XLI
Love Takes Up the Glass of Time
"I've come up to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles throughSeptember woods and 'over hills where spices grow,' this afternoon,"said Gilbert, coming suddenly around the porch corner. "Suppose we visitHester Gray's garden."
Anne, sitting on the stone step with her lap full of a pale, filmy,green stuff, looked up rather blankly.
"Oh, I wish I could," she said slowly, "but I really can't, Gilbert. I'mgoing to Alice Penhallow's wedding this evening, you know. I've got todo something to this dress, and by the time it's finished I'll have toget ready. I'm so sorry. I'd love to go."
"Well, can you go tomorrow afternoon, then?" asked Gilbert, apparentlynot much disappointed.
"Yes, I think so."
"In that case I shall hie me home at once to do something I shouldotherwise have to do tomorrow. So Alice Penhallow is to be marriedtonight. Three weddings for you in one summer, Anne--Phil's, Alice's,and Jane's. I'll never forgive Jane for not inviting me to her wedding."
"You really can't blame her when you think of the tremendous Andrewsconnection who had to be invited. The house could hardly hold them all.I was only bidden by grace of being Jane's old chum--at least on Jane'spart. I think Mrs. Harmon's motive for inviting me was to let me seeJane's surpassing gorgeousness."
"Is it true that she wore so many diamonds that you couldn't tell wherethe diamonds left off and Jane began?"
Anne laughed.
"She certainly wore a good many. What with all the diamonds and whitesatin and tulle and lace and roses and orange blossoms, prim littleJane was almost lost to sight. But she was VERY happy, and so was Mr.Inglis--and so was Mrs. Harmon."
"Is that the dress you're going to wear tonight?" asked Gilbert, lookingdown at the fluffs and frills.
"Yes. Isn't it pretty? And I shall wear starflowers in my hair. TheHaunted Wood is full of them this summer."
Gilbert had a sudden vision of Anne, arrayed in a frilly green gown,with the virginal curves of arms and throat slipping out of it, andwhite stars shining against the coils of her ruddy hair. The vision madehim catch his breath. But he turned lightly away.
"Well, I'll be up tomorrow. Hope you'll have a nice time tonight."
Anne looked after him as he strode away, and sighed. Gilbert wasfriendly--very friendly--far too friendly. He had come quite often toGreen Gables after his recovery, and something of their old comradeshiphad returned. But Anne no longer found it satisfying. The rose of lovemade the blossom of friendship pale and scentless by contrast. AndAnne had again begun to doubt if Gilbert now felt anything for her butfriendship. In the common light of common day her radiant certainty ofthat rapt morning had faded. She was haunted by a miserable fear thather mistake could never be rectified. It was quite likely that it wasChristine whom Gilbert loved after all. Perhaps he was even engagedto her. Anne tried to put all unsettling hopes out of her heart, andreconcile herself to a future where work and ambition must take theplace of love. She could do good, if not noble, work as a teacher; andthe success her little sketches were beginning to meet with in certaineditorial sanctums augured well for her budding literary dreams.But--but--Anne picked up her green dress and sighed again.
When Gilbert came the next afternoon he found Anne waiting for him,fresh as the dawn and fair as a star, after all the gaiety of thepreceding night. She wore a green dress--not the one she had worn tothe wedding, but an old one which Gilbert had told her at a Redmondreception he liked especially. It was just the shade of green thatbrought out the rich tints of her hair, and the starry gray of hereyes and the iris-like delicacy of her skin. Gilbert, glancing at hersideways as they walked along a shadowy woodpath, thought she had neverlooked so lovely. Anne, glancing sideways at Gilbert, now and then,thought how much older he looked since his illness. It was as if he hadput boyhood behind him forever.
The day was beautiful and the way was beautiful. Anne was almost sorrywhen they reached Hester Gray's garden, and sat down on the old bench.But it was beautiful there, too--as beautiful as it had been on thefaraway day of the Golden Picnic, when Diana and Jane and Priscilla andshe had found it. Then it had been lovely with narcissus and violets;now golden rod had kindled its fairy torches in the corners and astersdotted it bluely. The call of the brook came up through the woods fromthe valley of birches with all its old allurement; the mellow airwas full of the purr of the sea; beyond were fields rimmed by fencesbleached silvery gray in the suns of many summers, and long hillsscarfed with the shadows of autumnal clouds; with the blowing of thewest wind old dreams returned.
"I think," said Anne softly, "that 'the land where dreams come true' isin the blue haze yonder, over that little valley."
"Have you any unfulfilled dreams, Anne?" asked Gilbert.
Something in his tone--something she had not heard since that miserableevening in the orchard at Patty's Place--made Anne's heart beat wildly.But she made answer lightly.
"Of course. Everybody has. It wouldn't do for us to have all our dreamsfulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dreamabout. What a delicious aroma that low-descending sun is extractingfrom the asters and ferns. I wish we could see perfumes as well as smellthem. I'm sure they would be very beautiful."
Gilbert was not to be thus sidetracked.
"I have a dream," he said slowly. "I persist in dreaming it, although ithas often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a homewith a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends--andYOU!"
Anne wanted to speak but she could find no words. Happiness was breakingover her like a wave. It almost frightened her.
"I asked you a question over two years ago, Anne. If I ask it againtoday will you give me a different answer?"
Still Anne could not speak. But she lifted her eyes, shining with allthe love-rapture of countless generations, and looked into his for amoment. He wanted no other answer.
They lingered in the old garden until twilight, sweet as dusk in Edenmust have been, crept over it. There was so much to talk over andrecall--things said and done and heard and thought and felt andmisunderstood.
"I thought you loved Christine Stuart," Anne told him, as reproachfullyas if she had not given him every reason to suppose that she loved RoyGardner.
Gilbert laughed boyishly.
"Christine was engaged to somebody in her home town. I knew it and sheknew I knew it. When her brother graduated he told me his sister wascoming to Kingsport the next winter to take music, and asked me if Iwould look after her a bit, as she knew no one and would be very lonely.So I did. And then I liked Christine for her own sake. She is one ofthe nicest girls I've ever known. I knew college gossip credited us withbeing in love with each other. I didn't care. Nothing mattered much tome for a time there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne.There was nobody else--there never could be anybody else for me but you.I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head inschool."
"I don't see how you could keep on loving me when I was such a littlefool," said Anne.
"Well, I tried to stop," said Gilbert frankly, "not because I thoughtyou what you call yourself, but because I felt sure there was no chancefor me after Gardner came on the scene. But I couldn't--and I can't tellyou, either, what it's meant to me these two years to believe you weregoing to marry him, and be told every week by some busybody that yourengagement was on the point of being announced. I believed it until oneblessed day when I was sitting up after the fever. I got a letter fromPhil Gordon--Phil Blake, rather--in which she told me there was reallynothing between you and Roy, and advised me to 'try again.' Well, thedoctor was amazed at my rapid recovery after that."
Anne laughed--then shivered.
"I can never forget the night I thought you were dying, Gilbert. Oh, Iknew--I KNEW then--and I thought it was too late."
"But it wasn't, sweetheart. Oh, Anne, this makes up for everything,doesn't it? Let's resolve to keep this day sacred to perfect beauty allour
lives for the gift it has given us."
"It's the birthday of our happiness," said Anne softly. "I've alwaysloved this old garden of Hester Gray's, and now it will be dearer thanever."
"But I'll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne," said Gilbertsadly. "It will be three years before I'll finish my medical course. Andeven then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls."
Anne laughed.
"I don't want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want YOU. You see I'mquite as shameless as Phil about it. Sunbursts and marble halls may beall very well, but there is more 'scope for imagination' without them.And as for the waiting, that doesn't matter. We'll just be happy,waiting and working for each other--and dreaming. Oh, dreams will bevery sweet now."
Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. Then they walked hometogether in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realm oflove, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that everbloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.
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