Anne Of Ingleside √ (Project K.)

CHAPTER 31

"What is the reason you are not eating anything, pet?" asked Susan at the supper table.

"Were you out in the sun too long, dear?" asked Mother anxiously. "Does your head ache?"

"Ye-e-s," said Nan. But it wasn't her head that ached. Was she telling a lie to Mother? And if so, how many more would she have to tell? For Nan knew she would never be able to eat again . . . never so long as this horrible knowledge was hers. And she knew she could never tell Mother. Not so much because of the promise . . . hadn't Susan said once that a bad promise was better broken than kept? . . . but because it would hurt Mother. Somehow, Nan knew beyond any doubt that it would hurt Mother horribly. And Mother mustn't . . . shouldn't . . . be hurt. Nor Dad.

And yet . . . there was Cassie Thomas. She wouldn't call her Nan Blythe. It made Nan feel awful beyond description to think of Cassie Thomas as being Nan Blythe. She felt as if it blotted her out altogether. If she wasn't Nan Blythe she wasn't anybody! She would not be Cassie Thomas.

But Cassie Thomas haunted her. For a week Nan was beset by her . . . a wretched week during which Anne and Susan were really worried over the child, who wouldn't eat and wouldn't play and, as Susan said, "just moped around." Was it because Dovie Johnson had gone home? Nan said it wasn't. Nan said it wasn't anything. She just felt tired. Dad looked her over and prescribed a dose which Nan took meekly. It was not so bad as castor-oil but even castor-oil meant nothing now. Nothing meant anything except Cassie Thomas . . . and the awful question which had emerged from her confusion of mind and taken possession of her.

Shouldn't Cassie Thomas have her rights?

Was it fair that she, Nan Blythe . . . Nan clung to her identity frantically . . . should have all the things Cassie Thomas was denied and which were hers by rights? No, it wasn't fair. Nan was despairingly sure it wasn't fair. Somewhere in Nan there was a very strong sense of justice and fair play. And it became increasingly borne in upon her that it was only fair that Cassie Thomas should be told.

After all, perhaps nobody would care very much. Mother and Dad would be a little upset at first, of course, but as soon as they knew that Cassie Thomas was their own child all their love would go to Cassie and, she, Nan, would be of no account to them. Mother would kiss Cassie Thomas and sing to her in the summer twilights . . . sing the song Nan liked best. . . .

"I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea,
"And oh, it was all laden with pretty things for me."

Nan and Di had often talked about the day their ship would come in. But now the pretty things . . . her share of them anyhow . . . would belong to Cassie Thomas. Cassie Thomas would take her part as fairy queen in the forthcoming Sunday School concert and wear her dazzling band of tinsel. How Nan had looked forward to that! Susan would make fruit puffs for Cassie Thomas and Pussywillow would purr for her. She would play with Nan's dolls in Nan's moss-carpeted play-house in the maple grove, and sleep in her bed. Would Di like that? Would Di like Casssie Thomas for a sister?

There came a day when Nan knew she could bear it no longer. She must do what was fair. She would go down to the Harbour Mouth and tell the Thomases the truth. They could tell Mother and Dad. Nan felt that she simply could not do that.

Nan felt a little better when she had come to this decision, but very, very sad. She tried to eat a little supper because it would be the last meal she would ever eat at Ingleside.

"I'll always call Mother 'Mother,'" thought Nan desperately. "And I won't call Six-toed Jimmy 'Father.' I'll just say 'Mr. Thomas' very respectfully. Surely he won't mind that."