The Hotel Concert

PUT on your white organdy, by all means, Anne,” advised Diana

decidedly.

They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only

twilight--a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless

sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into

burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet

summer sounds--sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway

voices and laughter. But in Anne’s room the blind was drawn and the lamp

lighted, for an important toilet was being made.

The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that

night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to

the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept

in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and

dainty a nest as a young girl could desire.

The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of

Anne’s early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams

had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented

them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that

softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of

pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade

tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few

good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy’s photograph occupied

the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh

flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly

perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no “mahogany

furniture,” but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a

cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin,

a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes

painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a

low white bed.

Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had

got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all

the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it

along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir

had been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a

violin solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad;

and Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to

recite.

As Anne would have said at one time, it was “an epoch in her life,” and

she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in

the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his

Anne and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather

than admit it, and said she didn’t think it was very proper for a lot

of young folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible

person with them.

Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother

Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and

boys were going too. There was a party of visitors expected out from

town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers.

“Do you really think the organdy will be best?” queried Anne anxiously.

“I don’t think it’s as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin--and it

certainly isn’t so fashionable.”

“But it suits you ever so much better,” said Diana. “It’s so soft

and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too

dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you.”

Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for

notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much

sought after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular

night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was

forever debarred; but she was not to take any part in the concert, so

her appearance was of minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon

Anne, who, she vowed, must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and

combed and adorned to the Queen’s taste.

“Pull out that frill a little more--so; here, let me tie your sash; now

for your slippers. I’m going to braid your hair in two thick braids,

and tie them halfway up with big white bows--no, don’t pull out a single

curl over your forehead--just have the soft part. There is no way you do

your hair suits you so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a

Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose

just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for

you.”

“Shall I put my pearl beads on?” asked Anne. “Matthew brought me a

string from town last week, and I know he’d like to see them on me.”

Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically,

and finally pronounced in favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied

around Anne’s slim milk-white throat.

“There’s something so stylish about you, Anne,” said Diana, with

unenvious admiration. “You hold your head with such an air. I suppose

it’s your figure. I am just a dumpling. I’ve always been afraid of it,

and now I know it is so. Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign

myself to it.”

“But you have such dimples,” said Anne, smiling affectionately into the

pretty, vivacious face so near her own. “Lovely dimples, like little

dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream

will never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn’t

complain. Am I all ready now?”

“All ready,” assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt

figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a

much softer face. “Come right in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla.

Doesn’t she look lovely?”

Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.

“She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair. But I

expect she’ll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust and dew

with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights. Organdy’s the

most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I told Matthew so when

he got it. But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays.

Time was when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things for

Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything

off on him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable,

and Matthew plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear

of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm jacket on.”

Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked,

with that

“One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown”

and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her

girl recite.

“I wonder if it _is_ too damp for my dress,” said Anne anxiously.

“Not a bit of it,” said Diana, pulling up the window blind. “It’s a

perfect night, and there won’t be any dew. Look at the moonlight.”

“I’m so glad my window looks east into the sun rising,” said Anne, going

over to Diana. “It’s so splendid to see the morning coming up over those

long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It’s new every

morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest

sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don’t know how

I’ll get along without it when I go to town next month.”

“Don’t speak of your going away tonight,” begged Diana. “I don’t want to

think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do want to have a good time

this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne? And are you nervous?”

“Not a bit. I’ve recited so often in public I don’t mind at all now.

I’ve decided to give ‘The Maiden’s Vow.’ It’s so pathetic. Laura Spencer

is going to give a comic recitation, but I’d rather make people cry than

laugh.”

“What will you recite if they encore you?”

“They won’t dream of encoring me,” scoffed Anne, who was not without her

own secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling

Matthew all about it at the next morning’s breakfast table. “There are

Billy and Jane now--I hear the wheels. Come on.”

Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him,

so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit

back with the girls, where she could have laughed and chattered to her

heart’s content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter

in Billy. He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round,

expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts. But he

admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect

of driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him.

Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally

passing a sop of civility to Billy--who grinned and chuckled and never

could think of any reply until it was too late--contrived to enjoy the

drive in spite of all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road was full

of buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed

and reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of

light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert

committee, one of whom took Anne off to the performers’ dressing room

which was filled with the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club,

among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and countrified. Her

dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and pretty, now

seemed simple and plain--too simple and plain, she thought, among all

the silks and laces that glistened and rustled around her. What were her

pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the big, handsome lady near her?

And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse

flowers the others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank

miserably into a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at

Green Gables.

It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel,

where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes,

the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down

in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid

time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink

silk and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress. The stout

lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and surveyed Anne

through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so

scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl

kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the “country bumpkins”

and “rustic belles” in the audience, languidly anticipating “such fun”

from the displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she

would hate that white-lace girl to the end of life.

Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the

hotel and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a

wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems

on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice

and wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her

selection. Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the

time, listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended

she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and

recite after that--never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if

she were only back at Green Gables!

At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne--who did

not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace

girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied

therein if she had--got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front.

She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each

other’s hands in nervous sympathy.

Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as

she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience

as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely.

Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering--the rows of

ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of

wealth and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches

at the Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of

friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless

critics. Perhaps, like the white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement

from her “rustic” efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and

miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness

came over her; not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would

have fled from the platform despite the humiliation which, she felt,

must ever after be her portion if she did so.

But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the

audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending

forward with a smile on his face--a smile which seemed to Anne at once

triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert

was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and

of the effect produced by Anne’s slender white form and spiritual face

against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom he had

driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant

and taunting. But Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if

she had. She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage

and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She _would

not_ fail before Gilbert Blythe--he should never be able to laugh at her,

never, never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her

recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of

the room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored

to her, and in the reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness

she recited as she had never done before. When she finished there were

bursts of honest applause. Anne, stepping back to her seat, blushing

with shyness and delight, found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken

by the stout lady in pink silk.

“My dear, you did splendidly,” she puffed. “I’ve been crying like a

baby, actually I have. There, they’re encoring you--they’re bound to

have you back!”

“Oh, I can’t go,” said Anne confusedly. “But yet--I must, or Matthew

will be disappointed. He said they would encore me.”

“Then don’t disappoint Matthew,” said the pink lady, laughing.

Smiling, blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint,

funny little selection that captivated her audience still further. The

rest of the evening was quite a little triumph for her.

When the concert was over, the stout, pink lady--who was the wife of

an American millionaire--took her under her wing, and introduced her

to everybody; and everybody was very nice to her. The professional

elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that

she had a charming voice and “interpreted” her selections beautifully.

Even the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. They had

supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana and Jane

were invited to partake of this, also, since they had come with Anne,

but Billy was nowhere to be found, having decamped in mortal fear

of some such invitation. He was in waiting for them, with the team,

however, when it was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into

the calm, white moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked

into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs of the firs.

Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night!

How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the

sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants

guarding enchanted coasts.

“Hasn’t it been a perfectly splendid time?” sighed Jane, as they drove

away. “I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer at

a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice cream and

chicken salad every blessed day. I’m sure it would be ever so much

more fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great,

although I thought at first you were never going to begin. I think it

was better than Mrs. Evans’s.”

“Oh, no, don’t say things like that, Jane,” said Anne quickly, “because

it sounds silly. It couldn’t be better than Mrs. Evans’s, you know, for

she is a professional, and I’m only a schoolgirl, with a little knack

of reciting. I’m quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty

well.”

“I’ve a compliment for you, Anne,” said Diana. “At least I think it

must be a compliment because of the tone he said it in. Part of it

was anyhow. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me--such a

romantic-looking man, with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he

is a distinguished artist, and that her mother’s cousin in Boston is

married to a man that used to go to school with him. Well, we heard

him say--didn’t we, Jane?--‘Who is that girl on the platform with the

splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.’ There now,

Anne. But what does Titian hair mean?”

“Being interpreted it means plain red, I guess,” laughed Anne. “Titian

was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women.”

“_Did_ you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?” sighed Jane. “They

were simply dazzling. Wouldn’t you just love to be rich, girls?”

“We _are_ rich,” said Anne staunchly. “Why, we have sixteen years to our

credit, and we’re happy as queens, and we’ve all got imaginations, more

or less. Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of

things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had

millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn’t change into any

of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white-lace girl

and wear a sour look all your life, as if you’d been born turning up

your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so

stout and short that you’d really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans,

with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully

unhappy sometime to have such a look. You _know_ you wouldn’t, Jane

Andrews!”

“I _don’t_ know--exactly,” said Jane unconvinced. “I think diamonds would

comfort a person for a good deal.”

“Well, I don’t want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by

diamonds all my life,” declared Anne. “I’m quite content to be Anne of

Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as

much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady’s jewels.”