The Complete Short Stories of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Lucy Maud Montgomery

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СКАЧАТЬ something, Rosanna?” he implored. “You’ve helped us so far, and I’ll never forget it.”

      “The only thing I can think of is for you to have the license ready, and speak to Mr. Leonard, and keep an eye on our ventilator,” I said. “I’ll watch here and signal whenever there’s an opening.”

      Well, I watched and Stephen watched, and Mr. Leonard was in the plot, too. Prissy was always a favourite of his, and he would have been more than human, saint as he is, if he’d had any love for Emmeline, after the way she was always trying to brew up strife in the church.

      But Emmeline was a match for us all. She never let Prissy out of her sight. Everywhere she went she toted Prissy, too. When a month had gone by, I was almost in despair. Mr. Leonard had to leave for the Assembly in another week and Stephen’s neighbours were beginning to talk about him. They said that a man who spent all his time hanging around the yard with a spyglass, and trusting everything to a hired boy, couldn’t be altogether right in his mind.

      I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Emmeline driving away one day alone. As soon as she was out of sight I whisked over, and Anne Shirley and Diana Barry went with me.

      They were visiting me that afternoon. Diana’s mother was my second cousin, and, as we visited back and forth frequently, I’d often seen Diana. But I’d never seen her chum, Anne Shirley, although I’d heard enough about her to drive anyone frantic with curiosity. So when she came home from Redmond College that summer I asked Diana to take pity on me and bring her over some afternoon.

      I wasn’t disappointed in her. I considered her a beauty, though some people couldn’t see it. She had the most magnificent red hair and the biggest, shiningest eyes I ever saw in a girl’s head. As for her laugh, it made me feel young again to hear it. She and Diana both laughed enough that afternoon, for I told them, under solemn promise of secrecy, all about poor Prissy’s love affair. So nothing would do them but they must go over with me.

      The appearance of the house amazed me. All the shutters were closed and the door locked. I knocked and knocked, but there was no answer. Then I walked around the house to the only window that hadn’t shutters — a tiny one upstairs. I knew it was the window in the closet off the room where the girls slept. I stopped under it and called Prissy. Before long Prissy came and opened it. She was so pale and woebegone looking that I pitied her with all my heart.

      “Prissy, where has Emmeline gone?” I asked.

      “Down to Avonlea to see the Roger Pyes. They’re sick with measles, and Emmeline couldn’t take me because I’ve never had measles.”

      Poor Prissy! She had never had anything a body ought to have.

      “Then you just come and unfasten a shutter, and come right over to my house,” I said exultantly. “We’ll have Stephen and the minister here in no time.”

      “I can’t — Em’line has locked me in here,” said Prissy woefully.

      I was posed. No living mortal bigger than a baby could have got in or out of that closet window.

      “Well,” I said finally, “I’ll put the signal up for Stephen anyhow, and we’ll see what can be done when he gets here.”

      I didn’t know how I was ever to get the signal up on that ventilator, for it was one of the days I take dizzy spells; and if I took one up on the ladder there’d probably be a funeral instead of a wedding. But Anne Shirley said she’d put it up for me, and she did. I had never seen that girl before, and I’ve never seen her since, but it’s my opinion that there wasn’t much she couldn’t do if she made up her mind to do it.

      Stephen wasn’t long in getting there and he brought the minister with him. Then we all, including Thomas — who was beginning to get interested in the affair in spite of himself — went over and held council of war beneath the closet window.

      Thomas suggested breaking in doors and carrying Prissy off boldly, but I could see that Mr. Leonard looked very dubious over that, and even Stephen said he thought it could only be done as a last resort. I agreed with him. I knew Emmeline Strong would bring an action against him for housebreaking as likely as not. She’d be so furious she’d stick at nothing if we gave her any excuse. Then Anne Shirley, who couldn’t have been more excited if she was getting married herself, came to the rescue again.

      “Couldn’t you put a ladder up to the closet window,” she said, “And Mr. Clark can go up it and they can be married there. Can’t they, Mr. Leonard?”

      Mr. Leonard agreed that they could. He was always the most saintly looking man, but I know I saw a twinkle in his eye.

      “Thomas, go over and bring our little ladder over here,” I said.

      Thomas forgot he was an elder, and he brought the ladder as quick as it was possible for a fat man to do it. After all it was too short to reach the window, but there was no time to go for another. Stephen went up to the top of it, and he reached up and Prissy reached down, and they could just barely clasp hands so. I shall never forget the look of Prissy. The window was so small she could only get her head and one arm out of it. Besides, she was almost frightened to death.

      Mr. Leonard stood at the foot of the ladder and married them. As a rule, he makes a very long and solemn thing of the marriage ceremony, but this time he cut out everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary; and it was well that he did, for just as he pronounced them man and wife, Emmeline drove into the lane.

      She knew perfectly well what had happened when she saw the minister with his blue book in his hand. Never a word said she. She marched to the front door, unlocked it, and strode upstairs. I’ve always been convinced it was a mercy that closet window was so small, or I believe that she would have thrown Prissy out of it. As it was, she walked her downstairs by the arm and actually flung her at Stephen.

      “There, take your wife,” she said, “and I’ll pack up every stitch she owns and send it after her; and I never want to see her or you again as long as I live.”

      Then she turned to me and Thomas.

      “As for you that have aided and abetted that weakminded fool in this, take yourselves out of my yard and never darken my door again.”

      “Goodness, who wants to, you old spitfire?” said Thomas.

      It wasn’t just the thing for him to say, perhaps, but we are all human, even elders.

      The girls didn’t escape. Emmeline looked daggers at them.

      “This will be something for you to carry back to Avonlea,” she said. “You gossips down there will have enough to talk about for a spell. That’s all you ever go out of Avonlea for — just to fetch and carry tales.”

      Finally she finished up with the minister.

      “I’m going to the Baptist church in Spencervale after this,” she said. Her tone and look said a hundred other things. She whirled into the house and slammed the door.

      Mr. Leonard looked around on us with a pitying smile as Stephen put poor, half-fainting Prissy into the buggy.

      “I am very sorry,” he said in that gently, saintly way of his, “for the Baptists.”

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