A Soul That Was Not at Home

"A Soul That Was Not at Home" is a poignant short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery, exploring themes of longing, identity, and the search for belonging. Set against the backdrop of rural Canada, it follows the emotional journey of its protagonist as she grapples with feelings of alienation and the complexities of her inner life. Through rich, evocative prose, Montgomery delves into the struggles of finding one's place in the world, offering insights into the human experience that resonate with readers. The story showcases Montgomery's talent for capturing the subtleties of human emotions and the profound impact of personal connections.

• Short story

								
There was a very fine sunset on the night Paul and Miss Trevor first
met, and she had lingered on the headland beyond Noel's Cove to
delight in it. The west was splendid in daffodil and rose; away to the
north there was a mackerel sky of little fiery golden clouds; and
across the water straight from Miss Trevor's feet ran a sparkling path
of light to the sun, whose rim had just touched the throbbing edge of
the purple sea. Off to the left were softly swelling violet hills and
beyond the sandshore, where little waves were crisping and silvering,
there was a harbour where scores of slender masts were nodding against
the gracious horizon.

Miss Trevor sighed with sheer happiness in all the wonderful,
fleeting, elusive loveliness of sky and sea. Then she turned to look
back at Noel's Cove, dim and shadowy in the gloom of the tall
headlands, and she saw Paul.

It did not occur to her that he could be a shore boy--she knew the
shore type too well. She thought his coming mysterious, for she was
sure he had not come along the sand, and the tide was too high for him
to have come past the other headland. Yet there he was, sitting on a
red sandstone boulder, with his bare, bronzed, shapely little legs
crossed in front of him and his hands clasped around his knee. He was
not looking at Miss Trevor but at the sunset--or, rather, it seemed as
if he were looking through the sunset to still grander and more
radiant splendours beyond, of which the things seen were only the pale
reflections, not worthy of attention from those who had the gift of
further sight.

Miss Trevor looked him over carefully with eyes that had seen a good
many people in many parts of the world for more years than she found
it altogether pleasant to acknowledge, and she concluded that he was
quite the handsomest lad she had ever seen. He had a lithe, supple
body, with sloping shoulders and a brown, satin throat. His hair was
thick and wavy, of a fine reddish chestnut; his brows were very
straight and much darker than his hair; and his eyes were large and
grey and meditative. The modelling of chin and jaw was perfect and his
mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lips just
softly touching, and curving into finely finished little corners that
narrowly escaped being dimpled.

His attire was a blue cotton shirt and a pair of scanty corduroy
knickerbockers, but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple
and fine linen that Miss Trevor was tricked into believing him much
better dressed than he really was.

Presently he smiled dreamily, and the smile completed her subjugation.
It was not merely an affair of lip and eye, as are most smiles; it
seemed an illumination of his whole body, as if some lamp had
suddenly burst into flame inside of him, irradiating him from his
chestnut crown to the tips of his unspoiled toes. Best of all, it was
involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, but simply the
outflashing of some wild, delicious thought that was as untrammelled
and freakish as the wind of the sea.

Miss Trevor made up her mind that she must find out all about him, and
she stepped out from the shadows of the rocks into the vivid, eerie
light that was glowing all along the shore. The boy turned his head
and looked at her, first with surprise, then with inquiry, then with
admiration. Miss Trevor, in a white dress with a lace scarf on her
dark, stately head, was well worth admiring. She smiled at him and
Paul smiled back. It was not quite up to his first smile, having more
of the effect of being put on from the outside, but at least it
conveyed the subtly flattering impression that it had been put on
solely for her, and they were as good friends from that moment as if
they had known each other for a hundred years. Miss Trevor had enough
discrimination to realize this and know that she need not waste time
in becoming acquainted.

"I want to know your name and where you live and what you were looking
at beyond the sunset," she said.

"My name is Paul Hubert. I live over there. And I can't tell just what
I saw in the sunset, but when I go home I'm going to write it all in
my foolscap book."

In her surprise over the second clause of his answer, Miss Trevor
forgot, at first, to appreciate the last. "Over there," according to
his gesture, was up at the head of Noel's Cove, where there was a
little grey house perched on the rocks and looking like a large
seashell cast up by the tide. The house had a stovepipe coming out of
its roof in lieu of a chimney, and two of its window panes were
replaced by shingles. Could this boy, who looked as young princes
should--and seldom do--live there? Then he was a shore boy after all.

"Who lives there with you?" she asked. "You see"--plaintively--"I must
ask questions about you. I know we like each other, and that is all
that really matters. But there are some tiresome items which it would
be convenient to know. For example, have you a father--a mother? Are
there any more of you? How long have you been yourself?"

Paul did not reply immediately. He clasped his hands behind him and
looked at her affectionately.

"I like the way you talk," he said. "I never knew anybody did talk
like that except folks in books and my rock people."

"Your rock people?"

"I'm eleven years old. I haven't any father or mother, they're dead. I
live over there with Stephen Kane. Stephen is splendid. He plays the
violin and takes me fishing in his boat. When I get bigger he's going
shares with me. I love him, and I love my rock people too."

"What do you mean by your rock people?" asked Miss Trevor, enjoying
herself hugely. This was the only child she had ever met who talked as
she wanted children to talk and who understood her remarks without
having to have them translated.

"Nora is one of them," said Paul, "the best one of them. I love her
better than all the others because she came first. She lives around
that point and she has black eyes and black hair and she knows all
about the mermaids and water kelpies. You ought to hear the stories
she can tell. Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live
anywhere--they sail all the time, but they often come ashore to talk
to me. They are a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in
the world--and more than what's in the world, if you only knew it. Do
you know what happened to the Youngest Twin Sailor once? He was
sailing and he sailed right into a moonglade. A moonglade is the track
the full moon makes on the water when it is rising from the sea, you
know. Well, the Youngest Twin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till
he came right up to the moon, and there was a little golden door in
the moon and he opened it and sailed right through. He had some
wonderful adventures inside the moon--I've got them all written down
in my foolscap book. Then there is the Golden Lady of the Cave. One
day I found a big cave down the shore and I went in and in and in--and

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