The Books: “Emily’s Quest” (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Emily’s Quest – by L.M. Montgomery

So all this sad stuff happens … Emily breaks off her engagement – scandalizing her entire family (they were scandalized by the engagement itself, but then when she broke it off!!) – and then the Teddy second-sight moment – and then he and Ilse come home for the summer and there’s all this … unrequited unspoken stuff going on. Emily is haughty with Teddy – and to my eyes, he is being SO obvious with her. He is giving her an opening. He is saying I’M INTERESTED IN YOU. And she misinterprets a lot of it … or she’s afraid to even MENTION the second-sight moment … she’s afraid that will mean he will KNOW … etc etc. So there’s all this pent-up stuff during the summer, and Ilse is having her own rageful unrequited situation with Perry. All she can talk about is Perry. And yet in one chilling moment she confides in Emily that she has never liked Teddy so much as now. Then there’s the dinner party … Emily was looking forward to it … and she sees by accident a really intimate look and conversation pass between Ilse and Teddy and it is like her heart has been smashed to the floor like a piece of crockery. Ilse and Teddy leave – and Emily then starts in to have the worst autumn of her life. She obviously is having some sort of depressive response to things. She writes in her journal that life, during that autumn, was unlivable. But of course life goes on … we read her journal entries, and interestingly enough – more and more they are about nature. She writes about the snow, the stars, the pumpkins, the sunset … These entries also reflect her MOOD (Lucy Maud is always so good at that – how the landscape can somehow express the mood of the main character) … but she’s trying not to be introspective. She’s just trying to survive.

And then comes the next summer – Teddy and Ilse do NOT come home. And Emily has a series of ridiculous love affairs that mean absolutely nothing – she is pretty much just amusing herself – and (of course) her entire family is completely scandalized. Especially when she is being courted by a visiting Japanese prince, and she seems to take it seriously!! She accepts gifts from him! She walks in the garden with him at night! A Japanese prince!

But some of the suitors are just freakin’; hysterical – and you can see how Emily’s breezy unconcern for their feelings, and for the opinion of her prudish clan – drives everyone nuts.

My favorite of all of the “love affairs” (and it doesn’t even qualify) is the excerpt below. To me, the almost SLAPSTICK energy here – the sense that you are in the presence of a CRAZY person – is classic Lucy Maud. I love how she pits sanity against insanity, she pits civilization against chaos … and the results are always comedic (I wrote about that here somewhere before).

Anyway, here’s one of the funniest episodes. I just LOVE this guy who shows up. He’s such a loon.

Background: an editor friend of Emily’s asks her to help him out of a bind. He has a story he has been publishing, serial-fashion – and he lost the last chapter. Not to be found anywhere. Editor is furious – beside himself – turns to Emily for help: could she read the rest of the story, and figure out a concluding chapter, and write it? He would pay her. Emily thinks it would be an amusing task so she does. She reads the story (it sounds like a Gothic torrid romance – and it’s all about kings and queens – which Emily finds amusing. Does the writer KNOW any kings or queens?) – but Emily does a good job – she comes up with an ingenious ending, a way to tie together all the threads of the plot … the editor is happy – and the piece is published. Yay! Emily forgets all about it.

Until …

Excerpt from Emily’s Quest – by L.M. Montgomery

“I wonder if any of the readers will notice where the seam comes in,” reflected Emily amusedly. “And I wonder if Mark Greaves will ever see it and if so what he will think.”

It did not seem in the least likely she would ever know and she dismissed the matter from her mind. Consequently when, one afternoon two weeks later, Cousin Jimmy ushered a stranger into the sitting-room where Emily was arranging roses in Aunt Elizabeth’s rock-crystal goblet with its ruby base – a treasured heirloom of New Moon – Emily did not connect him with A Royal Betrothal, though she had a distinct impression that the caller was an exceedingly irate man.

Cousin Jimmy discreetly withdrew and Aunt Laura, who had come in to place a glass dish full of strawberry preserves on the table to cool, withdrew also,w ondering a little who Emily’s odd-looking caller could be. Emily herself wondered. She reamined standing by the table, a slim, gracious thing in her pale-green gown, shining like a star in the shadowy, old-fashioned room.

“Won’t you sit down?” she questioned, with all the aloof courtesy of New Moon. But the newcomer did not move. He simply stood before her staring at her. And again Emily felt that, while he had been quite furious when he came in, he was not in the least angry now.

He must have been born, of course, because he was there – but it was incredible, she thought, he would ever have been a baby. He wore audacious clothes and a monocle, screwed into one of his eyes – eyes that seemed absurdly like little black currants with black eyebrows that made right-angled triangles above them. He had a mane of black hair reaching to his shoulders, an immensely long chin and a marble-white face. In a picture Emily thought he would have looked rather handsome and romantic. But here in the New Moon sitting-room he looked merely weird.

“Lyrical creature,” he said, gazing at her.

Emily wondered if he were by any chance an escaped lunatic.

“You do not commit the crime of ugliness,” he continued fervently. “This is a wonderful moment – very wonderful. ‘Tis a pity we must spoil it by talking. Eyes of purple-grey, sprinkled with gold. Eyes that I have looked for all my life. Sweet eyes, in which I drowned myself eons ago.”

“Who are you?” said Emily crisply, now entirely convinced that he was quite mad. He laid his hand on his heart and bowed.

“Mark Greaves – Mark D. Greaves – Mark Delage Greaves.”

Mark Greaves! Emily had a confused idea that she ought to know the name. It sounded curiously familiar.

“Is it possible you do not recognize my name! Verily this is fame. Even in this remote corner of the world I should have supposed –”

“Oh!” cried Emily, light suddenly breaking in on her. “I — I remember now. You wrote A Royal Betrothal.”

“The story you so unfeelingly murdered – yes.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Emily interrupted. “Of course you would think it unpardonable. It was this way — you see –”

He stopped her by a wave of a very long, very white hand.

“No matter. No matter. It does not interest me at all now. I admit I was very angry when I came herre. I am stopping at the Derry Pond Hotel ofThe Dunes — ah, what a name – poetry – mystery – romance – and I saw the special edition of The Argus this morning. I was angry – had I not a right to be? – and yet more sad than angry. My story was barbarously mutilated. A happy ending. Horrible. My ending was sorrowful and artistic. A happy ending can never be artistic. I hastened to the den of The Argus. I dissembled my anger – I discovered who was responsible. I came here – to denounce – to upbraid. I remain to worship.”

Emily simply did not know what to say. New Moon traditions held no precedent for this.

“You do not understand me. You are puzzled – your bewilderment becomes you. Again I say a wonderful moment. To come enraged – and behold divinity. To realise as soon as I saw you that you were meant for me and me alone.”

Emily wished somebody would come in. This was getting nightmarish.

“It is absurd to talk so,” she said shortly. “We are strangers –”

“We are not strangers,” he interrupted. “We have loved in some other life, of course, and our love was a violent, gorgeous thing – a love of eternity. I recognized you as soon as I entered. As soon as you have recovered from your sweet surprise you will realise this, too. When can you marry me?”

To be asked by a man to marry him five minutes after the first moment you have laid eyes on him is an experience more stimulating than pleasant. Emily was annoyed.

“Don’t talk nonsense, please,” she said curtly. “I am not going to marry you at any time.”

“Not marry me? But you must! I have never before asked a woman to marry me. I am the famous Mark Greaves. I am rich. I have the charm and romance of my French mother and the common sense of my Scotch father. With the French side of me I feel and acknowledge your beauty and mystery. With the Scotch side of me I bow in homage to your reserve and dignity. You are ideal — adorable. Many women have loved me but I loved them not. I enter this room a free man. I go out a captive. Enchanting captivity! Adorable captor! I kneel before you in spirit.”

Emily was horribly afraid he would kneel before her in the flesh. He looked quite capable of it. And suppose Aunt Elizabeth should come in.

“Please go away,” she said desperately. “I’m — I’m very busy and I can’t stop talking to you any longer. I’m sorry about the story – if you would let me explain -”

“I have said it does not matter about the story. Though you must learn never to write happy endings – never. I will teach you. I wil teach you the beauty and artistry of sorrow and incompleteness. Ah, what a pupil you will be! What bliss to teach such a pupil! I kiss your hand.”

He made a step nearer as if to seize upon it. Emily stepped backward in alarm.

“You must be crazy,” she exclaimed.

“Do I look crazy?” demanded Mark Greaves.

“You do,” retorted Emily flatly and cruelly.

“Perhaps I do – probably I do. Crazy – intoxicated with wine of the rose. All lovers are mad. Divine madness! Oh, beautiful, unkissed lips!”

Emily drew herself up. This absurd interview must end. She was by now thoroughly angry.

“Mr. Greaves,” she said – and such was the power of the Murray look that Mr. Greaves realised she meant exactly what she said. “I shan’t listen to any more of this nonsense. Since you won’t let me explain about the matter of the story I bid you good-afternoon.”

Mr. Greaves looked gravely at her for a moment. Then he said solemnly:

“A kiss? Or a kick? Which?”

Was he speaking metaphorically? But whether or no —

“A kick,” said Emily disdainfully.

Mr. Greaves suddenly seized the crystal goblet and dashed it violently against the stove.

Emily uttered a faint shriek – partly of real horror – partly of dismay. Aunt Elizabeth’s treasured goblet.

“That was merely a defence reaction,” said Mr. Greaves, glaring at her. “I had to do that – or kill you. Ice-maiden! Chill vestal! Cold as your northern snows! Farewell.”

He did not slam the door as he went out. He merely shut it gently and irrevocably, so that Emily might realise what she had lost. When she saw that he was really out of the garden and marching indignantly down the lane as if he were crushing something beneath his feet, she permitted herself the relief of a long breath – the first she had dared to draw since his entrance.

“I suppose,” she said, half hysterically, “that I ought to be thankful he did not throw the dish of strawberry preserves at me.”

Aunt Elizabeth came in.

“Emily, the rock-crystal goblet! Your Grandmother Murray’s goblet! And you have broken it!”

“No, really, Aunty dear, I didn’t. Mr. Greaves – Mr. Mark Delage Greaves did it. He threw it at the stove.”

“Threw it at the stove!” Aunt Elizabeth was staggered. “Why did he throw it at the stove?”

“Because I wouldn’t marry him,” said Emily.

“Marry him! Did you ever see him before?”

“Never.”

Aunt Elizabeth gathered up the fragments of the crystal goblet and went out quite speechless. There was – there must be – something wrong with a girl when a man proposed marriage to her at first meeting. And hurled heirloom goblets at inoffensive stoves.