Anne of Avonlea
with one of those flashes of insight which experience could not have
bettered. “Marilla, please don’t say anything about my being at Miss
Lavendar’s to Mrs. Lynde. She’d be sure to ask a hundred questions and
somehow I wouldn’t like it . . . nor Miss Lavendar either if she knew,
I feel sure.”
“I daresay Rachel would be curious,” admitted Marilla, “though she
hasn’t as much time as she used to have for looking after other
people’s affairs. She’s tied home now on account of Thomas; and she’s
feeling pretty downhearted, for I think she’s beginning to lose hope of
his ever getting better. Rachel will be left pretty lonely if anything
happens to him, with all her children settled out west, except Eliza in
town; and she doesn’t like her husband.”
Marilla’s pronouns slandered Eliza, who was very fond of her husband.
“Rachel says if he’d only brace up and exert his will power he’d get
better. But what is the use of asking a jellyfish to sit up straight?”
continued Marilla. “Thomas Lynde never had any will power to exert. His
mother ruled him till he married and then Rachel carried it on. It’s a
wonder he dared to get sick without asking her permission. But there, I
shouldn’t talk so. Rachel has been a good wife to him. He’d never have
amounted to anything without her, that’s certain. He was born to be
ruled; and it’s well he fell into the hands of a clever, capable
manager like Rachel. He didn’t mind her way. It saved him the bother of
ever making up his own mind about anything. Davy, do stop squirming
like an eel.”
“I’ve nothing else to do,” protested Davy. “I can’t eat any more, and
it’s no fun watching you and Anne eat.”
“Well, you and Dora go out and give the hens their wheat,” said
Marilla. “And don’t you try to pull any more feathers out of the white
rooster’s tail either.”
“I wanted some feathers for an Injun headdress,” said Davy sulkily.
“Milty Boulter has a dandy one, made out of the feathers his mother
give him when she killed their old white gobbler. You might let me have
some. That rooster’s got ever so many more’n he wants.”
“You may have the old feather duster in the garret,” said Anne, “and
I’ll dye them green and red and yellow for you.”
“You do spoil that boy dreadfully,” said Marilla, when Davy, with a
radiant face, had followed prim Dora out. Marilla’s education had made
great strides in the past six years; but she had not yet been able to
rid herself of the idea that it was very bad for a child to have too
many of its wishes indulged.
“All the boys of his class have Indian headdresses, and Davy wants one
too,” said Anne. “_I_ know how it feels . . . I’ll never forget how I
used to long for puffed sleeves when all the other girls had them. And
Davy isn’t being spoiled. He is improving every day. Think what a
difference there is in him since he came here a year ago.”
“He certainly doesn’t get into as much mischief since he began to go to
school,” acknowledged Marilla. “I suppose he works off the tendency
with the other boys. But it’s a wonder to me we haven’t heard from
Richard Keith before this. Never a word since last May.”
“I’ll be afraid to hear from him,” sighed Anne, beginning to clear away
the dishes. “If a letter should come I’d dread opening it, for fear it
would tell us to send the twins to him.”
A month later a letter did come. But it was not from Richard Keith. A
friend of his wrote to say that Richard Keith had died of consumption a
fortnight previously. The writer of the letter was the executor of his
will and by that will the sum of two thousand dollars was left to Miss
Marilla Cuthbert in trust for David and Dora Keith until they came of
age or married. In the meantime the interest was to be used for their
maintenance.
“It seems dreadful to be glad of anything in connection with a death,”
said Anne soberly. “I’m sorry for poor Mr. Keith; but I _am_ glad that
we can keep the twins.”
“It’s a very good thing about the money,” said Marilla practically. “I
wanted to keep them but I really didn’t see how I could afford to do
it, especially when they grew older. The rent of the farm doesn’t do
any more than keep the house and I was bound that not a cent of your
money should be spent on them. You do far too much for them as it is.
Dora didn’t need that new hat you bought her any more than a cat needs
two tails. But now the way is made clear and they are provided for.”
Davy and Dora were delighted when they heard that they were to live at
Green Gables, “for good.” The death of an uncle whom they had never
seen could not weigh a moment in the balance against that. But Dora had
one misgiving.
“Was Uncle Richard buried?” she whispered to Anne.
“Yes, dear, of course.”
“He . . . he . . . isn’t like Mirabel Cotton’s uncle, is he?” in a
still more agitated whisper. “He won’t walk about houses after being
buried, will he, Anne?”
XXIII
Miss Lavendar’s Romance
“I think I’ll take a walk through to Echo Lodge this evening,” said
Anne, one Friday afternoon in December.
“It looks like snow,” said Marilla dubiously.
“I’ll be there before the snow comes and I mean to stay all night.
Diana can’t go because she has company, and I’m sure Miss Lavendar will
be looking for me tonight. It’s a whole fortnight since I was there.”
Anne had paid many a visit to Echo Lodge since that October day.
Sometimes she and Diana drove around by the road; sometimes they walked
through the woods. When Diana could not go Anne went alone. Between her
and Miss Lavendar had sprung up one of those fervent, helpful
friendships possible only between a woman who has kept the freshness of
youth in her heart and soul, and a girl whose imagination and intuition
supplied the place of experience. Anne had at last discovered a real
“kindred spirit,” while into the little lady’s lonely, sequestered life
of dreams Anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration
of the outer existence, which Miss Lavendar, “the world forgetting, by
the world forgot,” had long ceased to share; they brought an atmosphere
of youth and reality to the little stone house. Charlotta the Fourth
always greeted them with her very widest smile . . . and Charlotta’s
smiles _were_ fearfully wide . . . loving them for the sake of her
adored mistress as well as for their own. Never had there been such
“high jinks” held in the little stone house as were held there that
beautiful, late-lingering autumn, when November seemed October over
again, and even December aped the sunshine and hazes of summer.
But on this particular day it seemed as if December had remembered that
it was time for winter and had turned suddenly dull and brooding, with
a windless hush predictive of coming snow. Nevertheless, Anne keenly
enjoyed her walk through the great gray maze of the beechlands; though
alone she never found it lonely; her imagination peopled her path with
merry companions, and with these she carried on a gay, pretended
conversation that was wittier and more fascinating than conversations
are apt to be in real life, where people sometimes fail most lamentably
to talk up to the requirements. In a “make believe” assembly of choice
spirits everybody says just the thing you want her to say and so gives
you the chance to say just what _you_ want to say. Attended by this
invisible company, Anne traversed the woods and arrived at the fir lane
just as broad, feathery flakes began to flutter down softly.
At the first bend she came upon Miss Lavendar, standing under a big,
broad-branching fir. She wore a gown of warm, rich red, and her head
and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery gray silk shawl.
“You look like the queen of the fir wood fairies,” called Anne merrily.
“I thought you would come tonight, Anne,” said Miss Lavendar, running
forward. “And I’m doubly glad, for Charlotta the Fourth is away. Her
mother is sick and she had to go home for the night. I should have been
very lonely if you hadn’t come . . . even the dreams and the echoes
wouldn’t have been enough company. Oh, Anne, how pretty you are,” she
added suddenly, looking up at the tall, slim girl with the soft
rose-flush of walking on her face. “How pretty and how young! It’s so
delightful to be seventeen, isn’t it? I do envy you,” concluded Miss
Lavendar candidly.
“But you are only seventeen at heart,” smiled Anne.
“No, I’m old . . . or rather middle-aged, which is far worse,” sighed
Miss Lavendar. “Sometimes I can pretend I’m not, but at other times I
realize it. And I can’t reconcile myself to it as most women seem to.
I’m just as rebellious as I was when I discovered my first gray hair.
Now, Anne, don’t look as if you were trying to understand. Seventeen
_can’t_ understand. I’m going to pretend right away that I am seventeen
too, and I can do it, now that you’re here. You always bring youth in
your hand like a gift. We’re going to have a jolly evening. Tea first .
. . what do you want for tea? We’ll have whatever you like. Do think of
something nice and indigestible.”
There were sounds of riot and mirth in the little stone house that
night. What with cooking and feasting and making candy and laughing and
“pretending,” it is quite true that Miss Lavendar and Anne comported
themselves in a fashion entirely unsuited to the dignity of a spinster
of forty-five and a sedate schoolma’am. Then, when they were tired,
they sat down on the rug before the grate in the parlor, lighted only
by the soft fireshine and perfumed deliciously by Miss Lavendar’s open
rose-jar on the mantel. The wind had risen and was sighing and wailing
around the eaves and the snow was thudding softly against the windows,
as if a hundred storm sprites were tapping for entrance.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Anne,” said Miss Lavendar, nibbling at her
candy. “If you weren’t I should be blue . . . very blue . . . almost
navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime
and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy.
One wants real things then. But you don’t know this . . . seventeen
never knows it. At seventeen dreams DO satisfy because you think the
realities are waiting for you further on. When I was seventeen, Anne, I
didn’t think forty-five would find me a white-haired little old maid
with nothing but dreams to fill my life.”
“But you aren’t an old maid,” said Anne, smiling into Miss Lavendar’s
wistful woodbrown eyes. “Old maids are _born_ . . . they don’t
_become_.”
“Some are born old maids, some achieve old maidenhood, and some have
old maidenhood thrust upon them,” parodied Miss Lavendar whimsically.
“You are one of those who have achieved it then,” laughed Anne, “and
you’ve done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you they
would come into the fashion, I think.”
“I always like to do things as well as possible,” said Miss Lavendar
meditatively, “and since an old maid I had to be I was determined to be
a very nice one. People say I’m odd; but it’s just because I follow my
own way of being an old maid and refuse to copy the traditional
pattern. Anne, did anyone ever tell you anything about Stephen Irving
and me?”
“Yes,” said Anne candidly, “I’ve heard that you and he were engaged
once.”
“So we were . . . twenty-five years ago . . . a lifetime ago. And we
were to have been married the next spring. I had my wedding dress made,
although nobody but mother and Stephen ever knew _that_. We’d been
engaged in a way almost all our lives, you might say. When Stephen was
a little boy his mother would bring him here when she came to see my
mother; and the second time he ever came . . . he was nine and I was
six . . . he told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up
his mind to marry me when he grew up. I remember that I said ‘Thank
you’; and when he was gone I told mother very gravely that there was a