Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [27]
Anne stared in amazement and horror. The poor old darlings! They thought she had been threatening them!
‘Oh, you’ve misunderstood me dreadfully!’ she exclaimed, taking Miss Sarah’s poor piteous hands. ‘I – I never dreamed you would think I was trying to – Oh, it was just because I thought you would like to have all those interesting details about your splendid father. I never dreamed of showing or telling that other little item to anyone. I didn’t think it was of the least importance. And I never will.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then Miss Sarah freed her hands gently, put her handkerchief to her eyes and sat down, with a faint blush on her fine, wrinkled face.
‘We – we have misunderstood you, my dear. And we’ve – we’ve been abominable to you. Will you forgive us?’
Half an hour later – a half-hour which nearly was the death of Rebecca Dew – the Misses Pringle went away. It had been a half-hour of friendly chat and discussion about the non-combustible items of Andy’s diary. At the front door Miss Sarah – who had not had the least trouble with her hearing during the interview – turned back for a moment and took a bit of paper, covered with very fine, sharp writing, from her reticule.
‘I had almost forgotten. I promised Mrs MacLean our recipe for pound cake some time ago. Perhaps you won’t mind handing it to her. And tell her the sweating process is very important – quite indispensable, indeed. Ellen, your bonnet is slightly over one ear. You had better adjust it before we leave. We – we were somewhat agitated while dressing.’
Anne told the widows and Rebecca Dew that she had given Andy Bryce’s old diary to the ladies of Maplehurst, and that they had come to thank her for it. With this explanation they had to be contented, although Rebecca Dew always felt that there was more behind it than that – much more. Gratitude for an old, faded, tobacco-stained diary would never have brought Sarah Pringle to the front door of Windy Willows. Miss Shirley was deep, very deep!
‘I’m going to open that front door once a day after this,’ vowed Rebecca. ‘Just to keep it in practice. I all but went over flat when it did give way. Well, we’ve got the recipe for the pound cake, anyway. Thirty-six eggs! If you’d dispose of That Cat and let me keep hens we might be able to afford it once a year.’
Whereupon Rebecca Dew marched to the kitchen and got square with Fate by giving That Cat milk when she knew he wanted liver.
The Shirley-Pringle feud was over. Nobody outside of the Pringles ever knew why, but Summerside people understood that Miss Shirley, single-handed, had, in some mysterious way, routed the whole clan, who ate out of her hand from then on. Jen came back to school the next day and apologized meekly to Anne before the whole room. She was a model pupil thereafter, and every Pringle student followed her lead. As for the adult Pringles, their antagonism vanished like mist before the sun. There were no more complaints regarding ‘discipline’ or homework. No more of the fine, subtle snubs characteristic of the ilk. They fairly fell over one another trying to be nice to Anne. No dance or skating party was complete without her. For although the fatal diary had been committed to the flames by Miss Sarah herself memory was memory, and Miss Shirley had a tale to tell if she chose to tell it. It would never do to have that nosy Mrs Stanton know that Captain Myrom Pringle had been a cannibal!
8
Extract from a letter to Gilbert
I am in my tower, and Rebecca Dew is carolling ‘Could I But Climb’ in the kitchen. Which reminds me that the minister’s wife has asked me to sing in the choir! Of course, the Pringles have told her to do it. I may do it on the Sundays I don’t spend at Green Gables. The Pringles have held out the right hand of fellowship with a vengeance – accepted me lock, stock, and barrel. What a clan!
I’ve been to three Pringle parties. I set nothing down in malice, but I think all the Pringle girls are imitating my style of hair-dressing.