CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables
|IT was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staringconfusedly at the window through which a flood of cheery sunshine waspouring and outside of which something white and feathery waved acrossglimpses of blue sky.
For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came adelightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horribleremembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn't want her because shewasn't a boy!
But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outsideof her window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor.She pushed up the sash--it went up stiffly and creakily, as if it hadn'tbeen opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tightthat nothing was needed to hold it up.
Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyesglistening with delight. Oh, wasn't it beautiful? Wasn't it a lovelyplace? Suppose she wasn't really going to stay here! She would imagineshe was. There was scope for imagination here.
A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped againstthe house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leafwas to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one ofapple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms;and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden belowwere lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrancedrifted up to the window on the morning wind.
Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to thehollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew,upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightfulpossibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond itwas a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap init where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from theother side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible.
Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down overgreen, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea.
Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedilyin. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child;but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed.
She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her, untilshe was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Marilla had come in unheardby the small dreamer.
"It's time you were dressed," she said curtly.
Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and heruncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean tobe.
Anne stood up and drew a long breath.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful?" she said, waving her hand comprehensively atthe good world outside.
"It's a big tree," said Marilla, "and it blooms great, but the fruitdon't amount to much never--small and wormy."
"Oh, I don't mean just the tree; of course it's lovely--yes, it's_radiantly_ lovely--it blooms as if it meant it--but I meant everything,the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the whole bigdear world. Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morninglike this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here.Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They're alwayslaughing. Even in winter-time I've heard them under the ice. I'm so gladthere's a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn't make anydifference to me when you're not going to keep me, but it does. I shallalways like to remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even ifI never see it again. If there wasn't a brook I'd be _haunted_ by theuncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one. I'm not in the depthsof despair this morning. I never can be in the morning. Isn't it asplendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad. I've justbeen imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I wasto stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted.But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you haveto stop and that hurts."
"You'd better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind yourimaginings," said Marilla as soon as she could get a word in edgewise."Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave thewindow up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be assmart as you can."
Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairsin ten minutes' time, with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed andbraided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading hersoul that she had fulfilled all Marilla's requirements. As a matter offact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes.
"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced as she slipped into thechair Marilla placed for her. "The world doesn't seem such a howlingwilderness as it did last night. I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning.But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings areinteresting, don't you think? You don't know what's going to happenthrough the day, and there's so much scope for imagination. But I'mglad it's not rainy today because it's easier to be cheerful and bearup under affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good dealto bear up under. It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagineyourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when youreally come to have them, is it?"
"For pity's sake hold your tongue," said Marilla. "You talk entirely toomuch for a little girl."
Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that hercontinued silence made Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence ofsomething not exactly natural. Matthew also held his tongue,--but thiswas natural,--so that the meal was a very silent one.
As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eatingmechanically, with her big eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on thesky outside the window. This made Marilla more nervous than ever; shehad an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child's body mightbe there at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airycloudland, borne aloft on the wings of imagination. Who would want sucha child about the place?
Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marillafelt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the nightbefore, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Matthew's way--takea whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silentpersistency--a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in itsvery silence than if he had talked it out.
When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to washthe dishes.
"Can you wash dishes right?" asked Marilla distrustfully.
"Pretty well. I'm better at looking after children, though. I've had somuch experience at that. It's such a pity you haven't any here for me tolook after."
"I don't feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than I'vegot at present. _You're_ problem enough in all conscience. What's to bedone with you I don't know. Matthew is a most ridiculous man."
"I think he's lovely," said Anne reproachfully. "He is so verysympathetic. He didn't mind how much I talked--he seemed to like it. Ifelt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him."
"You're both queer enough, if that's what you mean by kindred spirits,"said Marilla with a sniff. "Yes, you may wash the dishes. Take plenty ofhot water, and be sure you dry them well. I've got enough to attend tothis morning for I'll have to drive over to White Sands in the afternoonand see Mrs. Spencer. You'll come with me and we'll settle what's to bedone with you. After you've finished the dishes go up-stairs and makeyour bed."
Anne washed the dishes deftly enough, as Marilla who kept a sharp eye onthe process, discerned. Later on she made her bed less successfully, forshe had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick. But iswas done somehow and smoothed down; and then Marilla, to get rid of her,told her she might go out-of-doors and amuse herself until dinner time.
Anne flew to the door, face alight, eyes glowing. On the very thresholdshe stopped short, wheeled about, came back and sat down by the table,light and glow as effectually blotted out as if some one had clapped anextinguisher on her.
"What's the matter now?" demand
ed Marilla.
"I don't dare go out," said Anne, in the tone of a martyr relinquishingall earthly joys. "If I can't stay here there is no use in my lovingGreen Gables. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all thosetrees and flowers and the orchard and the brook I'll not be able to helploving it. It's hard enough now, so I won't make it any harder. I wantto go out so much--everything seems to be calling to me, 'Anne, Anne,come out to us. Anne, Anne, we want a playmate'--but it's better not.There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, isthere? And it's so hard to keep from loving things, isn't it? That waswhy I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thoughtI'd have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that briefdream is over. I am resigned to my fate now, so I don't think I'llgo out for fear I'll get unresigned again. What is the name of thatgeranium on the window-sill, please?"
"That's the apple-scented geranium."
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave ityourself. Didn't you give it a name? May I give it one then? May I callit--let me see--Bonny would do--may I call it Bonny while I'm here? Oh,do let me!"
"Goodness, I don't care. But where on earth is the sense of naming ageranium?"
"Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. Itmakes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts ageranium's feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? Youwouldn't like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, Ishall call it Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom windowthis morning. I called it Snow Queen because it was so white. Of course,it won't always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is, can'tone?"
"I never in all my life saw or heard anything to equal her," mutteredMarilla, beating a retreat down to the cellar after potatoes. "Sheis kind of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already that I'mwondering what on earth she'll say next. She'll be casting a spell overme, too. She's cast it over Matthew. That look he gave me when he wentout said everything he said or hinted last night over again. I wish hewas like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer backthen and argue him into reason. But what's to be done with a man whojust _looks?_"
Anne had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her eyeson the sky, when Marilla returned from her cellar pilgrimage. ThereMarilla left her until the early dinner was on the table.
"I suppose I can have the mare and buggy this afternoon, Matthew?" saidMarilla.
Matthew nodded and looked wistfully at Anne. Marilla intercepted thelook and said grimly:
"I'm going to drive over to White Sands and settle this thing. I'll takeAnne with me and Mrs. Spencer will probably make arrangements to sendher back to Nova Scotia at once. I'll set your tea out for you and I'llbe home in time to milk the cows."
Still Matthew said nothing and Marilla had a sense of having wastedwords and breath. There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won'ttalk back--unless it is a woman who won't.
Matthew hitched the sorrel into the buggy in due time and Marilla andAnne set off. Matthew opened the yard gate for them and as they droveslowly through, he said, to nobody in particular as it seemed:
"Little Jerry Buote from the Creek was here this morning, and I told himI guessed I'd hire him for the summer."
Marilla made no reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a viciousclip with the whip that the fat mare, unused to such treatment, whizzedindignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla looked back onceas the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating Matthew leaning overthe gate, looking wistfully after them.
Anne of Green Gables Page 4