“You’re jealous,” she said, and walked off.
“I’m not, you blithering centipede,” Ilse yelled after her. “Putting on airs because your aunt has stone dogs on her gateposts! Why, I know a woman in Shrewsbury who has dogs on her posts that are ten times stonier than your aunt’s!”
But next morning Ilse was over to bid Emily good-bye and entreat her to write every week. Emily was going to drive to Priest Pond with Old Kelly. Aunt Elizabeth was to have driven her but Aunt Elizabeth was not feeling well that day and Aunt Laura could not leave her. Cousin Jimmy had to work at the hay. It looked as if she could not go, and this was rather serious, for Aunt Nancy had been told to expect her that day and Aunt Nancy did not like to be disappointed. If Emily did not turn up at Priest Pond on the day set Great-Aunt Nancy was quite capable of shutting the door in her face when she did appear and telling her to go back home. Nothing less than this conviction would have induced Aunt Elizabeth to fall in with Old Kelly’s suggestion that Emily should ride to Priest Pond with him. His home was on the other side of it and he was going straight there.
Emily was quite delighted. She liked Old Kelly and thought that a drive on his fine red waggon would be quite an adventure. Her little black box was hoisted to the roof and tied there and they went clinking and glittering down the New Moon lane in fine style. The tins in the bowels of the waggon behind them rumbled like a young earthquake.
“Get up, my nag, get up,” said Old Kelly. “Sure, an’ I always like to drive the pretty gurrls. An’ when is the wedding to be?”
“Whose wedding?”
“The slyness av her? Your own, av coorse.”
“I have no intention of being married — immediately,” said Emily, in a very good imitation of Aunt Elizabeth’s tone and manner.
“Sure, and ye’re a chip av the ould block. Miss Elizabeth herself couldn’t have said it better. Get up, my nag, get up.”
“I only meant,” said Emily, fearing that she had insulted Old Kelly, “that I am too young to be married.”
“The younger the better — the less mischief ye’ll be after working with them come-hither eyes. Get up, my nag, get up. The baste is tired. So we’ll let him go at his own swate will. Here’s a bag av swaties for ye. Ould Kelly always trates the ladies. Come now, tell me all about him.”
“About whom?” — but Emily knew quite well.
“Your beau, av coorse.”
“I haven’t any beau. Mr Kelly, I wish you wouldn’t talk to me about such things.”
“Sure, and I won’t if ’tis a sore subject. Don’t ye be minding if ye haven’t got one — there’ll be scads av them after a while. And if the right one doesn’t know what’s good for him, just ye come to Ould Kelly and get some toad ointment.”
Toad ointment! It sounded horrible. Emily shivered. But she would rather talk about toad ointment than beaux.
“What is that for?”
“It’s a love charm,” said Old Kelly mysteriously. “Put a li’l smootch on his eyelids and he’s yourn for life with never a squint at any other gurrl.”
“It doesn’t sound very nice,” said Emily. “How do you make it?”
“You bile four toads alive till they’re good and soft and then mash—”
“Oh, stop, stop!” implored Emily, putting her hands to her ears. “I don’t want to hear any more — you couldn’t be so cruel!”
“Cruel is it? You were after eating lobsters this day that were biled alive—”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t. If it’s true I’ll never, never eat one again. Oh, Mr Kelly, I thought you were a nice kind man — but those poor toads!”
“Gurrl dear, it was only me joke. An’ you won’t be nading toad ointment to win your lad’s love. Wait you now — I’ve something in the till behind me for a prisent for you.”
Old Kelly fished out a box which he put into Emily’s lap. She found a dainty little hair-brush in it.
“Look at the back av it,” said Old Kelly. “You’ll see something handsome — all the love charm ye’ll ever nade.”
Emily turned it over. Her own face looked back at her from a little inset mirror surrounded by a scroll of painted roses.
“Oh, Mr Kelly — how pretty — I mean the roses and the glass,” she cried. “Is it really for me? Oh, thank you, thank you! Now, I can have Emily-in-the-glass whenever I want her. Why, I can carry her round with me. And you were really only in fun about the toads!”
“Av coorse. Get up, my nag, get up. An’ so ye’re going to visit the ould lady over at Praste Pond? Ever been there?”
“No.”
“It’s full of Prastes. Ye can’t throw a stone but ye hit one. And hit one — hit all. They’re as proud and lofty as the Murrays themselves. The only wan I know is Adam Praste — the others hold too high. He’s the black shape and quite sociable. But if ye want to see how the world looked on the morning after the flood, go into his barnyard on a rainy day. Look a-here, gurrl dear” — Old Kelly lowered his voice mysteriously—”don’t ye ever marry a Praste.”
“Why not?” asked Emily, who had never thought of marrying a Priest but was immediately curious as to why she shouldn’t.
“They’re ill to marry — ill to live with. The wives die young. The ould lady of the Grange fought her man out and buried him but she had the Murray luck. I wouldn’t trust it too far. The only dacent Praste among them is the wan they call Jarback Praste and he’s too auld for you.”
“Why do they call him Jarback?”
“Wan av his shoulders is a l’il bit higher than the other. He’s got a bit of money and doesn’t be after having to work. A book worrum, I’m belaving. Have ye got a bit av cold iron about you?”
“No; why?”
“Ye should have. Old Caroline Praste at the Grange is a witch if ever there was one.”
“Why, that’s what Ilse said. But there are no such thing as witches really, Mr Kelly.”
“Maybe that’s thrue but it’s better to be on the safe side. Here, put this horseshoe-nail in your pocket and don’t cross her if ye can help it. Ye don’t mind if I have a bit av a smoke, do ye?”
Emily did not mind at all. It left her free to follow her own thoughts, which were more agreeable than Old Kelly’s talk of toads and witches. The road from Blair Water to, Priest Pond was a very lovely one, winding along the gulf shore, crossing fir-fringed rivers and inlets, and coming ever and anon on one of the ponds for which that part of the north shore was noted — Blair Water, Derry Pond, Long Pond, Three Ponds where three blue lakelets were strung together like three great sapphires held by a silver thread; and then Priest Pond, the largest of all, almost as round as Blair Water. As they drove down towards it Emily drank the scene in with avid eyes — as soon as possible she must write a description of it; she had packed the Jimmy blank book in her box for just such purposes.
The air seemed to be filled with opal dust over the great pond and the bowery summer homesteads around it. A western sky of smoky red was arched over the big Malvern Bay beyond. Little grey sails were drifting along by the fir-fringed shores. A sequestered side road, fringed thickly with young maples and birches, led down to Wyther Grange. How damp and cool the air was in the hollows! And how the ferns did smell! Emily was sorry when they reached Wyther Grange and climbed in between the gate-posts whereon the big stone dogs sat very stonily, looking grim enough in the twilight.
The wide hall door was open and a flood of light streamed out over the lawn. A little old woman was standing in it. Old Kelly seemed suddenly in something of a hurry. He swung Emily and her box to the ground, shook hands hastily and whispered, “Don’t lose that bit av a nail. Good-bye. I wish ye a cool head and a warm heart,” and was off before the little old woman could reach them.
“So this is Emily of New Moon!” Emily heard a rather shrill, cracked voice saying. She felt a thin, claw-like hand grasp hers and draw her towards the door. There were no witches, Emily knew — but she thrust her hand into her pocket and touched the hors
eshoe-nail.
Deals with Ghosts
“Your aunt is in the back parlour,” said Caroline Priest. “Come this way. Are you tired?”
“No,” said Emily, following Caroline and taking her in thoroughly. If Caroline were a witch she was a very small one. She was really no taller than Emily herself. She wore a black silk dress and a little string cap of black net edged with black ruching on her yellowish white hair. Her face was more wrinkled than Emily had ever supposed a face could be and she had the peculiar grey-green eyes which, as Emily afterwards discovered, “ran” in the Priest clan.
“You may be a witch,” thought Emily, “but I think I can manage you.”
They went through the spacious hall, catching glimpses on either side of large, dim, splendid rooms, then through the kitchen end out of it into an odd little back hall. It was long and narrow and dark. On one side was a row of four, square, small-paned windows, on the other were cupboards, reaching from floor to ceiling, with doors of black shining wood. Emily felt like one of the heroines in Gothic romance, wandering at midnight through a subterranean dungeon, with some unholy guide. She had read The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Romance of the Forest before the taboo had fallen on Dr Burnley’s bookcase. She shivered. It was awful but interesting.
At the end of the hall a flight of four steps led up to a door. Beside the steps was an immense black grandfather’s clock reaching almost to the ceiling.
“We shut little girls up in that when they’re bad,” whispered Caroline, nodding at Emily, as she opened the door that led into the back parlour.
“I’ll take good care you won’t shut me up in it,” thought Emily.
The back parlour was a pretty, quaint old room where a table was laid for supper. Caroline led Emily through it and knocked at another door, using a quaint old brass knocker that was fashioned like a chessy-cat, with such an irresistible grin that you wanted to grin, too, when you saw it. Somebody said, “Come in,” and they went down another four steps — was there ever such a funny house? — into a bedroom. And here at last was Great-Aunt Nancy Priest, sitting in her arm-chair, with her black stick leaning against her knee, and her tiny white hands, still pretty, and sparkling with fine rings, lying on her purple silk apron.
Emily felt a distinct shock of disappointment. After hearing that poem in which Nancy Murray’s beauty of nut-brown hair and starry brown eyes and cheek of satin rose had been be-rhymed she had somehow expected Great-Aunt Nancy, in spite of her ninety years, to be beautiful still. But Aunt Nancy was white-haired and yellow-skinned and wrinkled and shrunken, though her brown eyes were still bright and shrewd. Somehow, she looked like an old fairy — an impish, tolerant old fairy, who might turn suddenly malevolent if you rubbed her the wrong way — only fairies never wore long, gold-tasselled ear-rings that almost touched their shoulders, or white lace caps with purple pansies in them.
“So this is Juliet’s girl!” she said, giving Emily one of her sparkling hands. “Don’t look so startled, child. I’m not going to kiss you. I never held with inflicting kisses on defenceless creatures simply because they were so unlucky as to be my relatives. Now, who does she look like, Caroline?”
Emily made a mental grimace. Now for another ordeal of comparisons, wherein dead-and-gone noses and eyes and foreheads would be dragged out and fitted on her. She was thoroughly tired of having her looks talked over in every gathering of the clans.
“Not much like the Murrays,” said Caroline, peering so closely into her face that Emily involuntarily drew back. “Not so handsome as the Murrays.”
“Nor the Starrs either. Her father was a handsome man — so handsome that I’d have run away with him myself if I’d been fifty years younger. There’s nothing of Juliet in her that I can see. Juliet was pretty. You are not as good-looking as that picture made you out but I didn’t expect you would be. Pictures and epitaphs are never to be trusted. Where’s your bang gone, Emily?”
“Aunt Elizabeth combed it back.”
“Well, you comb it down again while you’re in my house. There’s something of your Grandfather Murray about your eyebrows. Your grandfather was a handsome man — and a darned bad-tempered one — almost as bad-tempered as the Priests — hey, Caroline?”
“If you please, Great-Aunt Nancy,” said Emily deliberately, “I don’t like to be told I look like other people. I look just like myself.”
Aunt Nancy chuckled.
“Spunk, I see. Good. I never cared for meek youngsters. So you’re not stupid, eh?”
“No, I’m not.”
Great-Aunt Nancy grinned this time. Her false teeth looked uncannily white and young in her old, brown face.
“Good. If you’ve brains it’s better than beauty — brains last, beauty doesn’t. Me, for example. Caroline here, now, never had either brains nor beauty, had you, Caroline? Come, let’s go to supper. Thank goodness, my stomach has stood by me if my good looks haven’t.”
Great-Aunt Nancy hobbled, by the aid of her stick, up the steps and over to the table. She sat at one end, Caroline at the other, Emily between, feeling rather uncomfortable. But the ruling passion was still strong in her and she was already composing a description of them for the blank book.
“I wonder if anybody will be sorry when you die,” she thought, looking intently at Caroline’s wizened old face.
“Come now, tell me,” said Aunt Nancy. “If you’re not stupid, why did you write me such a stupid letter that first time. Lord, but it was stupid! I read it over to Caroline to punish her whenever she is naughty.”
“I couldn’t write any other kind of a letter because Aunt Elizabeth said she was going to read it.”
“Trust Elizabeth for that. Well, you can write what you like here — and say what you like — and do what you like. Nobody will interfere with you or try to bring you up. I asked you for a visit, not for discipline. Thought likely you’d have enough of that at New Moon. You can have the run of the house and pick a beau to your liking from the Priest boys — not that the young fry are what they were in my time.”
“I don’t want a beau,” retorted Emily. She felt rather disgusted. Old Kelly had ranted about beaux half the way over and here was Aunt Nancy beginning on the same unnecessary subject.
“Don’t you tell me,” said Aunt Nancy, laughing till her gold tassels shook. “There never was a Murray of New Moon that didn’t like a beau. When I was your age I had half a dozen. All the little boys in Blair Water were fighting about me. Caroline here now never had a beau in her life, had you, Caroline?”
“Never wanted one,” snapped Caroline.
“Eighty and twelve say the same thing and both lie,” said Aunt Nancy. “What’s the use of being hypocrites among ourselves? I don’t say it isn’t well enough when men are about. Caroline, do you notice what a pretty hand Emily has? As pretty as mine when I was young. And an elbow like a cat’s. Cousin Susan Murray had an elbow like that. It’s odd — she has more Murray points than Starr points and yet she looks like the Starrs and not like the Murrays. What odd sums in addition we all are — the answer is never what you’d expect. Caroline, what a pity Jarback isn’t home. He’d like Emily — I have a feeling he’d like Emily. Jarback’s the only Priest that’ll ever go to heaven, Emily. Let’s have a look at your ankles, puss.”
Emily rather unwillingly put out her foot. Aunt Nancy nodded her satisfaction.
“Mary Shipley’s ankle. Only one in a generation has it. I had it. The Murray ankles are thick. Even your mother’s ankles were thick. Look at that instep, Caroline. Emily, you’re not a beauty but if you learn to use your eyes and hands and feet properly you’ll pass for one. The men are easily fooled and if the women say you’re not ‘twill be held for jealousy.”
Emily decided that this was a good opportunity to find out something that had puzzled her.
“Old Mr Kelly said I had come-hither eyes, Aunt Nancy. Have I? And what are come-hither eyes?”
“Jock Kelly’s an old ass. You haven’t come-hither eyes —
it wouldn’t be a Murray tradish.” Aunt Nancy laughed. “The Murrays have keep-your-distance eyes — and so have you — though your lashes contradict them a bit. But sometimes eyes like that — combined with certain other points — are quite as effective as come-hither eyes. Men go by contraries oftener than not — if you tell them to keep off they’ll come on. My own Nathaniel now — the only way to get him to do anything was to coax him to do the opposite. Remember, Caroline? Have another cooky, Emily?”
“I haven’t had one yet,” said Emily, rather resentfully.
Those cookies looked very tempting and she had been wishing they might be passed. She didn’t know why Aunt Nancy and Caroline both laughed. Caroline’s laugh was unpleasant — a dry, rusty sort of laugh—”no juice in it,” Emily decided. She thought she would write in her description that Caroline had a “thin, rattling laugh.”
“What do you think of us?” demanded Aunt Nancy. “Come now, what do you think of us?”
Emily was dreadfully embarrassed. She had just been thinking of writing that Aunt Nancy looked “withered and shrivelled;” but one couldn’t say that — one couldn’t.
“Tell the truth and shame the devil,” said Aunt Nancy.
“That isn’t a fair question,” cried Emily.
“You think,” said Aunt Nancy, grinning, “that I’m a hideous old hag and that Caroline isn’t quite human. She isn’t. She never was — but you should have seen me seventy years ago. I was handsomest of all the handsome Murrays. The men were mad about me. When I married Nat Priest his three brothers could have cut his throat. One cut his own. Oh, I played havoc in my time. All I regret is I can’t live it over. ’Twas a grand life while it lasted. I queened it over them. The women hated me, of course — all but Caroline here. You worshipped me, didn’t you, Caroline? And you worship me yet, don’t you, Caroline? Caroline, I wish you didn’t have a wart on your nose.”
“I wish you had one on your tongue,” said Caroline waspishly.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 240
