Anne of Avonlea
as Anne said, like the place where happy dreams grew.
“This is quite an adventure, isn’t it?” said Diana. “And isn’t Miss
Lavendar sweet, if she _is_ a little odd? She doesn’t look a bit like
an old maid.”
“She looks just as music sounds, I think,” answered Anne.
When they went down Miss Lavendar was carrying in the teapot, and
behind her, looking vastly pleased, was Charlotta the Fourth, with a
plate of hot biscuits.
“Now, you must tell me your names,” said Miss Lavendar. “I’m so glad
you are young girls. I love young girls. It’s so easy to pretend I’m a
girl myself when I’m with them. I do hate” . . . with a little grimace
. . . “to believe I’m old. Now, who are you . . . just for convenience’
sake? Diana Barry? And Anne Shirley? May I pretend that I’ve known you
for a hundred years and call you Anne and Diana right away?”
“You, may” the girls said both together.
“Then just let’s sit comfily down and eat everything,” said Miss
Lavendar happily. “Charlotta, you sit at the foot and help with the
chicken. It is so fortunate that I made the sponge cake and doughnuts.
Of course, it was foolish to do it for imaginary guests . . . I know
Charlotta the Fourth thought so, didn’t you, Charlotta? But you see how
well it has turned out. Of course they wouldn’t have been wasted, for
Charlotta the Fourth and I could have eaten them through time. But
sponge cake is not a thing that improves with time.”
That was a merry and memorable meal; and when it was over they all went
out to the garden, lying in the glamor of sunset.
“I do think you have the loveliest place here,” said Diana, looking
round her admiringly.
“Why do you call it Echo Lodge?” asked Anne.
“Charlotta,” said Miss Lavendar, “go into the house and bring out the
little tin horn that is hanging over the clock shelf.”
Charlotta the Fourth skipped off and returned with the horn.
“Blow it, Charlotta,” commanded Miss Lavendar.
Charlotta accordingly blew, a rather raucous, strident blast. There was
moment’s stillness . . . and then from the woods over the river came a
multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery, as if all the
“horns of elfland” were blowing against the sunset. Anne and Diana
exclaimed in delight.
“Now laugh, Charlotta . . . laugh loudly.”
Charlotta, who would probably have obeyed if Miss Lavendar had told her
to stand on her head, climbed upon the stone bench and laughed loud and
heartily. Back came the echoes, as if a host of pixy people were
mimicking her laughter in the purple woodlands and along the
fir-fringed points.
“People always admire my echoes very much,” said Miss Lavendar, as if
the echoes were her personal property. “I love them myself. They are
very good company . . . with a little pretending. On calm evenings
Charlotta the Fourth and I often sit out here and amuse ourselves with
them. Charlotta, take back the horn and hang it carefully in its
place.”
“Why do you call her Charlotta the Fourth?” asked Diana, who was
bursting with curiosity on this point.
“Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Charlottas in my
thoughts,” said Miss Lavendar seriously. “They all look so much alike
there’s no telling them apart. Her name isn’t really Charlotta at all.
It is . . . let me see . . . what is it? I _think_ it’s Leonora . . .
yes, it _is_ Leonora. You see, it is this way. When mother died ten
years ago I couldn’t stay here alone . . . and I couldn’t afford to pay
the wages of a grown-up girl. So I got little Charlotta Bowman to come
and stay with me for board and clothes. Her name really was Charlotta .
. . she was Charlotta the First. She was just thirteen. She stayed with
me till she was sixteen and then she went away to Boston, because she
could do better there. Her sister came to stay with me then. Her name
was Julietta . . . Mrs. Bowman had a weakness for fancy names I think .
. . but she looked so like Charlotta that I kept calling her that all
the time . . .and she didn’t mind. So I just gave up trying to remember
her right name. She was Charlotta the Second, and when she went away
Evelina came and she was Charlotta the Third. Now I have Charlotta the
Fourth; but when she is sixteen . . . she’s fourteen now . . . she will
want to go to Boston too, and what I shall do then I really do not
know. Charlotta the Fourth is the last of the Bowman girls, and the
best. The other Charlottas always let me see that they thought it silly
of me to pretend things but Charlotta the Fourth never does, no matter
what she may really think. I don’t care what people think about me if
they don’t let me see it.”
“Well,” said Diana looking regretfully at the setting sun. “I suppose
we must go if we want to get to Mr. Kimball’s before dark. We’ve had a
lovely time, Miss Lewis.”
“Won’t you come again to see me?” pleaded Miss Lavendar.
Tall Anne put her arm about the little lady.
“Indeed we shall,” she promised. “Now that we have discovered you we’ll
wear out our welcome coming to see you. Yes, we must go . . . ‘we must
tear ourselves away,’ as Paul Irving says every time he comes to Green
Gables.”
“Paul Irving?” There was a subtle change in Miss Lavendar’s voice. “Who
is he? I didn’t think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea.”
Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness. She had forgotten about Miss
Lavendar’s old romance when Paul’s name slipped out.
“He is a little pupil of mine,” she explained slowly. “He came from
Boston last year to live with his grandmother, Mrs. Irving of the shore
road.”
“Is he Stephen Irving’s son?” Miss Lavendar asked, bending over her
namesake border so that her face was hidden.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to give you girls a bunch of lavendar apiece,” said Miss
Lavendar brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question.
“It’s very sweet, don’t you think? Mother always loved it. She planted
these borders long ago. Father named me Lavendar because he was so fond
of it. The very first time he saw mother was when he visited her home
in East Grafton with her brother. He fell in love with her at first
sight; and they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets
were scented with lavendar and he lay awake all night and thought of
her. He always loved the scent of lavendar after that . . . and that
was why he gave me the name. Don’t forget to come back soon, girls
dear. We’ll be looking for you, Charlotta the Fourth and I.”
She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through. She looked
suddenly old and tired; the glow and radiance had faded from her face;
her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, but
when the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw
her sitting on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the
middle of the garden with her head leaning wearily on her hand.
“She does look lonely,” said Diana softly. “We must come often to see
her.”
“I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that
could possibly be given her,” said Anne. “If they had been so blind as
to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have been called
Lavendar just the same, I think. It’s so suggestive of sweetness and
old-fashioned graces and ‘silk attire.’ Now, my name just smacks of
bread and butter, patchwork and chores.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Diana. “Anne seems to me real stately and
like a queen. But I’d like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be your
name. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they
are themselves. I can’t bear Josie or Gertie for names now but before I
knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty.”
“That’s a lovely idea, Diana,” said Anne enthusiastically. “Living so
that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with
. . . making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and
pleasant that they never think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana.”
XXII
Odds and Ends
“So you had tea at the stone house with Lavendar Lewis?” said Marilla
at the breakfast table next morning. “What is she like now? It’s over
fifteen years since I saw her last . . . it was one Sunday in Grafton
church. I suppose she has changed a great deal. Davy Keith, when you
want something you can’t reach, ask to have it passed and don’t spread
yourself over the table in that fashion. Did you ever see Paul Irving
doing that when he was here to meals?”
“But Paul’s arms are longer’n mine,” brumbled Davy. “They’ve had eleven
years to grow and mine’ve only had seven. ‘Sides, I _did_ ask, but you
and Anne was so busy talking you didn’t pay any ‘tention. ‘Sides,
Paul’s never been here to any meal escept tea, and it’s easier to be
p’lite at tea than at breakfast. You ain’t half as hungry. It’s an
awful long while between supper and breakfast. Now, Anne, that spoonful
ain’t any bigger than it was last year and _I_’m ever so much bigger.”
“Of course, I don’t know what Miss Lavendar used to look like but I
don’t fancy somehow that she has changed a great deal,” said Anne,
after she had helped Davy to maple syrup, giving him two spoonfuls to
pacify him. “Her hair is snow-white but her face is fresh and almost
girlish, and she has the sweetest brown eyes . . . such a pretty shade
of wood-brown with little golden glints in them . . . and her voice
makes you think of white satin and tinkling water and fairy bells all
mixed up together.”
“She was reckoned a great beauty when she was a girl,” said Marilla. “I
never knew her very well but I liked her as far as I did know her. Some
folks thought her peculiar even then. _Davy_, if ever I catch you at
such a trick again you’ll be made to wait for your meals till everyone
else is done, like the French.”
Most conversations between Anne and Marilla in the presence of the
twins, were punctuated by these rebukes Davy-ward. In this instance,
Davy, sad to relate, not being able to scoop up the last drops of his
syrup with his spoon, had solved the difficulty by lifting his plate in
both hands and applying his small pink tongue to it. Anne looked at him
with such horrified eyes that the little sinner turned red and said,
half shamefacedly, half defiantly,
“There ain’t any wasted that way.”
“People who are different from other people are always called
peculiar,” said Anne. “And Miss Lavendar is certainly different, though
it’s hard to say just where the difference comes in. Perhaps it is
because she is one of those people who never grow old.”
“One might as well grow old when all your generation do,” said Marilla,
rather reckless of her pronouns. “If you don’t, you don’t fit in
anywhere. Far as I can learn Lavendar Lewis has just dropped out of
everything. She’s lived in that out of the way place until everybody
has forgotten her. That stone house is one of the oldest on the Island.
Old Mr. Lewis built it eighty years ago when he came out from England.
Davy, stop joggling Dora’s elbow. Oh, I saw you! You needn’t try to
look innocent. What does make you behave so this morning?”
“Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed,” suggested Davy. “Milty
Boulter says if you do that things are bound to go wrong with you all
day. His grandmother told him. But which _is_ the right side? And what
are you to do when your bed’s against the wall? I want to know.”
“I’ve always wondered what went wrong between Stephen Irving and
Lavendar Lewis,” continued Marilla, ignoring Davy. “They were certainly
engaged twenty-five years ago and then all at once it was broken off. I
don’t know what the trouble was but it must have been something
terrible, for he went away to the States and never come home since.”
“Perhaps it was nothing very dreadful after all. I think the little
things in life often make more trouble than the big things,” said Anne,