CHAPTER VIII
Thefirst part of the way to Idlewild was unfamiliar to Anne. Apparently she had never walked far on the foot-path around her father’s place. But as they approached the end of the mile walk she grew more animated. She remembered this point of rocks, that tree, this cliff above the surf. And when finally they came to the solid and substantial wall which Mr. Poole had built to separate his land from mere pasture, her spirits rose greatly.
They climbed the pretty stile, “quite English,” as Cicely said. Then Anne became the Golden Girl once more, and began to show the others about with an air of importance.
“These are the steps leading down to the landing pier where Father usually keeps our yacht,” she announced. “It’s no use goingdown now, for theDay Dreamisn’t in commission this summer. This is the path to the house. Isn’t it pretty, and easy to walk on, it’s so nicely gravelled? See these beautiful lawns! Father had the underbrush cleared away and all tidied up. It cost a great deal of money to start the sods, I heard him say. Grass doesn’t like to grow on these rocks. But he made it!”
“I think the wild tangle that we have passed through is lovely,” said Cicely. “The underbrush in New England is always a surprise to me. We have lawns and trimmed trees in England, of course. But we don’t see anything wild like this.”
“Well, anybody can have a wild place around here,” said Anne loftily. “Father made this to be different. He copied somebody’s place in Italy, I believe.”
“Yes, here’s an Italian pergola,” said Norma. “And here’s a brick terrace. That’s Italian too.”
There was a neglected tennis-court on the lawn in front of the garage; and a sunken garden, dried up and weedy. Anne lookedat the flower-beds in surprise and some mortification.
“Why, how badly the garden looks!” she exclaimed. “I thought Father always left somebody to take care of the place until we came again. But this looks as if nobody had been near it since last summer.”
“It would take more than one man to keep this big place in order,” said Cicely, who knew about such things.
“Oh, yes! Father employed three gardeners,” said Anne, “and I don’t know how many other men. I shall write him they aren’t doing their duty. He will be very angry when he knows. He can’t bear to see things out of order.” Anne remembered more than one exhibition of her father’s bad temper.
They were walking along the neat paths on top of the cliff, in front of the great house with its shuttered windows. The dead leaves of last fall lay brown on the unraked lawns. The wind had blown and torn the bushes here and there. Everything looked forlorn and unhappy. Anne grew more and more uneasy, even as she pointed out the elaborate arrangementsof the place; the big garage, the water tower, the lighting plant, the ice house, the stable where her pony had been kept. Anne did not know where he was now; perhaps in Canada.
Presently they came to a low house with wire pens adjacent. “This was the chicken house,” said Anne. “We had pigeons and rabbits, too. But the hutches are all empty. Why, I wonder what has become of my white rabbit? I had a lovely one named Plon. Those dreadful servants have not taken care of him!”
“Perhaps your father did not intend to keep the place,” suggested Norma. “It looks—well, finished.”
“I’m sure he is coming down another summer,” said Anne quickly. “It is only this year he had to go away on business, he said. It is the fault of the caretakers that the place looks so badly.”
“Why, here is one leetle garden growing nicely as can be!” cried Gilda, who had been exploring by herself. “See, ze roses are all in ze bud!”
“It is my own little garden!” cried Anne, running to where Gilda stood. “I was afraid to visit it, for fear it would be dead. I have taken care of it all myself for ever so many summers, ever since I was a tiny tot. I never let anyone else weed it. And here is my herb garden behind it; but that does not look so well.”
“I didn’t know you ever worked, Anne,” said Nancy innocently, “even in a garden.”
“Work in a garden is only play,” said Anne.
“We will remember that!” chorused the Round Robin. “Our vegetable garden never gets half enough attention,” explained Nancy. “We’ll introduce you to-morrow!” But Anne was bending over the little plot she called her garden, fingering the plants lovingly. Rosebushes, mignonette, poppies, morning glories, sweet william, iris were all in bud, nicely weeded and trimmed. It was like a little oasis in a desert of desolation.
“I don’t understand why this looks so well, when everything else is neglected,” said Anne, greatly puzzled. “It certainly seems as if somebody had been tending it. Whoever itis, I wish he had looked after my pets too. I’m afraid the poor things are all dead!”
“Maybe zey went away to be wild rabbits again,” suggested Gilda sympathetically. “Zere are wild rabbits here. I saw one yesterday.”
“Oh, did you? What was he like?” Anne was all eagerness. But it was a little brown bunny which Gilda had spied in the woods; not the big white Plon.
The girls went up on the piazza of the great house, trying to imagine how the interior would look when the windows and doors were open. “The hammocks always hung here,” explained Anne. “And we had afternoon tea in this corner when the screens were up. This is the glassed-in breakfast room. You can’t see it now because of the shutters. My rooms are above it, there. I have three all to myself, done in pale blue. Not much like camp, is it?” She smiled complacently. “Though I do like a tent, really,” she confessed. “I shall ask father to build me a sleeping-porch next season.”
“But don’t you like trees close by, as wehave at Round Robin?” asked Nancy. “Mr. Poole must have cut off a lot of trees from this place. It seems bare to me.”
“Yes,” said Anne, “they cut off the trees to make a better view. I remember Father said so. I had forgotten it was quite so bare around the house.” She looked about with new eyes, used to the sifted sun and shade of the intimate woods. “But what a wonderful thing it was that Father could turn this scraggy old New England pasture into such a foreign-looking place! Our friends who visited here called Father a magician.”
“Plain American is good enough for me!” said Nancy. “I like it the way we have at Round Robin, cosy and simple.”
“Well!” said Anne abruptly. “Let’s not stay any longer. It makes me homesick to see the place so.” She did indeed look disappointed and sad. The place was not so imposing as she had remembered. The girls were not so greatly impressed as she had hoped they would be.
“I’ll tell you what!” suggested Nancy.“Let’s go and see Nelly’s home. It’s only a little way from here.”
“All right!” the Club was ready. But Anne objected. “Oh! I’m too tired,” she said. “I’d rather go right home.”
“Oh, come on! It’s such a little way,” urged Nancy. “Cap’n Sackett wants to see you, I know, Anne. He is always talking about you, and how you used to come down often when you were a tiny tot.”
“Why don’t you care to go there any more?” asked Norma bluntly. “I should, if anybody wanted to see me so much.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Anne hesitated. “When I was little there seemed plenty of time. But now it is different. There is always so much going on at Idlewild—riding and driving and tennis and golf and company and yachting parties. But I did go down once every summer. Father made me.”
“Well, to-day will make at least once this summer; and there’s no time like the present,” urged Nancy. “Nelly will never forgive us if she hears we were so near and did not go a little further to see her. But if you like, youcould wait here for us to pick you up on the way back, Anne.”
“No, I will go too,” said Anne, who had no mind to wait in the lonesomeness of Idlewild.
It was less than half a mile from Idlewild to the Cove, across Mr. Poole’s well laid-out golf links. This too showed the lack of care. Already the trespassing weeds and lawless grasses were taking advantage of the generous July sun to riot and grow bold. The unkempt green was really no less beautiful; but it shocked Anne.
“I shall write Father to-night,” she repeated. “It is dreadful!”