After Many Years

by Carolyn Strom Collins

  “Anyhow, Friend Cat doesn’t like her. He knows—and I know—that she is the kind of woman who likes cats ‘in their place’,” said Margaret vindictively, and took immense satisfaction out of knowing it.

  The wedding was fixed for October. Isabel was busy getting her trousseau. She pleaded with Margaret to stay and be her bridesmaid, but Margaret said her leave would be up the week before and she must go. Jim came and went and smiled and quipped, and took very little notice of Margaret. Margaret told herself this was only what was to be expected and it really did not worry her much.

  The only thing that worried her was her dear, unappreciated house. She never went near it—she couldn’t bear to. Isabel went to see it and came down and said it was quite sweet and quaint and would do nicely until they could get something better.

  “I don’t mind the furniture being so old-fashioned; I know Jim hasn’t much money. But that queer old piano! I’m going to have a Victrola—I’ll have enough money for that after I get my things, and I must have something to cheer me up in that little hole, ’steen miles from anywhere. I could stand the furniture, but I can’t stand the location. Jim is peeved that I don’t like it, so I don’t say much to him. And he could have had that lovely Ormsby house and wouldn’t take it! Can you beat it, honey!”

  “I think Jim’s house is lovely,” said Margaret.

  Isabel patted her hand.

  “You did your best, anyhow, pet. Don’t think I’m not grateful. Men don’t understand things, do they? We’ve got to humor them sometimes.”

  For a wonder she did not laugh after she had said this. She looked thoughtfully across the autumn fields.

  “You know, honey,” she said slowly, “there are times when I think—”

  But just then, Jim came up the porch steps and Margaret never knew what Isabel thought.

  Margaret was packing her trunk. She was going away the next day. She went slowly down the stairs. The front door was open and the sunset came flooding in. Isabel was standing in the hall, superbly beautiful in a warm, golden-brown suit. It was her going-away suit, and Margaret wondered what on earth she had put it on to-day for. She ought not to wear it until her wedding day.

  Isabel put her arms around Margaret, drew her into the parlor and shut the door.

  Evidently she was very much excited and—if such a thing could be imagined of Isabel—a little nervous.

  “Marg’ret, honey, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Will you—will you go and tell Jim something?”

  “Tell him what?” cried Margaret.

  “Tell him—that I—was married to Ned Rogers in Redway—this afternoon.”

  Margaret stared at Isabel without saying anything. Isabel, the confession over, was herself again. She laughed and caught Margaret’s hand.

  “You do look flabbergasted, honey! Now, don’t scold. It isn’t a bit of use. Just sit down by me on the sofa and let me explain. I haven’t much time. Ned’s waiting for me down the road in his lovely new car—we’re going to take the Montreal train to-night. O, I know you’re shocked to death, honey. But it had to be. Ned and I fell in love with each other the day I came home. But I’d promised Jim, and I meant to be true to him. You know, I was just wild about Jim five years ago. Even yet I like him—better than Ned in some ways—and if it wasn’t for that crazy house of his…but I couldn’t swallow it. And Jim’s so stubborn he was bound to live there.

  “Ned’s bought the Ormsby house and is going to furnish it handsomely. Really, honey, everything’s better as it is. Ned and I are much better suited to each other than Jim and I.”

  “Yes, I think you are,” said Margaret coolly. She was one whom great shocks render cool.

  “But why didn’t you tell Jim before you did this?”

  “O, honey, I know I should have. But I was afraid, honestly. Jim has such a wheedling tongue. If I wasn’t really married to Ned he’d talk me out of it. I had to do it this way. Now you just go and tell him, angel, and break it to him gently. He’ll take it better from you than from any one else—he thinks so much of you—and so do I. You mustn’t blame me for this. I know you won’t. You’re such a sweet little thing. And I know Jim will feel awful. But he’ll get over it—they always do. There was a fellow in Colorado—gracious, I must go—we haven’t too much time. Goodest-bye, honey, and tell him I’m awfully sorry, but that house got on my nerves.”

  She was gone. Margaret went at once to Mrs. Kennedy. The hideous thing she had to do must be done while her curious numbness of thought and feeling lasted. When sensibility returned she could never do it. She had to break Jim’s heart, and it must be broken quickly.

  “Where’s Jim?” she asked.

  “O, up in that blessed house of his, I reckon,” replied Mrs. Kennedy. “Anyhow, I saw him and Friend Cat going up the path not long ago.”

  Margaret stepped out of the back door and went up the path—that little, sequestered path up the hill—where Jim and she had always to walk in single file. It was a perfect evening, full of nice whispery sounds. Summer had stolen back for one more day of dream and glamour. When she reached the little house the Lombardy poplars were in dark purple silhouette against a crocus sky, and there was one milk-white star over the big pines, like a pearl on a silver-green lake.

  The robins were whistling sleepily in the firs and the moist air was fragrant with the tang of balsam. O, how lovely and dear it all was. But the little house looked very pathetic to her: a casket rifled of its jewels, a lamp with the flame gone out.

  “Anyhow, she won’t eat my jam,” she whispered suddenly, and then hated herself heartily for the contemptible thought.

  She had never been up to the house since the evening Jim and she had sat together by the fire. She found Jim there now—only there was no fire—nothing but the ashes of the one they had left. It seemed that another one had never been laid.

  Margaret stood before him, straight and tense and white-lipped. It was horrible to think that Jim would always connect her with this dreadful news.

  “Jim, I have something to tell you.”

  “Yes?” Jim went on stroking Friend Cat.

  “She said to break it gently but I can’t—I don’t know how. You’ve got to know it: Isabel married Ned Rogers in Redway to-day. They’ve gone on the Montreal train. That’s all.”

  Margaret turned to go and tripped over Friend Cat, who had suddenly bounded—or been tumbled—to the floor. Jim caught her just in time.

  “You’d have given yourself a nice bump if you’d struck that fender! Why don’t you look where you’re going, elf?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Margaret dazedly, trying to wriggle herself out of Jim’s arms, and not succeeding.

  “I’m not. It gave me an excuse for grabbing you just this much sooner. Don’t squirm like that—you’re worse than Friend Cat when he wants to break loose. So Isabel and Ned have eloped. God bless them! Now you and I can get married right off.”

  “Married!”

  Margaret stopped squirming and stood quite still.

  “Of course. You can’t live here in this house with me unless we do. There’d be talk. And you’ve got to live here; it’s your house! It’s always been your house!”

  “But—don’t you care—Isabel—”

  “Isabel’s a darling,” said Jim. “She’s saved everybody heaps of trouble. I love her bushels. But you…you’re mine! I knew that, way back in summer. That’s why I lit that fire here that night. I didn’t care a hoot whether the chimney drew or not. I just wanted to sit here with you and pretend we were a honeymoon couple.

  “I thought it would be all I ever could have. I meant to do my duty and marry Isabel, of course. I was such a vain, besotted fool I really believed she wanted me. Point of honour, and all that. That angel of a girl has solved everybody’s problems. I’m going to give her
a corking kiss for it when she comes back. And so will you—won’t you now, Mrs. Jim Kennedy?”

  “O, I will—I will,” said Margaret, not knowing in the least what it was Jim had asked her to do.

  “But give me one first—now,” said Jim.

  Editors’ note: “Jim’s House” was published by People’s Home Journal in July 1926 with illustrations by Charles Andrew Bryson. It was listed in the “Unverified Ledger Titles” section of the 1986 bibliography and was found by Sarah Riedel and Donna Campbell. This story is available to view online in the Ryrie-Campbell Collection.

  In February 1926, L. M. Montgomery and her family moved from Leaskdale, Ontario, to Norval where her husband, Ewan Macdonald, became minister in the Presbyterian churches at Norval and nearby Union. Her novel, The Blue Castle, was published in 1926, and she continued working on the third volume of her “Emily” trilogy, Emily’s Quest, which would be published in 1927. Four stories that were the beginning of her work on Magic for Marigold (1929) were published in the May, June, July, and August 1926 issues of The Delineator.

  The Mirror

  (1931)

  She was alone at last. She had asked them all to go out and leave her alone for the last hour before the ceremony that was to make her the happy bride of Lester Barr. They went out with jest and smiles—all but Old Ellen. If Old Ellen had ever smiled or jested it had been so long ago that nobody remembered it. Old Ellen went out bent and smileless. But before she went out she did something quickly and furtively, in a dark, shadowy corner of the room. She turned at the door and looked for a long moment at Hilary standing wraith-like in her shimmer of satin and tulle. It was no look to fall on a bride. Hilary shivered slightly amid all her glow. But then, Old Ellen had really never liked her. Hilary had always known that, but she forgave Old Ellen for it because she had loved Star so much.

  “Ellen, Mr. Barr will be here in half an hour. Let me know when he comes.”

  “Ay,” said Old Ellen ungraciously. As she closed the door she muttered contemptuously: “Him and his carneying voice! Ay, he’ll soon be here for his bonny bride. But will she look in it first – will she look in it?”

  Hilary heard the mutter, though not the words. She smiled again. Old Ellen hated Lester, of course, because she liked Alec Stanley. Hilary knew Old Ellen would not have been so dour and grim on this bridal day if Alec were the bridegroom.

  She was glad Old Ellen had gone out—glad they had all gone out—though they were all dear girls. She wanted to be alone with her wonderful happiness for an hour before she gave herself to him forever.

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was too pale for a bride and she had never been beautiful. She had a sweet, dark face, with eyes that no one ever quite knew for blue or gray or green, richly quilled about with black lashes. Her eyebrows might have been drawn in soot, so finely dark they were against her white face. But apart from her eyes she was insignificant, which made all the more marvelous the miracle of Lester Barr’s love. Out of a whole world of beautiful women, his for the asking, he had chosen her.

  “This mirror always makes me look a wee bit green,” she thought with girlish petulance.

  There was another mirror in the room—a mirror that would not have turned her green—but Hilary had no intention of looking into it. It hung on the wall in the corner by the window. A long oval mirror with a beautiful back of beaten copper. Hilary had turned its face to the wall when she had come to be mistress of Glenwood. She liked the beautiful mellow copper oval, which Old Ellen kept meticulously polished; but there was another reason for her action.

  She did not think the mirror was her friend.

  She went over to the high, arched, Georgian window looking out on the lawn. What a wretched day it was for a wedding. The sky at sunrise had been blood red, which soon darkened into sullen gray. The waves were moaning drearily on the sandshore. A snarling, quarrelsome wind, which blew an occasional bitter splash of rain against the window, was tormenting the boughs of the big aspen poplar Star had loved. Why could she not help thinking about Star—Star who should have been here to drape her veil and arrange her roses; Star, who had died, nobody knew why, one dark, haunted November afternoon just like this three years ago. She wanted to think of Lester and their exquisite love and the wonderful life before them—and she could think of nothing but Star. She had thought of Star when she wakened that morning to see that wild red sunrise through the trees; she had thought of her all the forenoon of hurry and preparation; and now it almost seemed that Star was with her in the room.

  Star, who kept everyone laughing; Star, with her body like a young sapling not to be broken, however it might bend; Star, with her eyes like brown marigolds flecked with glints of gold; Star, with her soul of fire and snow. Glenwood was full of Star; everything about it held some memory of her. Star, running out at bedtime to kiss the flowers good-night; Star, chasing the reflection of the moon along the wet sandshore; Star holding buttercups under her saucy chin; Star with the new red boots she hated, deliberately putting her feet in a pail of buttermilk to ruin them; Star, with a wreath of ox-eye daisies on her bronze hair; Star, singing in the old Glenwood garden lying fragrant and velvety under the enchantment of a waning moon; Star, dancing—why, her very slippers would have danced by themselves the whole night through; lovely Star who loved everything beautiful; and now she was lying in the cold, damp grave in the churchyard and the long grasses and withered leaves must be blowing drearily around it.

  Hilary shivered again. What thoughts for a wedding day! But when Lester came he would banish them.

  Glenwood, with its colourful, pine-scented garden, full of wind-music and bee-song, that dropped in terraces to the harbour shore where there was always the luring sound of “perilous seas forlorn,” had always been a vital part of her life. She and Star, orphans who lived for the most part with Uncle Paul and Aunt Emily Tempest, spent every summer of their childhood there. Cousins came from everywhere to that old house—cousins who all worshipped Star and thought little about shy, plain Hilary. All but Alec Stanley who lived next door. He had never been fascinated by Star. There had never been anyone but Hilary for him, from the day when he had rescued her from Old Ellen’s ferocious gander. With what a lordly air he had caught the furious hissing creature by its snaky neck and hurled it over the fence. With what boyish tenderness he had turned to poor little seven-year-old Hilary, standing tranced in her childish terror. She had always felt so safe with Alec after that—dear Alec, whom she still liked so much—still loved, if only he were content with that kind of love. But Alec had known, too, from the day of the gander that Hilary had something in her hand for him if he could ever prevail on her to open her hand and give it. And nothing else would do him.

  How furious Alec had been with old Great-Uncle Neil who, when he saw Hilary for the first time, had shaken her earnestly by the hand and said,

  “Eh, nae beauty—nae beauty.” Alec never forgave people who preferred Star to Hilary. But Hilary found it easy to forgive them. She loved Star so much herself. Who could help loving Star? Her very look said “Come and love me.” Whenever she came into a room everyone in it felt happier. Aunt Mildred loved her and it was common surmise in the clan that she meant to leave Star her money and Glenwood. It was a proof of how greatly Star was loved that no one was jealous because of this.

  Even Old Ellen loved Star. Old Ellen had always lived at Glenwood; she was some kind of a cousin of Aunt Mildred’s long-dead husband. Even then she seemed to the children incredibly old. Both Star and Hilary were terribly frightened of her. She always sat in a corner knitting and watching. They thought she must have sat there knitting for a hundred years. She never smiled but sometimes she looked at certain people and laughed maliciously and slyly. Her face was all dead except her eyes which were most horribly alive under the white frost of her hair. Star began by calling her Ancient of Days but soon dropped it. Even Star could not make a joke of Ol
d Ellen.

  “She’s a witch,” she told Hilary, “and rides on a broomstick over the harbour at nights.”

  “Do you really think so?” whispered Hilary.

  “Of course. She always knows what we’re thinking of. That shows she is a witch.”

  The mirror hung on the wall of Aunt Mildred’s bedroom—a great long, softly gleaming thing in its ruddy frame. Aunt Mildred’s great-grandfather had brought it home from somewhere abroad and all the children who came to Glenwood were always eager to get into Aunt Mildred’s room and have a peep into the mirror. All but Hilary. Hilary was afraid of the mirror. Sometimes it seemed to her like a friend, sometimes an enemy. She never could decide which. Yet her very fear attracted her to it—she wanted to see if there were really anything to be afraid of. Who knew what face might look out of it—all the shadowy ladies who had once looked into it? Once, when Aunt Mildred had shut her in the room alone for some childish peccadillo, she had fancied for a moment she had seen a face looking at her out of it – a malicious, sneering face. She rather liked to talk to herself in it, but Old Ellen caught her at it once and frightened her from ever doing it again.

  “Why mayn’t I talk to it,” she had asked rebelliously.

  “Because that looking-glass isn’t like other looking-glasses,” said Old Ellen mysteriously. “There’s a curse on it. Your great-great-grandfather was a bad man. And a woman he scarred with a blow looked in the glass and when she saw her face she cursed it. Ay, her curse is on it. And there’s stories told of it.”

  Hilary knew that. She had heard most of the stories at different times, though never in any detail. There was Aunt Mildred’s little sister, Claudia, who had seen—something—in the mirror and had never been “quite right” again. And there was Great-Aunt Kathleen who had gone to meet her lover and go away with him. The lover, coming to her, had been killed in a train wreck and beautiful, selfish Kathleen had hurried back home, thinking no one would know. But the doors were closed against her; her husband had looked in the mirror.