Hello, dears! It's been a few days since the last installment, and I've spent the entire day in the kitchen, churning out a heroic amount of pies and breads to send to the market tomorrow. But I've finally got a moment to breathe, and send this slip of a story out into the world. Thanks for the lovely reviews, by the way-it's nice to have my first story here be well received.
On the Saturday of Anne's third week in Glen St. Mary, a lady bearing a startling resemblance to a fully-rigged ship came sailing up the lane. Anne, sitting on her porch swing, saw the imposing figure tack towards her house, and sprang up as she realized who it was.
This was no ordinary caller. This was Miss Cornelia Bryant. Anne had heard that Miss Cornelia came to call on every new inhabitant of the Glen. It appeared that it was now her turn for inspection.
Smooth as a ship sailing into port, Miss Cornelia Bryant pulled up to the house. She had her work under her arm in a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite irreverent Fall breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard little knob of fair hair. No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please ye! Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were good enough for her. She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and jolly brown eyes. She did not look in the least like the traditional old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne instantly. With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a design of huge, pink roses scattered over it. And nobody but Miss Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.
Anne led Miss Cornelia into the parlor. Once Miss Cornelia was settled in an armchair, with a beautifully made baby's dress draped across her lap, her needle threaded, and her spectacles in place, she looked up.
"I s'pose you've been thinking I was never coming to call on you," she said, "But this is harvest month, you know, and I've been busy-and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more'n they work, just like the men. I'd have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs. Roderick MacAllister's funeral. At first I thought my head was aching so badly I couldn't enjoy myself if I did go. But she was a hundred years old, and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her funeral."
"Was it successful?" asked Anne.
"Oh, very. More so when you count that old Joe Bradshaw, a self-proclaimed infidel who rarely, if ever, darkens the door of any church, was there. To hear him singing 'Safe in the Arms of Jesus,' why Miss Shirley, it was something! Joe Bradshaw loves to sing, although if you ask me, it's the sound of his voice he loves more. But isn't that just like a man?"
Anne blinked. "Well, I-"
"Tell me, dear," Miss Cornelia leaned forward in her seat, "what do you think of the Methodist minister?"
"I haven't had the pleasure of attending a service at the Methodist church yet," Anne smiled, "Although I plan on going this next weekend."
"The pleasure!" Miss Cornelia fairly crowed. "If you'll take my advice, you won't have much to do with the Methodists. My motto is-if you are a Presbyterian, be a Presbyterian."
"Don't you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as Presbyterians?" asked Anne smilelessly.
"That's not for us to decide," Miss Cornelia sniffed. "But I ain't going to associate with them on earth whatever I may have to do in heaven." She sewed a few more delicate stitches into the baby's gown. "Since you haven't met the Methodist minister-and may you be spared that pleasure as long as possible-what do you think of the Presbyterian one?"
"He's...ah…"
"My thoughts exactly," Miss Cornelia's eyes twinkled. "If you ask me, he made a mistake in answering the call. The only sermons he gives are of the useless variety. But isn't that just like a man? He preaches and preaches, and not once has he produced a sermon worth listening to. Of course, I don't say this in public," Miss Cornelia lowered her voice, "and whenever there are Methodists within earshot, I praise him to high heaven, but for goodness' sake, it would be nice to hear a thoughtful sermon once in a while!"
"Miss Cornelia," Anne asked, smiling slightly, "are there any men you have any use for?"
"A few," Miss Cornelia grudgingly admitted, "Captain Jim at the lighthouse, for one. That Doctor Blythe, for another. Did you hear about what happened to him? He came because his wife-a society girl-died. At his hands. But isn't that just like a man? Now what kind of a doctor would let his wife die, I ask you? But he's never done anything like that in his time here, and I'm slowly beginning to have faith in the new Doctor Blythe. Not that he's anything like old Doctor Dave, but he's a decent enough replacement."
Anne tried valiantly to keep her head above this flood of information. Christine had died-at Gilbert's hands? No, he couldn't have...the Hippocratic oath floated through her head. Do no harm. Once Gil made a promise, he kept it, come Hell or high water. "I always knew Dr. Blythe would make a good doctor."
"Oh yes, you knew him, didn't you?"
Anne nodded the affirmative. "From school. I just met his daughter, you know."
Miss Cornelia smiled. "That Joy. Now that, Miss Shirley, is someone who belongs to the race that knows Joseph. Did you know that Dr. Blythe raised her singlehandedly? He came to the Glen with her when she was but wee thing, barely a month or two old. We all thought he'd remarry, being a young, handsome widower with a small child, but he went against all expectations-isn't that just like a man-and never remarried. Personally, I think he's carrying a torch for someone, but no one knows who. He's not nearly devoted enough to his wife's memory for it to be her-I don't suppose you'd have any idea who it might be, Miss Shirley?"
Anne actually had a fairly good idea who it might be, but held her tongue and shook her head.
"Pity," Miss Cornelia sniffed. "Ah, well. I suppose Providence will reveal it when it sees fit."
Seizing the golden opportunity offered by the lull in coversation, Anne asked a question that had been weighing on her for some time. "Miss Cornelia, I was wondering if you might know a girl I saw herding geese a few weeks ago."
"Geese? There's a lot of people 've got geese in these parts, Miss Shirley." Miss Cornelia looked up from the dress in her lap. "Anything else you could describe her with?"
Anne thought back to that morning on the road. "I didn't see her very well-she was a ways off from me, but she was taller than I am, and quite slender. And she had the most beautiful hair I've seen-golden twisted around her head in braids."
"That would be Leslie Moore," Miss Cornelia nodded in satisfaction. "She's your nearest neighbor.
"There, dearie, I've finished it," she held up the baby's dress. "That little baby can come when it likes, now." She bundled everything away and rose. "I'll be on my way now, Miss Shirley."
The slightly wistful quality in her voice made Anne lean forward. "Oh, do call me Anne," she said impulsively. "It would seem more homey. Do you know that your name is very near being the one I yearned after when I was a child. I hated `Anne' and I called myself `Cordelia' in imagination." She laughed at the memory.
"I like Anne. It was my mother's name. Old-fashioned names are the best and sweetest in my opinion." Miss Cornelia started towards the door, but Anne held her back.
"Oh, do stay for tea, Miss Cornelia," she invited her. "It would give me great pleasure to have you as my guest this evening."
"Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you really want to?" demanded Miss Cornelia.
"Because I really want to." Anne smiled. "Besides, it would be a nice change to share my tea with something other than the wind and the sea."
"Then I'll stay. You belong to the race that knows Joseph."
"I know we are going to be friends," said Anne, with the smile that only they of the household of faith ever saw.
One October evening a week or so after Miss Cornelia's first visit, Anne decided it was too fine a day to pass up a chance to go outside. There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock in a splendid white turmoil-the only restless thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace.
In a moment of exhilaration, she kicked off her shoes into a nearby patch of grass, and picked up her skirts, running straight to the edge of the water, where the surf came up to lap at her toes, stay still for one infinitesimal moment, before rushing back into the sea, pulling at her feet to join it. Anne turned away from it, and danced down the edge of the beach, leaving prints in the sand that were soon washed away by the waves.
Suddenly, she stopped, and the laughter died in her throat. It would seem that she had an audience. There, on a rock not ten feet from her, was the girl with the golden hair-Leslie Moore, as Miss Cornelia had called her. She wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.
Anne let her skirts fall and gave a slightly abashed grin. "Contrary to all appearances at the moment, I'm not a madwoman. I've just moved to the Glen-I live just over there," she pointed in the general direction of her house.
"I know who you are," Leslie Moore said slowly. "You're the new principal."
Anne nodded. "And until I find a new English and History teacher, also the new teacher." Realising that she had not properly introduced herself, she put out her hand to shake. "Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had never yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "I am Miss Shirley-and I live in that little white house up the harbor shore."
"I am Leslie Moore. I live in that grey house up the brook. I really ought to have called on you earlier." The words were spoken simply, frankly, without a hint of apology or explanation. Anne got the feeling that Leslie Moore made a living pushing people away from her.
"I wish you would come," she said, pushing forward, through the curtains of hostility shrouding the woman in front of her. "We're such near neighbors we ought to be friends."
"I haven't a lot of friends," Leslie Moore looked off to sea, a storm swirling behind her eyes. "Marriage took those away from me."
Anne tried to keep the surprise from showing on her face. "You're married?" Leslie Moore was married? She looked nothing like what Anne expected a married woman to look like.
"Nearly fifteen years."
"But...you…"
"Don't look old enough for it? Think again. I'm nearly thirty-one. I was married to Dick Moore when I was sixteen." The grim tone of her voice told Anne all she need to know about the marriage. "Dick disappeared some years ago-went to Havana and never came back. I can't say I'm sorry," the last sentence was blurted out, almost as if it were a secret she wasn't allowed to tell.
Anne looked at the woman in front of her, with her coldness-but there was also something in her that begged for a friend. "This may be quite forward of me," she said tentatively, "but would you like to come for dinner? I love my little house, but it's my first time living alone in one, and it can be a bit lonely at times. I've always lived with friends or boarded, so I'm not quite used to the emptiness."
The curtain of hostility parted, leaving a more innocent, almost childlike Leslie in its wake. "Do you mean it?"
"I wouldn't offer it if I didn't mean it."
A peal of bell-like laughter escaped Leslie. "Then I accept, Miss Shirley, with pleasure."
Anne put her arm through Leslie's leading her up the shore. "Well, since we're going to be such good friends, you must call me Anne."
"Call me Leslie."
And the two of them set off towards the little white house, arm in arm, carefree as a pair of schoolgirls, unaware of a pair of twinkling hazel eyes following them from the road above them.
Anything in italics is from Anne's House of Dreams.
Well, this was basically my take on two chapters from Anne's House of Dreams: "Miss Cornelia Bryant Comes to Call" and "Leslie Moore". Both are important characters in the Glen, and I had to introduce them somehow.
Now, let's have a show of hands: should the next chapter be Gilbert-centric, or should we take a peek at Green Gables?
Anne