The Blythes Are Quoted (49 page)

“Maybe not if he’d known that Marnie had fell in love with him, too,” said Susan. “It
is
them ... Well, I’m obliged to you for telling me the rights of the affair, Mary, and if there’s anything you’d like to know ... if it doesn’t concern the family at Ingleside ... I’ll be right glad to tell you.”

“Here they come, Susan Baker ... sure and me pet lights up the church, doesn’t she? It’ll be long afore it sees a prettier bride.”

“That depends on how long it is before Nan and Jerry Meredith get married,” thought Susan. “Though Nan always declares she’ll never be married in the church. The Ingleside lawn for her, she says. I’m thinking she’s right ... there’s too much chance for gossip at these church weddings.”

“And now we’ll shut up our yaps, Susan Baker, until they’re married safe and sound ...

“That do be a load lifted from me mind. Will ye be coming home wid me, Susan, and having a cup av tay in me kitchen? And I’ll see ye get a sight av the prisints. They’re elegant beyant words. Did ye iver see a happier bride? It’s mesilf that’s knowing there niver was a happier one.”

“I’d like anyone to say that to Mrs. Dr. dear, or Rilla for that matter,” thought Susan. Aloud,

“He’s a bit poor, I’m hearing.”

“Poor is it? Have sinse, Susan Baker. I’m telling ye they’re rich beyant the drames av avarice. Young ... and ...”

“An old maid like myself is not supposed to know much about such things,” said Susan with dignity. “But maybe you’re right, Mary Hamilton ... maybe you’re right. One can learn a good deal from observation in this world, as Rebecca Dew used to say. And the doctor and Mrs. Blythe were poor enough when they started out. Ah, them happy days in the old House of Dreams,* as they used to call it! It grieves me to the heart they’ll never return. Thank you, Mary, but I must be getting back to Ingleside. I have duties there. I’ll have a cup of tea with you some other day when things have quieted down. And I’m real thankful to you for telling me the rights of the whole story. If you knew ... the gossip ...”

*See
Anne’s House of Dreams
.

“Sure and I can be guessing,” said Mary. “But take my advice, Susan Baker, and larn to drive a car. Ye can niver tell whin the knack’ll come in handy.”

“At my age! That
would
be a sight. No,” said Susan firmly. “I’ll trust to my own two legs as long as they’ll carry me, Mary Hamilton.”

Open the casement and set wide the door

For one out-going

Into the night that slips along the shore

Like a dark river flowing;

The rhythmic anguish of our sad heart’s beating

Must hinder not a soul that would be floating.

Hark, how the voices of the ghostly wind

Cry for her coming!

What wild adventurous playmates will she find

When she goes roaming

Over the starry moor and misty hollow? ...

Loosen the clasp and set her free to follow.

Open the casement and set wide the door ...

The call is clearer!

Than we whom she has loved so well before

There is a dearer

When her fond lover Death for her is sighing

We must now hold her with our tears from dying.

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:- “I am going to forbid your writing that kind of poetry, Anne. I’ve seen too many deaths ...”

SUSAN
:- “And did you ever see one who died when there was no door or window open, doctor? Oh, yes, you may call it a superstition but take notice from now on.”

ANNE
,
in a low voice:
- “Walter wrote the first two verses just before he ... went away. I ... I thought I would like to finish it.”

I have built me a house at the end of the street

Where the tall fir trees stand in a row,

With a garden beside it where, purple and gold,

The pansies and daffodils grow:

It has dear little windows, a wide, friendly door

Looking down the long road from the hill,

Whence the light can shine out through the blue summer dusk

And the winter nights, windy and chill

To beckon a welcome for all who may roam ...

‘Tis a darling wee house but it’s not yet a home.

It wants moonlight about it all silver and dim,

It wants mist and a cloak of grey rain,

It wants dew of the twilight and wind of the dawn

And the magic of frost on its pane:

It wants a small dog with a bark and a tail,

It wants kittens to frolic and purr,

It wants saucy red robins to whistle and call

At dusk from the tassels of fir:

It wants storm and sunshine as day follows day,

And people to love it in work and in play.

It wants faces like flowers at the windows and doors,

It wants secrets and follies and fun,

It wants love by the hearthstone and friends by the gate,

And good sleep when the long day is done:

It wants laughter and joy, it wants gay trills of song

On the stairs, in the hall, everywhere,

It wants wooings and weddings and funerals and births,

It wants tears, it wants sorrow and prayer,

Content with itself as the years go and come ...

Oh, it needs many things for a house to be home!

Walter Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
:- “Curiously like your poem ‘The New House’ in spirit, Anne. Yet I don’t suppose he meant it to be so.”

DIANA
:- “No, he was really describing Ingleside. He showed me that poem before he went ... away.”

A window looking out to sea

Beneath a misty moon,

Witch-gold of dropping poplar leaves,

Or blue of summer noon,

A murmur of contented bees

In neighbourly acquainted trees.

A salt wind keening in the night

Across the harbour rim,

Through the dark cloister of the pines

And the uncertain, dim

White birches in the meadow far,

Where silences and whispers are.

A little gate, a winding path ...

Through fern and mint and bay,

The muted beam of breakers on

The sands of fading day.

Soft amber dusk along the shore,

A voice that I shall hear no more.

Anne Blythe

DR. BLYTHE
,
thinking:
-“There are no pines about here or Avonlea so that Anne has drawn on her imagination for them ... or spruces wouldn’t rhyme well. But she gets the birches into almost every poem she writes. I don’t wonder. They are beautiful trees. Every line of that poem has a memory for me.”

SUSAN
,
thinking while brushing away a tear over her darning:
-“She was thinking of Walter when she wrote that last line. I must not let her see me crying. As for the bees, they are queer creatures. My grandfather made a living keeping them and never got stung in his life. While my grandmother couldn’t go near a hive but she got stung. I must not think of these things or I will be crying like a baby.”

It had been raining all day ... a cold, drizzling rain ... but now the night had fallen and the rain had partially ceased, though the wind still blew and sighed. The John Anderson family were sitting in the parlour ... they still called it that ... of the ugly house on the outskirts of Lowbridge, waiting for their great-aunt Ursula, who was dying in the room overhead, to die and have done with it.

They would never have expressed it like that but each one in his or her secret soul thought it.

In speech and outward behaviour they were all quite decorous, but they were all seething with much impatience and some resentment. Dr. Parsons supposed he ought to stay till the end because old Aunt Ursula was his grandfather’s cousin, and because Mrs. Anderson wanted him to stay.

And he could not as yet afford to offend people, even distant relatives. He was just starting to practise in Lowbridge and Dr. Parker had been
the
doctor in Lowbridge for a long time. Almost everyone had him except a few cranks who did not like him and insisted on having Dr. Blythe over from Glen St. Mary. Even most of the Andersons had him. In Dr. Parsons’ eyes they were both old men and ought to give the younger men a chance.

But at all events, he meant to be very obliging and do all he could to win his way. One had to, these days. It was all very well to talk about unselfishness but that was the bunk. It was every man for himself.

If he could win Zoe Maylock ... apart from all considerations of love ... and Dr. Parsons imagined he was wildly in love with the acknowledged belle of Lowbridge ... it would help him quite a bit. The Maylocks were rather a run-down old family, but they had considerable influence in Lowbridge for all that.
They
never had Dr. Parker either. When any of them were sick they sent for Dr. Blythe. There was some feud between the Andersons and the Parkers. How those feuds lasted!

Dr. Parker might laugh and pretend he didn’t care but the young doctor thought he knew better. Human nature was better understood nowadays than when poor old Dr. Parker went to college.

Anyhow, young Dr. Parsons meant to be as obliging as he could. Every little helped. It would be some time yet before his practice would justify him in marrying, confound it. He even doubted if the John Andersons would pay his bill ... and it seemed the old girl who took so long in dying had no money. They said Dr. Blythe ... and even Dr. Parker sometimes, though he was more worldly-minded ... attended poor people for nothing. Well,
he
was not going to be such a fool. He had come to old Ursula because he wanted to ingratiate himself with the Andersons, some of whom were well off enough yet. And cut out Dr. Blythe if it were possible ... though it was wonderful what a hold that man had on the countryside, even if he was getting along in years. People said he had never been the same since his son was killed in the Great War.

And now another war was on and they said several of his grandsons were going ... especially a Gilbert Ford who was in the R.C.A.F. People were constantly dropping hints that they thought
he
ought to volunteer. Even Zoe at times seemed to have entirely too much admiration for this aforesaid Gilbert Ford. But it was all nonsense. There were plenty of ne’er-do-wells to go.

Meanwhile he would do what he could for a poor, run-down family like the John Andersons. The progenitors of the said Andersons had, so he had been told, once been rich and powerful in the community. The biggest stone in the Lowbridge cemetery was that of a certain David Anderson. It was moss-grown and lichened now but it must have been considered some stone in its day.

He seemed to recall some queer yarn about the same David and his funeral ... old Susan Baker at Glen St. Mary had told it to a crony. But likely it was mere gossip. Old Susan was getting childish. People said the Blythes of Ingleside kept her there merely out of charity. No doubt the yarn was only gossip. There was no love lost, he had heard, between the Bakers and the Andersons ... though
that
feud, too, was almost ancient history, as Mrs. Blythe of Ingleside called it. It was her son who had been killed in the Great War ... and another one had been crippled. She had three sons go, so it had been said. Young fools!

But the survivors were old men now ... at least callow young Dr. Parsons thought they were. One of the sons of one of them was also thought to have a liking for Zoe. She was very popular. But he thought he had the inside track ... not to mention the fact that it was whispered that Dr. and Mrs. Blythe had no great liking for the affair. And gossip again ... confound it ... said he had dropped Zoe because she had once laughed at Susan Baker. Or was it Gilbert Ford?

Well, it didn’t matter. The whole yarn was unlikely. As if any man in his senses would “drop” Zoe Maylock! Even Gilbert Ford with his Toronto airs!

Well, thank goodness ... young Dr. Parsons stole a sly look at his watch ... old Ursula Anderson was dead ... or as good as dead. He was sure the John Andersons in their secret souls would be very glad ... and he did not blame them in the least. Trouble and expense was all she had meant to them for years. Though she had earned her way as a dressmaker until late in life, he understood. The idea made him laugh secretly. It was more than funny to think of anyone wearing a dress made by Ursula Anderson, he thought. The wearer must have looked as if she had stepped out of one of those awful faded photo-graphs or crayon enlargements he was so often called upon to admire.

Would that old woman overhead
ever
die? He wished he had invented some excuse for going long ago. One could carry obligement too far. And it was too late to go to Zoe now. Perhaps Walter Blythe ... named after his uncle, of course ... had been spending the evening with her. Well, let the best man win! Dr. Parsons had little doubt who it would be. Zoe might be angry ... or pretend to be ... but a doctor could always think up a good excuse. And Gilbert Ford, of whom he was secretly more afraid than of Walter Blythe, had gone back to Toronto.

Zoe, with her wonderful eyes and lovely white hands and cooing voice! It seemed so absurd to think that Zoe and old Aunt Ursula belonged to the same sex.