CHAPTER 36
BEAUTY FOR ASHES
"Any news from Green Gables, Anne?"
"Nothing very especial," replied Anne, folding up
Marilla's letter. "Jake Donnell has been there
shingling the roof. He is a full-fledged carpenter
now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to
the choice of a life-work. You remember his mother
wanted him to be a college professor. I shall never
forget the day she came to the school and rated me for
failing to call him St. Clair."
"Does anyone ever call him that now?"
"Evidently not. It seems that he has completely lived
it down. Even his mother has succumbed. I always
thought that a boy with Jake's chin and mouth would get
his own way in the end. Diana writes me that Dora has
a beau. Just think of it--that child!"
"Dora is seventeen," said Gilbert. "Charlie Sloane
and I were both mad about you when you were seventeen,
Anne."
"Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years,"
said Anne, with a half-rueful smile, "when children who
were six when we thought ourselves grown up are old
enough now to have beaux. Dora's is Ralph
Andrews--Jane's brother. I remember him as a little,
round, fat, white-headed fellow who was always at the
foot of his class. But I understand he is quite a
fine-looking young man now."
"Dora will probably marry young. She's of the same
type as Charlotta the Fourth--she'll never miss her
first chance for fear she might not get another."
"Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little
more up-and-coming than his brother Billy," mused
Anne.
"For instance," said Gilbert, laughing, "let us hope
he will be able to propose on his own account. Anne,
would you have married Billy if he had asked you
himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?"
"I might have." Anne went off into a shriek of
laughter over the recollection of her first proposal.
"The shock of the whole thing might have hypnotized me
into some such rash and foolish act. Let us be
thankful he did it by proxy."
"I had a letter from George Moore yesterday," said
Leslie, from the corner where she was reading.
"Oh, how is he?" asked Anne interestedly, yet with an
unreal feeling that she was inquiring about some one
whom she did not know.
"He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself
to all the changes in his old home and friends. He is
going to sea again in the spring. It's in his blood,
he says, and he longs for it. But he told me something
that made me glad for him, poor fellow. Before he
sailed on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at
home. He did not tell me anything about her in
Montreal, because he said he supposed she would have
forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and
with him, you see, his engagement and love was still a
thing of the present. It was pretty hard on him, but
when he got home he found she had never married and
still cared for him. They are to be married this fall.
I'm going to ask him to bring her over here for a
little trip; he says he wants to come and see the place
where he lived so many years without knowing it."
"What a nice little romance," said Anne, whose love
for the romantic was immortal. "And to think," she
added with a sigh of self-reproach, "that if I had had
my way George Moore would never have come up from the
grave in which his identity was buried. How I did
fight against Gilbert's suggestion! Well, I am
punished: I shall never be able to have a different
opinion from Gilbert's again! If I try to have, he
will squelch me by casting George Moore's case up to
me!"
"As if even that would squelch a woman!" mocked
Gilbert. "At least do not become my echo, Anne. A
little opposition gives spice to life . I do not want
a wife like John MacAllister's over the harbor. No
matter what he says, she at once remarks in that drab,
lifeless little voice of hers, `That is very true,
John, dear me!'"
Anne and Leslie laughed. Anne's laughter was silver
and Leslie's golden, and the combination of the two was
as satisfactory as a perfect chord in music.
Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed
it with a resounding sigh.
"Why, Susan, what is the matter?" asked Gilbert.
"There's nothing wrong with little Jem, is there,
Susan?" cried Anne, starting up in alarm.
"No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear. Something
has happened, though. Dear me, everything has gone
catawampus with me this week. I spoiled the bread, as
you know too well--and I scorched the doctor's best
shirt bosom--and I broke your big platter. And now, on
the top of all this, comes word that my sister Matilda
has broken her leg and wants me to go and stay with her
for a spell."
"Oh, I'm very sorry--sorry that your sister has met
with such an accident, I mean," exclaimed Anne.
"Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear.
That sounds as if it ought to be in the Bible, but they
tell me a person named Burns wrote it. And there is no
doubt that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly
upward. As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of
her. None of our family ever broke their legs before.
But whatever she has done she is still my sister, and I
feel that it is my duty to go and wait on her, if you
can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
"Of course, Susan, of course. I can get someone to
help me while you are gone."
"If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
Matilda's leg to the contrary notwithstanding. I will
not have you worried, and that blessed child upset in
consequence, for any number of legs."
"Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan. I can
get a girl from the cove, who will do for a time."
"Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while
Susan is away?" exclaimed Leslie. "Do! I'd love
to--and it would be an act of charity on your part.
I'm so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
house. There's so little to do--and at night I'm worse
than lonely--I'm frightened and nervous in spite of
locked doors. There was a tramp around two days ago."
Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed
as an inmate of the little house of dreams. Miss
Cornelia warmly approved of the arrangement.
"It seems Providential," she told Anne in confidence.
"I'm sorry for Matilda Clow, but since she had to break
her leg it couldn't have happened at a better time.
Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in Four Winds,
and those old cats up at the Glen won't get the chance
to meow, as they would if she was living over there
alone and Owen going to see her. They are doing enough
of it as it is, because she doesn't put on mourning. I
said to one of them, `If you mean she should put on
mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his
resurrection than his funeral; and if it's Dick you
mean, I confess _I_ can't see the propriety of going
into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago and
good riddance then!' And when old Louisa Baldwin
remarked to me that she thought it very strange that
Leslie should never have suspected it wasn't her own
husband _I_ said, `YOU never suspected it wasn't Dick
Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his
life, and by nature you're ten times as suspicious as
Leslie.' But you can't stop some people's tongues,
Anne, dearie, and I'm real thankful Leslie will be
under your roof while Owen is courting her."
Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening
when Leslie and Anne were absorbed in worshipping the
baby. He paused at the open door of the living room,
unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes at
the beautiful picture. Leslie sat on the floor with
the baby in her lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat
little hands as he fluttered them in the air.
"Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby," she mumbled,
catching one wee hand and covering it with kisses.
"Isn't him ze darlingest itty sing," crooned Anne,
hanging over the arm of her chair adoringly. "Dem itty
wee pads are ze very tweetest handies in ze whole big
world, isn't dey, you darling itty man."
Anne, in the months before Little Jem's coming, had
pored diligently over several wise volumes, and pinned
her faith to one in especial, "Sir Oracle on the Care
and Training of Children." Sir Oracle implored
parents by all they held sacred never to talk "baby
talk" to their children. Infants should invariably be
addressed in classical language from the moment of
their birth. So should they learn to speak English
undefiled from their earliest utterance. "How,"
demanded Sir Oracle, "can a mother reasonably expect
her child to learn correct speech, when she continually
accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as
thoughtless mothers inflict every day on the helpless
creatures committed to their care? Can a child who is
constantly called `tweet itty wee singie' ever attain
to any proper conception of his own being and
possibilities and destiny?"
Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed
Gilbert that she meant to make it an inflexible rule
never, under any circumstances, to talk "baby talk" to
her children. Gilbert agreed with her, and they made a
solemn compact on the subject--a compact which Anne
shamelessly violated the very first moment Little Jem
was laid in her arms. "Oh, the darling itty wee
sing!" she had exclaimed. And she had continued to
violate it ever since. When Gilbert teased her she
laughed Sir Oracle to scorn.
"He never had any children of his own, Gilbert--I am
positive he hadn't or he would never have written such
rubbish. You just can't help talking baby talk to a
baby. It comes natural--and it's RIGHT. It would be
inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little
creatures as we do to great big boys and girls. Babies
want love and cuddling and all the sweet baby talk they
can get, and Little Jem is going to have it, bless his
dear itty heartums."
"But you're the worst I ever heard, Anne," protested
Gilbert, who, not being a mother but only a father, was
not wholly convinced yet that Sir Oracle was wrong. "I
never heard anything like the way you talk to that
child."
"Very likely you never did. Go away--go away. Didn't
I bring up three pairs of Hammond twins before I was
eleven? You and Sir Oracle are nothing but
cold-blooded theorists. Gilbert, JUST look at him!
He's smiling at me--he knows what we're talking about.
And oo dest agwees wif evy word muzzer says, don't oo,
angel-lover?"
Gilbert put his arm about them. "Oh you mothers!" he
said. "You mothers! God knew what He was about when
He made you."
So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and
he throve as became a child of the house of dreams.
Leslie was quite as foolish over him as Anne was. When
their work was done and Gilbert was out of the way,
they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of
love-making and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in
which Owen Ford had surprised them.
Leslie was the first to become aware of him. Even in
the twilight Anne could see the sudden whiteness that
swept over her beautiful face, blotting out the crimson
of lip and cheeks.
Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
"Leslie!" he said, holding out his hand. It was the
first time he had ever called her by her name; but the
hand Leslie gave him was cold; and she was very quiet
all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
laughed and talked together. Before his call ended she
excused herself and went upstairs . Owen's gay spirits
flagged and he went away soon after with a downcast
air.
Gilbert looked at Anne.
"Anne, what are you up to? There's something going on
that I don't understand. The whole air here tonight
has been charged with electricity. Leslie sits like
the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and laughs on the
surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
You seem all the time to be bursting with some
suppressed excitement. Own up. What secret have you
been keeping from your deceived husband?"
"Don't be a goose, Gilbert," was Anne's conjugal
reply. "As for Leslie, she is absurd and I'm going up
to tell her so."
Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room.
The little place was filled with the rhythmic thunder
of the sea. Leslie sat with locked hands in the misty
moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence.
"Anne," she said in a low, reproachful voice, "did you
know Owen Ford was coming to Four Winds?"
"I did," said Anne brazenly.
"Oh, you should have told me, Anne," Leslie cried
passionately. "If I had known I would have gone
away--I wouldn't have stayed here to meet him. You
should have told me. It wasn't fair of you, Anne--oh,
it wasn't fair!"
Leslie's lips were trembling and her whole form was
tense with emotion. But Anne laughed heartlessly. She
bent over and kissed Leslie's upturned reproachful
face.
"Leslie, you are an adorable goose. Owen Ford didn't
rush from the Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning
desire to see ME. Neither do I believe that he was
inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
Cornelia. Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend,
and fold them up and put them away in lavender. You'll
never need them again. There are some people who can
see through a grindstone when there is a hole in it,
even if you cannot. I am not a prophetess, but I shall
venture on a prediction. The bitterness of life is
over for you. After this you are going to have the
joys and hopes--and I daresay the sorrows, too--of a
happy woman. The omen of the shadow of Venus did come
true for you, Leslie. The year in which you saw it
brought your life's best gift for you--your love for
Owen Ford. Now, go right to bed and have a good
sleep."
Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed:
but it may be questioned if she slept much. I do not
think she dared to dream wakingly; life had been so
hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which she had
had to walk had been so strait, that she could not
whisper to her own heart the hopes that might wait on
the future. But she watched the great revolving light
bestarring the short hours of the summer night, and her
eyes grew soft and bright and young once more. Nor,
when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him
to the shore, did she say him nay.
