"Matthew--Matthew--what
is the matter? Matthew, are
you sick?"
It was Marilla who spoke, alarm
in every jerky word. Anne came
through the hall, her hands full
of white narcissus,--it was long
before Anne could love the sight
or odor of white narcissus again,--in
time to hear her and to see Matthew
standing in the porch doorway,
a folded paper in his hand, and
his face strangely drawn and
gray. Anne dropped her flowers
and sprang across the kitchen
to him at the same moment as
Marilla. They were both too late;
before they could reach him Matthew
had fallen across the threshold.
"He's fainted," gasped Marilla. "Anne,
run for Martin-- quick, quick!
He's at the barn."
Martin, the hired man, who
had just driven home from the
post office, started at once
for the doctor, calling at Orchard
Slope on his way to send Mr.
and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde,
who was there on an errand, came
too. They found Anne and Marilla
distractedly trying to restore
Matthew to consciousness.
Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently
aside, tried his pulse, and then
laid her ear over his heart.
She looked at their anxious faces
sorrowfully and the tears came
into her eyes.
"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I
don't think--we can do anything
for him."
"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think--you
can't think Matthew is-- is--" Anne
could not say the dreadful word;
she turned sick and pallid.
"Child, yes,
I'm afraid of it. Look at his
face. When you've
seen that look as often as I
have you'll know what it means."
Anne looked at the still face
and there beheld the seal of
the Great Presence.
When the doctor came he said
that death had been instantaneous
and probably painless, caused
in all likelihood by some sudden
shock. The secret of the shock
was discovered to be in the paper
Matthew had held and which Martin
had brought from the office that
morning. It contained an account
of the failure of the Abbey Bank.
The news spread quickly through
Avonlea, and all day friends
and neighbors thronged Green
Gables and came and went on errands
of kindness for the dead and
living. For the first time shy,
quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a
person of central importance;
the white majesty of death had
fallen on him and set him apart
as one crowned.
When the calm night came softly
down over Green Gables the old
house was hushed and tranquil.
In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert
in his coffin, his long gray
hair framing his placid face
on which there was a little kindly
smile as if he but slept, dreaming
pleasant dreams. There were flowers
about him--sweet old-fashioned
flowers which his mother had
planted in the homestead garden
in her bridal days and for which
Matthew had always had a secret,
wordless love. Anne had gathered
them and brought them to him,
her anguished, tearless eyes
burning in her white face. It
was the last thing she could
do for him.
The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed
with them that night. Diana,
going to the east gable, where
Anne was standing at her window,
said gently:
"Anne dear,
would you like to have me sleep
with you tonight?"
"Thank you, Diana." Anne looked
earnestly into her friend's face. "I
think you won't misunderstand
me when I say I want to be alone.
I'm not afraid. I haven't been
alone one minute since it happened--
and I want to be. I want to be
quite silent and quiet and try
to realize it. I can't realize
it. Half the time it seems to
me that Matthew can't be dead;
and the other half it seems as
if he must have been dead for
a long time and I've had this
horrible dull ache ever since."
Diana did not quite understand.
Marilla's impassioned grief,
breaking all the bounds of natural
reserve and lifelong habit in
its stormy rush, she could comprehend
better than Anne's tearless agony.
But she went away kindly, leaving
Anne alone to keep her first
vigil with sorrow.
Anne hoped that the tears would
come in solitude. It seemed to
her a terrible thing that she
could not shed a tear for Matthew,
whom she had loved so much and
who had been so kind to her,
Matthew who had walked with her
last evening at sunset and was
now lying in the dim room below
with that awful peace on his
brow. But no tears came at first,
even when she knelt by her window
in the darkness and prayed, looking
up to the stars beyond the hills--no
tears, only the same horrible
dull ache of misery that kept
on aching until she fell asleep,
worn out with the day's pain
and excitement.
In the night
she awakened, with the stillness
and the darkness
about her, and the recollection
of the day came over her like
a wave of sorrow. She could see
Matthew's face smiling at her
as he had smiled when they parted
at the gate that last evening--she
could hear his voice saying, "My
girl--my girl that I'm proud
of." Then the tears came and
Anne wept her heart out. Marilla
heard her and crept in to comfort
her.
"There--there--don't
cry so, dearie. It can't bring
him back.
It--it--isn't right to cry so.
I knew that today, but I couldn't
help it then. He'd always been
such a good, kind brother to
me--but God knows best."
"Oh, just let me cry, Marilla," sobbed
Anne. "The tears don't hurt me
like that ache did. Stay here
for a little while with me and
keep your arm round me--so. I
couldn't have Diana stay, she's
good and kind and sweet--but
it's not her sorrow--she's outside
of it and she couldn't come close
enough to my heart to help me.
It's our sorrow-- yours and mine.
Oh, Marilla, what will we do
without him?"
"We've got
each other, Anne. I don't know
what I'd do if you
weren't here--if you'd never
come. Oh, Anne, I know I've been
kind of strict and harsh with
you maybe-- but you mustn't think
I didn't love you as well as
Matthew did, for all that. I
want to tell you now when I can.
It's never been easy for me to
say things out of my heart, but
at times like this it's easier.
I love you as dear as if you
were my own flesh and blood and
you've been my joy and comfort
ever since you came to Green
Gables."
Two days afterwards
they carried Matthew Cuthbert
over his homestead
threshold and away from the fields
he had tilled and the orchards
he had loved and the trees he
had planted; and then Avonlea
settled back to its usual placidity
and even at Green Gables affairs
slipped into their old groove
and work was done and duties
fulfilled with regularity as
before, although always with
the aching sense of "loss in
all familiar things." Anne, new
to grief, thought it almost sad
that it could be so--that they
COULD go on in the old way without
Matthew. She felt something like
shame and remorse when she discovered
that the sunrises behind the
firs and the pale pink buds opening
in the garden gave her the old
inrush of gladness when she saw
them--that Diana's visits were
pleasant to her and that Diana's
merry words and ways moved her
to laughter and smiles--that,
in brief, the beautiful world
of blossom and love and friendship
had lost none of its power to
please her fancy and thrill her
heart, that life still called
to her with many insistent voices.
"It seems like disloyalty to
Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure
in these things now that he has
gone," she said wistfully to
Mrs. Allan one evening when they
were together in the manse garden. "I
miss him so much--all the time--
and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world
and life seem very beautiful
and interesting to me for all.
Today Diana said something funny
and I found myself laughing.
I thought when it happened I
could never laugh again. And
it somehow seems as if I oughtn't
to."
"When Matthew was here he liked
to hear you laugh and he liked
to know that you found pleasure
in the pleasant things around
you," said Mrs. Allan gently. "He
is just away now; and he likes
to know it just the same. I am
sure we should not shut our hearts
against the healing influences
that nature offers us. But I
can understand your feeling.
I think we all experience the
same thing. We resent the thought
that anything can please us when
someone we love is no longer
here to share the pleasure with
us, and we almost feel as if
we were unfaithful to our sorrow
when we find our interest in
life returning to us."
"I was down to the graveyard
to plant a rosebush on Matthew's
grave this afternoon," said Anne
dreamily. "I took a slip of the
little white Scotch rosebush
his mother brought out from Scotland
long ago; Matthew always liked
those roses the best--they were
so small and sweet on their thorny
stems. It made me feel glad that
I could plant it by his grave--as
if I were doing something that
must please him in taking it
there to be near him. I hope
he has roses like them in heaven.
Perhaps the souls of all those
little white roses that he has
loved so many summers were all
there to meet him. I must go
home now. Marilla is all alone
and she gets lonely at twilight."
"She will be lonelier still,
I fear, when you go away again
to college," said Mrs. Allan.
Anne did not reply; she said
good night and went slowly back
to green Gables. Marilla was
sitting on the front door-steps
and Anne sat down beside her.
The door was open behind them,
held back by a big pink conch
shell with hints of sea sunsets
in its smooth inner convolutions.
Anne gathered some sprays of
pale-yellow honeysuckle and put
them in her hair. She liked the
delicious hint of fragrance,
as some aerial benediction, above
her every time she moved.
"Doctor Spencer was here while
you were away," Marilla said. "He
says that the specialist will
be in town tomorrow and he insists
that I must go in and have my
eyes examined. I suppose I'd
better go and have it over. I'll
be more than thankful if the
man can give me the right kind
of glasses to suit my eyes. You
won't mind staying here alone
while I'm away, will you? Martin
will have to drive me in and
there's ironing and baking to
do."
"I shall be
all right. Diana will come
over for company for
me. I shall attend to the ironing
and baking beautifully-- you
needn't fear that I'll starch
the handkerchiefs or flavor the
cake with liniment."
Marilla laughed.
"What a girl
you were for making mistakes
in them days, Anne.
You were always getting into
scrapes. I did use to think you
were possessed. Do you mind the
time you dyed your hair?"
"Yes, indeed. I shall never
forget it," smiled Anne, touching
the heavy braid of hair that
was wound about her shapely head. "I
laugh a little now sometimes
when I think what a worry my
hair used to be to me--but I
don't laugh MUCH, because it
was a very real trouble then.
I did suffer terribly over my
hair and my freckles. My freckles
are really gone; and people are
nice enough to tell me my hair
is auburn now--all but Josie
Pye. She informed me yesterday
that she really thought it was
redder than ever, or at least
my black dress made it look redder,
and she asked me if people who
had red hair ever got used to
having it. Marilla, I've almost
decided to give up trying to
like Josie Pye. I've made what
I would once have called a heroic
effort to like her, but Josie
Pye won't BE liked."
"Josie is a Pye," said Marilla
sharply, "so she can't help being
disagreeable. I suppose people
of that kind serve some useful
purpose in society, but I must
say I don't know what it is any
more than I know the use of thistles.
Is Josie going to teach?"
"No, she is
going back to Queen's next
year. So are Moody Spurgeon
and Charlie Sloane. Jane and
Ruby are going to teach and they
have both got schools--Jane at
Newbridge and Ruby at some place
up west."
"Gilbert Blythe
is going to teach too, isn't
he?"
"Yes"--briefly.
"What a nice-looking fellow
he is," said Marilla absently. "I
saw him in church last Sunday
and he seemed so tall and manly.
He looks a lot like his father
did at the same age. John Blythe
was a nice boy. We used to be
real good friends, he and I.
People called him my beau."
Anne looked up with swift interest.
"Oh, Marilla--and
what happened?--why didn't
you--"
"We had a quarrel.
I wouldn't forgive him when
he asked me
to. I meant to, after awhile--but
I was sulky and angry and I wanted
to punish him first. He never
came back--the Blythes were all
mighty independent. But I always
felt--rather sorry. I've always
kind of wished I'd forgiven him
when I had the chance."
"So you've had a bit of romance
in your life, too," said Anne
softly.
"Yes, I suppose
you might call it that. You
wouldn't think so
to look at me, would you? But
you never can tell about people
from their outsides. Everybody
has forgot about me and John.
I'd forgotten myself. But it
all came back to me when I saw
Gilbert last Sunday."
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