Mercy Penhallow sighed. She would have liked the Jordan water. Rachel Penhallow had one and Mercy had always envied her for it. There must be a blessing in any household that had a bottle of Jordan water. Aunt Becky heard the sigh and looked at Mercy.
“Mercy,” she said apropos of nothing, “do you remember that forgotten pie you brought out after everybody had finished eating at the Stanley Penhallow’s silver-wedding dinner?”
But Mercy was not afraid of Aunt Becky. She had a spirit of her own.
“Yes, I do. And do you remember, Aunt Becky, that the first time you killed and roasted a chicken after you were married, you brought it to the table with the insides still in it?”
Nobody dared to laugh, but everybody was glad Mercy had the spunk. Aunt Becky nodded undisturbed.
“Yes, and I remember how it smelled! We had company, too. I don’t think Theodore ever fully forgave me. I thought that had been forgotten years ago. Is anything ever forgotten? Can people ever live anything down? The honours are to you, Mercy, but I must get square with somebody. Junius Penhallow, do you remember — since Mercy has started digging up the past — how drunk you were at your wedding?”
Junius Penhallow turned a violent crimson but couldn’t deny it. Of what use was it, with Mrs Junius at his elbow, to plead that he had been in such a blue funk on his wedding-morning that he’d never have had the courage to go through with it if he hadn’t got drunk? He had never been drunk since, and it was hard to have it raked up now, when he was an elder in the church and noted for his avowed temperance principles.
“I’m not the only one who ever got drunk in this clan,” he dared to mutter, despite the jug.
“No, to be sure. There’s Artemas over there. Do you remember, Artemas, the evening you walked up the church aisle in your nightshirt?”
Artemas, a tall, raw-boned, red-haired fellow, had been too drunk on that occasion to remember it, but he always roared when reminded of it. He thought it the best joke ever.
“You should have all been thankful I had that much on myself,” he said with a chuckle.
Mrs Artemas wished she were dead. What was a joke to Artemas was a tragedy to her. She had never forgotten — never could forget — the humiliation of that unspeakable evening. She had forgiven Artemas certain violations of his marriage vow of which every one was aware. But she had never forgiven — never would forgive — the episode of the nightshirt. If it had been pyjamas, it would not have been quite so terrible. But in those days pyjamas were unknown.
Aunt Becky was at Mrs Conrad Dark.
“I’m giving you my silver saltcellars. Alec Dark’s mother gave them to me for a wedding-present. Do you remember the time you and Mrs Clifford there quarrelled over Alec Dark and she slapped your face? And neither of you got Alec after all. There, there, don’t crack the spectrum. It’s all dead and vanished, just like my affair with Crosby.”
(“As if there was ever any affair,” thought Crosby piteously.)
“Pippin’s to have my grandfather clock. Mrs Digby Dark thinks she should have that because her father gave it to me. But no. Do you remember, Fanny, that you once put a tract in a book you lent me? Do you know what I did with it? I used it for curl papers. I’ve never forgiven you for the insult. Tracts, indeed. Did I need tracts?”
“You — weren’t a member of the church,” said Mrs Digby, on the point of tears.
“No — nor am yet. Theodore and I could never agree which church to join. I wanted Rose River and he wanted Bay Silver. And after he died it seemed sort of disrespectful to his memory to join Rose River. Besides, I was so old then it would have seemed funny. Marrying and church-joining should be done in youth. But I was as good a Christian as any one. Naomi Dark.”
Naomi, who had been fanning Lawson, looked up with a start as Aunt Becky hurled her name at her.
“You’re to get my Wedgwood teapot. It’s a pretty thing. Cauliflower pattern, as it’s called, picked out with gold lustre. It’s the only thing it really hurts me to give up. Letty gave it to me — she bought it at a sale in town with some of her first quarter’s salary. Have you all forgotten Letty? It’s forty years since she died. She would have been sixty if she were living now — as old as you, Fanny. Oh, I know you don’t own to more than fifty, but you and Letty were born within three weeks of each other. It seems funny to think of Letty being sixty — she was always so young — she was the youngest thing I ever knew. I used to wonder how Theodore and I ever produced her. She couldn’t have been sixty ever — that’s why she had to die. After all, it was better. It hurt me to have her die — but I think it would have hurt me more to see her sixty — wrinkled — faded — grey-haired — my pretty Letty, like a rose tossing in a breeze. Have you all forgotten that gold hair of hers — such living hair? Be good to her teapot, Naomi. Well, that’s the end of my valuable belongings — except the jug. I’m a bit tired — I want a rest before I tackle that business. I’m going to ask you all to sit in absolute silence for ten minutes and think about a question I’m going to ask you at the end of that time — all of you who are over forty. How many of you would like to live your lives over again if you could?”
X
Another whim of Aunt Becky’s! They resigned themselves to it with what grace they could. A silence of ten minutes seems like a century — under certain conditions. Aunt Becky lay as if tranquilly asleep. Ambrosine was gazing raptly at her diamond ring. Hugh thought about the night of his wedding. Margaret tried to compose a verse of her new poem. Drowned John became conscious that his new boots were exceedingly tight and uncomfortable and uneasily remembered his new litter of pigs. He ought to be home attending to them. Uncle Pippin wondered irritably what that fellow Grundy was looking so amused about. Uncle Pippin would have been still more scandalized had he known that Grundy was imagining himself God, rearranging all these twisted lives properly, and enjoying himself hugely. Murray Dark devoured Thora with his eyes and Thora went on placidly shining with her own light. Gay began to pick out her flower-girls. Little Jill Penhallow and little Chrissie Dark. They were such darlings. They must wear pink and yellow crêpe and carry baskets of pink and yellow flowers — roses or ‘mums, according to the time of year. Palmer Dark enjoyed in imagination the pleasure of kicking Homer Penhallow. Old Crosby was asleep and old Miller was nodding. Mercy Penhallow sat stiffly still and criticized the universe. Many of them were already sore and disappointed; nerves were strained and tenuous; when Junius Penhallow cleared his throat the sound was like a blasphemy.
“Two minutes more of this and I shall throw back my head and howl,” thought Donna Dark. She suddenly felt sick and tired of the whole thing — of the whole clan — of her whole tame existence. What was she living for, anyhow? She felt as out of place as the blank, unfaded space left on the wall where a picture had hung. Life had no meaning — this silly little round of gossip and venom and malicious laughter. Here was a roomful of people ready to fly at each other’s throats because of an old broken-nosed jug and a few paltry knick-knacks. She forgot that she had been as keen as anybody about the jug when she came. She wondered impatiently if anything pleasant or interesting or thrilling were ever going to happen to her again. Drowned John’s early wanderlust suddenly emerged in her. She wanted to have wings — wide sweeping wings to fly into the sunset — skim over the waves — battle with the winds — soar to the stars — in short, do everything that was never done by her smug, prosperous, sensible home-keeping clan. She was in rebellion against all the facts of her life. Probably the whole secret of Donna’s unrest at that moment was simply a lack of oxygen in the air. But it came pat to the psychological moment.
The sudden and lasting cessation of all the undertones and rustlings and stirrings in the room behind them at first arrested the attention and finally aroused the wonder of the outsiders on the veranda. Peter, who never knew why he should not gratify his curiosity about anything the moment he felt it, got off the railing, walked to the open window, and looked in. The first thing he saw
was the discontented face of Donna Dark, who was sitting by the opposite window in the shadow of a great pine outside. Its emerald gloom threw still darker shadows on her glossy hair and deepened the lustre of her long blue eyes. She turned towards Peter’s window as he laid his arms on the sill and bent inward. It was one of those moments all the rest of life can’t undo. Their eyes met, Donna’s richly quilled about with dark lashes, somewhat turbulent and mutinous under eyebrows flying up like little wings, Peter’s grey and amazed, under a puzzled frown.
Then it happened.
Neither Donna nor Peter knew at first just what had happened. They only knew something had. Peter continued to stare at Donna as if mesmerized. Who was this creature of strange dark loveliness? She must be one of the clan or she wouldn’t be here, but he couldn’t place her at all. Wait — wait — what old memory flickered tantalizingly before him — now approaching — now receding? He must grasp it — the old church at Rose River — himself, a boy of twelve sitting in his father’s pew — across the aisle a little girl of eight — blue-eyed, black-haired, wing-browed — a little girl, sitting in Drowned John’s pew! He knew he must hate her because she sat in Drowned John’s pew. So he made an impudent face at her. And the little girl had laughed — laughed. She was amused at him. Peter, who had hated her before impersonally, hated her now personally. He had kept on hating her although he had never seen her again — never again till now. Now he was looking at her across Aunt Becky’s parlour. At that moment Peter understood what had happened to him. He was no longer a free man — forevermore he must be in the power of this pale girl. He had fallen in love fathoms deep with Drowned John’s daughter and Barry Dark’s detested widow. Since he never did anything by halves he did not fall in love by halves either.
Peter felt a bit dizzy. It is a staggering thing to look in at a casual window and see the woman you now realize you have been subconsciously waiting for all your life. It is a still more staggering thing to have your hate suddenly dissolve into love, as though your very bones had melted to water. It rather lets you down. Peter was actually afraid to try to walk back to the veranda railing for fear his legs would give way. He knew, without stopping to argue with himself about it, that he would take no train from Three Hills that night and the lure of Amazon jungles had ceased — temporarily at least — to exist. Mystery and magic enfolded Peter as a garment. What he wanted to do was to vault over the window-sill, hurl aside those absurd men and women sitting between them, snatch up Donna Dark, strip off those ridiculous weeds she was wearing for another man, and carry her off bodily. It was quite on the cards that he would have done it — Peter had such a habit of doing everything he wanted to do — but at that moment the ten-minute silence was over and Aunt Becky opened her eyes. Everybody sighed with relief, and Peter, finding that all eyes were directed towards him, dragged himself back to the railing and sat on it, trying to collect his scattered wits and able only to see that subtle, deep-eyed face with its skin as delicate as a white night moth, under its cap of flat dark hair. Well, he had fallen in love with Donna Dark. He realized that he had been sent there by the powers that govern to fall in love with her. It was predestined in the councils of eternity that he should look through that particular window at that particular moment. Good heavens, the years he had wasted insensately hating her! Hopeless idiot! Blind bat! Now the only thing to do was to marry her as quickly as possible. Everything else could wait, but that could not. Even finding out what Donna thought about it could wait.
Donna could hardly be said to be thinking at all. She was not quite so quick as Peter was at finding out what had happened to her. She had recognized Peter the moment she had seen him — partly from that same old memory of an impudent boy across the aisle, partly from his photographs in the papers. Though they weren’t good of him — not half as fascinating. Peter hated being photographed and always glared at the camera as if it were a foe. Still, Donna knew him for her enemy — and for something else.
She was trembling with the extraordinary excitement that tingled over her at the sight of him — she, who, a few seconds before, had been so bored — so tired — so disgusted that she wished she had the courage to poison herself.
She was sure Virginia noticed it. Oh, if he would only go away and not stand there at the window staring at her. She knew he was leaving for South America that night — she had heard Nancy Penhallow telling it to Mrs Homer. Donna put her hand up to her throat, as if she were choking. What was the matter with her? Who cared if Peter Penhallow went to the Amazon or the Congo? It was not she, not Donna Dark, Barry’s inconsolable widow, who cared. Certainly not. It was this queer, wild, primitive creature who had, without any warning, somehow usurped her body and only wanted to spring to the window and feel Peter’s arms around her. There is no saying but that this perfectly crazy impulse might have mastered Donna if Aunt Becky had not opened her eyes and Peter had not vanished from the window.
Donna gave a gasp, which, coming after the universal sigh, escaped the notice of everybody but Virginia, who laid her hand over Donna’s and squeezed it sympathetically.
“Darling, I saw it all. It must have been frightfully hard for you. You bore it splendidly.”
“What — what did I bear?” stammered Donna idiotically.
“Why, seeing that dreadful Peter Penhallow staring at you like that — with his hate fairly sticking out of his eyes.”
“Hate — hate — oh, do you think he hates me — really?” gasped Donna.
“Of course he does. He always has, ever since you married Barry. But you won’t run the risk of meeting him again, darling. He’s off to-night on some of his horrid explorations, so don’t worry over it.”
Donna was not worrying exactly. She only felt that she would die if Peter Penhallow did go away — like that — without a word or another glance. It was not to be borne. She would dare unchartered seas with him — she would face African cooking-pots — she would — oh, what mad things was she thinking? And what was Aunt Becky saying.
“Every one over forty who would be willing to live his or her life over again exactly as it has been lived, put up your hand.”
Tempest Dark was the only one who put up his hand.
“Brave man! Or fortunate man — which?” inquired Aunt Becky satirically.
“Fortunate,” said Tempest laconically. He had been fortunate. He had fifteen exquisite years with Winnifred Penhallow. He would face anything to have them again.
“Would you live your life over again, Donna?” whispered Virginia sentimentally.
“No — no!!” Donna felt that to live over again the years that Peter Penhallow had hated her would be unendurable. Virginia looked grieved and amazed. She had not expected such an answer. She felt that something had come between her and Donna — something that clouded the sweet, perfect understanding that had always existed between them. She had been wont to say that words were really unnecessary for them — they could read each other’s thoughts. But Virginia could not read Donna’s thoughts just now — which was perhaps quite as well. She wondered uneasily if the curse of Aunt Becky’s opal was beginning to work already.
“Well, let’s get down to business,” Aunt Becky was saying.
“Thank the pigs,” thought Drowned John fervently.
Aunt Becky looked over the room gloatingly. She had prolonged her sport as long as it was possible. She had got them just where she wanted them — all keyed up and furious — all except a few who were beyond the power of her venom and whom for that reason she did not despise. But look at the rest of them — squatting there on their ham-bones, pop-eyed, coveting the jug, ready to tear in pieces the one who got it. In a few minutes the lucky one would be known, they thought. Ah, would he? Aunt Becky chuckled. She still had a bomb to throw.
XI
“You’re all dying to know who is to get the jug,” she said, “but you’re not going to know yet awhile. I did intend to tell you to-day who I meant to have it, but I’ve thought of a better plan. I’ve dec
ided to leave the jug in keeping of a trustee until a year from the last day of next October. Then, and not till then, you’ll find out who’s to get it.”
There was a stunned silence — broken by a laugh from Stanton Grundy.
“Sold!” he said laconically.
“Who’s the trustee?” said William Y. hoarsely. He knew who should be trustee.
“Dandy Dark. I’ve selected him because he is the only man I ever knew who could keep a secret.”
Every one looked at Robert Dark, who squirmed uncomfortably, thus finding himself the centre of observation. Everybody disapproved. Dandy Dark was a nobody — his nickname told you that. It was a hangover from the days when he had been a dandy — something nobody would ever dream of calling the fat, shabby, old fellow now, with his double chin, his unkempt hair and his flabby, pendulous cheeks. Only his little, deep-set, beady black eyes seemed to justify Aunt Becky’s opinion of his ability to keep a secret.
“Dandy is to be the sole executor of my will and the custodian of the jug until a year from the last day of next October,” repeated Aunt Becky. “That’s all the rest of you are to know about it. I’m not going to tell you how it will be decided then. It is possible that I may leave Dandy a sealed letter with the name of the legatee in it. In that case Dandy may know the name or he may not know it. Or it is equally possible that I may leave instructions in that same sealed letter that the ownership is to be settled by lot. And again, I may empower Dandy to choose for himself who is to have the jug, always bearing in his mind my opinions and prejudices regarding certain people and certain things. So in case I have chosen the last alternative, it behooves you all to watch your step from now on. The jug may not be given to any one older than a certain age or to any unmarried person who, in my judgment, should be married, or to any person who has been married too much. It may not be given to any one who has habits I don’t like. It may not be given to any one who quarrels or wastes his time fiddling. It may not be given to any one addicted to swearing or drinking. It may not be given to any untruthful person or any dishonest person or any extravagant person. I’ve always hated to see any one wasting money, even if it isn’t mine. It may not be given to any one who has no bad habits and never did anything disgraceful” — with a glance in the direction of the impeccable William Y. “It may not be given to any one who begins things and never finishes them, or any one who writes bad poetry. On the other hand, these things may not influence in the slightest my decision or Dandy’s decision. And of course if the matter is to be decided by lot, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do. And finally it may go to somebody who doesn’t live on the island at all. Now, you know as much about it as you’re going to know.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 487
