Anne's House of Dreams Page 10

  CHAPTER 10

  LESLIE MOORE

  "I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight," Anne told Gog andMagog one October evening. There was no one else to tell, for Gilberthad gone over the harbor. Anne had her little domain in the specklessorder one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, andfelt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. Many anddelightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts andnew, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life withtheir rainbows. She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and thesilvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rockshore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, andits coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was tothis shore she hied herself tonight.

  There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for threedays. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild thewhite spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty andtempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it wasover, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a windstirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rockin a splendid white turmoil--the only restless thing in the great,pervading stillness and peace.

  "Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stressfor," Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across thetossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presentlyshe scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where sheseemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.

  "I'm going to dance and sing," she said. "There's no one here to seeme--the seagulls won't carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy asI like."

  She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sandjust out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with theirspent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, shereached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; thenshe stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there hadbeen a witness to her dance and laughter.

  The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulderof the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. She was lookingstraight at Anne with a strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy,part--could it be?--envy. She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,more than ever like Browning's "gorgeous snake," was bound about herhead with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material,very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its finecurves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over herknee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throatand cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset brokethrough a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. For amoment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified--all its mystery,all its passion, all its elusive charm.

  "You--you must think me crazy," stammered Anne, trying to recover herself-possession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon ofchildishness--she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matronto keep up--it was too bad!

  "No," said the girl, "I don't."

  She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her mannerslightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes--eager yet shy,defiant yet pleading--which turned Anne from her purpose of walkingaway. Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.

  "Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had neveryet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "I am Mrs. Blythe--andI live in that little white house up the harbor shore."

  "Yes, I know," said the girl. "I am Leslie Moore--Mrs. Dick Moore,"she added stiffly.

  Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement. It had not occurredto her that this girl was married--there seemed nothing of the wifeabout her. And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had picturedas a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjusther mental focus to this astonishing change.

  "Then--then you live in that gray house up the brook," she stammered.

  "Yes. I should have gone over to call on you long ago," said theother. She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.

  "I wish you WOULD come," said Anne, recovering herself somewhat."We're such near neighbors we ought to be friends. That is the solefault of Four Winds--there aren't quite enough neighbors. Otherwise itis perfection."

  "You like it?"

  "LIKE it! I love it. It is the most beautiful place I ever saw."

  "I've never seen many places," said Leslie Moore, slowly, "but I'vealways thought it was very lovely here. I--I love it, too."

  She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly. Anne had an oddimpression that this strange girl--the word "girl" would persist--couldsay a good deal if she chose.

  "I often come to the shore," she added.

  "So do I," said Anne. "It's a wonder we haven't met here before."

  "Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do. It is generallylate--almost dark--when I come. And I love to come just after astorm--like this. I don't like the sea so well when it's calm andquiet. I like the struggle--and the crash--and the noise."

  "I love it in all its moods," declared Anne. "The sea at Four Winds isto me what Lover's Lane was at home. Tonight it seemed so free--sountamed--something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy. That waswhy I danced along the shore in that wild way. I didn't supposeanybody was looking, of course. If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen meshe would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe."

  "You know Miss Cornelia?" said Leslie, laughing. She had an exquisitelaugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of thedelicious quality of a baby's. Anne laughed, too.

  "Oh, yes. She has been down to my house of dreams several times."

  "Your house of dreams?"

  "Oh, that's a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for ourhome. We just call it that between ourselves. It slipped out before Ithought."

  "So Miss Russell's little white house is YOUR house of dreams," saidLeslie wonderingly. "_I_ had a house of dreams once--but it was apalace," she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred bya little note of derision.

  "Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too," said Anne. "I suppose all girlsdo. And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seemto fulfill all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is there.YOU should have had your palace really, though--you are so beautiful.You MUST let me say it--it has to be said--I'm nearly bursting withadmiration. You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore."

  "If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie," said the other withan odd passion.

  "Of course I will. And MY friends call me Anne."

  "I suppose I am beautiful," Leslie went on, looking stormily out tosea. "I hate my beauty. I wish I had always been as brown and plainas the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?"

  The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.

  "Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said Anne. "Gilbert and Iwere invited to her house to a state tea last week. You've heard ofgroaning tables."

  "I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports ofweddings," said Leslie, smiling.

  "Well, Miss Cornelia's groaned--at least, it creaked--positively. Youcouldn't have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinarypeople. She had every kind of pie you could name, I think--exceptlemon pie. She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at theCharlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since forfear of losing her reputation for them."

  "Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?"

  "_I_ wasn't. Gilbert won her heart by eating--I won't tell you howmuch. She said she never knew a man who didn't like pie better thanhis Bible. Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia."

  "So do I," said Leslie. "She is the b
est friend I have in the world."

  Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had nevermentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her. Miss Cornelia had certainly talkedfreely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.

  "Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing tothe exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in therock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base. "If I had comehere--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home satisfied."

  "The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,"agreed Anne. "My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sitat its window and feast my eyes. The colors and shadows are never thesame two minutes together."

  "And you are never lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly. "Never--when youare alone?"

  "No. I don't think I've ever been really lonely in my life," answeredAnne. "Even when I'm alone I have real good company--dreams andimaginations and pretendings. I LIKE to be alone now and then, just tothink over things and TASTE them. But I love friendship--and nice,jolly little times with people. Oh, WON'T you come to see me--often?Please do. I believe," Anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me ifyou knew me."

  "I wonder if YOU would like ME," said Leslie seriously. She was notfishing for a compliment. She looked out across the waves that werebeginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyesfilled with shadows.

  "I'm sure I would," said Anne. "And please don't think I'm utterlyirresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset. Nodoubt I shall be dignified after a time. You see, I haven't beenmarried very long. I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child,yet."

  "I have been married twelve years," said Leslie.

  Here was another unbelievable thing.

  "Why, you can't be as old as I am!" exclaimed Anne. "You must havebeen a child when you were married."

  "I was sixteen," said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacketlying beside her. "I am twenty-eight now. Well, I must go back."

  "So must I. Gilbert will probably be home. But I'm so glad we bothcame to the shore tonight and met each other."

  Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled. She had offeredfriendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if ithad not been absolutely repelled. In silence they climbed the cliffsand walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wildgrasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight. Whenthey reached the shore lane Leslie turned.

  "I go this way, Mrs. Blythe. You will come over and see me some time,won't you?"

  Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her. She got theimpression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.

  "I will come if you really want me to," she said a little coldly.

  "Oh, I do--I do," exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed toburst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.

  "Then I'll come. Good-night--Leslie."

  "Good-night, Mrs. Blythe."

  Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.

  "So Mrs. Dick Moore isn't one of the race that knows Joseph?" saidGilbert teasingly.

  "No--o--o, not exactly. And yet--I think she WAS one of them once, buthas gone or got into exile," said Anne musingly. "She is certainlyvery different from the other women about here. You can't talk abouteggs and butter to HER. To think I've been imagining her a second Mrs.Rachel Lynde! Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?"

  "No. I've seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but Idon't know which was Moore."

  "She never mentioned him. I KNOW she isn't happy."

  "From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was oldenough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that shehad made a mistake. It's a common tragedy enough, Anne.

  "A fine woman would have made the best of it. Mrs. Moore has evidentlylet it make her bitter and resentful."

  "Don't let us judge her till we know," pleaded Anne. "I don't believeher case is so ordinary. You will understand her fascination when youmeet her, Gilbert. It is a thing quite apart from her beauty. I feelthat she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter asinto a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shutsall her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop andblossom. There, I've been struggling to define her to myself eversince I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it. I'm goingto ask Miss Cornelia about her."