'It's dreadful hot tonight. I'm afraid we'll have a thunderstorm. Mercy on us, Richard, that cat is bigger than ever.'
Richard Chase had a familiar in the shape of a yellow cat of abnormal size which now climbed up on his knee. He stroked it tenderly. 'Thomas the Rhymer gives the world assurance of a cat,' he said. 'Don't you, Thomas? Look at your Aunt Cornelia, Rhymer. Observe the baleful glances she is casting at you out of orbs created to express only kindness and affection.'
'Don't you call me that beast's Aunt Cornelia,' protested Mrs Elliott sharply. 'A joke is a joke, but that is carrying things too far.'
'Wouldn't you rather be the Rhymer's aunt than Neddy Churchill's aunt?' queried Richard Chase plaintively. 'Neddy is a glutton and a wine-bibber, isn't he? I've heard you giving a catalogue of his sins. Wouldn't you rather be aunt to a fine upstanding cat like Thomas with a blameless record where whisky and tabbies are concerned?'
'Poor Ned is a human being,' retorted Miss Cornelia. 'I don't like cats. That is the only fault I have to find with Alden Churchill. He has got the strangest liking for cats, too. Lord knows where he got it... both his father and mother loathed them.'
'What a sensible young man he must be!'
'Sensible! Well, he's sensible enough, except in the matter of cats and his hankering after evolution... another thing he didn't inherit from his mother.'
'Do you know, Mrs Elliott,' said Richard Chase solemnly, 'I have a secret leaning towards evolution myself.'
'So you've told me before. Well, believe what you want to, Dick Chase... just like a man. Thank God, nobody could ever make me believe that I descended from a monkey.'
'You don't look it, I confess, you comely woman. I see no simian resemblances in your rosy, comfortable, eminently gracious physiognomy. Still, your great-grandmother a million times removed swung herself from branch to branch by her tail. Science proves that, Cornelia... take it or leave it.'
'I'll leave it, then. I'm not going to argue with you on that or any point. I've got my own religion, and no ape-ancestors figure in it. By the way, Richard, Stella doesn't look so well this summer as I'd like to see her.'
'She always feels the hot weather a good deal. She'll pick up when it's cooler.'
'I hope so. Lisette picked up every summer but the last, Richard... don't forget that. Stella has her mother's constitution. It's just as well she isn't likely to marry.'
'Why isn't she likely to marry? I ask from curiosity, Cornelia... rank curiosity. The processes of feminine thought are intensely interesting to me. From what premises or data do you draw the conclusion, in your own delightful off-hand way, that Stella is not likely to marry?'
'Well, Richard, to put it plainly, she isn't the kind of girl that is very popular with men. She's a sweet, good girl but she doesn't take with men.'
'She has had admirers. I have spent much of my substance in the purchase and maintenance of shotguns and bulldogs.'
'They admired your money-bags, I fancy. They were easily discouraged, weren't they? Just one broadside of sarcasm from you and off they went. If they had really wanted Stella they wouldn't have wilted for that any more than for your imaginary bulldogs. No, Richard, you might as well admit the fact that Stella isn't the girl to win desirable beaux. Lisette wasn't, you know. She never had a beau till you came along.'
'But wasn't I worth waiting for? Surely Lisette was a wise young woman. You would not have me give my daughter to any Tom, Dick or Harry, would you? My Star, who, in spite of your disparaging remarks, is fit to shine in the palaces of kings?'
'We have no kings in Canada,' retorted Miss Cornelia. 'I'm not saying Stella isn't a lovely girl. I'm only saying the men don't seem to see it, and, considering her constitution, I think it is just as well. A good thing for you, too. You could never get on without her... you'd be as helpless as a baby. Well, promise us a contribution to the church stove range and we'll be off. I know you're dying to pick up that book of yours.'
'Admirable, clear-sighted woman! What a treasure you are for a cousin-in-law! I admit it... I am dying. But no other than yourself would have been perspicacious enough to see it or amiable enough to save my life by acting upon it. How much are you holding me up for?'
'You can afford five dollars.'
'I never argue with a lady. Five dollars it is. Ah, going? She never loses time, this unique woman! Once her object is attained she straightway leaves you in peace. They don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays. Good evening, pearl of in-laws.'
During the whole call Anne had not uttered one word. Why should she when Mrs Elliott was doing her work for her so cleverly and unconsciously? But as Richard Chase bowed them out he suddenly bent forward confidentially.
'You've got the finest pair of ankles I've ever seen, Mrs Blythe, and I've been about a bit in my time.'
'Isn't he dreadful?' gasped Miss Cornelia as they went down the lane. 'He's always saying outrageous things like that to women. You mustn't mind him, Anne, dearie.'
Anne didn't. She rather liked Richard Chase.
'I don't think,' she reflected, 'that he quite liked the idea of Stella not being popular with the men, in spite of the fact that their grandfathers were monkeys. I think he'd like to "show folks", too. Well, I have done all I can do. I have interested Alden and Stella in each other; and, between us, Miss Cornelia and I have, I think, made Mrs Churchill and Mr Chase rather for the match than against it. Now I must just sit tight and see how it turns out.'
A month later Stella Chase came to Ingleside and again sat down by Anne on the veranda steps... thinking, as she did so, that she hoped she would look like Mrs Blythe some day... with that ripened look... the look of a woman who has lived fully and graciously.
The cool, smoky evening had followed a cool, yellowish-grey day in early September. It was threaded with the gentle moan of the sea.
'The sea is unhappy tonight,' Walter would say when he heard that sound.
Stella seemed absent-minded and quiet. Presently she said abruptly, looking up at a sorcery of stars that was being woven in the purple night, 'Mrs Blythe, I want to tell you something.'
'Yes, dear?'
'I'm engaged to Alden Churchill,' said Stella desperately. 'We've been engaged ever since last Christmas. We told Father and Mrs Churchill right away but we've kept it a secret from everyone else just because it was so sweet to have such a secret. We hated to share it with the world. But we are going to be married next month.'
Anne gave an excellent imitation of a woman who had been turned to stone.
Stella was still staring at the stars so that she did not see the expression on Mrs Blythe's face. She went on, a little more easily:
'Alden and I met at a party in Lowbridge last November. We... we loved each other from the very first moment. He said he had always dreamed of me, had always been looking for me. He said to himself, "There is my wife," when he saw me come in at the door. And I... I felt just the same. Oh, we are so happy, Mrs Blythe.'
Still Anne said nothing, several times over.
'The only cloud on my happiness is your attitude about the matter, Mrs Blythe. Won't you try to approve? You've been such a dear friend to me since I came to Glen St Mary... I've felt as if you were an older sister. And I'll feel so badly if I think my marriage is against your wish.'
There was a sound of tears in Stella's voice. Anne recovered her power of speech.
'Dearest, your happiness is all I've wanted. I like Alden... he's a splendid fellow... only he had the reputation of being a flirt...'
'But he isn't. He was just looking for the right one, don't you see, Mrs Blythe? And he couldn't find her.'
'How does your father regard it?'
'Oh, Father is greatly pleased. He took to Alden from the start. They used to argue for hours about evolution. Father said he always meant to let me marry when the right man came along. I feel dreadfully about leaving him, but he says young birds have a right to their own nest. Cousin Delia Chase is coming to keep house for him and Father likes
her very much.'
'And Alden's mother?'
'She is quite willing, too. When Alden told her last Christmas that we were engaged she went to the Bible and the very first verse she turned up was, "A man shall leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife." She said it was perfectly clear then what she ought to do and she consented at once. She is going to go to that little house of hers in Lowbridge.'
'I am glad you won't have to live with that green plush sofa,' said Anne.
'The sofa? Oh, yes, the furniture is very old-fashioned, isn't it? But she is taking it with her and Alden is going to refurnish completely. So you see everyone is pleased, Mrs Blythe, and won't you give us your good wishes, too?'
Anne leaned quickly forward and kissed Stella's cool satin cheek.
'I am very glad for you. God bless the days that are coming for you, my dear.'
When Stella had gone Anne flew up to her own room to avoid seeing anyone for a few moments. A cynical, lop-sided old moon was coming out from behind some shaggy clouds in the east and the fields beyond seemed to wink slyly and impishly at her.
She took stock of all the preceding weeks. She had ruined her dining-room carpet, destroyed two treasured heirlooms, and spoiled her library ceiling; she had been trying to use Mrs Churchill as a cat's-paw, and Mrs Churchill must have been laughing in her sleeve all the time.
'Who,' asked Anne of the moon, 'has been made the biggest fool of in this affair? I know what Gilbert's opinion will be. All the trouble I've gone to, to bring about a marriage between two people who were already engaged! I'm cured of matchmaking... absolutely cured. Never will I lift a finger to promote a marriage if nobody in the world ever gets married again. Well, there is one consolation... Jen Pringle's letter today saying she is going to marry Lewis Stedman, whom she met at my party. The Bristol candlesticks were not sacrificed entirely in vain. Boys... boys! Must you make such unearthly noises down there?'
'We're owls... we have to hoot,' Jem's injured voice proclaimed from the dark shrubbery. He knew he was making a very good job of hooting. Jem could mimic the voice of any little wild thing out in the woods. Walter was not so good at it and he presently ceased being an owl and became a rather disillusioned little boy, creeping to Mother for comfort.
'Mummy, I thought crickets sang... and Mr Carter Flagg said today they don't... they just make that noise scraping their hind-legs. Do they, Mummy?'
'Something like that... I'm not quite sure of the process. But that is their way of singing, you know.'
'I don't like it. I'll never like to hear them singing again.'
'Oh, yes, you will. You'll forget about the hind-legs in time and just think of their fairy chorus all over the harvest meadows and the autumn hills. Isn't it bed-time, small son?'
'Mummy, will you tell me a bed-time story that will send a cold chill down my spine? And sit beside me afterwards till I go to sleep?'
'What else are mothers for, darling?'
19
' "The time has come the Walrus said to talk of"... having a dog,' said Gilbert.
They had not had a dog at Ingleside since old Rex had been poisoned, but boys should have a dog, and the doctor decided he would get them one. But he was so busy that fall that he kept putting it off; and finally one November day Jem arrived home from an afternoon spent with a school pal carrying a dog... a little 'yaller' dog with two black ears sticking cockily up.
'Joe Reese gave it to me, Mother. His name is Gyp. Hasn't he got the cutest tail? I can keep him, can't I, Mother?'
'What kind of a dog is he, darling?' asked Anne dubiously.
'I... I think he's a lot of kinds,' said Jem. 'That makes him more int'resting, don't you think, Mother? More exciting than if he was just one kind. Please, Mother.'
'Oh, if your father says yes...'
Gilbert said 'Yes' and Jem entered into his heritage. Everybody at Ingleside welcomed Gyp into the family except the Shrimp, who expressed his opinion without circumlocution. Even Susan took a liking to him, and when she spun in the garret on rainy days Gyp, in his master's absence at school, stayed with her, gloriously hunting imaginary rats in dark corners and uttering a yelp of terror whenever his eagerness brought him too close to the little spinning wheel. It was never used... the Morgans had left it there when they moved out... and sat in its dark corner like a little bent old woman. Nobody could understand Gyp's fear of it: he did not mind the big wheel at all, but sat quite close to it while Susan sent it whirling around with her wheel-pin, and raced back and forward beside her as she paced the length of the garret, twirling the long thread of wool. Susan admitted that a dog could be real company and thought his trick of lying on his back, waving his forepaws in the air, when he wanted a bone, the cleverest ever. She was as angry as Jem when Bertie Shakespeare sneeringly remarked:
'Call that a dog?'
'We do call it a dog,' said Susan with ominous calm. 'Perhaps you would call it a hippopotamus.' And Bertie had to go home that day without getting a piece of a wonderful concoction Susan called 'apple crunch pie' and made regularly for the two boys and their pals. She was not around when Mac Reese asked, 'Did the tide bring that in?' but Jem was able to stand up for his own dog, and when Nat Flagg said that Gypsy's legs were too long for his size Jem retorted that a dog's legs had to be long enough to reach the ground. Natty was not over bright and that floored him.
November was stingy of its sunshine that year: raw winds blew through the bare, silver-branched maple grove and the Hollow was almost constantly filled with mist... not a gracious, eerie thing like a fog but what Dad called 'dank, dark, depressing, dripping, drizzly mist'. The Ingleside fry had to spend most of their play-time in the garret, but they made delightful friends of two partridges that came every evening to a certain huge old apple-tree and five gorgeous jays who came to the backyard, chuckling impishly as they ate the food the children put out for them. Only they were greedy and selfish and kept all the other birds away.
Winter set in with December and it snowed ceaselessly for three weeks. The fields beyond Ingleside were unbroken silver pastures, fence and gate-posts wore tall white caps, windows whitened with fairy patterns and Ingleside lights bloomed out through the dim, snowy twilights, welcoming all wanderers home. It seemed to Susan that there had never been so many winter babies as there were that year; and when she left 'the doctor's bite' in the pantry for him night after night she darkly opined that it would be a miracle if he toughed it out till spring.
'The ninth Drew baby! As if there weren't enough Drews in the world already!'
'I suppose Mrs Drew will think it just the wonder we think Rilla, Susan.'
'You will have your joke, Mrs Doctor dear.'
But in the library or the big kitchen the children planned out their summer playhouse in the Hollow while storms howled outside, or fluffy white clouds were blown over frosty stars. For blow it high or blow it low there was always at Ingleside laughter and firelight and the odours of good cheer.
Christmas came and went undarkened this year by any shadow of Aunt Mary Maria. There were rabbit trails in the snow to follow, and great crusted fields over which you raced with your shadows, and glistening hills for coasting, and new skates to be tried out on the pond in the chill, rosy world of winter sunset. And always a yellow dog with black ears to run with you or meet you with ecstatic yelps of welcome when you came home, to sleep at the foot of your bed when you slept, and lie at your feet while you learned your spellings, to sit close to you at meals and give you occasional reminding nudges with his little paw.
'Mother dearwums, I don't know how I lived before Gyp came. He can talk, Mother... he can really... with his eyes, you know.'
Then... tragedy! One day Gyp seemed a little dull. He would not eat, though Susan tempted him with the spare rib-bone he loved; the next day the Lowbridge vet was sent for and shook his head. It was hard to say... the dog might have found something poisonous in the woods... he might recover and he might not. The little dog lay very quietly, taking
no notice of anyone except Jem; almost to the last he tried to wag his tail when Jem touched him.
'Mother dearwums, would it be wrong to pray for Gyp?'
'Of course not, dear. We can pray always for anything we love. But I am afraid... Gyppy is a very sick little dog.'
'Mother, you don't think Gyppy is going to die!'
Gyp died the next morning. It was the first time death had entered into Jem's world. No one of us ever forgets the experience of watching something we love die, even if it is 'only a little dog'. Nobody at weeping Ingleside used that expression, not even Susan, who wiped a very red nose and muttered:
'I never took up with a dog before... and I never will again. It hurts too much.'
Susan was not acquainted with Kipling's poem on the folly of giving your heart to a dog to tear; but if she had been she would, in spite of her contempt for poetry, have thought that for once a poet had uttered sense.
Night was hard for poor Jem. Mother and Father had to be away. Walter had cried himself to sleep, and he was alone... with not even a dog to talk to. The dear brown eyes that had always been lifted to him so trustingly were glazed in death.
'Dear God,' prayed Jem, 'please look after my little dog who died today. You'll know him by the two black ears. Don't let him be lonesome for me...'
Jem buried his face in the bedspread to smother a sob. When he put out the light the dark night would be looking through the window at him and there would be no Gyp. The cold winter morning would come and there would be no Gyp. Day would follow day for years and years and there would be no Gyp. He just couldn't bear it.
Then a tender arm was slipped around him and he was held close in a warm embrace. Oh, there was love left yet in the world, even if Gyppy had gone.
'Mother, will it always be like this?'
'Not always.' Anne did not tell him he would soon forget... that before long Gyppy would only be a dear memory. 'Not always, little Jem. This will heal some time... as your burned hand healed, though it hurt so much at first.'
'Dad said he would get me another dog. I don't have to have it, do I? I don't want another dog, Mother... not ever.'
'I know, darling.'