CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death
|MATTHEW--Matthew--what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?"
It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne came throughthe hall, her hands full of white narcissus,--it was long before Annecould love the sight or odor of white narcissus again,--in time to hearher and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paperin his hand, and his face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped herflowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment asMarilla. They were both too late; before they could reach him Matthewhad fallen across the threshold.
"He's fainted," gasped Marilla. "Anne, run for Martin--quick, quick!He's at the barn."
Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office,started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way tosend Mr. and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand,came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restoreMatthew to consciousness.
Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid herear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully andthe tears came into her eyes.
"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I don't think--we can do anything forhim."
"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think--you can't think Matthew is--is--" Annecould not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.
"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've seen thatlook as often as I have you'll know what it means."
Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the GreatPresence.
When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous andprobably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. Thesecret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had heldand which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It containedan account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.
The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends andneighbors thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindnessfor the dead and living. For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbertwas a person of central importance; the white majesty of death hadfallen on him and set him apart as one crowned.
When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables the old house washushed and tranquil. In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin,his long gray hair framing his placid face on which there was a littlekindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There wereflowers about him--sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother hadplanted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthewhad always had a secret, wordless love. Anne had gathered them andbrought them to him, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her whiteface. It was the last thing she could do for him.
The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed with them that night. Diana, going tothe east gable, where Anne was standing at her window, said gently:
"Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight?"
"Thank you, Diana." Anne looked earnestly into her friend's face. "Ithink you won't misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone. I'm notafraid. I haven't been alone one minute since it happened--and I want tobe. I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it. I can'trealize it. Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead; andthe other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time andI've had this horrible dull ache ever since."
Diana did not quite understand. Marilla's impassioned grief, breakingall the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush,she could comprehend better than Anne's tearless agony. But she wentaway kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow.
Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude. It seemed to her aterrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew, whom she hadloved so much and who had been so kind to her, Matthew who had walkedwith her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room belowwith that awful peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even whenshe knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed, looking up to thestars beyond the hills--no tears, only the same horrible dull ache ofmisery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with theday's pain and excitement.
In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness abouther, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave ofsorrow. She could see Matthew's face smiling at her as he had smiledwhen they parted at the gate that last evening--she could hear his voicesaying, "My girl--my girl that I'm proud of." Then the tears came andAnne wept her heart out. Marilla heard her and crept in to comfort her.
"There--there--don't cry so, dearie. It can't bring him back.It--it--isn't right to cry so. I knew that today, but I couldn't helpit then. He'd always been such a good, kind brother to me--but God knowsbest."
"Oh, just let me cry, Marilla," sobbed Anne. "The tears don't hurt melike that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep yourarm round me--so. I couldn't have Diana stay, she's good and kind andsweet--but it's not her sorrow--she's outside of it and she couldn'tcome close enough to my heart to help me. It's our sorrow--yours andmine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without him?"
"We've got each other, Anne. I don't know what I'd do if you weren'there--if you'd never come. Oh, Anne, I know I've been kind of strict andharsh with you maybe--but you mustn't think I didn't love you as well asMatthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It's neverbeen easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like thisit's easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and bloodand you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables."
Two days afterwards they carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homesteadthreshold and away from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he hadloved and the trees he had planted; and then Avonlea settled back to itsusual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their oldgroove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before,although always with the aching sense of "loss in all familiar things."Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be so--thatthey _could_ go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something likeshame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firsand the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush ofgladness when she saw them--that Diana's visits were pleasant to herand that Diana's merry words and ways moved her to laughter andsmiles--that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love andfriendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill herheart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices.
"It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure inthese things now that he has gone," she said wistfully to Mrs. Allanone evening when they were together in the manse garden. "I miss him somuch--all the time--and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem verybeautiful and interesting to me for all. Today Diana said somethingfunny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I couldnever laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn't to."
"When Matthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to knowthat you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you," said Mrs.Allan gently. "He is just away now; and he likes to know it just thesame. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healinginfluences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling.I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought thatanything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to sharethe pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to oursorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us."
"I was down to the graveyard to plant a rosebush on Matthew's gravethis afternoon," said Anne dreamily. "I took a slip of the little whiteScotch rosebush his mother brought out from Scotland long ago; Matthewalways liked those roses the best--they were so small and sweet ontheir thorny stems. It made me feel glad that I could plant it by hisgrave--as if I were doing something that must please him in taking itthere to be near him. I hope he has roses like them in heaven. Perhapsthe souls of all
those little white roses that he has loved so manysummers were all there to meet him. I must go home now. Marilla is allalone and she gets lonely at twilight."
"She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to college,"said Mrs. Allan.
Anne did not reply; she said good night and went slowly back to greenGables. Marilla was sitting on the front door-steps and Anne sat downbeside her. The door was open behind them, held back by a big pink conchshell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions.
Anne gathered some sprays of pale-yellow honeysuckle and put them inher hair. She liked the delicious hint of fragrance, as some aerialbenediction, above her every time she moved.
"Doctor Spencer was here while you were away," Marilla said. "He saysthat the specialist will be in town tomorrow and he insists that I mustgo in and have my eyes examined. I suppose I'd better go and have itover. I'll be more than thankful if the man can give me the right kindof glasses to suit my eyes. You won't mind staying here alone while I'maway, will you? Martin will have to drive me in and there's ironing andbaking to do."
"I shall be all right. Diana will come over for company for me. I shallattend to the ironing and baking beautifully--you needn't fear that I'llstarch the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with liniment."
Marilla laughed.
"What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days, Anne. You werealways getting into scrapes. I did use to think you were possessed. Doyou mind the time you dyed your hair?"
"Yes, indeed. I shall never forget it," smiled Anne, touching the heavybraid of hair that was wound about her shapely head. "I laugh a littlenow sometimes when I think what a worry my hair used to be to me--but Idon't laugh _much_, because it was a very real trouble then. I did sufferterribly over my hair and my freckles. My freckles are really gone; andpeople are nice enough to tell me my hair is auburn now--all but JosiePye. She informed me yesterday that she really thought it was redderthan ever, or at least my black dress made it look redder, and she askedme if people who had red hair ever got used to having it. Marilla, I'vealmost decided to give up trying to like Josie Pye. I've made what Iwould once have called a heroic effort to like her, but Josie Pye won't_be_ liked."
"Josie is a Pye," said Marilla sharply, "so she can't help beingdisagreeable. I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose insociety, but I must say I don't know what it is any more than I know theuse of thistles. Is Josie going to teach?"
"No, she is going back to Queen's next year. So are Moody Spurgeon andCharlie Sloane. Jane and Ruby are going to teach and they have both gotschools--Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at some place up west."
"Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too, isn't he?"
"Yes"--briefly.
"What a nice-looking fellow he is," said Marilla absently. "I saw him inchurch last Sunday and he seemed so tall and manly. He looks a lot likehis father did at the same age. John Blythe was a nice boy. We used tobe real good friends, he and I. People called him my beau."
Anne looked up with swift interest.
"Oh, Marilla--and what happened?--why didn't you--"
"We had a quarrel. I wouldn't forgive him when he asked me to. I meantto, after awhile--but I was sulky and angry and I wanted to punish himfirst. He never came back--the Blythes were all mighty independent. ButI always felt--rather sorry. I've always kind of wished I'd forgiven himwhen I had the chance."
"So you've had a bit of romance in your life, too," said Anne softly.
"Yes, I suppose you might call it that. You wouldn't think so to look atme, would you? But you never can tell about people from their outsides.Everybody has forgot about me and John. I'd forgotten myself. But it allcame back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday."
CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Bend in the road
|MARILLA went to town the next day and returned in the evening. Anne hadgone over to Orchard Slope with Diana and came back to find Marilla inthe kitchen, sitting by the table with her head leaning on her hand.Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Anne's heart. Shehad never seen Marilla sit limply inert like that.
"Are you very tired, Marilla?"
"Yes--no--I don't know," said Marilla wearily, looking up. "I suppose Iam tired but I haven't thought about it. It's not that."
"Did you see the oculist? What did he say?" asked Anne anxiously.
"Yes, I saw him. He examined my eyes. He says that if I give up allreading and sewing entirely and any kind of work that strains the eyes,and if I'm careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he's given mehe thinks my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured.But if I don't he says I'll certainly be stone-blind in six months.Blind! Anne, just think of it!"
For a minute Anne, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, wassilent. It seemed to her that she could _not_ speak. Then she saidbravely, but with a catch in her voice:
"Marilla, _don't_ think of it. You know he has given you hope. If you arecareful you won't lose your sight altogether; and if his glasses cureyour headaches it will be a great thing."
"I don't call it much hope," said Marilla bitterly. "What am I to livefor if I can't read or sew or do anything like that? I might as wellbe blind--or dead. And as for crying, I can't help that when I getlonesome. But there, it's no good talking about it. If you'll get mea cup of tea I'll be thankful. I'm about done out. Don't say anythingabout this to any one for a spell yet, anyway. I can't bear that folksshould come here to question and sympathize and talk about it."
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. ThenAnne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in thedarkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadlythings had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home!Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosywith promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but beforeshe went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart.She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it afriend--as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.
One afternoon a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the frontyard where she had been talking to a caller--a man whom Anne knew bysight as Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered what he could have beensaying to bring that look to Marilla's face.
"What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?"
Marilla sat down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears inher eyes in defiance of the oculist's prohibition and her voice broke asshe said:
"He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it."
"Buy it! Buy Green Gables?" Anne wondered if she had heard aright. "Oh,Marilla, you don't mean to sell Green Gables!"
"Anne, I don't know what else is to be done. I've thought it all over.If my eyes were strong I could stay here and make out to look afterthings and manage, with a good hired man. But as it is I can't. I maylose my sight altogether; and anyway I'll not be fit to run things. Oh,I never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd have to sell my home.But things would only go behind worse and worse all the time, tillnobody would want to buy it. Every cent of our money went in that bank;and there's some notes Matthew gave last fall to pay. Mrs. Lynde advisesme to sell the farm and board somewhere--with her I suppose. It won'tbring much--it's small and the buildings are old. But it'll be enoughfor me to live on I reckon. I'm thankful you're provided for with thatscholarship, Anne. I'm sorry you won't have a home to come to in yourvacations, that's all, but I suppose you'll manage somehow."
Marilla broke down and wept bitterly.
"You mustn't sell Green Gables," said Anne resolutely.
"Oh, Anne, I wish I didn't have to. But you can see for yourself. Ican't stay here alone. I'd go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And mysight would go--I know it would."
"You won't have to stay here alone, Marilla. I'll be with you. I'm notgoing to Redmond."
"Not going to Redmond!" Marilla lifted her worn face from her hands andlooked at Anne. "Why, what do you mean?"
"Just what I say. I'm not going to take the scholarship. I decided sothe night after you came home from town. You surely don't think I couldleave you alone in your trouble, Marilla, after all you've done for me.I've been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Mr. Barrywants to rent the farm for next year. So you won't have any bother overthat. And I'm going to teach. I've applied for the school here--but Idon't expect to get it for I understand the trustees have promised it toGilbert Blythe. But I can have the Carmody school--Mr. Blair told meso last night at the store. Of course that won't be quite as nice orconvenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board home anddrive myself over to Carmody and back, in the warm weather at least. Andeven in winter I can come home Fridays. We'll keep a horse for that. Oh,I have it all planned out, Marilla. And I'll read to you and keep youcheered up. You sha'n't be dull or lonesome. And we'll be real cozy andhappy here together, you and I."
Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream.
"Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But Ican't let you sacrifice yourself so for me. It would be terrible."
"Nonsense!" Anne laughed merrily. "There is no sacrifice. Nothing couldbe worse than giving up Green Gables--nothing could hurt me more. Wemust keep the dear old place. My mind is quite made up, Marilla. I'm _not_going to Redmond; and I _am_ going to stay here and teach. Don't you worryabout me a bit."
"But your ambitions--and--"
"I'm just as ambitious as ever. Only, I've changed the object of myambitions. I'm going to be a good teacher--and I'm going to save youreyesight. Besides, I mean to study at home here and take a littlecollege course all by myself. Oh, I've dozens of plans, Marilla. I'vebeen thinking them out for a week. I shall give life here my best, andI believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen's myfuture seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thoughtI could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. Idon't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that thebest does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonderhow the road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory andsoft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what newbeauties--what curves and hills and valleys further on."
"I don't feel as if I ought to let you give it up," said Marilla,referring to the scholarship.
"But you can't prevent me. I'm sixteen and a half, 'obstinate as amule,' as Mrs. Lynde once told me," laughed Anne. "Oh, Marilla, don'tyou go pitying me. I don't like to be pitied, and there is no needfor it. I'm heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear GreenGables. Nobody could love it as you and I do--so we must keep it."
"You blessed girl!" said Marilla, yielding. "I feel as if you'd given menew life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to college--butI know I can't, so I ain't going to try. I'll make it up to you though,Anne."
When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given upthe idea of going to college and intended to stay home and teach therewas a good deal of discussion over it. Most of the good folks, notknowing about Marilla's eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan didnot. She told Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasureto the girl's eyes. Neither did good Mrs. Lynde. She came up one eveningand found Anne and Marilla sitting at the front door in the warm,scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight came downand the white moths flew about in the garden and the odor of mint filledthe dewy air.
Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by thedoor, behind which grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks, with along breath of mingled weariness and relief.
"I declare I'm getting glad to sit down. I've been on my feet all day,and two hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It'sa great blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it. Well,Anne, I hear you've given up your notion of going to college. I wasreal glad to hear it. You've got as much education now as a woman can becomfortable with. I don't believe in girls going to college with the menand cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that nonsense."
"But I'm going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde," saidAnne laughing. "I'm going to take my Arts course right here at GreenGables, and study everything that I would at college."
Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror.
"Anne Shirley, you'll kill yourself."
"Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I'm not going to overdothings. As 'Josiah Allen's wife,' says, I shall be 'mejum'. But I'llhave lots of spare time in the long winter evenings, and I've novocation for fancy work. I'm going to teach over at Carmody, you know."
"I don't know it. I guess you're going to teach right here in Avonlea.The trustees have decided to give you the school."
"Mrs. Lynde!" cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. "Why, Ithought they had promised it to Gilbert Blythe!"
"So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for ithe went to them--they had a business meeting at the school last night,you know--and told them that he withdrew his application, and suggestedthat they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands. Ofcourse he knew how much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I mustsay I think it was real kind and thoughtful in him, that's what. Realself-sacrificing, too, for he'll have his board to pay at White Sands,and everybody knows he's got to earn his own way through college. So thetrustees decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas camehome and told me."
"I don't feel that I ought to take it," murmured Anne. "I mean--I don'tthink I ought to let Gilbert make such a sacrifice for--for me."
"I guess you can't prevent him now. He's signed papers with the WhiteSands trustees. So it wouldn't do him any good now if you were torefuse. Of course you'll take the school. You'll get along all right,now that there are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and agood thing she was, that's what. There's been some Pye or other going toAvonlea school for the last twenty years, and I guess their mission inlife was to keep school teachers reminded that earth isn't their home.Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the Barrygable mean?"
"Diana is signaling for me to go over," laughed Anne. "You know we keepup the old custom. Excuse me while I run over and see what she wants."
Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the firryshadows of the Haunted Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her indulgently.
"There's a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways."
"There's a good deal more of the woman about her in others," retortedMarilla, with a momentary return of her old crispness.
But crispness was no longer Marilla's distinguishing characteristic. AsMrs. Lynde told her Thomas that night.
"Marilla Cuthbert has got _mellow_. That's what."
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put freshflowers on Matthew's grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingeredthere until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place,with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and itswhispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finallyleft it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of ShiningWaters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlikeafterlight--"a haunt of ancient peace." There was a freshness in theair as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Homelights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond laythe sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The westwas a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all instill softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne's heart, andshe gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
"Dear old world," she murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad tobe alive in you."
Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before theBlythe homestead. It was Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as herecognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he would have passedon in silence, if Anne had not stopped an
d held out her hand.
"Gilbert," she said, with scarlet cheeks, "I want to thank you forgiving up the school for me. It was very good of you--and I want you toknow that I appreciate it."
Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly.
"It wasn't particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to beable to do you some small service. Are we going to be friends afterthis? Have you really forgiven me my old fault?"
Anne laughed and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand.
"I forgave you that day by the pond landing, although I didn't knowit. What a stubborn little goose I was. I've been--I may as well make acomplete confession--I've been sorry ever since."
"We are going to be the best of friends," said Gilbert, jubilantly. "Wewere born to be good friends, Anne. You've thwarted destiny enough. Iknow we can help each other in many ways. You are going to keep up yourstudies, aren't you? So am I. Come, I'm going to walk home with you."
Marilla looked curiously at Anne when the latter entered the kitchen.
"Who was that came up the lane with you, Anne?"
"Gilbert Blythe," answered Anne, vexed to find herself blushing. "I methim on Barry's hill."
"I didn't think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good friends that you'dstand for half an hour at the gate talking to him," said Marilla with adry smile.
"We haven't been--we've been good enemies. But we have decided that itwill be much more sensible to be good friends in the future. Were wereally there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see,we have five years' lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla."
Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content.The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths cameup to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in the hollow andDiana's light gleamed through the old gap.
Anne's horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there aftercoming home from Queen's; but if the path set before her feet was to benarrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it.The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendshipwere to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or herideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!
"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,'" whispered Annesoftly.
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