"Is it true that May Flagg and Billy Carter have broken up and that he is going with one of the over-harbour MacDougalls?" asked Martha Crothers after a decent interval.
"Yes. Nobody knows what happened though.”
"It's sad ... what little things break off matches sometimes,” said Candace Crawford. "Take Dick Pratt and Lilian MacAllister ... he was just starting to propose to her at a picnic when his nose began to bleed. He had to go to the brook ... and he met a strange girl there who lent him her handkerchief. He fell in love and they were married in two weeks' time.”
"Did you hear what happened to Big Jim MacAllister last Saturday night in Milt Cooper's store at the Harbour Head?" asked Mrs. Simon, thinking it time somebody introduced a more cheerful topic than ghosts and jiltings. "He had got into the habit of setting on the stove all summer. But Saturday night was cold and Milt had lit a fire. So when poor Big Jim sat down ... well, he scorched his ...”
Mrs. Simon would not say what he had scorched but she patted a portion of her anatomy silently.
"His bottom," said Walter gravely, poking his head through the creeper screen. He honestly thought that Mrs. Simon could not remember the right word.
An appalled silence descended on the quilters. Had Walter Blythe been there all the time? Everyone was raking her recollection of the tales told to recall if any of them had been too terribly unfit for the ears of youth. Mrs. Dr. Blythe was said to be so fussy about what her children heard. Before their paralyzed tongues recovered Anne had come out and asked them to come to supper.
"Just ten minutes more, Mrs. Blythe. We'll have both quilts finished then," said Elizabeth Kirk.
The quilts were finished, taken out, shaken, held up and admired.
"I wonder who'll sleep under them," said Myra Murray.
"Perhaps a new mother will hold her first baby under one of them,” said Anne.
"Or little children cuddle under them on a cold prairie night,” said Miss Cornelia unexpectedly.
"Or some poor old rheumatic body be cosier for them," said Mrs.
Meade.
"I hope nobody DIES under them," said Mrs. Baxter sadly.
"Do you know what Mary Anna said before I came?" said Mrs. Donald as they filed into the dining-room. "She said, 'Ma, don't forget you must eat EVERYTHING on your plate.'“
Whereupon they all sat down and ate and drank to the glory of God, for they had done a good afternoon's work and there was very little malice in most of them, after all.
After supper they went home. Jane Burr walked as far as the village with Mrs. Simon Millison.
"I must remember all the fixings to tell ma," said Jane wistfully, not knowing that Susan was counting the spoons. "She never gets out since she's bed-rid but she loves to hear about things. That table will be a real treat to her.”
"It was just like a picture you'd seen in a magazine," agreed Mrs.
Simon with a sigh. "I can cook as good a supper as anyone, if I do say it, but I can't fix up a table with a single PRESTIGE of style.
As for that young Walter, I could spank HIS bottom with a relish.
Such a turn as he gave me!”
"And I suppose Ingleside is strewn with dead characters?" the doctor was saying.
"I wasn't quilting," said Anne, "so I didn't hear what was said.”
"You never do, dearie," said Miss Cornelia, who had lingered to help Susan bind the quilts. "When YOU are at the quilt they never let themselves go. They think you don't approve of gossip.”
"It all depends on the kind," said Anne.
"Well, nobody really said anything too terrible today. Most of the people they talked about were dead ... or ought to be," said Miss Cornelia, recalling the story of Abner Cromwell's abortive funeral with a grin. "Only Mrs. Millison had to drag in that gruesome old murder story again about Madge Carey and her husband. I remember it all. There wasn't a vestige of proof that Madge did it ... except that a cat died after eating some of the soup. The animal had been sick for a week. If you ask me, Roger Carey died of appendicitis ... though of course nobody knew they had appendixes then.”
"And indeed I think it is a great pity they ever found out," said Susan. "The spoons are all intact, Mrs. Dr. dear, and nothing happened to the tablecloth.”
"Well, I must be getting home," said Miss Cornelia. "I'll send you up some spare-ribs next week when Marshall kills the pig.”
Walter was again sitting on the steps with eyes full of dreams.
Dusk had fallen. Where, he wondered, had it fallen from? Did some great spirit with bat-like wings pour it all over the world from a purple jar? The moon was rising and three wind-twisted old spruces looked like three lean, hump-backed old witches hobbling up a hill against it. Was that a little faun with furry ears crouching in the shadows? Suppose he opened the door in the brick wall NOW, wouldn't he step, not into the well-known garden but into some strange land of faery, where princesses were waking from enchanted sleeps, where perhaps he might find and follow Echo as he so often longed to do? One dared not speak. Something would vanish if one did.
"Darling," said Mother coming out, "you mustn't sit here any longer. It is getting cold. Remember your throat.”
The spoken word HAD broken the spell. Some magic light had gone.
The lawn was still a beautiful place but it was no longer fairyland. Walter got up.
"Mother, will you tell me what happened at Peter Kirk's funeral?”
Anne thought for a moment ... then shivered.
"Not now, dear. Perhaps ... sometime...”
Chapter 33
Anne, alone in her room ... for Gilbert had been called out ... sat down at her window for a few minutes of communion with the tenderness of the night and of enjoyment of the eerie charm of her moonlit room. Say what you will, thought Anne, there is always something a little strange about a moonlit room. Its whole personality is changed. It is not so friendly ... so human. It is remote and aloof and wrapped up in itself. Almost it regards you as an intruder.
She was a little tired after her busy day and everything was so beautifully quiet now ... the children asleep, Ingleside restored to order. There was no sound in the house except a faint rhythmic thumping from the kitchen where Susan was setting her bread.
But through the open window came the sounds of the night, every one of which Anne knew and loved. Low laughter drifted up from the harbour on the still air. Someone was singing down in the Glen and it sounded like the haunting notes of some song heard a long ago.
There were silvery moonlight paths over the water but Ingleside was hooded in shadow. The trees were whispering "dark sayings of old” and an owl was hooting in Rainbow Valley.
"'What a happy summer this has been," thought Anne ... and then recalled with a little pang something she had heard Aunt Highland Kitty of the Upper Glen say once ... "the same summer will never be coming twice.”
Never quite the same. Another summer would come ... but the children would be a little older and Rilla would be going to school ... "and I'll have no baby left," thought Anne sadly. Jem was twelve now and there was already talk of "the Entrance" ... Jem who but yesterday had been a wee baby in the old House of Dreams.
Walter was shooting up and that very morning she had heard Nan teasing Di about some "boy" in school; and Di had actually blushed and tossed her red head. Well, that was life. Gladness and pain ... hope and fear ... and change. Always change! You could not help it. You had to let the old go and take the new to your heart ... learn to love IT and then let IT go in turn. Spring, lovely as it was, must yield to summer and summer lose itself in autumn.
The birth ... the bridal ... the death... Anne suddenly thought of Walter asking to be told what had happened at Peter Kirk's funeral. She had not thought of it for years, but she had not forgotten it. Nobody who had been there, she felt sure, had forgotten it or ever would. Sitting there in the moonlit dusk she recalled it all.