Anne's House of Dreams
and we all brought them down here afterwards. Mistress Selwyn lighted
the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
seen in that vision of his. A strange thing--a strange thing! But
I’ve seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time.”
Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
“It’s a dear story,” said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
enough romance to satisfy her. “How long did they live here?”
“Fifteen years. I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
the young scalawag I was. But every time I come back from a voyage I’d
head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
about it. Fifteen happy years! They had a sort of talent for
happiness, them two. Some folks are like that, if you’ve noticed.
They COULDN’T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened. They
quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited. But
Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
of hers, ‘I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
and make it up with.’ Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
Russell bought this house and brought his bride here. They were a gay
young pair, as I remember them. Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s
sister. She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
creature of mirth, too. The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
with laughing and good times. You’re the third bride I’ve seen come
here, Mistress Blythe--and the handsomest.”
Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
a violet, and Anne wore it proudly. She was looking her best that
night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
boy’s was something of a beauty.
“I must be getting back to the light,” announced Captain Jim. “I’ve
enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.”
“You must come often to see us,” said Anne.
“I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be
to accept it,” Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
“Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,” smiled Anne.
“I do, ‘cross my heart,’ as we used to say at school.”
“Then I’ll come. You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
sociable heart. He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any
MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a
conversationalist. You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about
the same age, I reckon. We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
as Cornelia Bryant would say.”
“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.
“Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds--the
race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t. If a person sorter
sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
things, and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to the race
that knows Joseph.”
“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
“It’s what I used to call--and still call in quotation marks ‘kindred
spirits.’”
“Jest so--jest so,” agreed Captain Jim. “We’re it, whatever IT is.
When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
‘Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’ And mighty glad I was, for
if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each
other’s company. The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
I reckon.”
The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
their guests. Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
and glamour and enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
ever ravin. The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
“They’re the trees of princesses. They’re out of fashion now. Folks
complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking. So they
do--so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a
light ladder to trim them out. I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows. She was especially fond of
them. She liked their dignity and stand-offishness. THEY don’t hobnob
with every Tom, Dick and Harry. If it’s maples for company, Mistress
Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.”
“What a beautiful night,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
the Doctor’s buggy.
“Most nights are beautiful,” said Captain Jim. “But I ’low that
moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for
heaven. The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe. I’ve
loved her ever since I can remember. When I was a little chap of eight
I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn’t missed. I woke up
along in the night and I was most scared to death. What shadows and
queer noises there was! I dursn’t move. Jest crouched there quaking,
poor small mite. Seemed ’s if there weren’t anyone in the world but
meself and it was mighty big. Then all at once I saw the moon looking
down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend. I was
comforted right off. Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
lion, looking at her. Many’s the night I’ve watched her from the deck
of my vessel, on seas far away from here. Why don’t you folks tell me
to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?”
The laughter of the goodnights died away. Anne and Gilbert walked hand
in hand around their garden. The brook that ran across the corner
dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches. The poppies along
its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight. Flowers that had been
planted by the hands of the schoolmaster’s bride flung their sweetness
on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
“I love to smell flowers in the dark,” she said. “You get hold of
their soul then. Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I’ve dreamed
it. And I’m so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
tryst here!”
CHAPTER 8
MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
Winds Harbor--a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars. No storm marred it, no
rough wind blew. Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
have envied them.
“If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn’t it?”
said Anne. “I don’t suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
again--but we’ve HAD them. Everything--wind, weather, folks, house of
dreams--has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful. There hasn’t
even been a rainy day since we came here.”
“And we haven’t quarrelled once,” teased Gilbert.
“Well, ‘that’s a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,’” quoted
Anne. “I’m so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here. Our
memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead
of being scattered about in strange places.”
There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of
their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea. There, although
she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
her life. In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her
constantly. From every window of her new home she saw some varying
aspect of it. Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears. Vessels
sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round
the globe. Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the
mornings, and returned laden in the evenings. Sailors and fisher-folk
travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content.
There was always a certain sense of things going to happen--of
adventures and farings-forth. The ways of Four Winds were less staid
and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew
over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those
who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery
and possibilities of it.
“I understand now why some men must go to sea,” said Anne. “That
desire which comes to us all at times--‘to sail beyond the bourne of
sunset’--must be very imperious when it is born in you. I don’t wonder
Captain Jim ran away because of it. I never see a ship sailing out of
the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I
were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove ‘to fly away and
be at rest,’ but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a
storm.”
“You’ll stay right here with me, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert lazily. “I
won’t have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms.”
They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late
afternoon. Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea
and sky. Silvery gulls were soaring over them. The horizons were
laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds. The hushed air was
threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves. Pale
asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the
harbor.
“Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don’t feel
very adventurous, I suppose,” Anne said indulgently. “If you had had a
good sleep last night, Gilbert, you’d be as ready as I am for a flight
of imagination.”
“I did good work last night, Anne,” said Gilbert quietly. “Under God,
I saved a life. This is the first time I could ever really claim that.
In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at
Allonby’s last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would
have died before morning. I tried an experiment that was certainly
never tried in Four Winds before. I doubt if it was ever tried
anywhere before outside of a hospital. It was a new thing in Kingsport
hospital last winter. I could never have dared try it here if I had
not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance. I risked
it--and it succeeded. As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for
long years of happiness and usefulness. As I drove home this morning,
while the sun was rising over the harbor, I thanked God that I had
chosen the profession I did. I had fought a good fight and won--think
of it, Anne, WON, against the Great Destroyer. It’s what I dreamed of
doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life.
That dream of mine came true this morning.”
“Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?” asked Anne,
who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but
wanted to hear it again.
“YOU know, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes. At that
moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the
doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, “Do I or do I not see a
full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?”
Anne looked and sprang up.
“That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to
call,” she said.