Anne of Windy Willows (22 page)

5

Extract from a letter to Gilbert

Mrs Raymond came down last night, and, with tears in her eyes, begged me to forgive her for her hasty behaviour. ‘If you knew a mother’s heart, Miss Shirley, you would not find it hard to forgive.’

I didn’t find it hard to forgive, as it was. There is really something about Mrs Raymond I can’t help liking, and she was a duck about the Dramatic Club. Just the same, I did
not
say, ‘Any Saturday you want to be away I’ll look after your offspring.’ One learns by experience, even a person so incorrigibly optimistic and trustful as myself.

I find that a certain section of Summerside society is at present very much exercised over the loves of Jarvis Morrow and Dovie Westcott, who, as Rebecca Dew says, ‘have been engaged for over a year, but can’t get any forrader’. Aunt Kate, who is a distant aunt of Dovie’s – to be exact, I think she’s the aunt of a second cousin of Dovie’s on the mother’s side – is deeply interested in the affair, because she thinks Jarvis is such an excellent match for Dovie, and also, I suspect, because she hates Franklin Westcott, and would like to see him routed horse, foot, and artillery. Not that Aunt Kate would admit she ‘hated’ anybody, but Mrs Franklin Westcott was a very dear girlhood friends of hers, and Aunt Kate solemnly avers that he murdered her.

I
am interested in it, partly because I’m very fond of Jarvis and moderately fond of Dovie, and partly, I begin to suspect, because I am an inveterate meddler in other people’s business – always with excellent intentions, of course.

The situation is briefly this: Franklin Westcott is a tall, sombre, hard-bitten merchant, close and unsociable. He lives in a big, old-fashioned house called Elmcroft just outside the town on the upper harbour road. I have met him once or twice, but really know very little about him, except that he has an uncanny habit of saying something and then going off into a long chuckle of soundless laughter. He has never gone to church since hymns came in, and he insists on having all his windows open even in winter storms. I confess to a sneaking sympathy with him in this, but I am probably the only person in Summerside who would. He has got into the habit of being a leading citizen, and nothing municipal dares to be done without his approval.

His wife is dead. It is common report that she was a slave, unable to call her soul her own. Franklin told her, it is said, when he brought her home that he would be master.

Dovie, whose real name is Sibyl, is his only child, a very pretty, plump, lovable girl of nineteen, with a red mouth always falling a little open over her small white teeth, glints of chestnut in her brown hair, alluring blue eyes, and sooty lashes so long you wonder if they can be real. Jen Pringle says it is her eyes Jarvis is really in love with. Jen and I have actually talked the affair over. Jarvis is her favourite cousin.

(In passing, you wouldn’t believe how fond Jen is of me, and I of Jen. She’s really the cutest thing.)

Franklin Westcott has never allowed Dovie to have any beaux, and when Jarvis Morrow began to ‘pay her attention’ he forbade him the house, and told Dovie there was to be no more ‘running round with that fellow’. But the mischief had been done. Dovie and Jarvis were already fathoms deep in love.

Everybody in town is in sympathy with the lovers. Franklin Westcott is really unreasonable. Jarvis is a successful young lawyer, of good family, with good prospects, and a very nice, decent lad in himself.

‘Nothing could be more suitable,’ declares Rebecca Dew. ‘Jarvis Morrow could have
any
girl he wanted in Summerside. Franklin Westcott has just made up his mind that Dovie is to be an old maid. He wants to be sure of a housekeeper when Aunt Maggie dies.’

‘Isn’t there anyone who has any influence with him?’ I asked.

‘Nobody can argue with Franklin Westcott. He’s too sarcastical. And if you get the better of him he throws a tantrum. I’ve never seen him in one of his tantrums, but I’ve heard Miss Prouty describe how he acted one time she was there sewing. He got mad over something, nobody knew what. He just grabbed everything in sight and flung it out of the window. Milton’s poems went flying clean over the fence into George Clarke’s lily-pond. He’s always kind of had a grudge at life. Miss Prouty says her mother told her that the yelps of him when he was born passed anything she ever heard. I suppose God has some reason for making men like that, but you’d wonder. No, I can’t see any chance for Jarvis and Dovie unless they elope. It’s a kind of low-down thing to do, though there’s been a terrible lot of romantic nonsense talked about eloping. But this is a case where anybody would excuse it.’

I don’t know what to do, but I must do something. I simply can’t sit still and see people make a mess of their lives under my very nose, no matter how many tantrums Franklin Westcott takes. Jarvis Morrow is not going to wait for ever. Rumour has it that he is getting out of patience already, and has been seen savagely digging Dovie’s name out of a tree on which he had cut it. There is an attractive Palmer girl who is reported to be throwing herself at his head, and his sister is said to have said that his mother has said that
her
son has no need to dangle for years at any girl’s apron-string.

Really, Gilbert, I’m quite unhappy about it.

It’s moonlight, tonight, beloved: moonlight on the willows of the yard, moonlit dimples all over the harbour, where a phantom ship is drifting outward, moonlight on the old graveyard, on my own private valley, on the Storm King. And it will be moonlight in Lovers’ Lane and on the Lake of Shining Waters and the old Haunted Wood and Violet Vale. There should be fairy dances on the hills tonight. But, Gilbert dear, moonlight with no one to share it is just – just
moonshine
.

I wish I could take little Elizabeth for a walk. She loves a moonlight walk. We had some delightful ones when she was at Green Gables. But at home Elizabeth never sees moonlight except from the window.

I am beginning to be a little worried about her, too. She is going on ten now, and those two old ladies haven’t the least idea what she needs, spiritually and emotionally. As long as she has good food and good clothes they cannot imagine her needing anything more. And it will be worse with every succeeding year. ‘What kind of a girlhood will the poor child have?

6

Jarvis Morrow walked home from the High School Commencement with Anne and told her his woes.

‘You’ll have to run away with her, Jarvis. Everybody says so. As a rule I don’t approve of elopements’ (I said that like a teacher of forty years’ experience, thought Anne, with an unseen grin), ‘but there are exceptions to all rules.’

‘It takes two to make a bargain, Anne. I can’t elope alone. Dovie is so frightened of her father I can’t get her to agree. And it wouldn’t be an elopement, really. She’d just come to my sister Julia’s – Mrs Stevens, you know – some evening. I’d have the minister there, and we could be married respectably enough to please anybody, and go over to spend our honeymoon with Aunt Bertha in Kingsport. Simple as that. But I can’t get Dovie to chance it. The poor darling has been giving in to her father’s whims and crotchets so long she hasn’t any will-power left.’

‘You’ll simply have to make her do it, Jarvis.’

‘Great Peter, you don’t suppose I haven’t tried, do you, Anne? I’ve begged till I was black in the face. When she’s with me she’ll almost promise it, but the minute she’s home again she sends me word she can’t. It seems odd, Anne, but the poor child is really fond of her father, and she can’t bear the thought of his never forgiving her.’

‘You must tell her she has to choose between her father and you.’

‘And suppose she chooses him?’

‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that.’

‘You can never tell,’ said Jarvis gloomily. ‘But something has to be decided soon. I can’t go on like this for ever. I’m crazy about Dovie. Everybody in Summerside knows that. She’s like a little red rose just out of reach. I
must
reach her, Anne.’

‘Poetry is a very good thing in its place, but it won’t get you anywhere in this instance, Jarvis,’ said Anne coolly. ‘That sounds like a remark Rebecca Dew would make, but it’s quite true. What you need in this affair is plain, hard common sense. Tell Dovie you’re tired of shilly-shallying, and that she must take you or leave you. If she doesn’t care enough for you to leave her father it’s just as well for you to realize it.’

Jarvis groaned. ‘You haven’t been under the thumb of Franklin Westcott all your life, Anne. You haven’t any realization of what he’s like. Well, I’ll make a last and final effort. As you say, if Dovie really cares for me she’ll come to me, and if she doesn’t I might as well know the worst. I’m beginning to feel I’ve made myself rather ridiculous.’

‘If you’re beginning to feel like that,’ thought Anne, ‘Dovie had better watch out.’

Dovie herself slipped into Windy Willows a few evenings later to consult Anne.

‘What shall I do, Anne? What
can
I do? Jarvis wants me to elope – practically. Father is to be in Charlottetown one night next week attending a Masonic banquet, and it
would
be a good chance. Aunt Maggie would never suspect. Jarvis wants me to go to Mrs Stevens’s and be married there.’

‘And why don’t you, Dovie?’

‘Oh, Anne, do you really think I ought to?’ Dovie lifted a sweet coaxing face. ‘Please,
please
make up my mind for me! I’m just distracted.’ Dovie’s voice broke on a tearful note. ‘Oh, Anne, you don’t know Father. He just hates Jarvis – I can’t imagine why, can you? How can
anybody
hate Jarvis? When he called on me the first time Father forbade him the house, and told him he’d set the dog on him if he ever came again – our big bull. You know they never let go once they take hold. And he’ll never forgive me if I run away with Jarvis.’

‘You must choose between them, Dovie.’

‘That’s just what Jarvis said,’ wept Dovie. ‘Oh, he was so stern. I never saw him like that before. And I can’t, I
can’t
li-i-i-ve without him, Anne.’

‘Then live with him, my dear girl. And don’t call it eloping. Just coming into Summerside and being married among his friends isn’t eloping.’

‘Father will call it so,’ said Dovie, swallowing a sob. ‘But I’m going to take your advice, Anne. I’m sure
you
wouldn’t advise me to take any step that was wrong. I’ll tell Jarvis to go ahead and get the licence, and I’ll come to his sister’s the night Father is in Charlottetown.’

Jarvis told Anne triumphantly that Dovie had yielded at last.

‘I’m to meet her at the end of the lane next Tuesday night – she won’t have me go down to the house for fear Aunt Maggie might see me – and we’ll just step up to Julia’s and be married in a brace of shakes. All my folks will be there, so it will make the poor darling quite comfortable. Franklin Westcott said I should never get his daughter. I’ll show him he was mistaken.’

7

Tuesday was a gloomy day in late November. Occasional cold, gusty showers drifted over the hills. The world seemed a dreary, outlived place, seen through a grey drizzle.

‘Poor Dovie hasn’t a very nice day for her wedding,’ thought Anne. ‘Suppose… suppose’ – she quaked and shivered – ‘suppose it doesn’t turn out well after all. It will be my fault. Dovie would never have agreed to it if I hadn’t advised her to. And suppose Franklin Westcott never forgives her… Anne Shirley, stop this! The weather is all that’s the matter with you.’

By night the rain had ceased, but the air was cold and raw, and the sky lowering. Anne was in her tower room, correcting school papers, with Dusty Miller coiled up under her stove. There came a thunderous knock at the front door.

Anne ran down, and Rebecca Dew poked an alarmed head out of her bedroom door. Anne motioned her back.

‘It’s someone at the
front door
!’ said Rebecca hollowly.

‘It’s all right, Rebecca dear. At least I’m afraid it’s all wrong. But, anyway, it’s only Jarvis Morrow. I saw him from the side tower window, and I know he wants to see me.’

‘Jarvis Morrow!’ Rebecca went back and shut her door. ‘This
is
the last straw.’

‘Jarvis, whatever is the matter?’

‘Dovie hasn’t come!’ said Jarvis wildly. ‘We’ve waited
hours
. The minister’s there… and my friends… and Julia has supper ready… and Dovie hasn’t come. I waited for her at the end of the lane till I was half crazy. I didn’t dare go down to the house, because I didn’t know what had happened. That old brute of a Franklin Westcott may have come back. Aunt Maggie may have locked her up. But I’ve got to
know
. Anne, you must go to Elmcroft and find out why she hasn’t come.’

‘Me?’ said Anne incredulously and ungrammatically.

‘Yes, you. There’s no one else I can trust; no one else who knows. Oh, Anne, don’t fail me now! You’ve backed us up right along. Dovie says you are the only real friend she has. It isn’t late – only nine. Do go!’

‘And be chewed up by the bulldog?’ said Anne sarcastically.

‘That old dog!’ said Jarvis contemptuously. ‘He wouldn’t say boo to a tramp. You don’t suppose I was afraid of the dog, do you? Besides, he’s always shut up at night. I simply don’t want to make any trouble for Dovie at home if they’ve found out. Anne, please!’

‘I suppose I’m in for it,’ said Anne, with a shrug of despair.

Jarvis drove her to the long lane of Elmcroft, but she would not let him come farther.

‘As you say, it might complicate matters for Dovie in case her father has come home.’

Anne hurried down the long tree-bordered lane. The moon occasionally broke through the windy clouds, but for the most part it was gruesomely dark, and she was not a little dubious about the dog.

There seemed to be only one light in Elmcroft, shining from the kitchen window. Aunt Maggie herself opened the side-door to Anne. Aunt Maggie was a very old sister of Franklin Westcott’s, a little bent, wrinkled old woman who had never been considered very bright mentally, though she was an excellent housekeeper.

‘Aunt Maggie, is Dovie home?’

‘Dovie’s in bed,’ said Aunt Maggie stolidly.

‘In bed? Is she sick?’

‘Not as I knows on. She seemed to be in a dither all day. After supper she says she was tired, and ups and goes to bed.’

‘I must see her for a moment, Aunt Maggie. I – I just want a little important information.’

‘Better go up to her room, then. It’s the one on the right side as you go up.’ Aunt Maggie gestured to the stairs and waddled out to the kitchen.

Dovie sat up as Anne walked in, rather unceremoniously, after a hurried rap. As could be seen by the light of a tiny candle, Dovie was in tears, but her tears only exasperated Anne.

‘Dovie Westcott, did you forget that you promised to marry Jarvis Morrow tonight –
tonight
?’

‘No… no,’ whimpered Dovie. ‘Oh, Anne, I’m so unhappy! I’ve put in such a dreadful day. You can never, never know what I’ve gone through.’

‘I know what poor Jarvis has gone through, waiting for two hours at that lane in the cold and drizzle,’ said Anne mercilessly.

‘Is he – is he very angry, Anne?’

‘Just what you could notice’ – bitingly.

‘Oh, Anne, I just got frightened. I never slept one wink last night. I couldn’t go through with it – I couldn’t! I… There’s really something disgraceful about eloping, Anne. And I wouldn’t get any nice presents… Well, not many, anyhow. I’ve always wanted to be m-m-arried in church… with lovely decorations… and a white veil and dress… and s-s-silver slippers!’

‘Dovie Westcott, get right out of that bed –
at once
and get dressed, and come with me.’

‘Anne, it’s too late now.’

‘It isn’t too late. And it’s now or never. You must know that, Dovie, if you’ve a grain of sense. You must know Jarvis Morrow will never speak to you again if you make a fool of him like this.’

‘Oh, Anne, he’ll forgive me when he knows.’

‘He won’t. I know Jarvis Morrow. He isn’t going to let you play indefinitely with his life. Dovie, do you want me to drag you bodily out of bed?’

Dovie shuddered and sighed. ‘I haven’t any suitable dress.’

‘You’ve half a dozen pretty dresses. Put on your rose taffeta.’

‘And I haven’t
any
trousseau. The Morrows will always cast that up to me.’

‘You can get one afterwards. Dovie, didn’t you weigh all these things in the balance before?’

‘No… no… That’s just the trouble. I only began to think of them last night. And Father… You don’t know Father, Anne.’

‘Dovie, I’ll give you just ten minutes to get dressed!’

Dovie was dressed in the specified time.

‘This dress is g-g-getting too tight for me,’ she sobbed as Anne hooked her up. ‘If I get much fatter I don’t suppose Jarvis will 1-1-love me. I wish I was tall and slim and pale like you, Anne. Oh, Anne, what if Aunt Maggie hears us?’

‘She won’t. She’s shut in the kitchen, and you know she’s a little deaf. Here’s your hat and coat, and I’ve tumbled a few things into this bag.’

‘Oh, my heart is fluttering so. Do I look terrible, Anne?’

‘You look lovely,’ said Anne sincerely.

Dovie’s satin skin was rose and cream, and all her tears hadn’t spoiled her eyes. But Jarvis couldn’t see her eyes in the dark, and he was just a little annoyed with his adored fair one, and rather cool during the drive to town.

‘For heaven’s sake, Dovie, don’t look so scared over having to marry me,’ he said impatiently, as she came down the stairs of the Stevens’s house. ‘And don’t cry. It will make your nose swell. It’s nearly ten o’clock, and we’ve got to catch the eleven o’clock train.’

Dovie was quite all right as soon as she found herself irrevocably married to Jarvis. What Anne rather cattishly described in a letter to Gilbert as the ‘honeymoon look’ was already on her face.

‘Anne, darling, we owe it all to you. We’ll never forget it, will we, Jarvis? And oh, Anne darling, will you do just one more thing for me? Please break the news to Father. He’ll be home early tomorrow evening – and
somebody
has got to tell him. You can smooth him over if anybody cane. Please do your best to get him to forgive me.’

Anne felt that she rather needed some smoothing over herself just then, but she also felt rather uneasily responsible for the outcome of the affair, so she gave the required promise.

‘Of course, he’ll be terrible – simply terrible, Anne, but he can’t kill you,’ said Dovie comfortingly. Oh, Anne, you don’t know, you can’t realize, how
safe
I feel with Jarvis.’

When Anne got home Rebecca Dew had reached the point where she had to satisfy her curiosity or go mad. She followed Anne to the tower room in her nightdress with a square of flannel wrapped round her head, and heard the whole story.

‘Well, I suppose this is what you might call “life”,’ she said sarcastically. ‘But I’m real glad Franklin Westcott has got his come-uppance at last, and so will Mrs Captain MacComber be. But I don’t envy you the job of breaking the news to him. He’ll rage and utter vain things. If I was in your shoes, Miss Shirley, I wouldn’t sleep one blessed wink tonight.’

‘I feel that it won’t be a very pleasant experience,’ agreed Anne ruefully.