Hello once more. The first half of this chapter shouldn't come as too much of a surprise if I am any sort of writer. To head off one particular comment before it is made, yes I know Priscilla and Stella eventually married and had children. But, you know, stuff happens when you're in college -and pretty wonderful stuff at that. If you feel you want to leave a negative comment about this idea that's your right, but to me love is love. And that's what this chapter is about, love between women, in all it's forms :o)
CHAPTER XXIII- Paul cannot find the Rock People
Ripley's Lodge -August 15th
Well Mags,
What an unholy mess. I did everything in my power to prevent this, you know that I did. And now -NOW- when I hadn't seen her for two months, and we are staying in separate hotels, and there are all sorts of family obligations to keep us apart, I am ambushed, swiftly and cruelly. You must really be laughing. Those aren't crickets in the porch eaves, I know very well it's you.
Well, I want you to leave, do you hear me Margaret Mallory? I hate you for being dead, for taking your life and not taking me with you. I want you to go, I want with all that I am for you to go. And take this feeling with you.
Oh, Mags, how could this happen again?
... ... ...
White Sands Hotel - Saturday 15th August
Priss Report #184
I know how it happened. We were talking about Anne and Gil, the way we have been every night. We would leave before dessert and meet up by the gelato cart for soft scoops in paper boats before commencing our nightly stroll. Into that stolen time of day when the sun and the clock are no longer on speaking terms; when children are wrangled homeward and lovers claim the shore. None of them ever look at us, or if they do we never receive their indulgent, knowing smiles. To them we are merely two chums at the sea side, missing our beaux, or wishing we had one to miss.
Inevitably we talk about Anne because one couldn't be in that place without hearing her voice enthusing over riches we would otherwise never have seen. A creamy shell like a piece of moon, light on the water like a shattered sun. And sounds, not only the waves and wind, but something as simple as insects trilling, or the whip of our skirts against our legs. It wouldn't be long before our shoes were off and we'd settle down in the dark, and it was Gilbert we talked of then. Anne and Gilbert. Gilbert and Anne.
Why she doesn't she love him? I wondered for the hundredth time.
She does love him, she replied, which is why she said no. Gilbert should have said no, too, he should have held himself back.
Her tone was so dispassionate and her words pitiless, as if feelings could be neatly tucked away like that locket around her neck. Zip zip zip, the sound as she passed it between her lips.
Love's not like that, I argued. It takes you over, it fills you until you there's nothing left of who you used to be.
That's not love, she argued back. When you love someone, truly love them, their happiness is all.
Then no one has ever loved, I declared. It doesn't exist. At least I hope it doesn't or I should never feel it -and could certainly never love someone who could so easily tame his heart.
True, she said, we never expect our men to be tamed.
There was such a quiet between us. I wasn't thinking about the desperate letters Nate wrote to me, or the hot looks Gilbert Blythe gave Anne when he thought no one was looking. I was thinking of the heat inside myself, how I longed to run into the sea, how unfair it was that I am made to wear that neck to ankle woollen thing. Whereas if I was a man-
Zip zip zip, she went again.
Won't you tell me about her? I said. Her hand went to the locket and she rubbed her thumb upon the great silver face as though she was trying to summon the courage to speak. And I thought, Stella Maynard, you're not even half convinced of the brave things you say to everyone else.
Miss Mallory? she said, quickly. Miss Mallory is. Miss Mallory was. Miss Mallory died last year. Miss Mallory is dead.
I expect she thought I would leave it there, that we would collect our shoes, dust off our skirts and return to our respective beds. Instead I repeated the question. She reached up, removed the locket and opened it without letting herself look at the girl inside. Then she placed it in my hands and quietly told me all about her; that she was also a teacher at the neighbouring school and how they'd become friends over common enemies.
What happened next? I asked, as if she was recounting a fairy story, one that had no consequence in our world. She never moved -she was still as still- yet I could feel her shift away from me.
There is no next, she said. There's never any next for people like me. There's only trying to forget, even as you hope you might one day get your chance again.
And that was the moment -the one I realised I'd been waiting to hear for months. It wasn't when she said 'people like me' it was when she said 'again'. She stared into me like that kestrel I so love, only this time she wasn't on the hunt. She was caught in a snare and looking to me for mercy. I refastened the locket around her neck and when my face brushed against hers she didn't move away, she didn't push me back, she didn't start a quarrel. She simply said, No.
But unlike her I meant what I said. Love takes you over, it fills you up until there's nothing left of who you used to be. I kissed her as we sat on the sand with the sound of the crickets and the sound of the sea. There was no one else around us, just that bird in my hand. And then she flew away.
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August 15th, Orchard Slope, Avonlea
Dear Journalette,
Gilbert Blythe proposed to Anne. He proposed! Way back in April and Anne only told me now. Such a secret to keep from me, I don't even know why. Though I suppose I do. She imagines I'll tell Fred. But I wouldn't have, not if Anne told me expressly not to, I'm certain I wouldn't. I can keep secrets. I kept one from Anne. I never told anyone about that night when Fred and I were out by Bright River to collect his Great Aunt Agnew who got the dates mixed and never turned up, and it rained, and the cartwheel broke, and we broke nearly all the rules and all the buttons, and if it wasn't for Chester Ross coming into that barn looking for his stray calf I suspect I'd be broken too.
Poor Fred kept saying he was glad of the rain because he needed cooling off. And he did, Journalette ~he was so red I thought he'd boil over! And I said wasn't it lucky that someone discovered us in time? But I only half meant it. That was the half that got the littlest bit scared to see my Fred so unlike himself. I remember thinking after, if he acts like that on our honeymoon I'll feel like I married the wrong man. But then there's another part of me ~oh I can't begin to explain it~ but there's another half that sort of likes the idea of being married to two men. Oh, I knew it would come out wrong if I tried to put it into words. It sounds so unchristian and unwholesome to think of it that way. But I don't know another way to say it. And I can't ask Mama, and I can't ask Anne.
Poor darling. I seen for a while now that her happiness was only ever painted on. At first I thought she might be missing that Phil-girl with the white piano and a coach with six horses and ice cream every day. Then I wondered if her visit to the little yellow cottage might account for it. Of course, I never mentioned Gilbert because I already knew how that would go. But the longer he was away the more puzzling Anne got to be, and when you look at it like that it makes a sort of sense. But the idea seemed almost too big for my head, and far too big to get out of my mouth, so I finally just decided Anne must be writing another story. She's been awfully star-gazy this summer, and got so vexed trying to find some apple tree that grew by itself in the woods. Well I never saw it, never even heard of it. And guessed it more likely that Anne had imagined it to life, the way she thought Averil was real.
We were looking for that ghost tree again today and I wondered if maybe we'd find it after all, because what happened next seemed impossible to believe. She said, Diana, I have been an abomnoble friend. I was so taken aback I thought Anne was about to tell me she was set on wearing black to my wedding! But instead she told me that Gilbert Blythe had spoken. I saw then why she was glum, because she had her heart set on a romantic proposal and Gilbert must have asked for her hand in a letter. It was all so strange and all I could do was ask why.
This happened in April, Anne said, I didn't know how to tell you because I refused him. Then she added of course as though it was obvious. But it wasn't obvious to me. Or to Fred, or to Green Gables I expect, or anyone else in Avonlea. And surely not to Gilbert. That's when the worst thing came out of my mouth but it could have been horribler still. I am ashamed to say I felt like scolding her. I don't know why, except perhaps I do. And instead of saying something to Anne, I said, Poor Gil.
Then we got the closest to crossness we ever had in all our years together. She said, I don't love him, Diana, and don't tell me I don't know what love is (as if I would!) because I know I love you.
All at once it was Gilbert Blythe I was cross with for making my darling so unhappy. She wrapped her little white arms round me and asked me why things have to change, and I had that satisfying click as everything fell into place at last. Because Anne is never going to want from Gilbert what I have with Fred. If Gilbert changed like Fred did Anne would run a mile. That's why she'd rather live in a book ~because books don't ever change.
… … …
Echo Lodge, Grafton ~Sunday, August 16th
Now here's a peculiar thing, Ady. I no longer know where it is I ought to be.
The first summer before I left for Redmond I drank in every Island moonrise and every Island sunset. The second summer I was desperate to leave her shores. And now, now I don't know what I'm supposed to want.
I feel so indecipherable, not fraudulent exactly, but almost. I thought I would find relief once I unburdened my secret. Diana was so tender and gentle with me, and cried even more than I did. Not only for me, but for a dream I know she has long been cherishing. Just not my own.
When we walked back from the AVIS meeting last Thursday I wasn't wishing I had someone like Fred on my arm. I really wasn't. I was wishing there was no Fred and that Diana was walking with me. I can't get used to sharing her, I thought I could, Ady, but this summer I've had to admit that I can't. I implored Diana to come to Miss Lavendar's with me. Back to days of old and picnics of gold, to blue bows and high teas and bell song. But, of course, I was forgetting the quilting bee and the sewing circle and the centrepiece for the wedding breakfast she had yet to begin. Every day I feel her unravelling another inch in order to be stitched into something else.
Even when it's the two of us, she'll get this soft faraway look as though she is remembering something I have never even seen ~and worse, that she lacks the language to describe to me. It was always me who put our dreams into words, and now they are so different. Her dreams don't depend upon me anymore.
Why couldn't Fred find work on the mainland and allow me this one summer? He will spend the rest of his life with Diana, while I have to give her up and am expected to be in ecstasies over it. I don't know why I never noticed before, the way Fred is always around. And then he seems to look at me sometimes as though there's something he wants to get off his chest. What have I ever done to him! There are other girls he could have married and made contented little wives, I'm sure. But there is only one Diana. If only I could take her with me, back to Kingsport.
Oh, Ady, the thought of returning in September ~if I feel indecipherable here, I'm afraid at Redmond I shall become illegible. How can the summer already be ending? When April seems like yesterday.
... ... ...
Ripley's Lodge, White Sands -the early hours of August 16th
Mags, my dear, forgive me, won't you? Not only for what I wrote before, forgive the fact that someone else has worked their way into my heart -or my window at least. She's here. Priscilla is here. She went to the Lodge and threw stones at my window like a prince in a story that Anne would write. I am sorry to tell you, Miss Mallory, but this time I never once thought it was you. I did think I would rather enjoy screaming blue murder at the louts who threatened to wake my cousins. Yet as soon as I saw Priscilla I can't say I was surprised. I flew down to her in a trice. I didn't even try to be quiet, didn't care if I woke up Meg and Jean. All I cared about was how to get that heavy Lodge door open.
Naturally, I couldn't reach the latches, neither could I find a chair to get me to them. Then I heard another sound. A tap that came from that hideous reception room, the one with all the stags heads and animals under glass. She was there, dear old Priss, motioning for me to push up the sash, and scaling the window sill with maddening ease.
"Don't you ever run away from me again!" she said.
Then I did something very foolish, Mags. I promised her I wouldn't.
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Thank you so much for reading, and all your generous reviews. Next up... enter Jonas -or how Philippa Gordon learned to love! Hopefully there'll be a few (much needed) laughs :o)
