Anne of Green Gables
CHAPTER II
Matthew Cuthbert is surprised
Matthew Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight miles
to Bright River. It was a pretty road, running along between snug farmsteads,
with now and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive through or a hollow where
wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet with the breath of many
apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of
pearl and purple; while
"The little birds sang as if it were
The one day of summer in all the year."
Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the moments
when he met women and had to nod to them—for in Prince Edward island you are
supposed to nod to all and sundry you meet on the road whether you know them or
not.
Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an
uncomfortable feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at
him. He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he was an odd-looking
personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair that touched his
stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he
was twenty. In fact, he had looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty,
lacking a little of the grayness.
When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any train; he thought he
was too early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright River hotel
and went over to the station house. The long platform was almost deserted; the
only living creature in sight being a girl who was sitting on a pile of shingles
at the extreme end. Matthew, barely noting that it WAS a girl, sidled past her
as quickly as possible without looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly
have failed to notice the tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and
expression. She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since
sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with
all her might and main.
Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office
preparatory to going home for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty train
would soon be along.
"The five-thirty train has been in and gone half an hour ago," answered that
brisk official. "But there was a passenger dropped off for you—a little girl.
She's sitting out there on the shingles. I asked her to go into the ladies'
waiting room, but she informed me gravely that she preferred to stay outside.
'There was more scope for imagination,' she said. She's a case, I should say."
"I'm not expecting a girl," said Matthew blankly. "It's a boy I've come for.
He should be here. Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over from Nova Scotia
for me."
The stationmaster whistled.
"Guess there's some mistake," he said. "Mrs. Spencer came off the train with
that girl and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister were adopting
her from an orphan asylum and that you would be along for her presently. That's
all I know about it—and I haven't got any more orphans concealed hereabouts."
"I don't understand," said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla was at
hand to cope with the situation.
"Well, you'd better question the girl," said the station-master carelessly.
"I dare say she'll be able to explain—she's got a tongue of her own, that's
certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand you wanted."
He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was left
to do that which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its den—walk up to a
girl—a strange girl—an orphan girl—and demand of her why she wasn't a boy.
Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about and shuffled gently down the
platform towards her.
She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her eyes
on him now. Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen what she was
really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would have seen this: A
child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of
yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat,
extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her
face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so
were her eyes, which looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others.
So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that
the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit
and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead
was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have
concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child
of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.
Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon as she
concluded that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with one thin brown
hand the handle of a shabby, old-fashioned carpet-bag; the other she held out to
him.
"I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?" she said in a
peculiarly clear, sweet voice. "I'm very glad to see you. I was beginning to be
afraid you weren't coming for me and I was imagining all the things that might
have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if you didn't come for
me to-night I'd go down the track to that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and
climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn't be a bit afraid, and it would be
lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine,
don't you think? You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn't
you? And I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn't
to-night."
Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and there he
decided what to do. He could not tell this child with the glowing eyes that
there had been a mistake; he would take her home and let Marilla do that. She
couldn't be left at Bright River anyhow, no matter what mistake had been made,
so all questions and explanations might as well be deferred until he was safely
back at Green Gables.
"I'm sorry I was late," he said shyly. "Come along. The horse is over in the
yard. Give me your bag."
"Oh, I can carry it," the child responded cheerfully. "It isn't heavy. I've
got all my worldly goods in it, but it isn't heavy. And if it isn't carried in
just a certain way the handle pulls out—so I'd better keep it because I know the
exact knack of it. It's an extremely old carpet-bag. Oh, I'm very glad you've
come, even if it would have been nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We've got
to drive a long piece, haven't we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I'm
glad because I love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I'm going to live
with you and belong to you. I've never belonged to anybody—not really. But the
asylum was the worst. I've only been in it four months, but that was enough. I
don't suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you can't possibly
understand what it is like. It's worse than anything you could imagine. Mrs.
Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn't mean to be
wicked. It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it? They were good,
you know—the asylum people. But there is so little scope for the imagination in
an asylum—only just in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine
things about them—to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was
really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents
in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I used to lie
awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn't have time in the
day. I guess that's why I'm so thin—I AM dreadful thin, ain't I? There isn't a
pick on my bones. I do love to imagine I'm nice and plump, with dimples in my
elbows."
With this Matthew's companion stopped talking, partly because she was out of
breath and partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another word did she
say until they had left the village and were driving down a steep little hill,
the road part of which had been cut so deeply into the soft soil, that the
banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees and slim white birches, were
several feet above their heads.
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed
against the side of the buggy.
"Isn't that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all
white and lacy, make you think of?" she asked.
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Why, a bride, of course—a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil. I've
never seen one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don't ever expect
to be a bride myself. I'm so homely nobody will ever want to marry me—unless it
might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign missionary mightn't be very
particular. But I do hope that some day I shall have a white dress. That is my
highest ideal of earthly bliss. I just love pretty clothes. And I've never had a
pretty dress in my life that I can remember—but of course it's all the more to
look forward to, isn't it? And then I can imagine that I'm dressed gorgeously.
This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this
horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you know. A merchant
in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of wincey to the asylum. Some
people said it was because he couldn't sell it, but I'd rather believe that it
was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldn't you? When we got on the train I
felt as if everybody must be looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to
work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress—because
when you ARE imagining you might as well imagine something worth while—and a big
hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and boots.
I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island with all my
might. I wasn't a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither was Mrs. Spencer
although she generally is. She said she hadn't time to get sick, watching to see
that I didn't fall overboard. She said she never saw the beat of me for prowling
about. But if it kept her from being seasick it's a mercy I did prowl, isn't it?
And I wanted to see everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I
didn't know whether I'd ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more
cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it
already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here. I've always heard that Prince
Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was
living here, but I never really expected I would. It's delightful when your
imaginations come true, isn't it? But those red roads are so funny. When we got
into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked
Mrs. Spencer what made them red and she said she didn't know and for pity's sake
not to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand
already. I suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about things if you
don't ask questions? And what DOES make the roads red?"
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn't it splendid to
think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad
to be alive—it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting
if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination
then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do.
Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make
up my mind to it, although it's difficult."
Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet
folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking
themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had never
expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad enough in all
conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling
past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them
up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That was the Avonlea type of
well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although
he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her
brisk mental processes he thought that he "kind of liked her chatter." So he
said as shyly as usual:
"Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't mind."
"Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. It's
such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told that children should be
seen and not heard. I've had that said to me a million times if I have once. And
people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have
to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
"Well now, that seems reasonable," said Matthew.
"Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it
isn't—it's firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was named
Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were trees all around
it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And there weren't any at all
about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny things out in front with little
whitewashed cagey things about them. They just looked like orphans themselves,
those trees did. It used to make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say
to them, 'Oh, you POOR little things! If you were out in a great big woods with
other trees all around you and little mosses and Junebells growing over your
roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you could
grow, couldn't you? But you can't where you are. I know just exactly how you
feel, little trees.' I felt sorry to leave them behind this morning. You do get
so attached to things like that, don't you? Is there a brook anywhere near Green
Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer that."
"Well now, yes, there's one right below the house."
"Fancy. It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I never
expected I would, though. Dreams don't often come true, do they? Wouldn't it be
nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can't
feel exactly perfectly happy because—well, what color would you call this?"
She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it
up before Matthew's eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of
ladies' tresses, but in this case there couldn't be much doubt.
"It's red, ain't it?" he said.
The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from her
very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.
"Yes, it's red," she said resignedly. "Now you see why I can't be perfectly
happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don't mind the other things so much—the
freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I can imagine them away. I can
imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely starry violet
eyes. But I CANNOT imagine that red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself,
'Now my hair is a glorious black, black as the raven's wing.' But all the time I
KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow.
I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn't red
hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. What is an
alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?"
"Well now, I'm afraid I can't," said Matthew, who was getting a little dizzy.
He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him
on the merry-go-round at a picnic.
"Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was
divinely beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely
beautiful?"
"Well now, no, I haven't," confessed Matthew ingenuously.
"I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the choice—divinely
beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?"
"Well now, I—I don't know exactly."
"Neither do I. I can never decide. But it doesn't make much real difference
for it isn't likely I'll ever be either. It's certain I'll never be angelically
good. Mrs. Spencer says—oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert!!!"
That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled out of
the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had simply rounded a
curve in the road and found themselves in the "Avenue."
The "Avenue," so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road four
or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading
apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one long
canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple
twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose
window at the end of a cathedral aisle.
Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the buggy, her
thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to the white splendor
above. Even when they had passed out and were driving down the long slope to
Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with rapt face she gazed afar into the
sunset west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly across that glowing
background. Through Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at
them and small boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they
drove, still in silence. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the
child had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically
as she could talk.
"I guess you're feeling pretty tired and hungry," Matthew ventured to say at
last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the only reason he
could think of. "But we haven't very far to go now—only another mile."
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the
dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.
"Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whispered, "that place we came through—that white
place—what was it?"
"Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few moments'
profound reflection. "It is a kind of pretty place."
"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful,
either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful. It's the first
thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved upon by imagination. It just
satisfies me here"—she put one hand on her breast—"it made a queer funny ache
and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr.
Cuthbert?"
"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
"I have it lots of time—whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they
shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like
that. They should call it—let me see—the White Way of Delight. Isn't that a nice
imaginative name? When I don't like the name of a place or a person I always
imagine a new one and always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum
whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere.
Other people may call that place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the
White Way of Delight. Have we really only another mile to go before we get home?
I'm glad and I'm sorry. I'm sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and
I'm always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come
after, but you can never be sure. And it's so often the case that it isn't
pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I'm glad to think of getting
home. You see, I've never had a real home since I can remember. It gives me that
pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really truly home. Oh, isn't
that pretty!"
They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking
almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it midway and
from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of sand-hills shut it in
from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a glory of many shifting hues—the
most spiritual shadings of crocus and rose and ethereal green, with other
elusive tintings for which no name has ever been found. Above the bridge the
pond ran up into fringing groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent
in their wavering shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank
like a white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the
head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. There was
a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond and,
although it was not yet quite dark, a light was shining from one of its windows.
"That's Barry's pond," said Matthew.
"Oh, I don't like that name, either. I shall call it—let me see—the Lake of
Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know because of the
thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives me a thrill. Do things
ever give you a thrill?"
Matthew ruminated.
"Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly white
grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of them."
"Oh, I don't think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you
think it can? There doesn't seem to be much connection between grubs and lakes
of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it Barry's pond?"
"I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope's the
name of his place. If it wasn't for that big bush behind it you could see Green
Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge and round by the road, so
it's near half a mile further."
"Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either—about my
size."
"He's got one about eleven. Her name is Diana."
"Oh!" with a long indrawing of breath. "What a perfectly lovely name!"
"Well now, I dunno. There's something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to
me. I'd ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was
born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave him the naming of her
and he called her Diana."
"I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then.
Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always
afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to
the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes.
But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the
middle. Because, you see, if the bridge DID crumple up I'd want to SEE it
crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it.
Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we're
over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say
good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like
it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me."
When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said:
"We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over—"
"Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially
raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture. "Let me
guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."
She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill.
The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow
afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky.
Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug
farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted,
eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from
the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding
woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was
shining like a lamp of guidance and promise.
"That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing.
Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly.
"Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you
could tell."
"No, she didn't—really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been
about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like.
But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in
a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I've
pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening
feeling would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd
pinch myself to see if it was real—until suddenly I remembered that even
supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I
stopped pinching. But it IS real and we're nearly home."
With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily.
He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this
waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all.
They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark
that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and
into the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house
Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not
understand. It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking of the trouble this
mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child's disappointment.
When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an
uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something—much
the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any
other innocent little creature.
The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were
rustling silkily all round it.
"Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he lifted her
to the ground. "What nice dreams they must have!"
Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her worldly
goods," she followed him into the house.