The wind moaned eerily in the old spruce by the window... moaned and wailed and sometimes suddenly snarled and then died away to let the occasional spits of rain be heard. Occasionally the window rattled as if something that was impatient and overdue was trying to gain an entrance.
Ursula Anderson lay movelessly on the bed. You might have thought she was already dead had it not been for her large, sunken grey eyes. They had been dull and bleared for many years, but they were bright and clear again, burning with a steady flame in her dry, parched face.
A grey flannel nightgown was buttoned about her ugly, wattled throat. A coarse sweep of grey hair lay over the pillow... she had an amazing lot of hair for such an old woman. Her gaunt old body was quiet and flat under the faded patchwork quilt and thin blankets. Her knotted, discoloured hands lay over them movelessly.
She knew she was dying and that everybody was in a hurry for her to die and that there was not a living creature that would regret her death... except perhaps the old dog.
She would have liked to have him lie on the bed beside her but Maggie McLean would not allow that. Sometimes she looked into his kind old eyes with a long steady look, such as they had often exchanged. She was glad she was dying and she was glad Maggie McLean was asleep. She was living over her whole life... the life for which those in the parlour below were pitying her, as she very well knew. And she would not have exchanged lives with one of them. Now and then she laughed... a little, low, soundless laugh. She would not have wakened Maggie McLean for worlds. Maggie would have fussed around, wanting to do something for her. And she did not want anything done, except to be left to die in peace.
But now and then she shuddered.
She knew she had become very ugly... but she had not been ugly in youth, though no one had ever thought her pretty. She had just been one of “those Anderson girls,” with no beauty except her long, thick, sloe-black hair. She had soft, large, grey eyes and creamy skin and lovely hands. Yes, she had had lovely hands... he had often told her so... the most beautiful hands he had ever seen... and he had seen the hands of queens. Her sisters were counted pretty girls but they had fat, pudgy hands. She had never received a compliment about hers, except from him. It was faces and figures people looked at.
Her hands were very ugly now... they had grown warped and roughened by constant sewing and by age. Yet even now they were better shaped than Maggie McLean’s. She had been rather small and thin in her youth and nobody had ever paid much attention to her amid her dashing, handsome sisters. She had never tried to attract attention and it was quite true she had never had a beau. It was equally true that she had never wanted one... though nobody would have believed such a statement. None of the youths of Lowbridge or Glen St. Mary or Mowbray Narrows had attracted her in the least. They did not think or talk as she did... or would have done if any of them had ever tried to talk to her.
She had spent her childhood and early youth under her mother’s thumb and she was supposed to have no opinions of her own. Sometimes she thought they might have been surprised if they had known her thoughts... surprised and shocked.
Then there had come a change. The old grey eyes darkened and quivered and glowed as she thought of it. Her Aunt Nan had written and asked for “one of the girls” to spend a year with her after her only daughter had gone to India as a missionary. Aunt Nan lived in a little fishing village and summer resort many miles down the coast and was a widow. Ursula had never seen her. But she was chosen to go because none of her sisters would consent to bury themselves alive in Half Moon Cove for a year.
But Ursula had been glad to go. She liked what she had heard about Half Moon Cove and she liked what her father had said about his sister Nan. Ursula gathered the impression that Aunt Nan was very different from all her other aunts... that she was still and quiet like herself.
“Didn’t talk a man to death,” she had heard her father say once.
There was not a great deal to do at Aunt Nan’s and Ursula had spent much of her time down at the shore among the dunes. The summer colony was much further down and few of them ever strayed so far. It was there she had met him, painting. He was the guest of a wealthy family who were summering at the next Cove but who never came near Half Moon. There were no amusements there.
He was a young Englishman... an artist already on the way to the worldwide fame he afterwards achieved. It was said his older brother had a title... which was likely the reason he had been asked to be the guest of the Lincolns. They were certainly not artistic.
But to Ursula he was just Larry... and her lover. She loved his paintings but the brother with a title meant nothing to her.
“You are the most unworldly creature I’ve ever met in my life,” Larry had told her once. “The things that mean so much to most people seem to mean absolutely nothing to you. I don’t believe you belong to this world at all.”
Never had she known, or even dreamed, of anyone so utterly charming. They had loved each other from their first meeting. Ursula knew it could never have been any other way. She did not doubt he had loved and been loved by many women before her but she felt no jealousy of them. He was too wonderful to love any woman very long, especially an insignificant little thing like her. But, for the time being, he did love her. She knew that beyond a doubt. For that one enchanted summer he loved her and nothing could ever take that from her. And nobody in the world but herself knew it. She would never tell his name even to Aunt Nan. Poor old Maggie McLean pitied her... but Maggie McLean had never been loved like that. Kathie Anderson pitied her... but Kathie did not even know the meaning of love. She had married John to escape being an old maid and she thought nobody knew it while everybody knew it and laughed about it.
But nobody knew her, Ursula’s, secret. Of that she was sure.
She knew he could never marry her... the idea never entered her head... or, for that matter, his. Yet all his life he remembered little Ursula... remembered her when beautiful and brilliant women caressed him. There was something about her he never found in any other woman. Sometimes he thought that was really why he never married.
Of course he couldn’t have married her. The very idea was absurd. And yet... what great artist had married his cook? On his deathbed Sir Lawrence thought of Ursula and of no other woman, not even the Princess What’s-her-name, who would have taken him, they said, if he had ever asked her.
They had loved each other through lingering days and soft emerald evenings and nights of crystal splendour. She had not forgotten one of them. He had said mad, sweet things to her... she had not forgotten one of them either... those old words of love spoken so many years ago. Fancy anyone saying such things to Maggie McLean, snoring in her chair!
Her hair was grey and coarse now. But she remembered the day he pulled the pins out of it and buried his face in the sleek flow of it.
Then she remembered the moonrises they had watched together on that far shore, where the bones of old vessels were bleaching. He revelled in the windy nights... but she had liked the calm nights better. She recalled the dim hills and the mysterious dunes... the fishing boats sailing in... and always his tender, passionate words. Maggie McLean would have felt insulted if anyone had spoken to her like that. Poor old Maggie, snoring away there, who had never lived. How Ursula pitied her!
She lifted her withered hands for a moment and then let them drop back on the quilt.
He must have painted her hands a hundred times. The hands of his pictures were famous. He had never been tired of exclaiming over the wonder of them... “a kiss on the tip of every sweet finger,” he would whisper. Only old despised Ursula Anderson knew that people had gazed on those hands in scores of European art galleries. She had a collection of engravings of his pictures in a ragged old box which she carried everywhere with her. Nobody knew why. But then Ursula had always been queer. The only time she had ever come near to quarrelling with Kathie Anderson was one housecleaning time when Kathie had wanted to burn the box. It was full of nothing but faded, ragged
old pictures, she said.
“What on earth do you see in them, Ursula?” she said. “If you are so fond of pictures there are some old chromos and mottoes you can have...”
“Have they hands like those?” Ursula had asked quietly.
Kathie Anderson shrugged her shoulders and gave it up. After all, old people grew very childish. You had to indulge them. Hands, indeed. And most of the women were very ugly in spite of their titles.
Then the season had ended... the cool September winds began to blow across the haunted dunes... Larry had gone away, promising to write... but he had never written. For a time life had wrung Ursula in its merciless hands. She had to tell Aunt Nan. There was no one else to whom she dared go. She could never go home to her self-righteous father and mother. Better to slip down to the dunes some night and end it all. She was very glad now she had not done so. It might have hurt Larry if he had ever heard of it. She would suffer anything rather than do that.
And Aunt Nan had been very good to her after the first shock was over. She was full of pity and did not blame Ursula too much.
“I should have looked after you better,” she mourned. “But then of course I thought an Anderson... and now that scoundrel has led you astray.”
Ursula hid her anger for Larry’s sake. She knew Aunt Nan blamed an entirely different man. But a strange little flame came into her tired grey eyes.
“I wasn’t led astray,” she said. “I am not such a weakling. I knew what I was doing... and I’m not sorry... I’m not sorry.”
Aunt Nan could not understand. But she stood by Ursula staunchly. She kept Ursula with her on one excuse or another... and had an old woman she could trust in for the birth... since the Anderson name must be saved at all costs. Ursula nearly died... even Aunt Nan thought it would be better if she had... but Ursula was very glad that she managed to live.
The baby was a little girl with Ursula’s grey eyes and Larry’s golden hair. Aunt Nan had arranged for its adoption. The James Burnleys in Charlottetown were wealthy people who had long wanted to adopt a child. Aunt Nan had gone to school with Isabel Burnley. The Burnleys took the child gladly... its mother was a young friend of hers, Aunt Nan told them, who had been unfortunate.
Ursula thought she could not bear it but for Larry’s sake she consented. And she wanted the child to have a good home. She went back to Lowbridge, a little quieter and more insignificant than before. The Andersons, who had been hoping she would pick up some kind of a husband when she was away, did not welcome her very effusively. They tried to patch up a marriage with her and an old widower of Glen St. Mary but to Ursula all men seemed common or unbearable after Larry.
But she had her own keen sweetness in life which no one knew or suspected. So she did not mind any longer when the men ignored her. A distant cousin, in need of an assistant, offered to teach her dressmaking and, to everyone’s surprise, Ursula developed an unsuspected talent for the art.
She went out sewing by the day and she often went to the Burnley home. Mrs. Burnley said there was nobody could fit a dress like Ursula Anderson. Ursula saw little Isabel often... Mrs. Burnley had named the baby after herself. She saw her grow up through dimpled childhood and adorable girlhood.
At times she looked so like Larry that Ursula’s heart gave a bound. She had little tricks of manner and voice like his. Ursula could never see anything of herself in her except her eyes. She was as beautiful and charming as Larry’s daughter should be. The Burnleys adored her and showered everything on her. Ursula made most of her dresses. When she fitted them on her fingers sometimes touched the girl’s flesh with rapture. It was almost like touching Larry himself.
Isabel liked her.
“I believe that queer, quiet little dressmaker really loves me,” she used to say. “She never says so, of course... but sometimes I’ve seen her looking at me in the queerest way... almost as if I belonged to her, you know.”
“The poor thing has so little in life,” said Mrs. Burnley. “Her own people never made anything of her. Always be as kind to her as you can, Isabel.”
There was one thing that Ursula could hardly bear... to hear Isabel call Mrs. Burnley “mother.” It seemed to tear her soul in pieces. At such times she hated Isabel Burnley... and reproached herself bitterly for hating her when she was so good to Isabel. But she gave no sign. Mrs. Burnley never dreamed of it. She never thought of Ursula Anderson as feeling any particular emotion.
Finally Isabel married. The Burnleys were quite delighted over the match, much as they hated to lose Isabel. He was a handsome fellow, of good family and rich. Everybody thought Isabel was a lucky girl. Of course... there were some stories... but stories were always told about rich young men who enjoyed themselves. Mrs. Burnley said they had to sow their wild oats. Once married to Isabel Geoffrey Boyd would settle down and make a good husband. She hadn’t a doubt of it. Her own husband had been wild enough in his youth. And what a husband he had made!
Ursula made most of the trousseau, even to the dainty underthings. Yet she was not happy or easy. She did not like Geoffrey Boyd. Of course Isabel was wildly in love with him... and Ursula knew quite well that most young men were no saints... even Larry could not be called a model. But it was not that. It was something about Geoffrey Boyd himself. Isabel was radiantly happy and Ursula tried to stifle her uneasiness and rejoice in that happiness.
She was allowed to help dress Isabel for her marriage and Isabel was a little amused to see how old Miss Anderson’s hands trembled. She was always “old Miss Anderson” to Isabel... always had been, although she was barely forty. Isabel was very fond of her and made up her mind that she would give her all the work possible. Ready-made dresses were coming in and home dressmaking was not so plentiful as it had been.
So Ursula was much in Isabel’s home during the next four years. They were years of torture for her. She had to watch the change in Isabel’s love from passionate adoration to fear and horror and... worst of all... hatred.
Geoffrey Boyd was tired of his wife within a year and he never made any pretence of hiding it. He was blatantly unfaithful to her, as everybody knew... and he was hellishly cruel. Sometimes it seemed that his only pleasure was in inflicting pain on her. And he always laughed so horribly when saying and doing cruel things... though he always took good care that nobody except that little half-witted Anderson creature heard him. The Burnleys knew that the marriage had been a failure but they would not admit it. Such things in those years were best covered up. And riches made up for a great many things.
Ursula hated him so bitterly that it seemed to her that her hate walked beside her, a tangible thing. In spite of her insignificance he must have felt her hatred, for he never passed her without some bland, suave sneer.
She was always being “pumped” about the Boyd menage but never a word could be got out of her. That was probably the reason Geoffrey Boyd allowed Isabel to have her in the house. He was not afraid of what she might tell. The Anderson gang were notorious gossips and although this Ursula creature was no more than half there, still, there were things she could say if she wanted to. And the Burnleys were still rich... or supposed to be. Geoffrey Boyd had his own reasons for keeping on good terms with them. He was always so nice to Isabel in their presence that they did not believe half the stories they heard.
The marriage was six years old when it became known that the Burnleys had lost most of their money. Then Isabel knew that her husband meant to divorce her on some trumped-up charge, naming as co-respondent a certain man about town.
Divorce in those days, in the Maritimes, was a naked tragedy. And everybody knew she was an adopted child.
“Blood will tell,” they would say significantly. Everybody would believe the charges against her... except old Ursula Anderson. Somehow, Isabel felt that she would never believe a word against her.
Geoffrey told Isabel that if she contested the suit he would take her son away from her. Ursula knew he meant to take the child anyway, just to torture Isabel, although he h
ad no affection for the boy. He had never pretended to have. Little Patrick was a delicate child and Geoffrey Boyd had no use for sickly brats. Once he asked Isabel if Patrick inherited his constitution from her father or her mother. He knew that Isabel always had felt some secret shame that she was only an adopted child and it delighted him to flick it on the raw. He had once told her, in their courtship days, that it made her dearer to him.
“Suppose,” thought Ursula, “I told him her father was the great artist, Sir Lawrence Ainsley.”
But she knew she would only be laughed at. Her character, at least, was without reproach. Nobody, not even her own kith and kin, would put any faith in such a tale. Nor would it make any difference to Geoffrey. Even if he believed it.
“Fancy the sly old thing,” she could hear him saying. And the Burnleys would be furious. Aunt Nan was dead and she had no evidence whatever to prove that she had been a great artist’s light-o-love. But she made up her mind that there would be no divorce for all that. Some way she would prevent it... she made up her mind firmly on that.
She was sewing in one of the upstairs rooms of the house the day Geoffrey Boyd came home drunk and whipped Patrick mercilessly in the library, while Isabel crouched on the floor outside the door and moaned in her helpless anguish. The last time Geoffrey had come home drunk he had hung his fox terrier up in the stable and whipped it to death. Would he kill Patrick, too?
When he came out and the sobbing boy ran to his mother he said to her,
“When I have Patrick all to myself... as I shall have sooner or later, my darling... he shall have a good dose of the whip every day. You have made a baby of him with your coddling. I shall make a man of him. Was your father a minister, do you think?”
Ursula had sewed quietly and steadily through it all. Not a stitch was misplaced. Even Isabel thought her very unfeeling. But when Geoffrey came reeling up the stairs she was standing at the head, waiting for him. Isabel had taken Patrick to his room. There was nobody about. Her eyes were blazing and her gaunt little form in its plain black gown was quivering.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 602
