Anne of Ingleside (13 page)

‘Look at the state your blouse is in,’ said Leslie rather severely.

‘I fell in Di’s mud-pie,’ said Kenneth, with decided satisfaction in his tone. He loathed those starched, spotless blouses Mother made him wear when he came up to the Glen.

‘Mother dearwums,’ said Jem, ‘can I have those old ostrich feathers in the garret to sew in the back of my pants for a tail? We’re going to have a circus tomorrow and I’m to be the ostrich. And we’re going to get an elephant.’

‘Do you know that it costs six hundred dollars a year to feed an elephant?’ said Gilbert solemnly.

‘An imaginary elephant doesn’t cost anything,’ explained Jem patiently.

Anne laughed. ‘We never need to be economical in our imaginations, thank heaven.’

Walter said nothing. He was a little tired and quite content to sit down beside Mother on the steps and lean his black head against her shoulder. Leslie Ford, looking at him, thought that he had the face of a genius… the remote, detached look of a soul from another star. Earth was not his habitat.

Everybody was very happy in this golden hour of a golden day. A bell in a church across the harbour rang faintly and sweetly. The moon was making patterns on the water. The dunes shimmered in hazy silver. There was a tang of mint in the air and some unseen roses were unbearably sweet. And Anne, looking dreamily over the lawn with eyes that, in spite of six children, were still very young, thought there was nothing in the world so slim and elfin as a very young lombardy poplar by moonlight.

Then she began to think about Stella Chase and Alden Churchill until Gilbert broke in and offered her a penny for her thoughts.

‘I’m thinking seriously of trying my hand at matchmaking,’ retorted Anne.

Gilbert looked at the others in mock despair.

‘I was afraid it would break out again some day. I’ve done my best, but you can’t reform a born matchmaker. She has a positive passion for it. The number of matches she has made is incredible. I couldn’t sleep o’ nights if I had such responsibilities on my conscience.’

‘But they’re all happy,’ protested Anne. ‘I’m really an adept. Think of all the matches I’ve made, or been accused of making… Theodora Dix and Ludovic Speed… Stephen Clark and Prissie Gardner… Janet Sweet and John Douglas… Professor Carter and Esme Taylor… Nora and Jim… Dovie and Jarvis…’

‘Oh, I admit it. This wife of mine, Owen, has never lost her sense of expectation. Thistles may, for her, bear figs at any time. I suppose she’ll keep on trying to marry people off until she grows up.’

‘I think she had something to do with another match yet,’ said Owen, smiling at his wife.

‘Not I,’ said Anne promptly. ‘Blame Gilbert for that. I did my best to persuade him not to have that operation performed on George Moore. Talk about sleeping o’ nights… there are nights when
I
wake up in a cold perspiration dreaming that I succeeded.’

‘Well, they say it is only happy women who match-make, so that is one up for me,’ said Gilbert complacently. ‘What new victims have you in mind now, Anne?’

Anne only grinned at him. Matchmaking is something requiring subtlety and discretion, and there are things you do not tell even to your husband.

Anne lay awake for hours that night and several nights thereafter, thinking about Alden and Stella. She had a feeling that Stella thought longingly about marriage… a home… babies. She had begged one night to be allowed to give Rilla her bath. ‘It’s so delightful to bathe her plump, dimpled little body’… and again, shyly, ‘It’s so lovely, Mrs Blythe, to have little darling velvet arms stretched out to you. Babies are so
right
, aren’t they?’ It would be a shame if a grouchy father should prevent the blossoming of those secret hopes.

It would be an ideal marriage. But how could it be brought about, with everybody concerned a bit stubborn and contrary? For the stubbornness and contrariness were not all on the old folks’ side. Anne suspected that both Alden and Stella had a streak of it. This required an entirely different technique from any previous affairs. In the nick of time Anne remembered Dovie’s father.

Anne tilted her chin and went at it. Alden and Stella, she considered, were as good as married from that hour.

There was no time to be lost. Alden, who lived at the Harbour Head and went to the Anglican church over the harbour, had not even met Stella Chase as yet… perhaps had not even seen her. He had not been dangling after any girl for some months, but he might begin at any moment. Mrs Janet Swift, of the Upper Glen, had a very handsome niece visiting her, and Alden was always after the new girls. The first thing to do, then, was to have Alden and Stella meet. How was this to be managed? It must be brought about in some way absolutely innocent in appearance. Anne racked her brains but could think of nothing more original than giving a party and inviting them both. She did not altogether like the idea. It was hot weather for a party… and the Four Winds young people were such romps. Anne knew Susan would never consent to a party without practically house-cleaning Ingleside from attic to cellar… and Susan was feeling the heat this summer. But a good cause demands sacrifices. Jen Pringle, B.A., had written that she was coming for a long-promised visit to Ingleside, and that would be the very excuse for a party. Luck seemed to be on her side. Jen came… the invitations were sent out… Susan gave Ingleside its overhauling… she and Anne did all the cooking for the party themselves in the heart of a heat wave.

Anne was woefully tired the night before the party. The heat had been terrible… Jem was sick in bed with an attack of what Anne secretly feared was appendicitis, though Gilbert lightly dismissed it as only green apples… and the Shrimp had been nearly scalded to death when Jen Pringle, trying to help Susan, knocked a pan of hot water off the stove on him. Every bone in Anne’s body ached, her head ached, her feet ached, her eyes ached. Jen had gone with a group of young fry to see the lighthouse, telling Anne to go right to bed; but instead of going to bed she sat out on the veranda in the dampness that followed the afternoon’s thunderstorm and talked to Alden Churchill, who had called to get some medicine for his mother’s bronchitis, but would not go into the house. Anne thought it was a heaven-sent opportunity, for she wanted very much to have a talk with him. They were quite good friends, since Alden often called on a similar errand.

Alden sat on the veranda step with his bare head thrown back against the post. He was, as Anne always thought, a very handsome fellow… tall and broad-shouldered, with a marble-white face that never tanned, vivid blue eyes, and a stiff upstanding brush of inky black hair. He had a laughing voice and a nice, deferential way which women of all ages liked. He had gone to Queen’s for three years and had thought of going to Redmond, but his mother refused to let him go, alleging Biblical reasons, and Alden had settled down contentedly enough on the farm. He liked farming, he had told Anne; it was free, out-of-doors, independent work: he had his mother’s knack of making money and his father’s attractive personality. It was no wonder he was considered something of a matrimonial prize.

‘Alden, I want to ask a favour of you,’ said Anne winningly. ‘Will you do it for me?’

‘Sure, Mrs Blythe,’ he answered heartily. ‘Just name it. You know I’d do anything for you.’

Alden was really very fond of Mrs Blythe and would really have done a good deal for her.

‘I’m afraid it will bore you,’ said Anne anxiously. ‘But it’s just this… I want you to see that Stella Chase has a good time at my party tomorrow night. I’m so afraid she won’t. She doesn’t know many young people around here yet… most of them are younger than she is… at least the boys are. Ask her to dance and see that she isn’t left alone and out of things. She’s so shy with strangers. I do want her to have a good time.’

‘Oh, I’ll do my best,’ said Alden readily.

‘But you mustn’t fall in love with her, you know,’ warned Anne, laughing carefully.

‘Have a heart, Mrs Blythe. Why not?’

‘Well,’ confidentially, ‘I think Mr Paxton of Low-bridge has taken quite a fancy to her.’

‘That conceited young coxcomb,’ exploded Alden, with unexpected warmth.

Anne looked mild rebuke.

‘Why, Alden, I’m told he is a very nice young man. It’s only that kind of a man who would have any chance with Stella’s father, you know.’

‘That so?’ said Alden, relapsing into his indifference.

‘Yes… and I don’t know if even he would. I understand Mr Chase thinks there is nobody good enough for Stella. I’m afraid a plain farmer wouldn’t have a look in. So I don’t want to make trouble for yourself falling in love with a girl you could never get. I’m just dropping a friendly warning. I’m sure your mother would think as I do.’

‘Oh, thanks… thanks. What sort of a girl is she, anyhow? Looks good?’

‘Well, I admit she isn’t a beauty. I like Stella very much… but she’s a little pale and retiring. Not overly strong… but I’m told Mr Paxton has money of his own. To my thinking it should be an ideal match and I don’t want anyone to spoil it.’

‘Why didn’t you invite Mr Paxton to your spree and tell
him
to give your Stella a good time?’ demanded Alden rather truculently.

‘You know a minister wouldn’t come to a dance, Alden. Now, don’t be cranky… and do see that Stella has a nice time.’

‘Oh, I’ll see that she has a rip-roaring time. Good night, Mrs Blythe.’

Alden swung off abruptly. Left alone, Anne laughed.

‘Now, if I know anything of human nature that boy will sail right in to show the world he can get Stella if he wants her, in spite of anybody. He rose right to my bait about the minister. Now I suppose I’m in for a bad night with this headache.’

She had a bad night, complicated by what Susan called ‘a crick in the neck’, and felt about as brilliant as grey flannel in the morning: but in the evening she was a gay and gallant hostess. The party was a success. Everybody seemed to have a good time. Stella certainly had. Alden saw to that almost too zealously for good form, Anne thought. It was going a bit strong for a first meeting that Alden should whisk Stella off to a dim corner of the veranda after supper and keep her there for an hour. But on the whole Anne was satisfied when she thought things over the next morning. To be sure, the dining-room carpet had been practically ruined by two spilled saucerfuls of ice-cream and a plateful of cake being ground into it; Gilbert’s grandmother’s Bristol glass candlesticks had been smashed to smithereens; somebody had upset a pitcherful of rain-water in the spare room which had soaked down and discoloured the library ceiling in a tragic fashion; the tassels were half torn off the chesterfield; Susan’s big Boston fern, the pride of her heart, had apparently been sat upon by some large and heavy person. But on the credit side of the ledger was the fact that, unless all signs failed, Alden had fallen for Stella. Anne thought the balance was in her favour.

Local gossip within the next few weeks confirmed this view. It became increasingly evident that Alden was hooked. But what about Stella? Anne did not think Stella was the sort of girl to fall too ripely into any man’s outstretched hand. She had a spice of her father’s ‘contrariness’, which in her worked out as a charming independence.

Again luck befriended a worried matchmaker. Stella came to see the Ingleside delphiniums one evening, and afterwards they sat on the veranda and talked. Stella Chase was a pale, slender thing, rather shy but intensely sweet. She had a soft cloud of pale gold hair and wood-brown eyes. Anne thought it was her eyelashes did the trick, for she was not really pretty. They were unbelievably long, and when she lifted them and dropped them it did things to masculine hearts. She had a certain distinction of manner which made her seem a little older than her twenty-four years and a nose that might be decidedly aquiline in later life.

‘I’ve been hearing things about you, Stella,’ said Anne, shaking a finger at her. ‘And… I… don’t… know if… I… liked… them. Will you forgive me for saying that I wonder if Alden Churchill is just the right beau for you?’

Stella turned a startled face.

‘Why… I thought you liked Alden, Mrs Blythe.’

‘I do like him. But… well, you see, he has the reputation of being very, very fickle. I’m told no girl can hold him long. A good many have tried, and failed. I’d hate to see you left like that if his fancy veered.’

‘I think you are mistaken about Alden, Mrs Blythe,’ said Stella slowly.

‘I hope so, Stella. If you were a different type now, bouncing and jolly, like Eileen Swift…’

‘Oh, well… I must be going home,’ said Stella vaguely. ‘Father will be lonely.’

When she had gone Anne laughed again.

‘I rather think Stella has gone away secretly vowing that she will show meddlesome friends that she can hold Alden and that no Eileen Swift shall ever get her claws on him. That little toss of her head and that sudden flush on her cheeks told me that. So much for the young folks. I’m afraid the older ones will be tougher nuts to crack.’

Anne’s luck held. The Women’s Missionary Auxiliary asked her if she would call on Mrs George Churchill for her yearly contribution to the society. Mrs Churchill seldom went to church and was not a member of the Auxiliary, but she ‘believed in missions’ and always gave a generous sum if anyone called and asked for it. People enjoyed doing this so little that the members had to take their turn at it, and this year the turn was Anne’s.

She walked down one evening, taking a daisied trail across lots which led over the sweet, cool loveliness of a hill-top to the road where the Churchill farm lay, a mile from the Glen. It was rather a dull road, with grey snake fences, running up steep little slopes… yet it had home-lights… a brook… the smell of hayfields that ran down to the sea… gardens. Anne stopped to look at every garden she passed. Her interest in gardens was perennial. Gilbert was wont to say that Anne
had
to buy a book if the word ‘garden’ were in the title.

A lazy boat idled down the harbour and far out a vessel was becalmed. Anne always watched an outward-bound ship with a little quickening of her pulses. She understood Captain Franklin Drew when she heard him say once, as he went on board his vessel at the wharf, ‘God, how sorry I am for the folks we leave on shore!’