The Complete Works of L M Montgomery, page 598
No, by gad, he wouldn’t! A lifelong, harmonious brotherhood was not going to be destroyed like this. Timothy had an inspiration from heaven. Joe’s Island! There was your answer to prayer!
The details caused Timothy considerable anxiety. Time pressed and, rack his brains as he might, he could think of no way to lure the Winkworth woman to Joe’s Island unbeknownst to anyone. But Providence opened a way. Mrs. Knapp came to the Upper Glen store and dropped in to have a visit with Matilda Merry. They sat on the back porch and rocked and gossiped until Timothy, lying on the kitchen sofa just inside the window, heard something that brought him to his feet in another flash of inspiration. Miss Winkworth, so Mrs. Knapp said, was going to Charlottetown to spend a day or two with a friend who lived there. She was going on the boat train. So was Mrs. Dr. Blythe, who was going up to Avonlea for a visit.
So this, Timothy scornfully reflected, was why Amos had seemed so dull and depressed all day and talked of getting some liver pills from Dr. Blythe. Blue cats! He must have it bad if the prospect of being parted from his ladylove for a couple of days drove him to liver pills! Well, the hotter the fire the quicker it burned out. Amos would soon get over his infatuation and be thankful for his escape... yes, before Dr. Blythe’s pills were half taken.
Timothy lost no time. He felt sure Amos was going to take her to the train but Amos’ car was still visible down in the store yard. Timothy strode to the barn and got out his own car. His only fear was that Amos was going to call for Mrs. Blythe, too.
“Now where is he going?” said Mrs. Knapp, as Timothy’s car swung out of the yard.
“Must be to the Harbour after fish,” said Matilda. “He’d have shaved and dressed if he was going visiting even if it was only to Ingleside after liver pills. Liver pills! Amos needs liver pills as much as I do. Timothy’s forty-five if he’s a day but vain as a peacock.”
“Well, he’s a real good-looking man,” said Mrs. Knapp. “Away ahead of Amos if you ask me. Amos is what you might call insignificant... as Mrs. Blythe would say.”
“Do you think Amos and your boarder are going to make a match of it, Maria?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mrs. Knapp. “He’s certainly been very attentive. And Mrs. Dr. Blythe has done her best to bring it about. Nothing can cure her of matchmaking. And I think Miss Winkworth is pretty tired of struggling along by herself. But I can’t be sure... she’s one to keep her own counsel.”
The Winkworth woman was sitting on the Knapp veranda when Timothy drove up. She was dressed for travelling, in a natty suit and a smart little hat with a green bow and she had her packaway at her feet.
“Evening, Miss Winkworth,” said Timothy briskly. “Sorry my brother couldn’t come. He was detained by some fox business. So I’ve come to take you to the train.”
“That is lovely of you, Mr. Randebush.”
She certainly had a pleasant voice. And a very elegant figure. And a way of looking at you! All at once Timothy remembered that he hadn’t shaved that day and that bits of chaff were sticking to his sweater.
“I guess we’d better hurry,” he said grimly. “It’s near train time.”
The Winkworth woman stepped into the car unsuspiciously. Timothy glowed. This was far easier than he had expected. And thank goodness there had evidently been no arrangement with Mrs. Dr. Blythe.
But the crux would come when he turned off the Upper Glen road down the deep-rutted, grass-grown track that led to the bay. She would smell a rat there.
She did.
“This isn’t the road to the station, is it?” she said with a little note of wonder in her voice.
“No, it isn’t,” said Timothy, more grimly than ever. “We aren’t going to the station.”
“Mr. Randebush...”
The Winkworth woman found herself staring into a pair of very stern eyes.
“You are not going to be hurt, miss. No harm of any kind is intended if you do just as you are told and keep quiet.”
The Winkworth woman, after one gasp, kept quiet. Probably she thought you had to humour madmen.
“Get out,” said Timothy, when they reached the end of the road. “Then go right down the wharf and get into the boat that’s tied there.”
There was nobody in sight. The Winkworth woman walked down the old wharf, Timothy following closely behind, feeling splendidly bold and buccaneery. Blue cats! This was the way to manage them! And yet Dr. Blythe was always saying that women were the equal of men!
When they were off and skimming merrily over the Harbour she said gently, with a disarming little tremor in her voice, “Where... where are you taking me, Mr. Randebush?”
No harm in telling her.
“I’m taking you to Joe’s Island, miss. It’s four miles across the Harbour. I’m going to leave you there for a few days and my reason is my own business, as Dr. Blythe would say. As I’ve said you won’t be hurt and you’ll be quite comfortable. Kenneth Ford’s summer house is on the island and I’m caretaker for him. The Fords went to Europe this summer instead of coming to Glen St. Mary. There’s plenty of canned stuff in the house and a good stove and I reckon you can cook. At least, Mrs. Dr. Blythe told my brother Amos you could.”
She took it admirably... you had to hand it to her. Almost any woman he knew, except Mrs. Dr. Blythe, would have gone into hysterics. She did not even ask what his reason was. Likely she guessed, durn her! Sitting there as cool and composed as if being kidnapped was all in a day’s work!
“Don’t you think someone will raise a hue and cry when I’m found missing?” she asked after an interval.
“Who’s to miss you?” he said. “Amos will think you got afraid and took another chance.”
“Your brother wasn’t taking me. I was going up with the Flaggs,” said the Winkworth woman gently. “But when I don’t come back day after tomorrow won’t Mrs. Knapp wonder?”
“No. She’ll think you’ve just been induced to stay longer in town. And the Doctor and his wife are going to stay for two weeks in Avonlea. Besides, what if people do start wondering? They’ll just think you’ve gone back to Boston to get out of paying your board.”
The Winkworth woman said nothing in reply to this cruelty. She looked afar over the sunset harbour. She had a way of tilting her head. Little taffy-coloured curls escaped from under the edges of her hat.
Suddenly she smiled.
Timothy experienced a queer tickly sensation in his spine.
“The wind is west tonight, isn’t it?” she said dreamily. “And oh, look, Mr. Randebush, there is the evening star!”
As if nobody had ever seen the evening star before!
Of course she knew she was showing that pretty throat of hers off when she lifted her face to the sky!
This kidnapping of a woman was a durned dangerous business. He didn’t like that sensation in his spine.
Maybe she didn’t think he really meant that about leaving her on Joe’s Island. She’d likely be good and mad when she found he did.
Well, there was plenty of room to be mad in. Four miles from anywhere. Nothing but fishing boats ever went near Joe’s Island when no one was there and they never landed. No light would show through the solid shutters and if anybody saw smoke coming through the chimneys they’d think it was only he, Timothy, airing the house.
Golly, but it was a masterly trick, this!
“Stars are quite common in Glen St. Mary,” he said shortly.
The Winkworth woman did not speak again. She sat and looked at that confounded star until they were close to the boat pier on Joe’s Island.
“Now, miss,” said Timothy briskly, “here we are.”
“Oh, Mr. Randebush, do you really mean that you are going to maroon me on this lonely place? Is there nothing I can say will make you change your mind? Think what Mrs. Dr. Blythe will think of your conduct.”
“Miss,” said Timothy sternly... all the more sternly because there was no doubt in the world that there was a fascination about her and he really did care a good deal about the Blythes’ opinion... “Try molding granite if you want an easy job, but don’t try to change a Randebush when he has once deter-mined on a course of action.”
“Mrs. Blythe told me you were all very stubborn,” she said meekly as she stepped out on the pier. A very beguiling fragrance seemed to exhale from her... another advertisement for the beauty shop, no doubt... though Mrs. Blythe did smell the same when she came into church.
The Kenneth Ford house was built on the high rocky point on the north of the little island. All the windows were shuttered with good strong wooden shutters. Doors and shutters were securely locked and Timothy had all the keys... or thought he had. He felt quite sure that even the Blythes did not have one. There was everything in the house one wanted for comfort... canned foods, coffee, tea, running water.
“You can be quite comfortable here, miss. It’s dark, of course, but there’s plenty of lamps and coal oil. The bed in the north room upstairs is aired... I saw to that yesterday.”
Timothy’s face was red. He suddenly felt that it was a most indelicate thing to talk about beds to a lady.
Without another word he went out and locked the door. As he did so he felt a twinge of compunction.
It was too much like locking the door of a jail.
“But don’t get maudlin, Timothy Randebush,” he told himself sternly. “Amos has got to be saved and this is the only way. You know she can’t be let run loose. She’d signal some fishing boat quicker than a wink. The boats sometimes run close to Joe’s Island when the wind is east.”
Halfway across the bay he suddenly thought, Blue cats! Were there any matches in the Ford house? He had lighted a lamp when he went in but when she had to refill it it would go out and what then?
To his wrath and amazement Timothy found himself unable to sleep. Well, you didn’t kidnap a woman every night. No doubt it did something to your nervous system. If he could only stop wondering if she had any matches!
Blue cats! If she hadn’t she couldn’t light a fire to cook with! She’d starve to death. No, she wouldn’t. The meat in the cans was already cooked. Even if it was cold it would sustain life.
Turn over and go to sleep, Timothy Randebush. Timothy turned over but he did not go to sleep.
The worst of it was he could not take her matches in the morning. The wheat had to be got in and for him to start off on a cruise to Joe’s Island, which would take the best part of the forenoon, would be to arouse Amos’ suspicions... or so thought Timothy’s guilty conscience.
The day seemed endless. When the last load was in, Timothy shaved and dressed in a hurry and not waiting for supper under the pretence of having to see a man at Harbour Mouth on business, got out his car and started for the shore, stopping at one of the village stores to get matches.
The evening had turned cold and foggy and a raw wind was blowing up the Harbour. Timothy was chilled to the bone when he landed on Joe’s Island. But when he unlocked the kitchen door after a preliminary knock... for manners’ sake... a most delightful sight greeted his eyes and a most delightful smell his nostrils.
A cheery fire was burning in the range and Alma Winkworth, in a trailing, lacy, blue dress, protected by a rose-coloured apron, was frying codfish cakes on it. The whole kitchen was filled with their appetizing aroma, blent with the odour of coffee. A plate of golden-brown muffins was atop of the warming oven.
She came forward to meet him eagerly, a warm, friendly smile on her face... a smile that somehow reminded him of Mrs. Dr. Blythe’s. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the stove, her rich hair curled in tendrils around her forehead and her eyes shone. Timothy actually thought this and then was horribly ashamed of such a thought.
Maudlin... that’s what it was... worse than Amos. Blue cats! There was something the matter with the pit of his stomach. It had been the spine before, now it was the pit of his stomach.
It must be the smell of that supper. He hadn’t had a mouthful to eat since twelve o’clock.
“Oh, Mr. Randebush, I’m so glad to see you,” she was saying.
“It occurred to me that you mightn’t have any matches and I thought I’d better bring you some,” said Timothy gruffly.
“Oh, wasn’t that clever of you!” she said gratefully.
Timothy didn’t see where the cleverness came in but she contrived to make him feel like a wonder man.
“Won’t you sit down awhile, Mr. Randebush?” she said.
“No, thanks.” Timothy was gruffer than ever. “I’ve got to get back and get my supper.”
“Oh, Mr. Randebush, won’t you have a bite with me? There’s plenty for two... and it’s so lonely eating alone. Besides, these cakes are made after Susan Baker’s famous recipe. She imparted it to me as a special favour.”
Timothy told himself that it was the smell of the coffee that was weakening him. The dishwater that Matilda Merry called coffee!
He found that his hat was taken and he was gently pushed into a chair.
“Just sit there until I lift my codfish cakes. I know better than to try to talk to a hungry man.”
Such codfish cakes... such muffins... such coffee! And such common sense! No bothering you with conversation. She just let you eat your fill in comfort.
To be sure, that queer sensation still persisted, even though his stomach was no longer empty. But what matter? Dr. Blythe always said the less attention you paid to your stomach the better. Not many doctors knew as much as Dr. Blythe.
“It’s really very nice to have a man in the house,” said Alma Winkworth after Timothy’s second cup of coffee.
“I s’pose you find it rather lonesome,” said Timothy gruffly. Then he reproached himself for his gruffness. It was necessary, of course, to save Amos from her clutches, but one didn’t need to be a clown.
The Randebushes had always prided themselves on their good manners. But she wasn’t going to get around him with her blarney and her lonesomeness. He had cut his eyeteeth.
“A little,” she said wistfully. “You might sit awhile and talk to me, Mr. Randebush.”
“Can’t do it, miss. You must get your gossip from Mrs. Knapp and Mrs. Blythe.”
“But Mrs. Blythe never gossips and Mrs. Knapp is a newcomer.”
“Can’t do it, miss. Thank you for the supper. Susan Baker herself couldn’t have beaten those cakes. But I must be getting along.”
She was looking at him admiringly, with her hands clasped under her chin. It was years, he thought, since a woman had looked admiringly at him.
“I suppose you haven’t an aspirin about you,” she said wistfully again. “I’m afraid I’ve a headache coming on. I take one occasionally.”
Timothy had no aspirin. He thought about it all the way home and most of the night.
Suppose she was there alone, suffering. There was no help for it... he’d have to go again the next night and take her a supply of aspirin.
He took the aspirin. He also took a brown paper parcel containing two pork chops and two bounds of butter wrapped in a rhubarb leaf. Matilda Merry missed it but never knew what became of it.
He found Alma Winkworth sitting by a rock maple fire in the living room. She wore a cherry-red dress with little red drops in her ears. Blue cats! What women could carry in packaways!
She ran to meet him with lovely dimpled hands outstretched.
“Oh, I’ve been waiting for you all the evening, Mr. Randebush, hoping you would come. I had such a dreadful night without the aspirin. And you’ve brought some!”
“I hope it’s fresh. I had to get it at the store since Dr. Blythe wasn’t home.”
“I’m sure it will be all right. You are really so kind and thoughtful. You must sit down and talk to me for a little while.”
Timothy, who had come to the conclusion that the feeling in the pit of his stomach was chronic and that he’d better consult Dr. Blythe about it, sat down slowly.
“Amos worked his first wife to death,” Timothy found himself saying, without the least idea why he said it.
Then he was overcome with remorse.
“No, he didn’t. She worked herself to death. But he didn’t prevent her.”
Again, remorse. Blue cats! What sort of a man was he, slandering his brother like this?
“I don’t suppose he could have prevented her. Some women are like that.”
Alma Winkworth was laughing. Her laugh, like everything else about her, was pleasant.
“You have such a knack of putting things, Mr. Randebush.”
The firelight sparkled and shimmered over her shining hair and beautiful dress. Timothy could see her thus quite clearly all the way home.
She had thanked him so appealingly for his visit and asked him if he couldn’t come again. Well, he might... after a night or two. Of course it was mighty lonesome for her there with not even a dog to talk to. Suppose he took her a dog. No, that would never do. A dog might attract attention by barking. But a cat, now. The very thing. She had mentioned she was fond of cats... also that she had heard a rat. He’d take her a cat. He’d better take it the next evening. Rats sometimes did a lot of damage.
By four o’clock the next day Timothy was skimming across the Harbour. In the bow was a yowling, squirming, shapeless thing... Matilda Merry’s cat tied up in a potato bag.
Timothy suspected that Matilda Merry would raise Cain when she missed her pet but after kidnapping women you grew callous in respect to cats.
Alma insisted that Timothy have supper with her and vowed she was delighted with the cat. While they sat and talked after supper she held the creature on her lap and caressed it.
Timothy had a spasm of horror when he realized that he was envying the cat.
