"There are only two times in a woman's like when it is appropriate for her to have her name in the paper," said Aunt Cordy, once upon a time – and oh! The way she made that word – appropriate – sound! As if it were the most important thing. As if wars had been fought over appropriateness, instead of love or hate or greed or power or anything else. Aunt Cordy was very concerned with what was appropriate. And according to Aunt Cordy, it was appropriate for a woman to have her name in the paper at her birth, and death. And that was all.
Bertha Wright supposed her aunt was right – or Wright. That was a pun they all had in their clan, that there was one way to do things … the Wright way. And Aunt Cordy was the expert on the Wright – and right – way to do things. And if Aunt Cordy was right about this, Bertha also supposed she would never get her name in the paper. Mother and Dad hadn't registered an announcement when she and Teddy were born – and looking down the long, straight road of life with the wisdom of fourteen, Bertha didn't think it was likely that she would ever get married.
Not because she was ugly. Bertha did not have 'too-high' an opinion of herself, but she knew that if she was not beautiful, she was fairly pleasant on the eyes. Her hair was long and as red as the road outside her door. Her eyes were gulf-grey. Her freckles might fade with time. And if plain Ella Pye could find someone to marry her, Bertha supposed she could do the same.
And it must be nice to be married. Mother and Dad seemed to enjoy it, as did Aunt Polly and Uncle Fred, and Grandmother and Grandfather Wright. But Bertha had never met any boy yet she liked enough to marry. She was good chums with all of her male classmates. Chums only, though. She couldn't imagine that she would one day let one of them take her as a bride. And it seemed inconceivable that she would ever leave Avonlea for long enough to meet someone she liked better.
Who needed to marry, after all? Bertha supposed that she didn't. Green Gables would be hers, one day, just as Lone Willow Farm would be cousin Georgie's, since he was the first grand-son. And of course she and Teddy could live at Green Gables and be happy their whole lives through. Teddy would write music like Dad, but real music, not radio jingles. He would write operas and concert pieces and Bertha would sing them. And their whole lives would be filled with music.
Their lives were filled with music now – every night they gathered around the old piano and Mother played, and Father scraped his bow across his violin strings, and Teddy played his harmonica or tin whistle and Bertha sang. It was an old family tradition. They had done this for as long as Bertha could remember, but recently Mother and Dad had exchanged glances and said perhaps Bertha should begin going to Master Giacomo, the music teacher.
Master Giacomo was the only 'furriner,' as Aunt Cordy said, in the Glen, a brash, exuberant Italian with the most gracious manners and dashing ways. It was rumored that he had singlehandedly put one famous diva on the London stage a quarter of a century ago. That was not true. The truth was, he had put two famous divas on the London stage – and one on the stage in Paris. And so when Mother and Dad decreed that Bertha could go and study with him, Bertha deduced that she must be able to sing.
And Master Giacomo seemed to agree. Bertha knew he did because he railed at her during their practices. If she hit a false note he threatened to drown her in the gulf. If she could not quite hit the E above high C, he raged at her and told her not to come back. But if she sang perfectly Dorabella's Smanie implacabili, he petted her and was meek as a kitten. Bertha knew she must have talent. Master Giacomo would not threaten to drown her if she didn't.
"Brava, brava!" he told her at the end of today's lesson. "Rossa, you sing like the angel! You make even my heart break and it break ten times before! But the last note – not so good, eh? Not so clear, so pura, as it should be. You will be perfetto next time, or I will drown you in the gulf!"
"It was perfect this time," said Bertha stubbornly. Something of the famous Shirley temper flared in her eyes.
"Listen to her! She is the singing teacher? She put two diva on the stage? No she has not! Listen to me, Rossa, mia testa rossa, you will be perfetto when we meet again or else –" Master Giacomo shook his fist.
Bertha wended her way home by the shore road. It was out of her way but she wanted to stop for a while in Hester Gray's old garden. Avonlea had grown since the time we saw that dear place last, becoming a veritable town in its own right. But Hester Gray's garden was still untouched. In the green-and-gold of early spring, it was especially dear. Bertha had been watching one feeble white rose-bud – the first on the bush – for two days now, and she hoped today it would be a blossom, pale and fragrant. If it had opened, she would tell Mother about it. Mother loved Hester Gray's garden as much as Bertha did, but they had vowed to never take any of the flowers from it. Away from the garden they lost none of their beauty but most of their charm.
They broke their own rule to take the last of the late, golden October roses to Hester Gray's own little grave. Bertha knew Hester Gray's story as well as she knew her own. Poor, happy little Hester Gray! How she would have loved to know her garden was still as lovingly tended as when she had been alive.
Sometimes Bertha felt so close to Hester Gray when she was in her garden that she felt she could see her, a light, slight girl in a pale dress with tumbling dark curls and big, brown eyes. She felt as though Hester must look like Uncle Fred's Dorothy. Dorothy was the most beautiful thing Bertha had ever seen and surely Hester Gray must have been beautiful.
There were secrets in this garden – mingled with the air so that they carried on the wind. Bertha knew Grandmother and Grandfather Blythe had 'plighted their troth' in this dear garden. How many others had done the same? How many others had walked here, on these very pathways, in the cool, quiet gloom? How many heroes had plucked the ancestors of this white rose to place in their lovers' hair? Surely it was not sacrilege to pluck one of the roses for that purpose? Bertha felt as though she could see them all, now – dozens of ghostly couples pledging their love in the secret, shadowy corners.
The persistent ivy was beginning to encroach upon the rose-bed, and Bertha thought it would not do. She loved the happy, cheerful ivy in its place. But she could not let it grow over her roses. She and her mother liked Hester Gray's garden with a hint of wildness about it – it would never do to let it get too pruned – but surely she could just cut this ivy back a bit? Bertha settled to her knees and sang Dorabella's aria as she worked.
She had torn up the ivy and a few little weeds, and smoothed the dirt more firmly around the base of the little rose bush when her hand brushed against something cold and firm in the ground. She looked more closely – there was a little glinting thing showing through the soil. She brushed at it – and used a twig to move the dirt away – and stared down at the treasure she held in her hand.
It was a ring – an emerald ring. Mother had emerald ear-rings but they were not so fine as this. This was an emerald as pure as spring's own heart, set in gold. The stone was so big that when Bertha slipped the ring on her finger it reached to her first knuckle. Someone must be missing this lovely thing! Who could have lost it? For a moment Bertha's heart pounded with delight. Suppose this very ring had belonged to Hester Gray! She turned it over looking for an inscription and found one: VIRGINIA HELENA MURRAY, in elaborate script, almost worn away with dirt and time. And a date: 1863.
As Bertha knelt there, the lovely emerald ring in her hand, with the last rays of the sun glinting on it, she had no idea of the path of fate that had been opened to her that day. She was only very sad that the ring did not belong to Hester Gray. She thought that if it were Hester Gray's ring, this would be more real to her somehow. It would be so romantic! She did not suspect that her future burst into blossom that day, as sweet and gloriously as the one little white rose on Hester Gray's rose-bush.