Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [127]
‘Only six living,’ said Anne, wincing. Even yet she could never think of little white Joyce without pain.
‘What a family!’ said Christine.
Instantly it seemed a disgraceful and absurd thing to have a large family.
‘You, I think, have none,’ said Anne.
‘I never cared for children, you know.’ Christine shrugged her remarkably fine shoulders, but her voice was a little hard. ‘I’m afraid I’m not the maternal type. I really never thought that it was woman’s sole mission to bring children into an already overcrowded world.’
They went in to dinner then. Gilbert took Christine, Dr Murray took Mrs Fowler, and Dr Fowler, a rotund little man, who could not talk to anybody except another doctor, took Anne.
Anne felt that the room was rather stifling. There was a mysterious sickly scent in it. Probably Mrs Fowler had been burning incense. The menu was good and Anne went through the motions of eating without any appetite and smiled until she felt she was beginning to look like a Cheshire cat. She could not keep her eyes off Christine, who was smiling at Gilbert continuously. Her teeth were beautiful… almost too beautiful. They looked like a toothpaste advertisement. Christine made very effective play with her hands as she talked. She had lovely hands… rather large, though.
She was talking to Gilbert about rhythmic speeds for living. What on earth did she mean? Did she know herself?
Then they switched to the Passion Play.
‘Have you ever been to Ober-Ammergau?’ Christine asked Anne.
When she knew perfectly well Anne hadn’t! Why did the simplest question sound insolent when Christine asked it?
‘Of course a family ties you down terribly,’ said Christine. ‘Oh, whom do you think I saw last month when I was in Kingsport? That little friend of yours… the one who married the ugly minister… what was her name?’
‘Jonas Blake,’ said Anne. ‘Philippa Gordon married him. And I never thought he was ugly.’
‘Didn’t you? Of course, tastes differ. Well, anyway, I met them. Poor Philippa!’
Christine’s use of ‘poor’ was very effective.
‘Why poor?’ asked Anne. ‘I think she and Jonas have been very happy.’
‘Happy! My dear, if you could see the place they live in! A wretched little fishing village where it was an excitement if the pigs broke into the garden! I was told that the Jonas-man had had a good church in Kingsport, and had given it up because he thought it his “duty” to go to the fishermen who “needed” him. I have no use for such fanatics. “How can you live in such an isolated, out-of-the-way place as this?” I asked Philippa. Do you know what she said?’
Christine threw out her beringed hands expressively.
‘Perhaps what I would say of Glen St Mary,’ said Anne. ‘That it was the only place in the world to live in.’
‘Fancy you being contented there,’ smiled Christine. (That terrible mouthful of teeth!) ‘Do you really never feel that you want a broader life? You used to be quite ambitious, if I remember aright. Didn’t you write some rather clever little things when you were at Redmond? A bit fantastic and whimsical, of course, but still…’
‘I wrote them for the people who still believe in fairyland. There is a surprising lot of them, you know, and they like to get news from that country.’
‘And you’ve quite given it up?’
‘Not altogether… but I’m writing living epistles now,’ said Anne, thinking of Jem and Co.
Christine stared, not recognizing the quotation. What did Anne Shirley mean? But then, of course, she had been noted at Redmond for her mysterious speeches. She had kept her looks astonishingly, but probably she was one of those women who got married and stopped thinking. Poor Gilbert! She had hooked him before he came to Redmond. He had never had the least chance to escape her.
‘Does anybody ever eat philopenas now?’ asked Dr Murray, who had just cracked a twin almond. Christine turned to Gilbert.
‘Do you remember that philopena we ate once?’ she asked.
(Did a significant look pass between them?)
‘Do you suppose I could forget it?’ asked Gilbert.
They plunged into a spate of ‘do-you-remembers’, while