Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery

Author:L. M. Montgomery [Montgomery, L. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 37

The Reaper whose Name is Death

‘Matthew – Matthew – what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?’

It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne came through the hall, her hands full of white narcissus – it was long before Anne could love the sight or odour of white narcissus again – in time to hear her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper in his hand, and his face strangely drawn and grey. Anne dropped her flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as Marilla. They were both too late; before they could reach him, Matthew had fallen across the threshold.

‘He’s fainted,’ gasped Marilla. ‘Anne, run for Martin – quick, quick! He’s at the barn.’

Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office, started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to send Mr and Mrs Barry over. Mrs Lynde, who was there on an errand, came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore Matthew to consciousness.

Mrs Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and the tears came into her eyes.

‘Oh, Marilla,’ she said gravely. ‘I don’t think – we can do anything for him.’

‘Mrs Lynde, you don’t think – you can’t think Matthew is – is – ’ Anne could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.

‘Child, yes, I’m afraid of it. Look at his face. When you’ve seen that look as often as I have you’ll know what it means.’

Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great Presence.

When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had held and which Martin had brought from the post office that morning. It contained an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.

The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends and neighbours thronged Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness for the dead and living. For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had fallen on him and set him apart as one crowned.

When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables, the old house was hushed and tranquil. In the parlour lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin, his long grey hair framing his placid face on which there was a little kindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were flowers about him – sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother had planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew had always had a secret, wordless love.

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