Chapter 7

SAINT VALENTINE'S PRANK

But indeed there was no time for dreams with the days of preparation for Mary's wedding flying past. It had been set for the Christmas holidays when the boys would be home, and Annie Brown, who was the neighbourhood dressmaker, spent almost all her days at the Lindsays now, for Allister's cheque had bought many yards of silk and lace and Mary must be as fine as possible to go away and live in a house in town and be dressed up every afternoon of her life.

Christmas came with a rush on snow laden wings, and the boys came home and the old house was filled with noise and laughter. Sandy could not do enough for Christina, he followed her about, that she might not so much as lift a pail of water without his assistance, for he was always keenly conscious of all she was doing for him, and his conduct made Christina far happier than a college course could possibly make any human being. And then came the wedding before anybody was really ready, as weddings always do, with all the MacGillivrays from Port Stewart and all the McDonald relations from Glenoro. And then suddenly it was all over and Sandy and Neil were gone back to Toronto and Jimmie to Algonquin; and Christina awoke to the astonishing and dismaying fact that Mary had left them and gone far away to live in a home of her own. This last fact dwarfed all others and threw even Sandy's absence into lighter gloom.

Early in the Winter she paid a short visit to Mary's new home in Port Stewart. It was a wonderful place, with slippery hardwood floors that had to be polished instead of scrubbed, and shiny new furniture, and electric lights all over--you could press a little button in the hall at the front door and the light would flash up in the cellar; and hot water upstairs in the bathroom; and a telephone that rang your own number only, and through which no one could overhear what you were saying; and a piano, and Mary taking music lessons, and she a married woman! All these wonders had to be shouted again and again to Grandpa on Christina's return, and he always ended the recital by clapping her on the back and declaring,--

"Och, och, indeed, and it is our own electric light that will be back again, and it will jist be darkness when she is away."

If Christina came home filled with the wonder of Mary's new house she was secretly much more impressed with the wonder of Mary's new life. Surely it was having all your dreams come true to be married to a handsome man who adored you and go to live with him in a fine house with a piano and polished floors. This must be the Great Adventure, not second even to a college course. What if the road out of Orchard Glen, which she had sought so persistently, and as yet without success, should not be the steep Path up Helicon, after all, but the rose hedged lane along which Mary had gone? Christina's heart left her no doubt as to which road she would choose, were the choice hers. But when one's True Knight was far away and merely nodded carelessly to one when he was near, what chance had one? She longed more keenly than ever to get out into the world of wider opportunity.

The only excitement of the Winter was going to the post office for the boys' letters. They always came on Tuesday. Neil wrote home every Sunday of his life and his letter reached Orchard Glen post office on Tuesday afternoon. And Sandy wrote Sundays, too, or if he missed he sent a hurried note or post card later in the week. Then there was Mary's weekly letter, an occasional one from Allister, and generally Bruce's. At first Bruce was as faithful as Neil, but as the Winter advanced he occasionally missed a Tuesday.

"None from your beau to-day," Christina called out one blustery February afternoon when she brought in the mail, and handed out letters from Sandy and Neil. "He's likely got another girl in Toronto and forgotten all about you."

She was surprised to see that Ellen did not take her nonsense in her usual smooth good-natured way. She flushed and said nothing. Thereafter Christina kept a strict censorship over Bruce's letters, and was slightly troubled to find that they were rather irregular. Ellen's answer always went back the very next day, and Christina could not help seeing that her sister was anxious and worried until another came. And occasionally a wearisome time elapsed before it did come.

At first Christina's unconquerable cheerfulness forbade its troubling her much. Bruce was probably working very hard as this was his first year. Sandy sometimes missed a week altogether and even Neil was known to delay a day or two when examinations were near. As for Jimmie, he declared that when he went to college he wouldn't write to them at all except when he was home for the holidays. After all it must really be a great deal of trouble to have a sweetheart, as much care and worry, one seemed, as young Mrs. Martin's cross baby. She just couldn't understand anybody fretting over one, and she went round the house, putting wood in the stoves and seeing that Grandpa was kept warm, and singing,

"Oh, I'm glad my heart's my ain yet, And I'll keep it sae all my life, Till some bonny laddie comes by That has wits that can wile a guid wife!"

On Valentine's Day she brought home a whole armful of letters. There was one for her from Allister, and she tore it open first, while Ellen eagerly opened one she had received. Allister had enclosed a valentine for Christina, a horrible picture of a tall, thin, frowsy woman sweeping a house, and beneath an atrocious rhyme about the cross old maid who always stayed at home and swept and scrubbed. Christina remembered with glee that she had sent him one, quite as ugly, a fat old farmer, mean and tight-fisted, growing rich out of his ill-gotten gains. She read his letter, even before she took time to show the valentine to Grandpa, and it sent her dancing through the house in a way that alarmed her mother. For Allister's letter had, once more, opened up the door into the big outside world.

"I have to go back East on business next Summer some time," he wrote, "and I'm going to make you come back here for a visit. The rich bachelors are as thick as gophers out here and I think I ought to do something for them, even if I can't get a wife for myself. So I'm going to get all the Orchard Glen girls out here, one by one, and I think you'll do all right for a start. Campbell and his wife are on my place now and they'll be fine folks for you to stay with...." There was more about the details of her visit, but Christina could not read it for very joy. She went flying around the kitchen waving the letter over her head.

"Hurrah!" she cried, "I'm going out West! I'm going to Alberta! My Valentine's sent for me!"

"What's all this?" cried Uncle Neil, coming in from the barn and stamping the snow from his feet. "I hope you're not thinking about going to-day, there's likely a blizzard on the prairies."

Christina flew at him, crying out incoherent bits from Allister's letter, and then rushed into the sitting-room where her mother sat by the stove.

"Be wise, Christina, be wise," warned her mother, after she had rejoiced mildly with her, "I'm often feared for you, when I see you so bent on the things of the world."

Christina pulled her high spirits down to a discreet level and went back to the corner of the kitchen, where Grandpa sat in his old rocker, to share the joyful tidings with him. But before she had attracted his attention from the book of Moody's sermons he was reading, she suddenly stopped. She realised with a pang that this wonderful good fortune that had come to her would be exceedingly ill news for poor Grandpa. There was no need to tell him until the time was near for her to go. She went back to the table and picked up the other letters she had dropped in her excitement.

A glance at Ellen showed that there was no valentine message from Bruce; but Christina found three for herself.

There was a very gorgeous one, all red hearts and lovers' knots, from Sandy. The second was from an unknown source. It was a dainty thing, fashioned by an artistic hand, a little sprig of heather glued to a card to form the letter C. Beneath was written in a masculine hand.

"My Love is young and fair, My Love has golden hair, And eyes so blue And heart so true That none with her compare."

Christina wondered over it for a few minutes; the lines seemed familiar. Where had she heard them before, she asked with beating heart. The postmark was Algonquin, but then every one who sent a valentine from Orchard Glen mailed it in Algonquin. She looked at it closely, and then noticed the scent of rosemary. It had come from Craig-Ellachie! and the little lines were from the song "A Warrior Bold" that Gavin sang.

Christina was touched. It was so ungracious to receive gifts from Love's storehouse without even a thrill of gratitude. She had thought Gavin was forgetting her. He was so good, and so kind, too, and she loved all the Grant Girls so. But how was it possible to make a hero out of a young man who could only sing of heroic deeds, and would never, never perform one?

She slowly opened the last valentine. It belonged to the class that she and Allister had exchanged. It was very ugly and very funny; a picture of a tall, lank woman in spectacles and a college gown, her claw-like hands holding a ponderous volume. Christina laughed gaily and mentally blamed John, either he or Jimmie was surely the guilty person.

But she looked at the post-mark again and saw to her surprise that it had a United States stamp, and the place stamped on the envelope was one she knew nothing whatever about, El Monte, California.

"Look at this," she cried, running to Ellen. "Who do we know in California?"

"Why, what in the world?" asked Ellen in bewilderment. "I've got a perfectly horrible one from the very same place."

It was quite true, a very ugly and insulting thing it was, with the same post-mark, El Monte, and furthermore, it transpired that there was one for John and one for Jimmie in the same queer printed hand with the same postmark! and as for Uncle Neil's--a foolish old man with a fiddle--it was quite the funniest thing Christina had ever seen.

When John and Uncle Neil had received their insults and laughed over them, there was much speculation. The family could scarcely eat their supper through wondering who had sent them.

"El Monte," spelled John, spreading them all out on the table before him. "Now, who is it we know in that place? I've heard somebody talk about going there."

"Oh," cried Jimmie with one of his high-pitched yells, "that's where The Woman went! Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's there for the Winter. That's where her sister lives, I heard Trooper say so the other day."

The family looked at each other dumbfounded.

It surely could not be possible. The Woman had always been a faithful friend of Mrs. Lindsay and it was hardly likely she would take all this trouble to send such foolish messages to her family. Indeed Mrs. Johnnie Dunn would think twice of the money before she spent it on such nonsense.

"Indeed it would not be Sarah," declared Mrs. Lindsay as they argued and speculated. "She would be far from doing such a thing. Maybe you will find soon who it is."

But further light on the subject only went to fasten suspicion upon Sarah. It appeared that the Lindsays were not by any means the only ones in Orchard Glen who had received valentines from California. There was such a rain of love's tokens upon the village on the Fourteenth of February that Tilly and her father were nearly drowned in the deluge and had to call in the aid of Mrs. Holmes and Aunt Jinny to help keep their heads above water!

And the day after the Fourteenth was almost as bad, many having been delayed, probably owing to congestion of the mails between El Monte and Orchard Glen.

And every person in the village, almost, from Granny Minns to the Martins' youngest and naughtiest child, received a valentine, a very ugly and insulting valentine, too, from that place in California where The Woman had gone to spend the Winter!

At first the universality of the insult was not recognised, as each person strove to conceal his own personal injury. But neighbour began to confide in neighbour till at last the whole evil scheme was uncovered.

No one had seemed insignificant enough to be overlooked, no one was high enough to be immune. Even Mrs. Sutherland and the ministers were not slighted. Dr. McGarry's was a picture of a quack giving bread pills to old women and babies, and he roared and laughed long and loud over it, and showed it to every one in spite of his sister.

The Methodist minister's, the Baptist minister's, and Mr. Sinclair's were all exactly alike, violent-looking preachers with gusts of texts flying from their wide-open mouths, and sly rhymes concerning their denominational differences. The pretty little school teacher's was so mean that she couldn't go to school the next day, she cried so hard; and Mrs. Sinclair said that, of course, one should be above these things, but as far as she was concerned, she felt she needed all the Christian grace she possessed to forgive the unscrupulous person who had sent hers.

At first it did not seem possible that Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, that sensible, practical woman, could be the guilty party. At the very worst, her friends felt, she might have told the names of the people in the village, and some foolish mischief-maker--there were all kinds of folks in the States--had done the rest. But as each valentine was revealed it grew plainer that only some one intimately acquainted with the life of Orchard Glen could have chosen with such evil sagacity.

Who, for instance, outside Orchard Glen, knew that young Mrs. Martin had been a perfect martinet in her teaching days, but had now lost all her old power with the rod, and her children were the terror of the village? And who but a neighbour could have known that Granny Minns scolded Mitty all day long and pretended she was much more feeble than she really was? And who could have such an intimate knowledge of the flirtations of Tilly Holmes, and the dual organist's position held by Martha Henderson and Minnie McKenzie, and the coolness between Mr. Wylie and Mr. Sinclair since the night of the Piper's mistake?

It was Marmaduke who finally convinced the public mind that The Woman must be the perpetrator of the valentines; not a difficult case to prove.

He and Trooper had received quite the worst and most insulting of all the mail bag and Trooper's was particularly stinging. Marmaduke declared there was something in it that showed beyond doubt that it must have been The Woman, but Trooper did not like to say so, seeing that she was his aunt. But couldn't they see the postmark? And didn't every one know that she was visiting her sister in El Monte?

All the storms of the Winter were as a summer calm besides the gale the valentines raised. Nobody talked about anything else. They would just wait till The Woman came home in the Spring and then they would show her that she could not insult her neighbours like that and her away wintering in the South as if she were a millionairess!

The valentines was still the chief subject under discussion when The Woman came back in April.

The roads were too muddy to take the car to town, so Trooper and Marthy met her with the double buggy at Silver Creek, a nearby flag station, and drove home without preparing her for her reception. As they came down the muddy street of Orchard Glen with the brown fields smiling in the sun and the first hint of Spring showing in the soft tender tint of the willows beside the creek, The Woman declared that it was a sight better than California any day, and she was mighty glad to get home and see all her old friends, and take a holt of things again, for she supposed that she ought to be thankful if the two of them hadn't let everything go to the dogs while she was away.

They pulled up at the post office and The Woman hailed Mr. Holmes and Tilly jovially.

"Hello in there!" she shouted. "Still at the old job, I do declare!" Ordinarily the postmaster would have received her with the utmost cordiality, but he could not forget that picture of himself as the old Socrates of the village giving forth spurious wisdom, and he replied very stiffly.

Tilly merely shook hands in a great hurry and fled to the back of the store, and young Mr. Martin, who was there in a panic for a bottle of emetic for the second youngest who had drunk some shoe polish, did not even take the trouble to speak, but dashed past her without a word. He wondered if she would be sorry for what she had done if one of his children was to be poisoned. Marmaduke was at the store and Trooper made him climb into the buggy and drive home to help welcome his aunt. Duke was as cordial as ever and uproariously glad to see her, but he was alone; throughout the village, averted faces and cold looks met her on every side. Even Joanna, coming down the street, who had a brilliant smile for Trooper, tossed her head and looked the other way, when his aunt spoke.

"Now, what in the world's up and give all these folks the stomach ache, I'd like to know?" she asked in anger and bewilderment, as they splashed through the muddy street.

"It's all about them dretful valentines, Sarah," complained the patient Marthy. "What ever did you send them for anyways?"

"Valentines?" she exclaimed. "What are you talkin' about?"

"Why, them Valentines you sent everybody. Most folks is awful mad about them."

The two young men on the front seat were sitting side by side gazing over the blue-grey landscape with faces of rapt innocence. They did not appear to be interested in the conversation in the back seat, but his aunt gave Trooper a sharp poke with her umbrella.

"What's this foolishness about valentines he's tellin' me about?"

"Aw, now, Aunt Sarah, you know," he said, turning to her with gentle reproof. "He means them valentines you sent."

"I didn't mind a scrap about mine," put in Duke generously; "I knowed it was just your fun. They didn't need to get so mad."

"That's what I told everybody," supplemented Trooper. "I said you only meant it for a joke."

Mrs. Dunn leaned back in the buggy seat helplessly. "If you ain't all gone clean out of your minds; will you tell me what you're ravin' about?" she demanded.

It was some time before the young men could be persuaded to tell her, insisting upon taking her attitude as a joke. But finally the truth came out. Every one in Orchard Glen had received an insulting valentine from El Monte last Winter, and everybody, of course, blamed her and was as mad as mad could be.

By the time they reached home and had sat down to the supper that Marmaduke had prepared in the morning, The Woman was angry enough to go out and challenge every one in Orchard Glen to dare to say she had done the fell deed. She began to question as to who had received the missives. Mrs. Sutherland? Yes, hers was a fright, the Doctor had said, and the Doctor's was worse. Not Mrs. Wylie, surely? Why, Mrs. Wylie couldn't sleep the night after she got hers, and it didn't seem fair, her not really belonging to Orchard Glen. The Ministers? Oh, yes; theirs were awful sights, neither of them preached the same for a month after.

Surely Mary Lindsay didn't get one? No, but all the family did, and the Grant Girls, too. The Grant Girls got terrors, folks said, and there was some talk about Gavin saying he'd have the law about it. Gavin was awful sensitive about the Aunties and he was firing mad.

Poor Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, her home-coming was completely spoiled! She got up early the next morning, and not even waiting to look over the premises to see what damage Marthy and Trooper had done in her absence, she hitched up her mare and drove over through all the mud and water to Craig-Ellachie, and took in the Lindsays on her way back. There was nothing lacking in the Grant Girls' welcome, and she was a little comforted but also much disturbed. The Aunties showed her their valentines, and Gavin's, but they laughed heartily over them, and Mrs. Lindsay allowed the girls to display theirs, assuring her that she had never believed her the sender. But it was beyond doubt that they had all come from El Monte, and that the addresses had all been printed by the same hand.

The Woman spread them out on the table before her and meditated. "There's that young villain of a boy my sister has. He's another Trooper all over again, and worse, 'cause he ain't got me to trim him down. He'd be capable of doing it. But he couldn't. He doesn't know even the names of folks here, unless Trooper--Trooper--" She stopped and sat bolt upright.

"I'll bet," she said deliberately, while Christina fled from the room that she might laugh aloud, "I'll bet every cent I make out o' milk this Summer that Trooper and that other emissary of Satan is at the bottom of this and you'll see I'll find out."

But the damage had been done. Poor Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had a very harmless but very great desire to shine before her neighbours. She had expected to return to Orchard Glen with a blare of trumpets and astonish every one with her tales of California with geraniums in the garden at Christmas, and bathing in the ocean in January, and oranges everywhere for the picking, and a host of kindred wonders in which her untravelled neighbour friends were to be instructed. And instead she found the very name of California and El Monte were a byword and a hissing in the mouths of the inhabitants of Orchard Glen, and had to spend the first month after her return in voluble explanations and denials.