This was, of course, an exaggeration. But Marigold suddenly remembered with horror that Mr. Thompson had made a great many calls lately. Of course Grandmother had had a slight attack of bronchitis; but a dreadful conviction assailed her that Mr. Henry had never called so often, even when Salome had pneumonia. She stared miserably at Em.
"They're to be married before spring, I heard," said Fanny Collins. "Your mother was in Summerside the other day helping him pick paper for the manse. Aunt Lindy saw them."
"My, won't YOUR nose be out of joint," said Sally McLean.
"You'll have to be Marigold Thompson after the wedding," said Lula Nelson.
"They'll send you to a boarding-school, true's you live," said Dot Church.
None of these jabs produced any sign of life in Marigold. She sat as one stunned. Oh, if she could only be alone - far, far away from these hateful girls - to face this!
"Ma says your mother isn't a bit suitable for a minister's wife," said Velma.
"Too dressy and extravagant," added Em.
"Aunt Beth says his first wife was the finest woman that ever lived," said Pet Dixon.
"It's a wonder your mother would marry a bluenose," said Janet Irving.
"I guess she has a hard enough time with the old lady," said Pet.
"Ma says Mrs. Leander has perked up amazing this fall," said Lula.
The school-bell rang and the ring of malicious faces melted away. Marigold followed them slowly into the school. Her feet were like lead and her spirit that had "flown on feathers" in the morning was heavier still. The world had all at once got so very dark. Oh, COULD it be true? It couldn't - Marigold had another awful recollection.
"Mrs. Lesley's engaged," Salome had said gently one day the preceding week, as she had shut the door in the face of a too- persistent insurance-man.
Oh, yes, it must be true.
"Salome," said Marigold that evening, "do you think God ever does things out of spite?"
"Just listen to her," said Salome. "You mustn't ask such wicked questions. That's as bad as anything Gwen Lesley could say."
"I'm sorry," said Marigold with more persistence, "but DOES He?"
"Of course not," said Salome. "It's the Old Gentleman that's spiteful. What's the matter with you? You don't look just right. Have you got a cold?"
Marigold felt that a cold had got her. She was cold and sick to the core of her soul. Everything had been torn out of her little life at once. And not a word could she say to Mother about it.
2
Marigold had thought she was done forever with jealousy when she discovered the truth about Clementine's feet. And now she was in the grip of a jealousy tenfold worse. THAT had been merely a ghostly vexation of the soul. THIS was a burning torment of the heart. Perhaps Marigold was never more bitterly unhappy in all her life than she was during the two months following that day by the brook. Everything fed her suspicion and jealousy. She was filled with hate. She could not enjoy anything because she was hating Mr. Thompson so much. She even hated poor, innocent little Jane Thompson. Would Jane call Mother "mother?" If she did!
November came in, with its dark, dull twilights that made Marigold feel grown up and old - with its mournful winds rustling the dead leaves on its cold, desolate, moonless nights - with its wintry song of old grey fields and the sorrowful grey ghosts of the goldenrod in the fence corners. And Mr. Thompson's motor-lights burning cheerfully at the gate in so many of its chill evenings. Marigold felt that it was going to be November forever. "To-morrow" had once been a word of magic to her. Now "to-morrow" would only be more cruel than to-day.
But it was a torturing satisfaction to hate Mr. Thompson. She felt sure she had always hated him. Lucifer certainly had - and cats KNEW. You couldn't hoodwink Lucifer. Nothing about him pleased Marigold any more. She remembered what Lazarre had once said about another Frenchman who had done something that reflected on his race.
"But you surely don't want to see him hanged," protested Salome.
"No - no - oh, no, course we not lak to see heem hang," acknowledged Lazarre, "but we lak to see heem DESTROYED."
That exactly expressed Marigold's feelings towards Mr. Thompson. She would not want to see him hanged but she would cheerfully have had him "destroyed." It was a certain ephemeral satisfaction to name the big dead Scotch thistle behind the apple-barn "Rev. Mr. Thompson" and cut it down and burn it. She looked at him drinking his tea and wished there were poison in the cup. Not enough to kill him - oh, no, just enough to make him awfully sick and disgusted with the idea of marrying any one. Once, when he grew angry over what some one in the church had done and pounded the table, Marigold had said under her breath to Mother, "See what a husband you'll have!"
She wished she could refuse to go to church but she could not do that, so she sat there scowling blackly at him. When he came to the house she was the very incarnation of disdain. And he never noticed it! To be disdainful and not have it noticed was unendurable. Half the time he couldn't even remember her name and called her Daffodil. Once he grew fatherly and tried to stroke her hair. "I'm not a cat," said Marigold rudely, jerking away. She had to beg his pardon for that. Cloud of Spruce couldn't imagine why Marigold had taken such a scunner to the minister.
"He preaches such lovely sermons," said Salome reproachfully. "He can draw tears to my eyes."
"So can onions," said Marigold savagely.
And yet when Em Stanton told her that Stanton père said Mr. Thompson was a shallow-pated creature Marigold flashed pale lightning at her. This would never do. If Mother were really going to marry him he must be defended.
"Oh, all right," said Em, walking off. "I didn't know you liked him. I didn't suppose any one could like a bluenose."
"He isn't a bluenose," said Marigold, who hadn't the slightest idea what a bluenose was.
"He IS. Your Uncle Klon told me so himself the day he picked me up on the road. We met the minister in his car and your Uncle Klon said, 'Trust a bluenose to bust the speed-limit every time.' And I said, 'Is Mr. Thompson a bluenose?' and he said, 'The very bluest of them.' So there now!"
"But what is a bluenose?" demanded Marigold wildly. She MUST know the worst.
"Well, I'm not sure but I THINK it is a dope-fiend," said Em cautiously. "I asked Vera Church and she said she thought that's what it was. It's a terrible thing. They see hidjus faces wherever they look. There's nothing too bad for them to do. And they're that sly. Nobody would ever suspect them at first until they get so they can't hide it. Then they have to be put away."
Put away! What did "put away" mean? But Marigold would ask no more questions of Em. Every question answered seemed to make a bad matter worse. But if Mr. Thompson ever had to be "put away" she wished it might happen before he married Mother.
Things constantly happened that tortured her. Mr. Thompson came more and more often to Cloud of Spruce. He took Mother to Summerside to pick more wallpaper; he came one evening and said to Mother,
"I want to consult you about Jane's adenoids."
Mother took him into the orchard room and closed the door. Marigold haunted the hall outside like an uneasy little ghost. What was going on behind that closed door? SHE had a sore throat, but was Mother troubled over THAT? Not at all. She was wrapped up in Jane's adenoids - whatever they were.
When nothing happened to torture her she tortured herself. Would she have to leave dear Cloud of Spruce when Mother married Mr. Thompson? Or perhaps Mother would leave her all alone there with Grandmother, as Millie Graham's mother had done. And there would be no one to meet her any more when she came from school; or stand at the door in the twilight calling her in to shelter out of the dark; or sit by her bed and talk to her before she went to sleep. Though now her bedtime talks with Mother were not what they had been. Always some veil of strangerhood hung between them.