Chapter XXI
Roses of Yesterday
The fortnight Anne spent in Bolingbroke was a very pleasant one, with alittle under current of vague pain and dissatisfaction running throughit whenever she thought about Gilbert. There was not, however, much timeto think about him. "Mount Holly," the beautiful old Gordon homestead,was a very gay place, overrun by Phil's friends of both sexes. There wasquite a bewildering succession of drives, dances, picnics and boatingparties, all expressively lumped together by Phil under the head of"jamborees"; Alec and Alonzo were so constantly on hand that Annewondered if they ever did anything but dance attendance on thatwill-o'-the-wisp of a Phil. They were both nice, manly fellows, but Annewould not be drawn into any opinion as to which was the nicer.
"And I depended so on you to help me make up my mind which of them Ishould promise to marry," mourned Phil.
"You must do that for yourself. You are quite expert at making upyour mind as to whom other people should marry," retorted Anne, rathercaustically.
"Oh, that's a very different thing," said Phil, truly.
But the sweetest incident of Anne's sojourn in Bolingbroke was the visitto her birthplace--the little shabby yellow house in an out-of-the-waystreet she had so often dreamed about. She looked at it with delightedeyes, as she and Phil turned in at the gate.
"It's almost exactly as I've pictured it," she said. "There is nohoneysuckle over the windows, but there is a lilac tree by the gate,and--yes, there are the muslin curtains in the windows. How glad I am itis still painted yellow."
A very tall, very thin woman opened the door.
"Yes, the Shirleys lived here twenty years ago," she said, in answer toAnne's question. "They had it rented. I remember 'em. They both died offever at onct. It was turrible sad. They left a baby. I guess it's deadlong ago. It was a sickly thing. Old Thomas and his wife took it--as ifthey hadn't enough of their own."
"It didn't die," said Anne, smiling. "I was that baby."
"You don't say so! Why, you have grown," exclaimed the woman, as if shewere much surprised that Anne was not still a baby. "Come to look atyou, I see the resemblance. You're complected like your pa. He hadred hair. But you favor your ma in your eyes and mouth. She was a nicelittle thing. My darter went to school to her and was nigh crazy abouther. They was buried in the one grave and the School Board put up atombstone to them as a reward for faithful service. Will you come in?"
"Will you let me go all over the house?" asked Anne eagerly.
"Laws, yes, you can if you like. 'Twon't take you long--there ain't muchof it. I keep at my man to build a new kitchen, but he ain't one of yourhustlers. The parlor's in there and there's two rooms upstairs. Justprowl about yourselves. I've got to see to the baby. The east room wasthe one you were born in. I remember your ma saying she loved to see thesunrise; and I mind hearing that you was born just as the sun was risingand its light on your face was the first thing your ma saw."
Anne went up the narrow stairs and into that little east room with afull heart. It was as a shrine to her. Here her mother had dreamed theexquisite, happy dreams of anticipated motherhood; here that red sunriselight had fallen over them both in the sacred hour of birth; here hermother had died. Anne looked about her reverently, her eyes with tears.It was for her one of the jeweled hours of life that gleam out radiantlyforever in memory.
"Just to think of it--mother was younger than I am now when I was born,"she whispered.
When Anne went downstairs the lady of the house met her in the hall. Sheheld out a dusty little packet tied with faded blue ribbon.
"Here's a bundle of old letters I found in that closet upstairs when Icame here," she said. "I dunno what they are--I never bothered to lookin 'em, but the address on the top one is 'Miss Bertha Willis,' and thatwas your ma's maiden name. You can take 'em if you'd keer to have 'em."
"Oh, thank you--thank you," cried Anne, clasping the packet rapturously.
"That was all that was in the house," said her hostess. "The furniturewas all sold to pay the doctor bills, and Mrs. Thomas got your ma'sclothes and little things. I reckon they didn't last long among thatdrove of Thomas youngsters. They was destructive young animals, as Imind 'em."
"I haven't one thing that belonged to my mother," said Anne, chokily."I--I can never thank you enough for these letters."
"You're quite welcome. Laws, but your eyes is like your ma's. She couldjust about talk with hers. Your father was sorter homely but awful nice.I mind hearing folks say when they was married that there never was twopeople more in love with each other--Pore creatures, they didn't livemuch longer; but they was awful happy while they was alive, and I s'posethat counts for a good deal."
Anne longed to get home to read her precious letters; but she made onelittle pilgrimage first. She went alone to the green corner of the "old"Bolingbroke cemetery where her father and mother were buried, and lefton their grave the white flowers she carried. Then she hastened backto Mount Holly, shut herself up in her room, and read the letters.Some were written by her father, some by her mother. There were notmany--only a dozen in all--for Walter and Bertha Shirley had not beenoften separated during their courtship. The letters were yellow andfaded and dim, blurred with the touch of passing years. No profoundwords of wisdom were traced on the stained and wrinkled pages, but onlylines of love and trust. The sweetness of forgotten things clung tothem--the far-off, fond imaginings of those long-dead lovers. BerthaShirley had possessed the gift of writing letters which embodied thecharming personality of the writer in words and thoughts that retainedtheir beauty and fragrance after the lapse of time. The letters weretender, intimate, sacred. To Anne, the sweetest of all was the onewritten after her birth to the father on a brief absence. It was fullof a proud young mother's accounts of "baby"--her cleverness, herbrightness, her thousand sweetnesses.
"I love her best when she is asleep and better still when she is awake,"Bertha Shirley had written in the postscript. Probably it was the lastsentence she had ever penned. The end was very near for her.
"This has been the most beautiful day of my life," Anne said to Philthat night. "I've FOUND my father and mother. Those letters have madethem REAL to me. I'm not an orphan any longer. I feel as if I had openeda book and found roses of yesterday, sweet and beloved, between itsleaves."