Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [119]
‘What kind of a creature?’ asked Susan gravely. She was beginning to enjoy Delilah’s tribulations and Di’s italics, and she and Mrs Doctor laughed over them in secret.
‘I don’t know… it was just a creature. It almost drove her to suicide. I am really afraid she will be driven to it yet. You know, Susan, she had an uncle who committed suicide twice.’
‘Was not once enough?’ asked Susan heartlessly. Di went off in a huff, but next day she had to come back with another tale of woe.
‘Delilah has never had a doll, Susan. She did so hope she would get one in her stocking last Christmas. And what do you think she found instead, Susan? A switch! They whip her almost every day, you know. Think of that poor child being whipped, Susan.’
‘I was whipped several times when I was young and I am none the worse of it now,’ said Susan, who would have done goodness knows what if anyone had ever tried to whip an Ingleside child.
‘When I told Delilah about our Christmas-tree she wept, Susan. She never had a Christmas-tree. But she is bound she is going to have one this year. She has found an old umbrella with nothing but the ribs and she is going to set it in a pail and decorate it for a Christmas-tree. Isn’t that pathetic, Susan?’
‘Are there not plenty of young spruces handy? The back of the old Hunter place has practically gone spruce of late years,’ said Susan. ‘I do wish that girl was called anything but Delilah. Such a name for a Christian child!’
‘Why, it is in the Bible, Susan. Delilah is very proud of her Bible name. Today in school, Susan, I told Delilah we were going to have chicken for dinner tomorrow, and she said… what do you think she said, Susan?’
‘I am sure I could never guess,’ said Susan emphatically. ‘And you have no business to be talking in school.’
‘Oh, we don’t. Delilah says we must never break any of the rules. Her standards are very high. We write each other letters in our scribblers and exchange them. Well, Delilah said, “Could you bring me a bone, Diana?” It brought tears to my eyes. I’m going to take her a bone… with a lot of meat on it. Delilah needs good food. She has to work like a slave… a slave, Susan. She has to do all the housework… well, nearly all, anyway. And if it isn’t done right she is savagely shaken… or made to eat in the kitchen with the servants.’
‘The Greens have only one little French hired boy.’
‘Well, she has to eat with him. And he sits in his sock feet and eats in his shirt-sleeves. Delilah says she doesn’t mind those things now when she has me to love her. She has no one to love her but me, Susan.’
‘Awful!’ said Susan, with great gravity of countenance.
‘Delilah says if she had a million dollars she’d give it all to me, Susan. Of course, I wouldn’t take it, but it shows how good her heart is.’
‘It is as easy to give away a million as a hundred if you have not got either,’ was as far as Susan would go.
40
Diana was overjoyed. After all, Mother wasn’t jealous… Mother wasn’t possessive… Mother did understand.
Mother and Father were going up to Avonlea for the weekend and Mother had told her she could ask Delilah Green to spend Saturday and Saturday night at Ingleside.
‘I saw Delilah at the Sunday School picnic,’ Anne told Susan. ‘She is a pretty, lady-like little thing… though of course she must exaggerate. Perhaps her stepmother is a little hard on her… and I’ve heard her father is rather dour and strict. She probably has some grievances and likes to dramatize them by way of getting sympathy.’
Susan was a bit dubious.
‘But at least anyone living in Laura Green’s house will be clean,’ she reflected. Fine-tooth combs did not enter into this question.
Diana was full of plans for Delilah’s entertainment.
‘Can’t we have a roast chicken, Susan… with lots of stuffing? And pie. You