Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [31]
Whereupon a door was banged as doors were seldom banged at Ingleside.
‘You see, Annie?’ said Aunt Mary Maria significantly. ‘But I suppose as long as you are willing to overlook that sort of thing in a servant there is nothing anyone can do.’
Gilbert got up and went to the library where a tired man might count on some peace. And Aunt Mary Maria, who didn’t like Miss Cornelia, betook herself to bed. So that when Miss Cornelia came in she found Anne alone, drooping rather limply over the baby’s basket. Miss Cornelia did not, as usual, start in unloading a budget of gossip. Instead, when she had laid aside her wraps, she sat down beside Anne and took her hand.
‘Anne, dearie, what is the matter? I know there’s something. Is that jolly old soul of a Mary Maria just tormenting you to death?’
Anne tried to smile.
‘Oh, Miss Cornelia… I know I’m foolish to mind it so much… but this has been one of the days when it seems I just cannot go on enduring her. She… she’s simply poisoning our life here…’
‘Why don’t you just tell her to go?’
‘Oh, we can’t do that, Miss Cornelia. At least, I can’t, and Gilbert won’t. He says he could never look himself in the face again if he turned his own flesh and blood out of doors.’
‘Cat’s hindfoot!’ said Miss Cornelia eloquently. ‘She’s got plenty of money and a good home of her own. How would it be turning her out of doors to tell her she’d better go and live in it?’
‘I know… but Gilbert… I don’t think he quite realizes everything. He’s away so much… and really… everything is so little in itself… I’m ashamed…’
‘I know, dearie. Just those little things that are horribly big. Of course, a man wouldn’t understand. I know a woman in Charlottetown who knows her well. She says Mary Maria Blythe never had a friend in her life. She says her name should be Blight, not Blythe. What you need, dearie, is just enough backbone to say you won’t put up with it any longer.’
‘I feel as you do in dreams when you’re trying to run and can only drag your feet,’ said Anne drearily. ‘If it were only now and then… but it’s every day. Meal-times are perfect horrors now. Gilbert says he can’t carve roasts any more.’
‘He’d notice that,’ sniffed Miss Cornelia.
‘We can never have any real conversation at meals because she is sure to say something disagreeable every time anyone speaks. She corrects the children for their manners continually and always calls attention to their faults before company. We used to have such pleasant meals… and now! She resents laughter, and you know what we are for laughing. Somebody is always seeing a joke, or used to be. She can’t let anything pass. Today she said, “Gilbert, don’t sulk. Have you and Annie quarrelled?” Just because we were quiet. You know Gilbert is always a little depressed when he loses a patient he thinks ought to have lived. And then she lectured us on our folly, and warned us not to let the sun go down on our wrath. Oh, we laughed at it afterwards… but just at the time! She and Susan don’t get along. And we can’t keep Susan from muttering asides that are the reverse of polite. She more than muttered when Aunt Mary Maria told her she had never seen such a liar as Walter… because she heard him telling Di a long tale about meeting the man in the moon and what they said to each other. She said he should have his mouth scrubbed out with soap and water. She and Susan had a battle royal that time. And she is filling the children’s minds with all sorts of gruesome ideas. She told Nan about a child who was naughty and died in its sleep, and Nan is afraid to sleep now. She told Di that if she were always a good girl her parents would come to love her as well as they loved Nan, even if she did have red hair. Gilbert really was very angry when he heard that and spoke to her sharply. I couldn’t help hoping she’d take offence and go… even though I would hate to have anyone leave my home because she was offended. But she just let those big blue eyes of hers fill with tears and said she didn’t mean any harm. She’d always heard that twins were never loved equally, and she