SACRILEGE
There had been several clashes between Aunt Elizabeth and Emily that
winter and spring. Generally Aunt Elizabeth came out victorious; there
was that in her that would not be denied the satisfaction of having
her own way even in trifling matters. But once in a while she came up
against that curious streak of granite in Emily’s composition which was
unyielding and unbendable and unbreakable. Mary Murray, of a hundred
years agone, had been, so family chronicle ran, a gentle and submissive
creature generally; but she had that same streak in her, as her “Here I
Stay” abundantly testified. When Aunt Elizabeth tried conclusions with
that element in Emily she always got the worst of it. Yet she did not
learn wisdom therefrom but pursued her policy of repression all the
more rigorously; for it occasionally came home to her, as Laura let
down tucks, that Emily was on the verge of beginning to grow up and
that various breakers and reefs loomed ahead, ominously magnified in
the mist of unseen years. Emily must not be allowed to get out of hand
now, lest later on she make shipwreck as her mother had done--or as
Elizabeth Murray firmly believed she had done. There were, in short, to
be no more elopements from New Moon.
One of the things they fell out about was the fact that Emily, as Aunt
Elizabeth discovered one day, was in the habit of using more of her
egg money to buy paper than Aunt Elizabeth approved of. What did Emily
do with so much paper? They had a fuss over this and eventually Aunt
Elizabeth discovered that Emily was writing stories. Emily had been
writing stories all winter under Aunt Elizabeth’s very nose and Aunt
Elizabeth had never suspected it. She had fondly supposed that Emily
was writing school compositions. Aunt Elizabeth knew in a vague way
that Emily wrote silly rhymes which she called “poetry” but this did
not worry her especially. Jimmy made up a lot of similar trash. It was
foolish but harmless and Emily would doubtless outgrow it. Jimmy had
not outgrown it, to be sure, but then his accident--Elizabeth always
went a little sick in soul when she remembered it--had made him more or
less a child for life.
But writing stories was a very different thing and Aunt Elizabeth was
horrified. Fiction of any kind was an abominable thing. Elizabeth
Murray had been trained up in this belief in her youth and in her
age she had not departed from it. She honestly thought that it was a
wicked and sinful thing in anyone to play cards, dance, or go to the
theatre, read or write novels, and in Emily’s case there was a worse
feature--it was the Starr coming out in her--Douglas Starr especially.
No Murray of New Moon had ever been guilty of writing “stories” or of
ever wanting to write them. It was an alien growth that must be pruned
off ruthlessly. Aunt Elizabeth applied the pruning shears; and found
no pliant, snippable root but that same underlying streak of granite.
Emily was respectful and reasonable and above-board; she bought no
more paper with egg money; but she told Aunt Elizabeth that she could
not give up writing stories and she went right on writing them, on
pieces of brown wrapping paper and the blank backs of circulars which
agricultural machinery firms sent Cousin Jimmy.
“Don’t you know that it is wicked to write novels?” demanded Aunt
Elizabeth.
“Oh, I’m not writing novels--yet,” said Emily. “I can’t get enough
paper. These are just short stories. And it isn’t wicked--Father liked
novels.”
“Your father--” began Aunt Elizabeth, and stopped. She remembered that
Emily had “acted up” before now when anything derogatory was said of
her father. But the very fact that she felt mysteriously compelled to
stop annoyed Elizabeth, who had said what seemed good to her all her
life at New Moon without much regard for other people’s feelings.
“You will not write any more of _this stuff_,” Aunt Elizabeth
contemptuously flourished “The Secret of the Castle” under Emily’s
nose. “I forbid you--remember, I forbid you.”
“Oh, I must write, Aunt Elizabeth,” said Emily gravely, folding her
slender, beautiful hands on the table and looking straight into Aunt
Elizabeth’s angry face with the steady, unblinking gaze which Aunt Ruth
called unchildlike. “You see, it’s this way. It is _in_ me. I can’t
help it. And Father said I was _always_ to keep on writing. He said I
would be famous some day. Wouldn’t you like to have a famous niece,
Aunt Elizabeth?”
“I am not going to argue the matter,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
“I’m not arguing--only explaining.” Emily was exasperatingly
respectful. “I just want you to understand how it is that I _have_
to go on writing stories, even though I am so very sorry you don’t
approve.”
“If you don’t give up this--this worse than nonsense, Emily,
I’ll--I’ll--”
Aunt Elizabeth stopped, not knowing what to say she would do. Emily
was too big now to be slapped or shut up; and it was no use to say,
as she was tempted to, “I’ll send you away from New Moon,” because
Elizabeth Murray knew perfectly well she would not send Emily away from
New Moon--_could_ not send her away, indeed, though this knowledge
was as yet only in her feelings and had not been translated into her
intellect. She only felt that she was helpless and it angered her;
but Emily was mistress of the situation and calmly went on writing
stories. If Aunt Elizabeth had asked her to give up crocheting lace or
making molasses taffy, or eating Aunt Laura’s delicious drop cookies,
Emily would have done so wholly and cheerfully, though she loved
these things. But to give up writing stories--why, Aunt Elizabeth
might as well have asked her to give up breathing. _Why_ couldn’t she
understand? It seemed so simple and indisputable to Emily.
“Teddy can’t help making pictures and Ilse can’t help reciting and I
can’t help writing. _Don’t_ you see, Aunt Elizabeth?”
“I see that you are an ungrateful and disobedient child,” said Aunt
Elizabeth.
This hurt Emily horribly, but she could not give in; and there
continued to be a sense of soreness and disapproval between her and
Aunt Elizabeth in all the little details of daily life that poisoned
existence more or less for the child, who was so keenly sensitive to
her environment and to the feelings with which her kindred regarded
her. Emily felt it all the time--except when she was writing her
stories. _Then_ she forgot everything, roaming in some enchanted
country between the sun and moon, where she saw wonderful beings whom
she tried to describe and wonderful deeds which she tried to record,
coming back to the candle-lit kitchen with a somewhat dazed sense of
having been years in No-Man’s Land.
She did not even have Aunt Laura to back her up in the matter. Aunt
Laura thought Emily ought to yield in such an unimportant matter and
please Aunt Elizabeth.
“But it’s not unimportant,” said Emily despairingly. “It’s the most
important thing in the world to me, Aunt Laura. Oh, I thought _you_
would understand.”
“I understand that you like to do it, dear, and I think it’s a harmless
enough amusement. But it seems to annoy Elizabeth some way and I do
think you might give it up on that account. It is not as if it was
anything that mattered much--it _is_ really a waste of time.”
“No--no,” said distressed Emily. “Why, some day, Aunt Laura, I’ll
write real books--and make lots of money,” she added, sensing that the
businesslike Murrays measured the nature of most things on a cash basis.
Aunt Laura smiled indulgently.
“I’m afraid you’ll never grow rich that way, dear. It would be wiser to
employ your time preparing yourself for some useful work.”
It was maddening to be condescended to like this--maddening that nobody
could see that she _had_ to write--maddening to have Aunt Laura so
sweet and loving and stupid about it.
“Oh,” thought Emily bitterly, “if that hateful _Enterprise_ editor had
printed my piece they’d have believed _then_.”
“At any rate,” advised Aunt Laura, “don’t let Elizabeth _see_ you
writing them.”
But somehow Emily could not take this prudent advice. There _had_
been occasions when she had connived with Aunt Laura to hoodwink
Aunt Elizabeth on some little matter, but she found she could not do
it in this. _This_ had to be open and above-board. She _must_ write
stories--and Aunt Elizabeth _must_ know it--that was the way it had to
be. She could not be false to herself in this--she could not _pretend_
to be false.
She wrote her father all about it--poured out her bitterness and
perplexity to him in what, though she did not suspect it at the time,
was the last letter she was to write him. There was a large bundle
of letters by now on the old sofa shelf in the garret--for Emily had
written many letters to her father besides those which have been
chronicled in this history. There were a great many paragraphs about
Aunt Elizabeth in them, most of them very uncomplimentary and some
of them, as Emily herself would have owned when her first bitterness
was past, overdrawn and exaggerated. They had been written in moments
when her hurt and angry soul demanded some outlet for its emotion and
barbed her pen with venom. Emily was mistress of a subtly malicious
style when she chose to be. After she had written them the hurt had
ceased and she thought no more about them. But they remained.
And one spring day, Aunt Elizabeth, housecleaning in the garret while
Emily played happily with Teddy at the Tansy Patch, found the bundle of
letters on the sofa shelf, sat down, and read them all.
Elizabeth Murray would never have read any writing belonging
to a grown person. But it never occurred to her that there was
anything dishonourable in reading the letters wherein Emily, lonely
and--sometimes--misunderstood, had poured out her heart to the father
she had loved and been loved by, so passionately and understandingly.
Aunt Elizabeth thought she had a right to know everything that this
pensioner on her bounty did, said, or thought. She read the letters
and she found out what Emily thought of her--of her, Elizabeth Murray,
autocrat unchallenged, to whom no one had ever dared to say anything
uncomplimentary. Such an experience is no pleasanter at sixty than
at sixteen. As Elizabeth Murray folded up the last letter her hands
trembled--with anger, and something underneath it that was not anger.
“Emily, your Aunt Elizabeth wants to see you in the parlour,” said
Aunt Laura, when Emily returned from the Tansy Patch, driven home by
the thin grey rain that had begun to drift over the greening fields.
Her tone--her sorrowful look--warned Emily that mischief was in the
wind. Emily had no idea what mischief--she could not recall anything
she had done recently that should bring her up before the tribunal
Aunt Elizabeth occasionally held in the parlour. It must be serious
when it was in the parlour. For reasons best known to herself Aunt
Elizabeth held super-serious interviews like this in the parlour.
Possibly it was because she felt obscurely that the photographs of
the Murrays on the walls gave her a backing she needed when dealing
with this hop-out-of-kin; for the same reason Emily detested a trial in
the parlour. She always felt on such occasions like a very small mouse
surrounded by a circle of grim cats.
Emily skipped across the big hall, pausing, in spite of her alarm, to
glance at the charming red world through the crimson glass; then pushed
open the parlour door. The room was dim, for only one of the slat
blinds was partially raised. Aunt Elizabeth was sitting bolt upright in
Grandfather Murray’s black horsehair-chair. Emily looked at her stern,
angry face first--and then at her lap.
Emily understood.
The first thing she did was to retrieve her precious letters. With the
quickness of light she sprang to Aunt Elizabeth, snatched up the bundle
and retreated to the door; there she faced Aunt Elizabeth, her face
blazing with indignation and outrage. Sacrilege had been committed--the
most sacred shrine of her soul had been profaned.
“How dare you?” she said. “How dare you touch _my private papers_, Aunt
Elizabeth?”
Aunt Elizabeth had not expected _this_. She had looked for
confusion--dismay--shame--fear--for anything but this righteous
indignation, as if _she_, forsooth, were the guilty one. She rose.
“Give me those letters, Emily.”
“No, I will not,” said Emily, white with anger, as she clasped her
hands around the bundle. “They are mine and Father’s--not yours. You
had no right to touch them. I will _never_ forgive you!”
This was turning the tables with a vengeance. Aunt Elizabeth was so
dumfounded that she hardly knew what to say or do. Worst of all, a most
unpleasant doubt of her own conduct suddenly assailed her--driven home
perhaps by the intensity and earnestness of Emily’s accusation. For
the first time in her life it occurred to Elizabeth Murray to wonder if
she had done rightly. For the first time in her life she felt ashamed;
and the shame made her furious. It was intolerable that _she_ should be
made to feel ashamed.
For the moment they faced each other, not as aunt and niece, not as
child and adult, but as two human beings each with hatred for the other
in her heart--Elizabeth Murray, tall and austere and thin-lipped; Emily
Starr, white of face, her eyes pools of black flame, her trembling arms
hugging her letters.
“So _this_ is your gratitude,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “You were a
penniless orphan--I took you to my home--I have given you shelter and
food and education and kindness--and _this_ is my thanks.”
As yet Emily’s tempest of anger and resentment prevented her from
feeling the sting of this.
“You did not _want_ to take me,” she said. “You made me draw lots and
you took me because the lot fell to you. You knew some of you had to
take me because you were the proud Murrays and couldn’t let a relation
go to an orphan asylum. Aunt Laura loves me now but you don’t. So why
should I love you?”
“Ungrateful, thankless child!”
“I’m _not_ thankless. I’ve tried to be good--I’ve tried to obey you and
please you--I do all the chores I can to help pay for my keep. And you
had _no business_ to read my letters to Father.”
“They are disgraceful letters--and must be destroyed,” said Aunt
Elizabeth.
“No,” Emily clasped them tighter. “I’d sooner burn myself. You shall
not have them, Aunt Elizabeth.”
She felt her brows drawing together--she felt the Murray look on her
face--she knew she was conquering.
Elizabeth Murray turned paler, if that were possible. There were
times when she could give the Murray look herself; it was not that
which dismayed her--it was the uncanny something which seemed to
peer out behind the Murray look that always broke her will. She
trembled--faltered--yielded.
“Keep your letters,” she said bitterly, “and scorn the old woman who
opened her home to you.”
She went out of the parlour. Emily was left mistress of the field. And
all at once her victory turned to dust and ashes in her mouth.
She went up to her own room, hid her letters in the cupboard over the
mantel, and then crept up on her bed, huddling down in a little heap
with her face buried in her pillow. She was still sore with a sense of
outrage--but underneath another pain was beginning to ache terribly.
Something in her was hurt because she had hurt Aunt Elizabeth--for
she felt that Aunt Elizabeth, under all her anger, was _hurt_. This
surprised Emily. She would have expected Aunt Elizabeth to be angry, of
course, but she would never have supposed it would affect her in any
other way. Yet she had seen something in Aunt Elizabeth’s eyes when she
had flung that last stinging sentence at her--something that spoke of
bitter hurt.
“Oh! Oh!” gasped Emily. She began to cry chokingly into her pillow. She
was so wretched that she could not get out of herself and watch her
own suffering with a sort of enjoyment in its drama--set her mind to
analyse her feelings--and when Emily was as wretched as that she was
very wretched indeed and wholly comfortless. Aunt Elizabeth would not
keep her at New Moon after a poisonous quarrel like this. She would
send her away, of course. Emily believed this. Nothing was too horrible
to believe just then. How could she live away from dear New Moon?
“And I may have to live eighty years,” Emily moaned.
But worse even than this was the remembrance of that look in Aunt
Elizabeth’s eyes.
Her own sense of outrage and sacrilege ebbed away under the
remembrance. She thought of all the things she had written her father
about Aunt Elizabeth--sharp, bitter things, some of them just, some of
them unjust. She began to feel that she should not have written them.
It was true enough that Aunt Elizabeth had not loved her--had not
wanted to take her to New Moon. But she _had_ taken her and though it
had been done in duty, not in love, the fact remained. It was no use
for her to tell herself that it wasn’t as if the letters were written
to any one living, to be seen and read by others. While she was under
Aunt Elizabeth’s roof--while she owed the food she ate and the clothes
she wore to Aunt Elizabeth--she should not say, even to her father,
harsh things of her. A Starr should not have done it.
“I must go and ask Aunt Elizabeth to forgive me,” thought Emily at
last, all the passion gone out of her and only regret and repentance
left. “I suppose she never will--she’ll hate me always now. But I must
go.”
She turned herself about--and then the door opened and Aunt Elizabeth
entered. She came across the room and stood at the side of the bed,
looking down at the grieved little face on the pillow--a face that in
the dim, rainy twilight, with its tear-stains and black shadowed eyes,
looked strangely mature and chiseled.
Elizabeth Murray was still austere and cold. Her voice sounded stern;
but she said an amazing thing.
“Emily, I had no right to read your letters. I admit I was wrong. Will
you forgive me?”
“Oh!” The word was almost a cry. Aunt Elizabeth had at last discerned
the way to conquer Emily. The latter lifted herself up, flung her arms
about Aunt Elizabeth, and said chokingly,
“Oh--Aunt Elizabeth--I’m sorry--I’m sorry--I shouldn’t have written
those things--but I wrote them when I was vexed--and I didn’t mean
them _all_--truly, I didn’t mean the worst of them. Oh, you’ll believe
_that_, won’t you, Aunt Elizabeth?”
“I’d like to believe it, Emily.” An odd quiver passed through the
tall, rigid form. “I--don’t like to think you--_hate_ me--my sister’s
child--little Juliet’s child.”
“I don’t--oh, I don’t,” sobbed Emily. “And I’ll _love_ you, Aunt
Elizabeth, if you’ll let me--if you _want_ me to. I didn’t think you
cared. _Dear_ Aunt Elizabeth.”
Emily gave Aunt Elizabeth a fierce hug and a passionate kiss on the
white, fine-wrinkled cheek. Aunt Elizabeth kissed her gravely on the
brow in return and then said, as if closing the door on the whole
incident,
“You’d better wash your face and come down to supper.”
But there was yet something to be cleared up.
“Aunt Elizabeth,” whispered Emily. “I _can’t_ burn those letters, you
know--they belong to Father. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll go
over them all and put a star by anything I said about you and then I’ll
add an explanatory footnote saying that I was mistaken.”
Emily spent her spare time for several days putting in her “explanatory
footnotes,” and then her conscience had rest. But when she again tried
to write a letter to her father she found that it no longer meant
anything to her. The sense of reality--nearness--of close communion had
gone. Perhaps she had been outgrowing it gradually, as childhood began
to merge into girlhood--perhaps the bitter scene with Aunt Elizabeth
had only shaken into dust something out of which the spirit had already
departed. But, whatever the explanation, it was not possible to write
such letters any more. She missed them terribly but she could not go
back to them. A certain door of life was shut behind her and could not
be re-opened.