Anne of Ingleside (14 page)

The big Churchill house, with the grim iron lacework around its flat mansard roof, looked down on the harbour and the dunes. Mrs Churchill greeted her politely, if none too effusively, and ushered her into a gloomy and splendid parlour, the dark, brown-papered walls of which were hung with innumerable crayons of departed Churchills and Elliotts. Mrs Churchill sat down on a green plush sofa, folded her long thin hands, and gazed steadily at her caller.

Mary Churchill was tall and gaunt and austere. She had a prominent chin, deep-set blue eyes like Alden’s, and a wide, compressed mouth. She never wasted words and she never gossiped. So Anne found it rather difficult to work up to her objective naturally, but she managed it through the medium of the new minister in the Anglican church across the harbour, whom Mrs Churchill did not like.

‘He is not a spiritual man,’ said Mrs Churchill coldly.

‘I have heard that his sermons are remarkable,’ said Anne.

‘I heard one and do not wish to hear more. My soul sought food and was given a lecture. He believes the kingdom of heaven can be taken by brains. It cannot.’

‘Speaking of ministers… they have a very clever one at Lowbridge now. I think he is interested in my young friend, Stella Chase. Gossip says it will be a match.’

‘Do you mean a marriage?’ said Mrs Churchill.

Anne felt snubbed but reflected that you had to swallow things like that when you were interfering in what didn’t concern you.

‘I think it would be a very suitable one, Mrs Churchill. Stella is especially fitted for a minister’s wife. I’ve been telling Alden he mustn’t try to spoil it.’

‘Why?’ asked Mrs Churchill, without the flicker of an eyelid.

‘Well… really… you know, I’m afraid Alden would stand no chance whatever. Mr Chase doesn’t think anyone good enough for Stella. All Alden’s friends would hate to see him dropped suddenly like an old glove. He’s too nice a boy for that.’

‘No girl ever dropped my son,’ said Mrs Churchill, compressing her thin lips. ‘It was always the other way about. He found them out, for all their curls and giggles, their wrigglings and mincings. My son can marry any woman he chooses, Mrs Blythe…
any
woman.’

‘Oh?’ said Anne’s tongue. Her tone said, ‘Of course I am too polite to contradict you, but you have not changed my opinion.’ Mary Churchill understood, and her white, shrivelled face warmed a little as she went out of the room to get her missionary contribution.

‘You have the most wonderful view here,’ said Anne, when Mrs Churchill ushered her to the door.

Mrs Churchill gave the gulf a glance of disapproval.

‘If you felt the bite of the east wind in winter, Mrs Blythe, you might not think so much of the view. It’s cool enough tonight. I should think you’d be afraid of catching cold in that thin dress. Not but what it’s a pretty one. You are young enough still to care for gauds and vanities. I have ceased to feel any interest in such transitory things.’

Anne felt fairly well satisfied with the interview as she went home through the dim green twilight.

‘Of course one can’t count on Mrs Churchill,’ she told a flock of starlings who were holding a parliament in a little field scooped out of the woods, ‘but I think I worried her a little. I could see she didn’t like having people think Alden
could
be jilted. Well, I’ve done what in me lies with all concerned except Mr Chase, and I don’t see what I can do with him when I don’t even know him. I wonder if he has the slightest notion that Alden and Stella are sweethearting. Not likely. Stella would never dare take Alden to the house, of course. Now, what
am
I to do about Mr Chase?’

It was really uncanny… the way things helped her out. One evening Miss Cornelia came along and asked Anne to accompany her to the Chase home.

‘I’m going down to ask Richard Chase for a contribution to the new church kitchen stove. Will you come with me, dearie, just as a moral support? I hate to tackle him alone.’

They found Mr Chase standing on his front steps, looking, with his long legs and his long nose, rather like a meditative crane. He had a few shining strands of hair brushed over the top of his bald head and his little grey eyes twinkled at them. He happened to be thinking that if that was the doctor’s wife with old Cornelia she had a mighty good figure. As for Cousin Cornelia, twice removed, she was a bit too solidly built and had about as much intellect as a grasshopper, but she wasn’t a bad old cat at all if you always rubbed her the right way.

He invited them courteously into his small library, where Miss Cornelia settled into a chair with a little grunt.

‘It’s dreadful hot tonight. I’m afraid we’ll have a thunderstorm. Mercy on us, Richard, that cat is bigger than ever.’

Richard Chase had a familiar in the shape of a yellow cat of abnormal size which now climbed up on his knee. He stroked it tenderly. ‘Thomas the Rhymer gives the world assurance of a cat,’ he said. ‘Don’t you, Thomas? Look at your Aunt Cornelia, Rhymer. Observe the baleful glances she is casting at you out of orbs created to express only kindness and affection.’

‘Don’t you call me that beast’s Aunt Cornelia,’ protested Mrs Elliott sharply. ‘A joke is a joke, but that is carrying things too far.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather be the Rhymer’s aunt than Neddy Churchill’s aunt?’ queried Richard Chase plaintively. ‘Neddy is a glutton and a wine-bibber, isn’t he? I’ve heard you giving a catalogue of his sins. Wouldn’t you rather be aunt to a fine upstanding cat like Thomas with a blameless record where whisky and tabbies are concerned?’

‘Poor Ned is a human being,’ retorted Miss Cornelia. ‘I don’t like cats. That is the only fault I have to find with Alden Churchill. He has got the strangest liking for cats, too. Lord knows where he got it… both his father and mother loathed them.’

‘What a sensible young man he must be!’

‘Sensible! Well, he’s sensible enough, except in the matter of cats and his hankering after evolution… another thing he didn’t inherit from his mother.’

‘Do you know, Mrs Elliott,’ said Richard Chase solemnly, ‘I have a secret leaning towards evolution myself.’

‘So you’ve told me before. Well, believe what you want to, Dick Chase… just like a man. Thank God, nobody could ever make
me
believe that I descended from a monkey.’

‘You don’t look it, I confess, you comely woman. I see no simian resemblances in your rosy, comfortable, eminently gracious physiognomy. Still, your great-grandmother a million times removed swung herself from branch to branch by her tail. Science proves that, Cornelia… take it or leave it.’

‘I’ll leave it, then. I’m not going to argue with you on that or any point. I’ve got my own religion, and no ape-ancestors figure in it. By the way, Richard, Stella doesn’t look so well this summer as I’d like to see her.’

‘She always feels the hot weather a good deal. She’ll pick up when it’s cooler.’

‘I hope so. Lisette picked up every summer but the last, Richard… don’t forget that. Stella has her mother’s constitution. It’s just as well she isn’t likely to marry.’

‘Why isn’t she likely to marry? I ask from curiosity, Cornelia… rank curiosity. The processes of feminine thought are intensely interesting to me. From what premises or data do you draw the conclusion, in your own delightful off-hand way, that Stella is not likely to marry?’

‘Well, Richard, to put it plainly, she isn’t the kind of girl that is very popular with men. She’s a sweet, good girl but she doesn’t take with men.’

‘She has had admirers. I have spent much of my substance in the purchase and maintenance of shotguns and bulldogs.’

‘They admired your money-bags, I fancy. They were easily discouraged, weren’t they? Just one broadside of sarcasm from you and off they went. If they had really wanted Stella they wouldn’t have wilted for that any more than for your imaginary bulldogs. No, Richard, you might as well admit the fact that Stella isn’t the girl to win desirable beaux. Lisette wasn’t, you know. She never had a beau till you came along.’

‘But wasn’t I worth waiting for? Surely Lisette was a wise young woman. You would not have me give my daughter to any Tom, Dick or Harry, would you? My Star, who, in spite of your disparaging remarks, is fit to shine in the palaces of kings?’

‘We have no kings in Canada,’ retorted Miss Cornelia. ‘I’m not saying Stella isn’t a lovely girl. I’m only saying the men don’t seem to see it, and, considering her constitution, I think it is just as well. A good thing for you, too. You could never get on without her… you’d be as helpless as a baby. Well, promise us a contribution to the church stove range and we’ll be off. I know you’re dying to pick up that book of yours.’

‘Admirable, clear-sighted woman! What a treasure you are for a cousin-in-law! I admit it… I
am
dying. But no other than yourself would have been perspicacious enough to see it or amiable enough to save my life by acting upon it. How much are you holding me up for?’

‘You can afford five dollars.’

‘I never argue with a lady. Five dollars it is. Ah, going? She never loses time, this unique woman! Once her object is attained she straightway leaves you in peace. They don’t hatch her breed of cats nowadays. Good evening, pearl of in-laws.’

During the whole call Anne had not uttered one word. Why should she when Mrs Elliott was doing her work for her so cleverly and unconsciously? But as Richard Chase bowed them out he suddenly bent forward confidentially.

‘You’ve got the finest pair of ankles I’ve ever seen, Mrs Blythe, and I’ve been about a bit in my time.’

‘Isn’t he dreadful?’ gasped Miss Cornelia as they went down the lane. ‘He’s always saying outrageous things like that to women. You mustn’t mind him, Anne, dearie.’

Anne didn’t. She rather liked Richard Chase.

‘I don’t think,’ she reflected, ‘that he quite liked the idea of Stella not being popular with the men, in spite of the fact that their grandfathers were monkeys. I think he’d like to “show folks”, too. Well, I have done all I can do. I have interested Alden and Stella in each other; and, between us, Miss Cornelia and I have, I think, made Mrs Churchill and Mr Chase rather for the match than against it. Now I must just sit tight and see how it turns out.’

A month later Stella Chase came to Ingleside and again sat down by Anne on the veranda steps… thinking, as she did so, that she hoped she would look like Mrs Blythe some day… with that
ripened
look… the look of a woman who has lived fully and graciously.

The cool, smoky evening had followed a cool, yellowish-grey day in early September. It was threaded with the gentle moan of the sea.

‘The sea is unhappy tonight,’ Walter would say when he heard that sound.

Stella seemed absent-minded and quiet. Presently she said abruptly, looking up at a sorcery of stars that was being woven in the purple night, ‘Mrs Blythe, I want to tell you something.’

‘Yes, dear?’

‘I’m engaged to Alden Churchill,’ said Stella desperately. ‘We’ve been engaged ever since last Christmas. We told Father and Mrs Churchill right away but we’ve kept it a secret from everyone else just because it was so sweet to have such a secret. We hated to share it with the world. But we are going to be married next month.’

Anne gave an excellent imitation of a woman who had been turned to stone.

Stella was still staring at the stars so that she did not see the expression on Mrs Blythe’s face. She went on, a little more easily:

‘Alden and I met at a party in Lowbridge last November. We… we loved each other from the very first moment. He said he had always dreamed of me, had always been looking for me. He said to himself, “There is my wife,” when he saw me come in at the door. And I… I felt just the same. Oh, we are so happy, Mrs Blythe.’

Still Anne said nothing, several times over.

‘The only cloud on my happiness is your attitude about the matter, Mrs Blythe. Won’t you try to approve? You’ve been such a dear friend to me since I came to Glen St Mary… I’ve felt as if you were an older sister. And I’ll feel so badly if I think my marriage is against your wish.’

There was a sound of tears in Stella’s voice. Anne recovered her power of speech.

‘Dearest, your happiness is all I’ve wanted. I like Alden… he’s a splendid fellow… only he
had
the reputation of being a flirt…’

‘But he isn’t. He was just looking for the right one, don’t you see, Mrs Blythe? And he couldn’t find her.’

‘How does your father regard it?’

‘Oh, Father is greatly pleased. He took to Alden from the start. They used to argue for hours about evolution. Father said he always meant to let me marry when the right man came along. I feel dreadfully about leaving him, but he says young birds have a right to their own nest. Cousin Delia Chase is coming to keep house for him and Father likes her very much.’

‘And Alden’s mother?’

‘She is quite willing, too. When Alden told her last Christmas that we were engaged she went to the Bible and the very first verse she turned up was, “A man shall leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” She said it was perfectly clear then what she ought to do and she consented at once. She is going to go to that little house of hers in Lowbridge.’

‘I am glad you won’t have to live with that green plush sofa,’ said Anne.

‘The sofa? Oh, yes, the furniture is very old-fashioned, isn’t it? But she is taking it with her and Alden is going to refurnish completely. So you see everyone is pleased, Mrs Blythe, and won’t you give us your good wishes, too?’

Anne leaned quickly forward and kissed Stella’s cool satin cheek.

‘I am
very
glad for you. God bless the days that are coming for you, my dear.’

When Stella had gone Anne flew up to her own room to avoid seeing anyone for a few moments. A cynical, lop-sided old moon was coming out from behind some shaggy clouds in the east and the fields beyond seemed to wink slyly and impishly at her.

She took stock of all the preceding weeks. She had ruined her dining-room carpet, destroyed two treasured heirlooms, and spoiled her library ceiling; she had been trying to use Mrs Churchill as a cat’s-paw, and Mrs Churchill must have been laughing in her sleeve all the time.