Aunt Mary Maria said nothing aggravatingly. She never talked to Susan Baker at meal-times, thus expressing her disapproval over Susan being allowed to "sit with the family" at all.
Anne and Susan had thrashed that out before Aunt Mary Maria had come. Susan, who "knew her place," never sat or expected to sit with the family when there was company at Ingleside.
"But Aunt Mary Maria isn't company," said Anne. "She's just one of the family ... and so are you, Susan.”
In the end Susan gave in, not without a secret satisfaction that Mary Maria Blythe would see that she was no common hired girl.
Susan had never met Aunt Mary Maria, but a niece of Susan's, the daughter of her sister Matilda, had worked for her in Charlottetown and had told Susan all about her.
"I am not going to pretend to you, Susan, that I'm overjoyed at the prospect of a visit from Aunt Mary Maria, especially just now,” said Anne frankly. "But she has written Gilbert asking if she may come for a few weeks ... and you know how the doctor is about such things...”
"As he has a perfect right to be," said Susan staunchly. "What is a man to do but stand by his own flesh and blood? But as for a few weeks ... well, Mrs. Dr. dear, I do not want to look on the dark side of things ... but my sister Matilda's sister-in-law came to visit HER for a few weeks and stayed for twenty years.”
"I don't think we need dread anything like that, Susan," smiled Anne. "Aunt Mary Maria has a very nice home of her own in Charlottetown. But she is finding it very big and lonely. Her mother died two years ago, you know ... she was eighty-five and Aunt Mary Maria was very good to her and misses her very much.
Let's make her visit as pleasant as we can, Susan.”
"I will do what in me lies, Mrs. Dr. dear. Of course we must put another board in the table, but after all is said and done it is better to be lengthening the table than shortening it down.”
"We mustn't have flowers on the table, Susan, because I understand they give her asthma. And pepper makes her sneeze, so we'd better not have it. She is subject to frequent bad headaches, too, so we must really try not to be noisy.”
"Good grief! Well, I have never noticed you and the doctor making much noise. And if I want to yell I can go to the middle of the maple bush; but if our poor children have to keep quiet ALL the time because of Mary Maria Blythe's headaches ... you will excuse me for saying I think it is going a little too far, Mrs. Dr. dear.”
"It's just for a few weeks, Susan.”
"Let us hope so. Oh, well, Mrs. Dr. dear, we just have to take the lean streaks with the fat in this world," was Susan's final word.
So Aunt Mary Maria came, demanding immediately upon her arrival if they had had the chimneys cleaned recently. She had, it appeared, a great dread of fire. "And I've always said that the chimneys of this house aren't nearly tall enough. I hope my bed has been well aired, Annie. Damp bed linen is terrible.”
She took possession of the Ingleside guest-room ... and incidentally of all the other rooms in the house except Susan's.
Nobody hailed her arrival with frantic delight. Jem, after one look at her, slipped out to the kitchen and whispered to Susan, "Can we laugh while she's here, Susan?" Walter's eyes brimmed with tears at sight of her and he had to be hustled ignominiously out of the room. The twins did not wait to be hustled but ran of their own accord. Even the Shrimp, Susan averred went and had a fit in the back yard. Only Shirley stood his ground, gazing fearlessly at her out of his round brown eyes from the safe anchorage of Susan's lap and arm. Aunt Mary Maria thought the Ingleside children had very bad manners. But what could you expect when they had a mother who "wrote for the papers" and a father who thought they were perfection just because they were HIS children, and a hired girl like Susan Baker who never knew her place? But she, Mary Maria Blythe, would do her best for poor Cousin John's grandchildren as long as she was at Ingleside.
"Your grace is much too short, Gilbert," she said disapprovingly at her first meal. "Would you like me to say grace for you while I am here? It will be a better example to your family.”
Much to Susan's horror Gilbert said he would and Aunt Mary Maria said grace at supper. "More like a prayer than a grace," Susan sniffed over her dishes. Susan privately agreed with her niece's description of Mary Maria Blythe. "She always seems to be smelling a bad smell, Aunt Susan. Not an unpleasant odour ... just a bad smell." Gladys had a way of putting things, Susan reflected. And yet, to anyone less prejudiced than Susan Miss Mary Maria Blythe was not ill-looking for a lady of fifty-five. She had what she believed were "aristocratic features," framed by always sleek grey crimps which seemed to insult daily Susan's spiky little knob of grey hair. She dressed very nicely, wore long jet earrings in her ears and fashionably high-boned net collars on her lean throat.
"At least, we do not need to be ashamed of her appearance,” reflected Susan. But what Aunt Mary Maria would have thought if she had known Susan was consoling herself on such grounds must be left to the imagination.
Chapter 5
Anne was cutting a vaseful of June lilies for her room and another of Susan's peonies for Gilbert's desk in the library ... the milky-white peonies with the blood-red flecks at their hearts, like a god's kiss. The air was coming alive after the unusually hot June day and one could hardly tell whether the harbour were silver or gold.
"There's going to be a wonderful sunset tonight, Susan," she said, looking in at the kitchen window as she passed it.
"I cannot admire the sunset until I have got my dishes washed, Mrs.
Dr. dear," protested Susan.
"It will be gone by that time, Susan. Look at that enormous white cloud towering up over the Hollow, with its rosy-pink top.
Wouldn't you like to fly up and light on it?”
Susan had a vision of herself flying up over the glen, dishcloth in hand, to that cloud. It did not appeal to her. But allowances must be made for Mrs. Dr. just now.
"There's a new, vicious kind of bug eating the rose-bushes," went on Anne. "I must spray them tomorrow. I'd like to do it tonight ... this is just the kind of evening I love to work in the garden.
Things are growing tonight. I hope there'll be gardens in heaven, Susan ... gardens we can work in, I mean, and help things to grow.”
"But not bugs surely," protested Susan.
"No-o-o, I suppose not. But a COMPLETED garden wouldn't really be any fun, Susan. You have to work in a garden yourself or you miss its meaning. I want to weed and dig and transplant and change and plan and prune. And I want the flowers I love in heaven ... I'd rather my own pansies than the asphodel, Susan.”
"Why cannot you put in the evening as you want to?" broke in Susan, who thought Mrs. Dr. was really going a little wild.
"Because the doctor wants me to go for a drive with him. He is going to see poor old Mrs. John Paxton. She is dying ... he can't do her any good ... he has done everything he can ... but she does like to have him drop in.”
"Oh, well, Mrs. Dr. dear, we all know that nobody can die or be born without him hereabouts and it is a nice evening for a drive.
I think I will take a walk down to the village myself and replenish our pantry after I put the twins and Shirley to bed and manure Mrs.
Aaron Ward. She isn't blooming as she ought to. Miss Blythe has just gone upstairs, sighing at every step, saying one of her headaches is coming on, so there will be a little peace and quiet for the evening at least.”
"See that Jem goes to bed in good time, will you, Susan?" said Anne as she went away through the evening that was like a cup of fragrance that has spilled over. "He's really much tireder than he thinks he is. And he never wants to go to bed. Walter is not coming home tonight, Leslie asked if he might stay there.”