“I told you we just named it that ourselves. It would be lovely yet if anyone loved it a little. It’s so out at elbows, as Nan says. The shingles are all curled up and the veranda roof is sagging and the shutters are all broken. And one of the chimneys has blown down and burdocks are growing over everything ... and it’s so lonely and heartbroken.”
“You borrowed that speech from Nan Blythe,” muttered P.G.
“I don’t care ... very likely she borrowed it from her mother. They say Mrs. Blythe writes stories. And anyhow I do want to cry every time I see it. It’s awful to see a house so lonely.”
“As if houses had any feelings!” scoffed P.G.
“They have,” said Anthony. “But why has it never been bought?”
“Nobody will buy it. Diana says the heirs want too much for it and Susan Baker says she wouldn’t take it as a gift. It would take a fortune to fix it up. But I would buy it if I was rich. And so would Pig, if he wasn’t too sulky to say so.”
“And what would you do with it?”
“Oh, I know. Pig and I have pretended so often that we know exactly. It isn’t a bit like the Blythes would do it, but they are more economical in their imaginations. But I say when it is only imagination anyhow what difference does it make how extravagant you are.”
“Agreed. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“Well, we’d shingle it ... Nan Blythe would stucco it ... and build up the chimney ... we were all agreed on that ... you ought to see the fireplace they have at Ingleside ... and tear down the old veranda and put in a nice sun porch.”
“You seem to forget that he has been at Ingleside,” sneered P.G.
“And we’d make a rose garden in the burdock patch. Susan agrees with us there. You’d be surprised how much imagination Susan Baker has got when you come to know her well.”
“Nothing about a woman would surprise me,” said Anthony.
“Is that a cynical speech?” asked Jill, staring at him. “Nan said her father said you were cynical.”
“What would you do with the inside?” said Anthony. “I suppose it has gone to seed, too.”
“Oh, we’d furnish it like a palace. I can tell you it’s fun.”
“Yes,” sneered P.G., unable to keep silence any longer. “That’s why Jill likes to pretend about it. She loves to fuss with curtains and cushions and stuff. So do the Blythe girls. Though they have some sense. They’d do what I’d like to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Being a man you ought to know. I’d put in a swimming pool ... and a tennis court ... and a rock garden ... you ought to see the one they have at Ingleside ...”
“I thought you said he’d been at Ingleside,” said Jill. “They dragged the stones up from the harbour shore themselves and Susan Baker helped them.”
“It wouldn’t cost much for a rock garden,” said P.G. “Look at all the stones round here. But besides I’d have a boathouse on the river ... there’s a little river runs past Orchard Knob ... and kennels for hundreds of dogs. Oh!” P.G. groaned. “The things one could do if one were rich!”
“But we aren’t. And you know, Porky ...” Jill was softening ... “imagination doesn’t cost anything.”
“You bet it does ... sometimes,” said Anthony. “More than the richest man alive could afford to pay. But that idea of the rose garden gets me. I’ve always had a secret, starved ambition to grow roses.”
“Well, why don’t you?” said Jill. “Everyone says you are rich enough. The Blythe girls say their father says ...”
“It isn’t exactly a question of riches, Jill dear. But of time to enjoy it. What would be the use of a rose garden you only saw once in so many years? I might have to be in Turkestan when the roses were in bloom.”
“But you’d know the roses were there,” said Jill, “and somebody else might be enjoying them if you weren’t.”
“What a philosopher! Well ...” Anthony decided the thing in a flash just as he always decided things ... “suppose we do fix this Orchard Knob of yours up?”
Jill stared. P.G. concluded that the man was crazy. Nan Blythe had said Susan had said people said he was.
“Fix it up! Do you mean really? And how can we? Can you buy it?”
“I don’t need to. It’s mine already ... though I’ve never laid eyes on it for fifteen years. And it was just the ‘old Lennox place’ then. At first I didn’t know you were talking about it.”
P.G. looked him over and concluded Nan was right. Jill did the same and concluded he was sane.
“And what do you mean,” she said severely, “by going away and leaving that beautiful place to die? No wonder Susan Baker thinks ...”
“Never mind what Susan Baker thinks. I’ll tell you the whole story sometime. Meanwhile, are you coming into partnership with me or are you not? I will furnish the cash and you will furnish the imagination. But the Blythe girls are not to know anything about it until it is finished.”
“They’re awfully nice girls,” protested Jill dubiously.
“Of course they are nice ... the daughters of Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley couldn’t help being nice. I knew them both at college.”
“They’d never tell if they promised not to,” said P.G.
“They wouldn’t mean to. But don’t you think Susan Baker would pick it out of them in a wink?”
“Have you got plenty of money?” demanded Jill, coming down to practicalities. “If we make it like we pretended it will cost ... millions, I guess.”
“No,” said P.G. unexpectedly. “I’ve figured it all out lots of times. Thirty thousand will do it.”
Anthony stared at him with a look which Jill took for dismay.
“You haven’t got so much? I knew nobody could have. Susan Baker says ...”
“If you mention Susan Baker’s name to me again I will pick out one of these nice round stones and go down to Ingleside and lay her out flat. And then do you think the Blythe girls will like you?”
“But you looked ...”
“Oh, I suppose I looked a bit staggered ... but it was not by the amount. Don’t worry, darling. There are quite a few shekels in my old stocking. Well, are you coming in with me?”
“You bet,” said Jill and P.G. together.
Bored? They didn’t know the meaning of such an expression. Wasn’t this just the last word in worlds! To think of a thing like this falling down on you, right out of the blue, so to speak!
It would have been incredible to anyone else but nothing was ever incredible to the twins. They had sojourned so often in the land where wishes come true that nothing amazed them much or long. They were sorry they couldn’t tell the Blythe twins about it but they knew quite well that Susan Baker would find out all about it before long and they would have the triumph of knowing it before she did.
“I suppose your parents won’t object?” said Anthony. “I’ll want you up at this Orchard Knob a lot of the time, you know.”
“We’ve no parents,” assured Jill. “Oh, there is Mums, of course, but she is so busy waiting on Aunt Henrietta that she doesn’t bother much about us. She won’t worry. Besides, you’re respectable, aren’t you?”
“Entirely so. But your father ... is he ...”
“Dead,” said P.G. cheerfully. A father who had died three months after he and Jill had come into the world was only a name to him.
“He didn’t leave a cent, so Susan ... so people say, so Mums had to go to work. She teaches school when we are home. We live out west, you know.”
“And she wasn’t very well last year,” said Jill, “so the board gave her a year’s leave of absence ...”
“With salary,” interposed the financially minded P.G.
“And she came to Half Moon Cove for a rest.”
“She rests waiting on Aunt Henrietta,” said P.G. scornfully. “It’s a change of tribbleation, I suppose.”
“I don’t think we’d better tell her about this anyhow,” said Jill, “because then she might think she ought
to worry about us and she’s got enough without that, so Susan ... I mean people say. She’ll just think we’re prowling around the shore as usual as long as we’re home for meals and bed. We are used to looking after ourselves, Mr. ... Mr. ...”
“Lennox ... Anthony Lennox, at your service.”
“What will you do with Orchard Knob when you do fix it up? Live in it?”
“God forbid!” said Anthony Lennox.
There was that in his tone that forbade further questioning. Live at Orchard Knob! And yet, once upon a time ...
They went up to Orchard Knob that night. The twins were wild with excitement but Anthony felt like turning tail and running, as he unlocked the rusty iron gate with the key he had got from Lawyer Milton of Lowbridge.
“The very first thing to do,” said Jill, “is to tear down this dreadful wall and gate. It’s all holes anyway. Porky and I used to crawl through one behind the barns. We couldn’t get into the house, though. We couldn’t even see into it. Susan ... a lady we must not mention to you for fear you flatten her out with a stone ... said it used to be a fine place long ago.”
“Well, you’ll see it now. We’ll go all over it and then we’ll sit down on the veranda and plan what we are going to do with it.”
“Oh, I’ve got all that planned out long ago,” said Jill airily. “Nan Blythe and I finished furnishing the sunroom last night. I suppose I can mention her name to you without her getting flattened out?”
“Well, yes. But she is not to know anything about this.”
“We promised,” said Jill, with dignified rebuke. “But if we are much at Orchard Knob the secret will soon get out.”
“But not the fact that I am following your ideas,” said Anthony.
Then he shrugged his shoulders resignedly. She should have her way. It would be fun of a sort to give her her head and see what she would make of the place. What earthly difference would it make to him? After Orchard Knob was renovated it would be easy to find a purchaser for it. Long ago it would have been almost impossible but summer tourists were coming to the Island now.
In any case it meant nothing to him, nothing.
Nevertheless, his hand trembled oddly as he unlocked the door. He knew what he should see inside.
Yes, there it was ... the big fireplace in the square hall and in it the ashes of its last fire beside which he had sat one unforgotten night, unforgettable night, fifteen years ago, and looked despair in the face before turning his back on the old place forever. Why hadn’t the ashes been swept up? Milton was supposed to find a woman to keep the place in order.
Evidently he hadn’t troubled about it. Dust was thick on everything.
Jill sniffed.
“For goodness sake leave the door open,” she commanded. “This house smells like a tomb. No wonder, poor thing. No sunshine for fifteen years. But we’ll change all that. If Susan Baker saw this place ...”
“Have you forgotten what I said?” demanded Anthony.
“Yes. You didn’t mean it, you know. I’m going to speak about Susan and the Blythe twins whenever they come into my head. But I won’t talk about your fixing up Orchard Knob with them ... I give you my word of honour for that.”
The next hour was one of wonder for the twins. They explored the house from attic to cellar and Jill went quite mad over its possibilities. Even P.G. waxed enthusiastic.
But one thing, Jill avowed, gave her the creeps ... the dead clock on the stair landing ... a tall grandfather clock pointing to twelve ... very like the one she had seen at Ingleside.
“I stopped them there one night fifteen years ago,” said Anthony, “long before the Blythes came to the Glen at all. I was on a sentimental orgy that other night, you know. I thought time was ended for me.”
“When we get this place living again I’ll start that clock going,” said Jill resolutely. “The one at Ingleside goes all the time. It belonged to Dr. Blythe’s great-grandfather. You ought to see the airs Susan puts on about it. And even Mrs. Blythe ...”
“Not a word of or about or against or for Mrs. Blythe,” said Anthony firmly.
“Don’t you like her?” asked Jill curiously. “We do.”
“Of course I like her. If I had met her before the doctor did ... or before I made an ass of myself ... I’d have married her if she would have had me. But of course she wouldn’t. Now we will drop that subject.”
They went out and sat down on the veranda steps. Anthony looked around him. What a beautiful, melancholy old place it was! And once it had been so gay.
How weedy had grown the garden his mother had loved! That far corner where nothing had been allowed to grow but violets was a jungle of burdocks. He felt the reproach of the house. It had once been full. Men and women had loved each other in it. There had been births and deaths ... agony and joy ... prayer ... peace ... shelter.
And yet it was not satisfied. It craved more life. It was a shame to have neglected it so long. He had loved it well once. And what a view there was from this front door, over a sea that was silver and sapphire and crimson. The view from Ingleside, over Four Winds Harbour, was justly renowned, but it could not compare with this, let good old Susan brag as she might.
“And now before we go home,” said Jill, “you might as well tell us why you left Orchard Knob all alone. You promised, you know.”
“I said I’d tell you sometime,” objected Anthony.
“This is sometime,” said Jill inexorably. “And you might as well begin at once because we must be home before it gets too dark or Mums might get worried.”
In the end he told them. He had never told anybody before. For fifteen years he had held his tongue and brooded. Now he found a queer relief in telling these round-eyed youngsters all about it. They wouldn’t understand, of course, but just to tell it sluiced some old bitterness out of his soul. He had had a queer craving to tell Mrs. Blythe the night he walked down to the Four Winds Harbour with her but concluded she would think him only a fool.
“There was a young fool once ...”
“You?” demanded P.G.
“Hush! Have you no manners?” said Jill in a fierce whisper.
“Never mind manners. They don’t come into this. Yes, I was the young fool. And I am not any wiser now. There was a girl ...”
“Always a girl,” muttered P.G. in disgust.
“Pig, hush!” ordered Jill terribly.
As he told them the story his eyes and his voice grew dreamy. He ceased, Jill reflected, to look like a pirate and began to look like a haunted poet.
He and this girl had been pals in childhood ... and then, as they grew older, lovers. When he had gone abroad for his education he had given her a little ring which she had promised to wear “as long as she cared for no one else.”
On his return from England three years later she was not wearing the ring. That meant she didn’t care for him any longer. He was too proud and hurt to ask why.
“Just like a man,” said Jill. “Why, there might have been some perfectly good reason. It might have got too loose and slipped off her hand when she was washing. Or it might have broken and she hadn’t had time to have it fixed.”
“Well, I had this place shut up ... it was mine then as my parents had died ... and left it to dust and decay.”
“I don’t think you managed a bit well,” said Jill cruelly. “You should have asked her right out why she didn’t wear the ring.”
“I would have, you bet,” said P.G. “No girl would ever put anything like that over on me. And, as Jill says, there might have been some perfectly simple explanation.”
“There was. She was in love with another man. I soon found that out.”
“How?”
“People told me.”
“She didn’t tell you. Maybe she was as proud as you were. Nan Blythe says Susan Baker told her lots of stories like that. Susan Baker delights in telling love stories even if she is an old maid. I don’t think I’ll be an old maid, even though I think there are some advantages.”
br /> “Do stick to the subject, Jill,” said P.G. irritably. “It’s so like a girl to roam over everything. Susan Baker doesn’t know a thing about this.”
“How do you know she doesn’t? She knows a lot about everything, Diana says.”
“Well, even if the story was true there was no sense in leaving Orchard Knob to die, was there?” asked P.G.
“Men are such selfish pigs,” said Jill. “Susan Baker says Dr. Blythe is the most unselfish man she knows but even he, if anyone eats the slice of pie she leaves for him in the pantry when she goes to bed, raises Cain.”
“Men in love are never sensible ... and rarely unselfish, Jill. And, you see, I was terribly hurt.”
“Yes, I know.” Jill slipped her little brown paw into his and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. “It’s rotten to have anyone let you down like that. What was she like?”
Ah, what had she been like! Pale, shy, sweet. She laughed rarely but her laughter was exquisite. She was like ... why, like a silver birch in moonlight. All the men were crazy over her. He had thought the other night that Mrs. Dr. Blythe of Glen St. Mary reminded him of her somewhat. Though they didn’t look a bit alike. It must have been some soul resemblance.
No wonder she wouldn’t have him ... a poor devil whose only patrimony was a small country estate.
And her eyes ... blue as the sea and bright as the stars ... why, a man might die for such eyes.
“Like Helen of Troy’s,” murmured Jill.
“Helen of ... how much?”
“Of Troy. Surely you know who Helen of Troy was!”
“Of course. My ancient history has grown a little rusty, that’s all. She was the lady men fought for ten years about. I wonder if the winner thought she was worth fighting about so long?”
“Susan Baker says no woman ever is or was,” said P.G., “but then nobody ever fought about her.”
“Never mind Susan Baker. Whom do you pretend is Helen of Troy?”
“The artist who is boarding next door to Aunt Henrietta’s for the summer. We don’t know her name but she smiled so beautifully at us when we meet her. She has such sweet blue eyes ... oh, she is transcendently lovely.”