“Well, no; but young folks aren’t always romantic either. Some of my beaux certainly weren’t. I used to laugh at them scandalous, poor boys. There was Jim Elwood — he was always in a sort of day-dream — never seemed to sense what was going on. He didn’t wake up to the fact that I’d said ‘no’ till a year after I’d said it. When he did get married his wife fell out of the sleigh one night when they were driving home from church and he never missed her. Then there was Dan Winston. He knew too much. He knew everything in this world and most of what is in the next. He could give you an answer to any question, even if you asked him when the Judgment Day was to be. Milton Edwards was real nice and I liked him but I didn’t marry him. For one thing, he took a week to get a joke through his head, and for another he never asked me. Horatio Reeve was the most interesting beau I ever had. But when he told a story he dressed it up so that you couldn’t see it for frills. I never could decide whether he was lying or just letting his imagination run loose.”
“And what about the others, Aunty?”
“Go away and unpack,” said Aunt Jamesina, waving Joseph at them by mistake for a needle. “The others were too nice to make fun of. I shall respect their memory. There’s a box of flowers in your room, Anne. They came about an hour ago.”
After the first week the girls of Patty’s Place settled down to a steady grind of study; for this was their last year at Redmond and graduation honors must be fought for persistently. Anne devoted herself to English, Priscilla pored over classics, and Philippa pounded away at Mathematics. Sometimes they grew tired, sometimes they felt discouraged, sometimes nothing seemed worth the struggle for it. In one such mood Stella wandered up to the blue room one rainy November evening. Anne sat on the floor in a little circle of light cast by the lamp beside her, amid a surrounding snow of crumpled manuscript.
“What in the world are you doing?”
“Just looking over some old Story Club yarns. I wanted something to cheer AND inebriate. I’d studied until the world seemed azure. So I came up here and dug these out of my trunk. They are so drenched in tears and tragedy that they are excruciatingly funny.”
“I’m blue and discouraged myself,” said Stella, throwing herself on the couch. “Nothing seems worthwhile. My very thoughts are old. I’ve thought them all before. What is the use of living after all, Anne?”
“Honey, it’s just brain fag that makes us feel that way, and the weather. A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day’s grind, would squelch any one but a Mark Tapley. You know it IS worthwhile to live.”
“Oh, I suppose so. But I can’t prove it to myself just now.”
“Just think of all the great and noble souls who have lived and worked in the world,” said Anne dreamily. “Isn’t it worthwhile to come after them and inherit what they won and taught? Isn’t it worthwhile to think we can share their inspiration? And then, all the great souls that will come in the future? Isn’t it worthwhile to work a little and prepare the way for them — make just one step in their path easier?”
“Oh, my mind agrees with you, Anne. But my soul remains doleful and uninspired. I’m always grubby and dingy on rainy nights.”
“Some nights I like the rain — I like to lie in bed and hear it pattering on the roof and drifting through the pines.”
“I like it when it stays on the roof,” said Stella. “It doesn’t always. I spent a gruesome night in an old country farmhouse last summer. The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed. There was no poetry in THAT. I had to get up in the ‘mirk midnight’ and chivy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip — and it was one of those solid, old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton — more or less. And then that drip-drop, drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went to pieces. You’ve no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night. It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing. What are you laughing over, Anne?”
“These stories. As Phil would say they are killing — in more senses than one, for everybody died in them. What dazzlingly lovely heroines we had — and how we dressed them!
“Silks — satins — velvets — jewels — laces — they never wore anything else. Here is one of Jane Andrews’ stories depicting her heroine as sleeping in a beautiful white satin nightdress trimmed with seed pearls.”
“Go on,” said Stella. “I begin to feel that life is worth living as long as there’s a laugh in it.”
“Here’s one I wrote. My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ‘glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.’ But what booted beauty or rich attire? ‘The paths of glory lead but to the grave.’ They must either be murdered or die of a broken heart. There was no escape for them.”
“Let me read some of your stories.”
“Well, here’s my masterpiece. Note its cheerful title—’My Graves.’ I shed quarts of tears while writing it, and the other girls shed gallons while I read it. Jane Andrews’ mother scolded her frightfully because she had so many handkerchiefs in the wash that week. It’s a harrowing tale of the wanderings of a Methodist minister’s wife. I made her a Methodist because it was necessary that she should wander. She buried a child every place she lived in. There were nine of them and their graves were severed far apart, ranging from Newfoundland to Vancouver. I described the children, pictured their several death beds, and detailed their tombstones and epitaphs. I had intended to bury the whole nine but when I had disposed of eight my invention of horrors gave out and I permitted the ninth to live as a hopeless cripple.”
While Stella read My Graves, punctuating its tragic paragraphs with chuckles, and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who has been out all night curled up on a Jane Andrews tale of a beautiful maiden of fifteen who went to nurse in a leper colony — of course dying of the loathsome disease finally — Anne glanced over the other manuscripts and recalled the old days at Avonlea school when the members of the Story Club, sitting under the spruce trees or down among the ferns by the brook, had written them. What fun they had had! How the sunshine and mirth of those olden summers returned as she read. Not all the glory that was Greece or the grandeur that was Rome could weave such wizardry as those funny, tearful tales of the Story Club. Among the manuscripts Anne found one written on sheets of wrapping paper. A wave of laughter filled her gray eyes as she recalled the time and place of its genesis. It was the sketch she had written the day she fell through the roof of the Cobb duckhouse on the Tory Road.
Anne glanced over it, then fell to reading it intently. It was a little dialogue between asters and sweet-peas, wild canaries in the lilac bush, and the guardian spirit of the garden. After she had read it, she sat, staring into space; and when Stella had gone she smoothed out the crumpled manuscript.
“I believe I will,” she said resolutely.
Chapter XXXVI
The Gardners’Call
“Here is a letter with an Indian stamp for you, Aunt Jimsie,” said Phil. “Here are three for Stella, and two for Pris, and a glorious fat one for me from Jo. There’s nothing for you, Anne, except a circular.”
Nobody noticed Anne’s flush as she took the thin letter Phil tossed her carelessly. But a few minutes later Phil looked up to see a transfigured Anne.
“Honey, what good thing has happened?”
“The Youth’s Friend has accepted a little sketch I sent them a fortnight ago,” said Anne, trying hard to speak as if she were accustomed to having sketches accepted every mail, but not quite succeeding.
“Anne Shirley! How glorious! What was it? When is it to be published? Did they pay you for it?”
“Yes; they’ve sent a check for ten dollars, and the editor writes that he would like to see more of my work. Dear man, he shall. It was an old sketch I found in my box. I re-wrote it and sent it in — but I never really thought it could be accepted because it had no plot,” said Anne, recalling the bitter experience of Averil’s Atonement.
“What a
re you going to do with that ten dollars, Anne? Let’s all go up town and get drunk,” suggested Phil.
“I AM going to squander it in a wild soulless revel of some sort,” declared Anne gaily. “At all events it isn’t tainted money — like the check I got for that horrible Reliable Baking Powder story. I spent IT usefully for clothes and hated them every time I put them on.”
“Think of having a real live author at Patty’s Place,” said Priscilla.
“It’s a great responsibility,” said Aunt Jamesina solemnly.
“Indeed it is,” agreed Pris with equal solemnity. “Authors are kittle cattle. You never know when or how they will break out. Anne may make copy of us.”
“I meant that the ability to write for the Press was a great responsibility,” said Aunt Jamesina severely, “and I hope Anne realizes, it. My daughter used to write stories before she went to the foreign field, but now she has turned her attention to higher things. She used to say her motto was ‘Never write a line you would be ashamed to read at your own funeral.’ You’d better take that for yours, Anne, if you are going to embark in literature. Though, to be sure,” added Aunt Jamesina perplexedly, “Elizabeth always used to laugh when she said it. She always laughed so much that I don’t know how she ever came to decide on being a missionary. I’m thankful she did — I prayed that she might — but — I wish she hadn’t.”
Then Aunt Jamesina wondered why those giddy girls all laughed.
Anne’s eyes shone all that day; literary ambitions sprouted and budded in her brain; their exhilaration accompanied her to Jennie Cooper’s walking party, and not even the sight of Gilbert and Christine, walking just ahead of her and Roy, could quite subdue the sparkle of her starry hopes. Nevertheless, she was not so rapt from things of earth as to be unable to notice that Christine’s walk was decidedly ungraceful.
“But I suppose Gilbert looks only at her face. So like a man,” thought Anne scornfully.
“Shall you be home Saturday afternoon?” asked Roy.
“Yes.”
“My mother and sisters are coming to call on you,” said Roy quietly.
Something went over Anne which might be described as a thrill, but it was hardly a pleasant one. She had never met any of Roy’s family; she realized the significance of his statement; and it had, somehow, an irrevocableness about it that chilled her.
“I shall be glad to see them,” she said flatly; and then wondered if she really would be glad. She ought to be, of course. But would it not be something of an ordeal? Gossip had filtered to Anne regarding the light in which the Gardners viewed the “infatuation” of son and brother. Roy must have brought pressure to bear in the matter of this call. Anne knew she would be weighed in the balance. From the fact that they had consented to call she understood that, willingly or unwillingly, they regarded her as a possible member of their clan.
“I shall just be myself. I shall not TRY to make a good impression,” thought Anne loftily. But she was wondering what dress she would better wear Saturday afternoon, and if the new style of high hair-dressing would suit her better than the old; and the walking party was rather spoiled for her. By night she had decided that she would wear her brown chiffon on Saturday, but would do her hair low.
Friday afternoon none of the girls had classes at Redmond. Stella took the opportunity to write a paper for the Philomathic Society, and was sitting at the table in the corner of the living-room with an untidy litter of notes and manuscript on the floor around her. Stella always vowed she never could write anything unless she threw each sheet down as she completed it. Anne, in her flannel blouse and serge skirt, with her hair rather blown from her windy walk home, was sitting squarely in the middle of the floor, teasing the Sarah-cat with a wishbone. Joseph and Rusty were both curled up in her lap. A warm plummy odor filled the whole house, for Priscilla was cooking in the kitchen. Presently she came in, enshrouded in a huge work-apron, with a smudge of flour on her nose, to show Aunt Jamesina the chocolate cake she had just iced.
At this auspicious moment the knocker sounded. Nobody paid any attention to it save Phil, who sprang up and opened it, expecting a boy with the hat she had bought that morning. On the doorstep stood Mrs. Gardner and her daughters.
Anne scrambled to her feet somehow, emptying two indignant cats out of her lap as she did so, and mechanically shifting her wishbone from her right hand to her left. Priscilla, who would have had to cross the room to reach the kitchen door, lost her head, wildly plunged the chocolate cake under a cushion on the inglenook sofa, and dashed upstairs. Stella began feverishly gathering up her manuscript. Only Aunt Jamesina and Phil remained normal. Thanks to them, everybody was soon sitting at ease, even Anne. Priscilla came down, apronless and smudgeless, Stella reduced her corner to decency, and Phil saved the situation by a stream of ready small talk.
Mrs. Gardner was tall and thin and handsome, exquisitely gowned, cordial with a cordiality that seemed a trifle forced. Aline Gardner was a younger edition of her mother, lacking the cordiality. She endeavored to be nice, but succeeded only in being haughty and patronizing. Dorothy Gardner was slim and jolly and rather tomboyish. Anne knew she was Roy’s favorite sister and warmed to her. She would have looked very much like Roy if she had had dreamy dark eyes instead of roguish hazel ones. Thanks to her and Phil, the call really went off very well, except for a slight sense of strain in the atmosphere and two rather untoward incidents. Rusty and Joseph, left to themselves, began a game of chase, and sprang madly into Mrs. Gardner’s silken lap and out of it in their wild career. Mrs. Gardner lifted her lorgnette and gazed after their flying forms as if she had never seen cats before, and Anne, choking back slightly nervous laughter, apologized as best she could.
“You are fond of cats?” said Mrs. Gardner, with a slight intonation of tolerant wonder.
Anne, despite her affection for Rusty, was not especially fond of cats, but Mrs. Gardner’s tone annoyed her. Inconsequently she remembered that Mrs. John Blythe was so fond of cats that she kept as many as her husband would allow.
“They ARE adorable animals, aren’t they?” she said wickedly.
“I have never liked cats,” said Mrs. Gardner remotely.
“I love them,” said Dorothy. “They are so nice and selfish. Dogs are TOO good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.”
“You have two delightful old china dogs there. May I look at them closely?” said Aline, crossing the room towards the fireplace and thereby becoming the unconscious cause of the other accident. Picking up Magog, she sat down on the cushion under which was secreted Priscilla’s chocolate cake. Priscilla and Anne exchanged agonized glances but could do nothing. The stately Aline continued to sit on the cushion and discuss china dogs until the time of departure.
Dorothy lingered behind a moment to squeeze Anne’s hand and whisper impulsively.
“I KNOW you and I are going to be chums. Oh, Roy has told me all about you. I’m the only one of the family he tells things to, poor boy — nobody COULD confide in mamma and Aline, you know. What glorious times you girls must have here! Won’t you let me come often and have a share in them?”
“Come as often as you like,” Anne responded heartily, thankful that one of Roy’s sisters was likable. She would never like Aline, so much was certain; and Aline would never like her, though Mrs. Gardner might be won. Altogether, Anne sighed with relief when the ordeal was over.
“‘Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are it might have been,’”
quoted Priscilla tragically, lifting the cushion. “This cake is now what you might call a flat failure. And the cushion is likewise ruined. Never tell me that Friday isn’t unlucky.”
“People who send word they are coming on Saturday shouldn’t come on Friday,” said Aunt Jamesina.
“I fancy it was Roy’s mistake,” said Phil. “That boy isn’t really responsible for what he says when he talks to Anne. Where IS Anne?”
Anne had gone upst
airs. She felt oddly like crying. But she made herself laugh instead. Rusty and Joseph had been TOO awful! And Dorothy WAS a dear.
Chapter XXXVII
Full-fledged B.A.’s
“I wish I were dead, or that it were tomorrow night,” groaned Phil.
“If you live long enough both wishes will come true,” said Anne calmly.
“It’s easy for you to be serene. You’re at home in Philosophy. I’m not — and when I think of that horrible paper tomorrow I quail. If I should fail in it what would Jo say?”
“You won’t fail. How did you get on in Greek today?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it was a good paper and perhaps it was bad enough to make Homer turn over in his grave. I’ve studied and mulled over notebooks until I’m incapable of forming an opinion of anything. How thankful little Phil will be when all this examinating is over.”
“Examinating? I never heard such a word.”
“Well, haven’t I as good a right to make a word as any one else?” demanded Phil.
“Words aren’t made — they grow,” said Anne.
“Never mind — I begin faintly to discern clear water ahead where no examination breakers loom. Girls, do you — can you realize that our Redmond Life is almost over?”
“I can’t,” said Anne, sorrowfully. “It seems just yesterday that Pris and I were alone in that crowd of Freshmen at Redmond. And now we are Seniors in our final examinations.”
“‘Potent, wise, and reverend Seniors,’” quoted Phil. “Do you suppose we really are any wiser than when we came to Redmond?”
“You don’t act as if you were by times,” said Aunt Jamesina severely.
“Oh, Aunt Jimsie, haven’t we been pretty good girls, take us by and large, these three winters you’ve mothered us?” pleaded Phil.
“You’ve been four of the dearest, sweetest, goodest girls that ever went together through college,” averred Aunt Jamesina, who never spoiled a compliment by misplaced economy.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 78