The Blythes Are Quoted (12 page)

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:-
“More imagination, I suppose. When have
you
had a hungry heart?”

ANNE
,
reproachfully:
- “All my childhood, Gilbert. And when I thought you were in love with Christine Stuart. And ... and ... when little Joyce died. You
can’t
have forgotten, Gilbert.”

DR. BLYTHE
,
repentantly:
- “No, but I always think of you beginning to live when I saw you first. The egotism of man, you will say truly. But people
do
forget because they have to. The world couldn’t go on if they didn’t. And there is something to hurt one every day, you know.”

SUSAN BAKER
:- “That splinter I took out of Shirley’s dear little leg today hurt him and that you may tie to.”

Sweet, I must be for you the only one you have dreamed of,

None must have come before me to wear the rose of your heart;

Only for me your whispers, only for me your laughter,

Never the ghostly kiss of another to thrust us apart.

Only for me must that saint-pale cheek have crimsoned,

Only for me those eyes have woven their sapphire snare;

Lady of mist and flame, call me your only lover,

Tell me no other has lost his face in your raven hair.

Dear, it is naught to me who may have come before me,

Ivory and silken women fair to kiss and see,

Wooed in vanished twilights, longed-for on nights forgotten ...

This, this only I ask, none must come
after
me.

I must drain the last glass, not even the dregs for another,

Not for any other, queen or gypsy or nun!

Tell me none shall ever again hear your muted “I love you,”

Tell me no other shall ever win what I have won.

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:- “That is the kind of poetry I most decidedly don’t care for. But I suppose we must chalk it all up to the score of imagination. Did you ever really write that stuff, Anne?”

ANNE
:- “At Redmond. And of course it was pure fancy and was never published. See how yellow the paper is! And you were the first, you know.”

SUSAN
baker,
firmly:
- “You may have thought you wrote that poem, Mrs. Dr. dear, but you did
not
. It got mixed up with your papers somehow and you have forgotten. So I will make bold to say that, as far as I can understand it, it is not quite decent. And I am sure the doctor agrees with me.”

DR. BLYTHE
,
pretending to look grave:
-“Well, since I was the first ... and not Charlie Pye ...”

ANNE
,
flinging the yellowed sheet on the fire:
- “There, that’s the last of such nonsense.”

DR. BLYTHE
,
rescuing it:
- “By no means. I’m going to wait and see whether I
am
the last and how you will behave as my widow.”

SUSAN
,
going to the kitchen to begin her supper preparations:
-“If I did not know they were joking they would give me the creeps. But one just could not imagine either of them caring for anybody else. Though they say Mr. Meredith is going to marry Rosamond West ... and he is a saint if ever a man was. It is a bewildering world and I am very glad I have not the running of it, let Mrs. Marshall Elliott say what she will about things being better run if women were at the helm.”

Clarissa Wilcox was on her way to Lowbridge. She had heard that David Anderson was dying. Susan Baker of Ingleside had told her. Dr. Blythe of Glen St. Mary was David Anderson’s doctor in spite of the fact that Dr. Parker lived in Lowbridge. But years ago David Anderson had quarrelled with Dr. Parker and would never have him again.

Clarissa Wilcox was determined that she would see David Anderson before he died. There were some things she must say to him. She had been waiting for forty years to say them ... and her chance had come at last. Thanks to Susan Baker whom she hated ... there had been an age-old feud between the Bakers of Glen St. Mary and the Wilcoxes of Mowbray Narrows and she and Susan Baker never did more than nod coldly when they met. Besides, Susan Baker put on such ridiculous airs because she was the hired girl at Ingleside. As if that was any great thing! None of the Wilcoxes ever had to hire out to earn their living. They had been wealthy once and had looked down on the Bakers. That time had long since passed. They were poor now but they still looked down on the Bakers. Nevertheless, she was grateful to Susan Baker for telling her about David Anderson.

He must be very close to death indeed or Susan Baker would not have mentioned it. They were a close-mouthed lot at Ingleside when it came to the doctor’s patients. Susan was always being pumped but she was as bad as the rest of them ... as if she belonged to the family, thought Clarissa scornfully.

Such airs as some people gave themselves. But what else would you expect of a Baker?

The main thing was that she had found out in time that David Anderson was really dying.

She had known this chance must come. Amid all the injustices of life this one monstrous injustice could never be permitted ... that David Anderson, with whom she had danced in youth, should die without hearing what she had to tell him. Susan Baker had wondered at the strange flash that had come into Clarissa Wilcox’s old, faded face when she had happened to mention his approaching death. Susan wondered uneasily if she should have mentioned it at all. Would the doctor be offended?

But everybody knew it. There was no secret about it. Susan decided she was being overscrupulous. None the less she was careful to mention it to Mrs. Dr. Blythe.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Blythe had said carelessly. “The doctor says he may go out at any moment.”

Which set Susan’s conscience at rest.

Clarissa Wilcox knew that David Anderson could still hear her ... so much gossip said. In fact, Dr. Parker had said so. The sudden, unheralded stroke that had laid her hated enemy low ... everybody in Lowbridge and Mowbray Narrows and Glen St. Mary had forgotten for generations that there was any enmity or cause of enmity between them but to Clarissa Wilcox it was still a thing of yesterday ... well, the stroke had robbed him of speech and movement ... even of sight, since he could not lift his eyelids ... but he could still hear and was quite conscious.

Clarissa was glad he could not see her ... could not see the changes time had wrought in her once fair face ... yes, she
had
been good-looking once in spite of the Bakers’ sneers ... something
few Bakers had ever been ... certainly not poor Susan, who, however, belonged to a younger generation. Yes, she could say what she liked to David Anderson without any risk of seeing the old laughing scorn in his eyes.

He was helpless ... he was at her mercy ... she could tell him what had burned in her heart for years. He would have to listen to her. He could not escape from her ... could not walk away with his suave, courtly, inscrutable smile.

She would avenge Blanche at last ... beautiful, beloved Blanche, dead in her dark young loveliness. Did anybody remember Blanche but her? Susan Baker’s old aunt, perhaps. Had Susan ever heard the story? Not likely. The matter had been hushed up.

Clarissa, as usual, was shrouded in black, and was bent and smileless. She had worn black ever since Blanche died ... a Wilcox peculiarity, so the Bakers said. Her long, heart-shaped face, with its intense, unfaded blue eyes, was covered with minute wrinkles ... Susan Baker had thought that afternoon how strange that old Clarissa Wilcox had kept her eyes so young when those of all her contemporaries were sunken and faded. Susan thought herself quite young compared with Clarissa, who, she had been told, had been quite a beauty in her youth but had got sadly over it, poor thing. Well, the Wilcoxes had always had a great opinion of themselves.

“Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan, as they concocted a fruitcake together, “is it better to be beautiful when you are young and have it to remember always, even though it must be hard to see your good looks fade, than to be always plain and so have nothing much to regret when you grow old?”

“What strange questions you ask sometimes, Susan,” said Anne, deftly snipping candied peel into slender strips. “For
my own part,
I
think it would be nice to be beautiful when you were young and remember it.”

“But then you were always beautiful, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan with a sigh.

“Me beautiful ... with my red hair and freckles,” laughed Anne. “You don’t know how I longed to be beautiful, Susan. They tell me that that old Miss Wilcox who called this afternoon was quite a beauty in her youth.”

“The Wilcoxes all thought they were handsome,” said Susan with a sniff. “I never thought Clarissa was but I have told you that her sister Blanche was really quite handsome. However, though I am far from young, Mrs. Dr. dear, I do not remember her.”

“You Bakers have never seemed to be very friendly with the Wilcoxes, Susan,” said Anne, curiously. “Some old family feud, I suppose?”

“I have been told so,” answered Susan, “but to tell the plain truth, Mrs. Dr. dear, I have never really known how it started. I only know that the Wilcoxes thought themselves much better than the Bakers ...”

“And I suppose the Bakers thought themselves much better than the Wilcoxes,” teased the doctor, who had come in.

“The Wilcoxes had more money,” retorted Susan, “but I do not think they were any better than the Bakers for all that. This Clarissa, now, was said to have been quite a belle in her youth ... but she did not get a husband any more than some of the rest of us.”

“Perhaps she was more particular,” said the doctor. He knew that would enrage Susan, and it did. Without a word she picked up her pan of raisins and marched into the house.

“Why will you tease her so, Gilbert?” said Anne reproachfully.

“It’s such fun,” said the doctor. “Well, old David Anderson of Lowbridge is dying ... I doubt if he survives the night. They say he was a gay blade in his youth. You wouldn’t think so to see him now.”

“The things time does to us!” sighed Anne.

“You’re a bit young to be thinking of that yet,” said Gilbert. “Clarissa Wilcox looks rather young for her age. Those eyes, and hardly a thread of grey hair. Do you know who his wife was?”

“No ... Rose Somebody. Of course I’ve seen it on her monument in the Lowbridge cemetery. And it seems to me that there was some scandal about David Anderson and this Clarissa’s sister Blanche.”

“Who is talking scandal now?” asked Gilbert.

“A thing that is so old ceases to be scandal and becomes history. Well, I must go and placate Susan and get this cake in the oven. It’s for Kenneth Ford’s birthday ... they’ll be at the House of Dreams Wednesday, you know.”

“Have you got reconciled to exchanging the House of Dreams for Ingleside?”

“Long ago,” said Anne. But she sighed. After all, there would never be any place for her quite like the House of Dreams.

Meanwhile Clarissa Wilcox walked along the road to Lowbridge with the step of a young girl. Her dark hair, as the doctor had said, had few grey hairs in it, but looked rather unnatural around her wrinkled face. It was covered by a crocheted fascinator, as it used to be called, which Blanche had made for her long ago. She seldom went anywhere so it had lasted well. She never cared ... now ... what she wore. She had a long, thin mouth and a dreadful smile when she smiled at all. Very few people, if they had thought about it, had ever seen Clarissa Wilcox smile.

But she was smiling now. David Anderson was sick ... sick unto death ... and her hour had come. The Wilcoxes had always hated the Bakers but Clarissa forgave them everything now, for the sake of what Susan had told her. In Clarissa’s eyes Susan Baker was a young upstart, who put on silly airs because she was employed at Ingleside ... “Quite a step up in the world for a Baker,” thought Clarissa scornfully ... but she forgave her for being a Baker. If she had not told her she might not have known till it was too late that David Anderson was sick or dying.

The magic light of a long, blue evening was sifting in from the Four Winds Harbour but the wind was rising rapidly. It sighed in the tall old spruces along the road and it seemed to Clarissa that ghostly years were calling to her in its voice. It was not an ordinary wind ... it was a wind of death blowing for David Anderson. What if he died before she got to him? Susan Baker had said he might pass out any minute. She hurried faster along the road to Lowbridge.

In the distance two ships were sailing out of the Four Winds Harbour ... likely
his
ships, she thought, forgetting that David Anderson had retired from business years ago. To be sure, some nephews of his carried it on. Where were they going? Ceylon ... Singapore ... Mandalay? Once the names would have thrilled her ... once she had longed to see those alluring places.

But it was Rose who saw them with him ... Rose instead of Blanche as it should have been ... and Rose was dead, too. But the ships still went out, although David Anderson, who had been a shipbuilder and owner all his life, carrying on trade in ports all over the world, had long ceased to go in them.

He left that to his son. His son! Perhaps!

Clarissa did not even know that his son was a ship surgeon and seldom was ever seen in Lowbridge.

Lowbridge was before her ... and David. There on the Main Street was David Anderson’s rich, splendid house, where Rose had queened it for years. It was still rich and splendid in Clarissa Wilcox’s eyes, although the younger generation were beginning to call it old-fashioned and out-of-date. Little white cherry blossoms were fluttering down on the walks through the cool spring air.