“I’m going to confess something I did last week, Gilbert. I suppose you’ll think I’m meddling again in other folks’ business. But I had to do something. I’ll not be in Summerside next year and I can’t bear the thought of leaving little Elizabeth to the mercy of those two unloving old women who are growing bitterer and narrower every year. What kind of a girlhood will she have with them in that gloomy old place?
“‘I wonder,’ she said to me wistfully, not long ago, ‘what it would be like to have a grandmother you weren’t afraid of.’
“This is what I did: I wrote to her father. He lives in Paris and I didn’t know his address, but Rebecca Dew had heard and remembered the name of the firm whose branch he runs there, so I took a chance and addressed him in care of it. I wrote as diplomatic a letter as I could, but I told him plainly that he ought to take Elizabeth. I told him how she longs for and dreams about him and that Mrs. Campbell was really too severe and strict with her. Perhaps nothing will come of it, but if I hadn’t written I would be forever haunted by the conviction that I ought to have done it.
“What made me think of it was Elizabeth telling me very seriously one day that she had ‘written a letter to God,’ asking Him to bring her father back to her and make him love her. She said she had stopped on the way home from school, in the middle of a vacant lot, and read it, looking up at the sky. I knew she had done something odd, because Miss Prouty had seen the performance and told me about it when she came to sew for the widows next day. She thought Elizabeth was getting ‘queer’ … ‘talking to the sky like that.’
“I asked Elizabeth about it and she told me.
“‘I thought God might pay more attention to a letter than a prayer,’ she said. ‘I’ve prayed so long. He must get so many prayers.’
“That night I wrote to her father.
“Before I close I must tell you about Dusty Miller. Some time ago Aunt Kate told me that she felt she must find another home for him because Rebecca Dew kept complaining about him so that she felt she really could not endure it any longer. One evening last week when I came home from school there was no Dusty Miller. Aunt Chatty said they had given him to Mrs. Edmonds, who lives on the other side of Summerside from Windy Poplars. I felt sorry, for Dusty Miller and I have been excellent friends. ‘But, at least,’ I thought, ‘Rebecca Dew will be a happy woman.’
“Rebecca was away for the day, having gone to the country to help a relative hook rugs. When she returned at dusk nothing was said, but at bedtime when she was calling Dusty Miller from the back porch Aunt Kate said quietly:
“‘You needn’t call Dusty Miller, Rebecca. He is not here. We have found a home for him elsewhere. You will not be bothered with him any more.’
“If Rebecca Dew could have turned pale she would have done so.
“‘Not here? Found a home for him? Good grief! Isn’t this his home?’
“‘We have given him to Mrs. Edmonds. She has been very lonely since her daughter married and thought a nice cat would be company.’
“Rebecca Dew came in and shut the door. She looked very wild.
“‘This is the last straw,’ she said. And indeed it seemed to be. I’ve never seen Rebecca Dew’s eyes emit such sparkles of rage. ‘I’ll be leaving at the end of the month, Mrs. MacComber, and sooner if you can be suited.’
“‘But, Rebecca,’ said Aunt Kate in bewilderment, ‘I don’t understand. You’ve always disliked Dusty Miller. Only last week you said …’
“‘That’s right,’ said Rebecca bitterly. ‘Cast things up to me! Don’t have any regard for my feelings! That poor dear Cat! I’ve waited on him and pampered him and got up nights to let him in. And now he’s been spirited away behind my back without so much as a by-your-leave. And to Sarah Edmonds, who wouldn’t buy a bit of liver for the poor creature if he was dying for it! The only company I had in the kitchen!’
“‘But, Rebecca, you’ve always …’
“‘Oh, keep on … keep on! Don’t let me get a word in edgewise, Mrs. MacComber. I’ve raised that cat from a kitten … I’ve looked after his health and his morals … and what for? That Jane Edmonds should have a well-trained cat for company. Well, I hope she’ll stand out in the frost at nights, as I’ve done, calling that cat for hours rather than leave him out to freeze, but I doubt it … I seriously doubt it. Well, Mrs. MacComber, all I hope is that your conscience won’t trouble you the next time it’s ten below zero. I won’t sleep a wink when it happens, but of course that doesn’t matter an old shoe to any one.’
“‘Rebecca, if you would only …’
“‘Mrs. MacComber, I am not a worm, neither am I a doormat. Well, this has been a lesson for me … a valuable lesson! Never again will I allow my affections to twine themselves around an animal of any kind or description. And if you’d done it open and aboveboard … but behind my back … taking advantage of me like that! I never heard of anything so dirt mean! But who am I that I should expect my feelings to be considered!’
“‘Rebecca,’ said Aunt Kate desperately, ‘if you want Dusty Miller back we can get him back.’
“‘Why didn’t you say so before then?’ demanded Rebecca Dew. ‘And I doubt it. Jane Edmonds has got her claws in him. Is it likely she’ll give him up?’
“‘I think she will,’ said Aunt Kate, who had apparently reverted to jelly. ‘And if he comes back you won’t leave us, will you, Rebecca?’
“‘I may think it over,’ said Rebecca, with the air of one making a tremendous concession.
“Next day, Aunt Chatty brought Dusty Miller home in a covered basket. I caught a glance exchanged between her and Aunt Kate after Rebecca had carried Dusty Miller out to the kitchen and shut the door. I wonder! Was it all a deep-laid plot on the part of the widows, aided and abetted by Jane Edmonds?
“Rebecca has never uttered a word of complaint about Dusty Miller since and there is a veritable clang of victory in her voice when she shouts for him at bedtime. It sounds as if she wanted all Summerside to know that Dusty Miller is back where he belongs and that she has once more got the better of the widows!”
Chapter X
It was on a dark, windy March evening, when even the clouds scudding over the sky seemed in a hurry, that Anne skimmed up the triple flight of broad, shallow steps flanked by stone urns and stonier lions, that led to the massive front door of Tomgallon House. Usually, when she had passed it after dark it was somber and grim, with a dim twinkle of light in one or two windows. But now it blazed forth brilliantly, even the wings on either side being lighted up, as if Miss Minerva were entertaining the whole town. Such an illumination in her honor rather overcame Anne. She almost wished she had put on her cream gauze.
Nevertheless she looked very charming in her green voile and perhaps Miss Minerva, meeting her in the hall, thought so, for her face and voice were very cordial. Miss Minerva herself was regal in black velvet, a diamond comb in the heavy coils of her iron-gray hair and a massive cameo brooch surrounded by a braid of some departed Tomgallon’s hair. The whole costume was a little outmoded, but Miss Minerva wore it with such a grand air that it seemed as timeless as royalty’s.
“Welcome to Tomgallon House, my dear,” she said, giving Anne a bony hand, likewise well sprinkled with diamonds. “I am very glad to have you here as my guest.”
“I am …”
“Tomgallon House was always the resort of beauty and youth in the old days. We used to have a great many parties and entertained all the visiting celebrities,”