Aunt Laura was waiting for them and she strained the milk into empty pans and then skimmed some of the full ones. Emily thought skimming was a lovely occupation and longed to try her hand at it. She also longed to sit right down and write a description of that dear dairy; but alas, there was no account-book; still, she could write it in her head. She squatted down on a little three-legged stool in a dim corner and proceeded to do it, sitting so still that Jimmy and Laura forgot her and went away and later had to hunt for her a quarter of an hour. This delayed breakfast and made Aunt Elizabeth very cross. But Emily had found just the right sentence to define the clear yet dim green light that filled the dairy and was so happy over it that she didn’t mind Aunt Elizabeth’s black looks a bit.
After breakfast Aunt Elizabeth informed Emily that henceforth it would be one of her duties to drive the cows to pasture every morning.
“Jimmy has no hired man just now and it will save him a few minutes.”
“And don’t be afraid,” added Aunt Laura, “the cows know the way so well they’ll go of themselves. You have only to follow and shut the gates.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Emily.
But she was. She knew nothing about cows; still, she was determined that the Murrays should not suspect a Starr was scared. So, her heart beating like a trip-hammer, she sallied valiantly forth and found that what Aunt Laura had said was true and cows were not such ferocious animals after all. They went gravely on ahead and she had only to follow, through the old orchard and then through the scrub maple growth beyond, along a twisted ferny path where the Wind Woman was purring and peeping around the maple clumps.
Emily loitered by the pasture gate until her eager eyes had taken in all the geography of the landscape. The old pasture ran before her in a succession of little green bosoms right down to the famous Blair Water — an almost perfectly round pond, with grassy, sloping, treeless margins. Beyond it was the Blair Water valley, filled with homesteads, and further out the great sweep of the white-capped gulf. It seemed to Emily’s eyes a charming land of green shadows, and blue waters. Down in one corner of the pasture, walled off by an old stone dyke, was the little private graveyard where the dead-and-gone Murrays were buried. Emily wanted to go and explore it, but was afraid to trust herself in the pasture.
“I’ll go as soon as I get better acquainted with the cows,” she resolved.
Off to the right, on the crest of a steep little hill, covered with young birches and firs, was a house that puzzled and intrigued Emily. It was grey and weather-worn, but it didn’t look old. It had never been finished; the roof was shingled but the sides were not, and the windows were boarded over. Why had it never been finished? And it was meant to be such a pretty little house — a house you could love — a house where there would be nice chairs and cosy fires and bookcases and lovely, fat, purry cats and unexpected corners; then and there she named it the Disappointed House, and many an hour thereafter did she spend finishing that house, furnishing it as it should be furnished, and inventing the proper people and animals to live in it.
To the left of the pasture-field was another house of a quite different type — a big, old house, tangled over with vines, flat-roofed, with mansard windows, and a general air of indifference and neglect about it. A large, untidy lawn, overgrown with unpruned shrubs and trees, straggled right down to the pond, where enormous willows drooped over the water. Emily decided that she would ask Cousin Jimmy about these houses when she got a good chance.
She felt that, before she went back, she must slip along the pasture fence and explore a certain path which she saw entering the grove of spruce and maple further down. She did — and found that it led straight into Fairyland — along the bank of a wide, lovely brook — a wild, dear, little path with lady-ferns beckoning and blowing along it, the shyest of elfin June-bells under the firs, and little whims of loveliness at every curve. She breathed in the tang of fir-balsam and saw the shimmer of gossamers high up in the boughs, and everywhere the frolic of elfin lights and shadows. Here and there the young maple branches interlaced as if to make a screen for dryad faces — Emily knew all about dryads, thanks to her father — and the great sheets of moss under the trees were meet for Titania’s couch.
“This is one of the places where dreams grow,” said Emily happily.
She wished the path might go on forever, but presently it veered away from the brook, and when she had scrambled over a mossy, old board fence she found herself in the “front garden” of New Moon, where Cousin Jimmy was pruning some spirea bushes.
“Oh, Cousin Jimmy, I’ve found the dearest little road,” said Emily breathlessly.
“Coming up through Lofty John’s bush?”
“Isn’t it our bush?” asked Emily, rather disappointed.
“No, but it ought to be. Fifty years ago Uncle Archibald sold that jog of land to Lofty John’s father — old Mike Sullivan. He built a little house down near the pond and lived there till he quarrelled with Uncle Archibald — which wasn’t long, of course. Then he moved his house across the road — and Lofty John lives there now. Elizabeth has tried to buy the land back from him — she’s offered him far more than it’s worth — but Lofty John won’t sell — just for spite, seeing that he has a good farm of his own and this piece isn’t much good to him. He only pastures a few young cattle on it through the summer, and what was cleared is all growing up with scrub maple. It’s a thorn in Elizabeth’s side and likely to be as long as Lofty John nurses his spite.”
“Why is he called Lofty John?”
“Because he’s a high and lofty fellow. But never mind him. I want to show you round my garden, Emily. It’s mine. Elizabeth bosses the farm; but she lets me run the garden — to make up for pushing me into the well.”
“Did she do that?”
“Yes. She didn’t mean to, of course. We were just children — I was here on a visit — and the men were putting a new hood on the well and cleaning it. It was open — and we were playing tag around it. I made Elizabeth mad — forget what I said—’twasn’t hard to make her mad you understand — and she made to give me a bang on the head. I saw it coming — and stepped back to get out of the way — and down I went, head first. Don’t remember anything more about it. There was nothing but mud at the bottom — but my head struck the stones at the side. I was took up for dead — my head all cut up. Poor Elizabeth was—” Cousin Jimmy shook his head, as if to intimate that it was impossible to describe how or what poor Elizabeth was. “I got about after a while, though — pretty near as good as new. Folks say I’ve never been quite right since — but they only say that because I’m a poet, and because nothing ever worries me. Poets are so scarce in Blair Water folks don’t understand them, and most people worry so much, they think you’re not right if you don’t worry.”
“Won’t you recite some of your poetry to me, Cousin Jimmy?” asked Emily eagerly.
“When the spirit moves me I will. It’s no use to ask me when the spirit don’t move me.”
“But how am I to know when the spirit moves you, Cousin Jimmy?”
“I’ll begin of my own accord to recite my compositions. But I’ll tell you this — the spirit generally moves me when I’m boiling the pigs’ potatoes in the fall. Remember that and be around.”
“Why don’t you write your poetry down?”
“Paper’s too scarce at New Moon. Elizabeth has some pet economies and writing-paper of any kind is one of them.
“But haven’t you any money of your own, Cousin Jimmy?”
“Oh, Elizabeth pays me good wages. But she puts all my money in the bank and just doles out a few dollars to me once in a while. She says I’m not fit to be trusted with money. When I came here to work for her she paid me my wages at the end of the month and I started for Shrewsbury to put it in the bank. Met a tramp on the road — a poor, forlorn creature without a cent. I gave him the money. Why not? I had a good home and a steady job and clothes enough to do me for years. I s’pose it was the foolishest thing I
ever did — and the nicest. But Elizabeth never got over it. She’s managed my money ever since. But come you now, and I’ll show you my garden before I have to go and sow turnips.”
The garden was a beautiful place, well worthy Cousin Jimmy’s pride. It seemed like a garden where no frost could wither or rough wind blow — a garden remembering a hundred vanished summers. There was a high hedge of clipped spruce all around it, spaced at intervals by tall Lombardies. The north side was closed in by a thick grove of spruce against which a long row of peonies grew, their great red blossoms splendid against its darkness. One big spruce grew in the centre of the garden and underneath it was a stone bench, made of flat shore stones worn smooth by long polish of wind and wave. In the south-east corner was an enormous clump of lilacs, trimmed into the semblance of one large drooping-boughed tree, gloried over with purple. An old summer-house, covered with vines, filled the south-west corner. And in the north-west corner there was a sundial of grey stone, placed just where the broad red walk that was bordered with striped grass, and picked out with pink conchs, ran off into Lofty John’s bush. Emily had never seen a sundial before and hung over it enraptured.
“Your great-great-grandfather, Hugh Murray, had that brought out from the Old Country,” said Cousin Jimmy. “There isn’t as fine a one in the Maritime Provinces. And Uncle George Murray brought those conchs from the Indies. He was a sea-captain.”
Emily looked about her with delight. The garden was lovely and the house quite splendid to her childish eyes. It had a big front porch with Grecian columns. These were thought very elegant in Blair Water, and went far to justify the Murray pride. A schoolmaster had said they gave the house a classical air. To be sure, the classical effect was just now rather smothered in hop-vines that rioted over the whole porch and hung in pale-green festoons above the rows of potted scarlet geraniums that flanked the steps.
Emily’s heart swelled with pride.
“It’s a noble house,” she said.
“And what about my garden?” demanded Cousin Jimmy jealously.
“It’s fit for a queen,” said Emily, gravely and sincerely.
Cousin Jimmy nodded, well pleased, and then a strange sound crept into his voice and an odd look into his eyes.
“There is a spell woven round this garden. The blight shall spare it and the green worm pass it by. Drought dares not invade it and the rain comes here gently.”
Emily took an involuntary step backward — she almost felt like running away. But now Cousin Jimmy was himself again.
“Isn’t this grass about the sundial like green velvet? I’ve taken some pains with it, I can tell you. You make yourself at home in this garden.” Cousin Jimmy made a splendid gesture. “I confer the freedom of it upon you. Good-luck to you, and may you find the Lost Diamond.”
“The Lost Diamond?” said Emily wonderingly. What fascinating thing was this?
“Never hear the story? I’ll tell it to-morrow — Sunday’s lazy day at New Moon. I must get off to my turnips now or I’ll have Elizabeth out looking at me. She won’t say anything — she’ll just look. Ever seen the real Murray look?”
“I guess I saw it when Aunt Ruth pulled me out from under the table,” said Emily ruefully.
“No — no. That was the Ruth Dutton look — spite and malice and all uncharitableness. I hate Ruth Dutton. She laughs at my poetry — not that she ever hears any of it. The spirit never moves when Ruth is around. Dunno where they got her. Elizabeth is a crank but she’s sound as a nut, and Laura’s a saint. But Ruth’s worm-eaten. As for the Murray look, you’ll know it when you see it. It’s as well known as the Murray pride. We’re a darn queer lot — but we’re the finest people ever happened. I’ll tell you all about us to-morrow.”
Cousin Jimmy kept his promise while the aunts were away at church. It had been decided in family conclave that Emily was not to go to church that day.
“She has nothing suitable to wear,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “By next Sunday we will have her white dress ready.”
Emily was disappointed that she was not to go to church. She had always found church very interesting on the rare occasions when she got there. It had been too far at Maywood for her father to walk but sometimes Ellen Greene’s brother had taken her and Ellen.
“Do you think, Aunt Elizabeth,” she said wistfully, “that God would be much offended if I wore my black dress to church? Of course it’s cheap — I think Ellen Greene paid for it herself — but it covers me all up.”
“Little girls who do not understand things should hold their tongues,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I do not choose that Blair Water people should see my niece in such a dress as that wretched black merino. And if Ellen Greene paid for it we must repay her. You should have told us that before we came away from Maywood. No, you are not going to church to-day. You can wear the black dress to school to-morrow. We can cover it up with an apron.”
Emily resigned herself with a sigh of disappointment to staying home; but it was very pleasant after all. Cousin Jimmy took her for a walk to the pond, showed her the graveyard and opened the book of yesterday for her.
“Why are all the Murrays buried here?” asked Emily. “Is it really because they are too good to be buried with common people?”
“No — no, pussy. We don’t carry our pride as far as that. When old Hugh Murray settled at New Moon there was nothing much but woods for miles and no graveyards nearer than Charlottetown. That’s why the old Murrays were buried here — and later on we kept it up because we wanted to lie with our own, here on the green, green banks of the old Blair Water.”
“That sounds like a line out of a poem, Cousin Jimmy,” said Emily.
“So it is — out of one of my poems.”
“I kind of like the idea of a ‘sclusive burying-ground like this,” said Emily decidedly, looking around her approvingly at the velvet grass sloping down to the fairy-blue pond, the neat walks, the well-kept graves.
Cousin Jimmy chuckled.
“And yet they say you ain’t a Murray,” he said. “Murray and Byrd and Starr — and a dash of Shipley to boot, or Cousin Jimmy Murray is much mistaken.”
“Shipley?”
“Yes — Hugh Murray’s wife — your great-great-grandmother — was a Shipley — an Englishwoman. Ever hear of how the Murrays came to New Moon?”
“No.”
“They were bound for Quebec — hadn’t any notion of coming to P. E. I. They had a long rough voyage and water got scarce, so the captain of the New Moon put in here to get some. Mary Murray had nearly died of seasickness coming but — never seemed to get her sea-legs — so the captain, being sorry for her, told her she could go ashore with the men and feel solid ground under her for an hour or so. Very gladly she went and when she got to shore she said, ‘Here I stay.’ And stay she did; nothing could budge her; old Hugh — he was young Hugh then, of course, coaxed and stormed and raged and argued — and even cried, I’ve been told — but Mary wouldn’t be moved. In the end he gave in and had his belongings landed and stayed, too. So that is how the Murrays came to P. E. Island.”
“I’m glad it happened like that,” said Emily.
“So was old Hugh in the long run. And yet it rankled, Emily — it rankled. He never forgave his wife with a whole heart. Her grave is over there in the corner — that one with the flat red stone. Go you and look at what he had put on it.”
Emily ran curiously over. The big flat stone was inscribed with one of the long, discursive epitaphs of an older day. But beneath the epitaph was no scriptural verse or pious psalm. Clear and distinct, in spite of age and lichen, ran the line, “Here I stay.”
“That’s how he got even with her,” said Cousin Jimmy. “He was a good husband to her — and she was a good wife and bore him a fine family — and he never was the same after her death. But that rankled in him until it had to come out.”
Emily gave a little shiver. Somehow, the idea of that grim old ancestor with his undying grudge against his nearest and dearest was rather
terrifying.
“I’m glad I’m only half Murray,” she said to herself. Aloud—”Father told me it was a Murray tradition not to carry spite past the grave.”
“So ’tis now — but it took its rise from this very thing. His family were so horrified at it, you see. It made considerable of a scandal. Some folks twisted it round to mean that Old Hugh didn’t believe in the resurrection, and there was talk of the session taking it up, but after a while the talk died away.”
Emily skipped over to another lichen-grown stone.
“Elizabeth Burnley — who was she, Cousin Jimmy?”
“Old William Murray’s wife. He was Hugh’s brother, and came out here five years after Hugh did. His wife was a great beauty and had been a belle in the Old Country. She didn’t like the P. E. Island woods. She was homesick, Emily — scandalous homesick. For weeks after she came here she wouldn’t take off her bonnet — just walked the floor in it, demanding to be taken back home.”
“Didn’t she take it off when she went to bed?” asked Emily.
“Dunno if she did go to bed. Anyway, William wouldn’t take her back home so in time she took off her bonnet and resigned herself. Her daughter married Hugh’s son, so Elizabeth was your great-great-grandmother.”
Emily looked down at the sunken green grave and wondered if any homesick dreams haunted Elizabeth Burnley’s slumber of a hundred years.
“It’s dreadful to be homesick — I know,” she thought sympathetically.
“Little Stephen Murray is buried over there,” said Cousin Jimmy. “His was the first marble stone in the burying-ground. He was your grandfather’s brother — died when he was twelve. He has,” said Cousin Jimmy solemnly, “became a Murray tradition.”
“Why?”
“He was so beautiful and clever and good. He hadn’t a fault — so of course he couldn’t live. They say there never was such a handsome child in the connection. And lovable — everybody loved him. He has been dead for ninety years — not a Murray living to-day ever saw him — and yet we talk about him at family gatherings — he’s more real than lots of living people. So you see, Emily, he must have been an extraordinary child — but it ended in that—” Cousin Jimmy waved his hand towards the grassy grave and the white, prim headstone.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 223
