Anne\'s House of Dreams

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Anne's House of Dreams

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

"To Laura, in memory of the olden time."

CHAPTER 1

IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES

"Thanks be, I'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it,"
said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped
a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books,
banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at
Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes
that were like a morning sky.

The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place,
as all garrets should be. Through the open window, by
which Anne sat, blew the sweet, scented, sun-warm air
of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs rustled
and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods,
where Lover's Lane wound its enchanted path, and the
old apple orchard which still bore its rosy harvests
munificently. And, over all, was a great mountain
range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky.
Through the other window was glimpsed a distant,
white-capped, blue sea--the beautiful St. Lawrence
Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit, whose
softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for
the more prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.

Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw
her, had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening
time. But her eyes were as black and brilliant, her
cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed
eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope. In
her arms she held a small, sleeping, black-curled
creature, who for two happy years had been known to the
world of Avonlea as "Small Anne Cordelia." Avonlea
folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course,
but Avonlea folks were puzzled by the Cordelia. There
had never been a Cordelia in the Wright or Barry
connections. Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and
wondered that Fred hadn't more sense than to allow it.
But Diana and Anne smiled at each other. They knew how
Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.

"You always hated geometry," said Diana with a
retrospective smile. "I should think you'd be real
glad to be through with teaching, anyhow."

"Oh, I've always liked teaching, apart from geometry.
These past three years in Summerside have been very
pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews told me when I came
home that I wouldn't likely find married life as much
better than teaching as I expected. Evidently Mrs.
Harmon is of Hamlet's opinion that it may be better to
bear the ills that we have than fly to others that we
know not of."

Anne's laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore,
with an added note of sweetness and maturity, rang
through the garret. Marilla in the kitchen below,
compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would
echo through Green Gables in the years to come.
Nothing in her life had ever given Marilla so much
happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its
little shadow of sorrow. During the three Summerside
years Anne had been home often for vacations and
weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be
as much as could be hoped for.

"You needn't let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you,"
said Diana, with the calm assurance of the four-years
matron. "Married life has its ups and downs, of
course. You mustn't expect that everything will always
go smoothly. But I can assure you, Anne, that it's a
happy life, when you're married to the right man."

Anne smothered a smile. Diana's airs of vast
experience always amused her a little.

"I daresay I'll be putting them on too, when I've been
married four years," she thought. "Surely my sense of
humor will preserve me from it, though."

"Is it settled yet where you are going to live?" asked
Diana, cuddling Small Anne Cordelia with the
inimitable gesture of motherhood which always sent
through Anne's heart, filled with sweet, unuttered
dreams and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure
and half a strange, ethereal pain.

"Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I
'phoned to you to come down today. By the way, I can't
realize that we really have telephones in Avonlea now.
It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
for this darling, leisurely old place."

"We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them," said Diana.
"We should never have got the line if they hadn't
taken the matter up and carried it through. There was
enough cold water thrown to discourage any society.
But they stuck to it, nevertheless. You did a splendid
thing for Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne.
What fun we did have at our meetings! Will you ever
forget the blue hall and Judson Parker's scheme for
painting medicine advertisements on his fence?"

"I don't know that I'm wholly grateful to the A. V. I.
S. in the matter of the telephone," said Anne. "Oh, I
know it's most convenient-- even more so than our old
device of signalling to each other by flashes of
candlelight! And, as Mrs. Rachel says, `Avonlea must
keep up with the procession, that's what.' But somehow
I feel as if I didn't want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr.
Harrison, when he wants to be witty, calls `modern
inconveniences.' I should like to have it kept always
just as it was in the dear old years. That's
foolish--and sentimental--and impossible. So I shall
immediately become wise and practical and possible.
The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is `a buster
of a good thing'--even if you do know that probably
half a dozen interested people are listening along the
line."

"That's the worst of it," sighed Diana. "It's so
annoying to hear the receivers going down whenever you
ring anyone up. They say Mrs. Harmon Andrews insisted
that their `phone should be put in their kitchen just
so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an
eye on the dinner at the same time. Today, when you
called me, I distinctly heard that queer clock of the
Pyes' striking. So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
listening."

"Oh, so that is why you said, `You've got a new clock
at Green Gables, haven't you?' I couldn't imagine what
you meant. I heard a vicious click as soon as you had
spoken. I suppose it was the Pye receiver being hung
up with profane energy. Well, never mind the Pyes. As
Mrs. Rachel says, `Pyes they always were and Pyes they
always will be, world without end, amen.' I want to
talk of pleasanter things. It's all settled as to
where my new home shall be."

"Oh, Anne, where? I do hope it's near here."

"No-o-o, that's the drawback. Gilbert is going to
settle at Four Winds Harbor--sixty miles from here."

"Sixty! It might as well be six hundred," sighed
Diana. "I never can get further from home now than
Charlottetown."

"You'll have to come to Four Winds. It's the most
beautiful harbor on the Island. There's a little
village called Glen St. Mary at its head, and Dr. David
Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years. He
is Gilbert's great-uncle, you know. He is going to
retire, and Gilbert is to take over his practice. Dr.
Blythe is going to keep his house, though, so we shall
have to find a habitation for ourselves. I don't know
yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I
have a little house o'dreams all furnished in my
imagination--a tiny, delightful castle in Spain."

"Where are you going for your wedding tour?" asked
Diana.

"Nowhere. Don't look horrified, Diana dearest. You
suggest Mrs. Harmon Andrews. She, no doubt, will
remark condescendingly that people who can't afford
wedding `towers' are real sensible not to take them;
and then she'll remind me that Jane went to Europe for
hers. I want to spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my
own dear house of dreams."

"And you've decided not to have any bridesmaid?"

"There isn't any one to have. You and Phil and
Priscilla and Jane all stole a march on me in the
matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching in
Vancouver. I have no other `kindred soul' and I won't
have a bridesmaid who isn't."

"But you are going to wear a veil, aren't you?" asked
Diana, anxiously.

"Yes, indeedy. I shouldn't feel like a bride without
one. I remember telling Matthew, that evening when he
brought me to Green Gables, that I never expected to be
a bride because I was so homely no one would ever want
to marry me--unless some foreign missionary did. I had
an idea then that foreign missionaries couldn't afford
to be finicky in the matter of looks if they wanted a
girl to risk her life among cannibals. You should have
seen the foreign missionary Priscilla married. He was
as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best
dressed man I ever met, and he raved over Priscilla's
`ethereal, golden beauty.' But of course there are no
cannibals in Japan."

"Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow," sighed Diana
rapturously. "You'll look like a perfect queen in
it--you're so tall and slender. How DO you keep so
slim, Anne? I'm fatter than ever--I'll soon have no
waist at all."

"Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of
predestination," said Anne. "At all events, Mrs.
Harmon Andrews can't say to you what she said to me
when I came home from Summerside, `Well, Anne, you're
just about as skinny as ever.' It sounds quite
romantic to be `slender,' but `skinny' has a very
different tang."

"Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau.
She admits it's as nice as Jane's, although she says
Jane married a millionaire and you are only marrying a
`poor young doctor without a cent to his name.'"

Anne laughed.

"My dresses ARE nice. I love pretty things. I
remember the first pretty dress I ever had--the brown
gloria Matthew gave me for our school concert. Before
that everything I had was so ugly. It seemed to me
that I stepped into a new world that night."

"That was the night Gilbert recited `Bingen on the
Rhine,' and looked at you when he said, `There's
another, NOT a sister.' And you were so furious
because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast
pocket! You didn't much imagine then that you would
ever marry him."

"Oh, well, that's another instance of predestination,"
laughed Anne, as they went down the garret stairs.

CHAPTER 2

THE HOUSE OF DREAMS

There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables
than there had ever been before in all its history.
Even Marilla was so excited that she couldn't help
showing it--which was little short of being phenomenal.

"There's never been a wedding in this house," she
said, half apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
"When I was a child I heard an old minister say that a
house was not a real home until it had been consecrated
by a birth, a wedding and a death. We've had deaths
here--my father and mother died here as well as
Matthew; and we've even had a birth here. Long ago,
just after we moved into this house, we had a married
hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
here. But there's never been a wedding before. It
does seem so strange to think of Anne being married.
In a way she just seems to me the little girl Matthew
brought home here fourteen years ago. I can't realize
that she's grown up. I shall never forget what I felt
when I saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL. I wonder what
became of the boy we would have got if there hadn't
been a mistake. I wonder what HIS fate was."

"Well, it was a fortunate mistake," said Mrs. Rachel
Lynde, "though, mind you, there was a time I didn't
think so--that evening I came up to see Anne and she
treated us to such a scene. Many things have changed
since then, that's what."

Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again. When
weddings were in order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the
dead past bury its dead.

"I'm going to give Anne two of my cotton warp
spreads," she resumed. "A tobacco-stripe one and an
apple-leaf one. She tells me they're getting to be
real fashionable again. Well, fashion or no fashion, I
don't believe there's anything prettier for a
spare-room bed than a nice apple-leaf spread, that's
what. I must see about getting them bleached. I've
had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
died, and no doubt they're an awful color. But
there's a month yet, and dew-bleaching will work
wonders."

Only a month! Marilla sighed and then said proudly:

"I'm giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have
in the garret. I never supposed she'd want
them--they're so old-fashioned, and nobody seems to
want anything but hooked mats now. But she asked me
for them--said she'd rather have them than anything
else for her floors. They ARE pretty. I made them of
the nicest rags, and braided them in stripes. It was
such company these last few winters. And I'll make
her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet
for a year. It seems real strange. Those blue plum
trees hadn't even a blossom for three years, and I
thought they might as well be cut down. And this last
spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I
never remember at Green Gables."

"Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are
going to be married after all. It's what I've always
prayed for," said Mrs. Rachel, in the tone of one who
is comfortably sure that her prayers have availed much.
"It was a great relief to find out that she really
didn't mean to take the Kingsport man. He was rich, to
be sure, and Gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with;
but then he's an Island boy."

"He's Gilbert Blythe," said Marilla contentedly.
Marilla would have died the death before she would have
put into words the thought that was always in the
background of her mind whenever she had looked at
Gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it
not been for her own wilful pride long, long ago, he
might have been HER son. Marilla felt that, in some
strange way, his marriage with Anne would put right
that old mistake. Good had come out of the evil of the
ancient bitterness.

As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost
felt frightened. The gods, so says the old
superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals.
It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.
Two of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and
proceeded to do what in them lay to prick the rainbow
bubble of her satisfaction. If she thought she was
getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe, or if
she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her
as he might have been in his salad days, it was surely
their duty to put the matter before her in another
light. Yet these two worthy ladies were not enemies
of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond
of her, and would have defended her as their own young
had anyone else attacked her. Human nature is not
obliged to be consistent.

Mrs. Inglis--nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily
Enterprise--came with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell.
But in Jane the milk of human kindness had not been
curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings. Her lines
had fallen in pleasant places. In spite of the
fact--as Mrs. Rachel Lynde would say--that she had
married a millionaire, her marriage had been happy.
Wealth had not spoiled her. She was still the placid,
amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
sympathising with her old chum's happiness and as
keenly interested in all the dainty details of Anne's
trousseau as if it could rival her own silken and
bejewelled splendors. Jane was not brilliant, and had
probably never made a remark worth listening to in her
life; but she never said anything that would hurt
anyone's feelings-- which may be a negative talent but
is likewise a rare and enviable one.

"So Gilbert didn't go back on you after all," said
Mrs. Harmon Andrews, contriving to convey an expression
of surprise in her tone. "Well, the Blythes generally
keep their word when they've once passed it, no matter
what happens. Let me see--you're twenty-five, aren't
you, Anne? When I was a girl twenty-five was the first
corner. But you look quite young. Red-headed people
always do."

"Red hair is very fashionable now," said Anne, trying
to smile, but speaking rather coldly. Life had
developed in her a sense of humor which helped her over
many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed to
steel her against a reference to her hair.

"So it is--so it is," conceded Mrs. Harmon. "There's
no telling what queer freaks fashion will take. Well,
Anne, your things are very pretty, and very suitable to
your position in life, aren't they, Jane? I hope
you'll be very happy. You have my best wishes, I'm
sure. A long engagement doesn't often turn out well.
But, of course, in your case it couldn't be helped."

"Gilbert looks very young for a doctor. I'm afraid
people won't have much confidence in him," said Mrs.
Jasper Bell gloomily. Then she shut her mouth tightly,
as if she had said what she considered it her duty to
say and held her conscience clear. She belonged to the
type which always has a stringy black feather in its
hat and straggling locks of hair on its neck.

Anne's surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was
temporarily shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below
could not thus be disturbed; and the little stings of
Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when Gilbert
came later, and they wandered down to the birches of
the brook, which had been saplings when Anne had come
to Green Gables, but were now tall, ivory columns in a
fairy palace of twilight and stars. In their shadows
Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
home and their new life together.

"I've found a nest for us, Anne."

"Oh, where? Not right in the village, I hope. I
wouldn't like that altogether."

"No. There was no house to be had in the village.
This is a little white house on the harbor shore, half
way between Glen St. Mary and Four Winds Point. It's a
little out of the way, but when we get a 'phone in that
won't matter so much. The situation is beautiful. It
looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor
before it. The sand-dunes aren't very far away--the
sea winds blow over them and the sea spray drenches
them."

"But the house itself, Gilbert,--OUR first home? What
is it like?"

"Not very large, but large enough for us. There's a
splendid living room with a fireplace in it downstairs,
and a dining room that looks out on the harbor, and a
little room that will do for my office. It is about
sixty years old--the oldest house in Four Winds. But
it has been kept in pretty good repair, and was all
done over about fifteen years ago--shingled, plastered
and re-floored. It was well built to begin with. I
understand that there was some romantic story connected
with its building, but the man I rented it from didn't
know it.

He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin
that old yarn now."

"Who is Captain Jim?"

"The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.
You'll love that Four Winds light, Anne. It's a
revolving one, and it flashes like a magnificent star
through the twilights. We can see it from our living
room windows and our front door."

"Who owns the house?"

"Well, it's the property of the Glen St. Mary
Presbyterian Church now, and I rented it from the
trustees. But it belonged until lately to a very old
lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell. She died last spring,
and as she had no near relatives she left her property
to the Glen St. Mary Church. Her furniture is still in
the house, and I bought most of it--for a mere song you
might say, because it was all so old- fashioned that
the trustees despaired of selling it. Glen St. Mary
folks prefer plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors
and ornamentations, I fancy. But Miss Russell's
furniture is very good and I feel sure you'll like it,
Anne."

"So far, good," said Anne, nodding cautious approval.
"But, Gilbert, people cannot live by furniture alone.
You haven't yet mentioned one very important thing.
Are there TREES about this house?"

"Heaps of them, oh, dryad! There is a big grove of
fir trees behind it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down
the lane, and a ring of white birches around a very
delightful garden. Our front door opens right into the
garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate
hung between two firs. The hinges are on one trunk and
the catch on the other. Their boughs form an arch
overhead."

"Oh, I'm so glad! I couldn't live where there were no
trees-- something vital in me would starve. Well,
after that, there's no use asking you if there's a
brook anywhere near. THAT would be expecting too
much."

"But there IS a brook--and it actually cuts across one
corner of the garden."

"Then," said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme
satisfaction, "this house you have found IS my house
of dreams and none other."

CHAPTER 3

THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG

"Have you made up your mind who you're going to have
to the wedding, Anne?" asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she
hemstitched table napkins industriously. "It's time
your invitations were sent, even if they are to be only
informal ones."

"I don't mean to have very many," said Anne. "We just
want those we love best to see us married. Gilbert's
people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan, and Mr. and Mrs.
Harrison."

"There was a time when you'd hardly have numbered Mr.
Harrison among your dearest friends," said Marilla
drily.

"Well, I wasn't VERY strongly attracted to him at our
first meeting," acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over
the recollection. "But Mr. Harrison has improved on
acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a dear.
Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul."

"Have they decided to come to the Island this summer?
I thought they were going to Europe."

"They changed their minds when I wrote them I was
going to be married. I had a letter from Paul today.
He says he MUST come to my wedding, no matter what
happens to Europe."

"That child always idolised you," remarked Mrs.
Rachel.

"That `child' is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs.
Lynde."

"How time does fly!" was Mrs. Lynde's brilliant and
original response.

"Charlotta the Fourth may come with them. She sent
word by Paul that she would come if her husband would
let her. I wonder if she still wears those enormous
blue bows, and whether her husband calls her Charlotta
or Leonora. I should love to have Charlotta at my
wedding. Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne.
They expect to be at Echo Lodge next week. Then there
are Phil and the Reverend Jo----"

"It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister
like that, Anne," said Mrs. Rachel severely.

"His wife calls him that."

"She should have more respect for his holy office,
then," retorted Mrs. Rachel.

"I've heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply
yourself," teased Anne.

"Yes, but I do it reverently," protested Mrs. Lynde.
"You never heard me NICKNAME a minister."

Anne smothered a smile.

"Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and
Small Anne Cordelia--and Jane Andrews. I wish I could
have Miss Stacey and Aunt Jamesina and Priscilla and
Stella. But Stella is in Vancouver, and Pris is in
Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and
Aunt Jamesina has gone to India to explore her
daughter's mission field, in spite of her horror of
snakes. It's really dreadful--the way people get
scattered over the globe."

"The Lord never intended it, that's what," said Mrs.
Rachel authoritatively. "In my young days people grew
up and married and settled down where they were born,
or pretty near it. Thank goodness you've stuck to the
Island, Anne. I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got
through college, and dragging you with him."

"If everybody stayed where he was born places would
soon be filled up, Mrs. Lynde."

"Oh, I'm not going to argue with you, Anne. _I_ am
not a B.A. What time of the day is the ceremony to
be?"

"We have decided on noon--high noon, as the society
reporters say. That will give us time to catch the
evening train to Glen St. Mary."

"And you'll be married in the parlor?"

"No--not unless it rains. We mean to be married in
the orchard-- with the blue sky over us and the
sunshine around us. Do you know when and where I'd
like to be married, if I could? It would be at dawn--a
June dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming
in the gardens; and I would slip down and meet Gilbert
and we would go together to the heart of the beech
woods,--and there, under the green arches that would be
like a splendid cathedral, we would be married."

Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked
shocked.

"But that would be terrible queer, Anne. Why, it
wouldn't really seem legal. And what would Mrs. Harmon
Andrews say?"

"Ah, there's the rub," sighed Anne. "There are so
many things in life we cannot do because of the fear of
what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say. ` 'Tis true, 'tis
pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.' What delightful
things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon
Andrews!"

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