For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd,newly awakened consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy,half-eager expression in Gilbert’s hazel eyes was something that was very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene of two years before flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had called her “carrots” and had brought about her disgrace before the whole school. Her resentment, which to other and older people might be as laughable as its cause, was in no whit allayed and softened by time seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe!She would never forgive him!
“No,” she said coldly,“I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert Blythe;and I don’t want to be!”
“All right!” Gilbert sprang into his skiff with an angry color in his cheeks.“I’ll never ask you to be friends again, Anne Shirley.And I don’t care either!”
He pulled away with swift defiant strokes,and Anne went up the steep,ferny little path under the maples.She held her head very high,but she was conscious of an odd feeling of regret.She almost wished she had answered Gilbert differently.Of course, he had insulted her terribly, but still--!Altogether, Anne rather thought it would be a relief to sit down and have a good cry. She was really quite unstrung, for the reaction from her fright and cramped clinging was making itself felt.
Halfway up the path she met Jane and Diana rushing back to the pond in a state narrowly removed from positive frenzy. They had found nobody at Orchard Slope, both Mr. and Mrs. Barry being away. Here Ruby Gillis had succumbed to hysterics, and was left to recover from them as best she might, while Jane and Diana flew through the Haunted Wood and across the brook to Green Gables. There they had found nobody either, for Marilla had gone to Carmody and Matthew was making hay in the back field.
“Oh, Anne,” gasped Diana,fairly falling on the former’s neck and weeping with relief and delight,“oh, Anne--we thought--you were--drowned--and we felt like murderers--because we had made--you be--Elaine. And Ruby is in hysterics--oh, Anne, how did you escape?”
“I climbed up on one of the piles,” explained Anne wearily,“and Gilbert Blythe came along in Mr.Andrews’s dory and brought me to land.”
“Oh, Anne, how splendid of him!Why, it’s so romantic!” said Jane, finding breath enough for utterance at last.“Of course you’ll speak to him after this.”
“Of course I won’t,” flashed Anne,with a momentary return of her old spirit.“And I don’t want ever to hear the word ‘romantic’ again,Jane Andrews. I’m awfully sorry you were so frightened,girls. It is all my fault.I feel sure I was born under an unlucky star.Everything I do gets me or my dearest friends into a scrape.We’ve gone and lost your father’s flat, Diana,and I have a presentiment that we’ll not be allowed to row on the pond any more.”
Anne’s presentiment proved more trustworthy than presentiments are apt to do.Great was the consternation in the Barry and Cuthbert households when the events of the afternoon became known.
“Will you ever have any sense, Anne?” groaned Marilla.
“Oh, yes, I think I will, Marilla,” returned Anne optimistically. A good cry,indulged in the grateful solitude of the east gable,had soothed her nerves and restored her to her wonted cheerfulness.“I think my prospects of becoming sensible are brighter now than ever. ”
“I don’t see how,” said Marilla.
“Well,” explained Anne,“I’ve learned a new and valuable lesson today.Ever since I came to Green Gables I’ve been making mistakes,and each mistake has helped to cure me of some great shortcoming.The affair of the amethyst brooch cured me of meddling with things that didn’t belong to me. The Haunted Wood mistake cured me of letting my imagination run away with me. The liniment cake mistake cured me of carelessness in cooking. Dyeing my hair cured me of vanity. I never think about my hair and nose now--at least, very seldom. And today’s mistake is going to cure me of being too romantic. I have come to the conclusion that it is no use trying to be romantic in Avonlea. It was probably easy enough in towered Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance is not appreciated now. I feel quite sure that you will soon see a great improvement in me in this respect, Marilla.”
“I’m sure I hope so,” said Marilla skeptically.
But Matthew, who had been sitting mutely in his corner,laid a hand on Anne’s shoulder when Marilla had gone out.
“Don’t give up all your romance, Anne,” he whispered shyly,“a little of it is a good thing--not too much,of course--but keep a little of it, Anne,keep a little of it.”
CHAPTER XXIX. An Epoch in Anne’s Life
ANNE was bringing the cows home from the back pasture by way of Lover’s Lane.It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset light. Here and there the lane was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a clear violet dusk like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and there is no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the fir trees at evening.
The cows swung placidly down the lane,and Anne followed them dreamily,repeating aloud the battle canto from _Marmion_--which had also been part of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss Stacy had made them learn off by heart--and exulting in its rushing lines and the clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines
The stubborn spearsmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood,
she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better fancy herself one of that heroic ring. When she opened them again it was to behold Diana coming through the gate that led into the Barry field and looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be told. But betray too eager curiosity she would not.
“Isn’t this evening just like a purple dream, Diana?It makes me so glad to be alive.In the mornings I always think the mornings are best;but when evening comes I think it’s lovelier still.”
“It’s a very fine evening,” said Diana, “but oh,I have such news, Anne. Guess.You can have three guesses.”
“Charlotte Gillis is going to be married in the church after all and Mrs.Allan wants us to decorate it,” cried Anne.
“No. Charlotte’s beau won’t agree to that,because nobody ever has been married in the church yet,and he thinks it would seem too much like a funeral.It’s too mean, because it would be such fun. Guess again.”
“Jane’s mother is going to let her have a birthday party?”
Diana shook her head,her black eyes dancing with merriment.