Part 28

“Nillie, what is it you are meaning?” he said.

“I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson,” repeated Aunt Olivia.

“Why not?” Surprise was giving way to dismay.

“I don’t think you will understand, Mr. MacPherson,” said Aunt Olivia, faintly. “You don’t realize what it means for a woman to give up everything--her own home and friends and all her past life, so to speak, and go far away with a stranger.”

“Why, I suppose it will be rather hard. But, Nillie, Avonlea isn’t very far away--not more than twelve miles, if it will be that.”

“Twelve miles! It might as well be at the other side of the world to all intents and purposes,” said Aunt Olivia obstinately. “I don’t know a living soul there, except Rachel Lynde.”

“Why didn’t you say so before I bought the place, then? But it’s not too late. I can be selling it and buying right here in East Grafton if that will please you--though there isn’t half as nice a place to be had. But I’ll fix it up somehow!”

“No, Mr. MacPherson,” said Aunt Olivia firmly, “that doesn’t cover the difficulty. I knew you would not understand. My ways are not your ways and I cannot make them over. For--you track mud in--and--and--you don’t care whether things are tidy or not.”

Poor Aunt Olivia had to be Aunt Olivia; if she were being burned at the stake I verily believe she would have dragged some grotesqueness into the tragedy of the moment.

“The devil!” said Mr. Malcolm MacPherson--not profanely or angrily, but as in sheer bewilderment. Then he added, “Nillie, you must be joking. It’s careless enough I am--the west isn’t a good place to learn finicky ways--but you can teach me. You’re not going to throw me over because I track mud in!”

“I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson,” said Aunt Olivia again.

“You can’t be meaning it!” he exclaimed, because he was beginning to understand that she did mean it, although it was impossible for his man mind to understand anything else about the puzzle. “Nillie, it’s breaking my heart you are! I’ll do anything--go anywhere--be anything you want--only don’t be going back on me like this.”

“I cannot marry you, Mr. MacPherson,” said Aunt Olivia for the fourth time.

“Nillie!” exclaimed Mr. Malcolm MacPherson. There was such real agony in his tone that Peggy and I were suddenly stricken with contrition. What were we doing? We had no right to be listening to this pitiful interview. The pain and protest in his voice had suddenly banished all the humour from it, and left naught but the bare, stark tragedy. We rose and tiptoed out of the room, wholesomely ashamed of ourselves.

When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had gone, after an hour of useless pleading, Aunt Olivia came up to us, pale and prim and determined, and told us that there was to be no wedding. We could not pretend surprise, but Peggy ventured a faint protest.

“Oh, Aunt Olivia, do you think you have done right?”

“It was the only thing I could do,” said Aunt Olivia stonily. “I could not marry Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I told him so. Please tell your father--and kindly say nothing more to me about the matter.”

Then Aunt Olivia went downstairs, got a broom, and swept up the mud Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had tracked over the steps.

Peggy and I went home and told father. We felt very flat, but there was nothing to be done or said. Father laughed at the whole thing, but I could not laugh. I was sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and, though I was angry with her, I was sorry for Aunt Olivia, too. Plainly she felt badly enough over her vanished hopes and plans, but she had developed a strange and baffling reserve which nothing could pierce.

“It’s nothing but a chronic case of old-maidism,” said father impatiently.

Things were very dull for a week. We saw no more of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and we missed him dreadfully. Aunt Olivia was inscrutable, and worked with fierceness at superfluous tasks.

One evening father came home with some news. “Malcolm MacPherson is leaving on the 7:30 train for the west,” he said. “He has rented the Avonlea place and he’s off. They say he is mad as a hatter at the trick Olivia played on him.”

After tea Peggy and I went over to see Aunt Olivia, who had asked our advice about a wrapper. She was sewing as for dear life, and her face was primmer and colder than ever. I wondered if she knew of Mr. Malcolm MacPherson’s departure. Delicacy forbade me to mention it but Peggy had no such scruples.

“Well, Aunt Olivia, your beau is off,” she announced cheerfully. “You won’t be bothered with him again. He is leaving on the mail train for the west.”

Aunt Olivia dropped her sewing and stood up. I have never seen anything like the transformation that came over her. It was so thorough and sudden as to be almost uncanny. The old maid vanished completely, and in her place was a woman, full to the lips with primitive emotion and pain.

“What shall I do?” she cried in a terrible voice. “Mary--Peggy--what shall I do?”

It was almost a shriek. Peggy turned pale.

“Do you care?” she said stupidly.