The Blythes Are Quoted (17 page)

“Well ...” Jill sighed and yielded to the inexorable logic of facts. Of course if Anthony had no intention of spending any more summers at Half Moon Cove somebody else might as well have Orchard Knob. “That is better than shutting it up
again and leaving it. Anyhow, we must have a housewarming.

I have it all planned out.”

“You would have. Are you going to ask Susan Baker?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Anthony. But we
must
have Dr. and Mrs. Blythe ... but not a mob, you understand.”

“Certainly the Blythes. I
would
like Mrs. Blythe to see this place before it belongs to anyone else.”

“We’re going to light a big fire in the fireplace ... Nan Blythe says she knows where we can get all the driftwood we need. And we’ll turn on all the lights in the house. Won’t it look gorgeous from outside? Isn’t it lucky the house is so near the river? And we’ll bring a lunch and have a jamboree. Mother said she would provide the eats. We told her all about everything last night. But she knew most of it before.”

“It’s a way mothers have.”

“Will tomorrow night suit you?”

“Haven’t you settled the night also?” sneered Anthony. “Might as well, seeing you’ve planned everything else.”

“But we must have a night that would suit you,” said Jill. “It would never do for you not to be at your own housewarming. And we have to consider the Blythes too.”

“And make sure nobody has a baby too near the Glen that night,” sneered P.G.

“You need not be indelicate,” said Jill.

“Is a baby indelicate?” asked P.G. “Then be sure you never have one.”

“I’m going to have a half dozen,” said Jill coolly. “If that girl had still been wearing your ring, Mr. Lennox, how many babies do you think you would have had?”

“For heaven’s sake let us cut out this type of conversation,” begged Anthony. “I am old-fashioned, I know, but it embarrasses me. Have your housewarming and plan it as
you like. And don’t blame me if Dr. Blythe has a baby that night.”

They had planned something Anthony had not expected. He knew they would bring their mother, of course ... Aunt Henrietta being willing ... but he did not expect Mrs. Elmsley, the artist, whom, as it chanced, he had never happened to meet.

P.G. stared when Jill told him she had asked Mrs. Elmsley.

“But why? She’s a stranger to him ...”

“Don’t be so stupid, Pig. She’s dying of curiosity to see the

place and she has to go back to Winnipeg very soon ... too soon for Anthony to fall in love with her.”

“Do you want him to fall in love with her?” P.G. felt all at sea.

“I do ... she is so beautiful he can’t help it.”

“But she’s a Mrs.”

“She is a widow, Pig. I should think you would take that for granted when I want Anthony to fall in love with her. And don’t you see? He wouldn’t sell Orchard Knob then and they’d live here in the summers anyhow. And they’ll have three children ... two boys and a girl. And the girl would have the blue parrot room. Oh, how I hate to think of anyone, even Anthony’s daughter, having that parrot room.”

“But we’ll be out west. And I don’t suppose we’ll ever come east again. So you won’t be harrowed seeing her in it,” said

P.G. with more sympathy than he usually displayed. “But I’ll always be seeing her in it in my imagination. And I just wish the parrots would peck her eyes out.”

The next night for the first time in fifteen years Orchard Knob blazed with light and a fire of driftwood glowed in the hall fireplace. The walls blossomed with red candles like rose-blooms.

Half the people in Glen St. Mary and Mowbray Narrows and Lowbridge drove or walked past the old Lennox place that night. Susan Baker was not among them but she heard all about it from the doctor and Anne the next morning.

“I wonder what the widow thinks,” she said. “Winnipeg may be a very fine place ... I have a nephew there ... but to think it could beat the Island!”

Jill was dancing on the rug before the fire.

“I’m pretending this is a magic rug,” she cried. “Everyone who steps on it will forget every disagreeable thing in his life. Try it, Anthony.”

Anthony got up from the chair where he had been sprawled by the fire and sauntered across to the window to look out on a night that was drowned in moonlight and see if any of the guests were coming. The Blythes had phoned that they would be there but a little on the late side. Luckily no babies were expected but Jim Flagg had broken his leg.

The twins did not tell Anthony that they had asked Mrs. Elmsley but he had a pretty good idea that they had. Since they had got acquainted with her they had raved so much about her beauty that he was conscious of a rather ashamed desire to see her. He did not know her name but Jill seemed to think her the most exquisite creature in the world.

“I’m getting jumpy. It’s time Mrs. Elmsley was here,” whispered Jill anxiously to P.G. “I hope she hasn’t forgotten. I’ve heard that artists aren’t very dependable.”

“What is the matter with Anthony?” whispered P.G.

Anthony, looking out of the new, magic window, was also wondering what was the matter with him.

Had he gone quite mad? Or was the window really the magic one of Jill’s pretence?

For she was there, crossing the moonlit lawn with that light step that always made him think of Beatrice, “born under a dancing star.” The next moment she was standing in the doorway. Behind her were dark trees and a purple night sky.

Her sweet face ... her eyes ... her dark wings of hair ... unchanged ... unchangeable.

“Betty!” cried Anthony.

“Mums!” cried the twins. “Where is Mrs. Elmsley? Isn’t she coming?”

“God grant she isn’t,” muttered the doctor, who was just behind Betty. He had got through with Jim’s leg sooner than he expected and something in Anthony’s face told him the whole tale. “At least not for a while. Anne, come out with me to the garden. No, not a word of objection. For once I am going to be obeyed.”

Anthony was at the door. He had her hands in his.

“Betty ... it’s you! Do you mean to say you’re ... they’re ... you’re their mother? Of course they told me their name ... but it’s such a common one ...”

Mums began to laugh because as Jill ... who had lived a century in a moment ... perfectly understood, she had either to laugh or cry. P.G., less quick at taking the heart out of a mystery, still continued to stand still, staring, with his mouth hanging open.

“Anthony! I didn’t know ... I never dreamed. The children didn’t tell me your name ... and I had never heard of an Orchard Knob. I’ve had to stick so close to Aunt Henrietta this summer I never went anywhere or heard any gossip. And they pretended you were ... they called you ... oh, I thought it was just some of their nonsense ... oh ...”

Everybody seemed to be so balled up that Jill had to come to the rescue. She had never seen anything so amazing as
Anthony’s face. Neither had Anne Blythe, who had deliberately disobeyed her husband and gone back to the front door.

“Mums, isn’t Mrs. Elmsley coming? We thought ...”

“No, she has one of her bad headaches. She asked me to tell you so with her apologies.”

“Jill,” said Anthony suddenly, “you have been ordering me around all summer. I’m going to have my turn at it now. Go out ... go anywhere, you and P.G. ... for half an hour. Mrs. Blythe, will you excuse me if I ...”

“Ask the same thing? I will. I’ll go and apologize to my husband.”

“And as a reward you may tell Susan Baker everything tomorrow,” said Anthony.

When they came back to say the supper was ready in the dining room they found Anthony and Mums on the settee by the fireplace. Mums had been crying but she looked extraordinarily happy and prettier than they had ever seen her ... all the sadness gone.

“Jill,” said Anthony, “there is another chapter to that story I told you here one night.”

“No decent person eavesdrops,” said Dr. Blythe to his wife, who had been drawn back to the sunroom steps.

“I am not a decent person, then,” said Anne, “and neither are you.”

“It was all a dreadful mistake,” went on Anthony.

“I knew it,” said Jill triumphantly.

“She was still wearing my ring ... on a chain round her neck ... but she’d heard things about me ... had she a title, Betty?”

“Not quite as bad as that,” smiled Mums.

“Well, she thought I had forgotten our old compact, so she took the ring off her finger ... and we were just two proud, hurt, silly young things ...”

“I seemed to have only one object in life,” murmured Mums ... “to keep people from thinking I cared.”

“You succeeded,” said Anthony a bit grimly.

“How history repeats itself,” thought Dr. Blythe to himself. “When I thought Anne was engaged to Roy Gardiner ...”

“Isn’t that life?” thought Anne. “When I thought Gilbert was engaged to Christine Stuart ...”

“But why did you go and marry father?” demanded Jill reproachfully.

“I ... I was lonely ... and he was nice and good ... and I was fond of him,” faltered Mums.

“Shut up, Jill,” said Anthony.

“If she hadn’t, you and P.G. would never have been born,” said Dr. Blythe, coming in with a smile.

“So you see,” said P.G., “and what I want to know is this ... is anybody going to have any eats tonight?”

“So you see it’s all right now,” said Anthony. “We’re all going to live here and the parrot room will be yours, Jill. And we’ll start up that old clock since time has begun to function for me again. Mrs. Blythe, will you do us the honour of setting it going?”

“Are you really going to be our dad?” demanded Jill, when she had got her breath.

“As soon as law and gospel can make me.”

“Oh!” Jill gave a rapturous sigh. “That is what P.G. and I have been pretending right along!”

I have a right to you ...

In your face I read you, witty, loving, loyal,

Made for discontents divine, satisfactions royal,

We will dare more greatly, faring on a common way ...

I know that we can be young and old together,

Playing life’s great game with zest, caring little whether

Gain or loss come of it, so the game be worth the play.

I would not be friends with all ... friendship is too fine

To be thus worn threadbare out ... but you are mine!

I know we love the same things ...

Little wandering stars, all the timeless rapture

Of a windy night when our thoughts are safe from capture,

All the pale witcheries or old enchanted woods.

We can walk the open road when rainy twilights linger,

Or when sunset touches us with a golden finger,

Or be intimate with moonlight in gypsy solitudes.

Shining autumns will be ours, white immortal Mays,

Nights that will be purple pearls, binding in our days.

We will give each other

The right good gift of a laughter free from malice,

Glowing words that fall blood-red as drops from a chalice,

Daring to be silent, too, because we trust.

We will be merry when the firelight purrs and flashes,

We will sorrow together over the white ashes,

When our high dreams have gone into the dust.

Nice old rooms will nicer be for our jolly talks,

Gardens will the dearer be for our remembered walks.

We have a right to each other ...

A right to the savour and tang of losing and keeping,

A right to a fellowship in sowing and reaping,

Oh, there will not be time for all we have to tell!

We have lost too much in the years that are behind us,

Let us take and hold now what is given to bind us.

Here’s my hand ... take it as frankly ... all will be well ...

Till the last lure beckons, till the road makes end,

You and I will keep our step, friend with friend.

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:- “Good stuff, Anne. I really had no idea I had such a clever wife. Boys, remember there is nothing better than a good, loyal friend. One such friend is worth a million acquaintances.”

WALTER
,
thinking:
- “I hope I’ll meet a friend like that some day.” a voice no one hears:- “You will. And his name will be death.”

SUSAN
baker,
thinking:
- “I wonder why I shivered just now. My old Aunt Lucinda would say someone was walking over my grave.”

Esme did not want particularly to spend the weekend at Longmeadow, as the Barrys called their home on the outskirts of Charlottetown.

She would have preferred to wait until she had definitely decided to marry Allardyce before becoming a guest in his home. But Uncle Conrad and Aunt Helen both thought she should go and Esme had been so used all her life to doing exactly what her uncles and aunts on both sides thought she should do that she ran true to form in this as in many other things.

Besides, it was all but settled that she should marry Allardyce. Dr. Blythe, out at Glen St. Mary, who knew the family well, though he had never had anything to do with them in a professional way, told his wife it was a shame. He knew something about Allardyce Barry.

Of course he was considered a great catch. People thought he was a surprisingly great catch for a misty little thing like Esme to pick up. Even her own clan was amazed.

Sometimes Esme thought secretly ... she had a great many secret thoughts since she had no especial friend or confidant ... that her luck was rather too much for her. She liked Allardyce well enough as a friend ... but she did not know ... exactly ... how she was going to like him as a husband.

Was there anyone else? Decidedly not. It was folly to think about Francis. There never had been any Francis ... not really. Esme felt that even imaginative Mrs. Blythe ... who lived away
out at Glen St. Mary but whom Esme had met several times and liked very much ... would feel quite sure about that.