Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (free ebooks for android .txt) đ
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Performer: 0553213180
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The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire. Captain Jim told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from the wall and began to play. He had a tolerable knack of fiddling, which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up the stairs.
âCanât cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,â said Captain Jim. âHe wonât stay long enough to learn to like it. When we got the organ up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out of the church at the rate of no-manâs-business. It reminded me so strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did before or since.â
There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliottâs feet began to twitch. He had been a noted dancer in his youth. Presently he started up and held out his hands to Leslie. Instantly she responded. Round and round the firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful. Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music seemed to have entered into and possessed her. Anne watched her in fascinated admiration. She had never seen her like this. All the innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of motion. Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and hair, could not spoil the picture. On the contrary, it seemed to enhance it. Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days, dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the Northland.
âThe purtiest dancing I ever saw, and Iâve seen some in my time,â declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand. Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
âI love dancing,â she said apart to Anne. âI havenât danced since I was sixteenâbut I love it. The music seems to run through my veins like quicksilver and I forget everythingâeverythingâexcept the delight of keeping time to it. There isnât any floor beneath me, or walls about me, or roof over meâIâm floating amid the stars.â
Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame enclosing several banknotes.
âIs there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his walls with banknotes for pictures?â he asked. âThereâs twenty ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them. Theyâre old Bank of P. E. Island notes. Had them by me when the bank failed, and I had âem framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy feeling. Hullo, Matey, donât be scared. You can come back now. The music and revelry is over for tonight. The old year has just another hour to stay with us. Iâve seen seventy-six New Years come in over that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.â
âYouâll see a hundred,â said Marshall Elliott.
Captain Jim shook his head.
âNo; and I donât want toâat least, I think I donât. Death grows friendlier as we grow older. Not that one of us really wants to die though, Marshall. Tennyson spoke truth when he said that. Thereâs old Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen. Sheâs had heaps of trouble all her life, poor soul, and sheâs lost almost everyone she cared about. Sheâs always saying that sheâll be glad when her time comes, and she doesnât want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears. But when she takes a sick spell thereâs a fuss! Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and enough medicine to kill a dog. Life may be a vale of tears, all right, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.â
They spent the old yearâs last hour quietly around the fire. A few minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
âWe must let the New Year in,â he said.
Outside was a fine blue night. A sparkling ribbon of moonlight garlanded the gulf. Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of pearl. They stood before the door and waitedâCaptain Jim with his ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her hopeless future. The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace struck twelve.
âWelcome, New Year,â said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke died away. âI wish you all the best year of your lives, mates. I reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great Captain has for usâand somehow or other weâll all make port in a good harbor.â
Winter set in vigorously after New Yearâs. Big, white drifts heaped themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its windows. The harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds people began their usual winter travelling over it. The safe ways were âbushedâ by a benevolent Government, and night and day the gay tinkle of the sleigh-bells sounded on it. On moonlit nights Anne heard them in her house of dreams like fairy chimes. The gulf froze over, and the Four Winds light flashed no more. During the months when navigation was closed Captain Jimâs office was a sinecure.
âThe First Mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except keep warm and amuse ourselves. The last lighthouse keeper used always to move up to the Glen in winter; but Iâd rather stay at the Point. The First Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the Glen. Itâs a mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for company, but if our friends come to see us often weâll weather it through.â
Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin Gilbert and Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him. Anne and Leslie took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the Glen. They were very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings. Each had something to give the otherâeach felt life the richer for friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a friend beyond. But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was always a barrier between Leslie and herselfâa constraint that never wholly vanished.
âI donât know why I canât get closer to her,â Anne said one evening to Captain Jim. âI like her so muchâI admire her so muchâI WANT to take her right into my heart and creep right into hers. But I can never cross the barrier.â
âYouâve been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe,â said Captain Jim thoughtfully. âI reckon thatâs why you and Leslie canât get real close together in your souls. The barrier between you is her experience of sorrow and trouble. She ainât responsible for it and you ainât; but itâs there and neither of you can cross it.â
âMy childhood wasnât very happy before I came to Green Gables,â said Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
âMebbe notâbut it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasnât anyone to look after it properly. There hasnât been any TRAGEDY in your life, Mistress Blythe. And poor Leslieâs has been almost ALL tragedy. She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels it, that thereâs a vast deal in her life you canât enter nor understandâand so she has to keep you back from itâhold you off, so to speak, from hurting her. You know if weâve got anything about us that hurts we shrink from anyoneâs touch on or near it. It holds good with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon. Leslieâs soul must be near rawâitâs no wonder she hides it away.â
âIf that were really all, I wouldnât mind, Captain Jim. I would understand. But there are timesânot always, but now and againâ when I almost have to believe that Leslie doesnâtâdoesnât like me. Sometimes I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and dislikeâit goes so quicklyâbut Iâve seen it, Iâm sure of that. And it hurts me, Captain Jim. Iâm not used to being dislikedâ and Iâve tried so hard to win Leslieâs friendship.â
âYou have won it, Mistress Blythe. Donât you go cherishing any foolish notion that Leslie donât like you. If she didnât she wouldnât have anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does. I know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that.â
âThe first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the day I came to Four Winds, she looked at me with the same expression,â persisted Anne. âI felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her beauty. She looked at me resentfullyâshe did, indeed, Captain Jim.â
âThe resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe, and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past. Leslie DOES take sullen spells now and again, poor girl. I canât blame her, when I know what she has to put up with. I donât know why itâs permitted. The doctor and I have talked a lot abut the origin of evil, but we havenât quite found out all about it yet. Thereâs a vast of onunderstandable things in life, ainât there, Mistress Blythe? Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you and the doctor. And then again they all seem to go catawampus. Thereâs Leslie, so clever and beautiful youâd think she was meant for a queen, and instead sheâs cooped up over there, robbed of almost everything a womanâd value, with no prospect except waiting on Dick Moore all her life. Though, mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay sheâd choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with Dick before he went away. THATâS something a clumsy old sailorâs tongue mustnât meddle with. But youâve helped Leslie a lotâsheâs a different creature since you come to Four Winds. Us old friends see the difference in her, as you canât. Miss Cornelia and me was talking it over the other day, and itâs one of the mighty few pâints that we see eye to eye on. So jest you throw overboard any idea of her not liking you.â
Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards her. At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment. She felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she hoped the spring
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