Anne of the Island
was not easy for her to speak to a stranger of the great mystery and
transformation of life.
“Goodness, no. _I_ couldn’t love anybody. It isn’t in me. Besides I
wouldn’t want to. Being in love makes you a perfect slave, _I_ think.
And it would give a man such power to hurt you. I’d be afraid. No, no,
Alec and Alonzo are two dear boys, and I like them both so much that I
really don’t know which I like the better. That is the trouble. Alec is
the best looking, of course, and I simply couldn’t marry a man who
wasn’t handsome. He is good-tempered too, and has lovely, curly, black
hair. He’s rather too perfect—I don’t believe I’d like a perfect
husband—somebody I could never find fault with.”
“Then why not marry Alonzo?” asked Priscilla gravely.
“Think of marrying a name like Alonzo!” said Phil dolefully. “I don’t
believe I could endure it. But he has a classic nose, and it _would_ be
a comfort to have a nose in the family that could be depended on. I
can’t depend on mine. So far, it takes after the Gordon pattern, but
I’m so afraid it will develop Byrne tendencies as I grow older. I
examine it every day anxiously to make sure it’s still Gordon. Mother
was a Byrne and has the Byrne nose in the Byrnest degree. Wait till you
see it. I adore nice noses. Your nose is awfully nice, Anne Shirley.
Alonzo’s nose nearly turned the balance in his favor. But _Alonzo!_ No,
I couldn’t decide. If I could have done as I did with the hats—stood
them both up together, shut my eyes, and jabbed with a hatpin—it would
have been quite easy.”
“What did Alec and Alonzo feel like when you came away?” queried
Priscilla.
“Oh, they still have hope. I told them they’d have to wait till I could
make up my mind. They’re quite willing to wait. They both worship me,
you know. Meanwhile, I intend to have a good time. I expect I shall
have heaps of beaux at Redmond. I can’t be happy unless I have, you
know. But don’t you think the freshmen are fearfully homely? I saw only
one really handsome fellow among them. He went away before you came. I
heard his chum call him Gilbert. His chum had eyes that stuck out _that
far_. But you’re not going yet, girls? Don’t go yet.”
“I think we must,” said Anne, rather coldly. “It’s getting late, and
I’ve some work to do.”
“But you’ll both come to see me, won’t you?” asked Philippa, getting up
and putting an arm around each. “And let me come to see you. I want to
be chummy with you. I’ve taken such a fancy to you both. And I haven’t
quite disgusted you with my frivolity, have I?”
“Not quite,” laughed Anne, responding to Phil’s squeeze, with a return
of cordiality.
“Because I’m not half so silly as I seem on the surface, you know. You
just accept Philippa Gordon, as the Lord made her, with all her faults,
and I believe you’ll come to like her. Isn’t this graveyard a sweet
place? I’d love to be buried here. Here’s a grave I didn’t see
before—this one in the iron railing—oh, girls, look, see—the stone says
it’s the grave of a middy who was killed in the fight between the
Shannon and the Chesapeake. Just fancy!”
Anne paused by the railing and looked at the worn stone, her pulses
thrilling with sudden excitement. The old graveyard, with its
over-arching trees and long aisles of shadows, faded from her sight.
Instead, she saw the Kingsport Harbor of nearly a century agone. Out of
the mist came slowly a great frigate, brilliant with “the meteor flag
of England.” Behind her was another, with a still, heroic form, wrapped
in his own starry flag, lying on the quarter deck—the gallant Lawrence.
Time’s finger had turned back his pages, and that was the Shannon
sailing triumphant up the bay with the Chesapeake as her prize.
“Come back, Anne Shirley—come back,” laughed Philippa, pulling her arm.
“You’re a hundred years away from us. Come back.”
Anne came back with a sigh; her eyes were shining softly.
“I’ve always loved that old story,” she said, “and although the English
won that victory, I think it was because of the brave, defeated
commander I love it. This grave seems to bring it so near and make it
so real. This poor little middy was only eighteen. He ‘died of
desperate wounds received in gallant action’—so reads his epitaph. It
is such as a soldier might wish for.”
Before she turned away, Anne unpinned the little cluster of purple
pansies she wore and dropped it softly on the grave of the boy who had
perished in the great sea-duel.
“Well, what do you think of our new friend?” asked Priscilla, when Phil
had left them.
“I like her. There is something very lovable about her, in spite of all
her nonsense. I believe, as she says herself, that she isn’t half as
silly as she sounds. She’s a dear, kissable baby—and I don’t know that
she’ll ever really grow up.”
“I like her, too,” said Priscilla, decidedly. “She talks as much about
boys as Ruby Gillis does. But it always enrages or sickens me to hear
Ruby, whereas I just wanted to laugh good-naturedly at Phil. Now, what
is the why of that?”
“There is a difference,” said Anne meditatively. “I think it’s because
Ruby is really so _conscious_ of boys. She plays at love and
love-making. Besides, you feel, when she is boasting of her beaux that
she is doing it to rub it well into you that you haven’t half so many.
Now, when Phil talks of her beaux it sounds as if she was just speaking
of chums. She really looks upon boys as good comrades, and she is
pleased when she has dozens of them tagging round, simply because she
likes to be popular and to be thought popular. Even Alex and
Alonzo—I’ll never be able to think of those two names separately after
this—are to her just two playfellows who want her to play with them all
their lives. I’m glad we met her, and I’m glad we went to Old St.
John’s. I believe I’ve put forth a tiny soul-root into Kingsport soil
this afternoon. I hope so. I hate to feel transplanted.”
Chapter V
Letters from Home
For the next three weeks Anne and Priscilla continued to feel as
strangers in a strange land. Then, suddenly, everything seemed to fall
into focus—Redmond, professors, classes, students, studies, social
doings. Life became homogeneous again, instead of being made up of
detached fragments. The Freshmen, instead of being a collection of
unrelated individuals, found themselves a class, with a class spirit, a
class yell, class interests, class antipathies and class ambitions.
They won the day in the annual “Arts Rush” against the Sophomores, and
thereby gained the respect of all the classes, and an enormous,
confidence-giving opinion of themselves. For three years the Sophomores
had won in the “rush”; that the victory of this year perched upon the
Freshmen’s banner was attributed to the strategic generalship of
Gilbert Blythe, who marshalled the campaign and originated certain new
tactics, which demoralized the Sophs and swept the Freshmen to triumph.
As a reward of merit he was elected president of the Freshman Class, a
position of honor and responsibility—from a Fresh point of view, at
least—coveted by many. He was also invited to join the
“Lambs”—Redmondese for Lamba Theta—a compliment rarely paid to a
Freshman. As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the
principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a
sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico.
This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when
he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been
asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do
it, and _he_, for his part, could never humiliate himself so.
“Fancy Charlie Sloane in a ‘caliker’ apron and a ‘sunbunnit,’” giggled
Priscilla. “He’d look exactly like his old Grandmother Sloane. Gilbert,
now, looked as much like a man in them as in his own proper
habiliments.”
Anne and Priscilla found themselves in the thick of the social life of
Redmond. That this came about so speedily was due in great measure to
Philippa Gordon. Philippa was the daughter of a rich and well-known
man, and belonged to an old and exclusive “Bluenose” family. This,
combined with her beauty and charm—a charm acknowledged by all who met
her—promptly opened the gates of all cliques, clubs and classes in
Redmond to her; and where she went Anne and Priscilla went, too. Phil
“adored” Anne and Priscilla, especially Anne. She was a loyal little
soul, crystal-free from any form of snobbishness. “Love me, love my
friends” seemed to be her unconscious motto. Without effort, she took
them with her into her ever widening circle of acquaintanceship, and
the two Avonlea girls found their social pathway at Redmond made very
easy and pleasant for them, to the envy and wonderment of the other
freshettes, who, lacking Philippa’s sponsorship, were doomed to remain
rather on the fringe of things during their first college year.
To Anne and Priscilla, with their more serious views of life, Phil
remained the amusing, lovable baby she had seemed on their first
meeting. Yet, as she said herself, she had “heaps” of brains. When or
where she found time to study was a mystery, for she seemed always in
demand for some kind of “fun,” and her home evenings were crowded with
callers. She had all the “beaux” that heart could desire, for
nine-tenths of the Freshmen and a big fraction of all the other classes
were rivals for her smiles. She was naively delighted over this, and
gleefully recounted each new conquest to Anne and Priscilla, with
comments that might have made the unlucky lover’s ears burn fiercely.
“Alec and Alonzo don’t seem to have any serious rival yet,” remarked
Anne, teasingly.
“Not one,” agreed Philippa. “I write them both every week and tell them
all about my young men here. I’m sure it must amuse them. But, of
course, the one I like best I can’t get. Gilbert Blythe won’t take any
notice of me, except to look at me as if I were a nice little kitten
he’d like to pat. Too well I know the reason. I owe you a grudge, Queen
Anne. I really ought to hate you and instead I love you madly, and I’m
miserable if I don’t see you every day. You’re different from any girl
I ever knew before. When you look at me in a certain way I feel what an
insignificant, frivolous little beast I am, and I long to be better and
wiser and stronger. And then I make good resolutions; but the first
nice-looking mannie who comes my way knocks them all out of my head.
Isn’t college life magnificent? It’s so funny to think I hated it that
first day. But if I hadn’t I might never got really acquainted with
you. Anne, please tell me over again that you like me a little bit. I
yearn to hear it.”
“I like you a big bit—and I think you’re a dear, sweet, adorable,
velvety, clawless, little—kitten,” laughed Anne, “but I don’t see when
you ever get time to learn your lessons.”
Phil must have found time for she held her own in every class of her
year. Even the grumpy old professor of Mathematics, who detested coeds,
and had bitterly opposed their admission to Redmond, couldn’t floor
her. She led the freshettes everywhere, except in English, where Anne
Shirley left her far behind. Anne herself found the studies of her
Freshman year very easy, thanks in great part to the steady work she
and Gilbert had put in during those two past years in Avonlea. This
left her more time for a social life which she thoroughly enjoyed. But
never for a moment did she forget Avonlea and the friends there. To
her, the happiest moments in each week were those in which letters came
from home. It was not until she had got her first letters that she
began to think she could ever like Kingsport or feel at home there.
Before they came, Avonlea had seemed thousands of miles away; those
letters brought it near and linked the old life to the new so closely