Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast.
That offers you a calm and relaxing transition to sleep.
Into a great night's sleep.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Close your eyes.
And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day go.
Drift away.
This is your time.
And your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
And let it out with a long sigh.
That's it!
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter 3 A hope out of kin.
Douglas Starr lived two weeks more.
In after years when the pain had gone out of their recollection,
Emily thought they were the most precious of her memories.
They were beautiful weeks.
Beautiful and not sad.
And one night when he was lying on the couch in the sitting room with Emily beside him in the old winged chair.
.
.
He went past the curtain so quietly and easily.
Emily did not know he was gone.
Until she suddenly felt the strange stillness of the room.
There was no breathing in it but her own.
Father!
" she cried.
Then she screamed for Ellen.
Ellen Green told the Murrays in They Cane that Emily had behaved very well when you talk everything into account.
To be sure she cried all night and hadn't slept a wink.
None of them were people who came flocking kindly in.
Could help comfort her.
But when the morning came,
Her tears were all shed and she was pale and quiet and docile.
That's right now.
Say the hell in.
That's what comes of being properly prepared.
Your pa was so mad at me for warning you he wasn't rightly civil to me since.
And him a dying man.
But I don't hold any grudge.
I did my duty.
Now Mrs Hubbard's fixing up a black dress for you and it'll be ready by supper time.
Your Mars people will be here tonight,
So they've telegraphed,
And I'm bound they'll find you looking respectable.
They're well off and they'll provide for you.
Your pa hasn't left a cent,
But there ain't any debts,
I'll say that.
Have you been in to see the body?
Don't call him that.
Cried Emily,
Wincing.
It was horrible to hear father called back.
Why not,
If you ain't the queerest child?
He makes a much better looking corpse than I thought he would,
What with being so wasted and all.
He was always a pretty man,
Though far too thin.
"'Ellen Green,
' said Emily suddenly.
"'If you say any more of those things about Father,
I'll put the black curse on you.
'" Ellen Greene stared.
I don't know what on earth you mean,
But that's no way to talk after all I've done.
You'd better not let the Murrays hear you talking like that or they won't want much to do with you.
The Black Curse,
Indeed.
Well,
There's gratitude!
Emily's eyes smarted.
She was just a lonely solitary little creature and she felt very friendless.
But she was not at all remorseful for what she had said to Ellen,
And she was not going to pretend she was.
Come you here and help me wash these dishes,
" ordered Ellen.
It'll do you good to have something to take your mind off it,
Then you won't be putting after curses on people who work their fingers to the bone.
With an eloquent glance at Ellen's hands,
Emily went and got the dish towel.
Your hands are fat and punchy.
She said.
The bones don't show at all.
Never you mind sassing back.
It's awful with your poor pa dead in there.
If your Aunt Ruth takes you,
She'll soon cure you of that.
Is Aunt Ruth going to take me?
I don't know where she ought to.
She's a widow with no chick or child and well to do.
I don't think I want Aunt Ruth to take me,
Said Emily.
Well,
You won't have the choosing,
Likely.
You ought to be thankful to get a home anywhere.
Remember,
You're not much of importance.
I'm important to myself,
Cried Emily proudly.
It'll be some chore to bring you up,
Utter Dellen.
You aren't really the one to do it in my opinion.
She won't stand no nonsense.
A fine woman she is,
And the neatest housekeeper on Pea Island.
You could eat off her floor.
I don't want to eat off her floor.
I don't care if her floor's dirty as long as the tablecloth's clean.
Well,
Her tablecloths are clean too,
I reckon.
She's got an elegant house in Shrewsbury with bow windows and wooden lace all round the roof.
Is very stylish.
It'll be a fine home for you.
She'd learn you some sense and do your world a good.
I don't want to learn sense and be done a world of good too.
Cried Emily with a quivering lip.
I want someone to love me.
Well,
You've got to behave yourself if you want people to like you.
You're not to blame so much.
Your pa has spoiled you,
I reckon.
I told him so often enough,
But he just laughed.
I hope he ain't sorry for it now.
The fact is,
Emily Starr,
You're queer and folks don't care for queer children.
How am I queer?
Demanded Emily.
You talk queer and you act queer and at times you even look queer.
You're too old for your age.
No,
That ain't your fault.
It comes with never mixing with other children.
I've always freaked your father to send you to school.
Learning at home ain't the same thing.
But he wouldn't listen to me,
Of course.
I don't say book watcher as far along as book learning as you need to be.
But what you want is to learn how to be like other children,
In one way or another.
It'd be a good thing if your Uncle Oliver would take you.
He's got a big family.
But he's not as well off as the rest so it ain't likely.
Your Uncle Wallace might,
Seeing as he reckons himself the head of the family.
He's only got one grown-up daughter.
But his wife's delicate or fancies that she is.
I wish Aunt Laura would take me.
See them really.
She remembered that Father said Aunt Laura was something like her mother.
Aunt Laura!
She won't have no say in it.
Elizabeth's boss at New Moon.
Jimmy Murray runs the farm but he ain't quite all there I'm told.
What part of him isn't there?
Asked Emily curiously.
Oh,
I see something about his mind.
He's a bit simple.
Some accident or other when he was a youngster,
I heard.
It addled his head,
Kinda.
Elizabeth was mixed up in it some way.
I've never really heard the rights of it.
I don't reckon the new moon people will want to be bothered with you,
Emily Star.
They're all for setting their ways.
You take my advice and try and please your Aunt Ruth.
Be polite and well behaved and maybe she'll take a fancy to you.
There,
That's all the dishes done.
You better go upstairs and be out of the way.
And I take my Consortia Sal.
No,
You can't.
But they'd be company for me.
Company or no company,
You cannot have them.
The cats are outside and they stay outside.
I ain't gonna have them tracking all over the house.
The floor's just been scrubbed.
Why didn't you scrub the floor when father was alive?
" asked Emily.
He liked things to be clean.
You hardly ever scrubbed it then,
So why do you do it now?
Listen to her!
Was I to be always scrubbing floors with my rheumatis?
Get off upstairs,
And you better lie down a while.
I'm going upstairs,
But I'm not going to lie down,
" said Emily.
I've got a lot of thinking to do.
There's one thing I'll advise you to do,
Said Ellen,
Determined to lose no chance of doing her duty,
And that is to kneel down and pray to God to make you a good and respectful and grateful child.
Emily paused at the foot of the stairs and looked back.
Father said I wasn't to have anything to do with your God.
She said gravely.
Ellen gasped foolishly,
But could not think of any reply to this heathenish statement.
She appealed to the universe.
Did anyone ever hear the like?
I know what your God is like,
Said Emily.
I saw his picture in that Adam and Eve book of yours.
He's got whiskers and wears a nightgown.
I don't like him.
I like Father's God.
And what's your father's God like,
If I may ask?
Emily hadn't any idea what Father's God was like.
But she was determined not to be posed by Ellen.
He's as clear as the moon,
Fair as the sun.
Terrible as an army with banners,
" she said triumphantly.
Well,
You're bound to have the last word.
But the Murrays will teach you what's what,
" said Ellen.
They're strict Presbyterians and they won't hold by any of your father's awful notions.
Now get upstairs!
Emily went up to the south room feeling very desolate.
There isn't anybody in the world who loves me now.
She said.
As she curled up on her bed by the window.
But she was determined she would not cry.
The Marys who hated her father should not see her crying.
She felt she detested them all.
All except,
Perhaps,
Aunt Laura.
How very big and empty the world had suddenly become.
Nothing was interesting anymore.
It did not matter the little squat apple tree between Adam and Eve had become a thing of rose and snow beauty.
That the hills beyond the hollow were of green silk,
Purple-misted,
That the daffodils were out in the garden,
That the birches were hung all over with golden tassels,
That the wind woman was blowing white young clouds across the sky.
None of these things had any charm or consolation for Emily now.
In her experience,
She believed they never would have again.
But I promised father I'd be brave,
She whispered clenching her fists,
And I will.
And I won't let the Murrays see I'm afraid of them.
I won't be afraid of them.
I won't.
