Anne of Ingleside (2 page)

‘And we’ll eat it back in Hester Gray’s garden… I suppose Hester Gray’s garden is still there?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Diana doubtfully. ‘I’ve never been there since I was married. Anne Cordelia explores a lot, but I always tell her she mustn’t go too far from home. She loves prowling about the woods, and one day when I scolded her for talking to herself in the garden she said she wasn’t talking to herself, she was talking to the spirit of the flowers. You know that dolls’ tea-set with the tiny pink rosebuds you sent her for her ninth birthday, there isn’t a piece broken… she’s been so careful. She only uses it when the Three Green People come to tea with her. I can’t get out of her who she thinks
they
are. I declare in some ways, Anne, she’s far more like you than she is like me.’

‘Perhaps there’s more in a name than Shakespeare allowed. Don’t grudge Anne Cordelia her fancies, Diana. I’m always sorry for children who don’t spend a few years in fairyland.’

‘Olivia Sloane is our teacher now,’ said Diana doubtfully. ‘She’s a B.A., you know, and just took the school for a year to be near her mother.
She
says children should be made to face realities.’

‘Have I lived to hear
you
taking up with Sloanishness, Diana Wright?’

‘No… no…
no
! I don’t like her a bit. She has such round, staring blue eyes, like all that clan. And I don’t mind Anne Cordelia’s fancies. They’re pretty, just like yours used to be. I guess she’ll get enough “reality” as life goes on.’

‘Well, it’s settled then. Come down to Green Gables about two and we’ll have a drink of Marilla’s redcurrant wine… she makes it now and then in spite of the minister and Mrs Lynde, just to make us feel real devilish.’

‘Do you remember the day you set me drunk on it?’ giggled Diana, who did not mind ‘devilish’ as she would if anybody but Anne used it. Everybody knew Anne didn’t really mean things like that. It was just her way.

‘We’ll have a real do-you-remember day tomorrow, Diana. I won’t keep you any longer… there’s Fred coming with the buggy. Your dress is lovely.’

‘Fred made me get a new one for the wedding. I didn’t feel we could afford it since we built the new barn, but he said he wasn’t going to have
his
wife looking like someone that was sent for and couldn’t go when everybody else would be dressed within an inch of her life. Wasn’t that like a man?’

‘Oh, you sound just like Mrs Elliott at the Glen,’ said Anne severely. ‘You want to watch that tendency. Would you like to live in a world where there were no men?’

‘It would be horrible,’ admitted Diana. ‘Yes, yes, Fred, I’m coming. Oh,
all
right! Till tomorrow then, Anne.’

Anne paused by the Dryad’s Bubble on her way back. She loved that old brook so. Every trill of her childhood’s laughter that it had ever caught it had held and now seemed to give out again to her listening ears. Her old dreams… she could see them reflected in the clear Bubble… old vows… old whispers… the brook kept them all and murmured of them; but there was no one to listen save the wise old spruces in the Haunted Wood that had been listening so long.

‘Such a lovely day… made for us,’ said Diana. ‘I’m afraid it’s a pet day though… there’ll be rain tomorrow.’

‘Never mind. We’ll drink its beauty today, even if its sunshine is gone tomorrow. We’ll enjoy each other’s friendship today even if we are to be parted tomorrow. Look at those long, golden-green hills… those mist-blue valleys. They’re
ours,
Diana. I don’t care if that farthest hill is registered in Abner Sloane’s name… it’s
ours
today. There’s a west wind blowing. I always feel adventurous when a west wind blows; and we’re going to have a perfect ramble.’

They had. All the old dear spots were revisited… Lover’s Lane, the Haunted Wood, Idlewild, Violet Vale, the Birch Path, Crystal Lake. There were some changes. The little ring of birch saplings in Idlewild, where they had had a playhouse long ago, had grown into big trees; the Birch Path, long untrodden, was matted with bracken, the Crystal Lake had entirely disappeared, leaving only a damp, mossy hollow. But Violet Vale was purple with violets, and the seedling apple-tree Gilbert had once found far back in the woods was a huge tree peppered over with tiny, crimson-tipped blossom-buds.

They walked bareheaded. Anne’s hair still gleamed like polished mahogany in the sunlight and Diana’s was still glossy black. They exchanged gay and understanding, warm and friendly glances. Sometimes they walked in silence… Anne always maintained that two people as sympathetic as she and Diana could
feel
each other’s thoughts. Sometimes they sprinkled their conversation with do-you-remembers. ‘Do you remember the day you fell through the Cobb duckhouse on the Tory Road?’ ‘Do you remember when we jumped on Aunt Josephine?’ ‘Do you remember our Story Club?’ ‘Do you remember Mrs Morgan’s visit when you stained your nose red?’ ‘Do you remember how we signalled to each other from our windows with candles?’ ‘Do you remember the fun we had at Miss Lavendar’s wedding, and Charlotta’s blue bows?’ ‘Do you remember the old Improvement Society?’ It almost seemed to them they could hear their old peals of laughter echoing down the years.

The A.V.I.S. was, it seemed, dead. It had petered out soon after Anne’s marriage.

‘They just couldn’t keep it up, Anne. The young people in Avonlea now are not what they were in
our
day.’

‘Don’t talk as if “our day” were ended, Diana. We’re only fifteen years old and kindred spirits. The air isn’t just full of light… it
is
light. I’m not sure that I haven’t sprouted wings.’

‘I feel just that way, too,’ said Diana, forgetting that she had tipped the scale at one hundred and fifty-five that morning. ‘I often feel that I’d love to be turned into a bird for a little while. It must be wonderful to fly.’

Beauty was all around them. Unsuspected tintings glimmered in the dark demesnes of the woods and glowed in their alluring byways. The spring sunshine sifted through the young green leaves. Gay trills of song were everywhere. There were little hollows where you felt as if you were bathing in a pool of liquid gold. At every turn some fresh spring scent struck their faces… spice ferns… fir balsam… the wholesome odour of newly ploughed fields. There was a lane curtained with wild cherry blossoms; a grassy old field full of tiny spruce-trees just starting in life and looking like elvish things that had squatted down among the grasses; brooks not yet ‘too broad for leaping’; starflowers under the firs… sheets of curly young ferns… and a birch-tree whence some vandal hand had torn away the white skin wrapper in several places, exposing the tints of the bark below. Anne looked at it so long that Diana wondered. She did not see what Anne did… tints ranging from purest creamy white, through exquisite golden tones, growing deeper and deeper until the inmost layer revealed the deepest, richest brown as if to tell that all birches so maiden-like and cool exteriorly, had yet warm-hued feelings.

‘The primeval fire of earth at their hearts,’ murmured Anne.

And finally, after traversing a little wood glen full of toadstools, they found Hester Gray’s garden. Not so much changed. It was still very sweet with dear flowers. There were still plenty of June lilies, as Diana called the narcissi. The row of cherry-trees had grown older, but was a drift of snowy bloom. You could still find the central rose walk, and the old dyke was white with strawberry blossoms and blue with violets and green with baby fern. They ate their picnic supper in a corner of it, sitting on some old mossy stones, with a lilac-tree behind them flinging purple banners against a low-hanging sun. Both were hungry and both did justice to their own good cooking.

‘How nice things taste out of doors,’ sighed Diana comfortably. ‘That chocolate cake of yours, Anne… well, words fail me, but I must get the recipe. Fred would adore it.
He
can eat anything and stay thin. I’m always saying I’m
not
going to eat any more cake, because I’m getting fatter every year. I’ve such a horror of getting like Great-aunt Sarah, she was so fat she always had to be pulled up when she sat down. But when I see a cake like that, and last night at the reception… well, they would all have been so offended if I didn’t eat.’

‘Did you have a nice time?’

‘Oh, yes, in a way. But I fell into Fred’s Cousin Henrietta’s clutches and it’s such a delight to her to tell all about her operations and her sensations while going through them, and how soon her appendix would have burst if she hadn’t had it out. “I had fifteen stitches put in it. Oh, Diana, the agony I suffered!” Well, she enjoyed it if I didn’t. And she
has
suffered so why shouldn’t she have the fun of talking about it now? Jim was so funny. I don’t know if Mary Alice liked it altogether… well, just one teeny piece… may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb I suppose… a mere sliver can’t make much difference; one thing he said, that the very night before the wedding he was so scared he felt he’d have to take the boat-train. He said all grooms felt just the same, if they’d be honest about it. You don’t suppose Gilbert and Fred felt like that, do you, Anne?’

‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

‘That’s what Fred said when I asked him. He said all he was scared of was that I’d change my mind at the last moment like Rose Spencer. But you can never really tell what a man may be thinking. Well, there’s no use worrying over it now. What a lovely time we’ve had this afternoon! We seem to have lived so many old happinesses over. I wish you didn’t have to go tomorrow, Anne.’

‘Can’t you come down to a visit to Ingleside sometime this summer, Diana?… before – well, before I’ll not be wanting visitors for a while.’

‘I’d love to. But it seems impossible to get away from home in the summer. There’s always so much to do.’

‘Rebecca Dew is coming at long last, of which I’m glad, and I’m afraid Aunt Mary Maria is, too. She hinted as much to Gilbert. He doesn’t want her any more than I do… but she is “a relation”, and so his latch-string must be always out for her.’

‘Perhaps I’ll get down in the winter. I’d love to see Ingleside again. You have a lovely home, Anne, and a lovely family.’

‘Ingleside
is
nice… and I do love it now. I once thought I would never love it. I hated it when we went there first… hated it for its very virtues. They were an insult to my dear House of Dreams. I remember saying piteously to Gilbert when we left it, “We’ve been so happy here. We’ll never be so happy anywhere else.” I revelled in a luxury of homesickness for a while. Then… I found little rootlets of affection for Ingleside beginning to sprout out. I fought against it, I really did, but at last I had to give in and admit I loved it. And I’ve loved it better every year since. It isn’t too old a house… too old houses are sad. And it isn’t too young… too young houses are crude. It’s just mellow. I love every room in it. Everyone has some fault, but also some virtue – something that distinguishes it from all the others, gives it a personality. I love all those magnificent trees on the lawn. I don’t know who planted them, but every time I go upstairs I stop on the landing… you know that quaint window on the landing with the broad, deep seat… and sit there looking out for a moment and say, “God bless the man who planted those trees, whoever he was.” We’ve really too many trees about the house, but we wouldn’t give up one.’

‘That’s just like Fred. He worships that big willow south of the house. It spoils the view from the parlour windows, as I’ve told him again and again, but he only says, “Would you cut a lovely thing like that down even if it does shut out the view?” So the willow stays, and it
is
lovely. That’s why we’ve called our place Lone Willow Farm. I love the name Ingleside. It’s such a nice, homey name.’

‘That’s what Gilbert said. We had quite a time deciding on a name. We tried out several, but they didn’t seem to
belong
. But when we thought of Ingleside we knew it was the right one. I’m glad we have a nice big roomy house… we need it with our family. The children love it, too, small as they are.’

‘They’re such darlings.’ Diana slyly cut herself another ‘sliver’ of the chocolate cake. ‘I think my own are pretty nice, but there’s really something about yours… and your twins!
That
I do envy you. I’ve always wanted twins.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t get away from twins, they’re my destiny. But I’m disappointed mine don’t look alike, not one bit alike. Nan’s pretty, though, with her brown hair and eyes and her lovely complexion. Di is her father’s favourite, because she has green eyes and red hair… red hair with a swirl to it. Shirley is the apple of Susan’s eye. I was ill so long after he was born, and she looked after him till I really believe she thinks he is her own; she calls him her “little brown boy” and spoils him shamefully.’

‘And he’s still so small you can creep in to find if he has kicked off the clothes and tuck him in again,’ said Diana enviously. ‘Jack’s nine, you know, and he doesn’t want me to do that now. He says he’s too big. And I loved so to do it! Oh, I wish children didn’t grow up so soon.’

‘None of mine have got to that stage yet… though I’ve noticed that since Jem began to go to school he doesn’t want to hold my hand any more when we walk through the village,’ said Anne with a sigh. ‘But he and Walter and Shirley all want me to tuck them in yet. Walter sometimes makes quite a ritual of it.’

‘And you don’t have to worry yet over what they’re going to be. Now, Jack is crazy to be a soldier when he grows up… a soldier. Just fancy!’

‘I wouldn’t worry over that. He’ll forget about it when another fancy seizes him. War is a thing of the past. Jem imagines he is going to be a sailor, like Captain Jim, and Walter is by way of being a poet. He isn’t like any of the others. But they all love trees and they all love playing in “the Hollow”, as it’s called. A little valley just below Ingleside, with fairy paths and a brook. A very ordinary place… just “the Hollow” to others but to them fairy-land. They’ve all got their faults, but they’re not such a bad little gang… and luckily there’s always enough love to go round. Oh, I’m glad to think that this time tomorrow night I’ll be back at Ingleside, telling my babies stories at bed-time and giving Susan’s calceolarias and ferns their meed of praise. Susan has “luck” with ferns. No one can grow them like her. I can praise her ferns honestly… but the calceolarias, Diana! They don’t look like flowers to me at all. But I never hurt Susan’s feeling by telling her so… I always get around it somehow. Providence has never failed me yet. Susan is such a duck, I can’t imagine what I’d do without her. And I remember once calling her “an outsider”. Yes, it’s lovely to think of going home and yet I’m sad to leave Green Gables too. It’s so beautiful here… with Marilla… and
you
. Our friendship has always been a very lovely thing, Diana.’