Anne of
Green Gables
By Lucy
Maude Montgomery
Chapter 2: Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised
Matthew
Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight miles to Bright
River. It was a pretty road, running along between snug farmsteads, with now
and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive through or a hollow where wild
plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet with the breath of many
apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of
pearl and purple; while
The one day of summer in all the year."
Matthew
enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the moments when he met
women and had to nod to them—for in Prince Edward island you are supposed to
nod to all and sundry you meet on the road whether you know them or not.
Matthew
dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an uncomfortable
feeling that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him. He may
have been quite right in thinking so, for he was an odd-looking personage, with
an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair that touched his stooping shoulders,
and a full, soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he was twenty. In
fact, he had looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little
of the grayness.
When he
reached Bright River there was no sign of any train; he thought he was too
early, so he tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright River hotel and
went over to the station house. The long platform was almost deserted; the only
living creature in sight being a girl who was sitting on a pile of shingles at
the extreme end. Matthew, barely noting that it WAS a girl, sidled past her as
quickly as possible without looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have
failed to notice the tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and
expression. She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since
sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with
all her might and main.
Matthew
encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office preparatory to going
home for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty train would soon be along.
“The
five-thirty train has been in and gone half an hour ago,” answered that brisk
official. “But there was a passenger dropped off for you—a little girl. She’s
sitting out there on the shingles. I asked her to go into the ladies’ waiting
room, but she informed me gravely that she preferred to stay outside. ‘There
was more scope for imagination,’ she said. She’s a case, I should say.”
“I’m not
expecting a girl,” said Matthew blankly. “It’s a boy I’ve come for. He should
be here. Mrs. Alexander Spencer was to bring him over from Nova Scotia for me.”
The
stationmaster whistled.
“Guess
there’s some mistake,” he said. “Mrs. Spencer came off the train with that girl
and gave her into my charge. Said you and your sister were adopting her from an
orphan asylum and that you would be along for her presently. That’s all I know
about it—and I haven’t got any more orphans concealed hereabouts.”
“I don’t
understand,” said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla was at hand to cope
with the situation.
“Well, you’d
better question the girl,” said the station-master carelessly. “I dare say
she’ll be able to explain—she’s got a tongue of her own, that’s certain. Maybe
they were out of boys of the brand you wanted.”
He walked
jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was left to do that
which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its den—walk up to a girl—a
strange girl—an orphan girl—and demand of her why she wasn’t a boy. Matthew
groaned in spirit as he turned about and shuffled gently down the platform
towards her.
She had been
watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her eyes on him now.
Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen what she was really like
if he had been, but an ordinary observer would have seen this: A child of about
eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray
wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down
her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was
small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her
eyes, which looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others.
So far, the
ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was
very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and
vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was
broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have
concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child
of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.
Matthew,
however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon as she concluded
that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with one thin brown hand the
handle of a shabby, old-fashioned carpet-bag; the other she held out to him.
“I suppose
you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?” she said in a peculiarly clear,
sweet voice. “I’m very glad to see you. I was beginning to be afraid you
weren’t coming for me and I was imagining all the things that might have
happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if you didn’t come for me
to-night I’d go down the track to that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and
climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid, and it would be
lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine,
don’t you think? You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn’t
you? And I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning, if you didn’t
to-night.”
Matthew had
taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and there he decided what
to do. He could not tell this child with the glowing eyes that there had been a
mistake; he would take her home and let Marilla do that. She couldn’t be left
at Bright River anyhow, no matter what mistake had been made, so all questions
and explanations might as well be deferred until he was safely back at Green
Gables.
“I’m sorry I
was late,” he said shyly. “Come along. The horse is over in the yard. Give me
your bag.”
“Oh, I can
carry it,” the child responded cheerfully. “It isn’t heavy. I’ve got all my
worldly goods in it, but it isn’t heavy. And if it isn’t carried in just a
certain way the handle pulls out—so I’d better keep it because I know the exact
knack of it. It’s an extremely old carpet-bag. Oh, I’m very glad you’ve come,
even if it would have been nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We’ve got to
drive a long piece, haven’t we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I’m glad
because I love driving. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I’m going to live with
you and belong to you. I’ve never belonged to anybody—not really. But the
asylum was the worst. I’ve only been in it four months, but that was enough. I
don’t suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you can’t possibly
understand what it is like. It’s worse than anything you could imagine. Mrs.
Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn’t mean to be
wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn’t it? They were good,
you know—the asylum people. But there is so little scope for the imagination in
an asylum—only just in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine
things about them—to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was
really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents
in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I used to
lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn’t have time in
the day. I guess that’s why I’m so thin—I AM dreadful thin, ain’t I? There
isn’t a pick on my bones. I do love to imagine I’m nice and plump, with dimples
in my elbows.”
With this
Matthew’s companion stopped talking, partly because she was out of breath and
partly because they had reached the buggy. Not another word did she say until
they had left the village and were driving down a steep little hill, the road
part of which had been cut so deeply into the soft soil, that the banks,
fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees and slim white birches, were several
feet above their heads.
The child
put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed against the
side of the buggy.
“Isn’t that
beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all white and lacy,
make you think of?” she asked.
“Well now, I
dunno,” said Matthew.
“Why, a
bride, of course—a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil. I’ve never seen
one, but I can imagine what she would look like. I don’t ever expect to be a
bride myself. I’m so homely nobody will ever want to marry me—unless it might
be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign missionary mightn’t be very
particular. But I do hope that some day I shall have a white dress. That is my
highest ideal of earthly bliss. I just love pretty clothes. And I’ve never had
a pretty dress in my life that I can remember—but of course it’s all the more
to look forward to, isn’t it? And then I can imagine that I’m dressed
gorgeously. This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had
to wear this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you
know. A merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of wincey
to the asylum. Some people said it was because he couldn’t sell it, but I’d
rather believe that it was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldn’t you? When
we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and pitying
me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale
blue silk dress—because when you ARE imagining you might as well imagine
something worth while—and a big hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold
watch, and kid gloves and boots. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my
trip to the Island with all my might. I wasn’t a bit sick coming over in the
boat. Neither was Mrs. Spencer although she generally is. She said she hadn’t
time to get sick, watching to see that I didn’t fall overboard. She said she
never saw the beat of me for prowling about. But if it kept her from being
seasick it’s a mercy I did prowl, isn’t it? And I wanted to see everything that
was to be seen on that boat, because I didn’t know whether I’d ever have
another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom! This
Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it already, and I’m so glad I’m
going to live here. I’ve always heard that Prince Edward Island was the
prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was living here, but I
never really expected I would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come
true, isn’t it? But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at
Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer what
made them red and she said she didn’t know and for pity’s sake not to ask her
any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand already. I
suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about things if you don’t ask
questions? And what DOES make the roads red?”
“Well now, I
dunno,” said Matthew.
“Well, that
is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn’t it splendid to think of all
the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be
alive—it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we
know all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then,
would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do.
Would you rather I didn’t talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can STOP when I make
up my mind to it, although it’s difficult.”
Matthew,
much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked
talkative people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did
not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had never expected to enjoy the
society of a little girl. Women were bad enough in all conscience, but little
girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly,
with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful
if they ventured to say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little
girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it
rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental
processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.” So he said as shyly
as usual:
“Oh, you can
talk as much as you like. I don’t mind.”
“Oh, I’m so
glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. It’s such a relief
to talk when one wants to and not be told that children should be seen and not
heard. I’ve had that said to me a million times if I have once. And people
laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use
big words to express them, haven’t you?”
“Well now,
that seems reasonable,” said Matthew.
“Mrs.
Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it isn’t—it’s
firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was named Green
Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were trees all around it.
I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And there weren’t any at all about
the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny things out in front with little
whitewashed cagey things about them. They just looked like orphans themselves,
those trees did. It used to make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say
to them, ‘Oh, you POOR little things! If you were out in a great big woods with
other trees all around you and little mosses and Junebells growing over your
roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you could
grow, couldn’t you? But you can’t where you are. I know just exactly how you
feel, little trees.’ I felt sorry to leave them behind this morning. You do get
so attached to things like that, don’t you? Is there a brook anywhere near
Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer that.”
“Well now,
yes, there’s one right below the house.”
“Fancy. It’s
always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I never expected I would,
though. Dreams don’t often come true, do they? Wouldn’t it be nice if they did?
But just now I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can’t feel exactly
perfectly happy because—well, what color would you call this?”
She twitched
one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before Matthew’s
eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladies’ tresses, but in
this case there couldn’t be much doubt.
“It’s red,
ain’t it?” he said.
The girl let
the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from her very toes and to
exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.
“Yes, it’s
red,” she said resignedly. “Now you see why I can’t be perfectly happy. Nobody
could who has red hair. I don’t mind the other things so much—the freckles and
the green eyes and my skinniness. I can imagine them away. I can imagine that I
have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I
CANNOT imagine that red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, ‘Now my
hair is a glorious black, black as the raven’s wing.’ But all the time I KNOW it
is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I read
of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn’t red hair. Her
hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. What is an alabaster
brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?”
“Well now,
I’m afraid I can’t,” said Matthew, who was getting a little dizzy. He felt as
he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him on the
merry-go-round at a picnic.
“Well,
whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was divinely
beautiful. Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely
beautiful?”
“Well now,
no, I haven’t,” confessed Matthew ingenuously.
“I have,
often. Which would you rather be if you had the choice—divinely beautiful or
dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”
“Well now,
I—I don’t know exactly.”
“Neither do
I. I can never decide. But it doesn’t make much real difference for it isn’t
likely I’ll ever be either. It’s certain I’ll never be angelically good. Mrs.
Spencer says—oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!”
That was not
what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled out of the buggy nor
had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had simply rounded a curve in the
road and found themselves in the “Avenue.”
The
“Avenue,” so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road four or five
hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading
apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one
long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a
purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a
great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.
Its beauty
seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the buggy, her thin hands
clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to the white splendor above.
Even when they had passed out and were driving down the long slope to Newbridge
she never moved or spoke. Still with rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset
west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly across that glowing
background. Through Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at
them and small boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove,
still in silence. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child
had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically as she
could talk.
“I guess
you’re feeling pretty tired and hungry,” Matthew ventured to say at last, accounting
for her long visitation of dumbness with the only reason he could think of.
“But we haven’t very far to go now—only another mile.”
She came out
of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a
soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.
“Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert,” she whispered, “that place we came through—that white place—what was
it?”
“Well now,
you must mean the Avenue,” said Matthew after a few moments’ profound
reflection. “It is a kind of pretty place.”
“Pretty? Oh,
PRETTY doesn’t seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don’t go
far enough. Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful. It’s the first thing I ever saw
that couldn’t be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here”—she
put one hand on her breast—”it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a
pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?”
“Well now, I
just can’t recollect that I ever had.”
“I have it
lots of time—whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they shouldn’t call
that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. They
should call it—let me see—the White Way of Delight. Isn’t that a nice
imaginative name? When I don’t like the name of a place or a person I always
imagine a new one and always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum
whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere.
Other people may call that place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the
White Way of Delight. Have we really only another mile to go before we get
home? I’m glad and I’m sorry. I’m sorry because this drive has been so pleasant
and I’m always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may
come after, but you can never be sure. And it’s so often the case that it isn’t
pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I’m glad to think of
getting home. You see, I’ve never had a real home since I can remember. It
gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really truly
home. Oh, isn’t that pretty!”
They had
driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking almost like a
river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it midway and from there to
its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of sand-hills shut it in from the dark
blue gulf beyond, the water was a glory of many shifting hues—the most
spiritual shadings of crocus and rose and ethereal green, with other elusive
tintings for which no name has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran
up into fringing groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in
their wavering shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank
like a white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the
head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. There
was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond
and, although it was not yet quite dark, a light was shining from one of its
windows.
“That’s
Barry’s pond,” said Matthew.
“Oh, I don’t
like that name, either. I shall call it—let me see—the Lake of Shining Waters.
Yes, that is the right name for it. I know because of the thrill. When I hit on
a name that suits exactly it gives me a thrill. Do things ever give you a
thrill?”
Matthew
ruminated.
“Well now,
yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly white grubs that
spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of them.”
“Oh, I don’t
think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you think it can? There
doesn’t seem to be much connection between grubs and lakes of shining waters,
does there? But why do other people call it Barry’s pond?”
“I reckon
because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope’s the name of his
place. If it wasn’t for that big bush behind it you could see Green Gables from
here. But we have to go over the bridge and round by the road, so it’s near
half a mile further.”
“Has Mr.
Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either—about my size.”
“He’s got
one about eleven. Her name is Diana.”
“Oh!” with a
long indrawing of breath. “What a perfectly lovely name!”
“Well now, I
dunno. There’s something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to me. I’d ruther
Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was born there was
a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave him the naming of her and he called
her Diana.”
“I wish
there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here
we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight. I’m always afraid going
over bridges. I can’t help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle,
they’ll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I
always have to open them for all when I think we’re getting near the middle.
Because, you see, if the bridge DID crumple up I’d want to SEE it crumple. What
a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn’t it splendid
there are so many things to like in this world? There we’re over. Now I’ll look
back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things
I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if
it was smiling at me.”
When they
had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said:
“We’re
pretty near home now. That’s Green Gables over—”
“Oh, don’t
tell me,” she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm
and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture. “Let me guess. I’m
sure I’ll guess right.”
She opened
her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had
set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow
afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky.
Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug
farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child’s eyes darted,
eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from
the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding
woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was
shining like a lamp of guidance and promise.
“That’s it,
isn’t it?” she said, pointing.
Matthew
slapped the reins on the sorrel’s back delightedly.
“Well now,
you’ve guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so’s you could tell.”
“No, she
didn’t—really she didn’t. All she said might just as well have been about most
of those other places. I hadn’t any real idea what it looked like. But just as
soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do
you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I’ve pinched
myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling
would come over me and I’d be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I’d pinch
myself to see if it was real—until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it
was only a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped
pinching. But it IS real and we’re nearly home.”
With a sigh
of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad
that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the
world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove
over Lynde’s Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs.
Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the
long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was
shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand.
It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking of the trouble this mistake
was probably going to make for them, but of the child’s disappointment. When he
thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable
feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something—much the same
feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other
innocent little creature.
The yard was
quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily
all round it.
“Listen to
the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he lifted her to the
ground. “What nice dreams they must have!”
Then,
holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained “all her worldly goods,” she
followed him into the house.
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/53/anne-of-green-gables/1008/chapter-2-matthew-cuthbert-is-surprised/
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