CHAPTER XIV. Anne's Confession
|ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her roomwith a troubled face.
"Anne," she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by thespotless table and singing, "Nelly of the Hazel Dell" with a vigor andexpression that did credit to Diana's teaching, "did you see anythingof my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I camehome from church yesterday evening, but I can't find it anywhere."
"I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society," saidAnne, a little slowly. "I was passing your door when I saw it on thecushion, so I went in to look at it."
"Did you touch it?" said Marilla sternly.
"Y-e-e-s," admitted Anne, "I took it up and I pinned it on my breastjust to see how it would look."
"You had no business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong in alittle girl to meddle. You shouldn't have gone into my room in the firstplace and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that didn't belong to youin the second. Where did you put it?"
"Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn't it on a minute. Truly, Ididn't mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn't think about its being wrong togo in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I'll neverdo it again. That's one good thing about me. I never do the same naughtything twice."
"You didn't put it back," said Marilla. "That brooch isn't anywhere onthe bureau. You've taken it out or something, Anne."
"I did put it back," said Anne quickly--pertly, Marilla thought. "Idon't just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it inthe china tray. But I'm perfectly certain I put it back."
"I'll go and have another look," said Marilla, determining to be just."If you put that brooch back it's there still. If it isn't I'll know youdidn't, that's all!"
Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over thebureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possiblybe. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen.
"Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the lastperson to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truthat once. Did you take it out and lose it?"
"No, I didn't," said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla's angry gazesquarely. "I never took the brooch out of your room and that is thetruth, if I was to be led to the block for it--although I'm not verycertain what a block is. So there, Marilla."
Anne's "so there" was only intended to emphasize her assertion, butMarilla took it as a display of defiance.
"I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne," she said sharply. "Iknow you are. There now, don't say anything more unless you are preparedto tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you areready to confess."
"Will I take the peas with me?" said Anne meekly.
"No, I'll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you."
When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a verydisturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. Whatif Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having takenit, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face,too!
"I don't know what I wouldn't sooner have had happen," thought Marilla,as she nervously shelled the peas. "Of course, I don't suppose she meantto steal it or anything like that. She's just taken it to play withor help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that'sclear, for there hasn't been a soul in that room since she was in it, byher own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone, there'snothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up forfear she'll be punished. It's a dreadful thing to think she tellsfalsehoods. It's a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It's afearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can't trust.Slyness and untruthfulness--that's what she has displayed. I declare Ifeel worse about that than about the brooch. If she'd only have told thetruth about it I wouldn't mind so much."
Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening andsearched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to theeast gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knewanything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convincedthat she did.
She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded andpuzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admitthat circumstances were against her.
"You're sure it hasn't fell down behind the bureau?" was the onlysuggestion he could offer.
"I've moved the bureau and I've taken out the drawers and I've lookedin every crack and cranny" was Marilla's positive answer. "The broochis gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That's the plain,ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face."
"Well now, what are you going to do about it?" Matthew asked forlornly,feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal with thesituation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.
"She'll stay in her room until she confesses," said Marilla grimly,remembering the success of this method in the former case. "Then we'llsee. Perhaps we'll be able to find the brooch if she'll only tellwhere she took it; but in any case she'll have to be severely punished,Matthew."
"Well now, you'll have to punish her," said Matthew, reaching for hishat. "I've nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself."
Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lyndefor advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face andleft it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused toconfess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch.The child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pitywhich she sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it,"beat out."
"You'll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up yourmind to that," she said firmly.
"But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla," cried Anne. "You won't keep mefrom going to that, will you? You'll just let me out for the afternoon,won't you? Then I'll stay here as long as you like _afterwards_cheerfully. But I _must_ go to the picnic."
"You'll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you've confessed,Anne."
"Oh, Marilla," gasped Anne.
But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made toorder for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna liliesin the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewlesswinds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and roomslike spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyfulhands as if watching for Anne's usual morning greeting from the eastgable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfastup to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale andresolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes.
"Marilla, I'm ready to confess."
"Ah!" Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded;but her success was very bitter to her. "Let me hear what you have tosay then, Anne."
"I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson shehad learned. "I took it just as you said. I didn't mean to take it whenI went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on mybreast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined howperfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I wasthe Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine Iwas the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana andI make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared toamethysts? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back beforeyou came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out thetime. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining WatersI took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shinein the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, itjust slipped through my fingers--so--and went down--down--down, allpurply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of ShiningWaters. And that's the best I can do at confessing
, Marilla."
Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child hadtaken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmlyreciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction orrepentance.
"Anne, this is terrible," she said, trying to speak calmly. "You are thevery wickedest girl I ever heard of."
"Yes, I suppose I am," agreed Anne tranquilly. "And I know I'll have tobe punished. It'll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won't you pleaseget it over right off because I'd like to go to the picnic with nothingon my mind."
"Picnic, indeed! You'll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shallbe your punishment. And it isn't half severe enough either for whatyou've done!"
"Not go to the picnic!" Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla'shand. "But you _promised_ me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to thepicnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that.Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the icecream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste icecream again."
Marilla disengaged Anne's clinging hands stonily.
"You needn't plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that'sfinal. No, not a word."
Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her handstogether, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself facedownward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment ofdisappointment and despair.
"For the land's sake!" gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. "Ibelieve the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as shedoes. If she isn't she's utterly bad. Oh dear, I'm afraid Rachel wasright from the first. But I've put my hand to the plow and I won't lookback."
That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed theporch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else todo. Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did. Thenshe went out and raked the yard.
When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. Atear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters.
"Come down to your dinner, Anne."
"I don't want any dinner, Marilla," said Anne, sobbingly. "I couldn'teat anything. My heart is broken. You'll feel remorse of consciencesomeday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Rememberwhen the time comes that I forgive you. But please don't ask me to eatanything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens areso unromantic when one is in affliction."
Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her taleof woe to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawfulsympathy with Anne, was a miserable man.
"Well now, she shouldn't have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told storiesabout it," he admitted, mournfully surveying his plateful of unromanticpork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited tocrises of feeling, "but she's such a little thing--such an interestinglittle thing. Don't you think it's pretty rough not to let her go to thepicnic when she's so set on it?"
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm amazed at you. I think I've let her off entirelytoo easy. And she doesn't appear to realize how wicked she's been atall--that's what worries me most. If she'd really felt sorry it wouldn'tbe so bad. And you don't seem to realize it, neither; you're makingexcuses for her all the time to yourself--I can see that."
"Well now, she's such a little thing," feebly reiterated Matthew. "Andthere should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she's never had anybringing up."
"Well, she's having it now" retorted Marilla.
The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner wasa very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote,the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a personalinsult.
When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fedMarilla remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best blacklace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returningfrom the Ladies' Aid.
She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. AsMarilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines thatclustered thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in theshawl--something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light.Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hangingto a thread of the lace by its catch!
"Dear life and heart," said Marilla blankly, "what does this mean?Here's my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom ofBarry's pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lostit? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now thatwhen I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for aminute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it somehow. Well!"
Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had criedherself out and was sitting dejectedly by the window.
"Anne Shirley," said Marilla solemnly, "I've just found my broochhanging to my black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmaroleyou told me this morning meant."
"Why, you said you'd keep me here until I confessed," returned Annewearily, "and so I decided to confess because I was bound to get to thepicnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed andmade it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that Iwouldn't forget it. But you wouldn't let me go to the picnic after all,so all my trouble was wasted."
Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience prickedher.
"Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong--I see that now. I shouldn'thave doubted your word when I'd never known you to tell a story.Of course, it wasn't right for you to confess to a thing you hadn'tdone--it was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you'llforgive me, Anne, I'll forgive you and we'll start square again. And nowget yourself ready for the picnic."
Anne flew up like a rocket.
"Oh, Marilla, isn't it too late?"
"No, it's only two o'clock. They won't be more than well gathered yetand it'll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb yourhair and put on your gingham. I'll fill a basket for you. There's plentyof stuff baked in the house. And I'll get Jerry to hitch up the sorreland drive you down to the picnic ground."
"Oh, Marilla," exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand. "Five minutesago I was so miserable I was wishing I'd never been born and now Iwouldn't change places with an angel!"
That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned toGreen Gables in a state of beatification impossible to describe.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is anew word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn't it veryexpressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr.Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters--sixof us at a time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaningout to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn't caught her by hersash just in the nick of time she'd fallen in and prob'ly been drowned.I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience tohave been nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. Andwe had the ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla,I assure you it was sublime."
That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her stockingbasket.
"I'm willing to own up that I made a mistake," she concluded candidly,"but I've learned a lesson. I have to laugh when I think of Anne's'confession,' although I suppose I shouldn't for it really was afalsehood. But it doesn't seem as bad as the other would have been,somehow, and anyhow I'm responsible for it. That child is hard tounderstand in some respects. But I believe she'll turn out all rightyet. And there's one thing certain, no house will ever be dull thatshe's in."
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