Robert Turner's Revenge Page #2

"Robert Turner's Revenge" is a lesser-known work by Lucy Maud Montgomery, best known for her classic novel "Anne of Green Gables." This story delves into themes of love, revenge, and redemption, following the character of Robert Turner as he navigates the complexities of his relationships and seeks to overcome past grievances. With Montgomery's signature blend of rich character development and evocative prose, the narrative explores the consequences of choices made in the heat of emotion and the possibility of forgiveness. It captures the essence of human experiences and the enduring struggle between hurt and healing.

• Short story

								

soft ringlets like a girl's. What girl's? Something far back in Robert
Turner's dreamlike boyhood seemed to call to him like a note of a
forgotten melody, sweet yet stirring like a pain. The more he looked
at the boy the stronger the impression of a resemblance grew in every
feature but the mouth. That was alien to his recollection of the face,
yet there was something about it, when taken by itself, that seemed
oddly familiar also--yes, and unpleasantly familiar, although the
mouth was a good one--finely cut and possessing more firmness than was
found in all the other features put together.

"It's a good place for reading, sonny, isn't it?" he inquired, more
genially than he had spoken to a child for years. In fact, having no
children of his own, he so seldom spoke to a child that his voice and
manner when he did so were generally awkward and rusty.

The boy nodded a quick little nod. Somehow, Turner had expected that
nod and the glimmer of a smile that accompanied it.

"What book are you reading?" he asked.

The boy held it out; it was an old Robinson Crusoe, that classic of
boyhood.

"It's splendid," he said. "Billy Martin lent it to me and I have to
finish it today because Ned Josephs is to have it next and he's in a
hurry for it."

"It's a good while since I read Robinson Crusoe," said Turner
reflectively. "But when I did it was on this very shore a little
further along below the Miller place. There was a Martin and a Josephs
in the partnership then too--the fathers, I dare say, of Billy and
Ned. What is your name, my boy?"

"Paul Jameson, sir."

The name was a shock to Turner. This boy a Jameson--Neil Jameson's
son? Why, yes, he had Neil's mouth. Strange he had nothing else in
common with the black-browed, black-haired Jamesons. What business had
a Jameson with those blue eyes and silvery-golden curls? It was
flagrant forgery on Nature's part to fashion such things and label
them Jameson by a mouth.

Hated Neil Jameson's son! Robert Turner's face grew so grey and hard
that the boy involuntarily glanced upward to see if a cloud had
crossed the sun.

"Your father was Neil Jameson, I suppose?" Turner said abruptly.

Paul nodded. "Yes, but he is dead. He has been dead for eight years. I
don't remember him."

"Have you any brothers or sisters?"

"I have a little sister a year younger than I am. The other four are
dead. They died long ago. I'm the only boy Mother had. Oh, I do so
wish I was bigger and older! If I was I could do something to save the
place--I'm sure I could. It is breaking Mother's heart to have to
leave it."

"So she has to leave it, has she?" said Turner grimly, with the old
hatred stirring in his heart.

"Yes. There is a mortgage on it and we're to be sold out very soon--so
the lawyers told us. Mother has tried so hard to make the farm pay but
she couldn't. I could if I was bigger--I know I could. If they would
only wait a few years! But there is no use hoping for that. Mother
cries all the time about it. She has lived at the Cove farm for over
thirty years and she says she can't live away from it now.
Elsie--that's my sister--and I do all we can to cheer her up, but we
can't do much. Oh, if I was only a man!"

The lad shut his lips together--how much his mouth was like his
father's--and looked out seaward with troubled blue eyes. Turner
smiled another grim smile. Oh, Neil Jameson, your old score was being
paid now!

Yet something embittered the sweetness of revenge. That boy's face--he
could not hate it as he had accustomed himself to hate the memory of
Neil Jameson and all connected with him.

"What was your mother's name before she married your father?" he
demanded abruptly.

"Lisbeth Miller," answered the boy, still frowning seaward over his
secret thoughts.

Turner started again. Lisbeth Miller! He might have known it. What
woman in all the world save Lisbeth Miller could have given her son
those eyes and curls? So Lisbeth had married Neil Jameson--little
Lisbeth Miller, his schoolboy sweetheart. He had forgotten her--or
thought he had; certainly he had not thought of her for years. But the
memory of her came back now with a rush.

Little Lisbeth--pretty little Lisbeth--merry little Lisbeth! How
clearly he remembered her! The old Miller place had adjoined his
uncle's farm. Lisbeth and he had played together from babyhood. How he
had worshipped her! When they were six years old they had solemnly
promised to marry each other when they grew up, and Lisbeth had let
him kiss her as earnest of their compact, made under a bloom-white
apple tree in the Miller orchard. Yet she would always blush furiously
and deny it ever afterwards; it made her angry to be reminded of it.

He saw himself going to school, carrying her books for her, the envied
of all the boys. He remembered how he had fought Tony Josephs because
Tony had the presumption to bring her spice apples: he had thrashed
him too, so soundly that from that time forth none of the schoolboys
presumed to rival him in Lisbeth's affections--roguish little Lisbeth!
who grew prettier and saucier every year.

He recalled the keen competition of the old days when to be "head of
the class" seemed the highest honour within mortal reach, and was
striven after with might and main. He had seldom attained to it
because he would never "go up past" Lisbeth. If she missed a word, he,
Robert, missed it too, no matter how well he knew it. It was sweet to
be thought a dunce for her dear sake. It was all the reward he asked
to see her holding her place at the head of the class, her cheeks
flushed pink and her eyes starry with her pride of position. And how
sweetly she would lecture him on the way home from school about
learning his spellings better, and wind up her sermon with the frank
avowal, uttered with deliciously downcast lids, that she liked him
better than any of the other boys after all, even if he couldn't spell
as well as they could. Nothing of success that he had won since had
ever thrilled him as that admission of little Lisbeth's!

She had been such a sympathetic little sweetheart too, never weary of
listening to his dreams and ambitions, his plans for the future. She
had always assured him that she knew he would succeed. Well, he had
succeeded--and now one of the uses he was going to make of his success
was to turn Lisbeth and her children out of their home by way of
squaring matters with a dead man!

Lisbeth had been away from home on a long visit to an aunt when he had
left Chiswick. She was growing up and the childish intimacy was
fading. Perhaps, under other circumstances, it might have ripened into
fruit, but he had gone away and forgotten her; the world had claimed
him; he had lost all active remembrance of Lisbeth and, before this
late return to Chiswick, he had not even known if she were living. And
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