Anne’s Confession

ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room

with a troubled face.

“Anne,” she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the

spotless table and singing, “Nelly of the Hazel Dell” with a vigor and

expression that did credit to Diana’s teaching, “did you see anything

of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came

home from church yesterday evening, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

“I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society,” said

Anne, a little slowly. “I was passing your door when I saw it on the

cushion, so I went in to look at it.”

“Did you touch it?” said Marilla sternly.

“Y-e-e-s,” admitted Anne, “I took it up and I pinned it on my breast

just to see how it would look.”

“You had no business to do anything of the sort. It’s very wrong in a

little girl to meddle. You shouldn’t have gone into my room in the first

place and you shouldn’t have touched a brooch that didn’t belong to you

in the second. Where did you put it?”

“Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn’t it on a minute. Truly, I

didn’t mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn’t think about its being wrong to

go in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I’ll never

do it again. That’s one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty

thing twice.”

“You didn’t put it back,” said Marilla. “That brooch isn’t anywhere on

the bureau. You’ve taken it out or something, Anne.”

“I did put it back,” said Anne quickly--pertly, Marilla thought. “I

don’t just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in

the china tray. But I’m perfectly certain I put it back.”

“I’ll go and have another look,” said Marilla, determining to be just.

“If you put that brooch back it’s there still. If it isn’t I’ll know you

didn’t, that’s all!”

Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the

bureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly

be. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen.

“Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last

person to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth

at once. Did you take it out and lose it?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla’s angry gaze

squarely. “I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the

truth, if I was to be led to the block for it--although I’m not very

certain what a block is. So there, Marilla.”

Anne’s “so there” was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but

Marilla took it as a display of defiance.

“I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne,” she said sharply. “I

know you are. There now, don’t say anything more unless you are prepared

to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you are

ready to confess.”

“Will I take the peas with me?” said Anne meekly.

“No, I’ll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you.”

When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very

disturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. What

if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having taken

it, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face,

too!

“I don’t know what I wouldn’t sooner have had happen,” thought Marilla,

as she nervously shelled the peas. “Of course, I don’t suppose she meant

to steal it or anything like that. She’s just taken it to play with

or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that’s

clear, for there hasn’t been a soul in that room since she was in it, by

her own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone, there’s

nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for

fear she’ll be punished. It’s a dreadful thing to think she tells

falsehoods. It’s a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It’s a

fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can’t trust.

Slyness and untruthfulness--that’s what she has displayed. I declare I

feel worse about that than about the brooch. If she’d only have told the

truth about it I wouldn’t mind so much.”

Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and

searched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the

east gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knew

anything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced

that she did.

She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded and

puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admit

that circumstances were against her.

“You’re sure it hasn’t fell down behind the bureau?” was the only

suggestion he could offer.

“I’ve moved the bureau and I’ve taken out the drawers and I’ve looked

in every crack and cranny” was Marilla’s positive answer. “The brooch

is gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That’s the plain,

ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face.”

“Well now, what are you going to do about it?” Matthew asked forlornly,

feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal with the

situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.

“She’ll stay in her room until she confesses,” said Marilla grimly,

remembering the success of this method in the former case. “Then we’ll

see. Perhaps we’ll be able to find the brooch if she’ll only tell

where she took it; but in any case she’ll have to be severely punished,

Matthew.”

“Well now, you’ll have to punish her,” said Matthew, reaching for his

hat. “I’ve nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself.”

Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde

for advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face and

left it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused to

confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch.

The child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity

which she sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it,

“beat out.”

“You’ll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up your

mind to that,” she said firmly.

“But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla,” cried Anne. “You won’t keep me

from going to that, will you? You’ll just let me out for the afternoon,

won’t you? Then I’ll stay here as long as you like _afterwards_

cheerfully. But I _must_ go to the picnic.”

“You’ll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you’ve confessed,

Anne.”

“Oh, Marilla,” gasped Anne.

But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.

Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to

order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies

in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless

winds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms

like spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful

hands as if watching for Anne’s usual morning greeting from the east

gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast

up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and

resolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes.

“Marilla, I’m ready to confess.”

“Ah!” Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded;

but her success was very bitter to her. “Let me hear what you have to

say then, Anne.”

“I took the amethyst brooch,” said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she

had learned. “I took it just as you said. I didn’t mean to take it when

I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my

breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how

perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was

the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I

was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and

I make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to

amethysts? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before

you came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the

time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters

I took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine

in the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it

just slipped through my fingers--so--and went down--down--down, all

purply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining

Waters. And that’s the best I can do at confessing, Marilla.”

Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had

taken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly

reciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or

repentance.

“Anne, this is terrible,” she said, trying to speak calmly. “You are the

very wickedest girl I ever heard of.”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” agreed Anne tranquilly. “And I know I’ll have to

be punished. It’ll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won’t you please

get it over right off because I’d like to go to the picnic with nothing

on my mind.”

“Picnic, indeed! You’ll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shall

be your punishment. And it isn’t half severe enough either for what

you’ve done!”

“Not go to the picnic!” Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla’s

hand. “But you _promised_ me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the

picnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that.

Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice

cream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice

cream again.”

Marilla disengaged Anne’s clinging hands stonily.

“You needn’t plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that’s

final. No, not a word.”

Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands

together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself face

downward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of

disappointment and despair.

“For the land’s sake!” gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. “I

believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she

does. If she isn’t she’s utterly bad. Oh dear, I’m afraid Rachel was

right from the first. But I’ve put my hand to the plow and I won’t look

back.”

That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the

porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to

do. Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did. Then

she went out and raked the yard.

When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A

tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters.

“Come down to your dinner, Anne.”

“I don’t want any dinner, Marilla,” said Anne, sobbingly. “I couldn’t

eat anything. My heart is broken. You’ll feel remorse of conscience

someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember

when the time comes that I forgive you. But please don’t ask me to eat

anything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are

so unromantic when one is in affliction.”

Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale

of woe to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful

sympathy with Anne, was a miserable man.

“Well now, she shouldn’t have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories

about it,” he admitted, mournfully surveying his plateful of unromantic

pork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited to

crises of feeling, “but she’s such a little thing--such an interesting

little thing. Don’t you think it’s pretty rough not to let her go to the

picnic when she’s so set on it?”

“Matthew Cuthbert, I’m amazed at you. I think I’ve let her off entirely

too easy. And she doesn’t appear to realize how wicked she’s been at

all--that’s what worries me most. If she’d really felt sorry it wouldn’t

be so bad. And you don’t seem to realize it, neither; you’re making

excuses for her all the time to yourself--I can see that.”

“Well now, she’s such a little thing,” feebly reiterated Matthew. “And

there should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she’s never had any

bringing up.”

“Well, she’s having it now” retorted Marilla.

The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was

a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote,

the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a personal

insult.

When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed

Marilla remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best black

lace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returning

from the Ladies’ Aid.

She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. As

Marilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines that

clustered thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in the

shawl--something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light.

Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging

to a thread of the lace by its catch!

“Dear life and heart,” said Marilla blankly, “what does this mean?

Here’s my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom of

Barry’s pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lost

it? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now that

when I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for a

minute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it somehow. Well!”

Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had cried

herself out and was sitting dejectedly by the window.

“Anne Shirley,” said Marilla solemnly, “I’ve just found my brooch

hanging to my black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmarole

you told me this morning meant.”

“Why, you said you’d keep me here until I confessed,” returned Anne

wearily, “and so I decided to confess because I was bound to get to the

picnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and

made it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that I

wouldn’t forget it. But you wouldn’t let me go to the picnic after all,

so all my trouble was wasted.”

Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked

her.

“Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong--I see that now. I shouldn’t

have doubted your word when I’d never known you to tell a story.

Of course, it wasn’t right for you to confess to a thing you hadn’t

done--it was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you’ll

forgive me, Anne, I’ll forgive you and we’ll start square again. And now

get yourself ready for the picnic.”

Anne flew up like a rocket.

“Oh, Marilla, isn’t it too late?”

“No, it’s only two o’clock. They won’t be more than well gathered yet

and it’ll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb your

hair and put on your gingham. I’ll fill a basket for you. There’s plenty

of stuff baked in the house. And I’ll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel

and drive you down to the picnic ground.”

“Oh, Marilla,” exclaimed Anne, flying to the wash-stand. “Five minutes

ago I was so miserable I was wishing I’d never been born and now I

wouldn’t change places with an angel!”

That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to

Green Gables in a state of beatification impossible to describe.

“Oh, Marilla, I’ve had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is a

new word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn’t it very

expressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr.

Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters--six

of us at a time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaning

out to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn’t caught her by her

sash just in the nick of time she’d fallen in and prob’ly been drowned.

I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to

have been nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And

we had the ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla,

I assure you it was sublime.”

That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her stocking

basket.

“I’m willing to own up that I made a mistake,” she concluded candidly,

“but I’ve learned a lesson. I have to laugh when I think of Anne’s

‘confession,’ although I suppose I shouldn’t for it really was a

falsehood. But it doesn’t seem as bad as the other would have been,

somehow, and anyhow I’m responsible for it. That child is hard to

understand in some respects. But I believe she’ll turn out all right

yet. And there’s one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that

she’s in.”