Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression crossed her face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away at it.
Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake.
“Anne Shirley!” she exclaimed, “what on earth did you put into that cake?”
“Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla,” cried Anne with a look of anguish.
“Oh, isn’t it all right?”
“All right!
It’s simply horrible.
Mr. Allan, don’t try to eat it.
Anne, taste it yourself.
What flavoring did you use?”
“Vanilla,” said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting the cake.
“Only vanilla.
Oh, Marilla, it must have been the baking powder.
I had my suspicions of that bak—”
“Baking powder fiddlesticks!
Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you used.”
Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially filled with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly,
“Best Vanilla.”
Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it.
“Mercy on us, Anne, you’ve flavored that cake with Anodyne Liniment.
I broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an old empty vanilla bottle.
I suppose it’s partly my fault—I should have warned you—but for pity’s sake why couldn’t you have smelled it?”
Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace.
“I couldn’t—I had such a cold!” and with this she fairly fled to the gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who refuses to be comforted.
Presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the room.
“Oh, Marilla,” sobbed Anne, without looking up,
“I’m disgraced forever.
I shall never be able to live this down.
It will get out—things always do get out in Avonlea.
Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and I shall have to tell her the truth.
I shall always be pointed at as the girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment.
Gil—the boys in school will never get over laughing at it.
Oh, Marilla, if you have a spark of Christian pity don’t tell me that I must go down and wash the dishes after this.
I’ll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but I cannot ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again.
Perhaps she’ll think I tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who tried to poison her benefactor.
But the liniment isn’t poisonous.
It’s meant to be taken internally—although not in cakes.
Won’t you tell Mrs. Allan so, Marilla?”
“Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself,” said a merry voice.
Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her with laughing eyes.
“My dear little girl, you mustn’t cry like this,” she said, genuinely disturbed by Anne’s tragic face.
“Why, it’s all just a funny mistake that anybody might make.”
“Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake,” said Anne forlornly.
“And I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan.”
“Yes, I know, dear.
And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right.
Now, you mustn’t cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower garden.
Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own.
I want to see it, for I’m very much interested in flowers.”
Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it was really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit.