After Many Years

by Carolyn Strom Collins

  Judy sat down. She felt oddly happy and at home.

  “Can I have just what I like?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” said Judy triumphantly, “I’d like some ice-cream with strawberry jam on it.”

  The man rang a bell and gave an order. The ice-cream and jam came. Yes, this must be Tomorrow. No doubt about it. Ice-cream and strawberry jam didn’t appear in this magical manner in Today.

  “We’ll set a share aside for Timothy,” said the man.

  They were good friends right away. The man didn’t talk a great deal but he looked at Judy very often. There was a tenderness in his face…a tenderness she had never seen before in anybody’s face, not even in Mother’s. She felt that he liked her very much.

  “I have your picture in my bureau drawer,” she told him.

  He looked startled.

  “My picture! Who gave it to you?”

  “Nobody. I cut it out of a paper. It hadn’t any name but I liked it. Do you notice—” Judy was very grave “—that our chins are something alike?”

  “Something,” agreed the man. Then he laughed bitterly. Did all grown-up people laugh like that? No, Tillytuck didn’t. But this man was looking as bitter as his laugh now. He wasn’t happy. Judy wished she could make him happy. People who lived in Tomorrow shouldn’t be unhappy.

  Timothy came in and ate his share of the treat. Then there was nothing to do but go. Judy knew the man hadn’t the slightest notion of kidnapping her and she felt the strangest, most unaccountable sensation of disappointment.

  “Good-bye and thank you,” she said politely. “It is very nice here in Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “This is Tomorrow,” explained Judy. “I’ve always wanted to get into Tomorrow and now I have.”

  “O, I see. Well, I’m sorry to say it isn’t Tomorrow for me. And I wouldn’t want to get into Tomorrow. I would like to get back into Yesterday.”

  Judy was very sorry for him. She looked longingly back to Flying Cloud as Timothy rowed away. Why did Grandmother hate this man? There was nothing hateful about him. Her heart yearned back to Flying Cloud. Even on the road she turned again for a last, longing look at it.

  “Look out!” screamed Timothy.

  The room went around oddly. The furniture nodded and jigged. The bed…how came she to be in bed? She couldn’t remember going to bed. Somebody with a white cap on was just going out of the door. What door? How funny one’s head felt! There were voices somewhere—low voices. She could not see who was talking but somehow she knew. Mother and the man. What were they saying? Judy heard stray sentences here and there, bobbing out of a confusion of murmuring.

  “I—I thought you always hated her,” said Mother. There was a sound of tears in Mother’s voice, and a sound of laughter, too. Laughter with no bitterness in it.

  “My own baby! I loved her,” said the man. “Always. But I never knew how much till Timothy Salt came rowing over to tell me she had been struck … and killed by a car.”

  “I knew you loved her as soon as I got here and saw your face bending over her,” said Mother.

  More murmurs. The room went around again, jigged up and down, then steadied itself.

  “I admit I was jealous of her. I thought you cared nothing for me any more…you seemed so wrapped up in her.”

  If that room would only stay put! Really, things behaved very queerly in Tomorrow. Judy hadn’t heard what Mother said. The man was speaking again.

  “It was your mother told you that. She never liked me or anything about me. You remember she would never call Judy anything but Hester because Judith was my choice of a name—my mother’s. Elaine, you know it was your mother and Martha Monkman who made all the trouble between us.”

  “Not all.” Mother seemed to be spunking up in a rather half-hearted defence of her family. “Not all. You know your sister hated me…she made half the trouble.”

  “Grace was always a mischief-maker I admit. But I wouldn’t have believed her if I thought you still cared. And Judy seemed afraid of me. I thought you were bringing her up to hate me.”

  “O, no, no, Stephen! She was frightened of you, I didn’t know why. I think—now—Mother and Martha told her things. And I thought you couldn’t forgive her for not being a boy.”

  “Woman!”

  What a delightful way he said “woman.” Judy could fancy his smile. She wished she could see him but when she tried to turn her head round went that room again.

  “We were both young fools,” Mother was saying when it steadied once more.

  “Is it too late to be wise, Elaine?” said the man.

  Judy strained her ears for Mother’s answer. Somehow, she felt it would be of tremendous significance to everybody in the world. But she could hear nothing, only sobs. Judy gave a long sigh of despairing resignation.

  There was a brief silence. Then they came over to her bed, Mother and the man. She could see them now. Mother, all pale and tearful, looking as if she had been through some terrible experience, but with some strange inner radiance shining behind it all—a radiance that seemed part of the golden sunset light which suddenly flooded the room. The man was smiling triumphantly. Judy felt they both loved her very much.

  “Are you feeling better, darling?” said Mother.

  “Have I been sick?”

  “You were knocked down by a car over on the mainland road,” said the man. “Timothy came for help. To use his own expressive language, the liver was scared out of him. We brought you over here to Flying Cloud and sent for the doctor—”

  “And for me,” said Mother happily.

  “The doctor said you had a very slight concussion—nothing serious. You’ll be all right soon. Only you must keep very quiet for a few days.”

  He had such a delightful voice…you loved him for his voice. And he had his arm around Mother.

  “This is your father,” said Mother, “and—and—we are not going to be separated anymore.”

  “Father is dead,” said Judy. “So I suppose I am dead too.”

  “Father and you are both very much alive, sweet.” Father bent down and kissed her. “When you feel quite up to listening you shall hear the whole story of two very proud, very silly, very unreasonable young people who were not all to blame for what happened and who have learned wisdom through suffering.”

  The woman with the white cap was coming in again. Somehow Judy knew that whatever she had to say must be said before she quite got in.

  “Will we live here?”

  “Always…when we’re not living somewhere else,” said Father gaily.

  “And will Grandmother and The Woman live with us?”

  Father seemed as bad as Timothy for slang.

  “Not by a jugful,” said Father.

  The sunset gold was fading and the nurse was looking her disapproval. But Judy didn’t care.

  “I’ve found Tomorrow,” she said, as Father and Mother went out.

  “I have found something I thought I had lost forever,” said Father as the nurse shut the door on him.

  Editors’ note: This story was published in Canadian Home Journal (July 1934) with illustrations by Seymour Ball. It was listed in the “Unverified Ledger Titles” in the 1986 bibliography and was found by Carolyn Strom Collins and Donna Campbell. This story is available to view online in the Ryrie-Campbell Collection.

  In 1934, Montgomery was living in Norval and working on Mistress Pat, the sequel to Pat of Silver Bush. Her first grandchild, Luella, had been born in May. Later that year, the “talking” movie version of Anne of Green Gables premiered.

  Readers of L. M. Montgomery’s novels will recognize many similarities between this story and Jane of Lantern Hill, published in 1937.

  In addition to “Tomorrow Comes,” two more Montgomery stories were published in 1934: “From Out the
Silence” and “The Closed Door.”

  The Use of Her Legs

  (1936)

  Tillie John—known to the postmaster of Upper Bartibog but to nobody else as Mrs. John Page—set a freshly baked batch of pies on her shelf, looked at her work, and saw that it was good. There was no one in Upper Bartibog who could match her for pies, she complacently reflected. Other things contributed to her complacency. It was a lovely day after the April rainstorm the day before—a bit cool but clear and sunny. She was going to town to spend the day with her sister Annie and help her plan her daughter’s wedding. The only thing that marred her enjoyment was leaving Amanda alone. They seldom left her alone but it couldn’t be helped to-day, for John had to go to town on business that couldn’t be postponed, and Mrs. Harrow, the only near neighbour who could be asked to come and stay with her, was also away. Really, there was no danger. Tramps never came to Bartibog—it was too much out of the world—and Amanda was perfectly healthy, except that she hadn’t the use of her legs, poor thing. Tillie John sighed again. She was glad that so far John had resisted all the solicitations of persistent agents to sell him a car. She had never felt safe in one since Amanda’s accident ten years before. Amanda had gone out in a friend’s car, there had been a collision, and Amanda had never walked again.

  Amanda Page was sitting in her wheelchair by the kitchen window, looking like a mediaeval saint and probably quite aware of the fact, at least if you left the mediaeval out. Mediaeval saints may never have worn dresses of blue print with an elaborate Irish crochet collar around the neck, but they sometimes had smooth braids of rippling auburn hair wound around their heads, placid creamy faces, and large, brilliant, gray-blue eyes set at a slant, calculated to give the face a peculiarly appealing sadness. At any rate, Amanda Page had them and the lashes of a Hollywood star into the bargain. She was thirty-five but you would never have guessed it to look at her. Tillie John sometimes scowled at her own wrinkles and warped hands and resented Amanda’s timeless beauty a little. No wonder Amanda looked pretty and young! She spent her time between her bed and her wheelchair and was waited on hand and foot. Then Tillie John would reproach herself. After all, when you hadn’t the use of your legs….

  “That north blind is an inch lower than the other. Would you mind making them even?” said Amanda in the soft pathetic voice she had always affected since her accident.

  Tillie John gave the north blind a jerk that sent it whizzing to the top. Then repented her impatience and adjusted it carefully. After all, the Pages were like that. John himself was as fussy as an old maid about trifles.

  Amanda surveyed the blind with an air of plaintive triumph. Then she looked at the lunch Tillie John had set out for her on one end of the long kitchen table, on a trim little red-and-white checked cloth.

  “Is there anything else you’d like, dear?” Tillie John asked solicitously, to atone for her momentary petulance about the blind.

  “You could set that chocolate peppermint cake out,” said Amanda gently. “I might fancy a crust of it, though I haven’t any appetite. But then you know I never have. I wonder what it would be like to feel hungry again. Ah, you people who can take exercise—do you ever stop to think how fortunate you are? Thank you, dear. I’m sure I’ll get on very nicely. Have a good time at Annie’s and don’t worry about me.”

  “I will worry, though,” said Tillie John. “It doesn’t seem right to leave you alone. Dear knows what might happen.”

  “What could happen? No tramps ever come here—”

  “Suppose the house took fire.”

  “I could get out in my wheelchair somehow if it did. Besides, it won’t. You’ve always worried too much, Tillie. You’re as bad as old Daniel Random, you really are.”

  “Speaking of old Daniel, he’s gone off again,” said Tillie.

  “Has he ever been on?” inquired Amanda. “As long as I can remember Daniel Random has had rats in his garret, especially when it came to religion.”

  “Well, you know he’s worse at some times than others. And they’ve been holding revival meetings up at Prospect Head, with them go-preachers, and Daniel never missed one.”

  “No doubt he’s had a glorious time, too.”

  “Well, his wife hasn’t. She’s worried to death about him. He thinks the end of the world is coming. And I hear he got up in Prospect church last Sunday and asked the minister questions.”

  “He’d get a real kick out of that,” said Amanda, “and so would everybody else who was there. Daniel has always been very peculiar. If I could have laughed over anything I’d have laughed at the look on his face that Sunday last fall when him and Captain Jonas were here and Daniel was shooting off some of his fine talk. ‘All humanity are my brothers,’ he boomed, big-like. And Jonas said, winking at me, ‘That’s too much of a family for the average man to carry, Daniel.’ Daniel went off mad and has never been back since.”

  “Which is a mercy,” said Tillie John devoutly. “I never did feel easy when he was about. He gives me the creeps. One of his crotchets just now, they tell me, is that it isn’t right to cut your hair or beard. He’s letting his grow. They’re both to his waist already. Won’t he be a sight? He’s been seeing a great army in the sky and painting texts everywhere about his place. Mrs. Peter Cary told me it got on her nerves just to walk through his yard with all the awful warnings staring her in the face from the barn walls. His wife says he’s used up five dollars’ worth of paint already and them mortgaged to the ears. And he kneels down and prays whenever the notion takes him—when he’s ploughing or watering the horses or feeding the pigs. He prayed for half an hour in Henry Beckett’s store at Prospect Centre last Tuesday and got fearful mad when the boys laughed at him. Of course they shouldn’t of laughed at an afflicted man, but you can imagine. He ought to be shut up till the spell passes. Well, I think I’ve arranged everything for you as well as I can. I hope you won’t be lonesome. Likely—” she said slyly “—Captain Jonas will be up sometime through the day.”

  Amanda smiled mysteriously. “O, no, he won’t, Tillie. Jonas won’t be coming back any more—except to my funeral. He said so yesterday.”

  Tillie John knew something had happened the previous afternoon. She had meet Captain Jonas starting out, when she came up from her trip to the harbour for fresh fish, looking as indignant as a cat you had just put off your knee. She supposed he had lost patience with Amanda at last. Well, it wasn’t any wonder. Any man got tired of being a doormat in time. She could never understand his infatuation for Amanda, when he could have got plenty of reasonable women—with full use of their legs—for the asking. However, since nobody but Amanda would suit him, it was a pity Amanda was so stubborn.

  “I can’t see why you won’t marry Captain Jonas, Amanda,” she said a bit crossly.

  “And me with no use of my legs!” Amanda eyed her reproachfully. “I may be selfish, Tillie—no doubt I am—but I’m not so selfish as that.”

  “If he doesn’t mind your legs I don’t see why that should hinder you. He can afford to hire Matilda Wiggins to do the work and wait on you. He never goes on long voyages now and that new house of his at Lower Bartibog is fitted up with everything. You could do all the sewing and nothing else to do but just look pretty. And he’s real good-looking with such a nice flat stomach.”

  Tillie John, recalling John’s paunch, sighed.

  “I know I’m a terrible burden to you.” Amanda looked like a wounded gazelle—at least like the picture of a wounded gazelle in the African explorer’s book on the clock-shelf, which John read on rainy Sundays. “I know—I feel—you’d like to be rid of me and I don’t blame you, Tillie, not a speck do I blame you. I often wish I could die and be no more trouble to you.”

  “I don’t want to get rid of you,” protested Tillie in exasperation. “It’s just that I think you’d be happier if you married Jonas, that’s all.”

  “I’d marry him if I had the us
e of my legs,” said Amanda, “but since I haven’t I’ll never, never burden him with my affliction. I made him understand that finally yesterday, Tillie. That was when he got mad and said he wouldn’t come here again ’til he came to my funeral. It may not be so long as that.”

  “Captain Jonas will die before you do,” snapped Tillie. Tillie was always snapping and then instantly repenting. “Everybody says he’s fretting himself to death because he can’t get you.”

  “No one in the Haye family has ever died of love,” smiled Amanda. “Of course I’ll miss him coming here—I’ve always enjoyed his company—but you know it keeps people gossiping and wondering, so it’s better as it is. Now, Tillie dear, don’t worry about Jonas and me any longer. Just go off and enjoy yourself. You might bring me my red bedroom slippers with the fur ’round the tops. My shoes are hurting my feet a bit. And you might hand me my pale blue chiffon scarf, in case anyone should come in. It’s in the third box from the top in my middle bureau drawer. I’ll finish embroidering that gingham cushion to-day. Thank goodness I have the use of my hands at least. I’m not absolutely good for nothing.”

  “You’re the most wonderful sewer I ever saw,” said Tillie John. “I don’t know what we’d do without you if it comes to that.” She knew it was of no use whatever to plead the cause of the faithful Captain Jonas any further. Amanda was inflexible. She had always been like that, Tillie John reflected; always sweet but always going her own way.

  “It’s little enough for all your kindness and care,” said Amanda, with a break in her voice. “Sometimes—Tillie, I’ve never spoken of this but O, I’ve thought of it—sometimes I wonder if you believe what that English doctor from the convention said when he was at the Bartibog Hotel. You remember? He said there was nothing to prevent me walking now if I wanted to—wanted to. As if there is anything on earth I want more! You don’t believe him, do you, Tillie?”

  “Of course I don’t. Amanda, you haven’t been brooding over that?”

  “Sometimes in the night when I can’t sleep. I wonder if you and John think I’m a fraud.”