Wow, you know you've done something right when as many people love a character as hate her. As soon as I had that first line from Gilbert I felt I understood her. But I am very happy that she is someone that resonates with you too.
In the book this chapter is supposed to take place in mid March, and I am generally scrupulous about these things, but this time I ask if you would give me a week's leeway to set these entries on the 7th instead of the 14th.
With love and gratitude to L.M.M. -everything is hers, only this idea is mine.
Chapter XXVII -Mutual Confidences
March 7th 1886, Patty's Place
Dear Ria,
I am in half once again, Roy having taken his heavenly self to the 'Gentlemen's Review'. Of course, I would much rather he went to see great works of art than spend a quiet, fireside evening with me. There are bound to be many of them in our future, whereas this exhibition will only be touring Kingsport for a week. Only it is my birthday ~but then he did devote almost all his free time to composing the loveliest poem. Not just a poem, a sonnet! And not to some Bright Star or Dark Lady, but to Miss Anne Shirley! I admit that it's not quite in the realm of Keats, but then Keats is not in the realm of Royal either. And as Phil is always saying ~Alas, we cannae have everything!
So why do I feel as though she has exactly that?
I think of all the romantic proposals I might have received, all the fevered expressions and urgent pleas ~as though my beloved could live without his right arm before he could live without me. But nothing I have imagined has quite touched my heart the way Jonas Blake ~poor, plain, perfect Jonas Blake~ asked for Philippa's hand.
Mr Blake said to Phil that he had given up thinking of himself as an eighty year old man because...
...he was unable to think of himself at that age without Philippa always next to him.
Oh, Ria! Was there ever a more beautiful, more courageous way to ask for a someone's hand? It spoke to my heart the moment I heard it, though apparently it spoke to Phil's nose, as she could barely stop sneezing while he said those magnificent words to her. Poor darling, I know how much she wanted this. After every visit she would come in from the gate, her adorable little face writ large with an agonised longing. It's such a beautiful expression, longing. All that hope, all that want, burning bright in one's eyes. Of course, I love the way Roy looks at me, too, as though he had found... now how did he express it? As though he'd discovered 'a long lost Leonardo'. Isn't that exquisite? Perhaps his poem says it even more succinctly~
Then again, there is no strict need to write it out here when I shall cherish it forever on the heart shaped card he wrote it upon. But take it from me, Ria, that my eyes are stars of morning, my cheek stole the flush from the sunrise, and that I belong in the finest frame of purest gold so that all the world might behold my singular perfection.
Perhaps that's why he very much wanted to go to the exhibition tonight ~that he might find further inspiration for his writing. I am quietly hoping he might, though it is not for want of a muse but a hope that perhaps Venus will shine her light upon him. There are said to be several on view this evening, all in various states of undress. Which is why we poor females are not granted the pleasure of visiting them, that is a gentleman's privilege alone.
'I look at Venus everyday!' Priss huffed, when Royal said his farewells ~he had to leave earlier than anticipated because he wanted to wear his new top hat to the Gallery, and the milliner's was due to close~ 'Why is it perfectly acceptable for me to live in my body, bathe and dress my body, pose for an artist with my body, yet not look upon a painting of my body?'
'Royal Gardner is not going to this exhibition to gaze at bodies,' Jimsie said ~somewhat crossly too, the dear. 'He is going for the art. Ogling women would never occur to such a fine upstanding man.'
'Yes, Aunty,' Stella smirked, 'I think you are absolutely right.' She's just teasing me because Roy and I never spend more than a few moments at the gate. 'Back already, she winks, 'I thought parting was such sweet sorrow that you would say your goodnights till it be morrow?'
I wouldn't mind if we did linger, but I suppose that to be my Island upbringing. I remember taking many an unchaperoned walk in the moonlight, sharing many goodbyes at the gate which could have been said in two minutes, and ended up taking two hours. But, as Roy reminds me, this is not the Island. And besides isn't anticipation one of the sweetest delights? Oh, the waiting, the waiting, the long, aching waiting...
Oh! Oh, Ria! Jimsie is calling up the stairs that Roy is here! Roy is back from the exhibition! I knew he would come back to me, oh I knew it!
… … …
L.Y.H.R. Kingsport -March 7
Dear Phoebe,
How long have I been writing this letter? Looks to be a week at least. A bad habit of mine, particularly as I can no longer remember what I have written. One of the drawbacks of having so many faces to maintain, I can never recall what I said to one and not to the other. I have just returned from a glorious evening all thanks to that Philopena. Have I mentioned the Philopena? Well, bear with, if I repeat myself -besides what else have you to do?
Did they really order you not to play the violin in case you over exert yourself in your delicate condition? Can you write that to Dawson, so that he might once and for all understand why I shall never have children. To give up oneself so that another may be born, what pray tell is the point of that? Of course, I might have sons who might in turn do anything they wish. But I have an inkling I would make the very worst sort of mother to a male child. Has that Medium made his visit yet? Any word on what that little kernel growing inside you will make its first appearance as this summer?
Kernels! The Philopena. Now let me see-
Last Thursday evening I managed to entice Mr Blythe away from his work -not his course work, he is not quite so studious as I believe he once was- but from the newspaper. He's sub-editing now, which is a relief for me, reporters keep the most unreliable hours. I have said on more than one occasion that he was welcome to come by the Halls at any time -it is what I pay that Matron for after all- but he is the honourable sort. In fact I have taken to calling him St Gilbert (in my head of course, he's a good Presbyterian boy and they don't do Saints. Do you do Saints, Phoebs? Perhaps you'd better start, and get some Ave Marias in for good measure.) Well the Gilbertine Order had this self punishing tradition of saving whatever was best on their plates and giving it out to the poor. Can you imagine if such a practice ever took on -the urchins on Patterson St would be fatter than I am. Yet it describes Mr Blythe down to the tiniest specks in his big puppy eyes. Always ready to give whatever is best to someone else and taking what's left for himself.
Pour example, he always insists on paying when I know he hasn't a penny. It's having a dire effect on my weight because I am always insisting we must share a meal, whereupon he picks at the potatoes and leaves the roast meat to me. Well, you know as well as I do that half a dinner is never going to satisfy my appetites, and have got into the imprudent habit of stuffing myself on cakes and chocolates before he is due to arrive. If I tell you I no longer fit my rose satin you'll know how full my hips have become. Fortunately my bosom is even bigger. And sharing does have other benefits besides those for the soul. Yes, finally I come to the Philopena.
Well it began with a bowl of almonds. I longed to order the crème caramel, but having Mr Blythe at my mercy is worth a hundred sugary concoctions. No I'm not in love, my dear, I don't do love -and neither should you.
"So what is it to be?" he asked me, when I beat him to the call. "I've already done aprons and bonnets on the High Street, and been blackballed from the Lambs, so I should warn you I don't scare easily."
That was when I noticed the advertisement pinned at the door of the tavern. A Review at the Hamilton Gallery -for gentleman only. And you know very well what that means, Miss Phoebe. Wall upon wall of sweet dimpled flesh. Succulent, sensuous and strictly for the male gaze.
"I want you to get me in there," I said, pointing to the poster.
He didn't refuse. Didn't even say that he wished he could. He took his share of the almond, popped it in his mouth and said, "Done."
… … …
7th March 1886, Spinelli Street, Kingsport
Every day Royal Gardner seems to go out of his way to give me another reason not to like him. If I could have liked him, I would have. Yes, it would hurt. But hurt can always be counted on to go numb after a while. You stop feeling the cane hit the back of your legs after the first ten. But anger. I can't sleep for the anger inside me. Can't put together a decent essay, can't remember what day my first final is. Can't think of anything but how much I want to knock his ten foot hat to the ground and stamp on it, preferably while it's still on his head.
It's Anne's birthday. Her twenty-first birthday, and there he was at the Hamilton Gallery mooning over masterpieces. Masterpieces she would have loved, yet was barred from seeing. It wasn't even much of a challenge getting Christine inside. A pair of dark spectacles and a cane for me, the Matron's apron for her; the gentleman and his nurse, brought along to describe the artwork to her blind employer. She removed the apron the moment we went inside but I preferred to keep my disguise intact. I don't know if Gardner knows who I am but I wasn't looking for an introduction.
Being without sight meant that I had to stay wherever my nurse put me. And by design or not -one never knows with Miss Stuart- she positioned me right in front of a naked redhead and left me there. Alexandre Cabanel's Birth of Venus, every creamy, writhing inch of her; lying upon a frothing sea, her arm about her head, her lips about to touch against soft and glowing skin. And her face, as if she had just been woken by the sweetest pleasure and was still remembering it. I was so lost in her I thought the person come up beside me was Christine.
Where have you been? I asked. Sir, allow me, Gardner answered. This is the Cabanel Venus. An excellent example of contrapposto. The tonality of flesh is unmatched. The eroticism lies not in the positioning of the figure however, but in the face. Although it is only on close inspection one can appreciate it, the half opened eyes, the mouth rendered vertically. The Putti however, poorly executed in my opinion. Almost comical in appearance. Now, if it pleases you, I'll guide you to this bench until your nurse returns.
The entire time he spoke all I could think was how can you be confronted with such an image and think of painterly techniques and comical cupids? How could you speak at all? How could you possibly prefer to look at a painting when you could have the real woman in your arms? Of course, then I thought of the two of them together. Thought of the next time Gardner saw Anne, with that goddess fresh in his mind.
I know I'm giving into the lowest sort of feeling, I know that. How can I dislike the fellow for missing Anne's birthday and then hate the thought of his going to her? But he should go to her. As this mysterious fiance should go to Christine. How can he be away from her for month after month, when it's clear how much she misses him. She pretends she doesn't, of course. But I know that act, I perfected it.
… … …
Patty's Place ~the wee sma's
I can't sleep. Downstairs Jo and Phil are canoodling on the sofa. Next door the sounds... the sounds... I don't want to imagine what they mean. I recognise them. I've made them myself. But they can't be the same, I know that they can't. It's far more likely that Stella is having another bad dream, and Priss is murmuring words of comfort. But it sounds too much like something else.
I am thinking of the first time I climbed up the old beech tree when Josie and Gertie wandered down to the Wright's side of the Lake. I never thought anyone would be swimming there, I was half wishing I might swim there myself. Instead I found myself straddling a thick branch, clamping down on it in terror, knowing if the Pye girls saw me they would make it known throughout Avonlea that I'd been spying on the boys. The two of them happened to be far more interested in discovering just who was splashing about in the water and disappeared into the laurels. But I didn't want to leave. The way that branch felt between my thighs when I moved just so. I was excited and terrified all at once, thinking I might turn into a tree like Daphne and Apollo. When that sound came from my throat I truly believed I would. Afterwards, I remember looking at my arms and legs waiting for leaves to sprout out of my fingertips. I felt like a flower, bursting open, and so heady, all I wanted was to bring about that feeling again and again and again.
This would be about the time when Marilla began saying that she started to actually miss the Anne whose tongue seemed fixed in the middle. But when you have such a secret inside you, you can't speak, only wonder does everybody feel this way? There's no one to ask. Because it's something that was never meant to be shared. Just a secret for ourselves. And how I hugged it to me, to have something that was mine. Something I would never want to wish away like red hair or freckles, something that could never be taken away like my parents or Matthew, something I loved about me that belonged to me forever. Only now I feel I'm beginning to feel that mine isn't enough, that perhaps mine is only half the story, and that a story might not be as wonderful as the real thing.
Roy came back to me tonight, and I wanted as I never had, for him to sweep me up and hold me tightly in his arms. I know the smell of him, adore the look of him, but the feel of him... I want to feel him, Ria. How will I know if we are meant for each other until I know how we fit together? I long to know. To experience what new transformation might occur if I press into another the way I pressed against that branch.
I walked down to the gate with him, trying in every way I knew to appear as beautiful as I possibly could. Recalling how Phil would lengthen her neck, how Josie would puff out her chest, how Diana would lower her lashes. While my eyes did their best to say to him, Don't speak, darling, don't say a word, just take me in your arms.
It began so promisingly, 'You were on my mind all evening, Anne,' he said, softly. 'As I strolled along that gallery all thoughts turned to you.'
I was afraid he was about to compare me to some goddess ~how did that happen, Ria, that I began to be afraid of being compared to perfection? But then he began to talk of some man he'd met.
'He was blind, Anne, and left to fend for himself. No nurse, no wife to care for him, watch over him. And I thought, my Anne, my Angel, would never do that to me. I couldn't return to my chamber tonight until I told you. Forgive this fool for keeping you from dreamland.'
Then he turned and looked about for some high minded neighbour who might have spied us from a window, before departing with a wild flourish of his cape. I watched him as he walked away and looked up to the stars. There was Venus shining down on me, and I sent a wish up to her. That we did not need to be so perfect, that we might not always be thinking of how we appear. I wished for what can be said without words.
I wished I was on the Island.
… … …
Philopena is a game (usually played between a courting couple) whereupon if a double kernel is discovered in a nutshell the first of the two to call 'Philopena' can hold the other up to a dare, or similar.
Beech trees have smooth bark by the way -though that wasn't the only reason I chose that specific variety.
Edkchestnut: Philopena, just for you!
Erika: Who said Hartley was her fiance? ;o)
Mountainrivergirl: Skeptic, yes. But mostly just oblivious -not just to Christine's beauty but to everything. I wanted to look at what happens when you live for someone else, you have no compass when they're gone :o(
Astrakelly: Anne and Christine will get their meeting, just not yet...
Katherine Brook: Thank you, darling. You know me -anagram nerd for life! :o)
Now it seems all Avonlea knows that Gilbert proposed to Anne -how did that happen...
