Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery [95]
‘I might have.’ Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the recollection of her first proposal. ‘The shock of the whole thing might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act. Let us be thankful he did it by proxy.’
‘I had a letter from George Moore yesterday,’ said Leslie, from the corner where she was reading.
‘Oh, how is he?’ asked Anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling that she was inquiring about someone whom she did not know.
‘He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the changes in his old home and friends. He is going to sea again in the spring. It’s in his blood, he says, and he longs for it. But he told me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow. Before he sailed on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home. He did not tell me anything about her in Montreal, because he said he supposed she would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present. It was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never married and still cared for him. They are to be married this fall. I’m going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without knowing it.’
‘What a nice little romance,’ said Anne, whose love for the romantic was immortal. ‘And to think,’ she added with a sigh of self-reproach, ‘that if I had had my way George Moore would never have come up from the grave in which his identity was buried. How I did fight against Gilbert’s suggestion! Well, I am punished: I shall never be able to have a different opinion from Gilbert’s again! If I try to have he will squelch me by casting George Moore’s case up to me!’
‘As if even that would squelch a woman!’ mocked Gilbert. ‘At least do not become my echo, Anne. A little opposition gives spice to life. I do not want a wife like John MacAllister’s over the harbour. No matter what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice of hers, “That is very true, John, dear me!”’
Anne and Leslie laughed. Anne’s laughter was silver and Leslie’s golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect chord in music.
Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a resounding sigh.
‘Why, Susan, what is the matter?’ asked Gilbert.
‘There’s nothing wrong with Little Jem, is there, Susan?’ cried Anne, starting up in alarm.
‘No, no, calm yourself, Mrs Doctor, dear. Something has happened, though. Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week. I spoiled the bread, as you know too well – and I scorched the doctor’s best shirt bosom – and I broke your big platter. And now, on the top of all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and wants me to go and stay with her for a spell.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry – sorry that your sister has met with such an accident, I mean,’ exclaimed Anne.
‘Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs Doctor, dear. That sounds as if it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns wrote it. And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her. None of our family ever broke their legs before. But whatever she has done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and wait on her if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs Doctor, dear.’
‘Of course, Susan, of course. I can get some one to help me while you are gone.’
‘If you cannot I will not go, Mrs Doctor, dear, Matilda’s leg to the contrary notwithstanding. I will not have you worried, and that blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs.’
‘Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan. I can get a girl from the cove, who will do for a time.’
‘Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?