Читать книгу The Complete Emily Starr Trilogy: Emily of New Moon + Emily Climbs + Emily's Quest: Unabridged - Люси Мод Монтгомери - Страница 11

“Well, I reckon it never will. Fred had a bit of Shipley in him, too, you see. One of old Hugh’s girls was his grandmother. And Doctor Burnley up there in the big grey house has more than a bit.”

“Is he a relation of ours, too, Cousin Jimmy?”

“Forty-second cousin. Way back he had a cousin of Mary Shipley’s for a great-something. That was in the Old Country — his forebears came out here after we did. He’s a good doctor but an odd stick — odder by far than I am, Emily, and yet nobody ever says he’s not all there. Can you account for that? He doesn’t believe in God — and I am not such a fool as that.”

“Not in any God?”

“Not in any God. He’s an infidel, Emily. And he’s bringing his little girl up the same way, which I think is a shame, Emily,” said Cousin Jimmy confidentially.

“Doesn’t her mother teach her things?”

“Her mother is — dead,” answered Cousin Jimmy, with a little odd hesitation. “Dead these ten years,” he added in a firmer tone. “Ilse Burnley is a great girl — hair like daffodils and eyes like yellow diamonds.”

“Oh, Cousin Jimmy, you promised you’d tell me about the Lost Diamond,” cried Emily eagerly.

“To be sure — to be sure. Well, it’s there — somewhere in or about the old summer-house, Emily. Fifty years ago Edward Murray and his wife came here from Kingsport for a visit. A great lady she was, and wearing silks and diamonds like a queen, though no beauty. She had a ring on with a stone in it that cost two hundred pounds, Emily. That was a big lot of money to be wearing on one wee woman-finger, wasn’t it? It sparkled on her white hand as she held her dress going up the steps of the summer-house; but when she came down the steps it was gone.”

“And was it never found?” asked Emily breathlessly.

“Never — and for no lack of searching. Edward Murray wanted to have the house pulled down — but Uncle Archibald wouldn’t hear of it — because he had built it for his bride. The two brothers quarrelled over it and were never good friends again. Everybody in the connection has taken a spell hunting for the diamond. Most folks think it fell out of the summer-house among the flowers or shrubs. But I know better, Emily. I know Miriam Murray’s diamond is somewhere about that old house yet. On moonlit nights, Emily, I’ve seen it glinting — glinting and beckoning. But never in the same place — and when you go to it — it’s gone, and you see it laughing at you from somewhere else.”

Again there was that eerie, indefinable something in Cousin Jimmy’s voice or look that gave Emily a sudden crinkly feeling in her spine. But she loved the way he talked to her, as if she were grownup; and she loved the beautiful land around her; and, in spite of the ache for her father and the house in the hollow which persisted all the time and hurt her so much at night that her pillow was wet with secret tears, she was beginning to be a little glad again in sunset and bird song and early white stars, in moonlit nights and singing winds. She knew life was going to be wonderful here — wonderful and interesting, what with outdoor cookhouses and cream-girdled dairies and pond paths and sundials, and Lost Diamonds, and Disappointed Houses and men who didn’t believe in any God — not even Ellen Greene’s God. Emily hoped she would soon see Dr Burnley. She was very curious to see what an infidel looked like. And she had already quite made up her mind that she would find the Lost Diamond.