OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE
It seemed to Christina as if there had never been a summer that opened
so joyously. In the first place she was preparing to go West with
Allister when he came home in July, and she would not be very far from
the Mission Field where Neil had gone, and that was good fortune enough
in itself. Added to that, Sandy came home in May, and life was all
holiday when Sandy was near, but best of all, at the closing of
college, who should come riding over the hills but her Dream Knight.
He was to stay the whole summer, Tilly explained on Sunday when he
appeared with his mother and uncle at church, and Mrs. Sutherland was
scared to let him go beyond the garden gate alone.
Though his coming to Orchard Glen brought such joy to Christina, young
Mr. Sutherland had really come home under a cloud, though his mother
took great care to turn it inside out for the public benefit and allow
the silver lining of Wallace's many virtues to shine through. He was
so handsome and so genuinely glad to see everybody in Orchard Glen, and
so free and hearty in his manner, that it was very easy for people to
believe the best of him. And indeed the worst was only that he had
been a little less studious in college than he should have been.
He had barely passed his examinations in his first year, and now in his
second, when he should have retrieved himself, he had gone under
altogether. And the worst of it all was that Uncle William, who was
paying his college bills, and who was rich and childless and would
never miss the money, was making a dreadful fuss. Wallace wrote him
apologising deeply, and explaining just how it all happened, the
inconvenient examinations having come on just when he was labouring
under a heavy cold.
Mrs. Sutherland wrote her brother explaining still further, Wallace had
been ill, he was not at all well now. He had been really quite
indisposed all Spring, and it was cruel to blame the dear boy for not
studying.
But Uncle William seemed to enjoy being cruel. He wrote that he had
done his best to give her son an education, but it appeared that it
couldn't be done, and he felt it was time to stop wasting money. So he
was sending Wallace home to her to see what she could make of him.
Perhaps she could find something for him to do in Orchard Glen that
would not tax his mentality as the University seemed to have done.
Poor Mrs. Sutherland was overcome with grief. Dr. McGarry was too, and
he stormed and scolded Wallace and his sister by turns, and ended up by
declaring that William was getting to be nothing but a skinflint and
that he might give the boy another chance.
Wallace alone seemed undisturbed. He felt sure that Uncle William's
bilious attack, as he termed his difference with his patron, would pass
off, and that he would be ready to forgive him in October. So he
settled himself in the old home with a tremendous display of books and
a fine appearance of studiousness, and declared he would work so hard
that when the Autumn term opened he would pass any examination they
could possibly set before him.
His mother and uncle caught his optimism and were both soon ready to
agree that all would be well. So Wallace spent the Summer very happily
in Orchard Glen, lying in the hammock under the trees, always with his
books, or driving about the country in the Doctor's car.
But poor Mrs. Sutherland had little enjoyment in his home-coming. She
was really a very neighbourly soul, in spite of a few strange ideas
about social usages, and she was now condemned to the difficult task of
keeping Wallace at his studies, and away from the young life about him,
and that in a village where the girls were as thick as the thistles
along the roadside.
First there was that pretty young simpleton at the corner store, who
giggled all the time, and made it dangerous for Wallace even to go for
the mail. Then there was that family at Browns up on the hill with
girls of all ages. And there were those Lindsays, for though the most
dangerous one was married and out of the way, and another one said to
be engaged, there was still another, very attractive and quite too
smart. And there was that bold, black-eyed daughter of the blacksmith,
who lived next door. She was too old for Wallace, but those mature
girls were the most to be feared. And indeed, there was no safety
whatever way you turned.
His mother had hoped for some relaxation when Wallace decided to spend
an hour or so each morning under Mr. Sinclair's tutoring, but no sooner
had this haven been provided, than the minister's daughter, a fine
looking, high-spirited girl, came home for her holidays, from her
school teaching.
So Mrs. Sutherland remained a prisoner in her own home, on guard over
her son. And the girls of the village did all in their power to make
her task most difficult.
And though Christina would have disdained to take any part in their
schemes to meet Wallace, she managed to see her True Knight quite often
and the Summer was a very happy one.
She always received a nod and a bright smile from him on Sundays, and
sometimes on week days when she went down into the village. And he was
always as gay and as debonair and handsome as anybody could wish a
Dream Knight to be.
Sandy came home full of joyous relief that at last Christina was to get
away out into the world. The trip to the West was not as good as
college, of course, but Allister would give her a chance for an
education yet, when this pinched time that he was passing through was
over.
"I hate the thought of your going away," Sandy grumbled. "Girls ought
to get married," he added, struggling confusedly with this first
experience with femininism. Mary's career and Ellen's prospects were
the only right and proper sphere for a girl.
Privately Christina thought so, too.
"But I can't get anybody to marry me," she said gaily. "So what am I
to do? There's nobody in Orchard Glen wants me except"--she paused,
perhaps she was wrong after all about Gavin's caring for her--"except
Marmaduke," she added on second thought.
"And I'll bet if any fellow in Orchard Glen asked you to marry him
you'd turn up your nose at him," complained Sandy. "My, but girls are
queer. Now, if that Wallace Sutherland was to come along I suppose
you'd be like the rest and be as sweet as honey to him, and you
wouldn't look at a fellow like Gavin Grant. And I wouldn't give Gavin
for a wagon load of Wallace Sutherlands."
Christina's cheeks grew crimson. Sandy had drawn a bow at a venture,
but had hit right in the centre of the mark. But she responded
gallantly.
"Neither would I. I wouldn't know what to do with a wagon load of him.
But one would be very nice--loaded on an auto," she added slyly.
Sandy sniffed; but he could not dispute long with Christina over
anything. They had grand times together, as June came in and they fell
into their old habit of sitting in the evenings on the pump platform.
There were long confidential talks there, under the apple boughs, too.
Sandy's mind, under Neil's careful guardianship, was turning more and
more towards the ministry as his life-work. And every day Christina
grew more thankful that she had not been the means of holding him back.
She had not yet confessed to Grandpa that his electric light was to be
switched off before the end of the summer. Christina had not found an
occasion when she could summon sufficient courage to break the news to
him. It would be time enough when she had to tell him. So he sang his
evening hymn and read his morning psalms of thanksgiving undisturbed.
And to make things even better for Christina Mary came home in June.
Hugh McGillivray had gone to Toronto on business and Mary came back to
the old farm for a visit during his absence. Mary looked more
beautiful than ever, in her new town-made clothes, and Christina was
very proud of her as they went about the village together.
The practice for the Presbyterian Church's first of July picnic was in
full swing, and as there were no Methodists helping this year, the
Presbyterians had to do double duty. Mary went to practise with her
sisters and had a grand reunion with all the girls.
"Christine, where's Bruce to-night?" she asked, as they came up the
hill on the way home together, with Ellen walking ahead beside Annie
McKenzie.
"Bruce? I don't know," confessed Christina. "Oh, he hasn't come to
practise much since he came back from Toronto."
"No, and it's my opinion he hasn't been going to anything else,"
declared Mary. "Do you know that he has been here only once since I
came home?"
Christina listened in dismay. She had been so absorbed in her joyous
preparations for going West that she had actually not noticed what was
quite apparent to Mary.
"Maybe he and Ellen have had a lover's quarrel," she whispered
hopefully.
"Nothing of the sort," scoffed Mary. "Can you imagine any one
quarrelling with Ellen or Bruce either--and as for their quarrelling
between themselves!"
Christina was forced to admit that was extremely unlikely. And as she
watched Ellen she could not but be convinced that there was something
woefully wrong between her and Bruce.
"You couldn't think that he doesn't care for Ellen any more, could
you?" faltered Christina as she and Mary held a second conference.
"Wouldn't it be awful," cried Mary aghast. "I can't remember when
Bruce wasn't in love with Ellen and was coming here to see her. It
would be an insult to the whole family!" she cried hotly.
Christina was not concerned about the family honour, but she was very
much disturbed over Ellen. And then it was a heartbreaking thing to
lose Bruce, too. He had always seemed like a brother, and it was
almost as bad as if Neil or Sandy should become estranged.
Poor Ellen was striving hard to hide her hurt, and made heroic efforts
to explain Bruce's changed manners. He was tired with all the
unaccustomed work of the farm, he had to study at nights and that kept
him at home. She was always ready with an excuse for his unaccustomed
absence.
"Where's Bruce, Ellie?" asked her mother one Sunday evening when the
usual crowd strolled in after the Methodist service.
"He's back at the gate with the boys, Mother," said Ellen with affected
carelessness. "He'll likely be in later."
Bruce did come in later with John, but he did not stay late and went
home when Annie and Katie left.
Of course Joanna did not fail to notice the change in Bruce and remark
upon it. There was a little crowd at the Lindsays one evening to see
Mary, when the McKenzie contingent entered without him.
"Where's your family doctor, Ellen?" Joanna inquired. "You'll have to
look after your fellow better than you're doing!"
Ellen looked at her with quiet dignity, but her cheeks grew crimson.
"It's very good of you to be so interested in him, Joanna," she said.
"Course I'm interested in all my neighbours. Here's the whole McKenzie
outfit, every one of them, but your particular one. Annie, you keep
Bruce tied up as close as Ma Sutherland does her little boy. What have
you done with him?"
Annie McKenzie was Ellen's close friend. She looked embarrassed.
"He's tired. He's been working in the field all day and now he's got
studying to do at night," she declared hurriedly.
"My! If you let him study that hard he ought to be a doctor about next
Christmas! Maybe he's hurrying up so's he can get married a year or
two sooner!"
Ellen's face grew pale, but Mary was there. Mary Lindsay had always
been a match for Joanna in a quiet elusive way, and now from the
vantage ground of a rather brilliant marriage Mary McGillivray was
still more to be feared.
"Oh, Joanna," she said suavely, "a long piece of your hair is hanging
down at the back. There's a looking-glass on the wall over there where
Trooper's standing. Would you like to go and fix it?"
Joanna flounced away into the bed-room completely routed. There was
something subtle about Mary that one could not combat.
Bruce dropped in late at the next practice that was held in the church.
He sat in the back seat and talked with the other boys during
intermission, but his very presence seemed to make Ellen happy. She
became radiant, and chatted and laughed gaily with the other girls,
looking handsomer than she had for many a day.
When they started home, Christina, with an eye for Gavin, kept
carefully in the crowd. But Gavin had turned and gone away at once
with the other boys who were unattached. And with the perversity of a
woman's mind Christina felt a little hurt. She wondered why he seemed
to have stopped trying for her favour. Was it because he was
discouraged, or because he did not care? She was so far from
understanding Gavin that she did not guess that his pride was keeping
him aloof.
Annie McKenzie and Ellen were ahead, and Christina found herself
walking beside Bruce. This was not unusual, for Bruce had always been
so much one of the family that he just as often walked with her or one
of the boys as with Ellen. She was so happy that she was impelled to
express her joy.
"It's so nice to see you at practice, Bruce," she said. "It's lonesome
here when all the boys are away."
"Yes, it's good to be home again," said Bruce without enthusiasm. "But
I think I've got the city fever rather badly. I just couldn't settle
down in Orchard Glen, now that I've been away."
Christina sympathised. "I fancy I'll feel like that when I go away,"
she ventured.
"Yes, you will," he declared. "When you get away you realise how small
and narrow everything in your life has been. It changes a person
completely. Nothing seems the same." He spoke in tones of depression.
He was not at all the old Bruce who had been always kind and cheery,
and almost as nice as John.
Christina experienced a feeling of dismay. "Nothing seems the same,"
weighed heavily upon her heart.
He came in for the evening lunch the Lindsay kitchen always furnished,
but he went away when the rest left, and did not have a word with Ellen
alone.
"What were you and Bruce talking about so seriously?" asked Ellen with
forced lightness, as she and Christina put away the remains of the
feast in the cellar.
"Oh, nothing much," said Christina confused. "About Toronto mostly.
He likes it awfully well there," and she hurried away into Grandpa's
room to take her last look at him and see that he was comfortable, and
avoided further questioning.
"Tell me all about him when you write next," Mary said when Hugh came
as radiant and eager as on her wedding day to take her home.
Christina promised. "It wouldn't be so bad if everybody wasn't so
interested," she said with a sigh. "It's Joanna; that's the worst part
of it."
"This is such a narrow gossipy little place," complained the lady from
the metropolis. "I'll be glad when you get away out West with
Allister, Christine."
"But Ellen can't get away from it," said Christina, "and mother's been
here nearly all her life and she's not narrow nor gossipy." For
Christina was not quite so sure now that she really wanted to get away.
Ellen's undeniable trouble was taking away much of the joy of her
sister's good fortune.
When the time came to write Mary, the news of Bruce was not
encouraging. He came to the house very seldom, was almost melancholy
and not at all his old self, and every one in the family noticed the
change. Even Uncle Neil asked what was the matter between Ellen and
Bruce, and he carefully avoided singing the "Standard on the Braes o'
Mar" in the evening, knowing that there would be no McKenzie's man
coming over the hills as in the old joyous days.
And so June slipped away and Allister wrote that he would come about
the middle of July and for Christina to be ready. She felt that she
could no longer put off the evil day of telling Grandpa and one night
as she helped him to bed resolved to prepare him.
"I've got something to tell you," she shouted as she gave him his hymn
book and put back the curtain. "But there isn't time to-night. I'll
tell you to-morrow."
"Eh, eh, that'll be fine," said Grandpa, who was always looking forward
to good things. "Don't forget about it." And after she left, she
heard him say,
"Eh, eh, but it's a fine bit lassie. Eh, there's not such another--not
such another!"
Christina felt a big lump choking her as she went upstairs to dress for
practice.
Bruce appeared at practice again, and as the boys and girls paired off
to go home, Christina noticed with great joy that he took his old place
at Ellen's side and they walked away together.
Sandy had gone off with Margaret Sinclair again, and Christina joined
herself to Burke Wright and Mitty, and later to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. The
Woman was still hot on the scent of the valentines and her remarks on
the subject were highly amusing. They passed Ellen and Bruce, and
Christina noticed joyfully that they were walking very slowly and were
in deep conversation. It was still more encouraging, as she slipped
into the house alone, to see that they were standing at the gate very
much absorbed.
Her mother was moving about the kitchen. No matter how late her
children were in getting home she always lingered till all were safely
in the house.
"Bruce and Ellen are hanging over the gate," whispered Christina
excitedly. "They've taken about half an hour getting home."
"They'll be all right, then?" whispered her mother eagerly.
"Oh, yes," cried Christina joyfully. "I'll tell you all about it in
the morning. You go away to bed now, mother, and I'll set the bread."
Her mother went slowly to her room, and Christina bustled about the
kitchen. She had got out the bowl and the flour, when she heard
Ellen's step on the old creaking veranda floor. The door opened and
Christina turned with a word of gay raillery, but stopped suddenly.
Ellen stood in the doorway looking white and dazed, as though some one
had given her a blow.
"Ellen!" cried Christina aghast. "What is the matter? Are you sick?"
Her sister did not seem to hear. She did not answer, but passed the
door and went on upstairs, slowly and stumbling, as though she were
Grandpa's age!
Sandy came in from the woodshed door to find Christina standing
overcome in the middle of the kitchen. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"Did you see a ghost?"
"Oh, Sandy," Christina was full of dismay, "something is wrong with
Ellen and Bruce. Something dreadful."
Sandy was deeply concerned as he listened. This was no mere girl's
love affair like the sort Mary would have had. Bruce and Ellen had
always been lovers. It was like hearing that John had broken with the
family.
"Ellen just can't stand it here any longer," Christina burst out at
last. "The girls are all talking about her, and Joanna is just
dreadful; and, oh, Sandy, do you think I ought to let her go West
instead of me?"
"Now, you look here!" cried Sandy violently, "don't you go talking like
that any more. If there's anybody has to stay home I will. You just
can't be the one that's always left. Cheer up. Wait till you ask
Ellen what's up. Maybe it's not so bad, after all!"
It was just as bad as it could be, Christina felt sure, as she lay
awake in the night listening to Ellen's slow deep sobs, not daring to
ask the cause. The Lindsay girls were reticent, especially about
affairs of the heart, and Christina hesitated to intrude. It was not
till they were alone in the spring house with the churning the next
morning, that the opening to the subject came and Ellen herself made
it. She had gone about her work, pale and spiritless all morning, her
mother's kindly eyes watching her with anxiety.
"Christine," Ellen said, when the picnic was broached, "I wish you'd
tell Mrs. Johnnie Dunn you'll take my place on the tea committee, will
you? I don't want to go."
"Of course I will," said Christina. "But don't you want to go to the
picnic?"
Ellen turned her back and busied herself with something in the far end
of the dim little cellar. "I don't want to ever go to a picnic again,
as long as I live," she said quietly.
"Ellen!" cried Christina in dismay, "what is it? Have you and
Bruce--what's the matter? Did you quarrel?"
"No, it would be better if we had." Ellen seemed to be relieved at the
possibility of unburdening her heart. "He's just got tired of
me--that's all."
She said it with a quiet bitterness that was far more sorrowful than a
rush of tears. Christina felt her anger rise with her grief.
"Why, I never heard of anything so abominable--" she commenced
stormily, but her sister stopped her.
"No, I won't listen to anything against him. Bruce is just as good--"
she stopped overcome for a moment. "It isn't his fault," she went on,
regaining her self-control. "He feels awful about it. He didn't want
to tell me, but I made him, last night. I knew there was something,
ever since last Christmas. And it's been getting worse all summer and
I couldn't stand it any longer. He's changed since he went away. And
he,--I've never been anywhere outside of Orchard Glen, and he's seen
the difference. He's gone ahead of me, that's all and he couldn't help
it."
She finished in a whisper, and stood looking before her in a kind of
dazed despair. "I don't know,"--she faltered,--"I don't seem to know
how to start over again," she said with an air of bewilderment.
"Oh, Ellen!" cried Christina in a sudden rush of tenderness and pity
that had to have an outlet, "wouldn't you like to go away for a while,
till--right now, and do something and--and catch up?"
A light flashed up for a moment in Ellen's eyes, but faded immediately.
"How could I?" she cried, "and leave them here alone--I might as well
think of going to the moon."
"But you can. Yes, you must, right away. Allister would just as soon
have you go out there as me. He said so, but he didn't think you
would, and you'll go and I'll stay at home. It will only be for a
little while, and you can see everything, and it'll just be grand!--"
her eyes were shining, her cheeks pink with excitement.
"Christine!" Ellen looked at the little sister, her eyes filled with
unspeakable gratitude. "Oh, it wouldn't be right to let you--but if I
only could--just for a little while, till he goes away, I might stand--"
She sank down upon a little low bench and buried her face in her apron.
"It seems too good to be true," she sobbed.
Christina had a sudden vivid remembrance of a time when she dropped the
heavy trap door of the cellar in a foolish prank and barely escaped
giving Ellen a terrible blow on the head. And this time she might have
killed her if she had been careless enough to forsake her in the day of
her despair!