Читать книгу Una of the Garden - L. M. Montgomery - Страница 5

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Shortly before sunset that evening Eric went for a walk. He liked to indulge in long tramps through the Stillwater fields and woods in the sweet mellowness of the spring weather. Most of the Stillwater houses were built along the shore road and about “the Corners”. The farms ran back from them into solitudes of woods and pasture lands.

Eric struck southwest in a new direction and walked briskly along. The spruce wood in which he finally found himself was pierced with arrows of ruby light from the setting sun. He went through it walking up a long purple aisle where the wood flooring was brown and elastic under his feet and came out beyond it on a scene that surprised him. No house was in sight but he found himself looking into a garden, an old garden, evidently long neglected and forsaken. But a garden dies hard; and this one, which must have been a very delightful spot once, was delightful still, none the less so from the air of gentle melancholy that seemed to pervade it—the melancholy that invests all places which have once been the scene of joy and pleasure and are so no longer, places where hearts have throbbed and eyes brightened and merry voices echoed; the ghosts of these things seem to linger in their old haunts.

The charm of the place took sudden possession of Eric as nothing had ever done before. He was not given to fancies, the practical, business-like young fellow. But the garden laid hold of him and drew him to itself and he was never to be quite the same again. He went into it through the little gap in the low stone dyke around it; and so, unknowing, went forward to meet all that life held for him.

The garden was large and square, bounded on all four sides by the stone dyke which was so old that its crevices were full of ferns and many wild leaves and vines. At regular intervals along the dyke were tall spruces with the evening wind singing in their tops and in the southwest corner was a thick plantation of young firs that had evidently grown up of themselves. Most of the garden was grown lushly over with grass but the old paths were still quite visible and were bordered by stones and large pebbles. In the center, between two high rows of lilac trees, outblossoming in purple, was a large, square bed all ablow with the starry spikes of the “June lilies”, as the country people call the white narcissus. Their penetrating, haunting fragrance distilled on the evening air and met him on every soft puff of wind no matter where he walked. In the very center of the bed was a clump of tall white and purple irises. The corners of the garden were gay with thickly growing yellow daffodils. Along the southern side grew another hedge of lilac trees and just inside the gap by which he had entered was a tall white lilac bush. Eastward there were several branching bird cherries snowy with bloom; and everywhere, as it seemed, grew clumps of “bleeding heart”, tremulous with spikes of rosy flowers. There were many rosebushes also but it was too early in the season for roses.

At each side of the garden was a bench formed rudely out of surf-worn red sandstone from the shore. Eric walked across the garden and sat down on the one behind the southern lilac trees. From where he sat he now got a glimpse of a house about a quarter of a mile away, its gray gable peeping out from a dark spruce wood. It seemed a dull, gloomy place and he did not know who lived there. He had a wide outlook to the south over far hazy fields and misty blue hills and valleys. The air was very sweet with the breath of all the growing things and of the bed of mint upon which he had trampled. Robins were whistling, clear and sweet and sudden, in the woods.

“This is a veritable ‘haunt of ancient peace’,” he quoted. “I could fall asleep here and dream dreams. What a sky! Could anything be bluer? And such frail white clouds that melt away as you look at them! What a dizzying, intoxicating fragrance lilacs have! I wonder if perfume could set a man drunk. Those narcissi—what’s that?”

Across the mellow stillness, mingled with the croon of the wind in the trees and the calls of the robins, came a strain of delicious music, so beautiful and fantastic that Eric held his breath in astonishment and delight. Was he dreaming? No, it was real music, the music of a violin played by some hand inspired with the very spirit of harmony. He had never heard anything like it; and he felt quite sure that nothing exactly like it ever had been heard before—that that wonderful music was coming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist and translating itself so into those most airy and delicate of sounds for the first time. It was an elusive, haunting melody, strangely suited to the time and place; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the spruces, the eerie whispering of the grasses at dewfall, the white thoughts of the narcissi—all the soul of all the old laughter and song and tears and gladness and sobs the garden had ever known in the lost years; and besides all this there was in it a pitiful, plaintive cry, as of some imprisoned thing calling for freedom, for utterance.

At first Eric listened mutely and movelessly, lost in wonderment. Then a very natural curiosity overcame him. Who in Stillwater could play a violin so? And who was playing so here in this deserted old garden, of all places? He rose and walked along the lilac hedge, going as slowly and silently as possible, not to interrupt the player. When he reached the bed of June lilies he stopped short in new amazement and again was tempted to think he must be dreaming.

On the stone bench under the big branching white lilac tree a girl was sitting, playing on an old brown violin; her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she did not see Eric. For a few moments he stood there and looked at her; and the picture she made photographed itself on his vision to the last detail, never again to be blotted from his book of remembrance.

He had, in his twenty-five years of life, met hundreds of pretty women, scores of handsome women, a scant half dozen of really beautiful women. But he knew at once, beyond the possibility of question, that he had never seen or even imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the garden. Her loveliness was so perfect that his breath almost went from him in his first delight of it.

Her face was oval and delicately tinted, marked in every line and feature with the expression of absolute purity found in the angels and Madonnas of old paintings, a purity that had in it no faintest stain of earthliness. Her head was bare and her thick, jet-black hair was parted over her brow, “one moonbeam from the forehead to the crown”, and hung in two long braids over her shoulders. Her eyes were of such a blue as Eric had never seen in eyes before, the tint of the sea in the still, calm light that follows after a fine sunset, and they were fringed with very long silken lashes and arched over by most delicately black eyebrows. Her collarless dress of pale blue print revealed her smooth white throat; the sleeves were rolled up above her elbows and the hand that guided the bow of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her, perfect in shape and outline, firm and white, with taper, rosy-nailed fingers. She was about eighteen years old apparently.

Suddenly she turned her lovely eyes on Eric. The change in her was startling. She sprang to her feet, the bow slipping from her hand and the music breaking in mid-strain; every hint of color fled from her face and she trembled like one of the wind-stirred narcissus.

“I beg your pardon,” said Eric hastily, “I am sorry I have alarmed you, but your music was so beautiful that I forgot that you were not aware of my presence.”

He stopped in dismay for he realized that the expression on the girl’s face was one of terror, not merely the startled alarm of a shy, childlike creature who had thought herself alone, but absolute terror. It was betrayed in her blanched and quivering lips and in the wide blue eyes that stared back into his with the expression of some trapped wild thing. It hurt him that any woman should look at him like that—at him who had always held womanhood in reverence for the sake of the mother he had loved in boyhood.

“Don’t look so,” he exclaimed, thinking only of calming her fear and speaking as he would to a child. “I won’t hurt you. You are safe—quite safe.”

In his eagerness to reassure her he took an unconscious step forward. Instantly she turned and without a word or sound fled up the garden, through a gap in the western dyke and along what seemed to be a lane beyond, arched over with misty white wild plum trees. Before Eric could draw his breath she had vanished from his sight among the firs.

He stooped and picked up the violin bow.

“Well, what a mysterious thing!” he said aloud. “Am I bewitched? Who—what was she? Can it be possible that she is a Stillwater girl? And why should she be so frightened at sight of me? I never thought I was a very hideous person but this is certainly no temptation to vanity. Perhaps I’ve wandered into an enchanted garden and been outwardly transformed into an ogre. There is something uncanny about it apparently. Anything might happen in such a place.”

He glanced about it with a whimsical smile. The light was fading and the garden was full of soft creeping shadows and silences. It seemed to wink sleepy eyes of impish enjoyment at his perplexity. He laid the violin bow on the stone bench.

“Well, there is no use in my following her and I have no right to, even if it were of use. But I wish she hadn’t fled in such terror. Eyes like that were never meant to express anything but tenderness and trust.”

All the way home he pondered the mystery of who the girl might be.

“Let me see,” he reflected. “Old Mr. Williamson was describing the Stillwater girls for my benefit the other evening. I think he said there were four handsome ones in the district, Florrie Woods, Melissa Bell, Jennie Scott, and Clara May Ferguson. No, no, that girl couldn’t be a Florrie or a Melissa or a Jennie, while Clara May is completely out of the question. Well, there is some bewitchment in the affair. I’d better forget all about it.”

Eric found that he couldn’t forget all about it. The girl’s face haunted him, the mystery of her tantalized him. He might have asked the Williamsons about her but somehow he shrank from that. The next evening, with a little shrug at himself, he wandered southwest over the fields again. He found the garden easily. He had half expected not to find it the same still, fragrant grassy spot. It had no occupant; and although he lingered there for an hour no one came. But the violin bow was gone from the stone bench.

The keenness of his disappointment surprised him, even vexed him. What nonsense it was to be so worked up because a little girl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear! He called himself a fool and left at last in a petulant mood.

For two days he refused to let himself think of the garden. The evening of the third found him in it again, again to be disappointed. He went back determined to solve the mystery by open inquiry. Fortune favored him for he found Mrs. Williamson knitting alone in her kitchen in the dusk.

“Mrs. Williamson,” he said with an affectation of carelessness, “I stumbled on an old deserted garden back behind the woods over there the other evening—a charming bit of wilderness. Do you know whose it is?”

“I suppose it must be the old Connors garden,” answered Mrs. Williamson after a moment’s reflection. “I had forgotten it. It must be twenty years since the Connors moved away. Their house and barns were burned down and Mr. and Mrs. Connors sold the land to Thomas Marshall and moved to town. Mrs. Connors was very fond of flowers.”

“There was a young girl in it, playing on a violin,” said Eric, annoyed to find that it was an effort to speak of her and that the blood mounted to his face as he did so. “She ran away in alarm as soon as she saw me although I do not think I did anything to frighten or vex her. I have no idea who she was. Do you know?”

Mrs. Williamson did not make an immediate reply. Finally she said, with a tone of new interest in her voice, “I suppose it must have been Una Marshall, Master. And if it was you’ve seen what very few people in Stillwater have ever seen. And those few have never seen her close by. It’s no wonder she ran away, she isn’t used to seeing strangers.”

“I’m rather glad if that was the reason,” said Eric. “I admit I didn’t like to see a girl so frightened of me as she seemed to be. She was so terrified that she never uttered a word but just ran like a deer to cover.”

“She couldn’t have said a word in any case,” said Mrs. Williamson quietly. “She’s dumb.”

Eric sat in dismayed silence for a moment. That beautiful creature afflicted in such a fashion! Oh, it was horrible. He felt a pang of almost personal regret.

“Impossible,” he cried at last, remembering. “Why, she played the violin exquisitely. I never heard anything like it. It’s impossible that a deaf mute can play like that.”

“Oh, she isn’t deaf. That’s the strange part of it. She can hear as well as anybody and understands everything that is said to her. But she can’t speak a word and never could, or at least so they say. But nobody knows much about her. Janet and Thomas never speak of her and Neil won’t either. He’s been well questioned but he won’t say a word about Una ever and gets mad if folks persist. I think it’s terrible the way she has been brought up; but the Marshalls are strange people. Mr. Murray, I kind of reproved pa for saying so, you remember, but it is true. They have strange ways. And you’ve really seen Una? What does she look like? I’ve heard that she was handsome.”

“I thought her very beautiful,” said Eric briefly. “But how has she been brought up, Mrs. Williamson? And why?”

“It’s a sad story. Una is the niece of Thomas and Janet Marshall. Her mother was Margaret Marshall, their sister. Margaret was a great deal younger than Janet and Thomas; she was the second wife’s child. Her mother died when she was born and Janet brought her up. I knew Margaret Marshall well once. We were girls together and real good friends before she turned against all the world. She was a strange girl in some ways even then but I always liked her. She was very pretty and a little vain and very proud—oh, she was very proud. She was smart too and taught school over at Radnor. It was there she met a man named Ronald Fraser. He was a stranger and nobody knew much about him. But he was very handsome and taking and all the girls were in love with him, so it was said. Old James Marshall, Margaret’s father, didn’t approve of him much but Margaret coaxed him around—she could do pretty near anything with him, he was so proud of her—and he finally gave in and consented for her to marry Ronald Fraser. They had a big wedding, Margaret always liked to make a display and I think she wanted to show off her fine husband to the girls who were envying her. They went to live at Radnor and for a little while everything was well. Margaret had a nice house and was gay and happy. Then—well, then Ronald Fraser’s wife turned up, looking for him, his real wife. Oh, it was true enough—she proved it. Ronald Fraser wasn’t so much to blame, he had really thought his wife was dead, but there was a terrible scandal of course and he went away and Margaret came home to her father’s house. From the day that she went in over its threshold she never came out until she was carried out in her coffin three years ago; and not a soul ever saw her again outside her own family. I went to see her but Janet told me she would not see me. It was foolish of Margaret to act so. She hadn’t done any real wrong and everybody was sorry for her and would have helped her all they could. But I reckon pity cut her as deep as blame would have done, because she was so proud, you see, and had held her head so high. They say her father was hard on her too. Janet and Thomas felt it as well. Not many people had ever been in the habit of going to the Marshall place but the few that had soon stopped for they could see that they were not welcome. Old James Marshall died that winter. Una was born in the spring but nobody ever saw her. She was never sent to school or taken to church. Margaret Marshall died three years ago and everybody in Stillwater went to the funeral but they didn’t see her. The coffin lid was screwed down; and they didn’t see Una either. It was thought perhaps Janet and Thomas would take her out after her mother was gone but they didn’t, so I suppose they agreed with Margaret about the way she’d been brought up. I’ve often felt sorry for the poor girl and I don’t think her people did right by her even if she was mysteriously afflicted. She must have had a very sad, lonely life. If you don’t want to be pestered with questions about her, Master, you’d better not let on you’ve seen her.”

Eric was not likely to. He had heard all he wanted to know and more. So this girl was at the core of a tragedy! And she was dumb! Oh, the pity of it! He tried to put her out of his thoughts but he could not. The memory of her beautiful face drew him with a power he could not resist. The next evening he went again to the garden although he called himself a fool for it.