Chapter Four: Revelations

"I am an old woman named after my mother. My old man is another child who's grown old. If dreams were lightning and thunder were desire, this old house would've burned down a long time ago. When I was a young girl, I had me a cowboy. He weren't much to look at, just a free ramblin' man. But that was a long time, and no matter how I tried, the years just flowed by like a broken down dam. Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery. Make me a poster of an old rodeo. Just give me one thing that I can hold on to. To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go."

John Prine, "Angel from Montgomery"

By the early summer, the waves of uncertainty that had followed Anne's mid-spring arrival the previous year had washed out onto a smooth, settled shore marked by routine and habit. Matthew had hired Jerry Boutte to help on the farm, and this eased his load considerably. Green Gables was again a family home and the trio made a nice little one to be sure. In the evenings before school let out, Marilla and Matthew had listened with rapt interest as Anne told of her studies and exploits; Matthew was keen on offering praise for the girl's successes, while Marilla was quick to provide stern instructions on proper behavior when the girl's descriptions veered too close to flights of fancy. Through Anne's stories, Marilla learned that Anne had a small circle of friends besides Diana, and that she took her studies seriously. Anne regularly provided her guardians with spirited accounts of classroom activities, flourished with anecdotes of rivalry and competition. During her tale of the class's end-of-term spelling bee, Marilla heard Anne spitefully mutter "Gil…" before quickly reframing her description from one specific classroom rivalry into one of disdain for the boys' haughtiness in general. Marilla wondered how Anne and Gilbert had gotten on in the year since the slate incident, but she didn't pry. Years of practice with being patient had taught her that if something needed to be known, she would learn of it at the precise moment it needed to be heard. Her faith in the Lord's sense of timing remained sure and steady.

The Cuthberts observed unspoken changes in the girl, too – no longer ghostly pale and dreadfully thin, Anne's height and weight had balanced out proportionally. Spending time out-of-doors did her good, and the siblings became used to hearing her tuneful laugh ring out through the house in those summer months. It made Marilla glad to hear the laughter and it brought a feeling of lightness to the house that neither she nor Matthew had known since they were young. It was nice to feel like a proper family, Marilla reflected. Although mishaps and errors of judgment still followed her about, twelve year-old Anne showed real growth in her ability to use sense while facing the trials of daily life. Matthew regarded Anne with open affection and fatherly care, offering his shoulder when needed, providing advice when he could, and buying her sweets and ribbons when Marilla would allow it. But with her brother and Anne having fallen so easily into companionship, Marilla regarded her abilities as a guardian to be lacking comparatively. She felt vexed with herself for not being able to express her caring as Matthew could, but she settled nevertheless into a relationship with Anne wherein she offered an always available listening ear, the expectation of obedience, and license to rebuke expressions of frivolity from both Anne and Matthew at her discretion. Everything was in its place.

One evening in mid-summer, Marilla fell easily into a heavy sleep. The warm evening breeze and songs of night sparrows drifted through her cracked window while the last of the day's sunset faded to gray in wispy shades of reds and purples. Dusk faded to night and the sound of her heartbeat replaced the song of the sparrows. With each breath, her vision turned inwards and the beating of her heart slowed into echoes of a dreamscape.

Memories and experiences swept her in waves. She was a drop of water in the vast blue ocean, and her awareness rose and fell to the movements of the current. The first wave took her to youth after Mother had gone and she was alone at the farm. She felt one wash of grief and another of duty, and then she was fine. The waves swept her forward to a time of laughter. Rachel married Thomas and they celebrated heartily. Feelings of joy were replaced by jealousy at the close of the day, when other women joined babies and husbands and she was home with Father and Brother. Visions of lost youth transformed into repressed yearnings in womanhood while the waves continued to project her forward in time. Years passed in a breath. From the wildlands of the Canadian west, John Blythe came fast upon her. The waves swelled and her heart burned. Memories of visits and echoes of laughter came upon her and she felt both light and vast. She had a companion and their hearts tumbled easily through the current of friendship. The waves felt steady and sure but a storm ahead made her afraid. "Why won't you let me kiss you?" The memory, real as yesterday and loud as a drum, hurt her ears and her heart. She experienced panic and uncertainty; she grieved for her own self in her past innocence. "Because I don't love you!" And then memories of regret and humiliation carried her forward through the ocean of time, weaker of heart and lonesome in spirit. In fear of unfamiliar lands, her heart drifted angrily and sorrowfully forward through gray mist and cold, a daughter lost in wild and unfamiliar lands. Mother had left before she was ready to say goodbye; one moment she was alone but in the next wash of blue she was there, appearing in a rowboat and offering forth her hand with all the love and trust Marilla had ever known. Her heart found safety and comfort in her mother's spirit then. There was warmth, softness, the scent of farm animals, and the odor of fresh baked bread in her skirts. Her mother's love, the arms and the breast, the belly and the lips gave her rest. Mother's spirit and her own wrapped together and there was no difference between them. The waves of the dreamscape opened to sunshine as love radiated between her and her mother; a softness and gentleness eased through the pathos of the heart. The pillow Marilla's head rested on absorbed tears that would be dry by morning.

Marilla woke feeling her heart beating fast and her head swimming from the rush of the dream. She felt a headache coming on, and she sat up in bed wondering at the dampness of the pillow. She felt tired and burdened, yet alert and aware of the throbbing behind her eyes. Her breaths calmed as she recounted parts of her dream. She couldn't recollect it all, but she remembered feeling constrained and uncomfortable. She remembered seeing her father and her brother in younger days. She remembered seeing her mother. The images felt misplaced and they began to slip away, so she tried to remember the feelings that had woken her. She remembered joy and sorrow; love for her father and brother, love for her mother.

Easing out of bed and stepping to her window, she glanced at the reflection in the glass. There was an old woman looking back at her with dull, sunken eyes and sagging, lined skin. She touched her face with her hands and noticed that they were old too; cold, thin, calloused. Her hair was turning silver like the stars and her lips appeared thin, angled downwards in austere resolve. Looking back at the window, she tried to smile a bit as she searched for her mother's face in her own. She had her mother's high cheekbones and straight nose; she used to have the same dark brown hair and blue eyes, too. But she'd been living for twice as long as her mother had; it was hard to find traces of her any more now that time had worn down both her body and her memory. The amethyst brooch glimmered in the moonlight and caught Marilla's eye from across the room. It evoked a memory from past days; Marilla recalled her mother wearing it above her breast and her soft voice rang out through the home as she readied her children for church. Marilla sighed gladly and she heard Anne stir in her sleep across the hall. Marilla came back to present with a start. It was silly to be recounting such things, Marilla chastised herself; she should be asleep instead of wasting the night hours in reflection, dream or no. But her head didn't hurt so much any more and the contemplation had softened her countenance.

The next morning, Anne's laughter warmed the kitchen and it felt easy to smile in the morning light. Anne nearly flew down the stairs and she twirled about the kitchen while Marilla prepared breakfast. The girl had put flowers in her hair and was overjoyed to be spending the day with Diana. Anne was unaware of any changes that had taken place within Marilla and so she expected her guardian to tsk-tsk at her presently for the nonsense of her appearance. But Anne didn't mind that; she wanted to explain to Marilla her plans for the day.

"Oh isn't it lovely to live in a world where bosom friends exist? I used to cry myself to sleep at night, thinking that I would grow old all alone without ever experiencing the sweetness of having a bosom friend. But Diana has given me a new outlook on life, Marilla, isn't that wonderful? Look at these bluebells, aren't they lovely? I used to think that roses were the most beautiful flower that God created, but then Diana showed me these yesterday and now I've decided that bluebells are the Lord's crowning glory! Diana and I plan on taking the old river road down to the Red Oak grove where Tillie Boulter's older sister says the bluebells are just nearly bursting! Wouldn't it be ever so romantic to be a bluebell, Marilla? Just think of it; waiting patiently the year long underground until one fine summer day when you get to break forth and shine your beauty upon the world? The very thought gives me such a thrill. I have often dreamed of being a flower, but never before a bluebell. Today I shall imagine myself to be a bluebell with fairy sprites singing gaily around me. That just sounds utterly delicious, don't you think, Marilla?"

Marilla stifled her laughter throughout Anne's soliloquy, so that by the time Anne had finished talking, Marilla's eyes were wet and her cheeks ached. When Anne turned to face her, she attempted to force a smile down and regain composure. But the corners of her eyes crinkled and deceived her, so she handed Anne her breakfast with half a smile on. "I suppose it'll do you good to get out-of-doors for a spell. I reckon I won't need your help around here today what with the baking all done, and then the chores can wait until tomorrow. I promised Rachel I'd come over and help her pickle the last of the carrots, so I'll expect you home by dinner. Matthew and Jerry'll need to be fed and I mightn't be back from Rachel's yet. Do you understand what you are to do? And for heaven's sake, Anne, take those flowers out of your hair. They look absolutely ridiculous! You'll have plenty of flowers to look at today and you don't need more of them cluttering up your hair."

Anne left for Diana's and Marilla gathered her canning things to bring over to Rachel's. Puttering about the kitchen in silence, it struck her that Anne's presence filled up a part of her that had been missing for a long time. She didn't realize it at first, but here in the stillness with Anne's voice echoing, she remembered long ago being in Anne's place and Mother in hers. She had never deemed herself able to raise a girl, but here she was despite all her initial reluctance. The dreams that Marilla had thought lost were never gone and in the years that followed, she would observe how familial love persevered and transformed when and for whom it was needed. Both the young girl and the older woman had found dreams reborn from ones believed lost, bitterness balanced sweet.

"Sailing down my golden river. Sun and water all my own. Yet I was never alone.

Sun and water, old life-givers. I'll have them where'er I roam. And I was not far from home."

Pete Seeger