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situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.
"She'll stay in her room until she confesses," said Marilla grimly,
remembering the success of this method in the former case. "Then we'll see.
Perhaps we'll be able to find the brooch if she'll only tell where she took it;
but in any case she'll have to be severely punished, Matthew."
"Well now, you'll have to punish her," said Matthew, reaching for his hat.
"I've nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself."
Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde for
advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face and left it
with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused to confess. She
persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch. The child had
evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity which she sternly
repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it, "beat out."
"You'll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up your
mind to that," she said firmly.
"But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla," cried Anne. "You won't keep me
from going to that, will you? You'll just let me out for the afternoon, won't
you? Then I'll stay here as long as you like AFTERWARDS cheerfully. But
I MUST go to the picnic."
"You'll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you've confessed, Anne."
"Oh, Marilla," gasped Anne.
But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to
order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies in
the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless winds at
CHAPTER XIV 105
every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms like spirits
of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful hands as if watching
for Anne's usual morning greeting from the east gable. But Anne was not at
her window. When Marilla took her breakfast up to her she found the child
sitting primly on her bed, pale and resolute, with tight-shut lips and
gleaming eyes.
"Marilla, I'm ready to confess."
"Ah!" Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded;
but her success was very bitter to her. "Let me hear what you have to say
then, Anne."
"I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she had
learned. "I took it just as you said. I didn't mean to take it when I went in.
But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my breast that I
was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how perfectly
thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was the Lady Cordelia
Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I was the Lady Cordelia
if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and I make necklaces of
roseberries but what are roseberries compared to amethysts? So I took the
brooch. I thought I could put it back before you came home. I went all the
way around by the road to lengthen out the time. When I was going over
the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters I took the brooch off to have
another look at it. Oh, how it did shine in the sunlight! And then, when I
was leaning over the bridge, it just slipped through my fingers--so--and
went down--down--down, all purplysparkling, and sank forevermore
beneath the Lake of Shining Waters. And that's the best I can do at
confessing, Marilla."
Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had taken
and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly reciting
the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or repentance.
"Anne, this is terrible," she said, trying to speak calmly. "You are the very
wickedest girl I ever heard of"
CHAPTER XIV 106
"Yes, I suppose I am," agreed Anne tranquilly. "And I know I'll have to be
punished. It'll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won't you please get it
over right off because I'd like to go to the picnic with nothing on my mind."
"Picnic, indeed! You'll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shall be
your punishment. And it isn't half severe enough either for what you've
done!"
"Not go to the picnic!" Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla's hand.
"But you PROMISED me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the picnic.
That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that. Oh,
Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice cream! For
anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice cream again."
Marilla disengaged Anne's clinging hands stonily.
"You needn't plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that's final.
No, not a word."
Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands
together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself face downward on
the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of disappointment
and despair.
"For the land's sake!" gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. "I believe
the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she does. If she
isn't she's utterly bad. Oh dear, I'm afraid Rachel was right from the first.
But I've put my hand to the plow and I won't look back."
That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the
porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to do.
Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did. Then she
went out and raked the yard.
When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A
tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters.
CHAPTER XIV 107
"Come down to your dinner, Anne."
"I don't want any dinner, Marilla," said Anne, sobbingly. "I couldn't eat
anything. My heart is broken. You'll feel remorse of conscience someday, I
expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember when the time
comes that I forgive you. But please don't ask me to eat anything, especially
boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are so unromantic when
one is in affliction."
Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale of woe
to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful sympathy
with Anne, was a miserable man.
"Well now, she shouldn't have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories
about it," he admitted, mournfuly surveying his plateful of unromantic pork
and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited to crises of
feeling, "but she's such a little thing--such an interesting little thing. Don't
you think it's pretty rough not to let her go to the picnic when she's so set
on it?"
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm amazed at you. I think I've let her off entirely too
easy. And she doesn't appear to realize how wicked she's been at all--that's
what worries me most. If she'd really felt sorry it wouldn't be so bad. And
you don't seem to realize it, neither; you're making excuses for her all the
time to yourself--I can see that."
"Well now, she's such a little thing," feebly reiterated Matthew. "And there
should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she's never had any
bringing up."
"Well, she's having it now" retorted Marilla.
The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]