Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery [30]
There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbour. Now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock in a splendid white turmoil – the only restless thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace.
‘Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress for,’ Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
‘I’m going to dance and sing,’ she said. ‘There’s no one here to see me – the sea-gulls won’t carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as I like.’
She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and laughter.
The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder of the headland, half hidden by a jutting rock. She was looking straight at Anne with a strange expression – part wonder, part sympathy, part – could it be? – envy. She was bareheaded, and her splendid hair, more than ever like Browning’s ‘gorgeous snake’, was bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat and cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified – all its mystery, all its passion, all its elusive charm.
‘You – you must think me crazy,’ stammered Anne, trying to recover her self-possession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of childishness – she, Mrs Dr Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron to keep up – it was too bad!
‘No,’ said the girl, ‘I don’t.’
She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless, her manner slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes – eager yet shy, defiant yet pleading – which turned Anne from her purpose of walking away. Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
‘Let’s introduce ourselves,’ she said, with the smile that had never yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. ‘I am Mrs Blythe – and I live in that little white house up the harbour shore.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said the girl. ‘I am Leslie Moore – Mrs Dick Moore,’ she added stiffly.
Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement. It had not occurred to her that this girl was married – there seemed nothing of the wife about her. And that she should be the neighbour whom Anne had pictured as a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change.
‘Then – then you live in that grey house up the brook,’ she stammered.
‘Yes. I should have gone over to call on you long ago,’ said the other. She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
‘I wish you would come,’ said Anne, recovering herself somewhat. ‘We’re such