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AT MAIDENHEAD

DRIFTING INTO DANGER.

Louis Scatcherd

THE DEATH OF JEAN

Further Chronicles of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . ONLY A COMMON FELLOW XIV. ONLY A COMMON FELLOW On my dearie's wedding morning I wakened early and went to her room. Long and long ago she had made me promise that I would be the one to wake her on the morning of her wedding day. "You were the first to take me in your arms when I came into the world, Aunt Rachel," she had said, "and I want you to be the first to greet me on that wonderful day." But that was long ago, and now my heart foreboded that there would be no need of wakening her. And there was not. She was lying there awake, very quiet, with her hand under her cheek, and her big blue eyes fixed on the window, through which a pale, dull light was creeping in—a joyless light it was, and enough to make a body shiver. I felt more like weeping than rejoicing, and my heart took to aching when I saw her there so white and patient, more like a girl who was waiting for a winding-sheet than for a bridal veil. But she smiled brave-like, when I sat down on her bed and took her hand. "You look as if you haven't slept all night, dearie," I said. "I didn't—not a great deal," she answered me. "But the night didn't seem long; no, it seemed too short. I was thinking of a great many things. What time is it, Aunt Rachel?" "Five o'clock." "Then in six hours more—" She suddenly sat up in her bed, her great, thick rope of brown hair falling over her white shoulders, and flung her arms about me, and burst into tears on my old breast. I petted and soothed her, and said not a word; and, after a while, she stopped crying; but she still sat with her head so that I couldn't see her face. "We didn't think it would be like this once, did we, Aunt Rachel?" she said, very softly. "It shouldn't be like this, now," I said. I had to say it. I never could hide the thought of that marriage, and I couldn't pretend to. It was all her stepmother's doings—right well I knew that. My dearie would never have taken Mark Foster else. "Don't let us talk of that," she said, soft and beseeching, just the same way she used to speak when she was a baby-child and wanted to coax me into something. "Let us talk about the old days—and HIM." "I don't see much use in talking of HIM, when you're going to marry Mark Foster to-day," I said. But she put her hand on my mouth. "It's for the last time, Aunt Rachel. After to-day I can never talk of him, or even think of him. It's four years since he went away. Do you remember how he looked, Aunt Rachel?" "I mind well enough, I reckon," I said, kind of curt-like. And I did. Owen Blair hadn't a face a body could forget—that long face of his with its clean color and its eyes made to look love into a woman's. When I thought of Mark Foster's sallow skin and lank jaws I felt sick-like. Not that Mark was ugly—he was just a common-looking fellow. "He was so handsome, wasn't he, Aunt Rachel?" my dearie went on, in that patient voice of hers. "So tall and strong and handsome. I wish we hadn't parted in anger. It was so foolish of us to quarrel. But it would have been all right if he had lived to come back. I know it would have been all right. I know he didn't carry any bitterness against me to his death. I thought once, Aunt Rachel, that I would go through life true to him, and then, over on the other side, I'd meet him just as before, all his and his only. But it isn't to be." "Thanks to your stepma's wheedling and Mark Foster's scheming," said I. "No, Mark didn't scheme," she said patiently. "Don't be unjust to Mark, Aunt Rachel. He has been very good and kind." "He's as stupid as an owlet and as stubborn as Solomon's mule," I said, for I WOULD say it. "He's just a common fellow, and yet he thinks he's good enough for my beauty." "Don't talk about Mark," she pleaded again. "I mean to be a good, faithful wife to him. But I'm my own woman yet—YET—for just a few more sweet hours, and I want to give them to HIM. The last hours of my maidenhood—they must belong to HIM." So she talked of him, me sitting there and holding her, with her lovely hair hanging down over my arm, and my heart aching so for her that it hurt bitter. She didn't feel as bad as I did, because she'd made up her mind what to do and was resigned. She was going to marry Mark Foster, but her heart was in France, in that grave nobody knew of, where the Huns had buried Owen Blair—if they had buried him at all. And she went over all they had been to each other, since they were mites of babies, going to school together and meaning, even then, to be married when they grew up; and the first words of love he'd said to her, and what she'd dreamed and hoped for. The only thing she didn't bring up was the time he thrashed Mark Foster for bringing her apples. She never mentioned Mark's name; it was all Owen—Owen—and how he looked, and what might have been, if he hadn't gone off to the awful war and got shot. And there was me, holding her and listening to it all, and her stepma sleeping sound and triumphant in the next room. When she had talked it all out she lay down on her pillow again. I got up and went downstairs to light the fire. I felt terrible old and tired. My feet seemed to drag, and the tears kept coming to my eyes, though I tried to keep them away, for well I knew it was a bad omen to be weeping on a wedding day. Before long Isabella Clark came down; bright and pleased-looking enough, SHE was. I'd never liked Isabella, from the day Phillippa's father brought her here; and I liked her less than ever this morning. She was one of your sly, deep women, always smiling smooth, and scheming underneath it. I'll say it for her, though, she had been good to Phillippa; but it was her doings that my dearie was to marry Mark Foster that day. "Up betimes, Rachel," she said, smiling and speaking me fair, as she always did, and hating me in her heart, as I well knew. "That is right, for we'll have plenty to do to-day. A wedding makes lots of work." "Not this sort of a wedding," I said, sour-like. "I don't call it a wedding when two people get married and sneak off as if they were ashamed of it—as well they might be in this case." "It was Phillippa's own wish that all should be very quiet," said Isabella, as smooth as cream. "You know I'd have given her a big wedding, if she'd wanted it." "Oh, it's better quiet," I said. "The fewer to see Phillippa marry a man like Mark Foster the better." "Mark Foster is a good man, Rachel." "No good man would be content to buy a girl as he's bought Phillippa," I said, determined to give it in to her. "He's a common fellow, not fit for my dearie to wipe her feet on. It's well that her mother didn't live to see this day; but this day would never have come, if she'd lived." "I dare say Phillippa's mother would have remembered that Mark Foster is very well off, quite as readily as worse people," said Isabella, a little spitefully. I liked her better when she was spiteful than when she was smooth. I didn't feel so scared of her then. The marriage was to be at eleven o'clock, and, at nine, I went up to help Phillippa dress. She was no fussy bride, caring much what she looked like. If Owen had been the bridegroom it would have been different. Nothing would have pleased her then; but now it was only just "That will do very well, Aunt Rachel," without even glancing at it. Still, nothing could prevent her from looking lovely when she was dressed. My dearie would have been a beauty in a beggarmaid's rags. In her white dress and veil she was as fair as a queen. And she was as good as she was pretty. It was the right sort of goodness, too, with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness. Then she sent me out. "I want to be alone my last hour," she said. "Kiss me, Aunt Rachel—MOTHER Rachel." When I'd gone down, crying like the old fool I was, I heard a rap at the door. My first thought was to go out and send Isabella to it, for I supposed it was Mark Foster, come ahead of time, and small stomach I had for seeing him. I fall trembling, even yet, when I think, "What if I had sent Isabella to that door?" But go I did, and opened it, defiant-like, kind of hoping it was Mark Foster to see the tears on my face. I opened it—and staggered back like I'd got a blow. "Owen! Lord ha' mercy on us! Owen!" I said, just like that, going cold all over, for it's the truth that I thought it was his spirit come back to forbid that unholy marriage. But he sprang right in, and caught my wrinkled old hands in a grasp that was of flesh and blood. "Aunt Rachel, I'm not too late?" he said, savage-like. "Tell me I'm in time." I looked up at him, standing over me there, tall and handsome, no change in him except he was so brown and had a little white scar on his forehead; and, though I couldn't understand at all, being all bewildered-like, I felt a great deep thankfulness. "No, you're not too late," I said. "Thank God," said he, under his breath. And then he pulled me into the parlor and shut the door. "They told me at the station that Phillippa was to be married to Mark Foster to-day. I couldn't believe it, but I came here as fast as horse-flesh could bring me. Aunt Rachel, it can't be true! She can't care for Mark Foster, even if she had forgotten me!" "It's true enough that she is to marry Mark," I said, half-laughing, half-crying, "but she doesn't care for him. Every beat of her heart is for you. It's all her stepma's doings. Mark has got a mortgage on the place, and he told Isabella Clark that, if Phillippa would marry him, he'd burn the mortgage, and, if she wouldn't, he'd foreclose. Phillippa is sacrificing herself to save her stepma for her dead father's sake. It's all your fault," I cried, getting over my bewilderment. "We thought you were dead. Why didn't you come home when you were alive? Why didn't you write?" "I DID write, after I got out of the hospital, several times," he said, "and never a word in answer, Aunt Rachel. What was I to think when Phillippa wouldn't answer my letters?" "She never got one," I cried. "She wept her sweet eyes out over you. SOMEBODY must have got those letters." And I knew then, and I know now, though never a shadow of proof have I, that Isabella Clark had got them—and kept them. That woman would stick at nothing. "Well, we'll sift that matter some other time," said Owen impatiently. "There are other things to think of now. I must see Phillippa." "I'll manage it for you," I said eagerly; but, just as I spoke, the door opened and Isabella and Mark came in. Never shall I forget the look on Isabella's face. I almost felt sorry for her. She turned sickly yellow and her eyes went wild; they were looking at the downfall of all her schemes and hopes. I didn't look at Mark Foster, at first, and, when I did, there wasn't anything to see. His face was just as sallow and wooden as ever; he looked undersized and common beside Owen. Nobody'd ever have picked him out for a bridegroom. Owen spoke first. "I want to see Phillippa," he said, as if it were but yesterday that he had gone away. All Isabella's smoothness and policy had dropped away from her, and the real woman stood there, plotting and unscrupulous, as I'd always know her. "You can't see her," she said desperate-like. "She doesn't want to see you. You went and left her and never wrote, and she knew you weren't worth fretting over, and she has learned to care for a better man." "I DID write and I think you know that better than most folks," said Owen, trying hard to speak quiet. "As for the rest, I'm not going to discuss it with you. When I hear from Phillippa's own lips that she cares for another man I'll believe it—and not before." "You'll never hear it from her lips," said I. Isabella gave me a venomous look. "You'll not see Phillippa until she is a better man's wife," she said stubbornly, "and I order you to leave my house, Owen Blair!" "No!" It was Mark Foster who spoke. He hadn't said a word; but he came forward now, and stood before Owen. Such a difference as there was between them! But he looked Owen right in the face, quiet-like, and Owen glared back in fury. "Will it satisfy you, Owen, if Phillippa comes down here and chooses between us?" "Yes, it will," said Owen. Mark Foster turned to me. "Go and bring her down," said he. Isabella, judging Phillippa by herself, gave a little moan of despair, and Owen, blinded by love and hope, thought his cause was won. But I knew my dearie too well to be glad, and Mark Foster did, too, and I hated him for it. I went up to my dearie's room, all pale and shaking. When I went in she came to meet me, like a girl going to meet death. "Is—it—time?" she said, with her hands locked tight together. I said not a word, hoping that the unlooked-for sight of Owen would break down her resolution. I just held out my hand to her, and led her downstairs. She clung to me and her hands were as cold as snow. When I opened the parlor door I stood back, and pushed her in before me. She just cried, "Owen!" and shook so that I put my arms about her to steady her. Owen made a step towards her, his face and eyes all aflame with his love and longing, but Mark barred his way. "Wait till she has made her choice," he said, and then he turned to Phillippa. I couldn't see my dearie's face, but I could see Mark's, and there wasn't a spark of feeling in it. Behind it was Isabella's, all pinched and gray. "Phillippa," said Mark, "Owen Blair has come back. He says he has never forgotten you, and that he wrote to you several times. I have told him that you have promised me, but I leave you freedom of choice. Which of us will you marry, Phillippa?" My dearie stood straight up and the trembling left her. She stepped back, and I could see her face, white as the dead, but calm and resolved. "I have promised to marry you, Mark, and I will keep my word," she said. The color came back to Isabella Clark's face; but Mark's did not change. "Phillippa," said Owen, and the pain in his voice made my old heart ache bitterer than ever, "have you ceased to love me?" My dearie would have been more than human, if she could have resisted the pleading in his tone. She said no word, but just looked at him for a moment. We all saw the look; her whole soul, full of love for Owen, showed out in it. Then she turned and stood by Mark. Owen never said a word. He went as white as death, and started for the door. But again Mark Foster put himself in the way. "Wait," he said. "She has made her choice, as I knew she would; but I have yet to make mine. And I choose to marry no woman whose love belongs to another living man. Phillippa, I thought Owen Blair was dead, and I believed that, when you were my wife, I could win your love. But I love you too well to make you miserable. Go to the man you love—you are free!" "And what is to become of me?" wailed Isabella. "Oh, you!—I had forgotten about you," said Mark, kind of weary-like. He took a paper from his pocket, and dropped it in the grate. "There is the mortgage. That is all you care about, I think. Good-morning." He went out. He was only a common fellow, but, somehow, just then he looked every inch the gentleman. I would have gone after him and said something but—the look on his face—no, it was no time for my foolish old words! Phillippa was crying, with her head on Owen's shoulder. Isabella Clark waited to see the mortgage burned up, and then she came to me in the hall, all smooth and smiling again. "Really, it's all very romantic, isn't it? I suppose it's better as it is, all things considered. Mark behaved splendidly, didn't he? Not many men would have done as he did." For once in my life I agreed with Isabella. But I felt like having a good cry over it all—and I had it. I was glad for my dearie's sake and Owen's; but Mark Foster had paid the price of their joy, and I knew it had beggared him of happiness for life. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2004). Further Chronicles of Avonlea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5340/pg5340-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

ONLY A COMMON FELLOW

THE EDUCATION OF BETTY

HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER

Aunt Olivia’s Beau

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . The Pass List Is Out CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss Stacy’s rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy’s farewell words must have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips’s had been under similar circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply. “It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn’t it?” she said dismally. “You oughtn’t to feel half as badly as I do,” said Anne, hunting vainly for a dry spot on her handkerchief. “You’ll be back again next winter, but I suppose I’ve left the dear old school forever—if I have good luck, that is.” “It won’t be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won’t be there, nor you nor Jane nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn’t bear to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven’t we, Anne? It’s dreadful to think they’re all over.” Two big tears rolled down by Diana’s nose. “If you would stop crying I could,” said Anne imploringly. “Just as soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off again. As Mrs. Lynde says, ‘If you can’t be cheerful, be as cheerful as you can.’ After all, I dare say I’ll be back next year. This is one of the times I know I’m not going to pass. They’re getting alarmingly frequent.” “Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave.” “Yes, but those exams didn’t make me nervous. When I think of the real thing you can’t imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it’s so unlucky. I am not superstitious and I know it can make no difference. But still I wish it wasn’t thirteen.” “I do wish I was going in with you,” said Diana. “Wouldn’t we have a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you’ll have to cram in the evenings.” “No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and not think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It’s good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think. Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up at least as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to ask me to stay at Beechwood while I’m in town.” “You’ll write to me while you’re in, won’t you?” “I’ll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes,” promised Anne. “I’ll be haunting the post office Wednesday,” vowed Diana. Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted the post office, as agreed, and got her letter. “Dearest Diana” [wrote Anne], “Here it is Tuesday night and I’m writing this in the library at Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and wished so much you were with me. I couldn’t ‘cram’ because I’d promised Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were learned. “This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn’t slept a wink and she didn’t believe I was strong enough to stand the grind of the teacher’s course even if I did get through. There are times and seasons even yet when I don’t feel that I’ve made any great headway in learning to like Josie Pye! “When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over and over to steady his nerves and for pity’s sake not to interrupt him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts firmly in their proper place! “When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of the multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I wondered if I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirled around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment—Diana, I felt exactly as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green Gables—and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began beating again—I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!—for I knew I could do something with that paper anyhow. “At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh, Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would recite it from now till tomorrow morning. “I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and he was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be a carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn’t. Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon I’m always glad I’m a girl and not his sister. “Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had just discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you had been with us. “Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I think I’d rather it didn’t go on if I failed! “Yours devotedly, “Anne” The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years. “You old darling, it’s perfectly splendid to see you back again. It seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get along?” “Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don’t know whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment that I didn’t. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the dearest, loveliest spot in the world.” “How did the others do?” “The girls say they know they didn’t pass, but I think they did pretty well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it! Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he failed in algebra. But we don’t really know anything about it and won’t until the pass list is out. That won’t be for a fortnight. Fancy living a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up until it is over.” Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so she merely said: “Oh, you’ll pass all right. Don’t worry.” “I’d rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the list,” flashed Anne, by which she meant—and Diana knew she meant—that success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of Gilbert Blythe. With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if she failed. But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted to “pass high” for the sake of Matthew and Marilla—especially Matthew. Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she “would beat the whole Island.” That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew’s kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations. At the end of the fortnight Anne took to “haunting” the post office also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away. “I haven’t got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,” he told Anne. “I’m just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me suddenly whether I’ve passed or not.” When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began to feel that she really couldn’t stand the strain much longer. Her appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished. Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne’s paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he hadn’t better vote Grit at the next election. But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. “Anne, you’ve passed,” she cried, “passed the very first—you and Gilbert both—you’re ties—but your name is first. Oh, I’m so proud!” Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne’s bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed—there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. “You did just splendidly, Anne,” puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word. “Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago—it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won’t be here till tomorrow by mail—and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You’ve all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he’s conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well—they’re halfway up—and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you’ll see she’ll put on as many airs as if she’d led. Won’t Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I’d go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you’re as calm and cool as a spring evening.” “I’m just dazzled inside,” said Anne. “I want to say a hundred things, and I can’t find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this—yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think once, ‘What if I should come out first?’ quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we’ll go up the road and tell the good news to the others.” They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. “Oh, Matthew,” exclaimed Anne, “I’ve passed and I’m first—or one of the first! I’m not vain, but I’m thankful.” “Well now, I always said it,” said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. “I knew you could beat them all easy.” “You’ve done pretty well, I must say, Anne,” said Marilla, trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel’s critical eye. But that good soul said heartily: “I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in saying it. You’re a credit to your friends, Anne, that’s what, and we’re all proud of you.” That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2008). Anne of Green Gables. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45/pg45-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html . The lead image was generated using HackerNoon's Stable Disffusion Al Image Generator feature, via the prompt "Anne of Green Fables".

The Pass List Is Out

Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Miss Lavendar’s Romance Chapter XXIII - Miss Lavendar’s Romance “I think I’ll take a walk through to Echo Lodge this evening,” said Anne, one Friday afternoon in December. “It looks like snow,” said Marilla dubiously. “I’ll be there before the snow comes and I mean to stay all night. Diana can’t go because she has company, and I’m sure Miss Lavendar will be looking for me tonight. It’s a whole fortnight since I was there.” Anne had paid many a visit to Echo Lodge since that October day. Sometimes she and Diana drove around by the road; sometimes they walked through the woods. When Diana could not go Anne went alone. Between her and Miss Lavendar had sprung up one of those fervent, helpful friendships possible only between a woman who has kept the freshness of youth in her heart and soul, and a girl whose imagination and intuition supplied the place of experience. Anne had at last discovered a real “kindred spirit,” while into the little lady’s lonely, sequestered life of dreams Anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence, which Miss Lavendar, “the world forgetting, by the world forgot,” had long ceased to share; they brought an atmosphere of youth and reality to the little stone house. Charlotta the Fourth always greeted them with her very widest smile . . . and Charlotta’s smiles were fearfully wide . . . loving them for the sake of her adored mistress as well as for their own. Never had there been such “high jinks” held in the little stone house as were held there that beautiful, late-lingering autumn, when November seemed October over again, and even December aped the sunshine and hazes of summer. But on this particular day it seemed as if December had remembered that it was time for winter and had turned suddenly dull and brooding, with a windless hush predictive of coming snow. Nevertheless, Anne keenly enjoyed her walk through the great gray maze of the beechlands; though alone she never found it lonely; her imagination peopled her path with merry companions, and with these she carried on a gay, pretended conversation that was wittier and more fascinating than conversations are apt to be in real life, where people sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements. In a “make believe” assembly of choice spirits everybody says just the thing you want her to say and so gives you the chance to say just what you want to say. Attended by this invisible company, Anne traversed the woods and arrived at the fir lane just as broad, feathery flakes began to flutter down softly. At the first bend she came upon Miss Lavendar, standing under a big, broad-branching fir. She wore a gown of warm, rich red, and her head and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery gray silk shawl. “You look like the queen of the fir wood fairies,” called Anne merrily. “I thought you would come tonight, Anne,” said Miss Lavendar, running forward. “And I’m doubly glad, for Charlotta the Fourth is away. Her mother is sick and she had to go home for the night. I should have been very lonely if you hadn’t come . . . even the dreams and the echoes wouldn’t have been enough company. Oh, Anne, how pretty you are,” she added suddenly, looking up at the tall, slim girl with the soft rose-flush of walking on her face. “How pretty and how young! It’s so delightful to be seventeen, isn’t it? I do envy you,” concluded Miss Lavendar candidly. “But you are only seventeen at heart,” smiled Anne. “No, I’m old . . . or rather middle-aged, which is far worse,” sighed Miss Lavendar. “Sometimes I can pretend I’m not, but at other times I realize it. And I can’t reconcile myself to it as most women seem to. I’m just as rebellious as I was when I discovered my first gray hair. Now, Anne, don’t look as if you were trying to understand. Seventeen can’t understand. I’m going to pretend right away that I am seventeen too, and I can do it, now that you’re here. You always bring youth in your hand like a gift. We’re going to have a jolly evening. Tea first . . . what do you want for tea? We’ll have whatever you like. Do think of something nice and indigestible.” There were sounds of riot and mirth in the little stone house that night. What with cooking and feasting and making candy and laughing and “pretending,” it is quite true that Miss Lavendar and Anne comported themselves in a fashion entirely unsuited to the dignity of a spinster of forty-five and a sedate schoolma’am. Then, when they were tired, they sat down on the rug before the grate in the parlor, lighted only by the soft fireshine and perfumed deliciously by Miss Lavendar’s open rose-jar on the mantel. The wind had risen and was sighing and wailing around the eaves and the snow was thudding softly against the windows, as if a hundred storm sprites were tapping for entrance. “I’m so glad you’re here, Anne,” said Miss Lavendar, nibbling at her candy. “If you weren’t I should be blue . . . very blue . . . almost navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy. One wants real things then. But you don’t know this . . . seventeen never knows it. At seventeen dreams DO satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on. When I was seventeen, Anne, I didn’t think forty-five would find me a white-haired little old maid with nothing but dreams to fill my life.” “But you aren’t an old maid,” said Anne, smiling into Miss Lavendar’s wistful woodbrown eyes. “Old maids are born . . . they don’t become.” “Some are born old maids, some achieve old maidenhood, and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them,” parodied Miss Lavendar whimsically. “You are one of those who have achieved it then,” laughed Anne, “and you’ve done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you they would come into the fashion, I think.” “I always like to do things as well as possible,” said Miss Lavendar meditatively, “and since an old maid I had to be I was determined to be a very nice one. People say I’m odd; but it’s just because I follow my own way of being an old maid and refuse to copy the traditional pattern. Anne, did anyone ever tell you anything about Stephen Irving and me?” “Yes,” said Anne candidly, “I’ve heard that you and he were engaged once.” “So we were . . . twenty-five years ago . . . a lifetime ago. And we were to have been married the next spring. I had my wedding dress made, although nobody but mother and Stephen ever knew that. We’d been engaged in a way almost all our lives, you might say. When Stephen was a little boy his mother would bring him here when she came to see my mother; and the second time he ever came . . . he was nine and I was six . . . he told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up his mind to marry me when he grew up. I remember that I said ‘Thank you’; and when he was gone I told mother very gravely that there was a great weight off my mind, because I wasn’t frightened any more about having to be an old maid. How poor mother laughed!” “And what went wrong?” asked Anne breathlessly. “We had just a stupid, silly, commonplace quarrel. So commonplace that, if you’ll believe me, I don’t even remember just how it began. I hardly know who was the more to blame for it. Stephen did really begin it, but I suppose I provoked him by some foolishness of mine. He had a rival or two, you see. I was vain and coquettish and liked to tease him a little. He was a very high-strung, sensitive fellow. Well, we parted in a temper on both sides. But I thought it would all come right; and it would have if Stephen hadn’t come back too soon. Anne, my dear, I’m sorry to say” . . . Miss Lavendar dropped her voice as if she were about to confess a predilection for murdering people, “that I am a dreadfully sulky person. Oh, you needn’t smile, . . . it’s only too true. I do sulk; and Stephen came back before I had finished sulking. I wouldn’t listen to him and I wouldn’t forgive him; and so he went away for good. He was too proud to come again. And then I sulked because he didn’t come. I might have sent for him perhaps, but I couldn’t humble myself to do that. I was just as proud as he was . . . pride and sulkiness make a very bad combination, Anne. But I could never care for anybody else and I didn’t want to. I knew I would rather be an old maid for a thousand years than marry anybody who wasn’t Stephen Irving. Well, it all seems like a dream now, of course. How sympathetic you look, Anne . . . as sympathetic as only seventeen can look. But don’t overdo it. I’m really a very happy, contented little person in spite of my broken heart. My heart did break, if ever a heart did, when I realized that Stephen Irving was not coming back. But, Anne, a broken heart in real life isn’t half as dreadful as it is in books. It’s a good deal like a bad tooth . . . though you won’t think that a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it. And now you’re looking disappointed. You don’t think I’m half as interesting a person as you did five minutes ago when you believed I was always the prey of a tragic memory bravely hidden beneath external smiles. That’s the worst . . . or the best . . . of real life, Anne. It won’t let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable . . . and succeeding...even when you’re determined to be unhappy and romantic. Isn’t this candy scrumptious? I’ve eaten far more than is good for me already but I’m going to keep recklessly on.” After a little silence Miss Lavendar said abruptly, “It gave me a shock to hear about Stephen’s son that first day you were here, Anne. I’ve never been able to mention him to you since, but I’ve wanted to know all about him. What sort of a boy is he?” “He is the dearest, sweetest child I ever knew, Miss Lavendar . . . and he pretends things too, just as you and I do.” “I’d like to see him,” said Miss Lavendar softly, as if talking to herself. “I wonder if he looks anything like the little dream-boy who lives here with me . . . my little dream-boy.” “If you would like to see Paul I’ll bring him through with me sometime,” said Anne. “I would like it . . . but not too soon. I want to get used to the thought. There might be more pain than pleasure in it . . . if he looked too much like Stephen . . . or if he didn’t look enough like him. In a month’s time you may bring him.” Accordingly, a month later Anne and Paul walked through the woods to the stone house, and met Miss Lavendar in the lane. She had not been expecting them just then and she turned very pale. “So this is Stephen’s boy,” she said in a low tone, taking Paul’s hand and looking at him as he stood, beautiful and boyish, in his smart little fur coat and cap. “He . . . he is very like his father.” “Everybody says I’m a chip off the old block,” remarked Paul, quite at his ease. Anne, who had been watching the little scene, drew a relieved breath. She saw that Miss Lavendar and Paul had “taken” to each other, and that there would be no constraint or stiffness. Miss Lavendar was a very sensible person, in spite of her dreams and romance, and after that first little betrayal she tucked her feelings out of sight and entertained Paul as brightly and naturally as if he were anybody’s son who had come to see her. They all had a jolly afternoon together and such a feast of fat things by way of supper as would have made old Mrs. Irving hold up her hands in horror, believing that Paul’s digestion would be ruined for ever. “Come again, laddie,” said Miss Lavendar, shaking hands with him at parting. “You may kiss me if you like,” said Paul gravely. Miss Lavendar stooped and kissed him. “How did you know I wanted to?” she whispered. “Because you looked at me just as my little mother used to do when she wanted to kiss me. As a rule, I don’t like to be kissed. Boys don’t. You know, Miss Lewis. But I think I rather like to have you kiss me. And of course I’ll come to see you again. I think I’d like to have you for a particular friend of mine, if you don’t object.” “I . . . I don’t think I shall object,” said Miss Lavendar. She turned and went in very quickly; but a moment later she was waving a gay and smiling good-bye to them from the window. “I like Miss Lavendar,” announced Paul, as they walked through the beech woods. “I like the way she looked at me, and I like her stone house, and I like Charlotta the Fourth. I wish Grandma Irving had a Charlotta the Fourth instead of a Mary Joe. I feel sure Charlotta the Fourth wouldn’t think I was wrong in my upper story when I told her what I think about things. Wasn’t that a splendid tea we had, teacher? Grandma says a boy shouldn’t be thinking about what he gets to eat, but he can’t help it sometimes when he is real hungry. You know, teacher. I don’t think Miss Lavendar would make a boy eat porridge for breakfast if he didn’t like it. She’d get things for him he did like. But of course” . . . Paul was nothing if not fair-minded . . . “that mightn’t be very good for him. It’s very nice for a change though, teacher. You know.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2022). Anne of Avonlea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47/pg47-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html. The lead image was generated using HackerNoon's Stable Disffusion Al Image Generator feature, via the prompt "Anne of Avonlea".

Miss Lavendar’s Romance

Tarzan and the Black Boy

IN THE LAND OF THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLES

The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE DEPARTURE THE DEPARTURE Section 1 No wise man goes out upon a novel expedition without misgivings. And between their first meeting and the appointed morning both Sir Richmond Hardy and Dr. Martineau were the prey of quite disagreeable doubts about each other, themselves, and the excursion before them. At the time of their meeting each had been convinced that he gauged the other sufficiently for the purposes of the proposed tour. Afterwards each found himself trying to recall the other with greater distinctness and able to recall nothing but queer, ominous and minatory traits. The doctor’s impression of the great fuel specialist grew ever darker, leaner, taller and more impatient. Sir Richmond took on the likeness of a monster obdurate and hostile, he spread upwards until like the Djinn out of the bottle, he darkened the heavens. And he talked too much. He talked ever so much too much. Sir Richmond also thought that the doctor talked too much. In addition, he read into his imperfect memory of the doctor’s face, an expression of protruded curiosity. What was all this problem of motives and inclinations that they were “going into” so gaily? He had merely consulted the doctor on a simple, straightforward need for a nervous tonic—that was what he had needed—a tonic. Instead he had engaged himself for—he scarcely knew what—an indiscreet, indelicate, and altogether undesirable experiment in confidences. Both men were considerably reassured when at last they set eyes on each other again. Indeed each was surprised to find something almost agreeable in the appearance of the other. Dr. Martineau at once perceived that the fierceness of Sir Richmond was nothing more than the fierceness of an overwrought man, and Sir Richmond realized at a glance that the curiosity of Dr. Martineau’s bearing had in it nothing personal or base; it was just the fine alertness of the scientific mind. Sir Richmond had arrived nearly forty minutes late, and it would have been evident to a much less highly trained observer than Dr. Martineau that some dissension had arisen between the little, ladylike, cream and black Charmeuse car and its owner. There was a faint air of resentment and protest between them. As if Sir Richmond had been in some way rude to it. The cap of the radiator was adorned with a little brass figure of a flying Mercury. Frozen in a sprightly attitude, its stiff bound and its fixed heavenward stare was highly suggestive of a forced and tactful disregard of current unpleasantness. Nothing was said, however, to confirm or dispel this suspicion of a disagreement between the man and the car. Sir Richmond directed and assisted Dr. Martineau’s man to adjust the luggage at the back, and Dr. Martineau watched the proceedings from his dignified front door. He was wearing a suit of fawn tweeds, a fawn Homburg hat and a light Burberry, with just that effect of special preparation for a holiday which betrays the habitually busy man. Sir Richmond’s brown gauntness was, he noted, greatly set off by his suit of grey. There had certainly been some sort of quarrel. Sir Richmond was explaining the straps to Dr. Martineau’s butler with the coldness a man betrays when he explains the uncongenial habits of some unloved intimate. And when the moment came to start and the little engine did not immediately respond to the electric starter, he said: “Oh! COME up, you—!” His voice sank at the last word as though it was an entirely confidential communication to the little car. And it was an extremely low and disagreeable word. So Dr. Martineau decided that it was not his business to hear it.... It was speedily apparent that Sir Richmond was an experienced and excellent driver. He took the Charmeuse out into the traffic of Baker Street and westward through brisk and busy streets and roads to Brentford and Hounslow smoothly and swiftly, making a score of unhesitating and accurate decisions without apparent thought. There was very little conversation until they were through Brentford. Near Shepherd’s Bush, Sir Richmond had explained, “This is not my own particular car. That was butted into at the garage this morning and its radiator cracked. So I had to fall back on this. It’s quite a good little car. In its way. My wife drives it at times. It has one or two constitutional weaknesses—incidental to the make—gear-box over the back axle for example—gets all the vibration. Whole machine rather on the flimsy side. Still—” He left the topic at that. Dr. Martineau said something of no consequence about its being a very comfortable little car. Somewhere between Brentford and Hounslow, Sir Richmond plunged into the matter between them. “I don’t know how deep we are going into these psychological probings of yours,” he said. “But I doubt very much if we shall get anything out of them.” “Probably not,” said Dr. Martineau. “After all, what I want is a tonic. I don’t see that there is anything positively wrong with me. A certain lack of energy—” “Lack of balance,” corrected the doctor. “You are wasting energy upon internal friction.” “But isn’t that inevitable? No machine is perfectly efficient. No man either. There is always a waste. Waste of the type; waste of the individual idiosyncrasy. This little car, for instance, isn’t pulling as she ought to pull—she never does. She’s low in her class. So with myself; there is a natural and necessary high rate of energy waste. Moods of apathy and indolence are natural to me. (Damn that omnibus! All over the road!)” “We don’t deny the imperfection—” began the doctor. “One has to fit oneself to one’s circumstances,” said Sir Richmond, opening up another line of thought. “We don’t deny the imperfection” the doctor stuck to it. “These new methods of treatment are based on the idea of imperfection. We begin with that. I began with that last Tuesday....” Sir Richmond, too, was sticking to his argument. “A man, and for that matter the world he lives in, is a tangle of accumulations. Your psychoanalyst starts, it seems to me, with a notion of stripping down to something fundamental. The ape before was a tangle of accumulations, just as we are. So it was with his forebears. So it has always been. All life is an endless tangle of accumulations.” “Recognize it,” said the doctor. “And then?” said Sir Richmond, controversially. “Recognize in particular your own tangle.” “Is my particular tangle very different from the general tangle? (Oh! Damn this feeble little engine!) I am a creature of undecided will, urged on by my tangled heredity to do a score of entirely incompatible things. Mankind, all life, is that.” “But our concern is the particular score of incompatible things you are urged to do. We examine and weigh—we weigh—” The doctor was still saying these words when a violent and ultimately disastrous struggle began between Sir Richmond and the little Charmeuse car. The doctor stopped in mid-sentence. It was near Taplow station that the mutual exasperation of man and machine was brought to a crisis by the clumsy emergence of a laundry cart from a side road. Sir Richmond was obliged to pull up smartly and stopped his engine. It refused an immediate obedience to the electric starter. Then it picked up, raced noisily, disengaged great volumes of bluish smoke, and displayed an unaccountable indisposition to run on any gear but the lowest. Sir Richmond thought aloud, unpleasing thoughts. He addressed the little car as a person; he referred to ancient disputes and temperamental incompatibilities. His anger betrayed him a coarse, ill-bred man. The little car quickened under his reproaches. There were some moments of hope, dashed by the necessity of going dead slow behind an interloping van. Sir Richmond did not notice the outstretched arm of the driver of the van, and stalled his engine for a second time. The electric starter refused its office altogether. For some moments Sir Richmond sat like a man of stone. “I must wind it up,” he said at last in a profound and awful voice. “I must wind it up.” “I get out, don’t I?” asked the doctor, unanswered, and did so. Sir Richmond, after a grim search and the displacement and replacement of the luggage, produced a handle from the locker at the back of the car and prepared to wind. There was a little difficulty. “Come UP!” he said, and the small engine roared out like a stage lion. The two gentlemen resumed their seats. The car started and then by an unfortunate inadvertency Sir Richmond pulled the gear lever over from the first speed to the reverse. There was a metallic clangour beneath the two gentlemen, and the car slowed down and stopped although the engine was still throbbing wildly, and the dainty veil of blue smoke still streamed forward from the back of the car before a gentle breeze. The doctor got out almost precipitately, followed by a gaunt madman, mouthing vileness, who had only a minute or so before been a decent British citizen. He made some blind lunges at the tremulous but obdurate car, but rather as if he looked for offences and accusations than for displacements to adjust. Quivering and refusing, the little car was extraordinarily like some recalcitrant little old aristocratic lady in the hands of revolutionaries, and this made the behaviour of Sir Richmond seem even more outrageous than it would otherwise have done. He stopped the engine, he went down on his hands and knees in the road to peer up at the gear-box, then without restoring the spark, he tried to wind up the engine again. He spun the little handle with an insane violence, faster and faster for—as it seemed to the doctor—the better part of a minute. Beads of perspiration appeared upon his brow and ran together; he bared his teeth in a snarl; his hat slipped over one eye. He groaned with rage. Then, using the starting handle as a club, he assailed the car. He smote the brazen Mercury from its foothold and sent it and a part of the radiator cap with it flying across the road. He beat at the wings of the bonnet, until they bent in under his blows. Finally, he hurled the starting-handle at the wind-screen and smashed it. The starting-handle rattled over the bonnet and fell to the ground.... The paroxysm was over. Ten seconds later this cataclysmal lunatic had reverted to sanity—a rather sheepish sanity. He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and turned his back on the car. He remarked in a voice of melancholy detachment: “It was a mistake to bring that coupe.” Dr. Martineau had assumed an attitude of trained observation on the side path. His hands rested on his hips and his hat was a little on one side. He was inclined to agree with Sir Richmond. “I don’t know,” he considered. “You wanted some such blow-off as this.” “Did I?” “The energy you have! That car must be somebody’s whipping boy.” “The devil it is!” said Sir Richmond, turning round sharply and staring at it as if he expected it to display some surprising and yet familiar features. Then he looked questioningly and suspiciously at his companion. “These outbreaks do nothing to amend the originating grievance,” said the doctor. “No. And at times they are even costly. But they certainly lift a burthen from the nervous system.... And now I suppose we have to get that little ruin to Maidenhead.” “Little ruin!” repeated Sir Richmond. “No. There’s lots of life in the little beast yet.” He reflected. “She’ll have to be towed.” He felt in his breast pocket. “Somewhere I have the R.A.C. order paper, the Badge that will Get You Home. We shall have to hail some passing car to take it into Maidenhead.” Dr. Martineau offered and Sir Richmond took and lit a cigarette. For a little while conversation hung fire. Then for the first time Dr. Martineau heard his patient laugh. “Amazing savage,” said Sir Richmond. “Amazing savage!” He pointed to his handiwork. “The little car looks ruffled. Well it may.” He became grave again. “I suppose I ought to apologize.” Dr. Martineau weighed the situation. “As between doctor and patient,” he said. “No.” “Oh!” said Sir Richmond, turned to a new point of view. “But where the patient ends and the host begins.... I’m really very sorry.” He reverted to his original train of thought which had not concerned Dr. Martineau at all. “After all, the little car was only doing what she was made to do.” Section 2 The affair of the car effectively unsealed Sir Richmond’s mind. Hitherto Dr. Martineau had perceived the possibility and danger of a defensive silence or of a still more defensive irony; but now that Sir Richmond had once given himself away, he seemed prepared to give himself away to an unlimited extent. He embarked upon an apologetic discussion of the choleric temperament. He began as they stood waiting for the relief car from the Maidenhead garage. “You were talking of the ghosts of apes and monkeys that suddenly come out from the darkness of the subconscious....” “You mean—when we first met at Harley Street?” “That last apparition of mine seems to have been a gorilla at least.” The doctor became precise. “Gorillaesque. We are not descended from gorillas.” “Queer thing a fit of rage is!” “It’s one of nature’s cruder expedients. Crude, but I doubt if it is fundamental. There doesn’t seem to be rage in the vegetable world, and even among the animals—? No, it is not universal.” He ran his mind over classes and orders. “Wasps and bees certainly seem to rage, but if one comes to think, most of the invertebrata show very few signs of it.” “I’m not so sure,” said Sir Richmond. “I’ve never seen a snail in a towering passion or an oyster slamming its shell behind it. But these are sluggish things. Oysters sulk, which is after all a smouldering sort of rage. And take any more active invertebrate. Take a spider. Not a smashing and swearing sort of rage perhaps, but a disciplined, cold-blooded malignity. Crabs fight. A conger eel in a boat will rage dangerously.” “A vertebrate. Yes. But even among the vertebrata; who has ever seen a furious rabbit?” “Don’t the bucks fight?” questioned Sir Richmond. Dr. Martineau admitted the point. “I’ve always had these fits of passion. As far back as I can remember. I was a kicking, screaming child. I threw things. I once threw a fork at my elder brother and it stuck in his forehead, doing no serious damage—happily. There were whole days of wrath—days, as I remember them. Perhaps they were only hours.... I’ve never thought before what a peculiar thing all this raging is in the world. WHY do we rage? They used to say it was the devil. If it isn’t the devil, then what the devil is it? After all,” he went on as the doctor was about to answer his question; “as you pointed out, it isn’t the lowlier things that rage. It’s the HIGHER things and US.” “The devil nowadays,” the doctor reflected after a pause, “so far as man is concerned, is understood to be the ancestral ape. And more particularly the old male ape.” But Sir Richmond was away on another line of thought. “Life itself, flaring out. Brooking no contradiction.” He came round suddenly to the doctor’s qualification. “Why male? Don’t little girls smash things just as much?” “They don’t,” said Dr. Martineau. “Not nearly as much.” Sir Richmond went off at a tangent again. “I suppose you have watched any number of babies?”’ “Not nearly as many as a general practitioner would do. There’s a lot of rage about most of them at first, male or female.” “Queer little eddies of fury.... Recently—it happens—I’ve been seeing one. A spit of red wrath, clenching its fists and squalling threats at a damned disobedient universe.” The doctor was struck by an idea and glanced quickly and questioningly at his companion’s profile. “Blind driving force,” said Sir Richmond, musing. “Isn’t that after all what we really are?” he asked the doctor. “Essentially—Rage. A rage in dead matter, making it alive.” “Schopenhauer,” footnoted the doctor. “Boehme.” “Plain fact,” said Sir Richmond. “No Rage—no Go.” “But rage without discipline?” “Discipline afterwards. The rage first.” “But rage against what? And FOR what?” “Against the Universe. And for—? That’s more difficult. What IS the little beast squalling itself crimson for? Ultimately? ... What is it clutching after? In the long run, what will it get?” (“Yours the car in distress what sent this?” asked an unheeded voice.) “Of course, if you were to say ‘desire’,” said Dr. Martineau, “then you would be in line with the psychoanalysts. They talk of LIBIDO, meaning a sort of fundamental desire. Jung speaks of it at times almost as if it were the universal driving force.” “No,” said Sir Richmond, in love with his new idea. “Not desire. Desire would have a definite direction, and that is just what this driving force hasn’t. It’s rage.” “Yours the car in distress what sent this?” the voice repeated. It was the voice of a mechanic in an Overland car. He was holding up the blue request for assistance that Sir Richmond had recently filled in. The two philosophers returned to practical matters. Section 3 For half an hour after the departure of the little Charmeuse car with Sir Richmond and Dr. Martineau, the brass Mercury lay unheeded in the dusty roadside grass. Then it caught the eye of a passing child. He was a bright little boy of five. From the moment when he caught the gleam of brass he knew that he had made the find of his life. But his nurse was a timorous, foolish thing. “You did ought to of left it there, Masterrarry,” she said. “Findings ain’t keepings nowadays, not by no manner of means, Masterrarry. “Yew’d look silly if a policeman came along arsting people if they seen a goldennimage. “Arst yer ‘ow you come by it and look pretty straight at you.” All of which grumblings Master Harry treated with an experienced disregard. He knew definitely that he would never relinquish this bright and lovely possession again. It was the first beautiful thing he had ever possessed. He was the darling of fond and indulgent parents and his nursery was crowded with hideous rag and sawdust dolls, golliwogs, comic penguins, comic lions, comic elephants and comic policemen and every variety of suchlike humorous idiocy and visual beastliness. This figure, solid, delicate and gracious, was a thing of a different order. There was to be much conflict and distress, tears and wrath, before the affinity of that clean-limbed, shining figure and his small soul was recognized. But he carried his point at last. The Mercury became his inseparable darling, his symbol, his private god, the one dignified and serious thing in a little life much congested by the quaint, the burlesque, and all the smiling, dull condescensions of adult love. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2006). The Secret Places of the Heart. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1734/1734-h/1734-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE DEPARTURE

The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. Read this book online for free on HackerNoon! Title: The Secret Places of the Heart Author: H. G. Wells Release Date: February 21, 2006 [EBook #1734] Last Updated: September 17, 2016 Language: English Table of Links 1. THE CONSULTATION 2. LADY HARDY 3. THE DEPARTURE 4. AT MAIDENHEAD 5. IN THE LAND OF THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLES 6. THE ENCOUNTER AT STONEHENGE 7. COMPANIONSHIP 8. FULL MOON 9. THE LAST DAYS OF SIR RICHMOND HARDY About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2006). The Secret Places of the Heart. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1734/1734-h/1734-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

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