Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [32]
‘I’ll do my best,’ promised Anne, who certainly had never found herself at a loss for something to say. But then never had she found herself in such a situation as presently confronted her.
They were all gathered round the table, a very pretty and well-appointed table in spite of the missing flowers. Timid Mrs Cyrus, in a grey silk dress, had a face that was greyer than her dress. Esme, the beauty of the family, a very pale beauty – pale gold hair, pale pink lips, pale forget-me-not eyes – was so much paler than usual that she looked as if she was going to faint. Pringle, ordinarily a fat, cheerful urchin of fourteen, with round eyes and glasses, and hair so fair that it appeared almost white, looked like a tied dog, and Trix had the air of a terrified schoolgirl.
Dr Carter, who was undeniably handsome and distinguished-looking, with crisp, dark hair, brilliant dark eyes, and silver-rimmed glasses, but whom Anne, in the days of his Assistant Professorship at Redmond, had thought a rather pompous young bore, looked ill at ease. Evidently he felt that something was wrong somewhere – a reasonable conclusion when your host simply stalks to the head of the table and drops into his chair without a word to you or anybody.
Cyrus would not say grace. Mrs Cyrus, blushing beet-red, murmured almost inaudibly, ‘For what we are about to receive the Lord make us truly thankful.’ The meal started badly, for nervous Esme dropped her fork on the floor. Everybody except Cyrus jumped, because their nerves were likewise keyed up to the highest pitch. Cyrus glared at Esme out of his bulging blue eyes in a kind of enraged stillness. Then he glared at everybody and froze them into dumbness. He glared at poor Mrs Cyrus when she took a helping of horseradish sauce with a glare that reminded her of her weak stomach. She couldn’t eat any of it after that, and she was so fond of it. She couldn’t believe it would hurt her. But, for that matter, she couldn’t eat anything, nor could Esme. They only pretended. The meal proceeded in a ghastly silence, broken by spasmodic speeches about the weather from Trix and Anne. Trix implored Anne with her eyes to talk, but Anne found herself for once in her life with absolutely nothing to say. She felt desperately that she must talk, but only the most idiotic things came into her head, things that it would be impossible to utter aloud. Was everyone bewitched? It was curious the effect one sulky, stubborn man had on you. Anne couldn’t have believed it possible. And there was no doubt that he was really quite happy in the knowledge that he had made everybody at his table horribly uncomfortable. What on earth was going on in his mind? Would he jump if anyone stuck a pin in him? Anne wanted to slap him, rap his knuckles, stand him in a corner – treat him like the spoiled child he really was, in spite of his spiky grey hair and truculent moustaches.
Above all she wanted to make him speak. She felt instinctively that nothing in the world would punish him so much as to be tricked into speaking when he was determined not to.
Suppose she got up and deliberately smashed that huge, hideous, old-fashioned vase on the table in the corner, an ornate thing covered with wreaths of roses and leaves which was most difficult to dust, but which must be kept immaculately clean? Anne knew that the whole family hated it, but Cyrus Taylor would not hear of having it banished to the attic, because it had been his mother’s. Anne thought she would do it fearlessly if she really believed that it would make Cyrus explode into vocal anger.
Why didn’t Lennox Carter talk? If he would she, Anne, could talk too, and perhaps Trix and Pringle would escape from the spell that bound them, and some kind of conversation would be possible. But he simply sat there and ate. Perhaps he thought it was really the best thing to do. Perhaps he was afraid of saying something that would still further enrage the evidently