Marigold knew what THAT meant. Just sheer jealousy. And of course it was also jealousy that led Caroline to say that Hip had bitten his sister when he was four years old and left open old Mr. Simon's gate on purpose so that the pigs could get into the garden. Marigold did not believe a word of it.
She had such a funny feeling when other people pronounced his name. It was thrilling to go to church and listen to Mr. Price preaching. HIS father. Marigold hated old Tom Ainsworth for sleeping in church. And there was one almost painfully rapturous day when she and Amy were invited to the manse to tea. To eat a meal at the same table with Hip was something in the nature of a rite, with the big maple rustling outside the window on which, Hip told her, he had cut their intertwined initials. How bitterly she resented it when his mother told him to keep his elbow off the table and not talk with his mouth full!
And every morning that romantic journey to the mailbox to find a letter - a delightful letter. There were times when Marigold felt, though she would not admit it even to herself, that she really liked Hip's letters much better than Hip himself.
In one he told her she was his Little Queen. And he had written that especial sentence in red ink - or - was it? - could it be - Marigold had heard of such things. She pitied every other girl, especially the consecrated Caroline, and thought of Hip every time the moon rose or didn't rise.
"You are so different from everybody else," Hip told her. Clever Hip.
4
The course of true love even at eleven never runs smooth. There came a dreadful day when she and Hip almost quarrelled. Marigold had been told a certain shameful little secret by Netta Caroll about Em Dawes. Em Dawes was living with an aunt down in the village because her father and mother were divorced, true's you live. Netta had heard it over in Halifax and cross your heart you were never to tell a word of it. Marigold promised solemnly she would never tell. And then Hip, with his uncanny nose for secrets, discovered that Marigold had one and coaxed her to tell him.
Marigold wanted to tell him - yearned to tell him - felt her heart must really break if she didn't tell him. But there was her solemn promise. Lesleys did not break their solemn promises. It was a custom of their caste. Hip grew angry when he found her so unexpectedly unmalleable, and when anger gave him nothing - except perhaps the look in Marigold's face - he became sad and reproachful. She didn't like him a bit, of course, when she wouldn't tell him what she and Netta had been whispering about that time.
"If you don't tell me," said Hip earnestly, "I'll go and drown myself. When you see me lying dead you'll wish you'd told me."
Hip rather overreached himself there, because Marigold didn't believe at all that there was the slightest fear of his drowning himself. She stuck gallantly to her determination not to tell, despite his pleadings. And then the next afternoon, when it became known that Hip Price had disappeared and could not be found anywhere, though everybody in the community was madly searching for him, Marigold thought she must die. HAD Hip actually drowned himself because he thought she did not like him? HAD he? The dread was intolerable. How terrible to live all your life remembering that some one had drowned himself because of you! Who could support such a prospect?
"I heard a dog howling under my window last night," sobbed Amy. "Mother says that's a sure sign of death."
"That was only old Lazy Murphy's dog. Surely you don't think HE knows anything," protested Marigold. She was resentful of Amy's crying. What right had Amy to cry about Hip? She, Marigold, could not cry. Her dread went too deep for tears.
"His mother believes he's kidnapped," said Amy, hunting for a dry spot in her handkerchief. "She's just been going from one fainting fit to another all day. But some say he was seen going down the river in that leaky old boat of Shanty George's. Certain death, Shanty George says it was. Oh, I won't sleep a wink to-night."
Then came Caroline and June, and Caroline and June were also in tears - which did not improve the looks of either of them. Or their tempers, evidently. Caroline was shrewish.
"I don't see what YOU'RE crying about, June Page. He wasn't YOUR minister's son. You're a Baptist."
"I guess I've as good a right to cry as you," retorted June. "Hip was my friend - my special friend. He thought more of me than of any girl in Owl's Hill. He's told me so DOZENS of times. He told me I was different from anybody he'd ever met. Cry! I will cry. Just you try to stop me."
An unbecoming red flush had risen in Caroline's pale face.
"Did Hip Price really tell you that?" she asked in a queer voice. Marigold, in the background, stood as if turned to the proverbial stone. Amy had put her handkerchief in her pocket.
"Yes, he did. And wrote it. I've had a letter from him every day for weeks."
"So have I," said Caroline.
June in her turn stopped crying and glared at Caroline.
"You haven't."
"I have. I can show them to you. And he told ME I was different from any one he ever knew and that he couldn't help being crazy about me."
"He wrote me that, too," said June.
They looked at each other. No more tears were shed for Hip - nor would be if he were lying forty fathoms deep.
"Did he ever kiss your hand?" demanded Caroline.
June giggled - a giggle that seemed to make everything ugly. "More than that," she said significantly.
Marigold involuntarily brushed something from her hand. The power of thought had returned to her. She was very thankful now that she hadn't been able to cry. There were no stains on her face. Calmly, proudly as any Lesley of them all, she drained her cup of wormwood and gall.
June began to cry again - in self-pity this time. The Pages, Marigold reflected disdainfully, had no pride.
"He called me his Little Queen," she sobbed, "and said I had a crown of golden hair."
To call June Page's hair golden when it was just tow-coloured! And fancy a Little Queen with a nose like a dab of putty! Oh, it was to laugh.
Caroline did not cry. But she looked very limp. She had been also Little-Queened. "And he said my eyes were so sweet and provoking."
To think of those round pale eyes of Caroline's being called sweet and provoking! Oh, of course Hip had left old Simon's gate open and bit his sister - bit her frequently. Not a doubt of it.
"He's just been a regular mean two-faced deceitful little sneak," said June violently, "and I hope he IS drowned, I do."
"I didn't think a minister's son would do that," said Caroline mournfully. There was something especially terrible about a minister's son doing a thing like that. Whom could one trust if not a minister's son?
"I believe they are the worst sometimes," said June. "Well, you can have him."
"I don't want him!" said Caroline superbly, remembering at last that she was consecrated.
They went away on that note. Amy looked guiltily at Marigold.
"I - I wasn't going to tell THEM," she said, "but I got letters from Hip, too. Lovely letters. I CAN'T believe he didn't mean them. Of course he was just fooling THEM but - "
"He was fooling everybody," said Marigold shortly. "And we needn't worry over his being drowned. He'll turn up safe and sound. I'm going home to write to Mother."
Marigold did write to Mother - not telling her QUITE everything, however. But first she burned a packet of schoolboy love-letters. She felt as if she had been mixed up in something very grimy. And she suddenly felt a great longing to be sitting on the old wharf below Cloud of Spruce, watching the boats coming in and feeling the clear, fresh sea-breeze from the dunes blowing in her face. Oh, how she hated and despised Hip Price.
But what was it Old Grandmother had said once? - That it was the hardest thing in the world to be just.