Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery Page B

father, Abner Moore, kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in winter. He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul. He was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped wanting it – just like a man. Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when everything went right. But he drank a good deal, and there were some nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village. He wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of it. And he was a Methodist! But he was clean mad about her – because of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have anything to say to him in the second. He vowed he’d have her – and he got her!’
    ‘How did he bring it about?’
    ‘Oh, it was an iniquitous thing! I’ll never forgive Rose West. You see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs West that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the mortgage. Rose carried on terrible – fainted and wept, and pleaded with Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home. She said it would break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride. I wouldn’t have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it – but you wouldn’t have thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood because of it, would you? Well, she was. And Leslie gave in – she loved her mother so much she would have done anything to save her pain. She married Dick Moore. None of us knew why at the time. It wasn’t till long afterwards that I found out how her mother had worried her into it. I was sure there was something wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again, and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face-about like that. Besides, I knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in spite of his good looks and dashing ways. Of course, there was no wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married. I went, but I was sorry I did. I’d seen Leslie’s – face at her brother’s funeral and at her father’s funeral – and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her own funeral. But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe
me
!
    ‘Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place – Rose couldn’t bear to part with her dear daughter! – and lived there for the winter. In the spring Rose took pneumonia and died – a year too late! Leslie was heart-broken enough over it. Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think, never get much affection? As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet married life – just like a man. He was for up and off. He went over to Nova Scotia to visit his relations his father had come from Nova Scotia – and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too. The name of the vessel was the
Four Sisters
and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
    ‘It must have been a relief to Leslie. But she never said anything. From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now – cold and proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance. I won’t
be
kept at a distance, believe
me
! I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how in spite of everything.’
    ‘She told me you were the best friend she had,’ said Anne.
    ‘Did she?’ exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly. ‘Well, I’m real thankful to hear it. Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me around at all – she never let me think so. You must have thawed her out more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you. Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl! I never see Dick Moore but I want to run a knife clean through