CHAPTER VI. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
|GET there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer lived in a bigyellow house at White Sands Cove, and she came to the door with surpriseand welcome mingled on her benevolent face.
"Dear, dear," she exclaimed, "you're the last folks I was looking fortoday, but I'm real glad to see you. You'll put your horse in? And howare you, Anne?"
"I'm as well as can be expected, thank you," said Anne smilelessly. Ablight seemed to have descended on her.
"I suppose we'll stay a little while to rest the mare," said Marilla,"but I promised Matthew I'd be home early. The fact is, Mrs. Spencer,there's been a queer mistake somewhere, and I've come over to see whereit is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from theasylum. We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten oreleven years old."
"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't say so!" said Mrs. Spencer in distress."Why, Robert sent word down by his daughter Nancy and she said youwanted a girl--didn't she Flora Jane?" appealing to her daughter who hadcome out to the steps.
"She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert," corroborated Flora Jane earnestly.
"I'm dreadful sorry," said Mrs. Spencer. "It's too bad; but it certainlywasn't my fault, you see, Miss Cuthbert. I did the best I could and Ithought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible flightything. I've often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."
"It was our own fault," said Marilla resignedly. "We should have cometo you ourselves and not left an important message to be passed along byword of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the mistake has been made and theonly thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to theasylum? I suppose they'll take her back, won't they?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, "but I don't thinkit will be necessary to send her back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up hereyesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished she'd sent by mefor a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know,and she finds it hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. Icall it positively providential."
Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do withthe matter. Here was an unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcomeorphan off her hands, and she did not even feel grateful for it.
She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-facedwoman without an ounce of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she hadheard of her. "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said tobe; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper andstinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felta qualm of conscience at the thought of handing Anne over to her tendermercies.
"Well, I'll go in and we'll talk the matter over," she said.
"And if there isn't Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed minute!"exclaimed Mrs. Spencer, bustling her guests through the hall into theparlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air had beenstrained so long through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it hadlost every particle of warmth it had ever possessed. "That is reallucky, for we can settle the matter right away. Take the armchair, MissCuthbert. Anne, you sit here on the ottoman and don't wiggle. Letme take your hats. Flora Jane, go out and put the kettle on. Goodafternoon, Mrs. Blewett. We were just saying how fortunate it was youhappened along. Let me introduce you two ladies. Mrs. Blewett, MissCuthbert. Please excuse me for just a moment. I forgot to tell FloraJane to take the buns out of the oven."
Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds. Anne sittingmutely on the ottoman, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, staredat Mrs Blewett as one fascinated. Was she to be given into the keepingof this sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in herthroat and her eyes smarted painfully. She was beginning to be afraidshe couldn't keep the tears back when Mrs. Spencer returned, flushedand beaming, quite capable of taking any and every difficulty, physical,mental or spiritual, into consideration and settling it out of hand.
"It seems there's been a mistake about this little girl, Mrs. Blewett,"she said. "I was under the impression that Mr. and Miss Cuthbert wanteda little girl to adopt. I was certainly told so. But it seems it was aboy they wanted. So if you're still of the same mind you were yesterday,I think she'll be just the thing for you."
Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot.
"How old are you and what's your name?" she demanded.
"Anne Shirley," faltered the shrinking child, not daring to make anystipulations regarding the spelling thereof, "and I'm eleven years old."
"Humph! You don't look as if there was much to you. But you're wiry. Idon't know but the wiry ones are the best after all. Well, if I take youyou'll have to be a good girl, you know--good and smart and respectful.I'll expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that. Yes, Isuppose I might as well take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert. Thebaby's awful fractious, and I'm clean worn out attending to him. If youlike I can take her right home now."
Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child's pale facewith its look of mute misery--the misery of a helpless little creaturewho finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped.Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appealof that look, it would haunt her to her dying day. More-over, she didnot fancy Mrs. Blewett. To hand a sensitive, "highstrung" child over tosuch a woman! No, she could not take the responsibility of doing that!
"Well, I don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't say that Matthew and Ihad absolutely decided that we wouldn't keep her. In fact I may say thatMatthew is disposed to keep her. I just came over to find out how themistake had occurred. I think I'd better take her home again and talk itover with Matthew. I feel that I oughtn't to decide on anything withoutconsulting him. If we make up our mind not to keep her we'll bring orsend her over to you tomorrow night. If we don't you may know that sheis going to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?"
"I suppose it'll have to," said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously.
During Marilla's speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne's face. Firstthe look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope;her eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The child was quitetransfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewettwent out in quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprangup and flew across the room to Marilla.
"Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would let mestay at Green Gables?" she said, in a breathless whisper, as if speakingaloud might shatter the glorious possibility. "Did you really say it? Ordid I only imagine that you did?"
"I think you'd better learn to control that imagination of yours, Anne,if you can't distinguish between what is real and what isn't," saidMarilla crossly. "Yes, you did hear me say just that and no more. Itisn't decided yet and perhaps we will conclude to let Mrs. Blewett takeyou after all. She certainly needs you much more than I do."
"I'd rather go back to the asylum than go to live with her," said Annepassionately. "She looks exactly like a--like a gimlet."
Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must bereproved for such a speech.
"A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady anda stranger," she said severely. "Go back and sit down quietly and holdyour tongue and behave as a good girl should."
"I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me,"said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman.
When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them inthe lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessedhis motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when hesaw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she saidnothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in theyard behind the barn milking the cows. Then she briefly told him Anne'shistory and the result of the interview with Mrs. Spencer.
"I wouldn't give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman," said Matthew withunusual vim.
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"I don't fancy her style myself," admitted Marilla, "but it's thator keeping her ourselves, Matthew. And since you seem to want her, Isuppose I'm willing--or have to be. I've been thinking over the ideauntil I've got kind of used to it. It seems a sort of duty. I've neverbrought up a child, especially a girl, and I dare say I'll make aterrible mess of it. But I'll do my best. So far as I'm concerned,Matthew, she may stay."
Matthew's shy face was a glow of delight.
"Well now, I reckoned you'd come to see it in that light, Marilla," hesaid. "She's such an interesting little thing."
"It'd be more to the point if you could say she was a useful littlething," retorted Marilla, "but I'll make it my business to see she'strained to be that. And mind, Matthew, you're not to go interfering withmy methods. Perhaps an old maid doesn't know much about bringing upa child, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor. So you justleave me to manage her. When I fail it'll be time enough to put your oarin."
"There, there, Marilla, you can have your own way," said Matthewreassuringly. "Only be as good and kind to her as you can withoutspoiling her. I kind of think she's one of the sort you can do anythingwith if you only get her to love you."
Marilla sniffed, to express her contempt for Matthew's opinionsconcerning anything feminine, and walked off to the dairy with thepails.
"I won't tell her tonight that she can stay," she reflected, as shestrained the milk into the creamers. "She'd be so excited that shewouldn't sleep a wink. Marilla Cuthbert, you're fairly in for it. Didyou ever suppose you'd see the day when you'd be adopting an orphangirl? It's surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Matthewshould be at the bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such amortal dread of little girls. Anyhow, we've decided on the experimentand goodness only knows what will come of it."