DIANA IS INVITED TO TEA WITH TRAGIC RESULTS
October was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the
hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard
were royal crimson and the wild cherry-trees along the lane put on the
loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned
themselves in aftermaths.
Anne revelled in the world of colour about her.
“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in
with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world
where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from
September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t
they give you a thrill—several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room
with them.”
“Messy things,” said Marilla, whose æsthetic sense was not noticeably
developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with
out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.”
“Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much
better in a room where there are pretty things. I’m going to put these
boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table.”
“Mind you don’t drop leaves all over the stairs then. I’m going to a
meeting of the Aid Society at Carmody this afternoon, Anne, and I won’t
likely be home before dark. You’ll have to get Matthew and Jerry their
supper, so mind you don’t forget to put the tea to draw until you sit
down at the table as you did last time.”
“It was dreadful of me to forget,” said Anne apologetically, “but that
was the afternoon I was trying to think of a name for Violet Vale and
it crowded other things out. Matthew was so good. He never scolded a
bit. He put the tea down himself and said we could wait awhile as well
as not. And I told him a lovely fairy story while we were waiting, so
he didn’t find the time long at all. It was a beautiful fairy story,
Marilla. I forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and
Matthew said he couldn’t tell where the join came in.”
“Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get up
and have dinner in the middle of the night. But you keep your wits
about you this time. And—I don’t really know if I’m doing right—it may
make you more addle-pated than ever—but you can ask Diana to come over
and spend the afternoon with you and have tea here.”
“Oh, Marilla!” Anne clasped her hands. “How perfectly lovely! You _are_
able to imagine things after all or else you’d never have understood
how I’ve longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and
grown-uppish. No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I
have company. Oh, Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea-set?”
“No, indeed! The rosebud tea-set! Well, what next? You know I never use
that except for the minister or the Aids. You’ll put down the old brown
tea-set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves.
It’s time it was being used anyhow—I believe it’s beginning to work.
And you can cut some fruit-cake and have some of the cookies and snaps.”
“I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and
pouring out the tea,” said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. “And
asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn’t but of course I’ll
ask her just as if I didn’t know. And then pressing her to take another
piece of fruit-cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it’s
a wonderful sensation just to think of it. Can I take her into the
spare room to lay off her hat when she comes? And then into the parlour
to sit?”
“No. The sitting-room will do for you and your company. But there’s a
bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the
church social the other night. It’s on the second shelf of the
sitting-room closet and you and Diana can have it if you like, and a
cooky to eat with it along in the afternoon, for I daresay Matthew’ll
be late coming in to tea since he’s hauling potatoes to the vessel.”
Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad’s Bubble and up the spruce
path to Orchard Slope, to ask Diana to tea. As a result, just after
Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over, dressed in her
second best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when
asked out to tea. At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen
without knocking; but now she knocked primly at the front door. And
when Anne, dressed in _her_ second best, as primly opened it, both
little girls shook hands as gravely as if they had never met before.
This unnatural solemnity lasted until after Diana had been taken to the
east gable to lay off her hat and then had sat for ten minutes in the
sitting-room, toes in position.
“How is your mother?” inquired Anne politely, just as if she had not
seen Mrs. Barry picking apples that morning in excellent health and
spirits.
“She is very well, thank you. I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling
potatoes to the _Lily Sands_ this afternoon, is he?” said Diana, who
had ridden down to Mr. Harmon Andrews’ that morning in Matthew’s cart.
“Yes. Our potato crop is very good this year. I hope your father’s
potato crop is good, too.”
“It is fairly good, thank you. Have you picked many of your apples yet?”
“Oh, ever so many,” said Anne, forgetting to be dignified and jumping
up quickly. “Let’s go out to the orchard and get some of the Red
Sweetings, Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are left on the
tree. Marilla is a very generous woman. She said we could have
fruit-cake and cherry preserves for tea. But it isn’t good manners to
tell your company what you are going to give them to eat, so I won’t
tell you what she said we could have to drink. Only it begins with an
_r_ and a _c_ and it’s a bright red colour. I love bright red drinks,
don’t you? They taste twice as good as any other colour.”
The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground
with fruit, proved so delightful that the little girls spent most of
the afternoon in it, sitting in a grassy corner where the frost had
spared the green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating
apples and talking as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne
of what went on in school. She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated
it; Gertie squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made
her—Diana’s—blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts away,
true’s you live, with a magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the Creek
gave her. You had to rub the warts with the pebble and then throw it
away over your left shoulder at the time of the new moon and the warts
would all go. Charlie Sloane’s name was written up with Em White’s on
the porch wall and Em White was _awful mad_ about it; Sam Boulter had
“sassed” Mr. Phillips in class and Mr. Phillips whipped him and Sam’s
father came down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on
one of his children again; and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood and a
blue crossover with tassels on it and the airs she put on about it were
perfectly sickening; and Lizzie Wright didn’t speak to Mamie Wilson
because Mamie Wilson’s grown-up sister had cut out Lizzie Wright’s
grown-up sister with her beau; and everybody missed Anne so and wished
she’d come to school again; and Gilbert Blythe—
But Anne didn’t want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up
hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry cordial.
Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no
bottle of raspberry cordial there. Search revealed it away back on the
top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table with a tumbler.
“Now, please help yourself, Diana,” she said politely. “I don’t believe
I’ll have any just now. I don’t feel as if I wanted any after all those
apples.”
Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright red hue
admiringly, and then sipped it daintily.
“That’s awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne,” she said. “I didn’t know
raspberry cordial was so nice.”
“I’m real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I’m going to run
out and stir the fire up. There are so many responsibilities on a
person’s mind when they’re keeping house, isn’t there?”
When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second
glassful of cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered
no particular objection to the drinking of a third. The tumblerfuls
were generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice.
“The nicest I ever drank,” said Diana. “It’s ever so much nicer than
Mrs. Lynde’s although she brags of hers so much. It doesn’t taste a bit
like hers.”
“I should think Marilla’s raspberry cordial would prob’ly be much nicer
than Mrs. Lynde’s,” said Anne loyally. “Marilla is a famous cook. She
is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill
work. There’s so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have
to go by rules. The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour
in. I was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Diana. I
thought you were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted
you, but I went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and
then I took the smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar
trees in the graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and
watered it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of
your youth who sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic
tale, Diana. The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed
the cake. But I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure.
Flour is so essential to cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I
don’t wonder. I’m a great trial to her. She was terribly mortified
about the pudding sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on
Tuesday and there was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left
over. Marilla said there was enough for another dinner and told me to
set it on the pantry shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it just as
much as could be, Diana, but when I carried it in I was imagining I was
a nun—of course I’m a Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic—taking
the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered seclusion; and I forgot
all about covering the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and
ran to the pantry. Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding
a mouse drowned in that pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out with a
spoon and threw it out in the yard and then I washed the spoon in three
waters. Marilla was out milking and I fully intended to ask her when
she came in if I’d give the sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in
I was imagining that I was a frost fairy going through the woods
turning the trees red and yellow, whichever they wanted to be, so I
never thought about the pudding sauce again and Marilla sent me out to
pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross from Spencervale came here
that morning. You know they are very stylish people, especially Mrs.
Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in dinner was all ready and
everybody was at the table. I tried to be as polite and dignified as I
could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to think I was a ladylike
little girl even if I wasn’t pretty. Everything went right until I saw
Marilla coming with the plum pudding in one hand and the pitcher of
pudding sauce, _warmed up_, in the other. Diana, that was a terrible
moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in my place and
shrieked out, ‘Marilla, you mustn’t use that pudding sauce. There was a
mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you before.’ Oh, Diana, I shall
never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred. Mrs. Chester
Ross just _looked_ at me and I thought I would sink through the floor
with mortification. She is such a perfect housekeeper and fancy what
she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but she never
said a word—then. She just carried that sauce and pudding out and
brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but I
couldn’t swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on my
head. After Mrs. Chester Ross went away Marilla gave me a dreadful
scolding. Why, Diana, what is the matter?”
Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting
her hands to her head.
“I’m—I’m awful sick,” she said, a little thickly. “I—I—must go right
home.”
“Oh, you mustn’t dream of going home without your tea,” cried Anne in
distress. “I’ll get it right off—I’ll go and put the tea down this very
minute.”
“I must go home,” repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly.
“Let me get you a lunch anyhow,” implored Anne. “Let me give you a bit
of fruit-cake and some of the cherry preserves. Lie down on the sofa
for a little while and you’ll be better. Where do you feel bad?”
“I must go home,” said Diana, and that was all she would say. In vain
Anne pleaded.
“I never heard of company going home without tea,” she mourned. “Oh,
Diana, do you suppose that it’s possible you’re really taking the
smallpox? If you are I’ll go and nurse you, you can depend on that.
I’ll never forsake you. But I do wish you’d stay till after tea. Where
do you feel bad?”
“I’m awful dizzy,” said Diana.
And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of disappointment
in her eyes, got Diana’s hat and went with her as far as the Barry yard
fence. Then she wept all the way back to Green Gables, where she
sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the
pantry and got tea ready for Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone
out of the performance.
The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from
dawn till dusk Anne did not stir abroad from Green Gables. Monday
afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde’s on an errand. In a very
short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane, with tears
rolling down her cheeks. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself
face downward on the sofa in an agony.
“Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?” queried Marilla in doubt and
dismay. “I do hope you haven’t gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again.”
No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs!
“Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered. Sit
right up this very minute and tell me what you are crying about.”
Anne sat up, tragedy personified.
“Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry to-day and Mrs. Barry was in an
awful state,” she wailed. “She says that I set Diana _drunk_ Saturday
and sent her home in a disgraceful condition. And she says I must be a
thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she’s never, never going to let
Diana play with me again. Oh, Marilla, I’m just overcome with woe.”
Marilla stared in blank amazement.
“Set Diana drunk!” she said when she found her voice. “Anne, are you or
Mrs. Barry crazy? What on earth did you give her?”
“Not a thing but raspberry cordial,” sobbed Anne. “I never thought
raspberry cordial would set people drunk, Marilla,—not even if they
drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so—so—like Mrs.
Thomas’ husband! But I didn’t mean to set her drunk.”
“Drunk fiddlesticks!” said Marilla, marching to the sitting-room
pantry. There on the shelf was a bottle which she at once recognized as
one containing some of her three year old homemade currant wine for
which she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter
sort, Mrs. Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it. And at the
same time Marilla recollected that she had put the bottle of raspberry
cordial down in the cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told
Anne.
She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand. Her face
was twitching in spite of herself.
“Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble. You went
and gave Diana currant wine instead of raspberry cordial. Didn’t you
know the difference yourself?”
“I never tasted it,” said Anne. “I thought it was the cordial. I meant
to be so—so—hospitable. Diana got awfully sick and had to go home. Mrs.
Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk. She just laughed silly
like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to sleep
and slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she was
drunk. She had a fearful headache all day yesterday. Mrs. Barry is so
indignant. She will never believe but what I did it on purpose.”
“I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to
drink three glassfuls of anything,” said Marilla shortly. “Why, three
of those big glasses would have made her sick even if it had only been
cordial. Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are
so down on me for making currant wine, although I haven’t made any for
three years ever since I found out that the minister didn’t approve. I
just kept that bottle for sickness. There, there, child, don’t cry. I
can’t see as you were to blame although I’m sorry it happened so.”
“I must cry,” said Anne. “My heart is broken. The stars in their
courses fight against me, Marilla. Diana and I are parted forever. Oh,
Marilla, I little dreamed of this when first we swore our vows of
friendship.”
“Don’t be foolish, Anne. Mrs. Barry will think better of it when she
finds you’re not really to blame. I suppose she thinks you’ve done it
for a silly joke or something of that sort. You’d best go up this
evening and tell her how it was.”
“My courage fails me at the thought of facing Diana’s injured mother,”
sighed Anne. “I wish you’d go, Marilla. You’re so much more dignified
than I am. Likely she’d listen to you quicker than to me.”
“Well, I will,” said Marilla, reflecting that it would probably be the
wiser course. “Don’t cry any more, Anne. It will be all right.”
Marilla had changed her mind about its being all right by the time she
got back from Orchard Slope. Anne was watching for her coming and flew
to the porch door to meet her.
“Oh, Marilla, I know by your face that it’s been no use,” she said
sorrowfully. “Mrs. Barry won’t forgive me?”
“Mrs. Barry, indeed!” snapped Marilla. “Of all the unreasonable women I
ever saw she’s the worst. I told her it was all a mistake and you
weren’t to blame, but she just simply didn’t believe me. And she rubbed
it well in about my currant wine and how I’d always said it couldn’t
have the least effect on anybody. I just told her plainly that currant
wine wasn’t meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls at a time and that if a
child I had to do with was so greedy I’d sober her up with a right good
spanking.”
Marilla whisked into the kitchen, grievously disturbed, leaving a very
much distracted little soul in the porch behind her. Presently Anne
stepped out bare-headed into the chill autumn dusk; very determinedly
and steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over
the log bridge and up through the spruce grove, lighted by a pale
little moon hanging low over the western woods. Mrs. Barry, coming to
the door in answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped, eager-eyed
suppliant on the doorstep.
Her face hardened. Mrs. Barry was a woman of strong prejudices and
dislikes, and her anger was of the cold, sullen sort which is always
hardest to overcome. To do her justice, she really believed Anne had
made Diana drunk out of sheer malice prepense, and she was honestly
anxious to preserve her little daughter from the contamination of
further intimacy with such a child.
“What do you want?” she said stiffly.
Anne clasped her hands.
“Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to—to—intoxicate
Diana. How could I? Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl
that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all
the world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought
it was only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry
cordial. Oh, please don’t say that you won’t let Diana play with me any
more. If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe.”
This speech, which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde’s heart in a
twinkling, had no effect on Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still
more. She was suspicious of Anne’s big words and dramatic gestures and
imagined that the child was making fun of her. So she said, coldly and
cruelly:
“I don’t think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with.
You’d better go home and behave yourself.”
Anne’s lip quivered.
“Won’t you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?” she implored.
“Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father,” said Mrs. Barry,
going in and shutting the door.
Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair.
“My last hope is gone,” she told Marilla. “I went up and saw Mrs. Barry
myself and she treated me very insultingly. Marilla, I do _not_ think
she is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do except to pray
and I haven’t much hope that that’ll do much good because, Marilla, I
do not believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate
person as Mrs. Barry.”
“Anne, you shouldn’t say such things,” rebuked Marilla, striving to
overcome that unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to
find growing upon her. And indeed, when she told the whole story to
Matthew that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne’s tribulations.
But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found
that Anne had cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept
into her face.
“Poor little soul,” she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the
child’s tear-stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed
cheek on the pillow.