“So I went back to bed, dear Father, and felt very releeved, but not so heroyik.
“I had a letter from Ilse today. She says Saucy Sal has had kittens at last. I feel that I ought to be home to see about them. Likely Aunt Elizabeth will have them all drowned before I get back. I had a letter from Teddy too, not much of a letter but all filled with dear little pictures of Ilse and Perry and the Tansy Patch and Lofty John’s bush. They made me feel homesick.
“Oh, Father dear, I have found out all about the mistery of Ilse’s mother. It is so terrible I can’t write it down even to you. I cannot believe it but Aunt Nancy says it is true. I did not think there could be such terrible things in the world. No, I can’t believe it and I won’t believe it no matter who says it is true. I know Ilse’s mother couldn’t have done anything like that. There must have been a fearful mistake somewhere. I am so unhappy and feel as if I could never be happy any more. Last night I wept on my pillow, like the heroins in Aunt Nancy’s books do.”
XXV
“She Couldn’t Have Done It”
Great-Aunt Nancy and Caroline Priest were wont to colour their grey days with the remembered crimsons of old, long-past delights and merry-makings, but they went further than this and talked over any number of old family histories before Emily with a total disregard of her youth. Loves, births, deaths, scandals, tragedies—anything that came into their old heads. Nor did they spare details. Aunt Nancy revelled in details. She forgot nothing, and sins and weaknesses that death had covered and time shown mercy to were ruthlessly dragged out and dissected by this ghoulish old lady.
Emily was not quite certain whether she really liked it or not. It was fascinating—it fed some dramatic hunger in her—but it made her feel unhappy somehow, as if something very ugly were concealed in the darkness of the pit they opened before her innocent eyes. As Aunt Laura had said, her youth protected her to some extent, but it could not save her from a dreadful understanding of the pitiful story of Ilse’s mother on the afternoon when it seemed good to Aunt Nancy to resurrect that tale of anguish and shame.
Emily was curled up on the sofa in the back parlour, reading The Scottish Chiefs because it was a breathlessly hot July afternoon—too hot to haunt the bay shore. Emily was feeling very happy. The Wind Woman was ruffling over the big maple grove behind the Grange, turning the leaves until every tree seemed to be covered with strange, pale, silvery blossoms; fragrances drifted in from the garden; the world was lovely; she had had a letter from Aunt Laura saying that one of Saucy Sal’s kittens had been saved for her. Emily had felt when Mike II died that she would never want another cat. But now she found she did. Everything suited her very well; she was so happy that she should have sacrificed her dearest possession to the jealous gods if she had known anything about the old pagan belief.
Aunt Nancy was tired of playing solitaire. She pushed the cards away and took up her knitting.
“Emily,” she said, “has your Aunt Laura any notion of marrying Dr. Burnley?”
Emily, recalled thus abruptly from the field of Bannockburn, looked bored. Blair Water gossip had often asked or hinted this question; and now it met her in Priest Pond.
“No, I’m sure she hasn’t,” she said. “Why, Aunt Nancy, Dr. Burnley hates women.”
Aunt Nancy chuckled.
“Thought perhaps he’d got over that. It’s eleven years now since his wife ran away. Few men hold to one idea for anything like eleven years. But Allan Burnley always was stubborn in anything—love or hate. He still loves his wife—and that is why he hates her memory and all other women.”
“I never heard the rights of that story,” said Caroline. “Who was his wife?”
“Beatrice Mitchell—one of the Shrewsbury Mitchells. She was only eighteen when Allan married her. He was thirty-five. Emily, never you be fool enough to marry a man much older than yourself.”
Emily said nothing. The Scottish Chiefs was forgotten. Her fingertips were growing cold as they always did in excitement, her eyes turning black. She felt that she was on the verge of solving the mystery that had so long worried and puzzled her. She was desperately afraid that Aunt Nancy would branch off to something else.
“I’ve heard she was a great beauty,” said Caroline.
Aunt Nancy sniffed.
“Depends on your taste in style. Oh, she was pretty—one of your golden-haired dolls. She had a little birthmark over her left eyebrow—just like a tiny red heart—I never could see anything but that mark when I looked at her.
