Emily’s heart swelled with pride.
“It’s a noble house,” she said.
“And what about my garden?” demanded Cousin Jimmy jealously.
“It’s fit for a queen,” said Emily, gravely and sincerely.
Cousin Jimmy nodded, well pleased, and then a strange sound crept into his voice and an odd look into his eyes.
“There is a spell woven round this garden. The blight shall spare it and the green worm pass it by. Drought dares not invade it and the rain comes here gently.”
Emily took an involuntary step backward—she almost felt like running away. But now Cousin Jimmy was himself again.
“Isn’t this grass about the sundial like green velvet? I’ve taken some pains with it, I can tell you. You make yourself at home in this garden.” Cousin Jimmy made a splendid gesture. “I confer the freedom of it upon you. Good-luck to you, and may you find the Lost Diamond.”
“The Lost Diamond?” said Emily wonderingly. What fascinating thing was this?
“Never hear the story? I’ll tell it tomorrow—Sunday’s lazy day at New Moon. I must get off to my turnips now or I’ll have Elizabeth out looking at me. She won’t say anything—she’ll just look. Ever seen the real Murray look?”
“I guess I saw it when Aunt Ruth pulled me out from under the table,” said Emily ruefully.
“No—no. That was the Ruth Dutton look—spite and malice and all uncharitableness. I hate Ruth Dutton. She laughs at my poetry—not that she ever hears any of it. The spirit never moves when Ruth is around. Dunno where they got her. Elizabeth is a crank but she’s sound as a nut, and Laura’s a saint. But Ruth’s worm-eaten. As for the Murray look, you’ll know it when you see it. It’s as well-known as the Murray pride. We’re a darn queer lot—but we’re the finest people ever happened. I’ll tell you all about us tomorrow.”
Cousin Jimmy kept his promise while the aunts were away at church. It had been decided in family conclave that Emily was not to go to church that day.
“She has nothing suitable to wear,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “By next Sunday we will have her white dress ready.”
Emily was disappointed that she was not to go to church. She had always found church very interesting on the rare occasions when she got there. It had been too far at Maywood for her father to walk but sometimes Ellen Greene’s brother had taken her and Ellen.
“Do you think, Aunt Elizabeth,” she said wistfully, “that God would be much offended if I wore my black dress to church? Of course it’s cheap—I think Ellen Greene paid for it herself—but it covers me all up.”
“Little girls who do not understand things should hold their tongues,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “I do not choose that Blair Water people should see my niece in such a dress as that wretched black merino. And if Ellen Greene paid for it we must repay her. You should have told us that before we came away from Maywood. No, you are not going to church today. You can wear the black dress to school tomorrow. We can cover it up with an apron.”
Emily resigned herself with a sigh of disappointment to staying home; but it was very pleasant after all. Cousin Jimmy took her for a walk to the pond, showed her the graveyard and opened the book of yesterday for her.
“Why are all the Murrays buried here?” asked Emily. “Is it really because they are too good to be buried with common people?”
“No—no, pussy. We don’t carry our pride as far as that. When old Hugh Murray settled at New Moon there was nothing much but woods for miles and no graveyards nearer than Charlottetown. That’s why the old Murrays were buried here—and later on we kept it up because we wanted to lie with our own, here on the green, green banks of the old Blair Water.”
“That sounds like a line out of a poem, Cousin Jimmy,” said Emily.
“So it is—out of one of my poems.”
“I kind of like the idea of a ’sclusive burying-ground like this,” said Emily decidedly, looking around her approvingly at the velvet grass sloping down to the fairy-blue pond, the neat walks, the well-kept graves.
Cousin Jimmy chuckled.
“And yet they say you ain’t a Murray,” he said. “Murray and Byrd and Starr—and a dash of Shipley to boot, or Cousin Jimmy Murray is much mistaken.”
“Shipley?”
“Yes—Hugh Murray’s wife—your great-great-grandmother—was a Shipley—an Englishwoman. Ever hear of how the Murrays came to New Moon?”
“No.”
“They were bound for Quebec—hadn’t any notion of coming to P.E.I. They had a long rough voyage and water got scarce, so the captain of the New Moon put in here to get some. Mary Murray had nearly died of seasickness coming out—never seemed to get her sea-legs—so the captain, being sorry for her, told her she could go ashore with the men and feel solid ground under her for an hour or so. Very gladly she went and when she got to shore she said, ’Here I stay.’ And stay she did; nothing could budge her; old Hugh—he was young Hugh then, of course—coaxed and stormed and raged and argued—and even cried, I’ve been told—but Mary wouldn’t be moved. In the end he gave in and had his belongings landed and stayed, too. So that is how the Murrays came to P.E. Island.”
“I’m glad it happened like that,” said Emily.
“So was old Hugh in the long run. And yet it rankled, Emily—it rankled. He never forgave his wife with a whole heart. Her grave is over there in the corner—that one with the flat red stone. Go you and look at what he had put on it.”
Emily
