When Gwen and Lee showed up in Ingleside's kitchen for their weekly cooking lesson, they were surprised (and slightly dismayed) to see Chloe there as well. She was wearing a spotless ruffled yellow apron, her hair as usual held back with a matching Alice band, a smug expression on her face.
"I came by to see Grandmother this morning," she said in a sugary voice, "and when I heard that Lynde was so kindly trying to teach you girls how to cook and sew, I knew I had to help. Mother has taught me everything there is to know about domestic matters. She says that a truly accomplished woman knows how to run a household and do other things as well. She didn't want me to grow up an ignormus."
"Ignoramus," Grandmother corrected, coming in just then, a little smile quirking around the corners of her mouth. "And I'm glad your mother is seeing to your training, Chloe. Goodness, I remember the time Susan Baker and I had trying to interest her in anything domestic! It wasn't until the War that she really started to settle down and make an effort. I suppose she wants to see that you don't have the same flightiness she did."
Chloe tossed her head, but even she didn't dare sass back Grandmother. And to Gwen's relief, Grandmother put on her own apron (which was not ruffled, though nowhere near so stained as Gwen and Lee's), and sat down right at the kitchen table to join in the lesson. Chloe wasn't able to be quite so superior or sneering with Grandmother there.
Lynde completely ignored Chloe, and proceeded with the lesson as if it was an ordinary day. Lee was soon able to forget her cousin as well, and as she had some natural knack for cooking, she did quite well. Poor Gwen, though, was so flustered by Chloe's implied slur against Mother's training, and so disconcerted that her younger cousin could do things in the kitchen she, Gwen, couldn't even dream of doing, that she was even more clumsy and distracted than usual.
Even Grandmother's presence couldn't keep Chloe from shrieking with laughter at Gwen's spectacular failure when the cake she was trying to make for Grandfather came out of the oven completely flat. Lee's simpler baking-powder biscuits were a success, thankfully, and Gwen was able to come out of her misery enough to be thankful that if one of the sisters had to make a fool of herself, it wasn't sweet, sensitive Lee.
"I have an idea," Grandmother said brightly, after she mourned with Gwen over the cake's failure, and consoled her with the old story of the cake she had flavoured with anodyne liniment. "Owen and Jo came to tell me yesterday that the strawberries in the fields past the village are ripe. How would it be if Gwen went to pick berries, and Chloe stayed here and made a big bowl of whipped cream, and then we can serve strawberry shortcake to your grandfather, and tell him three of his granddaughters made it for him."
The girls looked dubiously at each other, but none of them wanted to admit to Grandmother that they would much rather not collaborate. Gwen remembered in time that she was the eldest of the trio, and could be reasonably expected to be the most mature.
"I'd be happy to go pick strawberries, Grandmother," she said brightly. "And I'm sure Chloe can make the most delicious whipped cream!"
"Well," Chloe said reluctantly, "as long as Gwen is extra careful with the berries …"
"That's settled then," Lynde said. "I'll stay here to supervise you, Chloe."
Behind Grandmother's back, Chloe crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at Lynde, who frowned so majestically that even Rilla Ford's proud daughter shrank back.
"I'll go find you a basket, Gwen," Lynde said, turning her own back on the abashed Chloe.
Gwen bit back a giggle. "Thank you, Lynde."
The two friends shared a secret smile.
The sun was rising higher as Gwen walked to the strawberry fields a little later. She was wearing a straw hat to protect her fair skin, but even so she guessed she was probably going to get a sunburn. She mentally shrugged her shoulders over it—she got burned every summer at least once, usually more, and she had learned to live with the discomfort.
She was a little surprised, as she went through the Glen, that none of her school acquaintances returned her waved greeting. Even Jean Drew, her teammate, turned her head and acted as though she hadn't seen Gwen.
Some of the Glen boys, however, especially the ones she didn't know at all, were acting oddly familiar. Several winked and grinned—leered, really—at her, and one or two even called out words that Gwen didn't understand.
She was confused, and a little hurt by her friends' behaviour. Was it her hat? She knew it wasn't very becoming, but that was no reason for the girls to act as though they were suddenly too good for her. Besides, that wouldn't explain the … the flirting that the boys were doing.
Gwen suddenly felt very nervous, and she rushed the rest of the way through the village, gasping in unexplained relief when she reached the strawberry fields. The Elliot youngsters were also there picking, but aside from them, it was barren. Gwen waved at them, and was filled with gratitude when they waved back just as they always did.
Whatever was going on, they weren't a part of it, at least.
The berries were thick and red, and it didn't take Gwen's nimble fingers long to fill her basket. As she straightened for one final time and stretched the aches out of her back, Lucy and Van made their way over to say hello.
"Hot day for berrying, isn't it?" Van said by way of greeting.
"Scorching," Gwen agreed. "But these are for Grandfather, so I don't mind."
"We're picking for Mother," Lucy said. "The store is so busy these days that she's been helping Father constantly, and hasn't had any time to do anything else. I'm going to make some jam," she finished proudly.
Van grinned at his sister. "Lu makes the best jam on the Island."
Lucy blushed. "Not as good as Lynde's," she confessed.
Gwen sighed. "Even with Lynde's teaching, I don't think I would ever dare try making jam. Knowing me, I'd likely explode the jars all over the kitchen!"
Lucy giggled. "That happened to Mother last year! And she said—"
"Lucy!" Van warned. "Mother said she's tan our hides if we ever told anyone what she said then."
"Oh, that's right," Lucy said, looking guilty.
Gwen could well imagine what the outspoken and volatile Mrs. Douglas had said. Probably something along the lines of what Aunt Persis had said about Mr. MacAllister's cow!
Many of the Glen matrons disapproved of Mary Douglas, but Gwen rather liked her pungency. She was honest and fearless, and one always knew exactly where one stood with her. "People may not always like Mary," Mother had said once, "But we wouldn't know what to do without her!"
So Gwen was doubly hurt and shocked when, as she walked back through the Glen with Lucy and Van, Mrs. Douglas came boiling out of the store and grabbed her children by their arms, hustling them away.
"Don't you two have anything to do with that one!" she cried, stopping several people in their tracks and causing Gwen's mouth to drop open.
"Do you mean … me, Mrs. Douglas?" she asked in honest confusion.
Mrs. Douglas's pale eyes blazed. "Don't play the injured innocent to me, you young hussy," she snapped. "And don't you go corrupting my daughter or seducing my son, either!"
Gwen reeled back a pace, feeling as though Mrs. Douglas had dealt her a physical blow. Red flooded her cheeks. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Oliver Grant stop dead on the street as Mrs. Douglas's words echoed around the silent square.
"What?" she gasped.
"Mother!" Lucy said in horror. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm not deaf," Mrs. Douglas said. "I've heard what people are saying about this young miss. And all I can say is, it's a shame the daughter of Di Blythe ever came to such a pass. Nan's daughter, now … that I could have believed, but I would have thought Di would have raised her child better!"
Now Gwen was angry as well as hurt. Her ears started buzzing, and she wasn't sure what she might have done if Aunt Persis hadn't come out of the store, her overalls spattered with mud and manure, barn boots rising almost to her knees, her glorious eyes flashing with indignation.
"I'll thank you, Mary Vance Douglas, not to say such things about my family," she said, her voice just as loud as Mrs. Douglas's.
Mrs. Douglas wheeled on her. "You can't expect to hide the truth, Persis Ford Blythe!"
Aunt Persis stepped forward menacingly. "And what truth would that be, Mrs. Douglas?"
"That your niece has no more morals than a barn cat, that's what, Mrs. Blythe! Carrying on with the Kingsport boys, no better than she should be!"
Gwen wanted to protest that it wasn't true, but just then she saw Oliver turn and walk away with his shoulders slumped, and her heart dropped right to her toes.
How on earth had such a rumour gotten started? And how could everyone swallow it, so that even her friends and teammates believed it, even Oliver? Who would say such things about her?
Chloe's words unexpectedly rang through her ears again: "Just you wait. You'll be sorry. I'll make you wish you'd never come to the Glen, and never met Oliver. By the time I'm finished, nobody will like you at all!"
And then Gwen knew just how her cousin planned to make that happen. No wonder Oliver believed it—if Chloe had told him that Gwen was bad, well, he'd known Gwen for much less time than he'd known Chloe. Why wouldn't he believe Chloe over her?
That fact still stung, though. A part of her hoped that Oliver would trust her enough to not believe something so horrible, no matter what Chloe said.
Meanwhile, Aunt Persis and Mrs. Douglas were continuing their battle. "I'll box your ears if you ever say something like that again!" Aunt Persis hissed.
"That won't change the facts," Mrs. Douglas said.
"Facts? What facts? All I've heard is a pile of lies and rumour!"
"No smoke without fire," Mrs. Douglas said. "Rumours wouldn't spread without something behind them."
"I'll tell you what's behind these rumours," Aunt Persis said, her disgusted glare sweeping across everyone who was standing there listening. "A bunch of gossip-mongers with filthy minds. You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves, saying and thinking such things about an innocent young girl." Mrs. Douglas opened her mouth, but Aunt Persis swept on magnificently. "If you, Mary Douglas, or any of you, ever want me to treat any of your animals again, you'll hold your tongues about my Gwen!"
She brushed past Mrs. Douglas as though that woman wasn't even there and put her arm around Gwen's shoulders.
"Come on, honey," she said in a voice that was still perfectly audible. "Don't pay any attention to these old cats. Your family believes in you."
Her family had started these stories, Gwen wanted to say, but she was too shaken to do anything but let Aunt Persis lead her away.
Aunt Persis soon saw that Gwen was in no shape to walk all the way to the House of Dreams, and she suspected that Ingleside might be too full of people for the lass, so she took her to the Meredith house. Aunt Ruth, when outraged, looked like a furious bantam rooster.
"That Mary Douglas may think she runs this village, but she'll soon be singing a different tune when she's sick and wants Bruce or Jem to treat her!" she sputtered.
"Oh please," Gwen begged, "Please don't turn this into any kind of feud. It's not as though Mrs. Douglas started these stories, and it's not her fault that she believes them. Nobody here really knows anything about me."
"They know you're a Blythe," Aunt Persis said. "That ought to be enough."
"I am so sick of people going on about my name!" Gwen cried impatiently. "It doesn't matter if my name of Blythe or Blake or Ford or Meredith or … Smith! What matters is me."
Aunt Persis looked taken aback by such an outburst from their usually agreeable Gwen, but Aunt Ruth patted her arm approvingly.
"Well said, Gwen. You're absolutely right, of course. And anyone who knows you at all ought to know that you would never behave in such a manner."
"And please," Gwen said, surging ahead. "Don't say anything or treat anyone any differently because of this. If you all start responding to the stories, people will think there's something in them and you're just trying to protect me. Please, can't we all just ignore it?"
Aunt Persis bristled. "What? And let whomever started these rumours get away with it?"
"Gwen is right, Persis," Aunt Ruth said. "If we act calm and dignified, as though such a tale is too ludicrous to even dignify with a defence, it will do far more to countering the tale than if we burst into a passionate denial." She smiled. "I do wish I had seen you blasting Mary into oblivion, though!"
Aunt Persis laughed a little guiltily. "I'm too outspoken, I know, Shirley tells me that all the time, but ooh, that woman gets under my skin! Well Gwen, it goes against every fibre of my being not to rip people to shreds for maligning you, but I suppose you and Ruth are right. Ignore something like this, and it ought to die away. No smoke without fire, Mary Douglas says. No fire lasts without fresh fuel, I say."
"How would such a rumour even get started about you, Gwen?" Aunt Ruth said. "Anybody who knows you even a little knows how ridiculous it is. Who would say something like that?"
"Some boy you rejected, maybe, trying to get revenge?" Aunt Persis suggested. "A jealous schoolmate, maybe that MacAllister girl who used to be the athletic star of the school until you came along with your running?"
Gwen shook her head. Honesty kept her from fibbing to her aunts, but she couldn't quite bring herself to tattle on Chloe. Besides, she didn't know for certain it was her cousin who had started them. She just knew it had to be her. She wondered just what exactly Chloe had said to Oliver, and to others.
"Nothing like that," she said. "I think I know who it was, and why, but I can't say anything."
"Don't protect this person, child!" Aunt Persis exclaimed. "Tell the truth and shame the devil, as they used to say."
Aunt Ruth was watching Gwen's face. "No, Persis," she said gently. "Let Gwen keep her own counsel. She's a young woman, she knows her own mind. It's her choice."
Aunt Persis sighed, but yielded. "At least let me go call Mary Douglas a few more choice names," she begged.
Even in the midst of her shame and misery, Gwen couldn't keep a tiny smile from her face at that. "Sorry, Auntie." She stood up from the kitchen chair Aunt Ruth had put underneath her. "I need to get these strawberries back to Ingleside."
"Are you sure? I could take them for you, if you wanted to stay here for a bit," Aunt Persis offered.
Aunt Ruth nodded. "Winnie and Ruthie and I would be more than happy to have you."
And let Chloe know she'd succeeded? Gwen would rather stand in the street and let Mrs. Douglas say horrible things to her and about her again!
"No, thank you," she said primly. "I think it's best if we all pretend this never happened. I'm going to go back to Ingleside and not say a word to anyone there about anything."
Aunt Ruth and Aunt Persis walked her to the door and watched her head down the hill, the basket carried easily over her arm, her head high and proud, her stride confident.
"I don't know if I could have handled something like this with that kind of aplomb at her age," Aunt Persis said admiringly. "Gracious, I'm not handling it well now!"
"She is a fine young woman," Aunt Ruth agreed. Her pleasant, plump face turned grim. "And if I ever find out who started these rumours, I'll make that person sorry he or she was ever born."
"And I will join you," Aunt Persis said decisively.