Read The Complete Anne of Green Online
Authors: L. M. Montgomery
Tags: #Study Aids, #Book Notes, #Juvenile Fiction, #Biographical, #Canada, #Family, #Adoption, #General, #Schools, #Girls & Women, #Teachers, #Fiction, #Classics, #Social Issues, #Historical
‘Frank Digby – over in that corner under the sumachs – wanted me. I
did
feel a little regretful over refusing him; but a Digby, my dear! He married Georgina Troop. She always went to church a little late to show off her clothes. My, she was fond of clothes! She was buried in such a pretty blue dress. I made it for her to wear to a wedding, but in the end she wore it to her own funeral. She had three darling little children. They used to sit in front of me at church, and I always gave them candy. Do you think it wrong to give children candy in church, Miss Shirley? Not peppermints. That would be all right. There’s something
religious
about pepper-mints, don’t you think? But the poor things don’t like them.
This
is my cousin, Noble Courtaloe’s grave. We were always a little afraid he was buried alive: he looked so lifelike. But nobody thought of it till it was too late.’
‘That was – sad,’ said Anne idiotically. She knew she was expected to say something whenever Miss Valentine paused expectantly, but it seemed absolutely impossible to think of anything appropriate.
‘Cousin Ida Courtaloe is here. She was the prettiest thing I ever saw in my life – and the gayest. But fickle as a breeze, my dear, fickle as a breeze… Cousin Vernon Courtaloe is
here
. Him and Elsie Pringle – down
there
– were madly in love with each other at one time, and were to have been married; but first one thing and then another postponed it, and finally neither of them wanted it.’
When the Courtaloe plots were exhausted Miss Valentine’s reminiscences became a bit spicier. It did not make so much difference if you weren’t a Courtaloe.
‘Old Mrs Russell Pringle is here. I often wonder if she’s in heaven or not.’
‘But why?’ gasped a rather shocked Anne.
‘Well, she always hated her sister, Mary Ann, who had died a few months before. “If Mary Ann is in heaven I won’t stay there,” says she. And she was a woman who always kept her word, my dear. Pringle-like. She was born a Pringle, and married her cousin Russell… This is Mrs Dan Pringle – Janetta Bird. Seventy to a day when she died. Folks say she would have thought it wrong to die a day older than threescore and ten, because that is the Bible limit. People do say such funny things, don’t they? I’ve heard that dying was the only thing she ever dared do without asking her husband. Do you know, my dear, what he did once when she bought a hat he didn’t like?’
‘I can’t imagine.’
‘He
et it
,’ said Miss Valentine solemnly. ‘Of course it was only a small hat – lace and flowers, no feathers. Still, it must have been rather indigestible. I understand he had gnawing pains in his stomach for quite a time. Of course, I didn’t
see
him eat it, but I’ve always been assured the story was true. Do you suppose it was?’
‘I’d believe anything of a Pringle,’ said Anne bitterly.
Miss Valentine pressed her arm sympathetically. ‘I feel for you, indeed I do. It’s terrible the way they’re treating you. But Summerside isn’t
all
Pringle, Miss Shirley.’
‘Sometimes I think it is,’ said Anne, with a rueful smile.
‘No, it isn’t. And there are plenty of people would like to see you get the better of them. Don’t you give in to them, no matter what they do. It’s just the old Satan that’s got into them. But they hang together so, and Miss Sarah did want that nephew of theirs to get the school… This is where Stephen Pringle is buried. They couldn’t get his eyes closed. He was buried with them wide open.’
Anne shivered. She had a dreadful vision of the dead Pringle lying under the sod, still staring balefully upward at her out of eyes that had never been closed.
‘He was killed, you know,’ said Miss Valentine. ‘Fell from a ladder he was climbing. It was said’ – Miss Valentine lowered her voice creepily among the gathering shadows – ‘that his cousin, Black Joe Card – Stephen’s mother was a Card – fixed one of the steps so he
would
fall. He and Joe were courting the same girl. I never believed it myself. People say such terrible things, don’t they? But it certainly made Black Joe more interesting. I used to look at him in church and wonder if it was true. Perhaps it was, and that was why Stephen’s eyes couldn’t be closed… Helen Avery is
here
. She died twice – at least, they thought she died, but she revived when they were laying her out. Next time she died – four years later – her husband was away, but he telegraphed home, “Make sure she is dead before you go to any expense”… The Nathan Pringles are
here
. Nathan always believed his wife was trying to poison him, but he didn’t seem to mind. He said it made life kind of exciting. Once he kind of suspected she’d put arsenic in his porridge. He went out and fed it to the pig. The pig died three weeks afterwards. But he said maybe it was only a coincidence, and anyway he couldn’t be sure it was the same pig. In the end she died before him, and he said she’d always been a real good wife to him except for that one thing. I think it would be charitable to believe that he was mistaken about
it
.’
‘ “Sacred to the memory of
Miss Kinsey
”,’ read Anne in amazement. ‘What an extraordinary inscription! Had she no other name?’
‘If she had nobody ever knew it,’ said Miss Valentine. ‘She came from Nova Scotia and worked for the George Pringles for forty years. She gave her name as Miss Kinsey, and everybody called her that. She died suddenly, and then it was discovered that nobody knew her first name, and she had no relation that anybody could find. So they put that on her stone. The George Pringles buried her very nicely, and paid for the monument. She was a faithful, hard-working creature, but if you’d ever seen her you’d have thought she was
born
Miss Kinsey… The James Morleys are
here
. I was at their golden wedding. Such a to-do: gifts and speeches and flowers, and their children all home, and them smiling and bowing, and just hating each other as hard as they could.’
‘Hating each other?’
‘Bitterly, my dear. Everyone knew it. They had for years and years – almost all their married life, in fact. They quarrelled on the way home from church after the wedding. I often wonder how they manage to lie here so peaceably side by side.’
Again Anne shivered. How terrible – sitting opposite each other at table, lying down beside each other at night, going to church with their babies to be christened, and hating each other through it all! Yet they must have loved to begin with. Was it possible she and Gilbert could ever – Nonsense! The Pringles were getting on her nerves.
‘Handsome John MacTabb is buried here. He was always suspected of being the reason why Annetta Kennedy drowned herself. The MacTabbs were all handsome, but you could never believe a word they said. There used to be a stone here for his Uncle Samuel, who was reported drowned at sea fifty years ago. When he turned up alive the family took the stone down. The man they bought it from wouldn’t take it back, so Mrs Samuel used it for a baking board. Talk about a marble slab for mixing on! That old tombstone was just fine, she said. The MacTabb children were always bringing cookies to school with raised letters and figures on them – scraps of the epitaph. They gave them away real generous, but I never could bring myself to eat one. I’m peculiar that way… Mr Harley Pringle is
here
. He had to wheel Peter MacTabb down Main Street once, in a wheelbarrow, wearing a bonnet, for an election bet. All Summerside turned out to see it – except the Pringles, of course.
They
nearly died of shame… Milly Pringle is
here
. I was very fond of Milly, even if she was a Pringle. She was so pretty, and as light-footed as a fairy. Sometimes I think, my dear, on nights like this she must slip out of her grave and dance like she used to do. But I suppose a Christian shouldn’t be harbouring such thoughts… This is Herb Pringle’s grave. He was one of the jolly Pringles. He always made you laugh. He laughed right out in church once, when the mouse dropped out of the flowers on Meta Pringle’s hat when she bowed in prayer.
I
didn’t feel much like laughing. I didn’t know where the mouse had gone. I pulled my skirts tight about my ankles and held them there till church was out; but it spoiled the sermon for me. Herb sat behind me, and such a shout as he gave! People who couldn’t see the mouse thought he’d gone crazy. It seemed to me that laugh of his
couldn’t
die. If
he
was alive he’d stand up for you, Sarah or no Sarah…
This
, of course, is Captain Abraham Pringle’s monument.
It dominated the whole graveyard. Four receding platforms of stone formed a square pedestal, on which rose a huge pillar of marble topped with a ridiculous draped urn, beneath which a fat cherub was blowing a horn.
‘How ugly!’ said Anne candidly.
‘Oh, do you think so?’ Miss Valentine seemed rather shocked. ‘It was thought very handsome when it was erected. That is supposed to be Gabriel blowing his trumpet. I think it gives quite a touch of elegance to the graveyard. It cost nine hundred dollars. Captain Abraham was a very fine old man. It is a great pity he is dead. If he was living they wouldn’t be persecuting you the way they are. I don’t wonder Sarah and Ellen are proud of him, though I think they carry it a bit too far.’
At the graveyard gate Anne turned and looked back. A strange, peaceful hush lay over the windless land. Long fingers of moonlight were beginning to pierce the darkling firs, touching a gravestone here and there, and making strange shadows among them. But the graveyard wasn’t a sad place after all. Really, the people in it seemed alive after Miss Valentine’s tales.
‘I’ve heard you write,’ said Miss Valentine anxiously, as they went down the lane. ‘You won’t put the things I’ve told you in your stories, will you?’
‘You may be sure I won’t,’ promised Anne.
‘Do you think it is really wrong – or dangerous – to speak ill of the dead?’ whispered Miss Valentine a bit anxiously.
‘I don’t suppose it’s exactly either,’ said Anne. ‘Only rather unfair – like hitting those who can’t defend themselves. But you didn’t say anything very dreadful of anybody, Miss Courtaloe.’
‘I told you Nathan Pringle thought his wife was trying to poison him.’
‘But you gave her the benefit of the doubt.’ And Miss Valentine went her way reassured.
6
‘I wended my way to the graveyard this evening,’ wrote Anne to Gilbert, after she got home. ‘I think “wend your way” is a lovely phrase, and I work it in whenever I can. It sounds funny to say I enjoyed my stroll in the graveyard, but I really did. Miss Courtaloe’s stories were so funny, though some of them were gruesome enough underneath. Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life, Gilbert. The only thing that haunts me is that tale of the two who lived together fifty years and hated each other all that time. I can’t believe they really did. Somebody has said that “Hate is only love that has missed its way”. I feel sure that under the hatred they really loved each other – just as I really loved you all those years I thought I hated you – and I think death would show it to them. I’m glad
I
found out in life. And I have found out there
are
some decent Pringles – dead ones.
‘Last night when I went down late for a drink I found Aunt Kate buttermilking her face in the pantry. She asked me not to tell Chatty; she would think it so silly. I promised I wouldn’t.
‘Elizabeth still comes for the milk, though the Woman is pretty well over her bronchitis. I wonder they let her, especially since old Mrs Campbell is a Pringle. Last Saturday night Elizabeth – she was Betty that night, I think – ran in singing when she left me, and I distinctly heard the Woman say to her at the porch door, “It’s too near the Sabbath for you to be singing
that
song.” I am sure that Woman would prevent Elizabeth from singing on any day if she could!
‘Elizabeth had on a new dress that night, a dark wine colour – they
do
dress her nicely – and she said wistfully, “I thought I looked a little bit pretty when I put it on tonight, Miss Shirley, and I wished Father could see me. Of course, he will see me in Tomorrow, but it sometimes seems so slow in coming. I wish we could hurry time a bit, Miss Shirley.”
‘Now, dearest, I must work out some geometrical exercises. Geometry exercises have taken the place of what Rebecca calls my “literary efforts”. The spectre that haunts my daily path now is the dread of an exercise popping up in class that I can’t do. And what would the Pringles say then, oh, then! Oh, what would the Pringles say then!
‘Meanwhile, as you love me and the cat tribe, pray for a poor broken-hearted, ill-used Thomas cat. A mouse ran over Rebecca Dew’s foot in the pantry the other day, and she has fumed ever since. “That Cat does nothing but eat and sleep, and lets mice overrun everything. This
is
the last straw!’ So she chivvies him from pillar to post, routs him off his favourite cushion, and – I know, for I caught her at it – assists him none too gently with her foot when she lets him out.’
7
One Friday evening, at the end of a mild, sunny December day, Anne went out to Lowvale to attend a turkey supper. Wilfred Bryce’s home was in Lowvale, where he lived with an uncle and aunt, and he had asked her shyly if she would go out with him after school to the turkey supper in the church and spend Saturday at his home. Anne agreed, hoping that she might be able to influence the uncle to let Wilfred keep on going to High. Wilfred was afraid that he would not be able to go back after New Year’s Day. He was a clever, ambitious boy, and Anne felt a special interest in him.
It could not be said that she enjoyed her visit overmuch, except in the pleasure it gave Wilfred. His uncle and aunt were a rather odd and uncouth pair. Saturday morning was windy and dark, with showers of snow, and at first Anne wondered how she was going to put in the day. She felt tired and sleepy after the late hours of the turkey supper, Wilfred had to help thrash, and there was not even a book in sight. Then she thought of the battered old seaman’s chest she had seen in the back hall upstairs, and recalled Mrs Stanton’s request. Mrs Stanton was writing a history of Prince County, and had asked Anne if she knew of, or could find, any old diaries or documents that might be helpful.