“Many’s the time,” said Susan.
“Well, wid that he wint. And me poor pet comes inty the kitchen and looks at me, still holding her head high, but wid a face like death. ‘He’s gone, Mollie,’ she said, ‘and he’ll niver come back. And I wish I was dead.’
“‘Do ye be wanting him to come back?’ sez I. ‘No lies now, me pet. A lie do be a refuge I’m not blaming inny woman for taking betimes ... ’”
“The times I’ve said I didn’t care whether I ever got married or not,” reflected Susan. “Except to Mrs. Dr. dear. I could never tell a lie to her somehow.”
“‘ ... but this is too serious for it. Iverything’s snarled up and I’m going to straighten it out wid a jerk, but I’m wanting to know where I stand first.’
“‘I do want him back ... and he’s the only one I’ve iver loved or iver will love,’ sez she ... as if I didn’t know that and always had been knowing av it! ‘There’s the truth for ye at last. But it’s too late. His train laves in fifteen minutes. I wudn’t give in ... me pride wouldn’t let me ... and he’s gone ... he’s gone! And innyhow he’s always hated me!’
“I’d picked that day to clane me oil stove, Susan Baker, and was I be way av being a sight! But I had no time to change inty me latest from Paris. Out I wint to the garage ... thank Hiven the little runabout was there!
“I tuk a pace off the garage door as I backed out and just shaved the lily pond. But me only worry was cud I be getting to the station afore the train wint. Niver cud I do it by the highway but there did be a witch’s road I knew av.”
“The shortcut by the Narrows road,” thought Susan. “It hasn’t been used for years. I thought it was closed up. But to a woman like Mollie Hamilton ...”
“Down the highway I wint at the rate av no man’s business ...”
“The doctor said he’d met her and never had such a narrow escape from a head-on collision in his life,” thought Susan.
“Didn’t I be thanking Hiven there wasn’t any speed cops in this part av the Island ... and niver before did I be having the satisfaction av hitting it up to siventy. Just afore I rached me side cut what did I be seeing but a big black cat, looking as if he intinded to cross the road and me heart stood still. I do be supposing ye think I’m a superstitious ould fool, Susan Baker ...”
“Not me,” said Susan. “I don’t know that I hold much with black cats ... though I remember one crossed me path the evening before we heard of Walter’s death ... but never mind that. Dreams, now, are different. While the Great War was going on there was a Miss Oliver boarding at Ingleside. And the dreams that girl would have! And every one came true. Even the doctor ... but as for the cats we can all be having our own opinion of them. Did I ever tell you the story of our Jack Frost?”
“Yis ... but I did be thinking it was my story ye was wanting to hear ...”
“Yes ... yes ... go on,” said Susan repentantly.
“Well, ayther luck was wid me or the Ould Scratch had business for him somewhere ilse for he turned around and wint back and I slewed round inty me cut.
“’Twas be way av being a grand ride, Susan Baker. Niver will I be knowing the like again I’m thinking. I skimmed over a plowed field and tore through a brook and up a muddy lane and through the backyard av the Wilson farmhouse. I’m swearing I motored slap inty a cow though where she wint whin I struck her I’ll niver be telling ye ...”
“I can be telling you,” said Susan. “She wasn’t much hurt except for a bit of skin or two, but she went clean off her milk and if the doctor hadn’t talked Joe Wilson round ... or even then if the Wilsons’ bill had ever been paid ... he’d have made all the trouble he could for you.”
“I slipped through the haystacks and I wint right over an acre of sparrow grass wid no bumps to spake av ... and thin up looms a spruce hedge and a wire fince beyant it. And I did be knowing I had a few minutes to spare.
“I mint to stop and rin for it ... the station was just on the other side ... but I was a bit ixcited like ... and did be putting me foot on the accelerator instid av the brake ...”
“Thank the Good Man above I’ve resisted all temptation to learn to drive a car,” thought Susan piously.
“I wint slap through the hedge ...”
“Sam Carter vowed he never saw such a sight in his life,” said Susan.
“ ... and the fince and bang inty the ind av the station. But the hedge and the fince had slowed me up a bit and no rale harm was done to the station.
“D’Arcy was jist stepping on the train ...”
“Ah, now we’re coming to the exciting part,” thought Susan. “Everybody has been wondering what she said to him.”
“I grabbed him by the arm and I sez ...”
“Both arms,” thought Susan.
“‘D’Arcy Phillips, Evelyn do be breaking her liddle heart for you and ye get straight back to her ... and if I iver hear av any more jawing and fighting betwane ye, I’ll give ye both a good spanking, for it’s clane tired I am av all yer nonsinse and misunderstanding. It’s time ye both grew up.’”
“Do people ever grow up?” reflected Susan. “The doctor and Mrs. Blythe are the only people I know of who really seem to have grown up. Certainly Whiskers-on-the-Moon didn’t. How he run.” And Susan reflected with considerable satisfaction upon a certain pot of boiling dye which the said Whiskers-on-the-Moon had once narrowly escaped.
“‘Not a yap out av ye,’ sez I, wid considerable severity.”
“They say she nearly shook the bones out of his skin,” thought Susan, “though nobody had any idea why.”
“‘Just be doing as you’re told,’ sez I.
“Well, Susan Baker, ye can be seeing for yersilf today what come av it. The insurance company was rale rasonable.”
“And lucky for poor Jim March they were,” thought Susan.
“But ye haven’t heard the whole wonder. Whin Evie told Elmer she couldn’t iver be marrying him bekase she was going to marry D’Arcy Phillips didn’t we be looking for a tithery-i! But he tuk it cool as a cowcumber and sez, sez he ... what do ye be thinking he said, Susan Baker?”
“I could never guess what any man said or thought,” said Susan. “But I think I hear them coming ...”
“Well, he did be saying, ‘He’s the brother-in-law I’d have picked.’
“She didn’t know what he was maning. But he turned up the nixt wake wid his fine blue car and its shining wire wheels. And I’ve been hearing that the moment he did be seeing Marnie, whin he came to plan the widding wid Evie, he knew he’s made a mistake, but he was too much av a gintleman to let on. He’d have gone through it widout moving a single hair if he’d had to.”
“Maybe not if he’d known that Marnie had fell in love with him, too,” said Susan. “It is them ... Well, I’m obliged to you for telling me the rights of the affair, Mary, and if there’s anything you’d like to know ... if it doesn’t concern the family at Ingleside ... I’ll be right glad to tell you.”
“Here they come, Susan Baker ... sure and me pet lights up the church, doesn’t she? It’ll be long afore it sees a prettier bride.”
“That depends on how long it is before Nan and Jerry Meredith get married,” thought Susan. “Though Nan always declares she’ll never be married in the church. The Ingleside lawn for her, she says. I’m thinking she’s right ... there’s too much chance for gossip at these church weddings.”
“And now we’ll shut up our yaps, Susan Baker, until they’re married safe and sound ...
“That do be a load lifted from me mind. Will ye be coming home wid me, Susan, and having a cup av tay in me kitchen? And I’ll see ye get a sight av the prisints. They’re elegant beyant words. Did ye iver see a happier bride? It’s mesilf that’s knowing there niver was a happier one.”
“I’d like anyone to say that to Mrs. Dr. dear, or Rilla for that matter,” thought Susan. Aloud,
“He’s a bit poor, I’m hearing.”
“Poor is it? Have sinse, Susan Baker. I’m tel
ling ye they’re rich beyant the drames av avarice. Young ... and ...”
“An old maid like myself is not supposed to know much about such things,” said Susan with dignity. “But maybe you’re right, Mary Hamilton ... maybe you’re right. One can learn a good deal from observation in this world, as Rebecca Dew used to say. And the doctor and Mrs. Blythe were poor enough when they started out. Ah, them happy days in the old House of Dreams,* as they used to call it! It grieves me to the heart they’ll never return. Thank you, Mary, but I must be getting back to Ingleside. I have duties there. I’ll have a cup of tea with you some other day when things have quieted down. And I’m real thankful to you for telling me the rights of the whole story. If you knew ... the gossip ...”
*See Anne’s House of Dreams.
“Sure and I can be guessing,” said Mary. “But take my advice, Susan Baker, and larn to drive a car. Ye can niver tell whin the knack’ll come in handy.”
“At my age! That would be a sight. No,” said Susan firmly. “I’ll trust to my own two legs as long as they’ll carry me, Mary Hamilton.”
The Third Evening
THE PARTING SOUL
Open the casement and set wide the door
For one out-going
Into the night that slips along the shore
Like a dark river flowing;
The rhythmic anguish of our sad heart’s beating
Must hinder not a soul that would be floating.
Hark, how the voices of the ghostly wind
Cry for her coming!
What wild adventurous playmates will she find
When she goes roaming
Over the starry moor and misty hollow? ...
Loosen the clasp and set her free to follow.
Open the casement and set wide the door ...
The call is clearer!
Than we whom she has loved so well before
There is a dearer
When her fond lover Death for her is sighing
We must now hold her with our tears from dying.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “I am going to forbid your writing that kind of poetry, Anne. I’ve seen too many deaths ...”
SUSAN:- “And did you ever see one who died when there was no door or window open, doctor? Oh, yes, you may call it a superstition but take notice from now on.”
ANNE, in a low voice:- “Walter wrote the first two verses just before he ... went away. I ... I thought I would like to finish it.”
MY HOUSE
I have built me a house at the end of the street
Where the tall fir trees stand in a row,
With a garden beside it where, purple and gold,
The pansies and daffodils grow:
It has dear little windows, a wide, friendly door
Looking down the long road from the hill,
Whence the light can shine out through the blue summer dusk
And the winter nights, windy and chill
To beckon a welcome for all who may roam ...
‘Tis a darling wee house but it’s not yet a home.
It wants moonlight about it all silver and dim,
It wants mist and a cloak of grey rain,
It wants dew of the twilight and wind of the dawn
And the magic of frost on its pane:
It wants a small dog with a bark and a tail,
It wants kittens to frolic and purr,
It wants saucy red robins to whistle and call
At dusk from the tassels of fir:
It wants storm and sunshine as day follows day,
And people to love it in work and in play.
It wants faces like flowers at the windows and doors,
It wants secrets and follies and fun,
It wants love by the hearthstone and friends by the gate,
And good sleep when the long day is done:
It wants laughter and joy, it wants gay trills of song
On the stairs, in the hall, everywhere,
It wants wooings and weddings and funerals and births,
It wants tears, it wants sorrow and prayer,
Content with itself as the years go and come ...
Oh, it needs many things for a house to be home!
Walter Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “Curiously like your poem ‘The New House’ in spirit, Anne. Yet I don’t suppose he meant it to be so.”
DIANA:- “No, he was really describing Ingleside. He showed me that poem before he went ... away.”
MEMORIES
A window looking out to sea
Beneath a misty moon,
Witch-gold of dropping poplar leaves,
Or blue of summer noon,
A murmur of contented bees
In neighbourly acquainted trees.
A salt wind keening in the night
Across the harbour rim,
Through the dark cloister of the pines
And the uncertain, dim
White birches in the meadow far,
Where silences and whispers are.
A little gate, a winding path ...
Through fern and mint and bay,
The muted beam of breakers on
The sands of fading day.
Soft amber dusk along the shore,
A voice that I shall hear no more.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE, thinking:-“There are no pines about here or Avonlea so that Anne has drawn on her imagination for them ... or spruces wouldn’t rhyme well. But she gets the birches into almost every poem she writes. I don’t wonder. They are beautiful trees. Every line of that poem has a memory for me.”
SUSAN, thinking while brushing away a tear over her darning:-“She was thinking of Walter when she wrote that last line. I must not let her see me crying. As for the bees, they are queer creatures. My grandfather made a living keeping them and never got stung in his life. While my grandmother couldn’t go near a hive but she got stung. I must not think of these things or I will be crying like a baby.”
A Commonplace Woman
It had been raining all day ... a cold, drizzling rain ... but now the night had fallen and the rain had partially ceased, though the wind still blew and sighed. The John Anderson family were sitting in the parlour ... they still called it that ... of the ugly house on the outskirts of Lowbridge, waiting for their great-aunt Ursula, who was dying in the room overhead, to die and have done with it.
They would never have expressed it like that but each one in his or her secret soul thought it.
In speech and outward behaviour they were all quite decorous, but they were all seething with much impatience and some resentment. Dr. Parsons supposed he ought to stay till the end because old Aunt Ursula was his grandfather’s cousin, and because Mrs. Anderson wanted him to stay.
And he could not as yet afford to offend people, even distant relatives. He was just starting to practise in Lowbridge and Dr. Parker had been the doctor in Lowbridge for a long time. Almost everyone had him except a few cranks who did not like him and insisted on having Dr. Blythe over from Glen St. Mary. Even most of the Andersons had him. In Dr. Parsons’ eyes they were both old men and ought to give the younger men a chance.
But at all events, he meant to be very obliging and do all he could to win his way. One had to, these days. It was all very well to talk about unselfishness but that was the bunk. It was every man for himself.
If he could win Zoe Maylock ... apart from all considerations of love ... and Dr. Parsons imagined he was wildly in love with the acknowledged belle of Lowbridge ... it would help him quite a bit. The Maylocks were rather a run-down old family, but they had considerable influence in Lowbridge for all that. They never had Dr. Parker either. When any of them were sick they sent for Dr. Blythe. There was some feud between the Andersons and the Parkers. How those feuds lasted!
Dr. Parker might laugh and pretend he didn’t care but the young doctor thought he knew better. Human nature was better understood nowadays than when poor old Dr. Parker
went to college.
Anyhow, young Dr. Parsons meant to be as obliging as he could. Every little helped. It would be some time yet before his practice would justify him in marrying, confound it. He even doubted if the John Andersons would pay his bill ... and it seemed the old girl who took so long in dying had no money. They said Dr. Blythe ... and even Dr. Parker sometimes, though he was more worldly-minded ... attended poor people for nothing. Well, he was not going to be such a fool. He had come to old Ursula because he wanted to ingratiate himself with the Andersons, some of whom were well off enough yet. And cut out Dr. Blythe if it were possible ... though it was wonderful what a hold that man had on the countryside, even if he was getting along in years. People said he had never been the same since his son was killed in the Great War.
And now another war was on and they said several of his grandsons were going ... especially a Gilbert Ford who was in the R.C.A.F. People were constantly dropping hints that they thought he ought to volunteer. Even Zoe at times seemed to have entirely too much admiration for this aforesaid Gilbert Ford. But it was all nonsense. There were plenty of ne’er-do-wells to go.
Meanwhile he would do what he could for a poor, run-down family like the John Andersons. The progenitors of the said Andersons had, so he had been told, once been rich and powerful in the community. The biggest stone in the Lowbridge cemetery was that of a certain David Anderson. It was moss-grown and lichened now but it must have been considered some stone in its day.
He seemed to recall some queer yarn about the same David and his funeral ... old Susan Baker at Glen St. Mary had told it to a crony. But likely it was mere gossip. Old Susan was getting childish. People said the Blythes of Ingleside kept her there merely out of charity. No doubt the yarn was only gossip. There was no love lost, he had heard, between the Bakers and the Andersons ... though that feud, too, was almost ancient history, as Mrs. Blythe of Ingleside called it. It was her son who had been killed in the Great War ... and another one had been crippled. She had three sons go, so it had been said. Young fools!