Rilla of Ingleside
Ingleside. But Rilla dropped Jims' spoon again--on the carpet this
time--and flew to the 'phone as if life depended on her getting there
before anybody else. Jims, his patience exhausted, lifted up his voice
and wept.
"Hello, is this Ingleside?"
"Yes."
"That you, Rilla?" "Yeth--yeth." Oh, why couldn't Jims stop howling for
just one little minute? Why didn't somebody come in and choke him?
"Know who's speaking?"
Oh, didn't she know! Wouldn't she know that voice anywhere--at any time?
"It's Ken--isn't it?"
"Sure thing. I'm here for a look-in. Can I come up to Ingleside tonight
and see you?"
"Of courthe."
Had he used "you" in the singular or plural sense? Presently she would
wring Jims' neck--oh, what was Ken saying?
"See here, Rilla, can you arrange that there won't be more than a few
dozen people round? Understand? I can't make my meaning clearer over
this bally rural line. There are a dozen receivers down."
Did she understand! Yes, she understood.
"I'll try," she said.
"I'll be up about eight then. By-by."
Rilla hung up the 'phone and flew to Jims. But she did not wring that
injured infant's neck. Instead she snatched him bodily out of his
chair, crushed him against her face, kissed him rapturously on his
milky mouth, and danced wildly around the room with him in her arms.
After this Jims was relieved to find that she returned to sanity, gave
him the rest of his dinner properly, and tucked him away for his
afternoon nap with the little lullaby he loved best of all. She sewed
at Red Cross shirts for the rest of the afternoon and built a crystal
castle of dreams, all a-quiver with rainbows. Ken wanted to see her--to
see her alone. That could be easily managed. Shirley wouldn't bother
them, father and mother were going to the Manse, Miss Oliver never
played gooseberry, and Jims always slept the clock round from seven to
seven. She would entertain Ken on the veranda--it would be
moonlight--she would wear her white georgette dress and do her hair
up--yes, she would--at least in a low knot at the nape of her neck.
Mother couldn't object to that, surely. Oh, how wonderful and romantic
it would be! Would Ken say anything--he must mean to say something or
why should he be so particular about seeing her alone? What if it
rained--Susan had been complaining about Mr. Hyde that morning! What if
some officious Junior Red called to discuss Belgians and shirts? Or,
worst of all, what if Fred Arnold dropped in? He did occasionally.
The evening came at last and was all that could be desired in an
evening. The doctor and his wife went to the Manse, Shirley and Miss
Oliver went they alone knew where, Susan went to the store for
household supplies, and Jims went to Dreamland. Rilla put on her
georgette gown, knotted up her hair and bound a little double string of
pearls around it. Then she tucked a cluster of pale pink baby roses at
her belt. Would Ken ask her for a rose for a keepsake? She knew that
Jem had carried to the trenches in Flanders a faded rose that Faith
Meredith had kissed and given him the night before he left.
Rilla looked very sweet when she met Ken in the mingled moonlight and
vine shadows of the big veranda. The hand she gave him was cold and she
was so desperately anxious not to lisp that her greeting was prim and
precise. How handsome and tall Kenneth looked in his lieutenant's
uniform! It made him seem older, too--so much so that Rilla felt rather
foolish. Hadn't it been the height of absurdity for her to suppose that
this splendid young officer had anything special to say to her, little
Rilla Blythe of Glen St. Mary? Likely she hadn't understood him after
all--he had only meant that he didn't want a mob of folks around making
a fuss over him and trying to lionize him, as they had probably done
over-harbour. Yes, of course, that was all he meant--and she, little
idiot, had gone and vainly imagined that he didn't want anybody but
her. And he would think she had manoeuvred everybody away so that they
could be alone together, and he would laugh to himself at her.
"This is better luck than I hoped for," said Ken, leaning back in his
chair and looking at her with very unconcealed admiration in his
eloquent eyes. "I was sure someone would be hanging about and it was
just you I wanted to see, Rilla-my-Rilla."
Rilla's dream castle flashed into the landscape again. This was
unmistakable enough certainly--not much doubt as to his meaning here.
"There aren't--so many of us--to poke around as there used to be," she
said softly.
"No, that's so," said Ken gently. "Jem and Walter and the girls
away--it makes a big blank, doesn't it? But--" he leaned forward until
his dark curls almost brushed her hair--"doesn't Fred Arnold try to
fill the blank occasionally. I've been told so."
At this moment, before Rilla could make any reply, Jims began to cry at
the top of his voice in the room whose open window was just above
them--Jims, who hardly ever cried in the evening. Moreover, he was
crying, as Rilla knew from experience, with a vim and energy that
betokened that he had been already whimpering softly unheard for some
time and was thoroughly exasperated. When Jims started in crying like
that he made a thorough job of it. Rilla knew that there was no use to
sit still and pretend to ignore him. He wouldn't stop; and conversation
of any kind was out of the question when such shrieks and howls were
floating over your head. Besides, she was afraid Kenneth would think
she was utterly unfeeling if she sat still and let a baby cry like
that. He was not likely acquainted with Morgan's invaluable volume.
She got up. "Jims has had a nightmare, I think. He sometimes has one
and he is always badly frightened by it. Excuse me for a moment."
Rilla flew upstairs, wishing quite frankly that soup tureens had never
been invented. But when Jims, at sight of her, lifted his little arms
entreatingly and swallowed several sobs, with tears rolling down his
cheeks, resentment went out of her heart. After all, the poor darling
was frightened. She picked him up gently and rocked him soothingly
until his sobs ceased and his eyes closed. Then she essayed to lay him
down in his crib. Jims opened his eyes and shrieked a protest. This
performance was repeated twice. Rilla grew desperate. She couldn't
leave Ken down there alone any longer--she had been away nearly half an
hour already. With a resigned air she marched downstairs, carrying
Jims, and sat down on the veranda. It was, no doubt, a ridiculous thing
to sit and cuddle a contrary war-baby when your best young man was
making his farewell call, but there was nothing else to be done.
Jims was supremely happy. He kicked his little pink-soled feet
rapturously out under his white nighty and gave one of his rare laughs.
He was beginning to be a very pretty baby; his golden hair curled in
silken ringlets all over his little round head and his eyes were
beautiful.
"He's a decorative kiddy all right, isn't he?" said Ken.
"His looks are very well," said Rilla, bitterly, as if to imply that
they were much the best of him. Jims, being an astute infant, sensed
trouble in the atmosphere and realized that it was up to him to clear
it away. He turned his face up to Rilla, smiled adorably and said,
clearly and beguilingly, "Will--Will."
It was the very first time he had spoken a word or tried to speak.
Rilla was so delighted that she forgot her grudge against him. She
forgave him with a hug and kiss. Jims, understanding that he was
restored to favour, cuddled down against her just where a gleam of
light from the lamp in the living-room struck across his hair and
turned it into a halo of gold against her breast.
Kenneth sat very still and silent, looking at Rilla--at the delicate,
girlish silhouette of her, her long lashes, her dented lip, her
adorable chin. In the dim moonlight, as she sat with her head bent a
little over Jims, the lamplight glinting on her pearls until they
glistened like a slender nimbus, he thought she looked exactly like the
Madonna that hung over his mother's desk at home. He carried that
picture of her in his heart to the horror of the battlefields of
France. He had had a strong fancy for Rilla Blythe ever since the night
of the Four Winds dance; but it was when he saw her there, with little
Jims in her arms, that he loved her and realized it. And all the while,
poor Rilla was sitting, disappointed and humiliated, feeling that her
last evening with Ken was spoiled and wondering why things always had
to go so contrarily outside of books. She felt too absurd to try to
talk. Evidently Ken was completely disgusted, too, since he was sitting
there in such stony silence.
Hope revived momentarily when Jims went so thoroughly asleep that she
thought it would be safe to lay him down on the couch in the
living-room. But when she came out again Susan was sitting on the
veranda, loosening her bonnet strings with the air of one who meant to
stay where she was for some time.
"Have you got your baby to sleep?" she asked kindly.
Your baby! Really, Susan might have more tact.
"Yes," said Rilla shortly.
Susan laid her parcels on the reed table, as one determined to do her
duty. She was very tired but she must help Rilla out. Here was Kenneth
Ford who had come to call on the family and they were all unfortunately
out, and "the poor child" had had to entertain him alone. But Susan had
come to her rescue--Susan would do her part no matter how tired she was.
"Dear me, how you have grown up," she said, looking at Ken's six feet
of khaki uniform without the least awe. Susan had grown used to khaki
now, and at sixty-four even a lieutenant's uniform is just clothes and
nothing else. "It is an amazing thing how fast children do grow up.
Rilla here, now, is almost fifteen."
"I'm going on seventeen, Susan," cried Rilla almost passionately. She
was a whole month past sixteen. It was intolerable of Susan.
"It seems just the other day that you were all babies," said Susan,
ignoring Rilla's protest. "You were really the prettiest baby I ever
saw, Ken, though your mother had an awful time trying to cure you of
sucking your thumb. Do you remember the day I spanked you?"
"No," said Ken.
"Oh well, I suppose you would be too young--you were only about four
and you were here with your mother and you insisted on teasing Nan
until she cried. I had tried several ways of stopping you but none
availed, and I saw that a spanking was the only thing that would serve.
So I picked you up and laid you across my knee and lambasted you well.
You howled at the top of your voice but you left Nan alone after that."
Rilla was writhing. Hadn't Susan any realization that she was
addressing an officer of the Canadian Army? Apparently she had not. Oh,
what would Ken think? "I suppose you do not remember the time your
mother spanked you either," continued Susan, who seemed to be bent on
reviving tender reminiscences that evening. "I shall never, no never,
forget it. She was up here one night with you when you were about
three, and you and Walter were playing out in the kitchen yard with a
kitten. I had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout which I was
reserving for making soap. And you and Walter began quarrelling over
the kitten. Walter was at one side of the puncheon standing on a chair,
holding the kitten, and you were standing on a chair at the other side.
You leaned across that puncheon and grabbed the kitten and pulled. You
were always a great hand for taking what you wanted without too much
ceremony. Walter held on tight and the poor kitten yelled but you
dragged Walter and the kitten half over and then you both lost your
balance and tumbled into that puncheon, kitten and all. If I had not