Kilmeny of the OrchardMontgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud)
General
Kilmeny of the Orchard
Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud)
Mute persons -- Juvenile fiction; Prince Edward Island -- Juvenile fiction; Teachers -- Juvenile fiction
“They had a big wedding, too--all the neighbours were asked. Margaret
always liked to make a display. I was her bridesmaid, Master. I helped
her dress and nothing would please her; she wanted to look that nice
for Ronald’s sake. She was a handsome bride; dressed in white, with red
roses in her hair and at her breast. She wouldn’t wear white flowers;
she said they looked too much like funeral flowers. She looked like a
picture. I can see her this minute, as plain as plain, just as she was
that night, blushing and turning pale by turns, and looking at Ronald
with her eyes of love. If ever a girl loved a man with all her heart
Margaret Gordon did. It almost made me feel frightened. She gave him the
worship it isn’t right to give anybody but God, Master, and I think that
is always punished.
“They went to live at Radnor and for a little while everything went
well. Margaret had a nice house, and was gay and happy. She dressed
beautiful and entertained a good deal. Then--well, Ronald Fraser’s first
wife turned up looking for him! She wasn’t dead after all.
“Oh, there was terrible scandal, Master. The talk and gossip was
something dreadful. Every one you met had a different story, and it was
hard to get at the truth. Some said Ronald Fraser had known all the time
that his wife wasn’t dead, and had deceived Margaret. But I don’t think
he did. He swore he didn’t. They hadn’t been very happy together, it
seems. Her mother made trouble between them. Then she went to visit her
mother in Montreal, and died in the hospital there, so the word came
to Ronald. Perhaps he believed it a little too readily, but that he DID
believe it I never had a doubt. Her story was that it was another woman
of the same name. When she found out Ronald thought her dead she and her
mother agreed to let him think so. But when she heard he had got married
again she thought she’d better let him know the truth.
“It all sounded like a queer story and I suppose you couldn’t blame
people for not believing it too readily. But I’ve always felt it was
true. Margaret didn’t think so, though. She believed that Ronald Fraser
had deceived her, knowing all the time that he couldn’t make her his
lawful wife. She turned against him and hated him just as much as she
had loved him before.
“Ronald Fraser went away with his real wife, and in less than a year
word came of his death. They said he just died of a broken heart,
nothing more nor less.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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