Rilla of Ingleside Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  DEW OF MORNING

  Outside, the Ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine andplots of alluring shadows. Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammockunder the big Scotch pine, Gertrude Oliver sat at its roots beside her,and Walter was stretched at full length on the grass, lost in a romanceof chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centurieslived vividly again for him.

  Rilla was the "baby" of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state ofsecret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. She was sonearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tallas Di and Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her tobe. She had great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with littlegolden freckles, and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure,questioning look which made people, especially lads in their teens,want to answer it. Her hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dentin her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in withher finger at Rilla's christening. Rilla, whose best friends could notdeny her share of vanity, thought her face would do very well, butworried over her figure, and wished her mother could be prevailed uponto let her wear longer dresses. She, who had been so plump androly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly slim now, inthe arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by callingher "Spider." Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness. There was somethingin her movements that made you think she never walked but alwaysdanced. She had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled, but stillthe general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl, evenif she were not so clever as Nan and Di.

  Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boardedfor a year at Ingleside. The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla whowas fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to shareher room, since no other was available. Gertrude Oliver wastwenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was astriking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, aclever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twistedabout her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain charm ofinterest and mystery in her face, and Rilla found her fascinating. Evenher occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had allurement for Rilla.These moods came only when Miss Oliver was tired. At all other timesshe was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at Ingleside neverremembered that she was so much older than themselves. Walter and Rillawere her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes andaspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"--to go toparties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and--yes,there is no mincing matters--beaux! In the plural, at that! As forWalter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "toRosamond"--i.e., Faith Meredith--and that he aimed at a Professorshipof English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate loveof beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew hisstrength and his weakness.

  Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliverfound pleasure in looking at him for his good looks--he was so exactlylike what she would have liked her own son to be. Glossy black hair,brilliant dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a poet to hisfingertips! That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for alad of twenty to write. Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knewthat Walter Blythe had a wonderful gift.

  Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He never teased her as Jem andShirley did. He never called her "Spider." His pet name for her was"Rilla-my-Rilla"--a little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had beennamed after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had diedbefore Rilla was old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detestedthe name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldn't theyhave called her by her first name, Bertha, which was beautiful anddignified, instead of that silly "Rilla"? She did not mind Walter'sversion, but nobody else was allowed to call her that, except MissOliver now and then. "Rilla-my-Rilla" in Walter's musical voice soundedvery beautiful to her--like the lilt and ripple of some silvery brook.She would have died for Walter if it would have done him any good, soshe told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics as most girls offifteen are--and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion thathe told Di more of his secrets than he told her.

  "He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand," she had oncelamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tellthem to a single soul--not even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all myown--I just couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you,dearest--but I would never betray his. I tell him everything--I evenshow him my diary. And it hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell methings. He shows me all his poems, though--they are marvellous, MissOliver. Oh, I just live in the hope that some day I shall be to Walterwhat Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never wroteanything like Walter's poems--nor Tennyson, either."

  "I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash,"said Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look inRilla's eye, she added hastily,

  "But I believe Walter will be a great poet, too--some day--and you willhave more of his confidence as you grow older."

  "When Walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year I was almostcrazy," sighed Rilla, a little importantly. "They never told me how illhe really was until it was all over--father wouldn't let them. I'm gladI didn't know--I couldn't have borne it. I cried myself to sleep everynight as it was. But sometimes," concluded Rilla bitterly--she liked tospeak bitterly now and then in imitation of Miss Oliver--"sometimes Ithink Walter cares more for Dog Monday than he does for me."

  Dog Monday was the Ingleside dog, so called because he had come intothe family on a Monday when Walter had been reading Robinson Crusoe. Hereally belonged to Jem but was much attached to Walter also. He waslying beside Walter now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumpinghis tail rapturously whenever Walter gave him an absent pat. Monday wasnot a collie or a setter or a hound or a Newfoundland. He was just, asJem said, "plain dog"--very plain dog, uncharitable people added.Certainly, Monday's looks were not his strong point. Black spots werescattered at random over his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently,blotting out an eye. His ears were in tatters, for Monday was neversuccessful in affairs of honour. But he possessed one talisman. He knewthat not all dogs could be handsome or eloquent or victorious, but thatevery dog could love. Inside his homely hide beat the mostaffectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog since dogs were; andsomething looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer akin to a soulthan any theologian would allow. Everybody at Ingleside was fond ofhim, even Susan, although his one unfortunate propensity of sneakinginto the spare room and going to sleep on the bed tried her affectionsorely.

  On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existingconditions.

  "Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afarat the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over RainbowValley. "We've had such lovely times--and such lovely weather. It hasjust been perfect every way."

  "I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. "It'sominous--somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the gods--a sort ofcompensation for what is coming afterwards. I've seen that so oftenthat I don't care to hear people say they've had a perfect time. Junehas been delightful, though."

  "Of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said Rilla. "The onlyexciting thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old MissMead fainting in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic wouldhappen once in a while."

  "Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one.What a nice summer all you gay creatures will have! And me moping atLowbridge!"

  "You'll be over often, won't you? I think there's going to be lots offun this summer, though I'll just be on the fringe of things as usual,I suppose. Isn't it horrid when people think you're a little girl whenyou're not?"

  "There's plenty of time for you to be grown up, Rilla. Don't wish youryouth away. It goes too quickly. Y
ou'll begin to taste life soonenough."

  "Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla, laughing. "I wanteverything--everything a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in anothermonth, and then nobody can say I'm a child any longer. I heard someonesay once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years ina girl's life. I'm going to make them perfectly splendid--just fillthem with fun."

  "There's no use thinking about what you're going to do--you aretolerably sure not to do it."

  "Oh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the thinking," cried Rilla.

  "You think of nothing but fun, you monkey," said Miss Oliverindulgently, reflecting that Rilla's chin was really the last word inchins. "Well, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion ofgoing to college this fall?"

  "No--nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all thoseologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of usgoing to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be onedunce in every family. I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be apretty, popular, delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent atall, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me todo anything so I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be ahousewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, andwhen Susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father saysI toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of thefield," concluded Rilla, with another laugh.

  "You are too young to give up your studies altogether, Rilla."

  "Oh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. Itwill polish up her B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Don't look atme so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober andserious--everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month I'llbe fifteen--and next year sixteen--and the year after that seventeen.Could anything be more enchanting?"

  "Rap wood," said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. "Rapwood, Rilla-my-Rilla."