Teddy and Perry saw red and wanted to kill somebody but whom could they kill? As Emily told them, anything they said or did would only make the matter worse. It was bad enough after the publication of that paragraph. Emily was not invited to Florence Black's dance the next week - the great social event of the winter. She was left out of Hattie Denoon's skating party. Several of the Shrewsbury matrons did not see her when they met her on the streets. Others set her a thousand miles away by bland, icy politeness. Some young men about town grew oddly familiar in look and manner. One of them, with whom she was totally unacquainted, spoke to her one evening in the Post Office. Emily turned and looked at him. Crushed, humiliated as she was, she was still Archibald Murray's granddaughter. The wretched youth was three blocks away from the Post Office before he came to himself and knew where he was. To this day he has not forgotten how Emily Byrd Starr's eyes looked when she was angry.
But even the Murray look, while it might demolish a concrete offender, could not scotch scandalous stories. Everybody she felt morbidly, believed them. It was reported to her that Miss Percy of the library said she had always distrusted Emily Starr's smile - she had always felt sure it was deliberately provocative and alluring. Emily felt that she, like poor King Henry, would never smile again. People remembered that old Nancy Priest had been a wild thing seventy years ago - and hadn't there been some scandal about Mrs. Dutton herself in her girlhood? What's bred in the bone, you understand. Her mother had eloped, hadn't she? And Ilse's mother? Of course, she had been killed by falling into the old Lee well, but who knew what she would have done if she hadn't? Then there was that old story of bathing on Blair Water sandshore au naturel. In short, you didn't see ankles like Emily's on proper girls. They simply didn't have them.
Even harmless, unnecessary Andrew had ceased to call on Friday nights. There was a sting in this. Emily thought Andrew a bore and dreaded his Friday nights. She had always meant to send him packing as soon as he gave her an opportunity. But for Andrew to go packing of his own accord had a very different flavour, mark you. Emily clenched her hands when she thought of it.
A bitter report came to her ears that Principal Hardy had said she ought to resign from the presidency of the Senior Class. Emily threw up her head. Resign? Confess defeat and admit guilt? Not she!
"I could knock that man's block off," said Ilse. "Emily Starr, don't let yourself worry over this. What does it matter what a lot of doddering old donkeys think? I hereby devote them to the infernal gods. They'll have their maws full of something else in a month and they'll forget this."
"I'll never forget it," said Emily, passionately. "To my dying day I'll remember the humiliation of these weeks. And now - Ilse, Mrs. Tolliver has written asking me to give up my stall at the St. John's bazaar."
"Emily Starr - she hasn't!"
"She has. Oh, of course, she cloaks it under an excuse that she'd like a stall for her cousin from New York, who is visiting her - but I understand. And it's 'Dear Miss Starr' - look you - when it was 'Dearest Emily a few weeks ago. Everybody in St. John's will know why I've been asked to step out. And she almost went on her knees to Aunt Ruth to let me take the stall. Aunt Ruth didn't want to let me."
"What will your Aunt Ruth say about this?"
"Oh, that's the worst of it, Ilse. She'll have to know now. She's never heard a word of this since she's been laid up with her sciatica. I've lived in dread of her finding out - for I know it will be hideous when she does. She's getting about now, so of course she'd soon hear it, anyway. And I haven't the spirit to stand up to her, Ilse. Oh, it all seems like a nightmare."
"They've got such mean, narrow, malicious, beastly little minds in this town," said Ilse - and was straightway comforted. But Emily could not ease her tortured spirit by a choice assortment of adjectives. Neither could she write out her misery and so rid herself of it. There were no more jottings in her Jimmy-book, no further entries in her journal, no new stories or poems. The flash never came now - never would come again. There would never again be wonderful little secret raptures of insight and creation which no one could share. Life had grown thin and poor, tarnished and unlovely. There was no beauty in anything - not even in the golden-white March solitudes of New Moon, when she went home for the weekend. She had longed to go home, where no one believed ill of her. No one at New Moon had heard anything of what was being whispered in Shrewsbury. But their very ignorance tortured Emily. Soon they would know; they would be hurt and grieved over the fact that a Murray, even an innocent Murray, had become a target for scandal. And who knew how they would regard Ilse's mishap with Malcolm's Scotch? Emily felt it almost a relief to go back to Shrewsbury.
She imagined slurs in everything Principal Hardy said - covert insults in every remark or look of her schoolmates. Only Evelyn Blake posed as friend and defender, and this was the most unkindest cut of all. Whether alarm or malice was behind Evelyn's pose, Emily did not know - but she did know that Evelyn's parade of friendship and loyalty and staunch belief in the face of overwhelming evidence was something that seemed to smirch her more than all the gossip could. Evelyn went about assuring every one that she wouldn't believe one word against "poor dear Emily." Poor dear Emily could have cheerfully watched her drown - or thought she could.
Meanwhile, Aunt Ruth, who had been confined to her house for several weeks with sciatica and had been so crusty with it that neither friends nor enemies had dared to hint anything to her of the gossip concerning her niece, was beginning to take notice. Her sciatica had departed and left her faculties free to concentrate on other things. She recalled that Emily's appetite had been poor for days and Aunt Ruth suspected that she had not been sleeping. The moment this suspicion occurred to Aunt Ruth she took action. Secret worries were not to be tolerated in her house.
"Emily, I want to know what is the matter with you," she demanded, one Saturday afternoon when Emily, pale and listless, with purple smudges under her eyes, had eaten next to nothing for dinner.
A little colour came into Emily's face. The hour she had dreaded so was upon her. Aunt Ruth must be told all. And Emily felt miserably that she had neither the courage to endure the resultant heckling nor the spirit to hold her own against Aunt Ruth's whys and wherefores. She knew so well how it would all be: horror over the John house episode - as if anybody could have helped it: annoyance over the gossip - as if Emily were responsible for it: several assurances that she had always expected something like this: and then intolerable weeks of reminders and slurs. Emily felt a sort of mental nausea at the whole prospect. For a minute she could not speak.
"What have you been doing?" persisted Aunt Ruth.
Emily set her teeth. It was unendurable, but it must be endured. The story had to be told - the only thing to do was to get it told as soon as possible.
"I haven't done anything wrong, Aunt Ruth. I've just done something that has been misunderstood."
Aunt Ruth sniffed. But she listened without interruption to Emily's story. Emily told it as briefly as possible, feeling as if she were a criminal in the witness box with Aunt Ruth as judge, jury and prosecuting attorney all in one. When she had finished she sat in silence waiting for some characteristic Aunt Ruthian comment.
"And what are they making all the fuss about?" said Aunt Ruth.
Emily didn't know exactly what to say. She stared at Aunt Ruth.
"They-they're thinking - and saying all sorts of horrible things," she faltered. "You see - down here in sheltered Shrewsbury they didn't realise what a storm it was. And then, of course, every one who repeated the story coloured it a little - we were all drunk by the time it filtered through Shrewsbury."
"What exasperates me," said Aunt Ruth, "is to think you told about it in Shrewsbury at all. Why on earth didn't you keep it all quiet?"
"That would have been sly." Emily's demon suddenly prompted her to say this. Now that the story was out she felt a rebound of spirit that was almost laughter.
"Sly! It would have been common sense," snorted Aunt Ruth. "B
ut, of course, Ilse couldn't hold her tongue. I've often told you, Emily, that a fool friend is ten times more dangerous than an enemy. But what are you killing yourself worrying for? Your conscience is clear. This gossip will soon die out."
"Principal Hardy says I ought to resign from the presidency of the class," said Emily.
"Jim Hardy! Why, his father was a hired boy to my grandfather for years," said Aunt Ruth in tones of ineffable contempt. "Does Jim Hardy imagine that my niece would behave improperly?"
Emily felt herself all at sea. She thought she really must be dreaming. Was this incredible woman Aunt Ruth? It couldn't be Aunt Ruth. Emily was up against one of the contradictions of human nature. She was learning that you may fight with your kin - disapprove of them - even hate them, but that there is a bond between you for all that. Somehow, your very nerves and sinews are twisted with theirs. Blood is always thicker than water. Let an outsider attack - that's all. Aunt Ruth had at least one of the Murray virtues - loyalty to clan.
"Don't worry over Jim Hardy," said Aunt Ruth. "I'll soon settle him. I'll teach people to keep their tongues off the Murrays."
"But Mrs. Tolliver has asked me to let her cousin take my stall in the bazaar," said Emily. "You know what that means."
"I know that Polly Tolliver is an upstart and a fool," retorted Aunt Ruth. "Ever since Nat Tolliver married his stenographer, St. John's Church hasn't been the same place. Ten years ago she was a barefooted girl running round the back streets of Charlottetown. The cats themselves wouldn't have brought her in. Now she puts on the airs of a queen and tries to run the church. I'll soon clip her claws. She was pretty thankful a few weeks ago to have a Murray in her stall. It was a rise in the world for her. Polly Tolliver, forsooth. What is this world coming to?"
Aunt Ruth sailed upstairs, leaving a dazed Emily looking at vanishing bogies. Aunt Ruth came down again, ready for the warpath. She had taken out her crimps, put on her best bonnet, her best black silk, and her new sealskin coat. Thus arrayed she skimmed uptown to the Tolliver residence on the hill. She remained there half an hour closeted with Mrs. Nat Tolliver. Aunt Ruth was a short, fat, little woman, looking very dowdy and old-fashioned in spite of her new bonnet and sealskin coat. Mrs. Nat was the last word in fashion and elegance, with her Paris gown, her lorgnette and her beautifully marcelled hair - marcels were just coming in then and Mrs. Nat's was the first in Shrewsbury. But the victory of the encounter did not perch on Mrs. Tolliver's standard. Nobody knows just what was said at that notable interview. Certainly Mrs. Tolliver never told. But when Aunt Ruth left the big house Mrs. Tolliver was crushing her Paris gown and her marcel waves among the cushions of her davenport while she wept tears of rage and humiliation; and Aunt Ruth carried a note in her muff to Mrs. Tolliver's "Dear Emily," saying that her cousin was not going to take part in the bazaar and would "Dear Emily" be so kind as to take the stall as at first planned. Dr. Hardy was next interviewed, and again Aunt Ruth went, saw, conquered. The maid in the Hardy household heard and reported one sentence of the confab, though nobody ever believed that Aunt Ruth really said to stately, spectacled Dr. Hardy,
"I know you're a fool, Jim Hardy, but for heaven's sake pretend you're not for five minutes!"
No, the thing was impossible. Of course, the maid invented it.
"You won't have much more trouble, Emily," said Aunt Ruth on her return home. "Polly and Jim have got their craws full. When people see you at the bazaar they'll soon realise what way the wind blows and trim their sails accordingly. I've a few things to say to some other folks when opportunity offers. Matters have come to a pretty pass if decent boys and girls can't escape freezing to death without being slandered for it. Don't you give this thing another thought, Emily. Remember, you've got a family behind you."
Emily went to her glass when Aunt Ruth had gone downstairs. She tilted it at the proper angle and smiled at Emily-in-the-Glass - smiled slowly, provocatively, alluringly.
"I wonder where I put my Jimmy-book," thought Emily. "I must add a few more touches to my sketch of Aunt Ruth."
"LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG"
When Shrewsbury people discovered that Mrs. Dutton was backing her niece, the flame of gossip that had swept over the town died down in an incredibly short time. Mrs. Dutton gave more to the various funds of St. John's Church than any other member - it was a Murray tradition to support your church becomingly. Mrs. Dutton had lent money to half the business men in town - she held Nat Tolliver's note for an amount that kept him wakeful o' nights. Mrs. Dutton had a disconcerting knowledge of family skeletons - to which she had no delicacy in referring. Therefore, Mrs. Dutton was a person to be kept in good humour, and if people had made the mistake of supposing that because she was very strict with her niece, it was safe to snub that niece, why, the sooner they corrected that mistake the better for all concerned.
Emily sold baby jackets and blankets and bootees and bonnets in Mrs. Tolliver's stall at the big bazaar and wheedled elderly gentlemen into buying them, with her now famous smile: everybody was nice to her and she was happy again, though the experience had left a scar. Shrewsbury folks in after years said that Emily Starr had never really forgiven them for having talked about her - and added that the Murrays never did forgive, you know. But forgiveness did not enter into the matter. Emily had suffered so horribly that henceforth the sight of any one who had been connected with her suffering was hateful to her. When Mrs. Tolliver asked her, a week later, to pour tea at the reception she was giving her cousin, Emily declined politely, without troubling herself to give any excuse. And something in the tilt of her chin, or in the level glance of her eyes, made Mrs. Tolliver feel to her marrow that she was still Polly Riordan of Riordan Alley, and would never be anybody else in the sight of a Murray of New Moon.
But Andrew was welcomed quite sweetly when he somewhat sheepishly called the following Friday night. It may be that he felt a little doubtful of his reception, in spite of the fact that he was sealed of the tribe. But Emily was markedly gracious to him. Perhaps she had her own reasons for it. Again, I call attention to the fact that I am Emily's biographer, not her apologist. If she took a way to get even with Andrew which I may not approve, what can I do but deplore it? For my own satisfaction, however, I may remark in passing that I do think Emily went too far when she told Andrew - after his report of some compliments his manager had paid him - that he was certainly a wonder. I cannot even excuse her by saying that she spoke in sarcastic tones. She did not: she said it most sweetly with an upward glance followed by a downward one that made even Andrew's well-regulated heart skip a beat. Oh, Emily, Emily!
Things went well with Emily that spring. She had several acceptances and cheques, and was beginning to plume herself on being quite a literary person. Her clan began to take her scribbling mania somewhat seriously. Cheques were unanswerable things.
"Emily has made fifty dollars by her pen since New Year's," Aunt Ruth told Mrs. Drury "I begin to think the child has an easy way of making a living."
An easy way! Emily, overhearing this as she went through the hall, smiled and sighed. What did Aunt Ruth - what did any one know of the disappointments and failures of the climbers on Alpine Paths? What did she know of the despairs and agonies of one who sees but cannot reach. What did she know of the bitterness of one who conceives a wonderful tale and writes it down, only to find a flat and flavourless manuscript as a reward for all her toil? What did she know of barred doors and impregnable editorial sanctums? Of brutal rejection slips and the awfulness of faint praise? Of hopes deferred and hours of sickening doubt and self-distrust?
Aunt Ruth knew of none of these things, but she took to having fits of indignation when Emily's manuscripts were returned.
"Impudence I call it," she said. "Don't send that editor another line. Remember, you're a Murray!"
"I'm afraid he doesn't know that," said Emily, gravely.
"Then why don't you tell him?" said Aunt Ruth.
Shrewsbury had a mild sensation in May when Janet Roya
l came home from New York with her wonderful dresses, her brilliant reputation, and her chow dog. Janet was a Shrewsbury girl, but she had never been home since she had "gone to the States" twenty years ago. She was clever and ambitious and she had succeeded. She was the literary editor of a big metropolitan woman's magazine and one of the readers for a noted publishing house. Emily held her breath when she heard of Miss Royal's arrival. Oh, if she could only see her - have a talk with her - ask her about a hundred things she wanted to know! When Mr. Towers told her in an off-hand manner to go and interview Miss Royal and write it up for the Times, Emily trembled between terror and delight. Here was her excuse. But could she - had she assurance enough? Wouldn't Miss Royal think her unbearably presumptuous? How could she ask Miss Royal questions about her career and her opinion of the United States' foreign policy and reciprocity? She could never have the courage.
"We both worship at the same altar - but she is high priestess and I am only the humblest acolyte," wrote Emily in her journal.
Then she indited a very worshipful letter to Miss Royal, and rewrote it a dozen times, asking permission to interview her. After she had mailed it she could not sleep all night because it occurred to her that she should have signed herself "yours truly" instead of "yours sincerely." "Yours sincerely" smacked of an acquaintanceship that did not exist. Miss Royal would surely think her presuming.
But Miss Royal sent back a charming letter - Emily has it to this day.
"Ashburn, Monday.
"Dear Miss Starr: -
"Of course you may come and see me and I'll tell you everything you want to know for Jimmy Towers (God rest his sowl, an' wasn't he my first beau!) and everything you want to know for yourself. I think half my reason for coming back to P.E.I, this spring was because I wanted to see the writer of The Woman Who Spanked the King. I read it last winter when it came out in Roche's and I thought it charming. Come and tell me all about yourself and your ambitions. You are ambitious, aren't you? And I think you're going to be able to realise your ambitions, too, and I want to help you if I can. You've got something I never had - real creative ability - but I've heaps of experience and what I've learned from it is yours for the asking. I can help you to avoid some snares and pitfalls, and I'm not without a bit of 'pull' in certain quarters. Come to Ashburn next Friday afternoon when 'school's out' and we'll have a heart-to-heart pow-wow.
Emily Climbs Page 27
