CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life
|THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchenwindow, happened to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad'sBubble beckoning mysteriously. In a trice Anne was out of the houseand flying down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling inher expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana's dejectedcountenance.
"Your mother hasn't relented?" she gasped.
Diana shook her head mournfully.
"No; and oh, Anne, she says I'm never to play with you again. I've criedand cried and I told her it wasn't your fault, but it wasn't any use. Ihad ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say good-bye toyou. She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she's timing me by theclock."
"Ten minutes isn't very long to say an eternal farewell in," said Annetearfully. "Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forgetme, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caressthee?"
"Indeed I will," sobbed Diana, "and I'll never have another bosomfriend--I don't want to have. I couldn't love anybody as I love you."
"Oh, Diana," cried Anne, clasping her hands, "do you _love_ me?"
"Why, of course I do. Didn't you know that?"
"No." Anne drew a long breath. "I thought you _liked_ me of course but Inever hoped you _loved_ me. Why, Diana, I didn't think anybody couldlove me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this iswonderful! It's a ray of light which will forever shine on the darknessof a path severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again."
"I love you devotedly, Anne," said Diana stanchly, "and I always will,you may be sure of that."
"And I will always love thee, Diana," said Anne, solemnly extending herhand. "In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over mylonely life, as that last story we read together says. Diana, wiltthou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasureforevermore?"
"Have you got anything to cut it with?" queried Diana, wiping away thetears which Anne's affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, andreturning to practicalities.
"Yes. I've got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately,"said Anne. She solemnly clipped one of Diana's curls. "Fare thee well,my beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as strangers though living sideby side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee."
Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her handto the latter whenever she turned to look back. Then she returned tothe house, not a little consoled for the time being by this romanticparting.
"It is all over," she informed Marilla. "I shall never have anotherfriend. I'm really worse off than ever before, for I haven't KatieMaurice and Violetta now. And even if I had it wouldn't be the same.Somehow, little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend.Diana and I had such an affecting farewell down by the spring. It willbe sacred in my memory forever. I used the most pathetic language Icould think of and said 'thou' and 'thee.' 'Thou' and 'thee' seem somuch more romantic than 'you.' Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I'mgoing to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all mylife. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don't believe I'lllive very long. Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before herMrs. Barry may feel remorse for what she has done and will let Dianacome to my funeral."
"I don't think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long as youcan talk, Anne," said Marilla unsympathetically.
The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her roomwith her basket of books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up intoa line of determination.
"I'm going back to school," she announced. "That is all there is leftin life for me, now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. Inschool I can look at her and muse over days departed."
"You'd better muse over your lessons and sums," said Marilla, concealingher delight at this development of the situation. "If you're going backto school I hope we'll hear no more of breaking slates over people'sheads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what yourteacher tells you."
"I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully. "There won't bemuch fun in it, I expect. Mr. Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a modelpupil and there isn't a spark of imagination or life in her. She isjust dull and poky and never seems to have a good time. But I feel sodepressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now. I'm going round bythe road. I couldn't bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I shouldweep bitter tears if I did."
Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination hadbeen sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her dramaticability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour. Ruby Gillissmuggled three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella MayMacPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of afloral catalogue--a species of desk decoration much prized in Avonleaschool. Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant newpattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gaveher a perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copiedcarefully on a piece of pale pink paper scalloped on the edges thefollowing effusion:
When twilight drops her curtain down And pins it with a star Remember that you have a friend Though she may wander far.
"It's so nice to be appreciated," sighed Anne rapturously to Marillathat night.
The girls were not the only scholars who "appreciated" her. When Annewent to her seat after dinner hour--she had been told by Mr. Phillips tosit with the model Minnie Andrews--she found on her desk a big luscious"strawberry apple." Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when sheremembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grewwas in the old Blythe orchard on the other side of the Lake of ShiningWaters. Anne dropped the apple as if it were a red-hot coal andostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. The apple layuntouched on her desk until the next morning, when little TimothyAndrews, who swept the school and kindled the fire, annexed it as oneof his perquisites. Charlie Sloane's slate pencil, gorgeously bedizenedwith striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinarypencils cost only one, which he sent up to her after dinner hour, metwith a more favorable reception. Anne was graciously pleased to acceptit and rewarded the donor with a smile which exalted that infatuatedyouth straightway into the seventh heaven of delight and caused him tomake such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him inafter school to rewrite it.
But as,
The Caesar's pageant shorn of Brutus' bust Did but of Rome's best son remind her more,
so the marked absence of any tribute or recognition from Diana Barry whowas sitting with Gertie Pye embittered Anne's little triumph.
"Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think," she mourned toMarilla that night. But the next morning a note most fearfully andwonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed across toAnne.
Dear Anne (ran the former)
Mother says I'm not to play with you or talk to you even in school. Itisn't my fault and don't be cross at me, because I love you as muchas ever. I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to and I don't likeGertie Pye one bit. I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of redtissue paper. They are awfully fashionable now and only three girls inschool know how to make them. When you look at it remember
Your true friend
Diana Barry.
Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt replyback to the other side of the school.
My own darling Diana:--
Of course I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother.Our spirits can commune. I shall keep your lovely present forever.Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl--although she has noimagination--but after having been Diana's busum friend I cannot beMinnie's. Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn't very goodyet, although much improoved.
Yours until death us do part
Anne or Cordelia Shirley.
P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillo
w tonight. A. _or_ C.S.
Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again begunto go to school. But none developed. Perhaps Anne caught something ofthe "model" spirit from Minnie Andrews; at least she got on very wellwith Mr. Phillips thenceforth. She flung herself into her studies heartand soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe.The rivalry between them was soon apparent; it was entirely good naturedon Gilbert's side; but it is much to be feared that the same thingcannot be said of Anne, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity forholding grudges. She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves. Shewould not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork,because that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Annepersistently ignored; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuatedbetween them. Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, witha toss of her long red braids, spelled him down. One morning Gilbert hadall his sums done correctly and had his name written on the blackboardon the roll of honor; the next morning Anne, having wrestled wildly withdecimals the entire evening before, would be first. One awful day theywere ties and their names were written up together. It was almost as badas a take-notice and Anne's mortification was as evident as Gilbert'ssatisfaction. When the written examinations at the end of each monthwere held the suspense was terrible. The first month Gilbert came outthree marks ahead. The second Anne beat him by five. But her triumph wasmarred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before thewhole school. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he hadfelt the sting of his defeat.
Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexiblydetermined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progressunder any kind of teacher. By the end of the term Anne and Gilbert wereboth promoted into the fifth class and allowed to begin studying theelements of "the branches"--by which Latin, geometry, French, andalgebra were meant. In geometry Anne met her Waterloo.
"It's perfectly awful stuff, Marilla," she groaned. "I'm sure I'll neverbe able to make head or tail of it. There is no scope for imagination init at all. Mr. Phillips says I'm the worst dunce he ever saw at it.And Gil--I mean some of the others are so smart at it. It is extremelymortifying, Marilla.
"Even Diana gets along better than I do. But I don't mind being beatenby Diana. Even although we meet as strangers now I still love her withan _inextinguishable_ love. It makes me very sad at times to think abouther. But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such aninteresting world, can one?"