XX
The Way It Often Happens
Anne rose betimes the next morning and blithely greeted the fresh day,when the banners of the sunrise were shaken triumphantly across thepearly skies. Green Gables lay in a pool of sunshine, flecked with thedancing shadows of poplar and willow. Beyond the land was Mr. Harrison'swheatfield, a great, windrippled expanse of pale gold. The world wasso beautiful that Anne spent ten blissful minutes hanging idly over thegarden gate drinking the loveliness in.
After breakfast Marilla made ready for her journey. Dora was to go withher, having been long promised this treat.
"Now, Davy, you try to be a good boy and don't bother Anne," shestraitly charged him. "If you are good I'll bring you a striped candycane from town."
For alas, Marilla had stooped to the evil habit of bribing people to begood!
"I won't be bad on purpose, but s'posen I'm bad zacksidentally?" Davywanted to know.
"You'll have to guard against accidents," admonished Marilla. "Anne, ifMr. Shearer comes today get a nice roast and some steak. If he doesn'tyou'll have to kill a fowl for dinner tomorrow."
Anne nodded.
"I'm not going to bother cooking any dinner for just Davy and myselftoday," she said. "That cold ham bone will do for noon lunch and I'llhave some steak fried for you when you come home at night."
"I'm going to help Mr. Harrison haul dulse this morning," announcedDavy. "He asked me to, and I guess he'll ask me to dinner too. Mr.Harrison is an awful kind man. He's a real sociable man. I hope I'll belike him when I grow up. I mean BEHAVE like him . . . I don't want to LOOKlike him. But I guess there's no danger, for Mrs. Lynde says I'm a veryhandsome child. Do you s'pose it'll last, Anne? I want to know?"
"I daresay it will," said Anne gravely. "You ARE a handsome boy, Davy," . . . Marilla looked volumes of disapproval . . . "but you must live up toit and be just as nice and gentlemanly as you look to be."
"And you told Minnie May Barry the other day, when you found her crying'cause some one said she was ugly, that if she was nice and kind andloving people wouldn't mind her looks," said Davy discontentedly. "Seemsto me you can't get out of being good in this world for some reason or'nother. You just HAVE to behave."
"Don't you want to be good?" asked Marilla, who had learned a great dealbut had not yet learned the futility of asking such questions.
"Yes, I want to be good but not TOO good," said Davy cautiously. "Youdon't have to be very good to be a Sunday School superintendent. Mr.Bell's that, and he's a real bad man."
"Indeed he's not," said Marila indignantly.
"He is . . . he says he is himself," asseverated Davy. "He said it whenhe prayed in Sunday School last Sunday. He said he was a vile worm anda miserable sinner and guilty of the blackest 'niquity. What did he dothat was so bad, Marilla? Did he kill anybody? Or steal the collectioncents? I want to know."
Fortunately Mrs. Lynde came driving up the lane at this moment andMarilla made off, feeling that she had escaped from the snare of thefowler, and wishing devoutly that Mr. Bell were not quite so highlyfigurative in his public petitions, especially in the hearing of smallboys who were always "wanting to know."
Anne, left alone in her glory, worked with a will. The floor was swept,the beds made, the hens fed, the muslin dress washed and hung out on theline. Then Anne prepared for the transfer of feathers. She mounted tothe garret and donned the first old dress that came to hand . . . a navyblue cashmere she had worn at fourteen. It was decidedly on the shortside and as "skimpy" as the notable wincey Anne had worn upon theoccasion of her debut at Green Gables; but at least it would not bematerially injured by down and feathers. Anne completed her toilet bytying a big red and white spotted handkerchief that had belonged toMatthew over her head, and, thus accoutred, betook herself to thekitchen chamber, whither Marilla, before her departure, had helped hercarry the feather bed.
A cracked mirror hung by the chamber window and in an unlucky momentAnne looked into it. There were those seven freckles on her nose,more rampant than ever, or so it seemed in the glare of light from theunshaded window.
"Oh, I forgot to rub that lotion on last night," she thought. "I'dbetter run down to the pantry and do it now."
Anne had already suffered many things trying to remove those freckles.On one occasion the entire skin had peeled off her nose but the frecklesremained. A few days previously she had found a recipe for a frecklelotion in a magazine and, as the ingredients were within her reach, shestraightway compounded it, much to the disgust of Marilla, who thoughtthat if Providence had placed freckles on your nose it was your boundenduty to leave them there.
Anne scurried down to the pantry, which, always dim from the big willowgrowing close to the window, was now almost dark by reason of the shadedrawn to exclude flies. Anne caught the bottle containing the lotionfrom the shelf and copiously anointed her nose therewith by means ofa little sponge sacred to the purpose. This important duty done, shereturned to her work. Any one who has ever shifted feathers from onetick to another will not need to be told that when Anne finished shewas a sight to behold. Her dress was white with down and fluff, and herfront hair, escaping from under the handkerchief, was adorned with averitable halo of feathers. At this auspicious moment a knock sounded atthe kitchen door.
"That must be Mr. Shearer," thought Anne. "I'm in a dreadful mess butI'll have to run down as I am, for he's always in a hurry."
Down flew Anne to the kitchen door. If ever a charitable floor did opento swallow up a miserable, befeathered damsel the Green Gables porchfloor should promptly have engulfed Anne at that moment. On the doorstepwere standing Priscilla Grant, golden and fair in silk attire, a short,stout gray-haired lady in a tweed suit, and another lady, tallstately, wonderfully gowned, with a beautiful, highbred face and large,black-lashed violet eyes, whom Anne "instinctively felt," as she wouldhave said in her earlier days, to be Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan.
In the dismay of the moment one thought stood out from the confusion ofAnne's mind and she grasped at it as at the proverbial straw. All Mrs.Morgan's heroines were noted for "rising to the occasion." No matterwhat their troubles were, they invariably rose to the occasion andshowed their superiority over all ills of time, space, and quantity.Anne therefore felt it was HER duty to rise to the occasion and she didit, so perfectly that Priscilla afterward declared she never admiredAnne Shirley more than at that moment. No matter what her outragedfeelings were she did not show them. She greeted Priscilla and wasintroduced to her companions as calmly and composedly as if she had beenarrayed in purple and fine linen. To be sure, it was somewhat of a shockto find that the lady she had instinctively felt to be Mrs. Morgan wasnot Mrs. Morgan at all, but an unknown Mrs. Pendexter, while the stoutlittle gray-haired woman was Mrs. Morgan; but in the greater shock thelesser lost its power. Anne ushered her guests to the spare room andthence into the parlor, where she left them while she hastened out tohelp Priscilla unharness her horse.
"It's dreadful to come upon you so unexpectedly as this," apologizedPriscilla, "but I did not know till last night that we were coming. AuntCharlotte is going away Monday and she had promised to spend today witha friend in town. But last night her friend telephoned to her not tocome because they were quarantined for scarlet fever. So I suggested wecome here instead, for I knew you were longing to see her. We calledat the White Sands Hotel and brought Mrs. Pendexter with us. She is afriend of aunt's and lives in New York and her husband is a millionaire.We can't stay very long, for Mrs. Pendexter has to be back at the hotelby five o'clock."
Several times while they were putting away the horse Anne caughtPriscilla looking at her in a furtive, puzzled way.
"She needn't stare at me so," Anne thought a little resentfully. "If shedoesn't KNOW what it is to change a feather bed she might IMAGINE it."
When Priscilla had gone to the parlor, and before Anne could escapeupstairs, Diana walked into the kitchen. Anne caught her astonishedfriend by the arm.
"Diana Barry, who do you suppose is in that
parlor at this very moment?Mrs. Charlotte E. Morgan . . . and a New York millionaire's wife . . . andhere I am like THIS . . . and NOT A THING IN THE HOUSE FOR DINNER BUT ACOLD HAM BONE, Diana!"
By this time Anne had become aware that Diana was staring at her inprecisely the same bewildered fashion as Priscilla had done. It wasreally too much.
"Oh, Diana, don't look at me so," she implored. "YOU, at least, mustknow that the neatest person in the world couldn't empty feathers fromone tick into another and remain neat in the process."
"It . . . it . . . isn't the feathers," hesitated Diana. "It's . . .it's . . . your nose, Anne."
"My nose? Oh, Diana, surely nothing has gone wrong with it!"
Anne rushed to the little looking glass over the sink. One glancerevealed the fatal truth. Her nose was a brilliant scarlet!
Anne sat down on the sofa, her dauntless spirit subdued at last.
"What is the matter with it?" asked Diana, curiosity overcomingdelicacy.
"I thought I was rubbing my freckle lotion on it, but I must have usedthat red dye Marilla has for marking the pattern on her rugs," was thedespairing response. "What shall I do?"
"Wash it off," said Diana practically.
"Perhaps it won't wash off. First I dye my hair; then I dye my nose.Marilla cut my hair off when I dyed it but that remedy would hardly bepracticable in this case. Well, this is another punishment for vanityand I suppose I deserve it . . . though there's not much comfort in THAT.It is really almost enough to make one believe in ill-luck, though Mrs.Lynde says there is no such thing, because everything is foreordained."
Fortunately the dye washed off easily and Anne, somewhat consoled,betook herself to the east gable while Diana ran home. Presently Annecame down again, clothed and in her right mind. The muslin dress she hadfondly hoped to wear was bobbing merrily about on the line outside, soshe was forced to content herself with her black lawn. She had the fireon and the tea steeping when Diana returned; the latter wore HER muslin,at least, and carried a covered platter in her hand.
"Mother sent you this," she said, lifting the cover and displaying anicely carved and jointed chicken to Anne's greatful eyes.
The chicken was supplemented by light new bread, excellent butter andcheese, Marilla's fruit cake and a dish of preserved plums, floatingin their golden syrup as in congealed summer sunshine. There was a bigbowlful of pink-and-white asters also, by way of decoration; yet thespread seemed very meager beside the elaborate one formerly prepared forMrs. Morgan.
Anne's hungry guests, however, did not seem to think anything waslacking and they ate the simple viands with apparent enjoyment. Butafter the first few moments Anne thought no more of what was or wasnot on her bill of fare. Mrs. Morgan's appearance might be somewhatdisappointing, as even her loyal worshippers had been forced to admit toeach other; but she proved to be a delightful conversationalist. She hadtraveled extensively and was an excellent storyteller. She had seenmuch of men and women, and crystalized her experiences into witty littlesentences and epigrams which made her hearers feel as if they werelistening to one of the people in clever books. But under all hersparkle there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true, womanly sympathyand kindheartedness which won affection as easily as her brilliancywon admiration. Nor did she monopolize the conversation. She could drawothers out as skillfully and fully as she could talk herself, and Anneand Diana found themselves chattering freely to her. Mrs. Pendexter saidlittle; she merely smiled with her lovely eyes and lips, and ate chickenand fruit cake and preserves with such exquisite grace that she conveyedthe impression of dining on ambrosia and honeydew. But then, as Annesaid to Diana later on, anybody so divinely beautiful as Mrs. Pendexterdidn't need to talk; it was enough for her just to LOOK.
After dinner they all had a walk through Lover's Lane and Violet Valeand the Birch Path, then back through the Haunted Wood to the Dryad'sBubble, where they sat down and talked for a delightful last half hour.Mrs. Morgan wanted to know how the Haunted Wood came by its name, andlaughed until she cried when she heard the story and Anne's dramaticaccount of a certain memorable walk through it at the witching hour oftwilight.
"It has indeed been a feast of reason and flow of soul, hasn't it?" saidAnne, when her guests had gone and she and Diana were alone again. "Idon't know which I enjoyed more . . . listening to Mrs. Morgan or gazingat Mrs. Pendexter. I believe we had a nicer time than if we'd known theywere coming and been cumbered with much serving. You must stay to teawith me, Diana, and we'll talk it all over."
"Priscilla says Mrs. Pendexter's husband's sister is married to anEnglish earl; and yet she took a second helping of the plum preserves,"said Diana, as if the two facts were somehow incompatible.
"I daresay even the English earl himself wouldn't have turned up hisaristocratic nose at Marilla's plum preserves," said Anne proudly.
Anne did not mention the misfortune which had befallen HER nose whenshe related the day's history to Marilla that evening. But she took thebottle of freckle lotion and emptied it out of the window.
"I shall never try any beautifying messes again," she said, darklyresolute. "They may do for careful, deliberate people; but for anyone sohopelessly given over to making mistakes as I seem to be it's temptingfate to meddle with them."