Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [35]
‘You care more for the garden than you do for your husband, Annie,’ said Aunt Mary Maria.
‘My garden is so kind to me,’ answered Anne dreamily… then, realizing the implications that might be taken out of her remark, began to laugh.
‘You do say the most extraordinary things, Annie. Of course I know you don’t mean that Gilbert isn’t kind… but what if a stranger heard you say such a thing?’
‘Dear Aunt Mary Maria,’ said Anne gaily, ‘I’m really not responsible for the things I say this time of the year. Everybody around here knows that. I’m always a little mad in spring. But it’s such a divine madness. Do you notice those mists over the dune like dancing witches? And the daffodils? We’ve never had such a show of daffodils at Ingleside before.’
‘I don’t care much for daffodils. They are such flaunting things,’ said Aunt Mary Maria, drawing her shawl around her and going indoors to protect her back.
‘Do you know, Mrs Doctor dear,’ said Susan ominously, ‘what has become of those new irises you wanted to plant in that shady corner? She planted them this afternoon, when you were out, right in the sunniest part of the backyard.’
‘Oh, Susan! And we can’t move them because she’d be so hurt!’
‘If you will just give me the word, Mrs Doctor dear…’
‘No, no, Susan, we’ll leave them there for the time being. She cried, you remember, when I hinted that she shouldn’t have pruned the spirea before blooming.’
‘But sneering at our daffodils, Mrs Doctor dear… and them famous all around the harbour…’
‘And deserve to be. Look at them laughing at you for minding Aunt Mary Maria. Susan, the nasturtiums are coming up in this corner after all. It’s such fun when you’ve given up hope of a thing to find it has suddenly popped up. I’m going to have a little rose garden made in the south-west corner. The very name of rose garden thrills me to my toes. Did you ever see such a blue blueness of the sky before, Susan? And if you listen very carefully now at night you can hear all the little brooks of the countryside gossiping. I’ve half a notion to sleep in the Hollow tonight with a pillow of wild violets.’
‘You would find it very damp,’ said Susan patiently. Mrs Doctor was always like this in the spring. She knew it would pass.
‘Susan,’ said Anne coaxingly, ‘I want to have a birthday party next week.’
‘Well, and why should you not?’ asked Susan. To be sure, none of the family had a birthday the last week in May, but if Mrs Doctor wanted a birthday party why boggle over that?
‘For Aunt Mary Maria,’ went on Anne, as one determined to get the worst over. ‘Her birthday is next week. Gilbert says she is fifty-five, and I’ve been thinking…’
‘Mrs Doctor dear, do you really mean to get up a party for that…’
‘Count a hundred, Susan… count a hundred, Susan, dear. It would please her so. What has she in life after all?’
‘That is her own fault…’
‘Perhaps so. But, Susan, I really want to do this for her.’
‘Mrs Doctor dear,’ said Susan ominously, ‘you have always been kind enough to give me a week’s vacation whenever I felt I needed it. Perhaps I had better take it next week! I will ask my niece Gladys to come and help you out. And then Miss Mary Maria Blythe can have a dozen birthday parties for all of me.’
‘If you feel like that about it, Susan, I’ll give up the idea, of course,’ said Anne slowly.
‘Mrs Doctor dear, that woman has foisted herself upon you and means to stay here for ever. She has worried you… and henpecked the doctor… and made the children’s lives miserable. I say nothing about myself, for who am I? She has scolded and nagged and insinuated