Anne of Green Gables
workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white
diamonds with a sigh. “I think some kinds of sewing would be nice; but
there’s no scope for imagination in patchwork. It’s just one little seam
after another and you never seem to be getting anywhere. But of course
I’d rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing patchwork than Anne of any
other place with nothing to do but play. I wish time went as quick
sewing patches as it does when I’m playing with Diana, though. Oh, we
do have such elegant times, Marilla. I have to furnish most of the
imagination, but I’m well able to do that. Diana is simply perfect in
every other way. You know that little piece of land across the brook
that runs up between our farm and Mr. Barry’s. It belongs to Mr. William
Bell, and right in the corner there is a little ring of white birch
trees--the most romantic spot, Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse
there. We call it Idlewild. Isn’t that a poetical name? I assure you it
took me some time to think it out. I stayed awake nearly a whole night
before I invented it. Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, it came
like an inspiration. Diana was _enraptured_ when she heard it. We have got
our house fixed up elegantly. You must come and see it, Marilla--won’t
you? We have great big stones, all covered with moss, for seats, and
boards from tree to tree for shelves. And we have all our dishes on
them. Of course, they’re all broken but it’s the easiest thing in the
world to imagine that they are whole. There’s a piece of a plate with a
spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially beautiful. We keep
it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass
is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind their
chicken house. It’s all full of rainbows--just little young rainbows
that haven’t grown big yet--and Diana’s mother told her it was broken
off a hanging lamp they once had. But it’s nice to imagine the fairies
lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it the fairy glass.
Matthew is going to make us a table. Oh, we have named that little round
pool over in Mr. Barry’s field Willowmere. I got that name out of the
book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling book, Marilla. The heroine
had five lovers. I’d be satisfied with one, wouldn’t you? She was very
handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint as
easy as anything. I’d love to be able to faint, wouldn’t you, Marilla?
It’s so romantic. But I’m really very healthy for all I’m so thin. I
believe I’m getting fatter, though. Don’t you think I am? I look at my
elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming.
Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. She is going to
wear it to the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next Wednesday. I
don’t feel that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened
to prevent me from getting to the picnic. I suppose I’d live through it,
but I’m certain it would be a lifelong sorrow. It wouldn’t matter if
I got to a hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn’t make up for
missing this one. They’re going to have boats on the Lake of Shining
Waters--and ice cream, as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream.
Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of
those things that are beyond imagination.”
“Anne, you have talked even on for ten minutes by the clock,” said
Marilla. “Now, just for curiosity’s sake, see if you can hold your
tongue for the same length of time.”
Anne held her tongue as desired. But for the rest of the week she talked
picnic and thought picnic and dreamed picnic. On Saturday it rained and
she worked herself up into such a frantic state lest it should keep
on raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an extra
patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves.
On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that she
grew actually cold all over with excitement when the minister announced
the picnic from the pulpit.
“Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla! I don’t think I’d
ever really believed until then that there was honestly going to be
a picnic. I couldn’t help fearing I’d only imagined it. But when a
minister says a thing in the pulpit you just have to believe it.”
“You set your heart too much on things, Anne,” said Marilla, with a
sigh. “I’m afraid there’ll be a great many disappointments in store for
you through life.”
“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,”
exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can
prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs.
Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be
disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to
be disappointed.”
Marilla wore her amethyst brooch to church that day as usual. Marilla
always wore her amethyst brooch to church. She would have thought it
rather sacrilegious to leave it off--as bad as forgetting her Bible or
her collection dime. That amethyst brooch was Marilla’s most treasured
possession. A seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn
had bequeathed it to Marilla. It was an old-fashioned oval, containing
a braid of her mother’s hair, surrounded by a border of very fine
amethysts. Marilla knew too little about precious stones to realize how
fine the amethysts actually were; but she thought them very beautiful
and was always pleasantly conscious of their violet shimmer at her
throat, above her good brown satin dress, even although she could not
see it.
Anne had been smitten with delighted admiration when she first saw that
brooch.
“Oh, Marilla, it’s a perfectly elegant brooch. I don’t know how you
can pay attention to the sermon or the prayers when you have it on. I
couldn’t, I know. I think amethysts are just sweet. They are what I used
to think diamonds were like. Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond,
I read about them and I tried to imagine what they would be like. I
thought they would be lovely glimmering purple stones. When I saw a
real diamond in a lady’s ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of
course, it was very lovely but it wasn’t my idea of a diamond. Will you
let me hold the brooch for one minute, Marilla? Do you think amethysts
can be the souls of good violets?”
CHAPTER XIV. Anne’s Confession
ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room
with a troubled face.
“Anne,” she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the
spotless table and singing, “Nelly of the Hazel Dell” with a vigor and
expression that did credit to Diana’s teaching, “did you see anything
of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came
home from church yesterday evening, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
“I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society,” said
Anne, a little slowly. “I was passing your door when I saw it on the
cushion, so I went in to look at it.”
“Did you touch it?” said Marilla sternly.
“Y-e-e-s,” admitted Anne, “I took it up and I pinned it on my breast
just to see how it would look.”
“You had no business to do anything of the sort. It’s very wrong in a
little girl to meddle. You shouldn’t have gone into my room in the first
place and you shouldn’t have touched a brooch that didn’t belong to you
in the second. Where did you put it?”
“Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn’t it on a minute. Truly, I
didn’t mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn’t think about its being wrong to
go in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I’ll never
do it again. That’s one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty
thing twice.”
“You didn’t put it back,” said Marilla. “That brooch isn’t anywhere on
the bureau. You’ve taken it out or something, Anne.”
“I did put it back,” said Anne quickly--pertly, Marilla thought. “I
don’t just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in
the china tray. But I’m perfectly certain I put it back.”
“I’ll go and have another look,” said Marilla, determining to be just.
“If you put that brooch back it’s there still. If it isn’t I’ll know you
didn’t, that’s all!”
Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the
bureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly
be. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen.
“Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last
person to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth
at once. Did you take it out and lose it?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla’s angry gaze
squarely. “I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the
truth, if I was to be led to the block for it--although I’m not very
certain what a block is. So there, Marilla.”
Anne’s “so there” was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but
Marilla took it as a display of defiance.
“I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne,” she said sharply. “I
know you are. There now, don’t say anything more unless you are prepared
to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you are
ready to confess.”
“Will I take the peas with me?” said Anne meekly.
“No, I’ll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you.”
When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very
disturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. What
if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having taken
it, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face,
too!
“I don’t know what I wouldn’t sooner have had happen,” thought Marilla,
as she nervously shelled the peas. “Of course, I don’t suppose she meant
to steal it or anything like that. She’s just taken it to play with
or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that’s
clear, for there hasn’t been a soul in that room since she was in it, by
her own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone, there’s
nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for
fear she’ll be punished. It’s a dreadful thing to think she tells
falsehoods. It’s a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It’s a
fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can’t trust.
Slyness and untruthfulness--that’s what she has displayed. I declare I
feel worse about that than about the brooch. If she’d only have told the
truth about it I wouldn’t mind so much.”
Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and
searched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the
east gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knew
anything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced
that she did.
She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded and
puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admit
that circumstances were against her.
“You’re sure it hasn’t fell down behind the bureau?” was the only
suggestion he could offer.
“I’ve moved the bureau and I’ve taken out the drawers and I’ve looked
in every crack and cranny” was Marilla’s positive answer. “The brooch
is gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That’s the plain,
ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face.”
“Well now, what are you going to do about it?” Matthew asked forlornly,
feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal with the
situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.
“She’ll stay in her room until she confesses,” said Marilla grimly,
remembering the success of this method in the former case. “Then we’ll
see. Perhaps we’ll be able to find the brooch if she’ll only tell