Chapter 21 Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Montgomery
April came tiptoeing in beautifully that year with sunshine and soft winds for a few days; and then a driving northeast snowstorm dropped a white blanket over the world again. "Snow in April is abominable," said Anne. "Like a slap in the face when you expected a kiss." Ingleside was fringed with icicles and for two long weeks the days were raw and the nights hard-bitten. Then the snow grudgingly disappeared and when the news went round that the first robin had been seen in the Hollow Ingleside plucked up heart and ventured to believe that the miracle of spring was really going to happen again.
"Oh, Mummy, it smells like spring today," cried Nan, delightedly snuffing the fresh moist air. "Mummy, isn't spring an exciting time!"
Spring was trying out her paces that day . . . like an adorable baby just learning to walk. The winter pattern of trees and fields was beginning to be overlaid with hints of green and Jem had again brought in the first mayflowers. But an enormously fat lady, sinking puffingly into one of the Ingleside easy-chairs, sighed and said sadly that the springs weren't so nice as they were when she was young.
"Don't you think perhaps the change is in us . . . not in the springs, Mrs. Mitchell?" smiled Anne.
"Mebbe so. I know I am changed, all too well. I don't suppose to look at me now you'd think I was once the prettiest girl in these parts."
Anne reflected that she certainly wouldn't. The thin, stringy, mouse-coloured hair under Mrs. Mitchell's crape bonnet and long sweeping "widow's veil" was streaked with grey; her blue, expressionless eyes were faded and hollow; and to call her double chin chinned erred on the side of charity. But Mrs. Anthony Mitchell was feeling quite contented with herself just then for nobody in Four Winds had finer weeds. Her voluminous black dress was crape to the knees. One wore mourning in those days with a vengeance.
Anne was spared the necessity of saying anything, for Mrs. Mitchell gave her no chance.
"My soft water system went dry this week . . . there's a leak in it . . . so I kem down to the village this morning to get Raymond Russell to come and fix it. And thinks I to myself, 'Now that I'm here I'll just run up to Ingleside and ask Mrs. Dr. Blythe to write an obitchery for Anthony."
"An obituary?" said Anne blankly.
"Yes . . . them things they put in the papers about dead people, you know," explained Mrs. Anthony. "I want Anthony should have a real good one . . . something out of the common. You write things, don't you?"
"Occasionally I do write a little story," admitted Anne. "But a busy mother hasn't much time for that. I had wonderful dreams once but now I'm afraid I'll never be in Who's Who, Mrs. Mitchell. And I never wrote an obituary in my life."
"Oh, they can't be hard to write. Old Uncle Charlie Bates over our way writes most of them for the Lower Glen, but he ain't a bit poetical and I've set my heart on a piece of poetry for Anthony. My, but he was always so fond of poetry. I was up to hear you give that talk on bandages to the Glen Institute last week and thinks I to myself, 'Anyone who can talk as glib as that can likely write a real poetical obitchery.' You will do it for me, won't you, Mrs. Blythe? Anthony would have liked it. He always admired you. He said once that when you come into a room you made all the other women look 'common and undistinguished.' He sometimes talked real poetical but he meant well. I've been reading a lot of obitcheries . . . I have a big scrapbook full of them . . . but it didn't seem to me he'd have liked any of them. He used to laugh at them so much. And it's time it was done. He's been dead two months. He died lingering but painless. Coming on spring's an inconvenient time for anyone to die, Mrs. Blythe, but I've made the best of it. I s'pose Uncle Charlie will be hopping mad if I get anyone else to write Anthony's obitchery but I don't care. Uncle Charlie has a wonderful flow of language but him and Anthony never hit it off any too well and the long and short of it is I'm not going to have him write Anthony's obitchery. I've been Anthony's wife . . . his faithful and loving wife for thirty-five years . . . thirty-five years, Mrs. Blythe," . . . as if she were afraid Anne might think of only thirty-four . . . "and I'm going to have an obitchery he'd like if it takes a leg. That was what my daughter Seraphine said to me--she's married at Lowbridge, you know . . . nice name, Seraphine, isn't it? . . . I got it off a gravestone. Anthony didn't like it . . . he wanted to call her Judith after his mother. But I said it was too solemn a name and he give in real kindly. He weren't no hand for arguing . . . though he always called her Seraph . . . where was I?"
"Your daughter was saying . . ."
"Oh, yes, Seraphine said to me, 'Mother, whatever else you have or don't have, have a real nice obitchery for Father.' Her and her father were always real thick, though he poked a bit of fun at her now and then, just as he did at me. Now, won't you, Mrs. Blythe?"
"I really don't know a great deal about your husband, Mrs. Mitchell."
"Oh, I can tell you all about him . . . if you don't want to know the colour of his eyes. Do you know, Mrs. Blythe, when Seraphine and me was talking things over after the funeral I couldn't tell the colour of his eyes, after living with him thirty-five years. They was kind of soft and dreamy anyhow. He used to look so pleading with them when he was courting me. He had a real hard time to get me, Mrs. Blythe. He was mad about me for years. I was full of bounce then and meant to pick and choose. My life story would be real thrilling if you ever get short of material, Mrs. Blythe. Ah well, them days are gone. I had more beaus than you could shake a stick at. But they kept coming and going . . . and Anthony just kept coming. He was kind of good-looking, too . . . such a nice lean man. I never could abide pudgy men . . . and he was a cut or two above me . . . I'd be the last one to deny that. 'It'll be a step up for a Plummer if you marry a Mitchell,' Ma said . . . I was a Plummer, Mrs. Blythe . . . John A. Plummer's daughter. And he paid me such nice romantic compliments, Mrs. Blythe. Once he told me I had the ethereal charm of moonlight. I knew it meant something nice though I don't know yet what 'ethereal' means. I've always been meaning to look it up in the dictionary but I never get around to it. Well, anyway, in the end I passed my word of honour that I would be his bride. That is . . . I mean . . . I said I'd take him. My, but I wish you could have seen me in my wedding-dress, Mrs. Blythe. They all said I was a picture. Slim as a trout with hair yaller as gold, and such a complexion. Ah, time makes turrible changes in us. You haven't come to that yet, Mrs. Blythe. You're real pretty still . . . and a highly eddicated woman into the bargain. Ah well, we can't all be clever . . . some of us have to do the cooking. That dress you've got on is real handsome, Mrs. Blythe. You never wear black, I notice . . . you're right . . . you'll have to wear it soon enough. Put it off till you have to, I say. Well, where was I?"
"You were . . . trying to tell me something about Mr. Mitchell."
"Oh, yes. Well, we were married. There was a big comet that night . . . I remember seeing it as we drove home. It's a real pity you couldn't have seen that comet, Mrs. Blythe. It was simply pretty. I don't suppose you could work it into the obitchery, could you?"
"It . . . might be rather difficult . . ."
"Well," Mrs. Mitchell surrendered the comet with a sigh, "you'll have to do the best you can. He hadn't a very exciting life. He got drunk once . . . he said he just wanted to see what it was like for once . . . he was always of an inquiring turn of mind. But of course you couldn't put that in an obitchery. Nothing much else ever happened to him. Not to complain, but just to state facts he was a bit shiftless and easy-going. He would sit for an hour looking into a hollyhock. My, but he was fond of flowers . . . hated to mow down the buttercups. No matter if the wheat crop failed as long as there was farewell-summers and goldenrod. And trees . . . that orchard of his . . . I always told him, joking like, that he cared more for his trees than for me. And his farm . . . my, but he loved his bit of land. He seemed to think it was a human being. Many's the time I've heard him say, 'I think I'll go out and have a little talk to my farm.' When we got old I wanted him to sell, seeing as we had no boys, and retire to Lowbridge, but he would say, 'I can't sell my farm . . . I can't sell my heart.' Ain't men funny? Not long before he died he took a notion to have a boiled hen for dinner, 'cooked in that way you have,' says he. He was always partial to my cooking, if I do say it. The only thing he couldn't abide was my lettuce salad with nuts in it. He said the nuts was so durned unexpected. But there wasn't a hen to spare . . . they was all laying good . . . and there was only one rooster left and of course I couldn't kill him. My, but I like to see the roosters strutting round. Ain't anything much handsomer than a fine rooster, do you think, Mrs. Blythe? Well, where was I?"
"You were saying your husband wanted you to cook a hen for him."
"Oh, yes. And I've been so sorry ever since I didn't. I wake up in the night and think of it. But I didn't know he was going to die, Mrs. Blythe. He never complained much and always said he was better. And interested in things to the last. If I'd a-known he was going to die, Mrs. Blythe, I'd have cooked a hen for him, eggs or no eggs."
Mrs. Mitchell removed her rusty black lace mitts and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, black-bordered a full two inches.
"He'd have enjoyed it," she sobbed. "He had his own teeth to the last, poor dear. Well, anyway" . . . folding the handkerchief and putting on the mitts, "he was sixty-five, so he weren't far from the allotted span. And I've got another coffin-plate. Mary Martha Plummer and me started collecting coffin-plates at the same time but she soon got ahead of me . . . so many of her relation died, not to speak of her three children. She's got more coffin-plates than anyone in these parts. I didn't seem to have much luck but I've got a full mantelpiece at last. My cousin, Thomas Bates, was buried last week and I wanted his wife to give me the coffin-plate, but she had it buried with him. Said collecting coffin-plates was a relic of barbarism. She was a Hampson and the Hampsons were always odd. Well, where was I?"
Anne really could not tell Mrs. Mitchell where she was this time. The coffin-plates had dazed her.
"Oh, well, anyway poor Anthony died. 'I go gladly and in quietness,' was all that he said but he smiled just at the last . . . at the ceiling, not at me nor Seraphine. I'm so glad he was so happy just afore he died. There were times I used to think perhaps he wasn't quite happy, Mrs. Blythe . . . he was so terrible high-strung and sensitive. But he looked real noble and sublime in his coffin. We had a grand funeral. It was just a lovely day. He was buried with loads of flowers. I took a sinking spell at the last but otherwise everything went off very well. We buried him in the Lower Glen graveyard though all his family were buried in Lowbridge. But he picked out his graveyard long ago . . . said he wanted to be buried near his farm and where he could hear the sea and the wind in the trees . . . there's trees around three sides of that graveyard, you know. I was glad, too . . . I always thought it was such a cosy little graveyard and we can keep geraniums growing on his grave. He was a good man . . . he's likely in Heaven now, so that needn't trouble you. I always think it must be some chore to write an obichery when you don't know where the departed is. I can depend on you, then, Mrs. Blythe?"
Anne consented, feeling that Mrs. Mitchell would stay there and talk until she did consent. Mrs. Mitchell, with another sigh of relief, heaved herself out of her chair.
"I must be stepping. I'm expecting a hatching of turkey poults today. I've enjoyed my conversation with you and I wish I could have stayed longer. It's lonesome being a widow woman. A man mayn't amount to an awful lot but you sort of miss him when he goes."
Anne politely saw her down the walk. The children were stalking robins on the lawn and daffodil tips were poking up everywhere.
"You've got a nice proud house here . . . a real nice proud house, Mrs. Blythe. I've always felt I'd like a big house. But with only us and Seraphine . . . and where was the money to come from? . . . and, anyway, Anthony'd never hear of it. He had an awful affection for that old house. I'm meaning to sell if I get a fair offer and live either in Lowbridge or Mowbray Narrows, whichever I decide would be the best place to be a widow in. Anthony's insurance will come in handy. Say what you like it's easier to bear a full sorrow than an empty one. You'll find that out when you're a widow yourself . . . though I hope that'll be a good few years yet. How is the doctor getting on? It's been a real sickly winter so he ought to have done pretty well. My, what a nice little family you've got! Three girls! Nice now, but wait you till they come to the boy-crazy age. Not that I'd much trouble with Seraphine. She was quiet . . . like her father . . . and stubborn like him. When she fell in love with John Whitaker, have him she would in spite of all I could say. A rowan tree? Whyn't you have it planted by the front door? It would keep the fairies out."
"But who would want to keep the fairies out, Mrs. Mitchell?"
"Now you're talking like Anthony. I was only joking. O' course I don't believe in fairies . . . but if they did happen to exist I've heard they were pesky mischievous. Well, good-bye, Mrs. Blythe. I'll call round next week for the obitchery."