Chapter Three

Rose Cottage, just over the hill from the King farmhouse, was a charming place with a wide veranda and pretty scrollwork ornamenting its gables. Though all unsuspecting of the larger upheaval about to befall it, Rose Cottage was not without smaller commotions of its own. At just about the same moment Blair Stanley was arriving at the King farm, a buggy was pulling up to the cottage door.

The appearance of the buggy had a rather immediate effect upon Hetty King, who, until that moment, had been dusting and humming and feeling quite content with life. She dropped the duster abruptly onto the parlor side table, let out a sharp, disapproving breath and stood glaring through the curtains at the lanky figure descending from the buggy’s seat.

The lanky figure belonged to Jasper Dale, known locally as the Awkward Man. Jasper came by the name honestly. His gangling limbs tripped over things, dropped things and got themselves into a knot whenever possible. What put them into knots was the proximity of other people. Until Sara and her Aunt Olivia had taken him in hand, Jasper had lived like a recluse on the edge of Avonlea, tinkering in his workshop, avoiding human beings and generally acting like the shiest man alive.

Olivia had changed all that when she discovered that Jasper not only had a camera but a darkroom, too, and could take the loveliest photographs when he wanted to. As it happened, Olivia had been offered a job writing up local events for the Avonlea Chronicle—providing she could come up with pictures to match. Olivia hadn’t rested until she persuaded Jasper Dale out of his solitude to accompany her on her reporting trips as her photographer. The fact that Olivia was a charming young woman who seemed to enjoy his company had a lot to do with Jasper’s capitulation. One got a feeling that there wasn’t a great deal Jasper Dale wouldn’t do for Olivia King, from walking over red-hot coals to braving the main street of Avonlea just to walk by her side.

Yet, though Jasper might walk over hot coals for Olivia, an approach to Rose Cottage’s front door was almost beyond his capacity. Behind that front door was Hetty King. Hetty thought Jasper a poor specimen of manhood indeed, and had no patience at all for his bumbling, clumsy ways.

Knowing Hetty’s opinion of him very well, Jasper stood by the buggy wheel, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to screw up his courage. For no reason at all, he took a blanket out of his buggy. Then he put it back. Next, he crammed his hat onto his head, only to snatch it away again, remembering that gentlemen always approached a lady’s door bareheaded, especially if that lady happened to be Hetty King. Finally, hat in hand, Jasper swallowed hard and sidled up to the door, as though expecting it to fly open upon a brimstone-breathing dragon. He knocked timidly, turned away, inspected his hat brim and almost looked as though he might make a run for it after all, when Hetty flung open the door.

“Yes?” she inquired, so forbiddingly that poor Jasper almost bolted on the spot. When he was unnerved, his stutter almost strangled him. His terrible stutter was one of the chief reasons Jasper avoided everyone in Avonlea.

“Um, Miss K-K-K-K—”

“King?” Hetty finished for him glacially. She was a tall, thin woman with hair drawn back severely into a bun. Her many years of teaching school made her an expert at freezing people where they stood.

“King.” Jasper gulped and bravely took another run at communicating. “Um, I’ve come to call for Miss K-K-K. ..uh, Olivia,” he finished shakily, lest Hetty, by some wild mischance, assume it was her he had come to collect.

“Oh...is that so?”

Hetty looked Jasper up and down, frowning at his free use of her younger sister’s first name. Then she stepped back into the house. When Jasper, foolishly thinking this a gesture of hospitality, made to follow, Hetty slammed the door an inch from his astonished nose.

“Olivia!” Hetty bellowed once inside, her single, grudging concession to Jasper Dale’s presence.

Instantly, Olivia herself came dashing down the stairs into the front hail of Rose Cottage. Very much in a rush, she sped right past Hetty and into the kitchen, looking about her distractedly.

“Oh, my goodness, I don’t know where I’ve left my little black notebook.”

Hetty showed no interest in the notebook. Instead, she fixed her sister with a gimlet eye. She saw that Olivia had on her favorite gray wool suit and her blouse with the real lace on the collar. Most incriminating was the jet brooch that had belonged to Grandmother King, pinned at Olivia’s throat. Olivia only took it out of its box on what she felt were special occasions.

“You didn’t say anything to me about going to that lecture with Jasper Dale.”

Hetty liked everything around her to run with smooth predictability. She hated any break in her careful order. Before the Chronicle had offered Olivia this job, Olivia had been content to stay home and keep house while Hetty taught. Now Olivia’s head seemed quite turned with all the gadding about she had to do to get her stories. Things at Rose Cottage were getting more and more unsettled every day.

“Jasper’s only accompanying me to take a photograph. That’s all, Hetty,” Olivia tossed back airily, still searching for the notebook.

Olivia was proud of her new job and proud of having coaxed Avonlea’s most reclusive bachelor out of his darkroom and into the light of day. She didn’t seem to mind, as Hetty minded very much, that Jasper Dale was still awkward and tongue- tied. The Kings had a position to maintain in the community, Hetty felt. To her mind, Jasper was not at all suitable to escort someone as refined as Olivia King.

“Humph! Gallivanting all over the Island with that—”

“Oh, I would hardly call going to the town hall in Markdale ‘gallivanting,” Olivia cut in, with more spirit than she was wont to show with her dominating older sister. Something about Jasper brought out all Olivia’s protective instincts.

Pouncing on the notebook, Olivia pattered back to the hall and began pinning on a blue felt hat with a rather startlingly jaunty bunch of feathers on the side.

“How do you like my new hat?” Olivia asked, tilting the brim perkily in the mirror. “I bought it with my first paycheck from the Chronicle.”

Practical Hetty sniffed at such frivolous use of hard-earned money. Besides, she was fighting back the awful suspicion that the new hat had something to do with Jasper Dale.

“I don’t really think blue is your color, Olivia,” she commented repressively, growing a little desperate now to stem this outbreak of foolishness in her youngest sister. Olivia had always been sweet-natured and pliant, giving in to Hetty’s more mature wisdom. Now, this newfound independence was upsetting the organized life she valued so much and had worked so hard to establish at Rose Cottage.

Her comment had absolutely no effect on Olivia, who now flew to the door, eyes already sparkling with anticipation of the afternoon.

“Well...don’t wait supper for me,” she called back over her shoulder. “Oh, and Sara asked me to tell you that she’ll be having dinner with the children at Janet’s.”

Hetty’s lips drew into a thin, tight line, covering her twitch of disappointment. Though she would never admit it out loud, she always looked forward to Sara’s animated chatter at the dinner table.

“I spend so much time on my own these days, I might as well be living on my own, not that anyone cares...”

“Goodbye, Hetty,” Olivia sang out without stopping to listen. In a wink, she had flitted out and slammed the door behind her.

“...about me,” Hetty finished, the echo of the door ringing in her ears.

Hetty went to the window and saw Jasper helping Olivia up into his buggy. They were both laughing merrily. Jasper seemed to have found it in himself to answer Olivia quite volubly, despite being practically speechless only minutes before at the door. In fact, now that Hetty looked closely, she noticed that Jasper had produced, from his long-neglected wardrobe, something approximating a respectable suit.

Of course, Hetty would never have gone so far as to admit that Jasper could, when he stopped ducking and bobbing, cut a fine, manly figure as he gathered up the reins and turned the buggy around. Hetty only saw her younger sister leaving her without a backward glance—to go off with a man. She and Olivia had lived together in Rose Cottage so long, their life seemed so settled, that the idea of Olivia taking an interest in someone, even Jasper Dale, filled Hetty with a queer feeling very like panic. Hetty regarded herself as more of a mother than a sister to Olivia, and with the addition of Sara Stanley to the household, the little family felt quite complete.

Hetty turned away from the scene outside and went in search of her duster. Surely Olivia wouldn’t let Jasper Dale and all this nonsense about a job turn her head. And if Olivia was going to gad about the country chasing newspaper stories, thank goodness there was still Sara, who could always be relied upon to keep Hetty company, and make Rose Cottage seem like a home.