Emily's Quest (1927)

Chapter 16

I

"NOV. 17, 19--

"There are two adjectives that are never separated in regard to a November day--'dull' and 'gloomy.' They were wedded together in the dawn of language and it is not for me to divorce them now. Accordingly, then, this day has been dull and gloomy, inside and outside, materially and spiritually.

"Yesterday wasn't so bad. There was a warm autumnal sun and Cousin Jimmy's big heap of pumpkins made a lovely pool of colour against the old grey barns, and the valley down by the brook was mellow with the late, leafless gold of juniper-trees. I walked in the afternoon through the uncanny enchantment of November woods, still haunted by loveliness, and again in the evening in the afterglow of an autumnal sunset. The evening was mild and wrapped in a great, grey, brooding stillness of windless fields and waiting hill--a stillness which was yet threaded through with many little eerie, beautiful sounds which I could hear if I listened as much with my soul as my ears. Later on there was a procession of stars and I got a message from them.

"But to-day was dreary. And to-night virtue has gone out of me. I wrote all day but I could not write this evening. I shut myself into my room and paced it like a caged creature. ''Tis the middle of the night by the castle clock,' but there is no use in thinking of sleep. I can't sleep. The rain against the window is very dismal and the winds are marching by like armies of the dead. All the little ghostly joys of the past are haunting me--all the ghostly fears of the future.

"I keep thinking--foolishly--of the Disappointed House to-night--up there on the hill with the roar of the rainy wind about it. Somehow this is what hurts me worst to-night. Other nights it is the fact that I don't even know where Dean is this winter--or that Teddy never writes a line to me--or just that there are hours when sheer loneliness wrings the stamina out of me. In such moments I come to this old journal for comforting. It's like talking it out to a faithful friend."

II

"NOV. 30, 19--

"I have two chrysanthemums and a rose out. The rose is a song and a dream and an enchantment all in one. The 'mums are very pretty, too, but it does not do to have them and the rose too near together. Seen by themselves they are handsome, bright blossoms, pink and yellow, and cheery, looking very well satisfied with themselves. But set the rose behind them and the change is actually amusing. They then seem like vulgar, frowsy kitchen maids beside a stately, white queen. It's not the fault of the poor 'mums that they weren't born roses, so to be fair to them I keep them by themselves and enjoy them that way.

"I wrote a good story to-day. I think even Mr. Carpenter would have been satisfied with it. I was happy while I was writing it. But when I finished it and came back to reality--

"Well, I'm not going to growl. Life has at least grown livable again. It was not livable through the autumn. I know Aunt Laura thought I was going into consumption. Not I. That would be too Victorian. I fought things out and conquered them and I'm a sane, free woman once more. Though the taste of my folly is still in my mouth at times and very bitter it is.

"Oh, I'm really getting on very well. I'm beginning to make a livable income for myself and Aunt Elizabeth reads my stories aloud o' evenings to Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy. I can always get through to-day very nicely. It's to-morrow I can't live through."

III

"JANUARY 15, 19--

"I've been out for a moonlit snowshoe tramp. There was a nice bite of frost in the air and the night was exquisite--a frosty, starry lyric of light. Some nights are like honey--and some like wine--and some like wormwood. To-night is like wine--white wine--some clear, sparkling, fairy brew that rather goes to one's head. I am tingling all over with hope and expectation and victory over certain principalities and powers that got a grip on me last night about three o'clock.

"I have just drawn aside the curtain of my window and looked out. The garden is white and still under the moon, all ebony of shadow and silver of frosted snow. Over it all the delicate traceries where trees stand up leafless in seeming death and sorrow. But only seeming. The life-blood is at their hearts and by and by it will stir and they will clothe themselves in bridal garments of young green leaves and pink blossoms. And over there where the biggest drift of all lies deep the Golden Ones will uplift their trumpets of the morning.

"And far beyond our garden field after field lies white and lonely in the moonlight. Lonely? I hadn't meant to write that word. It slipped in. I'm not lonely--I have my work and my books and the hope of spring--and I know that this calm, simple existence is a much better and happier one than the hectic life I led last summer.

"I believed that before I wrote it down. And now I don't believe it. It isn't true. This is stagnation!!

"Oh, I am--I am lonely--with the loneliness of unshared thought. What is the use of denying it? When I came in I was the victor--but now my banner is in the dust again."

IV

"FEB. 20, 19--

"Something has happened to sour February's temper. Such a peevish month. The weather for the past few weeks has certainly been living up to the Murray traditions.

"A dreary snowstorm is raging and the wind is pursuing tormented wraiths over the hills. I know that out beyond the trees Blair Water is a sad, black thing in a desert of whiteness. But the great, dark, wintry night outside makes my cosy little room with its crackling fire seem cosier, and I feel much more contented with the world than I did that beautiful night in January. To-night isn't so--so insulting.

"To-day in Glassford's Magazine there was a story illustration by Teddy. I saw my own face looking out at me in the heroine. It always gives me a very ghostly sensation. And to-day it angered me as well. My face has no right to mean anything to him when I don't.

"But for all that, I cut out his picture, which was in the 'Who's Who' column, and put it in a frame and set it on my desk. I have no picture of Teddy. And to-night I took it out of the frame and laid it on the coals in the fireplace and watched it shrivel up. Just before the fire went out of it a queer little shudder went over it and Teddy seemed to wink at me--an impish, derisive wink--as if he said:

"'You think you've forgotten--but if you had you wouldn't have burned me. You are mine--you will always be mine--and I don't want you.'

"If a good fairy were suddenly to appear before me and offer me a wish it would be this: to have Teddy Kent come and whistle again and again in Lofty John's bush. And I would not go--not one step.

"I can't endure this. I must put him out of my life."