Rilla of Ingleside - Lucy Maud Montgomery (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) š
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Performer: 1594624275
Book online Ā«Rilla of Ingleside - Lucy Maud Montgomery (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) šĀ». Author Lucy Maud Montgomery
Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded for a year at Ingleside. The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla who was fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to share her room, since no other was available. Gertrude Oliver was twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was a striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair twisted about her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face, and Rilla found her fascinating. Even her occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had allurement for Rilla. These moods came only when Miss Oliver was tired. At all other times she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at Ingleside never remembered that she was so much older than themselves. Walter and Rilla were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be āoutāāto go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses andāyes, there is no mincing mattersābeaux! In the plural, at that! As for Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets āto Rosamondāāi.e., Faith Meredithāand that he aimed at a Professorship of English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate love of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his strength and his weakness.
Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver found pleasure in looking at him for his good looksāhe was so exactly like what she would have liked her own son to be. Glossy black hair, brilliant dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a poet to his fingertips! That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty to write. Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knew that Walter Blythe had a wonderful gift.
Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He never teased her as Jem and Shirley did. He never called her āSpider.ā His pet name for her was āRilla-my-Rillaāāa little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had been named after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had died before Rilla was old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detested the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldnāt they have called her by her first name, Bertha, which was beautiful and dignified, instead of that silly āRillaā? She did not mind Walterās version, but nobody else was allowed to call her that, except Miss Oliver now and then. āRilla-my-Rillaā in Walterās musical voice sounded very beautiful to herālike the lilt and ripple of some silvery brook. She would have died for Walter if it would have done him any good, so she told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics as most girls of fifteen areāand the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that he told Di more of his secrets than he told her.
āHe thinks Iām not grown up enough to understand,ā she had once lamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver, ābut I am! And I would never tell them to a single soulānot even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all my ownāI just couldnāt be happy if I had any secret from you, dearestābut I would never betray his. I tell him everythingāI even show him my diary. And it hurts me dreadfully when he doesnāt tell me things. He shows me all his poems, thoughāthey are marvellous, Miss Oliver. Oh, I just live in the hope that some day I shall be to Walter what Wordsworthās sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never wrote anything like Walterās poemsānor Tennyson, either.ā
āI wouldnāt say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash,ā said Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in Rillaās eye, she added hastily,
āBut I believe Walter will be a great poet, tooāsome dayāand you will have more of his confidence as you grow older.ā
āWhen Walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year I was almost crazy,ā sighed Rilla, a little importantly. āThey never told me how ill he really was until it was all overāfather wouldnāt let them. Iām glad I didnāt knowāI couldnāt have borne it. I cried myself to sleep every night as it was. But sometimes,ā concluded Rilla bitterlyāshe liked to speak bitterly now and then in imitation of Miss Oliverāāsometimes I think Walter cares more for Dog Monday than he does for me.ā
Dog Monday was the Ingleside dog, so called because he had come into the family on a Monday when Walter had been reading Robinson Crusoe. He really belonged to Jem but was much attached to Walter also. He was lying beside Walter now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumping his tail rapturously whenever Walter gave him an absent pat. Monday was not a collie or a setter or a hound or a Newfoundland. He was just, as Jem said, āplain dogāāvery plain dog, uncharitable people added. Certainly, Mondayās looks were not his strong point. Black spots were scattered at random over his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently, blotting out an eye. His ears were in tatters, for Monday was never successful in affairs of honour. But he possessed one talisman. He knew that not all dogs could be handsome or eloquent or victorious, but that every dog could love. Inside his homely hide beat the most affectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog since dogs were; and something looked out of his brown eyes that was nearer akin to a soul than any theologian would allow. Everybody at Ingleside was fond of him, even Susan, although his one unfortunate propensity of sneaking into the spare room and going to sleep on the bed tried her affection sorely.
On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing conditions.
āHasnāt June been a delightful month?ā she asked, looking dreamily afar at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over Rainbow Valley. āWeāve had such lovely timesāand such lovely weather. It has just been perfect every way.ā
āI donāt half like that,ā said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. āItās ominousā somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the godsāa sort of compensation for what is coming afterwards. Iāve seen that so often that I donāt care to hear people say theyāve had a perfect time. June has been delightful, though.ā
āOf course, it hasnāt been very exciting,ā said Rilla. āThe only exciting thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old Miss Mead fainting in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic would happen once in a while.ā
āDonāt wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one. What a nice summer all you gay creatures will have! And me moping at Lowbridge!ā
āYouāll be over often, wonāt you? I think thereās going to be lots of fun this summer, though Iāll just be on the fringe of things as usual, I suppose. Isnāt it horrid when people think youāre a little girl when youāre not?ā
āThereās plenty of time for you to be grown up, Rilla. Donāt wish your youth away. It goes too quickly. Youāll begin to taste life soon enough.ā
āTaste life! I want to eat it,ā cried Rilla, laughing. āI want everythingāeverything a girl can have. Iāll be fifteen in another month, and then nobody can say Iām a child any longer. I heard someone say once that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girlās life. Iām going to make them perfectly splendidājust fill them with fun.ā
āThereās no use thinking about what youāre going to doāyou are tolerably sure not to do it.ā
āOh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the thinking,ā cried Rilla.
āYou think of nothing but fun, you monkey,ā said Miss Oliver indulgently, reflecting that Rillaās chin was really the last word in chins. āWell, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion of going to college this fall?ā
āNoānor any other fall. I donāt want to. I never cared for all those ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And thereās five of us going to college already. Surely thatās enough. Thereās bound to be one dunce in every family. Iām quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a pretty, popular, delightful one. I canāt be clever. I have no talent at all, and you canāt imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to do anything so Iām never pestered to do it. And I canāt be a housewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, and when Susan couldnāt teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father says I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of the field,ā concluded Rilla, with another laugh.
āYou are too young to give up your studies altogether, Rilla.ā
āOh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. It will polish up her B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Donāt look at me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I canāt be sober and serious āeverything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month Iāll be fifteenāand next year sixteenāand the year after that seventeen. Could anything be more enchanting?ā
āRap wood,ā said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. āRap wood, Rilla-my-Rilla.ā
Rilla, who still buttoned up her eyes when she went to sleep so that she always looked as if she were laughing in her slumber, yawned, stretched, and smiled at Gertrude Oliver. The latter had come over from Lowbridge the previous evening and had been prevailed upon to remain for the dance at the Four Winds lighthouse the next night.
āThe new day is knocking at the window. What will it bring us, I wonder.ā
Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted the days with Rillaās enthusiasm. She had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a terrible thing.
āI think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness,ā went on Rilla. āItās jolly to wake up like this on a golden-fine morning and wonder what surprise packet the day will hand you. I always day-dream for ten minutes before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things that may happen before night.ā
āI hope something
Comments (0)