The Complete Works of L M Montgomery, page 603
“Get out of my way, damn you,” snarled Geoffrey. “You have always backed her up.”
“I am her mother,” said Ursula, “and her father was Sir Lawrence Ainsley.”
Geoffrey laughed drunkenly.
“Why not the King of England and be done with it?” he said. “You the mother of anybody!”
He added something too foul to repeat.
Ursula put out both hands, still beautiful in spite of every-thing... the hands Larry had kissed and painted... the hands that had been so much admired in his portrait of an Italian princess.
Geoffrey had shown an engraving of it to Isabel.
“If you had hands like that you might hold a man,” he had jeered.
Ursula gave the unsteady Geoffrey a hard push. She did it quite deliberately... knowing what she meant to do... knowing the probable consequences. She did not care in the least if they hanged her for it. Nothing mattered except saving Isabel and Patrick.
Geoffrey Boyd went backwards down the long staircase and fell on the marble floor at its foot. Ursula looked down at him for a few moments, with a feeling of triumph such as she had never experienced since the day Larry had first told her he loved her.
Geoffrey Boyd was lying in a rather dreadful limp heap beneath her. Somehow, she felt quite sure his neck was broken. There was no noise or disturbance anywhere. After a few moments she went back to the sewing room quietly, began another piece of work and went calmly on with her sewing. Isabel was safe.
There was no trouble, as it happened. The maid found Geoffrey and screamed. The usual formalities were gone through. Ursula, examined, said she had heard nothing. Neither had anybody else, apparently. It was known Geoffrey Boyd had come home drunk... that was almost a daily occurrence, it appeared. Almost the only bit of scandal that came out at a very dull inquest. It was supposed he had missed his footing on the stairs and fallen. People said they had often wondered it hadn’t happened long ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Only they rather regretted there would be no divorce trial after all. A good many spicy things might have come out of that. They guessed the Burnleys would be relieved. Though it would have served them right for adopting a child of whom they knew nothing... or pretended to know nothing. Though she did look amazingly like James Burnley’s mother!
As for Ursula Anderson nobody talked of her at all, except to say she would miss the Boyd sewing.
The worst of Isabel’s troubles were over. But it was found she was left quite poor. Both the Burnleys died within a week of each other... oh, no, no question of suicide or anything dreadful like that. She took pneumonia and he had had some long-standing trouble for years, it seemed... and they left nothing but debts. Well, that was so often the case with those high-flyers.
Isabel and Patrick lived in a tiny cottage in Charlottetown. Some come down for Isabel Burnley, eh? Geoffrey Boyd had squandered his fortune almost to the last penny. But she was happier than she had been for years in spite of the lean times she and Patrick experienced.
Ursula sent Isabel some money every month. Isabel never knew where it came from but she thought an old aunt of Geoffrey’s, who had always seemed to like her, must be sending it. She never saw old Ursula Anderson now... at least, not to notice her. But Ursula saw her very often.
When Ursula was fifty and Isabel thirty Isabel married a rich man and went to the States to live. Ursula followed her career in the papers and made exquisite dresses for her children... Larry’s grandchildren, whom he did not know existed. Isabel always wrote and thanked her sweetly. She was really rather attached to the poor old thing. She wanted to pay her, too, but Ursula would not take a cent.
Ursula did not get much sewing to do after Isabel went away. She had done so much for her that she had lost most of her clientele. But she managed to make a living till she was seventy and then her nephew, John Anderson, took her in... much, it was said, against the wishes of his family. Isabel was dead by that time... and so was Sir Lawrence. Ursula read of their deaths in the paper. It did not affect her very much. It was all so long ago and they seemed like strangers to her. They were not the Larry she had known nor the Isabel she had loved.
She knew Isabel’s second marriage had been a happy one and that contented her. It was well to die before the shadows began to fall.
As for Sir Lawrence, his fame was international. One of the finest things he had done, so she had read somewhere, had been the mural decoration of a great memorial church. The beauty of the Virgin’s hands in the murals was much commented on.
“Yes, life has been worth living,” thought old Ursula, as Maggie McLean snored resoundingly and the old dog stirred uneasily as if he felt some Great Presence nigh. “I am not sorry for anything... not even for killing Geoff Boyd. One should repent at the last, according to all accounts, but I don’t. It was just a natural thing to kill him... as one might kill a snake. How the wind blows! Larry always loved the wind... I wonder if he hears it in his grave. And I suppose those fools in the parlour down there are pitying me. Fools! Fools! Life has been good. I have had my hours. Have they ever had one? Nobody ever loved Kathie as Larry loved me... nobody ever loved her at all. And nobody loved poor John. Yes, they have despised me... the whole Anderson clan have always despised me. But I have lived... oh, I have lived... and they have never lived... at least none of my generation. I... I... I have been the one who has lived. I have sinned... so the world would say... I have been a murderess... so the world would say... but I have lived!”
She spoke the last words aloud with such force and emphasis that old Maggie McLean wakened and started up in alarm.
She was just in time to see poor old Ursula Anderson die. Her eyes lived on for a moment or two after the rest of her body died. They were triumphant and young. The old dog lifted his head and gave a melancholy howl.
“Thank heaven I was awake,” thought Maggie. “The Andersons would never have forgiven me if I had been asleep. Shut up, you old brute! You give me the creeps. Somehow, she looks different from what she did in life. Well, we all have to die sooner or later. But I don’t think there’ll be much mourning for poor Ursula. There never was anything in her! Strange, too. Most of the Andersons had lots of pep, whatever else they didn’t have.”
Maggie went downstairs, arranging her features properly as she did so.
“She has gone,” she said solemnly. “Died as easy as a child going to sleep.”
Everyone tried not to look relieved. Kathie roused John with a nudge. Dr. Parsons got up briskly... then tried not to look too brisk.
“Well, she had lived her life”... “Such a life!” he added mentally. “If you like I’ll stop in at the undertaker’s on my way back and ask him to come out. I suppose you’ll want things done as... as... simply as possible?”
He had just saved himself from saying “cheaply.” What a break that would have been! Enough to ruin his career. But would Blythe or Parker ever have thought of offering to send the undertaker? Not they. It was the little things like that that counted. In ten years’ time he would have most of their practices.
“Thank you,” said Kathie gravely.
“That’s mighty kind of you,” said John. To his own surprise John was thinking he would miss Aunt Ursula. No one could put on a patch like she could. But then she had sewed all her life. She could do nothing else. Queer where all the money she made had gone to.
The doctor went out. The rain had ceased for good and the moon occasionally broke through the windy clouds. He had lost his evening with Zoe but there was tomorrow night... if some fool woman didn’t up and have a baby. He thought of Zoe in her ripe beauty... and then he thought of old Ursula Anderson upstairs in her grey flannel nightdress. She was dead.
But then, had she ever been alive?
“Didn’t I say she couldn’t die till the tide went out?” said Uncle Alec triumphantly. “You young folks don’t know everything.”
UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES
CONTENTS
A Case of Trespass
A Strayed Allegiance
An Invitation Given on Impulse
Detected by the Camera
In Spite of Myself
Kismet
Lilian’s Business Venture
A Christmas Inspiration
A Christmas Mistake
Miriam’s Lover
Miss Calista’s Peppermint Bottle
The Jest That Failed
The Penningtons’ Girl
The Red Room
The Setness of Theodosia
The Story of an Invitation
The Touch of Fate
The Waking of Helen
The Way of the Winning of Anne
Young Si
A Patent Medicine Testimonial
A Sandshore Wooing
After Many Days
An Unconventional Confidence
Aunt Cyrilla’s Christmas Basket
Davenport’s Story
Emily’s Husband
Min
Miss Cordelia’s Accommodation
Ned’s Stroke of Business
Our Runaway Kite
The Bride Roses
The Josephs’ Christmas
The Magical Bond of the Sea
The Martyrdom of Estella
The Old Chest at Wyther Grange
The Osbornes’ Christmas
The Romance of Aunt Beatrice
The Running Away of Chester
The Strike at Putney
The Unhappiness of Miss Farquhar
Why Mr. Cropper Changed His Mind
A Fortunate Mistake
An Unpremeditated Ceremony
At the Bay Shore Farm
Elizabeth’s Child
Freda’s Adopted Grave
How Don Was Saved
Miss Madeline’s Proposal
Miss Sally’s Company
Mrs. March’s Revenge
Nan
Natty of Blue Point
Penelope’s Party Waist
The Girl and The Wild Race
The Promise of Lucy Ellen
The Pursuit of the Ideal
The Softening of Miss Cynthia
Them Notorious Pigs
Why Not Ask Miss Price?
A Correspondence and A Climax
An Adventure on Island Rock
At Five O’Clock in the Morning
Aunt Susanna’s Birthday Celebration
Bertie’s New Year
Between the Hill and the Valley
Clorinda’s Gifts
Cyrilla’s Inspiration
Dorinda’s Desperate Deed
Her Own People
Ida’s New Year Cake
In the Old Valley
Jane Lavinia
Mackereling Out in the Gulf
Millicent’s Double
The Blue North Room
The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road
The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby
The Falsoms’ Christmas Dinner
The Fraser Scholarship
The Girl at the Gate
The Light on the Big Dipper
The Prodigal Brother
The Redemption of John Churchill
The Schoolmaster’s Letters
The Story of Uncle Dick
The Understanding of Sister Sara
The Unforgotten One
The Wooing of Bessy
Their Girl Josie
When Jack and Jill Took a Hand
A Millionaire’s Proposal
A Substitute Journalist
Anna’s Love Letters
Aunt Caroline’s Silk Dress
Aunt Susanna’s Thanksgiving Dinner.
By Grace of Julius Caesar
By the Rule of Contrary
Fair Exchange and No Robbery
Four Winds
Marcella’s Reward
Margaret’s Patient
Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves
Missy’s Room
Ted’s Afternoon Off
The Doctor’s Sweetheart
The End of the Young Family Feud
The Genesis of the Doughnut Club
The Girl Who Drove the Cows
The Growing Up of Cornelia
The Old Fellow’s Letter
The Parting of The Ways
The Promissory Note
The Revolt of Mary Isabel
The Twins and a Wedding
A Golden Wedding
A Redeeming Sacrifice
A Soul That Was Not at Home
Abel and His Great Adventure
Akin To Love
Aunt Philippa and the Men
Bessie’s Doll
Charlotte’s Ladies
Christmas at Red Butte
How We Went to the Wedding
Jessamine
Miss Sally’s Letter
My Lady Jane
Robert Turner’s Revenge
The Fillmore Elderberries
The Finished Story
The Garden of Spices
The Girl and the Photograph
The Gossip of Valley View
The Letters
The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse
The Little Black Doll
The Man on the Train
The Romance of Jedediah
The Tryst of the White Lady
Uncle Richard’s New Year’s Dinner
White Magic
Some Fools and a Saint
The Closed Door
The Deacon’s Painkiller
From Out the Silence
The House Party at Smoky Island
For a Dream’s Sake
The Price
The Man Who Forgot
Charlotte’s Quest
A Case of Trespass
It was the forenoon of a hazy, breathless day, and Dan Phillips was trouting up one of the back creeks of the Carleton pond. It was somewhat cooler up the creek than out on the main body of water, for the tall birches and willows, crowding down to the brim, threw cool, green shadows across it and shut out the scorching glare, while a stray breeze now and then rippled down the wooded slopes, rustling the beech leaves with an airy, pleasant sound.
Out in the pond the glassy water creamed and shimmered in the hot sun, unrippled by the faintest breath of air. Across the soft, pearly tints of the horizon blurred the smoke of the big factory chimneys that were owned by Mr. Walters, to whom the pond and adjacent property also belonged.
Mr. Walters was a comparative stranger in Carleton, having but recently purchased the factories from the heirs of the previous owner; but he had been in charge long enough to establish a reputation for sternness and inflexibility in all his business dealings.
One or two of his employees, who had been discharged by him on what they deemed insufficient grounds, helped to deepen the impression that he was an unjust and arbitrary man, merciless to all offenders, and intolerant of the slightest infringement of his cast-iron rules.
Dan Phillips had been on the pond ever since sunrise. The trout had risen well in the early morning, but as the day wore on, growing hotter and hotter, they refused to bite, and for half an hour Dan had not caught one.
He had a goodly string of them already, however, and he surveyed them with satisfaction as he rowed his leaky little skiff to the shore of the creek.
“Pretty good catch,” he soliloquized. “Best I’ve had this summer, so far. That big spotted one must weigh near a pound. He’s a beauty. They’re a good price over at the hotels now, too. I’ll go home and get my dinner and go straight over with them. That’ll leave me time for another try at them about sunset. Whew, how hot it is! I must take Ella May home a bunch of them blue flags. They’re real handsome!”
He tied his skiff under the crowding alders, gathered a big bunch of the purple flag lilies with their silky petals, and started homeward, whistling cheerily as he stepped briskly along the fern-carpeted wood path that wound up the hill under the beeches and firs.
He was a freckled, sunburned lad of thirteen years. His neighbours all said that Danny was “as smart as a steel trap,” and immediately added that they wondered where he got his smartness from — certainly not from his father!
The elder Phillips had been denominated “shiftless and slack-twisted” by all who ever had any dealings with him in his unlucky, aimless life — one of those improvident, easygoing souls who sit contentedly down to breakfast with a very faint idea where their dinner is to come from.
When he had died, no one had missed him, unless it were his patient, sad-eyed wife, who bravely faced her hard lot, and toiled unremittingly to keep a home for her two children — Dan and a girl two years younger, who was a helpless cripple, suffering from some form of spinal disease.
Dan, who was old and steady for his years, had gone manfully to work to assist his mother. Though he had been disappointed in all his efforts to obtain steady employment, he was active and obliging, and earned many a small amount by odd jobs around the village, and by helping the Carleton farmers in planting and harvest.
For the last two years, however, his most profitable source of summer income had been the trout pond. The former owner had allowed anyone who wished to fish in his pond, and Dan made a regular business of it, selling his trout at the big hotels over at Mosquito Lake. This, in spite of its unattractive name, was a popular summer resort, and Dan always found a ready market for his catch.
When Mr. Walters purchased the property it somehow never occurred to Dan that the new owner might not be so complaisant as his predecessor in the matter of the best trouting pond in the country.
To be sure, Dan often wondered why it was the pond was so deserted this summer. He could not recall having seen a single person on it save himself. Still, it did not cross his mind that there could be any particular reason for this.
He always fished up in the cool, dim creeks, which long experience had taught him were best for trout, and came and went by a convenient wood path; but he had no thought of concealment in so doing. He would not have cared had all Carleton seen him.
He had done very well with his fish so far, and prices for trout at the Lake went up every day. Dan was an enterprising boy, and a general favourite with the hotel owners. They knew that he could always be depended on.
