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 by the 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, apparently2 not much disappointed.
“Yes, I think so.”
“In that case I shall hie me home at once to do something I should otherwise have to do tomorrow. So Alice Penhallow is to be married tonight. Three weddings for you in one summer, Anne—Phil’s, Alice’s, and Jane’s. I’ll never forgive Jane for not inviting3 me to her wedding.”
“You really can’t blame her when you think of the tremendous Andrews connection who had to be invited. The house could hardly hold them all. I was only bidden by grace of being Jane’s old chum—at least on Jane’s part. I think Mrs. Harmon’s motive4 for inviting me was to let me see Jane’s surpassing gorgeousness.”
“Is it true that she wore so many diamonds that you couldn’t tell where the diamonds left off and Jane began?”
Anne laughed.
“She certainly wore a good many. What with all the diamonds and white satin and tulle and lace and roses and orange blossoms, prim5 little Jane was almost lost to sight. But she was VERY happy, 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 was friendly—very friendly—far too friendly. He had come quite often to Green Gables after his recovery, and something of their old comradeship had returned. But Anne no longer found it satisfying. The rose of love made the blossom of friendship pale and scentless6 by contrast. And Anne had again begun to doubt if Gilbert now felt anything for her but friendship. In the common light of common day her radiant certainty of that rapt morning had faded. She was haunted by a miserable7 fear that her mistake could never be rectified8. 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 unsettling hopes out of her heart, and reconcile herself to a future where work and ambition must take the place of love. She could do good, if not noble, work as a teacher; and the success her little sketches9 were beginning to meet with in certain editorial sanctums augured10 well for her budding literary dreams. But—but—Anne picked up her green 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 the preceding night. She wore a green dress—not the one she had worn to the wedding, but an old one which Gilbert had told her at a Redmond reception he liked especially. It was just the shade of green that brought out the rich tints11 of her hair, and the starry12 gray of her eyes and the iris-like delicacy13 of her skin. Gilbert, glancing at her sideways as they walked along a shadowy woodpath, thought she had never looked so lovely. Anne, glancing sideways at Gilbert, now and then, thought how much older he looked since his illness. It was as if he had put boyhood behind him forever.
The day was beautiful and the way was beautiful. Anne was almost sorry when they reached Hester Gray’s garden, and sat down on the old bench. But it was beautiful there, too—as beautiful as it had been on the faraway day of the Golden Picnic, when Diana and Jane and Priscilla and she had found it. Then it had been lovely with narcissus and violets; now golden rod had kindled14 its fairy torches in the corners and asters dotted it bluely. The call of the brook15 came up through the woods from the valley of birches with all its old allurement16; the mellow17 air was full of the purr of the sea; beyond were fields rimmed18 by fences bleached19 silvery gray in the suns of many summers, and long hills scarfed with the shadows of autumnal clouds; with the blowing of the west wind old dreams returned.
“I think,” said Anne softly, “that ‘the land where dreams come true’ is in the blue haze20 yonder, over that little valley.”
“Have you any unfulfilled dreams, Anne?” asked Gilbert.
Something in his tone—something she had not heard since that miserable evening in the orchard21 at Patty’s Place—made Anne’s heart beat wildly. But she made answer lightly.
“Of course. Everybody has. It wouldn’t do for us to have all our dreams fulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dream about. What a delicious aroma22 that low-descending sun is extracting from the asters and ferns. I wish we could see perfumes as well as smell them. I’m sure they 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, the footsteps of friends—and YOU!”
Anne wanted to speak but she could find no words. Happiness was breaking over her like a wave. It almost frightened her.
“I asked you a question over two years ago, Anne. If I ask it again today will you give me a different answer?”
Still Anne could not speak. But she lifted her eyes, shining with all the love-rapture of countless23 generations, and looked into his for a moment. He wanted no other answer.
They lingered in the old garden until twilight24, sweet as dusk in Eden must have been, crept over it. There was so much to talk over and recall—things said and done and heard and thought and felt and misunderstood.
“I thought you loved Christine Stuart,” Anne told him, as reproachfully as if she had not given him every reason to suppose that she loved Roy Gardner.
Gilbert laughed boyishly.
“Christine was engaged to somebody in her home town. I knew it and she knew I knew it. When her brother graduated he told me his 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 one and would be very lonely. So I did. And then I liked Christine for her own sake. She is one of the nicest girls I’ve ever known. I knew college gossip credited us with being in love with each other. I didn’t care. Nothing mattered much to me for a time there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne. There was nobody else—there never could be anybody else for me but you. I’ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate25 over my head in school.”
“I don’t see how you could keep on loving me when I was such a little fool,” said Anne.
“Well, I tried to stop,” said Gilbert frankly26, “not because I thought you what you call yourself, but because I felt sure there was no chance for me after Gardner came on the scene. But I couldn’t—and I can’t tell you, either, what it’s meant to me these two years to believe you were going to marry him, and be told every week by some busybody that your engagement was on the point of being announced. I believed it until one blessed day when I was sitting up after the fever. I got a letter from Phil Gordon—Phil Blake, rather—in which she told me there was really 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 for everything, doesn’t it? Let’s resolve to keep this day sacred to perfect 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 before I’ll finish my medical course. And even then there will 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 and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more ‘scope for imagination’ without them. And as for the waiting, that doesn’t matter. 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 walked home together in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realm of love, along winding27 paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.
The End
The End
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1
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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2
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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4
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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5
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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scentless
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| adj.无气味的，遗臭已消失的 | |
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7
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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8
rectified
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| [医]矫正的，调整的 | |
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9
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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10
augured
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| v.预示，预兆，预言( augur的过去式和过去分词 )；成为预兆；占卜 | |
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11
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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12
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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13
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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14
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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15
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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16
allurement
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| n.诱惑物 | |
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17
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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18
rimmed
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| adj.有边缘的，有框的v.沿…边缘滚动；给…镶边 | |
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19
bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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20
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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21
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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22
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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23
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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24
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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25
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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26
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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27
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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