Marigold made one swift bound across the granary, caught Babe by the arm, pulled her with scant regard for her eggs into the loft, slammed and bolted the door and stood with her back to it.
“Now, you just tell me what you mean and no more nonsense about it.”
Marigold was not a Lesley for nothing. Babe surrendered. She snapped her thin-lipped, cruel little mouth shut, then opened it.
“Very well then. Bernice Willis’s father isn’t dead. Never was dead. He’s in the penitentiary at Dorchester, for stealing money.”
“I—don’t believe it.”
“It’s true—cross my heart. I overheard Mrs. Dr. Keyes from Charlottetown telling Ma all about it. He was in a bank—and he—em—embezzled the money. So he was sent to the pen for twelve years and his wife died of a broken heart—though Mrs. Keyes said it was her extravagance drove him to stealing. And Bernice’s Aunt Harriet took her. She was just a baby—and brought her up to think her father was dead, too.”
Marigold wanted to disbelieve it. But it was too hopelessly, horribly, evidently true.
“My, ain’t I glad I’ve never played with Bernice!” gloated Babe. “The daughter of a jail-bird. Just think of her face when I tell her!”
“Oh, Babe—” Marigold stooped to plead with Babe Kennedy piteously, “oh, you’re not going to tell her. Please—please don’t tell her.”
“I will so tell her. It’ll bring that pride of hers down. Carrying her head as high as if she came of honest people.”
“If you were changed into a toad this minute you’d only look like what you are,” cried Marigold passionately.
Babe laughed condescendingly.
“Of course you’re sore—after thinking nobody was good enough for you to play with but Bernice. Oh, my, Miss Lesley. You can pull in your horns now, I guess. I’m going to tell Bernice right off. She’d have to know it, anyhow, soon—her father’ll soon be out of jail. I’m going to have the fun of telling her first. Think of her face. Now, you just open that door and let me out.”
Marigold did as she was ordered. The spirit was clean gone out of her.
This was dreadful—dreadful. No hope now that Bernice would ever believe in God. Marigold felt she could hardly blame her. “Think of her face—”
Marigold did think of it—that dear, freckled, sensitive, homely little face—when Babe told her the terrible truth. And of course Babe would tell. Babe did so love to tell ugly things. Hadn’t she told Kitty Houseman she was going to die? Hadn’t she told the teacher Sally Ford had stolen Jane McKenzie’s pencil in school?
“If I could get there and tell Bernice first,” said Marigold. “If she has to hear it she could stand it better from me. I could go by the Lower road—Mrs. Carter lives on the Upper road and I could get there before Babe. But it’s dark—and going to rain—”
Marigold shuddered. She didn’t mind being out after dark on a road she knew. But a road she didn’t know was different.
She ran down the granary stairs and across the birch field to the Lower road. She must get to Bernice first. But, oh, how weird and lonely that Lower road was in the sudden swoops of wind and the sudden gushes of wan moonlight between the clouds. Melancholy dogs were howling to each other across the dark farms. The wind whistled dolefully in the fence corners. Something—with red eyes—glared out at her from under a bush. And the trees!
By daylight Marigold was a little sister to all the trees in the world. But trees took on such extraordinary shapes in the dark. A huge lion prowled through John Burnham’s field. An enormous, diabolical rooster strutted on the fence. A queer elfish old man leered at her over a gate. A very devil squatted at the turn of the road. The whole walk was full of terrors. Marigold was in a cold reek of perspiration when she reached the house behind the young spruce wood and stumbled into the little kitchen, where Bernice was—fortunately—alone.
“Bernice,” gasped Marigold, “Babe’s coming to tell you something—something dreadful. I—tried to stop her but I couldn’t.”
Bernice looked at Marigold with fear in her sad gray eyes.
“I knew she meant something this afternoon. She asked me where my father was buried. I said in Charlottetown. ‘Go and see if his grave is there,’ she said. What is it? Tell me. I’d rather hear it from you than her.”
“Oh, I can’t, Bernice—I can’t,” cried Marigold in agony. “I thought I could—but I can’t.”
“You must,” said Bernice.
In the end Marigold told her—haltingly—tearfully. Then buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, I’m so happy,” said Bernice.
Marigold pulled her away. Bernice was radiant. Eyes like stars.
“Happy?”
“Yes—oh, don’t you see. I’ve got somebody after all. It was so dreadful to think I didn’t belong to anybody. And Father’ll need me so much when he comes out next year. There’ll be so much I can do for him. Oh, Marigold—I do believe in God now—I’m sorry I ever said I didn’t. Of course there’s a God. I love Him—and I love everybody in the world. I don’t mind a bit how poor and ugly I am now that I have a father to love.”
In Marigold’s utter confusion of thought only one idea stood out clearly.
“Oh, Bernice—if you do—believe in God—Uncle Jarvis will let us play together again.”
“Well, I do declare.” Babe Kennedy stood in the doorway. A vicious, disappointed Babe. “So that was why you didn’t want me to tell—so’s you could tell youself.”
“Exactly.”
Marigold put her arm around Bernice and faced Babe defiantly. “And I have told it first. So you can just go home, Miss Meow. Nobody wants you here.”
CHAPTER 20
The Punishment of Billy
1
“I have the evil eye,” said Billy ominously. “People are scared of me.”
“If you are going to talk nonsense we can’t be friends,” said Marigold coldly. “If you’re sensible we can have some fun.”
Billy—nobody but Aunt Min ever called him William—looked at this sprite-like Marigold and decided to be sensible. When Aunt Min had told him that Marigold Lesley was coming to Windyside for a week Billy had two reactions.
Firstly, he was mad. He didn’t want a girl poking and snooping round. Secondly, he was rather pleased. It would be good fun to tease her and teach her her place. Now came a third. Marigold, sleek of hair, blue of eye, light of foot, found favor in his eyes. As sign and seal that evening, sitting on the granary steps, he told her all his troubles. Marigold listened and sympathized with one side of her mind, and with the other carried on her own small thought-processes. As is the way of womankind of all ages, whether men knew it or not.
Marigold could not quite understand why Billy detested staying at Aunt Min’s so bitterly. For herself she rather liked it. Billy thought Aunt Min too strict to live, but in Marigold’s eyes her regimen compared very favorably with Grandmother’s. Though Marigold called her Aunt Min, according to the custom of the caste, she was really only a cousin of the Cloud of Spruce Lesleys. But she was a genuine aunt of Billy’s, that is to say, she had once been married to a half-brother of his father’s. So Marigold and Billy might call themselves cousins of a sort.
This was Marigold’s first visit to Aunt Min, and was to be the final one of the autumn. Next week she must go to school again.
Marigold liked Windyside. She liked the big airy house with its rooms full of quaint old furniture. There were so many beautiful things to look at, especially the scores of strange and exquisite Indian shells, brought home by Aunt Min’s sailor-husband, and the case of stuffed parrots in the hall, with the model of a full-rigged ship atop of it.
To be sure, Aunt Min was very strict about her diet—which was why Grandmother had been so willing to let her come—and her table was something of the leanest. Aunt Min’s temper was a bit uncertain also. She co
uld say sharp things on occasion and had been known to slam doors. But there were compensations. For one thing, Aunt Min always asked her casually how she took her tea. For another, cats. Dozens of adorable animals basking on the window-sills, sunning themselves in the garden walks, and prowling about the barn. A batch of kittens was all in the day’s work at Windyside. For once in her life Marigold felt that she had all the cats she wanted.
Now, all the use Billy had for a cat was a target.
Marigold thought Billy very funny to look at. He had a round moon face of pink and white, large china-blue eyes, a shock of fine straight yellow hair and a mouth so wide he seemed to be perpetually grinning. But she rather liked him. He was the first boy she had ever liked.
Hip? No, she had never liked Hip. This was entirely different.
She listened sympathetically to his tale of woe. She thought Billy had a case.
Billy, it seemed, had not wanted to come to Aunt Min’s at all. His mother was dead and he and his father lived together at a boarding-house, where life was tolerable because of Dad. But Dad had to go to South America on a prolonged business-trip and hence Billy’s sojourn with Aunt Min.
“Rotten, I call it,” he growled. “I wanted to go to Aunt Nora’s. She’s a real aunt—Mamma’s own sister. Not a half-aunt like Aunt Min. I tell you Aunt Nora’s great. Always cuts a pie in six pieces. Aunt Min, ’jever notice, always cuts it in eight. A feller can do as he likes at Aunt Nora’s. You haven’t gotter sit up on your hind-legs and act real pretty all the time there. She ain’t one of your fussy old things.”
“Aunt Min is pretty particular,” agreed Marigold, thinking how lovely that little blue glimpse of the harbor was at the end of the orchard aisle.
“Particular! Say, I’ve gotter wash my face every day, and brush my teeth more times ’n you could shake a stick at. And live on health foods. Say, you ought to taste Aunt Nora’s raspberry buns.”
“They sound good,” agreed Marigold, who herself felt certain hankerings after Salome’s pantry.
“Just think how splendid it would ’a’ been there. I wouldn’t have to be respectable for one minute—only on Sundays and then I could ’a’ stood it for a change. I could go barefoot—and slide down the pig house roof—and eat everything that come handy. Hot dogs. There’s a hot-dog stand just outside Aunt Nora’s gate.”
Billy groaned. It was agonizing to think of the delights one might enjoy at Aunt Nora’s and contrast them with the bitter reality at Aunt Min’s.
“Why wouldn’t your father let you go to Aunt Nora’s?” asked Marigold.
“Search me. I think he had some fool notion Aunt Min would be offended. I was to Aunt Nora’s last summer and Aunt Min thought it was her turn. Mind you, it isn’t because she likes me. She’s got some fool idea of doing her duty by Dad. And mind you, she thinks Aunt Nora’s is an awful place because Aunt Nora is poor. She thinks I wouldn’t be ‘happy’ there. Happy!”
Billy groaned again.
“I never had such a good time as I had at Aunt Nora’s. Say, I had to hunt her turkeys up every evening. Roam everywhere I liked and no questions asked so long’s I turned up at bedtime with the turks. Here if I go outer the gate it’s, ‘William, where have you been?’ and ‘William, did you scrape your boots?’ Why, the cats here have to wipe their feet afore they go in.”
“Now, Billy, that’s exaggerating,” said Marigold rebukingly.
“Well, ’tain’t exaggerating to say I don’t dast throw a single stone here,” said Billy defiantly. “It’s aggravating, that’s what it is. Millions of cats and not a chance to throw a stone at one of ’em. I did throw one first day I was here—gave her old yellow Tom the thrill of his life—and she jawed at me for a week and made me read a chapter of the Bible every day. I’d rather she’d taken it out of my hide. She thinks out so many different ways of punishing me and I never know what to expect. And then—’ja hear her?—telling Mrs. Kent what I looked like when I was a baby? She’s always at it. Catch Aunt Nora telling on a feller like that. Or kissing me goodnight. Aunt Min always does. Thinks it’s her ‘duty,’ I s’pose.”
Billy thrust his hands in his pockets and scowled at the universe. But he was feeling better. Remained only one grievance to be discussed. The worst of all.
“I could worry along if it wasn’t for Sundays,” he said. “I hate Sunday here—hate it worse’n p’isen.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I have to write a snopsis.”
“What’s a snopsis?”
“Why, you go to church and when you come home you gotter write out all you can remember of the sermon. And if you can’t remember enough—oh, boy! She says her children always done it. She’ll make you do it, too, next Sunday, I’ll bet.”
Marigold reflected a bit. She didn’t think she would mind. It might be int’resting—a kind of game in fact. For one Sunday. But poor Bill had to do it every Sunday.
“Well, never mind,” she said soothingly. “Sunday’s a long way off yet. Let’s see how much fun we can have before that.”
Decidedly, thought Billy, here was a girl.
2
Sunday might be far off—but Sunday came. After a week during which Billy forgot to hanker for Aunt Nora’s. That was all very well. But Marigold was going home Tuesday. Billy would have been torn in pieces by wild horses before he would have confessed how he hated the thought.
But here was Sunday afternoon—and church. To which Billy and Marigold must go alone because Aunt Min had been summoned to Charlottetown to see an old friend who was passing through and could be seen on no other day.
“I’m sorry I can’t go to church,” she said, “because young Mr. Harvey Nelson is preaching for a call and I’d like to hear him. But it can’t be helped. I’ve left your suppers in the pantry for you. Now be good children. Marigold, you’ll see that Billy behaves properly, won’t you? Don’t forget to pay close attention to the sermon. You must both write out a synopsis of it this evening, and I want to see a better result than last Sunday, Billy.”
“A-ha,” gloated Billy as Aunt Min went out. “I told you you’d have to do it, too.”
Marigold did not resent his gloating. He was really behaving very well, considering she had been told to look after his behavior. That was too awful of Aunt Min. Why couldn’t people understand certain perfectly plain, self-evident things?
“Oh, my, ain’t we Sundayfied!” chanted Davy Dixon on the fence, as they went down the lane. Davy was freckled and snub-nosed, bareheaded and barefooted. With no more clothes on than decency required. But he did look so jolly and care-free. All the Dixons did. But they were a family Aunt Min detested. She never let Billy and Marigold play with them, though they lived only a cat’s walk away through the bush behind Aunt Min’s.
“Comin’ to the picnic?” asked Davy.
“What picnic?”
“Oh, just the Dixon family picnic,” grinned Davy. “This is Mom’s and Pop’s wedding-day. Twelve years married ’n’ ain’t sorry for it yit. We’re going to take our new car ’n’ go to the sand-hills. Got a basket of eats ’d make your eyes stick out. Yum-yum. ’N’ mom said to ask youse to come along, too, ’cause she knew your Aunt Min was going away ’n’ youse’d be lonesome.”
Marigold found herself wishing they could go. At home she liked going to church, but she was sure she wouldn’t like going to Windyside church. She didn’t like the look of it; a big, bare, wind-beaten, drab-tinted church with a spire as long and sharp as a needle; somehow it was not a friendly church. And she knew nobody there. A drive in a motor-car to the sand-hills sounded very alluring. But of course it was unthinkable.
What was Billy saying?
“I’ll go if you’ll lend me that book at your place—The Flying Roll.”
“Bill-ee,” said Marigold.
“Oh, all right,” said Dave. “It belongs to old Aunt Janey but she won’t
care.”
“I’ll go,” said Billy decidedly “Coming, Marigold?”
“Oh, please, remember what day this is,” implored Marigold, with a wild wish in the back of her mind that she could go. “And what will Aunt Min say?”
“Aunt Min isn’t going to know a thing about it. I’ve got a plan. Aw, come on. We’ll have a rip-roaring time.”
“Billy, you don’t mean it.”
“You bet I do. You can go to church if you want to and stick all the afternoon to varnishy seats.”
“Gotter make up your mind quick,” said Dave. “Lizzie’s waiting.”
Marigold reflected rapidly. She couldn’t go alone to a strange church. And it would be so lonesome to stay home. The sand-dunes—the waves—the wind on the sea—
“I’ll—go,” she said helplessly.
“I knew you’d some gizzard in you. Atta girl,” gloated Bill. “Let’s scoot back and take off our proud rags. Jes’ a minute, Dave.”
A few minutes later they were running along the path through a scented field of hay on a short cut to the Dixons. Ordinarily Marigold felt she had wings on a day like this. Now she suddenly felt leaden-footed. But Billy must not suspect it. He would despise her if he found out she really did not care for all this lawlessness.
The Dixons’ new car proved to be a very second-hand snub-nosed little Ford, into which they all piled and rattled and bounced down a narrow deep-rutted lane to the sand-dunes. Marigold sat on the knee of Mrs. Dixon, a big, pink, overblown lady who used what even Billy knew to be bad grammar, in a cheerful, excruciating voice. Marigold thought the bones would be shaken out of her before they got to the dunes.
It should have been a wonderful afternoon. Polly Dixon was a pretty, gentle little girl and Marigold liked her. They slid down the sand-hills and made shore pies and dug wells in the sand. They gathered clam-shells and went bathing in a little sand-cove up the shore where the water was like soft, warm, liquid turquoise. They played games with the boys. They laughed and ran and scampered. And under it all Marigold knew perfectly well that she was not having a good time. She was only trying to make herself think she was.
Magic for Marigold Page 28
