Anne of Windy Poplars Page 16

  Anne laughed. It was safe to laugh now, for the bitterness had gone out of Katherine's voice. It sounded merely rueful and impatient.

  'Anyhow, we're going to be friends, and we're going to have a jolly ten days here to begin our friendship. I've always wanted to be friends with you, Katherine - spelled with a K! I've always felt that underneath all your prickles was something that would make you worth while as a friend.'

  'So that is what you've really thought of me? I've often wondered. Well, the leopard will have a go at changing its spots, if it's at all possible. Perhaps it is. I can believe almost anything at this Green Gables of yours. It's the first place I've ever been in that felt like a home. I would like to be more like other people - if it isn't too late. I'll even practise a sunny smile for that Gilbert of yours when he arrives tomorrow night. Of course, I've forgotten how to talk to young men, if I ever knew. He'll just think me an old-maid gooseberry. I wonder if, when I go to bed tonight, I'll feel furious with myself for pulling off my mask and letting you see into my shivering soul like this.'

  'No, you won't. You'll think, "I'm glad she's found out I'm human." We're going to snuggle down among the warm, fluffy blankets, probably with two hot-water bottles, for likely Marilla and Mrs Lynde will each put one in for us for fear the other has forgotten it. And you'll feel deliciously sleepy after this walk in the frosty moonshine. And first thing you'll know it will be morning, and you'll feel as if you were the first person to discover that the sky is blue. And you'll grow learned in lore of plum puddings, because you're going to help me make one for Tuesday - a great big plummy one.'

  Anne was amazed at Katherine's good looks when they went in. Her complexion was radiant after her long walk in the keen air, and colour made all the difference in the world to her.

  'Why, Katherine would be handsome if she wore the right kind of hats and dresses,' reflected Anne, trying to imagine Katherine with a certain richly dark velvet hat she had seen in a Summerside shop on her black hair and pulled over her amber eyes. 'I've simply got to see what can be done about it.'

  6

  Saturday and Monday were full of gay doings at Green Gables. The plum pudding was concocted and the Christmas tree brought home. Katherine and Anne and Davy and Dora went to the woods for it, a beautiful little fir to whose cutting down Anne was only reconciled by the fact that it was in a little clearing of Mr Harrison's which was going to be stumped and ploughed in the spring, anyhow.

  They wandered about, gathering creeping spruce and ground pine for wreaths, even some ferns that kept green in a certain deep hollow of the woods all the winter, until day smiled back at night over white-bosomed hills, and they came back to Green Gables in triumph, to meet a tall young man with hazel eyes and the beginnings of a moustache which made him look so much older and maturer that Anne had one awful moment of wondering if it really was Gilbert or a stranger.

  Katherine, with a little smile that tried to be sarcastic, but couldn't quite succeed, left them in the parlour and played games with the twins in the kitchen all the evening. To her amazement she found she was enjoying it. And what fun it was to go down the cellar with Davy and find that there were really such things as sweet apples still left in the world!

  Katherine had never been in a country cellar before, and had no idea what a delightful spooky, shadowy place it could be by candlelight. Life already seemed warmer. For the first time it came home to Katherine that life might be beautiful even for her.

  Davy made enough noise to wake the Seven Sleepers at an unearthly hour Christmas morning, ringing an old cow-bell up and down the stairs. Marilla was horrified at his doing such a thing when there was a guest in the house, but Katherine came down laughing. Somehow an odd camaraderie had sprung up between her and Davy. She told Anne candidly that she had no use for the impeccable Dora, but that Davy was somehow tarred with her own brush.

  They opened the parlour and distributed the gifts before breakfast, because the twins - even Dora - couldn't have eaten anything if they hadn't. Katherine, who had not expected anything, except, perhaps a duty gift from Anne, found herself getting presents from everyone: a gay, crocheted afghan from Mrs Lynde, a sachet of orris-root from Dora, a paper-knife from Davy, a basketful of tiny jars of jam and jelly from Marilla, even a little bronze Chessy cat for a paperweight from Gilbert. And, tied under the tree, curled up on a bit of warm and woolly blanket, a dear little brown-eyed puppy, with alert, silken ears and an ingratiating tail. A card tied to his neck bore the legend, 'From Anne, who dares, after all, to wish you a Merry Christmas.'

  Katherine gathered his wriggling little body up in her arms and spoke shakily. 'Anne, he's a darling! But Mrs Dennis won't let me keep him. I asked her if I might get a dog, and she refused.'

  'I've arranged it all with Mrs Dennis. You'll find she won't object. And, anyway, Katherine, you're not going to be there long. You must find a decent place to live, now that you've paid off what you thought were your obligations. Look at the lovely box of stationery Diana sent me. Isn't it fascinating to look at the blank pages and wonder what will be written on them?'

  Mrs Lynde was thankful it was a white Christmas - there would be no fat graveyards when Christmas was white - but to Katherine it seemed a purple and crimson and golden Christmas. And the week that followed was just as beautiful. Katherine had often wondered bitterly just what it would be like to be happy, and now she found out. She bloomed out in the most astonishing way. Anne found herself enjoying their companionship.

  'To think I was afraid she would spoil my Christmas holiday!' she reflected in amazement.

  'To think,' said Katherine to herself, 'that I was on the verge of refusing to come here when Anne invited me!'

  They went for long walks, through Lovers' Lane and the Haunted Wood, where the very silence seemed friendly; over hills where the light snow whirled in a winter dance of goblins; through old orchards full of violet shadows; through the glory of sunset woods. There were no birds to chirp or sing, no brooks to gurgle, no squirrels to gossip. But the wind made occasional music that had in quality what it lacked in quantity.

  'One can always find something lovely to look at or listen to,' said Anne.

  They talked of 'cabbages and kings' and hitched their wagons to stars, and came home with appetites that taxed even the Green Gables pantry. One day it stormed, and they couldn't go out. The east wind was beating round the eaves, and the grey Gulf was roaring. But even a storm at Green Gables had charms of its own. It was cosy to sit by the stove and dreamily watch the firelight flickering over the ceiling while you munched apples and candy. How jolly supper was with the storm wailing outside!

  One night Gilbert took them to see Diana and her new baby daughter.

  'I never held a baby in my life before,' said Katherine, as they drove home. 'For one thing, I didn't want to, and, for another, I'd have been afraid of it going to pieces in my grasp. You can't imagine how I felt - so big and clumsy with that tiny, exquisite thing in my arms. I know Mrs Wright thought I was going to drop it every minute. I could see her striving heroically to conceal her terror. But it did something to me - the baby, I mean. I haven't decided just what.'

  'Babies are such fascinating creatures,' said Anne dreamily. 'They are what I heard somebody at Redmond call "terrific bundles of potentialities". Think of it, Katherine: Homer must have been a baby once, a baby with dimples and great eyes full of light. He couldn't have been blind then, of course.'

  'What a pity his mother didn't know he was to be Homer!' said Katherine.

  'But I think I'm glad Judas's mother didn't know he was to be Judas,' said Anne softly. 'I hope she never did know.'

  There was a concert in the hall one night, with a party at Abner Sloane's after it, and Anne persuaded Katherine to go to both.

  'I want you to give us a reading for our programme, Katherine. I've heard you read beautifully.'

  'I used to recite; I think I rather liked doing it. But the summer before last I recited at a shore concert which a
party of summer resorters got up, and I heard them laughing at me afterwards.'

  'How do you know they were laughing at you?'

  'They must have been. There wasn't anything else to laugh at.'

  Anne hid a smile, and persisted in asking for the reading. 'Give Genevra for an encore. I'm told you do that splendidly. Mrs Stephen Pringle told me she never slept a wink the night after she heard you give it.'

  'No, I've never liked Genevra. It's in the reader, so I try occasionally to show the class how to read it. I really have no patience with Genevra. Why didn't she scream when she found herself locked in? When they were hunting everywhere for her surely somebody would have heard her.'

  Katherine finally promised the reading, but was dubious about the party.

  'I'll go, of course. But nobody will ask me to dance, and I'll feel sarcastic and prejudiced and ashamed. I'm always miserable at parties, the few I've ever gone to. Nobody seems to think I can dance, and you know I can fairly well, Anne. I picked it up at Uncle Henry's, because a poor bit of a maid they had wanted to learn too, and she and I used to dance together in the kitchen at night to the music that went on in the parlour. I think I'd like it - with the right kind of partner.'

  'You won't be miserable at this party, Katherine. You won't be outside looking in. There's all the difference in the world, you know, between being inside looking out and outside looking in. You have such lovely hair, Katherine. Do you mind if I try a new way of doing it?'

  Katherine shrugged. 'Oh, go ahead. I suppose my hair does look dreadful, but I've no time to be always crimping. I haven't a party dress. Will my green taffeta do?'

  'It will have to do, though green is the one colour above all others that you should never wear, my Katherine. But you're going to wear a red pin-tucked chiffon collar I've made for you... Yes, you are! You ought to have a red dress, Katherine.'

  'I've always hated red. When I went to live at Uncle Henry's Aunt Gertrude always made me wear aprons of bright turkey-red. The other children in school used to call out "Fire!" when I came in with one of those aprons on. Anyway, I can't be bothered with clothes.'

  'Heaven grant me patience! Clothes are very important,' said Anne severely, as she braided and coiled. Then she looked at her work and saw that it was good. She put her arm about Katherine's shoulders and turned her to the mirror. 'Don't you truly think we are a pair of quite good-looking girls?' she laughed. 'And isn't it really nice to think people will find some pleasure in looking at us? There are so many homely people who would actually look quite attractive if they took a little pains with themselves. Three Sundays ago in church - you remember, the day poor old Mr Milvain preached, and had such a terrible cold in his head that nobody could make out what he was saying - well, I passed the time making the people around me beautiful. I gave Mrs Brent a new nose; I waved Mary Addison's hair and gave Jane Marden's a lemon rinse; I dressed Emma Dill in blue instead of brown; I dressed Charlotte Blair in stripes instead of checks; I removed several moles; and I shaved off Thomas Anderson's long, sandy Piccadilly weepers. You wouldn't have known them when I got through with them. And, except perhaps for Mrs Brent's nose, they could have done everything I did themselves. Why, Katherine, your eyes are just the colour of tea - amber tea. Now, live up to your name this evening. A brook should be sparkling, limpid, merry.'

  'Everything I'm not.'

  'Everything you've been this past week. So you can be it.'

  'That's only the magic of Green Gables. When I go back to Summerside twelve o'clock will have struck for Cinderella.'

  'You'll take the magic back with you. Look at yourself, looking for once as you ought to look all the time.'

  Katherine gazed at her reflection in the mirror as if rather doubting her identity.

  'I do look years younger,' she admitted. 'You were right. Clothes do do things to you. Oh, I know I've been looking older than my age. I didn't care. Why should I? Nobody else cared. And I'm not like you, Anne. Apparently you were born knowing how to live. And I don't know anything about it - not even the ABC. I wonder if it's too late to learn? I've been sarcastic so long I don't know if I can be anything else. Sarcasm seemed to me to be the only way I could make any impression on people. And it seems to me too that I've always been afraid when I was in the company of other people - afraid of saying something stupid, afraid of being laughed at -'

  'Katherine Brooke, look at yourself in that mirror. Carry that picture of yourself with you - magnificent hair framing your face, instead of trying to pull it backward, eyes sparkling like stars, a little flush of excitement on your cheeks - and you won't feel afraid. Come, now! We're going to be late, but fortunately all the performers have what I heard Dora referring to as "preserved." seats.'

  Gilbert drove them to the hall. How like old times it was! Only Katherine was with her in place of Diana. Anne sighed. Diana had so many other interests now. No more running round to concerts and parties for her.

  But what an evening it was! What silvery-satin roads with a pale green sky in the west after a light snowfall! Orion was treading his stately march across the heavens, and hills and fields and woods lay around them in a pearly silence.

  Katherine's reading captured her audience from the first line, and at the party she could not find dances for all her would-be partners. She suddenly found herself laughing without bitterness. Then home to Green Gables, warming their toes at the sitting-room fire by the light of two friendly candles on the mantelpiece; and Mrs Lynde tiptoeing into their room, late as it was, to ask them if they'd like another blanket and to assure Katherine that her little dog was snug and warm in a basket behind the kitchen stove.

  'I've got a new outlook on life,' thought Katherine, as she drifted off to slumber. 'I didn't know there were people like this.'

  'Come again,' said Marilla, when she left. Marilla never said that to anyone unless she meant it.

  'Of course she's coming again,' said Anne. 'For week-ends - and for weeks in the summer. We'll build bonfires and hoe in the garden, and pick apples and go for the cows, and row on the pond and get lost in the woods. I want to show you little Hester Gray's garden, Katherine, and Echo Lodge, and Violet Vale when it's full of violets.'

  7

  Windy Willows

  The street where ghosts (should) walk

  January 5

  MY ESTEEMED FRIEND,

  That isn't anything Aunt Chatty's grandmother wrote. It's only something she would have written if she'd thought of it.

  I've made a New Year resolution to write sensible love-letters. Do you suppose such a thing is possible?

  I have left dear Green Gables, but I have returned to dear Windy Willows. Rebecca Dew had a fire lighted in the tower room for me and a hot-water bottle in the bed.

  I'm so glad I like Windy Willows. It would be dreadful to live in a place I didn't like, that didn't seem friendly to me, that didn't say, 'I'm glad you're back.' Windy Willows does. It's a bit old-fashioned and a bit prim, but it likes me.

  And I was glad to see Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty and Rebecca Dew again. I can't help seeing their funny sides, but I love them well for all that.

  Rebecca Dew said such a nice thing to me yesterday: 'Spook's Lane has been a different place since you came here, Miss Shirley.'

  I'm glad you liked Katherine, Gilbert. She was surprisingly nice to you. It's amazing to find how nice she can be when she tries. And I think she is just as much amazed at it herself as anyone else. She had no idea it would be so easy.

  It's going to make so much difference in school, having a Vice you can really work with. She is going to change her boarding-house, and I have already persuaded her to get that velvet hat, and have not yet given up hope of persuading her to sing in the choir.

  Mr Hamilton's dog came down yesterday and chivied Dusty Miller. 'This is the last straw,' said Rebecca Dew, and with her red cheeks redder still, her chubby back shaking with anger and in such a hurry that she put her hat on hindside before, and never knew it, she toddled up the
road and gave Mr Hamilton quite a large piece of her mind. I can just see his foolish, amiable face while he was listening to her.

  'I do not like That Cat,' she told me, 'but he is ours, and no Hamilton dog is going to come here and give him impudence in his own backyard. "He only chased your cat in fun," said Jabez Hamilton. "The Hamilton ideas of fun are different from the MacComber ideas of fun or the MacLean ideas of fun - or, if it comes to that, the Dew ideas of fun," I told him. "Tut, tut! You must have had cabbage for dinner, Miss Dew," said he. "No," I said, "but I could have had. Mrs Captain MacComber didn't sell all her cabbages last fall and leave her family without any because the price was so good. There are some people," sez I, "that can't hear anything because of the jingle in their pocket." And I left that to sink in. But what could you expect from a Hamilton? Low scum!'

  There is a crimson star hanging low over the white Storm King. I wish you were here to watch it with me. If you were I really think it would be more than a moment of esteem and friendship.

  January 12

  Little Elizabeth came over two nights ago to find out if I could tell her what peculiar kind of terrible animals Papal Bulls were, and to tell me tearfully that her teacher had asked her to sing at a concert the public school is getting up, but that Mrs Campbell put her foot down and said 'No' most decidedly. When Elizabeth attempted to plead Mrs Campbell said, 'Have the goodness not to talk back to me, Elizabeth, if you please.'

  Little Elizabeth wept a few bitter tears in the tower room that night, and said she felt it would make her Lizzie for ever. She could never be any of her other names again.