“I don’t know what to do but I must do something. I simply can’t sit still and see people make a mess of their lives under my very nose, no matter how many tantrums Franklin Westcott takes. Jarvis Morrow is not going to wait forever … rumor has it that he is getting out of patience already and has been seen savagely cutting Dovie’s name out of a tree on which he had cut it. There is an attractive Palmer girl who is reported to be throwing herself at his head, and his sister is said to have said that his mother has said that her son has no need to dangle for years at any girl’s apron-string.
“Really, Gilbert, I’m quite unhappy about it.
“It’s moonlight tonight, beloved … moonlight on the poplars of the yard … moonlit dimples all over the harbor where a phantom ship is drifting outwards … moonlight on the old graveyard … on my own private valley … on the Storm King. And it will be moonlight in Lover’s Lane and on the Lake of Shining Waters and the old Haunted Wood and Violet Vale. There should be fairy dances on the hills tonight. But, Gilbert dear, moonlight with no one to share it is just … just moonshine.
“I wish I could take little Elizabeth for a walk. She loves a moonlight walk. We had some delightful ones when she was at Green Gables. But at home Elizabeth never sees moonlight except from the window.
“I am beginning to be a little worried about her, too. She is going on ten now and those two old ladies haven’t the least idea what she needs, spiritually and emotionally. As long as she has good food and good clothes, they cannot imagine her needing anything more. And it will be worse with every succeeding year. What kind of girlhood will the poor child have?”
Chapter VI
Jarvis Morrow walked home from the High School Commencement with Anne and told her his woes.
“You’ll have to run away with her, Jarvis. Everybody says so. As a rule I don’t approve of elopements” (“I said that like a teacher of forty years’ experience,” thought Anne with an unseen grin) “but there are exceptions to all rules.”
“It takes two to make a bargain, Anne. I can’t elope alone. Dovie is so frightened of her father, I can’t get her to agree. And it wouldn’t be an elopement … really. She’d just come to my sister Julia’s … Mrs. Stevens, you know … some evening. I’d have the minister there and we could be married respectably enough to please anybody and go over to spend our honeymoon with Aunt Bertha in Kingsport. Simple as that. But I can’t get Dovie to chance it. The poor darling has been giving in to her father’s whims and crotchets so long, she hasn’t any will-power left.”
“You’ll simply have to make her do it, Jarvis.”
“Great Peter, you don’t suppose I haven’t tried, do you, Anne? I’ve begged till I was black in the face. When she’s with me she’ll almost promise it, but the minute she’s home again she sends me word she can’t. It seems odd, Anne, but the poor child is really fond of her father and she can’t bear the thought of his never forgiving her.”
“You must tell her she has to choose between her father and you.”
“And suppose she chooses him?”
“I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”
“You can never tell,” said Jarvis gloomily. “But something has to be decided soon. I can’t go on like this forever. I’m crazy about Dovie … everybody in Summerside knows that. She’s like a little red rose just out of reach … I must reach her, Anne.”
“Poetry is a very good thing in its place, but it won’t get you anywhere in this instance, Jarvis,” said Anne coolly. “That sounds like a remark Rebecca Dew would make, but it’s quite true. What you need in this affair is plain, hard common sense. Tell Dovie you’re tired of shillyshallying and that she must take you or leave you. If she doesn’t care enough for you to leave her father for you, it’s just as well for you to realize it.”
Jarvis groaned.
“You haven’t been under the thumb of Franklin Westcott all your life, Anne. You haven’t any realization of what he’s like. Well, I’ll make a last and final effort. As you say, if Dovie really cares for me she’ll come to me … and if she doesn’t, I might as well know the worst. I’m beginning to feel I’ve made myself rather ridiculous.”
“If you’re beginning to feel like that,” thought Anne, “Dovie would better watch out.”
Dovie herself slipped into Windy Poplars a few evenings later to consult Anne.
“What shall I do, Anne? What can I do? Jarvis wants me to elope … practically. Father is to be in Charlottetown one night next week attending a Masonic banquet … and it would be a good chance. Aunt Maggie would never suspect. Jarvis wants me to go to Mrs. Stevens’ and be married there.”
“And why don’t you, Dovie?”
“Oh, Anne, do you really think I ought to?” Dovie lifted a sweet, coaxing face. “Please, please make up my mind for me. I’m just distracted.” Dovie’s voice broke on a tearful note. “Oh, Anne, you don’t know Father. He just hates Jarvis … I can’t imagine why … can you? How can anybody hate Jarvis? When he called on me the first time, Father forbade him the house and told him he’d set the dog on him if he ever came again … our big bull. You know they never let go once they take hold. And he’ll never forgive me if I run away with Jarvis.”
“You must choose between them, Dovie.”
“That’s just what Jarvis said,” wept Dovie. “Oh, he was so stern … I never saw him like that before. And I can’t … I can’t li . . i . . i . . ve without him, Anne.”
“Then live with him, my dear girl. And don’t call it eloping. Just coming into Summerside and being married among his friends isn’t eloping.”
“Father will call it so,” said Dovie, swallowing a sob. “But I’m going to take your advice, Anne. I’m sure you wouldn’t advise me to take any step that was wrong. I’ll tell Jarvis to go ahead and get the license and I’ll come to his sister’s the night Father is in Charlottetown.”
Jarvis told Anne triumphantly that Dovie had yielded at last.
“I’m to meet her at the end of the lane next Tuesday night … she won’t have me go down to the house for fear Aunt Maggie might see me … and we’ll just step up to Julia’s and be married in a brace of shakes. All my folks will be there, so it will make the poor darling quite comfortable. Franklin Westcott said I should never get his daughter. I’ll show him he was mistaken.”
Chapter VII
Tuesday was a gloomy day in late November. Occasional cold, gusty showers drifted over the hills. The world seemed a dreary outlived place, seen through a gray drizzle.
“Poor