Anne of Windy Poplars Page 3

  'Nobody knows what I've gone through on account of That Cat - nobody!' Rebecca has assured me.

  The widows are going to wear well. Every day I like them better. Aunt Kate doesn't believe in reading novels, but informs me that she does not propose to censor my reading matter. Aunt Chatty loves novels. She has a 'hidy-hole' where she keeps them - she smuggles them in from the town library - together with a pack of cards for solitaire and anything else she doesn't want Aunt Kate to see. It is in a chair seat which nobody but Aunt Chatty knows is more than a chair seat. She has shared the secret with me, because, I strongly suspect, she wants me to aid and abet her in the aforesaid smuggling. There shouldn't really be any need for hidy-holes at Windy Willows, for I never saw a house with so many mysterious cupboards, though, to be sure, Rebecca Dew won't let them be mysterious. She is always cleaning them out ferociously. 'A house can't keep itself clean,' she says sorrowfully, when either of the widows protests. I am sure she would make short work of a novel or a pack of cards if she found them. They are both a horror to her orthodox soul. Rebecca Dew says cards are the devil's books, and novels even worse. The only things Rebecca ever reads, apart from her Bible, are the Society columns of the Montreal Guardian. She loves to pore over the houses and furniture and doings of millionaires.

  'Just fancy soaking in a golden bath-tub, Miss Shirley!' she said wistfully.

  But she's really an old duck. She has produced from somewhere a comfortable old wing chair of faded brocade that just fits my kinks, and says, 'This is your chair. We'll keep it for you.' And she won't let Dusty Miller sleep on it, lest I get hairs on my school skirt, and give the Pringles something to talk about.

  The whole three are very much interested in my circlet of pearls, and what it signifies. Aunt Kate showed me her engagement ring set with turquoises. She can't wear it because it has grown too small. But poor Aunt Chatty owned to me with tears in her eyes that she had never had an engagement ring. Her husband thought it 'an unnecessary expenditure'. She was in my room at the time, giving her face a bath in buttermilk. She does it every night to preserve her complexion, and has sworn me to secrecy because she doesn't want Aunt Kate to know it.

  'She would think it ridiculous in a woman of my age. And I am sure Rebecca Dew thinks that no Christian woman should try to be beautiful. I used to slip down to the kitchen to do it after Kate had gone to sleep, but I was always afraid of Rebecca Dew coming down. She has ears like a cat's even when she is asleep. If I could just slip in here every night and do it... Oh, thank you, my dear.'

  I have found out a little about our neighbours at the Evergreens. Mrs Campbell (who was a Pringle!) is eighty. I haven't seen her, but from what I can gather she is a very grim old lady. She has a maid, Martha Monkman, almost as ancient and grim as herself, who is generally referred to as 'Mrs Campbell's Woman'. And she has her great-granddaughter, little Elizabeth Grayson, living with her. Elizabeth - on whom I have never laid eyes in spite of my two weeks' sojourn - is eight years old, and goes to the public school by the 'back way', a short cut through the backyards, so I never encounter her going or coming. Her mother, who is dead, was a granddaughter of Mrs Campbell, who brought her up also, her parents being dead. She married a certain Pierce Grayson, a 'Yankee', as Mrs Rachel Lynde would say. She died when Elizabeth was born, and as Pierce Grayson had to leave America at once to take charge of a branch of his firm's business in Paris the baby was sent home to old Mrs Campbell. The story goes that he couldn't bear the sight of her because she had cost her mother her life, and has never taken any notice of her. This, of course, may be sheer gossip, because neither Mrs Campbell or the Woman ever opens her lips about him.

  Rebecca Dew says they are far too strict with little Elizabeth, and she hasn't much of a time of it with them.

  'She isn't like other children; far too old for eight years. The things that she says sometimes! "Rebecca," she sez to me one day, "suppose just as you were ready to get into bed you felt your ankle nipped?" No wonder she's afraid to go to bed in the dark. And they make her do it. Mrs Campbell says there are to be no cowards in her house. They watch her like two cats watching a mouse, and boss her within an inch of her life. If she makes a speck of noise they nearly pass out. It's "Hush! Hush!" all the time. I tell you that child is being hush-hushed to death. And what is to be done about it?'

  What, indeed! I feel that I'd like to see her. She seems to me a bit pathetic. Aunt Kate says she is well looked after from a physical point of view. What Aunt Kate really said was, 'They feed and dress her well' - but a child can't live by bread alone. I can never forget what my own life was like before I came to Green Gables.

  I'm going home next Friday evening to spend two beautiful days in Avonlea. The only drawback will be that everybody I see will ask me how I like teaching in Summerside.

  But think of Green Gables now, Gilbert - the Lake of Shining Waters with a blue mist on it, the maples across the brook beginning to turn scarlet, the ferns golden brown in the Haunted Wood, and the sunset shadows in Lovers' Lane, darling spot! I find it in my heart to wish I were there now with - with - Guess whom?

  Do you know, Gilbert, there are times when I strongly suspect that I love you!

  Windy Willows

  Spook's Lane

  S'side

  October 10

  HONOURED AND RESPECTED SIR,

  That is how a love-letter of Aunt Chatty's grandmother's began. Isn't it delicious? What a thrill of superiority it must have given the grandfather! Wouldn't you really prefer it to 'Gilbert darling', etc.? But, on the whole, I think I'm glad you're not the grandfather - or a grandfather. It's wonderful to think we're young and have our whole lives before us - together - isn't it?

  (Several pages omitted, Anne's pen evidently not being sharp, stub, or rusty)

  I am sitting on the window-seat in the tower looking out into the trees waving against an amber sky and beyond them to the harbour. Last night I had such a lovely walk with myself. I really had to go somewhere, for it was just a trifle dismal at Windy Willows. Aunt Chatty was crying in the sitting-room because her feelings had been hurt, and Aunt Kate was crying in her bedroom because it was the anniversary of Captain Amasa's death, and Rebecca Dew was crying in the kitchen for no reason that I could discover. I've never seen Rebecca Dew cry before. But when I tried tactfully to find out what was wrong she pettishly wanted to know if a body couldn't enjoy a cry when she felt like it. So I folded my tent and stole away, leaving her to her enjoyment.

  I went out and down the harbour road. There was such a nice frosty, Octobery smell in the air, blent with the delightful odour of newly ploughed fields. I walked on and on until twilight had deepened into a moonlit autumn night. I was alone, but not lonely. I held a series of imaginary conversations with imaginary comrades, and thought out so many epigrams that I was agreeably surprised at myself. I couldn't help enjoying myself in spite of my Pringle worries.

  The spirit moves me to utter a few yowls regarding the Pringles. I hate to admit it, but things are not going any too well in Summerside High. There is no doubt that a cabal has been organized against me.

  For one thing, homework is never done by any of the Pringles or half-Pringles. And there is no use in appealing to the parents. They are suave, polite, evasive. I know all the pupils who are not Pringles like me, but the Pringle virus of disobedience is undermining the morale of the whole room. One morning I found my desk turned inside out and upside down. Nobody knew who did it, of course. And no one could or would tell who left on it another day the box out of which popped an artificial snake when I opened it. But every Pringle in the school screamed with laughter over my face. I suppose I did look wildly startled.

  Jen Pringle comes late for school half the time, always with some perfectly watertight excuse, delivered politely, with an insolent tilt to her mouth. She passes notes in class under my very nose. I found a peeled onion in the pocket of my coat when I put it on today. I would love to lock that girl up on bread and water until she learned
how to behave herself.

  The worst thing to date was the caricature of myself I found on the blackboard one morning, done in white chalk with scarlet hair. Everybody denied doing it, Jen among the rest, but I knew Jen was the only pupil in the room who could draw like that. It was done well. My nose - which, as you know, has always been my one pride and joy - was humpbacked, and my mouth was the mouth of a vinegary spinster who had been teaching a school full of Pringles for thirty years. But it was me. I woke up at three o'clock that night and writhed over the recollection. Isn't it queer that the things we writhe over at night are seldom wicked things? Just humiliating ones.

  All sorts of things are being said. I am accused of 'marking down' Hattie Pringle's examination papers just because she is a Pringle. I am said to laugh when the children make mistakes. (Well, I did laugh when Fred Pringle defined a centurion as 'a man who had lived a hundred years'. I couldn't help it.)

  James Pringle is saying, 'There is no discipline in the school, no discipline whatever.' And a report is being circulated that I am a 'foundling'.

  I am beginning to encounter the Pringle antagonism in other quarters. Socially as well as educationally Summerside seems to be under the Pringle thumb. No wonder they are called the Royal Family. I wasn't invited to Alice Pringle's walking party last Friday. And when Mrs Frank Pringle got up a tea in aid of a church project (Rebecca Dew informs me that the ladies are going to 'build' the new spire!) I was the only girl in the Presbyterian Church who was not asked to take a table. I have heard that the minister's wife, who is a newcomer in Summerside, suggested asking me to sing in the choir, and was informed that all the Pringles would drop out of it if she did. That would leave such a skeleton that the choir simply couldn't carry on.

  Of course, I'm not the only one of the staff who has trouble with pupils. When the other teachers send theirs up to me to be 'disciplined' - how I hate that word! - half of them are Pringles. But there is never any complaint made about them.

  Two evenings ago I kept Jen in after school to do some work she had deliberately left undone. Ten minutes later the carriage from Maplehurst drew up before the schoolhouse and Miss Ellen was at the door, a beautifully dressed, sweetly smiling old lady, with elegant black-lace mitts and a fine hawk-like nose, looking as if she had just stepped out of an 1840 band-box. She was so sorry, but could she have Jen? She was going to visit friends in Lowvale, and had promised to take Jen. Jen went off triumphantly, and I realized afresh the forces arrayed against me.

  In my pessimistic moods I think the Pringles are a compound of Sloanes and Pyes. But I know they're not. I feel that I could like them if they were not my enemies. They are, for the most part, a frank, jolly, loyal set. I could even like Miss Ellen. I've never seen Miss Sarah. Miss Sarah has not left Maplehurst for ten years.

  'Too delicate - or thinks she is,' says Rebecca Dew with a sniff. 'But there ain't anything the matter with her pride. All the Pringles are proud, but those two old girls pass everything. You should hear them talk about their ancestors. Well, their old father, Captain Abraham Pringle, was a fine old fellow. His brother Myrom wasn't quite so fine, but you don't hear the Pringles talking much about him. But I'm desprit afraid you're going to have a hard time with them all. When they make up their mind about anything or anybody they've never been known to change it. But keep your chin up, Miss Shirley, keep your chin up.'

  'I wish I could get Miss Sarah's recipe for pound cake,' sighed Aunt Chatty. 'She's promised it to me time and again, but it never comes. It's an old English family recipe. They're so exclusive about their recipes.'

  In wild, fantastic dreams I see myself compelling Miss Sarah to hand that recipe over to Aunt Chatty on bended knee and making Jen mind her p's and q's. The maddening thing is that I could easily make Jen do it myself if her whole clan weren't backing her up in her devilry.

  (Two pages omitted)

  Your obedient servant,

  ANNE SHIRLEY

  P.S. That was how Aunt Chatty's grandmother signed her love-letters.

  October 17

  We heard today that there had been a burglary at the other end of the town last night. A house was entered and some money and a dozen silver spoons stolen. So Rebecca Dew has gone up to Mr Hamilton's to see if she can borrow a dog. She will tie him on the back veranda, and she advises me to lock up my engagement ring!

  By the way, I found out why Rebecca Dew cried. It seems there had been a domestic convulsion. Dusty Miller had 'misbehaved' again, and Rebecca Dew told Aunt Kate she would really have to do something about That Cat. He was wearing her to a fiddle-string. It was the third time in a year, and she knew he did it on purpose. And Aunt Kate said that if Rebecca Dew would always let the cat out when he meowed there would be no danger of his misbehaving.

  'Well, this is the last straw!' said Rebecca Dew.

  Consequently, tears!

  The Pringle situation grows a little more acute every week. Something very impertinent was written across one of my books yesterday and Homer Pringle turned handsprings all the way down the aisle when leaving school. Also, I got an anonymous letter recently full of nasty innuendoes. Somehow I don't blame Jen for either the book or the letter. Imp as she is, there are things she wouldn't stoop to. Rebecca Dew is furious, and I shudder to think what she would do to the Pringles if she had them in her power. Nero's wish isn't to be compared with it. I really don't blame her, for there are times when I feel myself that I could cheerfully hand any and all of the Pringles a poisoned philtre of the Borgias' brewing.

  I don't think I've told you much about the other teachers. There are two, you know - the Vice-Principal, Katherine Brooke of the Junior Room, and George MacKay of the Prep. Of George I have little to say. He is a shy, good-natured lad of twenty, with a slight, delicious Highland accent suggestive of low shielings and misty islands - his grandfather was Isle of Skye - and does very well with the Preps. So far as I know him I like him. But I'm afraid I'm going to have a hard time liking Katherine Brooke.

  Katherine is a girl of, I think, about twenty-eight, though she looks thirty-five. I have been told she cherished hopes of promotion to the Principalship, and I suppose she resents my getting it, especially when I am considerably her junior. She is a good teacher - a bit of a martinet - but she is not popular with anyone. And doesn't worry over it! She doesn't seem to have any friends or relations and boards in a gloomy-looking house on grubby little Temple Street. She dresses very dowdily, never goes out socially, and is said to be mean. She is very sarcastic, and her pupils dread her biting remarks. I am told that her way of raising her thick black eyebrows and drawling at her class reduces them to pulp. I wish I could work it on the Pringles. But I really wouldn't like to govern by fear as she does. I want my pupils to love me.

  In spite of the fact that she has apparently no trouble in making them toe the line she is constantly sending some of them up to me, especially Pringles. I know she does it purposely, and I feel miserably certain that she exults in my difficulties, and would be glad to see me worsted.

  Rebecca Dew says that no one can make friends with her. The widows have invited her several times to Sunday supper - the dear souls are always doing that for lonely people and always have the most delicious chicken salad for them - but she never came. So they have given it up, because, as Aunt Kate says, 'There are limits.'

  There are rumours that she is very clever, and can sing and recite - 'elocute', a la Rebecca Dew - but will not do either. Aunt Chatty once asked her to recite at a church supper.

  'We thought she refused very ungraciously,' said Aunt Kate.

  'Just growled,' said Rebecca Dew.

  Katherine has a deep, throaty voice, almost a man's voice, and it does sound like a growl when she isn't in a good humour.

  She isn't pretty, but she might make more of herself. She is dark and swarthy, with magnificent black hair always dragged back from her high forehead and coiled in a clumsy knot at the base of her neck. Her eyes don't match her hair, being a clear, light a
mber under her black brows. She has ears she needn't be ashamed to show and the most beautiful hands I've ever seen. Also, she has a well-cut mouth. But she dresses terribly. Seems to have a positive genius for getting the colours and lines she should not wear. Dull dark greens and drab greys, when she is too sallow for greens and greys, and stripes which make her tall, lean figure even taller and leaner. And her clothes always look as if she'd slept in them.

  Her manner is very repellent. As Rebecca Dew would say, she always has a chip on her shoulder. Every time I pass her on the stairs I feel that she is thinking horrid things about me. Every time I speak to her she makes me feel I've said the wrong thing. And yet I'm very sorry for her, though I know she would resent my pity furiously. And I can't do anything to help her, because she doesn't want to be helped. She is really hateful to me. One day, when we three teachers were all in the staff room, I did something which, it seems, transgressed one of the unwritten laws of the school, and Katherine said cuttingly, 'Perhaps you think you are above rules, Miss Shirley.' At another time, when I was suggesting some changes which I thought would be for the good of the school, she said, with a scornful smile, 'I am not interested in fairytales.' Once, when I said some nice things about her work and methods, she said, 'And what is to be the pill in all this jam?'

  But the thing that annoyed me most... Well, one day when I happened to pick up a book of hers in the staff room and glance at the flyleaf I said, 'I'm glad you spell your name with a K. Katherine is so much more alluring than Catherine, just as K is ever so much more a gipsier letter than smug C.'

  She made no response, but the next note she sent up was signed 'Catherine Brooke'

  I sneezed all the way home.

  I really would give up trying to be friends with her if I hadn't a queer, unaccountable feeling that under all her brusqueness and aloofness she is actually starved for companionship.

  Altogether, what with Katherine's antagonism and the Pringle attitude, I don't know just what I'd do if it wasn't for dear Rebecca Dew and your letters - and little Elizabeth.