Anne of the Island, Lucy Maud Montgomery [short story to read TXT] 📗

The “freshettes” stood about in detached groups of two or three, looking askance at each other; the “freshies,” wiser in their day and generation, had banded themselves together on the big staircase of the entrance hall, where they were shouting out glees with all the vigor of youthful lungs, as a species of defiance to their traditional enemies, the Sophomores, a few of whom were prowling loftily about, looking properly disdainful of the “unlicked cubs” on the stairs. Gilbert and Charlie were nowhere to be seen.

“Little did I think the day would ever come when I’d be glad of the sight of a Sloane,” said Priscilla, as they crossed the campus, “but I’d welcome Charlie’s goggle eyes almost ecstatically. At least, they’d be familiar eyes.”

“Oh,” sighed Anne. “I can’t describe how I felt when I was standing there, waiting my turn to be registered — as insignificant as the teeniest drop in a most enormous bucket. It’s bad enough to feel insignificant, but it’s unbearable to have it grained into your soul that you will never, can never, be anything but insignificant, and that is how I did feel — as if I were invisible to the naked eye and some of those Sophs might step on me. I knew I would go down to my grave unwept, unhonored and unsung.”

“Wait till next year,” comforted Priscilla. “Then we’ll be able to look as bored and sophisticated as any Sophomore of them all. No doubt it is rather dreadful to feel insignificant; but I think it’s better than to feel as big and awkward as I did — as if I were sprawled all over Redmond. That’s how I felt — I suppose because I was a good two inches taller than any one else in the crowd. I wasn’t afraid a Soph might walk over me; I was afraid they’d take me for an elephant, or an overgrown sample of a potato-fed Islander.”

“I suppose the trouble is we can’t forgive big Redmond for not being little Queen’s,” said Anne, gathering about her the shreds of her old cheerful philosophy to cover her nakedness of spirit. “When we left Queen’s we knew everybody and had a place of our own. I suppose we have been unconsciously expecting to take life up at Redmond just where we left off at Queen’s, and now we feel as if the ground had slipped from under our feet. I’m thankful that neither Mrs. Lynde nor Mrs. Elisha Wright know, or ever will know, my state of mind at present. They would exult in saying `I told you so,’ and be convinced it was the beginning of the end. Whereas it is just the end of the beginning.”

“Exactly. That sounds more Anneish. In a little while we’ll be acclimated and acquainted, and all will be well. Anne, did you notice the girl who stood alone just outside the door of the coeds’ dressing room all the morning — the pretty one with the brown eyes and crooked mouth?”

“Yes, I did. I noticed her particularly because she seemed the only creature there who LOOKED as lonely and friendless as I FELT. I had YOU, but she had no one.”

“I think she felt pretty all-by-herselfish, too. Several times I saw her make a motion as if to cross over to us, but she never did it — too shy, I suppose. I wished she would come. If I hadn’t felt so much like the aforesaid elephant I’d have gone to her. But I couldn’t lumber across that big hall with all those boys howling on the stairs. She was the prettiest freshette I saw today, but probably favor is deceitful and even beauty is vain on your first day at Redmond,” concluded Priscilla with a laugh.

“I’m going across to Old St. John’s after lunch,” said Anne. “I don’t know that a graveyard is a very good place to go to get cheered up, but it seems the only get-at-able place where there are trees, and trees I must have. I’ll sit on one of those old slabs and shut my eyes and imagine I’m in the Avonlea woods.”

Anne did not do that, however, for she found enough of interest in Old St. John’s to keep her eyes wide open. They went in by the entrance gates, past the simple, massive, stone arch surmounted by the great lion of England.

“`And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory, And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story,’”

quoted Anne, looking at it with a thrill. They found themselves in a dim, cool, green place where winds were fond of purring. Up and down the long grassy aisles they wandered, reading the quaint, voluminous epitaphs, carved in an age that had more leisure than our own.

“`Here lieth the body of Albert Crawford, Esq.,’” read Anne from a worn, gray slab, “`for many years Keeper of His Majesty’s Ordnance at Kingsport. He served in the army till the peace of 1763, when he retired from bad health. He was a brave officer, the best of husbands, the best of fathers, the best of friends. He died October 29th, 1792, aged 84 years.’ There’s an epitaph for you, Prissy. There is certainly some `scope for imagination’ in it. How full such a life must have been of adventure! And as for his personal qualities, I’m sure human eulogy couldn’t go further. I wonder if they told him he was all those best things while he was alive.”

“Here’s another,” said Priscilla. “Listen —

`To the memory of Alexander Ross, who died on the 22nd of September, 1840, aged 43 years. This is raised as a tribute of affection by one whom he served so faithfully for 27 years that he was regarded as a friend, deserving the fullest confidence and attachment.’ “

“A very good epitaph,” commented Anne thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t wish a better. We are all servants of some sort, and if the fact that we are faithful can be truthfully inscribed on our tombstones nothing more need be added. Here’s a sorrowful little gray stone, Prissy — `to the memory of a favorite child.’ And here is another `erected to the memory of one who is buried elsewhere.’ I wonder where that unknown grave is. Really, Pris, the graveyards of today will never be as interesting as this. You were right — I shall come here often. I love it already. I see we’re not alone here — there’s a girl down at the end of this avenue.”

“Yes, and I believe it’s the very girl we saw at Redmond this morning. I’ve been watching her for five minutes. She has started to come up the avenue exactly half a dozen times, and half a dozen times has she turned and gone back. Either she’s dreadfully shy or she has got something on her conscience. Let’s go and meet her. It’s easier to get acquainted in a graveyard than at Redmond, I believe.”

They walked down the long grassy arcade towards the stranger, who was sitting on a gray slab under an enormous willow. She was certainly very pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety, under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red. She wore a smart brown suit, with two very modish little shoes peeping from beneath it; and her hat of dull pink straw, wreathed with golden-brown poppies, had the indefinable, unmistakable air which pertains to the “creation” of an artist in millinery. Priscilla had a sudden stinging consciousness that her own hat had been trimmed by her village store milliner, and Anne wondered uncomfortably if the blouse she had made herself, and which Mrs. Lynde had fitted, looked VERY countrified and home-made besides the stranger’s smart attire. For a moment both girls felt like turning back.

But they had already stopped and turned towards the gray slab. It was too late to retreat, for the browneyed girl had evidently concluded that they were coming to speak to her. Instantly she sprang up and came forward with outstretched hand and a gay, friendly smile in which there seemed not a shadow of either shyness or burdened conscience.

“Oh, I want to know who you two girls are,” she exclaimed eagerly. “I’ve been DYING to know. I saw you at Redmond this morning. Say, wasn’t it AWFUL there? For the time I wished I had stayed home and got married.”

Anne and Priscilla both broke into unconstrained laughter at this unexpected conclusion. The browneyed girl laughed, too.

“I really did. I COULD have, you know. Come, let’s all sit down on this gravestone and get acquainted. It won’t be hard. I know we’re going to adore each other — I knew it as soon as I saw you at Redmond this morning. I wanted so much to go right over and hug you both.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Priscilla.

“Because I simply couldn’t make up my mind to do it. I never can make up my mind about anything myself — I’m always afflicted with indecision. Just as soon as I decide to do something I feel in my bones that another course would be the correct one. It’s a dreadful misfortune, but I was born that way, and there is no use in blaming me for it, as some people do. So I couldn’t make up my mind to go and speak to you, much as I wanted to.”

“We thought you were too shy,” said Anne.

“No, no, dear. Shyness isn’t among the many failings — or virtues — of Philippa Gordon — Phil for short. Do call me Phil right off. Now, what are your handles?”

“She’s Priscilla Grant,” said Anne, pointing.

“And SHE’S Anne Shirley,” said Priscilla, pointing in turn.

“And we’re from the Island,” said both together.

“I hail from Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia,” said Philippa.

“Bolingbroke!” exclaimed Anne. “Why, that is where I was born.”

“Do you really mean it? Why, that makes you a Bluenose after all.”

“No, it doesn’t,” retorted Anne. “Wasn’t it Dan O’Connell who said that if a man was born in a stable it didn’t make him a horse? I’m Island to the core.”

“Well, I’m glad you were born in Bolingbroke anyway. It makes us kind of neighbors, doesn’t it? And I like that, because when I tell you secrets it won’t be as if I were telling them to a stranger. I have to tell them. I can’t keep secrets — it’s no use to try. That’s my worst failing — that, and indecision, as aforesaid. Would you believe it? — it took me half an hour to decide which hat to wear when I was coming here — HERE, to a graveyard! At first I inclined to my brown one with the feather; but as soon as I put it on I thought this pink one with the floppy brim would be more becoming. When I got IT pinned in place I liked the brown one better. At last I put them close together on the bed, shut my eyes, and jabbed with a hat pin. The pin speared the pink one, so I put it on. It is becoming, isn’t it? Tell me, what do you think of my looks?”

At this naive demand, made in a perfectly serious tone, Priscilla laughed again. But Anne said, impulsively squeezing Philippa’s hand,

“We thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl we saw at Redmond.”

Philippa’s crooked mouth flashed into a bewitching, crooked smile over very white little teeth.

“I thought that myself,” was her next astounding statement, “but I wanted some one else’s opinion to bolster mine up. I can’t decide even on my own appearance. Just