Every year, the Camerons went to Dalveigh, their summer home on the Island. There had they met and adopted Nora. She would return to visit for the very first time this June. Nora chattered feverishly of the Island all spring. The smallest caprices put her in mind of her home.
"I begged for you to come with us," Nora told Elizabeth. "But Mrs. Cameron isn't feeling very well this spring, and she isn't sure how large of a party she wants to entertain. We already have Clark, of course, and a lot of Mr. Cameron's business friends will join us later in the season."
Elizabeth looked lovingly at Nora. Ever since her estrangement with the Poet, she had felt more sympathetic towards Nora's woes. No longer did Nora seem the enchantress, beguiling, threatening. Rather, Elizabeth perceived that Nora was in agony at the thought of Clark and her old sweetheart Rob being brought in miles' radius of one another. Though Nora never referred to Rob Fletcher since her impassioned confession, and her calm, alabaster face seldom betrayed her, Elizabeth knew how a female heart was wont to associate all things with a singular individual. Prince Edward Island was to Nora as a field of golden flowers, recalling the Poet's "sunset land," was to Elizabeth.
So, in an exigency of sympathy, Elizabeth wrote to Miss Shirley, asking if she couldn't come visit Ingleside. Glen St. Mary was only four miles from Racicot Harbour, and an unmourned ninety miles from Summerside.
"I know it's our duty to call on Grandmother and the Woman, of course. And unpleasant as that may be," Elizabeth grimaced to her father. "it will be worth it to see Miss Shirley, won't it?"
Pierce Grayson, who admired few women in his widower's misanthrope, had admired and respected Miss Shirley wholeheartedly. He agreed that it would be worthwhile to see her redheaded, ivory loveliness again. Elizabeth did not admit that she was harbouring a secret hope that when they were on one of their sunset walks down the long, red roads, Miss Shirley would talk to her about the Poet, so that perhaps... just perhaps...
Elizabeth and Nora wiled the chill Maritime spring away, making plans for a summer on the Island. Elizabeth showed Nora the old map that she and Miss Shirley had drawn of fairyland, reciting the litany of magical place-names and imaginary landmarks. Nora especially delighted in all the different times - "lost time, play time, half-past kissing time" - her slender finger lingering over "time immemorial." But she did not like to talk of Tomorrow.
Nora said she would teach Elizabeth how to swim. Elizabeth had never been allowed such antics under Grandmother and the Woman's eyes.
Nora had a deft hand, and drew portraits of her many younger sisters to "introduce" them to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, who could not help a faraway sense of loneliness whenever Nora spoke of her large family, her mother and siblings and their jolly childhood together - Elizabeth pulled out snapshots of the young Blythe children that Miss Shirley had sent her, and told Nora loving anecdotes about each of them that Miss Shirley had written her. The stories were so vivid for Elizabeth, that it was almost as if she had met Jem, Walter, Nan, Di and "the little brown boy" Shirley.
Then Miss Shirley wrote to say that ... she couldn't have visitors until the fall. Mrs. Cameron, too, was unwell and the Cameron's sojourn was postponed until midsummer. The girls commiserated, grateful that misery had company.
At the beginning of July, Grayson and Cameron found out that they were appointed as associate directors of the firm's European branch. They would move to Paris in the fall. Elizabeth and Nora came out of mourning, and dusted their plans for something anew - France! It was a dream come true. Elizabeth would have singing lessons by a famous soprano, and Nora was to study literature at la Sorbonne. The grandeur and novelty surpassed their simple plans for Island revelry.
So when the Camerons finally departed for the Island at the end of July, Nora's anticipation did not weigh so ponderously on her. She bid Elizabeth good-bye with a light kiss. "It's goodbye to America!" Nora laughed. "We'll be sailing straight for the old world from Halifax. If you don't get to the Island before we go, I'll be sorry, but I can't be too sorry because I'll see you next in Paris in a month or two!"
Nora was not prepared for what was to come.
Elizabeth, on returning home, found a note in her mailbox announcing the birth of Bertha Marilla Blythe. It was from Dora Andrews, née Keith, whom Elizabeth still corresponded with from time to time. Dora enclosed an invitation: "Since Anne can't have you until the fall, I thought I'd asked Ralph if we wouldn't. I think a week on Prince Edward Island is too short. And pity you won't be near North America again for years! Won't you spend August with us in Avonlea?"
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see Paul Irving's "land of the sunset" in Anne of Avonlea.
