'Drat her hide,' muttered Susan as she went out for the dessert... Walter's favourite Queen pudding.
Anne felt miserably guilty. Gilbert had shot her a slightly reproachful glance as if to imply she might have been more patient with a poor lonely old lady.
Gilbert himself was feeling a bit seedy. The truth, as everyone knew, was that he had been terribly overworked all summer: and perhaps Aunt Mary Maria was more of a strain than he would admit. Anne made up her mind that in the autumn, if all was well, she would pack him off willy-nilly for a month's snipe shooting in Nova Scotia.
'How is your tea?' she asked Aunt Mary Maria repentantly.
Aunt Mary Maria pursed her lips.
'Too weak. But it doesn't matter. Who cares whether a poor old woman gets her tea to her liking or not? Some folks, however, think I'm real good company.'
Whatever the connection between Aunt Mary Maria's two sentences was Anne felt she was beyond ferreting it out just then. She had turned very pale.
'I think I'll go upstairs and lie down,' she said a trifle faintly as she rose from the table. 'And I think, Gilbert... perhaps you'd better not stay long in Lowbridge... and suppose you give Miss Carson a ring.'
She kissed Walter good-bye rather casually and hurriedly, very much as if she were not thinking about him at all. Walter would not cry. Aunt Mary Maria kissed him on the forehead - Walter hated to be moistly kissed on the forehead - and said:
'Mind your table manners at Lowbridge, Walter. Mind you ain't greedy. If you are, a Big Black Man will come along with a big black bag to pop naughty children into.'
It was perhaps as well that Gilbert had gone out to harness Grey Tom and did not hear this. He and Anne had always made a point of never frightening their children with such ideas or allowing anyone else to do it. Susan did hear it as she cleared the table, and Aunt Mary Maria never knew what a narrow escape she had of having the gravy boat and its contents flung at her head.
8
Generally Walter enjoyed a drive with Dad. He loved beauty, and the roads around Glen St Mary were beautiful. The road to Lowbridge was a double ribbon of dancing buttercups, with here and there the ferny green rim of an inviting grove. But today Dad didn't seem to want to talk much and he drove Grey Tom as Walter never remembered seeing him driven before. When they reached Lowbridge he said a few hurried words aside to Mrs Parker and rushed out without bidding Walter good-bye. Walter had again hard work to keep from crying. It was only too plain that nobody loved him. Mother and Father used to, but they didn't any longer.
The big, untidy Parker house at Lowbridge did not seem friendly to Walter. But perhaps no house would have seemed that just then. Mrs Parker took him out to the backyard, where shrieks of noisy mirth were resounding, and introduced him to the children, who seemed to fill it. Then she promptly went back to her sewing, leaving them to 'get acquainted by themselves'... a proceeding that worked very well in nine cases out of ten. Perhaps she could not be blamed for failing to see that little Walter Blythe was the tenth. She liked him... her own children were jolly little lads... Fred and Opal were inclined to put on Montreal airs, but she felt quite sure they wouldn't be unkind to anyone. Everything would go swimmingly. She was so glad she could help 'poor Anne Blythe' out, even if it was only by taking one of her children off her hands. Mrs Parker hoped 'all would go well'. Anne's friends were a good deal more worried over her than she was over herself, reminding each other of Shirley's birth.
A sudden hush had fallen over the backyard, a yard which ran off into a big, bowery apple orchard. Walter stood looking gravely and shyly at the Parker children and their Johnson cousins from Montreal. Bill Parker was ten, a ruddy, round-faced urchin who 'took after' his mother and seemed very old and big in Walter's eyes. Andy Parker was nine, and Lowbridge children could have told you that he was 'the nasty Parker one' and was nicknamed 'Pig' for reasons good. Walter did not like his looks from the first... his short-cropped fair bristles, his impish freckled face, his bulging blue eyes. Fred Johnson was Bill's age, and Walter didn't like him either, though he was a good-looking chap with tawny curls and black eyes. His nine-year-old sister, Opal, had curls and black eyes, too... snapping black eyes. She stood with her arm about tow-headed, eight-year-old Cora Parker and they both looked Walter over condescendingly. If it had not been for Alice Parker Walter might very conceivably have turned and fled.
Alice was seven; Alice had the loveliest little ripples of golden curls all over her head: Alice had eyes as blue and soft as the violets in the Hollow: Alice had pink, dimpled cheeks: Alice wore a little frilled yellow dress in which she looked like a dancing buttercup: Alice smiled at him as if she had known him all her life; Alice was a friend.
Fred opened the conversation.
'Hello, sonny,' he said condescendingly.
Walter felt the condescension at once and retreated into himself.
'My name is Walter,' he said distinctly.
Fred turned to the others with a well-done air of amazement. He'd show this country lad!
'He says his name is Walter,' he told Bill with a comical twist of his mouth.
'He says his name is Walter,' Bill told Opal in turn.
'He says his name is Walter,' Opal told the delighted Andy.
'He says his name is Walter,' Andy told Cora.
'He says his name is Walter,' Cora giggled to Alice.
Alice said nothing. She just looked admiringly at Walter, and her look enabled him to bear up when all the rest chanted together. 'He says his name is Walter,' and then burst into shrieks of derisive laughter.
'What fun the dear little folks are having,' thought Mrs Parker complacently over her shirring.
'I heard Mom say you believed in fairies,' Andy said, leering impudently.
Walter gazed levelly at him. He was not going to be downed before Alice.
'There are fairies,' he said stoutly.
'There ain't,' said Andy.
'There are,' said Walter.
'He says there are fairies,' Andy told Fred.
'He says there are fairies,' Fred told Bill... and they went through the whole performance again.
It was torture to Walter, who had never been made fun of before and couldn't take it. He bit his lips to keep the tears back. He must not cry before Alice.
'How would you like to be pinched black and blue?' demanded Andy, who had made up his mind that Walter was a sissy and that it would be good fun to tease him.
'Pig, hush!' ordered Alice terribly... very terribly, although very quietly and sweetly and gently. There was something in her tone that even Andy dared not flout.
'Course I didn't meant it,' he muttered, shamefacedly.
The wind veered a bit in Walter's favour and they had a fairly amiable game of tag in the orchard. But when they trooped noisily into supper Walter was again overwhelmed with homesickness. It was so terrible that for one awful moment he was afraid he was going to cry before them all... even Alice, who, however, gave his arm such a friendly little nudge as they sat down that it helped him. But he could not eat anything... he simply could not. Mrs Parker, for whose methods there was certainly something to be said, did not worry him about it, comfortably concluding that his appetite would be better in the morning, and the others were too much occupied in eating and talking to take much notice of him. Walter wondered why the whole family shouted so at each other, ignorant of the fact that they had not yet had time to get out of the habit since the recent death of a very deaf and sensitive old grandmother. The noise made his head ache. Oh, at home now they would be eating supper too. Mother would be smiling from the head of the table, Father would be joking with the twins, Susan would be pouring cream into Shirley's mug of milk, Nan would be sneaking titbits to the Shrimp. Even Aunt Mary Maria, as part of the home circle, seemed suddenly invested with a soft, tender radiance. Who would have rung the Chinese gong for supper? It was his week to do it and Jem was away. If he could only find a place to cry in! But there seemed to be no place where you co
uld indulge in tears at Lowbridge. Besides... there was Alice... Walter gulped down a whole glassful of ice water and found that it helped.
'Our cat takes fits,' Andy said suddenly, kicking him under the table.
'So does ours,' said Walter. The Shrimp had had two fits. And he wasn't going to have the Lowbridge cats rated higher than the Ingleside cats.
'I'll bet our cat takes fittier fits than yours,' taunted Andy.
'I'll bet she doesn't,' retorted Walter.
'Now, now, don't let's have any arguments over your cats,' said Mrs Parker, who wanted a quiet evening to write her Institute paper on 'Misunderstood Children'. 'Run out and play. It won't be long before your bed-time.'
Bed-time! Walter suddenly realized that he had to stay here all night... many nights... two weeks of nights. It was dreadful. He went out to the orchard with clenched fists, to find Bill and Andy in a furious clinch on the grass, kicking, clawing, yelling.
'You gave me the wormy apple, Bill Parker,' Andy was howling. 'I'll teach you to give me wormy apples! I'll bite off your ears!'
Fights of this sort were an everyday occurrence with the Parkers. Mrs Parker held that it didn't hurt boys to fight. She said they got a lot of devilment out of their systems that way and were as good friends afterwards. But Walter had never seen anyone fighting before and was aghast.
Fred was cheering them on, Opal and Cora were laughing, but there were tears in Alice's eyes. Walter could not endure that. He hurled himself between the combatants, who had drawn apart for a moment to snatch breath before joining battle again.
'You stop fighting,' said Walter. 'You're scaring Alice.'
Bill and Andy stared at him in amazement for a moment until the funny side of this baby interfering in their fight struck them. Both burst into laughter, and Bill slapped him on the back.
'It's got spunk, kids,' he said. 'It's going to be a real boy some time if you let it grow up. Here's an apple for it... and no worms either.'
Alice wiped the tears away from her soft pink cheeks and looked so adoringly at Walter that Fred didn't like it. Of course Alice was only a baby, but even babies had no business to be looking adoringly at other boys when he, Fred Johnson of Montreal, was around. This must be dealt with. Fred had been into the house and had heard Aunt Jen, who had been talking over the telephone, say something to Uncle Dick.
'Your mother's awful sick,' he told Walter.
'She... she isn't,' cried Walter.
'She is, too. I heard Aunt Jen telling Uncle Dick...' Fred had heard his aunt say, 'Anne Blythe is sick,' and it was fun to crack in the 'awful'. 'She'll likely be dead before you get home.'
Walter looked around with tormented eyes. Again Alice ranged herself by him... and again the rest gathered around the standard of Fred. They felt something alien about this dark, handsome child... they felt an urge to tease him.
'If she is sick,' said Walter, 'Father will cure her.'
He would... he must!
'I'm afraid that will be impossible,' said Fred, pulling a long face, but winking at Andy.
'Nothing is impossible for Father,' insisted Walter loyally.
'Why, Russ Carter went to Charlottetown just for a day last summer and when he came home his mother was dead as a doornail,' said Bill.
'And buried,' said Andy, thinking to add an extra dramatic touch, whether a fact or not didn't matter. 'Russ was awful mad he'd missed the funeral, funerals are so jolly.'
'And I've never seen a single funeral,' said Opal sadly.
'Well, there'll be lots of chances for you yet,' said Andy. 'But you see even Dad couldn't keep Mrs Carter alive, and he's a lot better doctor than your father.'
'He isn't...'
'Yes, he is, and a lot better-looking, too...'
'He isn't...'
'Something always happens when you go away from home,' said Opal. 'What will you feel like if you find Ingleside burned down when you go home?'
'If your mother dies likely you children will all be separated,' said Cora cheerfully. 'Maybe you'll come and live here.'
'Yes... do,' said Alice sweetly.
'Oh, his father would want to keep them,' said Bill. 'He'd soon be marrying again. But maybe his father will die too. I heard Dad say Dr Blythe was working himself to death. Look at him staring. You've got girl's eyes, sonny... girl's eyes... girl's eyes.'
'Aw, shut up,' said Opal, suddenly tiring of the sport. 'You ain't fooling him. He knows you're only teasing. Let's go down to the park and watch the baseball game. Walter and Alice can stay here. We can't have kids tagging after us everywhere.'
Walter was not sorry to see them go. Neither apparently was Alice. They sat down on an apple log and looked shyly and contentedly at each other. 'I'll show you how to play jackstones,' said Alice, 'and lend you my plush kangaroo.'
When bed-time came Walter found himself put into the little hall bedroom alone. Mrs Parker considerately left a candle with him and a warm puff, for the July night was unreasonably cold as even a summer night in the Maritimes sometimes is. It almost seemed as if there might be a frost.
But Walter could not sleep, even with Alice's plush kangaroo cuddled to his cheek. Oh, if he were only home in his own room where the big window looked out on the Glen and the little window, with a tiny roof all its own, looked out into the Scotch pine. Mother would come in and read poetry to him in her lovely voice.
'I'm a big boy... I won't cry... I wo-o-o-n't...' The tears came in spite of himself. What good were plush kangaroos? It seemed years since he had left home.
Presently the other children came back from the Park and crowded amiably into the room to sit on the bed and eat apples.
'You've been crying, baby,' jeered Andy. 'You're nothing but a sweet little girl. Momma's Pet!'
'Have a bit, kid,' said Bill, proffering a half-gnawed apple. 'And cheer up. I wouldn't be surprised if your mother got better... if she's got a constitution, that is. Dad says Mrs Stephen Flagg would-a died years ago if she hadn't a constitution. Has your mother got one?'
'Of course she has,' said Walter. He had no idea what a constitution was, but if Mrs Stephen Flagg had one, Mother must.
'Mrs Ab Sawyer died last week and Sam Clark's mother died the week before,' said Andy.
'They died in the night,' said Cora. 'Mother says people mostly die in the night. I hope I won't! Fancy going to heaven in your nightdress!'
'Children! Children! Get off to your beds,' called Mrs Parker.
The boys went, after pretending to smother Walter with a towel. After all, they rather liked the kid. Walter caught Opal's hand as she turned away.
'Opal, it isn't true mother's sick, is it?' he whispered imploringly. He could not face being left alone with his fear.
Opal was 'not a bad-hearted child', as Mrs Parker said, but she could not resist the thrill one got out of telling bad news.
'She is sick. Aunt Jen says so... she said I wasn't to tell you. But I think you ought to know. Maybe she has a cancer.'
'Does everybody have to die, Opal?' This was a new and dreadful idea to Walter, who had never thought about death before.
'Of course, silly. Only they don't die really... they go to heaven,' said Opal cheerfully.
'Not all of them,' said Andy, who was listening outside the door, in a pig's whisper.
'Is... is heaven farther away than Charlottetown?' asked Walter.
Opal shrilled with laughter.
'Well, you are queer! Heaven's millions of miles away. But I'll tell you what to do. You pray. Praying's good. I lost a dime once and I prayed and I found a quarter. That's how I know.'
'Opal Johnson, did you hear what I said? And put out that candle in Walter's room. I'm afraid of fire,' called Mrs Parker from her room. 'He should have been asleep long ago.'
Opal blew out the candle and flew. Aunt Jen was easy-going, but when she did get riled! Andy stuck his head in at the door for a good night benediction.
'Likely them birds in the wallpaper will come alive and pick your eyes
out,' he hissed.
After which everybody did really go to bed, feeling that it was the end of a perfect day and Walt Blythe wasn't a bad little kid and they'd have some more fun teasing him tomorrow.
'Dear little souls,' thought Mrs Parker sentimentally.
An unwonted quiet descended upon the Parker house, and six miles away at Ingleside little Bertha Marilla Blythe was blinking round hazel eyes at the happy faces around her and the world into which she had been ushered on the coldest July night the Maritimes had experienced in eighty-seven years!
9
Walter, alone in the darkness, still found it impossible to sleep. He had never slept alone before in his short life. Always Jem or Ken near him, warm and comforting. The little room became dimly visible as the pale moonlight crept into it, but it was almost worse than darkness. A picture on the wall at the foot of his bed seemed to leer at him... pictures always looked so different by moonlight. You saw things in them you never suspected by day-light. The long lace curtains looked like tall thin women, one on each side of the window, weeping. There were noises about the house... creaks, sighs, whisperings. Suppose the birds in the wallpaper were coming to life and getting ready to pick out his eyes? A creepy fear suddenly possessed Walter... and then one great fear banished all the others. Mother was sick. He had to believe it since Opal had said it was true. Perhaps Mother was dying! Perhaps Mother was dead! There would be no mother to go home to. Walter saw Ingleside without Mother!
Suddenly Walter knew he could not bear it. He must go home. Right away at once. He must see Mother before she... she... died. This was what Aunt Mary Maria had meant. She had known Mother was going to die. It was no use to think of waking anyone and asking to be taken home. They wouldn't take him... they would only laugh at him. It was an awful long road home, but he would walk all night.
Very quietly he slipped out of bed and put on his clothes. He took his shoes in his hand. He did not know where Mrs Parker had put his cap, but that did not matter. He must not make any noise... he must just escape and get to Mother. He was sorry he could not say good-bye to Alice... she would have understood. Through the dark hall... down the stairs... step by step... hold your breath... was there no end to the steps?... the very furniture was listening... oh, oh!