MISS CORNELIA GETS A NEW POINT OF VIEW
“Susan, after I’m dead I’m going to come back to earth every time when
the daffodils blow in this garden,” said Anne rapturously. “Nobody may
see me, but I’ll be here. If anybody is in the garden at the time—I
_think_ I’ll come on an evening just like this, but it _might_ be just
at dawn—a lovely, pale-pinky spring dawn—they’ll just see the daffodils
nodding wildly as if an extra gust of wind had blown past them, but it
will be _I_.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you will not be thinking of flaunting worldly
things like daffies after you are dead,” said Susan. “And I do _not_
believe in ghosts, seen or unseen.”
“Oh, Susan, I shall not be a ghost! That has such a horrible sound. I
shall just be _me_. And I shall run around in the twilight, whether it
is morn or eve, and see all the spots I love. Do you remember how badly
I felt when I left our little House of Dreams, Susan? I thought I could
never love Ingleside so well. But I do. I love every inch of the ground
and every stick and stone on it.”
“I am rather fond of the place myself,” said Susan, who would have died
if she had been removed from it, “but we must not set our affections
too much on earthly things, Mrs. Dr. dear. There are such things as
fires and earthquakes. We should always be prepared. The Tom
MacAllisters over-harbour were burned out three nights ago. Some say
Tom MacAllister set the house on fire himself to get the insurance.
That may or may not be. But I advise the doctor to have our chimneys
seen to at once. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But I
see Mrs. Marshall Elliott coming in at the gate, looking as if she had
been sent for and couldn’t go.”
“Anne dearie, have you seen the _Journal_ to-day?”
Miss Cornelia’s voice was trembling, partly from emotion, partly from
the fact that she had hurried up from the store too fast and lost her
breath.
Anne bent over the daffodils to hide a smile. She and Gilbert had
laughed heartily and heartlessly over the front page of the _Journal_
that day, but she knew that to dear Miss Cornelia it was almost a
tragedy, and she must not wound her feelings by any display of levity.
“Isn’t it dreadful? What _is_ to be done?” asked Miss Cornelia
despairingly. Miss Cornelia had vowed that she was done with worrying
over the pranks of the manse children, but she went on worrying just
the same.
Anne led the way to the veranda, where Susan was knitting, with Shirley
and Rilla conning their primers on either side. Susan was already on
her second pair of stockings for Faith. Susan never worried over poor
humanity. She did what in her lay for its betterment and serenely left
the rest to the Higher Powers.
“Cornelia Elliott thinks she was born to run this world, Mrs. Dr.
dear,” she had once said to Anne, “and so she is always in a stew over
something. I have never thought _I_ was, and so I go calmly along. Not
but what it has sometimes occurred to me that things might be run a
little better than they are. But it is not for us poor worms to nourish
such thoughts. They only make us uncomfortable and do not get us
anywhere.”
“I don’t see that anything can be done—now—” said Anne, pulling out a
nice, cushiony chair for Miss Cornelia. “But how in the world did Mr.
Vickers allow that letter to be printed? Surely he should have known
better.”
“Why, he’s away, Anne dearie—he’s been away to New Brunswick for a
week. And that young scalawag of a Joe Vickers is editing the _Journal_
in his absence. Of course, Mr. Vickers would never have put it in, even
if he is a Methodist, but Joe would just think it a good joke. As you
say, I don’t suppose there is anything to be done now, only live it
down. But if I ever get Joe Vickers cornered somewhere I’ll give him a
talking to he won’t forget in a hurry. I wanted Marshall to stop our
subscription to the _Journal_ instantly, but he only laughed and said
that to-day’s issue was the only one that had had anything readable in
it for a year. Marshall never will take anything seriously—just like a
man. Fortunately, Evan Boyd is like that, too. He takes it as a joke
and is laughing all over the place about it. And he’s another
Methodist! As for Mrs. Burr of Upper Glen, of course she will be
furious and they will leave the church. Not that it will be a great
loss from any point of view. The Methodists are quite welcome to
_them_.”
“It serves Mrs. Burr right,” said Susan, who had an old feud with the
lady in question and had been hugely tickled over the reference to her
in Faith’s letter. “She will find that she will not be able to cheat
the Methodist parson out of _his_ salary with bad yarn.”
“The worst of it is, there’s not much hope of things getting any
better,” said Miss Cornelia gloomily. “As long as Mr. Meredith was
going to see Rosemary West I did hope the manse would soon have a
proper mistress. But that is all off. I suppose she wouldn’t have him
on account of the children—at least, everybody seems to think so.”
“I do not believe that he ever asked her,” said Susan, who could not
conceive of any one refusing a minister.
“Well, nobody knows anything about _that_. But one thing is certain, he
doesn’t go there any longer. And Rosemary didn’t look well all the
spring. I hope her visit to Kingsport will do her good. She’s been gone
for a month and will stay another month, I understand. I can’t remember
when Rosemary was away from home before. She and Ellen could never bear
to be parted. But I understand Ellen insisted on her going this time.
And meanwhile Ellen and Norman Douglas are warming up the old soup.”
“Is that really so?” asked Anne, laughing. “I heard a rumour of it, but
I hardly believed it.”
“Believe it! You may believe it all right, Anne, dearie. Nobody is in
ignorance of it. Norman Douglas never left anybody in doubt as to his
intentions in regard to anything. He always did his courting before the
public. He told Marshall that he hadn’t thought about Ellen for years,
but the first time he went to church last fall he saw her and fell in
love with her all over again. He said he’d clean forgot how handsome
she was. He hadn’t seen her for twenty years, if you can believe it. Of
course he never went to church, and Ellen never went anywhere else
round here. Oh, we all know what Norman means, but what Ellen means is
a different matter. I shan’t take it upon me to predict whether it will
be a match or not.”
“He jilted her once—but it seems that does not count with some people,
Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan remarked rather acidly.
“He jilted her in a fit of temper and repented it all his life,” said
Miss Cornelia. “That is different from a cold-blooded jilting. For my
part, I never detested Norman as some folks do. He could never
over-crow _me_. I _do_ wonder what started him coming to church. I have
never been able to believe Mrs. Wilsons’s story that Faith Meredith
went there and bullied him into it. I’ve always intended to ask Faith
herself, but I’ve never happened to think of it just when I saw her.
What influence could _she_ have over Norman Douglas? He was in the
store when I left, bellowing with laughter over that scandalous letter.
You could have heard him at Four Winds Point. ‘The greatest girl in the
world,’ he was shouting. ‘She’s that full of spunk she’s bursting with
it. And all the old grannies want to tame her, darn them. But they’ll
never be able to do it—never! They might as well try to drown a fish.
Boyd, see that you put more fertilizer on your potatoes next year. Ho,
ho, ho!’ And then he laughed till the roof shook.”
“Mr. Douglas pays well to the salary, at least,” remarked Susan.
“Oh, Norman isn’t mean in some ways. He’d give a thousand without
blinking a lash, and roar like a Bull of Bashan if he had to pay five
cents too much for anything. Besides, he likes Mr. Meredith’s sermons,
and Norman Douglas was always willing to shell out if he got his brains
tickled up. There is no more Christianity about him than there is about
a black, naked heathen in Africa and never will be. But he’s clever and
well read and he judges sermons as he would lectures. Anyhow, it’s well
he backs up Mr. Meredith and the children as he does, for they’ll need
friends more than ever after this. I am tired of making excuses for
them, believe _me_.”
“Do you know, dear Miss Cornelia,” said Anne seriously, “I think we
have all been making too many excuses. It is very foolish and we ought
to stop it. I am going to tell you what I’d _like_ to do. I shan’t do
it, of course”—Anne had noted a glint of alarm in Susan’s eye—“it would
be too unconventional, and we must be conventional or die, after we
reach what is supposed to be a dignified age. But I’d _like_ to do it.
I’d like to call a meeting of the Ladies Aid and W.M.S. and the Girls
Sewing Society, and include in the audience all and any Methodists who
have been criticizing the Merediths—although I do think if we
Presbyterians stopped criticizing and excusing we would find that other
denominations would trouble themselves very little about our manse
folks. I would say to them, ‘Dear Christian friends’—with marked
emphasis on ‘Christian’—I have something to say to you and I want to
say it good and hard, that you may take it home and repeat it to your
families. You Methodists need not pity us, and we Presbyterians need
not pity ourselves. We are not going to do it any more. And we are
going to say, boldly and truthfully, to all critics and sympathizers,
‘We are _proud_ of our minister and his family. Mr. Meredith is the
best preacher Glen St. Mary church ever had. Moreover, he is a sincere,
earnest teacher of truth and Christian charity. He is a faithful
friend, a judicious pastor in all essentials, and a refined, scholarly,
well-bred man. His family are worthy of him. Gerald Meredith is the
cleverest pupil in the Glen school, and Mr. Hazard says that he is
destined to a brilliant career. He is a manly, honourable, truthful
little fellow. Faith Meredith is a beauty, and as inspiring and
original as she is beautiful. There is nothing commonplace about her.
All the other girls in the Glen put together haven’t the vim, and wit,
and joyousness and ‘spunk’ she has. She has not an enemy in the world.
Every one who knows her loves her. Of how many, children or grown-ups,
can that be said? Una Meredith is sweetness personified. She will make
a most lovable woman. Carl Meredith, with his love for ants and frogs
and spiders, will some day be a naturalist whom all Canada—nay, all the
world, will delight to honour. Do you know of any other family in the
Glen, or out of it, of whom all these things can be said? Away with
shamefaced excuses and apologies. We _rejoice_ in our minister and his
splendid boys and girls!”
Anne stopped, partly because she was out of breath after her vehement
speech and partly because she could not trust herself to speak further
in view of Miss Cornelia’s face. That good lady was staring helplessly
at Anne, apparently engulfed in billows of new ideas. But she came up
with a gasp and struck out for shore gallantly.
“Anne Blythe, I wish you _would_ call that meeting and say just that!
You’ve made me ashamed of myself, for one, and far be it from me to
refuse to admit it. _Of course_, that is how we should have
talked—especially to the Methodists. And it’s every word of it
true—every word. We’ve just been shutting our eyes to the big
worth-while things and squinting them on the little things that don’t
really matter a pin’s worth. Oh, Anne dearie, I can see a thing when
it’s hammered into my head. No more apologizing for Cornelia Marshall!
_I_ shall hold _my_ head up after this, believe _me_—though I _may_
talk things over with you as usual just to relieve my feelings if the
Merediths do any more startling stunts. Even that letter I felt so bad
about—why, it’s only a good joke after all, as Norman says. Not many
girls would have been cute enough to think of writing it—and all
punctuated so nicely and not one word misspelled. Just let me hear any
Methodist say one word about it—though all the same I’ll never forgive
Joe Vickers—believe _me!_ Where are the rest of your small fry
to-night?”
“Walter and the twins are in Rainbow Valley. Jem is studying in the
garret.”
“They are all crazy about Rainbow Valley. Mary Vance thinks it’s the
only place in the world. She’d be off up here every evening if I’d let
her. But I don’t encourage her in gadding. Besides, I miss the creature
when she isn’t around, Anne dearie. I never thought I’d get so fond of
her. Not but what I see her faults and try to correct them. But she has
never said one saucy word to me since she came to my house and she is a
_great_ help—for when all is said and done, Anne dearie, I am not so
young as I once was, and there is no sense denying it. I was fifty-nine
my last birthday. I don’t _feel_ it, but there is no gainsaying the
Family Bible.”