the part of a
messenger of Cupid; and Anne was none too certain
that his memory was to be trusted. But he said he would do his
best to remember and she had to be
contented with that.
Charlotta the Fourth felt that some
mystery pervaded the stone
house that afternoon. . .a
mystery from which she was excluded.
Miss Lavendar roamed about the garden in a distracted fashion.
Anne, too, seemed possessed by a demon of
unrest, and walked to
and fro and went up and down. Charlotta the Fourth endured it
till atience ceased to be a
virtue; then she confronted Anne
on the occasion of that
romantic young person's third aimless
peregrination through the kitchen.
"Please, Miss Shirley, ma'am," said Charlotta the Fourth, with an
indignant toss of her very blue bows, "it's plain to be seen you
and Miss Lavendar have got a secret and I think, begging your
pardon if I'm too forward, Miss Shirley, ma'am, that it's real
mean not to tell me when we've all been such chums."
"Oh, Charlotta dear, I'd have told you all about it if it were my
secret. . .but it's Miss Lavendar's, you see. However, I'll tell
you this much. . .and if nothing comes of it you must never
breathe a word about it to a living soul. You see, Prince Charming
is coming tonight. He came long ago, but in a foolish moment went
away and wandered afar and forgot the secret of the magic pathway
to the enchanted castle, where the
princess was
weeping her
faithful heart out for him. But at last he remembered it again and
the
princess is
waiting still. . .because nobody but her own dear
prince could carry her off."
"Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am, what is that in prose?" gasped the
mystified Charlotta.
Anne laughed.
"In prose, an old friend of Miss Lavendar's is coming to see her
tonight."
"Do you mean an old beau of hers?" demanded the literal Charlotta.
"That is probably what I do mean. . .in prose," answered Anne gravely.
"It is Paul's father. . .Stephen Irving. And
goodness knows what will
come of it, but let us hope for the best, Charlotta."
"I hope that he'll marry Miss Lavendar," was Charlotta's unequivocal response.
"Some women's intended from the start to be old maids, and I'm afraid I'm one
of them, Miss Shirley, ma'am, because I've awful little
patience with the men.
But Miss Lavendar never was. And I've been awful worried, thinking what on
earth she'd do when I got so big I'd HAVE to go to Boston. There ain't any
more girls in our family and dear knows what she'd do if she got some
stranger that might laugh at her pretendings and leave things lying round
out of their place and not be
willing to be called Charlotta the Fifth.
She might get someone who wouldn't be as
unlucky as me in breaking dishes
but she'd never get anyone who'd love her better."
And the
faithful little handmaiden dashed to the oven door with a sniff.
They went through the form of having tea as usual that night at
Echo Lodge; but nobody really ate anything. After tea Miss Lavendar
went to her room and put on her new forget-me-not organdy,
while Anne did her hair for her. Both were
dreadfully" target="_blank" title="ad.可怕地;糟透地">
dreadfully excited;
but Miss Lavendar pretended to be very calm and indifferent.
"I must really mend that rent in the curtain tomorrow," she said
anxiously, inspecting it as if it were the only thing of any
importance just then. "Those curtains have not worn as well as
they should,
considering the price I paid. Dear me, Charlotta
has forgotten to dust the stair
railing AGAIN. I really MUST
speak to her about it."
Anne was sitting on the porch steps when Stephen Irving came down
the lane and across the garden.
"This is the one place where time stands still," he said, looking
around him with
delighted eyes. "There is nothing changed about
this house or garden since I was here twenty-five years ago.
It makes me feel young again."
"You know time always does stand still in an enchanted palace," said Anne
seriously. "It is only when the
prince comes that things begin to happen."
Mr. Irving smiled a little sadly into her uplifted face, all astar with
its youth and promise.
"Sometimes the
prince comes too late," he said. He did not ask Anne to
translate her remark into prose. Like all
kindred spirits he "understood."
"Oh, no, not if he is the real
prince coming to the true
princess,"
said Anne, shaking her red head
decidedly, as she opened the
parlor door.
When he had gone in she shut it
tightly behind him and turned to confront
Charlotta the Fourth, who was in the hall, all "nods and becks and
wreathed smiles."
"Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am," she breathed, "I peeked from the kitchen
window. . .and he's awful handsome. . .and just the right age for
Miss Lavendar. And oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am, do you think it would
be much harm to listen at the door?"
"It would be
dreadful, Charlotta," said Anne
firmly, "so just you
come away with me out of the reach of temptation."
"I can't do anything, and it's awful to hang round just
waiting," sighed
Charlotta. "What if he don't propose after all, Miss Shirley, ma'am?
You can never be sure of them men. My older sister, Charlotta the First,
thought she was engaged to one once. But it turned out HE had a
different opinion and she says she'll never trust one of them again.
And I heard of another case where a man thought he wanted one girl
awful bad when it was really her sister he wanted all the time.
When a man don't know his own mind, Miss Shirley, ma'am, how's
a poor woman going to be sure of it?"
"We'll go to the kitchen and clean the silver spoons," said Anne.
"That's a task which won't require much thinking
fortunately. . .
for I COULDN'T think tonight. And it will pass the time."
It passed an hour. Then, just as Anne laid down the last shining spoon,
they heard the front door shut. Both sought comfort fearfully in each
other's eyes.
"Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am," gasped Charlotta, "if he's going away this
early there's nothing into it and never will be." They flew to the window.
Mr. Irving had no
intention of going away. He and Miss Lavendar were
strolling slowly down the middle path to the stone bench.
"Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am, he's got his arm around her waist,"
whispered Charlotta the Fourth
delightedly. "He must have proposed
to her or she'd never allow it."
Anne caught Charlotta the Fourth by her own plump waist and danced
her around the kitchen until they were both out of breath.
"Oh, Charlotta," she cried gaily, "I'm neither a prophetess nor the
daughter of a prophetess but I'm going to make a prediction.
There'll be a
wedding in this old stone house before the maple
leaves are red. Do you want that translated into prose, Charlotta?"
"No, I can understand that," said Charlotta. "A
wedding ain't
poetry. Why, Miss Shirley, ma'am, you're crying! What for?"
"Oh, because it's all so beautiful. . .and story bookish. . .and
romantic. . .and sad," said Anne, winking the tears out of her
eyes. "It's all
perfectly lovely. . .but there's a little sadness
mixed up in it too, somehow."
"Oh, of course there's a resk in marrying anybody," conceded
Charlotta the Fourth, "but, when all's said and done, Miss Shirley,
ma'am, there's many a worse thing than a husband."
XXIX
Poetry and Prose
For the next month Anne lived in what, for Avonlea, might be called
a whirl of
excitement. The
preparation of her own
modest outfit
for Redmond was of
secondary importance. Miss Lavendar was getting
ready to be married and the stone house was the scene of endless
consultations and plannings and discussions, with Charlotta the Fourth
hovering on the
outskirts of things in agitated delight and wonder.
Then the
dressmaker came, and there was the
rapture and wretchedness
of choosing fashions and being fitted. Anne and Diana spent half their
time at Echo Lodge and there were nights when Anne could not sleep for
wondering whether she had done right in advising Miss Lavendar to select
brown rather than navy blue for her traveling dress, and to have her
gray silk made
princess.
Everybody
concerned in Miss Lavendar's story was very happy.
Paul Irving rushed to Green Gables to talk the news over with
Anne as soon as his father had told him.
"I knew I could trust father to pick me out a nice little second mother,"
he said
proudly. "It's a fine thing to have a father you can depend on,
teacher. I just love Miss Lavendar. Grandma is pleased, too. She says
she's real glad father didn't pick out an American for his second wife,
because, although it turned out all right the first time, such a thing
wouldn't be likely to happen twice. Mrs. Lynde says she thoroughly
approves of the match and thinks its likely Miss Lavendar will give
up her queer notions and be like other people, now that she's going to
be married. But I hope she won't give her queer notions up, teacher,
because I like them. And I don't want her to be like other people.
There are too many other people around as it is. YOU know, teacher."
Charlotta the Fourth was another
radiant person.
"Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am, it has all turned out so beautiful.
When Mr. Irving and Miss Lavendar come back from their tower
I'm to go up to Boston and live with them. . .and me only fifteen,
and the other girls never went till they were sixteen. Ain't
Mr. Irving splendid? He just worships the ground she treads on
and it makes me feel so queer sometimes to see the look in his eyes
when he's watching her. It beggars
description, Miss Shirley, ma'am.
I'm awful
thankful they're so fond of each other. It's the best way,
when all's said and done, though some folks can get along without it.
I've got an aunt who has been married three times and says she married
the first time for love and the last two times for
strictly business,
and was happy with all three except at the times of the funerals.
But I think she took a resk, Miss Shirley, ma'am."
"Oh, it's all so
romantic," breathed Anne to Marilla that night.
"If I hadn't taken the wrong path that day we went to Mr. Kimball's
I'd never have known Miss Lavendar; and if I hadn't met her I'd
never have taken Paul there. . .and he'd never have written to his
father about visiting Miss Lavendar just as Mr. Irving was starting for
San Francisco. Mr. Irving says
whenever he got that letter he made
up his mind to send his
partner to San Francisco and come here instead.
He hadn't heard anything of Miss Lavendar for fifteen years. Somebody
had told him then that she was to be married and he thought she was and
never asked anybody anything about her. And now everything has come right.
And I had a hand in bringing it about. Perhaps, as Mrs. Lynde says,
everything is foreordained and it was bound to happen anyway. But even so,
it's nice to think one was an
instrument used by predestination. Yes indeed,
it's very
romantic."
"I can't see that it's so
terriblyromantic at all," said Marilla
rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it
and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing"
to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. "In the
first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving
goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is
perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after
a
decentinterval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first
fancy'll have him. Meanwhile, she's been living single, probably
because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and
agree to be married after all. Now, where is the
romance in all that?"
"Oh, there isn't any, when you put it that way," gasped Anne,
rather as if somebody had thrown cold water over her. "I suppose
that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look
at it through
poetry. . .and _I_ think it's nicer. . ." Anne recovered
herself and her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. . ."to look at
it through
poetry."
Marilla glanced at the
radiant young face and refrained from
further sarcastic comments. Perhaps some
realization came to her
that after all it was better to have, like Anne, "the
vision and
the
faculty divine". . .that gift which the world cannot
bestow or
take away, of looking at life through some transfiguring. . .or
revealing?. . .
medium,
whereby everything seemed apparelled in
celestial light, wearing a glory and a
freshness not
visible to
those who, like herself and Charlotta the Fourth, looked at things
only through prose.
"When's the
wedding to be?" she asked after a pause.
"The last Wednesday in August. They are to be married in the