XXI
Sweet Miss Lavendar
School opened and Anne returned to her work, with fewer theories butconsiderably more experience. She had several new pupils, six- andseven-year-olds just venturing, round-eyed, into a world of wonder.Among them were Davy and Dora. Davy sat with Milty Boulter, who had beengoing to school for a year and was therefore quite a man of the world.Dora had made a compact at Sunday School the previous Sunday to sitwith Lily Sloane; but Lily Sloane not coming the first day, she wastemporarily assigned to Mirabel Cotton, who was ten years old andtherefore, in Dora's eyes, one of the "big girls."
"I think school is great fun," Davy told Marilla when he got home thatnight. "You said I'd find it hard to sit still and I did . . . you mostlydo tell the truth, I notice . . . but you can wriggle your legs aboutunder the desk and that helps a lot. It's splendid to have so many boysto play with. I sit with Milty Boulter and he's fine. He's longer thanme but I'm wider. It's nicer to sit in the back seats but you can't sitthere till your legs grow long enough to touch the floor. Milty drawed apicture of Anne on his slate and it was awful ugly and I told him if hemade pictures of Anne like that I'd lick him at recess. I thought firstI'd draw one of him and put horns and a tail on it, but I was afraid itwould hurt his feelings, and Anne says you should never hurt anyone'sfeelings. It seems it's dreadful to have your feelings hurt. It's betterto knock a boy down than hurt his feelings if you MUST do something.Milty said he wasn't scared of me but he'd just as soon call it somebodyelse to 'blige me, so he rubbed out Anne's name and printed BarbaraShaw's under it. Milty doesn't like Barbara 'cause she calls him a sweetlittle boy and once she patted him on his head."
Dora said primly that she liked school; but she was very quiet, evenfor her; and when at twilight Marilla bade her go upstairs to bed shehesitated and began to cry.
"I'm . . . I'm frightened," she sobbed. "I . . . I don't want to goupstairs alone in the dark."
"What notion have you got into your head now?" demanded Marilla. "I'msure you've gone to bed alone all summer and never been frightenedbefore."
Dora still continued to cry, so Anne picked her up, cuddled hersympathetically, and whispered,
"Tell Anne all about it, sweetheart. What are you frightened of?"
"Of . . . of Mirabel Cotton's uncle," sobbed Dora. "Mirabel Cotton told meall about her family today in school. Nearly everybody in her family hasdied . . . all her grandfathers and grandmothers and ever so many unclesand aunts. They have a habit of dying, Mirabel says. Mirabel's awfulproud of having so many dead relations, and she told me what they alldied of, and what they said, and how they looked in their coffins. AndMirabel says one of her uncles was seen walking around the house afterhe was buried. Her mother saw him. I don't mind the rest so much but Ican't help thinking about that uncle."
Anne went upstairs with Dora and sat by her until she fell asleep. Thenext day Mirabel Cotton was kept in at recess and "gently but firmly"given to understand that when you were so unfortunate as to possess anuncle who persisted in walking about houses after he had been decentlyinterred it was not in good taste to talk about that eccentric gentlemanto your deskmate of tender years. Mirabel thought this very harsh. TheCottons had not much to boast of. How was she to keep up her prestigeamong her schoolmates if she were forbidden to make capital out of thefamily ghost?
September slipped by into a gold and crimson graciousness of October.One Friday evening Diana came over.
"I'd a letter from Ella Kimball today, Anne, and she wants us to go overto tea tomorrow afternoon to meet her cousin, Irene Trent, from town.But we can't get one of our horses to go, for they'll all be in usetomorrow, and your pony is lame . . . so I suppose we can't go."
"Why can't we walk?" suggested Anne. "If we go straight back through thewoods we'll strike the West Grafton road not far from the Kimball place.I was through that way last winter and I know the road. It's no morethan four miles and we won't have to walk home, for Oliver Kimball willbe sure to drive us. He'll be only too glad of the excuse, for he goesto see Carrie Sloane and they say his father will hardly ever let himhave a horse."
It was accordingly arranged that they should walk, and the followingafternoon they set out, going by way of Lover's Lane to the back of theCuthbert farm, where they found a road leading into the heart of acresof glimmering beech and maple woods, which were all in a wondrous glowof flame and gold, lying in a great purple stillness and peace.
"It's as if the year were kneeling to pray in a vast cathedral full ofmellow stained light, isn't it?" said Anne dreamily. "It doesn't seemright to hurry through it, does it? It seems irreverent, like running ina church."
"We MUST hurry though," said Diana, glancing at her watch. "We've leftourselves little enough time as it is."
"Well, I'll walk fast but don't ask me to talk," said Anne, quickeningher pace. "I just want to drink the day's loveliness in . . . I feel as ifshe were holding it out to my lips like a cup of airy wine and I'll takea sip at every step."
Perhaps it was because she was so absorbed in "drinking it in" that Annetook the left turning when they came to a fork in the road. She shouldhave taken the right, but ever afterward she counted it the mostfortunate mistake of her life. They came out finally to a lonely, grassyroad, with nothing in sight along it but ranks of spruce saplings.
"Why, where are we?" exclaimed Diana in bewilderment. "This isn't theWest Grafton road."
"No, it's the base line road in Middle Grafton," said Anne, rathershamefacedly. "I must have taken the wrong turning at the fork. Idon't know where we are exactly, but we must be all of three miles fromKimballs' still."
"Then we can't get there by five, for it's half past four now," saidDiana, with a despairing look at her watch. "We'll arrive after theyhave had their tea, and they'll have all the bother of getting ours overagain."
"We'd better turn back and go home," suggested Anne humbly. But Diana,after consideration, vetoed this.
"No, we may as well go and spend the evening, since we have come thisfar."
A few yards further on the girls came to a place where the road forkedagain.
"Which of these do we take?" asked Diana dubiously.
Anne shook her head.
"I don't know and we can't afford to make any more mistakes. Here is agate and a lane leading right into the wood. There must be a house atthe other side. Let us go down and inquire."
"What a romantic old lane this it," said Diana, as they walked along itstwists and turns. It ran under patriarchal old firs whose branches metabove, creating a perpetual gloom in which nothing except moss couldgrow. On either hand were brown wood floors, crossed here and thereby fallen lances of sunlight. All was very still and remote, as if theworld and the cares of the world were far away.
"I feel as if we were walking through an enchanted forest," said Anne ina hushed tone. "Do you suppose we'll ever find our way back to thereal world again, Diana? We shall presently come to a palace with aspellbound princess in it, I think."
Around the next turn they came in sight, not indeed of a palace, but ofa little house almost as surprising as a palace would have been in thisprovince of conventional wooden farmhouses, all as much alike in generalcharacteristics as if they had grown from the same seed. Anne stoppedshort in rapture and Diana exclaimed, "Oh, I know where we are now.That is the little stone house where Miss Lavendar Lewis lives . . . EchoLodge, she calls it, I think. I've often heard of it but I've never seenit before. Isn't it a romantic spot?"
"It's the sweetest, prettiest place I ever saw or imagined," said Annedelightedly. "It looks like a bit out of a story book or a dream."
The house was a low-eaved structure built of undressed blocks of redIsland sandstone, with a little peaked roof out of which peered twodormer windows, with quaint wooden hoods over them, and two greatchimneys. The whole house was covered with a luxuriant growth of ivy,finding easy foothold on the rough stonework and turned by autumn froststo most beautiful bronze and wine-red tints.
Before th
e house was an oblong garden into which the lane gate wherethe girls were standing opened. The house bounded it on one side; onthe three others it was enclosed by an old stone dyke, so overgrown withmoss and grass and ferns that it looked like a high, green bank. On theright and left the tall, dark spruces spread their palm-like branchesover it; but below it was a little meadow, green with clover aftermath,sloping down to the blue loop of the Grafton River. No other house orclearing was in sight . . . nothing but hills and valleys covered withfeathery young firs.
"I wonder what sort of a person Miss Lewis is," speculated Diana as theyopened the gate into the garden. "They say she is very peculiar."
"She'll be interesting then," said Anne decidedly. "Peculiar people arealways that at least, whatever else they are or are not. Didn't I tellyou we would come to an enchanted palace? I knew the elves hadn't wovenmagic over that lane for nothing."
"But Miss Lavendar Lewis is hardly a spellbound princess," laughedDiana. "She's an old maid . . . she's forty-five and quite gray, I'veheard."
"Oh, that's only part of the spell," asserted Anne confidently. "Atheart she's young and beautiful still . . . and if we only knew how tounloose the spell she would step forth radiant and fair again. But wedon't know how . . . it's always and only the prince who knows that. . . and Miss Lavendar's prince hasn't come yet. Perhaps some fatalmischance has befallen him . . . though THAT'S against the law of allfairy tales."
"I'm afraid he came long ago and went away again," said Diana. "They sayshe used to be engaged to Stephan Irving . . . Paul's father . . . whenthey were young. But they quarreled and parted."
"Hush," warned Anne. "The door is open."
The girls paused in the porch under the tendrils of ivy and knockedat the open door. There was a patter of steps inside and a rather oddlittle personage presented herself . . . a girl of about fourteen, with afreckled face, a snub nose, a mouth so wide that it did really seem asif it stretched "from ear to ear," and two long braids of fair hair tiedwith two enormous bows of blue ribbon.
"Is Miss Lewis at home?" asked Diana.
"Yes, ma'am. Come in, ma'am. I'll tell Miss Lavendar you're here, ma'am.She's upstairs, ma'am."
With this the small handmaiden whisked out of sight and the girls,left alone, looked about them with delighted eyes. The interior of thiswonderful little house was quite as interesting as its exterior.
The room had a low ceiling and two square, small-paned windows,curtained with muslin frills. All the furnishings were old-fashioned,but so well and daintily kept that the effect was delicious. But it mustbe candidly admitted that the most attractive feature, to two healthygirls who had just tramped four miles through autumn air, was a table,set out with pale blue china and laden with delicacies, while littlegolden-hued ferns scattered over the cloth gave it what Anne would havetermed "a festal air."
"Miss Lavendar must be expecting company to tea," she whispered. "Thereare six places set. But what a funny little girl she has. She lookedlike a messenger from pixy land. I suppose she could have told us theroad, but I was curious to see Miss Lavendar. S . . . s . . . sh, she'scoming."
And with that Miss Lavendar Lewis was standing in the doorway. The girlswere so surprised that they forgot good manners and simply stared.They had unconsciously been expecting to see the usual type of elderlyspinster as known to their experience . . . a rather angular personage,with prim gray hair and spectacles. Nothing more unlike Miss Lavendarcould possibly be imagined.
She was a little lady with snow-white hair beautifully wavy and thick,and carefully arranged in becoming puffs and coils. Beneath it was analmost girlish face, pink cheeked and sweet lipped, with big soft browneyes and dimples . . . actually dimples. She wore a very dainty gown ofcream muslin with pale-hued roses on it . . . a gown which would haveseemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age, but which suitedMiss Lavendar so perfectly that you never thought about it at all.
"Charlotta the Fourth says that you wished to see me," she said, in avoice that matched her appearance.
"We wanted to ask the right road to West Grafton," said Diana. "Weare invited to tea at Mr. Kimball's, but we took the wrong path comingthrough the woods and came out to the base line instead of the WestGrafton road. Do we take the right or left turning at your gate?"
"The left," said Miss Lavendar, with a hesitating glance at her teatable. Then she exclaimed, as if in a sudden little burst of resolution,
"But oh, won't you stay and have tea with me? Please, do. Mr. Kimball'swill have tea over before you get there. And Charlotta the Fourth and Iwill be so glad to have you."
Diana looked mute inquiry at Anne.
"We'd like to stay," said Anne promptly, for she had made up her mindthat she wanted to know more of this surprising Miss Lavendar, "if itwon't inconvenience you. But you are expecting other guests, aren'tyou?"
Miss Lavendar looked at her tea table again, and blushed.
"I know you'll think me dreadfully foolish," she said. "I AM foolish. . . and I'm ashamed of it when I'm found out, but never unless I AMfound out. I'm not expecting anybody . . . I was just pretending I was.You see, I was so lonely. I love company . . . that is, the right kindof company.. .but so few people ever come here because it is so far outof the way. Charlotta the Fourth was lonely too. So I just pretended Iwas going to have a tea party. I cooked for it . . . and decorated thetable for it.. . and set it with my mother's wedding china . . . and Idressed up for it." Diana secretly thought Miss Lavendar quite aspeculiar as report had pictured her. The idea of a woman of forty-fiveplaying at having a tea party, just as if she were a little girl! ButAnne of the shining eyes exclaimed joyfuly, "Oh, do YOU imagine thingstoo?"
That "too" revealed a kindred spirit to Miss Lavendar.
"Yes, I do," she confessed, boldly. "Of course it's silly in anybody asold as I am. But what is the use of being an independent old maid ifyou can't be silly when you want to, and when it doesn't hurt anybody?A person must have some compensations. I don't believe I could live attimes if I didn't pretend things. I'm not often caught at it though, andCharlotta the Fourth never tells. But I'm glad to be caught today, foryou have really come and I have tea all ready for you. Will you go up tothe spare room and take off your hats? It's the white door at the headof the stairs. I must run out to the kitchen and see that Charlotta theFourth isn't letting the tea boil. Charlotta the Fourth is a very goodgirl but she WILL let the tea boil."
Miss Lavendar tripped off to the kitchen on hospitable thoughts intentand the girls found their way up to the spare room, an apartment aswhite as its door, lighted by the ivy-hung dormer window and looking, asAnne said, like the place where happy dreams grew.
"This is quite an adventure, isn't it?" said Diana. "And isn't MissLavendar sweet, if she IS a little odd? She doesn't look a bit like anold maid."
"She looks just as music sounds, I think," answered Anne.
When they went down Miss Lavendar was carrying in the teapot, and behindher, looking vastly pleased, was Charlotta the Fourth, with a plate ofhot biscuits.
"Now, you must tell me your names," said Miss Lavendar. "I'm so glad youare young girls. I love young girls. It's so easy to pretend I'm a girlmyself when I'm with them. I do hate" . . . with a little grimace . . . "tobelieve I'm old. Now, who are you . . . just for convenience' sake? DianaBarry? And Anne Shirley? May I pretend that I've known you for a hundredyears and call you Anne and Diana right away?"
"You, may" the girls said both together.
"Then just let's sit comfily down and eat everything," said MissLavendar happily. "Charlotta, you sit at the foot and help with thechicken. It is so fortunate that I made the sponge cake and doughnuts.Of course, it was foolish to do it for imaginary guests . . . I knowCharlotta the Fourth thought so, didn't you, Charlotta? But you see howwell it has turned out. Of course they wouldn't have been wasted, forCharlotta the Fourth and I could have eaten them through time. Butsponge cake is not a thing that improves with time."
That was a merry and mem
orable meal; and when it was over they all wentout to the garden, lying in the glamor of sunset.
"I do think you have the loveliest place here," said Diana, lookinground her admiringly.
"Why do you call it Echo Lodge?" asked Anne.
"Charlotta," said Miss Lavendar, "go into the house and bring out thelittle tin horn that is hanging over the clock shelf."
Charlotta the Fourth skipped off and returned with the horn.
"Blow it, Charlotta," commanded Miss Lavendar.
Charlotta accordingly blew, a rather raucous, strident blast. There wasmoment's stillness . . . and then from the woods over the river came amultitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery, as if all the "hornsof elfland" were blowing against the sunset. Anne and Diana exclaimed indelight.
"Now laugh, Charlotta . . . laugh loudly."
Charlotta, who would probably have obeyed if Miss Lavendar had told herto stand on her head, climbed upon the stone bench and laughed loudand heartily. Back came the echoes, as if a host of pixy people weremimicking her laughter in the purple woodlands and along the fir-fringedpoints.
"People always admire my echoes very much," said Miss Lavendar, as ifthe echoes were her personal property. "I love them myself. Theyare very good company . . . with a little pretending. On calm eveningsCharlotta the Fourth and I often sit out here and amuse ourselves withthem. Charlotta, take back the horn and hang it carefully in its place."
"Why do you call her Charlotta the Fourth?" asked Diana, who wasbursting with curiosity on this point.
"Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Charlottas in mythoughts," said Miss Lavendar seriously. "They all look so much alikethere's no telling them apart. Her name isn't really Charlotta at all.It is . . . let me see . . . what is it? I THINK it's Leonora . . . yes, itIS Leonora. You see, it is this way. When mother died ten years ago Icouldn't stay here alone . . . and I couldn't afford to pay the wages ofa grown-up girl. So I got little Charlotta Bowman to come and stay withme for board and clothes. Her name really was Charlotta . . . she wasCharlotta the First. She was just thirteen. She stayed with me tillshe was sixteen and then she went away to Boston, because she coulddo better there. Her sister came to stay with me then. Her name wasJulietta . . . Mrs. Bowman had a weakness for fancy names I think . . .but she looked so like Charlotta that I kept calling her that all thetime . . .and she didn't mind. So I just gave up trying to remember herright name. She was Charlotta the Second, and when she went away Evelinacame and she was Charlotta the Third. Now I have Charlotta the Fourth;but when she is sixteen . . . she's fourteen now . . . she will want togo to Boston too, and what I shall do then I really do not know.Charlotta the Fourth is the last of the Bowman girls, and the best. Theother Charlottas always let me see that they thought it silly of me topretend things but Charlotta the Fourth never does, no matter what shemay really think. I don't care what people think about me if they don'tlet me see it."
"Well," said Diana looking regretfully at the setting sun. "I supposewe must go if we want to get to Mr. Kimball's before dark. We've had alovely time, Miss Lewis."
"Won't you come again to see me?" pleaded Miss Lavendar.
Tall Anne put her arm about the little lady.
"Indeed we shall," she promised. "Now that we have discovered you we'llwear out our welcome coming to see you. Yes, we must go . . . 'we musttear ourselves away,' as Paul Irving says every time he comes to GreenGables."
"Paul Irving?" There was a subtle change in Miss Lavendar's voice. "Whois he? I didn't think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea."
Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness. She had forgotten about MissLavendar's old romance when Paul's name slipped out.
"He is a little pupil of mine," she explained slowly. "He came fromBoston last year to live with his grandmother, Mrs. Irving of the shoreroad."
"Is he Stephen Irving's son?" Miss Lavendar asked, bending over hernamesake border so that her face was hidden.
"Yes."
"I'm going to give you girls a bunch of lavendar apiece," said MissLavendar brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question."It's very sweet, don't you think? Mother always loved it. She plantedthese borders long ago. Father named me Lavendar because he was so fondof it. The very first time he saw mother was when he visited her home inEast Grafton with her brother. He fell in love with her at first sight;and they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets werescented with lavendar and he lay awake all night and thought of her. Healways loved the scent of lavendar after that . . . and that was why hegave me the name. Don't forget to come back soon, girls dear. We'll belooking for you, Charlotta the Fourth and I."
She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through. She lookedsuddenly old and tired; the glow and radiance had faded from her face;her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, butwhen the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw hersitting on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle ofthe garden with her head leaning wearily on her hand.
"She does look lonely," said Diana softly. "We must come often to seeher."
"I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that couldpossibly be given her," said Anne. "If they had been so blind as to nameher Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have been calledLavendar just the same, I think. It's so suggestive of sweetness andold-fashioned graces and 'silk attire.' Now, my name just smacks ofbread and butter, patchwork and chores."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Diana. "Anne seems to me real stately andlike a queen. But I'd like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be yourname. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they arethemselves. I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names now but before I knewthe Pye girls I thought them real pretty."
"That's a lovely idea, Diana," said Anne enthusiastically. "Living sothat you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with. . . making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely andpleasant that they never think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana."