CHAPTER 19
DAWN AND DUSK
In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory
of pink wild roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple
blossoms, Marilla arrived at the little house,
accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned with
brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green
Gables garret for half a century. Susan Baker, who,
during her few weeks' sojourn in the little house, had
come to worship "young Mrs. Doctor," as she called
Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously
askance at Marilla at first. But as Marilla did not
try to interfere in kitchen matters, and showed no
desire to interrupt Susan's ministrations to young Mrs.
Doctor, the good handmaiden became reconciled to her
presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
One evening, when the sky's limpid bowl was filled with
a red glory, and the robins were thrilling the golden
twilight with jubilant hymns to the stars of evening,
there was a sudden commotion in the little house of
dreams. Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen,
Doctor Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down,
Marilla paced the garden walks between the quahog
shells, murmuring prayers between her set lips, and
Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears
and her apron over her head.
Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw
that every window of the little house was alight, and
did not sleep that night.
The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to
those who waited and watched.
"Oh, will it NEVER end?" said Marilla; then she saw
how grave the nurse and Doctor Dave looked, and she
dared ask no more questions. Suppose Anne--but Marilla
could not suppose it.
"Do not tell me," said Susan fiercely, answering the
anguish in Marilla's eyes, "that God could be so cruel
as to take that darling lamb from us when we all love
her so much."
"He has taken others as well beloved," said Marilla
hoarsely.
But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists
hanging over the sandbar, and made rainbows of them,
joy came to the little house. Anne was safe, and a
wee, white lady, with her mother's big eyes, was lying
beside her. Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from
his night's agony, came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
"Thank God," shuddered Marilla.
Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
"Now for breakfast," she said briskly. "I am of the
opinion that we will all be glad of a bite and sup.
You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to worry about a single
thing--Susan is at the helm. You tell her just to
think of her baby."
Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away. Anne, her
pale face blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes
aglow with the holy passion of motherhood, did not need
to be told to think of her baby. She thought of
nothing else. For a few hours she tasted of happiness
so rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels
in heaven did not envy her.
"Little Joyce," she murmured, when Marilla came in to
see the baby. "We planned to call her that if she were
a girlie. There were so many we would have liked to
name her for; we couldn't choose between them, so we
decided on Joyce--we can call her Joy for
short--Joy--it suits so well. Oh, Marilla, I thought I
was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a
pleasant dream of happiness. THIS is the reality."
"You mustn't talk, Anne--wait till you're stronger,"
said Marilla warningly.
"You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk," smiled
Anne.
At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that
Gilbert and the nurse looked grave and Marilla
sorrowful. Then, as subtly, and coldly, and
remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear
crept into her heart. Why was not Gilbert gladder?
Why would he not talk about the baby? Why would they
not let her have it with her after that first
heavenly--happy hour? Was--was there anything wrong?
"Gilbert," whispered Anne imploringly, "the baby--is
all right--isn't she? Tell me--tell me."
Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent
over Anne and looked in her eyes. Marilla, listening
fearfully outside the door, heard a pitiful,
heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
was weeping.
"Oh, the poor lamb--the poor lamb! How can she bear
it, Miss Cuthbert? I am afraid it will kill her. She
has been that built up and happy, longing for that
baby, and planning for it. Cannot anything be done
nohow, Miss Cuthbert?"
"I'm afraid not, Susan. Gilbert says there is no hope.
He knew from the first the little thing couldn't
live."
"And it is such a sweet baby," sobbed Susan. "I never
saw one so white--they are mostly red or yallow. And
it opened its big eyes as if it was months old. The
little, little thing! Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
Doctor!"
At sunset the little soul that had come with the
dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it. Miss
Cornelia took the wee, white lady from the kindly but
stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for
it. Leslie had asked her to do that. Then she took it
back and laid it beside the poor, broken, tear-blinded
little mother.
"The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away,
dearie," she said through her own tears. "Blessed be
the name of the Lord."
Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone
together with their dead.
The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet
casket which Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and
taken to the graveyard of the church across the harbor.
Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little love-made
garments away, together with the ruffled basket which
had been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and
downy head. Little Joy was never to sleep there; she
had found a colder, narrower bed.
"This has been an awful disappointment to me," sighed
Miss Cornelia. "I've looked forward to this baby--and
I did want it to be a girl, too."
"I can only be thankful that Anne's life was spared,"
said Marilla, with a shiver, recalling those hours of
darkness when the girl she loved was passing through
the valley of the shadow.
"Poor, poor lamb! Her heart is broken," said Susan.
"I ENVY Anne," said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, "and
I'd envy her even if she had died! She was a mother
for one beautiful day. I'd gladly give my life for
THAT!"
"I wouldn't talk like that, Leslie, dearie," said Miss
Cornelia deprecatingly. She was afraid that the
dignified Miss Cuthbert would think Leslie quite
terrible.
Anne's convalescence was long, and made bitter for her
by many things. The bloom and sunshine of the Four
Winds world grated harshly on her; and yet, when the
rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
mercilessly down on that little grave across the
harbor; and when the wind blew around the eaves she
heard sad voices in it she had never heard before.
Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant
platitudes with which they strove to cover the
nakedness of bereavement. A letter from Phil Blake was
an added sting. Phil had heard of the baby's birth,
but not of its death, and she wrote Anne a
congratulatory letter of sweet mirth which hurt her
horribly.
"I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my
baby," she sobbed to Marilla. "But when I haven't it
just seems like wanton cruelty--though I know Phil
wouldn't hurt me for the world. Oh, Marilla, I don't
see how I can EVER be happy again--EVERYTHING will
hurt me all the rest of my life."
"Time will help you," said Marilla, who was racked
with sympathy but could never learn to express it in
other than age-worn formulas.
"It doesn't seem FAIR," said Anne rebelliously.
"Babies are born and live where they are not
wanted--where they will be neglected-- where they will
have no chance. I would have loved my baby so--and
cared for it so tenderly--and tried to give her every
chance for good. And yet I wasn't allowed to keep
her."
"It was God's will, Anne," said Marilla, helpless
before the riddle of the universe--the WHY of
undeserved pain. "And little Joy is better off."
"I can't believe THAT," cried Anne bitterly. Then,
seeing that Marilla looked shocked, she added
passionately, "Why should she be born at all--why
should any one be born at all--if she's better off
dead? I DON'T believe it is better for a child to die
at birth than to live its life out--and love and be
loved--and enjoy and suffer--and do its work--and
develop a character that would give it a personality in
eternity. And how do you know it was God's will?
Perhaps it was just a thwarting of His purpose by the
Power of Evil. We can't be expected to be resigned to
THAT."
"Oh, Anne, don't talk so," said Marilla, genuinely
alarmed lest Anne were drifting into deep and dangerous
waters. "We can't understand--but we must have
faith--we MUST believe that all is for the best. I
know you find it hard to think so, just now. But try
to be brave--for Gilbert's sake. He's so worried about
you. You aren't getting strong as fast as you
should."
"Oh, I know I've been very selfish," sighed Anne. "I
love Gilbert more than ever--and I want to live for his
sake. But it seems as if part of me was buried over
there in that little harbor graveyard-- and it hurts so
much that I'm afraid of life."
"It won't hurt so much always, Anne."
"The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts
me worse than all else, Marilla."
"Yes, I know, I've felt that too, about other things.
But we all love you, Anne. Captain Jim has been up
every day to ask for you--and Mrs. Moore haunts the
place--and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
think, cooking up nice things for you. Susan doesn't
like it very well. She thinks she can cook as well as
Miss Bryant."
"Dear Susan! Oh, everybody has been so dear and good
and lovely to me, Marilla. I'm not ungrateful--and
perhaps--when this horrible ache grows a little
less--I'll find that I can go on living."
