Emily Climbs. Lucy M. Montgomery

thought. “He has the face of one. This very minute he is loving the preacher because he is describing hell, and Elder Forsyth thinks all his enemies will go there. Yes, that is why he is looking pleased. I think Mrs. Bowes flies off on a broomstick o’ nights. She looks it. Four hundred years ago she would have been a witch, and Elder Forsyth would have burned her at the stake. She hates everybody—it must be terrible to hate everybody—to have your soul full of hatred. I must try to describe such a person in my Jimmy-book. I wonder if hate has driven all love out of her soul, or if there is a little bit left in it for any one or any thing. If there is it might save her. That would be a good idea for a story. I must jot it down before I go to bed—I’ll borrow a bit of paper from Ilse. No—here’s a bit in my hymn-book. I’ll write it now.

      “I wonder what all these people would say if they were suddenly asked what they wanted most, and had to answer truthfully. I wonder how many of these husbands and wives would like a change? Chris Farrar and Mrs. Chris would—everybody knows that. I can’t think why I feel so sure that James Beatty and his wife would, too. They seem to be quite contented with each other—but once I saw her look at him when she did not know anyone was watching—oh, it seemed to me I saw right into her soul, through her eyes, and she hated him—and feared him. She is sitting there now, beside him, little and thin and dowdy, and her face is grey and her hair is faded—but she, herself, is one red flame of rebellion. What she wants most is to be free from him—or just to strike back once. That would satisfy her.

      “There’s Dean—I wonder what brought him to prayer-meeting? His face is very solemn, but his eyes are mocking Mr. Sampson—what’s that Mr. Sampson’s saying?—oh, something about the wise virgins. I hate the wise virgins—I think they were horribly selfish. They might have given the poor foolish ones a little oil. I don’t believe Jesus meant to praise them any more than He meant to praise the unjust steward—I think he was just trying to warn foolish people that they must not be careless, and foolish, because if they were, prudent, selfish folks would never help them out. I wonder if it’s very wicked to feel that I’d rather be outside with the foolish ones trying to help and comfort them, than inside feasting with the wise ones. It would be more interesting, too.

      “There’s Mrs. Kent and Teddy. Oh, she wants something terribly—I don’t know what it is but it’s something she can never get, and the hunger for it goads her night and day. That is why she holds Teddy so closely—I know. But I don’t know what it is that makes her so different from other women. I can never get a peep into her soul—she shuts every one out—the door is never unlatched.

      “What do I want most? It is to climb the Alpine Path to the very top,

      “‘And write upon its shining scroll

      A woman’s humble name.’

      “We’re all hungry. We all want some bread of life—but Mr. Sampson can’t give it to us. I wonder what he wants most? His soul is so muggy I can’t see into it. He has a lot of sordid wants—he doesn’t want anything enough to dominate him. Mr. Johnson wants to help people and preach truth—he really does. And Aunt Janey wants most of all to see the whole heathen world Christianized. Her soul hasn’t any dark wishes in it. I know what Mr. Carpenter wants—his one lost chance again. Katherine Morris wants her youth back—she hates us younger girls because we are young. Old Malcolm Strang just wants to live—just one more year—always just one more year—just to live—just not to die. It must be horrible to have nothing to live for except just to escape dying. Yet he believes in heaven—he thinks he will go there. If he could see my flash just once he wouldn’t hate the thought of dying so, poor old man. And Mary Strang wants to die—before something terrible she is afraid of tortures her to death. They say it’s cancer. There’s Mad Mr. Morrison up in the gallery—we all know what he wants—to find his Annie. Tom Sibley wants the moon, I think—and knows he can never get it—that’s why people say he’s not all there. Amy Crabbe wants Max Terry to come back to her—nothing else matters to her.

      “I must write all these things down in my Jimmy-book to-morrow. They are fascinating—but, after all, I like writing of beautiful things better. Only—these things have a tang beautiful things don’t have some way. Those woods out there—how wonderful they are in their silver and shadow. The moonlight is doing strange things to the tombstones—it makes even the ugly ones beautiful. But it’s terribly hot—it is smothering here—and those thunder-growls are coming nearer. I hope Ilse and I will get home before the storm breaks. Oh, Mr. Sampson, Mr. Sampson, God isn’t an angry God—you don’t know anything about Him if you say that—He’s sorrowful, I’m sure, when we’re foolish and wicked, but He doesn’t fly into tantrums. Your God and Ellen Greene’s God are exactly alike. I’d like to get up and tell you so, but it isn’t a Murray tradition to sass back in church. You make God ugly—and He’s beautiful. I hate you for making God ugly, you fat little man.”

      Whereupon Mr. Sampson, who had several times noted Emily’s intent, probing gaze, and thought he was impressing her tremendously with a sense of her unsaved condition, finished with a final urgent whoop of entreaty, and sat down. The audience in the close, oppressive atmosphere of the crowded, lamplit church gave an audible sigh of relief, and scarcely waited for the hymn and benediction before crowding out to purer air. Emily, caught in the current, and parted from Aunt Laura, was swept out by way of the choir door to the left of the pulpit. It was some time before she could disentangle herself from the throng and hurry around to the front where she expected to meet Ilse. Here was another dense, though rapidly thinning crowd, in which she found no trace of Ilse. Suddenly Emily noticed that she did not have her hymn-book. Hastily she dashed back to the choir door. She must have left her hymn-book in the pew—and it would never do to leave it there. In it she had placed for safe-keeping a slip of paper on which she had furtively jotted down some fragmentary notes during the last hymn—a rather biting description of scrawny Miss Potter in the choir—a couple of satiric sentences regarding Mr. Sampson himself—and a few random fancies which she desired most of all to hide because there was in them something of dream and vision which would have made the reading of them by alien eyes a sacrilege.

      Old Jacob Banks, the sexton, a little blind and more than a little deaf, was turning out the lamps as she went in. He had reached the two on the wall behind the pulpit. Emily caught her hymn-book from the rack—her slip of paper was not in it. By the faint gleam of light, as Jacob Banks turned out the last lamp, she saw it on the floor, under the seat of the pew in front. She kneeled down and reached after it. As she did so Jacob went out and locked the choir door. Emily did not notice his going—the church was still faintly illuminated by the moon that as yet outrode the rapidly climbing thunder-heads. That was not the right slip of paper after all—where could it be?—oh, here, at last. She caught it up and ran to the door which would not open.

      For the first time Emily realized that Jacob Banks had gone—that she was alone in the church. She wasted time trying to open the door—then in calling Mr. Banks. Finally she ran down the aisle into the front porch. As she did so she heard the last buggy turn gridingly at the gate and drive away: at the same time the moon was suddenly swallowed up by the black clouds and the church was engulfed in darkness—close, hot, smothering, almost tangible darkness. Emily screamed in sudden panic—beat on the door—frantically twisted the handle—screamed again. Oh, everybody could not have gone—surely somebody would hear her! “Aunt Laura”—“Cousin Jimmy”—“Ilse”—then finally in a wail of despair—“Oh, Teddy—Teddy!”

      A blue-white stream of lightning swept the porch, followed by a crash of thunder. One of the worst storms in Blair Water annals had begun—and Emily Starr was locked alone in the dark church in the maple woods—she, who had always been afraid of thunderstorms with a reasonless, instinctive fear which she could never banish and only partially control.

      She sank, quivering, on a step of the gallery stairs, and huddled there in a heap. Surely some one would come back when it was discovered she was missing. But would it be discovered? Who would miss her? Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy would suppose she was with Ilse, as had been arranged. Ilse, who had evidently gone, believing that Emily was not coming with her, would suppose she had gone home to New Moon. Nobody knew where she was—nobody would come back for her. She must stay here