Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [76]
‘Jessie King! But I thought he was supposed to be courting Mary North.’
‘He says he wasn’t going to marry any woman who eats cabbage. But there’s a story going round that he proposed to her and she boxed his ears. And Jessie King is reported to have said that she would have liked a better-looking man, but that he’d have to do. Well, of course, it is any port in a storm for some folks.’
‘I do not think, Mrs Marshall Elliott, that people in these parts say half the things they are reported to have said,’ rebuked Susan. ‘It is my opinion that Jessie King will make David Young a far better wife than he deserves… though as far as outward seeming goes, I will admit he looks like something that washed in with the tide.’
‘Do you know that Alden and Stella have a little daughter?’ asked Anne.
‘So I understand. I hope Stella will be a little more sensible over it than Lisette was over her. Would you believe, Anne, dearie, Lisette positively cried because her cousin Dora’s baby walked before Stella did?’
‘We mothers are a foolish race,’ smiled Anne. ‘I remember that I felt perfectly murderous when little Bob Taylor, who was the same age as Jem to a day, cut three teeth before Jem cut one.’
‘Bob Taylor’s got to have an operation on his tonsils,’ said Miss Cornelia.
‘Why don’t we ever have operations, Mother?’ demanded Walter and Di together in injured tones. They so often said the same thing together. Then they linked their fingers and made a wish. ‘We think and feel the same about everything,’ Di was wont to explain earnestly.
‘Shall I ever forget Elsie Taylor’s marriage?’ said Miss Cornelia reminiscently. ‘Her best friend, Maisie Millison, was to play the Wedding March. She played the Dead March in Saul in place of it. Of course she always said she made a mistake because she was so flustered, but people had their own opinion. She wanted Mac Moorside for herself. A good-looking rogue with a silver tongue… always saying to women just what he thought they’d like to hear. He made Elsie’s life miserable. Ah, well, Anne, dearie, they’ve both passed long since into the Silent Land, and Maisie’s been married to Harley Russell for years, and everybody has forgotten that he proposed to her, expecting her to say “No” and she said “Yes” instead. Harley has forgotten it himself… just like a man. He thinks he has got the best wife in the world and congratulates himself on being clever enough to get her.’
‘Why did he propose to her if he wanted her to say “No”? It seems to me a very strange proceeding,’ said Susan, immediately adding with crushing humility, ‘But of course I would not be expected to know anything about that.’
‘His father ordered him to. He didn’t want to, but he thought it was quite safe. There’s the Doctor now.’
As Gilbert came in a little flurry of snow blew in with him. He threw off his coat and sat gladly down to his own fireside.
‘I’m later than I expected to be.’
‘No doubt the new lace nightgown was very attractive,’ said Anne, with an impish grin at Miss Cornelia.
‘What are you talking about? Some feminine joke beyond my coarse masculine perception, I suppose. I went on to the Upper Glen to see Walter Cooper.’
‘It’s a mystery how that man does hang on,’ said Miss Cornelia.
‘I’ve no patience with him,’ smiled Gilbert. ‘He ought to have been dead long ago. A year ago I gave him two months, and here he is ruining my reputation by keeping on living.’
‘If you knew the Coopers as well as I do you wouldn’t risk predictions on them. Don’t you know his grandfather came back to life after they’d dug the grave and got the coffin? The undertaker wouldn’t take it back either. However, I understand Walter Cooper is having lots of fun rehearsing his own funeral… just like a man. Well, there’s Marshall’s bells… and this jar of pickled pears