The Collected Works of Lucy Maud Montgomery: 20 Novels & 170+ Short Stories, Poems, Autobiography and Letters (Including Complete Anne Shirley Series, Chronicles of Avonlea & Emily Starr Trilogy). Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Westcott has never allowed Dovie to have any beaus and when Jarvis Morrow began to ‘pay her attention,’ he forbade him the house and told Dovie there was to be no more ‘running round with that fellow.’ But the mischief had been done. Dovie and Jarvis were already fathoms deep in love.
“Everybody in town is in sympathy with the lovers. Franklin Westcott is really unreasonable. Jarvis is a successful young lawyer, of good family, with good prospects, and a very nice, decent lad in himself.
“‘Nothing could be more suitable,’ declares Rebecca Dew. ‘Jarvis Morrow could have any girl he wanted in Summerside. Franklin Westcott has just made up his mind that Dovie is to be an old maid. He wants to be sure of a housekeeper when Aunt Maggie dies.’
“‘Isn’t there any one who has any influence with him?’ I asked.
“‘Nobody can argue with Franklin Westcott. He’s too sarcastical. And if you get the better of him he throws a tantrum. I’ve never seen him in one of his tantrums but I’ve heard Miss Prouty describe how he acted one time she was there sewing. He got mad over something … nobody knew what. He just grabbed everything in sight and flung it out of the window. Milton’s poems went flying clean over the fence into George Clarke’s lily pond. He’s always kind of had a grudge at life. Miss Prouty says her mother told her that the yelps of him when he was born passed anything she ever heard. I suppose God has some reason for making men like that, but you’d wonder. No, I can’t see any chance for Jarvis and Dovie unless they elope. It’s a kind of low-down thing to do, though there’s been a terrible lot of romantic nonsense talked about eloping. But this is a case where anybody would excuse it.’
“I don’t know what to do but I must do something. I simply can’t sit still and see people make a mess of their lives under my very nose, no matter how many tantrums Franklin Westcott takes. Jarvis Morrow is not going to wait forever … rumor has it that he is getting out of patience already and has been seen savagely cutting Dovie’s name out of a tree on which he had cut it. There is an attractive Palmer girl who is reported to be throwing herself at his head, and his sister is said to have said that his mother has said that her son has no need to dangle for years at any girl’s apron-string.
“Really, Gilbert, I’m quite unhappy about it.
“It’s moonlight tonight, beloved … moonlight on the poplars of the yard … moonlit dimples all over the harbor where a phantom ship is drifting outwards … moonlight on the old graveyard … on my own private valley … on the Storm King. And it will be moonlight in Lover’s Lane and on the Lake of Shining Waters and the old Haunted Wood and Violet Vale. There should be fairy dances on the hills tonight. But, Gilbert dear, moonlight with no one to share it is just … just moonshine.
“I wish I could take little Elizabeth for a walk. She loves a moonlight walk. We had some delightful ones when she was at Green Gables. But at home Elizabeth never sees moonlight except from the window.
“I am beginning to be a little worried about her, too. She is going on ten now and those two old ladies haven’t the least idea what she needs, spiritually and emotionally. As long as she has good food and good clothes, they cannot imagine her needing anything more. And it will be worse with every succeeding year. What kind of girlhood will the poor child have?”
Chapter VI
Jarvis Morrow walked home from the High School Commencement with Anne and told her his woes.
“You’ll have to run away with her, Jarvis. Everybody says so. As a rule I don’t approve of elopements” (“I said that like a teacher of forty years’ experience,” thought Anne with an unseen grin) “but there are exceptions to all rules.”
“It takes two to make a bargain, Anne. I can’t elope alone. Dovie is so frightened of her father, I can’t get her to agree. And it wouldn’t be an elopement … really. She’d just come to my sister Julia’s … Mrs. Stevens, you know … some evening. I’d have the minister there and we could be married respectably enough to please anybody and go over to spend our honeymoon with Aunt Bertha in Kingsport. Simple as that. But I can’t get Dovie to chance it. The poor darling has been giving in to her father’s whims and crotchets so long, she hasn’t any will-power left.”
“You’ll simply have to make her do it, Jarvis.”
“Great Peter, you don’t suppose I haven’t tried, do you, Anne? I’ve begged till I was black in the face. When she’s with me she’ll almost promise it, but the minute she’s home again she sends me word she can’t. It seems odd, Anne, but the poor child is really fond of her father and she can’t bear the thought of his never forgiving her.”
“You must tell her she has to choose between her father and you.”
“And suppose she chooses him?”
“I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”
“You can never tell,” said Jarvis gloomily. “But something has to be decided soon. I can’t go on like this forever. I’m crazy about Dovie … everybody in Summerside knows that. She’s like a little red rose just out of reach … I must reach her, Anne.”
“Poetry is a very good thing in its place, but it won’t get you anywhere in this instance, Jarvis,” said Anne coolly. “That sounds like a remark Rebecca Dew would make, but it’s quite true. What you need in this affair is plain, hard common sense. Tell Dovie you’re tired of shillyshallying and that she must take you or leave you. If she doesn’t care enough for you to leave her father for you, it’s just as well for you to realize it.”
Jarvis groaned.
“You haven’t been under the thumb of Franklin Westcott all your life, Anne. You haven’t any realization of what he’s like. Well, I’ll make a last and final effort. As you say, if Dovie really cares for me she’ll come to me … and if she doesn’t, I might as well know the worst. I’m beginning to feel I’ve made myself rather ridiculous.”
“If you’re beginning to feel like that,” thought Anne, “Dovie would better watch out.”
Dovie herself slipped into Windy Poplars a few evenings later to consult Anne.
“What shall I do, Anne? What can I do? Jarvis wants me to elope … practically. Father is to be in Charlottetown one night next week attending a Masonic banquet … and it would be a good chance. Aunt Maggie would never suspect. Jarvis wants me to go to Mrs. Stevens’ and be married there.”
“And why don’t you, Dovie?”
“Oh, Anne, do you really think I ought to?” Dovie lifted a sweet, coaxing face. “Please, please make up my mind for me. I’m just distracted.” Dovie’s voice broke on a tearful note. “Oh, Anne, you don’t know Father. He just hates Jarvis … I can’t imagine why … can you? How can anybody hate Jarvis? When he called on me the first time, Father forbade him the house and told him he’d set the dog on him if he ever came again … our big bull. You know they never let go once they take hold. And he’ll never forgive me if I run away with Jarvis.”
“You must choose between them, Dovie.”
“That’s just what Jarvis said,” wept Dovie. “Oh, he was so stern … I never saw him like that before. And I can’t … I can’t li . . i . . i . . ve without him, Anne.”
“Then live with him, my dear girl. And don’t call it eloping. Just coming into Summerside and being married among his friends isn’t eloping.”
“Father will call it so,” said Dovie, swallowing a sob. “But I’m going to take your advice, Anne. I’m sure you wouldn’t advise me to take any step that was wrong. I’ll tell Jarvis to go ahead and get the license and I’ll