When she knew perfectly well Anne hadn't! Why did the simplest question sound insolent when Christine asked it?
"Of course a family ties you down terribly," said Christine. "Oh, whom do you think I saw last month when I was in Halifax? That little friend of yours ... the one who married the ugly minister ... what WAS his name?”
"Jonas Blake," said Anne. "Philippa Gordon married him. And I never thought he was ugly.”
"DIDN'T you? Of course tastes differ. Well, anyway I met them.
POOR Philippa!”
Christine's use of "poor" was very effective.
"Why poor?" asked Anne. "I think she and Jonas have been very happy.”
"Happy! My dear, if you could see the place they live in! A wretched little fishing village where it was an excitement if the pigs broke into the garden! I was told that the Jonas-man had had a good church in Kingsport and had given it up because he thought it his 'duty' to go to the fishermen who 'needed' him. I have no use for such fanatics. 'How CAN you live in such an isolated, out- of-the-way place as this?' I asked Philippa. Do you know what she said?”
Christine threw out her beringed hands expressively.
"Perhaps what I would say of Glen St. Mary," said Anne. "That it was the only place in the world to live in.”
"Fancy you being contented there," smiled Christine. ("That terrible mouthful of teeth!") "Do you really never feel that you want a broader life? You used to be quite ambitious, if I remember aright. Didn't you write some rather clever little things when you were at Redmond? A bit fantastic and whimsical, of course, but still ...”
"I wrote them for the people who still believe in fairyland. There is a surprising lot of them, you know, and they like to get news from that country.”
"And you've quite given it up?”
"Not altogether ... but I'm writing living epistles now," said Anne, thinking of Jem and Co.
Christine stared, not recognizing the quotation. What did Anne Shirley mean? But then, of course, she had been noted at Redmond for her mysterious speeches. She had kept her looks astonishingly but probably she was one of those women who got married and stopped thinking. Poor Gilbert! She had hooked him before he came to Redmond. He had never had the least chance to escape her.
"Does anybody ever eat philopenas now?" asked Dr. Murray, who had just cracked a twin almond. Christine turned to Gilbert.
"Do you remember that philopena WE ate once?" she asked.
("Did a significant look pass between them?") "Do you suppose I could forget it?" asked Gilbert.
They plunged into a spate of "do-you-remembers," while Anne stared at the picture of fish and oranges hanging over the sideboard. She had never thought that Gilbert and Christine had had so many memories in common. "Do you remember our picnic up the Arm? ... Do you remember the night we went to the negro church? ... Do you remember the night we went to the masquerade? ... you were a Spanish lady in a black velvet dress with a lace mantilla and fan.”
Gilbert apparently remembered them all in detail. But he had forgotten his wedding anniversary!
When they went back to the drawing-room Christine glanced out of the window at an eastern sky that was showing pale silver behind the dark poplars.
"Gilbert, let us take a stroll in the garden. I want to learn again the meaning of moonrise in September.”
("Does moonrise mean anything in September that it doesn't mean in any other month? And what does she mean by 'again.' Did she ever learn it before ... with him?") Out they went. Anne felt that she had been very neatly and sweetly brushed aside. She sat down on a chair that commanded a view of the garden ... though she would not admit even to herself that she selected it for that reason. She could see Christine and Gilbert walking down the path. What were they saying to each other? Christine seemed to be doing most of the talking. Perhaps Gilbert was too dumb with emotion to speak. Was he smiling out there in the moonrise over memories in which she had no share? She recalled nights she and Gilbert had walked in moonlit gardens of Avonlea. Had HE forgotten?
Christine was looking up at the sky. Of course she knew she was showing off that fine, full white throat of hers when she lifted her face like that. Did ever a moon take so long in rising?
Other guests were dropping in when they finally came back. There was talk, laughter, music. Christine sang ... very well. She had always been "musical." She sang AT Gilbert ... "the dear dead days beyond recall." Gilbert leaned back in an easy-chair and was uncommonly silent. Was he looking back wistfully to those dear dead days? Was he picturing what his life would have been if he had married Christine? ("I've always known what Gilbert was thinking of before. My head is beginning to ache. If we don't get away soon I'll be throwing up my head and howling. Thank heaven our train leaves early.") When Anne came downstairs Christine was standing in the porch with Gilbert. She reached up and picked a leaf from his shoulder; the gesture was like a caress.
"Are you really well, Gilbert? You look frightfully tired. I KNOW you're overdoing it.”
A wave or horror swept over Annie. Gilbert DID look tired ... frightfully tired ... and she hadn't seen it until Christine pointed it out! Never would she forget the humiliation of that moment. ("I've been taking Gilbert too much for granted and blaming him for doing the same thing.") Christine turned to her.
"It's been so nice to meet you again, Anne. Quite like old times.”
"Quite," said Anne.
"But I've just been telling Gilbert he looked a little tired. You ought to take better care of him, Anne. There was a time, you know, when I really had quite a fancy for this husband of yours.
I believe he really was the nicest beau I ever had. But you must forgive me since I didn't take him from you.”
Anne froze up again.
"Perhaps he is pitying himself that you didn't," she said, with a certain "queenishness" not unknown to Christine in Redmond days, as she stepped into Dr. Fowler's carriage for the drive to the station.
"You dear funny thing!" said Christine, with a shrug of her beautiful shoulders. She was looking after them as if something amused her hugely.
Chapter 40
"Had a nice evening?" asked Gilbert, more absently than ever as he helped her on the train.
"Oh, lovely," said Anne ... who felt that she had, in Jane Welsh Carlyle's splendid phrase, "spent the evening under a harrow.”
"What made you do your hair that way?" said Gilbert still absently.
"It's the new fashion.”
"Well, it doesn't suit you. It may be all right for some hair but not for yours.”
"Oh, it is too bad my hair is red," said Anne icily.
Gilbert thought he was wise in dropping a dangerous subject. Anne, he reflected, had always been a bit sensitive about her hair. He was too tired to talk, anyway. He leaned his head back on the car seat and shut his eyes. For the first time Anne noticed little glints of grey in the hair above his ears. But she hardened her heart.
They walked silently home from the Glen station by the short-cut to Ingleside. The air was filled with the breath of spruce and spice fern. The moon was shining over dew-wet fields. They passed an old deserted house with sad and broken windows that had once danced with light. "Just like my life," thought Anne. Everything seemed to have for her some dreary meaning now. The dim white moth that fluttered past them on the lawn was, she thought sadly, like a ghost of faded love. Then she caught her foot in a croquet hoop and nearly fell headlong into a clump of phlox. What on earth did the children mean by leaving it there? She would tell them what she thought about it tomorrow!
Gilbert only said, "O-o-o-ps!" and steadied her with a hand. Would he have been so casual about it if it had been Christine who had tripped while they were puzzling out the meaning of moonrises?