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Anne
was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had got it
up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all the
available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it along.
Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir had
been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a violin
solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; and Laura
Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to recite.
As
Anne would have said at one time, it was "an epoch in her life,"
and she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in
the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his Anne
and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather than
admit it, and said she didn't think it was very proper for a lot of young
folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible person with
them.
Anne
and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother Billy in
their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and boys were
going too. There was a party of
visitors expected out from town, and after the concert a supper was to be
given to the performers.
"Do
you really think the organdy will be best?" queried Anne anxiously.
"I don't think it's as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin--and it
certainly isn't so fashionable."
"But
it suits you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft and frilly and clinging.
The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too dressed up.
But the organdy seems as if it grew on you."
Anne
sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for notable taste in
dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much sought after. She
was looking very pretty herself on this particular night in a dress of the
lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was forever debarred; but she was not
to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of minor importance.
All her pains were bestowed upon Anne, who, she vowed, must, for the
credit of Avonlea, be dressed and combed and adorned to the Queen's taste.
"Pull
out that frill a little more--so; here, let me tie your sash; now for your
slippers. I'm going to braid
your hair in two thick braids, and tie them halfway up with big white
bows--no, don't pull out a single curl over your forehead--just have the
soft part. There is no way you
do your hair suits you so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a
Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose just behind your
ear. There was just one on my
bush, and I saved it for you."
"Shall
I put my pearl beads on?" asked Anne.
"Matthew brought me a string from town last week, and I know
he'd like to see them on me."
Diana
pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically, and finally
pronounced in favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied around Anne's
slim milk-white throat.
"There's
something so stylish about you, Anne," said Diana, with unenvious
admiration. "You hold your head with such an air. I suppose it's
your figure. I am just a
dumpling. I've always been
afraid of it, and now I know it is so.
Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign myself to it."
"But
you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately into the
pretty, vivacious face so near her own.
"Lovely dimples, like little dents in cream.
I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream will never come
true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn't complain.
Am I all ready now?"
"All
ready," assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt
figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a much
softer face. "Come right
in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla.
Doesn't she look lovely?"
Marilla
emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.
"She
looks neat and proper. I like
that way of fixing her hair. But I expect she'll ruin that dress driving
over there in the dust and dew with it, and it looks most too thin for these
damp nights. Organdy's the most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and
I told Matthew so when he got it. But
there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays.
Time was when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things
for Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything
off on him. Just let them tell
him a thing is pretty and fashionable, and Matthew plunks his money down for
it. Mind you keep your skirt
clear of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm jacket on."
Then
Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked, with
that
"One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown"
and
regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her girl
recite.
"I
wonder if it IS too damp for my dress," said Anne anxiously.
"Not
a bit of it," said Diana, pulling up the window blind. "It's a
perfect night, and there won't be any dew.
Look at the moonlight."
"I'm
so glad my window looks east into the sunrising," said Anne, going over
to Diana. "It's so splendid to see the morning coming up over those
long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It's new every morning,
and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest sunshine.
Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly.
I don't know how I'll get along without it when I go to town next
month."
"Don't
speak of your going away tonight," begged Diana.
"I don't want to think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do
want to have a good time this evening.
What are you going to recite, Anne? And are you nervous?"
"Not
a bit. I've recited so often in
public I don't mind at all now. I've
decided to give `The Maiden's Vow.' It's
so pathetic. Laura Spencer is going to give a comic recitation, but I'd
rather make people cry than laugh."
"What
will you recite if they encore you?"
"They
won't dream of encoring me," scoffed Anne, who was not without her own
secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling Matthew
all about it at the next morning's breakfast table.
"There are Billy and Jane now-- I hear the wheels.
Come on."
Billy
Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him, so she
unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit back with the girls,
where she could have laughed and chattered to her heart's content.
There was not much of either laughter or chatter in Billy.
He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round,
expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts.
But he admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the
prospect of driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside
him.
Anne,
by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally passing a
sop of civility to Billy--who grinned and chuckled and never could think of
any reply until it was too late--contrived to enjoy the drive in spite of
all. It was a night for
enjoyment. The road was full of
buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed and
reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of light from
top to bottom. They were met by
the ladies of the concert committee, one of whom took Anne off to the
performers' dressing room which was filled with the members of a
Charlottetown Symphony Club, among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and
frightened and countrified. Her dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed
so dainty and pretty, now seemed simple and plain--too simple and plain, she
thought, among all the silks and laces that glistened and rustled around
her. What were her pearl beads
compared to the diamonds of the big, handsome lady near her?
And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse
flowers the others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank
miserably into a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at Green
Gables.
It
was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel, where
she presently found herself. The
electric lights dazzled her eyes, the perfume and hum bewildered her.
She wished she were sitting down in the audience with Diana and Jane,
who seemed to be having a splendid time away at the back.
She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink silk and a tall,
scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress.
The stout lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and
surveyed Anne through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being
so scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl
kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the "country
bumpkins" and "rustic belles" in the audience, languidly
anticipating "such fun" from the displays of local talent on the
program. Anne believed that she would hate that white-lace girl to the end
of life.
Unfortunately
for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the hotel and had
consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a wonderful gown of
shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems on her neck and in her
dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice and wonderful power of
expression; the audience went wild over her selection.
Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the time,
listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended she
suddenly put her hands over her face. She
could never get up and recite after that--never.
Had she ever thought she could recite?
Oh, if she were only back at Green Gables!
At
this unpropitious moment her name was called.
Somehow Anne--who did not notice the rather guilty little start of
surprise the white-lace girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle
compliment implied therein if she had--got on her feet, and moved dizzily
out to the front. She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience,
clasped each other's hands in nervous sympathy.
Anne
was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as she had
recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience as this, and
the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely.
Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering--the rows of
ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of wealth
and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches at the
Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of friends and
neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless critics.
Perhaps, like the white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement from
her "rustic" efforts. She
felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and miserable. Her knees trembled, her
heart fluttered, a horrible faintness came over her; not a word could she
utter, and the next moment she would have fled from the platform despite the
humiliation which, she felt, must ever after be her portion if she did so.
But
suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she
saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending forward with a
smile on his face--a smile which seemed to Anne at once triumphant and
taunting. In reality it was
nothing of the kind. Gilbert
was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and of
the effect produced by Anne's slender white form and spiritual face against
a background of palms in particular. Josie
Pye, whom he had driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was
both triumphant and taunting. But
Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if she had.
She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage and
determination tingling over her like an electric shock.
She WOULD NOT fail before Gilbert Blythe--he should never be able to
laugh at her, never, never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her
recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of the
room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession
was fully restored to her, and in the reaction from that horrible moment of
powerlessness she recited as she had never done before.
When she finished there were bursts of honest applause.
Anne, stepping back to her seat, blushing with shyness and delight,
found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken by the stout lady in pink silk.
"My
dear, you did splendidly," she puffed.
"I've been crying like a baby, actually I have.
There, they're encoring you-- they're bound to have you back!"
"Oh,
I can't go," said Anne confusedly.
"But yet--I must, or Matthew will be disappointed.
He said they would encore me."
"Then
don't disappoint Matthew," said the pink lady, laughing.
Smiling,
blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint, funny little
selection that captivated her audience still further. The rest of the
evening was quite a little triumph for her.
When
the concert was over, the stout, pink lady--who was the wife of an American
millionaire--took her under her wing, and introduced her to everybody; and
everybody was very nice to her. The professional elocutionist, Mrs. Evans,
came and chatted with her, telling her that she had a charming voice and
"interpreted" her selections beautifully.
Even the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment.
They had supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana
and Jane were invited to partake of this, also, since they had come with
Anne, but Billy was nowhere to be found, having decamped in mortal fear of
some such invitation. He was in
waiting for them, with the team, however, when it was all over, and the
three girls came merrily out into the calm, white moonshine radiance.
Anne breathed deeply, and looked into the clear sky beyond the dark
boughs of the firs.
Oh,
it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night! How
great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the sea
sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants guarding
enchanted coasts.
"Hasn't
it been a perfectly splendid time?" sighed Jane, as they drove away.
"I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer at
a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice cream and
chicken salad every blessed day. I'm
sure it would be ever so much more fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great, although I thought at
first you were never going to begin. I
think it was better than Mrs. Evans's."
"Oh,
no, don't say things like that, Jane," said Anne quickly, "because
it sounds silly. It couldn't be
better than Mrs. Evans's, you know, for she is a professional, and I'm only
a schoolgirl, with a little knack of reciting.
I'm quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty well."
"I've
a compliment for you, Anne," said Diana.
"At least I think it must be a compliment because of the tone he
said it in. Part of it was anyhow. There
was an American sitting behind Jane and me--such a romantic-looking man,
with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he is a distinguished artist,
and that her mother's cousin in Boston is married to a man that used to go
to school with him. Well, we
heard him say--didn't we, Jane?--`Who is that girl on the platform with the
splendid Titian hair? She has a
face I should like to paint.' There now, Anne.
But what does Titian hair mean?"
"Being
interpreted it means plain red, I guess," laughed Anne. "Titian
was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women."
"DID
you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?" sighed Jane. "They
were simply dazzling. Wouldn't
you just love to be rich, girls?"
"We
ARE rich," said Anne staunchly. "Why,
we have sixteen years to our credit, and we're happy as queens, and we've
all got imaginations, more or less. Look
at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions
of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn't change into any of those
women if you could. Would you want to be that white-lace girl and wear a
sour look all your life, as if you'd been born turning up your nose at the
world? Or the pink lady, kind
and nice as she is, so stout and short that you'd really no figure at all?
Or even Mrs. Evans, with that sad, sad look in her eyes?
She must have been dreadfully unhappy sometime to have such a look. You KNOW you wouldn't, Jane Andrews!"
"I
DON'T know--exactly," said Jane unconvinced.
"I think diamonds would comfort a person for a good deal."
"Well,
I don't want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds
all my life," declared Anne. "I'm quite content to be Anne of
Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads.
I know Matthew gave me as much love with them as ever went with
Madame the Pink Lady's jewels."
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