Lorraine feared her child was growing away from her - growing into the hard Blaisdell reserve perhaps. She could not ask Marigold what had changed her - that would be to admit change. When Aunt Anne wanted Mother to let Marigold go to her for a visit and Mother consented, Marigold refused almost tearfully - though she had once wanted so much to go. Suppose Mother would get married while she was away? Suppose that was why she wanted her to go to Aunt Anne's? And they wouldn't even have the same name! How terrible it would be to hear people say, "Oh, that is Marigold Lesley - Mrs. THOMPSON'S daughter, you know."
They might even call her Marigold Thompson!
Marigold felt she could not bear it. Why, she wouldn't be wanted anywhere. Oh, couldn't something - or somebody - prevent it?
"I wonder if it would do any good to pray about it," she thought wearily and concluded it wouldn't. It would be of no use to pray against a minister, of course. Gwen had said she jumped up and down and screamed until she got her own way. But Marigold could not quite see herself doing that. Just suppose she did. Why the brides in the garret would come rushing down - Clementine would at last look up from her lily - Old Grandmother would jump out of her frame in the orchard room. But still Mother would marry Mr. Thompson. Mother who was looking so pretty and blooming this fall. Before she knew this ghastly thing Marigold had been so pleased when people said, "How well Lorraine is looking." Now it was an insult.
As Christmas grew near, Cloud of Spruce was fairly haunted by Marigold's sad little face. "How thin you're getting, darling," said Mother anxiously.
"Jane Thompson's fat enough," said Marigold pettishly.
Mother smiled. She thought Marigold was a little jealous of the rose-faced Jane. Probably some Josephinian person had been praising Jane too much. Mother thought she understood - and Marigold thought SHE understood. And still the gulf of misunderstanding between them widened and deepened.
Would this be the last Christmas she would ever spend with Mother? The day before Christmas they went to the graveyard as usual. Marigold crushed the holly wreath down on Fathers grave with savage intensity. SHE hadn't forgotten him, if Mother had.
"And I'll never call HIM 'Father,'" she sobbed. "Not if they kill me."
3
The Christmas reunion was at Aunt Marcia's that year, and Grandmother could not go because her bronchitis was worse and Mother would not leave her. Marigold was glad. She was in no mood for Christmas reunions.
In the afternoon Salome got Lazarre to hitch up the buggy and drove herself over to the village to see some old friends. She took Marigold with her and Marigold prowled about the streets while Salome gossiped. It was a very mild, still day. The wind had fallen asleep in the spruce woods behind South Harmony and great beautiful flakes were floating softly down. Some impulse she could not resist drew her to the manse. Would Mother soon be living I here? Such an ugly square house, with not even a tree about it. And no real garden. Only a little kitchen-plot off to one side. With an old pig rooting in it.
Marigold perceived that the pig was in Mr. Thompson's parsnip-bed. Well, what of it? SHE wasn't going to tell Mr. Thompson. He could look after his own parsnips. She turned and walked deliberately to the main street. Then she turned as deliberately back. If Mother were living in that manse in the spring she must have parsnips. Mother was so fond of parsnips. Marigold went firmly up the walk and up the steps and to the door. There she stood for a few minutes, apparently turned to stone. The door was open. And the door of a room off the hall was open. An unfurnished room, still littered with the mess paperhangers make but with beautiful walls blossoming in velvety flowers. And Mr. Thompson was standing in this room with Third Cousin Ellice Lesley from Summerside. Marigold knew "Aunt" Ellice very well. A comfortable woman who never counted calories and always wore her hair in smooth glossy ripples just like the wave marks on the sand. Aunt Ellice was not handsome, but as old Mr. McAllister said, she was "a useful wumman - a verra useful wumman." She was also a well- off woman and she wore just now a very smart hat and a rich plush coat with a big red rose pinned to the collar.
AND MR. THOMPSON WAS KISSING HER!
Marigold turned and stole noiselessly away - but not before she had heard Mr. Thompson say,
"Sweetums," and Aunt Ellice say "Honey-boy!"
The pig was still rooting in the parsnips. Let him root - while the minister kissed women he had no business to kiss - women with complexions like tallow candles and ankles like sausages and eyes so shallow that they looked as if they were pasted on their faces. And called them "Sweetums!"
Marigold was so full of indignation for her mother's sake that she would not wait for Salome. She tore homeward through the white flakes to Cloud of Spruce, and found Mother keeping some tryst with the past before a jolly open fire in the orchard room.
"Mother," cried Marigold in breathless fury, "Mr. Thompson's kissing Aunt Ellice - in the manse - KISSING her."
"Well, why shouldn't he kiss her?" asked Mother amusedly.
"Don't you - CARE?"
"Care? Why should I care? He is going to marry Aunt Ellice in two weeks' time."
Marigold stared. All her life seemed to have been drained out of her body and concentrated in her eyes.
"I - thought - that - YOU were going to marry him, Mother."
"Me! Why, Marigold, whatever put such a silly idea into your head, darling?"
Marigold continued to stare. Great tears slowly formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
"Marigold - Marigold!" Mother folded her arms about her and drew her to her knee. "Why are you so disappointed because I'm not going to marry Mr. Thompson?"
Disappointed!
"I'm so happy - so happy, Mother," sobbed Marigold. "I was so afraid you WERE."
"And that's why you've been so funny to him. Marigold, why didn't you ask me - "
"I couldn't bear to. I was so afraid you'd say it was true."
Lorraine Lesley cuddled her baby closer. She understood and did not laugh at the torture the little soul had endured.
"Darling, no one who had loved your father could ever love any one else. I've HAD love - and now I have its memory - and YOU. That is enough for me."
"Mother," whispered Marigold, "were you - disappointed because - I wasn't a boy?"
"Never. Not for one minute. I wanted you to be a girl. And so did your father. There hadn't been a little girl at Cloud of Spruce for so long, he said."
Marigold sat very still with her face against her mother's. She knew this was one of the moments that last forever.
4
Mr. Thompson was such a nice man. Such a nice, jolly, friendly man. She hoped that pig hadn't eaten ALL his parsnips. She was dreadfully sorry for him because he wasn't going to get Mother, but Aunt Ellice would do very well. She was so useful. A ministers wife should be useful. And Jane was a darling. How jolly it was not to hate anybody any more. Life and she were good friends again.
It had stopped snowing. A big round silvery moon was floating up over a snowy hill. The little hollow in Mr. Donkin's field that would be a pool, blue-flagged, in summer, was a round white dimple, as if some giantess had pressed her finger down. The orchard was full of fine, faint blue shadows on the snow. It was a lovely world and life was beautiful. The paper that day had said a king's son had been born in Europe and a millionaire's son in Montreal. A far more interesting event which the paper had not chronicled, was that the Witch of Endor had three lovely kittens in the apple-barn. And to-morrow she would go up the hill and tryst again with Sylvia.