Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery (crime books to read TXT) 📕

“Well,” said Anne, giving up in despair, “wait until Miss Cornelia gets after you two men.”

“Cornelia’ll rake us fore and aft, no doubt,” assented Captain Jim. “You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you’re just a mite illogical. You’re a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn’t, but you’re like as two peas when it comes to that. I dunno’s you’re any the worse for it. Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon. Now, I’ll brew a cup of tea and we’ll drink it and talk of pleasant things, jest to calm our minds a bit.”

At least, Captain Jim’s tea and conversation calmed Anne’s mind to such an extent that she did not make Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way home as she had deliberately intended to do. She did not refer to the burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and Gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest.

“Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring. The winter has aged him,” said Anne sadly. “I am afraid that he will soon be going to seek lost Margaret. I can’t bear to think of it.”

“Four Winds won’t be the same place when Captain Jim `sets out to sea,’” agreed Gilbert.

The following evening he went to the house up the brook. Anne wandered dismally around until his return.

“Well, what did Leslie say?” she demanded when he came in.

“Very little. I think she felt rather dazed.”

“And is she going to have the operation?”

“She is going to think it over and decide very soon.”

Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire. He looked tired. It had not been an easy thing for him to tell Leslie. And the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember. Now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom.

Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm.

“Gilbert, I’ve been rather hateful over this. I won’t be any more. Please just call me red-headed and forgive me.”

By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there would be no I-told-you-so’s. But he was not wholly comforted. Duty in the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another, especially when the doer is confronted by a woman’s stricken eyes.

Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the next three days. On the third evening Leslie came down to the little house and told Gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal and have the operation.

She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle of aloofness. But her eyes had lost the look which had haunted Gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss details with him in a crisp, business-like way. There were plans to be made and many things to be thought over. When Leslie had got the information she wanted she went home. Anne wanted to walk part of the way with her.

“Better not,” said Leslie curtly. “Today’s rain has made the ground damp. Goodnight.”

“Have I lost my friend?” said Anne with a sigh. “If the operation is successful and Dick Moore finds himself again Leslie will retreat into some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her.”

“Perhaps she will leave him,” said Gilbert.

“Leslie would never do that, Gilbert. Her sense of duty is very strong. She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be. That is one of her cardinal rules. I suppose it’s very old-fashioned .”

“Don’t be bitter, Anne-girl. You know you don’t think it old-fashioned—you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of assumed responsibilities yourself. And you are right. Shirking responsibilities is the curse of our modern life—the secret of all the unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.”

“Thus saith the preacher,” mocked Anne. But under the mockery she felt that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for Leslie.

A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little house. Gilbert was away and Anne was compelled to bear the shock of the impact alone.

Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began.

“Anne, do you mean to tell me it’s true what I’ve heard—that Dr. Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be cured, and that she is going to take him to Montreal to have him operated on?”

“Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia,” said Anne bravely.

“Well, it’s inhuman cruelty, that’s what it is,” said Miss Cornelia, violently agitated. “I did think Dr. Blythe was a decent man. I didn’t think he could have been guilty of this.”

“Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that there was a chance for Dick,” said Anne with spirit, “and,” she added, loyalty to Gilbert getting the better of her, “I agree with him.”

“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia. “No person with any bowels of compassion could.”

“Captain Jim does.”

“Don’t quote that old ninny to me,” cried Miss Cornelia. “And I don’t care who agrees with him. Think—THINK what it means to that poor hunted, harried girl.”

“We DO think of it. But Gilbert believes that a doctor should put the welfare of a patient’s mind and body before all other considerations.”

“That’s just like a man. But I expected better things of you, Anne,” said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to bombard Anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter had attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her husband with the weapons he had used for his own protection. Long was the fray, but Miss Cornelia made an end at last.

“It’s an iniquitous shame,” she declared, almost in tears. “That’s just what it is—an iniquitous shame. Poor, poor Leslie!”

“Don’t you think Dick should be considered a little too?” pleaded Anne.

“Dick! Dick Moore! HE’S happy enough. He’s a better behaved and more reputable member of society now than he ever was before.

Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse. Are you going to set him loose again to roar and to devour?”

“He may reform,” said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor within.

“Reform your grandmother!” retorted Miss Cornelia. “Dick Moore got the injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl. He DESERVES his fate. It was sent on him for a punishment. I don’t believe the doctor has any business to tamper with the visitations of God.”

“Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia. It may not have been in a drunken brawl at all. He may have been waylaid and robbed.”

“Pigs MAY whistle, but they’ve poor mouths for it,” said Miss Cornelia. “Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and there’s no use in talking. If that’s so I’ll hold my tongue. I don’t propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files. When a thing has to be I give in to it. But I like to make mighty sure first that it HAS to be. Now, I’ll devote MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie. And after all,” added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, “perhaps nothing can be done for Dick.”