A Wedding at the Stone House
The last week in August came. Miss Lavendar was to be married in it.
Two weeks later Anne and Gilbert would leave for Redmond College. In a
week's time Mrs. Rachel Lynde would move to Green Gables and set up
her lares and penates in the erstwhile spare room, which was already
prepared for her coming. She had sold all her superfluous household
plenishings by auction and was at present reveling in the congenial
occupation of helping the Allans pack up. Mr. Allan was to preach his
farewell sermon the next Sunday. The old order was changing rapidly to
give place to the new, as Anne felt with a little sadness threading all
her excitement and happiness.
"Changes ain't totally pleasant but they're excellent things," said Mr.
Harrison philosophically. "Two years is about long enough for things
to stay exactly the same. If they stayed put any longer they might grow
mossy."
Mr. Harrison was smoking on his veranda. His wife had self-sacrificingly
told that he might smoke in the house if he took care to sit by an
open window. Mr. Harrison rewarded this concession by going outdoors
altogether to smoke in fine weather, and so mutual goodwill reigned.
Anne had come over to ask Mrs. Harrison for some of her yellow dahlias.
She and Diana were going through to Echo Lodge that evening to help Miss
Lavendar and Charlotta the Fourth with their final preparations for the
morrow's bridal. Miss Lavendar herself never had dahlias; she did not
like them and they would not have suited the fine retirement of her
old-fashioned garden. But flowers of any kind were rather scarce in
Avonlea and the neighboring districts that summer, thanks to Uncle Abe's
storm; and Anne and Diana thought that a certain old cream-colored stone
jug, usually kept sacred to doughnuts, brimmed over with yellow dahlias,
would be just the thing to set in a dim angle of the stone house stairs,
against the dark background of red hall paper.
"I s'pose you'll be starting off for college in a fortnight's time?"
continued Mr. Harrison. "Well, we're going to miss you an awful lot,
Emily and me. To be sure, Mrs. Lynde'll be over there in your place.
There ain't nobody but a substitute can be found for them."
The irony of Mr. Harrison's tone is quite untransferable to paper. In
spite of his wife's intimacy with Mrs. Lynde, the best that could be
said of the relationship between her and Mr. Harrison even under the new
regime, was that they preserved an armed neutrality.
"Yes, I'm going," said Anne. "I'm very glad with my head . . . and very
sorry with my heart."
"I s'pose you'll be scooping up all the honors that are lying round
loose at Redmond."
"I may try for one or two of them," confessed Anne, "but I don't care so
much for things like that as I did two years ago. What I want to get out
of my college course is some knowledge of the best way of living life
and doing the most and best with it. I want to learn to understand and
help other people and myself."
Mr. Harrison nodded.
"That's the idea exactly. That's what college ought to be for, instead
of for turning out a lot of B.A.'s, so chock full of book-learning
and vanity that there ain't room for anything else. You're all right.
College won't be able to do you much harm, I reckon."
Diana and Anne drove over to Echo Lodge after tea, taking with them all
the flowery spoil that several predatory expeditions in their own and
their neighbors' gardens had yielded. They found the stone house agog
with excitement. Charlotta the Fourth was flying around with such vim
and briskness that her blue bows seemed really to possess the power of
being everywhere at once. Like the helmet of Navarre, Charlotta's blue
bows waved ever in the thickest of the fray.
"Praise be to goodness you've come," she said devoutly, "for there's
heaps of things to do . . . and the frosting on that cake WON'T harden
. . . and there's all the silver to be rubbed up yet . . . and the
horsehair trunk to be packed . . . and the roosters for the chicken
salad are running out there beyant the henhouse yet, crowing, Miss
Shirley, ma'am. And Miss Lavendar ain't to be trusted to do a thing. I
was thankful when Mr. Irving came a few minutes ago and took her off for
a walk in the woods. Courting's all right in its place, Miss Shirley,
ma'am, but if you try to mix it up with cooking and scouring
everything's spoiled. That's MY opinion, Miss Shirley, ma'am."
Anne and Diana worked so heartily that by ten o'clock even Charlotta
the Fourth was satisfied. She braided her hair in innumerable plaits and
took her weary little bones off to bed.
"But I'm sure I shan't sleep a blessed wink, Miss Shirley, ma'am, for
fear that something'll go wrong at the last minute . . . the cream won't
whip . . . or Mr. Irving'll have a stroke and not be able to come."
"He isn't in the habit of having strokes, is he?" asked Diana, the
dimpled corners of her mouth twitching. To Diana, Charlotta the Fourth
was, if not exactly a thing of beauty, certainly a joy forever.
"They're not things that go by habit," said Charlotta the Fourth with
dignity. "They just HAPPEN . . . and there you are. ANYBODY can have a
stroke. You don't have to learn how. Mr. Irving looks a lot like an
uncle of mine that had one once just as he was sitting down to dinner
one day. But maybe everything'll go all right. In this world you've just
got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God
sends."
"The only thing I'm worried about is that it won't be fine tomorrow,"
said Diana. "Uncle Abe predicted rain for the middle of the week, and
ever since the big storm I can't help believing there's a good deal in
what Uncle Abe says."
Anne, who knew better than Diana just how much Uncle Abe had to do with
the storm, was not much disturbed by this. She slept the sleep of the
just and weary, and was roused at an unearthly hour by Charlotta the
Fourth.
"Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am, it's awful to call you so early," came wailing
through the keyhole, "but there's so much to do yet . . . and oh, Miss
Shirley, ma'am, I'm skeered it's going to rain and I wish you'd get up
and tell me you think it ain't." Anne flew to the window, hoping against
hope that Charlotta the Fourth was saying this merely by way of rousing
her effectually. But alas, the morning did look unpropitious. Below the
window Miss Lavendar's garden, which should have been a glory of pale
virgin sunshine, lay dim and windless; and the sky over the firs was
dark with moody clouds.
"Isn't it too mean!" said Diana.
"We must hope for the best," said Anne determinedly. "If it only doesn't
actually rain, a cool, pearly gray day like this would really be nicer
than hot sunshine."
"But it will rain," mourned Charlotta, creeping into the room, a figure
of fun, with her many braids wound about her head, the ends, tied up
with white thread, sticking out in all directions. "It'll hold off till
the last minute and then pour cats and dogs. And all the folks will get
sopping . . . and track mud all over the house . . . and they won't be
able to be married under the honeysuckle . . . and it's awful unlucky
for no sun to shine on a bride, say what you will, Miss Shirley, ma'am.
I knew things were going too well to last."
Charlotta the Fourth seemed certainly to have borrowed a leaf out of
Miss Eliza Andrews' book.
It did not rain, though it kept on looking as if it meant to. By noon
the rooms were decorated, the table beautifully laid; and upstairs was
waiting a bride, "adorned for her husband."
"You do look sweet," said Anne rapturously.
"Lovely," echoed Diana.
"Everything's ready, Miss Shirley, ma'am, and nothing dreadful has
happened YET," was Charlotta's cheerful statement as she betook herself
to her little back room to dress. Out came all the braids; the resultant
rampant crinkliness was plaited into two tails and tied, not with two
bows alone, but with four, of brand-new ribbon, brightly blue. The two
upper bows rather gave the impression of overgrown wings sprouting from
Charlotta's neck, somewhat after the fashion of Raphael's cherubs. But
Charlotta the Fourth thought them very beautiful, and after she had
rustled into a white dress, so stiffly starched that it could stand
alone, she surveyed herself in her glass with great satisfaction . . . a
satisfaction which lasted until she went out in the hall and caught
a glimpse through the spare room door of a tall girl in some softly
clinging gown, pinning white, star-like flowers on the smooth ripples of
her ruddy hair.
"Oh, I'll NEVER be able to look like Miss Shirley," thought poor
Charlotta despairingly. "You just have to be born so, I guess . . . don't
seem's if any amount of practice could give you that AIR."
By one o'clock the guests had come, including Mr. and Mrs. Allan, for
Mr. Allan was to perform the ceremony in the absence of the Grafton
minister on his vacation. There was no formality about the marriage.
Miss Lavendar came down the stairs to meet her bridegroom at the foot,
and as he took her hand she lifted her big brown eyes to his with a look
that made Charlotta the Fourth, who intercepted it, feel queerer than
ever. They went out to the honeysuckle arbor, where Mr. Allan was
awaiting them. The guests grouped themselves as they pleased. Anne and
Diana stood by the old stone bench, with Charlotta the Fourth between
them, desperately clutching their hands in her cold, tremulous little
paws.
Mr. Allan opened his blue book and the ceremony proceeded. Just as
Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving were pronounced man and wife a very
beautiful and symbolic thing happened. The sun suddenly burst through
the gray and poured a flood of radiance on the happy bride. Instantly
the garden was alive with dancing shadows and flickering lights.
"What a lovely omen," thought Anne, as she ran to kiss the bride. Then
the three girls left the rest of the guests laughing around the bridal
pair while they flew into the house to see that all was in readiness for
the feast.
"Thanks be to goodness, it's over, Miss Shirley, ma'am," breathed
Charlotta the Fourth, "and they're married safe and sound, no matter
what happens now. The bags of rice are in the pantry, ma'am, and the old
shoes are behind the door, and the cream for whipping is on the sullar
steps."
At half past two Mr. and Mrs. Irving left, and everybody went to Bright
River to see them off on the afternoon train. As Miss Lavendar . . . I
beg her pardon, Mrs. Irving . . . stepped from the door of her old home
Gilbert and the girls threw the rice and Charlotta the Fourth hurled an
old shoe with such excellent aim that she struck Mr. Allan squarely on
the head. But it was reserved for Paul to give the prettiest send-off.
He popped out of the porch ringing furiously a huge old brass dinner
bell which had adorned the dining room mantel. Paul's only motive was to
make a joyful noise; but as the clangor died away, from point and curve
and hill across the river came the chime of "fairy wedding bells,"
ringing clearly, sweetly, faintly and more faint, as if Miss Lavendar's
beloved echoes were bidding her greeting and farewell. And so, amid this
benediction of sweet sounds, Miss Lavendar drove away from the old life
of dreams and make-believes to a fuller life of realities in the busy
world beyond.
Two hours later Anne and Charlotta the Fourth came down the lane again.
Gilbert had gone to West Grafton on an errand and Diana had to keep an
engagement at home. Anne and Charlotta had come back to put things in
order and lock up the little stone house. The garden was a pool of late
golden sunshine, with butterflies hovering and bees booming; but the
little house had already that indefinable air of desolation which always
follows a festivity.
"Oh dear me, don't it look lonesome?" sniffed Charlotta the Fourth, who
had been crying all the way home from the station. "A wedding ain't much
cheerfuller than a funeral after all, when it's all over, Miss Shirley,
ma'am."
A busy evening followed. The decorations had to be removed, the dishes
washed, the uneaten delicacies packed into a basket for the delectation
of Charlotta the Fourth's young brothers at home. Anne would not rest
until everything was in apple-pie order; after Charlotta had gone home
with her plunder Anne went over the still rooms, feeling like one who
trod alone some banquet hall deserted, and closed the blinds. Then
she locked the door and sat down under the silver poplar to wait for
Gilbert, feeling very tired but still unweariedly thinking "long, long
thoughts."
"What are you thinking of, Anne?" asked Gilbert, coming down the walk.
He had left his horse and buggy out at the road.
"Of Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving," answered Anne dreamily. "Isn't it
beautiful to think how everything has turned out . . . how they have come
together again after all the years of separation and misunderstanding?"
"Yes, it's beautiful," said Gilbert, looking steadily down into Anne's
uplifted face, "but wouldn't it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if
there had been NO separation or misunderstanding . . . if they had come
hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but
those which belonged to each other?"
For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her
eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the
paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her
inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of
unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not
come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down;
perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways;
perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of
illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music,
perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful
friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.
Then the veil dropped again; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane
was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening
before. The page of girlhood had been turned, as by an unseen finger,
and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery,
its pain and gladness.
Gilbert wisely said nothing more; but in his silence he read the history
of the next four years in the light of Anne's remembered blush. Four
years of earnest, happy work . . . and then the guerdon of a useful
knowledge gained and a sweet heart won.
Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the
shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams
and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for
the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. And over the river in
purple durance the echoes bided their time.
[Note:
The correct words were obtained from the L.C. Page &
Company, Inc. edition of this book copyright 1909 -
Thirteenth Impression, April 1911.
Italic emphases have been CAPITALIZED for emphasis, other
italics, such as titles have been 'Placed in Single Quotes.'
Italic I's are I.
Most spellings and combined words have been left as they
were in the majority of the editions originally published.
Some spelling errors we presume were not intended have been
corrected.]
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