"And so, after spending a year as your teacher and principal, I can certainly attest that you are some of the brightest, the most imaginative, and most committed students on Prince Edward Island. You have all been a joy to teach, and I look forward to seeing you all again in the fall. Now, do try not to forget everything I've taught you while I'm away, but we'll clear the cobwebs off everything together in September, won't we?"
Anne walked down the aisle of her classroom on the afternoon of the last day of school, her pupils' eyes trained on her as she gave her end-of-year speech. Once she had reached the front of the room, she turned to them, her eyes shining. "I will give you one piece of homework - " The class groaned, " - and that is to have fun. Learn as much about ordinary things as you can over the next three months. Because as a professor once told me:
~There are heaps of things you never learn at school.*
"And with that," she smiled warmly at the classroom full of shining young faces, "class dismissed! May you all have a wonderful summer, my dears."
The words must have held a spark of magic in them, for the moment she spoke them, it was as though a dam broke, letting children flood out of their seats and out the door, giving her their farewells as they passed her.
"Good-bye, Miss Shirley."
"Good-bye, Teacher."
"You're the bestest teacher we've ever had."
To this, Anne, replied, "Why thank you, Alec."
"He's right, Miss Shirley; you're a bully teacher!"
To this, however, "Language, Alonzo."
"Happy Summer, Teacher!"
"Good-bye, Miss Shirley!"
"Good-bye…"
Once the last student had squeezed out of the classroom, to the tune of No more pencils, no more book, no more teacher's dirty looks, Anne wiped the chalkboard down, arranged the chalks in their box, and plucked her sweater off her chair, scooping her books off the desk before carefully locking up her room and descending the stairs into the main hall.
Looking around her, she sighed. Why did it all feel so final?
She turned to the small chalkboard which had unfailingly stood in the fall all year long, with a new quote inscribed on it every day. She decided to leave up today's, one she had used on her last day at the Halifax children's asylum:
May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the Sun shine warm upon your face;
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
There, she thought, everything was spit-spot-spick-and-span, ready for a summer of sleep. It was funny, she thought, how the earth and school seemed to work in opposite ways: while the world slept in the winter, school was at its busiest; and in the summer, while the world was bursting with life and possibilities, the old schoolhouse slept.
She pondered this as she locked up the school's double doors, nearly stumbling over Gilbert and Joy, who were sitting on the broad steps out front.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed, recovering her balance.
Joy popped up, wreathed in smiles. "I wanted to stay after, Miss Shirley, to give you this," she held out a small bunch of the sweet-smelling, bell-shaped white flowers that grew in profusion around the school.
"Lilies-of-the-valley!" Anne smiled broadly. "How did you know they were my favorites?" Her gaze drifted to Gilbert, who was peering at some hitherto nameless point down the road. "Thank you!" She held them to her nose, drinking in the scent.
The three set off down the road, walking the short distance to Anne's gate, where Anne took her leave of the Blythes, father and daughter.
"Good-bye, Joy - you've done very well this year. I'll be seeing you on Monday at the station, remember," Gilbert had asked her to accompany Joy to Avonlea to visit her grandparents, and Anne, who loved Joy and was leaving on the same train, had gladly agreed.
After giving Anne a last hug, Joy allowed her father to lead her down the lane to Ingleside. Anne looked after them as they strode away, and sighed. Gilbert was friendly—very friendly—far too friendly. He had come quite often to see her lately, and something of their old comradeship had returned. But Anne no longer found it satisfying. The rose of love made the blossom of friendship pale and scentless by contrast. And Anne had again begun to doubt if Gilbert now felt anything for her but friendship.* Watching him and Joy disappear around the bend in the road, she wondered why it was only once it had been taken away from them, that a body finally realized what they needed.
"Just imagine—this time tomorrow I'll be in Avonlea—delightful thought!"* said Anne, reclining in a queenly manner in her wicker chair, her legs stretched out in front of her. Leslie, who had barely avoided a collision with Anne's outflung arm, quickly transferred her teacup to the table.
Miss Cornelia looked at her in a manner which could only be described as one of exasperated amusement. "Anne dearie, you have been saying a variation of that every day for a week now. You can't be so eager to leave us, can you?"
"No, Miss Cornelia, not at all - but I am very eager to see Marilla and Mrs. Rachel and the twins, Miss Lavendar and Paul - although Paul may not be home this summer, I heard he was going to the States soon - and Diana and her children - who will soon be three in number...no, I am not eager to leave you, Miss Cornelia, but I will be very glad to get home."
Miss Cornelia reached over and patted her hand. "Not to worry, dearie; East, west, hame's best."
"True, true," said Anne, sitting up - careful to avoid any collisions with people or their beverages - "Leslie, have you and Owen decided on a date for your wedding yet?"
The woman who had once been compared to a sea queen, with ropes of amethysts in her hair****gave a small, rather self-satisfied smile. It was the smile of someone who was content with herself and the world around her, possibly for the first time in her life. "July."
"That's quick," remarked Miss Cornelia, "in my day, a couple had to be engaged at least a year before they were deemed ready to marry. People will talk, my dear...it's awful quick, and you being his landlady…"
Anne leaned over to Leslie. "She'll try to convince you to have a three year engagement next," she mock-whispered.
"Three years?" Leslie's eyebrows rose. "Goodness, gracious."
"A trifle long," Miss Cornelia admitted, "but 'least it quells gossip."
"Miss Cornelia," asked Leslie, "have you ever known a couple to be engaged for three years?"
"Well, no," Miss Cornelia admitted again, "but…"
"My point is prov'd," Anne said with an air of finality. "No couple would be depraved enough to undergo a three-year engagement."
Anne had been fully prepared to walk to the station on Monday morning, and was on her front porch, hanging the house key on its nail for Owen to find when he became the temporary owner of the house late that day, when a buggy containing Gilbert and Joy drew up to her gate.
"Miss Shirley!" Joy waved madly from her seat beside her father, "We thought we could take you to the station with us!"
Anne waved back, stooping down to grasp her carpetbag and valise. "How wonderful of you to do that," she said as she settled onto the bench next to Joy, while Gilbert loaded her bags into the back. Coming back around the buggy, he sat down on the other side of Joy, and took up the reins, flicking the horse gently to get it to move forward.
"My mother will be waiting at Bright River with the buggy," Gilbert, said as he looked ahead between the mare's ears, "she wrote that she will be glad to drive you to Green Gables, if you need it. Apparently she's thrilled that you're accompanying Joy home - seems you're the only one apart from herself and myself that she trusts with Joy."
"What about your father?"
"He wasn't mentioned...but I'm sure she trusts him, too."
They turned on to the main road, which took them through the valley, which last fall had been awash in a blaze of red and gold, was now cloaked in delicate greens, with the early summer wildflowers growing by the side of the road.
Anne pushed her hat back, letting the not-quite-summer sun bathe her face, fully aware that she would pay for this in freckles later. Next to her, Joy did the same, closing her eyes as she blissfully soaked up the warmth of the sun and those who loved her. Was there anything better that taking a buggy ride on a sunny morning, sitting between her father and Miss Shirley? No, she thought, there was not.
"All right, Joy, I want you to promise me that you'll mind Miss Shirley while you're with her, and do the same with Grandmother. Don't get into too much mischief, and -" the rest of Gilbert's last-minute, slightly panicked instructions were cut short by the last-chance-whistle, and the conductor's "All aboard!"
Gilbert crouched down. "And remember that I love you, sweetheart - even if I'm not there to tell you."
Joy flung her little arms around his neck. "I love you too, Papa."
Anne watched them, feeling a little pang of hollowness in her heart. All this might have been hers...and then Gilbert straightened up, dislodging Joy and handing her up into the railway carriage before embracing Anne and stepping back hastily. Anne was left to hitch up the skirt of her blue traveling suit and follow Joy into the car, sitting down on a bench and rolling down the window so that they could both poke their heads out.
"Gil!" Anne waved her arm. "Here we are!"
He came to walk beside the car as it slowly chugged along the platform, gathering speed as it neared the end of the station. Finally, when it was going too fast for him to keep up, he fell back, waving after it as it sped towards the horizon, growing smaller with each passing moment.
A man he didn't know came to stand beside him. "Your wife?" he asked, nodding towards the train.
Gilbert shook his head. "No...my daughter. And a friend," he added, knowing to whom the man had been referring.
The man nodded sagely, his blue eyes seeming to see through Gilbert and into his soul. "Well, don't let her go, lad," he shook his head slowly, impressing his point further, "Don't let her go."
On the train, Anne sat on her bench, Joy cuddled up her side. Soon, a tell-tale sniffle came from the six-year-old's direction. Anne looked down to see two fat tears roll down her pale cheeks.
"Oh, darling," she said quietly, "is everything all right?" Anne, with many years of teaching and their corresponding wisdom behind her, knew exactly what was wrong. She had seen this look before, on children who were on their first day of school. It was a lost look, one that always broke her orphan's heart.
Joy's lower lip trembled. "I...I miss Papa."
"He misses you too, you know," she stroked the black curls gently. "Didn't you see his face at the station?"
Joy nodded. "A little. I was trying not to think about how much I missed him then, either." A moment's pause, and then- "Miss Shirley, do you miss Papa?"
An auburn brow rose at that. "Yes, I suppose...I do." She thought of Gilbert, standing at the end of the platform, waving at the train as long as she could see him. "But when I find I'm missing something or someone that I've left behind, I try to find something to look forward to about the place I'm traveling to. For instance, do you know that I was terribly homesick the first time I left home to go to university?" Joy shook her head, tears already forgotten at the idea of a story. "Well, I tried to look forward to my classes, and to all the new people I'd make, the new haunts I'd discover…" She continued to stroke the black curls on Joy's head, remembering her first days at Redmond. She'd felt as insignificant as the teeniest drop in a most enormous bucket.* And then, with the discovery of friends, some old, some new, and the old St. John's graveyard, things began to improve steadily.
"Now, we are on a train bound for Bright River, PEI. Isn't that an exciting thought, darling? In just a few hours we'll be at the station, where your grandmother will be waiting for us with the buggy. And you'll have two weeks with her - in Avonlea - in the summer! It's beautiful there this time of year," she said, remembering the many summers of her past, spent in the Dryad's Bubble, the Lake of Shining Waters, or wandering through the no-longer-quite-so-haunted-wood.
"You'll come visit me while I'm with Grandmother, won't you, Miss Shirley?" Joy's eyes pleaded softly.
"Of course," Anne smiled, "and we'll have so many wonderful things to do, too! We'll run free in a green world of summer loveliness. We'll dream by the Dryad's Bubble in the twilight. We'll drift on the Lake of Shining Waters in a shallop shaped from a moonbeam . . . or in Mr. Barry's flat, if moonbeam shallops are not in season. We'll gather starflowers and June bells in the Haunted Wood. We'll find plots of wild strawberries in Mr. Harrison's hill pasture. We'll join the dance of fireflies in Lover's Lane and visit Hester Gray's old, forgotten garden . . . and sit out on the back door-step under the stars and listen to the sea calling in its sleep.** And perhaps . . . if I can convince both Marilla and your grandmother, you could come spend the night up at Green Gables with me once or twice. Would you like that?"
Joy's little face blossomed into an expression that could only be described as incandescent. "Oh, yes, Miss Shirley - very much."
"Good, then." She tucked the little girl more securely against her side and pointed out the window, at the countryside rolling past them. "Now, look at that house there - doesn't it just have so much scope for imagination?*** I wonder what kind of family lives there . . ."
"It looks so different!" Joy exclaimed as the buggy rolled over the red dirt roads of Avonlea. "It's as if the world's come alive!"
Over the top of her head, Anne and Mrs. Blythe shared a look. Oh, yes, they silently agreed, this child was of a variety that had been seen in Avonlea before - but only once.
"I'm glad you like it," Esther Blythe smiled. "It was your father's favorite time of year here, too. In the summers, he would go out into the fields with his father - and while he never wanted to be a farmer, he enjoyed being outdoors, looking at everything. I think that if he could have, he would have snuck one of those microscopes home from Queens, and examined everything he considered interesting. As it was, he had to make do with a magnifying glass."
"Can I go into the fields with Grandfather?" asked Joy.
"Well, dear, you are going to be at home with me for a good deal of the time," offered Esther, weighing the pros and cons of sending an almost seven-year-old child out into the fields with John Blythe - who, while not an irresponsible man, did have slightly scatterbrained tendencies - and keeping her in the house all of the time, which was not necessarily any safer and would result in a miserable little girl.
The choice then, was a simple one. "Yes, you may - one morning or afternoon a week, if your grandfather agrees to it." The grandfather in question, she knew already, would be only too glad to take her with him, but a child was never too young to learn how to wait a little, in her opinion.
The Green Gables verandah was a cool and shady place to sit on sunny afternoon, and to have a good view of all that came up the road to the house. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously.*** She was accompanied in her sitting by the other matriarch of Green Gables, Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who was as usual occupied with the makings of another 'cotton-warp' quilt. She had, since the fateful day she had first seen Matthew Cuthbert drive past her house to pick up a certain orphan, knitted a further ten quilts, bringing her total to a prolific twenty-six.
Mrs. Lynde was the kind of woman who kept one eye on her knitting and the other on what was happening around her, and as she had the sharper eyes, she generally reported the comings and goings of the road to a generally unappreciative Marilla, who considered this wholly unnecessary, and generally ignored her.
The sharp eyes of Mrs. Lynde caught a figure down at the end of the road, loaded with two bags and slowly making its way up to the house. "Marilla, I do believe another peddler's coming up to the house. That's the third in a week - and the third in a week you're going to buy something from, that's what."
Marilla snorted lightly. "I wouldn't fret if I were you, Rachel. Goodness knows, the world is full of beggars, and it's a pretty pass if we can't help out a fellow being in need."****
"You've gone soft, Marilla, that's what."
But sharp eyes are no match for a knowing heart. Marilla knew full well who was coming up the road to Green Gables, and she was already halfway down the stairs and going to greet the bag-laden figure Mrs. Lynde had so hastily labelled as a peddler.
Putting down her knitting, Mrs. Rachel fired her last admonishment at Marilla's parting back. "Marilla Cuthbert! Don't you be buying any junk from those peddlers just to satisfy your conscience. You'll kill yourself running!"*****
But Marilla did run, and it was indeed her Anne who had come up the road with the bags and a bouquet of early wildflowers picked from the side of the road. The bags were dropped and the bouquet slightly squashed in the ensuing embrace, and though Marilla would have sternly denied it later, it is entirely possible that she wiped away a small tear of joy at seeing her Anne of Green Gables come home.
It was hot inside the newly enlarged Patterson Street manse, although every available window had been flung wide and and all the doors connecting rooms had been propped open to allow air to flow through. In the front room, with her feet - which she had not seen in about three months - propped up on a footstool and a wet rag on her neck, sat Phillipa Blake, née Gordon, feeling for all the world like a beached whale.
The night before she had, in a rare moment of decisiveness, informed her husband that if she was having twins, they were to be named Alec and Alonzo - even if they were girls. The sainted man - for she had a feeling that only a saint could put up with her at this point - had laughed, kissed her, and informed her that if those were to be the names, he would look forward to being the only father in Canada who had girls named Alec and Alonzo.
That same sainted man had just come in with the daily stack of mail, sifting through it before handing her the envelopes with her name on them.
A quick perusal resulted in a letter postmarked Avonlea, Prince Edward Island. Phil tore into the envelope with unusual gusto, causing the sainted Rev. Jo to look up with an expression of interest. Aware that he was paying attention, Phil gave the piece of paper a flourish and began to read the letter aloud, knowing that while the letters were often addressed only to her, Anne usually meant it for the both of them.
Dear Phil -
Another year of school has been taught - my first as a principal, and it really wasn't all that different from a year as a "straight" teacher. I had the joy of dealing with the aftermath of two lost teachers - but the results were quite happy, for had they not left, I would not have had the opportunity to teach Joy Blythe, and Leslie Moore would not be getting married at the end of July.
Yes, my dear Mrs. Blake (and Rev. Jo, if he's listening in) Leslie is to be married! Owen finally asked her, the night of the shore dance. He is now living in my cottage while I'm here at Green Gables (so that you know where to send your letters to for the next three months) to uphold some semblance of propriety.
[...] and I am now in Avonlea, quite happily ensconced in my East gable again, with the windows flung open to let in the last of the twilight breeze before dusk comes, and Mrs. Lynde raps on the door, reminding me to close my window so that I don't catch a chill.
I was, by the way, not alone on my journey back to Avonlea. I accompanied Joy - or she accompanied me - I'm still not entirely certain which. And in those few short hours on the train, dear Phillipa, I believe I had a glimpse of the motherhood which eluded me.
Here, Phil trailed off, quickly skimming the next paragraph before turning to her husband. "You may go back to your sermon, Reverend," she informed him grandly, "this next bit is for my eyes only."
The Reverend, used to these sorts of commandments from his wife of five years, gave a good-humored smile and withdrew to his study where, it was true, there was a sermon in desperate need of his attention.
Once she had ascertained that the room was indeed clear of any individual with whom this letter was not concerned, Phil resumed her reading, her eyes quickly traveling down the page to find the spot she had left off.
. . . It was while Joy was outside, getting a drink from the water fountain at the end of the car. The man who had been sitting across from us looked up from his large American newspaper which he had been buried behind for most of the journey.
"Cute kid."
Even without the vocabulary and newspaper, his accent alone would have placed him as "Yankee", as Mrs. Lynde still insists on calling them. I simply smiled, and nodded in agreement.
"She yours?"
I shook my head. "No," I said, "I am her teacher."
But for a moment there, the briefest of moments, dear Phil, I wanted to say "Yes," so badly . . . because she could have been mine. If I had given a different answer in the orchard at Patty's Place when I was nineteen . . . who knows what might have happened.
*Anne of the Island
**Anne of Windy Poplars
***Anne of Green Gables
****Anne's House of Dreams
*****Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel
I've always imagined Phil Gordon - begging your pardon: Phil Blake - to look like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. Am I the only one? Granted, I don't quite know how "beached whale" and "Audrey Hepburn" might fit into the same sentence - the imagination does rebel a bit - but I'm sure it can somehow be done...
Well, now...we're back in Avonlea. We've haven't quite come full circle yet, but we're getting close. For those of you who like teasers, I offer the following for your approval: "Try again." Oh, and we haven't seen the last of Phil...
Caprubia: Mine too - someone needs to bring back dance cards.
AnneFans: I make no promises...but I have some ideas for a sequel...
kslchen: Can I take a moment to say that you leave the best reviews? "A spinster hanging around in dark places with an unmarried man." If Mrs. Lynde knew, she'd either thank the Lord, or have an attack of the vapors. Romance in three...two...one...
OriginalMcFishie: Well, I couldn't let everyone get engaged in the same chapter, could I now? (although I did consider it)