"I know, dearie. Just those little things that are horribly big.
Of course a MAN wouldn't understand. I know a woman in Charlottetown who knows her well. She says Mary Maria Blythe never had a friend in her life. She says her name should be Blight not Blythe. What you need, dearie, is just enough backbone to say you won't put up with it any longer.”
"I feel as you do in dreams when you're trying to run and can only drag your feet," said Anne drearily. "If it were only now and then ... but it's every day. Meal times are perfect horrors now.
Gilbert says he can't carve roasts any more.”
"He'd notice THAT," sniffed Miss Cornelia.
"We can never have any real conversations at meals because she is sure to say something disagreeable every time anyone speaks. She corrects the children for their manners continually and always calls attention to their faults before company. We used to have such pleasant meals ... and now! She resents laughter ... and you know what we are for laughing. Somebody is always seeing a joke ... or used to be. She can't let anything pass. Today she said, 'Gilbert, don't sulk. Have you and Annie quarrelled?' Just because we were quiet. You know Gilbert is always a little depressed when he loses a patient he thinks ought to have lived.
And then she lectured us on our folly and warned us not to let the sun go down on our wrath. Oh, we laughed at it afterwards ... but just at the time! She and Susan don't get along. And we CAN'T keep Susan from muttering asides that are the reverse of polite.
She more than muttered when Aunt Mary Maria told her she had never seen such a liar as Walter ... because she heard him telling Di a long tale about meeting the man in the moon and what they said to each other. She wanted to scour his mouth out with soap and water.
She and Susan had a battle royal that time. And she is filling the children's minds with all sorts of gruesome ideas. She told Nan about a child who was naughty and died in its sleep and Nan is afraid to go to sleep now. She told Di that if she were always a good girl her parents would come to love her as well as they loved Nan, even if she did have red hair. Gilbert really was very angry when he heard that and spoke to her sharply. I couldn't help hoping she'd take offence and go ... even though I would hate to have anyone leave my home because she was offended. But she just let those big blue eyes of her fill with tears and said she didn't mean any harm. She'd always heard that twins were never loved equally and she'd been thinking we favoured Nan and that poor Di felt it! She cried all night about it and Gilbert felt that he had been a brute ... and APOLOGIZED.”
"He would!" said Miss Cornelia.
"Oh, I shouldn't be talking like this, Miss Cornelia. When I 'count my mercies' I feel it's very petty of me to mind these things ... even if they do rub a little bloom off life. And she isn't always hateful ... she is quite nice by spells ...”
"Do you tell me so?" said Miss Cornelia sarcastically.
"Yes ... and kind. She heard me say I wanted an afternoon tea- set and she went to Toronto and got me one ... by mail order!
And, oh, Miss Cornelia, it's so ugly!”
Anne gave a laugh that ended in a sob. Then she laughed again.
"Now we won't talk of her any more ... it doesn't seem so bad now that I've blurted this all out ... like a baby. Look at wee Rilla, Miss Cornelia. Aren't her lashes darling when she is asleep? Now let's have a good gab-fest.”
Anne was herself again by the time Miss Cornelia had gone.
Nevertheless she sat thoughtfully before her fire for some time.
She had not told Miss Cornelia all of it. She had never told Gilbert any of it. There were so many little things...
"So little I can't complain of them," thought Anne. "And yet ... it's the little things that fret the holes in life ... like moths ... and ruin it.”
Aunt Mary Maria with her trick of acting the hostess ... Aunt Mary Maria inviting guests and never saying a word about it till they came... "She makes me feel as if I didn't belong in my own home." Aunt Mary Maria moving the furniture around when Anne was out. "I hope you don't mind, Annie; I thought we need the table so much more here than in the library." Aunt Mary Maria's insatiable childish curiosity about everything ... her point-blank questions about intimate matters ... "always coming into my room without knocking ... always smelling smoke ... always plumping up the cushions I've crushed ... always implying that I gossip too much with Susan ... always picking at the children ... We have to be at them all the time to make them behave and then we can't manage it always.”
"Ugly old Aunt Maywia," Shirley had said distinctly one dreadful day. Gilbert had been going to spank him for it, but Susan had risen up in outraged majesty and forbade it.
"We're cowed," thought Anne. "This household is beginning to revolve around the question, 'Will Aunt Mary Maria like it?' We won't admit it but it's true. Anything rather than have her wiping tears nobly away. It just can't go on.”
Then Anne remembered what Miss Cornelia had said ... that Mary Maria Blythe had never had a friend. How terrible! Out of her own richness of friendships Anne felt a sudden rush of compassion for this woman who had never had a friend ... who had nothing before her but a lonely, restless old age with no one coming to her for shelter or healing, for hope and help, for warmth and love. Surely they could have patience with her. These annoyances were only superficial, after all. They could not poison the deep springs of life.
"I've just had a terrible spasm of being sorry for myself, that's all," said Anne, picking Rilla out of her basket and thrilling to the little round satin cheek against hers. "It's over now and I'm wholesomely ashamed of it.”
Chapter 13
"We never seem to have old-fashioned winters nowadays, do we, Mummy?" said Walter gloomily.
For the November snow had gone long ago and all through December Glen St. Mary had been a black and sombre land, rimmed in by a grey gulf dotted with curling crests of ice-white foam. There had been only a few sunny days, when the harbour sparkled in the golden arms of the hills: the rest had been dour and hard-bitten. In vain had the Ingleside folks hoped for snow for Christmas: but preparations went steadily on and as the last week drew to a close Ingleside was full of mystery and secrets and whispers and delicious smells. Now on the very day before Christmas everything was ready. The fir tree Walter and Jem had brought up from the Hollow was in the corner of the living-room, the doors and windows were hung with big green wreaths tied with huge bows of red ribbon. The banisters were twined with creeping spruce and Susan's pantry was crammed to overflowing. Then, late in the afternoon, when they all had resigned themselves to a dingy "green" Christmas somebody looked out of a window and saw white flakes as big as feathers falling thickly.
"Snow! Snow!! Snow!!!" shouted Jem. "A white Christmas after all, Mummy!”
The Ingleside children went to bed happy. It was so nice to snuggle down warm and cosy and listen to the storm howling outside through the grey snowy night. Anne and Susan went to work to deck the Christmas tree ... "acting like two children themselves,” thought Aunt Mary Maria scornfully. She did not approve of candles on a tree ... "suppose the house caught fire from them." She did not approve of coloured balls ... "suppose the twins ate them.” But nobody paid any attention to her. They had learned that that was the only condition on which life with Aunt Mary Maria was livable.
"Finished!" cried Anne, as she fastened the great silver star to the top of the proud little fir. "And, oh, Susan, doesn't it look pretty! Isn't it nice we can all be children again at Christmas without being ashamed of it! I'm so glad the snow came ... but I hope the storm won't outlast the night.”
"It's going to storm all day tomorrow," said Aunt Mary Maria positively. "I can tell by my poor back.”