Whatever Esme had come to Birkentrees for she would carry out her intention. So he went on. In after days he boasted that he had at least made one match by leaving things alone.
“I suppose you will never leave off twitting me,” said Anne.
“Oh, I am sure he does not mean to do that, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan. “It is just his way. I am told the men are all like that... though,” she added with a sigh, “I myself have never had any chance of proving it.”
The gate to the garden was no longer locked but hung open slackly. It all seemed smaller than Esme remembered it. There were only withered leaves and frosted stalks where she had danced with Francis... where she had imagined or dreamed she had danced with Francis.
But it was still beautiful and eerie, full of the strange, deep shadows that come with the rising of the hunter’s moon. There was no noise but the sigh of the wind in the remote, pointed firs that had grown up of their own accord among the still golden maples in a corner.
Esme felt lonelier than she had ever felt in her life as she went down the grass-grown path to the river shore.
“There isn’t any you,” she whispered piteously, thinking of Francis. “There never was any you. What a little fool I have been! I suppose I shouldn’t have used Allardyce so. No wonder they were all so cross with me. No wonder Mrs. Barry was glad.”
For Esme had never heard the tales about Allardyce’s foreign life and the Italian or Russian princesses. To her Allardyce was still the man who made her laugh a little like Francis had... the Francis who had never existed.
She wondered a little what had become of the picture of Great-uncle Francis when the Barrys had closed Longmeadow and gone abroad again... this time it was said for good. Mrs. Barry had reported, so rumour ran, that they did not mean to return to Canada. Everything was so crude here... and all the girls pursued Allardyce. She was afraid he would make some silly match. Esme Dalley had almost hooked him... but thank the Lord she had failed. Allardyce had come to his senses in time.
Esme was thinking of the picture. Somehow, she would have liked to have it... even if it were only the picture of a dream.
But when she got to the old stone wall... most of which had fallen down... she saw him coming up the steps from the river. The steps were very loose and some were missing altogether, so that he was picking his way a bit carefully. But he was just the same as she remembered him... a little taller, perhaps, and dressed in a more modern fashion, but with the same thick brown hair and the same adventurous light in his blue eagle eyes. He and Jem Blythe were to share a German prison after some years but nobody dreamed anything about that then.
The long, dim river and the deserted garden and the pointed firs whirled around Esme.
She threw out her hands and would have fallen if he had not caught her as he sprang over the crumbling wall.
“Francis!” gasped Esme.
“Francis is my middle name but my friends call me Stephen,” he said, smiling... the same frank, friendly, pleasant smile she remembered so well.
Esme recovered herself a little and drew away, but she was still trembling so violently that he kept his arm around her... just as Francis had done.
“I am afraid I have frightened you,” he said gently. “I’m sorry my appearance was so abrupt. I know I’m not handsome but I didn’t think I was so ugly that I would scare a girl into nearly fainting.”
“It’s... it’s not that,” said Esme, quite conscious now that she had made an awful fool of herself. Perhaps she was queer... like Aunt Hester.
“Perhaps I’m trespassing... but the place looked so deserted... and they told me I could take this shortcut. Please forgive me for frightening you.”
“Who are you?” cried Esme wildly. Nothing mattered but that.
“A very humble individual... Stephen Francis Barry at your service. My home is at the Coast but I came east a few days ago to take charge of the new biological station down at the harbour. I knew I had... or once had... some distant cousins over this way at a place called Longmeadow so I thought I’d come over this evening and hunt them up if they were still here. Somebody else told me they had gone abroad. What is the truth?... as somebody called Pilate once said.”
Esme knew now who he was... a western third cousin she had heard Allardyce speak of... contemptuously enough.
“He works,” Allardyce had said, as if that were something shameful. “I’ve never seen him... none of the family have ever been east... too busy studying bugs, I suppose. Or else for lack of spondulicks. In any case our branch of the family have never had anything in common with them. I did hear Dr. Blythe had met one of them called Stephen or some such name when he was attending some medical congress in Vancouver and thought he was a very fine fellow. But my opinion and the good doctor’s do not often agree.”
Esme drew a little further away still, looking gravely at him. She had no idea how exquisitely lovely she looked in the velvet and shadow of the moonlight, but Stephen Barry had. He stood and looked at her as if he could never get enough of looking.
“It was not your sudden appearance that startled me,” said Esme gravely. “It was because you looked so much like somebody I once saw... no, like somebody I dreamed I saw. A picture of Captain Francis Barry that used to be at Longmeadow.”
“Great-uncle Frank? Granddad always told me I looked like him. I wish I could see it. Do I really look as much like this Francis as all that?”
“You look exactly like him.”
“Then no wonder you took me for a ghost. And you? I think I must have dreamed you years ago. You have just stepped out of my dream. Won’t you be unconventional and tell me who you are?”
“I am Esme Dalley.”
Even in the moonlight she could see his face fall.
“Esme Dalley! Oh, I’ve heard... Allardyce’s young lady!...”
“No, no, no!” Esme cried it almost violently. “And there is nobody at Longmeadow. It is shut up and is for sale. Allardyce and his mother have gone abroad for good, I believe.”
“You believe? Don’t you know? Aren’t you his... his fiancee?”
“No!” cried Esme again. For some mysterious reason she could not bear to have him think that. “There is no truth in that report. Allardyce and I are nothing but friends... hardly even that,” she added, in her desire to be strictly truthful and recalling her last interview with Allardyce. “Besides, as I have told you, he and his mother have gone to Europe and are not expected to return.”
“Too bad,” said Stephen quite cheerfully. “I had counted on seeing them. I’m to be here a couple of months and relations liven things up a bit. Still... there are compensations. I’ve seen you, ‘moving in moonlight through a haunted hour’ to me. Are you quite sure you are not a ghost, little Esme Dalley?”
Esme laughed... delightful laughter.
“Quite sure. But I came here to meet a ghost... I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”
She felt quite sure he would not laugh as Allardyce had done. And he would not try to explain it away. Besides, somehow or other, it mattered no longer whether it could be explained away or not. They would just forget it together.
“Let’s sit down here on this old stone wall and you can tell me all about it now,” said Stephen.
It was just about that time that Dr. Blythe was saying to his wife,
“I met Stephen Barry for a moment today. He is to be in Charlottetown for a few months. He is really a splendid fellow. I wish he and Esme Dalley would meet and fall in love. They would just suit each other.”
“Who is matchmaking now?” asked Anne sleepily.
“Trust a woman to have the last word,” retorted the doctor.
A Dream Come True
When Anthony Fingold left home on Saturday evening he intended merely to go down to the store at Glen St. Mary to get the bottle of liniment Clara wanted. Then he would come back and go to bed.
There would be nothing else to do, he sadly reflected. Get up in the morning... work all
day... eat three meals... and go to bed at half past nine. What a life!
Clara didn’t seem to mind it. None of his neighbours in the Upper Glen seemed to mind it. Apparently they never got tired of the old routine. They hadn’t enough imagination to realize what they were missing, probably.
When he remarked gloomily at the supper table... it couldn’t be denied that Clara cooked excellent suppers, though it never entered Anthony’s head to tell her so...
“There ain’t been anything exciting in this part of the Island this summer... not even a funeral,”
Clara had calmly reminded him that the Barnard washing at Mowbray Narrows had been stolen three weeks ago and that there had been a robbery at Carter Flagg’s store at Glen St. Mary several weeks before... and then she passed him the ginger cookies.
Did she think ginger cookies a substitute for impassioned longings and mad, wild, glamorous adventures?
Then she added insult to injury by remarking that Carter Flagg was offering bargains in pyjamas!
It was the one source of difference between him and Clara that she wanted him to wear pyjamas and he was determined he would never wear anything but nightshirts.
“Dr. Blythe wears pyjamas,” Clara would say mournfully.
Anthony thought there was nobody on earth worth mentioning in the same breath with Dr. Blythe. Even his wife was a rather intelligent woman. As for Susan Baker, maid-of-all-work at Ingleside, he had been at feud with her for years. He always suspected that she put Clara up to the pyjama idea. In which he did them both a grievous wrong.
As for the Mowbray Narrows washing, of course it would have to be at Mowbray Narrows! No such good fortune for the Upper Glen or the Fingolds. And what did the robbery at Carter Flagg’s store matter? Carter had lost only ten dollars and a roll of flannel. Why, it wasn’t worth mentioning. And yet people had talked about it for days. Susan Baker had been up one evening and she and Clara had talked of nothing else... unless the whispered conversation on the doorstep when Susan took her departure had to do with pyjamas. Anthony strongly suspected it had. He had seen the doctor buying a pair in Carter Flagg’s store not long ago.
Anthony had never done anything more adventurous in his life than climb a tree or throw a stone at a strange dog. But that was Fate’s fault, not his. Given anything of a chance he felt that he had it in him to be William Tell or Richard Coeur de Lion or any other of the world’s gallant adventurers. But he had been born a Fingold of the Upper Glen in Prince Edward Island, so he had no chance of being a hero. It was all very well for Dr. Blythe to say the graveyards were full of men who had been greater heroes than any mentioned in history, but everyone knew the doctor’s wife was romantic.
And had William Tell ever worn pyjamas? Not very likely. What did he wear? Why did books never tell you the things you really wanted to know? What a boon it would be if he could show Clara in a printed book that some great hero of history or romance had worn a nightshirt!
He had asked somebody once... and the somebody... he had forgotten who he was... had said he didn’t think they wore anything in those days.
But that was indecent. He couldn’t tell anything like that to Clara.
Sometimes he thought it would have been a great thing even to have been a highwayman. Yes, with any luck he could have been a highwayman. Prowling all night as they did, they might not need either nightshirts or pyjamas.
Of course a great many of them got hanged... but at least they had lived before death. And he could have been as bold and bad as he wanted to be, dancing corantos on moonlit heaths with scores of voluptuous, enticing ladies... they might as well be princesses while they were about it... and of course he would return their jewels or gold for the dance. Oh, what life might have been! The Methodist minister in Lowbridge had preached once on “Dreams of what we might have been.” Though he and Clara were rigid Presbyterians they happened to be visiting Methodist friends, so went with them.
Clara thought the sermon a very fine one. As if she ever had dreams! Unless it was of seeing him decked out in pyjamas! She was perfectly contented with her narrow existence. So was everybody he knew, or he thought so.
Well... Anthony sighed... it all came to this. He was only little, thin, pepper-and-salt Anthony Fingold, general handyman of the Glens, and the only excitement that ever came his way was stealing cream for the cat.
Clara found out about his stealing it but not until the cat had lapped it. She never scolded about it... though he had a horrid conviction that she told Susan Baker all about it. What else would they be laughing about? He found himself hoping Susan would not tell Dr. or Mrs. Blythe. It was so paltry. And they might not think it was the proper thing for a church elder.
But he resented Clara’s calm acceptance of his crime. All she said was,
“That cat is as fat as butter now. And you could have all the cream you wanted for him if you had asked for it.”
“She won’t even quarrel with me,” thought Anthony in exasperation. “If she’d only get mad once in a while things wouldn’t be so tame. They say Tom Crossbee and his wife fight every day... and that scratch he had on his face last Sunday was one she gave him. Even that would be something. But the only thing that riles Clara is that I won’t wear pyjamas. And even then she doesn’t say much except that they are more up-to-date. Well, I must endure my life as everyone else does... ‘God pity us all, who vainly the dreams of our youth recall.’”
Anthony couldn’t remember where he had heard or learned those lines. But they certainly hit the mark. He sighed.
He met nobody but a tramp on his way to the store. The tramp had boots... of a sort... but no socks. His bare skin showed through the holes in his shirt. He was smoking and looked very contented and happy.
Anthony envied him. Why, this man could sleep out all night if he wanted to... likely he did, with the whole sky for a roof. Nobody would pester him to wear pyjamas. How delightful it must be not to have any idea where you were going to sleep at night!
Dr. Blythe whirled by him in his new car. But he was so near to the Glen store that he did not offer him a ride. Anthony was just as well pleased. He liked Dr. Blythe... but he always had a secret suspicion that the doctor was laughing at him. Besides, he had heard too much about his pyjamas.
Why did adventures come to everybody but him, Anthony Fingold? Old Sam Smallwood down at the Harbour Mouth was suspected of having been a pirate in his youth... or of having been captured by pirates... Anthony was not quite sure which. Old Sam always contrived to give the impression that it had been the former but the Smallwoods always liked to make themselves big. Jim Millar had narrowly escaped death in a train collision... Ned MacAllister had been through a San Francisco earthquake... even old Frank Carter had caught a hen thief single-handed and had been a witness in court.
Every man-jack of them had something to tell or talk about when tales were going round at night in Carter’s store... several of them had been written up in Delia Bradley’s series of Island notables in the Charlottetown Enterprise. But he had never had his name in the paper except when he was married.
He had never sown any wild oats... that was the trouble. So there was no harvest... no enjoyment to look forward to... nothing but years of monotony... and then die in bed. In bed! Anthony groaned in spirit over such a colourless death. The only comfort was that it would be in a nightshirt. Fancy dying in pyjamas! He must put that idea up to Clara the next time she wanted him to get pyjamas. He had an idea that it would shock her a bit, in spite of her modern whims.
He had never even been drunk! Of course now it wouldn’t do for an elder in the church to get drunk. But when he was young! Abner MacAllister was an elder now, too, but he had been drunk many a time in his youth, before he got converted. Durn it, had you to miss everything just for the sake of being an elder in middle life or old age?
It wasn’t worth it!
He remembered that he had heard that Jimmy Flagg wore pyjamas... and Jimmy was an elder. But then everyone knew what h
is wife was. Perhaps even the minister wore them. The idea came to Anthony with a shock. It had never occurred to him before. He felt that he could never enjoy Mr. Meredith’s sermons as much again. He could forgive him all his absent-minded doings... even his marrying again, which Anthony did not approve of... but a minister who slept in pyjamas! He must find out. It would be easy enough. Susan Baker would know. She could see the washing line from Ingleside. But could he bring himself to ask her? No, never.
He would go down to the Glen some Monday and see for himself. Now that the question had entered his mind it must be answered.
They would never have elected him elder, he reflected, as he trotted along the village street, if they had known what a desperate fellow he was in reality. They never dreamed of the wild adventures and glorious deeds he was constantly having and performing in imagination.
When he raked and burned leaves on Sara Allenby’s lawn he was fighting Indians on old frontiers; while he painted George Robinson’s barn he was discovering a gold mine on the Rand; while he helped Marshall Elliott haul in his hay he was rescuing a beauteous maiden from drowning at great risk to himself; while he was putting up the storm windows at Ingleside he was blazing trails through primeval forests, treading where no other foot had trod; when he unloaded Augustus Palmer’s coal he was being taken captive by a cannibal king on some savage island; while he helped Trench Moore cut ice he was stalking tigers in equatorial jungles; while he chopped wood and puttered about the garden he was in splendid peril exploring Polar seas; when he sat in church by the side of his impeccable Clara, in her honey-coloured Sunday crimps, he was robbing temples in Burma of emeralds as large as pigeon eggs... or should it be rubies?
But his dreams, though they satisfied some dramatic urge in him, left him always with a mournful conviction that he had missed the best in life. Dreams would never make Caroline Wilkes look at him admiringly. And that was, and always had been, the master dream of Anthony Fingold’s life... the one he could never have spoken about to anyone... to make Caroline Wilkes... nee Caroline Mallard... look at him admiringly. All poor Clara’s years of devotion were as nothing compared to that never-seen, never-to-be-seen admiration in Caroline’s eyes.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 579
