[Illustration]
Rainbow Valley
by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Author of “Anne of Green Gables,” “Anne of the
Island,”
“Anne’s House of Dreams,” “The Story Girl,”
“The Watchman,” etc.
“The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
—LONGFELLOW
TO THE MEMORY OF
GOLDWIN LAPP, ROBERT BROOKES AND MORLEY SHIER
WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE THAT THE HAPPY VALLEYS OF THEIR HOME
LAND MIGHT BE KEPT SACRED FROM THE RAVAGE OF THE INVADER
Contents
I. HOME AGAIN
II. SHEER GOSSIP
III. THE INGLESIDE CHILDREN
IV. THE MANSE CHILDREN
V. THE ADVENT OF MARY VANCE
VI. MARY STAYS AT THE MANSE
VII. A FISHY EPISODE
VIII. MISS CORNELIA INTERVENES
IX. UNA INTERVENES
X. THE MANSE GIRLS CLEAN HOUSE
XI. A DREADFUL DISCOVERY
XII. AN EXPLANATION AND A DARE
XIII. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL
XIV. MRS. ALEC DAVIS MAKES A CALL
XV. MORE GOSSIP
XVI. TIT FOR TAT
XVII. A DOUBLE VICTORY
XVIII. MARY BRINGS EVIL TIDINGS
XIX. POOR ADAM!
XX. FAITH MAKES A FRIEND
XXI. THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD
XXII. ST. GEORGE KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT
XXIII. THE GOOD-CONDUCT CLUB
XXIV. A CHARITABLE IMPULSE
XXV. ANOTHER SCANDAL AND ANOTHER “EXPLANATION”
XXVI. MISS CORNELIA GETS A NEW POINT OF VIEW
XXVII. A SACRED CONCERT
XXVIII. A FAST DAY
XXIX. A WEIRD TALE
XXX. THE GHOST ON THE DYKE
XXXI. CARL DOES PENANCE
XXXII. TWO STUBBORN PEOPLE
XXXIII. CARL IS—NOT—WHIPPED
XXXIV. UNA VISITS THE HILL
XXXV. “LET THE PIPER COME”
RAINBOW VALLEY
CHAPTER I.
HOME AGAIN
It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour was
mirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly dark
shores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in
spring, but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbour road
along which Miss Cornelia’s comfortable, matronly figure was making its
way towards the village of Glen St. Mary. Miss Cornelia was rightfully
Mrs. Marshall Elliott, and had been Mrs. Marshall Elliott for thirteen
years, but even yet more people referred to her as Miss Cornelia than
as Mrs. Elliott. The old name was dear to her old friends, only one of
them contemptuously dropped it. Susan Baker, the gray and grim and
faithful handmaiden of the Blythe family at Ingleside, never lost an
opportunity of calling her “Mrs. Marshall Elliott,” with the most
killing and pointed emphasis, as if to say “You wanted to be Mrs. and
Mrs. you shall be with a vengeance as far as I am concerned.”
Miss Cornelia was going up to Ingleside to see Dr. and Mrs. Blythe, who
were just home from Europe. They had been away for three months, having
left in February to attend a famous medical congress in London; and
certain things, which Miss Cornelia was anxious to discuss, had taken
place in the Glen during their absence. For one thing, there was a new
family in the manse. And such a family! Miss Cornelia shook her head
over them several times as she walked briskly along.
Susan Baker and the Anne Shirley of other days saw her coming, as they
sat on the big veranda at Ingleside, enjoying the charm of the cat’s
light, the sweetness of sleepy robins whistling among the twilit
maples, and the dance of a gusty group of daffodils blowing against the
old, mellow, red brick wall of the lawn.
Anne was sitting on the steps, her hands clasped over her knee,
looking, in the kind dusk, as girlish as a mother of many has any right
to be; and the beautiful gray-green eyes, gazing down the harbour road,
were as full of unquenchable sparkle and dream as ever. Behind her, in
the hammock, Rilla Blythe was curled up, a fat, roly-poly little
creature of six years, the youngest of the Ingleside children. She had
curly red hair and hazel eyes that were now buttoned up after the
funny, wrinkled fashion in which Rilla always went to sleep.
Shirley, “the little brown boy,” as he was known in the family “Who’s
Who,” was asleep in Susan’s arms. He was brown-haired, brown-eyed and
brown-skinned, with very rosy cheeks, and he was Susan’s especial love.
After his birth Anne had been very ill for a long time, and Susan
“mothered” the baby with a passionate tenderness which none of the
other children, dear as they were to her, had ever called out. Dr.
Blythe had said that but for her he would never have lived.
“I gave him life just as much as you did, Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan was
wont to say. “He is just as much my baby as he is yours.” And, indeed,
it was always to Susan that Shirley ran, to be kissed for bumps, and
rocked to sleep, and protected from well-deserved spankings. Susan had
conscientiously spanked all the other Blythe children when she thought
they needed it for their souls’ good, but she would not spank Shirley
nor allow his mother to do it. Once, Dr. Blythe had spanked him and
Susan had been stormily indignant.
“That man would spank an angel, Mrs. Dr. dear, that he would,” she had
declared bitterly; and she would not make the poor doctor a pie for
weeks.
She had taken Shirley with her to her brother’s home during his
parents’ absence, while all the other children had gone to Avonlea, and
she had three blessed months of him all to herself. Nevertheless, Susan
was very glad to find herself back at Ingleside, with all her darlings
around her again. Ingleside was her world and in it she reigned
supreme. Even Anne seldom questioned her decisions, much to the disgust
of Mrs. Rachel Lynde of Green Gables, who gloomily told Anne, whenever
she visited Four Winds, that she was letting Susan get to be entirely
too much of a boss and would live to rue it.
“Here is Cornelia Bryant coming up the harbour road, Mrs. Dr. dear,”
said Susan. “She will be coming up to unload three months’ gossip on
us.”
“I hope so,” said Anne, hugging her knees. “I’m starving for Glen St.
Mary gossip, Susan. I hope Miss Cornelia can tell me everything that
has happened while we’ve been away—_everything_—who has got born, or
married, or drunk; who has died, or gone away, or come, or fought, or
lost a cow, or found a beau. It’s so delightful to be home again with
all the dear Glen folks, and I want to know all about them. Why, I
remember wondering, as I walked through Westminster Abbey which of her
two especial beaux Millicent Drew would finally marry. Do you know,
Susan, I have a dreadful suspicion that I love gossip.”
“Well, of course, Mrs. Dr. dear,” admitted Susan, “every proper woman
likes to hear the news. I am rather interested in Millicent Drew’s case
myself. I never had a beau, much less two, and I do not mind now, for
being an old maid does not hurt when you get used to it. Millicent’s
hair always looks to me as if she had swept it up with a broom. But the
men do not seem to mind that.”
“They see only her pretty, piquant, mocking, little face, Susan.”
“That may very well be, Mrs. Dr. dear. The Good Book says that favour
is deceitful and beauty is vain, but I should not have minded finding
that out for myself, if it had been so ordained. I have no doubt we
will all be beautiful when we are angels, but what good will it do us
then? Speaking of gossip, however, they do say that poor Mrs. Harrison
Miller over harbour tried to hang herself last week.”
“Oh, Susan!”
“Calm yourself, Mrs. Dr. dear. She did not succeed. But I really do not
blame her for trying, for her husband is a terrible man. But she was
very foolish to think of hanging herself and leaving the way clear for
him to marry some other woman. If I had been in her shoes, Mrs. Dr.
dear, I would have gone to work to worry him so that he would try to
hang himself instead of me. Not that I hold with people hanging
themselves under any circumstances, Mrs. Dr. dear.”
“What is the matter with Harrison Miller, anyway?” said Anne
impatiently. “He is always driving some one to extremes.”
“Well, some people call it religion and some call it cussedness,
begging your pardon, Mrs. Dr. dear, for using such a word. It seems
they cannot make out which it is in Harrison’s case. There are days
when he growls at everybody because he thinks he is fore-ordained to
eternal punishment. And then there are days when he says he does not
care and goes and gets drunk. My own opinion is that he is not sound in
his intellect, for none of that branch of the Millers were. His
grandfather went out of his mind. He thought he was surrounded by big
black spiders. They crawled over him and floated in the air about him.
I hope I shall never go insane, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I do not think I
will, because it is not a habit of the Bakers. But, if an all-wise
Providence should decree it, I hope it will not take the form of big
black spiders, for I loathe the animals. As for Mrs. Miller, I do not
know whether she really deserves pity or not. There are some who say
she just married Harrison to spite Richard Taylor, which seems to me a
very peculiar reason for getting married. But then, of course, _I_ am
no judge of things matrimonial, Mrs. Dr. dear. And there is Cornelia
Bryant at the gate, so I will put this blessed brown baby on his bed
and get my knitting.”