Free Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery Page A

went out. Ingleside lay in the strange, timeless light of first dawn. The sky over the birches in the Hollow was showing a faint, silvery-pink radiance. Perhaps he could get in at the side door. Susan sometimes left it open for Dad.
    The side door was unlocked. With a sob of thankfulness Walter slipped into the hall. It was still dark in the house and he began stealing softly upstairs. He would go to bed, his own bed, and if nobody ever came back he could die there and go to heaven and find Mother. Only… Walter remembered what Opal had said… heaven was millions of miles away. In the fresh wave of desolation that swept over him Walter forgot to step carefully and set his foot down heavily on the tail of the Shrimp, who was sleeping at the curve of the stairs. The Shrimp’s yowl of anguish resounded through the house.
    Susan, just dropping off to sleep, was dragged back from slumber by the horrible sound. Susan had gone to bed at twelve, somewhat exhausted after her strenuous afternoon and evening, to which Mary Maria Blythe had contributed by taking ‘a stitch in her side’ just when the tension was greatest. She had to have a hot-water bottle and a rub with liniment, and finished up with a wet cloth over her eyes because ‘one of her headaches’ had come on.
    Susan had wakened at three with a very strange feeling that somebody wanted her very badly. She had risen and tiptoed down the hall to the door of Mrs Doctor’s room. All was silence there… she could hear Anne’s soft, regular breathing. Susan made the rounds of the house and returned to her bed, convinced that that strange feeling was only the hangover of a nightmare. But for the rest of her life Susan believed she had what she had always scoffed at and what Abby Flagg, who ‘went in’ for spiritualism, called ‘a physic experience’.
    ‘Walter was calling me and I heard him,’ she averred.
    Susan got up and went out again, thinking that Ingleside was really possessed that night. She was attired only in a flannel nightdress which had shrunk in repeated washings till it was well above her bony ankles: but she seemed the most beautiful thing in the world to the white-faced, trembling creature whose frantic grey eyes stared up at her from the landing.
    ‘Walter Blythe!’
    In two steps Susan had him in her arms… her strong, tender arms.
    ‘Susan… is Mother dead?’ said Walter.
    In a very brief time everything had changed. Walter was in bed, warm, fed, comforted. Susan had whisked on a fire, got him a hot cup of milk, a slice of golden-brown toast, and a big plateful of his favourite ‘monkey face’ cookies, and then tucked him away with a hot-water bottle at his feet. She had kissed and anointed his little bruised knee. It was such a nice feeling to know that someone was looking after you… that someone wanted you… that you were important to someone.
    ‘And you’re
sure,
Susan, that Mother isn’t dead?’
    ‘Your mother is sound asleep and well and happy, my lamb.’
    ‘And wasn’t she sick at all? Opal said…’
    ‘Well, lamb, she didn’t feel very well for a while yesterday, but that’s all over, and she was never in any danger of dying this time. You just wait till you’ve had a sleep and you’ll see her… and something else. If I had hold of those young Satans at Lowbridge! I just can’t believe that you walked all the way home from Low-bridge. Six miles! On such a night!’
    ‘I suffered awful agony of mind, Susan,’ said Walter gravely. But it was all over; he was safe and happy; he was… home… he was…
    He was asleep.
    It was nearly midday before he woke, to see sunshine billowing in through his own windows, and limped in to see Mother. He had begun to think he had been very foolish and maybe Mother would not be pleased with him for running away from Lowbridge. But Mother only put an arm around him and drew him close to her. She had heard the whole story from Susan and had thought of a few things she intended to say