Emily's Quest (1927)

Chapter 23

I

Emily, coming home one January night from an evening call, decided to use the cross-lots road that skirted the Tansy Patch. It had been a winter almost without snow and the ground under her feet was bare and hard. She seemed the only living creature abroad in the night and she walked slowly, savouring the fine, grim, eerie charm of flowerless meadows and silent woods, of the moon breaking suddenly out of black clouds over the lowlands of pointed firs; and trying, more or less successfully, not to think of the letter that had come from Ilse that day--one of Ilse's gay, incoherent letters, where one fact stood out barely. The wedding-day was set--the fifteenth of June.

"I want you to wear harebell blue gauze over ivory taffeta for your bridesmaid dress, darling. How your black silk hair will shine over it!

"My 'bridal robe' is going to be of ivory velvet and old Great-aunt Edith in Scotland is sending me out her veil of rose-point and Great-aunt Theresa in the same historic land is sending me a train of silver oriental embroidery that her husband once brought home from Constantinople. I'll veil it with tulle. Won't I be a dazzling creature? I don't think the dear old souls knew I existed till Dad wrote them about my 'forthcoming nuptials.' Dad is far more excited over everything than I am.

"Teddy and I are going to spend our honeymoon in old inns in out-of-the-way European corners--places where nobody else wants to go--Vallambroso and so on. That line of Milton's always intrigued me--'thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambroso.' When you take it away from its horrible context it is a picture of sheer delight.

"I'll be home in May for my last preparations and Teddy will come the first of June to spend a little while with his mother. How is she taking it, Emily? Have you any idea? I can't get anything out of Teddy, so I suppose she doesn't like it. She always hated me, I know. But then she seemed to hate everyone--with a special venom for you. I won't be particularly fortunate in my mother-in-law. I'll always have an eerie feeling that she's secretly heaping maledictions on my head. However, Teddy is nice enough to make up for her. He really is. I'd no idea how nice he could be and I'm growing fonder of him every day. Honestly. When I look at him and realize how handsome and charming he is I can't understand why I'm not madly in love with him. But it's really much more comfortable not to be. If I were I'd be heartbroken every time we quarrelled. We're always quarrelling--you know me of old. We always will. We'll spoil every wonderful moment with a quarrel. But life won't be dull."

Emily shivered. Her own life was looking very bleak and starved just then. Oh, how--nice--it would be when the wedding was over--the wedding where she should be bride--yes, should--and was to be bridesmaid--and people done talking of it. "Harebell blue over ivory taffeta!" Sackcloth and ashes, rather.

II

"Emily. Emily Starr."

Emily almost jumped. She had not seen Mrs. Kent in the gloom until they were face to face--at the little side path that led up to the Tansy Patch. She was standing there, bareheaded in the chill night, with outstretched hand.

"Emily, I want to have a talk with you. I saw you go past here at sunset and I've been watching for you ever since. Come up to the house."

Emily would much rather have refused. Yet she turned and silently climbed the steep, root-ribbed path, with Mrs. Kent flitting before her like a little dead leaf borne along by the wind. Through the ragged old garden where nothing ever grew but tansy, and into the little house that was as shabby as it had always been. People said Teddy Kent might fix up his mother's house a bit if he were making all the money folks said he was. But Emily knew that Mrs. Kent would not let him--would not have anything changed.