THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had
ever been before in all its history. Even Marilla was so excited that
she couldn’t help showing it--which was little short of being
phenomenal.
“There’s never been a wedding in this house,” she said, half
apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde. “When I was a child I heard an
old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been
consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death. We’ve had deaths
here--my father and mother died here as well as Matthew; and we’ve even
had a birth here. Long ago, just after we moved into this house, we
had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
here. But there’s never been a wedding before. It does seem so
strange to think of Anne being married. In a way she just seems to me
the little girl Matthew brought home here fourteen years ago. I can’t
realize that she’s grown up. I shall never forget what I felt when I
saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL. I wonder what became of the boy we
would have got if there hadn’t been a mistake. I wonder what HIS fate
was.”
“Well, it was a fortunate mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel Lynde, “though,
mind you, there was a time I didn’t think so--that evening I came up to
see Anne and she treated us to such a scene. Many things have changed
since then, that’s what.”
Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again. When weddings were in
order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead.
“I’m going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads,” she resumed.
“A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one. She tells me they’re
getting to be real fashionable again. Well, fashion or no fashion, I
don’t believe there’s anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a
nice apple-leaf spread, that’s what. I must see about getting them
bleached. I’ve had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
died, and no doubt they’re an awful color. But there’s a month yet,
and dew-bleaching will work wonders.”
Only a month! Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
“I’m giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret. I
never supposed she’d want them--they’re so old-fashioned, and nobody
seems to want anything but hooked mats now. But she asked me for
them--said she’d rather have them than anything else for her floors.
They ARE pretty. I made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in
stripes. It was such company these last few winters. And I’ll make
her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year. It
seems real strange. Those blue plum trees hadn’t even a blossom for
three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down. And this
last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I never remember
at Green Gables.”
“Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be
married after all. It’s what I’ve always prayed for,” said Mrs.
Rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers
have availed much. “It was a great relief to find out that she really
didn’t mean to take the Kingsport man. He was rich, to be sure, and
Gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with; but then he’s an Island boy.”
“He’s Gilbert Blythe,” said Marilla contentedly. Marilla would have
died the death before she would have put into words the thought that
was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at
Gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it not been for
her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been HER son.
Marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with Anne would
put right that old mistake. Good had come out of the evil of the
ancient bitterness.
As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.
The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy
mortals. It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not. Two
of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do
what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction. If
she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe,
or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might
have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter
before her in another light. Yet these two worthy ladies were not
enemies of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her,
and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked
her. Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.
Mrs. Inglis--nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise--came
with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell. But in Jane the milk of human
kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings. Her
lines had fallen in pleasant places. In spite of the fact--as Mrs.
Rachel Lynde would say--that she had married a millionaire, her
marriage had been happy. Wealth had not spoiled her. She was still
the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
sympathising with her old chum’s happiness and as keenly interested in
all the dainty details of Anne’s trousseau as if it could rival her own
silken and bejewelled splendors. Jane was not brilliant, and had
probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she
never said anything that would hurt anyone’s feelings--which may be a
negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one.
“So Gilbert didn’t go back on you after all,” said Mrs. Harmon Andrews,
contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone. “Well, the
Blythes generally keep their word when they’ve once passed it, no
matter what happens. Let me see--you’re twenty-five, aren’t you, Anne?
When I was a girl twenty-five was the first corner. But you look quite
young. Red-headed people always do.”
“Red hair is very fashionable now,” said Anne, trying to smile, but
speaking rather coldly. Life had developed in her a sense of humor
which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed
to steel her against a reference to her hair.
“So it is--so it is,” conceded Mrs. Harmon. “There’s no telling what
queer freaks fashion will take. Well, Anne, your things are very
pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren’t they, Jane?
I hope you’ll be very happy. You have my best wishes, I’m sure. A
long engagement doesn’t often turn out well. But, of course, in your
case it couldn’t be helped.”
“Gilbert looks very young for a doctor. I’m afraid people won’t have
much confidence in him,” said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily. Then she shut
her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty
to say and held her conscience clear. She belonged to the type which
always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of
hair on its neck.
Anne’s surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily
shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed;
and the little stings of Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when
Gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook,
which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were
now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars. In
their shadows Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
home and their new life together.
“I’ve found a nest for us, Anne.”
“Oh, where? Not right in the village, I hope. I wouldn’t like that
altogether.”
“No. There was no house to be had in the village. This is a little
white house on the harbor shore, half way between Glen St. Mary and
Four Winds Point. It’s a little out of the way, but when we get a
’phone in that won’t matter so much. The situation is beautiful. It
looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it. The
sand-dunes aren’t very far away--the sea winds blow over them and the
sea spray drenches them.”
“But the house itself, Gilbert,--OUR first home? What is it like?”
“Not very large, but large enough for us. There’s a splendid living
room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks
out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office. It is
about sixty years old--the oldest house in Four Winds. But it has been
kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years
ago--shingled, plastered and re-floored. It was well built to begin
with. I understand that there was some romantic story connected with
its building, but the man I rented it from didn’t know it.”
“He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now.”
“Who is Captain Jim?”
“The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point. You’ll love that
Four Winds light, Anne. It’s a revolving one, and it flashes like a
magnificent star through the twilights. We can see it from our living
room windows and our front door.”
“Who owns the house?”
“Well, it’s the property of the Glen St. Mary Presbyterian Church now,
and I rented it from the trustees. But it belonged until lately to a
very old lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell. She died last spring, and as
she had no near relatives she left her property to the Glen St. Mary
Church. Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of
it--for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned
that the trustees despaired of selling it. Glen St. Mary folks prefer
plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.
But Miss Russell’s furniture is very good and I feel sure you’ll like
it, Anne.”
“So far, good,” said Anne, nodding cautious approval. “But, Gilbert,
people cannot live by furniture alone. You haven’t yet mentioned one
very important thing. Are there TREES about this house?”
“Heaps of them, oh, dryad! There is a big grove of fir trees behind
it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white
birches around a very delightful garden. Our front door opens right
into the garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate hung
between two firs. The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the
other. Their boughs form an arch overhead.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! I couldn’t live where there were no trees--something
vital in me would starve. Well, after that, there’s no use asking you
if there’s a brook anywhere near. THAT would be expecting too much.”
“But there IS a brook--and it actually cuts across one corner of the
garden.”
“Then,” said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, “this
house you have found IS my house of dreams and none other.”