The Blythes Are Quoted (26 page)

“Plenty of skunks, I suppose,” said Dr. Galbraith. “And mosquitoes.”

“There is a large summer colony of boarders there,” said Penelope, ignoring his reference to skunks. “Lionel will have plenty of companions. And there are some drawbacks to every place. But I think it is as nearly an ideal place for children as can be found. Plenty of sunshine and fresh air ... room to play ... room to develop individuality ... a sleeping porch for Lionel looking out on a hill of spruce ...”

“For whom?”

“Lionel. Yes, of course it is an absurd name. But Ella was rather given to romance.”

“He’ll be a regular sissy with such a name. But he’d be that anyway, pampered and petted by a widowed mother,” said Dr. Galbraith, getting up. His six feet of lean muscle did seem far too big for the little room. “Will you take me out and let me see this Willow Run of yours? What is the sanitation like?”

“Excellent. Did you suppose I would overlook that?”

“And the water? You get it from a well, I suppose? There was a lot of typhoid at Keppoch one summer a few years ago.”

“I’m sure it’s all right now. Perhaps you’d better come out and look it over.”

Penelope was slightly meeker. She knew all about bringing up those glad, simple little creatures, children, but typhoid was a different matter ... for this was before the days of its comparative conquest. A doctor was not without his legitimate uses.

Dr. Galbraith came along in his car the next afternoon and they went out to Willow Run.

“I met a Mrs. Blythe at Mrs. Elston’s yesterday,” said Penelope. “Her husband is a doctor, I believe. Do you know him?”

“Gilbert Blythe? Of course I do. One of the best. And his wife is a most charming person.”

“Oh ... well, I didn’t see much of her, of course,” said Penelope, wondering why Dr. Galbraith’s evident approval of Mrs. Blythe rather grated on her. As if it mattered a pin’s worth! But then she had never fancied red-haired women.

Dr. Galbraith approved the well and almost everything else about Willow Run. It was impossible to deny that it was charming. Penelope was nobody’s fool when it came to buying a place. There was a quaint, old, roomy house, surrounded by maples and willows, with a rose-trellis entrance to the garden and a stone walk, bordered with white quahog shells where daffodils bloomed all the spring. Now and then a break in the trees gave a glimpse of the blue bay. There was a white gate in the red brick wall surrounding it, with blooming apple trees branching over it.

“Almost as beautiful as Ingleside,” said Dr. Galbraith.

“Ingleside?”

“That is what the Blythes call their place out at Glen St. Mary. I like the fashion of giving names to places. It seems to confer an individuality on them.”

“Oh!” Again Penelope’s voice seemed a trifle cold. She seemed to be running up against those Blythes at every moment now. And she did not believe that this what-do-you-call-it ... Ingel-something ... could be as beautiful as Willow Run.

The interior of the house was equally charming.

“It should develop the right sort of attitude in Lionel, I think,” said Penelope complacently. “A child’s attitude towards his home is very important. I want Lionel to love his home. I am glad the dining room looks out on the delphinium walk. Fancy sitting and eating and gazing out at delphiniums.”

“Perhaps a boy would rather look at something else ... though Walter Blythe ...”

“Look at these squirrels,” said Penelope hastily. For some unknown reason she felt she would scream if Dr. Galbraith mentioned any of the Blythes again. “They are quite tame. Surely a boy would like squirrels.”

“You can never tell what they’ll like. But it is probable he will if it is only as something to set the cat chasing.”

“I shall not have a cat. I don’t like them ... I can hardly wait to move out. I can’t imagine how I could have existed so long cooped up in that apartment. And now with Willow Run and a child of my own ...”

“Don’t forget he isn’t really a child of your own, Penny. And if he were there would be problems, too.”

Dr. Galbraith looked up at her as she stood on the step above him. His good-natured, black-grey eyes had suddenly grown very tender.

“It’s such a glorious day, Penny, that I can’t help proposing to you again,” he said lightly. “You needn’t refuse me unless you want to.”

Penelope’s lips curled at the corners, a bit mockingly but kindly.

“I could like you so much, if you didn’t want me to love you, Roger. Our friendship is so pleasant ... why will you persist in trying to spoil it? Once for all, there is no place for men in my life.” Then, for no reason she could ever give, even to herself, she added,

“It’s such a pity Mrs. Blythe isn’t a widow.”

“I shouldn’t have thought
you
capable of saying such a thing, Penny,” said Roger quietly. “If Mrs. Blythe were a widow it wouldn’t matter a sixpence to me in
that
way. I’ve never cared for red-haired women.”

“Mrs. Blythe’s hair isn’t red ... it’s a most charming auburn,” protested Penelope, suddenly feeling that Mrs. Blythe was a delightful creature.

“Well, call it any shade you like, Penny.” Dr. Galbraith’s tone was several degrees lighter. He believed that Penny had really felt jealous of Mrs. Blythe ... and where there is jealousy there is hope. But he was more silent than usual on the way back, while Penelope discoursed blithely about the child mind, the wisdom of letting a child do what he wanted to do ... “exhibiting his ego,” she summed it up ... and the importance of seeing that he ate enough spinach.

“Mrs. Blythe has given up trying to make Jem eat spinach,” said the doctor on purpose.

But Penelope no longer cared what Mrs. Blythe did or didn’t do. She condescended, however, to ask the doctor what he thought about the power of suggestion ... especially when a child was asleep.

“If a child was asleep I’d let him sleep. Most mothers are only too glad when a child does go to sleep.”

“Oh, most mothers! I don’t mean for you to wake him up, of course. You just sit beside him and very quietly and calmly suggest what you want to impress on his mind in a low, controlled tone.”

“I don’t,” said Dr. Galbraith.

Penelope could have bitten her tongue out. How could she have forgotten that Roger’s wife had died in childbirth?

“There may be something in it,” said Dr. Galbraith, who had once remarked rather cynically to Dr. Blythe that the secret of any success he might have had was due to the fact that he always advised people to do what he knew they really wanted to do.

“It will be wonderful to watch his little mind develop,” said Penelope dreamily.

“He’s eight, so you tell me,” said Dr. Galbraith dryly. “Probably his mind has already developed to a considerable extent. You know what the Roman Catholic Church says of a child ... the first seven years, etc. However, it is never forbidden to hope.”

“You lose so much out of life by being cynical, Roger,” rebuked Penelope gently.

Though Penelope would not have admitted it, even to herself, she was glad that Dr. Galbraith was away when Lionel came. He had gone for a vacation and would be gone several weeks. Long before he came back she would have been used to Lionel and all the problems would have been worked out. For of course there would be problems ... Penelope did not blink at that. But she was quite sure that, given patience and under-standing, both of which she felt she possessed in abundance, they would be easily solved.

The first sight of Lionel, when she went to the station in the early morning, to take him over from the man who had brought him from Winnipeg,
was
a bit of a shock. She had somehow been expecting to see Ella’s golden curls and baby-blue eyes and willowy grace in miniature. Lionel must look like the father she had never seen. He was short and stocky, with thick black hair and unchildishly thick black eyebrows, almost meeting across his nose. His eyes were black and smouldering, and his mouth was set in an obstinate line which broke into no smile at her affectionate greeting.

“I am your Aunt Penelope, darling.”

“No, you ain’t,” said Lionel. “We ain’t no relation.”

“Well ...” Penelope was slightly taken aback ... “not really an aunt, of course, but won’t it be nicer to call me that? I was your mother’s dearest friend. Did you have a nice trip, dear?”

“Nope,” said Lionel.

He got into the runabout beside her and looked neither to the right nor to the left on the road to Willow Run.

“Are you tired, dear?”

“Nope.”

“Hungry, then? Marta will ...”

“I ain’t hungry.”

Penelope gave it up. There was a good deal in child psychology about letting children alone. She would let Lionel alone since he evidently did not want to talk. They covered the distance in silence but Lionel broke it just as Penelope brought her car to a halt before the door where Marta was waiting.

“Who is that ugly old woman?” he asked distinctly.

“Why ... why ... that’s Marta, my cousin who lives with me. You can call her Aunty, too. You’ll like her when you know her.”

“I won’t,” said Lionel.

“And you mustn’t ...” Penelope remembered just in time that you must never say “must not” to children. It does something dreadful to their ego ... “please don’t call her ugly.”

“Why not?” asked Lionel.

“Why ... why ... oh, because you don’t want to hurt her feelings, do you? Nobody likes to be called ugly, you know, darling.
You
wouldn’t, would you?”

“But I ain’t ugly,” said Lionel.

This was true enough. In his own way he was rather a handsome child.

Marta came forward grimly and held out her hand. Lionel put his hand behind his back.

“Shake hands with Aunt Marta, darling.”

“Nope,” said Lionel, and added, “She ain’t my aunt.”

Penelope felt something she had never felt before in her life ... a desire to shake somebody. It was
so
important that he should make a good impression on Marta. But just in time she remembered her patterns.

“Let us have some breakfast, dear,” she said brightly. “We’ll all feel better afterwards.”

“I ain’t sick,” said Lionel ... and added, “I ain’t going to be called ‘dear.’”

There was orange juice and a coddled egg for Lionel. He looked at it with aversion.

“Gimme some sausages,” he said.

As there were no sausages Lionel couldn’t have any. That being the case he would not have anything else. Penelope again decided to leave him alone ... “A little wholesome neglect sometimes does a child good,” she said, remembering her books on the bringing up of children. But when lunch hour came and Lionel still demanded sausages a dreadful feeling of helplessness crept over her. Lionel had spent the entire morning sitting on the front porch staring straight ahead of him. Since Dr. Galbraith’s departure she had paid a visit to Ingleside at Glen St. Mary, and she could not help recalling the different behaviour of the Ingleside youngsters.

After lunch ... Lionel still stubbornly refused to eat anything because there were still no sausages ... he went back to the steps.

“I suppose he has no appetite,” said Penelope anxiously. “I wonder if he needs a pill.”

“He doesn’t need a pill. What he needs ... and needs bad ... is a good spanking,” said Marta. Her expression indicated that she would enjoy being the spanker.

Had it come to this so soon? Lionel had been at Willow Run only six hours and Marta was calling for spankings. Penelope lifted her head proudly.

“Do you suppose, Marta, I could ever spank poor Ella’s child?”

“
I’d
attend to it for you,” said Marta with an undoubted relish.

“Nonsense. The poor child is likely very tired and homesick. When he gets adjusted he will eat what he should. We’ll just stick to our policy of leaving him alone, Marta.”

“Best thing to do, since you won’t spank him,” agreed Marta. “He’s a stubborn one ... I saw that the first moment I laid eyes on him. Will I order some sausages for his dinner?”

Penelope would not dip her colours.

“No,” she said shortly. “Sausages are most unwholesome for children.”

“I et plenty of them when I was a child,” said Marta shortly, “and they never did me any harm.”

Lionel, who had probably not slept very well on the train, fell asleep on the steps so soundly that he did not waken when Penelope lifted him in unaccustomed arms and carried him to a couch in the sunroom. His face was rosy and in sleep looked childlike. His close-shut lips had parted and Penelope saw that one front tooth was missing. After all, he was only a little fellow.

“He must be five pounds overweight,” she thought anxiously. “I daresay it won’t do him a bit of harm to go without food for a little while. He’s very different from what I expected him to be ... but in spite of everything there is something attractive about him. Poor Ella didn’t know anything about child psychology ... I suppose she never really found the right approach to him.”

For dinner there was a delicious roasted chicken, with spinach for Lionel, and ice cream for dessert.

“Sausages,” said Lionel.

Penelope was in despair. It was all very well to say let a child alone ... let him learn for himself the consequences of certain acts ... but you couldn’t let him starve to death. That might be learning consequences too late.

“I’ll ... there’ll be some sausages for your breakfast, darling. Try a bit of this nice chicken.”

“Sausages,” said Lionel. “And my name ain’t darling. The boys at home called me Bumps.”

Marta went out and brought in a platterful of sausages, with a defiant glance at Penelope.

“I got ’em just to be on the safe side,” she said. “My cousin’s wife, Mary Peters, out at Mowbray Narrows, made them. They’re of good clean pork. You couldn’t let him go with an empty stomach all night. He might come down sick.”

Lionel fell to on the sausages and ate every one of them. He accepted a helping of peas but said “Nope” to the spinach.

“I’ll give you a nickel if you’ll eat your spinach,” said Marta, to Penelope’s horror. Bribing a child to do right!

“Make it a dime,” said Lionel.

He got the dime and he ate the spinach ... every scrap of it. At least Lionel believed in fulfilling his part of the contract. He did very well by his ice cream but reverted to sulks when Penelope refused to give him coffee.