“If it comes to that I don’t know. I never disliked Old Sam. It’s only — he couldn’t belong in heaven. No business there at all.”
Marigold had some difficulty in imagining Old Grandmother “belonging” in heaven either.
“You wouldn’t want him in — the other place.”
“Of course not. Poor old harmless, doddering Sam. Always spewing tobacco-juice over everything. The only thing he had to be proud of was the way he could spit. There really ought to be a betwixt-and-between place. Only,” added Granny with a grin, “if there were, most of us would be in it.”
She knitted a round of her jacket sleeve before she spoke again. Marigold put in the time hating Clementine.
“I was sorry when Old Sam Marr died, though,” said Granny abruptly. “Do you know why? He was the last person alive who could remember me when I was young and handsome.”
Marigold looked at Old Grandmother. Could this ugly little old woman ever have been young and pretty? Old Grandmother caught the scepticism in her eyes.
“You don’t believe I ever was. Why, child, my hair was red-gold and my arms were the boast of the clan. No Lesley man ever married an ugly woman. Some of us were fools and some shrews, but we never shirked a woman’s first duty — to please a man’s eyes. To be sure, the Lesley men knew how to pick wives. Come here and let me have a look at you.”
Marigold went and stood by the bed. Old Grandmother put a skinny hand under her chin, tilted up her face and looked very searchingly at her.
“Hmm. The Winthrop hair — too pale a gold, but it may darken — the Lesley blue eyes — the Blaisdell ears — too early to say whose nose you have — my complexion. Well, thank goodness, I don’t think you’ll be hard to look at.”
Old Grandmother chuckled as she always did when achieving a bit of modern slang. Marigold went out feeling more cheerful. She didn’t believe Old Grandmother had any idea of dying.
2
Granny continued to improve. She sat up in bed and knit. She saw everybody who came and chattered to them. She held long pow-wows with Lucifer. She wouldn’t let Young Grandmother have her new silk dress made without a high collar. She had Lazarre in and hauled him over the coals because he was said to have been drunk and given his wife a black eye.
“She won’t die dese twenty year,” said the aggrieved Lazarre. “Dere’s only room for wan of dem down dare.”
Then Aunt Harriet in Charlottetown gave a party in honour of her husband’s sister, and Young Grandmother and Mother were going in Uncle Klon’s car. They would not be back before three o’clock that night, but Salome would be there and Old Grandmother was amazingly well and brisk. And then at the last moment Salome was summoned to the deathbed of an aunt in South Harmony. Young Grandmother in her silken magnificence and Mother looking like a slender lily in her green crêpe, with the blossom of her face atop of it, came to the orchard room.
“Of course we can’t go now,” said Young Grandmother regretfully. She had wanted to go — the said husbands sister had been a girlhood friend of hers.
“Why can’t you go?” snapped Old Grandmother. “I’ve finished my jacket and I’m going to die at three o’clock tonight, but that isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t go to the party, is it? Of course you’ll go. Don’t dare stay home on my account.”
Young Grandmother was not much worried over Old Grandmother’s prediction. That was just one of her characteristic remarks.
“Do you feel any worse?” she asked perfunctorily.
“When I’m perfectly well there’s not much the matter with me,” said Old Grandmother cryptically. “There’s no earthly sense in your staying home on my account. If I need anything Marigold can get it for me. I hope you ate a good supper. You won’t get much at Harriet’s. She thinks starving her guests is living the simple life. And she always fills the cups too full on purpose — so there’ll be no room for cream. Harriet can make a pitcher of cream go farther than any woman I know.”
“We are not going there for what we will get to eat,” said Young Grandmother majestically.
Old Grandmother chuckled.
“Of course not. Anyhow, you’ll go. I want to hear all about that party. It’ll be amusing. I’d rather be amused than loved now. You take notice whether Grace and Marjory are speaking to each other yet or not. And whether Kathleen Lesley has had her eyebrows plucked. I heard she was going to when she went to New York. And if Louisa has on that awful pink georgette dress with green worms on it — try to see if you can’t spill some coffee over it.”
“If you think we’d better not go—” began Young Grandmother.
“Marian Blaisdell, if you don’t get out of this room instantly I’ll throw something at you. There’s Klon honking now. You know he doesn’t like to wait. Be off, both of you, and send Marigold in. She can sit here and keep me company till her bedtime.”
Old Grandmother watched Young Grandmother and Mother out with a curious expression in her old black eyes.
“She hates to think of me dying because she won’t be Young Grandmother any longer. It’s a promotion she’s not anxious for,” she told Marigold, who had come reluctantly in. “Get your picture book and sit down, child. I want to think for awhile. Later on I’ve got some things to say to you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Marigold always said “Yes, ma’am” to Old Grandmother and “Yes, Grandmother” to Young Grandmother. She sat down obediently but unwillingly. It was a lovely spring evening and Sylvia would be waiting at the Green Gate. They had planned to make a special new kind of magic by the White Fountain that night. And now she would have to spend the whole evening sitting here with Old Grandmother, who wouldn’t even talk but lay there with her eyes closed. Was she asleep? If she were, couldn’t she, Marigold, run up through the orchard to the Green Gate for a moment to tell Sylvia why she couldn’t come. Sylvia mightn’t understand otherwise. The Magic Door was open right beside her chair — she could slip through it — be back in a minute.
“Are you asleep, ma’am?” she whispered cautiously.
“Shut up. Of course I’m asleep,” snapped Old Grandmother.
Marigold sighed and resigned herself. Dear knows what Sylvia would do. Never come again perhaps. Marigold had never broken tryst with her before. She turned her chair softly around so that her back would be toward Clementine, and looked at the other brides in the crinolines and flower-lined poke bonnets of the sixties, the bustles and polonaises of the eighties, the balloon sleeves and bell skirts of the nineties, the hobbles and huge hats of the tens. Marigold knew nothing of their respective dates, of course. They all belonged to that legendary time before she was born, when people wore all kinds of absurd dresses. The only one who didn’t look funny was Clementine, in her lace-shrouded shoulders, her sleek cap of hair and her fadeless, fashionless lily. She came back to Clementine every time — somehow she couldn’t help it. It was like a sore tooth you had to bite on. But she would not turn round to look at her. She would not.
3
“What are you staring at Clementine like that for?” Old Grandmother was sitting erectly up in bed. “Handsome, wasn’t she? The handsomest of all the Lesley brides. Such colour — such expression — and the charming gestures of her wonderful hands. It was such a pity—” Old Grandmother stopped abruptly. Marigold felt sure she had meant to say, “It was such a pity she died.”
Old Grandmother threw back the blankets and slipped two tiny feet over the edge of the bed.
“Get me my clothes and stockings,” she ordered. “There in the top bureau drawer. And the black silk dress hanging in the closet. And the prunella shoes in the blue box. Quick, now.”
“You’re not going to get up?” gasped Marigold in amazement. She had never seen Old Grandmother up in her life. She hadn’t supposed Old Grandmother could get up.
“I’m going to get up and I’m going to take a walk in the orchard,” said Old Grandmother. “You just do as I tell you and no back talk. I did what I pleased before you were born or thought
of, and I’ll do what I please to-night. That’s why I made them go to the party. Hop.”
Marigold hopped. She brought the clothes and the black dress and the prunella boots and helped Old Grandmother put them on. Not that Old Grandmother required much assistance. She stood up triumphantly, holding to the bed post.
“Bring me my black silk scarf and one of the canes in the old clock. I’ve walked about this room every night after the rest were in bed — to keep my legs in working order — but I haven’t been out of doors for nine years.”
Marigold, feeling as if she must be in a dream, brought the cane, and followed Old Grandmother out of The Magic Door and down the shallow steps. Old Grandmother paused and looked around her. The moon was not yet up, though there was silvery brightness behind the spruces on the hill. To the west there was a little streak of soft, dear gold behind the birches. There was a cold clear dew on the grass. The Witch of Endor was shrieking insults at somebody out behind the apple-barn.
Old Grandmother sniffed.
“Oh, the salt tang of the sea! It’s good to smell it again. And the apple-blossoms. I had forgotten what spring was like. Is that old stone bench still in the orchard under the cedar-tree? Take me there. I want to see one more moon rise over that cloud of spruce.”
Marigold took hold of Old Grandmother’s hand and they went into the orchard — a spot Marigold was very fond of. It was such a very delightful and extraordinary old orchard where apple-trees and fir-trees and pine-trees were deliciously mixed up together. Between the trees in the open spaces were flower-beds. Thickets of sweet clover, white and fragrant; clumps of Canterbury-bells, pink and purple. Plots of mint and southernwood. Big blush roses. Perfumed winds blew there. Elves dwelt in the currant bushes. Little Green Folk lived up in the old beech-tree.
There was a queer sort of expectant hush over the orchard as Marigold and Old Grandmother went through it to where the great spreading cedar rose out of a drift of blooming spirea-bushes. Marigold thought it must be because the flowers were watching for the moon to rise.
4
Old Grandmother sank down on the stone bench with a grunt. She sat there silent and motionless for what seemed to Marigold a very long time. The moon rose over the cloud of spruce and the orchard became transfigured. A garden of flowers in moonlight is a strange, enchanted thing with a touch of diablerie, and Marigold, sensitive to every influence, felt its charm long years before she could define it. Nothing was the same as in daylight. She had never been out in the orchard so late as this before. The June lilies held up their cups of snow; the moonlight lay silver white on the stone steps. The perfume of the lilacs came in little puffs on the crystal air; beyond the orchard lay old fields she knew and loved, mysterious misty spaces of moonshine now. Far, far away was the murmur of the sea.
And still Old Grandmother dreamed on. Did she see faces long under the mould bright and vivid again? Were there flying feet, summoning voices, that only she could hear in that old moonlit orchard? What voices were calling to her out of the firs? Marigold felt a funny little prickling along her spine. She was perfectly sure that she and Old Grandmother were not alone in the orchard.
“Well, how have you been since we came out here?” demanded Old Grandmother at last.
“Pretty comf’able,” said Marigold, rather startled.
“Good,” said Old Grandmother. “It’s a good test — the test of silence. If you can sit in silence with any one for half an hour and feel ‘comfortable,’ you and that person can be friends. If not, friends you’ll never be and you needn’t waste time trying. I’ve brought you out here to-night for two reasons, Marigold. The first is to give you some hints about living, which may do you some good and may not. The second was to keep a tryst with the years. We haven’t been alone here, child.”
No; Marigold had known that. She drew a little closer to Old Grandmother.
“Don’t be frightened, child. The ghosts that walk here are friendly, homey ghosts. They wouldn’t hurt you. They are of your race and blood. Do you know you look strangely like a child who died seventy years before you were born? My husband’s niece. Not a living soul remembers that little creature but me — her beauty — her charm — her wonder. But I remember her. You have her eyes and mouth — and that same air of listening to voices only she could hear. Is that a curse or a blessing I wonder? My children played in this orchard — and then my grandchildren — and my great-grandchildren. Such a lot of small ghosts! To think that in a house where there were once fourteen children there is now nobody but you.”
“That isn’t my fault,” said Marigold, who felt as if Old Grandmother were blaming her.
“It’s nobody’s fault, just as it was nobody’s fault that your father died of pneumonia before you were born. Cloud of Spruce will be yours some day, Marigold.”
“Will it?” Marigold was startled. Such a thing had never occurred to her.
“And you must always love it. Places know when they’re loved — just the same as people. I’ve seen houses whose hearts were actually broken. This house and I have always been good friends. I’ve always loved it from the day I came here as a bride. I planted most of those trees. You must marry some day, Marigold, and fill those old rooms again. But not too young — not too young. I married at seventeen and I was a grandmother at thirty-six. It was awful. Sometimes it seems to me that I’ve always been a grandmother.
“I could have been married at sixteen. But I was determined I wouldn’t be married till I had finished knitting my apple-leaf bedspread. Your great-grandfather went off in such a rage I didn’t know if he’d ever come back. But he did. He was only a boy himself. Two children — that’s what we were. Two young fools. That’s what everybody called us. And yet we were wiser then than I am now. We knew things then I don’t know now. I’ve stayed up too late. Don’t do that, Marigold — don’t live till there’s nothing left of life but the Pope’s nose. Nobody will be sorry when I die.”
Suddenly Marigold gasped.
“I will be sorry,” she cried — and meant it. Why, it would be terrible. No Old Grandmother at Cloud of Spruce. How could the world go on at all?
“I don’t mean that kind of sorriness,” said Old Grandmother. “And even you won’t be sorry long. Isn’t it strange? I was once afraid of Death. He was a foe then — now he is a lover. Do you know, Marigold, it is thirty years since any one called me by my name? Do you know what my name is?”
“No-o,” admitted Marigold. It was the first time she had ever realised that Old Grandmother must have a name.
“My name is Edith. Do you know I have an odd fancy I want to hear some one call me that again. Just once. Call me by my name, Marigold.”
Marigold gasped again. This was terrible. It was sacrilege. Why, one might almost as well be expected to call God by His name to His face.
“Say anything — anything — with my name in it,” said Old Grandmother impatiently.
“I — I don’t know what to say, — Edith,” stammered Marigold. It sounded dreadful when she had said it. Old Grandmother sighed.
“It’s no use. That isn’t my name — not as you say it. Of course it couldn’t be. I should have known better.” Suddenly she laughed.
“Marigold, I wish I could be present at my own funeral. Oh, wouldn’t it be fun! The whole clan will be here to the last sixth cousin. They’ll sit around and say all the usual kind, good, dull things about me instead of the interesting truth. The only true thing they’ll say will be that I had a wonderful constitution. That’s always said of any Lesley who lives to be over eighty. Marigold—” Old Grandmother’s habit of swinging a conversation around by its ears was always startling, “what do you really think about the world?”
Marigold, though taken by surprise, knew exactly what she thought about the world.
“It think it’s very int’resting,” she said.
Old Grandmother stared at her, then laughed.
“You’ve hit it. ‘Whether there be tongues they shall fail — whether
there be prophecies they shall vanish away’ — but the pageant of human life goes on. I’ve never tired watching it. I’ve lived nearly a century — and when all’s said and done there’s nothing I’m more thankful for than that I’ve always found the world and the people in it interesting. Yes, life’s been worth living. Marigold, how many little boys are sweet on you?”
“Sweet on me.” Marigold didn’t understand.
“Haven’t you any little beau?” explained Old Grandmother.
Marigold was quite shocked. “Of course not. I’m too small.”
“Oh, are you? I had two beaux when I was your age. Can you imagine me being seven years old and having two little boys sweet on me?”
Marigold looked at Old Grandmother’s laughter-filled and moonlight-softened black eyes and for the first time realised that Old Grandmother had not always been old. Why, she might even have been Edith.
“For that matter I had a beau when I was six,” said Old Grandmother triumphantly. “Girls were born having beaux in my day. Little Jim Somebody — I’ve forgotten his last name if I ever knew it — walked three miles to buy a stick of candy for me. I was only six, but I knew what that meant. He has been dead for eighty years. And there was Charlie Snaith. He was nine. We always called him Froggy-face. I’ll never forget his huge round eyes staring at me as he asked, ‘Can I be your beau?’ Or how he looked when I giggled and said ‘no.’ There were a good many ‘no’s’ before I finally said ‘yes.’” Old Grandmother laughed reminiscently, with all the delight of a girl in her teens.
“It was Great-Grandfather you first said ‘yes’ to, wasn’t it?” asked Marigold.
Old Grandmother nodded.
“But I had some narrow escapes. I was crazy about Frank Lister when I was fifteen. My folks wouldn’t let me have him. He wanted me to run away with him. I’ve always been sorry I didn’t. But then if I had I’d have been sorry for that, too. I was very near taking Bob Clancy — and now all I can remember about him was that he got drunk once and varnished his mother’s kitchen with maple-syrup. Joe Benson was in love with me. I had told him I thought he was magnificent. If you tell a certain kind of man he’s magnificent you can have him — if you really want that kind of a man. Peter March was a nice fellow. He was thought to be dying of consumption, and he pleaded with me to marry him and give him a year of happiness. Just suppose I had. He got better and lived to be seventy. Never take a risk like that with a live man, Marigold. He married Hilda Stuart. A pretty girl but too self-conscious. And every time Hilda spent more than five cents a week Peter took neuralgia. He always sat ahead of me in church, and I was always tormented with a desire to slap a spot on his bald head that looked like a fly.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 458
