Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [121]
Diana was standing ‘rooted to the ground’… or at least to the porch floor. She did not think about eavesdropping… she was simply too dumbfounded to move.
‘I’m sorry for Diana,’ went on Delilah. ‘The way her parents neglect their family is something scandalous. Her mother is an awful gadabout. The way she goes off and leaves them young ones is terrible with only that old Susan to look after them… and she’s half cracked! She’ll land them all in the poorhouse yet. The waste that goes on in her kitchen you wouldn’t believe. The doctor’s wife is too gay and lazy to cook even when she is home, so Susan has it all her own way. She was going to give us our meals in the kitchen but I just up and said to her, “Am I company or am I not?” Susan said if I gave her any sass she’d shut me up in the back closet. I said, “You don’t dare to” and she didn’t. “You can overcrow the Ingleside children, Susan Baker, but you can’t overcrow me,” I said to her. Oh, I tell you I stood up to Susan. I wouldn’t let her give Rilla soothing syrup. “Don’t you know it’s poison to children?” I said. She took it out on me at meals though. The mean little helpings she gives you! There was chicken but I only got the Pope’s nose and nobody even asked me to take the second piece of pie. But Susan would have let me sleep in the spare room though, and Di wouldn’t hear to it… just out of pure meanness. She’s so jealous. But still I’m sorry for her. She told me Nan pinches her something scandalous. Her arms are black and blue. We slept in her room and a mangy old tom cat was lying on the foot of the bed all night. It wasn’t haygeenic and I told Di so. And my pearl necklace disappeared. Of course I’m not saying Susan took it. I believe she’s honest… but it’s funny. And Shirley threw an inkbottle at me. It ruined my dress but I don’t care. Ma’ll have to get me a new one. Well, anyhow, I dug all the dandelions out of their lawn for them and polished up the silver. You should have seen it. It don’t know when it has been cleaned before. I tell you Susan takes it easy when the doctor’s wife’s away. I let her see I saw through her. “Why don’t you ever wash the potato pot, Susan?” I asked her. You should of seen her face. Look at my new ring, girls. A boy I know at Lowbridge give it to me.’
‘Why, I’ve seen Diana Blythe wearing that ring often,’ said Peggy MacAllister contemptuously.
‘And I don’t believe one single word you’ve been saying about Ingleside, Delilah Green,’ said Laura Carr.
Before Delilah could reply Diana, who had recovered her powers of locomotion and speech, dashed into the schoolroom.
‘Judas!’ she said. Afterwards she thought repentantly that it had not been a very lady-like thing to say. But she had been stung to the heart, and when your feelings are all stirred up you can’t pick and choose your words.
‘I ain’t Judas,’ muttered Delilah, flushing, probably for the first time in her life.
‘You are! There isn’t one spark of sincerity in you! Don’t you ever speak to me again as long as you live.’
Diana rushed out of the schoolhouse and ran home. She couldn’t stay in school that afternoon… she just couldn’t! The Ingleside front door was banged as it had never been banged before.
‘Darling, what is the matter?’ asked Anne, interrupted in her kitchen conference with Susan by a weeping daughter who flung herself stormily against the maternal shoulder.
The whole story was sobbed out, somewhat disjointedly.
‘I’ve been hurt in all my finer feelings, Mother. And I’ll never believe in anyone again.’
‘My dear, all your friends won’t be like this. Pauline wasn’t.’
‘This is twice,’ said Diana bitterly, still smarting under the sense of betrayal and loss. ‘There isn’t going to be any third time.’
‘I’m sorry Di has lost her faith in humanity,’ said Anne rather ruefully, when Di had gone upstairs. ‘This is a real tragedy for her. She has been unlucky in some of her chums. Jenny Penny… and now Delilah Green. The trouble is Di always falls for the girls who can tell interesting stories. And Delilah’s martyr pose was