LM Montgomery owns Anne of Green Gables. Margaret Mitchell owns some other characters. I own the characters you don't recognize from any stories you have read. And legal disclaimers are for the birds. Tweet Tweet.
Saturday dawned humid and surprisingly hot. Baking was out of the question, and the Hamilton household ate on leftovers from the icebox and anything else that didn't need heating up. Even tea was unappealing with the weather being so muggy, and they allowed the fire to burn out in the stove. Houses in this area of the country were built to conserve the warmth from the kitchen and send it through the house. There were no summer kitchens to be found in Glen St. Mary.
They ventured to the beach to find some relief from the heat, but shady spots were few and far between. It seemed like a better idea to head back home--which they did, and spent the day in trying to move as little as possible. Everybody felt dull, and as nobody was in the mood for conversation, the only thing that could be heard was the swish of the women's fans. At least, that was true for the adults--the children went down to Rainbow Valley, where it was always cooler than in the higher elevations, and a little breeze always stirred, even on the heaviest days.
When nightfall came, sleeping in the bedrooms proved impossible, for the walls had absorbed the heat of the day and were now releasing it into the upper story. They pushed the parlor furniture against the walls, and the children placed bedrolls on the floor to sleep.
Marybeth knew she could find no sleep on the parlor couch, and decided that she needed to slip down to Rainbow Valley as soon as her family was slumbering.
Within the hour she was standing knee deep in the pond, her skirts bunched up and kept out of the water with her left hand, swishing her fan with the other. She had rolled her long sleeves up above her elbows and the intense humidity had caused her normally wavy hair to curl tightly, and little tendrils to escape. It was much cooler here than in her house and she thought that this might have been a good night for her boys to camp-out.
"What the devil are you doing in the pond?" She heard a voice holler to her. Somehow it seemed inevitable that Norman would be in the Valley on a night like this.
Without turning her head, she called back to him, "If I close my eyes I can imagine that I'm in New Orleans, what with this weather--and if I had known it could get so hot in Canada, I might have just vacationed in Louisiana and had it done with."
"Are you planning to stay there all night?"
She turned and looked at him a moment, still waving her fan, then waded out of the pond and sat on the grass to quickly pull on her stockings and shoes. He sat down next to her.
"With ankles like yours, it's a shame to wear your skirts so long."
She let that remark pass, but she pulled her legs under her, sitting Indian style and asked him, "What time is it?"
"A little after ten."
"In that case, are you hungry?" From her pocket she drew some cookies wrapped in a napkin and handed him one.
"Do you always carry food with you wherever you go?"
"Of course not. But it was too hot to eat very much today, and I was afraid I might get hungry when I came down here. And I did. It might have been too late to eat when I got back."
"Too late for what?"
"For church. If I ate after midnight, that would break the fast, you see."
"You have to fast?"
"If I want to go to Communion, yes I do. Are you going to eat, or what?"
"I don't know. I'd hate to see you starve."
"Then give it back."
"First, there's something I want to ask you--are you afraid you'll go to Hell if you don't do what the priests tell you?"
She tipped her head to one side and folded her hands in her lap. "I should hope religious observances are less about a place you want to run from and more about Someone you want to run to," she said easily. "But land sakes, if this is how you debate theology, it's no wonder all the old cats say you're headed for perdition."
"And what do you think?" He asked her slyly, tickled at her reference to the 'old cats'.
"The teachings are quite clear, it seems; 'Judge Not', " she replied. "But all the same, I'll be sure to light a candle for you tomorrow."
That made him roar with laughter as they got to their feet. He drew her arm through his and guided her towards the old Bailey House.
"What do you do in the winter when it's too cold to go out?" She asked.
"Read, mostly. There's usually something worthwhile to read about--if you read the right books."
They arrived at the crumbling structure of the Bailey house, and he picked her up and placed her on a section of wall that was flat topped. They were at eye level like this and he took her hand.
"So tell me why you're in such a hurry to leave the Glen."
"You're wrong, Mr. Douglas. I'm here for a few more weeks yet."
"You didn't answer my question, Mary."
She sighed and said, "Well, first of all, I promised my parents we would visit them after we leave here. They're getting up there in years, you know. And, the children need to be enrolled in school--"
"There are schools right here in the Glen," he murmured as he slipped an arm around her waist and lightly touched her face with his other hand.
She tried to keep her tone light. "I have to make sure my farm is still standing--my older boys are taking care of it, you see--and--um---"
He had kissed her temple and was pulling her closer. When he kissed her lightly along her hairline she started to lose the thread of the conversation. She tried to inject some humor. "Anyhow, I'm sure I would quickly wear out my welcome if I stayed too long."
She tried to laugh then, but with a swift motion that made her cling to him for balance, he put his other arm around her waist and whispered something in her ear.
"Norman!" she cried, "Behave yourself."
"You finally called me by my first name, Mary," he said and grinned at her. She looked at him, exasperated, but he took her face in his hands and she read intent in his eyes.
She put her hands around his wrists and cast about for something to say, quickly, but he took her by surprise by asking her, almost as an afterthought, "How many children do you have, anyway?"
She looked down and frowned a little, thinking. Then she looked directly at him and said, "Well, let's start with my oldest--he graduated from Harvard a few years ago, joined the Army and became an officer. He's stationed out west."
Norman looked at her intently for a moment before he said, "I thought you told me you were married 21 years ago. "
"I did."
He was quiet for another moment, then he took a strand of her hair and curled it around his finger. As he lightly stroked her cheek he asked," Well, well, you have a story to tell?
"Not much of a story," she replied, "and nothing very original either. I just got in a heap of trouble when I was a young girl."
"Too flirtatious for your own good--hey?"
Marybeth couldn't help but chuckle with astonishment. "Flirtatious? Not at all. I assure you, Norman; you wouldn't have given me a second glance in those days. I was a terrible hoyden tomboy, fourteen years old and with no other thought in my head than to get into the ball game with the boys and ride horses too fast. My poor Maman tried hard, tried to make me put my hair up, tried to make me act like a lady. She warned me that I was too old to play with the boys, but I didn't listen to her. The things that the other girls found fascinating bored me. I didn't want to knit or sew or learn how to keep house or any of it." She had begun her tale slowly and haltingly, but she quickly gained momentum and now she needed to take a deep breath. It felt as if a dam had burst inside her mind and once she started talking she couldn't stop; didn't want to stop.
"I was headstrong, ignorant and deeply naive and it was a dangerous combination. I really didn't understand what Maman was so worried about. And one day, my best friend and I went up into the hills to shoot rabbits, as we had done many times before, only on that day he didn't have rabbit-hunting on his mind. I didn't fully realize what he--I mean, I didn't know--didn't understand," she sighed in frustration. "I mean until it was too late..." her voice trailed off as she frowned, trying to phrase her meaning delicately.
"I get the general idea. Go on," he said, abruptly. He was sitting next to her now, his arm loosely around her shoulders. He could feel how stiff her body had become, even as her voice remained steady and her gaze was unflinching. But she started swinging her feet, thumping her heels against the wall.
"Well--afterwards--I refused to speak to him again. But in the following weeks I came to the realization that the whole incident couldn't be hidden. So, I lit out. South to Philadelphia, then out West, then eventually to Georgia."
"Running off like that--that was a fool thing to do. Don't you know the kinds of dangers there are for girls alone and unprotected?"
She turned to look at him then. He hadn't meant any irony, but she couldn't resist a tinge of sarcasm as she answered, "Yes I do."
"What happened to the child?"
"Nothing happened to him. I raised him and he grew up."
"But when you met your husband, how did you account for already having a child?"
Marybeth was quiet for so long Norman wondered if she had heard him. Then she spoke, very slowly as if choosing her words carefully.
"I did something very wicked--something of my own choosing. During my drifting days I happened to make a friend. She advised me to give out that I was married but widowed. Then I would stand a better chance of getting a position as a hired girl in a good house. She knew people--she was able to get me fake certificates, she gave me an old ring she had in her possession. It was bad advice, and I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway."
Then she was quiet again for a while. "Naturally, you reap what you sow. The whole nasty business caught up with me--the story gets complicated at this point, but the long and short of it is this. Our paths crossed again and he told my husband the whole story. My husband, in an effort to avenge my honor, called him out. And, my husband was the better shot." There was a trace of grim pride in her voice as she told this last part. Her head was starting to ache and she closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples.
"The truth does make you free. Not necessarily comfortable, but free--there was no more pretending for me. And anyhow, now you know."
He helped her down from the wall and they walked across Rainbow Valley towards her house.
"It's getting cooler. Tomorrow won't be as hot as today was," he said.
"Mmm-hmm."
"Now see here, Mary," he stopped and turned to her. "You put yourself through all that danger--you could have been killed, living on the streets like that-- but you never thought about just telling your mother and father?"
"There would have been a scandal, it would have brought disgrace on my family, my father would have killed Mik. He never liked him very much anyway. Then there would have been problems with the neighbors."
"Why didn't your father like him?"
"Because he wasn't Irish. Father only wanted us girls to associate with Irish boys."
"What was he?"
"Hungarian. But Catholic. That was the only reason Father allowed me to be friends with him at all. But that's not the only reason I didn't tell." She crossed her arms and shivered in the chill. "I was afraid they wouldn't let me keep the baby, and I didn't want my own child to be taken away and placed with people who don't have any more sense than to judge a child by the actions of its mother. 'Foundling' is a bad enough name, but you know as well as I that there are worse names given to children who don't have fathers."
"I still say that wasn't a smart plan."
She shrugged. "It was the only plan I could think of at the time."
Marybeth was tired now, in mind and in body. She had never told anybody what had happened up in the hills that day for the simple reason that nobody ever asked. Most of the people in her life hadn't really wanted to know. Only Norman had the impudence to question her, even half-jokingly as he did.
He took her to the gate at the bottom of her back yard, then he pulled her into his arms to hold her for a long moment before he kissed the top of her head. But when he placed a hand under her chin, tilted her face to his and leaned towards her, she said, firmly, "Norman, don't." He stepped back, giving her a look that seemed to go through her. But she couldn't give him what he wanted. She simply couldn't.