Anne's House of Dreams (25 page)

‘It’s an iniquitous shame,’ she declared, almost in tears. ‘That’s just what it is – an iniquitous shame. Poor, poor Leslie!’

‘Don’t you think Dick should be considered a little, too?’ pleaded Anne.

‘Dick! Dick Moore!
He’s
happy enough. He’s a better-behaved and more reputable member of society now than he ever was before. Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse. Are you going to set him loose again to roar and to devour?’

‘He may reform,’ said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor within.

‘Reform your grandmother!’ retorted Miss Cornelia. ‘Dick Moore got the injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl. He
deserves
his fate. It was sent on him for a punishment. I don’t believe the doctor has any business to tamper with the visitations of God.’

‘Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia. It may not have been in a drunken brawl at all. He may have been waylaid and robbed.’

‘Pigs
may
whistle, but they’ve poor mouths for it,’ said Miss Cornelia. ‘Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and there’s no use in talking. If that’s so I’ll hold my tongue. I don’t propose to wear
my
teeth out gnawing files. When a thing has to be I give in to it. But I like to make mighty sure first that it
has
to be. Now, I’ll devote
my
energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie. And after all,’ added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, ‘perhaps nothing can be done for Dick.’

Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it with characteristic resolution and speed. House-cleaning must be finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await beyond. The grey house up the brook was put into flawless order and cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia’s ready assistance. Miss Cornelia, having said her say to Anne, and later on to Gilbert and Captain Jim – sparing neither of them, let it be assured – never spoke of the matter to Leslie. She accepted the fact of Dick’s operation, referred to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was not. Leslie never attempted to discuss it. She was very cold and quiet during these beautiful spring days. She seldom visited Anne, and though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy was an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house. The old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not reach her over it. Anne refused to feel hurt. She knew that Leslie was in the grip of a hideous dread – a dread that wrapped her away from all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure. When one great passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded aside. Never in all her life had Leslie Moore shuddered away from the future with more intolerable terror. But she went forward as unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the stake.

The financial question was settled with greater ease than Anne had feared. Leslie borrowed the necessary money from Captain Jim, and, at her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm.

‘So that is one thing off the poor girl’s mind,’ Miss Cornelia told Anne, ‘and off mine too. Now, if Dick gets well enough to work again he’ll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he doesn’t I know Captain Jim’ll manage some way that Leslie won’t have to. He said as much to me. “I’m getting old, Cornelia,” he said, “and I’ve no chick or child of my own. Leslie won’t take a gift from a living man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.” So it will be all right as far as
that
goes. I wish everything else might be settled as satisfactorily. As for that wretch of a Dick, he’s been awful these last few days. The devil was in him, believe
me
! Leslie and I couldn’t get on with our work for the tricks he’d play. He chased all her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died. And not one thing would he do for us. Sometimes, you know, he’ll make himself quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood. But this week if we sent him to the well he’d try to climb down into it. I thought once, “If you’d only shoot down there headfirst everything would be nicely settled.”’

‘Oh, Miss Cornelia!’

‘Now, you needn’t Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie.
Anybody
would have thought the same. If the Montreal doctors can make a rational creature out of Dick Moore they’re wonders.’

Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May. Gilbert went with her, to help her and make the necessary arrangements for her. He came home with the report that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick’s restoration.

‘Very comforting,’ was Miss Cornelia’s sarcastic comment.

Anne only sighed. Leslie had been very distant at their parting. But she had promised to write. Ten days after Gilbert’s return the letter came. Leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully performed and that Dick was making a good recovery.

‘What does she mean by “successfully”?’ asked Anne. ‘Does she mean that Dick’s memory is really restored?’

‘Not likely – since she says nothing of it,’ said Gilbert. ‘She uses the word “successfully” from the surgeon’s point of view. The operation has been performed and followed by normal results. But it is too soon to know whether Dick’s faculties will be eventually restored, wholly or in part. His memory would not be likely to return to him all at once. The process will be gradual, if it occurs at all. Is that all she says?’

‘Yes – there’s her letter. It’s very short. Poor girl, she must be under a terrible strain. Gilbert Blythe, there are heaps of things I long to say to you, only it would be mean.’

‘Miss Cornelia says them for you,’ said Gilbert with a rueful smile. ‘She combs me down every time I encounter her. She makes it plain to me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she thinks it a great pity that Dr Dave ever let me step into his shoes. She even told me that the Methodist doctor over the harbour was to be preferred before me. With Miss Cornelia the force of condemnation can no farther go.’

‘If Cornelia Bryant was sick it would not be Doctor Dave or the Methodist doctor she would send for,’ sniffed Susan. ‘She would have you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor, dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would. And then she would likely say your bill was past all reason. But do not mind her, doctor, dear. It takes all kinds of people to make a world.’

No further word came from Leslie for some time. The May days crept away in a sweet succession and the shores of Four Winds Harbour greened and bloomed and purpled. One day in late May, Gilbert came home to be met by Susan in the stable-yard.

‘I am afraid something has upset Mrs Doctor, doctor, dear,’ she said mysteriously. ‘She got a letter this afternoon and since then she has just been walking round the garden and talking to herself. You know it is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear. She did not see fit to tell me what her news was, and I am no pry, doctor, dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her. And it is not good for her to be upset.’

Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden. Had anything happened at Green Gables? But Anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook, did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited. Her eyes were their greyest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.

‘What has happened, Anne?’

Anne gave a queer little laugh.

‘I think you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you, Gilbert.
I
can’t believe it yet. As Susan said the other day, “I feel like a fly coming to life in the sun – dazed-like.” It’s all so incredible. I’ve read the letter a score of times and every time it’s just the same – I can’t believe my own eyes. Oh, Gilbert, you were right – so right. I can see that clearly enough now – and I’m so ashamed of myself – and will you ever really forgive me?’

‘Anne, I’ll shake you if you don’t grow coherent. Redmond would be ashamed of you.
What
has happened?’

‘You won’t believe it – you won’t believe it –’

‘I’m going in to phone for Uncle Dave,’ said Gilbert pretending to start for the house.

‘Sit down, Gilbert. I’ll try to tell you. I’ve had a letter, and oh, Gilbert, it’s all so amazing – so incredibly amazing – we never thought – not one of us ever dreamed –’

‘I suppose,’ said Gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, ‘the only thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the matter categorically. Whom is your letter from?’

‘Leslie – and oh, Gilbert –’

‘Leslie! Whew! What has she to say? What’s the news about Dick?’

Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment.

‘There is
no
Dick! The man we have thought Dick Moore – whom everybody in Four Winds has believed for twelve years to be Dick Moore – is his cousin, George Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled him very strikingly. Dick Moore died of yellow fever thirteen years ago in Cuba.’

‘And do you mean to tell, me, Anne, dearie, that Dick Moore has turned out not to be Dick Moore at all but somebody else? Is
that
what you phoned up to me today?’

‘Yes, Miss Cornelia. It is very amazing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s – it’s – just like a man,’ said Miss Cornelia helplessly. She took off her hat with trembling fingers. For once in her life Miss Cornelia was undeniably staggered.

‘I can’t seem to sense it, Anne,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard you say it – and I believe you – but I can’t take it in. Dick Moore is dead – has been dead all these years – and Leslie is free?’

‘Yes. The truth has made her free. Gilbert was right when he said that verse was the grandest in the Bible.’

‘Tell me everything, Anne, dearie. Since I got your phone I’ve been in a regular muddle, believe
me
. Cornelia Bryant was never so kerflummuxed before.’

‘There isn’t a very great deal to tell. Leslie’s letter was short. She didn’t go into particulars. This man – George Moore – has recovered his memory and knows who he is. He says Dick took yellow fever in Cuba, and the
Four Sisters
had to sail without him. George stayed behind to nurse him. But he died very shortly afterwards. George did not write Leslie because he intended to come right home and tell her himself.’

‘And why didn’t he?’

‘I suppose his accident must have intervened. Gilbert says it is quite likely that George Moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led to it, and may never remember it. It probably happened very soon after Dick’s death. We may find out more particulars when Leslie writes again.’

‘Does she say what she is going to do? When is she coming home?’

‘She says she will stay with George Moore until he can leave the hospital. She has written to his people in Nova Scotia. It seems that George’s only near relative is a married sister much older than himself. She was living when George sailed on the
Four Sisters
, but of course we do not know what may have happened since. Did you ever see George Moore, Miss Cornelia?’

‘I did. It is all coming back to me. He was here visiting his Uncle Abner eighteen years ago, when he and Dick would be about seventeen. They were double cousins, you see. Their fathers were brothers and their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot alike. Of course,’ added Miss Cornelia scornfully, ‘it wasn’t one of those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so much alike that they can fill each other’s places and their nearest and dearest can’t tell between them. In those days you could tell easy enough which was George and which was Dick, if you saw them together and near at hand. Apart, or some distance away, it wasn’t so easy. They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two scamps. George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than Dick – though neither of them was what you would call fat – they were both of the lean kind. Dick had higher colour than George, and his hair was a shade lighter. But their features were just alike, and they both had that queer freak of eyes – one blue and one hazel. They weren’t much alike in any other way, though. George was a real nice fellow, though he was a scallawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking for a glass even then. But everybody liked him better than Dick. He spent about a month here. Leslie never saw him; she was only about eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter over harbour with her Grandmother West. Captain Jim was away, too – that was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens. I don’t suppose either he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so much like Dick. Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought Dick – George, I should say – home. Of course, we all thought Dick had changed considerable – he’d got so lumpish and fat. But we put that down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason, for, as I’ve said, George wasn’t fat to begin with either. And there was no other way we could have guessed, for the man’s senses were clean gone. I can’t see that it is any wonder we were all deceived. But it’s a staggering thing. And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of her life to nursing a man who hadn’t any claim on her! Oh, drat the men! No matter what they do, it’s the wrong thing. And no matter who they are, it’s somebody they shouldn’t be. They do exasperate me.’

‘Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth has been discovered at last,’ said Anne.

‘Well, I admit that,’ conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly. ‘I’m sorry I raked the doctor off so. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt ashamed of anything I said to a man. I don’t know as I shall tell him so, though. He’ll just have to take it for granted. Well, Anne, dearie, it’s a mercy the Lord doesn’t answer all our prayers. I’ve been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn’t cure Dick. Of course, I didn’t put it just quite so plain. But that was what was in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it.’