laughed … surprisingly. She walked across to the window, scowled at the fiery streak which was all that was left of the scorned sunset and then turned.
“Very well … I’ll go. Now you can go through the motions of telling me you’re delighted and that we’ll have a jolly time.”
“I am delighted. But I don’t know if you’ll have a jolly time or not. That will depend a good deal on yourself, Miss Brooke.”
“Oh, I’ll behave myself decently. You’ll be surprised. You won’t find me a very exhilarating guest, I suppose, but I promise you I won’t eat with my knife or insult people when they tell me it’s a fine day. I tell you frankly that the only reason I’m going is because even I can’t stick the thought of spending the holidays here alone. Mrs. Dennis is going to spend Christmas week with her daughter in Charlottetown. It’s a bore to think of getting my own meals. I’m a rotten cook. So much for the triumph of matter over mind. But will you give me your word of honor that you won’t wish me a merry Christmas? I just don’t want to be merry at Christmas.”
“I won’t. But I can’t answer for the twins.”
“I’m not going to ask you to sit down here … you’d freeze … but I see that there’s a very fine moon in place of your sunset and I’ll walk home with you and help you to admire it if you like.”
“I do like,” said Anne, “but I want to impress on your mind that we have much finer moons in Avonlea.”
“So she’s going?” said Rebecca Dew as she filled Anne’s hot-water bottle. “Well, Miss Shirley, I hope you’ll never try to induce me to turn Mohammedan … because you’d likely succeed. Where is That Cat? Out frisking round Summerside and the weather at zero.”
“Not by the new thermometer. And Dusty Miller is curled up on the rocking-chair by my stove in the tower, snoring with happiness.”
“Ah well,” said Rebecca Dew with a little shiver as she shut the kitchen door, “I wish every one in the world was as warm and sheltered as we are tonight.”
Chapter V
Anne did not know that a wistful little Elizabeth was watching out of one of the mansard windows of The Evergreens as she drove away from Windy Poplars … an Elizabeth with tears in her eyes who felt as if everything that made life worth living had gone out of her life for the time being and that she was the very Lizziest of Lizzies. But when the livery sleigh vanished from her sight around the corner of Spook’s Lane Elizabeth went and knelt down by her bed.
“Dear God,” she whispered, “I know it isn’t any use to ask You for a merry Christmas for me because Grandmother and The Woman couldn’t be merry, but please let my dear Miss Shirley have a merry, merry Christmas and bring her back safe to me when it’s over.
“Now,” said Elizabeth, getting up from her knees, “I’ve done all that I can.”
Anne was already tasting Christmas happiness. She fairly sparkled as the train left the station. The ugly streets slipped past her … she was going home … home to Green Gables. Out in the open country the world was all golden-white and pale violet, woven here and there with the dark magic of spruces and the leafless delicacy of birches. The low sun behind the bare woods seemed rushing through the trees like a splendid god, as the train sped on. Katherine was silent but did not seem ungracious.
“Don’t expect me to talk,” she had warned Anne curtly.
“I won’t. I hope you don’t think I’m one of those terrible people who make you feel that you have to talk to them all the time. We’ll just talk when we feel like it. I admit I’m likely to feel like it a good part of the time, but you’re under no obligation to take any notice of what I’m saying.”
Davy met them at Bright River with a big two-seated sleigh full of furry robes … and a bear hug for Anne. The two girls snuggled down in the back seat. The drive from the station to Green Gables had always been a very pleasant part of Anne’s weekends home. She always recalled her first drive home from Bright River with Matthew. That had been in spring and this was December, but everything along the road kept saying to her, “Do you remember?” The snow crisped under the runners; the music of the bells tinkled through the ranks of tall pointed firs, snow-laden. The White Way of Delight had little festoons of stars tangled in the trees. And on the last hill but one they saw the great gulf, white and mystical under the moon but not yet ice-bound.
“There’s just one spot on this road where I always feel suddenly … ‘I’m home,’” said Anne. “It’s the top of the next hill, where we’ll see the lights of Green Gables. I’m just thinking of the supper Marilla will have ready for us. I believe I can smell it here. Oh, it’s good … good … good to be home again!”
At Green Gables every tree in the yard seemed to welcome her back … every lighted window was beckoning. And how good Marilla’s kitchen smelled as they opened the door. There were hugs and exclamations and laughter. Even Katherine seemed somehow no outsider, but one of them. Mrs. Rachel Lynde had set her cherished parlor lamp on the supper-table and lighted it. It was really a hideous thing with a hideous red globe, but what a warm rosy becoming light it cast over everything! How warm and friendly were the shadows! How pretty Dora was growing! And Davy really seemed almost a man.
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 completed, 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 snowshoe tramp, Miss Brooke? I think that I’ve heard that you snowshoe.”
“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 snowshoes from the garret and Davy shot over to Orchard Slope to borrow an old pair of Diana’s for Katherine. They went through Lover’s 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
