Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [29]
‘I’d have slapped her,’ said Rebecca Dew viciously.
‘I told her if she ever did the like again I would slap her. “An occasional spanking we do have at Ingleside,” I told her, “but slapping never, so put that in pickle.” She was sulky and offended for a week, but at least she has never dared to lay a finger on one of them since. She loves it when their parents punish them, though. “If I was your mother,” she says to Little Jem one evening. “Oh, ho, you won’t ever be anybody’s mother” said the poor child… driven to it, Miss Dew, absolutely driven to it. The doctor sent him to bed without his supper, but who would you suppose, Miss Dew, saw that some was smuggled up to him later on?’
‘Ah, now, who?’ chortled Rebecca Dew, entering into the spirit of the tale.
‘It would have broken your heart, Miss Dew, to hear the prayer he put up afterwards… all off his own bat, “O God, please forgive me for being impertinent to Aunt Mary Maria. And, O God, please help me to be always very polite to Aunt Mary Maria.” It brought the tears into my eyes, the poor lamb. I do not hold with irreverence or impertinence from youth to age, Miss Dew, dear, but I must admit that when Bertie Shakespeare Drew threw a spit-ball at her one day – it just missed her by an inch, Miss Dew – I waylaid him at the gate on his way home and gave him a bag of doughnuts. Of course I did not tell him why. He was tickled over it, for doughnuts do not grow on trees, Miss Dew, and Mrs Second Skimmings never makes them. Nan and Di… I would not breathe this to a soul but you, Miss Dew… the doctor and his wife never dream of it or they would put a stop to it… Nan and Di have named their old china doll with the split head after Aunt Mary Maria, and whenever she scolds them they go out and drown her… the doll, I mean… in the rainwater hogshead. Many’s the jolly drowning we have had, I can assure you. But you could not believe what that woman did the other night, Miss Dew.’
‘I’d believe anything of her, Miss Baker.’
‘She would not eat a bite of supper because her feelings had been hurt over something, but she went into the pantry before she went to bed and ate up a lunch I had left for the poor doctor… every crumb, Miss Dew, dear. I hope you will not think me an infidel, Miss Dew, but I cannot understand why the Good Lord does not get tired of some people.’
‘You must not allow yourself to lose your sense of humour, Miss Baker,’ said Rebecca Dew firmly.
‘Oh, I am very well aware that there is a comical side to a toad under a harrow, Miss Dew. But the question is, does the toad see it? I am sorry to have bothered you with all this, Miss Dew, dear, but it has been a great relief. I cannot say these things to Mrs Doctor and I have been feeling lately that if I did not find an outlet I would burst.’
‘How well I know that feeling, Miss Baker.’
‘And now, Miss Dew, dear,’ said Susan, getting up briskly, ‘what do you say to a cup of tea before bed? And a cold chicken leg, Miss Dew?’
‘I have never denied,’ said Rebecca Dew, taking her well-baked feet out of the oven, ‘that while we should not forget the Higher Things of Life good food is a pleasant thing in moderation.’
12
Gilbert had his two weeks’ snipe-shooting in Nova Scotia… not even Anne could persuade him to take a month… and November closed in on Ingleside. The dark hills, with the darker spruces marching over them, looked grim on early falling nights, but Ingleside bloomed with firelight and laughter, though the winds came in from the Atlantic singing of mournful things.
‘Why isn’t the wind happy, Mummy?’ asked Walter one night.
‘Because it is remembering all the sorrow of the world since time began,’ answered Anne.
‘It is moaning just because there is so much dampness in the air,’ sniffed Aunt Mary Maria, ‘and my back is killing me.’
But some days even the wind blew cheerfully through