Like Mrs. Dare, he might miss it if it wasn't there.
"Well, I must go and see to Rilla and Shirley," thought Anne drearily. "At least, THEY need me still, poor darlings. What made me so snappish with them? Oh, I suppose they're all saying behind my back, 'How cranky poor Mother is getting!'“
It continued to rain and the wind continued to wail. The fantasia of tin pans in the garret had stopped but the ceaseless chirping of a solitary cricket in the living-room nearly drove her mad. The noon mail brought her two letters. One was from Marilla ... but Anne sighed as she folded it up. Marilla's handwriting was getting so frail and shaky. The other letter was from Mrs. Barrett Fowler of Charlottetown whom Anne knew very slightly. And Mrs. Barrett Fowler wanted Dr. and Mrs. Blythe to dine with her next Tuesday night at seven o'clock "to meet your old friend, Mrs. Andrew Dawson of Winnipeg, nee Christine Stuart.”
Anne dropped the letter. A flood of old memories poured over her ... some of them decidedly unpleasant. Christine Stuart of Redmond ... the girl to whom people had once said Gilbert was engaged ... the girl of whom she had once been so bitterly jealous ... yes, she admitted it now, twenty years after ... she HAD been jealous ... she had hated Christine Stuart. She had not thought of Christine for years but she remembered her distinctly.
A tall, ivory-white girl with great dark-blue eyes and blue-black masses of hair. And a certain air of distinction. But with a long nose ... yes, definitely a long nose. Handsome ... oh, you couldn't deny that Christine had been very handsome. She remembered hearing many years ago that Christine had "married well" and gone West.
Gilbert came in for a hurried bite of supper ... there was an epidemic of measles in the Upper Glen ... and Anne silently handed him Mrs. Fowler's letter.
"Christine Stuart! Of course we'll go. I'd like to see her for old sake's sake," he said, with the first appearance of admiration he had shown for weeks. "Poor girl, she has had her own troubles.
She lost her husband four years ago, you know.”
Anne didn't know. And how came Gilbert to know? Why had he never told her? And had he forgotten that next Tuesday was the anniversary of their own wedding day? A day on which they had never accepted any invitation but went off on a little bat of their own. Well, SHE wouldn't remind him. He could see his Christine if he wanted to. What had a girl at Redmond once said to her darkly, "There was a good deal more between Gilbert and Christine than you ever knew, Anne." She had merely laughed at it at the time ...
Claire Hallett was a spiteful thing. But perhaps there HAD been something in it. Anne suddenly remembered, with a little chill of the spirit, that not long after her marriage she had found a small photograph of Christine in an old pocketbook of Gilbert's. Gilbert had seemed quite indifferent and said he'd wondered where that old snap had got to. But ... was it one of those unimportant things that are significant of things tremendously important? Was it possible ... had Gilbert ever loved Christine? Was she, Anne, only a second choice? The consolation prize?
"Surely I'm not ... jealous," thought Anne, trying to laugh. It was all very ridiculous. What more natural than that Gilbert should like the idea of meeting an old Redmond friend? What more natural than that a busy man, married for fifteen years, should forget times and seasons and days and months? Anne wrote to Mrs.
Fowler, accepting her invitation ... and then put in the three days before Tuesday hoping desperately that somebody in the Upper Glen would start having a baby Tuesday afternoon about half past five.
Chapter 40
The hoped for baby arrived too soon. Gilbert was sent for at nine Monday night. Anne wept herself to sleep and wakened at three. It used to be delicious to wake in the night ... to lie and look out of her window at the night's enfolding loveliness ... to hear Gilbert's regular breathing beside her ... to think of the children across the hall and the beautiful new day that was coming.
But now! Anne was still awake when the dawn, clear and green as fluor-spar, was in the eastern sky and Gilbert came home at last.
"Twins," he said hollowly as he flung himself into bed and was asleep in a minute. Twins, indeed! The dawn of the fifteenth anniversary of your wedding day and all your husband could say to you was "Twins." He didn't even remember it WAS an anniversary.
Gilbert apparently didn't remember it any better when he came down at eleven. For the first time he did not mention it; for the first time he had no gift for her. Very well, HE shouldn't get his gift either. She had had ready for weeks ... a silver-handled pocket- knife with the date on one side and his initials on the other. Of course he must buy it from her with a cent, lest it cut their love.
But since he had forgotten she would forget too, with a vengeance.
Gilbert seemed in a sort of daze all day. He hardly spoke to anyone and moped about the library. Was he lost in glamourous anticipation of seeing his Christine again? Probably he had been hankering after her all these years in the back of his mind. Anne knew quite well this idea was absolutely unreasonable but when was jealousy ever reasonable? It was no use trying to be philosophical.
Philosophy had no effect on her mood.
They were going to town on the five-o'clock train. "Can we come in and watch you dreth, Mummy?" asked Rilla.
"Oh, if you want to," said Anne ... then pulled herself up sharply. Why, her voice was getting querulous. "Come along, darling," she added repentantly.
Rilla had no greater delight than watching Mummy dress. But even Rilla thought Mummy was not getting much fun out of it that night.
Anne took some thought as to what dress she should wear. Not that it mattered, she told herself bitterly, what she put on. Gilbert never noticed now. The mirror was no longer her friend ... she looked pale and tired ... and UNWANTED. But she must not look too countrified and passe before Christine. ("I won't have her sorry for me.") Was it to be her new apple-green net over a slip with rosebuds in it? Or her cream silk gauze with its Eton jacket of Cluny lace? She tried both of them on and decided on the net.
She experimented with several hair-do's and concluded that the new drooping pompadour was very becoming.
"Oh, Mummy, you look beautiful!" gasped Rilla in round-eyed admiration.
Well, children and fools were supposed to tell the truth. Had not Rebecca Dew once told her that she was "comparatively beautiful"?
As for Gilbert, he used to pay her compliments in the past but when had he given utterance to one of late months? Anne could not recall a single one.
Gilbert passed through on his way to his dressing closet and said not a word about her new dress. Anne stood for a moment burning with resentment; then she petulantly tore off the dress and flung it on the bed. She would wear her old black ... a thin affair that was considered extremely "smart" in Four Winds circles but which Gilbert had never liked. What should she wear on her neck?
Jem's beads, though treasured for years, had long since crumbled.
She really hadn't a decent necklace. Well ... she got out the little box containing the pink enamel heart Gilbert had given her at Redmond. She seldom wore it now ... after all, pink didn't go well with her red hair ... but she would put it on tonight.
Would Gilbert notice it? There, she was ready. Why wasn't Gilbert? What was keeping him? Oh, no doubt he was shaving VERY carefully! She tapped sharply on the door.
"Gilbert, we're going to miss the train if you don't hurry.”
"You sound school-teacherish," said Gilbert, coming out. "Anything wrong with your metatarsals?”
Oh, he could make a joke of it, could he? She would not let herself think how well he looked in his tails. After all, the modern fashions of men's clothes were really ridiculous. Entirely lacking in glamour. How gorgeous it must have been in "the spacious days of Great Elizabeth" when men could wear white satin doublets and cloaks of crimson velvet and lace ruffs! Yet they were not effeminate. They were the most wonderful and adventurous men the world had ever seen.