Part 34

“Well, you march upstairs and stay there till after dinner. Perhaps you’ll get them sorted out in your memory by that time. No, Anne, never you mind interceding for him. I’m not punishing him because he spoiled your pies . . . that was an accident. I’m punishing him for his disobedience. Go, Davy, I say.”

“Ain’t I to have any dinner?” wailed Davy.

“You can come down after dinner is over and have yours in the kitchen.”

“Oh, all right,” said Davy, somewhat comforted. “I know Anne’ll save some nice bones for me, won’t you, Anne? ’Cause you know I didn’t mean to fall on the pies. Say, Anne, since they are spoiled can’t I take some of the pieces upstairs with me?”

“No, no lemon pie for you, Master Davy,” said Marilla, pushing him toward the hall.

“What shall we do for dessert?” asked Anne, looking regretfully at the wreck and ruin.

“Get out a crock of strawberry preserves,” said Marilla consolingly. “There’s plenty of whipped cream left in the bowl for it.”

One o’clock came . . . but no Priscilla or Mrs. Morgan. Anne was in an agony. Everything was done to a turn and the soup was just what soup should be, but couldn’t be depended on to remain so for any length of time.

“I don’t believe they’re coming after all,” said Marilla crossly.

Anne and Diana sought comfort in each other’s eyes.

At half past one Marilla again emerged from the parlor.

“Girls, we must have dinner. Everybody is hungry and it’s no use waiting any longer. Priscilla and Mrs. Morgan are not coming, that’s plain, and nothing is being improved by waiting.”

Anne and Diana set about lifting the dinner, with all the zest gone out of the performance.

“I don’t believe I’ll be able to eat a mouthful,” said Diana dolefully.

“Nor I. But I hope everything will be nice for Miss Stacy’s and Mr. and Mrs. Allan’s sakes,” said Anne listlessly.

When Diana dished the peas she tasted them and a very peculiar expression crossed her face.

“Anne, did you put sugar in these peas?”

“Yes,” said Anne, mashing the potatoes with the air of one expected to do her duty. “I put a spoonful of sugar in. We always do. Don’t you like it?”

“But I put a spoonful in too, when I set them on the stove,” said Diana.

Anne dropped her masher and tasted the peas also. Then she made a grimace.

“How awful! I never dreamed you had put sugar in, because I knew your mother never does. I happened to think of it, for a wonder . . . I’m always forgetting it . . . so I popped a spoonful in.”

“It’s a case of too many cooks, I guess,” said Marilla, who had listened to this dialogue with a rather guilty expression. “I didn’t think you’d remember about the sugar, Anne, for I’m perfectly certain you never did before . . . so I put in a spoonful.”

The guests in the parlor heard peal after peal of laughter from the kitchen, but they never knew what the fun was about. There were no green peas on the dinner table that day, however.

“Well,” said Anne, sobering down again with a sigh of recollection, “we have the salad anyhow and I don’t think anything has happened to the beans. Let’s carry the things in and get it over.”

It cannot be said that that dinner was a notable success socially. The Allans and Miss Stacy exerted themselves to save the situation and Marilla’s customary placidity was not noticeably ruffled. But Anne and Diana, between their disappointment and the reaction from their excitement of the forenoon, could neither talk nor eat. Anne tried heroically to bear her part in the conversation for the sake of her guests; but all the sparkle had been quenched in her for the time being, and, in spite of her love for the Allans and Miss Stacy, she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be when everybody had gone home and she could bury her weariness and disappointment in the pillows of the east gable.

There is an old proverb that really seems at times to be inspired . . . “it never rains but it pours.” The measure of that day’s tribulations was not yet full. Just as Mr. Allan had finished returning thanks there arose a strange, ominous sound on the stairs, as of some hard, heavy object bounding from step to step, finishing up with a grand smash at the bottom. Everybody ran out into the hall. Anne gave a shriek of dismay.

At the bottom of the stairs lay a big pink conch shell amid the fragments of what had been Miss Barry’s platter; and at the top of the stairs knelt a terrified Davy, gazing down with wide-open eyes at the havoc.

“Davy,” said Marilla ominously, “did you throw that conch down on purpose?”