“I’ve always meant to tell you before you died. I knew, somehow, I should live longer than you. Not just because I was so much younger ... but, well, I knew. You worshipped Rose, didn’t you? You put up a beautiful and costly stained glass window to her memory in your Lowbridge church. At night its light falls across her grave and touches Lloyd Norman’s. But he doesn’t come to her now ... her baby face does not flush at his footsteps as I have seen it flush, you blind David Anderson. Her cheek is cold ... the grave is a bitter lover, David Anderson. But you know now ... you know at last. And you know all I have said is true. We do not tell lies to the dying. At last you know your wife ... your beautiful Rose whom the winds of heaven must not visit too roughly ... was false to you. And you know that many people suspected it, while you were holding your head so high. Susan Baker says her grandfather said to his wife at the christening of Rose’s son, ‘It’s a wise child that knows its own father.’”
Her passionate words sank into the silence as into a deep well. She had wreaked her hatred at last.
Not a moment too soon. Dr. Blythe had finished his conversation with the nurse and had gone. The nurse was coming back to her patient. There was a stir as if the housekeeper were coming up the back stairs. But she had done what she had meant to do for years. Ah, revenge was sweet.
Suddenly she knew that she was alone in the room. With shaking hands she snatched up a match and lighted a candle on the table. She held it up ... its faint, flickering light wavered over the face on the pillow. David Anderson, once so tremendously alive, was dead.
He had died while she was talking to him. And, lying dead, he smiled.
Clarissa had always hated his smile, because one could never tell what it meant. Nor could she tell now. Was he mocking her because nothing mattered ... any longer?
He had been the only one of the Andersons with such a smile. The Wilcoxes had hated all the others but not for their smile. She remembered that a schoolteacher had said that little David Anderson must have been to hell to learn a smile like that. The Andersons had him dismissed for the speech. But Susan Baker’s grandfather had said it was only because David Anderson liked to cheat people out of their just dues. They said he ruled his crews by that smile alone. And Clarissa recalled that the Andersons had always had difficulty manning a ship if David was going on the voyage. She wondered if Rose had found out the meaning of it.
“I am an old maid,” Susan Baker had said, “and I will be honest and admit that I have never had a chance to be anything else. But rather than marry a man with a smile like my grandfather said David Anderson had I would live the lives of a hundred old maids.”
Clarissa seemed to go limp like an old dress as the nurse hurried into the room.
“He is dead,” she said. “We have been expecting it all day.”
“He died when you were having your nice little flirtation with Dr. Blythe,” said Clarissa venomously.
The nurse stared in amazement. She knew old Clarissa Wilcox was supposed to be “not quite all there,” but the idea of flirting with Dr. Blythe!
Clarissa felt aged ... worn-out ... foolish. The nurse was laughing at her ... even in the presence of death. Quickly she went out of the room, leaving him smiling on the pillow, arrogant in death as in life. Noiselessly she went down and out and along the darkening evening street. The embers of sunset smouldered in the west. There were curling crests of ice-white foam on the harbour as if it were gnashing its teeth at her.
She felt very cold.
“I wish I were dead,” said Clarissa Wilcox aloud, quite careless of who might hear her. “I loved him so ... oh, I always loved him so ... from the time we were children at school. I hope he didn’t hear me ... oh, God grant that he didn’t hear me! But I shall never know.”
The Third Evening
THERE IS A HOUSE I LOVE
There is a house I love
Beside a calling sea,
And wheresoever I may rove
It must be home to me.
There every room’s a friend
To all who come and go,
I know the garden at the end
And every tree I know.
The wild mint by the gate,
The pansies by the sill,
The pointed firs that always wait
Behind it on the hill.
That house is very wise
Remembering lovely things,
The moons of autumn skies,
The rains of brooding springs.
Laughter that was its guest
And vanished dancing feet,
Oh, never find you east or west
A house so wise and sweet.
A house still full of cheer
That is not bought or sold,
For houses that are loved so dear
Can nevermore grow old.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “That’s an easy one ... Green Gables.”
ANNE:- “Not altogether ... nor mostly. It is a composite of Green Gables and the House of Dreams and Ingleside. Taken all together they spell ‘the house I love’ to me.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “Don’t you really think, Anne-girl, that you love places too much?”
ANNE, sighing:- “I’m afraid I do. But, as Susan says, you can’t help the way you’re born.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “How well I remember those pointed firs on the hill of the Haunted Wood! And you are right in ‘wise and sweet.’ Yet houses do grow old.”
ANNE, softly:- “Not in memory.”
SEA SONG
Sing to me
Of the mystery and lure of the sea,
Of the treasures of pearl in its unsunned caves,
Its ports of dream and its missing ships,
Of the wet sweet lips
Of the mermaids in its waves
Who pine for the kiss
Of mortal lovers and miss
In lands of faery earth’s simple bliss,
And of hoards beyond our ken ...
The lost red gold of her vanished merchantmen!
Sing to me
Of the terror and lure of the sea,
Of the beautiful creatures it clasped to death ...
Wondrous-eyed children, women fair,
With their perfumed hair,
And pale mouths seeking for breath,
Of strong hearts it has chilled,
Men with victorious pulses forever stilled
On its snarling and wolfish coasts,
Princes and kings of the earth, imperial ghosts!
Sing to me
Of the beauty and lure of the sea,
Its blossoms of foam and its sapphire ways,
Its beryl of reef and its sheen of lagoon,
Its pale fire of the moon
On the breast of its crystal-clear bays,
Its wide chambers of night
All silent, austere and alight
With stars that in purple of heaven burn white,
And its revel of wind evermore
Making glad with the breakers that dash on a sunrise shore!
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “I believe I did an ineffaceable wrong in marrying a woman who could write like that and spoiling her career ... now, never mind getting indignant, darling. But tell me this: wasn’t Captain Jim’s Lifebook* the inspiration of that poem?”
ANNE:- “Yes ... and I will be indignant. To think I’d prefer any career to marrying you! I’ve a notion never to forgive you.”
SUSAN BAKER:- “I have not enough education to understand all your poem, Mrs. Dr. dear, but do you think some of it is quite proper to be read before the children? Mermaids yearning for kisses and so on?” (Adds under her breath) “And it is not a good example for Walter and that I will tie to.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “It’s time we all went to bed. I have a ticklish operation for tomorrow.”
*See Anne’s House of Dreams.
The Twins Pretend
Jill and P.G. ... alias Pig or Porky, according to Jill’s mood ...
were somewhat bored. This was not a common occurrence with them, for the imaginations which had kept everybody wondering during all their ten years of life what those two young devils would be up to next seldom failed to make the world a most interesting and intriguing place.
But something was wrong this particular morning at Half Moon Cove ... which was situated about halfway between Mowbray Narrows and Glen St. Mary, and was only beginning to be called “the summer colony.”
Perhaps certain unlawful snacks in which they had indulged the preceding night ... when Aunt Henrietta had had one of her bad spells and Mums had been too busy to keep an eye on them ... may have had something to do with it. Nan and Diana Blythe had been over from Glen St. Mary ... “And we had to give them a decent lunch, Mums.” “I don’t see why they needed lunch at all,” said Mums severely. “They had had their suppers and they were here only half an hour or so while their father made a sick call in the Upper Glen.”
“I expect that old Susan Baker doesn’t give them half enough to eat,” said Jill. “Anyhow, they are lovely girls, Mums, and I wish we lived nearer to them.”
“I have heard that the Blythe family are very nice,” admitted Mums. “I know their father and mother are. But if they brew up as much mischief in a week as you two do in half an hour I pity the household and I think it might be better if this Susan Baker you talk of did not give them half as much to eat as rumour says she does. Did they tell you she did not give them enough to eat?”
“No, oh, no, they are too loyal,” said Jill. “But I know by the look of her she would starve you if she could. I’ve seen her in church.”
“Leaving Susan Baker and the Blythe twins entirely out of the question,” said Mums, “who has been using Aunt Henrietta’s new stewpan in such a way that it is hopelessly battered and dented?”
“Oh, we wanted something for a Roman helmet,” said P.G. easily.
A little thing like that never worried P.G. Why, there were dozens of better stewpans in the store at Glen St. Mary.
At all events, there they were, digging their brown toes into the sand and scowling viciously at each other. As Jill said, you had to do something to break the monotony. Probably they would have quarrelled ... and the twins’ quarrels always made their tired, overworked little mother wonder why Fate had picked her for their upbringing ... had not Anthony Lennox happened along.
But Anthony Lennox did happen along and Jill fell in love with him at sight. As she told Nan Blythe later on, he looked as if he had some dark secret on his conscience. Jill, like Nan, was at the stage when she adored villains. There was no surer passport to her favour than to look as if you were the wreck of a misspent life.
“Or a remorseful pirate,” Nan had said.
“It would be better still for him to be an unremorseful one,” said Diana.
Jill felt that she would die for an unremorseful pirate. It was then they discovered that Susan Baker did not approve of pirates. Of course a woman who did not approve of pirates would starve you if she got the chance.
“Oh, no,” said Diana loyally, “Susan wouldn’t starve anyone. Mother is always scolding her for giving us snacks after we go to bed. She would only say we would have more sense when we grew up.”
“Isn’t that the most maddening thing?” demanded Nan.
Jill agreed that it was.
Anthony Lennox looked gloomy enough to justify almost anything you could pretend about him. Just why the millionaire publisher of a Canadian-wide string of magazines should look gloomy and discontented on such a morning the twins didn’t know, any more than they knew why he was a million-aire ... Susan Baker had told the Blythe twins that ... or why, being a millionaire, he had selected this obscure, unknown Prince Edward Island retreat for his summer vacation.
Like the twins, Anthony was bored. But, unlike the twins, it was fast becoming a chronic state with him. Susan Baker had said you got that way when you didn’t have to work hard enough for your money.
Anthony was tired of everything. He was tired of making money ... of publishing magazines ... of shaping public opinion ... of being chased by women. He was ungallant enough to put it that way.
The whole world had gone stale.
And now he was tired of Half Moon Cove already though he had been there only a few days. What a fool he had been to come back there! He might have known ... he had known ... just how it would be. He strode over the shingle with the sting of the blowing wind in his face. There was a blue sky above ... a blue sea before ... a great, dazzling, merciless blue world all around him.
No place for ghosts, one would think. And yet here he was, haunted. Confound it!
And worse than haunted ... bored. It all came back to that. Ghosts and boredom were the two things Anthony Lennox couldn’t endure. He had spent fifteen years trying to escape both. Of course his doctor had told him that he must go to a quiet place for the summer if he wanted his nerves to behave by the fall. But surely not a dead place.
He would leave that afternoon.
Just as he decided on this he reached the spot where Jill was sitting on a rock, with the air of a queen on a throne, and
P.G. was lying flat on his stomach on the sand, too bored himself even to lift his head.
Anthony paused and looked at Jill ... at her droll, little, impudent face under her fringe of reddish-brown hair ... at her nose, which was not the usual smudge of ten but a nose that stood on its own merits ... at her long, new-moon mouth, now drooping at the corners.
And the soul of Anthony Lennox was at that moment knit to the soul of Jill, nevermore to be unknitted. But it was not the nose or the mouth or the impudence that won him. Diana Blythe whom he had met had all those ... lacking a little of the impudence perhaps.
It was the eyes ... the luminous, black-lashed eyes. They were like eyes he had once known ... except that they were stormy and mutinous and grey, whereas the eyes he remembered had been blue and dreamy and yet somehow suggestive of wild, secret, unfettered delights ... very like Mrs. Dr. Blythe’s, only the latter’s were greyish green and he almost envied the doctor and if Mrs. Blythe had not been married and the mother of five or six children ... stop, Anthony Lennox, you maundering, sentimental, old fool!
“Well,” said Anthony.
“Well, yourself,” retorted Jill, a bit sulkily.
“Now, what is the matter?” said Anthony. “Two kids like you ought to be merry as grigs on a morning like this. I’ll bet the Blythe twins are. I saw you playing with them last night and you all seemed to be having a good time.”
“Matter! Matter!” Jill’s wrongs surged up and overwhelmed her. “The Blythe twins are both girls. That makes the difference. Girls have some sense. This is all Pig’s fault!”
Pig grunted.
“Oh, yes, grunt. He won’t do one thing this morning but grunt. He won’t pretend ... he simply won’t. Just wallows there and grunts. It was all very fine last night. He wanted to show off before the Blythe girls. Oh, I know him.”
Another furious grunt from P.G. But he would not be provoked into speaking. Let Jill say what silly things she might. The Blythe girls indeed!
P.G. would have died before he would have admitted that after he went to bed he had thought a good deal about Nan’s eyes and wished Half Moon Cove were not quite so far from Glen St. Mary.
“If you never pretend ...” Jill waxed dramatic, “how are you going to exist here?”
“How indeed!” agreed Anthony fervently.
“The Blythe girls asked us to visit them ... but we can’t go
there every day. It isn’t ...” In one of her April changes Jill was almost tearful ... “it isn’t as if I was unreasonable. I told him I’d pretend whatever he wanted. It was my turn to choose ... and there was one thing I did want ... Nan Blythe said she and Walter often pretended it in Rainbow Valley ... but I told him he could choose. I’d pretend anything ... tortured Indians ... or entertaining the King ... or a prince’s daughter imprisoned in a castle by the sea ... or Edith
Cavell at her execution ... or the land where wishes come true ... the Blythe girls love that ... or anything. And he won’t. He says he’s tired of everything.”
Jill came to an end of breath and italics and poked P.G.’s shin savagely with her left foot.
P.G. rolled over on his back and revealed a face uncannily like Jill’s, except for a pair of fine hazel eyes and more freckles.
“The land where wishes come true is the silliest pretend of all,” he said scornfully. “’Cause wishes never do come true. Jill’s got wheels in her head.”
P.G. turned over again and gave Jill her chance of revenge.
“You didn’t say that to Nan Blythe last night,” she hissed. “You said you thought it the best game of all. And you’d better not lie on your stomach. You didn’t wash behind your ears this morning.”
P.G. gave no sign of hearing but Jill knew the shot had gone home. P.G., for a boy, was fussy about cleanliness.
“What was it you wanted to pretend?” said Anthony.
“Oh, I wanted to pretend we were rich ... we’re really poor as snakes, you know ... and that we bought Orchard Knob and brought it back to life. Diana says they often pretend that, too. Though they could, perhaps. Their father is a very successful doctor.”
Anthony’s brown eyes opened widely.
“Where and what is Orchard Knob? And why and when did it die?”
“Tell him everything,” jeered P.G. “Don’t keep anything back. He’ll be so interested.”
“Oh, we just gave it that name after a place in a book. It’s about half a mile back from the Cove and halfway between here and the Glen. It belongs to someone who went away years ago and never came back. It was a lovely place once. Nan says Susan Baker says it was even prettier than Ingleside, though I don’t believe that. Have you ever seen Ingleside?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve been there,” said Anthony, skipping a stone over the water in a way that made P.G.’s soul green with envy. “But I don’t know any place called Orchard Knob.”