seemed to be covered with strange, pale, silvery blossoms; fragrances drifted in from the garden; the world was lovely; she had had a letter from Aunt Laura saying that one of Saucy Sal's kittens had been saved for her.