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A Tangled Web, by L.M. Montgomery
Download Ebook A Tangled Web, by L.M. Montgomery
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About the Author
L.M. Montgomery achieved international fame in her lifetime that endures well over a century later. A prolific writer, she published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty novels. Most recognized for Anne of Green Gables, her work has been hailed by Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood, Madeleine L'Engle and Princess Kate, to name a few. Today, Montgomery's novels, journals, letters, short stories, and poems are read and studied by general readers and scholars from around the world. Her writing appeals to people who love beauty and to those who struggle against oppression.
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Chapter 1 Aunt Becky's Levee 1 A dozen stories have been told about the old Dark jug. This is the true one. Several things happened in the Dark and Penhallow clan because of it. Several other things did not happen. As Uncle Pippin said, this may have been Providence or it may have been the devil that certainly possessed the jug. At any rate, had it not been for the jug, Peter Penhallow might today have been photographing lions alone in African jungles, and Big Sam Dark would, in all probability, never have learned to appreciate the beauty of the unclothed female form. As for Dandy Dark and Penny Dark, they have never ceased to congratulate themselves that they got out of the affair with whole hides. Legally, the jug was the property of Aunt Becky Dark, née Rebecca Penhallow. For that matter, most of the Darks had been née Penhallow and most of the Penhallows had been née Dark, save a goodly minority who had been Darks née Dark or Penhallows née Penhallow. In three generations sixty Darks had been married to sixty Penhallows. The resultant genealogical tangle baffled everybody except Uncle Pippin. There was really nobody for a Dark to marry except a Penhallow and nobody for a Penhallow to marry except a Dark. Once, it had been said, they wouldn't take anybody else. Now, nobody else would take them. At least, so Uncle Pippin said. But it was necessary to take Uncle Pippin's speeches with a large pinch of salt. Neither the Darks nor the Penhallows were gone to seed as far as that. They were still a proud, vigorous, and virile clan who hacked and hewed among themselves but presented an unbroken front to any alien or hostile force. In a sense Aunt Becky was the head of the clan. In point of seniority Crosby Penhallow, who was eighty-seven when she was eighty-five, might have contested her supremacy had he cared to do so. But at eighty-seven Crosby Penhallow cared only about one thing. As long as he could foregather every evening with his old crony, Erasmus Dark, to play duets on their flutes and violins, Aunt Becky might hold the scepter of the clan if she wanted to. It must be admitted frankly that Aunt Becky was not particularly beloved by her clan. She was too fond of telling them what she called the plain truth. And, as Uncle Pippin said, while the truth was all right, in its place, there was no sense in pouring out great gobs of it around where it wasn't wanted. To Aunt Becky, however, tact and diplomacy and discretion, never to mention any consideration for anyone's feelings, were things unknown. When she wanted to say a thing she said it. Consequently Aunt Becky's company was never dull whatever else it might be. One endured the digs and slams one got oneself for the fun of seeing other people writhing under their digs and slams. As Aunt Becky knew from A to Z all the sad or fantastic or terrible little histories of the clan, no one had armor which her shafts could not penetrate. Little Uncle Pippin said that he wouldn't miss one of Aunt Becky's "levees" for a dog-fight. "She's a personality," Dr. Harry Penhallow had once remarked condescendingly, on one of his visits home to attend some clan funeral. "She's a crank," growled Drowned John Penhallow, who, being a notorious crank himself, tolerated no rivals. "It's the same thing," chuckled Uncle Pippin. "You're all afraid of her because she knows too much about you. I tell you, boys, it's only Aunt Becky and the likes of her that keeps us all from dry-rotting." Aunt Becky had been "Aunt Becky" to everybody for twenty years. Once when a letter came to the Indian Spring post office addressed to "Mrs. Theodore Dark" the new postmaster returned it marked, "Person unknown." Legally, it was Aunt Becky's name. Once she had had a husband and two children. They were all dead long ago-so long ago that even Aunt Becky herself had practically forgotten them. For years she had lived in her two rented rooms in The Pinery-otherwise the house of her old friend, Camilla Jackson, at Indian Spring. Many Dark and Penhallow homes would have been open to her, for the clan were never unmindful of their obligations, but Aunt Becky would have none of them. She had a tiny income of her own and Camilla, being neither a Dark nor a Penhallow, was easily bossed. "I'm going to have a levee," Aunt Becky told Uncle Pippin one afternoon when he had dropped in to see her. He had heard she was not very well. But he found her sitting up in bed, supported by pillows, her broad, griddled old face looking as keen and venomous as usual. He reflected that it was not likely there was much the matter with her. Aunt Becky had taken to her bed before now when she fancied herself neglected by her clan. Aunt Becky had held occasional gatherings that she called "levees" ever since she had gone to live at The Pinery. It was her habit to announce in the local papers that Mrs. Rebecca Dark would entertain her friends on such and such an afternoon. Everybody went who couldn't trump up a water-tight excuse for not going. They spent two hours of clan gossip, punctuated by Aunt Becky's gibes and the malice of her smile, and had a cup of tea, sandwiches, and several slices of cake. Then they went home and licked their wounds. "That's good," said Uncle Pippin. "Things are pretty dull in the clan. Nothing exciting has happened for a long time." "This will be exciting enough," said Aunt Becky. "I'm going to tell them something-not everything-about who's to get the old Dark jug when I'm gone." "Whew!" Uncle Pippin was intrigued at once. Still he did not forget his manners. "But why bother about that for a while? You're going to see the century out." "No, I'm not," said Aunt Becky. "Roger told Camilla this morning that I wouldn't live this year out. He didn't tell me, the person most interested, but I wormed it out of Camilla." It was a shock to Uncle Pippin and he was silent for a few moments. He had had a death-bell ringing in his ear for three days, but he had not connected it with Aunt Becky. Really, no one had ever thought of Aunt Becky dying. Death, like life, seemed to have forgotten her. He didn't know what to say. "Doctors often make mistakes," he stammered feebly. "Roger doesn't," said Aunt Becky grimly. "I've got to die, I suppose. Anyhow, I might as well die. Nobody cares anything about me now." "Why do you say that, Becky?" said Camilla, betraying symptoms of tears. "I'm sure I do." "No, you don't really. You're too old. We're both too old to care really for anybody or anything. You know perfectly well that in the back of your mind you're thinking, ‘After she dies I'll be able to have my tea strong.' There's no use blinking the truth or trying to cover it up with sentiment. I've survived all my real friends." "Come, come, what about me?" protested Uncle Pippin. Aunt Becky turned her cronelike old gray head toward him. "You!" She was almost contemptuous. "Why, you're only sixty-four. I was married before you were born. You're nothing but an acquaintance if it comes to that. Hardly even a relative. You were only an adopted Penhallow, remember. Your mother always vowed you were Ned Penhallow's son, but I can tell you some of us had our doubts. Funny things come in with the tide, Pippin." This, reflected Uncle Pippin, was barely civil. He decided that it was not necessary to protest any more friendship for Aunt Becky. "Camilla," snapped Aunt Becky, "I beg of you to stop trying to cry. It's painful to watch you. I had to send Ambrosine out because I couldn't put up with her mewing. Ambrosine cries over everything alike-a death or a spoiled pudding. But one excuses her. It's about the only fun she's ever got out of life. I am ready to die. I've felt almost everything in life there is to feel-ay, I've drained my cup. But I mean to die decently and in order. I'm going to have one last grand rally. The date will be announced in the paper. But if you want anything to eat you'll have to bring it with you. I'm not going to bother with that sort of thing on my death-bed." Uncle Pippin was genuinely disappointed. Living alone as he did, subsisting on widower's fare, the occasional meals and lunches he got in friends' houses meant much to him. And now Aunt Becky was going to ask people to come and see her and wasn't going to give them a bite. It was inhospitable, that's what it was. Everybody would be resentful but everybody would be there. Uncle Pippin knew his Darks and his Penhallows. Every last one of them would be keen to know who was to get the old Dark jug. Everybody would think he or she ought to have it. The Darks had always resented the fact of Aunt Becky owning it, anyhow. She was only a Penhallow. The jug should be the property of a born Dark. But old Theodore Dark had expressly left it to his dearly beloved wife in his will and there you were. The jug was hers to do as she liked with. And nobody in eighty-five years had ever been able to predict what Aunt Becky would do about anything. Uncle Pippin climbed into what he called his "gig" and drove away behind his meek white horse down the narrow, leisurely red side-road that ran from Indian Spring to Bay Silver. There was a grin of enjoyment on his little, wrinkled face with its curious resemblance to a shriveled apple, and his astonishingly young, vivid blue eyes twinkled. It would be fun to watch the antics of the clan over the jug. The thorough-going, impartial fun of one who was not vitally concerned. Uncle Pippin knew he had no chance of getting the jug. He was only a fourth cousin at best, even granting the dubious paternity about which Aunt Becky had twitted him. "I've a hunch that the old lady is going to start something," said Uncle Pippin to his white nag. 2 In spite of the fact that no refreshments were to be served, every Dark and every Penhallow, by birth, marriage or adoption, who could possibly get to Aunt Becky's "levee" was there. Even old rheumatic Christian Dark, who hadn't been anywhere for years, made her son-in-law draw her through the woods behind The Pinery on a milk-cart. The folding doors between Aunt Becky's two rooms were thrown open, the parlor was filled with chairs, and Aunt Becky, her eyes as bright as a cat's, was ready to receive her guests, sitting up in her big old walnut bed under its tent canopy hung with yellowed net. Aunt Becky had slept in that bed ever since she was married and intended to die in it. Several women of the tribe had their eye on it and each had hoped she would get it, but just now nobody thought of anything but the jug. Aunt Becky had refused to dress up for her guests. She wasn't going to be bothered, she told Camilla-they weren't really worth it. So she received them regally with a faded old red sweater pinned tightly around her shrunken throat and her gray hair twisted into a hard knot on the crown of her head. But she wore her diamond ring and she had made the scandalized Ambrosine put a little rouge on her cheeks. "It's no more than decent at your age," protested Ambrosine. "Decency's a dull dog," retorted Aunt Becky. "I parted company with it long ago. You do as you're bid, Ambrosine Winkworth, and you'll get your reward. I'm not going to have Uncle Pippin saying, ‘The old girl used to have good color.' Dab it on good and thick, Ambrosine. None of them will imagine they can bully me as they probably would if they found me looking lean and washed-out. My golly, Ambrosine, but, I'm looking forward to this afternoon. It's the last bit of fun I'll have this side of eternity and I'm going to lap it up, Ambrosine. Harpies all of 'em, coming here just to see what pickings they're going to get. Ay, I'm going to make them squirm." The Darks and Penhallows knew this perfectly well, and every new arrival approached the walnut bed with a secret harrowing conviction that Aunt Becky would certainly ask any especially atrocious question that occurred to her. Uncle Pippin had come early, provided with several wads of his favorite chewing-gum, and selected a seat near the folding doors-a point of vantage from which he could see everybody and hear everything Aunt Becky said. He had his reward. "Ay, so you're the man who burned his wife," remarked Aunt Becky to Stanton Grundy, a long, lean man with a satiric smile who was an outsider, long ago married to Robina Dark, whom he had cremated. Her clan had never forgiven him for it, but Stanton Grundy was insensitive and only smiled hollowly at what he regarded as an attempted witticism. "All this fuss over a jug worth no more than a few dollars at most," he said scornfully, sitting down beside Uncle Pippin. Uncle Pippin shifted his wad of gum to the other side of his mouth and manufactured a cheerful lie instantly for the credit of the clan. "A collector offered Aunt Becky a hundred dollars for it four years ago," he said impressively. Stanton Grundy was impressed and to hide it remarked that he wouldn't give ten dollars for it. "Then why are you here?" demanded Uncle Pippin. "To see the fun," returned Mr. Grundy coolly. "This jug business is going to set everybody by the ears." Uncle Pippin nearly swallowed his gum in his indignation. What right had this outsider, who was strongly suspected of being a Swedenborgian, whatever that was, to amuse himself over Dark whimsies and Penhallow peculiarities? It was quite in order for him, Pippin Penhallow, baptized Alexander, to do it. He was one of the tribe, however crookedly. But that a Grundy from God knew where should come for such a purpose made Uncle Pippin furious. Before he could administer castigation, however, another arrival temporarily diverted his attention from the outrageous Grundy. "Been having any more babies on the King's Highway?" Aunt Becky was saying to poor Mrs. Paul Dark, who had brought her son into a censorious world in a Ford coupe on the way to the hospital. Uncle Pippin had voiced the general clan feeling on that occasion when he said gloomily, "Sad mismanagement somewhere." A little snicker drifted over the room, and Mrs. Paul made her way to a chair with a burning face. But interest had already shifted from her to Murray Dark, a handsome middle-aged man who was shaking Aunt Becky's hand. "Well, well, come to get a peep at Thora, hey? She's here-over there beyond Pippin and that Grundy man." Murray Dark stalked to a chair, reflecting that when you belonged to a clan like this you really lived a dog's life. Of course he had come to see Thora. Everybody knew that, including Thora herself. Murray cared not a hoot about the Dark jug but he did care tremendously about a chance to look at Thora. He did not have too many of them. He had been in love with Thora ever since the Sunday he had first seen her sitting in the church, the bride of Christopher Dark-drunken ne'er-do-well Chris Dark, with his insidious charm that no girl had ever been able to resist. All the clan knew it, too, but there had never been any scandal. Murray was simply waiting for Chris to pass out. Then he would marry Thora. He was a clever, well-to-do farmer and he had any amount of patience. In time he would attain his heart's desire-though sometimes he wondered a little uneasily how long that devil of a Chris would hang on. That family of Darks had such damn' good constitutions. They could live after a fashion that would kill any ordinary man in five years, and flourish for twenty. Chris had been dying by inches for ten years, and there was no knowing how many inches were left of him yet. "Do get some hair tonic," Aunt Becky was advising William Y. Penhallow, who even as a baby had looked deadly serious and who had never been called Bill in his life. He had hated Aunt Becky ever since she had been the first person to tell him he was beginning to get bald. "My dear"-to Mrs. Percy Dark-"it's such a pity you haven't taken more care of your complexion. You had a fairly nice skin when you came to Indian Spring. Why, you here?"-this to Mrs. Jim Trent, who had been Helen Dark. "Of course I'm here," retorted Mrs. Jim. "Am I so transparent that there's any doubt?" "It's a long time since you remembered my existence," snapped Aunt Becky. "But the jug is bringing more things in than the cat." "Oh, I don't want your jug, I'm sure," lied Mrs. Jim. Everybody knew she was lying. Only a very foolish person would lie to Aunt Becky, to whom nobody had ever as yet told a lie successfully. But then Mrs. Jim Trent lived at Three Hills, and nobody who lived at Three Hills was supposed to have much sense. "Got your history finished yet, Miller?" asked Aunt Becky. Old Miller Dark looked foolish. He had been talking for years of writing a history of the clan but had never got started. It didn't do to hurry these things. The longer he waited the more history there would be. These women were always in such a confounded hurry. He thankfully made way for Palmer Dark, who was known as the man who was proud of his wife. "Looks as young as ever, doesn't she?" he demanded beamingly of Aunt Becky. "Yes-if it's any good to look young when you're not-" conceded Aunt Becky, adding by way of a grace note, "Got the beginnings of a dowager's cushion, I see. It's a long time since I saw you, Palmer. But you're just the same, only more so. Well, well, and here's Mrs. Denzil Penhallow. Looking fine and dandy, too. I've always heard a fruit diet was healthy. I'm told you ate all the fruit folks sent in for Denzil when he was sick last winter." "Well, what of it? He couldn't eat it. Was it to be wasted?" retorted Mrs. Denzil. Jug or no jug, she wasn't going to be insulted by Aunt Becky. Two widows came in together-Mrs. Toynbee Dark, who had had her mourning all ready when her third and last husband had died, and Virginia Powell, whose husband had been dead eight years and who was young and tolerably beautiful but who still wore her black and had vowed, it was well known, never to marry again. Not, as Uncle Pippin remarked, that any one was known to have asked her. Aunt Becky let Mrs. Toynbee off with a coldly civil greeting. Mrs. Toynbee had been known to go into hysterics when snubbed or crossed, and Aunt Becky did not intend to let anyone else usurp the limelight at her last levee. But she gave poor Virginia a jab. "Is your heart dug up yet?" Virginia had once said sentimentally, "My heart is buried in Rose River churchyard," and Aunt Becky never let her forget it. "Any of that jam left yet?" asked Aunt Becky slyly of Mrs. Titus Dark, who had once gathered blueberries that grew in the graveyard and preserved them. Lawyer Tom Penhallow, who had been found guilty of appropriating his clients' money, was counted less of a clan disgrace. Mrs. Titus always considered herself an ill-used woman. Fruit had been scarce that year-she had five men to cater for who didn't like butter-and all those big luscious blueberries going to waste in the lower corner of the Bay Silver graveyard. There were very few graves there; it was not the fashionable part of the graveyard. "And how's your namesake?" Aunt Becky was asking Mrs. Emily Frost. Kennedy Penhallow, who had been jilted by his cousin, Emily, sixty-five years before, had called his old spavined mare after her to insult her. Kennedy, happily married for many years to Julia Dark, had forgotten all about it, but Emily Frost, née Penhallow, had never forgotten or forgiven. "Hello, Margaret; going to write a poem about this? ‘Weary and worn and sad the train rattled on,'" Aunt Becky went off into a cackle of laughter and Margaret Penhallow, her thin, sensitive face flushing pitifully and her peculiarly large, soft, gray-blue eyes filling with tears, went blindly to the first vacant chair. Once she had written rather awful little poems for a Summerside paper, but never after a conscienceless printer had deleted her punctuation marks, producing that terrible line which haunted the clan forever afterwards like an unquiet ghost which refused to be laid. Margaret could never feel safe from hearing it quoted somewhere with a snicker or a bellow. Even here at Aunt Becky's death-bed levee it must be dragged up. Perhaps Margaret still wrote poems. A little shell-covered box in her trunk might know something about that. But the public press knew them no more, much to the clan's thankfulness. "What's the matter with you, Penny? You're not as good-looking as you generally believe you are." "Stung on the eye by a bee," said Pennycuik Dark sulkily. He was a fat, tubby little fellow with a curly gray beard and none-too-plentiful curly hair. As usual, he was as well-groomed as a cat. He still considered himself a gay young wag, and felt that nothing but the jug could have lured him into a public appearance under the circumstances. Just like this devilish old woman to call the attention of the world to his eye. But he was her oldest nephew and he had a right to the jug which he would maintain, eye or no eye. He always felt that his branch of the family had been unjustly done out of it two generations back. In his annoyance and excitement he sat down on the first vacant chair he spied, and then to his dismay discovered that he was sitting beside Mrs. William Y., of whom he had the liveliest terror ever since she had asked him what to do for a child who had worms. As if he, Pennycuik Dark, confirmed bachelor, knew anything about either children or worms. "Go and sit in that far corner by the door so that I can't smell that damn' perfume. Even a poor old nonentity like myself has a right to pure air," Aunt Becky was telling poor Mrs. Artemas Dark, whose taste in perfumes had always annoyed Aunt Becky. Mrs. Artemas did use them somewhat too lavishly, but even so, the clan reflected as a unit, Aunt Becky was employing rather strong language for a woman-especially on her death-bed. The Darks and the Penhallows prided themselves on keeping up with the times, but they were not so far advanced as to condone profanity in a woman. That was still taboo. The joke of it was that Aunt Becky herself had always been down on swearing and was supposed to hold in special disfavor the two clansmen who habitually swore-Titus Dark because he couldn't help it and Drowned John Penhallow, who could help it but didn't want to. The arrival of Mrs. Alpheus Penhallow and her daughter created a sensation. Mrs. Alpheus lived in St. John and happened to be visiting her old home in Rose River when Aunt Becky's levee was announced. She was an enormously fat woman with a rather deplorable penchant for wearing bright colors and over-rich materials, who had been very slim and beautiful in a youth during which she had been no great favorite with Aunt Becky. Mrs. Alpheus expected some unpleasant greeting from Aunt Becky and meant to take it with a smile, for she wanted badly to get the jug, and the walnut bed into the bargain, if the fates were propitious. But Aunt Becky, though she said to herself that Annabel Penhallow's dress was worth more than her carcass, let her off very leniently with, "Humph! Smooth as a cat's ear, just as always," and looked past her at Nan Penhallow, about whom clan gossip had been very busy ever since her arrival in Rose River. It was whispered breathlessly that she wore pajamas and smoked cigarettes. It was well known that she had plucked eyebrows and wore breeches when she rode or "hiked," but even Rose River was resigned to that. Aunt Becky saw a snakey hipless thing with a shingle bob and long barbaric earrings. A silky, sophisticated creature in a smart black satin dress who instantly made every other girl in the room seem outmoded and Victorian. But Aunt Becky took her measure on the spot. "So this is Hannah," she remarked, hitting instinctively on Nan's sore spot. Nan would rather have been slapped than called Hannah. "Well-well-well!" Aunt Becky's "wells" were a crescendo of contempt mingled with pity. "I understand you consider yourself a modern. Well, there were girls that chased the boys in my time, too. It's only names that change. Your mouth looks as if you'd been making a meal of blood, my dear. But see what time does to us. When you're forty you'll be exactly like this"-with a gesture toward Mrs. Alpheus' avoirdupois. Nan was determined she wouldn't let this frumpy old harridan put her out. Besides, she had her own hankerings after the jug. "Oh, no, Aunt Becky darling. I take after father's people. They stay thin, you know." Aunt Becky did not like being "darlinged." "Go upstairs and wash that stuff off your lips and cheeks," she said. "I won't have any painted snips around here." "You-why, you've got rouge on yourself," cried Nan, despite her mother's piteous nudge. "And who are you to say I should not?" demanded Aunt Becky. "Now, never mind standing there switching your tail at me. Go and do as you're told or else go home." Nan was minded to do the latter. But Mrs. Alpheus was whispering agitatedly at her neck, "Go, darling, go-do exactly as she tells you-or-or-" "Or you'll stand no chance of getting the jug," chuckled Aunt Becky, who at eighty-five had ears that could hear the grass grow. Nan went, sulky and contemptuous, determined that she would get even with somebody for her manhandling by this cantankerous old despot. Perhaps it was at this moment, when Gay Penhallow was entering the room in a yellow dress that seemed woven out of sunshine, that Nan made up her mind to capture Noel Gibson. It was intolerable that Gay of all people should be a witness of her discomfiture. "Green-eyed girls for trouble," said Uncle Pippin. "She's a man-eater, I reckon," agreed Stanton Grundy. Gay Penhallow, a slight, blossom-like girl whom only the Family Bible knew as Gabrielle Alexandrina, was shaking Aunt Becky's hand but would not bend down to kiss her as Aunt Becky expected. "Hey, hey, what's the matter?" demanded Aunt Becky. "Some boy been kissing you? And you don't want to spoil the flavor, hey?" Gay fled to a corner and sat down, it was true. But how did Aunt Becky know it? Noel had kissed her the evening before-Gay's first kiss in all her eighteen years-Nan would have hooted over that! An exquisite fleeting kiss under a golden June moon. Gay felt that she could not kiss any one, especially dreadful old Aunt Becky, after that. Never mind if Aunt Becky wouldn't give her the jug. What difference did it make about her old jug, anyway? What difference did anything make in the whole wide beautiful world except that Noel loved her and she loved him? But something seemed to have come into the now crowded room with the arrival of Gay-something like a sudden quick-passing breeze on a sultry day-something as indescribably sweet and elusive as the fragrance of a forest flower-something of youth and love and hope. Everybody felt inexplicably happier-more charitable-more courageous. Stanton Grundy's lantern-jaws looked less grim and Uncle Pippin momentarily felt that, after all, Grundy had undoubtedly married a Dark and so had a right to be where he was. Miller Dark thought he really would get started on his history next week-Margaret had an inspiration for a new poem-Penny Dark reflected that he was only fifty-two, after all-William Y. forgot that he had a bald spot-Curtis Dark, who had the reputation of being an incurably disagreeable husband, thought his wife's new hat became her and that he would tell her so on the way home. Even Aunt Becky grew less inhuman and, although she had several more shots in her locker and hated to miss the fun of firing them, allowed the remainder of her guests to pass to their seats without insult or innuendo, except that she asked old Cousin Skilly Penhallow how his brother Angus was. All the assembly laughed and Cousin Skilly smiled amiably. Aunt Becky couldn't put him out. He knew the whole clan quoted his Spoonerisms and that the one about his brother Angus, now dead for thirty years, never failed to evoke hilarity. The minister had come along that windy morning long ago, after Angus Penhallow's mill-dam had been swept away in the March flood, and had been greeted excitedly by Skilly. "We're all upset here today, Mr. MacPherson-ye'll kindly excuse us-my dam brother Angus burst in the night." "Well, I think everybody is here at last," said Aunt Becky-"everybody I expected, at least, and some I didn't. I don't see Peter Penhallow or the Moon Man, but I suppose one couldn't expect either of them to behave like rational beings." "Peter is here," said his sister Nancy Dark eagerly. "He's out on the veranda. You know Peter hates to be cooped up in a room. He's so accustomed to-to-" "The great open spaces of God's outdoors," murmured Aunt Becky ironically. "Yes, that's it-that's what I mean-that's what I meant to say. Peter is just as interested in you as any of us, dear Aunt." "I daresay-if that means much. Or in the jug." "No, Peter doesn't care a particle about the jug," said Nancy Dark, thankful to find solid ground under her feet in this at least. "The Moon Man's here, too," said William Y. "I can see him sitting on the steps of the veranda. He's been away for weeks-just turned up today. Queer how he always seems to get wind of things." "He was back yesterday evening. I heard him yelping to the moon all last night down at his shanty," boomed Drowned John. "He ought to be locked up. It's a family disgrace the way he carries on, wandering over the whole Island bareheaded and in rags, as if he hadn't a friend in the world to care for him. I don't care if he isn't mad enough for the asylum. He should be under some restraint." Pounce went Aunt Becky. "So should most of you. Leave Oswald Dark alone. He's perfectly happy on nights when there's a moon, anyhow, and who among us can say that. If we're perfectly happy for an hour or two at a time, it's as much as the gods will do for us. Oswald's in luck. Ambrosine, here's the key of my brass-bound trunk. Go up to the attic and bring down Harriet Dark's jug." 3 While Ambrosine Winkworth has gone for the jug and a hush of excitement and suspense has fallen over the assembled clan, let us look at them a little more closely, partly through Aunt Becky's eyes and partly through our own, and get better acquainted with them, especially with those whose lives were to be more or less affected and altered by the jug. There were all kinds of people there with their family secrets and their personal secrets, their outer lives of which everything-nearly-was known, and their inner lives of which nothing was known-not even to lean, lank Mercy Penhallow, whose lankness and leanness were attributed to the chronic curiosity about everyone which gave her no rest day or night. Most of them looked like the dull, sedate folks they were but some of them had had shocking adventures. Some of them were very beautiful; some were very funny; some were clever; some were mean; some were happy; some were not; some were liked by everybody and some were liked by nobody; some had reached the stodgy plane where nothing more was to be expected from life; and some were still adventurous and expectant, cherishing secret, unsatisfied dreams. Margaret Penhallow, for instance-dreamy, poetical Margaret Penhallow, who was the clan dressmaker and lived with her brother, Denzil Penhallow, in Bay Silver. Always overworked and snubbed and patronized. She spent her life making pretty clothes for other people and never had any for herself. Yet she took an artist's pride in her work and something in her starved soul sprang into sudden transforming bloom when a pretty girl floated into church in a gown of her making. She had a part in creating that beauty. That slim vision of loveliness owed something of its loveliness to her, "old Margaret Penhallow." Margaret loved beauty; and there was so little of it in her life. She had no beauty herself, save in her overlarge, strangely lustrous eyes, and her slender hands-the beautiful hands of an old portrait. Yet there was a certain attractiveness about her that had not been dependent on youth and had not left her with the years. Stanton Grundy, looking at her, was thinking that she was more ladylike than any other woman of her age in the room and that, if he were looking for a second wife-which, thank god, he wasn't-Margaret would be the one he'd pick. Margaret would have been a little fluttered had she known he was thinking even this much. The truth was, though Margaret would have died any horrible death you could devise before she admitted it, she longed to be married. If you were married you were somebody. If not, you were nobody. In the Dark and Penhallow clan, anyhow She wanted a dear little homey place to call her own; and she wanted to adopt a baby. She knew the very kind of baby she wanted-a baby with golden hair and great blue eyes, dimples and creases and adorable chubby knees. And sweet sleepy little kisses. Margaret's bones seemed to melt in her body as water when she thought of it. Margaret had never cared for the pack of young demons Denzil called his family. They were saucy and unattractive youngsters who made fun of her. All her love was centered in her imaginary baby and her imaginary little house-which was not quite as imaginary as the baby, if truth were known. Yet she had no real hope of ever owning the house, while, if she could get married, she might be able to adopt a baby. Margaret also wanted very much to get the Dark jug. She wanted it for the sake of that far-off unknown Harriet Dark concerning whom she had always had a strange feeling, half pity, half envy. Harriet Dark had been loved; the jug was the visible and tangible proof of that, outlasting the love by a hundred years. And what if her lover had been drowned! At least, she had had a lover. Besides, the jug would give her a certain importance. She had never been of any importance to anyone. She was only "old Margaret Penhallow," with fifty drab, snubbed years behind her and nothing ahead of her but drab snubbed old age. And why should she not have the jug? She was a real niece. A Penhallow, to be sure, but her mother had been a Dark. Of course Aunt Becky didn't like her, but then whom did Aunt Becky like? Margaret felt that she ought to have the jug-must have the jug. Momentarily, she hated every other claimant in the room. She knew if she had the jug she could make Mrs. Denzil give her a room to herself in return for the concession of allowing the jug to be put on the parlor mantelpiece. A room to herself! it sounded heavenly. She knew she could never have her little dream-house or her blue-eyed, golden baby, but surely she might have a room to herself-a room where Gladys Penhallow and her shrieking chums could never come-girls who thought there was no fun in having a beau unless you could tell the world all about him and what he did and what he said-girls who always made her feel old and silly and dowdy. Margaret sighed and looked at the great sheaf of mauve and yellow iris Mrs. William Y. had brought up for Aunt Becky, who had never cared for flowers. If their delicate, exotic beauty was wasted on Aunt Becky, it was not lost on Margaret. While she gazed at them she was happy. There was a neglected clump of mauve iris in the garden of "her" house. 4 Gay Penhallow was sitting next to Margaret and was not thinking of the jug at all. She did not want the jug, though her mother was wild about it. Spring was singing in her blood and she was lost in glamorous recollections of Noel's kiss-and equally glamorous anticipations of Noel's letter, which she had got at the post-office on her way up. As she heard it crackle in its hiding place she felt the little thrill of joy which had tingled over her when old Mrs. Conroy had passed it out to her-his wonderful letter held profanely between a mail-order catalogue and a millinery advertisement. She had not dreamed of getting a letter, for she had seen him-and been kissed-only the night before. Now she had it, tucked away under her dress, next to her white satin skin, and all she wished was that this silly old levee was over and she was away somewhere by herself, reading Noel's letter. What time was it? Gay looked at Aunt Becky's solemn old grandfather clock that had ticked off the days and hours of four forgotten generations and was still ticking them relentlessly off for the fifth. Three! At half-past three she must think of Noel. They had made a compact to think of each other every afternoon at exactly half-past three. Such a dear, delightful, foolish compact-because was she not thinking of Noel all the time? And now she had his kiss to think about-that kiss which it seemed everyone must see on her lips. She had thought about it all night-the first night of her life she had never slept for joy. Oh, she was so happy! So happy that she felt friendly to everybody-even to the people she had never liked before. Pompous old William Y. with his enormous opinion of himself-lean, curious, gossipy Mercy Penhallow-overtragic Virginia Powell with her tiresome poses-Drowned John, who had shouted two wives to death-Stanton Grundy, who had cremated poor Cousin Robina and who always looked at everybody as if he were secretly amused. One didn't like a person who was amused at everybody. Dapper Penny Dark, who thought he was witty when he called eggs cackleberries-Uncle Pippin with his old jaws always chewing something-most of all poor piteous Aunt Becky herself. Aunt Becky was going to die soon and no one was sorry. Gay was so sorry because she wasn't sorry that the tears came to her eyes. Yet Aunt Becky had been loved once-courted once-kissed once-ridiculous and unbelievable as it seemed now. Gay looked curiously at this solitary old crone who had once been young and beautiful and the mother of little children. Could that old wrinkled face ever have been flower-like? Would she, Gay, ever look like that? No, of course not. Nobody whom Noel loved would ever grow old and unlovely. She could see herself in the oval mirror that hung on the wall over Stanton Grundy's head, and she was not dissatisfied with the reflection. She had the coloring of a tea-rose, with golden-brown hair, and eyes to match it-eyes that looked like brown marigolds flecked with glints of gold. Long black lashes and eyebrows that might have been drawn in soot, so finely dark were they against her face. And there was a delicious spot here and there on her skin, like a little drop of gold-sole survivor of the freckles that had plagued her in childhood. She knew quite well that she was counted the beauty of the whole clan-"the prettiest girl that walked the aisles of Rose River Church," Uncle Pippin averred gallantly. And she always looked the least little bit timid and frightened, so men always wanted to assure her there was nothing to be frightened of and she had more beaus than you could shake a stick at. But there had never been anyone who really mattered but Noel. Every lane in Gay's thoughts today turned back to Noel. Fifteen minutes past three. Just fifteen more minutes and she would be sure that Noel was thinking of her. There was a tiny dark fleck or two on Gay's happiness. For one, she knew all the Penhallows rather disapproved of Noel Gibson. The Darks were more tolerant-after all, Noel's mother had been a Dark, although a rather off-color one. The Gibsons were considered a cut or two beneath the Penhallows. Gay knew very well that her clan wanted her to marry Dr. Roger Penhallow. She looked across the room at him in kindly amusement. Dear old Roger, with his untidy mop of red hair, his softly luminous eyes under straight heavy brows and his long, twisted mouth with a funny quirk in the left corner-who was thirty if he were a day. She was awfully fond of Roger. Somehow, there was a good tang to him. She could never forget what he had done for her at her first dance. She had been so shy and awkward and plain-or was sure she was. Nobody asked her to dance till Roger came and swept her out triumphantly and paid her such darling compliments that she bloomed out into beauty and confidence-and the boys woke up-and handsome Noel Gibson from town singled her out for attention. Oh, she was very, very fond of Roger-and very proud of him. A fourth cousin who had been a noted ace in the war Gay so dimly remembered and had brought down fifty enemy planes. But as a husband-Gay really had to laugh. Besides, why should anyone suppose he wanted to marry her? He had never said so. It was just one of those queer ideas that floated about the clan at times-and had a trick of turning out abominably correct. Gay hoped this one wouldn't. She would hate to hurt Roger. She was so happy she couldn't bear to think of hurting anyone. The second little fleck was Nan Penhallow. Gay had never been too fond of Nan Penhallow, though they had been chums of a sort, ever since childhood, when Nan would come to the Island with her father and mother for summer vacations. Gay never forgot the first day she and Nan had met. They were both ten years old; and Nan, who was even then counted a beauty, had dragged Gay to a mirror and mercilessly pointed out all the contrasts. Gay had never thought of her looks before, but now she saw fatally that she was ugly. Thin and sunburned and pale-freckles galore-hair bleached too light a shade by Rose River sunshine-funny, black unfaded eyebrows that looked as if they had just lighted on her face-how Nan made fun of those eyebrows! Gay was unhappy for years because she believed in her plainness. It had taken many a compliment to convince her that she had grown into beauty. As years went by she did not like Nan much better. Nan, with her subtle, mysterious face, her ashgold hair, her strange liquid emerald eyes, her thin red lips, who was not now really half as pretty as Gay but had odd exotic charms unknown to Rose River. How she patronized Gay-"You quaint child,"-"So Victorian." Gay did not want to be quaint and Victorian. She wanted to be smart and up-to-date and sophisticated like Nan. Though not exactly like Nan. She didn't want to smoke. It always made her think of that dreadful old Mrs. Fidele Blacquiere down at the harbor and old mustached Highland Janet at Three Hills, who were always smoking big black pipes like the men. And then-Noel didn't like girls who smoked. He didn't approve of them at all. Nevertheless, Gay, deep down in her heart, was glad the visit of the Alpheus Penhallows to Rose River was to be a brief one this summer. Mrs. Alpheus was going to a more fashionable place. 5 Hugh Dark and Joscelyn Dark (née Penhallow) were sitting on opposite sides of the room, never looking at each other, and seeing and thinking of nothing but each other. And everybody looked at Joscelyn and wondered as they had wondered for ten years, what terrible secret lay behind her locked lips. The affair of Hugh and Joscelyn was the mystery and tragedy of the clan-a mystery that no one had ever been able to solve, though not for lack of trying. Ten years before, Hugh Dark and Joscelyn Penhallow had been married after an eminently respectable and somewhat prolonged courtship. Joscelyn had not been too easily won. It was a match which pleased everybody, except Pauline Dark, who was mad about Hugh, and Mrs. Conrad Dark, his mother, who had never liked Joscelyn's branch of the Penhallows. It had been a gay, old-fashioned evening wedding, according to the best Penhallow tradition. Everybody was there to the fourth degree of relationship, and everyone agreed that they had never seen a prettier bride or a more indisputable happy and enraptured bridegroom. After the supper and the festivities were over, Hugh had taken his bride home to "Treewoofe," the farm he had bought at Three Hills. As to what had happened between the time when Joscelyn, still wearing her veil and satin in the soft coolness and brilliance of the September moonlight-a whim of Hugh's, that, who had some romantic idea of leading a veiled and shimmering bride over the threshold of his new home-had driven away from her widowed mother's house at Bay Silver and the time when, three hours later, she returned to it on foot, still in her disheveled bridal attire, no one ever knew or could obtain the least inkling in spite of all their prying and surmising. All Joscelyn would ever say, even to her distracted relatives, was that she could never live with Hugh Dark. As for Hugh, he said absolutely nothing and very few people ever dared say anything to him. Failing to discover the truth, surmise and gossip ran riot. All sorts of explanations were hinted or manufactured-most of them ridiculous enough. One was that Hugh, as soon as he got his bride home, told her that he would be master. He told her certain rules she must keep. He would have no woman bossing him. The story grew till it ran that Hugh, by way of starting in properly, had made or tried to make Joscelyn walk around the room on all fours just to teach her he was head of the house. No girl of any spirit, especially Clifford Penhallow's daughter, would endure such a thing. Joscelyn had thrown her wedding-ring at him and flown out of the house. Others had it that Joscelyn had left Hugh because he wouldn't promise to give up a cat she had hated "And now," as Uncle Pippin said mournfully, "the cat is dead." Some averred they had quarreled because Joscelyn had criticized his grammar. Some that she had found out he was an infidel. "You know, his grandfather reads those horrid Ingersoll books. And Hugh had them all on a shelf in his bedroom." Some that she had contradicted him. "His father was like that, you know. Couldn't tolerate the least contradiction. If he only said, ‘It's going to rain tomorrow,' it put him in a fury if you said you thought it would be fair." Then Hugh had told Joscelyn she was too proud-he wasn't going to put up with it any longer. He had danced to her piping for three years but, by heck, the tune was going to be changed. Well, of course Joscelyn was proud. The clan admitted that. No woman could have carried such a wonderful crown of red-gold on her head without some pride to hold it up. But was that any excuse for a bridegroom setting wide open the door of his house and politely telling his bride to take her damned superior airs back where they belonged? The Darks would have none of these crazy yarns. It was not Hugh's fault at all. Joscelyn had confessed she was a kleptomaniac. It ran in her family. A fourth cousin of her mother's was terrible that way. Hugh had the welfare of generations unborn to think of. What else could he do? Darker hints obtained. After all, though these little yarns were circulated and giggled over, few really believed there was a grain of truth in them. Most of the clan felt sure that Joscelyn's soft rose-red lips were fast shut on some far more terrible secret than a silly quarrel over cats or grammar. She had discovered something undoubtedly. But what was it? She had found a love letter some other woman had written him and gone mad with jealousy. After all, Joscelyn's great-grandmother had been a Spanish girl from the West Indies. Spanish blood, you know. All the vagaries of Joscelyn's branch of the Penhallows were attributed to the fact of that Spanish great-grandmother. Captain Alec Penhallow had married her. She died leaving him only one son-luckily. But that son had a family of eight. And they were all kittle cattle to handle. So intense in everything. Whatever they were, they were ten times more so than anyone else would be. No, it was worse than a letter. Joscelyn had discovered that Hugh had another wife. Those years out west. Hugh had never talked much about them. But at the last he broke down and confessed. Nothing of the sort. That child down at the harbor, though. It was certain some Dark was its father. Perhaps Hugh- Naturally, it made a dreadful scandal and sensation. The clan nearly died of it. It had been an old clan saying that nothing ever happened in Bay Silver. Rose River had a fire. Three Hills had an elopement. Even Indian Spring years ago had an actual murder. But nothing ever happened in Bay Silver. And now something had happened with a vengeance. That Joscelyn should behave like this! If it had been her rattle-brained sister Milly! They were always expecting Milly to do crazy things, so they were prepared to forgive her. But they had never thought of Joscelyn doing a crazy thing so they could not forgive her for amazing them. Not that it seemed to matter much to Joscelyn whether they forgave her or not. No entreaty availed to budge her an inch. "Her father was like that, you know," Mrs. Clifford Penhallow wept. "He was noted for never changing his mind." "Joscelyn evidently changed hers after she went up to Treewoofe that night," somebody replied. "What happened, Mavis? Surely you, her mother, ought to know." "How can I know when she won't tell me?" wailed Mrs. Clifford. "None of you have ever had any idea how stubborn Joscelyn really is. She simply says she will never go back to Hugh and not another word will she say. She won't even wear her wedding-ring." Mrs. Clifford thought this was really the worst thing in it all. "I never saw anyone so unnaturally obstinate." "And what in the world are we to call her?" wailed the clan. "She is Mrs. Dark. Nothing can alter that." Nothing could alter it in Prince Edward Island, where there had been only one divorce in sixty years. Nobody ever thought of Hugh and Joscelyn being divorced. One and all, Darks and Penhallows, would have expired of the disgrace of it. In ten years the matter had naturally simmered down, though a few people kept wondering if the wife from the west would ever turn up. The state of affairs was accepted as something permanent and immutable. People even forgot to think about it, except when, as rarely happened, they saw Hugh and Joscelyn in the same room. Then they wondered fruitlessly again. Hugh was a very fine-looking man-far handsomer now at thirty-five than he had been at twenty-five, when he was rather lank and weedy. He gave you a feeling that he was able to do anything-a feeling of great, calm power. He had gone on living at Treewoofe with an old aunt keeping house for him, and in agricultural circles he was regarded as a coming man. It was whispered that the Conservative party meant to bring him out as a candidate at the next election of the Provincial House. Yet his eyes with their savage bitterness were the eyes of a man who had failed, and nobody had ever heard him laugh since that mysterious wedding-night. He had had one keen greedy look at Joscelyn when he had paused a moment in the doorway. He had not seen her for a long time. The tragic years had passed over her without dimming her beauty. Her hair, massed round her head in shining defiant protest against the day of bobs, was as wonderful as ever. She had left her roses behind her-her cheeks were pale. But the throat he had once kissed so tenderly and passionately was as exquisite and ivory-like as ever, and her great eyes, that were blue or green or gray as the mood took her, were as lustrous and appealing, as defiant and ecstatic as they had been when she had looked down at him in the hall up at Treewoofe, that night ten years before. Hugh clenched his hands and set his lips. That lean fox of a Stanton Grundy was watching him-everybody was always watching him. The bridegroom jilted on his wedding night. From whom his bride had run in supposed horror or rebellion over three miles of dark solitary road. Well, let them watch and let them guess. Only he and Joscelyn knew the truth-the tragic absurd truth that had separated them. Joscelyn had seen Hugh when he came into the room. He looked older; that unmanageable lock of dark hair was sticking up on the crown of his head as usual. Joscelyn knew she wanted to go over and coax it down. Kate Muir was sitting beside him ogling him; she had always detested and despised Kate Muir, née Kate Dark, who had been an ugly swarthy little girl and was now an ugly swarthy little widow with more money than she knew what to do with. Having married for money, Joscelyn reflected contemptuously, she had a right to it. But was that any excuse for her sitting in Hugh's pocket and gazing up at him as if she thought him wonderful. She knew that Kate had once said, "I always told Hugh she wouldn't make him a suitable wife." Joscelyn shivered slightly and locked her slender hands, on which was no wedding-ring, a little more tightly on her knee. She was not-never had been-sorry for what she had done ten years ago. She couldn't have done anything else, not she, Joscelyn Penhallow, with that touch of Spanish blood in her. But she had always felt a little outside of things and the feeling had deepened with the years. She seemed to have no part or lot in the life that went on around her. She learned to smile like a queen, with lips not eyes. She saw her face reflected in the glass beside Gay Penhallow and suddenly thought that she looked old. Gay, wearing her youth like a golden rose, was so happy, so radiant, as if lighted by some inner flame. Joscelyn felt a queer new pang of envy. She had never envied anyone in all these ten years, borne up by the rapture of a certain strange, spiritual, sacrificial passion and renunciation. All at once, she felt an odd flatness, as if her wings had let her down. A chill of consternation and fright swept over her. She wished she had not come to this silly levee. She cared nothing about the old Dark jug, though her mother and Aunt Rachel both wanted it. She would not have come if she had thought Hugh would be there. Who would have expected him? Surely he didn't want the jug. She would have despised him if she thought he did. No doubt he had had to bring his mother and his sister, Mrs. Jim Trent. They were both glowering at her. Her sisters-in-law, Mrs. Penny Dark and Mrs. Palmer Dark, were pretending not to see her. She knew they all hated her. Well, it didn't matter. After all, could you blame them, considering the insult she had offered to the House of Dark? No, it didn't matter-Joscelyn wondered a little dreamily if anything mattered. She looked at Lawson Dark, with the V.C. he had won at Amiens pinned on his breast, in his wheelchair behind Stanton Grundy, for ten years a paralytic from shell-shock. At Naomi Dark beside him, with her patient, haggard face and her dark, hollow eyes in which still burned the fires of the hope that kept her alive. Joscelyn was amazed to find suddenly stirring in her heart a queer envy of Naomi Dark. Why should she envy Naomi Dark, whose husband didn't recognize her-never had recognized her since his return from the war? His mind was normal in every other respect, but he had forgotten all about the bride he had met and married only a few weeks before his departure for the front. She knew Naomi lived by the belief that Lawson would remember her someday. Meanwhile she took care of him and worshiped him. Lawson had grown quite fond of her as a nurse, but no recollection ever came to him of his sudden love and his brief honeymoon. Yet Joscelyn envied her. She had had something. Life had not been an empty cup for her, whatever bitter brew was mingled in it. Even Mrs. Foster Dark had something to live for. Happy Dark had run away from home years ago, leaving a note-"I'll come back sometime, Mother." Mrs. Foster would never lock her door at night lest Happy come, and it was well known that she always left a supper on the table for him. Nobody else believed Happy would ever come back-the young devil was undoubtedly dead years ago and good riddance! But the hope kept Mrs. Foster going, and Joscelyn envied her. She saw Murray Dark devouring Thora Dark with his eyes, satisfied if she gave him only one look in return. He would, Joscelyn knew, rather have one of those long, deep, remote looks of Thora's than a kiss from any other woman. Well, it was no wonder he loved Thora. She was one of those women men can't help loving-except Chris Dark, who had given up loving her six weeks after he had married her. Yet other women did not dislike Thora. Whenever she came into a room people felt happier. She lighted life like a friendly beaming candle. She had a face that was charming without being in the least beautiful. A fascinating square face with a wide space between her blue almond-shaped eyes and a sweet, crooked mouth. She was very nicely dressed. Her peculiarly dark auburn hair was parted on her forehead and coroneted on her crown. There were milky pearl drops in her ears. What a wife she would make for Murray if that detestable Chris would only be so obliging as to die. The winter before, he had had double pneumonia and everybody was sure he would die. But he hadn't-owed his life, no doubt, to Thora's faithful nursing. And Matthew Penhallow at Three Hills, whom everybody loved and who had a family that needed him, died of his pneumonia. Another proof of the contrariness of life. Pauline Dark wasn't here. Was she still in love with Hugh? She had never married. What a tangled, crisscrossed thing life was, anyhow. And here they were all sitting in rows, waiting for Ambrosine Winkworth to bring down the jug about which they were all ready to tear each other in pieces. Truly a mad world. Joscelyn was unblessed with the sense of humor which was making the affair a treat to Tempest Dark, sitting behind her. Tempest had made up his mind on considered opinion to shoot himself that night. He had nearly done it the night before, but he had reflected that he might as well wait till after the levee. He wanted, as a mere matter of curiosity, to see who got the old Dark jug. Winnifred had liked that jug. He knew he had no chance of it himself. Aunt Becky had no use for a bankrupt. He was bankrupt and the wife he had adored had died a few weeks previously. He couldn't see any sense in living on. But just at this moment he was enjoying himself. 6 Donna Dark and Virginia Powell sat together as usual. They were first cousins, who were born the same day and married the same day-Donna to her own second cousin, Barry Dark, and Virginia to Edmond Powell-two weeks before they had left for Valcartier. Edmond Powell had died of pneumonia in the training camp, but Barry Dark had his crowded hour of glorious life somewhere in France. Virginia and Donna were "war widows" and had made a solemn compact to remain widows forever. It was Virginia's idea, but Donna was very ready to fall in with it. She knew she could never care for any man again. She had never said her heart was buried in any especial place-though rumor sometimes attributed Virginia's famous utterance to her-but she felt that way about it. For ten years they had continued to wear weeds, though Virginia was always much weedier than Donna. Most of the clan thought Virginia, with her spiritual beauty of pale gold hair and over-large forget-me-not eyes, was the prettier of the two devoted. Donna was as dark as her name-a slight, ivory-colored thing with very black hair which she always wore brushed straight back from her forehead, as hair should be worn only by a really pretty woman or by a woman who doesn't care whether she looks pretty or not. Donna didn't care-or thought she didn't-but it was her good luck to have been born with a widow's peak and that saved her. Her best features were her eyes, like star-sapphires, and her mouth with its corners tucked up into dimples. She had bobbed her hair at last, though her father kicked up a fearful domestic hullabaloo over it and Virginia was horrified. "Do you think Barry would have liked it, dear?" "Why not?" said Donna rebelliously. "Barry wouldn't have liked a dowdy wife. He was always up-to-date." Virginia sighed and shook her head. She would never cut off her hair-never. The hair Edmond had caressed and admired. "He used to bury his face in it and say it was like perfumed sunshine," she moaned gently. Donna had continued to live with her father, Drowned John Penhallow-so called to distinguish him from another John Penhallow who had not been drowned-and her older half-sister, Thekla, ever since Barry's death. She had wanted to go away and train for nursing, but Drowned John had put his not inconsiderable foot down on that. Donna had yielded-it saved trouble to yield to Drowned John at the outset. He simply yelled people down. His rages were notorious in the clan. When reproached with them he said, "If I didn't go into a rage now and then, life here would be so dull my females would hang themselves." Drowned John was twice a widower. With his first wife, Jennie Penhallow, he had quarreled from the time they were married. When they knew their first baby was coming, they quarreled over what college they would send him to. As the baby turned out to be Thekla, there was no question-in Drowned John's mind, at least-of college. But the rows went on and became such a scandal that the clan hinted at a separation-not divorce of course. That never entered their heads. But Drowned John did not see the sense of it. He would have to have a housekeeper. "Might as well be quarreling with Jennie as with any other woman," he said. When Jennie died-"from sheer exhaustion," the clan said-Drowned John married Emmy Dark, destined to be Donna's mother. The clan thought Emmy was more than a little mad to take him, and pointed out to her what an existence she would have. But Drowned John never quarreled with Emmy. Emmy simply would not quarrel-and Drowned John had secretly thought life with her was very flat. Yet, although he always had two sets of manners and used his second best at home, Thekla and Donna were rather fond of him. When he got his own way he was quite agreeable. Hate what Drowned John hated-love what Drowned John loved-give him a bit of blarney now and again-and you couldn't find a nicer man. All sorts of weird yarns were told of Drowned John's young days, culminating in his quarrel with his father, during which Drowned John, who had a tremendous voice, shouted so loud that they heard him over at Three Hills, two miles away. After which he had run away to sea on a ship that was bound for New Zealand. He had fallen overboard on the voyage and was reported drowned. The clan held a funeral service and his father had his name chiseled on the big family monument in the graveyard. After two years young John came home, unchanged save for a huge snake tattooed around his right arm, having acquired a lavish vocabulary of profanity and an abiding distaste for sea-faring. Some thought the ship which had picked him up unnecessarily meddlesome. But John settled down on the farm, told Jennie Penhallow he was going to marry her, and refused to have his name erased from the monument. It was too good a joke. Every Sunday Drowned John went into the graveyard and guffawed over it. He was sitting now behind William Y. and wondering if William Y. really was presumptuous enough to imagine he should have the jug. Why, there was no manner of doubt in the world that he, John Penhallow, should have it. It would be a damned outrage if Aunt Becky gave it to anyone else and he'd tell her so, by asterisk and by asterisk. His very long face crimsoned with fury at the mere thought-a crimson that covered his ugly bald forehead, running back to his crown. His bushy white mustache bristled. His pop-eyes glared. By-more asterisks and very lurid ones-if anyone else got that jug they'd have to reckon with him. "I wonder what Drowned John is swearing so viciously inside himself about," thought Uncle Pippin. Donna wanted the jug, too. She was really quite crazy about it. She felt she ought to have it. Long, long ago, when Barry was just a little boy, Aunt Becky had told him she was going to leave it to him when she died. So she, Barry's widow, should have it now. It was such a lovely old thing, with its romantic history. Donna had always hankered after it. She did not swear internally as her father did, but she thought crossly she had never seen such a bunch of old harpies. 7 Outside on the railing of the veranda Peter Penhallow was sitting, swinging one of his long legs idly in the air. A rather contemptuous scowl was on his lean, bronzed, weary face. Peter's face always looked bored and weary-at least in scenes of civilization. He wasn't going in. You would not catch Peter mewed up in a room full of heirloom hunters. Indeed, to Peter any room, even a vacant one, was simply a place to get out of as soon as possible. He always averred he could not breathe with four walls around him. He had come to this confounded levee-a curse on Aunt Becky's whims!-sorely against his will, but at least he would stay outside where there was a distant view of the jeweled harbor and a glorious wind that had never known fetters, blowing right up from the gulf-Peter loved wind-and a big tree of apple blossom that was fairer to look upon than any woman's face had ever seemed to Peter. The clan wrote Peter down as a woman-hater, but he was nothing of the sort. The only woman he hated was Donna Dark; he was simply not interested in women and had never tried to be because he felt sure no woman would ever be willing to share the only life he could live. And as for giving up that life and adopting a settled existence, the idea simply could never have occurred to Peter. Women regretted this, for they found him very attractive. Not handsome but "so distinguished, you know." He had gray eagle eyes, that turned black in excitement or deep feeling. Women did not like his eyes-they made them uncomfortable-but they thought his mouth very beautiful and even liked it for its strength and tenderness and humor. As Uncle Pippin said, the clan would likely have been very fond of Peter Penhallow if they had ever had any chance to get acquainted with him. As it was, he remained only a tantalizing hop-out-of-kin, out of whose goings-on they got several vicarious thrills and of whom they were proud because his explorations and discoveries had won him fame-"notoriety," Drowned John called it-but whom they never pretended to understand and of whose satiric winks they were all a little afraid. Peter hated sham of any kind; and a clan like the Penhallows and the Darks were full of it. Had to be, or they couldn't have carried on as a clan at all. But Peter never made any allowances for that. "Look at Donna Dark," he was wont to sneer. "Pretending to be devoted to Barry's memory when all the time she'd jump at a second husband if there was any chance of one." Not that Peter ever did look at Donna. He had never seen her since she was a child of eight, sitting across from him in church on the last Sunday he had been there before he ran away on the cattle-ship. But people reported what he said to Donna and Donna had it in for him. She never expected any such good luck as a chance to get square. But one of her day-dreams was that in some mysterious and unthinkable way Peter Penhallow should fall in love with her and sue for her hand, only to be spurned with contumely. Oh, how she would spurn him! How she would show him that she was "a widow indeed." Meanwhile she had to content herself with hating him as bitterly as Drowned John himself could hate. Peter, who was by trade a civil engineer and by taste an explorer, had been born in a blizzard and had nearly been the death of three people in the process-his mother, to begin with, and his father and the doctor, who were blocked and all but frozen to death on that night of storm. When they were eventually dug out and thawed out Peter was there. And never, so old Aunty But averred, had such an infant been born. When she had carried him out to the kitchen to dress him, he had lifted his head of his own power and stared all around the room with bright eager eyes. Aunty But had never seen anything like it. It seemed uncanny and gave her such a turn that she let Peter drop. Luckily he landed unhurt on a cushion of the lounge, but it was the first of many narrow shaves. Aunty But always told with awe that Peter had not cried when he came into the world, as all properly behaved babies do. "He seemed to like the change," said Aunty But. "He's a fine, healthy child but"-and Aunt But shook her head forebodingly. The Jeff Penhallows did not bother over her "buts." She had got her nickname from them. But they lived to think that her foreboding on this occasion was justified. Peter continued to like change. He had been born with the soul of Balboa or Columbus. He felt to the full the lure of treading where no human foot had ever trod. He had a thirst for life that was never quenched-"Life," he used to say, "that grand glorious adventure we share with the gods." When he was fourteen he had earned his way around the world, starting out with ten cents and working his passage to Australia on a cattle-ship. Then he had come home-with the skin of a man-eating tiger he had killed himself for his mother's decorous parlor floor and a collection of magnificent blue African butterflies which became a clan boast-gone back to school, toiled slavishly, and eventually graduated in civil engineering. His profession took him all over the world. When he had made enough money out of a job to keep him for a while, he stopped working and simply explored. He was always daring the unknown-the uncharted-the undiscovered. His family had resigned themselves to it. As Uncle Pippin said, Peter was "not domestic" and they knew now he would never become so. He had had many wild adventures of which his clan knew and a thousand more of which they never heard. They were always expecting him to be killed. "He'll be clapped into a cooking-pot someday," said Drowned John, but he did not say it to Peter, for the simple reason that he never spoke to him. There was an old feud between those two Penhallow families, dating back to the day when Jeff Penhallow had killed Drowned John's dog and hung it up at his gate, because Drowned John's dog had worried his sheep and Drowned John had refused to believe it or to get rid of his dog. From that day none of Drowned John's family had had any dealings, verbal or otherwise, with any of Jeff Penhallow's. Drowned John knocked down and otherwise maltreated in the square at Charlottetown a man who said that Jeff Penhallow's word was as good as his bond because neither was any good. And Peter Penhallow, meeting a fellow Islander somewhere along the Congo, slapped his face because the said Islander laughed over Thekla Dark having once flavored some gingerbread with mustard. But this was clan loyalty and had nothing whatever to do with personal feeling, which continued to harden and embitter through the years. When Barry Dark, Peter's cousin and well-beloved chum, told Peter he was going to marry Donna Dark, Peter was neither to hold nor bind. He refused to countenance the affair at all and kicked up such a rumpus that even the Jeff Penhallows thought he was going entirely too far. When the wedding came off, Peter was hunting wapiti in New Zealand, full of bitterness of soul, partly because Barry had married one of the accursed race and partly because he, Peter, being notoriously and incurably left-handed, had not been accepted for overseas service. Barry had been rather annoyed over Peter's behavior and a slight coolness had arisen between them, which was never quite removed because Barry never came back from the front. This left a sore spot in Peter's soul which envenomed still further his hatred of Donna Dark. Peter had had no intention of coming to Aunt Becky's levee. He had fully meant to leave that afternoon en route for an exploring expedition in the upper reaches of the Amazon. He had packed and strapped and locked his trunk, whistling with sheer boyish delight in being off once more. He had had a month at home-a month too much. Thank God, no more of it. In a few weeks he would be thousands of miles away from the petty gossips and petty loves and petty hates of the Darks and Penhallows-away from a world where women bobbed their hair and you couldn't tell who were grandmothers and who were flappers-from behind-and in a place where nobody would ever make moan, "Oh, what will people think of you, Peter, if you do-or don't do-that?" "And I swear by the nine gods of Clusium that this place will not see me again for the next ten years," said Peter Penhallow, running downstairs to his brother's car, waiting to take him to the station. Just then Destiny, with an impish chuckle, tapped him on the shoulder. His half-sister Nancy was corning into the yard almost in tears. She couldn't get to the levee if he wouldn't take her. Her husband's car had broken down. And she must get to the levee. She would have no chance at all of getting that darling old jug if she did not go. "Young Jeff here can take you. I'll wait for the evening train," said Peter obligingly. Young Jeff demurred. He had to hoe his turnips. He could spare half an hour to take Peter to the station, but spend a whole afternoon down at Indian Spring he would not. "Take her yourself," he said. "If the evening train suits you as well, you've nothing else to do this afternoon." Peter yielded unwillingly. It was almost the first time in his life he had done anything he really didn't want to do. But Nancy had always been a sweet little dear-his favorite in his own family. She "Oh-Petered" him far less than any of the others. If she had set her heart on that confounded jug, he wasn't going to spoil her chance. If Peter could have foreseen the trick Fate had it in mind to play him, would he really have gone to the levee, Nancy to the contrary withstanding. Well, would he now? Ask him yourself. So Peter came to the levee, but he felt a bit grim and into the house he would not go. He did not give his real reason-for all his hatred of sham. Perhaps he did not acknowledge it even to himself. Peter, who was not afraid of any other living creature from snakes and tigers up, was at the very bottom of his heart afraid of Aunt Becky. The devil himself, Peter reflected, would be afraid of that blistering old tongue. It would not have been so bad if she had dealt him the direct thwacks she handed out to most people. But Aunt Becky had a different technique for Peter. She made little smiling speeches to him, as mean and subtle and nasty as a cut made with paper, and Peter had no defense against them. So he thankfully draped himself over the railing of the veranda. The Moon Man was standing at the other end, and Big Sam Dark and Little Sam Dark were in the two rocking-chairs. Peter didn't mind them but he had a bad moment when Mrs. Toynbee Dark dropped into the only remaining chair with her usual whines about her health, ending up with pseudo-thankfulness that she was as well as she was. "The girls of today are so healthy," sighed Mrs. Toynbee. "Almost vulgarly so, don't you think, Peter? When I was a girl I was extremely delicate. Once I fainted six times in one day. I don't really think I ought to go into that close room." Peter, who hadn't been so scared since the time he had mistaken an alligator for a log, decided that he had every excuse for being beastly. "If you stay out here with four unwedded men, my dear Alicia, Aunt Becky will think you have new matrimonial designs and you'll stand no chance of the jug at all." Mrs. Toynbee turned a horrible shade of pea-green with suppressed fury, gave him a look containing things not lawful to be uttered and went in with Virginia Powell. Peter took the precaution of dropping the surplus chair over the railing into the spirea bushes. "Excuse me if I weep," said Little Sam, winking at Peter while he wiped away large imaginary tears from his eyes. "Vindictive. Very vindictive," said Big Sam, jerking his head at the retreating Mrs. Toynbee. "And sly as Satan. You shouldn't have put her back up, Peter. She'll do you a bad turn if she can." Peter laughed. What did Mrs. Toynbee's vindictiveness matter to him, bound for the luring mysteries of untrod Amazon jungles? He drifted off into a reverie over them, while the two Sams smoked their pipes and reflected, each according to his bent. 8 "Little" Sam Dark-who was six-feet-two-and "Big" Sam Dark-who was five-feet-one-were first cousins. Big Sam was six years the elder, and the adjective that had been appropriate in childhood stuck to him, as things stick in Rose River and Little Friday Cove, all his life. The two Sams were old sailors and longshore fishermen, and they had lived together for thirty years in Little Sam's little house that clung like a limpet to the red "cape" at Little Friday Cove. Big Sam had been born a bachelor. Little Sam was a widower. His marriage was so far in the dim past that Big Sam had almost forgiven him for it, though he occasionally cast it up to him in the frequent quarrels by which they enlivened what might otherwise have been the rather monotonous life of retired seafolk. They were not, and never had been, beautiful, though that fact worried them little. Big Sam had a face that was actually broader than it was long and a flaming red beard-a rare thing among the Darks, who generally lived up to their name. He had never been able to learn how to cook, but he was a good washer and mender. He could also knit socks and write poetry. Big Sam quite fancied himself as a poet. He had written an epic which he was fond of declaiming in a surprisingly great voice for his thin body. Drowned John himself could hardly bellow louder. When he was low in his mind he felt that he had missed his calling and that nobody understood him. Also that nearly everybody in the world was going to be damned. "I should have been a poet," he would say mournfully to his orange-hued cat-whose name was Mustard. The cat always agreed with him, but Little Sam sometimes snorted contemptuously. If he had a vanity it was in the elaborate anchors tattooed on the back of his hands. He considered them far more tasty and much more in keeping with the sea than Drowned John's snake. He had always been a Liberal in politics and had Sir Wilfrid Laurier's picture hanging over his bed. Sir Wilfrid was dead and gone but in Big Sam's opinion no modern leader could fill his shoes. Premiers and would-be premiers, like everything else, were degenerating. He thought Little Friday Cove the most desirable spot on earth and resented any insinuation to the contrary. "I like to have the sea, ‘the blue lone sea,' at my very doorstep like this," he boomed to the "writing man" who was living in a rented summer cottage at the cove and had asked if they never found Little Friday lonesome. "Jest part of his poetical nature," Little Sam had explained aside, so that the writing man should not think that Big Sam had rats in his garret. Little Sam lived in secret fear-and Big Sam in secret hope-that the writing man would "put them in a book." By the side of the wizened Big Sam Little Sam looked enormous. His freckled face was literally half forehead and a network of large, purplish-red veins over nose and cheeks looked like some monstrous spider. He wore a great, drooping mustache like a horse-shoe that did not seem to belong to his face at all. But he was a genial soul and enjoyed his own good cooking, especially his famous pea soups and clam chowders. His political idol was Sir John Macdonald, whose picture hung over the clock shelf, and he had been heard to say-not in Big Sam's hearing-that he admired weemen in the abstract. He had a harmless hobby of collecting skulls from the old Indian graveyard down at Big Friday Cove and ornamenting the fence of his potato plot with them. He and Big Sam quarreled about it every time he brought a new skull home. Big Sam declared it was indecent and unnatural and unchristian. But the skulls remained on the poles. Little Sam was not, however, always inconsiderate of Big Sam's feelings. He had once worn large, round, gold earrings in his ears, but he had given up wearing them because Big Sam was a fundamentalist and didn't think they were Presbyterian ornaments. Both Big and Little Sam had only an academic interest in the old Dark jug. Their cousinship was too far off to give them any claim on it. But they never missed attending any clan gathering. Big Sam might get material for a poem out of it and Little Sam might see a pretty girl or two. He was reflecting now that Gay Penhallow had got to be a regular little beauty and that Thora Dark was by way of being a fine armful. And there was something about Donna Dark-something confoundedly seductive. William Y.'s Sara was undeniably handsome, but she was a trained nurse and Little Sam always felt that she knew too much about her own and other people's insides to be really charming. As for Mrs. Alpheus Penhallow' s Nan, about whom there had been so much talk, Little Sam gravely decided that she was "too jazzy." But Joscelyn Dark, now. She had always been a looker. What the divvle could have come between her and Hugh? Little Sam thought "divvle" was far less profane than "devil"-softer like. For an old sea-dog Little Sam was fussy about his language. Oswald Dark had been standing at the far end of the veranda, his large, agate-gray, expressionless eyes fixed on the sky and the golden edge of the world that was the valley of Bay Silver. He wore, as usual, a long black linen coat reaching to his feet and, as usual, he was bareheaded. His long brown hair, in which there was not a white thread, parted in the middle, was as wavy as a woman's. His cheeks were hollow but his face was strangely unlined. The Darks and Penhallows were as ashamed of him as they had once been proud. In his youth Oswald Dark had been a brilliant student, with the ministry in view. Nobody knew why he "went off." Some hinted at an unhappy love affair; some maintained it was simply overwork. A few shook their heads over the fact that Oswald's grandmother had been an outsider-a Moorland from down east. Who knew what sinister strain she might have brought into the pure Dark and Penhallow blood? Whatever the reason, Oswald Dark was now considered a harmless lunatic. He wandered at will over the pleasant red roads of the Island, and on moonlight nights sang happily as he strode along, with an occasional genuflection to the moon. On moonless nights he was bitterly unhappy and wept to himself in woods and remote corners. When he grew hungry he would call in at the first house, knock thunderingly on the door as if it had no right to be shut, and demand food regally. As everybody knew him he always got it, and no house was shut to him in the cold of a winter night. Sometimes he would disappear from human ken for weeks at a time. But, as William Y. said, he had an uncanny instinct for clan pow-wows of any sort and invariably turned up at them, though he could seldom be persuaded to enter the house where they were being held. As a rule he took no notice of people he met in his wanderings-except to scowl darkly at them when they demanded jocularly, "How's the moon?"-but he never passed Joscelyn Dark without smiling at her-a strange eerie smile-and once he had spoken to her. "You are seeking the moon, too. I know it. And you're unhappy because you can't get it. But it's better to want the moon, even if you can't get it-the beautiful silvery remote Lady Moon-as unattainable as things of perfect beauty ever are-than to want and get anything else. Nobody knows that but you and me. It's a wonderful secret, isn't it? Nothing else matters." 9 The folks in the parlor were getting a bit restless. What-the devil or the mischief-according to sex-was keeping Ambrosine Winkworth so long getting the jug? Aunt Becky lay impassive, gazing immovably at a plaster decoration on the ceiling which, Stanton Grundy reflected, looked exactly like a sore. Drowned John nearly blew the roof off with one of his famous sneezes and half the women jumped nervously. Uncle Pippin absentmindedly began to hum Nearer My God to Thee, but was squelched by a glare from William Y. Oswald Dark suddenly came to the open window and looked in at these foolish and distracted people. "Satan has just passed the door," he said in his intense dramatic fashion. "What a blessing he didn't come in," said Uncle Pippin imperturbably. But Rachel Penhallow was disturbed. It had seemed so real when the Moon Man said it. She wished Uncle Pippin would not be so flippant and jocose. Every one again wondered why Ambrosine didn't come in with the jug. Had she taken a weak spell? Couldn't she find it? Had she dropped and broken it on the garret floor? Then Ambrosine entered, like a priestess bearing a chalice. She placed the jug on the little round table between the two rooms. A sigh of relieved tension went over the assemblage, succeeded by an almost painful stillness. Ambrosine went back and sat down at Aunt Becky's right hand. Miss Jackson was sitting on the left. "Good gosh," whispered Stanton Grundy to Uncle Pippin, "did you ever see three such ugly women living together in your life?" That night at three o'clock Uncle Pippin woke up and thought of a marvelous retort he might have made to Stanton Grundy. But at the time he could think of absolutely nothing to say. So he turned his back on Stanton and gazed at the jug, as everyone else was doing-some covetously, a few indifferently, all with the interest natural to this exhibition of an old family heirloom they had been hearing about all their lives and had had few and far between opportunities for seeing. Nobody thought the jug very beautiful in itself. Taste must have changed notably in a hundred years if anybody had ever thought it beautiful. Yet it was undoubtedly a delectable thing, with its history and its legend, and even Tempest Dark leaned forward to get a better view of it. A thing like that, he reflected, deserved a certain reverence because it was the symbol of a love it had outlasted on earth and so had a sacredness of its own. It was an enormous, pot-bellied thing of a type that had been popular in pre-Victorian days. George the Fourth had been king when the old Dark jug came into being. Half its nose was gone and a violent crack extended around its middle. The decorations consisted of pink-gilt scrolls, green and brown leaves and red and blue roses. On one side was a picture of two convivial tars, backed with the British Ensign and the Union Jack, who had evidently been imbibing deeply of the cup which cheers and inebriates, and who were expressing the feelings of their inmost hearts in singing the verse printed above them: "Thus smiling at peril at sea or on shore We'll box the old compass right cheerly, Pass the grog, boys, about, with a song or two more, Then we'll drink to the girls we love dearly." On the opposite side the designer of the jug, whose strong point had not been spelling, had filled in the vacant place with a pathetic verse from Byron: "The man is doomed to sail With the blast of the gale Through billows attalantic to steer. As he bends o'er the wave Which may soon be his grave He remembers his home with a tear." Rachel Penhallow felt a tear start to her eyes and roll down her long face as she read it. It had been, she thought mournfully, so sadly prophetic. In the middle of the jug, below its broken nose, was a name and date. Harriet Dark, Aldboro, 1826, surrounded by a wreath of pink and green tied with a true-lover's knot. The jug was full of old potpourri and the room was instantly filled with its faint fragrance-a delicate spicy smell, old-maidishly sweet, virginally elusive, yet with such penetrating, fleeting suggestions of warm passion and torrid emotions. Everybody in the room suddenly felt its influence. For one infinitesimal moment Joscelyn and Hugh looked at each other-Margaret Penhallow was young again-Virginia put her hand over Donna's in a convulsive grasp-Thora Dark moved restlessly-and a strange expression flickered over Lawson Dark's face. Uncle Pippin caught it as it vanished and felt his scalp crinkle. For just a second he thought Lawson was remembering. Even Drowned John found himself recalling how pretty and flower-like Jennie had been when he married her. What a hell of a pity one couldn't stay always young. Everyone present knew the romantic story of the old Dark jug. Harriet Dark, who had been sleeping for one hundred years in a quaint English churchyard, had been a slim fair creature with faint rose cheeks and big gray eyes, in 1826, with a gallant sea-captain for a lover. And this lover, on what proved to be his last voyage, had sailed to Amsterdam and there had caused to be made the jug of scroll and verse and true-lover's knot for a birthday gift to his Harriet, it being the fashion of the time to give the lady of your heart such a robust and capacious jug. Alas for true loves and true lovers! On the voyage home the Captain was drowned. The jug was sent to the brokenhearted Harriet. Hearts did break a hundred years ago, it is said. A year later Harriet, her spring of love so suddenly turned to autumn was buried in the Aldboro churchyard and the jug passed into the keeping of her sister, Sarah Dark, who had married her cousin, Robert Penhallow. Sarah, being perhaps of a practical and unromantic turn of mind, used the jug to hold the black currant jam for the concoction of which she was noted. Six years later, when Robert Penhallow decided to emigrate to Canada, his wife carried the jug with her, full of black currant jam. The voyage was long and stormy; the currant jam was all eaten; and the jug was broken by some mischance into three large pieces. But Sarah Penhallow was a resourceful woman. When she was finally settled in her new home, she took the jug and mended it carefully with white lead. It was done thoroughly and lastingly but not exactly artistically. Sarah smeared the white lead rather lavishly over the cracks, pressing it down with her capable thumb. And in a good light to this very day the lines of Sarah Penhallow's thumb could be clearly seen in the hardened spats of white lead. Thereafter for years Sarah Penhallow kept the jug in her dairy, filled with cream skimmed from her broad, golden-brown, earthenware milk pans. On her deathbed she had given it to her daughter Rachel, who had married Thomas Dark. Rachel Dark left it to her son Theodore. By this time it had been advanced to the dignity of an heirloom and was no longer degraded to menial uses. Aunt Becky kept it in her china cabinet, and it was passed around and its story told at all clan gatherings. It was said a collector had offered Aunt Becky a fabulous sum for it. But no Dark or Penhallow would ever have dreamed of selling such a household god. Absolutely it must remain in the family. To whom would Aunt Becky give it? This was the question everyone in the room was silently asking; Aunt Becky alone knew the answer and she did not mean to be in any hurry to give it. This was her last levee; she had much to do and still more to say before she came to the question of the jug at all. She was going to take her time about it and enjoy it. She knew perfectly well that what she was going to do would set everybody by the ears, but all she regretted was that she would not be alive to see the sport. Look at all those female animals with their eyes popping out at the jug! Aunt Becky began to laugh and laughed until her bed shook. "I think," she said, finally, wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes, "that a solemn assembly like this should be opened with prayer." This was by way of being a bombshell. Who but Aunt Becky would have thought of such a thing? Everybody looked at each other and then at David Dark, who was the only man in the clan who was known to have a gift of prayer. David Dark was usually very ready to lead in prayer, but he was not prepared for this. "David," said Aunt Becky inexorably. "I'm sorry to say this clan haven't the reputation of wearing their knees out praying. I shall have to ask you to do the proper thing." His wife looked at him appealingly. She was very proud because her husband could make such fine prayers. She forgave him all else for it, even the fact that he made all his family go to bed early to save kerosene and had a dreadful habit of licking his fingers after eating tarts. David's prayers were her only claim to distinction, and she was afraid he was going to refuse now. David, poor wretch, had no intention of refusing, much as he disliked the prospect. To do so would offend Aunt Becky and lose him all chance of the jug. He cleared his throat and rose to his feet. Everybody bowed. Outside the two Sams, realizing what was going on as David's sonorous voice floated out to them, took their pipes out of their mouths. David's prayer was not up to his best, as his wife admitted to herself, but it was an eloquent and appropriate petition and David felt himself badly used when after his "Amen" Aunt Becky said: "Giving God information isn't praying, David. It's just as well to leave something to His imagination, you know. But I suppose you did your best. Thank you. By the way, do you remember the time, forty years ago, when you put Aaron Dark's old ram in the church basement?" David looked silly and Mrs. David was indignant. Aunt Becky certainly had a vile habit of referring in company to whatever incident in your life you were most anxious to forget. But she was like that. And you couldn't resent it if you wanted the jug. The David Darks managed a feeble smile. "Noel," thought Gay, "is leaving the bank now." "I wonder," said Aunt Becky reflectively, "who was the first man who ever prayed. And what he prayed for. And how many prayers have been uttered since then." "And how many have been answered," said Naomi Dark, speaking bitterly and suddenly for the first time. "Perhaps William Y. could throw some light on that," chuckled Uncle Pippin maliciously. "I understand he keeps a systematic record of all his prayers, which are answered and which ain't. How about it, William Y.?" "It averages up about fifty-fifty," said William Y. solemnly, not understanding at all why some were giggling. "I am bound to say, though," he added, "that some of the answers were-peculiar." As for Ambrosine Winkworth, David had made an enemy for life of her because he had referred to her as "Thine aged handmaiden." Ambrosine shot a venomous glance at David. "Aged-aged," she muttered rebelliously. "Why, I'm only seventy-two-not so old as all that-not so old." "Hush, Ambrosine," said Aunt Becky authoritatively. "It's a long time since you were young. Put another cushion under my head. Thanks. I'm going to have the fun of reading my own will. And I've had the fun of writing my own obituary. It's going to be printed just as I've written it, too. Camilla has sworn to see to that. Good Lord, the obituaries I've read! Listen to mine." Aunt Becky produced a folded paper from under her pillow. "‘No gloom was cast over the communities of Indian Spring, Three Hills, Rose River or Bay Silver when it became known that Mrs. Theodore Dark-Aunt Becky as she was generally called, less from affection than habit-had died on'-whatever the date will be-‘at the age of eighty-five!' "You notice," said Aunt Becky, interrupting herself, "that I say died. I shall not pass away or pass out or pay my debt to nature or depart this life or join the great majority or be summoned to my long home. I intend simply and solely to die. "‘Everybody concerned felt that it was high time the old lady did die. She had lived a long life, respectably if not brilliantly, had experienced almost everything a decent female could experience, had outlived husband and children and anybody who had ever really cared anything for her. There was therefore neither sense, reason nor profit in pretending gloom or grief. The funeral took place on'-whatever date it does take place on-‘from the home of Miss Camilla Jackson at Indian Spring. It was a cheerful funeral, in accordance with Aunt Becky's strongly expressed wish, the arrangements being made by Mr. Henry Trent, undertaker, Rose River.' "Henry will never forgive me for not calling him a mortician," said Aunt Becky. "Mortician-Humph! But Henry has a genius for arranging funerals and I've picked on him to plan mine. "‘Flowers were omitted by request'-no horrors of funeral wreaths for me, mind. No bought harps and pillows and crosses. But if anybody cares to bring a bouquet from their own garden, they may-‘and the services were conducted by the Rev. Mr. Trackley of Rose River. The pall-bearers were Hugh Dark, Robert Dark,'-mind you don't stumble, Dandy, as you did at Selina Dark's funeral. What a jolt you must have given the poor girl!-‘Palmer Dark, Homer Penhallow'-put them on opposite sides of the casket so they can't fight-‘Murray Dark, Roger Penhallow, David Dark, and John Penhallow'-Drowned John, mind you, not that simpering nincompoop at Bay Silver-‘who contrived to get through the performance without swearing as he did at his father's funeral.'" "I didn't," shouted Drowned John furiously, springing to his feet. "And don't you dare publish such a thing about me in your damned obituary. You-you-" "Sit down, John, sit down. That really isn't in the obituary. I just stuck it in this minute to get a rise out of you. Sit down." "I didn't swear at my father's funeral," muttered Drowned John sullenly as he obeyed. "Well, maybe it was your mother's. Don't interrupt me again, please. Courtesy costs nothing, as the Scotchman said. ‘Aunt Becky was born a Presbyterian, lived a Presbyterian, and died a Presbyterian. She had a hard man to please in Theodore Dark, but she made him quite as good a wife as he deserved. She was a good neighbor as neighbors go and did not quarrel more than anybody else in the clan. She had a knack of taking the wind out of people's sails that did not make for popularity. She seldom suffered in silence. Her temper was about the average, neither worse nor better and did not sweeten as she grew older. She always behaved herself decently, although many a time it would have been a relief to be indecent. She told the truth almost always, thereby doing a great deal of good and some harm, but she could tell a lie without straining her conscience when people asked questions they had no business to ask. She occasionally used a naughty word under great stress and she could listen to a risky story without turning white around the gills, but obscenity never took the place of wit with her. She paid her debts, went to church regularly, thought gossip was very interesting, liked to be the first to hear a piece of news, and was always especially interested in things that were none of her business. She could see a baby without wanting to eat it, but she was always a very good mother to her own. She longed for freedom, as all women do, but had sense enough to understand that real freedom is impossible in this kind of a world, the lucky people being those who can choose their masters, so she never made the mistake of kicking uselessly over the traces. Sometimes she was mean, treacherous and greedy. Sometimes she was generous, faithful and unselfish. In short, she was an average person who had lived as long as anybody should live.' "There," said Aunt Becky, tucking her obituary under the pillow, quite happy in the assurance that she had made a sensation. "You will observe that I have not called myself ‘the late Mrs. Dark' or ‘the deceased lady' or ‘relict.' And that's that." "God bless me, did you ever hear the equal of that?" muttered Uncle Pippin blankly. Everyone else was silent in a chill of outraged horror. Surely-surely-that appalling document would never be published. It must not be published, if anything short of the assassination of Camilla Jackson could prevent it. Why, strangers would suppose it had been written by some surviving member of the clan. But Aunt Becky was bringing out another document, and all the Darks and Penhallows bottled up their indignation for the time being and uncorked their ears. Who was to get the jug? Until that was settled the matter of the obituary would be left in abeyance. Aunt Becky unfolded her will, and settled her owlish shell-ringed glasses on her beaky nose. "I've left my little bit of money to Camilla for her life," she said. "After her death it's to go to the hospital in Charlottetown." Aunt Becky looked sharply over the throng. But she did not see any particular disappointment. To do the Darks and Penhallows justice, they were not money-grabbers. No one grudged Camilla Jackson her legacy. Money was a thing one could and should earn for oneself; but old family heirlooms, crusted with the sentiment of dead and gone hopes and fears for generations, were different matters. Suppose Aunt Becky left the jug to some rank outsider? Or a museum? She was quite capable of it. If she did, William Y. Penhallow mentally registered a vow that he would see his lawyer about it. "Any debts are to be paid," continued Aunt Becky, "and my grave is to be heaped up-not left flat. I insist on that. Make a note of it, Artemas." Aretmas Dark nodded uncomfortably. He was caretaker of the Rose River graveyard, and he knew he would have trouble with the cemetery committee about that. Besides, it made it so confoundedly difficult to mow. Aunt Becky probably read his thoughts, for she said: "I won't have a lawn-mower running over me. You can clip my grave nicely with the shears. I've left directions for my tombstone, too. I want one as big as anybody else's. And I want my lace shawl draped around me in my coffin. It's the only thing I mean to take with me. Theodore gave it to me when Ronald was born. There were times when Theodore could do as graceful a thing as anybody. It's as good as new. I've always kept it wrapped in silver paper at the bottom of my third bureau drawer. Remember, Camilla." Camilla nodded. The first sign of disappointment appeared on Mrs. Clifford Penhallow's face. She had set her heart on getting the lace shawl, for she feared she had very little chance of getting the jug. The shawl was said to have cost Theodore Dark two hundred dollars. To think of burying two hundred dollars! Mrs. Toynbee Dark, who had been waiting all the afternoon for an opportunity to cry, thought she saw it at the mention of Aunt Becky's baby son who had been dead for sixty years, and got out her handkerchief. But Aunt Becky headed her off. "Don't start crying yet, Alicia. By the way, while I think of it, will you tell me something? I've always wanted to know and I'll never have another chance. Which of your three husbands did you like best-Morton Dark, Edgar Penhallow, or Toynbee Dark? Come now, make a clean breast of it." Mrs. Toynbee put her handkerchief back in her bag and shut the latter with a vicious snap. "I had a deep affection for all my partners," she said. Aunt Becky wagged her head. "Why didn't you say ‘deceased' partners? You were thinking it, you know. You have that type of mind. Alicia, tell me honestly, don't you think you ought to have been more economical with husbands? Three! And Poor Mercy and Margaret there haven't been able even to get one." Mercy reflected bitterly that if she had employed the methods Alicia Dark had, she might have had husbands and to spare, too. Margaret colored softly and looked piteous. Why, oh, why, must cruel old Aunt Becky hold her up to public ridicule like this? "I've divided all my belongings among you," said Aunt Becky. "I hate the thought of dying and leaving all my nice things. But since it must be, I'm not going to have any quarreling over them before I'm cold in my grave. Everything's down here in black and white. I've just left the things according to my own whims. I'll read the list. And let me say that the fact that any one of you gets something doesn't mean that you've no chance for the jug as well. I'm coming to that later." Aunt Becky took off her spectacles, polished them, put them back on again, and took a drink of water. Drowned John nearly groaned with impatience. Heaven only knew how long it would be before she would get to the jug. He had no interest in her other paltry knick-knacks. "Mrs. Denzil Penhallow is to have my pink china candlesticks," announced Aunt Becky. "I know you'll be delighted at this, Martha dear. You've given me so many hints about candlesticks." Mrs. Denzil had wanted Aunt Becky's beautiful silver Georgian candlesticks. And now she was saddled with a pair of unspeakable china horrors, in color a deep magenta-pink with what looked like black worms wriggling all over them. But she tried to look pleased, because if she didn't, it might spoil her chances for the jug. Denzil scowled, jug or no jug, and Aunt Becky saw it. Pompous old Denzil! She would get even with him. "I remember when Denzil was about five years old he came down to my place with his mother, one day, and our old turkey gobbler took after him. I suppose the poor bird thought no one else had a right to be strutting around there. 'Member, Denzil? Lord, how you ran and blubbered! You certainly thought Old Nick was after you. Do you know, Denzil, I've never seen you parading up the church aisle since but I've thought of that." Well, it had to be endured. Denzil cleared his throat and endured it. "I haven't much jewelry," Aunt Becky was saying. "Two rings. One is an opal. I'm giving that to Virginia Powell. They say it brings bad luck, but you're too modern to believe that old superstition, Virginia. Though I never had any luck after I got it." Virginia tried to look happy, though she had wanted the Chinese screen. As for luck or no luck, how could that matter? Life was over for her. Nobody grudged her the opal, but when Aunt Becky mentioned rings many ears were pricked up. Who would get her diamond ring? It was a fine one and worth several hundreds of dollars. "Ambrosine Winkworth is to have my diamond ring," said Aunt Becky. Half those present could not repress a gasp of disapproval and the collective effect was quite pronounced. This, thought the gaspers, was absurd. Ambrosine Winkworth had no right whatever to that ring. And what good would it do her-an old broken-down servant? Really, Aunt Becky's brain must be softening. "Here it is, Ambrosine," said Aunt Becky, taking it from her bony finger and handing it to the trembling Ambrosine. "I'll give it to you now, so there'll be no mistake. Put it on." Ambrosine obeyed. Her old wrinkled face was aglow with the joy of a long-cherished dream suddenly and unexpectedly realized. Ambrosine Winkworth, through a drab life spent in other people's kitchens, had hankered all through that life for a diamond ring. She had never hoped to have it; and now here it was on her hand, a great starry wonderful thing, glittering in the June sunshine that fell through the window. Everything came true for Ambrosine in that moment. She asked no more of fate. Perhaps Aunt Becky had divined that wistful dream of the old woman. Or perhaps she had just given Ambrosine the ring to annoy the clan. If the latter, she had certainly succeeded. Nan Penhallow was especially furious. She should have the diamond ring. Thekla Penhallow felt the same way. Joscelyn, who once had had a diamond ring, Donna, who still had one, and Gay, who expected she soon would have one, looked amused and indifferent. Chuckling to herself Aunt Becky picked up her will and gave Mrs. Clifford Penhallow her Chinese screen. "As if I wanted her old Chinese screen," thought Mrs. Clifford, almost on the point of tears. Margaret Penhallow was the only one whom nobody envied. She got Aunt Becky's Pilgrim's Progress, a very old, battered book. The covers had been sewed on, the leaves were yellow with age. One was afraid to touch it lest it might fall to pieces. It was a most disreputable old volume which Theodore Dark, for some unknown reason, had prized when alive. Since his death, Aunt Becky had kept it in an old box in the garret, where it had got musty and dusty. But Margaret was not disappointed. She had expected nothing. "My green pickle leaf is to go to Rachel Penhallow," said Aunt Becky. Rachel's long face grew longer. She had wanted the Apostle spoons. But Gay Penhallow got the Apostle spoons-to her surprise and delight. They were quaint and lovely and would accord charmingly with a certain little house of dreams that was faintly taking shape in her imagination. Aunt Becky looked at Gay's sparkling face with less grimness than she usually showed and proceeded to give her dinner set to Mrs. Howard Penhallow, who wanted the Chippendale sideboard. "It was my wedding-set," said Aunt Becky. "There's only one piece broken. Theodore brought his fist down on the cover of one of the tureens one day when he got excited in an argument at dinner. I won out in the argument, though-at least I got my own way, tureen or no tureen. Emily, you're to have the bed." Mrs. Emily Frost, née Dark, a gentle, faded little person, who also had yearned for the Apostle spoons, tried to look grateful for a bed which was too big for any of her tiny rooms. And Mrs. Alpheus Penhallow, who wanted the bed, had to put up with the Chippendale sideboard. Donna Dark got an old egg-dish in the guise of a gaily colored china hen sitting on a yellow china nest, and was glad because she had liked the old thing when she was a child. Joscelyn Dark got the claw-footed mahogany table Mrs. Palmer Dark had hoped for, and Roger Dark got the Georgian candlesticks and Mrs. Denzil's eternal hatred. The beautiful old Queen Anne bookcase went to Murray Dark, who never read books, and Hugh Dark got the old hour-glass-early eighteenth century-and wondered bitterly what use it would be to a man for whom time had stopped ten years ago. He knew, none better, how long an hour can be and what devastating things can happen in it. "Crosby, you're to have my old cut-glass whiskey decanter," Aunt Becky was saying. "There hasn't been any whiskey in it for many a year, more's the pity, it'll hold the water you're always drinking in the night. I heard you admire it once." Old Crosby Penhallow who had been nodding, wakened up and looked pleased. He really hadn't expected anything. It was kind of Becky to remember him. They had been young together. Aunt Becky looked at him-at his smooth, shining bald head, his sunken blue eyes, his toothless mouth. Old Crosby would never have false teeth. Yet in spite of the bald head and faded eyes and shrunken mouth, Crosby Dark was not an ill-looking old man-quite the reverse. "I have a mind to tell you something, Crosby," said Aunt Becky. "You never knew it-nobody ever knew it-but you were the only man I ever loved." The announcement made a sensation. Everybody-so ridiculous is outworn passion-wanted to laugh but dared not. Crosby blushed painfully all over his wrinkled face. Hang it all, was old Becky making fun of him? And whether or no, how dared she make a show of him like this before everybody? "I was quite mad about you," said Aunt Becky musingly. "Why? I don't know. You were handsomer sixty years ago than any man has a right to be, but you had no brains. Yet you were the man for me. And you never looked at me. You married Annette Dark-and I married Theodore. Nobody knows how much I hated him when I married him. But I got quite fond of him after a while. That's life, you know-though those three romantic young geese there, Gay and Donna and Virginia, think I'm talking rank heresy. I got over caring for you in time, even though for years after I did, my heart used to beat like mad every time I saw you walk up the church aisle with your meek little Annette trotting behind you. I got a lot of thrills out of loving you, Crosby-many more I don't doubt than if I'd married you. And Theodore was really a much better husband for me than you'd have been-he had a sense of humor. And it doesn't matter now whether he was or wasn't. I don't even wish now that you had loved me, though I wished it for so many years. Lord, the nights I couldn't sleep for thinking of you-and Theodore snoring beside me. But there it is. Somehow, I've always wanted you to know it and at last I've had the courage to tell you." Old Crosby wiped his brow with his handkerchief. Erasmus would never let him hear the last of this-never. And suppose it got into the papers! If he had dreamed anything like this was going to happen, he would never have come to the levee. He glowered at the jug. It was to blame, durn it. "I wonder how many of us will get out of this alive," whispered Stanton Grundy to Uncle Pippin. But Aunt Becky had switched over to Penny Dark and was giving him her bottle of Jordan water. "What the deuce do I care for Jordan water," thought Penny. Perhaps his face was too expressive, for Aunt Becky suddenly grinned dangerously. "Mind the time, Penny, you moved a vote of thanks to Rob Dufferin on the death of his wife?" There was a chorus of laughs of varying timbre, among which Drowned John's boomed like an earthquake. Penny's thoughts were as profane as the others' had been. That a little mistake between thanks and condolence, made in the nervousness of public speaking, should be everlastingly coming up against a man like this. From old Aunt Becky, too, who had just confessed that most of her life she had loved a man who wasn't her husband, the scandalous old body. Mercy Penhallow sighed. She would have liked the Jordan water. Rachel Penhallow had one and Mercy had always envied her for it. There must be a blessing in any household that had a bottle of Jordan water. Aunt Becky heard the sigh and looked at Mercy. "Mercy," she said apropos of nothing, "do you remember that forgotten pie you brought out after everybody had finished eating at the Stanley Penhallow's silver-wedding dinner?" But Mercy was not afraid of Aunt Becky. She had a spirit of her own. "Yes, I do. And do you remember, Aunt Becky, that the first time you killed and roasted a chicken after you were married, you brought it to the table with the insides still in it?" Nobody dared to laugh but everybody was glad Mercy had the spunk. Aunt Becky nodded undisturbed. "Yes, and I remember how it smelled! We had company, too. I don't think Theodore ever fully forgave me. I thought that had been forgotten years ago. Is anything ever forgotten? Can people ever live anything down? The honors are to you, Mercy, but I must get square with somebody. Junius Penhallow, do you remember-since Mercy has started digging up the past-how drunk you were at your wedding?" Junius Penhallow turned a violent crimson but couldn't deny it. Of what use was it, with Mrs. Junius at his elbow, to plead that he had been in such a blue funk on his wedding-morning that he'd never have had the courage to go through with it if he hadn't got drunk? He had never been drunk since, and it was hard to have it raked up now, when he was an elder in the church and noted for his avowed temperance principles. "I'm not the only one who ever got drunk in this clan," he dared to mutter, despite the jug. "No, to be sure. There's Artemas over there. Do you remember, Artemas, the evening you walked up the church aisle in your nightshirt?" Artemas, a tall, raw-boned, red-haired fellow, had been too drunk on that occasion to remember it, but he always roared when reminded of it. He thought it the best joke ever. "You should have all been thankful I had that much on myself," he said with a chuckle. Mrs. Artemas wished she were dead. What was a joke to Artemas was a tragedy to her. She had never forgotten-never could forget-the humiliation of that unspeakable evening. She had forgiven Artemas certain violations of his marriage vow of which everyone was aware. But she had never forgiven-never would forgive-the episode of the nightshirt. If it had been pajamas, it would not have been quite so terrible. But in those days pajamas were unknown. Aunt Becky was at Mrs. Conrad Dark. "I'm giving you my silver saltcellars. Alec Dark's mother gave them to me for a wedding present. Do you remember the time you and Mrs. Clifford there quarreled over Alec Dark and she slapped your face? And neither of you got Alec after all. There, there, don't crack the spectrum. It's all dead and vanished, just like my affair with Crosby." ("As if there was ever any affair," thought Crosby piteously.) "Pippin's to have my grandfather clock. Mrs. Digby Dark thinks she should have that because her father gave it to me. But no. Do you remember, Fanny, that you once put a tract in a book you lent me? Do you know what I did with it? I used it for curl papers. I've never forgiven you for the insult. Tracts, indeed. Did I need tracts?" "You-weren't a member of the church," said Mrs. Digby, on the point of tears. "No-nor am yet. Theodore and I could never agree which church to join. I wanted Rose River and he wanted Bay Silver. And after he died it seemed sort of disrespectful to his memory to join Rose River. Besides, I was so old then it would have seemed funny. Marrying and church-joining should be done in youth. But I was as good a Christian as any one. Naomi Dark." Naomi, who had been fanning Lawson, looked up with a start as Aunt Becky hurled her name at her. "You're to get my Wedgwood teapot. It's a pretty thing. Cauliflower pattern, as it's called, picked out with gold luster. It's the only thing it really hurts me to give up. Letty gave it to me-she bought it at a sale in town with some of her first quarter's salary. Have you all forgotten Letty? It's forty years since she died. She would have been sixty if she were living now-as old as you, Fanny. Oh, I know you don't own to more than fifty, but you and Letty were born within three weeks of each other. It seems funny to think of Letty being sixty-she was always so young-she was the youngest thing I ever knew. I used to wonder how Theodore and I ever produced her. She couldn't have been sixty ever-that's why she had to die. After all, it was better. It hurt me to have her die-but I think it would have hurt me more to see her sixty-wrinkled-faded-gray-haired-my pretty Letty, like a rose tossing in a breeze. Have you all forgotten that gold hair of hers-such living hair. Be good to her teapot, Naomi. Well, that's the end of my valuable belongings-except the jug. I'm a bit tired-I want a rest before I tackle that business. I'm going to ask you all to sit in absolute silence for ten minutes and think about a question I'm going to ask you at the end of that time-all of you who are over forty. How many of you would like to live your lives over again if you could?" 10 Another whim of Aunt Becky's! They resigned themselves to it with what grace they could. A silence of ten minutes seems like a century-under certain conditions. Aunt Becky lay as if tranquilly asleep. Ambrosine was gazing raptly at her diamond ring. Hugh thought about the night of his wedding. Margaret tried to compose a verse of her new poem. Drowned John became conscious that his new boots were exceedingly tight and uncomfortable and uneasily remembered his new litter of pigs. He ought to be home attending to them. Uncle Pippin wondered irritably what that fellow Grundy was looking so amused about. Uncle Pippin would have been still more scandalized had he known that Grundy was imagining himself God, rearranging all these twisted lives properly, and enjoying himself hugely. Murray Dark devoured Thora with his eyes and Thora went on placidly shining with her own light. Gay began to pick out her flower-girls. Little Jill Penhallow and little Chrissie Dark. They were such darlings. They must wear pink and yellow crepe and carry baskets of pink and yellow flowers-roses or mums, according to the time of year. Palmer Dark enjoyed in imagination the pleasure of kicking Homer Penhallow. Old Crosby was asleep and old Miller was nodding. Mercy Penhallow sat stiffly still and criticized the universe. Many of them were already sore and disappointed; nerves were strained and tenuous; when Julius Penhallow cleared his throat the sound was like a blasphemy. "Two minutes more of this and I shall throw back my head and howl," thought Donna Dark. She suddenly felt sick and tired of the whole thing-of the whole clan-of her whole tame existence. What was she living for, anyhow? She felt as out of place as the blank, unfaded space left on the wall where a picture had hung. Life had no meaning-this silly little round of gossip and venom and malicious laughter. Here was a roomful of people ready to fly at each other's throats because of an old broken-nosed jug and a few paltry knick-knacks. She forgot that she had been as keen as anybody about the jug when she came. She wondered impatiently if anything pleasant or interesting or thrilling were ever going to happen to her again. Drowned John's early wanderlust suddenly emerged in her. She wanted to have wings-wide sweeping wings to fly into the sunset-skim over the waves-battle with the winds-soar to the stars-in short, do everything that was never done by her smug, prosperous, sensible home-keeping clan. She was in rebellion against all the facts of her life. Probably the whole secret of Donna's unrest at that moment was simply a lack of oxygen in the air. But it came pat to the psychological moment. The sudden and lasting cessation of all the undertones and rustlings and stirrings in the room behind them at first arrested the attention and finally aroused the wonder of the outsiders on the veranda. Peter, who never knew why he should not gratify his curiosity about anything the moment he felt it, got off the railing, walked to the open window and looked in. The first thing he saw was the discontented face of Donna Dark, who was sitting by the opposite window in the shadow of a great pine outside. Its emerald gloom threw still darker shadows on her glossy hair and deepened the luster of her long blue eyes. She turned toward Peter's window as he laid his arms on the sill and bent inward. It was one of those moments all the rest of life can't undo. Their eyes met, Donna's richly quilled about with dark lashes, somewhat turbulent and mutinous under eyebrows flying up like little wings, Peter's gray and amazed, under a puzzled frown. Then it happened. Neither Donna nor Peter knew at first just what had happened. They only knew something had. Peter continued to stare at Donna as if mesmerized. Who was this creature of strange dark loveliness? She must be one of the clan or she wouldn't be here, but he couldn't place her at all. Wait-wait-what old memory flickered tantalizingly before him-now approaching-now receding? He must grasp it-the old church at Rose River-himself, a boy of twelve sitting in his father's pew-across the aisle a little girl of eight-blue-eyed, black-haired, wing-browed-a little girl, sitting in Drowned John's pew! He knew he must hate her because she sat in Drowned John's pew. So he made an impudent face at her. And the little girl had laughed-laughed. She was amused at him. Peter, who had hated her before impersonally, hated her now personally. He had kept on hating her although he had never seen her again-never again till now. Now he was looking at her across Aunt Becky's parlor. At that moment Peter understood what had happened to him. He was no longer a free man-forevermore he must be in the power of this pale girl. He had fallen in love fathoms deep with Drowned John's daughter and Barry Dark's detested widow. Since he never did anything by halves he did not fall in love by halves either. Peter felt a bit dizzy. It is a staggering thing to look in at a casual window and see the woman you now realize you have been subconsciously waiting for all your life. It is a still more staggering thing to have your hate suddenly dissolve into love, as though your very bones had melted to water. It rather lets you down. Peter was actually afraid to try to walk back to the veranda railing for fear his legs would give way. He knew, without stopping to argue with himself about it, that he would take no train from Three Hills that night and the lure of Amazon jungles had ceased-temporarily at least-to exist. Mystery and magic enfolded Peter as a garment. What he wanted to do was to vault over the window-sill, hurl aside those absurd men and women sitting between them, snatch up Donna Dark, strip off those ridiculous weeds she was wearing for another man, and carry her off bodily. It was quite on the cards that he would have done it-Peter had such a habit of doing everything he wanted to do-but at that moment the ten-minute silence was over and Aunt Becky opened her eyes. Everybody sighed with relief and Peter, finding that all eyes were directed towards him, dragged himself back to the railing and sat on it, trying to collect his scattered wits and able only to see that subtle, deep-eyed face with its skin as delicate as a white night moth, under its cap of flat dark hair. Well, he had fallen in love with Donna Dark. He realized that he had been sent there by the powers that govern to fall in love with her. It was predestined in the councils of eternity that he should look through that particular window at that particular moment. Good heavens, the years he had wasted insensately hating her! Hopeless idiot! Blind bat! Now the only thing to do was to marry her as quickly as possible. Everything else could wait but that could not. Even finding out what Donna thought about it could wait. Donna could hardly be said to be thinking at all. She was not quite so quick as Peter was at finding out what had happened to her. She had recognized Peter the moment she had seen him-partly from that same old memory of an impudent boy across the aisle, partly from his photographs in the papers. Though they weren't good of him-not half as fascinating. Peter hated being photographed and always glared at the camera as if it were a foe. Still, Donna knew him for her enemy-and for something else. She was trembling with the extraordinary excitement that tingled over her at the sight of him-she, who, a few seconds before, had been so bored-so tired-so disgusted that she wished she had the courage to poison herself. She was sure Virginia noticed it. Oh, if he would only go away and not stand there at the window staring at her. She knew he was leaving for South America that night-she had heard Nancy Penhallow telling it to Mrs. Homer. Donna put her hand up to her throat as if she were choking. What was the matter with her? Who cared if Peter Penhallow went to the Amazon or the Congo? It was not she, not Donna Dark, Barry's inconsolable widow, who cared. Certainly not. It was this queer, wild, primitive creature who had, without any warning, somehow usurped her body and only wanted to spring to the window and feel Peter's arms around her. There is no saying but that this perfectly crazy impulse might have mastered Donna if Aunt Becky had not opened her eyes and Peter had not vanished from the window. Donna gave a gasp, which, coming after the universal sigh, escaped the notice of everybody but Virginia, who laid her hand over Donna's and squeezed it sympathetically. "Darling, I saw it all. It must have been frightfully hard for you. You bore it splendidly." "What-what did I bear?" stammered Donna idiotically. "Why, seeing that dreadful Peter Penhallow staring at you like that-with his hate fairly sticking out of his eyes." "Hate-hate-oh, do you think he hates me-really?" gasped Donna. "Of course he does. He always has, ever since you married Barry. But you won't run the risk of meeting him again, darling. He's off tonight on some of his horrid explorations, so don't worry over it." Donna was not worrying exactly. She only felt that she would die if Peter Penhallow did go away-like that-without a word or another glance. It was not to be borne. She would dare uncharted seas with him-she would face African cooking-pots-she would-oh, what mad things was she thinking? And what was Aunt Becky saying. "Everyone over forty who would be willing to live his or her life over again exactly as it has been lived, put up your hand." Tempest Dark was the only one who nut up his hand. "Brave man! Or fortunate man-which?" inquired Aunt Becky satirically. "Fortunate," said Tempest laconically. He had been fortunate. He had fifteen exquisite years with Winnifred Penhallow. He would face anything to have them again. "Would you live your life over again, Donna?" whispered Virginia sentimentally. "No-no!!" Donna felt that to live over again the years that Peter Penhallow had hated her would be unendurable. Virginia looked grieved and amazed. She had not expected such an answer. She felt that something had come between her and Donna-something that clouded the sweet, perfect understanding that had always existed between them. She had been wont to say that words were really unnecessary for them-they could read each other's thoughts. But Virginia could not read Donna's thoughts just now-which was perhaps quite as well. She wondered uneasily if the curse of Aunt Becky's opal was beginning to work already. "Well, let's get down to business," Aunt Becky was saying. "Thank the pigs," thought Drowned John fervently. Aunt Becky looked over the room gloatingly. She had prolonged her sport as long as it was possible. She had got them just where she wanted them-all keyed up and furious-all except a few who were beyond the power of her venom and whom for that reason she did not despise. But look at the rest of them-squatting there on their ham-bones, pop-eyed, coveting the jug, ready to tear in pieces the one who got it. In a few minutes the lucky one would be known, they thought. Ah, would he? Aunt Becky chuckled. She still had a bomb to throw. 11 "You're all dying to know who is to get the jug," she said, "but you're not going to know yet awhile. I did intend to tell you today who I meant to have it, but I've thought of a better plan. I've decided to leave the jug in keeping of a trustee until a year from the last day of next October. Then, and not till then, you'll find out who's to get it." There was a stunned silence-broken by a laugh from Stanton Grundy. "Sold!" he said laconically. "Who's the trustee?" said William Y. hoarsely. He knew who should be trustee. "Dandy Dark. I've selected him because he is the only man I ever knew who could keep a secret." Everyone looked at Robert Dark, who squirmed uncomfortably, thus finding himself the center of observation. Everybody disapproved. Dandy Dark was a nobody-his nickname told you that. It was a hangover from the days when he had been a dandy-something nobody would ever dream of calling the fat, shabby, old fellow now, with his double chin, his unkempt hair and his flabby, pendulous cheeks. Only his little, deep-set, beady black eyes seemed to justify Aunt Becky's opinion of his ability to keep a secret. "Dandy is to be the sole executor of my will and the custodian of the jug until a year from the last day of next October," repeated Aunt Becky. "That's all the rest of you are to know about it. I'm not going to tell you how it will be decided then. It is possible that I may leave Dandy a sealed letter with the name of the legatee in it. In that case Dandy may know the name or he may not know it. Or it is equally possible that I may leave instructions in that same sealed letter that the ownership is to be settled by lot. And again, I may empower Dandy to choose for himself who is to have the jug, always bearing in his mind my opinions and prejudices regarding certain people and certain things. So in case I have chosen the last alternative, it behooves you all to watch your step from now on. The jug may not be given to anyone older than a certain age or to any unmarried person who, in my judgment, should be married, or to any person who has been married too much. It may not be given to anyone who has habits I don't like. It may not be given to anyone who quarrels or wastes his time fiddling. It may not be given to anyone addicted to swearing or drinking. It may not be given to any untruthful person or any dishonest person or any extravagant person. I've always hated to see anyone wasting money, even if it wasn't mine. It may not be given to anyone who has no bad habits and never did anything disgraceful"-with a glance in the direction of the impeccable William Y. "It may not be given to anyone who begins things and never finishes them, or to anyone who writes bad poetry. On the other hand, these things may not influence in the slightest my decision or Dandy's decision. And of course if the matter is to be decided by lot, it doesn't matter what you do or don't do. And finally it may go to somebody who doesn't live on the Island at all. Now, you know as much about it as you're going to know." Aunt Becky sank back on her pillows and enjoyed their expressions. Nobody dared say anything but how they thought! And looking at each other as if to say, "Well, you don't have much chance. You heard what she said." All the old bachelors and old maids reflected that they were practically out of it. Titus Dark and Drowned John were marked men because they swore. Chris Penhallow, a queer widower who lived by himself and played the violin when he should have been carpentering, wondered if he could live nearly a year and a half without touching it. Tom Dark, who had stolen a pot of jam from his aunt's pantry when he was a boy, wondered if Aunt Becky meant him when she spoke of dishonest people. Gosh, how hard it was to live some things down. Abel Dark, who had put a staging up to paint his house four years ago but had painted only a small patch and left the staging there, reflected that he really must get down to that job right away. Sim Dark wondered uneasily if Aunt Becky had or had not looked at him when she spoke of untruthful persons. She always seemed able to instill such venom into what she said. As for Penny Dark, the idea struck him then and there that it was time he got married. Homer Penhallow and Palmer Dark wondered if they hadn't better forswear their ancient grudge. They had always been bad friends, ever since the day in school when a band of boys, headed and incited by Homer Penhallow, had taken the pants off little Palmer Dark and made him walk a mile home in his shirttail. Still, though this rankled for years, they had not been open enemies till the affair of the kittens. Homer Penhallow's cat went down to Palmer Dark's barn and had three kittens which were not discovered until they were old enough to run around. Palmer Dark, who was out of cats just then, claimed them as his. Born in his barn and nourished on his premises. Homer wanted the kittens but Palmer, secure in possession, snapped contemptuous fingers at him. Then Homer's cat did an ungrateful thing. She went home and took the kittens with her. Homer was openly triumphant. What a joke on Palmer! Palmer bided his time in an ominous calm. One Sunday when Homer and his family were all in church, Palmer sneaked up to Homer's barn, caught the kittens and carried them home in a bag. Homer's cat came down the next day and succeeded in retrieving one. The other two Palmer kept shut securely up until she had forgotten them. So Palmer thought he had come off best. He had the two handsome striped toms while Homer had only an ugly little spotted tabby, afflicted with a cough. Palmer told the story around the clan, and after that he and Homer were at open feud. This had lasted for years, although all the cats concerned had long since gone where good cats go. "Now you've found out all you're going to find out, so you can go," said Aunt Becky. "Be sure to think nice thoughts. I leave you all my forgiveness. I've had an amusing afternoon. Heaven will be kind of tame after this, there's no manner of doubt. Speaking of heaven, would any of you like me to do any errands there for you?" What a question! Nobody answered, although Drowned John would have liked to send word to Toynbee Dark that he had never repaid him the three dollars he had borrowed of him before his death. But as Aunt Becky had never spoken to Toynbee on earth, it was not likely she would do it in heaven, so it would be a waste of breath to ask her. Anyway, it was too late. Aunt Becky was saying, "Ambrosine, shut the doors." Ambrosine closed the sliding doors, shutting the table with the jug in with Aunt Becky. Tongues were loosed, though they still talked in undertones. They said all, or most, of the things they had been thinking. There was great dissatisfaction. The Darks felt that they had been slighted; the Penhallows thought the Darks had got everything. The idea of giving old Ambrosine Winkworth the diamond ring! 12 Drowned John rose and stalked out. There was one thing he could do, and he did it thoroughly. He banged the door. "Let's leave the females to fight it out," he said. But the men, as soon as they got outside, had plenty to say. "Would you believe it?" demanded William Y., looking around him as if appealing to the world. "Nobody got much change out of Aunt Becky, did they?" chuckled Murray Dark. Dandy Dark was puffing himself out. He had never in all his life been of any importance, save what little accrued from the fact that he was the only man in the countryside who kept a bulldog. And now he had, in a wink, become the most important person in the clan. "All the weemen will be wishing I was single," he chuckled. But his face was inscrutable-purposely so. No fear of his giving away the secret. "Too mean to give anything away, even a secret," muttered Artemas Dark. "The heathen are raging already," said Stanton Grundy to Uncle Pippin. "If that jug doesn't set everybody on ears in a month's time, may I fight with Irishmen to the end of my life. Keep your eyes buttoned back for sights, Pippin." "Oh, take in the slack of your jaw," said Uncle Pippin snappishly. "Well, a nice lot of family skeletons have had a good airing," said Palmer Dark. "I haven't had as much fun since the dog-fight in church," said Artemas Dark. "Aunt Becky never liked any of us, you know," said Hugh. "She's bound to get all the rises she can out of us." "She isn't like any other woman," growled Drowned John. "Nobody is," said Grundy. "You don't know much about women, John," said Sim Dark. No man can endure being told he knows nothing about women-especially if he has coffined two wives. Drowned John went into an icy rage. "Well, I know something about you, Sim Dark, and if you don't stop circulating lies about me as you've been doing for years, you'll have to reckon with me." "But surely you don't want me to tell the truth about you," said Sim in bland amazement. Drowned John did not reply in words-could not-since he dared not swear so near Aunt Becky. He simply spat. "It's an outrageous way to leave the jug," growled William Y. "You should be thankful she didn't make it a condition that everybody should turn a somersault in the church aisle," said Artemas. "She would if she'd thought of it." "You would have liked that, I don't doubt," retorted William Y. "Grinning like a chessy cat over the very thought of it." Oswald Dark turned around and surveyed the irritated William Y. "Look at the moon," he said softly, waving his hand at a pale, silver bubble floating over the seaward valley. "Look at the moon," he repeated insistently, laying a long thin hand on the arm of William Y. "Heavens, I've seen moons before-hundreds of them!" snorted William Y. peevishly. "But can one see a thing of perfect beauty-like the moon-too often?" inquired Oswald, fixing his large agate eyes questioningly on William Y., who jerked his arm away and turned his back both on Oswald and his moon. "That jug shouldn't be in a house where there is no responsible woman," said Denzil Penhallow sourly. Everybody knew that Mrs. Dandy was as mad as a November partridge by spells. "If anyone has anything to say against my wife he'd better not let me hear him saying it," retorted Dandy ominously. "I'll smash his face for him." "Any time and any place," said Denzil obligingly. "Come, come, let us preserve decorum," implored Uncle Pippin nervously. "Pippin, go home and soak your head in turpentine for three days," boomed Drowned John. Uncle Pippin subsided. This, he reflected, was what came of Aunt Becky's not giving them anything to eat. "Devil take the jug," he muttered. "I doubt if the devil will be so obliging," said the irrepressible Grundy. The women were coming out now and the men went off to get car or horse, according to purse or age. Tempest Dark, who was walking, sauntered out of the gate, reflecting that he wanted to see this comedy played out. He would live long enough to see who got the jug. Titus Dark on the way home was importuned by a tearful wife to give up swearing. "Damn it, I can't," groaned Titus. "And I ain't the only one in the tribe that swears. Take Drowned John." "Drowned John knows when and when not to swear and you don't," sobbed Mrs. Titus. "It's only for a year and a quarter, Titus. You must. Dandy'll never give us the jug if you don't." "I don't believe Dandy'll have a thing to say about it. Aunt Becky wouldn't let anyone else decide that," said Titus. "I'd just go for months in misery and not get a da-not get a blessed thing out of it. Besides, Mary, how is anyone going to live with me if I can't swear? When I swear for ten minutes on end a child could eat out of my hand. Isn't that better than bottling it up and thinking murder? Take this horse now. I've just gotter swear at him or he'd never travel. If I talked anything else to him he wouldn't understand what I was saying." However, Titus had to promise to try. It would, he reflected, be damned hard. These women were so damned unreasonable. But he'd have a go at it, damned if he wouldn't. The race for the jug was on and devil take the hindmost. Gay slipped away alone. She knew a certain little ferny corner down the side road where she meant to stop and read Noel's letter. She looked so happy that the Moon Man shook his head at her. "Take care," he whispered warningly. "It's dangerous to be too happy-those that sit in the high places don't like it. Look how they hide my Lady from me so much of the time." But Gay only laughed at him and ran on down the side path and out by the side gate under the apple blossoms. Gay loved apple blossoms. It always hurt her that they lasted such a little while-such milky, wonderful things with hearts of love's own hue. To be sure, the roses came afterwards. But if one could only have the apple blossoms and the roses, too. Gay felt greedy of beauty. She wanted every kind all at once, now when life itself seemed just on the point of breaking into some marvelous blossom and all the coming days were in a hurry to be born. Youth is like that. It wants everything at once, not realizing that something must be saved for autumn days. Save? Nonsense! Pour it all out now, a libation to the approaching god. Gay did not think this-she only felt it, hurrying down the road, as sweet and virginal as the apple blossoms. "A nice little cuddler that, if you ask me," chuckled Stanton Grundy admiringly, giving Uncle Pippin a dig in the ribs. "I'm not asking you," said Uncle Pippin irritably. He had a sense of the fitness of things. Poke fun at old maids and fat married women if you like, but leave young things like Gay alone. Grundy's vulgar chuckle seemed to debase everything. Hadn't that man any reverence for anything? And why didn't he read a few halitosis advertisements? Heaven knew the magazines were full of them. Gay read her letter in her ferny corner and kissed it and put it back in her bosom. There was only one terrible thing in it. Noel said he could not come out till Saturday. They were going to be extra busy in the bank. Had she to live three whole days without seeing him? Could she? A little cluster of silver daisies growing by a lichened old stone nodded at her. She picked one of them-witch daisies that knew whether your sweetheart loved you or not. Too-wise daisies. Gay pulled away the tiny ivory petals one by one-he loves me-he loves me not-he loves me. Gay took out the letter again and kissed it and put the torn daisy petals into it. She was young and pretty and very much in love. And he loved her. The daisies said so. What a world! The poor Moon Man! As if one could be too happy! As if God didn't like to see you happy! Why, people were made for happiness. And wasn't it the most miraculous thing that out of all the world she and Noel should have met and loved! When there were so many other girls he might have fancied. She seemed to be at the very heart of some exquisite magic that had changed everything in life for her. 13 Donna came out beside Virginia. She had begun to collect her wits, but she did not quite know yet exactly what had taken place. She knew Peter was sitting on the railing, and she meant to sweep past him haughtily in all her dark dignity of widowhood, with lids cast down. But as she passed him she had to look up. They had another momentary unforgettable exchange of eyes. Virginia saw it this time and was vaguely disturbed by it. It did not look like a glance of hatred. She clutched Donna's arm as they went down the steps. "Donna, I believe that pig of a Peter is falling in love with you." "Oh-do you think so-do you really think so?" said Donna. Virginia could not understand her tone at all. But it must be a horrified one. "I'm afraid so. Wouldn't it be terrible for you? What a blessing he's leaving for South America tonight. Just think what it would be like to have him trying to make love to you." Donna did think of it. A strange shiver of terror and delight went over her from head to foot. She felt thankful that Drowned John bellowed to her that instant to hurry up. She fled to his car, leaving a puzzled and somewhat alarmed Virginia on the steps. What had come over Donna? Mrs. Foster Dark went home and ate her supper under Happy's fiddle hanging on the wall. Murray Dark went home and thought about Thora. Artemas Dark reflected dismally that it wouldn't do for him to get drunk for over a year. Crosby Penhallow and Erasmus spent the evening with their flutes-on the whole happily, although Crosby had to put up with some sly digs from Erasmus about old Becky's being in love with him. Peter Penhallow went home and unpacked his trunk. He had searched the world over for the meaning of life's great secret and now he had found it in one look from Donna Dark's eyes. Was he a fool? Then welcome folly. Big and Little Sam went home across windy seafìelds, and on the way home Little Sam bought a ticket from little Mosey Gautier for the raffle Father Sullivan was getting up down at Chapel Point to raise funds for the Old Sailors' Home. Big Sam wouldn't buy a ticket. He wasn't going to have no truck with Catholics and their doings, and he thought Little Sam might have expended his quarter to far better advantage. They had the heathen to think of. "No good's going to come of it," he remarked sourly. Little Sam went home and, dismissing the old Dark jug from his mind, sat down to read his favorite volume, Fox's Book of Martyrs, with the salt wind that even his battered and unromantic heart loved, blowing in at his window. Big Sam went down to the rocks and solaced himself by repeating the first canto of his epic to the gulf. 14 Denzil Penhallow told Margaret she must walk home-he and the wife were going down to have tea with the William Y.'s. Margaret was secretly well pleased. It was only a mile and the month was June. Besides, it would give her a chance to stop and see Whispering Winds. Whispering Winds was the small secret which made poor Margaret's life endurable. It wound in and out of her drab life like a ribbon of rainbows. It was the little house on the Bay Silver side road where Aunt Louisa Dark had lived. At her death, two years ago, it had become the property of her son Richard, who lived in Halifax. It was for sale but nobody had ever wanted to buy it-nobody, that is, except Margaret, who had no money to buy anything and would have been hooted at if it were so much as suspected that she wanted to buy a house. Hadn't she a perfectly good, ungrudged home with her brother? What in the world would she want with a house? Margaret did want it-terribly. She had always loved that little house of Aunt Louisa's. It was she who gave it the dear secret name of Whispering Winds, and dreamed all kinds of foolish, sweet dreams about it. As soon as she got to the Bay Silver side road, she turned down it and very soon was at the lane of her house-an old, old lane, grassy and deep-rutted, with bleached old gray "longer" fences hemming it in. There were clumps of birches all along it for a little way-then young spruces growing up thickly on either side-then just between them, at the end, the little house, once white, now as gray as the longers. There it was, basking in the late sun-smiling at her with its twinkling windows. Back of it was a steep hill where tossing young maples were whitening in the wind, and off to the right was a glimpse of purple valley. There was an old well in one corner, with an apple tree spilling blossoms over it. A little field off to the right was cool and inviting in the shadow of a spruce wood. The scent of its clover drifted across to Whispering Winds. The air was like a thin golden wine and the quiet was a benediction. Margaret caught her breath with the delight of it. Whispering Winds was one of those houses you loved the minute you saw them, without being in the least able to tell why-perhaps because its roof-line was so lovely against the green hill. She loved it so. She walked about the old garden, that was beginning to have such a look of neglect. She longed to prune it and weed it and dress it up. That delightful big bed of striped grass was encroaching on the path, those forget-me-nots were simply running wild. They and the house were just crying out for someone to take care of them. The house and the garden belonged together some way-you couldn't have separated them. The house seemed to grow out of the garden. The shrubs and vines reached up around it to hold it and caress it. If she could just have this house-with a baby in it-she would ask for nothing more. Not even Aunt Becky's jug. Margaret realized pathetically that she must give up writing poetry for a while, or she might have no chance of the jug. And she still hankered after it. Since she could never have Whispering Winds she wanted the jug. Dandy Dark had always been friendly to her. If it should rest with him to give the jug, she stood a better chance than from Aunt Becky. Cruel old Aunt Becky who had jeered at her and her poor little poems and her old-maidenhood before all the clan. Margaret knew that perhaps she was silly and faded and childish and unimportant and undesired, but it hurt to have it rubbed in so. She never harmed anyone. Why couldn't they leave her alone? Denzil and Mrs. Denzil were always giving her digs, too, about "single blessedness," and her nieces and nephews openly laughed at her. But here, in this remote shadowy little garden, she forgot all about it. Things ceased to sting. If she could only stay here forever, where the robins called to one another at evening in the maple wood. Listen to them. But it was soon time to go home. Mrs. Denzil would expect her to get the supper for the family and help milk cows. She bade good-bye regretfully to Whispering Winds and went on to the square bare house in a treeless yard where the Denzil Penhallows lived. She went up to her hideous little room looking out on the hen-yard, which she had to share with Gladys Penhallow. Gladys was there with some of her friends, thinking at the top of their voices as usual. It was always noisy. There were never any quiet moments. Margaret's head ached. She wished she had not gone to Aunt Becky's levee. It hadn't done any good. As for the old Pilgrim's Progress, it could lie on in The Pinery attic for all she cared. How pretty Gay Penhallow had looked today! And so young. What was it like to be eighteen? Margaret had forgotten if she had ever really known. What had been the trouble between Hugh and Joscelyn? And how dared Thora Dark, who had a husband, be so attractive to other men? What would it be like to have a man look at you the way she had seen Murray looking at Thora-though of course he had no business to be looking at another man's wife like that. Poor Lawson! It was dreadful to see the hunger in Naomi's eyes. How tickled Ambrosine was over that ring! Margaret did not grudge her the ring. Perhaps Ambrosine felt about it the way she felt about Whispering Winds. Though of course poor old Ambrosine's hands were too thin and knotty to wear rings. Margaret looked with considerable satisfaction at her own slender, shapely fingers. Nobody could say she hadn't a pretty hand. Roger Dark was a nice fellow. Why didn't he get a nice girl for a wife? They said he was crazy about Gay Penhallow, who wouldn't look at him. There you were again. Love going to waste all around you and you starving for a little. The idea suddenly struck Margaret that God wasn't fair. She shuddered and dismissed it as a blasphemy. It sounded like something that dreadful Grundy man would say. Poor Cousin Robina! Peter Penhallow, they said, was off on another of his explorations. He always seemed to live life with such gusto. But Margaret did not envy him. She never wanted to go away from home. What she wanted was a place where she could put down roots and grow old quietly. Margaret thought she would not mind growing old if she could be left to do it in peace. It was hard to grow old gracefully when you were always being laughed at because you were not young. But there was only one career for women in her clan. Of course you could be a nurse or a teacher or dressmaker, or something like that, to fill in the time before marriage, but the Darks and Penhallows did not take you seriously. 15 "Tell Joscelyn Dark I want to see her before she goes home, Ambrosine," ordered Aunt Becky. Joscelyn had walked the short distance up from Bay Silver and intended to walk back. Palmer Dark had taken her mother and her Aunt Rachel home in his car. She felt that she had about enough of Aunt Becky for one day, but she went back to the bedroom readily enough. After all, the poor old soul was not long for this world. Aunt Becky was lying back on her pillows. She was gazing earnestly on a little old tintype hanging on the wall near her bed. The picture was not decorative. At least so Joscelyn thought. But then she did not see it with Aunt Becky's eyes. Joscelyn saw only a tubby pompous old man, with a fringe of whisker around his face, and a thin, scrawny little woman in a preposterous dress. Aunt Becky saw a big, hearty, high-colored man whose abounding vitality brought a gust of life into every existence and a vivid-eyed girl whose wit and sly mirth had been the spice of every company she was in and whose love affairs were stimulating and piquant. Aunt Becky sighed as she turned to Joscelyn. The fire had gone out of her eyes, the sting out of her voice. She looked exactly what she was-a very old, very ill, very tired woman. "Sit down, Joscelyn. You now, I've been lying here thinking how many people will be glad when I'm dead? And not one to be sorry. And it seems to me that I wish I'd lived a bit differently, Joscelyn. I've always taken my fun out of them-I haven't spared them-they're all afraid of me. I'm just an ogress to them. It was fun watching them squirming. But now-I don't know. I've a devilish sort of feeling that I wish I'd been a kind, gentle, stingless creature like-well, like Annette Dark, for instance. Everybody was sorry when she died-though she never said a clever thing in her life. But she was smart enough to die before she got too old. Women should, Joscelyn. I've sat up too late. Nobody will miss me." Joscelyn looked levelly at Aunt Becky. She knew that what Aunt Becky said was true enough in a way. And she sensed the secret bitterness in the old woman's soul behind all her satire and bravado. She wanted to comfort her without telling a lie. Joscelyn could neither tell nor live a lie-which was what had made a clan existence hard for her. "I think, Aunt Becky, that every one of us will miss you a great deal more than you suppose we will-a great deal more than we imagine ourselves. You're like-like mustard. Sometimes you bite-and a big dose of you is rather awful-" "As today, for example," interjected Aunt Becky with a faint grin. "But you do give a tang to things. They'd be flat without you. And you seem like-I don't know how to put it-the very essence of Dark and Penhallow. We won't be half so much a clan when you're gone. You've always made history for us somehow. If this had been an ordinary afternoon-if we'd come here and you'd been nice to us-" "And fed you-" "We'd have all gone away and forgotten the afternoon. There'd be nothing in it to remember. But this afternoon will be remembered-and talked about. When the girls are old women they'll tell their grandchildren about it-you'll live by it fifty years after you're in your grave, Aunt Becky." "I have often thought it would be a frightfully dull world if everybody were perfectly good and sweet," conceded Aunt Becky. "I guess it's only because I'm tired that I'm wishing I'd been more like Annette. She was as sweet and good and unexciting as they make 'em. She never said a naughty word in her life. And I was far handsomer than she was, mind you. But Crosby loved her. Now, Joscelyn, here's a queer thing. You heard what I said today. There was a time I'd have given my soul if Crosby had loved me-I'd have given and done anything-except be like Annette. Not even for Crosby would I have been willing to be like Annette-even though now I'm getting childish and wishing I had been. I'd rather sting people than bore them, after all. But-" Aunt Becky paused and looked earnestly at Joscelyn. Joscelyn had held her own well. She was very good-looking. The evening light, falling through the window behind her, made a tremendous primrose nimbus around her shapely head. But her eyes-Aunt Becky wanted to solve the haunting mystery of Joscelyn's eyes. "I didn't keep you here to talk about my own feelings. I'm going to die. And I'm not afraid of death. Isn't it strange? I was once so afraid of it. But before I die I want to ask you something. I've never asked you before-do me that justice. What went wrong between you and Hugh?" Joscelyn started-flushed-paled-almost rose from her chair. "No-sit down. I'm not going to try to make you tell if you don't want to. It isn't curiosity, Joscelyn. I'm done with that. I feel I'd just like to know the truth before I die. I remember your wedding. Hugh was the happiest-looking groom I ever saw. And you seemed very well pleased with yourself, too-when you came in first, at least. I remember thinking you were made for each other-the sort of people who should marry-and found a home-and have children. And I would like to know what wrecked it all." Joscelyn sat silent a few minutes longer. Oddly enough, she was conscious of a strange desire to tell Aunt Becky everything. Aunt Becky would understand-she was sure Aunt Becky would understand. For ten years she had lived in an atmosphere of misunderstanding and disapproval and suspicion. She had not minded it, she thought-the inner flame which irradiated life had been her protection. But today she felt oddly that she had, after all, minded it more than she had supposed. There was a soreness in her spirit that seemed old, not new. She would tell Aunt Becky. No one else would ever know. It was a confidence to the grave itself. And it might help her-heal her. She bent forward and began to speak in a low, intense voice. Aunt Becky lay and listened movelessly until Joscelyn had finished it. "So that was it," she said, when the passionate voice had ceased. "Something none of us ever thought of. I never thought of it. I thought perhaps it was something quite small. So many of the tragedies of life come from little, silly, ridiculous things. Nobody ever knew why Roger Penhallow hanged himself forty years ago-nobody but me. He did it because he was eighteen years old and his father spanked him. Ah, the things I know of this clan! All the things I said today were things everyone knows. But I didn't say a word about scores of things nobody dreams I know. But weren't you very cruel, Joscelyn?" "What else could I have done?" said Joscelyn. "I couldn't have done anything else." "Not with that Spanish blood in you, I suppose. At least we'll blame it on the Spanish blood. Everything that isn't right in your branch of the Penhallows is laid at the door of that Spanish blood. Peter Penhallow and his hurry to be born, for instance. It must be the Spanish blood that makes you all fall in love with such terrible suddenness. Most of Captain Martin's descendants have been lovers at sight or not at all. I thought you'd escaped that curse-Hugh took so long courting you. Have you ever felt sorry you did it, Joscelyn?" "No-no-no," cried Joscelyn. "Two 'no's' too many," said Aunt Becky. "I want to tell you the exact truth," said Joscelyn slowly. "It is quite true-I've never been sorry I did do it. You can't be sorry you did a thing you have to do. But I have been sorry-not many times but all the time-that I had to do it. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to hurt Hugh like that-and I did want to have Treewoofe. I want it yet-you don't know how much I want Treewoofe-and all the lovely life I had planned to have there. It was dreadful to have to give it up. But I couldn't do anything else, Aunt Becky-I couldn't." "Well, God bless you, child. The less we say about it the better. You'll probably hate me tonight because you've told me this. You'll feel I tricked you into it by being old and pitiful." "No, you didn't trick me. I wanted to tell you. I don't know why-but I wanted to. And I'm glad you don't blame me too much, Aunt Becky." "I don't blame you at all. I might even believe you were right if I were young enough to believe it. God save us all, what a world it is! The things that happen to people-things without rhyme or reason! Frank has never married, has he? Do you think it happened to him, too?" Joscelyn's face crimsoned. "I don't know. He went away the next morning, you know. Sometimes I think it might have-because-when I looked at him-oh, Aunt Becky, you remember that absurd thing Virginia Penhallow said about the first time she met Ned Powell. The whole clan has laughed over it. ‘The moment I looked into his eyes I knew he was my predestined mate.' Of course it was ridiculous. But, Aunt Becky, that was just the way I felt, too." "Of course." Aunt Becky nodded understandingly. "We all feel those things. They're not ridiculous when we feel them. It's only when we put them into words that they're ridiculous. They're not meant to be put in words. Well, when I couldn't get the man I wanted, I just decided to want the man I could get. That was Craig Penhallow's way of looking at it, too. Ever hear the story of Craig Penhallow and the trees in Treewoofe lane, Joscelyn?" "No." "Well, you've noticed-haven't you-something odd about the spruce trees up and down that lane? There's a gap in them every once in so long." Joscelyn nodded. Aunt Becky could not tell her much she didn't know about the appearance of the trees in Treewoofe lane. "Thirty years ago old Cornelius Treverne owned Treewoofe. Craig was courting his daughter Clara. And one night Clara turned him down. Hard. Craig was furious. He flung himself out of the house and stormed down the lane. Poor old Cornelius had spent that whole day setting out a hedge of little spruce trees all along both sides of that long lane. A hard day's work, mind you. And what do you think Craig did by way of relieving his feelings? As he stalked along he would tear up a handful of old Cornelius' trees on the right hand-a few steps more-up would come a bunch on the left. He kept that up all the way down the lane. You can imagine what it looked like when he got to the end of it. And you can imagine what old Cornelius felt when he saw it next morning. He never got time to replant the trees-Cornelius was a great hand to put things off. He was a good man-painfully good. It was a blessing he hadn't sons, or they'd certainly have gone to the bad by way of keeping up the family average. But he was no hustler. So the trees that were left grew up as they were. As for Craig, by the time he had finished with the lane he felt a lot better. There were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it-Maggie Penhallow was just as handsome as Clara Treverne. Or at least she managed her eyes and hands so well, she passed for handsome. You see, Craig was like me. He decided to be sensible. Perhaps your way is wiser, Joscelyn-and perhaps we're all fools together with the Moon Man's high-seated gods laughing at us. Joscelyn-I don't know whether I should tell you this-but I think I should, for I don't think you know, and the things we don't know sometimes hurt us horribly, in spite of the old proverb. All Hugh's family are at him to go to the States and get a divorce. It's been done several times, you know. People brag that Prince Edward Island hasn't had but one divorce since Confederation. Stuff and nonsense! It's had a dozen." "But-but-they're not really legal-here, are they?" stammered Joscelyn. "Legal enough. They're winked at, anyhow. Mind, I don't say Hugh is going to do it. But they're at him-they're at him. Times have changed a bit these last ten years. No easy divorce for us-but in Hugh's case they'd condone it. Mrs. Jim Trent is the moving spirit behind it, I understand. She lived so long in the States she got their view-point. And she and Pauline Dark are as friendly just now as two cats lapping from the same saucer. Pauline's as much in love with Hugh as she ever was, you know." "It matters nothing to me," said Joscelyn stiffly, rising to go. She bade Aunt Becky good-bye rather shortly. Aunt Becky smiled cryptically after Joscelyn had gone out. "I've made Joscelyn Dark tell one fib in her life, if she never tells another," she thought. "Poor little romantic splendid fool. I don't know whether I feel envy or contempt. Yet I remember when I took myself almost as seriously as that. Lord, what does get into girls? Old Cy Dark's son!" 16 Joscelyn went home slowly through the glamour and perfume of the June evening. Slowly, because she was in no hurry to get home where her mother and her Aunt Rachel would be talking the afternoon over indignantly and expecting her to be as indignant as they were. Slowly, because some unwelcome shadow of imminent change seemed to go with her as she walked. Slowly, because she was living over again the story she had told Aunt Becky. She had been very sure she loved Hugh when she had finally promised to marry him. She had been happy in their brief engagement. Everybody had been happy-everybody well enough pleased about it, except Hugh's mother, Mrs. Conrad Dark, and his second cousin, Pauline Dark. Joscelyn did not care whether Pauline was pleased or not, but she was sorry Mrs. Conrad wasn't. Mrs. Conrad did not like her-never had liked her. Joscelyn had never been able to imagine why-until this very afternoon, when Aunt Becky had illuminated the mystery by her reference to Alec. Joscelyn had known Mrs. Conrad detested her from their first meeting, when Mrs. Conrad had told her that her petticoat was below her dress. Now, in the days of petticoats, there were three different ways you could tell a girl that her petticoat was below her dress. You could tell it as a kindly friend who felt it a duty to help get matters righted as soon as possible before anyone else noticed it, but who felt a sympathy with her as the victim of an accident which might happen at any time to yourself. You could tell it as a disinterested onlooker who had no real concern with the affair but wanted to do as you would be done by. Or you could tell it with a certain suppressed venom and triumph, as if you rather delighted in catching her in such a scrape and wanted her to know you saw the fatal garment and had your own opinion of any girl who could be so careless. The last way had been Mrs. Conrad Dark's, and Joscelyn knew her for an enemy. But this did not disturb to any extent the happiness of her engagement. Joscelyn had a good deal of Peter Penhallow's power of detachment from the influence of anyone else's opinion. As long as Hugh loved her it did not matter what Mrs. Conrad thought; and Joscelyn knew how Hugh loved her. Soon after their engagement, Treewoofe Farm at Three Hills came into the market. Treewoofe had been so named from some old place in Cornwall whence the Trevernes had come. The house was built on a hill overlooking the valley of Bay Silver, and Hugh bought the farm because of its magnificent view. Most of the clan thought the idea of buying a farm because it was beautiful very amusing and suspected Joscelyn of putting him up to it. Luckily, they thought, the soil was good, though run down, and the house practically new. Hugh had not made such a bad purchase, if the winter winds didn't make him wish he'd picked a more sheltered home. As for the view, of course it was very fine. None of the Darks or Penhallows were so insensitive to beauty as not to admit that. There was no doubt old Cornelius had tacked another hundred on his price because of that view. But it was a lonely spot and rather out of the world, and most of them thought Hugh had made a mistake. Hugh and Joscelyn had no qualms about it. They both loved Treewoofe. The splendor of many sunsets had flooded that hill and the shadows of great clouds rolled over it. One evening after he had bought it, he and Joscelyn walked up to see it, going to it, not by the road but by a little crooked, ferny path through the Treewoofe beech woods, full of the surprises no straight path can ever give. They had run all over the house and orchard like children and then stood together at their front door and looked down-down-down-over the hill itself-over the farmsteads and groves in the valley below-over her own home, looking like a doll's house at that distance-over the mirror-like beauty of Bay Silver-over the harbor bar-out-out-out-to the great gulf-a gray sea, this evening, with streaks of silver-Joscelyn had drawn a breath of rapture. To live every day looking at that! And to know that glorious wind everyday-sweeping up over the harbor, over the sheltered homesteads that hid from it-up-up-up-to their glorious free crest that welcomed it. And oh, what would dawn over those seaside meadows far below be like? "We'll have three good neighbors up here," said Joscelyn. "The wind-and the rain-and the stars. They can come close to us here. All my life, Hugh, I've longed to live on a hill. I can't breathe in the valley." Turning round she could see, past the other end of the hall that ran right through the house, the lovely old-fashioned garden behind-and behind it again the orchard in bloom. Their home, haunted by no ghosts of the past-only by wraiths of the future. Unborn eyes would look out of its windows-unborn voices sing in its rooms-unborn feet run lightly in the old orchard. Beautiful tomorrows-unknown lovely years were waiting there for them. Friends would come to them-hands of comrades would knock at their door-silken gowns would rustle through their chambers-there would be companionship and good smacking jests such as their clan loved. What a home they would make of Treewoofe! All the richness and ripeness of life would be theirs. Joscelyn saw their faces reflected in the long mirror that was hanging over the fireplace in the corner. A mirror with an intriguing black cat a-top of it which had been brought out from Cornwall and sold with the house. Young, happy, merry faces against a background of blue sky and crystal air. Hugh put his arm about her neck and drew her cheek close to his. "That's an old looking-glass, honey. It has reflected many a woman's face. But never, never one so beautiful as my queen's." The wedding was in September. Milly, Joscelyn's harum-scarum younger sister, was bridesmaid. Frank Dark was best man. Joscelyn had never seen Frank Dark. He lived in Saskatchewan, where his father, Cyrus Dark, had gone when his family were small, and where Frank and Hugh had been cronies during the years Hugh had spent in the west. But he came east for the wedding, arriving there only on the afternoon of the day itself. Joscelyn saw him for the first time when her Uncle Jeff swept in with her and left her standing by the side of her waiting groom. Joscelyn raised her eyes to look at Hugh-and instead found herself looking past him straight into Frank Dark's eyes as he gazed with open curiosity at this bride of Hugh's. Frank Dark was "dark by name and dark by nature" as the clan said. He had black, satiny hair, a thin olive-hued face and dark liquid eyes. A very handsome fellow, Frank Dark. Beside him, Hugh looked rather overgrown and raw-boned and unfinished. And at that moment Joscelyn Penhallow knew that she had never loved Hugh Dark, save with the affection of a good comrade. She loved Frank Dark, whom she had never seen until that minute. The ceremony was well begun before Joscelyn realized what had happened. She always believed that if she had realized it a moment sooner she could have stopped the marriage somehow-anyhow-it did not matter how, so long as it was only stopped. But Hugh was saying, "I will" when she came to her senses-and Frank's shadow was on the floor before her as she said, "I will" herself, without knowing exactly what she was saying. Another moment and she was Hugh Dark's wife-Hugh Dark's wife in the throes of a wild passionate love for another man. And Hugh at that moment was making a vow in his heart that no pain, no sorrow, no heartache should ever touch her life if he could prevent it. Joscelyn never knew how she got through the evening. It always seemed a nightmare of remembrance. Hugh kissed her on her lips-tenderly-possessively. The husband's kiss against which Joscelyn found herself suddenly in wild rebellion. Milly gave her a tear-wet peck next and then Frank Dark, easy, debonair Frank Dark, bent forward with a smile and good-wishes for Hugh's wife on his lips and kissed her lightly on the cheek. It was the first and last time he ever touched her; but today, ten years after, that kiss burned on Joscelyn's cheek as she thought of it. There was an orgy of kissing after that. At Dark and Penhallow weddings everybody kissed the bride and everybody else who could or would be kissed. Joscelyn, bewildered and terrified, had yet one clear thought in her mind-no one-no one must kiss the cheek where Frank's kiss had fallen. She gave them her lips or her left cheek blindly, but she kept the right to him. On and on they came with their good wishes and their tears or laughter-Joscelyn felt her mother's tears, she felt her bones almost crack in Drowned John's grip, she heard old Uncle Erasmus whisper one of the smutty little jokes he always got off at weddings, she saw Mrs. Conrad's cold, venomous face-no kiss from Mrs. Conrad-she saw Pauline Dark's pale, quivering lips-Pauline's kiss was as cold as the grave-she heard jolly old Aunt Charlotte whispering, "Tell him he's wonderful at least once a week." It was all a dream-she must wake presently. The ordeal of well-wishing over, the ordeal of supper came. Joscelyn was laughed at because she could not eat. Uncle Erasmus made another smutty jest and was punished by his wife's sharp elbow. After supper Hugh took his bride home. The rest of the young folks, Frank Dark among them, stayed at Bay Silver to dance the night away. Joscelyn went out with only a cloak over her bridal finery. Hugh had asked her to go home with him so. The drive to Treewoofe had been very silent. Hugh sensed that somehow she did not want to talk. He was so happy he did not want to talk himself. Words might spoil it. At Treewoofe he lifted her from the buggy and led her by the hand-how cold the hand was. She was frightened, his little love-across the green before the house and over the threshold of his door. He turned to welcome her with the little verse of poetry he had composed for the occasion. Hugh had the knack of rhyme that flickered here and there in the clan, sometimes emerging in very unexpected brainpans. He had pictured himself doing this a hundred times-leading in a white-veiled, silk-clad bride-but not a bride with such white lips and such wide, horror-filled eyes. For the first time Hugh realized that here was something most terribly wrong. This was not the pretty shrinking and confusion of the happy bride. They stood in the entrance-hall at Treewoofe and looked at each other. A fire was flickering in the fireplace-Hugh had lighted it with his own hands before he left and bade his hired boy to keep it alive-and the rosy flamelight bathed the hall and fell over his lovely golden bride-his no more. "Joscelyn-my darling-what is wrong?" She found her voice. "I can't live with you, Hugh." "Why not?" She told him. She loved Frank Dark and loving him she could be wife to no other man. Now her eyes were no longer blue or green or gray, but a flame. There was a terrible hour. In the end Hugh set open the door and looked at her, white anger falling over his face like a frost. One only word he said: "Go." Joscelyn had gone, wraithlike in her shimmer of satin and tulle, out into the cold September moonlight silvering over Treewoofe Hill. She had half walked, half run home to Bay Silver in a certain wild triumph. As she went past the graveyard, her own people buried there seemed to be reaching out after her to pluck her back. Not her father, though. He lay very quiet in his grave-quieter than he had ever lain in life. There had been Spanish blood in him. Mrs. Clifford Penhallow could have told you that. Her clan thought-she thought herself-that she had had a hard life with Clifford's vagaries. Though when she became a widow she found there were a good many harder things he had fended from her. Joscelyn cherished no delusion. She was Hugh's wife in law and she could marry no other man. The thought of divorce never entered her head. But she was free to be true to her love-this wonderful passion which had so suddenly filled her soul and given it wings, so that she seemed rather to fly than walk over the road. Its dark enchantment lifted her above fear and shame; nothing could touch her, not even what she knew was to be faced. And in this rapt mood she came back to her mother's door and the dismayed dancers scattered to their homes as if a ghost had walked in among them. Joscelyn, as she went upstairs with the frost of the autumn night wet on her limp wedding-veil, wondered if Frank saw her and what he would think. But Frank was not there. Ten minutes after Hugh had taken his bride away a telegram had come for Frank Dark. Cyrus Dark was dying in Saskatchewan. Frank left at once to pack his scarcely unpacked trunk and catch the early boat-train, thereby perhaps escaping the horsewhipping a madman at Treewoofe was silently threatening to give him and which, it must be admitted, he did not in the least deserve. Frank Dark returned to the west without ever knowing that his friend's bride had fallen in love with him. He hadn't the slightest wish that she should fall in love with him-though he thought her a dashed pretty girl. A bit of money, too. Hugh had always been a lucky beggar. 17 Joscelyn paused at the gate of her home and looked at it with some distaste. The old Clifford Penhallow house was prim, old-fashioned and undecorated, but it was considered to be very quaint by the summer tourists who came to Bay Silver, and a postcard had been made of it. The house was built on a little point running out into Bay Silver. On one side its roof sloped unbrokenly down to within a few feet of the ground. Its windows were high and narrow. A little green yard surrounded it, with nothing in it but green grass which Rachel Penhallow swept every day. To the right was a huddle of trees-a lombardy, a maple, and three apple trees, girt by a tidy stone dyke. On the left a neat gate opened into a neat pasture-oh, everything was so neat and bare-where there were some windy willows and where Mrs. Clifford kept her cow. Back of it was a straight blue line of harbor, a glimpse of pink sand-dunes and over them a hazy sunset. For ten years this had been to Joscelyn merely a place to live her strange inner dream-life. She asked no more of it. But now she was suddenly conscious of this odd distaste for it. She had never cared very much for it. It lay too low-she wanted the wind and outlook of a hill. She did not want to go in. She could see her mother and Aunt Rachel at the living-room window. They seemed to be quarreling as usual. Rather-bickering. They couldn't do anything as genuine and positive as quarrel. There was no Spanish blood in either of them. Joscelyn knew what was ahead of her if she went in-the whole afternoon would be threshed over and somehow they would make her feel that she was responsible for their not getting what they wanted. She could not endure that just now-so she walked around the pasture, as if she were going to the shore, and when she was out of their sight she slipped through the sweet-briar thicket, in at the kitchen door, and upstairs to her own room. With a sigh of relief and weariness she sank into a chair by the open window. She suddenly felt tireder than she had ever felt in her life before. Was this to be her existence forever? She had not thought about the future for years-there was no future to think of-nothing but the strange present where her secret love burned like an altar flame she must tend forever, a devoted priestess. But now she thought of the future. A future lived with two old women who were always bickering-an aunt who was bitter and miserly, a mother who was always complaining of "slaving" and not being appreciated. Milly, gay, irresponsible Milly, was long since married and gone. Her going had been a relief to Joscelyn because Milly thought her a fool, but now she missed Milly's laughter. How still and quiet everything was. But up at Treewoofe there would be wind. There was always a wind there. She could see every dell and slope of Treewoofe Farm from where she sat, lying in the light of a queer red smoky sunset. Dear Treewoofe which seemed in some curious way to belong to her still, when she watched the moon sinking over its snowy hill on winter nights or the autumn stars burning over its misty harvest fields. Over it a cloud was drifting-a cloud like a woman with long, blowing, wet hair. She thought of Pauline Dark-Pauline who still loved Hugh. Could it be true that Hugh's family really wanted him to get a U. S. divorce? Would Pauline ever be mistress of Treewoofe? Pauline with her thin malicious smile. Demure as a cat, too. At the thought Joscelyn felt a wave of homesickness engulf her. Treewoofe was hers-hers, though she could never enter into her heritage. Hugh would never-could never-take another woman there in her place. It would be sacrilege. Joscelyn shivered again. She had a bitter realization that her springtime suddenly seemed far away. She was no longer young-and all she had had out of life was a certain cool indifferent kiss dropped ten years ago on a cheek that no lips had ever touched since. Yet for that kiss she had given her soul. Aunt Rachel came in without the useless formality of a knock. She had been crying and the knobby tip of her long nose was very red. But she was not without her consolation. Mercy Penhallow hadn't got Aunt Becky's bottle of Jordan water, thank heaven. She, Rachel Penhallow, was now the only woman in the clan who had one. Penny Dark didn't count. Men had no real understanding about such sacred things. "What did you think of the afternoon, Joscelyn?" "Think-the afternoon-oh, it was funny," said Joscelyn. Aunt Rachel stared. She thought the afternoon had been dreadful and scandalous but it would never have occurred to her to call it funny. "We have no real chance for the jug, of course. I told your mother that before we went. And less than ever now. Dandy Dark and Mrs. Conrad are first cousins. If you had not been so crazy-Joscelyn-" Joscelyn winced. She always winced when Aunt Rachel gave her jabs about her behavior. She hated Aunt Rachel. Always had hated her. It was always a comfort to reflect that if she chose she could humiliate Aunt Rachel to the dust. Aunt Rachel with her poor pitiful pride in the possession of that bottle of Jordan water, one of several which an itinerant missionary had once sold for the benefit of his cause. She and Theodore Dark had been the only ones in the clan to buy one. The bottle stood in the middle of the parlor mantelpiece. Aunt Rachel dusted it every day with reverent hands. One day when Joscelyn had been a little girl, she had found herself alone in the parlor, and she had boldly climbed up on a chair and taken the sacred bottle in her hand. It was a pretty bottle with a faceted glass stopper, and Aunt Rachel had tied a bow of blue satin ribbon lovingly around its throat. Somehow Joscelyn had dropped it. Luckily it fell on the soft, velvety, padded roses of one of Mrs. Clifford's famous hooked rugs. So it did not break. But the stopper came out and before the horrified Joscelyn could leap down and rescue it, every drop of the priceless Jordan water had been spilled. At first Joscelyn was cold with horror. Even at ten she did not think there was anything special or sacred about that water. She had understood too well her father's satirical speeches about it. But she knew what Aunt Rachel would be like. Then an impish idea entered her mind. Luckily she was alone in the house. She went out and deliberately filled up the bottle from the kitchen water-pail. It looked exactly the same. Aunt Rachel never knew the difference. Joscelyn had never told a soul-less for her own sake than for Aunt Rachel's. That bottle of supposed Jordan water was all that gave any meaning to Aunt Rachel's life. It was the only thing she really loved-her god, in truth, though she would have been horrified if such a suggestion had ever been made to her. As for Joscelyn, she could never have stood Aunt Rachel and her martyr airs at all had it not been for the knowledge of how securely she had her in her power. "Where did you put that bottle of St. Jacob's oil when you housecleaned the pantry?" Aunt Rachel was asking. "I want to rub my joints. There's rain coming. I shouldn't have put off my flannels. A body should wear flannel next the skin till the end of June." Joscelyn went silently and got the St. Jacob's oil. 18 Hugh Dark leaned over the gate at Treewoofe for a time before going in, looking at the house dead black on its hill against the dull red sky-the house where he had once thought Joscelyn Penhallow would be mistress. He thought it looked lonely-as if it expected nothing more from life. Yet it had nothing of the desolate peace of a house whose life has been lived. It had an unlived look about it; it had a defrauded defiant air; it had been robbed of its birthright. Before his marriage Hugh had liked to stand so and look at his house when he came home, dreaming a young man's dreams. He imagined coming home to Joscelyn; he would stand awhile before going in, looking up at all its windows whence warm golden lights would be gleaming over winter snows or summer gardens or lovely, pale, clear autumn dusks. He would think of the significance of each window-the dining-room, where his supper would be laid, the kitchen, where Joscelyn was waiting for him, perhaps a dimly lighted window upstairs in a room where small creatures slept. "She is the light of my house," he would think. Pretty? The word was too cheap and tawdry for Joscelyn. She was beautiful, with the beauty of a warm pearl or a star or a golden flower. And she was his. He would sit with her by rose-red fires on stormy winter nights and wild wet fall evenings, shut in with her for secret happy hours, while the winds howled about Treewoofe. He would walk with her in the twilight orchard on summer nights, and kiss her hair in that soft blue darkness of shadows. For years he had not looked at his house when he came home. In a sense he hated it. But tonight he was restless and unhappy. Only after seeing Joscelyn did he realize to the full how empty his life was. Empty like his house. It was always difficult to believe that the incidents of his wedding-night had been real. We can never believe that terrible things really have happened. Years after they have happened we are still incredulous. So it was with Hugh. It simply could not be so. Joscelyn must be in that house, waiting for him to come to her. If he stood here patiently by the gate he would see her at the door looking for him and see the garland gold of her hair shining like a crown in the light behind her. Would he get the divorce his mother and sisters were always hinting at? No, he would not. He struck his clenched fist furiously on the gate-post. Frank would come home then and marry Joscelyn. He should never have her. There was no light in the house. His old housekeeper must be away. Hugh went in sullenly, not by the front door, though it was nearest. He knew that it was locked. He had locked it behind Joscelyn on their wedding-night and it had never been opened since. He went in by the kitchen door and lit a lamp. He was restless. He went all over the house-the dusty ill-kept house. It was lonely and unsatisfied. The chairs wanted to be sat upon. The mirrors wanted to reflect charming faces. The rooms wanted children to go singing through them. The walls wanted to re-echo to laughter. There had been no laughter in this house since that wedding-night-no real laughter. A house without remembered laughter is a pitiful thing. He came finally to the square front hall where the ashes of the bridal fire were still in the grate. His housekeeper had her orders never to meddle with anything in the front hall. The dust lay thick over everything. The mirror was turned to the wall. He hated it because it had once reflected her face and would reflect it no more forever. The clock on the mantelpiece was not going. It had stopped that night and had never been wound again. So time had stopped for Hugh Dark when he had looked at Joscelyn and realized that she was no longer his. On the mantelpiece, just before the clock, a wedding-ring and a small diamond ring were lying. They had been there ever since Joscelyn had stripped them from her fingers. The moonlight was looking in through the glass of the front door like a white hopeless face. Hugh recalled an old saying he had heard or read somewhere-"God had made a fool of him." Ay, verily God had made a fool of him. He would go out and roam about in the night as he often did to drive away haunting thoughts. In the house he could think of nothing but Joscelyn. Outside he could think of his plans for making money out of his farm and the possibilities that were looming up for him in local politics. But first he must feed his cat. The poor beast was hungry, crouched on the kitchen doorstep looking at him accusingly. It was not the cat he and Joscelyn were reputed to have quarreled over. "At least," thought Hugh bitterly, "a cat always knows its own mind." 19 So Aunt Becky's famous last "levee" was over with all its comedy and tragedy, its farce and humor, its jealousies and triumphs; and it may be concluded that very few people went home from it as happy as they went to it. The two Sams, perhaps, who were untroubled by love or ambition and had no suspicion of the dark clouds already lowering over their lives-Gay Penhallow-and maybe Peter, who was tearing the bowels out of his trunk. He had said to Nancy on the way home: "Nancy-Nancy, I've fallen in love-I have-I have-and it's glorious. Why did I never fall in love before?" Nancy caught her breath as Peter whirled around a corner on two wheels. "What do you mean? And who is it?" "Donna Dark." "Donna Dark!" Nancy gasped again as Peter shaved old Spencer Howey's team by the merest fraction of an inch. "Why, Peter, I thought you always hated her." "So did I. But, dearest of Nancys, have you never heard the proverb, ‘Hate is only love that has missed its way'?"
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Product details
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire; Reprint edition (April 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402289332
ISBN-13: 978-1402289330
Product Dimensions:
1 x 5.5 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.0 out of 5 stars
46 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#266,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
anothe adult book, full of love affairs, old fights, new fights, reconciliations, and wry observation. no racisim until the very last sentence, when a character uses the n word regarding a white statue that has been painted black.of, course, there are no Black or brown people of any kind on Prince Edward Island, and one woman who is cb passionate and impulsive had this trait blamed on "Spanish blood". overall good dialog and interesting explorations of motives and secrets of a tight knit clan
An old jug left in secret legacy by a mischievous and temperamental old aunt: who knew that the inheritance of such a trivial (and undeniably ugly) object could lead to such drastic repercussions! Shattered friendships, broken hearts, rekindled romance...the Dark and Penhallow families experience them all and more when the clan matriarch, Aunt Becky, dies after her final "levee" during which she blistered each and every one of them with her tongue and started the kettle of emotions boiling with her unusual will and bequests.Following the funeral, Big Sam and Little Sam, friends for ages, suddenly find that they cannot stand each other's company...but can they learn to live apart? Beautiful Gay Penhallow, whose young heart is in raptures over her recent engagement, learns the painful lesson of the meaning of true love, as does Joscelyn Dark, who has spurned her husband for ten long years in order to remain true to her heart's desire. Brian Dark and Margaret Penhallow, each longing desperately for love and home, finally find solace for their aching hearts just as do Peter Penhallow and Donna Dark, longtime enemies who suddenly find in each other the lover they've been unconsciously searching for. In the year that follows Aunt Becky's death, until the day her secret is finally revealed, these and many other lives will be drastically changed. Just how much damage will the old jug do to this family and will its members survive the change?This is a charming book set in Lucy Maud Montgomery's beloved Prince Edward Island. Its colorful characters, descriptive scenery and interesting plot that employs a mixture of humor, pathos and sweet sentiment make for a comfortable read that leaves behind a pleasant sense of satisfaction at its close. Though I would certainly recommend that readers new to L.M. Montgomery's books read her more popular Avonlea books first, this was an enjoyable book and well worth the time spent.
Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, justly famous for her "Anne of Green Gables" series, wrote two novels in her career that were explicitly intended for adults. One is her highly entertaining 1931 classic "A Tangled Web."Set on Montgomery's beloved Prince Edward Island, the novel concerns two intermarried clans, the Darks and the Penhallows, whose collective lives are thrown into chaos by the dying wish of matriach Aunt Becky Dark. The clever and meddling Aunt Becky leaves a valued heirloom jug to be awarded to the most deserving clan member one year after her death.The premise may seem a little weak, but Montgomery adroitly uses it as a vehicle to explore the foibles, weaknesses, rivalries and eccentricities of a small town, in the process finding much humor and some considerable human wisdom.The race for the jug will prompt the Darks and the Penhallows to examine their lives, with unexpected results. Men and women who have quarreled all their lives will try to be polite for one year. An estranged couple will attempt to heal their marriage. A young woman in love will compete for the man of her choice, before pondering the wisdom of her choice. A spinster will be offered marriage and a home by a man she has decidedly mixed feelings about. A man and a woman who hate each other will suddenly wonder why. A cruelly abused orphan will find happiness in an unexpected way.In a sense, "A Tangled Web" is a clever intermingling of a series of short stories with predictable outcomes, but Montgomery's ability to make the most of the journey carries it off in superb style. "A Tangled Web" is very highly recommended to her fans.
This is one of two books targeted specifically to adults written by L. M. Montgomery. It involves the intentions of a well-meaning matriarch and the dispersal of her worldly goods. It is the totally funniest of her novels, besides being touching where that fits, too. In this one, they did have cars--about half the community was in buggies, and the other half had moved to the gasoline engine, so we are talking about 1920s, since the young men were WWI vets, too. That said, bring yourself to overlook an "of the period" the racist remark that comes in the last few paragraphs, and dont deprive yourself from reading this true-to-the-bone tale of rural North America, warts and all.
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