Shrewsbury Beginnings

Teddy and Ilse and Perry whooped for joy when Emily told them she was going to Shrewsbury. Emily, thinking it over, was reasonably happy. The great thing was that she was going to High School. She did not like the idea of boarding with Aunt Ruth. This was unexpected. She had supposed Aunt Ruth would never be willing to have her about and that, if Aunt Elizabeth did decide to send her to Shrewsbury, she would board elsewhere--probably with Ilse. Certainly, she would have greatly preferred this. She knew quite well that life would not be very easy under Aunt Ruth's roof. And then she must write no more stories.

To feel within her the creative urge and be forbidden to express it--to tingle with delight in the conception of humorous or dramatic characters, and be forbidden to bring them into existence--to be suddenly seized with the idea of a capital plot and realize immediately afterward that you couldn't develop it. All this was a torture which no one who has not been born with the fatal itch for writing can realize. The Aunt Elizabeths of the world can never understand it. To them, it is merely foolishness.

Those last two weeks of August were busy ones at New Moon. Elizabeth and Laura held long conferences over Emily's clothes. She must have an outfit that would cast no discredit on the Murrays, but common sense and not fashion was to give the casting vote. Emily herself had no say in the matter. Laura and Elizabeth argued "from noon to dewy eve" one day as to whether Emily might have a taffeta silk blouse--Ilse had three--and decided against it, much to Emily's disappointment. But Laura had her way in regard to what she dared not call an "evening dress," since the name would have doomed it in Elizabeth's opinion: it was a pretty crepe thing, of a pinkish-grey--the shade, I think, which was then called ashes-of-roses--and was made collarless--a great concession on Elizabeth's part--with the big puffed sleeves that look very absurd to-day, but which, like every other fashion, were pretty and piquant when worn by the youth and beauty of their time. It was the prettiest dress Emily had ever had--and the longest, which meant much in those days, when you could not be grown up until you had put on "long" dresses. It came to her pretty ankles.

She put it on one evening, when Laura and Elizabeth were away, because she wanted Dean to see her in it. He had come up to spend the evening with her--he was off the next day, having decided on Egypt--and they walked in the garden. Emily felt quite old and sophisticated because she had to lift her shimmering skirt clear of the ribbon grasses. She had a little greyish-pink scarf wound around her head and looked more like a star than ever, Dean thought. The cats were in attendance--Daffy, sleek and striped, Saucy Sal, who still reigned supreme in the New Moon barns. Cats might come and cats might go, but Saucy Sal went on for ever. They frisked over the grass plots and pounced on each other from flowery jungles and rolled insinuatingly around Emily's feet. Dean was going to Egypt but he knew that nowhere, even amid the strange charm of forgotten empires, would he see anything he liked better than the pretty picture Emily and her little cats made in the prim, stately, scented old garden of New Moon.

They did not talk as much as usual and the silences did queer things to both of them. Dean had one or two mad impulses to throw up the trip to Egypt and stay home for the winter--go to Shrewsbury perhaps; he shrugged his shoulders and laughed at himself. This child did not need his looking after--the ladies of New Moon were competent guardians. She was only a child yet--in spite of her slim height and her unfathomable eyes. But how perfect the white line of her throat--how kissable the sweet red curve of her mouth. She would be a woman soon--but not for him--not for lame Jarback Priest of her father's generation. For the hundredth time Dean told himself that he was not going to be a fool. He must be content with what fate had given him--the friendship and affection of this exquisite, starry creature. In the years to come her love would be a wonderful thing--for some other man. No doubt, thought Dean cynically, she would waste it on some good-looking young manikin who wasn't half worthy of it.

Emily was thinking how dreadfully she was going to miss Dean--more than she had ever missed him before. They had been such good pals that summer. She had never had a talk with him, even if it were only for a few minutes, without feeling that life was richer. His wise, witty, humorous, satiric sayings were educative. They stimulated--stung--inspired her. And his occasional compliments gave her self-confidence. He had a certain strange fascination for her that no one else in the world possessed. She felt it though she could not analyse it. Teddy, now--she knew perfectly well why she liked Teddy. It was just because of his Teddyness. And Perry--Perry was a jolly, sunburned, outspoken, boastful rogue you couldn't help liking. But Dean was different. Was his charm the allure of the unknown--of experience--of subtle knowledge--of a mind grown wise on bitterness--of things Dean knew that she could never know? Emily couldn't tell. She only knew that everybody tasted a little flat after Dean--even Teddy, though she liked him best.

Oh, yes, Emily never had any doubt at all that she liked Teddy best. And yet Dean seemed to satisfy some part of her subtle and intricate nature that always went hungry without him.

"Thank you for all you've taught me, Dean," she said as they stood by the sundial.

"Do you think you have taught me nothing, Star?"

"How could I? I'm so young--so ignorant--"

"You've taught me how to laugh without bitterness, I hope you'll never realize what a boon that is. Don't let them spoil you at Shrewsbury, Star. You're so pleased over going that I don't want to throw cold water. But you'd be just as well off--better--here at New Moon."

"Dean! I want some education--"

"Education! Education isn't being spoon-fed with algebra and second-rate Latin. Old Carpenter could teach you more and better than the college cubs, male and female, in Shrewsbury High School."

"I can't go to school any more here," protested Emily. "I'd be all alone. All the pupils of my age are going to Queen's or Shrewsbury or staying home. I don't understand you, Dean. I thought you'd be so glad they're letting me go to Shrewsbury."

"I am glad--since it pleases you. Only--the lore I wished for you isn't learned in High Schools or measured by terminal exams. Whatever of worth you get at any school you'll dig out for yourself. Don't let them make anything of you but yourself, that's all. I don't think they will."

"No, they won't," said Emily decidedly. "I'm like Kipling's cat--I walk by my wild lone and wave my wild tail where so it pleases me. That's why the Murrays look askance at me. They think I should only run with the pack. Oh, Dean, you'll write me often, won't you? Nobody understands like you. And you've got to be such a habit with me I can't do without you."

Emily said--and meant--it lightly enough; but Dean's thin face flushed darkly. They did not say good-bye--that was an old compact of theirs. Dean waved his hand at her.

"May every day be kind to you," he said.

Emily gave him only her slow, mysterious smile--he was gone. The garden seemed very lonely in the faint blue twilight, with the ghostly blossoms of the white phlox here and there. She was glad when she heard Teddy's whistle in Lofty John's Bush.

On her last evening at home she went to see Mr. Carpenter and get his opinion regarding some manuscripts she had left with him for criticism the preceding week. Among them were her latest stories, written before Aunt Elizabeth's ultimatum. Criticism was something Mr. Carpenter could give with a right good will and he never minced matters; but he was just, and Emily had confidence in his verdicts, even when he said things that raised temporary blisters on her soul.

"This love story is no good," he said bluntly.

"I know that it isn't what I wanted to make it," sighed Emily.

"No story ever is," said Mr. Carpenter. "You'll never write anything that really satisfies you though it may satisfy other people. As for love stories, you can't write them because you can't feel them. Don't try to write anything you can't feel--it will be a failure--'echoes nothing worth.' This other yarn now--about this old woman. It's not bad. The dialogue is clever--the climax simple and effective. And thank the Lord you've got a sense of humour. That's mainly why you're no good at love stories, I believe. Nobody with any real sense of humour can write a love story."

Emily didn't see why this should be. She liked writing love stories--and terribly sentimental, tragical stories they were.

"Shakespeare could," she said defiantly.

"You're hardly in the Shakespeare class," said Mr. Carpenter dryly.

Emily blushed scorchingly.

"I know I'm not. But you said nobody."

"And I maintain it. Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. Though his sense of humour was certainly in abeyance when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. However, let's come back to Emily of New Moon. This story--well, a young person might read it without contamination."

Emily knew by the inflection of Mr. Carpenter's voice that he was not praising her story. She kept silence and Mr. Carpenter went on, flicking her precious manuscripts aside irreverently.

"This one sounds like a weak imitation of Kipling. Been reading him lately?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. Don't try to imitate Kipling. If you must imitate, imitate Laura Jean Libbey. Nothing good about this but its title. A priggish little yarn. And Hidden Riches is not a story--it's a machine. It creaks. It never made me forget for one instant that it was a story. Hence it isn't a story."

"I was trying to write something very true to life," protested Emily.

"Ah, that's why. We all see life through an illusion--even the most disillusioned of us. That's why things aren't convincing if they're too true to life. Let me see--The Madden Family--another attempt at realism. But it's only photography--not portraiture."

"What a lot of disagreeable things you've said," sighed Emily.

"It might be a nice world if nobody ever said a disagreeable thing, but it would be a dangerous one," retorted Mr. Carpenter. "You told me you wanted criticism, not taffy. However, here's a bit of taffy for you. I kept it for the last. Something Different is comparatively good and if I wasn't afraid of ruining you I'd say it was absolutely good. Ten years from now you can rewrite it and make something of it. Yes, ten years--don't screw up your face, Jade. You have talent--and you've got a wonderful feeling for words--you get the inevitable one every time--that's a priceless thing. But you have some vile faults, too. Those cursed italics--forswear them, Jade, forswear them. And your imagination needs a curb when you get away from realism."

"It's to have one now," said Emily, gloomily.

She told him of her compact with Aunt Elizabeth. Mr. Carpenter nodded.

"Excellent."

"Excellent!" echoed Emily blankly.

"Yes. It's just what you need. It will teach you restraint and economy. Stick to facts for three years and see what you can make of them. Leave the realm of imagination severely alone and confine yourself to ordinary life."

"There isn't any such thing as ordinary life," said Emily.

Mr. Carpenter looked at her for a moment.

"You're right--there isn't," he said slowly. "But one wonders a little how you know it. Well, go on--go on--walk in your chosen path--and 'thank whatever gods there be' that you're free to walk it."

"Cousin Jimmy says nobody can be free who has a thousand ancestors."

"And yet people call that man simple," muttered Mr. Carpenter. "However, your ancestors don't seem to have wished any special curse on you. They've simply laid it on you to aim for the heights and they'll give you no peace if you don't. Call it ambition--aspiration--cacoëthes scribendi--any name you will. Under its sting--or allure--one has to go on climbing--until one fails--or--"

"Succeeds," said Emily, flinging back her dark head.

"Amen," said Mr. Carpenter.

Emily wrote a poem that night--Farewell to New Moon--and shed tears over it. She felt every line of it. It was all very well to be going to school--but to leave dear New Moon! Everything at New Moon was linked with her life and thoughts--was a part of her.

"It's not only that I love my room and trees and hills--they love me," she thought.

Her little black trunk was packed. Aunt Elizabeth had seen that everything necessary was in it, and Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy had seen that one or two unnecessary things were in it. Aunt Laura had told Emily that she would find a pair of black lace stockings inside her strap slippers--even Laura did not dare go so far as silk stockings--and Cousin Jimmy had given her three Jimmy-books and an envelope with a five-dollar bill in it.

"To get anything you want with, Pussy. I'd have made it ten but five was all Elizabeth would advance me on next month's wages. I think she suspected."

"Can I spend a dollar of it for American stamps if I can find a way to get them?" whispered Emily anxiously.

"Anything you like," repeated Cousin Jimmy loyally--though even to him it did not appear an unaccountable thing that any one should want to buy American stamps. But if dear little Emily wanted American stamps, American stamps she should have.

The next day seemed rather dream-like to Emily--the bird she heard singing rapturously in Lofty John's bush when she woke at dawn--the drive to Shrewsbury in the early crisp September morning--Aunt Ruth's cool welcome--the hours at a strange school--the organization of the "Prep" classes--home to supper--surely it must all have taken more than a day.

Aunt Ruth's house was at the end of a residential side street--almost out in the country. Emily thought it a very ugly house, covered as it was with gingerbread-work of various kinds. But a house with white wooden lace on its roof and its bay windows was the last word of elegance in Shrewsbury. There was no garden--nothing but a bare, prim, little lawn; but one thing rejoiced Emily's eyes. Behind the house was a big plantation of tall, slender fir-trees--the tallest, straightest, slenderest firs she had ever seen, stretching back into long, green, gossamered vistas.

Aunt Elizabeth had spent the day in Shrewsbury and went home after supper. She shook hands with Emily on the doorstep and told her to be a good girl and do exactly as Aunt Ruth bade her. She did not kiss Emily, but her tone was very gentle for Aunt Elizabeth. Emily choked up and stood tearfully on the doorstep to watch Aunt Elizabeth out of sight--Aunt Elizabeth going back to dear New Moon.

"Come in," said Aunt Ruth, and "please don't slam the door."

Now, Emily never slammed doors.

"We will wash the supper dishes," said Aunt Ruth. "You will always do that after this. I will show you where everything is put. I suppose Elizabeth told you I would expect you to do a few chores for your board."

"Yes," said Emily briefly.

She did not mind doing chores, any number of them--but it was Aunt Ruth's tone.

"Of course your being here will mean a great deal of extra expense for me," continued Aunt Ruth. "But it is only fair that we should all contribute something to your bringing up. I think, and I have always thought, that it would have been much better to send you to Queen's to get a teacher's licence."

"I wanted that, too," said Emily.

"M--m." Aunt Ruth pursed her mouth. "So you tell me. In that case I don't see why Elizabeth didn't send you to Queen's. She has pampered you enough in other ways, I'm sure--I would expect her to give in about this, too, if she thought you really wanted it. You will sleep in the kitchen chamber. It is warmer in winter than the other rooms. There is no gas in it but I could not afford to let you have gas to study by in any case. You must use candles--you can burn two at a time. I shall expect you to keep your room neat and tidy and to be here at my exact hours for meals. I am very particular about that. And there is another thing you might as well understand at once. You must not bring your friends here. I do not propose to entertain them."

"Not Ilse--or Perry--or Teddy?"

"Well, Ilse is a Burnley and a distant connection. She might come in once in a while--I can't have her running in at all times. From all I hear of her she isn't a very suitable companion for you. As for the boys--certainly not. I know nothing of Teddy Kent--and you ought to be too proud to associate with Perry Miller."

"I'm too proud not to associate with him," retorted Emily.

"Don't be pert with me, Em'ly. You might as well understand right away that you are not going to have things all your own way, here, as you had at New Moon. You have been badly spoiled. But I will not have hired boys calling on my niece. I don't know where you get your low tastes from, I'm sure. Even your father seemed like a gentleman. Go upstairs and unpack your trunk. Then do your lessons. We go to bed at nine o'clock!"

Emily felt very indignant. Even Aunt Elizabeth had never dreamed of forbidding Teddy to come to New Moon. She shut herself in her room and unpacked drearily. The room was such an ugly one. She hated it at sight. The door wouldn't shut tight; the slanting ceiling was rain stained, and came down so close to the bed that she could touch it with her hand. On the bare floor was a large "hooked" mat which made Emily's eyes ache. It was not in Murray taste--nor in Ruth Dutton's taste either, to be just. A country cousin of the deceased Mr. Dutton had given it to her. The centre, of a crude, glaring scarlet, was surrounded by scrolls of militant orange and violent green. In the corners were bunches of purple ferns and blue roses.

The woodwork was painted a hideous chocolate brown, and the walls were covered with paper of still more hideous design. The pictures were in keeping, especially a chromo of Queen Alexandra, gorgeously bedizened with jewels, hung at such an angle that it seemed the royal lady must certainly fall over on her face. Not even a chromo could make Queen Alexandra ugly or vulgar, but it came piteously near it. On a narrow, chocolate shelf sat a vase filled with paper flowers that had been paper flowers for twenty years. One couldn't believe that anything could be as ugly and depressing as they were.

"This room is unfriendly--it--doesn't want me--I can never feel at home here," said Emily.

She was horribly homesick. She wanted the New Moon candle-lights shining out on the birch-trees--the scent of hop-vines in the dew--her purring pussy cats--her own dear room, full of dreams--the silences and shadows of the old garden--the grand anthems of wind and billow in the gulf--that sonorous old music she missed so much in this inland silence. She missed even the little graveyard where slept the New Moon dead.

"I'm not going to cry." Emily clenched her hands. "Aunt Ruth will laugh at me. There's nothing in this room I can ever love. Is there anything out of it?"

She pushed up the window. It looked south into the fir grove and its balsam blew in to her like a caress. To the left there was an opening in the trees like a green, arched window, and one saw an enchanting little moonlit landscape through it. And it would let in the splendour of sunset. To the right was a view of the hill-side along which West Shrewsbury straggled: the hill was dotted with lights in the autumn dusk, and had a fairy-like loveliness. Somewhere near by there was a drowsy twittering, as of little, sleepy birds swinging on a shadowy bough.

"Oh, this is beautiful," breathed Emily, bending out to drink in the balsam-scented air. "Father told me once that one could find something beautiful to love everywhere. I'll love this."

Aunt Ruth poked her head in at the door, unannounced.

"Em'ly, why did you leave that antimacassar crooked on the sofa in the dining-room?"

"I--don't--know," said Emily confusedly. She hadn't even known she had disarranged the antimacassar. Why did Aunt Ruth ask such a question, as if she suspected her of some dark, deep, sinister design?

"Go down and put it straight."

As Emily turned obediently Aunt Ruth exclaimed,

"Em'ly Starr, put that window down at once! Are you crazy?"

"The room is so close," pleaded Emily.

"You can air it in the daytime but never have that window open after sundown. I am responsible for your health now. You must know that consumptives have to avoid night air and draughts."

"I'm not a consumptive," cried Emily rebelliously.

"Contradict, of course."

"And if I were, fresh air any time is the best thing for me. Dr. Burnley says so. I hate being smothered."

"'Young people think old people to be fools and old people know young people to be fools.'" Aunt Ruth felt that the proverb left nothing to be said. "Go and straighten that antimacassar, Em'ly."

"Em'ly" swallowed something and went. The offending antimacassar was mathematically corrected.

Emily stood for a moment and looked about her. Aunt Ruth's dining-room was much more splendid and "up-to-date" than the "sitting-room" at New Moon where they had "company" meals. Hardwood floor--Wilton rug--Early English oak furniture. But it was not half as "friendly" as the old New Moon room, Emily thought. She was more homesick than ever. She did not believe she was going to like anything in Shrewsbury--living with Aunt Ruth, or going to school. The teachers all seemed flat and insipid after pungent Mr. Carpenter and there was a girl in the Junior class she had hated at sight. And she had thought it would be all so delightful--living in pretty Shrewsbury and going to High School. Well, nothing ever is exactly like what you expect it to be, Emily told herself in temporary pessimism as she went back to her room. Hadn't Dean told her once that he had dreamed all his life of rowing in a gondola through the canals of Venice on a moonlit night? And when he did he was almost eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Emily set her teeth as she crept into bed.

"I shall just have to fix my thoughts on the moonlight and romance and ignore the mosquitoes," she thought. "Only--Aunt Ruth does sting so."