The big Churchill house, with the grim iron lacework around its flat mansard roof, looked down on the harbour and the dunes. Mrs.
Churchill greeted her politely, if none too effusively, and ushered her into a gloomy and splendid parlour, the dark, brown-papered walls of which were hung with innumerable crayons of departed Churchills and Elliotts. Mrs. Churchill sat down on a green plush sofa, folded her long thin hands, and gazed steadily at her caller.
Mary Churchill was tall and gaunt and austere. She had a prominent chin, deep-set blue eyes like Alden's, and a wide, compressed mouth. She never wasted words and she never gossipped. So Anne found it rather difficult to work up to her objective naturally, but she managed it through the medium of the new minister across the harbour whom Mrs. Churchill did not like.
"He is not a spiritual man," said Mrs. Churchill coldly.
"I have heard that his sermons are remarkable," said Anne.
"I heard one and do not wish to hear more. My soul sought food and was given a lecture. He believes the Kingdom of Heaven can be taken by brains. It cannot.”
"Speaking of ministers ... they have a very clever one at Lowbridge now. I think he is interested in my young friend, Stella Chase. Gossip says it will be a match.”
"Do you mean a marriage?" said Mrs. Churchill.
Anne felt snubbed but reflected that you had to swallow things like that when you were interfering in what didn't concern you.
"I think it would be a very suitable one, Mrs. Churchill. Stella is especially fitted for a minister's wife. I've been telling Alden he mustn't try to spoil it.”
"Why?" asked Mrs. Churchill, without the flicker of an eyelid.
"Well ... really ... you know ... I'm afraid Alden would stand no chance whatever. Mr. Chase doesn't think anyone good enough for Stella. All Alden's friends would hate to see him dropped suddenly like an old glove. He's too nice a boy for that.”
"No girl ever dropped my son," said Mrs. Churchill, compressing her thin lips. "It was always the other way about. He found them out, for all their curls and giggles, their wrigglings and mincings. My son can marry any woman he chooses, Mrs. Blythe ... ANY woman.”
"Oh?" said Anne's tongue. Her tone said, "Of course I am too polite to contradict you but you have not changed my opinion.” Mary Churchill understood and her white, shrivelled face warmed a little as she went out of the room to get her missionary contribution.
"You have the most wonderful view here," said Anne, when Mrs.
Churchill ushered her to the door.
Mrs. Churchill gave the gulf a glance of disapproval.
"If you felt the bite of the east wind in winter, Mrs. Blythe, you might not think so much of the view. It's cool enough tonight. I should think you'd be afraid of catching cold in that thin dress.
Not but what it's a pretty one. You are young enough still to care for gauds and vanities. I have ceased to feel any interest in such transitory things.”
Anne felt fairly well satisfied with the interview as she went home through the dim green twilight.
"Of course one can't count on Mrs. Churchill," she told a flock of starlings who were holding a parliament in a little field scooped out of the woods, "but I think I worried her a little. I could see she didn't like having people think Alden COULD be jilted. Well, I've done what in me lies with all concerned except Mr. Chase and I don't see what I can do with him when I don't even know him. I wonder if he has the slightest notion that Alden and Stella are sweethearting. Not likely. Stella would never dare take Alden to the house, of course. Now, what AM I to do about Mr. Chase?”
It was really uncanny ... the way things helped her out. One evening Miss Cornelia came along and asked Anne to accompany her to the Chase home.
"I'm going down to ask Richard Chase for a contribution to the new church kitchen stove. Will you come with me, dearie, just as a moral support? I hate to tackle him alone.”
They found Mr. Chase standing on his front steps, looking, with his long legs and his long nose, rather like a meditative crane. He had a few shining strands of hair brushed over the top of his bald head and his little grey eyes twinkled at them. He happened to be thinking that if that was the doctor's wife with old Cornelia she had a mighty good figure. As for Cousin Cornelia, twice removed, she was a bit too solidly built and had about as much intellect as a grasshopper, but she wasn't a bad old cat at all if you always rubbed her the right way.
He invited them courteously into his small library, where Miss Cornelia settled into a chair with a little grunt.
"It's dreadful hot tonight. I'm afraid we'll have a thunderstorm.
Mercy on us, Richard, that cat is bigger than ever!”
Richard Chase had a familiar in the shape of a yellow cat of abnormal size which now climbed up on his knee. He stroked it tenderly.
"Thomas the Rhymer gives the world assurance of a cat," he said.
"Don't you, Thomas? Look at your Aunt Cornelia, Rhymer. Observe the baleful glances she is casting at you out of orbs created to express only kindness and affection.”
"Don't you call me that beast's Aunt Cornelia!" protested Mrs.
Elliott sharply. "A joke is a joke but that is carrying things too far.”
"Wouldn't you rather be the Rhymer's aunt than Neddy Churchill's aunt?" queried Richard Chase plaintively. "Neddy is a glutton and a wine-bibber, isn't he? I've heard you giving a catalogue of his sins. Wouldn't you rather be aunt to a fine upstanding cat like Thomas with a blameless record where whiskey and tabbies are concerned?”
"Poor Ned is a human being," retorted Miss Cornelia. "I don't like cats. That is the only fault I have to find with Alden Churchill.
He has got the strangest liking for cats, too. Lord knows where he got it ... both his father and mother loathed them.”
"What a sensible young man he must be!”
"Sensible! Well, he's sensible enough ... except in the matter of cats and his hankering after evolution ... another thing he didn't inherit from his mother.”
"Do you know, Mrs. Elliott," said Richard Chase solemnly, "I have a secret leaning towards evolution myself.”
"So you've told me before. Well, believe what you want to, Dick Chase ... just like a man. Thank God, nobody could ever make ME believe that I descended from a monkey.”
"You don't look it, I confess, you comely woman. I see no simian resemblances in your rosy, comfortable, eminently gracious physiognomy. Still, your great-grandmother a million times removed swung herself from branch to branch by her tail. Science proves that, Cornelia ... take it or leave it.”
"I'll leave it, then. I'm not going to argue with you on that or any point. I've got my own religion and no ape-ancestors figure in it. By the way, Richard, Stella doesn't look so well this summer as I'd like to see her.”
"She always feels the hot weather a good deal. She'll pick up when it's cooler.”
"I hope so. Lisette picked up every summer but the last, Richard ... don't forget that. Stella has her mother's constitution.
It's just as well she isn't likely to marry.”
"Why isn't she likely to marry? I ask from curiosity, Cornelia ... rank curiosity. The processes of feminine thought are intensely interesting to me. From what premises or data do you draw the conclusion, in your own delightful offhand way, that Stella is not likely to marry?”
"Well, Richard, to put it plainly, she isn't the kind of girl that is very popular with men. She's a good, sweet girl, but she doesn't take with men.”
"She has had admirers. I have spent much of my substance in the purchase and maintenance of shotguns and bulldogs.”
"They admired your money-bags, I fancy. They were easily discouraged, weren't they? Just one broadside of sarcasm from you and off they went. If they had really wanted Stella they wouldn't have wilted for that any more than for your imaginary bulldog. No, Richard, you might as well admit the fact that Stella isn't the girl to win desirable beaus. Lisette wasn't, you know. She never had a beau till you came along.”