There was an eerie stir in the wind-torn firs behind Kirkwynd: far away a snow-squall whitened over a hill where a row of lombardies stabbed the grey sky. Everybody was hurrying to get away before it reached Mowbray Narrows.
'Have I any right to be so happy when other women are so miserable?' Anne wondered to herself as they drove home, remembering Olivia Kirk's eyes as she thanked Clara Wilson.
Anne got up from her window. It was nearly twelve years ago now. Clara Wilson was dead and Olivia Kirk had gone to the coast, where she had married again. She had been much younger than Peter.
'Time is kinder than we think,' thought Anne. 'It's a dreadful mistake to cherish bitterness for years... hugging it to our hearts like a treasure. But I think the story of what happened at Peter Kirk's funeral is one which Walter must never know. It was certainly no story for children.'
36
Rilla sat on the veranda steps at Ingleside with one knee crossed over the other... such adorable little fat brown knees!... very busy being unhappy. And if anyone asks why a petted little puss should be unhappy that inquirer must have forgotten her own childhood, when things that were the merest trifles to grown-ups were dark and dreadful tragedies to her. Rilla was lost in deeps of despair because Susan had told her she was going to bake one of her silver-and-gold cakes for the Orphanage social that evening and she, Rilla, must carry it to the church in the afternoon.
Don't ask me why Rilla felt she would rather die than carry a cake through the village to the Glen St Mary Presbyterian Church. Tots get odd notions into their little pates at times, and somehow Rilla had got it into hers that it was a shameful and humiliating thing to be seen carrying a cake anywhere. Perhaps it was because, one day when she was only five, she had met old Tillie Pake carrying a cake down the street with all the little village boys yelping at her heels and making fun of her. Old Tillie lived down at the Harbour Mouth and was a very dirty, ragged old woman.
'Old Tillie Pake
Up and stole a cake,
And it gave her stomach ache,'
chanted the boys.
To be classed with Tillie Pake was something Rilla just could not bear. The idea had become lodged in her mind that you just 'couldn't be a lady' and carry cakes about. So this was why she sat disconsolately on the steps and the dear little mouth, with one front tooth missing, was without its usual smile. Instead of looking as if she understood what daffodils were thinking about or as if she shared with the golden rose a secret they alone knew, she looked like one crushed for ever. Even her big hazel eyes that almost shut up when she laughed were mournful and tormented, instead of being the usual pools of allurement. 'It's the fairies that have touched your eyes,' Aunt Kitty MacAllister told her once. Her father vowed she was a born charmer and had smiled at Dr Parker half an hour after she was born. Rilla could, as yet, talk better with her eyes than her tongue, for she had a decided lisp. But she would grow out of that, she was growing fast. Last year Daddy had measured her by a rose-bush; this year it was the phlox; soon it would be the hollyhocks and she would be going to school. Rilla had been very happy and well contented with herself until this terrible announcement of Susan's. Really, Rilla told the sky indignantly, Susan had no sense of shame. To be sure, Rilla pronounced it 'thenth of thame', but the lovely, soft-blue sky looked as if it understood.
Mummy and Daddy had gone to Charlottetown that morning and all the other children were in school, so Rilla and Susan were alone at Ingleside. Ordinarily Rilla would have been delighted under such circumstances. She was never lonely; she would have been glad to sit there on the steps or on her own particular mossy green stone in Rainbow Valley, with a fairy kitten or two for company, and spin fancies about everything she saw... the corner of the lawn that looked like a merry little band of butterflies... the poppies floating over the garden... that great fluffy cloud all alone in the sky... the big bumble bees booming over the nasturtiums... the honeysuckle that hung down to touch her red-brown curls with a yellow finger... the wind that blew... where did it blow to?... Cock Robin, who was back again and strutting importantly along the railing of the veranda, wondering why Rilla would not play with him... Rilla, who could think of nothing but the terrible fact that she must carry a cake, a cake, through the village to the church for the old social they were getting up for the orphans. Rilla was dimly aware that the Orphanage was at Lowbridge and that poor children lived there who had no fathers or mothers. She felt terribly sorry for them. But not even for the orphanest of orphans was small Rilla Blythe willing to be seen in public carrying a cake.
Perhaps if it rained she wouldn't have to go. It didn't look like rain, but Rilla clasped her hands together... there was a dimple at the root of every finger... and said earnestly:
'Plethe, dear God, make it rain hard. Make it rain pitchforkth. Or elth...' Rilla thought of another saving possibility... 'make Thusanth cake burn... burn to a crithp.'
Alas, when dinner-time came the cake, done to a turn, filled and iced, was sitting triumphantly on the kitchen table. It was a favourite cake of Rilla's... 'gold-and-silver cake' did sound so luxuriant... but she felt that never again would she be able to eat a mouthful of it.
Still... wasn't that thunder rolling over the low hills across the harbour? Perhaps God had heard her prayer, perhaps there would be an earthquake before it was time to go. Couldn't she take a pain in her stomach if worst came to worst? No. Rilla shuddered. That would mean castor oil. Better the earthquake!
The rest of the children did not notice that Rilla, sitting in her own dear chair, with the saucy white duck worked in crewels on the back, was very quiet. Thelfith pigth! If Mummy had been home she would have noticed it. Mummy had seen right away how troubled she was that dreadful day when Dad's picture had come out in the Enterprise. Rilla was crying bitterly in bed when Mummy came in and found out that Rilla thought it was only murderers that had their pictures in the papers. It had not taken Mummy long to put that to rights. Would Mummy like to see her daughter carrying a cake through the Glen like old Tillie Pake?
Rilla found it hard to eat any dinner, though Susan had put down her own lovely blue plate with the wreath of rosebuds on it that Aunt Rachel Lynde had sent her on her last birthday and which she was generally allowed to have only on Sundays. Blue plateth and rothbudth! When you had to do such a shameful thing! Still, the fruit puffs Susan had made for dessert were nice.
'Thuthan, can't Nan and Di take the cake after thcool?' she pleaded.
'Di is going home from school with Jessie Reese and Nan has a bone in her leg,' said Susan, under the impression that she was being joky. 'Besides, it would be too late. The committee wants all the cakes in by three so they can cut them up and arrange the tables before they go home to have their suppers. Why in the world don't you want to go, Roly-poly? You always think it is such fun to go for the mail.'
Rilla was a bit of a roly-poly but she hated to be called that.
'I don't want to hurt my feelingth,' she explained stiffly.
Susan laughed. Rilla was beginning to say things that made the family laugh. She never could understand why they laughed, because she was always in earnest. Only Mummy never laughed; she hadn't laughed even when she found out that Rilla thought Daddy was a murderer.
'The social is to make money for poor little boys and girls who haven't any kind father or mother,' explained Susan... as if she was a baby who didn't understand!
'I'm next thing to a norphan,' said Rilla. 'I've only got one father and mother.'
Susan just laughed again. Nobody understood.
'You know your mother promised the committee that cake, pet. I have not time to take it myself and it must go. So put on your blue gingham and toddle off.'
'My doll hath been tooken ill,' said Rilla desperately. 'I mutht put her to bed and thtay with her. Maybe itth ammonia.'
'Your doll will do very well till you get back. You can go and come in half an hour,' was Susan's heartless response.
There was no hope. Even God had fail
ed her... there wasn't a sign of rain. Rilla, too near tears to protest any further, went up and put on her new smocked organdy and her Sunday hat, trimmed with daisies. Perhaps if she looked respectable people wouldn't think she was like old Tillie Pake.
'I think my fathe itth clean if you will kindly look behind my earth,' she told Susan with great stateliness.
She was afraid Susan might scold her for putting on her best dress and hat. But Susan merely inspected her ears, handed her a basket containing the cake, told her to mind her pretty manners and for goodness' sake not to stop to talk to every cat she met.
Rilla made a rebellious 'face' at Gog and Magog and marched away. Susan looked after her tenderly.
'Fancy our baby being old enough to carry a cake all alone to the church,' she thought, half proudly, half sorrowfully, as she went back to work, blissfully unaware of the torture she was inflicting on a small mite she would have given her life for.
Rilla had not felt so mortified since the time she had fallen asleep in church and tumbled off the seat. Ordinarily she loved going down to the village: there were so many interesting things to see; but today Mrs Carter Flagg's fascinating clothes-line, with all those lovely quilts on it, did not win a glance from Rilla, and the new cast-iron deer Mr Augustus Palmer had set up in his yard left her cold. She had never passed it before without wishing they could have one like it on the lawn at Ingleside. But what were cast-iron deer now? Hot sunshine poured along the street like a river and everybody was out. Two girls went by, whispering to each other. Was it about her? She imagined what they might be saying. A man driving along the road stared at her. He was really wondering if that could be the Blythe baby and, by George, what a little beauty she was! But Rilla felt that his eyes pierced the basket and saw the cake. And when Annie Drew drove by with her father, Rilla was sure she was laughing at her. Annie Drew was ten and a very big girl in Rilla's eyes.
Then there was a whole crowd of boys and girls on Russell's corner. She had to walk past them. It was dreadful to feel that their eyes were all looking at her and then at each other. She marched by, so proudly desperate that they all thought she was stuck-up and had to be brought down a peg or two. They'd show that kitten-faced thing! A regular hoity-toity like all those Ingleside girls! Just because they lived up at the big house!
Millie Flagg strutted along behind her, imitating her walk and scuffing up clouds of dust over them both.
'Where's the basket going with the child?' shouted 'Slicky' Drew.
'There's a smudge on your nose, jam-face,' jeered Bill Palmer.
'Cat got your tongue?' said Sarah Warren.
'Snippet!' sneered Beenie Bentley.
'Keep on your side of the road or I'll make you eat a June bug,' big Sam Flagg stopped gnawing a raw carrot long enough to say.
'Look at her blushing,' giggled Mamie Taylor.
'Bet you're taking a cake to the Presbyterian Church,' said Charlie Warren. 'Half dough like all Susan Baker's cakes.'
Pride would not let Rilla cry but there was a limit to what one could bear. After all, an Ingleside cake...
'The next time any of you are thick I'll tell my father not to give you any medithine,' she said defiantly.
Then she stared in dismay. That couldn't be Kenneth Ford coming around the corner of the Harbour road! It couldn't be! It was!
It was not to be borne. Ken and Walter were pals and Rilla thought in her small heart that Ken was the nicest, handsomest boy in the whole world. He seldom took much notice of her... though once he had given her a chocolate duck. And one unforgettable day he had sat down beside her on a mossy stone in Rainbow Valley and told her the story of the Three Bears and the Little House in the Wood. But she was content to worship afar. And now this wonderful being had caught her carrying a cake!
'Lo, Roly-poly! Heat's something fierce, isn't it? Hope I'll get a slice of that cake tonight.'
So he knew it was a cake! Everybody knew it!
Rilla was through the village and thought the worst was over when the worst happened. She looked down a side-road and saw her Sunday School teacher, Miss Emmy Parker, coming along it. Miss Emmy Parker was still quite a distance away, but Rilla knew her by her dress... that frilled organdy dress of pale green with clusters of little white flowers all over it... the 'cherry blossom dress', Rilla secretly called it. Miss Emmy had it on in Sunday School last Sunday and Rilla had thought it the sweetest dress she had ever seen. But then Miss Emmy always wore such pretty dresses, sometimes lacy and frilly, sometimes with the whisper of silk about them.
Rilla worshipped Miss Emmy. She was so pretty and dainty, with her white, white skin and her brown, brown eyes and her sad, sweet smile... sad, another small girl had whispered to Rilla one day, because the man she was going to marry had died. She was so glad she was in Miss Emmy's class. She would have hated to be in Miss Florrie Flagg's class... Florrie Flagg was ugly and Rilla couldn't bear an ugly teacher.
When Rilla met Miss Emmy away from Sunday School and Miss Emmy smiled and spoke to her it was one of the high moments of life for Rilla. Only to be nodded to on the street by Miss Emmy gave a strange, sudden lift of the heart, and when Miss Emmy had invited all her class to a soap-bubble party, where they made the bubbles red with strawberry juice, Rilla had all but died of sheer bliss.
But to meet Miss Emmy, carrying a cake, was just not to be endured and Rilla was not going to endure it. Besides, Miss Emmy was going to get up a dialogue for the next Sunday School concert, and Rilla was cherishing secret hopes of being asked to take the fairy's part in it... a fairy in scarlet with a little peaked green hat. But there would be no use in hoping for that if Miss Emmy saw her carrying a cake.
Miss Emmy was not going to see her! Rilla was standing on the little bridge crossing the brook, which was quite deep and creek-like there. She snatched the cake out of the basket and hurled it into the brook where the alders met over a dark pool. The cake hurtled through the branches and sank with a plop and a gurgle. Rilla felt a wild spasm of relief and freedom and escape, as she turned to meet Miss Emmy, who, she now saw, was carrying a big, bulgy, brown paper parcel.
Miss Emmy smiled down at her, from beneath a little green hat with a tiny orange feather in it.
'Oh, you're beautiful, teacher... beautiful,' gasped Rilla adoringly. Miss Emmy smiled again. Even when your heart is broken... and Miss Emmy truly believed hers was... it is not unpleasant to be given such a sincere compliment.
'It's the new hat, I expect, dear. Fine feathers, you know. I suppose'... glancing at the empty basket... 'you've been taking your cake up for the social. What a pity you're not going instead of coming. I'm taking mine... such a big, gooey chocolate cake.'
Rilla gazed up piteously, unable to utter a word. Miss Emmy was carrying a cake. Therefore, it could not be a disgraceful thing to carry a cake. And she... oh, what had she done? She had thrown Susan's lovely gold-and-silver cake into the brook... and she had lost the chance of walking up to the church with Miss Emmy, both carrying cakes!
After Miss Emmy had gone on Rilla went home with her dreadful secret. She buried herself in Rainbow Valley until supper-time, when again nobody noticed that she was very quiet. She was terribly afraid Susan would ask to whom she had given the cake, but there were no awkward questions. After supper the others went to play in Rainbow Valley, but Rilla sat alone on the steps until the sun went down and the sky was all a windy gold behind Ingleside and the lights sprang up in the village below. Always Rilla liked to watch them blooming out, here and there, all over the Glen, but tonight she was interested in nothing. She had never been so unhappy in her life. She just didn't see how she could live. The evening deepened to purple and she was still more unhappy. A most delectable odour of maple sugar buns drifted out to her... Susan had waited for the evening coolness to do the family baking... but maple sugar buns, like all else, were just vanity. Miserably she climbed the stairs and went to bed under the new, pink-flowered spread she had once been so proud of. But she could not sleep. Sh
e was haunted by the ghost of the cake she had drowned. Mother had promised the committee the cake... what would they think of Mother for not sending it? And it would have been the prettiest cake there! The wind had such a lonely sound tonight. It was reproaching her. It was saying, 'Silly... silly... silly,' over and over again.
'What is keeping you awake, pet?' said Susan, coming in with a maple sugar bun.
'Oh, Thuthan, I'm... I'm jutht tired of being me.'
Susan looked troubled. Come to think of it, the child had looked tired at supper.
'And of course the doctor's away. Doctors' families die and shoemakers' wives go barefoot,' she thought. Then, aloud:
'I am going to see if you have a temperature, my pet.'
'No, no, Thuthan. It'th jutht... I've done thome-thing dreadful, Thuthan... Thatan made me do it... no, no, he didn't, Thuthan... I did it mythelf. I... threw the cake into the creek.'
'Land of hope and glory!' said Susan blankly. 'Whatever made you do that?'
'Do what?' It was Mother, home from town. Susan retreated gladly, thankful that Mrs Doctor had the situation in hand. Rilla sobbed out the whole story.
'Darling, I don't understand. Why did you think it was such a dreadful thing to take a cake to the church?'
'I thought it wath jutht like old Tillie Pake, Mummy. And I've dithgrathed you... oh, Mummy, if you'll forgive me I'll never be tho naughty again... and I'll tell the committee you did thend a cake...'
'Never mind the committee, darling. They would have more than enough cakes... they always do. It's not likely anyone would notice we didn't send one. We just won't talk of this to anybody. But always after this, Bertha Marilla Blythe, remember the fact that neither Susan nor Mother would ever ask you to do anything disgraceful.'
Life was sweet again. Daddy came to the door to say 'Goodnight, Kittenkin,' and Susan slipped in to say they were going to have a chicken-pie for dinner tomorrow.
Anne of Ingleside Page 24