A Bend in the Road Chapter Seven

 Chapter Seven

Cordially, Katherine (With a K)

    Returning to Kingsport wasn't nearly as dreadful as Katherine had expected. Anne had insisted that she quit her old boarding house and that made all the difference.

    "Stay with me at Windy Poplars!" she had urged. "You'll love it. It's the dearest place… just made for dreaming in. And Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty are the most delightful of dear old ladies. And… well… you'll have to meet Rebecca Dew for yourself. Descriptions will simply not suffice. But they're kindred spirits, every one of them, although they might not look it. But if I've learned anything in life, it's not to judge people by their outsides. Otherwise, you might miss all the delightful treasures inside!"

    Katherine was learning that quickly.

    She had consented, of course, to staying at Windy Poplars. After Green Gables, she felt as if she dared not say no to anything Anne recommended. And she was so glad she had taken that view in life for Windy Poplars was the dearest, mysteriously beautiful and yet strangely homey place. Not quite Green Gables but still a place that could feel almost like home.

    Windy Poplars, the last house on a little back road called "Spook's Lane", seemed at first sight to be a rambling farmhouse but with a twist of medieval castle thrown in. Katherine had never quite seen anything like it.

    There are houses which impress themselves upon you at first sight for some reason you can hardly define. Windy Poplars is like that. It is a white frame house . . . very white . . . with green shutters . . . very green . . . with a 'tower' in the corner and a dormer-window on either side, a low stone wall dividing it from the street, with aspen poplars growing at intervals along it, and a big garden at the back where flowers and vegetables are delightfully jumbled up together . . . but all this can't convey its charm to you. In short, it is a house with a delightful personality and has something of the flavor of Green Gables about it.

    The front door looked so forbidding . . . a big, double-leaved, grained-wood affair, flanked by panels of red, flowered glass. It doesn't seem to belong to the house at all. The little green side door, which we reached by a darling path of thin, flat sandstones sunk at intervals in the grass, was much more friendly and inviting. The path was edged by very prim, well-ordered beds of ribbon grass and bleeding-heart and tiger-lilies and sweet-William and southernwood and bride's bouquet and red-and-white daisies and what Mrs. Lynde calls 'pinies.' Of course they weren't all in bloom at this season, but you could see they had bloomed at the proper time and done it well. There was a rose plot in a far corner and between Windy Poplars and the gloomy house next a brick wall all overgrown with Virginia creeper, with an arched trellis above a faded green door in the middle of it. A vine ran right across it, so it was plain it hadn't been opened for some time. It was really only half a door, for its top half is merely an open oblong through which one could catch a glimpse of a jungly garden on the other side.

    "Isn't it simply delightful to embark upon a journey only to find oneself at home again?" Anne enthused as she walked slowly along the worn little sandstone path, gazing up admiringly at the sparkling windows of Windy Poplars. The door was thrown open then and a short, stout little woman with very black hair and a very red face and just a little stub of a nose stood on the doorstep, calling out in welcome.

    "It's certainly about time you were getting back, the place just isn't the same without you," Rebecca Dew was saying in an almost business-like manner. But Katherine liked her immediately. And she agreed with Anne on first sight that you have to meet Rebecca Dew to really understand her.

    Katherine found herself at home instantly in the little back bedroom Rebecca Dew assigned her. It wasn't the east gable room at Green Gables, but looking around it, she felt that it almost could have been. A heavy, old-fashioned bedstead of good, solid oak took up the greater part of the little room. And said bedstead was gloriously adorned with a luxuriously thick feather bed and an ample quilt in a comfortable log-cabin pattern of all sorts of odds and ends of fabrics. Several rag-bags must have gone into the making of it.

    A fat little stove sat in one corner, in the absence of a hearth, and above it, a knick-knack shelf with a curly, round little china sheep… that was all. Such a darling little sheep, almost like a fluffy glass cloud, with big blue eyes that no earthly sheep ever could possess and a pink ribbon round its neck. In one corner, over the washstand, hung a faded cross-stitch with the words "Love never fails" surrounded with a wreath of rosebuds. A deep picture window, framed by curtains of pale-blue gingham, opened onto the garden just below and beyond the garden, the little spruce grove. Before this window was a large desk and it was here that Katherine sat, after depositing the contents of her carpet bags into the heavy oaken wardrobe.

    A half-dreamy smile was on her face… such a smile as had never before been on Katherine Brooke's face before… as she reached for pen, paper, and ink. It had only been that morning that she had bid David goodbye at the Carmody train station but she somehow felt that she must write at once. She never feared till afterwards that he might think her forward for writing so quickly… she simply just sat and wrote.

Windy Poplars

Spook's Lane

Summerside, P.E.I.

Monday, September 27th

"Dear David,

    I can scarcely believe that the summer has gone and here I am, back in Kingsport again. School starts within the week but, strangely enough, I don't dread it as much as I thought I would. Windy Poplars is the dearest place and I am thankful beyond what words can say that I took Anne's advice and came here after all. But… even more than that… I am thankful that I came to Green Gables and Avonlea in the first place.

    I told Anne once this summer that when I returned to Kingsport that the magic of Green Gables would leave me and "twelve o'clock would have struck for Cinderella". It almost makes me laugh to think of my foolishness then. Green Gables hasn't left me at all… it's changed me somehow… and I know I'll never be the same again. But I'm glad of it. Life has started to open up to me. Although my most cherished dreams have not yet come true, if they ever will, life is a beautiful thing now. And it used to be so miserable, dark, and dreary.

    I am eagerly anticipating discovering Kingsport anew. Now that I know Anne and have discovered that I am, indeed, a kindred spirit, it will all be so different. I've already been asked to sing in the Presbyterian Church Choir and, you know, I think I'm going to accept. Though why they want me, I'm not exactly sure. I'm not really a good singer. But I'll try it anyway. I am looking so forward to meeting Little Elizabeth and hearing all about her "Tomorrow". I know I've told you of her from what Anne has told me but it will be different to actually meet her for myself. Her ideas of "Tomorrow" are so quaint and fairy tale-ish… But I hope sincerely that she will reach it. I hope that I someday will reach "Tomorrow", though I feel foolish already for having said that. I feel as if I'm standing just on the brink of "Tomorrow's" dawn. Who knows? Perhaps that sun will rise after all… perhaps there really is a "bend in the road".

    Did I ever tell you what I dream of most? We talked of so many things this summer but somehow… I don't think I ever even mentioned it. In Avonlea it all seemed so far-away and little and insignificant. But now that I've gone, it's all come back to me. It must sound a little strange coming from me… a "spinsterly old schoolmarm"… but I've cherished this dream for many a long and lonely year. When I was young, one of the few bright spots in my life was an old picture on my uncle's wall… a string of camels around a desert with a palm spring. I've always wanted to travel and see that place… to see the Taj Mahal and the Pillars of Karnak. I want to know, not just believe, that the world is round. I want to traipse the streets of the Old World, to visit the haunts of the ancient. To wander through the halls of the Louvre and see the works of the masters and to wander through the paths of the Luxembourg gardens and see the works of God. The Swiss Alps… the Scottish Highlands… the Black Forest of Germany and the Bay of Naples in Italy. I suppose it is a foolish dream… but I've dreamed it all the same. And somehow, I don't think that you'll think me foolish for dreaming it. I suppose that's why I've told you. It's truly a wonderful thing to have someone with whom to share hopes and dreams.

    I'm sorry that this first letter has to be cut short… I have to start preparing my lessons… though I'm afraid that I really can't promise longer letters anyway. I'm not much for writing. Anyway, I suppose I'll be too busy grading papers and all that sort of thing to leave too much time for writing. But I'll make it anyway. I have already counted up how many days are left until I leave here for Christmas break… eighty-seven. That seems a terribly long amount. I can hardly wait to see dear old Green Gables again and Marilla and Mrs. Lynde and… oh, everybody! Even Sandy. He may not be a kindred spirit but he certainly is a good friend and I'm glad I met him. But… I'm even gladder… is that a word?... that I met you. I'm looking forward to more of our walks… this time in a glittering white world of snow.

Cordially,

Katherine (with a K)