Chapter 25 Anne of the Island by Lucy Montgomery
Enter Prince Charming
“I’m contrasting the claims of indoors and out,” said Anne, looking from the window of Patty’s Place to the distant pines of the park.
“I’ve an afternoon to spend in sweet doing nothing, Aunt Jimsie. Shall I spend it here where there is a cosy fire, a plateful of delicious russets, three purring and harmonious cats, and two impeccable china dogs with green noses? Or shall I go to the park, where there is the lure of gray woods and of gray water lapping on the harbor rocks?”
“If I was as young as you, I’d decide in favor of the park,” said Aunt Jamesina, tickling Joseph’s yellow ear with a knitting needle.
“I thought that you claimed to be as young as any of us, Aunty,” teased Anne.
“Yes, in my soul. But I’ll admit my legs aren’t as young as yours. You go and get some fresh air, Anne. You look pale lately.”
“I think I’ll go to the park,” said Anne restlessly. “I don’t feel like tame domestic joys today. I want to feel alone and free and wild. The park will be empty, for every one will be at the football match.”
“Why didn’t you go to it?”
“‘Nobody axed me, sir, she said’—at least, nobody but that horrid little Dan Ranger. I wouldn’t go anywhere with him; but rather than hurt his poor little tender feelings I said I wasn’t going to the game at all. I don’t mind. I’m not in the mood for football today somehow.”
“You go and get some fresh air,” repeated Aunt Jamesina, “but take your umbrella, for I believe it’s going to rain. I’ve rheumatism in my leg.”
“Only old people should have rheumatism, Aunty.”
“Anybody is liable to rheumatism in her legs, Anne. It’s only old people who should have rheumatism in their souls, though. Thank goodness, I never have. When you get rheumatism in your soul you might as well go and pick out your coffin.”
It was November—the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul. Anne was not wont to be troubled with soul fog. But, somehow, since her return to Redmond for this third year, life had not mirrored her spirit back to her with its old, perfect, sparkling clearness.
Outwardly, existence at Patty’s Place was the same pleasant round of work and study and recreation that it had always been. On Friday evenings the big, fire-lighted livingroom was crowded by callers and echoed to endless jest and laughter, while Aunt Jamesina smiled beamingly on them all. The “Jonas” of Phil’s letter came often, running up from St. Columbia on the early train and departing on the late. He was a general favorite at Patty’s Place, though Aunt Jamesina shook her head and opined that divinity students were not what they used to be.
“He’s VERY nice, my dear,” she told Phil, “but ministers ought to be graver and more dignified.”
“Can’t a man laugh and laugh and be a Christian still?” demanded Phil.
“Oh, MEN—yes. But I was speaking of MINISTERS, my dear,” said Aunt Jamesina rebukingly. “And you shouldn’t flirt so with Mr. Blake—you really shouldn’t.”
“I’m not flirting with him,” protested Phil.
Nobody believed her, except Anne. The others thought she was amusing herself as usual, and told her roundly that she was behaving very badly.
“Mr. Blake isn’t of the Alec-and-Alonzo type, Phil,” said Stella severely. “He takes things seriously. You may break his heart.”
“Do you really think I could?” asked Phil. “I’d love to think so.”
“Philippa Gordon! I never thought you were utterly unfeeling. The idea of you saying you’d love to break a man’s heart!”
“I didn’t say so, honey. Quote me correctly. I said I’d like to think I COULD break it. I would like to know I had the POWER to do it.”
“I don’t understand you, Phil. You are leading that man on deliberately—and you know you don’t mean anything by it.”
“I mean to make him ask me to marry him if I can,” said Phil calmly.
“I give you up,” said Stella hopelessly.
Gilbert came occasionally on Friday evenings. He seemed always in good spirits, and held his own in the jests and repartee that flew about. He neither sought nor avoided Anne. When circumstances brought them in contact he talked to her pleasantly and courteously, as to any newly-made acquaintance. The old camaraderie was gone entirely. Anne felt it keenly; but she told herself she was very glad and thankful that Gilbert had got so completely over his disappointment in regard to her. She had really been afraid, that April evening in the orchard, that she had hurt him terribly and that the wound would be long in healing. Now she saw that she need not have worried. Men have died and the worms have eaten them but not for love. Gilbert evidently was in no danger of immediate dissolution. He was enjoying life, and he was full of ambition and zest. For him there was to be no wasting in despair because a woman was fair and cold. Anne, as she listened to the ceaseless badinage that went on between him and Phil, wondered if she had only imagined that look in his eyes when she had told him she could never care for him.
There were not lacking those who would gladly have stepped into Gilbert’s vacant place. But Anne snubbed them without fear and without reproach. If the real Prince Charming was never to come she would have none of a substitute. So she sternly told herself that gray day in the windy park.
Suddenly the rain of Aunt Jamesina’s prophecy came with a swish and rush. Anne put up her umbrella and hurried down the slope. As she turned out on the harbor road a savage gust of wind tore along it. Instantly her umbrella turned wrong side out. Anne clutched at it in despair. And then—there came a voice close to her.
“Pardon me—may I offer you the shelter of my umbrella?”
Anne looked up. Tall and handsome and distinguished-looking—dark, melancholy, inscrutable eyes—melting, musical, sympathetic voice—yes, the very hero of her dreams stood before her in the flesh. He could not have more closely resembled her ideal if he had been made to order.
“Thank you,” she said confusedly.
“We’d better hurry over to that little pavillion on the point,” suggested the unknown. “We can wait there until this shower is over. It is not likely to rain so heavily very long.”
The words were very commonplace, but oh, the tone! And the smile which accompanied them! Anne felt her heart beating strangely.
Together they scurried to the pavilion and sat breathlessly down under its friendly roof. Anne laughingly held up her false umbrella.
“It is when my umbrella turns inside out that I am convinced of the total depravity of inanimate things,” she said gaily.
The raindrops sparkled on her shining hair; its loosened rings curled around her neck and forehead. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes big and starry. Her companion looked down at her admiringly. She felt herself blushing under his gaze. Who could he be? Why, there was a bit of the Redmond white and scarlet pinned to his coat lapel. Yet she had thought she knew, by sight at least, all the Redmond students except the Freshmen. And this courtly youth surely was no Freshman.
“We are schoolmates, I see,” he said, smiling at Anne’s colors. “That ought to be sufficient introduction. My name is Royal Gardner. And you are the Miss Shirley who read the Tennyson paper at the Philomathic the other evening, aren’t you?”
“Yes; but I cannot place you at all,” said Anne, frankly. “Please, where DO you belong?”
“I feel as if I didn’t belong anywhere yet. I put in my Freshman and Sophomore years at Redmond two years ago. I’ve been in Europe ever since. Now I’ve come back to finish my Arts course.”
“This is my Junior year, too,” said Anne.
“So we are classmates as well as collegemates. I am reconciled to the loss of the years that the locust has eaten,” said her companion, with a world of meaning in those wonderful eyes of his.
The rain came steadily down for the best part of an hour. But the time seemed really very short. When the clouds parted and a burst of pale November sunshine fell athwart the harbor and the pines Anne and her companion walked home together. By the time they had reached the gate of Patty’s Place he had asked permission to call, and had received it. Anne went in with cheeks of flame and her heart beating to her fingertips. Rusty, who climbed into her lap and tried to kiss her, found a very absent welcome. Anne, with her soul full of romantic thrills, had no attention to spare just then for a crop-eared pussy cat.
That evening a parcel was left at Patty’s Place for Miss Shirley. It was a box containing a dozen magnificent roses. Phil pounced impertinently on the card that fell from it, read the name and the poetical quotation written on the back.
“Royal Gardner!” she exclaimed. “Why, Anne, I didn’t know you were acquainted with Roy Gardner!”
“I met him in the park this afternoon in the rain,” explained Anne hurriedly. “My umbrella turned inside out and he came to my rescue with his.”
“Oh!” Phil peered curiously at Anne. “And is that exceedingly commonplace incident any reason why he should send us longstemmed roses by the dozen, with a very sentimental rhyme? Or why we should blush divinest rosy-red when we look at his card? Anne, thy face betrayeth thee.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Phil. Do you know Mr. Gardner?”
“I’ve met his two sisters, and I know of him. So does everybody worthwhile in Kingsport. The Gardners are among the richest, bluest, of Bluenoses. Roy is adorably handsome and clever. Two years ago his mother’s health failed and he had to leave college and go abroad with her—his father is dead. He must have been greatly disappointed to have to give up his class, but they say he was perfectly sweet about it. Fee—fi—fo—fum, Anne. I smell romance. Almost do I envy you, but not quite. After all, Roy Gardner isn’t Jonas.”
“You goose!” said Anne loftily. But she lay long awake that night, nor did she wish for sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any vision of dreamland. Had the real Prince come at last? Recalling those glorious dark eyes which had gazed so deeply into her own, Anne was very strongly inclined to think he had.