Chapter 12 Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Montgomery
Gilbert had his two weeks' snipe shooting in Nova Scotia . . . not even Anne could persuade him to take a month . . . and November closed in on Ingleside. The dark hills, with the darker spruces marching over them, looked grim on early falling nights, but Ingleside bloomed with firelight and laughter, though the winds come in from the Atlantic singing of mournful things.
"Why isn't the wind happy, Mummy?" asked Walter one night.
"Because it is remembering all the sorrow of the world since time began," answered Anne.
"It is moaning just because there is so much dampness in the air," sniffed Aunt Mary Maria, "and my back is killing me."
But some days even the wind blew cheerfully through the silvery grey maple wood and some days there was no wind at all, only mellow Indian summer sunshine and the quiet shadows of the bare trees all over the lawn and frosty stillness at sunset.
"Look at that white evening star over the lombardy in the corner," said Anne. "Whenever I see anything like that I am minded to be just glad I am alive."
"You do say such funny things, Annie. Stars are quite common in P. E. Island," said Aunt Mary Maria . . . and thought: "Stars indeed! As if no one ever saw a star before! Didn't Annie know of the terrible waste that was going on in the kitchen every day? Didn't she know of the reckless way Susan Baker threw eggs about and used lard where dripping would do quite as well? Or didn't she care? Poor Gilbert! No wonder he had to keep his nose to the grindstone!"
November went out in greys and browns: but by morning the snow had woven its old white spell and Jem shouted with delight as he rushed down to breakfast.
"Oh, Mummy, it will soon be Christmas now and Santa Claus will be coming!"
"You surely don't believe in Santa Claus still?" said Aunt Mary Maria.
Anne shot a glance of alarm at Gilbert, who said gravely: "We want the children to possess their heritage of fairyland as long as they can, Aunty."
Luckily Jem had paid no attention to Aunt Mary Maria. He and Walter were too eager to get out into the new wonderful world to which winter had brought its own loveliness. Anne always hated to see the beauty of the untrodden snow marred by footprints; but that couldn't be helped and there was still beauty and to spare at eventide when the west was aflame over all the whitened hollows in the violet hills and Anne was sitting in the living-room before a fire of rock maple. Firelight, she thought, was always so lovely. It did such tricksy, unexpected things. Parts of the room flashed into being and then out again. Pictures came and went. Shadows lurked and sprang. Outside, through the big unshaded window, the whole scene was elvishly reflected on the lawn with Aunt Mary Maria apparently sitting stark upright . . . Aunt Mary Maria never allowed herself to "loll" . . . under the Scotch pine.
Gilbert was "lolling" on the couch, trying to forget that he had lost a patient from pneumonia that day. Small Rilla was trying to eat her pink fists in her basket; even the Shrimp, with his white paws curled in under his breast, was daring to purr on the hearth-rug, much to Aunt Mary Maria's disapproval.
"Speaking of cats," said Aunt Mary Maria pathetically . . . though nobody had been speaking of them . . . "do all the cats in the Glen visit us at night? How anyone could have slept through the caterwauling last night I really am at a loss to understand. Of course, my room being at the back I suppose I get the full benefit of the free concert."
Before anyone had to reply Susan entered, saying that she had seen Mrs. Marshall Elliott in Carter Flagg's store and she was coming up when she had finished her shopping. Susan did not add that Mrs. Elliott had said anxiously, "What is the matter with Mrs. Blythe, Susan? I thought last Sunday in church she looked so tired and worried. I never saw her look like that before."
"I can tell you what is the matter with Mrs. Blythe," Susan had answered grimly. "She had got a bad attack of Aunt Mary Maria. And the doctor cannot seem to see it, even though he does worship the ground she walks on."
"Isn't that like a man?" said Mrs. Elliott.
"I am glad," said Anne, springing up to light a lamp. "I haven't seen Miss Cornelia for so long. Now we'll catch up with the news."
"Won't we!" said Gilbert dryly.
"That woman is an evil-minded gossip," said Aunt Mary Maria severely.
For the first time in her life, perhaps, Susan bristled up in defence of Miss Cornelia.
"That she is not, Miss Blythe, and Susan Baker will never stand by and hear her so miscalled. Evil-minded, indeed! Did you ever hear, Miss Blythe, of the pot calling the kettle black?"
"Susan . . . Susan," said Anne imploringly.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Dr. dear. I admit I have forgotten my place. But there are some things not to be endured."
Whereupon a door was banged as doors were seldom banged at Ingleside.
"You see, Annie?" said Aunt Mary Maria significantly. "But I suppose as long as you are willing to overlook that sort of thing in a servant there is nothing anyone can do."
Gilbert got up and went to the library where a tired man might count on some peace. And Aunt Mary Maria, who didn't like Miss Cornelia, betook herself to bed. So that when Miss Cornelia came in she found Anne alone, drooping rather limply over the baby's basket. Miss Cornelia did not, as usual, start in unloading a budget of gossip. Instead, when she had laid aside her wraps, she sat down beside Anne and took her hand.
"Anne dearie, what is the matter? I know there's something. Is that jolly old soul of a Mary Maria just tormenting you to death?"
Anne tried to smile.
"Oh, Miss Cornelia . . . I know I'm foolish to mind it so much . . . but this has been one of the days when it seems I just cannot go on enduring her. She . . . she's simply poisoning our life here . . ."
"Why don't you just tell her to go?"
"Oh, we can't do that, Miss Cornelia. At least, I can't and Gilbert won't. He says he could never look himself in the face again if he turned his own flesh and blood out of doors."
"Cat's hindfoot!" said Miss Cornelia eloquently. "She's got plenty of money and a good home of her own. How would it be turning her out of doors to tell her she'd better go and live in it?"
"I know . . . but Gilbert . . . I don't think he quite realises everything. He's away so much . . . and really . . . everything is so little in itself . . . I'm ashamed . . ."
"I know, dearie. Just those little things that are horribly big. Of course a man wouldn't understand. I know a woman in Charlottetown who knows her well. She says Mary Maria Blythe never had a friend in her life. She says her name should be Blight not Blythe. What you need, dearie, is just enough backbone to say you won't put up with it any longer."
"I feel as you do in dreams when you're trying to run and can only drag your feet," said Anne drearily. "If it were only now and then . . . but it's every day. Meal times are perfect horrors now. Gilbert says he can't carve roasts any more."
"He'd notice that," sniffed Miss Cornelia.
"We can never have any real conversations at meals because she is sure to say something disagreeable every time anyone speaks. She corrects the children for their manners continually and always calls attention to their faults before company. We used to have such pleasant meals . . . and now! She resents laughter . . . and you know what we are for laughing. Somebody is always seeing a joke . . . or used to be. She can't let anything pass. Today she said, 'Gilbert, don't sulk. Have you and Annie quarrelled?' Just because we were quiet. You know Gilbert is always a little depressed when he loses a patient he thinks ought to have lived. And then she lectured us on our folly and warned us not to let the sun go down on our wrath. Oh, we laughed at it afterwards . . . but just at the time! She and Susan don't get along. And we can't keep Susan from muttering asides that are the reverse of polite. She more than muttered when Aunt Mary Maria told her she had never seen such a liar as Walter . . . because she heard him telling Di a long tale about meeting the man in the moon and what they said to each other. She wanted to scour his mouth out with soap and water. She and Susan had a battle royal that time. And she is filling the children's minds with all sorts of gruesome ideas. She told Nan about a child who was naughty and died in its sleep and Nan is afraid to go to sleep now. She told Di that if she were always a good girl her parents would come to love her as well as they loved Nan, even if she did have red hair. Gilbert really was very angry when he heard that and spoke to her sharply. I couldn't help hoping she'd take offence and go . . . even though I would hate to have anyone leave my home because she was offended. But she just let those big blue eyes of her fill with tears and said she didn't mean any harm. She'd always heard that twins were never loved equally and she'd been thinking we favoured Nan and that poor Di felt it! She cried all night about it and Gilbert felt that he had been a brute . . . and apologized."
"He would!" said Miss Cornelia.
"Oh, I shouldn't be talking like this, Miss Cornelia. When I 'count my mercies' I feel it's very petty of me to mind these things . . . even if they do rub a little bloom off life. And she isn't always hateful . . . she is quite nice by spells . . ."
"Do you tell me so?" said Miss Cornelia sarcastically.
"Yes . . . and kind. She heard me say I wanted an afternoon tea-set and she went to Toronto and got me one . . . by mail order! And, oh, Miss Cornelia, it's so ugly!"
Anne gave a laugh that ended in a sob. Then she laughed again.
"Now we won't talk of her any more . . . it doesn't seem so bad now that I've blurted this all out . . . like a baby. Look at wee Rilla, Miss Cornelia. Aren't her lashes darling when she is asleep? Now let's have a good gab-fest."
Anne was herself again by the time Miss Cornelia had gone. Nevertheless she sat thoughtfully before her fire for some time. She had not told Miss Cornelia all of it. She had never told Gilbert any of it. There were so many little things. . . .
"So little I can't complain of them," thought Anne. "And yet . . . it's the little things that fret the holes in life . . . like moths . . . and ruin it."
Aunt Mary Maria with her trick of acting the hostess . . . Aunt Mary Maria inviting guests and never saying a word about it till they came. . . . "She makes me feel as if I didn't belong in my own home." Aunt Mary Maria moving the furniture around when Anne was out. "I hope you don't mind, Annie; I thought we need the table so much more here than in the library." Aunt Mary Maria's insatiable childish curiosity about everything . . . her point-blank questions about intimate matters . . . "always coming into my room without knocking . . . always smelling smoke . . . always plumping up the cushions I've crushed . . . always implying that I gossip too much with Susan . . . always picking at the children . . . . We have to be at them all the time to make them behave and then we can't manage it always."
"Ugly old Aunt Maywia," Shirley had said distinctly one dreadful day. Gilbert had been going to spank him for it, but Susan had risen up in outraged majesty and forbade it.
"We're cowed," thought Anne. "This household is beginning to revolve around the question, 'Will Aunt Mary Maria like it?' We won't admit it but it's true. Anything rather than have her wiping tears nobly away. It just can't go on."
Then Anne remembered what Miss Cornelia had said . . . that Mary Maria Blythe had never had a friend. How terrible! Out of her own richness of friendships Anne felt a sudden rush of compassion for this woman who had never had a friend . . . who had nothing before her but a lonely, restless old age with no one coming to her for shelter or healing, for hope and help, for warmth and love. Surely they could have patience with her. These annoyances were only superficial, after all. They could not poison the deep springs of life.
"I've just had a terrible spasm of being sorry for myself, that's all," said Anne, picking Rilla out of her basket and thrilling to the little round satin cheek against hers. "It's over now and I'm wholesomely ashamed of it."