Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [67]
There was news to tell. Diana had a small daughter; Josie Pye actually had a young man; and Charlie Sloane was said to be engaged. It was all just as exciting as news of empire could have been. Mrs Lynde’s new patchwork quilt, just complete, containing five thousand pieces, was on display, and received its meed of praise.
‘When you come home, Anne,’ said Davy, ‘everything seems to come alive.’
‘Ah, this is how life should be,’ purred Dora’s kitten.
‘I’ve always found it hard to resist the lure of a moonlight night,’ said Anne after supper. ‘How about a snow-shoe tramp, Miss Brooke? I think I’ve heard you snow-shoe.’
‘Yes. It’s the only thing I can do; but I haven’t done it for six years,’ said Katherine, with a shrug.
Anne rooted out her snow-shoes from the garret, and Davy shot over to Orchard Slope to borrow an old pair of Diana’s for Katherine. They went through Lovers’ Lane, full of lovely tree shadows, and across fields where little fir-trees fringed the fences, and through woods which were full of secrets they seemed always on the point of whispering to you, but never did, and through open glades that were like pools of silver.
They did not talk or want to talk. It was as if they were afraid to talk for fear of spoiling something beautiful. But Anne had never felt so near Katherine Brooke before. By some magic of its own the winter night had brought them together – almost together, but not quite.
When they came out to the main road and a sleigh flashed by, bells ringing, laughter tinkling, both girls gave an involuntary sigh. It seemed to both that they were leaving behind a world that had nothing in common with the one to which they were returning, a world where time was not, which was young with immortal youth, where souls communed with each other in some medium that needed nothing so crude as words.
‘It’s been wonderful,’ said Katherine so obviously to herself that Anne made no response.
They went down the road and up the long Green Gables lane, but just before they reached the yard gate they both paused as by a common impulse, and stood in silence, leaning against the old mossy fence and looking at the brooding, motherly old house seen dimly through its veil of trees. How beautiful Green Gables was on a winter night!
Below it the Lake of Shining Waters was locked in ice, patterned round its edges with tree shadows. Silence was everywhere, save for the staccato clip of a horse trotting over the bridge. Anne smiled to recall how often she had heard that sound as she lay in her gable room and pretended to herself that it was the gallop of fairy horses passing in the night.
Suddenly another sound broke the stillness.
‘Katherine! You’re – why, you’re not crying!’
Somehow it seemed impossible to think of Katherine crying. But she was. And her tears suddenly humanized her. Anne no longer felt afraid of her.
‘Katherine, dear Katherine, what is the matter? Can I help?’
‘Oh, you can’t understand!’ gasped Katherine. ‘Things have always been made easy for you. You – you seem to live in a little enchanted circle of beauty and romance. “I wonder what delightful discovery I’ll make today?” – that seems to be your attitude to life, Anne. As for me, I’ve forgotten how to live – no, I never knew how. I’m – I’m like a creature caught in a trap. I can never get out. And it seems to me that somebody is always poking sticks at me through the bars. And you – you have more happiness than you know what to do with. Friends everywhere – a lover! Not that