Where Wind of Autumn led me on that day.
The hemlock harp for music, immortal wine for drinking,
Oh, but we were rare good comrades, that gallant wind and I,
As hand in hand we wandered till roguish stars were winking
Between the scurrying cloudlets in the sky.
And oh, my sleep was sweet that night until the dawn came shyly,
And all the pretty dreams I had made haste to slip away,
For Wind of Autumn just outside was calling, calling, slyly,
“Come with me for another spendthrift day.”
Walter Blythe
RILLA:- “That was Walter’s idea of the wind. He used to love to hear it whistling down Rainbow Valley. And I think he did believe in ‘the Men in Green,’ Susan ... when he was a child, anyhow.”
SUSAN, determinedly:- “But not in the olden gods at any time, Rilla. You can never convince me that Walter was a pagan. He went to church and Sunday school every Sunday and liked it.”
DR. BLYTHE:- “If he had had to drive through the wind as often as I did before cars came in! Well, when I was a boy I loved the wind, too. Do you remember how it used to purr in Lover’s Lane, Anne?”
ANNE:- “As if I could ever forget anything connected with Lover’s Lane! And I remember, too, how it used to sweep up the Harbour some wild night while I was waiting for you to come home to our House of Dreams. Do you, Susan?”
SUSAN, fervently:- “Indeed I do!”
THE WILD PLACES
Oh, here is joy that cannot be
In any market bought and sold,
Where forests beckon fold on fold
In a pale silver ecstasy,
And every hemlock is a spire
Of faint moon-fire.
For music we shall have the chill
Wild bugle of a vagrant wind,
Seeking for what it cannot find,
A lonely trumpet on the hill,
Or keening in the dear dim white
Chambers of night.
And there are colours in the wild ...
The royal purple of old kings ...
Rose-fire of secret dawn ... clear springs
Of emerald in valleys aisled
With red pine stems ... and tawny stir
Of dying fir.
And we shall know as lovers do
The wooing rain, the eternal lure
Of tricksy brook and beckoning moor,
The hidden laughters that pursue,
As if the gods of elder day
Were here at play.
For these wild places hold their own
Boon myths of faun and goblin still,
And have a lingering goodwill
For folk in green if truth were known ...
Oh, what an old delightful fear ...
Hush ... listen ... hear!
Walter Blythe
ANNE, sighing:- “Walter always loved the wild places. How he adored Rainbow Valley and the Upper Glen barrens!”
SUSAN, under her breath:- “I do not often question the purposes of the Almighty. But I should like to know why He makes a brain that can write things like that and then lets it be crushed to death.”
FOR ITS OWN SAKE
I cherish love but for its own sweet sake,
Not hoping to win thine, but holding yet
Deep-hidden in my heart its precious ache:
Nor, if I could forget,
Would I so choose. I willingly yield me
Pensioner of a pain all joys above:
For its own dole and sweetness I love Love
And would its bondsman be!
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE, thinking:- “I remember that expressed my feelings pretty well when I thought Anne was going to marry Roy Gardiner. Odd how Anne has taken to writing so much more verse since Walter’s death. It does seem as if in some queer way Walter’s gift had descended to her instead of the reverse. Well, I daresay it is some outlet for the pain we feel when we think of him.”
THE CHANGE
There is no difference this blithe morning
’Tween yesterday and today ...
The dim fringed poppies still are blowing
In sea fields misty and grey.
The west wind overhead in the beeches
Is the friend of lovers still,
And the river puts its arm as bluely
Around the beckoning hill.
The rose that laughed in the waning twilight
Laughs with the same delight,
But, pale and sweet as the lilies of Eden,
A little hope died last night.
Anne Blythe
DR. BLYTHE:- “I remember the day my ‘little hope’ of winning you died, Anne.”
ANNE:- “And I remember the same.”
UNA MEREDITH, thinking:-“I remember when mine died ... when the news of Walter’s death came.”
SUSAN BAKER, thinking:- “I remember the night I finally decided I had to be an old maid. I wonder if Whiskers-on-the-Moon felt any dead hopes after I chased him over the lawn with the dye pot. As far as I can understand it, writing poetry is just putting into rhyme what everyone feels. Why didn’t I think of those things when we lived in the House of Dreams? Ah me, there was no hint of war then and Walter was not even born or thought of. I wonder if Mrs. Dr. dear is thinking of Walter or little Joyce. No, she doesn’t look sad enough for either. That is just one of the poems she writes for her own amusement.”
I KNOW
I know a dell of violets, a sweet and starry splendour,
Beside a misty little brook a-singing to the wind,
Where poplars whisper silkily, and ivory birches slender
Will tell me tales of elfin things that no one else may find.
I know a little path that runs across an upland hazy
Where shy grey rabbits peer at me from under bracken fern,
Where there are hints and glints and gleams of butterflies gone crazy,
And some beguiling sight to see wherever I may turn.
I know a hill where I may hear the ancient fir trees calling,
To vale and shore and tawny dune and far eternal sea,
And I know a russet valley where when early dusk is falling,
There is a friendly little house with one to welcome me.
Walter Blythe
RILLA:- “Walter wrote that with the thought of Rainbow Valley, too. It crept into almost every poem he wrote.”
JEM:- “But what about ‘the little house’?”
RILLA:- “Oh, that was really Ingleside and mums. But he thought ‘little house’ more romantic. You can’t tie yourself strictly down to facts in poetry.”
SUSAN:- “Nor in anything, I do believe. I’ve lived long enough to learn that. There are some things that are truer than facts, as Mrs. Dr. dear once said to me.”
Brother Beware
There had been no change in the Randebush household in the Upper Glen for fifteen years ... ever since Nancy, beloved wife of Amos Randebush, had died. Amos and his brother Timothy and Matilda Merry just jogged along peacefully and contentedly. At least Amos and Timothy were contented. If Matilda Merry ... who belied her name if ever a woman did ... was not contented it was her own fault. She had a good place as housekeeper and a pleasant grievance of chronic rheumatism. People said she was a fortune to Dr. Gilbert Blythe. Amos paid her fair wages and never growled when the biscuits were soggy or the roast was overdone. Sometimes, when he looked at her sitting at the head of his table and contrasted her skinny mouse-coloured hair and pessimistic countenance with Nancy’s glossy tresses and rosy face, he sighed. But he never said anything. As for the rheumatism, a woman must have something to talk about.
Timothy was more philosophic. Matilda suited him very well. Nancy had been good-looking and a good housekeeper but blue cats, how she made you toe the mark in everything! You had to wear the soles off your boots scraping them before you came in. Even the minister and Dr. Blythe were no exception. Amos
had at times rebelled under her rule though he remembered only her good qualities now. That was what women did to you, even after they were dead. Timothy thanked his stars that none of them had ever succeeded in bamboozling him. No, thank you! He had always hated them all in general, except Mrs. Dr. Blythe, whom he tolerated, but how he hated the Winkworth woman in particular! Dimples, by gad! Airs and graces, by jiminy! Taffy-coloured hair and come-hither eyes! Blue cats! Could anyone have supposed that Amos could be such a fool? Wasn’t one lesson enough? Evidently not, when you had a spineless creature like Amos and a plotting, wheedling, designing, desperate hussy like the Winkworth woman to deal with! Hold your horses! Amos might be quite helpless before her fascinations and Mrs. Blythe might be helping things along ... hadn’t he heard she had a passion for matchmaking? ... but Amos had a brother to save him in spite of himself.
Miss Alma Winkworth was boarding with the Knapps at Glen St. Mary. It was reported through the Knapps that she worked in Hillier’s Beauty Shoppe in Boston, that she had had an operation and had to have a longer vacation than her usual two weeks before going back to work. Timothy hadn’t a speck of faith in that operation. Very likely the doctor and Mrs. Blythe were in the plot. Alma Winkworth wouldn’t look so blooming if she had had an operation. It was merely a play for sympathy. She had just come to Glen St. Mary to see if she couldn’t catch a man, and, by golly, she was on the point of succeeding. Would succeed if he, Timothy, didn’t put a spoke in her wheel.
They had seen her first in church, sitting in the Blythe pew in front of them ... Maria Knapp never went to church ... a smiling creature, looking, as far as hair and complexion went, like a remarkably good advertisement for a beauty shop. Amos had never been the same man since. Next evening he went down to the Knapps’ on some trumped-up excuse and that was the creature’s opportunity. Look what she had done to him already. For all it was harvest time, when men had to work and sleep, Amos mooned through the day and when night came shaved and dressed, touched up his moustache and went to the Glen on some excuse about a meeting of the Fox Breeders’ Association.
Another bad sign was that Amos had suddenly become sensitive about his age. When, on his fiftieth birthday, Timothy congratulated him on attaining the half-century mark Amos peevishly remarked that he didn’t feel a day over forty. The Winkworth woman had told the Blythes that she was forty, no doubt to encourage Amos, for would any single woman admit to being forty if she had no nefarious purpose in it?
It seemed to Timothy that nothing less than a miracle could prevent Amos from asking the Winkworth woman to marry him. He had not done it yet ... Timothy was sure of that, from Amos’ continual air of nervousness and uncertainty. But very soon he would screw his courage to the sticking point. He would have to do it before another ten days elapsed for then he had to leave for the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, in charge of a consignment of silver foxes the Fox Breeders’ Association was sending there. He would be absent for two weeks and the Winkworth woman’s vacation would be over before he returned. So Timothy felt quite sure Amos would propose to her before he went.
No, by gad, he wouldn’t! A lifelong, harmonious brotherhood was not going to be destroyed like this. Timothy had an inspiration from heaven. Joe’s Island! There was your answer to prayer!
The details caused Timothy considerable anxiety. Time pressed and, rack his brains as he might, he could think of no way to lure the Winkworth woman to Joe’s Island unbeknownst to anyone. But Providence opened a way. Mrs. Knapp came to the Upper Glen store and dropped in to have a visit with Matilda Merry. They sat on the back porch and rocked and gossiped until Timothy, lying on the kitchen sofa just inside the window, heard something that brought him to his feet in another flash of inspiration. Miss Winkworth, so Mrs. Knapp said, was going to Charlottetown to spend a day or two with a friend who lived there. She was going on the boat train. So was Mrs. Dr. Blythe, who was going up to Avonlea for a visit.
So this, Timothy scornfully reflected, was why Amos had seemed so dull and depressed all day and talked of getting some liver pills from Dr. Blythe. Blue cats! He must have it bad if the prospect of being parted from his ladylove for a couple of days drove him to liver pills! Well, the hotter the fire the quicker it burned out. Amos would soon get over his infatuation and be thankful for his escape ... yes, before Dr. Blythe’s pills were half taken.
Timothy lost no time. He felt sure Amos was going to take her to the train but Amos’ car was still visible down in the store yard. Timothy strode to the barn and got out his own car. His only fear was that Amos was going to call for Mrs. Blythe, too.
“Now where is he going?” said Mrs. Knapp, as Timothy’s car swung out of the yard.
“Must be to the Harbour after fish,” said Matilda. “He’d have shaved and dressed if he was going visiting even if it was only to Ingleside after liver pills. Liver pills! Amos needs liver pills as much as I do. Timothy’s forty-five if he’s a day but vain as a peacock.”
“Well, he’s a real good-looking man,” said Mrs. Knapp. “Away ahead of Amos if you ask me. Amos is what you might call insignificant ... as Mrs. Blythe would say.”
“Do you think Amos and your boarder are going to make a match of it, Maria?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mrs. Knapp. “He’s certainly been very attentive. And Mrs. Dr. Blythe has done her best to bring it about. Nothing can cure her of matchmaking. And I think Miss Winkworth is pretty tired of struggling along by herself. But I can’t be sure ... she’s one to keep her own counsel.”
The Winkworth woman was sitting on the Knapp veranda when Timothy drove up. She was dressed for travelling, in a natty suit and a smart little hat with a green bow and she had her packaway at her feet.
“Evening, Miss Winkworth,” said Timothy briskly. “Sorry my brother couldn’t come. He was detained by some fox business. So I’ve come to take you to the train.”
“That is lovely of you, Mr. Randebush.”
She certainly had a pleasant voice. And a very elegant figure. And a way of looking at you! All at once Timothy remembered that he hadn’t shaved that day and that bits of chaff were sticking to his sweater.
“I guess we’d better hurry,” he said grimly. “It’s near train time.”
The Winkworth woman stepped into the car unsuspiciously. Timothy glowed. This was far easier than he had expected. And thank goodness there had evidently been no arrangement with Mrs. Dr. Blythe.
But the crux would come when he turned off the Upper Glen road down the deep-rutted, grass-grown track that led to the bay. She would smell a rat there.
She did.
“This isn’t the road to the station, is it?” she said with a little note of wonder in her voice.
“No, it isn’t,” said Timothy, more grimly than ever. “We aren’t going to the station.”
“Mr. Randebush ...”
The Winkworth woman found herself staring into a pair of very stern eyes.
“You are not going to be hurt, miss. No harm of any kind is intended if you do just as you are told and keep quiet.”
The Winkworth woman, after one gasp, kept quiet. Probably she thought you had to humour madmen.
“Get out,” said Timothy, when they reached the end of the road. “Then go right down the wharf and get into the boat that’s tied there.”
There was nobody in sight. The Winkworth woman walked down the old wharf, Timothy following closely behind, feeling splendidly bold and buccaneery. Blue cats! This was the way to manage them! And yet Dr. Blythe was always saying that women were the equal of men!
When they were off and skimming merrily over the Harbour she said gently, with a disarming little tremor in her voice, “Where ... where are you taking me, Mr. Randebush?”
No harm in telling her.
“I’m taking you to Joe’s Island, miss. It’s four miles across the Harbour. I’m going to leave you there for a few days and my reason is my own business, as Dr. Blythe would say. As I’ve said you won’t be hurt and you
’ll be quite comfortable. Kenneth Ford’s summer house is on the island and I’m caretaker for him. The Fords went to Europe this summer instead of coming to Glen St. Mary. There’s plenty of canned stuff in the house and a good stove and I reckon you can cook. At least, Mrs. Dr. Blythe told my brother Amos you could.”
She took it admirably ... you had to hand it to her. Almost any woman he knew, except Mrs. Dr. Blythe, would have gone into hysterics. She did not even ask what his reason was. Likely she guessed, durn her! Sitting there as cool and composed as if being kidnapped was all in a day’s work!
“Don’t you think someone will raise a hue and cry when I’m found missing?” she asked after an interval.
“Who’s to miss you?” he said. “Amos will think you got afraid and took another chance.”
“Your brother wasn’t taking me. I was going up with the Flaggs,” said the Winkworth woman gently. “But when I don’t come back day after tomorrow won’t Mrs. Knapp wonder?”
“No. She’ll think you’ve just been induced to stay longer in town. And the Doctor and his wife are going to stay for two weeks in Avonlea. Besides, what if people do start wondering? They’ll just think you’ve gone back to Boston to get out of paying your board.”
The Winkworth woman said nothing in reply to this cruelty. She looked afar over the sunset harbour. She had a way of tilting her head. Little taffy-coloured curls escaped from under the edges of her hat.
Suddenly she smiled.
Timothy experienced a queer tickly sensation in his spine.
“The wind is west tonight, isn’t it?” she said dreamily. “And oh, look, Mr. Randebush, there is the evening star!”
As if nobody had ever seen the evening star before!
Of course she knew she was showing that pretty throat of hers off when she lifted her face to the sky!
This kidnapping of a woman was a durned dangerous business. He didn’t like that sensation in his spine.