Anne of Avonlea - L. M. Montgomery [80]
“Why do you call her Charlotta the Fourth?” asked Diana, who was bursting with curiosity on this point.
“Just to keep her from getting mixed up with other Charlottas in my thoughts,” said Miss Lavendar seriously. “They all look so much alike there’s no telling them apart. Her name isn’t really Charlotta at all. It is…let me see…what is it? I think it’s Leonora…yes, it is Leonora. You see, it is this way. When mother died ten years ago I couldn’t stay here alone…and I couldn’t afford to pay the wages of a grown-up girl. So I got little Charlotta Bowman to come and stay with me for board and clothes. Her name really was Charlotta…she was Charlotta the First. She was just thirteen. She stayed with me till she was sixteen and then she went away to Boston, because she could do better there. Her sister came to stay with me then. Her name was Julietta…Mrs. Bowman had a weakness for fancy names I think…but she looked so like Charlotta that I kept calling her that all the time…and she didn’t mind. So I just gave up trying to remember her right name. She was Charlotta the Second, and when she went away Evelina came and she was Charlotta the Third. Now I have Charlotta the Fourth; but when she is sixteen…she’s fourteen now…she will want to go to Boston too, and what I shall do then I really do not know. Charlotta the Fourth is the last of the Bowman girls, and the best. The other Charlottas always let me see that they thought it silly of me to pretend things, but Charlotta the Fourth never does, no matter what she may really think. I don’t care what people think about me if they don’t let me see it.”
“Well,” said Diana, looking regretfully at the setting sun. “I suppose we must go if we want to get to Mr. Kimball’s before dark. We’ve had a lovely time, Miss Lewis.”
“Won’t you come again to see me?” pleaded Miss Lavendar.
Tall Anne put her arm about the little lady.
“Indeed we shall,” she promised. “Now that we have discovered you we’ll wear out our welcome coming to see you. Yes, we must go…‘we must tear ourselves away,’ as Paul Irving says every time he comes to Green Gables.”
“Paul Irving?” There was a subtle change in Miss Lavendar’s voice. “Who is he? I didn’t think there was anybody of that name in Avonlea.”
Anne felt vexed at her own heedlessness. She had forgotten about Miss Lavendar’s old romance when Paul’s name slipped out.
“He is a little pupil of mine,” she explained slowly. “He came from Boston last year to live with his grandmother, Mrs. Irving of the shore road.”
“Is he Stephen Irving’s son?” Miss Lavendar asked, bending over her namesake border so that her face was hidden.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to give you girls a bunch of lavender apiece,” said Miss Lavendar brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question. “It’s very sweet, don’t you think? Mother always loved it. She planted these borders long ago. Father named me Lavendar because he was so fond of it. The very first time he saw mother was when he visited her home in East Grafton with her brother. He fell in love with her at first sight; and they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented with lavender and he lay awake all night and thought of her. He always loved the scent of lavender after that…and that was why he gave me the name. Don’t forget to come back soon, girls dear. We’ll be looking for you, Charlotta the Fourth and I.”
She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through. She looked suddenly old and tired; the glow and radiance had faded from her face; her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, but when the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw her sitting on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden with her head leaning wearily on her hand.
“She does look lonely,” said Diana softly. “We must come often to see her.”
“I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting