A Tangled Web E-Book

L.M. Montgomery

• Herausgeber: Classica Libris
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Over the years sixty members of the Dark family and sixty Penhallows have married one another—but not without their share of fighting and feuding. Now Aunt Becky, the eccentric old matriarch of the clan, has bequeathed her prized possession: a legendary heirloom jug. But the name of the jug’s new owner will not be revealed for one year. In the next twelve months beautiful Gay Penhallow’s handsome fiance Noel Gibson leaves her for sly and seductive Nan Penhallow; reckless Peter Penhallow and lovely Donna Dark, who have hated each other since childhood, are inexplicably brought together by the jug; Hugh and Joscelyn Dark, separated on their wedding night ten years ago for reasons never revealed, find a second chance—all watched over by the mysterious Moon Man, who has the gift of second sight. Then comes the night when Aunt Becky’s wishes will be revealed… and the family is in for the biggest surprise of all.

Leseprobe

L. M. Montgomery

A TANGLED WEB

Copyright

First published in 1931

Copyright © 2019 Classica Libris

Aunt Becky’s Levee

A dozen stories have been told about the old Dark jug. This is the true one.

Several things happened in the Dark and Penhallow clan because of it. Several other things did not happen. As Uncle Pippin said, this may have been Providence, or it may have been the devil that certainly possessed the jug. At any rate, had it not been for the jug, Peter Penhallow might to-day have been photographing lions alone in African jungles, and Big Sam Dark would, in all probability, never have learned to appreciate the beauty of the unclothed female form. As for Dandy Dark and Penny Dark, they have never ceased to congratulate themselves that they got out of the affair with whole hides.

Legally, the jug was the property of Aunt Becky Dark, née Rebecca Penhallow. For that matter, most of the Darks had been née Penhallow, and most of the Penhallows had been née Dark, save a goodly minority who had been Darks née Dark or Penhallows née Penhallow. In three generations sixty Darks had been married to sixty Penhallows. The resultant genealogical tangle baffled everybody except Uncle Pippin. There was really nobody for a Dark to marry except a Penhallow and nobody for a Penhallow to marry except a Dark. Once, it had been said, they wouldn’t take anybody else. Now, nobody else would take them. At least, so Uncle Pippin said. But it was necessary to take Uncle Pippin’s speeches with a large pinch of salt. Neither the Darks nor the Penhallows were gone to seed as far as that. They were still a proud, vigorous, and virile clan who hacked and hewed among themselves but presented an unbroken front to any alien or hostile force.

In a sense, Aunt Becky was the head of the clan. In point of seniority Crosby Penhallow, who was eighty-seven when she was eighty-five, might have contested her supremacy had he cared to do so. But at eighty-seven Crosby Penhallow cared only about one thing. If he could foregather every evening with his old crony, Erasmus Dark, to play duets on their flutes and violins, Aunt Becky might hold the sceptre of the clan if she wanted to.

It must be admitted frankly that Aunt Becky was not particularly beloved by her clan. She was too fond of telling them what she called the plain truth. And, as Uncle Pippin said, while the truth was all right, in its place, there was no sense in pouring out great gobs of it around where it wasn’t wanted. To Aunt Becky, however, tact and diplomacy and discretion, never to mention any consideration for any one’s feelings, were things unknown. When she wanted to say a thing, she said it. Consequently, Aunt Becky’s company was never dull whatever else it might be. One endured the digs and slams one got oneself for the fun of seeing other people writhing under their digs and slams. As Aunt Becky knew from A to Z all the sad or fantastic or terrible little histories of the clan, no one had armor which her shafts could not penetrate. Little Uncle Pippin said that he wouldn’t miss one of Aunt Becky’s “levees” for a dog-fight. “She’s a personality,” Dr Harry Penhallow had once remarked condescendingly, on one of his visits home to attend some clan funeral.

“She’s a crank,” growled Drowned John Penhallow, who, being a notorious crank himself, tolerated no rivals.

“It’s the same thing,” chuckled Uncle Pippin. “You’re all afraid of her because she knows too much about you. I tell you, boys, it’s only Aunt Becky and the likes of her that keeps us all from dry-rotting.”

Aunt Becky had been “Aunt Becky” to everybody for twenty years. Once when a letter came to the Indian Spring post-office addressed to “Mrs. Theodore Dark” the new postmaster returned it marked “Person unknown.” Legally, it was Aunt Becky’s name. Once she had had a husband and two children. They were all dead long ago—so long ago that even Aunt Becky herself had practically forgotten them. For years she had lived in her two rented rooms in The Pinery—otherwise the house of her old friend, Camilla Jackson, at Indian Spring. Many Dark and Penhallow homes would have been open to her, for the clan were never unmindful of their obligations, but Aunt Becky would have none of them. She had a tiny income of her own and Camilla, being neither a Dark nor a Penhallow, was easily bossed.

“I’m going to have a levee,” Aunt Becky told Uncle Pippin one afternoon when he had dropped in to see her. He had heard she was not very well. But he found her sitting up in bed, supported by pillows, her broad, griddled old face looking as keen and venomous as usual. He reflected that it was not likely there was much the matter with her. Aunt Becky had taken to her bed before now when she fancied herself neglected by her clan.

Aunt Becky had held occasional gatherings that she called “levees” ever since she had gone to live at The Pinery. It was her habit to announce in the local papers that Mrs. Rebecca Dark would entertain her friends on such and such an afternoon. Everybody went who couldn’t trump up a watertight excuse for not going. They spent two hours of clan gossip, punctuated by Aunt Becky’s gibes and the malice of her smile, and had a cup of tea, sandwiches, and several slices of cake. Then they went home and licked their wounds.

“That’s good,” said Uncle Pippin. “Things are pretty dull in the clan. Nothing exciting has happened for a long time.”

“This will be exciting enough,” said Aunt Becky. “I’m going to tell them something—not everything—about who’s to get the old Dark jug when I’m gone.”

“Whew!” Uncle Pippin was intrigued at once. Still he did not forget his manners. “But why bother about that for a while? You’re going to see the century out.”

“No, I’m not,” said Aunt Becky. “Roger told Camilla this morning that I wouldn’t live this year out. He didn’t tell me, the person most interested, but I wormed it out of Camilla.”

It was a shock to Uncle Pippin, and he was silent for a few moments. He had had a death-bell ringing in his ear for three days, but he had not connected it with Aunt Becky. Really, no one had ever thought of Aunt Becky dying. Death, like life, seemed to have forgotten her. He didn’t know what to say.

“Doctors often make mistakes,” he stammered feebly.

“Roger doesn’t,” said Aunt Becky grimly. “I’ve got to die, I suppose. Anyhow, I might as well die. Nobody cares anything about me now.”

“Why do you say that, Becky?” said Camilla, betraying symptoms of tears. “I’m sure I do.”

“No, you don’t really. You’re too old. We’re both too old to care really for anybody or anything. You know perfectly well that in the back of your mind you’re thinking, ‘After she dies I’ll be able to have my tea strong.’ There’s no use blinking the truth or trying to cover it up with sentiment. I’ve survived all my real friends.”

“Come, come, what about me?” protested Uncle Pippin.

Aunt Becky turned her cronelike old grey head towards him.

“You!” she was almost contemptuous. “Why, you’re only sixty-four. I was married before you were born. You’re nothing but an acquaintance if it comes to that. Hardly even a relative. You were only an adopted Penhallow, remember. Your mother always vowed you were Ned Penhallow’s son, but I can tell you some of us had our doubts. Funny things come in with the tide, Pippin.”

This, reflected Uncle Pippin, was barely civil. He decided that it was not necessary to protest any more friendship for Aunt Becky.

“Camilla,” snapped Aunt Becky, “I beg of you to stop trying to cry. It’s painful to watch you. I had to send Ambrosine out because I couldn’t put up with her mewing. Ambrosine cries over everything alike—a death or a spoiled pudding. But one excuses her. It’s about the only fun she’s ever got out of life. I am ready to die. I’ve felt almost everything in life there is to feel—ay, I’ve drained my cup. But I mean to die decently and in order. I’m going to have one last grand rally. The date will be announced in the paper. But if you want anything to eat you’ll have to bring it with you. I’m not going to bother with that sort of thing on my death-bed.”

Uncle Pippin was genuinely disappointed. Living alone as he did, subsisting on widower’s fare, the occasional meals and lunches he got in friends’ houses meant much to him. And now Aunt Becky was going to ask people to come and see her and wasn’t going to give them a bite. It was inhospitable, that’s what it was. Everybody would be resentful, but everybody would be there. Uncle Pippin knew his Darks and his Penhallows. Every one of them would be keen to know who was to get the old Dark jug. Everybody would think he or she ought to have it. The Darks had always resented the fact of Aunt Becky owning it, anyhow. She was only a Penhallow. The jug should be the property of a born Dark. But old Theodore Dark had expressly left it to his dearly beloved wife in his will, and there you were. The jug was hers to do as she liked with. And nobody in eighty-five years had ever been able to predict what Aunt Becky would do about anything.

Uncle Pippin climbed into what he called his “gig” and drove away behind his meek white horse down the narrow, leisurely red side-road that ran from Indian Spring to Bay Silver. There was a grin of enjoyment on his little, wrinkled face with its curious resemblance to a shrivelled apple, and his astonishingly young, vivid blue eyes twinkled. It would be fun to watch the antics of the clan over the jug. The thorough-going, impartial fun of one who was not vitally concerned. Uncle Pippin knew he had no chance of getting the jug. He was only a fourth cousin at best, even granting the dubious paternity about which Aunt Becky had twitted him.

“I’ve a hunch that the old lady is going to start something,” said Uncle Pippin to his white nag.

2

Although no refreshments were to be served, every Dark and every Penhallow, by birth, marriage or adoption, who could possibly get to Aunt Becky’s “levee” was there. Even old rheumatic Christian Dark, who hadn’t been anywhere for years, made her son-in-law draw her through the woods behind The Pinery on a milk-cart. The folding doors between Aunt Becky’s two rooms were thrown open, the parlour was filled with chairs, and Aunt Becky, her eyes as bright as a cat’s, was ready to receive her guests, sitting up in her big old walnut bed under its tent canopy hung with yellowed net. Aunt Becky had slept in that bed ever since she was married and intended to die in it. Several women of the tribe had their eye on it, and each had hoped she would get it, but just now nobody thought of anything but the jug.

Aunt Becky had refused to dress up for her guests. She wasn’t going to be bothered, she told Camilla—they weren’t worth it. So, she received them regally with a faded old red sweater pinned tightly around her shrunken throat and her grey hair twisted into a hard knot on the crown of her head. But she wore her diamond ring and she had made the scandalized Ambrosine put a little rouge on her cheeks. “It’s no more than decent at your age,” protested Ambrosine.

“Decency’s a dull dog,” retorted Aunt Becky. “I parted company with it long ago. You do as you’re bid, Ambrosine Winkworth, and you’ll get your reward. I’m not going to have Uncle Pippin saying, ‘The old girl used to have good colour.’ Dab it on good and thick, Ambrosine. None of them will imagine they can bully me as they probably would if they found me looking lean and washed-out. My golly, Ambrosine, but I’m looking forward to this afternoon. It’s the last bit of fun I’ll have this side of eternity and I’m going to lap it up, Ambrosine. Harpies all of ’em, coming here just to see what pickings they’re going to get. Ay, I’m going to make them squirm.”

The Darks and Penhallows knew this perfectly well, and every new arrival approached the walnut bed with a secret harrowing conviction that Aunt Becky would certainly ask any especially atrocious question that occurred to her. Uncle Pippin had come early, provided with several wads of his favourite chewing-gum, and selected a seat near the folding doors—a point of vantage from which he could see everybody and hear everything Aunt Becky said. He had his reward.

“Ay, so you’re the man who burned his wife,” remarked Aunt Becky to Stanton Grundy, a long, lean man with a satiric smile who was an outsider, long ago married to Robina Dark, whom he had cremated. Her clan had never forgiven him for it, but Stanton Grundy was insensitive and only smiled hollowly at what he regarded as an attempted witticism.

“All this fuss over a jug worth no more than a few dollars at most,” he said scornfully, sitting down beside Uncle Pippin.

Uncle Pippin shifted his wad of gum to the other side of his mouth and manufactured a cheerful lie instantly for the credit of the clan.

“A collector offered Aunt Becky a hundred dollars for it four years ago,” he said impressively. Stanton Grundy was impressed, and to hide it remarked that he wouldn’t give ten dollars for it.

“Then, why are you here?” demanded Uncle Pippin.

“To see the fun,” returned Mr. Grundy coolly. “This jug business is going to set everybody by the ears.”

Uncle Pippin nearly swallowed his gum in his indignation. What right had this outsider, who was strongly suspected of being a Swedenborgian, whatever that was, to amuse himself over Dark whimsies and Penhallow peculiarities? It was quite in order for him, Pippin Penhallow, baptized Alexander, to do it. He was one of the tribe, however crookedly. But that a Grundy from God knew where should come for such a purpose made Uncle Pippin furious. Before he could administer castigation, however, another arrival temporarily diverted his attention from the outrageous Grundy.

“Been having any more babies on the King’s Highway?” Aunt Becky was saying to poor Mrs. Paul Dark, who had brought her son into a censorious world in a Ford coupé on the way to the hospital. Uncle Pippin had voiced the general clan feeling on that occasion when he said gloomily:

“Sad mismanagement somewhere.”

A little snicker drifted over the room, and Mrs. Paul made her way to a chair with a burning face. But interest had already shifted from her to Murray Dark, a handsome middle-aged man who was shaking Aunt Becky’s hand.

“Well, well, come to get a peep at Thora, hey? She’s here—over there beyond Pippin and that Grundy man.”

Murray Dark stalked to a chair, reflecting that when you belonged to a clan like this you really lived a dog’s life. Of course, he had come to see Thora. Everybody knew that, including Thora herself. Murray cared not a hoot about the Dark jug, but he did care tremendously about a chance to look at Thora. He did not have too many of them. He had been in love with Thora ever since the Sunday he had first seen her sitting in the church, the bride of Christopher Dark—drunken ne’er-do-well Chris Dark, with his insidious charm that no girl had ever been able to resist. All the clan knew it, too, but there had never been any scandal. Murray was simply waiting for Chris to pass out. Then he would marry Thora. He was a clever, well-to-do farmer and he had any amount of patience. In time he would attain his heart’s desire—though sometimes he wondered a little uneasily how long that devil of a Chris would hang on. That family of Darks had such damn’ good constitutions. They could live after a fashion that would kill any ordinary man in five years, and flourish for twenty. Chris had been dying by inches for ten years, and there was no knowing how many inches were left of him yet.

“Do get some hair tonic,” Aunt Becky was advising William Y. Penhallow, who even as a baby had looked deadly serious and who had never been called Bill in his life. He had hated Aunt Becky ever since she had been the first person to tell him he was beginning to get bald.

“My dear,” to Mrs. Percy Dark, “it’s such a pity you haven’t taken more care of your complexion. You had a nice skin when you came to Indian Spring. Why, you here?” this to Mrs. Jim Trent, who had been Helen Dark.

“Of course, I’m here,” retorted Mrs. Jim. “Am I so transparent that there’s any doubt?”

“It’s a long time since you remembered my existence,” snapped Aunt Becky. “But the jug is bringing more things in than the cat.”

“Oh, I don’t want your jug, I’m sure,” lied Mrs. Jim. Everybody knew she was lying. Only a very foolish person would lie to Aunt Becky, to whom nobody had ever yet told a lie successfully. But then Mrs. Jim Trent lived at Three Hills, and nobody who lived at Three Hills was supposed to have much sense.

“Got your history finished yet, Miller?” asked Aunt Becky.

Old Miller Dark looked foolish. He had been talking for years of writing a history of the clan but had never got started. It didn’t do to hurry these things. The longer he waited the more history there would be. These women were always in such a confounded hurry. He thankfully made way for Palmer Dark, who was known as the man who was proud of his wife.

“Looks as young as ever, doesn’t she?” he demanded beamingly of Aunt Becky.

“Yes—if it’s any good to look young when you’re not—” conceded Aunt Becky, adding by way of a grace note, “Got the beginnings of a dowager’s cushion, I see. It’s a long time since I saw you, Palmer. But you’re just the same, only more so. Well, well, and here’s Mrs. Denzil Penhallow. Looking fine and dandy, too. I’ve always heard a fruit diet was healthy. I’m told you ate all the fruit folks sent in for Denzil when he was sick last winter.”

“Well, what of it? He couldn’t eat it. Was it to be wasted?” retorted Mrs. Denzil. Jug or no jug, she wasn’t going to be insulted by Aunt Becky.

Two widows came in together—Mrs. Toynbee Dark, who had had her mourning all ready when her third and last husband had died, and Virginia Powell, whose husband had been dead eight years and who was young and tolerably beautiful, but who still wore her black and had vowed, it was well known, never to marry again. Not, as Uncle Pippin remarked, that any one was known to have asked her.

Aunt Becky let Mrs. Toynbee off with a coldly civil greeting. Mrs. Toynbee had been known to go into hysterics when snubbed or crossed, and Aunt Becky did not intend to let any one else usurp the limelight at her last levee. But she gave poor Virginia a jab.

“Is your heart dug up yet?”

Virginia had once said sentimentally, “My heart is buried in Rose River churchyard,” and Aunt Becky never let her forget it.

“Any of that jam left yet?” asked Aunt Becky slyly of Mrs. Titus Dark, who had once gathered blueberries that grew in the graveyard and preserved them. Lawyer Tom Penhallow, who had been found guilty of appropriating his clients’ money, was counted less of a clan disgrace. Mrs. Titus always considered herself an ill-used woman. Fruit had been scarce that year—she had five men to cater for who didn’t like butter—and all those big luscious blueberries going to waste in the lower corner of the Bay Silver graveyard. There were very few graves there; it was not the fashionable part of the graveyard.

“And how’s your namesake?” Aunt Becky was asking Mrs. Emily Frost. Kennedy Penhallow, who had been jilted by his cousin Emily, sixty-five years before, had called his old spavined mare after her to insult her. Kennedy, happily married for many years to Julia Dark, had forgotten all about it, but Emily Frost, née Penhallow, had never forgotten or forgiven.

“Hello, Margaret; going to write a poem about this? ‘Weary and worn and sad the train rattled on.’” Aunt Becky went off into a cackle of laughter and Margaret Penhallow, her thin, sensitive face flushing pitifully and her peculiarly large, soft, grey-blue eyes filling with tears, went blindly to the first vacant chair. Once she had written rather awful little poems for a Summerside paper, but never after a conscienceless printer had deleted her punctuation marks, producing that terrible line which haunted the clan forever afterwards like an unquiet ghost which refused to be laid. Margaret could never feel safe from hearing it quoted somewhere with a snicker or a bellow. Even here at Aunt Becky’s death-bed levee it must be dragged up. Perhaps Margaret still wrote poems. A little shell-covered box in her trunk might know something about that. But the public press knew them no more, much to the clan’s thankfulness.

“What’s the matter with you, Penny? You’re not as good-looking as you generally believe you are.”

“Stung on the eye by a bee,” said Pennycuik Dark sulkily. He was a fat, tubby little fellow, with a curly grey beard and none-too-plentiful curly hair. As usual, he was as well-groomed as a cat. He still considered himself a gay young wag and felt that nothing but the jug could have lured him into a public appearance under the circumstances. Just like this devilish old woman to call the attention of the world to his eye. But he was her oldest nephew and he had a right to the jug which he would maintain, eye or no eye. He always felt that his branch of the family had been unjustly done out of it two generations back. In his annoyance and excitement, he sat down on the first vacant chair he spied, and then to his dismay discovered that he was sitting beside Mrs. William Y., of whom he had the liveliest terror ever since she had asked him what to do for a child who had worms. As if he, Pennycuik Dark, confirmed bachelor, knew anything about either children or worms.

“Go and sit in that far corner by the door so that I can’t smell that damn’ perfume. Even a poor old nonentity like myself has a right to pure air,” Aunt Becky was telling poor Mrs. Artemas Dark, whose taste in perfumes had always annoyed Aunt Becky. Mrs. Artemas did use them somewhat too lavishly, but even so, the clan reflected as a unit, Aunt Becky was employing rather strong language for a woman—especially on her death-bed. The Darks and the Penhallows prided themselves on keeping up with the times, but they were not so far advanced as to condone profanity in a woman. That was still taboo. The joke of it was that Aunt Becky herself had always been down on swearing and was supposed to hold in special disfavour the two clansmen who habitually swore—Titus Dark because he could not help it and Drowned John Penhallow, who could help it but didn’t want to.

The arrival of Mrs. Alpheus Penhallow and her daughter created a sensation. Mrs. Alpheus lived in St. John and happened to be visiting her old home in Rose River when Aunt Becky’s levee was announced. She was an enormously fat woman, with a rather deplorable penchant for wearing bright colours and over-rich materials, who had been very slim and beautiful in a youth during which she had been no great favourite with Aunt Becky. Mrs. Alpheus expected some unpleasant greeting from Aunt Becky and meant to take it with a smile, for she wanted badly to get the jug, and the walnut bed into the bargain, if the fates were propitious. But Aunt Becky, though she said to herself that Annabel Penhallow’s dress was worth more than her carcass, let her off very leniently with,

“Humph! Smooth as a cat’s ear, just as always,” and looked past her at Nan Penhallow, about whom clan gossip had been very busy ever since her arrival in Rose River. It was whispered breathlessly that she wore pyjamas and smoked cigarettes. It was well known that she had plucked eyebrows and wore breeches when she rode or “hiked,” but even Rose River was resigned to that. Aunt Becky saw a snaky hipless thing with a shingle bob and long barbaric ear-rings. A silky, sophisticated creature in a smart black satin dress who instantly made every other girl in the room seem outmoded and Victorian. But Aunt Becky took her measure on the spot.

“So, this is Hannah,” she remarked, hitting instinctively on Nan’s sore spot. Nan would rather have been slapped than called Hannah. “Well—well—well!” Aunt Becky’s “wells” were a crescendo of contempt mingled with pity. “I understand you consider yourself a modern. Well, there were girls that chased the boys in my time, too. It’s only names that change. Your mouth looks as if you’d been making a meal of blood my dear. But see what time does to us. When you’re forty you’ll be exactly like this,” with a gesture towards Mrs. Alpheus’ avoirdupois.

Nan was determined she wouldn’t let this frumpy old harridan put her out. Besides, she had her own hankerings after the jug.

“Oh, no, Aunt Becky darling. I take after father’s people. They stay thin, you know.”

Aunt Becky did not like being “darlinged.”

“Go upstairs and wash that stuff off your lips and cheeks,” she said. “I won’t have any painted snips around here.”

“You—why, you’ve got rouge on yourself,” cried Nan, despite her mother’s piteous nudge.

“And who are you to say I should not?” demanded Aunt Becky. “Now, never mind standing there switching your tail at me. Go and do as you’re told or else go home.”

Nan was minded to do the latter. But Mrs. Alpheus was whispering agitatedly at her neck,

“Go, darling, go—do exactly as she tells you—or—or—”

“Or you’ll stand no chance of getting the jug,” chuckled Aunt Becky, who at eighty-five had ears that could hear the grass grow.

Nan went, sulky and contemptuous, determined that she would get even with somebody for her manhandling by this cantankerous old despot. Perhaps it was at this moment, when Gay Penhallow was entering the room in a yellow dress that seemed woven out of sunshine, that Nan made up her mind to capture Noel Gibson. It was intolerable that Gay of all people should be a witness of her discomfiture.

“Green-eyed girls for trouble,” said Uncle Pippin.

“She’s a man-eater I reckon,” agreed Stanton Grundy.

Gay Penhallow, a slight, blossom-like girl whom only the Family Bible knew as Gabrielle Alexandrina, was shaking Aunt Becky’s hand but would not bend down to kiss her as Aunt Becky expected.

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” demanded Aunt Becky. “Some boy been kissing you? And you don’t want to spoil the flavour, hey?”

Gay fled to a corner and sat down. It was true. But how did Aunt Becky know it? Noel had kissed her the evening before—Gay’s first kiss in all her eighteen years—Nan would have hooted over that! An exquisite fleeting kiss under a golden June moon. Gay felt that she could not kiss any one, especially dreadful old Aunt Becky, after that. It would be sacrilege. Never mind if Aunt Becky wouldn’t give her the jug. What difference did it make about her old jug, anyway? What difference did anything make in the whole wide beautiful world except that Noel loved her and she loved him?

But something seemed to have come into the now crowded room with the arrival of Gay—something like a sudden quick-passing breeze on a sultry day—something as indescribably sweet and elusive as the fragrance of a forest flower—something of youth and love and hope. Everybody felt inexplicably happier—more charitable—more courageous. Stanton Grundy’s lantern-jaws looked less grim and Uncle Pippin momentarily felt that, after all, Grundy had undoubtedly married a Dark and so had a right to be where he was. Miller Dark thought he really would get started on his history next week—Margaret had an inspiration for a new poem—Penny Dark reflected that he was only fifty-two, after all—William Y. forgot that he had a bald spot—Curtis Dark, who had the reputation of being an incurably disagreeable husband, thought his wife’s new hat became her and that he would tell her so on the way home. Even Aunt Becky grew less inhuman and, although she had several more shots in her locker and hated to miss the fun of firing them, allowed the remainder of her guests to pass to their seats without insult or innuendo, except that she asked old Cousin Skilly Penhallow how his brother Angus was. All the assembly laughed and Cousin Skilly smiled amiably. Aunt Becky couldn’t put him out. He knew the whole clan quoted his Spoonerisms and that the one about his brother Angus, now dead for thirty years, never failed to evoke hilarity. The minister had come along that windy morning long ago, after Angus Penhallow’s mill-dam had been swept away in the March flood and had been greeted excitedly by Skilly.

“We’re all upset here to-day, Mr. MacPherson—ye’ll kindly excuse us—my dam brother Angus burst in the night.”

“Well, I think everybody is here at last,” said Aunt Becky, “everybody I expected, at least, and some I didn’t. I don’t see Peter Penhallow or the Moon Man, but I suppose one couldn’t expect either of them to behave like rational beings.”

“Peter is here,” said his sister Nancy Dark eagerly. “He’s out on the veranda. You know Peter hates to be cooped up in a room. He’s so accustomed to—to—”

“The great open spaces of God’s outdoors,” murmured Aunt Becky ironically.

“Yes, that’s it—that’s what I mean—that’s what I meant to say. Peter is just as interested in you as any of us, dear Aunt.”

“I daresay—if that means much. Or in the jug.”

“No, Peter doesn’t care a particle about the jug,” said Nancy Dark, thankful to find solid ground under her feet in this at least.

“The Moon Man’s here, too,” said William Y. “I can see him sitting on the steps of the veranda. He’s been away for weeks—just turned up to-day. Queer how he always seems to get wind of things.”

“He was back yesterday evening. I heard him yelping to the moon all last night down at his shanty,” boomed Drowned John. “He ought to be locked up. It’s a family disgrace the way he carries on, wandering over the whole Island bareheaded and in rags, as if he hadn’t a friend in the world to care for him. I don’t care if he isn’t mad enough for the asylum. He should be under some restraint.”

Pounce went Aunt Becky.

“So, should most of you. Leave Oswald Dark alone. He’s perfectly happy on nights when there’s a moon, anyhow, and who among us can say that. If we’re perfectly happy for an hour or two at a time, it’s as much as the gods will do for us. Oswald’s in luck. Ambrosine, here’s the key of my brass-bound trunk. Go up to the attic and bring down Harriet Dark’s jug.”

3

While Ambrosine Winkworth has gone for the jug and a hush of excitement and suspense has fallen over the assembled clan, let us look at them a little more closely, partly through Aunt Becky’s eyes and partly through our own, and get better acquainted with them, especially with those whose lives were to be affected and altered by the jug. There were all kinds of people there with their family secrets and their personal secrets, their outer lives of which everything—nearly—was known, and their inner lives of which nothing was known—not even to lean, lank Mercy Penhallow, whose lankness and leanness were attributed to the chronic curiosity about everyone which gave her no rest day or night. Most of them looked like the dull, sedate folks they were, but some of them had had shocking adventures. Some of them were very beautiful; some were very funny; some were clever; some were mean; some were happy; some were not; some were liked by everybody and some were liked by nobody; some had reached the stodgy plane where nothing more was to be expected from life; and some were still adventurous and expectant, cherishing secret, unsatisfied dreams.

Margaret Penhallow, for instance—dreamy, poetical Margaret Penhallow, who was the clan dressmaker and lived with her brother, Denzil Penhallow, in Bay Silver. Always overworked and snubbed and patronized. She spent her life making pretty clothes for other people and never had any for herself. Yet she took an artist’s pride in her work and something in her starved soul sprang into sudden transforming bloom when a pretty girl floated into church in a gown of her making. She had a part in creating that beauty. That slim vision of loveliness owed something of its loveliness to her, “old Margaret Penhallow.”

Margaret loved beauty; and there was so little of it in her life. She had no beauty herself, save in her overlarge, strangely lustrous eyes, and her slender hands—the beautiful hands of an old portrait. Yet there was a certain attractiveness about her that had not been dependent on youth and had not left her with the years. Stanton Grundy, looking at her, was thinking that she was more ladylike than any other woman of her age in the room and that, if he were looking for a second wife—which, thank God, he wasn’t—Margaret would be the one he’d pick.

Margaret would have been a little fluttered had she known he was thinking even this much. The truth was, though Margaret would have died any horrible death you could devise before she admitted it, she longed to be married. If you were married you were somebody. If not, you were nobody. In the Dark and Penhallow clan, anyhow.

She wanted a dear little homey place to call her own; and she wanted to adopt a baby. She knew the very kind of baby she wanted—a baby with golden hair and great blue eyes, dimples and creases and adorable chubby knees. And sweet sleepy little kisses. Margaret’s bones seemed to melt in her body as water when she thought of it. Margaret had never cared for the pack of young demons Denzil called his family. They were saucy and unattractive youngsters who made fun of her. All her love was centred in her imaginary baby and her imaginary little house—which was not quite as imaginary as the baby, if truth were known. Yet she had no real hope of ever owning the house, while, if she could get married, she might be able to adopt a baby.

Margaret also wanted very much to get the Dark jug. She wanted it for the sake of that far-off unknown Harriet Dark, concerning whom she had always had a strange feeling, half pity, half envy. Harriet Dark had been loved; the jug was the visible and tangible proof of that, outlasting the love by a hundred years. And what if her lover had been drowned! At least, she had had a lover.

Besides, the jug would give her a certain importance. She had never been of any importance to any one. She was only “old Margaret Penhallow,” with fifty drab, snubbed years behind her and nothing ahead of her but drab, snubbed old age. And why should she not have the jug? She was a real niece. A Penhallow, to be sure, but her mother had been a Dark. Of course, Aunt Becky didn’t like her, but then whom did Aunt Becky like? Margaret felt that she ought to have the jug—must have the jug. Momentarily, she hated every other claimant in the room. She knew if she had the jug she could make Mrs. Denzil give her a room to herself in return for the concession of allowing the jug to be put on the parlour mantelpiece. A room to herself! It sounded heavenly. She knew she could never have her little dream-house or her blue-eyed, golden baby, but surely she might have a room to herself—a room where Gladys Penhallow and her shrieking chums could never come—girls who thought there was no fun in having a beau unless you could tell the world all about him and what he did and what he said—girls who always made her feel old and silly and dowdy. Margaret sighed and looked at the great sheaf of mauve and yellow iris Mrs. William Y. had brought up for Aunt Becky, who had never cared for flowers. If their delicate, exotic beauty was wasted on Aunt Becky, it was not lost on Margaret. While she gazed at them she was happy. There was a neglected clump of mauve iris in the garden of “her” house.

4

Gay Penhallow was sitting next to Margaret and was not thinking of the jug at all. She did not want the jug, though her mother was wild about it. Spring was singing in her blood and she was lost in glamorous recollections of Noel’s kiss—and equally glamorous anticipations of Noel’s letter, which she had got at the post-office on her way up. As she heard it crackle in its hiding-place she felt the little thrill of joy which had tingled over her when old Mrs. Conroy had passed it out to her—his wonderful letter held profanely between a mail-order catalogue and a millinery advertisement. She had not dreamed of getting a letter, for she had seen him—and been kissed—only the night before. Now she had it, tucked away under her dress, next to her white satin skin, and all she wished was that this silly old levee was over, and she was away somewhere by herself, reading Noel’s letter. What time was it? Gay looked at Aunt Becky’s solemn old grandfather clock that had ticked off the days and hours of four forgotten generations and was still ticking them relentlessly off for the fifth. Three! At half-past three she must think of Noel. They had made a compact to think of each other every afternoon at exactly half-past three. Such a dear, delightful, foolish compact—because was she not thinking of Noel all the time? And now she had his kiss to think about—that kiss which it seemed everyone must see on her lips. She had thought about it all night—the first night of her life she had never slept for joy. Oh, she was so happy! So happy that she felt friendly to everybody—even to the people she had never liked before. Pompous old William Y. with his enormous opinion of himself—lean, curious, gossipy Mercy Penhallow—overtragic Virginia Powell with her tiresome poses—Drowned John, who had shouted two wives to death—Stanton Grundy, who had cremated poor Cousin Robina and who always looked at everybody as if he were secretly amused. One didn’t like a person who was amused at everybody. Dapper Penny Dark, who thought he was witty when he called eggs cackleberries—Uncle Pippin with his old jaws always chewing something—most of all, poor piteous Aunt Becky herself. Aunt Becky was going to die soon, and no one was sorry. Gay was so sorry because she wasn’t sorry that the tears came into her eyes. Yet Aunt Becky had been loved once—courted once—kissed once—ridiculous and unbelievable as it seemed now. Gay looked curiously at this solitary old crone who had once been young and beautiful and the mother of little children. Could that old wrinkled face ever have been flower-like? Would she, Gay, ever look like that? No, of course not. Nobody whom Noel loved would ever grow old and unlovely.

She could see herself in the oval mirror that hung on the wall over Stanton Grundy’s head, and she was not dissatisfied with the reflection. She had the colouring of a tea-rose, with golden-brown hair, and eyes to match it—eyes that looked like brown marigolds flecked with glints of gold. Long black lashes and eyebrows that might have been drawn in soot, so finely dark were they against her face. And there was a delicious spot here and there on her skin, like a little drop of gold—sole survivor of the freckles that had plagued her in childhood. She knew quite well that she was counted the beauty of the whole clan, “the prettiest girl that walked the aisles of the Rose River Church,” Uncle Pippin averred gallantly. And she always looked the least little bit timid and frightened, so men always wanted to assure her there was nothing to be frightened of and she had more beaus than you could shake a stick at. But there had never been any one who really mattered but Noel. Every lane in Gay’s thoughts to-day turned back to Noel. Fifteen minutes past three. Just fifteen more minutes and she would be sure that Noel was thinking of her.

There was a tiny dark fleck or two on Gay’s happiness. For one, she knew all the Penhallows rather disapproved of Noel Gibson. The Darks were more tolerant—after all, Noel’s mother had been a Dark, although a rather off-colour one. The Gibsons were considered a cut or two beneath the Penhallows. Gay knew very well that her clan wanted her to marry Dr Roger Penhallow. She looked across the room at him in kindly amusement. Dear old Roger, with his untidy mop of red hair, his softly luminous eyes under straight heavy brows and his long, twisted mouth with a funny quirk in the left corner—who was thirty if he were a day. She was awfully fond of Roger. Somehow, there was a good tang to him. She could never forget what he had done for her at her first dance. She had been so shy and awkward and plain—or was sure she was. Nobody asked her to dance till Roger came and swept her out triumphantly and paid her such darling compliments that she bloomed out into beauty and confidence—and the boys woke up—and handsome Noel Gibson from town singled her out for attention. Oh, she was very very fond of Roger—and very proud of him. A fourth cousin who had been a noted ace in the war Gay so dimly remembered and had brought down fifty enemy planes. But as a husband Gay really had to laugh. Besides, why should anyone suppose he wanted to marry her? He had never said so. It was just one of those queer ideas that floated about the clan at times—and had a trick of turning out abominably correct. Gay hoped this one wouldn’t. She would hate to hurt Roger. She was so happy she couldn’t bear to think of hurting any one.

The second little fleck was Nan Penhallow. Gay had never been too fond of Nan Penhallow, though they had been chums of a sort, ever since childhood, when Nan would come to the Island with her father and mother for summer vacations. Gay never forgot the first day she and Nan had met. They were both ten years old; and Nan, who was even then counted a beauty, had dragged Gay to a mirror, and mercilessly pointed out all the contrasts. Gay had never thought of her looks before, but now she saw fatally that she was ugly. Thin and sunburned and pale—freckles galore—hair bleached too light a shade by Rose River sunshine—funny, black unfaded eyebrows that looked as if they had just lighted on her face—how Nan made fun of those eyebrows! Gay was unhappy for years because she believed in her plainness. It had taken many a compliment to convince her that she had grown into beauty. As years went by she did not like Nan much better. Nan, with her subtle, mysterious face, her ash gold hair, her strange liquid emerald eyes, her thin red lips, who was not now half as pretty as Gay but had odd exotic charms unknown to Rose River. How she patronized Gay, “You, quaint child,” — “So Victorian.” Gay did not want to be quaint and Victorian. She wanted to be smart and up-to-date and sophisticated like Nan. Though not exactly like Nan. She didn’t want to smoke. It always made her think of that dreadful old Mrs. Fidele Blacquiere down at the harbour and old moustached Highland Janet at Three Hills, who were always smoking big black pipes like the men. And then—Noel didn’t like girls who smoked. He didn’t approve of them at all. Nevertheless, Gay, deep down in her heart, was glad the visit of the Alpheus Penhallows to Rose River was to be a brief one this summer. Mrs. Alpheus was going to a more fashionable place.

5

Hugh Dark and Joscelyn Dark (née Penhallow) were sitting on opposite sides of the room, never looking at each other, and seeing and thinking of nothing but each other. And everybody looked at Joscelyn and wondered as they had wondered for ten years, what terrible secret lay behind her locked lips.

The affair of Hugh and Joscelyn was the mystery and tragedy of the clan—a mystery that no one had ever been able to solve, though not for lack of trying. Ten years before, Hugh Dark and Joscelyn Penhallow had been married after an eminently respectable and somewhat prolonged courtship. Joscelyn had not been too easily won. It was a match which pleased everybody, except Pauline Dark, who was mad about Hugh, and Mrs. Conrad Dark, his mother, who had never liked Joscelyn’s branch of the Penhallows.

It had been a gay, old-fashioned evening wedding, according to the best Penhallow traditions. Everybody was there to the fourth degree of relationship, and everyone agreed that they had never seen a prettier bride or a more indisputable happy and enraptured bridegroom. After the supper and the festivities were over, Hugh had taken his bride home to “Treewoofe,”’ the farm he had bought at Three Hills. As to what had happened between the time when Joscelyn, still wearing her veil and satin in the soft coolness and brilliance of the September moonlight—a whim of Hugh’s, that, who had some romantic idea of leading a veiled and shimmering bride over the threshold of his new home—had driven away from her widowed mother’s house at Bay Silver and the time when, three hours later, she returned to it on foot, still in her dishevelled bridal attire, no one ever knew or could obtain the least inkling in spite of all their prying and surmising. All Joscelyn would ever say, even to her distracted relatives, was that she could never live with Hugh Dark. As for Hugh, he said absolutely nothing and very few people ever dared say anything to him.

Failing to discover the truth, surmise and gossip ran riot. All sorts of explanations were hinted or manufactured—most of them ridiculous enough. One was that Hugh, as soon as he got his bride home, told her that he would be master. He told her certain rules she must keep. He would have no woman bossing him. The story grew till it ran that Hugh, by way of starting in properly, had made or tried to make Joscelyn walk around the room on all fours just to teach her he was head of the house. No girl of any spirit, especially Clifford Penhallow’s daughter, would endure such a thing. Joscelyn had thrown her wedding-ring at him and flown out of the house.

Others had it that Joscelyn had left Hugh because he wouldn’t promise to give up a cat she had hated. “And now,” as Uncle Pippin said mournfully, “the cat is dead.” Some averred they had quarrelled because Joscelyn had criticized his grammar. Some that she had found out he was an infidel. “You know, his grandfather reads those horrid Ingersoll books. And Hugh had them all on a shelf in his bedroom.” Some that she had contradicted him. “His father was like that, you know. Couldn’t tolerate the least contradiction. If he only said, ‘It’s going to rain to-morrow,’ it put him in a fury if you said you thought it would be fair.”

Then Hugh had told Joscelyn she was too proud—he wasn’t going to put up with it any longer. He had danced to her piping for three years but, by heck, the tune was going to be changed. Well, of course Joscelyn was proud. The clan admitted that. No woman could have carried such a wonderful crown of red-gold on her head without some pride to hold it up. But was that any excuse for a bridegroom setting wide open the door of his house and politely telling his bride to take her damned superior airs back to where they belonged?

The Darks would none of these crazy yarns. It was not Hugh’s fault at all. Joscelyn had confessed she was a kleptomaniac. It ran in her family. A fourth cousin of her mother’s was terrible that way. Hugh had the welfare of generations unborn to think of. What else could he do?

Darker hints obtained.

After all, though these little yarns were circulated and giggled over, few really believed there was a grain of truth in them. Most of the clan felt sure that Joscelyn’s soft rose-red lips were fast shut on some far more terrible secret than a silly quarrel over cats or grammar. She had discovered something undoubtedly. But what was it?

She had found a love letter some other woman had written him and gone mad with jealousy. After all, Joscelyn’s great-grandmother had been a Spanish girl from the West Indies. Spanish blood, you know. All the vagaries of Joscelyn’s branch of the Penhallows were attributed to the fact of that Spanish great-grandmother. Captain Alec Penhallow had married her. She died leaving only one son—luckily. But that son had a family of eight. And they were all kittle cattle to handle. So intense in everything. Whatever they were, they were ten times more so than any one else would be.

No, it was worse than a letter. Joscelyn had discovered that Hugh had another wife. Those years out west. Hugh had never talked much about them. But at the last he broke down and confessed.

Nothing of the sort. That child down at the harbour, though. It was certain some Dark was its father. Perhaps Hugh—

Naturally, it made a dreadful scandal and sensation. The clan nearly died of it. It had been an old clan saying that nothing ever happened in Bay Silver. Rose River had a fire. Three Hills had an elopement. Even Indian Spring years ago had an actual murder. But nothing ever happened in Bay Silver. And now something had happened with a vengeance.

That Joscelyn should behave like this! If it had been her rattle-brained sister Milly! They were always expecting Milly to do crazy things, so they were prepared to forgive her. But they had never thought of Joscelyn doing a crazy thing so they could not forgive her for amazing them. Not that it seemed to matter much to Joscelyn whether they forgave her or not. No entreaty availed to budge her an inch. “Her father was like that, you know,” Mrs. Clifford Penhallow wept. “He was noted for never changing his mind.”

“Joscelyn evidently changed hers after she went up to Treewoofe that night,” somebody replied. “What happened, Cynthia? Surely you, her mother, ought to know.”

“How can I know when she won’t tell me?” wailed Mrs. Clifford. “None of you have ever had any idea how stubborn Joscelyn really is. She simply says she will never go back to Hugh and not another word will she say. She won’t even wear her wedding-ring.” Mrs. Clifford thought this was really the worst thing in it all. “I never saw any one so unnaturally obstinate.”

“And what in the world are we to call her?” wailed the clan. “She is Mrs. Dark. Nothing can alter that.”

Nothing could alter it in Prince Edward Island, where there had been only one divorce in sixty years. Nobody ever thought of Hugh and Joscelyn being divorced. One and all, Darks and Penhallows, would have expired of the disgrace of it.

In ten years, the matter had naturally simmered down, though a few people kept wondering if the wife from the west would ever turn up. The state of affairs was accepted as something permanent and immutable. People even forgot to think about it, except when, as rarely happened, they saw Hugh and Joscelyn in the same room. Then they wondered fruitlessly again.