“She’s a good-looking gal, not so young as she used to be,” said P.G., who liked to pretend he was hard-boiled and who had heard Dr. Blythe say the same of someone.
“Oh, do shut up,” said Jill furiously again. “Did she ... I mean your girl ... marry the other fellow?”
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose so! Don’t you know?”
“Well, her family moved out west next year. I don’t know what became of her.”
“And you never took the trouble to find out. Well, I guess Susan Baker has more sense than most women,” said the disgusted Jill.
“Well, you see I was too sore ever to try to find out. Now, shall we call this a day? Helen of Troy will probably be anxious about you even if your mother isn’t.”
“Helen doesn’t know us, and mother is very anxious about us as a rule,” said P.G. indignantly. “Only Aunt Henrietta is very exacting. She was our father’s sister, not Mum’s. And Susan Baker says she is the worst crank on the Island. Even the doctor says ...”
“P.G.,” said Jill solemnly. “You are not to repeat gossip ... not even if Diana Blythe tells you.”
“Who is it he’s stuck on?” whispered Anthony to Jill. “Nan or Diana?”
“Both,” said Jill. “But now what about this house?”
“I’ll run up to town tomorrow and by next week we can get started,” said Anthony.
A few days later an army of workmen descended on Orchard Knob and Jill entered the seventh heaven. Never in all her life had she had such fun. She bossed the men to death, but as she had the technique of managing the sex at her fingers’ ends, they never knew it and did exactly as she ordered. She let Anthony and P.G. run the outdoors alterations for the most part, but as far as the house was concerned she was supreme.
The old place had been asleep for many years but now it was wakened up with a vengeance. The chimney was built up, the roof shingled with lovely green and brown shingles, the house wired from top to bottom and fitted up with all kinds of mechanical gadgets.
Jill, for all her romantic tendencies, was surprisingly practical when it came to equipment. She insisted on a china closet being put in between the kitchen and the dining room and the lovely green and mauve and old-rose bathrooms ... she had a colour scheme for every floor ... ran up a bill that would have staggered Jill if she had ever seen it.
When it came to refurnishing her cup ran over. She was brimming with ideas. Anthony had to get a Chinese embroidery Jill liked for the hall walls and a dear little blue china cabinet with bouquets painted on its doors, and wonderful brocade curtains for the living room that were between spring-green and pale gold ... oh, Jill certainly had a taste! Mirrors in all the closet doors ... Persian rugs like velvet ... brass andirons and silver candlesticks and a lace-like, wrought copper lantern to hang in the new porch.
Jill often reflected that it was well that the Blythe girls were away up at some place called Avonlea, visiting an aunt. Otherwise she did not see how she could have refrained from telling them the whole matter and showing them what was being done. The whole countryside was said to be wild with curiosity. This must be being done for a bride, of course.
“Anyhow, you have your window,” said P.G. comfortingly to Anthony.
P.G. secretly wished the Blythe girls were home and could come over and see him bossing the workmen at the swimming pool and strutting around the tennis court.
As for the window, Jill and Anthony had had several pitched battles over that window.
He wanted one cut in the hall at the side of the living room door, so that a wonderful view of the sea, with Four Winds Harbour in the distance, could be seen, but Jill was sure it would spoil the wall.
Anthony proved surprisingly stubborn, said he didn’t care if the wall was spoiled, and in the end they compromised. He was to have his window and Jill was to have the bedroom that had already been painted a robin’s egg blue redecorated with a startling wallpaper spattered with parrots.
Anthony thought it would be rather awful but as usual the result vindicated Jill’s taste.
Finally the end came. The workmen had gone. All the disorder had been eliminated. Orchard Knob lay in the late August sunshine, a beautiful, gracious place, inside and out.
Jill sighed.
“It’s been a heavenly summer,” she said.
“I’ve enjoyed it myself,” admitted Anthony. “I hear your friends, the Blythe girls, are home again. Perhaps you would like to have them see it.”
“Oh, they were over here this afternoon,” said Jill, “and we showed them everything. They thought it wonderful ... I will admit they are not a bit jealous ... but they must have thought Ingleside pretty small potatoes after this.”
“Ingleside is a pretty nice place just the same,” said P.G., who had been down there and found he liked Susan Baker’s pies.
“But ...” Jill looked at Anthony reproachfully, “this house wants to be lived in now. That is the advantage Ingleside has.”
Anthony shrugged.
“Well, someone will be living in it ... in the summers at least. I’ve had a good offer already, from a New York millionaire. I think I’ll close with it.”
“Well ...” Jill sighed and yielded to the inexorable logic of facts. Of course if Anthony had no intention of spending any more summers at Half Moon Cove somebody else might as well have Orchard Knob. “That is better than shutting it up again and leaving it. Anyhow, we must have a housewarming.
I have it all planned out.”
“You would have. Are you going to ask Susan Baker?”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Anthony. But we must have Dr. and Mrs. Blythe ... but not a mob, you understand.”
“Certainly the Blythes. I would like Mrs. Blythe to see this place before it belongs to anyone else.”
“We’re going to light a big fire in the fireplace ... Nan Blythe says she knows where we can get all the driftwood we need. And we’ll turn on all the lights in the house. Won’t it look gorgeous from outside? Isn’t it lucky the house is so near the river? And we’ll bring a lunch and have a jamboree. Mother said she would provide the eats. We told her all about everything last night. But she knew most of it before.”
“It’s a way mothers have.”
“Will tomorrow night suit you?”
“Haven’t you settled the night also?” sneered Anthony. “Might as well, seeing you’ve planned everything else.”
“But we must have a night that would suit you,” said Jill. “It would never do for you not to be at your own housewarming. And we have to consider the Blythes too.”
“And make sure nobody has a baby too near the Glen that night,” sneered P.G.
“You need not be indelicate,” said Jill.
“Is a baby indelicate?” asked P.G. “Then be sure you never have one.”
“I’m going to have a half dozen,” said Jill coolly. “If that girl had still been wearing your ring, Mr. Lennox, how many babies do you think you would have had?”
“For heaven’s sake let us cut out this type of conversation,” begged Anthony. “I am old-fashioned, I know, but it embarrasses me. Have your housewarming and plan it as you like. And don’t blame me if Dr. Blythe has a baby that night.”
They had planned something Anthony had not expected. He knew they would bring their mother, of course ... Aunt Henrietta being willing ... but he did not expect Mrs. Elmsley, the artist, whom, as it chanced, he had never happened to meet.
P.G. stared when Jill told him she had asked Mrs. Elmsley.
“But why? She’s a stranger to him ...”
“Don’t be so stupid, Pig. She’s dying of curiosity to see the
place and she has to go back to Winnipeg very soon ... too soon for Anthony to fall in love with her.”
“Do you want him to fall in love with her?” P.G. felt all at sea.
“I do ... she is so beautiful he can’t help it.”
“But she’s a Mrs.”
“She is a widow, Pig. I shoul
d think you would take that for granted when I want Anthony to fall in love with her. And don’t you see? He wouldn’t sell Orchard Knob then and they’d live here in the summers anyhow. And they’ll have three children ... two boys and a girl. And the girl would have the blue parrot room. Oh, how I hate to think of anyone, even Anthony’s daughter, having that parrot room.”
“But we’ll be out west. And I don’t suppose we’ll ever come east again. So you won’t be harrowed seeing her in it,” said
P.G. with more sympathy than he usually displayed. “But I’ll always be seeing her in it in my imagination. And I just wish the parrots would peck her eyes out.”
The next night for the first time in fifteen years Orchard Knob blazed with light and a fire of driftwood glowed in the hall fireplace. The walls blossomed with red candles like rose-blooms.
Half the people in Glen St. Mary and Mowbray Narrows and Lowbridge drove or walked past the old Lennox place that night. Susan Baker was not among them but she heard all about it from the doctor and Anne the next morning.
“I wonder what the widow thinks,” she said. “Winnipeg may be a very fine place ... I have a nephew there ... but to think it could beat the Island!”
Jill was dancing on the rug before the fire.
“I’m pretending this is a magic rug,” she cried. “Everyone who steps on it will forget every disagreeable thing in his life. Try it, Anthony.”
Anthony got up from the chair where he had been sprawled by the fire and sauntered across to the window to look out on a night that was drowned in moonlight and see if any of the guests were coming. The Blythes had phoned that they would be there but a little on the late side. Luckily no babies were expected but Jim Flagg had broken his leg.
The twins did not tell Anthony that they had asked Mrs. Elmsley but he had a pretty good idea that they had. Since they had got acquainted with her they had raved so much about her beauty that he was conscious of a rather ashamed desire to see her. He did not know her name but Jill seemed to think her the most exquisite creature in the world.
“I’m getting jumpy. It’s time Mrs. Elmsley was here,” whispered Jill anxiously to P.G. “I hope she hasn’t forgotten. I’ve heard that artists aren’t very dependable.”
“What is the matter with Anthony?” whispered P.G.
Anthony, looking out of the new, magic window, was also wondering what was the matter with him.
Had he gone quite mad? Or was the window really the magic one of Jill’s pretence?
For she was there, crossing the moonlit lawn with that light step that always made him think of Beatrice, “born under a dancing star.” The next moment she was standing in the doorway. Behind her were dark trees and a purple night sky.
Her sweet face ... her eyes ... her dark wings of hair ... unchanged ... unchangeable.
“Betty!” cried Anthony.
“Mums!” cried the twins. “Where is Mrs. Elmsley? Isn’t she coming?”
“God grant she isn’t,” muttered the doctor, who was just behind Betty. He had got through with Jim’s leg sooner than he expected and something in Anthony’s face told him the whole tale. “At least not for a while. Anne, come out with me to the garden. No, not a word of objection. For once I am going to be obeyed.”
Anthony was at the door. He had her hands in his.
“Betty ... it’s you! Do you mean to say you’re ... they’re ... you’re their mother? Of course they told me their name ... but it’s such a common one ...”
Mums began to laugh because as Jill ... who had lived a century in a moment ... perfectly understood, she had either to laugh or cry. P.G., less quick at taking the heart out of a mystery, still continued to stand still, staring, with his mouth hanging open.
“Anthony! I didn’t know ... I never dreamed. The children didn’t tell me your name ... and I had never heard of an Orchard Knob. I’ve had to stick so close to Aunt Henrietta this summer I never went anywhere or heard any gossip. And they pretended you were ... they called you ... oh, I thought it was just some of their nonsense ... oh ...”
Everybody seemed to be so balled up that Jill had to come to the rescue. She had never seen anything so amazing as Anthony’s face. Neither had Anne Blythe, who had deliberately disobeyed her husband and gone back to the front door.
“Mums, isn’t Mrs. Elmsley coming? We thought ...”
“No, she has one of her bad headaches. She asked me to tell you so with her apologies.”
“Jill,” said Anthony suddenly, “you have been ordering me around all summer. I’m going to have my turn at it now. Go out ... go anywhere, you and P.G. ... for half an hour. Mrs. Blythe, will you excuse me if I ...”
“Ask the same thing? I will. I’ll go and apologize to my husband.”
“And as a reward you may tell Susan Baker everything tomorrow,” said Anthony.
When they came back to say the supper was ready in the dining room they found Anthony and Mums on the settee by the fireplace. Mums had been crying but she looked extraordinarily happy and prettier than they had ever seen her ... all the sadness gone.
“Jill,” said Anthony, “there is another chapter to that story I told you here one night.”
“No decent person eavesdrops,” said Dr. Blythe to his wife, who had been drawn back to the sunroom steps.
“I am not a decent person, then,” said Anne, “and neither are you.”
“It was all a dreadful mistake,” went on Anthony.
“I knew it,” said Jill triumphantly.
“She was still wearing my ring ... on a chain round her neck ... but she’d heard things about me ... had she a title, Betty?”
“Not quite as bad as that,” smiled Mums.
“Well, she thought I had forgotten our old compact, so she took the ring off her finger ... and we were just two proud, hurt, silly young things ...”
“I seemed to have only one object in life,” murmured Mums ... “to keep people from thinking I cared.”
“You succeeded,” said Anthony a bit grimly.
“How history repeats itself,” thought Dr. Blythe to himself. “When I thought Anne was engaged to Roy Gardiner ...”
“Isn’t that life?” thought Anne. “When I thought Gilbert was engaged to Christine Stuart ...”
“But why did you go and marry father?” demanded Jill reproachfully.
“I ... I was lonely ... and he was nice and good ... and I was fond of him,” faltered Mums.
“Shut up, Jill,” said Anthony.
“If she hadn’t, you and P.G. would never have been born,” said Dr. Blythe, coming in with a smile.
“So you see,” said P.G., “and what I want to know is this ... is anybody going to have any eats tonight?”
“So you see it’s all right now,” said Anthony. “We’re all going to live here and the parrot room will be yours, Jill. And we’ll start up that old clock since time has begun to function for me again. Mrs. Blythe, will you do us the honour of setting it going?”
“Are you really going to be our dad?” demanded Jill, when she had got her breath.
“As soon as law and gospel can make me.”
“Oh!” Jill gave a rapturous sigh. “That is what P.G. and I have been pretending right along!”
The Fourth Evening
TO A DESIRED FRIEND
I have a right to you ...
In your face I read you, witty, loving, loyal,
Made for discontents divine, satisfactions royal,
We will dare more greatly, faring on a common way ...
I know that we can be young and old together,
Playing life’s great game with zest, caring little whether
Gain or loss come of it, so the game be worth the play.
I would not be friends with all ... friendship is too fine
To be thus worn threadbare out ... but you are mine!
I know we love the same things ...
Little wandering stars, all the timeless rapture
Of a windy night when
our thoughts are safe from capture,
All the pale witcheries or old enchanted woods.
We can walk the open road when rainy twilights linger,
Or when sunset touches us with a golden finger,
Or be intimate with moonlight in gypsy solitudes.
Shining autumns will be ours, white immortal Mays,
Nights that will be purple pearls, binding in our days.
We will give each other
The right good gift of a laughter free from malice,
Glowing words that fall blood-red as drops from a chalice,
Daring to be silent, too, because we trust.
We will be merry when the firelight purrs and flashes,
We will sorrow together over the white ashes,
When our high dreams have gone into the dust.
Nice old rooms will nicer be for our jolly talks,
Gardens will the dearer be for our remembered walks.
We have a right to each other ...
A right to the savour and tang of losing and keeping,
A right to a fellowship in sowing and reaping,
Oh, there will not be time for all we have to tell!
We have lost too much in the years that are behind us,
Let us take and hold now what is given to bind us.
Here’s my hand ... take it as frankly ... all will be well ...
Till the last lure beckons, till the road makes end,
You and I will keep our step, friend with friend.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “Good stuff, Anne. I really had no idea I had such a clever wife. Boys, remember there is nothing better than a good, loyal friend. One such friend is worth a million acquaintances.”
WALTER, thinking:- “I hope I’ll meet a friend like that some day.” a voice no one hears:- “You will. And his name will be death.”
SUSAN baker, thinking:- “I wonder why I shivered just now. My old Aunt Lucinda would say someone was walking over my grave.”
Fancy’s Fool
Esme did not want particularly to spend the weekend at Longmeadow, as the Barrys called their home on the outskirts of Charlottetown.
The Blythes Are Quoted Page 13