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i




ELEY

A.RY

5ITY OF
DRNIA ^



Tales of Old
Toronto



By

SUZANNE MARNY

Author of
" A Canadian Book of Months."



Illustrated by

MARIA NICHOLL



TORONTO

WILLIAM BRIGGS

1909



Copyright, Canada, 1909,

by
WILLIAM BRIGGS



CONTENTS



Love Among the Ruins ....


PAGB.

7


The Lonely Student


28


The Footstool


4e


Distant Youth


55-


Scraps from a Commonplace Life


61


The Unhappy House


76


The West in the East


100


The Island in the North


122



TALES OF OLD TORONTO



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

I.

The time of which I write was some thirty
years ago, when Belle Raymond was two-
and-twenty. She was living in the house of
her great-uncle Raymond. The dwelling was
a dingy, semi-detached white brick house,
characteristic of the period, and stood some-
where in the vicinity of Shuter and Bond
streets. That was when Gerrard Street was
uptown and Yorkville seemed a day's journey.
The household consisted of Uncle Raymond,
who was over seventy, wrinkled, pale-eyed
and white-bearded; Aunt Elizabeth, his wife,
close on his own age; her sister. Aunt Anne;
Belle, and Belle's morose and trying brother
Edward, aged about twenty-six, who with
Belle had been left an orphan at an early age
and had been adopted by Uncle Raymond.

The sitting-room in the little white brick
house was small and square, and had been
papered some years before in brown with dull
gold flowers touched up with red. Now the
paper was rubbed and dingy. The chairs and
sofa were of walnut, of an early Victorian
design, and covered with horsehair. There



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

was a marble-topped table in the centre, which
bore up bravely under the never-changing
load of a Bible, a Shakespeare, and a Fox's
Book of Martyrs. There were ornaments of
dangling cut glass on the mantelpiece, various
china figures, and something wonderful under
a glass case; an old-fashioned oil lamp hung
from the ceiling over the centre-table and
gave light to the family group.

In the daytime Belle did not find the room
so bad. Just now it was winter, and when
she sat at her sewing there were slight
changes to be observed through the window
from time to time. Sometimes the snow was
piled high on the doorsteps and roofs of the
red brick houses opposite, giving them a cosy
aspect. Sometimes the generous sun of
golden February afternoons flooded the street
where the rich blue shadows did not fall.
Then a swarm of birds came one morning and
despoiled the brilliant mountain ash tree.
Not many moments elapsed without someone
passing by. There was always something
not absolutely the same.

In the evenings, when the curtains were
drawn in the little room, and Uncle Raymond
sat in his skull-cap in his arm-chair on one
side of the fire, breathing heavily, and Aunt
Anne, Belle and Edward poring over books



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

or work under the lamp, it seemed as if
nothing changed, as if things went on for ever
in maddening monotony.

The old uncle gave his dry cackle at his
own jokes, that never made Belle feel like




smiling; gave out his dry-as-dust information
on topics that never interested her, or had to
be read aloud to and shouted at on account of
his increasing deafness.

Aunt Elizabeth was always meek and com-



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

pliant and characterless to a depressing ex-
tent. She talked little, which perhaps was
some comfort.

Aunt Anne was full of gossip of trades-
people, of sewing, of church affairs, tantaliz-
ing in its remoteness from any kind of human
interest.

Edward, too, did not seem in touch with
young people or interests of his age. He
stayed in perpetually of an evening and read
or played patience.

Belle had taken on her from such sur-
roundings a sort of crust of old age which
stihed youthful emotion, and made her feel
more or less dead to youthful pleasures, as if
she could never hope to have an active share
in the world outside the little white brick
house. Occasionally a rebellious clamoring
for some more youthful and lively thoughts
or occupation would well up through the
stupefying crust that dulled her emotional
life.

Once when the old people had gone up to
bed, and she and Edward were alone in the
sitting-room, she burst into tears and appealed
to her brother: "Oh, Edward, what a life
this is, shut up with all these old people!"

Edward turned to her. " Belle, are you
going crazy, or have you been reading

lO



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

novels? Most girls would be only too thank-
ful to have a soft spot to live in like you have.
What do you want? You are not a beauty, or
a millionaire, or a girl of eighteen."

Belle, only too humble, remembered again
that she had been in long dresses for some six
years, that she was no child, that she must
not count on things that happened in novels
happening to her. Her uncle was a strict
Presbyterian. Dances were forbidden. They
seldom were invited out to entertainments.
Edward never brought any young men to the
house. She had met an occasional youth at
the few parties she had been to, but she was
shy and diffident and made no effort to be
attractive when there were other girls about.
No youth had ever made love to her in her
shut-in life, and she had seldom been told she
was good to look at. Yet she was rather pre-
possessing. Her large grey eyes had never
been kindled to coquetry, and her pretty lips
had never curved in expressive answers to
love-making, except perhaps to imaginary
love-making that she had indulged in before
she felt herself almost an old maid.

There was not much privacy in the queer
little household. The days developed like a
monotonous little play with the same scenery,
the same actors — the breakfast table in the

ir



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

poky little dining-room, the dinner table, the
tea table with the tea and toast set on the old
round of mahogany. Then the parlor in the
evening. Then her little cold bedroom with
the old dark wardrobe, the old walnut bed,
the marble-topped washstand with the purple



jug and basin, the little square looking-glass
over the dressing-table, where she saw herself
night and morning. Belle thought there were
lines coming at each side of her mouth.
'' Shall I see one line after another coming,"
she pondered, '' till I am like Aunt Anne or



12



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Aunt Elizabeth? Shall I wilt here like a for-
gotten weed, or something just as useless?
Where is love, where is life — are they only
in books? They are not here. Do realities,
interesting things, ever happen to people?
They don't happen to me."

The summer seemed a lonelier season than
the winter. In the winter one was more shut
in; one seemed to see just how the people at
home lived. In the open summer there came
glimpses of other lives which showed up her
own as dull and narrow. The spring brought
an uneasy stirring of hope in some intangible
way. The ice broke up and melted into rills
and streams which bubbled up through the
old board walks The leafless poplars and
willow wands colored tenderly, and startling
patches of green showed on the terraces ex-
posed to the strong March sun. The brown
earth softened, and all these things gave forth
a wonderful and deliciously disturbing per-
fume. In her walks Belle sometimes caught
a sentimental glance of girl and boy, and at
her window at night in the soft spring dark-
ness, in a hopeless way, she imagined kisses
on her lips.

Then came the summer. The chestnut
trees spread their fans and proudly bore their
white bouquets; the lilacs enchanted, and the

13



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

syringas were a perfumed joy. Uncle Ray-
mond had his old wooden summer armchair
placed on the sidewalk at the front door, and
there the family grouped themselves till dusk-
But in those sweet summer days she saw
youths and maidens in boating dress going
off in pairs to enjoy themselves. She caught
glimpses of picnickers coming and going, and
there were other sights and sounds of sum-
mer gayety which made her heart ache with
its own solitude. When the dusk came she
was heavily depressed and thought no more
of love or pleasure for herself, because of its
too mocking remoteness. The chestnut trees
and syringas seemed hateful in their beauty
and unfitness as a background for her im-
prisoning life. When the beauty of summer
faded and became dusty-coated she grew
more easy; the days shortened, the world
around seemed less joyous and more in keep-
ing with her own mood.

This winter faded away, leaving the
thought in Belle's mind that next winter she
would be twenty-three. Spring came, and
then June, and the gates of heaven opened
and let loose the comforting angel. One
evening Belle came to the tea-table a few
minutes late. Uncle Raymond was there,
pink and wrinkled, and dipping his toast in

14



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

his tea; Aunt Elizabeth, silent, and gentle to
nothingness; Aunt Anne, warted and parch-
ment-like in her black dress, was chirping
away; Edward, morose, sallow, and mali-
cious; and — a stranger, fair-haired, about
thirty-five, strong and weather-beaten, in a
light tweed suit, was introduced to Belle as
Cousin Alec Cowan, from Edinburgh. Cousin
Alec was a second cousin, a lawyer, who had
come into a modest fortune lately and was en-
joying a little travel. He had been on the
Continent for some months pursuing a hobby
of sketching in water-color, and was now in
America for a few weeks, and was staying in
town with some other cousins.

Belle, too shy to speak, devoured with her
eyes the refreshing sight. Cousin Alec had
the light, clear blue eyes and fair skin that
appeal most directly to a brunette like Belle.
He talked and was entertaining. After tea
all adjourned to the sidewalk, and the visitor
stayed chatting till long after dusk. Unem-
barrassed, he glanced frequently at Belle and
included her in the conversation, not always
waiting for her shy and tardy replies.

The old people went indoors and one by
one to bed, and Belle found herself alone
with the visitor for a moment in the parlor.

** Good-night, little cousin," he said, " I

T5



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

hope we shall meet again soon, and have
another talk."

He took her hand, and — was it fancy? —
seemed to be about to draw her a little closer.
Then there was a step in the hall, and Ed-
ward came in smiling his sardonic smile.
Alec dropped the hand and said good-night
to Edward, saying he should be two or three
weeks in town, and promising to call again
soon.

Belle dropped asleep that night smiling on
her pillow. She had all sorts of odd fancies
as she fell into a doze. Had the cousin been
looking at her admiringly? Had he been
about to kiss her good-night? But, after all,
he was as remote as heroes she had read of.
He would surely be gone again in a flash.

The next morning she went to the shops on
an errand, and as she was turning her steps
up town again a voice, which seemed the voice
of her dream, said, " Good-morning, little
cousin, may I not walk a few steps with
you?" And in an easy, bantering tone he
added, '' You are as fresh as a rose to-day,
prettier than last night, I believe."

Belle grew crimson, and she thought " Oh,
if he knew that no one ever spoke to me like
that he would not tease me so lightly." She
tried to look at him and answer, but failed.

i6



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Just then they came to a confectioner's
window.

" Come, cousin," he said, taking her by the
arm, " I know you love sweets; I can tell by
the shape of your lips."

By this time Belle was able to laugh and
stammer out, " You are too kind."

" Not a bit of it," said Alec, and a box of
sweets was nut up. He walked a few steps
with her, and then put them into her hand.
*' I shall come again soon to the ogre's cave,"
he said.

Belle almost danced home with her little
prize. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks
blazing as she went up the stairs, where she
encountered Edward. He looked at her
curiously, and she laughed to herself as she
thought of the sweets hidden carefully under
her cape.

She locked them in a drawer in her room.
Her head was dizzy. She could not think
clearly. She only knew that the glance of
Cousin Alec's bantering blue eyes made her
blood tingle, and that she was dying of im-
patience to see him again.

Sooner than Belle hoped he came again.
He appeared in the evening and joined the
little party on the sidewalk. After sitting for
half an hour he suggested to Belle that he
should take her for a little stroll.

2 17



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

Belle was amazed at his boldness, and
looked questioningly at her aunts and at
Uncle Raymond. But her uncle only said,
" Yes, yes, child, take your cousin and show
him about a little. Certainly, certainly!"
And Aunt Anne actually fetched her a hat
and a wrap! When they lost sight of the
family party, Belle wondered if she was
dreaming or awake. It was nearly dark, and
she felt as if she were in some fairyland,
with a prince by her side. Cousin Alec
chatted on gaily on different topics. Then
they came to a small park, and he suggested
that they should sit down and have a little
talk on one of the benches.

Belle had collected her wits, and thought
to herself, " Let me enjoy every minute of this
little adventure," for it seemed an adventure
to her. " Let me not think of the future, nor
how soon this pleasure may cease. Let me
have a few happy moments in my dismal
life."

When Alec said, " Now let us have a little
cousinly confidence," and took her hand
gently and spread her fingers out on his palm,
she did not take it away.

He continued: "What a dismal old grave-
yard that house is for a sweet little rosebud
like you to be blooming in."

i8



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

She said with a sigh, that almost broke in
ecstatic tears, " I wish you did think 1 was
sweet."

" I do," he said heartily, and there seemed
to be nothing else for it but to put his arm
around her and hold her quite close.

Belle's cheeks burned, and whatever she
possessed of wit or eloquence rose to her
tongue as she told of her life m the little
white house — of Uncle Raymond's tedious
babblings, of Aunt Elizabeth's dreary quiet-
ness, of Aunt Anne's depressing small talk, of
the unsympathetic disposition of Edward, of
the absolute monotony of her life.

Cousin Alec was most sympathetic.
" Egad, I'd run away," he said.

*' And I'm getting old," continued Belle.

Alec laughed long and loud. Then he
stopped suddenly, and gravely put his hand
under her chin and turned her face to him.
" You look about eighteen," he said, " you are
nothing but a baby in arms. Do you know, 1
wanted to kiss you good-night last evening."

Poor Belle at this moment realized the utter
dismalness of her life, and cried out, fearing
the moment might pass forever, '' Kiss me
now!"

'' I will, indeed," said her cousin.

He kissed her, and they both laughed.

19



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

" I think we must go back now," said Alec,
" or that brother of yours will be in pursuit."

Belle kept vigil for hours that night. Many
times she went over the small occurrences of
that half-hour in the park. Her moment of
triumph was there. No matter how scant
the glimpse, the gates of Paradise had been
opened to her. How gently he had taken her
hand! How close he had held her! He had
listened to her troubles, so long borne in
silence. He thought her pretty. He had
wanted to kiss her. He had kissed her. Her
brain reeled with delight. This man, whose
fair hair and cool blue eyes were so attractive
to her, had laid his lips on hers in that sweet
intimacy. After her long starvation and
unhappiness she dared not look into the
future. She was determined to draw all the
available honey from the present.

And then to sit beside one she loved in the
soft summer night. Oh, just such nights as
those, how often she had longed to be loved!
This night had been ideal. There was no
moon. The hidden syringas gave forth their
perfume enriched by heavy dews. The earth
was mysterious with warm and heavy
shadows. The elms in the park towered black
and lacy against a softly luminous sky,
lighted by fewer stars than in winter nights.

20



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS



IL

That one kiss was sufficient for the present,
for two or three days, for Belle, l^hen she
realized that it was not sufficient, that her one
desire in life was to see and kiss and be kissed
again.

Then Cousin Alec came at the same hour
on a fine evening when they were all sitting
at the door. He was enviably cool and un-
embarrassed, Belle thought. She could not
speak.

Presently he said that the cousins with
whom he was staying had asked him to bring
Belle up for a little visit that evening.

The cousins did not live far off, and Belle
found herself on foot and alone with Alec once
more. He did not speak of the last evening
they met, but talked in a lively strain about
Scotland and his travels. They stayed an
hour or more chatting with the cousins, and
started homeward.

As they neared the then deserted park. Alec
laughed and drew her towards it, saying: '' I
cannot pass the park this way, can you?"

They sat on a bench as before, in the deep
shade. This time Alec did not take her hand.
They sat apart, talking softly for a little.
Then he said: " It grows late, my dear little

21



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

cousin; the night is too nice to go in, and yet
it is too sweet here to stay out. What say
you, Cousin Belle?"

Something about the droop of her little
face, which glimmered white in the darkness,
made him lean towards her and touch her
cheek.

" Not a tear?'' asked he. But the cheek
was surely wet. He drew her towards him,
and as she gently relaxed into his arms and
her little head dropped on his neck, and he
felt her sigh on his cheek, that sigh said very
plainly, " My heart is breaking for you, my
dear, dear Alec."

As he drew her on his knee and felt the
bewitching slenderness and softness of her
body close to him, he could not let her go at
once, but kissed her tenderly and passionately
till even the desolate child felt that the ten
minutes in the lovely June darkness made up
to her for the gray solitude of her past years.

Then he set her down upon the bench.
" Little cousin Belle," he said, " you are
much too sweet. I cannot forget you, but a
roving rascal like myself must not spoil ever
so little of your life."

" I would dare everything," whispered
Belle, '' to make ever so little of your life
happy."

22



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

"Nonsense, child," he replied; ''come, go
home, and go to sleep and forget me at once."

He led home the silent girl, telling her he
would come once more to Uncle Raymond's
house to bid her good-bye, but that they must
not wander about alone again.



#



^^A




But, partly by design, partly by accident,
they did meet again various times in the next
fortnight. There was a long day in the
delectable summer valley of the Don — a day
promise of long hours
tragic, and the more



exquisite in the
together, sweetly



23



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

precious in the knowledge that it must end.
A day of joyous, lover-like, child-like frolic,
alternating with returns to contemplation of
some feature of the dear one. The climax of
folly was when Belle held up her dress above
her ankles and waded barefoot in the shallows
of the river, and Alec dried her little feet for
the most part with kisses.

Then there was an afternoon roaming in the
woods with confidences suspended till the
gloaming. Then on a curving fallen tree they
sat close, the silence broken by shy love
names, soft whisperings, and the kisses daily
more dear. They groped homeward. Alec's
arm holding Belle close, her heart beating
wildly at the deliciousness of the moment
and at dread of the chill, lonely evening before
her.

A last evening together there was under the
stars which had glimmered pitilessly on her
former desolation and would again. There
was love-making a little bold, wrapt in its
shield of summer night, a little desperate at
the near parting. All that was dear to her
Belle held in her arms — her sunburnt, roving
Alec; and Alec held in his arms the tenderest,
most loving girl that was ever there. That
night they said farewell. Belle feeling that she
had drunk enough of joy to last her long.



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

On sunny days between those meetings the
world had been a blurred golden haze for
Belle; on dark days the tire glowed within,
and external things were dreamy and indis-
tinct. She was perpetually conscious of part-
ing kisses and caresses. The hours of meet-
ing had been few, but she had learnt love as
though she had spent a lifetime on it. '

Utter loneliness soon descended upon her
after the last parting. She felt herself a
widow, but tragically rejoiced at having been
loved and at loving so much. There were
keepsakes in her bureau. A day would come
— a calmer day — when she would go over
them again: the cardboard box that had held
the sweets; flowers Alec had picked; a charm
from his watch-chain. Belle had a small,
short, light curl which she did not keep in the
drawer.

One morning, a few days after she had last
seen him. Belle sat crushed and resigned at
her sewing in the parlor. Aunt Anne was
there at work too. The front door opened,
there was a brisk step in the hall, and Alec
appeared in the doorway.

"Good-morning, Aunt Anne; good-morn-
ing, Belle," he said. " Aunt Anne, I want to
speak to Belle."



TALES OF OLD TORONTO

" You can speak to her, you can speak to
her," quacked Aunt Anne.

" Yes, but, Aunt Anne, I want to speak to
her without you."

Belle had jumped up crimson from her
work.

" Without me!" began Aunt Anne, but Alec
had put her gently out and closed the door,
and she did not attempt to re-enter. Belle
found herself on Alec's knee, weeping in his
arms. " Are you weeping because you must
marry me in a week and come away with
me?" said Alec. '' Kiss me, my precious girl;
put your arms round my neck," he pleaded,
and they kissed, amidst Belle's tears, warmly
and long.

" Was there ever a kiss like that before,"
said Alec, " in this dreadful little room? It's
a wonder this horsehair furniture doesn't fly
out of the window. No, my girl, no more
kisses like that for a week — business to attend
to. What a brute 1 have been to torment you
so. You little temptress, one more kiss before
the old times are gone forever."

A moment for the kiss the gods allowed
them — the happiest heaven of a moment it
was to Belle, no more a widow — then the
household, having taken alarm, came trooping

26



LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

in. Aghast they were, Uncle Raymond and
the aunts, but Alec boldly quieted them.

But did ever such golden hours come again,
such sweet, warm moments, of which each one
might be the last? Hours of trespassing in
Paradise, under the nose of the angel with
the flaming sword; kisses forbidden, and
secret to all but the two; and the mild Cana-
dian summer stars, the maple wood, and the
silver, winding Don — the first rending of the
veil of strangeness between the two lovers so
aptly made for one another!



27



THE LONELY STUDENT

It was a winter's day when I first saw her.
The snow lay new and soft and billowy on
the ground. It pervaded the air illusively and
confusingly, and it hung above in the sky,
unborn, with its future of melting between
heaven and earth, or swelling the white
masses covering the earth. The houses round
about the church were decorated like a
Christmas card, with a load of white on porch
and roof, and with fine white lines suggesting
shutter slats, window-sills and door-panels.

The church mounted darkly, like a moun-
tain, into clouds, in its square at the end of the
street. in front of the edifice, and almost
competing with it in height, was a great bare
poplar.

There were grocers' wagons flying here and
there, and milk carts on runners gliding over
the road, and the children were running every-
where with their little sleighs. She was at the
door of the white cottage adjoining a larger
white house. She was sweeping the banked-
up snow from the cottage steps — a slender,
trim figure, poorly clad. She was about
sixteen, pale and pretty, with red lips and fair
hair.

28



THE LONELY STUDENT



I stopped and asked her name.

She looked surprised, and replied, rather
shyly, " Selina."

" Who lives in this cottage?" I asked.

" Me and my father, the sexton," she said.

" Perhaps some day you will show me the
church, my dear?" I said.

At this she ran into the cottage with no