Free Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery

moment of your life. Emily thrilled, from the crown of her head to the toes of her slippered feet, with a sensation of hitherto unknown and almost terrifying sweetness – a sensation that was to sense what her “flash” was to spirit. It is quite conceivable and not totally reprehensible that the next thing that happened might have been a kiss. Emily thought Teddy was going to kiss her: Teddy knew he was: and the odds are that he wouldn’t have had his face slapped as Geoff North had had.
    But it was not to be. A shadow that had slipped in at the gate and drifted across the wet grass halted beside them, and touched Teddy’s shoulder, just as he bent his glossy black head. He looked up, startled. Emily looked up. Mrs. Kent was standing there, bare-headed, her scarred face clear in the moonlight, looking at them tragically.
    Emily and Teddy both stood up so suddenly that they seemed veritably to have been jerked to their feet. Emily’s fairy world vanished like a dissolving bubble. She was in a different world altogether – an absurd, ridiculous one. Yes, ridiculous. Everything had suddenly become ridiculous.
Could
anything be more ridiculous than to be caught here with Teddy,
by his mother
, at two o’clock at night – what was that horrid word she had lately heard for the first time? – oh, yes,
spooning
– that was it – spooning on George Horton’s eighty-year-old tombstone? That was how other people would look at it. How could a thing be so beautiful one moment and so absurd the next? She was one horrible scorch of shame from head to feet. And Teddy – she knew Teddy was feeling like a fool.
    To Mrs. Kent it was not ridiculous – it was dreadful. To her abnormal jealousy the incident had the most sinister significance. She looked at Emily with her hollow, hungry eyes.
    “So you are trying to steal my son from me,” she said. “He is all I have and you are trying to steal him.”
    “Oh, Mother, for goodness’ sake, be sensible!” muttered Teddy.
    “He – he tells me to be sensible,” Mrs. Kent echoed tragically to the moon. “Sensible!”
    “Yes, sensible,” said Teddy angrily. “There’s nothing to make such a fuss about. Emily was locked in the church by accident and Mad Mr. Morrison was there, too, and nearly frightened her to death. I came to let her out and we weresitting here for a few minutes until she got over her fright and was able to walk home. That’s all.”
    “How did you know she was here?” demanded Mrs. Kent.
    How indeed! This was a hard question to answer. The truth sounded like a silly, stupid invention. Nevertheless, Teddy told it.
    “She called me,” he said bluntly.
    “And you heard her – a mile away. Do you expect me to believe that?” said Mrs. Kent, laughing wildly.
    Emily had by this time recovered her poise. At no time in her life was Emily Byrd Starr ever disconcerted for long. She drew herself up proudly and in the dim light, in spite of her Starr features, she looked much as Elizabeth Murray must have looked over thirty years before.
    “Whether you believe it or not it is true, Mrs. Kent,” she said haughtily. “I am not stealing your son – I do not want him – he can go.”
    “I’m going to take you home first, Emily,” said Teddy. He folded his arms and threw back his head and tried to look as stately as Emily. He felt that he was a dismal failure at it, but it imposed on Mrs. Kent. She began to cry.
    “Go – go,” she said. “Go to her – desert me.”
    Emily was thoroughly angry now. If this irrational woman persisted in making a scene, very well: a scene she should have.
    “I won’t let him take me home,” she said, freezingly “Teddy, go with your mother.”
    “Oh, you command him, do you? He must do as you tell him, must he?” cried Mrs. Kent, who now seemed to lose all control of herself. Her tiny form was shaken with violent sobs. She wrung her hands.
    “He shall choose for himself,” she cried. “He shall gowith you – or