Anne's House of Dreams (7 page)

‘Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don’t feel very adventurous, I suppose,’ Anne said indulgently. ‘If you had had a good sleep last night, Gilbert, you’d be as ready as I am for a flight of imagination.’

‘I did good work last night, Anne,’ said Gilbert quietly. ‘Under God, I saved a life. This is the first time I could ever really claim that. In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at Allonby’s last night and fought death hand to hand that woman would have died before morning. I tried an experiment that was certainly never tried in Four Winds before. I doubt if it was ever tried anywhere before outside of a hospital. It was a new thing in Kingsport hospital last winter. I could never have dared try it here if I had not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance. I risked it – and it succeeded. As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for long years of happiness and usefulness. As I drove home this morning, while the sun was rising over the harbour, I thanked God that I had chosen the profession I did. I had fought a good fight and won – think of it, Anne,
won
, against the Great Destroyer. It’s what I dreamed of doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life. That dream of mine came true this morning.’

‘Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?’ asked Anne, who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but wanted to hear it again.

‘
You
know, Anne-girl,’ said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes. At that moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbour shore.

Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, ‘Do I or do I not see a full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?’

Anne looked and sprang up.

‘That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs Moore coming to call,’ she said.

‘I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that I’ll eavesdrop,’ said Gilbert. ‘From all I’ve heard regarding Miss Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the least.’

‘It may be Mrs Moore.’

‘I don’t think Mrs Moore is built on those lines. I saw her working in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see clearly, I thought she was rather slender. She doesn’t seem very socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s your nearest neighbour.’

‘She can’t be like Mrs Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have brought her,’ said Anne. ‘This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.’

Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any brief and fashionable wedding call. She had her work under her arm in a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard little knob of fair hair. No hat-pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please ye! Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were good enough for
her
. She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and jolly brown eyes. She did not look in the least like the traditional old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne instantly. With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.

Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a design of huge pink roses scattered over it. And nobody but Miss Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it. Had Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince’s bride she would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the situation. She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of.

‘I’ve brought my work, Mrs Blythe, dearie,’ she remarked, unrolling some dainty material. ‘I’m in a hurry to get this done, and there isn’t any time to lose.’

Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss Cornelia’s ample lap. It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks. Miss Cornelia adjusted her glasses, and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.

‘This is for Mrs Fred Proctor up at the Glen,’ she announced. ‘She’s expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready for it. The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more. That woman is a martyr, Mrs Blythe, believe
me
. When she married Fred Proctor
I
knew how it would turn out. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After he got married he left off being fascinating and just kept on being wicked. He drinks and he neglects his family. Isn’t that like a man? I don’t know how Mrs Proctor would ever keep her children decently clothed if her neighbours didn’t help her out.’

As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbour who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.

‘When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things for it,’ Miss Cornelia went on. ‘This is the last and I want to finish it today.’

‘It’s certainly very pretty,’ said Anne. ‘I’ll get my sewing and we’ll have a little thimble party of two. You are a beautiful sewer, Miss Bryant.’

‘Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,’ said Miss Cornelia in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘I ought to be! Lord, I’ve done more of it than if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe
me
! I s’pose I’m a fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby. But, Lord, Mrs Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth, and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
was
wanted. Nobody’s wanting the poor mite – so I put some extra fuss on its little things just on that account.’

‘Any baby might be proud of that dress,’ said Anne, feeling still more strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.

‘I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,’ resumed Miss Cornelia. ‘But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve been busy – and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they work, just like the men. I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs Roderick MacAllister’s funeral. At first I thought my head was aching so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go. But she was a hundred years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.’

‘Was it a successful function?’ asked Anne, noticing that the office door was ajar.

‘What’s that? Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral. She had a very large connection. There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in the procession. There was one or two funny things happened. I thought that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never darkens the door of a church, singing “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” with great gusto and fervour. He glories in singing – that’s why he never misses a funeral. Poor Mrs Bradshaw didn’t look much like singing – all wore out slaving. Old Joe starts out once in a while to buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery. Isn’t that like a man? But what else would you expect of a man who never goes to church, even a Methodist one? I was real thankful to see you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday. No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.’

‘We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,’ said Anne wickedly.

‘Oh, I s’pose Dr Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a while or he wouldn’t get the Methodist practice.’

‘We liked the sermon very much,’ declared Anne boldly. ‘And I thought the Methodist minister’s prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever heard.’

‘Oh, I’ve no doubt he can pray. I never heard anyone make more beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.’

‘The Methodist minister is very fine-looking,’ said Anne, for the benefit of the office door.

‘Yes, he’s quite ornamental,’ agreed Miss Cornelia. ‘Oh, and
very
ladylike. And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love with him – as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was such a prize! If you and the young doctor take
my
advice you won’t have much to do with the Methodists. My motto is – if you
are
a Presbyterian,
be
a Presbyterian.’

‘Don’t you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as Presbyterians?’ asked Anne smilelessly.

‘That isn’t for
us
to decide. It’s in higher hands than ours,’ said Miss Cornelia solemnly. ‘But I ain’t going to associate with them on earth whatever I may have to do in heaven.
This
Methodist minister isn’t married. The last one they had was, and his wife was the silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw. I told her husband once that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her. He said he wanted to have the training of her. Wasn’t that like a man?’

‘It’s rather hard to decide just when people
are
grown up,’ laughed Anne.

‘That’s a true word, dearie. Some are grown up when they’re born, and others ain’t grown up when they’re eighty, believe
me
. That same Mrs Roderick I was speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was a hundred as when she was ten.’

‘Perhaps that was why she lived so long,’ suggested Anne.

‘Maybe ’twas.
I
’d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones.’

‘But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible,’ pleaded Anne.

Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.

‘Mrs Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense. Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t bury him.
I
’d a-done it.’

Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see her with a spade in her hand.

‘Don’t you know
any
good husbands, Miss Bryant?’

‘Oh, yes, lots of them – over yonder,’ said Miss Cornelia, waving her hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church across the harbour.

‘But living – going about in the flesh?’ persisted Anne.

‘Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are possible,’ acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly. ‘I don’t deny that an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper, and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a decent being. Your husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I hear. I s’pose’ – Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her glasses – ‘you think there’s nobody like him in the world.’

‘There isn’t,’ said Anne promptly.

‘Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,’ sighed Miss Cornelia. ‘Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn’t anybody like
her
husband in the world. And she was right – there wasn’t! And a good thing, too, believe
me
! He led her an awful life – and he was courting his second wife while Jennie was dying. Wasn’t that like a man? However, I hope
your
confidence will be better justified, dearie. The young doctor is taking real well. I was afraid at first he mightn’t, for folks hereabouts have always thought old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world. Doctor Dave hadn’t much tact, to be sure – he was always talking of ropes in houses where someone had hanged himself. But folks forgot their hurt feelings when they had a pain in their stomachs. If he’d been a minister instead of a doctor they’d never have forgiven him. Soul-ache doesn’t worry folks near as much as stomach-ache. Seeing as we’re both Presbyterians and no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of
our
minister?’

‘Why – really – I – well,’ hesitated Anne.

Miss Cornelia nodded.

‘Exactly. I agree with you, dearie. We made a mistake when we called
him
. His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the graveyard, doesn’t it? “Sacred to the memory” ought to be written on his forehead. I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after he came. It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best fitted for – a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as he used! He said, “If you had a cow and an apple-tree, and if you tied the apple-tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple-tree, or how many apples from the cow?” Did you ever hear the like in your born days, dearie? I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that day – they’d never have been done hooting over it. But what I dislike most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is said. If you said to him, “You’re a scoundrel”, he’d say, with that smooth smile of his, “Yes, that’s so.” A minister should have more backbone. The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend jackass. But, of course, this is just between you and me. When there are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies. Some folks think his wife dresses too gay, but
I
say when she has to live with a face like that she needs something to cheer her up. You’ll never hear
me
condemning a woman for her dress. I’m only too thankful when her husband isn’t too mean and miserly to allow it. Not that I bother much with dress myself. Women just dress to please the men, and I’d never stoop to
that
. I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and it’s just because I never cared a cent what the men thought.’

‘Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?’

‘Lord, dearie, I don’t hate them. They aren’t worth it. I just sort of despise them. I think I’ll like
your
husband if he keeps on as he has begun. But apart from him, about the only men in the world I’ve much use for are the old doctor and Captain Jim.’