November serse, bluish grayness was everywhere. The air was fresh from the misty rain, the nature of Four Winds seemed dead, and the branches of the wild willow trees reached out their branches towards the cloudy sky, like starving, begging hands.
Anne barely stopped her trembling as she walked across the familiar yellowish, grassy plain, a short cut to the Moore house, which tonight seemed even more abandoned and sad than usual, as if the world's sorrows were congealed in its gray clapboarding.
Warm light flooded from the windows onto the veranda, as Anne cautiously stopped at the threshold and glanced around.
Leslie's geese cackled and the dark shadow of the dog flashed past Anne's feet, through the half-open door. The dog turned on the threshold, and looked in Anne's direction, attentively, gently, and then it sighed and settled down on the threshold, footsteps were heard, and the flickering lantern cast its varying light, on Leslie's features as she met Anne's gaze and said in her usual curt no nonsense way, " It is time for Lighthouse revelry? Come in for a minute, it's a little damp in here, while I get ready. I just fed my geese. Well, Carlo, you old beloved. Come already."
The dog stretched, and its claws clicked softly on the wooden floor as it followed its mistress. Wary, Anne glanced at Carlo, as she remembered those angry chained dogs whose drool dripped onto the dusty ground at Hammonds.
Leslie glanced in Anne's direction, and noticed that she had stiffened, softly Leslie said, "Carlo is nothing to be afraid of." Carlo gave a low growl. Anne startled, and seeing it, Leslie said sharply, commandingly "Carlo. Settle down now!"
The dog, stopped growling, its tail wagged once.
The parlor was furnished modestly but cozily, as Anne looked around with eager eyes. Beautiful cross-stitch work was framed on the wall. Everything was worn but clean, and Anne saw no sign of the torturous, consuming poverty from which Leslie, according to Miss Cornelia, suffered, at least at first glance.
On the small table was a thick book that looked like an account book, and a small vase full of dried roses, the petals of which had blackened over time. A narrow wooden bookshelf was filled with handful of cloth and leather-backed books, all of which were almost tattered.
On the staircase there was tuneless humming, and shuffling footsteps, and Anne saw large figure of Dick Moore as he crossed parlor and sat down in a worn armchair that creaked with his weight.
Almost against her will, Anne felt a tickling curiosity to see Leslie and Dick together.
Leslie walked with sliding steps to the armchair and leaned towards Dick so that her hair covered his face, there were faint murmurs and then Dick got up and smiled in his vaque way. Those mismatched eyes, the gaze of his eyes fell on Anne, and a hoarse baritone voice said, "Red, Red."
The wind had picked up and the willow branches scratched the window.
Leslie's expression was inscrutable as she heard her husband's words. Slowly Dick Moore turned and walked out of the parlor, his striped sailor cap twirling in his hands. The worn cabinet clock jingled, and that sound broke the spell.
And in no time at all Anne and Leslie walked towards the reddish rocky headland and the Four Winds lighthouse.
The silent dusk slowly arrived at the Lighthouse of the Four Winds. The sparkling sunset colored the slightly grayish and melancholic bare landscape, it also crowned Leslie's profile with an almost unearthly beauty, as it blazed around her softening softly.
Anne noted that Leslie seemed tired, tense, although a few moments before the conversation had burst forth in a lively, animated manner, as whenever Leslie attended these informal evenings, Captain Jim arguing with Gilbert about everything between earth and sky, as the red-gold First Mate's purring sounded softly, in pleasant counterpoint to hissing of teacattle, as Captain Jim prided himself on his tea-making, which he had collected from his travels.
Anne glanced searchingly at Leslie as she got up in a restless way and said briefly, "I can't stay put in this bleak weather, come on, let's do a little ramble before the light fades completely." The waves licked the reddish rocks and the waterline was almost black, as Anne followed Leslie's slim figure over the rocks towards the far shore. They rambled, in silence.
Anne felt that perhaps Leslie did not wish to speak. This silence was pleasant, almost enchanted, and it was slightly macabre as the deep shadows rose. At last Anne softly murmured that one Browning quotation, which was Leslie to her.
Leslie, glancing inquisitively at Anne, as the immortal verses mingled with the roar of the sea. Leslie leaned against the reddish stone, which was almost at the water's edge, boldly, and slight unease fluttering in her heart Anne pleaded, " Leslie, dearest, come up to the shore, the tide."
The water bubbled and foamed below them, greenish black, as Leslie smiled. There was something eerie in that smile, and sharp, as Leslie turned and lightly jumped over the stone and laughing brightly, silver-and golden, marred only with slight sting, as the wind rose and spread Leslie's untied braid, so that those long, curly, golden hair spread, like a veil, like a golden cloud, around Leslie.
That sight, it caused a queer sting in Anne's heart, which did not lessen as a bit later, they sat again in the glow of Captain Jim's fireplace and listened as Captain Jim told his best stories to an eager audience.
Carefully, Gilbert glanced across the room at Anne and Leslie, who had recently reentered. And as he listened with one ear to Captain Jim's sweeping narrative, full of valour, he thought of the conversation he had had with the Captain concerning Dick Moore.
Captain Jim had put his "Life-Book" back into his little box, and had said simply, "I did my duty to Dick Moore, I couldn't help it, when I found him in Cuba, in obscure conditions, places of which there are several, where men amuse themselves, and take it what they get out of women and drink."
Intrigued, Gilbert had asked, "What was Dick like before?"
There was a rueful look in Captain Jim's plain, rugged features, as he said, "Cornelia Bryant must have described to your wife the unworthiness of Dick Moore, but I can tell you, man to man, that Dick Moore was one of the best sailors I ever met, he had seemed to have a sixth sense, relating to the sea, the sea was in his blood, like mine. But no outsider knows what kind of marriage they had. Leslie does not reveal her heart to anyone. She was married too young, I've always thought so. Their age difference was too great, although here on these shores beautiful girls are always married early. I consider Leslie almost like my own grandchild, even though I don't have any. Because sometimes she reminds someone, that I lost to the sea."
Later as she and Gilbert walked across the fields, towards their House of Dreams, as Leslie had turned onto her own path, the longer road, the rising fog seemed to crown her hazy figure. Admiringly Anne remarked, "Gilbert, Leslie is made for something more, I feel it. She seems to be wasted here."
Gilbert mused, "I argued with Captain Jim about this the other week and we came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a Wasted life, according to the doctrine of predestination. For, I think the Creator has several plans for us. He transported you to Green Gables, and Leslie does what she can, she lives usefully with her limited means. If you had made a different choice in Redmond you could be a social luminary of Kingsportian parlors, and not a struggling country doctors young wife, at the backwaters of rural community."
Gilbert enjoyed how Anne's eyes sparkled in their most greenish as she reposted, in appalled tone of voice, full of italics, " Gilbert John Blythe! How can you say that, for you know I never loved Royal Gardiner, I only imagined so, you know you are cruel, like all men, as Miss Cornelia would say. I am blissfully happy as your wife, in our dear little home, with you by my side."
Anne's lips were soft against Gilbert's, as the glittering moon cast its rays on the dark sea, and created a shimmering bridge.
The lights of the twinkling houses twinkled on the shore, as Anne whispered, "Look my love, there is our light, it is waiting for us."
Afterward, Gilbert looked at the sleeping Anne, and thought of the news which Anne had confessed to him with her reddened cheeks.
Child, spring flower. Anne was pregnant.
Leslie Moore, sat by the window and watched the strand of moonlight over the forest, the lights had gone out from the windows of the House of Dreams. Leslie felt the old bitterness, almost anger, rearing its head again, and with difficulty she had fought it down, seeing Anne and Gilbert disappear into the fog together.
Anne's enchanted expression, the gleam of her large grey-green eyes, the half-opened lips, as Leslie had leapt over the stones, and laughed wildly, as she used to do when she was a child, and the wind had caught her hair.
In that moment, Leslie had felt once again after years the power of her own beauty, it was a weapon, not always necessarily a curse, although it was that too. Idly Leslie swiped Mama Rose's old muslin nightgown decorated with embroiderty and ribbons, below the neckline, with restless fingers, it was all so pointless. Desire, passion, it only hurt, even love.