but she feared it would not, and when her new kitten, which she had given to Amy Taylor because Amy wanted it, came back home and persisted in coming back home Nan knew God was not satisfied.
Nothing would do Him but walking through the graveyard; and poor haunted Nan knew now she could never do THAT. She was a coward and a sneak. Only sneaks, Jem had said once, tried to get out of bargains.
Anne was allowed to sit up in bed. She was nearly well again after being ill. She would soon be able to keep her house again ... read her books ... lie easily on her pillows ... eat everything she wanted ... sit by her fireplace ... look to her garden ... see her friends ... listen to juicy bits of gossip ... welcome the days shining like jewels on the necklace of the year ... be again a part of the colourful pageantry of life.
She had had such a nice dinner ... Susan's stuffed leg of lamb had been done to a turn. It was delightful to feel hungry again.
She looked about her room at all the things she loved. She must get new curtains for it ... something between spring green and pale gold; and certainly those new cupboards for towels must be put in the bathroom. Then she looked out of the window. There was some magic in the air. She could catch a blue glimpse of the harbour through the maples; the weeping birch on the lawn was a soft rain of falling gold. Vast sky-gardens arched over an opulent land holding autumn in fee ... a land of unbelievable colours, mellow light and lengthening shadows. Cock Robin was tilting crazily on a fir-top; the children were laughing in the orchard as they picked apples. Laughter had come back to Ingleside. "Life IS something more than 'delicately balanced organic chemistry,'" she thought happily.
Into the room crept Nan, eyes and nose crimson from crying.
"Mummy, I HAVE to tell you ... I can't wait any longer. Mummy, I'VE CHEATED GOD.”
Anne thrilled again to the soft touch of a child's little clinging hand ... a child seeking help, and comfort in its bitter little problem. She listened while Nan sobbed out the whole story and managed to keep a straight face. Anne always had contrived to keep a straight face when a straight face was indicated, no matter how crazily she might laugh it over with Gilbert afterwards. She knew Nan's worry was real and dreadful to her; and she also realized that this small daughter's theology needed attention.
"Darling, you're terribly mistaken about it all. God doesn't make bargains. He GIVES ... gives without asking anything from us in return except love. When you ask Father or me for something you want, WE don't make bargains with you ... and God is ever and ever so much kinder than we are. And He knows so much better than we do what is good to give.”
"And He won't ... He won't make you die, Mummy, because I didn't keep my promise?”
"Certainly not, darling.”
"Mummy, even if I was mistooken about God ... oughtn't I to keep my bargain when I made it? I SAID I would, you know. Daddy says we should always keep our promises. Won't I be DISGRACED FOREVER if I don't?”
"When I get quite well, dear, I'll go with you some night ... and stay outside the gate ... and I don't think you'll be a bit afraid to go through the graveyard then. That will relieve your poor little conscience ... and you won't make any more foolish bargains with God?”
"No," promised Nan, with a rather regretful feeling that she was giving up something that, with all its drawbacks, had been pleasantly exciting. But the sparkle had come back to her eyes and a bit of the old ginger to her voice.
"I'll go and wash my face and then I'll come back and kiss you, Mummy. And I'll pick you all the snack-dragons I can find. It's been DREADFUL without you, Mummy.”
"Oh, Susan," said Anne when Susan brought in her supper, "what a world it is! What a beautiful, interesting, wonderful world!
Isn't it, Susan?”
"I will go so far," admitted Susan, recalling the beautiful row of pies she had just left in the pantry, "as to say that it is very tolerable.”
Chapter 27
October was a very happy month at Ingleside that year, full of days when you just HAD to run and sing and whistle. Mother was about again, refusing to be treated as a convalescent any longer, making garden plans, laughing again ... Jem always thought Mother had such a beautiful, joyous laugh ... answering innumerable questions. "Mummy, how far is it from here to the sunset? ... Mummy, why can't we gather up the spilled moonlight? ... Mummy, do the souls of dead people REALLY come back on Hallowe'en? ... Mummy, what causes the cause? ... Mummy, wouldn't you rather be killed by a rattlesnake than a tiger, because the tiger would mess you up and eat you? ... Mummy, what is a cubby? ... Mummy, is a widow really a woman whose dreams have come true? Wally Taylor said she was... Mummy, what do little birds do when it rains HARD? ... Mummy, are we REALLY a too romantic family?”
The last from Jem, who had heard in school that Mrs. Alec Davies had said so. Jem did not like Mrs. Alec Davies, because whenever she met him with Mother or Father she invariably dabbed her long forefinger at him and demanded, "Is Jemmy a good boy in school?” Jemmy! Perhaps they WERE a bit romantic. Susan must certainly have thought so when she discovered the boardwalk to the barn lavishly decorated with splotches of crimson paint. "We HAD to have them for our sham battle, Susan," explained Jem. "They represent gobs of gore.”
At night there might be a line of wild geese flying across a low red moon and Jem when he saw them ached mysteriously to fly far away with them, too ... to unknown shores and bring back monkeys ... leopards ... parrots ... things like that ... to explore the Spanish Main.
Some phrases, like "the Spanish Main," always sounded irresistibly alluring to Jem ... "secrets of the sea" was another. To be caught in the deadly coils of a python and have a combat with a wounded rhinoceros was all in the day's work with Jem. And the very word "dragon" gave him a tremendous thrill. His favourite picture, tacked on the wall at the foot of his bed, was of a knight in armour on a beautiful plump white horse, standing on its hind legs while its rider speared a dragon who had a lovely tail flowing behind him in kinks and loops, ending with a fork. A lady in a pink robe knelt peacefully and composedly in the background with clasped hands. There was no doubt in the world that the lady looked a good deal like Maybelle Reese for whose nine-year-old favour lances were already being shattered in the Glen school.
Even Susan noticed the resemblance and teased the furiously blushing Jem about it. But the dragon was really a little disappointing ... it looked so small and insignificant under the huge horse.
There didn't seem to be any special valour about spearing it. The dragons from which Jem rescued Maybelle in secret dreams were much more dragonish. He HAD rescued her last Monday from old Sarah Palmer's gander. Peradventure ... ah, "peradventure" had a good smack! ... she had noticed the lordly air with which he had caught the hissing creature by its snaky neck and flung it over the fence.
But a gander was somehow not nearly so romantic as a dragon.
It was an October of winds ... small winds that purred in the valley and big ones that lashed the mapletops ... winds that howled along the sandshore but crouched when they came to the rocks ... crouched and sprang. The nights, with their sleepy red hunter's moon, were cool enough to make the thought of a warm bed pleasant, the blueberry bushes turned scarlet, the dead ferns were a rich red-brown, sumacs burned behind the barn, green pastures lay here and there like patches on the sere harvest fields of the Upper Glen and there were gold and russet chrysanthemums in the spruce corner of the lawn. There were squirrels chattering joyfully everywhere and cricket fiddlers for fairy dances on a thousand hills. There were apples to be picked, carrots to be dug.