Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [40]
‘I thought Stella seemed very devoted to her father.’
‘Oh, she is. She adores him. He is a most agreeable man when he gets his own way about everything. But he should have more sense about Stella’s marrying. He must know he can’t live for ever, though to hear him talk you’d think he meant to. He isn’t an old man, of course… he was very young when he was married. But strokes run in that family. And what is Stella to do after he’s gone? Just shrivel up, I suppose.’
Susan looked up from the intricate rose of her Irish crochet long enough to say decidedly, ‘I do not hold with old folks spoiling young ones’ lives in that fashion.’
‘Perhaps if Stella really cared for anyone her father’s objections might not weigh much with her.’
‘That’s where you’re mistaken, Anne, dearie. Stella would never marry anyone her father didn’t like. And I can tell you another whose life is going to be spoiled and that’s Marshall’s nephew, Alden Churchill. Mary is determined he shan’t marry as long as she can keep him from it. She’s even more contrary than Richard… if she was a weather-vane she’d point north when the wind was south. The property is hers till Alden marries and then it goes to him, you know. Every time he’s gone about with a girl she has contrived to put a stop to it somehow.’
‘Indeed, is it all her doings, Mrs Marshall Elliott?’ queried Susan drily. ‘Some folks think that Alden is very changeable. I have heard him called a flirt.’
‘Alden is handsome and the girls chase him,’ retorted Miss Cornelia. ‘I don’t blame him for stringing them along a bit and dropping them when he’s taught them a lesson. But there’s been one or two nice girls he really liked and Mary just blocked it every time. She told me so herself, told me she went to the Bible… she’s always “going to the Bible”… and turned up a verse and every time it was a warning against Alden getting married. I’ve no patience with her and her odd ways. Why can’t she go to church and be a decent creature like the rest of us around Four Winds? But no, she must set up a religion for herself, consisting of “going to the Bible”. Last fall, when that valuable horse took sick… worth four hundred if a dollar… instead of sending for the Lowbridge vet she “went to the Bible” and turned up a verse: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” So send for the vet she would not and the horse died. Fancy applying that verse in such a way, Anne, dearie. I call it irreverent. I told her so flat, but all the answer I got was a dirty look. And she won’t have the phone put in. “Do you think I’m going to talk into a box on the wall?” she says when anyone broaches it.’
Miss Cornelia paused, rather out of breath. Her sister-in-law’s vagaries always made her impatient.
‘Alden isn’t at all like his mother,’ said Anne.
‘Alden’s like his father… a finer man never stepped… as men go. Why he ever married Mary was something the Elliotts could never fathom. Though they were more than glad to get her married off so well… she always had a screw loose and such a bean-pole of a girl. Of course, she had lots of money, her Aunt Mary left her everything… but that wasn’t the reason. George Churchill was really in love with her. I don’t know how Alden stands his mother’s whims; but he’s been a good son.’
‘Do you know what has just occurred to me, Miss Cornelia?’ said Anne with an impish smile. ‘Wouldn’t it be a nice thing if Alden and Stella should fall in love with each other?’
‘There isn’t much chance of that, and they wouldn’t get anywhere if they did. Mary would tear up the turf and Richard would show a plain farmer the door in a minute, even if he is a farmer himself now. But Stella isn’t the kind of girl Alden fancies… he likes the high-coloured laughing ones. And Stella wouldn’t care for his type. I did hear the new minister at Lowbridge was making sheep’s