The Complete Works of L M Montgomery, page 453
“Will you have some more dressing?” inquired Young Grandmother graciously.
“No, thank you.” Mrs. David was not going to have any more, by way of signifying displeasure. Later on she took a still more terrible revenge by leaving two-thirds of her pudding uneaten, knowing that Young Grandmother had concocted it. Young Grandmother woke up in the night and wondered if anything could really have been the matter with the pudding. The others might have eaten it out of politeness.
“If Leander’s name had been almost anything else she might have been named for her father,” said Great-Uncle Walter. “Roberta — Georgina — Johanna — Andrea — Stephanie — Wilhelmina—”
“Or Davidena,” said Uncle Klon. But Great-Uncle Walter ignored him.
“You can’t make anything out of a name like Leander. Whatever did you call him that for, Marian?”
“His grandfather named him after him who swam the Hellespont,” said Young Grandmother as rebukingly as if she had not, thirty-five years before, cried all one night because Old Grandfather had given her baby such a horrid name.
“She might be called Hero,” said Uncle Klon.
“We had a dog called that once,” said Old Grandmother.
“Leander didn’t tell you before he died that he wanted any special name, did he, Lorraine?” inquired Aunt Nina.
“No,” faltered Lorraine. “He — he had so little time to tell me — anything.”
The clan frowned at Nina as a unit. They thought she was very tactless. But what could you expect of a woman who wrote poetry and peddled it about the country? Writing it might have been condoned — and concealed. After all, the Lesleys were not intolerant and everybody had some shortcomings. But selling it openly!
“I should like baby to be called Gabriella,” persisted Nina.
“There has never been such a name among the Lesleys,” said Old Grandmother. And that was that.
“I think it’s time we had some new names,” said the poetess rebelliously. But every one looked stony, and Nina began to cry. She cried upon the slightest provocation. Lorraine remembered that Leander had always called her Mrs. Gummidge.
“Come, come,” said Old Grandmother, “surely we can name this baby as well comfortably as uncomfortably. Don’t make the mistake, Nina, of thinking that you are helping things along by making a martyr of yourself.”
“What do you think, Miss Silversides?” inquired Uncle Charlie, who thought Salome was being entirely ignored and didn’t like it.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter what I think. I am of no consequence,” said Salome, ostentatiously helping herself to the pickles.
“Come, come, now, you’re one of the family,” coaxed Uncle Charlie, who knew — so he said — how to handle women.
“Well” — Salome relaxed because she was really dying to have her say in it—”I’ve always thought names that ended in ‘ine’ were so elegant. My choice would be Rosaline.”
“Or Evangeline,” said Great-Uncle Walter.
“Or Eglantine,” said Aunt Marcia eagerly.
“Or Gelatine,” said Uncle Klon.
There was a pause.
“Juno would be such a nice name,” said Cousin Teresa.
“But we are Presbyterians,” said Old Grandmother.
“Or Robinette,” suggested Uncle Charlie.
“We are English,” said Young Grandmother.
“I think Yvonne is such a romantic name,” said Aunt Flora.
“Names have really nothing to do with romance,” said Uncle Klon. “The most thrilling and tragic love affair I ever knew was between a man named Silas Twingletoe and a woman named Kezia Birtwhistle. It’s my opinion children shouldn’t be named at all. They should be numbered until they’re grown up, then choose their own names.”
“But then you are not a mother, my dear Horace,” said Young Grandmother tolerantly.
“Besides, there’s an Yvonne Clubine keeping a lingerie shop in Charlottetown,” said Aunt Josephine.
“Lingerie? If you mean underclothes for heaven’s sake say so,” snapped Old Grandmother.
“Juanita is a rather nice uncommon name,” suggested John Eddy Lesley-over-the-bay. “J-u-a-n-i-t-a.”
“Nobody would know how to spell it or pronounce it,” said Aunt Marcia.
“I think,” began Uncle Klon — but Aunt Josephine took the road.
“I think—”
“Place aux dames,” murmured Uncle Klon. Aunt Josephine thought he was swearing but ignored him.
“I think the baby should be called after one of our missionaries. It’s a shame that we have three foreign missionaries in the connection and not one of them has a namesake — even if they are only fourth cousins. I suggest we call her Harriet after the oldest one.”
“But,” said Aunt Anne, “that would be slighting Ellen and Louise.”
“Well,” said Young Grandmother haughtily — Young Grandmother was haughty because nobody had suggested naming the baby after her—”call her the whole three names, Harriet Ellen Louise Lesley. Then no fourth cousin need feel slighted.”
The suggestion seemed to find favour. Lorraine caught her breath anxiously and looked at Uncle Klon. But rescue came from another quarter.
“Have you ever,” said Old Grandmother with a wicked chuckle, “thought what the initials spell?”
They hadn’t. They did. Nothing more was said about missionaries.
4
“Sylvia is a beautiful name,” ventured Uncle Howard, whose first sweetheart had been a Sylvia.
“You couldn’t call her that,” said Aunt Millicent in a shocked tone. “Don’t you remember Great-Uncle Marshall’s Sylvia went insane? She died filling the air with shrieks. I think Bertha would be more suitable.”
“Why, there’s a Bertha in John C. Lesley’s family-over-the-bay,” said Young Grandmother.
John C. was a distant relative who was “at outs” with his clan. So Bertha would never do.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to name her Adela?” said Aunt Anne. “You know Adela is the only really distinguished person the connection has ever produced. A famous authoress—”
“I should like the mystery of her husband’s death to be cleared up before any grandchild of mine is called after her,” said Young Grandmother austerely.
“Nonsense, Mother! You surely don’t suspect Adela.”
“There was arsenic in the porridge,” said Young Grandmother darkly.
“I’ll tell you what the child should be called,” said Aunt Sybilla, who had been waiting for the psychic moment. “Theodora! It was revealed to me in a vision of the night. I was awakened by a feeling of icy coldness on my face. I came all out in goose flesh. And I heard a voice distinctly pronounce the name — Theodora. I wrote it down in my diary as soon as I arose.”
John Eddy Lesley-over-the-bay laughed. Sybilla hated him for weeks for it.
“I wish,” said sweet old Great-Aunt Matilda, “that she could be called after my little girl who died.”
Aunt Matilda’s voice trembled. Her little girl had been dead for fifty years but she was still unforgotten. Lorraine loved Aunt Matilda. She wanted to please her. But she couldn’t — she couldn’t — call her dear baby Emmalinza.
“It’s unlucky to call a child after a dead person,” said Aunt Anne positively.
“Why not call the baby Jane,” said Uncle Peter briskly. “My mother’s name — a good, plain, sensible name that’ll wear. Nickname it to suit any age. Jenny — Janie — Janet — Jeannette — Jean — and Jane for the seventies.”
“Oh, wait till I’m dead — please,” wailed Old Grandmother. “It would always make me think of Jane Putkammer.”
Nobody knew who Jane Putkammer was or why Old Grandmother didn’t want to think of her. As nobody asked why — the dessert having just been begun — Old Grandmother told them.
“When my husband died she sent me a letter of condolence written in red ink. Jane, indeed!”
So the baby escaped being Jane. Lorraine felt really grateful to Old Grandmother. She had been afraid Jane might carry the day. And how fortunate there was such a thing as red ink in the world.
“Funny about nicknames,” said Uncle Klon. “I wonder did they have nicknames in Biblical times. Was Jonathan ever shortened into Jo? Was King David ever called Dave? And fancy Melchizedek’s mother always calling him that.”
“Melchizedek hadn’t a mother,” said Mrs. David triumphantly — and forgave Uncle Klon. But not Young Grandmother. The pudding remained uneaten.
“Twenty years ago Jonathan Lesley gave me a book on ‘The Hereafter,’” said Old Grandmother reminiscently. “And he’s been in the Hereafter eighteen years and I am still in the Here.”
“Any one would think you expected to live forever,” said Uncle Jarvis, speaking for the first time. He had been sitting in silence, hoping gloomily that Leander’s baby was an elect infant. What mattered a name compared to that?
“I do,” said Old Grandmother, chuckling. That was one for Jarvis, the solemn old ass.
“We’re not really getting anywhere about the baby’s name, you know,” said Uncle Paul desperately.
“Why not let Lorraine name her own baby?” said Uncle Klon suddenly. “Have you any name you’d like her called, dear?”
Again Lorraine caught her breath. Oh, hadn’t she! She wanted to call her baby Marigold. In her girlhood she had had a dear friend named Marigold. The only girl-friend she ever had. Such a dear, wonderful, bewitching, lovable creature. She had filled Lorraine’s starved childhood with beauty and mystery and affection. And she had died. If only she might call her baby Marigold! But she knew the horror of the clan over such a silly, fanciful, outlandish name. Old Grandmother — Young Grandmother — no, they would never consent. She knew it. All her courage exhaled from her in a sigh of surrender.
“No-o-o,” she said in a small, hopeless voice. Oh, if she were only not such a miserable coward.
And that terrible Old Grandmother knew it.
“She’s fibbing,” she thought. “She has a name but she’s too scared to tell it. Clementine, now — she would have stood on her own feet and told them what was what.”
Old Grandmother looked at Clementine, forever gazing at her lily, and forgot that the said Clementine’s ability to stand on her own feet and tell people — even Old Grandmother — what was what had not especially commended her to Old Grandmother at one time. But Old Grandmother liked people with a mind of their own — when they were dead.
Old Grandmother was beginning to feel bored with the whole matter. What a fuss over a name. As if it really mattered what that mite in the cradle, with the golden fuzz on her head, was called. Old Grandmother looked at the tiny sleeping face curiously. Lorraine’s hair but Leander’s chin and brow and nose. A fatherless baby with only that foolish Winthrop girl for a mother.
“I must live long enough for her to remember me,” thought Old Grandmother. “It’s only a question of keeping on at it. Marian has no imagination and Lorraine has too much. Somebody must give that child a few hints to live by, whether she’s to be minx or madonna.”
“If it was only a boy it would be so easy to name it,” said Uncle Paul.
Then for ten minutes they wrangled over what they would have called it if it had been a boy. They were beginning to get quite warm over it when Aunt Myra took a throbbing in the back of her neck.
“I’m afraid one of my terrible headaches is coming on,” she said faintly.
“What would women do if headaches had never been invented?” asked Old Grandmother. “It’s the most convenient disease in the world. It can come on so suddenly — go so conveniently. And nobody can prove we haven’t got it.”
“I’m sure no one has ever suffered as I do,” sighed Myra.
“We all think that,” said Old Grandmother, seeing a chance to shoot another poisoned arrow. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you. Eye strain. You should really wear glasses at your age, Myra.”
“Why can’t those headaches be cured?” said Uncle Paul. “Why don’t you try a new doctor?”
“Who is there to try now that poor Leander is in his grave?” wailed Myra. “I don’t know what we Lesleys are ever going to do without him. We’ll just have to die. Dr. Moorhouse drinks and Dr. Stackley is an evolutionist. And you wouldn’t have me go to that woman-doctor, would you?”
No, of course not. No Lesley would go to that woman-doctor. Dr. M. Woodruff Richards had been practising in Harmony for two years, but no Lesley would have called in a woman-doctor if he had been dying. One might as well commit suicide. Besides, a woman-doctor was an outrageous portent, not to be tolerated or recognised at all. As Great-Uncle Robert said indignantly, “The weemen are gittin’ entirely too intelligent.”
Klondike Lesley was especially sarcastic about her. “An unsexed creature,” he called her. Klondike had no use for unfeminine women who aped men. “Neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring,” as Young Grandfather had been wont to say. But they talked of her through their coffee and did not again revert to the subject of the baby’s name. They were all feeling a trifle sore over that. It seemed to them all that neither Old Grandmother nor Young Grandmother nor Lorraine had backed them up properly. With the result that all the guests went home with the great question yet unsettled.
“Just as I expected. All squawks — nothing but squawks as usual,” said Old Grandmother.
“We might have known what would happen when we had this on Friday,” said Salome, as she washed up the dishes.
“Well, the great affair is over,” said Lucifer to the Witch of Endor as they discussed a plate of chicken bones and Pope’s noses on the back veranda, “and that baby hasn’t got a name yet. But these celebrations are red-letter days for us. Listen to me purr.”
CHAPTER II
Sealed of the Tribe
1
Things were rather edgy in the Lesley clan for a few weeks. As Uncle Charlie said, they had their tails up. Cousin Sybilla was reported to have gone on a hunger strike — which she called a fast — about it. Stasia and Teresa, two affectionate sisters, quarrelled over it and wouldn’t speak to each other. There was a connubial rupture between Uncle Thomas and Aunt Katherine because she wanted to consult Ouija about a name. Obadiah Lesley, who in thirty years had never spoken a cross word to his wife, rated her so bitterly for wanting to call the baby Consuela that she went home to her mother for three days. An engagement trembled in the balance. Myra’s throbbings in the neck became more frequent than ever. Uncle William-over-the-bay vowed he wouldn’t play checkers until the child was named. Aunt Josephine was known to be praying about it at a particular hour every day. Nina cried almost ceaselessly over it and gave up peddling poetry for the time being, which led Uncle Paul to remark that it was an ill wind which blew no good. Young Grandmother preserved an offended silence. Old Grandmother laughed to herself until the bed shook. Salome and the cats held their peace, though Lucifer carefully kept his tail at half-mast. Everybody was more or less cool to Lorraine because she had not taken his or her choice. It really looked as if Leander’s baby was never going to get a name.
Then — the shadow fell. One day the little lady of Cloud of Spruce seemed fretful and feverish. The next day more so. The third day Dr. Moorhouse was called — the first time for years that a Lesley had to call in an outside doctor. For three generations there had been a Dr. Lesley at Cloud of Spruce. Now that Leander was gone they were all at sea. Dr. Moorhouse was brisk and cheerful. Pooh — pooh! No need to worry — not the slightest. The child would be all right in a day or two.
She wasn’t. At the end of a week the Lesley clan were thoroughly alarmed. Dr. Moorhouse had ceased to pooh-pooh. He came anxiously twice a day. And day by day the shadow deepened. The baby was wasting away to skin and bone. Anguished Lorraine hung over the cradle with eyes that nobody could bear to look at. Everybody proposed a different remedy but nobody was offended if it wasn’t used. Things were too serious for that. Only Nina was almost sent to Coventry because she asked Lorraine one day if infantile paralysis began like that, and Aunt Marcia was frozen out because she heard a dog howling one night. Also, when Flora said she had found a diamond-shaped crease in a clean tablecloth — a sure sign of death in the year — Klondike insulted her. But Klondike was forgiven because he was nearly beside himself over the baby’s condition.
Dr. Moorhouse called in Dr. Stackley, who might be an evolutionist but had a reputation of being good with children. After a long consultation they changed the treatment; but there was no change in the little patient. Klondike brought a specialist from Charlottetown who looked wise and rubbed his hands and said Dr. Moorhouse was doing all that could be done and that while there was life there was always hope, especially in the case of children.
“Whose vitality is sometimes quite extraordinary,” he said gravely, as if enunciating some profound discovery of his own.
It was at this juncture that Great-Uncle Walter, who hadn’t gone to church for thirty years, made a bargain with God that he would go if the child’s life was spared, and that Great-Uncle William-over-the-bay recklessly began playing checkers again. Better break a vow before a death than after it. Teresa and Stasia had made up as soon as the baby took ill, but it was only now that the coolness between Thomas and Katherine totally vanished. Thomas told her for goodness’ sake to try Ouija or any darned thing that might help. Even Old Cousin James T., who was a black sheep and never called “Uncle” even by the most tolerant, came to Salome one evening.
“Do you believe in prayer?” he asked fiercely.
“Of course I do,” said Salome indignantly.
“Then pray. I don’t — so it’s no use for me to pray. But you pray your darnedest.”
2
A terrible day came when Dr. Moorhouse told Lorraine gently that he could do nothing more. After he had gone Young Grandmother looked at Old Grandmother.
