Hello, Anne-ites! Yes, I am back again. I left you a note on my profile but for those who like absence notes mine was due to an unexciting mix of a broken lap top, lost momentum and too many ideas for future stories intruding on my current one.
To recap, Anne and co have just returned from a five chapter long summer vacation where Ruby died, Averil's Atonement won a competition, and Gilbert realised that friendship just won't cut it anymore. Of course the remaining chapters will focus on that last realisation, but first we have the attempted murder of a poor unfortunate cat...
With love and gratitude to L.M.M. -everything is hers, only this idea is mine
... ... ...
CHAPTER XVI –Adjusted Relationships
Sunday, September 8th 1884; Patty's Place, Spofford Avenue
Priss Report #201
Am having to write this in bed as Stella has taken possession of the desk. This room may be large but I fear it is not made for two –at least not two like us. The success of sharing a room depends on a merging of differences. Unfortunately we are too much alike.
We both like to sleep on the left, we both like to write in the evening, and we both have too many hats and too little furniture. As Stella had been teaching far longer I expected she would at least bring her own desk. Instead she arrived with nothing more useful than photographs and knickknacks. Though the only things to have emerged from her trunk so far are two shepherdesses under an arch of flowers, and a gilt frame gone to brass with over-polishing bearing the face of a solemn eyed girl.
Who is that? I asked Stella, not unkindly, though not with much warmth either. The eyes in that picture seem to look straight inside me so that I felt I should go to the washroom to change into my nightgown.
That is Miss Mallory, she replied, repositioning the frame to where it had been before I added my own collectables to the mantelpiece. She returned to the desk with the air of one who means to be there a good long while, whereupon I pointedly retrieved my journal from its place by her elbow and clambered into the bed.
It is a massive piece of furniture with dark posts at each corner depicting a unicorn hunt, and draped all over with a thick, scarlet velvet. The very thing Averil Lester would have flung herself on in that tower of hers. When Anne and I had looked over our house last April the sight of that bed astonished me. I assumed it would have been taken into storage so that we might put two singles in its place. There is no chance of that now. Along with Miss Patty's request that we not nail any pictures into her willowleaf wallpaper, she left a half-hearted apology that there was no way of moving the bed without breaking it up as it was constructed in this very room.
I had supposed I was letting Patty's Place to three girls not four, the good lady wrote in her curly copperplate, and had therefore not reckoned on its needing to be removed.
This is the fault of that Philippa Gordon. Anne and I told her before we left for the Island last spring to write Miss Patty of her coming. Of course, she only managed to inform her last month, when the Spoffords were already in sailing down the Danube. So it looks as though this year Stella and I will not only be in fierce competition for hat hooks and desktops, but mattress space as well.
I don't expect to have much cause for worry on that count at least. Stella is a tiny thing, smaller than I ever remember her being. In truth she has become quiet gaunt. The hollows under her eyes and cheeks put me in mind of a bird of prey. Something small and fleet -a kestrel. Her dark eyes large and looming, her mouth sharp, her nose pointed. Her little brown hands are always rubbing upon a large silver locket at her throat, that is when she is not running its chain between her lips. I can hear it now -zip zip zip- above the scratching of her pen.
She is writing a letter she told me, and so must have the use of the desk or her words would begin to slope and become indecipherable. When we were last together at Queens she might have said something similar but her tone would have been quite different; quieter, less sure, as though she needed me to agree with her. But somewhere in the three years since we have seen each other she has decided to make up for her size by developing an imposing demeanor. Had I been sharing this room with Anne I would have given way happily, the divine Miss Shirley can convince the grass to grow blue. Not that there would be much to give way to. Though neither Stella nor myself are blessed with many worldly goods (Phil is a law unto herself) we still managed to bring seven trunks between us. Anne had two. Two. And one of those was filled with Rachel Lynde's quilts.
I can't help thinking that she and Stella would make for a much better fit. As well as having almost no possessions Anne can write anywhere -on her knee, in her bed, out on the porch, up in a tree! She has yet to buy a desk of her own and after registering at Redmond on Monday means to scour the junk shops for just the right one. But I can't ask her to swap rooms knowing how she longed for her little blue haven. Besides if it weren't for Anne I would now be taking tea with the cushions at St John's Street.
It is only that there is something about Stella that stirs up a willful contrariness in me, to the point where I have become territorial about her silly shepherdesses coming onto my side of the mantle piece. Zip, zip, zip, she goes again. I notice she has removed my leghorn bonnet from the hook behind the door and hung her kimono onto it. Let us hope she can learn to sleep on the right side of the bed, because in this I am determined not to give an inch!
… … …
September 13th, Patty's Place, Spofford Avenue!
The Rose Notebook
Oh, I shall never get tired of writing that address! It still seems a dream that I live here! Hark at me, I sound positively Anne-ish. I wish I knew the trick of living as modestly as she does. My dear little room is so overcrowded -my dressing room at Mount Holly is bigger! Didn't Father laugh when he inspected my little bolthole to see whether it was suitable for a Bolingbroke Gordon.
"Surely this is the maidservant's room!" he winked.
A nasty joke I think, after he refused to allow Cora –or any maid- to accompany me. Surely a servant would be more comfortable in that room off the kitchen meant for this Jamsesina person. Certainly far more useful. Stella is adamant this Aunt of hers won't lift a finger to help me. The lady is to come with two cats and the one intention: to be a sort of chaperone. Though what she will be chaperoning when we will only be entertaining once a week. I forgot I had agreed to that. The chance to reside on Spofford Avenue –with three of the goodest creatures ever to hail from a potato patch- was so delectable I believe I would have agreed to a thousand cats and no mannies at all!
Stella Maynard is a killing addition to our troop. So forthright and determined she reminds me of a little black caboose, doing all the work, taking none of the glory. Don't I love a girl like that! But then I'm not sharing a room with her. Not a night has passed when I haven't overheard her and Prissy butting heads over something. The reason I am left by my little old self this afternoon is because neither girl could agree who should have their chair by the west window. Stella claimed the spot first, with such a nasty green, brocaded thing -I would be throwing it out the west window, myself. Then Prissy insisted on putting her chair there -hers being only marginally more stylish than Stella's- arguing that she needed the light to write by since she could never get near their desk in the evenings.
I don't have such a problem myself having claimed the dining room as my own personal study. Well, there is no way for me to fit a desk in my room. A sleigh bed, two armoires, a dressing table, and a vanity are already crammed along every bit of wall. One can barely see a lily of my Aubusson rug. I have to use the mirror in the hall when I want to take a full view of myself -and Father said I would never cope with the hardships! Prissy and Stella are learning the fine art of compromise too. They are off with Anne to see if they can discover a double desk to replace the one they have now, and then Anne can have their smaller one. What a happy, helpful bunch we are!
I am doing my bit too. Tomorrow I am to procure a bottle of chloroform. I shall have to go all the way to Fitch's Apothecary because Nelson's isn't open on a Saturday. It means two tram rides but this time I shall keep my fare somewhere more suitable than the finger of my glove. Then it will simply be a matter of tucking that ugly brute under a crate and I shall never have to listen to his nasty mewling ever again!
The Ochre Notebook
It was cats that put me in the ochre mood. Is there a corner of Kingsport not overrun with them? Thank goodness Anne saw sense at my suggestion to do away with the mangy beast. I half expected her to shoot me one of her unflinching green-eyed stares, piercing me to the marrow so that I am almost compelled to feel sorry. But since 'the Averil debacle' Anne has become so sensitive to the slightest hint of mockery, and confessed to me she thought she was receiving teasing looks from passers-by because they recognized her as the winner of that atrocious baking parchment prize. Fortunately her current embarrassment can be dealt to swiftly –and will teach that cat to pester my chum throughout all Kingsport.
Poor Anne, how many more indignities can one girl suffer! Though am I not also tainted by association? For who else could have inspired Queen Anne's heroine but yours truly. There I am for all to see, the bewitching beauty, Averil Lester, reduced to selling culinary goods! What's more I am certain Anne modeled Perceval on Alec and Maurice on Alonzo –down to his roguish, twinkling eyes! I must admit I was so taken with that villain I thought I had finally decided which mannie to marry. But then Averil ended up with Perceval which set me to wondering if Anne thought Alec was the better catch after all. So now I am back to square one and so fed up I would happily wrap both boys in parchment till I can't tell either apart, and throw a hatpin at one of them to decide it once and for all. Oh, if only all my problems could be rid of as easily as cats!
… … …
Patty's Place, Saturday 14th September 1884 ~One hundred and ten days without you.
Darling Mags,
You're laughing at me aren't you? Oh, this cruel little jest had your name all over it. I stood there today, shovel in hand, looking into the freshly dug grave I had made, horribly certain that I could hear you. Until Priscilla had to point out the hole was far too large for a cat corpse. But I wasn't thinking of a cat, was I, dearest? I was thinking of you. I was remembering how your family threw posies and earth upon the box you lay in while I could not. I was remembering how your pale face stared down at me from your third floor window when I wasn't allowed inside. I was remembering the way you moved so gracefully when you danced yet I wasn't allowed to hold you. I was remembering all the things that have kept us apart. What is death but another kind of separation? I am well used to that.
What I am not used to is a fluttery socialite like Philippa Gordon being knowledgeable in the ways of murdering cats. What I am not used to is Anne Shirley agreeing to murder one. What I am not used to is sharing my room with a very spiky Priscilla Grant. And what I am especially not used to is feeling that you are still here with me.
I thought once I escaped Riverhead I could escape you. We have no history in this town. There is nowhere for me to cast my eye and then catch my breath at your unexpected, all pervading memory. You belong on the herringbone walk. You belong under the sweet scented wisteria arch. You belong in the warm, dank air of the darkroom. At Redmond I thought I would be free of you. Not that I want to forget you, my love. I only want to begin to live again; to remember that though you died I did not.
Is that what you were trying to tell me, Mags? Did your mischievous spirit wander all the way over to Spofford Avenue and whisper into the ear of its ugliest cat to follow the first angel it could find –one that would require me to dig a grave only to fill it with earth again. When Anne declared she could no longer face the thought of ending Rusty's life I returned to that hole and I sank to my knees. Shovelling madly, pressing you down-
"What are you doing!" Priscilla wanted to know. "No need to make such a job of it, there's nothing in there."
It was then that I could finally I allow myself to cry. Then Priscilla began to cry too! We fell upon the mound of dirt making messy mewling sounds as ugly as anything Rusty makes.
"Don't ask me why I'm crying and I won't ask you," Priscilla sniffed.
I thought about those letters she has stuffed into a hatbox under our bed and wished she had taken my advice and burned them. Instead I said,
"Let's plant something here. Now. Tonight. Let's divide up some of the Naked Ladies clumping by the chestnut tree and place them where we dug this hole."
You should see my hands, Mags. Red raw and blistered. I can hear you telling me how my writing has become indecipherable, how I should have worn gloves for all that digging. Priscilla wants to smother them with her Otto of Roses, but I had to write to you first, my sweet. To tell you that just like Anne's cat I have decided to live again.
Ever,
Stella
… … …
I would like to give especial thanks to those of you who sent me encouraging PMs while I wasn't writing -knowing you were wanting more was an incredible feeling. I am so grateful to have you along for the ride :o)
Next it's another Davy adventure, but I thought the girls at Patty's Place might like a night on the town...