Emily's Husband

"Emily's Husband" is a poignant novella by Lucy Maud Montgomery that explores the complexities of love, identity, and the evolving nature of relationships. Centered on the character of Emily, the story delves into her marriage and the challenges she faces as she navigates her husband's expectations and her own desires. Through Montgomery's signature lyrical prose, the narrative reflects on personal growth and the nuances of companionship, ultimately highlighting the importance of understanding and compromise in a loving partnership.

• Short story

								
Emily Fair got out of Hiram Jameson's waggon at the gate. She took her
satchel and parasol and, in her clear, musical tones, thanked him for
bringing her home. Emily had a very distinctive voice. It was very
sweet always and very cold generally; sometimes it softened to
tenderness with those she loved, but in it there was always an
undertone of inflexibility and reserve. Nobody had ever heard Emily
Fair's voice tremble.

"You are more than welcome, Mrs. Fair," said Hiram Jameson, with a
glance of bold admiration. Emily met it with an unflinching
indifference. She disliked Hiram Jameson. She had been furious under
all her external composure because he had been at the station when she
left the train.

Jameson perceived her scorn, but chose to disregard it.

"Proud as Lucifer," he thought as he drove away. "Well, she's none the
worse of that. I don't like your weak women--they're always sly. If
Stephen Fair don't get better she'll be free and then--"

He did not round out the thought, but he gloated over the memory of
Emily, standing by the gate in the harsh, crude light of the autumn
sunset, with her tawny, brown hair curling about her pale, oval face
and the scornful glint in her large, dark-grey eyes.

Emily stood at the gate for some time after Jameson's waggon had
disappeared. When the brief burst of sunset splendour had faded out
she turned and went into the garden where late asters and
chrysanthemums still bloomed. She gathered some of the more perfect
ones here and there. She loved flowers, but to-night the asters
seemed to hurt her, for she presently dropped those she had gathered
and deliberately set her foot on them.

A sudden gust of wind came over the brown, sodden fields and the
ragged maples around the garden writhed and wailed. The air was raw
and chill. The rain that had threatened all day was very near. Emily
shivered and went into the house.

Amelia Phillips was bending over the fire. She came forward and took
Emily's parcels and wraps with a certain gentleness that sat oddly on
her grim personality.

"Are you tired? I'm glad you're back. Did you walk from the station?"

"No. Hiram Jameson was there and offered to drive me home. I'd rather
have walked. It's going to be a storm, I think. Where is John?"

"He went to the village after supper," answered Amelia, lighting a
lamp. "We needed some things from the store."

The light flared up as she spoke and brought out her strong, almost
harsh features and deep-set black eyes. Amelia Phillips looked like an
overdone sketch in charcoal.

"Has anything happened in Woodford while I've been away?" asked Emily
indifferently. Plainly she did not expect an affirmative answer.
Woodford life was not eventful.

Amelia glanced at her sharply. So she had not heard! Amelia had
expected that Hiram Jameson would have told her. She wished that he
had, for she never felt sure of Emily. The older sister knew that
beneath that surface reserve was a passionate nature, brooking no
restraint when once it overleaped the bounds of her Puritan
self-control. Amelia Phillips, with all her naturally keen insight and
her acquired knowledge of Emily's character, had never been able to
fathom the latter's attitude of mind towards her husband. From the
time that Emily had come back to her girlhood's home, five years
before, Stephen Fair's name had never crossed her lips.

"I suppose you haven't heard that Stephen is very ill," said Amelia
slowly.

Not a feature of Emily's face changed. Only in her voice when she
spoke was a curious jarring, as if a false note had been struck in a
silver melody.

"What is the matter with him?"

"Typhoid," answered Amelia briefly. She felt relieved that Emily had
taken it so calmly. Amelia hated Stephen Fair with all the intensity
of her nature because she believed that he had treated Emily ill, but
she had always been distrustful that Emily in her heart of hearts
loved her husband still. That, in Amelia Phillips' opinion, would have
betrayed a weakness not to be tolerated.

Emily looked at the lamp unwinkingly.

"That wick needs trimming," she said. Then, with a sudden recurrence
of the untuneful note:

"Is he dangerously ill?"

"We haven't heard for three days. The doctors were not anxious about
him Monday, though they said it was a pretty severe case."

A faint, wraith-like change of expression drifted over Emily's
beautiful face and was gone in a moment. What was it--relief? Regret?
It would have been impossible to say. When she next spoke her vibrant
voice was as perfectly melodious as usual.

"I think I will go to bed, Amelia. John will not be back until late I
suppose, and I am very tired. There comes the rain. I suppose it will
spoil all the flowers. They will be beaten to pieces."

In the dark hall Emily paused for a moment and opened the front door
to be cut in the face with a whip-like dash of rain. She peered out
into the thickly gathering gloom. Beyond, in the garden, she saw the
asters tossed about, phantom-like. The wind around the many-cornered
old farmhouse was full of wails and sobs.

The clock in the sitting-room struck eight. Emily shivered and shut
the door. She remembered that she had been married at eight o'clock
that very morning seven years ago. She thought she could see herself
coming down the stairs in her white dress with her bouquet of asters.
For a moment she was glad that those mocking flowers in the garden
would be all beaten to death before morning by the lash of wind and
rain.

Then she recovered her mental poise and put the hateful memories away
from her as she went steadily up the narrow stairs and along the hall
with its curious slant as the house had settled, to her own room under
the north-western eaves.

When she had put out her light and gone to bed she found that she
could not sleep. She pretended to believe that it was the noise of the
storm that kept her awake. Not even to herself would Emily confess
that she was waiting and listening nervously for John's return home.
That would have been to admit a weakness, and Emily Fair, like Amelia,
despised weakness.

Every few minutes a gust of wind smote the house, with a roar as of a
wild beast, and bombarded Emily's window with a volley of rattling
drops. In the silences that came between the gusts she heard the soft,
steady pouring of the rain on the garden paths below, mingled with a
faint murmur that came up from the creek beyond the barns where the
pine boughs were thrashing in the storm. Emily suddenly thought of a
weird story she had once read years before and long forgotten--a story
of a soul that went out in a night of storm and blackness and lost its
way between earth and heaven. She shuddered and drew the counterpane
over her face.

"Of all things I hate a fall storm most," she muttered. "It frightens
me."

Somewhat to her surprise--for even her thoughts were generally well

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