The Complete Short Stories of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Lucy Maud Montgomery
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of all the curious coincidences,’ I exclaimed. ‘Why,
Miss Ridley, it was I who advertised for a Persian cat — on Sue’s
behalf. She and Ismay have decided that they want a cat like
Fatima for themselves.’
“You should have seen how she beamed. She said she knew you always really liked cats, only you would never own up to it. We clinched the dicker then and there. I passed her over your hundred and ten dollars — she took the money without turning a hair — and now you are the joint owners of Fatima. Good luck to your bargain!”
“Mean old thing,” sniffed Ismay. She meant Aunt Cynthia, and, remembering our shabby furs, I didn’t disagree with her.
“But there is no Fatima,” I said, dubiously. “How shall we account for her when Aunt Cynthia comes home?”
“Well, your aunt isn’t coming home for a month yet. When she comes you will have to tell her that the cat — is lost — but you needn’t say WHEN it happened. As for the rest, Fatima is your property now, so Aunt Cynthia can’t grumble. But she will have a poorer opinion than ever of your fitness to run a house alone.”
When Max left I went to the window to watch him down the path. He was really a handsome fellow, and I was proud of him. At the gate he turned to wave me good-by, and, as he did, he glanced upward. Even at that distance I saw the look of amazement on his face. Then he came bolting back.
“Ismay, the house is on fire!” I shrieked, as I flew to the door.
“Sue,” cried Max, “I saw Fatima, or her ghost, at the garret window a moment ago!”
“Nonsense!” I cried. But Ismay was already half way up the stairs and we followed. Straight to the garret we rushed. There sat Fatima, sleek and complacent, sunning herself in the window.
Max laughed until the rafters rang.
“She can’t have been up here all this time,” I protested, half tearfully. “We would have heard her meowing.”
“But you didn’t,” said Max.
“She would have died of the cold,” declared Ismay.
“But she hasn’t,” said Max.
“Or starved,” I cried.
“The place is alive with mice,” said Max. “No, girls, there is no doubt the cat has been here the whole fortnight. She must have followed Huldah Jane up here, unobserved, that day. It’s a wonder you didn’t hear her crying — if she did cry. But perhaps she didn’t, and, of course, you sleep downstairs. To think you never thought of looking here for her!”
“It has cost us over a hundred dollars,” said Ismay, with a malevolent glance at the sleek Fatima.
“It has cost me more than that,” I said, as I turned to the stairway.
Max held me back for an instant, while Ismay and Fatima pattered down.
“Do you think it has cost too much, Sue?” he whispered.
I looked at him sideways. He was really a dear. Niceness fairly exhaled from him.
“No-o-o,” I said, “but when we are married you will have to take care of Fatima, I won’t.”
“Dear Fatima,” said Max gratefully.
THE MATERIALIZING OF CECIL
It had never worried me in the least that I wasn’t married, although everybody in Avonlea pitied old maids; but it DID worry me, and I frankly confess it, that I had never had a chance to be. Even Nancy, my old nurse and servant, knew that, and pitied me for it. Nancy is an old maid herself, but she has had two proposals. She did not accept either of them because one was a widower with seven children, and the other a very shiftless, good-for-nothing fellow; but, if anybody twitted Nancy on her single condition, she could point triumphantly to those two as evidence that “she could an she would.” If I had not lived all my life in Avonlea I might have had the benefit of the doubt; but I had, and everybody knew everything about me — or thought they did.
I had really often wondered why nobody had ever fallen in love with me. I was not at all homely; indeed, years ago, George Adoniram Maybrick had written a poem addressed to me, in which he praised my beauty quite extravagantly; that didn’t mean anything because George Adoniram wrote poetry to all the goodlooking girls and never went with anybody but Flora King, who was cross-eyed and redhaired, but it proves that it was not my appearance that put me out of the running. Neither was it the fact that I wrote poetry myself — although not of George Adoniram’s kind — because nobody ever knew that. When I felt it coming on I shut myself up in my room and wrote it out in a little blank book I kept locked up. It is nearly full now, because I have been writing poetry all my life. It is the only thing I have ever been able to keep a secret from Nancy. Nancy, in any case, has not a very high opinion of my ability to take care of myself; but I tremble to imagine what she would think if she ever found out about that little book. I am convinced she would send for the doctor posthaste and insist on mustard plasters while waiting for him.
Nevertheless, I kept on at it, and what with my flowers and my cats and my magazines and my little book, I was really very happy and contented. But it DID sting that Adella Gilbert, across the road, who has a drunken husband, should pity “poor Charlotte” because nobody had ever wanted her. Poor Charlotte indeed! If I had thrown myself at a man’s head the way Adella Gilbert did at — but there, there, I must refrain from such thoughts. I must not be uncharitable.
The Sewing Circle met at Mary Gillespie’s on my fortieth birthday. I have given up talking about my birthdays, although that little scheme is not much good in Avonlea where everybody knows your age — or if they make a mistake it is never on the side of youth. But Nancy, who grew accustomed to celebrating my birthdays when I was a little girl, never gets over the habit, and I don’t try to cure her, because, after all, it’s nice to have some one make a fuss over you. She brought me up my breakfast before I got up out of bed — a concession to my laziness that Nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. She had cooked everything I like best, and had decorated the tray with roses from the garden and ferns from the woods behind the house. I enjoyed every bit of that breakfast, and then I got up and dressed, putting on my second best muslin gown. I would have put on my really best if I had not had the fear of Nancy before my eyes; but I knew she would never condone THAT, even on a birthday. I watered my flowers and fed my cats, and then I locked myself up and wrote a poem on June. I had given up writing birthday odes after I was thirty.
In the afternoon I went to the Sewing Circle. When I was ready for it I looked in my glass and wondered if I could really be forty. I was quite sure I didn’t look it. My hair was brown and wavy, my cheeks were pink, and the lines could hardly be seen at all, though possibly that was because of the dim light. I always have my mirror hung in the darkest corner of my room. Nancy cannot imagine why. I know the lines are there, of course; but when they don’t show very plain I forget that they are there.
We had a large Sewing Circle, young and old alike attending. I really cannot say I ever enjoyed the meetings — at least not up to that time — although I went religiously because I thought it my duty to go. The married women talked so much of their husbands and children, and of course I had to be quiet on those topics; and the young girls talked in corner groups about their beaux, and stopped it when I joined them, as if they felt sure that an old maid who had never had a beau couldn’t understand at all. As for the other old maids, they talked gossip about every one, and I did not like that either. I knew the minute my back was turned they would fasten into me and hint that I used hair-dye and declare it was perfectly ridiculous for a woman of FIFTY to wear a pink muslin dress with lace-trimmed frills.
There was a full attendance that day, for we were getting