 CHAPTER 1 THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH The sunshine of a day in early spring, honey-pale and honey-sweet, was showering over the red brick buildings of Queensley College, and the grounds about them, throwing through the bare budding maples and elms delicate evasive etchings of gold and brown on the paths, and coaxing into life the daffodils that were peering greenly and percally up under the windows of the coed's dressing room. A young April wind, as fresh and sweet as if it had been blowing over the fields of memory instead of through dingy streets, was purring in the treetops and whipping the loose tendrils of the ivy network which covered the front of the main building. It was a wind that sang of many things, but what it sang to each listener was only what was in that listener's heart. To the college students who had just been capped and diplobed by Old Charlie, the grave president of Queensley, in the presence of an admiring throng of parents and sisters, sweethearts and friends, it sang per chance of glad hope and shining success and high achievement. It sang of the dreams of youth that may never be quite fulfilled, but are well worth the dreaming for all that. God helped the man who has never known such dreams, who, as he leaves his alma mater, is not already rich in aerial castles, the proprietor of many a spacious estate in Spain. He has missed his birthright. The crowds dreamed out of the entrance hall and scattered over the campus, fraying off into the many streets beyond. Eric Marshall and David Baker walked away together. The former had graduated in arts that day at the head of his class. The latter had come to see the graduation nearly bursting with pride in Eric's success. Between these two was an old and tried and enduring friendship, although David was ten years older than Eric, as the mere tale of years goes, and a hundred years older in knowledge of the struggles and difficulties of life which age a man far more quickly and effectually than the passing of time. Physically the two men bore no resemblance to one another, although they were second cousins. Eric Marshall, tall, broad-shouldered, sinewy, walking with a free, easy stride, which was somehow suggestive of reserve strength and power, was one of those men regarding whom less-favored mortals are tempted to seriously wonder why all the gifts of fortune should be showered on one individual. He was not only clever and good to look upon, but he possessed that indefinable charm of personality, which is quite independent of physical beauty or mental ability. He had steady grayish-blue eyes, dark chestnut hair with a glint of gold in its waves when the sunlight struck it, and a chin that gave the world assurance of a chin. He was a rich man's son, with a clean young manhood behind him and splendid prospects before him. He was considered a practical sort of fellow, utterly guiltless of romantic dreams and visions of any sort. "'I am afraid Eric Marshall will never do one quixotic thing,' said a Queensley professor, who had a habit of uttering rather mysterious epigrams. "'But if he does, it will supply the one thing lacking in him.' David Baker was a short, stalky fellow with an ugly, irregular, charming face. His eyes were brown and keen and secretive. His mouth had a comical twist which became sarcastic or teasing or winning, as he willed. His voice was generally as soft and musical as a woman's, but some few who had seen David Baker righteously angry and heard the tones which then issued from his lips were in no hurry to have the experience repeated. He was a doctor, a specialist in troubles of the throat and voice, and he was beginning to have a national reputation. He was on the staff of the Queensley Medical College, and it was whispered that before long he would be called to fill an important vacancy at McGill. He had won his way to success through difficulties and drawbacks which would have daunted most men. In the year Eric was born, David Baker was an errand boy in the big department store of Marshall and Company. Thirteen years later he graduated with high honors from Queensley Medical College. Mr. Marshall had given him all the help which David's sturdy pride could be induced to accept, and now he insisted on sending the young man abroad for a postgraduate course in London and Germany. David Baker had eventually repaid every cent Mr. Marshall had expended on him, but he never ceased to cherish a passionate gratitude to the kind and generous man, and he loved that man's son with a love surpassing that of brothers. He had followed Eric's college course with keen watchful interest. It was his wish that Eric should take up the study of law or medicine now that he was through arts, and he was greatly disappointed that Eric should have finally made up his mind to go into business with his father. It's a clean waste of your talents, he grumbled as they walked home from the college. He'd win fame and distinction in law, that glib tongue of yours was meant for a lawyer, and it is sheer flying in the face of Providence to devote it to commercial uses, a flat crossing of the purposes of destiny. Where's your ambition, man? It is in the right place, answered Eric with his ready laugh. It is not your kind, perhaps, but there is room and need for all kinds in this lusty young country of ours. Yes, I'm going into the business. In the first place it has been father's cherished desire ever since I was born, and it would hurt him pretty badly if I backed out now. He wished me to take an arts course because he believed that every man should have as liberal in education as he can afford to get, but now that I've had it he wants me in the firm. He wouldn't oppose you if you thought you really wanted to go in for something else. Not he, but I don't really want to, that's the point, David, man. You hate a business life so much that you can't get into your blessed noodle that another man might like it. There are many lawyers in the world, too many, perhaps, but there are never too many good, honest men of business ready to do clean, big things for the betterment of humanity in the upbuilding of their country, to plan great enterprises and carry them through with brain and courage, to manage and control, to aim high and strike one's aim. There I am waxing eloquent so I'd better stop. But ambition, man, why I am full of it, it's bubbling up in every pore of me. I mean to make the department store of Marshall and Company famous from ocean to ocean. My father's sergeant in life is a poor boy from a Nova Scotian farm. He has built up a business that has a provincial reputation. I mean to carry it on. In five years it shall have a maritime reputation, in ten, a Canadian. I want to make the firm of Marshall and Company stand for something big in the commercial interests of Canada. Isn't that as honourable an ambition as trying to make blacks seem white in a court of law, or discovering some new disease with a harrowing name to torment poor creatures who might otherwise die peacefully in blissful ignorance of what ailed them? When you begin to make poor jokes it is time to stop arguing with you, said David, with a shrug of his fat shoulders. Go your own gate and drear your own weird. I'd as soon expect success in trying to storm the citadel single-handed as in trying to turn you from any course about which you had once made up your mind. Phew! This street takes it out of a fellow. What could have possessed our ancestors to run a town up the side of a hill? I'm not so slim and active as I was on my graduation day ten years ago. By the way, what a lot of co-eds were in your class. Twenty, if I counted right. When I graduated there were only two ladies in our class, and they were the pioneers of their sex at Queensley. They were well past their first youth, very grim and angular and serious. They could never have been on speaking terms with a mirror in their best days. But, Mercut, they were excellent females, oh, very excellent. Times have changed with a vengeance judging from the line-up of co-eds today. There was one girl there who can't be a day over eighteen, and she looked as if she were made out of gold and rose-leaves and dew-drops. The Oracle speaks in poetry, laughed Eric. That was Florence Percival, who led the class in mathematics as I'm a living man. By many she has considered the beauty of her class. I can't say that such is my opinion. I don't greatly care for that blonde babyish style of loveliness. I prefer Agnes Campion. Did you notice her, the tall, dark girl with the ropes of hair and a sort of crimson, velvety bloom on her face, who took honors in philosophy? I did notice her, said David emphatically, darting a keen side-glance at his friend. I noticed her most particularly uncritically. For someone whispered her name behind me and coupled it with the exceedingly interesting information that Miss Campion was supposed to be the future Mrs. Eric Marshall, whereupon I stared at her with all my eyes. There is no truth in that report, said Eric in a tone of annoyance. Agnes and I are the best of friends and nothing more. I like and admire her more than any woman I know. But if the future Mrs. Eric Marshall exists in the flesh, I haven't met her yet. I haven't even started out to look for her, and don't intend to for some years to come. I have something else to think of, he concluded in a tone of contempt, for which anyone might have known he would be punished some time if Cupid were not deaf as well as blind. You'll meet the lady of your future someday, said David dryly, and in spite of your scorn I venture to predict that if fate doesn't bring her before long you'll very soon start out to look for her. A word of advice, O son of your mother, when you go courting take your common sense with you. Do you think I shall be likely to leave it behind? asked Eric amusedly. Well, I mistrust you, said David, sagely wagging his head. The lowland scotch part of you is all right, but there is a Celtic streak in you from that little Highland grandmother of yours, and when a man has that there's never any knowing where it will break out, or what dance it will lead him, especially when it comes to this love-making business. You are just as likely as not to lose your head over some little fool or shrew for the sake of her outward favor, and make yourself miserable for life. When you pick a wife please remember that I shall reserve the right to pass a candid opinion on her. Pass all the opinions you like, but it is my opinion, and mine only, which will matter in the long run, retorted Eric. Confound you, yes, you stubborn offshoot of a stubborn breed, growled David, looking at him affectionately. I know that, and that is why I'll never feel at ease about you until I see you married to the right sort of girl. Nine out of ten girls in this country of ours are fit for King's palaces. But the tenth always has to be reckoned with. You are as bad as Clever Alice in the fairytale who worried over the future of her unborn children, contested Eric. Clever Alice has been very unjustly laughed at, said David gravely. We doctors know that. Perhaps she overdid the worrying business a little, but she was perfectly right in principle. If people worried a little more about their unborn children, at least to the extent of providing a proper heritage, physically, mentally, and morally for them, and then stopped worrying about them after they are born, this world would be a very much pleasanter place to live in, and the human race would make more progress in a generation than it has done in recorded history. Oh, if you are going to mount your dearly beloved hobby of heredity, I'm not going to argue with you, David man. But as for the matter of urging me to hasten and marry me a wife, why don't you—it was on Eric's lips to say, why don't you get married to a girl of the right sort yourself, and set me a good example? But he checked himself. He knew that there was an old sorrow in David Baker's life, which was not to be unduly jarred by the jests even of privileged friendship. He changed his question, too. Why don't you leave this on the knees of the gods where it properly belongs? I thought you were a firm believer in predestination, David. Well, so I am to a certain extent, said David cautiously. I believe, as an excellent old aunt of mine used to say, that what is to be will be, and what isn't to be sometimes happens, and it is precisely such unchancey happenings that make the scheme of things go wrong. I daresay you think me an old fogey, Eric, but I know something more of the world than you do, and I believe with Tennyson's arthur that there's no more subtle master under heaven than is the maiden passion for a maid. I want to see you safely anchored to the love of some good woman as soon as may be, that's all. I'm rather sorry, Miss Campion, isn't your lady of the future. I liked her looks, that I did. She is good and strong and true, has the eyes of a woman who could love in a way that would be worthwhile. Moreover, she's well-born, well-bred, and well-educated, three very indispensable things when it comes to choosing a woman to fill your mother's place, friend of mine. I agree with you, said Eric carelessly. I could not marry any woman who did not fulfill those conditions, but as I have said, I am not in love with Agnes Campion, and it wouldn't be of any use if I were. She is as good as engaged to Larry West. You remember West? That thin, leggy fellow you tummed with so much your first two years at Queensley, yes, what has become of him? He had to drop out after his second year for financial reasons. He is working his own way through college, you know. For the past two years he has been teaching school in some out-of-the-way place over in Prince Edward Island. He isn't any too well, poor fellow, never was very strong and has studied remorselessly. I haven't heard from him since February. He said then that he was afraid he wasn't going to be able to stick it out till the end of the school year. I hope Larry won't break down. He's a fine fellow and worthy even of Agnes Campion. Well, here we are. Coming in, David? Not this afternoon. Haven't got time. I must mosey up to the North End to see a man who has got a lovely throat. Nobody can find out what is the matter. He has puzzled all the doctors. He has puzzled me, but I'll find out what is wrong with him, if he'll only live long enough. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Kill Many of the Orchard. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sarah Jennings. Kill Many of the Orchard by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Chapter 2 A Letter of Destiny. Eric, finding that his father had not yet returned from the college, went into the library and sat down to read a letter he had picked up from the hall table. It was from Larry West, and after the first few lines, Eric's face lost the absent look it had worn and assumed an expression of interest. I'm ready to ask a favour of you, Marshal, wrote West. The fact is, I've fallen into the hands of the Philistines. That is to say, the doctors. I've not been feeling very fit all winter, but I've held on, hoping to finish out the year. Last week, my landlady, who is a saint in spectacles in Calico, looked at me one morning at the breakfast table and said, very gently, you must go to town to-morrow, master, and see a doctor about yourself. I went, and did not stand upon the order of my going. This is Williamson, is she who must be obeyed. She has an inconvenient habit of making you realise that she is exactly right, and that you would be all kinds of a fool if you didn't take her advice. You feel that what she thinks today you will think tomorrow. In Charlotte town I consulted a doctor. He punched and pounded me, and poked things at me and listened at the other end of them, and finally he said I must stop work immediately and twanked, and hire me straight way to a climate not affected with the northeast winds of Prince Edward Island in the spring. I am not to be allowed to do any work until the fall. Such was his dictum, and Mrs. Williamson enforces it. I shall teach this week out, and then the spring vacation of three weeks begins. I want you to come over and take my place as pedagogue in the Lindsey School for the last week of May and the month of June. The school year ends then, and there will be plenty of teachers looking for the place, but just now I cannot get a suitable substitute. I have a couple of pupils who are preparing to try the Queen's Academy entrance examinations, and I don't like to leave them in the lurch, or hand them over to the tender mercies of some third class teacher who knows little Latin and less Greek. Come over and take the school till the end of the term, you petted son of luxury. It will do you a world of good to learn how rich a man feels when he is earning twenty-five dollars a month by his own unaided efforts. Seriously, Marshal, I hope you can come, for I don't know any other fellow I can ask. The work isn't hard, though you'll likely find it monotonous. Of course, this little North Shore farming settlement isn't a very lively place. The rising and setting of the sun are the most exciting events of the average day, but the people are very kind and hospitable, and Prince Edward Island in the month of June is such a thing as you don't often see except in happy dreams. There are some trout in the pond, and you'll always find an old salt at the harbor ready and willing to take you out cod fishing or lobstring. I'll bequeath you my boarding house. You'll find it comfortable and not further from the school than a good constitutional. Mrs. Williamson is the dearest soul alive, and she is one of those old-fashioned cooks who feed you on feasts of fat things and whose price is above rubies. Her husband Robert, or Bob, as he is commonly called despite his sixty years, is quite a character in his way. He is an amusing old gossip, with a turn for racy comment and a finger in everybody's pie. He knows everything about everybody in Lindsay for three generations back. They have no living children, but old Bob has a black cat which is his special pride and darling. The name of this animal is Timothy, and as such he must always be called and referred to. Never as you value Robert's good opinion let him hear you speak of his pet as the cat, or even as Tim, you will never be forgiven and he will not consider you a fit person to have charge of the school. You shall have my room, a little place over the kitchen with a ceiling that follows the slant of the roof down one side, against which you will bump your head times innumerable until you learn to remember that it is there, and a looking glass which will make one of your eyes as small as a pea, and the other as big as an orange. But to compensate for these disadvantages the supply of towels is generous and unexceptionable, and there is a window whence you will daily behold an occidental view over Lindsay Harbour and the gulf beyond, which is an unspeakable miracle of beauty. The sun is setting over it as I write, and I see such a sea of glass mingled with fire as might have figured in the visions of the Papian seer. A vessel is sailing away into the golden crimson and pearl of the horizon. The big revolving light on the tip of the headland beyond the harbour has just been lighted, and is winking and flashing like a beacon or the foam of perilous seas and fairy lands forlorn. Why are me if you can come, and if you can report for duty on the 23rd of May? Mr. Marshall Sr. came in, just as Eric was thoughtfully folding up his letter. The former looked more like a benevolent old clergyman or philanthropist than the keen, shrewd, somewhat hard, although just and honest man of business that he really was. He had a round, rosy face, fringed with white whiskers, a fine head of long white hair and a pursed-up mouth. Only in his blue eyes was a twinkle that would have made any man who designed getting a better of him in a bargain think twice before he made the attempt. It was easily seen that Eric must have inherited his personal beauty and distinction of form from his mother, whose picture hung on the dark wall between the windows. She had died while still young, when Eric was a boy of ten. During her lifetime she had been the object of the passionate devotion of both her husband and son, and the fine, strong, sweet face of the picture was a testimony that she had been worthy of their love and reverence. The same face, cast in a masculine mold, was repeated in Eric. The chestnut hair grew off his forehead in the same way. His eyes were like hers, and in his grave moods they held a similar expression, half brooding, half tender, in their deaths. Mr. Marshall was very proud of his son's success in college, but he had no intention of letting him see it. He loved this boy of his with the dead mother's eyes better than anything on earth, and all his hopes and ambitions were bound up in him. Well, that fuss is over, thank goodness, he said testily as he dropped into his favourite chair. Didn't you find the programme interesting? asked Eric absently. Most of it was Tommy Rott, said his father. The only things I liked were Charlie's Latin prayer, and those pretty little girls trotting up to get their diplomas. Latin is the language for praying in, I do believe. At least when a man has a voice like old Charlie's. There was such a sonorous role to the words that the mere sound of them made me feel like getting down on my marrow bones. And then those girls were pretty as pinks now, weren't they? Agnes was the finest looking of the lot, in my opinion. I hope it's true that you're courting her, Eric. Confounded father, said Eric, half irritably, half laughingly. Have you and David Baker entered into a conspiracy to hound me into matrimony, whether I will or no? I've never said a word to David Baker on such a subject, protested Mr. Marshall. Well, you are just as bad as he is. He hectered me all the way home from college on the subject. But why are you in such a hurry to have me marry dad? Because I want a homemaker in this house as soon as may be. There's never been one since your mother died. I'm tired of housekeepers. And I want to see your children at my knees before I die, Eric, and I'm an old man now. Well, your wish is natural, Father, said Eric gently with a glance at his mother's picture. But I can't rush out and marry somebody offhand, can I? And I fear it wouldn't exactly do to advertise for a wife, even in these days of commercial enterprise. Isn't there anybody you're fond of, queried Mr. Marshall, with the patient air of a man who overlooks the frivolous jests of youth? Nope. I never yet saw the woman who could make my heart beat any faster. I don't know what you young men are made of nowadays, growled his father. I was in love half a dozen times before I was your age. You might have been in love. But you never loved any woman until you met my mother. I know that, Father. And it didn't happen till you were pretty well on in life either. You're too hard to please. That's what's the matter. Perhaps I am. When a man has had a mother like mine, his standard of womanly sweetness is apt to be pitched pretty high. Let's drop the subject, Father. Here, I want you to read this letter. It's from Larry. Hmph, grunted Mr. Marshall when he had finished with it. So Larry's knocked out at last. Always thought he would be. Always expected it. Sorry, too. He was a decent fellow. Well, are you going? Yes, I think so, if you don't object. You'll have a pretty monotonous time of it judging from his account of Lindsay. Probably. But I'm not going over in search of excitement. I'm going to oblige Larry and have a look at the island. Well, it's worth looking at some parts of the year, conceded Mr. Marshall. When I'm on Prince Edward Island in the summer, I always understand an old Scotch islander I met once in Winnipeg. He was always talking of the island. Somebody asked him once, what island do you mean? He simply looked at the island and said, What island? What other island is there? Go if you'd like to, you need a rest after the grind of examinations before settling down to business. And mind you don't get into any mischief, young sir. Not much likelihood of that in a place like Lindsay, I fancy. Laughed Eric. Probably the devil finds as much mischief for idle hands in Lindsay as anywhere else. The worst tragedy I ever heard of happened on a backwoods farm. I'm sure you've heard of it before. I'm sure you've heard of it before. The worst tragedy I ever heard of happened on a backwoods farm fifteen miles from a railroad and five from a store. However, I expect your mother's son to behave himself in the fear of God and man. And all likelihood the worst thing that will happen to you over there is that some misguided woman will put you to sleep in a spare room bed. And if that does happen, may the Lord have mercy on your soul. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Kilmeney of the Orchard This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sarah Jennings. Kilmeney of the Orchard by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 3 The Master of Lindsay School One evening, a month later, Eric Marshall came out of the old whitewashed schoolhouse at Lindsay and locked the door, which was carved over with initials enumerable and built of double plank in order that it might withstand all the assaults and batteries to which it might be subjected. Eric's pupils had gone home an hour before, but he had stayed to solve some algebra problems and correct some Latin exercises for his advanced students. The sun was slanting in warm yellow lines through the thick grove of maples to the west of the building, and the dim green air beneath them burst into golden bloom. A couple of sheep were nibbling the lush grass in the far corner of the playground. A cowbell somewhere in the maple woods tinkled faintly and musically on the still crystal air, which in spite of its blandness still retained a touch of the wholesome austerity and poignancy of a Canadian spring. The whole world seemed to have fallen for the time being into a pleasant, untroubled dream. The scene was very peaceful and pastoral. Almost too much so, the young man thought with a shrug of his shoulders as he stood in the worn steps and gazed about him. How was he going to put in a whole month here, he wondered, with a little smile at his own expense. Father would chuckle if he knew I was sick of it already, he thought, as he walked across the playground to the long red road that ran past the school. Well, one week has ended at any rate. I've earned my own living for five whole days, and that is something I could never say before in all my twenty-four years of existence. It is an exhilarating thought. But teaching the Lindsay District School is distinctly not exhilarating. At least not in such a well-behaved school as this, where the pupils are so painfully good that I haven't even the traditional excitement of thrashing obstreperous bad boys. Everything seems to go by clockwork in Lindsay Educational Institution. Larry must certainly have possessed a marked gift for organizing and drilling. I feel as if I were merely a big cog in an orderly machine that ran itself. However, I understand that there are some pupils who haven't shown up yet, and who, according to all reports, have not had the old Adam totally drilled out of them. They may make things more interesting. Also, a few more compositions, such as John Reads would furnish some spice to professional life. Eric's laughter wakened the echoes as he swung into the road down the long sloping hill. He had given his fourth-grade pupils their own choice of subjects in the composition class that morning, and John Reads, a sober, matter-of-fact little urchin with not the slightest embryonic development of a sense of humor, had, acting upon the whispered suggestion of a roguish deskmate, elected to write upon courting. His opening sentence made Eric's face twitch mutinously whenever he recalled it during the day. Courting is a very pleasant thing, which a great many people go too far with. The distant hills and wooded uplands were tremulous and aerial and delicate springtime gauzes of pearl and purple. The young, green-leafed maples crowded thickly to the very edge of the road on either side, but beyond them were emerald fields basking in sunshine, over which cloud shadows rolled, broadened and banished. Far below the fields a calm ocean slept bluely and sighed in its sleep, with the murmur that rings forever in the ear of those whose good fortune it is to have been born within the sound of it. Now and then Eric met some callow, check-shirted, bare-legged lad on horseback, or a shrewd-faced farmer in a cart, who nodded and called out cheerily, Howdy, master! A young girl with a rosy oval face, dimpled cheeks and pretty dark eyes, filled with shy coquetry, past him, looking as if she would not be at all averse to a better acquaintance with the new teacher. Halfway down the hill Eric met a shambling old grey horse, drawing an express wagon which had seen better days. The driver was a woman. She appeared to be one of those drab, tinted individuals who can never have felt a rosy emotion in all their lives. She stopped her horse and beckoned Eric over to her with the knobby handle of a faded and bony umbrella. Reckon you're the new master, ain't ya? She asked. Eric admitted that he was. Well, I'm glad to see ya, she said, offering him a hand in a much-darned cotton glove that had once been black. I was right sorry to see Mr. West go for he was a right good teacher and as harmless, inoffensive a creeders ever lived. But I always told him every time I laid eyes on him that he was in consumption if ever a man was. You look real healthy. Though you can't always tell by looks, either. I had a brother complexed like you, but he was killed in a railroad accident out west when he was real young. I've got a boy I'll be sending to school the next week. He oughta gone this week, but I had to keep him home to help me put the potatoes in for his father won't work and doesn't work and can't be made to work. Sandy, his full name is Edward Alexander, called after both his grandfathers, hates the idea of going to school worse than poison. Always did. Go he shall for I'm determined he's got to have more learning hammered into his head yet. I reckon you'll have trouble with him, master, for he's as stupid as an owl and as stubborn as Solomon's mule. But mind this, master, I'll back you up. You just lick Sandy good and plenty when he needs it. Send me a scrape of the pen home with him and I'll give him another dose. There's people that always sides in with their youngins when there's any rumpus and never did. You can depend on Rebecca Reed every time, master. Thank you, I'm sure I can, said Eric in his most winning tones. He kept his face straight until it was safe to relax. And Mrs. Reed drove on with a soft feeling in her leathery old heart, which had been so toughened by a long endurance of poverty and toil and a husband who wouldn't work and couldn't be made to work that it was no longer a very susceptible organ where members of the opposite sex were concerned. Mrs. Reed reflected that this young man had away with him. Eric already knew most of the Lindsay folks by sight, but at the foot of the hill he met two people, a man and a boy, whom he did not know. They were sitting in a shabby old-fashioned wagon and were watering their horse at the brook, which gurgled limpidly under the little plank bridge in the hollow. Eric surveyed them with some curiosity. They did not look in the least likely ordinary run of Lindsay people. The boy in particular had a distinctly different appearance. In spite of the gingham shirt and homespun trousers, which seemed to be the regulation work-a-day outfit for the Lindsay farmer lads, he had a live supple body, with sloping shoulders, and a lean satiny brown throat above his open shirt-collar. His head was covered with thick, silky black curls, and the hand that hung down by the side of the wagon was unusually long and slender. His face was richly, though somewhat heavily featured, all if tinted, save for the cheeks which were red. His mouth was as red and beguiling as a girl's, and his eyes were large, bold, and black. All in all he was a strikingly handsome fellow, but the expression of his face was sullen, and he somehow gave Eric the impression of a sinuous feline creature basking in lazy grace, but ever ready for an unexpected spring. The other occupant of the wagon was a man between sixty-five and seventy with iron-grey hair, a long full grey beard, a harsh-featured face, and deep-set hazel eyes under bushy bristling brows. He was evidently tall, with a spare ungainly figure and stooping shoulders. His mouth was close-lipped and relentless, and did not look as if it had ever smiled. Indeed, the idea of smiling could not be connected with this man, it was utterly incongruous. Yet there was nothing repellent about his face, and there was something in it that compelled Eric's attention. He rather prided himself on being a student of physiognomy, and he felt quite sure that this man was no ordinary Lindsay farmer of the genial garrulous type with which he was familiar. Long after the old wagon with its oddly assorted pair had gone lumbering up the hill, Eric found himself thinking of the stern, heavy-browed man, and the black-eyed red-lipped boy. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Kill Many of the Orchard This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Missy Guangzhou, China Kill Many of the Orchard by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 4 A Tea Table Conversation The Williamson Place where Eric boarded was on the crest of the succeeding hill. He liked it as well as Larry West had prophesied that he would. The Williamson's, as well as the rest of the Lindsay people, took it for granted that he was a poor college student working his way through as Larry West had been doing. Eric did not disturb this belief although he said nothing to contribute to it. The Williamson's were at tea in the kitchen when Eric went in. Mrs. Williamson was the Saint in Spectacles in Calico which Larry West had termed her. Eric liked her greatly. She was a slight grey-haired woman with a thin sweet high-bread face deeply lined with the records of outlived pain. She talked little as a rule but in the pungent country phrase she never spoke but she said something. The one thing that constantly puzzled Eric was how such a woman ever came to marry Robert Williamson. She smiled in a motherly fashion at Eric as he hung his hat on the crushed wall and took his place at the table. Outside of the window behind him was a birch grove which in the western sun was a tremulous splendor with a sea of undergrowth wavered into golden billows by every passing wind. Old Robert Williamson sat opposite him on a bench. He was a small, lean old man half lost in loose clothes that seemed far too large for him. When he spoke his voice was as thin and squeaky as he appeared to be himself. The other end of the bench was occupied by Timothy, sleek and complacent, with a snowy breast and white paws. After Old Robert had taken a mouthful of anything he gave a piece to Timothy who ate it daintily and purred resonant gratitude. You see we're busy waiting for you master said Old Robert. You're late this evening keep any of the youngsters in that's a foolish way of punishing them as hard on yourself as on them. One teacher we had four years ago used to lock them in and go home then he'd go back in an hour and let them out if they were there they weren't always. Tom Ferguson kicked the panels out of the old door once and got out that way. We put a new door of double plank in that they couldn't kick out. I stayed in the school room to do some work said Eric briefly. Well you've missed Alexander Tracy he was here to find out if you could play checkers and when I told him you could he left word for you to go up and have a game some evening soon. Don't beat him too often even if you can you'll need to stand in with him I tell you master for he's got a son that may brew trouble for you when he starts in to go to school. Seth Tracy's a young imp and he'd far sooner be in mischief than eat. He tries to run on every new teacher and he's run too clean out of the school but he met his match in Mr West. William Tracy's boys now you won't have a scrap of bother with them they're always good because their mother tells them every Sunday that they'll go straight to hell if they don't behave in school it's effective take some preserve master you know we don't help things here the way Mrs. Adam Scott does when she has borders I suppose you don't want any of this nor you nor you Mother Alex says old George Wright is having the time of his life his wife had gone to Charlotte town to visit her sister and he is his own boss for the first time since he was married 40 years ago he's on a regular orgy Alex says he smokes in the parlor and sits up till 11 o'clock reading dime novels perhaps I met Mr Tracy said Eric is he a tall man with grey hair and a dark stern face no he's a round jolly fellow is Alex and he stopped growing pretty much before he'd ever begun I reckon the man you mean is Thomas Gordon I seen him driving down the road too he won't be troubling you with invitations up small fear of it the Gordon's ain't sociable to say the least of it no sir mother passed the biscuit to the master who is the young fellow he had with him asked Eric curiously Neil Neil Gordon that is a scotchy name for such a face and eyes I should rather have expected Giuseppe or Angelo the boy looks like an Italian well now you know master I reckon it's likely he does seeing that that's exactly what he is you've hit the nail square on the head Italian yes sir rather too much so I'm thinking for decent folks taste how has it happened that an Italian boy with a scotch name is living in a place like Lindsay well master it was this way about 22 years ago was it 22 mother or 24 yes it was 22 it was the same year our Jim was born and he'd have been 22 if he'd lived poor little fellow well master 22 years ago a couple of Italian pat peddlers came along and called at the Gordon place the country was swarming with them then I used to set the dog on one every day on an average well these peddlers were man and wife and the woman took sick up there at the Gordon place and Janet Gordon took her in and nursed her a baby was born the next day and the woman died then the first thing anybody knew the father skipped clean out pack and all and was never seen or heard tell of afterwards the Gordon's were left with the fine youngster to their hand folks advised them to send him to the orphan asylum and would have been the wisest plan but the Gordon's were never fond of taking advice old James Gordon was living then Thomas and Janet's father and he said he would never turn a child out of his door he was a masterful old man and liked to be boss folks used to say he had a grudge against the son because it rose and set without his say so anyhow they kept the baby they called him Neil and had him baptized same as any Christian child he's always lived there they did well enough by him he was sent to school and taken to church and treated like one of themselves some folks think they made too much of him it doesn't always do with that kind for what's bread and bone is mighty apt to come out and flesh if tank kept down pretty well Neil's smart and a great worker they tell me but folks here the adults don't like him they say he ain't to be trusted further and you can see him if as far it's certain he's awful hot tempered and one time when he was going to school he near about killed the boy he took a spite to choked him till he was black in the face and Neil had to be dragged off well now father you know they teased him terrible protested Mrs. Williamson the poor boy had a real hard time when he went to school master the other children were always casting calling him names oh I dare say they tormented him a lot admitted her husband he's had great hand at the fiddle and likes company he goes to the harbor a good deal but they say he takes filthy spells when he hasn't a word to throw to a dog it wouldn't be any wonder living with the Gordon they're all as queer as Dick's hat band father you shouldn't talk so about your neighbors said his wife rebukingly well now mother you know they are if you'd only speak up honest but you're like old Aunt Nancy Scott you never say anything uncharitable except in the way of business you know the Gordon's ain't like other people and never were and never will be they're about the only queer folks we have in Lindsay master except old Peter Cook who keeps 25 cats Lord master think of it what chance would a poor mouse have none of the rest of us are queer at least wise we ain't found it out if we are but then we're mighty uninteresting I'm bound to admit that where did the Gordon's live? asked Eric who had grown used to holding fast to a given point of inquiry through all the bewildering mazes of old Robert's conversation a way up yonder half a mile in from Radner Road with a thick spruce wood between them and all the rest of the world they never go away anyways except to church they never miss that and nobody goes there there's just old Thomas and his sister Janet and Anissa there's and this here Neil we've been talking about your dour cranky lot and I will say it mother there give your old man a cup of tea and never mind the way his tongue runs on speaking of tea do you know mrs. Adam Palmer and mrs. Jim Martin took tea together at Foster Reed's last Wednesday afternoon no why I thought they were on bad terms said mrs. Williamson betraying a little feminine curiosity so they are so they are but they both happen to visit mrs. Foster the same afternoon and neither would leave because it would be knuckling down to the other so they stuck it out on opposite sides of the parlor mrs. Foster says she never spent such an uncomfortable afternoon in all her life before she would talk a spell to one and then to other and they kept talking to mrs. Foster and at each other mrs. Foster says she really thought she'd have to keep them all night for neither would start to go home before the other finally Jim Martin came in to look for his wife because he thought she must have got stuck in the marsh and that saw a problem mrs. you ain't eaten anything don't mind my stoppin' I was at it half an hour before you came and anyway I'm in a hurry my hard boy went home today he heard the rooster crow at twelve last night and he's gone home to see which of his family is dead he knows one of them is he heard a rooster crow in the middle of the night once to four and the next day he got word his second cousin down at Sorris was dead mother if the mrs. don't want any more tea ain't there some cream for Timothy and of chapter four shortly before sunset that evening Eric went for a walk when he did not go to the shore he liked to indulge in long tramps through the Lindsay fields and woods in the mellowness of the sweet of the year most of the Lindsay houses were built along the main road which ran parallel to the shore or about the stores at the corner the farms ran back from them into solitudes of woods and pasture lands Eric struck southwest from the Williamson homestead in a direction he had not hitherto explored and walked briskly along enjoying the witchery of the season all about him in earth and air and sky he felt it and loved it and yielded to it as any one of clean life and sane pulses must do the spruce wood in which he presently found himself was smitten through with arrows of ruby light from the setting sun he went through it walking up a long purple aisle where the wood floor was brown and elastic under his feet and came out beyond it on a scene which surprised him no house was in sight but he found himself looking into an orchard an old orchard evidently long neglected and forsaken but an orchard dies hard and this one which must have been a very delightful spot once was delightful still even the less so for the air of gentle melancholy which seemed to pervade it the melancholy which invests all places that have once been the scenes of joy and pleasure and young life and are so no longer places where hearts have throbbed and pulses thrilled and eyes brightened and merry voices echoed the ghosts of these things seemed to linger in their old haunts through many empty years the orchard was large and long enclosed in a tumbledown old fence of longers bleached to a silvery gray in the suns of many lost summers at regular intervals along the fence were tall gnarled fir trees and an evening wind sweeter than that which blew over the beds of spice from Lebanon was singing in their tops an earth-old song with power to carry the soul back to the dawn of time eastward a thick firwood grew beginning with tiny treelits just feathering from the grass and grating up there from to the tall veterans of the mid-grove unbrokenly and evenly giving the effect of a solid sloping green wall so beautifully compact that it looked as if it had been clipped into its velvet surface by art most of the orchard was grown over lushly with grass but at the end where Eric stood there was a square, treeless place which had evidently once served as a homestead garden old paths were still visible bordered by stones and large pebbles there were two clumps of lilac trees one blossoming in royal purple the other in white between them was a bed a blow with the starry spikes of June lilies their penetrating, haunting fragrance distilled on the dewy air in every soft puff of wind along the fence rose bushes grew but it was as yet too early in the season for roses beyond was the orchard proper three long rows of trees with green avenues between each tree standing in a wonderful blow of pink and white the charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing had ever done before he was not given two romantic fancies but the orchard laid hold of him subtly and drew him to itself and he was never to be quite his own man again he went into it over one of the broken panels of fence and so unknowing went forward to meet all that life held for him he walked the length of the orchard's middle avenue between long, sinuous boughs picked out with delicate, rose-hearted bloom when he reached its southern boundary he flung himself down in a grassy corner of the fence where another lilac bush grew with ferns and wild blue violets at its roots from where he now was he got a glimpse of a house about a quarter of a mile away its gray gable peering out from a dark spruce wood it seemed a dull, gloomy, remote place and he did not know who lived there he had a wide outlook to the west over far hazy fields and misty blue intervails the sun had just set and the whole world of green meadows came in golden light across a long valley brimmed with shadow were uplands of sunset and great sky lakes of saffron and rose where a soul might lose itself in colour the air was very fragrant with the baptism of the dew and the odours of a bed of wild mint upon which he had trampled robins were whistling, clear and sweet and sudden in the woods all about him this is a veritable haunt of ancient peace quoted Eric looking around with delighted eyes I could fall asleep here dream dreams and see visions what a sky could anything be diviner than that fine crystal eastern blue and those frail white clouds that look like woven lace what a dizzying intoxicating fragrance lilacs have I wonder if perfume could set a man drunk those apple trees now why, what is that? Eric started up and listened across the mellow stillness mingled with the croon of the wind in the trees and the flute-like calls of the robins came a strain of delicious music so beautiful and fantastic that Eric held his breath in astonishment and delight was he dreaming? no, it was real music the music of a violin played by some hand inspired with the very spirit of harmony he had never heard anything like it and somehow he felt quite sure that nothing exactly like it ever had been heard before he believed that that wonderful music was coming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist and translating itself into those most airy and delicate and exquisite sounds for the first time the very soul of music with all sense and earthiness refined away it was an elusive haunting melody strangely suited to the time and place it had in it the sigh of the wind in the woods the eerie whispering of the grasses at dewfall the white thoughts of the June lilies the rejoicing of the apple blossoms all the soul of all the old laughter and song and tears and gladness and sobs the orchard had ever known in the lost years and besides all this there was in it a pitiful, plaintive cry because of some imprisoned thing calling for freedom and utterance at first Eric listened as a man spellbound mutely and motionlessly lost in wonderment then a very natural curiosity overcame him who in Lindsay could play a violin like that and who was playing so here in this deserted old orchard of all places in the world he rose and walked up the long white avenue going as slowly and silently as possible for he did not wish to interrupt the player when he reached the open space of the garden he stopped short in new amazement and was again tempted into thinking he must certainly be dreaming under the big branching white lilac tree was an old sagging wooden bench and on this bench a girl was sitting playing on an old brown violin her eyes were on the far away horizon and she did not see Eric for a few moments he stood there and looked at her the pictures she made photographed itself on his vision to the finest detail never to be blotted from his book of remembrance to his latest day Eric Marshall will be able to recall vividly that scene as he saw it then the velvet darkness of the spruce woods the overarching sky of soft brilliance the swaying lilac blossoms and emitted all the girl on the old bench with the violin under her chin he had in his twenty-four years of life met hundreds of pretty women scores of handsome women a scant half dozen of really beautiful women but he knew at once beyond all possibility of question or doubt that he had never seen or imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the orchard her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went from him in his first delight of it her face was oval marked in every cameo-like line and feature with that expression of absolute flawless purity found in the angels and Madonna's of old paintings a purity that held in it no faintest strain of earthliness her head was bare and her thick jet black hair was parted above her forehead and hung in two heavy lustrous braids over her shoulders her eyes were of such a blue as Eric had never seen in eyes before the tint of the sea in the still calm light that follows after a fine sunset they were as luminous as the stars that came out over Lindsay Harbour in the afterglow and were fringed about with very long soot black lashes and arched over by most delicately penciled dark eyebrows her skin was as fine and purely tinted as the heart of a white rose the colorless dress of pale blue print she wore revealed her smooth slender throat her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows and the hand which guided the bow of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her perfect in shape and texture firm and white with rosy nailed taper fingers one long drooping plume of lilac blossom lightly touched her hair she cast a wavering shadow over the flower-like face beneath it there was something very childlike about her and yet at least 18 sweet years must have gone to the making of her she seemed to be playing half unconsciously as if her thoughts were far away in some fair dreamland of the skies but presently she looked away from the warn of sunset and her lovely eyes fell on Eric standing motionless before her in the shadow of the apple trees the sudden change that swept over her was startling she sprang to her feet the music breaking in mid-strain and the bow slipping from her hand to the grass every hint of color fled from her face and she trembled like one of the winds stirred June lilies I beg your pardon, said Eric hastily I am sorry that I have alarmed you but your music was so beautiful that I did not remember you were not aware of my presence here please forgive me he stopped in dismay for he suddenly realized that the expression on the girl's face was one of terror not merely the startled alarm of a shy childlike creature who had thought herself alone but absolute terror it was betrayed in her blanched and quivering lips and in the widely distended blue eyes that stared back into his with the expression of some trapped wild thing it hurt him that any woman should look at him in such a fashion at him who had always held womanhood in such reverence don't look so frightened, he said gently thinking only of calming her fear and speaking as he would to a child I will not hurt you, you are safe, quite safe in his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step forward instantly she turned and, without a sound fled across the orchard through a gap in the northern fence and along what seemed to be a lane beyond and arched over with wild cherry trees misty white in the gathering gloom before Eric could recover his wits she had vanished from his sight among the furs he stooped and picked up the violin bow feeling slightly foolish and very much annoyed well this is a most mysterious thing he said somewhat impatiently am I bewitched? who was she? what was she? can it be possible that she is a Lindsay girl? and why in the name of all that's provoking should she be so frightened at the mere sight of me? I have never thought I was a particularly hideous person but certainly this adventure has not increased my vanity to any perceptible extent perhaps I have wandered into an enchanted orchard and been outwardly transformed into an ogre now that I have come to think of it there is something quite uncanny about the place anything might happen here it is no common orchard for the production of marketable apples to be seen? no, it's a most unwholesome locality and the sooner I make my escape from it the better he glanced about it with a whimsical smile the light was fading rapidly and the orchard was full of soft creeping shadows and silences it seemed to wink sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at his perplexity he laid the violin bow down on the old bench well there is no use in my following her and I have no right to do so even if it were of use but I certainly wish she hadn't fled in such evident terror eyes like hers were never meant to express anything but tenderness and trust why, why, why was she so frightened? and who, who, who can she be? all the way home over fields and pastures that were beginning to be moonlight silvered he pondered the mystery let me see, he reflected Mr. Williamson was describing the Lindsay girls for my benefit the other evening if I remember rightly he said that there were four handsome ones in the district what were their names? Flory Woods, Melissa Foster, No, Melissa Palmer, Emma Scott, and Jenny Mae Ferguson can she be one of them? no, it is a flagrant waste of time in grey matter supposing it that girl couldn't be a Flory or a Melissa or an Emma while Jenny Mae is completely out of the question well there is some bewitchment in the affair of that I'm convinced so I'd better forget all about it but Eric found that it was impossible to forget all about it the more he tried to forget the more keenly and insistently he remembered the girls exquisite face haunted him and the mystery of her tantalized him true, he knew that, in all likelihood he might easily solve the problem by asking the Williamson's about her but somehow to his own surprise he found that he shrank from doing this he felt that it was impossible to ask Robert Williamson and probably have the girls name overflowed in a stream of petty gossip concerning her and all her antecedents and collateral to the third and fourth generation if he had to ask anyone it should be Mrs. Williamson but he meant to find out the secret for himself if it were at all possible he had planned to go to the harbour the next evening one of the Lobstermen had promised to take him out cod-fishing but instead he wandered south-west over the fields again he found the orchard easily he had half expected not to find it it was still the same fragrant, grassy, wind-haunted spot but it had no occupant and the violin bow was gone from the old bench perhaps she tiptoed back here for it by the light of the moon thought Eric pleasing his fancy by the vision of a life girlish figure stealing with a beating heart through mingled shadow and moonshine I wonder if she will possibly come this evening or if I have frightened her away forever I'll hide me behind this spruce cops and wait Eric waited until dark but no music sounded through the orchard and no one came to it the keenness of his disappointment surprised him nay more it vexed him what nonsense to be so worked up because a little girl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear where was his common sense his gumption as old Robert Williamson would have said naturally a man liked to look at a pretty face but was that any reason why he should feel as if life were flat, stale and unprofitable simply because he could not look at it he called himself a fool and went home in a petulant mood arriving there he plunged fiercely into solving algebraical equations and working out geometry exercises determined to put out of his head forthwith all vain imaginings of an enchanted orchard white in the moonshine with lilts of elf and music echoing down its long arcades the next day was Sunday and Eric went to church twice the Williamson pew was one of the side ones at the top of the church and its occupants practically faced the congregation Eric looked at every girl and woman in the audience but he saw nothing of the face which setting willpower and common sense flatly at defiance haunted his memory like a star Thomas Gordon was there sitting alone in his long empty pew near the top of the building and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupied the front pew of the gallery he had a powerful and melodious though untrained voice which dominated the singing and took the color out of the weaker more common place tones of the other singers he was well dressed in a suit of dark blue surge with a white collar and tie but Eric idly thought it did not become him so well as the working clothes in which he had first seen him he was too obviously dressed up and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his surroundings for two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard Monday evening he went cod fishing and Tuesday evening he went up to play checkers with Alexander Tracy Alexander won all the games so easily that he never had any respect for Eric Marshall again played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering he complained to his wife he'll never make a checker player never in this world End of Chapter 5 CHAPTER VI Wednesday evening Eric went to the orchard again and again he was disappointed he went home determined to solve the mystery by open inquiry fortune favoured him for he found Mrs. Williamson alone sitting by the west window of her kitchen and knitting at a long gray sock she hummed softly to herself as she knitted and Timothy slept blackly at her feet she looked at Eric with quiet affection in her large candid eyes she had liked Mr. West but Eric had found his way into the inner chamber of her heart by reason that his eyes were so like those of the little sun she had buried in the Lindsay Churchard many years before Mrs. Williamson said Eric with an affectation of carelessness I chanced on an old deserted orchard back behind the woods over there last week a charming bit of wilderness do you know who's it is? I suppose it must be the old Connors orchard answered Mrs. Williamson after a moment's reflection I had forgotten all about it it must be all of thirty years since Mr. and Mrs. Connors moved away their house and barns were burned down and they sold the land to Thomas Gordon and went to live in town they're both dead now Mr. Connors used to be very proud of his orchard there weren't many orchards in Lindsay then though almost everybody has one now there was a young girl in it playing on a violin said Eric annoyed to find that it cost him an effort to speak of her and that the blood mounted to his face as he did so she ran away in great alarm as soon as she saw me although I do not think I did or said anything to frighten or vex her I have no idea who she was do you know? Mrs. Williamson did not make an immediate reply she laid down her knitting and gazed out of the window pondering seriously some question in her own mind finally she said with an intonation of keen interest in her boys I suppose it must have been Kilmeney Gordon master Kilmeney Gordon do you mean the niece of Thomas Gordon of whom your husband spoke? yes I can hardly believe that the girl I saw can be a member of Thomas Gordon's family well if it wasn't Kilmeney Gordon I don't know who it could have been there is no other house near that orchard and I've heard she plays the violin if it was Kilmeney you've seen what very few people in Lindsay have ever seen master and those few have never seen her close by I have never laid eyes on her myself it's no wonder she ran away poor girl she isn't used to seeing strangers I'm rather glad if that was the sole reason of her flight said Eric I admit I didn't like to see any girl so frightened of me as she appeared to be she was as white as paper and so terrified that she never uttered a word but flit like a deer to cover well she couldn't have spoken a word in any case said Mrs. Williamson quietly Kilmeney Gordon is dumb Eric sat in dismayed silence for a moment that beautiful creature afflicted in such a fashion why it was horrible mingled with his dismay was a strange pang of personal regret and disappointment it couldn't have been Kilmeney Gordon then he protested at last remembering the girl I saw played on the violin exquisitely I never heard anything like it it is impossible that a deaf mute could play like that oh she isn't deaf master responded Mrs. Williamson looking at Eric keenly through her spectacles she picked up her knitting and fell to work again that is a strange part of it if anything about her can be stranger than another she can hear as well as anybody and understands everything that is said to her but she can't speak a word and never could at least so they say the truth is nobody knows much about her Janet and Thomas never speak of her and Neil won't either he has been well questioned too you can depend on that but he won't ever say a word about Kilmeney and he gets mad if folks persist why isn't she to be spoken of? queried Eric impatiently what is the mystery about her? it's a sad story master I suppose the Gordon's look on her existence as a sort of disgrace for my own part I think it's terrible the way she's been brought up but the Gordon's are very strange people Mr. Marshall I kind of reproved father for saying so you remember but it is true they have very strange ways and you've really seen Kilmeney what does she look like? I've heard that she was handsome is it true? I thought her very beautiful said Eric rather curtly but how has she been brought up Mrs. Williamson and why? well I might as well tell you the whole story master Kilmeney is the niece of Thomas and Janet Gordon her mother was Margaret Gordon their younger sister old James Gordon came out from Scotland Janet and Thomas were born in the old country and were small children when they came here they were never very sociable folks but still they used to visit out some then and people used to go there they were kind and honest people even if they were a little peculiar Mrs. Gordon died a few years after they came out and four years later James Gordon went home to Scotland and brought a new wife back with him she was a great deal younger than he was and a very pretty woman as my mother often told me she was friendly and gay and liked social life the Gordon place was a very different sort of place after she came there and even Janet and Thomas got thought out and softened down a good bit they were real fond of their stepmother I've heard then six years after she was married the second Mrs. Gordon died too she died when Margaret was born they say James Gordon almost broke his heart over it Janet brought Margaret up she and Thomas just worshipped the child and so did their father I knew Margaret Gordon well once we were just the same age and we set together at school we were always good friends until she turned against all the world she was a strange girl in some ways even then but I always liked her though a great many people didn't she had some bitter enemies but she had some devoted friends too that was her way she made folks either hate or love her those who did love her would have gone through fire and water for her when she grew up she was very pretty tall and splendid like a queen with great thick braids of black hair and red red cheeks and lips everybody who saw her looked at her a second time she was a little vain of her beauty I think master and she was proud oh she was very proud she liked to be first in everything and she couldn't bear not to show to good advantage she was dreadful determined too you couldn't budger an inch master when once she had made up her mind on any point but she was warm hearted and generous she could sing like an angel and she was very clever she could learn anything with just one look at it and she was terrible fond of reading when I'm talking about her like this it all comes back to me just what she was like and how she looked and spoke and acted and little ways she had of moving her hands and head I declare it almost seems as if she was right here in this room instead of being over there in the churchyard I wish you'd like the lamp master I feel kind of nervous Eric rose and lighted the lamp rather wondering it Mrs. Williamson's unusual exhibition of nerves she was generally so calm and composed thank you master that's better I won't be fancying now that Margaret Gordon's here listening to what I'm saying I had the feeling so strong a moment ago I suppose you think I'm a long while getting to kill many but I'm coming to that I didn't mean to talk so much about Margaret but somehow my thoughts got taken up with her well Margaret passed the board and went to Queens Academy and got a teacher's license she passed pretty well up when she came out but Janet told me she cried all night after the pass list came out because there were some ahead of her she went to teach school over at Radner it was there she met a man named Ronald Fraser Margaret had never had a beau before she could have had any young man in Lindsay if she had wanted him but she wouldn't look at one of them they said it was because she thought nobody was good enough for her but that wasn't the way of it at all master I knew because Margaret and I used to talk of those matters as girls do she didn't believe in going with anybody unless it was somebody she thought everything of and there was nobody in Lindsay she cared that much for this Ronald Fraser was a stranger from Nova Scotia and nobody knew much about him he was a widower although he was only a young man he had set up store-keeping in Radner and was doing well and had taking ways women like it was said that all the Radner girls were in love with him but I don't think his worst enemy could have said he flirted with them he never took any notice of them but the very first time he saw Margaret Gordon he fell in love with her and she with him they came over to church in Lindsay together the next Sunday and everybody said it would be a match Margaret looked lovely that day so gentle and womanly she had been used to hold her head pretty high but that day she held it drooping a little and her black eyes cast down Ronald Fraser was very tall and fair with blue eyes they made as handsome a couple as ever I saw but old James Gordon and Thomas and Janet didn't much approve of him I saw that plain enough one time I was there and he brought Margaret home from Radner Friday night I guess they wouldn't have liked anybody though who came after Margaret they thought nobody was good enough for her but Margaret coaxed them all round in time she could do pretty much near anything with them they were so fond and proud of her her father held out the longest but finally he give in and consented for her to marry Ronald Fraser they had a big wedding too all the neighbours were asked Margaret always liked to make a display I was her bridesmaid master I helped her dress and nothing would please her she wanted to look that nice for Ronald's sake she was a handsome bride dressed in white with red roses in her hair her breasts she wouldn't wear white flowers she said they look too much like funeral flowers she looked like a picture I can see her this minute as plain as plain just as she was that night blushing and turning pale by turns and looking at Ronald with her eyes of love if ever a girl loved a man with all her heart Margaret Gordon did it almost made me feel frightened she gave him the worship it isn't right to give anybody but Godmaster and I think that is always punished they went to live at Radner and for a little while everything went well Margaret had a nice house and was gay and happy she dressed beautiful and entertained a good deal then well Ronald Fraser's first wife turned up looking for him she wasn't dead after all oh there was terrible scandal master the talk and gossip was something dreadful everyone you met had a different story and it was hard to get at the truth some said Ronald Fraser had known all the time that his wife wasn't dead and had deceived Margaret but I don't think he did he swore he didn't they hadn't been very happy together it seems her mother made trouble between them then she went to visit her mother in Montreal and died in the hospital there so the word came to Ronald perhaps he believed it a little too readily but that he did believe it I never had a doubt her story was that it was another woman of the same name when she found out Ronald thought her dead she and her mother agreed to let him think so but when she heard he had got married again she thought she'd better let him know the truth it all sounded like a queer story and I suppose you couldn't blame people for not believing it too readily but I've always felt it was true Margaret didn't think so though she believed that Ronald Fraser had deceived her knowing all the time that he couldn't make her his lawful wife she turned against him and hated him just as much as she had loved him before Ronald Fraser went away with his real wife and in less than a year word came of his death they said he just died of a broken heart nothing more nor less Margaret came home to her father's house from the day that she went over its threshold she never came out until she was carried out in her coffin three years ago not a soul outside of her own family ever saw her again I went to see her but Janet told me she wouldn't see me it was foolish of Margaret to act so she hadn't done anything real wrong and everybody was sorry for her and would have helped her all they could but I reckon pity cut her as deep as blame could have done and deeper because you see master she was so proud she couldn't bear it they say her father was hard on her too and that was unjust if it was true Janet and Thomas felt the disgrace too the people that had been in the habit of going to the Gordon place soon stopped going for they could see they were not welcome old James Gordon died that winter he never held his head up again after the scandal he had been an elder in the church but he handed in his resignation right away and nobody could persuade him to withdraw it kill many women they could withdraw it kill many was born in the spring but nobody ever saw her except the minister who baptised her she was never taken to church or sent to school of course I suppose there wouldn't have been any use in her going to school when she couldn't speak and it's likely Margaret taught her all she could be taught herself but it was dreadful that she was never taken to church or let go among the children and young folks and it was a real shame that nothing was ever done to find out why she couldn't talk or if she could be cured it was a long time ago and everybody in Lindsay went to the funeral but they didn't see her the coffin lid was screwed down and they didn't see kill many either I would have loved to see her for Margaret's sake but I didn't want to see poor Margaret I had never seen her since the night she was a bride for I had left Lindsay on a visit just after that and when I came home the scandal had just broken out I remembered Margaret in all her pride and beauty and I couldn't have borne to look at her dead face and see the awful changes I knew must be there it was thought perhaps Janet and Thomas would take kill many out after her mother was gone but they never did so I suppose they must have agreed with Margaret about the way she had been brought up I've often felt sorry for the poor girl and I don't think her people did right by her even if she was mysteriously afflicted she must have had a very sad, lonely life that is the story master and I've been a long time telling it as I daresay you think but the past just seemed to be living again for me as I talked if you don't want to be pestered with questions about kill many Gordon master you'd better not let on you've seen her Eric was not likely to he had heard all he wanted to know and more so this girl is at the core of a tragedy he reflected as he went to his room and she is dumb the pity of it kill many the name suits her she is as lovely and innocent as the heroine of the old ballad and oh kill many was fair to see she was certainly not so appropriate for her eyes were anything but still in steadfast after she had seen me at all events he tried to put her out of his thoughts but he could not the memory of her beautiful face drew him with the power he could not resist the next evening he went again to the orchard End of Chapter 6 visit LibriVox.org Recording by Katie Gibbany Arkansas February 2008 Kill many of the orchard by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 7 A Rose of Womanhood When he emerged from the spruce wood and entered the orchard his heart gave a sudden leap and he felt that the blood rushed madly to his face she was there bending over the bed of June lilies in the center of the garden plot he could only see her profile virginal and white he stopped not wishing to startle her again when she lifted her head he expected to see her shrink and flee but she did not do so she only grew a little paler and stood motionless watching him intently seeing this he walked slowly toward her and when he was so close to her that he could hear the nervous flutter of her breath over her parted trembling lips he said very gently do not be afraid of me I am a friend and I do not wish to disturb or annoy you in any way she seemed to hesitate a moment then she lifted a little slate that hung at her belt wrote something on it rapidly and held it out to him he read in a small distinctive handwriting I am not afraid of you now mother told me that all strange men were very wicked and dangerous but I do not think you can be I have thought a great deal about you and I am sorry I ran away the other night he realized her entire innocence and simplicity looking earnestly into her still troubled eyes he said I would not do you any harm for the world all men are not wicked although it is too true that some are so my name is Eric Marshall and I am teaching in the Lindsay School you I think are Kilmeney Gordon I thought your music so very lovely the other evening that I have been wishing ever since that I might hear it again won't you play for me the vague fear had all gone from her eyes by this time and suddenly she smiled a merry, girlish, wholly irresistible smile which broke through the calm of her face like a gleam of sunlight rippling over a placid sea then she wrote I am very sorry that I cannot play this evening I did not bring my violin with me but I will bring it tomorrow evening and play for you if you would like to hear me I should like to please you again that note of innocent frankness what a child she was what a beautiful ignorant child utterly unskilled in the art of hiding her feelings but why should she hide them they were as pure and beautiful as herself Eric smiled back at her with equal frankness I should like it more than I can say and I shall be sure to come tomorrow evening if it is fine but if it is at all damp or unpleasant you must not come in that case another evening will do and now won't you give me some flowers she nodded with another little smile and began to pick some of the June lilies carefully selecting the most perfect among them he watched her life graceful motions with delight every movement seemed poetry itself she looked like a very incarnation of spring as if all the shimmer of young leaves and glow of young mornings an evanescent sweetness of young blossoms in a thousand springs had been embodied in her when she came to him radiant, her hands full of the lilies a couplet from a favorite poem darted into his head a blossom vermel white that lightly breaks a faded flower sheath here, by God's rude is the one made for me the next moment he was angry with himself for his folly she was, after all, nothing but a child and a child set apart from her fellow creatures by her sad defect he must not let himself think nonsense thank you these June lilies are the sweetest flowers the spring brings us do you know that their real name is the white Narcissus? she looked pleased and interested no, I did not know, she wrote I have often read of the white Narcissus and wondered what it was like I never thought of it being the same as my dear June lilies I am glad you told me I love flowers very much they are my very good friends you couldn't help being friends with the lilies like always takes to like, said Eric come and sit down on the old bench here, where you were sitting that night I frightened you so badly I could not imagine who or what you were sometimes I thought I had dreamed you only he added under his breath and unheard by her I could never have dreamed anything half so lovely she sat down beside him on the old bench and looked unshrinkingly in his face there was no boldness in her glance nothing but the most perfect childlike trust and confidence if there had been any evil in his heart any skulking thought he was afraid to acknowledge those eyes must have searched it out and shamed it but he could meet them unafraid then she wrote I was very much frightened you must have thought me very silly but I had never seen any man except Uncle Thomas and Neil and the eggpeddler and you are different from them oh, very, very different I was afraid to come back here the next evening and yet somehow I wanted to come I did not want you to think I did not know how to behave I sent Neil back for my bow in the morning I could not do without it I cannot speak you know I am very sorry for your sake yes, but what I mean is would you like me better if I could speak like other people no, it does not make any difference in that way, Kilmenny by the way, do you mind my calling you, Kilmenny? she looked puzzled and wrote what else would you call me? that is my name everybody calls me that but I am such a stranger to you that perhaps you would wish me to call you Miss Gordon oh, no I like that she wrote quickly with a distressed look on her face nobody ever calls me that it would make me feel as if I were not myself but somebody else and you do not seem like a stranger to me is there any reason why you should not call me Kilmenny? no reason whatever if you will allow me the privilege you have a very lovely name the very name you ought to have I am glad you like it do you know that I was called after my grandmother and she was called after a girl in a poem? Aunt Janet has never liked my name although she liked my grandmother but I am glad you like both my name and me I was afraid you would not like me because I cannot speak you can speak through your music, Kilmenny she looked pleased how well you understand, she wrote yes, I cannot speak or sing as other people can but I can make my violin say things for me do you compose your own music, he asked but he saw she did not understand him I mean, did anyone ever teach you the music you played here that evening? oh no it just came as I thought it has always been that way when I was very little Neil taught me to hold the violin in the bow and the rest all came of itself my violin once belonged to Neil but he gave it to me Neil is very good and kind to me but I like you better tell me about yourself the wonder of her grew upon him with every passing moment how lovely she was what dear little ways and gestures she had ways and gestures as artless and unsteady as they were effective and how strangely little her dumbness seemed to matter after all she wrote so quickly and easily her eyes and smile gave such expression to her mobile face that voice was hardly missed they lingered in the orchard until the long language shadows of the trees crept to their feet it was just after sunset and the distant hills were purple against the melting saffron of the sky in the west and the crystalline blue of the sky in the south eastward just over the fur woods or clouds white and high heaped like snow mountains and the western most of them shone with a rosy glow as of sunset on an alpine height the higher worlds of air were still full of light perfect stainless light unmarred of earth shadow but down in the orchard and under the spruces the light had almost gone giving place to a green dewy dusk made passionately sweet with the breath of the apple blossoms and mint and the balsamic odors that rained down upon them from the furs Eric told her of his life and the life in the great outer world in which she was girlishly and eagerly interested she asked him many questions about it direct and incisive questions which showed that she had already formed decided opinions and views about it yet it was plain to be seen that she did not regard it as anything she might ever share herself hers was the dispassionate interest with which she might have listened to a tale of the land of fairy or of some great empire long passed away from earth Eric discovered that she had read a great deal of poetry and history and a few books of biography and travel she did not know what a novel meant and had never heard of one curiously enough she was well informed regarding politics and current events from the weekly paper for which her uncle subscribed I never read the newspaper while mother was alive she wrote, nor any poetry either she taught me to read and write and I read the Bible all through many times and some of the histories after mother died Aunt Janet gave me all her books and a great many most of them had been given to her as prizes when she was a girl at school and some of them had been given to her by my father do you know the story of my father and mother? Eric nodded yes, Mrs. Williamson told me all about it she was a friend of your mother I am glad you have heard it it is so sad that I would not like to tell it but you will understand everything better because you know I never heard it until just before mother died then she told me all I think she had thought father was to blame for the trouble but before she died she told me she believed that she had been unjust to him and that he had not known she said that when people were dying they saw things more clearly and she saw she had made a mistake about father she said she had many more things she wanted to tell me but she did not have time to tell them because she died that night it was a long while before I had the heart to read her books but when I did I thought them so beautiful they were poetry and it was like music put into words I will bring you some books to read if you would like them said Eric her great blue eyes gleamed with interest and delight oh thank you I would like it very much I have read mine over so often that I know them nearly all by heart one cannot get tired of really beautiful things but sometimes I feel that I would like some new books are you never lonely, Kilmini? oh no how could I be there is always plenty for me to do helping Aunt Janet about the house I can do a great many things she glanced up at him with a pretty pride as her flying pencil traced the words I can cook and sew Aunt Janet says I am a very good housekeeper and she does not praise people very often or very much and then when I am not helping her I have my dear dear violin that is all the company I want but I like to read and hear of the big world so far away and the people who live there and the things that are done it must be a very wonderful place wouldn't you like to go out into it and see its wonders and meet those people yourself he asked smiling at her at once he saw that in some way he could not understand he had hurt her she snatched her pencil and wrote a motion and energy of expression that had almost seemed as if she had passionately exclaimed the words aloud no no no I do not want to go anywhere away from home I do not want ever to see strangers or have them see me I could not bear it he thought that possibly the consciousness of her defect accounted for this yet she did not seem sensitive about her dumbness and made frequent casual references to it in her written remarks or perhaps it was the shadow on her birth yet she was so innocent that it seemed unlikely she could realize or understand the existence of such a shadow Eric finally decided that it was merely the rather morbid shrinking of a sensitive child who had been brought up in an unwholesome and unnatural way at last the lengthening shadows warned him that it was time to go you won't forget to come tomorrow evening and play for me and he said, rising reluctantly she answered by a quick little shake of her sleek dark head and a smile that was eloquent he watched her as she walked across the orchard with the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace and along the wild cherry lane at the corner of the furs she paused and waved her hand to him before turning it when Eric reached home old Robert Williamson was having a lunch of bread and milk in the kitchen he looked up with a friendly grin as Eric strode in whistling been having a walk, master? he queried yes, said Eric unconsciously and involuntarily he infused so much triumph into the simple monosyllable that even old Robert felt it Mrs. Williamson, who was cutting bread at the end of the table laid down her knife and loaf and looked at the young man with a softly troubled expression in her eyes back to the Connors orchard and if he could have seen Kilmanny Gordon again you didn't discover a gold mine, I suppose said old Robert Dryley you look as if you might have End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Kilmanny of the Orchard this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org by Katie Gibbany, Arkansas February 2008 Kilmanny of the Orchard by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 8 at the Gate of Eden when Eric went to the old Connors orchard the next evening he found Kilmanny waiting for him on the bench under the lilac tree with a violin in her lap as soon as she saw him she caught it up and began to play an airy, delicate little melody that sounded like the laughter of daisies when it was finished she dropped her bow and looked up at him with flushed cheeks and questioning eyes what did that say to you she wrote it said something like this answered Eric falling into her humor smilingly welcome my friend it is a very beautiful evening the sky is so blue and the apple blossoms so sweet the wind and I have been here alone together with my companion but still I am glad to see you it is an evening on which it is good to be alive and to wander in an orchard that is fine and white welcome my friend she clapped her hands looking like a pleased child you are very quick to understand she wrote that was just what I meant of course I did not think it in just those words but that was the feeling of it I felt that I was so glad I was alive and that the apple blossoms and the white lilacs and the trees and I were all pleased together to see you come you are quicker than Neil he is almost always puzzled to understand my music and I am puzzled to understand his sometimes it frightens me it seems as if there were something in it trying to take hold of me something I do not like and want to run away from somehow Eric did not like her references to Neil the idea of that handsome low-born boy seeing kill many every day talking to her sitting at the same table with her dwelling under the same roof meeting her in the hundred intimacies of daily life was distasteful to him he put the thought away from him and flung himself down on the long grass at her feet now play for me please he said I want to lie here and listen to you and look at you he might have added he could not tell which was the greater pleasure her beauty more wonderful than any pictured loveliness he had ever seen delighted him every tint and curve an outline of her face was flawless her music enthralled him this child he told himself as he listened had genius but it was being wholly wasted he found himself thinking resentfully of the people who were her guardians and who were responsible for her strange life they had done her a great and irremediable wrong how dared they doom her to such an existence if her defect of utterance had been attended to in time who knew but that it might have been cured now it was probably too late nature had given her a royal birthright of beauty and talent but their selfish and unpardonable neglect had made it of no account what divine music she lured out of the old violin merry and sad gay and sorrowful by turns music such as the stars of morning might have made sense music that the fairies might have danced to in their revels among the green hills or on yellow sands music that might have mourned over the grave of a dead hope then she drifted into a still sweeter strain as he listened to it he realized that the whole soul and nature of the girl were revealing themselves to him through her music the beauty and purity of her thoughts her childhood dreams and her maiden reveries there was no thought of consent about her she could not help the revelation she was unconscious of making at last she laid her violin aside and wrote I have done my best to give you pleasure it is your turn now do you remember a promise you made to me last night have you kept it he gave her the two books he had brought for her a modern novel and a volume of poetry unknown to her he had hesitated a little over the former but the book was so fine and full of beauty that he thought it could not bruise the bloom of her innocence ever so slightly he had no doubts about the poetry it was the utterance of one of those great inspired souls whose passing tread had made the kingdom of their birth and labor a veritable holy land he read her some of the poems then he talked to her of his college days and friends the minutes passed very swiftly there was just then no world for him outside of that old orchard with its falling blossoms and its shadows and its crooning winds once when he told her the story of some college pranks wherein the endless feuds of freshmen and sophomores figured she clapped her hands together according to her habit and laughed aloud a clear musical silvery peel it fell on Eric's ear with a shock of surprise he thought it strange that she could laugh like that when she could not speak wherein lay the defect that closed for her the gates of speech was it possible that it could be removed kill many he said gravely after a moment's reflection during which he had looked up as she sat with the ready sunlight falling through the lilac branches on her bare silky head like a shower of red jewels do you mind if I ask you something about your inability to speak will it hurt you to talk of the matter with me she shook her head oh no she wrote I do not mind at all of course I am sorry I cannot speak but I am quite used to the thought and it never hurts me at all then kill many tell me this do you know why it is that you are unable to speak when all your other faculties are so perfect no I do not know at all why I cannot speak I asked mother once and she told me it was a judgment on her for a great sin she had committed and she looked so strangely that I was frightened and I never spoke of it to her or anyone else again were you ever taken to a doctor to have your tongue and organs of speech examined no I remember when I was a very little girl that Uncle Thomas wanted to take me to a doctor in charlotte's town and see if anything could be done for me but mother would not let him she said it would be no use and I do not think Uncle Thomas thought it would be either you can laugh very naturally can you make any other sound yes sometimes when I am pleased or frightened I have made little cries but it is only when I am not thinking of it at all that I can do that if I try to make a sound I cannot do it at all this seemed to Eric more mysterious than ever do you ever try to speak to other words he persisted oh yes very often all the time I am saying the words in my head just as I hear other people saying them do not look so sorry my friend I am very happy and I do not mind so very much not being able to speak only sometimes when I have so many thoughts and it seems so slow to write them out some of them get away from me I must play to you again you look too sober she laughed again picked up her violin and played a tinkling, roguish little melody as if she were trying to tease him looking at Eric over her violin with luminous eyes that dared him to be merry Eric smiled but the puzzled look returned to his face many times that evening he walked home in a brown study Kilmenny's case certainly seemed a strange one and the more he thought of it the stranger it seemed it strikes me as something very peculiar that she should be able to make sounds only when she is not thinking about it he reflected I wish David Baker could examine her but she knows that is out of the question that grim pair who have charge of her would never consent End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Kilmenny of the Orchard this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Kilmenny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery read by Chloe Winters February 2008 Chapter 9 The Straight Simplicity of Eve for the next three weeks Eric Marshall seemed to himself to be living two lives as distinct from each other as if he possessed a double personality in one he taught the Lindsey district school diligently and painstakingly solved problems argued on theology with Robert Williamson called at the homes of his pupils and took tea in state with their parents went to a rustic dance or two all unwittingly with the hearts of the Lindsey maidens but this life was a dream of work a day he only lived in the other which was spent in an old orchard grassy and overgrown with the minutes seemed to lag for sheer love of the spot and the June winds made wild harping in the old spruces here every evening he met Kilmenny in that old orchard they garnered hours of quiet happiness together together they went wandering in the fair fields of old romance he had many books and talked of many things and when they were tired of all else Kilmenny played to him and the old orchard echoed with her lovely fantastic melodies at every meeting her beauty came home afresh to him with the old thrill of glad surprise in the intervals of absence it seemed to him that she could not possibly be as beautiful as he remembered her and then when they met she seemed even more so he learned to watch for the undisguised light of welcome that always leaped into her eyes of his footsteps she was nearly always there before him and she always showed that she was glad to see him with the frank delight of a child watching for a dear comrade she was never in the same mood twice now she was grave now gay now stately now pensive but she was always charming thron and twisted the old gordon stock might be but it had at least this one offshoot of perfect grace and symmetry her mind and heart utterly unspoiled of the world were as beautiful as her face all the ugliness of existence had passed her by shrined in her double solitude of upbringing and muteness she was naturally quick and clever delightful little flashes of wit and humour sparkled out occasionally she could be whimsical even charmingly capricious sometimes innocent mischief glimmered out of the unfathomable deeps of her blue eyes sarcasm even was not unknown to her now a man she punctured some harmless bubble of a young man's conceit or masculine superiority with a biting little line of daintily written script she assimilated the ideas in the books they read speedily eagerly and thoroughly always seizing on the best and truest and rejecting the false and spurious and weak with an unfailing intuition at which Eric marveled hers was the spear of ethereal trying out the dross of everything and leaving only the pure gold in manner and outlook she was still a child yet now and again she was as old as Eve an expression would leap into her laughing face a subtle meaning reveal itself in her smile that held all the lore of womanhood and all the wisdom of the ages her way of smiling enchanted him the smile always began far down in her eyes and flowed outward to her face like a sparkling brook stealing out of shadow into sunshine he knew everything about her life she told him her simple history freely she often mentioned her uncle and aunt and seemed to regard them with deep affection she rarely spoke of her mother Eric came somehow to understand less from what she said than from what she did not say that Kilmoney, though she had loved her mother had always been rather afraid of her there had not been between them the natural beautiful confidence of mother and child of Neil she wrote frequently at first and seemed very fond of him later she ceased to mention him perhaps for she was marvelously quick to catch and interpret every fleeting change of expression in his voice and face she discerned what Eric did not know himself that his eyes clouded and grew moody at the mention of Neil's name once she asked him naively are there many people like you out in the world? thousands of them said Eric laughing she looked gravely at him then she gave her head a quick decided little shake I do not think so, she wrote I do not know much of the world but I do not think there are many people like you in it one evening when the far away hills and fields were scarved in gauzy purples and the intervals were brimming with golden mists Eric carried to the old orchard a little limp worn volume that held a love story it was the first thing of the kind he had ever read to her for in the first novel he had lent her the love interest had been very slight and subordinate this was a beautiful, passionate idol exquisitely told he read it to her, lying in the grass at her feet she listened with her hands clasped over her knee and her eyes cast down it was not a long story and when he had finished it he shut the book and looked up at her questioningly do you like it Kilmoney? he asked very slowly she took her slate and wrote yes I like it but it hurt me too I did not know that a person could like anything that hurt her I do not know why it hurt me I felt as if I had lost something that I never had that was a very silly feeling was it not but I did not understand the book very well you see it is about love and I do not know anything about love mother told me once that love is a curse and that I must pray that it would never enter into my life she said it very earnestly and so I believed her but your book teaches that it is a blessing it says that it is the most splendid and wonderful thing in life which am I to believe? love, real love, is never a curse Kilmoney said Eric gravely there is a false love which is a curse perhaps your mother believed it was that which had entered her life and ruined it and so she made the mistake there is nothing in the world or in heaven either as I believe so truly beautiful and wonderful and blessed as love have you ever loved? asked Kilmoney with the directness of phrasing necessitated by her mode of communication which was sometimes a little terrible she asked the question simply and without any embarrassment she knew of no reason why love might not be discussed with Eric as other matters music and books and travels might be no said Eric honestly as he thought but everyone has an ideal of love whom he hopes to meet some day the ideal woman of a young man's dream I suppose I have mine in some sealed secret chamber of my heart I suppose your ideal woman would be beautiful like the woman in your book oh yes I am sure I could never care for an ugly woman said Eric laughing a little as he sat up all ideals are always beautiful whether they so translate themselves into realities or not but the sun is going down time does certainly fly in this enchanted orchard I believe you bewitched the moments away Kilmoney your namesake of the poem was a somewhat uncanny made if I recollect a right and thought as little of seven years in Elfland as ordinary folk do of half an hour on upper earth some day I shall waken from a supposed hours lingering here and find myself an old man with white hair and ragged coat as in that fairy tale we read the other night will you let me give you this book I should never commit the sacrilege of reading it in any other place than this it is an old book Kilmoney a new book savoring of the shop and marketplace however beautiful it might be would not do for you this was one of my mother's books she read it and loved it see the faded rose leaves she placed in it one day are still there I'll write your name in it that quaint pretty name of yours which always sounds as if it had been specially invented for you Kilmoney of the orchard and the date of this perfect June day on which we read it together then when you look at it you will always remember me and the white buds opening on that rose bush beside you and the rush and murmur of the wind in the tops of those old spruces he held out the book to her but to his surprise she shook her head with a deeper flush on her face won't you take the book Kilmoney why not she took her pencil and wrote slowly unlike her usual quick movement do not be offended with me I shall not need anything to make me remember you because I can never forget you but I would rather not take the book I do not want to read it again it is about love and there is no use in my learning about love even if it is all you say nobody will ever love me I'm too ugly you ugly? exclaimed Eric he was on the point of going off into appeal of laughter at the idea when a glimpse of her half averted face sobered him on it was a hurt bitter look such as he remembered seeing once before when he had asked her if she would not like to see the world for herself Kilmoney he said in astonishment you don't really think yourself ugly do you she nodded without looking at him and then wrote oh yes I know that I am I have known it for a long time mother told me that I was very ugly and that nobody would ever like to look at me I am sorry it hurts me much worse to know I am ugly than it does to know I cannot speak I suppose you will think that is very foolish of me but it is true that is why I did not come back to the orchard for such a long time even after I had got over my fright I hated to think that you would think me ugly and that is why I do not want to go out into the world and meet people they would look at me as the egg peddler did one day when I went out with Aunt Janet to his wagon the spring after mother died he stared at me so I knew it was because he thought me so ugly and I have always hidden when he came ever since Eric's lips twitched in spite of his pity for the real suffering displayed in her eyes he could not help feeling amused over the absurd idea of this beautiful girl believing herself in all seriousness to be ugly but Kilmoney do you think yourself ugly when you look in a mirror? he asked smiling I have never looked in a mirror she wrote I never knew there was such a thing until after mother died and I read about it in a book then I asked Aunt Janet and she said mother had broken all the looking glasses in the house when I was a baby but I have seen my face reflected in the spoons and in a little silver sugar bowl Aunt Janet has and it is ugly, very ugly Eric's face went down into the grass for his life he could not help laughing and for his life he would not let Kilmoney see him laughing a certain little whimsical wish took possession of him and he did not hasten to tell her the truth as had been his first impulse when he dared to look up he said slowly I don't think you're ugly Kilmoney oh but I'm sure you must she wrote protestingly even Neil does he tells me I am kind and nice but one day I asked him if he thought me very ugly and he looked away and would not speak so I knew what he thought about it too do not let us speak of this again it makes me feel sorry and spoils everything I forget it at other times let me play you some goodbye music I do not feel vexed because I would not take your book it would only make me unhappy to read it I am not vexed said Eric and I think you will take it some day yet after I have shown you something I want you to see never mind your looks Kilmoney beauty isn't everything oh it is a great deal she wrote naively but you do like me even though I am so ugly don't you you like me because of my beautiful music don't you I like you very much Kilmoney answered Eric laughing a little but there was in his voice a tender note of which he was unconscious Kilmoney was aware of it however and she picked up her violin with a pleased smile he left her playing there and all the way through the dim resinous spruce wood her music followed him like an invisible guardian spirit Kilmoney the beautiful he murmured and yet good heavens the child thinks she is ugly she with the face more lovely than ever an artist dreamed of a girl of 18 who has never looked in a mirror I wonder if there is another such in any civilized country in the world what could have possessed her mother to tell her such a falsehood I wonder if Margaret Gordon could have been quite sane it is strange that Neil is never told of the truth perhaps he doesn't want her to find out Eric had met Neil Gordon a few evenings before this at a country dance where Neil had played the violin for the dancers influenced by curiosity he had sought the lad's acquaintance Neil was friendly and talkative at first but the first hint concerning the Gordon's which Eric threw out skillfully his face and manner changed he looked secretive and suspicious almost sinister a sullen look crept into his big black eyes and he drew his bow across the violin strings with the discordant screech as if to terminate the conversation plainly nothing was to be found out from him about Kilmoney and her grim guardians End of Chapter 9 of Kilmoney of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery Read by Chloe Winters February 2008