I don't own Anne of Green Gables
Right before the end of the school year, in the late of the evening, two carriages rattled down the road. Mrs. Lynde came to her window.
The carriages were much nicer than those in the carriages reached out of sight, Mrs. Lynde caught a glimpse of the were six people, and three of them looked to be adults, while three were the size of children. An adult and a child were in the second carriage, and the rest in the first.
Rumors were flying the next morning. The most common was that the parents had two children, and older girl and a younger boy, and the other people in the carriages were the family's governess and her young daughter. They were from Montreal, the parents were important there. They supposedly came to summer in Avonlea, and they were renting an old manor by the wood.
They were called the Abbingtons.
But there were monstrous rumors that the boy went insane after an accident, and the moved around from small town to small town to avoid suspicion.
The next day at school, the children anxiously watched the door, expecting three new children to walk in.
Nobody new walked in.
Anne confided in Marilla that afternoon.
"Goodness, Anne! Is it a crime that they did not show up! They arrived late last night, and it could be they chose not to start so late in the year! Or maybe their governess schools them from home?" Marilla said in reply
More information was a buzz that evening. The parents were called Cynthia and Thomas. The children were Layla and George. The names of the governess and her daughter were still unknown.
Diana Barry, Anne Shirley, Ruby Gillis, and Jane Andrews agreed there was too much mystery to the Abbingtons.
One of the girls had an epiphany.
"I know! Let's go check out the house! There's bound to be some clues!"
The four girls skipped over to the manor.
"Here's a window!" Jane called. They pressed their faces to the glass.
It was the bedroom of George Abbington.
The boy was in his bed. He wore white cotton pajamas and had a bandage wrapped around his arm. His icy blue eyes stared at them, and he gave an odd shriek.
"So it's true! He is mental!" Ruby Gillis whispered.
"What's going on here?" asked a voice from behind them. They turned. It was a girl, about their age, with ash brown curls and the same eyes as George.
Layla Abbington.
She remained calm, though her eyes looked furious.
"You better stay away from here." Layla began. The four other girls were to frightened to speak, to defend themselves.
"If I ever catch you within a mile of this house again, my governess, my mother, and my father will be notifying your parents. But you won't have to be scared of your own family's wrath. My parents are well-respected, powerful people. We can cast a wide net in terms of spreading the story of your disrespect." Layla's voice was sharp. She continued.
"But even if you take this warning, you'll find yourself in deep trouble somewhere else. That always happens to terrible people. Terrible people who take pleasure in peaking in the window of injured, mentally distraught little boys-" her voice began to grow angry. "People who deserve to be scorned by the darkest furies of hell."
Layla was silent, but she stood her ground, as if to make sure the four girls would flee, which they did.
As the girls separated, Diana whispered to Anne.
"Why should she call us terrible? That girl, she is a monster, she's awful, she's-"
"She's not." Anne interrupted. "Hostile she may be, but it was unkind of us to trespass, to stalk her brother. She's protecting George." Anne scolded herself for the sin she committed.
Diana was silent.
The girls never spoke of the occurrence ever again, until they whispered the story word by word to their individual husbands on their deathbeds. Though the memory was locked away, it burned in their minds to remind them of the hard way they learned their lesson, even after the Abbingtons departed for Montreal at the end of the summer.
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