章节正文
and the girls found their way up to the spare room, an apartment as
white as its door, lighted by the ivy-hung dormer window and looking,
as Anne said, like the place where happy dreams grew.
"This is quite an adventure, isn't it?" said Diana. "And isn't
Miss Lavendar sweet, if she IS a little odd? She doesn't look a bit
like an old maid."
"She looks just as music sounds, I think," answered Anne.
When they went down Miss Lavendar was carrying in the teapot,
and behind her, looking vastly pleased, was Charlotta the Fourth,
with a plate of hot biscuits.
"Now, you must tell me your names," said Miss Lavendar. "I'm so
glad you are young girls. I love young girls. It's so easy to
pretend I'm a girl myself when I'm with them. I do hate". . .with
a little grimace. . ."to believe I'm old. Now, who are you. . .
just for convenience' sake? Diana Barry? And Anne Shirley? May I
pretend that I've known you for a hundred years and call you Anne
and Diana right away?"
"You, may" the girls said both together.
"Then just let's sit comfily down and eat everything," said Miss Lavendar
happily. "Charlotta, you sit at the foot and help with the chicken.
It is so fortunate that I made the sponge cake and doughnuts.
Of course, it was foolish to do it for imaginary guests. . .
I know Charlotta the Fourth thought so, didn't you, Charlotta?
But you see how well it has turned out. Of course they wouldn't have
been wasted, for Charlotta the Fourth and I could have eaten them
through time. But sponge cake is not a thing that improves with time."
That was a merry and memorable meal; and when it was over they all
went out to the garden, lying in the glamor of sunset.
"I do think you have the loveliest place here," said Diana,
looking round her admiringly.
"Why do you call it Echo Lodge?" asked Anne.
"Charlotta," said Miss Lavendar, "go into the house and bring out
the little tin horn that is hanging over the clock shelf."
Charlotta the Fourth skipped off and returned with the horn.
"Blow it, Charlotta," commanded Miss Lavendar.
Charlotta accordingly blew, a rather raucous, strident blast.
There was moment's stillness. . .and then from the woods over the
river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery,
as if all the "horns of elfland" were blowing against the sunset.
Anne and Diana exclaimed in delight.
"Now laugh, Charlotta. . .laugh loudly."
Charlotta, who would probably have obeyed if Miss Lavendar had told
her to stand on her head, climbed upon the stone bench and laughed
loud and heartily. Back came the echoes, as if a host of pixy
people were mimicking her laughter in the purple woodlands and
along the fir-fringed points.
"People always admire my echoes very much," said Miss Lavendar,
as if the echoes were her personal property. "I love them myself.
They are very good company. . .with a little pretending. On calm
evenings Charlotta the Fourth and I often sit out here and amuse
ourselves with them. Charlotta, take back the horn and hang it
carefully in its place."
"Why do you call her Charlotta the Fourth?" asked Diana, who was
bursting with curiosity on this point.
"Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Charlottas in
my thoughts," said Miss Lavendar seriously. "They all look so much
alike there's no telling them apart. Her name isn't really
Charlotta at all. It is. . .let me see. . .what is it? I THINK
it's Leonora. . .yes, it IS Leonora. You see, it is this way.
When mother died ten years ago I couldn't stay here alone. . .
and I couldn't afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl.
So I got little Charlotta Bowman to come and stay with me for
board and clothes. Her name really was Charlotta. . .she was
Charlotta the First. She was just thirteen. She stayed with me
till she was sixteen and then she went away to Boston, because she
could do better there. Her sister came to stay with me then.
Her name was Julietta. . .Mrs. Bowman had a weakness for fancy
names I think. . .but she looked so like Charlotta that I
kept calling her that all the time. . .and she didn't mind.
So I just gave up trying to remember her right name.
She was Charlotta the Second, and when she went away Evelina
came and she was Charlotta the Third. Now I have Charlotta
the Fourth; but when she is sixteen. . .she's fourteen now. . .
she will want to go to Boston too, and what I shall do then I
really do not know. Charlotta the Fourth is the last of the
Bowman girls, and the best. The other Charlottas always let
me see that they thought it silly of me to pretend things but
Charlotta the Fourth never does, no matter what she may really think.
I don't care what people think about me if they don't let me see it."
"Well," said Diana looking regretfully at the setting sun.
"I suppose we must go if we want to get to Mr. Kimball's before dark.
We've had a lovely time, Miss Lewis."
"Won't you come again to see me?" pleaded Miss Lavendar.
Tall Anne put her arm about the little lady.
"Indeed we shall," she promised. "Now that we have discovered you
we'll wear out our welcome coming to see you. Yes, we must go. . .
'we must tear ourselves away,' as Paul Irving says every time he
comes to Green Gables."
"Paul Irving?" There was a subtle change in Miss Lavendar's voice.
"Who is he? I didn't think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea."
Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness. She had forgotten about
Miss Lavendar's old romance when Paul's name slipped out.
"He is a little pupil of mine," she explained slowly. "He came
from Boston last year to live with his grandmother, Mrs. Irving
of the shore road."
"Is he Stephen Irving's son?" Miss Lavendar asked, bending over her
namesake border so that her face was hidden.
"Yes."
"I'm going to give you girls a bunch of lavendar apiece," said Miss
Lavendar brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question.
"It's very sweet, don't you think? Mother always loved it.
She planted these borders long ago. Father named me Lavendar
because he was so fond of it. The very first time he saw mother
was when he visited her home in East Grafton with her brother. He
fell in love with her at first sight; and they put him in the spare
room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented with lavendar and he
lay awake all night and thought of her. He always loved the scent
of lavendar after that. . .and that was why he gave me the name.
Don't forget to come back soon, girls dear. We'll be looking for
you, Charlotta the Fourth and I."
She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through. She looked
suddenly old and tired; the glow and radiance had faded from her face;
her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, but when
the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw her sitting
on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden
with her head leaning wearily on her hand.
"She does look lonely," said Diana softly. "We must come often to see her."
"I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that
could possibly be given her," said Anne. "If they had been so
blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have
been called Lavendar just the same, I think. It's so suggestive of
sweetness and old-fashioned graces and `silk attire.' Now, my name
just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Diana. "Anne seems to me real stately
and like a queen. But I'd like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be
your name. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by
what they are themselves. I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names
now but before I knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty."
"That's a lovely idea, Diana," said Anne enthusiastically.
"Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't
beautiful to begin with. . .making it stand in people's
thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they
never think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana."
XXII
Odds and Ends
"So you had tea at the stone house with Lavendar Lewis?" said Marilla
at the breakfast table next morning. "What is she like now?
It's over fifteen years since I saw her last. . .it was one
Sunday in Grafton church. I suppose she has changed a great deal.
Davy Keith, when you want something you can't reach, ask to have it
passed and don't spread yourself over the table in that fashion.
Did you ever see Paul Irving doing that when he was here to meals?"
"But Paul's arms are longer'n mine," brumbled Davy. "They've had
eleven years to grow and mine've only had seven. 'Sides, I DID ask,
but you and Anne was so busy talking you didn't pay any 'tention.
'Sides, Paul's never been here to any meal escept tea, and it's easier
to be p'lite at tea than at breakfast. You ain't half as hungry.
It's an awful long while between supper and breakfast. Now, Anne,
that spoonful ain't any bigger than it was last year and I'M ever
so much bigger."
"Of course, I don't know what Miss Lavendar used to look like but I
don't fancy somehow that she has changed a great deal," said Anne,
after she had helped Davy to maple syrup, giving him two spoonfuls
to pacify him. "Her hair is snow-white but her face is fresh and
almost girlish, and she has the sweetest brown eyes. . .such a
pretty shade of wood-brown with little golden glints in them. . .
and her voice makes you think of white satin and tinkling water
and fairy bells all mixed up together."
"She was reckoned a great beauty when she was a girl," said Marilla.
"I never knew her very well but I liked her as far as I did know her.
Some folks thought her peculiar even then. DAVY, if ever I catch you
at such a trick again you'll be made to wait for your meals till
everyone else is done, like the French."
Most conversations between Anne and Marilla in the presence of the
twins, were punctuated by these rebukes Davy-ward. In this instance,
Davy, sad to relate, not being able to scoop up the last drops of
his syrup with his spoon, had solved the difficulty by lifting his
plate in both hands and applying his small pink tongue to it.
Anne looked at him with such horrified eyes that the little
sinner turned red and said, half shamefacedly, half defiantly,
"There ain't any wasted that way."
"People who are different from other people are always called
peculiar," said Anne. "And Miss Lavendar is certainly different,
though it's hard to say just where the difference comes in.
Perhaps it is because she is one of those people who never grow old."
"One might as well grow old when all your generation do," said
Marilla, rather reckless of her pronouns. "If you don't, you don't
fit in anywhere. Far as I can learn Lavendar Lewis has just
dropped out of everything. She's lived in that out of the way
place until everybody has forgotten her. That stone house is one
of the oldest on the Island. Old Mr. Lewis built it eighty years
ago when he came out from England. Davy, stop joggling Dora's elbow.
Oh, I saw you! You needn't try to look innocent. What does make you
behave so this morning?"
"Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed," suggested Davy.
"Milty Boulter says if you do that things are bound to go wrong
with you all day. His grandmother told him. But which is the
right side? And what are you to do when your bed's against the
wall? I want to know."
"I've always wondered what went wrong between Stephen Irving and
Lavendar Lewis," continued Marilla, ignoring Davy. "They were
certainly engaged twenty-five years ago and then all at once it was
broken off. I don't know what the trouble was but it must have
been something terrible, for he went away to the States and never
come home since."
"Perhaps it was nothing very dreadful after all. I think the
little things in life often make more trouble than the big things,"
said Anne, with one of those flashes of insight which experience
could not have bettered. "Marilla, please don't say anything about
my being at Miss Lavendar's to Mrs. Lynde. She'd be sure to ask a
hundred questions and somehow I wouldn't like it. . .nor Miss
white as its door, lighted by the ivy-hung dormer window and looking,
as Anne said, like the place where happy dreams grew.
"This is quite an adventure, isn't it?" said Diana. "And isn't
Miss Lavendar sweet, if she IS a little odd? She doesn't look a bit
like an old maid."
"She looks just as music sounds, I think," answered Anne.
When they went down Miss Lavendar was carrying in the teapot,
and behind her, looking vastly pleased, was Charlotta the Fourth,
with a plate of hot biscuits.
"Now, you must tell me your names," said Miss Lavendar. "I'm so
glad you are young girls. I love young girls. It's so easy to
pretend I'm a girl myself when I'm with them. I do hate". . .with
a little grimace. . ."to believe I'm old. Now, who are you. . .
just for convenience' sake? Diana Barry? And Anne Shirley? May I
pretend that I've known you for a hundred years and call you Anne
and Diana right away?"
"You, may" the girls said both together.
"Then just let's sit comfily down and eat everything," said Miss Lavendar
happily. "Charlotta, you sit at the foot and help with the chicken.
It is so fortunate that I made the sponge cake and doughnuts.
Of course, it was foolish to do it for imaginary guests. . .
I know Charlotta the Fourth thought so, didn't you, Charlotta?
But you see how well it has turned out. Of course they wouldn't have
been wasted, for Charlotta the Fourth and I could have eaten them
through time. But sponge cake is not a thing that improves with time."
That was a merry and memorable meal; and when it was over they all
went out to the garden, lying in the glamor of sunset.
"I do think you have the loveliest place here," said Diana,
looking round her admiringly.
"Why do you call it Echo Lodge?" asked Anne.
"Charlotta," said Miss Lavendar, "go into the house and bring out
the little tin horn that is hanging over the clock shelf."
Charlotta the Fourth skipped off and returned with the horn.
"Blow it, Charlotta," commanded Miss Lavendar.
Charlotta accordingly blew, a rather raucous, strident blast.
There was moment's stillness. . .and then from the woods over the
river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery,
as if all the "horns of elfland" were blowing against the sunset.
Anne and Diana exclaimed in delight.
"Now laugh, Charlotta. . .laugh loudly."
Charlotta, who would probably have obeyed if Miss Lavendar had told
her to stand on her head, climbed upon the stone bench and laughed
loud and heartily. Back came the echoes, as if a host of pixy
people were mimicking her laughter in the purple woodlands and
along the fir-fringed points.
"People always admire my echoes very much," said Miss Lavendar,
as if the echoes were her personal property. "I love them myself.
They are very good company. . .with a little pretending. On calm
evenings Charlotta the Fourth and I often sit out here and amuse
ourselves with them. Charlotta, take back the horn and hang it
carefully in its place."
"Why do you call her Charlotta the Fourth?" asked Diana, who was
bursting with curiosity on this point.
"Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Charlottas in
my thoughts," said Miss Lavendar seriously. "They all look so much
alike there's no telling them apart. Her name isn't really
Charlotta at all. It is. . .let me see. . .what is it? I THINK
it's Leonora. . .yes, it IS Leonora. You see, it is this way.
When mother died ten years ago I couldn't stay here alone. . .
and I couldn't afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl.
So I got little Charlotta Bowman to come and stay with me for
board and clothes. Her name really was Charlotta. . .she was
Charlotta the First. She was just thirteen. She stayed with me
till she was sixteen and then she went away to Boston, because she
could do better there. Her sister came to stay with me then.
Her name was Julietta. . .Mrs. Bowman had a weakness for fancy
names I think. . .but she looked so like Charlotta that I
kept calling her that all the time. . .and she didn't mind.
So I just gave up trying to remember her right name.
She was Charlotta the Second, and when she went away Evelina
came and she was Charlotta the Third. Now I have Charlotta
the Fourth; but when she is sixteen. . .she's fourteen now. . .
she will want to go to Boston too, and what I shall do then I
really do not know. Charlotta the Fourth is the last of the
Bowman girls, and the best. The other Charlottas always let
me see that they thought it silly of me to pretend things but
Charlotta the Fourth never does, no matter what she may really think.
I don't care what people think about me if they don't let me see it."
"Well," said Diana looking regretfully at the setting sun.
"I suppose we must go if we want to get to Mr. Kimball's before dark.
We've had a lovely time, Miss Lewis."
"Won't you come again to see me?" pleaded Miss Lavendar.
Tall Anne put her arm about the little lady.
"Indeed we shall," she promised. "Now that we have discovered you
we'll wear out our welcome coming to see you. Yes, we must go. . .
'we must tear ourselves away,' as Paul Irving says every time he
comes to Green Gables."
"Paul Irving?" There was a subtle change in Miss Lavendar's voice.
"Who is he? I didn't think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea."
Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness. She had forgotten about
Miss Lavendar's old romance when Paul's name slipped out.
"He is a little pupil of mine," she explained slowly. "He came
from Boston last year to live with his grandmother, Mrs. Irving
of the shore road."
"Is he Stephen Irving's son?" Miss Lavendar asked, bending over her
namesake border so that her face was hidden.
"Yes."
"I'm going to give you girls a bunch of lavendar apiece," said Miss
Lavendar brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question.
"It's very sweet, don't you think? Mother always loved it.
She planted these borders long ago. Father named me Lavendar
because he was so fond of it. The very first time he saw mother
was when he visited her home in East Grafton with her brother. He
fell in love with her at first sight; and they put him in the spare
room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented with lavendar and he
lay awake all night and thought of her. He always loved the scent
of lavendar after that. . .and that was why he gave me the name.
Don't forget to come back soon, girls dear. We'll be looking for
you, Charlotta the Fourth and I."
She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through. She looked
suddenly old and tired; the glow and radiance had faded from her face;
her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, but when
the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw her sitting
on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden
with her head leaning wearily on her hand.
"She does look lonely," said Diana softly. "We must come often to see her."
"I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that
could possibly be given her," said Anne. "If they had been so
blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have
been called Lavendar just the same, I think. It's so suggestive of
sweetness and old-fashioned graces and `silk attire.' Now, my name
just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Diana. "Anne seems to me real stately
and like a queen. But I'd like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be
your name. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by
what they are themselves. I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names
now but before I knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty."
"That's a lovely idea, Diana," said Anne enthusiastically.
"Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't
beautiful to begin with. . .making it stand in people's
thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they
never think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana."
XXII
Odds and Ends
"So you had tea at the stone house with Lavendar Lewis?" said Marilla
at the breakfast table next morning. "What is she like now?
It's over fifteen years since I saw her last. . .it was one
Sunday in Grafton church. I suppose she has changed a great deal.
Davy Keith, when you want something you can't reach, ask to have it
passed and don't spread yourself over the table in that fashion.
Did you ever see Paul Irving doing that when he was here to meals?"
"But Paul's arms are longer'n mine," brumbled Davy. "They've had
eleven years to grow and mine've only had seven. 'Sides, I DID ask,
but you and Anne was so busy talking you didn't pay any 'tention.
'Sides, Paul's never been here to any meal escept tea, and it's easier
to be p'lite at tea than at breakfast. You ain't half as hungry.
It's an awful long while between supper and breakfast. Now, Anne,
that spoonful ain't any bigger than it was last year and I'M ever
so much bigger."
"Of course, I don't know what Miss Lavendar used to look like but I
don't fancy somehow that she has changed a great deal," said Anne,
after she had helped Davy to maple syrup, giving him two spoonfuls
to pacify him. "Her hair is snow-white but her face is fresh and
almost girlish, and she has the sweetest brown eyes. . .such a
pretty shade of wood-brown with little golden glints in them. . .
and her voice makes you think of white satin and tinkling water
and fairy bells all mixed up together."
"She was reckoned a great beauty when she was a girl," said Marilla.
"I never knew her very well but I liked her as far as I did know her.
Some folks thought her peculiar even then. DAVY, if ever I catch you
at such a trick again you'll be made to wait for your meals till
everyone else is done, like the French."
Most conversations between Anne and Marilla in the presence of the
twins, were punctuated by these rebukes Davy-ward. In this instance,
Davy, sad to relate, not being able to scoop up the last drops of
his syrup with his spoon, had solved the difficulty by lifting his
plate in both hands and applying his small pink tongue to it.
Anne looked at him with such horrified eyes that the little
sinner turned red and said, half shamefacedly, half defiantly,
"There ain't any wasted that way."
"People who are different from other people are always called
peculiar," said Anne. "And Miss Lavendar is certainly different,
though it's hard to say just where the difference comes in.
Perhaps it is because she is one of those people who never grow old."
"One might as well grow old when all your generation do," said
Marilla, rather reckless of her pronouns. "If you don't, you don't
fit in anywhere. Far as I can learn Lavendar Lewis has just
dropped out of everything. She's lived in that out of the way
place until everybody has forgotten her. That stone house is one
of the oldest on the Island. Old Mr. Lewis built it eighty years
ago when he came out from England. Davy, stop joggling Dora's elbow.
Oh, I saw you! You needn't try to look innocent. What does make you
behave so this morning?"
"Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed," suggested Davy.
"Milty Boulter says if you do that things are bound to go wrong
with you all day. His grandmother told him. But which is the
right side? And what are you to do when your bed's against the
wall? I want to know."
"I've always wondered what went wrong between Stephen Irving and
Lavendar Lewis," continued Marilla, ignoring Davy. "They were
certainly engaged twenty-five years ago and then all at once it was
broken off. I don't know what the trouble was but it must have
been something terrible, for he went away to the States and never
come home since."
"Perhaps it was nothing very dreadful after all. I think the
little things in life often make more trouble than the big things,"
said Anne, with one of those flashes of insight which experience
could not have bettered. "Marilla, please don't say anything about
my being at Miss Lavendar's to Mrs. Lynde. She'd be sure to ask a
hundred questions and somehow I wouldn't like it. . .nor Miss
- apartment [ə´pɑ:tmənt]
n.一套房间 (初中英语单词) - fortunate [´fɔ:tʃənət] a.幸运的，侥幸的 (初中英语单词)
- accordingly [ə´kɔ:diŋli] ad.因此；从而；依照 (初中英语单词)
- multitude [´mʌltitju:d] n.大群(批)；众多 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- curiosity [,kjuəri´ɔsiti] n.好奇；奇事；珍品 (初中英语单词)
- seriously [´siəriəsli] ad.严肃；严重，重大 (初中英语单词)
- grown-up [´grəun-ʌp] n.成年人 a.成熟的 (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- pretend [pri´tend] v.假装；借口；妄求 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- romance [rəu´mæns] n.中世纪骑士小说 (初中英语单词)
- grandmother [´græn,mʌðə] n.(外)祖母 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- old-fashioned [´əuld´feʃənd] a.老式的；过时的 (初中英语单词)
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə] a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- relate [ri´leit] v.阐明；使联系；涉及 (初中英语单词)
- generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- sponge [spʌndʒ] n.海绵(状物) (高中英语单词)
- imaginary [i´mædʒinəri] a.想象的；虚构的 (高中英语单词)
- memorable [´memərəbəl] a.难忘的；重大的 (高中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- stillness [´stilnis] n.不动；无声，寂静 (高中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- brightly [´braitli] ad.明亮地；聪明地 (高中英语单词)
- reckless [´rekləs] a.不注意的；鲁莽的 (高中英语单词)
- vastly [´vɑ:stli, ´væstli] ad.巨大地；广阔地 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- radiance [´reidjəns] n.发光；光彩；辐射 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- poplar [´pɔplə] n.白杨；杨木 (英语四级单词)
- wearily [´wiərili] ad.疲倦地；厌烦地 (英语四级单词)
- glamor [´glæmə] n.魔力，魅力 (英语六级单词)
- bowman [´bəumən] n.(弓箭)射手 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- fitting [´fitiŋ] a.适当的 n.试衣 (英语六级单词)
- suggestive [sə´dʒestiv] a.暗示的；启发的 (英语六级单词)
- beautify [´bju:tifai] v.美化，变美 (英语六级单词)
- insight [´insait] n.洞悉；洞察力；见识 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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