Anne of Windy Poplars

by L. M. Montgomery

  That mysterious red road ran on and on, and her feet itched to follow it. Where did it lead to? Sometimes Elizabeth thought she would burst if she didn't find out. When Tomorrow really came she would fare forth on it, and perhaps find an island all her own, where she and Miss Shirley could live alone, and Grandmother and the Woman could never come. They both hated water, and would not put foot in a boat for anything. Little Elizabeth liked to picture herself standing on her island and mocking them as they stood vainly glowering on the mainland shore.

  'This is Tomorrow,' she would taunt them. 'You can't catch me any more. You're only in Today.'

  What fun it would be! How she would enjoy the look on the Woman's face!

  Then one evening in late June an amazing thing happened. Miss Shirley had told Mrs Campbell that she had an errand next day to Flying Cloud, to see a certain Mrs Thompson, who was convener of the refreshment committee of the Ladies' Aid, and might she take Elizabeth with her? Grandmother had agreed with her usual dourness - Elizabeth could never understand why she agreed at all, being completely ignorant of the Pringle horror of a certain bit of information Miss Shirley possessed - but she had agreed.

  'We'll go right down to the harbour mouth,' whispered Anne, 'after I've done my errand at Flying Cloud.'

  Little Elizabeth went to bed in such excitement that she didn't expect to sleep a wink. At last she was going to answer the lure of the road that had called so long. In spite of her excitement she conscientiously went through her little ritual of retiring. She folded her clothes and cleaned her teeth and brushed her golden hair. She thought she had rather pretty hair, though, of course, it wasn't like Miss Shirley's lovely red-gold, with the ripples in it and the little love-locks that curled round her ears. Little Elizabeth would have given anything to have had hair like Miss Shirley's.

  Before she got into bed little Elizabeth opened one of the drawers in the high, polished old black bureau and took a carefully hidden picture from under a pile of hankies, a picture of Miss Shirley which she had cut out of a special edition of the Weekly Courier, which had reproduced a photograph of the High School staff.

  'Good night, dearest Miss Shirley.'

  She kissed the picture and returned it to its hiding-place. Then she climbed into bed and cuddled down under the blankets, for the June night was cool, and the breeze off the harbour searching. Indeed, it was more than a breeze tonight. It whistled and banged and shook and thumped, and Elizabeth knew the harbour would be a tossing expanse of waves under the moonlight. What fun it would be to steal down close to it under the moon! But it was only in Tomorrow one could do that.

  Where was Flying Cloud? What a name! Out of Tomorrow again. It was maddening to be so near Tomorrow and not be able to get into it. But suppose the wind blew up rain for tomorrow? Elizabeth knew she would never be allowed to go anywhere in rain.

  She sat up in bed and clasped her hands.

  'Dear God,' she said, 'I don't like to meddle, but could You see that it is fine tomorrow? Please, dear God!'

  The next afternoon was glorious. Little Elizabeth felt as if she had slipped from some invisible shackles when she and Miss Shirley walked away from that house of gloom. She took a huge gulp of freedom, even if the Woman was scowling after them through the red glass of the big front door. How heavenly to be walking through the lovely world with Miss Shirley! It was always so wonderful to be alone with Miss Shirley. What would she do when Miss Shirley had gone? But little Elizabeth put the thought firmly away. She wouldn't spoil the day by thinking of it. Perhaps - a great perhaps - she and Miss Shirley would get into Tomorrow this afternoon, and then they would never be separated. Little Elizabeth just wanted to walk quietly on towards that blueness at the end of the world, drinking in the beauty around her. Every turn and kink of the road revealed new loveliness, and it turned and kinked interminably, following the windings of a tiny river that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

  On every side were fields of buttercups and clover, where bees buzzed. Now and then they walked through a milky way of daisies. Far out the Strait laughed at them in silver-tipped waves. The harbour was like watered silk. Little Elizabeth liked it better that way than when it was like pale-blue satin. They drank the wind in. It was a very gentle wind. It purred about them and seemed to coax them on.

  'Isn't it nice, walking with the wind like this?' said little Elizabeth.

  'A nice friendly, perfumed wind,' said Anne, more to herself than Elizabeth. 'Such a wind as I used to think a mistral was. Mistral sounds like that. What a disappointment when I found out it was a rough, disagreeable wind!'

  Elizabeth didn't quite understand - she had never heard of the mistral - but the music of her beloved's voice was enough for her. The very sky was glad. A sailor with gold rings in his ears - the very kind of person one would meet in Tomorrow - smiled as he passed them. Elizabeth thought of a line from a verse she had learned in Sunday School: 'The little hills rejoice on every side.' Had the man who wrote that ever seen hills like those blue ones over the harbour?

  'I think this road leads right to God,' she said dreamily.

  'Perhaps,' said Anne. 'Perhaps all roads do, little Elizabeth. We turn off here just now. We must go over to that island; that's Flying Cloud.'

  Flying Cloud was a long, slender islet lying about a quarter of a mile from the shore. There were trees on it and a house. Little Elizabeth had always wished she might have an island of her own, with a little bay of silver sand in it.

  'How do we get to it?'

  'We'll row out in this flat,' said Miss Shirley, picking up the oars in a small boat tied to a leaning tree.

  Miss Shirley could row. Was there anything Miss Shirley couldn't do? When they reached the island it proved to be a fascinating place where anything might happen. Of course, it was in Tomorrow. Islands like this didn't happen except in Tomorrow. They had no part or lot in humdrum Today.

  A little maid who met them at the door of the house told Anne she would find Mrs Thompson on the far end of the island, picking wild strawberries. Fancy an island where wild strawberries grew!

  Anne went to hunt Mrs Thompson up, but first she asked if little Elizabeth might wait in the living-room. Anne was thinking that little Elizabeth looked rather tired after her unaccustomed long walk, and needed a rest. Little Elizabeth didn't think she did, but Miss Shirley's lightest wish was law.

  It was a beautiful room, with flowers everywhere and wild sea-breezes blowing in. Elizabeth liked the mirror over the mantel, which reflected the room so beautifully and, through the open window, a glimpse of harbour and hill and Strait.

  All at once a man came through the door. Elizabeth felt a moment of dismay and terror. Was he a gipsy? He didn't look like her idea of a gipsy, but, of course, she had never seen one. He might be one. And then in a swift flash of intuition Elizabeth decided she didn't care if he did kidnap her. She liked him. She liked his crinkly hazel eyes and his crinkly brown hair and his square chin and his smile. For he was smiling.

  'Now who are you?' he asked.

  'I'm - I'm me,' faltered Elizabeth, still a little flustered.

  'Oh, to be sure - you popped out of the sea, I suppose. Come up from the dunes. No name known among mortals.'

  Elizabeth felt that she was being made fun of a little. But she didn't mind. In fact, she rather liked it. But she answered a bit primly, 'My name is Elizabeth Grayson.'

  There was a silence, a very queer silence. The man looked at her for a moment without saying anything. Then he politely asked her to sit down.

  'I'm waiting for Miss Shirley,' she explained. 'She's gone to see Mrs Thompson about the Ladies' Aid supper. When she comes back we are going down to the end of the world.'

  Now, if you have any notion of kidnapping me, Mr Man...!

  'Of course. But meanwhile you might as well be comfortable, and I must do the honours. What would you like in the way of light refreshment? Mrs Thompson's cat has probably brought something in.'

  Elizabeth sat down. She
felt oddly happy and at home. 'Can I have just what I like?'

  'Certainly.'

  'Then,' said Elizabeth triumphantly, 'I'd like some ice-cream with strawberry jam on it.'

  The man rang a bell and gave an order. Yes, this must be Tomorrow, no doubt about it. Ice-cream and strawberry jam didn't appear in this magical manner in Today, cats or no cats!

  'We'll set a share aside for your Miss Shirley,' said the man.

  They were good friends right away. The man didn't talk a great deal, but he looked at Elizabeth very often. There was a tenderness in his face, a tenderness she had never seen before in anybody's face, not even Miss Shirley's. She felt that he liked her. And she knew that she liked him.

  Finally he glanced out of the window and stood up.

  'I think I must go now,' he said. 'I see your Miss Shirley coming up the walk, so you'll not be alone.'

  'Won't you wait and see Miss Shirley?' asked Elizabeth, licking her spoon to get the last vestige of the jam. Grandmother and the Woman would have died of horror had they seen her.

  'Not this time,' said the man.

  Elizabeth knew he hadn't the slightest notion of kidnapping her, and she felt the strangest, most unaccountable sensation of disappointment.

  'Goodbye and thank you,' she said politely. 'It is very nice here in Tomorrow.

  'Tomorrow?'

  'This is Tomorrow,' explained Elizabeth. 'I've always wanted to get into Tomorrow, and now I have.'

  'Oh, I see. Well, I'm sorry to say I don't care much about Tomorrow. I would like to get back into Yesterday.'

  Little Elizabeth was sorry for him. But how could he be unhappy? How could anyone living in Tomorrow be unhappy?

  Elizabeth looked longingly back at Flying Cloud as they rowed away. Just as they pushed through the scrub spruces that fringed the shore to the road she turned for another farewell look at it. A flying team of horses attached to a truck wagon whirled round the bend, evidently quite beyond their driver's control.

  Elizabeth heard Miss Shirley shriek...

  13

  The room went round oddly. The furniture nodded and jigged. The bed - how came she to be in bed? Somebody with a white cap on was just going out of the door. What door? How funny one's head felt! There were voices somewhere - low voices. She could not see who was talking, but somehow she knew it was Miss Shirley and the man.

  What were they saying? Elizabeth heard sentences here and there, bobbing out of a confusion of murmuring.

  'Are you really?' Miss Shirley's voice sounded so excited.

  'Yes... Your letter... see for yourself... before approaching Mrs Campbell .. Flying Cloud is the summer home of our General Manager...'

  If that room would only stay put! Really, things behaved rather queerly in Tomorrow. If she could only turn her head and see the talkers... Elizabeth gave a long sigh.

  Then they came over to her bed - Miss Shirley and the man, Miss Shirley all tall and white, like a lily, looking as if she had been through some terrible experience, but with some inner radiance shining behind it all, a radiance that seemed part of the golden sunset light which suddenly flooded the room. The man was smiling down at her. Elizabeth felt that he loved her very much, and that there was some secret, tender and dear, between them which she would learn as soon as she had learned the language spoken in Tomorrow.

  'Are you feeling better, darling?' said Miss Shirley.

  'Have I been sick?'

  'You were knocked down by a team of runaway horses on the mainland road,' said Miss Shirley. 'I - I wasn't quick enough. I - I thought you were killed. I brought you right back here in the flat and your - this gentleman telephoned for a doctor and nurse.'

  'Will I die?' said little Elizabeth.

  'No, indeed, darling! You were only stunned, and you will be all right soon... And, Elizabeth darling, this is your father.'

  'Father is in France. Am I in France too?' Elizabeth would not have been surprised at it. Wasn't this Tomorrow? Besides, things were still a bit wobbly.

  'Father is very much here, my sweet.' He had such a delightful voice; you loved him for his voice. He bent and kissed her. 'I've come for you. We'll never be separated any more.'

  The woman in the white cap was coming in again. Somehow Elizabeth knew whatever she had to say must be said before she got quite in.

  'Will we live together?'

  'Always,' said Father.

  'And will Grandmother and the Woman live with us?'

  'They will not,' said Father.

  The sunset gold was fading, and the nurse was looking her disapproval. But Elizabeth didn't care.

  'I've found Tomorrow,' she said, as the nurse took Father and Miss Shirley out.

  'I've found a treasure I didn't know I possessed,' said Father, as the nurse shut the door on him. 'And I can never thank you enough for that letter, Miss Shirley.'

  'And so,' wrote Anne to Gilbert that night, 'little Elizabeth's road of mystery has led on to happiness and the end of her old world.'

  14

  Windy Willows

  Spook's Lane

  (For the last time)

  June 27

  DEAREST,

  I've come to another bend in the road. I've written you a good many letters in this old tower room these past three years. I suppose this is the last one I will write you for a long, long time. Because after this there won't be any need of letters. In just a few weeks now we'll belong to each other for ever. We'll be together. Just think of it - being together, talking, walking, eating, dreaming, planning together, sharing each other's wonderful moments, making a home out of our house of dreams! Our house! Doesn't that sound 'mystic and wonderful', Gilbert? I've been building dream-houses all my life, and now one of them is going to come true. As to whom I really want to share my house of dreams with... Well, I'll tell you that at four o'clock next year.

  Three years sounded endless at the beginning, Gilbert. And now they are gone like a watch in the night. They have been very happy years - except for those first few months with the Pringles. After that life has seemed to flow by like a pleasant golden river. And my old feud with the Pringles seems like a dream. They like me now for myself; they have forgotten they ever hated me. Cora Pringle, one of the Widow Pringle's brood, brought me a bouquet of roses yesterday, and twisted round the stems was a bit of paper bearing the legend, 'To the sweetest teacher in the whole world.' Fancy that for a Pringle!

  Jen is broken-hearted because I am leaving. I shall watch Jen's career with interest. She is brilliant and rather unpredictable. One thing is certain: she will have no commonplace existence. She can't look so much like Becky Sharp for nothing.

  Lewis Allen is going to McGill. Sophy Sinclair is going to Queen's; then she means to teach until she has saved up enough money to go to the School of Dramatic Expression in Kingsport. Myra Pringle is going to 'enter Society' in the fall. She is so pretty that it won't matter a bit that she wouldn't know a past perfect participle if she met it on the street.

  And there is no longer a small neighbour on the other side of the vine-hung gate. Little Elizabeth has gone for ever from that sunshineless house - gone into her Tomorrow. If I were staying on in Summerside I would break my heart, missing her. But, as it is, I'm glad. Pierce Grayson took her away with him. He is not going back to Paris, but will be living in Boston. Elizabeth cried bitterly at our parting, but she is so happy with her father that I feel sure her tears will soon be dried. Mrs Campbell and the Woman were very dour over the whole affair, and put all the blame on me - which I accept cheerfully and unrepentantly.

  'She has had a good home here,' said Mrs Campbell majestically.

  'Where she never heard a single word of affection,' I thought, but did not say.

  'I think I'll be Betty all the time now, darling Miss Shirley,' were Elizabeth's last words. 'Except,' she called back, 'when I'm lonesome for you, and then I'll be Lizzie.'

  'Don't you ever dare to be Lizzie, no matter what happens!' I said.

  We threw
kisses to each other as long as we could see, and I came up to my tower room with tears in my eyes. She's been so sweet, the dear little golden thing. She always seemed to me like a little Aeolian harp, so responsive to the tiniest breath of affection that blew her way. It's been an adventure to be her friend. I hope Pierce Grayson realizes what a daughter he has - and I think he does. He sounded very grateful and repentant.

  'I didn't realize she was no longer a baby,' he said, 'nor how unsympathetic her environment was. Thank you a thousand times for all you have done for her.'

  I had our map of fairyland framed and gave it to little Elizabeth for a farewell keepsake.

  I'm sorry to leave Windy Willows. Of course, I'm really a bit tired of living in a trunk, but I've loved it here - loved my cool morning hours at my window, loved my bed into which I have veritably climbed every night, loved my blue doughnut cushion, loved all the winds that blew. I'm afraid I'll never be quite so chummy with the winds again as I've been here. And will I ever have a room again from which I can see both the rising and the setting sun?

  I've finished with Windy Willows and the years that have been linked with it. And I've kept the faith. I've never betrayed Aunt Chatty's hidy-hole to Aunt Kate or the buttermilk secret of each to either of the others.

  I think they are all sorry to see me go, and I'm glad of it. It would be terrible to think they were glad I am going, or that they would not miss me a little when I'm gone. Rebecca Dew has been making all my favourite dishes for a week now - she even devoted ten eggs to angel cake twice - and using the 'company' china. And Aunt Chatty's soft brown eyes brim over whenever I mention my departure. Even Dusty Miller seems to gaze at me reproachfully as he sits about on his little haunches.