Elizabeth's Child Page #2

"Elizabeth's Child" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a poignant short story that explores themes of maternal love and sacrifice. The narrative follows Elizabeth, a devoted mother who faces the challenges of raising her child amidst personal struggles and societal expectations. Through rich, evocative prose, Montgomery delves into Elizabeth's emotional turmoil and her unwavering commitment to her child's well-being. The story captures the complexities of motherhood, illuminating both the joys and hardships that accompany it. With its trademark warmth and insight, Montgomery's tale remains a heartfelt reflection on the enduring bond between parent and child.

• Short story

								

morning after her arrival that Worth asked the question her aunts had
been dreading. She asked it out in the orchard, in the emerald gloom
of a long arcade of stout old trees that Grandfather Ingelow had
planted fifty years ago.

"Aunt Charlotte, when is Uncle Paul coming up to see me? I long to see
him; Mother has talked so much to me about him. She was his favourite
sister, wasn't she?"

Charlotte and Ellen looked at each other. Ellen nodded slyly. It would
be better to tell Worth the whole truth at once. She would certainly
find it out soon.

"I do not think, my dear," said Aunt Charlotte quietly, "that your
Uncle Paul will be up to see you at all."

"Why not?" asked Worth, her serious grey eyes looking straight into
Aunt Charlotte's troubled dark ones. Aunt Charlotte understood that
Elizabeth had never told Worth anything about her family's resentment
of her marriage. It was not a pleasant thing to have to explain it all
to Elizabeth's child, but it must be done.

"I think, my dear," she said gently, "that I will have to tell you a
little bit of our family history that may not be very pleasant to hear
or tell. Perhaps you don't know that when your mother married
we--we--did not exactly approve of her marriage. Perhaps we were
mistaken; at any rate it was wrong and foolish to let it come between
us and her as we have done. But that is how it was. None of us
approved, as I have said, but none of us was so bitter as your Uncle
Paul. Your mother was his favourite sister, and he was very deeply
attached to her. She was only a year younger than he. When he bought
the Greenwood farm she went and kept house for him for three years
before her marriage. When she married, Paul was terribly angry. He was
always a strange man, very determined and unyielding. He said he would
never forgive her, and he never has. He has never married, and he has
lived so long alone at Greenwood with only deaf old Mrs. Bree to keep
house for him that he has grown odder than ever. One of us wanted to
go and keep house for him, but he would not let us. And--I must tell
you this although I hate to--he was very angry when he heard we had
invited you to visit us, and he said he would not come near the Grange
as long as you were here. Oh, you can't realize how bitter and
obstinate he is. We pleaded with him, but I think that only made him
worse. We have felt so bad over it, your Aunt Ellen and your Uncle
George and I, but we can do nothing at all."

Worth had listened gravely. The story was all new to her, but she had
long thought there must be a something at the root of her mother's
indifferent relations with her old home and friends. When Aunt
Charlotte, flushed and half-tearful, finished speaking, a little
glimmer of fun came into Worth's grey eyes, and her dimple was very
pronounced as she said,

"Then, if Uncle Paul will not come to see me, I must go to see him."

"My dear!" cried both her aunts together in dismay. Aunt Ellen got her
breath first.

"Oh, my dear child, you must not think of such a thing," she cried
nervously. "It would never do. He would--I don't know what he would
do--order you off the premises, or say something dreadful. No! No!
Wait. Perhaps he will come after all--we will see. You must have
patience."

Worth shook her head and the smile in her eyes deepened.

"I don't think he will come," she said. "Mother has told me something
about the Ingelow stubbornness. She says I have it in full measure,
but I like to call it determination, it sounds so much better. No, the
mountain will not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed will go to the
mountain. I think I will walk down to Greenwood this afternoon. There,
dear aunties, don't look so troubled. Uncle Paul won't run at me with
a pitchfork, will he? He can't do worse than order me off his
premises, as you say."

Aunt Charlotte shook her head. She understood that no argument would
turn the girl from her purpose if she had the Ingelow will, so she
said nothing more. In the afternoon Worth set out for Greenwood, a
mile away.

"Oh, what will Paul say?" exclaimed the aunts, with dismal
forebodings.

Worth met her Uncle Paul at the garden gate. He was standing there
when she came up the slope of the long lane, a tall, massive figure of
a man, with deep-set black eyes, a long, prematurely white beard, and
a hooked nose. Handsome and stubborn enough Paul Ingelow looked. It
was not without reason that his neighbours called him the oddest
Ingelow of them all.

Behind him was a fine old farmhouse in beautiful grounds. Worth felt
almost as much interested in Greenwood as in the Grange. It had been
her mother's home for three years, and Elizabeth Ingelow had loved it
and talked much to her daughter of it.

Paul Ingelow did not move or speak, although he probably guessed who
his visitor was. Worth held out her hand. "How do you do, Uncle Paul?"
she said.

Paul ignored the outstretched hand. "Who are you?" he asked gruffly.

"I am Worth Sheldon, your sister Elizabeth's daughter," she answered.
"Won't you shake hands with me, Uncle Paul?"

"I have no sister Elizabeth," he answered unbendingly.

Worth folded her hands on the gatepost and met his frowning gaze
unshrinkingly. "Oh, yes, you have," she said calmly. "You can't do
away with natural ties by simply ignoring them, Uncle Paul. They go on
existing. I never knew until this morning that you were at enmity with
my mother. She never told me. But she has talked a great deal of you
to me. She has told me often how much you and she loved each other and
how good you always were to her. She sent her love to you."

"Years ago I had a sister Elizabeth," said Paul Ingelow harshly. "I
loved her very tenderly, but she married against my will a shiftless
scamp who--"

Worth lifted her hand slightly. "He was my father, Uncle Paul, and he
was always kind to me; whatever his faults may have been I cannot
listen to a word against him."

"You shouldn't have come here, then," he said, but he said it less
harshly. There was even a certain reluctant approval of this composed,
independent niece in his eyes. "Didn't they tell you at the Grange
that I didn't want to see you?"

"Yes, they told me this morning, but I wanted to see you, so I came.
Why cannot we be friends, Uncle Paul, not because we are uncle and
niece, but simply because you are you and I am I? Let us leave my
father and mother out of the question and start fair on our own
account."

For a moment Uncle Paul looked at her. She met his gaze frankly and
firmly, with a merry smile lurking in her eyes. Then he threw back his
head and laughed a hearty laugh that was good to hear. "Very well," he
said. "It is a bargain."

He put his hand over the gate and shook hers. Then he opened the gate
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