Anne's House of Dreams (11 page)

‘Well, when Leslie was twelve years old the first dreadful thing happened. She worshipped little Kenneth – he was four years younger than her, and he
was
a dear little chap. And he was killed one day – fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of it. And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it. She was looking down from the loft. She gave one screech – the hired man said he never heard such a sound in all his life – he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s trump drove it out. But she never screeched or cried again about it. She jumped from the loft on to the load and from the load to the floor, and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne – they had to tear it from her before she would let it go. They sent for me – I can’t talk of it.’

Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in bitter silence for a few minutes.

‘Well,’ she resumed, ‘it was all over – they buried little Kenneth in that graveyard over the harbour, and after a while Leslie went back to her school and her studies. She never mentioned Kenneth’s name – I’ve never heard it cross her lips from that day to this. I reckon that old hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time is real kind to children, Anne, dearie. After a while she began to laugh again – she had the prettiest laugh. You don’t often hear it now.’

‘I heard it once the other night,’ said Anne. ‘It is a beautiful laugh.’

‘Frank West began to go down after Kenneth’s death. He wasn’t strong and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child, though, as I’ve said, Leslie was his favourite. He got mopy and melancholy, and couldn’t or wouldn’t work. And one day, when Leslie was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself – and in the parlour, too, mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlour from the lamp-hook in the ceiling. Wasn’t that like a man? It was the anniversary of his wedding day, too. Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn’t it? And, of course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him. She went into the parlour that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face as black as a coal. It was something awful, believe
me
!’

‘Oh, how horrible!’ said Anne, shuddering. ‘The poor, poor child!’

‘Leslie didn’t cry at her father’s funeral any more than she had cried at Kenneth’s. Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother. I was disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out of patience. She loved her mother. Leslie is clannish – her own could never do wrong in her eyes. Well, they buried Frank West beside Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him. It was bigger than his character, believe
me
! Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value. But not long after Leslie’s old Grandmother West died and she left Leslie a little money – enough to give her a year at Queen’s Academy. Leslie had made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn enough to put herself through Redmond College. That had been her father’s pet scheme – he wanted her to have what he had lost. Leslie was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains. She went to Queen’s, and she took two years’ work in one year and got her First; and when she came home she got the Glen school. She was so happy and hopeful and full of life and eagerness. When I think of what she was then and what she is now, I say – drat the men!’

Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.

‘Dick Moore came into her life that summer. His father, Abner Moore, kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in winter. He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul. He was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped wanting it – just like a man. Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when everything went right. But he drank a good deal, and there were some nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village. He wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of it. And he was a Methodist! But he was clean mad about her – because of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have anything to say to him in the second. He vowed he’d have her – and he got her!’

‘How did he bring it about?’

‘Oh, it was an iniquitous thing! I’ll never forgive Rose West. You see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs West that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the mortgage. Rose carried on terrible – fainted and wept, and pleaded with Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home. She said it would break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride. I wouldn’t have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it – but you wouldn’t have thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood because of it, would you? Well, she was. And Leslie gave in – she loved her mother so much she would have done anything to save her pain. She married Dick Moore. None of us knew why at the time. It wasn’t till long afterwards that I found out how her mother had worried her into it. I was sure there was something wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again, and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face-about like that. Besides, I knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in spite of his good looks and dashing ways. Of course, there was no wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married. I went, but I was sorry I did. I’d seen Leslie’s – face at her brother’s funeral and at her father’s funeral – and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her own funeral. But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe
me
!

‘Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place – Rose couldn’t bear to part with her dear daughter! – and lived there for the winter. In the spring Rose took pneumonia and died – a year too late! Leslie was heart-broken enough over it. Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think, never get much affection? As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet married life – just like a man. He was for up and off. He went over to Nova Scotia to visit his relations his father had come from Nova Scotia – and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too. The name of the vessel was the
Four Sisters
and they were to be gone about nine weeks.

‘It must have been a relief to Leslie. But she never said anything. From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now – cold and proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance. I won’t
be
kept at a distance, believe
me
! I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how in spite of everything.’

‘She told me you were the best friend she had,’ said Anne.

‘Did she?’ exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly. ‘Well, I’m real thankful to hear it. Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me around at all – she never let me think so. You must have thawed her out more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you. Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl! I never see Dick Moore but I want to run a knife clean through him.’

Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.

‘Well, Leslie was left over there alone. Dick had put in the crop before he went, and old Abner looked after it. The summer went by and the
Four Sisters
didn’t come back. The Nova Scotia Moores investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found out about her. By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one that was dead. Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbour after they’d been gone for years. Leslie never thought he was dead – and she was right. A thousand pities too! The next summer Captain Jim was in Havana – that was before he gave up the sea, of course. He thought he’d poke round a bit – Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a man – and he went to inquiring round among the sailors’ boardinghouses and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the crew of the
Four Sisters
. He’d better have let sleeping dogs lie, in my opinion! Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he found a man and he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a big beard. Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no doubt – Dick Moore it was – his body at least. His mind wasn’t there – as for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!’

‘What had happened to him?’

‘Nobody knows the rights of it. All the folks who kept the boarding-house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition – his head battered to a jelly almost. They supposed he’d got hurt in some drunken row, and likely that’s the truth of it. They took him in, never thinking he could live. But he did – and he was just like a child when he got well. He hadn’t memory or intellect or reason. They tried to find out who he was, but they never could. He couldn’t even tell them his name – he could only say a few simple words. He had a letter on him beginning “Dear Dick” and signed “Leslie”, but there was no address on it and the envelope was gone. They let him stay on – he learned to do a few odd jobs about the place – and there Captain Jim found him. He brought him home – and I’ve always said it was a bad day’s work, though I s’pose there was nothing else he could do. He thought maybe when Dick got home and saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up. But it hadn’t any effect. There he’s been at the house up the brook ever since. He’s just like a child, no more nor less. Takes fractious spells occasionally, but mostly he’s just vacant and good-humoured and harmless. He’s apt to run away if he isn’t watched. That’s the burden Leslie has had to carry for eleven years – and all alone. Old Abner Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was almost bankrupt. When things were settled up there was nothing for Leslie and Dick but the old West farm. Leslie rented it to John Ward, and the rent is all she has to live on. Sometimes in summer she takes a boarder to help out. But most visitors prefer the other side of the harbour where the hotels and summer cottages are. Leslie’s house is too far from the bathing shore. She’s taken care of Dick and she’s never been away from him for eleven years – she’s tied to that imbecile for life. And after all the dreams and hopes she once had! You can imagine what it has been like for her, Anne, dearie – with her beauty and spirit and pride and cleverness. It’s just been a living death.’

‘Poor, poor girl!’ said Anne again. Her own happiness seemed to reproach her. What right had she to be so happy when another human soul must be so miserable?

‘Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she acted the night you met her on the shore?’ asked Miss Cornelia.

She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.

‘
You
thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but I can tell you she thawed out wonderful for her. She must have taken to you real strong. I’m so glad. You may be able to help her a good deal. I was thankful when I heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for I hoped it would mean some friends for Leslie; especially if you belonged to the race that knows Joseph. You
will
be her friend, won’t you, Anne, dearie?’

‘Indeed I will, if she’ll let me,’ said Anne, with all her own sweet, impulsive earnestness.

‘No, you must be her friend, whether she’ll let you or not,’ said Miss Cornelia resolutely. ‘Don’t you mind if she’s stiff by times – don’t notice it. Remember what her life has been – and is – and must always be, I suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live for ever, I understand. You should see how fat he’s got since he came home. He used to be lean enough. Just
make
her be friends – you can do it – you’re one of those who have the knack. Only you mustn’t be sensitive. And don’t mind if she doesn’t seem to want you to go over there much. She knows that some women don’t like to be where Dick is – they complain he gives them the creeps. Just get her to come over here as often as she can. She can’t get away so very much – she can’t leave Dick long, for the Lord knows what he’d do – burn the house down most likely. At nights, after he’s in bed and asleep, is about the only time she’s free. He always goes to bed early and sleeps like the dead till next morning. That is how you came to meet her at the shore likely. She wanders there considerable.’

‘I will do everything I can for her,’ said Anne. Her interest in Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand-fold by Miss Cornelia’s narration. The girl’s beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew her with an irresistible fascination. She had never known anyone like her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to shadow their girlish dreams. Leslie Moore stood apart, a tragic, appealing figure of thwarted womanhood. Anne resolved that she would win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters that held it in a prison not of its own making.

‘And mind you this, Anne, dearie,’ said Miss Cornelia, who had not yet wholly relieved her mind, ‘you mustn’t think Leslie is an infidel because she hardly ever goes to church – or even that she’s a Methodist. She can’t take Dick to church, of course – not that he ever troubled church much in his best days. But you just remember that she’s a real strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie.’