Chapter XLI -- Love Takes Up the Glass of Time (2024)

Chapter XLI

Love Takes Up the Glass of Time

Anne, sitting on the stone step with her lap full of a pale,filmy, green stuff, looked up rather blankly.

"Oh, I wish I could," she said slowly, "but I really can't,Gilbert. I'm going to Alice Penhallow's wedding this evening,you know. I've got to do something to this dress, and bythe time it's finished I'll have to get ready. I'm so sorry.I'd love to go."

"Well, can you go tomorrow afternoon, then?" asked Gilbert,apparently not much disappointed.

"Yes, I think so."

"In that case I shall hie me home at once to do something Ishould otherwise have to do tomorrow. So Alice Penhallow isto be married tonight. Three weddings for you in one summer,Anne -- Phil's, Alice's, and Jane's. I'll never forgive Janefor not inviting me to her wedding."

"You really can't blame her when you think of the tremendousAndrews connection who had to be invited. The house could hardlyhold them all. I was only bidden by grace of being Jane's oldchum -- at least on Jane's part. I think Mrs. Harmon's motivefor inviting me was to let me see Jane's surpassing gorgeousness."

"Is it true that she wore so many diamonds that you couldn't tellwhere the diamonds left off and Jane began?"

Anne laughed.

"She certainly wore a good many. What with all the diamonds andwhite satin and tulle and lace and roses and orange blossoms,prim little Jane was almost lost to sight. But she was VERYhappy, and so was Mr. Inglis -- and so was Mrs. Harmon."

"Is that the dress you're going to wear tonight?" asked Gilbert,looking down at the fluffs and frills.

"Yes. Isn't it pretty? And I shall wear starflowers in my hair.The Haunted Wood is full of them this summer."

Gilbert had a sudden vision of Anne, arrayed in a frilly green gown,with the virginal curves of arms and throat slipping out of it,and white stars shining against the coils of her ruddy hair.The vision made him catch his breath. But he turned lightly away.

"Well, I'll be up tomorrow. Hope you'll have a nice time tonight."

Anne looked after him as he strode away, and sighed. Gilbert wasfriendly -- very friendly -- far too friendly. He had come quiteoften to Green Gables after his recovery, and something of theirold comradeship had returned. But Anne no longer found it satisfying.The rose of love made the blossom of friendship pale and scentlessby contrast. And Anne had again begun to doubt if Gilbert now feltanything for her but friendship. In the common light of commonday her radiant certainty of that rapt morning had faded. She washaunted by a miserable fear that her mistake could never be rectified.It was quite likely that it was Christine whom Gilbert loved after all.Perhaps he was even engaged to her. Anne tried to put all unsettlinghopes out of her heart, and reconcile herself to a future where workand ambition must take the place of love. She could do good, if notnoble, work as a teacher; and the success her little sketches werebeginning to meet with in certain editorial sanctums augured wellfor her budding literary dreams. But -- but -- Anne picked up hergreen dress and sighed again.

When Gilbert came the next afternoon he found Anne waiting for him,fresh as the dawn and fair as a star, after all the gaiety of thepreceding night. She wore a green dress -- not the one she hadworn to the wedding, but an old one which Gilbert had told herat a Redmond reception he liked especially. It was just the shadeof green that brought out the rich tints of her hair, and the starrygray of her eyes and the iris-like delicacy of her skin. Gilbert,glancing at her sideways as they walked along a shadowy woodpath,thought she had never looked so lovely. Anne, glancing sidewaysat Gilbert, now and then, thought how much older he looked sincehis illness. It was as if he had put boyhood behind him forever.

The day was beautiful and the way was beautiful. Anne was almostsorry when they reached Hester Gray's garden, and sat down on theold bench. But it was beautiful there, too -- as beautiful as ithad been on the faraway day of the Golden Picnic, when Diana andJane and Priscilla and she had found it. Then it had been lovelywith narcissus and violets; now golden rod had kindled its fairytorches in the corners and asters dotted it bluely. The call ofthe brook came up through the woods from the valley of bircheswith all its old allurement; the mellow air was full of the purrof the sea; beyond were fields rimmed by fences bleached silverygray in the suns of many summers, and long hills scarfed with theshadows of autumnal clouds; with the blowing of the west wind olddreams returned.

"I think," said Anne softly, "that `the land where dreams come true'is in the blue haze yonder, over that little valley."

"Have you any unfulfilled dreams, Anne?" asked Gilbert.

Something in his tone -- something she had not heard since thatmiserable evening in the orchard at Patty's Place -- made Anne'sheart beat wildly. But she made answer lightly.

"Of course. Everybody has. It wouldn't do for us to have allour dreams fulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we hadnothing left to dream about. What a delicious aroma thatlow-descending sun is extracting from the asters and ferns.I wish we could see perfumes as well as smell them. I'm surethey would be very beautiful."

Gilbert was not to be thus sidetracked.

"I have a dream," he said slowly. "I persist in dreaming it,although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true.I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, thefootsteps of friends -- and YOU!"

Anne wanted to speak but she could find no words. Happiness wasbreaking over her like a wave. It almost frightened her.

"I asked you a question over two years ago, Anne. If I ask itagain today will you give me a different answer?"

Still Anne could not speak. But she lifted her eyes, shiningwith all the love-rapture of countless generations, and lookedinto his for a moment. He wanted no other answer.

They lingered in the old garden until twilight, sweet as dusk inEden must have been, crept over it. There was so much to talkover and recall -- things said and done and heard and thought andfelt and misunderstood.

"I thought you loved Christine Stuart," Anne told him, asreproachfully as if she had not given him every reason tosuppose that she loved Roy Gardner.

Gilbert laughed boyishly.

"Christine was engaged to somebody in her home town. I knew itand she knew I knew it. When her brother graduated he told mehis sister was coming to Kingsport the next winter to take music,and asked me if I would look after her a bit, as she knew no oneand would be very lonely. So I did. And then I liked Christinefor her own sake. She is one of the nicest girls I've everknown. I knew college gossip credited us with being in love witheach other. I didn't care. Nothing mattered much to me for atime there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne.There was nobody else -- there never could be anybody else for mebut you. I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slateover my head in school."

"I don't see how you could keep on loving me when I was such alittle fool," said Anne.

"Well, I tried to stop," said Gilbert frankly, "not because Ithought you what you call yourself, but because I felt sure therewas no chance for me after Gardner came on the scene. But Icouldn't -- and I can't tell you, either, what it's meant to methese two years to believe you were going to marry him, and betold every week by some busybody that your engagement was on thepoint of being announced. I believed it until one blessed daywhen I was sitting up after the fever. I got a letter from PhilGordon -- Phil Blake, rather -- in which she told me there wasreally nothing between you and Roy, and advised me to `try again.'Well, the doctor was amazed at my rapid recovery after that."

Anne laughed -- then shivered.

"I can never forget the night I thought you were dying, Gilbert.Oh, I knew -- I KNEW then -- and I thought it was too late."

"But it wasn't, sweetheart. Oh, Anne, this makes up foreverything, doesn't it? Let's resolve to keep this day sacred toperfect beauty all our lives for the gift it has given us."

"It's the birthday of our happiness," said Anne softly."I've always loved this old garden of Hester Gray's,and now it will be dearer than ever."

"But I'll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne,"said Gilbert sadly. "It will be three years beforeI'll finish my medical course. And even then therewill be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls."

Anne laughed.

"I don't want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want YOU.You see I'm quite as shameless as Phil about it. Sunbursts andmarble halls may be all very well, but there is more `scope forimagination' without them. And as for the waiting, that doesn'tmatter. We'll just be happy, waiting and working for each other-- and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now."

Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. Then they walkedhome together in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridalrealm of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetestflowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where windsof hope and memory blew.