Oh dear. So. Many. Words. Now I know why I fought to get this one out this week!
This is for all the wonderful readers and reviewers who have wondered - and worried! - about Tom. Thank you x
Chapter Eleven
A Howling Wilderness of Strangers
June - September 1876
Tom sat; mute, motionless, numb. The cab wove at furious speed through the streets and down towards the docks; there would be extra money for the driver if they didn't miss the ferry. From his perch he cast fearful eyes down to the wheels as they turned, and wondered, if he jumped, would he land clear of them, nimbly scampering away through the crowds, or would he land under them, tossed about, his body jerking like a marionette held by an unseen puppet master, coming to a stop as a mangled wreck in the gutter.
He was sick on the ferry. This came as an insulting surprise to someone who had entertained the thought of running away to sea. He couldn't swim a stroke either, which rather put paid to the idea of leaping heroically off the boat and making his way back to shore to find her.
Mrs Spencer watched him distrustfully from inside, petting Lily on her lap, as if she would much rather have him tied to the railing as he retched, to give her some peace of mind they would at least make it all the way across the strait without further incident.
He had never in his life been on a train. There had been nowhere for them to go where they needed one, and no money for the journey regardless. He was fascinated by the strength and the speed and the noise as it pulled in and out of the various stations. The countryside was so vast, and the colors so extraordinary; undulating fields as golden as his mother's hair; a sky so startlingly blue it was as if a child had taken to it with an overeager paintbrush; and everywhere was green, pulsing, alive. He'd never seen the like of it.
He tried to read the different signs as they went; the places with their quaint, often natured-inspired names. She was right; he had needed her quick understanding and her vocabulary to assist him. His throat closed up in painful, throbbing misery as he thought of her.
There was much fuss as Mrs Spencer began waking Lily from her sleep and directing her older girl to gather jackets and Lily's little bag.
"Thomas?" he heard, and it took him a beat to realise she was addressing him. "The girls and I go on to White Sands, but you must get off before us at the very next stop. It's called Bright River. The Station Master will be looking out for you, so don't get any fool notions into your head."
He blushed for shame, to have her know where his thoughts had lain. But that was before… he could barely think of the betrayal inherent in it… that was before he had seen it here.
Mrs Spencer looked at him very directly.
"You must wait for a man named Matthew Cuthbert. The Cuthberts are good, decent people. You will have a home with them. Not many will know the new start you are getting."
She paused to close her arms around Lily, and he thought he saw, just for a moment, a flash of feeling from her. After all, she had seen where he had come from; she knew what – or whom – he had left.
"It's best not to speak of the circumstances," she warned briskly. "It won't serve any purpose anyway. My advice to you is to be grateful and to take the chance you've been given."
His face, flooded with color, now turned pale. Mrs Spencer could not have known the words they had said to one another; the words Anne had given back to him. She couldn't have heard them. But they were before him again anyway; they rose to meet him. He didn't know yet that he would hear them, echoing with meaning and portent, down through the years.
He hadn't realised the sudden pang and panic when he was truly on his own, after Mrs Spencer and the train had departed as he had stumbled out, clutching his crudely fashioned knapsack. He tried to remember what she had told him, but he couldn't seem to retain anything in his head. He looked about the platform in wild incomprehension. Perhaps a dozen people were bustling about; given or giving hugs of greeting, hauling luggage, or asking a question of a man in a smart uniform. As the little crowd cleared it was just him; the man in the uniform strolled over, his face offering a small, slightly officious smile.
"Hello there, sonny! I've heard about you. Don't worry – he'll be along shortly."
Tom stared blankly.
"You can sit yourself down inside the waiting room, if you like. Or there's the bench here on the platform. Up to you." He nodded and went back along, to adjust numbers on a huge sign, consulting a silver pocket watch as he did so.
Tom chose the bench, simply because it was nearest. He sat down slowly, feeling as if he was in a dream. This morning he had awoken knowing that his life would change, yet again, irrevocably. He just hadn't known how.
The late afternoon sun slanted down on his face. The breeze was lilting and soft and slightly, surprisingly fragrant. He turned to look down the dirt path off the edge of the platform to a large tree; he had no idea what type it was, but he liked the look of its delicate, plentiful pink blossoms, and the canopy the branches made, like an umbrella.
He sat for what seemed a very long time. Just as he felt he might close his eyes against the sun and his exhaustion, there was a slow, almost hesitant shuffling, and Tom turned his face, to see the man.
"Hello, there," the man offered, shyly. "I'm sorry I was late.* I'm Matthew Cuthbert."
Tom stood automatically, having been jolted very definitely into full consciousness again. He offered his hand and the man took it; there was not much disparity in their sizes.
"Hello Mr Cuthbert, Sir. I'm Tom Caruthers."
"Tom. Caruthers." Mr Cuthbert seemed to pause and taste his name as one might a new food; eager yet tentative. "Welcome to the Island now, Tom. Forgive me. We didn't know what you were called."
Tom nodded, hardly surprised by this information. "Yes, Sir."
"No Sir, mind. Or Mr Cuthbert. Matthew is fine, now."
Tom nodded again.
"Is that all you have with you?" he indicated to the bundle resting on the bench.
"Yes, Sir. Ah, Matthew."
"Right. Best be off. Come along then. The horse is over in the yard."*
Tom hardly knew what to expect by way of greeting, but he was both slightly mystified and instantly reassured by this one, and the man's own curiously calm demeanour quelled his own jumbled emotions. As Tom walked beside him he took in the man's – Matthew's – rather "ungainly figure and long, iron-grey hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and (his) full, soft brown beard." * He noticed his large, calloused, work-roughed hands, and the warm color to his face, and his obvious discomfort in his suit and starched collar. Here was a man who had worked hard all his life; out of doors; on a farm. Tom knew nothing of farms or animals or any of it. But he knew enough about working hard.
He supposed he wouldn't mind working hard… he thought as he looked around him in awe, climbing up into the buggy … if he was working out in all this.
To say the drive from the station was pleasant was an injustice; after a while Tom was numbed by the beauty surrounding him. Occasionally Matthew would point out the name of a landmark, and Tom would nod and murmur appreciatively. They passed through a remarkable "stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with wide-spreading apple-trees" * named, appropriately enough, the Avenue; there was a handsome old bridge spanning a "pond, looking almost like a river"*called Barry's pond, with the Barry family itself residing in the "little grey house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond"; * there were woods and meadows and cows grazing contentedly; there was the fascinating, distinctive red earth of the roads.
Tom asked the occasional question, and Matthew made reply as best he could. Beyond that they completed their journey in companionable silence.
The shadows were lengthening as they made their way up the long lane and to the "big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived" ** on the edge of the woods. Tom could hardly take in the size of it; the wide veranda, sweeping around to meet the barn sighted out the back; the two large orchards and the endless fields beyond. As his mother lay dying in their dingy one-roomed tenement they tried together to imagine what Heaven must be like, and their respective wishes varied greatly, but Tom hoped that a small measure of it might be something like this; the rambling house on this enchanted island, with the setting sun stealing across the whitewashed boards and the dark green gables; and the salt of the distant sea tickling his nose when the wind drifted past him.
Miss Cuthbert greeted them at the door, and ushered them inside with little fuss.
"Marilla, this is Tom Caruthers. Tom, this is my sister, Miss Marilla Cuthbert."
Tom extended his hand a second time, and the lady took it with a small smile, her brown eyes very direct on his.
"Hello, Tom. Welcome to Green Gables."
"Thank you, Miss Cuthbert, Ma'am."
"Well, now, you may call me Marilla. Matthew is Matthew, and my own name is good enough for me. Do you prefer Tom or Thomas yourself?"
He gulped at this. What a distinguished name! she had first greeted him. Thomas Caruthers, Esquire. That has a real ring to it.
He gave the answer now he had made then.
"Tom is good enough for me, too, Ma'am… Marilla."
Her eyes viewed him kindly. She was "a tall, thin woman, with angles but without curves; her dark hair showed some grey streaks and was twisted up in a hard little knot behind." ** She brought to mind an older, more weathered Mrs Cadbury, which caused a sad and unreasonable little pang in him, and so too it seemed as if she might also have a hidden sense of humour that fought a war with itself in the way her lips almost gave into a quirk.
"Well, now, Tom, you must be famished. I've laid out a little supper for us here and you can wash up at the sink to the side."
With an ingrained obedience he set his little bundle on a chair and did as bidden. Marilla gave Matthew an encouraging look as she crossed over to the table and Matthew followed suit before taking his chair. It was all going rather better than expected, despite all the dire predictions Rachel Lynde had listed as an inadvertent warning earlier that afternoon. Marilla had precious little experience of children in general and young boys in particular, and could hardly fathom what an unseen orphan from Nova Scotia would be actually like, but in Tom Caruthers, with his seemingly quiet, respectful demeanour, she was reasonably encouraged.
Tom appeared to be taken aback by the variety and array of food, simple though it was; after bowing for Matthew's quick grace (reassuringly familiar enough with the process) his pale blue eyes darted back and forth to each dish, torn by his overwhelm. Marilla frowned to herself; the boy was tall but too thin; broad about the shoulders and with strong forearms but with virtually no spare flesh with which to support his fast growing body. She thought to have him aim for the simplest, most filling fare on offer.
"You must try the new potatoes, Tom," she suggested. "We have been pretty pleased with this crop."
He seemed grateful for the direction, and as soon as he was halfway through his fill Marilla felt he would be comfortable enough in providing some information.
"So, Tom, why don't you tell us something of yourself?"
With barely a pause, as if an oft rehearsed request, he recounted the story of his life with simplicity and a sombre lack of sentimentalism; the abandonment of his father; the spiralling cycle of poverty; the erratic schooling; the long illness and premature death of his affectionate, beloved young mother. It seemed to be made more horrendous by the detached detail, the disconnect; Tom had already separated himself from his own experiences in order just to survive them. Only once he reached his time at the orphanage did he falter; and on the circumstances of earlier in the day he grew very quiet.
"Did you make any friends who will miss you?" poor Marilla had thought this much safer ground than their previous discussion.
Tom's face fell in on itself. "I have … I had … one friend. Her name was Anne." Lost in his own miserable memory of the day, thus forgetting himself, or simply unable to house the sorrowful secret any longer, he added, "she was the one meant to come here today."
Marilla paused mid mouthful; even Matthew looked puzzled.
"I'm sorry, Tom, I don't understand you," Marilla ventured.
"She was the one to come here today. It was her place. Her new family. She'd never had a proper family; only women with too many children who just worked her. She was ready and she'd said goodbye to everyone. But then Mrs Spencer came and… and… there had been a mistake. You never wanted a girl; you wanted a boy…"
He looked like he may collapse for recounting it, or bring up his dinner. Marilla and Matthew exchanged a look of alarm.
"Well yes, Tom, certainly we wanted a boy…" she tried as gently as she could. "We have the farm here, you know. Matthew is getting on in years and we thought we'd take on a boy like yourself, bring him up properly, have him help us and maybe try to help him in return…" she again searched Matthew's face, but was receiving no help from him, unsurprisingly. "We couldn't have taken on a girl, even your Anne. It wouldn't have made any sense."
There was a long silence. Tom seemed not to dispute her explanation, but his quivering lip told them he was far from making peace with it.
"May I write her? Let her know how I'm doing?"
"Yes, of course," Marilla smiled in relief, clutching at the olive branch. "That is a very good idea. Bring you peace of mind. And her."
Tom nodded, his eyes very bright.
"So, then," Marilla was eager to move on. "I'm sure you're getting rather tired. You'll soon learn we - and most people round these parts - are very early risers, out of necessity. Matthew has most of his jobs done before city folk have even had their breakfasts."
Tom smiled weakly.
"We'll get you settled and up to bed, I think. It's been a big day for you."
Tom nodded, beyond the ability to articulate just how big it had been.
He and Matthew moved off from the table; Marilla began removing dishes. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Tom picked up his small, sad little bundle of worldly possessions, and felt some strange tug in her; of sympathy but something else. She dismissed it, but then another thought came to her.
"Tom! Have you any of your papers hidden away there? Adoption papers, mind, that Mrs Spencer would have signed for us?"
Tom looked blankly. "No Ma'am."
"No Birth Certificate or copy of any of your records?"
Tom shook his head slowly. "No, Ma'am."
Even Matthew now cleared his throat hesitatingly.
"There was nothing with him, Marilla, other that his knapsack and what he stood up in."
Marilla frowned worriedly. "Do you think Mrs Spencer means to drop them by us another time?" she asked the question generally of the room.
"Ma'am… Marilla." Tom gulped. "There are no papers for me. She didn't sign any. There… there wasn't time. She, well, she arrived, and then there was Anne, but she wouldn't take Anne, and Mrs Cadbury beckoned me to come, and then I was in the cab and…"
The full mismanaged horror of it all was clear in his stricken blue eyes.
"Well, never mind that now. We'll sort it. Off to bed with you. Matthew can show you up to your room; I'll follow in a moment. I've been mending one of his old nightshirts for you till I can measure you up for your own."
Marilla watched them both slowly head up the stairs, trying to compose herself.
Well, what a fine kettle of fish this was. This is what came of it, of course, when you relied on others to do the task for you.
Marilla left the dishes, and followed on up with the nightshirt. Goodness only knew he was nearly tall enough to wear any of Matthew's old cast offs, but it was best perhaps to have some things of his own. She reached the little east gable room, to find Matthew unnecessarily pointing out the bare furnishings of it, as if he thought Tom didn't quite understand how a room worked.
Marilla offered the nightshirt; she and Matthew were at the doorway, but they both saw Tom turn away from them and take off his threadbare shirt; and it gave them a very quick, neat view of the haphazard pattern of fading angry red welts and ugly intermingled bruises across his back and arms. Matthew stared, his own blue eyes shocked; Marilla covered her gasp with her hand, and staggered with all the speed she could muster back down the stairs.
Matthew came down a short time thereafter, to find Marilla had brewed the tea but found herself seated, staring absently at the place Tom had sat with them.
"Who would do that to a child?" she pleaded to her brother, her usually firm, resolute voice trying to mask a quiver. "No matter what kind of wickedness may have pre-empted it?"
Matthew, eyes hooded, walked tiredly over to fetch his pipe; a sure sign of his own distress.
"Well, then, I hardly know…" he faltered. "I don't know anything about the boy, really, no more than you. All I know is I'm fairly sure he hasn't a wicked bone in his body. I'm rather to think that… well… maybe the wickedness wasn't his."
Marilla gave a tight little nod in agreement.
"What are we to do, Matthew?" she was despairing. "The boy has no papers. Nothing to even say who he is, let alone to tie him to us. If we were to contact the orphanage ourselves I hardly know what they'd do. Would they try to take him back? Would they make us take another instead? Would he be so traumatised as to run away, or try to go off with this girl he mentioned?"
Matthew had begun to puff away furiously. "I can't say as I want him anywhere near the place again," he claimed, as firm about it as he had ever been about anything in his life.
Marilla's lips pursed.
"Actually, I've been thinking already a little about… the situation."
"Mmm?"
"Rachel was here earlier," Marilla began, moving to refresh the tea with hot water. The very name earned something very close to an eye roll from Matthew.
"And?"
"And she was falling over herself with curiosity, of course. So I started to explain the situation, how we'd originally looked to see if we could afford a hired boy to help work the farm with you, that we'd looked over our finances and you'd even met with the bank manager. Well… I hadn't even gotten on to the idea of an orphan at all, before she was on about making sure I didn't hire a little French boy, as they'd up and leave once you trained them up decently, and then she'd heard of a couple burned in their beds up West by some orphan boy… and then some orphan girl in New Brunswick who'd harmed an entire family with some poison down the well or some such… Honestly, Matthew, I clammed up then and there."
Matthew's frown was very decided.
"Now that I've met him, Matthew, I could hardly have the Rachel Lyndes of this world look sideways at him his whole life, convinced he's about to make off with the silverware. How fair would that be? What sort of a fresh start is that after what he's been through?"
Matthew nodded thoughtfully.
"I thought maybe… and just hear me out first … I thought maybe we could pass him off as ours. A distant relative, mind. Maybe the son of that second cousin we have on the mainland; she married some wastrel or other herself and is no longer with us, God rest her. Now I know what you're thinking, Matthew – it would be a bare faced lie, and I'm hardly comfortable with that aspect of it. But the lie hurts no one, and it just might… well, help him."
Matthew puffed on in silence.
"He has the look of you when you were a boy," Marilla mused. "It struck me rather as soon as I saw him, beside you. Fairer, mind, and gentler features, but just nearly as tall, and definitely with the same manner."
Matthew gave a small smile of almost pleased acknowledgment.
"What of Mrs Spencer?"
"Who's to see her?" Marilla dismissed. "Over all the way to White Sands? She'll forget it all soon enough. And I dare say she'd want to forget about it in a hurry anyway, for didn't she have a part in it, leaving with a child that hadn't even been properly signed over to her?"
Matthew paused to fiddle with his pipe.
"I've no trouble with any of that. But… what about Rachel?"
"Leave Rachel to me. She doesn't know every single thing about us and our family. If I tell it convincingly enough she'll start thinking that she's the one who arranged him to come and stay with us."
Matthew offered an even broader smile now.
"Well, then," he answered. "I guess that settles it."
Marilla went back upstairs to say goodnight to Tom, mindful due to her sudden flight she hadn't yet done so. She found him sitting warily on the edge of the bed, as if unsure he actually had permission to lie in it.
Explanations they had worked out downstairs would become his to tell as well, but that could wait till the morning. She held out a little tin of Minard's Liniment, offering to put some on his back for him.
"Here, Tom," she suggested, her embarrassment and heightened feelings on the matter making her voice gruffer than she had intended. "This might help soothe you somewhat."
The boy flushed a little himself, but he adjusted the nightshirt and allowed the surprising gentleness of her touch. He did not produce any explanation for his injuries and Marilla did not press for one. But the simple act of offering the kindness and having it accepted seemed to form a covenant between them all the same.
Later, Tom rest his head on a downy soft pillow, under a warm and not at all scratchy coverlet, and listened to the sound of the wind in the trees and the almost unnatural quiet of the huge farmhouse at the edge of the woods.
He wondered what was happening at the orphanage. He wondered if the children had still been expecting their story at bedtime without one of them there. He wondered if Anne was staring into the darkness as he was, measuring the minutes in silent tears.
Tom didn't much care what people thought of him, so if Marilla and Matthew wanted to say they found him abandoned by the railway tracks he didn't mind, so long as he could be honest about being the son of his mother. He would not forget her or explain her away; she played on his mind more now that she did at the orphanage; he wondered what she would make of the boy who had only read about horses and cows in books now feeding real life ones; of actually knowing the rough feel and piquant smell of hay as he pitched it in the barn; of the wonder and warmth of a new egg in his hand; of his comical first attempts to milk their clearly affronted cow; of tilling the soil to prepare it for something to grow there.
His first weeks were quiet and steady; in the company of Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert they could hardly be otherwise. Matthew was patient and kind, going over every new job and chore thoroughly, letting him attempt it again and again till it was mastered. Marilla was brisk and efficient and didn't waste a second of the day, and seemed to be on a personal mission to have him consume his own slowly increasing body weight in food. He had the vague sense that they had closed a protective net around him, and wanted to give him time to adjust to his surroundings before launching him onto the village at large, although they were careful to have him head out alongside one of other of them on various errands, just so that he could see and be seen. However, little did he know his vital test had already come and gone the very next day of his arrival, when he and Matthew came in to wash up for the midday meal, to find a middle aged woman in smart jacket and hat, sitting at the table with Marilla. He would think later she had reminded him of a bellows used for the fire; puffed up and full of air to begin with, which quickly released itself in a rush of breath and words till there was nothing left.
"Well, now, Marilla, and here they are at last. Good day to you, Matthew. I see you have been busy out in the lower fields; I spotted you heading that way on my walk over, so I knew I'd have time to get the whole extraordinary story before you came in. I must say I'm unsure what to think of it; taking in a strange relation you've not ever set eyes on. I hardly know what business a confirmed old bachelor and his spinster sister have in raising a child – no offence, Marilla, but you know I only raised ten of my own. Come then, boy, let me have a look at you."
Tom blinked; it took him a moment to even register the request to step forward, he was so very bamboozled by the rate and volume of words flung at him.
"He's tall and wiry enough, but terribly thin and peaky, Marilla, and I really do think a good strong wind would knock him about without a trouble. You've got to try a few decent stews and such to get him to fill up on or he won't be any use to you at all. And what is it they call you, now?"
"Hello, Ma'am. I'm Tom Caruthers."
The woman shook his automatically outstretched hand, and her face relaxed into a small but definite smile.
"Well there, Tom Caruthers. I'm Mrs Rachel Lynde from down the lane. You have a fine name there; it belongs to my own dear husband, Thomas, so there's something encouraging at least. And what do you say to landing yourself here in Avonlea?"
"I'm very grateful to the Cuthberts for taking me in, Mrs Lynde, Ma'am. I look forward to earning my keep and working hard for them."
There had been only a little time, once the whole explanation had been set out that morning, to elaborate much on the expected visit of the woman now in front of him. But Tom was a quick study, and he had seen the tension in Marilla's face as they came inside, and felt Matthew just behind him fiddling anxiously with his cap. He wasn't a natural charmer, but he had a sweet earnestness to him that even he himself hardly realised, and that the woman now seemed to respond to favourably.
"Well," she flashed a wider smile at Marilla. "At the very least he has a civil, respectful tongue in his head. To be sure half the towns on the mainland are overrun with wild boys and street urchins with no concept of manners at all. He could be rather good looking if given half the chance, with a bit of proper color to him. And for goodness' sake, Marilla, get him into some decent clothes. They say you lost your mother just recently?"
Tom gulped. By shared decree they had fiddled with the timeline slightly. He was still reluctant to talk of his mother, least of all to Mrs Rachel Lynde from down the lane, but there was no getting away from the sad fact of it.
"Yes, Ma'am," he affirmed quietly. "She had consumption."
Rachel Lynde's eyes softened in sympathy, and she shook her head, tutting extravagantly.
"Dreadful business. Dreadful. Mind you fill your lungs with all the clean air you can here, Tom Caruthers."
"Yes, Ma'am."
She looked him up and down very carefully, as if making her mind up about something.
"I guess I can see a little of Matthew in him, Marilla, come to think of it," Rachel Lynde assessed, her head to one side in serious contemplation. "The eyes for one. But I rather have it from your mother's side – she had a more handsome profile. Certainly not from your father's; his looks were nothing to write home about."
Tom felt Matthew's soft, relieved sigh from behind him; on his periphery he saw the flash of Marilla's sudden, wry smile.
Mrs Cadbury paced the dormitory checking on the children. It was taking them forever to settle for bed now. It taxed her nerves and her patience, both of which were decidedly frayed these days. Despairingly, she had allowed Matron to brandish her birch rod, but even that slightly reformed tartar hadn't quite the heart to do more than wave it threateningly, though that still seemed to be enough.
She searched now till she found the ghost against the glass. The pale hand pressed against the night-cold window; the pale face leaning in; the grey eyes unfocussed and trance like; the bloodless lips whispering for hours. Anne Shirley had summoned Katie Maurice again, like a spectre invited to a séance.
Mrs Cadbury really felt she had tried everything with which to grasp hold of the girl and pull her out of this disturbing pit of despair. She was not one for extremes of emotion herself and so felt ill equipped to deal with the slow fading shell in front of her. She had thought perhaps the company of Martha might benefit them both and on that girl's return – a day after Tom's own departure – and had encouraged Anne to join Cook's new lessons. One would have thought Anne Shirley could have coped with scones at the very least, but she was so weepy and distracted – and a terrible influence on Martha, that poor girl having been through enough already – that when she had come across them crying in one another's arms she had allowed the one-time catharsis before removing Anne determinedly, ordering her to read to the infants, which she did so each afternoon – refusing the evenings - with only passable enthusiasm and a disturbing lack of expression.
Another missive from Tom Caruthers burned a hole in the pocket of her sensible grey skirt. That made five now these last five weeks. The boy was as annoyingly regular in his correspondence as the letters themselves were boyishly engaging. Mrs Cadbury had only shared the first one with Anne, who had almost grabbed at it like a wild thing; feverish and uncontrolled, and devoured it, refusing to give it back, even though the address had already been carefully snipped from the top. The way she was going about it all was decidedly unhealthy; and it wasn't even about the lost family anymore, and perhaps never had been; it was about the lost boy.
Mrs Cadbury sighed as she approached her. It wasn't a desire to keep Tom and his letters away from Anne, it was a necessity. His new family, this Cuthbert couple, seemed perfectly good and decent, and were treating him well. They hadn't come back to her with recriminations because the papers hadn't been signed; maybe good, decent country folk thought there was no need of them. They had wanted a boy and they had gotten one.
And Mrs Cadbury still rather wanted her job, thank you very much.
If Tom was now taken care of, and if Anne was shortly to be taken care of, then the horrible matter – not only the papers for Tom but the whole entire horrific event that prefaced it – could be put to bed. If Tom and Anne's friendship withered and died, then the whole matter died with it.
If only both of them would play their part.
"Anne! Anne Shirley! This ridiculous behaviour has to stop!" Mrs Cadbury now whispered furiously.
Anne herself sighed now, resigned.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Katie," she rasped. "All for one and one for all." ***
Anne turned, defeated, towards her.
"Have you any news of Tom for me, Mrs Cadbury?"
"No, Anne," Mrs Cadbury replied, hoping that God wouldn't strike her down, but rather appreciate the difficulty of her most desperate position.
"But I don't understand it… the first one got through."
"Anne…" Mrs Cadbury warned, taking the chair beside the windowsill on which Anne now leaned. "You know we have discussed this!"
Those huge grey eyes welled with too-ready tears, and Mrs Cadbury could hardly stand to see the reproach in them.
"I don't know why I am not permitted to write to him. I don't know why he is not now writing to me," she insisted with something of her old stubbornness.
Mrs Cadbury's sigh was heavy.
"Anne, you know why. I've explained this to you. Tom has not been formally adopted. The papers are still unsigned. He is not safeguarded in the event someone comes for him or looks more thoroughly into the matter. His new family would lose him and he them. Is it not our role to then protect and safeguard him, Anne? As he tried to himself for you?"
She shuddered to give the reminder, for it was bitterly unfair, but it had the desired effect. Anne shrunk into herself.
"But to wait until he is eighteen?" she whimpered.
Mrs Cadbury rallied herself. They were almost there.
"He will be a man by that stage, Anne. An adult in his own right, and in charge of his own destiny then. And you yourself will not be far behind him. It would be perfectly fine to… approach… him, then. And he will be able to thank you in time, for putting his welfare first. It will have been the gesture of a true friend – the truest friend – and he will come to know it."
Anne was very, very quiet.
Mrs Cadbury pressed her advantage.
"We must now look to your future, Anne. I have been making many enquiries on your behalf. I had a very encouraging response to one of them, just today. I'm replying immediately tomorrow. It was from a teacher friend of mine – we met many, many moons ago, I can't even tell you how far back – it was when I did my own training. She is a teacher of English at a High School, but she has connections to an orphanage there – a Home for Girls. How would you like to get a proper education with them, then, Anne Shirley?"
Mrs Cadbury let the question hang there; a morsel of hope, sweet and tantalising. She said no more, but Anne allowed herself to be led off to bed, limp and listless, unprotesting. Her eyes, however, as she turned them back up to her, held the hint of curiosity; the merest spark of life again.
Mrs Cadbury breathed out slowly as she continued her rounds and then climbed upstairs to her office. She had already received the initial letter from Summerside ten days ago, and the letter today had confirmed that they may be happy to receive their new charge between now and the beginning of the school year, awaiting her final response.
She would not delay, but it would be best if Anne was not informed till the last possible moment.
And she would absolutely have her onbound papers at the ready.
Mrs Cadbury's two letters were able to catch the morning post; the first to Master Tom Caruthers, and the other to Miss Katherine Brooke.
Tom held the letter in his shaking hands. He could scarcely believe it. After all this time – six weeks, most of the summer – he had some news of her.
It was not her writing, as far as he remembered. And he learned, unfortunately, it was not her own response either.
Master Thomas Caruthers,
c/o Mr M Cuthbert and Miss M Cuthbert
Green Gables
Avonlea,
Prince Edward Island
July 30th 1876
Dear Tom,
I write to thank you for your recent and numerous enquiries as to the welfare of one Miss Anne Shirley, who was resident with you here in Hopetown Asylum from January to June 1876.
This is to inform you that Anne Shirley was moved by me after your own departure, in her best interests, to another institution; a Home for Girls elsewhere, the details of which must remain confidential. The home is run in connection with a number of trained teaching professionals, one of whom is my own personal friend who has agreed to somewhat oversee her welfare, as far as her own circumstances and duties allow.
I would ask you to please refrain from any further enquiries as to Miss Shirley. She will be best served if she is able to put recent experiences behind her, in order to make the most of her future opportunities. I am sure she would wish you to do the same. I would not jeopardise either of your new positions by enabling a correspondence to begin between you, the results of which could only lead to unnecessary hurt and harm on all sides.
I am most pleased to hear you are happy in your new situation and wish you the very best.
Yours Sincerely
Mrs Margaret Cadbury
Director, Hopetown Asylum, Nova Scotia
Marilla had taken Tom into the village to run some errands and they had collected the mail whilst there. Tom had become a known presence in the town and there were few in Avonlea now who would still need to enquire as to the circumstances of his arrival – Rachel had neatly seen to that. It was a strange and wonderous thing to be in the company of a child; it conferred an entry into conversations that had seemed barred to she and Matthew before; as if in having the tall, well mannered, nice looking boy beside them made their own presence more tangible, and they themselves more worthy; no longer the odd brother and sister living life both literally and metaphorically on the periphery, but increasingly drawn into the centre. Even Matthew had found himself offering more than a mumble to townsfolk; having Tom with him forced him to make an effort for the boy if not for himself, and only the other day at the general store Mr Wright had imparted some words of wisdom on some new grain feed, and had urged his short, red faced boy to ask the tall, now-not-quite-so-pale one whether he might join him in a spot of fishing come the weekend.
So now Marilla watched Tom out of the corner of her eye as she made the tea and he sat at the table, staring at the cream envelope, and hoped that whatever news it contained helped bring him out of himself. His shy, reluctant smiles were coming more often now, and there seemed to be moments of genuine pleasure in his growing prowess and proficiency around the farm. But, still, he seemed to hold himself back, as if not able to fully commit to this new life of his; not through lack of desire or even want of trying, but through some echo, unknown and unheard to the rest of them, that called him back across the strait, back to the orphanage, and back to that girl.
Tom opened the envelope slowly. He read the letter even more slowly. He left it on the table, and ran out into the fields.
Tom didn't expect to find himself sitting awkwardly in the third row of the Avonlea schoolhouse that September, trying to enfold himself behind a desk that was as if a cage made for an impossibly small animal, his elbows jutting and his knees butting and the indecipherable third reader in front of him.
He was much happier – the idea of happiness itself being a rather sad joke the universe might be having at his expense – in the fields or with the cows or riding alongside Matthew or Marilla in the buggy. He had found comfort in the quiet rhythms and the steadying predictability of Green Gables and the farm; he was quite sure he could spend the rest of his days there easily… if not completely happily.
He thought of Anne, in a very different type of building, surrounded by very different would-be scholars, and then he found he couldn't really breathe properly, and that the air itself was trapped in his chest, and the great weight would press down on him, deadening and defeating, and he would have to think of something else just to struggle on till it passed.
So he tried to think of anything else.
He flicked his pale blue eyes around the room, made already stifling by the heat outside of the late morning sun; it beamed little shafts of light through the gaps and the knotholes in the walls; an insolent reminder of the life and freedom still going on all around, now denied them. Behind him he could hear impatient shuffling and whispered asides, and Mr Phillips' low, too-intimate instruction to the pretty older girl at the back. They were two weeks into the school year but Tom didn't like using anyone's name if he could help it; using their name gained their attention and he was already receiving too much attention already. So he still identified people in his head by their features, stamped with their personality regardless; the haughty girl with the fine-boned frown of disdain; the homely girl who found refuge in her wit; the pretty dark haired girl with the soft, dimpled smile everyone noted and the intelligent dark eyes they didn't; the giggly, gorgeous blonde girl whom all the boys noted, all the time. These four were the most vivid to him; the rest faded into the background. As he wished he could.
The boys were nameless too, if he could get away with it. But Billy Andrews' name stuck with him and to him, like a shadow he couldn't run from, no matter how quickly he ducked and darted.
Tom ate his bread and his biscuit and his apple in solitary silence, by one of the trees in the yard, his stomach now used to the food, his body having seized upon the unknown goodness it represented in his growing strength; the axe for the wood he swung more easily; the plough he directed more forcefully; the ambling, long limbed gait straighter and more purposeful. Mrs Rachel Lynde might have mentioned, as if she was personally responsible, that his good looks were indeed emerging in his new-tanned skin and his brighter eyes; that his hair had lightened in the sun to something almost fetching; that he was surely grown another foot already and still not yet thirteen.
Tom studied his hands. The long fingers seemed to miss grasping something; they missed flexing the blade; they missed giving something form and feature; the nothing made into something, the lump of wood given life.
He had thought about it, but … no. Because the last thing he had fashioned had been for her.
"Hey, there, tow-head Tom!" the wretchedly familiar voice interrupted his contemplation.
Tom ignored it, as always.
"Hey! Teaching yourself to count?" the taunt was accompanied by a scatter of dirt in his direction.
Tom looked up then, feigning mild affront. The circle of boys was hardly threatening and he raised a sandy eyebrow.
Billy, like all bullies, was looking for the excitement of being challenged enough to look brave, but not quite challenged enough to show his latent cowardice. Tom didn't know in what way he had so annoyed him, but perhaps his very presence was the reason; perhaps those like Billy didn't even require one. Tom's gaze flicked to the other boys, awkwardly stubbing their own toes in the dirt, uncomfortable but unable to commit to any defence of him and make themselves a target again instead.
"Well?" Billy insisted.
"Well, what?" Tom sighed.
"I'm you're older and your better, tow-head Tom. I don't know if your attitude is quite respectful enough!"
Billy was not only a bully, but evidently an insultingly unimaginative one. He'd use the same line last week, not long after the school year had begun, and probably would use the same oft-rehearsed manoeuvre.
"Bow down to your better, tow-head."
"No."
"Kneel before me, you worthless piece of shit!"
"No."
Tom really could have laughed in his face at the theatrical posturing of the puffed up schoolboy. He had seen so much worse before. He had known real danger, and he had felt real fear. He could have retaliated but he was tired of that life; he tried to ignore it but that was harder to do now; as his body had hardened his soul had softened. He knew real goodness and kindness now and it had permeated him to his bones. He would not disappoint Matthew and Marilla. He would not insult the memory of his mother. He would not betray the bravery of her.
"Right, boys," Billy sneered. "Let's show him how it's done!"
"C'mon, Billy…" that was Fred Wright, making a soft, stammering protest. "Let… let him alone."
"Do you want to show him how it's done?" Billy rounded on Fred, and then looked scornfully at the others – Charlie and Moody and another Sloane and one of the innumerable Pyes.
Evidently there were no other volunteers forthcoming.
Tom closed his eyes with martyred weariness, and felt the hands grab him – it really didn't matter whose they were – and assemble him, with some effort, arms outstretched, forward onto his knees. Held thus, pinioned and prostrate, it was a simple process for Billy to grab his head and push it down into the rust colored dirt, rubbing his face in it for good measure.
"That's how we respect our betters," Billy crowed, and Tom heard him and the others shuffle off.
Tom slowly opened his eyes, to see the single hand extended in front of him. He took it, and Fred helped haul him up.
Fred gave him a pitying smile, borne of his own prior knowledge of such encounters.
"Having fun at school, yet?" Fred asked in his wry way.
Tom grimaced, rolling his eyes and taking a hankerchief to his face. No matter how much he seemed to clean it, though, it always felt like the stain remained.
In the third week of school, there was a decided frisson in the air. The girls who had rather crowded around near Tom outside before Mr Phillips rang the bell, seeing if they could catch his eye or corner him into giving them that shy, blushing smile, now turned their attention to the path, craning their necks as if in anticipation of some special event. He heard their breathless conjectures as they waited impatiently…
"…visiting his cousins in New Brunswick over the summer…"
"… only came home Saturday night…"
"out to Alberta… there three years…"
"… just torments our lives out…" ****
The disappointment on their faces was comically palpable when there seemed to be no especial arrival, and Tom followed them in as they made their way inside forlornly.
He virtually burst through the doors as Mr Phillips was marking the roll, bounding and breathless, his handsome face flushed and his curly dark hair in dashing disarray. He grinned at various students as he swept past and up to Mr Phillips, giving an earnest enough explanation for his tardiness as to receive a frown rather than a rebuke, and then gave a further generous smile to various others, particularly of the female variety, roguish hazel eyes **** alight, before enfolding his own decidedly tall, lanky personage into an available seat.
Mr Phillips had a little trouble controlling the class that day, but there again his own fussy, supercilious nature hardly helped matters to begin with. There was a veritable spider's web of notes passed back and forth, all with the same recipient in mind; even Tom was recruited in this endeavour, due to his rather fortuitous position across the aisle and one in front of the boy receiving all this interest and adulation with a magnanimous air and a teasing, self satisfied grin.
The Avonlea schoolhouse populous was busy paying court to Gilbert Blythe for the rest of the week; the young ladies who had previously hovered about him, and even Billy Andrews himself, were sufficiently distracted as to almost forget about Tom entirely, and he was able to go about his business – including his lunch – in blissful, uninterrupted peace.
Gilbert Blythe, Billy Andrews and Tom Caruthers made a most unlikely triumvirate that Friday afternoon when class was dismissed. Tom had been asked to stay by Mr Phillips regarding being behind in his work; Gilbert had offered to stay for the same reason; and Billy's manifold infractions made his presence rather a weekly requirement.
Gilbert sat at his desk and perused the fourth reader whilst Billy sullenly copied out lines on the blackboard and Tom sat in dejected and uncomprehending misery. He had a fair knowledge of reading but his spelling was undeniably interpretative; he had a decent head for plain figures but found geometry quite beyond him; he liked the sound and rhythm of poetry but any subtextual reading was a foreign concept. He would face the ignominy of going down a class to the second reader until he came close to approaching the standard required of an almost thirteen year old.
He was thus dismissed, with Billy immediately following.
In the hands of a more compassionate teacher Tom would have fared far better, but after his initial enthusiasm had been soured by the lack of any acknowledgement as to his efforts, he was a little past caring. And Anne was not here to support or to harangue him one way or the other.
Gilbert moved with enthusiasm into the seat by Mr Phillips he had vacated; he had the spark and the interest – and the confidence – of a natural scholar, despite his own haphazard schooling. Tom recognised that look – eager, engaged, enflamed – because he had seen it in Anne.
Gilbert came out of his conference with Mr Phillips ten minutes later, laden with one or two extra books and an entire list of areas needing immediate attention, to the extraordinary sight of Billy and that new boy Tom Caruthers scuffling on the ground.
"Hey!" he shouted, running towards the two interlocked figures, in time to waylay Billy before he attempted to press his knee into Tom's throat. "Get off him!"
"Leave it alone, Gilbert!" Billy panted as he was wrenched away. "This is between me and – "
"Just save it, Andrews! You were saying the same thing about me three years ago!"
Gilbert pushed Billy back for good measure, and glared at the boy, older but of equal height, for he himself had certainly enjoyed a growth spurt and then some in his absent years.
Billy gave a nasty grimace and spat on the ground in Tom's general direction.
"Yeah, well, he'll keep."
"Get. Lost!" Gilbert warned, glaring, and waited till Billy ambled off and out of sight before turning his attention to the figure still on the ground, breathing heavily.
He offered his own tanned forearm, and an equally tanned – and perhaps, surprisingly, equally strong – arm clasped it, though the new boy was a good year behind himself.
"Thanks." Tom Caruthers said, shortly. "But you didn't have to."
"Yeah, of course not," Gilbert offered dryly, giving an amused smile. "You had the situation well in hand."
Tom smiled a little at that, pausing to look about at his clothes, neat and new-ish and now covered in a film of brown and rust, though thankfully nothing was torn. He began to dust himself off.
"I'm Gilbert," he extended his hand.
"I'm Tom," he shook it.
Gilbert picked up the boy's discarded books, offering them, and then went back for his own, abandoned when entering the fray.
"You're the one the Cuthberts have taken in," Gilbert noted as they started walking.
Tom nodded again, and then paused, giving his companion a hooded glance.
"You're the one they can't stop raving about."
Gilbert gave a chuckle and shook his head.
"The surprises continue! Firstly, you're not actually afraid of Billy Andrews. Secondly, you can actually speak. And thirdly, you might even have a sense of humour."
Tom's smile was tight but it was there.
"It's actually refreshing to have someone else new too," Gilbert now seemed content to settle in for a fireside chat. "Not that I'm new, exactly, but just that I've been away, so everything feels new."
Tom nodded. "Including all the attention?" he arched a brow.
Gilbert's chuckle was longer this time; warm and pleased and knowing.
"Yeah, well, all that is pretty new…" his grin was unrepentant. "But I guess I'm managing."
Tom shook his head, unable to help his own smile, and then rolled his eyes in a clearly rather you than me fashion.
They continued walking, till the woods were in sight.
"I'm, er, sorry about your mother," Gilbert offered carefully after a time. At Tom's haunted look he was quick to elaborate with a raised brow. "There are no secrets in Avonlea."
Tom nodded, his curt reply one Gilbert understood.
"Thanks."
Gilbert's expression darkened. "It's just that, my dad had consumption too."
Tom's own face now softened at the knowledge. "Oh. That's a real shame. I'm sorry for your own loss."
Gilbert stopped suddenly, his hazel eyes wide.
"Um, hey, it's… well, my dad's alive," he explained hesitatingly.
Tom turned to him.
"Ah… that's why we were away. For three years. In Alberta…" Gilbert swallowed. "The, er, Prairie cure."
Tom's face had turned green. "There's a cure?" his blue eyes were out on stalks.
Gilbert cleared his throat and backtracked quickly.
"There's… there's not so much a cure as such but a treatment… if you get the consumption early enough… it's still experimental… er, that is, it's still not a proven cure… more of an attempt at it…" he trailed off lamely. "It took three years. But, I know, still, we were … lucky."
The silence hung heavy. Gilbert shuffled with new awkwardness, hands in pockets. Tom had frozen where he stood, his eyes fixed on some point on the ground, his features drawn sharp and tight. When he finally raised his eyes back to Gilbert's – the two boys virtually level with one another – Gilbert blanched to see the pain still lingering there.
Tom nodded, his voice strangled. "Well, then."
There was really nothing more to say to that.
The two of them reached the point where their paths home would diverge.
"Thanks, then," Tom offered, still a little shaken from their discussion. "For before."
"No problem. And hey – don't worry about Billy Andrews." Gilbert's smile grew arch. "Or Mr Phillips."
Marilla's eyes registered her shock at Tom's appearance as he came through the door.
"Tom Caruthers! What is the meaning of this?"
"I'm sorry, Marilla. I'll take them off now and wash them myself."
"You'll do no such thing!" Marilla came over from the sink to inspect the damage more closely. "They'll need to be soaked overnight at least."
Tom, embarrassed, avoided her eyes as she searched his face, noticing the scrape by his temple.
"What happened, Tom?"
"Marilla!" Matthew warned mildly from his seat, where he had been enjoying the newspaper. "Leave the boy alone."
Marilla pursed her lips. Tom said precious little about school and she hoped he was coping, and that it hadn't been too much to send him. But now she perhaps had an entirely new circumstance to worry about.
She held off on a lecture, and fetched his overalls, which she had in mind to wash but they could obviously wait. She handed them silently to him.
"Thank you, Ma'am. I'm sorry I was late. I'll put the books upstairs and then start on the chores."
Marilla looked to Matthew, and then back to the boy. This boy whom it pained her to see hurt, whose cheerful hard work toiling for them had lightened Matthew's load so much already, whose own gentleness had encouraged her to remember some of her own.
She put a hand on his arm.
"The chores can wait awhile, Tom. There's been another letter for you."
Another three months had passed; the Inspector was due his visit.
Mrs Cadbury fortified herself, well satisfied in the knowledge that both Anne and Tom were long gone. Martha would spend the day at her mother's, and had indeed left the previous evening; Cook would serve tea with ill-disguised, disgusted disapproval in the little parlour downstairs off the kitchen; he would get nowhere near the other children; there would be absolutely no biscuits.
They were rather astonished when he arrived. It was another Inspector, completely new to Mrs Cadbury; he was rather elderly and blundering, but affable; he liked the parlour perfectly fine, as he had trouble with stairs enough these days anyway; he took a cursory look at her books and hardly glanced at the children at all; he was in and out in barely an hour.
They none of them saw or heard of Mr Flagstaff again, and were extraordinarily glad of it.
Tom took up the letter to the little east gable room.
This time he tore it open quickly. He couldn't be hurt any more than he already had.
Dearest Tom
Forgive my scratchings. I must write quickly. It's a bit over a month since you left, I think. I've lost track of the days. I haven't got long – Mrs Cadbury has just told me I'm to leave this afternoon, for my new place. It's a girl's home, though I have no idea where. She wants me to get an education. She really wants me to be away from here – she is terrified what the Inspector might still do.
She hasn't let me write to you. And I only have one letter of yours. Oh, Tom, what should I do? She says that we must protect you, that they might send you back if they knew you had no papers, that I mustn't try to write to you, that I have to wait until you're eighteen and can go out on your own. I vow I will protect you, Tom! I will write a thousand letters in my head. I will imagine you tall - well, very tall – and strong and healthy. And happy. And that will be a great comfort to me, to know that you took your chance and used it well.
I won't ever forget you. And you'd better not forget about me! I will try everything to find you, when I can.
I need to have a way to give this to Martha. I have no money to give her so I hope she can eventually send it for me. She was sorry not to have said goodbye to you. She liked you very much.
I have our wooden figures, Tom. I will keep them close to my heart, which is where you'll be.
Love,
Anne
On Monday morning Tom took his new place one row further to the front of the Avonlea schoolroom, virtually where the children were. He took out his second reader determinedly, and awaited Mr Phillips' instruction. He seemed to be able to concentrate slightly better, now that he breathed easier.
At lunchtime he sat by his tree, with his apple that he had picked himself that weekend.
"Hey, tow-head! Will you need your mummy now that you're stuck with the babies? Oops! Too bad about that!"
Tom had been mulling over a lot of things the last few days, out in the orchard, or the fields, or the barn, with the September breeze stirring the leaves, which were turning from the golden hues of his mother's tresses to the russet red of someone else's. Soon they would turn to brown, like Marilla's hair long ago, or Matthew's rather impressive beard.
He had thought about luck and chance and Providence.
He had thought about waiting here till she found him again.
He had thought about becoming the man she knew he could be.
Tom stood slowly. A little crowd had gathered; the usual suspects, naturally, but a few more besides, for Gilbert had wandered over, hazel eyes watchful, and the girls were always with Gilbert now, trailing in his wake. With him was Fred, invariably next to Diana with the dark hair.
"Take it back," Tom said softly, his eyes on Billy.
Billy laughed. "That's hardly respectful."
"Take it back."
"You're kidding, right?"
Tom really wasn't. And he had done a lot of thinking, but he didn't need to think about this.
Billy Andrews had been sent home from school early that day. Mrs Harmon Andrews was frantic. The poor boy had been so eager to get back to his lessons after lunch that he had not even seen where he was going and had barrelled straight into a tree. His poor cheek had caught a dreadful bruise with it. She insisted he have a full two days off to recover.
When he returned to school, his usual band of supporters seemed to have dispersed. He wandered around with a solitary Pye for company. The girls tittered around Gilbert. And Gilbert sat with a motley collection of boys – one red faced, one goggle eyed, one with stick out ears, and one with dreadful blonde hair.
Chapter Notes
"What a comfort one familiar face is in a howling wilderness of strangers!"
Anne of the Island (Ch. 3)
*Anne of Green Gables (Ch.2)
**Anne of Green Gables (Ch.1)
***Alexandre Dumas The Three Musketeers (1844)
****Anne of Green Gables (Ch. 15)