A Seaside Wooing by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Part 1
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Fir Cottage, Plover Sands, July Sixth
We arrived here late last night, and all day Aunt Martha has stayed in her room to rest. So I had to stay in my room and rest too, although I was not at all tired and really wanted to go out and enjoy myself.
My name is Marguerite Forrester – an impossibly long name for so small a girl. Aunt Martha does not like my name, but she always uses it in full. Connie Shelmardine used to call me Rita. Connie was my best friend last year at school. We write to each other sometimes, but Aunt Martha does not approve of this.
I have always lived with Aunt Martha – my parents died when I was a baby. Aunt Martha says that all her money will come to me when she dies – but only if I please her. This means – but, oh, you do not know what “pleasing’ Aunt Martha means.
Aunt is a real man-hater. Actually, she doesn’t like women much either, and she trusts nobody except Mrs Saxby, her maid. I like Mrs Saxby. She’s not as stony-hearted as Aunt, although she gets a little stonier every year. I suppose I shall soon start to become stony myself, but it hasn’t happened yet. My blood is still unreasonably warm and I feel full of life, which gets me into trouble.
Aunt Martha’s heart will stop beating if she ever sees me talking to a man. She watches me closely, wanting to guard me from those wild and dangerous creatures called men. So I have to walk quietly and pretend to be good, even if I am not. And all the time I have the wildest dreams of being bad.
We have come down to spend a few weeks at Fir Cottage.
Our good landlady, Mrs Blake, is a large, kindly person, and I think she likes me. I have been talking away to her all day, because there are times when I absolutely must talk to someone or go mad.
July Tenth
This kind of life is extraordinarily dull. Every day is the same. I go to the beach with Aunt Martha and Mrs Saxby in the morning, read to Aunt in the afternoons, and sit around miserably by myself in the evenings. Mrs Blake has lent me a very fine spyglass which she owns. She says her husband brought it home from abroad before he died.
While Aunt and Mrs Saxby walk slowly up and down the beach, leaving me free, I amuse myself by looking through the spyglass and seeing distant seas and coasts. In this way I can take a look into a forbidden world. We see few people, although there is a large summer hotel about a mile up the beach. Our part of the beach does not seem to be popular with the hotel guests – they prefer the rocks and do not come down to our end. This pleases Aunt Martha greatly.
On our first morning here I noticed something white on the rocks, about half a mile away, and turned my spyglass on it. There – and it looked only a stone’s throw away from me – was a young man. He was lying on a rock, looking dreamily out to sea. There was something about his face that reminded me of someone, but I could not think who it was.
Every morning since we arrived five days ago, he has appeared on the same rock. He seems to be a person who likes to be by himself. It’s a good thing that Aunt doesn’t know what I am watching through my spyglass. What would she say?
July Eleventh
I shall have to stop looking into the forbidden world, I’m afraid. This morning I turned my spyglass, as usual, on to his favorite rock. I nearly fell over in my surprise, because he was also looking through a spyglass straight at me, it seemed.
How foolish I felt! But after a few minutes I just had to have another look, just to see what he was doing. Then he calmly put down his spyglass, stood up, lifted his hat, and bowed politely to me – or at least, in my direction. I dropped my spyglass and smiled, feeling amused and foolish at the same time. Then I remembered that he was probably watching me again, and maybe he was thinking that my smile was for him.
I stopped smiling at once, shut my spyglass, and did not touch it again. Soon after we came home.
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