Books: Kilmeny of the Orchard
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Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Kilmeny of the Orchard
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"This is a veritable 'haunt of ancient peace,'" quoted Eric,
looking around with delighted eyes. "I could fall asleep here,
dream dreams and see visions. What a sky! Could anything be
diviner than that fine crystal eastern blue, and those frail
white clouds that look like woven lace? What a dizzying,
intoxicating fragrance lilacs have! I wonder if perfume could
set a man drunk. Those apple trees now--why, what is that?"
Eric started up and listened. Across the mellow stillness,
mingled with the croon of the wind in the trees and the
flute-like calls of the robins, came a strain of delicious music,
so beautiful and fantastic that Eric held his breath in
astonishment and delight. Was he dreaming? No, it was real
music, the music of a violin played by some hand inspired with
the very spirit of harmony. He had never heard anything like it;
and, somehow, he felt quite sure that nothing exactly like it
ever had been heard before; he believed that that wonderful music
was coming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist, and
translating itself into those most airy and delicate and
exquisite sounds for the first time; the very soul of music, with
all sense and earthliness refined away.
It was an elusive, haunting melody, strangely suited to the time
and place; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the woods, the
eerie whispering of the grasses at dewfall, the white thoughts of
the June lilies, the rejoicing of the apple blossoms; all the
soul of all the old laughter and song and tears and gladness and
sobs the orchard had ever known in the lost years; and besides
all this, there was in it a pitiful, plaintive cry as of some
imprisoned thing calling for freedom and utterance.
At first Eric listened as a man spellbound, mutely and
motionlessly, lost in wonderment. Then a very natural curiosity
overcame him. Who in Lindsay could play a violin like that? And
who was playing so here, in this deserted old orchard, of all
places in the world?
He rose and walked up the long white avenue, going as slowly and
silently as possible, for he did not wish to interrupt the
player. When he reached the open space of the garden he stopped
short in new amazement and was again tempted into thinking he
must certainly be dreaming.
Under the big branching white lilac tree was an old, sagging,
wooden bench; and on this bench a girl was sitting, playing on an
old brown violin. Her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she
did not see Eric. For a few moments he stood there and looked at
her. The pictures she made photographed itself on his vision to
the finest detail, never to be blotted from his book of
remembrance. To his latest day Eric Marshall will be able to
recall vividly that scene as he saw it then--the velvet darkness
of the spruce woods, the overarching sky of soft brilliance, the
swaying lilac blossoms, and amid it all the girl on the old bench
with the violin under her chin.
He had, in his twenty-four years of life, met hundreds of pretty
women, scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really
beautiful women. But he knew at once, beyond all possibility of
question or doubt, that he had never seen or imagined anything so
exquisite as this girl of the orchard. Her loveliness was so
perfect that his breath almost went from him in his first delight
of it.
Her face was oval, marked in every cameo-like line and feature
with that expression of absolute, flawless purity, found in the
angels and Madonnas of old paintings, a purity that held in it no
faintest strain of earthliness. Her head was bare, and her
thick, jet-black hair was parted above her forehead and hung in
two heavy lustrous braids over her shoulders. Her eyes were of
such a blue as Eric had never seen in eyes before, the tint of
the sea in the still, calm light that follows after a fine
sunset; they were as luminous as the stars that came out over
Lindsay Harbour in the afterglow, and were fringed about with
very long, soot-black lashes, and arched over by most delicately
pencilled dark eyebrows. Her skin was as fine and purely tinted
as the heart of a white rose. The collarless dress of pale blue
print she wore revealed her smooth, slender throat; her sleeves
were rolled up above her elbows and the hand which guided the bow
of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her,
perfect in shape and texture, firm and white, with rosy-nailed
taper fingers. One long, drooping plume of lilac blossom lightly
touched her hair and cast a wavering shadow over the flower-like
face beneath it.
There was something very child-like about her, and yet at least
eighteen sweet years must have gone to the making of her. She
seemed to be playing half unconsciously, as if her thoughts were
far away in some fair dreamland of the skies. But presently she
looked away from "the bourne of sunset," and her lovely eyes fell
on Eric, standing motionless before her in the shadow of the
apple tree.
The sudden change that swept over her was startling. She sprang
to her feet, the music breaking in mid-strain and the bow
slipping from her hand to the grass. Every hint of colour fled
from her face and she trembled like one of the wind-stirred June
lilies.
"I beg your pardon," said Eric hastily. "I am sorry that I have
alarmed you. But your music was so beautiful that I did not
remember you were not aware of my presence here. Please forgive
me."
He stopped in dismay, for he suddenly realized that the
expression on the girl's face was one of terror--not merely the
startled alarm of a shy, childlike creature who had thought
herself alone, but absolute terror. It was betrayed in her
blanched and quivering lips and in the widely distended blue eyes
that stared back into his with the expression of some trapped
wild thing.
It hurt him that any woman should look at him in such a fashion,
at him who had always held womanhood in such reverence.
"Don't look so frightened," he said gently, thinking only of
calming her fear, and speaking as he would to a child. "I will
not hurt you. You are safe, quite safe."
In his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step
forward. Instantly she turned, and, without a sound, fled across
the orchard, through a gap in the northern fence and along what
seemed to be a lane bordering the fir wood beyond and arched over
with wild cherry trees misty white in the gathering gloom.
Before Eric could recover his wits she had vanished from his
sight among the firs.
He stooped and picked up the violin bow, feeling slightly foolish
and very much annoyed.
"Well, this is a most mysterious thing," he said, somewhat
impatiently. "Am I bewitched? Who was she? WHAT was she? Can
it be possible that she is a Lindsay girl? And why in the name
of all that's provoking should she be so frightened at the mere
sight of me? I have never thought I was a particularly hideous
person, but certainly this adventure has not increased my vanity
to any perceptible extent. Perhaps I have wandered into an
enchanted orchard, and been outwardly transformed into an ogre.
Now that I have come to think of it, there is something quite
uncanny about the place. Anything might happen here. It is no
common orchard for the production of marketable apples, that is
plain to be seen. No, it's a most unwholesome locality; and the
sooner I make my escape from it the better."
He glanced about it with a whimsical smile. The light was fading
rapidly and the orchard was full of soft, creeping shadows and
silences. It seemed to wink sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at
his perplexity. He laid the violin bow down on the old bench.
"Well, there is no use in my following her, and I have no right
to do so even if it were of use. But I certainly wish she hadn't
fled in such evident terror. Eyes like hers were never meant to
express anything but tenderness and trust. Why--why--WHY was she
so frightened? And who--who--WHO--can she be?"
All the way home, over fields and pastures that were beginning to
be moonlight silvered he pondered the mystery.
"Let me see," he reflected. "Mr. Williamson was describing the
Lindsay girls for my benefit the other evening. If I remember
rightly he said that there were four handsome ones in the
district. What were their names? Florrie Woods, Melissa
Foster--no, Melissa Palmer--Emma Scott, and Jennie May Ferguson.
Can she be one of them? No, it is a flagrant waste of time and
gray matter supposing it. That girl couldn't be a Florrie or a
Melissa or an Emma, while Jennie May is completely out of the
question. Well, there is some bewitchment in the affair. Of
that I'm convinced. So I'd better forget all about it."
But Eric found that it was impossible to forget all about it.
The more he tried to forget, the more keenly and insistently he
remembered. The girl's exquisite face haunted him and the
mystery of her tantalized him.
True, he knew that, in all likelihood, he might easily solve the
problem by asking the Williamsons about her. But somehow, to his
own surprise, he found that he shrank from doing this. He felt
that it was impossible to ask Robert Williamson and probably have
the girl's name overflowed in a stream of petty gossip concerning
her and all her antecedents and collaterals to the third and
fourth generation. If he had to ask any one it should be Mrs.
Williamson; but he meant to find out the secret for himself if it
were at all possible.
He had planned to go to the harbour the next evening. One of the
lobstermen had promised to take him out cod-fishing. But instead
he wandered southwest over the fields again.
He found the orchard easily--he had half expected NOT to find it.
It was still the same fragrant, grassy, wind-haunted spot. But
it had no occupant and the violin bow was gone from the old
bench.
"Perhaps she tiptoed back here for it by the light o' the moon,"
thought Eric, pleasing his fancy by the vision of a lithe,
girlish figure stealing with a beating heart through mingled
shadow and moonshine. "I wonder if she will possibly come this
evening, or if I have frightened her away for ever. I'll hide me
behind this spruce copse and wait."
Eric waited until dark, but no music sounded through the orchard
and no one came to it. The keenness of his disappointment
surprised him, nay more, it vexed him. What nonsense to be so
worked up because a little girl he had seen for five minutes
failed to appear! Where was his common sense, his "gumption," as
old Robert Williamson would have said? Naturally a man liked to
look at a pretty face. But was that any reason why he should
feel as if life were flat, stale, and unprofitable simply because
he could not look at it? He called himself a fool and went home
in a petulant mood. Arriving there, he plunged fiercely into
solving algebraical equations and working out geometry exercises,
determined to put out of his head forthwith all vain imaginings
of an enchanted orchard, white in the moonshine, with lilts of
elfin music echoing down its long arcades.
The next day was Sunday and Eric went to church twice. The
Williamson pew was one of the side ones at the top of the church
and its occupants practically faced the congregation. Eric looked
at every girl and woman in the audience, but he saw nothing of
the face which, setting will power and common sense flatly at
defiance, haunted his memory like a star.
Thomas Gordon was there, sitting alone in his long, empty pew
near the top of the building; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir
which occupied the front pew of the gallery. He had a powerful
and melodious, though untrained voice, which dominated the
singing and took the colour out of the weaker, more commonplace
tones of the other singers. He was well-dressed in a suit of
dark blue serge, with a white collar and tie. But Eric idly
thought it did not become him so well as the working clothes in
which he had first seen him. He was too obviously dressed up,
and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his
surroundings.
For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard.
Monday evening he went cod-fishing, and Tuesday evening he went
up to play checkers with Alexander Tracy. Alexander won all the
games so easily that he never had any respect for Eric Marshall
again.
"Played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering," he
complained to his wife. "He'll never make a checker player--
never in this world."
CHAPTER VI. THE STORY OF KILMENY
Wednesday evening Eric went to the orchard again; and again he
was disappointed. He went home, determined to solve the mystery
by open inquiry. Fortune favoured him, for he found Mrs.
Williamson alone, sitting by the west window of her kitchen and
knitting at a long gray sock. She hummed softly to herself as
she knitted, and Timothy slept blackly at her feet. She looked
at Eric with quiet affection in her large, candid eyes. She had
liked Mr. West. But Eric had found his way into the inner
chamber of her heart, by reason that his eyes were so like those
of the little son she had buried in the Lindsay churchyard many
years before.
"Mrs. Williamson," said Eric, with an affectation of
carelessness, "I chanced on an old deserted orchard back behind
the woods over there last week, a charming bit of wilderness. Do
you know whose it is?"
"I suppose it must be the old Connors orchard," answered Mrs.
Williamson after a moment's reflection. "I had forgotten all
about it. It must be all of thirty years since Mr. and Mrs.
Connors moved away. Their house and barns were burned down and
they sold the land to Thomas Gordon and went to live in town.
They're both dead now. Mr. Connors used to be very proud of his
orchard. There weren't many orchards in Lindsay then, though
almost everybody has one now."
"There was a young girl in it, playing on a violin," said Eric,
annoyed to find that it cost him an effort to speak of her, and
that the blood mounted to his face as he did so. "She ran away
in great alarm as soon as she saw me, although I do not think I
did or said anything to frighten or vex her. I have no idea who
she was. Do you know?"
Mrs. Williamson did not make an immediate reply. She laid down
her knitting and gazed out of the window as if pondering
seriously some question in her own mind. Finally she said, with
an intonation of keen interest in her voice,
"I suppose it must have been Kilmeny Gordon, Master."
"Kilmeny Gordon? Do you mean the niece of Thomas Gordon of whom
your husband spoke?"
"Yes."
"I can hardly believe that the girl I saw can be a member of
Thomas Gordon's family."
"Well, if it wasn't Kilmeny Gordon I don't know who it could have
been. There is no other house near that orchard and I've heard
she plays the violin. If it was Kilmeny you've seen what very
few people in Lindsay have ever seen, Master. And those few have
never seen her close by. I have never laid eyes on her myself.
It's no wonder she ran away, poor girl. She isn't used to seeing
strangers."
"I'm rather glad if that was the sole reason of her flight," said
Eric. "I admit I didn't like to see any girl so frightened of me
as she appeared to be. She was as white as paper, and so
terrified that she never uttered a word, but fled like a deer to
cover."
"Well, she couldn't have spoken a word in any case," said Mrs.
Williamson quietly. "Kilmeny Gordon is dumb."
Eric sat in dismayed silence for a moment. That beautiful
creature afflicted in such a fashion--why, it was horrible!
Mingled with his dismay was a strange pang of personal regret and
disappointment.
"It couldn't have been Kilmeny Gordon, then," he protested at
last, remembering. "The girl I saw played on the violin
exquisitely. I never heard anything like it. It is impossible
that a deaf mute could play like that."
"Oh, she isn't deaf, Master," responded Mrs. Williamson, looking
at Eric keenly through her spectacles. She picked up her
knitting and fell to work again. "That is the strange part of
it, if anything about her can be stranger than another. She can
hear as well as anybody and understands everything that is said
to her. But she can't speak a word and never could, at least, so
they say. The truth is, nobody knows much about her. Janet and
Thomas never speak of her, and Neil won't either. He has been
well questioned, too, you can depend on that; but he won't ever
say a word about Kilmeny and he gets mad if folks persist."
"Why isn't she to be spoken of?" queried Eric impatiently. "What
is the mystery about her?"
"It's a sad story, Master. I suppose the Gordons look on her
existence as a sort of disgrace. For my own part, I think it's
terrible, the way she's been brought up. But the Gordons are
very strange people, Mr. Marshall. I kind of reproved father for
saying so, you remember, but it is true. They have very strange
ways. And you've really seen Kilmeny? What does she look like?
I've heard that she was handsome. Is it true?"
"I thought her very beautiful," said Eric rather curtly. "But
HOW has she been brought up, Mrs. Williamson? And why?"
"Well, I might as well tell you the whole story, Master. Kilmeny
is the niece of Thomas and Janet Gordon. Her mother was Margaret
Gordon, their younger sister. Old James Gordon came out from
Scotland. Janet and Thomas were born in the Old Country and were
small children when they came here. They were never very
sociable folks, but still they used to visit out some then, and
people used to go there. They were kind and honest people, even
if they were a little peculiar.
"Mrs. Gordon died a few years after they came out, and four years
later James Gordon went home to Scotland and brought a new wife
back with him. She was a great deal younger than he was and a
very pretty woman, as my mother often told me. She was friendly
and gay and liked social life. The Gordon place was a very
different sort of place after she came there, and even Janet and
Thomas got thawed out and softened down a good bit. They were
real fond of their stepmother, I've heard. Then, six years after
she was married, the second Mrs. Gordon died too. She died when
Margaret was born. They say James Gordon almost broke his heart
over it.
"Janet brought Margaret up. She and Thomas just worshipped the
child and so did their father. I knew Margaret Gordon well once.
We were just the same age and we set together in school. We were
always good friends until she turned against all the world.
"She was a strange girl in some ways even then, but I always
liked her, though a great many people didn't. She had some
bitter enemies, but she had some devoted friends too. That was
her way. She made folks either hate or love her. Those who did
love her would have gone through fire and water for her.
"When she grew up she was very pretty--tall and splendid, like a
queen, with great thick braids of black hair and red, red cheeks
and lips. Everybody who saw her looked at her a second time.
She was a little vain of her beauty, I think, Master. And she
was proud, oh, she was very proud. She liked to be first in
everything, and she couldn't bear not to show to good advantage.
She was dreadful determined, too. You couldn't budge her an
inch, Master, when she once had made up her mind on any point.
But she was warm-hearted and generous. She could sing like an
angel and she was very clever. She could learn anything with
just one look at it and she was terrible fond of reading.
"When I'm talking about her like this it all comes back to me,
just what she was like and how she looked and spoke and acted,
and little ways she had of moving her hands and head. I declare
it almost seems as if she was right here in this room instead of
being over there in the churchyard. I wish you'd light the lamp,
Master. I feel kind of nervous."
Eric rose and lighted the lamp, rather wondering at Mrs.
Williamson's unusual exhibition of nerves. She was generally so
calm and composed.
"Thank you, Master. That's better. I won't be fancying now that
Margaret Gordon's here listening to what I'm saying. I had the
feeling so strong a moment ago.
"I suppose you think I'm a long while getting to Kilmeny, but I'm
coming to that. I didn't mean to talk so much about Margaret,
but somehow my thoughts got taken up with her.
"Well, Margaret passed the Board and went to Queen's Academy and
got a teacher's license. She passed pretty well up when she came
out, but Janet told me she cried all night after the pass list
came out because there were some ahead of her.
"She went to teach school over at Radnor. It was there she met a
man named Ronald Fraser. Margaret had never had a beau before.
She could have had any young man in Lindsay if she had wanted
him, but she wouldn't look at one of them. They said it was
because she thought nobody was good enough for her, but that
wasn't the way of it at all, Master. I knew, because Margaret
and I used to talk of those matters, as girls do. She didn't
believe in going with anybody unless it was somebody she thought
everything of. And there was nobody in Lindsay she cared that
much for.
"This Ronald Fraser was a stranger from Nova Scotia and nobody
knew much about him. He was a widower, although he was only a
young man. He had set up store-keeping in Radnor and was doing
well. He was real handsome and had taking ways women like. It
was said that all the Radnor girls were in love with him, but I
don't think his worst enemy could have said he flirted with them.
He never took any notice of them; but the very first time he saw
Margaret Gordon he fell in love with her and she with him.
"They came over to church in Lindsay together the next Sunday and
everybody said it would be a match. Margaret looked lovely that
day, so gentle and womanly. She had been used to hold her head
pretty high, but that day she held it drooping a little and her
black eyes cast down. Ronald Fraser was very tall and fair, with
blue eyes. They made as handsome a couple as I ever saw.
"But old James Gordon and Thomas and Janet didn't much approve of
him. I saw that plain enough one time I was there and he brought
Margaret home from Radnor Friday night. I guess they wouldn't
have liked anybody, though, who come after Margaret. They
thought nobody was good enough for her.
"But Margaret coaxed them all round in time. She could do pretty
near anything with them, they were so fond and proud of her. Her
father held out the longest, but finally he give in and consented
for her to marry Ronald Fraser.
"They had a big wedding, too--all the neighbours were asked.
Margaret always liked to make a display. I was her bridesmaid,
Master. I helped her dress and nothing would please her; she
wanted to look that nice for Ronald's sake. She was a handsome
bride; dressed in white, with red roses in her hair and at her
breast. She wouldn't wear white flowers; she said they looked
too much like funeral flowers. She looked like a picture. I can
see her this minute, as plain as plain, just as she was that
night, blushing and turning pale by turns, and looking at Ronald
with her eyes of love. If ever a girl loved a man with all her
heart Margaret Gordon did. It almost made me feel frightened.
She gave him the worship it isn't right to give anybody but God,
Master, and I think that is always punished.
"They went to live at Radnor and for a little while everything
went well. Margaret had a nice house, and was gay and happy.
She dressed beautiful and entertained a good deal. Then--well,
Ronald Fraser's first wife turned up looking for him! She wasn't
dead after all.
"Oh, there was terrible scandal, Master. The talk and gossip was
something dreadful. Every one you met had a different story, and
it was hard to get at the truth. Some said Ronald Fraser had
known all the time that his wife wasn't dead, and had deceived
Margaret. But I don't think he did. He swore he didn't. They
hadn't been very happy together, it seems. Her mother made
trouble between them. Then she went to visit her mother in
Montreal, and died in the hospital there, so the word came to
Ronald. Perhaps he believed it a little too readily, but that he
DID believe it I never had a doubt. Her story was that it was
another woman of the same name. When she found out Ronald
thought her dead she and her mother agreed to let him think so.
But when she heard he had got married again she thought she'd
better let him know the truth.
"It all sounded like a queer story and I suppose you couldn't
blame people for not believing it too readily. But I've always
felt it was true. Margaret didn't think so, though. She
believed that Ronald Fraser had deceived her, knowing all the
time that he couldn't make her his lawful wife. She turned
against him and hated him just as much as she had loved him
before.
"Ronald Fraser went away with his real wife, and in less than a
year word came of his death. They said he just died of a broken
heart, nothing more nor less.
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