ANNE’S BRINGING-UP IS BEGUN
For reasons best known to herself, Marilla did not tell Anne that she
was to stay at Green Gables until the next afternoon. During the
forenoon she kept the child busy with various tasks and watched over
her with a keen eye while she did them. By noon she had concluded that
Anne was smart and obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her
most serious shortcoming seemed to be a tendency to fall into
day-dreams in the middle of a task and forget all about it until such
time as she was sharply recalled to earth by a reprimand or a
catastrophe.
When Anne had finished washing the dinner dishes she suddenly
confronted Marilla with the air and expression of one desperately
determined to learn the worst. Her thin little body trembled from head
to foot; her face flushed and her eyes dilated until they were almost
black; she clasped her hands tightly and said in an imploring voice:
“Oh, please, Miss Cuthbert, won’t you tell me if you are going to send
me away or not? I’ve tried to be patient all the morning, but I really
feel that I cannot bear not knowing any longer. It’s a dreadful
feeling. Please tell me.”
“You haven’t scalded the dish-cloth in clean hot water as I told you to
do,” said Marilla immovably. “Just go and do it before you ask any more
questions, Anne.”
Anne went and attended to the dish-cloth. Then she returned to Marilla
and fastened imploring eyes on the latter’s face.
“Well,” said Marilla, unable to find any excuse for deferring her
explanation longer, “I suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I
have decided to keep you—that is, if you will try to be a good little
girl and show yourself grateful. Why, child, whatever is the matter?”
“I’m crying,” said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. “I can’t think why.
I’m glad as glad can be. Oh, _glad_ doesn’t seem the right word at all.
I was glad about the White Way and the cherry blossoms—but this! Oh,
it’s something more than glad. I’m so happy. I’ll try to be so good. It
will be up-hill work, I expect, for Mrs. Thomas often told me I was
desperately wicked. However, I’ll do my very best. But can you tell me
why I’m crying?”
“I suppose it’s because you’re all excited and worked up,” said Marilla
disapprovingly. “Sit down on that chair and try to calm yourself. I’m
afraid you both cry and laugh far too easily. Yes, you can stay here
and we will try to do right by you. You must go to school; but it’s
only a fortnight till vacation so it isn’t worth while for you to start
before it opens again in September.”
“What am I to call you?” asked Anne. “Shall I always say Miss Cuthbert?
Can I call you Aunt Marilla?”
“No; you’ll call me just plain Marilla. I’m not used to being called
Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous.”
“It sounds awfully disrespectful to say just Marilla,” protested Anne.
“I guess there’ll be nothing disrespectful in it if you’re careful to
speak respectfully. Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me
Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert—when he thinks of
it.”
“I’d love to call you Aunt Marilla,” said Anne wistfully. “I’ve never
had an aunt or any relation at all—not even a grandmother. It would
make me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can’t I call you Aunt
Marilla?”
“No. I’m not your aunt and I don’t believe in calling people names that
don’t belong to them.”
“But we could imagine you were my aunt.”
“I couldn’t,” said Marilla grimly.
“Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?”
asked Anne wide-eyed.
“No.”
“Oh!” Anne drew a long breath. “Oh, Miss—Marilla, how much you miss!”
“I don’t believe in imagining things different from what they really
are,” retorted Marilla. “When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances
He doesn’t mean for us to imagine them away. And that reminds me. Go
into the sitting-room, Anne—be sure your feet are clean and don’t let
any flies in—and bring me out the illustrated card that’s on the
mantelpiece. The Lord’s Prayer is on it and you’ll devote your spare
time this afternoon to learning it off by heart. There’s to be no more
of such praying as I heard last night.”
“I suppose I was very awkward,” said Anne apologetically, “but then,
you see, I’d never had any practice. You couldn’t really expect a
person to pray very well the first time she tried, could you? I thought
out a splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I
would. It was nearly as long as a minister’s and so poetical. But would
you believe it? I couldn’t remember one word when I woke up this
morning. And I’m afraid I’ll never be able to think out another one as
good. Somehow, things never are so good when they’re thought out a
second time. Have you ever noticed that?”
“Here is something for you to notice, Anne. When I tell you to do a
thing I want you to obey me at once and not stand stock-still and
discourse about it. Just you go and do as I bid you.”
Anne promptly departed for the sitting-room across the hall; she failed
to return; after waiting ten minutes Marilla laid down her knitting and
marched after her with a grim expression. She found Anne standing
motionless before a picture hanging on the wall between the two
windows, with her hands clasped behind her, her face uplifted, and her
eyes astar with dreams. The white and green light strained through
apple-trees and clustering vines outside fell over the rapt little
figure with a half-unearthly radiance.
“Anne, whatever are you thinking of?” demanded Marilla sharply.
Anne came back to earth with a start.
“That,” she said, pointing to the picture—a rather vivid chromo
entitled, “Christ Blessing Little Children”—“and I was just imagining I
was one of them—that I was the little girl in the blue dress, standing
off by herself in the corner as if she didn’t belong to anybody, like
me. She looks lonely and sad, don’t you think? I guess she hadn’t any
father or mother of her own. But she wanted to be blessed, too, so she
just crept shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would
notice her—except Him. I’m sure I know just how she felt. Her heart
must have beat and her hands must have got cold, like mine did when I
asked you if I could stay. She was afraid He mightn’t notice her. But
it’s likely He did, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to imagine it all
out—her edging a little nearer all the time until she was quite close
to Him; and then He would look at her and put His hand on her hair and
oh, such a thrill of joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist
hadn’t painted Him so sorrowful-looking. All His pictures are like
that, if you’ve noticed. But I don’t believe He could really have
looked so sad or the children would have been afraid of Him.”
“Anne,” said Marilla, wondering why she had not broken into this speech
long before, “you shouldn’t talk that way. It’s irreverent—positively
irreverent.”
Anne’s eyes marvelled.
“Why, I felt just as reverent as could be. I’m sure I didn’t mean to be
irreverent.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you did—but it doesn’t sound right to talk so
familiarly about such things. And another thing, Anne, when I send you
after something you’re to bring it at once and not fall into mooning
and imagining before pictures. Remember that. Take that card and come
right to the kitchen. Now, sit down in the corner and learn that prayer
off by heart.”
Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had
brought in to decorate the dinner table—Marilla had eyed that
decoration askance, but had said nothing—propped her chin on her hands,
and fell to studying it intently for several silent minutes.
“I like this,” she announced at length. “It’s beautiful. I’ve heard it
before—I heard the superintendent of the asylum Sunday-school say it
over once. But I didn’t like it then. He had such a cracked voice and
he prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a
disagreeable duty. This isn’t poetry, but it makes me feel just the
same way poetry does. ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
name.’ That is just like a line of music. Oh, I’m so glad you thought
of making me learn this, Miss—Marilla.”
“Well, learn it and hold your tongue,” said Marilla shortly.
Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft
kiss on a pink-cupped bud, and then studied diligently for some moments
longer.
“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have
a bosom friend in Avonlea?”
“A—a what kind of a friend?”
“A bosom friend—an intimate friend, you know—a really kindred spirit to
whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my
life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest
dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do
you think it’s possible?”
“Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she’s about your age.
She’s a very nice little girl, and perhaps she will be a playmate for
you when she comes home. She’s visiting her aunt over at Carmody just
now. You’ll have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs.
Barry is a very particular woman. She won’t let Diana play with any
little girl who isn’t nice and good.”
Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow with
interest.
“What is Diana like? Her hair isn’t red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It’s
bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn’t endure it
in a bosom friend.”
“Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and
rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being
pretty.”
Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was
firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a
child who was being brought up.
But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the
delightful possibilities before it.
“Oh, I’m so glad she’s pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself—and
that’s impossible in my case—it would be best to have a beautiful bosom
friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her
sitting-room with glass doors. There weren’t any books in it; Mrs.
Thomas kept her best china and her preserves there—when she had any
preserves to keep. One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it
one night when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and
I used to pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who
lived in it. I called her Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I
used to talk to her by the hour, especially on Sunday, and tell her
everything. Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used
to pretend that the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew the
spell I could open the door and step right into the room where Katie
Maurice lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas’ shelves of preserves and
china. And then Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led
me out into a wonderful place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies,
and we would have lived there happy for ever after. When I went to live
with Mrs. Hammond it just broke my heart to leave Katie Maurice. She
felt it dreadfully, too, I know she did, for she was crying when she
kissed me good-bye through the bookcase door. There was no bookcase at
Mrs. Hammond’s. But just up the river a little way from the house there
was a long green little valley, and the loveliest echo lived there. It
echoed back every word you said, even if you didn’t talk a bit loud. So
I imagined that it was a little girl called Violetta and we were great
friends and I loved her almost as well as I loved Katie Maurice—not
quite, but almost, you know. The night before I went to the asylum I
said good-bye to Violetta, and oh, her good-bye came back to me in such
sad, sad tones. I had become so attached to her that I hadn’t the heart
to imagine a bosom friend at the asylum, even if there had been any
scope for imagination there.”
“I think it’s just as well there wasn’t,” said Marilla drily. “I don’t
approve of such goings-on. You seem to half believe your own
imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real live friend to put
such nonsense out of your head. But don’t let Mrs. Barry hear you
talking about your Katie Maurices and your Violettas or she’ll think
you tell stories.”
“Oh, I won’t. I couldn’t talk of them to everybody—their memories are
too sacred for that. But I thought I’d like to have you know about
them. Oh, look, here’s a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom.
Just think what a lovely place to live—in an apple blossom! Fancy going
to sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn’t a human girl I
think I’d like to be a bee and live among the flowers.”
“Yesterday you wanted to be a sea-gull,” sniffed Marilla. “I think you
are very fickle-minded. I told you to learn that prayer and not talk.
But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you’ve got anybody
that will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it.”
“Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now—all but just the last line.”
“Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and finish
learning it well, and stay there until I call you down to help me get
tea.”
“Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?” pleaded Anne.
“No; you don’t want your room cluttered up with flowers. You should
have left them on the tree in the first place.”
“I did feel a little that way, too,” said Anne. “I kind of felt I
shouldn’t shorten their lovely lives by picking them— I wouldn’t want
to be picked if I were an apple blossom. But the temptation was
_irresistible_. What do you do when you meet with an irresistible
temptation?”
“Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?”
Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a chair by
the window.
“There—I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence coming
up-stairs. Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that
they’ll always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet
carpet with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at
the windows. The walls are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry.
The furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound
_so_ luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken
cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining
gracefully on it. I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror
hanging on the wall. I am tall and regal, clad in a gown of trailing
white lace, with a pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair. My
hair is of midnight darkness and my skin is a clear ivory pallor. My
name is the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. No, it isn’t—I can’t make _that_
seem real.”
She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her
pointed freckled face and solemn gray eyes peered back at her.
“You’re only Anne of Green Gables,” she said earnestly, “and I see you,
just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I’m the Lady
Cordelia. But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables
than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?”
She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately, and betook
herself to the open window.
“Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon, dear birches down
in the hollow. And good afternoon, dear gray house up on the hill. I
wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall
love her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice and
Violetta. They would feel so hurt if I did and I’d hate to hurt
anybody’s feelings, even a little bookcase girl’s or a little echo
girl’s. I must be careful to remember them and send them a kiss every
day.”
Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her finger-tips past the cherry
blossoms and then, with her chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out
on a sea of day-dreams.