Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery [32]
‘The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,’ agreed Anne. ‘My little sewing-room looks out on the harbour, and I sit at its window and feast my eyes. The colours and shadows are never the same two minutes together.’
‘And you are never lonely?’ asked Leslie abruptly. ‘Never – when you are alone?’
‘No. I don’t think I’ve ever been really lonely in my life,’ answered Anne. ‘Even when I’m alone I have real good company – dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendship – and nice, jolly little times with people. Oh, won’t you come to see me – often? Please do. I believe,’ Anne added, laughing, ‘that you’d like me if you knew me.’
‘I wonder if you would like me,’ said Leslie seriously. She was not fishing for a compliment. She looked out across the waves that were beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes filled with shadows.
‘I’m sure I would,’ said Anne. ‘And please don’t think I’m utterly irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset. No doubt I shall be dignified after a time. You see, I haven’t been married very long. I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child, yet.’
‘I have been married twelve years,’ said Leslie.
Here was another unbelievable thing.
‘Why, you can’t be as old as I am!’ exclaimed Anne. ‘You must have been a child when you were married.’
‘I was sixteen,’ said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket lying beside her. ‘I am twenty-eight now. Well, I must go back.’
‘So must I. Gilbert will probably be home. But I’m so glad we both came to the shore tonight and met each other.’
Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled. She had offered friendship frankly, but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it had not been absolutely repelled. In silence they climbed the cliffs and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight. When they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.
‘I go this way, Mrs Blythe. You will come over and see me some time, won’t you?’
Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her. She got the impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.
‘I will come if you really want me to,’ she said a little coldly.
‘Oh, I do – I do,’ exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.
‘Then I’ll come. Good night – Leslie.’
‘Good night, Mrs Blythe.’
Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.
‘So Mrs Dick Moore isn’t one of the race that knows Joseph?’ said Gilbert teasingly.
‘No – o – o, not exactly. And yet – I think she was one of them once, but has gone or got into exile,’ said Anne musingly. ‘She is certainly very different from the other women about here. You can’t talk about eggs and butter to her. To think I’ve been imagining her a second Mrs Rachel Lynde! Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?’
‘No. I’ve seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but I don’t know which was Moore.’
‘She never mentioned him. I know she isn’t happy.’
‘From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was old enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she had made a mistake. It’s a common tragedy enough, Anne. A fine woman would have made the best of it. Mrs Moore has evidently let it make her bitter and resentful.’
‘Don’t let us judge her till we know,’ pleaded Anne. ‘I don’t believe her case is so ordinary. You will understand her fascination when you meet her, Gilbert. It is a thing quite apart from her beauty. I feel that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars everyone out and shuts all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot