CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise
|IT was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of theflower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde's and called Anne toaccount.
"Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hatrigged out ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth put youup to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must have been!"
"Oh. I know pink and yellow aren't becoming to me," began Anne.
"Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all,no matter what color they were, that was ridiculous. You are the mostaggravating child!"
"I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hatthan on your dress," protested Anne. "Lots of little girls there hadbouquets pinned on their dresses. What's the difference?"
Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into dubious paths ofthe abstract.
"Don't answer me back like that, Anne. It was very silly of you to dosuch a thing. Never let me catch you at such a trick again. Mrs. Rachelsays she thought she would sink through the floor when she saw you comein all rigged out like that. She couldn't get near enough to tell youto take them off till it was too late. She says people talked about itsomething dreadful. Of course they would think I had no better sensethan to let you go decked out like that."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. "I neverthought you'd mind. The roses and buttercups were so sweet and prettyI thought they'd look lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls hadartificial flowers on their hats. I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadfultrial to you. Maybe you'd better send me back to the asylum. That wouldbe terrible; I don't think I could endure it; most likely I would gointo consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you see. But that would bebetter than being a trial to you."
"Nonsense," said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the childcry. "I don't want to send you back to the asylum, I'm sure. All I wantis that you should behave like other little girls and not make yourselfridiculous. Don't cry any more. I've got some news for you. Diana Barrycame home this afternoon. I'm going up to see if I can borrow a skirtpattern from Mrs. Barry, and if you like you can come with me and getacquainted with Diana."
Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening onher cheeks; the dish towel she had been hemming slipped unheeded to thefloor.
"Oh, Marilla, I'm frightened--now that it has come I'm actuallyfrightened. What if she shouldn't like me! It would be the most tragicaldisappointment of my life."
"Now, don't get into a fluster. And I do wish you wouldn't use such longwords. It sounds so funny in a little girl. I guess Diana 'll like youwell enough. It's her mother you've got to reckon with. If she doesn'tlike you it won't matter how much Diana does. If she has heard aboutyour outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church with buttercups roundyour hat I don't know what she'll think of you. You must be polite andwell behaved, and don't make any of your startling speeches. For pity'ssake, if the child isn't actually trembling!"
Anne _was_ trembling. Her face was pale and tense.
"Oh, Marilla, you'd be excited, too, if you were going to meet a littlegirl you hoped to be your bosom friend and whose mother mightn't likeyou," she said as she hastened to get her hat.
They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and upthe firry hill grove. Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door in answer toMarilla's knock. She was a tall black-eyed, black-haired woman, with avery resolute mouth. She had the reputation of being very strict withher children.
"How do you do, Marilla?" she said cordially. "Come in. And this is thelittle girl you have adopted, I suppose?"
"Yes, this is Anne Shirley," said Marilla.
"Spelled with an E," gasped Anne, who, tremulous and excited as she was,was determined there should be no misunderstanding on that importantpoint.
Mrs. Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands andsaid kindly:
"How are you?"
"I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank youma'am," said Anne gravely. Then aside to Marilla in an audible whisper,"There wasn't anything startling in that, was there, Marilla?"
Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when thecallers entered. She was a very pretty little girl, with her mother'sblack eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and the merry expression which washer inheritance from her father.
"This is my little girl Diana," said Mrs. Barry. "Diana, you might takeAnne out into the garden and show her your flowers. It will be betterfor you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads entirelytoo much--" this to Marilla as the little girls went out--"and I can'tprevent her, for her father aids and abets her. She's always poring overa book. I'm glad she has the prospect of a playmate--perhaps it willtake her more out-of-doors."
Outside in the garden, which was full of mellow sunset light streamingthrough the dark old firs to the west of it, stood Anne and Diana,gazing bashfully at each other over a clump of gorgeous tiger lilies.
The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would havedelighted Anne's heart at any time less fraught with destiny. It wasencircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which flourishedflowers that loved the shade. Prim, right-angled paths neatly borderedwith clamshells, intersected it like moist red ribbons and in the bedsbetween old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There were rosy bleeding-heartsand great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny,sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tintedBouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purpleAdam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with itsdelicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shotits fiery lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was wheresunshine lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering,purred and rustled.
"Oh, Diana," said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking almostin a whisper, "oh, do you think you can like me a little--enough to bemy bosom friend?"
Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she spoke.
"Why, I guess so," she said frankly. "I'm awfully glad you've come tolive at Green Gables. It will be jolly to have somebody to play with.There isn't any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and I'veno sisters big enough."
"Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?" demanded Anneeagerly.
Diana looked shocked.
"Why it's dreadfully wicked to swear," she said rebukingly.
"Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know."
"I never heard of but one kind," said Diana doubtfully.
"There really is another. Oh, it isn't wicked at all. It just meansvowing and promising solemnly."
"Well, I don't mind doing that," agreed Diana, relieved. "How do you doit?"
"We must join hands--so," said Anne gravely. "It ought to be overrunning water. We'll just imagine this path is running water. I'llrepeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosomfriend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now yousay it and put my name in."
Diana repeated the "oath" with a laugh fore and aft. Then she said:
"You're a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But Ibelieve I'm going to like you real well."
When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as far as the logbridge. The two little girls walked with their arms about each other.At the brook they parted with many promises to spend the next afternoontogether.
"Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?" asked Marilla as they wentup through the garden of Green Gables.
"Oh yes," sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm onMarilla's part. "Oh Marilla, I'm the happiest girl on Prince EdwardIsland this very moment. I assure you I'll say my prayers with a rightgood-will tonight. Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr.William Bell's birch grove tomorrow. Can I have those broken pieces ofchina that are out in the woodshed? Diana's birthda
y is in February andmine is in March. Don't you think that is a very strange coincidence?Diana is going to lend me a book to read. She says it's perfectlysplendid and tremendously exciting. She's going to show me a place backin the woods where rice lilies grow. Don't you think Diana has got verysoulful eyes? I wish I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me tosing a song called 'Nelly in the Hazel Dell.' She's going to give me apicture to put up in my room; it's a perfectly beautiful picture, shesays--a lovely lady in a pale blue silk dress. A sewing-machine agentgave it to her. I wish I had something to give Diana. I'm an inch tallerthan Diana, but she is ever so much fatter; she says she'd like to bethin because it's so much more graceful, but I'm afraid she only saidit to soothe my feelings. We're going to the shore some day to gathershells. We have agreed to call the spring down by the log bridge theDryad's Bubble. Isn't that a perfectly elegant name? I read a storyonce about a spring called that. A dryad is sort of a grown-up fairy, Ithink."
"Well, all I hope is you won't talk Diana to death," said Marilla. "Butremember this in all your planning, Anne. You're not going to play allthe time nor most of it. You'll have your work to do and it'll have tobe done first."
Anne's cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow. Hehad just got home from a trip to the store at Carmody, and he sheepishlyproduced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anne, with adeprecatory look at Marilla.
"I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some," hesaid.
"Humph," sniffed Marilla. "It'll ruin her teeth and stomach. There,there, child, don't look so dismal. You can eat those, since Matthewhas gone and got them. He'd better have brought you peppermints. They'rewholesomer. Don't sicken yourself eating all them at once now."
"Oh, no, indeed, I won't," said Anne eagerly. "I'll just eat onetonight, Marilla. And I can give Diana half of them, can't I? Theother half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her. It'sdelightful to think I have something to give her."
"I will say it for the child," said Marilla when Anne had gone toher gable, "she isn't stingy. I'm glad, for of all faults I deteststinginess in a child. Dear me, it's only three weeks since she came,and it seems as if she'd been here always. I can't imagine the placewithout her. Now, don't be looking I told-you-so, Matthew. That's badenough in a woman, but it isn't to be endured in a man. I'm perfectlywilling to own up that I'm glad I consented to keep the child and thatI'm getting fond of her, but don't you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert."