Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [33]
‘Will you please start the pickles, Miss Shirley?’ said Mrs Taylor faintly.
Something wicked stirred in Anne. She started the pickles – and something else. Without letting herself stop to think she bent forward, her great grey-green eyes glimmering limpidly, and said gently, ‘Perhaps you would be surprised to hear, Dr Carter, that Mr Taylor went deaf very suddenly last week?’
Anne sat back, having thrown her bomb. She could not tell precisely what she expected or hoped. If Dr Carter got the impression that his host was deaf instead of in a towering rage of silence it might loosen his tongue. She had not told a falsehood. She had not said Cyrus Taylor was deaf. As for Cyrus Taylor, if she had hoped to make him speak she had failed. He merely glared at her, still in silence.
But Anne’s remark had an effect on Trix and Pringle that she had never dreamed of. Trix was in a silent rage herself. She had, the moment before Anne had hurled her rhetorical question, seen Esme furtively wipe away a tear that had escaped from one of her despairing blue eyes. Everything was hopeless. Lennox Carter would never ask Esme to marry him now. It didn’t matter any more what anyone said or did. Trix was suddenly possessed with a burning desire to get square with her brutal father. Anne’s speech gave her a weird inspiration, and Pringle, a volcano of suppressed impishness, blinked his white eyelashes for a dazed moment and then promptly followed her lead. Never, as long as they might live, would Anne, Esme, or Mrs Cyrus forget the dreadful quarter of an hour that followed.
‘Such an affliction for poor Papa,’ said Trix, addressing Dr Carter across the table. ‘And him only sixty-eight.’
Two little white dents appeared at the corners of Cyrus Taylor’s nostrils when he heard his age advanced six years, but he remained silent.
‘It’s such a treat to have a decent meal,’ said Pringle, clearly and distinctly. ‘What would you think, Dr Carter, of a man who makes his family live on fruit and eggs – nothing but fruit and eggs – just for a fad?’
‘Does your father –’ began Dr Carter, bewildered.
‘What would you think of a husband who bit his wife when she put up curtains he didn’t like – deliberately bit her?’ demanded Trix.
‘Till the blood came,’ added Pringle solemnly.
‘Do you mean to say your father –’
‘What would you think of a man who would cut up a silk dress of his wife’s just because the way it was made didn’t suit him?’ said Trix.
‘What would you think,’ said Pringle, ‘of a man who refuses to let his wife have a dog?’
‘When she would so love to have one,’ sighed Trix.
‘What would you think of a man,’ continued Pringle, who was beginning to enjoy himself hugely, ‘who would give his wife a pair of goloshes for a Christmas present – nothing but a pair of goloshes?’
‘Goloshes don’t exactly warm the heart,’ admitted Dr Carter. His eyes met Anne’s, and he smiled. Anne reflected that she had never seen him smile before. It changed his face wonderfully for the better. What was Trix saying? Who would have thought she could be such a demon?
‘Have you ever wondered, Dr Carter, how awful it must be to live with a man who thinks nothing – nothing – of picking up the, roast if it isn’t perfectly done and hurling it at the maid?’
Dr Carter glanced apprehensively at Cyrus Taylor as if he feared that Cyrus might throw the skeletons of the chickens at somebody. Then he seemed to remember comfortingly that his host was deaf.
‘What would you think of a man who believed the earth was flat?’ asked Pringle.
Anne thought Cyrus would speak then. A tremor seemed to pass over his rubicund face, but no words came. Still, she was sure that his moustaches were a little less defiant.
‘What would you think of a man who let his aunt – his only aunt – go to the poorhouse?’ asked Trix.
‘And pastured his cow in the graveyard,’ said Pringle. ‘Summerside hasn’t got over that sight yet.’
‘What would you think of a man who would write down in his diary every day what he had for dinner?’ asked Trix.
‘The great Pepys did that,’ said