BOOK FOUR. CHAPTER TWO

Although Julia’s country home was only eight miles distant from the manse, we saw practically nothing of her or the Stratherns while Emmy was on her first visit, which lasted a month. I was waiting for her at the manse gate on the afternoon we expected her home. She descended from the carriage in a new bonnet and holding high in one hand a covered bird-cage.

‘Oh, Lisbet,’ she said, ‘it is good to see you again. Yes, Julia gave me the bonnet—she wanted me to have pink ribbons but I thought cherry were more uncommon.’

‘And a bird, Emmy—oh, how lovely. I hope it’s a singing one. Let me see it—do let me see it.’

‘It’s a canary with a green breast. It was chirping away to me all the time in the carriage while I held the cage on my knee. Lisbet, don’t ask me in front of any one who gave it to me, and I’ll tell you all about it later when we are alone.’

The opportunity of being alone together did not come until bed-time, for after supper mamma, who wanted to hear all the news, sat with us while Emmy unpacked. But once we were in the bedroom alone for the night, and while I brushed my hair, Emmy gave me details about her stay which she could not give mamma. She lay in bed with her hands clasped behind her head, each pointed arm looking like a little white wing.

‘Did you see anything of any one besides the Stratherns?’ I asked falteringly.

‘I saw him twice,’ she replied, coming to the point with disconcerting suddenness; there were no half measures with Emmy. ‘He arrived to stay with his aunt a few days before I left. The day before yesterday Julia and Christine and I called on his mother, who was visiting her sister with Stephen.’

‘And what is she like?’

‘Very small and very fragile and everything about her very beautiful. Lisbet, wasn’t it odd, she didn’t like me. I don’t mean that not liking me is odd but it was strange that almost at first sight I felt disapproval of me massing round her.’

‘You only imagined it.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ she said impatiently, ‘you must believe me. I would have been only too glad to think she was drawn to me, but even if—even in any other circumstances—that woman would not have liked me. I could quite believe she could even hate me.’

‘Perhaps he—Stephen—said something—something about you.’

‘No, no, he wouldn’t do that; he’s lived with her all his life and must know her. Besides, what could he say? No, she simply felt strongly antagonistic whenever she saw me, and that’s the long and the short of it.’

‘And you only saw him twice?’

‘Something very strange happened,’ she went on, without answering. ‘The afternoon we were calling on his mother, the talk turned on wishing-wells, and Julia said I had found one and told me to tell them about it. I felt very foolish, for there was really nothing to tell, only once Julia and I were walking through a wood and, in a clearing, we came upon a pool choked with last years’ leaves. It looked very secret lying there, hidden by all those old trees, and Julia said it was the kind of place where a very old shrunken kelpie might sleep and I said perhaps it was a wishing-pool. We both knelt on the ground to wish and drink; the water was acrid with leaf mould and seemed to rush to meet our lips. But I couldn’t tell them all that, so I merely said we had discovered a pool in a thicket of old trees. “I know where you mean,” Stephen said, looking at me, “I found it too, and it’s a queer pool, for sometimes, no matter how hard you search, you can’t find it.” That was the only time he spoke to me directly.’

She was sitting upright in bed now, her hands clasped before her on top of the sheets.

‘Well, the next afternoon Julia had visitors, not very nice ones, and I went for a walk by myself, for I wasn’t feeling very happy. I was thinking if only each of us were made up of one person and not divided into two, one part always wishing and the other wondering why it should all be, one appealing and the other reasoning, and neither ever satisfied or giving you any peace. I wasn’t paying much attention to where I was going, when suddenly I heard a frog croak and, between the tree-trunks, I saw the little wishing-pool. I went forward, although I don’t know why, and there, on a flat stone at the pool’s edge, I saw something bright in a cage. It was a canary and I think it was frightened by the place, for it kept hopping about the cage and giving little scared twitters. I picked it up and looked round, but there was no one about, so I took four sticks and made the initial Ε on the stone, and went away. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that; I wish I hadn’t and yet I’m glad I did.’

‘And did anything happen?’ I asked.

‘I took it back to Julia’s,’ she said, ‘and it was only when I saw Nicholas and Julia and Edwin coming down the drive towards me that I realised I could not very well tell them how I had come by it. I grew frantic watching them nearing me and seemed to advance towards them so rapidly myself. “Why, Emmy,” Julia called whenever she was within earshot, “what is that you’re carrying?” “It’s a bird,” I said desperately, “a bird in a cage.” “Did you get it from the gipsies?” Edwin asked, but before I could answer, Nicholas said, “It’s a good cage—they probably stole it.”’

I blew out the candle and, putting my mouth too close to it, burnt my lip.

‘So heaven was with me,’ Emmy finished; ‘it shouldn’t have been in the circumstances, I know, but it was.’