'Now we won't talk of her any more... it doesn't seem so bad now that I've blurted this all out, like a baby. Look at wee Rilla, Miss Cornelia. Aren't her lashes darling when she is asleep? Now let's have a good gab-fest.'
Anne was herself again by the time Miss Cornelia had gone. Nevertheless, she sat thoughtfully before her fire for some time. She had not told Miss Cornelia all of it. She had never told Gilbert any of it. There were so many little things...
'So little I can't complain of them,' thought Anne. 'And yet... it's the little things that fret the holes in life... like moths... and ruin it.'
Aunt Mary Maria with her trick of acting hostess... Aunt Mary Maria inviting guests and never saying a word about it till they came. She makes me feel as if I didn't belong in my own home... Aunt Mary Maria moving the furniture around when Anne was out... 'I hope you didn't mind, Annie. I thought we need the table so much more here than in the library.'... Aunt Mary Maria's insatiable childish curiosity about everything... her point-blank questions about intimate matters... always coming into my room without knocking... always smelling smoke... always plumping up the cushions I've crushed... always implying that I gossip too much with Susan... always picking at the children... we have to be at them all the time to make them behave and then we can't manage it always.
'Ugly old Aunt Maywia,' Shirley had said distinctly one dreadful day. Gilbert had been going to spank him for it, but Susan had risen up in outraged majesty and forbade it.
'We're cowed,' thought Anne. 'This household is beginning to revolve around the question, "Will Aunt Mary Maria like it?" We won't admit it, but it's true. Anything rather than have her wiping tears nobly away. It just can't go on.'
Then Anne remembered what Miss Cornelia had said... that Mary Maria Blythe had never had a friend. How terrible! Out of her own richness of friendships Anne felt a sudden rush of compassion for this woman who had never had a friend... who had nothing before her but a lonely, restless old age, with no one coming to her for shelter or healing, for hope and help, for warmth and love. Surely they could have patience with her. These annoyances were only superficial after all. They could not poison the deep springs of life.
'I've just had a terrible spasm of being sorry for myself, that's all,' said Anne, picking Rilla out of her basket and thrilling to the little round satin cheek against hers. 'It's over now and I'm wholeheartedly ashamed of it.'
13
'We never seem to have old-fashioned winters nowadays, do we, Mummy?' said Walter gloomily.
For the November snow had gone long ago, and all through December Glen St Mary had been a black and sombre land, rimmed in by a grey gulf dotted with curling crests of ice-white foam. There had been only a few sunny days, when the harbour sparkled in the golden arms of the hills: the rest had been dour and hard-bitten. In vain had the Ingleside folk hoped for snow for Christmas: but preparations went steadily on and as the last week drew to a close Ingleside was full of mystery and secrets and whispers and delicious smells. Now, on the very day before Christmas everything was ready. The fir-tree Walter and Jem had brought up from the Hollow was in the corner of the living-room, the doors and windows were hung with big green wreaths tied with huge bows of red ribbon. The banisters were twined with creeping spruce, and Susan's pantry was crammed to overflowing. Then, late in the afternoon, when everyone had resigned themselves to a dingy 'green' Christmas somebody looked out of a window and saw white flakes as big as feathers falling thickly.
'Snow! Snow!! Snow!!!' shouted Jem. 'A white Christmas after all, Mummy.'
The Ingleside children went to bed happy. It was so nice to snuggle down warm and cosy and listen to the storm howling outside through the grey, snowy night. Anne and Susan went to work to deck the Christmas-tree... 'acting like two children themselves,' thought Aunt Mary Maria scornfully. She did not approve of candles on a tree... 'suppose the house caught fire from them'... she did not approve of coloured balls... 'suppose the twins ate them'. But nobody paid any attention to her. They had learned that that was the only condition on which life with Aunt Mary Maria was livable.
'Finished!' cried Anne, as she fastened the great silver star to the top of the proud little fir. 'And oh, Susan, doesn't it look pretty? Isn't it nice we can all be children again at Christmas without being ashamed of it? I'm so glad the snow came... but I hope the storm won't outlast the night.'
'It's going to storm all day tomorrow,' said Aunt Mary Maria positively. 'I can tell by my poor back.'
Anne went through the hall, opened the big front door and peered out. The world was lost in a white passion of snowstorm. The window-panes were grey with drifted snow. The Scotch pine was an enormous sheeted ghost.
'It doesn't look very promising,' Anne admitted ruefully.
'God manages the weather yet, Mrs Doctor dear, and not Miss Mary Maria Blythe,' said Susan over her shoulder.
'I hope there won't be a sick call tonight at least,' said Anne as she turned away. Susan took one parting look into the gloom before she locked out the stormy night.
'Don't you go and have a baby tonight,' she warned darkly in the direction of the Upper Glen, where Mrs George Drew was expecting her fourth.
In spite of Aunt Mary Maria's back, the storm spent itself in the night and morning filled the secret hollows of snow among the hills with the red wine of winter sunrise. All the small fry were up early, looking starry and expectant.
'Did Santa get through the storm, Mummy?'
'No. He was sick and didn't dare try,' said Aunt Mary Maria, who was in a good humour... for her... and felt joky.
'Santa Claus got here all right,' said Susan before their eyes had time to blue, 'and after you've had your breakfast you'll see what he did to your tree.'
After breakfast Dad mysteriously disappeared, but nobody missed him because they were so taken up with the tree... the lovely tree, all gold and silver bubbles and lighted candles in the still dark room, with parcels in all colours and tied with the loveliest ribbon, piled about it. Then Santa appeared, a gorgeous Santa, all crimson and white fur, with a long white beard and such a jolly big stomach... Susan had stuffed three cushions into the red velveteen cassock Anne had made for Gilbert. Shirley screamed with terror at first, but refused to be taken out for all that. Santa distributed all the gifts with a funny little speech for every one in a voice that sounded oddly familiar even through the mask; and then, just at the end, his beard caught fire from a candle, and Aunt Mary Maria had some slight satisfaction out of the incident though not enough to prevent her from sighing mournfully.
'Ah me, Christmas isn't what it was when I was a child.' She looked with disapproval at the present Little Elizabeth had sent Anne from Paris... a beautiful little bronze reproduction of Artemis of the Silver Bow.
'What shameless hussy is that?' she inquired sternly.
'The goddess Diana,' said Anne, exchanging a grin with Gilbert.
'Oh, a heathen! Well, that's different, I suppose. But if I were you, Annie, I wouldn't leave it where the children can see it. Sometimes I am beginning to think there is no such thing as modesty left in the world. My grandmother,' concluded Aunt Mary Maria, with the delightful inconsequence that characterized so many of her remarks, 'never wore less than three petticoats, winter and summer.'
Aunt Mary Maria had knitted 'wristers' for all the children out of a dreadful shade of magenta yarn, also a sweater for Anne, Gilbert received a bilious necktie; and Susan got a red flannel petticoat. Even Susan considered red flannel petticoats out of date, but she thanked Aunt Mary Maria gallantly.
'Some poor home missionary may be the better of it,' she thought. 'Three petticoats, indeed! I flatter myself I am a decent woman, and I like that Silver Bow person. She may not have much in the way of clothes on, but if I had a figure like that I do not know that I would want to hide it. But now to see about the turkey stuffing... not that it will amount to much with no onion in it.'
Ingleside was full of happiness that day, just plain, old-fashioned h
appiness, in spite of Aunt Mary Maria, who certainly did not like to see people too happy.
'White meat only, please. (James, eat your soup quietly.) Ah, you are not the carver your father was, Gilbert. He could give everyone the bit she liked best. (Twins, older people would like a chance now and then to get a word in edgewise. I was brought up by the rule that children should be seen and not heard.) No, thank you, Gilbert, no salad for me. I don't eat raw food. Yes, Annie, I'll take a little pudding. Mince pies are entirely too indigestible.'
'Susan's mince pies are poems, just as her apple pies are lyrics,' said the doctor. 'Give me a piece of both, Anne-girl.'
'Do you really like to be called "girl" at your age, Annie? (Walter, you haven't eaten all your bread and butter. Plenty of poor children would be glad to have it. James, dear, blow your nose and have it over with, I cannot endure sniffling.)'
But it was a gay and lovely Christmas. Even Aunt Mary Maria thawed out a little after dinner, said almost graciously that the presents given her had been quite nice, and endured the Shrimp with an air of patient martyrdom that made them all feel a little ashamed of loving him.
'I think our little folk have had a nice time,' said Anne happily that night, as she looked at the pattern of trees woven against the white hills and sunset sky, and the children out on the lawn busily scattering crumbs for birds over the snow. The wind was sighing softly in the boughs, sending flurries over the lawn and promising more storm for the morrow, but Ingleside had had its day.
'I suppose they had,' agreed Aunt Mary Maria. 'I'm sure they did enough squealing anyhow. As for what they have eaten... ah, well, you're only young once, and I suppose you have plenty of castor oil in the house.'
14
It was what Susan called a streaky winter... all thaws and freezes that kept Ingleside decorated with fantastic fringes of icicles. The children fed seven blue-jays who came regularly to the orchard for their rations and let Jem pick them up, though they flew from everybody else. Anne sat up o' nights to pore over seed catalogues in January and February. Then the winds of March swirled over the dunes and up the harbour and over the hills. Rabbits, said Susan, were laying Easter eggs.
'Isn't March an inciting month, Mummy?' cried Jem, who was a little brother to all the winds that blew.
They could have spared the 'incitement' of Jem scratching his hand on a rusty nail and having a nasty time of it for some days, while Aunt Mary Maria told all the stories of blood-poisoning she had ever heard. But that, Anne reflected when the danger was over, was what you must expect with a small son who was always trying experiments.
And lo, it was April! With the laughter of April rain... the whisper of April rain... the trickle, the sweep, the drive, the lash, the dance, the splash of April rain. 'Oh, Mummy, hasn't the world got its face washed nice and clean?' cried Di, on the morning sunshine returned.
There were pale spring stars shining over the fields of mist, there were pussy willows in the marsh. Even the little twigs on the trees seemed all at once to have lost their clear, cold quality and to have become soft and languorous. The first robin was an event; the Hollow was once more a place full of wild free delights; Jem brought his mother the first may-flowers... rather to Aunt Mary Maria's offence, since she thought they should have been offered to her; Susan began sorting over the attic shelves, and Anne, who had hardly had a minute to herself all winter, put on spring gladness as a garment and literally lived in her garden, while the Shrimp showed his spring raptures by writhing all over the paths.
'You care more for the garden than you do for your husband, Annie,' said Aunt Mary Maria.
'My garden is so kind to me,' answered Anne dreamily... then, realizing the implications that might be taken out of her remark, began to laugh.
'You do say the most extraordinary things, Annie. Of course I know you don't mean that Gilbert isn't kind... but what if a stranger heard you say such a thing?'
'Dear Aunt Mary Maria,' said Anne gaily, 'I'm really not responsible for the things I say this time of the year. Everybody around here knows that. I'm always a little mad in spring. But it's such a divine madness. Do you notice those mists over the dune like dancing witches? And the daffodils? We've never had such a show of daffodils at Ingleside before.'
'I don't care much for daffodils. They are such flaunting things,' said Aunt Mary Maria, drawing her shawl around her and going indoors to protect her back.
'Do you know, Mrs Doctor dear,' said Susan ominously, 'what has become of those new irises you wanted to plant in that shady corner? She planted them this afternoon, when you were out, right in the sunniest part of the backyard.'
'Oh, Susan! And we can't move them because she'd be so hurt!'
'If you will just give me the word, Mrs Doctor dear...'
'No, no, Susan, we'll leave them there for the time being. She cried, you remember, when I hinted that she shouldn't have pruned the spirea before blooming.'
'But sneering at our daffodils, Mrs Doctor dear... and them famous all around the harbour...'
'And deserve to be. Look at them laughing at you for minding Aunt Mary Maria. Susan, the nasturtiums are coming up in this corner after all. It's such fun when you've given up hope of a thing to find it has suddenly popped up. I'm going to have a little rose garden made in the south-west corner. The very name of rose garden thrills me to my toes. Did you ever see such a blue blueness of the sky before, Susan? And if you listen very carefully now at night you can hear all the little brooks of the countryside gossiping. I've half a notion to sleep in the Hollow tonight with a pillow of wild violets.'
'You would find it very damp,' said Susan patiently. Mrs Doctor was always like this in the spring. She knew it would pass.
'Susan,' said Anne coaxingly, 'I want to have a birthday party next week.'
'Well, and why should you not?' asked Susan. To be sure, none of the family had a birthday the last week in May, but if Mrs Doctor wanted a birthday party why boggle over that?
'For Aunt Mary Maria,' went on Anne, as one determined to get the worst over. 'Her birthday is next week. Gilbert says she is fifty-five, and I've been thinking...'
'Mrs Doctor dear, do you really mean to get up a party for that...'
'Count a hundred, Susan... count a hundred, Susan, dear. It would please her so. What has she in life after all?'
'That is her own fault...'
'Perhaps so. But, Susan, I really want to do this for her.'
'Mrs Doctor dear,' said Susan ominously, 'you have always been kind enough to give me a week's vacation whenever I felt I needed it. Perhaps I had better take it next week! I will ask my niece Gladys to come and help you out. And then Miss Mary Maria Blythe can have a dozen birthday parties for all of me.'
'If you feel like that about it, Susan, I'll give up the idea, of course,' said Anne slowly.
'Mrs Doctor dear, that woman has foisted herself upon you and means to stay here for ever. She has worried you... and henpecked the doctor... and made the children's lives miserable. I say nothing about myself, for who am I? She has scolded and nagged and insinuated and whined... and now you want to get up a birthday party for her! Well, all I can say is, if you want to do that... we'll just have to go ahead and have it!'
'Susan, you old duck!'
Plotting and planning followed. Susan, having yielded, was determined that for the honour of Ingleside the party must be something that even Mary Maria Blythe could not find fault with.
'I think we'll have a luncheon, Susan. Then they'll be away early enough for me to go to the concert at Low-bridge with the doctor. We'll keep it a secret and surprise her. She shan't know a thing about it till the last minute. I'll invite all the people in the Glen she likes...'
'And who may they be, Mrs Doctor dear?'
'Well, tolerates, then. And her cousin, Adella Carey from Low-bridge, and some people from town. We'll have a big plump birthday cake with fifty-five candles on it...'
'Which I am to make, of course...'
'Susan
, you know you make the best fruit-cake in P.E. Island...'
'I know that I am as wax in your hands, Mrs Doctor dear.'
A mysterious week followed. An air of hush-hush pervaded Ingleside. Everybody was sworn not to give the secret away to Aunt Mary Maria. But Anne and Susan had reckoned without gossip. The night before the party Aunt Mary Maria came home from a call in the Glen to find them sitting rather wearily in the unlighted sun-room.
'All in the dark, Annie? It beats me how anyone can like sitting in the dark. It gives me the blues.'
'It isn't dark... it's twilight... there had been a love-match between light and dark, and beautiful exceedingly is the offspring thereof,' said Anne, more to herself than anybody else.
'I suppose you know what you mean yourself, Annie. And so you're having a party tomorrow?'
Anne suddenly sat bolt upright. Susan, already sitting so, could not sit any uprighter.
'Why... why... Auntie...'
'You always leave me to hear things from outsiders,' said Aunt Mary Maria, but seemingly more in sorrow than in anger.
'We... we meant it for a surprise, Auntie...'
'I don't know what you want of a party this time of year when you can't depend on the weather, Annie.'
Anne drew a breath of relief. Evidently Aunt Mary Maria knew only that there was to be a party, not that it had any connection with her.
'... I wanted to have it before the spring flowers were done, Auntie.'
'I shall wear my garnet taffeta. I suppose, Annie, if I had not heard of this in the village I should have been caught by all your fine friends tomorrow in a cotton dress.'
'Oh, no, Auntie. We meant to tell you in time to dress, of course...'
'Well, if my advice means anything to you, Annie... and sometimes I am almost compelled to think it does not... I would say that in future it would be better for you not to be quite so secretive about things. By the way, are you aware that they are saying in the village that it was Jem who threw the stone through the window of the Methodist church?'
'He did not,' said Anne quietly. 'He told me he did not.'
'Are you sure, Annie, dear, that he was not fibbing?'