Anne of Ingleside (7 page)

‘I’ll bet our cat takes fittier fits than yours,’ taunted Andy.

‘I’ll bet she doesn’t,’ retorted Walter.

‘Now, now, don’t let’s have any arguments over your cats,’ said Mrs Parker, who wanted a quiet evening to write her Institute paper on ‘Misunderstood Children’. ‘Run out and play. It won’t be long before your bed-time.’

Bed-time! Walter suddenly realized that he had to stay here all night… many nights… two weeks of nights. It was dreadful. He went out to the orchard with clenched fists, to find Bill and Andy in a furious clinch on the grass, kicking, clawing, yelling.

‘You gave me the wormy apple, Bill Parker,’ Andy was howling. ‘I’ll teach you to give me wormy apples! I’ll bite off your ears!’

Fights of this sort were an everyday occurrence with the Parkers. Mrs Parker held that it didn’t hurt boys to fight. She said they got a lot of devilment out of their systems that way and were as good friends afterwards. But Walter had never seen anyone fighting before and was aghast.

Fred was cheering them on, Opal and Cora were laughing, but there were tears in Alice’s eyes. Walter could not endure that. He hurled himself between the combatants, who had drawn apart for a moment to snatch breath before joining battle again.

‘You stop fighting,’ said Walter. ‘You’re scaring Alice.’

Bill and Andy stared at him in amazement for a moment until the funny side of this baby interfering in their fight struck them. Both burst into laughter, and Bill slapped him on the back.

‘It’s got spunk, kids,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a real boy some time if you let it grow up. Here’s an apple for it… and no worms either.’

Alice wiped the tears away from her soft pink cheeks and looked so adoringly at Walter that Fred didn’t like it. Of course Alice was only a baby, but even babies had no business to be looking adoringly at other boys when he, Fred Johnson of Montreal, was around. This must be dealt with. Fred had been into the house and had heard Aunt Jen, who had been talking over the telephone, say something to Uncle Dick.

‘Your mother’s awful sick,’ he told Walter.

‘She… she isn’t,’ cried Walter.

‘She is, too. I heard Aunt Jen telling Uncle Dick…’ Fred had heard his aunt say, ‘Anne Blythe is sick,’ and it was fun to crack in the ‘awful’. ‘She’ll likely be dead before you get home.’

Walter looked around with tormented eyes. Again Alice ranged herself by him… and again the rest gathered around the standard of Fred. They felt something alien about this dark, handsome child… they felt an urge to tease him.

‘If she is sick,’ said Walter, ‘Father will cure her.’

He would… he must!

‘I’m afraid that will be impossible,’ said Fred, pulling a long face, but winking at Andy.

‘Nothing is impossible for Father,’ insisted Walter loyally.

‘Why, Russ Carter went to Charlottetown just for a day last summer and when he came home his mother was dead as a doornail,’ said Bill.

‘
And
buried,’ said Andy, thinking to add an extra dramatic touch, whether a fact or not didn’t matter. ‘Russ was awful mad he’d missed the funeral, funerals are so jolly.’

‘And I’ve never seen a single funeral,’ said Opal sadly.

‘Well, there’ll be lots of chances for you yet,’ said Andy. ‘But you see even Dad couldn’t keep Mrs Carter alive, and he’s a lot better doctor than
your
father.’

‘He isn’t…’

‘Yes, he is, and a lot better-looking, too…’

‘He isn’t…’

‘Something
always
happens when you go away from home,’ said Opal. ‘What will you feel like if you find Ingleside burned down when you go home?’

‘If your mother dies likely you children will all be separated,’ said Cora cheerfully. ‘Maybe you’ll come and live here.’

‘Yes… do,’ said Alice sweetly.

‘Oh, his father would want to keep them,’ said Bill. ‘He’d soon be marrying again. But maybe his father will die too. I heard Dad say Dr Blythe was working himself to death. Look at him staring. You’ve got girl’s eyes, sonny… girl’s eyes… girl’s eyes.’

‘Aw, shut up,’ said Opal, suddenly tiring of the sport. ‘You ain’t fooling him. He knows you’re only teasing. Let’s go down to the park and watch the baseball game. Walter and Alice can stay here. We can’t have kids tagging after us everywhere.’

Walter was not sorry to see them go. Neither apparently was Alice. They sat down on an apple log and looked shyly and contentedly at each other. ‘I’ll show you how to play jackstones,’ said Alice, ‘and lend you my plush kangaroo.’

When bed-time came Walter found himself put into the little hall bedroom alone. Mrs Parker considerately left a candle with him and a warm puff, for the July night was unreasonably cold as even a summer night in the Maritimes sometimes is. It almost seemed as if there might be a frost.

But Walter could not sleep, even with Alice’s plush kangaroo cuddled to his cheek. Oh, if he were only home in his own room where the big window looked out on the Glen and the little window, with a tiny roof all its own, looked out into the Scotch pine. Mother would come in and read poetry to him in her lovely voice.

‘I’m a big boy… I won’t cry… I wo-o-o-n’t…’ The tears came in spite of himself. What good were plush kangaroos? It seemed years since he had left home.

Presently the other children came back from the Park and crowded amiably into the room to sit on the bed and eat apples.

‘You’ve been crying, baby,’ jeered Andy. ‘You’re nothing but a sweet little girl. Momma’s Pet!’

‘Have a bit, kid,’ said Bill, proffering a half-gnawed apple. ‘And cheer up. I wouldn’t be surprised if your mother got better… if she’s got a constitution, that is. Dad says Mrs Stephen Flagg would-a died years ago if she hadn’t a constitution. Has your mother got one?’

‘Of course she has,’ said Walter. He had no idea what a constitution was, but if Mrs Stephen Flagg had one, Mother must.

‘Mrs Ab Sawyer died last week and Sam Clark’s mother died the week before,’ said Andy.

‘They died in the night,’ said Cora. ‘Mother says people mostly die in the night. I hope
I
won’t! Fancy going to heaven in your nightdress!’

‘Children! Children! Get off to your beds,’ called Mrs Parker.

The boys went, after pretending to smother Walter with a towel. After all, they rather liked the kid. Walter caught Opal’s hand as she turned away.

‘Opal, it isn’t true mother’s sick, is it?’ he whispered imploringly. He could not face being left alone with his fear.

Opal was ‘not a bad-hearted child’, as Mrs Parker said, but she could not resist the thrill one got out of telling bad news.

‘She
is
sick. Aunt Jen says so… she said I wasn’t to tell you. But I think you ought to know. Maybe she has a cancer.’

‘Does
everybody
have to die, Opal?’ This was a new and dreadful idea to Walter, who had never thought about death before.

‘Of course, silly. Only they don’t die really… they go to heaven,’ said Opal cheerfully.

‘Not all of them,’ said Andy, who was listening outside the door, in a pig’s whisper.

‘Is… is heaven farther away than Charlottetown?’ asked Walter.

Opal shrilled with laughter.

‘Well, you
are
queer! Heaven’s millions of miles away. But I’ll tell you what to do. You pray. Praying’s good. I lost a dime once and I prayed and I found a quarter. That’s how I know.’

‘Opal Johnson, did you hear what I said? And put out that candle in Walter’s room. I’m afraid of fire,’ called Mrs Parker from her room. ‘He should have been asleep long ago.’

Opal blew out the candle and flew. Aunt Jen was easy-going, but when she
did
get riled! Andy stuck his head in at the door for a good night benediction.

‘Likely them birds in the wallpaper will come alive and pick your eyes out,’ he hissed.

After which everybody did really go to bed, feeling that it was the end of a perfect day and Walt Blythe wasn’t a bad little kid and they’d have some more fun teasing him tomorrow.

‘Dear little souls,’ thought Mrs Parker sentimentally.

An unwonted quiet descended upon the Parker house, and six miles away at Ingleside little Bertha Marilla Blythe was blinking round hazel eyes at the happy faces around her and the world into which she had been ushered on the coldest July night the Maritimes had experienced in eighty-seven years!

Walter, alone in the darkness, still found it impossible to sleep. He had never slept alone before in his short life. Always Jem or Ken near him, warm and comforting. The little room became dimly visible as the pale moonlight crept into it, but it was almost worse than darkness. A picture on the wall at the foot of his bed seemed to leer at him… pictures always looked so
different
by moonlight. You saw things in them you never suspected by day-light. The long lace curtains looked like tall thin women, one on each side of the window, weeping. There were noises about the house… creaks, sighs, whisperings. Suppose the birds in the wallpaper
were
coming to life and getting ready to pick out his eyes? A creepy fear suddenly possessed Walter… and then one great fear banished all the others.
Mother was sick
. He had to believe it since Opal had said it was true. Perhaps Mother was dying!
Perhaps Mother was dead!
There would be no mother to go home to. Walter saw Ingleside without Mother!

Suddenly Walter knew he could not bear it. He must go home. Right away at once. He must see Mother before she… she…
died
.
This
was what Aunt Mary Maria had meant.
She
had known Mother was going to die. It was no use to think of waking anyone and asking to be taken home. They wouldn’t take him… they would only laugh at him. It was an awful long road home, but he would walk all night.

Very quietly he slipped out of bed and put on his clothes. He took his shoes in his hand. He did not know where Mrs Parker had put his cap, but that did not matter. He must not make any noise… he must just escape and get to Mother. He was sorry he could not say good-bye to Alice… she would have understood. Through the dark hall… down the stairs… step by step… hold your breath… was there no end to the steps?… the very furniture was listening… oh, oh!

Walter had dropped one of his shoes! Down the stairs it clattered, bumping from step to step, shot across the hall and brought up against the front door with what seemed to Walter a deafening crash.

Walter huddled in despair against the rail.
Everybody
must have heard that noise… they would come rushing out… he wouldn’t be let go home… a sob of despair choked in his throat.

It seemed hours before he dared believe that nobody had wakened up, before he dare resume his careful passage down the stairs. But it was accomplished at last; he found his shoe and cautiously turned the handle of the front door… doors were never locked at the Parker place. Mrs Parker said they hadn’t anything worth stealing except children, and nobody wanted
them
.

Walter was out, the door closed behind him. He slipped on his shoes and stole down the street: the house was on the edge of the village and he was soon on the open road. A moment of panic overwhelmed him. The fear of being caught and prevented was past, and all his old fears of darkness and solitude returned. He had never been out
alone
in the night before. He was afraid of the
world
. It was such a huge world and he was so terribly small in it. Even the cold raw wind that was coming up from the east seemed blowing in his face as if to push him back.

Mother was going to die!
Walter took a gulp and set his face towards home. On and on he went, fighting fear gallantly. It was moonlight, but the moonlight let you
see
things… and nothing looked familiar. Once when he had been out with Dad he had thought he had never seen anything so pretty as a moonlit road crossed by tree shadows. But now the shadows were so black and sharp they might fly up at you. The fields had put on a strangeness. The trees were no longer friendly. They seemed to be watching him, crowding in before and behind him. Two blazing eyes looked out at him from the ditch and a black cat of unbelievable size ran across the road.
Was it a cat?
Or…? The night was cold: he shivered in his thin blouse, but he would not mind the cold if he could only stop being afraid of everything… of the shadows and the furtive sounds and the nameless things that might be prowling in the strips of woodland he passed through. He wondered what it would be like not to be afraid of anything… like Jem.

‘I’ll… I’ll just pretend I’m not afraid,’ he said aloud… and then shuddered with terror over the
lost
sound of his own voice in the great night.

But he went on, one had to go on when Mother was going to die. Once he fell and bruised and skinned his knee badly on a stone. Once he heard a buggy coming along behind him and hid behind a tree till it passed, terrified lest Dr Parker had discovered he had gone and was coming after him. Once he stopped in sheer terror of something black and furry sitting on the side of the road. He could not pass it… he could
not
… but he did. It was a big black dog…
was
it a dog?… but he was past it. He dared not run lest it chase him… he stole a desperate glance over his shoulder… it had got up and was loping away in the opposite direction. Walter put his little brown hand up to his face and found it wet with sweat.

A star fell in the sky before him, scattering sparks of flame. Walter remembered hearing old Aunt Kitty say that when a star fell someone died.
Was it Mother?
He had just been feeling that his legs would not carry him another step, but at the thought he marched on again. He was so cold now that he had almost ceased to feel afraid. Would he never get home? It must be hours and hours since he had left Lowbridge.

It
was
three hours. He had stolen out of the Parker house at eleven and it was now two. When Walter found himself on the road that dipped down into the Glen he gave a sob of relief. But as he stumbled through the village the sleeping houses seemed remote and far away. They had forgotten him. A cow suddenly bawled at him over a fence and Walter remembered that Mr Alec Reese kept a savage bull. He broke into a run of sheer panic that carried him up the hill to the gate of Ingleside. He was home… oh, he was home!