Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [7]
They went quietly, silently, lovingly home together, with the sunset glory burning on the old hills behind them and their old unforgotten love burning in their hearts.
3
Anne ended a week that had been full of pleasant days by taking flowers to Matthew’s grave the next morning, and in the afternoon she took the train from Carmody home. For a time she thought of all the old beloved things behind her and then her thoughts ran ahead of her to the beloved things before her. Her heart sang all the way because she was going home to a joyous house, a house where everyone who crossed its threshold knew it was a home, a house that was filled all the time with laughter and silver mugs and snapshots and babies… precious things with curls and chubby knees… and rooms that would welcome her… where the chairs waited patiently and the dresses in her closet were expecting her… where little anniversaries were always being celebrated and little secrets were always being whispered.
‘It’s lovely to feel you like going home,’ thought Anne, fishing out of her purse a certain letter from a small son over which she had laughed gaily the night before, reading it proudly to the Green Gables folks, the first letter she had ever received from any of her children. It was quite a nice little letter for a seven-year-old who had been going to school only a year to write, even though Jim’s spelling was a bit uncertain and there was a big blob of ink in one corner.
‘Di cryed and cryed all night because Tommy Drew told her he was going to burn her doll at the steak. Susan tells us nice tails at night but she isn’t you, Mummy… she let me help her sow the beats last night…’
‘How could I have been happy for a whole week away from them all?’ thought the chatelaine of Ingleside self-reproachfully.
‘How nice to have someone meet you at the end of a journey!’ she cried, as she stepped off the train at Glen St Mary into Gilbert’s waiting arms. She could never be sure Gilbert would meet her, somebody was always dying or being born; but no home-coming ever seemed just right to Anne unless he did. And he had on such a nice new light-grey suit! (How glad I am I put on this frilly eggshell blouse with my brown suit, even if Mrs Lynde thought I was crazy to wear it travelling. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have looked so nice for Gilbert.)
Ingleside was all lighted up, with gay Japanese lanterns hanging on the veranda. Anne ran gaily along the walk bordered by daffodils.
‘Ingleside, I’m here,’ she called.
They were all around her… laughing, exclaiming, jesting, with Susan Baker smiling properly in the background. Every one of the children had a bouquet picked specially for her, even the two-year-old Shirley.
‘Oh, this is a nice welcome home! Everything about Ingleside looks so happy. It’s splendid to think my family are so glad to see me.’
‘If you ever go away from home again, Mummy,’ said Jem solemnly, ‘I’ll go and take appensitis.’
‘How do you go about taking it?’ asked Walter.
‘S… s… sh.’ Jem nudged Walter secretly and whispered, ‘There’s a pain somewhere, I know, but I just want to scare Mummy so she won’t go away.’
Anne wanted to do a hundred things first, hug everybody, run out in the twilight and gather some of her pansies… you found pansies everywhere at Ingleside… pick up the little well-worn doll lying on the rug, hear all the juicy titbits of gossip and news, everyone contributing something. How Nan had got the top off a tube of vaseline up her nose when the doctor was out on a case and Susan had all but gone distracted. ‘I assure you it was an anxious time, Mrs Doctor dear’… how Mrs Jud Palmer’s cow had eaten fifty-seven wire nails and had to have a vet from Charlottetown; how absent-minded Mrs Fenner Douglas had gone to church bareheaded; how Dad had dug all the dandelions out of the lawn… ‘between babies, Mrs Doctor dear… he’s had eight while you are away’; how Mr Tom Flagg had dyed his moustache… ‘and his wife only dead two years’; how Rose Maxwell of the Harbour Head had jilted Jim Hudson of the Upper Glen, and he had sent her a bill for