Books: Kilmeny of the Orchard
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Lucy Maud Montgomery >> Kilmeny of the Orchard
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"Yes, very thoroughly. It was a delightful lesson when I once
understood it. I must try to teach it to you some day. Come
over to the old bench, Kilmeny. There is something I want to say
to you. But first, will you give me a rose?"
She ran to the bush, and, after careful deliberation, selected a
perfect half-open bud and brought it to him--a white bud with a
faint, sunrise flush about its golden heart.
"Thank you. It is as beautiful as--as a woman I know," Eric
said.
A wistful look came into her face at his words, and she walked
with a drooping head across the orchard to the bench.
"Kilmeny," he said, seriously, "I am going to ask you to do
something for me. I want you to take me home with you and
introduce me to your uncle and aunt."
She lifted her head and stared at him incredulously, as if he had
asked her to do something wildly impossible. Understanding from
his grave face that he meant what he said, a look of dismay
dawned in her eyes. She shook her head almost violently and
seemed to be making a passionate, instinctive effort to speak.
Then she caught up her pencil and wrote with feverish haste:
"I cannot do that. Do not ask me to. You do not understand.
They would be very angry. They do not want to see any one coming
to the house. And they would never let me come here again. Oh,
you do not mean it?"
He pitied her for the pain and bewilderment in her eyes; but he
took her slender hands in his and said firmly,
"Yes, Kilmeny, I do mean it. It is not quite right for us to be
meeting each other here as we have been doing, without the
knowledge and consent of your friends. You cannot now understand
this, but--believe me--it is so."
She looked questioningly, pityingly into his eyes. What she read
there seemed to convince her, for she turned very pale and an
expression of hopelessness came into her face. Releasing her
hands, she wrote slowly,
"If you say it is wrong I must believe it. I did not know
anything so pleasant could be wrong. But if it is wrong we must
not meet here any more. Mother told me I must never do anything
that was wrong. But I did not know this was wrong."
"It was not wrong for you, Kilmeny. But it was a little wrong
for me, because I knew better--or rather, should have known
better. I didn't stop to think, as the children say. Some day
you will understand fully. Now, you will take me to your uncle
and aunt, and after I have said to them what I want to say it
will be all right for us to meet here or anywhere."
She shook her head.
"No," she wrote, "Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet will tell you to go
away and never come back. And they will never let me come here
any more. Since it is not right to meet you I will not come, but
it is no use to think of going to them. I did not tell them
about you because I knew that they would forbid me to see you,
but I am sorry, since it is so wrong."
"You must take me to them," said Eric firmly. "I am quite sure
that things will not be as you fear when they hear what I have to
say."
Uncomforted, she wrote forlornly,
"I must do it, since you insist, but I am sure it will be no use.
I cannot take you to-night because they are away. They went to
the store at Radnor. But I will take you to-morrow night; and
after that I shall not see you any more."
Two great tears brimmed over in her big blue eyes and splashed
down on her slate. Her lips quivered like a hurt child's. Eric
put his arm impulsively about her and drew her head down upon his
shoulder. As she cried there, softly, miserably, he pressed his
lips to the silky black hair with its coronal of rosebuds. He
did not see two burning eyes which were looking at him over the
old fence behind him with hatred and mad passion blazing in their
depths. Neil Gordon was crouched there, with clenched hands and
heaving breast, watching them.
"Kilmeny, dear, don't cry," said Eric tenderly. "You shall see
me again. I promise you that, whatever happens. I do not think
your uncle and aunt will be as unreasonable as you fear, but even
if they are they shall not prevent me from meeting you somehow."
Kilmeny lifted her head, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"You do not know what they are like," she wrote. "They will lock
me into my room. That is the way they always punished me when I
was a little girl. And once, not so very long ago, when I was a
big girl, they did it."
"If they do I'll get you out somehow," said Eric, laughing a
little.
She allowed herself to smile, but it was a rather forlorn little
effort. She did not cry any more, but her spirits did not come
back to her. Eric talked gaily, but she only listened in a
pensive, absent way, as if she scarcely heard him. When he asked
her to play she shook her head.
"I cannot think any music to-night," she wrote, "I must go home,
for my head aches and I feel very stupid."
"Very well, Kilmeny. Now, don't worry, little girl. It will all
come out all right."
Evidently she did not share his confidence, for her head drooped
again as they walked together across the orchard. At the
entrance of the wild cherry lane she paused and looked at him
half reproachfully, her eyes filling again. She seemed to be
bidding him a mute farewell. With an impulse of tenderness which
he could not control, Eric put his arm about her and kissed her
red, trembling mouth. She started back with a little cry. A
burning colour swept over her face, and the next moment she fled
swiftly up the darkening lane.
The sweetness of that involuntary kiss clung to Eric's lips as he
went homeward, half-intoxicating him. He knew that it had opened
the gates of womanhood to Kilmeny. Never again, he felt, would
her eyes meet his with their old unclouded frankness. When next
he looked into them he knew that he should see there the
consciousness of his kiss. Behind her in the orchard that night
Kilmeny had left her childhood.
CHAPTER XII. A PRISONER OF LOVE
When Eric betook himself to the orchard the next evening he had
to admit that he felt rather nervous. He did not know how the
Gordons would receive him and certainly the reports he had heard
of them were not encouraging, to say the least of it. Even Mrs.
Williamson, when he had told her where he was going, seemed to
look upon him as one bent on bearding a lion in his den.
"I do hope they won't be very uncivil to you, Master," was the
best she could say.
He expected Kilmeny to be in the orchard before him, for he had
been delayed by a call from one of the trustees; but she was
nowhere to be seen. He walked across it to the wild cherry lane;
but at its entrance he stopped short in sudden dismay.
Neil Gordon had stepped from behind the trees and stood
confronting him, with blazing eyes, and lips which writhed in
emotion so great that at first it prevented him from speaking.
With a thrill of dismay Eric instantly understood what must have
taken place. Neil had discovered that he and Kilmeny had been
meeting in the orchard, and beyond doubt had carried that tale to
Janet and Thomas Gordon. He realized how unfortunate it was that
this should have happened before he had had time to make his own
explanation. It would probably prejudice Kilmeny's guardians
still further against him. At this point in his thoughts Neil's
pent up passion suddenly found vent in a burst of wild words.
"So you've come to meet her again. But she isn't here--you'll
never see her again! I hate you--I hate you--I hate you!"
His voice rose to a shrill scream. He took a furious step nearer
Eric as if he would attack him. Eric looked steadily in his eyes
with a calm defiance, before which his wild passion broke like
foam on a rock.
"So you have been making trouble for Kilmeny, Neil, have you?"
said Eric contemptuously. "I suppose you have been playing the
spy. And I suppose that you have told her uncle and aunt that
she has been meeting me here. Well, you have saved me the
trouble of doing it, that is all. I was going to tell them
myself, tonight. I don't know what your motive in doing this has
been. Was it jealousy of me? Or have you done it out of malice
to Kilmeny?"
His contempt cowed Neil more effectually than any display of
anger could have done.
"Never you mind why I did it," he muttered sullenly. "What I did
or why I did it is no business of yours. And you have no
business to come sneaking around here either. Kilmeny won't meet
you here again."
"She will meet me in her own home then," said Eric sternly.
"Neil, in behaving as you have done you have shown yourself to be
a very foolish, undisciplined boy. I am going straightway to
Kilmeny's uncle and aunt to explain everything."
Neil sprang forward in his path.
"No--no--go away," he implored wildly. "Oh, sir--oh, Mr.
Marshall, please go away. I'll do anything for you if you will.
I love Kilmeny. I've loved her all my life. I'd give my life
for her. I can't have you coming here to steal her from me. If
you do--I'll kill you! I wanted to kill you last night when I
saw you kiss her. Oh, yes, I saw you. I was watching--spying,
if you like. I don't care what you call it. I had followed
her--I suspected something. She was so different--so changed.
She never would wear the flowers I picked for her any more. She
seemed to forget I was there. I knew something had come between
us. And it was you, curse you! Oh, I'll make you sorry for it."
He was working himself up into a fury again--the untamed fury of
the Italian peasant thwarted in his heart's desire. It overrode
all the restraint of his training and environment. Eric, amid
all his anger and annoyance, felt a thrill of pity for him. Neil
Gordon was only a boy still; and he was miserable and beside
himself.
"Neil, listen to me," he said quietly. "You are talking very
foolishly. It is not for you to say who shall or shall not be
Kilmeny's friend. Now, you may just as well control yourself and
go home like a decent fellow. I am not at all frightened by your
threats, and I shall know how to deal with you if you persist in
interfering with me or persecuting Kilmeny. I am not the sort of
person to put up with that, my lad."
The restrained power in his tone and look cowed Neil. The latter
turned sullenly away, with another muttered curse, and plunged
into the shadow of the firs.
Eric, not a little ruffled under all his external composure by
this most unexpected and unpleasant encounter, pursued his way
along the lane which wound on by the belt of woodland in twist
and curve to the Gordon homestead. His heart beat as he thought
of Kilmeny. What might she not be suffering? Doubtless Neil had
given a very exaggerated and distorted account of what he had
seen, and probably her dour relations were very angry with her,
poor child. Anxious to avert their wrath as soon as might be, he
hurried on, almost forgetting his meeting with Neil. The threats
of the latter did not trouble him at all. He thought the angry
outburst of a jealous boy mattered but little. What did matter
was that Kilmeny was in trouble which his heedlessness had
brought upon her.
Presently he found himself before the Gordon house. It was an
old building with sharp eaves and dormer windows, its shingles
stained a dark gray by long exposure to wind and weather. Faded
green shutters hung on the windows of the lower story. Behind it
grew a thick wood of spruces. The little yard in front of it was
grassy and prim and flowerless; but over the low front door a
luxuriant early-flowering rose vine clambered, in a riot of
blood-red blossom which contrasted strangely with the general
bareness of its surroundings. It seemed to fling itself over the
grim old house as if intent on bombarding it with an alien life
and joyousness.
Eric knocked at the door, wondering if it might be possible that
Kilmeny should come to it. But a moment later it was opened by
an elderly woman--a woman of rigid lines from the hem of her
lank, dark print dress to the crown of her head, covered with
black hair which, despite its few gray threads, was still thick
and luxuriant. She had a long, pale face somewhat worn and
wrinkled, but possessing a certain harsh comeliness of feature
which neither age nor wrinkles had quite destroyed; and her
deep-set, light gray eyes were not devoid of suggested
kindliness, although they now surveyed Eric with an unconcealed
hostility. Her figure, in its merciless dress, was very angular;
yet there was about her a dignity of carriage and manner which
Eric liked. In any case, he preferred her unsmiling dourness to
vulgar garrulity.
He lifted his hat.
"Have I the honour of speaking to Miss Gordon?" he asked.
"I am Janet Gordon," said the woman stiffly.
"Then I wish to talk with you and your brother."
"Come in."
She stepped aside and motioned him to a low brown door opening on
the right.
"Go in and sit down. I'll call Thomas," she said coldly, as she
walked out through the hall.
Eric walked into the parlour and sat down as bidden. He found
himself in the most old-fashioned room he had ever seen. The
solidly made chairs and tables, of some wood grown dark and
polished with age, made even Mrs. Williamson's "parlour set" of
horsehair seem extravagantly modern by contrast. The painted
floor was covered with round braided rugs. On the centre table
was a lamp, a Bible and some theological volumes contemporary
with the square-runged furniture. The walls, wainscoted half way
up in wood and covered for the rest with a dark, diamond-
patterned paper, were hung with faded engravings, mostly
of clerical-looking, bewigged personages in gowns and bands.
But over the high, undecorated black mantel-piece, in a ruddy
glow of sunset light striking through the window, hung one which
caught and held Eric's attention to the exclusion of everything
else. It was the enlarged "crayon" photograph of a young girl,
and, in spite of the crudity of execution, it was easily the
center of interest in the room.
Eric at once guessed that this must be the picture of Margaret
Gordon, for, although quite unlike Kilmeny's sensitive, spirited
face in general, there was a subtle, unmistakable resemblance
about brow and chin.
The pictured face was a very handsome one, suggestive of velvety
dark eyes and vivid colouring; but it was its expression rather
than its beauty which fascinated Eric. Never had he seen a
countenance indicative of more intense and stubborn will power.
Margaret Gordon was dead and buried; the picture was a cheap and
inartistic production in an impossible frame of gilt and plush;
yet the vitality in that face dominated its surroundings still.
What then must have been the power of such a personality in life?
Eric realized that this woman could and would have done
whatsoever she willed, unflinchingly and unrelentingly. She
could stamp her desire on everything and everybody about her,
moulding them to her wish and will, in their own despite and in
defiance of all the resistance they might make. Many things in
Kilmeny's upbringing and temperament became clear to him.
"If that woman had told me I was ugly I should have believed
her," he thought. "Ay, even though I had a mirror to contradict
her. I should never have dreamed of disputing or questioning
anything she might have said. The strange power in her face is
almost uncanny, peering out as it does from a mask of beauty and
youthful curves. Pride and stubbornness are its salient
characteristics. Well, Kilmeny does not at all resemble her
mother in expression and only very slightly in feature."
His reflections were interrupted by the entrance of Thomas and
Janet Gordon. The latter had evidently been called from his
work. He nodded without speaking, and the two sat gravely down
before Eric.
"I have come to see you with regard to your niece, Mr. Gordon,"
he said abruptly, realizing that there would be small use in
beating about the bush with this grim pair. "I met your--I met
Neil Gordon in the Connors orchard, and I found that he has told
you that I have been meeting Kilmeny there."
He paused. Thomas Gordon nodded again; but he did not speak, and
he did not remove his steady, piercing eyes from the young man's
flushed countenance. Janet still sat in a sort of expectant
immovability.
"I fear that you have formed an unfavourable opinion of me on
this account, Mr. Gordon," Eric went on. "But I hardly think I
deserve it. I can explain the matter if you will allow me. I
met your niece accidentally in the orchard three weeks ago and
heard her play. I thought her music very wonderful and I fell
into the habit of coming to the orchard in the evenings to hear
it. I had no thought of harming her in any way, Mr. Gordon. I
thought of her as a mere child, and a child who was doubly sacred
because of her affliction. But recently I--I--it occurred to me
that I was not behaving quite honourably in encouraging her to
meet me thus. Yesterday evening I asked her to bring me here and
introduce me to you and her aunt. We would have come then if you
had been at home. As you were not we arranged to come tonight."
"I hope you will not refuse me the privilege of seeing your
niece, Mr. Gordon," said Eric eagerly. "I ask you to allow me
to visit her here. But I do not ask you to receive me as a
friend on my own recommendations only. I will give you
references--men of standing in Charlottetown and Queenslea. If
you refer to them--"
"I don't need to do that," said Thomas Gordon, quietly. "I know
more of you than you think, Master. I know your father well by
reputation and I have seen him. I know you are a rich man's son,
whatever your whim in teaching a country school may be. Since
you have kept your own counsel about your affairs I supposed you
didn't want your true position generally known, and so I have
held my tongue about you. I know no ill of you, Master, and I
think none, now that I believe you were not beguiling Kilmeny to
meet you unknown to her friends of set purpose. But all this
doesn't make you a suitable friend for her, sir--it makes you all
the more unsuitable. The less she sees of you the better."
Eric almost started to his feet in an indignant protest; but he
swiftly remembered that his only hope of winning Kilmeny lay in
bringing Thomas Gordon to another way of thinking. He had got on
better than he had expected so far; he must not now jeopardize
what he had gained by rashness or impatience.
"Why do you think so, Mr. Gordon?" he asked, regaining his
self-control with an effort.
"Well, plain speaking is best, Master. If you were to come here
and see Kilmeny often she'd most likely come to think too much of
you. I mistrust there's some mischief done in that direction
already. Then when you went away she might break her heart--for
she is one of those who feel things deeply. She has been happy
enough. I know folks condemn us for the way she has been brought
up, but they don't know everything. It was the best way for her,
all things considered. And we don't want her made unhappy,
Master."
"But I love your niece and I want to marry her if I can win her
love," said Eric steadily.
He surprised them out of their self possession at last. Both
started, and looked at him as if they could not believe the
evidence of their ears.
"Marry her! Marry Kilmeny!" exclaimed Thomas Gordon
incredulously. "You can't mean it, sir. Why, she is
dumb--Kilmeny is dumb."
"That makes no difference in my love for her, although I deeply
regret it for her own sake," answered Eric. "I can only repeat
what I have already said, Mr. Gordon. I want Kilmeny for my
wife."
The older man leaned forward and looked at the floor in a
troubled fashion, drawing his bushy eyebrows down and tapping the
calloused tips of his fingers together uneasily. He was
evidently puzzled by this unexpected turn of the conversation,
and in grave doubt what to say.
"What would your father say to all this, Master?" he queried at
last.
"I have often heard my father say that a man must marry to please
himself," said Eric, with a smile. "If he felt tempted to go
back on that opinion I think the sight of Kilmeny would convert
him. But, after all, it is what I say that matters in this case,
isn't it, Mr. Gordon? I am well educated and not afraid of work.
I can make a home for Kilmeny in a few years even if I have to
depend entirely on my own resources. Only give me the chance to
win her--that is all I ask."
"I don't think it would do, Master," said Thomas Gordon, shaking
his head. "Of course, I dare say you--you"--he tried to say
"love," but Scotch reserve balked stubbornly at the terrible
word--"you think you like Kilmeny now, but you are only a
lad--and lads' fancies change."
"Mine will not," Eric broke in vehemently. "It is not a fancy,
Mr. Gordon. It is the love that comes once in a lifetime and
once only. I may be but a lad, but I know that Kilmeny is the
one woman in the world for me. There can never be any other.
Oh, I'm not speaking rashly or inconsiderately. I have weighed
the matter well and looked at it from every aspect. And it all
comes to this--I love Kilmeny and I want what any decent man who
loves a woman truly has the right to have--the chance to win her
love in return."
"Well!" Thomas Gordon drew a long breath that was almost a sigh.
"Maybe--if you feel like that, Master--I don't know--there are
some things it isn't right to cross. Perhaps we oughtn't--Janet,
woman, what shall we say to him?"
Janet Gordon had hitherto spoken no word. She had sat rigidly
upright on one of the old chairs under Margaret Gordon's
insistent picture, with her knotted, toil-worn hands grasping the
carved arms tightly, and her eyes fastened on Eric's face. At
first their expression had been guarded and hostile, but as the
conversation proceeded they lost this gradually and became almost
kindly. Now, when her brother appealed to her, she leaned
forward and said eagerly,
"Do you know that there is a stain on Kilmeny's birth, Master?"
"I know that her mother was the innocent victim of a very sad
mistake, Miss Gordon. I admit no real stain where there was no
conscious wrong doing. Though, for that matter, even if there
were, it would be no fault of Kilmeny's and would make no
difference to me as far as she is concerned."
A sudden change swept over Janet Gordon's face, quite marvelous
in the transformation it wrought. Her grim mouth softened and a
flood of repressed tenderness glorified her cold gray eyes.
"Well, then." she said almost triumphantly, "since neither that
nor her dumbness seems to be any drawback in your eyes I don't
see why you should not have the chance you want. Perhaps your
world will say she is not good enough for you, but she is--she
is"--this half defiantly. "She is a sweet and innocent and
true-hearted lassie. She is bright and clever and she is not ill
looking. Thomas, I say let the young man have his will."
Thomas Gordon stood up, as if he considered the responsibility
off his shoulders and the interview at an end.
"Very well, Janet, woman, since you think it is wise. And may
God deal with him as he deals with her. Good evening, Master.
I'll see you again, and you are free to come and go as suits you.
But I must go to my work now. I left my horses standing in the
field."
"I will go up and send Kilmeny down," said Janet quietly.
She lighted the lamp on the table and left the room. A few
minutes later Kilmeny came down. Eric rose and went to meet her
eagerly, but she only put out her right hand with a pretty
dignity and, while she looked into his face, she did not look
into his eyes.
"You see I was right after all, Kilmeny," he said, smiling. "Your
uncle and aunt haven't driven me away. On the contrary they have
been very kind to me, and they say I may see you whenever and
wherever I like."
She smiled, and went over to the table to write on her slate.
"But they were very angry last night, and said dreadful things to
me. I felt very frightened and unhappy. They seemed to think I
had done something terribly wrong. Uncle Thomas said he would
never trust me out of his sight again. I could hardly believe it
when Aunt Janet came up and told me you were here and that I
might come down. She looked at me very strangely as she spoke,
but I could see that all the anger had gone out of her face. She
seemed pleased and yet sad. But I am glad they have forgiven
us."
She did not tell him how glad she was, and how unhappy she had
been over the thought that she was never to see him again.
Yesterday she would have told him all frankly and fully; but for
her yesterday was a lifetime away--a lifetime in which she had
come into her heritage of womanly dignity and reserve. The kiss
which Eric had left on her lips, the words her uncle and aunt had
said to her, the tears she had shed for the first time on a
sleepless pillow--all had conspired to reveal her to herself.
She did not yet dream that she loved Eric Marshall, or that he
loved her. But she was no longer the child to be made a dear
comrade of. She was, though quite unconsciously, the woman to be
wooed and won, exacting, with sweet, innate pride, her dues of
allegiance.
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