"Oh, I'm not int'rested in the secrets of a little girl like you,” said Dovie.
A nice insult that! Nan thought her little secrets were lovely ... that one wild cherry trees she had found blooming in the spruce wood away back behind Mr. Taylor's hay barn ... her dream of a tiny white fairy lying on a lily pad in the marsh ... her fancy of a boat coming up the harbour drawn by swans attached to silver chains ... the romance she was beginning to weave about the beautiful lady at the old MacAllister place. They were all very wonderful and magical to Nan and she felt glad, when she thought it over, that she did not have to tell them to Dovie after all.
But what DID Dovie know about HER that SHE didn't know? The query haunted Nan like a mosquito.
The next day Dovie again referred to her secret knowledge.
"I've been thinking it over, Nan ... perhaps you OUGHT to know it since it's about you. Of course what Aunt Kate meant was that I mustn't tell anyone but the person concerned. Look here. If you'll give me that china stag of yours I'll tell you what I know about you.”
"Oh, I couldn't give you THAT, Dovie. Susan gave it to me my last birthday. It would hurt her feelings dreadfully.”
"ALL right, then. If you'd rather have your old stag than know an important thing about yourself you can keep him. I don't care.
I'd rather keep it. I always like to know things other girls don't. It makes you IMPORTANT. I'll look at you next Sunday in church and I'll think to myself, 'if YOU just knew what I know about you, Nan Blythe.' It'll be fun.”
"Is what you know about me NICE?" queried Nan.
"Oh, it's VERY romantic ... just like something you'd read in a story-book. But never mind. you ain't interested and I know what I know.”
By this time Nan was crazy with curiosity. Life wouldn't be worth living if she couldn't find out what Dovie's mysterious knowledge was. She had a sudden inspiration.
"Dovie, I can't give you my stag, but if you'll tell me what you know about me I'll give you my red parasol.”
Dovie's gooseberry eyes gleamed. She had been eaten up by envy of that parasol.
"The new red parasol your mother brought you from town last week?” she bargained.
Nan nodded. Her breath came quickly. Was it ... oh, was it possible that Dovie would really tell her?
"Will your mother let you?" demanded Dovie.
Nan nodded again, but a little uncertainly. She was none too sure of it. Dovie scented the uncertainty.
"You'll have to have that parasol right here," she said firmly, "before I can tell you. No parasol, no secret.”
"I'll bring it tomorrow," promised Nan hastily. She just HAD to know what Dovie knew about her, that was all there was to it.
"Well, I'll think it over," said Dovie doubtfully. "Don't get your hopes up. I don't expect I'll tell you after all. You're too young ... I've told you so often enough.”
"I'm older than I was yesterday," pleaded Nan. "Oh, come, Dovie, don't be mean.”
"I guess I've got a right to my own knowledge," said Dovie crushingly. "You'd tell Anne ... that's your mother ...”
"Of course I know my own mother's name," said Nan, a trifle on her dignity. Secrets or no secrets, there were limits. "I told you I wouldn't tell ANYBODY at Ingleside.”
"Will you swear it?”
"SWEAR it?”
"Don't be a poll-parrot. Of course I mean just promising solemnly.”
"I promise solemnly.”
"Solemner than that.”
Nan didn't see how she could be any solemner. Her face would set if she was.
"'Clasp your hands, look at the sky, Cross your heart and hope to die,'“
said Dovie.
Nan went through the ritual.
"You'll bring the parasol tomorrow and we'll see," said Dovie.
"What did your mother do before she was married, Nan?”
"She taught school ... and taught it well," said Nan.
"Well, I was just wondering. Mother thinks it was a mistake for your Dad to marry her. Nobody knew anything about her FAMILY. And the girls he might have had, Mother says. I must be going now.
O revor.”
Nan knew that meant "till tomorrow." She was very proud of having a chum who could talk French. She continued to sit on the wharf long after Dovie had gone home. She liked to sit on the wharf and watch the fishing boats going out and coming in, and sometimes a ship drifting down the harbour, bound to fair lands far away. Like Jem, she often wished she could sail away in a ship ... down the blue harbour, past the bar of shadowy dunes, past the lighthouse point where at night the revolving Four Winds Light became an outpost of mystery, out, out, to the blue mist that was the summer gulf, on, on, to enchanted islands in golden morning seas. Nan flew on the wings of her imagination all over the world as she squatted there on the old sagging wharf.
But this afternoon she was all keyed up over Dovie's secret. Would Dovie really tell her? What would it be ... what COULD it be?
And what about those girls Father might have married? Nan liked to speculate about those girls. One of them might have been her mother. But that was horrible. Nobody could be her mother except Mother. The thing was simply unthinkable.
"I THINK Dovie Johnson is going to tell me a secret," Nan confided to Mother that night when she was being kissed bye-bye. "Of course I won't be able to tell even you, Mummy, because I've promised I wouldn't. You won't mind, will you, Mummy?”
"Not at all," said Anne, much amused.
When Nan went down to the wharf the next day she took the parasol.
It was her parasol, she told herself. It had been given to her, so she had a perfect right to do what she liked with it. Having quieted her conscience with this sophistry she slipped away when nobody could see her. It gave her a pang to think of giving up her dear, gay little parasol, but by this time the craze to find out what Dovie knew had become too strong to be resisted.
"Here's the parasol, Dovie," she said breathlessly. "And now tell me the secret.”
Dovie was really taken aback. She had never meant matters to go as far as this ... she had never believed Nan Blythe's mother would LET her give away her red parasol. She pursed her lips.
"I don't know as that shade of red will suit my complexion, after all. It's rather GAUDY. I guess I won't tell." Nan had a spirit of her own and Dovie had not yet quite charmed it into blind submission. Nothing roused it more quickly than injustice.
"A bargain is a bargain, Dovie Johnson! You SAID the parasol for the secret. Here is the parasol and you've GOT to keep your promise.”
"Oh, very well," said Dovie in a bored way.
Everything grew very still. The gusts of wind had died away. The water stopped glug-glugging round the piles of the wharf. Nan shivered with delicious ecstasy. She was going to find out at last what Dovie knew.
"You know the Jimmy Thomases down at the Harbour Mouth," said Dovie. "Six-toed Jimmy Thomas?”
Nan nodded. Of course she knew the Thomases ... at least, knew of them. Six-toed Jimmy sometimes called at Ingleside selling fish. Susan said you never could be sure of getting good ones from him. Nan did not like the look of him. He had a bald head, with a fluff of curly white hair on either side of it, and a red, hooked nose. But what could the Thomases possibly have to do with the matter?
"And you know Cassie Thomas?" went on Dovie.
Nan had seen Cassie Thomas once when Six-toed Jimmy had brought her round with him in his fishwagon. Cassie was just about her own age, with a mop of red curls and bold, greenish-grey eyes. She had stuck her tongue out at Nan.
"Well..." Dovie drew a long breath ... "this is the TRUTH about you. YOU are Cassie Thomas and SHE is Nan Blythe.”
Nan stared at Dovie. She hadn't the faintest glimmer of Dovie's meaning. What she had said made no sense.
"I ... I ... what do you mean?”