Anne of Windy Willows by Lucy Maud Montgomery Page A

always seemed so left out of everything. She could not help regretting it many times, for Katherine was even more brusque and sarcastic than usual. She seldom let a practice pass without some corrosive remark, and she overworked her eyebrows. Worse still, it was Katherine who had insisted on having Jen Pringle take the part of Mary Queen of Scots.
    ‘There’s no one else in the school who can play it,’ she said impatiently, ‘no one who has the necessary personality.’
    Anne was not so sure of this. She rather thought that Sophy Sinclair, who was tall, and had hazel eyes and rich chestnut hair, would make a far better Queen Mary than Jen. But Sophy was not even a member of the club, and had never taken part in a play.
    ‘We don’t want absolute greenhorns in this. I’m not going to be associated with anything that is not successful,’ Katherine had said disagreeably, and Anne had yielded. She could not deny that Jen was very good in the part. She had a natural flair for acting, and she apparently threw herself into it wholeheartedly. They practised four evenings a week, and on the surface things went along very smoothly. Jen seemed to be so interested in her part that she behaved herself as far as the play was concerned. Anne did not meddle with her, but left her to Katherine’s coaching. Once or twice, though, she surprised a certain look of sly triumph on Jen’s face that puzzled her. She could not guess just what it meant.
    One afternoon, soon after the practices had begun, Anne found Sophy Sinclair in tears in a corner of the girls’ cloakroom. At first she had blinked her hazel eyes vigorously and denied it, then broken down.
    ‘I did so want to be in the play – to be Queen Mary,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve never had a chance. Father wouldn’t let me join the club, because there are dues to pay and every cent counts so much. And, of course, I haven’t had any experience. I’ve always loved Queen Mary. Her very name just thrills me to my finger-tips. I don’t believe – I never will believe – she had anything to do with murdering Darnley. It would have been wonderful to fancy I was she for a little while.’
    Afterwards Anne concluded that it was her guardian angel who prompted her reply.
    ‘I’ll write the part out for you, Sophy, and coach you in it. It will be good training for you. And, as we plan to give the play in other places if it goes well here, it will be just as well to have an understudy, in case Jen shouldn’t always be able to go. But we’ll say nothing about it to anyone.’
    Sophy had the part memorized by the next day. She went home to Windy Willows with Anne every afternoon when school came out and rehearsed it in the tower. They had a lot of fun together, for Sophy was full of quiet vivacity. The play was to be put on the last Friday in November in the Town Hall; it was widely advertised, and the reserved seats were sold to the last one. Anne and Katherine spent two evenings decorating the hall, the band was hired, and a noted soprano was coming up from Charlottetown to sing between the acts. The dress rehearsal was a success. Jen was really excellent, and the whole cast played up to her. On Friday morning Jen was not in school, and in the afternoon her mother sent word that Jen was ill with a very sore throat; they were afraid it was tonsillitis. Everybody concerned was very sorry, but it was out of the question that she should take part in the play that night.
    Katherine and Anne stared at each other, drawn together for once in their common dismay
    ‘We’ll have to put it off,’ said Katherine slowly. ‘And that means failure. Once we’re into December there’s so much going on. Well, I always thought it was foolish to try to get up a play this time of the year.’
    ‘We are not going to postpone it,’ said Anne, her eyes as green as Jen’s own. She was not going to say it to Katherine Brooke, but she knew as well as she had ever known anything in her life that Jen